702: TikTaco

Summary

Summary of Grumpy Old Geeks Episode 702: "TikTaco"

Release Date: June 20, 2025
Hosts: Jason DeFilippo, Brian Schulmeister
Guest: Dave Bittner
Description:
Grumpy Old Geeks dissect the tech news train wrecks of the week, calling out what went wrong and who’s to blame. Think of this podcast as if Kurt Cobain threw down with Tom from MySpace, Elon Musk, and Mark Zuckerberg in a back alley brawl. No mercy, no filter—if tech had a walk of shame, this would be it.

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Introduction

In this engaging episode titled "TikTaco," hosts Jason DeFilippo and Brian Schulmeister, joined by Dave Bittner, delve into a myriad of tech-related controversies and mishaps. Their candid and often humorous take provides listeners with insightful critiques of recent developments in the tech world.

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TikTok Ban Delays

Timestamp: [00:49] – [02:10]

The episode opens with a discussion about the turbulent saga surrounding the potential ban of TikTok in the United States. Brian expresses disbelief over the repeated delays:

Brian Schulmeister ([00:49]): "President Donald Trump will once again give TikTok a temporary reprieve as it faces another deadline to sell itself or face a ban in the United States."

Jason humorously renames the situation "Tick Taco," emphasizing the convoluted nature of the ban attempts:

Jason DeFilippo ([01:32]): "Tick tock, Taco."

The hosts critique the administration's indecisiveness, suggesting skepticism about the ban ever materializing given the repeated postponements.

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Tesla's Self-Driving Struggles

Timestamp: [02:50] – [07:08]

Shifting focus, the hosts delve into Tesla's ongoing issues with their Full Self-Driving (FSD) technology. They reference a recent test conducted by the Dawn Project, Tesla Takedown, and Resist Austin, which highlighted significant flaws:

Brian Schulmeister ([06:50]): "They run over eight kids... Tesla's full self driving software repeating the same mistake eight times."

Jason mocks the repeated failures, comparing Elon Musk's deadline-pushing tactics to procrastination:

Jason DeFilippo ([01:59]): "It's all that time with Elon. He's just pushing deadlines now."

The discussion highlights the skepticism surrounding Tesla's ambitious self-driving rollout, with concerns about safety and reliability undermining consumer trust.

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23andMe's Acquisition Reversal

Timestamp: [09:07] – [11:14]

The conversation transitions to the biotech sector, specifically the turmoil surrounding 23andMe. After Regeneron acquired 23andMe for $256 million in a bankruptcy auction, founder Ann Wojcicki has regained control through an unsolicited offer of $305 million:

Brian Schulmeister ([09:35]): "The tatam Research Institute was able to reopen bidding with an unsolicited offer of 305 million."

Jason speculates on Wojcicki's motives, suggesting a possible move to protect customer data privacy or secure financial interests without public audits:

Jason DeFilippo ([10:15]): "I think Ann bought 23andMe back just so nobody could look at the books."

The hosts express mixed feelings about the acquisition reversal, pondering its implications for data privacy and corporate governance.

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AI Developments and Microsoft Tensions

Timestamp: [12:03] – [26:19]

A substantial portion of the episode is dedicated to the escalating tensions between OpenAI and Microsoft. The discussion covers several key points:

• Partnership Dynamics: Brian explains that Microsoft has substantial influence over OpenAI's technology due to their significant financial backing.

• Legal Threats: OpenAI is reportedly threatening a lawsuit against Microsoft over antitrust violations, aiming to gain more control over AI technologies.

  Jason DeFilippo ([13:45]): "OpenAI is threatening a lawsuit against their BFF over antitrust violations just to kind of strong arm them."

• Financial Implications: There's speculation that if Microsoft withdraws support, OpenAI could face financial instability, potentially leading to a takeover where Microsoft might absorb OpenAI's assets and talent pool.

• Satya Nadella's Approach: The hosts criticize Microsoft's CEO for overemphasizing AI without delivering substantial economic benefits, questioning the sustainability and strategic vision of integrating AI deeply into Microsoft's operations.

  Jason DeFilippo ([14:25]): "He really, like, turned that place around. And I don't know... He's like, you know, he says it's the Frank's red hot of his life."

• Environmental Concerns: The high energy consumption of AI models like ChatGPT is highlighted, with independent studies indicating massive electricity usage:

  Brian Schulmeister ([25:28]): "Independent studies are showing the Chat GPT burns through nearly 40 million kilowatt hours a day."

The hosts emphasize the urgent need to address the environmental and economic impacts of large-scale AI deployments.

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Impact of AI on Education

Timestamp: [22:11] – [25:28]

Jason introduces a study titled "Your brain on ChatGPT," which investigates the cognitive effects of relying on AI for essay writing:

Jason DeFilippo ([23:18]): "Our findings highlight potential cognitive costs... Raises concerns about the long term educational implications of LLM reliance."

The study suggests that extensive use of AI tools may lead to underperformance in neural, linguistic, and behavioral areas, prompting the hosts to advocate for restricting AI usage in educational settings to preserve critical thinking and learning skills.

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XAI Data Center Controversy

Timestamp: [25:28] – [27:17]

The discussion moves to Elon Musk's XAI project, specifically the controversial Colossus data center being constructed in Memphis. The project has faced backlash for environmental reasons:

Jason DeFilippo ([26:50]): "They are being sued right now by the NAACP and the Southern Environmental Law Center."

Brian and Jason condemn the use of gas-powered generators and the overall environmental negligence, calling for legal action to halt the project:

Brian Schulmeister ([27:18]): "They need to be sued out of existence."

The hosts emphasize the importance of holding tech enterprises accountable for their environmental footprint.

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AI's Limits in Reasoning

Timestamp: [27:17] – [28:30]

Apple releases a study challenging the efficacy of reasoning AIs, indicating that current AI models fall short in enhancing logical and critical thinking:

Jason DeFilippo ([28:08]): "It's not designed in any way, shape or form to do the things that you say it's ever going to do."

The hosts agree with the study, arguing that AI lacks the nuanced reasoning required for meaningful cognitive assistance, and caution against over-reliance on AI tools in professional and educational domains.

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French TikTok Crypto Influencer Freed

Timestamp: [28:30] – [29:10]

A brief news segment covers the release of a French TikTok crypto influencer who was kidnapped for a €50,000 ransom. The influencer was freed after failing to provide sufficient crypto funds:

Jason DeFilippo ([28:53]): "A 26-year-old trader who has around 40,000 followers was abducted near Paris last Friday... they just let him go."

Brian and Jason comment on the bizarre intersection of crypto culture and criminal activities, highlighting the vulnerabilities associated with digital currencies.

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Surge in Bay Area Bankruptcies

Timestamp: [29:10] – [30:02]

The hosts discuss the significant increase in bankruptcy filings in the Bay Area, attributing the surge to several factors:

• Economic Recovery: A sluggish post-COVID recovery.
• Tech Job Security: The collapse of job security in the tech sector.
• Living Costs: Sky-high living expenses exacerbating financial instability.

Jason shares his personal experience of leaving the Bay Area due to these challenges:

Jason DeFilippo ([29:53]): "That's why I left the Bay Area... It's about 10 times better than the Bay Area."

The conversation underscores the broader economic ramifications of the tech industry's volatile nature.

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Study on Vulgarity Across Countries

Timestamp: [30:02] – [31:16]

The episode features a discussion on a study analyzing online language across 20 English-speaking regions, identifying the prevalence of swear words:

Brian Schulmeister ([31:16]): "Number one was a USA Brian. Mark. Number one. Yeah, we're number one."

The USA tops the list, followed by Great Britain, Australia, Singapore, New Zealand, Ireland, and Canada. The hosts express surprise at Singapore's ranking and critique media inaccuracies, such as misnaming countries.

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Entertainment: Books and Movies

Timestamp: [31:16] – [54:40]

The conversation shifts to lighter topics, with the hosts sharing their thoughts on various books, movies, and TV shows:

• Books:

  • Everything Is Absolutely Fine by Darren Brown: Jason praises the philosophical insights and the audiobook narration.
  • AI Snake Oil by Saiyash Kapoor and Arvind Narayan: Brian expresses interest in the book's critique of AI prediction algorithms.

• Movies and TV Shows:

  • Brave and Inside Out (Disney/Pixar films): Both hosts share their thoughts on animation quality and storytelling.
  • Families Like Ours (Danish limited series): Brian enjoys the show's exploration of family dynamics amidst societal crises.
  • Stick and Murderbot: Mixed reviews on originality and character development.
  • FUBAR Season 2: Jason discusses his mixed feelings about the characters.
  • Naked Gun Reboot and Sandman Season 2: Excitement over upcoming releases.
  • Rear Window (Classic Hitchcock): Appreciation for timeless cinematic techniques.

Notable engagements include personal anecdotes about Book recommendations and movie-viewing experiences, adding a relatable and entertaining dimension to the episode.

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Musical Resistance Against AI

Timestamp: [45:37] – [46:18]

Musicians are combating AI-driven theft with tools like Harmony Cloak and Poisonify, which embed inaudible noise into music, rendering it unusable for AI training without affecting human listeners:

Brian Schulmeister ([45:19]): "These technologies can potentially damage entire AI models that try to use protected music."

Jason suggests that major streaming platforms like Spotify and Apple Music should adopt these tools to protect artists, though he doubts their willingness to do so:

Jason DeFilippo ([45:14]): "Spotify and Apple Music... you haven't studied your history of the Internet very much, have you there?"

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CarPlay and iOS 26 Updates

Timestamp: [46:18] – [48:54]

The hosts review new features introduced in iOS 26's CarPlay update:

• Smart Display Zoom: Shrinks screen elements to fit more app icons.
• Compact Incoming Calls: Ensures call notifications don't obstruct navigation directions.
• Emoji Responses and Pinned Conversations: Allows quick messaging functionalities while driving.

Jason shares his personal setup with a Jeep and praises the update's practicality, though he humorously critiques the new functionalities:

Jason DeFilippo ([47:19]): "I like my Jeep and I have... it's exactly as big as I need it to be."

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Conclusion

Throughout "TikTaco," Grumpy Old Geeks provide a comprehensive and candid analysis of recent tech developments, blending critical insights with humor and personal anecdotes. From regulatory dilemmas and AI's societal impacts to entertainment and personal tech experiences, the hosts maintain their signature grumpy yet insightful tone, delivering a podcast episode that's both informative and entertaining.

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Notable Quotes:

• Brian Schulmeister ([00:49]): "President Donald Trump will once again give TikTok a temporary reprieve as it faces another deadline to sell itself or face a ban in the United States."
• Jason DeFilippo ([01:32]): "Tick tock, Taco."
• Brian Schulmeister ([06:50]): "They run over eight kids... Tesla's full self driving software repeating the same mistake eight times."
• Brian Schulmeister ([31:16]): "Number one was a USA Brian. Mark. Number one. Yeah, we're number one."
• Jason DeFilippo ([28:08]): "It's not designed in any way, shape or form to do the things that you say it's ever going to do."

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This comprehensive summary encapsulates the key discussions and insights from Episode 702 of Grumpy Old Geeks, providing a detailed overview for those who haven't listened to the full episode.

Transcript

[Jason DeFilippo]

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

[Brian Schulmeister]

And I'm Brian Schulmeister. Ah, Jason. We spent weeks upon weeks talking about this, and it's been out of the news for so long, I completely forgot it was even happening.

[Jason DeFilippo]

We're buying Greenland.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Oh, no, that's already gone. We're done with that. Right?

[Jason DeFilippo]

Okay, okay.

[Dave Bittner]

Who knows?

[Jason DeFilippo]

Just checking, Just checking.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Got excited trying to take over the continental United States right now.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Oh, you're going to be the 51st state.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope. We're not going to do that.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Okay.

[Brian Schulmeister]

No. Particularly not after we shame Trump at G7. So. Okay, okay.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Just checking.

[Brian Schulmeister]

It was good times anyways. No, no, no. This is the TikTok ban that is going to happen.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Oh, my God. TikTok. Remember that.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Cast back your mind, Jason.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Oh, man. I'm going to have to consult the archives. It's been a while.

[Brian Schulmeister]

It was a big deal. We were going to, because why not? But then we weren't. And then we were going to sell it to a US Company because. And then China said, we're not fucking divesting. Fuck you. And then we were going to ban it again, and now we're not. Again. Because we're not. So.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Okay.

[Brian Schulmeister]

President Donald Trump will once again give TikTok a temporary reprieve as it faces another deadline to sell itself or face a ban in the United States. Which at this point, they've all just got to be laughing at TikTok. They're like, you're not going to do it, TikTok. Taco.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Tick Taco.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yeah. Tick tock, Taco. So the White House press secretary, Caroline Levitt, confirmed Tuesday that Trump will sign yet another executive order to extend the deadline. This latest extension, this time for 90 days. A rare thing not being Trump's normal two weeks every week. Two weeks.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Two weeks be used in two weeks.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yes. This is now the third time that Trump has punted the looming TikTok ban since he took office in January. This is never going to happen.

[Jason DeFilippo]

It's all that time with Elon. It's got him into the. He's just pushing deadlines now. That's it. That's the one takeaway that Elon imparted unto our great leader, is to push.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Some deadlines, push everything away, say two weeks, and just never do It. It's like the opposite of Scotty and Star Trek.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah, exactly.

[Brian Schulmeister]

That's what we've got going on here. Speaking of Elon Musk and Twitter, remember we Talked about the 560 pound Twitter sign that was purchased and we weren't quite sure who bought it? It was auctioned off for $34,000 weeks back. Or actually sometime earlier this year. I don't even remember. Time has no meaning anymore.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Time becomes a loop.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Two weeks. Two weeks. Well, now we know who bought it and what became of the sign. It was blown up in the Nevada desert, of course, as part of an elaborate stunt to promote an online marketplace app called Digit.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah.

[Brian Schulmeister]

They should have. Yeah, they should. You would have spent your money better having Devo write you a song.

[Jason DeFilippo]

I don't think they could have gotten three bars for $34,000. Sorry.

[Brian Schulmeister]

It's a startup hoping to compete with services like Facebook Marketplace and offer up. It was a chance to win and then blow up a piece of social media history as a unique opportunity for shitty PR. In a video posted to YouTube, Digit attempts to draw some parallels between Elon Musk's takeover of Twitter and its own startup ambitions. Elon Musk rebranded Twitter to X to support free expression. The video says we're doing the same for local marketplaces.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Uh huh. Yeah, yeah.

[Brian Schulmeister]

But in an attempt to make some money, probably not from their core business, they will be selling fragments of the sign it retrieved from the explosion and will list them on its app at a sealed bid auction beginning today. Look, you too could have a piece.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Of crap current bid, 0.00. I'm not joking. That's. That's on the site right now.

[Brian Schulmeister]

That makes sense to me. And then the article wraps up with. In some ways, Larry, as the blue Twitter bird was known to former employees, met an end that mirrors the death of the social media platform it once represented. An explosive, expensive spectacle that leaves you wondering what exactly was the point of it all.

[Jason DeFilippo]

They really should have blown up, like, you know, gotten a fail whale and done that. Because that would have been more than.

[Brian Schulmeister]

So much more sense. Yes.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah. And also, why did they rent the cybertrucks? I didn't quite get that.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Oh, because they're kissing Elon's ass.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah. I don't get it. And you know, if you, if you watch the video, they're like, look, there are going to be no fees ever for listing or buying. Or I'm like, well then where are you going to make money off of this thing that you're saying? Oh, yeah, yeah. You haven't, you haven't studied your history of the Internet very much, have you there?

[Brian Schulmeister]

Actually they have. They entirely understand the point of not having a business plan because what other company does?

[Jason DeFilippo]

That's true. There. If they look, if they can afford the $34,000 to buy a thing that they're going to blow up, then I guess that, you know, they figured it all out. They know more than everybody else, obviously. Yeah.

[Brian Schulmeister]

And I was just scrolling about at some point this week and I saw something and it reminded me that you used to do the, the rabbit, rabbit, rabbit thing right at the beginning of every month.

[Jason DeFilippo]

It's just rabbit, rabbit. There's no three of them, just two rabbits.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Oh, no wonder my luck has been shit.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Exactly. You've been, you've been two steps forward, two steps backwards. One step forward. Yeah, yeah.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Well, I got a new one for you this Saturday. Tomorrow is the longest day of the year and thus the summer solstice. Just as we were getting used to these sunny nights, the days are going to start getting shorter. But you can do something here, Jason. According to Icelandic folk tradition, rolling in the dew on the morning of the solstice is a cure for illness and will bring clear skin.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Not in my yard. I got dogs, man. I'm not rolling in the dew. I'd be rolling in the poo.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Dog poo. Dog poo.

[Jason DeFilippo]

In the news.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Well, hot off the heels of the Tesla video that we talked about about two months ago where the guy did the Wiley Coyote test and yeah, Tesla did not do very well compared to other self driving vehicles, mainly because of the reasons we know they don't use lidar, they're just using cameras, blah blah, blah. There's been yet another test of Tesla. A revealing demonstration with Tesla's full self driving mode is raising concerns about whether fully autonomous cars are ready to hit the streets. Considering they ran over eight kids, yeah, I would be concerned. Yeah, yeah. The tests were conducted by the Dawn Project along with Tesla Takedown and Resist Austin slightly. I think that they had a result in mind, but they got it anyways and showed Tesla's full self driving software repeating the same mistake eight times. With anticipation building up for an eventual Cyber cab rollout on June 22, the company's CEO posted some additional details on X. According to Elon Musk, Tesla is being super paranoid about safety. So that date could shift. Two weeks, Jason.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Two weeks. That's what it's gonna be.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yeah. Anyways, they did do this test. They, they. The Tesla model Y ran through A school buses flashing lights and stop signs and hit child sized mannequins eight times in a row. Eight times.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Nine times.

[Brian Schulmeister]

They should have just done it nine times.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Exactly. So just so you could use the clip. Seriously? Well, it might not be an issue for much longer because I don't know how many Teslas are going to be on the road. I don't know if you've noticed, you probably don't see this around you, but any free parking area is now being filled up with Teslas because they can't sell them. They keep making them, but they can't sell them.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yeah, that's what happens when you dabble in the politic.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah. There's a couple stories about malls in New Jersey and Minnesota or Michigan. What are those? M states. That's a lot of Teslas. That's what they're saying. People are upset because I was like, you're not permitted to park there, buddy. And what are they gonna do, tow them? They'll be like, thanks, thanks for, thanks for storing them in the impound. It'll save us some money. And they're going to be shutting down Model Y and Cyber Duck production the week of July 4th. Happy America Day. Happy America Day. And Brian, I, I, I mentioned this before, but I don't know if I mentioned it on the show. Now I want you, anytime this goes for everybody that's listening to the show. Anytime you see a cybertruck in the wild, I want you to look in the windshield and see, just out of curiosity, if the driver is wearing a baseball hat. Could be any hat. Doesn't have to be a MAGA hat or any crap like that. Just see if they're wearing a baseball hat. Because my, my scientific research around town is I see a 99.9% hit rate that everybody that drives a Cy truck wears a baseball hat. And I quite figure that out.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Why is it ever a non white male?

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yes, sometimes it is a white female.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Oh, okay.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah, they don't wear the baseball hats though. So if it's a female, they get a pass on the baseball hat. But if it is said white male driving cyber truck, just check to see if they're wearing a baseball hat.

[Brian Schulmeister]

My guess is they're balding.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah, probably I am. That's why I wear a hat. I don't have Kevin Smith money to have my makeup artist follow me around all the time.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Ah, well there you go.

[Jason DeFilippo]

But he wears a baseball hat too, so that's true. Yeah, those movies aren't doing as well as they used to. So he's got to resort back. Back to the hat.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Well, in a surprise twist, 23Me founder and former CEO Ann and I can't remember. We haven't talked about her for so long that the. The. The need to pronounce her last name portion of my brain disconnected its neurons.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Okay. It's Wojcicki. Yeah.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Is set to regain control of the DNA company's assets, according to a press release from 23andMe.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Okay.

[Brian Schulmeister]

If you remember, in May, a company called Regeneron bought 23andMe for $256 million in a bankruptcy auction. But Wojcicki's non profit Tatam Research Institute, some would argue that 23andMe was the non profit.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah, that's true. But I think. I think you have to it. You said tam. But I think it's I do it.

[Brian Schulmeister]

I'll do it Netflix style. Tatam.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah, exactly.

[Brian Schulmeister]

The tatam Research Institute was able to reopen bidding with an unsolicited offer of 305 million. The wall Street Journal reports the bankruptcy judge agreed to reopen bidding on 23andMe under the condition that Regeneron top the offer by at least 10 million. And they declined politely.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Okay. Like, you got it, girl.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yeah.

[Jason DeFilippo]

You go, girl.

[Brian Schulmeister]

It's not completely clear what she intends to do next with the company, but 23andMe's announcements include a list of customer data and privacy protections. Damn research institute will it probably ignore. But they're agreeing to for now, including continuing to allow customers to delete their data and opt out of research, establishing a consumer privacy advocacy board, and promising to not sell or transfer genetic data in the event of another bankruptcy unless the buyer agrees to the same privacy protections.

[Jason DeFilippo]

I haven't. I have a theory. I think ann and bought 23andMe back just so nobody could look at the books. Because I bet that $305 million is from her compensation package when she was CEO. So she's like, I don't really need anybody doing an audit, so let's just buy it back. I don't care about the data or things like that. Let's just. Let's just sweep this one under the rug. What do you say, guys?

[Brian Schulmeister]

Please. Could be right there.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Also, she probably came into a bunch of money after her sister's death. That's a. That's just a wild eyed theory there. But you know, her sister, who famously ran YouTube for a very long time, probably had a bit of cash laying around. Yeah, Yeah. I still feel bad for them. I. I've. I've done interviews with her mom before, who is just a firecracker. She's, she's amazing. But I've never, never met Anne. But yeah. Anyway, moving on.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Okay.

[Jason DeFilippo]

To some more interesting new. Well, I'm not gonna say if it's interesting or not.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Is any of this really interesting these days?

[Jason DeFilippo]

Who is it on Discord that said we should have an AI section? And you're like, everything's an AI.

[Brian Schulmeister]

I was like, every, every segment has a story about AI because AI is forcing its deez nuts into everything.

[Jason DeFilippo]

And people are going to go, well, not at the library. I'm like, oh, contrary. I got a good one this week. Well, OpenAI and Microsoft might be. They're having a tiff, Brian.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Well, you know, early stages of the relationship. Yeah, well, they're figuring out, you know, what do you mean you like to eat at 6 o' clock? I'm a 7:30 person.

[Jason DeFilippo]

I want that side of the bed. Damn it. Let's see here. Microsoft is, has to sign off on this cockamamie plan. OpenAI has to go to turn into a for profit corporation. And Microsoft is going, I don't know if that's good for us. You know, that's just going to be, I don't know, more competition. Even though they're kind of in competition right now. When you think about Copilot and all the other things that they go back and forth and then OpenAI wants to buy another company. I think it's called Windsurf. And what the deal says right now is that Microsoft has access to all of the technology that OpenAI has, period. They can open the kimono whenever they see fit.

[Brian Schulmeister]

That's what you get for those billions of dollars.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yes, exactly. And all those discounts for a year. So they're, they're kind of unhappy about that now. And they don't want Microsoft to get the tech from Windsurf, which, you know, one could say that, well, they're kind of entitled to it since they've funded OpenAI with huge chunks of money that everybody went, why are you giving them that much money? They're like, well, we own everything. Oh, I see. Okay, continue. Well, now OpenAI is threatening a lawsuit against their BFF over antitrust violations just to kind of strong arm them.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Poke that bear.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Exactly what All Microsoft has to do is nothing. Absolutely nothing. You know why?

[Brian Schulmeister]

Why?

[Jason DeFilippo]

Because if Microsoft does nothing, then the funding for OpenAI fails, the new SoftBank funding fails. They probably won't have enough money to keep the lights on. That will basically throw OpenAI into a tailspin, into bankruptcy probably. Microsoft already owns the IP because they are partners with all the money they gave them. So they just pick up the pieces when it's over with, hire all the people they want to hire and tell Sam Altman, I was going to say Sam Bankman fried for a second to go fuck himself.

[Brian Schulmeister]

So we're kind of back to about a year ago.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah, kind of. So I'm really curious what Satya is going to do here. And the thing about Satya right now is I am so sick of his shit. I mean, I liked him before AI. You know, I thought he, I thought he kicked ass at Microsoft. He really, like, he did a really good job of turning that place into what it could have been. You know, it really turned it around. And I don't know if you saw like some of the, the latest about him. He's like, I use AI for everything. He's like, you know, he says it's the Frank's red hot of his life. He's like, I put that on everything, man.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yeah, we've noticed, world. We've noticed.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah. But then, then you turn around and there's, there's him being quoted in. Was it the India Times? I found an article. He's like, has AI started helping the economy grow faster? He says, no, AI has not yet caused faster economic growth or big productivity jumps.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Nope.

[Jason DeFilippo]

They basically admitted that there. And there's, there's no, there's no use case for this thing yet. There's no giant business use case. And if you look at the money that they're projecting that they have to make to keep the lights on, well, it doesn't. The math ain't math in anywhere across the spectrum, period.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Right.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Now there's another article that came out this week that musk is burning about a billion dollars a month on xai.

[Brian Schulmeister]

I thought you were gonna say on ketamine.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Oh, that too. Did you see he put out his quote unquote drug report yesterday?

[Brian Schulmeister]

Fucking dipshit. And then he's like, everybody at the New York Times should have to do it now too.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah, yeah, well, the New York Times just is like, you know, that's not what we said in the article we said when you were on the campaign trail, Mr. Well, I mean, I'm not a fan of the New York Times by any stretch right now, but they, they have a point with that one.

[Brian Schulmeister]

They do.

[Jason DeFilippo]

But the funny thing about that, the posting is his test results, as you put the last four of his social up there too. Good opsec, Elon. Really fucking good opsec. You're worried about your plane? How about you stop posting your own shit, you moron.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Ye.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Anyway, back to the. Back to the task at hand. Do the math. Just do the math. And then we have. Here's the. Here's the one that started this whole thing. Andy Jassy came out this week saying as we roll out more generative AI and agents which don't fucking exist, it should change the way our work is done. We will need fewer people doing some of the jobs that are being done today and more people doing other types of jobs. It's hard to know exactly where this nets out over time, but in the next few years we expect that this will reduce our total corporate workforce as we get efficiency gains from using AI extensively across the company. Show your fucking work, Andy. You're just making shit up. This is more marketing and bullshit scare tactics.

[Brian Schulmeister]

It's the Kool Aid that everybody's a drinking.

[Jason DeFilippo]

It's also hiding in the fog of AI war. His ability to cut headcount willy nilly under the banner of AI, you know, because everybody's looking for ways to fire everybody in. Elon gave him. He gave them the golden ticket when he walked into X, then Twitter and said fuck off to everybody.

[Brian Schulmeister]

And look, the thing is still running sort of.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Sort of, sort of. Hey, I don't know if you heard, but they're going to be. You're going to be able to trade stocks on X coming soon. Two weeks. When you see these articles, just. Just think for two seconds if all of this is bullshit. I think you probably will come to the conclusion on your own that it's bullshit.

[Brian Schulmeister]

I agree.

[Jason DeFilippo]

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 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 sites 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 hi, I'm.

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[Brian Schulmeister]

By texting 64,000, you agree to receive recurring automated marketing messages from Pocket Host. Message and data rates may apply. No purchase required. Terms apply. Available@pocket host.com terms and some more AI news earlier this month, Wikipedia announced plans to test AI summaries for about 10% of mobile web visitors. To say that that idea wasn't well received by the editors would be an understatement. The Wikimedia foundation then changed plans and canceled the tests. AI summaries would have appeared at the top of articles for 10% of mobile users. Readers would have had the opt in to be able to see them and they only appeared on a set of articles for a two week trial period. But the editor comments in the WMF's announcements range from yuck to grinning with horror. One editor wrote, just because Google has rolled out its AI summaries doesn't mean we need to one up them. I sincerely beg you not to test this on mobile or anywhere else. This would do immediate and irreversible harm to our readers and to our reputation as a decently trustworthy and serious source. Which I agree with. Yeah, Wikipedia has in some ways become a byword for sober boringness, which is excellent. The editor continued, let's not insult our readers intelligence and join the stampede to roll out flashy AI summaries. Hear, hear.

[Jason DeFilippo]

You can't with Wikipedia right now. That is the last bastion of comments, you know.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yeah, it is. And you know, it has me casting back my mind and going like, when Wikipedia first launched, none of us took it seriously. We're like, where'd you get that info from Wikipedia? For God's sake, go get an encyclopedia. What are you doing?

[Jason DeFilippo]

Now there's everything. It's the most trusted resource on the planet.

[Brian Schulmeister]

It's unbelievable.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yep. We were wrong. We were wrong. One thing we weren't wrong about though. Here's a new article. I saw Your brain on ChatGPT Accumulation of cognitive debt when using an AI assistant for essay writing tasks. Which is something that I think I said immediately when people started using chat GPT, I think in the first week. Here's the summit. While LLMs offer immediate convenience, our findings highlight potential cognitive costs. Over four months, LLM users consistently underperformed at neural, linguistic and behavior levels. These results raise concerns about the long term educational implications of LLM reliance and underscore the need for deeper inquiry into AI's role in learning. I could tell you right now, keep it out of schools.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yeah, no, I agree. Keep it out of schools. And I want this studied more. I want to find out how true this really is. This is an early study and we've heard this about technology all the time. I mean, we were, you know, when, when cell phones came in, all of a sudden nobody remembered phone numbers anymore. And our memories are going. And you know, we, I cast my mind back to, you know, the way back in time, you know, when Mongo picked up the a bone for the first time and used it to smash the head in on a beast for dinner. And then, you know, the, the learned doctors back there went, our arm strength is now decreasing across the board. What are we to do? It's human nature. We do always replace what we do physically and with technologies. It is what happens. These things are never going away. We need to find the balance. That's all I'm saying. It would also be fucking helpful if the goddamn technology worked, which it fucking doesn't.

[Jason DeFilippo]

See, there's half the problem right there. But this isn't a singular technology that we're trying to replace. Yeah, okay, great. About the phone numbers, I still remember four phone numbers that I need to. Need to remember in case of arrest. Those are the four that I remember now in maps. You know, maps are another thing. It's one of the things that nobody knows how to read a map anymore. I still have paper maps in my car because I'm a lunatic. But this is. This is different than that. I think this is different than one singular. We're talking about thinking in general, like, you know, creative thinking, critical thinking. Those are the kinds of things that are getting beat down by this. And I think that's what freaks me out.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yeah, no, and I agree. And the fact that it's being used by students and things of that nature, that's. That's really concerning.

[Jason DeFilippo]

I think China had it right, man. Press the big red button and Sam Altman, again, this is. This is. These are all of the. I'm waiting to hear the positives, Brian. I'm still waiting to hear the positives, because this week Sam Altman said that AI should basically have run of most of the electricity on the planet, or at least a significant fraction of it, because it's that important.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Except it's not.

[Jason DeFilippo]

No. And this is. This is. He went on his, I think, his brother's podcast to talk about this. How shitty does it feel to be his brother? It's like. Oh, man, it's like. It's like almost as bad as being Elon's kid.

[Brian Schulmeister]

No, that's much worse.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Much. That is actually much worse. Much, much worse. But, yeah, so a lot of the. The news came out that how much Chat GPT basically uses per query and how much water they use. And we know that that's woefully underreported on what it actually is. Independent studies are showing the Chat GPT burns through nearly 40 million kilowatt hours a day, enough to basically light up the Empire state building for 18 months. And Altman wants more, of course.

[Brian Schulmeister]

More for these terribly useful AI sludge.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah, basically. And speaking of power, we covered this originally when it happened. XAI is starting to build Colossus outside of Memphis, which is supposed to be the world's biggest data center. At some point it'll be done in two weeks. Well, they, they kind of skirted local laws and put in a bunch of basically gas powered generators outside this thing.

[Brian Schulmeister]

And we're running AI on fucking generators.

[Jason DeFilippo]

They are, yeah, basically. I don't know if you know, but Memphis is one of the, that, that's kind of like our Mumbai of the United States. It has like some of the worst air quality and pollution in the United States. So Elon rolls in and says, let's give them more. So they're being sued right now by the NAACP and the Southern Environmental Law Center. Well, they're threatening legal action. Xai has 20 days to basically set up a meeting and talk about how they're going to fix it.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Roughly two weeks.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah, yeah. And we'll see how this plays out. But they need to be sued out of existence. But you know, he's got all the money, so what are you going to do? But there are people fighting in Memphis right now. Going back to that original thing where I said, hey look, they're using generators to power the AI. It just, the fun just keeps on coming. There's another article which I couldn't, I didn't have time to put in this week, but Apple put out a study about how reasoning AIs don't. Which I think I want to do some more research and we can talk about it next week because it's apparently got a lot of people's panties up in a bunch because it goes back to saying that what we've been saying and everybody else who knows anything has been saying that this technology is not designed in any way, shape or form to do the things that you say it's ever going to do.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yes. As the learned professor of my AI class said, we're not using the tool properly. It is a simple tool. We cannot. It is not a multi tool. You cannot plug it into anything. There are some things it is very good at, but it is a very limited set of things.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yes, yes. And research and general thinking. Not one of them, it turns out.

[Brian Schulmeister]

No.

[Jason DeFilippo]

In a funny Twist, a French TikTok crypto influencer was released by kidnappers after they realized he was bitch ass broke. Our bad.

[Brian Schulmeister]

So wait, everything that you've been saying on TikTok is not true?

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Don't have any money, you're not a crypto millionaire. You were bullshitting it all.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yep. A 26 year old trader who has around 40,000 followers was abducted near Paris last Friday in a €50,000 ransom. Scheme. But when he showed his captors he didn't have enough crypto to pay up, they just let him go. No harm, no foul, I guess.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yeah, it just feels like. Feels like a perfect encapsulation of our world right now.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Oh, I got a better one. Personal. Personal. Bankruptcies are surging across the Bay Area, hitting their highest level since the pandemic. From April 2024 to March this year, filings jumped 25%, nearly twice the national rate. With Napa, San Mateo and Contra Costa counties leading the spike. Behind the rise, a sluggish post Covid recovery, the collapse of tech job security and sky high living costs. Well, I can, I. I'm with you, Brian. Guys, I feel that pain. But that's why I left the Bay Area. I guess LA doesn't really count as being much better, but actually it's about 10 times better than the Bay Area.

[Brian Schulmeister]

It's way better than the Bay Area.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah. So, yeah, bankruptcies up as well. Remember we talked about quiet quitting, Brian? I guess that didn't work out so well either.

[Brian Schulmeister]

No, we're being loudly fired these days.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Loudly fired due to AI. That's right. And just to end on a funny one, this is a. A study on vulgarity. And this, this is from. We analyzed more than 1.7 billion words of online language across 20 English speaking regions. They identified 597 different swear word forms. Now here we go. Coming in, number one was a. Usa Brian. Mark. Number one. Yeah, we're number one. Second is Great Britain, then Australia, Singapore, New Zealand, Ireland coming in at number seven. In Canada at number nine. So I am really, really surprised that we got beat by Great Britain, Australia, New Zealand and Ireland. Singapore at number four was a real shocker. I guess it's because, you know, they call it a fine country because you get fined for everything. I guess it's a fucking fine country because God damn it, I got fine. But this was. This article was reposted to CNN where I first saw it, and someone who made the graphic for CNN completely screwed up the infographic because they called Tanzania. Tanzania.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Like Tanzania.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Oh, yeah, yeah. I thought, I thought maybe Tanzania was like, you know, like a portmanteau of a bunch of African countries. They just kind of all put together. No, they just couldn't spell it. They couldn't copy and paste. I guess. So it could be one of those things too where people are starting to put in typos in their. Their work to make you think that it's actually a human that does this anymore.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yeah, you can just add that to your prompt.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Media Candy.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Been slowly working through all the Disney and Pixar classics with the kid and we finally got to Brave, which I had never actually seen before. So it was in that period where I was not paying attention to anything Disney and did not care when it came out, but really good.

[Jason DeFilippo]

I saw that movie in the period when I was paying attention to Disney movies and seeing everything that was made by Pixar. So, yeah, it was a fantastic movie.

[Brian Schulmeister]

It was fantastic. It was. It was wonderful. And they weren't kidding. Like, I remember hearing the story at the time that it took them. Them a couple years longer to get around to it because they just couldn't dial in the. The tech to do the hair right. And the hair is stunning.

[Jason DeFilippo]

It's amazing. Yeah.

[Brian Schulmeister]

I couldn't keep my eyes off of it the whole time. And of course, it was wonderful to hear Billy Connolly, great cast. I couldn't believe that was Kelly McDonald from Trainspotting as the lead. Unbelievable. Yeah, it was a lot of fun. It was a really great Disney movie. Definitely. Like, you never hear about it. It's, it's, it's, it's. It. It deserves way more praise than it gets.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Oh, yeah, yeah. No, I thought that was up there in the. The classic pantheon, for sure.

[Dave Bittner]

Yeah.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Well done. I did watch Inside out this week.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Oh, yeah?

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Brian Schulmeister]

What'd you think?

[Jason DeFilippo]

It was good. It was okay. I mean, it kind of was everything that I thought it was going to be. There was. There were real. No, like, shockers, but waited too long to see it.

[Brian Schulmeister]

It's kind of seeped into the public consciousness at this point.

[Jason DeFilippo]

I don't know anything about it. I mean, I. I walked in fairly blind. I thought it was a good, good Pixar movie. You know, it pretty much. I mean, it was no, like Toy Story 4 where you're crying at the end of it, but I guess maybe some people were. But yeah, I thought it was good. I thought it was good. It wasn't good enough for me to run out and watch Inside Out 2. So.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Inside Out 2 is fun, too. I enjoyed the first one. You'll enjoy the second one, but obviously.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Okay. I think. I think the credit. I think the credit sequence in Inside out was better than the rest of the movie, honestly, with all the different people's emotions taken over. That was pretty funny.

[Brian Schulmeister]

So funny.

[Jason DeFilippo]

The teenage boy one was the best one. Girl, girl, girl, girl.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Pretty accurate. I watched. I started to watch a limited series called Families Like Ours, which is on us, Netflix. I have to pump into my VPN to be able to watch it because it's not on Canadian Netflix. This is a Danish production and it's kind of interesting. It's. It's got a bit of a sci fi bent. It's. It says here, in a not too distant future, Denmark faces total evacuation due to rising water levels. And then this is about how families kind of deal with the fact that your entire country is shutting down. You can't sell your real estate. Do you have money? What are you going to do? And it's pretty good. Like, I'm really enjoying it. I've watched the first two episodes. I think there are seven or eight total.

[Jason DeFilippo]

I think they're eight.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yeah, yeah, eight. Okay, so there's eight. You know, it's. It's. I personally, I would prefer more sci fi. You know, more. More. Some special effects and some, you know, let's see. Let's see the happen. But it's kind of focusing more on the politics and family relationships and all that. But it's been compelling so far. I'm gonna finish it out for sure.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Okay, good, good. Yeah, I added it to the queue when I saw you put it in here. I like the premise because, you know, it's interesting because replace Denmark with Los Angeles, you might be onto something there. I need some pointers.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yeah, pretty much get out quick is the point.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah, yeah.

[Brian Schulmeister]

And then I started watching Stick, and I don't really know why I. Somebody sold me on this. It was like Ted Lasso, but with golf.

[Jason DeFilippo]

No, it's not.

[Brian Schulmeister]

And it's got Owen Wilson, who I generally like, even though he just plays Owen Wilson all the time, and Marc Maron and some other people in it. The Judy Greer, who's great. But is it funny?

[Jason DeFilippo]

I watched the first half of the first episode last night and I'm like, no, I mean. And I was giving it. I was giving it, like, a lot of leeway because pilots always suck, you know, I was giving it. Giving it room to breathe. And I can write the rest of that series for you. With seeing what I've seen already, I know exactly what's going to happen. And I'm like, no, I'm not.

[Brian Schulmeister]

I watched the first two episodes and I gave it the winely way. So, you know, I was in the perfect state of mind in which I can enjoy just about anything. I'd had enough wine for that. And still I was kind of like, this is not that original.

[Jason DeFilippo]

No, it's not. It's terribly unoriginal.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yeah, I'd rather Just go back and watch Happy Gilmore again.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Oh, that was great movie. Great movie. Murderbot, check in. How you. How you liking it?

[Brian Schulmeister]

It's okay. Yeah, it's. It's fine. I. I'll keep watching it. Am I excited about it? Like, I know I'm going to be watching it tonight. Am I, like, giddy with anticipation like I am with, like, Silo or other shows? No. Is it okay? Yeah, I'll keep it. I'll keep up with it. Do I think it's going to get renewed? I don't know.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Probably will. Probably will, I think.

[Brian Schulmeister]

I mean, the foundation keeps getting renewed. Jesus fucking Christ.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Somebody got a. Somebody got something through a contractual loophole with that. When I tell you somebody's got a peepee tape, I think I'm enjoying it. I do. I do get a little bit of giddiness when I see that it pops up that. That there's a new episode. The problem I have with it is the episodes are just too damn short. I wish they would have done less episodes and just put them together until longer runs, but. And you can tell when the episode's about to end because everything ramps up. It's like, oh, we must be hitting the 20 minute mark. Something's about to happen. Okay. Damn it. This is one of those ones where I think it would be best to binge. So if you haven't watched it yet, maybe just hold off or. Because number eight came out yesterday. So I think you got two more. I think it's 10. Yeah. So I just wait two more weeks and then watch the whole thing just go from there.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yeah, they do feel short there. There's no need. There's no anticipation that builds up throughout the week. Normally, I'm a big proponent of, like, don't binge watch once a week, but with this one, I. I think I agree with you. It'd be a better binge.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah. Halfway through fubar. And I was actually. I was talking to my friend John Sylvain from the Nooner podcast the other day. They've been doing that for 16 years. They got three years on us, Brian. It's crazy.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Probably more money, too.

[Jason DeFilippo]

I don't know about that. We were commiserating on how bad yet great FUBAR is, and I'm halfway through the season. And it's one of those things where that one I get giddy to watch for some reason. The show is fantastic. The only suck out of it. Well, there's two sucks this season. Arnold just is terrible. Arnold is God awful. Carrie Ann Moss is in it this season too. She's not great. I gotta admit. She's not great.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Okay.

[Jason DeFilippo]

But the reason I put it back in this week is I was watching the thing. There's something wrong with Arnold's face and it couldn't picture. I knew that there was something I'd seen before that was making me remember what it was. Then somebody posted an old George Carlin video, and it was George Carlin at the end of his life and the end of his career. It was like from his last special. And I got it. Their cheeks. Look at their cheeks. Their cheeks are getting really puffy closer to their eyes. It's very strange. And I don't know if that's some kind of. I can't see George Carlin going to get filler. Arnold. Yeah, totally can. But it's a really weird thing. I don't know what it is. If anybody knows, there's some kind of old man disease that happens where your cheeks puff up near the top. Maybe it's all the money you have that just kind of keeps rising up and. Or maybe you're full of shit. I don't know. But I'm very, very curious about that.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Okay.

[Jason DeFilippo]

I did watch the movie Sinners this week.

[Brian Schulmeister]

All right.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Highly recommended. Oh, my God. So good. You know, all the. All the news about it was that the. The deal that the filmmaker made to get the rights back in 20 years, and that's what kind of took over the news cycle. And I missed the news cycle where they said, this is a really good vampire movie. I mean, it's a really good vampire movie.

[Dave Bittner]

So.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Okay, I'll have to watch it.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah, I highly recommend it. I was. I was, you know, I was expecting it to be kind of formulaic, which. There are parts that are formulaic. There's the one Quentin Tarantino vampire movie that was really good at the Roadhouse. It's similar to that. It's so. It's got some similar vibes to that. But I. This was just. This was so good. I really, really enjoyed it. And after watching Inside Out, I needed some adult time, so I started watching Rear Window. I'm gonna. I'm trying to work my way through some of the old Hitchcock classics. And this is like from the 1950s. It was saucy for the 50s, man.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Oh, yeah, That's a great movie.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah. I'm only a little bit into. Because I had to sleep because I was watching it late at night. But I'm. I'm dying to get back into that tonight, but, man, I was just I was just amazed at how saucy it was. I'm like, holy shit, man. That girl dancing at the beginning. I'm like, well, okay, 50s were pretty. Make America horny again, baby. So I'm looking forward to that. So, I mean, it's a. They're all classics for a reason. There aren't that many on Netflix, so I kind of queued them up in order. So. And there's a new game show out called the Snake, and I'm like, okay, another one of these. Trying to rip off the traitor's juice. And the only reason I was like, okay, I'll give it a shot because Jim Jeffries is the host and I fucking love Jim Jeffries. Jim is great in this. I don't know about the show. The show's kind of meh, like, C level game show at this point, but I just like seeing Jim. I'm glad he's working. Glad he's got a gig. The Naked Gun official trailer dropped this week. The reboot with Liam Neeson and Pam Anderson. Did you watch the trailer?

[Brian Schulmeister]

I cannot wait to watch this movie.

[Jason DeFilippo]

It looks great.

[Brian Schulmeister]

It's so funny. It just brings all the childhood feels from watching the original Naked Gun. It's so good.

[Jason DeFilippo]

The funny thing is I wasn't really looking forward to this at all. Like, period. I'm like, okay.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Oh, I thought it was gonna stink. But I'm loving the trailer.

[Jason DeFilippo]

The trailer is good. I mean, maybe just skip the movie and watch the trailer. You know, just watch the trailer again. Just because, you know, this one, that. That's actually good and brings the chuckles. Don't ruin it. Sandman Season 2 dropped their trailer and the. The numbers are out. It's going to consist of 12 episodes with a special. So they're gonna do the first six episodes or. Well, the special is part of the 12. I'm sorry, I can't do math this morning. The first six episodes will be released on July 3, followed by five more on July 24. And the bonus episode, the High Cost of Living, will be on July 31st. So July will be the month of Sandman.

[Brian Schulmeister]

All right.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Looks good. Looks really good. Yeah. Could have done it in four, but I guess we get to. Because Neil did. Neil.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yes. He sure did.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Well, Jason, I've got a bit of good news. Everybody's most hated studio executive will likely be a little less overpaid moving forward. David Zaslav, the unfortunate CEO of the company formerly known as Warner Brothers Discovery. The company which was once two separate companies but became one, which is now splitting up again, has often been accused of being bad at his job, quite rightfully so. And now it would appear that the people who pay his salary may agree. In 2023, his compensation package was boosted substantially from what it had been. In 2022, he received a package worth approximately 50 million that represented a 26.5% increase over the preceding year, in which he reportedly made a total of $39.2 million. That pales in comparison to 2021, when he technically made $246 million from stock options appended to a new multi year employment contract with the company. But now he will have his wages slashed and capped so as to better align them with a pay for performance model championed by shareholders. If you're paying him for performance, you.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Should take it all back.

[Brian Schulmeister]

You should send him an invoice.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Exactly. Can we have it back, please?

[Brian Schulmeister]

Citing a recent SEC filing, deadline notes that this new business agreement will significantly reduce his total annual compensation, including lowering his annual cash compensation opportunity and reorientating the total pay mix towards long term incentives. This guy should be fired.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah.

[Brian Schulmeister]

And you're saying you're cutting him, but let me tell you guys, he's still making a fuck ton more money than he should be making.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah, any money is more than he should be making. Yeah, they should invoice him, ask for everything back, plus interest. Seriously.

[Brian Schulmeister]

And a hat tip to Pedro who sent this over. Musicians are fighting back against AI. Hope it's working. And cheers fella. And he sent a link to something on aimusic entrepreneur.com it's about adversarial attacks and audio files which are giving musicians new power against AI theft. Technologies called Harmony Cloak and Poisonify let musicians add special noise to their music that humans can't hear, but ruins the files for AI training. These technologies can potentially damage entire AI models that try to use protected music. Giving musicians new technical tools to fight back against AI companies using their work without permission. So it sounds like whack a mole, but right now the musicians could theoretically be adding this to their music and win.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Well, I think the put it Spotify should add it. Apple Music should add it. Everybody should add it. You know. Should, yeah. Will they?

[Brian Schulmeister]

Spotify and Apple Music, they kind of don't mind their content getting scraped. That's the dirty secret.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Oh, okay. Oh well, you would know. We'll just leave that there on the table. Kids. I can't even remember.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Stupid non profit.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah. All right. Apps and doodads.

[Brian Schulmeister]

IOS 26 has introduced a new feature that will help CarPlay take better advantage of the shape of your vehicle's display, which they've just announced. When enabled, the new Smart Display Zoom will shrink down elements on the screen. Smart Display Zoom will shrink down elements on the screen. A communicator, a phone, a music player. Smart Display Zoom will shrink down elements on the screen to fit an extra row of app icons. Zoom does not typically shrink, does it, Jason? I'm just checking on that.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Well, you know, you zoom out, you zoom in.

[Brian Schulmeister]

All right, all right. CarPlay is receiving other updates as part of its iOS 26 update as well. It works. Will feature a more compact view for incoming calls, so the display doesn't hide your directions and tap backs. Emoji responses and pin conversations are coming to messages, which is just what I want when I'm driving. When Jason gives me a thumbs up, I will drive off the road.

[Jason DeFilippo]

There you go.

[Brian Schulmeister]

And widgets and live activities can be reflected on the infotainment system. So big upgrades coming to CarPlay, which is kind of good for the most part, but maybe not the texting stuff.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah, no, I like my. I've got a Jeep and I have, you know, basically a thing like a 6 inch by 3 inch LCD display for mine, which is exactly as big as I need it to be. I'm like, tiny, tiny, tiny. It would be nice if I could play Mahjong Titan plus on it, though, which is the iOS game that I've talked about for past couple months that I've been stuck on. All right, so, Brian, there are 1,909,590 players of Mahjong Titan Plus.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Okay.

[Jason DeFilippo]

I am ranked 13,000, 342nd.

[Brian Schulmeister]

That's pretty good.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Now, now, to. To put that in perspective, if you perfectly do a board, you get three stars. How many stars do you think I have?

[Brian Schulmeister]

I. I honestly have. No. No clue.

[Jason DeFilippo]

31,900.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Okay.

[Jason DeFilippo]

I am. I am on a quest to beat this guy. I can't. You have to. I. There's like 3,000 boards in there. I've completed them all. But, but to complete all 3,000 with 100%, with no hints, within the time limit to get the three stars. I'm so close. I'm at like 97%. And I'm trying, man. I'm trying because I actually opened up. This is, you know, it's my dirty little thing I do at night. I play that one game now because I opened up Clash Royale last week to see how the clan's doing. Yeah, this has been a couple years. I battled for about half an hour, I hopped in. I'm like, I wonder what? I started playing again. And at, like, 29 minutes and 59 seconds, I'm like, delete this app now. Because I could tell it was. I could feel. I could feel it sucking me back in. Like, no, not again. That took, like, five years of my life. That damn game. It's not getting another minute. But I do recommend Mahjong Titan plus because it's part of Apple Arcade and it's free to play. If you get Mahjong Titan, the regular one, you got to pay to get rid of the ads and all that. But if you have Arcade, it's free for everything, so someday I will make it to the top of the mountain, my friend.

[Brian Schulmeister]

All right, good luck with that.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Thanks.

[Brian Schulmeister]

I've got a lot here, but I'm going to condense it down because everybody's talked about it and I'm frankly bored by it. But if there's one thing we've learned over the years, it's Trump loves two things. Gold, furniture and using his status as US President to make money, which is illegal. Completely illegal. And now, don't forget destroying casinos and schools and. And vodka companies and stakes. Trump is apparently combining these two passions into a mobile device that you can buy with real American tender. It gives me no pleasure to introduce to you all the Trump phone. It's a gold phone. Looks like an iPhone. It's worse than any budget Android. They're, of course, rolling out a fake service to go with it as well. By all accounts, this is. This is. It runs Android. By all accounts, it is a. I can't remember.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Piece of is what it is.

[Brian Schulmeister]

It's a Reskin Rebel 7, whatever the hell that is. And of course, they're. They're trying to say that it's made in the usa. It absolutely is not. There's links in the show, notes that tear apart all that and show exactly how it's not. And don't buy this piece of there.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Can I buy it with Trump coin?

[Brian Schulmeister]

I'm sure you can.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Probably not, because they know Trump coin is worthless. They want real money.

[Brian Schulmeister]

They want real cash for this. Yeah, this is a physical item. We're not going to take our stupid coin.

[Jason DeFilippo]

At the library. Brian. In my quest to not read the new Christopher Moore book any longer, and I would like to test that, I gave up the ghost on it. I finally figured out it was a Frankenstein book, and I hate Frankenstein books, so I returned it. Sorry, Chris.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Oh, really? Okay, well, I'm still going to read it eventually.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Let me know if it's any good, then maybe I'll go back to it. We both aligned on his last previous couple works, so if you say it's good, I'll go back to it. I went back and I read Happy. Why? More or less. Everything Is Absolutely Fine by Darren Brown. No, he's not actually.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Has he looked around the room?

[Jason DeFilippo]

It's from 2016, which means he wrote it probably in 2014.

[Brian Schulmeister]

So things were pretty good back then.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah, it's actually not even about that. It's. It's more of a philosophical view of. Of happiness and, and life in general. It's a. It's a philosophy book is what it really is.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Okay.

[Jason DeFilippo]

And it's a phenomenal book. This is the second time I've gone through it. It's so dense. It. You got to go slow. But I just, I. I love Darren Brown. I love the way he thinks and. Yeah, I just really, really enjoyed listening to this book again.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Cool.

[Jason DeFilippo]

And he reads the audiobook. He's got a fantastic voice. So I just turn it on and I fall asleep to it. It's awesome. The other book that I read this week is AI Snake Oil, what Artificial Intelligence can do what it can't and how to Tell the Difference by Saiyash Kapoor and Arvind Narayan. Great book. Absolutely amazingly well done book. These guys, I think they come out of Stanford, but they're smart dudes, they're computer guys, so they're like us and they talk like us, they walk like us and they can smell bullshit like us. The one thing that I really took out of the beginning of the book is prediction. Algorithms, when tied to AI are worse than useless. There's not enough data to actually make any kind of prediction algorithm work. And even the AI guys are like, well, you just didn't have enough data points. Well, the theory is that there are enough data points to actually make them usable, but it turns out there aren't. For a lot of different things, you can't. There's too much serendipity in the world and random things that an algorithm cannot account for, period. And the way they lay it out is really well done. And I really think that we need to just start hiring more lawyers to do class action lawsuits against anybody that uses predictive AI governments for sentencing healthcare providers for just about anything. If they have any of this predictive shit in their business, get rid of it, period. And it's like, we need to sue these fuckers out of existence is what needs to happen. So highly recommend the book, though. It's well done. You'd love it, Brian.

[Brian Schulmeister]

I'll have to give it a read, but I've got to get to that Christopher Moore book. And I'm only about halfway through the diaries. 1969-1979, the Python Years. The Michael Palin Diaries. Book 1. Ten Years of Diary entries is an awful lot, let me tell you. But when it's written by somebody as funny as Michael Palin, it's all right.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Oh, okay, okay.

[Brian Schulmeister]

I'm really enjoying it so far. And it's a really interesting insight to the early years of Monty Python. And they didn't really think it was going to fly. They were all trying to do other things. They would get back together and maybe we'll do some more Monty Python, I don't know. And then there's little tiffs here and there, and then they're all working on each other's side projects and, and it's a. It's. It's really interesting. I'm, I'm having a blast reading it.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Oh, that's awesome. Maybe I'll read that next after not reading the new Christopher Moore book.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yep.

[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 cybersecurity on Control Loop and even brings the laughs on only mount we're in the building. Hi, Dave.

[Dave Bittner]

Hello, guys.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Hello.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Got a little follow up from last week.

[Dave Bittner]

Excellent.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Mason writes in. Game Boy was incredible for its time. ExciteBite was so good. Now ExciteBike was an NES game. And I went and I went on a. I went on a Quest to find ExciteBike for the game Boy. Game Boy. It was technically a Game Boy advanced game. Very difficult to find a cartridge for, to the point where I'm like, okay, well, screw it, let me go find a rom. Which led me down an entirely new rabbit hole. So I'm putting in some links in the show. Notes about the open FPGA guide on how to do ROMs with the analog pocket. And it's pretty cool. It takes a little bit of work to get it to load external ROMs, but you can do it. Absolutely. And it's very easy to find those ROMs anywhere if you kind of know where to look.

[Dave Bittner]

Yeah.

[Jason DeFilippo]

So, yeah, I just thought that was pretty cool that the ExciteBite thing was just an NES game that. I used to play it all the time on my nes. Did you guys ever play it?

[Dave Bittner]

No. I will have to check it out because I daily run an NES emulator here on my Mac mostly.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Can you please put links to that in the show notes so I can get that too? Because it'll save me some time.

[Dave Bittner]

Yeah, so it's. Here, let me put the thing here. It's called OpenEMU2.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Electric Boogaloo.

[Dave Bittner]

Yeah. So to the point of downloading things if you know where to find them. Just a week before last, I downloaded about, oh, I don't know, 60 gigabytes of arcade games to load into OpenEM. You too?

[Brian Schulmeister]

Because I was so glad my kid doesn't listen to this podcast because all we do is fight about how I try to limit his Nintendo time. And no, he can't buy a new game yet because he has to finish the first one and they're 80 goddamn dollars a pop. And boy, you guys would just ruin him.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Okay, yeah, just buy the kid a Mame cabinet and get over it, man.

[Dave Bittner]

So Open EMU emulates everything, basically.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Okay.

[Dave Bittner]

They're all. They're all. I'm looking at the list here. It's all the classic. So anyway, I do on the NES side of things, right now all I have in there is Tetris and Mega Man 2, but I will check out Excitebike. That sounds like fun.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Definitely.

[Dave Bittner]

I'm sure this had come across before, but in my brain analogue pocket was new to me and it's very cool.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yes.

[Dave Bittner]

I don't know that I want one, but I think my son might want one or need one or I might need to enjoy it through my son.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yes.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Tune for the price of one.

[Dave Bittner]

Yeah. Maybe I'll buy one for him and see how it goes. He's not so much into downloading things the way that you and I would be. But the cartridge thing I think might appeal to him. And he does like playing some of the older games, so we'll see. I will suggest it. See what he said.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Do you have one of these, Jason, the analog pockets? Yes, I do.

[Dave Bittner]

Okay.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah, no, I got it when it was first, basically on pre order for the first time. I've had it since then. It sits in my nightstand with the Tetris cartridge in it. Okay. And it's really nice too, because it's rechargeable, so no batteries, so it's just rechargeable via usb. C. And thank God. I started to check. There's a whole. I was on like, firmware from two years ago. And the firmware and the software has updated drastically since. Since then I was always bitching about, why don't they fix that? And I'm like, oh, I guess I should have checked to see if they did. Well, they did. They fixed a lot of stuff.

[Dave Bittner]

So this gets the Jason Grumpy old geek stamp of approval.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Oh, absolutely. The analog pocket is awesome. It is awesome. Okay.

[Dave Bittner]

All right.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Well, it's expensive, but it's one of those purchases that I. I do recommend for old school gamers who like. It's great to have around. It's just one of those things that you can throw in your bag and always have something to play. It's cool.

[Dave Bittner]

Yeah. All right, well, there's another rabbit hole for me to go down.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Now, I know we don't talk about security that much on the show anymore, but I just had a thought that I wanted to run past you guys. Have you guys heard anything about prompt injection attacks? Because we've always talked about SQL injection attacks on form data on just any web form. That's how they get through most of the things to get access to the database. You just put in a SQL query inside of a form that's getting posted to the back end of a website that's getting processed. I have not heard of prompt injection attacks yet, which I think would be interesting. If you go to. I don't think this is a thing yet, but I put in my name, as I haven't even. I didn't want to go down the rabbit hole too far because I could. And I just wanted to run it past you guys to see if you've heard of it and if you think it is something that we might see in the future. Because I think it might be one of those things that nobody's going to be checking for but might be running against. Like, you take my personal information from the form that I put in that's in the database and run it against some kind of AI to just, you know, process my personal information to create a buy or a Persona on me or things like that. You know, Jason hates Phish, DeFilippo, you know, or just start Jason, opt out of all emails to Filippo, things like that. I don't know, I'm just. I was just. Blue sky. What do you guys think?

[Dave Bittner]

Well, for. It is absolutely a thing and there's a ton of research going on about it.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Okay. Yes, it is.

[Dave Bittner]

I mean, article after article, we've reported on it a handful of times on Cyberwire. In fact, when you, when I saw this in the script, I went and did a little searching around because what you led me to was the fact that everything I've seen on this so far is all research and nobody has found it in the wild. But my question is, how would you know?

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah, exactly. Right, yeah.

[Dave Bittner]

So is it going on? I bet it is. I mean, count on it. But how is it different than like we've all run into a situation where we've been reading a Wikipedia page and we see something, we go, well, that's wrong. And I know that's wrong because I was there.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Right.

[Dave Bittner]

Or something like that.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Almost every band that I have worked for has glaring errors in their Wikipedias.

[Dave Bittner]

Right, right, exactly. And yet that thing becomes the truth because it's on the Wikipedia page and I guess in the old days in the encyclopedia. So is that what happens here? I think it might be. And I don't know how you. The research about it is all about preventing it and putting guardrails on it and ways that the systems are trying to safeguard against it.

[Jason DeFilippo]

How. That's the thing. How. It's just funny that Brian and I were just talking about how Wikipedia has become the, you know, the most source, the gold standard, and then we just go, yeah, it is actually kind of wrong all the time. So. But that still is the gold standard. The fact that it's even wrong and we know it is still the gold standard.

[Dave Bittner]

Right, right. I guess the integrity of Wikipedia is more about its process than its content. Right. That they have a system in place, like they're doing a good faith effort to keep things accurate and up to date, which not everything is doing. But yeah, to me, the thing that you got me sitting here pondering, staring at the ceiling about is how would you know if there was something in there? And how is it different from any other kind of error that an LLM will spit out at you?

[Brian Schulmeister]

We've hit this total technological he said, she said.

[Dave Bittner]

Right.

[Brian Schulmeister]

That's, that's where it's just going to be at. It's like unless you have personal knowledge and then you have to argue with something that's been encoded into AI for forever.

[Dave Bittner]

Right. And what if you're an adversary of ours and so you want to start biasing our large language models, let's say the English language large language models. If you wanted to start biasing biases. Biases by assisting them.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Well, you start by only having rich white people doing all the coding for it.

[Dave Bittner]

Yeah, yeah, that's right.

[Brian Schulmeister]

There you go.

[Dave Bittner]

But we know all about misinformation campaigns. So how do you target a misinformation campaign at the ingestion process of a large language model? And I'm sure people are working on it. That's fascinating. A little scary. And again, I don't know. How would you detect it? How do you know? Because it's a black box.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah. And nowadays there's a lot of talk this week about how data from pre2022 is going to be gold for all of these training, all of the training that's going on for the LLMs. Because then you know that it hasn't been manipulated by an LLM doesn't mean it's not manipulated by humans. If I get access to the pre2022 data set and I can start injecting things into that and people just take that as gospel that it. Oh, we have this data set. It was from before the before times. It was written by humans. So it must be, you know, has more weight. But then I start putting in my crap that I want to influence all of these.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Nobody knows the classified.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah, yeah, that's the end of the.

[Dave Bittner]

We did a story about that earlier this week. I don't know if you guys saw it. Are you familiar with pre nuclear age steel?

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah, I was going to put that in but just ran out of time this week. But yeah, yeah, no, that's.

[Dave Bittner]

Yeah, that's the comparison folks are using. And I guess the real short version is that before any nuclear weapons were exploded on planet Earth, steel when manufactured didn't have certain nuclear isotopes in it. And afterwards all steel does because the atmosphere has these nuclear isotopes. And so there are certain uses for steel, I suspect probably medical and military where you don't want those nuclear devices.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Basically nuclear medicine devices.

[Dave Bittner]

Yeah. So you. So there are people wanting to pull battleships up from the bottom of the ocean to get access to their steel because it's pre nuclear. So that's one.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah. One German general basically scuttled his entire fleet after the war which gives us this giant trove of. Of all of this steel that is untainted. So.

[Dave Bittner]

Right, right.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah. And that's what they're saying is what the, what the pre 22 data is going to be like. But let's say I want to that up and I go down to the the battleships and I launch a little poop nuke underwater. Hey, have some isotope of you and everybody's screwed.

[Dave Bittner]

Yeah.

[Brian Schulmeister]

I like how you turned it into a Mario Brothers game.

[Jason DeFilippo]

I've been. Well, you got me, Dave. Got me at 60 gigabytes. You know, when I heard 60 gigabytes, I'm like, oh my God. I got all the GBA ROMs this week and it was only 32 gigs. So I've got ROM NV.

[Dave Bittner]

Yeah. Let me just say that this started because I was pissed off that I couldn't play Pac man on my emulator. I was like, oh no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. So I did a bunch of searching and I found like this open emu has a particular MAME release version that is blessed on it. And so I went and got that, basically all of it. And so now I have all the games and I'm very happy about that.

[Jason DeFilippo]

I'll be sliding into your DMs later today.

[Dave Bittner]

Fair enough, Fair enough.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Remember that time I got you Star Wars?

[Dave Bittner]

That's right.

[Jason DeFilippo]

That's right. For a little quid pro quo.

[Dave Bittner]

Yeah, yeah. No, it's all good. There will come a time when you will ask me for a favor. A time has come.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Well, I saw this in the news. We, we've talked a lot about the Disneyland parks and we were talking just a few months back, I guess a little bit. I was talking about how, you know, the, the new parks are, are so technologically based and it's mostly like VR stuff and, and I was bemoaning like, are we going to run out of kinetic rides? Is everything just going to be this from now on forward? But even though they're, they are quite good, they're. The technology is there and it's very good. But now you don't even need to leave your couch, apparently. There are the Disney Experiences Video library, which already include POV Ride Alongs for Star Wars, Rise of the Resistance and the Galaxy's Edge Ambient Stroll, both of which I've walked on, watched on Disney plus and are rather enjoyable. And they're releasing a whole bunch more on July 17, which is Disneyland's 70th birthday. And these are all from the Anna Park. Pretty soon they were on Disney plus you will be able to basically do a ride of Pirates of the Caribbean, the Indian and Indiana Jones Adventure. Radiator Springs Racers, the Incredicoaster, my son's particular favorite, the Haunted Mansion. I can do Tiana's Bayou Adventure before I even go on the damn ride. Cars Land, Pixar Pal Around Big Thunder, Mountain Railroad, Jungle Cruise, Soaring around the World, the Avengers Campus, Hollywoodland, Main Street USA. Mickey's Toontown and the 70th celebration nighttime spectaculars will all be streaming live on Disney plus, which is kind of cool, but kind of like, I, I, yeah, I mean, I guess it's, it's for me, it's for somebody that loves these parks. I would totally just, you know, throw on an ambient walk, walk through of Main Street USA in the background and enjoy the hell out of it.

[Dave Bittner]

Yeah, I would too.

[Brian Schulmeister]

And I have, and we will be on July 17th.

[Dave Bittner]

So this reminded me that on our, our last trip to Disney World, my family's last trip back in March, while we were there, we came across several Disney live streamers, which is a whole ecosystem now, a subculture. And these people have these fairly elaborate rigs, these handheld rigs that they walk around and they just livestream the parks every day. And it's their job and they get donations and they get, I guess, whatever the streaming revenue is. And I took a picture of one of them that we came across when we were at Animal Kingdom. We happened to be in the gorilla enclosure and this guy was live streaming from there. And it was fascinating, this little rig that he's got here. And Jason, you know more about this stuff than I do. What can, what do you see on this guy's rig here?

[Jason DeFilippo]

Very. Makes me very happy. So basically what he's got is he's got a new DJI Osmo Pocket 3 attached with a handheld, basically with your. Can we, Are we gonna be able to post this to the, the Discord? You cool with that?

[Dave Bittner]

Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Okay, cool. I'll post it to the Discord channel in the, the show show section. What it looks like on the left, he's got a small rig USB C hub. I've got one of those. I think that's the hub. It looks might be a little thicker. And he's got a dji, probably a microphone attachment on the top right of it, where you see the little DJI block. I think that's probably the microphone attachment. And he's got probably wearing one of the DJI lapel mics. Now the software that he's using, it looks like it says OBS remote control, but I've never seen that software before, so I don't know exactly how he's running it. I'm really curious if anybody on the Discord can look at this too and give me kind of a heads up on what that is. But he's also just got an iPhone with a cage on it with a single grip. So it's not an actual gimbal or anything. He's just kind of got it on that. I've got A similar setup, but I use the small rig with the two handles on the side to give you more stabilization with a Rode Videomic 2, like the nice Rode Videomic. And it pipes out to a hard drive so I can do like the Apple log straight to hard drive on it. It's not meant for live streaming. It's actually meant for high quality video that I want to edit later. But as a live stream thing, this is pretty cool. I'm curious why he uses the Pocket 3. I mean, the Pocket 3 is a gimbal, so you don't need a gimbal on the phone, you know, so you're going to get stabilization from the pocket. But yeah, I don't know. This is just a cool little setup. It's nice and compact. And I'm a fan, I'm a big fan of this.

[Brian Schulmeister]

I'm not a fan of the people walking around Disneyland doing this all the time, though.

[Dave Bittner]

Though.

[Jason DeFilippo]

I don't care about Disneyland. I just like the, I like the rig. The rig is.

[Brian Schulmeister]

You like the tech.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah.

[Dave Bittner]

Why do you not like it, Brian?

[Brian Schulmeister]

I, I, I, I'm, I'm not. Okay, to some degree, I guess Disneyland is tolerating it at the moment because it is good promotion for them in much the same way that like, when people first started posting concert videos of bands, like, the bands kind of look the other way because, like, all right, this is a pretty good promotion, but it, it turns around, like, fans start to get upset about it. I, I, I would be upset if like all of a sudden somebody with a huge rig was like, live streaming. Me and my family as we were walking around Disneyland, we're, we're in the shot now. I know we're in a public place. We've given away the right to that. But I can see people getting upset enough about it that Disneyland would finally kind of be like, you know what, guys? You can't come in here and just stream this whole thing and make money off of it. Like, what are you doing?

[Dave Bittner]

My youngest son made a game out of this where every time we saw one of these live streamers, he would find the stream on his phone.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Nice.

[Dave Bittner]

So we'd see ourselves. And then of course, we'd have to walk through, you know. But there were probably over the course of a week, we probably saw half a dozen of them. We saw.

[Brian Schulmeister]

There'll be more, Jason. That's the thing.

[Dave Bittner]

Yeah. We saw this guy twice in two different parks. And I will say, before we saw them at the parks, this is something that I have watched online and in particular, my wife enjoys watching these. Sometimes when she needs a little Disney fix, she'll just go and see who's streaming right now. And there's always a handful of folks who are walking around the parks streaming live. And they're very pleasant and it's just relaxing, it's nice in the background. Just kind of a pleasant little feel good thing.

[Jason DeFilippo]

So the thing about this is that. Do you guys remember Justin TV before it turned into Twitch?

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yeah.

[Jason DeFilippo]

I had a Justin TV streamer that I lived with for about 10 seconds who I made remove the device, the streaming device that Justin TV gave them. It was a hat, which made a hell of a lot more sense than having to carry this thing and point it everywhere all the damn time. You know, you'd think that at least on that side the tech would become a little bit more compact and you could just kind of put it in your pocket and put the hat on and use one of the new, like maybe one of the new Insta360 cameras so you get the full range of 360°, you know, coverage instead of having to point this thing all the time and move it around. I don't know, I just, I feel like that they're missing an opportunity to actually miniaturize this. Maybe put it on, clip on your shoulder, like, you know, little body cam type of thing. I don't know. I think that there's other ways to do this that would be a little better than having to carry the fucking thing all day.

[Dave Bittner]

Well, and I don't know what Disney's rules are and perhaps there's something to this where making it obvious what this person is doing makes it better from Disney's point of view, makes it better in terms of the other guests. So that if you don't want to be on camera, you can see and try to avoid this sort of thing. I mean, they can't. There's no practical way to keep a regular person from streaming from inside of the park, just their phone. There's just no way.

[Jason DeFilippo]

And this is going to get easier and easier. As you know, you've got your Meta glasses, your Ray Bans that can do that already you're going to have snap button. I think Snap's coming out with more glasses that do this stuff, it's going to be easier to do. But I just think this is a, a great setup. But I want to know what that software is. I like geeky looking software. You know, me.

[Dave Bittner]

Yeah. No, I had to resist. Well, because he was working, otherwise I would have struck up a conversation with him.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Working.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Working.

[Brian Schulmeister]

He was working. Fuck's sake.

[Dave Bittner]

I'm sorry. Says the guys on a sponsored podcast. We're making fun of the guy. Live streaming at Disney. Okay, sure.

[Brian Schulmeister]

I don't claim this is work, Dave.

[Dave Bittner]

Well, I do.

[Brian Schulmeister]

I know you do.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Oh, my goodness.

[Dave Bittner]

I don't know what kind of money these folks pull in, but I could totally see this being like a retirement supplemental income kind of.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Oh, God, I was totally thinking that myself, Dave. I was like, well, I know what I'm going to do when I retire, right? Get myself the annual pass and just go stream. Yeah, here I am having another churro, motherfuckers.

[Jason DeFilippo]

That you paid for. You'd be like Bezos in his rocket.

[Dave Bittner]

Yeah. I saw someone who did this. My wife had a distant relative who did this sort of thing at casinos.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Oh, they definitely have rules about that.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah.

[Dave Bittner]

But, like, somehow he struck a deal with a casino where he would sit in front of, like, let's say, a video poker machine or a video slot machine, and he would just play and he would promote the casino and he would play, and people would. But people would give him money to watch him play. So all these people all over. Who are. You see a lot of people who are shut in or can't get out, and they're.

[Brian Schulmeister]

How do we find these people, Jason? The people that will just give us money. We need to cater to more shut ins, apparently.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Telling you.

[Dave Bittner]

Right.

[Jason DeFilippo]

I wonder if the casino put them in front of machines that they knew were rigged to pay off better.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Probably.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah. I'm guessing that they probably tweaked it just bad.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Like a little hair A little bit. Yeah.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah. Look how much money I made today. Because you don't want the guy who just sits there, the guy who loses all the time, because nobody's going to want to come to your casino. Like, oh, man, those machines suck.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Right?

[Dave Bittner]

Right. Yeah, that's a good point. I think also the thing with all of these things and. And I think it was the same with blogs and then ultimately podcasts, is.

[Jason DeFilippo]

It'S fun that everybody fucks it up for us.

[Dave Bittner]

Exactly. Right. The people who are the pioneers have the opportunity to monetize this, to build an audience and monetize it. And then everybody else. Whoops, Everybody else comes along. Okay. I just spilled liquid all over my desk. Oh, this is bad. People come along. Oh, God, there's ice cubes and. Geez Louise.

[Jason DeFilippo]

All right, do you need to take a break and clean that up?

[Dave Bittner]

Well, yeah, this is why I put My laptop on a little bumper thing here. All right. I don't have paper towels.

[Brian Schulmeister]

We're absolutely not cutting this.

[Dave Bittner]

Okay, stand by. I'll be right back. Just gotta get some towels. Hold on. Be right back.

[Brian Schulmeister]

We now join the live stream from Dave's desk. We can see the ice melting into the laptop.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Melting. Oh, crap.

[Brian Schulmeister]

It's asmr.

[Dave Bittner]

Okay, so pro tip. Don't, don't, don't put your earbud in the water when you find a towel.

[Brian Schulmeister]

I can see how Dave's Disneyland retirement livestream is going to be going. I have once again dropped my camera into the dole whip.

[Dave Bittner]

Yeah, yeah, exactly. If you've ever wondered what underwater looks like on pirates. Disaster averted. That was. That could have been a lot worse. So thank you for your patience. And now my desk will simply be sticky soon. But all right. Fortunately, I missed anything electronic. Didn't get the keyboard. Didn't get the laptop. Didn't get the Apollo. Didn't get the trackpad. Just the desk.

[Brian Schulmeister]

And you know, not too many years ago, that actually would have been hazardous to your health. Now these things are pretty safe.

[Dave Bittner]

What do you mean?

[Brian Schulmeister]

Well, like, you know, 20 years ago, if you would have spilled water on a desk with all this equipment, like, you might have gotten electrocuted.

[Dave Bittner]

Yeah. There would have been like actual voltage. Yeah, yeah, that's true. That's true. All right. Sorry about that. Intermission. I'm back.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Okay, I guess we can move on. Please talk about the end of an era here. Dr. Demento, his long running comedy show helped introduce the world to Weird Al Yankovic, Cheech and Chong and more. Is ending his broadcast career after 55 years. Now, I have not listened to Dr. Demento in probably 40 plus years, but I think I will be in the near future. He will end production on the show following its October 11, 2025 episode. From now until then, episodes will focus on the show's history, greatest moments and most beloved novelty songs. I can already hear Pico and Sepulveda in my head. The final broadcast in October will be dedicated of the top 40 songs in the program's history. So it's been around since 1974 to 2010 on nationally syndicated radio and then it transitioned fully online where he's continued to broadcast via his official website. I will be tuning in for the last shows for sure.

[Dave Bittner]

Yeah, yeah, the guy's a legend. I mean, for certainly for our generation. And I think probably the greatest thing he did was gave us Weird Al.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yeah. And he certainly spoke to the Spoke perfectly to the mind of say, a 9 to about 1212 year old.

[Dave Bittner]

Right, right. Well, I mean, beyond Weird Al. Does the novelty song really exist anymore?

[Brian Schulmeister]

No, no. Really?

[Jason DeFilippo]

No, no, only on Tick Tock.

[Brian Schulmeister]

I mean, who knows though? We don't listen to a show. Maybe there are a bunch of people out there that are sending in songs all the time. I haven't listened, like I said, In 40, almost 40 years.

[Dave Bittner]

Yeah, it's true.

[Jason DeFilippo]

I didn't know he was still around. Honestly, I didn't know he's still doing his show. Check it out. For sure.

[Dave Bittner]

When I was a kid we had a DJ here on one of our local radio stations, WFBR in Baltimore and his name was Johnny Walker. Original, I know, but he was very much in the style and spirit of Dr. Demento. He was a morning drive time wacky kind of DJ kind of guy. And I think he was kind of my gateway drug into Dr. Demento. But yeah, well, I mean, good for him. I have nothing but fond feelings for Dr. Demento and Happy that he's been able to do what he loves to do for this long. And I wish him a good retirement. He's earned it.

[Brian Schulmeister]

I understand he's going to go start live streaming at Disneyland now.

[Dave Bittner]

Why not? Why not? The last thing I put in here was remember last time we were wondering about how some of these animations were made that we had that Star wars vlogging kind of thing the. The two Stormtroopers and I stumbled upon another thing is just a couple of Darth Vader and a couple of Stormtroopers playing some heavy metal music. But the person who did it tagged it on how they created it and using. They said they use Google labs, whisk and VO2, which is Google's. Yeah little animation thing. So I guess you can make videos eight seconds at a time using these tools. I have not yet played with them but. But I have.

[Jason DeFilippo]

They're pretty, pretty impressive.

[Dave Bittner]

Is that right?

[Jason DeFilippo]

I have not played with Whisk yet. I just bookmarked that. I'm going to put that into the queue for later. But I have been playing with Google's AI Studio and stuff lately and you can do some interesting stuff but don't expect to get it right the first hundred times. You're still throwing stuff at the wall, hoping that you get something out and then. And it doesn't have really, you can't. There's no like, like permanence between or persistence between clips. So you can't have the same character animated twice. You got to kind of be very specific about your prompt and hopefully it'll give you something that looks kind of like the person in the previous one, so you can kind of stitch it together, do get the back of the head shot, you know. It's difficult. It's very difficult. But I gotta say though, ever since we did that bit about the Stormtrooper vlog, every. Every single character, AI driven piece of crap software for iOS and Android that, you know, you put in the name and the filter and all that stuff, every single one of them on Instagram has used that vlog as part of their advertising, saying, hey, if you want to do something like this, come check out our software. Then when you go and check out the reviews, they're like, hey, you can't do that with this. Liars, of course.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Oh, well, yeah, of course. Stage capitalism strikes again.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Indeed. But it's pretty cool. Yeah, it's good. Yeah. No, I definitely recommend checking out some of the video stuff just for shits and giggles. You're not going to get anything useful out of it without a lot of patience and a lot of extra money. Right, right.

[Dave Bittner]

All right, well, I gotta go.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Finish.

[Dave Bittner]

Cleaning off my desk here.

[Jason DeFilippo]

So they always say in the Hitchhiker's Guide, you always got to bring a towel.

[Dave Bittner]

I do. I look. I had a towel within arm's reach, so it paid off. There you go. See? All right, thanks, guys. Talk to you soon.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Closing shout out over at Patreon, we've got two new subscribers, Ricky and Scott. Thank you so much. Daniel, up their pledge and from the archives, Thomas, Doug, Bloody in love. I like big books. William, Jack, jc, David, Jeremy and Gil. Thank you all so much.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Thank you so much. And over at PayPal, we've got Brett, Lydia, Andrew, Sloan, Arcadio, Tom, Nathaniel, and Robert with a $74 donation.

[Jason DeFilippo]

And by the way, that was Linda, not Lydia. I'm sorry, Linda, I don't want to. I don't want to diss Linda because Linda's given us the coin. Okay, thank you, Linda. Over at the tip jar, we've got Damien, who says, keep on keeping on fellow Gen X grumps. Sending along a little tip on this day for dads. So thank you very much. And Sean, California vibe and another $100 tip from Thomas. God damn big T. Bring it on.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Thank you.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Thank you. Unfortunately, no merch this week, but I would like to let everybody know that if you do want to support the show, you can go to patreon.com gog Sign up for as little as $3 a month, you get the show a little bit early ad free. And in high definition, you can give more than $3 if you like. And if you pay for the whole year, you get a discount. Don't know why. They just do that for some reason or other. Thanks for taking our money, Patreon, but we appreciate every single penny. So thank you very much. You are keeping the show alive.

[Brian Schulmeister]

All right. And we did get a new 5 star review this week.

[Jason DeFilippo]

What?

[Brian Schulmeister]

Real talk in a crazy world. They're not the kind of men who tend to glamorize. They seem to lean on objectively efficient ways they ain't no fools for hyperbole that targets hopes and fears. Still grumpy after all these. These years.

[Jason DeFilippo]

I don't think anybody major died this week, knock on wood. Except Anne Burrell from the Food Network, which was a shock.

[Brian Schulmeister]

I could see that. Yeah, that was very upsetting.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah, yeah. Waiting on the. Waiting on that one. But until next time, I'm Jason DeFilippo.

[Brian Schulmeister]

And I'm Brian Schillmeister. Thanks for listening to grumpy old geeks. I can pretty much say anything I want here right now because I'm an American and I like to cuss and nobody's listening at this point. Anyways, we're number one. We're number one. Get all the links and goodies from Today's episode at GOG Show. 702. Want to keep the grumpiness alive? Toss a few bucks our way at GOG Show. Donate every penny. Helps keep the show on the air. Love the show. Share it. There's a share button in your podcast player. Use it to spread the grumpiness to friends, foes, and everyone in between. We'll love you for it. Swing by GOG show to join our discord and chat with us and other show fans. Got thoughts? Feedback? Cool links? Hit us up at GOG Show Contact. And 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. Merch. Snag your grumpy gear now atshop.gger show. Stay grumpy.