693: Let Them Eat Space

Grumpy Old Geeks, a weekly talk show hosted by Brian Schulmeister and Jason DeFilippo, discussing the finer points of what went wrong on the Internet... Welcome to Grumpy Old Geeks, I'm Jason DeFilippo. And I'm Brian Schulmeister. Jason, it looks like we both found news stories this week that pissed us off to some degree. Oh, so many, so many. I mean, so many, but I mean, just science-based, normal, run-of-the-mill.

articles that we would normally like to discuss, but there were some frustrating things that happened with both. I will go first. Please. I'm a big fan of IFL science, or at least I used to be. which stands for I fucking love science. It was one of those rare success stories that really came about because of social media. You know, there were tons of science.

based uh news sites out there but ifl science really rode the social media thing had a tongue-in-cheek attitude you know did very well posting stories all the time across social medias and getting people interested in science and having a unique viewpoint about them. But I feel... that perhaps they have fallen upon rough times and are now playing the clickbait game. Okay. Because there was a story that did come out this week about Exoplanet K2-18b.

You may have seen Exoplanet K218B in the news recently, thanks to it. Everywhere. Yes, it's everywhere. And of course, a bunch of these sponsored posts in my feed breathlessly talked about how we had found aliens and all that sort of stuff, which, of course, we have not. But IFL Science did post a story about it as well. And one of the headline was, as you'd expect, kind of bombastic, something along the lines of...

The best chance yet ever of seeing aliens and all that sort of stuff. But then, you know what? They posted within a few hours after that. Do you know what happened to the boy who cried alias? You posted the first article saying that there could be aliens, that there may be aliens. This is the best chance ever of there being aliens and proof of aliens. And then you follow it up with a second post. You made a big meal out of that last bit with an update.

And then you immediately walked it back with your wait just a minute update. I am sad. You are just clickbait now, but that is the way. Yeah. That's just the way it is now for any site. It doesn't matter. Yeah, Brian, just to be clear, you can still fucking love science all you want. You just don't have to go to the website to do it. That's right. I just can't have it branded.

Correct. Correct. And the same goes for science alert. That one has totally jumped the shark for me. Oh, so bad. So bad. You know what also is so bad? The fucking dire wolves. fucking dire wolves first i first i started to see the the original posts where people are like This company has spliced in a few genes to start to try and replicate the direwolf, but it's not really direwolf DNA.

It is kind of just them copying and pasting what they think the direwolf DNA is. Now, I just want you to be clear here. There's only 20 out of the roughly 19,000 genes that they edited. So it's not really a direwolf. Then, as the day progresses, holy fucking shit, do you want to go to the mall and buy a direwolf? Well, you can now. Head on over to Topanga Mall and get yourself a direwolf, because they're everywhere.

That was the fucking direwolf story in a nutshell. Pretty much, yeah. Except for the, of course, controversy because they named one of the direwolves after a character in Game of Thrones that was not from House Stark, who actually, you know, their symbol was the direwolf. Nerds!

Okay. And follow up here, Jason. In news that will shock absolutely no one, the Fyre Fest 2, Billy McFarlane's second attempt to stage a music festival after the first one landed him in federal prison for four years, has now been postponed. indefinitely i would like to state for the record you heard it here first

This was never going to happen. According to an email sent to ticket holders on Wednesday, and yes, there are actually a few people crazy enough to have bought tickets, the festival has been postponed and a new date will be announced. I would not hold one's loins waiting for this. Take that refund money and put it right into crypto, guys. Exactly. You seem to be the crowd that would really be into crypto.

If you're buying Fyre Fest tickets, go get on that meme coin. I hear Trump is doing well right now. You can go buy some of that coin for the low, low price of fuck you. And over at Automatic, we haven't had Automatic in the news for a little while now. Because he's put clamps on everybody's mouths. Yeah, Mullenweg has put clamps on everybody's mouths and the judges put clamps on his mouth. So, you know, gags all around. It's like Pulp Fiction over there.

I love that movie. This comes from 404 Media this week. Following layoffs, automatic employees discover leak-catching watermark. Well, employees at WordPress parent company Automatic have discovered invisible, individually unique watermarks embedded in their internal communication platform, P2. Watermarks designed to catch leakers. The stealthy pattern hidden in white page backgrounds can identify employees who share screenshots with the press. First up.

How did you guys figure that out is what I want to know. Who's the first person to figure that out? Second, yeah, I kind of figured this would be something that Mullenweg would do because he's been getting his ass handed to him by the leakers. Yeah, I mean, I guess it is. It's just it's a sad commentary on the state of the world, actually, at the moment.

If I were a tech pro, and let's be honest, he's not a multi gazillionaire, but he's still a tech pro. He's a billionaire. He's got to be. Okay, well, then he's one of the people that we tend to malign a lot on this show. I'd watch my ass at the moment. The tide is not going your favor. I mean, it is financially, don't get me wrong. But in terms of the zeitgeist of the times, you might find yourself on a chopping block pretty soon.

All right. In the news, let's get this party started. Let's light this candle, Brian. Oh, baby, you're a firework. Let me come into this story with a little bit of a preamble. First, my wife and I were having a discussion yesterday. I have a single use coffee machine. I can't, it's a environment killer.

Well, yeah, that's okay. So that it doesn't matter what brand it is. And we hardly ever use it. Our daily morning coffee is a French press, but it's nice to have in case I want an afternoon espresso or for guests or something like that. So we use it occasionally, but not very often. And we were having a discussion as comfortable liberals do who want to do the right thing and are concerned about the planets. And we were like...

Should we just, you know, this thing's on its last legs. It's not going to last much further. Do I do it? Do we get another one or do we just stop because we're killing the environment? And then I had a second where I thought about the biggest news story of the week, and I realized that I could have a single-use coffee from this machine.

17 times a day walk up and down my my block get make coffee for all my neighbors from now until the day i die even going back to the date of my birth and maybe add a few generations after that, and I would have done less damage to the environment than these fuckers did in 11 minutes. Tell it like it is, Brian. I'm just saying.

And, you know, okay, so if you're living on a whole, Katy Perry, Gayle King, and Lauren Sanchez, who's Jeff Bezos' fiancé, took a much-hyped all-female trip to space aboard a Blue Origin cock rocket.

which basically lasted 11 minutes long. They kissed the end of the atmosphere and came back down and tried to play it off as if there's some sort of girl power monument to this or some sort of... reason to do it which of course there's not and this is happening while the current administration is actually removing

female pioneers and heroes from nasa's website because we can't learn about what women actually do but we can learn about three celebrities taking a fucking joyride because they're fucking rich Which one of them said they put the ass in astronaut? That would be Katy Perry. Katy Perry, of course. And so this is the story that has kept on giving this week. And this might be one of those bellwether things where we see the tide actually turning because.

Let's just say nobody has been supportive of this. Everybody is taking pot shots at. I'm wondering why the hell we did this. And of course, they're breaking rule number one, which is when you get criticism on the internet, you ignore it. They are responding, so it is not going away. Oh, they're leaning in hard. They're leaning in and the internet is leaning back.

Very hard. So I don't think you're going to win this one. This is not looking good for anybody involved and nobody's very happy about it. We've got some links in the show notes for some of the more enjoyable stories that were written about it. I particularly enjoy, we finally have 2025's Imagine video, which the quote from this one that I liked is,

So congratulations are in order to these galactic warriors for their stunning achievement. They have united us once again by finally giving us a worthy successor to the most cringe pop culture video of the past five years. So good. I totally forgot about that Imagine video. I wanted to forget about the Imagine video. But if you have forgotten about the Imagine video, click on the link. It's pretty fun. Follow your way back.

And yeah, let them eat space is definitely one of the great taglines from this. I put a link to a nice piece of artwork in the show notes as well. It was something. It's been a week. It's been a week. But Brian, not all heroes go to space. That's true. I know you're not a fan of Seth Rogen, but he was one of the presenters at the Breakthrough Prize ceremony, which has been dubbed the Oscars of Science.

And I don't know if it was the pot, the drink, or just some giant balls on this guy. Hey, look, I am not a huge fan of his, but I am about this. Yep, yep. Well, he was co-presenting with Edward Norton, who... Not the nicest guy in the world from everybody I know that knows him. It's amazing that others in this room underwrote electing a man who, in the last week, single-handedly destroyed all of American science.

And he went on to add, it's amazing how much good science you can destroy with $320 million in RFK Jr. very fast. Which was immediately cut out of the live stream from YouTube. I guess we're not allowed to have opinions about these people. Not when you're paid to be on stage and basically fluff them up, I guess. I don't know if they've seen any of Seth Rogen's work, but, you know, perhaps it wasn't a good choice on their hand.

Perhaps, perhaps. By the way, I do still like the studio. We watched episode five this week. It's enjoyable. That's cool. That's cool. Digging it. Digging it. Fucking severance. I love how everybody on our Discord channel keeps thinking that they can poke me with severance mentions. I'm like, dude, I've so moved on. I'm so looking for my next one now. This came out in the Wall Street Journal this week. And while it's not...

specifically tech, it's still Elon, so I have to mention it. The title of the article is The Tactics Elon Musk Uses to Manage His Legion of Babies and Their Mother. Money. Yeah. Yeah. So. There's been some swirlings about on the Internet about Ashley St. Clair's newborn and her coming out saying, no, it's Elon's baby. It's Elon's baby. And he was like, nope, ain't mine, ain't mine. Well, after a court ordered paternity test. Yeah, it's it's it's his. So.

But she's coming out saying that she was offered hush money from Elon to not say anything. He offered her $15 million and $100,000 a month to shut up. She's saying no, because then her son might then think that he was an accident and be ashamed of himself. I'm like, well. Too late for that one, kid. But the things that come out are just kind of mind boggling that Elon has tried to make a compound near Austin for all of the women that he's been impregnating.

Compounds always work out well. Compounds in Texas. It's always a good sign. Yeah, especially compounds in Texas. And he's got this fixer guy that we've learned about now, Jared Burchall. And he's the guy that's running around being the guy behind the scenes. Reminds me of the guy from Billions. He had a fixer, too, which was pretty nefarious. Good guy.

So apparently only one of the women has decided to take him up on the compound offer, which is probably a pretty good deal that you get a whole compound to yourself. Compound's still a compound. Yeah, Siobhan Zillis is the only one that lives there. Good for her. The other thing is this whole pronatalism thing that he's promoting so he can repopulate the earth with his quote unquote high IQ babies. Well.

He shouldn't use your sperm if it's going to be a high IQ baby. He's also making them get C-sections, which he thinks is going to make their brains bigger because they're not squished when they come out the birthing canal. Yeah, that's how it works. Yeah, that's really how it works. Science has proven so far that babies of C-sections are actually more immunosuppressed than other babies because there's a whole bunch of goo that they're supposed to get on them as they come out to the delivery.

So there's all sorts of things like, you know, nature and evolution and science that may say, baby, go this way, not the other way. Yeah, I think he's watched too much Wrath of Khan, and I think he thinks he might be creating the next Khan. Right. That's, you know. Yeah, well, I think he is trying to create the master race himself. Yeah, yeah.

Yeah. So you put this article in there and I'm surprised. I thought it would touch on the bigger bomb that dropped this week about Elon and his babies, which I just put it. I Googled it really quickly. So apologies for the Daily Mail link that is put in there. And I will just.

do this from memory. There's a right-wing influencer called Tiffany Fong, and I believe it's like a crypto influencer and just general right-wing stuff. And she has been making an awful lot of money on X because right-wing echo chamber, and that's what happens. And of course, that would be brought to Elon's attention. Apparently, she talks about how Elon actually slides into people's DMs on basically hits them up saying, do you want to have a baby with me?

And he did this to her. And she said, basically, no, thank you. Ew, gross. So then he, of course, promptly canceled her account and stopped her from making any money. Yeah. He definancialed her, not deplatformed her. She's still there, but he basically just killed her account so she couldn't make money anymore. Nice guy. Yeah, he's a real piece of work. He's a real piece of work.

Yeah, thanks for putting that link in. I meant to find that this morning, but I had brain fog. That's okay. I was going to put it in too, but then I was so sick of everything. Everything. Just full stop there. Everything. I know. I know. Well, let's move on to a little bit more. This is a tangential Elon news. A whistleblower at the National Labor Relations Board says Doge may have stolen sensitive labor data and then tried to cover it up. Daniel Baroulos, a former IT specialist at the NLRB.

said that Doge staff demanded unrestricted access to the agency's internal systems, turned off monitoring tools, deleted activity logs, and quietly, not so quietly, transferred nearly 10 gigabytes of confidential data, including details on union organizing and ongoing legal cases. That's pretty bad. That's pretty bad. Well, it gets real worse real fast. Minutes after Doge gained access, someone using a Russian IP address attempted to log in using valid credentials tied to the Doge account.

Look, it was just one of Doge's team that accidentally left their VPN on GOG.show.vpn. So, you know, not actually a real Russian. See, they're taking red teaming and they're turning it to red square teaming. That's what they're doing now. They're testing to see if anybody from Russia can get in. So the attempts to get in were blocked, thank God. So there was still some cybersecurity left over there at the NLRB.

Probably not anymore. Not anymore. Yeah. Despite internal concerns and forensic evidence, Doge's activities were never fully investigated. And Barula says that he was later threatened with a note taped to his door. So I love this. Labor experts warn the breach could intimidate whistleblowers, derail union efforts and undermine trust in the federal government's ability to protect sensitive information. And I would say that the federal government's duty right now.

is to disseminate all the sensitive information. That's what they're doing. They're just giving it away, giving it away. Here you go, Putin. Want a thumb drive? Well, back to tariff on, tariff on, off, and then off, and then on, and then off news.

There was a lot of concern because our iPhones are going to triple, quadruple in cost. And if you really want to see them increase in cost, guess how much they would cost if you made them in the USA completely? $3,500. That is a $30,000 iPhone, my friend. Yeah. Anyways.

So there was concern about this, and U.S. Customs and Border Protection on Friday night published a list of products excluded from Trump's reciprocal tariffs, which includes smartphones, computers, and memory chips, along with other electronic devices and components.

Jason, you and I actually just both bought new laptops because we were concerned about prices of the tariffs increasing the prices on these things moving forward. I guess we don't need to worry about that because apparently they're all being exempted. But wait. But wait, there's more. We are not done yet here.

Because the pause does not apply to China, and there's still a 10% tariff on imports from almost all countries. And electronic imports in particular, while being exempted right now, will be hit hard by new rules that are coming in in about 90 days. So there's going to be semiconductor sectoral tariffs that are coming, which I don't know if you realize this or not, people, but guess what's in all your electronic devices? Yeah.

semiconductors wait for it yep yeah so the tariffs are off but we'll soon be on again anyway Great. Just what I'm looking forward to, Brian. Yes, it's a good time. We'll see if he lives that long. I don't know, man. He's pissing off everybody now, you know? You can piss off some people, but not all of them all at once. There's literally like nobody left that he hasn't pissed off.

I mean, even X is starting to just fill up with people posting, this is not what I voted for. These are his people. They're posting, this is not what we voted for here. This episode is brought to you by Delete Me. Delete Me makes it easy, quick, and safe to remove your personal data online at a time when surveillance and data breaches are common enough to make everyone vulnerable. Look, your data's already out there. Congrats!

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With a federal judge ruling the tech giant illegally maintained a monopoly in the online advertising technology market. Shocking no one. Judge Leone Brinkema found that for over a decade, Google tied its publisher ad server and ad exchange systems in a way that unfairly crushed competition, hurting both publishers and users.

Judge Brinkema found Google liable under sections one and two of the Sherman Act due to its practices in the ad tech tool and exchange spaces, but dismissed the argument that Google had operated a monopoly in ad networks. So get a little, give a little, you know, we'll take some.

So we'll see what happens with this. It's going to take a while to figure out what the judgment's going to be on it. But coming up soon is the other antitrust case where they're talking about maybe having to spin off Chrome. I guess Google did not suck the teat of the Trump good enough. I guess not.

Should have shown up at all those. Should have gone to Mar-a-Lago to kiss the ring. Yeah, well, it didn't work out for Zuckerberg either. Yeah, they probably did. Didn't work out for Zuck either. He's in the hot seat this week. I kind of left the stories out for that because that's still.

Kind of ongoing. Yeah. That hasn't really settled yet. So we'll see what happens. It's just fun to watch him squirm. Although he's trying to look like he's trying. So he's got a stylist now. You know, his stylist is making is dolling him up for. for the event. Yeah, he looks almost human these days. Almost. Almost. A little less data.

Well, say what you will about China, and certainly a lot has been said recently, but they are definitely doing one thing right that we seem to be completely fucking incapable of doing. Chinese authorities have banned automakers from using terms such as smart driving and autonomous driving for ads in the country, according to Reuters, because it doesn't fucking exist.

The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology has tightened its rules for advertising driving assistance features following a fatal crash involving a Xiaomi. SUV 7, which raises concerns about the technology safety.

Based on the report, the vehicle's driving assistance mode was switched on when the vehicle was approaching a construction zone, but the driver took control right before the SUV collided with a concrete barrier. The electronic vehicle went up in flames with the accident claiming three lives. Now back in 2022. The California DMV accused Tesla of falsely portraying its vehicles as fully autonomous based on the language it used on its website. Back in 2016, so did fucking we.

Yeah. Although it didn't lead to a ban on advertising terms. So China is actually going to do this. And in addition to that, they've also announced that they're prohibiting automakers from testing and improving their driver assistance systems via remote software upgrades if they're already in the hands of customers. In other words, you get what you bought and you can't roll out something to these people and test it on them.

which also seems sane to me. Sane to me. You can still roll out updates over the air, but you will have to get an approval for them after conducting a battery of tests, as it should be. I'm moving to China. Fuck this shit, man. Yeah, so good for them. I mean that's It just makes sense. I know. Things that actually make sense for the safety of the people. Go figure. It's coming from China of all places.

Well, I mean, they are like the cutting edge of electric vehicles these days. I mean, it's definitely like Tesla still sells more because we're not allowed to have, I mean, these Chinese cars in our countries, but they look great. Yeah, if we had some BYDs over here, we'd be tooling around in those. But no, just Cybertruck. I parked next to a black matte Cybertruck yesterday because I had to go to the hospital to get some blood work done. And I parked next to this thing.

And yes, I have a very vibrant, bright orange. tall jeep so the contrast is a very very noticeable vehicle yes yes yes yes very noticeable and you park it next to a cybertruck i'm like god damn my jeep just looks so much better than that thing Those things are so stupid looking. So stupid. FCC Chair Brendan Carr is accusing Comcast's NBC of, quote, news distortion over coverage of Kilmar Abrego Garcia's deportation, claiming it downplayed alleged MS-13 ties.

Garcia's lawyers say the only evidence was a hoodie and a bull's hat. Supplied by a now indicted cop. Well, Carr, a Trump ally, is invoking a rarely used FCC policy to threaten NBC and CBS, but notably not Fox News. He's also targeting diversity policies and critics say it's a partisan attack on press freedoms. He's saying that NBC has to change their news because it's fake news when it's actually just news.

Yeah. So this is this is the politicians trying to use the FCC as a tool to blunt the actual news, which, you know, is kind of a big no, no. And what dictators do. Control the press. Exactly. Speaking of the press, OpenAI is building a social network. Oh, joy. Yeah, according to Insiders, OpenAI has an early internal prototype featuring a social feed centered around ChatGPT's image generation. Slowest social network ever.

Sam Altman has been quietly shopping the concept around for feedback, but no official launch plan yet. It's unclear whether it'll be a standalone app or baked into ChatGPT, which just became the most downloaded app in the world. So I can see why they're doing this because they can't get data from X anymore. Yep. And no other social network is going to give them the time of day because Threads, owned by Meta, they're doing their own AI with a llama.

And Blue Sky is just going to tell them to go fuck off. So basically just feed the beast. Yeah, that's what they need. They're just looking for more words to put together. And I'm like, I don't think social media is really where you want to train these things. Yeah. I don't know if you've been on social media recently. Yeah, it's a shit show of emotions and not really what you would call the pinnacle of human intelligence.

that is happening there, you know? Speaking of a place that was never the pinnacle of human intelligence. Grok, where Grok is trained, obviously. Obviously. Some potentially good news, according to the article, 4chan, the anonymous message board that's been the breeding ground for some of the worst shit on the internet.

could be gone forever. As of Tuesday, the Notorious site began experiencing a series of outages following a major hack that purportedly exposed its source code. As reported by Wired, a user on rival forum, soyjack.party. Sounds like the place to be. Claimed responsibility for the attack, posting screenshots allegedly showing backend structure and a list of alleged moderator email addresses.

They then, the users started doxing the accounts included in the data leak, which is obviously not fun. TechCrunch spoke to a janitor or junior moderator whose email was listed in the leak, reporting that the person said they were confident that the hack was all real. Although the janitor said they were unhappy about the greater magnitude of the leaked information compared to the past, they expressed greater concern about 4chan's future.

So apparently the software that they're using hasn't been properly maintained or patched for years. which indicates that a hack would have definitely been a possibility. And as of right now, everything is still down. And if that's the case, the final words posted on 4chan may be chicken jockey, as the AV club points out.

Outside of launching the hacktivist group Anonymous, 4chan's greatest hits include The Fappening, The Celebrity Nude Photos League, Gamergate, QAnon, and a connection to the racially motivated 2022 mass shootings in Buffalo. Good fucking riddance. The problem with all of this is, of course, if you get the rats out of your house, they just go to someone else's.

Yep. So I jacked that party. So one thing is we knew where they all were and there was a site that was well known that people could go and monitor. Now there will just be another site that's going to take some time for people to find it because they're not going to stop. I'm looking at them over and soyjack.party redirects to soyjack.st. And I'm looking at it and there's a screenshot of the phpMyAdmin backend.

And I'm looking at the – they've got a bunch of tables up here. And one of them, which is the biggest table, which is 8.1 gig, is Dell underscore log, which is probably the delete log of posts that were deleted, which means if they're tracking them, they weren't. so exactly way to go there set visibility to zero zero say it with me kids say it with me

Yeah, good riddance to 4chan. I mean, I spent quite a bit of time on there in my youth. I mean, I looked around a few times because how could you not if you grew up on the internet? But yeah, it became pretty much a dump. I mean, it's all many things to many people. I know that there are a lot of good boards on there that where people really talked about real shit and all that. But of course, they did not moderate.

There were some very fine people on both sides, Brian. Yes, there were fine people on both sides. I can't believe I actually tried to defend 4chan there. Fuck him. I know. Where the fuck are you going with this, dude? I don't know, man. It's fucking early, and I haven't had enough of my single-use coffees. I haven't destroyed the planet enough yet. I got a Blue Origin flight in a fucking hour, so let's get moving. Let's go. Somewhere on Tumblr, I have a best of 4chan.

I collected memes off of there for years. I've got to find it. I'll drop it in the Discord when I find it. It was a great meme generator. See, defending it again. I know. I know. And the funny thing is I actually made a story out of it. I took all the memes. I had like 100 memes and I put them in order so they all kind of worked off each other one.

It is so it is so inappropriate to go back and read that thing now. I'm like, it was it was it was totally fine back then. I'm like, oh, I shouldn't have said that. That's oh, that's not good. But it's still there. I'll go find it and put it in the Discord. So go to GOG.show and find out. Remember, kids, culture actually moved the right direction for quite some time. And when they say make America great again. It means bring back those 4chan memes. That's it. That's it.

Okay, moving on. A popular AI-powered code editor, Cursor, is in hot water after its AI support agent. invented a fake policy triggering user outrage and subscription cancellations. Remember, kids, from what I learned from the learned and wise professor of generative AI, this is a feature, not a bug, and it's not supposed to be used for certain purposes.

A developer noticed Cursor was logging them out when switching between devices. When they emailed support, Sam replied it was, quote, expected behavior, and that using multiple machines required separate subscriptions, something that sounded official but wasn't real. Turns out Sam is a chatbot and the policy never existed. The AI completely hallucinated it. Feature not a bug.

After users believed the bogus claim and shared it on Reddit and Hacker News, backlash exploded. Devs called it a, quote, UX disaster. and began canceling accounts en masse, citing broken trust. Cursor has since apologized, but the damage is done, highlighting the real risk of putting AI agents in customer-facing roles without human oversight. There you go. Thanks, Sam. Can I get an amen?

Can I get an AI men? Oh, hey, look at you. Your own personal Jesus. Yep. All right. The Pentagon's elite tech unit, the defense digital service known as the SWAT team of nerds. horrible, horrible, horrible name, has resigned en masse after clashing with Musk. Doge. Yes, the DDS, which once built tools for Afghanistan operations, Ukrainian military aid and drone detection, had hoped to collaborate with Doge on automating defense systems using AI. The previous story about Cursor.

Yeah, seriously. Don't give it a gun. Jesus. Instead, they were sidelined, and director Jennifer Hay and 11 team members are taking a deferred resignation package effective May 1st. Great. With their exit, critical initiatives like fighting adversarial drones and modernizing the Pentagon's tech talent are effectively dead, while officials say the chief digital and AI office will absorb the work. There's an AI office. Oh, God. Yeah. Insiders say the DDS specialized role will not be replaced.

And this is just the latest in Doge's scorched earth campaign to slash non-essential defense. But I would say that's a fucking central. Yep. The fucking central. Well, see, this is the real problem, Jason. And even if there are elections. Again, which is questionable. 50-50. We're 50-50 on that. And even if they are free and fair, which is even also more questionable if there are ones. And even if a sane party or a person, I don't care where they come from.

just sane, gets in charge and tries to steer the ship back a little bit. We're losing a generation. Easy. It's going to take decades. decades to get back to where we were to get back to the start line oh absolutely absolutely and that's that's what i mean we're just talking about that story there i i could spend 45 minutes just talking about how they're destroying the education system and science Yeah, that's also going to take quite some time to rebuild.

Speaking of elections, Brian, I'm going to throw in a link to a newsletter that I read over on Substack called the Smart Elections. Substack, and it's called What Does a Corrupt Election Look Like? It's what they're trying to get us to. This is basically from a watchdog that does track elections and corruption in elections. And there are some pretty interesting numbers in this particular issue. So I highly recommend going to check that out.

If you just kind of want to follow along at home, I recommend subscribing to that sub stack as well. It is free. I think you can pay if you want to, but. Yeah, just this particular one, well worth the read. It's called What Does a Corrupt Election Look Like? And it shows how the numbers change from point A to point B quite a bit.

Moving on. All right. Tesla is putting the final touches on his retro futuristic charge and dine concept in Hollywood. That's going to go great given all the protests recently. I know. Located at 7001 West Santa Monica Boulevard. Meeting place. The two-story diner features rooftop seating, 30 EV charging stalls, car hop service, and drive-in movie screens. Yay! It's the first of what could become a nationwide chain of Tesla diners. It won't. No it won't.

Here's the sad part. L.A. chef Eric Greenspan, known for his gourmet burgers and grilled cheese sandwiches. was tapped to lead the kitchen, but now seems hesitant to be publicly associated with the project. You go greenie. Smart man. I love Eric. He's awesome. The Hollywood site formerly is Shakey's Pizza, so you know exactly where that is, right, Brian? I do. Yep. I've been to that Shakey's a million times.

It's been in the works since 2017 and is finally coming online, which just makes it nice because it's another place to go protest Tesla. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Direct address and you can even get a burger. Yeah, if you want. Yep. They say an opening date has not yet been announced. I don't think it's going to open. Yeah. It's almost done. I want to go over there, but it's in the middle of Hollywood and I hate Hollywood.

It's like, I don't know. Yeah. When you come up to town next time, maybe we'll meet there and we'll do our show from there. Live from the empty parking lot. Yeah. There's another great article I saw this week called The Inside the $45 Billion Cash Burn at Reality Labs. So Meta's Reality Labs division has lost nearly $50 billion in the last five years.

And Yahoo Finance spoke to several former employees about what's happening. And it's basically bad management and Zuckerberg being an idiot. So it's a good read. It's a total good read. But yeah, that's what it kind of comes down to. They burn through 50. Billion dollars for the B. And hat tip to Kenneth over on Discord for this one.

A new study reveals that code generating AI tools like ChatGPT and open source models are hallucinating software packages, literally making them up. And it's putting the software supply chain at risk. Researchers tested 16 major AI models and found that nearly 20% of all recommended packages didn't actually exist.

Love it. And people might be going, oh, what's the risk of that? Well, the risk is hackers can create malicious packages using the fake names, upload them to public repositories and trick developers into installing malware. Yep. There you go. There you go. 20%. I used ChatGPT to just whip up a quick HTML framework for Jason.FYI, the site that I was working on, my personal site last week. It was okay. I ended up rewriting like 80% of it.

But, you know, as a starting point, which is what they're good for, starting point, not final code. Yeah, which makes me just, somebody sent me a video of Eric Schmidt this week saying that Google is going to be like getting rid of all programmers in the next couple of years.

And I'm just like, no, no, they're not. This is marketing. It's marketing bullshit because they spent so much money. They have to spend the public to say that this is going to be the greatest thing ever while they know it's not. hoping against all hope that someday it will be so that the, you know, the torches and pitchfork people don't come to the door saying, where's all our money gone? And you say, well, we burned it on nothing. So I don't know.

This AI shit is pissing me off. Pissing me off. Yep. Yep. Yep. As it should. Yeah. And there's a great article by Max Bolingbroke over at his blog called The Business of the AI Lab. Well, here's the interesting thing. This guy's about to join Anthropic as an employee. But he wanted to write an article about, you know, how these generative AI labs are actually going to make money. Here's the long and the short of it. He doesn't know, and he doesn't know if it's actually going to work either.

So why not join Anthropic just to make a few bucks while you're waiting? It's a long read, but it is a very good read. So I highly recommend it if you're kind of curious about where you see these big companies spending bajillions of dollars on this AI training and AI systems, where they're headed. Because if you run the numbers, Brian...

Everybody on the planet soon is going to have to describe to these at like 50 bucks a month just to keep the lights on. So it's something's got to give and it's going to give soon, I think. I hope so.

We got a quick note in from Pedro. He says, a friend sent me a link that they were listening to The Cure's Killing an Arab on Pandora. Now, Brian, you and I have talked about Killing an Arab on Apple Music quite... quite a few times because it's one of those censorship deals where they just pull it, even though you have a local copy on your computer.

and you sync your Apple music library to it, it still scrubs it. And it's really annoying. So he threw in a link to Killing an Arab on Pandora. And the thing is, you can only get it if it randomly plays on a radio station. But it is proof that it's there. So that's cool. It exists. It does exist. It's a good song. What doesn't exist anymore is Apple's Mythic Quest. I know you got into that show and season four just wrapped up, but...

Sad note that they did not renew it, but Apple actually pulled a pretty cool move. They let the creators go back and recut the last episode to give it an ending. which I thought was nice. I think that came out this week. I'll have to go back and watch it.

You know, Mythic Quest, I thought the first season was hilarious. Like I was dying, but it was diminishing returns from there. I don't know what happened with the writing or just it was the strength of the concept and not so much, you know, they just try to do normal sitcom stuff with it and it got...

a little less interesting so i'm fine with it ending there wasn't really anywhere else for them to go with it and i'm glad that they they could have probably just ended it without a without an edit but i'll go back and watch it and report back next week and maybe it's better so okay Okay, I wish those assholes over at Apple would just give Sonny a decent ending since it ended on a cliffhanger. Right. I was really getting into that show. It pisses me off.

And if you really do miss Mythic Quest, they did actually release, it says, go deeper into the Mythic Quest universe in these four standalone stories. They're called SideQuest. I watched all four of them, so you don't have to. Don't. Okay. Okay. Michael, like most side quests, a waste of time. Yes. And we had movie night with the kid, and he picked the movie. He's been wanting to watch this. Night of the Zoo Pockle.

And this is basically inspired by, and I believe Clive Barker actually helped work on it, but it's still for kids. Really? It was really good. Oh, wow. I've got to say it's animated and it's mostly for kids, but it was funny. It was clever. The songs are great. The characters are fun. You might even actually enjoy this, Jason. Okay.

I, it's funny. I was a huge Clive Barker fan back in the nineties. Oh, me too. Yeah. I haven't heard anything from him in the two thousands, but well, you got night of the zoo apocalypse. All right. What was it on? What? streaming service it is well it was just in theaters and i actually had to rent i think i rented it from apple because sweden yeah you're gonna be going to sweden it'll probably be free on a streamer soon but right now it's uh it's not

Okay, I'll just wait for that to hit. Look, man, $6.99 to rent a movie versus like $50 to $60 if all three of us go to a theater. I'm fine with that. Can't beat that. Can't beat that. And waiting two weeks for it to come out on streaming for free also can do that too. The ramp from theater to free on streaming is so fast now. I love it personally. I'm down. Black Mirror season seven. I watched all six episodes. All right. And I went back for episode six, the USS Callister.

Yeah. Story. I went back and watched the original first and then watched the second one into infinity right after it. So it was like almost three hours of story. It was awesome. It was amazing. You have to remember at some point that you are actually watching Black Mirror and there's not going to probably be a happy ending. Yes. They do that thing where like halfway through, you're like, this might just be like a good. Oh, fuck. It's Black Mirror. I forgot. I forgot.

But I think the whole season is solid. The first episode is just a punch in the gut. So good. And the second one, meh. The Paul Giamatti one was unbelievably excellent because it's Paul Giamatti. Yeah, he's fantastic. I just thought this entire season was was excellent. Like I said, the only one that really it was still good, but I didn't think lived up to it was episode two.

But yeah, I am all in. I wish they would just make these every week. I would be down with that because the sadness and dystopia from Black Mirror actually cheers me up when I have to go do work for this show and look at the news. At some point, I'll actually have to get in and watch it. I just haven't yet. Yeah, it's fun. It's fun. There are some ones that are actual pick-me-up.

This season. So that's shocking. Yeah. I mean, they've been doing that. They've been sprinkling in some that leave you like, you know, with a little bit of a little bit of joy, but generally sad. Speaking of sadness, Daredevil season, not Daredevil season, whatever, because it's a whole new show. Yes. The new Daredevil. Season one.

Season one of the, yes, the new Daredevil ended this week. And did you get a chance to check the finale out? I did. I thoroughly enjoyed it. Definitely teed it up for, he is reborn. Absolutely. He is absolutely reborn. So I'm really looking forward to season two. Yeah. Hopefully we don't have to wait like five years for this. I know. I know.

because I'm glad that they had some more Punisher in there. I'm always a big fan of seeing Frank Castle kick some ass, so that was good. Happy they brought Karen back as well. Exactly. That was good. It was good. I thought all in all, it was a good wrap-up to the season. Now we need them to do a little side quest, call it Weekend at Foggy's. There we go. I could just carry you around dead foggy with him.

Oh, my God. Not funny. Not funny, Brian. Too soon. Too soon. You laughed. I did. I did. I lulled. The Last of Us is back for season two for no lulls whatsoever. Yeah, I can't get into that one either. Too bleak. I love it. I love it. I thought it was a good start to the season, so happy about that. G20 on Amazon Prime this week.

rage quitting it because it was so poorly written and so cheesy and so bad there's a helicopter scene where a helicopter lands and you can tell it's a toy somebody is lowering down by like a fishing line but it hits the thing it is so bad it is so bad And the thing that gets me is like, I just, Kara Swisher, who was raving about it, saying it was so much fun. It's great.

You love this. It's oh, it's so much fun. It is a piece of garbage. This is how she tries to get hired to do her companion podcast for shows. She talks them up and then she gets hired to do a companion podcast. That and just to suck up to her celebrity friends. Yeah. Look, look, the celebrities that she knows that are in this show, they know it's garbage. They just they just they know it. They were there. They read the script. They know it's shit. Don't stop blowing smoke up their ass.

Oh, man. No, it's not good. I just saved you an hour and a half of your life, so skip G20. All right. 28 Years Later has a new trailer. Watch it. Pretty good. Pretty good. I'm looking forward to that. Yeah, it's amazing. They shot a lot of that on an iPhone 15 Pro Max. Looks pretty damn good. With $300,000 of add-ons tacked to it. A little bit more than an iPhone, I gotta say. Yeah, yeah. Didn't use a toy helicopter.

No, they didn't. No, no. So that's coming out on June 28th. See what they did there? 28 years later, June 28th. Ha ha. Got it. Yeah. Yep. And finally, I told you he was a real piece of shit, Brian. My friend Bill Maher, who I've never fucking liked. Yeah, basically went to went to go see Trump and. blew him is the only way that i could really describe what happened with him and i stopped watching a show a while back it's a little too ridiculous like god whatever whatever bill whatever

Now, you've lost every last ounce of credibility you had, which wasn't a whole lot. That's okay. Just like Adam Carolla, he's pivoting to the MAGA market. Yeah. Yeah. That's not going to work out for you. Read the room, dude. Read the room. If even X is turning on him, then use. Yeah. Basically, you're a pussy, Bill. You're just a pussy.

And I watched a show called Bringing Down a Dictator, which is kind of it's a documentary about the book that I talked about before called Blueprint for Revolution. I talked about that a couple of weeks ago. with Sergei Popovich about what was happening in Yugoslavia about Slobodan Milosevic, narrated by Martin Sheen. It's about an hour long. It's about Optor and how they kind of...

work their magic over there. It's really cool. Highly recommend it. It's only in hours for free on YouTube. Link is in the show notes. All right. Apps and doodads. Brian, we got our MacBook M4 Airs. We did.

I love the bigger screen because I had a 13 before and I got the 15 this time, which is great because I don't really get much time up in the office with the... wrap around cool samsung monitors that we both have so to have the extra screen real estate when i'm just sitting downstairs and trying to bash some stuff out is fantastic Other than that, I feel the same way as I felt for most of my Apple upgrades recently, which is... Yeah, it works. It works.

I haven't noticed much of a difference. My M2 that I had was pretty fast. I upgraded memory and hard drive. They're not really hard drives anymore, are they? SSDs. So I have more of both of those. So I have less errors and less concerns about storage. Other than that, it's... It's a beautiful little machine and it's not that much different. And within about, oh, I don't know, two hours, I forgot that I was even working on a new system.

I love mine. I love mine. Yeah, it's great. Yeah, I loaded it with 32 gig of RAM and a 2 terabyte SSD because I needed the space. I've noticed everything definitely loads faster than my M1 Pro, which was nice. And even from the 14 to the 15, there's a definite difference. It's nice to have the extra reel.

Absolutely. The only thing that bugs the shit out of me is there's the, it's bigger. So there's the track pad is just fucking ginormous. Yeah. My watch hits the side is I had to take my watch off every time I'm going to use it for more than five minutes. Yeah, I think that's the one thing is like my muscle memory just because it's a bigger trackpad. It's like, it's different. It's just slightly different.

Yeah, I find myself mistyping a lot more, so I have to get used to that. I have four different keyboards that I use throughout the day, so it's another one that my muscle memory has to kick into. But I have to say, I miss my SD card reader already. It was really nice having that built in. Yeah, just get yourself a nice little deck to plug into and you're good. That's what I have to do now, though. I have to go buy another fucking Guga doodad just so I can plug in my SD card.

Back to dongle life. It's a dongle life for us. I found out that when I send back in my M1 Pro as part of the trade-in program, I get to keep the power supply from that, which is – Yeah, it's nice because it's MagSafe, too. So I get basically an extra $100 power supply to work with the... Oh, that was actually one of the things I did want to mention about my Air upgrade. The new power supply has two USB-C ports in it, which is fucking great. Oh, I didn't get that one. I got the Unified.

Because you can plug in your, you know, if I just take that with me now, I can plug in my laptop and charge my phone. It's phenomenal. Yeah, but your laptop charges slower. Whatever. Yeah. You can't beat physics, I know.

i know okay what else we got well apple has not abandoned its previously rumored plans to release a less expensive vision pro according to bloomberg mark german reports in the power on newsletter this weekend that the company has two new models in development one that's lighter and cheaper than the first gen and one that would tether to a Mac, meaning the ones that the rest of us are going to buy.

While Apple had once considered the latter setup for AR glasses, it shifted the idea over to the Vision Pro so it can create an ultra-low latency system for streaming, a user's Mac display, or for connecting to a high-end enterprise application. The ultimate goal, though, is reportedly to create AR glasses that are practical and comfortable enough to be worn like regular glasses, and the next iterations of the Vision Pro are seeing steps towards getting there.

Government reports that Tim Cook is hell-bent on creating an industry-leading product before MediCan, which shouldn't be too difficult. No, it shouldn't be because they've got the hardware chops and the software chops that Meta doesn't have. Yeah. I'm fine with tethering. That's cool with me. Yeah, me too. I'm not going to be going out in public wearing that like some other twats are doing. Absolutely not.

No, no. I've already got a birth control personality. I don't need a birth control headset, too. There's still hope. So I logged into X for one of the first times ever, just to check and see what was going on with, especially with our GOG podcast, GOG podcast on X, which we never really look at. But Ilya... Bezdilev from Metacast.

actually found our podcast way back in episode 661 when we were talking about overcast and they had done their own revamp and we were looking at other stuff oh yeah he wrote us and said we've accidentally discovered your episode 661 where you mentioned our app medicast

It was funny AF. We had a good laugh. We shared the clip on our podcast too, where we actually take your feedback seriously. It's here starting from five minutes and 59 seconds and it's over on YouTube. So I included that link in the show notes and they actually agree with us as like. what the fuck is the point in seeing the artwork for the show? Let's just get a list of shows. Okay. Now whether they actually did it or not, I don't know. Yeah.

Well, I'll have to go check out Metacast and find out. Yeah. Well, that's what they'd like us to do. They want us to look and mention them again. Well, we just mentioned them again, so we can do that without having to go look at the app. So, mission accomplished, Ilya. All right. Mission accomplished. Oh, and Spotify was down this week. Did you miss them at all? No, because I mostly switched over to Apple Music on the Ladies on the Tube, so I did not notice.

Yeah, me either. I use Spotify like once in a blue moon when I'm in my car sometimes. But since I edit podcasts all day long, I never get to listen to music anymore. I got to say, though, so far this year, Daniel Ek has sold $239 million worth of his stock. Maybe he could have used that for infrastructure. I don't know. Maybe. To keep the site up. Maybe artists. Yeah, because that's a lot of merch that indie bands have to go sell to make up for that Spotify has ruined. Thanks, Daniel.

The Society of Authors have published an open letter calling for UK Secretary of State Lisa Nandy to hold Meta accountable for possible copyright infringement regarding its LLM Llama 3. Signatories include successful British authors Richard Osman, Kazu Ishiguro, Val McDermott, and Sarah Waters. So this is kind of the same thing that's been going on here with Sarah Silverman and everybody else.

authors are banding together and saying, hey, hold on a second. Come on. We know you used our stuff. You didn't pay us. You didn't ask us. Let's do something about this. Will anything happen? Probably not. It's good to see them across the pond going after it as well. What's interesting is I was thinking about this the other day. They have a simple way to fight back against these things. Look, if you say that our work is not worth anything, make your AI without it.

and tell me how good it is. If it doesn't work without it, then it must have value. So, ergo, pay me, bitch. Yes. That's it. That's how you do it. And you're done. And Amazon is going to start using AI as well to generate recaps for book series on Kindle. This new feature could make it easier to get into the latest release in the series, especially if it's been some time since you've read the previous books.

The new recaps feature is part of the latest software update and the company compares it to previously on segments you can watch for TV shows. Short after the feature rolled out, users talked about it on social media, wondering if Amazon is using generative AI to write the series summaries, and they are.

So good luck with that. You know what? I actually would appreciate even more than that, Amazon. I have signed up for notifications from authors a gazillion times. I never fucking get them. I don't need to remember what was going on in the series. I need to know when a new one comes out. That would be peachy. Because I used to go to a bookstore and there they would be.

Yeah. Yeah, it is. So, you know, you know, the ones that I get, I get one every 10 minutes from Brandon Sanderson, who shits out a new book every day. I get one from nobody else on my list. And I know that they've released books. It drives me mad. And I can't get rid of the Brandon Sanderson one.

No matter how many times I unsubscribe. My guess is publishers have a back end and they've made it the publisher's responsibility to go in and send these notifications. They're not doing it internally. That's just a guess. I have no idea, but it would certainly explain it because publishers are fucking useless.

Yeah, no shit. No shit. Oh, well. So I got a note from David. Well, I think we got a note from David Shackner over on Blue Sky. And he said, I recommend you read The Warehouse by Rob Hart if you haven't already. And it's about he hears us talking about people working at Amazon and not being able to afford anything from it. So I went and picked up The Warehouse by Rob Hart.

It's a great book. It is a fantastic book. It's a near future book about what Amazon could be if run by a psychotic demagogue. It is. It literally is just an extension of what Amazon could become in the future. It was good. It was really good. I liked it. Then I picked up Blood in the Machine, The Origins of the Rebellion Against Big Tech by Brian Murphy. I'm about 10% into it. Love it so far. It's kind of a history of the Luddite movement and like an actual historical telling. It's not –

It just tells you the truth about what it was, not all the bullshit that everybody's come to believe. So I'm thoroughly enjoying it so far. It's kind of dry, but that's what I'm looking for in a historical book sometimes. I just want facts, just the facts, ma'am. And I was tipped off to another book coming out called The AI Con, How to Fight Big Tech's Hype and Create the Future We Want by Emily M. Bender and Alex Hanna.

It's a smart, incisive look at the technology sold as artificial intelligence, the drawbacks and pitfalls of technology sold under this banner, and why it's crucial to recognize the many ways in which AI hype covers for a small set of power-hungry actors at work and in the world. So I could just read the news that we talk about every week, but I think I'll just get it all in one go in one book. So I pre-ordered that that comes out next month. All right. And finally, it's Easter weekend.

So I would be remiss if I did not mention the best Easter book that one person could ever, ever read, and it is Lamb, the Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal, by Christopher Moore. The best book on Jesus ever written. I'm including all of them. I will, including the Bible. Yeah, no, I 100% agree with you. I would just say that it doesn't need to be Easter. This book can be read anytime. It is one of my all-time favorite.

books uh it is probably the book i have bought the most because i have bought this and just handed this out like fucking pez to friends like left right and center i was like you gotta read this you gotta read this I bought this book at least 35 times. Me too. One of those ones. Yeah. It's just, it's always the go-to gift because it is so fucking good. And I think.

Christmas also is a good time to read this book. Yes. And then you can also read his The Stupidest Angel, a short story that goes along with it for Christmas time. And we should just point out that he has a new book coming out. This one is not a noir book. so I'm very happy he's returning to his normal thing. It is called Anima Rising, and it comes out May 13th. Oh, no shit. I didn't get the notification from Amazon. Neither did I. I follow him on Blue Sky.

I do too. I don't know how I missed that. I follow him there too. Oh, well, I think I'm pre-ordering that right now. Yep, that was a good time. I also read a book. I read Lollapalooza, The Uncensored Story of Alternative Rock's Wildest Festival by Richard Beanstalk and Tom Bajour. I think if anybody remembers, I watched the Lollapalooza documentary that had just come out. I think it's the same people. So it just gets a little deeper into the stories.

A lot of fun, a lot of reminiscing. I went to all of the Lollapaloozes until they decided to fuck it up by having Metallica headline. And I was like, I'm out at that point. I love Metallica. It was good stuff. And I'm working through a book that I got from Discord. I asked for recommendations and some people threw out some titles. And the one that caught my eye was I'm starting to worry about this Black Box of Doom, a novel by Jason Pargin.

And about halfway through. So hopefully I'll have that wrapped up by the next time we do at the library, which is starting to become like a once a month segment because fucking life. How is it so far? Can I get a halfway? You know what? I think I'm going to have to find out how it sticks the landing. I'm intrigued. I like the author's premise. But I do find that it doesn't hold me sometimes. So I have to force myself to get back into it. But that happens sometimes. So we'll see.

Okay, cool. Well, I look forward to your review. I will get back to you on – I'm pretty sure that – The Blood and the Machine, The Origins of the Rebellion Against Big Tech was probably going to stick the landing. Well, we kind of know how it's going. Yeah, we know how that would end. But I do definitely recommend The Warehouse. That was a good one. That's on my list. The dark side.

Ha! With Dave. Welcome to the Dark Side with Dave. Podcast super host Dave Bittner decodes all things cyber on the Cyber Wire every day. Exposes deception with Joe Kerrigan on hacking humans. dives deep into privacy with Ben Yellen on Caveat, breaks down industrial cybersecurity on ControlLoop, and even brings the laughs on only malware in the building. Hi Dave, how you doing today? I'm doing all right. Happy almost Easter. Got a ham in the fridge.

Yeah, for me, it basically means that I've stocked up on Cadbury eggs. Oh, yes. Did I ever tell you guys about the time I almost died eating a Cadbury egg? No. You tell. So this is years ago. I was sitting in my basement on the couch watching TV. By myself, as one does. And I unwrapped a delicious Cadbury cream egg. and probably bit the top off of it as I do, and I'm enjoying it. And then I put the other half of it in my mouth and immediately started choking on it.

Oh, like, you know, eyes bugging out of your head, kind of like. Okay, I'm going to die. So fortunately, I didn't lose all of my wits. And I got up off of the couch and basically threw myself onto the arm of the couch to self Heimlich. All right. Out came the Cadbury egg, and I'm here today to tell the tale.

Now, the question being, of course, did you have a second Cadbury egg so you could still get your fix, or did you go ahead and re-eat that one? Did you actually just put it back in with a little five-second esophagus rule? Yeah, lick to the couch clean.

Sure. No, I think I was – there was plenty of adrenaline in my body at that point and I wasn't – I no longer needed a sugary snack to lift my spirits. So – But I wondered, in retrospect, what it would have been like for my obituary to say... choked died while eating a cadbury cream egg hilarious this is why you need a legal contract with your loved ones that say if you die in a stupid manner here is the official story you will tell

Yeah. I mean, I could have forever been on those like wacky headstone websites, right? So anyway, that's my story. Well, we've got some new Disney news. Disney is reimagining the Walt Disney Studios portion of its Disneyland Paris Park. I have not made it there yet, and someday I would like to. I haven't either. My wife and I were talking about this recently, that it's definitely on our list, but...

Well, hold on until they finish this, because they are building Disney Adventure World, which will have some new attractions. Two of them will be themed around the 1994 Lion King movie and 2009's Up, with both getting their first big theme park attractions to celebrate there.

30th and 15th anniversaries respectively. They reveal construction on Lion King's previously announced and unnamed ride, which it will begin in the fall. It's a log flume ride that will take them beneath the caves between Pride Rock. followed by a 52-foot high descent. So it sounds a lot like Splash Mountain. It is Splash Mountain. It's going to be their Splash Mountain. It is Splash Mountain. Which is fine. Because as we all remember, the part in the movie with the caves beneath...

Pride Rock, right? Yes, and the... Rivers that they all floated down. Right, right. We all remember that. Yeah, absolutely. And up is just going to be a carousel kind of thing. Yeah, it's one of those swing things. I put a picture of it in the show notes here. It's one of those. Things where you sit on the chair with the chains that hang down and it swings and it goes up in the air. They've got that in California Adventure.

Oh, do they? Well, it's not up-themed, but they have one, yes. Okay. They had one of those at Great America outside of Chicago. In Gurney, Illinois, too. As a fat kid, I've never been on one because I was always terrified. I would break the chains. You didn't notice all the adults that were on it that weighed a lot more than you? No, well, I was a big...

Big kid. Not that big. I was a big kid. I've been to Chicago and seen adults, Jason. That's true. That's true. Yeah. My recollection of these chain swing things is that they would often have one at our local county fair. And our county fairgrounds back up to... I-70, which is a coast-to-coast highway. And so they would put this swing thing like right up against the back fence. So when you went up there.

And you went on the ride and you're swinging around. I knew I was getting tossed into the middle of that highway when the chains failed. And so not only would I fall to my death, but then I get run over multiple times by. 18 wheelers and cars so it added an extra bit of fear to it. I don't know about these. I mean...

On the one hand, I guess I'm rolling my eyes a little bit about re-jiggering Splash Mountain to be the Lion King. But on the other hand, okay. I guess it strikes me as being a little lazy on Disney's part. to just use the same ride mechanism and re-skin it. But on the other hand, it's a great ride mechanism. And I just rode the Tiana reskin, which I thought was great.

So, you know, I guess I'm 50-50 on it. The other thing, the upride, I mean, it's just an off-the-shelf ride to have something else for people to get on. We'll spank some paint on that and call it a day, yeah. Right, right. So, yeah. Okay. Whatever. In Star Wars news. If you live in the UK, some good news. They're going to be re-screening the original Star Wars print.

I can see that anytime I want via Sweden. Yeah. I've got it on my hard drive. I've got it. Thanks to you. Yeah, exactly. But if you want to go smell some popcorn that smells like feet. and do it with a bunch of friends. You can go over to the UK and check it out because they've got a print that has been in storage.

For years, decades even, it's been stored at a temperature of negative five degrees, so it's got to be pristine and chilly and cool. And brittle. And very brittle. Yeah, hopefully they bring it up to room temperature before they put it on the grill. It might be the last time it's shown, so go see it quick.

But they're going to crack it out for two screenings. They've got permission to do that. So it should be kind of fun. So link in the show notes if you want to go get the deets on that. But would you guys ever go see that again in the theater? Oh yeah, for sure. Yeah, if they did this... If they did a 70mm roadshow version of the original Star Wars in Technicolor, I'd be there.

Yeah, absolutely. I'm pretty sure I saw, because like many kids of our generation, I saw Star Wars multiple times in its original release. Pretty sure that one of them I saw was the 70 millimeter version at one of our local movie palaces. But what's interesting about that is that there were multiple versions of the movie. So if you went to see the 70mm version, it wasn't exactly the same as the 35mm. There were some audio differences and some minor edit differences.

Even this kind of thing is like, well, which is the actual real version? Oh, God. What's the canonical version? I actually saw it, and the first time I saw it was in... drive-in movie theater in Des Plaines, Illinois, in the back of my dad's convertible catalog. He had a white Cadillac Eldorado with red leather interior. It was swanky. Oh, man. And we had the top down, and I sat on the back in the back seat. That was the first time I saw Star Wars.

So the surround sound was the people in the car behind you smooching. Yeah. Very nice. Yeah, I'd go see this in a second. No doubt about it. I'd be first in line. Definitely. Well, they are having Star Wars. I can't. What's the event called? Star Wars Celebration Japan is going on right now. So and speaking of Star Wars in theaters, we have news about the next two movies that will actually be in theaters.

take that with a grain of salt because we've had a lot of news about movies that were supposed to be in theaters that have just disappeared but uh They've showed, I guess, a little bit of footage from the Mandalorian and Grogu, including shots, some behind the scenes shots of Sigourney Weaver in the orange flight suits, which is pretty cool.

I didn't know she was signed up for a Star Wars project. She is going to be in The Mandalorian and Grogu as something or other. It doesn't make me wonder who is the actor that has been in the most sci-fi franchises. I'm like, okay, so now she's in Star Wars. We got Alien. We got Ghostbuster. We've got Avatar. We've got Galaxy Quest. She was in Wall-E. She was, you know, what else, man? Who's been in everything else except for her? It's hard to, we need her in Star Trek, a real Star Trek.

I would have guessed Harrison Ford, but she's got way more than he does. Yeah, exactly. And they announced a new movie that will be coming to theaters, I guess, in about two years. It's called Star Wars Starfighter, and will be starring Ryan Gosling, of all people. What? Yep. Not an April Fool's joke.

A bridge too far. A bridge too far. You know, I heard the news and initially I got really frustrated and I was like, why Ryan Gosling? Why big actors? All the good stuff is like these virtual unknowns. And I was like, oh yeah, like Natalie Portman and Ewan McGregor. A good point. Yeah, those unknowns. Yeah, well, like Mark Hamill. Yes, he was. I mean, other than Corvette Summer, of course, which is a classic.

Was it? Yeah. I think so. Yeah. I'm pretty sure that was, that was his first movie after I thought. Yeah. Harrison Ford. Yeah. That was his, well, no, he did a, he did American graffiti. Yeah. He was American graffiti. Yes. So. Well, Ryan Gosling ruined Blade Runner. So I don't want to, you know, he was not good in that. I don't think. What's the name of the female lead in Corvette Summer? She was also in Ghostbusters. She was the office manager in Ghostbusters.

Oh, yeah. What was her name? Annie Potts. Annie Potts. She was smoking in Corvette Summer. She really was. She was also in some of the Brad Pack movies, right? What was it, 16 Candles? I think she was in that one. Was she? I can't remember. She was in one of them. I can't remember. Yeah. Well, if you want to see Annie Potts, as you have not seen her before, if you've only seen her in Ghostbusters.

It's worth a look. Well, there's this thing called the internet, Dave. I know. Well, I'm just saying, go Corvette summer, Annie Potts. Just, yeah. Just trust me on this. Yeah. Yeah. So I have a couple things I wanted to share. Sad, sad times here in the great state of Maryland. The last Radio Shack in Maryland is closing its doors. My deepest condolences. Thank you very much. There's an article here from the Baltimore Sun. A couple things caught my eye. They talk about Cindy Henning, who...

is the store's manager and sole employee. You know, it's funny. At the very end of the article, they ask you for your phone number and address. That's right. That's right. They offer to give you a free battery. Yeah, so evidently the owner of this store passed away in January at the age of 79. His son took over. They started out with a TV repair shop in the 50s.

And they started carrying Radio Shack products. So they were a franchise, Radio Shack franchise store, which is different from a company store. Uh, and, uh, they kept the name going until, well, I guess two weeks from now they're going to close down. Uh, and that's that. It's kind of amazing. Are you going to go? No, it's too far away. Too far away. Maryland. Maryland's like 10 miles wide. It can't be that far.

Los Angeles is bigger. Yeah. Come on. Well, that's true, but it's still a couple hours away. So I will. So now we know how far your love for Radio Shack will actually go physically. And that's outside of it. If I could walk there. Yeah. Can I Uber for under $20? I mean, time was. Time was. You could walk down Main Street and there would be multiple Radio Shacks. When I worked at Radio Shack, there were more Radio Shacks than McDonald's. It's the truth. Honest to God.

So another thing I wanted to... Tickled my fancy. There's a group called Super 7 that has been releasing a bunch of Sesame Street action figures, which seems kind of like an oxymoron because how action-packed could your Sesame Street action figures be? But as a lover of all things Sesame Street and particularly The Muppets, I keep an eye on this sort of thing. Well, they've released one that just made me smile ear to ear. They have released...

a action figure of the Alligator King. Now, do you guys remember the Alligator King and his seven sons? All right. Well, I've included a link to the video. It's a bit of a banger, I have to say. It's a good song. I'd say it's kind of a... kind of a New Orleans jazzy kind of thing. But the animation is full of funny gags. My favorite gag is when the Alligator King

takes off his crown to give to his son. Uh, the crown has his hair as part of the crown. So like he has no hair, but he takes the crown off and he puts it on his son. Anyway, it's fun. Funny guy. But I was curious if there were any other songs from Sesame Street that you guys still find yourselves humming. From, you know, from time to time. Are there things that get caught in your mind and become? I have two. I have two. Silent E and L-Y.

Okay. Both done by Tom Lehrer. Yes. Weren't those Electric Company? I thought they were Sesame Street. I'm pretty sure they were Electric Company. You're in the public library when you fall and scrape your knee. But the sign says, quiet, please. So how do you cry? Silently, silently, silent. L-Y. Yeah, you're right. You're right. It was the electric company. Damn. No, they're very good, and they're very funny, and they're Tom Lehrer, so they're great.

So I got nothing. So my kid never really got into Sesame Street, so I didn't go back and watch it a lot when I would have had the opportunity when he was the right age. But there is one song that has always stuck out, and I remember it from my youth, and that is, of course, the famous letter B, done in the style of the Beatles. Yes. Right, right. Wait, wait, wait. I have something here. I have something. Silent E actually did come out on a Sesame Street album. Ha!

It first appeared on an Electric Company album, but then it did come out on a Sesame Street album. Crossover event. Yes, that was the crossover for Silent E. Silent E was written the year I was born, 1971. Huh. Okay. Yeah. I mean, I could be pedantic and say, did it ever actually air on Sesame Street? But I wouldn't do that to you. Yeah, you would. I think I just did. Yeah, you just did. Well, another couple that I thought of. Yep, yep.

Oh, the Yip Yip. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. The Yip Yip, the Martians. Yeah. Yeah. Those guys are great. I love them very much. But the ladybug picnic, do you remember that? I do remember that as I, well, I forgot about it completely until I clicked on the link and then another banger. Yeah. Trust me. This one gets stuck in your head. They tried jump rope, but the rope, it broke. So they just sat around telling knock, knock jokes. Ladybugs 12 at the ladybug picnic.

A really good one. Another full of gags. But then the other thing I was thinking about, there's a song called Lowercase N. And it's actually very sad. It's about this lonely lowercase n who sits by itself on a hill in the middle of nowhere. And it gazes out at the night sky, lonely. by itself, in solitude. And it's a very sad song. And I remember when the song would come on on Sesame Street, I would get sad for this end.

It ends. The rocket comes down from space and delivers a companion end for the original end. So there is a happy ending. Happy ending? Thank you very much. I think it points out something about... Sesame Street, our generation of Sesame Street, which was... It was okay to have things on there that were about sadness and anger and loneliness. And it wasn't all just, you know, happy horse shit that you see on a lot of.

other channels. They were being deliberate about trying to address the full range of emotions that a child goes through. And I'm not sure how much. We have that for kids today in the stuff that they watch, and if we're better off or worse off because of it. Yeah, they absolutely do not do that anymore. You have to seek it out, and it's usually books.

If you want to process any deep emotions with kids. Right. Right. Yeah. I mean, think about, you know, Sesame Street handled Mr. Hooper dying head on. Anyway, I've definitely gone down a Sesame Street song rat hole here. Uh, and I love the alligator King action figure. So that'll be, that'll be in my Christmas stocking. I was, uh, I was scrolling through the link that you sent and it's got some of the other characters that they're doing. And I might, I just.

My brain just flooded with memories. I completely forgot about Sherlock Hemlock. Yes. And I loved Sherlock Hamlock when I was a kid. Yes. I might have to buy that one. And of course, Super Grover. Super Grover was the best. Super Grover. Yeah. I have a special affection for Guy Smiley. Oh, yeah. Guy Smiley is great. Oh, yeah. Guy Smiley. Yeah. Yeah. I always felt that if there was a role that Phil Hartman was born to play...

It would have been Guy Smiley. Oh, live action Guy Smiley. Live action Guy Smiley. That would have been Phil Hartman all the way. Right. Surprise that never came up on Saturday Night Live. That would have been good. Yeah. All right. Well, that's what I have this week, gentlemen. So enjoy your trip down Sesame Street memory lane. And we'll see you guys next time. Closing shout out. Over at Patreon, we've got a new patron, Cat. Welcome, Cat. And from the legacy...

Sure, whatever you call it that Brian puts together for me because I'm... Not very good at this. Matt, Melissa, Richard, Bobby G, Brian, Hit and Run, Michael, James, Mira, and Shanna. Thank you all so much for your continued support over on Patreon. And just a quick reminder, if you want to drop us a little bit of money, three bucks a month.

gets you the show early, ad-free, and in high definition. And you can give us more if you want. We take more, always. And if you want to pay for the whole year, you get a discount. Even better. You get a discount on the actual money that you said you would give us anyway. Everybody wins. Everybody wins. You go to patreon.com slash GOG is what I'm saying. Except for Jason because he can't budget.

True. True. Yeah. He just spends that money like it's going out of style. Anyways, over at PayPal. On health insurance. Over at PayPal, we've got Shari, Natalie, Arcadio, Nathaniel, Andrew, Sloan, and Linda. Thank you all so much. Over at the tip jar, we've got Sean and Theodore. And nobody bought any merch this week. boo and no reviews boo boo and somebody died boo Jed would have appreciated this because he was a happy, laughing man. This one hit me pretty hard. Jed, the fish gold, a.k.a.

Jedham Fisham. He was one of the pioneering Los Angeles DJs on K-Rock. I grew up listening to him. He spent 34 years. on the influential Los Angeles alternative radio station. He introduced me to so many of the bands that I loved when I was a teenager and still love to this day. He passed away at 69 from lung cancer, which had only recently been diagnosed.

He first joined K-Rock back in 1978 when it was still a tiny struggling FM station back in Pasadena, breaking punk rock alternative and new wave bands before anybody else. And he was there for decades, obviously. He left in 2012, finally. But then he came back and he was doing the HD2 station. So I got to hear him every now and then from here when I was able to do that before they geofenced everything because they're fuckers.

and I couldn't listen anymore. I've included a few clips that just kind of reminded me of them. I can't believe we talked a little bit earlier about how things used to fly back in the day that would never fly anymore. This 1997 K-Rock calendar commercial that he made. You absolutely would not be able to make anything like that currently. It is fucking hilarious. He also had a website, djjedthefish.com, and I included the link there where there's some of the audio clips from him on the show.

Back in the day, he was awesome. He was nuts. Nobody was quite as crazy as he was and just massively influential. He will be messed up. He will be missed, yes. I couldn't believe he was 69. He was older than I thought. I thought he was like our age, but yeah. I mean, he started in 78 at K-Rock. That was a fucking long time ago, man. Yeah. I would have been seven years old. You know, I was five. Yeah. So there you go. Until next time, I'm Brian Schulmeister.

And I'm Jason DeFillippo. Thanks for listening to Grumpy Old Geek. Get all the links and goodies from today's episode at GOG.show. Want to keep the grumpiness alive? Toss a few bucks our way at GOG.show slash donate. Every penny helps keep the show on the air. Love the show? Share it. There's a share button in your podcast player. Use it to spread the grumpiness to friends, foes, and everyone in between. We'll love you forever.

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