Hello the Internet, and welcome to this episode of Big trended Nator surge Pricing. Oh no, they're surge pricing the Baconator. No for the Big trend Dator. Yeah, sounds going to play on. Ralph Nader announced it. I'm jack that over there. Well that is, mister Miles.
Great.
This is the episode of The Daily's Likes where we tell you what is trending this afternoon? Yes, Tuesday, February twenty seventh.
Yep, one more day after this.
Huh, one more day.
Man, this is finally out of February.
Finally out of February, second to last day of February, where I just get get ready for March, get ready to get loose. Uh, there's no way.
Brian the editor saying, what it's a leap day this year? No, No, that's just like the opinion man.
That's like, what are you also a flat earther? Oh, there's one day every four years there has an extra day in February.
Want to meet many that's why?
Yeah, that's right here.
I'm having this because I'm watching so much quantum leap this year, quantum leapier.
That I pay attention to.
Man, So anyway, what now the this is like one of those stories.
This is one of those stories. It's like should be should feel light. It's like we like to check in with the world of fast food, see what's going on with fast food companies. See what like depressing gimmicks they've introduced for Valentine's Day. So that Wendyesu is going to introduce surge pricing and I heard that and like I got a very dark glimpse of the future. This was like no, no, this is this is going to be fucking everywhere.
Yeah, So we're saying it's like like a uber type thing where like, hey man, a lot of people are trying to leave this concert as you So it's like we're gonna have to throw like fifteen percent on top of this right now because of the surge.
The only people coming in here after midnight are drunk and so and they're going to be willing to spend one hundred dollars on a baconator. So we're, uh, you know, the prices are just going to be fluid.
Yeah, dynamic pricing, as the CEO said, yeah, as early as running year. Yeah.
So they're investing in twenty million dollars in digital menu boards that will allow the prices to easily algorithmically change throughout the day, which you know, search pricing was employed by companies like Uber and Ticketmaster, and really, what company wouldn't love to show the public that they're becoming more like Ticketmaster?
Our beloved Ticketmaster, our beloved ticket gouger.
We've we've gotten rid of where's the beef as our slogan. We are now Wendy's more like Ticketmaster than you think.
It's not. Yeah, Wendy's not where's the beef? Is Wendy's Yeah, we want the fuck smoke? And which is what it's gonna be? I like how AI has even propped up in this dumb fucking story. It says the new quote AI enabled menu changes. That's not fucking what who you're fucking greed? Is AI enabled? What are you fucking talking about? Will allow for new suggestive selling based on factors such
as weather. So I guess, like if it's raining, they'll just be like, hey, don't we don't have ice cream because all the ice cream closed places are closed when it's raining. Everyone knows that's too cold for ice And I got doubles of the Barracuda the Daytona.
Just too cold for ice, Yeah, exactly. Yeah, but we got that broccoli cheddar soup for you to warm warm up your This.
Is gonna, this isn't gonna. I feel like this is what this is a weather balloon thing because one thing, you, I mean, I get, we're already in a fucking era where you blink and then you're like, wait, did they just raise the price on that? But to now be in a place where it's like, dude, the shit could cost one thing at eight am and another at fucking one pm. Yeah, that's not That's not anything a consumer wants. You want consistency, you know what I mean? And yes, yeah, I think.
It's going to work like I do. Think it's going to work for Wendy's. Not it's not going to work, like it's not going to serve us well, but that is not what capitalism aims to do anymore. They aim to extract every cent possible from you while like not causing you to you know, throw something through the front window of the Wendy's and right, you know, so like
I I feel like this. I think the reason this gave me such a sinking feeling is I was like, oh, yeah, of course this is the inevitable future that like you'll be able to witness the prices going up on the checks mix at the airport.
That's just so grim too. Like again, we talk about like fast food it in at least in this country. The culture that we were sort of raised on was fast food is accessible because the price was lower. And now they're like, dude, the fact you could be like I can already picture a teenage me with like, you know, five bucks in my pocket. I'm like, let me get that back of like, oh, sorry, the surge is wanted. That's just six twenty now, yep, Like what the fuck?
That's why I'm like, I don't know if I get it. I mean, like, we can't all be as principled consumers, but I know, I'm sure plenty of people be turned off by the idea that they would be like, oh, yeah, and now it's one price and then now it's another, just because we feel like it.
You get you order something at the drive through menu and then drive forward and they're like that actually went up fifty cents, so we're gonna need you.
To write yeah. Then I'd be like, oh, I don't have it.
Yeah, all right, But where are you gonna go.
A Dell taco? It's like next door?
Yeah, but there's a car in front of you, bro, this is to drive through.
Yeah, well then I'll wait. Yeah, I got time, but I don't have a dollar twenty to fucking throw on top of this shit already.
Yeah, it seems like a terrible idea, like because people are citing fast food prices as a big reason that fast food sales are down. But if there's one thing we've learned, it's that we are in an unfair battle with these corporations and they have the ability to raise the prices on us and will do so. And there's not a shitload that can be done other than like go elsewhere. But if everybody's raising the prices.
Pads, yeah, or it'll just you know, if you have the time and ability to then just cook at home. You know, I can make a square hamburger pat. I mean I never really ate a Wendy's, to be honest, because there was not really one by me as a kid, so I just didn't. I didn't benefit from the the Wendy's craze.
Have you ever tried a hamburger with salt on it? That's kind of there.
Yeah, you like that and it's square. I'm like, yeah, yeah, fine, I remember, like but then, like in college, I would pass a Wendy's and every now and then I'm like, triple cheeseburger. Okay, diarrhea, You're got my attention.
You're on. So we have an update on the robocall featuring an AI clone of Joe Biden's voice. This was raised a lot of red flags for people who are like, this might be the future of elections, prompted an immediate investigation by the New Hampshire Attorney General's Office. Also inspired the FCC to ban robocalls with AI created voices, using the nineteen ninety one Telephone Consumer Protection Act as justification.
But so the investigation revealed who is behind these calls and the answer to that is a wild story that will no doubt become an FX limited series one day. As a writer, jam like, it really has that vibe of what the wh like, There's so many colorful characters in this. The roboc were traced back to a telecom company called Life Corporation, based out of a strip mall in the suburbs of Dallas, and its owner, Walter Monk is kind of less of a political operative and more
like Kramer from Seinfeld. His LinkedIn page includes the list of his past businesses, ranging from a beef jerkey plant, condom machine roots, lobster trapping, a chain of nightclubs and bars, selling bait, a dating service, credit card processing center, selling pool cues. Okay, just like the things that would occur to you at random, like over the course of a day. But his telecom empire actually began not with politically motivated
robo calls, but with singles hotline. Oh yeah, imagine things have been if it would have been if Ai Biden simply connected New Hampshire voters with hot singles for just one nine per mint.
You know what's not malarkey? Are these hot ladies that you can talk to right now. I'm President Joe Biden, and I hope you connect with them like wow that I mean maybe I could. Hey, if Joe, if they're good enough for the president, then surely good enough for us.
But they kept digging miles. They were asking who hired this company, and it was somebody connected to the campaign of Representative Dean Phillips of Minnesota, Biden's long shot Democratic primary challenger who previously claimed that he just wanted to strengthen Biden, not to me and him.
Yeah, okay, okay.
I think he realized that maybe if he had a stronger showing in New Hampshire than people expected, he might get a little bit more media, And if he got a little bit more media, it would just enhance his ability to strengthen Biden. That's all he was looking to do. It was selfish, like.
This guy who worked for Phillips campaign just got like some uh, some hacker who's like a aster of AI things, like a like a studio that does that kind of stuff.
He actually hired a New Orleans magician. But yeah, so basically what.
You said, like a literal like a literal.
Magician from the city of New Orleans. He's romocas, which dominated his cycle for days, exacerbated America's fears over AI disinformation and influenced actual government policy. Were created by a New Orleans magician who holds the world record in fork bending and straight jacket escapes and who has so he has those records, but he has no fixed address and has never voted.
King a true king, Paul uh huh.
He came forward and admitted his participation, claiming he had no malicious intent and thought that the guy who was working for Dean Phillips' campaign was working for the Biden campaign. Why he thought Biden would need an AI clone of his own voice is unclear, but so Carbenter. The magician was recently interviewed on CNN on Friday while doing card tricks and bending a fork.
I bet that was part of the deal. He's like, Look, I'm not going on the news to admit my part in this scandal unless I can get a little promo for my fork bending and.
Just a straight up grinder. This guy he paid. He was paid just one hundred and fifty dollars to do the to create the audio and less and he was able to do it in less than twenty minutes, only cost him one dollars. I have always, you know, said that I thought the audio sounded like it was created in less than twenty minutes. Like it sounds like shit. I don't think it should have fooled anybody into thinking Joe Biden was actually on the other end of the
phone talking to them. But you know, not everybody's super or tech savvy. I guess, yeah, but yeah, claimed he had no idea about the robo calls. And yeah, it's like the guy who worked for so Dean Phillips was like, this was a contractor who did this, went rogue? He got the contractor Kramer, the guy's last Steve Kramer, who is a longtime political operative on such things as Kanye's twenty twenty presidential campaign.
Oh okay, so yeah, he's a real shit house artist. Got it, got it?
Catch he was behind the robo calls and is backing up Phillips's story stating that he acted independently, but he is also claiming that the robo calls were really an act of civil disobedience to call attention to the dangers of AI and politics. And really that is like it, were I wearing a hat, were I wearing multiple hats, I would be taking them off to this.
Oh yeah, just.
A true American legend.
Yeah yeah, I think he compared himself to Paul Revere.
Yes, he's the top review of the AI.
Shit cool cool cool cool. Well he's yeah, great, good for you, good for you.
So that story magicians, fucking bullshit opticians. I think Kramer met the magician on the streets of New Orleans at one point, like it's just such an amazing like what a what a tail? You know?
I know, is he like going around looking for like flunkies. He's like, all right, I'm gonna keep this guy's card because he might be useful in the future. He's got no address. If I just if I just sit through a fork bending exhibit exhibition, like I can get him to do stuff for one hundred and fifty bucks.
Right, yeah, I mean I have met street magicians like at a bar while fairly drunk and been like, I got to keep this guy's number because I'm gonna be in jam one time and I need to, like, I need to know this guy's phone numbers, so because he is actually magical.
Majackal majackal.
All right, let's take a quick break. We'll be right back. And we're back. We're back, and we got just another update to a past story. We talked about how LA is making itself spongier by remembering a bunch of concrete and that LA was able to kind of capture a lot more water in its latest atmospheric river aka just rainstorm. But we are dramatic. We like too.
It's pretty. It is dramatic the amount of water that does come in. But yeah, you know that's look you're see you're that you exposed your transplant nature there. You're not from here to us. We're like, it's a atmospheric river and you're like, it's rain, a lot of rain.
Yeah, and that is my non LA privilege.
Yeah, just experienced seasons.
They but yeah, so this is part of a global trend. We also mentioned Pittsburgh. Believe it or not, it goes beyond LA and Pittsburgh.
This thing's bigger than these two cities.
Things bigger than just LA and Pittsburgh. Portland alone, since two thousand and eight, has depaved more than thirty three thousand square meters three hundred and sixty thousand square feet an area equivalent to nearly four and a half football pitches. Oh oh, and this was the detailing story that like jumped out to me. The work is joyous, says one of the people who organizes it, because it unites enthusiastic local volunteers. They get a safety briefing and then muck
in together. This is, by the way, an article from the BBC in case you're wondering why football pitches and everybody's mucking in together. But that's like a you know, during the Great Depression, like the New Deal like put a lot of people to work and everybody was yeah, and people were excited. They were like, we're part of a bigger thing that is like making the world a better place. We're like building these highways where you know, building dams that are going to like get water to
people who need it. And like, I feel like that's an underrated thing that capitalism has kind of erased from the equation, is that there's, yes, this is going to be an enormous job to like fight climate change. It seems impossible right now because everything is run by this like hive mind market economy bullshit, But like people are begging to do this work. Like people want to do it,
whether they get paid or not. If we can just fucking get the money owing brds jobs that I'm going to save the world the one.
Time capitalists are not interested in free labor exactly, Dude, to what do they want to build some fucking oil rigs?
Right?
No? Okay, no, dude, sorry, I don't I don't know what the fuck's going on with these people. Yeah, but yeah, it's all over I mean like in Western Europe too.
They're pointing to cities in Belgium and in the UK, and I mean like again, like we were saying with the last story, like it's it's like one of the smaller ways cities are trying to basically be like all right, we got like these are this is a little thing that can happen that can bring better benefits uh to a city, especially as you know we have like these boom bus cycles of like rain or drought and things like that.
So yeah, people in London are being encouraged to depave their gardens. Yeah, just like a little a little step. But you know, Belgium has like an initiative that's aimed at the suburbs and they're removing significant volumes of asphalt from residential areas, forcing cars to share the same part of the road as pedestrians and cyclists, and like Melbourne
is doing. Melbourne is doing a thing that we talked about a while back where they're trying to convert parking lots and parking spaces into green spaces because that has a double effect of you know, creating more spongy spaces that aren't covered in asphalt, but also making it more of a pain in the ass to like drive in the city. So you know that fewer people drive, more people take public transport. So I don't know, it's just
there is work being done. It would just be great if they were like and we're going to turn on the money spigot. So this is like people's actual jobs and then people got to do jobs that made them feel good and like walk around outside and you know, it almost makes too much sense, So fuck all that. We got to get them in, plug them into the AI economy instead.
Yeah, bit by bit though, I mean like it's I hope we can this trend can last. But also like it's also up to you know, the people that run municipalities and cities and things like that to really understand like what it all means. Rather than just being like, oh man, that parking lot. Man, it helps bring people
to the city center. It's like, well, how about you do this fucking you know, green these spaces and like we said, like even with that story about Joe Biden, you know, pulling back on like the emissions regulations for cars, Like the conversation really has to also be about like good mash transit and making sure people under like that people can move in a way that isn't so carbon intensive. But yeah, hey, good news, a little bit of good news.
Just keep on good news, depave and if you're a deepave and let us know you know you do pay more good news. Huh.
I don't know if you watched Seth Myers last night.
Oh fuck, I saw that clip. Man, I can't stand meme Joe Biden.
Oh they really they're doing it. Man, They're like they've seen all the memes we've seen and they're like, all right, now, go eat an ice cream cone and like act like you're just like cool while talking about fucking Gaza yeah, and making like promises that you can't back up.
Yeah. So he went on there, I guess because there's like a there's like a big tenth anniversary. Is that kind of like the occasion or whatever.
I don't know. It was wild to like think about so Amy Poehler was on and uh that, Like it was wild to remember that like her character was obsessed with Joe Biden, like that was a part of like a lovable character on Parks and rec was like, man, we love Joe Biden, Yeah, and we love this person who loves Joe Biden for loving Joe Biden, and things
have gotten a little more complicated since then. Yeah, but yeah, I mean myers like very marginally, but like I actually pressed Biden on his reticence to call for a ceasefire, which led Biden to announce that Israel has agreed to pause the defensive during Ramadan, which will give us time to get all the hostages out, which seems like a pretty big announcement. Yeah, to casually drop on a TV show that was once hosted by Jimmy Fallon.
Dude, that was the first thing when I saw that headline, I was like, wait where and then he's like eating a fucking eye. Well, there's one part where he's on the couch talking about this and then they go get an ice cream and he's.
Part of the show or was that just like a stage photo op thing.
I don't know. I mean, like when he made the quote he was on the couch. I saw a clip of him on the couch being like and they're gonna, you know, Ramadan, and then they'll be able to get the hostages and then you know, we'll see what's going on from there. But there's still like not a lot of agreement that we've heard from like the Israeli government that's like yeah, yeah, that's happening. So you're like what it like, is is this or isn't it just weird?
You can't like, I feel like I can't take him seriously on a talk show, right, Like that has to be said from like the lectern of the president for it to feel like it's more than just being like, I don't know, man, I'm underwater and I got the Michigan Primary coming up, and I got a lot of work to do to undo the lack of support I've created for my you know, support of this uh this genocide. So uh but anyway, man, Taylor Swift touh, she's on our team. And then he put the glasses on. Everything
was just so un It's like so fucking weird. Like the problems we're facing are so dire. These people are like there are people dying of starvation in Gaza and you're like licking the ice cream and putting aviators on, doing real life meme shit. Yeah, it's just like, I don't know, it's like the scariest shit I think I've seen, like in this weird way where we're like no thing fucking makes sense or matters to the people that absolutely it, like have to fucking be serious and have it matter to.
Yeah, no, it's And by the way, like at the so the ice cream thing was after the show. It's just him and Seth having an ice cream together, so it was like a photo op and there he said the ceasefire could happen by the end of the weekend, despite the fact that Ramadan doesn't start until the following Sunday. So I don't know. It's you'd think they'd be like careful about messaging this and like serious about messaging this.
But it's well, especially for something right that people are screaming out for a ceasefire, you know what I mean, Like there are many people, when we say this constantly, who are so disturbed and distraught over what America's part is in all of this, and saying the least you can do is at least use the influence of this of the United States to stop the fucking assault on Gaza. And then but then I don't know, and like you're talking like Trump, like I don't know one or two weeks,
two to three weeks, I don't know. There's an ice cream. It's just like, man, it just shows how like casually I feel like the administration is taking it especially to like to engage the topic in such a flippant way.
Yeah, but I don't know.
I mean, like, I I hope it's just like But then there's this headline from CNN. It says Israel and Hamas distance themselves from Biden's optimism on causes ceasefire, right, And I don't know if that's just posturing because they're still negotiating or whatever, but it's yeah, I don't know, man, good luck to that man.
Yeah, we had like in looking at you know, he'll say he's frustrated with net Yahuo behind the scenes, and then net Ya who will openly be like I can get this guy to say, what do whatever the fuck I want him to, don't We don't take them seriously. They're always going to capitulate, so we'll see. But fucking meme, b Biden dark cool cool.
Just like don't yeah, sorry, yeah, Like I know, maybe you think like you're trying to get the TikTokers on your side, but like the people are still engaging with very serious issues and using the language of shit posts to talk about people who are facing like they're the end of their lives is just a little too spooky for this podcaster.
Yeah, all right, those are some of the things that are trending on this Tuesday, February twenty seventh. We are back tomorrow with a whole ass episode of the show.
YEP.
Until then, be kind to each other, be kind to yourselves, get the vaccine, don't do nothing about white supremacy, and we will talk to y'all tomorrow. Bite bite,