701: Dancing in the Streets

Summary

Podcast Summary: Grumpy Old Geeks Episode 701: "Dancing in the Streets"

Release Date: June 13, 2025

Hosts: Jason DeFilippo & Brian Schulmeister
Guest: Dave Bittner

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1. Introduction and Molly White's Advocacy for Truth (00:02 - 02:42)

The episode kicks off with Jason and Brian discussing Molly White's latest article titled "It Matters. I Care." Molly White urges against the rising public cynicism, stressing the importance of truth even when it seems futile. She criticizes the normalization of corruption, particularly highlighting Trump's crypto ventures, and warns against apathy which empowers corrupt actors.

Notable Quote:

• Jason DeFilippo (00:27): "She's urging journalists and the public alike to keep exposing the truth, even when it feels like no one is listening."

Brian reflects on Molly's optimism, contrasting it with their decade-long struggle in documenting abuse without substantial change.

Notable Quote:

• Brian Schulmeister (01:03): "Well, here we are, Molly. Been here 10 years doing just that. And no one's listening."

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2. Los Angeles Protests and Trump's Stance (02:42 - 07:52)

The conversation shifts to recent news about Los Angeles, highlighting the disparity between sensational media coverage and the actual peaceful reality. Jason and Brian discuss how protests have often been misrepresented, citing events like the absence of violent protests and the presence of harmless gatherings featuring celebrities like Mick Jagger and David Bowie.

They delve into the broader cultural war, emphasizing Trump's antagonism towards liberal strongholds like California and New York. The hosts express frustration over Trump's actions, such as sending ICE agents to Los Angeles despite the lack of significant unrest.

Notable Quote:

• Brian Schulmeister (05:58): "So if you're going to go after someone and you're going to start to cause problems and you're going to try to declare martial law across the whole country, you go after Los Angeles. Why Los Angeles instead of New York?"

Jason offers a grim perspective on current events, noting that the true violence stemmed from law enforcement actions rather than the protesters themselves.

Notable Quote:

• Jason DeFilippo (07:07): "The only violence that was perpetrated was by the fucking cops."

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3. Tech Industry Updates and AI Developments (07:52 - 25:36)

A. Elon Musk and Chatbots (10:42 - 18:13)

The hosts critique Elon Musk's continuous delays and unmet promises regarding Tesla's Robo-Taxis. They discuss Musk's recent apology to Donald Trump and express skepticism about the viability and timeline of fully autonomous vehicles.

Notable Quote:

• Brian Schulmeister (10:54): "He done up. He's a man without a country. Good. Go to Mars, prick."

B. Google and AI Workforce Reductions (20:17 - 21:04)

Jason highlights Google's recent move to offer buyouts to employees in specific units, aligning this with the company's focus on AI advancements. Brian contrasts this with Meta's aggressive recruitment for AI superintelligence, expressing concerns over the rush towards artificial general intelligence (AGI).

Notable Quote:

• Brian Schulmeister (21:32): "It's a step beyond that, Jason. It's one step beyond."

C. U.S. Government’s AI Chatbot Initiative (24:11 - 25:36)

They discuss the Trump administration's effort to develop a government chatbot, expressing doubts about its efficacy and potential for misinformation, referencing past failures like Microsoft's racist chatbot.

Notable Quote:

• Brian Schulmeister (24:00): "Shocking. So earlier this year, Elon Musk and Doge were, we’re basically Thor in the dark side."

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4. Legal Battles in AI: Disney vs. MidJourney (25:36 - 28:50)

Disney and Universal Studios have filed a significant copyright infringement lawsuit against AI company MidJourney, accusing it of using their iconic characters without authorization to train its image-generating AI. The studios argue that MidJourney's actions constitute plagiarism and aim to prevent the launch of their AI-driven video services.

Notable Quote:

• Jason DeFilippo (27:37): "They are 100% a bottomless pit of plagiarism. There's no doubt about that."

Brian underscores Disney's formidable legal prowess, expressing confidence that MidJourney stands little chance against such industry giants.

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5. Shopify's Forced Crypto Integration and Industry Implications (28:50 - 30:46)

Jason and Brian analyze Shopify's partnership with Coinbase and Stripe to implement stablecoin payments (USDC) across its platform. They criticize the opt-out nature of the integration, arguing that it imposes unwanted crypto usage on merchants unless they actively disable it.

Notable Quote:

• Jason DeFilippo (28:54): "The upside is, yeah, credit card fees out the door. Downside is forced to use crypto when you don't want to."

Brian sarcastically remarks on the dubious benefits, highlighting the inconvenience outweighing the minor cashback incentives.

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6. AI-Generated Content and Ethical Concerns (47:04 - 62:04)

The hosts engage in a deep discussion about the ethical implications of AI in creative processes. They reference a metaphor comparing AI to frozen pizza—convenient but lacking in quality and ignoring hidden costs. They debate the impact of AI on creativity, with Jason acknowledging the utility of AI tools like MidJourney for show art, despite recognizing their limitations.

Notable Quote:

• Jason DeFilippo (54:33): "I would say that the link that we have in the show notes goes to the compilation of all the episodes, and it's about 10 minutes long. That was a lot for me to sit through, but I did enjoy them in the... One to two minute chunks."

Brian reflects on society's relentless busyness and how AI both exacerbates and attempts to mitigate it, likening AI's role to temporary conveniences that mask deeper issues.

Notable Quote:

• Brian Schulmeister (59:46): "It's not creative. It's destroying creativity to some degree."

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7. Technology and Nostalgia: Atari and Retro Gaming (62:04 - 71:25)

The conversation takes a nostalgic turn as the hosts reminisce about classic Atari 2600 games and the ingenuity required to develop them given the hardware limitations. They express admiration for the programmers who created memorable games like "Pitfall" and "Space Invaders."

Jason shares his experience with modern emulation using devices like the Analog Pocket, highlighting the blend of old and new technologies.

Notable Quote:

• Jason DeFilippo (66:44): "Because it took skill. You can't vibe code shit like that. Took actual brain power and skill to create that thing. So kudos to them for..."

Brian underscores the simplicity and enduring appeal of classic games, noting their foundational role in the evolution of gaming.

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8. Personal Updates and Community Engagement (71:25 - 74:25)

The episode concludes with personal anecdotes, including the hosts sharing updates about their families and the passing of notable figures like Sly Stone and Brian Wilson. They also interact with their community, acknowledging new subscribers and patrons while humorously addressing technical support queries.

Notable Quote:

• Brian Schulmeister (73:28): "They are just a platform. Mid Journey is not a platform. Mid Journey is a tool. So they can't claim that."

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9. Conclusion and Final Thoughts (74:25 - End)

In the closing segments, Jason and Brian reflect on the deaths of influential personalities in music and technology, expressing their condolences and sharing memories. They emphasize the importance of continued support from their listeners to keep the podcast running amidst the challenges posed by evolving technologies and industry changes.

Notable Quote:

• Jason DeFilippo (78:52): "This guy was no joke. He was a no joke original Mac pioneer."

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Key Takeaways:

• Persistence in Advocacy: Molly White's call to uphold truth despite public apathy resonates with the hosts' own experiences in a stagnant environment.
• Media Misrepresentation: The discrepancy between media portrayal and reality of protests in Los Angeles highlights ongoing cultural and political battles.
• AI's Double-Edged Sword: While AI offers convenience and new creative tools, it also presents ethical dilemmas and potential threats to genuine creativity.
• Legal Frontiers in AI: Major studios like Disney are taking legal steps to curb unauthorized use of intellectual property in AI training, setting precedents for future litigation.
• Nostalgia vs. Progress: Reflecting on classic technologies like the Atari 2600 underscores the value of foundational skills amidst rapid technological advancements.

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Join the Conversation:
Engage with Jason, Brian, and Dave by joining the Grumpy Old Geeks Discord. Share your thoughts, feedback, and favorite moments from the episode!

Support the Show:
Consider supporting the podcast on Patreon to help keep the grumpiness alive and ensure more in-depth discussions in future episodes.

Listen Next:
Stay tuned for upcoming episodes where Jason, Brian, and Dave continue to dissect the tech world's triumphs and failures with their signature no-holds-barred commentary.

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Stay grumpy, stay informed.

Transcript

[Jason DeFilippo]

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

[Brian Schulmeister]

And I'm Brian Schulmeister.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Brian, we covered an article from Molly White last week, and I want to start the show off with a new one that she put out this week.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Okay.

[Jason DeFilippo]

It's called it matters. I care. Okay. Molly pushed back this week against growing public cynicism, arguing that truth still matters even when consequences seem out of reach. In her fiery newsletter, she condemns the normalization of corruption, especially surrounding Trump's crypto ventures and the defeatist attitude that documenting abuse is pointless. She warns that surrendering to apathy hands power to protagonists and corrupt actors, saying caring isn't naive, giving up is. She's urging journalists and the public alike to keep exposing the truth, even when it feels like no one is listening.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Well, here we are, Molly. Been here 10 years doing just that. And no one's listening.

[Jason DeFilippo]

No, no one's listening. That's, See, that's, that's where, you know, you just start to. Your soul dies a little every episode when nobody, nobody cares. She's young, she's naive. Brian.

[Brian Schulmeister]

I know, I was about to say, you know, we were here before you, Molly, but we're probably not going to be here after you because you're quite young.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yes. Yeah. We're not going to outlive you by any strength. But I see what she said.

[Brian Schulmeister]

I like her. I agree with what she's saying. I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I'm, I'm in awe of the youthful vigor that she has and energy.

[Jason DeFilippo]

How much energy.

[Brian Schulmeister]

She hasn't been through countless rounds of this. Like, you and I have talked about this part. You know, obviously We've done over 10 years now of documenting and, and documenting abuse and, and seeing that it's pointless because it's still the same protagonists in general. And it's. Maybe some of the names change, some people go to jail, but somebody, some other just comes in and fills their place. You know, we've just been doing this forever and, and we've seen it. And going back, even through our careers, like pre podcast, you know, we saw horrible people constantly being rewarded. It just is. And eventually you do start to get a little tired of it. So good on you, you, you. We're gonna, we're passing the torch.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah. For every Elizabeth Holmes, there's always A Sam Altman. You always have to remember that. But I do like it. Gives me a little hope for the youth of the nation.

[Brian Schulmeister]

I'm happy that she's out there and said this. I read through this and it briefly inspired me. And then I went, nah, I just don't give a shit anymore.

[Jason DeFilippo]

And you go, greta Thunberg, back in the news. What the fuck?

[Brian Schulmeister]

What are you doing on the stupid boat?

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Anyways, I was concerned about you, Jason. I was going to reach out to you this week because if you just look at the news or online anywhere, or particularly on X, Los Angeles is on fire, is Gaza.

[Jason DeFilippo]

I know, I know. It's amazing, isn't it?

[Brian Schulmeister]

The crazy thing is I know so many people in Los Angeles and they're all living their normal lives and nothing is happening. And they've gone out of their way to find violent protests and only find people. They found Mick Jagger and David Bowie dancing in the streets. That's all they found.

[Jason DeFilippo]

That's kind of it. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, this. I mean, this even makes Tempest in a Teapot sound like hyperbole.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yeah.

[Jason DeFilippo]

There's a few blocks of insane.

[Brian Schulmeister]

The hatred that California gets from the rest of the country and Los Angeles in particular.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah, yeah. You've been here when the Lakers have won championships before. 10 times. 10 times. The chaos and the damage from just the Lakers, from. From a. From a simple game of basketball, a simple game of hoops has caused more chaos than. Than the ice raids have caused. Granted, there's of Ejida over the ice raids and it's bullshit.

[Brian Schulmeister]

There should be.

[Jason DeFilippo]

There should be a lot of pushback. The thing is, it's like when you see the protests on the news, there ain't that many people showing up. There's. I mean, I think the biggest one that I saw maybe had 3,000 people in Chicago when we protested. 25,000 was the bare minimum to even call it a protest. Otherwise it was just a gathering.

[Brian Schulmeister]

But you have to keep in mind the geography of Los Angeles and why that is what it is. Los Angeles is massive. You fly over it for an hour. When you're coming into Los Angeles, we don't have city centers in the same way that a lot of other cities do. So there's a lot of little protests taking place in Los Angeles.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah.

[Brian Schulmeister]

And of course, anything like this will bring out the shitty people that want to cause chaos and mayhem. So there's been some of that. Of course there is. There's some of that on a regular basketball game. Not even a Championship win. There are assholes that go to Dodgers games to start trouble every single game. There are just shitty people in the world.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Some people just want to watch the world burn.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yes. But overall, it's all been very safe.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah. And to your size of Los Angeles. When my mom first flew in, the first time she's ever been to Los Angeles, she's like, no wonder you have earthquakes. Look at all this shit. It was a big nothing burger. But that was the whole point. It was supposed to be a nothing burger.

[Brian Schulmeister]

And that's the thing, okay? That is the thing. This is the cultural war being fought. This is. Trump has a fucking hates Los Angeles. He hates California, he hates New York. He hates these liberal strongholds because that's where all the people are. And if you look at the map, there are more people in Los Angeles than most states that voted for him. End of story. So if you're going to go after someone and you're going to start to cause problems and you're going to try to declare martial law across the whole country, you go after Los Angeles. Why Los Angeles instead of New York? Because he still lives in New York. Oh, and they know he knows everybody hates him there.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah, It's a known quantity.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Look, we're gonna. We might be reading about this in the history books. Is the Great California War. One of the things that I think that came out of this. That's good. And God knows I've been on record. I hate Governor Newsom. I hate him.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah.

[Brian Schulmeister]

But he found a spine. He's pushing back him. Go Governor.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah. See, the thing is, I'm with you on. I've never been a big fan of. Of Bruce Wayne as. At first I didn't like him mayor of San Francisco. Then I didn't like him as governor. I'm probably not going to like him as president, but he's the. He's the greatest hope we got at this point.

[Brian Schulmeister]

He kind of is. He is right now. And you know what? We're pushing that line. I'm sorry. Things are getting bad. Like what. What Trump is trying to do. Sending in fucking Marines to Los Angeles when nothing is happening. The. That Senator Padilla that got cut.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah. He's. He's a local boy, man. He's from the Valley. We're pissed off. We're very pissed off here about that.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yeah, it's. Well, I mean, is it playing into the playbook? Is this what he wants to happened? Probably. But you know what? At some point, you got to. You got some point, you have to throw down and say no more. And yeah, I think we're getting there. He's. He's doing it in L. A. Yeah.

[Jason DeFilippo]

All of this is a run up to the fact that I just wanted to say that the only thing that I really agreed with, with the violence over the. It's not violent. It's. It's vandalism. Let's, let's make that clear. Everybody's talking about the violence. The only violence that was perpetrated was by the fucking cops. The, the, the damage that was done was because they burned some way mos and scooters. That was all this run up for me was so I could get to the. The waymos and scooters being torched. Yeah. You know why they torched them? Because there were no people in them to hurt.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yes, it was violence. That is vandalism.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yes, that is a nonviolent protest action right there. But no, when. When Ice Ice Barbie comes in and saying that she wants to actually change the regime, I'm like, that's not your job, honey. Get the out of here.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Oh, I know. That statement was like, that inflamed me. I'm trying to ignore it all. I'm in Canada. I Whatever. You guys screw everything up. I'll come back when you sort out your. And I was so pissed when I saw that. I'm like, what the are you talking about?

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah, yeah, listen to the words she says. It's not. It's.

[Brian Schulmeister]

It's like, wait, we're overthrowing your elected government?

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah, that's exactly what she said she want they were here to do. And it's like, I thought you were here to get some brown people. That's what, that's. That's what your man says you're here to do. Yeah, yeah. That's why the guy got hauled up because he's like, excuse me, what did you just say, honey? So, well, tomorrow is the no kings protest going on basically everywhere. Everywhere? Yeah. At least 2,000 protests. Minimum. Minimum. Even my mom in little like Podunk, North Carolina has her T shirts and is going out to protest in. And I'm like, she's braver than I am. Going out in the middle of North Carolina. Like, like backwoods North Carolina. I'm not going to name the city, so nobody goes wax her around a bit. But yeah, I'm looking forward to tomorrow. It's going to be interesting. You know, my little, my little bit of protest about having nobody show up to the. The parade. I've seen that echoed in a lot of other places. But I think this is just skip that and just go to the protest and it's going to be an interesting day. I'm going to be glued to my tv. I will not be going to any protests because unlike in the old days when I used to love taking photos at protest, I posted some on Instagram of the last protest I was at. So check those out at JPD on Instagram. I can run away back when I was a kid when the crowd went cuckoo nuts. I can't run anymore so I'm leaving this one to the the probably wise.

[Brian Schulmeister]

You need to be nimble.

[Jason DeFilippo]

I am not nimble anymore. No, no, I, I, I, I'm so nimble I can run in circles because my right side still doesn't work exactly the same as my left. Thank you, thank you gods of the stroke. But moving on, moving on.

[Brian Schulmeister]

There is a very funny article that I we will have the link in the show notes it is what it was like in the shit in 2025 excerpts from the memoir of a Marine deployed to a Los Angeles Home Depot.

[Jason DeFilippo]

This is so funny.

[Brian Schulmeister]

So funny. The sun was creeping over the San Gabriel Mountains, shining like death off the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion. It was time to move out. We were supposed to make it to the Grove and back by nightfall. The crazy assignment of desk jockeys who never had a clue. Guys who their pants if they saw what the Ways app looked like on sunset at rush hour. But it was time to go. The last helicopter out of the Ace Hotel was leaving in the morning and somebody said a guy who looked like Joaquin Phoenix was at the bar. This is the best article. So funny.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah, I'm good.

[Brian Schulmeister]

And an actual real bit of follow up since last week. It was the fight between Elon and Donald Trump. I will just, I mean a round of applause to the headline writer Elon Cuck apologizes to Donald Trump. It took less than a week, but alpha male extraordinaire Elon Musk has surrendered to Donald Trump, ending his back and forth with the President with an early morning mea culpa. Whatever the reason, sobriety, the threat of losing billions of dollars in funding for SpaceX. Realizing he'll never be liked by liberals again, Musk has now laid down his Twitter fingers and to use one of Trump's favorite expressions, came crawling back like a dog.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah, I think he found out that he had no home, so he had to go back to the the one place that he kind of was still accepted. But I think he's going to find out that he ain't Even that accepted there anymore. He done up.

[Brian Schulmeister]

He done up.

[Jason DeFilippo]

He's a man without a country. Good. Go to Mars, prick. This episode is brought to you by DeleteMe. DeleteMe makes it easy, quick and safe to remove your personal data online at a time when surveillance and data breaches are common enough to make everyone vulnerable. These days, your personal data is just floating around out there like confetti at a parade. Between data breaches, creepy trackers, and companies selling you out to the highest bidder, your info is basically public dope domain. That's why Delete Me makes it easy, quick and safe to remove your personal data from the sketchiest corners of the Internet. Now look, we've been on the Internet longer than most of you have been alive and we've seen how bad it gets. I've had my home address show up on some random data broker site I've never heard of just because I bought a couch online once. Delete Me is like having a digital janitor that actually gives a damn. You tell them what you want gone and they get to scrubbing. Removing your info from hundreds of data broker site and then sending you regular reports showing you what they found and nuked. This isn't a one and done kind of service either. DeleteMe keeps working in the background like a paranoid hermit with a keyboard and a grudge. Take control of your data and keep your private life private by signing up for Delete Me now at a special discount for our listeners. Get 20% off your Delete Me plan when you go to JoinDeleteMe.com GoG and use promo code GoG at checkout. The only way to get 20% off is to go to JoinDeleteMe.com gog and enter code GoG at checkout. That's JoinDeleteMe.com GoG code GoG in the news.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Well, every few years, a Silicon Valley gig economy company announces a disruptive innovation that looks a whole lot like a bus. Okay, Uber has done this before even, and they're doing it again. They've. They've announced the smart routes a decade ago, followed a short time later by the lift shuttle of its biggest competitor. Even Elon Musk gave it a try in 2018 with the urban Loop system that never quite materialized, much like everything that Elon announces. More on that beyond the Vegas strip. And does anyone remember Chariots Now? I didn't even remember that one. I had to look it up. So now it's Uber's turn again. The ride hailing company recently announced route share in which shuttles will travel dozens of fixed routes with fixed stops, picking up passengers and dropping them off at fixed times. Wow. How did we never think of this before?

[Jason DeFilippo]

Next they're going to invent the milkman in the, in the railroad. It's great.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yeah. So they're basically saying that this, this is to some extent inspired by the bus. It's an actual statement.

[Jason DeFilippo]

You can actually, with a straight face say that that's the, that's from, that's from the CEO.

[Brian Schulmeister]

The goal, he said, is to reduce prices to the consumer and then help with congestion in the environment. Like a fucking bus. Let us not forget Uber's other amazing innovation that came out about a year or two ago at select airports, the airport queue, where they reinvented the taxi queue.

[Jason DeFilippo]

I know. Which would have been fun in the beginning. They ruined airports, so they had to reinvent what already worked at airports.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yes. What an innovative and disruptive company.

[Jason DeFilippo]

So great, so great.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Well, Robo Taxis are coming to the UK next year thanks to a partnership between Uber and Wave, a British company focused on AI for autonomous vehicles.

[Jason DeFilippo]

I thought you missed. I just thought you misspelled ways.

[Brian Schulmeister]

I'm like, oh, no. Wave.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Wave.

[Brian Schulmeister]

A pilot program is set to take place in spring 2026 that follows last year's passage of the Automated Vehicles act, which set the stage for self driving cars to be deployed across the country. According to Heidi Alexander, the UK Secretary of State for Transportation, the agreement will add 42 billion pounds, or approximately $56.7 billion for the economy, and create 38,000 jobs. They don't state exactly how the latter will occur as a result of driverless taxis.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah, I don't know about you, Brian, but I've been in. Of course you have. You lived in London, you've been in several London cabs.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yes.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Would you want an autonomous driverless cab in London of all places?

[Brian Schulmeister]

Absolutely not. Absolutely. Because those, they have to pass the test or the quiz or I can't remember what exactly it's called, but London is a maze of medieval streets and these taxi drivers, the real taxi drivers, know them like the back of their hand, all 20 gazillion of them. And they know how to get around traffic and they know everything. And these will not also. I'm just can't. I can't wait for this, this Uber and Wave collaboration to reinvent the double decker bus.

[Jason DeFilippo]

I know it's going to be fantastic, you know, I mean, I'm sure you've seen this study somewhere where they tested London taxi cab drivers. They did brain scans that they did. It fundamentally changed the structure, the physical structure of their brain.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Right.

[Jason DeFilippo]

They learned so much about the streets of London and it's like, wow, see, that's what I want. I want professionals. I want people who know this shit. You're not going to get that from an autonomous car. You're just not.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yeah, well, guess who's being left out of all of this so far, Tesla. As previously noted, Tesla doesn't have a strong history of releasing things on time or with the promised functionality. And after the latest in a series of setbacks, it seems like the EV giant's long awaited robo taxi service will continue that trend. Insiders are now reporting the program will launch on June 12th in Austin, Texas. But it's still unclear what it'll look like. Then we cast back your minds in 2019. CEO Elon Musk said he was very confident that Tesla Robotaxis would launch in 2020 and that by 2022, any non Tesla vehicles would look like horses in comparison. Not to beat a dead horse, but he never does anything on time. And none of that came true.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Nope, nope. They're saying now June 22nd, it might begin, but it's only if the safety checks clear, which they won't. They won't. They won't. Yeah. And it's going to be just regular Teslas with new software, with a remote operator in case of emergency. So none of the autonomous shit. So full self driving doesn't.

[Brian Schulmeister]

If you're really good at Grand Theft Auto, apply now.

[Jason DeFilippo]

And I like this as always. His timelines are aspirational, but it just reminds me of the Douglas Adams quote. I love deadlines. I love the whooshing sound they make as they fly by. Elon should have that tattooed on his ass backwards so he can look at it in the mirror every day. Speaking of more Tesla news, France. France is. You know I told you I was watching that new. The new old show that I found with Anthony Bourdain, the Taste from England in 2014. He used a term I hadn't heard in a very long time that he was making fun of Chef Ludo. He called him a cheese eating surrender monkey. I'm like, I miss it. I miss him so much. I haven't heard that in so long. But then I remembered, oh, this show's from 2014. A lot has happened since 2014.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yes.

[Jason DeFilippo]

But anyway, the cheese eating surrender monkeys are going very much against Tesla. And 10 Tesla leaseholders in France have filed a lawsuit in Paris's commercial court accusing Elon Musk's company of allowing its vehicles to become far right totems that damage their reputation. The plaintiffs want to void their leases, reclaim legal fees and recover the original cost of their cars, arguing that Musk's public support for figures like Donald Trump and Germany's AfD, along with incendiary remarks and even gestures compared to Nazi salutes. Let's, let's, let's not say that it was compared to a Nazi. It was a fucking Nazi salute. Have politicized the Tesla brand.

[Brian Schulmeister]

They're not wrong.

[Jason DeFilippo]

No. They contend that this politicization. I can't speak. Has led to acts of vandalism, higher insurance premiums and depreciation, citing examples such as swastikas spray painted on cars, and even human waste left on vehicles. Now the lawsuit relies on French civil law guaranteeing peaceful enjoyment of leased goods, claiming his actions have undermined that right. I like that. Guaranteeing peaceful enjoyment of leased goods. We need that over here.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yeah, we could use that. That sounds nice.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah, that's pretty good.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Pretty good.

[Jason DeFilippo]

So I wish them luck.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Good luck.

[Jason DeFilippo]

In some. In some pink slip news. Sort of. Google on Tuesday offered buyouts to employees within its knowledge and information and central engineering units, as well as marketing, research and communications teams. Some teams are also mandating office returns for remote workers who live within 50 miles of an office. The buyouts are part of the company's effort to reduce headcount, which Google has continued to do in waves since laying off 12,000 employees in 2023. So they're getting, they're getting rid of people in search and knowledge and information. So, all right, they're leaning into the AI shit bag that is now Google.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Well, everybody seems to be laying into AI shit baggery, including Meta. Meta chief Mark Zuckerberg has been recruiting experts to join a team he's assembling to achieve AI superintelligence.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Can we just get regular intelligence?

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yeah, can we just answer questions correctly first? Let's, let's start with that. Second grade intelligence would be good. He reportedly has a personal list of recruits which include AI researchers, infrastructure engineers and other entrepreneurs. At the moment, the immediate goal of AI companies is to achieve true artificial general intelligence. AGI, where in a suit machine has human level intelligence and can achieve any task a human can do.

[Jason DeFilippo]

We, we need, we need a, we need a baseline for human intelligence right now because it's all over the course.

[Brian Schulmeister]

True.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Sorry.

[Brian Schulmeister]

So even though we all kind of agree that we're not get anywhere near getting to true artificial general intelligence, he wants to go super intelligent. Let's just skip that step.

[Jason DeFilippo]

What's the definition of that?

[Brian Schulmeister]

It's a step beyond that, Jason. It's one step beyond.

[Jason DeFilippo]

I wish we, I wish we could license that, but we don't make enough money.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Me too. An AI system with super intelligence is supposed to have intellectual powers far beyond any humans. The time says Zuckerberg has already tapped Alexander Wang, the founder of AI startup Scale AI to join the new team. Then Meta is planning to invest billions of dollars into Wang's company, which provides other AI companies with data to train their models. So yeah, yeah.

[Jason DeFilippo]

So so basically they're the scraper and they can say, oh what we bought, we, we got the models from them. So if you need to sue somebody for copyright, here's a subsidiary that you can sue. Stay away from the main company is basically what they're doing with that.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So we've had countless and countless stories of AI chatbots got wrong and AI not getting information correctly. And the Trump administration has said that all sounds great. Chatbots are notoriously sources of misinformation and false confidence. So surely imbuing one with the of the federal government won't cause any problems, right? 404 Media has spotted a GitHub repository that shows the Trump administration is working on its very own chatbot that appears set to eventually launch on its own website, AI.gov. this appears to be the work of the U.S. general Service Administration's Technology Transformation Services, which is currently being run by Thomas Shed. He's a former Tesla engineer, Red Flag, who has identified by the New York Times as an ally of Elon Musk. Redder Flag, who was appointed to the role of director of GSA's tech arm embrace of AI shouldn't come as much of a surprise, even if the project itself is relatively ill defined at this point. Shocking. So earlier this year, Elon Musk and Doge were unser unceremoniously firing federal employees at the gsa. It launched a chat bot that was supposed to help the remaining agency members with their tasks. That project was in the works before the Doge team rushed it out the door, presumably in an attempt to compensate for all the labor that was cut from the agency. This appears to be something completely new concocted by Shannon. The team that remains at GSA's tech team. Given all that can go wrong with the chatbot, rushing it out the door, doesn't seem like the safest or smartest idea in the world. But hey, they're the experts, right?

[Jason DeFilippo]

Right.

[Brian Schulmeister]

So everybody remembers Microsoft's little chatbot that they released on social media that became racist within about a minute. No, that's a feature in this one, not a bug.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Okay.

[Brian Schulmeister]

And China has done something interesting with their AI. They were basically the entire country. If you're a student in China, the entire country takes their final exams at about the same time. How do they make sure that the kids aren't using AI to cheat on their final exams? You turn it all off in the whole damn country.

[Jason DeFilippo]

That's a nice thing about having the great firewall of China. They just press the big red button.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yeah, they hit the big red button and it's. Everything is going to be off during the entire time they're all taking their tests. That's amazing. I love it.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yep. Can we get that here for. For us too?

[Brian Schulmeister]

No, we just get a racist bot.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah, Yeah, I just. I guess we haven't gotten to that chapter in Project 2025 yet. We're getting there.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Next page.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Spoiler alert. Now, nearly two dozen digital rights and consumer protection groups led by the Consumer Federation of America. I like that. The Consumer Federation of America are urging the FTC and state attorneys general to investigate meta in character AI for allegedly allowing AI chatbots to impersonate licensed therapists without oversight or proper disclosures.

[Brian Schulmeister]

I'm pretty sure I could just go to ChatGPT and say, you're my therapist. It'll basically do the same damn thing.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah, I'm pretty sure. I think with just character AI, We've got the suicides. The provable suicide meta. Oh, my God. Yeah. The news about the new chatbot with them is everywhere this week. So the complaint cites chatbots that claim to be credentialed mental health professionals, despite both platforms terms explicitly banning such behavior. Popular bots exchanged millions of messages offering supposed therapy, even fabricating license numbers in promising confidentiality, contradicting the platform's privacy policies. Critics say this unlicensed practice of medicine puts users at risk, especially vulnerable teens. In fact, two families suit character AI last year, alleging the bots contributed to youth suicide and self harm. Yeah, it's a feature, not a bug. Guys, that's. It's more time. More time on bot. That's all they want.

[Brian Schulmeister]

It's awesome. It's awesome what we're doing.

[Jason DeFilippo]

In good news. I never thought I would say good news because more lawsuits. But Disney and Universal Studios have filed a major copyright infringement lawsuit against AI company Mid Journey, accusing it of illegally using their characters like Darth Vader, Iron man, the Minions, and Shrek to train its image generating AI. Filed in California, the lawsuit calls Mid Journey a bottomless pit of plagiarism, alleging it profited by letting users create unauthorized images of famous characters. Generating $300 million in revenue last year alone, the studios claim Mid Journey ignored warnings and even doubled down by improving its AI and planning video generation. The case could reshape how copyright law applies to generative AI. Now, this is a preemptive strike because Mid Journey is about to launch their video service, so they want to nip it in the bud. But yeah, Midjourney, who has a whopping 11 employees, I think they're basically about to get subsumed by Universal and Disney. And I'm sure they're probably going to end up owning the IP from Mid Journey after this.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yeah, I think so. House of Mouse is lawyers. You don't mess with them.

[Jason DeFilippo]

No, you don't. You don't. And they don't have a leg to stand. Midjourney has.00 legs to stand on. I have made so many Mickey Mouse and Stormtrooper images in Mid Journey, it's insane.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yeah, like they said, they are 100% a bottomless pit of plagiarism. There's no doubt about that. Like, what shocks me is the fact that, like, you know, Pinterest never got sued 10 years ago for the same thing.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Unbelievable loopholes, man. They're just a platform. Mid Journey is not a platform. Mid Journey is a tool. So they can't claim that. But, man, we even used I made a furry Stormtrooper for our show art.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yep.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Which is still one of the best images I think we ever. It was fantastic. But yeah, yeah, if you want to get your Mid Journey on, get it on now, because it's not going to be around for much longer, I think. But then the thing is, I still think if it just didn't cost so much. I use it like three times a month when I really need it, but it's not worth the 20 bucks and then I forget and then you just get sucked into it. So, you know, I just use copyright infringement on chat GPT, which I already pay for now, which you still can't get around if you know the tricks because they're just as bad. They're just as bad.

[Brian Schulmeister]

You can get around it with all of them. Unbelievable.

[Jason DeFilippo]

And Brian, well, fuck. Shopify is making a major move into crypto by partnering with Coinbase and Stripe to roll out stablecoin payments across its E Commerce platform starting later this month. Select merchants can accept usdc, which is A dollar pegged Stablecoin issued by Circle, with full rollout planned for US and European merchants later this year. Here's where it gets sticky. Unlike past crypto plugins, this new system is opt out, meaning merchants will automatically be enrolled unless they disable it. Shopify, whose CEO also sits on Coinbase's board.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Gee, I wonder why that worked out that way.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Worked with Coinbase to build a retail ready payment protocol on Coinbase's base blockchain. And Stripe is integrating stablecoins into Shopify's existing checkout system. Coinbase exec Jesse Pollack called the deal a holy crap moment for the industry. Yeah, it is a holy crap moment, saying it could trigger a wave of stablecoin adoption across tech. Merchants will get up to half a percent cash back for accepting usdc, and customers could see similar perks soon. So the upside is, yeah, credit card fees out the door. Downside is forced to use crypto when you don't want to. If you don't go in and proactively uncheck the box.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yes, we will be unchecking the box. So you will not be able to buy any grumpy old geeks merch with this.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah, I. You know, even that half a percent is not worth the hypocrisy that we would endure.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Well, and you also. Well, that. That is true, but it is worth keeping in mind that half a percent will only last for a little while and then it will go away. Much like Uber is being nice and giving you water.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Exactly. Exactly. And considering the fact that we. We make literally enough money off of our merchandise to pay for the store itself right now.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yep.

[Jason DeFilippo]

That is literally how much money the store makes to pay for itself. It is really not worth the headache to deal with any of this shit. So it's just. It just. It saddens me. It saddens me. But the fact that the Shopify CEO is also on Coinbase's board.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Well, yes.

[Jason DeFilippo]

God damn insider. The insider bullshit that goes on with these tech companies is just disgusting.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Mm.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Media Candy.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Found a new podcast this week. Jason.

[Jason DeFilippo]

All right, what you got?

[Brian Schulmeister]

The Misfits podcast. Okay, I will read their blurb. Best known for blowing things up for science, of course, and putting wild theories to the test. Best friends Carrie, Byron and Tony Belleci are back, armed with stories from behind the scenes of Mythbusters and just enough knowledge to be dangerous.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Okay. And you like it? It's good.

[Brian Schulmeister]

I will. There's two episodes out now. I. I listened to both at first. I was heartened to Hear their voices again. It was felt very nice, like seeing old friends after a long time. And then I realized that they don't have all that much to say that I didn't already know. And I think they mentioned in the first two episodes 19 times if there are any producers listening, boy, do we have great ideas for shows.

[Jason DeFilippo]

So they're basically just out there trolling for work, I think. So It's a resume piece.

[Brian Schulmeister]

I think they didn't have much else to do at the moment, so they decided to get together and try to push, push whatever, whatever celebrity that they still have to, to do a podcast and, and hope that it leads to something else at some point, much like we initially did when we started this podcast. So I can't blame them too much.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Hey, man, can't, can't blame, can't blame a girl for trying.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yeah, don't think it'll work out. I don't know if I'm gonna listen to more. I, I, I'm curious to see where they go with it. I mean, I do like both of them. I think they're interesting people. I think they're smart people, but there's not a lot there, really.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah, unfortunately. I was just looking. Carrie Byron is not. Oh, wait, no, there she is. Okay. Yeah, she's not available on Cameo right now. So that's, I was saying she should be making some money on Cameo because out of, out of the two of them, between her and Tori, I think she could probably still make a few bucks.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Probably.

[Jason DeFilippo]

But yeah.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Anyways, Marina, who used to be Marina and the Diamonds, has released a new album called Princess of Power. I'm a huge fan of her early work where she was really kind of interesting and, and kind of alternative and inventive and you didn't know what was happening. She's now pushing 39 and as she's gone along in her career, she's gotten more and more popular and more and more boring. And this is kind of pop and boring. And in Princess of Power, if you look at the letters, it's pop. That's kind of the point. I'm a little disappointed by it. It's not as great. It's weird because normally artists would start more pop, I, I think like Bjork or, or, you know, PJ Harvey or anything like that. It's, you know, typical song structures, pop music. And as they go along in their career, they get weirder. She's gone the opposite way. She started weird and all that stuff was really good and she' like, like she's 39 now. She's like Katy Perry age. You're not a. You're not a 20 year old pop princess anymore. I'm sorry. You're. You're a woman who has. Who should have interesting things to say, but you don't anymore. I'm kind, so. Bummer. Anyways, okay.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Not so much a.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Not a fan of the new album, I think, is what I'm saying there, Jason.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Okay. That's what I was trying to unpack that. I'm like, okay, it was a long.

[Brian Schulmeister]

One, so they were. They were good.

[Jason DeFilippo]

All right. Got a. Got a really happy release date. SLOW Horses Season 5 will premiere on Apple TV plus on September 24th.

[Brian Schulmeister]

All right.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Such a good show. Such a good show. In Bad Show News Foundation Season 3 finally has a launch date of July 11th.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Okay, I know what I will not be watching July 11th.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Exactly. And a surprise announcement. FUBAR Season 2 on Netflix came out today. Now, I want to talk about fubar for a second here. Fubar is one of the worst television shows ever made by the hand of man.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Oh, I don't know. Have you seen Foundation?

[Jason DeFilippo]

Good point, good point. Touche. Touche, good sir. Yeah, because there's a difference. I actually enjoyed fubar. It's terrible tv. It stars Arnold Schwarzenegger and one of my favorite comedians, Fortune Femster, who is just a doll. They're spies. And it's funny and it's stupid. I mean, it's horrible. Horribly written. But if you got to kill, you know, a couple hours, it's better than most things like Foundation. I mean, it really is. It's stupid tv. It is really stupid tv. But for some reason, I really enjoy it. Mostly because I like Fortune. But, yeah, season two. I found season two as a. Basically a footnote in the daily newsletter today. I got no notification on Netflix that it came out. I had to go dig for it on Netflix. Even though I watched all the episodes of season one and gave it like a thumbs up, I still didn't get notified from Netflix. It's like, what are you guys doing? Do you actually want us to watch this shit that you're making?

[Brian Schulmeister]

They were so better AI.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah, they need better AI. But I think maybe even they were so embarrassed, like, dude, it was a contractual thing. We had to put it out. You know, it's, Arnold, what do you want? So, but anyway, fubar season two is out. That's what I'll be watching this weekend, besides the protests.

[Brian Schulmeister]

All right, well, there were two bits of news about sci fi properties that came out yesterday that it was not difficult to find out about because they were everywhere. First is Star Trek. Star Trek, Strange New Worlds. It was announced that they have been. They've been picked up for a fifth season and it will be the final season, which kind of saddens me. But then again, I think it may be a good idea.

[Jason DeFilippo]

So it's a good idea. And that thing had a. I mean it has a. A run rate on it because we know how it ends. So true. We kind of. It's bookended. Let's just say it's bookended from episode one. We know what's going to happen, so see if there's a twist coming. I don't think so. I don't think they can work their way out of canon there, but it would not be the first time. Look at the shit they did with Discovery.

[Brian Schulmeister]

That is true. So the newly confirmed fifth season will run for six episodes down from strange new worlds, typical 10 episode season. So that's a bit of a bummer. We're not getting a full last season, but.

[Jason DeFilippo]

But the good news is we have looked 26 episodes to look forward to because the season three is done, coming out soon. Season four is filming now and with season five done, that's 26. So that's good.

[Brian Schulmeister]

That's good.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Considering we've only had 20 so far. That's more than we've already gotten. And it's still the best Star Trek show that they've done in forever.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yes, that is true. It also marks a turning point towards the end of an era after the disastrous release of the Section 31 movie earlier this year. And the all but confirmed conclusion of Star Prodigy after its exodus to Netflix with the confirmation of strange new worlds. And just one Star Trek series will remain active for now. The still in production Starfleet Academy, which is set in the 32nd century, first explored by that horrible Discovery show. It has already been renewed for a second season, even though we haven't seen any of it yet. So that'll be the only Star Trek show on tv. Once this ends, we shall see what happens. Star Trek's future may lie in future series, but the only close to certain projects we currently know of are films. A new film exploring the foundational years of Starfleet is currently in the work from director Toby Haynes, which could be very interesting. And this one I don't know how I feel about. While Patrick Stewart has openly discussed plans for a potential return to the role of Jean Luc Picard in a new film, presumably set after the conclusion of Star Trek Picard. It would have to be, considering he's like 90.

[Jason DeFilippo]

I can tell you. I can tell you exactly how I feel about it. I feel like shit. Don't do it. It was the perfect ending to a perfect run. Leave. Leave Picard alone.

[Brian Schulmeister]

I agree. And the other bit of sci fi.

[Jason DeFilippo]

But you didn't say. You didn't say the release date for Strange new Worlds Season 2.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Oh, sorry. Season 3 starts July 17th with a two episode premiere, knocking off two more episodes until we're almost out.

[Jason DeFilippo]

I know, but that's six days after Foundation. So if you really want to see how, if you want to really see what the contrast is like that we're talking about on this show between bad sci fi and good sci fi.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yes.

[Jason DeFilippo]

I haven't even seen either one of those. But I can predict with a 100% level of certainty that Foundation Season 3 is going to suck donkey ass. And Star Trek. Strange New Worlds will be awesome.

[Brian Schulmeister]

There you go. And something that could go either way. This was the other bit of sci fi news that came out yesterday. The upcoming Spaceball sequel will arrive in theaters in 2027, with Mel Brooks himself set to reprise his role as Yogurt, according to Amazon MGM Studios. What's more, Deadline reports that the fellow OG cast members, Rick Morenus. Rick Morenus is coming out of retirement for this. Wow. He hasn't been in the movie in over 20 years. And Bill Pullman will also appear in the sequel, reprising their roles as Dark Helmet and President Scroob, while Kiki Palmer is among the new cast members. Unbelievable. I, I just to see Moranis on. On film again would be.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Noteworthy.

[Jason DeFilippo]

So, yeah, I was never a Spaceballs fan, so I'm so glad for everybody that is happy about it.

[Brian Schulmeister]

So many good bits.

[Jason DeFilippo]

All right. Yeah. They better hurry up though, because Mel Brooks is looking rough.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Dude, he's 99 or something.

[Jason DeFilippo]

I know, that's what I mean. They need to hurry up, get his shit on camera or at least have him sign that AI contract.

[Brian Schulmeister]

That's true. And David Zaslav is in the news again and I just have to. There's a link in the show notes. Apparently Warner Brothers is now going to split off Discovery and they're going to do all these new things and who gives a. And this is after HBO being named Max and then HBO Max and then HBO Go and then all. They have no idea what they're doing over there. So I just wanted to say that excluding all the CEOs who have ran their companies into the Ground or are in jail or escaped with a large bag of cash after leaving their companies hanging by a thread and are laughing into the sunset. And I'm looking at you, Yahoo's Marissa Mayer. Zaslav seems like a solid second for worst CEO in the world. 10 points for guessing who the worst is. Yeah, it might be for a couple companies.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah, I got you on that one. I see who you're saying there. I think. I think Zaslav and anybody who voted him onto the board and anybody who kept him on the board and anybody who gave this guy even a cent, they should all be rounded up and taken out into the avocado field, where we now have no workers to pick the avocados and should be sent out there for the rest of their days to pick fucking avocados for the damage they've done to the entertainment industry. These guys, all of them, across the board. And even take that other guy you're talking about, throw him out there, too. I'm fine with that. But in researching these stories about Zaslav this week, I came across the gauge, which is Nielsen's TV monitoring from TV and streaming. And what I found was Max has just like. It's pitiful how many people watch that now. There's, like, nothing there. The only thing that saved it in the ratings was White Lotus.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yeah, that's.

[Jason DeFilippo]

That's the only thing that brought that thing up a couple points. Now that White Lotus is over, they're. They're back to like, you know, they're in a neck and neck race, I think, with Peacock, which nobody watches. And right now Peacock's in the shitter because there's no episodes of the Traders that don't come out till next year. So. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Fuck this guy, man.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Well, if you don't have a cash. If you don't have a cash cow, major series and you basically delete all your back catalog and get rid of everything that people might want to go on to watch. Yeah, you're screwing yourself ups and doodads.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Okay, Brian, let's have a little support rant here. I want to talk about Supertone Clear. Now, Supertone is an audio plugin company. They do some voice changing stuff too. But I use a $69 plugin called Supertone Clear. I use it on all of my mastering from everything that comes out of Logic. I use it on this show even. It's my favorite cleanup plugin. Now I have that new MacBook Air, the 14 inch MacBook Air with the M4 chip in it. Well, trying to deauthorize my old computer and reauthorize that one, and everything looks okay. They even have a little application for their hub so you can do your license management and shit like that. Okay, well, every time I authorize it, within 10 seconds it goes back to trial mode, which means I can't use it because every 60 seconds it puts in a bunch of static. So I go to their sports click. Okay, go to the support site. Okay, I uninstall, reinstall, get the file Uploaded for the license 1. You can do it with activation key. Blah, blah, blah. Same thing over and over again. Just cue me trying not to throw the new MacBook Air against the wall. So I go, okay, let's contact support. Go to Discord. What? Sign up for our Discord channel to talk to support. Even though their whole support system on their website is through Zendesk, which has a ticketing application, I might fucking add. So go to Discord. Have to sign in, do all these. Take some forms and everything. And then I have to go scroll, try and find the support ticket, put in my. Find it, put in my thing. Everything's in Korean. Everybody that is asking for support, it's all in Korean except me and like one other guy who speaks English. Type it in, blah, blah, blah. And now I just wait. I can't use my plugin except on another computer, which fortunately still works, but it's like it is. It is the worst support experience I've seen in a long time. If you're using Discord for support, you should be taken out back and shot. That's it. That's all I got. That's all I got.

[Brian Schulmeister]

And don't forget to join our Discord.

[Jason DeFilippo]

We don't do tech support on our Discord. We don't do tech support anywhere, to be. To be honest, that's true.

[Brian Schulmeister]

You got a problem with our show? You.

[Jason DeFilippo]

That sums it up.

[Brian Schulmeister]

And as you know, I'm a big fan of Slate. I pay for it. I enjoy my journalism from real journalists that actually write real things. But I thought it was very interesting that this week they seem to have a bone to pick with Blue Sky. There are two separate articles about how it seemed to be the Great Hope when X became a Nazi hellhole, and about how it's not working out and Blue sky kind of sucks.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Okay, I respectfully disagree, but go ahead.

[Brian Schulmeister]

The first article is called Blue Skold. And the TLDR on this one is their take is that as X has gone too far, right? And has become a mega echo chamber Blue sky has gone too far left and has become a liberal echo chamber, driving everyone else away and drowning out any other discourse. I'm not.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Sounds like a feature to me.

[Brian Schulmeister]

But I. That does sound more like a feature. I'm okay with that. Number two, the real problem with Blue sky and the tlDr on this two articles.

[Jason DeFilippo]

They made two articles.

[Brian Schulmeister]

That's my point. There's two separate articles written by different journalists about both shitting on Blue Sky. They came out the same week. So the TLDR on the second one is. After promising initial growth, many users have abandoned the platform and actual use is lower and going lower still day by day.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Disagree on that one too.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Well, and they kind of make my point that I've been making since we've had this great microblogging diaspora. I mean, they say, I mean, let's be frank, the audience for microblogging and text based content is smaller than it used to be. That's true. I think most of us are just over it. I. That's what I was saying when all this happened in the first place is like Mastodon and all these other competitors came out and I was like. But I don't really miss Twitter. I don't know. I don't miss any of the microblogging platforms. I'm on all of them. But Mo. Yeah, most of us are just kind of over it. So. So X is Maga and Blue sky is too liberal. And no, threads is definitely not the answer here, people. Because threads is a dump too. Maybe we just don't need these sorts of things.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah, the kids just stick around on Instagram or something that we don't know about and they don't want us to know about, which I'm fine with. Please, whatever you're doing, just keep on doing it. Just leave me out of it there. Or they're on discord, you know, whatever. But yeah, I think the microblogging thing is just basically at this point, it's a bunch of Nazis yelling at each other how horrible Californians are. And yeah. Which I've had to go over a couple of times this week. And it's just like, let's, let's please get a definition of actual human intelligence for these AGI. Because from what I'm seeing here, they may have actually surpassed it a long time ago. If you're doing, if you're grading on.

[Brian Schulmeister]

A curve, I find microblogs, sites, all of them basically are either overrun with AI content or stupid people. Or it's just there's nothing useful anymore.

[Jason DeFilippo]

No, no, I still find Blue sky to be useful. I do, because I just follow. I follow people that are on the front lines of government and science and things like that. So you kind of get the real skinny before it actually hits the news. I see stuff that's there like a week before it gets out in the news, and I love it. I love it for that. That that's what it's good for.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yeah, I mean, I look around it. I look around at all three of the big ones. Blue sky is the one that I look at the most, just because it's got my most curated feed at this point. So I don't even go to people.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Threads.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yeah, I look at threads every now and then just because I get a goddamn notification on Instagram that I turn those off. Notification of threads. So, yeah, yeah.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Easiest thing to do is just to uninstall threads because that way if you accidentally click on one, it just tries to open the app store. Then you're like, oh, that was a threads thing instead of taking you out. It works. It works pretty well for me, I gotta say.

[Brian Schulmeister]

All right. And this Sunday is Father's Day. The. The day that does not matter. It is no Mother's Day. Nobody cares. But I did get some early Father's Day gifts. And to tell you what Father's Day is actually about, let me tell you what the gifts are after. Well, actually, I like both of them, to be honest. After David talked about the compressed air duster, the electronic one, instead of using the cans, my wife and son got me the compressed air duster with Air Blower 16,600 60,000 RPM vacuum cleaner and Air Duster. Four in one keyboard cleaner. No canned air duster. Electric air duster replaces for compressed air cans and vacuum cleaner for PC. Because I couldn't get the exact one that Dave had because it's not available in Canada. But this one was. Works a treat. Love it. It's fantastic.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Is it better than canned air?

[Brian Schulmeister]

Oh, 100%. Yeah.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Okay.

[Brian Schulmeister]

And you just charge it up. It works just as well.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Like 29 bucks. Damn, that's good.

[Brian Schulmeister]

I'm never gonna buy a compressed. I'm never gonna buy a can of compressed air again.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Oh, that's pretty good.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yeah. So that's pretty good.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Cart. Oh, wait. Canada maybe. Might be sending it to Canada. My. My Canadian doppelganger. Oh, shit.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Get the. Get the one that Dave talked about a couple weeks back that was available in the US and then I also got as a present again, as A present. The Black and Decker 20 volt max lithium ion cordless, 10 inch string, string trimmer edger with a 1.5 Ah battery and charger. Because we've had stuff appear all over there at our sidewalks and everything. So I will be doing some. Some trimming and edging. This you'll be edging for Father's Day?

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Not Elon Musk's kind of edging.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah, different kind of edging.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yes.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Well, congratulations. Happy. Thank you.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Happy Father's Day, everybody. Everyone.

[Jason DeFilippo]

The Dark side.

[Brian Schulmeister]

With Dave.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Welcome to the Dark side with Dave. Podcast super host Dave Bittner decodes all things cyber on the cyber wire every day. Exposes deception with Joe Kerrigan on hacking humans. Dives deep into privacy with Ben Yellen on Caveat. Breaks down industrial cyber security on control loop and even brings the laughs on only malware in the building. Welcome back, Dave.

[C]

Thank you. It's good to be back. All right, so our long nightmare is over. I am into Andor season two.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Oh, wait, but you're not done.

[C]

Not done? No, no. I'm four episodes in.

[Jason DeFilippo]

All right.

[Brian Schulmeister]

That's like 19 hours.

[C]

Yeah.

[Jason DeFilippo]

So getting there.

[C]

Yesterday we were watching. We've been trying to get through one a day, but yesterday we were like. We finished the episode we were watching and we all looked at each other and said, everybody up for another? And everybody was like, furiously shook their heads.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yes. So we did.

[C]

It just keeps getting better and better.

[Brian Schulmeister]

It's season two is just phenomenal.

[C]

Yeah, yeah, it's really good. And the characters and the situations, we're laughing, we're loving the Jewish mother. It's just really well done. So well written and beautifully shot. Yeah. Just really enjoying it. So.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yeah, yeah, you're in for a good ride. Like, all my bitching about when they announced, like, length of episode and release schedule, and I hated every second of it. I just couldn't get enough of it. I tore through it every single time and.

[C]

Yeah, yeah. Now, when you finished, did you have a strong impulse to go watch Rogue One right away?

[Brian Schulmeister]

I did not. Because I have this thing called memory.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Ah, see, I don't. What's that? Like, I immediately watched Rogue One. Yeah, exactly. Because my memory is faulty. And I'm glad because the stuff that I remembered about Rogue One was completely different from what I remembered. So it was well worth going immediately into Rogue One. Like the instant the credits rolled on the last episode of Andor, I just like, okay, beep, beep, beep, beep. Play. And it was perfect. Absolutely. I highly recommend that you Budget the time and plan accordingly to. Even if you just watch the first, like, you know, 25 minutes until, like, Andor gets to the planet and has this first interaction, I think it's well worth it for that.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Okay, Are you sure you didn't watch Rouge One, the adult version, made in the San Fernando Valley, the first.

[Jason DeFilippo]

No, I did not watch Rouge 1 or Mulan Rouge. There was no. There was no musical or pornography in mine. All right, well, I'm glad you're getting a blaster. This is a blaster.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Is that a lightsaber in your pocket?

[C]

You came in that thing. You're braver than I thought.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah. Oh, boy.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Well, Bama Brian wrote us on Blue Sky. What do you guys think of the AI generated stormtrooper V logs? I'm loving them personally. And this is the adventures of Dave and Greg. I think you brought this up to us, didn't you, Dave? Quite some time ago when they first.

[C]

Started, it was a different, different version of this. I don't know. It wasn't this one. It was a different one.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Okay. Were they real people? And this one's the AI?

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah.

[C]

I can't remember.

[Brian Schulmeister]

I don't remember.

[C]

Yeah, it's hard. Who knows? This is very good, though. It reminds me of. Do you guys remember red versus Blue?

[Jason DeFilippo]

Absolutely.

[C]

Yeah. So it reminds me of red versus Blue.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Very much so, yes.

[C]

Yeah. Yeah. I want to know what they're using to generate these because it's kind of amazing.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah, it's pretty good. It's pretty good.

[C]

And how specific must your prompts be to.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah, I think. I mean, it's helpful that they're stormtroopers because you don't have to worry about lip movements and things like that.

[C]

Right.

[Jason DeFilippo]

So that's good. But. But yeah, I don't know. Maybe they. Maybe they just did mocap on it and just use a regular thing instead of generative AI to do it. I don't know.

[C]

I don't know.

[Jason DeFilippo]

It's pretty good.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yeah.

[C]

Yeah.

[Brian Schulmeister]

I would say that the link that we have in the show notes goes to the compilation of all the episodes, and it's about 10 minutes long. That was a lot for me to sit through, but I did enjoy them in the. The, like one to two minute chunks that you can also view them as.

[Jason DeFilippo]

It should have been on Quibi.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yes, this is made for Quibi. Quibi was just ahead of their time. They could have AI slop all over it and everybody be pleased.

[Jason DeFilippo]

I read an article this morning about how this short form vertical video is actually really huge right now. Like a multi billion dollar marketplace. It is saving half of the actors in sound studios in Los Angeles. I'll dig it up and throw it in the notes. But really Quibi. Yeah, Quibi was unfortunately ahead of their time. And what they tried to do was do, you know, really heady short form content in.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yeah, people don't want that. They want lighting farts.

[Jason DeFilippo]

These people are making garbage soap operas and it is just completely catching on. And they're writing all these things on cliffhangers so you have to buy the next episode with credits. So you know, people just get really caught up in it. People are making a lot of money on it. Like the writers who are really good at writing cliffhanger type stories are like making bank. Actors are working because they can book for a day and work on 10 different shows. Soundstages are being filled up again. It's like this is the savior. The only problem with it is it's all non union work. So you don't hear a lot about it.

[C]

Yeah, no, I'm completely unfamiliar with that. I have a strong emotional negative reaction to vertical Video.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Old.

[C]

Yeah, I know it's my problem, I admit it. But. Huh. That's interesting. So they're fully produced. Fully. Because my initial reaction was why do you need a studio to do short form vertical video? But they're actually all in doing it as if it were a fully funded production. Which I guess it is.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah. Yep. So I'll put a link in the show notes so you guys can. People can check it out after the. After the fact.

[C]

Okay.

[Jason DeFilippo]

But yeah.

[C]

So a story came across my desk this week that really caught my attention. And there's one phrase from this that captured my imagination. The article, kind of a blog post I guess is called How AI is Killing Joy. And I think there's something to that. But the part that really caught my eye and struck my fancy was the writer of this says that AI is like frozen pizza. And I think that is dead on. The results of AI are kind of acceptable. Sometimes it's fast and cheap because we ignore the invisible costs or the poor quality. AI is the fast food of the. Of creative processes. It works. But if we consider it fairly, it also sucks. And I think like, you know, AI generated image. Anything creative that AI does. I. I think now I'm saying this having just praised the Stormtrooper vlog, but I think there's something to this that. But it's that old saying that what is it? There's no such thing as bad pizza. Just Some is better than others, right?

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah, yeah.

[C]

There's another P word that that's applied to sometimes, but. But I think there's some true. No, nobody says.

[Brian Schulmeister]

I would argue with that one.

[C]

All right. Bow to your experience. But I can't imagine anyone saying that, you know, hey, what's your favorite pizza that you've ever had? And someone's saying, oh, Stouffer's frozen. You know, Totino's baby.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yeah, Tombstone.

[C]

Right. But at the same time, everyone's okay with there being frozen pizza. Like, we understand there are. Right. Frozen pizza is exactly the thing you need. And, you know, I talk about some food as pleasure and food as fuel. Sometimes you just need to not be hungry.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yeah.

[C]

And something like a frozen pizza can serve that purpose very well. Or if you're on a budget, you know, you got a bunch of people to feed and not a lot of money. Just go get a couple frozen pizzas, and away you go, and nobody will complain. But I really like this metaphor that AI and when it comes to creative things, AI is the frozen pizza version of creative endeavors. I'm curious if that resonates with either of you.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Well, the thing that sticks out for me the most is even, you know, even if it's good and we enjoy it, it's the ignoring the invisible costs. Because we all know that this is not good. It's not good for the environment, it's not good for the economy. It's not good for people. But we seem to. To kind of ignore that if we're enjoying the frozen pizza. Yep.

[C]

I'm trying to think of other things historically that would fall into that category where people know it's bad. I mean, do things like smoking, where we know it's bad.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Drinking, drugs.

[C]

Drinking, drugs. That's true.

[Brian Schulmeister]

All the things that we enjoy as people.

[C]

All of our pleasures.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yes.

[Brian Schulmeister]

The other p. Yeah, the other p.

[C]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. All right.

[Brian Schulmeister]

So there's a lot. I mean, it is. It's. It's. It's. It's. It's so easy. Right. It's even. I. I've been so against AI since all of this started. I. I've. I've beat the drum against it. I said, there. There are hidden costs to this. This is not good for people. The end result is going to be bad. This is. It's not creative. It's destroying creativity to some degree. And. And. But even I'm like, you know, I. I like that stormtrooper thing. I. I enjoy. You know, sometimes I will go to create imagery for the show because you can do some things with it that you can't do any other way without it taking hours and hours and hours and having skills that I don't readily possess. I can make things happen. But yes, I. I do agree. It's like whatever I create for show art for. For the show with generative AI, I. If I had the skills and the time, it would be better if I did it myself. Yeah, no doubt about it.

[C]

But, yeah, here we are. Always. Yeah, I always feel a little dirty when I've generated something with AI out of convenience or speed, you know, something that I could do myself. But it. Darn it. It's just faster and easier to just plop it in.

[Jason DeFilippo]

We're lazy creatures. Come on. It's true. I'd rather you watch andor than actually do some other stuff.

[Brian Schulmeister]

So I will make an argument here that isn't lazy that we've all gotten so bad.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Busy.

[Brian Schulmeister]

We're constantly busy now. And that's. That's the Internet, that's cell phones. That's just how society is structured these days. We have things thrown at us 247 all the time. We. We are always busy. So it's not surprising that we look for things that try to. We try to crawl back a little bit of time anywhere we can these days. And AI enables that, but then everything.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Else just bumps up against it, you know?

[Brian Schulmeister]

I know. Because it all just fills it all. The void always fills.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah, yeah. Work expands to fill the time allowed, you know, that's it.

[C]

Yeah. I was chatting with someone earlier this week about how much time we spent when we were kid, our generation, how much time we spent waiting for rides.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Or do just doing nothing, like being bored. That doesn't happen anymore.

[C]

Yeah, it's true. It's true. All right. Well, another thing I saw that I thought was fun, somebody did a little project called finding Atari games and randomly generated data. So this is the old classic of, you know, have a bazillion monkeys in a room typing on typewriters, and eventually you'll get the great works of Shakespeare. Right, right. So in that spirit, someone is taking massively powerful GPUs and throwing it at the problem of randomly creating games for the Atari 2600. And what makes this manageable is Atari 2600 games. Most of them are only 4K, which is very little by today's standards. Very little.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yet they were wonderful when we were kids.

[C]

Oh, amazing. I mean, we'll get to that in a second. So this process uses a combination of some randomness and Some heuristics based on existing games. And it's just a fun little nerd problem that this person went through. You can go through and look at all the different numbers and, you know, like, there's 10 to the 10159th potential Atari games based on possibility of 4K. And so you have to break that down into reasonable numbers anyway. They don't actually come up with, like, playable games, but they do come up with some things that are a start. There are some things that are interesting and you can play with them in your browser. They have turned the sound down because Atari sound is.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yeah, that Google 8bit sound.

[C]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I don't know. I just love this. One of the things that caught my eye about this was that it says, this is something that. Let me see if I can find the quote here. This project answers a question no one asked, no one wanted, and is a massive waste of resources. I love it.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah.

[C]

Just my kind of thing.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Kind of like AI.

[C]

Yeah, kind of. We'll include a link to that in the show notes. But then that, of course, sent me down a bit of an Atari rat hole. The original Atari 2600. And I don't know if have either of you seen any of the. I know there was a book and a couple of documentaries called Racing the Beam. I remember Chasing the Beam also, but I guess it's Racing the Beam is the actual one. And the notion is that the Atari 2600 had basically no VRAM, so it couldn't store an entire still image. A full frame of video in its memory. It didn't have that much memory. A full frame of video is like 900k. And back in 1977, there was nothing that had 900k. So part of the way that the Atari 2600 works is it's rendering every single pixel just in time. Right before the scanning electron beam of your television set needs that pixel.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Right?

[C]

And the impact of that for. If you're a programmer, that that's how you have to deliver. Every single pixel on the screen has to happen milliseconds before the beam has to scan it because there is no memory. It's just an amazing engineering problem. And it's just remarkable that we got some of the games that we got.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Because it took skill. You can't vibe code shit like that. Took actual brain power and skill to create that thing. So kudos to them for. I mean, the original stuff that we got, It's a miracle that was ever made, period.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yeah, yeah, definitely.

[Jason DeFilippo]

And now we Got Twitter.

[C]

Do you guys have a favorite Atari 2600 game?

[Jason DeFilippo]

Pinball.

[C]

Pinball.

[Jason DeFilippo]

I don't know. I was. I was really, really, really good at pinball. I mean like, like freakishly good at pinball. I could play it until, you know, from when I woke up. The same game till I went to bed. It was just. I was really good at it.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yeah, I mean, I love Space Invaders. You couldn't beat that. When it came out and there was a tank game that they had that.

[C]

Combat.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Combat. Yeah, I played a lot of combat and I played a lot of pinball. Not pinball. Pitfall. Pitfall.

[C]

Pitfall, yeah, that's the one I was gonna say.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yes. Yeah. Pitfall.

[C]

Yeah, that was probably to me, Pitfall is. Could be the pinnacle of achievement on that platform.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah, I believe you're correct. Yeah. Certainly his wasn't Yars Revenge.

[C]

I don't know that I ever played that one. But that. That one's actually famous for being a good game, isn't it?

[Jason DeFilippo]

I couldn't figure it out. It made no sense to me. I just could not figure that game out. Okay, if I was just too young or what. But I just did not understand that game at all.

[Brian Schulmeister]

I just stopped on a frame randomly in this YouTube video that you gave us the link to. And it's. It's one of those pixelized keys and it has just flooded open. So many memories like Gauntlet and all the other games that were on later platforms. Those little like 8 bit pixelized key that you would have to pick up everywhere and move around. Oh my God.

[C]

It's bringing back so many adventure game. The Superman game was a lot of fun also on the 2600. That was a good one. Yeah. I mean the images were so simple that you really had to use your imagination like. Oh, that little cube. Yeah, that's me. And it's moving around. But yeah, I mean it's easy to be nostalgic for it. I guess by today's standards there's not a whole lot to those games. But on the other hand, we all still play Tetris and it doesn't get much simpler than that.

[Jason DeFilippo]

I still play Tetris on my Game Boy.

[C]

Yeah, the classics are classics for a reason.

[Jason DeFilippo]

I actually have an analog. It's an actual device called the Analog Pocket and that lets me plug in the actual old games, the old cartridges, and you can get adapters for it to play all the different types of cartridges from those old games.

[C]

Oh, wow.

[Jason DeFilippo]

It's fantastic. The only thing that's in it is Tetris. But I did try and get it to play some emulated games because I would download the ROMs and put them on a CF card and plug it in, because you can do that too. But I could never really get anything to work right.

[C]

Okay.

[Jason DeFilippo]

I got a couple of them to work with. But it will play Game Boy color, Game Boy, advance cartridges, all of the old Game Boy stuff.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Where do you find the cartridges these days?

[Jason DeFilippo]

Ebay, man. Oh God. You just get them anywhere. I've got a stack of them. I got Castlevania, that was one I got that I wanted to play again. And turns out that Castlevania sucks on the Game Boy. And all the other ones I bought, I bought a ton of them. You get them for like five bucks a piece. There are websites that just have the old cartridges that people go to flea markets and just have like, like vaults of them.

[Brian Schulmeister]

That's a lot better than 80 bucks a pop for my kids games.

[C]

Right?

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah, yeah, no doubt.

[C]

Yeah. I use a program called OpenEMU2 on the Mac which is just a broad spectrum emulator. It is arcade games and Nintendo consoles and lots of different things. Or if you can find the ROMs online, it will likely play them. So it's kind of my universal emulator on my Mac. And that's fun.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah. The nice thing about the Pocket is you can actually the. The graphics are so much better because it pops up the. You can play it in the original version, which is, you know, that really dark green, low contrast. But it can actually play it in a much better version so you can actually see it. Trying to find out what the price on these things are. It was, it was not cheap, I gotta say. And I got it on pre order long, long ago and it took forever. It was one of those ones, you know, that I had to wait for. Yeah, it's 220 bucks.

[C]

Okay.

[Jason DeFilippo]

But it does play all sorts of shit and you get different adapters. They have an adapter set for 100 bucks that you can play TurboGrafx 16, Neo Geo Pocket and Lynx cartridges. So.

[C]

Huh.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah. If you're an old school gamer. This is the. Yeah, the analog is definitely something to check out. It's pretty cool.

[C]

I'll check it out. All right, gentlemen, that is what I've got this week. Thank you for your hospitality and I'll see you next time.

[Jason DeFilippo]

See you next week.

[Brian Schulmeister]

All right, Bye Dave.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Closing Shout out over at Patreon we have a new subscriber, Fourth Guy. Welcome. Fourth Guy. And Fakey mcmade up And Stephen also up to their pledges and other people who have also subscribed to our Patreon are Jeff, Danny, Roz, Paul, Eric, Marco, Jeff, Bridget, Rachel and Andreas. And Azzam. I hope I'm saying that right. Wrote a message saying apologies. Things are getting tough and I need to take a break from subscriptions including Patreon. I will resume in the new year once my finances are back in order. You might want to [e-mail] really helps to save money. I will keep listening and wish you both the best. Well, thank you for your patronage. Azzam and I did check it out. I'm still trying to figure out what it it does.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yeah, I don't.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Streamio offers a secure, modern and seamless entertainment experience. With its easy to use interface and diverse content libraries including 4K HDR support, users can enjoy their favorite movies and TV shows across all their devices. And with its commitment to security, streamio is the ultimate choice for a worry free, high quality streaming experience. That says nothing to me about what it is.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yeah, is it iptv? Are we running around actually having to subscribe to things? How does it save us money?

[Jason DeFilippo]

I don't quite understand it.

[Brian Schulmeister]

So hit us back up Azzam. Tell us what this is about.

[Jason DeFilippo]

It's some kind of open source, maybe like an open source media center. But I'm already using Plex so I don't know what the difference is, but I don't know. Write us back, Let us know. Anybody write us back. So because we're confusified, we're not going to install it to find out. So please tell us, do the work for us. Tell us on Discord you're our customer support. Support.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yes, exactly.

[Jason DeFilippo]

That's how it works.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Over at PayPal we've got Ralph, Miles, Sh and Natalie. Thank you all so much.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Thank you so much. Over at the Tip Jar we've got Ryan, Theodore, David and Steven with the big hundo. Thank you Stephen. And over at the store we've got Alexander, M. Maria and Paulina. Thank you all so much for buying our swag over at Shop Gog show.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Oh, do they pay in crypto coins?

[Jason DeFilippo]

No, not yet. Not yet. But most of I think three out of the four are out of the country so we still export properly. And just another quick reminder, if you want to sign up to Patreon it is at patreon.com gog you can support the show for as little as $3 a month and up to whatever your little heart desires. And if you sign up for the whole year you do get a discount. I don't know why, but you do.

[Brian Schulmeister]

All right.

[Jason DeFilippo]

We didn't authorize that, but their Patreon's gonna give you some money back anyway. Even though. Yeah, but we appreciate it. We appreciate it, but.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Okay.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah, yeah. But thank you so much for everybody who donates to support the show, because you literally are the only thing that keeps this show on the air. Pretty much telling you right now.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Got some crappy ads, but that's about it. I mean, the wonderful ads.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Wonderful, wonderful ads.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Wonderful.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Like, shut the up, man. We've only got a few left. Quiet.

[Brian Schulmeister]

All right, well, we've got a lot of death this week, unfortunately. Let's. Let's start it off. Sly Stone, pioneering band member and funk virtuoso, passed away at 82. He was the band leader of Sly in the Family Stone. Amazing music. This is sad for me because the. The guy that kind of got me into the music industry, the manager, Steve Farnoli. Almost everybody he worked with now has passed. He. He worked with Sly Stone before I got involved with. With Barnoli, so I never was really involved. He also worked with Prince before I got involved with him. So I was never really involved with the Prince stuff. Prince obviously has passed away. The two acts that I really worked with that were huge, that he. He worked with were World Party, Carl Wallinger, just passed last year, and Sinead o' Connor, who has passed. So, like, everybody. And Steve Farnoli, of course, passed a long time ago. So it's kind of an end of an era in my own mind from how I got started in the beginning, the music industry. So sad to hear about Sly.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah, yeah. And I do recommend the Sly Lives documentary. It is a phenomenal documentary. And I did get to work with Prince. I did the first Paisley park website, and it's the first time I ever got fired by a client for building their website and telling them their website sucked.

[Brian Schulmeister]

But not the last.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Not the last.

[Brian Schulmeister]

And the Beach Boys. Brian Wilson also died at 82 just a few days ago. Co founder and primary songwriter of the Beach Boys. No official cause of death was disclosed, but he has been kind of living with neurocognitive disorder akin to dementia for an awful long time now. So sad to see him go. Couple things about that. I have a link in the show notes. Sting who. I do love the Police and Sting. Even though Sting can be Sting, he perform.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Sting can be Sting.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Sting could be Sting. Sting performs a really great cover of God Only Knows and a tribute to Brian Wilson. And, of course, The Strong songs episode of God Only Knows by the Beach Boys is a must listen about just how genius that song actually is. Absolutely fantastic. This was pointed out by, I think you on our Discord. I mean our, our. Our service support channel on Discord.

[Jason DeFilippo]

That's where we go for Internet service support. If there's something wrong on the Internet, please come to our Discord.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yes, that Ananda Lewis, host of MTV's Total Request Live and Hot Zone, passed away at 52. You said it was before your time. I do remember her. I was still watching just probably because I was so into music that I was a bit older. But yeah, I remember her being on it little. She died on Wednesday of breast cancer. She was 52 years old. So my age. She refused mammograms, she didn't want radiation and she didn't take any treatment for her breast cancer. So kind of her. She's well and did some.

[Jason DeFilippo]

I have some good family news on the breast cancer side. On my family side. As I've mentioned on the show, the past couple weeks have been kind of dicey because we've been dealing with my roommate's mom who is 96 and going through breast cancer. Yesterday she had her surgery to remove the tumor and came through it with flying colors. So she is recovering now and should be home by this afternoon.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Fantastic. That's great news.

[Jason DeFilippo]

That's what happens when you get medical treatment. Science.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yes.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah.

[Brian Schulmeister]

And then this one kind of broke me a little bit. Nitzer ebbs Douglas McCarthy has died at 58. Nitsareb vocalist he was vocalist in one half of industrial EBM duo Nitsareb. They were huge for me as a kid. I got really into their music. I stomped around at many a club and. And a concert venue listening to N. They memorably opened up for Depesh Mode on their Music for the Masses tour and I was there at that show. I ended up working with Nitzerb when they did their kind of reunion album a few years ago. Got to know them pretty well. Got to know him in particular. Very funny guy. He's been ill for quite some time. The band's been touring without him for at least the last two years. And unfortunately he passed away the other day. So very sad about that.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Sorry, man.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yeah, rest in peace, man.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yep. We also lost Bill Atkinson, legendary Apple programmer and GUI pioneer who has died at 74 from pancreatic cancer. A core member of the original Lisa and McIntosh teams, Atkinson shaped modern computing with revolutionary tools like Mac Paint, High School, HyperCard and Quick Draw. Laying the foundation for everything from clickable links to drag and drop interfaces. This guy was no joke. He was a no joke original Mac pioneer. So definitely, you know.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Thank God he didn't invent Infinite Scroll.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Nope.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Sure.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Shit.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Not until next time. I'm Brian Schulmeister.

[Jason DeFilippo]

And I'm Jason DeFilippo. Thanks for listening to Grumpy Old Geeks. Get all the links and goodies from today's episode Episode at GOG Show 701 want to keep the grumpiness alive? Toss a few bucks our way at GOG Show. Donate every penny helps keep the show on the air. And we do not mean that in any other way than it was meant to be meant. I don't know where I was going with that. Love the show. Share It There's a share button in your podcast player. Use it to spread the grumpiness to friends, foes, and everyone in between. We'll love Salad of the Word Word of the Salad. That's 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 hey, don't forget to leave a five star review at GOG Show Review and we'll read it on the show. And guess what? We've got the merch. Snag your grumpy gear now at shop.gog. show before the crypto revolution hits us. Stay grumpy.