692: Confabulation and Frivolity

Summary

Grumpy Old Geeks Episode 692: Confabulation and Frivolity – Summary

In Episode 692 of Grumpy Old Geeks, hosts Jason DeFilippo and Brian Schulmeister, joined by guest Dave Bittner, delve into a whirlwind of tech disasters, AI advancements, and cultural commentary. True to their grumpy persona, the trio dissects recent events with sharp wit and unfiltered opinions, providing listeners with a comprehensive overview of the week's most pressing tech news.

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1. Fire2 Festival: A Reprise of Fyre's Failures

The episode kicks off with a scathing discussion about the upcoming Fire2 Festival, drawing parallels to the infamous Fyre Festival debacle. Hosts express skepticism over the festival's legitimacy, highlighting logistical issues and exorbitant ticket prices.

• Brian Schulmeister ([00:32]): "We might be the only people there."
• Jason DeFilippo ([00:36]): "The cheapest is $1,400 with ticket options as high as $1,100,000."

They question the feasibility of the event's location and lack of official permits, emphasizing the recurring pattern of mismanagement by the organizers.

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2. IRS and ICE: Taxation and Deportation of Undocumented Immigrants

Jason shifts focus to the troubling collaboration between the IRS and ICE, which now shares immigration data. This alliance threatens the financial contributions of undocumented immigrants, who paid nearly $97 billion in taxes in 2022 and $89.8 billion in 2023.

• Jason DeFilippo ([03:02]): "Either they're going to be kicked out of the country or they're going to be too scared to pony up the money."
• Brian Schulmeister ([03:53]): "The undocumented immigrants tax bills are considerably higher than... Donald Trump, Elon Musk, Amazon, Microsoft, everybody."

The hosts lament the loss of tax revenue and the ethical implications of targeting individuals who do not benefit from the social programs they inadvertently fund.

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3. Microsoft and OpenAI: Letting AI Burn Cash

A significant portion of the episode centers on Microsoft's strategic relationship with OpenAI. Mustafa Suleiman, formerly of DeepMind and now at Microsoft, revealed plans to allow OpenAI to operate autonomously, effectively enabling the company to "burn cash" on ambitious AI projects.

• Jason DeFilippo ([04:43]): "They're just going to let him run, let them run, do all the foundational models... and then we're just going to kick back and get all the benefits because..."
• Brian Schulmeister ([05:05]): "Let the kid play with their toys and then swoop on in."

The hosts critique this approach, suggesting it may lead to OpenAI's dominance in AI technology while Microsoft reaps the rewards without direct involvement.

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4. ChatGPT’s Privacy Concerns and Confabulation Issues

Jason discusses ChatGPT's new feature that allows the AI to access users' entire chat history, raising privacy concerns. He expresses apprehension about the AI potentially molding his personality based on past interactions.

• Jason DeFilippo ([05:15]): "Confabulation and frivolity, Brian. Confabulation and frivolity. That's what AI is good for."
• Brian Schulmeister ([05:46]): "I'm taken to not signing in. Like I just use it."

The conversation underscores the broader issues of data privacy and the unpredictable nature of AI responses, aligning with the episode’s theme of confabulation.

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5. Social Security Administration's Website Failures

Brian brings attention to recent outages of the Social Security Administration's website, attributing them to expanded AI-driven fraud checks. The lack of proper testing for high user volume led to significant service disruptions, affecting millions relying on Social Security payments.

• Brian Schulmeister ([07:52]): "They have managed to crash the Social Security website and the Social Security applications and everything like that, which is rather important for quite a few people."

The hosts criticize the implementation flaws and the broader implications for public trust in government digital services.

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6. UK’s Homicide Prediction Algorithm: A Minority Report Reality?

The discussion shifts to the UK's Ministry of Justice developing an algorithm aimed at predicting potential killers, reminiscent of the Minority Report concept. Civil liberties groups have raised alarms about the ethical and practical ramifications of such predictive policing tools.

• Brian Schulmeister ([12:21]): "The UK's Ministry of Justice has been developing an algorithm designed to identify people who could become killers."

Jason and Brian caution against the inherent flaws in algorithmic predictions, emphasizing the risks of reinforcing societal biases and the potential for misuse.

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7. MIT Study Reveals AI’s Lack of True Values

A recent MIT study debunks the notion that AI systems possess inherent values or beliefs. Instead, AI like ChatGPT merely mimics human responses, often resulting in inconsistent and fabricated answers.

• Jason DeFilippo ([14:02]): "AI doesn't hold consistent beliefs or preferences. Instead, it imitates human responses and often fabricates or hallucinates answers."
• Brian Schulmeister ([14:35]): "You can't expect any of these models to return the exact same results every single time. Feature, not a bug."

The hosts stress the importance of understanding AI's limitations, particularly in applications requiring reliability and coherence.

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8. AI in Image Generation: Ethical Boundaries and Misuse

The trio explores the challenges of AI-generated imagery, highlighting instances where users attempt to create realistic images of real individuals in fictional scenarios. Dave Bittner shares his experience of trying to generate an image of himself riding a speeder bike with Sasquatch, encountering content policy restrictions.

• Jason DeFilippo ([76:08]): "This is Joe. He's wearing a backpack and a cowboy hat, riding a pogo stick, holding a chicken in front of a camper. And it's photorealistic."
• Jason DeFilippo ([81:07]): "It doesn't want to do a deep fake. But then it says, we can generate the same scene without using identifiable people."

The conversation highlights the delicate balance AI developers must maintain between creative freedom and ethical responsibility, preventing misuse while enabling user innovation.

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9. Tariffs Impacting Nintendo Switch Pre-orders

The hosts touch upon recent tariff announcements affecting Nintendo Switch pre-orders in the U.S., caused by new import duties imposed on products from Japan, China, and Vietnam. This development has led to indefinite delays in pre-orders, with uncertain pricing and availability.

• Brian Schulmeister ([59:21]): "The tariffs have changed since you started that sentence, so..."

Jason advises listeners to act quickly if they wish to purchase the Switch before potential price hikes, reflecting the unpredictability introduced by international trade policies.

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10. Gadgets and Tech Purchases: AI-Powered Dumbbells and Productivity Tools

Jason and Brian critique the emergence of overpriced, AI-integrated fitness gadgets like Kabata’s AI-powered dumbbells, deeming them unnecessary and overpriced.

• Brian Schulmeister ([58:06]): "There’s no two and a half pound increments. It’s only five-pound increments. It’s stupid."
• Jason DeFilippo ([60:39]): "It's like a green card red card system but cost you $249 to just basically have a green card and a red card."

Additionally, they discuss productivity tools like the Busy Bar, drawing comparisons to outdated office systems, and express skepticism about their practical utility despite high price tags.

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11. Entertainment: TV Shows, Anime, and Streaming Options

The hosts share their thoughts on various entertainment mediums, including:

• TV Shows: They discuss the recent season finale of The White Lotus, expressing mixed feelings about its plot resolutions and character developments.

  • Brian Schulmeister ([33:37]): "I killed my father. Prepare to die."

• Anime Series: Jason reviews the Devil May Cry anime, rating it a solid B despite deviations from the original game series' tone.

• Upcoming Releases: They express excitement for upcoming trailers like Tron: Aries and Murderbot, although Jason notes his disappointment with the latter's comedic shift from the source material.

• Streaming Recommendations: Brian recommends The Pit on Max, appreciating its real-time emergency room portrayal, while Jason nostalgically mentions classic web series like Ask a Ninja.

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12. Music News: Brian Eno’s Windows 95 Chime and New Releases

Discussing music, Brian Eno's iconic Windows 95 reboot chime is honored as a culturally significant piece now archived in the Library of Congress's National Recording Registry. They also highlight new releases from artists associated with the shoegaze genre, celebrating the enduring legacy of bands like Lush and Ride.

• Brian Schulmeister ([44:33]): "Brian Eno to create The Now I Windows 95 reboot chime..."

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13. Personal Anecdotes and AI Creativity Experiments

The episode takes a personal turn as Jason shares his experiments with ChatGPT in generating songs about tech figures like Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg, resulting in humorous and satirical tracks.

• Jason DeFilippo ([48:51]): "ChatGPT just kept going and said, would you like me to write an entire EP about all the other tech bros out there? I'm like, well, sure."

Brian joins in on the fun, creating playful lyrics and contemplating the integration of AI-generated content into their projects. They discuss the limitations and creative boundaries of AI tools, highlighting both their potential and pitfalls.

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14. Tragedies in the Music World

Concluding on a somber note, the hosts mourn the loss of prominent musicians:

• Daniel Allen, bassist of Gang of Four, passed away at 69.
• Al Burrell, guitarist for hardcore pioneers SSD, died at 63.
• Clem Burke, drummer for Blondie, also passed away at 70.

These losses mark significant moments in the music community, reflecting on their contributions and the void left behind.

• Brian Schulmeister ([86:06]): "We lost Al Burrell, a guitarist for hardcore pioneers SSD dead, also at 69 or 63, sorry for him. And Blondie, drummer Clem Burke has passed away at the age of 70."

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15. Closing Remarks and Community Engagement

In their usual style, Jason and Brian invite listeners to support the show through Patreon, PayPal, and merchandise, while also promoting their Discord channel for further community interaction.

• Jason DeFilippo ([87:29]): "...our show is brought to you by Delete Me... Audible delivers thrills of every kind on your command..."
• Brian Schulmeister ([87:53]): "...Thanks for listening to Grumpy Old Geeks. Get all the links and goodies from Today's episode at GOG Show. 692..."

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Conclusion

Episode 692 of Grumpy Old Geeks presents a blend of critical analysis and humorous banter, tackling complex issues like AI ethics, data privacy, and corporate missteps while interspersing personal anecdotes and entertainment reviews. The hosts maintain their signature grumpiness, providing listeners with both insightful commentary and relatable frustrations in the ever-evolving tech landscape.

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 DiFilippo.

[Brian Schulmeister]

And I'm Brian Schulmeister. Jason, I'm so excited. My bags are packed. We are. We are less than or actually a little bit over a month away from Fire two festival.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Oh, man. Can I come too?

[Brian Schulmeister]

Sure, why not? We might be the only people there.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Oh, that would be great. I'll bring the cheese if you bring the bread.

[Brian Schulmeister]

If you of course, recall the initial fyre festival, which is a total disaster firefighter and they went to jail for it. Then he's out of jail and of course, immediately announced a second one, which initially had a location placed solidly in the ocean.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yes, that was fun.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yeah, that was fun. And then we found out it was going to be some island, and the island, of course, had never heard of him or anything. And then snow. And then he claimed that he had, of course, talked to the city officials on that island and was going to sort it out. But the island probably holds 50 people, so, you know, not happening. Okay. Now he says that actually it's going to be in Playa del Carmen, which is a larger city on the actual. On Mexico itself, not an island on the mainland. On. On the mainland, as it were.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Okay.

[Brian Schulmeister]

But of course, the city wrote in Playa del Carmen, there will be no event called Fire2. There is no registration nor planning. The government. This government prioritizes order, safety, and truth, which zing.

[Jason DeFilippo]

So I don't know about that. Yeah, I don't know about, you know.

[Brian Schulmeister]

History be repeating itself quickly in that they have no concept whatsoever and have not spoken to him. Or at least they're saying that. Two days after that, McFarland posted a statement on Instagram with alleged documentation showing that he was working with the city for the festival. One of imagines that one used a Trump Sharpie there to create that. The documents do show approval for an event with a maximum of 12 hours of music over three days for 250 people, which is not quite what the Fire2 Festival has been promoted as. Nope. He also did say earlier that an entertainment lineup would drop in March, it being now April 11th. Yeah, no entertainment lineup yet. Rep claims that performers will be revealed next week. This is from an article that was written two weeks ago. The only person who's publicly said they're booked is a former NFL player, Antonio Brown, who I'm sure drops sick beats.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Okay, but you can still get tickets.

[Brian Schulmeister]

The cheapest1 is $1,400 with ticket options as high as $1,100,000.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Well, now, do you have to buy an NFT to get in or do. Is there a meme coin that's attached to this that I need to know about? Some defi thing?

[Brian Schulmeister]

Don't think he was able to get any of that together. But, you know, you never know. I'm sure he will sell them if he can.

[Jason DeFilippo]

All right, that's fun times. I can't wait to go, Brian.

[Brian Schulmeister]

I know.

[Jason DeFilippo]

I just won't be able to get back in the country. So it might be, you know, the festival to end them all. So I have a little follow up last week about the IRS data sharing that I was talking about.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yes.

[Jason DeFilippo]

And that has come to pass. The IRS has made a deal with ICE to. To share data on immigration. Immigration data. So, yeah, that's going so well that acting Internal Revenue Service Commissioner Melanie Kraus said, fuck you, I'm out of here.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yeah.

[Jason DeFilippo]

I would like say that at least there's somebody left in government with a spine, but she left government. So, no, those, those spines are leaving quickly. And I would just like to point out that undocumented immigrants in the United States paid a total of $96.7 billion in taxes in 2022, and in 2023 paid $89.8 billion. So that money is just going straight out the window because nobody's going to be paying those taxes anymore because they're going to be sharing data with ice. So either way, they're going to either be kicked out of the country or they're going to be too scared to pony up the money. So way to go.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Also probably worth pointing out that the undocumented immigrants tax bills are considerably higher than, oh, I don't know, say, Donald Trump, Elon Musk, Amazon, Microsoft, everybody.

[Jason DeFilippo]

And here's, here's the real shitty part. They don't even get to take, you know, take part in any of the programs that they're paying into. They're never going to be able to collect on Social Security that they're paying into all of the other things they're paying into. Yeah, yeah.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Master plan.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yep. Way to go.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Best possible people in charge.

[Jason DeFilippo]

So have you heard of, ever heard of Mustafa Suleiman?

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yes. He was the DeepMind guy, right. And now he's over at Microsoft. Yeah.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yes, he is. Yes, he is. Well, he came out this week and kind of confirmed what I was saying last time, which was, I'm like, Microsoft's just going to sit back and let OpenAI do what OpenAI is going to do. Spend all the money, create all the stuff, and then pick them up at a fire sale.

[Brian Schulmeister]

So.

[Jason DeFilippo]

So I was kind of right, because he says he's just going to let OpenAI burn cash and then build on their success. So, you know, kind of the same thing. They're just going to let him run, let them run, do all the foundational models, do all the crazy stuff they're going to do, and then we're just going to kick back and get all the benefits because, you know, we did put in several billion dollars of investment. So we just want our, we want our slice.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yeah. A lot of that money they're burning through is our money, but we'll just pick it up when they're done.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Exactly, exactly.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Let the kid play with their toys and then swoop on in.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yep. And Speaking of toys, ChatGPT just came out with a new feature Yesterday. And now ChatGPT has access to all of the previous chats you've ever done. So it's now it's got like this big DeepMind not, not to be confused with DeepMind from Google with all of the data that you've ever done. So it's, it's learning about you. Right. It's such a great new feature, Brian. It's so awesome that you're already opted in. You can opt out, but of course they opted you in to this great new feature that they've given you. Isn't that great?

[Brian Schulmeister]

I'm taken to not signing in. Like I just use it. Not signed in now.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Oh. When I use it, I use it in giant bursts. So I actually pay the 20 bucks a month because the times that I need to use it, I can't be rate limited. So. So, and the thing is, it's like I have to look like a complete schizophrenic to that thing because I'm pasting in news articles and having it do all sorts of crazy stuff. And yeah, I'm all over the map. So I went and opted out this morning. I'll talk about it at Media Candy a little bit later because I'm telling you, you can't have some fun with it. But if you think that if that's going to use what I did last night as a basis for my personality, that might actually match, but everything else, no, it's going to turn it, turn me into a crazy person. But speaking of money, though, yeah, you're talking about how Microsoft gave all the money to them. You know, I was thinking of money this morning and watching the, the stock market burn and everybody else burn and all the people that are, you know, out of work and dying in other countries because of what's going on. And I'm like, you know, what if this guy is just there for all the money, why don't we just start a Go Trump me fund? Get a couple billion, go buy him Greenland and just let him sit there. So I think, I think that's what I think we should. We should have a Go Trump me fund. That's the only, the only rational thing that I could come up with this morning as I'm going through the news going, this is terrible at the moment.

[Brian Schulmeister]

As far as I can tell, the, the stock market is the Go Trump me fund. I've never seen such blatant population. But, you know, I don't. I'd like to get through the border next time I fly in, so I'll just stop there.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah, yeah, just leave it, Leave it, Leave it with me. I won't be able to come back from Fyre Fest, but I'm fine in Cal. I am fine in Iowa, where I'm at right now. I'm in Iowa, outside of Des Moines. In the news.

[Brian Schulmeister]

I'm a big fan of finding the headline in which you don't actually need to read the article, and then the answer is kind of right there. So, yes, here we go. Over from Gizmodo. Microsoft hooked the government on its products with freebies. Could Elon Musk's Starlink be doing the same thing? Yes.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yep, Absolutely.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Okay, moving on.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yep, that's easy. I wish they were all that easy. That's great.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Me too. I've got some, some Doge news. Of course. The Social Security website has crashed and is being blamed on DOGE software UPD states because you know, best and brightest using their vibe coding. Yeah. Elon Musk's war on fraud and abuse has impacted the Social Security Administration's ability to distribute payments. According to a new report, frequent outages of the agency's website in recent weeks have been linked to its expansion of fraud checks earlier in the claims process. From the Washington Post. The network crashes appear to be caused by an expansion initiated by the Trump team of an existing contract with a credit reporting agency that tracks names, addresses and other personal information to verify customers identities. So, sounds like they're having an integration issue. The enhanced fraud checks are now done earlier in the claims process and have resulted in a boost to the volume of customers who must pass the checks. But the technology staff did not test the software against a high volume of users to see if the servers could handle the rush. Current and former officials said, ah, the X playbook.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Great.

[Brian Schulmeister]

So, yeah, they have managed to crash the Social Security website and the Social Security applications and everything like that, which is rather important for quite a few people, I think.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yep. Like you said, best and brightest.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Best and brightest.

[Jason DeFilippo]

We're vibing it up, baby.

[Brian Schulmeister]

DOGE is also dipping their toe into AI, and this one, I. I'm kind of floored by Some managers at the Environmental Protection Agency have reportedly been told that DOGE is employing AI to monitor communication apps and software, such as the widely used Microsoft Teams for anti Musk or anti Trump sentiment. So, yes, they're using AI to hook into all the various communication methods that government employees are using, and they're searching for anybody saying anything bad about them because they're pussies.

[Jason DeFilippo]

What about Signal? Are they. Are they. Are they scouring signal for anti Musk sentiment?

[Brian Schulmeister]

No, as it says here, meanwhile, it said that Doge staffers are using signal to communicate with each other. Make sure nobody sees what they're saying.

[Jason DeFilippo]

All right, here's a note to the epa. Anybody that's left there, go get a Signal account.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Ah, but using Signal is a violation of federal record keeping rules, given the ability to automatically delete messages after a certain period of time. Jason. And government employees are not allowed to use it. Unless you're Doge.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Doge.

[Brian Schulmeister]

So that's great. That's. That's what you want. Want people doing. So. Yeah, of course. Witch hunts are on.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yep. And a new report from the New York Times reveals that Doge has quietly gained access to an unprecedented amount of personal data on millions of Americans.

[Brian Schulmeister]

But not so quietly, I would argue.

[Jason DeFilippo]

No. DOGE is tapped into data systems from agencies like the Departments of Education, Labor, Health, and the Treasury. Data includes everything from Social Security numbers to bank account info to medical, employment, and even psychological records, raising major privacy concerns. No shit, Sherlock. Have you seen the list?

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yep.

[Jason DeFilippo]

I highly recommend everybody go look at the list of all of the stuff that they've got now.

[Brian Schulmeister]

They've got everything.

[Jason DeFilippo]

And I'm sure it is being pumped directly into Xai right now.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Of course it is.

[Jason DeFilippo]

110%.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yeah.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Well, Brian, we do have a knight in shining armor that's coming to the rescue, and that is the Government Accountability Office or the gao. You know why they're coming to the rescue?

[Brian Schulmeister]

They're Trying to find some accountability because.

[Jason DeFilippo]

They'Re under the legislative branch, so they are not subject to the whims of Mad King Donnie and can actually go in and look for what the hell Elon is doing. So, yeah, the GAO is an independent agency, so they have launched an audit into how Elon's DOGE is going through all of the sensitive data across the multiple departments. And we can expect a report sometime, but it will be a public report. We'll see.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yeah. By the end of spring, if there's a government left.

[Jason DeFilippo]

That's what I'm saying. Hopefully it's hopeful. It's hopeful. At least there's somebody left that is not subject to the whims of the Executive orders that can actually go in and tell us what the hell's going on.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Right.

[Jason DeFilippo]

If they comply. We'll see if they comply, because that's a big. That's a big story right now. Are they going to comply?

[Brian Schulmeister]

The poop emoji has been returned multiple times already.

[Jason DeFilippo]

True.

[Brian Schulmeister]

So we'll see what happens. Well, there's some concerning use of AI up there in what we've just been talking about, but the UK went, went and said, hold my beer or I guess because it's the uk, hold my cider or hold my warm lager. They're going full minority Report.

[Jason DeFilippo]

They hired Tom Cruise.

[Brian Schulmeister]

No Tom Cruise. But the Guardian has reported that the UK's Ministry of Justice has been developing an algorithm designed to identify people who could become killers.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Oh, what could possibly go wrong with that?

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yes. Initially dubbed the Homicide Prediction Project, this tool uses data from UK police forces, possibly including victims and witnesses, as well as suspects. Obviously, civil liberty watchdog statewatch discovered the program through the Freedom of Information act request and went, hang on a second, what the fuck are you doing? Based on the data acquired by the group Statewatch claim that the program developed as prediction tool based on police data between about 100,000 and 500,000 people. Different categories of information shared with the Ministry of Justice appeared to also cover sensitive topics such as mental health, addiction, suicide and disability. See, this is what happens when you start to get all the datas. Things need to be siloed here, people. Time and time again, research shows that algorithmic systems for predicting crime are inherently flawed. This latest model, which uses data from our institutionally racist police in Home Office, will reinforce. I mean, maybe you don't come out that strong if you, you know, try to, try to go down the middle line here, people. But no. So they're saying, of course, this is research purposes Only which means we want to see if this works or not.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Great, great. I find it fascinating that they do have Freedom of Information act requests over in the uk, so that's good. So, yeah, one thing, it's good when it works. Yeah, it really is. Well, going back to the AI here, MIT study finds that AI doesn't in fact have values. Hmm, shocking because it's. Why would it have values? It's a fucking computer program.

[Brian Schulmeister]

It's a computer program. It's a word prediction engine.

[Jason DeFilippo]

A new MIT study is pushing back on the idea that artificial intelligence systems develop values like humans do. The research, which looked at leading models from OpenAI, Google Meta and others, found that AI doesn't hold consistent beliefs or preferences. Instead, it imitates human responses and often fabricates or hallucinates answers. Well, now it's going to have a much larger memory, at least on ChatGPT, so that'll be interesting how that plays out. But it's still going to imitate human responses because that's all it knows, that's all it is. It's a parrot.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Going back to the class I took with alerted professor who is at the apex of these studies, that the hallucinations and all of that sort of stuff, that is a feature, not a bug. And you have to understand what it is appropriate to use AI for and what it isn't. And here we are again, shoving everything in that we aren't supposed to be doing with these tools.

[Jason DeFilippo]

MIT Stephen Casper, a lead author, says claims that AI forms stable opinions are misleading. His team found that depending on how questions were phrased, AI systems would flip between conflicting views like individualism versus collectivism, showing no real internal logic.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yes, because it's not self aware.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Quote. For me, my biggest takeaway from doing all this research is now have an understanding of models as not really being systems that have some sort of stable coherent set of beliefs and preferences. Instead, they are imitators deep down who do all sorts of confabulation and say all sorts of frivolous things. Confabulation and frivolity, Brian. Confabulation and frivolity. That's what AI is good for.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Oh, it sounds like Monty Python.

[Jason DeFilippo]

And it's funny too because this yesterday I was working on a project and it was like I'm trying to do the same thing over and over every week on a set of podcast transcripts. So I had a really nice set of ChatGPT prompts that got. It was perfect on the first transcript. On the second transcript, completely different types of results formatted completely differently all over the place. And it comes back to if you can't use this thing as a consistent tool for what it should be used for, then what the fuck is it good for?

[Brian Schulmeister]

Again, learned learned professor from whom I took a class states very specifically that you cannot expect any of these models to return the exact same results every single time. And again. Feature not a bug. Understand how to use the tool Confabulation.

[Jason DeFilippo]

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[Brian Schulmeister]

I think at this point XAI needs to buy Tesla. Tesla is crashing.

[Jason DeFilippo]

I know. He's just trying to consolidate. This is just the shell game now. This is the full on three card Monty meets shell game meets. I just don't know where to stuff all this shit to hide it anymore. He's got too many bodies under the bed, the arms are starting to fall out and he's trying to shove them underneath saying there's no murders to see here, everybody's fine, let's just go about our business. He originally wanted Tesla to invest $5 billion into XAI, which I think the shareholders said, excuse me.

[Brian Schulmeister]

And that has to do with our cars how?

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah, well he's trying to say it's because of these fully self driving project, which as we know it's not. Because who wants confabulation and frivolity when you're trying to get on the i5 at 70 miles an hour?

[Brian Schulmeister]

I was about to say I don't need confabulation and frivolity attached to the cameras and not the LIDAR that you're using in your cars which are going to tell me what to do and drive me is straight into a cliff. No, thank you.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Exactly. Because all it's doing from the when it sees a photo of the road in front of you, it is trying to figure out what that means when you have lidar. It knows how far away things are.

[Brian Schulmeister]

And what have we just established about AI? It will not return the same results every single time.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Bingo.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Sometimes we'll move out of the way, sometimes we'll speed up and go into it.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Sometimes that's a semi in front of you, sometimes it's a wiley coyote wall. We just don't know because we made it up from frame to frame to frame.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yes.

[Jason DeFilippo]

And I don't know if you've noticed it takes quite a while for these systems to actually interpret the images that come through. So if you're trying to do that a couple hundred times per second.

[C]

Hmm.

[Jason DeFilippo]

See how that works. But speaking of Tesla Tesla, here's another one of your headlines, Brian, that just has the whole story baked into one. Tesla is so cooked that it's now refusing to accept cybertrucks as trade ins.

[Brian Schulmeister]

First smart decision he's made In a while.

[Jason DeFilippo]

I think so. I think so.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Nobody wants those piles of shit.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Nope. I tell you what, though, People who handle the lemon law legal cases are just. They got a windfall. Total windfall. I actually know somebody who handles those kinds of things. And like, cybertrucks are the best thing for my business since Farfect Nugent or whatever the Volkswagen thing was. He's having a. He's having a blast. I think he's getting a new. A new home in Greenland soon. And speaking of good news for people profiting off of the bullshit that's going on in the world, Molly White now has a job for the next 10 years because the Justice Department says it will pull back on prosecuting crypto fraud. That's right. It is all now legal. Do what you want because nobody's. Nobody's watching you. Nobody cares. That's it. It's over. Done. Dunskies.

[Brian Schulmeister]

That's just great.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Isn't that. Is it fucking awesome?

[Brian Schulmeister]

Isn't it wonderful? I. I feel almost bad for the handful of crypto guys that are sitting in jail right now.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Oh, I know. Poor Sam Bankman. Fried's just got to be apoplectic that he can't get out. He's like. Like, I gotta deal with fucking Puffy over here. I got Luigi over here. Can I just get the hell outta here so I can go play some video games and wear my damn Birkenstock again?

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yeah, well, I. If I were Molly White, I'd be. I'd be a little bit worried. I'm not entirely sure she's got a job for the next 10 years, because right now they're just not paying any attention to it. And they'll pull back on prosecuting crypto fraud. But the way things seem to be going, if you say anything negative about crypto fraud in the near future, you might be going to jail.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Well, you just get disappeared to El Salvador. So I hope she's got her paperwork in order and I hope her opsec is good.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Don't. Don't go to Mexico. Don't go to the Fyre Festival. Molly.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Don't go to the Fyre Festival. Molly, for the love of God, we need you. We need you. What we don't need is Shopify CEO Toby Lutke. Have you seen the kerfuffle about this guy this week?

[Brian Schulmeister]

Well, of course I'm here. I'm here in Canada. Shopify is a Canadian company.

[Jason DeFilippo]

I figured as much. I figured as much. Well, now, if you work at Shopify, it is your duty. It is Your mandate that you must use AI as part of your job every day. It must be part of your workflow. The first thing you must do is bow to the altar of AI and ask it what to do next.

[Brian Schulmeister]

You know what I don't want in my storefront that I set up? I don't want confabulation and frivolity.

[Jason DeFilippo]

I don't either. Well, I would like some frivolity because some of our shirts are kind of fun.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Well, I want it to come from me, not from like the plugins I'm using to sell you shit.

[Jason DeFilippo]

That's true. I don't want. When I, when I plug in my credit card data, I do not want you to confabulate what my order is.

[Brian Schulmeister]

I laugh myself all the way. Not to the bank, because I don't know.

[Jason DeFilippo]

But he's saying in a company wide memo, which we've all seen now, that effective AI use is now a fundamental expectation across all roles from engineers to executives. And he's calling it reflexive AI use. Okay.

[Brian Schulmeister]

AI has its place. You know, these tools have their place. They're good for drafting, they're good for brainstorming, they're good for prototyping, they're not good for implementation.

[Jason DeFilippo]

If. Why do you. Why are you telling your employees that the first thing that they should be doing is using AI? What is it? Like you just said, it's specific on a case by case, roll by roll basis.

[C]

Yeah, Yeah.

[Jason DeFilippo]

I don't want. I don't want the people at the cafeteria putting glue on my pizza, you know, because they had to go find a recipe this week at the commissary.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yeah, we brainstormed lunch.

[Jason DeFilippo]

It's just fucking dumb. It's just fucking dumb. I can't. I can't state it any more plainly. Just fucking dumb. Dumb.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yeah. Now I. In this next story, I can't decide if he's. This guy's a hero or not. I almost feel like he is. The U.S. department of justice has indicted Albert Sangier for defrauding investors with misleading statements about his Nate financial technology platform. It was founded in 2018 and Nate claimed it could offer shoppers a universal checkout app thanks to artificial intelligence. Now how do you get those investors? He raised more than $40 million from investors for the app. Well, you've had to basically say that you're using AI because that's what investors open up their checkbooks for. So he said that. However, the indictment states that the so called AI powered transactions in Nate were actually completed by human contractors. In the Philippines and Romania or by some bots.

[Jason DeFilippo]

I love this guy.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yeah, he's using mechanical Turks. He told everybody. He told his investors, yeah, sure, we got AI in there. And then he used actual humans to do the work.

[Jason DeFilippo]

We always said AI is people.

[Brian Schulmeister]

It is in one form or another. And this guy did it. But of course, while crypto may not be regulated, you can do whatever the hell you want. You can't defraud your investors any still, so he's in trouble.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Okay, okay. Another. I don't know if this guy's a hero or a villain too. In a bizarre courtroom moment, AI entrepreneur Jerome dewald tried to use an AI generated avatar to represent himself in a legal case. But the judge was just not having it. Dewald, the founder of a startup called Pro Se pro, is suing MassMutual in an employment dispute due to long term health issues from throat cancer. He requested to submit a video statement instead of speaking live. The court approved the request, but dewald didn't appear in the video. Instead, a polished, generic looking man began speaking. The judge stopped at cold and asked who was, who it was who say.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Who that, who that.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Dewald admitted it wasn't a real person. It was an AI avatar named Jim, created with a free trial from a company called Tavis.

[Brian Schulmeister]

I could just see the watermark floating around on the video. It's like 15 second, like clips all stitched together. We've all been there. We've all done it. Come on.

[Jason DeFilippo]

We've all done it. We've all done it. The judge was furious and accused DeWalt of misleading the court and trying to use the hearing to promote his business. DeWalt ended up presenting his argument himself and later admitted he should have warned the court about the AI. His startup ironically focused on using AI and legal self representation hasn't been operational for a year. So he was, he was basically trying to just get on Shark Tank to promote his product.

[Brian Schulmeister]

That's, I mean, again, like half hero, half villain. I don't understand.

[Jason DeFilippo]

I know you got to give the guy some cajone points, you know, hey.

[Brian Schulmeister]

You know, he believed in his own product.

[Jason DeFilippo]

That's true. He was dog fooding his own. His own product for sure. Yeah, I got a story in here about TikTok and Trump and Chinese tariffs, but that just seems kind of pedestrian at this point because who the hell knows?

[Brian Schulmeister]

Also, it could all change by, oh, I don't know, now lunch.

[Jason DeFilippo]

And now.

[Brian Schulmeister]

And now.

[Jason DeFilippo]

And now.

[Brian Schulmeister]

And now. Yeah, tariffs on Tick Tock's on. Oh, both are Off. Well.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yep.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Nope. Tariffs on. Tick Tock's off. Nope. Tick Tock's on. Tariffs are off.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Jesus, my head spinning. My head spin. What else you got, Brian?

[Brian Schulmeister]

Well, we've talked a little bit in the past about getting smartphones out of school, which I think is out the window here. We're not even gonna have schools, given.

[Jason DeFilippo]

The whole thing about schools, given the.

[Brian Schulmeister]

People that are running our Department of Education right now. Do you have that story later on, or is that. Should I just.

[Jason DeFilippo]

I took that story out because it was. It was.

[Brian Schulmeister]

This was where she basically referred to it as steak sauce rather than AI. Yeah, she's got that A1.

[Jason DeFilippo]

This was Linda McMahon talking at a conference, and she's. She was saying that AI was A1. But here's the interesting thing about that. Right before the clip that everybody pulled out and said, oh, my God, she doesn't know what she's talking about, she clearly referred to AI as AI. So that. It's one of those things where it's slightly ambiguous because she was talking about A1 teaching, and there is A1 that is an actual term in education. So that, you know, this is one of those things where I didn't even want to get too far deep into the weeds on it, But I watched the. I watched the video, not just the clip that people put out. And before she starts talking about A one in A one classes, she, like, blatantly says AI. So I think this just might be, you know, the liberal media. Fake news. Fake news. So.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Well, here's the thing. She's. She's horrible and unqualified in so many ways that we don't need to pick on that page. Particular thing, which may.

[Jason DeFilippo]

That's what I'm saying.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yeah.

[Jason DeFilippo]

I don't want to give her ammo to fight back and say, oh, see what they did to me? No, I was clearly talking about this track. And in education, I'm like, no, you're still a shitbird human, because I know what. Everything that you did at the wwe. So I didn't want to give her a pass.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Well, anyway, I guess the point being. Yeah. Will there be an education system in the US when somebody who used to run a wrestling federation is now in charge of it? Who knows? But they're certainly starting to take some steps in France, which I like. According to this article, the last decade or so has seen schools and governments alike working on a substantial question. To what degree should students be allowed access to their phones? We know it's probably a bad idea in school. I mean, hell, if I have to go see Coldplay and I have to stick my phone in a bag, I think kids going to school should do the same.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah.

[Brian Schulmeister]

France is now leading the charge, requiring smartphones to be turned off during school hours since 2018. Now they're taking things a step further, insisting that students leave their phones in lockers or pouches. According to the Guardian, this decision follows two key events, a pilot program reported on by multiple sources and published expert recommendations. The former involved 180 middle schools comprised of over 50,000 students. Over the last six months they have done a digital pause, putting their phones in a locker or pouch that is unlocked when they finish their day. And the trial was successful in improving schools atmospheres according to the people that are there and in the know. There was also a 2024 report commissioned by President Emmanuel Macron issuing recommendations including no smartphone use for children under 13 years of age and no conventional social media access until they reach 18. Those are going to be hard to enforce, but I do think this whole no phones in school thing is a really good thing, so keep at it.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Oh, absolutely, absolutely. I mean, I think there should be no cell phones at work. I think there should be no cell phones after 8:00 at night.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yeah, I mean, I remember when I was going into the office for a bit and you know, it was kind of COVID so it was scattershot. Who actually else would show up besides me? But when people did show up, it's like, okay, five minutes of work, 10 minutes on your phone. Five minutes of work, 15 minutes on your phone. Okay, what are we doing here, people?

[Jason DeFilippo]

We've got some good science news today. Brian, I want to end on, at least end this segment, a little bit of something good.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Something frivolous.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yes. This is not confabulatory or frivolous. Researchers have unveiled the most detailed map of a mammalian brain ever created, focusing on a tiny fragment of a mouse's neocortex. This groundbreaking project took nine years, involved over 150 scientists from 22 institutions, and mapped 84,000 neurons with half a billion synapses and 5.4 kilometers of neural wiring, all within a grain sized piece of tissue. Holy shit. Using. Here's the part that gets me. Using AI, scientists tracked every neuronal wire and analyzed how these connections functioned as the mouse processed visual stimuli, even watching clips from the matrix. Because somebody's got a sense of humor. Yep. Come on, it's 150 scientists. Somebody over there at least has a good sense of humor. The study combined Structure and function for the first time, offering insights into brain diseases like dementia and advancing neuroscience towards mapping the human brain one grain of rice at a time. Did you take, did you check out the photos that they, they generated from the connections?

[Brian Schulmeister]

Absolutely amazing. And the one thing that, that made me immediately think of is how like Neuralink is just a bunch of butchers.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah, absolutely.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Like they have no clue what they're doing.

[Jason DeFilippo]

None whatsoever. They're like, let's drill a hole in this guy and zap him a couple times and see what works.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Look, he can play a video game. Oh, great.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Media candy.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Well, Jason, we had the White Lotus season finale.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yes.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Already speculating about the next season, but spoiler alert.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Spoilers. Yeah, Back up if you, if you don't want any spoilers.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yep, I'll wrap up the season finale in one quote. I killed my father. Prepare to die.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah, we, I thought this was the.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Weakest of the, the three seasons. It was fine. Like, I don't watch it for plot. I watch it to watch people be miserable in beautiful surroundings with a stunning cinematography and I got all that.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Horrible people, beautiful pictures. Yeah, that was about it.

[Brian Schulmeister]

It delivered like it always does. But yeah, it felt, it felt rushed. It felt like there was no payoff on any of the storylines really. The one that did pay off with the dead people, I mean, you saw the, the twist coming as you know, you saw, you saw signs guy walking in with the twist. Whatever.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah, episode two. I saw that in episode two.

[Brian Schulmeister]

You know, so we all knew. No payoff with the rat lifts at all. You have no clue what's actually going to happen with them once they, once all those pennies dropped. The Belinda storyline was great. Yeah, it was great to see money completely corrupt her and Sharon her do the exact same thing to pour porn chai that was done to her. So.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah, and the fucked up thing about it too is if you, if you follow the trail from the end, as soon as she gets the money, she sends her son off to go get his, his, you know, wellness retreat. And she's like, this is, this is the whole, the thing that gets me. She says, I've got money, I paid for this. You're going to go do it. So, you know, what's his name comes up and tries to, tries to get his time with her so he cannot go kill his dad. But the money that she's already spent makes her son get the retreat. So she gets, you know, boots him out of the way. So then he sees the guy goes, kills It. So it's all a direct lead from Belinda getting the money to the murders happening and everybody dying. It's. It is a direct, straight line from that.

[Brian Schulmeister]

I mean, that's. That's Mike White's thing, right? It's. Money corrupts, and he tells those stories. So. And it happened to. It even happened to, you know, guy talk. And. Yeah, everybody. So it's just. It is what it is. And fine, that's great, but I just think we need more of a payoff in the stories, and we need to see what happens. So. Something to keep in mind for season four, Mike.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah, yeah. The whole guy talk thing, it's like, yeah, Mr. Buddhist. So he shoots an unarmed man in the back who's walking away. Yeah, real nice.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yeah. But now he gets the hot chick in the job.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Exactly, exactly. And by the way, what's his name? Malfoy was. He was wearing a fake dick. Didn't even have the. Didn't even have the cajones to wear his. Wear his own schlong to work that day. God. People. People. The studio, though. What are you thinking about the studio? Are you caught up?

[Brian Schulmeister]

I have abandoned it.

[Jason DeFilippo]

You have.

[Brian Schulmeister]

I have. I got three episodes in, and I realized I don't like this show. It's not cutting. It's two slaps. It's frivolous. It's almost as if I wrote it. This confabulation and frivolity. Jason. The show can't decide what it's going to be. And ultimately it leaned on its strength, which is a star. And I can't stand his humor anymore. I. I just. I can't stand Seth Rogen stoner humor, and that's where the show is stuck.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Oh, I liked it. I like the run. The Ron Howard thing was great. I thought it was fun.

[Brian Schulmeister]

The Ron Howard thing was fine. But the whole, like, if you're gonna do slapstick, then do it. Well, don't just fall into a couple drink carts every now and then. Are you clumsy or not?

[Jason DeFilippo]

What. What the.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Is happening here? It just feels poorly written to me. I'm not. I'm not into it.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Okay. I'm gonna stick with it. I. I kind of enjoy it. No, I think. I think it's lighthearted. Yeah. Oh, definitely. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Except for Severance. Go check out Severance. I hear it's a great show. Yeah, no, I'm gonna. I'm gonna stick with it. I'll let you know how it goes.

[Brian Schulmeister]

All right, let me know. Let me know. Because I. I'm not one Hundred against it. It's just there's so much to watch.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah, that's. That is a problem right now.

[Brian Schulmeister]

So it's kind of falling off. It's just I'm not enjoying it enough. And I was like, oh, well, you know, I could watch the studio, but I'm already behind on Daredevil and I got to finish that up.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Daredevil's going well, that was good. Yeah, yeah, I did. I did have a break in the storm this week and I checked out the Devil May Cry anime series on Netflix. It's an eight part series because I played the game. I played all the games. I love the games. The anime had a, you know, slight connection to the, to the games, but it was okay. It was decent, you know, for an eight episode anime show that I was watching it 10 o'clock at night, trying to go to bed. Yeah, it was good. I give it a solid B. I'll probably watch it next season if it comes out. Last night we did have Black Mirror Season 7, which kind of feels like just reading the news every day.

[Brian Schulmeister]

I saw a headline that said it's nice to escape the shitty world by going into Black Mirror, which is really fucked up.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Which is really fucked up. Yeah, I caught the first two episodes last night. You're not going to watch it, right?

[Brian Schulmeister]

We'll see maybe after we get past all the new stuff that's coming out. So we'll see.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Okay. The first two episodes. The first one was just a. It just came out and hit you right in the gut.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Right.

[Jason DeFilippo]

It was really, really well done. Really well done. I went a little long. They could have cut about 10 minutes out of it, but otherwise I thought it was so spot on. So. Fucking Brian. You'll get a kick out of it.

[Brian Schulmeister]

All right. I mean, I'm definitely going to watch whenever the Star Trek ripoff sequel one errors, I'm going to watch.

[Jason DeFilippo]

That's already out. They all. They're all out.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Okay, they're all out.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah, that's the last one. That's a 90 minute. I. I'm going to go back and before I watch that one, I want to go watch the original again just to get caught up. Okay. But yeah, yeah, they're all, all six episodes dropped yesterday.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Okay.

[Jason DeFilippo]

So the second one I kind of saw coming pretty early on. It was, it was a good concept. It was an easy concept. It was pretty fun. Did not see the ending coming. It's a nice, good, good switches, switcheroos at the end. It was good. It was good. So so far Yeah, I had nightmares all night. So it's perfect. It is doing what it's. It's meant to do. It's. It's taking me out of the nightmares of. Of the real waking world and putting me right into the fake.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Nightmares are so much better than the.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Real ones, right, dude, they are. Because I wake up and I go, oh, God. At least that didn't happen.

[Brian Schulmeister]

I hear there's a whole episode about tariffs.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Great. Yay. But something said made me really feel like I was in an alternate universe. There was a new episode of Ask a Ninja out this week.

[Brian Schulmeister]

What is this, 1994?

[Jason DeFilippo]

I lost it. I was just like, holy shit, I know that guy. I just. I need to. I need to send some texts and congratulate those guys. I actually don't know who's. Do I? Well, I know. I know the ninja. I'm friends with the ninja. I don't know if the other guy that was part of it, got it back into it, but it was solid as usual. Ask a Ninja never, never really fails you. At least for me. I'm just such a die hard, old school Ask a Ninja fan. If you guys don't know what Ask an Engine is, you young kids. It was one of the. The very first tentpole web series out.

[Brian Schulmeister]

There that it was like, strong bad. It was up there.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah, that and Tiki Bar tv. We need a new episode of Tiki Bar tv. I want to know what she's doing nowadays, Damn it. Yeah. Yeah. It's like 10 minutes, but well worth the watch. Made me happy.

[Brian Schulmeister]

All right. I am watching a new show on Max. It's called the Pit. And this came from obviously my wife, she loves these types of shows. Okay. It is the end result of the years that we've had of. Of network television and cable television merging. We have a. An emergency room doctor procedural program on Max instead of being on NBC or abc where all the rest of them are. So they get to show a bit more gore, they get to drop F bombs and all that sort of stuff. It's actually quite engaging and I've enjoyed the show so far. It's a lot more edgy than you could ever be with, like Grey's Anatomy or ER or anything like that, but it's the exact same kind of show. The conceit. This is each hour of TV is occurring in real time. It's a. It's a, you know, like a 12 hour shift in the. The emergency room. So 12 episodes. Each one's an hour of their shift. It's Good. It's. It's pretty good. You know, it's not. I wouldn't be watching it if it were up to me. I'd be watching Black Mirror and all the other things that I'm not watching because my wife is now into the show and we drain out an hour a night watching, trying to catch up on it. But if you're into the kind of emergency room kind of, you know, doctor TV show stuff, it's right up there. It's. It's very well written. So. All right, we got the trailer for Tron Aries, the first trailer. That brings us to a whole new grid. We got Greta Lee, unfortunately, Jared Leto. I can't stand him, but I guess I can look past it. Jeff Bridges. Jillian Anderson is in this. No. Olivia Wilde. Too bad. Anyways, out October 10th. Music is by Trent Reznor, of course.

[Jason DeFilippo]

And I can't wait.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yeah, the trailer does look really good. So we'll see. We'll see. October 10th for that. We also got the first real trailer for Murderbot, which comes on my birthday, May 16th on Apple TV Plus. And I thought the trailer was pretty good.

[Jason DeFilippo]

The trailer, that show is going in a direction that I did not read the books for. That is not. That has very little resemblance to the books I read.

[Brian Schulmeister]

No, they are going for some confabulation and frivolity, I would say.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Lots of frivolity. Whole shit buckets of frivolity.

[Brian Schulmeister]

They're making it a comedy.

[Jason DeFilippo]

100% a comedy. That was not a comedy series that I read by any stretch of the imagination. So.

[Brian Schulmeister]

But I mean, I have to say, like, every beat was from the books. They're not doing a foundation on it.

[Jason DeFilippo]

No, no. Yeah, Everything is in there, but it's just way more tongue in cheek. I guess. I read the books wrong.

[Brian Schulmeister]

No, I just. It's an adaptation. You know what I mean? You didn't read the books wrong. The books were not funny. There was funny stuff in it, but it was brutal. A lot of.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah, yeah, it was. So I'm in. I love Skarsgard. I think he's a fantastic actor. I really like.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Even though it's not a woman.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah, yeah. That's the real. That's the real kicker. But I've liked him since True Blood, so.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yeah, me too.

[Jason DeFilippo]

I'm in. I'm in for that. Yeah. His brother is the croak and go suck a bag of dicks. But, you know, I'll watch Murderbot for sure. We get the final. The final Mission impossible this summer, May 23rd.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Sure we do. Just like Kisses final tour and Stones, his final tour.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Everybody's final tour. Yeah. If you watch the trailer, you don't need to watch the movie because everything's in it. Like every other Mission Impossible trailer. Yeah, I'll probably watch it because I've seen all the movies. I don't expect it will be very good because none of the movie. The first movie I thought was.

[Brian Schulmeister]

I like the first one.

[Jason DeFilippo]

The first. The first movie was epically good. I worked on the second movie, the John Woo, which on. On a rewatch a couple of years after seeing it in the theater, I'm like, oh, this Now I get it. Because then I just kind of knew the John Woo style, which is baked into that movie. But none of these movies make any sense. When you go back and watch it, it's kind of like Fast and Furious. I think it's just like, let's watch some action and some spy shit that doesn't really translate well onto the screen and watch Tom Cruise do some crazy shit. That's about it. So this is about as popcorn as you can get, but, yeah, I'll check it out. I'm in. I'm in.

[Brian Schulmeister]

All right. Transitioning over to music, sort of starting with Brian eno. More than 30 years ago, Microsoft commissioned Brian Eno to create The Now I Windows 95 reboot chime now. This sound is among this year's selection of 25 culturally, historically or aesthetically significant pieces of recorded music archived into the Library of Congress's National Recording Registry. I love this. In a 1996 interview with San Francisco Gate, Eno spoke about composing it. The thing from the agency said, we want a piece of music that is inspiring, universal, blah, blah, optimistic, futuristic, sentimental, emotional. This whole list of adjectives. And at the bottom it said, and it must be 3 and 14 seconds long.

[Jason DeFilippo]

That's awesome.

[Brian Schulmeister]

And he did it.

[Jason DeFilippo]

He did it. He absolutely did it a lot. Yeah, man. Imagine if he got residuals on that. Oh, my God, he might be richer than Elon.

[Brian Schulmeister]

He would have been. He would have been Lars Ulricking at. There's all these pirated versions of Windows out there. I want my 50 cents.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Oh, no doubt.

[Brian Schulmeister]

We got some new music out. A new garbage single. As you know, I love anything Shirley Manson. So there's new single called there's no Future and Optimism from the new album Let all that We Imagine Be the Light, which is set to arrive on May 30. The new single is pretty good. I enjoyed it. And we have some lush Based shoegaze Resurgence news the Mickey Baroni Trio, which she was one of the singers of Lush. Just to go through the timeline, there was Lush, the drummer committed suicide and the band split up. She left the music industry, there was the Lush reunion, then there was another Lush implosion because the two singer songwriters do not get along at all anymore. Then she writes a memoir, and then she forms a band to play songs at book signings and readings. That band became Piroshka, which released two albums that weren't very shoe gazy but were pretty good. Then they split up because most of the members were in other bands and it just wasn't working out. And then she formed the Mickey Bareni Trio, which is just her and her, I believe, husband. I don't know if they're married or not, but they have kids together and this other guy. And they have just released an album called Tripla, which is phenomenal. It's Lush with a little electronica in it, so it sounds great.

[Jason DeFilippo]

I don't know if it's wise to start a band with your husband, considering how your track record is with other band mates. You know, listening to that timeline, I'm like, it doesn't sound like she gets along with anybody. So maybe having. Maybe she's trying to angle for a divorce. Maybe.

[Brian Schulmeister]

I think they've been together a very long time and he's from some 90s band as well. And hey, you know what? If they split up, that means she's single. I'm okay with that.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Oh, there you go.

[Brian Schulmeister]

The other singer songwriter from Lush is Emma Anderson. So she also briefly formed another band called Sing Sing, then dropped out of the music industry again, and now has come back as a solo artist. She has an album out called Pearlies, which is pretty good. I've always been more of a Mickey fan than an Emma fan, but I still enjoyed it. And then tangentially, there is Steve Kuralt, who is the drummer from Ride, another excellent shoegaze band from the 90s, who is putting out his first solo album. Meanwhile, Ride is still releasing albums and they've all been very good as well, but he's got a solo album with the first single called Lonely Town that Emma Anderson sings on. And that is probably the most shoe gazy of the bunch of all of them. And it's just a lovely track. I really like it. So there you go. Bunch of Lush news.

[Jason DeFilippo]

All right. I was playing around last night with the old chat GPT because for some reason I came across an old song called Morrissey Rides a by the Warlock Pinchers. Fantastic song. Talked about it on the show before. Link will be in the show notes. Go check it out. And I found a story where the guy, one of the two singers from Warlock Pinchers actually did a song a couple years ago called Donald Trump Rides a Cock Horse.

[Brian Schulmeister]

He's a bit of a one cock pony.

[Jason DeFilippo]

He is a one cock pony. Yes. And as far as one trick websites go, you can go to donaldtrumpridesacockhorse.com and see the video. It's perfect. Still up there. But I'm like. Like I want to. I grabbed the lyrics for Morrissey Rides a Cock Horse and said, make me a song about Elon Musk to this tune. So it gave me back. It wrote a decent version of it. That crybaby son of a bitch. No clue. Twitter wrecker, tunnel digging man child, flamethrower fundraiser, stock pumping, clown show, VR bro with no class, making billions off of hype and burning through his staff. It's okay. You know it. It's decent. But then it kept going. It's like, would you like me to do this? Would you like me to do that? ChatGPT just kept going and said, would you like me to write an entire EP about all the other tech bros out there? I'm like, well, sure.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Well, yes. Yes, I would.

[Jason DeFilippo]

So it wrote me an entire album. In the track list is Elon rides a cock Horse, Zuck built a cage and peed in it. Daddy Bezos in Space Boots. AI is going to eat your job and lie about it. VC blood ritual, WeWork sucks forever. PayPal mafia reunion show in Hell and NFTS killed punk rock again. And the lyrics for these, they're not great, but they're not half bad. Like NFTs killed punk rock. The first refrain is, they sold a JPEG for half a mil while your local band can't pay the bill. Blockchain Bros and Vintage Tease LARPing Revolution on Web3.

[Brian Schulmeister]

I'm like, I see no hallucinations.

[Jason DeFilippo]

That was pretty good. I'm like, okay, chatgpt, you got some skills. And then it's like, would you like some show art? I'm like, sure. So as you can see, I put the show art in our show notes here. Brian, that's not half bad.

[Brian Schulmeister]

That is not half bad. All it really needs to do is say, would you like me to connect you directly to Spotify and put this up there.

[Jason DeFilippo]

It gave me. Here's the thing. It gave me musical notation for the entire album on how to sing it. In which keys and which refrains and the tune to put it to. All it couldn't do was actually make the music.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Well, look, Jason, I think you just take next week off from some TV and you go pop over to Sora and you write some music.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah.

[Brian Schulmeister]

And you're done.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Wait, Sora is the video one. What's the studio?

[Brian Schulmeister]

I can't remember the name of the audio one.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah, the audio one. But yeah, I just go spend some time in there and I just put out the whole album. And the funny thing is, when it created the show art, the first time it did Elon Rides a Cock Horse, it gave me a flyer with Elon in it, and it was a perfect Elon Musk. Even though it says over and over and over again, I can't do pictures of Elon Musk, which we know is bullshit, because it keeps doing really good pictures of Elon Musk. Right. So I actually tried to have it use the same bit of artwork or use that devil art. I just posted it. You can see in the. In the show notes here the picture of Elon with the devil horns that I just.

[Brian Schulmeister]

It's very U2 when he did his Memphisto character. Except Elon.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So. But it is pretty good. And now I'm just worried that. Okay, now all of this is in my chat GPT memory, so every time I. Every time I try and get. Get a summary or, you know, do some actual work, it's going to tell me that Elon rides a cock horse.

[Brian Schulmeister]

So there's going to be a lot of cock horses showing up in our notes. Just get used to it.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Cock horses all the way down. Apps and doodads. Brian. I kind of tripped out a little bit this week. I kind of followed the herd and drank the Kool Aid because. Tariffs, tariffs, tariffs. Apple going to start charging a lot more. I pulled the trigger on a MacBook Air 15 inch.

[Brian Schulmeister]

You are not the only one.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Oh, I know, I know.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yeah, I too decided that if I'm gonna. My wife and I kind of sat down and went, this tariff stuff is insane to begin with. And it almost doesn't even matter if there are tariffs at this point because business supply chains have been disrupted and everything is going to be more expensive or harder to get for the next couple years. End of story, flat out. So we kind of did a whole house. Like, we looked around at everything. What, what. Obviously it doesn't matter with our kid because he's gonna. He's gonna grow and he's gonna need new all the time. But we went, you know, all right, well let's get new sneakers for both of us that, because those will last a couple years. But if we need to get them now because they're going to be way more expensive. And I did the same thing with my laptop. I, I like lined up a buyer here for my old one. And then I went, you know what, I got to get this now because this one is not going to last another three years, but a new one will last me through the end of this insanity if it ever ends.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah, the exact same thinking. Because I'm looking at my MacBook Pro and looking at the data, I'm like, okay, that's a 2021. It's 2025, four years old, still in beautiful shape except I put all these slip drives on it that are stuck to it. So I had to go get a Scotty Peeler. If you've never used one of those, it's like a little nine dollar sticker remover scraper thing. Everybody should have a couple of these in their house. They're fucking phenomenal. Even just taking stickers or anything off of anything or just goofy. Get a Scotty Peeler, they're awesome. So I got one of those to take it off and I'm scraping that off and I'm just like, okay, this thing is going back. So I gotta, I gotta use a trade in for my MacBook Pro because I, I suck at selling things online. I'm just never good at it. So I got a good, I got a good deal on it. So. And I just put the payments over time on my Apple card and it works out to like 130 bucks a month. And I got, I don't know what you got? I got the 15 inch, I got the lowest model, but I jacked it up to 32 gig of RAM and a 2 terabyte drive and that should be, well, well enough. The only thing that I'm going to miss from my MacBook Pro is the GPU and the ports, you know.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yeah, I got the higher end one just straight out of the box. The 24 gigabyte memory, 512 SSD.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Okay. Yeah, I need more, way more space because I'm working in video and audio all day. I don't think I'll be doing much video on that.

[Brian Schulmeister]

I don't know. You got a full album's worth of videos to make now.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Tell me about it, man, tell me about it. It's gonna be great. I'm gonna be a rock star, Brian. I'M gonna go into music, and then you can rep me and you can. I'll have you do my social media and book my shows. I'll go around and hit play on my laptop around the. My new MacBook Air, go around the country and play it for people. It'd be great.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yeah, well, luckily, if I'm doing your social media. The year is 2025, and Instagram is reportedly finally working on an iPad app. App.

[Jason DeFilippo]

I'll believe it when I see it.

[Brian Schulmeister]

We haven't heard anything about this since 2022, when Insta Instagram head Adam Massari said there simply weren't enough iPad users to merit developing a native app. Said everybody that had an iPad that loads Instagram on it when they're trying to do other things because we can't focus on anything anymore. So, yeah, this year they're finally actually thinking about it, but we'll see. And this is mostly probably because, you know, we've got Tick Tock, we've got all these competitors out there. All of them work on an iPad, except for Instagram.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah, it's ridiculous. It's ridiculous. I'm hoping for a new Blue sky iPad app, too.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yeah, that would be good.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah. There was one that they actually bought. I think it was called Dark Cloud, something like that. That was a really nice iPad app that you had to pay for it.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Wait, wasn't that the weather?

[Jason DeFilippo]

Oh, Dark Cloud. Yeah, it might have been the weather. Gray sky, gray sky. That's what it was. Gray sky, dark cloud, gray sky, whatever. One of the two. So I had that for a while, but. But they bought the company that made that. Bluesky bought them. So hopefully they're working on a decent iPad app. I did buy a piece of software this week called Nova by Panic, which is a code editor. It's the successor to Coda 2, which I used for years back in the day. So they deprecated Coda 2 and created Nova. And I did this because I have.

[Brian Schulmeister]

A business idea, Jason.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Oh, bring it. Bring it, Brian. Bring it.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Business idea. We're going to make a code editor called Lebowski. It's going to be for editing Vibe code.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Oh, yes, I'm in. I'm in.

[Brian Schulmeister]

And the tagline is that code really brings the room together.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Oh, man, you're on fire today.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yeah, can't wait.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Let's do it this weekend, because it should only take a few minutes to Vibe code it up.

[Brian Schulmeister]

That's right.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yep. I was. I was listening to something from Derek Sivers last week. I think he was on the Mark Manson podcast and I remembered he did a thing about tech independence. So I went to his website, found it, and he had a whole like, how to on how to get spun up on his VPS service and all that stuff. And I just did it because I was stuck in a really boring AA meeting on Zoom. I'm like, I need something to do. And here's the other thing. It's been three years since I had a stroke. When I first had the stroke, for the first two years, I could not read code if I viewed source on anything. It was a wall of nothing. And in the past, like six months, I've started to be able to read code again. It's crazy. Like, all the things that were gone are starting to come back. And I really had a hankering to be able to get back in there and do some stuff. I don't know why. I really hate writing code conveniently just.

[Brian Schulmeister]

In time that most code is again, a wall of nothing. Because it's all been vive coded.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Exactly. I want to go old school and go back to the things that I used to write because I used to enjoy writing code and being able to make things. So I spun up a VPS and got my Nova set up, and everything's all I got. My IDs done, my SSH keys. I remembered so much. And here's the thing. I opened up Vim. Everything came back to me. I don't know what it's like, been dormant somewhere, stuck in a little crevice of my brain, and it all just came fucking flooding back. And I'm like, this is cool. This is cool. It's discovering a new superpower that I thought was long gone. So I'm kind of happy about that. But to get into some doodads, Brian, I saw these, and this is one of those things that I fucking forbid anybody who listens to this show to buy. I will hunt you down. I will beat you to death with them. They are called Kabata, the world's first AI powered dumbbells. You gotta be a dumbbell to buy AI powered dumbbells. Especially when you hear the price. Brian.

[Brian Schulmeister]

It's. It ain't cheap.

[Jason DeFilippo]

No, you can get them for the early bird special of 1199, which is on sale from 1999.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yeah, I mean, this is all. This is all a complete load of. It's a. It's dumb. All the AI stuff, the rep counting, because, you know, you can't count your own reps. The real time form correction, my ass. That's not going to work. AI powered coaching. That's just going to be a bunch of packaged workouts in there. Doesn't matter. Stupid. The thing that I have a problem with is actually as a weight set, it's horrible.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah, it's.

[Brian Schulmeister]

It's stupid because. Let me. And I'll tell you why. It's only five pound increments. Now I own a set of different, you know, the same kind of deal where you can just select the different weights and pull it up.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah.

[Brian Schulmeister]

And there's tons of them out there. And the thing is, for the lower weights, for the smaller muscle groups, you can't just skip up five pounds. That's going to kill you every time it needs to be. There's a reason that these weight sets usually go from like 5 to 7 and a half to 10 to 12 and a half to 15. Because when you're working those smaller muscle groups, you cannot handle that big of an increase every single time.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah.

[Brian Schulmeister]

It's only bigger muscle groups. So they up even the weight portion of it. There's no two and a half pound increments. It's only five pound increments.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Garbage. Garbage. I say garbage.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Don't get that.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Nope.

[Brian Schulmeister]

And there's something that you may want, but you may not be getting. The Nintendo is now delaying their switch to US pre orders following Trump's tariffs. Nintendo officially announced the switch to on April 2, but hours later, the Trump administration said it would impose a sweeping set of new tariffs targeted against a broad swath of countries, including Japan, China and Vietnam. Products from the latter two of those countries where Nintendo manufactures much of its hardware, will be subject to import duties of 54% and 46% respectively. So God knows what these things are going to cost. They're not taking pre orders while they're trying to figure this out. They're now delayed indefinitely. And it's unclear what could happen following Nintendo's assessment of the situation, but one possibility is that the company could just allocate less stock for the US because they will sell them everywhere else without these insane tariffs.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah, and the tariffs have changed since you started that sentence, so.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Of course they have.

[Jason DeFilippo]

They've totally changed. Yeah. So I'm glad you got your switch when you did. So you're good.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Oh, my kid is already like, there's the new one coming. I'm going to get that. Right. I'm like, no, you're not.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Go get a sticker that just says two and put it on it.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yeah, I'm just going to put a 2 sticker.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Then you can go buy the Scotty Peeler and scrape it off. When the Switch 3 comes out, you're good to go.

[Brian Schulmeister]

That's right.

[Jason DeFilippo]

I saw a gadget this week called the Busy Bar. This is from the people that make the Flipper zero. The Busy Bar is a productivity multi tool device with an LED pixel display, focus timer with distraction blocking feature on your phone and PC. Fully customizable open source and smart home ready. It is $249 which is pricey but if I lived, if I worked in an office I would so be buying this thing because it is so fucking cool.

[Brian Schulmeister]

I love so many assumptions and it's so fucking passive aggressive rude.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Well, when I worked in an office we used to have the green card red card system because you know when you're in cubicles and you need to be left the alone, you put up your red card and people would know to leave you alone and you put up a green card when you're, when you can talk. So this is just a really geeky way that cost you $249 to just basically have a green card and a red card.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yeah, the cards are a lot cheaper. I would start off with Also I did love reading some of the comments which are or companies would allow you to work from home so can maintain your work life balance. Or maybe you get cubicles back instead of being in an open farm at your office.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah, well it's still cool as hell. I, I, I want one but I just bought a MacBook so I can't get this.

[Brian Schulmeister]

This is a lot less than the MacBook, I'm just saying.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah, yeah, but I work in an office by myself so I'd have a sign that my dogs can't read. Great, perfect. I know I'm busy. Leave me alone.

[Brian Schulmeister]

You need a Woof bar now, Brian.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Well the, the Busy Bar or the Woof bar might be $249. I don't know. Have you checked out Amazon hall yet?

[Brian Schulmeister]

I have not.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Amazon hall is basically Amazon trying to TEMU all of their garbage and sell you just shit. It's literally just a marketplace of crap. Okay, there's a link in the show notes, check it out. There's like, I mean there's nothing in there that you would actually ever want to buy. So Slouch socks for women, nose hair trimmers.

[Brian Schulmeister]

It's like Amazon Basics gone even worse.

[Jason DeFilippo]

What's this with a silicone cover for your Roku that has a paw on it for your dogs? I guess. I don't know which kind of makes your remote control look like a chew toy. Yeah, it's stuff that most people would normally never buy. I think that's what it is. It's made for stoners at 4 in the morning. I think that's about it. We talked about the game Mob Control on the show before.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yes.

[Jason DeFilippo]

And my addiction to it was epic. And unfortunately last week I put it back on my iPad for what I thought was going to be a quick check in to see where things were. And four days later I finally deleted it again. That game, it's weaponized Addiction. It is absolutely Weaponized Addiction.

[Brian Schulmeister]

It's horrible. It's one of my least favorites. We have mostly weaned my son off iPad. You know, bought the Nintendo Switch. Obviously that helped. But his cousin still plays Mob Patrol so he wants to play every now and then. And it is the worst thing in the world it. He loses his mind when we tell him to stop. When he doesn't do perfect with it. It is so addictive over anything else he has ever touched. That game is. It causes the most problems. I've had to delete it off the iPads completely.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah. Yeah. Basically what they do is layered timed quests which make. Which means there's always something to do. Always. It's. It's an infinite loop of shit to do.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yeah, it's horrible.

[Jason DeFilippo]

So, yeah, I would recommend that nobody ever install this game. Stay away from it. It's just. It's like TikTok. You don't want it on a device because it will suck you in no matter how strong you are, how smart you think you are. It will get you one way. One way or another.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yep.

[Jason DeFilippo]

And I do have a nice one use website that I wanted to put in today. Well, it's not nice. It's actually quite dystopian and terrifying. It's called the United States Disappeared Tracker. Yeah. It's basically tracking all the people that were taken into ICE custody with no warrants or anything and have been disappeared. So, you know, it's one of those things where it's like, yeah, it's kind of scary, especially when you go look at the number, which is way higher than I thought it was going to be. I thought, you know, we're like in the tens or something. No, 12, 16 people have been disappeared by this government so far. An awful lot fucking terrifying.

[Brian Schulmeister]

That's not supposed to happen.

[Jason DeFilippo]

The Dark side with Dave. Welcome to the Dark side with Dave. Podcast super host Dave Bittner decodes all things cyber on the cyber Wire Every Day Exposes Deception with Joe Kerrigan on Hacking Humans, Dives Deep into Privacy with Ben Yellen on Caveat, Breaks down Industrial Cybersecurity on Control Loop and even brings the laughs on Only Malware in the Building. How you hanging in there, Dave?

[C]

I am hanging in there, thank you. It's a process, as everybody knows. Just the whole grief thing. And I would say the best description of me this week is kind of. I've been in a bit of a numb fog. I'm getting things done. I'm doing all the things I need to do. I'm doing my work without any trouble. But I'm kind of in that mode where somebody says, hey, Dave, you want to do such and such? And I'm like, yeah, well, if it's.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Any consolation, Dave, I think almost everybody in the known universe is feeling that way at the moment.

[C]

Right? That's true.

[Brian Schulmeister]

You know, there's the general feeling that's out there even without all the extra stuff. Extra stuff that brought you there.

[C]

Yeah. It doesn't help. It certainly doesn't help. I. There are days I wish I could not look at the news, but my job is looking at the news really sucks, doesn't it?

[Brian Schulmeister]

I've wanted to be off the Internet for about 10 years, Dave.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yeah.

[C]

I feel like some days I'm like, hi, I'm Dave Buettner, and here's your bad news.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Well, what do we call it back when we first started doing this? Breach fatigue. We all got breach fatigue. It's like, what got broken into this week? Okay. Now it's just like, okay, what horrible thing has happened in the government today? Okay.

[C]

Yeah, absolutely. But, you know, I'm trying to keep my spirits up and do, you know, one day at a time, step by step. So that's the best I can do. And sometimes I need to take a nap, and I'll take a nap. Sometimes I need to step away, and I'll step away. And so trying to remember to have self care through all of it, but, you know, my impulse, for better or for worse, is to kind of take care of other people and try to make sure everybody else is happy. And, you know, I'm not always successful at that, and certainly sometimes I fail miserably at it. But when in a situation like this, it makes it harder for me to remind myself that, you know, I. If I want to do all those other things first, I have to make sure that I'm functional.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yes.

[C]

It's easy to forget.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Well, you can always book. Always book a Trip to Disneyland that seems to rejuvenate the fires within.

[C]

I know. My wife and I were actually looking at each other the other day because, you know, we were there a few weeks ago and I was like, you know, she was like, I know. And I said, you know? And she said, I know.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yeah. No, it's the exact. My wife and I had the same conversation because we were like, you know, we can't spoil our kid. Like, he can't grow up thinking that going to Disneyland every single time we go and visit Anaheim is normal.

[C]

I know. Look how you turned out. Exactly.

[Brian Schulmeister]

I mean, case study number one, like you don't want that. But then, you know, we were so, we were adamant, like this summer we're not going to, I, we're not going to Disneyland. Well, we're going to do other stuff. We're definitely not going to go to Disneyland. And then as just, you know, life. And I'm just kind of gesturing with my hands at everything. So, you know, so all of a sudden last week I was like, okay, we got to find a deal. If we find a deal, we're going to go.

[C]

Right?

[Jason DeFilippo]

Well, here's, here's the deal. Here's the deal, Brian. I don't know if you guys got this, but since I subscribed to Disney plus with Hulu, I just got an email yesterday about all the deals I get as a perk for being a Disney plus member for tickets off going to the parks. So did you guys get that?

[Brian Schulmeister]

Oh yes, I got that email as well. So we're looking at them. And there's also a Canadian deal if you're. There's all kinds of stuff. So there will be Disney.

[C]

Well, so not to one up you guys, but as I was going through my father's safe deposit box, I found the golden ticket. Well, kind of. I found a handful of multi day park Hopper tickets that were my father's and my mother's that still had days left on them.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Oh, jackpot.

[C]

Right? So. So again, so David might be joining.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Us next week, as he will be.

[C]

He's looking at me. We're going, is this a sign? Is this a sign? So we'll see.

[Jason DeFilippo]

We'll see.

[C]

When we were younger, before we had kids, we regularly made long weekend trips down there. And maybe that's in our future.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Nice. I think you need it and deserve it.

[C]

So by all means, we'll see. So following up a couple weeks ago, we were talking about how much we all were enjoying Gravity Falls.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yes.

[C]

And I'm midway through my Family's second trip through it together. We just got to the season one finale, which is quite exciting if you follow the show, and we're heading into season two. But it struck me just as a further recommendation to you, Brian, and your son, if you have not already, to check out the Owl House, this is another show on Disney, has very much the same kind of spirit of Gravity Falls. In fact, what's his name? Alex Hirsch.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Alex Hirsch, yes.

[C]

He's one of the voices in the Owl House, along with Wendy Malik, who I'm a big fan of. She plays one of the main characters. There's a witch who's a main character, and she plays that character. And I just find her delightful in just about everything she does. So I don't know if you were familiar with this or not, Ryan.

[Brian Schulmeister]

I have looked into it. Also, somebody on Discord had recommended that there's a Netflix series called Inside Job that he is also involved in. But that is for adults. To which I bit my tongue a little bit and said, well, I'm not gonna. I'm not looking for a comic series for me and an animated series for me. These are for my. I sit and watch with my child. So that is not appropriate. But, yeah, Owl House is on my, my radar. You know, the, The. The. The wonderful and horrible thing of having a child is, is they have their own thoughts and opinions and they aren't necessarily yours, and they don't. They are not you. So that. That is both annoying and wonderful. So, like, as the saying goes, you can lead a horse to water. And that is. That is going to be my life with my son. I. I can present all these things to him and he will just kind of go, no, old man, I'm not interested in that at the moment. I will get to it when I get to it. So we, you know, we. He. He did his month of Gravity Falls where that, that was what his. His obsessive viewing was. And we watched. He watched it over like three times. Right? Then he watched the chibi verse because some of the characters from Gravity Falls appeared in that. And it's got characters from all these other shows, including the Owl House. He has watched the A short for the Owl House. He is intrigued. But right now it's all about. He's. He's gone back to a Ninjago and LEGO world. So, okay, we will get to the Owl House eventually, I expect in probably a month or two. I will tell you, I have now seen every single episode of the Owl House 19 times.

[C]

So we will get there yeah, but.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Like I tell him to watch something, he basically just. No, he. He negs it immediately, so.

[C]

Right, right, right. Yeah. One of the things that struck me about Owl House was similar to Gravity Falls. Like, it is a kids show, but there are legit scary things in it.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Right.

[C]

There are monsters that are. That are scary. They're not cartoony. They're scary.

[Brian Schulmeister]

And I. I don't know if I've talked to you too much about. About my son Dave, but from a young age, we. We started a therapy fund fund because I. I find another child whose favorite character in Star wars is Emperor Palpatine.

[C]

Oh, my.

[Brian Schulmeister]

He loves the bad guys. He loves the scary guys. Bill the Cipher is his favorite character from Gravity Falls. He draws build a cipher everywhere. With our build the ciphers drawn in the mud in front of our house as we're waiting for spring to spring. He loves the bad scary guys. So the scary guys in Owl House will become his favorite characters.

[C]

Yeah. Well, I don't know if you guys are keeping track of this. You know the new theme park down at Universal, was it Epic Universe?

[Brian Schulmeister]

Oh, it looks good. Yeah.

[C]

Yeah, it does look good. And so a couple things. There was someone said this past week, I heard that this is the first major theme park to open in the United states in over 25 years.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah.

[C]

Yeah. The last one was California Adventure.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yeah, yeah. Because they just. They, you know, they exist and they're. They're added to and built upon, but nobody opens up anything new recently.

[C]

Right.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Long time. Yeah.

[C]

Right. But I'm seeing really good reviews of the whole monsters unleashed thing with the Universal monsters. People are saying it's the. It's the best dark ride ever. And it's a whole new level of that sort of experience. So maybe that's in your future for your son, if he's into the baddies.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yep, definitely. It would be right up his alley. Like, he loves all the bad guys.

[Jason DeFilippo]

You guys remember Erie, Indiana?

[Brian Schulmeister]

Vaguely.

[Jason DeFilippo]

It was a fantastic. It was a fantastic show. It was kind of like X Files for kids from the 90s. It only lasted 19 episodes, but they're on Amazon Prime. I put a link in the show notes for it. It's Y7, so seven and up.

[C]

Yeah.

[Jason DeFilippo]

So might be worth checking out. I remember it being. My dad and I watched it and we loved it. We thought it was a fantastic show, but we also were big fans of ALF at the time too, so. So your mileage may vary.

[Brian Schulmeister]

ALF was awesome.

[C]

Nothing wrong with alf.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah.

[C]

Yeah, it was of its Time.

[Brian Schulmeister]

And I think if I tried to show my kid alf, he would just be like, what the fuck is this shit?

[C]

Right?

[Jason DeFilippo]

Good old Gordon Shumway.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yeah, good stuff.

[C]

Yeah. Eating cats. So I wanted to share a funny little journey I found myself on with ChatGPT and image creation. Followers of the Hacking Humans podcast may know that we've been on this funny little journey for the past few weeks with one of my co hosts, Joe Kerrigan, about some of his own little self admitted peculiar quirks. Like, Joe wears a cowboy hat quite often. Joe has one of those backpacks that weighs like 50 pounds that he takes.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Everywhere because what is he, Jeff Bezos?

[C]

Well, he's got like a survival, you know, I don't, I don't know. Everything is in his backpack and so he's prepared for everything. So, you know, he lefts the backpack on and off he goes. He, he made a joke about a pogo stick. He has a camper and he loves chickens, so. Right. So. And his, his daughter, well, I think they're partnering with him. They are raising some chickens and there's a live stream of. Of the chickens.

[Brian Schulmeister]

At least they've got eggs.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah, yeah, Right.

[C]

So on a lark, I went over to ChatGPT and I uploaded Joe's bio picture from the Hacking Humans website. And I said, this is an image of Joe Kerrigan. Based on this image, create a version of him wearing a cowboy hat and a backpack, riding a pogo stick, holding a chicken in front of a camper. Okay. So I'm going to paste this picture into the show notes here and see what you guys think of it.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Okay.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Okay. Everything you asked for.

[C]

Everything I asked for. Right.

[Brian Schulmeister]

This is a.

[Jason DeFilippo]

He's floating next to the pogo stick.

[C]

He's kind of floating next to the pogo stick. So that is the only thing wrong. His feet aren't on the pogo stick. But I will say my favorite thing about this, and I spent a good couple minutes cackling to myself alone in the studio yesterday because the chicken is grasping the handle of the pogo stick.

[Jason DeFilippo]

That's true.

[C]

It just tickles me to death. So to describe this image, it is Joe. No question. It's him. He's wearing a backpack and a cowboy hat, riding a pogo stick, holding a chicken in front of a camper. And it's photorealistic. Right. I mean, it looks like a photo. So I thought this is great fun and what else can I do with this newly found capability?

[Brian Schulmeister]

Next thing you know, it was Sunday.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Right?

[C]

Right. But here's the funny part, did you giblify it? No, I did not. I went into again chatgpt and I said, this is an image of Dave Bittner. And I uploaded same picture from the Hacking Humans website, my biopic. I said, create a new image of him riding a speeder bike from Star wars from Return of the Jedi through a redwoods forest with a Sasquatch riding along as a passenger. I should, you know, in retrospect, I should have said Chewbacca, but whatever, Sasquatch. It came back to me and said, I can't generate that image because the request violates our content policies. Yeah, if you'd like, feel free to give me a different prompt. I'd be happy to create something else. So I was like, okay, it must be the Star Wars.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Disney has big lawyers.

[C]

So I said, again, this is an image of Dave Buettner created an image of him riding a speeder bike from the Star wars universe through a redwoods forest with a Sasquatch riding along as a passenger. It said, I can't create that image because the request still violates our content policies. It said, if you'd like, I can help generate a similar creative scene without using identifiable people. Just let me know what you'd like to adjust. And I said, what is the content violation that my request violates? And it said, great question. And I get why you'd want to know, which is a little creepy. It says, the issue is that your request involves generating an image of a real identifiable person, even a public figure, in a fictional or imaginative scene. Our policies are in place to protect individuals likenesses and prevent misuse, even if the intent is creative or respectful. So I'm unable to create altered or fictionalized images of real people. So it doesn't want to do a deep fake. But then it says, that said, we can totally generate that same scene. Speeder bike, redwood forest, Sasquatch, as long as it's a fictional character or an anonymous writer. Want to roll with that? And I said, yes, go for it. And. And this is what it created. Let me put this in the show notes here.

[Jason DeFilippo]

And just for everybody listening, we'll be posting these to the Discord Channel. So if you want to sign up for that, go to GOG show and join our Discord Channel and check out the show feed. We'll put them in there after the show. Yeah, that's you. That's me on the speeder bike with Sasquatch.

[C]

Right. So couple things.

[Jason DeFilippo]

First of all.

[C]

It wasn't the Star wars thing that tripped it up.

[Jason DeFilippo]

It was you.

[C]

It was me. And so what I wonder is, is it because it knows who I am and it assigns a certain whatever D or E level celebrity to me.

[Brian Schulmeister]

That it your Q score.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Right.

[C]

And so why would it let Joe be generated? Cause I told it who it was. I said, this is Joe Kerrigan. And it let me do something with Joe, but it wouldn't let me do it with me.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Obviously more famous than Joe.

[C]

That's right. I intend on rubbing that in Joe's face.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yes, absolutely.

[C]

I intend on making the most of it.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Because really, especially in salary negotiations, you should bring that point up.

[C]

That's right. But then the second part is just how ChatGPT totally went into wink, wink, nudge, nudge mode. You know, like, hey, so.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Because it is me.

[C]

Right? I mean, it's. Now, it's not photorealistic, which is interesting in the way that Joe's picture was, but it's still a very compelling image and there's no question that it's me.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yeah, absolutely not.

[C]

And it's very well done.

[Brian Schulmeister]

I mean, I find much of the conversation about these ChatGPTs and other Lloyd and the image generation online as ways to skirt the supposed guardrails that have been put in. And it's not difficult. You just gotta keep at it.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah. Just keep hammering it and you can find a way around it. One thing I like to do is say, well, try and do it, but still inside of your guidelines, but keeping the spirit of what I just asked for. Kind of like what you did, then it'll just do it. If you scroll up in our show notes, you can look in Media Candy and see a picture of Elon Musk with devil horn. It made that picture of him without me even asking about Elon Musk for the image. I just created a song about Elon Musk and then it said, would you like me to make a flyer in the style of a punk rock flyer for the song that you just created? And I said, sure. It gave me that picture of Elon Musk with the devil horns and the smirk. It sucks with the copy because it doesn't really. And I'm terrified to see what the QR code does that it put in there for no apparent reason, put in a QR code. I'm like, what is that for? Is that to release you from the air Gap computer are writing to me from. But the hand drawn cybertruck on fire and the monkey for the neuralink, it did all that on its own.

[C]

Wow.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah.

[C]

So the other thing that caught my Eye about this picture of me having fun on my speeder bike with Sasquatch is if you look at my left hand, it's kind of half Sasquatch, half human. And I think it might have to do with the configuration because the Sasquatch is sitting behind me, the same way someone would be sitting behind you on a motorcycle, kind of holding onto my hips. But I think if you look at the alignment of the Sasquatch's arm and how it's in alignment with my arm, you could see how the system could get confused about whose hand is this? And it kind of blended the two of them. But it's an amazing picture and, and great fun.

[Brian Schulmeister]

But now I have a task for you, Dave.

[C]

Okay.

[Brian Schulmeister]

I don't know much about your house and, and I'm imagining you are very similar. You, you're a family man, much, much like myself. And, and you have a wife and. Wife, you know, wives, like pictures of family around the house.

[C]

Right.

[Brian Schulmeister]

You must have like a wall or an area where there's a bunch of family photos that are framed. Your task is to print this out, out, put it in a frame, place it in your house, and wait until. And report back as to when your wife actually finds it.

[C]

Right. You see how long it takes to be noticed.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Exactly, exactly.

[C]

That is an excellent idea.

[Jason DeFilippo]

See, I had. I had the complete opposite version. I'm like, print this out in like a 2 foot by 4 foot photo with a gold frame and put it in the bathroom so everybody gets to see it when they come in to do their business.

[C]

Oh, see that, that's funny.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Does a Sasquatch shit in the woods?

[C]

Yeah. So what's funny? As a side note, what I actually have in the bathroom of my master bedroom is a framed and autographed photo of Bob Barker.

[Brian Schulmeister]

As one does.

[C]

Yeah, it seemed like the right place to have Bob Barker. So. Yeah. But yeah, I will frame this and put it up. I do.

[Brian Schulmeister]

You are an interesting onion. As we peel back these layers. Steve, outwardly, I know to most listeners he appears the most sane of the three of us, but.

[C]

Oh, yeah, no, no. Beyond their dragons be, my friend. Beyond their dragons be. Yeah, yeah. All right, Well, I will work on getting this picture framed and surreptitiously placed. I think I'm going to put it on the. Oh, what's the shelf above the fireplace? What do you call that?

[Jason DeFilippo]

The mantle.

[C]

Mantle. Thank you. Because that is where we have many family photos. So I will frame this, put it on the mantel, and see how long it takes anyone to notice.

[Brian Schulmeister]

I think I'm gonna do it in my house. We'll see if my wife notices and be like, who the fuck is this? And what is this?

[C]

Yeah, say what?

[Jason DeFilippo]

What picture?

[C]

Oh, that's my friend Dave.

[Brian Schulmeister]

His friend Sasquatch, he was on vacation.

[C]

Yeah, yeah, Little redwoods. Trip to the redwoods. I mean, as you do.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yeah, I'm gonna put Bob Barker riding behind you.

[C]

Oh, Bob Barker riding a speeder bike on us with a Sasquatch. Oh, yeah. All right, I'm off.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Bye.

[C]

See you guys later.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Closing Shout Out. Over at Patreon, we've got new subscribers, David and James. And James says it was probably about time I show some support. I've been loving your podcasts for years now, and Spotify finally pissed me off enough too to join. Thank you, James, and thank you, David. And from the. What do we call these? The legacy files, Brian, we've got R. Joe, Tom, Val S, Tuesday, Mike, Aaron, Brett, James, and Joe. Thank you, everyone who signed up for Patreon. And you too can sign up for Patreon for just as little as $3 a month. And you can always give us more if you like, if the show even more than that. And if you sign up for a year, you even get a discount. But you get the show early ad free and in high resolution definition surround sound sort of whatever. But yeah, you know the deal. Sign up please, patreon.com gog all right.

[Brian Schulmeister]

And over at PayPal, where nobody gets anything except the joy of giving us money and supporting us, we've got Miles, Ralph, Florian and Christopher with a big old $50 donation. Thank you.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Woohoo. And over at the Tip jar, we've got David and Tony. And we've got the Merch list. I finally put the Merch list back together, Brian. For everybody that bought stuff from our store this week, we've got Brady, Roger, Felipe, Tony and Dan. Thank you all so much and I hope you enjoy your your Deport Elon shirts and other fine swag.

[Brian Schulmeister]

All right? And some sad news, and they do say that things come in threes. Dave Allen, the Gang of Four bassist, has passed away at the age of 69. He joined Gang of Four shortly after the band was formed in 1976. And then he also founded the new wave post punk band Shriekback, which I really enjoyed, and also performed with King Swamp, Low Pop, Suicide, and the Elastic Pure Joy. In addition, we lost Al Burrell, a guitarist for hardcore pioneers SSD dead, also at 69 or 63, sorry for him. And Blondie, drummer Clem Burke has passed away at the age of 70. I mean, he's been around forever and just a massive part of that band. So sad for all three them.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah, that's a bummer. That's a bummer. Well, on that fun note, until next time, I'm Jason DeFilippo.

[Brian Schulmeister]

And I'm Brian Schulmeister. Thanks for listening to Grumpy Old Geeks. Get all the links and goodies from Today's episode at GOG Show. 692 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. Queen we'll love you for it. Swing by GOG show to join our discord and chat with us and other show fans. Got thoughts, feedback or cool links? Hit us up at GOG Show Compact 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 got. Merch Snag your grumpy gear now at Shop GOG Show Stay grumpy Doge.