729: Alright Alright Alright™

Grumpy Old Geeks, a weekly talk show hosted by Brian Schulmeister and Jason De...

Welcome to Grumpy Old Geeks. I'm Jason DeFilippo. And I'm Brian Schullmeister. Brian, I don't know what the status of the show is gonna be next week because guess what I got? Fucking jury duty. Ooh. Yeah. So I gotta start calling in as of Chow here of I don't know. I stand alone. I stand alone in the city of Los Angeles. But yeah, they got me again. I I the thing about jury duty in LA is everybody gets the summons and throws it out.

And a friend of mine just got back from doing during jury d if I can speak today, doing jury duty. And he's like, Yeah, people were getting fined left, right, and center for not showing up. So it's a fifteen hundred dollar fine. That's all. Yeah, yeah. So I'm going. I I I did it. I have never ever had jury duty, Jason.

How did oh that's right, you left and went to Canada, you bats. Well no no no. I I mean obviously I I spent many, many, many years in in LA. Um but I've never I never got a summons until I was in my late twenties. Uh at which point I was running my own company, so I was able to defer it a bunch of times because I could not leave my work.

supposedly. Uh eventually they finally didn't let me uh get away with that anymore, so I actually did go to jury duty. I sat in the room all day waiting to be called. They had misplaced my paperwork. So never called me for anything. And I said, Well, I'm n I don't have to come back, right? And they're like, Nope, you as far we we screwed up, as far as we're concerned, you served your time and uh by then I was uh out of here. So

Oh yeah. I did the last one in Santa Monica, which was okay'cause they had good ramen for lunch down the street. But I hear in Van Nuys the hot dog cart. It's got like four and a half stars and it's got an A rating, so everybody's like, Go to the hot dog cart. So I'll do that. So I'll let you know how it goes. So we may have to shuck and jive next week. So just let me know.

We we may not have a show because Jason will be doing his civic duty before there's no more civics to duty for. Exactly. For fifteen dollars a day. That's how much you get paid. Yeah. Well, you know, better than we get paid on this show. At least you get paid. What do we got, Brian? Well, let's talk more about hot dogs, shall we? Sure.

Uh, Grok, which we talked about last week, which was uh not in hot water'cause they don't seem to care for basically just allowing new g generations and CSAM and child stuff and uh basically just, you know, Elon letting his stupid AI do whatever the hell he wants with no guardrails and not bothering to do anything about it, has finally started to get a bit of pushback.

Uh Malaysia and Indonesia are the first countries to block Grok completely, claiming that X Chatbot does not have sufficient safeguards in place read any. Safeguards in place. Uh to prevent explicit AI generated deep fakes of women and children from being created and disseminated on X. Uh Indonesia blocked access to Grock on Saturday, Malaysia did on Sunday. Uh the UK media regulator Oxfam has opened a formal investigation into X under the Online Safety Act.

And apparently there were discussions between the Commonwealth countries, Canada, Australia and the UK about jointly blocking X M Groc, but uh nothing has come out of that so far. So we'll see. Regulators elsewhere, including India and the European Union, are also investigating X. The one country that can't be bothered is of course the one in which Elon is occasionally um with his tongue up the backside of, but then sometimes not. So the US has not done anything about this sort of.

Uh the Senate has passed the Disrupt Explicit Forged Images and Nonconsensual Edits Act or the Defiance Act. Boy, they worked hard at that one. Probably used Glock to make it. They probably did use actually that's pretty good, so they may have used Gemini. That's true. Um so yeah, they did pass that. Uh this bill lets the subjects of non consensual sex sexually explicit deep fakes take civil action against the people who create and host them.

Typical American reaction, rather than provide any regulations to stop it when it happens, it allows you to sue after the fact. Yes. That's how it works. Yeah, so they had passed an earlier version of the act in twenty twenty four, but it stalled in the House. Given the urgency of Groc's deep fake problem, the hope is this new version of the bill won't see the same resistance. So we shall see what happens there.

Uh, in other news about kids, uh, Meta has closed 550,000 accounts to comply with Australia's kids social media ban. As we talked about, Australia has passed an under sixteen social media ban, and Meta has said on medium why is Meta on Medium?

I don't know. Okay. Well they said on Medium that it shut down uh all those accounts. This included three hundred and thirty thousand Instagram accounts, a hundred and seventy three thousand Facebook accounts, and forty thousand thread accounts deemed. I got it, I figured it out. I know why they're on medium. So people can read it that had just had their accounts canceled because otherwise they couldn't go in to read their you know, read the report. That's that's why.

Yeah. Uh so they did it, uh uh pr begrudgingly, I'm sure. Platforms are using a variety of means to determine age, including age inference based on activity and selfies. Uh, they have expressed opposition to the ban, citing a number of factors. It says taking social media out of the hands of teens can isolate them from getting support from online communities.

Which is probably a good thing'cause then they can get support from offline communities, which is what they should be doing anyways, and that the ban is only driving them to less regulated parts of the internet. Oh yeah. Stop right there. Pause right there. Pause right there. Less regulated parts of the internet. Okay.

Facebook for instance, Instagram for instance? Is that we've talked endlessly about how useless the board is over there that's supposed to be trying to regulate things on s on the site, so Yeah. Yeah. Go outside, you live in Australia, please. And as the article itself points out, Meta doesn't have a sterling record when it comes to teen safety, having previously downplayed the frequency of harm to children.

No shit. And we've also talked about Roblox and the mess that that is for kids, and uh they also have implemented an age verification system that was designed as a response to allegations that it has a child predator problem, not allegations. It has a creditor problem. Yeah. Uh so we're less than a week in. How's it going? Well Wired reported on Tuesday that in some cases it's classifying children as adults and adults as children, so not so great.

The process involves either submitting a facial age estimate via selfie or optionally for anyone thirteen or older, uploading a government ID check. After verifying you can only chat with groups of players around your age. There are reports of a twenty-three year old being misidentified as a sixteen to seventeen year old. Oh, those problems. Another report claimed an eighteen year old was placed in the thirteen to fifteen range, but the problem is happening in reverse too.

Online videos show children spoofing the system into believing they were adults by using avatar images. One clever kid drew wrinkles and stubble on his face and was instantly deemed twenty one plus. That kid gets an award. He he gets free Roblox for life. Another flashed a photo of Kurt Cobain and got an adult classification. I would argue that uh if he knew who Kurt Cobain was, he probably is an adult. Kids today don't really know too much about Nirvana. I'm just saying. Bleach, better album.

Just in addition, Roblox uh posted last week that some parents were providing age checks on behalf of their children, leading to their children being placed in the twenty one plus category. The company said it's working on solutions to address that particular problem and we'll share more soon. That particular problem. Just that particular problem. Not the rest of them. Not the rest of them. Just that one particular problem we're going to be working on. Thanks. Thanks, Roblox.

Yeah, so uh unsurprisingly, uh age verification online is a complete and utter mess, and I do think that uh maybe we should be punting this to the cell phone and computer manufacturers that people are using somehow, but I don't know. Uh whatever. It's it's just obvious the sites aren't gonna do it and they're not gonna do it well.

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Meta's laying off more than 1,000 employees from its reality labs division as it pivots away from the metaverse and moving toward AI-powered hardware. But Jason, they named their company after the metaverse. I know. A little egg on the face on that one, I think. Just a little bit of egg on the face. Eggs are bad again?

Eggs are bad again, especially Zucker eggs. Uh according to Bloomberg, the company plans to refocus on wearables like its AI enabled smart glasses and mobile first products. Uh huh. So I I've talked to a couple of people who got the new version of the Ray Bands, they really like'em and I'm like, Aren't you worried that it

you know, meta that has all of your porn videos that you're making at home, they're like, Nah, they got'em already. So I'm like, Okay, way to fight the good fight. I'm glad you're yeah. Mm. Uh Reality Labs has lost over seventy billion dollars since twenty twenty one. Seventy billion dollars, Brian. What could the world do with seventy billion dollars? Besides burn it on the metaverse. They could have bought pants. We could have bought pants for every man, woman, and child on the planet.

They could give it to open AI, so open AI would only be about a hundred billion dollars in the r in the red. Yeah, that seventy billion might keep open AI going for another three weeks or something like that at their rate. So in a memo, CTO Andrew Bosworth said that Meta will shift resources almost entirely to mobile platforms while VR development continues under a leaner, scaled back roadmap.

Continuing that news, the company has cut most of the staff behind Supernatural, its VR fitness app, leaving users with no new workouts or coaching updates. And I don't know if you remember, Brian, there was a big fight over Supernatural when Meta bought it back in twenty twenty two, and they had to fight the FTC to approve the deal, then spent billions. Still working on the metaverse, and uh now they're just letting it fall on the floor. The one thing that people actually liked about

Meta's metaverse was supernatural and they're just like, nah, we don't need that anymore. So the app's effectively frozen with questions around music licensing and long term support, and users are split between sticking with the existing library or canceling their subscriptions. Cancel your subscriptions, people.

Uh it's like it's like trying to play rock band nowadays. You just can't do it after a while. So Yeah. Just switch to something else. Apple Fitness is great. No, it's not in the metaverse, but who cares? Yeah. Yeah. You don't have to you don't have to wear a silly headset. When you're uh using Apple Fitness. Well you can use your you know, your Apple Vision Pro if you want to, but I suppose it would make yoga difficult, I'd think. I I'd not downward dogging with a big headset on it.

Yeah, that might be a problem. Uh in our last bit of meta news, at least probably until we scroll a little farther in the show notes. Meta has appointed former Trump advisor Dina Powell McCormick as its new president and vice chair as the company accelerates its push to build massive artificial intelligence infrastructure around the world. Powell McCormick will work directly with governments to finance and deploy large-scale data centers, part of a new top-level initiative called Metacompute.

All right. Big brain trust in the naming department over there. Mark Zuckerberg says Meta plans to build tens of gigawatts of computing capacity this decade, calling infrastructure a key strategic advantage in the race for advanced AI. I would like to say that maybe your model

You know, working on your model would be the actual strategic advantage because as far as I can tell, Llama's not doing as well compared to all the other ones. But I guess throw more compute and more money at it, that's what Zuckerberg does best. And Meta's already investing heavily, including a twenty seven billion dollar data center in Louisiana in agreements tied to nuclear power projects to secure electricity. Yay. Yep. All for AI that nobody wants.

Yep. The appointment also signals Meta's effort to deepen its nose up the ass of the current administration. Well, fortunately, Brian, Meta's stock is down nearly nine percent over the past three months amid concerns about rising costs in uncertain returns because You know, Zuckerberg has such a such a great track record with these moonshots, you know? Stick to the money machine that you've already got and maybe make that product better.

Think about that. I don't know. Just a thought. Just a thought. Well, instead, of course, they are just trying to slam AI into absolutely everything, but it was uh heartening to see that there was a bit of pushback this week against AI. Uh Bandcamp has addressed the AI slot problem vexing musicians and their fans of late. The company is banning any music or audio on its platform that is wholly or in substantial part made by generative AI according to its blog.

It also clarified that the use of AI tools to impersonate other artists or styles is strictly prohibited by policies already in place. This is noticeably uh different from oh, I don't know, say Spotify or any of the other places out there that are w just kind of saying whatever. Uh any s music suspected to be AI generated may be removed by the Bandcamp team, and the company is giving users reporting tools to flag such content.

The announcement makes Bandcamp one of the first music platforms to offer a clear policy on the use of AI tech, AI generated music, aka slop. Or I guess audio slop has increasingly been invading music streaming platforms, with Deezer for one recently saying that fifty thousand AI-generated songs are uploaded to the app daily, or they're around thirty-four percent of its music.

Here's a question, Brian. I got a question for you. If Deezer knows that fifty thousand AI generated songs are being uploaded daily, can't they just say stop? Uploading fifty thousand AI generated songs. If they know it's an AI generated song, don't let'em upload it. That's true. That is true. Nobody knows who Deezer is. No. No. I when was the last time you opened Deezer? I mean it it it's a decade at least. I don't believe I ever opened Deezer, to be fair.

I had to open it for clients when I was trying to get their music out there. Yeah, so maybe two years ago I opened it because we did a song with a client and uh I had to post it around. And uh yeah, it was convoluted and uh desperate. That's teezer. Well, all right, all right, all right. Matthew McConaughey. Don't say that on our show. We're gonna have to start paying royalties if you say that again. Well, we didn't use AI to generate it, so let me get into the story.

Matthew McConaughey has filed a trademark application to prevent his likeness for being used by AI companies without permission, and the US Patented Trademark Office has approved eight so far, according to the Wall Street Journal. The trademarks were for video and audio clips featuring the actors staring, smiling, and talking, as most humans do.

One was for a video of him standing on a porch while another was for an audio recording of him saying, All right, all right, all right. Under the law it's already prohibited for companies to steal someone's likeness to sell products, but he is taking a proactive approach due to the nebulous roles

rules around the use of someone's likeness for artificial intelligence and what's considered commercial use involving the technology. His lawyer, Kevin Yorn, admits that they don't know how the court would decide if a defender challenges the trademark But they're hoping that the threat of a lawsuit would deter companies from using his likeness for AI in the first place.

So we shall see what happens with that. I do not believe that he has anything trademarked involving him playing bongos. So have at it, people. Yet. Um Well, some more AI mess. US immigrations and customs enforcement is cleaning up a mess of its own making after deploying an AI hiring tool that flat out failed, much like ICE does.

According to NBC Dean Cain got hired. He slept through somehow. That's how he got through. Yep. According to NBC, ICE used an untested language model to scan recruits' resumes and decide who qualified for fast track law enforcement training. Here's where it gets fun. The system flagged most applicants as experienced officers just because their resume included the word officer, sweeping in everyone from mall security to people with zero law enforcement background.

As a result, inexperienced recruits were rushed through shortened online training instead of the full academy. I I believe I was the milk officer in fourth grade, Jason. Yeah, exactly. Uh, the mistake surfaced last fall during a hiring surge ordered by the Trump administration, and ICE is now scrambling to train its staff, I mean uh Nazi thugs. Probably good for the civil suits that are popping up everywhere against these fucking ghouls.

Uh well speaking of ghouls, here's my favorite headline of the week, Brian. I love Gizmodo, that's just for the headlines now. Self help ghouls are charging people absurd prices to talk to impersonator chat bots. Yeah, the Wall Street Journal reports that self help gurus are charging real money for AI chatbots that impersonate them, pitching personalized advice at scale.

Dating coach Matthew Hussey charges forty bucks a month for Matthew AI. And Tony Robbins asks ninety-nine dollars a month with a bait and switch intro deal. Now Tony Robbins, if Tony Robbins is in on it. Fucking run. Do not give him your money. Do not look back. You will turn to a pillar of salt. Just fucking run. Tony Robbins is the biggest self help scam artist that ever lived. So just just fucking run.

So yeah, it's just they're they're just it's remix bullshit. They're not they're they're not trained therapists. They've got nothing to offer you. Period. All they're doing is taking their books and their speeches and shoving them into a fucking LLM and using probably eleven labs to to clone their voice. And so you think you're talking to Tony Robbins or whoever the hussy guy was or any of these other scam artists. Matthew Hussle. That was a Yeah, Matthew Hussle, that's a better name for him.

Uh one spiritual influencer admitted if she didn't sell an AI version of herself, someone else would. Well, if someone else would, then you should sue them. That's how that works. You know, if they're taking your intellectual property and using it to make money on it that's not, I don't know, a large language model company like OpenAI or Anthropic or

Yeah, any of those big ones. If it's a smaller guy, go sue him. But you know, just to say, yeah, I'm just gonna do it because everybody else is doing it is a weak fucking argument. That's what I gotta say about that. I need to take a breath. Ah, those guys get me r amped up, amped up. I need my Dalai Lama L L M. Can I tell Why don't you take a minute and talk to your wellness advisor A AI for a second, Jason? You can calm down.

I will. Well, uh, here's some good news. The FTC has finally wrapped up its data sharing smackdown of General Motors, locking in an order that bans GM and its on-star service from collecting and selling drivers' precise location data to third parties like data brokers. And insurance companies.

Uh we talked about this a long time ago, and this comes almost two years after reporting showing GM's so called smart driver program quietly tracked where you went, how you drove, and whether you buckled up, then funnel that data to firms like LexisNexis and Varisa. Which resold it to insurers who could quietly jack up your rates. Not so quietly'cause if they when they jack up my rates it is anything but quiet in my house'cause I'm screaming and throwing things.

Uh GM killed the Smart Driver program in 2024, but the FTC says the damage was already done thanks to a misleading enrollment process that never clearly spelled out what data was being collected or sold. So under the final order, GM now has to get explicit consent. for certain connected car data, give drivers access to their data, let them delete it, and offer a real off switch for precision location tracking. So there are carve outs for emergencies and anonymized research.

Uh but the message is clear. Your car isn't supposed to be a rolling data broker. So I'm amazed that the FTC has gotten anything done under this administration. So that is a shocker. That is a shocker. But it it's it's crazy how this thing has switched'cause I remember when uh some insurance companies like came out of the gate with like Look, plug this USB stick into your car. It'll give us all the data about your driving. And you know what? We're going to give you a discount.

We're gonna give you better rates because you are trust trusting us with the data about your driving and we will see and and if you do drive well, we will give you a display. Now it switched from I'm doing this on purpose to get a discount to you're evilly tracking every move I make and then quietly telling my insurance company, which is upping my rates without giving me any reason why. Fuck this world. Pretty much. Yeah.

Well some some people tried to leave the world but they've been called back. Brian, what's your next bit of news? Stupid rock. I don't know how it's gonna go for ya. NASA has decided to bring the crew 11 astronauts home a month earlier than originally planned due to a medical concern with one of them.

This is the first time in its history that the space agen agency is cutting a mission short due to a medical issue, but it didn't identify the crew member or divulge the exact situation and its severity. Apparently HIPAA laws actually work in space. They don't work here on the planet, but they work in space.

Yeah, the ISS doesn't have OnStar. Yeah. Uh they're targeting a return date no earlier than January fourteenth with the exact schedule depending on the weather. Uh well they landed yesterday, so Oh did they? I landed yesterday. We had a snow day yesterday, so speaking of weather, so I did not pay attention to any news because everybody was here and the w and I was shoveling half the day, so Uh good. I'm glad they made it home.

If you went outside and looked up in the sky at a certain point yesterday, you could actually see them w streaking across the sky. They landed outside of San Diego, so you could actually see them from all the way up uh in the Northern California to Southern California. But I missed it. But yeah. That's too bad. Yeah. Say they landed safely yesterday.

All right. Well good, good, good to hear. Uh back in twenty twenty four, NASA had also announced the Artemis two mission was going to be pushed back to April twenty twenty six. This is the first crewed moon mission to uh in in over fifty years, so it's very exciting. Uh the agency now says it could launch as early as February, with the first flight opportunity being on February sixth.

So that could be fun. It'll go out of the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Uh this is the first crewed mission to uh since the Apollo program's final flight in nineteen seventy two. It will be a ten day mission with four astronauts on board who will be testing if they can live off potatoes. Good luck to him. I I'd I'd like to see that I'd like to see that take off. Me too.

Now here's some disturbing news, Brian. We have bitched and moaned about Starlink since they s since they put up their first satellites. China just filed paperwork for a satellite constellation so big it makes Starlink look like a starter pack. A newly formed Chinese institute has asked the International Telecommunications Union for permission to operate nearly wait for it, Brian.

two hundred thousand satellites, about four times what SpaceX's full Starlink is supposed to be running out, and Starlink doesn't even have anything close to that right now. They were gonna be Starlink was gonna put up about forty nine thousand satellites. And uh this new constellation is one hundred and ninety three thousand four hundred and twenty eight satellites. I hope the answer is no, said Yeah.

Uh because you start packing that many satellites into low Earth orbit then You know, we are basically just accelerating the timeline for Kessler syndrome. Which is the nightmare scenario where collisions cast aid into debris storms and make whole Earth orbits unusable. We've talked about it on the show many, many times.

And you know, filing is easy though, launching and safely managing two hundred thousand satellites without turning space into a junkyard is incredibly difficult. So if if this goes I You know, half of me is like, okay, great. Let's just lock us in. We can't go anywhere. Elon will shut the fuck up about Mars, and maybe we can get back to work on problems here on Earth.

Just saying maybe. Maybe that would be the the silver lining of the you know, the irradiated satellite debris cloud that uh hangs above all our heads. But we would like The no more GPS. That's gone. I know how to read a map. I'm Gen X. Dude, I still have a Thomas guide in my car and I don't even fucking live in LA anymore. Dude, you could sell next time you come back, give me that. I want that. No way, I'm holding on to that. Now I'm worried about Kessler syndrome.

Yeah, that's true. That's true.'Cause you can't you can't buy'em anymore. I tried to buy an old one'cause they w they s they stopped making'em and I really wanted one. I do keep in my Jeep uh a a Atlas of the United States though, which I did use one time when I drove from uh Chicago to LA without GPS and without a set route. And I just I followed it on my map. And when I got to the Rocky Mountains, I turned south.

And that's when I found that giant wind farm, the second largest wind farm in the United States, because serendipity sometimes people is good for you. I'm just saying, maybe we can lose the satellites and fuck GPS. All I'm saying. Okay. I'm on board. This episode is brought to you by Gusto.

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Brian, we've talked about Lord of the Rings so much in the past couple months that I said You know what I'm gonna do? I'm going back to Middle Earth. So every night for the past week, I I hunker down in front of my giant TV, turn off all the lights. and I watch a little bit of the Lord of the Rings trilogy extended editions. I have now gotten through the first movie and I'm about ten percent into the second movie.

I love it. I absolutely love it. It is so much fun to go back and revisit those movies. I I I forgot how how much fun they were. They're wonderful movies. They're absolutely wonderful. And they're you know, normally I like a shoe like extended editions, who gives a crap? Like let's concise, get to the point with a movie. No. I I wish there was an extended, extended edition.

Just go watch The Hobbit. Then you'll then you'll pray for the you'll pray for the truncated edition. Yeah. So that's great. That's awesome that you're doing it. Yeah, they're all on HBO Max right now, so I'm just I'm just, you know, tooling through'em at night'cause by the end of the day I'm so fried. I just want to relax and those are perfect.

relaxing movies'cause I obviously don't have a glass of wine to sit with and watch. So I just sit there with and sit there with my puppy and watch the movies and it is the perfect way to end the day. So much fun. And I tell you what, the effects really hold up. It's amazing how well the effects hold up. Now Gollum in episode one, not the best, but in in in the second movie, Gollum is just like still I scratch my head and say, Why can't people do effects that good nowadays?

I watched a video on YouTube not too long ago. I'll try and find it and put it in the show notes that talks about how somebody tried to recreate The uh the the Gandalf and uh Bilbo Baggin scene in the Shire at the very beginning and how they pulled that off. It is insane how they pulled that off with just practical effect.

Just the way the camera had to move and the the set pieces. Neither one of them were looking at each other. They had dummies to look at. It's incredible how they pulled that off. So yeah, the the practicals, it's just and especially when and when you know how they did some of that stuff and you watch the movie, you're just like I don't see it. It's just I just you get so drawn into the movie, it's just like this is so cool. It's so much fun.

I can't wait until my kid is ready. He's still like uh on the you know, it opens with some scary ass orc shit and he was like, Ah, I'm not ready, I'm out, so maybe this Christmas. We'll see. Oh yeah, t make him watch it for Christmas. Perfect. It's a total Christmas movie. Uh well Beast Games season two is out. I've been watching that for the past uh week and uh it is awesome.

It is awesome. The new episode just dropped yesterday and uh the day before yesterday. It is a crossover with Survivor for the fiftieth season of Survivor. We you f you forget which movie or which show you're watching at that point because it is such an integrated crossover. Jeff Probst is there, they're on the Survivor Island. It is fun. I I Beast Games is just To me it's just a load of fun. I really enjoyed the first season and I'm enjoying the second season too. It's it's a blast.

So I know it's not your cup of tea, Brian,'cause you don't like competition shows, but for competition shows Yeah, yeah. I I I'm I'm a sucker for'em. And I can't wait for season fifty of Survivor. That's gonna be a fun one. Uh I can't believe I've been watching this show for fifty fucking

Which is ridiculous. And let's talk about Starfleet Academy. Brian, did you get to watch any of them yet? Uh yeah, you uh we had text we were texting with each other last night to make sure that we were both on board and able to get uh one episode in. I I liked it so much I watched both. You did. I did. That's ended up staying late.

That is a shocker. I uh I watched the first one. I wasn't mad at it, except for a few key things. Now, the bridge looks like it's set on Mel's Diner. It's I don't like I I'm with you on this. I hate the entire aesthetic and design of the show. I don't like it. Horrible. It is fucking horrible. It's golden burgundy. I I feel like they tick way too much from the reboot, from the Kelvin timeline.

lens flares all the time, like lighting is horrible. Everything's shiny and looks like it's set. You gotta pull the little plastic off of it, like when you get your new electronics. Like it's I I hate the aesthetic. The the outfits uh for the for the uh students are horrible. Like it's just not good. It doesn't look the way I want it to look. But I liked the show. I think Holly Hunter is amazing. I think Paul Giamatti

never has to eat again'cause he chewed up so much of the scenery. It's awesome. See, it the funny thing about Paul Giamatti in this is when you watch the the trailers for it, I'm like There there is so much cheese here that, you know, it it's just like just cover him in Velveeta and just let him do his thing. But in the context of the show, when you actually get to see the performance with the story It surprisingly works very well. Which is surprising.

Yeah. Uh the ship design, I hated the ship design. I could not stand the ship design. What are you doing? Yeah. No, and the their calm badges are the ship design, which is No, I don't like it. Not a fan. Um and what really took me out of it. For five minutes I'm sing sitting there going I know this voice and

I know this voice. There's a voice from the computer that is the like the the uh master of students, the dean or the dean of students who's always talking to the students. And I'm like, I know that voice. It's gonna drive me crazy. Who is this fucking voice? And I looked it up and it's Stephen Colbert, which really took me out of it. This is like Adam Savage taking you out of the expanse. Right. It's exactly like that. It totally takes me out of it and pisses me off.

Also, there was that that one scene where they showed the big wall of all the names of the Starfleet people that went past. The first name that I saw was fucking Wesley Crusher and it pissed me off. Well I mean uh to you to Wesley Crusher. I wasn't sure how this was gonna go off. Is it gonna be a whole bunch of Wesley Crushers? Or is it gonna be stupid woke discovery again? It's neither.

I mean there's there's there's touches of it. It's it's not it's uh n don't get me wrong, this is not the next generation Star Trek. It's just not. It's a different vibe, a different experience. But I am okay with it so far. Again quibbles aside about the whole design aspect. Like I whoever designed this should be fired. We're not gonna I I would love to see it look different. It's not gonna because this is what they picked.

But I'm I'm I'm okay with this. I am willing to give this a go. I I liked the second episode too. I don't know if you watched it yet. No, not yet. It's I I'm I'm all in right now. I'm all in. Sort of. Trepidatiously. Well no, here here is my here is my one thing with being all in on this uh new uh Star Trek brought to us by Paramount. I got an email from Paramount right before I was about ready to start watching Star Trek.

We were writing to let you know that on january fifteenth, twenty twenty six, we increased the price of our premium monthly plan for new customers to thirteen ninety nine per month plus taxes were applicable. As an existing customer, this new price will also apply to you beginning with your renewal on february twenty second.

Fuck you. No. You're giving you can't you're canceling all the Star Trek shows I like. You're giving me one new Star Trek show and I watch nothing else on new something else on Paramountal. Nothing. So I will not be renewing at this price and I will be watching Star Trek from Sweden. I'll I'll I'll save you a seat. I'll save you a seat. Uh yeah, no, I'm looking forward to watching the second episode. I was just so tired last night that I can't I couldn't.

Yeah. And and still wake up and do this show. It's a it's a different episode and and I I did look at some reviews and they said that uh you know, these two episodes give you like two completely different facets of the show, different different feels. And I'd say that's true, but I liked both, so

Okay, well that's something to be said because like when uh Strange New Worlds switched it up from episode one to episode two, it was not a good thing. Well that was a c that tonal shift was ridiculous. You went from like fighting the gorn to having a silly wedding. Yeah, to uh like, you know, Q's kid episode. It's like, what the hell? No, it's not it's nothing like that. So I I think you'll enjoy it.

Oh yeah, it's so far like I said, I'm not mad at it. I'm surprisingly not mad at it, which I I I came in just expecting seething. I was already seething when I do just I press play. I'm like, I'm gonna fucking hate this show. And I didn't. So it's a plus. It's a plus. I guess low e yeah, low expectations is really the proper way to live your life, is what I'm saying. Absolutely.

So our friend Gabriel Pagan made a list on Letterboxd with all the movies we talked about here on Grumpy Old Geeks in 2005. He calls it the Grumpy Old List. There will be a link in the show notes. And I had to add a few because there's some things that I didn't add to the show notes that I know we talked about on the show. And he went and uh added those to the show. So take a look at it, Brian, see if there's anything that you think we missed.

But I think it's a pretty good uh pretty good list. If you want to go check out this stuff, we Awesome. Very cool. Thank you. Thank you for doing that. Uh and speaking of lists, uh there is one podcast that I still listen to pretty regularly, uh, besides no such thing on as a fish. That is the ongoing history of new music. Which is done by Alan Cross, who was uh once the co host of a sister show of ours to some degree, uh Geeks and Beats. Remember that one, Jason?

Yeah. Yeah, that was a great show. I missed that show. Yeah, so he's the music guy and he's got his own thing going on where he just talks about various different things and uh alternative music and all that stuff. It's it's a good podcast. Thirty minutes comes out once a week. Uh, but once a year he does a very special episode and it is a little bit depressing. So uh I did listen to that this week. It's the ongoing history of new music episode one thousand and sixty nine.

Twenty twenty five in memorium in memorium. I don't know why I couldn't spit that out. Uh so this is the one where he goes through basically everybody that died last year. So it's it's uh it's you know, of course it's a bit of a bummer, but it's it's nice to hear it and there are some people I definitely missed. I didn't realize that they had passed away, so Uh I I I wouldn't say I look forward to this episode every year, but I do like to listen. So

Enough people are dying d daily that I that I have to deal with, so let's just uh yeah. Okay. Yeah. Uh there there you go. And uh finally uh Depeche Mode has released a new uh Sort of concert film called M. Uh this was shot in Mexico and shot by a Mexican director. It's out on Netflix now. Uh That says it all right there. So it's too artsy fartsy. There's there's all these different things that have nothing to do with the actual concert that's going on. It's all you know it's

Uh good on you for making it. I'm never gonna watch it. And actually if I really wanna see a Depeche Mode concert, I don't want to see them now when they're like ninety five years old. and you can see every sagging piece of skin. I will go back and watch Depeche Mode one oh one from the heyday back at the Rose Bowl way, way, way back in like nineteen eighty.

Before four K was a thing. Well, they they've upscaled it and re released it, which is kinda nice. Oh, that's cool. That's cool. Yeah. So yeah. Depech mode M though? Nah. No thanks. Ups and doodabs!

Well, Brian, we've got the first news about Johnny Ive and Sam Altman's broman. So they're reportedly cooking up their first AI gadget, and yes, it might be coming for AirPods. According to a supply chain leaker with a decent Apple rumor track record, the device codenamed Sweet P is a pair of pill-shaped audio thingies that sit behind your ears instead of inside them, charging in an egg-shaped case.

Uh details are fuzzy, but the safe bet is an AI-first voice assistant powered by ChatGPT. Duh. Think calls, audio playback, and controlling your phone except done through microphones in a two-nanometer smartphone class chip. The leaker even claims it could handle iPhone style actions by bossing Siri around, which is ambitious, if not slightly delusional, especially now because we just got new new word about uh Siri, which we will talk about next.

But uh yeah, so you know, they they weren't saying what it was, but yeah. They they go they behind your ear behind'cause there's nothing sexier than looking like you've got hearing aids. I know, I know. I'm wondering if it's like, you know, bone induction or however that's gonna work. I don't know what it is, but yeah. Okay. All right. We'll see. I'm probably not, I'm thinking.

But yes, speaking of Siri, Apple's Siri AI will now be powered by Gemini. Apple and Google have confirmed reports that the former will use Google Gemini's models to help power the new version of Siri and other generative AI features. Uh, they released a joint statement which reads Apple and Google have entered enjoy multi year collaboration under which the next generation of Apple Foundation models will be based on Google's Gemini models and cloud technology.

These models will help power future Apple intelligence features, including a more personalized series coming this year. So yeah, they're giving up on their own stuff, which is smart, I guess, but it is weird how all these companies are just in bed with each other now. Well, this one makes a lot of sense to me because Apple is way behind the eight ball. They're still trying to you know, trying to get their their feet under them. They're working on their AI chips now.

And as far as I can tell from day to day use, I I use all this stuff every single day, Gemini kicks the shit out of everybody on every level so far. Not undressing teenagers though, right? Th every level that modern society deems appropriate. How about that? Well there's Uh modern society that I want to hang out with deems appropriate. How's that? Okay, because uh a lot of modern society seems totally okay with it. That's true. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

No, I'm I'm I'm actually like, you know, looking forward to this integration because Siri at this point is so fucking useless that it's like Oh I turn it off. Uh yeah, I just turn it off. I turn it off. It's useless. Uh I still need it to set timers. That's it. I I and my Apple Watch literally is all it's only only thing I use Siri for is setting timers. So

So Apple is finally doing the thing it pretended it would never do. Starting january twenty eighth, Cupertino is bundling its pro creative apps into a new subscription. Called Creator Studio. Thirteen bucks a month or one thirty a year gets you Final Cut Pro, Logic Pro, PixelMator Pro, Pixel Mateur, Motion, Compressor, and Mainstage on Mac and iPad, plus a pile of premium features for keynote, pages, numbers, and freeform.

There's a one month free trial and students get a very Apple approved discount at three dollars a month. I'm going back to school. You know what? That seems reasonably priced to me, especially in comparison to their Apple One price. It it it it actually is. It really is'cause Apple One pricing is disgustingly high. Disgustingly high. Yeah.

Uh yeah, no, I mean here's the thing. I bought Logic Pro seven years ago for$249 and have never had to pay for it again, which is fine by me. I don't use Final Cut. PixelMater. I mean, th this is a good set of tools for people who want to get out of the Adobe ecosystem and get shit done. This literally gets you eighty-five percent of where you need to be. Except the problem is you gotta use Final Cut Pro, which is a pain in the ass.

I just hate their library structure. If their library structure wasn't so fucking convoluted. Anyway, uh Logic Pro I use every day, so that's that's a good one. You know, if I had to if I didn't own it and I had to pay thirteen bucks a month, I wouldn't be pissed. I wouldn't be pissed. And you get you get some extra add ons, you know, with your your other current stuff with uh the the you know, your keynote and all that stuff. So

Yeah, probably probably a pretty good deal. All right. Now just uh lower the price on uh on Apple One please. Just hold on. Please. Uh but speaking of subscription services, Elon's hopping on that bandwagon. Tesla will stop selling its eight thousand dollar

Full self driving option, which is not full self driving, and make it strictly a monthly subscription service after February fourteenth, he announced on his X platform. He didn't reveal the price or why he's making the switch. Money, money, money. The full self driving is already available by subscription for ninety-nine dollars per month or nine hundred and ninety nine dollars per year.

This could be advantageous for buyers, particularly if they decide to dump their new Tesla or trade it in. It will also allow prospective owners to hedge their bets as Tesla is over-promised on the feature since it was first announced. Full self driving has never done what the name suggests as humans must constantly supervise the system and frequently take control.

Because of that it's more of a driver assist system and doesn't even qualify as level three self driving conditional automation, let alone as a truly autonomous level four or five category. He has been touting the self driving capabilities on Tesla since twenty fifteen. Wow, that's a long time. Promising at the time complete autonomy by twenty eighteen, nineteen, twenty twenty, twenty twenty one, twenty two, twenty three, twenty two. It is now twenty three.

Twenty four. I remember w we were doing this show when he came out and said that and we're like bullshit. Bullshit. At least twenty years away. Always twenty years away. And we're still right. We're still right. We sure are. Oh now here's one that really irks me. Ring Founder details the camera company's intelligent assistant era.

Ring founder Jamie Simonov says artificial intelligence is pushing the Amazon-owned company into a new phase, transforming it from a video doorbell maker into what he calls an intelligent assistant for the home. Speaking at this year's Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Simonoff said advances in AI combined with personal experience convinced him to return to the company he sold to Amazon in twenty eighteen. Not I'm sure there's a giant paycheck involved too.

Simonov said recent wildfires in the Pacific Palisades which destroyed the garage where Ring was originally built. Helped inspire new features. One of them, Firewatch, lets customers opt in to share video during major fire events. In partnership with the nonprofit Watch Duty, I love Watch Duty, they're great. AI analyzes footage for smoke, flames, and embers to help improve emergency response. Now

Another feature called Search Party uses AI to help locate lost pets by matching user submitted photos with ring camera footage. Now, you don't need to turn that on. I I'm gonna tell you right now the ring neighborhood

feature that they've got, which is the like the little community that's built in, already works perfectly without having to share any video to find lost pets. I actually helped a friend who found a pet reunite it with its owner just by using the little app thing that they've got built in. Didn't have to do anything else. It was perfect. So this is just another AI overreach, which they don't need. Now, here's the one that uh gets me Law enforcement partnerships have also returned. Yay.

Well Ring ended earlier police agreements after backlash. It now works with companies like Flock Safety and Axon. Yeah. Fuck flock. Uh allowing police to request footage. Simonov says sharing is voluntary and anonymous if users decline. voluntary or anonymous if users decline, which means they're going to take it anyway if you decline. Just follow that. Yeah. There is no opt-out.

No. No, which makes me want to go to my front door and put a piece of black tape over my ring until I can find another one. Yeah, that just pisses me off. I use the Google home camera. That's nice. So they'll train the AI on people who come to my front door. I did have a I I'm I'm I'm running away from a process server right now, so maybe they can use that to help me identify the process servers when they show up at the door so I know when to hide in the back. Yeah. That'll help.

Uh, and my favorite app of the week. It it reminds me of an app that I came up with a long time ago that I called Death Vault, which didn't really catch on because the name was Death Vault. Everybody's like, that's not really an upbeat name. I'm like, Well, it's not supposed to be. It's called Death Vault because if you die, then it your documents get sent to people. This is called Are You Dead? Yeah. It's hard it's hard to paint that pig.

Yeah, yeah. No, I just wanna be. Thank you very much. Uh China's latest breakout app has a blunt name and an even blunter purpose. It's called Are You Dead? And it's designed for people who live alone and worry about what happens if no one notices when something goes wrong. Honestly, I don't care. If I'm dead'cause I live alone and I have no friends, who gives a fuck what happens to me? So

Yeah. Uh the app requires or app us works by requiring users to check in every day or two by tapping a large button to confirm if they're alive. If they miss a check in, the app automatically alerts a designated emergency contact. Uh costs like two bucks.

Uh it's written by a couple of kids and now they're they're branching out. But it is it's it's it's in the news everywhere. When I put this in here I'd never heard of it, but I it's on like the the nightly news now. It's apparently a breakout hit. Well it's so ridiculous, that's why.

Uh words.zip is a huge grid of random letters in which users are invited to search for words. I I thought about this because I started doing boggle uh with the Netflix games as I talked about last week. And this is just a kind of a website that lets you look for words. When you find a word, you can highlight it and commit it to the site's database, at which point the letters become colored and avail unavailable for further use.

The colors denote how many times the word has been found already, with purple words being the rarest and green the most common, and if you manage to track down a word that no one else has identified yet, you're doing better than we do. according to Gizmodo. What a lovely sight. What a great way to learn new words. What good clean fun for the family. Surely the internet has embraced the whole thing with a spirit of maturity and restraint, right?

Sure no. The internet has actually done is drawn a dick on it. Zoom out far enough and you'll see the e that enterprising users have been arranging colored letters to draw things, and the result is that parts of the grid have started to resemble the door of the bathroom in your local dive bar.

In fairness, the inevitable cartoon Dick and Balls is joined by other non phallic adornments. Someone has drawn a lovely picture of a cat, um and a love struck logophile has declared their love for someone named Ada, but mostly you see a dick. Perfect. Welcome to the internet. Welcome to the internet, everybody. First day?

At the library Well, Brian, I picked up a book right before Christmas called The Anthony Bourdain Reader, New Classic and Rediscovered Writing by Anthony Bourdain. I sent it to you. I didn't know if you got a chance to look at it. I got it on the Kindle, so I actually have to read it.

I'm having a hard time getting started with that one because every time I get started I hear Anthony Bourdain in my head and then I just get sad. So I don't know how I'm gonna get through this, but it looks really cool. And did you have any interest in picking this one up? I know you're a Bourdain fan. I am a Bourdain fan. I I don't know if I

I need to read classic writings. I I read all of his old stuff. I'm not sure how much new or rediscovered stuff is in there, so I I have to take a look at the table of contents. But uh I'm kinda with you. Like I I have not uh I've not been able to enjoy Bourdain in the way I I I almost don't want to consume any more Bourdain.

Like it's all in the past and I love it and I love him and it kinda bums me out any time I see him in the news or anything. Uh I even like I was watching something and like parts unknown came on for a second and I was like It made me sad. It bummed me out. Yeah. I was like, oh man.

Uh yeah, I found that lost season of the taste on Amazon Prime Video and I watched it and I was just the whole time I'm just like, God damn, this sucks, you know? Yeah. You you lose the ones you want around and uh instead you get up all these fucking ice agents running around. Why can't those fuckers die?

Please. Um, so I also read a book called Obvious Adams, The Story of a Successful Businessman by Robert Uptigraph. I found out this because I've been watching a bunch of videos by Rory Sutherland. He's the vice chairman of Ogilvy in the UK. Uh got famous for a TED talk about a decade and change ago. And I just really like this guy. He's very smart.

He's an advertising guy, obviously, works for Ogilvie, and he's just entertaining as fuck to watch. So uh he recommended this book. I read it. It was a fantastic book. If you're into you know, if you're into the advertising marketing space, this is definitely a must read. This talks about this guy who just finds obvious solutions to complex problems that people just go beat their head against a wall for. It's a short read, it was only like a couple bucks.

It was just a fun little a fun little book. I thoroughly enjoyed it. Um the other book I just picked up is Before in Laughter by Jimmy Carr. And I are you a Jimmy Carr fan, Brian? No. I I have to say I'm not. I I I've seen a lot of his his stuff uh um and I just uh something about him rubs me the wrong way. I I don't know much about him. I just don't I I don't I don't. Okay. That's the thing about him. It's it seems to be a lover hate. I'm a lover. I I think he's fantastic. I think he's smart.

as fuck. And uh, you know, he just his story is is he's got a great story and it's it's actually his story, but a bunch of, you know, just tips and tricks of how he got to where he is along the way. Just an average guy who just hunkered down and got really good. at doing stand up and writing jokes. And his crowd work is some of the best in the in the world. It's it's phenomenal.

And uh he's just sharp as a tack. And I love him and I love this book. It's a great book, so highly recommend checking it out. Uh I think you would actually like this book, Brian. It might actually make you understand why he is the way he is. Okay. It'll make me understand why I don't like'em. I think he I think he might I think you might turn a corner and actually like him'cause he's one of us, you know. He's just a Gen X motherfucker who

hates people and just makes fun of'em. It's great. Okay. So and I did want to get this in today because the Regicide Report, Laundry Files number fourteen by Charles Strauss, is coming out January twenty seventh. Now this is the final book in the laundry file series, which we have talked about since we started this show.

And uh the the um original protagonist, Bob, is back. And I don't even remember that much about him anymore because there's been like eight books in between when he left the series and came back, so Uh I don't know how this is going to play out, but I'm glad he's finally putting a button on the series, and I will definitely be getting it the day it comes out. What about you, Brian? You gonna get it?

I I don't remember uh much about it, just like you said. Um and I kinda dropped off I stopped reading the series. Uh I read the first two post Bob books in the series and stopped. So I I didn't I didn't like it without without Bob. I I'm gonna have to go back and use Amazon's AI recaps on the books to figure out where everything ended up at and where it's at, but Uh yeah, I'll I'll read it because I I did love those books. I absolutely love the original books with Bob in it. So

I I'd like to see how he ends the story. It all went off the rails pretty quick after he left from what I recall. There were demons that had taken over the British government and I I don't even know what the fuck happened anymore. So I'll I've wa I've read them all and some are some are hit or miss, but of all in all I know the whole story, but I just forget about Bob. What about Bob? I'll hit that Wikipedia page. I'm not going to use AI. The dark side.

Ha with Dave? Welcome to the Dark Side with Dave, the podcaster with the most us. Mr. Dave Bittner. How you doing, Dave? Welcome back. Not bad. Ha uh well, hanging in there is probably the best that I can do these days. I think that's how we it's it's pretty much what we can all get through. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So yeah. Here. Good to catch up. Here. Still here. Still here.

So uh I was uh you guys are just coming off the at the library segment and I thought I I wanna make a little contribution of my own here. Um I w read a book that I very much enjoyed last month. Uh it's actually called How to Read a Book. It's written by n uh Monica Wood and uh I highly recommend it. It was uh I I found myself uh compelled by it and moved by it. Uh it was one of those books that I spent a lot of time thinking about when I wasn't reading it.

So um yeah, highly recommend it. It's a good read. How did you get it? Because the link you put in the show notes says it doesn't come out'til September fifteenth of this year. Oh I well that's that's a lie. I I mean maybe that maybe that's the platform that it's on. I I uh got the audio book through Apple Books.

Oh. And listen to it there on a I had a road trip last month and I basically banged it out over the course of that. So just a a quick Google s shows that it was first published june eighteenth, twenty twenty four. So it has been out. Yeah. Yeah. Maybe a paperback is coming. It looks like that was the hardcover. I don't know. Oh. Could be. But I very much enjoyed the audio book. I thought it was well performed and

Uh a lot of characters to keep track of and the the reader did a great job with it. So if audiobooks are your thing, the whatever the one that was on Apple Book. I found pleasing. I just added it to my wish list in Audible, so it is there and it is available. Yes. There you go. And I will I will actually read the book when I get it. So Yeah, yeah, yeah. Curious to know how you both feel about it.

Excellent. Uh yeah, I'll put I'll put that in as my next read after I finish up this god awful book I'm reading right now. Okay. Well, I I I had to bring this up because you two are the homeowners of the group, but uh this last weekend I removed a and installed a new dishwasher by myself. Wow. And that sucked. That really sucks. And it was the first dishwasher that was ever put in the house. So to get it out was like

It's very heavy and very big. Right. And that's why it was still working fifty years later. Right. That is exactly why. We actually had somebody come out and try and fix it'cause a little switch inside the door broke. And that's it. could drive a VW microbus without any problems. Yes. Seriously. I believe it. Yeah. What we also realized was it was probably why our electric bill is probably nineteen hundred dollars a month.

Um, or last week. So we're like, okay, let's try and it's broken, let's get a new one. So we went and bought like the cheapest. It was like three hundred and fifty bucks for the new dishwasher. And it was almost as much to get it installed. I'm like, I'll do it. You know, I've installed washing machines, dryers, and all the other stuff. I I've even done a garbage disposal, which was the worst thing I think I've ever installed in my life until now. Well what was so hard about it?

Well, i the wiring I had to do all of the electrics myself because it it wasn't just you plug it into the wall, you actually had to like strip the wires and make sure cut off all the breakers of the house, get everything set up. Yeah. Well the old see, I had to remove all of the detritus of the nineteen sixties dishwasher that did not have the same kind of You know, ease of use and convenience of modern day appliances. Right. All the hoses were made out of asbestos. Exactly.

I just got cancer. That's it. I'm done. I've got, you know, fi fiberglass and all my fingers and it was just miserable. And but I got it done. Only took five hours. The dishwasher is a weird one. It's it's uh like I I'm pretty comfortable working with electrical. I'm I'm pretty comfortable working with plumbing. I really don't want to work on them both at the same time. Oh there's there's something about electrical and water. It's like I don't fix my toaster in my tub. That's a bad idea.

The uh the actual water hookup is on one side, and right next to it on the other side is the junction box that I have just wired up myself. So you think if this one leaks. I'm I don't know if I'm gonna have time to sprint to the fuse box, which is outside and around the back of the house to hit the power to turn it off before everything blows up. But It worked right out of the gate. I did the wet test, no leak. Power worked fine. Everything worked first try. It only took five hours to do.

And because you got a new modern dishwasher, you'll just be doing this again in about three years when this thing shits out on you. That's right. The the motor inside this dishwasher is smaller than the motor that powers my my blow up dreidel at Christmas in the front yard. I shit you not. I shit you not. I've had burritos

From Paquito Moss that are bigger than the motor that powers our dishwasher. It's insane. But that's and and even when my roommate got it and she she opened she opened the door and like touched it's like This is the cheapest piece of shit I've ever touched. It was like it is like made of aluminum foil, but they got it from Timu.

I it is seriously, it is the Timu dishwasher made by G E. Um but man, it uh it but it says the energy requirements for a year are like twenty four dollars if you run it every day. I'm like, Okay, I'll take it. I'll take it. Uh fur quick uh uh tip in in case you're not already doing this, it was just to run the hot water before you run the dishwasher. So the dishwasher gets hot water makes a big difference. Yep.

Do that. Um but I have done the dishwasher swap out job myself, uh and mine came when the local Home Depot delivered the dishwasher having promised installation and I got home and there was a dishwasher sitting in the middle of the kitchen uninstalled and no installation uh was forthcoming. So um I had to do it myself. The challenge for my installation was that in the time since the original dishwasher had been installed, new hardwood flooring had been put in the kitchen

I had the same problem. I had the same problem. Okay. That quarter inch like really screws you, doesn't it? Yes, it does. It does. That turn is just kind of a matter of like how much give do the countertops have. Yes versus that is a that was half the problem. Right. Yes. Yeah. I'm with you. So let me tell you the the new one I got in there but

Boy, I hope I never have to deal with it again because it's in there. It's in there. Yeah, this one's in there. And like I'm putting it in and I'm like and my roommate comes home and she's like, it doesn't fit. I'm like Go away. It'll fit. I'll get it in there. I'll get it in there. Yeah. Little little tap tap tinker tinker. Anybody looking?

Yeah. Shove the damn thing in. Give me a big enough hammer. It'll I'll get it in there. Yeah, that was the same because we had we had a pipe burst and we had to get new vinyl floors put in all through the kitchen and the the whole the whole actually the whole front of the house. But yeah, there was that extra little bit that wasn't there before that gave you just enough Trouble to make it miserable. Yeah. Yeah. Speaking of uh dishwashers, did either of you grow up with a dishwasher on wheels?

Okay. Yeah. The first dishwasher we ever had. So I would say probably the first five years of my life we had no dishwasher. My m my mom just washed the dishes. You did you had a dishwasher, it was called mom. Then we got a dishwasher, but it was on wheels. So it would sit off to the side, and then when it was time to wash dishes, you'd wheel it over in front of the sink.

and you'd plug it into the wall and there was a little hose thing that you'd attach to the faucet and then a little drain thing that that'd hang over the edge of the sink. And that's how you did the dishes. And that lasted Maybe six months and my mom was like, Yeah, no. We're getting a dishwasher. Or we're getting a built in dishwasher, which I guess, you know, was was uh quite decadent at the time. Very cool. I've never I've never seen that. I that

That just sounds like one of those convenience things like for a New York apartment that you could just slide away when you're done with it and pull it out when you need it. Yeah. You can also take a bath in it, like you need it for multiple purposes. Yeah. They do make uh really small countertop dishwashers also, like if you if you are in an apartment that doesn't have one. Right. They'll you know wash half a dozen dishes at a time. Better than nothing, I guess. I suppose so.

Uh well Dave, when you're not moonlighting as the Maytag man, uh Hank from Connecticut might have a new job for you. Uh he says Dave's potential dream job has an opening there, as an opening for stage technicians at Disney World. Perfect for theater people who used to be in the A V Club in high school. And uh links to a Facebook page, which is sus, but whatever. Uh Hank is correct. Uh I do like this, but I like it mostly for my oldest son.

who is a stage technician. He does lighting and he has often mentioned that uh perhaps ending up at Disney World could be on his list of uh things that he'd like to do. So I forwarded this to him. And we'll see if anything comes of it. But I do appreciate it, Hank. Uh not for me, but for my son. Um I I just wonder how Good it really is working for the mouse. I don't know. It's great. It's great. Peop I mean, you have to love

Disney. Uh, but if you do, it's fantastic. I I um obviously I grew up just two blocks away from Disneyland, so almost everybody I knew, uh, we all worked there in high school. Uh paid well, treated you well. I know plenty of people that became Disney lifers uh from that. They they never left. They went off to college. They went back to Disney and worked for Disney.

Uh it's uh my dad worked there uh after he retired uh from he used to work for the Airlines, US Air, and he really enjoyed it as a retirement job. Um people love working for Disney. OK

Good to know. And uh speaking of Disney news, we have some Disney Star Wars news on April twenty ninth. Luke Skywalker, Han Solo, Princess Leia, Darth Vader, and more are finally coming to Star Wars Galaxy's Edge, but only at Disneyland, Dave. You're gonna have to make the trek to California. Uh join us.

One of the early criticisms of Star Wars Galaxy's Edge is that it was set very specifically between the events of Star Wars The Last Jedi and Star Wars The Rise of Skywalker because they wanted to make that uh immersive environment. And also that's where the movies were in twenty nineteen when they opened up the theme part land. Uh so yeah, they wanted to make you feel like you were a part of that world, but that is now going to change. They have decided to pivot, at least at Disneyland.

New storylines will be brought to life on Batu, spanning multiple eras of the planet's rich history, Disney's website reads. These updates will enable you to experience the Galactic Civil War and New Republic as well as the Age of the Resistance and First Order. They'll be updating some of the shops. Uh a new droid family will take over the droid depot and Luke Skywalker will help you find the new or the old lightsaber place. And of course there will be new merch as well.

Uh that also leads to the first major ride upgrade in the area as the Millennium Falcon Smugglers Run gets a Mandalorian and Grogu overlay starting on May twenty second. And uh as they point out, this news only applies to Star Wars Galaxy's Edge at Disneyland in California. They are doing nothing to the Florida one yet. Yes.

So I I will be going to Disneyland this summer, let me tell you. I I wasn't planning on it again, but now I will be. So Yeah. So I saw this news and I mistakenly thought this was going to apply to both of the parks. I would imagine they're gonna have to bring this to Florida because I think this is gonna be super popular. You know, maybe they're just testing it out. in California. But uh yeah, I mean th this is a no-brainer. We've been talking about this. For years

This is what they need to do for those of us who love the original trilogy. Why not? I'm glad they've given up on the purity of Batu and all that stuff and just give us what we want. I wanna go to Disney, I wanna see Darth Vader, I wanna see the original stormtroopers, uh all that stuff.

I want to see Han Solo and Chewbacca standing in front of the Millennium Falcon. And now they're gonna give that to us. So thank you, Disney. It's about frickin' time. Yes. And the other thing that they're giving to us, uh giving to us is Kathleen Kennedy is stepping down. as president of Lucasfilm. So we talked about this. It was the rumor at the time, but it has now been confirmed.

She will continue as a producer for several Star Wars projects, including the upcoming Mandalorian and Grogu, but they have ham they have handed the reins to Dave Filone and uh Linwyn Brennan, who I don't know, but I'm sure Good enough. Faloni's got it. I'm happy. Filoney's taking creative, Brennan's taking business. That's how they're gonna split up the the duties. Yeah, it's that's an easy job. I mean Star Wars just prints cash. So This is a pretty key. It's great. Right. Right. Right.

As long as they don't make another book of Boba Fett, they're doing good. Probably. Yeah. I see other people have these finance reports and sometimes they put negative numbers in front of things. Yeah. Well maybe they'll bring back the acolyte now. I th that's the forgotten Disney property. That sucks. That was so good. I liked it. I liked the show too. I didn't understand the hate for it. Yeah. Yeah. No, I'm I'm I'm all in on this. I I think uh we're in good hands with Dave Filone, so

See let's see where it takes us. All right.

Uh a couple of things before we run. I s update, uh I forgot to mention I got a lock picking kit for Christmas. Ooh, fun. Yeah. How are the neighbors taking that? Well, so far so good. Uh I I actually haven't done much playing with it yet, so I cannot say that I have any lockpicking skills other than those I already brought to the table. Yeah, you seem like somebody who already knows how to pick locks. Uh I do in theory and I I know how to jimmy locks, I would say, more than

than anything. Um I know how to get in places when I need to, let's put it that way. Yeah. Uh uh but I so I you know, this I was inspired by the uh lockpicking lawyer. And uh that's where I bought the kit. So I'm gonna s dig in on that and hopefully do some practicing and and nothing will hold me back. Cool. Throw a link in the show notes for that'cause I I need a new new kit. I loaned mine out to somebody and they never gave it back.

And I I I love picking locks. I I learned to do that in that uh urban escape and evasion class that I took. And uh I it it you do have to practice because otherwise, you know, it it's a skill and it it will atrophy for sure.

Yeah, it seems like it. And it it's like so many of these things, he makes it look so easy, right? Yeah. Because he's been doing it for decades and you go, Oh, how hard could it be? So I'm sure I'm in for banging my head against the desk quite a bit, but You know,'cause so I d I need another nerd hobby and so lock picking is gonna be it.

Yeah. Just pick up a couple of master locks to practice on'cause those are so easy to pick. You'll just go you'll be they make you feel good that you can pick'em so fast. And then you then you realize you never should ever buy a master lock if you want to lock anything up because they're garbage. Yeah. Yeah, it's true. So yeah, I'll I'll keep you posted on that as my progress uh progresses. Yeah. Uh so uh I w another thing I wanted to touch on, uh for the past year or so.

I have been having lunch on Tuesday afternoons with a group of very old ham radio operators. Are there any other types? Well yes, I understand old ham radio operator is redundant. Uh except the kid that you went through class with. Oh that's right. That's true. Yes, there are a handful of youngsters and

Uh the particular ham radio club that I'm a member of nearby here does have a youth group of high school aged kids who are into this and making antennas out of old soup cans and things like that. But um

But I've been enjoying having lunch with these old guys. Uh it's at a local deli, which is just perfect. And it is like you went to Central Casting and said, Give me the craziest group of old cranky uh ethnic stereotypes that you possibly could and put them together with one extremely nerdy thing in common. And I I'm I'm loving it. I'm I'm absolutely loving it. It took a little while for some of them to accept me to be on the

Yeah, I'm I'm too young. When you said it was out of Delhi, I was like waiting for you to say like, Oh yeah, we get they get together in a sushi place.

I'm like deli. No, no, it's a deli. It's like an old New York scattery. Yeah. Uh and um It ju it it's it's interesting because, you know, you hear that um Oh, the older generation, senior citizens, one of the things that that they complain about and one of the things that is hard on them in their lives is that people don't ask them for their opinions anymore.

People don't ask them to share their expertise because they figure they're old and what do they have to share? They should get a podcast. Just like us. There you go. Where we could put it out there and it can still be ignored. Ja, exactly!

But with these guys, I can ask them all sorts of things about ham radio and they know the answers and they can explain it to me and So I learn a lot from them, but also I just I just laugh a lot because they're I mean, they're old and cranky and have all of the Things that old cranky oh they they lack all the filtering that people who are old and cranky lack filtering on.

So they say these things and I sit there and I smile and I roll my eyes and I say, Just let it go past. Just let it go past. Don't engage. Don't engage. Exactly. Exactly. It's that kind of thing, only worse. Yeah. Well I w I picked Italians because I think they can take it. Yeah. Yeah, we can from uh one of the guys recently, he said uh

He said, I've solved all my problems d when driving in the car. I never let women drive. Never. I only drive. Women can't drive. I'm the only one who drives. If I can't drive, we don't go. Okay. Okay. Good good for you. Good for you. So it's that sort of thing. Anyway, it also makes me feel young. Which is nice. Yeah. It doesn't happen b it's happening le less and less.

You know, so that re that's so one of the jokes that I share with my wife all the time is like uh anytime I start to feel bad about life or my life, I just watch sixteen and pregnant and instantly feel so much better about all my life's choices. Yeah. Yeah.

See, I just go to Walmart. I just go shopping at Walmart and I'm good. I feel fit. Yeah. Right. Well yeah, Walmart's good. Walmart's good. Yeah. So Anyway, I highly recommend uh engaging with your senior community and your neighborhood, uh it'll make you feel younger and uh you never know what friends you might make or

how entertaining they may be and they'll probably eventually be appreciative that you're there because they're you know, your questions if you treat them with respect and ask them questions They'll appreciate that and it'll help make them feel good as well. So maybe one day they'll pick up your brisket sandwich even though it was a little dry.

That's right. Oh my god. The poor waitress who serves us. Lori, her name's Lori, and it's the same lady every week. And Lori's probably ten years older than me, so Sh no spring chicken, but still younger than any of the other guys at the table. And uh they just run her ragged. I mean and they you know, and she's good sport about it and uh I I you know, I give Lori the largest possible tip you can uh possibly give anyone because of all of them.

Uh but uh yeah, just I mean if anything's not that the if anything's out of order, the sh she she hears about it in no uncertain terms. Oh, the other thing I love The this deli has a uh like a fixens bar with pickles and olives and all that kind of stuff. Yeah. A fixens bar is not a salad bar. Can I just say a fixens bar is not a salad bar? No, but it's good for bloody Marys. Except for Bob. Bob in our group comes in, stops by the fixins bar, comes to the table with a big plate full of

all the fixins as if it were a salad. And I just smile and nod and let him be him. So This sounds awesome. I wanna go. Right. Yeah. I mean, you could not make up a sitcom or s you know, s uh like this. It's just really something. Uh and they all love each other and they all hate each other. You know, it's that kind of dynamic. They're they're all yeah. Uh last but not least here this week, uh I have another uh potential persona for myself. You guys remember HR Puffin stuff? Yep. Yesie Pooh?

Vaguely. Wichie Pooh was the bad guy in H. R. Puffin stuff. She she was the one who was always trying to get the magic flute. Um and Wichie Pooh had two henchmen. Their names were Orville and Seymour. And Orville was a kind of a um A vulture and Seymour was a spider. Uh, and so I put a picture of Seymour the spider in the show notes here, and I this is.

I've never seen anyone cosplay as Seymour the Spider. I think this could be a good reason. The only people that remember would be your old ham group. Yeah. But I kinda I you know what I like about the Seymour the Spider uh outfit is is how flattering it is. You know, like no one It's not like I don't know, dressing up like Spider Man where you have to have anything resembling a physique.

This is just a big furry blob with arms coming out. You could eat at that fixins bar every day and wear this outfit. Yeah. Right Yeah, with six arms you can get lots of fixins. That's true. Yeah. So we'll see. I don't know. That's another one. I we'll add it to the list of possibilities. That's a good one. That's a good one. Think think that think that's gonna be a custom build. I don't think you're gonna find that off the rack anywhere. No, no, no. That that is a custom build.

Although, you know, looking at it, it's not like they were all that precise when they made the original, so No True. Sac of the thing. Yeah. Pretty much. All right. Talk to you soon, babe. See ya.

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On long drives I love listening. I save a number of episodes and then the drive just flies by. They never seem out of date, always provide useful information, and some that is just funny, which is also useful on long drives. I've been part of this world since I bought my first compact computer, before compact even had hard drives. So I guess I also qualify as an old geek. Keep up the geeking and give, give, give. Thanks are nice, green is nicer.

Did you write this, Jason? I did not write this, but damn, appreciate it. All right. Thanks from the ham group from Dave there. And uh R. I. P. Scott Adams. We've talked about Scott many times on this show after he went cuckoo nutty. I I knew Scott before he went cuckoo nutty, so this is a this is bittersweet. I actually got an autographed book by him in my uh in my library, God's Debris back when he was.

Not crazy. Cause you know when and when mainstream media calls you a disgraced and racist turd blossom, you might have made some wrong turns. Could have, you know, listened to doctors. And stuff. Maybe. Yeah. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Until next time, I'm Jason DeFilippo. And I'm Brian Schulmeister. Thanks for listening to Grumpy Old Geeks. Get all the links to goodies from today's episode at geog.show slash seven twenty-nine.

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