687: Uncanny Spaceballs

Summary

Grumpy Old Geeks - Episode 687: Uncanny Spaceballs

Release Date: March 7, 2025

Hosted by Jason DeFilippo, Brian Schulmeister, and Dave Bittner, Grumpy Old Geeks dives deep into the chaotic and often absurd world of technology news. In Episode 687, titled "Uncanny Spaceballs," the hosts tackle a myriad of topics ranging from AI mishaps and corporate downfalls to the ever-evolving landscape of cryptocurrency and space exploration. Below is a detailed summary capturing the key discussions, insights, and conclusions of the episode.

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1. Tech Dirt Blog's Political Shift

Brian Schulmeister introduces a significant change at Tech Dirt, a blog that has now embraced a more democratic and politically charged stance. He asserts, “We’ve seen how technology can be wielded to consolidate power... It’s a playbook. We watched Musk Perfect at Twitter and now we’re seeing it deployed on a national scale” [00:45]. This shift has garnered mixed reactions, with most followers supporting the new direction while some express concerns over the increased political focus.

2. AI’s Inaccuracy with Movie Timestamps

The hosts discuss the frustrations with AI-generated search results, specifically highlighting a failed attempt by Google AI to locate a famous "Die Hard" clip. Jason DeFilippo points out the inaccuracy: “In the movie Die Hard... the iconic line... is spoken by John McClane at approximately 1 minute and 0 seconds into the movie” [02:39], which is blatantly incorrect as the actual scene occurs at 57 minutes and 18 seconds [03:15]. This mishap underscores the limitations of current AI search functionalities.

3. Fyre Festival 2 and Billy McFarland’s Stunts

Brian Schulmeister brings up Billy McFarland’s dubious Fyre Festival 2, highlighting the ongoing deception. He notes that officials from Isla Mujeres have no knowledge of the event, and the provided coordinates lead to the ocean [05:07]. Jason DeFilippo sarcastically suggests McFarland’s ulterior motives: “If I can lie this good... can I please be part of Doge?” [06:28]. The discussion underscores the skepticism surrounding McFarland’s latest endeavor and the apparent lack of genuine planning.

4. Tesla Under Siege: Sales Plunge and Vandalism

The podcast delves into the dramatic decline in Tesla’s global sales, citing specific drops in Germany (76%), France (26%), Norway, Denmark, Sweden, and China (50%) [08:02]. Brian Schulmeister highlights the broader backlash, including protests, vandalism, and stock price tumults. Jason DeFilippo adds, "Protests and vandalism at Tesla dealerships are on the rise... arsonists in southwest France torched a dozen Teslas” [09:42]. The hosts attribute these issues to intensified criticism of Elon Musk and his leadership style.

5. The Future of AI in Engineering Jobs

Jason DeFilippo references Sergey Brin’s controversial statement advocating for engineers to build AI replacements: “Engineers should work 60 hour weeks in office to build AI that could replace them” [10:09]. The hosts debate the implications of this viewpoint, discussing the potential erosion of the middle class in tech and the increasing reliance on AI-generated solutions.

6. Propaganda and AI Manipulation

A critical segment examines how Russian disinformation is infiltrating AI models. Jason DeFilippo reveals, “Pravda network... exploits how AI models retrieve and process news by flooding search results with disinformation” [22:15]. This tactic, termed "LLM grooming," aims to manipulate AI into perpetuating Kremlin falsehoods, thereby distorting public perception through AI-generated content.

7. Crypto Crisis: Violent Crimes and Market Volatility

The hosts discuss recent violent incidents targeting cryptocurrency holders, such as the home invasion of OnlyFans creator Amaranth who was attacked for her crypto wallet [24:03]. Additionally, they cover Trump’s failed crypto initiative, which temporarily spiked prices before causing a significant crash [25:17]. Brian Schulmeister labels it "the biggest grift we've ever seen," cautioning listeners against investing in such ventures [25:26].

8. Market Turbulence: Technicolor Shutdown and Zelle Lawsuit Dropped

Brian Schulmeister reports on the abrupt closure of VFX giant Technicolor, affecting over 10,000 artists globally due to financial struggles and post-COVID downturns [16:40]. Concurrently, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) under the Trump administration dropped its lawsuit against Zelle, despite prior claims of significant customer losses [27:18]. Jason DeFilippo mocks the recusal, hinting at internal governmental inefficiency [28:21].

9. Canadian Municipalities Abandon X

The podcast highlights a trend among Canadian municipalities to cease using X (formerly Twitter) due to low engagement and the platform’s proliferation of misinformation and hate speech [28:36]. Brian Schulmeister emphasizes their stance against supporting a platform rife with harmful content, aligning with broader societal movements to distance from toxic social media environments [29:38].

10. OpenAI's Expensive Specialized AI Agents

Jason DeFilippo discusses OpenAI’s plan to introduce high-priced AI agents tailored for specific industries, ranging from $2,000 to $20,000 per month [31:01]. Despite OpenAI's financial struggles, including a reported $5 billion loss last year, the move represents a shift towards monetizing AI capabilities for professional use. Brian Schulmeister criticizes the unsustainable business model, comparing it to past tech industry mistakes [31:45].

11. Reviving Dig: Kevin Rose and Alex Ohanian’s Attempt

Kevin Rose and Alex Ohanian aim to revive the once-popular news aggregator Dig with AI-powered tools to enhance community management [32:20]. However, the hosts express skepticism about its viability in the competitive landscape dominated by platforms like Reddit, which continue to struggle with issues around censorship and user engagement [32:47].

12. Social Media’s Physical Impact on Users

A study from Durham University reveals that browsing Instagram significantly affects physiological responses: heart rates slow while sweating increases during usage, indicating deep emotional immersion. Upon logging off, users experience stress spikes akin to withdrawal symptoms [33:35]. Jason DeFilippo underscores the addictive nature of social media, stating, “These platforms are physically bad for you” [33:48].

13. Space Endeavors: Failures and Achievements

The episode covers recent developments in space exploration, highlighting SpaceX’s setbacks with the Starship and celebrating Intuitive Machines’ successful (albeit uncertain) moon landing with their Athena spacecraft [34:45]. Brian Schulmeister optimistically marks the achievement, while Jason DeFilippo humorously critiques the landing mechanism [35:02].

14. Listener Feedback: TV Show Opinions

A listener named John expresses dissatisfaction with the hosts’ reviews of popular TV shows like "Severance," "Black Mirror," and "Foundation" [41:08]. Brian Schulmeister and Jason DeFilippo respond by clarifying their actual opinions, defending their critiques, and emphasizing their right to subjective viewpoints. They acknowledge the listener’s perspective but stand by their assessments of the shows [43:35–44:18].

15. Indie Musicians Struggling to Tour

Brian Schulmeister presents alarming statistics from Ditto Music, revealing that 82.1% of independent musicians find touring prohibitively expensive, leading to declined opportunities and reliance on personal savings to sustain their careers [53:16]. The hosts lament the diminishing prospects for indie artists in an increasingly digital and constrained live-performance economy.

16. Humane AI Pin: From Failure to Hack Revival

The Humane AI pin faced operational shutdowns, leaving customers with non-functional devices. However, a hacker named Marcel reverse-engineered the device, restoring its functionality and transforming it into a potential smartphone alternative [55:14]. The community celebrates this feat, though tensions arise over the legality and ethical implications of bypassing official fixes [56:07].

17. AI Integration in Development Tools and Coding Practices

Jason DeFilippo highlights OpenAI’s integration of ChatGPT with developer tools like Xcode and VS Code, enabling automatic code edits [56:07]. While this advancement aims to streamline software development, the hosts caution about the imperfections of AI-generated code, including security flaws and bugs, emphasizing the necessity for strong coding fundamentals [57:30–58:39]. They discuss the rise of "Vibe coding"—using natural language to generate software—and its potential to marginalize mid-level developers [58:38].

18. Tech Device Frustrations: Adobe and Fire TV Woes

The hosts vent their frustrations with problematic tech devices. Jason DeFilippo criticizes Adobe Creative Suite for causing system instability, while Brian Schulmeister shares similar grievances with frequent crashes necessitating constant reboots [61:29–62:03]. Additionally, Jason recounts his exasperation with Fire TV’s intrusive updates disrupting his viewing experience, contrasting it with his more reliable Apple TV setup [62:03–63:57].

19. Book Discussions: “On Tyranny” and Propaganda

Jason DeFilippo and Brian Schulmeister discuss Timothy Snyder’s "On Tyranny," a guide on resisting authoritarianism, drawing parallels between historical Nazi strategies and current political trends [65:01–66:49]. They emphasize the book’s relevance in understanding and combating modern propaganda techniques, reinforcing the podcast’s overarching theme of vigilance against power consolidation.

20. Department of Homeland Security’s Scary Ad Campaign

The hosts analyze a multi-million dollar DHS ad campaign aimed at eradicating undocumented immigrants, describing it as fear-mongering [67:19–68:

11]. Jason DeFilippo shares his concern over the campaign's psychological impact, noting how it instills fear and anxiety among viewers [67:42–68:44]. Brian Schulmeister echoes the sentiment, questioning the government’s efficiency and intent behind such messaging [67:26].

21. Patreon Shoutouts and Community Engagement

In their concluding segments, Jason and Brian express gratitude to their Patreon supporters, acknowledging new and longstanding contributors [68:53–70:07]. They encourage listeners to support the show through various means, including Patreon, PayPal, and merchandise purchases, fostering a sense of community and mutual support among their audience [69:05–70:21].

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Key Takeaways:

• AI Limitations: Current AI technologies often fail in providing accurate information, as evidenced by incorrect movie timestamps, and can be manipulated for propaganda purposes.

• Corporate Accountability: Companies like Tesla face severe backlash and financial downturns due to leadership controversies and external criticisms.

• Cryptocurrency Risks: The volatile crypto market remains a hotspot for both financial speculation and criminal activities targeting its users.

• Impact on Middle-Class Jobs: AI advancements are significantly disrupting the middle class in the tech industry, pushing professionals towards either high-paying specialized roles or low-skill jobs.

• Media and Social Influence: Social media platforms continue to exert profound effects on user well-being and societal dynamics, prompting institutions to rethink their digital strategies.

• Space Exploration: Despite setbacks, private and public space endeavors continue to push the boundaries of technology and exploration.

• Community Feedback: Engaging with listener feedback highlights the subjective nature of media reviews and the importance of diverse perspectives.

Notable Quotes:

• Brian Schulmeister [00:45]: “We’ve seen how technology can be wielded to consolidate power... It’s a playbook.”

• Jason DeFilippo [02:39]: “In the movie Die Hard... the iconic line... is spoken by John McClane at approximately 1 minute and 0 seconds into the movie.”

• Jason DeFilippo [06:28]: “If I can lie this good... can I please be part of Doge?”

• Brian Schulmeister [22:15]: “The Pravda network... is angling to manipulate AI models so they repeat Russian narratives as truth.”

• Brian Schulmeister [25:26]: “It’s the biggest grift we've ever seen.”

• Jason DeFilippo [31:01]: “OpenAI is in dire need of cash after reportedly losing $5 billion last year on operational cost.”

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Conclusion:

Episode 687 of Grumpy Old Geeks offers a comprehensive and critical examination of the current technological landscape, highlighting the intersection of AI advancements, corporate ethics, and societal impacts. Through lively discussions and sharp insights, hosts Jason DeFilippo and Brian Schulmeister provide listeners with a nuanced perspective on the triumphs and tribulations shaping the tech world today.

For more in-depth discussions and to support the show, listeners are encouraged to visit Grumpy Old Geeks and explore their Patreon and merchandise offerings.

Transcript

[Jason DeFilippo]

Grumpy Old Geeks, a weekly talk show hosted by Brian Schulmeister and Jason DeFilippo discussing the finer points of what went wrong on the Internet and who's to blame. Welcome to Grumpy Old geeks. I'm Jason DeFilippo.

[Brian Schulmeister]

And I'm Brian Schillmeister. Ran across a little something while I was looking for for our stories for the show this week. I occasionally go over to Tech Dirt. Not terribly often, but now and then. And they posted a brand new blog.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Jason, you mean a blog post?

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yes, Brian, yes, the blog post. Making sure why Tech Dirt is now a democracy blog, whether we like it or not.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Okay, do explain.

[Brian Schulmeister]

While political reporters are still doing their view from nowhere, Democrats say this, Republicans say that dance tech and legal journalists have been watching an unfortunately recognizable plan unfold. A playbook we're all too familiar with. We've seen how technology can be wielded to consolidate power, how institutional guardrails can be circumvented through technical and legal workarounds, and how smoke and mirrors claims about innovation can mask old fashioned power grabs. It's a playbook. We watched Musk Perfect at Twitter and now we're seeing it deployed on a national scale. Over the last few weeks, I've had a few people reach out about our coverage. These days, most have been very supportive of what we've been covering. In fact, people have been strongly encouraging us to keep it up. But. But a few ask questions regarding what Tech Dirt is focused on these days and how much we're leaning into covering politics. Welcome to the party, guys. You're a bit late.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Welcome to the party, pal.

[Brian Schulmeister]

They just finally noticed. I mean, for the past 10 years, we've already been through this. So prepare for the blowback, Tech Dirt, because you're going to get it.

[Jason DeFilippo]

You're going to get it. Yep. Yo, you're going to get it.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yep. But there's a. There's no choice. And there hasn't been for at least 10 years now.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah, yeah. But here's the thing. You're going to come out the other side knowing who your true fans are and. And you're going to get really good at hate mail.

[Brian Schulmeister]

I got really good at hitting delete.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah, exactly. That's how it works.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yeah.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Oh, man. So that little clip I just played from Die Hard, the welcome to the party pals clip. So I have the movie in digital format and I just wanted to find out real quick where was the clip so I didn't have to scrub through the whole movie to Go find it. I knew kind of where it was, so I googled it. I googled welcome to the party pal. Timestamp Die Hard.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Now in the olden days.

[Jason DeFilippo]

In the olden days you would have.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Gotten the exact answer.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Oh, but today AI says in the movie Die Hard, in 1988, the iconic line welcome to the party palace is spoken by John McClane, played by Bruce Willis at approximately 1 minute and 0 seconds into the movie. Here's a more detailed context the scene. McClane is on his way to his car after clearing the Nakatomi building when a body lands on the hood of his car, smashing the windshield. Well Brad, would you like me to explain what's wrong with that answer from Google AI?

[Brian Schulmeister]

I don't believe the end of the movie occurred at 1 minute and 0 seconds in.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah, well the actual clip is at 57 minutes and 18 seconds. The body does not land on John McClane's car. It lands on the cop's car because he's trying to get him to not go away because the building is being taken over by terrorist Hans Gruber looking for the bare bonds. Completely and utterly wrong.

[Brian Schulmeister]

So that's AI for you.

[Jason DeFilippo]

That is the first result from Google now. Thank you. Yes, and Google is rolling out a new AI mode for search, letting users ask complex multi part questions and receive AI generated answers instead of traditional results. Meaning that no more regular results at all, you just get the AI mode. There's a new AI mode button to skip standard links, dive straight into the AI generated responses with real time information integrated. Early tests show longer and more detailed searches with frequent follow ups. But they, they don't say ever the right answer. So I do not have the new AI mode button available to me yet. I looked around for it, I looked on the app, I looked on the browser, I can't find it. But I also don't have an Android phone. So maybe it's going to roll out on Android first. I don't know.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Maybe I do not have it either. Yeah, which is fine because I don't want it.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah, seriously, if you can't just get a simple timestamp right. And here's the thing, if you scroll down or go to videos, there are 5,000 clips on YouTube of that, that clip, you know, and I just didn't want any of those. I wanted it straight from the movie. I wanted from the original pristine source that I stole from my DVD that I bought in 1996 or something that I ripped using what, pirated software on a PC way back in the Day. This is the original rip I've got from the old dvd, so probably I should have got one of those clips. I don't know. I digress. What else we got, Brian?

[Brian Schulmeister]

Well, speaking of things that nobody wants, we've been talking about Billy McFarland and his Fyre Festival too, because he's inexplicably is getting actually interviewed about this thing that's never going to happen. He is repeatedly insisting that it is real and promoting the event, but officials for the Mexican island where it's been announced to take place have basically said otherwise because, you know, shockingly, a journalist actually called the island and decided to speak to the authorities there. So in a recent interview with the Guardian, the Tourism Directorate of Isla Mujeres, Edgar Gaska said, we have no knowledge of the event, nor have had any contact with any person or company about it. For us, this is an event that simply does not exist. The organizers didn't even bother to approach the authorities. He continued, it's very strange because any manager knows that if you're going to hold an event, let alone a massive event, you need authorization. According to Gasket, there are red flags all over the place, including the event's exact location. If you go on their website and take the coordinates they provide, then put them into Google Maps, it takes you to the ocean.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Okay, so here's the deal. I figured this out. As you were. As you were. This is Billy McFarlane's demo reel to get into the Trump White House. He's going to say, if I can lie this good and just tell you about shit that does not exist, can I please be part of Doge?

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yeah, that tracks. That makes sense. So they are still, of course, saying that it is definitely going to happen. The producers lost nights, of which you will have many if you decide to buy a ticket to this thing. Fyre Festival 2 has secured top tier private venues and hotels in partnership with our local allies, who have established communications with the corresponding authorities to ensure full compliance and flawless execution. Except obviously the actual authorities have said that that has not happened.

[Jason DeFilippo]

This is a typo. It's meant to be lawless execution.

[Brian Schulmeister]

And if you want more red flags this. The Fyre Fest 2 has been pushed back a month to May 30th through June 2nd from its original date of April 25th through the 28th. There are no artists have been announced whatsoever. No artist has come out and said, I will be playing. I have been contacted by, I have done anything. Absolutely nobody in the world has heard of this thing except for these Jack offs that are trying to throw it.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah, because they're probably generating them on AI so they can display them on the screen while you sit on the beach and eat your cheese sandwich.

[Brian Schulmeister]

There you go. Tickets are currently on sale, everyone.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah.

[Brian Schulmeister]

With options ranging from $1,400 for the General Access Pass to 12,500 for the Phoenix Platinum tier. The 1.1 million Prometheus package does not appear to be currently available for purchase. Probably because nobody will have a credit card clearance for $1.1 million charge.

[Jason DeFilippo]

I don't know. Yeah, they're all busy destroying the government right now. Anybody that has that. So a little bit more. Speaking of, speaking of the Dogeman himself.

[Brian Schulmeister]

I believe the people are speaking. Jason.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Across the world, people are not very happy with the Space Nazi right now. No, they're not. Tesla is in freefall with sales collapsing across the globe as a backlash against Elon intensifies. In Germany, sales plunged a staggering 76% in February. France recorded its worst Tesla sales down 26%, 45% year over year. Just across Europe. Steep declines in Norway, Denmark, Sweden. Even in China, sales are down 50% while competitor BYD saw a 90% surge. It's funny, their new car over there costs less than the fake fully self driving package for a Tesla here. That's, that's how insane it is.

[Brian Schulmeister]

And by all accounts, they're great cars. I actually watched a video of it. It's cool.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Nice. Nice. Yes. Protests and vandalism at Tesla dealerships are on the rise, with activists branding the vehicles as swastikars and calling for a nationwide boycott. Investors aren't sticking around either. Tesla Stock has tumbled, dropping 28% in the past month with a 21% sell off since Musk's inauguration day salute. Nazi salute, I might say. Yeah, actually it dropped a little bit more since I wrote this, so I don't have the exact numbers right now, but also this came in. Arsonists in southwest France torched a dozen teslas worth nearly $750,000 at pre Nazi prices, calling the brand a symbol of capitalism. The attack follows an anonymous manifesto urging anti capitalist coordination to target Tesla, blaming the company for environmental waste, corporate rule and right wing extremism. Similar attacks have popped up in the US with Tesla chargers set on fire in Massachusetts in a Molotov attack on.

[Brian Schulmeister]

A Denver dealership, to which Elon responded, let them. Full self driving followed by a poop emoji. Well, it couldn't happen to a nicer guy. Again, I, I under you and I have a difference of opinion on this. I think that now that Elon has attached himself to the golden calf and is sucking off off of Trump's teat in the White House, I don't think he gives a fuck what happens to Tesla.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Oh, I don't either. I think Tesla, I think Tesla is a pawn that he's sacrificing.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yeah, I think so.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah. No, totally. Yeah, I know it's already down 1.8% today. And this, this is just a fun one. Sergey Brin says engineers should work 60 hour weeks in office to build AI that could replace them. Couple articles about this and this. My favorite one though comes from Boing Boing where they just sum it up nicely. Not evil, just disconnected is a weird way to spell hoarding wealth while demanding sacrifices from others. But we're not the ones with a fleet of servants and private jets. We're just the poors who barely have time to buy an $8 dozen of eggs on the way home. Yeah, that kind of sums it up.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Two thoughts there of the one about the Please work really, really hard to create your replacement. I remember when I was doing my, my thing for bands and whatnot, there was a young up and coming co manager for one of the bands that I was working for that basically wanted me to teach her how to do what I do. And I went, why would I do that? Because then you're not going to pay me to do what I do. And by the way, I've spent most of my life doing this, so. Okay, no, not going to do that. And the whole thing about the ex Amazon vp, I read through that whole article. It does make a lot of sense to me. These people are completely in a bubble that is just so far removed from the normal person's experience. And of course they want to be back in the office because that's what they live for. That also reminded me of a conversation I had once with, with a friend of mine that's CEO of a very pretty successful smaller company. And you know, they, they'd been around for about 20 years or so and a lot of the people that were working there, small, you know, about 20 employees or so, had been there for at least a decade. Right? Like long timers, probably lifers, they've been there a long time. And when you've been at a company for a long time, say you started in your mid 20s, you're hitting your mid 30s, maybe early 40s, you generally will start to have children because that's what most people do. Even Elon, who's single Handedly trying to repopulate the planet. But you have kids and then your priorities kind of change a little bit. You need more flexibility because you've got dentist appointments and doctor's appointments and all that. And this guy, the CEO, never had kids. And he was so frustrated. He was so angry about. I just. You know, they used to. Everybody, there's always a dentist appointment, and there's always a day off from school, and there's always a sick kid. And I just had to sit down with him and go, you do realize that if people do not have children, you will run out of people to sell things to. This is what we call life. And I would.

[Jason DeFilippo]

I'm with the CEO. Man, those kids. Sorry. Hell no.

[Brian Schulmeister]

We all are in our own little bubbles, Jason.

[Jason DeFilippo]

That's right. That's right. Speaking of kids, though, we have a mystery solved from last week about Trump Media and why it lost so much money. Donald Trump Jr. Speaking of the crotch. Fruit of the Devil made $813,000 in 2024 as director of Trump Media and Technology Group, roughly a quarter of the company's annual revenue, despite attending just two of the board's five meetings, according to a filing made with the securities and Exchange Commission on Friday. On Saturday, the securities and Exchange Commission was decommissioned.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Can you imagine making almost half a million dollars?

[Jason DeFilippo]

Almost a million dollars if you round up.

[Brian Schulmeister]

No, I was saying per board meeting that he had.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Board meeting. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's. Yeah, that's 465. Yeah. It's a lot of money.

[Brian Schulmeister]

That's why I didn't do real time math. Jason. Who got the AI for that? Which will get it wrong?

[Jason DeFilippo]

$406,500. And I probably just got it wrong anyway, so fuck it. Yeah. But back to your story about the CEO and the kids. Yeah. I mean, you hire one person and then, you know, like, when we started this podcast, you didn't have kids. Now I'm the one scrambling because your little guy has to go to the doctor. I don't care. Come on, show up to work. God damn it.

[Brian Schulmeister]

I'm here every Friday at the same time.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Didn't you just text me that you're going to be gone on a road trip with your family next week and I have to do all the work.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Opsec. Thank you.

[Jason DeFilippo]

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[Brian Schulmeister]

How many years are we out from COVID now?

[Jason DeFilippo]

Quite a few. Quite a few.

[Brian Schulmeister]

So, sudden closure quite a few years after AI.

[Jason DeFilippo]

In India alone, over 2000 workers are left unpaid and in financial distress.

[Brian Schulmeister]

That's not good.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah, no, nobody saw that one coming. Except the head CEO, Technicolor, probably. Yeah, I wonder where he's at, right nowadays. All right. And U.S. employers slashed over 172,000 jobs in February, the worst for that month since 2009.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Damn you, Biden. Oh, wait, hold on a second.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Obama. God damn it. Leia spiked 103% from last year with the biggest cuts in the government sector. Huh? I wonder why. Oh, Maybe it's because Doge axed 62,000 jobs.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Now is that 172,000 job total? Also, do they account for all the people that everybody had to scramble to rehire?

[Jason DeFilippo]

I don't think so. I don't think so. No. Retail, tech and consumer products followed with tens of thousands of job losses. That would be the. What was that? AI pin.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Humane.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah. There's the rest of them from Humane. While hiring plans rose slightly, private sector job growth slowed and consumer spending dropped for the first time in nearly two years.

[Brian Schulmeister]

We've talked about that hiring plan thing before too, about people posting all the job. The job descriptions that don't actually exist if you try to apply to them. Yep.

[Jason DeFilippo]

And some AI news here. Amazon's VP of Artificial General Intelligence, Vishal Sharma, made it clear at Mobile World Congress, AI is everywhere inside Amazon, from AWS to Alexa and Even the company's 750,000 thousand warehouse robots. They got 750,000 warehouse robots.

[Brian Schulmeister]

This is why I continue to pay Prime. I hope they remember me.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah, I know. Did I not say that when this whole thing started? When we started this show that robot repairman is a viable job for the Future. They got 750,000 of those things. Somebody's need. They got a lube them. And change the oil every now and again. Come on.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Software updates. Come on. There's a lot going on there.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yep. Sharma dismissed the idea that open source AI could reduce computing needs, saying that as AI scales, demand for more powerful models only increases. Yeah, okay. Okay. More that soon. OpenAI's ChatGPT has doubled its weekly active users in under six months, hitting 400 million by February 2025, according to a new report from Andreessen Horowitz. No, they're not. Trust the source at all.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Trust the sour.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Here's the great part. They're touting how many monthly active users they have and how they're growing and growing and growing. And we know for a fact that every single time that you use ChatGPT, they lose money. Okay, I just want to clarify that. I just want to clarify that. And their new model is actually the worst of them all. The new 4.5 model loses phenomenal amounts of money every time you use it. It's like $15 for every million tokens that you that go through it. It's.

[Brian Schulmeister]

But you don't care about making money when you have people throwing money at you with investments. It's. It's a. It's an insane business model. But again, it's. It's Just another extension of the same sort of thing that it's Uber's initial business model. It's flood the market, drive everybody else out of business, become number one and then profit. Except for Uber. The profit only happened once.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah. And Uber wasn't up against open source Ubers coming at them left, right and center. Yes. Yeah. There's a. Yeah. This was not one of those ones where you make it up at scale, unfortunately. Now, Thomas Wolfe, hugging faces co founder and Chief Science officer and my new favorite person has been quoted this week as saying the main mistake people usually make is thinking people like Newton or Einstein were just scaled up good students. That a genius comes to life when you linearly extrapolate a top 10% student. To create an Einstein in a data center, we don't just need a system that knows all the answers, but rather one that can ask questions nobody else has thought of or dared to ask. Now, Wolff's problem with AI today and where he thinks the technology is heading is that it doesn't generate any new knowledge by connecting previously unrelated facts. Even with most of the Internet at its disposal, AI as we currently understand it mostly fills in the gaps between what humans already know. This is a great, great article on this guy who's saying, yeah, this, the, this curing cancer and shit that you're thinking that it's going to do, ain't going to happen.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yeah, I mean we've talked about that. That's the leap to real AI is when it thinks and it can ask questions that nobody else has thought of. Now I would argue Musk is trying to do that with, with Xai. He's basically saying, what would a Nazi do?

[Jason DeFilippo]

Well, we have, we have the answer to part of that question. Moscow based propaganda network Pravda has been deliberately poisoning Western AI chatbots with Russian disinformation at scale.

[Brian Schulmeister]

I didn't realize that the, the exact timestamp and Die Hard would be part of their, their nefarious deeds.

[Jason DeFilippo]

But I know first we take John McClane.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Anybody searching for this clip will get it.

[Jason DeFilippo]

A new audit by News Guard found that the top 10 generative AI tools, including ChatGPT, Google's Gemini and Microsoft's Copilot repeated pro Kremlin falsehoods 33% of the time, essentially laundering propaganda into AI generated news and information. The Pravda network, which has pumped out 3.6 million articles in the past year, exploits how AI models retrieve and process news by flooding search results with disinformation. The strategy, dubbed LLM grooming, isn't about convincing human readers directly, but instead about manipulating AI models so they repeat Russian narratives as truth. Love it.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Okay, to any of the Republicans that actually still listen to this podcast, Ronald Reagan. If this would have happened during Ronald Reagan, your previous idol, he would have shut all of it down immediately. AI would have been taken off the board. You just would have been like, turn it off, shut it down. But here we are.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah, but Ronald Reagan tried to give us Star wars too.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Great movie. Timestamps are all wrong. If you Google Timestamps are all wrong.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Let'S pivot to a little crypto news. We'll go back to AI in a little bit. Popular OnlyFans creator and Twitch streamer Amaranth I don't. I'm sure I'm probably saying that wrong. Real name Caitlin Siragusa. Probably say that wrong too. Was held at gunpoint during a terrifying home invasion over the weekend. Three armed robbers broke into her Houston home just before 11pm demanding access to her cryptocurrency wallet. The attackers, knowing she had publicly disclosed her crypto earnings of over $20 million, Pistol whipped her when she refused to comply. In a desperate move, she redirected them to her husband who was at a separate location when the Right.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Wow.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah, I know.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Soon to be ex husband.

[Jason DeFilippo]

When the robbers arrived, they were met with gunfire. Her husband, who is apparently more well armed than she is, reportedly hit one of them, leaving a trail of blood. But all three suspects managed to escape. Yes. Also, when we started talking about bitcoin on this show, I said this type of thing was going to happen in the future quite a bit and I'm surprised. And also, if you look at the news, this is, this is a common thing. People have been doing this a lot. So. But this is just because she's a very beautiful only fans and Twitch streamer that it really makes the front page because go look at the pictures, you'll see why so and in other crypto news this week, Trump's latest crypto hype sent prices soaring and then crashing back down. On Sunday, Trump announced a US Crypto reserve featuring Zirp, Soul, ADA and promising to make America the crypto capital of the world. Prices spiked, but within hours, they tanked. Yes. Up, down, up down, up, down. Well, guess what Brian, we now have a strategic bitcoin reserve.

[Brian Schulmeister]

It's the biggest grift we've ever seen. And there's you're going to see a massive push to move away from the US Dollar from Elon and Trump cronies soon. Don't do it.

[Jason DeFilippo]

It don't do it. So, yes, I, I put in a couple links in the show notes. One is the quote unquote fact sheet from the White House and the other one is an actual news article that tells you that, oh, yeah, this is fucked up. So what they're going to do is instead of going to buy any, they're just redirecting all of the bitcoin that the government has currently seized and putting it in a wallet that hopefully won't get stolen in a home. Break into the White House at 11:00 at night. But since the thieves are already in the building, I guess they don't have to break in anymore.

[Brian Schulmeister]

True, true.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah. I'm kind of bummed. I totally missed my. Remember, I found all that Ethereum that I had that I was doing the experiment with NFTs and I'm like, oh, my God, it went up. Yeah, it's not anymore.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Not anymore.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah, I was kind of bummed. I'm like, oh, man, that's great. Yeah. Just looking now it's down 1.4. Bitcoin is down 1.42% already this morning. Oh. It actually dived even more, but it's kind of bounced back. Yeah, it's. Yeah, it's not doing that great. It's not that great at all.

[Brian Schulmeister]

It's not.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Go ahead.

[Brian Schulmeister]

This is just. It's just a horrible idea. It's a horrible idea, but we should not be shocked by that. Do not do what you want, everybody. You're your own person. But I would strongly recommend not buying into any of this at all.

[Jason DeFilippo]

I saw an article that was. That I was just cracking up for. It's like bit bros finally got what they wanted, but the problem is they all hate each other.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yeah, that's true.

[Jason DeFilippo]

It's about the infighting between the different types of bit bros that are out there. Because apparently there are different flavors of bit bros. There's the, you know, the die hard bit bros who believe in the, you know, the cause of cryptocurrency, you know, that Satoshi Nakamoto put out in the day. Then there's the guys who just want to make a quick buck and then there's like, you know, the douchebags from Facebook. You got all sorts and they're all having to play together in the same sandbox and they hate each other. Love it. That is. That is. That is bit karma right there, baby.

[Brian Schulmeister]

All right, well, another week, another lawsuit quashed by the Trump administration. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has dropped its lawsuit over peer to peer payment system Zelle, the latest in a series of dismissals from the department under President Donald Trump's administration. The agency had just announced the suit. The suit filed against Zell's operating entity, Early Warning Services, and partner banks JP Morgan Chase, bank of America and Wells Fargo in December. And according to the initial action, the CFPB said that customers of the three banks had lost more than 870 million during the seven years Zelle has been active. So they made several moves to increase oversight on the financial products being offered by tech companies under its previous director. But now that we've got Acting Director Russell Voigt, who ordered the CFPB to seize all supervision and examination activity last month. So all those people keeping us safe from all the bank scams and different things going on are being told, stand down, let him run amok.

[Jason DeFilippo]

The funny thing is his name is Russell Vaught and if you did stick with the Boys back in the day, Vought International is the villain inside of the Boys. So I guess maybe it's this is a crossover. This is just a crossover.

[Brian Schulmeister]

It's a crossover episode and I don't like the show. Jason, get me out.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah, I know, man. Cancel. Cancel.

[Brian Schulmeister]

All right, well, I'm kind of out a little bit being here in Canada. And a hat tip to Dan, who sent this in. I'm assuming he's also Canadian. Canadian municipalities in the Canadian Supreme Court will stop using Twitter. You will not see any more posts from the city of St. John. Not that I was looking for it. On the social media platform X. They have become the latest municipality to stop using the platform. Officials made the announcements in a post on Friday citing low engagement and reach rates. Just last week, the Supreme Court of Canada announced it would be focusing its communication efforts on other platforms. In February, the Riverview Council passed a motion to recommend the town stop using X. I do not believe we should be supporting a platform that is fully of misinformation, hate speech and anti Semitic content, said Councilman Heath Johnson, who brought forward the motion. Meanwhile, councillors in the Halifax Region Municipality have asked staff to look into abandoning the social media platform. At the St. John airport announced on Tuesday that it too was deplaning from the platform effective immediately.

[Jason DeFilippo]

See, that's great. But The City of St. John said that they they were quitting because of low engagement and reach rates. I like the other people saying that. Yeah, yeah, it's a bunch of fucking Nazis. We're, we're not, we're leave for that.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yeah, I like I, I Don't care. I like both and I agree. I mean, I, you know, even just on grumpy old geeks, our X account was never huge. Our Twitter account, it was never that big of a deal. But there's like one dude who likes our stuff on there now. It's just gone.

[Jason DeFilippo]

So, yeah, no, I pop in there every now and again and it just, oh, I need a Xanax after, after like five minutes on there.

[Brian Schulmeister]

I can't do it anymore. It's just so ridiculous. It's bad. But yeah, anyways, the part of Canada that I'm in, Ontario, has also been dealing with Trump tariffs and other things. Ontario Premier Doug Ford, who used to be a massive Trump supporter by the way, and he's not exactly the greatest guy that we've ever had in charge here, but he's decided to rebrand himself as very anti Trump right now. He has promised to end the province's 100 million dollar contract with Elon Musk Starlink after reversing course back in in February because of the tariffs. So we have also pulled all US booze off the shelves here in, in Ontario, although I think it's coming back because Trump's blinking on tariffs. So who the knows what's going on? It's. It's the dumbest trade war in history, but it really.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Okay, back to a little more AI news already. OpenAI is reportedly planning to charge up to $20,000 a month for specialized AI agents. According to the Information, these AI tools will be tailored for various industries with a high income knowledge worker agent priced at $2,000 a month, a software developer agent at $10,000 and the most expensive, designed for PhD level research, hitting the $20,000 mark. The timeline for release is unclear, but SoftBank has already pledged $3 billion to these agent products. OpenAI is in dire need of cash after reportedly losing $5 billion last year on operational cost. Look, I'll do it and even legally change my name for fucking 20 gr. Hire people.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yes, hire people for this. Did we not kick off the show with an in with an incorrect timestamp? That's what you're going to get for your PhD level research bot. Yeah, so I don't understand anymore.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Here's something you might not understand. Kevin Rose and Alex Ohanian have acquired Dig.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Oh yes, that very famous brand name that we all long for.

[Jason DeFilippo]

And the title here, the title of this article is does the world even want dig in 2025? No, I'll just, I'll just say it right now. No.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Oh, but this will be an AI powered dig. Jason.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Dig, the once popular news aggregator, is making a comeback. But in today's media landscape, it faces an uphill battle. Original founder Kevin Rose and Reddit co founder Alex Ohanian are reviving the platform, promising AI powered tools to help moderators manage communities better. They claim Dig will be a fresh alternative to Reddit, which has seen increasing turmoil over censorship, monetization, and user engagement.

[Brian Schulmeister]

You know what you're gonna have, Dig? You're gonna have increasing turmoil over censorship, monetization and user engagement if you take off. Because that is online now. That is the reality of anything online now.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah.

[Brian Schulmeister]

And AI doesn't fix it.

[Jason DeFilippo]

No, it doesn't. No, it doesn't. Kevin brought back Dig Nation recently and I looked at the numbers on. I'm like, that ain't gonna work. Oh, man. I'm like, dude, if you want, if you want to hear what it's like to do a tech podcast nowadays, I can tell you it ain't worth the money. So. Yeah. And a new study finds that scrolling through social media doesn't just mess with your mind, it affects your body too. Brian. Researchers at Durham University tracked young adults heart rates and sweat levels while they browsed Instagram for 15 minutes. The results? Their heart rate slowed, but their sweating increased, a sign of deep emotional immersion. But when they had to log off, stress levels spiked and their body shows signs similar to withdrawal.

[Brian Schulmeister]

I am so emotionally connected to all these ads. I'm being served. Jason.

[Jason DeFilippo]

I know. Every third post is an ad. This doesn't necessarily mean we're all addicted, but social media taps into our basic need for connection. The study highlights how powerful these platforms are at keeping us engaged and how difficult it can be to unplug. It is physically bad for you. There. There's the science. It's bad for you. In great news. Let's get into some space news this week. Brian. Mm. Starship go boom. That's all I got a whole article here and I could just say starship go boom again. Yep. And Elon was surprisingly quiet on X after it blew up. So some more of your taxpayer dollars out the window, you're saying no, but SpaceX is a private company.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Oh, oh, contraire. Bonfire.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Oh, contrer, mon frere, it was a couple hundred million of your tax dollars that just went boom.

[Brian Schulmeister]

You know who's the biggest? The biggest. The single biggest person of government grants at this point is Elon Musk.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yep.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Absolutely. End of story. So if we want some government efficiency, how about we stop paying him?

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yep. Easy peasy. Oh, and it just came out that his. His kids are getting about $187,000 for 17 months or whatever. The numbers came out today. They're getting overpaid. Let's just say that they're definitely not on a government salary. The Doge employees. Yes, of course not. Intuitive Machines has landed their second spacecraft, Athena, on the moon. Sorta. It's there. We don't know which end is up yet. But you know what?

[Brian Schulmeister]

I count it as a win. It landed.

[Jason DeFilippo]

It's a win. It's a win. And the camera still works? Yes. I still haven't figured out why. You know, it's not that hard to make a ball, Brian. It's not that hard to make a ball.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Okay?

[Jason DeFilippo]

A ball is not going to fall over when you put it on the moon. Even if you have like gyroscopes inside that turn the thing that you need upright, upright when it lands. We have gyroscopes. We have ball technology. Why can't we use ball technology to land something right side up on the moon? I'm just asking. I'm granting.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Asking for a friend.

[Jason DeFilippo]

I'm asking for a friend. I'm sure some scientists somewhere will, will come back with a very long explanation of why balls don't work on the moon. I'm just saying that maybe there's other ways than this tripod approach that we've been using. The tripod approach might not be the best approach is what I'm saying. That's all.

[Brian Schulmeister]

I am. I am reasonably sure that Elon does not listen to our podcast, but right now I'm desperately hoping he does not because I do not want to hear his new coming up. Coming up with the idea of using a ball and is balling the moon campaign. We're going to ball the moon.

[Jason DeFilippo]

I hope that they can get Athena right back up because there is a Nokia based rover on board.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Oh, if they're using a Nokia phone, that thing's going to live forever for.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Fucking ever is what I'm saying.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Snake. It's having a ball up there. Balls.

[Jason DeFilippo]

That's what we got.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Snakes and balls.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Snakes and balls on the moon. That's all we need. But a private spacecraft has actually successfully landed on the moon and it's Firefly Aerospace's Blue Ghost. And okay, the Blue Flamers. Remember the Blue Flamers, guys who lit their farts on fire. So at least we've got one win. We've got one win on the moon this week and lots of. Lots of sort of sort of Coulda shoulda would us. This episode is brought to you by Factor Ready to crush your nutrition goals this year? Meet Factor, the meal delivery service that makes eating well effortless and delicious. Factor's chef crafted dietitian approved meals are designed to fuel your body and fit your busy lifestyle. And the best part? They're ready in just two minutes. That's right. No prep, no mess, just heat and eat. Factor offers over 40 weekly options tailored to your dietary needs. Whether you're into keto, Calorie, Smart, Protein plus or just want wholesome balanced meals plus, they've got add ons like smoothies, breakfasts and snacks to keep you energized all day long. Get ready to savor dishes like Chicken and Mushroom Cauli Rice Risotto with Roasted Green beans and Pearl onions, creamy, comforting and guilt free Parmesan and Sun Dried Tomato Chicken Penne paired with perfectly roasted veggies for a hearty Italian inspired treat. And my personal favorite, Nona's Sunday Beef Bolognese with Lasagnette Tender beef simmered in a rich sauce over delicate pasta with garlicky zucchini. It's like a hug from Nona herself. Factor even helps you stay on track with their keto meals, proven to help some people lose up to eight pounds in eight weeks. Results may vary, but the convenience that's guaranteed. Eat Smart with Factor get [e-mail] FactorPodcast and use Code Factor Podcast to get 50 off your first box plus free shipping. That's Code Factor Podcast at FactorMeals.com FactorPodcast to get 50% off plus free shipping on your first box. This episode is brought to you by Delete Me. Hi everyone. I want to talk to you about something important. Deleteme Deleteme 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. You know, as someone with an active online presence, privacy is really important to me. I've seen firsthand how exposed our information can be, and it's honestly unsettling to think about how many unknown companies are collecting and selling our personal details without our knowledge. You've heard it here on the show a million times. They're out there and they're hungry for all your datas. What I love about DeleteMe is that they do all the hard work for you. They take on the tedious task of wiping your and your family's personal information from data broker websites so you don't have to figure it out yourself and this isn't just a one time service. DeleteMe is always working for you, constantly monitoring and removing the personal information you don't want on the Internet. They'll even send you regular personalized privacy reports showing exactly what info they found, where they found it, and what they removed. Take control of your data and keep your private life private by signing up for Delete Me now. It is 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, and code GOG.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Media Candy all right, so if we actually had a PR department or an agency that were running our pr, they would say do not. Do not respond to this email that you got. But I have respect for our listeners. I think it's amazing that people listen to us at all, much less take the time to write in or even better donate those. Those are my favorites. But John wrote in and I I feel like we should read this. So hi guys. I have listened to you guys for almost the entirety of your long run so far, and I've loved most of your content. I share your political views, so this isn't all a MAGA Trump thing. Them Slash him. I've been turned off more and more in recent years by your very questionable taste in TV shows and by what comes across as arrogance or dismissiveness toward any show you haven't independently decided is worth your time.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Time.

[Brian Schulmeister]

I've been puzzled by your disdain for Foundation. It's good. Not the same as the book, but good. You somehow don't like Black Mirror. Worst of all, you have decided Severance is unworthy and have bluntly refused to give it another chance when urged by listeners to do so. Have you seen the reviews of the show by critics and everyday people alike? It is adored and it is phenomenal. Probably my second favorite show of all time already behind only Breaking Bad. Yet you praise things like the schmaltzy latest season of TED Lasso and iffy at best shows like the Dexter remake. If you're going to be wildly opinionated about shows, you need to be more open minded. How geeks old, young could detest smart sci fi like Severance or Black Mirror or yes, even foundation and be so dismissive of them is baffling to me. It makes me question your recommendations about Everything else. And I find myself listening less and less often. I don't expect any change, but please at least give my comments some thought. And you are 100% or a thousand percent wrong about severance. It is brilliant and only gets better with each episode. If you stubbornly refuse to watch its run, you are denying yourself something truly great. Take care and thanks for your consideration. Sincerely, John, who obviously works for Severance.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah, he works for Apple.

[Brian Schulmeister]

So, yeah, I mean, A couple thoughts here. First, I do think that maybe you're googling things and getting the AI version of what we actually have said about things in the past, because. Wrong. Jason loves Black Mirror.

[Jason DeFilippo]

It's one of my favorite shows of all time.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yeah. I have said great things about Black Mirror. The one thing I think I did say was, like, during COVID or shortly thereafter, I was like, I just can't watch it right now because it's too bleak and I have too much bleakness already.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah, that was the only bad thing.

[Brian Schulmeister]

I ever said about Black Mirror.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah, exactly. That was just during COVID and you're like, I can't. And I understood. So I took one for the team and I thoroughly loved it. And I still do. I can't wait for the next season.

[Brian Schulmeister]

I think it's a great show as well. I think you'll also recall that what we actually said about the last season of TED Lasso is it was definitely the worst season and it's time for the show to end. We never said we loved the last season. I was just like, okay, it wasn't as good as the other ones, but they're bringing it down. So there you go. Yeah, Foundation. I'm sorry. It sucks. It.

[Jason DeFilippo]

It's just not even good. Sci fi. That's the problem.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yeah. It's not even a. Just a. It's just not a good show. But certainly for me, since foundation is one of my favorite books of all time, you can. You must understand how I cannot possibly like the show. I just don't. And you know what? At the end of the day, you don't have to agree with us.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah.

[Brian Schulmeister]

At all.

[Jason DeFilippo]

That's the great part.

[Brian Schulmeister]

The whole. This is our show where we talk about the things we like and things that we don't like, and that's fine. So I don't really see what the problem is. I'm sorry that we don't want to watch Severance. We have our reasons.

[Jason DeFilippo]

I actually have seen three episodes of season two, and it is not getting better is the problem. And here's the other I have so many flashbacks to exactly what they're doing on severance, to Mr. Robot and Mr. Robot bit me in the ass. And I watched all the way through to the end of Mr. Robot and it did not stick the landing because they didn't know what they were doing from the get go.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Well, that's the real thing. I think you and I had texted a little bit about that this week. And for me, I'm with you 100%. I had watched the first episode of Severance. It didn't really grab me, but I could have stuck with it. But I made a decision because it's a mystery in a box show and I have been bit on the ass by mystery in the box shows far too often. So if Severance is great, and by the time it wraps up and finishes its run and everybody is still going, oh, my God, they ended it perfectly. They explained all the mysteries. This is fantastic. I will 100 go back and watch it, but I've been bit by lost, the leftovers, Mr. Robot, you name it. Anything with David Lindoff that I'm not watching it until the show ends and we find out if they just, you know, left the polar bear running around and never explained it or not. That's what I want to know. That's the type of show it is. And that's just the way I'm going to do it now. There's too many other things to watch. So, you know, I'll come back to Severance if it ends. Great. No problem.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yep. And the other thing, this guy's new. He's. He's not proven. He does not have a proven track record. Just like kind of Sam on Mr. Robot. That's the other, the other issue that I have with it because, yeah, definitely Mr. Robot vibes.

[Brian Schulmeister]

So anyways, thanks for writing in, John. I do appreciate it. I'm sorry we don't want to watch your show.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah. I do appreciate taking the time to write in and I do have some science based evidence here on when you should get rid of a show that you don't like. And the magic number is six. If you, if a show is not resonating with you by episode six, kill it.

[Brian Schulmeister]

But these days, that's an entire season.

[Jason DeFilippo]

That's the, that's true. That is true.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yes.

[Jason DeFilippo]

I just, I just downloaded La Femme Nikita, the old USA series.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yeah.

[Jason DeFilippo]

And I'm like, why are there so many files? Oh, there's 22 episodes in a season.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yeah. Oh, oh, the good old days.

[Jason DeFilippo]

And I remember somebody talking. I saw A post on Blue sky this week where somebody was saying, man, I remember when people were losing their shit because they had to wait three months to happen to see what happened to Picard after he got taken over by the Borg. And now we're like two years in and we still haven't gotten another season of Strange New Worlds. It's like, oh, the timescales are so much different now.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yeah, they really are.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah. But there's a. I have an article here about how statistics can play into shows that you want to keep and dump, so.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Right.

[Jason DeFilippo]

It's a good, good article. But I also have another article that makes me very interested. Netflix is using AI to upscale a 1980 sitcom and the results are borderline horrific. So they're trying to upscale a different world using AI and it is a. They say it is a visual train wreck. Now, I tried doing this with old episodes of Deep Space Nine using Topaz's new state of the art video AI. That too was utter garbage. Because when you can't be worse than.

[Brian Schulmeister]

It is now on streaming on Paramount, you'd be surprised.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah, I went and I got the highest res that I could find of season one. And yeah, it is like VHS quality. You are correct, it is not good. It is not good at all. But upscaling, it did not work at all. It's too fuzzy is the problem. It confuses the shit out of it. I mean, I tried multiple different models on it, could not get anything to defuzz it. It's like there's Vaseline on the lens and we're stuck with it.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Fun times. Well, at least we'll always know what period things came from.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yep.

[Brian Schulmeister]

So there's that. Daredevil Born Again has premiered on Disney plus. The first two episodes came out this week. I'm assuming you watched them, Jason.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Of course I did. Did Brian.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Are we going to do spoilers here?

[Jason DeFilippo]

There will, There will be spoilers, people. So fast forward a minute or two or three real quick. Okay, we'll give you a second.

[Brian Schulmeister]

So, I, I, I think I've enjoyed it so far. I enjoyed the first episode a lot more than the second. The second was a little bit slow, but obviously they're set it, they're setting the, the scene for what's to come. But how, how, how do you make such a big thing about. You're bringing back all of the cast and then you. To kill Foggy in three minutes.

[Jason DeFilippo]

See, I, I just assumed that they, that they weren't all coming back, so. Yeah, no, I mean, and that's it's actually in the comics, but there's a, there's a twist in the comics, but.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yeah.

[Jason DeFilippo]

And I don't think that twist is coming in.

[Brian Schulmeister]

No, I, I read an article analyzing that this morning.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah. Yeah. Okay. You read the same article? Yeah, yeah.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Over at Gizmodo. Yeah.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah. No, he ain't coming back.

[Brian Schulmeister]

No, he's not coming back. Which is unfortunate because I do, I like like the three of them together. But you know, it's. We'll see where it goes. It seems good. It's good to have him back. I, I'm just, you know, biding my time until Jessica Jones, let's be honest.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah. There, there were some problems with the first episode that some of the action sequences at the beginning with Daredevil were very Matrix three.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yeah.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Let's go say in quality. Not good. They were definitely not good. You could, you could really tell from the transition from CG to, to practical and yeah, I figured they would have spent a little bit more time on it. But maybe it's because everybody got fired.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Maybe we've got all this AI stuff. We'll just use it. Nobody cares.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yep. And Havard wrote in and he wrote in, said just heard the last episode. You watching Will Trent is probably what we call watching a Sudalgoot city in Norwegian. I'm sure I did not get that right. Roughly translated as a comfort blanket series or security blanket series. You know, every character, you sort of know what happens. It's low engagement entertainment for brain and downtime brain cleaning. Like I use Deadliest Catcher. Gold Rush. Anyways, keep up the good work. H. That nails it. Absolutely nails it.

[Brian Schulmeister]

That's Diners Drive Ins and dives for me. I could just put that crap on and let it run all day.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah, that's. That's exactly it. So yeah, I like that. I like. I like security blankets or comfort blanket series. I'm down with that. That.

[Brian Schulmeister]

All right. Well, I saw something in the news and it sent me down a little spiral. I had to go start looking some stuff up because I realized apparently this is what sci fi actors do when their careers start to die due to typecasting. David Duchovny is to explore real life X Files for the History Channel. Okay. On Secrets Declassified, Duchovny will investigate the government's most secretive, strange and mind blowing activities that have been declassified throughout history. Now we know History Channel actually has no history anymore. It's all aliens and this. And then I went, huh? David Duchovny from the X files now 20 years later, hasn't really established much else. Well, he did Californication. That was pretty good. So it's been a while since he's been involved in too much of anything. And so there you go. He gets that. Which then reminded me of Jonathan Frakes. Jonathan Frakes from Star Trek, who went on to host Beyond Belief. Fact or Fiction? Each episode of this cult anthology series prevents several stories that appear to defy logic. The supernatural, ghost, psychic phenomena, destiny and the divine. And offers the viewers the chance to decide what is fact and what is fiction. Oh, but not just one, Jason. We got a twofer from Frakes.

[Jason DeFilippo]

We do? What? What's the next one?

[Brian Schulmeister]

He also hosted the Paranormal Borderline, a short lived television series on UPN which dealt with the paranormal and mysterious happenings. Features.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Oh my God, upn. That is a long. That is a deep cut.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Deep dig.

[Jason DeFilippo]

That is. Yeah. Wow. I do remember Beyond Belief. That was that. I liked that. Even though I didn't like Jonathan Frakes back then. That was the, the era where I'm like, I just didn't like him because of the beard freaks in his beard and the chair humping thing. No, it was.

[Brian Schulmeister]

I loved it. I loved it all.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Okay, okay, what else we got, Brian?

[Brian Schulmeister]

We got to go back to the source. The OG hosted by Leonard Nimoy. First we have Ancient Mysteries. Ancient Mysteries is a documentary television series that deals with historical mysteries and the granddaddy of them all in search of.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Oh yeah.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Leonard Nimoy hosts and narrates this documentary series that takes you to the world of Unsolved Mysteries and those strange and unusual things in the world that defy explanation and often misunderstanding. And let me tell you, 10 to 12 year old me fucking love that show.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Oh, that was the best show ever, man. I love that show. Yep, so good, so good. So much stuff.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yep. And speaking of dead careers, I saw this article. 82% of indie artists cannot afford to tour anymore. So, okay, few artists are selling any CDs or vinyl records. Streaming doesn't pay the bills. What's left? Playing live and selling merch. But what if you can't afford to tour anymore? Results from a global study by Ditto Music, which is a music research company, are pretty grim. It's surveyed 1, 500 musicians worldwide and found out that on average, 82.1% of them believe that touring has just become too expensive. They can't afford to play live beyond their immediate geographic area. And it gets worse. The survey also says that 58.3% have turned down a chance to tour because the financials just didn't make sense and about 75% have never bothered to tour at all. They somehow managed to fund their music ambitions by tapping their personal savings and I've got some of their bite their their graphs and charts in here that I'm gonna will be in the show notes that basically just kind of show you're screwed. If you're trying to be an independent musician, good luck.

[C]

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[Jason DeFilippo]

Doodads Brian we've talked about the Humane AI pin in the past. Well, it was officially bricked on last Friday, leaving customers with expensive paperweights. But just hours later, a hacker named Marcel cracked the code, bringing the device back to life and turning it into what many hoped it would be, a true smartphone alternative. In a chaotic discord chat, hackers celebrated as the pin projected its first video, signaling a new era for the device. Now, some in the community wanted to stay quiet, fearing retaliation from hp, who now owns Humane's intellectual property. A Humane employee told Wired they were working on a legitimate fix and accused the hackers of crossing the line. Now legal questions loom over the device's future. I think the legal question should be, should anybody that ever bought a Humane AI pin sue HP because they bricked it? That would be my legal question.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yeah. I mean, I'm no lawyer, obviously, but I tell you what, if you brick a device, I get to do whatever the fuck I want to it.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Honestly, I buy a device, I should be able to do whatever the fuck I want with it.

[Brian Schulmeister]

I agree with that.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah, yeah. So HP can have the right to fuck off and die. And I have a series of articles here that I'm going to run through that will. It all comes together at the end. Brian, stick with me. All right, so OpenAI's ChatGPT on Mac OS can now directly edit code in developer tools like Xcode, VS Code and JetBrains. I've never heard of Jetbrains. I wanted to try VS Code, but users can enable an Auto apply mode, allowing ChatGPT to make edits without additional clicks. The feature is available now for ChatGPT+Pro and Team subscribers, with a wider rollout coming next week. Any Windows version is also in the works. So now you can have ChatGPT directly on your desktop. Write some code for you.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Perfect.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Okay, and a quarter of startups in Y Combinator's latest batch have code bases that are 95% AI generated, according to YC managing partner Jared Friedman. These aren't non technical founders. They're highly skilled engineers who just a year ago would have built everything from scratch. But now AI does the heavy lifting. The trend, dubbed Vibe coding, lets developers generate software using natural language instead of typing every line of code. Like we talked about in the last episode.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yep.

[Jason DeFilippo]

However, AI generated code isn't flawless. Experts warn that. I know, I know, Brian. Experts warn that security flaws, bugs and outages are common, meaning founders still need solid coding fundamentals. Yes, we know, we've mentioned that. Now here's one for you, Brian, that kind of comes together with this, and this is interesting. This comes from Analytics India magazine. The vanishing middle class of tech. Right? We've talked about the vanishing middle class for a long time. Now we have the vanishing middle class of tech, which is where most coders used to live. They lived in the middle. They weren't the superstars, they weren't the junior programmers. They were the middle of the road guys. And that's what AI is, destroying these middle of the road guys. So now you either need to be a frontier engineer making like $500,000 a year, or basically phone support, which is going to be knocked out anyway. But also a Vibe coder, that's the next thing. So you need to know how to write prompts. The problem there is nobody knows how to read code in between those two levels, right?

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yes.

[Jason DeFilippo]

So there's another article called Will the Future of Software Development Run on Vibes, which I just love. Yeah, no, it all comes back down to the final article here. And I recommend everybody just go through these from the top. They're in the show. Notes GOG Show 687. The final one is hallucinations in code are the least dangerous form of LLM mistakes. So apparently what LLMs will do while you're generating code is it will make up like Methods and functions whole hog and libraries whole hog. And sometimes it will just pick the wrong library for the wrong thing. So when you compile it or run it, it will actually execute and won't throw any bugs or any exceptions or anything like that. But when you actually go to use the code in production, it won't do anything near that it's supposed to do and nobody can figure out why. So right, here's the deal, kids, learn to read code. Learn to code if you want to code. My question is, what the fuck are all these people coding?

[Brian Schulmeister]

I know. What are these people all making?

[Jason DeFilippo]

I know, that's what.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Where are these great new products coming out?

[Jason DeFilippo]

I've been waiting. I don't know. I'm waiting, I'm waiting. Yeah, you know the problem with half of it is most of these things are like geared around Python. And I was a PHP guy, I'm not a Python guy. I'd have to go back and figure out Python and I don't wanna, I'm 53, I don't give a fuck anymore because it won't make me any money because of everything we just said. You know, If I was 20 years younger, sure, I would definitely be all over this. As a 53 year old guy, I just like fetching about it to the clouds. But learn to code, man, that's all I gotta say. If you can use these tools but know what they're doing, be able to read it from top to bottom, know what every single line of that program does. It may save you time writing it, you know, to have this thing crap out your code for you, but not debugging, not debugging. And as we said earlier in the show, this is just taking the mistakes we've already made and filling them with Russian propaganda and giving you function models to destroy your code base. So caveat emptor. And speaking of code, Fuck Adobe Creative. Sweet. Brian, I bitched about this to you on text this week. My computers are finely tuned machine. My Mac Studio, I didn't reboot that thing for months. That thing ran smooth as silk. I put on Creative Suite because I have to work in Premiere now and I'm rebooting three to four times a day. It is ridiculous how much that thing screwed up my system. It is so bad. Do you have the same thing happen to you?

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yes, it is horrible. If, if anything crashes, it's going to be that I, I do reboot all the time. I'm always running clean my Mac and it's always clearing out crap from Adobe. It's it's ridiculous. I have like, there's five Adobe things in my startup and even though I keep taking them out, they just keep reappearing. I hate. Yeah, I hate it.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah, no, they're running 10 different demons to save you from stealing a $3 font.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yes.

[Jason DeFilippo]

It's. It's so, so crappy. But yeah. So maybe some of these vibe coders can start working for Adobe or maybe they already do and that's why it sucks.

[Brian Schulmeister]

That could be the problem.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah. And I have a Fire tv and I'm sorry. Fuck that thing, man. Seriously. I watch everything through my Apple TV connected to my Fire TV because the Apple TV is actually better at everything except making a picture. That's the only thing that the Fire TV can do is it can make the pretty picture. And I'm sitting there, I'm getting into Daredevil. It's the first fight scene of the first episode of the big reboot. And my screen goes gray and says, there's a software update available. We will reboot your TV in 45 seconds. Would you like to cancel or continue? So it kicked me out of Apple tv, let the show keep running. So when I came back, spoilers, I had to like then rewind. And the thing is, with my Fire tv, when I turn it on, I put the remote away because I don't need it anymore. So then I had to run across the room, find the fucking remote, hit cancel, go back through the whole thing. I hate the Fire TV so much. So much, Brian. And then when I'm done watching Daredevil, I open my Fire TV menu and try and find the button to update the os. It is so buried in the system menus that it took me five minutes just to find the update software button. It's. There's nothing good about the fucking Fire TV except for the price. Yeah, it was. It was a 75 inch TV for like 800 bucks when they were going for like thousands of dollars back in the day. But it's a nice looking tv. But the guts. Oh, it's a dumpster fire.

[Brian Schulmeister]

I've got my Samsung TVs. They're good as long as you disconnect them from everything because otherwise they spy on you like no tomorrow.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah, yeah. Don't hook up the network, man. Don't hook up the network.

[Brian Schulmeister]

I don't think it's a good tv and I shut everything off on it.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah, I tried to turn the network off on the Fire TV and I don't think it would even turn on.

[Brian Schulmeister]

They won't let you.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Jeff Bezos gets a warning sound building in his house. Somebody's trying to turn it off again.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Oh, Jesus. At the library.

[Brian Schulmeister]

I went back to the. Well, Jason, I just finished reading the Tempest from the First Contact series by Peter Cowdron. Not my favorite. They're not all winners. It's not bad. It was fine. It just never really grabbed me. It was one of my least favorite books that I've read from him so far, so. But that will not stop me. Onward I shall go, But I need a break from it. So I was starting to look around and I was like, you know, I haven't read anything by Bill Bryson in a while. Gosh, I love his books. His books are fantastic. So I fired up the Googlebot, and God damn it, he retired from writing back in 2020.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Are we sure, though? Because you Googled it, so we don't know if that timestamp is actually correct.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Actually, the information was very difficult to find, so I actually went, yes, I am unfortunately, sure. I found it from his. From his publisher's house website, actually.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Okay. Okay.

[Brian Schulmeister]

So. What a damn shame. So. Oh, well.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah. Hey, good run.

[Brian Schulmeister]

If you've never read Bill Bryson's books, go all of them. They're all great.

[Jason DeFilippo]

I didn't care for the last one.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Well, by the end, he was writing about, what, houses and the body and all that sort of stuff. But his initial travel writings are fantastic.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah, they were fantastic. They're fantastic. I read On Tyranny by Timothy Snyder. Again, this is a book that was written back the first time the Great Mango was in the office. A bracing guide for surviving and resisting America's turn towards authoritarianism from a rising public intellectual unafraid to make bold connections between past and present. Damn fine book.

[Brian Schulmeister]

I'm reading it right now. It is good. But unafraid to make bold connections between past and present for at least so far into the book basically just means this is what the Nazis did.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah, well.

[Brian Schulmeister]

And this is what's happening here.

[Jason DeFilippo]

The first step, though, I'm just like, oh, man, I wish I'd read this about six months ago, because it would have made a lot more sense six months ago. But I'd read it back when it first came out long ago and just happened to be. Because I'm reading a book on propaganda as well, one of the founding books on propaganda. And then I went to this one. This is a great book. I think. I think it's. Find it short. The way you read. You should have been done with it after 20 minutes after you started it.

[Brian Schulmeister]

But I started it late last night, so I'm about halfway done.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah. Okay, Very good. Yeah. There's a lot between the Nazis and Trump in here. Yes, yeah, lots, lots. Surprisingly a lot. Which is the funny part.

[Brian Schulmeister]

It's almost uncanny, one might say.

[Jason DeFilippo]

It is almost. It is not almost uncanny, Brian. It is really uncanny how similar they are. Yeah, yeah. And to tie into that, at the same time, there's a commercial that is being run by the Department of Homeland Security here in Los Angeles that I saw by Secretary Kristi Noem announcing nationwide and international efforts to get out the illegals in the country. Did you watch that? The commercial, Brian?

[Brian Schulmeister]

I did watch the commercial. I am wondering if this is actually efficient of the government to spend this much money on a stupid commercial running on tv.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yes. A multi million dollar ad campaign. Yes. Yes. I was turned on to this by my roommate who said, have you seen the. That they're running on tv? Freaked her out. I mean, like legit freaked her out. This is like some serious scary that they're running about what they're doing.

[Brian Schulmeister]

It's almost uncanny.

[Jason DeFilippo]

It is almost uncanny, Brian. Uncanny. Yeah. So I had to call, I make some phone calls, I made some texts, I texted my brother and my dad last night because they're in Chicago and I figured, well, if this is running anywhere else in the country, it's definitely going to be running in Chicago. Turns out, correct, it is running in Chicago because that's the other. Another one of the hubs that they're trying to scare people into getting rid of all the. The people who do all the actual physical work in the country.

[Brian Schulmeister]

I 100% guarantee you it is running in every big major blue SE city.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah, definitely. There's a link to it in the show notes. I recommend you go watch it just to see what the going on. Unless you've seen it on TV multiple times every day. Yeah. So I sent it to a friend. Friend of the show, Andy Preboy, and he sent me back a link to an article. Is Trump preparing to invoke the Insurrection Act? Signs are pointing that way, which also made me not really want to sleep last night.

[Brian Schulmeister]

It's uncanny. One might say it's.

[Jason DeFilippo]

One might say, uncanny.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Crystal knocked.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah. How does one say that in Spanish?

[Brian Schulmeister]

Noche de crystal.

[Jason DeFilippo]

See?

[Brian Schulmeister]

Oh, it's fun to laugh as the world burns.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Closing shout out. Over at Patreon, we've got two new Patreons, Nick and Thomas, and we've got an up pledge from another Nick. So thank you, Nicks.

[Brian Schulmeister]

All right, Nix. And we've got some legacy Patreons here. Ryan, Murray, Danny, Nancy, Steven, Vanessa, Brody, Gretter, and Michael. Thank you all so much.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Thank you so much. And just a reminder, if you would like to support the show or help support the show in one of the many ways you can support the show and sign up for patreon, go to patreon.com gog for as little as $3 a month, you can get the show early in high definition and ad free. So check it out, please. And if you sign up for the whole year, you get a discount, but you can do more than $3 a month if you want to. Just saying.

[Brian Schulmeister]

You could do, say a million and be on our platinum level.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah, yeah.

[Brian Schulmeister]

We'll send you to the Fyre Festival.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Send you to the Fyre festival.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Over at PayPal, we've got Nicola, Thomas, Florian and Levi.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Over the tip jar, we've got Sarah, Matthew and Tony. And at the merch store, Nick picked up a T shirt this week, so definitely we need to sell some more of those Deport elon shirts. I figured they'd be flying off the shelves right now. I wore mine last week and got many a thumbs up.

[Brian Schulmeister]

There you go.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Not shot or stabbed once. So they work. Which is surprising because I wore it to Whole Foods where everybody drives a.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Tesla and nobody died this week except my will to live. Until next time, I'm Brian Scholmeister.

[Jason DeFilippo]

In my spirit. Yes, thanks for listening. I'm Jason DeFilippo. Thanks for listening to grumpy old geeks. Get all the links and goodies from Today's episode at GOG Show 687. 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 the show. Share it. There's a share button in your podcast player. Use it to spread the grumpiness to friends, foes and everyone in between. And we'll love you for it. And swing by GOG show to join our discord and chat with us and other show fans. Got thoughts? Feedback? Cool links? Hit us up at GOG Show Contact. And hey, don't forget to leave a five star review at GOG show review and we'll read it on the air. Oh, and guess what? That's right. We've got gog merch. Snag your grumpy gear now at shop.gog show. Stay grumpy.

[C]

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