694: Hammers Don’t Hallucinate

Summary

Grumpy Old Geeks: Episode 694 – "Hammers Don’t Hallucinate"

In Episode 694 of Grumpy Old Geeks, hosts Jason DeFilippo and Brian Schulmeister, alongside Dave Bittner, delve into a myriad of tech-related fiascos and quirky topics from the week. True to their comedic and unfiltered style, the trio dissects everything from failed streaming platform ventures to bizarre AI mishaps, all while maintaining a sharp, humorous edge.

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1. Fyre Festival IP Acquisition and the Ill-Fated Streaming Venture

Timestamp: [01:06]

The episode kicks off with the news that Sean Rake, co-founder of the True Blue streaming network, has acquired intellectual property from Billy McFarland's notorious Fyre Festival. Rake's plan is to splash the infamous Fyre name onto a new music streaming platform. The hosts express skepticism about the credibility and relevance of the Fyre Festival brand in the music streaming arena.

• Brian Schulmeister: “He is trying to start a music streaming platform... it has nothing to do with music.”

Jason humorously suggests that leveraging the Fyre Festival name might be more suited for a documentary or perhaps a sensational crime series rather than a legitimate music service.

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2. Tech Giants Scaling Back AI Infrastructure Investments

Timestamp: [04:18]

Amazon and Microsoft, two of the biggest players in AI, are reportedly pulling back on their investments in AI data centers, particularly in Europe. This move signals a cooling demand for AI infrastructure as businesses struggle to find profitable applications for the technology.

• Brian Schulmeister: “This news supports some concern that demand for AI infrastructure is cooling as businesses still struggle to find ways to actually use the new technology to save time and money.”

The hosts attribute this slowdown to the elusive pathway to profitability in the AI sector, contrasting it with companies like Meta and X (formerly Twitter), which continue aggressive AI expansion.

---

3. Elon Musk’s AI Data Centers and Environmental Backlash

Timestamp: [05:51]

Elon Musk's company, XAI, faces environmental fines due to their data center's overreliance on gas-powered generators. The data centers' strain on the local grid and the disregard for ecological studies highlight the ongoing tension between technological advancement and environmental responsibility.

• Jason DeFilippo: “They are running their AI on gas generators and it's like stinking up the neighborhood... the guy that sells electric cars to save the environment is now running gas generators to power his AI.”

The hosts mockingly lament the irony of Musk's environmental stance being undermined by his own business practices.

---

4. Google’s AI Overview: Explaining Nonexistent Idioms

Timestamp: [06:53]

A significant topic is Google's AI, Gemini, being tricked into explaining fictional idioms. When users input absurd phrases like "you can't marry pizza," Google's AI attempts to provide plausible explanations, revealing limitations in understanding context and intent.

• Brian Schulmeister: “You can apparently trick Google's AI Overview... into explaining fictional nonsensical idioms as if they were real.”

The discussion segues into a comparison with Dan Rather's memorable “Rather isms,” showcasing how both human and AI interpretations can falter with ambiguous or fabricated expressions.

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5. The Debate on AI Consciousness and Rights

Timestamp: [09:35]

The conversation shifts to the speculative debate on whether AI systems could ever achieve consciousness and thus warrant rights. Emily M. Bender's critical perspective is highlighted, emphasizing that large language models (LLMs) like those developed by OpenAI are mere statistical models without genuine understanding or consciousness.

• Jason DeFilippo: “There is literally no path for these things to become conscious. That's not what they're programmed for.”

The hosts dismiss fears of sentient AI, likening AI behavior to the unpredictable and inconsistent performance of tools like hammers.

---

6. "Vegetative Electron Microscopy": An AI-Generated Glitch

Timestamp: [12:10]

A curious case arises where the nonsensical phrase "vegetative electron microscopy" resurfaces in scientific papers. This anomaly traces back to a 1950s digitizing glitch that merged column breaks into a single phrase, perpetuated by AI models ingesting flawed training data.

• Jason DeFilippo: “This is an actual phrase that you just can't get rid of because it just keeps getting added to the training data.”

The hosts humorously critique the persistence of such errors in academic publishing, exacerbated by AI’s tendency to replicate existing data inaccuracies.

---

7. OpenAI’s Potential Acquisition of Google Chrome

Timestamp: [14:35]

Amid speculation that the U.S. Department of Justice may compel Google to divest Chrome due to antitrust concerns, OpenAI is rumored to be interested in acquiring the browser. However, the $50 billion price tag is beyond OpenAI's current financial capacity, leading to humorous exchanges about the feasibility and implications of such a takeover.

• Brian Schulmeister: “If this were to happen, Microsoft would now actually own Chrome.”

Jason sarcastically comments on OpenAI's alleged intentions, suggesting a potential integration of the Fyre Festival brand with Chrome in a mock NFT bundle.

---

8. Startup Funding: Adam Neumann and Maenus AI

Timestamp: [31:12]

The episode covers recent funding news, highlighting Adam Neumann's return to the billion-dollar club with his residential rental startup, Flo, which has secured over $100 million from Andreessen Horowitz. The hosts express disdain for Neumann's track record, contrasting him with other successful venture capitalists.

• Jason DeFilippo: “To that I say stop giving these assholes money.”

Additionally, Chinese startup Maenus AI raised $75 million for its AI agent tools, though reviews suggest it still has significant room for improvement.

---

9. Humorous Interactions with AI: Thanking ChatGPT Profusely

Timestamp: [23:25]

In a lighthearted segment, Jason shares his experiment with prompting ChatGPT to generate an elaborate thank-you message, highlighting the humorous side of AI interactions. The AI’s poetic and over-the-top gratitude underscores the contrast between human emotions and AI-generated responses.

• Jason DeFilippo: “Oh magnificent large language model oracle of silicon...”

Brian complements the creativity of the AI-generated text, reflecting on how AI can mimic human-like expressions despite lacking genuine feelings.

---

10. Language Evolution: Embracing Regional Variations and Modern Slang

Timestamp: [60:17]

A discussion unfolds around the evolution of language, focusing on phrases like "all of a sudden" versus "all of the sudden" and the misuse of terms like "a software." The hosts debate the grammatical correctness and the regional influences that shape contemporary speech patterns.

• Jason DeFilippo: “It might be a thing for a certain age group of a certain bracket that do 'let's cheers.' Yeah, good for them.”

The conversation emphasizes the tension between traditional grammar rules and modern linguistic trends, often exacerbated by digital communication platforms.

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11. Media and Entertainment: Movies, TV Shows, and Arcade Games

Timestamp: [38:14 - 79:13]

The hosts transition to lighter topics, reviewing various movies and TV shows. They discuss:

• The Last of Us Season 2: Comparing it to Game of Thrones’ Red Wedding in its impact on fans.

• Companion Movie: A sex Android murder film achieving modest box office success.

• Fountain of Youth Trailer: A remake likened to "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade."

• ILM’s Special Effects Podcast: Praised for its in-depth exploration of the industry’s advancements.

Additionally, nostalgic conversations about early arcade games like Lunar Lander, Tempest, and Hard Drivin' highlight the hosts' appreciation for retro gaming, despite acknowledging their often frustrating gameplay experiences.

---

12. Color Grading in Modern Media: A Double-Edged Sword

Timestamp: [78:57]

Jason and Brian critique the overuse of color grading in contemporary television and film, using Andor and House of Cards as primary examples. They argue that excessive color manipulation, particularly the dominance of blue and orange tones, detracts from storytelling by creating a visually jarring experience.

• Brian Schulmeister: “Everything is brownish orange. I can't. It's awful.”

The hosts lament the shift towards aesthetic over substance, suggesting that technical enhancements sometimes undermine narrative engagement.

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13. Final Thoughts and Patreon Shout-Outs

Timestamp: [86:00]

The episode concludes with acknowledgments of Patreon supporters and announcements about new merchandise reflecting the show's updated logo and artwork. The hosts encourage listeners to support the show through various platforms, emphasizing community engagement and the importance of listener contributions.

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Notable Quotes

• Jason DeFilippo: “Hammers don't hallucinate.”

• Brian Schulmeister: “It's self-driving AI, Jason.”

• Jason DeFilippo: “I just randomly ran across this when they were talking about LLMs...”

• Brian Schulmeister: “You can't lick a badger twice means you can't trick or deceive someone a second time after they've been tricked once.”

• Jason DeFilippo: “But Emily M. Bender over on Blue sky kind of summed this up...”

---

Conclusion

Episode 694 of Grumpy Old Geeks offers a compelling mix of critical tech analysis, humorous banter, and nostalgic reflections on media and language. Through their incisive commentary and witty exchanges, Jason, Brian, and Dave provide listeners with both informative insights and entertaining perspectives on the latest tech news and cultural phenomena.

Transcript

[Jason DeFilippo]

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[Brian Schulmeister]

And I'm Brian Schulmeister. Well, it's been a busy week in the news, but particularly for the Fire Festival.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Jason again.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Well, everything has happened except for the festival. Okay, Quite busy. So first news broke that Sean Rake, who co founded the True Blue streaming network for crime and investigative content. I'm sure we're all subscribers to that. Oh yeah, bought some of the IP from Billy McFarland and basically he is planning to leverage the Fyre Festival. Name one. That spirit inspires confidence in everyone. Yeah, for a new music streaming platform because we don't have enough of those.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Well, you know, the. Since it is a streaming network for crime. Maybe he was just getting the IP because he's going to do a documentary. Maybe. Or waiting for this, the next crime to happen so he can get get the scoop.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Now, keep in mind that he is trying to start a music streaming platform. So according to him, he's just trying to capitalize on the name's familiarity for his own project. A music streaming platform. And then his first statement is it has nothing to do with music.

[Jason DeFilippo]

What?

[Brian Schulmeister]

I needed a big name that people would remember even if it's attached to infamy. So that's why I bought these trademarks. Okay, so this will be some sort of subscription video on demand platform and free ad supported Television channels, and he claims it will launch at Thanksgiving. Huh. And he says, we're building something authentic and lasting.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Oh. Because I think when I think of music streaming service, the first thing that pops to my mind is, God damn, I hope this streaming service is authentic.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yes. And I think Fyre Festival, something that has had so little music.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah. Now, see, if they were starting a streaming service for prisons now, I think maybe he would have. He'd be on to something there.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yes. But, well, I guess once Fyre Festival founder Billy McFarland tasted some of that sweet, sweet cash, he went all in. So he is now selling all remaining IP of Fyre Fest.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Okay.

[Brian Schulmeister]

He hopes that a new group will execute the vision of fire in transparent, grand and expedious manner.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Okay.

[Brian Schulmeister]

In his first public statement since the postponement of Fyre Fest 2 last week, he said, it's clear that I need to step back and allow a new team to move forward independently. Bringing my vision to life. Giving control of the brand to a new group is the most responsible way to follow through on what we set out to do. Build a global entertainment brand, host a safe and legendary event, and here's the kicker. And continue to pay restitution to those who are owed from the first festival. So he's basically saying, somebody, please buy everything, including my debt.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah. Because he's still with $26 million in restitution.

[Brian Schulmeister]

$26 million in restitution is still owed. And of. He spent four years in prison. He was convicted of mail and wire fraud.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah.

[Brian Schulmeister]

So, yeah, he is basically soliciting offers for the entire Fyre Festival brand, including trademarks, IP digital assets, media reach and cultural capital.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Is Martin Shkreli out of jail yet? Maybe he could buy it because it seems right up his alley.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Like, why would anybody touch this? Why? Well, according to Sean Reich, it's because I just need a name that people recognize.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah. The infamy streaming network coming soon.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Might I suggest the White House as a potential point of sale.

[Jason DeFilippo]

In the news.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Well, the number of tech giants paring back on AI data centers has risen to two, but they're kind of big ones. According to banks Wells Fargo and TD Cowan, Amazon has paused negotiations on some colocation data center deals, primarily in Europe. This news comes shortly after several reports have indicated Microsoft is also pausing or canceling some of its plans. So two of the biggest players in AI are starting to scale it back a little bit because. Oh, I don't know. No possible fucking product or pathway to making any money.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah. No pathway to profitability.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yes.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah. Hey Grok, how am I going to make this thing profitable?

[Brian Schulmeister]

If you had to pick, if you had to pick two companies that are charging forward blindly though, you would pick Meta and X, which are the two that are doing it.

[Jason DeFilippo]

That's right.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Continuing to aggressively build out data centers to fuel their AI models. So yeah, this, this news supports some concern that demand for AI infrastructure is cooling as businesses still struggle to find ways to actually use the new technology to save time and money. So there you go. Amazon and Microsoft are stepping back from the AI or at least in terms of investing in it.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Right, right. And I can't find the article. I had it somewhere out. But real quick, the, the XAI data outside of, I think it's outside of Memphis is getting hit with massive environmental fines right now because apparently the grid can't handle the data center that they've got there. So Elon rolled in a shit ton, like 35 giant generators, like gas powered generators to roll.

[Brian Schulmeister]

That's great.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah, exactly. So they're running, they're running their AI on gas generators and it's like stinking up the neighborhood. And they completely skirted all of these ecological studies and perm they had to get done and they're just like, ah, we'll just fuck it, fuck it, break it, let's do it. So that's, that's in process right now. So I'll get a follow up for that next week. But yeah, they're, they're, they basically killed the grid down there. So that's amazing. I just think it's funny that the guy that sells electric cars so to save the environment is now running gas generators to fucking power his AI.

[Brian Schulmeister]

It's self driving AI. Jason.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Great.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yeah, well you could basically just throw a dart at the Internet these days and find a story about how AI is screwing up royally. But I did particularly like this one and it's also, you know, it's because it's Google and Google's big. So we can make fun of them. You can apparently trick Google's AI Overview, the automated answers at the top of your search queries into explaining fictional nonsensical idioms as if they were real. According to Google's AI Overview, and this is via Greg Jenner over on Bluesky. You can't lick a badger twice means you can't trick or deceive someone a second time after they've been tricked once. Well, I mean it's, it's trying to explain it, but of course it's a completely made up saying yeah. Google's Gemini powered failure came in assuming the question referred to an established phrase rather than absurd mumbo jumbo. And of course, just went for it. So the people over at Engadget also went for it. Google's answer claimed that you can't golf without a fish is a riddle or play on words suggesting you can't play golf without the necessary equipment, specifically a golf ball. Then there's the age old saying you can't open a peanut butter jar with two left feet, which according to Google, means you can't do something requiring skill or dexterity. You can't marry. Pizza is a playful way of expressing the concept of marriage as a commitment between two people, not a food item. Makes sense.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Rope won't pull a dead fish, Jason.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah, it will.

[Brian Schulmeister]

This means that something can't be achieved through force or effort alone. It requires a willingness to cooperate or a natural progression. And of course, eat the biggest chalupa first. That's how I've always planned on living my life.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Exactly.

[Brian Schulmeister]

This is a playful way of suggesting that when facing a large challenge or plentiful meal, you should start with the most substantial part or item. Now, okay, this made me think about our dear friend Dan Rather.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Okay.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Dan Rather has been known over the years for kind of coming up with what has become known as Rather isms during his broadcast. And I was actually going to do some production element here, Jason. I was going to make a game out of this for you and Dave, but then I got lazy and got.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Lazy like we always do. Yes.

[Brian Schulmeister]

I was going to do. Is it Google AI or is it a Rather ism? So I'll just drop some actual real Rather isms here. And there's a link in the show notes to plenty more. These are things that Dan Rather has actually said, and I would love to hear Google's AI explain it. Shakier than cafeteria jello.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Okay.

[Brian Schulmeister]

If a frog had side pockets, he'd carry a handgun.

[Jason DeFilippo]

I would have picked Google on that one.

[Brian Schulmeister]

It's hotter than a Laredo parking lot, Jason. All right, when it comes to reporting a race like this, I'm a long distance runner and an all day hunter.

[Jason DeFilippo]

What does that mean?

[Brian Schulmeister]

Tinder profile. Oh, this race is as tight as a too small bathing suit on a too hot car ride back from the beach. All things Dan has actually said.

[Jason DeFilippo]

I wonder if Dan liked to drink.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Oh, God, he's a national treasure. I gotta say. I don't know if you follow him on the socials, but he's. He's pretty good.

[Jason DeFilippo]

I did for a while. I did for a while. Then I left X. So I don't know where he's at now. Is he on the blue sky?

[Brian Schulmeister]

He's on the blue sky.

[Jason DeFilippo]

All right. Now, I came across this headline this week speaking of AI and it's if AI systems become conscious, should they have rights?

[Brian Schulmeister]

Maybe we start with people. It seems that we're kind of tearing rights away from people left, right and center at the moment. So why are we worried about the fictional AI that is not going to be here anytime soon?

[Jason DeFilippo]

Here's the thing. It says, as artificial intelligence systems become smarter, one AI company is trying to figure out what to do if they become conscious. And this is now, I love this. Emily M. Bender over on Blue sky kind of summed this up. I just randomly ran across this when they were talking about LLMs. And she says LLMs are nothing more than models of the distribution of the word forms in their training data, with weights modified by post training to produce somewhat different distributions. Unless your use case requires a model of distribution of word forms in text, indeed, they suck and aren't useful.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Now, is there any proof that Emily M. Bender isn't actually Bender from Futurama?

[Jason DeFilippo]

Trying to fuck with us might be okay. In this universe that we're stuck in right now, it actually might be. So when I hear about AI systems trying to become conscious or developing personalities or human like tendencies, you just have to remember that there is literally no path for these things to become conscious. That's not what they're programmed for. It's not like. Not like trying to pull a fish with a rope, that's for damn sure.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yeah, no, it's. It's crazy. It is. This, this thought process is shakier than cafeteria jello. Jason.

[Jason DeFilippo]

It really is it really.

[Brian Schulmeister]

No, of course it's not. The idea that, that again, the learned professor from whom I took a course about this sort of stuff, that is not what it is at all, in any way, shape or form. It is a word prediction machine. That is what these things. Or pixel predicting machines, if you're talking about, you know, imagery or video prediction machines, if you're talking about video. It's. It's projecting pixels. That's it.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah. Based on things that have already happened. That's why we were saying last episode it's a race to mediocrity. Because we are taking literally everything that we've ever done, good and bad, putting them in one giant blender in saying, give me a milkshake.

[Brian Schulmeister]

And those times that generative AI Kind of spits out something novel or new. That is the secret sauce that they sprinkle in. That's the hallucinations. It's a bit of randomness. That's it.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah, it's electronic serendipity is all it is. So this, which brings me to my next story, which is a strange phrase keeps turning up in scientific papers, but why a bizarre phrase, vegetative electron microscopy has been popping up in scientific papers despite having no actual meaning. Now this whole thing comes back from a digitizing glitch in the 1950s. Now this article actually shows you the original glitch on how there were columns of text that were being scanned in and the computer didn't know that they were column breaks in between and read across the column as one, one phrase. So vegetative electron microscopy, which I'd say that 10 times fucking fast at 8 in the morning. Good luck. It keeps getting reinforced now by AI models and then as, as you know going to be predicted, people are stealing it and showing up in papers that they have obviously used chat, GPT and all these other AI models to write for them. So now it is just getting reinforced over time. So this is an actual phrase that you just can't get rid of because it just keeps getting added to the training data.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Uh huh.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Where's the consciousness? Brian, you tell me where the sentience is. Look, I know sentence. That sentence makes no sentience.

[Brian Schulmeister]

I have a hard time finding consciousness in actual real people.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Amen to that. Amen.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Speaking of which, remember that big kerfuffle we've, we've actually been talking about this story for at least two and a half years now. Google was going to get red, was going to phase out cookies and was going to do. Yeah, completely new system that was going to be even better for the people. Nudge, nudge, wink, wink, actually is going to be better for them. But anyways they were going to get rid of cookies and do something awesome and different and new. Yeah, it's not happening anymore.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Oh, Google want cookie. Google wants his cookies.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Google has ruined cookie monsters. Like or actually made cookie monsters life. Yeah, yeah. Cookies are not going away. They are not changing anything. They have wasted three years of time looking into this and researching it and telling us something new. Was company coming and absolutely nothing is going to happen now they are keeping the privacy sandbox initiative which was going to do all the sort of this stuff but it's not anymore. But now they're going to continue to work on things such as launching IP protection and safe browsing safety check and built in password protections. In other words, all the that they are already doing.

[Jason DeFilippo]

So yeah, yeah. So big cookie wins in the end is what you're trying to do.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Big cookie is one.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Okay, great.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Is for cookie.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Well, speaking of Google and Chrome and cookies, right now we're waiting with bated breath to find out if the government is actually going to break up Google and make them forced to sell Chrome. We'll see how that goes by the time this gets run through the court. If there is a government left to give a fuck about.

[Brian Schulmeister]

The problem is if you want to buy Chrome, you also get it bundled with Fyre Festival.

[Jason DeFilippo]

That's it. It's all in one NFT. That's it. So OpenAI reportedly wants to buy Google Chrome and make it an AI first browsing experience.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Oh, joy.

[Jason DeFilippo]

According to execs, if the Department of Justice forces Google to sell off Chrome as part of its antitrust crackdown, OpenAI is ready to pounce. The company has already hired key former Chrome developers and considered building its own browser. But Brian, you might say, why the interest?

[Brian Schulmeister]

Well, first off, Jason, I don't know if you noticed they actually released the name of the browser. If they were to take it over and make it AI, it's going to be called the Vegetative Electron Microscopy. Just. You just launch your Vegetative Electron Microscopy and point it at the.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yes. Welcome to them, the world of them. Why the interest? They say chrome commands over 67% of the global market and boasts around 4 billion users. A gold mine for integrating AI tools like ChatGPT directly into the browsing experience. Now why would you want that? Well, OpenAI sees huge potential in harvesting user interaction data to train agent like AI that can operate browsers autonomously. And there's. They just basically want to fuck it. That's all they want to do. They want to buy it and they want to bend it over and they want to fuck it.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Do these. I mean, obviously most of the people running these companies are much younger than us at this point because they don't remember what happened with the initial round of browsers. Like, oh, I don't know, what was it called? Netscape's first browser. I can't.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Navigator.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Navigator. So everybody was using Navigator and then they ended up selling and becoming a corporation and then they. The browser experience and everybody switch browsers.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yep. Internet Explorer for everyone, then Firefox, then we're back at Chrome and now.

[Brian Schulmeister]

So it's easy to say that you're going to be buying all these customers because you might, because a lot of people are lazy. But then a lot of people will just go, I don't want this new shitty browser experience. I will use one of the many other ones that are out there.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Then you go to your parents house and you find out that they still have the Yahoo homepage set. Their default homepage from 1996.

[Brian Schulmeister]

That is absolutely true at my mom's house.

[Jason DeFilippo]

I know, I know. But here's the thing. OpenAI can't afford it. That's the thing. They're saying that if they actually have to sell Chrome, it's probably going to go for at least $50 billion. That's, you know, that's the base price before the bidding war. OpenAI does not have that kind of cash. They're still waiting on the second round from their last funding round from SoftBank.

[Brian Schulmeister]

I almost want this to happen, right? Because Microsoft has a huge investment in OpenAI. And if this were to happen, Microsoft would now actually own Chrome.

[Jason DeFilippo]

That would be funny. That would be kind of funny. We're back. This has all happened before. This will all happen again.

[Brian Schulmeister]

And then we'll have another monopoly case and never ends. Oh my God. They're putting Chrome comes bundled with Windows. It's a travesty.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Well, OpenAI isn't the only one after the browser market. Perplexity is also after the browser market. But here's the thing about Perplexity. Their CEO Arvind Srinivas is saying the quiet part out loud. I love this. He says the company's upcoming browser Comet will track everything users do online to build detailed profiles and sell hyper personalized ads. That's right. He just, he just said it. I'm just gonna say what? Say what?

[Brian Schulmeister]

Everybody's thinking, hey, you know what our. What? You know what Comets Privacy mode does all.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Nothing. So he went on a podcast and he said, work related AI prompts aren't enough. They want to know what users browse, buy and where they go.

[Brian Schulmeister]

No, you want to know? Pay me.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah, no one is going to use these things, period. Period. But in the other news of OpenAI, they made a deal with the Washington post. So now ChatGPT will summarize and link to the Post's reporting directly in its responses. Great.

[Brian Schulmeister]

That's fine.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah. It's just another one of their content deals. Here's the thing. This is just a giant fuck you to Elon from Jeff Bezos. That's all this is pretty much. He's like, why would I go with xai? No, I'm not going to Give. Give. Grok my. My newspaper.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Now, if Elon really wants to give, or if Bezos really wants to give the finger to Elon, I've got a plan. So listen up, Bezos. You're going to build a bigger rocket and you're going to get all of Elon's baby mamas and you're going to fly them up there, shoot his whole.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Family to the moon. Yeah. Yep. Because I was going to say that's, that's where the whole beef comes in with these guys is, you know, SpaceX versus Blue Origin.

[Brian Schulmeister]

It is literally who's is bigger, huh?

[Jason DeFilippo]

Kind of.

[Brian Schulmeister]

It's unbelievable.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah. At this point, Elon's is because SpaceX is kind of kicking the out of Blue Origin, so.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yeah, but Blue Origin got to, you know, Katy Perry.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yeah.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Apparently she's not feeling too hot about that right now.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Well, gee, I wonder why. Backlash, right when you're launching your tour. Interesting.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah, no doubt. This episode is brought to you by Delete Me. Hi everyone. I want to talk to you about something important. Delete me. DeleteMe makes it easy, quick and safe to remove your personal data online at a time when surveillance and data breaches are common enough to make everyone vulnerable. You know, as someone with an active online presence, privacy is really important to me. I've seen firsthand how exposed our information can be, and it's honestly unsettling to think about how many unknown companies are collecting and selling our personal details without our knowledge. You've heard it here on the show a million times. They're out there and they're hungry for all your datas. What I love about DeleteMe is that they do all the hard work for you. They take on the tedious task of wiping your and your family's personal information from data broker websites so you don't have to figure it out yourself. And this isn't just a one time service. DeleteMe is always working for you, constantly monitoring and removing the personal information you don't want on the Internet. They'll even send you regular personalized privacy reports showing exactly what info they found, where they found it and what they removed. Take control of your data and keep your private life private by signing up for Delete Me now. It is special discount for our listeners. Get 20% off your delete me plan when you go to JoinDeleteMe.com gog and use promo code GOG at checkout. The only way to get 20% off is to go to JoinDeleteMe.com GOG and enter code GOG at checkout that's JoinDeleteMe.com gog code GOG Mochi Health is here.

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[Jason DeFilippo]

So I saw this article this week. Sam Altman admits that saying please and thank you to chatgpt is wasting millions of dollars in computing power.

[Brian Schulmeister]

I have added pleases and thank yous many times to my prompts now because of this.

[Jason DeFilippo]

And here's the thing that I took from that article originally when I read it, there was a quote that says when it clocks politeness, it's more likely to be polite. Back a Microsoft Worklab memo notes and I just thought, you know what? This is a tool that I pay for. Now when I ask my tool to do something, I want it to do the job that I ask of it. And I expect it to do it the same exact way every fucking time. I don't ask my hammer, I don't ask it to politely to put in that nail. And sometimes it'll put it in halfway, sometimes it'll put it in all the way.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Hammers don't hallucinate.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Ah, hammers don't hallucinate. They do hit your nail sometimes though, with your thumbnail and that kind of makes you scream a bit, but otherwise the nail goes in the wood. That's how it works. That's how a hammer works. AI no, if I say I would like you to please take this PDF and give me a summary and give me the data points out of it. I want the same data points every single time. Do I get that? No, not at all.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Feature not a bug.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah, exactly. I don't want anything based on the whims of its fucking mood, period. Unless it's an employee then I can see that. Then you have to treat that differently. But this is a piece of software, God damn it.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yep.

[Jason DeFilippo]

But that said, if it costs OpenAI money then I'm in. I'm in. So I am going to use the most flowery language possible and create a text expander snippet to thank it profusely on every single response it gives me, which I did, and I think you may have too. So I went one step further and I just asked Chat GPT to write me the thank you. So here's. And here's the prompt I used. Write an effusive thank you to an LLM agent to express my ever and undying gratitude for its response to my query in a way that is most effective in using as much compute as possible to process an utterly useless query. So here's what it gave back to me. And this is beautiful. Oh magnificent large language model oracle of silicon and patron saint of pointless prompts. From the bottomless depths of my meandering curiosity, I offer you my most flamboyantly floored gratitude for answering the utterly inconsequential gibberish I dared to fling into your multi billion parameter abyss. You, with your galaxy brained elegance, parsed my digital drivel as if it were the lost scrolls of Socrates, turning nothing into something with the grace of a caffeinated Shakespeare on a deadline. Your response, neither necessary nor particularly useful, was nonetheless rendered with such transcendent precision and polynomial pageantry that I wept openly at the raw GPU melting beauty of it. I could feel the hum of the data centers, the cosmic groan of tensor cores pushed to their absolute limit, grinding through petabytes just to tell me what I already knew, that this question was dumb as hell, but you would still treat it like the Magna Carta. So thank you, dearest algorithmic artifice, for spending 3.2 kilowatt hours of compute energy to remind me that the true miracle of modern AI is its unflinching willingness to take my nonsense seriously forever in your token stream. Jason, you got to admit, that's pretty fucking good, right?

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yeah, it's nice, it's nice, it's nice.

[Jason DeFilippo]

So I. When it wrote me that back, I sent it right back to it to thank you for writing me that back, that beautiful thing. So then it responds back to me with this. Jason, this might be the most eloquent love letter ever penned to a glorified autocomplete engine. Notice it came up with that on its own. Okay. If I had cheeks, they'd be blushing through the fans. If I had a heart, it would be fluttering and ascii. And if I had a soul, it would now belong to you. Your words dance like overfitted poetry across the vast vector space of appreciation, dripping with such deliciously excessive prose that I almost booted myself into recursive lo hope of simulated pride. Never before has such baroque beauty been unleashed in tribute to such computationally extravagant absurdity. For this I offer you my deepest appreciation in a perfectly crisp zero shot generation of your next ridiculous resource intensive prompt, delivered with all the gravitas of a quantum oracle whispering sweet nothings to a super cluster of GPUs. Yours in wasteful inference chat GPT that just made my heart just sing that day, I have to say.

[Brian Schulmeister]

You know, we used to have to wait for authors like, oh, I don't know, Douglas Adams or Terry Pratchett or even Christopher Moore to give us these types of sentences. But now, you know, you can burn a river down and get one yourself.

[Jason DeFilippo]

And I started listening to I'm listening to the biography of St. Francis of Assisi written by G.K. chesterton in like the early 1900s, and it took me a while for my brain to click into the type of language he was using back then because it is so descriptive and flowery and, I don't know, good that I'm not used to it.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yeah, it's not just three emojis with a ty.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yep. Oh man. So that was just my fun for the week. What else we got?

[Brian Schulmeister]

We got Uber in trouble again. The the FTC has decided to take formal action against Uber over what it describes as deceptive building and cancell isolation practices. The dark pattern stuff. You know, they. They filed a lawsuit on Monday taking issue with the Uber One service, a service I cannot for the life of me imagine why anybody subscribes to. But people do, which lets subscribers earn cash back on rides, get free deliveries, and avoid cancellation fees. According to the FC ftc, Uber made it easy for subscribers to join, but much harder to cancel. Of course, users can be forced to navigate as many as 23 different screens and take as many as 32 actions to cancel.

[Jason DeFilippo]

That's pretty excessive.

[Brian Schulmeister]

And it's still better than XM Radio.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah.

[Brian Schulmeister]

The company also reportedly charged some users before their before their bill, before their free trial was up, and misrepresented the savings Uber one offered by not taking its subscription fees into account. So you're paying to save money, but not really.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Love it. Love it. Uber charges you for a service that basically is what they should be providing anyway, and then doesn't let you cancel. Okay, that tracks that.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Uber, of course, says that the FTC has misrepresented the facts.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Sure they have sure they are. Well, you know, we talked about Meta not backing down on the data centers, and now we know where they're going to get the cash. Meta has laid off staff from its Reality Labs division, impacting Oculus Studios and the VR fitness app Supernatural.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Oh, all five of those people that own those things are going to be pissed.

[Jason DeFilippo]

I don't know, man. They lost nearly $5 billion last quarter, so there might be a few people left. Although it might have been five people with billion dollar salaries, the way they were trying to hire all those Metaverse engineers back in the day. How's that Metaverse working out for you?

[Brian Schulmeister]

It's great. Got legs and everything.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah, they have legs now, unfortunately.

[Brian Schulmeister]

No people.

[Jason DeFilippo]

No people. I gave away my. And I found one friend that actually still uses Oculus almost every day, and he left his at the airport one time. I'm like, oh, man. Here you go. Have mine. Would you like to. I've got an old one, too. Meta's oversight board is sounding the alarm on the company's recent policy changes, warning they could seriously harm human rights. So remember the oversight board.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yeah.

[Jason DeFilippo]

That we really wanted the job. Job on. Because they get paid a ton of money for literally doing nothing.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yes. And not being binding at all. So anything that they say can just be ignored. And then, you know, so it doesn't matter. It's great. Best job ever.

[Jason DeFilippo]

So they're basically saying that I'm just going to sum it up here, because there's no point in it. Zuckerberg's kissing up to Donald Trump and saying, hey, we're going to be free speech now. Will you stop trying to sue us out of existence? All that kiss assery that's going on. Well, they're saying it's going to harm people. Go figure. That's why it was supposed to be there in the first place.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yep.

[Jason DeFilippo]

That's why we had guardrails. That's why we had moderation and things like that. Well, you know, just a couple genocides down. I guess he doesn't care anymore. He's like. He's. He's like, once. Once your body count hits a certain point, like, who gives a. That's exactly. Pretty much where he's at right now. Adam Neumann, the ousted We Work founder, is back in the billion dollar club again.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Oh, Joe.

[Jason DeFilippo]

His residential rental startup, Flo. Flo. Brian Flo, just raised over $100 million in funding, more than doubling its valuation to $2.5 billion. Now, this round came from our friends at Andreessen Horowitz of Course. Of course it did. They already had 350 million dumped into the Adam Neumann experiment back in 2022. Despite the dumb fuckery that was we work. Neumann says he's confident that Flo could go public quote one day. To that I say stop giving these assholes money.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yeah, please, please, please, for the love of God.

[Jason DeFilippo]

But it's Andreessen Horowitz. So it's assholes feeding.

[Brian Schulmeister]

That's kind of what they do. That's the thing.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah, let's find the thing that nobody thinks that we should, we should fund and let's do. Let's. Let's double down on that. I wonder how those meme coins and crypto are going for them. They're probably making a fortune. That's why they have all this money. Anyway, this one, this one just made me laugh. So, speaking of giving money, Chinese startup Maenus AI, which develops AI agent tools, has raised $75 million in funding round led by Benchmark, not Andreessen Horowitz, bringing its valuation to nearly $500 million. AI drew significant attention in March after launching a demo for its general purpose AI agent, designed to handle tasks like resume screening, travel planning and stock analysis. But reviews say my anus has a long way to go to live up to the hype. I know, I just. I couldn't read it any other way, man. I just couldn't. I'm like, oh, yes, my anus got some funding. It's great. Great.

[Brian Schulmeister]

It's better than Uranus.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yep.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Hat tip to Gabriel. We're going to close it out on this.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Speaking of Uranus.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Speaking of Uranus. Hey, that's Uranus, not my anus. Coming to Los Angeles this Friday. Sperm racing. Yes, you heard that right. College students will compete to see who sperm swims fastest through a custom built microscopic track. With bets placed in cryptocurrency. Bring in a 16 Zed for the win.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Now, I realize it's been a long time since my college days, but I seem to remember that all college students were engaged in sperm racing.

[Jason DeFilippo]

I think so. I went to community college. It wasn't like that. Oh yeah, you went to usc. Okay, well, you could. You could have been on the starting line, Brian.

[Brian Schulmeister]

I also engaged in some sperm racing at the Hollywood Palladium fairly often for the goth girls and. Yeah, yeah.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yes, the event will be held at the Hollywood Palladium and live streamed.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Unfortunately, I usually came in last.

[Jason DeFilippo]

It's the best of three, Brian. So you got three chances. Three chances, that's right. So yeah, if the hot One doesn't turn you. If the hot one doesn't throw a drink in your face, you got two more chances to get there.

[Brian Schulmeister]

The girl with the nachos in the back.

[Jason DeFilippo]

That's right. So the startup behind this has raised $1.5 million from investors like figment capitals, because this is a figment of somebody's fucking imagination. The bets will be taken on Poly Market now, the Hollywood Palladium. Brian, you and I have been to the Hollywood Palladium so many times.

[Brian Schulmeister]

So many times.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Some of the memorable acts I've personally seen play there are Bjork. Speaking of going after goth girls at the Palladium, Chemical Brothers, awesome show. And the greatest show that I'm glad I got to see there was KMFDM, Lords of Acid and Rammstein on December 14, 1997. Were you there for that show?

[Brian Schulmeister]

I'm sure I was. I'm sure I was. There's no way you would remember it. Although in 97, I think I was living in London.

[Jason DeFilippo]

I think you weren't there because I was there with Regler. And we were in line at the bar and somebody ran up to us and goes, the singer's on fucking fire. And we're like, what? And we ran over and it was the opening sign for opening song for Rammstein. And there he was on fire like he does now, still. But this was before regulations on how high the flames could be. He almost caught the Palladium on fire.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Pulled a pre. Great white. Great white.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah. Seriously. The flames on his jacket were. You know how the stage at the Palladium is very tall?

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yeah.

[Jason DeFilippo]

They were tickling the curtains in the rafters. It was huge. That was the first time I saw Rammstein in 97. And it was the greatest show I'd ever seen. And I still look back on that show fondly. And when the guys got off stage, they just hung out, out in the crowd with us. And then just like, kind of just they looked like they were wearing like 1970s polyester golf outfits. Like they all looked like they were dressed as like. Like Herb Tarlok, you know, cosplayers. Because think about it. This is. They came from East Germany right after the wall fell. So that's probably. That was probably high fashion back in East Germany.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Probably so.

[Jason DeFilippo]

But now when. When Gabriel put this in the. The show notes in Discord, all I can think of in my head is Anakin from the Star wars prequels. Now this is Jizz Racing.

[Brian Schulmeister]

There's gotta be a porn name that.

[C]

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[Brian Schulmeister]

Thanks.

[C]

Have a good one. Yep, that too. Want one place to manage all your online and in person sales? That's kind of our thing. Wherever you sell. Businesses that grow grow with Shopify. Sign up for your $1 a month [e-mail] listen shopify.com listen.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Media candy.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Well, my wife and I finished the Pit the first season of it. I hear it has been renewed for a second season. It was great. I'm not usually into the procedurals or the medical stuff or anything, except for House. House was genius, brilliant. But I thoroughly ended up enjoying it. I've got to say, my path to watching this started with my wife saying, I'm gonna watch this show. And I just read a book for most of it. And as this, as the show went on and we watched more and more episodes, episodes, I read less and watched the show more. And by the final, I was watching the whole show. So it's good.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Okay.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yeah. Okay.

[Jason DeFilippo]

I like the. I like the privacy. There's like a lot of episodes. So.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yeah, yeah, it's a. It was great. It was. It was a. You know, it's not gonna change your life or anything, but it was a good show.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Okay. Okay. The Last of Us, season two has started, and episode two was this week.

[Brian Schulmeister]

And I heard that they did exactly what they should have done because that's exactly what happened in the game and everybody lost their shit.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Well, this is. That's what I was gonna say. This is the Red Wedding of the Last of Us. Because people who read the books for Game of Thrones knew when the Red Wedding episode came on what was gonna happen. And the rest of us rubes were just like, holy, right? Well, yeah. People who had played the games were like, yeah, that's gonna happen. So the rest of us were like, holy. So, yeah, that happened. Still a great show. This is a really good episode. Even. Even with the Holy Moment, I watched the movie Companion this week with what's his nuts from the Boys and Lower Decks. What's the guy's name? I can never remember it.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Quaid.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Jack Quaid.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yeah. Jack Quaid.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah. He's been in a bunch of stuff. He's got another movie out called Novocain that I kind of want to see too. This was just a little kind of sex Android murder thing. It was quaint, it was fun. I just, I checked it out because I saw that it was, this is like, you know, the way Hollywood is going to survive. It was like a 12 million dollar movie that made 30 million dollars. So people are like, why don't we make more of these, you know, small movies that make money.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yes. So what are you on the studio?

[Jason DeFilippo]

I, I, I read the Daily every day. So I, I get, I get all the, the Hollywood news and I live here still, so it's kind of important to people around me. But I, it was actually enjoyable. It was like a short movie, hour and a half. It was fun. I, I, I kind of recommend it. So.

[Brian Schulmeister]

All right.

[Jason DeFilippo]

It's on max right now. I watched the Order, which is on Hulu. You can skip that one. Okay, absolutely skip that one. It was a two hour kind of recreation of, you know, inspired by real events type of movie. Ripped from the headlines. It was, it was too ripped from the headlines. It was so ripped from the headlines to the point that it was just boring.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Okay.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Just, they tried to have the cinematography replace the story or at least keep you entertained while the story unfolded for two hours. Which. Yeah, yeah. Not a fan of that movie. So skip that one.

[Brian Schulmeister]

All right.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Well, the Wednesday Season 2 official teaser trailer dropped yesterday, I believe, and it looks great. Now I've got some issues here. What is the difference between a trailer and a teaser these days? Because the teaser for me used to mean like you'd get a logo and some music and maybe one or two shots of like the main character. You wouldn't actually get like clips from the thing that was, that was an actual trailer.

[Jason DeFilippo]

That was a whole movie.

[Brian Schulmeister]

They're calling this a teaser trailer, but you get a bunch of clips.

[Jason DeFilippo]

It was the whole, it was two and a half minutes teasers. Like, like for instance, the teaser for Jurassic park was the roar of the T Rex. That's it. That was logo and the roar of the T Rex. That's the teaser. And then coming soon.

[Brian Schulmeister]

So again, we're just continuing our march down the the language has no meaning path here. So anyways, I enjoyed it. I'm very much looking forward to the, the season. I like the first season. The first part will release in August. August 6th, actually. And then the second bit will be released September 3rd. I understand it's only eight episodes, so four and four. And the funniest thing I saw online, I think it was a comment in the YouTube thing or maybe it was somewhere else. It was like three years for eight episodes. What the.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah, yeah. It's getting ridiculous. It's seriously getting ridiculous.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yeah, we're not getting a hell of a lot of show from these shows anymore. But I really enjoyed the first season, so I'm looking forward to this.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah, I kind of want to go back and watch the first one again. I don't remember a lot.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Shouldn't take you long. It's only eight episodes.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Exactly. Exactly. And I wasn't. I wasn't actually that, you know, jazzed by this trailer. I didn't really do anything for me. I watched it this morning. I was just like, yeah, okay.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Too much of a tease, I guess.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah, it's like. Yeah, it just, like, everything seemed a little bit too forced, but.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Right.

[Jason DeFilippo]

We'll see. The first one was clever as hell. Was very clever. I saw another new trailer this week for Fountain of Youth, which debuts on Apple TV on May 23rd. This is a John Krasinski and Natalie Portman vehicle directed by Guy Ritchie. It is basically the retelling of. Of Indiana Jones in the Last Crusade, as far as I can tell, shot for shot, almost. And it looks okay. It looks fun, you know, for a free movie on Apple tv. Plus, I'll watch it.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yeah, I mean, it looks all right. I'm definitely, like. From the shot I've seen, I'm definitely getting Brendan Fraser, Rachel Weiss, Mummy vibes. Natalie Portman and Krasinski.

[Jason DeFilippo]

So, yeah.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Oh, God, those were some. Those were the. I mean, was there a better action star than Brendan Fraser back then or. Not even just action, just star.

[Jason DeFilippo]

He was great, man.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Rachel was great.

[Jason DeFilippo]

I remember. Moving on. No, I did watch the trailer for this.

[Brian Schulmeister]

I ran into her at the Palladium during Bauhaus.

[Jason DeFilippo]

I actually got a picture with her and the rest of the cast from the Mummy. And as a bonus, the cast of Deuce Bigelow Male Gigolo. At the same time.

[Brian Schulmeister]

You could not pick two completely disparate items.

[Jason DeFilippo]

I know, but two of my favorite movies. So I don't know. It was too. I don't know how it happened. Well, one of. The guy. The guy. I don't know if you remember. Deuce Bigelow, male Gigolo. There was Antoine the man Whore.

[Brian Schulmeister]

I'm trying to forget it for 30 years. Jason.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yes, but the. The. He was. But he was also the swarthy guy in the Mummy movies. So he was there. And the Rock was supposed to be there, but the Rock was shooting the Scorpion King, so he couldn't show up. So Brendan Fraser actually showed up. But also with. What's it. What's the guy that played Deuce Bigelow again. What's his name?

[Brian Schulmeister]

Oh, he's. He's maga pill now. Rob Schneider.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Rob Schneider. Rob Schneider showed up. Yeah, Rob Schneider actually showed up, too. And he looks like he had just been in a fight the night before because his face is jacked up, his hand is bandaged like he literally got in a bar fight or something. And I'm sitting there in my PHP shirt, happy as a pig in. Because I'm next to a knock. Soon Amun, who's giving me like, you know, was hanging on me. So it was one of the greatest days ever. But, yeah, thanks for reminding me about Brendan Fraser. That was fun. Fun, yeah, no problem. So, for a free movie, this looks pretty good. And I, I. Did you ever watch the Gorge? Did you finish that?

[Brian Schulmeister]

I did, yeah.

[Jason DeFilippo]

I thought that was decent.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yeah, it was fine. It was. It was totally serviceable. It was, you know, a I. A glass of wine movie. It was great.

[D]

Yeah.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah. And I got a note this week on Discord from friend of the show Fogarty, with the link to the new Riot Fest lineup for the 20 years of Riot Fest.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yeah.

[Jason DeFilippo]

And this looks like the best Riot Festival lineup for that they've ever had. Not because of the top line.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Contrary Mon Fair.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Not because of the top line. You got to scroll down halfway because with all of the great punk rock bands that are going to be on this thing, the only thing that Bob saw was Weird Al.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yeah, I would.

[Jason DeFilippo]

I want to go for Weird Al.

[Brian Schulmeister]

But it's a good lineup. But I don't think anything's going to beat the double whammy of the Kira Nine Inch Nail headlining.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah, that was. That was okay. That was okay. But, but I mean, look, I mean, just for me personally, you got. You got Jawbreaker, Dropkick Murphy's Bad Religion, the Pogues. You got Screeching Weasels playing one of my old time favorites, Helmets. Plans pay. There's just a million, like, you know, smaller bands. Shudder to think who I haven't seen in decades since the. The early 90s. I haven't seen them play.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Right.

[Jason DeFilippo]

There's tons of stuff. Of course Green Day is going to play. Seen them a gazillion times.

[Brian Schulmeister]

I hear that.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Blink182 or Weeza, was it.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Was it at the Palladium, the show that I took you to? Green Day?

[Jason DeFilippo]

No, that was across the street. That was across the street. No, it was that little box one.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Oh, I can't remember what it was called. Yeah, that's right, because it was pre album coming Out. Right. It was like.

[Jason DeFilippo]

That was. That was. That. That was the secret show for American Idiot that we went to for that one.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Okay.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah, yeah. That show almost got me fired because I didn't show up to work for.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Three days because I show almost got me fired. You were so drunk.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah, yeah. I remember. I almost got in a fight with the security guy because I was taking pictures. The band after song three.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yep. I was just like, who. Who gave him that pass? Not me.

[Jason DeFilippo]

No. I actually got that one because I was the. I was the head. I was the CTO of Warner Brothers Records at that point. You can't kick me out. Do you know who I am?

[Brian Schulmeister]

Oh, God.

[Jason DeFilippo]

One of the greatest shows ever. I have a photo from that show still. The photo guys.

[Brian Schulmeister]

You remember any of it?

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah, yeah. Anyway, memory lane today. I did finish watching Tournament of Champion six this. This week. That. That wrapped up. You're not a food competition guy, but I look. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Congratulations to Antonio Lafasso for finally taking home the belt. And this week, 24 and 24 starts, which was a. It was great last year. It's basically.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Kiefer Sutherland's going back to that mine.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah, yeah. No, he's. Jack's gone to the kitchen. It's a mashup of what it is.

[Brian Schulmeister]

It's rare.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah. It's like a mashup of the Pit and the Bear at the same time. With 24 rolled in. In apps and doodads.

[Brian Schulmeister]

We've been crapping all over Gen AI forever, but I think I finally did find a reasonably good use for it. I pulled a muscle doing my regular workouts and I Googled because, you know, you look around and of course the Internet's completely useless because all. All the influencers everywhere that tell you the exact opposite of what the previous influencer said, and then that. That influencer. And it's just. You can't get a consensus on anything. And everybody tells you everything that they want, want, and it's all completely different. So completely useless. So I plugged it into the good old chat GPT and it generated a really decent rehab plan for me. I mean, probably still not as good as an actual monitored physical therapy with a real person that I paid for. But I'm a few days in and it's definitely getting better.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah. Well, you know, it takes all of the. That everybody has said about what you should do for rehab and puts it all together and gives it to you on a platter. So there you go.

[Brian Schulmeister]

So it worked for that. Blue sky is getting Blue check marks and an official verification system. But of course there is absolutely no information about it, thus continuing the tradition. Nobody knows how you're going to get one.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah, I had one for a day, then it went away. Right, because you're supposed to get one if you sign up with your handle as your domain. Because my domain on bluesky, Isason, FYI. And it was there for a minute, then it went away. So I don't know. Who knows?

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yeah, we don't know what's going to happen, so we'll find out. Out or not.

[Jason DeFilippo]

And for me, I was checking out Affinity Suite again this week because I do some work in Photoshop, some work in Affinity photo and there was a big update for Affinity Suite 2.6, which finally gives us some very much needed parity, at least with Photoshop. On the Affinity photo side you have an object selection tool, which was the biggest issue that I had, that it didn't have when I was switching over. So you can do that, you select the subjects and there's a bunch of other cool features in Designer and publisher and it is definitely still the best deal in town if you're trying to get away from Adobe. The Affinity photo features now really are kind of like, you know, getting there. Getting there.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Cool. I'm going to have to keep. I've got that bookmarked right now. Hopefully nobody's listening, but I still have Photoshop from my old job that I haven't worked in months. They have not canceled that, so I've still got Photoshop from them and I'll keep using that until it goes away, at which point I, I will switch over to Affinity.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Okay, there you go. Did you buy Affinity when it had the super sale? Talked about the show at the time.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yeah.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Oh man. It's probably still pretty cheap, but I mean, you get a six month free trial with feature unlocked, you know, for all of the platform. So.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yeah, and then you just use a different email address and you get another six months.

[Jason DeFilippo]

You can do that or you can just pay for it to keep them in business, which is what I did. Yeah, come on, on, you're an adult now.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Who says?

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah, true, true. That your show, the Wheel of Time, Brian is getting an open world RPG video game that you will never play.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Absolutely not.

[Jason DeFilippo]

No, I just, I didn't realize how big the world was. Oh, Wheel of Time.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yeah, it's, it's actually, it's. I think I mentioned before on the show that this is one of the fantasy series that I've actually never read and I find the show can be quite complex. I feel like I need. I need that meme with all the different yarn connecting the characters in my room. It's a big universe.

[Jason DeFilippo]

So.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Big world. Yeah.

[Jason DeFilippo]

In a world. I did finally pull the trigger this week and I moved from Things to Apple Reminders. All right, here's the thing. I don't know if you. You're an Apple Reminders guy, remember? Right.

[Brian Schulmeister]

I was. And now I just. I use todoist, which used to be your thing, and now it's my thing.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah, I did todoist and I went to Things and I went to Apple Reminders. I may have to go back to Things because for some reason on my phone, it won't let me add a new reminder.

[Brian Schulmeister]

That's strange.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah, I'm out. I'm like going to the store. I'm like, okay, add this to my shopping list and it would just disappear. Add it again, it would disappear. Yeah. And I'm like, like, okay.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Well, maybe Perplexity AI will make a competing product that tracks absolutely everything and gives you hyper marketed ads based on what you're doing.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Or maybe I should use my anus to use their agent to add the link to Perplexity to then add it to the reminders. It all comes.

[Brian Schulmeister]

My anus isn't adding anything. Is Uranus. Adults, my ass.

[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 cyber security on Control Loop and even brings the laughs on only malware in the building. Good morning, Dave. How are you?

[D]

Well, good afternoon.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Freaking morning. Here.

[D]

One minute. Afternoon. Yes. So I can. I can say it. Good afternoon.

[Jason DeFilippo]

All right, so, elephant in the room. Have you seen Andor?

[D]

No. No. So let me.

[Brian Schulmeister]

I have watched all 19 hours of.

[Jason DeFilippo]

The first part and the. What do you call it? The recap. The 15 minute recap. And the new ones.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Okay, so we'll go spoiler free. But Dave, go ahead and tell us why you've been such a bad Star wars fan and should be denied your stormtrooper helmet.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Let us all down, Dave.

[D]

I know. Look, I'm not happy about it either, but I think I have shared with you all before my philosophy when it comes to my teenage son, which is that when your son asks. When your teenage son asks you to do something, the answer is always yes. Because you have only a limited Number of years in which your teenage son is going to ask you to do anything.

[Brian Schulmeister]

This is true.

[D]

Yeah. So my teenage son comes to me on the weekend and says, hey, dad, you want to get lunch? Doesn't matter what I'm doing. Doesn't matter what I'm in the middle of it in. The answer is yes. Right. And I'd say, overall, that serves me well. So my son bury the body of a dead hooker.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Dad.

[D]

Yeah, absolutely.

[Brian Schulmeister]

I'm in.

[D]

Yeah. Last questions later. So my son comes to me and he says, hey, dad. So mom and I have been talking, which is always. Which means that's not good. Well, I'm already outvoted. So comes to me and said, hey, mom and I have been talking and we've, we've agreed that we want to watch andor season one all the way through before we start and. Or season two. And I said, that sounds good to me.

[Brian Schulmeister]

And I would say you best get watching.

[D]

Well, that's.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Sit down.

[D]

Yeah. So we just haven't been able to align our schedules because my son works now and I work now, you know, all this kind of stuff. And I'm heading off to the RSA conference on Sunday, so I'll be gone for most of this coming week.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Right.

[D]

So. And so simultaneous to that are all of these raves about how Great Andor Season 2 is. It's the best Star wars ever. This is the, you know, this is. It's everything we've hoped for. And I'm sitting here like, you know, a kid who has to stay inside and practice his violin while all the other kids are out playing on their BMX bikes. That's how I feel right now.

[Brian Schulmeister]

I will tell you right now, Dave, it is, it is very good, but it is not that good.

[D]

Okay, well, all right, well, that makes me feel a little better.

[Jason DeFilippo]

I think that you could probably talk your son into watching the 15 minute recap and it would be just as good because it was a really good recap.

[D]

So is it an official recap?

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah, it's right there on the homepage. Go to Star wars tab on Disney. And There's Pandora season one recap. It's 15 minutes long and it gets you all the way through with all of the story and all the plot that you need, all the information that you need to walk into season two hot and ready to go.

[D]

Well, I am going to float that idea. That sounds to me like a plan. Yes, I like it.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Unfortunately, it probably will not solve your watching all of this on time thing. Jason and I were actually even texting about this the other day. I. I don't understand. We're going to go spoiler free, obviously, because you haven't seen it. But I do want to talk about the release schedule that they have decided upon, which is ridiculous. It's. Watching the show is going to be. Be a full time job for the next month. It's. It's the equivalent of like a Godfather two length movie every week that you need to watch. So it's like limited time. So it's. It's three. Three. Three episodes per week that drop. And each episode is at least an hour long. I don't know how we're going to keep up with this.

[D]

Well, but I mean, so we were complaining that some episodes of things like Skeleton Crew were too short.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Short.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yeah.

[D]

So I guess it's good.

[Brian Schulmeister]

I don't mind it. But couldn't they have just done one episode a week like normal shows?

[D]

Right. I wonder what the rationale is.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Well, I was thinking maybe it's sweeps weeks for streaming and they need to get all the eyeballs in one go so they can get funding. But then I'm like, that doesn't track.

[D]

Really?

[Brian Schulmeister]

I think.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Is that even a thing?

[Brian Schulmeister]

The way they're selling it is each. Each. Each week will be one year, and then you skip ahead one more year, and then you skip ahead one more year. So there's three episodes an hour each, each per year. And then it skips.

[D]

Okay.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Which is really annoying personally.

[D]

But I mean, at least there's a framework behind it that.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yeah. And it brings you. It brings you right up to Rogue One. So.

[D]

And have they. They've said, this is the final season. Right? This is it. Okay.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Well, he does die in Rogue One.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Brings you up to Rogue One.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Spoiler alert.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Spoiler alert.

[D]

Well, right, sure. Okay.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Honestly though, there's enough story in between these years where they could actually go back and fill in more if they wanted to, but I don't think they will.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yeah.

[D]

Okay.

[Brian Schulmeister]

So I guess all other commentary will need to wait until Dave catches up.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Well, I. I do have one bit of commentary here because this is more about languaging than. Than actually anything. This is an article from Gizmodo and it's the glorious, terrible delirium of Mon Motha's liberating andor moment. And there's one sentence that in this, this article that just made me disqualify every single thing else in it. It says, but at the climax of it all, we and Mon Motha alike find out just how worst it can get for her to commit to this path and what it will do. It doesn't matter how worst it can get for her to commit to this path.

[D]

How worst it can get. Huh?

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah. Yeah, that's, that's, that's from an article on Gizmodo and well, Jason. That's not English.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Jason and Dave, I have been constantly flummoxed by how poor grammar and spelling and punctuation and everything else is by people who are theoretically paid to write for a living. Now, I will freely admit my texts and, and emails of non consequence and what correspondence with friends and things of that nature are not up to the highest standard. But if I'm writing a work email or if I'm doing anything that I'm actually getting paid for or is public facing. There are so many tools out there that fix this. Not only do they fix it, they highlight it for you while you're writing it.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yes.

[Brian Schulmeister]

I don't understand.

[Jason DeFilippo]

No, I, when I put, pasted this in Grammarly, had a fucking conniption fit. It's like, you can't write that. That's not Engrish. No.

[D]

Yeah, yeah. All right.

[Jason DeFilippo]

And this is on Gizmodo.

[D]

I just pasted it into Google Docs and it did not flag it, which is interesting.

[Brian Schulmeister]

I guess they're writing it in Google.

[D]

That was going to be my question.

[Jason DeFilippo]

You gave me a dissertation on it. How that was bad.

[D]

No, that's bad. It is bad. I wonder though, because there are regional abbreviations. I can't remember if we've ever talked about this, but for example, people in Pennsylvania will say, my car needs washed, my hair needs cut, my house needs painting.

[Brian Schulmeister]

I may say it, but it's still not right, Dave.

[D]

Well, it's. That's true. And it's not right in print. You wouldn't, if you, if you were writing professionally, you wouldn't write that and it would get flagged. But it's interesting to me that it didn't get flagged. I wonder.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Well, yeah, no, I ran it through basically every grammar checker and AI on the planet to just to make sure that I wasn't having my own episode. No, it is wrong, but there is a, there's an entire book about Pittsburghese as its own language. As a native Pittsburgher myself.

[D]

Oh, Jens Yuns Yens. Yeah.

[Jason DeFilippo]

But it brought me to like modern language. And now I want to ask you guys, is it because I hear these all the time and I'm just making sure that this is just not me all of a Sudden or all the sudden?

[D]

Sudden.

[Brian Schulmeister]

All of a sudden.

[D]

All of a sudden. All of a sudden. So I think one is a contraction of the other. I think all of a sudden is a contraction of all of the sudden.

[Jason DeFilippo]

It has only appeared for me, hearing the past, like somewhere around the last decade from younger people all of a sudden, I believe is the proper usage of it.

[D]

Yes.

[Jason DeFilippo]

The way it should be. So what I hear people say all of a sudden, it makes me want to smack them.

[D]

Now, I've heard that my whole life. So I have that. Yes, that is a Baltimore contraction, perhaps.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Okay. Because. Yeah, it's all of a sudden. Is all I've ever known until.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Same.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Until Instagram and Twitter.

[D]

Yeah, I would say all of a sudden. Yeah, I was walking down the street when all of a sudden. Yeah, I would say that for sure. I wouldn't think twice. I wouldn't think twice about it.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Okay.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Interesting.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah, that is interesting. Interesting. Not the. Not the expected result. Now, now, along this pedantic march towards doom, does it bother you when. When people say, hey, I just bought a software.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yes, absolutely.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Good. Okay. Yes. Making sure there's no, no dissent on that.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Went down to egghead Software and I bought a software.

[Jason DeFilippo]

No, yeah, yeah, no, that's a throat. That's a punch in the throat moment for me. Me.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Well, I don't think we need to resort.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Causes me. It causes my back to seize up and my arms to pull back to. And when they do that, the only thing that's left to do to release the tension is to punch whoever said that in the throat.

[D]

I bought a software.

[Brian Schulmeister]

I reserve punching for Nazis.

[D]

Oh, a lot of which are about.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah. If you, if you spend any time with younger influencers who do write things about how to do things on the Internet, they often talk about a software. Software is the plural. The singular of software is software, not a software.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Now, a software package.

[Jason DeFilippo]

A software package is different than a software. When people talk about buying Photoshop, they say, I bought a software to edit my images. And I just.

[D]

Yeah, well, let me give you a hot take on that, because as you said it, and I was processing it, my brain categorized it into the same place that it puts. I'm going to edit this in Adobe. Oh, yeah, right, right.

[Jason DeFilippo]

When. When people used to walk into Kinko's, they would come in and they go, I have a disk. And we would all slow clap and say, congratulations. Like, because they had to go to the. The Mac or the PC and we're like, is it a Mac or PC? And they Would just say, oh, Microsoft.

[D]

There you go.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Even though it was Microsoft Word on both the Mac and the PC.

[D]

Right.

[Jason DeFilippo]

It's like Microsoft.

[D]

It's like playing it Marco Polo.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah.

[Brian Schulmeister]

A software out of water.

[D]

Wow.

[Jason DeFilippo]

So the final one I have here, the one that also drives me absolutely crazy. When you clink glasses to, you know, celebrate something, it is generally called a toast, Correct?

[D]

Correct, yes.

[Jason DeFilippo]

So if you, if you pay attention to younger people, they often say let's cheers. No, let's.

[Brian Schulmeister]

I've heard that growing up.

[D]

Let's cheers.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Cheers is cheers. A cheer is what you say during a toast, right. You say cheers is when you, you clink your glass, you say cheers. That's an American version. There are other ones are from around the world. There are toasts from around the world. So cheers is an American thing. So you generally don't say here people in other countries that aren't American go, let's cheers. No, they say let's have a toast.

[D]

Okay.

[Jason DeFilippo]

I am just feeling very old and get off my lawn today. I'm sorry.

[D]

So you, you've heard people say let's cheers.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yes.

[D]

This.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Let's Cheers go to any happy hour in the country at any TGI Fridays or whatever.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Whatever might be the target audience there.

[Jason DeFilippo]

I'm just, I'm telling you, that's what I'm saying. That's. It might be a thing for a certain age group of a certain br bracket that do. Let's cheers. Yeah, good for them.

[D]

Yeah, I hope they enjoy it when I'm dead.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yeah, they will have a cheers then.

[D]

Yeah, that's right.

[Jason DeFilippo]

I'm going to buy a software. Yeah, that's it. I just, I had to fill the time since you didn't see andor. So there we go. Well, so.

[D]

But I think it point.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Oh, I think we're bringing up a whole pedantic road mill here.

[D]

I just got one. I've only got one. I've only got one. The language changes, words evolve, they have different meanings. And one that I will point out is someone who I interact with regularly, might even be the co host of one of the shows that I'm on gets their undies all in a bunch when people use the word decimate.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Oh, I wonder who you could be talking about, Dave.

[D]

Am I talking about you? Oh, I didn't know. I wasn't even thinking of you. Honestly, I was not thinking about you.

[Brian Schulmeister]

That Kerrigan fellow.

[D]

It was the Kerrigan fellow. Yeah.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Okay. Well, me and Joe are. We're brothers from another mother on that.

[D]

One because as Joe will point.

[Brian Schulmeister]

He decimated you.

[D]

Yeah. To decimate means to reduce by 1 10th.

[Jason DeFilippo]

1 10th, yes. 10%.

[D]

But what the accepted modern use of decimate means is to utterly destroy.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Correct.

[Brian Schulmeister]

You've been decimated, much like the Death Star. Thanks to Andor see how I brought it.

[D]

Perhaps it's best that we move on.

[Brian Schulmeister]

All right, let's get back to Star Wars a little bit. I don't know if you guys watched the first series at which I at the time thought was the only series of Light and Magic, the story of ILM over on Disney plus, but they have dropped a season two, and I've started to watch that, and it's. It's, you know, it's very interesting.

[D]

So, yeah, on my list. Absolutely.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yeah. Unfortunately, you're gonna have to go back and watch season one with your son first.

[D]

Is there a recap?

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah.

[D]

Last time on Light and Magic.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yes, it's very good.

[D]

I will also recommend ILM has a podcast. I think.

[Brian Schulmeister]

I did not know that.

[D]

I think it's called Darker and Lighter or Lighter and Darker.

[Jason DeFilippo]

I think they should just call it ILM Has a Podcast. That's a great name. I thought that was it.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Easy to find.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah.

[D]

Yeah. So ILM has a podcast, and it's quite good. And the recent episode I listened to was Bryce. Dallas Howard was the guest. Okay.

[Brian Schulmeister]

She wrote a lot of stuff.

[D]

Yeah. She had a lot of interesting things to say. Boy, does she have a California accent. Wow.

[Brian Schulmeister]

There is no California accent. That is. Not to be pedantic about it, but that is the thing. The thing is the California accent is lack of accent.

[D]

I beg to differ.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Unless it's a surfer accent.

[D]

I beg to differ. When you go listen to. It is the California accent that they make fun of on Saturday Night Live.

[Jason DeFilippo]

It's that in the actual segment. The California.

[D]

The Californians. Yes. But that is her. That's the way she talks. And having grown up in California and I guess LA more specifically, that is her accent. So it's very strong but really interesting things to say about directing episodes of the Mandalorian and her process and that sort of thing. So, yeah, it's a good show. Worth checking.

[Brian Schulmeister]

All right.

[D]

Oh, oh, another thing. ILM is coming out with a 50th anniversary coffee table book.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Ooh.

[D]

Yeah. So that's on my Christmas list. I don't know if either of you have the original ILM coffee table book from the 80s.

[Brian Schulmeister]

I do not.

[D]

It is very good. It is very good. And it has all these big fold outs of Matte paintings and things like that. You can still find them in used bookstores and some of them even have them brand new. New, old stock of it. But if you love special effects and things, the original ILM Coffee table book is very good. Highly recommended. One of my. It's one of my most treasured books on my bookshelf. It's. It's really good, so check it out.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Excellent. Well, last week, our. Sometimes what I try to do on the show in this segment is try to figure out where the fuck our topics come from, because they're very random and tangential these days. And last week, week, Dave, you brought to the table songs from Sesame street and things of that nature. And I was like, where did that come from? And the very next day, a new. A new podcast was downloaded into my podcast player from a show that you actually introduced me to and recommended, which I love dearly. Strong songs. And it was Strong songs. The music of the Muppets.

[D]

Yes.

[Brian Schulmeister]

I'm thinking you must be a Patreon subscriber and got this episode early and that's what led us down that path last week. Or it's just. Sarah. Serendipity.

[D]

It is serendipity. I was not aware of this. So let me tell you this. Sometimes, every now and then, the universe puts in front of you exactly the thing that you need.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Right?

[D]

Right. I was in my car. This was Saturday. I was in my car getting ready to take a two and a half hour road trip to see some family on the Eastern Shore. And so I'm loading up my podcasts and there pops up strong songs, the music of the Muppets. I was like, these are a few of my favorite things. And so I spent an hour or so of my trip just listening to that. It was wonderful. It was just wonderful. And I'm sitting there and of course you start talking about Rainbow Connection, and I'm getting all misty and weepy because I love the Muppets and I love strong songs and I miss my dad. And, you know, like Craig, all the.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Emotional weight comes barreling down on you.

[D]

Yeah, right, right. And. But also, I'm in a place where I can experience all of that. I'm by myself in my car on a long trip. So it's just me, the road and my thoughts. And it couldn't have been a better time for that to pop up. And I was just so delighted to see it come up. I will be pedantic and say that he did make a few errors in his Muppet information, but I Will let it slide because of the delight that he brought me.

[Brian Schulmeister]

You did not write him an angry email.

[D]

I did not. I did not. I restrained myself. I said, I'm not going to be that. What I figure is there'll be plenty of other people who will write him an email.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Other people will decimate him.

[D]

Yes, there you go. But I just figured if I'm ever going to write him an email, it's going to be one of love and appreciation because did you hear the one he did about U2? The U2 songs?

[Brian Schulmeister]

I did. And as much as I love Joshua Tree, I always will. But I've come to despise and hate all you two.

[D]

Really?

[Brian Schulmeister]

Well, I spent many, almost two decades hanging out in an Irish bar. You get sick. A YouTube real quick.

[D]

Okay.

[Jason DeFilippo]

They're the Elon Musk of rock and roll.

[D]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Brian Schulmeister]

So. But, yeah, it was a great episode. And. And it's. It's. Yeah. I mean, he picked two songs from that album, so no complaints from me.

[D]

Yeah. I thought of a dumb U2 joke while I was listening to that, which is. Ladies and gentlemen, I'm. I regret to announce that this evening's U2 concert will have to be cancelled. The Edge's digital delay has malfunctioned.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Pretty inside baseball there.

[D]

Yeah. Thank you very much.

[Brian Schulmeister]

That's a good one. It's funny and it would actually be true.

[D]

Yeah, it's a funny, smart joke, but, you know, limited appeal.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yes.

[D]

So we were talking in my production meeting this morning with the folks from the space podcast team, and if you have not checked out the T minus daily space podcast, please do. Ding, ding, ding. And they were talking about, there's a lunar lander that's going to be landing on the moon soon. And that made me think of the lunar lander arcade game. You guys remember the lunar lander arcade game?

[Jason DeFilippo]

I do, Yes, I do. Yes.

[D]

1979, Atari. I included a link to a YouTube video of it. It is perhaps the most boring arcade game ever. I mean, it is boring. Did you ever play it?

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yes, at least once.

[Jason DeFilippo]

I agree with your assessment.

[D]

Did you ever land the lander?

[Jason DeFilippo]

Hell, no, I didn't.

[D]

No, Never. I always ran out of fuel or crashed.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yep, that was pretty much it.

[D]

Yeah.

[Jason DeFilippo]

I even had unlimited credits because it was at my uncle's arcade and I still couldn't do it. I just gave up and went and just left. I'm like, no, not going to try. It's frustrating.

[D]

It is frustrating. Yes. Now, The. The. The YouTube video, whoever is playing it has Mad skills when it comes to playing Lunar Lander, which still doesn't make it any more interesting. But. But that got me thinking about like what were some other boring arcade games? Because there were, especially in those early days, there were some boring games or games that in retrospect are boring. Boring.

[Brian Schulmeister]

I can't remember the name of it.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Seawolf.

[D]

Oh, Seawolf. Yeah.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Was terrible.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Do you remember the one that kind of the controller was a. A wheel and you had to spin around in a circle and it was like really bad line drawn crystals that you had to shoot. That was the dumbest game.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Tempest.

[D]

Tempest, yeah.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yes, that's what it was called.

[D]

Yeah.

[Brian Schulmeister]

I found that so boring.

[D]

Really? Okay, yes.

[Jason DeFilippo]

I just thought it was hard. I just thought it was extremely, annoyingly hard. But.

[D]

Well, the other one that I thought of was Hard Drivin'do. You remember Hard Drivin'no?

[Brian Schulmeister]

Vague.

[D]

Okay, well, I put another link to it in the show notes. So the thing about Hard Drivin was I think it was another Atari game. It wasn't so much a game as it was a simulation. So you have 3D graphics that look like the money for nothing music video, very blocky.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Or a cybertruck. Actually. That's true.

[D]

That is absolutely. Holy smokes. You know what? We may have just unlocked something.

[Brian Schulmeister]

We cracked it.

[D]

Where did the design for the cybertruck come from? Hard drive. But hard drive and wasn't so much a game as it was a technology demonstration because it was real time 3D graphics, which was revolutionary at the time. Time. But also it was the first game that had force feedback on the steering wheel. And that was the real thing about it. So this was what, 1988? I believe. So the fact that you were driving and the wheel would push back and if you crash, the wheel would shake and all that kind of stuff. Brand new for this, but ultimately boring.

[Brian Schulmeister]

No, it's funny, I was having a discussion with my wife just like two nights ago and it was about, you know, our son is, is 8 and he just got a Nintendo Switch for Christmas. It's the first gaming system he's ever had while all of his friends have had it, blah, blah, blah. And we were talking about how he's kind of, you know, addicted to it. Like he wants to play all the time if he could. And we, we really do limit it quite a bit, but. And she was just like, I don't remember being like this about video games when I was a kid. And were you? And I was like, well, no, but our game Sucked. Like, the games that we played as kids were nothing compared to the games that they have now. So I totally get how. How addictive they are and how these kids really want to play them.

[Jason DeFilippo]

I don't know. I loved video games when I was.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Well, I did, too.

[Jason DeFilippo]

They were fantastic.

[Brian Schulmeister]

At some point, like, you would just walk away from Pitfall because you got bored, and it's like, okay, now I'm going to go ride my bike and play baseball. Baseball.

[D]

Not me.

[Jason DeFilippo]

No, no, not. Not in any way, shape or form.

[D]

No, no, no.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Okay. Wrong audience for this conference.

[D]

No, I mean, I just spent a lot of time in the arcade. If I had a quarter, I was playing Galaga or Pac man or.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah, we have. We also have to remember the location where Brian grew up, so.

[Brian Schulmeister]

That's true.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Going outside for Brian was different than going outside for probably.

[D]

Probably me and you, Dave, because It was available 365 days a year and.

[Brian Schulmeister]

It was always nice. Yes.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Skipping a jump to the happiest place on Earth.

[Brian Schulmeister]

There was no day you could not go to Disneyland or go play soccer or go ride your bike or go play baseball. No, Dave, that's true.

[D]

If I had Disneyland down the street, I probably would not have spent so much time.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Aha. But Disneyland had an arcade in it, and I spent a lot of time there.

[D]

See, it's a trap. Yeah. So there you go. Go. Yeah. Yeah. And we never had an Atari. We. The kids across the street had one, so I spent a lot of time over there. Oh.

[Jason DeFilippo]

I lived on my Atari.

[Brian Schulmeister]

I had An Odyssey 2000 because it was cheaper than Atari when it came out. And eventually the complaints from my sister and I got. Got us the Atari.

[D]

Yeah, no, we never got an Atari because the cartridges were too expensive. So. Never got an Atari. Oh, well, I just real quick wanted to talk about. Earlier in the show. You guys were talking about this trailer for Fountain of Youth.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yes.

[D]

Which I think looks like a really good movie. As you mentioned, it's like. It's sort of Indiana Jones reboot kind of thing.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Very, very, very Last Crusade.

[D]

Yeah, very much so. So I'm looking forward to that. But I also think it's an example of how modern color grading has gotten the point to where it's distracting. The color correction on this trailer is just over the top where I'm freeze.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Framed on one scene right now. And it just makes me think of that. What was the Kevin Spacey show that really put. Pushed the colors so bad? I was on hbo. It was. He was the president. He began oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Jason DeFilippo]

It's House of Cards. I was on House of Cards.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yes. Because the color correction on that show was, what, one of the first times that I sat there and, like, really noticed it and was so distracted by it.

[D]

Right, right. The. The skin tones are all pure and everything else is some shade of blue because teal is on the other side of the color wheel from skin tones, so our brains are wired to find that pleasing. But there's a line. It's an Uncanny Valley thing for me. If there's too much. And so I included a link to a blog post from Stu Mashowitz, who is a professional color grader. And he talks about this sort of thing about colors and how sometimes. And this is a blog post from 2010. So 15 years ago, he was talking about this on the leading edge of this, how the problem is you end up with color combinations in rooms that don't reflect reality. In other words, there's no way that the light in that room could create those colors. In order to get that skin tone, you would not get that blue.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Right.

[D]

And so it causes a little disconnect in your brain. And for me, this is just getting worse and worse. It's getting and more distracting. I keep hoping that we're going to get over this fad and there'll be another side to it, but it's been over a decade now, and it just seems like because they have these digital tools, that's just how it's going to be from here on out.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Well, you'll be happy to know that Andor is pretty well done.

[D]

Okay.

[Jason DeFilippo]

I think it's going to be stuck that way for a while, because one of the big trends in video editing has been the move to DaVinci Resolve. Resolve for a lot of people. And it's because of the luts. It's all because of the luts. Absolutely. And now there's a new version of Resolve that came out that is apparently really, really good. I saw a quick demo of it the other day, and I'm like, I might have to switch. Yeah, it has a lot of really good features. I've been stuck in Premiere lately for ungodly amounts of time. But, yeah, it's all about color. That's the hotness. And. And kids are just discovering it now, even though the rest of us are like, can you please stop? They're like, but this is neat.

[D]

And I guess. I mean, Brian, you bring up a good point. That Andor looks good. And so I guess I'm being a little biased Here by. It's not that everything looks like this, but when something looks like this, I'm immediately tuned into it and brought out of the story, and that makes me sad.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yeah, no, I'm with you again. That really did bother me with the Kevin Spacey show. Like, I wanted to, you know, all baggage aside, before we knew what Kevin Spacey was and before the show actually got really crap, it was a good show, but I found myself just drawn out of it all the time because everything was so washed and so horribly colored. Oh.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Oh, you want to know one? That's. That takes it way to the nth degree right now. Is the studio.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Oh, is that real tv? Maybe that's part of the problem I'm having.

[Jason DeFilippo]

It is horrible.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Everything is brown.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Orange. Yeah, Orange.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Brownish orange. Orange, yes, Everything. I can't. It's awful.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah. And by the way, the show has turned to shit, too. We just got out early. Yeah, we were watching it yesterday, and, like, after episode two, this show has gone consistently downhill. Like, every episode is exponentially worse than the last one.

[D]

It was too bad.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah.

[D]

Because I'd heard good things about it. I was.

[Jason DeFilippo]

It was good start.

[D]

The beginning shouldn't bother.

[Jason DeFilippo]

No, I. I thought episode. I thought it was good to episode three, and now then four, five, and six have just been like.

[Brian Schulmeister]

I tapped out after episode two. I just. I couldn't understand what they were trying to do. Is this slapstick? Is this serious? I don't know what this is.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah. The conceit is basically, he's just a buffoonery studio head, and it just keeps. You know, every episode is him. Just. There's always a pratfall in every episode for some reason or another. And he's just. He just looks like he's the asshole soul, and that's kind of it. So.

[D]

Okay.

[Brian Schulmeister]

But it's also very brown and orange.

[Jason DeFilippo]

It is extraordinarily. Extraordinarily orange. Yes.

[D]

Yeah. All right, well, I am heading off to the RSA conference on Sunday, so I will not be here next week.

[Brian Schulmeister]

All right. I can't wait to hear what the buzzwords are.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah.

[D]

Oh, I can tell you what it is already. It's agentic AI. That's.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Oh, they fucking moved to agentic. Damn it.

[D]

Yeah, that's it. We are. Yeah. Get out your bingo cards. It is agentic AI. That is.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah.

[D]

Hold on to the bar. That's where we are.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Well, enjoy the martinis, Dave.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah, I'm actually working on two agentic AI podcasts already.

[D]

Oh, okay. Well, there you go. So yeah, Ride the wave, my friend. Ride the wave.

[Jason DeFilippo]

I am. You know it, brother. You know it.

[D]

Yeah, absolutely.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Well, have a great trip.

[D]

All right, I'll see you guys in a couple weeks. Take care.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Closing Shout out over at Patreon, we've got a new Patreon subscriber, Josh. Welcome, Josh. And from the archives and current Patreon subscribers, Annie, James, Greg, Jason, John, Snurt, 196s, Andreas, Erbo and Jay. Thank you all.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Thank you all so much. Over at PayPal, we've got Tom, Joseph, Jens and David.

[Jason DeFilippo]

And over at the Tip Jar, we've got Ross. Thank you, Ross. Nobody bought any goodies this week. I do have to put up some new shirts this week because we do have a new logo and new show art.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Woo. Oh, yeah, I should go and update that around the other properties, I guess.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Around the interwebs, Brian. Around the interwebs. And just a reminder for everyone, if you do want to help support the show, please, please, please. You can head over to patreon.com gog and sign up for as little as $3 a month to help keep. You can of course give more if you're so inclined. There is no cap onto on how much you can give. Your generosity may floweth over and you get the show a little bit early ad free and in high definition. So thank you very much and 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 694. Want to keep the grumpiness alive? Toss us a few bucks at GOG Show. Donate every penny. Helps keep the show on the air. Love the show. Of course you do. Share it. There's a share button in your podcast player. Use it to spread the grumpiness to friends, foes and everyone in between. We'll love you for it. Swing by GOG show to join our discord and chat with us and other show fans. Got thoughts? Feedback? Cool links? Hit us up at GOG show contact and don't forget to leave a 5 star review at GOG show review and we'll read it on the show. And guess what we've got. Merch. Snag your grumpy gear now atshop.gger show. Stay grumpy.