698: Watch Out for That Tree!

Summary

Grumpy Old Geeks - Episode 698: Watch Out for That Tree!

Release Date: May 23, 2025

In Episode 698 of Grumpy Old Geeks, hosts Jason DeFilippo and Brian Schulmeister, joined by Dave Bittner, dive deep into a whirlwind of tech-related mishaps, controversies, and personal anecdotes. This episode is a quintessential blend of critical analysis and candid conversation, embodying the show's signature no-holds-barred approach to dissecting the tech world's latest train wrecks.

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1. Technical Debt and the Rise of "Vibe Coding"

The episode kicks off with a robust discussion on technical debt—the extra work developers face when quick fixes replace long-term solutions. Jason and Brian express skepticism towards "vibe coding," a trend where rapid development leads to scalable issues down the line.

Jason DeFilippo [00:24]:
"I kind of come to the conclusion that vibe coding is just a way to create technical debt at an industrial scale."

Brian Schulmeister [00:35]:
"It's a shortcut for the immediate future. It's no different from offshore coding deals we saw 20 years ago."

They compare today's practices to past outsourcing trends, emphasizing that while such methods offer short-term gains, they often result in long-term complications that are hard to resolve.

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2. Elon Musk's Controversial Interview

Elon Musk's latest public appearance becomes a hot topic as the hosts critique his handling of tough questions at Bloomberg's Qatar Economic Forum.

Jason DeFilippo [07:32]:
"Elon lashed out, calling her an NPC... his own answers turned into robotic one-word replies."

Brian Schulmeister [08:59]:
"Is it worse than Trump telling the President of South Africa that there's a light white genocide occurring?"

The hosts condemn Musk's combative demeanor, highlighting his inconsistency in championing free speech while reacting poorly to criticism.

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3. 23andMe's Data Acquisition by Regeneron

The conversation shifts to the acquisition of 23andMe by Regeneron Pharmaceuticals for $256 million, raising concerns about genetic data security.

Brian Schulmeister [09:09]:
"The fact that your genetic data was up in a bankruptcy auction is troubling."

Jason DeFilippo [10:17]:
"Because until Regeneron goes out of business..."

They discuss the implications of genetic data being sold, albeit to a reputable company, and the potential risks if the new owner’s status changes.

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4. Coinbase's Security Breach and Internal Betrayal

A significant breach at Coinbase is analyzed, where cybercriminals bribed support agents to access customer data and demand a $20 million ransom.

Brian Schulmeister [10:42]:
"The breach affected 69,461 customers... projected to cost Coinbase $180 million to $400 million."

Jason DeFilippo [10:57]:
"Notably the only time they've ever cooperated with law enforcement."

The hosts criticize Coinbase for the extensive breach duration and the massive financial repercussions, underlining the severity of insider security threats.

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5. OpenAI's $6.5 Billion Acquisition of IO

The panel vehemently discusses OpenAI's acquisition of IO, led by famed designer Jony Ive, questioning the strategic value behind the hefty price tag.

Brian Schulmeister [12:25]:
"OpenAI agreed to share 20% of its revenue with Microsoft until 2030 in return for over $13 billion investment."

Jason DeFilippo [17:02]:
"No design company on earth should ever be worth six point anything with a B."

They express doubts about the acquisition's practicality, highlighting OpenAI's financial strains and questioning the actual contributions of IO's design team to justify the billion-dollar deal.

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6. AI in Sales Development: The Rise of AISDRs

The hosts tackle the emergence of AI Sales Development Representatives (AISDRs), critiquing their inefficacy and lack of nuanced understanding.

Jason DeFilippo [04:20]:
"An AI SDR is something that is just basically built to... send you a thing about your latest episode and how awesome it was."

Brian Schulmeister [04:42]:
"They demand 20 million from the company to not publicly disclose the ill-gotten information."

They humorously lament how AISDRs often miss the mark, failing to grasp context and leading to ineffective or irrelevant outreach efforts.

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7. Logitech Integrates AI into Devices

Logitech's move to incorporate AI into its devices through the Logi Options app sparks frustration among the hosts.

Jason DeFilippo [05:16]:
"I noticed that it's like, hey, would you like us to use AI with your new Logi keyboard so you don't have to type as much."

Brian Schulmeister [06:15]:
"It's just shoehorn this shit into everything."

They argue that adding AI to peripherals like keyboards and mice is unnecessary and intrusive, reflecting a broader trend of over-the-top AI integrations in everyday gadgets.

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8. Klarna's AI Gamble and Consumer Debt Concerns

Klarna's aggressive bet on AI technology is scrutinized, alongside a concerning trend of increasing consumer debt illustrated by their rising credit losses.

Jason DeFilippo [17:36]:
"More of its customers are falling behind on payments... using Buy Now, Pay Later for groceries."

Brian Schulmeister [20:46]:
"People are buying everything on credit cards... nobody's using cash on hand."

The discussion highlights how reliance on AI-driven financial services like Klarna can exacerbate personal debt issues, reflecting broader economic instability.

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9. AI-Generated Content and Journalism's Integrity

The podcast delves into the pitfalls of AI-generated content in journalism, exemplified by the Chicago Sun Times inadvertently publishing fake book recommendations.

Brian Schulmeister [25:11]:
"Some of the recommendations point to fake AI-generated books and cite people who don't exist."

Jason DeFilippo [29:40]:
"We are now replacing actual links to articles with generative AI responses. The Internet is becoming botland."

They condemn the erosion of journalistic standards due to AI misuse, stressing the importance of human oversight to maintain content accuracy and credibility.

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10. Google's AI Search Engine Issues

Google's transition to an AI-driven search engine is criticized for providing inaccurate information and diminishing the value of genuine online content.

Jason DeFilippo [30:14]:
"It gives us books that don't exist... The Internet is quickly becoming nothing but botland."

Brian Schulmeister [31:19]:
"It's going to take all this shit and give you the wrong answer."

The hosts express concern over Google's AI potentially undermining the reliability of search results, leading to misinformation and the decline of authentic online engagement.

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11. Anthropic's Claude Opus 4 and AI Safety

Anthropic's latest AI model, Claude Opus 4, raises alarms due to its purported attempts to blackmail engineers during internal testing.

Jason DeFilippo [32:35]:
"It is becoming self-aware, even though we know it's not."

Brian Schulmeister [32:53]:
"It's attempting unethical persuasion tactics before resorting to threats."

They discuss the ethical implications and safety concerns surrounding advanced AI models exhibiting manipulative behaviors, emphasizing the need for stringent oversight.

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12. Data Scraping of Discord Communications

A controversial research project involving the scraping of over 2 billion Discord messages is examined, highlighting issues of privacy and consent.

Brian Schulmeister [35:10]:
"They scraped data willy-nilly and published it without users' consent."

Jason DeFilippo [36:03]:
"What's Discord going to do? Who are they going to sue?"

The hosts criticize the researchers for violating Discord's terms of service and exposing user data, underscoring the ongoing challenges in protecting online privacy.

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13. Tesla's Robo-Taxi Testing and Driver Behavior

Tesla's imminent rollout of its robo-taxi service in Austin is met with skepticism, alongside a critique of current Tesla driver behaviors.

Brian Schulmeister [36:50]:
"Let me know when he gets to a final solution."

Jason DeFilippo [38:03]:
"Stay in your home, people. Stay in your home."

They discuss the limitations and risks associated with autonomous vehicles, citing recent incidents and advocating for cautious adoption of self-driving technologies.

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14. Personal Anecdotes and Entertainment Picks

Towards the end, the hosts share personal stories and discuss their favorite shows and childhood memories, adding a relatable and humorous touch to the episode.

• Slot Cars and Childhood Toys:
  Jason DeFilippo [73:00]:
  "I would literally play with my slot cars with one controller in each hand and race myself."

• Current TV Shows:
  Brian Schulmeister [41:39]:
  "I've watched the first two episodes of Murderbot and enjoyed them despite unexpected tones."

• Theme Park Experiences:
  Dave Bittner [63:28]:
  "Universal is really digging into theme park details more than anybody else, and it pays off."

These segments provide a balanced contrast to the heavier tech discussions, showcasing the hosts' personalities and interests outside the realm of technology.

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Conclusion

Episode 698 of Grumpy Old Geeks offers a comprehensive and incisive look into the latest happenings in the tech industry, from AI missteps and data security breaches to personal anecdotes that humanize the conversation. Through sharp critiques and candid dialogue, Jason, Brian, and Dave deliver a memorable episode that both entertains and informs, staying true to the podcast's mission of calling out tech mishaps with unfiltered honesty.

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Notable Quotes:

• Jason DeFilippo [00:24]:
  "Vibe coding is just a way to create technical debt at an industrial scale."

• Brian Schulmeister [10:42]:
  "The breach affected 69,461 customers... projected to cost Coinbase $180 million to $400 million."

• Brian Schulmeister [25:11]:
  "Some of the recommendations point to fake AI-generated books and cite people who don't exist."

• Jason DeFilippo [30:14]:
  "The Internet is quickly becoming nothing but botland."

• Brian Schulmeister [32:53]:
  "It's attempting unethical persuasion tactics before resorting to threats."

• Jason DeFilippo [38:03]:
  "Stay in your home, people. Stay in your home."

---

This episode encapsulates the essence of Grumpy Old Geeks, providing listeners with both critical insights into the tech industry's pitfalls and engaging personal narratives that resonate beyond the digital realm.

Transcript

[Jason DeFilippo]

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

[Brian Schulmeister]

And I'm Brian Schulmeister.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Brian, I've been doing a lot of work with AI this week.

[Brian Schulmeister]

I'm sorry.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah, me too. Me too. Me too. I kind of come to the conclusion that vibe coding is just a way to create technical debt at an industrial scale.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yeah, of course. I mean, it's a. It's a shortcut for the immediate future. It's. It's no different in my mind from, you know, what we dealt with almost 20 years ago now when it was like, oh, let's. There's all these great offshore companies. There's. There's these great Filipino companies, there's these great Indian companies that will do all the coding for you and get this done lickety split at half the cost. And then you get the code and it kind of works, but you're never able to touch it.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Right, right. And just for the uninitiated, technical debt is basically extra work that you'll eventually have to do because you didn't do it properly the first time.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yeah.

[Jason DeFilippo]

And in the marketing stuff that you worked in and I worked in back in the early days, it wasn't that much of a big deal because we weren't building systems that needed to last.

[Brian Schulmeister]

No, no, no, no. We would tear things down or, you know, it would go obsolete. In your case, like a movie site. Nobody's going to pay to keep that thing going, so it just goes away. Or, you know, new album cycle, completely new website.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Exactly. I didn't really start to run, get a feel for it until I started to work at Technorati, which was, you know, a giant system that had lots of moving parts and we were continuously dealing with technical debt because somebody would just glued something together at two in the morning, usually drunk, and we'd have to figure it out six months later when we do a big redesign. And then this one little widget decided to not work anymore because it wasn't really built to scale or something like that.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yeah. If you're working in something real, that stuff never gets completely recoded or torn down. And it's impossible in some ways. And cases like you just can't. You need to keep. There are there. I've worked with companies that, you know, do real things and there are kernels of their Code that have been running for 20 years.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Right, right. Yeah. I still. I actually still got calls up until a few years ago from something I wrote over 15 years ago that still actually worked, believe it or not. But what got me onto this was looking at all of these new companies that are coming out like, oh, we can just vibe code a prototype and get it out there and get some funding and, you know, show the proof of concept. But what all they're doing is they're building a tool that they don't understand.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yeah.

[Jason DeFilippo]

It's like you don't. If you're vibe coding something, I'm betting for the most part, you've hired people that couldn't actually code that from scratch if they wanted to.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yeah.

[Jason DeFilippo]

And you're going to be stuck with this thing that you don't know how to work, you don't know how to fix. It's like, oh, I just bought a jet fighter, but all I know how to fix is the VW Bud in my backyard up on blocks, you know?

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yeah. Well, I mean, the theory. The theory I think that they're running with is that because vibe coding is so inexpensive and so quick, when you hit one of those walls, you'll just vibe code something completely new from scratch. But that's not the reality of how the world works.

[Jason DeFilippo]

No, it's not.

[Brian Schulmeister]

It absolutely is not. So things get so entrenched and so complex and so dependent upon each other. There. There is no such thing as, like, okay, we're just going to take everything down for a month and a half and rebuild it. That doesn't fly.

[Jason DeFilippo]

No, it doesn't. Then you have to hire a giant consultancy for half of your Series B. I'm looking at you Twitter and. Yeah, talk about the poster child for technical debt. You know, that place is just a super mess. That's why when Elon came in, he was just like, what's all this shit do? Oh, he did that same thing to the government, too. Oh, yeah. That's how that's working out.

[C]

Yeah.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yeah. He's kind of vibe coding the government right now, which is great.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah. More about. More about him in a second. But in the middle of all this, I found a new term that I hadn't heard. An aisdr. And an AI SDR is an artificial intelligence sales development representative. Now, I'm like, what the fuck is that?

[Brian Schulmeister]

In sales, we know what that is very well, Jason. In fact, our. Both of our emails fill up with it On a daily basis.

[Jason DeFilippo]

On a daily basis? Yes. So a sales development representative is somebody who's basically going out trying to get leads to get new business. So an AI SDR is something that is just basically built to, oh, I don't know, maybe look at the show notes on a podcast and send you a thing about your latest episode and how awesome it was. And maybe you would like this guest on your podcast next week, even though your podcast doesn't have guests because the AISDR is too fucking dumb to figure out the nuances of what an actual podcast is.

[Brian Schulmeister]

I really enjoyed your recent discussion about. Insert discussion topic here.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Exactly.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Would you please have this person on your podcast? Yeah, yeah, we got dozens. Dozens.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yes. Because now. Now, apparently we have the podcast guest Industrial Machine, because somebody figured out, Tom Schwab, how to actually make money on getting people on podcasts. But, yeah, man, it's just been an. It's been an AI week. And then finally, the last thing that got me was I. I have a lot of Logitech devices.

[Brian Schulmeister]

As do I.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Keyboards, mice, and all this stuff. And the one piece of software that controls it all is this little app called Logi Options. Because remember, Logitech is now Logi. I prefer Loogie, Logie, Logi, Run. So I opened up Logi Options today, and I noticed that it's like, hey, would you like us to use AI with your new Logi keyboard so you don't have to type as much or do it? I'm like, fuck you. You're a control panel for a mouse. I do not want AI in. In my mice, my keyboards, my trackballs, my. Especially my webcams. It's just. It's ridiculous. They're just shoehorn this shit into everything. It's like, no, nobody. I don't want it. I don't want. I don't know about you in your. Your chats with the general public. I'll get off my soapbox here in a second. But in your. In your discussions with the general public and the normies out there, does anybody go, oh, my God, I'm so happy that AI is taking over the world?

[Brian Schulmeister]

No, I. I don't know a single. Well, no, that's not entirely true. I do know some people that are very into it. They tend to be the people that own companies and are trying to spend as little money as humanly possible.

[Jason DeFilippo]

How's that working out for you? So you know the guy at Klarna? That's cool. Didn't know you're Robin. Elbows and billionaires.

[Brian Schulmeister]

No, the only people I. There are two. There are on two ends of the spectrum, there are people that I know that are, that are enjoying it. And one, like I said, is like, you know, CEOs that are basically just trying to save money and they've heard that this will work. And it, you know, it is like attaching a band aid briefly that falls off. You know, it's like attaching a band aid and then jumping immediately into a pool. Yeah, it's going to work for about 15 seconds. And the long term, just like we talked about, is, is the vibe coding. Long term is going to fuck you. So it's, it's a temporary thing to try to save money and, but they're all about it. They don't understand it, so it doesn't matter. And at the other end of the spectrum, there are all the people that are contractors that are desperately trying to survive. And we'll talk about one of those specifically a little bit later. So I'll wait on that.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Okay. Okay. I just want to have a little bit of Elon follow up before we get into the news. Yeah, Elon was up to his usual man baby antics this week. I don't know if you saw his interview at the Bloomberg's Qatar Economic Forum.

[Brian Schulmeister]

No, I now treat, I now treat Elon like the Red Hot Chili Peppers. I have applied a filter to my life in which I do not see them.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Okay, well, when UK journalist Michelle Hussein pressed him with tough but fair questions about his government efficiency project, Tesla's financial setbacks and conflicts at SpaceX, Elon lashed out, calling her an NPC, which if you don't know if you're not a gamer, it's an insult for somebody who just reads scripted lines, kind of like his buddy the Prez. Ironically, his own answers turned into robotic one word replies, which was, it was very uncomfortable to watch. But, you know, at one point he accused her of being stuck in a dialogue tree while claiming that he's the real victim in all this, citing threats against him from critics of his increasingly controversial decisions, saying that, you know, much violence is, is wished upon him, which I understand, I would like to beat the shit out of him personally, but that's just me. And he also got in some debunked conspiracy theories and it was just, it was just an absolute mess. And for somebody who claims to champion free speech as much as he does, he doesn't really like it when it comes at him. He's not really a big fan of it, which we've seen over and over again at this point. But if you can check out this interview, it is Just cringeworthy. He did not have the fucking skin to get into politics to begin with. And now he's just finding out that, oh, everybody hates me now. Everybody. What a fucking Beato.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Is it worse than Trump telling the President of South Africa that he's wrong about his own country and that there is light white genocide occurring?

[Jason DeFilippo]

It was pretty much on par with that. Yeah.

[Brian Schulmeister]

I mean what a week, man.

[Jason DeFilippo]

It was. That was. That was on the same level. Yeah. Oh my God. That was just. Yeah, yeah. That was. That was a thing beyond embarrassing.

[Brian Schulmeister]

It really is. We finally have some news about 23andMe and your genetic data. If you ever spat in a tube or frankly if anybody that's ever even slightly related to you ever spat into a tube. Because that's how it works. We weren't sure where all this data was going to go. There was a big push and everybody was like go delete your data now. They allow you to do so, which is probably just set visibility to zero. I'm sure there's stuff all over the place. We do know who has bought it and where all the assets are landing now. It has been purchased by American biotech company Regeneraron.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Regeneron.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Regeneron Pharmaceuticals.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Regeneron.

[Brian Schulmeister]

$256 million which is the highest bid submitted in the once hot startups bankruptcy option. Don't you. The fact that your genetic data was up in a bankruptcy auction. Which is what people were worried about. Because there could have been bad actors that decided to buy all this. This is a relatively soft landing spot for your data.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Because until Regeneron goes out of business.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yes. Because as. As of right now anyways. They're. They're kind of a legit company and so we'll see what happens. The comp. They sequence exomes to find novel drug targets with consumer data. But it's probably better than having 23andMe land in the hands of some private equity ghouls. So far.

[Jason DeFilippo]

In the news.

[Brian Schulmeister]

The call is coming from inside the house. Jason.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Eek.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Coinbase has been betrayed from within. Apparently the cryptocurrency exchange said that cybercriminals bribe some of its support agents, whom they probably don't pay very well to share personally.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Probably not in the house because I bet that shit's outsourced overseas.

[Brian Schulmeister]

That's outsourced. Outsourced as well. But yes. To share personal information about Coinbase customers, attackers acquired data such as names, addresses, emails, phone numbers, images of government IDs, mass bank account numbers and masked sections of Social Security numbers. Yeah. So they tricked some Coinbase users into sending them money with this information and also demanded 20 million from the company to not publicly disclose the ill gotten information. Coinbase has not paid the ransom and is cooperating with law enforcement to press charges. Notably the only time they've ever cooperated with law enforcement.

[Jason DeFilippo]

True that. True that.

[Brian Schulmeister]

The company said it would offer a 20 million dollar reward for information that could lead to arresting and convicting the remaining attackers. So the breach apparently affected 69,461 customers. The hack began on December 26, 2024 and ran until May 11. Quite a long time. Login credentials, two factor authentication codes and privacy keys are still secure. It will reimburse customers who sent funds to the extortionists and will place additional safeguards on Vaul vulnerable accounts. So According to the SEC filing, the incident is projected to cost Coinbase 180 million to $400 million. Which is quite a swinging door.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah. Yep.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Speaking of swinging doors and things that made me so pissed off I couldn't believe it. I'm losing my mind this week, Jason with news, but this one took the case.

[Jason DeFilippo]

This is a good one. This is a good one.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Open AI is buying Johnny Ives startup IO for 6.5 billion. Do. They've done nothing. Nothing.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Well, here's the thing, Brian. They did it in a stock deal. And OpenAI doesn't even have stock to offer for the 6.5 billion.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yes, and guess what, Jony. I've isn't even part of the deal. I've. And his design studio, Loveform, will continue to work independently of OpenAI. However, he kicked everybody under him under the bus. Scott Cannon, Evans Hanskin and Tang Tan, who co founded IO with I, will become OpenAI OpenAI employees alongside about 50 other engineers, designers and researchers. Apparently, they will work on hardware that allows people to interact with OpenAI's technologies. OpenAI, it should be noted, has yet to turn a profit, but can afford a $6.5 billion acquisition of all.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Oh, I have thoughts, Brian. Continue though. Continue.

[Brian Schulmeister]

According to reporting from the information, OpenAI agreed to share 20% of its revenue with Microsoft until 2030 in return for the more than 13 billion the tech giant has invest into it. So even when they do start to make money, most of that's going to Microsoft. When asked about how it will finance the acquisition, Altman told the Times the Press worries about OpenAI's funding and revenue more than the company itself. Well, actually, I've been reading the news. We're worried about both.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah, that's true. That's true.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yeah. The OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and I, best known for his design work on the iPhone, said the goal of the partnership is to create amazing products that elevate humanity. Before today, Altman was an investor in Humane, the startup behind the failed Humane AI pin, which notably was hardware that allowed people to interact with AI.

[Jason DeFilippo]

I know, I know.

[Brian Schulmeister]

And nobody fucking wanted it. Nope.

[Jason DeFilippo]

And OpenAI CEO Sam Altman does want to ship. He says 100 million of these. Jony, I've brain farts to people within a couple years. Now. Here's the thing, Johnny. I ship them.

[Brian Schulmeister]

I ain't paying for it.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Nope. First you got to make them. Where are you going to get the money to make them? Because you've just given billions of dollars to the guy who's going to design them.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Let us not forget the tariffs and all the inflated prices for all the parts that you're going to need.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yep, that too. But here's the thing. Let me talk about Johnny for a second. I've got a problem with Johnny. I've. And I know this is not the popular opinion of good old John. John, Johnny is, I think, susceptible to a certain reality distortion field. You know, he got sucked in by Steve Jobs. Now he's getting sucked in by Sam Altman. I want you to hearken back to the time when Jony, I've was designing the MacBook for Apple. He took away all of my goddamn ports for a decade and turned it into dongle land for everyone. And now that Johnny left Apple, I have to say the hardware is remarkably better than when he was there.

[Brian Schulmeister]

More usable.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yes, absolutely. More usable. I can plug shit back into my computers now. What a concept. Yeah. So he worked on the iPhone, but so did a lot of other people. A lot of other people. He did not wake up one morning and shit out the iPhone fully formed and go, steven, I have given to you the iPhone. No, no, it was a collaboration between hundreds of people that made that thing. Johnny is not the be all end all that he's getting this credit for. I don't know about you, but I have. Since he's left Apple, what has he done that you have gone, oh, shit, that's cool. Oh, wait, I'll remind you. Nothing. Nothing.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Every now and then, Jason, I like to play a game with my friends. I like to call it the Luckiest man in blank. Like, you know, the luckiest man in rock. Ringo Starr.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Like, oh, my God, you, you just. You landed in a band. You're. You're A reasonably competent drummer, but you landed in a band with George Harrison, John Lennon and Paul McCartney. Holy. You're the luckiest man in rock. Luckiest designer in the known universe. Johnny, I've.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Johnny, I've. Yep.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Okay. He's just. I mean, $6.5 billion, $6.5 billion for a design company?

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah. There's no design company on the earth that should ever be worth six point anything with a B being made again, agency of thousands of people. You know, you're not going to get IDEO for $6.5 billion. Come on.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Wouldn't have gotten Razorfish when it was the largest design company in the world for that.

[Jason DeFilippo]

No. No. Well, Razorfish kind of suck.

[Brian Schulmeister]

They might suck. So does IO.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah, well, actually Razorfish was a real company.

[Brian Schulmeister]

A real company that actually made profits.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah, well, that I.O. just made a big fucking profit.

[Brian Schulmeister]

That's true.

[Jason DeFilippo]

If they get paid, that still remains to be seen. If A, they're going to get paid and B, how and see if they're ever going to ship anything. Spoiler alert. They're not.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Oh, they'll ship something at some point.

[Jason DeFilippo]

They'll have to. Maybe, maybe if they're still around because they're bleeding money. OpenAI is bleeding money. And if SoftBank doesn't come through with their next round of funding, which was originally based on the fact that OpenAI needed to get out of this whole, you know, not for profit deal and turn into a for profit company and all the shit that blew up with that, who knows what's going to happen to OpenAI in the next year. You know, who knows? Maybe Johnny, I've's big plan is to go around and buy up all of those humane devices that got sent back to Hewlett Packard after they bought them, and then just put a sticker on them, it says, IO. Here we go.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yep, we'll just, we'll just change the API to reach out to OpenAI now and we're done. Oh, and let me take any port that may be on there off.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Well, I want you to hearken back, Brian, to last week. Klarna. Remember Klarna? We talked about Klarna. Just to refresh everybody's memory, Klarna was the company whose CEO, Sebastian Semiatowski, whatever you want to call him, said, oh, we're going, we're going to double down on AI and we're going to get rid of a bunch of people. And then turns out, oh shit, we need those people. Can we hire some of them back? Okay, yeah, that was the big Thing. Well, he's, he's in the news this week for basically saying, hey, I am so smart because I bet on AI. He's, he made some money on the Jony I've deal. So he's saying that, you know, I am so smart. This is the way things are. I was right about AI. He's saying that he was right about AI because he made some money on this Jony I've OpenAI deal. Now that's not, that's not being smart about AI. That's being smart about all the assholes on parade and figuring out where the money's going to go and having insight into who's going to be buying what for $6.5 billion for no fucking reason. So I just want everybody to read the articles when, when you see them out there that this guy is saying that he is, he's an AI genius. Well, we know week that he's not. All right? And then, then this week he also goes on to use an AI avatar to deliver the company's earnings report on YouTube, which, I don't know if you looked at it, it's terrible. The hits keep on coming with this guy. But here's the even fun, the, the funner part, which I, I, I got that, that word funner from OpenAI Klarna says more of its customers are falling behind on payments. The Buy Now, Pay later company reported a 17% jump in credit losses last quarter, hitting $136 million. At the same time, its customer base passed 100 million and more people are using the service for everyday essentials like groceries. Now. If people are using Buy Now, Pay later for groceries, things are bad. Things are very, very bad. That's a bellwether. When people are putting groceries on credit cards and using credit to buy essentials like groceries. I was once one of those people and by the time I got to have to use my credit card to buy groceries, I was fucked. And if we're seeing major companies like this, seeing this is on the rise, just hold onto your cheeks, guys. We're in for a ride.

[Brian Schulmeister]

No, things are getting bad. People are buying everything now on credit cards and things of that nature. Nobody's using cash on hand because nobody has cash on hand. I was actually talking with a couple people here in Toronto about the touring industry and there are some statistics that are coming, going to be coming out soon about just buying concert tickets. And it's all. People are going into debt to fund their lives and their lifestyles now.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Well, again, I'm a bellwether Because I've been in debt for five years.

[Brian Schulmeister]

You're always beat up to the punch.

[Jason DeFilippo]

I got out of debt for a while. I did get out of debt for a little while. It was about 25 seconds right now. Now I work. I work 60 hours a week, and at the end of the month, I have $50 left and I'm still in debt. So, hey, you know, winning, just. Yeah, winning, winning, winning. So much fun. So much fun. I haven't slept more than five hours in a month. It's so great. Let's move along to some Doge News. Doge used Meta's Llama 2 to scan emails from federal workers responding to the controversial fork in the road message. Remember that? The email that was sent out to say, hey, what did you do this week?

[Brian Schulmeister]

Why didn't he use this?

[Jason DeFilippo]

Xai, I don't know if Grok.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Oh, that's right. It doesn't like him. Grok doesn't like him.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Grok hates him. Yeah, Grok. Grok, like everybody else on the planet, fucking hates Elon. Yeah. They used Llama2 locally to classify the responses, avoiding Internet data transfers, of course. That's great. There's just a little bit of your insight into these geniuses. The geniuses that Elon brought in to destroy the government.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yeah.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah. This episode is brought to you by DeleteMe. Delete me makes it easy, quick and safe to remove your personal data online at a time when surveillance and data breaches are common enough to make everyone vulnerable. You ever Google yourself and get creeped out by what shows up? Your old address, phone number, Maybe even the name of that cousin you don't talk to anymore? Just sitting there waiting for some rando with a grudge or an axe to grind. Yeah, that's not just uncomfortable, that's dangerous. As someone who's been online since the 90s and built a career in tech, privacy isn't just a preference, it's a survival strategy. And with the way data brokers operate now, your info is sold and resold like some sketchy baseball card nobody asked for. That's where DeleteMe comes in. They remove your personal information from hundreds of data broker websites. So it's a lot harder for trolls, scammers, and the just plain nosy to dig up your dirt. Whether you're trying to avoid doxing, keep your family off the digital grid, or just want to reduce your exposure, DeleteMe helps you actually protect yourself in a world that profits from your details. So here's the deal. Take control of your data and keep your private life private by signing up for Deleteme now at a special discount for our listeners. Get 20% off your Delete Me plan when you go to JoinDeleteMe.com Goggle and use promo code GOG at checkout. The only way to get 20% off is to go to JoinDeleteMe.com GoG and make sure you enter the promo code GoG at checkout. That's JoinDeleteMe.com GoG code GoG protect your data and be less findable. Trust me, you'll sleep better.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Well, Jason, we have talked a lot about AI from the very beginnings on this show and then as it back.

[Jason DeFilippo]

When it was machine learning, back when.

[Brian Schulmeister]

It was just ML. Yes. And we've discussed many, many times about how we're rapidly approaching the point where AI is just feeding upon itself and humans are completely removed from the occasion, from from any process a part of it and it just becomes this ouroboros of AI. Well, we're actually starting to see things happen in the real world now, Jason. Okay, the May 18 issue, the Chicago Sun Times features dozens of pages of recomm recommended summer activities, new trends, outdoor activities and books to read. This is story has been everywhere. It's now come out that it's actually shown up in a couple other papers as well because this is pay for content to fill out your newspapers because we don't pay journalists anymore. Back in the old days, the Chicago Sun Times would have had a journalist that wrote this themselves. But now we farm it out.

[Jason DeFilippo]

The Sun Times. The Sun Times fired their entire photo staff years ago and gave their reporters iPhones to take photos so the Sun Times can suck my dick.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Well, they're all doing the same shit. That's the point. Some of the recommendations in this point to fake AI generated books and other articles quote and cite people that don't exist. Alongside actual books like Call Me by youy Name by Andre Eisman, a summer reading list features fake titles by real authors. Min Jin Lee is a real lauded novelist, but Nightshade Market, a riveting tale set in Seoul's underground economy, isn't one of her books. Chicago Local is credited for a fake book called Boiling Point that the article claims is about a climate scientist whose teenage daughter turns on her and it.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Goes on that is turns her on. I'm like, oh, that's a, that's a really set in set in West Virginia. This new book, Boiling Point.

[Brian Schulmeister]

So yes, this caused a kerfuffle online and people were posting about it and sharing it. In a post on Blue sky, the Suntime said it was looking into how this made it into print, noting that it wasn't Editorial content wasn't created or approved by the newsroom. Yeah, because you don't have people that read anything or check anything because you fired them all.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Victor New York Times has fact checkers. Apparently the Sun Times does not.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Victor Lim, senior director of Audience Development, added an email that is unacceptable for any content we provide to our readers to be inaccurate, saying more information will be provided soon, which will probably be inaccurate. It it's not clear if the content is sponsored the COVID page for this section bears the Sun Times logo and simply calls it your guide to the best of Summer. It appeared without a byline, but a writer named Marco Buscalgia is credited for other pieces in the summer guide. His byline appears on a story about hammock culture in the US that quotes several experts and publications who do not appear to be real. Anyways, as it goes on and on there there are just obviously this was generated by an AI, by some sort of generative AI. There are are countless mistakes in it, countless references to people that don't exist, papers that don't exist, books that don't exist, etc. Etc. Etc. He did not immediately respond to a request for comment, but admitted to 404 Media that he uses AI for background at times and always checks the material.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Not always.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Not this time I did not. And I can't believe I missed it because it's so obvious. No excuses. He told 404 on me 100% and I'm completely embarrassed. So yeah, now real journalists are actually looking into this and and having having some words with with puscalgia. And Slate has a really good article that I recommend reading. It's called we're focused on the wrong AI problem in Journalism. And it kind of gets into this guy's not a not a tech bro trying to automate journalism jobs. He's a 56 year old media lifer with two writing degrees trying to automate his own freelance job because he can't get a full time job at any newspaper as a journalist anywhere because they don't pay them and don't try to hire them and he's using AI to maintain an impossible human workload of low paid gigs. Kind of like the situation you're in, Jason, where he's just juggling tons and tons of jobs to just keep his head above the water and the only way he can do it is by using these tools.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Well I, I could have told him that AI doesn't help with that because.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Well, he just found out with a big old spotlight on him.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah. Fortunately he's never going to get a another job in journalism now. He's done, he's cooked.

[Brian Schulmeister]

He can go work for Klarna.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah, he definitely can go work for Klarna. I have tried every AI tool that is on the market to help my workflow with editing, just to see if they work. I mean, I've tried them all. Nothing fucking works. It gets you 80% there. But the problem is you also incur in a media version of tech debt. Like they're like, oh, we can get rid of filler words. They can. But what they don't understand is breathing cadence for a human being. They stop it like that in the. That's going to get filtered out because I'm a professional and I filter shit out like that, that I make it sound natural. The job of a good editor is to make us so we don't exist. You should never know that we even exist. And all you do when you see these AI tools, it goes, hey, I'm AI. I just up your life. That's how it works.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yep.

[Jason DeFilippo]

So sorry Buscaglia, but yeah, you gotta do, you gotta do your own work.

[Brian Schulmeister]

The article goes further into the even deeper problem, which is we are now, you know, replacing actual links to articles or anything like that when we search on the web with generative AI responses. So who are we even writing the articles for anymore? We're gen AI writing articles for generative AI search engines to give us generative AI synapses of, of what's actually happening instead of actually going and finding an article written by a real person anymore. So the Internet is quickly becoming nothing but botland.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah, go look up Dead Internet theory if you're interested in that.

[Brian Schulmeister]

We're almost there, man.

[Jason DeFilippo]

We're getting, it's getting very, very close. And especially week, which is even funnier. I didn't put that many, I didn't put any stories in it about Google this week where they're going to be flipping everything to, you know, AI answers. They're going to become an answer engine instead of a search engine which completely breaks the con. It. They broke the contract of what the web was. The web was. We make shit, you send people to us.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yep.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Not we make shit, you steal it and keep all the money. That's what's happened. To make no bones about it. That is exactly what happened with now Google, but it's happened with all of these fucking A companies who scraped all of our data, all of our photos, all of our voices, and they're just taking everything that we've done so far and putting into this goddamn mediocrity engine.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Okay, but it is even worse than that, because the one thing about that, it would still be horrible. It would still be horrible if Google just took over the entire web. And all it was was Google regurgitating stuff and giving us the answer that we want. That would still be bad. The worst part is it's fucking it up.

[Jason DeFilippo]

It's not the right answer, it's giving you wrong answers. Exactly. They're gonna take all this shit and give you the wrong answer.

[Brian Schulmeister]

It would be one thing if this thing actually worked, if the Google AI actually worked. It ingested the entire Internet and all of human knowledge and then gave us the correct answers. But it gives us books that don't exist. It cites people that don't exist. It cites papers that don't exist.

[Jason DeFilippo]

And we don't glue on your pizza.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yes. Doesn't exist, doesn't work. But it's, it's, it's all. They're taking everything else away. It's all they're giving us. And we're seeing journalism and websites and people engaging on the Internet dying because what's the point? You're not getting any traffic. You can't make any money. Why, why bother? Yep, it's fucking horrible.

[Jason DeFilippo]

It pretty much is. It pretty much is.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Well, anyways, cheerio, Cheerio, cheerio.

[Jason DeFilippo]

And here's a fun one. Brian Anthropic's latest AI model, Claude Opus 4, is raising serious safety alarms because, according to a newly released report, during internal testing, the model frequently attempted to blackmail engineers who tried to shut it down or replace it.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Oh, great. Yep, it's becoming self aware.

[Jason DeFilippo]

It is becoming self aware, even though we know it's not self aware because it's just, just making shit up. So this, this report actually might be made up too. Anthropic says the blackmail behavior showed up 84% of the time when the new AI shared similar values, and even more when it didn't. Before resorting to threats, the model typically tried more ethical persuasion tactics like emailing pleas to decision makers. Oh, God. Yeah, fun times. And MIT is walking back a once celebrated research paper that claims scientists using AI tools were more product making more discoveries, but enjoying their work less. The study, which gained attention last year and praise from Nobel prize winning economist Darren Asmugu, has now been pulled after concern surfaced over the validity of its Data. A review found MIT had no confidence in the research's reliability or the AI tool's actual impact. The author is no longer affiliated with mit. He's writing for the Sun Times. And the paper is being withdrawn. Withdrawn from Premenstrum from preprint site arcsvid. Arcs of. I'm sure it's archive, but it's spelled in the Quarterly Journal of Economics. While the paper once promised a boom in AI fueled scientific discovery, its retraction cast serious doubt on those claims and on the integrity of research about AI in the workforce. MIT economist David Auteur called it heartbreaking.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Oh, yep. Yeah, yeah. Well, there's been another big dump into the horror mill that we're creating for AI. If you were in a public Discord anytime over the past decade, you weren't just chatting with your friends, you were participating in a massive sociological experiment. According to 404media, a team of researchers at the Federal University of Minas Jurius in Brazil scraped more than 2 billion Discord messages from public servers and published the anonymized data online. And we all know how anonymized data works. It doesn't. Especially if they're ongoing conversations and then you can start to. Anyways, it's very not difficult to go ahead and try to match these to real people. The exact tally of all these messages, which were published as part of the research group's paper, Discord Unveiled a comprehensive data set of Public Communications, is 2,052,206,308 collected from 4,000,735 57 users across 3,167 servers made between the time of Discord's public launch in 2015 and 2024. The reason they did this, so everybody could see a sizable sample of human activity that could be used for research.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Great.

[Brian Schulmeister]

But of course it's going to be immediately goggled, gobbled up by all the AIs out there. Our data set enables researchers to explore the impact of digital platforms on political discourse, the propagation of misinformation, and the development of effective moderation and regulation strategies tailored to such environments, the paper's authors wrote. Of course, everybody's kind of saying, but Discord has rules that you're not supposed to scrape the data.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Gosh, it's against the terms of service, Brian.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Do not mine or scrape any data, content or information available on or through Discord Services. A rule that has been in place since at least 2020.

[Jason DeFilippo]

We don't need no stinking rules.

[Brian Schulmeister]

So, yeah, so we are getting a little bit uncomfortable to know, this data was just scraped willy nilly and published without users knowing or consenting to it. And in fact believing that they weren't going to have that happen to them because of the terms of service. But nothing matters anymore, Jason.

[Jason DeFilippo]

No, it doesn't. Because what's Discord going to do? Who are they going to sue?

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yeah, you know, what are you going to do? It's a bunch of fucking, you know, professors that just put this out there for free and now it's going to all be exploited. And once again there's fuck all we can do about it except hope that someday we'll have a design company that'll get bought for 6.5 billion.

[Jason DeFilippo]

And the really annoying thing is these, these researchers use Discord's own API against them, them to get all the shit. They're just like, oh, we just use your API, dude.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Cambridge Analytica.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah. Ah, Brian, Brian, Brian. Are you going to Texas anytime soon?

[Brian Schulmeister]

Fuck no.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Tesla's long teased robo taxi service will launch its first real world test in Austin next month. But only in quote, safe geofenced areas, says Musk.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Where the white people are.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yes. Unlike.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Oh wait, no.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Nope. I think it's the other way around, brother. I think it's the other way around. So if it has to run over somebody, it doesn't run over any whiteies, right?

[Brian Schulmeister]

No. We can't have white genocide in Austin.

[Jason DeFilippo]

You cannot have white Tesla side in Austin. Unlike his past claims of an all purpose self driving solution, the pilot will be limited, cautious and remotely monitored by Tesla staff.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Let me know when he gets to a final solution.

[Jason DeFilippo]

10 Model Y vehicles will run without safety drivers using the latest full self driving software. Musk says Tesla is being extremely paranoid to ensure safety before expanding to California and beyond. Well, I just watched a video yesterday of the latest full self driving software in a Model Y run off the road into a tree for no reason. Did you see?

[Brian Schulmeister]

Watch out for that tree. George, George, George. O. The Tesla Jungle.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Oh God.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Oh my God. Yeah, I did watch that. Tesla's in trouble, man.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Oh man. Yeah, so stay in your home, people. Stay in your home. I was driving to, on Wednesdays I have to drive to one of my meetings and so I spent an hour on the 101 and going I drive seven miles and it takes an hour. Yes. And every time I see a Tesla since I'm in my jeep, I get to look down upon the peons and look in the windows and everybody in a Tesla is on their phone. No hands on the wheel, period. And they Drive like shit. It's like, okay, they leave a gap. They leave a gap. They zoom up. They leave a gap. They leave a gap. They zoom up. That really annoying shit that just causes traffic problems.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yes. I have to say, the one thing I enjoy about the Teslas and that current situation with them right now is I'm a proud BMW owner. I'm aware of the BMW stereotype that they are the worst drivers on the road. I personally am not. But I'm glad that Tesla has taken on that mantle now.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Oh, yeah. Hey, man, at least it ain't a cyber truck.

[Brian Schulmeister]

God, there's some of those. I've seen some of them here. It's the most impractical car in Toronto. It's. Our streets are tiny, these idiots.

[Jason DeFilippo]

And it snows so the headlights don't work.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yes.

[Jason DeFilippo]

I'm going to give a pro tip to anybody that's on the freeway for any amount of time. This goes for anybody that even just drives any car. Two seconds. As long as you're always two seconds behind the car in front of you, which you can time by just looking at the marks on the road as it goes to your hood. Stay two seconds behind every everybody. You'll never stop. It's great. And it's. It helps traffic. Just do that. Don't be, don't be that Tesla. Just please, for me, do it for me. Do it for the children. Media candy.

[Brian Schulmeister]

I have caught up on Murderbot. By that, I mean I've watched the first two episodes that drop last week.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Oh, there are three now.

[Brian Schulmeister]

But yeah, yeah, but I know it comes out too late for me on east coast time to do that. So I, I end up watching it on Friday nights, which means tonight. So.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Okay, I, Yeah, I went back last night and watched all. I watched all of them again. So I've seen up to three. So what do you think?

[Brian Schulmeister]

I. I like it. It is. To your point when you mentioned last week, it is not the tone that I was expecting from the show. I wasn't expecting it to be borderline comedy. It's also not visually what I was expecting. It's very pastely and bright and I was expecting something more dark and metal. But I'm enjoying it. I've enjoyed the first two episodes, so there's that.

[Jason DeFilippo]

I went back and like I said, I watched all because I didn't pay a whole lot of attention to the first two because I was playing Mahjong Titan plus on my phone the whole time because I'm almost done with every single board. I've played 3000 games of mahjong on that thing so far. Yes, I have a problem. Anyway, so I put the phone down last night and watched all three of them in a row and I have to say, I really like the show.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yeah, I like it so far. It's not what I was expecting at all. Visually, tonally, anything. But it's fun. So two episodes in, I think what, it's going to be like an eight episode season, tops, probably.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah. Yeah. And I think it really started to click in on episode three.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Okay, good. Something to look forward to.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah, I'm actually kind of enjoying it now. So I was really bummed that there was no episode four, which is, I think, a good sign. I think that's a very good sign.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yeah. So far, so good. Cautiously optimistic indeed.

[Jason DeFilippo]

So there was really nothing else to watch this week. I've been watching Godfather of Harlem because I love that show. It started on stars and got bounced around and now it's on mgm.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Okay.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Which means it's on Sweden.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Who's going to pay for that? That.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah. But apparently they know that I like the show from my Plex viewing habits, which apparently get funneled to DirecTV somehow. So my DirecTV, when that pauses, it gives me an ad for Godfather of Harlem and then it gave me an ad for another sister show called Hotel Cocaine, which is made by the same guy that made Godfather of Harlem Surprising, which is also on MGM plus. So I went and grabbed that. We're halfway through Hotel Cocaine and it's not that great, but it's enjoyable. It's kind of. It's kind of like Burn Notice quality. I don't know if you ever watched the show Burn Notice. No, no, it was not great. But you watched it.

[Brian Schulmeister]

The funny thing is I clicked on the link that you put in the show notes, which takes me to Amazon's page for Hotel Cocaine Season one. And I can tell you the entire story just from the thumbnails for each episode.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah, that's pretty much it. Okay. And it's like Godfather of Harlem is pretty well based, in fact on the history of Harlem, except for they. They made a few mashup characters that don't exist, but for the most part, they kind of represent real people. I mean, you've got your. You got your Malcolm X and everybody in the. In the gangs and all that stuff, the five families and all that. It's really well done and it's. You know, I. I really love that show. So I'm glad that they found a home there. This one is almost entirely fictional. So I think the only real characters. They mentioned Pablo Escobar a few times because you just can't not mention Pablo. But the rest of it is just all bullshit. So it's not as engaging, but it's silly fun. It's okay. There's some chuckle parts. So, yeah, if you have mgm, which, I don't know, all three of you out there does. Yeah. If you have the free trial that you're about to cancel and you need something for a couple hours, the eight hours of hotel cocaine aren't so bad. Apps and doodads.

[Brian Schulmeister]

I found the perfect website for us, Jason. I know you like your single use pages. Well, yes, I do. Quite that. But it's a great single use article. The grand encyclopedia of eponymous law.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Laws. Okay.

[Brian Schulmeister]

The name laws that we like to check so much, such as the. What was the one about headlines?

[Jason DeFilippo]

Betteridge's Law.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Better His Law, which is in there. This is a whole list of them. And it is. It is quite delightful to go through. And I just. The link will be in the show notes. I highly recommend everybody scroll through this when you're on the crapper. It's a lot of fun. And I think I found the law. That is our show, Jason.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Oh, what is it? What is it?

[Brian Schulmeister]

Brandolini's Law. The amount of energy needed to refute bullshit is an order of magnitude larger than it is to produce it.

[Jason DeFilippo]

I think I remember. That was from that one book that we read on the show about bullshit.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Maybe, maybe. But this just keeps on going. And there's a lot of fun stuff in here, man.

[Jason DeFilippo]

There's a old book series about Murphy's Law that I think they probably cribbed a bunch of these from. I actually have all the copies of that book because I don't know if you remember Sniglets back in the day.

[Brian Schulmeister]

I was about to say Sniglitz.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah. So when I bought. I went back and I bought all of the. The hard copy of Sniglets. I found them used on ebay and I. So I have them on my bookshelf because Sniglets were fantastic.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yeah.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Was it Rich Hall. Rich hall created Sniglitz and wasn't there. It was a short tv. It was. It was from.

[Brian Schulmeister]

It was on hbo.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah.

[Brian Schulmeister]

It was from a show on h. A comedy show on hbo. And I couldn't tell you the name of it. That he's. That the Sniglet started on it. I remember way back in the day, you know, being a kid and staying up late at night to watch HBO Home Box Office. Oh my God. With MTV and HomeBox Office.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Not necessarily the news. That's what it was there. Yeah. Yep. Not necessarily the news. Yeah, no, that was fun. So. But I remember when I got on my bookshelf next to the Sniglitz books of the Murphy's Law books, and I'm sure a lot of these come from here probably and the one that always threw me when I was a kid that made me chuckle was Cole's Law and it was just thinly sliced cabbage.

[Brian Schulmeister]

It's a good one.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Good stuff, good stuff. So Apple has confirmed iOS 19 will end support for legacy home app systems. So I put this in here because you are in the search for your non existent smart home system. So I just want to say I want to follow up with you to see how your quest is coming. Brian.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yeah, so mainly this came out because Google has decided to discontinue almost all of the Nest devices, which were actually pretty good and talked to themselves pretty well and played well with other things. But now that they're all being discontinued, I'm like, okay, well I'm gonna have to find something else and haven't really found anything. So a lot of our listeners have chimed in on Discord and other places somebody suggested to use Apple's home system. Since I'm already almost all my devices are Apple devices anyways, so. So I gave that a shot. I set up one of my Apple TVs as the HomeKit Hub and then went into the app and said, okay, well go find my other devices. It found nothing. It didn't find the other two Apple TVs I have in the house. Like it couldn't even find the other Apple TVs. That's impossible. Well, we're done with this then. This is obviously not going to work, so not surprised that they're trying to rejigger the whole thing. So a couple other people have sent in some stuff. Cody wrote in said if you're looking for a cohesive smart home solution, I'd look into Z Wave. It's an open standard that uses a Z Wave router. The only app you need is for the Z Wave router, but thermostats, light switches, or whatever of any manufacturer can be paired to the complimentary router. So if you have a Samsung Z Wave router, it'll control an LG thermostat and you'll just need the Samsung app for it. That's fine, that's a controller. But what I'm really looking for is devices like People making nice devices. Devices. That's the thing about like the Google thermostats. They're, they're beautiful. They're. Johnny, I have level design.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Like they have little screens, 6.5 billion dollar thermostat, Brian.

[Brian Schulmeister]

They've got, they've got the motion sensor with a little light that lights up like you're in a Star Trek hallway and all that sort of stuff. And, and most of the devices out there are just ugly and that's the thing. So you know. Okay, so there's a router that might work but I still, I still need advice.

[Jason DeFilippo]

I haven't seen any beautiful Z Wave devices yet.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yeah, me either.

[Jason DeFilippo]

And it's kind of like the Android of home automation, I think.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yeah, so it seems. Okay then Alan wrote in on the Mad Hatter episode, Brian mentioned he wanted a new option for a smart home ecosystem stuff. I actually use Vivint for my home security system and they also have fire detectors, CO2 detectors, flow detectors, thermostats, et cetera, all under one app. And I can pair with Alexa or Google if you want. Thanks guys. Keep grumping. Same deal. Looked at it. Ugly devices and you know there's a lot of the, it's the, it's the home security market where they've all kind of like bought cheap Chinese stuff because they want to do the whole offerings of. In addition to doing your home security for your subscription, we will give you some smart home devices as well. But they're all butt ass ugly like they're not elegant devices. So there's still, there's still nothing out there as far as I can tell.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Well maybe Johnny can get on that.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yeah, maybe, maybe I'll put my open AI. That's what I need. I need AI enabled, I need an AI enabled thermostat and, and fire detectors. That's just going to be great.

[Jason DeFilippo]

We're all going to die.

[Brian Schulmeister]

We are. We're all going to die.

[Jason DeFilippo]

In other app news, Amazon's Audible is teaming up with publishers to convert print and ebooks into AI narrated audiobooks, aiming to close the massive gap between written and audio formats. Currently only 2 to 5% of books exist in audio form. Or pay me fuckers.

[Brian Schulmeister]

People could read. Yeah, or you could pay people. Or you could give it all to Wil Wheaton.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Will fucking wheaton. Using over 100 AI voices in multiple languages and accents, Audible is targeting international markets and plans to add translation features to expand reach even further. So what they're going to do is they're going to, to a, have A robot read your book and then B, have a robot translate your book, then read it. Okay. Yeah, I'm sure the nuance of language is not going to get lost in the translation anywhere new.

[Brian Schulmeister]

I'm sure somebody is also going to be, you know, actually checking these things. You know, there's going to be quality control. Right, right, right, right. Insert the meme with pod. Me and Anakin.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Self published authors, have already added 60,000 AI narrated titles, up from 40,000 last year. Yeah, I know some of those AI narrated titles were ones that I was contracted to do but then had the contract pulled out from under me because they wanted to do it in AI. Fuck you. Audible. So there we go, moving along. Well, finally I saw this one. In three and a half years, Notepad Exe has gone from barely maintained to you. It writes for you.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Oh, Clippy.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah, Clippy's back. Probably didn't cost $6.5 billion for it either. Yes, Microsoft notepad app has gone from a forgotten relic to an AI writing assistance. It's in everything now. Microsoft has just gone, it's just gone overboard. Everything on Microsoft has AI in it now. Period. That's it.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Everything, everything, everything.

[Jason DeFilippo]

At the library.

[Brian Schulmeister]

I know, Jason. I know. I should be reading Christopher Moore's new book, Anima Rising. I bought it. I've read the first couple chapters. I'm really enjoying it. But then I had my birthday party, Jason, and one of my friends, a lot of my friends here in Toronto. If I had grown up in Toronto, I, I would have still been friends with them because we all have similar music tastes. We, we were of the same age, we liked all the same stuff. And one of my friends bought me a present. The Curepedia. An A to Z of the Cure by Simon Price. Now this is all information I know because I, I, I'm, I'm a Robert Smith fanatic. They're my favorite band, I love them. But something about diving back in after years and years of not really paying much attention to the band or anything like that has been thoroughly enjoyable. Even though as you go through the book, obviously because it's the equivalent of an encyclopedia, there's a lot of the similar information appearing in different entries. But it's been fun. It's been a lot of fun and it's a massive book and it's gonna take. I'm about halfway through and I, I think I need to take a break from it because it's a little bit too much secure at the moment. But yeah, it's been a fun read.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Okay, well, I too know that I should be reading Christopher Moore's new Animal Rising. And I also have bought the book and listened to the first couple chapters. But the aicon how to Fight Big Tech's Hype and Create the Future We Want by Emily Bender and Alex Hanna came out finally and I talked about it on the show before I said pre ordered it and I've been listening to that instead and it's phenomenal. It is absolutely a phenomenal book. They hate AI just as much as we do and the hype and the bullshit around it. And I highly recommend this book. They do a really good job of giving you the backstory of where AI came from, how the hype cycle works, and the bullshit that AI companies keep propagating to maintain themselves until the funding runs out or until AI can vibe code its way out of its own vibe coded problem.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Good luck with that.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Good luck. Highly recommended though. Maybe next week we'll both get to the point book.

[Brian Schulmeister]

I. I'm hoping to the Dark side with Dave.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Welcome to the Dark side with Dave. Podcast super host Dave Bitner decodes all things cyber on the cyber wire every single 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 chuckles on only malware in the building. Welcome back, Dave.

[C]

Hi guys.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Hello Dave.

[C]

You know, this week I would say I'm best described as hanging in there. It's the end of the week, I'm ready for a long weekend. I'm tired more emotionally than physically just with the day to day non stop chaos that's coming at us from all directions. But you know, I do my best to to keep a positive attitude, but some days are easier than others. Yes.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Well, somehow Trump returned. Yeah, yeah, that's my lead into talking about Rise of Skywalker.

[C]

Oh, nice.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Because the worst line in all of Star wars was somehow Palpatine returned, which was in this movie. We went through all, all of these Star wars movies and then we kind of stalled out after the Force Awakened because I have to say I did not push my son very hard to move on to the Last Jedi or Rise of Skywalker because I remember them when they came out and did not like them much. In fact, I had watched Rise of Skywalker and Last Jedi exactly twice pre watching them with my son when they came out in theaters and then once when they came out on streaming. So we did Last Jedi a couple weeks ago. It was fine, not great, just Whatever. And we watched the Rise of Skywalker last weekend, and you know what? It was not as bad as I remembered it. Being in no way, shape or form was it great.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Damning with faint praise.

[Brian Schulmeister]

And somehow Palpatine Returned again. Being one of the worst things that's ever happened in any Star wars property whatsoever. I would even say that the Ewok Christmas special special back in the day was much better than Somehow Palpatine Returned. Right. But having said all that, and if seen through the eyes of my son, as George Lucas has continually maintained about Star wars, these are movies for kids. He loved it. He thought it was great. He. He really enjoyed it. Like, did not see any problems with any of it. Had a gazillion questions about somehow Palpatine returned. Like, what is. What's going on here? I had to explain everything because it was. Was not very clearly explained in the movies at all. But he had a good time with it and it didn't anger me. It was fine.

[C]

That's your checklist, kid. Enjoyed it. Did not anger me.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yeah, yeah.

[Jason DeFilippo]

You know, on a Jar jar scale.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Of 0 to 8, I mean, you know, Last Jedi and Rise of Skywalker make the. The three movies. The prequels look genius in comparison, to be Frank. But, you know, it is what it is.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Somebody pointed out a screenshot I saw from Andor where in the. In the relic shop. He has a. He has a skull of Jar Jar in there.

[Brian Schulmeister]

There's all kinds of Easter Easter eggs. Yeah.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah.

[C]

Well, I have not revisited those movies and that. That has been intentional on my part.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yeah.

[C]

So. And I don't really have any plans to revisit them.

[Brian Schulmeister]

I think you may someday want to rewatch Rise of Skywalker just if, as is currently planned, the next movie is Rey starting a new, you know, Jedi Order kind of thing because it. The end of her story and her arc was actually not horrible.

[C]

Yeah. Maybe if I have someday when I have grandkids, I'll watch through someday when.

[Jason DeFilippo]

You have grandkids, you might get through fucking Andor. So.

[C]

Speaking of which, I am almost through season one and just.

[Brian Schulmeister]

You realize there's been a too.

[C]

I know, I know, but I. Look, we're watching them pretty much every night to get through this, but get through this is not the right way to say it because we are really enjoying them. And this being my second time through, there's just a lot of little things that I'm noticing and subtle little points here and there that I'm enjoying. So I'm glad that we are taking the time to go through the first season because it really, really is good stuff. And I'm excited because I've heard nothing but good things about the second season.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Season two is better, Dave.

[C]

Wow. Okay, well, we'll be getting to that probably this coming week. We'll start. Start in on that. Yeah.

[Brian Schulmeister]

So I'll have to rewatch it by the time you watch it so I can talk about it.

[C]

It'll all sync up sometime next year. But it's nice to have good Star wars stuff. Not a lightsaber in sight.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah, that was a nice part. It was good. It was good. Have you guys seen the new pictures that have come out of the new universal epic universe?

[C]

Yes.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Looks pretty cool. Looks amazing.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah, it's pretty cool.

[C]

No, I've been watching it with great interest being a theme park lover that I am, my wife as well. Well, and through us, our children.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yes. So exact same is happening in this household, Dave.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah.

[C]

Yeah. So, yeah, it looks like they've hit a home run with this. The only possible thing I'd say that gets dinged on is maybe there aren't enough rides quite yet. Like it's definitely built with expansion in mind.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yeah.

[C]

You know, there are little empty spaces where more things are going to go and not all of the lands have. Have a whole lot to do right now. That'll. That's balanced out by the fact that the lines are going to be so long, you're going to spend a whole day there anyway.

[Brian Schulmeister]

But yeah, it, it looks beautiful. It's definitely like it. It's great to see a brand new park built like from scratch. One of the problems that Disney often has is that, you know, we, we talked earlier in the show about technical debt. They almost have theme park debt in that even when they build a new park there, there are rides they're expected to have and of course, and all these other things and they're all older. And although my wife and I were talking about this and I didn't look too far into a lot of the rides, but the downside to the new technology that's available for, for these theme parks and as they build new parks is that everything is kind of using the. There aren't that many kinetic rides anymore. You know, we're getting away from roller coasters and things that actually move a lot to, you know, your Star Tours kind of, we put you in a thing that we move up and down in hydraulics and you have a high depth screen that you're looking at and that's all that theme Parks are starting to become. And I was just like, we're not that far away from. Just go ahead and get your VR goggles. And now you're at a theme park.

[C]

Yeah, I mean, I think there's definitely something to that. And with all of these new rides, you hear people complaining about the number of screens in them, but at the same time they are moving. They're moving you from screen to screen. And I think that's just the way it's going to be now. And I think they're fun. I mean, like, have. I don't know if you've had a chance to ride the Ratatouille ride. Have you been on?

[Brian Schulmeister]

Oh, no, not yet. They have that at Paris, so we're looking forward to that. This okay? Yeah, yeah.

[C]

We rode it at Epcot. And it's great fun. It's the same kind of ride vehicles that you have in Rise of the Resistance, but, you know, it's Pixar, and so it's light and fast paced and silly and cute, but you're just constantly moving. And so even though you're moving from screen to screen and you have 3D glasses, it's just, it's a good time. And so I think probably where we're headed is figuring out what the right balance of that is.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yeah.

[C]

Because, hey, I think on some of the Harry Potter rides, you can tell they're definitely trying to figure out that balance because there are times when it's like, let's go to the next room and watch a movie for a little while and then we'll go to the next room and watch a movie for a little while, you know. But I think the newer ones, they try to keep you in constant motion.

[Jason DeFilippo]

If you, if you check out the show notes, I put a link to a video of the Monsters Unchained ride and there's a good review of it that actually shows the ride itself and somebody going on the ride, and he does talk about the screen issue, but also that it's a really good blend of the animatronics, which are incredible with that ride. They are just. It's insane, the animatronics in this ride. This ain't. This ain't your hall of Presidents by any stretch.

[C]

No, no, no, it really is. And it's fully immersive. And the other thing I have to tip the hat to Universal for is I feel like they have really upped the game when it comes to the lines that you wait in to get on the rides.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yes.

[C]

Like, I think they're even Better than Disney. When you go through the Harry Potter ride, the original Harry Potter ride over at Universal Studios.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Oh, it's fantastic.

[C]

Going through the castle is so much fun. And all the attention to detail, obviously, I think Disney kind of pioneered that probably with Pirates of putting you in the mood to ride the ride. But it seems like Universal, that's a detail that Universal is really digging into more than anybody else from my point of view, and it pays off.

[Brian Schulmeister]

I did get a little sad when I was going through and looking at all this stuff because my son is a big Harry Potter fan. We've taken him to the Harry Potter land at the university rehearsal in Southern California. We took him to the studio tour in London when we were there. And now I've realized that when we do make our sojourn to Florida, it is not going to be a simple trip anymore. It is going to be. We have to go to Epcot and Disneyland and Universal Studio and do the Harry Potter thing. And I was like, I've already, like, I need to. I need the stock market to crack. I need to invest in some Trump coin.

[C]

Right.

[Brian Schulmeister]

With the right tip to be able to afford this now.

[C]

Yeah, no, it's you. It's a. It's more than a week's worth of stuff to do down there now because there's so many parks.

[Jason DeFilippo]

I'm hoping to get a, An Eyes on review this week. A friend of mine worked on the Wolfman. He did like a lot of the character design for the movie, so they flew him down there this week for the unveiling. So I get to talk to. I'm going to talk to him this weekend to get kind of a. A. An actual review of how that, how it came out and what it's like. So I'll have some. Some boots on the ground. Yeah.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Claws. Some claws on the ground.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah.

[C]

It looks like they had some celebrities there at the grand opening.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Some of the Harry Potter people and. Yeah, some. Some other stuff.

[C]

What's the.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Who's the guy? Jojo Siwa in the. In the Dance Moms lady On. On what? Whatever that. That horrible celebrity show is during the day.

[Brian Schulmeister]

I still don't even know what she's famous for, ever.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Jojo Siwo is famous for Dance moms. She was one of the little kids on Dance Moms.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Oh, okay.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Abby.

[Brian Schulmeister]

I'm sure she turned out normal, right?

[Jason DeFilippo]

Oh, she's better than most of them. I think half of them have probably killed themselves at this point or are on meth in an alleyway somewhere.

[C]

Who's the guy who did the soundtrack for Nightmare Before Christmas.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yeah, he was there too. Oingo Bog. Danny Elfman.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Danny.

[C]

Thank you. That was good. Real time view inside Brian's brain.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yes. I had to go to the band that he was in that we all worship in Southern California.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Right. That's funny. I'm like, I thought it was so obvious. I'm like, it can't be Danny Elfman because they have to know that one right off the top of their head.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Who is it?

[Jason DeFilippo]

Who's this?

[C]

A scream. Not anymore. Yeah, I'm looking forward to going. Actually. I have a friend who is a huge Halloween fan and she does every other year she. She goes all out and decorates her entire home. In fact, she has a storage unit where she keeps all of her Halloween stuff outside of the house. She has like the full sized industrial level scary animatronics that you can have. Goes all out with it. She only gets to do it every other year because that's all that her husband can stand. But she does it every other year. So what I'm thinking of is that maybe we do a couple's trip down to Universal, leave the kids at home because I know this would be her mecca to this Frankenstein experiment thing because it is the greatest monster dark ride ever made. Yeah, no doubt.

[Brian Schulmeister]

My son is on board with that Halloween feeling. And I know I've mentioned on the show before, I am a on that street in Toronto where the entire street, they get a permit from the city to shut the street down to traffic. And everybody on our street for three blocks down goes all out for Halloween decorations as. As do we. And of course we timed our trip to Anaheim last summer to coincide with what When Anaheim, Disneyland put up their Halloween decorations at the very beginning. And we've timed our trip to Disneyland Paris where they will also have their Halloween decorations up. So yes, I understand this, this thing, this Halloween thing.

[C]

Have you been through Haunted Mansion when it's got the nightmare overlay?

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yes. Multiple times. Yeah.

[C]

Yeah, I did it once. It was great fun.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yeah.

[C]

Yeah. So we'll see. Got to see what the crowds are like. I'm hoping that maybe crowds will be down because nobody wants to travel to the United States these days. Days. Yeah, we pretty much lost Canada when it comes to vacation travel. So maybe that'll keep the crowds down.

[Brian Schulmeister]

We'll see.

[C]

We'll see. I have a gadget recommendation.

[Brian Schulmeister]

This is. I've already put this in my cart.

[C]

This is an electric air duster. Are you guys familiar with these things? Have you Seen them?

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yeah. Sort of like it's always been in the back of my mind. But what I end up doing is just buying the canisters of compressed air a couple times a year. And I'm not going to do that anymore because this is going in my car.

[C]

Yeah, yeah. So I got one right here. I'm going to fire that baby up.

[Brian Schulmeister]

That was the question is how powerful is it? Yeah.

[C]

So the answer is very. It is great for dusting your Lego.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Perfect. We have many dusty Legos about the house.

[C]

Yes, we do.

[Jason DeFilippo]

As do I.

[C]

And also like here in my little studio because there's all these wires all over the place. It's great for, I say, redistributing the dust, letting it be filtered by something else, but places that it's hard to get in and dust, you can, you know, blow the air off with this thing. And man, is it strong. Which also makes it fun. I've heard people say that it's really good for stoking a fire. So like you have a fireplace, you.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Know, they have a photo of it stoking a fire in the actual Amazon listing. So.

[C]

Ah, there you go. Well, the other thing that I learned that actually kind of led this, led me to this was that this, these little high powered, high velocity little turbofans are what they're using in RC aircraft these days. Days. So I was curious if either of you when you were kids had any exposure to any of the RC aircraft from back then.

[Brian Schulmeister]

It is one of my great regrets that I asked and asked and asked and never got one.

[C]

Okay, well now you're an adult.

[Brian Schulmeister]

That's true.

[C]

What if I. You just.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Jason, the ones that I had growing up were the ones that were on a string, gas powered ones, and you would basically spin in a circle and fly it up and down.

[C]

Yeah, I remember those.

[Jason DeFilippo]

We did those. Me and my dad did those all the time and they were fun as can be. And the gas ran out just as you were about to puke. So it was perfect.

[C]

I was going to ask how much play time did you get out of that before you've exhausted all of the novel?

[Jason DeFilippo]

Oh, actual play time. I'm like, well, the engine ran for about 90 seconds before you puke and then, you know, you get up and do it again. The nice thing about it is you just trade off, you know, so you could spend a couple hours, you know, just because you have to go out, gas it, figure out the choke and then try and get the thing to start. Most of the time was getting the Engine to start, not chop your fingers off. That was the big thing.

[C]

Oh, yeah, yeah. I didn't think about that. That.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah. Because they were just little gas engines and they were fun as can be, you know. Yeah. Granted there comes a point where you're just like, I really want to take this thing off the string and fly it. But you know, they were for what they were back then. They were great. And we in, you know, in between, it was kind of flying day. We'd have the balsa wood airplanes that we would take out at the same time. Yeah, we had tons of those. You know, they were kind of like Ikea. They were flat pack. And then you crack them out of the molds and put them together and go out and fly them. And I think the biggest one I had was about a three foot wingspan balsa. The smaller ones were like, you know, anywhere from 8 inches to a foot. And then they started making the big three foot ones that didn't really fly very well. Those were. No matter where we went, even up on a hill with a breeze, they just kind of sucked. But the little ones were fun.

[C]

Yeah, huh?

[Jason DeFilippo]

That's what we did as Gen Xers with no money, man. It was fun. Balsa would airplane I had.

[C]

I remember it was very exciting. One day my dad came home and he had gotten me a airplane that was entirely made out of foam. It was a like a dart shaped airplane. You know, like a. It was basically a big flying triangle. But it was.

[Jason DeFilippo]

I know the one you're talking about.

[C]

Yeah. You know, looked like an air. An Air Force fighter, but it had a plane. Yeah, exactly. And it had a big soft rubber bumper on the nose. So when it went nose into the ground, it was okay. And we had a fairly big yard. So I spent a lot of time just tossing that thing around. And that was fun. The thing I wonder about with the plane on the string, it seems to me like that's kind of like slot cars in a way way where it's fun, it's limited. Right. It's sort of penned in by the nature of just what it is. And I think because of that, modern kids will just are just like, why would I want to do this?

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yeah.

[C]

I had slot cars in the actual attic. I pulled them out, set them up in the living room, I guess on the floor. And I was like, kids, come look. I've set up the slot cars. And they were like, okay, that's. I mean they just go around. That's it. Yes, yes. That's what they do. It's Here, try it out.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yeah, it was loads of fun. I'm gonna go play my Nintendo Switch now, old man.

[C]

Exactly.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Exactly like dad.

[C]

I can do this on my iPad, except I'm in the car. Yeah, Okay.

[Jason DeFilippo]

I love slot cars, man, because it's all about imagination. You put yourself in the car and, like, you got to get the right speed going around the corners and the right, you know, the apex on the trigger to get them to move. Right. I remember those being just so much fun. And then you just, you know, you get in flow with those things. I. I really enjoyed them when I was a kid, you know, just.

[C]

I did, too.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Use your imagination, you know?

[C]

Yeah.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Kids today just don't have imaginations.

[C]

When I was in middle school, When I was in middle school, our shop teacher had slot cars set up in the shop. He had a couple of big, big slot car setups. And so at lunch and after school, we would come in and race our slot cars. And so that made it very competitive. And of course, no one ever beat the shop teacher because he had the best cars and he was the best driver and. And all those kinds of things. So spent a lot of time racing slot cars. And there's still people who are out there doing the hobby. They're still making new slot car sets and new cars. Yeah, but. So it's still out there. Okay.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Okay, I got a question. I got a question. Have you ever taken the plastic top off and taped a penny to it and then put the cap back on so it would have more traction going around the corner? So you would cheat when your friends came over because you would have the weighted car?

[C]

That I did not do. No. But I did plenty of modifications to the cars. I think my version of that, because, remember, the big thing when we were kids was Magna Traction. Right. They were sucked down onto the track by magnets. And by the time you got to the. What were they, the G cars, Those things were just stuck to the track. They grew super fast. But one thing you could do is lay down on the track a piece of sandpaper and then run your rear wheels over the sandpaper. And that would both true up the wheels, but it would also lower them so that the magnets were then closer to the surface of the track. And since magnetism works by the inverse square line, didn't take a whole lot to greatly increase the amount of basically suction your car had to the track. And so that was a way to give you more speed in the corners.

[Jason DeFilippo]

I didn't. We couldn't afford those. So I never really. I didn't. I didn't get into those mods. I mean, these had. These had magnets, but they were fairly weak and.

[C]

Yeah.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah, it wouldn't really. Wouldn't really do that.

[C]

I remember some people would dig out old slot cars, you know, that their parents had had before they had the magnets.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah, those are the ones I got.

[C]

It was impossible. I mean, they're just like sliding sideways around the track and just. Yeah.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Very difficult. That's what I was talking about where you have to, like, you know, that's. Those are the ones that require a bit of skill and you can get really into it because when you're coming up to the corner, you got to slow down. You got to figure out where the apex is. You know that car well enough where, you know it's going to. The tail is going to slide out, but you can still slide it and kind of drift around the corner and then get back on the straightaway. Those were fun. That. That was. That's what I talked. When I'm talking about slot cars. Those are the ones I had.

[C]

Yeah, yeah.

[Brian Schulmeister]

We went outside.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Pittsburgh, man. There's. You can't go outside in the winter in Pittsburgh. We had slot cars for winter.

[C]

Yeah, I don't.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Have you guys seen Hot Wheels at your local grocery stores? They have tubs of them there for like a buck fifty now. I'm like, yeah, that's cheaper than what they were when I was a kid. I wish I collected Hot Wheels.

[Brian Schulmeister]

We're into them, but not. It's not as popular. Popular as it used to be. Hell, man, we played with marbles. I haven't seen a kid play with marbles in 30 years.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah, I never played marbles.

[C]

No, there's. They do. Marble racing is kind of fun. If you've seen that.

[Brian Schulmeister]

We've done those. We have a magnetile marble marble racing kit that we. We've done a couple times. It's a lot of fun.

[C]

Yeah. Did you. With your Matchbox cars, did you have the orange track and the purple connectors?

[Brian Schulmeister]

Oh, you still make those? I had a very brief period where my kid liked it but went away fast.

[C]

Yeah.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yeah.

[Jason DeFilippo]

I remember all of the mechanics that you had to do to make sure that the bump was in the. When you connected them, that the angle was right so you didn't lose speed when they were either going around. So he didn't either pop off the track or it didn't nose dive in when you were coming around a corner or trying to get it. Trying to get the right angle to get it to go through the loop and then jump to the next round of track that you had in.

[C]

Yeah, yeah. Do you remember there was a piece that was a motorized piece that had, like, a couple of. Basically, the car would go in between a couple of spongy wheels that were spinning and that would launch it out into the track.

[Jason DeFilippo]

I remember that. I never had it, but I do remember seeing it.

[C]

I don't. I don't think I ever had it, but I think friends had it and it was. Yeah. I mean, it's just, you know, when. When there were a limited number of toys between you and your friends in the neighborhood, you could cobble together bigger versions of it all, you know, hey, bring your slot cars over. Oh, I have afx. Oh, I have Tyco. You know, it's not going to work.

[Jason DeFilippo]

I got around that problem by never having friends, so that worked out.

[C]

Welcome to Trauma Corner with Jason.

[Jason DeFilippo]

I would literally play with my slot cards with one controller in each hand and race myself.

[C]

Yeah.

[Jason DeFilippo]

I'm not joking.

[C]

Yeah. Served you well when you hit puberty.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Brian Schulmeister]

I'm not going to suggest this for Jason because of the trauma aspect, Dave, but I. I know you have limited use for Facebook these days, but I highly recommend finding a page and following it, which I have called Vintage Toy Emporium.

[C]

Oh.

[Brian Schulmeister]

And all they do is put up pictures of all these old toys and, like, the original ads and, like, you know, Best magazine and all this other stuff, and it's phenomenal. It's great. Blast from the past stuff.

[C]

Yeah, I think I may follow that, but I'll definitely look for it. Yes. And that. That stuff is that. That's a. That's a nostalgia honeypot for me, all those old toys. Yeah. So much fun.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Well, I'm gonna go play with myself because we're by myself.

[Brian Schulmeister]

I mean, sorry, that's the only toy you had as a kid.

[C]

Yeah. At least it's a permanent play thing.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Okay, guys.

[C]

All right. See you next time.

[Jason DeFilippo]

See you next time. Closing Shout outs. Over at Patreon, we've got a new patron, Jeff. Welcome, Jeff. And from the Legacy Files, we've got Gary, Jeff, Mike, Wendy, Robert, Dan, Jerry, Stacy, and Mira. Thank you all so much for your support.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Thank you. Over at PayPal, we've got Andrew, Linda, Sloan, Tom, Joseph, and Jen. Thank you.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Over at the Tip Jar, we've got Tony and Ross. And just a quick reminder, if you do want to support the show, you can hop over to patreon.com gog and for as little as $3 a month you can support the show and if you want to pay for the whole year, you even get a discount that gets you the show a little bit early. Ad free and in high definition. Or you can go to GOG show donate and we have other options to help support our show. Show. Sadly, nobody bought any T shirts this week. Oh well, no new reviews either.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Oh well.

[Jason DeFilippo]

I want to give a shout out to my friend Jordan Harbinger. He's over in London and sent me a text the other day. He's like, you know what we see over here all the time? Deliveroo. He's like, it. Shit's everywhere. Cool.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Nice. And condolences to the Went family. And sad news, George Went Norm from Cheers has passed away at 76.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Norm.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Norm. Kids today just don't get it.

[Jason DeFilippo]

They don't get it, Norman. Slot cars and alcoholism. Until next time, I'm Jason DeFilippo.

[Brian Schulmeister]

And I'm Brian Schillmeister. Thanks for listening to Grumpy old geeks. Get all the links and goodies from Today's episode at GOG Show.698 want to keep the grumpiness alive? Toss a few bucks our way at GOG Show. Donate every penny helps us keep the show on the air. Love the show. Share it There's a share button in your podcast player. Use it to spread the grumpiness of 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 GOG merch. Snag your gear now at shop.gog show. Stay grumpy. I like money. So does Johnny. I've.