We are David Rees and Jon Kimball, co-hosts of the Election Profit Makers podcast and we have a goal of zero listeners by November 3rd. Ask us anything!

Hey fellas, I just wanted to tell David that before I ever started writing comics, My New Filing (and Fighting) Technique Is Unstoppable was a must read and a huge inspiration for Dinosaur Comics. So uh thank you for a career??

And also once I ordered a MNFTIU shirt and it was a little small since I'm a giant man but I wore it anyway and got compliments on my physique. And also I don't have a question I'm just segueing into how good I look in a t-shirt, including the EPM 2016 and 2020 editions. So thanks!!

DAVID: That's amazing Ryan! I had no idea. Thanks for your support!

You guys are truly the funniest political podcast out there for one main reason: active disdain for everyone and everything you discuss, including in most cases your own podcast. I feel obliged to ask the obvious "will you keep podcasting please???" question. Will you keep podcasting after the election please???

DAVID: We hope to go until Inauguration Day at the very least -- we will see.

If I am banned from listening to the show, am I even allowed to ask this very question?

DAVID: No

I want to tell you two and Starlee how much I enjoy listening to you. My question is for David, mostly: I absolutely adore the earnestness and enthusiasm with which you approach everything you do. How do you maintain your sense of wonder and delight when things are as they are?

DAVID: I don't!

DAVID: Well, I guess there is some wonder ... but no delight.

This summer I went and re-listened to season 1, and I am really impressed with Jon's improvement as a podcaster -- you're funnier, looser, and much more a host than just David's buddy. Jon, how did you practice getting more natural during recordings? Was it simply just time?

JON: Thank you! I think in 2016 I over-prepared for episodes -- I had too much information in front of me and I would get tight. So now I don't prepare as much.

What have you learned about people from your time on PredictIt?

(I asked this question in 2016 as well, and you answered on the podcast!)

JON: People are racist and stupid.

If you could ban yourself from listening to a podcast, which would you pick and why?

JON: I don't listen to podcasts.

DAVID: There are a couple podcasts I enjoy even though I don't like particular co-hosts, so they're semi-hate listens for me. I won't list them publicly because I can't afford to alienate anyone in the podcasting world!

First off, as a longtime David Rees fan since high school (and I am an old woman at 30 now!) I want to say thanks, David! Going Deep is my comfort food show and your HTSP is in my top five books of all time with a permanent place on display in my living room. Both of these things have done so much to get me through 2020!

... but probably none more than EPM! I’d say I’ve become just as big of a Long Jon Silver and Starlee Quinn fan.

Anyway, after listening to this week’s EPM, while I know you’re not as tall as that rat-bastard, Jeff Goldblum, how tall are you, David? You always seemed very tall on Going Deep!

DAVID: Last time I checked, I was 6'2.5" -- but this year has broken me down and I feel like I'm probably a half-inch shorter. I'm growing my hair as big as possible to compensate for that lost half-inch.

JON: I'm doing the same thing!

Hi Jon, how does it feel to share a name with the greatest character Arnold Schwarzenegger ever played?

JON: It's pretty cool.

DAVID: I've never seen Kindergarten Cop but maybe we should watch it and discuss it for a special Patreon episode.

How much would we have to donate to get an election night live stream?

JON: Ten thousand dollars.

DAVID: Nine thousand dollars.

Jon, do you see a population migration post covid?

David, what is your most prized effects pedal?

JON: I think it could intensify a pattern that's already started, with midwesterners and northeasterners moving to the sun belt.

DAVID: The only pedal I have that I think people would pay good money for is my Montreal Assembly Count to 5 delay. But my favorite pedal these days is my Malekko Charlie Foxtrot granular delay. It was gift from Corey (aka the Kenosha Kid) and it really means a lot to me. I used it on my forthcoming album of drones and noises. More about that later.

For David:. I seem to remember watching a video in the GYWO days, where you presented youtself as a "Metaphor Illustration Service" for some blowhard centrist columnist. The column in question was about India's and China's prospects to become liberal democracies. Your were talking through a detailed cartoon with every aspect of the column shown.

Did I dream it? Where can I find it again?

(Hi Jon!)

I think this started with me illustrating insane Thomas Friedman columns. I might have done it at events with Matt Taibbi? (Taibbi and I had a shared fascination with Friedman.) Yes! It's coming back to me: I think it was called the "Thomas Friedman Metaphor Illustration Service." I think it might have been a one-off goof for a live event. And then, as others have noted, I wrote a column for the Baffler where I just described political cartoons I couldn't draw.

Hi Long Jon and Kid Midas,

This summer I was bored and unemployed so I spent time messing around with Predictit and building Twitter bots to tweet when certain events happened on Predictit. One of them was meant to tweet whenever a large shift in prices occurred.

Suddenly, to my delight, I got a notification that Jon followed one of my bots. Then to my horror, my twitter bot (which I was still debugging) hit a bug and tweeted about 100 times in an hour and Jon (understandably) unfollowed.

So here's my question to Jon, how can I win you back? What is your dream twitter bot and what triggers a tweet? Any shift in the main presidential race? A 5c swing anywhere on the site?

JON: I appreciated your efforts, jrlund2, and I wish I had the talent to do bots, but I already follow so many breaking-news / polling bot-fetches, etc. that I don't think I will re-follow you.

DAVID: What's your dream bot

JON: A bot that tells you anytime a skyscraper's plans have been submitted to a local planning board.

DAVID: What's that got to with PredictIt?

JON: Nothing. Okay so my dream bot would be a bot that advises about five-point swings -- but only in high-volume markets. I don't need to know about swings in tiny illiquid markets.

JON: Mention the name of your bot and maybe others will follow it!

What are your election day plans? Do you have techniques or pointers about staying zen or at least not having a complete meltdown?

JON: Fetal position with phone in front of my face.

DAVID: Can't think that far ahead. Taking things one day at a time.

David, do you have any career advice?

DAVID: Jesus, no.

JON: (Hard LOLing)

Kid Midas: Will we get an EPM mixtape this year? Also, barely relatedly, I was going to see Girl Talk this summer when he played Denver, but then {{slow, sweeping hand gesture}} all this happened. Have you had a chance to catch his live show, and if so, how was it?

DAVID: No mixtape this year. The Ban Wars kinda turned into the mixtape, if you know what I mean. Both projects were just fun things that got more and more complex and ambitious and allowed us to feel like we were doing more than just yelling into our microphones.

Love you guys! I have $0.47 cash left in my PredictIt account. What should I buy?

JON: Buy half a share of Biden. Or buy Iowa.

DAVID: Good luck!

If there were no limit on predictit.org and treated it as a full time job, how much money do you think you would make per year?

JON: I don't think I would make much money because the tweet markets are gone, and that's where most of the action was.

Made an account just for this occasion. Hi guys!

David, much like a skincare routine, do you have a mustache care routine? Any mustache idols?

Curious what Jon's favorite aspects of cities are, outside of skylines? What's a Jon Kimball definition of an all-around good city, skyline to match?

DAVID: No mustache routine other than washing it with shampoo when I wash my hair and trimming it when eating and drinking have been compromised. I don't think I have any mustache idols. Maybe Freddie Mercury?

JON: I like grittiness. I'm kind of a big fan of urban blight.

DAVID: LOLing

JON: Charlotte could use some blight. Good city/skyline example is Pittsburgh.

DAVID: Totally. Pittsburgh rules.

for kid midas: what music are you listening to these days? any recommendations for someone who shares your love of pallbearer?

for long jon silver: are you speculating in handshake domains at all?

JON: I don't know anything about handshake domains. I would stay away. I am a dot-com old-school investor. So I'm going down with the ship.

DAVID: The last two records I bought were Krallice and Blood Incantation. They're both pretty good but they're so esoteric I don't find them as fulfilling as Pallbearer. Pallbearer has a new record coming soon(?) that I'll check out. If you like slow heavy stuff check out Ophis, Sunrot, and Coffinworm.

David: If you were going to guest on an episode of Blank Check's Robert Zemeckis miniseries, what movie would you pick and why is it BEOWULF (2007)?

Jon: do you keep up any Old Internet lifestyles? IRC, Usenet groups, 25-year-old forums, etc.?

DAVID: I really like Blank Check but I've already discussed the two movies I wanted to talk about: A.I. and Spirited Away. (I would've done Mad Max Fury Road but they picked Emily instead!)

JON: I don't. I used to be really active on the Inside Carolina message boards. And I'm an active participant on the Charlotte page of UrbanPlanet.org. My username is Crucial_Infra.

DAVID: LOLing

Has Jon ever been contacted to work on a political campaign? Would he, if he were? He clearly loves data and would make a fantastic analyst.

Also, how did a podcast make me, a lifelong West Coaster, so damn invested in North Carolina politics?

JON: The only campaign work I've done is canvassing, phone banking. Volunteering, basically. I'd love to do "real" campaign work -- but only if it was contained to the iPhone. I really am not good with my laptop.

DAVID: North Carolina is an important state right now. There's a Senate seat up for grabs. The state legislature could potentially flip. And if North Carolina is called for Biden on Election Night, we know this whole thing is over. (Same goes for Florida.) If you want to support a NC politician who hasn't gotten a lot of media attention, support Moe Davis in NC-11. He's trying to beat Madison Cawthorn, who gives me the creeps.

This is probably my favorite thing David has done, probably ever. David, do you mind updating us on how much money you've made each year since 2015???

This is a good idea! My income has varied radically in the last few years ... if I ever get invited to another conference I will update my presentation about my income as a "creative" / freelancer.

David, what pencils are you using these days? Do you still use Blackwings or have you started using something new?

JON: "Tell him you're using Blackwings and Wilson #2's. Say you're using Air Nike pencils."

DAVID: I rarely use pencils, to be honest. My go-to brand is still General's (NJ pencil company).

I banned Starlee's dog yesterday and DM'd her about it; she gasped and then left me on READ! I'm worried she will retaliate, can you please protect me if she uses one of her many pocket bans on me? thank you.

also, you two have talked about the seemingly endless number of bands that you were in in high school. can we please get some band reunion shirts made? we need some cool band shirts!

p.s. are the jack reacher books actually good? why are you reading those? I keep thinking about reading them because of david

JON: I kinda like the idea of making some Bloody Fist of Defiance shirts.

DAVID: The Jack Reacher books are ... OK. They definitely get worse as the series progresses. My favorites are the early ones -- although "Past Tense" was good. I am now reading Travis McGee novels because my friend John Hodgman is a fan of them. I've read three so far and really like them. They're much more literary than the Reacher books, although Lee Child (Jack Reacher's creator) is a huge McGee fan and even wrote the forward for the new editions. Go figure!

First of all, thanks for the podcast! You have gotten me through this election season the same way Get Your War On got me through the Bush years. So thanks David for that one too. <3

However, the above only makes Long Jon Silver's betrayal even more painful. As a Pennsylvanian who lives seventy miles from the Atlantic Ocean, I have had to endure countless news outlets and online friends describing my state as "Midwestern." As with all other subjects, I could let it go because I knew that the nation's finest news source, Election Profit Makers, would be there for me--so imagine my surprise when Long Jon Silver himself spun around and stuck the knife in my back!

Which brings me to my questions:

For Jon: Would you like to take the opportunity to apologize for this scandal, and spend more time with your family?

For David: Is it too late to ban characterizations of Pennsylvania as a state that is in any way Midwestern? I've given a bit of money to Fair Fight and I'm also working my fingers to the bone on the Biden campaign but I'm willing to do whatever it takes to put an end to this cruelty once and for all.

For both: how do you rate the skyline of Philadelphia ("jewel of the Midwest"), before and after the addition of the hideous Comcast Center and related monstrous big boxes?

DAVID: Philadelphia must be counted among the great midwestern cities. It's like the midwest's answer to Chicago.

JON: Philly should have a gateway arch since it's the gateway to the midwest.

What markets are at the very top of your Watchlist and what's your favorite market, past or present?

JON: I watch the Electoral College market and the margin-of-victory markets (in swing states like Florida). My favorite market of all time is the VP market from 2016.

DAVID: Why was that your favorite?

JON: Because there were like 7,000 choices and you could get amazing negative risk.

Jon, bit.ly metrics question, what are the top EPM performers?

DAVID: GREAT question!

JON: Standby ...

JON: Oh, I can't give you that information because every time you change the bitly link, it stays on the original. It won't let you create new bitly links for the URL you're forwarding to, it only lets you edit them. The old links still work, but they no longer "count." I can tell you we have 2,843 total clicks on our bitly links.

DAVID: Very interesting, Jon. To buy EPM merch, click here: bit.ly/epmskyline Or here: bit.ly/morningzoo

Can you analyze my investment strategy?

Thanks to Jon, I lost PA and NC last time and nothing has changed. I lose on everything.

So I have decided to buy R on Ohio, and Florida. I figure, I will lose my shirt on those, but then win overall because Trump cannot win without them.

Is this a good strategy since all I do is lose?

DAVID: Classic psychological hedge!

JON: This is a good strategy. There's a good chance you'll lose in both of these markets, which would be great.

JON: And also thank you for your sacrifice.

How important is time of day for you when assessing skylines? Do you prefer a sunrise or a sunset?

JON: That's a great question! It doesn't matter, but it has to be one or the other. Noontime skyline viewing, especially in the summer, is horrible.

DAVID: I agree with whatever Jon says about skylines.

Do you think you might keep the podcast going after the election? I use PredictIt but honestly I would just subscribe to a weekly podcast where the three of you talk about anything.

p.s. Can you ask Starlee to do Mystery Show again?

JON: We hope to do the podcast until at least Inauguration Day. We will see.

DAVID: In 2016, we ended the podcast the day after the election. I doubt that will happen this time around.

Currently, only EPM shirts are available. Can you expand that to stickers and pins?

DAVID: That's on my to-do list

Juts discovered you guys and I'm already a big fan of the podcast. I've binged 2/3 of the latest season in the past week.

What are your thoughts on Jersey City's skyline, especially since it is a smaller city in a much larger MSA?

DAVID: Thanks for listening!

JON: I kind of have a problem with the Jersey City skyline because in the analytics, it ranks in the top ten, which knocks Charlotte down a peg, which annoys me. Jersey City is pretty much part of New York City so I think those two should be analyzed together. Sunrise, Florida is another example -- it's so close to Miami they should be analyzed together. But I admit it's an emotional thing, because it pushed Charlotte out of the top ten.

DAVID: Hold on -- isn't Charlotte's skyline newer than Jersey City's skyline?

JON: No. The top six tallest buildings in Jersey City have all been built since 2004, whereas the top tallest buildings in Charlotte have been built since 1988.

DAVID: (Head explodes)

Jon, I believe you made a lot of money on domain registering back in the day. Why are you so bad at bit.ly links every time David throws it to you to say a web address?

DAVID: Ouch!

JON: I get caught off guard and I panic. There's a lot going on when we're doing the podcast -- I am trading and reading while we're recording. And I don't know how to work my laptop.

DAVID: Seriously, Jon's lack of ability when it comes to his laptop is truly incredible. Listen to our appearance on last week's Majority Report with Sam Seder for proof. It was amazing.

What keeps more investors from just dumping tens of thousands of dollars into "sure thing" bets, looking to make a quick 5-10% ROI?

I know there's an $850 maximum, but as stated in the last episode, you can still spend a ton of money on the site between many different markets and brackets.

JON: This definitely happens. There are people with hundreds of thousands of dollars invested in PredictIt. If there wasn't that $850 limit, the spreads would get much closer together/worse, because institutional money would get involved.

Have you heard of any PredictIt-like betting markets for non-US citizens? I'm Canadian and I'm dying to ride a wave, even a ripple.

JON: Check out BetFair and Augur.net. (I can't recommend them because I've never used them.)

Why do you display such a gutteral antipathy towards the fabulous Camel City, Winston-Salem, NC?

1. Back when Kid Midas was focusing a withering postcard assault on Richard Burr, you INCORRECTLY claimed that he was a Greensboro native, when he is in fact from the superior city in the triad. Normally this would be fine, because fuck Richard Burr, if not for a much larger oversight.

2. With a legitimate scale-appropriate Empire State Building, Winston-Salem has been overlooked for far too long in your ranking of the skylines of moderately sized cities.

In conclusion: how dare you.

Reynolds building sadly is the only cool part of the W-S skyline. That Wachovia building next to it looks like the box it came in.

But all those faux European baronial estates in the middle of town are fun!

DAVID: LOL brutal

JON: I love Winston-Salem, I used to live there!

If you could ban one politician from serving office, who would it be and why?

Has to be Mitch McConnell right?

DAVID: Yeah it'd be McConnell.

What are your MBTI types?

JON: I'm an INTP. But I'm a very mild "I."

DAVID: I don't know what I am. I shudder to think.

JON: You're probably an ENFP.

I found out about Election Profit Makers while listening to Comedy Bang Bang earlier this year - https://www.earwolf.com/episode/p-a-i-g-e-is-magic/

What comedy podcasts do you listen to, if any?

JON: I don't listen to podcasts really. The only one I listen to is FiveThirtyEight's politics podcast.

DAVID: How often do you listen to it

JON: Maybe once a month. I really like Clare Malone.

DAVID: I mostly listen to political podcasts. The last two comedy podcasts I got into were Spontaneanation and Andy Daly's Podcast Pilot Project. I think the "Wolfman Hotdog" episode is the funniest podcast episode I've ever heard.

Gainin': what's the definition and the origin story?

JON: It's not about Gainesville. It comes from my time playing a racing video game in college. When my car would start falling behind, my friend would say "YOU'RE GAINING!" (opposite talk). Classic sarcasm that then extended to all aspects of life.

DAVID: The Gainesville connection is just a happy coincidence.

I'm listening to a 1970s theme day on my local radio station. What song should I request?

DAVID: One of my favorite memories from high school was when we were driving in Jon's Ford Escort during our lunch break. We were probably listening to WCHL and the song "Dancin' in the Moonlight" by King Harvest came on and Jon said, "Oh, I like this song" and turned up the radio. It was one of the few times I ever saw Jon express interest in music. And you know what? It is a great song, definitely a top 1970s dance party banger.

Hi David and Jon, first of all, THANK YOU for making these last months bearable with your podcast....my fiancé and I love it, are patreon members and are now banned. David, your "cancel culture discourse" song was in the first episode we heard (our friend introduced us to the show around then), and it was the moment I knew this podcast was for me... we still sing "Adam Carolla bring it on, and Matt Taibbi bring it on" around the house.

That said, let's engage in some cancel culture discourse. Starlee made a great point recently that Trump seems to be uncancellable. Do you agree? Will he be effectively cancelled if he loses and moves away? What about all his fans though, will they still clamor for more Trump in the form of a TV show or...something? Do you think that will be harmful for the country's ability to move on, or maybe it has to happen? The magnitude of what Trump has done is mind-boggling compared to someone like Al Franken, who totally disappeared. How can we cancel Trump?! Please help.

JON: I kinda think he'll be a little bit cancelled, though it's hard to cancel people that are completely politically incorrect. But he will be diminished -- maybe not on the Sarah Palin level, but it's possible.

DAVID: I'm more interested in cancelling Ivanka and Jared -- people who have decades of life ahead of them and would like nothing more than to re-integrate into elite society. We have to make sure that never happens (although the careers of everyone who got the Iraq War wrong are for the most part not encouraging).

This is for Long John: in 2012 when I was living in Seattle, the skyline got a new addition in a ferris wheel on the waterfront, featured prominently if you're viewing the skyline from across the sound in West Seattle. What are your thoughts on the Seattle skyline, and on what a ferris wheel adds or takes away from a skyline?

DAVID: I think ferris wheels are gimmicks. Shouldn't count as part of a skyline. You don't count those inflatable blowy-men as parts of a skyline, why would you count a ferris wheel?

New Downtown: great skyline or greatest skyline?

https://imgur.com/a/vPM1g2b

Greatest skyline! Thanks to the artists at Floyd County Productions for realizing my dream of an urban skyline in the middle of a tobacco field. http://bit.ly/dicktown

What's the best band from North Carolina? And why is it Archers of Loaf?

DAVID: Best bands from my golden age of going to shows at the Cat's Cradle, etc in the 90s: - Flat Duo Jets - Polvo - Metal Flake Mother Those are my top three for life

Have you considered a movie review podcast where you critique solely through the lens of the films' skyline shots? If not, what are your next podcast adventures?

DAVID: Our special Patreon episode about skylines in movies was fun to do, but I don't think we could turn it into an entire movie-review podcast. Also Jon kind of hates watching movies. :-/

Congratulations on using your tremendous influence through the greatest podcast of all time to raise over $20k for voting rights!!
Do you anticipate your Smithsonian gallery or wing to be located right on the National Mall, or adjacent thereto, to accommodate the throngs of tourists?

We want to put the Smithsonian EPM exhibit in the presidential bunker. We want to keep it safe and cozy.

Are you all offended when someone listens to a podcast at 1.5x?

JON: Definitely not. All podcasts should be listened to at a minimum of 1.5x as should all movies.

DAVID: LOLOLOL

DAVID: I don't think I've ever listened to a sped-up podcast.

David - I own the Going Deep DVDs! Love them! Any chance of a return to television?

I don't have any plans to host a new show, alas ... but John Hodgman and I made a cartoon called DICKTOWN that's based (in part) on my childhood in North Carolina. You can watch it on Hulu here: http://bit.ly/dicktown Thanks for watching Going Deep!

Not a question but a pencil anecdote for David.

I teach English to children in Taiwan. I never liked mechanical pencils and I hate them even more now that I’ve seen them in the hands of my 7yo students. It takes the kids literal minutes to change out one lead, and of course they break it all the time. When they use regular pencils, the kids complain about their pencils not being sharp enough and they ask me for the class sharpener every 5 minutes. I thought why the hell are they so obsessed about the sharp pencils?

Then I started learning to write traditional Chinese characters and I understood. The strokes have to be accurate and I had to sharpen my pencil constantly. I don’t think 7yo kids are learning complex characters yet, but I know how strict Taiwanese teachers can be about the writing. So for beginners it helps to have a mechanical pencil, but for people who already know how to write in Chinese, I think the regular pencil looks wayyy better (it’s closer to the look of the brush pen used in calligraphy).

If you wanna go deep into the precision of Chinese character strokes (line thickness, width, height, direction, spacing…) or just look at some sweet-looking regular-pencil-handwritten Chinese characters go there: https://www.hackingchinese.com/handwriting-chinese-characters-the-minimum-requirements/

PS It’s 1am here and I stayed up just to ask you guys some questions. Love EPM, love the hosts, good night!

DAVID: Very interesting BingoBoots! Good night!

Have you ever lived (or considered living) in another country? If yes, where?

JON: I don't think I have. Actually I've thought about living in an island nation. (In the abstract.)

DAVID: I've never considered living permanently in another country. I lived in England for eight months back in college when I studied at the University of Sussex.

Just a Canadian David whose partner found y'alls 'cast while traveling SE Asia in the summer of 2016, and who is now simultaneously obsessed with your wonderful pod. Thanks for the many good nights we spend in bed just listening to your podcast before we go to sleep laughin our butts off.

What movie is most imbued with EPM energy?

This is a great question. We might have to answer it on an upcoming episode.

I used to think prediction markets should be more reliable than polling, since people’s real money is on the line. However, on some of the more popular markets (like “Who will be elected President”), there seems to be a lot more emotion behind bets instead of rational thought. (Especially when you wade into the cesspool of comments.) What do you guys think?

JON: Yes, studies have actually shown that for people using the (now defunct) InTrade, most were betting emotionally. They invested in outcomes they wanted to happen.

DAVID: I gotta say, I no longer believe that PredictIt reflects the wisdom of crowds ... I think reflects the wisdom of some, and the wishes of others.

JON: But the prediction markets generally do about as well other models like 538 ... so in the end, they do sort of mirror one another.

DAVID: Thanks, Auspicious Coconut! See you on the boat I hope!

How do you record the three of you remotely? Do you use a service like SquadCast or is it a double (triple?) ender?

Thanks!

DAVID: We all see each other via Zoom (cool web site) and we each record on our end via GarageBand or Zoom (cool digital recorder). We also have a producer recording the Zoom call as backup. When we're done recording, we send our files to EPM Headquarters to be mixed.

Seeing how America is in dire straits because someone wasn't loved by his dad (and also seeing that father-son relationships seem to be a pervasive motif in American movies) - what are your relationship with your fathers like?

DAVID: I love my dad very much. He's always been supportive and affectionate. He turns 90 years old next fall and we're hoping this COVID bullshit will be over so that we can have a huge raging party in North Carolina.

JON: I have a great relationship with my dad. As some people may know, he was the inspiration for the character of Mr. Hunchman on David and Hodgman's show Dicktown. The HIT SERIES.

DAVID: But Mr. Hunchman is much more clueless than Jon's dad is. I stole Jon's dad's friendliness and guilelessness for Mr. Hunchman.

For David: What’s the one sentence takeaway lesson you learned from Wittgenstein?

For Starlee: Which is worse, Gimlet Media or the Republican Party? If you can’t answer that: do you like your name? I almost named my daughter after you, and every time I hear you laugh I regret not doing so.

For Jon: What is your favorite period of history and why?

DAVID: I think the most useful thing I learned was the concept of Language Games. (I'm more of an Investigations guy than a Tractatus guy, although the latter blew my mind more when I read it in college.)

JON: I love the Industrial Revolution! Just smokestacks and pollution and commerce and cities and growth and just ... it wasn't great for the environment but it seems like it would've been a really exciting time to live in. If I was reincarnated I'd live in 1840s Cincinnati.

Jon- Atlanta Skyline, Yay or Nay?

JON: Yay

DAVID: (FYI I'm the one who's typing all this stuff -- Jon has been on the phone with me all morning telling me what to type for him -- and he let out a huge sigh before that "Yay." Then he said, "Atlanta's skyline is too linear.")