Transcript
Store it forever in a virtual library. Computers can't swim. They can now. Data termites the website. It's alive. Movies and mainframes. Hey, everyone, and welcome to Movies and Mainframes, the podcast that is going to explore and discuss the representation of technology in media. I'm your host, Andy. And with me today, I have a very special guest, someone I'm excited to talk to. You might know him back in the day from Real Deal or Spill.com. You can currently hear him and see him on Double Toast It. Please welcome Martin Thomas. How's it going today, Martin? It's going well, Andy. Wow. That's a that's a great intro. You did your homework. Yes. Well, I besides being friends that get to see each other every couple a couple of times a year, get togethers and stuff. I am a fan. Oh, get out of here. No, I listen to it. We'll talk a little bit about Double Toast It. But I am a subscriber and listener and have been for quite a while now. So it's wow. It's good stuff. Well, I should admit to you now that I've been a huge fan of yours for decades. And you and with all the the skits you guys have done for Monkey Christmas, you were always you were just my favorite performer. But I was I was always like, man, Andy has something. I want to be friends with that guy. Well, thanks, man. So, Martin, just for our listeners sake, I'm assuming if they're listening to me, they already know who you what Double Toast It is and everything. But if you wouldn't mind, give our listeners the elevator pitch. What is who are you? What do you do? So Double Toast It is a what would you call it? A it's a pop culture commentary site mostly based around movies. Myself and my co-host, Corey Coleman, we are where we live stream several days a week. Matter of fact, I think he live streams five days and I'm on three, three of the shows, three, three days of shows. And we mostly laughingly talk about movies while going into deep intellectual discussions about them as well through all the jokes. And we have we kind of switch it up. We have a night where we'll take a bad movie that the audience chooses and we roast it. Those seem to be the most popular things. Now, it's funny enough, it started out as we want to review classic movies. And the audience was was like, yeah, it's fine and all, but we want you to make fun of movies. So it's become our most popular show. But yeah, and this is this is you mentioned the other entities we started on cable access in Austin. And then after about a decade of that, moved to the Internet with Spill.com, which had a whole social social social media component to it. It was rivaling Facebook for a while. And and now here we are, 11 years later with Corey and I just by ourselves, broken away from all that. We've double toasted. Nice. When did when did Real Deal start? I mean, I remember watching it on access, but was that like ninety seven or nine? It probably started somewhere around ninety five. I joined I joined in ninety seven. OK, when Corey first started, it was him and Ian Prickle. And it was about a year of the two of them, maybe more where they would they would they would do a show, but they would edit it. And it would take about a month to edit. So every week you'd see the same episode, right? Weeks and weeks and weeks until Ian left to move to New York. And then Corey was like, well, I got to figure out how to do this on my own. Doing a show and trying to edit it is too much. So he figured out how to do it live and you have on different co-hosts. And then one day I was hanging out with him at a screening. And this kid who was just out of high school, Tony Guerrero, says, hey, I've been watching. I know you want a permanent co-host. I'd like to join. And there was the two of them. And and I just happen to, like, come with them on. It was it was one of these nights where Corey called me and said, hey, man, there's two screen going on. I can't be a both. Can you go to one and one as a guest and review? And I was like, sure. And it just kind of turned into a regular thing. And so, yeah, here we are. Ninety seven, I think, was when I officially joined the cast. That's crazy. That's crazy. Yeah. And the public access, the Wild West. Yeah, no, I miss it. Yes. So great. Just grew up on that stuff. Watched it constantly until the till the bitter end. So, well, there's so much stuff like that, that at the time you don't know it's going to go away. I know you take it for granted. There is so much stuff. I have a friend I used to work with. He's he's it's it's supposed to be coming out pretty soon. I forgot what festival he's entered in, but he I don't talk about. It's John Spotswood more. Exactly. And it's going to be at Fantastic Fest. As a matter of fact, I just went through the schedule looking. I was like, OK, I got to. I'm going to go see this, although he's been showing, I guess, versions of it at the AFS theater. And I've been to a couple of those. So I'm wondering how how different it's going to be. But I'm looking for. I know. I've never seen an actual cut yet. I've just seen pieces early, early on. I haven't seen anything from him in like two years. But early on, I'm just like, hey, check out this segment. I'm thinking about this, you know, just him just kind of ideating and everything. And yeah, yeah. No, it actually made me angry and jealous because I was like, you are not even from Austin. And you're doing something on the. You know, I was like, damn it. Why didn't I do this? So, yeah, because, man, I just yeah, just hours and hours of spent just watching access. Great stuff. All right. Well, we could we could actually talk that forever. But Martin is here because he chose something he would like to talk about. And today we are going to talk about a television series, Mr. Robot, created by Sam Esmail and starring Rami Malek, Carly Chaykin. I'm assuming that's how you pronounce him. Portia Doubleday and Christian Slater. Let me read a quick synopsis here and we will jump right into our discussion. It says Elliot, a brilliant but unstable cybersecurity engineer and vigilante hacker, becomes a key figure in a complex game of global chaos when he and his shadowy allies try to take down the corrupt corporation his company is paid to protect. So we'll description for such a complex show for a show that ends up going off the rails in a great way. I mean, this show couldn't start simpler and just ends batch. It's yeah, it's yeah. But I loved every minute of it. So, Martin, like with most guests, I always present a list of possibilities of things to talk about different movies, TV shows. And give everybody the option of choose anything, even if it's not on the list. You chose Mr. Robot. So talk to me. Why? Why did you want to talk about Mr. Robot? Well, you know what? It was one of those things where I guess because it's just popped up on Netflix, at least again, I think. But it was one where I remember what a revelation that show was. You know what? One of the things I thought about when you were listing the cast, with the exception of Christian Slater. I don't know. There's any show that had a cast with bigger eyes between Rami Malek and Portia Doubleday and even Carly Chaikin. It was just one day I was watching. I was like, everybody on this show has immense eyes. Yeah. Was that part of the casting or is it just a Hollywood thing now? But yeah, it was watching the show. You know what? One of the things about the show. But so often, and you know this from doing the show, you're doing that right now. So many movies and shows, when they have hackers, they're basically magicians. It's like once they start typing, they can do anything. Let's hack into the mainframe and I need more power. And I'll get into the Pentagon with just, you know, what, about a couple dozen keystrokes. It's like, really, it's that easy. And once you do, you can do anything. And suddenly here's a show that's actually more on the realistic side. And it's a lot of typing, which can be boring. And it never is. And it did the thing that so many people try to do and can't do. And that's pull off the Fight Club ending. But not just pull it off, but then take it further and further and further. Exactly. So let's get into that. So right off the bat, let's just talk about the Fight Club of it all. By the way, whenever you watched Mr. Robot, were you on from the very beginning? Or did you play like catch up? No, no, no. Because Sam Esmail had done something. I had done an audio drama online. And they ended up making a show out of it. Homecoming was the name of it. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. And they end up doing a show. But the show never really hit for me the way the the audio drama did the podcast. But I was already familiar with that. So just reading that he had a show coming out and just reading the description, I thought this sounds interesting. Right. And USA Network doesn't usually have interesting programming. No. Like, I think I started watching it from the beginning, too. And it must have been because the only show on USA I really ever watched was Psyche. And, you know, towards the end of Psyche, I must have seen like a promo. And I was like, oh, I like Christian Slater. Oh, and that's that Rami Malek guy that I've seen a couple of times now. It looks interesting. It looks fight clubby, matrixy, whatever. I'll check it out. And then, yeah, yeah. Immediately fell in love with it. But yeah, it being on USA, it was a huge outlier. For USA at the time, because everything on USA, we're talking about like Psyche, which I love. But then like Burn Notice, Suits, Royal Pains, like all these shows, even if they're good or not, feel the same. Like they all have that television Canadian look. That's a good way to put it. Yeah, yeah. It's these shows where you're like, these shows aren't bad. Just no, they aren't great. They like they have a they have a ceiling, you know, it's a it's a mid-level ceiling. You know, it's only always it's going to be comfort food. Mr. Robot, huge standout. It felt, you know, it had that sheen of prestige television, felt like more at home on HBO or something like that. And, you know, Andy, that's the thing. It was prior to that. Like I remember the FX network, like FX is known for great shows now, but it was a time when they first started. They were not. But then they I remember seeing the ad for the Shield. And I thought, this looks this looks different. This looks special. I'm going to check it out. It being one of my favorite shows of all time. And similarly with Breaking Bad with AMC, you know, they had stuff. But I remember seeing a promo, a commercial for Breaking Bad, which I thought was just some older movie that I'd missed. And I was like, this movie looks pretty good. Well, I'm going to find out when it comes on. And it just said coming up next. And I was like, well, let's check this out. And for the first episode, you're like, well, God damn, that is something. And Mr. Robot had that same kind of thing going on when I, from what I read and just watching the promo, I was like, I'm getting that vibe. Like, this is going to be something different, something above what we usually get. And, and man, it just, you know, it, it delivers just the feel of it right off the bat. Camera placement. The, the whole thing of, of having everybody down here. Yeah, exactly. Cutting them off most of the time. But, you know, it wasn't just the hacking. It was the way it pulled in. I mean, it wears its references on its sleeve, Fight Club, the Matrix, American Psycho, it's all right there, but it really does feel like, like homage and not rip off. But then what it, what it does with with mental illness and dissociative identity disorder, it's played in such a serious way where you, you get it. It's not just for laughs. No, there's so many times. Cause I'm, I'm currently, because since you picked this, I was like, well, I haven't watched the show since it went off the air. Right. And so I was like, well, I'm obviously going to watch some key episodes. And I ended up watching the whole first season. I'm now just going to do a complete rewatch, but I watched like key episodes to remind myself of some story elements. And dude, especially, I mean, everybody kills it in the show, but like Rami Malek, whenever he's, you know, a discovering things that every his performance so many times is just heartbreaking to watch. Like I'm really connecting with it where it's like, damn, like I'm just, I feel myself welling up and I just watched the series finale again. And my wife was in the room just doing something else. And then she started talking to, to me immediately after the show was over and she was like, oh, was that a season finale? I was like, no, that was a series finale and just started talking to me about normal day And I was like catching in my throat and she was like, are you going to cry? And I was like, no, just, just give me a moment. Good Lord. I just watched this. Like, come on. Yeah. But the, but the, the fight club of it, of it all, because in the first season we have the big reveal that not only is Christian Slater, you know, is Rami Malek's father, but he's also dead and Tyler Durden where he's, he's a personality inside Rami Malek, whenever that happens in the show and you're watching it, what was your reaction? Were you like, oh, awesome. Or were you like, what? You know, like what, how did you feel about it when it happened? I was more of the, the, oh, awesome. But also the, like, how did they get me? You know, there's so many movies that, that, that try to get you. And you're like, I saw this coming. I mean, you know, post fight club, I guess there was a, a beautiful mind. I was like, all right. I, I didn't see that one coming, but every other time, you know, you're watching something, you're like, yeah, I wonder if this, and then you can kind of piece together. It's like, yeah, you know what? I've never seen this guy with anybody else, but here, total headspin on that move. And especially, and it's, and when they do it right, you stop. And then, you know, you're trying to figure out the scene where Mr. Robot pushes him off the rail. Right. And it's like, he did that to himself. And you start kind of going through all the places, hoping to find a hole. And it's like no, it's tight. They be, no, it really is. And having watched the first season again, I, you know, I'm obviously aware of that plot twist, but yeah. It's it's tight. There's no, there's no part where. You know, there, yeah. They, they just did it, right. They're either interacting with the other one and the other one's off in the corner, you know, just observing. And then whenever they switch, it makes sense. Like it all. They, they really mapped it out. It's it's done really well. I will have to admit though, whenever it first happened and they're building up to it, I'm like, dude, is Christian Slater going to be all in his head. And then when the reveal happened. I wasn't so much blown away as just like, oh, I'm just going to full-blown do fight club because not only are they like doing the, like erasing the debt and everything in season one with, you know, if, if fight club is the analog version where it's service industry workers and janitors and all that kind of stuff going to take down. Your debt with corporations. This is the digital version of it. And so whenever it happened, I was like, okay, so you're just going to do full blown fight club. But the show up until that point, because that reveal doesn't even happen until episode nine. It had built up so much goodwill. Yeah. And entertainment that I was like, okay, well I'm just, you're obviously going to do something with this. And yes, I mean, show moves on from that. It gets even crazier and wilder and just builds on its own lore and, uh, nails it. I mean, I was so glad I said, I, I bring it up because I had a couple of friends who dropped it after that because they're like, well, what's the point? It's just fight club. And I was like, well, it's not though. It's different enough. And so, yeah. Yeah. That's a, that's a lot more going on. Uh, it's, it's funny because you look at how wild it gets by the end of the fourth season by the end. But it's, it's also not a, a thing where, well, it gets crazy like that because it's like a soap opera with so many different writers. Cause it's like this off. It, it, it all was planned. It was planned down to the letter. You know, the funny thing about like the whole, like hit myself in the head for not catching the Christian Slater part was that I think I was one of the, the five people who was a fan of a show he did previously called my own worst enemy, where he was a guy with a split personality. You know, it was, it was, uh, you know, uh, what's it Henry and, and Edward, like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, uh, a husband and the two personalities would switch off. And sometimes he'd be in the middle of a, of an assignment and then switch back to the other guy. Uh, it only ran for one season, but I was a huge fan of the show. So was this, was it played serious or was it a comedy? Oh yeah, no, no. It was, it played the whole serious. Okay. Um, yeah, it was on NBC. Um, so this happened again. I was like, you know, I was just so wrapped up in everything else that, that I wasn't catching it. Yeah. The, um, originally, you know, obviously I do some research, uh, on this stuff before we have a conversation. I found out as Sam Esmail originally conceived this as a film and was writing it for a film. Um, and then, but he, uh, it says, you know, like at some point, like 80% into the script, realize like, no, I need to expand this out. I need to expand this. I need to expand this. I need to expand this. One, I think if, if this was a film, it would not have the cultural impact that it had now, because I think it would have just been like, Oh, you mean that other fight club movie? You know, I think it, I think it would have just been kind of relegated to that area. But now that they have 45 episodes, uh, to play with, uh, that's why it's, you know, still, you know why we're talking about it, you know, six years of six years of being off the air. Sure. Sure. I mean, that's the beauty of television. You know, it's why everybody's flocking more to television than movies because this, this long form storytelling, you get to tell a deeper, richer story, uh, you know, in a movie, you got two to two and a half hours before people are getting up and walking out. And they're still trying to cram so much. Just, I don't need these C and D plots. I don't need this love interest in this type of movie. Like just streamline it, man. Um, but, uh, Sam is smell. I didn't even realize this until I'm like watching credits and looking at stuff. He directed all but seven episodes. Yeah. And the first season he did three and then seasons two through four, he took over, did everything. Yeah. That's insane to me. The fact that, I mean, because we all know how like television works now where you're shooting multiple episodes in one day, you know, because of locations or things like that. And yeah, it's, you know, and half the time they're like switching out directors where they'll come back into the set. But yeah, dude, he's just doing everything. And the shows airing as they're finishing up a season. Like I just can't imagine. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that's, that's one of the things that makes it so brilliant is that it's one person's vision and his fingerprints are all over it. Yeah. You know, if, had he not done that, we'd have some episodes where you go like, well, that one's not that great or it's okay. It'd be, it'd be real easy to slide on it. And even as it was, I know a lot of people dropped off in the second season, uh, cause there was a feeling in the beginning, uh, cause that's the season where Elliot, uh, he's going, he's going to stay with his mom and it doesn't seem. Yeah. He's going through his routine. And then there's that big reveal in season two that, Oh, he's been in prison the whole time. The whole time. Yeah. But I, I know of some people who, who dropped before he got to the reveal. They were like, well, it was great. The first season now. And it was just me going like, no, you got to come back. You don't understand. And especially it, it really revved up again with the third. And the fourth and the fourth is just, but just to read it, uh, read what it does. You're like, how did we get there? But, but when you're watching, it's not that big of a stretch. Yeah. I completely agree. Speaking of the fourth season, um, white rose. With, uh, the whole concept of time travel, parallel worlds, her machine that is under the Washington township nuclear power plant, the very large Hadron collider that she wants to, we don't know she it's either going to be used as a time machine that, that she, she thinks that's how it's going to work or going to be supplanted into an alternate dimension where things are better. What is, when you're watching the show, are you thinking dude, because this is one of the few shows where I went down the rabbit hole where after an episode would come out and like, I'm now seeing the 15th, uh, you know, uh, uh, reference to like back to the future or some time travel thing or something like that. And it's like, what are they building towards? And like, I would get onto the subreddits and things like that and look at the fan theory. Oh boy. You should. Are they actually, because it just not like it was out of character, but there has been no sci-fi elements in the show. Right. And then, and it ended the way it did. And I thought it was, I thought it ended very, very well. I think it stuck the landing, but like this whole subplot, how did you feel about it? Were you going down that rabbit hole? Did you think this was going to be real or have any kind of payoff? Like, what are you thinking when that's happening? Because to me it was strange. Yeah. I thought it was strange. I thought it was one of those where they kept talking about it. And I was like, this is the kind of thing a show will do that. I don't like, I really hope because it's been so not sci-fi. So not fantastical. I mean, but it was that feel of like they have every right to do this, but I'm hoping it's not real. I'm really hoping. And then you get the, and then when you get to almost the end of the fourth season, it's like, oh, well, wait, we are doing parallel dimensions. Yeah. Only to be like, no, that's not a real thing. Well, I knew that. I thought you didn't know. Okay, fine. And then one of the last big moves that this show has, I mean, it's at the very end, it's the very end of the series is that, you know, along the way through therapy and realizations with Elliot that he, you know, obviously Christian Slater, his dad is Mr. Robot. It's a split personality, but he has one of his mother. He has one of his, him as a child. And then the last big move that this has is that the person we've been watching the whole time, Elliot, the character that we've cared for and been with, he is actually a split too. Yeah. That we've never seen Elliot. We've never been with Elliot. And he realizes very beautifully. I thought it was done very beautifully. How the, you know, showing, showing the metaphor of like going back into the subconscious. So Elliot can come forward and actually live his life. And I love the way it ends with seeing his sister, Darlene through his eyes, that POV and her just saying hello, Elliot. Yeah. And like I said, you know, and they're playing the, you know, they're doing the, but I, I think it's like, what is it? What is that band? Who's just known for like emo rock anthems, like M83 or whatever it is. It's just like one of those songs and it's perfectly pulling up my heart strings. I'm like, Oh, they got you. Yeah. It was, it was beautiful. Yeah. You know, there was the episode in the fourth season and I had the name of it. I looked up earlier, but it's one where Vera comes back and kidnaps Elliot and, and Krista is therapist. And I remember watching that thinking, this may be the greatest episode of television I've ever seen. And, and the acting from that guy was unbelievable. Just the whole thing. I agree. I mean, a character that, you know, was in the first season as the heavy and kind of disappeared. He wasn't even thinking about him anymore. And then to come back and pull that whole thing off and probably the biggest therapy session in the whole series and getting Elliot to, to come to terms with, it was his father that molested him. Like, you know, you think all these different things about his dad and you come to that. It's like, how many, how many reveals that we have left in its show? No, I know. And the, speaking of that episode, one thing I do like about the show is that, I mean, a lot, a lot of good shows do it where they play with the formula and everything in that show, that episode, I mean, played out like a stage play there. It's, it's just the way it's shot. It's all, most of it's always in profile. And it just takes place in one apartment, two rooms in the apartment, and it is just talking. It's two people just going back and forth and it's super compelling. And yeah, I mean, Rami Malek is amazing, but that, you know, Vera takes the cake in that episode. He's just at the same time, hilarious and terrifying. Like he's just a really good character, but they have other episodes. They, of course they do a wonder episode. Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I watched that one last night. Cause my one regret with picking Mr. Robot was that, Oh man, I don't have time to watch this whole series before we say podcasts. But I did watch that one just last night and I was tickled. I was like, Oh wow. It's Rami Youssef and Rami Malek. Yeah, exactly. Together in the scene. And then they did an episode with no dialogue except for it's bookended. The opening line is it's cool, dude. We don't have to talk. Yeah. Nobody talks for the rest of the episode. And at the end is Vera showing up and saying, we need to talk. It sounds like clever. Ha ha ha. But that episode also nail biting, suspenseful, super great, not a single word of dialogue. So I love that it plays with the formula, does a really good job with it. I mean, the whole series did so many inventive things like that, that you would hope other TV shows would go, Oh, you know what? We, we can expand, we can, we can do stuff. And it's like, they all went, Oh, that's cool. Anyway, back to what we were doing. Exactly. Yeah. Hey, you, there's this thing called lighting that we can play with. Like, Hey, what about if we just like half of his face was in shadow? I don't know. I'm just like, I mean, yeah, just take some chances, take some swings. There is, um, uh, one of the things, obviously you watch a show like this week, you already touched on it with the, uh, you know, the hacking is done. Very real. There's no beeps and boops. They don't. Right. Blue, blue LEDs turning to red LEDs because the hack is initiated. You know, like dumb shit like that, that they always do. Uh, it's just people running scripts and codes and everything like that. And obviously I don't know enough about the computers to be like, Oh, that's realistic. But as a casual viewer, uh, it feels real. And I recognize some of the platforms that they're in and the GUIs, but the, uh, so I look up, uh, this show had an insane, uh, uh, crew for technical advising. They just had, uh, let me see. I wrote a couple of down. So they had the security analyst and forensics manager for Toyota motor sales. Obviously that's a huge responsibility that the former FBI cyber crimes task for a task force agent, uh, founder of Defcon and black hat computer security conferences, like just dudes who have been in the industry for like 30 plus years. And that's just like a few that I wrote down. There was like this huge long list of people who just worked for this company and this company and this company for decades. And it was just like, damn, they must pay. Well, I mean, plus the, just probably just the glory of being able to say like, Hey, I was consulting on Mr. Robot, Mr. Robot. Um, and, uh, you're speaking about the mental health aspect of the show, same thing they had. Grammy Malik went and spoke with the psychiatrist that like had, you know, plenty of meetings to just, you know, go over character stuff and everything like that. Yeah. And ended up hiring that person to just be on the show, be on set, talk things through and work through scripts. And besides the show being praised for its technical accuracy, it's gotten a lot of praise for its accuracy on depending on health issues. Uh, so that's. Well, you can do things that are legit and still entertaining. You don't have to go to these crazy links to make, you know, entertainment. Right. Right. I mean, so often you'll watch something, um, like say, especially if it's something involving a murderer or, and they'll, and you're like, well, why do you do that? It's like, yeah. Could you be more specific please? And, and just being quote unquote crazy doesn't make you murder. We really need to like back this up with something. Um, and here they get so specific and it's, you know, it's extreme, but it all, it all plays out. It's like, like they, like the math works out on, on everything that's done. One of the things. So this show ended in December of 2019, like right before the pandemic hit. And I can't help, but think that this show would be completely different if it, I mean, completely different in the, the technical aspects. Yeah. Uh, if this came out during COVID or post COVID or something like that, I mean, just the, I feel like they would have to explore different themes with corporations and like real estate. And then, you know, we have a lot more remote workers now and just the certain concepts. Cause like once COVID hit, like even my mom knew what a VPN was at that point. You know what I mean? So it's like, yeah, these aren't like secret words anymore. It feels like, I don't know. I don't know if the show would feel empty. Like I w I would just be super curious to see what themes they go with. Because I mean, you know, during all that time and still have sadly happening today, but like they could interweave like 5g microchip, you know, vaccine storylines and craziness with the mentally ill and all that kind of stuff. Like, I feel like it'd be even more fever dream. Yeah. You make me feel sad that it, that it ended when it did just cause a couple more years, it could have turned into a different show or at least had so much more to work with. Yeah. Um, you know, it's, it's funny cause looking at it, one of the things I thought is, uh, it's very populated and that is like, it's in New York. And when you're on the street, it looks like New York cause you see a lot of people walking around in it. And it's, there's so many things I've seen, even, you know, even prior to COVID when they're supposed to be in a city, especially even New York, it like at night and you're like, it's nobody out here. This, this could be aims Iowa, but for, for what it's worth, but, but you know, they, they really use New York as a backdrop and almost a character in it. Um, but yeah, yeah, man, if, if it had stretched out into COVID, that would have been interesting. You know what? Another thing is like, yeah, you talk about like everybody, like you say, even your mom knows her VPN is everybody has been forced to be more tech savvy. Uh, and yet you still watch these shows and you're not like you're watching going, that's not how that works. And yes, it's like, I mean, they only knew what they were talking about. It was way ahead of their time. Oh yeah, no. And yeah, that's the other thing. I mean, the show's only six years old at this point from the last episode airing, but man, rewatching some of these episodes and some of these monologues that people are doing, like at the time I'm like, Oh yeah, I know where that, I can see that viewpoint or whatever. And now like, I'm just straight up ready to join F society. Like six years ago, it's like, oh yeah, I can see where you could get to that point. That's crazy. Cool. Now it's just straight up. Yeah. Like, yeah. Where's the next meeting. Right. You know, right. Do I need to bring my own laptop? What's going on? Yeah. Yeah. Let's burn it to the ground. Yeah. Six years ago it was like, Oh, how bad can our things really, how bad can they get it now? It's like, I'm afraid to ask that question. Exactly. Cause we're, we're way past where I thought we would be. Yeah. We're way past where we could be. Okay. So if you, uh, let's say you are part of F society. What Martin are you picking to go after first? What are you going to take down? Oh, Ooh. Ooh. Ooh. Ooh. I was thinking about it too. I think like, obviously if, if I never got caught, I would just keep going. Cause I'm, you know, uh, it can't stop me, but I think I would just go after medical debt first. You know, if that's like lump somewhere, I don't even know how this crap works, but if that's somehow lumped somewhere different for sure, I would just be like, yeah, medical debt. Like nobody should have to be destitute because you got cancer. It already sucks enough, you know? Yeah. That sounds like the first thing to go after. Uh, what have I been dealing with? You know, you know, I have lately had a lot of appliances and electronics just kind of stopped working. And I don't think that's right. I, uh, I got a, I got a Samsung refrigerator that stopped making ice and calling them about it. They're like, well do this, do this, do this. Yeah, I've done all that. Okay. Well for $120, somebody will come out and look at it. Okay. And they'll fix it. Well, they'll fix whatever parts. And it's like, this is your machine. Yeah. Work planned obsolescence. Yeah. So, I mean, so right now I'm a little annoyed with that. Uh, no, I have a, I have a washer machine that is, I think six months away from just being garbage. It's starting to do things. And it's like, man, we bought it when we moved into the house and it's only been six years. Uh, like my parents had a washer and dryer that lasted legit 25 years. Yeah. Before, like it was still that beige, yellow Kenmore color with the Brown wood paneling where the dials are. It was just like, dude, it was still there up until like 1999. And then it finally kicked the bucket. And so it was just like, uh, yeah, now everything seems like, yeah, you get like five, six years out of it tops. You either get a fix or no, you just throw it away. Yeah. You just, yeah. You just buy a new one. What are you talking about? Um, F society, uh, because I don't know anything about programming. I'm just not that kind of tech person. I really thought you were. No, no, no. I'm I'm movie film. Okay. Uh, I, I, I can ease you. Give me a camera. I can figure it out in 20 seconds. I know like what menus I need to get into. And I know how to shoot and do that kind of stuff and edit. Yeah. Yeah. All that stuff. But as far as, uh, I know how to Google things and I can build a computer, but dude, I couldn't like do some of this stuff that they're doing ever. Um, but. So in F society, obviously I thought it was just the cute, clever F society, you know, society. Yeah. But I didn't know until my research that there's a thing in Python. Called F strings and F strings are a way of putting clean, uh, of inserting clean and readable variables into something. So it's a way of very quickly, cleanly and efficiently changing something in your code. And I was like, Oh, it works on both levels. I, I love how their mascot is a mix of the, uh, guy Fox and the monopoly man. Okay. So to me, it was the monopoly man and the Pringles dude. But yes, it's, uh, yeah, I love that mask. Cause it's just, I mean, at least guy Fox has like those edges to it where it's like, Oh, you know, in the right lighting, it looks sinister. Yeah. I mean, they, they, they do a lot with the under lighting to make it look creepy. All right. Well, we could sit here and talk about Mr. Robot for a long time. Uh, I know we scratched the surface on episodes and everything, but, uh, obviously watch this show, rewatch this show. It is such a fun watch. And, uh, Martin man, thanks for coming on the podcast and talking to me today. It was a lot of fun. No, it's great. It's, uh, it's, it's been worth the year. It's taken us to do this. Now. I know. Yeah. It's taking way too long next time. It won't take as long. It's fine. If I'll come back. Uh, well, thanks again. And thanks for listening. Remember, I always want to hear from you. You can head over to thwack.com. Look for movies and mainframes. Leave me a comment and you can always reach me at movies and mainframes at solarwinds.com. Well, that's going to do it for another episode. We are going to log off until the next time we will catch you later. Bye everyone. Bye everybody. Movies and mainframes.
