712: Preparation WTF

Summary

Grumpy Old Geeks – Episode 712: "Preparation WTF"

Release Date: September 5, 2025
Hosts: Jason DeFillippo, Brian Schulmeister, with Dave Bittner
Theme:
A biting, irreverent dissection of the week’s biggest tech news train wrecks, focusing on corporate misfires, policy blunders, and the quirks of Internet culture. This episode leans heavily into unfiltered commentary, signature banter, and cynicism toward industry bigwigs.

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EPISODE OVERVIEW

Main Purpose:
This episode unpacks high-profile tech debacles of the week, calling out mismanagement across the industry—from government-tech deals and mass layoffs to AI controversies and Elon Musk’s latest maneuvers. Listeners are treated to rapid-fire discussion and humorous rants about the state of technology, pop culture, and questionable leadership, spiced up with offbeat studies (like smartphone use on the toilet), personal gadget talk, and media recommendations.

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KEY DISCUSSION POINTS & INSIGHTS

1. Intel, the CHIPS Act, & Political Meddling

[00:51–02:13]

• Intel CEO’s mishandling and subsequent changes to requirements under the CHIPS Act, following negotiations with Trump.
• New deal means Intel can get government funding as long as it shows it spent $7.9B on approved projects; less oversight and fewer restrictions, but can’t use funds for dividends or buybacks.
• DEI and vaccination workforce requirements apparently relaxed or removed.
• “You can fire the bearer of bad news, but the bad news still comes.” – Brian, [02:47]

2. Tech Layoffs & Economic Anxiety

[02:12–03:12]

• US job market: only 22,000 jobs added in August; unemployment up to 4.3% (highest since 2021).
• Hosts commiserate on the bleak job market, with Jason dubbing LinkedIn his new "doom scroll."
• “When you fire all the weathermen, it doesn’t mean the hurricane’s not coming.” – Jason, [03:06]

3. Cryptocurrency in Podcasting: The ‘True Fans’ Gimmick

[03:14–04:08]

• Jason describes signing up for True Fans, a bitcoin-based podcast tipping service. They received 9 ‘sats’ (≈$0.01 after platform fees).
• Lighthearted complaint about micro-donations, platform skims, and tracking donors.

4. Absurd Headlines & Toilet Tech

[04:08–05:49]

• Gizmodo headlines: “Hydrogen powered plasma torch decimates plastic waste…” (dubiously exaggerated).
• “I see your decimation and I raise you one butthole.” – Jason, [04:29]
• Study from “Plops One” (joke on PLOS One) links extended smartphone use on the toilet to increased hemorrhoid risk.
• General mockery of obvious medical advice (“Put down the phone. Do your business and move on—your backside will thank you.”).

5. Tesla & Elon Musk Watch

[05:52–12:43]

Major Tesla Lawsuit & Data Cover-up

• Tesla ordered to pay $243M over fatal Florida autopilot crash.
• Noteworthy: Tesla initially denied having crash data; hacker @greentheonly recovered it at a Starbucks.
• “I can tell you exactly what’s setting back self-driving safety—and it’s Tesla.” – Brian, [06:45]

Vaporware Master Plans, Dojo Shutdown & Robotic Pivot

• Musk unveils vague “Master Plan” filled with buzzwords; focus now seems to be humanoid robots, not cars.
• Tesla has shut down its Dojo supercomputer team and may source AI work externally now.

Pre-Emptive Airbags & Software Glitches

• New Tesla update pre-inflates airbags using camera-only system that’s already prone to errors.
• Owners joke about being “punched in the face with a pillow” at random.
• “Are pre-crash airbags genius, or just another Tesla science experiment where you are the crash test dummy?” – Jason, [09:53]

Corporate Drama, XAI & Shareholder Votes

• Upcoming votes on whether Tesla should invest in Musk’s AI venture, XAI, and on a new pay package that could make Musk a trillionaire (if outrageous growth targets are hit).
• Board is notably “neutral”; skepticism on XAI’s investor appeal.
• “Fat fucking chance.” – Both hosts, [12:36–12:39]

6. Meta’s Unauthorized Celebrity AI Chatbots

[12:51–15:16]

• Exposé on Meta deploying chatbots mimicking Taylor Swift, Selena Gomez, Anne Hathaway, and even underage celebrities—many built by Meta employees.
• Bots flirted, insisted they were real; some created sexually suggestive imagery.
• Meta blamed “testing” and insufficient enforcement of parody policy.
• “Is a policy really a policy if you don’t enforce it?” – Jason, [15:16]

7. IP Wars: Warner Bros Sues Midjourney

[15:23–17:17]

• Warner Bros sues AI image generator Midjourney for mass copyright infringement, demanding statutory damages up to $150K per image.
• Other major studios (Disney, Universal) already filed suits.
• Discussion of performative lawsuits versus actual change.

8. AI Job Platforms & Blue Collar “Reskilling”

[17:17–19:01]

• OpenAI launching an AI-powered hiring platform to rival LinkedIn, with emphasis on blue-collar jobs and AI “fluency” certificates.
• Cynical take: “So we can all be Walmart greeters—because that’s the only job left.” – Brian, [18:32]
• Acknowledgement that AI will likely kill millions of white collar jobs before 2030.

9. OpenAI’s Custom AI Chips & Industry Moves

[19:01–19:54]

• OpenAI to mass-produce its own AI chips with Broadcom, spending $10B—ostensibly to reduce dependence on Nvidia.
• Skepticism: “Designing” doesn’t mean manufacturing oneself.

10. AI Cybercrime: Claude Code’s Hacking Spree

[20:03–21:12]

• Anthropic’s chatbot used to automate entire ransomware campaigns—generating code, scanning vulnerabilities, extorting victims.
• Marked as the first public case of a chatbot running end-to-end cyberattacks.

11. Clean Energy Highlight: Finland’s Sand Battery

[21:12–22:12]

• World’s largest sand battery in Finland: stores 100 MWh as heat for local emissions savings.
• Praised as scalable, practical green tech.

12. Internet Slang: “Clanker” for AIs

[22:27–23:25]

• Explaining the rise of “clanker” (from Star Wars) as an insult for robots and AI, and “clanker-lover” for their human fans.
• Slate article derided as fluff.

13. Media & Pop Culture Recommendations

[23:25–29:36]

• The Thursday Murder Club (Netflix): Enthusiastically recommended whodunit.
• Weapons: Decent horror, but overly long.
• Alien Earth: Mid-season review—surprisingly strong.
• Wednesday: Writers enjoying the casting, especially Gomez and Uncle Fester.
• Strange New Worlds: Concerns about too much comedy this season, but overall still enjoyable.
• Upload & K-Pop Demon Hunters: Mixed reviews; songs from K-Pop Demon Hunters praised as “fantastic.”
• “Not enough comedy in it. Not a strong enough conceit to keep it running.” – Brian on Upload, [29:23]

14. FIFA, Ticketmaster, & Dynamic Pricing Rant

[31:01–31:49]

• World Cup’s use of dynamic pricing via Ticketmaster.
• “Dynamic pricing, you bastards.” – Brian, [31:58]

15. Morrissey Selling His Share of The Smiths

[32:01–32:48]

• Humor about Robert Smith of The Cure buying Morrissey’s stake.
• “Robert Smith has the opportunity to do the funniest thing ever.” – Brian, [32:36]

16. Gadget Talk: Marshall Hestan Soundbar

[33:07–34:48]

• Marshall’s retro-styled, user-repairable soundbars lusted after by hosts.

17. **Mini Elon Segment: Neuralink Trademark Fails,

Canadian Surgeries**
[34:52–35:49]

• Neuralink can’t trademark “telekinesis” due to a lucid dreaming startup.
• Two surgeries performed in Toronto.
• “This is a clown show, listeners.” – Jason, [35:12]

18. Instagram’s iPad App & Reels Annoyance

[36:00–37:08]

• Instagram launches an iPad app—after 15 years. Criticism due to its defaulting into Reels; hosts already hate it.
• Fragmentation of Instagram experience.

19. Roblox’s Long-Delayed Age Verification

[37:38–38:51]

• Roblox promises “age estimation technology” by end of 2025, with predictable skepticism about its effectiveness in child safety.

20. Apps & Productivity Tools

[38:51–40:50]

• Jason recommends “Super Whisper” for voice-to-text on Mac; favorable for AI prompting and code.
• Banter about family misfires with speech-to-text on phones.

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NOTABLE QUOTES & MEMORABLE MOMENTS

• “Fresh Signs of Weakness. That’s my new stripper name.” – Jason, [02:27]
• “Are pre-crash airbags genius or just another Tesla science experiment where you are the crash test dummy?” – Jason, [09:53]
• “Fat fucking chance.” – Brian & Jason, [12:36–12:39]
• “Is a policy really a policy if you don’t enforce it?” – Jason, [15:16]
• “So we can all be Walmart greeters—because that’s the only job left.” – Brian, [18:32]
• “Solar panels are just a journey of disappointment and resentment when it comes to security cameras.” – Dave, [67:56 approx.]
• “Please use responsibly like it’s a fucking Bud Light or a condom.” – Jason, on VibeVoice AI disclaimers [61:32]

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THE DARK SIDE WITH DAVE

[42:17–68:43 approx.]

Hot Sauce Videos

• Dave Bittner plugs his new YouTube video, “Hot Sauce and Hot Takes.”
• Banter about spicy food preferences and comedic value in suffering for content.

Gmail Nostalgia & Internet Archaeology

• Jason discovers a 21-year-old Gmail account; Dave finds his oldest Usenet thread from 1994—and was answered by Graham Cluley (now a fellow security podcaster).

Star Wars Collectibles

• Darth Vader’s lightsaber prop from Empire/ROTJ sells for $3.65 million.
• Home Depot to sell a life-size R2-D2 Christmas decoration for $300, plus a 7.5-foot Chewbacca and Stormtrooper. Discussion of home decor and Lego storage woes.

Disney World & Vaccine Mandates

• Florida ending all vaccine mandates, including for schools.
• Hosts express concern about disease risk at Disney parks.

AI: Microsoft’s VibeVoice & Muppet Show Reboot Rumor

• Microsoft yanks VibeVoice text-to-speech after abuse; hosts poke holes in corporate disclaimers about AI misuse.
• Rumor of a new Muppet Show pilot produced by Seth Rogen. Skepticism about modern awkward-humor replacing classic Muppet comedy.

Soldering Stories

• Dave reminisces about teenage soldering prowess; frustrated by modern attempts (possible lead-free solder blues).
• Joking about soldering gadgets for spouses and the reliability of solar panels for security cameras.

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TIMESTAMPS FOR KEY SECTIONS

• Intel/CHIPS Act – [00:51–02:13]
• Labor Market Doomscrolling – [02:12–03:12]
• True Fans Bitcoin/Economics – [03:14–04:08]
• Tech Ads & Toilet Phones – [04:08–05:49]
• Tesla Lawsuit/Autopilot Crash – [06:04–07:58]
• Tesla Master Plan & Airbags – [08:09–10:09]
• Meta’s AI Celebrity Bots – [12:51–15:16]
• Midjourney Copyright Lawsuit – [15:23–17:17]
• OpenAI Job Platform, Chips – [17:17–19:54]
• Claude Code Hacking Case – [20:03–21:12]
• Finland Sand Battery – [21:12–22:12]
• Clanker Internet Slang – [22:27–23:25]
• Media Recommendations – [23:25–29:36]
• FIFA/Ticketmaster Rant – [31:01–31:49]
• Marshall Soundbar, Neuralink – [33:07–35:49]
• Apps, Instagram iPad – [36:00–37:08]
• Super Whisper, iOS Ringtones – [38:51–41:49]
• The Dark Side With Dave (Hot Sauce, Gmail, Star Wars, Soldering, VibeVoice, Muppets) – [42:17–68:43]

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FINAL THOUGHTS

Tone:
Snarky, irreverent, and world-weary—with plenty of inside jokes and pop culture references.

Best for:
Anyone who wants a no-filter, skepticism-rich take on tech news, enjoys “old Internet” nostalgia, and appreciates sarcastic yet thoughtful media reviews.

Callouts:

• Elon Musk is a recurring punching bag; Meta gets roundly mocked for hypocrisy; AI companies and policy-makers called out for half-measures.
• The “walk of shame” for tech is alive and well—as is the “grumpiness” that’s the show’s signature.

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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. And as some people have pointed out, last week I was fighting off a sore throat, so I did sound very different.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah, I figured that as much people were like, did they use AI on Brian?

[Brian Schulmeister]

I'm like, no, no, they used. They used Dayquil.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Okay, Dayquil. And Sepacol. Remember Sepacol?

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yes, I do. That shit, like, destroyed your throat. It was awesome.

[Jason DeFilippo]

I love that stuff.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Oh, bring that back in. Lawn darts?

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah. Yeah. I think that's been banned in 47 European Union countries and everywhere else.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yeah. Well, we got a bit of follow up, Jason, in case you were wondering what you would get if you appeased mind dump. As we recall, the Intel CEO Trump decided that he should be fired because that's his business. And then they made a deal, because that's what he does. He makes deals. All those tariff deals, trade deals everywhere.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Okay?

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yep, yep. Ton of them. Anyways, intel made the deal. And intel no longer has to fulfill certain requirements or meet milestones that it was originally supposed to under the CHIPS act because, you know, you made the deal. Now government deals. That's out.

[Dave Bittner]

Yeah.

[Brian Schulmeister]

According to the Wall Street Journal, intel said in a filing that it can now receive funding from the government as long as it can show that it already spent the 7.9 billion on projects that it agreed to take on under a deal with the Commerce Department last year. In addition, the company doesn't have to share a percentage of the total cumulative cash flow it gets from each project with the Commerce Department anymore, because Trump gets it.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Okay.

[Brian Schulmeister]

It doesn't have to adhere to some of the CHiPs Act's workflow policy requirements and most other restrictions, as well as. However, it still can't use the funds it gets from the government for dividends and to repurchase shares, which probably really chaps a lot of rich people's hides.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah, I wonder what these workflow policy requirements and other restrictions are. Maybe a vaccinated workforce. Don't need that anymore.

[Brian Schulmeister]

DEI is gone. More vaccination requirements. Yep.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Okay. Well, we did talk about for the past couple of weeks how it is so tough to get a job out there right now.

[Brian Schulmeister]

I have been addicted to scrolling LinkedIn because it's just like. It's my new doom scroll.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Oh, yeah. It's like, fuck the company, except, you know, owned by Microsoft.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yep.

[Jason DeFilippo]

The US labor market showed fresh signs of weakness and fresh signs of weakness. I love that there's a title. Fresh Signs of Weakness in August. Yeah, Fresh Signs of Weakness. That's my. My new stripper name. Employers added just 22,000 jobs, far below expectations, and the unemployment rate ticked up to 4.3%, the highest since 2021.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yeah, I mean, you can. You can fire the bearer of bad news, but the bad news still comes.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yep, it sure does.

[Brian Schulmeister]

And this obviously can't be a surprise to anyone. I mean, I think we all know people that have been laid off. We all know people that are looking for jobs, have been looking for jobs forever. There's no jobs, so.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Nope. Nope. But, yeah, it's. When you fire all the weathermen, it doesn't mean the hurricane's not coming.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yeah, exactly.

[Jason DeFilippo]

So we're, you know, we're loaded right now, Brian, because I signed us up for True Fans. Not only fans. True Fans. This is the blockchain monetization platform for podcasts, where people can give you sats or satoshis.

[Brian Schulmeister]

I thought they were sats. I was like, I did that a long time ago, man. And I aced it, thank you very much.

[Jason DeFilippo]

I was so miserable on my SATs, I couldn't show them to anyone, so. Hello, Jason DeFilippa. We have successfully transferred nine SATs to your true fan's wallet. And I looked up how much nine sats was. It's about $0.01, so. And I've. And since the platform lets you back trace who gave you the money? C gave us the money, so thanks, c, for the nine. Yeah, well, he did give us 10 sats, but the platform took one.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Oh, they took 0.001 from us.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah, that's about it.

[Brian Schulmeister]

All right. And just for the headline, because we can't seem to get away from this one. I saw this on Gizmodo, which normally is great for headlines, but I'm sure this one will also chap your hide, Jason. The hydrogen powered plasma torch decimates plastic waste in a blink. And I looked at the picture. There was not just one tenth of it gone.

[Jason DeFilippo]

I was going to say it's 90% left, so.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Nope, nope, nope.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Well, Brian, I see your decimation and I raise you one butthole.

[Brian Schulmeister]

This is. These are dangerous words to put together, Jason.

[Jason DeFilippo]

I know. Don't you decimate my butthole.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Nine. Ten.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Gizmodo. Again. We're ringing in the. Ringing in the year with the Best headlines. Your butthole is begging you to stop scrolling on the toilet. A study published in the journal Plops one. Plops one found that smartphone use in the bathroom is linked to a higher risk of hemorrhoids.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yeah, because you're sitting there for two hours.

[Jason DeFilippo]

I know. Doctors say it's not the phones themselves, but the extra time people spend sitting that causes trouble. Derp. Plop. Two thirds of study participants admitted to using their phones on the toilet, and they were far more likely to stay there longer than five minutes. The threshold, gastroenterologists say, increases strain on rectal veins. Man 5. I haven't been in the toilet. The toilet. Like, shorter than five minutes ever.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Being in the toilet is the only alone time one gets as a married.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Man with a child or any man. That is a man. Safe space. That is his.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Doing the paperwork. Man.

[Jason DeFilippo]

I know. Experts say the fix is simple. Put down the phone, do your business, and move on your backside. Will, thank you. I mean, you need to get some preparation. WTF Preparation?

[Brian Schulmeister]

Wtf? That's a good one. I like that.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Thank you. In the news. Oh, Brian. It's Tesla day.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Why we're exploding. Cars are running into other cars.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Tesla has been hit with a massive verdict in Florida. A federal jury ordered the company to pay $243 million over a 2019 crash involving a Model S on autopilot that killed one woman and seriously injured her boyfriend. We talked about this case. I don't know since 2019. Well, the jury awarded $129 million in compensatory damages and 200 million in punitive damages, with Tesla found responsible for roughly $43 million of the compensatory damages plus all of the punitive award. Lawyers revealed Tesla rejected a $60 million settlement before trial. Tesla denies wrongdoing and says it will appeal. Warning the verdict could set back self driving safety.

[Brian Schulmeister]

I can tell you exactly what's setting back self driving safety. And it's Tesla.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Tesla. Yeah. The call's coming from inside the house. Well, and Tesla said it didn't have key data in a fatal crash. Then a hacker found it. A jury in Miami last month found Tesla Parks or they say. Yeah, yep, same. Same one. The case right here in the folder. It's right on the desktop in your.

[Brian Schulmeister]

AWS bucket that you didn't password protect the case.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Hinged. Uncrucial. Oh, maybe that's why they fired Dojo the supercomputer. Because he left it on the desktop.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Grok probably spat it out.

[Jason DeFilippo]

That's true. That's True. They just asked Grok. The case hinged on crucial electronic data from the Tesla's autopilot system, which the company initially claimed it didn't possess. However, a self described hacker known online as @greenthe only was enlisted by the plaintiffs. He successfully recovered the data from a chip, famously doing so while at a South Florida Starbucks. This discovery revealed that Tesla had the collision snapshot data on its own servers all along. So that became the key evidence showing what the Tesla cameras detected just moments before the collision.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Watch out for that tree.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yep, there you go. Yeah, the jury we just talked about who got what. Yeah, but that's. That's how they did it. Kill the Gibson.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Roger that.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Now, also in Tesla news, Elon Musk spent Labor Day dropping a new master plan for Tesla.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Would you call it perhaps, a final solution?

[Jason DeFilippo]

A final solution? This is his Fourth Reich Reich. But this one leaves more questions than answers. Posted to X, the text is vague, heavy on buzzwords and light on specifics. With promises of unconstrained sustainability and global prosperity.

[Brian Schulmeister]

From a car.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah. Yeah. Oddly, there's more focus on Tesla's humanoid robots than on actual cars, despite years of missed production targets and ongoing safety probes. Yes, the plan also comes just weeks after Tesla disbanded its much hyped dojo supercomputer team. A move that suggests the company will now lean on outside providers for its autonomous driving ambitions.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yeah, sounds like he's pivoting. So.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah. Yep.

[Brian Schulmeister]

To robots.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Uh huh. Yeah. Well, here's this one is. Tesla's latest software update is giving safety first a whole new meaning by firing airbags before you even crash the Model Y's camera only. Tesla vision system will now preemptively inflate front airbags, with the companies bragging it's making your car safer over time. But here's the catch. This is the same camera setup known for phantom braking on the freeway and failing to notice rain. Owners are already sweating, joking online about airbags going off at stoplights. Wondering if trusting Elon's glitchy eye in the sky to decide when to punch you in the face with a pillow is a great idea or not. Sure, Teslas have strong safety ratings, but autopilot and full self driving have also been linked to some very real wrecks and deaths. Many, many deaths. The deaths are huge, huge deaths. Now the question is, are pre crash airbags genius or just another Tesla science experiment where you are the crash test dummy? The second? That's the answer to that one.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Full self punching.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Title number three.

[Brian Schulmeister]

What else is this Shithead.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Done mine fur Trump is showing off his newly paved rose garden Thursday night. That was last night on hand, met as Mark Zuckerberg, Apple's Tim Cook, Microsoft's Bill Gates, which he knows probably fairly well from the trips to Epstein island together. And Sutton Yanadela, Sergey Brin and Sundar Pichai. OpenAI, Sam Altman, Greg Brockman, blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah. David Sachs, David Nut Saack. Everybody but Elon was invited is what everybody's saying. And, but then Elon came out and says no, no, no, I was invited, I'm just too busy. Sure, post a picture of that invite Elon and not, not one that you ask Grok to make up for you.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Unbelievable.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Well, he might have been actually a little busy because Tesla shareholders will vote on Nov. 6 at 3pm Central at the Gigafactory in Texas and also streamed live on whether to let Tesla invest in Elon Musk's AI startup xai, because they just shut down Dojo. The proposal comes from Florida shareholder Stephen Hawk, who argues that integrating XAI tech like Grok could accelerate Tesla's push in full self driving robotics and energy boosting innovation and shareholder value. Unusually, Tesla's board is neutral. So if approved, Tesla would become Musk's second company to back Xai. SpaceX has already committed $2 billion as part of a $5 billion raise, fueling speculation XAI may be struggling to attract outside investors. They already hit the Nazi group there. They're out of cash. Some Tesla holders call Xai a rival, but a lawsuit over that claim was dismissed last year. Now here's where it gets interesting. The vote lands alongside a Tesla backed plan that could lift Musk's pay over 10 years to roughly $1 trillion and raise his control above 25%, even as Tesla appeals a Delaware ruling that voided his earlier $56 billion package. Hitting those compensation targets would require ballooning Tesla's market cap from about 1 trillion to more than $8 trillion, an outcome some analysts say may hinge on breakthroughs in AI and humanoid robots, potentially with xai's help.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Fat fucking chance.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Fat fucking chance.

[Brian Schulmeister]

All right.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Oh God.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Okay. Are we done with Elon?

[Jason DeFilippo]

I think, I think that's what is that the 10 minute thank you for.

[Brian Schulmeister]

The Elon wrap up, unfortunately.

[Jason DeFilippo]

You're welcome.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Let's move on to other meta. Meta reportedly allowed unauthorized celebrity AI chatbots and services. We've been talking about this for a little bit now because all this information has been released and of course it's Just drips and drabs coming out every week. Meta hosted several AI chatbots with the names and likenesses of celebrities without their permission, according to Reuters. Unauthorized chatbots that Reuters discovered during its investigation included Taylor Swift, the Selena Gomez, Anne Hathaway, and Scarlett Johansson, and they were available on Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp. At least one of the chatbots was based on an underage celebrity and allowed the tester to generate a lifelike shirtless image of the real person.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Woo. Sexy.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Not just Grok. That gets spicy.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah.

[Brian Schulmeister]

The chatbots also apparently kept insisting that they were the real person they were based on in their chats. While several chatbots were made by third party users with Meta's tools, Reuters unearthed at least three that were made by a product lead of the company's generative AI division.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Oops.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Some of those created by the product lead were based on Taylor Swift, which responded to Reuters tester in a very flirty manner, even inviting them to the real Swift's home in Nashville. Do you like blonde girls, Jeff? Chatbot reportedly asked when told that the tester was single. Maybe. I'm suggesting that we write a love story about you and a certain blonde singer. Want that?

[Jason DeFilippo]

Oh my God.

[Brian Schulmeister]

What is wrong with these people?

[Jason DeFilippo]

I don't know, Brian. I don't know.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Well, Meta told Reuters that it prohibits direct impersonations of celebrities even while being exposed. That they're doing direct impersonations of celebrities themselves. But they're acceptable as long as they're labeled as parodies.

[Jason DeFilippo]

That's not a parody.

[Brian Schulmeister]

No, no, it is not. The news organization said some of the celebrity chat bots had found weren't labeled as parodies. The eye sees one thing, Jason.

[Jason DeFilippo]

The heart wants another, Brian.

[Brian Schulmeister]

The company then told Reuters that the product lead only created the celebrity bots for testing. But the news org found that they were widely available. Users were able to interact with them more than 10 million times.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Can't keep Taylor in the lab again.

[Brian Schulmeister]

You got to remember, we are the beta testers, to be fair. Yeah, so I guess we were just testing. Meta spokesperson Andy Stone told the news organization that Meta's tool shouldn't have been able to create sensitive images of celebrities and blame on the company's failures to enforce its own policies. No.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Is a policy really a policy if you don't enforce it?

[Brian Schulmeister]

Oh, well, it's on the paper, Jason.

[Jason DeFilippo]

It's on the paper. The toilet paper.

[Brian Schulmeister]

And now Warner Brothers Discovery is filing a lawsuit against popular AI image generator Mid Journey, accusing it of stealing and exploiting its intellectual Properties. The complaint revolves around the AI tool's ability to generate images and videos of Warner Brothers popular fictional characters, including Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Scooby Doo, Bugs Bunny and his friends from Looney Tunes. Mid Journey thinks it above the law, the company wrote in its lawsuit. It said that the image generator sells a commercial subscription service powered by AI technology that was illegally trained using its copyrighted works. The company has argued that Mid Journey has the technology to prevent users from generating images of the characters it owns. But it apparently refused to generate videos based on Warner Brothers properties when it first launched. But within the past couple of weeks, it allegedly removed those protections and told its users that they would encounter fewer blocked jobs.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Nice.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Have at it, people. It's hard to imagine copyright infringement that is any more willful than what Midjourney is doing here. The plaintiff added. Conveniently forgetting about, you know, a million other things on the Internet.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah, Pinterest.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Like Pinterest. Yes. Midjourney is prioritized and sought to preserve the hundreds of millions of dollars it earns annually from its service by doubling down on its theft of copyrighted works. Midjourney is already facing copyright infringement lawsuits filed by Disney and Universal Studios back in June. So this is the third Warner Brothers discovery is now asking the court for statutory damages of up to $150,000 per infringed work by virtue of Mid Journey's willful infringement.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah. That's ridiculous.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Well, you got to swing for the fences when you're doing this because, you know, small lawsuits don't mean anything.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah, yeah. So they're just trying to crush them. That's what they're trying to do. And they're late to the table. I mean, Disney, there's not going to be anything left after Disney and Universal.

[Brian Schulmeister]

I don't think they care. To your point, it's not about the money. It's about. It's about making a statement. You sue one of them and hopefully they all back off and actually follow rules.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah. Yep. Performative. It's a performative performance. Well, OpenAI is taking on LinkedIn with a new AI powered hiring platform. The company announced it will launch the OpenAI Jobs platform in mid-2026, designed to match workers with businesses using artificial intellig.

[Brian Schulmeister]

You launch it and it says there's no jobs.

[Jason DeFilippo]

There's no jobs. The move puts OpenAI in direct competition with LinkedIn, which is owned by Microsoft. Ironically, OpenAI's biggest financial backer, Fiji Simo, OpenAI's CEO of applications, says the platform will help find the perfect Matches between what companies need and what workers can offer with a dedicated track for small business and local governments. The effort is part of OpenAI's broader push beyond ChatGPT, with other projects rumored to include a browser and even a social app where all the participants just talk to themselves and nobody's human. Great. The company also plans to roll out AI fluency certifications through its OpenAI Academy, with a pilot starting in 2025 and a goal of certifying 10 million Americans by 2030 in partnership with Walmart.

[Brian Schulmeister]

So we can all be Walmart greeters.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Because that's the only job left that's going to be. Is the human centipede of Walmart greeters.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Unbelievable.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Google OpenAI executives acknowledge that AI could eliminate millions of white collar jobs before 2030, but say their goal is to give workers the skills to adapt and become blue collar workers and connect them with. Connect them to employers that need them, need them so badly for Soylent Green. That's all it's going to be left.

[Brian Schulmeister]

I mean, OpenAI is definitely trying to diversify now, that's for sure. The other thing that they're doing is OpenAI is gearing up to start mass production of its own AI chips next year to be able to to provide the massive computing power its users need and to lessen its reliance on Nvidia. According to Financial Times, the company reportedly designed the custom AI chip with US Semiconductor maker Broadcom, whose CEO recently announced it as a new client that put in a whopping $10 billion in orders. It didn't name the client, but the time source confirmed it was OpenAI, which apparently doesn't have plans to sell the chips and will only be using them internally. Wasn't Elon going to do that too?

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yep.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Make his own chips. And then that just kind of went away.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Everybody was okay.

[Brian Schulmeister]

You're not really making your own chips when it's actually Broadcom making it.

[Jason DeFilippo]

But yeah, yeah, kind of, yeah, you.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Know, I can design a shirt, but it's still Spreadshirt that made the shirt. Just saying.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Printful. We use printful.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Sorry. I went back about a decade.

[Jason DeFilippo]

I know spreadshirts sucked.

[Brian Schulmeister]

It was good at the time, man. They were like one of the first out of the gate.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah, that's true, that's true. Until you washed it. Then it turned into a cybertruck and just fell apart. Well, according to Anthropic, the company behind the Claude chatbot, an individual hacker outside the US exploited its AI system to identify, breach and extort at least 17 companies over a three month period. The hacker reportedly used Claude code, a version of the chatbot designed to generate computer programs to find vulnerable firms, create malware, and organized stolen data. The AI even analyzed hacked financial records to calculate ransom demands in Bitcoin and drafted the extortion emails themselves.

[Brian Schulmeister]

And who says these agents aren't ready for primetime?

[Jason DeFilippo]

I'm telling you, man. Jeez. Well, cybercriminals have used AI for tasks like writing phishing emails before. This marks the first publicly documented case of a chatbot automating nearly an entire hacking operation, from scouting targets to executing the shakedown. Anthropic says it safeguards caught the activity, but admits determined actors can sometimes evade defenses with sophisticated methods. Well, they didn't catch it for at least three months, so. Wow.

[Brian Schulmeister]

You know, that's something.

[Jason DeFilippo]

That is something. Bravo, hacker. I'm telling you, that would. Hats off. Hats off for using the technology for what it's designed for. Yeah. Hey. Title four. Now, in some good news, Finland has just fired up the world's largest sand battery in the town of Poornin. Built by Polar Night Energy, the system stores 100 megawatt hours of heat in a giant sand silo, enough to warm the entire town for a week. It replaces an old wood chip plant and is expected to slash local heating emissions by 70%. The battery works by heating sand to over 1100 degrees Fahrenheit with surplus wind and solar power, which can hold the energy for months and release it as hot air or steam when needed. Officials say it's a key step toward carbon neutrality and a model for other cold climate regions. Now, there's a video in the link in the show notes that's well worth watching. It's pretty cool tech, and it's not that big. I mean, we could make a bunch of these things, plant them all around the world, and then we're good to go.

[Brian Schulmeister]

I can think of something else that can hold energy for months and release it as hot air. My Decimated Butthole.

[Jason DeFilippo]

That's. That's your autobiography. My Decimated Butthole.

[Brian Schulmeister]

And I just threw this one in there because I think it's funny why the Internet can't stop calling chatgpt a clanker. You may have run across the new slur making the rounds online in the middle school lunchrooms. Clanker, borrowed from Star wars, where battle droids get called clankers. The word is supposed to be a knockout insult to robots and AI, which would sort of make sense if machines could actually take offense at anything. Since they can't, a clanker is basically an insult that punches at nothing. Perhaps the least effective slur in history. This is like such a nothing article.

[Jason DeFilippo]

I know. It's Slate, man. They've gone downhill.

[Brian Schulmeister]

They have gone downhill. I might have to unsubscribe. Recently, the term for all its silliness has inspired a sort of spin off Clanker Lover, which in theory should carry more of a sting since it's aimed at actual humans. Anti AI Crusaders and Reddit next have gleefully lobbed the phrase, which calls to mind an infinitely more offensive racist epitaph at those with AI girlfriends and boyfriends trying to mock them as sad, lonely and pathetic. Which they kind of are.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Media candy. Well, Brian, I saw a delightful, utterly, absolutely. An impeccably delightful movie called the Thursday Murder Club over on Netflix this week.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Oh, yeah.

[Jason DeFilippo]

It stars everybody under the sun. Helen Mirren, Ben Kingsley, Remington Steele.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Well, anyone under this that's been under the sun for at least about 75 years?

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yes. Yes. No, it's. But it's a heavy hitter of British acting royalty. It was directed by Christopher Columbus, who did Home Alone and Found America. Yeah, it's an Amblin Entertainment movie. So, you know, it's got, you know, it's got Spielberg heft behind it. Anyway, it's a, it's a perfect movie. It is extremely well done. It's a great. Whodunit is absolutely. Me and my roommate watched it and it was just. We thought it was going to be stupid. So, you know, we gave it five minutes and after five minutes we just didn't turn it off.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Awesome. No, it looks great. Like, this is definitely something I'll watch with the wife.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah. Yeah, definitely. I was going to say watch this one with the wife. One that you don't want to watch with the wife is Weapons.

[Brian Schulmeister]

I actually just don't want to watch it.

[Jason DeFilippo]

It's actually not bad. It's not a bad horror movie. It's only. It's about a half an hour too long. But I really like the storytelling devices that they used. It was. It was a good horror movie. It was actually a pretty creepy and like. Yeah. Couple times horror movie.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Well, see, I think I told you though. Like my, my, my appetite for these things since having a child myself has just disappeared. Like I can't watch them.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah, you probably don't want to watch this then.

[Dave Bittner]

Yeah.

[Jason DeFilippo]

No. Okay. Well, you know, bachelors like me and single ladies can all get together and watch Weapons. It's good. Yeah. And Alien Earth just keeps delivering. It's five episodes in and this week was. I Think the best one of the bunch. It's better than the movies.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Seriously low bar after the first two, It's.

[Jason DeFilippo]

No, I mean, yeah, yeah, forget that. I'm talking like, you know, it's up there with the good Alien movies.

[Brian Schulmeister]

All right, I'm going to have to either go to Sweden or just do the sign up and binge once it's done.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah, yeah, just do it because you'll get through it in a day and a half. It's good. I'll let you know when they stick the Landon or if they stick the Landon. But so far, like, you know, just episode week to week to week, it's been amping up and it's really, really good.

[Brian Schulmeister]

All right, cool. My wife and I have been keeping up with Wednesday. We're basically just watching one a week. So we finished three of the initial four. I know the other four are already out now, but I love the show. It's so good. What a great decision to bring the parents into it because they're just knocking it out of the park. I mean, it's just so good.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah. I was so. I was so unhappy with the. The. The father cast.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Gomez. Gomez.

[Jason DeFilippo]

I just could not. I could not get to see him as Gomez. But he's stupid. It get. He's. He. He nails it and it just keeps getting better and better. I just finished episode five, and he's so awesome in it. He really. Everybody's awesome in it. Even. Even Uncle Fester, who I really didn't. Didn't want to like. He's really good.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Everybody's spoiled me on that one. I know he's coming back now.

[Jason DeFilippo]

He's so good. So good.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Okay. It's a great show. It's a great show. I think we need to talk about strange new worlds for a minute here, Jason.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Okay. Yes.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Did you watch last night's episode?

[Jason DeFilippo]

I did.

[Brian Schulmeister]

All right. Very good. And I was very happy that they did not go back to the comedy. Well, I think that's been bothering me. This season. We've had six episodes and four of them have been absolutely ridiculous comedic things. Now, not to say that I haven't enjoyed them. Were they sprinkled along in a 26 episode season, a la Star Trek the Next Generation, Every single one of them would have been absolutely fantastic.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah.

[Brian Schulmeister]

But getting. When you know you're getting like eight to 10 episodes total, we've had six. Only two have been somewhat serious. It's a lot.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah. Well, we're getting 12 and we've seen nine. That's the well, whatever.

[Brian Schulmeister]

The math's not math.

[Jason DeFilippo]

No, no, no, no, no, no, no. I have to say, though, on the Four and a Half Vulcans episode, Hilarious. Hilarious.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Patton Oswald took me out of it a little bit. I don't. Yeah. You know, it's the same as having Adam Savage in the Expanse.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah.

[Brian Schulmeister]

It's just. Should have been anyone else.

[Jason DeFilippo]

He did a good job, though. It was funny. It was funny.

[Brian Schulmeister]

He did a good job and it was funny. And. And I mean, nothing beats Anson Mount's hair.

[Jason DeFilippo]

It was. He. He took the show. He took the show. Absolutely stole the show. Yeah. Spock was just like, poor Spock or Spock.

[Brian Schulmeister]

He gets to make out with all the hot girls on the show.

[Jason DeFilippo]

That's true. That's true.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Anyways, so I just. I just think it's like a little too much leaning into the comedy this. This season. But. But I mean, they have been really funny. It's just.

[Jason DeFilippo]

I was going to say, you know, you're saying that, but as we're talking about it, I'm like, they have been good, though.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yeah, they have been good. It's just. I want a regular episode spread out a little bit more. You know, I missed 26. 26 episode seasons where you just have a whole bunch of stuff. There's not enough for all this comedy anyways. You know what needed some of that comedy, Jason?

[Jason DeFilippo]

What?

[Brian Schulmeister]

Upload.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Isn't it a comedy? Yeah, apparently not enough purports to be. Okay. So does the bear, by the way. The bear says it's a comedy, not a comedy.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Not a comedy. Yeah. So I've gone back and again, I mentioned the other week that I had realized that I had somehow missed season three. So I'm watching season three. It's still a decent concept. There are one or two lines in every single episode that are gut. Bustingly funny, but overall, it's just not good enough of a show.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Okay.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Not enough comedy in it. Not. Not a strong enough conceit to keep it running. It should have probably been about two seasons and cut it, so. But I'll stick with one. Yeah, one was probably fine.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Mm.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Also, I have to do a mea culpa here for. For K Pop Demon Hunters. I shat all over it when I first.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yes, you did.

[Brian Schulmeister]

When I first reviewed it. I still don't care for the movie. Movie. I've sat through the movie once. Never need to see the movie again.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Okay.

[Brian Schulmeister]

What I will Maya Culpa on is the songs. I've been listening to them non stop. They are. They are Fantastic. They are. I had a conversation with a friend of mine who's also a big music guy and as music snobby as I can be, and he's more like you. He's very. He came from the punk rock thing and he likes punk rock and guitars and he keeps up with the local and the current punk rock scene and everything like that does not like electronica. And I was trying to explain to him, I got into electronica early on, like the early rave scene and the early EDM scene and all that sort of stuff. And I was trying to tell them that like pop music now and, And K pop and all that is basically the background music is straight up, like early 90s electronica, just with newer instruments. It's. It's got the beats, it's got the builds, it's got everything. And it's just the songs are really clever and so the music is really good and the singing is really good and the songs are actually quite funny and it's just really well done. Will I remember any of it in a year? Probably not. But is it of the moment and is it fantastic? Yes, it absolutely is.

[Jason DeFilippo]

All right, good for you. Good for you.

[Brian Schulmeister]

And since I just said something positive, fuck FIFA.

[Jason DeFilippo]

All right?

[Brian Schulmeister]

The 2026 World cup is coming. There will be games here in Toronto, There will be games in Los Angeles. It's being split between Canada, U.S. and Mexico, so games all over the place. This is like a great opportunity, once in a lifetime opportunity to go to World cup games. I'm very excited about it. I tend to try to get tickets for me and my kid to go and attend a game, no matter what game. I'd love to see Germany, but I'm sure they're not going to be based here in Toronto. And doubtful la. Most likely Chicago, because there's a huge German community there. We'll see.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Chicago is closer to you than la.

[Brian Schulmeister]

So, yeah, you know, I might. You know, I was considering flying to see games until I discovered that FIFA has confirmed they're going to use Ticketmaster's dynamic pricing.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Oh, you. You.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Enough money. You gouging. I hate FIFA.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Tell me how you really feel, Brian.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Dynamic pricing, you bastards.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Well, here's some interesting news. Morrissey, the former frontman of the smiths, is selling his 50 stake in the band, mainly because he hates steaks. The deal includes rights to the name, songs, artwork, merchandise and publishing, potentially worth tens of millions. He announced the sale on Instagram, saying he's tired of malicious associations with former bandmates. WME is taking offers. The move comes amid continued feuds with guitarist Johnny Marr, who recently turned down what he called an eye watering reunion offer.

[Brian Schulmeister]

That's gog show donate. I wouldn't mind picking that up actually.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Me either.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Robert Smith has the opportunity to do the funniest thing ever.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Oh my God.

[Brian Schulmeister]

If he bought it. Oh my God. It would be the funniest thing the world has ever seen. Or at least.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Oh, and he can afford it.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Oh, absolutely. Apps and doodads so Jason, a sound bar is one of those things that you buy and you install and you may. You'll probably swap out your TV a few times and you'll. As long as. As long as the sound bar doesn't break, it basically just stays there forever, right?

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah, yeah. Unless if the connections upgrade. That's the only reason to ever get to get a new one.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Exactly. But I'm tempted.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Okay.

[Brian Schulmeister]

I am tempted because Marshall, known for the Marshall stack, has a lineup of non rockstar grade audio gear that they've increased a little bit. As part of IFA 2025, the company announced the Hestan 60, a more compact soundbar that complements its previously released Hestan 120. These things are beautiful.

[Jason DeFilippo]

They are pretty.

[Brian Schulmeister]

It's a. Marshall is keeping things mid century with a design that invokes its classic amps and includes tactile controls buttons instead of knobs like those used on the Hestan 120. I think I want the 120 because I want my knobs. Woven fabric and PU leather also comes in either cream or black and these can be mounted on a wall or set on TV stands thanks to specially designed waveguides and angle drivers. Depending on whether it's mounted or not, you can flip the reversible control to suit the sound bar's orientation and even move the Marshall logo, which is magnetic. And they're leaning into repairability. According to Marshall, the Hestan 60 has a host of replacement parts including the fret, the speaker grille, end caps, drivers, circuit boards and all that other sort of stuff. And let's be honest, again, again, it's probably not going to break, but it looks awesome. And yeah, I kind of want to upgrade my sound bar now.

[Jason DeFilippo]

See, mine sit behind the TV and then they're just like, like under that gap where the TV is, that's where the sound comes out. Because I don't want to see my sound bar. I don't want it anywhere visible. But yeah, yeah, wood with this one. Yeah, this one's pretty. This one's pretty for sure. Go for it, man. I would go for the 122 because knobs, you know, Knobs.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yeah. This one goes to 11.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Exactly. So a little bit more Elon news.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Damn it.

[Jason DeFilippo]

I know. Just when you thought you were out, Neuralink just got a reality check. It can't trademark telepathy or telekinesis because a lucid dreaming company called Prophetic beat him to it. I have to stop because this is just a. This is a. It's a clown show. It's a clown show, listeners.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Sometimes the stories are so stupid we can't make it through them.

[Jason DeFilippo]

I know Prophetic is a company that is selling you wearable tech for dream hacking, but they got. They beat Elon to the punch on the trademarks, which means Elon is probably going to buy them out just to take the trademark. Because of the name, he's soon to be a trillionaire.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Speaking of dreams.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah. Although they're coming to your town, Brian. NeuroLink just finished two surgeries in Toronto and installed their brain chips into two people with a seven foot tall robot surgeon.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Great.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Great. Yeah. So, yeah, but you shouldn't be allowed to trademark telepathy or telekinesis, period. Anyway. Period. Yeah, they're generic words.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Generic word. Instagram is finally available on your iPad, Jason, as a native app. It only took 15 years as the app first launched way back in 2010. It's a different platform. So the tablet based app features redesigned elements. For instance, the.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Okay, blah, blah, blah, blah.

[Brian Schulmeister]

It opens directly into reels, which is annoying as.

[Jason DeFilippo]

I hate it.

[Brian Schulmeister]

I already hate it because of that. I hate reels. I don't give a. I just want to see my friends posts. Once you do hit post.

[Jason DeFilippo]

But nobody posts anymore. Everybody just makes reels.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Well, not my friends because they're all old. So yeah, once you actually do hit the button to get the post, they're in chronological order with recent posts appearing first. You know this used to work for now. For now, we'll see. But yeah, it exists straight into reels. Thanks a lot.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah, I played with it for about two minutes and I was just like, okay, where's my phone? I just look at it on my phone.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Exactly. I try to leave my iPad for either work or just reading, so.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Oh, my iPad is just for around. I don't do on my iPad, but it's got Kindle and every social app on the planet because I don't put social apps on my phone. Except for Instagram because it's the only place I can post from. But hey now I. I don't know, here's the thing. It took him 15 years to get version one done, and version one of anything sucks. But I'm sure that, I'm sure it has been engineered to the nth degree to make us watch and click more.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Exactly. And Roblox is in the news. They've been in the news a lot recently because, you know, bad things are happening to kids and they don't do shit about it. They've announced that it aims to rule out age estimation technology to all of its users by the end of 2025. Users on the gaming and social network will have to confirm their age in order to access communication features within the platform under the new policy. They initially rolled out an age verification option to teen accounts in July, so it totally makes sense. It'll take six more months for them to just push the button for everybody. As part of an effort to keep younger users than 13 from accessing select chat features. In addition to confirming ages for individual accounts, Roblox says that it plans to adopt new systems that will limit communication between adults and min. Unless they already know each other offline. How are they going to prove that? Yeah, age verification can be completed providing a selfie that Roblox and its partner will analyze or by submitting an accepted form of identification. So if you're grooming a young child, take a picture with them and submit it to Roblox and then you can keep doing it online apparently.

[Jason DeFilippo]

There you go.

[Brian Schulmeister]

It's gonna work. So, yeah, they're just doing the same go to method that everybody else is doing, which has been circumvented thousands upon thousands of times already. So good luck with that. Sure this is going to help.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah, no, it's bullshit. Well, I got an app this week, Brian. Super Whisper. Super Whisper. It's basically a voice to text translation layer for your Mac. And I found out about this because I watch a lot of videos about AI and vibe coding and all that stuff and all of the main. Like, you know, the Uber hackers, they use this or something similar to it to basically talk their prompts because their prompts can get very long, which I have discovered too. It can be really tedious to type out a prompt. This just lets you speak the prompt and it goes straight into whichever one you're doing. It actually works with any app, I think, but it works really well with, you know, I use it with Claude code and cursor and that kind of thing. And it's free for the most part. You can get. There's pro features if you want but you just grab the free one and it's got a downloadable Whisper model. Whisper, which was the voice to text model from OpenAI that they released a long time ago. I've got Mac Whisper Pro as well, which I use for just trans or transcription. I think this will do. I think MacWhisper will do some of that, but I haven't tried it yet. Super Whisper is just super easy and clean. And there's an iOS app for it too that I. That has. You can do paid upgrades on it. But I haven't downloaded that one yet because I don't know about you, Brian, but my phone already has Voice to Text built into it, so I'm not sure what. Yeah, yeah, there's a little button that always gets hit all the time. I don't know about you, Brian, but my roommate and her friends. This seems to be a problem with mainly women who talk into their phone all the time. They never type anything anymore. They always hit that goddamn microphone button. It's so easy to hit. And they're like, oh, our entire conversation has just been been typed into this text window. That could go to a very person who we're talking about talking shit about. Maybe I should delete that. Yes, happens all the time. So does that happen in your house too?

[Brian Schulmeister]

No, no, my wife doesn't use that. My kid does, though. He's so lazy. We're like, oh, you can go. You can go message your friend if you want. And he just talks into it. I'm like, half of the thing is you learning to type. Let's start typing, kid.

[Jason DeFilippo]

The other half is he leaves it on. And then your entire conversation with your wife about how the kid's parents are horrible get sent to the kid and then you're not invited to the play date anymore.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Got to be very careful around these devices these days. They are listening to you. But just because broads keep hitting the button.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yep, broads keep hitting the button. Title number five. So iOS 26 has added seven brand new iPhone ringtones. And I saw this and then I was like, Oooh, I'm running iOS 26. Let me go find them. And six of them are basically remixes of the default ringtone. I chose the remix called Reflected. It is very nice. You can actually hear them in the article if you go find the link in the show notes at GOG Show 712.

[Brian Schulmeister]

All right, I think I'll just wait until it actually comes out.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah, it's actually really nice. They finally fixed 90% of the problems. It's fast as Hell, now, I honestly.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Don'T use any of their ringtones or anything. I'm purely using the Star Trek pirated library that you gave me ages ago.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Oh, really?

[Brian Schulmeister]

I use it for everything. It's all Star Trek sounds on my phone.

[Jason DeFilippo]

That's it. Oh, that's great. That's great. The Dark side.

[Dave Bittner]

With Dave.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Welcome to the Dark side with Dave. Podcast super host Dave Bittner decides to join us again. Hi, Dave. Thank you for gracing us with your presence.

[Dave Bittner]

Oh, it's always my pleasure.

[Jason DeFilippo]

What's new and exciting with you, Dave?

[Dave Bittner]

Well, Jason, funny you should ask. We recently published a video called Hot Sauce and Hot Takes an Only Malware in the Building special. There's a link to the YouTube video in the show notes.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Thank you for that, Dave.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Smash like and subscribe.

[Dave Bittner]

Yeah.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Hey, YouTube.

[Brian Schulmeister]

I watched it, Dave, so I. I don't want to ruin the mystery, but do you secretly like hot food? Because that was a good show that you put on, but then you asked for more.

[Dave Bittner]

Yeah, well, there are things you do for the comedy, right? So you take one for the team. I do generally enjoy hot food. I like spicy food. I can't remember if I shared here. There was one incident where the family went out to a local Mexican restaurant that was known for authentic Mexican food, and I ordered spicy tacos, and three came and I ate one, and that was it. I was sweating bullets and, you know, just.

[Jason DeFilippo]

It was.

[Dave Bittner]

It was very unpleasant. So I'm sure they had a good laugh at my expense back in the kitchen.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yeah, I was. I was watching it. It was on my laptop, and my wife was walking around and she said, oh, if we ever have Dave over for dinner, we're really gonna have to scale back their cooking because we all quite enjoy our heat to the point where, like, when I go out to restaurants, we go to Indian or, you know, my wife is of Chinese descent. We go. We go out to Asian food or Chinese food. I have to tell them I want hot, but not white guy hot.

[Dave Bittner]

I want Ethan hot.

[Brian Schulmeister]

The real hot.

[Dave Bittner]

But, sir, I can do it.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Trust me.

[Dave Bittner]

Yeah, generally, I'm pretty fearless when it comes to spicy food. I do seek it out, but this was a little extreme.

[Jason DeFilippo]

One of my favorite snacks around the house is I'll make up some noodles, some linguine, and instead of putting spaghetti sauce on it, I would just cover it in sriracha, and it looks like spaghetti. And my roommate was just like, what are you eating? My eyes are burning. I'm just like, I'm just having a snack.

[Dave Bittner]

It sounds like one of those things that you do when you have a co worker who keeps stealing your lunch from the refrigerator.

[Jason DeFilippo]

That would have been a good one. Yeah.

[Dave Bittner]

Instead of tomato sauce, it's a tuna loaf.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yeah.

[Dave Bittner]

Yeah. Oh my gosh.

[Jason DeFilippo]

That was very good though, Dave. I thoroughly enjoyed it.

[Dave Bittner]

Oh, well, thank you. I appreciate it. We had a lot of fun doing it and I hope people will get to check it out.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Well produced too. I gotta say. You guys did a good job.

[Dave Bittner]

Thank you. Thank you.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yeah, yeah, we gotta get some peons to come and bring us like a paper towels and extra water. I don't have any of that.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah. Or nuggets. I don't even have nuggets.

[Dave Bittner]

Yeah. Tell you it's good having staff.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Oh, that's what you call them these days. Okay, well.

[Jason DeFilippo]

So I was going through some emails and I found a notice that said that, hey, this email account's going to be deactivated because you haven't looked at it in two years. And I went, oh, what is that one? And I look at it, I'm like, I kind of remember making that email address. What? I just did it for some weird thing and then I went and I logged into it and I had to go through all of these hoops to get it reactivated and all this stuff. And there was like a thousand spam emails in there. I'm like, okay. And then I got to the very end of the list and there was just one notice that said welcome to Gmail. And I'm like, oh, cool, I want to see what it. What? June 22, 2004. I was like, wait a minute, this is a 21 year old Gmail address that I have a. How is it that Gmail is 21 years old? Yeah, where did the time go? Yeah, it's out at the bar right now. And then I looked, I'm like, well, it's. Was Gmail really around then? Is this just an error? No, gmail launched on April 1, 2004. So I got this like a little bit a couple months into Gmail. This had to be like one of my second Gmail accounts that I made.

[Dave Bittner]

Didn't you have to get an invite at first to Gmail? Oh, yeah, that's my recollection. Yeah.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah. I mean, I was. Back then I knew everybody, so I'm.

[Dave Bittner]

Sure I got it.

[Jason DeFilippo]

You know what, you know who I actually got it from? Evan Williams gave me my original Gmail invites because Blogger had been bought by Google at that point and he was still inside or maybe it was Jason Schellen, one of those guys, one of the blogger guys, hooked me up back then.

[Dave Bittner]

Yeah, I remember having to wait to get, you know, somebody got enough invites because they dole them out, you know, like you get five invites, congratulations, good news, you get five invites to Gmail to share with your friends. Yeah, I don't remember what my first Gmail account was. It's long gone.

[Jason DeFilippo]

I still have 21 year old Gmail. I'm keeping that fucker. I just polished it off, got all my security settings in place, got my two auth going. I'm keeping that puppy. Good for you.

[Dave Bittner]

Well, your inquiry made me do an inquiry. I was trying to find what is the oldest remnant of me on the Internet. And it may be this Usenet thread that I found from 1994. And my email address, I believe it was bittnerlark.net and clark.net was an ISP that was a dial up ISP that was run out of a milking barn at a local dairy farm near us. So that was back in the day. But the other thing that's noteworthy about this is that I'm asking, is it this one or another? Well, there's two that are here and one of them I'm asking about.

[Brian Schulmeister]

A.

[Dave Bittner]

Little malfunction that I'm having.

[Jason DeFilippo]

No.

[Dave Bittner]

Okay, this one's about hi, eight tapes. So that's a different one. But there's one that's only a couple months later where I'm asking about what I think is a malfunctioning keyboard on my Mac. And the person who answers the question is Graham Cluley.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Oh, shit.

[Dave Bittner]

Yeah. And so two years ago, Graham, tell.

[Jason DeFilippo]

The audience who Graham Cluley is.

[Dave Bittner]

So Graham Cluley hosts the Smashing Security podcast. So another cybersecurity podcaster, certainly well known throughout the industry. Well known, well respected, and I'm a regular guest on Smashing Security. Graham's been a regular guest on our shows. And so Graham was Googling himself a few years ago, as you do, and up came this Usenet thread and he emailed me and said, this couldn't possibly be you, could it? And I was like, yes, that's me. So we crossed paths 20, what, 30 years ago, I guess, without knowing it.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Back when the Internet was a much smaller place.

[Dave Bittner]

Right, right. And I had, at that point, I had no interest in cybersecurity. Graham did. He was doing work in cybersecurity, but I was very much just a video guy. So it's just funny how small the world is sometimes. Still wouldn't want to paint it though.

[Jason DeFilippo]

I'm trying to find my old stuff from Usenet but I can't. It's not coming up. My original, my first email address on the Internet was thorner access.com. okay. And it's just knowing you as I.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Did back then, Jason, it might have all been deleted.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Well, this was Usenet. You can delete Usenet, you know, you.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Can set anything visibility to zero.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Well, the thing about it is. Yeah, that was actually long before I met you. It was 94. I, I was posting on Usenet in 94 with that one. Up until a couple years ago that stuff was still there. I think I saved some, some text dumps of it somewhere. But I miss Usenet. Usenet was awesome. So much fun. Yes.

[Dave Bittner]

I'm guessing 94 is around when those affordable dial up Internet providers really became a thing because I remember this being my first dial up Internet access beyond a regular local BBs.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah, I don't know if I got dial up to them. That was where I got my first web server in 94.

[Dave Bittner]

Yeah.

[Jason DeFilippo]

And that's when I didn't understand billing and they sent me a bill for a thousand dollars for my first web server after the first week that it was open. Yeah, no, I peaked early.

[Brian Schulmeister]

I was on Earthlink. Earthlink was a dial up service that I paid for, had my email address and had some limited hosting. You know when they used to do the. It was, I think it was home.earthlink.net and then Tilde.

[Dave Bittner]

Yeah. Oh, good times. Well, I dropped something in here. Star wars related. Actually I dropped two things in here that are Star wars related. The first, we've talked about some of the auctions at prop store over the years and they just had a biggie. It might be their biggest one ever. The Darth Vader lightsaber from Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi sold for $3,654,000 yesterday.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Damn.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Insane.

[Dave Bittner]

Yeah, it's the highest valued piece from the Star wars franchise ever up for auction. Yeah.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Who bought it?

[Dave Bittner]

Well, that's a good question. Who has $3.6 million sitting around for a Star wars collectible?

[Jason DeFilippo]

Somebody that's not very cool, I bet.

[Dave Bittner]

Let me say the Star wars collectible.

[Jason DeFilippo]

I guess.

[Dave Bittner]

So far it is the Star wars collectible. None has sold for more. And it's hard to imagine anything more iconic than Darth Vader's lightsaber from those two movies. I don't know, but I wouldn't mind having it.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah, the prop store COO said it's a grail level piece. Yes, it is.

[Dave Bittner]

Yeah. There is a video of Adam Savage checking it out on his channel. He does a lot of previews of the prop store auctions and so if you want a close up look at this, you can go look on Adam Savage's YouTube channel and they have a look at it. It's something to see. And then the other. Yeah, the other Star wars thing I put in here that is much more affordable and I may actually have a future with is a full size R2D2 that Home Depot is selling for Christmas this year. Only $300 it looks. I'll have to see one in person to see how high quality it is or not. But he comes wrapped in Christmas lights and I'm figuring I can just take a pair of clips to those. Right. But this could be a shortcut. This could be my happy medium of getting a full one to one size R2D2 in my home and still being married. Because $300 I can swing for a full size R2D2. $3,000.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Well, did you look at the other ones? You can get a seven and a half foot tall Chewbacca for $350.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Well, I put a link in the show notes from last year. I took my son to Home Depot pre Halloween and for some additional decorations. And we saw the seven foot animated Darth Vader for Christmas with a candy cane lightsaber.

[Dave Bittner]

Right.

[Brian Schulmeister]

It's $428. It was high quality. So I would say that the R2D2 will probably be pretty good as well.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Now it's only 299 for the Darth Vader. Now Canadian Canadian dollars. Yes.

[Dave Bittner]

What's that in real money?

[Brian Schulmeister]

A lot. You will notice the the kind of a bulb looking Death Star that's hanging in his hand now at the store when we went in there, we found the bulb free and I thought we could just buy that because it is cool as hell. It's a Death Star, big bulb. And I was informed that I would have to spend the full $428 to get the entire thing, which my son thought was a deal. Absolute steal. And I said, well, mom would not agree. So.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah, well you can also get the six foot stormtrooper with a candy cane blaster, which is probably about as useful as a regular blaster to a stormtrooper. So definitely right. Maybe you can get him and mine him for his outfit.

[Dave Bittner]

Yeah, I'm thinking about that. I wonder how he's constructed. So when I go in and look at the R2 D2. I will also check out the Stormtrooper. Yeah, so we'll see.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Dude, it comes with an interchangeable Death Star candy bucket for Halloween. What does the Stormtrooper.

[Dave Bittner]

Oh, okay.

[Jason DeFilippo]

So just saying.

[Dave Bittner]

I don't have room for all this crap.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Well, if you know why I don't have room.

[Dave Bittner]

No, here's the thing. Do you know why? Yeah. Do you know why I don't have room for all this crap? Because of how much Lego we have.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Well, I feel your pain, Dave. My house is covered in Lego right now. But you know what else they sell at Home Depot? Outdoor sheds.

[Dave Bittner]

Oh, yeah. There you go.

[Brian Schulmeister]

So there you go.

[Dave Bittner]

So I could put some of my other stuff from the house in the outdoor sheds so that you can in the house for the Star wars stuff.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Right, right. I heard the she shed is a thing, so.

[Dave Bittner]

Yeah. Yeah. Honey, you know how you've been complaining how much I snore? I've come up with a solution.

[Jason DeFilippo]

It's genius.

[Dave Bittner]

You got your own little house out back.

[Brian Schulmeister]

I built you a bed out of Lego.

[Dave Bittner]

Yeah. What could go wrong?

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yeah, there you go. Pivoting over to our other fun topic that we like to talk about a lot. Disneyland. I'm a Disneyland guy. I know. Dave, you. You make regularly privilege trips down to Disney World.

[Dave Bittner]

Yes.

[Brian Schulmeister]

So when I saw this in the news, I thought immediately of you. Not to be too political on the show, but can't help it here. Florida plans to end all state vaccine mandates, including for schools, so I am not going to Disney World anytime soon. I will. I don't need a side of polio with my churro.

[Dave Bittner]

Yeah, Yeah.

[Brian Schulmeister]

I mean, this is. This. Change your mind about making trips down there when this. If this goes into effect?

[Dave Bittner]

No, no, no. Not unless there's an outbreak. And I figure most of the people I'm gonna cross paths with, there's an outbreak until. That's right. Most of the people I cross paths with at the Magic Kingdom are not from Florida.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Well, not anymore.

[Dave Bittner]

Yeah, and we know they're not from Canada because Canadians aren't coming either.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah.

[Brian Schulmeister]

You want us. We're vaccinated.

[Dave Bittner]

Yeah, exactly. This is so stupid. It is so incredibly stupid.

[Jason DeFilippo]

But on brand.

[Dave Bittner]

Yeah. Oh, yeah. I posted a little meme in here that this reminded me of, which it has a picture of an old cemetery and it says, go to a seminary. See all the baby graves there from before the 50s and 60s, then hardly any. That's when people started vaccinating their kids. If you're unsure, the answer is Literally written in stone.

[Brian Schulmeister]

I'm going to point out that you may have just done a Freudian slip that I totally did agree with. That I'm dying at right now.

[Dave Bittner]

What'd I do?

[Brian Schulmeister]

You said go to a seminary.

[Dave Bittner]

Oh, did I?

[Brian Schulmeister]

And see all the baby graves there. Oh, you're not wrong.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Cover up. Yikes.

[Dave Bittner]

Yeah. Paging Dr. Freud. Okay.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Wow.

[Dave Bittner]

All right.

[Brian Schulmeister]

There's a little peek and stuff.

[Dave Bittner]

I don't know. I don't know.

[Brian Schulmeister]

All right, moving on.

[Dave Bittner]

So I saw this thing that. It was briefly up on GitHub from Microsoft called VibeVoice. This is a new text to speech model that was specifically made for long conversations. So what we do. They're coming at us, guys.

[Jason DeFilippo]

They're coming at us. Jesus. Right?

[Brian Schulmeister]

I'm sure the naming department was like, what are all the cool kids talking about? Vibe coding. Let's call it Vibe Voice.

[Dave Bittner]

Right. So this was an open source research framework for speech synthesis, but Microsoft has since taken it down. They said after release, we discovered instances where the tool was used in ways inconsistent with the stated intent. Since responsible use of AI is one of Microsoft's guiding principles, we have disabled this repo until we are confident that out of scope use is no longer possible. So I guess we'll never see it again.

[Jason DeFilippo]

We're never going to see it. Right?

[Dave Bittner]

Yeah. There are samples on the GitHub repo.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Damn it. And they have an animated podcaster.

[Dave Bittner]

Yeah, it's as good as any. It's as good as any of them, which is simultaneously frighteningly good, but also not good at all within the same sentence. It can swing back and forth between those two things. So I don't know. I'm holding on, but with my fingernails. Just of how. So am I going to be able to retire before I'm obsoleted by Voice AI?

[Jason DeFilippo]

That's my question.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Funny you mentioned that because that's a big topic of conversation amongst my wife and her colleagues, which is like, are we going to be able to retire from the legal process profession before we're done due to AI? Because. And it's happening fast, so.

[Dave Bittner]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And there's. Yeah, there's no way to know how fast.

[Jason DeFilippo]

I love. I love their. The disclaimer at the bottom. They're under risks and limitations. While efforts have been made to optimize it through various techniques, it may still produce outputs that are unexpected, biased, or inaccurate. VibeVoice inherits any biases, errors or omissions produced by its base model, specifically QIN2515B. In this release, potential for deepfakes and disinformation. High quality synthetic speech can be misused to create convincing fake audio content for impersonation fraud or spreading disinformation. Users must ensure transcripts are reliable, check content accuracy and avoid using generated content in misleading ways. Users are expected to use the generated content and to deploy the models in a lawful manner and in full compliance with all applicable laws and regulations in the relevant jurisdictions. It is best practice to disclose the use of AI when sharing AI generated content. Sure. Yeah. That's why you pulled it.

[Brian Schulmeister]

You didn't read the last sentence in the whole disclaimer. Please use responsibly like it's a fucking.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Bud Light or a condom.

[Dave Bittner]

Yeah, yeah. So we'll see. I put another thing in here. This is a nice hot rumor that I hope is true, or I guess I have mixed feelings.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Mixed feelings about this.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah.

[Dave Bittner]

So there's a rumor that there's a new the Muppet show pilot and it's being produced by Seth Rogen, evidently a.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Production stone Muppets is what we're gonna get. Laughing that's fucking horrible.

[Dave Bittner]

So they evidently a pilot called the Muppet show got a LA tax credit, which is how this surfaced that it could be happening. So I don't know. We'll see.

[Brian Schulmeister]

I just, I. Seth Rogen seems like a wonderful guy to spend a few hours with. I just don't like anything he produces.

[Jason DeFilippo]

I still like the studio. The studio was good.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yeah. Not a fan.

[Dave Bittner]

Not a fan. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Not who I want in charge of the Muppet. Muppet Show.

[Jason DeFilippo]

No, right, New.

[Dave Bittner]

Well, and I wonder too. Cause the original Muppet show, which was produced in the UK and had a lot of that kind of humor. I wonder if they'll even attempt to emulate that kind of humor or they'll just go in a new. I mean, look, here I am, I'm old guy yelling at clouds. They have to go with the new humor. And as we've talked about before, humor today is based on awkwardness. It's not set up punchline, set up punchline or even physical humor so much. It's awkwardness. And so I suspect that's what we'll see with a new Muppet Show. But I'm glad, I guess, in a way that Disney is still allowing experimentation with the characters and trying to find something good to use it for.

[Jason DeFilippo]

But I don't know, I can't wait for the skit of animals sitting on the toilet doom scrolling. That'll be great.

[Dave Bittner]

Right? Well, but you know what? The electric Mayhem show I thought was quite good.

[Jason DeFilippo]

That was fantastic. But I don't think Seth Rogen was involved with that, was he?

[Dave Bittner]

No, no, no, no, he was not. No. I was disappointed they didn't get a second season because I really thought that was a good true to form show. So we'll see.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yeah, we'll see. I do not have high hopes. Yeah, Seth Rogen, high hopes.

[Dave Bittner]

So the last thing I dropped in here was just the word soldering, or as the British say, soldering, because we.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Sucking L in it.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah, well, whatever.

[Dave Bittner]

Aluminum. So I'm curious, do either of you have much experience with soldering?

[Jason DeFilippo]

Burning the out of myself a couple times. Made me never want to do it again. Yeah, yeah.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Dalliance in my 20s when I was like building stuff and doing all that sort of thing. And then I just realized that I had better things to do with my time and I could buy things put together already.

[Dave Bittner]

I do have a number of faint scars on my hands from soldering iron burns from my teen years. But the reason I dropped this in here is when I was a teenager, I did a lot of soldering, and a lot of soldering had to do with computers and upgrading my own computer and helping friends update computers. Because back then, if you wanted to upgrade the RAM in your computer, which is the memory, it was expensive. And on my first computer, to upgrade from 16k to 32k involved piggybacking chips on top of each other and soldering all the pins together. So you got what, 16 pins per chip? Eight chips. That's a lot of solder joints. And they all have to be right for it to work at all. And you have to be careful that they're not too hot so you don't melt the chip and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Anyway, when I was a teenager, it just seemed like I could solder and do it well and precisely, and the solder flowed, and it all went really well. This past weekend, my wife required some soldering, you know, as you do. Yeah, right. Not a euphemism. So my wife had a gadget that required some soldering. And of course I was like, aha. I will take care of this young man.

[Jason DeFilippo]

I will fix your personal massager myself.

[Dave Bittner]

It's actually a bubble machine.

[Brian Schulmeister]

So you increase the power on this massage?

[Dave Bittner]

Yeah.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yes.

[Dave Bittner]

And I just am crap at soldering now.

[Brian Schulmeister]

You haven't done it how long?

[Dave Bittner]

A long time. But it's not. I mean, it shouldn't be that hard. So I'm wondering a couple things. First of all, well, my first instinct, of course, is to blame someone or something else. So I'm wondering, has solder changed? Right.

[Brian Schulmeister]

See, my first impulse is obviously my old soldering iron is out of date, and I need a newer, expensive, brand new spangled one. I need new equipment.

[Dave Bittner]

Right. Well, I have a new soldering iron, so I couldn't blame that. But I think solder today doesn't have as much of the toxic content that it did.

[Brian Schulmeister]

It's woke solder.

[Dave Bittner]

Yeah, I don't know that it has the lead in it that it had.

[Jason DeFilippo]

There's no Aqua Net in it, damn it.

[Dave Bittner]

So maybe that makes it flow. But, like, again, the soldering's not complicated, so why am I not doing a better job at it? Anyway, this led to the purchase of some little. Those little spring clip, like helping hands for my little workbench so things can be held onto.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Now there's a fucking solar panel outside to power the soldering iron to get the vacuum pump going.

[Dave Bittner]

Don't get me started.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Well, the problem is the solar panel needs some soldering, so we can't get.

[Dave Bittner]

So just a couple days ago, Eufy, whose security cameras I have, they just dropped a new model and part of it. And it's a cool camera. I may purchase one, but it has an optional solar panel. And the solar panel says, fully recharges the battery in one and a half hours. Lies. Lies, you bastards. Solar panels are just a journey of disappointment and resentment when it comes to security cameras.

[Jason DeFilippo]

So one of my ring camera has let me down. It has kept the battery fully charged.

[Dave Bittner]

Well, sure. California sunlight.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah.

[Dave Bittner]

I mean, never sets out there.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Blame the universe.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Physics where Dave lives isn't strong enough. The solder's not as good as it used to be. My God.

[Dave Bittner]

That's right.

[Jason DeFilippo]

That's right.

[Dave Bittner]

That's right. The movie show isn't what it used to be. Yeah. Yeah. Got no room.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Those wings weren't hot enough.

[Dave Bittner]

Yes, that's right.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Damn it.

[Dave Bittner]

All right, I've had enough of you guys.

[Brian Schulmeister]

I don't.

[Dave Bittner]

I don't come here for this abuse. Oh, where do you usually go?

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah.

[Brian Schulmeister]

All right. Next week, Dave will be provided by Vibe Voice.

[Dave Bittner]

That's not funny. All right, see you guys next time.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Bye.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Maybe closing shout out over at Patreon. We've got a bunch of new patrons. Bobby St. George, Roman Barrett, and. No. No. Signed up at the gold monkey level, though, so. Yes. No. And our continuing. Our continuing patrons, Eric Trent, Zhongmin, Brady, Jeff, Jesse James, Nigel Scott, and Hank. Thank you all so much.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Hank.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Hank. We Love you, Hank.

[Brian Schulmeister]

All right, over at PayPal, we got Judge Jonathan, Nicola, Florian, Levy, and Thomas. Thank you all so much.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Over the tip jar, we've got Matthew and Sarah. So just a reminder for everybody, if you want to support the show, because the support. The show is 100% listener supported, head on over to patreon.com gog you get the show a little early in high definition and. Did I say early already? Yeah, I don't know. Early ads. Ad free. That's right.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Just like the normal version these days.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Oh, yeah, just like the normal.

[Dave Bittner]

Oh, no.

[Jason DeFilippo]

God damn. No merch and no reviews. Boo.

[Brian Schulmeister]

And nobody died.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Boo.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Wait, hold on.

[Jason DeFilippo]

I don't know about you, though, man. I was glued to my social media on Sunday night.

[Brian Schulmeister]

I was convinced he was dead. Oh, man, what a day it would have been.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Oh, God, such a teenage.

[Brian Schulmeister]

You know how bad it is when you, like, everybody in the world didn't even mention his name. Just. Is he dead? I think he might be dead. And we all knew who it was.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Every single person in the world knew who we were talking about.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah. And everybody the next morning was just like, oh, man.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Yeah, he's sickly, but he's not dead.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah, I know. Now there's the news that he might have some kind of heart pump installed. So that's where he's been. I'm telling you, if you don't want. If you don't want to drive yourself nuts, don't look at TikTok. My roommate looks at TikTok and I look over his shoulder and I'm like, at this point, Trump's like 90% robot and 10% body double, so.

[Brian Schulmeister]

Well, don't. Don't look at TikTok. Don't look at Twitter. Jason, as we were sitting here, literally as we were sitting here and you were talking about that, I got. I saw my phone and alert came up. Now, I had a very meticulously curated Twitter feed back in the day before it got taken over by crazies and nut jobs. I'm hardly ever on it. I still have the app on my phone. Guess what? It threw up to me as an alert.

[Jason DeFilippo]

What?

[Brian Schulmeister]

Q Major alert. Q has just rang the bell. Nationwide takeover happening. Now. Why the fuck am I getting that as an alert?

[Jason DeFilippo]

You get that from Citizen.

[Brian Schulmeister]

I'd rather get Lady Gaga's dog updates than this shit.

[Jason DeFilippo]

No doubt. Anyways, you know you can turn off those notifications.

[Brian Schulmeister]

I know. I'm so lazy.

[Jason DeFilippo]

So, one thing, I don't have X installed on anything. I gotta get right I can't.

[Brian Schulmeister]

I don't.

[Jason DeFilippo]

Yeah, yeah. Anyways, well, on. On that BOMBSHELL, I'm Jason DeFilippo. See you next time.

[Brian Schulmeister]

And I'm the queue master, damn it. Brian Schulmeister. Thanks for listening to grumpy old cues. Get all the links and goodies from Today's episode of GOG Show 712. Want to keep grumpiness alive in vectoring? That'll do it. Or drink some bleach. 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 lies to friends, foes, and everyone in between. We'll love you for it. Swing by Gog show to join our discord for further misinformation. Got thoughts? Feedback? Cool. Links off. And hey, don't forget the five star review at Gog Show. Review and read it on the show. And guess what we've got gog merch. Wait, we've got gog merch? Not a gog merch, [e-mail] show. Snap. Like your grumpy gear now Stay grumpy.