Leftovers from last week, a Grumpy rant, working from home and conspiracy theories

Our first episode on SquadCast, better quality sound and hopefully easier to edit. Lippy may have a rogue Alexa alarm after last week and a top tip for annoying neighbours.

There’s a better tip for converting a fork to a spoon. Davros happy with the old Kindle and the Jethro Tull suggestion, not so happy with Dr Who writers and confused by 360 degree camera stands.

Grumpy goes on a rant over an overused and spent phrase and Lippy throws in another.

Grumpy has been fiddling with some discarded garage equipment with the intention of up-cycling to a trendy lamp and looking at large, expensive MIG welders.

Lippy’s diet is going well although there is some controversy about the time of day the weigh-in takes place.

Lippy & Grumpy discuss working from home as Lippy’s new job is working from home four days a week even without covid. Grump’s worked at home on and off for over 20 years and is very grateful for the dedicated space he has. The discussion gets quite serious, with talk of sprints and Deep Work by Carl Newport.

Grumpy reveals he finds videos meeting difficult, particularly with more than four participants, and struggles to work out who is speaking. Both agree that is a good technology and has enabled the Lions club Grumpy is a member of to carry on, even with a 90 year old member.

Lippy’s looking forward to getting back to one day in the office, mostly for socialising. We then get into dressing for working from home and, unsurprisingly, pyjamas feature quite highly and Lippy has a confession about showering intervals.

Lippy & Grumpy both love a conspiracy theory. Grumpy admits to hearing some and has to stop and think. A discussion about the moon landings ensues and there’s a revelation about Russian scientists disappearing from 1960’s photographs.

Grumpy recommends Escaping the Rabbit Hole by Mick West, written by a former conspiracy theorist and explains how the mind work and how to get a theorist out of a rabbit hole. Lippy has a go at explaining theorists with noises rather than words and Grumpy laments the trend of dismissing an entire view based on a small mistake or factor.

We talk about how fake moon landing could have been kept quiet for more than 50 years given the number of people involved and the race with Russia at the time.

Grumpy reminisces about the Channel 4 programme Space Cadets in December 2005, that tricked contestants into thinking they were taking part in a low earth orbit space experiment. We both agree that the trend of labelling people as consistency theorists simple because they have another view is wrong.

A mini-rant ensues about WhatsApp and other hoaxes that circulate with only a handful of people checking. Phising attacks, where a message has embedded links must be taken seriously.

Lippy has a top tip about music and dancing that Grumpy fully approves with and Grumpy’s fact is why is Chicago know as “the windy city”. It’s not why you think!