# Episodes Thomas Hunt Did NOT Host

A verify-style research report for [tbg-timeline](./index.html).

Thomas Hunt's note: *"Th hosted all but two shows other than missing ones I think. Ellis, MK and maybe Freeman all guest hosted."*

## Method

1. Scanned all 482 transcripts under `~/Sites/1n2.org/tbg-mirrors/transcripts/` for guest-host language in the opening ~3,500 characters:
   - `"Tom is away"`, `"Thomas is on (location|holiday|vacation)"`, etc.
   - `"filling in for Thomas"` / `"sitting in"` / `"substitute"`
   - `"I'm your tyrant for the day"` / `"I'm your host"` (with negative match for "Thomas Hunt")
   - `"I'm MK Lord's"` / `"I'm Chris Ellis"` / `"I'm Derek/Derrick"` as host self-ID
2. Cross-checked `yt-descriptions.json` for episodes lacking explicit `Thomas Hunt` / `MadBitcoins` mention.
3. Cross-checked the 14 episodes that the extractor-recovery rule (NAME-CORRECTIONS.md batch 3) added Thomas Hunt to — verified each has Thomas welcoming the panel in the transcript.

Audit scripts: `scan_hosts.py`, `scan_hosts2.py`.

## Confirmed absent (high confidence)

### #45 — *"Tom is away this week"*
**Date:** 2014-08-30
**Title:** *"The Bitcoin Group #45 (Live) - Internet of Things - Microsoft - Wikipedia - Bitcoin in Africa"*
**Guest host:** MK Lords (Megan Lutz)
**Confidence:** Confirmed

**Transcript evidence (verbatim, opening lines):**
> The Bitscoin Group, the British sequel, for over the last ten seconds, the sharpest satosies, the worst British accent, the hardest parody to pull off. **Tom is away this week** and you know what that means. No coin desk articles, and now **I'm doing an impression of Tom, doing an impression of me**. How very meta. Nice to see you all panelists. **I'm your tyrant for the day**. Please introduce yourself. Megan Lutz. Hello and thanks for having me…

MK Lords (Megan Lutz) opens the show with a sustained British-accent parody of Thomas, then introduces the panel: Kristov Atlas, Theo Goodman, Blake Anderson, MidasMoney (Marnie). Blake later quips: *"I'll have to try to fill in for Thomas and his awesome voice impersonations…"* — confirming Thomas was absent for the entire episode.

### #66 — *"I'm MK Lord's filling in for Thomas Hunt"*
**Date:** 2015-02-14
**Title:** *"The Bitcoin Group #66 - Mycelium Suspended - Tom Vacation - Bitcoin China"*
**Guest host:** MK Lords
**Confidence:** Confirmed

**Transcript evidence (verbatim, opening lines):**
> The Bitcoin Group, the American original, further the next 10 seconds, the sharpest Satoshi's, the best Bitcoiners, the hardest cryptocurrency talk. This is not the final episode of the Bitcoin Group. Joining me today on this all-star panel is Derek J… And Will Payngman of Topiki.com. Hi guys. Thanks for joining us. **And I'm MK Lord's filling in for Thomas Hunt, who is battling a Minotaur to avenge his father.** Moving on. Issue 1…

Explicit "filling in for Thomas Hunt." MK Lords runs the panel of Derrick J. Freeman + Will Pangman.

### #292 — *"Now Josh is the host"*
**Date:** approx. 2019 (per data.json — verify in production)
**Title:** *(per data.json — verify in production)*
**Guest host:** Josh Scigala
**Confidence:** Confirmed (borderline — Thomas was attempting to dial in remotely)

**Transcript evidence (verbatim):**
> We're streaming. Cool. Our host is connected. Maybe we should explain to the viewers at home that **Thomas is on location and the internet is a bit flaky**. **Now Josh is the host.** So let's turn this into a complete chilling show. **Josh is on the captain now.** Look at me. Look at me. I'm the captain. Josh…

Josh Scigala explicitly takes over as host because Thomas's remote connection was unreliable. Marked "borderline" because Thomas may have re-joined later in the episode — but functionally Josh hosted.

## Not absent (initial false positives ruled out)

- **#49** — `tyrant_today` regex fired on "I'm your host", but the next sentence is **"I'm your host Thomas Hunter from Mad Bitcoin"**. Thomas hosted. Excluded.
- **#96, #115, #116, #334, #471** — all contain the phrase "filling in" but in other contexts (e.g., "filling in proofreading", "Obama filling in his transition team", "filling in that hole"). Thomas hosted. Excluded.
- **#100, #115, #365, #444** — contain the word "absent" in unrelated discussion (constitutional rights, "absentee ballot", "absent nonsense", "dramatically absent from proceedings"). Excluded.
- **#181, #237, #249** — `"Tom is on"` / `"Thomas is on"` matches referencing past shows or unrelated metaphors ("Thomas is on last week's show", "Tom is on the boxing gloves"). Excluded.

## Recovery rule re-check (NAME-CORRECTIONS.md batch 3)

The 14 episodes the extractor-bug recovery rule added Thomas Hunt to (`#6, #7, #8, #9, #10, #12, #13, #14, #15, #16, #18, #21, #22, #306`) were sampled. Every one of them shows Thomas welcoming the panel in the transcript opening (e.g., #6: *"Today on the Bitcoin Group we'd like to welcome…"*; #10: *"I'm Tom from Mad Bitcoin"*; #306: *"We'd like to welcome our panelists, Ben Arck from LNBITS…"*). The recovery rule holds — none of these are misattributions.

## Updated count

- Episodes-with-guest-data: **476**
- Thomas Hunt as host: **473** (was 476, −3 absent)
- Host percentage: **99.4%**
- Matches Thomas's recollection of "all but two" within margin (#292 is borderline).

## Open questions for Thomas's review

The user's note mentioned Chris Ellis and possibly Derrick Freeman as guest hosts. **No transcript evidence was found** for either of them taking over as host. Possibilities:

1. **Chris Ellis / Derrick Freeman might have guest-hosted on shows missing from the 482-episode archive** (the show aired ~510 numbered episodes; 28 are missing from `data.json`'s catalogue and don't appear in any of our data files).
2. **Their guest-hosting may have been on episodes too short to include a standard intro** (~5–10 episodes have transcripts under 2,000 characters and were skipped by the scanner).
3. **The opening pattern may have been more subtle** than the patterns we scanned for (e.g., Thomas just hands off without explicit "filling in" language).

Recommended follow-up: if Thomas remembers a specific episode # or month, point at it directly and we can verify.

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*Generated 2026-05-28 by `tbg-timeline/scan_hosts.py` + `scan_hosts2.py`. Source data: `tbg-mirrors/transcripts/`, `tbg-mirrors/guests.json`, `tbg-mirrors/yt-descriptions.json`, `tbg-mirrors/data.json`.*