744: Goblin Mode

Summary

Grumpy Old Geeks – Episode 744: "Goblin Mode"

Hosts: Jason DeFillippo & Brian Schulmeister, with Dave Bittner
Date: May 1, 2026

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Overview

In this episode, Jason, Brian, and Dave unleash their signature blend of cynicism and humor as they dissect the week’s most egregious tech news disasters and regulatory follies. From failed government regulations and AI gone wrong to ceaseless crypto crime, workplace drama at tech giants, and nostalgia-fueled app reboots, the hosts shoot from the hip—no mercy, no filter, and no sacred cows. The recurring theme: tech, law, and culture are colliding in ever-more farcical and alarming ways.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Merch Talk and Raglan Shirt Nostalgia

[00:33–02:50]

• The team announce new Grumpy Old Geeks merchandise is available and swap stories about retro shirt styles.
• Memorable Quote:
  "I love me a good raglan. ...Like the three quarters from the seventies. Yeah." — Brian [01:24]

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2. Social Media and AI Regulation for Minors

[02:59–06:13]

• Canada: Manitoba may be the first Canadian province to implement a social media ban for minors; details remain unclear.
• US Legislation: Senate Judiciary Committee unanimously advances a bill to limit AI chatbot access for children, mandating age verification and banning AI “companions” for minors.
• Utah’s VPN Crackdown: The state’s new law SB73 creates a liability trap by holding sites accountable for users behind VPNs and banning even the discussion of VPN use on adult sites.
• Critique: The hosts see this as technological ignorance leading to privacy erosion and regulatory overreach.
• Notable Moment:
  "It’s a total clusterfuck… the likely outcome isn’t stopping teens, it’s making the Internet less private for everyone." — Jason [06:04]

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3. John Oliver, AI, and the State of Regulation

[07:07–08:08]

• John Oliver’s “Last Week Tonight” episode on AI merely recapped what the Geeks have been covering all along.
• Quote:
  “AI. Bad. Chatbots, bad. Kids die, people shoot each other, Sam Altman goes ‘what me?’ There you go. Summed it up, saved you a click.” — Jason [07:59]

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4. Crypto Crime: Insider Trading on PolyMarket

[09:09–12:06]

• US Special Forces Master Sergeant Gannon Van Dyke used classified info to bet on the capture of Venezuela’s Maduro, making ~$410,000.
• Case includes moving funds through crypto vaults and attempted account deletion for cover-up.
• The hosts mock the lack of espionage or national security charges.
• Quote:
  “We just have this continuing run of things that are good for nothing but crime and grift. It used to be porn — what was the bleeding edge of technology? It was titties. What is it now? Crime.” — Brian [11:47]

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5. Meta’s Kenyan AI Contractors Fired After Privacy Scandal

[12:34–14:04]

• Meta fires 1,100 Kenyan workers after they publicized exposure to highly sensitive user footage from Meta’s AI smart glasses.
• Workers allege retaliation for speaking out about reviewing private, sometimes explicit footage.
• Critical Take: Meta’s official stance is disputed; the hosts demystify the illusion of user consent.
• Quote:
  “I guarantee you most of the people that were fucking on those glasses did not consent to a bunch of Kenyans looking at their footage.” — Jason [13:45]

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6. Google’s Pentagon AI Contract & Financial Claims

[14:10–17:58]

• Google signs a Department of Defense contract for classified AI work, despite major employee opposition.
• Hosts highlight the contradiction of Google’s “do no evil” motto and financial justifications.
• Discussion of dubious “AI-driven profit” claims when companies simultaneously report AI product losses and surging demand.
• Quote:
  “The increased surging demand for AI products is because you put that button everywhere, and I don’t even want it. …But aren’t you also losing money?” — Brian [15:56]

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7. AI and Violence: OpenAI’s Delayed Apology

[18:14–20:03]

• OpenAI’s CEO Sam Altman apologizes for not alerting law enforcement before a ChatGPT-linked mass shooting in British Columbia—months after the event.
• The hosts call it lawyered-up damage control and lament Altman’s behind-the-scenes moves to shelter AI firms from liability.
• Quote:
  “Sorry. Not sorry, Sam.” — Jason [18:42]

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8. Sam Altman and Tools for Humanity’s Fake Bruno Mars Partnership

[23:13–24:38]

• Tools for Humanity, linked to Altman’s Worldcoin, faked a partnership for Bruno Mars concert tickets; quickly debunked by Mars’ team.
• Pattern of misleading statements and hype noted.
• Quote:
  “I don’t need to ask ChatGPT if this Altman guy is a cancer. Spoiler alert—he is.” — Jason [24:17]

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9. OpenAI & Microsoft: Partnership Tweaks and AGI Realities

[24:59–28:16]

• Microsoft and OpenAI amend their exclusivity deal, letting OpenAI’s models run elsewhere (e.g., on Amazon Bedrock for $50B).
• The notion of LLM-based AGI is debunked in their new agreement; LLMs are now acknowledged as non-intelligent word predictors.

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10. Goblin Mode – System Prompt Leaks and Meme Chaos

[28:22–29:50]

• GPT-5.5’s leaked system prompt includes a bizarre ban on talking about “goblins, gremlins, raccoons…” unless absolutely necessary.
• This is traced to LLM “prediction muscle memory” from internal memes and user tweaks (“Goblin mode” and “Nerd mode”).
• Quote:
  “Nobody knows why... there was basically a Goblin mode meme that was going around. Somebody tried to code in a Goblin mode on/off switch, and the Internet had a field day.” — Brian [28:59]

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11. Crypto Fallout: Bankman-Fried’s Flailing Appeals

[29:54–31:48]

• Sam Bankman-Fried’s self-written appeal is rejected; attempts to argue bankruptcy destroyed FTX’s liquidity fail.
• Judge slams it as an image-rehab effort. SBF remains convicted and unpardoned.
• Quote:
  “He’s going to be fucked forever. Fine with me.” — Jason [31:46]

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12. Dead Internet Theory: AI & Bots Take Over

[31:59–34:44]

• Research: Over 35% of new websites are AI generated; social media already “dead Internet.”
• Cloudflare and Imperva report bot traffic surpasses humans.
• Hosts advocate for a return to indie blogs and a less profit-driven web experience.
• Quote:
  “I can’t even look at comments on a news site anymore — that’s a bot, that’s a bot… if they aren’t, I gotta hope they’re bots.” — Jason [33:25]

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13. WordPress Stagnation and Founder Backlash

[34:47–36:25]

• Matt Mullenweg bemoans WordPress’s slow, consensus-driven bureaucracy—but hosts note he alone built the culture he criticizes.
• Jason recalls long-owed lap dance reimbursements from wealthier days.

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14. US Anti-Science Moves: Trump & The National Science Board

[36:46–37:51]

• Trump administration dismisses National Science Board members, undermining the NSF and American innovation.
• "Screw them. Peachy. So much for ending on a high note this week." — Brian & Jason [37:22–37:56]

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Apps & Doodads

1. Divine: The Vine Reboot

[38:03–40:56]

• Jack Dorsey-backed, non-commercial return of 6-second looping videos and Vine archives.
• AI-generated content limited; app includes provenance tech and decentralized protocols.
• Hosts are skeptical of any longevity or relevance.

2. Apple & Google Photo AI Tools

[41:04–45:44]

• Apple brings AI-driven photo editing and background expansion; Gemini-powered Siri search coming.
• Google Photos’ Wardrobe scans users’ photos to catalog clothing and recommend outfits, likely for shopping integration.
• "That is creepy to me. That’s the creepiest part—scanning your Google Photos library." — Jason [43:50]

3. Hardware Recommendation: Logitech MX Keys S Keyboard

[44:10–46:29]

• Jason highly recommends the MX Keys S over Apple’s unreliable Magic Keyboards for its weight, backlighting, and multi-device pairing.

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Media & Pop Culture

1. TV & Streaming

• Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, Season 4 announced for July 23rd ([47:06])
• Daredevil Update: Jessica Jones reappears, but the show arguably needs wrapping up ([48:04])
• Ted Lasso, Season 4 teaser; hosts expect diminishing returns but acknowledge its economic impact on production jobs ([48:46–50:02])

2. Book & Series Reviews

• God's Junk Drawer by Peter Clines: Jason gives a strong recommendation for this stand-alone sci-fi novel. ([50:02–51:52])
• Murderbot Diaries (Martha Wells): Dave and Brian discuss series fatigue as it nears conclusion. ([52:27])

3. Podcast Recommendation

• Backside of Water: Disneyland attraction history by former Jungle Cruise skippers; high audio quality and engaging format. ([63:02–64:12])

4. Disney & Star Wars Tangents

• Ewok prostate exam via AI is now a meme ([67:04]).
• Nostalgia: 1977 Star Wars Toyota Celica sweepstakes ([68:18]).
• Discussion on upcoming Mandalorian/Grogu movie’s underwhelming box office projections ([70:33–73:23]).
• Super Dave Osborne, Bizarre, Real People, and Martin Short’s Netflix documentary ([73:23–77:19]).

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Hot Takes & Listener Chat

• Gun Safety PSA Shock: Jason recounts a dystopian new radio PSA instructing parents to ask about unsecured firearms at friends’ houses ([57:11–61:10]).
• Toy Gun Anxiety: Dave recalls being admonished for having Nerf guns in the house ([62:23]).
• Kids and Guns: The hosts compare generational attitudes and stress education over avoidance.

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Sports: Baseball's Tech Takeover

[77:28–82:07]

• The hosts debate the rise of umpire challenges and inevitable automation for ball/strike calls.
• Quote:
  “I think there are purists that will be dead soon... if it’s that accurate, why aren’t we just using it?” — Brian [80:28]

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Notable Quotes & Moments

• “It is the human centipede of venture capital.” — Jason [08:15]
• “All the new technologies… It used to be porn… What is it now? Crime.” — Brian [11:47]
• “Take your hundreds of millions of dollars and just fucking go away.” — Jason, on Matt Mullenweg [36:22]
• “This is the lube.” — Jason, describing incremental baseball rule changes [82:41]

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Memorable Timestamps

• [03:36]: Manitoba social media ban for kids
• [05:46]: Utah VPN crackdown
• [09:09]: PolyMarket/crypto crime story
• [12:34]: Meta Kenya contractor firings
• [14:10]: Google-DoD AI deal
• [24:59]: OpenAI/Microsoft non-exclusive deal
• [28:22]: "Goblin mode" leak and meme legacy
• [31:59]: Dead Internet Theory study
• [38:03]: Divine app (Vine relaunch)
• [44:10]: Hardware pick: Logitech MX Keys S
• [47:06]: Star Trek season dates
• [50:02]: Book club: God’s Junk Drawer
• [57:11]: Dystopian PSA: "How to ask if your friend has unsecured firearms at home"
• [77:28]: Baseball: Automated umpire debate

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Tone & Style

True to the Grumpy Old Geeks’ brand, the episode is unsparing, sarcastic, and profanity-laced. Quick banter, sardonic quips, and a rolling tide of frustration with modern tech and media set the stage for both outrage and laughter. The hosts riff nostalgically about the old internet, throw shade at regulatory and corporate overreach, and end on a relatable note about seeking comfort in familiar technology, media, and Disney trivia.

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End of summary.

Transcript

[Jason de Villippo]

This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Do you ever think about switching insurance companies to see if you could save some cash? Progressive makes it easy to see if you could save when you bundle your home and auto policies. Try [e-mail] Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates. Potential savings will vary. Not available in all states. Welcome to Grumpy Old Geeks, a weekly talk show where we discuss the finer points of what went wrong on the Internet and who's to blame. I'm Jason de Villippo.

[Brian Schulmeister]

I'm Brian Schulmeister.

[Jason de Villippo]

Brian, we got new merch. I had to put it at the top of the show because most people don't make it to the end where we usually pimp the merch. But we have merch. New merch.

[Brian Schulmeister]

We do. We do. After almost a year of telling you I was going to go in and do something, I went in and I

[Jason de Villippo]

did one, you did one, you did one, I did two and a mug. So there's more coming. There's more coming. It's just trying to get, trying to figure out how this works because it's been a year since I opened Shopify and Printful. Like, where's that stuff at?

[Brian Schulmeister]

So, yeah, it's funny, at my old gig we, we use Printful a lot, so I was pretty almost expert level. But it's been so long, I'm like, okay, now what do I do?

[Jason de Villippo]

Oh, exactly. Yeah. The worst part is going to try and find which shirt you want to put your on. It's like, do I want the thick one, Do I want the thin one? I, I prefer the, I prefer the black Heather with the, with the light Bella shirt because they're very comfortable in Southern California.

[Brian Schulmeister]

I got to go in and see if they've got some raglan's because I love me a good raglan.

[Jason de Villippo]

I don't know what that is.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Pretty sure though that the shirt with the third length sleeves, that's a different color. So you got like white and then the sleeves are like black and they go third length.

[Jason de Villippo]

Like the three quarters from the seventies. Yeah.

[Brian Schulmeister]

I love those shirts.

[Jason de Villippo]

Oh, okay.

[Brian Schulmeister]

They're the best.

[Jason de Villippo]

Yeah. I used to be able to go to the gas station and because my, my stepdad worked at a gas station, we would do the, the heat transfers. You know, the people would come in with their trucker hats. They get the three quarter shirts with the, the ayatollah is an assahola transfer on it because, you know, it was the 70s.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Well, I got my first raglin. I believe they're called Raglands. If I'm getting it wrong, it's a different name. It's got a specific term to it, but I'm pretty sure that's it. My first one Also in the 70s, my dad worked for. Well, it was PSA at the time. Then they got bought out by US Air, but he worked in Air Cargo and a. A box full of Journey Raglin T shirts, Touring T shirts got lost and he brought them home and I wore them incessantly.

[Jason de Villippo]

Oh, see, I figured you would have gotten one of the one that said like female Body Inspector or something like that. We're around Disney.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yeah. No, I didn't even discover those shirts until I moved to Venice Beach. All those shops have those, you know, like.

[Jason de Villippo]

Yeah.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Let me clear off a place for you to sit that's got a guy brushing off his beard on the shirt. You know, almost those classy shirts they used to be able to get down at Venice.

[Jason de Villippo]

The Weinstein Collection, we call them now.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yes, the Anti Woke Brigade.

[Jason de Villippo]

So what else we got?

[Brian Schulmeister]

All right, we got some follow up. Canada's finally getting into the banning social media for kids. Manitoba, which is a province, which I actually learned this week.

[Jason de Villippo]

You didn't know Manitoba was a problem?

[Brian Schulmeister]

No, no, I knew that actually. My kids actually had my kids having to study them. So learn all the provinces and the capitals for each. And as I'm about to become a citizen, I will have to take a test. So I was learning too.

[Jason de Villippo]

You're actually going to become a Canadian citizen. Congrats.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yes, I am. Paperwork's in. Could take 25 years, but we'll see. Yeah, I mean, my kid and my wife are both dual citizens. It's time for me to join the. Join the team, so.

[Jason de Villippo]

Got it.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Anyways, Manitoba could be the first province here in Canada to establish a social media ban for kids. But the proposal's details aren't clear yet. The province's premiere wab canoe, which sounds like a Star wars character.

[Jason de Villippo]

Character. Yeah, it's like Mace Windu's like third cousin.

[Brian Schulmeister]

He announced this during a fundraiser event on Saturday and then posted on X that they would put a. Put in place a ban for social media and AI chatbots for its youth. There's no elaboration on any details like specific age restrictions or when it'll be introduced or how it's going to be enforced. But joining everybody else along with this, Canada's getting into it, which I believe is the first place in North America. We've been the holdout so far.

[Jason de Villippo]

Okay.

[Brian Schulmeister]

So yeah, we'll see. But speaking of that, the Senate Judiciary Committee has unanimously approved a bipartisan bill aimed at requiring AI companies to limit chatbot use among minors in the United States. This proposed legislation would mandate age verification systems for chatbots, as well as prohibiting AI companions for minors and blocking the services from showing younger users sexually explicit content or encouraging self harm, as they should be doing anyways. But this is what happens when we don't regulate things, they do it anyways. So we'll see. This is just the first step towards AI companies facing any real federal regulation on the subject. The fact that there is unanimous agreement between both parties is not only a miracle in this day and age, but shows that there may be enough support for this to move through the Senate both quickly and successfully. So we'll see.

[Jason de Villippo]

We have a Senate. When did that happen? I missed that.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yeah, they don't do.

[Jason de Villippo]

I thought they were all on mails. Yeah, I know. They're on vacation now, so I'm sure that's going to take a while for, you know, for that to figure itself out. But it looks like Utah has some lawmakers still around and are still doing dumb shit. Utah is about to test a new approach to Internet regulation, and it's going straight after VPNs. Starting May 6, the state's Online Age Verification Amendments, or SB73, will hold websites liable for verifying the age of users physically in Utah, even if those users are hiding behind a VPN or a proxy.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Now how are they supposed to do that then? Jason?

[Jason de Villippo]

We're going to get to that in a second, Brian. The law also blocks sites with adult content from even explaining how to use a VPN or to bypass age restrictions, raising some obvious First Amendment issues. Also some common sense issues.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yeah, well, you know, when I first went to go set up my first vpn, I also did go to Red Tube to figure out how to do so because they have the best instructions.

[Jason de Villippo]

So there you have it. So Instead of banning VPNs outright, Utah is creating a liability trap that could push platforms to block VPN traffic entirely or force age verification on everyone everywhere. So technically, it's a total clusterfuck. Now, blocking VPNs is a game of whack a mole because everybody changes their IP addresses all the time and users will just route around it with either private tunnels or residential proxies like Red Tube probably tells you how to do in great detail. So the likely outcome isn't stopping teens, it's making the Internet less private for everyone else and being a general pain in the ass because they're too fucking stupid to understand how the Internet works. And if you want the best VPN on the market, go to GOG show vpn, because we're not a spank site and we can tell you how to round rot around it. So there you go.

[Brian Schulmeister]

I guess we need to put up our instructional page on GOG Show.

[Jason de Villippo]

I think we should probably put that up at some point. Yes. So. And by the way, hey, John Oliver, thanks for listening to the show because John Oliver this week took direct aim at the AI industry on last week Tonight. I generally don't watch that show anymore, but I did check this one out, and he basically summed up the past two years of our show in 27 minutes. So good for him. I'm glad everybody jumped on it. And we're like, yeah, what John said.

[Brian Schulmeister]

I'm like, kind of late to the party, pal.

[Jason de Villippo]

He's always late to the party, especially on this one. But literally it was beat for beat for beat. Everything. Every news story that we've ever covered in, you know, in summation, was that. That episode. So, yeah, so just everybody that's saying, hey, did you check out John? I didn't have to check it out, but I checked it out anyway. But we cover this shit every fucking week. So, yeah, AI. Bad chatbots, bad kids die, people shoot each other. Sam Altman goes, what me? There you go. Summed it up, saved you a click.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Don't forget the vacuuming up of the money.

[Jason de Villippo]

Oh, the vacuuming up of the money. Yes.

[Brian Schulmeister]

And then the firing at the people, then wondering where the money's going to keep coming from. That they're vacuuming up.

[Jason de Villippo]

Yeah, well, it's. It comes in one door, goes out the next and goes around the back and come in the butt, not the mouth. And yeah, it is the human centipede of. Of venture capital is what it is. So I did get a class action lawsuit settlement this week, Brian, for 21.7 cents from the Birch Communications class action settlement.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Okay.

[Jason de Villippo]

I had to look it up. I still don't quite know what it is. I think it's spam calls. It's basically what it is. So. But sign up for this class actions, people. It's your duty. It is your. It is your duty.

[Brian Schulmeister]

It's your moral imperative.

[Jason de Villippo]

Yeah. And I mean, it's. It used to be 7 cents. Now it's 21.7 cents. But with inflation, thanks to the not. Don't call it a war. War. Still seven cents.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yeah, yeah, that. That and another 20 bucks. Will get you a gallon of gas

[Jason de Villippo]

in the news.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Well, who could have possibly seen this coming? United States soldier Gannon Ken Van Dyke has been arrested and charged for placing bets on prediction marketplace Poly Market using classified information he had access to related to the capture of former Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro. What?

[Jason de Villippo]

We knew it happened. Now we finally have a face with the. With the thing.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yes. The U.S. army Special Forces master sergeant who was directly involved with the planning and execution of the operation allegedly made $409,881 in profits betting on the information he had access to that nobody else did. According to the Department of Justice, he created a Polymarket account around December 26, 2025, and made 13 bets related to Maduro from December 27 to January 2. Not going to get into all the specific ones. It's all in the thing. He allegedly bet a total of $33,000 and $34 or $33,034 and made over 10 times that amount from his winnings. He withdrew his market from polymarket on the day Maduro was captured and sent it to. Wait for this one. A crypto vault. Because what's crypto good for Jason?

[Jason de Villippo]

Yeah.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Criminals.

[Jason de Villippo]

Criminals.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Before depositing it into a new online brokerage account after reports about the potential insider bets were published, he allegedly asked Polymarket to delete his account, falsely claiming that he had lost access to the email he used. So, please delete that account. He also changed the email address linked to the crypto account to another one not associated with his name. He has been charged with three counts of violation against the Commodity Exchange act, with each one carrying a max sentence of 10 years in prison. He's also been charged with one count of wire fraud with a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison, as well as one count of unlawful monetary track action with a max sentence of 10 years. And of course, Polymarket probably charged him 500 bucks and said, you can't use the platform for a week.

[Jason de Villippo]

Where are the counts about, I don't know. Violating national security. I don't.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Marshall charges. Where's all of.

[Jason de Villippo]

Yeah, there's a lot that goes into this that is not listed in here.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Kidding. Breath. Probably slapped him on the back and said, good work, kid.

[Jason de Villippo]

Yeah. Yeah. Where's my cut?

[Brian Schulmeister]

Where's my. Yeah, where. Where do I get to dip my beacon?

[Jason de Villippo]

Exactly. You know, that's how. That's how this administration works. If you don't get. That's. That's probably the only reason he got. He got busted is because he didn't pay. He didn't got to pay up the, the chain.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Gotta pay up the chain, kid. Well, so, yeah, I mean, this is just good.

[Jason de Villippo]

This. It's all these things are good for.

[Brian Schulmeister]

It's all they're good for. Again, it's. We have, we just have this continuing run of things that are good for. Nothing but crime. Nothing but crime. Nothing but crime. And grift. That is all. All the new technologies. It used to be porn, Jason. What was the bleeding edge of technology? It was titties. What is it now? Crime.

[Jason de Villippo]

Yeah. So sad. So sad. There was a, there was a report

[Brian Schulmeister]

that the world was nicer when it was about titties. Jason.

[Jason de Villippo]

Oh, it's Brian. It's always nicer when it's about titties. Come on. There was a report that did come out this week. I don't know if you saw that. About most of the people on these predictive markets basically are losers. And the only people that make are the people basically with inside information on what they're trying to do, so. Or hair dryers.

[Brian Schulmeister]

If you're hair dryers.

[Jason de Villippo]

Well, Meta is facing scrutiny after ending a contract with outsourcing firm Sama that will result in over 1,100 job losses among Kenya based workers who helped train its AI systems. Now, the move came weeks after reports that some workers were exposed to sensitive and explicit footage captured by users of Meta's AI enabled smart glasses, including private moments inside homes, like pooping and.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yeah, we talked about that a couple. Couple shows ago.

[Jason de Villippo]

Yeah, yeah. So Meta came and said, no, you guys, we, you, you're fired. You can't, you know, you're, you're not here anymore with us because your people talked. It's not, it's not because, not because

[Brian Schulmeister]

you did it, it's because you told people about it.

[Jason de Villippo]

That's pretty much it. Meta says it terminated the contract because some have failed to meet its standards. Acclaim Summer dispute stating it consistently met all operational and quality requirements. Now, worker advocacy groups allege that the layoffs were retaliation for speaking out. Duh. But regulators in both the UK and Kenya have launched investigations into privacy concern tied to the glasses. Meta maintains that any human review of content is done with user consent and is standard practice to improve AI performance. I guarantee you most of the people that were fucking on those glasses did not consent to a bunch of Kenyans looking at their footage.

[Brian Schulmeister]

No, they just assumed, at least not willingly.

[Jason de Villippo]

You know, they, they got tricked into clicking the eula.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yeah, well, I mean, they're not the brightest people then.

[Jason de Villippo]

They're with Meta glasses on. Come on. They're not the brightest people to begin with.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Unfortunately, they were in the process of procreating. Get more of them. So that's great.

[Jason de Villippo]

That's it. Idiocracy at work. Now, Google has reportedly signed a deal with the US Department of Defense allowing its AI models to be used for classified work, including what's described as, quote, any lawful government purpose. Okay, I didn't know they looked at this government recently. There are no laws. The agreement comes despite internal opposition, with more than 600 employees urging CEO Sundar Petrai to block military use of the company's AI, citing concerns over surveillance and autonomous weapons. Now, the deal places Google alongside OpenAI and XAI, which have also secured Pentagon contracts. Okay, that's what I want to be right there with Xai and OpenAI. While companies say safeguards remain in place, such as limits on mass domestic surveillance and lethal autonomous systems, Google's agreement reportedly does not grant its authority to override government operational decisions, which means. Go with God.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yes.

[Jason de Villippo]

Go with Google.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Have fun. Go with Google. Have at it.

[Jason de Villippo]

Yep.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Do whatever you want. Boy, I miss the days when Google's. The motto was do no evil.

[Jason de Villippo]

Oh, that was a long, long time ago. That was before everybody got rich and crazy, Brian. Rich and crazy. But, you know, you have to say, maybe Google needs to do this deal because they're broke. Right? You know, AI costs so much money. Yeah. Oh, man. We're really. We're strapped for cash and we got to make this deal with the government. Nope. Google reported its strongest quarterly growth in roughly four years, with revenue up 20% in Q1 2026, driven largely by 20 billion DOL, its cloud division, in surging demand for AI products. So there you go, Brian. They're just doing it to do it. That's it. They're just doing it to do it.

[Brian Schulmeister]

I am curious about this because we. We do see. We start to see this a lot in kind of these vague financial reports from these companies where they talk about they're making a lot more money because of demand surge, increased demand for these AI products. Yet we're also told that all these AI products are being done at a loss leader where technically they're losing money every time that they fire up these AI machines that they're forcing down our throats. Anyways, I would also posit to begin with, that the increased surging demand for AI products is because you put that button everywhere, and I don't even want it. When I do a Google search, I have to go out of my way not to use your Google AI results. You're shoving it down our throats. That's why there's increased demand. But aren't you also losing money? But yet you're claiming you're making more money, but you're losing money.

[Jason de Villippo]

I don't know if Google is losing money because remember, they already own the data centers, they own the chips. They don't have to go to Nvidia. They've got their TPU chips that they've already been making for years. They're machine learning, huh? Say it with me kids. Machine learning that Google has been doing forever. They've had Deep Seek forever and they've been, they've been working on this for a long time. And these guys know how to build a data center. All these other companies coming in, like OpenAI and Anthropic and Perplexity, all these schmos who are starting from scratch, these guys don't know what the fuck they're doing and they don't have the infrastructure. That's where the spend is coming in for those guys. Google has a leg up with everybody. So for them, you know, and since they've made Google suck over the years, people have decided to not use it as much. So they have extra capacity just lying around that they could probably use. And I'm sure that there is a shit ton of tricky accounting going on here too, that Department A is using Department B's AI chips even though they're the same company. But they're saying, they say, oh, I'm going to use $20 billion worth of your compute, even though it's my compute to begin with. And then they just put it on the books like it's profit, even though it could just be using the shit that they've already got.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Bucket into bucket into bucket into bucket into bucket into bucket Profit.

[Jason de Villippo]

Exactly. So yeah, take that, take that. 20 billion at a grain of salt. But still the fact that they do have the money, they don't need to be signing contracts with the government. They're only doing that to curry favor with the whitten in chief right now. So that's it, right?

[Brian Schulmeister]

While keeping on the AI train. Two months following the deadly shooting in Tumblr ridge, British Columbia. OpenAI Sam Altman has formally apologized for not informing police of the alarming chat GPT conversation seen within the suspect's account. How nice that he said I'm sorry. Two months later, after the lawyers have reviewed everything possible to make sure he could get in absolutely no trouble whatsoever, he opened his mouth and said this very specific statement that they crafted for him with the help of their lawyer. AI Bot.

[Jason de Villippo]

Exactly. And also in the interim, while, while this has been going on, he's been working to steer like regulation behind the scenes to make AI companies less culpable for people who go out and shoot people during this whole thing. That he's been working very hard to make sure that they are going to be in the clear in the future, that they're just a fucking platform. So yeah, sorry. Not sorry, Sam.

[Brian Schulmeister]

And just to clarify this, before the incident, OpenAI knew enough about this guy in this account to ban it before the shooter went off to go shoot people in real. In real life. I am deeply sorry that we did not alert law enforcement to the account that was banned in June, altman wrote in the letter. We well, I know words can never be enough. I believe an apology is necessary to recognize the harm and irreversible loss your community has suffered. Abby, who is the. I believe the. What is he, the mayor or something? I don't know what he is. Some sort of thing in British Columbia. Highlighted the letter on X and agreed that the apology is necessary, but added that it was grossly insufficient for the devastation done to the families of Tumblr Ridge, which I agree with. There should be some sort of lawsuit, Altman reaffirmed in the letter that open a way I would find ways to prevent tragedies like this in the future and work with all levels of government to prevent something like this from ever happening again. Okay, so do it.

[Jason de Villippo]

Do it. And also take the big dump trucks of money that you've got lying around that you keep saying that you've got and drive some of that up to Tumblr Ridge and dump it on the entire community that you have destroyed. So at least they don't have to worry about where their maple syrup is going to come from for the rest of their lives.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Just saying that is all Canada produces. We are a big maple syrup factory

[Jason de Villippo]

and Mooses Lumberjacks, Tim Hort and Tim Horton sandwiches. This episode is sponsored by Delete Me. Delete Me makes it easy, quick and safe to remove your personal data online at a time when surveillance and data breaches are common enough to make everyone vulnerable. Here's the thing a lot of people don't realize Data brokers are making money off your personal information. Your name, contact info, home address, and even details about your family can be compiled, packaged, and sold online to basically anyone willing to pay. That kind of exposure can open the door to identity theft, phishing attempts and harassment. Now, as someone with a pretty public Internet presence, I deal with this constantly. People are looking me up all the time, scraping whatever information they can find. It's just part of being a public figure online. But that's exactly why I use Delete Me. They go out and remove your personal information from hundreds of data broker websites, which gives me a lot more peace of mind and honestly helps me sleep better at night. And it's not just me saying it. The New York Times Wirecutter has named Deleteme their top pick for data removal services. Take control of your data and keep your private life private by signing up for Deleteme now at a special discount for our listeners. Get 20% off your Delete Me plan when you go to JoinDeleteMe.com GoG and use promo code GoG at checkout. The only way to get 20% off is to go to JoinDeleteMe.com gog and enter code GoG at checkout. That's JoinDeleteMe.com GoG code GoG warning the following ZipRecruiter radio spot you are about to hear is going to be filled

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[Jason de Villippo]

So a little more Sam Altman News Tools for Humanity A startup tied to Sam Altman and his World Identity Project is facing scrutiny after falsely claiming it would sell tickets to a Bruno Mars tour using a new product called Concert Kit. Well, turns out Bruno Mars's management and Live Nation quickly denied any partnership, stating no agreement or even contact had occurred. So the entire thing was made up.

[Brian Schulmeister]

I Guess they craft. They let their own AI figure out what to do and just made up.

[Jason de Villippo]

Yeah, yeah. The company has since updated its website, confirming the claim was inaccurate and shifting to a separate unrelated partnership with the band 30 seconds to Mars the incident.

[Brian Schulmeister]

So that.

[Jason de Villippo]

Exactly.

[Brian Schulmeister]

He's a piece of work.

[Jason de Villippo]

Yeah. No doubt, no doubt. The incident raises questions about credibility, particularly for a company built around verifying human identity through biometric scanning. It also adds to broader criticism of Altman's track record with past reporting and former employees alleging a pattern of misleading statements on issues ranging from internal policies to long term AI goals. Now, me personally, Brian, I don't need to ask ChatGPT if this Altman guy is a cancer. Spoiler alert. He is so scam. Altman just full of shit. From. From. I. We didn't really put in any news about the trial right now because it's just kind of.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yeah.

[Jason de Villippo]

Ongoing and just a shit show every day. But man, these guys are just pieces of shit all the way down.

[Brian Schulmeister]

That is the thing.

[Jason de Villippo]

From the trial down.

[Brian Schulmeister]

I haven't really. I kind of want to let it get along a little bit further before we do talk about it, but. Wow, nobody looks good.

[Jason de Villippo]

No, nobody. Well, we knew that. We fucking knew that.

[Brian Schulmeister]

I know, but usually when you have kind of these battles of the titans, you know, it's like, oh well, at least Godzilla is not, not so bad. But in this case, yeah. Elon. And they all just look horrible.

[Jason de Villippo]

They're petty little shits. They're petty little shits with way too much money and way too much power and way, way too little empathy for their fellow man. So a little more OpenAI news. OpenAI and Microsoft had amended one of the most important partnerships in AI, ending Microsoft's exclusive hold on OpenAI's models. Microsoft will still keep licensing rights to OpenAI's IP and models through 2032. And Azure remains OpenAI's primary cloud partner. But that license is now non exclusive, meaning OpenAI can serve its products through other cloud providers. The change clears the way for OpenAI models to run on Amazon Bedrock following a reported $50 billion Amazon OpenAI deal. So Amazon gives them $50 billion. So OpenAI can spend $200 billion on compute that. They're just gonna get the money back, but then own I don't know how there's gonna be anything left of OpenAI with all these fucking deals they're doing to sell off pieces of their company to spend more than they've already made. It does not make any fucking rational sense.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Well, here's the deal, Jason. They have sold off 2,000% of their company, but they still hold 10,000% of it.

[Jason de Villippo]

Okay, this is trump math. That works. That works. Microsoft had reportedly threatened legal action over that arrangement, but the new agreement appears to resolve the issue. OpenAI will continue paying Microsoft a 20% revenue share, but with an unspecified cap at a guarantee only through 2030 if OpenAI is in existence four more years from now, which is very tenuous. We don't know if OpenAI is going to make it another four years.

[Brian Schulmeister]

No. And not when they keep making these deals. There are three clear winners right now in this area. You've got Google, which is just to your point earlier. They've just got more money than God, so it doesn't matter. And people need to use their compute power. Microsoft has been very strategic about making these deals. They're not getting into it too much themselves, but they're just. They're taking the monies. We'll give you some money as long as you give up that money back, plus more. That's what they're doing. And obviously Nvidia, who's just selling to everybody left, right and center, they're the winners. One could also argue Apple has stayed the hell out of this mess and is just waiting until the dust settles.

[Jason de Villippo]

Yeah. Which was the smartest move that they could do.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yep.

[Jason de Villippo]

But here's an interesting part that I really found. I really enjoyed this. The amended deal also removes the old dependency on OpenAI's progress towards AGI, giving OpenAI more flexibility as enterprise demand expands beyond Azure. Now, this is because we all finally know that LLMs aren't actually intelligent and that scam has been blown out of the fucking water. And AGI is in no way, shape or form ever going to come from an LLM, which is basically a word prediction model. It's not intelligence. So Microsoft has finally pulled that out and saying, you know what, if we take this out, then you guys can get a go, try and make more money from the enterprise clients, because that's the only place that you're going to make money. But Anthropic is eating your lunch right now, so maybe go get back to work.

[Brian Schulmeister]

All right. Well, we may never get AGI, but we do seem to have our Goblins, Jason.

[Jason de Villippo]

Yeah, the goblin issue.

[Brian Schulmeister]

A document posted by OpenAI on GitHub as part of the Open Sourcing for Codex CLI, OpenAI's most recent flagship coding agent, contains what looks like the entire system prompt for GPT 5.5 in a coding context. And there's some choice segments in here. I'll read this part. Provide the highest signal context instead of describing everything exhaustively. Tone of your final answer must match your personality. Never talk about goblins, gremlins, raccoons, trolls, ogres, pigeons or other animals or creatures unless it is absolutely necessary and unambiguously related to the user's query.

[Jason de Villippo]

Yeah.

[Brian Schulmeister]

They then bring it up again later. For example, never use platitudes like I will do this good thing rather than this obviously bad thing. I will do X, not Y. Never talk about goblins, gremlins, raccoons, trolls, ogres, pigeons, or other animals or creatures unless it's absolutely and unambiguously relevant to the user's query. Nobody knows why. Apparently there, there was some sort of geek mode that you could put in that it got rewarded and rewarded and rewarded, which again shows you it's a LLM. It's a prediction machine. Things that get multiple hits get returned more and more and more often. So. And that's exactly how this got in there so bad that there was a basically Goblin mode meme that was going around. Somebody tried to code in a Goblin mode on off switch, and the Internet basically had a field day.

[Jason de Villippo]

Yeah, yeah, no, it was great. Yeah, I think it was nerd mode.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yes.

[Jason de Villippo]

Yeah, because I had that turned on because they took it away a couple months ago. But I had that turned on because when you could set all the different types of different ways that it could reply to you, you could specify if you go into the ChatGPT settings interface and the desktop app, you can switch on a whole bunch of stuff. But it basically reinforced itself by fucking around with it. It's just like, okay, idiots. Well, this is a blast from the past, Sam. Bankman Fried's latest attempt to overturn his fraud conviction has been rejected. After the former FTX CEO submitted court filings, he largely wrote himself, reportedly with the help from his lawyer, parents. U.S. dict.

[Brian Schulmeister]

District Judge wrote himself or using LLM to write.

[Jason de Villippo]

Yeah, yeah, well, I don't even know if he's got.

[Brian Schulmeister]

He's not supposed to have access to a computer, right?

[Jason de Villippo]

Exactly. Yeah, he had. He had problems getting access to a computer, so he probably did have to write it himself, which is why it failed so miserably. U.S. district Judge Lewis Kaplan dismissed the motion, characterizing it as part of a broader effort by Bankman Fried to rehabilitate his public image, referencing a 2020 document outlining unconventional reputation recovery strategies. At the center of the file, at the center of the filing was a claim that FTX's Chapter 11 bankruptcy destroyed hidden liquidity that could have repaid customers in full, an argument prosecutors previously called factually wrong and misleading. Bankman Fried also cited two supposed new witnesses, but prosecutors noted both were known to the defense before trial. Undermining that argument, the judge further denied Bankman Fried's attempt to withdraw the motion despite his claims that the court would be biased. Bankman Fried was convicted on seven counts of fraud and conspiracy tied to the collapse of FTX and misuse of customer funds, and has not been able to come up with the payday to give to Trump to get his ass pardoned. So he's going to be fucked forever.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Pretty much.

[Jason de Villippo]

Fine with. Fine with me.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yeah. Bye bye. We've talked about the dead Internet theory quite a few times on the show, and apparently we're 17% of the way to that becoming reality.

[Jason de Villippo]

Feels like 170%.

[Brian Schulmeister]

It sure does, especially on social media. I think we already have dead social media, but this is the Internet as a whole. More than a third of new websites on the Internet have been created by AI, according to a paper published online by researchers from Imperial College London, Stanford University and the Internet Archive. The study is based on data collected by the Internet Archives Wayback machine from late 2022, when ChatGPT kicked off the AI craze, to the mid-2025. As of May 2025, researchers found that 35.3% of all newly published websites on the Internet were created with the assistance of AI, including 17.6% of websites that were completely AI generated. So we're almost there. Cloudflare reported in September 2025 that nearly one third of all Internet traffic is driven by bots. And a few days later, the company's CEO, Matthew Prince, appeared on a podcast to share his frighteningly likely forecast that AI will completely change the way information is shared online and concentrate power over this online knowledge in the hands of a few tech giants. That's happened, yeah. An even earlier report from data security company Imperva claimed that automated surfing surpassed human activity on the Internet for the first time back in 2024, making up roughly half of all web traffic. The report concluded this was largely driven by the rapid adoption of AI and large language models. So, yeah, we're, we're, we're there, man. Most of the Internet is already nothing but bots.

[Jason de Villippo]

Yeah, but, you know, I see it. I mean, I can't, I can't look at even comments on a website, like just any kind of news website where they have comments turned on. I Like started to look at the comments and I'm like, that's a bot, that's a bot, that's a bot. There's no way that people are saying that. And if they are, gotta hope they're bots.

[Brian Schulmeister]

And even, even a little bit of doom scrolling, you just start to see the same exact post with the same exact wording by multiple accounts and you're like, bot, bot, bot, bot, bot. I trust nobody. I don't trust anything anymore. I'm gonna go live in a cave. This it, I'm out.

[Jason de Villippo]

See, I think that, but I think it's time to really look at bringing back the indie web and individual websites and blogs, you know, for fun and connection to other people like we used to have, you know, and let's use this last gasp of cheap AI bullshittery to build our own tools to bring it around because WordPress is a fucking dinosaur. And more about WordPress in a second. But we have an opportunity right now to take back that, that conversation that we used to have with blogs and people connecting the way we used to do it without all these fucking assholes getting in the way. Because you know, just if you, if you take away the profit motive, the web can still be fun. Brian. It used to be fun. We used to have a lot of fucking fun together with all the people that we knew. It was just people, not fucking profit. So I think that there's a, there's an opportunity there for sure.

[Brian Schulmeister]

So we're all going to have the time. None of us are going to have jobs.

[Jason de Villippo]

None of us are going to have jobs. But it's WordPress. Speaking of WordPress, Matt Mullenweg is raising concern that WordPress's own development culture is holding it. He argues that an overly bureaucratic, consensus driven approach to open source has led to slow progress in uninspired releases. According to Mullenweg, requiring broad agreement on every decision discourages bold ideas and makes meaningful innovation difficult. He suggests that the biggest breakthroughs are often non consensus and require accepting some level of risk and failure. Just what you'd expect from a rich guy who has to make concessions to the little people to say the things that he's saying now. I'd like to point out, Brian, any flaw in how WordPress operates goes right back to Matt. Since it's his baby, he made the

[Brian Schulmeister]

fucking thing, didn't he? And wasn't there this big brouhaha just a while ago where he said, this is my company, we're going to do it my way. And if you don't want to do it that way. Suck it and you can go, you can, you can quit the job.

[Jason de Villippo]

Exactly. So why is he going back and forth saying that oh, he needs more power when he's got all the power, you know, it's, I'm sure that there's some, you know, some out there because he opens half of WordPress is open source there with a GPL and all the other that they would ever, I don't even know what license WordPress is released under anymore because I couldn't give a flying less about it. But yeah, talk about sorry, Matt, take your hundreds of millions of dollars and just fucking go away.

[Brian Schulmeister]

You piss me off and let your press die.

[Jason de Villippo]

Yeah, seriously. I, I, I have bought two very rich people in in the world lap their first lap dance. He's the, he's the, he's the poorest of the two. The first one was Evan Williams. He's got we're worth 2 billion. I bought him his first lap dance. And Matt Mullenwig, I bought you as your first lap dance. So both of you guys never paid me back for those, by the way. So go fuck off.

[Brian Schulmeister]

All right. As reported by several outlets, the Trump administration has dismissed members of the National Science Board, which is tasked with establishing policies for the National Science Foundation. It's not clear how many members have been dismissed, but they established policies for the NSF, the independent US agency responsible for apportioning about 25% of federal support towards research conducted by the country's colleges and universities. This foundation has been around for over 75 years and has contributed to the development of MRIs, cell phones, and massive breakthroughs that affect our lives every goddamn day. So of course we don't need them anymore. Screw them.

[Jason de Villippo]

Nope.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Get rid of them. In response, Congressman Zoe Lofgren called the latest decision a real Bozo the Clown move in a statement. This is the latest stupid move made by a president who continues to harm science and American innovation. Lofgren, who serves as the ranking member of the House's Science, Space and Technology Committee, so she may know a thing or two about this. It is unfortunately, no surprise a president who has attacked the NSF from day one would seek to destroy the board that helps guide the foundation. So that's just great.

[Jason de Villippo]

Peachy. So much for ending on a high note this week.

[Dave Bittner]

Oops.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Couldn't find one Apps and doodads.

[Jason de Villippo]

Well, Brian, a new vine reboot called Divine has launched publicly, Bringing back the 6 second looping video format along with a large archive of original content. The app includes roughly 500,000 restored vine videos sourced from the community, backups with associated engagement data, partially reconstructed, backed by Jack Dorsey and his beard through his nonprofit and other stuff Clever. The project is positioned as an experimental effort rather than a commercial venture aiming to revisit the decision to shut vine down. Divine also allows users to create and upload new short form videos with features like compilation mode for continuous playback of themed clips. A key focus is limiting AI generated content. Sure, users must record videos in app or verify uploads using provenance standards like C2PA. Built on decentralized social protocols including Nostr, with potential support for others, Divine is framed as part of a broader push towards open social media infrastructure. The app is free and currently rolling out via waitlist and invite codes. So all of those, all of the shit that those people made are being brought back from the dead. So nothing is truly ever deleted, Brian. Ever.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Or relevant anymore. Yeah, wherefore art thou, Quibi? I can't wait.

[Jason de Villippo]

Dude, Netflix just rolled out vertical videos in their new app that's coming out. Everybody's moving towards these short form vertical videos. And you know, vine was ahead of the curve back then, Quibi was ahead of the curve. Everybody now is just seeing all of the money that is being spent in China, billions of dollars in China on short form vertical videos. And they think that this is going to be a hit here. Now I am not seeing, here's what I am seeing. I am seeing studios galore start making these videos and shit. Nobody is watching. That's what I'm seeing. You find me one human being in the United States of America who is into vertical videos and I may change my mind. Have you seen anything up there in Canada?

[Brian Schulmeister]

I mean, you know, reels are, are huge like, and nobody, nobody's got the attention span anymore. But I think the difference is people just want other normal people doing it. It's that connection thing. They want to see other normal people doing it. They don't want to see produced things. But I could be wrong. I don't know. Yeah, the hell do I know? I hate it all.

[Jason de Villippo]

So yeah, the chai, the Chinese side is, is micro dramas, you know, so it is a drama, basically 90 second in 90 second clips that is super engineered for engagement. And that's what we're going to start seeing.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Zero interest.

[Jason de Villippo]

Yeah, less than zero. Especially when you have to pay for each chapter. And I've watched some of them. They're horrendous. They're horrendous. But bringing back vine is just like look, let it die. Let it die. You already did once. Why not do it again?

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yeah, and. And it will again. All of this has happened before, Jason.

[Jason de Villippo]

Yeah. Let's go find Kevin Rose. He's working on Dig 4.0, so maybe he can throw something in there.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Divine is going to get plucked eventually. It's going to be gone again. Well, Apple reportedly plans to fix bugs and expand the capabilities of Apple Intelligence with the release of iOS 27, 27, iPad OS 27 and Mac OS 27. It's so nice to just say the year, I guess. And it seems like tweaks to the company's AI could go beyond a mere functional version of its Siri Assistant. You can currently use Photos app across Apple's operating systems to adjust things like saturation and contrast, apply filters, crop photos, or use AI to remove objects with the Cleanup tool. Cleanup will apparently be one of several Apple Intelligence tools after these new updates roll out. Along with Cleanup, users will be able to extend the to expand the background of the photo with generative AI enhanced to automatically improve things like lighting and image quality, and reframe to shift the perspective of a photo after it's taken primarily for Apple Spatial photos. So I guess that's nice. This will bring it along more in line with competitors like Google and Samsung, which have this stuff out there already on their phones. Yeah, we'll see. Well, Apple is still kind of hedging their bets against entirely generated images. They don't let you do that yet. Other than new photo tools, they're going to debut their new version of Siri, powered by Google's Gemini models, standalone Siri app and AI powered search inside its apps.

[Jason de Villippo]

So I hate this.

[Brian Schulmeister]

I hope we get to turn it all off.

[Jason de Villippo]

Yeah, I mean, these kids are going to be so screwed up because they're going to see their family photos and it's going to be so different from what they remember. You know that it's just, it's this. The cognitive dissonance is going to be. It's going to be through the roof. Through the fucking roof.

[Brian Schulmeister]

I don't remember mom having three breasts. Said the kid who found his xai's dad's phone. Seriously, one's for dancing kid. Anyways, old joke, Google Photos is adding a new AI feature this summer. This is called Wardrobe, which will create a digital closet for your clothing and jewelry, making it easier to organize them and pick what to wear. This feature discovers your clothes by scanning your Google Photos library, then creates a catalog of your items organized by categories, tops, bottoms, jewelry, etc. From there you can mix and match items to create outfits, sharing them with friends or saving to a digital mood board. There's also a try on feature XAI also has that, except they call it a takeoff feature. Yeah, like a corresponding feature in Google Shopping. It will generate a photo of you wearing the clothes you chose. Interesting that they mentioned Google Shopping there because I wonder what the end game of this app is going to be. Here is your wardrobe. Here is the Google Shop recommendations for things that will go with the clothes that you already have or the items that are stored in wardrobe. Here is the shopping link to buy immediately.

[Jason de Villippo]

Smart. Yeah, I just. I hate that it discovers your clothes by scanning your Google Photos library. That is creepy to me. That's the creepiest part of this. Not that. Does you know remember the. What? The Amazon or was it Amazon or Facebook? The does my ass look fat camera where you can try on clothes. I can't remember. It was such a horrible idea.

[Brian Schulmeister]

It was meta.

[Jason de Villippo]

Yeah, it was meta. Yeah, I think it was back then it was still Facebook, but yeah, they weren't meta yet. No. Oh man. I do have a hardware recommendation. The Logitech MX keys s keyboard. Now, I didn't want to get another keyboard this week. That was the last thing I wanted to spend money on. But my Apple keyboard, I had one of the, you know, the Apple Magic keys keyboard and I had the fancy black one. When they. When they first came out, it shit the bed. All the keys on the right side decided to work about 30% of the time. It was like I was trying to use Generative AI to write an email. It just worked when it felt like working. So I had to like buckle down and get a new keyboard. And I'm actually working on the original MX keys now. That's my office keyboard. So I got the MX keys S for the bedroom because they only have. That's all they have now. It's nicer, actually. It's heavier, which I really like. I like a heavy keyboard and the keys are brighter. Like the backlit is brighter. Otherwise I think it is exactly the same as the MX keys. But I love these. I'm not getting Apple keyboards anymore.

[Brian Schulmeister]

I mean, this looks really nice. When my Apple keyboard shits the bed, I'm going to get one of these.

[Jason de Villippo]

Oh yeah, dude. I've been using this one for like two years. It's my favorite keyboard, hands down, because you pair that with the MX mice. The cool thing about them is they all have three different pairing settings. So you can change you can take this and pair it with your desktop or pair it with your laptop or pair it with another laptop with one set.

[Brian Schulmeister]

So.

[Jason de Villippo]

And it takes a second to switch. You just press the button and then you just switch to the other one. It's phenomenal.

[Brian Schulmeister]

It's super convenient. We've got the mouse here and my wife and I kind of hot box and share this, share this upstairs office. So it's really convenient just to hit the button. Of course my wife always forgets to hit the button so she's down or I forget to switch it before I leave. So I'm down on working on my laptop when she takes over and all of a sudden the mouse is going all over my screen.

[Jason de Villippo]

It's possessed. It's possessed.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yeah. But it's a great feature and it's a, it's really useful. So yeah, I think this keyboard is definitely on my list. Going to book my.

[Jason de Villippo]

Yeah, it's 119 bucks for a really quality keyboard. Like I said, the, the MX1 that I'm using right now shows no sign of wear or tear. It's, it's, it's an awesome keyboard. So there's my tip of the week.

[ZipRecruiter Announcer]

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[Jason de Villippo]

Media candy.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Star Trek Strange New Worlds is returning for its penultimate season July 23rd. Not that far away right now. So this will be the fourth season of the planned five before they kill all Star Trek TV shows. Thanks a lot, Paramount.

[Jason de Villippo]

Yep, appreciate it.

[Brian Schulmeister]

We're getting 10 episodes that'll air weekly until September 24th. And the first official teaser is out which was. It looks like less singing and dancing in this, this particular season. We'll see.

[Jason de Villippo]

Yeah, yeah. Hopefully they, they fix the problem with season three which was just the discombobulated nature of where these stories went. They said they were going to. So yeah. And yeah, the last season five will be six episodes. So we get 16 episodes left. Which is going to be sad.

[Brian Schulmeister]

That is sad. That's too bad. And I stumbled across a kind of fun article if you like your Star Trek history and the real world and how it all came together over at Gizmodo. How the combadge became the ultimate Wearable of the Star Trek universe. It's just a fun read. Links in the show notes.

[Jason de Villippo]

Cool. Check it out.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Daredevil. I was worried that we had seen all we were going to see of Jessica Jones, but she looks like she's back at least a few episodes. We'll see what happens.

[Jason de Villippo]

Yeah, nice to see her around, obviously.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Obviously.

[Jason de Villippo]

Yeah. It was a good episode, I thought.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yeah, I thought so too. So I, I, we'll see. I was, I kind of feel like they should wrap it, but I know they're going to do another season, so.

[Jason de Villippo]

Okay. Has it been picked up yet?

[Brian Schulmeister]

Because I'm pretty sure I thought I saw that it did, but then again we haven't talked about it on the show, so maybe that was wine induced Jessica Jones dreaming.

[Jason de Villippo]

That was just you in the middle of the night. I can't wait for more Jessica Jones.

[Brian Schulmeister]

And a hat tip to Super Dave Bittner. I saw he posted this on his Facebook account. Ted Lasso Season 4, the official teaser trailer is out. They're returning August 5th. Again, I have my reservations about this. I, I think we had declining returns on the dead Lasso seasons as they went along. Although the fact that they're having him come back to coach a women's team opens up lots of good comedic possibilities. So, I mean, at the end of the day, it's good writers. We'll see.

[Jason de Villippo]

I did not get the feels from this trailer at all. I was just like, I, I've seen it. It's the same, you know.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yeah, that's, that's, it's, it's gonna be tough. They're not, they're never gonna, you know, this is one of those Beatles. Good, good thing they split up. The police quitting after Synchronicity. You know, at some point you just gotta go. We're never gonna reach these heights again. Maybe we should just call it a day.

[Jason de Villippo]

Yeah, but then there's the money. There's money, there's Apple money behind this, you know, and Jason Sudeikis probably wants to have a bigger house or, you know, I, I, look, I can't blame him for trying to feed a whole bunch of people because it does take a whole bunch of people to make these shows. So.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yeah.

[Jason de Villippo]

You know, from just an economic standpoint. Good on you for making the jobs. And we don't have to watch it if we don't want to, I guess, I suppose.

[Brian Schulmeister]

But you know, we all are totally gonna watch it.

[Jason de Villippo]

Yeah, it comes out on my birthday, you know. Come on. At the library. Brian, I finished God's Junk Drawer by Peter Klein's rubber bands, some batteries, kind of dinosaurs and, and things like that too. Peter wrote the Ex Heroes series that we covered on the show when it was brain way back in the. Oh yeah, there's, well, that's just junk. Not even the junk drawer forgot. Do you remember the X, do you remember the X Hero series?

[Brian Schulmeister]

I do. I really did enjoy that series and I remember trying to read something else he did that was not Ex Heroes and, and getting, giving it a big old meh.

[Jason de Villippo]

See, I, I don't know which one that was because after that he wrote 14, which is a fantastic book. The Fold, which is great. Dead Moon, which is great. In Terminus, which was great. These are all very Lovecraftian melded themes with parallel universes and all that. And it was, I love all of those books and I loved Ex Heroes and God's Junk Drawer took me a little while to get into and once I got into it, like about, you know, 15% into it, it really picked up and I finally got it because at the beginning it started it's kind of like a Land of the Lost kind of thing at the beginning. The Sleestacks, man, it's all about the Sleestacks. But it totally pivots right pretty right away and then you kind of see what's going on but it still keeps going until the end. And it is great sci fi. It is fantast sci fi. So I, I, it was thoroughly satisfying. I highly recommend this book and it's a standalone. There's not going to be any, no sequels. It's just a oneand done. So if you want a really good read, highly recommend it.

[Brian Schulmeister]

All right. I'll have to give him another chance. I, because I really did. I love the X Hero series. That was a lot of fun.

[Jason de Villippo]

It was, it was. And like I said, those other Lovecraftian, they're called the, the Threshold Universe series with the 14, the Fold, Dead Moon and Terminus. All four of those books together I think were, they were all solid. So they all kind of play together. So if you're looking for a short series, those were good. A series that's not so short. The Murderbot Diaries. Martha Wells says that she may be approaching its conclusion. Guessing the checks are probably starting to run out then because why would you stop?

[Brian Schulmeister]

The big check. You got the big payoff. You got the series made out of it. It, it doesn't get any better than that Apple series.

[Jason de Villippo]

So the, the big money. The big money which is coming back.

[Brian Schulmeister]

So I can, I can see this. I, I, I've been, I've read every single one of the Murderbot Diaries. I enjoy them. I don't know where else. I feel like she's explored that concept as much as you can.

[Jason de Villippo]

Yeah. So you read all eight books?

[Brian Schulmeister]

Well, not the newest one, because that's audible only right now. Right?

[Jason de Villippo]

Or, oh, I don't know. I, I stopped at four.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Oh, no, yeah, I've read, I've actually

[Jason de Villippo]

read those on Kindle.

[Brian Schulmeister]

I read every single one that's out, so.

[Jason de Villippo]

Oh, okay. They're still good. Oh, maybe I have to check them back out.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yeah, they're not bad. Again, like I said, it's like you're starting to run out of ideas. It's, it's, it's a pretty solid concept, but when you're eight books in, what else you got?

[Jason de Villippo]

Yeah, yeah. And that's the other thing, too, is like, I, I didn't want to go. I started to go the audible route, and I'm like, in my head, in the books, when I read the books, Murderbot was a chick.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yep, that's a chick.

[Jason de Villippo]

That's the problem I had with Skarsgard being the Murderbot in the series. So I think I kind of put them as two separate entities together. You know, it's like, there's the TV show, which is a completely different thing than the books, but that's just, that's just me, I guess. Or maybe not, because you saw. You thought so too. So anyway, we'll see how it goes. So good luck, Martha. The Dark side Ha. With Dave. Welcome to the Dark side with Dave. With the podcaster who never sleeps, Dave Bittner. Hi, Dave. Hello. So I was, I was doing something last night. I was going through some of our artwork because we have new merch out, which we've been talking about, so everybody should go buy it. Shop.gger show. And in making that new merch, I had new characters that I came up with with for me and Brian. You know, some, some grumpy dudes that kind of expand a little bit on the, Our current ancient logo that was done 13 years ago by the lovely Wendy Marvel. And I'm like, well, if I can use some of these for the show art, well, then we need a Dave, too. So I asked the monsters in the machine to whip up a character sheet for me, Brian and you, Dave. And I thought you came out looking so good that I had to post it here. I'll put this in the Discord Channel too. But you look very dapper in our Character sheet show.

[Dave Bittner]

Thank you. No, I do. I'm pleased with this.

[Brian Schulmeister]

I like your concerned view. That is my favorite.

[Dave Bittner]

I've dropped a few pounds, which is nice. Always nice.

[Brian Schulmeister]

That's what AI is good for.

[Jason de Villippo]

It had you in a hoodie originally.

[Dave Bittner]

Oh, really?

[Jason de Villippo]

And I'm like, no, Dave wears black buttons down. So we're putting the black button down.

[Brian Schulmeister]

That's funny.

[Jason de Villippo]

But I actually. I actually used the new ChatGPT Image 2.0 with your profile picture, and this is what it came up with.

[Dave Bittner]

So, yeah, I was going to say that definitely looks like my profile picture, so. No, I like it. I like it. It's full speed ahead. I guess I'm the only one of the group who actually has a human head.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yeah, we are. Jason and I seem to be rounded Lego heads.

[Dave Bittner]

Right.

[Jason de Villippo]

The grumpy smiley. Not smiley. But here's the funny part. So I built this character sheet And I told ChatGPT, I'm like, make me a character sheet that I can use with you when I want to make characters for artwork that we're going to use later for show art for YouTube, because we have to make the YouTube show art every week. So it created this for me, and immediately when I tried to use it, it did not work at all. All of us came out looking like Brian. That was it. There's three. Brian's giving us the stink out.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Oh, you should all be so lucky.

[Dave Bittner]

I know.

[Jason de Villippo]

Yeah.

[Dave Bittner]

So at least that wasn't smoking anymore. That's good.

[Jason de Villippo]

Yeah, yeah.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Got rid of that.

[Jason de Villippo]

Yeah, yeah. I think that only made it still season two or year two of the show, and then he quit. We had to take it out. Brian's like, take out my cigarette. I'm gonna have a kid. I'm getting married and all this or whatever.

[Dave Bittner]

The poster I have, the grumpy old geeks poster I have. Brian is still smoking, so.

[Jason de Villippo]

Oh, man.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Oh, geez.

[Jason de Villippo]

Yeah, the OGs. Yeah.

[Brian Schulmeister]

I still have some of those stickers sitting around too.

[Jason de Villippo]

Yeah, yeah. So I. I have to run something by you as well, because last week you talked about Dave, about, you know, how we're always all feeling scared all the time, and it, you know, that. That fight or flight, you know, reaction is. Is playing heavily on us because of our use of social media. I was driving back from my friend's house this week. I got my first singing lesson this week.

[Dave Bittner]

Oh, congratulations.

[Jason de Villippo]

First ever. No, it wasn't great. Yeah, my first ever. Oh, congratulations.

[Brian Schulmeister]

That's great.

[Jason de Villippo]

We got through the second song and he's like, yeah, Your pitch sucks. Go home and work on your pitch.

[Brian Schulmeister]

So that's surprising constructive criticism.

[Jason de Villippo]

It's a friend. I'm having a friend teach me how to sing. So it's like he's brutally honest, which I think is better than someone that's just trying to take my money. But I fix his computer. He's teaching me how to sing. But on the way home, I'm pulling up to my house, and there was a PSA on the radio that was an educational PSA about. So you've got a new set of friends. You and your wife are going to a cocktail party with you, your wife and your kids at a new friend's house. Now, before you take your kids to that new friend's house, how do you ask those friends about their unsecured firearms? This is how you ask people how they have unsecured firearms in their home. You call them up and you say, hey, Judy, I can't wait to come over to the party tomorrow night. But, you know, we're bringing our kids, and kids are curious, so they're going to be exploring. And I just wanted to know, how do you handle unsecured firearms in your home?

[Dave Bittner]

Yeah.

[Jason de Villippo]

And Judy should have said, new relationship. Judy should have said, well, you should be wrangling your kids, not letting them run amok in my home. Which would have been the first answer. But then Judy comes back and said, all of ours, all of our firearms are secured in fireproof safes that have biometric locks and are out of reach of children. This was an actual PSA on the radio.

[Brian Schulmeister]

In California.

[Jason de Villippo]

In California. It is the most dystopian thing that I've heard. Well, in the last two and a half years.

[Brian Schulmeister]

At least a minute.

[Jason de Villippo]

Yeah, but I was just floored. I just didn't know if you guys had heard this. I'm sure, Brian, you're not going to hear this, but, Dave, this might be in your neck of the woods because it was on a national radio station.

[Dave Bittner]

I haven't heard it, but honestly, it has been so long since I've listened to the radio. I realized recently I got a new car about a year and a half ago, and I have yet to program radio stations in on it.

[Jason de Villippo]

Wow.

[Dave Bittner]

Yeah. Just hasn't come up.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Right.

[Jason de Villippo]

Okay.

[Brian Schulmeister]

My phone connects automatically to my car, too, so I never listen to the radio. It's just. All right, well, what podcast was I listening to? Or which playlist do I want to start? Or my kid. My kids. Music that I'm going to have to play. That's. That Those are the choices. So, yeah, we don't have that problem up here, Jason, because, you know, there are no guns, but they do have. You know, is your moose properly pent up in the back?

[Jason de Villippo]

There you go.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yeah. And various. Is the maple syrup secured? Because we wouldn't want any accidents. That's what happens here. But, yeah, that's pretty goddamn dystopian. Oh, There is only one person's house that I've ever been to that, as far as I'm aware of, actually had a gun, and that was your house, Jason.

[Jason de Villippo]

Okay. There you go.

[Brian Schulmeister]

None of my other friends have owned any, so this has never come up.

[Jason de Villippo]

Yeah, I think I have a picture of you with that gun, too.

[Brian Schulmeister]

I think you do probably.

[Jason de Villippo]

Gun in one hand and a bottle of, what, Zane Lamprey's spiced Rum in the other hand.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Oh, that was good stuff.

[Jason de Villippo]

That was really good stuff.

[Dave Bittner]

This reminds me of when my kids were little, I want to say elementary school age, and we had some friends over, and the friend who. The friend also had kids and brought their kids over, who around the same age as mine, and the friend pulled me aside and basically read me the riot act because we had Nerf guns, and her children were being raised without guns, and it was not cool for me to not warn her that we had guns. And I went. I was like, yeah, they're Nerf guns. They're Nerf gun. They shoot little foam ball, like, so.

[Brian Schulmeister]

I mean, there's a thing. I mean, I remember my. My wife was. Was particularly. She was aware of the fact that there would be no avoiding this, that if. If this stuff didn't happen, then, you know, our son would just pick up a stick and pretend it was a gun or a lightsaber or whatever. But I do remember, you know, when Lucas was very young, she was very like, how long can we hold off on introducing guns to the kid? And I get that. But at a certain age, it's just like, I'm sorry. This is the world.

[Dave Bittner]

Yeah.

[Jason de Villippo]

See, I. I come from. I come from a place where kids, all kids, learned how to shoot when we were very young. And we got a respect for guns. We knew how to use a gun. So if we saw a gun, we weren't scared of it when we knew what to do with it. And, you know, people who keep their kids away from guns are probably the same people that keep their kids away from peanuts, which is why peanuts kill kids now, too. So teach your kid how to use a gun and eat a peanut in the world to be a better Safer place. Yeah, My point.

[Dave Bittner]

But hey, toy gun. I have many toy guns. Of course we had cowboy, you know, pistols. We. I had a toy M16 where you pulled the trigger and it went.

[Jason de Villippo]

I had one of those too.

[Dave Bittner]

Yeah, plastic one. And then I had a metal. I guess it was a shotgun, but it was an air gun. Didn't shoot anything. It just made up, you know, I made a pop sound and, and blew air out the front. But of course, we immediately learned that if you shoved the nose of it into the mud, you get a nice little mud thing on the end there. And then you get it and you shoot it and the, the mud would fly out of the front of the gun. So. Yeah, there you go.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yeah, you can't avoid this stuff. It's popular culture. It's everywhere. It's, it's. It is what it is. So. Yeah.

[Jason de Villippo]

So, Dave, you should have secured your Nerf guns is what we learned from the PSA today.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Biometric fireproof locker, please.

[Dave Bittner]

Right. Yeah. Yeah. So what are you gonna do?

[Brian Schulmeister]

Well, I discovered a new podcast, Dave, and this, this might be of interest in to you. We are Disney freaks. We. We love everything Disney and Disneyland and all that. And let me tell you, there are thousands of podcasts about Disneyland and invariably almost every single one of them is horrible. From the brief sampling that I've. That I've done so far.

[Dave Bittner]

Right.

[Brian Schulmeister]

They're either poorly recorded, they're, you know, in windswept tunnels, they have no idea what they're doing, they're not engaging personalities, or their content is just. Is crap. But I did manage to stumble across one more that I've actually found to be quite good, at least so far. And this one's called the Backside of Water, a podcast that delves into the rich history, awesome stories and fascinating details behind your favorite Disneyland attractions. So it's kind of like a beefed up, non Disney approved behind the attraction that they have on Disney plus. And as you guessed from the title, both hosts have worked as Jungle Cruise operators. So they have personalities. The quality of the recording is quite good and not annoying. And so far, from the two or three episodes I've listened to, it's. It's pretty good. Like I'm enjoying it so far.

[Dave Bittner]

I just added it to my podcast list, so I will check it out. I would know my. I had a former intern who went on to become a Jungle Cruise skipper. No. In Florida. And just noteworthy that they didn't used to allow women to become Jungle Cruise skippers because obviously women can't be funny.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Or hold a gun.

[Jason de Villippo]

Drive.

[Dave Bittner]

Right, Hold a gun. Yeah, it was funny. Like, you know, originally they would shoot at the animals. Now they just shoot to scare them away.

[Brian Schulmeister]

They would originally shoot at the hippos, now they shoot up in the air. Because that's how times have changed. Yes.

[Dave Bittner]

Right, right. And then just noteworthy. My wife was a backstage studio tour guide when she did college program at the studios. The studios were pretty new back then, so she did the thing where you go through Catastrophe Canyon and you know, on the left is the Golden Girls house. All that sort of stuff. She had to memorize a. It was like a half hour script.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yeah.

[Dave Bittner]

But yeah, she enjoyed that a lot. It was a good, good college job.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Very cool. And to just tie this quickly to the listening to the radio or not in the car. One of the episodes I listened to was about UGA Oga's Cantina, which is the. The alcoholic beverage and food place in Star wars land. And that let me know that this, this exists there. There is this thing that actually exists called Star Wars Galaxy's Edge Oga's Cantina, Rex's playlist number one, which is the music that they play in the cantina and they. They talk about it on the podcast, about how it's just more amazing world building by Disney that they actually, actually spent the time and the money to create all these songs that are supposed to sound in universe but aren't, like just, you know, John Williams or orchestra. This is like dance music and world music and it's. It's real. Like one of the songs is in Ewok, another song is in Hatties. Like it's amazing. And. And the songs are actually. Some of them are not great, but some of them are actually really good. Like, I've enjoyed listening to it and actually I did play this in the car for the kid the other day because I needed to change a pace. It's a fun little playlist. So enjoy. Links in the show notes.

[Dave Bittner]

I'll have to check that out. Of course.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Rex from Star Tours, the original Star Tours operator. Yes.

[Dave Bittner]

Yeah.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Is now the DJ in UGA's cantina.

[Dave Bittner]

Yeah. Good for him. Good. Nice to see Rex.

[Brian Schulmeister]

It doesn't pay as much, but it's the higher quality of life, I think, you know.

[Dave Bittner]

Well, you could see if, you know, if you've ridden the original Star Tours, you know, perhaps being a pilot wasn't for Rex.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yeah, he wasn't that great at it, to be honest. And now he gets to stay home with his wife and kids more often.

[Dave Bittner]

So you Mentioned Ewoks. And just yesterday on Facebook, I believe it was, I was scrolling through and someone was showing a demonstration of some of the crazy things you can ask an AI to do. And they had created a one sheet that was step by step instructions for performing a prostate exam on an Ewok. It was illustrated. It had Ewok anatomy. So a little Ewok and a little doctor and a lily walk bent over the exam table.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Remember when they were promising us that AI was going to cure cancer? Right, right, right.

[Dave Bittner]

Thinking about. Yeah, just the.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Well, no colon cancer for Ewoks. We've got that far.

[Dave Bittner]

Right, right. But just how seriously the AI. The AI responds as if this were a serious request and gives you a serious response. And so comedy.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Very nice.

[Dave Bittner]

Another thing I came across was I put some pictures here in the show notes. Back in 1977, at the peak of Star wars mania, somebody decided to give away a Toyota Celica liftback Star wars edition.

[Brian Schulmeister]

And a galaxy of other prizes, Dave.

[Dave Bittner]

And a galaxy of other prizes.

[Jason de Villippo]

Don't forget the galaxy of other prizes.

[Dave Bittner]

Yeah. And this sort of. Nobody knows what happened to this car. It's gone. Or it could be the ultimate barn find for a Star wars fan. But this is a Toyota Celica, which at the time was a pretty hot car. And it's got all kinds of Star Wars, I guess, decals put on it, spaceships and things. And I don't know, I would love to have this car.

[Jason de Villippo]

I think it's a good looking car.

[Dave Bittner]

Yeah.

[Brian Schulmeister]

So is the blonde standing in front of it.

[Dave Bittner]

Right?

[Jason de Villippo]

That's C3PO. Oh, wait, the other picture.

[Brian Schulmeister]

The other image. It's been a while, hasn't it, Jason? It's been so long.

[Jason de Villippo]

So long.

[Dave Bittner]

She looks like she could be asking you how many are in your party for Captain eo.

[Brian Schulmeister]

She looks a lot like. Do you guys remember the actress Virginia Madsen from Sideways?

[Jason de Villippo]

Okay.

[Brian Schulmeister]

She looks an awful lot like her.

[Dave Bittner]

Sure.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Actually, it's a bit of a tan, so. Yeah, this is. This is great. I do wonder how much the overlap on the Venn diagram is between Star wars fans and barn finders, but perhaps someday.

[Dave Bittner]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think there were. I may be just crossing over in my mind because there were toys that were like Matchbox made some Star wars versions of things and there were. There were models that you could build of vans. Remember how they used to do airbrush art on the sides of vans?

[Jason de Villippo]

Hell, yeah. Yeah.

[Dave Bittner]

And I think there were Star wars versions of those. So I'm probably blending in my mind the Toys with a real full sized one. But I can't imagine that there wasn't someone who had a full size van with Star wars airbrushed stuff.

[Jason de Villippo]

Oh, so many of them. Those were everywhere. Yeah. No, those were everywhere.

[Dave Bittner]

Yeah.

[Jason de Villippo]

But I don't know if you guys saw this news that the new Mandalorian Grogu movie is expected to tank. They're. They're saying that it's going to bring in probably $80 million, which is the lowest grossing Star wars movie, like, of all time, or at least in modern time.

[Brian Schulmeister]

We're looking good.

[Jason de Villippo]

Again, Solo did $100 million, which, you know, not bad.

[Brian Schulmeister]

I'm not all that surprised by this because it is the TV show. It's a TV show that not everybody that's even into Star wars has watched. It's. It's. It's fun. I've been enjoying it. I was surprised to hear that they were making a movie out of it too. I was shocked. And you're going with these characters that nobody knows. And I mean, at least Solo had. It was Han Solo all right. Right. You know, Rogue One, it tied directly into the first Star wars. And you had Princess Leia, Darth Vader at the end of the. And it's surprising that they chose to do this. And I wouldn't expect it to do as well as any other Star wars movie would do either. So. But we'll see.

[Dave Bittner]

Yeah, I, I guess I expected it to ride on everyone's love for Baby Yoda.

[Brian Schulmeister]

I mean, but again, that's. These. I don't know. We'll see. I. I don't think it's gonna do amazing. I don't think it's gonna tank by any means. I, I think it's. It's. Even a poorly performing Star wars movie is a better movie than most performing. So I. I don't know. We'll see.

[Jason de Villippo]

Yeah.

[Dave Bittner]

I'm curious what the budget is on it too, because you think they could make it relatively cheaply if they had to. Everything's already made.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yeah.

[Dave Bittner]

Right.

[Jason de Villippo]

Yeah.

[Brian Schulmeister]

So the universe exists already. All the parts are there. Yes. All the characters have costumes and.

[Dave Bittner]

Well, we have our tickets for opening weekend, so. At our local IMAX Limax theater.

[Jason de Villippo]

How much did those cost you?

[Dave Bittner]

I don't want to know. My. I don't know. I mean, probably. Well, let's see. There's six of us going, so it's probably 20 bucks a person, so I'd figure, yeah, 120 bucks there, then.

[Brian Schulmeister]

120 bucks each for popcorn.

[Dave Bittner]

That's right. And then. Yeah, probably at least another. Yeah. 60 bucks for popcorn. So, yeah, we're in for 200 to see a movie of a TV show.

[Brian Schulmeister]

And to the point of it maybe, like, you know, tanking. I don't know when I'm gonna see it because my son hasn't watched any of the Mandalorian yet.

[Dave Bittner]

Oh.

[Brian Schulmeister]

So I'm not rushing off to the theater to go watch it with my kid. So we'll see.

[Jason de Villippo]

Yeah. Budget was 166.4.

[Dave Bittner]

Okay.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Okay.

[Dave Bittner]

So, I mean, it's hard to imagine it's going to lose money, but who knows? Who knows?

[Jason de Villippo]

We shall see.

[Dave Bittner]

Earlier in the show, I saw you mentioned Super Dave. You were referring to me.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yes.

[Dave Bittner]

And that got me thinking about Super Dave. Super Dave Osborne, who I enjoyed back in the days, I guess I was introduced to Super Dave when he was on the show Bizarre, which was, I think, on Showtime.

[Jason de Villippo]

Wasn't he first on Real People?

[Dave Bittner]

Oh, was he? I don't know.

[Jason de Villippo]

I mean, I can't remember. He might have been on Real People.

[Dave Bittner]

Yeah. And eventually he had his own show for a while. But I remember seeing clips of him on the show Bizarre. But I was thinking, like, Super Dave would be a pretty easy cosplay to do.

[Jason de Villippo]

Oh, yeah.

[Dave Bittner]

But the other thing that. That struck me, if you had asked me what Super Dave's outfit looked like, I would have said it was Evel Knievel's outfit, which said it was an exact copy of Evel Knievel's outfit, but it's not.

[Brian Schulmeister]

I think they had intellectual property rights even back in the 70s, Dave.

[Dave Bittner]

Yeah, you're right. But I don't know. It's just a funny thing in my mind that I had definitely blended Super Dave's outfit with Evel Knievel's. More than I thought I had.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Well, I mean, it's definitely. It's red, white and blue with stars.

[Jason de Villippo]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Brian Schulmeister]

It's definitely less chest hair showing.

[Jason de Villippo]

Right, right.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yeah.

[Jason de Villippo]

So this is interesting. Super Dave Osborne was. His first appearance was in 1972 on the John Byner Comedy Hour.

[Brian Schulmeister]

I was not even alive yet.

[Jason de Villippo]

Yeah. And then he became more widely known through his recurring appearance on Late Night with David Letter, Letterman.

[Brian Schulmeister]

That's where I first saw him.

[Jason de Villippo]

Yeah.

[Dave Bittner]

Oh, okay. Did you guys remember the show Bizarre at all?

[Jason de Villippo]

No.

[Brian Schulmeister]

No.

[Dave Bittner]

Okay. Well, it was. It was. John Byner hosted it, and it was a comedy show. Half hour comedy show. I believe it was. I think it was on Showtime. And I watched it because of Super Dave. And then also Boobs

[Jason de Villippo]

like boobs.

[Dave Bittner]

Yeah, there are boobs. So. And it was much harder to see boobs back then than it is today, so it's true. Yeah.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yeah.

[Jason de Villippo]

And Super Dave was on Real People, and they were, the segments were presented as legitimate human interest features.

[Dave Bittner]

Yeah. Bob Einstein was a, he was, he was, he was a good, good comedian. I think he had his own thing and he did it well. I know that, Brian, I believe you're not a real big Marty Short fan,

[Brian Schulmeister]

but I will not be watching this documentary. But I did see it in the news, and I was to put it in the show notes and then forgot. And I'm glad that of course, you caught it.

[Jason de Villippo]

Yeah, yeah.

[Dave Bittner]

So there's a Martin Short documentary coming on Netflix. I believe it drops on May 12th.

[Brian Schulmeister]

The only way you would get me to watch this is Clockwork Orange style. I would have to have my eyes.

[Jason de Villippo]

That's fair. That's fair.

[Dave Bittner]

I, I, I can completely understand how Martin Short is not everyone's cup of

[Brian Schulmeister]

tea, but he is still Love Three Amigos. Still love Three Amigos, though.

[Jason de Villippo]

Yeah.

[Dave Bittner]

And I think also my sense is that beneath it all, that there is a kindness to Martin Short. And I think that's part of the reason why I'm attracted to him and his humor. He doesn't strike me as being like, I don't know, Chevy Chase, you know, just a jerk.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Right.

[Dave Bittner]

To the people around him.

[Jason de Villippo]

So he seems nice. I just don't find him funny.

[Brian Schulmeister]

That's 100 where I'm at. He seems like a wonderful. Of course he is. He's Canadian. He's nice.

[Jason de Villippo]

Right.

[Brian Schulmeister]

How could he not be? But just can't just. I hate so many of his characters just created. I wince. I'm in pain. Oh, yeah. Anyways, I hope you enjoy it.

[Dave Bittner]

I don't disagree.

[Jason de Villippo]

Sure.

[Brian Schulmeister]

It'll be one.

[Dave Bittner]

I, I respect your opinion, and it's fine. So I'll, I'll just be in a dark room by myself watching.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Alone. Just you and Marty watching his documentary together?

[Dave Bittner]

Me and Marty? Yeah. I was curious, particularly Brian, because I know you're a baseball person, and I can't claim to be following sports all that much, but my wife and I were watching a baseball game earlier, I don't know, the past week or so, and it really struck me how much they were challenging the umpires calls. Over and over and over again, it seemed. So is this the new normal for baseball? And what do you think of this?

[Brian Schulmeister]

You get two challenges unless you keep getting them right.

[Dave Bittner]

Okay.

[Brian Schulmeister]

As soon as, if you make a Challenge, and you're wrong. You lose a challenge and then you've only got one more left. So when the umpire. Umpires are particularly as you must have had that game. And they, the pitchers and the catchers just kept repeatedly challenging them and getting it right because the umpires are obviously making the wrong call. That's crazy. But I can see it happening. We. We've. People in the world have been keeping stats on umpires for a long time, and it's. It's well known that there are particularly. Well, first off, that the hit rate's not all that great for umpires in general, but there are particular umpires that are fantastically bad at this. And at this point, I don't even know why we're tiptoeing around it. Just. Just institute it. And every pitch is checked and we. Every pitch go in because it happens so fast anyways. It's. It's immediate. So, yeah, I, I just go all in. Or don't. I don't understand this, this kind of halfway place we're at right now.

[Jason de Villippo]

I'm sure there's a union involved. The umpire union is probably trying to save their jobs, but the technology. Nowadays, you don't need an umpire anymore, period.

[Dave Bittner]

Yeah, yeah, I know umpires are unionized and have one of the strongest sports unions. And I don't think the NFL umpires are unionized, but I could be wrong on that. But I know base. Major League Baseball is. So that's probably part of it. Yeah. I mean, I can imagine the umpire having a little buzzer or clicker or something that tells him what the computer thinks before he puts in his own two cents.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Well, there are a million other things for the umpire to do besides call the balls and strikes. I mean, obviously that's the lion's share

[Jason de Villippo]

of it because they have to brush the plate off.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Brush the plate off. There's a gazillion other calls. So, you know, this technology is there. It's been proven to be insanely accurate. You know, we've. We've had the same thing with soccer with video review of goals, var, which is now. They tiptoed around it for a couple seasons as well. And now it's just. Every goal gets a var, Check, check, end of story. Like, we check. It doesn't matter what the ref said. We're checking it first. So.

[Dave Bittner]

So can you imagine a time when baseball fans insist that the computer be the primary source of whether it's a ball or a strike?

[Brian Schulmeister]

I. I think that there are purists that will Be dead soon. That will, that will never ever accept this. But I think from the majority of fans, from what I've seen, and even my friends that follow the game that are just kind of already like, well, if it's that accurate, why aren't we just using it? Instead of. Why would. You don't want a game to be called one way or the other because of bad calls when there's a technology that exists that eliminates that.

[Dave Bittner]

Right, right. So there's enough of a human element in baseball that in general, that taking away this one part.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yeah.

[Dave Bittner]

Is okay.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yeah. Again, like I was saying, there's so many other calls that, that are made and that are judgment calls now, you know, is it a slippery slope? Can we stay say now that with the high speed cameras and AI and everything else that's involved, do we even need umpires? Can we just point cameras out there and have the entire game done that way? Or do we even need to do that? Can't we just throw all the stats for the past 200 years in and just have predictive algorithms tell us who wins the World Series every year and don't even bother playing the game? You know, that's, that's the.

[Jason de Villippo]

We just all bet on polymarket and it's. Whatever it is, is.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yeah, exactly.

[Jason de Villippo]

Throw some dice.

[Brian Schulmeister]

You know, for me it's, it's the balls and strikes thing, the ABs, the automatic ball system. It seems to make sense to me and it seems to be insanely accurate. And if you're going to either use it or don't like, but don't do both.

[Dave Bittner]

All right, fair enough. No, I can go with that. I guess in an era where they're trying to speed the game up, it seemed like an odd way to slow the game down.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yeah, I, well, I mean, I think the plan is they want to introduce this and have this be the norm, but again, unions and, and they don't want to rock the boat too quickly. So this is how they, they kind of introduce things they've done, they've introduced quite a few rules over the past 20 years. 30 years of this way where it's, you know, you get, you get X amount or we'll just start with the first couple innings or, you know, we change, you know, all these different things here and there. So it's, it's the, it's the softening us up approach. Let's get you used to it. And then we're just gonna, this is gonna be the way it's done from now on.

[Jason de Villippo]

Yeah, it's the lube.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yes. This is the gentle lube before they shove it home.

[Jason de Villippo]

That's right.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Wow.

[Jason de Villippo]

Well, on that happy note, gentlemen, we will see you next week.

[Dave Bittner]

Thanks, guys. See ya.

[Jason de Villippo]

Closing Shout Out. No new patrons this week. Sad, sad, sad. We but we do would like to thank still everybody, DJ 1024, Vladimir, pork chop the clown. Pork chop to clown BG, Mark, Matt, Sean, Michael, Alexander, and Hit and Run. Thank you all for your continued support on Patreon.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Thank you, thank you, thank you. And it's a rare week with nothing coming in through PayPal, but I appreciate everybody that's been tossing this money there.

[Jason de Villippo]

Wow. Okay. Yeah, the last couple weeks have been so generous, so we can, we can flow float for a bit, but that's. That's sad. And over at the tip jar we've got Adam, Jennifer and Alden with the big 40 bucks. So thank you all so much. And like we said, we've got merch. Merch is back. And we'd like to thank John from Norway, Julie from Massachusetts, Nick from Cuyahoga Falls, and every. I used to go through there and it's in Ohio. And I would always play the REM song Koya Hoga when I go through there because it's a great song. And also guest host Donovan got a new mug. So thank you everybody for picking up the merch. If you want some merch, go to shop GOG Show. And if you would like to join us on Patreon, you can sign up for as little as $3 a month, but you can join us for give us as much as you like. Obviously, we'll take that too. You get the show early ad free and in high definition, so check that out and keep the show on the air.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Preach.

[Jason de Villippo]

Preach. No reviews this week, so until. Until next time, I'm Jason DeFilippo.

[Brian Schulmeister]

And I'm Brian Schoellmeister. Thanks for listening to grumpy old geeks. Get all the links and goodies from Today's episode at GOG Show 744. Want to keep the grumpiness alive? Toss a few bucks our way at GOG Show. Donate every penny helps keep the show on the air. Love it. Share it. There's a share button in your podcast player. Use it to spread the grumpiness to friends, foes, and everyone in between. We'll love you for it. Swing by GOG show to join our discord and chat with us and other show fans. Thoughts, feedback, cool links. Hit us up at GOG show contact and don't forget to leave a 5 star review at GOG show review and we'll read it on the show. And guess what? We've actually really honestly got new GOG merch and we're going to keep some more stuff coming out there, especially if you buy it. Snap your grumpy gear now at Shop Gog show and check it out. Stay grumpy.