667: Nuclear Recall

Credit Karma is your evolved financial assistant, making managing your finances simpler and more tailored to you. Join us at creditcarma.com to start your personalized financial journey today and continue to grow with our innovations. Credit Karma, evolve your finances. Welcome to Grumpy Old Geeks, where we're extra grumpy this week. I'm Jason DeFillippo. And I'm Brian Schulmeister. I wouldn't exactly say I'm grumpy. I am unintentionally giddy.

Okay. Well, you know, we were recording later on a Thursday night as opposed to our Friday morning usual thing and my wife and I made a pasta dinner and we had a bottle of wine that had been sitting around and we're like, oh, let's just have a glass with dinner. So dinner bottle is gone. Okay. So good for you. Here we are. Let's go. Yeah. I'm slamming decaf coffee in my eyes twitching because I'm over caffeinated in my audio interface decided to stop working right before you recorded this.

So I can't hear myself except through these headphones that I need on. So I can hear you. Well, it is helpful when you hear me. That's true. I've been doing this for over 11 years. You'd think I could figure this out by now. Well, tech technology sucks Jason. Oh, it does. It really does. Speaking of technology, let's get into it. We've got a lot of follow up before we follow up with a lot of news. Sure. Let's do it.

All right. Sam Altman released a thought piece this week called the intelligence age overhead is a blog. Did you get a chance to read it? I did read it. I have I have taken classes on AI at this point. I feel pretty coached up on this stuff, not in the user way in which everybody is out there doing it in terms of like, oh, look, I've generated a fucking cover letter. I've generated a response to my friends saying, well, I'm not going to show up at their wedding and I fucking ate them.

I've generated a picture of somebody with 17 eyeballs and 15 fingers. I've actually like tried to understand the basis of AI. Whatever the fuck he wrote is a fucking complete load of shit. So you've taken a class in AI. I have taken a lifetime course in bullshit. And I have a PhD in El Toro Kakka. So let me let me just read this one little blurb for you. Sure. I believe the future is going to be so bright that no one can do it justice by trying to write about it now.

A defining characteristic of the intelligence age will be massive prosperity, although it will happen incrementally astounding triumphs, fixing the climate, establishing a space colony and the discovery of all physics will eventually become commonplace with nearly limitless intelligence and abundant energy, the ability to generate great ideas and the ability to make them happen. We can do quite a lot and quote what a load of horse shit.

Yeah, there's absolutely nothing in there that has anything to do with any possible roadmap. We've given we've first off, we've stopped even bothering just like releasing software that works and then putting out a roadmap later. We've stopped road maps. Ah, but we'll get to his roadmap shortly. He has he has put out a bit of a roadmap. But before we get to the roadmap, he puts out this giant thing on the intelligence age and then his CTO quits.

And after the CTO quits, the chief research officer quits and a research VP also quit. And so guess who didn't sign off on that roadmap. Them? Yeah. Well, you think this CTO, the woman behind a lot of the breakthroughs, I don't know baby, be on board. I haven't had time to catch up on it because we did decide to start a little early. But apparently a lot of this is coming to the fact that open AI is going from their non-profit status to a for-profit status.

And guess who is going to be king shit of the for-profit company, Sam Altman. So the others took a little bit of umbrage with it. And there's a photograph from the New York Times. It is just very funny. And somebody took that photo. And the original photo was it was Sam Altman with Mira and a couple other people, Greg Brockman, who's already gone and Ilya Susvikir. Susvikir? It's been a long time since he left. So I forgot how to pronounce his name. They're all gone.

So it's just now it's how it started a picture of them and how it's going is just a picture old Sam by himself now. He's the cheese that stands alone. Well, he's hardly alone. He does have a lot of Microsoft money. He's got a lot of other money coming in there. He's okay. I wouldn't say he's alone, but I would say that anybody that was in on the original open AI mission is long gone. Right.

Yeah, he's also got that world coin thing going on, which is going to be a game changer as we all know. Oh, yeah, the orb, you know, yeah, that's going. Yeah, that worked out well in Lord of the Rings. I'll get to that later. And phantasm. So Sam Altman said that the company imagines AGI in five stages with open AIs 01 because their naming scheme can lose the your fucking intelligence agent to rename your shit, please.

And they're saying he's in the second stage. So let's break this down for a minute here. Yeah, the stages of artificial intelligence level one chat bots AI with conversation language. Yeah, level two reasoners human level problem solving is what is absolutely not at that stage yet. We're still at level one 100%. Have you tried the 01 prior? I have. I have. We are still at level one. I don't care.

There were one. Yes, absolutely. Yeah. Level three agents systems that can take actions. Level four innovators, AI that can aid in invention. Level five organizations, AI that can do the work of an organization. Now there's one word that is that is not on any single line item of the five stages of AGI. Know what that is Brian correctly. That's true. That's why I say we're still at level one. We're at until it's correct. It's still just a conversation.

I have conversations. Well, I used to my uncles have all passed now. I've had conversations with my uncles. They were conversations. Were they correct? Absolutely fucking not. We call that Thanksgiving. Yeah. Until it's correct. It's still a toy. Everybody wants to say that it's not a toy. It's going to all these breakthroughs. But until it's going to be correct. It's just a toy. It's a toy.

This is 100% by been my position on this and stay one since since it's been in the news all the time. I'm like it's a toy. It's a game. It's fun. It's great. Should people be getting fired over this? Absolutely not. But they are. It's a toy and people are using it horribly. And we're all being sold on the bullshit. Well, some of us are not us, but you know, middle management. This is going to come back to bite middle management in the ass. So hard.

It will 100% because this is not working. It's not there. It's not going to get there anytime soon. And they've run out of things to feed into it. The thing that we've been sold on is it just needs more data. It's got all the data now. It has got all our data. It hasn't paid for it. It has it's taken all the copy written data. It's got all the data and it has not worked. All our data's are belong to us. Yes.

It's a lot of work. I mean, yeah, it's it can do some things. It can do some things. Okay. It can do some things well, but it can't do everything well. We are not even close to AGI. We're just barely at level one, honestly, in my book. But hey, now here's a great, a great quote that just wanted to pass along. This is over at news. Y.

I have to ask myself that Brian, we've had two years of of these, you know, code code pilots and things like that. All the websites is to go to or broken half the time. And nothing seems to be getting better. I can tell you what the answer would be from the people that make those tools. You're not using them correctly.

Okay. That's their answer. Now, the reason that things aren't getting better is, well, first off, the entire internet is a fucking house of cards built on some open source code that was written about 17 years ago. That has never been updated. And if anybody ever does update it, it's all going to fall apart. And no AGI is going to fucking fix that ever. Most of the updates are put in Russian back doors. So yeah. So so you can't fix all of that. It's too complex.

Everything is too complex. All of it. So, you know, AIs not going to fix that. You got to rebuild. We have to rebuild the entire internet from the ground up. Look at the internet as we look at America. The bridges are fucking collapsing. Are we going to put in the money to fix it or not? Because the bridges are collapsing on the internet. There's no doubt about that.

Well, let me say that. The bridges are collapsing on the internet that we're all interested in, which is not owned by meta or Google or snap or TikTok. Those things are working just fine because they put the money into that. Yeah. The other thing is the rest of the internet is being clogged up by bot driven AI generated assholes who are just trying to get over those bridges and just wearing them down even more.

Yeah. So that's I don't know how to take how long I help how much farther I can take that metaphor. I just I but we haven't even gotten out of our intro yet. Oh, I know we're still there. I'm just I you're fucked up on wine and I've had too much coffee. But hey, the thing is I just want websites to get better that exist right now. I want better software. I want groundbreaking software that we couldn't write without this stuff.

All it's doing is just you know, it's it's auto complete. It's a really nice auto complete. And that's what everybody says that uses it that I've talked to. They're like it's really nice for some things, you know, just for kind of basic stuff, but don't trust it with input validation for trucks sake. Don't even think about doing that. Yeah. And I was stuck on this website the other day. I was on simple cast and I'm moving data from one website to another.

So I have to get 600 embeds off of this thing God forbid that I screw up and click the wrong link and I have to go back through these 600 items. Pagination is all JavaScript. There is no like pick page three. And there's also no URL based pagination. There's no query string with what page you're on like the old days.

Which by the way, even if you're using JavaScript, you can't still update the fucking query string and the URL to make it work. So if I wanted to reload and go back to the page, I was on it said, it's taken two minutes to flip back through it. Anyway, if they can't fix a little basic things like that. I know somebody's going to say it's a design decision, blame the product developer or whatever product manager, but I don't know. I'm fired up, Brian. I just hate. I just hate this shit.

I can tell. Well, let's dive a little bit deeper into people that have drank the AI cool aid on this. The London newspaper plans to revive a dead art critic with AI and lay off the real writers. Brian Sewell, who died in 2015 at the age of 84, was once described as Britain's most famous and controversial art critic.

For years, he wrote for London's evening standard, publishing his cutting commentary in a weekly column, now in a development that where he alive, it seems safe to assume he would completely and utterly hate. The newspaper has resurrected his byline and will resume publishing articles in his name. There's no detail about how this is happening. They don't we don't know if they created their own AI. We don't know what the partnership is.

It's probably just a publicity ploy, but the newspaper hasn't been doing well. So publicity is good. They fired a bunch of writers and now they're just basically saying this dead guy who everybody liked and everybody enjoyed reading his articles. We're just going to do an AI and we're going to have him write articles, commentating on art. Yeah, this makes no sense. AI doesn't understand art. AI doesn't can't can't create art and it certainly can't commentate on human art. No, it can't.

Great. Well, in some good news, political consultant Steve Kramer just learned that deep fakes and politics don't mix, especially when the FCC is watching because he's been slapped with a whopping $6 million fine for blasting New Hampshire voters with robocalls with the fake Joe Biden voice trying to sabotage the democratic primary. This goes back a while back.

I remember we thought he was getting a $2 million fine. It was the original reporting if I remember correctly, but don't quote me on that. I could have used AI and nobody would know the difference. But $6 million bucks is not jump change. And and he's facing voter suppression charges from New Hampshire's attorney general. So all in all, how's that AI working out there for you, Steve? Well, just great.

Well, open AI is also rolling out their chat GPT voice assistant this week to all paying subscribers. Have you played with it? I have not because I've actually started to back away from AI and AI usage. It's called advanced voice mode and it's beginning making its way to users and paper chat GPT plus this week.

The company tweeted a video of the feature in action and I can't believe they chose this as it helps someone craft an apology to their grandmother for being late because you can't fucking be bothered to be sincere. Yeah, that's a pretty shitty one. Yeah, I mean, this is my problem with these with all of these companies is there in search of a solution to problems that don't exist except for the fact that you actually have to be human.

What does it take for you to actually apologize to a family member yourself that you have to go and use a fucking system to do it for you? I think it's all just Gen Z ears. That's it. It may be because you have a story about that later and we'll get to that. Anyways, the company says the AVM can offer the apology in more than 50 different languages. Chances are your family members speak the same one you do. So yeah, thanks. Thanks a lot.

Actually, this would have worked with my great grandmother because she barely spoke English. She was all Italian. So I could have written something nice to already have Google translate. I was going to say I could have just run that through Google translate. So you write your own words. No, it would have been better was ask my grandmother to be a go between to talk to my great grandmother and apologize that I'm late for lasagna. Yes, just use humanity.

Well, speaking of humanity, this is a great headline. Here's why companies are rapidly firing Gen Z employees in the TLDR is basically they're insufferable. Many companies have fired Gen Z workers just months after hiring them in several business owners said they are hesitate hesitant to bring on recent college graduates due to concerns about their work ethic, communication skills and readiness to do the job according to a new survey.

How about the plus side is for this Jason what Brian hire a silver surfers. Yes, exactly bring us back bring back Gen X the older Gen X people were happy to work. We know how to work. We will actually show up in the office if you tell us to we aren't going to fucking go. I can't do that right now. I have to go to air one and get my coconut juice. Yeah, we do not eat avocado toast. We do it's delicious, but we don't go crazy for.

I'm taking your Gen X card. You're out. I got out. So six and 10 employers have said they all have already let go recent college graduates this year. Well, one in seven said they are inclined to refrain from hiring new graduates next year according to a survey conducted by intelligent. It's intelligent. Brian, it has it right there in the name within the name. Yes, and it close to 1000 business leaders participated in the survey, which is a decent sample size. It actually is.

I like this business owners say they're not loving the idea of hiring more fresh grads anytime soon. And it's not just the old kids these days, gripe. These Gen Zers are seen as high maintenance more prone to getting triggered and more focused on a good work life balance than getting the job done back to what Brian said we don't get triggered.

We don't we don't care about work life balance. We don't care about any of that stuff. Gen X will work for you for pennies on the dollar for the most part to so give us a call. Nichols on the dollar at least she's Nichols. Yeah, inflation inflation. Yes, Nichols on the dollar. Everyone needs a world class VPN. Grumpy old geeks recommends private internet access to protect your online privacy and identity.

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Unsurprisingly we have news about Elon musk and X Jason. Oh great after all the bruhaha that he said about Brazil fuck you i'm not going to do what you tell me. And then he also tweeted about why does everybody feel a rage rage for the machine these days just because i have to throw that in again is oh my god i have to get off x because i can i'm sick of seeing his updates.

Anyways after all the bruhaha about screw you Brazil i'm not going to i'm not going to i'm not going to ban the couple people that you asked me to ban because they were breaking along all that sort of stuff well he's actually going to reverse course after weeks are refusing to comply with conditions set by the Brazilian Supreme Court.

So he can operate in the country again because he lawns a pussy big surprise well also because Elon has people who are saying why is this company that i helped you buy not making any money. And why isn't Brazil one of the largest i think the largest country in South America not on your platform anymore. Oh because you were a douche nozzle oh can you can you just undo the douche nozzle for a minute Elon so we can make some money so we can get paid back.

So he turned off the douche nozzle stream for a half second and they're going back. And then he turned her back on again because he's decided that blocked users will now be able to see our posts on X so if you block someone. They're not really blocked they get to see everything that you posted and you just don't get to see them and they can't comment on your stuff which isn't really a block in my opinion no no words have meaning.

Yeah but it was it was nice to see that hashtag block Elon was trending this week well he can still see all that exactly that's what makes it funny. And a man and a head federal judge on Tuesday handed down a two year present sentence to Carolyn Ellison who assisted one of the largest financial crimes US history let's just read that again a two year presence. To someone who insisted who assisted one of the largest financial crimes in US history.

Well overseeing a trading firm connected to the FTX cryptocurrency exchange but then serves as key government witness in a trial of FTX founders and make them free. So yes she did plead plead and she did all that sort of stuff and she definitely turned evidence against Sam breaking free and all that but she still did all this shit and she knew she was doing it too.

And she knew she was doing it and somehow and this goes back to the Gen Z thing and how people don't want to hire them because she's a very young girl as he was a very young guy. But we were dating and he was controlling me and I just didn't know what to do and that's really kind of what it came down to and that was her entire defense was I was being exploited not just I was vulnerable and yeah he kept buying a toast in the morning and there was a lot of avocado on.

See in my days you would get fired from McDonald's for doing shit like this. Oh my god. Can you imagine when we were coming up in the industry if we had fucking done anything like this we would have been in jail for years. We'd still be there would still be there now yeah she gets a two year prison say that's it even though she is she willingly and entirely engaged in this. Yep but she turned states evidence so I guess that has something to be fair.

Okay to be fair she had to turn in the 11 billion dollars she had made. Well if she still had it. Jesus Christ. Yeah sentencing guidelines called for 110 years you go from 110 to two I just the math isn't math and Brian the math isn't math and nothing matters anymore.

It really has a thousand well here's a fun one among the first AI companies that the federal tread commission has exposed as deceiving consumers is do not pay which initially was advertised as the world's first robot lawyer with the ability to sue anyone with a click of a button. I remember talking about these guys when they came out we did we did we thought it was a great idea but yeah there was there was some shenanigans behind the scenes pride I'll get to that second here which is good.

So the FTC announced that it took action to stop do not pay for making bogus claims after learning that the AI start up conducted no testing to determine whether it's AI chat bots output was equal to the level of a human lawyer do not pay also did not wait for it higher or retain any attorneys to help verify AI outputs or validate do not pay legal claims. Well if you don't have any lawyers that you can say well I didn't check the legal claims against it because I didn't have any lawyers I guess.

Just makes my day but I mean it tracks for the entire AI industry doesn't it's all fucking bullshit it's all bullshit yeah. The these guys got out they must have the same attorney is the other chick they they have to pay $193,000 and accepted no liability so and they have some time to they've a 30 day public comment period they get to get their shit together so they're getting another chance because nobody apparently goes to jail for more than two years nowadays.

It's just crazy it's crazy but yeah do not pay I bet they're going to pay though I bet they're going to pay at some point maybe we'll see that $193,000 I bet they'll pay yeah okay but how much do they actually make that's not in the story how much do they make how many people paid them yeah I wanted to know how many customers they have how many exactly been duped as it were how many how many lawsuits were filed from these guys that would be nice to know now this one this one kind of.

As my head scratching a bit Microsoft deal would reopen three mile island nuclear plant the power AI if that is not the most dystopian headline we've had in quite some time I don't know what is. Oh Microsoft has announced a groundbreaking deal to revive Pennsylvania's dormant three mile island nuclear plant to meet its massive energy needs for AI development under this 20 year agreement Microsoft will purchase 100% of the plants power making it the first time a US nuclear power.

A US nuclear plant will come back online after being decommissioned the plant infamous for the worst nuclear accident in US history in 1979 was shut down in 2019 due to financial issues is now set to reopen by 2028 providing Microsoft 835 megawatts of power enough to serve 800,000 homes which will not get those homes but they can chat with their AI I guess.

But they'll get free co pilot yeah free co pilot for everybody look i'm kind of okay with this I think I think that nuclear power has gotten a bad rap I think there's been some problems in the past obviously. But we've kind of dialed in the technology now and people are just scared of this it's an imbi thing nobody wants it in their backyard which I also totally understand but these are this is a pretty safe technology at this point that actually provides an awful lot of power so.

Microsoft and I trust Microsoft for the most part. Hey you know as long as they keep that automatic like every single backup every single second thing so we can actually review the data if something goes wrong or good nuclear recall yes.

That's not the problem that I have with this yeah the project expected to cost constellation energy 1.6 billion dollars hinges on federal tax subsidies for nuclear power outlined in the 2022 inflation reduction act this deal highlights the tech industry's growing demand for reliable zero energy emissions zero emissions energy to support the expansion of AI and despite the innovative nature of the agreement it faces scrutiny from nuclear safety advocates and questions about the technology.

And questions about the use of public subsidies for a private companies benefit Microsoft can afford 1.6 billion dollars they can afford 2.6 billion dollars they can afford 10 billion dollars they can afford a lot more than that instead of taking our tax money to subsidize their nuclear power plant that we're going to look into sub and we're going to look into the subsidies that public companies get that are worth billions of dollars let's start with the Elon. Let's start with Tesla and space.

Space X is doing some decent things except ruining the night sky with their starlink but yeah no but just that's just the thing okay you know you should go back should we go back and watch the China syndrome again just to because no kids these days don't know anything about 3 mile island they're like what's that yeah like oh yeah.

And I'm going to go back to the company with this if they obviously all the stuff has to happen they have to do all the inquiries they have to do all that sort of stuff if that all works out fine I don't care great go do it.

Qualcomm is reportedly eyeing a takeover of Intel it seems that Qualcomm seems sees Intel struggling business as a potential opportunity the San Diego based chip makers reportedly express an interest taking over Intel in recent days according to a new report in the Wall Street Journal.

The other report costions that such a deal as far from certain as it's just a rumor it would be a major upheaval in the US chip industry so we'll see obviously there would be antitrust issues that happens until announced plans to cut 15,000 jobs last month is this quarter losses climbed to 1.6 billion its foundry businesses also struggling with an operating loss of 2.8 billion last quarter.

I look I have a personal story about Intel that I will tell here and I don't I can't speak to their the company's problems and everything like that but I've always liked Intel I think Intel is a good place to to be I think it's a good company my cousin had married somebody and moved up there he worked for Intel for a lot of years there a lot older than me he's just retired Intel actually pays ex employees to go out into the local. Area and basically teach kids.

Oh that doesn't that does not sound like a bad company. It sounds like a company that has a good amount of money that supports ex employees that supports local communities I think Intel is a good company Qualcomm I've never heard a god damn good thing about. They killed you doora. Yeah, I think I think you do or that's enough. That's enough.

I like Intel I think Intel is a good company I think Intel does good things I'm sorry they're struggling in the marketplace but you know I yeah Intel's fine they're going to be fine. You know who's not going to be fine Brian Chinese smart car makers first tiktok now smart cars the White House has proposed a ban on Chinese smart cars welcome Elon citing national security risks posed by Internet connected vehicles the ban would prohibit the sale and import of connected vehicles from China.

In the software and hardware that power these systems in US cars US automakers would have one year to ensure their software has no ties to China and four years to remove certain Chinese affiliated hardware like sensors and antennas which means we're going back to the model a that's it. You know I the commerce department is still accepting feedback before they finalize the ruling by the end of the year.

Yeah, this is a this is a tough one they make damn near everything that we've got so I don't know Brian what do you think well we put a lot of money theoretically into bringing all this kind of innovation and and manufacturing back to the US so step it up. Yeah, you're going to ban it then we got to make it so let's do it.

Yep, and I can see I can see the the security we know we know we know the security cameras are shit we know tiktok is fucking reaching our data like no tomorrow we absolutely do not need to be reliant on Chinese manufacturing we should not be for anything that's important at all especially cars because you know I just see the nightmare scenario of you know.

You've got it's one thing to have a fitness sensor that's talking back to tiktok and all that crap right to have a car with a big battery in it they could do lots of different things. Not to get alert about battery exploding last week. Yes, so I can see the point is all I'm saying is I can see the point in this one not to mention just the location data where everybody's driving but anyway anyway and license plate readers never mind okay I can keep going down the rabbit hole I'm going to stop.

Cloud flair is back in the news they have a new marketplace that will let websites charge AI bots for scraping. This is not a bad idea except not a bad idea except three years to live. Daily to dollar short guys. They've already got it so they got it already and what do you know about it good luck kudos for effort man a for effort AI for effort even but yeah this is just it's silly but it doesn't matter because it's too late yeah yeah they've already got it yeah.

Okay well California has a click to cancel expression bill that has been signed in law.

I'm happy about this is assembly bill 286 and it's been signed in law to make it easier for consumers to opt out of subscriptions bill was introduced in April 2024 forces companies that permit online or in app sign ups to allow for online or in app unsubscribes as well as it should be as they point out and we talked about this on the show it will be one of the more notable examples of this behavior particular since this subscriptions can cost $60 per month.

Earlier this month the FTC sued the company over early termination fees and rub blocks down subscribing calling the practices illegal California's new bill is designed to kibach that sort of behavior though companies have until mid 2025 to complian to complian complian complian

complain complian complian complian complian complian complian complian complian comereceive plasbah they bill and countersoo although arrested Sir B Greomy for the fight for whatо partial Bs a supply across the US at the finalized enkel Bs a good California is actually one a lot of the sort wage with the covering propriety use, but finally what the state being namely the storm of the land you have to be able to sign out one click and the story.

I love this. It is illegal. It's going to be illegal to not have an unsubscribe button, but you can steal my car and I can't even file suit anymore. Well, that's a different California. California is a fucking mess. It's just a mess. Just yeah, the rule in California is don't go outside. Just seriously don't go outside. And if you want a little fun thing, I'm just going to end on a little piece of fun video here that you're going to have to go click in the show notes at

GOG. Show slash 6 6 7 dramatic drone video shows Chinese rocket crash landing in a failed test. And this could have been from like an opening scene from the three body problem season two. It was the music was dramatic. The video was dramatic. It didn't even look real, but it was a fun way to burn up a few minutes and it definitely does not end well for the rocket, which makes me also say let's keep your electric car so for the while while we shouldn't have. Media candy.

Well, it's been a hell of a week for 25 year old me Jason. Okay. 16 year old me and 30 year old me. The cure have announced the release of a loan. Their first new single in 16 years alone, the first taste of the long awaited songs of lost world album premiered today. As we're recording this on Thursday, September 26th. And it is a hell of a track. It is very disintegration at the Arkansas, the best album of all times. As far as I'm concerned and South Park, it's absolutely fantastic.

One of my second favorite bands of all time underworld is also released a new single called Black Poppies. It's the first single from their upcoming album strawberry hotel, which is releasing in 25th October. And as I posted earlier today and said to a few friends, this is a sign of how old have actually gotten to be two of my favorite bands and put up brand new singles with brand new albums coming out.

And I'm just kind of mildly pleased about it instead of locked in a room, listening to them nonstop crying. So we all grow, Brian, we all grow little bass. We do. So two of my favorite bands have two new singles and two new albums coming out. And it's going to be a fun. I'm not listening to any podcasts this month. That's all I'm saying. Okay. Well, I actually got to do some work this week on that project I was mentioning before. And I have to listen to music again.

And it has been so long since I've actually listened to music because I've been doing podcasting all the time. There were two Ramstein albums I'd never even knew existed. So I've been rocking out our brand new releases from Ramstein that are at least five years old. Well, new to you. Yeah. Exactly. New to me. It was great. That's the best. Best week ever. Bad monkey on Apple TV plus with Vince Vaughn is something we've been getting caught up on. We're actually all caught up on that show.

And it's adorable. I love it. And I hate Vince Vaughn. But I don't hate him in the show. Really? I think he's really good in the show. Yeah, I kind of burned out on the Vince Vaughn since his swingers are, you know, the early stuff and the first thing he ever did. Well, what was the other movie? The, the whole thing with the, we're going, we're, we're streaking in the quad with Will Ferrell and all those guys. Oh, I never saw that movie.

Yeah. That stuff was still funny, but Vince Vaughn has not been funny for a good decade, if not two. But if you think this is good and you hate him, maybe I should check it out. It's actually really good. It's a really good show. Okay. I, and the nice thing, this isn't one of those things where they have the same amount of time as most of the other shows I watch.

But in that same like 50 minutes, there's so much story and plot line moving forward that you just like, it feels like you're watching a movie, but it's only 50 minutes. And then you go watch another show. It's like, you know, two things happen. It's like, you know, it's just, it's a very dense plot and it's really fun. I just, I thoroughly enjoy it. They're really enjoy it. And just a cleanse my palette.

No pun intended. We're watching culinary class wars, which is a Korean cooking competition on. That's a good, deep. Yeah. Yeah. We're out of all the American stuff. Although as soon as I get done with this, there's a new guys' grocery games. It's on the DVR that I got to go catch. But I'll be a Halloween Wars are coming back and my son is very excited. I don't bake. I'm not a bacon show guy can't, can't do that.

But it's a weird one. It's, it's kind of just like a Korean game show with a hundred chefs and it's just this crazy production value. But it's fun. The chefs are fun. Not learning a lot about cooking, but I don't care. It's just fun to watch for the people. Yep. Well, I probably put this too late in the show notes for you to load it up your technology that you have in front of you for this show. But the BBC sound effects library is now completely free to access and license free.

You can, there's a link in the show notes and you can find basically over a hundred years of the sounds that they've used for the BBC and it's all free game. And unless you're a commercial entity, then you have to click the buy sound next to the actual sound to go pay for licensing. Well, if they decide where a commercial entity, I will send them our receipts. Exactly. We can show you the receipts in my friend. And funny thing is I've had that library for like 10 years and I've never used it.

Yeah. Yeah. The only problem is it's like it's like hundreds of gigs. It's huge. It's like 900 gig and I've been tripping it around for years. I'm like, I think I, now that it's out there, I can see it. Well, no, you don't need to. Yeah, exactly. Now that now I can not use it on the website, you are all that you've kindly put in the show notes instead of not using it on the almost

terabyte of drive space it's been taking up. So thank you for that, Brian. Finally, the last of a season two trailer has dropped. I looked at it for a second because it's not coming till 2025 and 2025 is a long way away. So I'd rather not get my hopes up yet or dashed against the rocks as it were. There you go. But for everybody else out there who's the last of us fans have had it if you want. Okay. Okay. Introducing Bluehost Cloud Ultrafast WordPress hosting with 100% uptime.

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Good news. With Amazon Music you have access to the largest catalog of ad-free top podcasts included with your Prime Membership. To start listening download the Amazon Music app for free. Or go to amazon.com slash ad-free podcast. That's amazon.com slash ad-free podcast to catch up on the latest episodes without the ads. Cops and do-daps. Stephen writes in, hey Grumps, I usually take your advice in many ways. It had been using Brave as

my default browser ever since you demanded. So I do so. So thank you for taking our advice, Stephen. Then I discovered Ark, which has been pretty cool. And now I've switched any Chinese reasons. I should stop using it or just any reason regardless of country. No, no, we said earlier about China. I don't think arcs Chinese, but I don't actually know. I used it for a while. I did know who it was made by for a bit. But it was just wonky for me.

It was just a weird browsing experience. It's a non-traditional browsing experience, Brian. Which was great when I was dicking around. But when I wanted to get work done, I found myself needing my extensions and all the other crap that I usually use. If it works traditional experience. Yes, yes. Non-traditional did not work for the day-to-day job. But if you're liking it, keep it. Two cares. That's all good. Brian's a trader. He's still using the Chinese stuff,

I guess. Whatever. Still using Favoli, but I have it. Yeah, press that to private, which probably doesn't mean shit. I think Favoli is okay. It was opera. I think I've been off opera for years. I've been using Favoli for ever. Okay, there you go. I'm just like a brave. So, it's a brave works for me. Well, Duelingo, best known as a language learning app, now makes a piano. And I think we talked about this piano before,

because it's not theirs. They teamed up with Lug for this instrument. So this is basically a rescan of pre-existing Lug piano, which is not a bad thing. The Lug X Duelingo pianos, a three-octave digital keyboard with built-in stereo speakers, wood sides, and a rechargeable battery for portable use. The keys are one of the biggest selling points, because they allow for dynamics, piano to portate, which does not happen in anything at this price

point. So it's pretty cool. I'm actually thinking about getting this now, because we're thinking about starting the kid up on piano lessons. So this would be a nice little sort of thing to put in the corner as opposed to my massive keyboards that are still in the garage, because I don't know, right? Music anymore. And yeah, this is a pretty cool little thing. I don't know if it was the Lug that you got into or something else at one point that... Lumi. Oh, Lumi.

Lumi is the one that you were meant to be, right? Yeah, I got... That was the one that was the kick-started that was a year late, and when I got it, it didn't really work all that well. And I got two of them, even. Yeah, that was the one, the joke about that one was the earlier you ordered, the later you got it. They started at the raw end of the cue aswipes. Yeah. So... Well, this one looks actually pretty cool. I don't know if I would do it with Duolingo,

but the Lug itself seems pretty awesome. So I'm looking into it, and this might be a Christmas present for the kiddo. Nice. Nice. Gotta get them started early. Yep. So there's been a brew, how brewing on the internet, Brian. Yes. So Matt Mullinwag, one of the creators of WordPress, yep. Gotta have a hair up his butt, and decided to call out WP Engine, and who's the company that actually provides all the services that WordPress could have provided to the

to people themselves, yeah. Well, that you can also get from WordPress.com. So I feel I want to pay for them, but they're all direct. They're open source, are they not Jason? They are, but are they interesting? That would mean that you wouldn't really be bothered by other companies building things off your platform. Well, you would be surprised how Matt put it. He calls them a cancer on the community. So interesting. Yes.

Here's the thing. I don't know if you use WP Engine, Brian. The company that I worked for most certainly did, and I'm glad I'm not working there right now. WP Engine is a shit stain of a company. I have been using them for years, and it is the single worst implementation of WordPress. I have ever had the displeasure to use. So I am 100% behind Matt for calling them out on their bullshit and telling people to stop using them. Now, here's the problem. Having said that.

Having said that, Matt is now finding it, finding himself in a pickle because the WP engine people said, you're going to talk to our lawyers because we're going to sue your ass now. Then Matt said, hold my beer. I'm going to sue you back. What we're also going to do is turn off your access to all of the stuff that you weren't really paying for, that automatic is paying for. This is turning into a little bitch fest going on on the internet right now, which is great because

it's not so much a little bitch fest Jason because let's be honest. Let's run through the numbers here. WordPress is 75% of the internet and I would say probably 50% of that is WP engine. Oh, WP engine is a $500 million a year company. They are now joke. Yes, but automatic is a over a billion dollar company at this point I believe. So here's the funny bit. I don't know if you

remember Brian when I first the first day that I got to San Francisco. The first night of some of my friends MJ Kim and all the other folks got they lured me to a bar, you know, to hang out. I know it's me. It's just like beverages this way. They pointed I showed up. Unbeknownst to Matt Mullinwijk who also arrived in San Francisco the same day they invited him to the same bar because Matt and I had been in a fight for well over two years at that point.

And they're like, if you guys are going to stay in town, we need you to be friends because you guys have to be friends. So we shook hands and left as as you know, frenemies I guess as it was because all the people that invited us were the really cute girls in tech and we're like, we're

not going to shit net well anytime soon. So Matt and I, Matt and I patched it up, but it was only because of the the ladies of San Francisco, but Matt has a history of starting shit is all I got to say because he started shit with me and I held onto that grudge for years and he's doing it again. You have me hold on to my face. I know it's silly isn't it? So so we're going to see how this goes but then for some reason WP engine starts going after Matt as a person and so he decides, you know

what I'm going to do. I'm going to make a blog post to show how awesome a person I am with all of my charitable contributions and he does a laundry list of his charitable contributions over the past like 12 years or something and millions and millions and millions of dollars that he gives away. Yeah, I didn't get any of those so fuck you Matt. Anyway, so Grudge re-eniged. Yes, there's a great reply to him posting this on threads. It says,

uh, would recommend deleting and hiring a PR person. This isn't going to read how you wanted to. So that was that's it. It's that's that's that one's going to be fun to watch. Fire up some popcorn and off you go. Now the next one is even better. Marcus Brownlee aka mkbhd. We've talked about him on the show. We actually talked about a YouTube video that he made a couple weeks ago about the new Prius. He's a reviewer. You know, he reviews technology. Am I am I correct in that assumption,

Brian? You are. Yes. So he decided to become an operator and make his own app. So he makes an app called panels, which is a wallpaper app. So get wallpaper for your iPhones. It costs $12 a month or $50 a year so you can get high definition wallpapers. You mean the things that you just download to your phone and set up yourself for free? Yeah, exactly. Or or or from you you build in your AI engine of choice for free. Right. You can you can

get the standard definition downloads if you watch an ad. So the internet lost its, you know, it's shit as it always does. So everybody reviewed it saying it was a piece of shit. It's garbage because the first thing that you get is him wanting your personal data for a wallpaper app. And so you get the privacy, you know, ask app not to track type of thing. He's like, okay, it's why are you asking for my personal information when I'm going to pay you to download a shitty

wallpaper? Okay. So that was the first bite in the ass. The other one was it's just why is it's 2024? Why is anybody trying to monetize wallpapers? It's silly. Right. So skewered over and over and over again. So, you know, he's on the other end of the review cycle now. So he he posts is a obligatory me a couple will try and do better at this point. And then a very nice hacker figured out all the links to all the wallpapers are preloaded right after the app is launched and all you need

are basic man in the middle skills to get them all for free. So because the files with the links aren't authenticated or protected. Oops. So and he there was another thing where he said, you know, it took a lot of work to launch this as an iOS and an Android app at the same time. It's somebody pointed out like, no, it's just a shitty react app. You dumb fuck. It's not that hard to make. He just he got his ass handed to him over and over again this week, which is just nice for a

reviewer to see sometimes because somebody who's never actually made something. I give him balls for stepping into the arena. But if you're going to step into the arena and you've got that big of an audience like come on. Come with something big. The sad part is he is going to make more from this failed launch than you and I are going to make an entire lifetime. It's probably five times over. So he's got a very big audience and a lot of people are going to give him money.

All right. Well, do it right people. Do it right. Here's another fun one. Johnny Ive who left Apple five years ago is teaming up with open AI at its CEO, Sam Altman. I'd wait for it. A new AI startup. Yes, they're going to do a new AI startup. And it's probably going to be some AI button with no pins or ports or anything. It's just going to be a cube. They stick to your chest. But it would be white. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So they're they're actually trying to fundraise right now.

And wait, see fundraise. They're gazillionaires. I know. I know. Okay. Just checking on that. Yeah. They they ives did put in or I've sorry, Johnny I've did put in some money himself. So did Steve Jobs's late era, the late Steve Jobs wife, Lauren Powell jobs and from her fund put in some money. But they are targeting to raise one billion dollars by year's end. One billion dollars. Yeah. No, thank you. I'll pass. That's it. And they're going to make one of them. It is going to cost one

billion dollars. Well, getting back to AI a little bit spotify spotifies beta AI playlist features. Now rolling out for premium users in the US and Canada and Ireland and New Zealand. It lets you create and refine custom playlists using text prompts in this really ride in April in the UK and Australia. The company describes it as a tool to effortlessly turn your most creative ideas into playlists such as play me a bunch of fucking shitty jam music from my fucking road trip.

Okay. Great. It's not available for me yet. I do want to try it. I'm curious to give it a go and see what it comes up with. If the initial results don't quite hit the mark, you could refine the playlist with further prompts such as less peppy or hold the nickel back. Hold the nickel back. I'll try that. So it leads on personalization choosing tracks and things you like based on your listening habits. So it doesn't particularly sound very AI to me. It sounds very machine learning.

But again, those words have no meaning anymore in this atmosphere. So same shit. Correct. Correct. And a public service announcement. I found a great site called archive.today. I usually get to it by archive.iz. It's a time capsule for web pages, Brian. It takes a snapshot of a web page that will always be online even if the original page disappears. It saves a text and graphical copy of the page for better accuracy and provides a short and reliable link to an

unalterable record of any web page. AKA the only way I get around paywalls nowadays. Does that have the Hulk Hogan tape? It does not have the Hulk Hogan tape, I believe. That's not an archive. At the library. Brian, this week I listened to a short story called The Original by Brandon Sanderson and Mary Robinette Cowell. I'll go fuck yourself with you and that in your Bobaverse. So sick of these fucking audible exclusive bullshit.

Yeah, this is a four year old one. I can't get nobody reads anymore. I get it. But fuck you guys. It's a fucking book. No, it's a it's a it's a it's a fucking book. It's an audio drama, Brian. It's an audio drama. And it was fucking amazing. So maybe go listen to it. It was seriously the best sci-fi story I've read in years. I'm sorry. Listen to in years. Well, in five years when it comes out in book format, I guess I will read it.

Go try and find a transcript on archive.it. Just shut up. See if you can find one. This is what AI's for. I'm just going to train my AI to fucking create. Create a PDF copy of. Yeah. But if you have it was free. If you have an audible stuff, it gives you the free stuff. Yeah, that's awesome. Yeah. That's great. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Best story I've read and I didn't even have to pay for it. Yeah, you didn't even read. Yeah, man. It was awesome. Yeah. It's fantastic. That's great. It's great. Yeah.

I also didn't read not till we are at the bottom of my life. Yeah, that's great. Now that is excellent. I love to wait for you. I love to see you. Can't read. The best. Yeah. I can't wait for you to use your eyeballs to find it on your on your little device. Might be fucking blind at that point the way my vision is going. I know. We'll get you some readers. Brian, we'll get you some readers. I got readers.

God damn it. I hate this trend. I fucking hate it. I get that I get that Amazon that started as a bookstore no longer gives a shit about books. But come on. Brian, it's four years old. It's not a trend for this one. This is old. This is an horrible deal. I don't understand it. I just released God damn book at the same time. This is right. Back then Brandon Sanderson needed the money to build his secret layer. But didn't he do a whole thing with Patreon? Well,

yeah, but you know, this, this, this, this is a second deal. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. How do people that feel the paid for his other thing feel about this? Did they get the earlier release? But they might have in some fancy little box that they get to unwrap and look inside and say, there's nothing in here. And he's like, put your ear to the box. You can listen to it. If you're subscribed to Amazon. Oh my God. It's good to be the king. It's good to be the king.

So I finished the first echoes of extinction by D. Ward Cornell book, the book that I found when I made my free sign up for Kindle Unlimited and was didn't have much to go for. EBSA actually pretty decent. I didn't mind it so much. So since I've got one week left, I downloaded book two. It's a book for, it's a four book series reverberations. I can use a extinction book two. I'm going to read the shit out of that until my subscription is up and I lose any access to

any of these books ever. And depending on how I feel about this one at the end, I'll either read book three and four or I will not and get notable subscription to actually read books that I like by authors I like or hassles of don't put up books anymore. Okay. Oh dear. Wine's working a yeah. Also true. Over at Patreon, we've got Hilke Menbooby Anna Christopher Jared and Jared says finally able to support you all again. Divorce and lay off suck ass. Now I'm a government lackey and

ironically make more than I have before. No complaints here though. Thank you Jared. I'd like to also apologize to Anna really quickly for putting her after Manbooby. Yes, sorry about that. Sorry Anna. So Panos, Panos rooted and said something very funny. He said, got a hand at T. Adjacent. It was the first time someone pronounced my name like a very, very nasty disease. I almost crashed my car laughing and it's it to be honest. His name is spelled P-A-N-A-G-I-O-T-I-S. Panagiotis is

kind of how I read that. But I looked it up. It's Greek and it is pronounced Penootus. So sorry Panos if Penootus. But Penogeotus, yeah, you want to get a powder for that. Somebody also actually wrote us and said we should go to Greece to do a show that we called and we can call it Grumpy old Greeks. If they're paying, I'm going. If you want to pay, we'll do a show. We'll do a show for you. We'll definitely do a show there. Over a PayPal, we've got Joseph and

David this week. All right, over the tip jar. We got Ross, Josh and Shiloh. Thanks so much for everybody and just a reminder to everyone. If you go to Patreon and sign up for at least three dollars a month, you can get the show early and add free. And we now have the option to sign up for eight entire year and you get 5% off. So have at it folks. Woohoo. And we have a new five-star

review. Those clouds aren't going to yell at themselves. Jason and Brian deliver great well-informed tech insights with the effortless, sarcastic humor that resonates with my Aussie Gen X self. Dave's touch to the straight man cracks me up. Love the book wrecks in the Apple Library too. Thanks guys. Canning.mat from Australia. All right. Thank you. Canning.mat. And I want to give a big shout out to Andy Sucansky who I believe still writes our outro music.

Do we still use that? We still use it every week, every week. Oh good. We still do. So much you listen to the show. Well, I never listened to the outro. Well, okay. I never listened to the show. It's be fair. He has returned to Toronto. So I'm going to go out and get some pizza and some beer with him next week and it will be a good time. So love Andy Sucansky. Go check out his music on Spotify or Apple Music or whatever else you want to do as well.

So and I wanted to put in something maybe I'll start to do this. I probably won't all forget next week, but the quarter of the week because I saw this one. He's listed his day to day, but then again, aren't we all from Vin Scully? Okay. Deep thoughts. Deep thoughts. Until next time, I'm Jason DeFilippo. And I'm Brian Schnellmester. Thanks for tuning in the Grumpial Geeks. Diving to the show notes, non links from today's episode of GOG.Show slash 667.

Feeling generous, keep this top notch entertainment, following by dropping us a few bucks of GOG.Show slash donate. Every bit helps spread the Grumpiness. There's a share button in every podcast player out there. He's a share the show with friends, foes, and everyone in between will be forever grateful. I can hear Jason opening up a little candy. Head over to GOG.Show to find the link on a discord channel and chat with us and other show fans. Got something to say? Send your feedback,

comments, or awesome links to GOG.Show slash contact. Show us some love. Leave us a review at GOG.Show slash review. The five-star rating might just get review right on the air. Also at one-star, we're gonna read them all. Let's be honest. Stay grumpy. Welcome to extra fucking Grumpy old Geeks. I don't think I say fucking out of the gate. I'm not gonna say fucking out of the gate. Let me try that again.