714: Crossfade This

Grumpy Old Geeks, a weekly talk show hosted by Brian Schulmeister and Jason DeFillippo discussing the finer points of what went wrong on the internet and who's to blame. Welcome to Very Grumpy Old Geeks. I'm Jason DeFillippo. And I'm Brian Schulmeister. Why the very? I don't know if you've seen the news lately, Brian, but... Oh, I had a whole intro, Jason. Oh, well... Continue, by all means. Okay. Jason, yesterday it was 80 degrees and sunny here. Beautiful day.

I woke up this morning. It's 62 degrees. All the leaves have changed. It's fall. Speaking of falling, what the fuck is going on down there? The fall of the United States of America. Wow. Yeah. Yeah. So free speech is dead. Yeah. Yeah. Pretty much. Pretty much. So, yeah, what's new with you guys up there?

Nothing. It's the proverbial joke. We're like the people renting upstairs in a house and downstairs they're running a meth lab. We're all just kind of looking down there going, holy shit. I saw another cartoon. It was like, hey, I've got all these fireworks. I'm just going to let them off inside the apartment. You're the upstairs neighbor going, don't. Yes, please. I have to tell you, though, my Instagram feed has been inundated. Inundated, I say with, please come move to Canada ads.

And, oh, trust me, I've bookmarked all of them. Yeah, it's not that easy, folks. Damn it. It's easier if you're a healthcare professional. Apparently, that's what you're looking for the most. All right. Maybe I will be. Welcome to Grumpy Registered Nurses. We are looking for those types of people. All right, so we're already political. You know what? I don't care. I don't care about being political anymore. We've been right all along. You guys are finally seeing it.

Fuck off. No, we've been left all along, Brian. That's true. You know what we've actually been? We've been centrist. That just doesn't exist anymore. No, it was a great meme going around yesterday. It's like being a centrist in the United States was the scene with the guy on the Pirates of the Caribbean where his ship's getting bombarded on both sides.

and blown up. Yeah. It's like, yeah, that kind of sums it up. All right. Well, we got a little bit of follow-up here. Not that any of this really much matters anymore. No, it does not. But US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has said that the United States and... China, have reached a framework deal on TikTok. I hear the sirens in the background coming for you, even up there, because we just talked about...

stuff. I'm waiting for my door to get knocked in by ice and send me back to Italy or some shit like that. I'm close enough to the border. Maybe this is the initial foray into trying to take over Canada as he kept promising. Anyways, so supposedly there's a deal now. It's between two pirate parties, but the commercial terms have been agreed upon. This comes after the Trump administration extended the TikTok ban for a third time.

earlier this summer, giving the company until September 17th, it's the 19th, to undergo a sale or force a ban in the United States. Obviously, President Trump has been too busy going after comedians to pay any attention to this. So who knows if there's an extension or not at this point?

We don't know what the deal is. We don't know anything about it. We don't know what companies, what people that aren't incredibly worried about the state of the United States right now on social media have been posting theoretically at maybe Cisco, but who the hell knows? Yeah, I think I think it's basically Oracle and.

Whoever else. Is Cisco still even around? I'm at Oracle, not Cisco. I just can't be bothered anymore. If you ever think that money does not buy many, many things, go take a look at a picture of Larry Ellison right now. And he looks like he's about... Maybe 62, 63. The motherfucker's 81 years old. Yeah. It's ridiculous. And in amusing news, we've found out who the mystery buyer of the Fyre Fest brand is. Remember when it went up for sale on eBay or whatever and somebody bought it? LimeWire.

So you're going to get a virus somehow. Okay. One way or another. One way or another. As the headline says, what happens when a peer-to-peer file sharing platform turned NFT marketplace acquires the IP for one of the biggest festival failures in history? Well, we're about to find out. As LimeWire has revealed, it was the mystery buyer of the Fyre Fest brand.

According to a press release, LimeWire's reimagined vision for Fire goes beyond the digital realm and taps into real-world experiences, community, and surprise. Surprise, we've got all your money. He said the CEO, Julian Zedmeyer, elaborated that the vision doesn't involve bringing the festival back. He also joked that the planned experiences would come without the cheese sandwiches. Har, har, har, har. Oh, you're so funny.

We're not here to repeat the mistakes. We're here to own the meme. We're here to make all new ones. Yes. And they're even using the tagline, what could possibly go wrong? And let me list them off for you. Yeah. Oh, let me count the ways. But here's the thing that you buried at the beginning. Turned NFT marketplace. Yes. Okay. So we know right there that, yeah, they're a bunch of shysters.

being carpetbaggers and criminals, probably. But since, you know, it's funny. It's like, okay, LimeWire. I haven't heard of LimeWire since, you know. late 90s, early 2000s. And, you know, so LimeWare is making a comeback. And I just saw in the news this morning, cocaine is apparently making a big comeback in the United States.

I was just like, say what? It's like apparently all the fentanyl has, you know, apparently that problem's been solved since ice has been kicking everybody out and we've been blowing up boats willy nilly in the middle of the ocean with no, you know, cause or proof. all that stuff. So cocaine is resurging. I don't know about you, Brian. I was around a lot of boomers when I was in the entertainment industry. I'm sure you've heard this a million times. Some fucking boomer comes along saying...

Oh, you kids nowadays, you never had Quaaludes. Oh my God, Quaaludes were the best. I wish they would bring back Quaaludes. I incessantly, every time we'd be sitting there in the middle of an eight ball, give me back quaaludes. So maybe, maybe now that everything is going backwards, like, you know, science.

education, healthcare. Maybe we can go back and bring back Quaaludes on the way to the end times. I'm just saying. It's a good way to go out. It's a good way to go out. Yeah, at least it'll calm the masses, you know? If you want to calm populace, bring back Quaaludes.

in the news well just getting back to the normal chaos and uh shit that we're dealing with. Here's more and more firings all in the AI area now. Fiverr is laying off 250 employees to become an AI-first company. Oh, God. CEO Misha Kaufman shared in an essay on X.

The move affects around 30% of the company's staff, the register writes, and it's not uncommon among tech companies in 2025, as we've been reporting regularly. Duolingo announced similar plans to become AI first in April. Kaufman describes this process as returning to startup.

mode and writes that his ultimate goal is to turn Fiverr into an AI-first company that's leaner faster with a modern AI-focused tech infrastructure, a smaller team, each with substantially greater productivity and far fewer management layers. So luckily, everybody that got fired can now work for Fiverr, and Fiverr will be hiring people off Fiverr to do their jobs. Pretty much, yeah. It's like, how many people do you need at Fiverr to begin with, I guess, because it's just, you know.

Should kind of run it. It's just customer service people is all they really need. Yeah. And, you know, some engineers and some fraud prevention and advertising and marketing. Yeah. They actually do need some people. Yeah. That'd be good. Yeah. Yeah.

While they're not the only people, XAI has laid off at least 500 workers from its data annotation team, the company's largest, according to Business Insider. The annotation team is in charge of categorizing and contextualizing raw data used to train Grok so that it can understand the world better. In other words...

Fact fucking checkers. No. Don't need those. Well, I would also like to point out that Grok doesn't understand anything. Yes, exactly. When Reuters asked the company for comment, it did not get a poop emoji. It just referred to a post on X where it had posted a call for specialist AI tutors instead. Okay. They're looking to get more specialist AI tutors and get rid of the data annotation people. So, yeah. All right.

Good luck with that. Well, hundreds of Google AI contractors have been abruptly laid off amid a growing fight over pay and working conditions. Well, if you want to get paid and not have a shitty working condition, don't work for Google, I guess. Sources tell Wired that more than 200 workers hired through outsourcing firms like Hitachi-owned Global Logic were cut last month without warning.

Contractors played a key role in shaping Google's AI products, including the Gemini chatbot and AI overviews. Well, you should fucking fire those people then because those AI overviews suck. They are pretty bad. Yes, they are. So workers allege the layoffs are retaliation against. refers to unionize and demand better wages. Because Google doesn't have enough money to pay anybody, it seems. All right.

Well, as we've always known and talked about many times, large language models largely remain black boxes in terms of what is happening inside them to produce the outputs that they do. But they have also been a bit of a black box in terms of who is using them and what they're doing with them. So OpenAI was some help from the National Bureau of Economic Research, Niebuhr.

Niebuhr, Niebuhr, Niebuhr. Set out to figure out exactly what its growing user base is getting up to with its chatbot. Getting down is what it's doing. It's not getting up, it's getting down. It found a surprising amount of personal use and a closing gender gap among its frequent users. working paper authored by the OpenAI Economic Research Team and Harvard economist David Deming. Researchers found that about 80% of all chat GPT usage falls under one of three categories. Practical guidance.

which is the study found to be the most common usage, including things like tutoring and teaching, how-to advice and creative ideation. Second one, seeking information, which is viewed as a substitute for traditional search.

And the third being writing, including the automated creation of emails, documents, and other communications, as well as editing and translating tech. Or plagiarism. Yes. Writing was also the most common work-related use case, per the study, accounting for 40% of work-related messages in June. Mm-hmm.

Yeah. Work usage for ChatGPT appears to make up a shrinking share of how people are interacting with the chat bot. In June of 2024, about 47% of interactions users had were work-related. This has gone down to just 27%. which comes as other research shows companies largely failing to figure out how to generate any sort of meaningful return from their AI investments. Yep. So work, AI at work. on the downside. Meanwhile, non-work related interactions have jumped from 53 to 73%.

Uh, people are spending more time with chat GPT in their personal time and a fairly small share of messages with the chat bot or users seeking virtual companionship or talking about social emotional issues. They claim that only about 2% of all messages were people using ChatGPT as a terrorist or friend, and just 0.4% of people talked to the chatbot about relationships and personal reflections. So that is a little bit different from what other people have seen.

Common Sense Media, for instance, found that about one in three teens use AI chatbots for social interaction and relationships. Another study found that about half of all adult users have used a chatbot for psychological support in the last year.

So there you go. One caveat about the study that may give you pause depending on how much you trust technology. OpenAI used AI to categorize all the messages it analyzed. So if you're skeptical, there's an asterisk you can put next to the figures. Also, something we see. Yeah. This is open AI talking about their own data that they looked at themselves with their own AI. Yeah. This is like...

Marlboro says smoking isn't bad for you. 110%. Yep. And, you know, if their numbers that they claim are in the billions of users, you know, so 2% of all those messages. is a lot of messages when you come down, when it comes down to it, the, the, the mind boggling number of messages that go through there every day. So that's a lot of people using chat GPT as a therapist or a friend. So, uh, which, uh, Which even their owner says, please don't do.

Yep, yep. OpenAI says it's prepping new safeguards for ChatGPT after a lawsuit blamed the chatbot for contributing to a teen suicide. Sam Altman announced plans for an automated system to predict whether users are under 18. When the age is unclear, ChatGPT will default to a restricted under-18 version. blocking sexual content and requiring adults to verify their age for full access. Altman admitted this is a privacy tradeoff, but argued teen safety comes first since we've been caught. Yeah.

So the funny thing is, is I'm fairly certain to get a credit card, don't you have to be over 18? Yes, you do. You do indeed have to be 18. Okay. So maybe just paying users are the ones that could. use the actual service everybody else gets the under 18 version just saying if you want to if you want to increase revenue but the thing is as to your your story

When we're seeing it, we're seeing the numbers drop in enterprise. Enterprise usage is what's going to pay the bills going forward because those enterprise contracts are the ones that actually are worth something. I don't care if they get 20 bucks a month from everybody on the planet, it still doesn't cover their nut, you know?

Yeah. So we've been saying since this came out that, you know, they just don't make enough money. They're never going to make enough money. Yep. I was also reading a story this morning before we ran the air that there's an economist who came out saying, you know what? The AI bubble bursting might actually be good for the economy. Yeah, there's this pesky recession in the middle, but after that, we might come out doing okay.

Well, at the end of the day, if it's a bubble, it's a bubble. If it's not going to provide value, but we're sinking all this money into it, yeah, it needs to pop. It's going to have to pop, and then it's going to fucking hurt, but we will be better off in the end. See, the thing is, where's the money going? It's like it doesn't evaporate. Money is going from one person to another to another. So now we're going to start getting metaphysical here, Jason.

Does money really mean anything? Is the color blue to me? Yeah. That was the 2008. You knew we were in trouble when people were like, well, you know, money is just a fucking social construct and it doesn't really mean anything. Well, what the hell do you think? all the fucking crypto guys are trying to say i know i know it's all anyways uh let's go on the age verification bits since everybody seems to be pivoting that way from porn hub to open ai

Is there a difference these days? I don't know. A California bill that will require operating system and app store providers to verify users' ages before they can download apps has cleared the assembly 58 to nothing. And we'll now move on to Governor Gavin Newsom. So we shall see. This is called the Digital Age Assurance Act, AB 1043.

It does not require photo identification for verification, puts the onus on the platforms to provide tools for parents to indicate the user's age during a device's setup. So we drop down menu that we just click OK on. Yeah, pretty much. And by the way, the parents aren't the ones that know how to set up a fucking device. It's the kids that set up the devices for the parents. So they're the ones that are just going to be clicking OK to everything. And for those.

reasons alone the california bill has been received more positively by big tech with google meta and others putting out statements in support of it Yeah, this sounds like a great idea. Yeah, so not much going on there. That's not going to do much of anything. New York's Governor Kathy Hochul has signed the Stop Addictive Feed Exploitation. Jesus, stop trying to fucking shoot. horn this stuff into safe.

for kids act and the new york child data protection act in june 2024 today the state's attorney general letitia james released more specifics about what this act will entail in practice so they're trying their own thing in particular this rule will require online platform to confirm the ages of users before showing them algorithmically created feeds or sending them notifications at night. They will allow sites to choose their method of age verification.

as long as the approaches are shown to be effective and protect users' data. Nobody has a solution for this, Jason. No one. Oh, great. So all I know is that if this actually passes, I will figure out a way to make sure that I seem under 18 because I would like them not to show me algorithmically curated feeds or send me notifications at night too. Seriously. I mean, that's all we've ever asked for. That should be an option. Mm-hmm.

Well, let's get a little funny here. SpaceX is facing a surprising new opponent in Florida. Nudists. Elon keep running around and they're like, get the fuck out of here and put on your pants. Fucking weird ass Cybertruck looking tank. Fuck. I don't know, man. He's on Ozempic now. So there you go. Yeah. Members of the American Association for Nude Recreation. Manor. Manor. If you're trying to shoehorn it. Manor. They have an app too. It's right next to Grindr.

Yep. Our protesting SpaceX's plan to launch starships from Cape Canaveral, warning it could shut down Playa Linda Beach, one of only four legal clothing optional beaches in the state, up to 60 times a year. Nudists say that would devastate. state a community of hundreds of thousands who travel to sunbathe there. Sunbathe, sure. Their leaders argue the closures could also push crowds to nearby Apollo Beach, sparking conflicts between nude and non-nude beachgoers. Critics also...

raise concerns about hearing damage and flight delays caused by rocket launches. Still, with a starship tower already under construction and FAA approval seen as likely, the nudists may be fighting a losing battle against Elon Musk's space ambitions. They seem to have a limp case. Well, naked people are not the only people that are souring on SpaceX right now. Apparently, all of his old fans are too.

Because all of the people that used to love to go out to see SpaceX's launches are saying, yeah, you know what? Nazi. I'm going to stay home. I'm going to stay home because Nazi. Literally, that's it. Okay. I do not want to see that. Oh, fuck me. Well, a Tesla... You can't laugh into the fire, Jason. Oh, that's the only way to go. It's the only way to go. Somebody sent me a very, very nice...

Clipping of a headline today when Goebbels actually started banning comedians in Germany right before World War II. I mean, look, I look at the news every day and I go, all of this has happened before. And we're watching it and nobody seems to give a shit. Everybody seems to give a shit. Nobody's willing to do a damn thing. What can you do? That's the problem. We need a playbook. I swear to God, I'm on Blue Sky. Yeah, I think it's on Blue Sky. I tried to...

poured everything over that I used to follow on Exos. Politicians and shit like that. So Schumer just keeps like fucking posting outrage after outrage. And I just keep responding. If only we elected someone who could actually do something about it. That's it. That's it. I mean, I can sit here and post this raid shit too, Schumer. You're the one that can actually do something. Yeah. Yeah. You're in the building where it happens. Anyways.

Somebody who's not in the building where it happens anymore. A Tesla engineer just rage quit after eight years, torching Elon Musk on the way out the door. Giorgio Ballesteri, who helped build Tesla's clean energy trading platform, dropped a LinkedIn bombshell saying. Musk has wrecked Tesla's mission and even damaged a democracy itself.

It got five views because it's on LinkedIn. He accused Musk of abandoning the green future he once preached, instead cozying up to Donald Trump, the same guy who pulled the U.S. out of the Paris Climate Accord, gutted environmental rules and shoveled love letters to big... Once upon a time, Musk was the climate hero, tweeting, leaving Paris is not good. But now he's too busy trolling immigrants, raging at the government, and allegedly getting stoned.

Tesla's clean energy efforts are critical, but with Musk's seriously compromised leadership and a trillion-dollar payday looming for the CEO, he just couldn't stomach it anymore. In short, the man who promised to save the planet is now accused of helping burn it down. Yeah, that tracks. Well, the planet's not the only thing he's trying to burn down. He's also trying to burn you down.

Yep. Yep. Less than a week after Bloomberg published a damning report about Tesla's dangerous doors, the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is now looking into it. On Tuesday, the regulator said it opened an investigation into the automaker's electrically powered doors. The problem? They stop working if the vehicle's low-voltage battery fails.

The probe will cover the 2021 Model Y, which covers an estimated 174,290 vehicles. But the agency suggested a document that it could expand its investigation because they put the same fucking doors on every one of their cars. Yeah.

Now, in case you don't understand this, they use a flush door handle designed for its vehicles. A 12-volt battery powers the door's ability to pop the handle and release the latch. It's one of those cool Apple-like design details that help the automaker become a household name. But cars aren't iPhones, and sleekness can take a backseat to safety in the auto space. They won't open from the outside when the low-voltage battery fails, like, you know, when it's on fire.

Yeah, they won't open from the inside when it fails, too. So you're screwed. Yeah, we've covered a story where a woman burned to death in her car because the fucking doors wouldn't open. Yeah. So, yeah. Yes. Well, we have an update. Tesla design head Franz von Holzhausen, who we pinched from BMW during the war, apparently, appeared on Bloomberg.

appeared on Bloomberg's Hot Pursuit podcast and said the company is considering a new approach that combines the electric and manual release mechanisms. The idea of combining the electric one and the manual one together into one button, I think, makes a lot of sense, he said. pausing everybody to wonder why they didn't do it the first time around.

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Media Candy Well, Jason, I finally finished Wednesday with a wife. What a wonderful show. And I can't wait for it to come back when Jenny Jenna is like 45 years old. Exactly. She's going to be the mom in the next episode because it's going to take forever. I don't know if they're shooting. I haven't heard anything about it. I don't think that they are, but I want them to get on it because that was great. Yeah, yeah. They really should be.

backing these things up as fast as possible. I think that's possible. I'm sure they backed up the money truck to everybody. So come on, let's get, let's get cooking, get to work. So as, as I mentioned last week, I actually did watch all the foundation season three. I skipped foundation season two. I don't know why I'm going to blame some wine I got or something. Desperation viewing. I ended up watching the first episode of the series and I actually.

Kind of came around to what people have been telling us on discord, which is that if you remove any association with foundation whatsoever, which is very difficult, but that's where the wine helps. It's actually a relatively decent sci-fi show. And I have to say season. three was a relatively decent sci-fi show they had bits and pieces from foundation that i remembered but here is where the problem is and this is why i'm never going to do this again okay

It was close enough to foundation that it is starting to rewrite in my head what the foundation story is. That is the power of visual media. Visual media. the music, the sounds, everything. It replaces everything that was in your imagination from the books. It takes it over. That's why people scream about Harry Potter. Not that Harry Potter is great literature, but there's no doubt about it that if you picture in your mind who Harry Potter is...

You see the movies. And if you picture in your mind what the story of Harry Potter is, you see the movies and the movies, the story that the movies told, not the ones that the book told because the books are. considerably different in a lot of ways. I cannot watch any more of this foundation series because I love the original book series and I hate what they've done to it. It is not the same story. It is a completely different story. And I refuse to have my brain rewired to this foundation.

Damn it. Okay. But the actors are good. And it was actually, it was, it was pretty good. I watched the first episode of season three, just to, just cause you know, cause you traitors fuck. And it was decent. It was decent. I know. That was the problem. It was decent enough where I'm like, yeah, maybe if there's nothing else on. Yeah.

Um, so I get it. I totally get it. Yeah. If you're not into the books, then it's probably decent sci-fi. Yes. But I, again, I cannot have it overwrite my, my, my knowledge of what foundation is. The thing is, yeah, yeah. Season one of foundation. I didn't think was good sci-fi. No, that was awful. That was the problem with season one. It wasn't that good. And I started watching season two and season two carried on the tradition of season one of being shit.

So maybe going to season three, maybe they figured enough out. But the opening salvo with the mule was pretty fucking good. Yeah, and it continues. It continues. And they definitely, and again, it will rewrite my understanding of foundation because they change who the mule actually is. Okay. Here's the great part about the foundation books. I stopped reading them before the mule showed up, so I can go back and watch this now and have a clean slate.

But I totally get what you're saying about rewiring your, your mental, your mental image, because I cannot for the life of me, remember all the visuals that I had for the hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy without the fucking movie. Right. Pop it in. That's the thing, you know. Yeah. And in no history of the world was Sam Rockwell's Zafod Beeblebrox in my...

interpretation of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. It's just the power of the visual with the human brain. It will take over whatever you had in your mind. Your own imagination will be rewritten by shows. Yeah. And that's the interesting thing about Sandman too, is it's like, now I have this dichotomy in my head. It's like...

I visually remember something completely different than what was on the screen. But what was on the screen is what I remember because it was so good in season one. I'm like, it's really weird to see these. these things get so close because in the old days when they would do these adaptations, they were so wildly off that there was no, no, no, not even in any remote universe where they similar, but nowadays they're getting close enough because.

as fans and kids growing up in this, like, you know, people our age are the ones making this shit now, that it's getting closer to what it actually was. But in their vision... And when you pull in the fact that they have to have a diverse cast just because they have to have a diverse cast and changes everything about everything. It's weird. It's a weird time to be alive.

For many reasons. It is. Well, let me talk about a show where people aren't alive anymore. I finished Upload. I had talked to, we'd talked about this quite a bit and I realized, uh, what two weeks ago that I actually had never watched season three. So I went back and watched season three, which was okay.

And then I rolled straight into season four, which is truncated. It's only four episodes. Oh, wow. You could tell they basically threw the creators a bone, finish your story, but get it done quick. I'm not giving you a full season. Contractually obligated to, I'm guessing. It was good. I actually enjoyed it. I enjoyed the ride from beginning to end. It got a little iffy in season two and three, but they wrapped it up well. It was a pleasant little story. It was fun.

fun and kind of clever. They didn't end it with the hearts and sunshines and sausages and rainbows that I thought they were. They zagged a bit, which I enjoyed. I thought it was a good choice on their part. Good. And you know, it's funny that... When we started talking about that show, I went back and I was thinking about a show that we watched. It was just a one-off miniseries called Devs. Remember that? Yeah.

Yeah, it was a really strange miniseries. And I really want to go back and watch that. That's next on my list. Because I do remember it being kind of odd in the middle. But I thought that came home to a pretty decent landing. So I think I'm going to go back and try that just because I want to, because I can.

Well, I talked about how we had watched The Princess Bride with the kid a couple weeks back, and then my wife wanted to continue on with just kind of watching these, you know, family fun, real people stuff get him out of his animation. alley that he's been stuck in. And she convinced him to watch Freaky Friday, the 2003 edition with Jamie Lee Curtis and Lindsay Lohan, not the original from the 60s.

And I was doing stuff around the house, just errands and stuff. So I caught quite a lot of it. Very funny. Very clever. Those late 90s, early 2000s comedies are... A hoot. And the best part about Freaky Friday, this 2003 edition, and I think you'll appreciate this too, Jason, isn't so much the story. It's all set in Los Angeles and it's all shit that's gone.

Oh, it's total memory porn. They're wandering down Third Street Promenade like it used to be when we were young and it was awesome. A huge sequence takes place at the House of Blues on Sunset that we used to go see shows at. gone yeah so there was all this great los angeles memory porn about this this movie so it was fantastic for that and it was just fun it was a fun clever little you know nine late 90s early 2000s comedy

If you want a real trip, go back and watch L.A. Story. Oh, dude, yes, totally. Oh, interesting. So are you going to make them watch Freakier Friday that just came out?

Well, it's only in theaters still, so as soon as it's streaming, we'll watch it. I'm not going to fucking pay to go to the theater for that shit, but we'll watch it when it comes out. I just laugh because I go to the theater of Sweden. We only in the theaters. How funny. Alien Earth had its penultimate episode this week. Oh, so good. Oh, so good. I'm going to miss this when it's gone. I am so going to miss this when it's gone.

I'm going to wait until it's completed and either pay for one month of Hulu or Sweden it. Sweden it because fuck paying Disney anything right now. That's true. Sorry. That's a good point. Yes. Yeah. No, anything that's on there. I've already canceled, but it's my. My prescription will run past the end of Alien Earth. It kind of is a prescription these days. It is. It is. Gen V Season 2 has dropped. Now... I loved Gen V season one. Gen V is a spinoff from the boys on Amazon prime.

Yeah. And season two started off pretty much exactly where season one kind of left off in tone and in spirit. It looks like it's just, you know. They did a really good job of picking it back up. So there's two episodes out, I think, right now, but they did the drop three and then one a week. So I like that. It gets you kind of ramped up enough where you're going to stick with it.

So I, like I said, I'm still a fan of that universe because The Boys has been ending for every season for two seasons now. So who knows when that's going to go away. So I kind of like going back to that world because it's slightly more dystopian than the one I have to wake up.

to every day, which is a nice change. Okay. Yeah. And I just saw this. I'm just going to leave the headline here. No need to read any more than this. Star Trek Strange New World's producers promise season four will be better.

I didn't think it was bad. Just less comedy, guys. Yeah, no, they blamed the discombobulation on the writer's strike and people coming and going. And there was a lot of stuff that was happening in the middle of... that show getting, getting made, except they skedaddled off to fucking Canada to go, you know, get rid of the.

the guild uh restriction so i don't know how much they can blame on that but hey what are you gonna do whatever yeah whatever hopefully they will do better uh coming up very soon on september 24th slow horses season five is coming out okay

The reviews are in. They say it's really good. And it is the funniest season yet, which, you know, as far as spy thrillers go, it is a pretty funny show already. So looking forward to that. Now, here's where I have a problem. This is the marketing team at Apple. I got the email that said it was coming. And the title of the email was Drinker Thinker Rebel Spy, which is a take on Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, right?

You'd think, oh, spies, MI5, all that stuff. Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, I believe it's MI6. But don't quote me on that. It's been a while. But here's the thing. Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy was a novel by John le Carré, which was turned into a movie. Slow Horses is based on Mick Heron's Slough House. Different author. Stealing titles from a different author.

Poor taste. Everything's a meme now, Jason. Poor fucking taste is all I got to say. You know? Yeah. But anyway, besides that, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy was a great movie. Came out in 2011. Highly recommend it. And Gary Oldman is in both. So there's your connection. There you go. Yeah. But yeah. Check out. And if you haven't seen it, you still haven't even dove into that one, have you? I watched the first season and I just never got back to it. So I will.

Yeah, that one is one you can just sit down for like, you know, get a bucket of popcorn and some diapers and watch all the way through. It's great. All right. In a teaser shared this weekend, Netflix finally revealed the release date for The Witcher Season 4. It will hit Netflix on October 30th. Now, in case you don't remember, we're getting a dick switch here. No, no, I saw the best one. What they pulled was a witcheroo.

A witcheroo? I was going with the dick switch, like from Bewitched, when they switched Dick York and Dick Sargent. That's right, the dick switch. Liam Hemsworth is returning, not returning, is showing up as Geralt of Rivia, a casting change. from henry cavill who was fucking awesome in the role so we'll see how this goes um if something uh to look forward to if you're not thrilled about this change like i am we're gonna get laurence fishburn in it okay so that might be interesting

So we shall see what happens. I will watch it and see how it goes. Yeah, he's making a bit of a comeback. I like I like Lawrence Fisher. He was in that that horrible movie with the kid from Mr. Robot. But yeah.

But otherwise, he's been doing pretty good. I liked him in the John Wick series. He was great in that. So I'm glad he's making a comeback. All right. And we had a big film festival here in Toronto called TIFF that we have every year. And one of the things that premiered at it is a new documentary and the trailer is out for it.

It's about Lilith Fair. It's called Lilith Fair Building a Mystery. And I'm actually quite looking forward to this. Again, 90s porn, right? So this is the whole Lilith Fair story. And I can't wait for this documentary to come out. I'm totally going to watch it. I did not attend Lilith Fair. Because you're not a lesbian. Well, no. But I like more than half the artists I really like. And also, what a great place to pick up chicks.

Exactly why they didn't let me in. No, it's not a great place to pick up, Chick. They're not interested in you, Brian. They weren't all lesbians. Come on. It was all Subarus in the parking lot. It was the 90s. You could tell by the haircuts which ones were lesbians and which ones weren't. That's going to get me in trouble. I'm getting canceled now, Jason. We're not on Disney. You're safe. Okay. Also, I'm making fun of the left, not the right. So, you know, you're allowed to do that.

Well, there's been some releases from Apple. Yeah, iOS 26 is out there. Brian, have you upgraded yet? I did. I hated it for the first... Three hours, and then I just got on with my life. Exactly. Told you. Told you. I've had it for a month and I'm like, this is the worst part, the transition. You know, when I know it's already there and then I'm just going to have to hear it from everybody. Like, what the fuck is this? I don't know how to do anything anymore. Jason, fix it. It's such a...

Small change. You are right. It does run a little faster, which I appreciate. But a lot of the visual effects get little snags here and there, which is annoying. Do I care for how it looks? No. But does it bother me? No. You can reduce some of the stuff, which I found out from you because you were posting it everywhere. I did that. It's fine. It's fine.

Who cares? I don't like it on the iPad. I hate this multi-window bullshit where it puts it over in the corner where it's just out of the corner of your eye and it's just annoying and it looks like it's a glitch, but it's not. It's a feature. That sucks. You turn that off in the multitasking preferences. Okay, I got to turn that off because that's just stupid. It's annoying, yeah. For some things, it actually does work because you can keep something open.

It depends on your workflow. I have found that it is useful in some situations, mostly not. So I generally tend to keep it off, but you can turn that off in the multitasking setting. So that's an easy fix. Okay. So there you go. Here we are.

Yeah, links are in the show notes to how to make liquid glass more like iOS 18. So there's some easy tricks that you can do to turn off a lot of the stuff. Yeah, for the most part, I'm so used to it now that it's just, it is what it is. Yeah. So Meta had a demo this week. I actually didn't watch it, but I did see people were saying that it actually has now made the Cybertruck window shattering the second worst demo of all time.

Yeah, thanks for reading my lines here for me. I appreciate that. Those aren't for you. Oh, sorry. I didn't even see it in there. Sorry. That was Jason's line. Yeah. That's okay. You stole it from someone else because I read it all over the place. It was all over Reddit. Yeah. Everyone on Reddit was also comparing Meta to Hooli now. Oh, that's funny. Yeah.

They say they've gone full Hooli. I put a link to a short YouTube video that's called the title of the, it's the review of the demo, said Meta's most dystopian product yet, talking about these new fucking glasses that they came out with. not work at all in the demo and it just got to the point of hilarity um yeah 800 bucks for these new glasses and they come with like a

basically a handcuff that lets it figure out what your motions are to control the interface that the people who actually worked on it don't know how to use. They kept fucking up in the demo the whole time. One guy did a cooking demo and blamed the Wi-Fi on it because it couldn't get the order of operations right. But here's the thing. I think most people that listen to this show, I would... I would wager that aren't going to buy this, period. We all know that this is just...

basically surveillance apparatus number 727 from Facebook. And it's just giving them more shit about you and how they can sell to you. Look, I mean, if anybody that listens to this show knows you shouldn't trust any of the big tech companies, but the one you shouldn't... trust the most meta meta yep absolutely so

I would definitely stay the fuck away from that. But go watch the product review is worth it because it's only five minutes long. And the guy is really funny. The guy is he could be one of us for sure. And I want to bring this article back up because.

The article is meditation and mindfulness have a dark side we don't often talk about. I've talked about it before on this show because in some of the recovery programs, I mean, they force meditation on you. They're like, you must meditate. I'm like, no. I'm not going to meditate because I'm one of those 10% of people who have an adverse reaction to standard meditation. It makes me really prone to anxiety and depression. So I don't meditate.

I'm not good at it. It's bad. Okay. And that said, though, I've been, some of the meditation people I've talked to, they're like, well, why don't you try some binaural beats? Because. Yep. That seems to have much better effect on people than standard meditation. And I got an app called Brainwave this week, and I've been doing it for half an hour at night with my Bose QC2 headphones.

Everything's off and I just have them on. And there's actually a night mode for reading. Like if you're going to read at night before you go to bed. So I turn that off and I pull my Kindle up and I read a book with those on. I tell you what, I wake up in the morning. It's like night and day. I don't know what the magic sauce is in that shit, but it actually makes me wake up crisper, clearer, and...

way more excited to get to the day. Right. I didn't, I haven't changed anything else besides that. So, you know, obviously your mileage may vary. Shit doesn't work for everybody the same, but I will say 599 that I spent on this well worth it so far. Hey, it's all about finding stuff that works for you. I'm not a huge meditation guy either. As you know, I do Apple Fitness, and I like to end my workouts with a 10-minute stretch because they have their mindful cool-downs, as they call them.

a bit of stretching at the end of your workout, which is really good for your body. And the last like two minutes of those stretches is usually a meditation kind of thing. And I ignore them and I just kind of sit in silence for a bit and I find that clears my head enough. That's about all I can do for meditation. I have tried binaural beats before, and I understand that they really do work for a lot of people.

The problem I have with them is they are so close to the weird ambient glitch music that I used to listen to all the time that for me, for me, I'm like, all of a sudden I'm at the Palladium and I'm dancing on stage. I'm not fucking relaxing.

Yeah. The app that I got, the nice thing about it is that they have different, you know, because there's different frequencies for different use cases. Yeah. So you can flip through different ones because you might want to try it. Just try a different set, you know.

Yeah, because the ones that I listened to before, I was like, oh, I listened to this band in the fucking 90s. They're from Sweden. I didn't put Neubauten on loop. What the fuck? So, yeah, I just found that it works pretty well for me. And another thing I found this week, which is one of the greatest videos, it's called The Rise of the Indie Web Movement by this girl who goes by the handle Marigoul, which is great. She's like... artist. She's got only 6,000 subs on YouTube, but it's all about...

Basically, people who are going back out learning HTML and CSS and making their own websites again on a site called NeoCities and take off on GeoCities. GeoCities, yeah. And I just had such a nostalgia boner for this. I'm like, I miss it so much. Everybody's ugly ass websites.

the little blocky 88 by 33 buttons, the whole nine yards. It was just such a trip down memory lane. And what even made me happier was when I went to her website on her links page, I looked at her links page and I was just like, okay. under web mastery and web mastery and coding resources. She has links to W3 schools, Mozilla HTML reference. It's just like, it's like the old days. I was just like, this is a kid.

You know, in 2025, who is who is gone like old school and going back to our roots. And it just made me happy. You know, very few things make me happy. That makes me happy. Nice. Yeah. So, you know, all you oldsters out there who built the web back in the day, go check it out. You'll have a nice little trip down memory lane. And I'm just glad to see the kids doing something. It's fun.

I think my favorite thing about her and I love her immediately is on her about page under her FAQ. When will dot dot dot webcomic video project be out? It'll be out when it's out. Exactly. She writes just like we used to write. You are awesome. Yep. And the last thing I've gotten here, have you seen the Stendig calendars? Yeah. Yeah, they're great, aren't they? They're beautiful, these giant calendars. I find them beautiful, but not very useful.

Yeah. See, that's the thing for me, too. It's like they take up a whole wall. They were created by legendary Italian designer Massimo Vignelli in 1966. There's one in MoMA in New York. They're beautiful. These giant calendars. Now, here's the nice part about it. They have come out with what they call the V calendar, which is smaller in the entire year in one glance.

I like this one. It's still not cheap. It's 45 pounds if you're going to get it, but it comes in multiple colors. I think I'm going to get one of these maybe around Christmas time. I like it because I like seeing the year at a glance. For me, that just really works out. I don't know why, because then you can just mark off each day as you go. But yeah, I just got an email from them that the new calendars were out. So I thought I'd put it in here for some people who...

you know, have never seen them before and should be introduced to them because they're pretty fucking awesome. They're four feet by three feet. That's how big they are. The standard one. So, you know, you got to have wall space. This isn't going into a, you know, story walk up in, in, you got to treat it more like art than something functional. Yeah. It's not my favorite thing, which is fart. Functional art.

At the library. So I have finished several books, Brian. Okay. Several. So we're going to start off with Flybot by Dennis E. Taylor, beloved Dennis E. Taylor, who created the Babaverse series. This is one of his standalone books, and it is about an AI, believe it or not. His other ones haven't been about AIs. This is a delightful romp. It's kind of a murder mystery sci-fi.

tech whodunit type of thing. You'll be able to read it probably in 2028 because right now it's an Audible original only. Yep. But it's a phenomenal book. So when it does come out, Brian, I highly recommend it. The rest of you people who aren't terrified of audio books, go check it out on Audible. It's great. It's one and done. All right.

Oh, and I read Proof of Heaven, A Neurosurgeon's Journey into the Afterlife by Dr. Eben Alexander. Now, this is a book that was recommended to me by Kevin Rose because we both have a fascination with near-death experiences because I had one. And he's just fascinated by them. So he sent me this book, which is a very interesting read because this guy is a neurosurgeon. And he was in a coma for a week from this bacterial meningitis. And he had a whole different story than a lot of people did.

If you're not into near-death experiences and the science behind them, don't read this book. But if you are, it is phenomenal. The next book I read was a bit of fiction called Cleave the Sparrow by Jonathan Katz. This came out in February of this year. This is Jonathan Katz's first novel. Fucking awesome book. Just.

awesome, like near-term science fiction, kind of reality twisting. I haven't read a book that made me feel this awesome and confused since I read Vert by I think Jeff Noon back in the 90s. which was another fantastic book. But this is, it's kind of a reality twisting comedy. Just, it's a weird romp, but I fucking love this book. And I, at the end of the book, there's a QR code that you can scan to, you know, get notified when there's some extra stuff coming out. So you get an email back.

from Jonathan Katz, the author, which I love. And in there, he recommended a book called The Case Against Reality, Why Evolution Hid the Truth from Our Eyes by Donald D. Hoffman. So I bought that book and I'm working my way through it right now. And he has a TED Talk too that is... fucking fantastic where he talks about how basically reality as we see it is kind of a user interface like like we look at a computer and we understand that a computer screen like the email is not the the icon

but we use the icon to actually interface with the computer. So reality for us is kind of an interface from the meat bags we're in to actually interface with how reality as it actually is. And it's really... really good stuff. It's heady stuff. You're not going to want to go from South Park to reading this. But what that brings me to is Kindle Unlimited, because I found Cleave the Sparrow on Kindle Unlimited. It was the first book that I was recommended when I signed up.

And since then, since I have my binaural beats now, I've moved from, I read Cleve the Spare. Then I went back and I read a new Jocko Willink book called The Code, The Evolution, The Protocol, Striving to Become an Eminently Qualified Human by Jocko Willink. i like jocko's stuff good book short 70 pages another book i read was i don't answer questions pleading the fifth by david riddings who is an attorney who basically said it's a nice manual on how to never talk to cops

which is basically I don't answer questions without a lawyer. Just say that when you get pulled over, you're fine until they drag you out of the car and beat you senseless. Yeah, I don't think that matters much anymore. Yeah. Finding Your Comic Genius, an in-depth guide to the art of stand-up comedy by Adam Bloom. Also a phenomenal book, which is a good how-to on how to structure jokes and punchlines, which I'm working my way through. So, yeah, that's...

It's been a while since we've been at the library, so... That's true. I have started and abandoned the book and I'm working on another one right now. And I'll talk about the abandoned book when I finish the one that I'm working on. And I do have a story in here because I know many of our listeners and on our discord are big fans of comics.

And there's a new comics app. And I put this in there before Disney fucking screwed the pooch. And we're all supposed to be not giving them any money, but it's a Disney deal. So, you know, hopefully they'll make everything right. And then we can go back and enjoy this thing. Webtoon announced a major new deal with Disney to bring.

a litany of originally licensed stories and past comics from across Marvel's library to the scrolling format that has made Webtoon a significant force in the comic space. So Disney is getting a 2% equity interest in the company. So everybody stop reading them.

Okay. There we go. Once we're able to enjoy Disney again, by all means, this sounds like it's going to be a great resource and a great infusion of cash into the comics world. And you'll be able to get a bunch of stuff through them. All right.

Yeah, I look forward to the time where Disney is no longer persona non grata. Yes, me too. Let's see what Dave thinks about that. 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 cyber security on control loop and even brings the last.

on only malware in the building. Welcome back, Dave. Thank you very much. It's good to be here. Good to have you back. Hello, Dave. Hello, hello. I just felt like going back to the old days today. I don't know why. Yeah. I just had a hankering. I had a hankering, Dave. Yeah, hankering for a hunk of cheese. Ah, yes, that's right. What was that from? A hanker for a hunk of cheese. A slab or slumber slumber. A slab or slumber slumber. Yeah. time for timer.

I don't know. It was a PSA. Sounds like you guys are having strokes. I'm a little worried for Jason again. Just binaural beats. They've triggered something in me. It was a PSA when we were kids to try to get us to eat. more cheese, probably sponsored by the Dairy Association. Yes, one would assume. chunk of a sniker is a winner and yet once for my dinner a hanker for a hunk of cheese but uh yeah it was a catchy little thing about eating cheese so all right

Right after that PSA from Marlboro to smoke more cigarettes. Right. Smooth, delicious bubblegum cigarettes. Hi, I'm a doctor. There's nothing I like better after a long surgery than a long draw on my... The clean, healthy cigarette. Anyways, we have some news about something that we've been talking about. The Muppet Show is getting a 50th anniversary.

Disney Plus special. The Muppet Show officially hit the airwaves in 1976, which means 2026 marks an important milestone for Kermit the Frog and his pals. They will air a one-off special in the much-loved variety show format with pop star Sabrina Carpenter as the...

featured guest. The Hollywood reporter is also writing that there's a potential for the special to turn into a backdoor pilot for a future Muppet show revival. As we talked about, of course, that Seth Rogen is executive producing this.

And there's a list of the puppeteers that I put in here, mostly for Dave, because he probably knows who they are. And I will say that if they do not open with the scene of Kermit the Frog coming out and saying, of course, nobody should be shot dead for what they have to say. He did say some horrible things. I will be very disappointed in Disney. Oh, my. I'm very disappointed. Sabrina Carpenter won't just be appearing in the show. She's also among its executive producers.

You're old, Jason. She's not for you. She's not good. That's the problem. She's not good. I am blissfully unfamiliar with her, which it's the same situation I found myself in as a child watching the original Muppet show. Not knowing who any of those people were either. The first couple of seasons, they were mostly Brits and I didn't know who they were, but that's okay. So, so we'll see. Hopefully it'll be good. And, you know, hopefully we'll be allowed to watch it.

Yeah, the question I have about this is we don't see Frank Oz listed anywhere. No, no. And I wonder if he'll have any involvement. My guess is not. It seems as though his... relationship with disney and the muppets these days is to be kind of a pain in the ass yes he's earned it he's fucking earned it true he is uh he has passed the torch and is lobbing softballs at them that is right that seems to be what he does these days

Yeah, I mean, Dave Gulls is the only real original one back. He does Gonzo and some other characters, so he's the connection with the original. But everybody else has arthritis because they're 900 years old and can't move a puppet. Probably. Right. Right. You know, you got to have dexterity for that. And I don't know about you. My hands suck now and I'm only 54.

I do notice I wake up in the morning and my fingers are stiff and I need to wiggle them around to loosen them up. And I say to myself, I guess this is arthritis. There are these things called stretches that one can do. Well, that's what I do to loosen them up. Yeah, exactly. But you do them before, like you just keep doing them. You can't stretch out of a bone condition, though. That's the problem. Well, if it is an actual bone condition. And they're hard to do in your sleep.

By the way, in my 20s, I stretched myself out of plenty of bone conditions. Oh, hey. Hey now. Now he needs a pill. Never gets old. Whatever gets you there, Jason. That's right. It's a great time to be alive. If you're a white male who's older.

Okay, moving on. So with the iOS 26 update, there was an update to the Carrot app, the Carrot weather app, which is my favorite weather app. Yes. Not just because it's funny as fuck. It's also one of the best weather apps that's out there because it has lots of different settings where you can change your weather source because I have moved away from Noah.

Because there's nobody home at NOAA anymore. Yes, wise. Yeah, I was researching getting one of those backyard weather stations. Yes, I have one. You do? Which one do you have? Don't know. So my wife is a weather junkie. And so her favorite app is the Carrot app. And we actually have it on our Apple TV as well. So occasionally.

when I'm firing up the Apple TV, I get insulted by the Carrot Weather app. I did not know you could put that on the Apple TV. I am going to install that today. Yes, yes. So I'm going to say a couple of years ago. for her birthday, I got her one of those backyard weather stations and she loves it. So the couch where she sits, there's a little...

display and it connects to the thing that's upstairs outside in the back of the house. And so at a glance, she can look over and know what the current wind speed is. And this makes her very happy. And it measures rainfall and, of course, temperature and all those kinds of things. Oh, and it publishes online. Yeah, that's the thing. You can join the network. Right.

be part of the whole team that's what that's why i was i was gonna i found it through carrot because of people like your wife who are awesome and care about the weather enough to publish and and be part of the network how did they not branded it as the whatever's Go on. Well, like the Fediverse, except for, you know, weather. Oh, the weatherverse. The weatherverse. That's a good, yeah. I didn't hear you correctly. Yeah, yeah. Whatevers. And you said weatherverse. That's a good question. Yeah.

Do I have to think of everything for people? No, you just got to work on your diction because we didn't know what the fuck you said. I have a nine-year-old and I'm basically constantly sick. Like what virus came home this week? I'm muting and clearing my throat and not getting it all before I come back. We appreciate that very, very much. You're welcome. I do, because otherwise I'd have to edit that shit out. But yeah, so...

My roommate was looking into it, so she's the weather person who cares enough to go pay for one of those because I don't care enough to pay for one. Well, you're in Southern California, too. Well, we kind of need it right now because the weather here is, I don't know if you noticed, but Orange County, half of it fell down last night in the rainfall. So the weather here is just insanely variable.

We had hail in like two in the morning last night, okay? It's very bizarre. But anyway, getting back to Carrot. With the update, I'm sure you've seen it now, Dave, now that I know you're a fan, but Carrot has decided to launch a musical inside of the app. I want your take on the musical as a musical fan. Okay. I will give you that in a second. But in the meantime, I have looked up which weather thing we have. It is the ambient weather. array, the WS2902, which is $199 at Amazon.

Okay, that is not the one that I was looking at. So I will check that one out. You know, it's been sitting out there for a couple years now, just doing its thing with no fuss, no muss. So there's my limited review. And, you know, it delights my wife, which happy wife, happy life. So there you go. Yes. So back to the carrot app, the musical.

I was unaware of this until I saw your link to it in the show notes here. I went and checked it out and I have to say it is freaking amazing. Like I listened to the first song and. It's as good as anything you'll see on the Great White Way this year. Right? Yeah. And that is both delightful and disturbing to me. Because because it is so good. Like they took all of the things that you expect in a Broadway.

showstopper number, and they're all in there. All of the musical cues, or cues rather, the structure of it, how it builds, how it ends, the way it's sung, the lyrics, it's a... pretty idealized Broadway song and it's not ironic or a parody or I see where they're going, but not quite good enough. No, it's. It's good. It's really good. Yeah. Yeah. And that really scares me. How good it is.

I don't know how they did this. I'm guessing it could be as simple as they tossed it into one of the many LLMs or whatever, the ones that create songs now to do this. Yeah. So I've been following because the creator of the app is just one guy. He made the musical. But he also said he's the villain in song four that came out yesterday. So he sings on it.

Oh, I, I don't know, man. He just might be a really good, big fan of musicals and just got hired somebody to do it. I've got notes out asking him, you know, how it was created. Cause I really want to know because if this was an AI created musical. I want his prompts because God damn, it's good. He did a really good job. It sounds like AI to me. It does. It does. But in some parts, it doesn't. So maybe it's a mix. I don't know. But man, it's funny.

really good surprisingly good no it's a toe tapper it's you know you you leave the theater singing the songs and uh if that is something that you can accomplish with just a prompt Oh, right. Creativity as a service. I'm glad that you've seen it. And our toe tapping fan like me. Yeah.

I saw this and I just, you know, I wanted to pass this along since we're a bunch of old people. And the publisher's clearinghouse has gone bankrupt, meaning the people who opted for the forever payments will no longer get paid. What are your thoughts on this? Because I find this truly disturbing. Yeah, this is bullshit. Yeah.

Amen. I'm sure it was in their fine print. Yeah. Well, I think, yes, certainly you're right. Forever doesn't mean forever. Just like unlimited data doesn't mean unlimited data. Exactly. millions of those. But yeah, this is bullshit. And here's what pisses me off about this. The folks who bought Publishers Clearinghouse... are continuing doing publishers clearing house. They're just cutting off everyone from before when they made their purchase. And that to me, again, bullshit.

Like that should have been part of the obligations of the purchase. It's you just. do away with a debt, a promise. It's unethical, obviously technically not illegal. I guess people will roll their eyes and shrug their shoulders and say, oh, well, it's just business. But there are people, as this article points out, there are people who had planned their lives around this promise.

And now they're scrambling to figure out what they're going to do next. I know I pour them, you know, they're not going to be as rich as they were before, but still. I think, yeah, this is crap, and it makes me mad that they're allowed to do this. Yeah, I'm ticked off about it. Always take the lump sum. That's right. Yeah. Always. Yep.

So, and the thing is, in the article, they mentioned how much it costs them per year to make these payments. And it was like $1.9 million. Like, and to me that also, that money should have been in escrow. Once these people – it should have been an escrow and like – oh, sure. Publishers Clearinghouse can get the interest off of that and keep things going. But that should have been an escrow for these people. Yeah. So you know how like –

Like contests, like make a shot from half court at a basketball game, halftime, and you'll win a car. Those are all insured, right? Mm hmm. And because chances are the person's not going to win. So they pay a certain amount of money. And if someone does make the basket, then the insurance pays to buy the new car.

pch should have had insurance against this they should have been in my opinion required to have insurance against the possibility of bankruptcy so that everyone that they're obligated to pay out would be Made whole. That's my take on it. Mm-hmm. Some bullshit. Little regulatory oversight. It all went to shit when Ed McMahon died.

It did. I guarantee if Ed McMahon was alive right now, he'd have been paying those people out of his own pocket. Rolling in his own grave. I don't know. Ed, really? I don't know how deep Ed's pockets were. Hey, Johnny, you got some cash. Yeah. Yeah. I had a friend who he had his driver's license in his wallet and taped over his own picture. He had put Ed McMahon's.

picture on his driver's license just to see if anybody would ever notice and nobody did nowadays that shit will get you invented it gets you sent to venezuela so right careful right I mean, you know, it was kind of strange how he was a dead ringer for Ed McMahon, but. Yeah, that's right. He was an Ed McMahon impersonator on the weekends, but yeah.

Yes. Oh, and by the way, I found the one that I was looking for. The one that I was looking at was the Net Atmo weather stations. There's a link in the show notes. They're very pretty, and they also have an in-home base station, so you can... get the air quality in your house as well as outside. Oh, okay. Yeah, but they do have smart rain gauges and smart anemometers as well. I honestly did not even know any of this stuff existed. Oh, yeah. There you go.

I open my window. No, weather nerdery is a thing. Yeah. I don't know what your situation is, Jason, but it can be a point of contention. in my house because I, Luddite that I am, just use Apple's weather. No, no, no, no. You cannot do that. You cannot do that. That's what I've, yeah. Oh, believe me. I've been told. I'm like, oh, it says it's going to rain here in 20 minutes. And my wife goes, Exactly. Yeah.

Sure, that's what they say. Yeah, see, when it used to be Dark Sky before Apple bought it, subsumed it, and destroyed it, it actually worked, unless you were Brian, who lived on the coast. Unless you were coastal, in which case it never worked. But in surprise... Surprisingly enough, you know, I was surrounded by on three sides by water in San Francisco and it worked up to the second in San Francisco. But.

Yeah, I guess they cared enough in San Francisco because they had to get it right because otherwise they wouldn't have gotten funding. That's true. Yeah. But anyway, yeah, yeah, you have to, that's why you have to fine tune Carrot to make sure that you have to do a lot of A-B testing to find out which ones work and which ones don't in your area. That's why I love Carrot because you can change all that stuff. That's why I pay for it every year. It costs me like 25 bucks a month a year, but.

At least when I say it's going to rain, it's going to fucking rain, you know? Well, yeah, at least you got that going for you. Yeah. Which is like four times in Southern California. So I got to be, I got to be accurate, man. It doesn't rain here very often. Okay. Have you guys installed iOS 26? About a month ago. Jason's on the beta program. Public betas aren't bad now, so it's worth it.

So I was happy to learn that they finally brought crossfading to Apple Music. So it could crossfade from one song to another. And this frustrated me because there were times when I would be doing like an event, right? And I wanted to have some music playing. And I wanted to have it crossfade from one song to another in a playlist. And the iOS version of Apple Music just couldn't do that.

It just wasn't capable of it. And this, you know, the stupid, why not? This is not anything that's particularly highly processor intensive. We've had this on other. things for decades. Anyway, they finally brought it to Apple Music, and it sucks. How do you make crossfading suck? You fade to the next song in the middle of the previous song. Oh, that'll do it.

The slider for when the song ends to when it starts is off a bit, you say? Yeah, by a couple minutes sometimes. Oh, my God. And then on top of that. As part of it getting the timing screwed up, you make the crossfade last about 30 seconds. Oh. There's no settings on that? Okay. Well, I have not dug in yet. Okay, let me check that. Oh, I'm gonna. All I know is what happened to me on my drive and the way into work. So I just want to say this is a highly scientific study, a sample size of one.

but it did screw up multiple times. So I'm a bit crestfallen. I will have to say, uh, Speaking to the weather nerds as a music nerd, while you did outlay a good use case for crossfade, playing music at a public event or something like that, crossfading, fuck that shit. You listen to the whole fucking song. You listen to the end of the goddamn song. And then you listen to the very beginning of the new fucking song and they don't go over each other. God damn it. Yeah. Okay.

I'm kind of with Brian on that one. I mean, I'm situationally with you and certainly philosophically with you. I'm someone who stays till the very end of the movie to watch all the credits. or not there's an Easter egg at the end, just out of respect to the people who made the movie. Okay. Now, Dave, I'm going to tell you right now, since this is a technical podcast, if you go to settings under your new iOS thing and go to apps and then find music, under song transitions, there are two styles.

One is auto-mix. Songs transition at the perfect moment based on analysis of the key and tempo of the music. Ooh, AI. Yes. Or you can select crossfade. And if you select crossfade, there is a crossfade duration slider, which will let you exactly... pinpoint down to the second what that crossfade is. I don't know if you've noticed, Dave, but Jason's greatest joy in life is fact-checking you in real time.

That's what I do best. Yes. Well, it's not so much that he's right. It's that the rest of us are wrong. Yeah, actually. Again, that's where the joy is derived from. That's where it comes from. I don't have a problem with that. All right. I'm in the music thing. Where am I looking here? Is it in Apple Intelligence? No, just go to settings.

Obviously it's not an intelligence apps. And then it's under music under apps. Yeah. I'm in the music. I don't see crossfade. No, I told you it wasn't crossfade. Dave. What did you say? I said it was, where was it now? Now see, I already left. Smarty pants. No, no, no, no, no. Under song transitions, under audio. Oh, there it is. See? Auto mix. Cross. All right. All right. Well, stay tuned.

Brian, you forget that my job for a long time was called Solutions Architect. That's what my job was to find shit and how it works and make it work. Oh, I know you're good at it. I was just pointing out how much joy you actually get from it. That's why I hate my job now.

because I don't get to do it anywhere. Every time I get a chance to, I'm just like tickled pink. I'm like, like a school girl. I appreciate it. Hopefully this will do it. Look, now Dave's going to have a much better ride home. That's true. Fair. Ha! That's true. You'd have a better ride home if you just turned it off. Also, probably, perhaps... And listen to the music as the artist fucking intended. We'll see.

We'll see. If they intended it, then why did they fade the music out at the end? Because tech ruins everything. Okay. Have you ever seen a band fade live? Yes. Go on. Well, I'd listen to a lot of electronic music. Okay. And then turn it back up. And then the beat drops and everybody goes fucking crazy. Crossfaded. Nobody would give a shit. All right. Okay.

A quick follow-up here from last week. Jason, you were asking us if the tariffs had hit us at all. And in the meantime, I saw this article from 404 Media come by that – Some international sellers are adding absurd shipping prices to things so that they don't have to deal with American buyers. Interesting. Yep. That's a lot. That's a lot. Yeah. $2,000 shipping charge on a...

$300 lens from Japan. So they're just saying, yeah, we don't want to sell to you. Fuck you is what they're saying. Yeah. They don't want to sell to us. It's fine. Yep. Until we fix our stuff. Yeah. Yeah. Three and a half years, guys. Three and a half years. If we're lucky. I included a link here to an interesting Star Wars video. This is an AI deepfakey kind of thing and has to do with Obi-Wan and Darth Maul and Kui-Juan is in there.

I guess this is a recreation in part of something from Star Wars Rebels. Yes. But they make it look live action in this case. Star Wars Rebels version is much better. Is that right? Yes, this is ridiculous. Okay. There's some definitely lots of Uncanny Valley stuff here. But still, I'm curious as to how they go about making something like this. I don't know what the tools are.

that they use to be able to do something consistently from shot to shot. I'm not sure how you do that using AI. And I don't know what the tool are, what the tools are. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And then finally,

Have you guys read Born Standing Up by Steve Martin? I have. It's phenomenal. Absolutely phenomenal. Fantastic book. So I was interviewing someone about a week ago, a gentleman named Kevin McGee, who is a... very high level person at Microsoft in Microsoft, Canada, actually, Brian. So he's on your side of the border. And.

We were talking about folks coming up through school and getting their jobs and advice for them. And he asked me if I had any advice for the folks coming up. And I said, I always use what Steve Martin said, which is. Be so good they can't ignore you. And Kevin was tickled by this because he told me that Born Standing Up is a book that he gives to all of his salespeople to read. Because of how much stand-up comedy is like being a salesperson.

Right. You have to iterate your pitch. You have to deal with rejection. You have to keep coming back with, you know, and improve and improve. And eventually you'll figure it out or you won't. and perhaps make a career out of it. And I thought that was a really interesting insight. And I think it's a great idea. I think there's a lot for salespeople to learn from the book Born Standing Up. It's a short read, excellent read.

So highly recommended. But if you're a salesperson, maybe check it out and get some lessons. That's just good for life. I don't think you have to be a salesperson. That's great. True. Yep. Definitely. There's also a book by Cal Newport called So Good They Can't Ignore You. Why skills trump passion in the quest for work you love. It's from 2012. It's a phenomenal book. One of his it's I think it's his first one that actually hit. But yeah, really good job.

I mean, really good book. Not really. You can get a really good job if you read the really good book. Right. You know, Steve Martin did a really good job when he was doing stand up. He did too. Filled a stadium or two. You. All right. That's what I got, guys. All right. See you back here next time. Hopefully. Take care. Yeah. Bye. Closing shout outs. Over on Patreon, we've got two new subscribers, Jan and Joe.

Way to go, Jays. And from the pool of continuing supporters that we like to give credit to every week, we've got Austin, Stephen, Krista, Richard, Andrew, Max, Gadiel, Chad and Jen, Michael and Aaron. I don't know how. I'm sure I screwed that up. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Don't unsubscribe because I suck at this, please. We love you. We love you. Thank you so much. Over at PayPal, we've got Natalie, Arcadio, Nathaniel, Linda, Andrew, Brett, and Sloan.

Woohoo. And over at the tip jar, we've got John, Paula, Theodore, and Sean. and just the standard reminder every week. If you want to help support the show, because we are fan-supported only at this point, head over to patreon.com slash GOG, and you can sign up for as little as $3 a month or as much as you want.

your little heart desires, you get the show a little bit early and free and in high definition. And if you go to gog.show slash donate, you can find other ways to help donate to the show. But the Patreon way is the only way to get the show a little bit early. ad-free and in high definition. All right. And we have a new five-star rating. If you hate people and love technology, this is the podcast for you. I'm not sure how accurate that is because we hate technology too.

I still love it. I mean, look, we just spent 10 minutes talking about the weather technology. Come on. All right. We just hate Meta's technology. And Google's. And Apple's. And.

Never mind. Moving on. Sadly, Robert Redford died this week at age of 89. He had a damn good run. Everybody's talking about all of his greatest hits, but. I would like to say my favorite movie of Robert Redford is obviously Sneakers. I mean, definitely for this show, Sneakers is the one. Yep. And... I wanted to go see how old sneakers was. It's 33 years old because it came out on September 11th, 1992. When I asked Google.

Of course, it said it's 32 because math is hard for the AIs. And they fired the wrong team, I guess. Didn't know what date it was, apparently. Nope. Nope. Sure didn't. And breaking news as of yesterday, relevant to me, all-time Los Angeles Dodgers great Clayton Kershaw has announced he will be retiring at the end of the season. He is one of the greatest pitchers of his generation. The 37-year-old is 37.

retire my god is nearing the end of his 18th MLB season all of which he has spent with the Dodgers that is so incredibly rare this day in it this day and age in any sport that anybody stays with the team through the duration of their career. That's notable in and of itself. He is, of course, a fantastic pitcher. His final regular season start at Dodger Stadium will be today at 1010 p.m. for me.

I will be watching it, although he's likely to appear in Los Angeles again during the upcoming playoffs because unless something catastrophic happens, the Dodgers should be making it. So yay, Kershaw. He deserves all the accolades. Amazing guy. And this tells you as much as I know about Dodgers baseball, I've never heard of the guy. Never heard of him. Never heard his name once. Until next time, I'm Jason DeFillippo because I've heard of my name.

And I'm Brian Schulmeister. Thanks for listening to Grumpy Old Geeks. Get all the links and goodies from today's episode at GOG.show slash 714. Also my childhood area code.

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