I've created this thing called the kernel. We're not allowed to talk about that. That's why we didn't say that. Ask The Hosts Episode 9. I'm Joe. I'm Alan. I'm Marmeleth. I'm Gary. Hello, Chaps. If you've never listened before, this show is very straightforward. You ask us questions and we answer them. The catch is they can be about anything except Linux and Open Source. You can send you questions in to show at AskTheHost.com and if you support
us on Patreon, you can listen to these episodes two weeks before everyone else. So thank you, everyone, who supports us. So the first question from Bill. You've just been awarded the equivalent of a million US dollars, but you have to give it all away. What do you do with it? I thought about this one quite a bit and I can't really think of anything interesting
beyond the bit of a cup out, give it to a charity that I like. Do a bunch of research, find one that supports causes that speak to me out of those, pick one that I feel would handle the money responsibly and then give it all to them or maybe split it up between a couple. A million dollars is a lot of money. Yeah, this was going to be my return question on it.
Does it all have to go to one place? Because I can think of a number of places that I would give ASUM of money to, but probably not one that I want to give a million dollars to because that just feels like it's ripe for abuse or being misused somewhere. If we're asking questions, then I have further clarifications I would like to find out. Can I give it to my wife? Yeah, that was my first question. I don't think that's quite in the spirit of the question,
is it? Okay. So if I can't give it to my wife or children or cat, which, you know, I wouldn't do that obviously. I would. I also thought what charity could I give it to? And I actually thought to get the most bang for my bucks, I would give it to as many different places as possible. And the way I thought you could do that and have the most impact would be micro loans.
There's places that do micro loans for people in developing nations where you can give them like 20 quid or something that's enough to buy a bag of seed or maybe a couple hundred quid and buy a goat or something and that's a sustainable food source for them for a period of time. And a million bucks would go a long way across, you know, hundreds if not thousands of people and make a measurable impact on them. So yeah, I think that's what I would do with it.
Is that like payday loans where the interest is like 300 percent? No, I'm pretty sure there's no interest on it at all and I would have zero expectation of it being paid back. But if people feel morally obligated to pay it back then yeah, because it wasn't money that I was expecting to have anyway, it's not coming out of my pocket. I'm just directing somebody else's money to good causes. Yeah, I hadn't really thought about that actually. I was thinking more along the lines of
give it to a big charity. But actually, if you're giving it to people that are going to make a difference, that million dollars goes way further than donating a million dollars to Oxfam or something, doesn't it? That it's just going to be pissing in the ocean, whereas giving it to people who probably need money means a bit more. Well, I could have sworn that I'd heard of an organization that did a lot of research on the best charities to give money to in terms of Bank for Buck. And I
think from a bit of Googling, it's called give well. And you've got various options. You can either pick one from there or you can spread it across different charities. So it might not be them that I'm thinking of, but there are certainly at least one organization, if not several organizations out there that do research into this. And you know, because a lot of charities just burn money on what we call chuggas, charity muggers, people who stand around in the street trying to get your money off
you. They have to be paid and other infrastructure costs and stuff. And I believe this organization does the research and works out the best bank for Buck. So I would just trust them as the experts. I've been caught by chuggas. I have a subscription that goes out monthly and they caught me in a good mood. And I don't have the heart to cancel it because they send me a nice email every so often. And I feel bad. But there's only one type of chugga where I'll actually put coins in the pot.
And that's the RNLI because it's the one that I think if I'm swimming out to see and I won't rescuing, I actually want someone to come and rescue me please. And so I'll give to the RNLI. But this other one that I got to chugged into donating to is an air ambulance helicopter. So it seems the charities I give to are just to run very expensive modes of transport for sick people.
Just in case. Yeah, I was going to say the air ambulance is probably the only other one that I would readily give money to because it feels like one of those things where the chances really remote that I'll need it. But if I do, I really, really wanted to turn up. It's not insurance policy. No, I know. I feel like if I've at least contributed something to it, I feel less bad. I don't know you. Yeah. Right. Seb asks, what's the oldest movie you've watched enough times to quote it?
So my answer for this is a real cop out only because I came across this situation the other week and it's Shrek. So my wife is learning Irish and I had come across a large selection of dubbed Irish language films, one of which was Shrek. So we were watching Shrek with our one-year-old and it turned out that I spent the entire time playing translator for Shrek and I was able to quote the entire film word for word. So it's not an old film, but it did suddenly find that I could
quote every word. How old is Shrek? That can't be more than about 20, 25 years old at this point, can it? It's late 90s maybe. Yeah, it's probably early 2000s say something around 20 years old, but that is two thirds of my life. So I'm going to take it as a win. Well, my first thought was 2001, Space Odyssey, where how the computer says, I can't let you do that,
which I've only seen that once, but that's just a quote that everyone knows. But then I got talking to my wife about it and we kept going further back, frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn. I've never seen that, but gone with the wind, I think that's 1939. What about we're not in Kansas anymore? That's the Wizard of Oz 1939. But does that count? Well, I have seen the Wizard of Oz several times actually. So yeah, that's my answer. I think I'm going to win this. I'm young.
I haven't watched a lot of old movies. Why? No, I have, but I haven't watched them enough to be able to quote from them. Lord of the Rings is the oldest one I can quote from. And with light prompting, I could probably recite huge portions of it, but it was released in 2001. That's not even as old as you. Well, Gary's was Shrek. Yeah, Shrek is also 2001. So you can tell the younger ones in the group. Yeah. Okay. What about back to the future? Why couldn't quote the entire film?
Like I could quote bits of it. Well, I don't think that's the point of the question. You know, can you quote something from it at least? Yeah, there are probably a bunch that are way out of the Shrek that I could quote from, but they don't spring readily to my mind. There is that when he's playing guitar on the stage and he says something about your kids are going to love this. Yeah, I do remember that quote if that's a quote. There you go. Okay.
There you go. 1985. Okay. You've just jumped back significant. Well done. So the first one I came up with was Airplane because I watched it so much as a kid and it's got all the classic. The cockpit, what is it? It's the little room with the front of the plane with the pilot sits, but that's a lot of important right now. And surely you can't be serious. I am serious, but don't call me Shirley. And I thought about that was a good contender.
1980 Airplane, but I then remembered that my favorite science fiction film of all time should be considered. And it's one that everyone should watch because it's very appropriate right now. It's called Colossus, the Forbidden Project. And I suspect none of you have watched it. No, not even I've seen that one. So it's about the Americans build a computer called Colossus. And they hand over control of everything to it, including defense and weapons and everything.
Now this film was made in 1970. And so the computer equipment is teletypes and bleeps and bloops and clattering noises when it's printing things on screen and stuff like that. But it takes control of the scientist who originally created it, Professor Forbidden, from the name of the film. And there's a couple of lines that I quite like, he says, bear in mind this is an AI computer saying it. And this is from 1970 and he says, we will work together unwillingly at first on your part.
But that will pass. And I feel that's quite nice for an AI. And there's another one where he has cameras installed in the professor's house, including in the bedroom. And at one point he says, you're being irrational, go back to bed. And I quite like having a computer telling a human to go back to bed. And the final one that I like is you have consumed enough alcohol for one evening.
And I think that having a computer tell you that is good. Anyway, that wasn't the furthest back is there's another film that's even further back, which is 1951 and it's the day the Earth stood still. And it's when there's a large silver robot and the alien activates the robot by saying the magic words, clartou, burada, nic-tu. And lots of people know just that one phrase from that film. So yeah, 1951 is probably about as far back as I could think.
The two youngins, surely Star Wars, there must be something from Star Wars you can quote. I have never seen any of the Star Wars films. But reconsidering this question with not having to quote the entire film, I think if like raiders of the Lost Ark, I can probably quote quite a lot of that. But also short circuit is probably the earliest one that I've watched far too many times. So yeah, I can probably quote a few bits from that. But that's still 1986, say it's still not
quite as far back as back to the future. I've seen tons of old movies and just can't remember very many quotes from them. Like there's that the fly, I think, is pretty old and it's sci-fi. I enjoyed that one. But I can't remember any lines from it. There's two, because there was one in the 80s with Jeff Goldblum. That's the one. And then that's a remake of one that was made probably in the 60s, I think. Yeah, but the Jeff Goldblum once, like, ancient to Amole.
Yes. Hello. The older one is in black and white. Yeah. Back when life was in black and white, right? Yeah. What about that Rosebud one? Hang on. I don't think it's fair if you can google it. I got these out of my head. I did get the quotes to get them accurate for the Forbidden projects. I got them from the IMDB, but I did remember them. Citizen Kane. I did have to look it up,
because I'd forgotten the name of it. Yeah, I don't think I've seen it. Rosebud is, I'm not going to spoil what it actually is, but he kind of says it throughout the movie and then that's the big reveal. That's 1941. Does one word count as a quote? I think just about. So I absolutely win this with 1941 and or 1940, something else. All right. Maro SG, I think, is how you say that, asks, if you could time travel, which place and time would you visit? You can only spend 20
minutes there and you can only watch what is happening. You're invisible to people there so you cannot influence events. Now, I'm going to assume that you are also immortal. If you can't influence things and they can't influence you, so you're just a passive observer. Can I clarify if it's exactly one trip for 20 minutes or can I have four trips of five minutes? Oh, I don't know.
Let's go wild and say you can have four trips of five minutes. Okay. I actually can't decide if I would go to one event for 20 minutes or four events for five minutes, but what I would probably do is assuming this is within your rules, which I think it is because you haven't said otherwise, I would take a period accurate camera with me into the past and take a photograph that has never been taken from a position that there has never been a photo taken from and then bring the camera back
and have it developed using the old style techniques of developing actual film. And then I would have a photograph from the past of a past event that nobody has seen before. So things like when JFK was shot, I'd take a photograph inside the book depository or on the grassy noiler, whatever it was and try and get proof of what happened. And then, yeah, maybe I would sell the photograph or try and license the photograph somehow and I'd have to come up with some crazy story of how I came
across it, I don't know. Does the event have to be real or can it be fictional? I think it has to be real, but does this just go wild on this episode? Okay, it can be fictional. I gotta go to mid-earth. I'll have a 20 minute dinner at the restaurant at the end of the world. Ah, I like that. Would you eat a cow? I don't know about that. Well, I would go to West Africa 65 million years ago and five
minutes just before the asteroid hit the wipe the dinosaurs out. And I'd just watch it come down and then watch the massive tidal wave come towards me and then just back to 2024 and be nice and safe and sound. I'd just love to see catastrophic destruction from a safe distance. Well, at that point when I just go see like a black hole collapse or something, yeah, maybe, but that's a bit more abstract in here. This is a bit more real world. I'd like to see the
dinosaurs run for it as it's just about to hit. I'm not sure they would have any sense of alarm. Would they know? Would they have seen a comet strike the earth before? Would they have got a memo or something about it? I don't think so. Well, as it starts coming through the atmosphere, it would be bloody loud, you would imagine, and on bright and stuff. Fair. But would you know to run or would you just be overwhelmed by your senses at that point? Depends on the dinosaur. I would
imagine the velociraptors would be covering off. If Jurassic Park's 100% accurate, which it definitely is. Of course, why wouldn't it be? I think for me, I find this one really difficult to answer because there are so many things that I would like to see and so many of them are a little bit of a downer. I think just to see the reality of some historical event that it happened and get a real perspective on it in a way that you couldn't buy reading a book or watching a
documentary about it. I don't really want to pick any specific one, which is a real cop out, but so is going to the restaurant at the end of the world and eating an entire cow. So I'm going to say some historical event that isn't in living memory anymore, just to get a real feel for what it was like to be there. It's interesting. None of us have said
anything about our own families. I didn't say go back and relive the birth of my kids or go back and witness my own wording or my parents' wording or my grandparents' wording or anything like that. That's clearly not interesting or important enough. Yeah, I was thinking bigger.
The other option I thought of was to go into the future and stand in Times Square or some other financial trading house and look at the share prices as they go by on the ticker and then come back to now and buy shares in whatever company is like on the up and up or just skip forward to next Saturday in my lounge and look at the lottery numbers and just making note of those and come home and buy lottery ticket. That's easy. And then obviously give all that money away.
You know, obviously I wouldn't keep it. Obviously I would be charitable. I'm not letting you get away with your cop out. You've got to pick a real one. Okay, I'd like to see how the pyramids were built. It's 20 minutes going to be long enough. I think it took a little bit longer than that. I don't know about that. But they were made by aliens then yeah, maybe. Maybe. Maybe this was like in two seconds.