714: Crossfade This

Summary

Grumpy Old Geeks – Episode 714: "Crossfade This"

Date: September 19, 2025 | Hosts: Jason DeFillippo & Brian Schulmeister, joined by Dave Bittner

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Episode Overview

In this riotously irreverent episode, Jason and Brian—later joined by Dave Bittner—tear into the week’s tech and pop culture disasters: from botched AI pivots and laughable product launches, to regulatory fiascos and corporate betrayals. Think black comedy with a kernel of truth—a “tech walk of shame” where nobody gets off easy. The Geeks vent, mock, and dissect news about AI layoffs, privacy regulation, Elon Musk’s latest debacles, nostalgia cycles, and even the plight of Florida nudists versus SpaceX. The show is a cathartic, no-holds-barred check-in on the many ways our digital world (continues to) lose the plot.

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Main Discussion Points & Insights

1. The State of the Union... (and the Basement Flood)

• The episode starts with sharp political and social commentary: the US is compared to a “meth lab” downstairs, with Canada upstairs just hoping nothing explodes.
• Brian and Jason riff about the difficulty of emigrating to Canada (“it’s easier if you’re a healthcare professional!,” [01:31]) and muse on the collapse of centrist views in America ([02:01]).
• Humor about memes and social malaise: “Being a centrist in the United States was the scene with the guy... in Pirates of the Caribbean where his ship’s getting bombarded on both sides...” —Jason ([02:01])

2. TikTok, Tech Deals & Mystery Buyers

• The US and China reach a "framework deal" on TikTok, but nobody seems to know the details—speculation swirls about which companies are involved, with mentions of Oracle and Cisco ([03:26]).
• Memorable Moment: “If you ever think that money does not buy many, many things, go take a look at a picture of Larry Ellison right now... The motherfucker’s 81 years old!” —Jason ([03:36])
• Revelations that LimeWire, now an NFT marketplace, bought the Fyre Fest brand. The hosts joke about viral “returns” and failed tech nostalgia:
  • “So you’re going to get a virus somehow—one way or another.” —Brian ([04:04])

3. AI Layoffs and the “AI-First” Corporate Spin

• Multiple layoffs hit the tech sector as companies “pivot to AI”: Fiverr lays off 250 employees ([06:39]), X.ai dumps 500 data annotators, Google axes 200+ contractors ([07:53–09:08]).
• Hosts lambaste these moves as corporate newspeak:
  • “Returning to startup mode” just really means “firing everyone.”
  • “So everybody that got fired can now work for Fiverr. And Fiverr will be hiring people off Fiverr to do their jobs?” —Brian ([07:34])

4. OpenAI, ChatGPT Usage, and Ethics Hokey-Pokey

• OpenAI releases a study (which it self-analyzed with AI!) about ChatGPT’s usage:
  • 80% of use is practical guidance, searching information, or writing (not programming as much as expected).
  • The gender gap is closing among frequent users.
  • Work use is declining, personal/creative use increasing ([09:50–12:47]).
  • Skepticism: “This is OpenAI talking about their own data that they looked at themselves with their own AI. Yeah, this is like Marlboro says, smoking isn’t bad for you.”—Brian ([11:32])
• OpenAI plans new safeguards after a lawsuit blames ChatGPT for contributing to a teen suicide ([12:53]).

5. Regulatory Mayhem: Age-Verification and Privacy Bills

• California passes a bill for OS/App Store age verification ([15:11–16:09])—joked as a dropdown menu parents won’t set up (“it’s the kids who set up the devices for the parents!”—Jason [15:49]).
• New York passes the SAFE for Kids Act to regulate addictive feeds and late-night notifications for minors ([16:11]).
  • “I will figure out a way to make sure that I seem under 18 because I would like them not to show me algorithmically curated feeds…” —Brian ([17:03])

6. SpaceX, Tesla, Musk & Public Sentiment

• Florida nudists protest SpaceX launches closing Playa Linda beach ([17:17]).
  • “They seem to have a limp case.” —Brian ([18:31])
• Musk’s reputation nosedives:
  • Tesla engineer Giorgio Ballesteri resigns, accusing Musk of abandoning Tesla’s green mission and damaging democracy ([20:11–21:18]).
  • NHTSA investigating Tesla’s doors—flush handles fail when battery dies, trapping drivers ([21:22–22:32]).
  • “Cars aren’t iPhones. And sleekness can take a backseat to safety in the auto space.” —Brian ([21:56])
• Even Tesla’s design chief “wonders why they didn’t combine electric and manual releases from the start” ([22:39–23:08]).

7. Media Candy: Shows, Nostalgia, and the Power of Visuals

• Discursive, fun review segments spanning several shows:
  • “Wednesday” praised as well-acted but lamented for its long production waits ([26:31]).
  • Heated debate over the “Foundation” sci-fi adaptation—the hosts like the show in isolation but protest the way TV ‘rewrites’ the imagination from beloved books ([27:02–31:28]).
    • “It replaces everything that was in your imagination from the books, it takes it over.” —Brian ([28:44])
  • “Gen V,” “Alien Earth,” “Slow Horses,” “The Witcher,” and the upcoming Lilith Fair documentary all get shoutouts ([35:53–39:39]).
  • Extended, hilarious tangents about LA memory porn in Freaky Friday ([32:51–34:06]).

8. Apps, Apple Updates, & Meta’s Dystopian Vision

• iOS 26 is out—minor complaints about visual tweaks and multitasking. Some good, some “get off my lawn” ([40:15–41:31]).
• Meta’s botched smart glasses demo compared to the infamous Cybertruck window fail ([41:56]).
  • “Meta’s most dystopian product yet... We all know that this is just basically surveillance apparatus number 727 from Facebook.” —Jason ([43:26])
• Meditation, mindfulness, and binaural beats—Jason swears by the Brain Wave app for better sleep ([44:11–45:21]).

9. Return of the Indie Web & Nostalgia for “Ugly” Homepages

• Heartfelt recommendation for Maragoul’s “Rise of the Indie Web” YouTube video ([46:31–47:52]).
• The hosts reminisce about GeoCities, old-school HTML, and personalized homepages—a rare bright spot of the episode’s mood.

10. At the Library & Book Picks

• Audio and print reading recommendations, including sci-fi (Dennis E. Taylor’s “Flybot”), neuroscience (“Proof”), stand-up comedy, and legal self-help ([49:49–53:53]).
• Webtoon’s Disney/Marvel comics partnership—tempered enthusiasm due to Disney’s current controversial status ([53:53–54:47]).

11. Special Segment with Dave Bittner (The Dark Side)

• Discussion of the Muppet Show’s upcoming Disney+ special; lament for missing original voices like Frank Oz ([55:03–59:07]).
• Deep nerd talk about weather apps (Carrot, backyard weather stations), musical numbers in apps, and the collapse of Publishers Clearinghouse’s “forever” payments ([60:02–68:54]).
• Reflections on tech, updates, and Apple’s new crossfade feature—a segment so aptly titled it inspired the episode name ([72:37–77:44]):
  • “You fade to the next song in the middle of the previous song.” —Dave ([73:34])
  • Hosts walk through the (somewhat hidden) settings that ‘fix’ the issue.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Emigration & Collapse:
  "We're like the people renting upstairs in a house and downstairs they're running a meth lab. We're all just kind of looking down." – Brian ([00:57])

• On Corporate 'AI-first' Announcements:
  “Returning to startup mode” just means “firing everyone.” ([07:34])

• On OpenAI’s Study:
  "This is OpenAI talking about their own data that they looked at themselves with their own AI. Yeah, this is like Marlboro says, smoking isn’t bad for you." – Brian ([11:32])

• On Regulatory Moves:
  “...the parents aren’t the ones that know how to set up a fucking device. It’s the kids that set up the devices for the parents.” – Jason ([15:49])

• On Tesla’s 'Cool' Design:
  “Cars aren’t iPhones. And sleekness can take a backseat to safety in the auto space.” – Brian ([21:56])

• On Media Adaptation:
  "It replaces everything that was in your imagination from the books, it takes it over." – Brian ([28:44])

• On Meta’s AR Glasses:
  "Meta’s most dystopian product yet... We all know that this is just basically surveillance apparatus number 727 from Facebook." – Jason ([43:26])

• On the Indie Web:
  "Everybody's ugly ass websites. The little blocky 88 by 33 buttons... It was just such a trip down memory lane." – Jason ([47:52])

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• 00:02–02:01: Political & societal opening riffs
• 03:26–06:23: TikTok, LimeWire buys Fyre Fest, quirky news
• 06:39–09:20: AI layoffs, “AI-first” pivots
• 09:20–12:47: OpenAI study & use cases; skepticism
• 12:53–14:39: OpenAI, lawsuits, teen safety, and privacy
• 15:11–17:17: Legislation on age verification and privacy
• 17:17–22:34: SpaceX vs. nudists, Tesla complaints, Musk dragging Tesla down
• 26:31–35:53: TV/streaming reviews; Foundation, Witcher, nostalgia
• 40:15–44:11: iOS 26 and app updates
• 41:56–43:33: Meta glasses disaster
• 44:11–45:21: Meditation, mindfulness, binaural beats
• 46:31–47:52: Indie web nostalgia segment
• 49:49–53:53: Book/library recommendations
• 55:03–68:54: Dave Bittner segment—Muppets, Carrot Weather App, musical analysis, Publisher’s Clearinghouse collapse
• 72:37–77:44: Apple Music crossfade “saga”
• 78:05–81:28: AI, tech imports, Born Standing Up, book recommendations

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Overall Tone & Takeaways

Grumpy Old Geeks 714 lives up to its premise: acerbic, skeptical, and savagely funny, but beneath the snark is a genuine concern for technology’s social impacts. Amid all the swipes at Silicon Valley hubris, AI’s empty promises, and regulatory theater, the hosts advocate for transparency, healthy skepticism, and old-school DIY spirit. Also: never trust a “forever” prize payment!

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For First-Time Listeners: Why Listen to GOG?

If you crave sharp-witted, unfiltered tech and culture analysis with a punk edge (and a healthy skepticism of digital hype), this episode’s for you. The Geeks rant and riff, but also deliver context and experience no press release could match. And, occasionally, they prescribe binaural beats for your digital malaise...

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For more info, references, and the full show, visit gog.show/714.

Transcript

[A]

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 Very Grumpy Old geeks. I'm Jason DeFilippo.

[B]

And I'm Brian Schillmeister. Why the very.

[A]

I don't know if you've seen the news lately, Brian, but.

[B]

Oh, I had a whole intro, Jason.

[A]

Oh, well, continue, by all means.

[B]

Okay, Jason. Yesterday it was 80 degrees and sunny here. A beautiful day. I woke up this morning, it's 62 degrees. All the leaves have changed. It's fall. Speaking of falling, what the fuck is going on down there?

[A]

The fall of the United States of America. Wow. Yeah. Yeah.

[B]

So free speech is dead?

[A]

Yeah, pretty much. Pretty much. So, yeah. What's new with you guys up there? And.

[B]

Nothing. It's the proverbial joke. We're like. We're like the people renting upstairs in a house and downstairs they're running a meth lab. We're all just kind of looking down.

[A]

There going, holy shit, I saw another cartoon. It was like, hey, I've got all these fireworks. I'm just going to let them off inside the apartment. You're upstairs neighbor going, don't. Yes, please. I have to tell you though, my Instagram feed has been inundated. Inundated, I say, with please come move to Canada ads and oh, trust me, I've bookmarked all of them.

[B]

Yeah, it's. It's not that easy, folks. So.

[A]

Damn it, I. It's easier if you're a healthcare professional. Apparently that's what you're looking for the most. So. All right, maybe I will be. Welcome to Grumpy registered nurses.

[B]

We are looking for those types of people. All right, so we're already political. Oh, you know what? I don't care. I don't care about being political anymore. We've been right all along. You guys are finally seeing it. Fuck off.

[A]

No, we've been left all along, Brian.

[B]

That's true. You know what? We've actually been. We've been centrist. That just doesn't exist anymore.

[A]

No, it was a great meme going around yesterday. It's like being a centrist in the United States was the scene with the guy on the. In the Pirates of the Caribbean where his ship's getting bombarded on both sides and blown up. Yeah, it's like. Yeah, that kind of sums it up.

[B]

All right, well, we got a little bit of follow up here. Not that any of this really much matters anymore.

[A]

No, it does not.

[B]

But U.S. treasury Secretary Scott Besant has said that the United States and China have reached a framework deal on TikTok.

[A]

I hear the sirens in the background coming for you even in the up there because we just talked about, you know, stuff. I'm waiting for my, my door to get knocked in by ICE and send me back to Italy or some shit like that.

[B]

I'm close enough to the border. Maybe this is the initial foray into trying to take over Canada, as he kept promising. Anyways, this. So supposedly there's a deal now it's between two pirate parties, but the commercial terms have been agreed upon. This comes after the Trump administration extended the TikTok ban for a third time earlier this summer, giving the company until September 17th. It's the 19th to undergo a sale or force a ban in the United States. Obviously, President Trump has been too busy going after comedians to pay any attention to this. So who knows if there's an extension or not. At this point, we don't know what the deal is. We don't know anything about it. We don't know what companies, what people that aren't incredibly worried about the state of the United States right now on social media have been posting. Theoretically, it may be Cisco, but who the hell knows?

[A]

Yeah, I think it's basically Oracle and whoever else is Cisco still even around?

[B]

Oh man. So I'm at Oracle, not Cisco. I just can't be bothered anymore.

[A]

If you ever think that money does not buy many, many things, go take a look at a picture of Larry Ellison right now and he looks like he's about, you know, maybe 62, 63. The motherfucker's 81 years old. Yeah, it's ridiculous.

[B]

And in amusing news, we've found out who the mystery buyer of the Fyre Fest brand is. Remember when it went up for sale on ebay or what and somebody bought it? Limewire. So you're going to get a virus somehow.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

One way or another.

[A]

One way or another.

[B]

As the headline says, what happens when a peer to peer file sharing platform turned NFT Marketplace acquires the IP for one of the biggest festival failures in history? Well, we're about to find out. As Limewire has revealed, it was the mystery buyer of the Fyre Fest brand. According to a press release, LimeWire's reimagined vision for fire goes beyond the digital realm and taps into real world experiences, community and surprise, surprise, we've got all.

[A]

Your money.

[B]

He said. The CEO Julian Zedemire elaborated that the vision doesn't involve bringing the festival back. He also joked that the planned experiences would come without the cheese sandwiches. Har har, har, har.

[A]

Oh, you're so funny.

[B]

We're not here to repeat the mistakes. We're here to own the meme.

[A]

We're here to make all new ones.

[B]

Yes. So, and they're even using the tagline what could possibly go wrong? And let me list them off for you.

[A]

Yeah. Oh, let me count the ways. But here's the thing that you buried at the beginning turned NFT marketplace. Okay, so we know right there that, yeah, they're a bunch of shysters and carpetbaggers and criminals probably. But since, you know, it's funny, it's like, okay, Limewire. I haven't heard of Limewire since, you know, late 90s, early 2000s. And you know, you know, so Limewire is making a comeback. And I just saw in the news this morning, cocaine is apparently making a big comeback in the United States. I was just like, say what? It's like, apparently all the fentanyl has, you know, apparently that problem's been solved since ICE has been kicking everybody out and we've been blowing up boats willy nilly in the middle of the ocean with no, you know, cause or proof, all that stuff. So cocaine is resurging. I don't know about you, Brian. I was around a lot of boomers when I was in the, you know, the entertainment industry. And I'm sure you've heard this a million times. Some fucking boomer comes along saying, oh, you kids nowadays, you never had Quaaludes. Oh my God. Quaaludes were the best. I wish they would bring back Quaaludes incessantly. Every time we'd be sitting there in the middle of an eight ball, give me back Quaaludes. So maybe now that everything is going backwards, like, you know, science, education, healthcare, maybe we can go back and bring back Quaaludes on the way to the end times.

[B]

Just a good way to go out. It's a good way to go out.

[A]

Yeah. At least it'll calm the masses, you know, if you want to, if you want to calm populace, bring back Quds in the news.

[B]

Well, just getting back to the normal chaos and that we're dealing with. Here's more and more firings, all in the AI area. Now. Fiverr is laying off 250 employees to become an AI first company.

[A]

Oh, God.

[B]

CEO Misha Kaufman shared in an essay on X. The move affects around 30% of the company's staff, the Register writes. And it's not uncommon among tech companies in 2025, as we've been reporting regularly. Duolingo announced similar plans to become AI first in April. Kaufman describes this process as returning to startup mode and writes that his ultimate goal is to turn Fiverr into an AI first company that's leaner, faster with with a modern AI focused tech infrastructure, a smaller team, each with substantially greater productivity and far fewer management layers. So luckily, everybody that got fired can now work for Fiverr. And Fiverr will be hiring people off Fiverr to do their jobs?

[A]

Pretty much, yeah. It's like, how many people do you need at Fiverr to begin with? I guess because it's just, you know, should kind of run itself. Just customer service people is all they really need. Yeah, and, you know, some engineers and some fraud prevention and advertising and marketing. Yeah, they actually do need some people.

[B]

That'd be good. While they're not the only people. Xai has laid off at least 500 workers from its data annotation team, the company's largest. According to Business Insider, the annotation team is in charge of categorizing and contextualizing raw data used to train Groq so that it can understand the world better. In other words, fact checkers.

[A]

No.

[B]

Don'T need those.

[A]

Well, I would also like to point out that Grok doesn't understand anything.

[B]

Yes, exactly. When Reuters asked the company for comment, it did not get a poop emoji. It just referred to a post on X where it had posted a call for specialist AI tutors instead. So, okay, they're looking to get more specialist AI tutors and get rid of the data annotation people.

[A]

So, yeah, all right, good luck. Good luck with that. Well, hundreds of Google AI contractors have been abruptly laid off amid a growing fight over pay and working conditions. Well, if you want to get paid and not have a shitty working condition, don't work for Google, I guess. Sources tell Wired that more than 200 workers hired through outsourcing firms like Hitachi owned Global Logic were cut last month without warning. Contractors played a key role in shaping Google's AI products, including the Gemini chatbot and AI overviews. Well, you should fucking fire those people then, because those AI overviews suck.

[B]

They are pretty bad.

[A]

Yes, they are. So workers allege the layoffs are retaliation against efforts to unionize and demand better wages because Google doesn't have enough money to pay anybody, it seems.

[B]

All right, well, as we've always known and talked about many times, large language models largely remain black boxes in terms of what is happening inside them to produce the outputs that they do. But they have also been a bit of a black box in terms of who is using them and what they're doing with them. So OpenAI with some help from the National Bureau of Economic Research, Niebuhr Niebuhr set out to figure out exactly what its growing user base is getting up to with its chatbot.

[A]

It found it getting down is what it's doing. It's not getting up, it's getting down.

[B]

It found a surprising amount of personal use in a closing gender gap among its frequent users. In this working paper authored by the OpenAI Economic Research Team and Harvard economist David Deming, researchers found that about 80% of all ChatGPT usage falls under one of three categories, practical guidance, which is the study found to be the most common usage, including things like tutoring and teaching how to advice and creative ideation. The second one seeking information, which is viewed as a substitute for traditional search and the third being writing, including the automated creation of emails, documents and other communications, as well as editing and translating tech or plagiarism. Yes, writing was also the most common work related use case per the study, accounting for 40% of work related messages in June 2025, compared to just 4.2% of messages relating to computer programming. So coding is not what people are doing with ChatGPT, which makes sense because there are many models that are specifically done to screw up your code. Yeah, work usage for chat GPT appears to make up a shrinking share of how people are interacting with the chatbot. In June of 2024, about 47% of interactions users had were work related. This has gone down to just 27%, which comes as other research shows companies largely failing to figure out how to generate any sort of meaningful return from their AI investments. Yeah, so work AI at work. On the downside, meanwhile, non work related interactions have jumped from 53 to 73%. People are spending more time with chat GPT in their personal time and a fairly small share of messages with the chat bot or users seeking virtual companionship or talking about social emotional issues. They claim that only about 2% of all messages were people using chat GPT as a theorist or friend. And just 0.4% of people talk to the chat bot about relationships and personal reflections. Okay, so that is a little bit different from what other people have seen. Common Sense Media, for instance, found that about one in three teens use AI chatbots for social interaction and relationships. Another study found that about half of all adult users have used a chatbot for psychological support in the last year. So there you go. One caveat about the study that may give you pause depending on how much you trust technology. OpenAI used AI to categorize all the messages it analyzed. So if you're skeptical, there's an asterisk you can put next to the figures. Also something we seem to have forgotten. Who studied themselves. Yeah, this is OpenAI talking about their own data that they looked at themselves with their own AI. Yeah, this is like Marlboro says, smoking isn't bad for you.

[A]

110%. Yep. And you know, if they're numbers that they claim are in the billions of users, you know, so 2% of all those messages is a lot of messages. When you come down, when it comes down to it, the, the, the mind boggling number of messages that go through there every day. So that's a lot of people using ChatGPT as a therapist or a friend.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

So which brings me to my next one.

[B]

Even their owner says please don't do.

[A]

Yep, yep. OpenAI says it's prepping new safeguards for ChatGPT. After a lawsuit blamed the chatbot for contributing to a teen suicide, Sam Altman announced plans for an automated system to predict Whether user under 18, when the age is unclear, ChatGPT will default to a restricted under 18 version, blocking sexual content and requiring adults to verify their age for full access. Altman admitted this is a privacy trade off, but argued teen safety comes first since we've been caught. Yeah. So the funny thing is, is I'm fairly certain to get a credit card, don't you have to be over 18?

[B]

Yes, you do. You do indeed have to be 18.

[A]

Okay. So maybe just paying users are the ones that could use the actual service. Everybody else gets the under 18 version. Just saying if you want to increase revenue. But the thing is, as to your story, when we're seeing the numbers drop in enterprise, enterprise usage is what's going to pay the bills going forward. Because those enterprise contracts are the ones that actually are worth something.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

I don't care if they get 20 bucks a month from everybody on the planet, it still doesn't cover their nuts, you know?

[B]

Yeah. So we've been saying since this came out that, you know, they just don't make enough money. They're never going to make enough money.

[A]

Yep. I was also reading a story this morning before we ran to air that there's an economist who came out saying, you know what, the AI bubble bursting might actually be good. For the economy. Yeah, there's this pesky recession in the middle, but after that we might come out doing okay.

[B]

Well, at the end of the day, if it's a bubble, it's a bubble. If it's, if it's not going to provide value, but we're sinking all this money into it. Yeah, it needs to pop. It's gonna have to pop and then it's gonna hurt. But we will be better off in the end.

[A]

See, the thing though is where's the money going? It's like it doesn't, it doesn't, it doesn't evaporate. Money's going from one person to another to another. So where's.

[B]

Now we're gonna start getting metaphysical here, Jason.

[A]

Does money really mean anything? The color blue to me, yeah, that was the 2008. You knew we were in trouble when people were like, well, you know, money does, is just a fucking social construct and it doesn't really mean anything.

[B]

Well, what the hell do you think all the fucking crypto guys are trying to say?

[A]

I know, I know.

[B]

Anyways, let's go on the age verification bit since everybody seems to be pivoting that way from Pornhub to OpenAI. Is there a difference these days? I don't know. A California bill that would require operating system and app store providers to verify users ages before they can download apps has cleared the Assembly 58 to nothing and will now move on to Governor Gavin and Newsom. So we shall see. This is called the Digital age Assurance Act, AB 1043. It does not require photo identification for verification. Puts the onus on the platforms to provide tools for parents to indicate the user's age during a device's setup. So a drop down menu that we just click OK on?

[A]

Yeah, pretty much. And by the way, the parents aren't the ones that know how to set up a fucking device. It's the kids that set up the devices for the parents. So they're the ones that are just going to be clicking. Okay. To everything.

[B]

And for those reasons alone, the California bill has been received more positively by Big Tech, with Google, Meta and others putting out statements in support of it.

[A]

Yeah, this sounds like a great idea.

[B]

Yeah. So not much going on there. That's, that's not going to do much of anything. New York's Governor Kathy Hochul has signed the Stop Addictive Feed Exploitation. Jesus chop. Trying to fucking shoehorn this stuff into Safe for Kids act and the New York Child Data Protection act in June 2024. Today, the state's Attorney General Letitia J release more specifics about what this act will entail in practice. So they're trying their own thing. In particular, this rule will require online platforms to confirm the ages of users before showing them algorithmically created feeds or sending them notifications at night. They will allow sites to choose their method of age verification as long as the approach are shown to be effective and protect users data. Nobody has a solution for this, Jason.

[A]

No one. Oh great.

[B]

So all I know is that if this actually passes, I will figure out a way to make sure that I seem under 18 because I would like them not to show me algorithmically curated feeds or send me notifications at night too.

[A]

Seriously. I mean, that's all we've ever asked for.

[B]

That should be an option.

[A]

So. Well, let's get a little funny here. SpaceX is facing a surprising new opponent in Florida Nudists.

[B]

Was that Elon? Keep running around and they're like get the out of here and put on your pants you fucking weird ass cybertruck looking tank fuck.

[A]

I don't know man. He's on Ozempic now, so. Oh, that's yeah. Members of the American association for Nude Recreation. Manner Manor. If you're trying to shoehorn it Manner.

[B]

They have an app too. It's right next to Grindr.

[A]

Yep. Are protesting SpaceX's plan to launch starships from Cape Canaveral, warning it could shut down playa Linda beach, one of only four legal clothing options beaches in the state up to 60 times a year. Nudists say that would devastate a community of hundreds of thousands who travel to sunbathe there. Sunbathe? Sure. Their leaders argue the closures could also push crowds to nearby Apollo beach, sparking conflicts between nude and non nude beachgoers. Critics also raised concerns about hearing damage and flight delays caused by rocket launches. Still, with a starship tower already under construction and FAA approval seen as likely, the nudists may be fighting a losing battle with against Elon Musk's space ambitions.

[B]

They seem to have a limp case.

[A]

Yeah, but I'm cheating. Well, naked people are not the only people that are souring on SpaceX right now. Apparently all of his old fans are too, because all of the people that used to love to go out to see SpaceX's launches are saying, yeah, you know what Nazi? I'm going to stay home. I'm going to stay home because Nazi. Literally, that's it.

[B]

Okay? So yeah, I do not want to see that.

[A]

Fuck me. Well, a Tesla.

[B]

Well, I can't laugh into the Fire Jason.

[A]

Oh, that's the only way to go. The only way to go. Somebody sent me a very, very nice clipping of a headline today when Goebbels actually started banning comedians in. In Germany right before World War II.

[B]

I mean, look, all I. I look at the news every day and I go, all of this has happened before, and we're watching it, and, like, nobody.

[A]

Seems to give a.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

Well, everybody seems to give a. Nobody's willing to do a damn thing, so what can you do? That's the problem. We need. We need it. We need a playbook. We need.

[B]

I swear to God, I am on, like, blue sky or. Yeah, I think it's on blue sky. And it's. I followed. I tried to. Poured everything over that I used to follow on.

[A]

Why'd you do that?

[B]

No politicians and shit like that. So Schumer just keeps, like, posting outrage after outrage, and I just keep responding, if only we elected someone who could actually do something about it.

[A]

That's it. That's it.

[B]

I mean, I can sit here and post this rage shit to Schumer. You're the one that can actually do something.

[A]

Yeah, yeah. You're in the building where it happens anyways. Somebody who's not in the building where it happens anymore. A Tesla engineer just rage quit after eight years, torching Elon Musk. On the way out the door, Giorgio Ballesteri, who helped build Tesla's clean energy trading platform, dropped a LinkedIn bombshell saying Musk has wrecked Tesla's mission and even damaged democracy itself.

[B]

It got five views because it's on LinkedIn.

[A]

He accused Musk of abandoning the green future he once preached, instead cozying up to Donald Trump, the same guy who pulled the US out of the Paris climate accord, gutted environmental rules, and shoveled love letters to Big Oil. Once upon a time, Musk was the climate hero, tweeting, leaving Paris is not good. But now he's too busy trolling immigrants, raging at the government, and allegedly getting stoned. Tesla's clean energy efforts are critical, but with Musk's seriously compromised leadership and a trillion dollar payday looming for the CEO, he just couldn't stomach it anymore. In short, the man who promised to save the planet is now accused of helping burn it down. Yeah, that tracks okay.

[B]

Well, the planet's not the only thing he's trying to burn down. He's also trying to burn you down.

[A]

Yep.

[B]

Yep. Less than a week after Bloomberg published a damning report about Tesla's dangerous doors, the U.S. national Highway Traffic Safety Administration is Now looking into it. On Tuesday, the regulator said it opened an investigation into the automaker's electrically powered doors. The problem? They stop working if the vehicle's low voltage battery fails. The probe will cover the 2021 Model Y, which covers an estimated 174,290 vehicles. But the agency suggested a document that it could expand its investigation because they put the same fucking doors on every one of the cars.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Now, in case you don't understand this, they use a flush door handle designed for its vehicles. A 12 volt battery powers the door's ability to pop the handle and release the latch. It's one of those cool Apple like design details that help the automaker become a household name. But cars aren't iPhones. And sleekness can take a backseat to safety in the auto space. They won't open from the outside when the low voltage battery fails. Like, you know, when it's on fire.

[A]

Yeah. They won't open from the inside when it fails too, because we screwed. Yeah, we've covered. We've covered a story where a woman burned to death in her car because the fucking doors wouldn't open.

[B]

Yeah. So.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Yes. Well, we have an update. Tesla design head Franz von Holzhausen.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

Who we pitched from BMW during the war, apparently appeared on Bloomberg, appeared on Bloomberg's Hot Pursuit podcast and said the company is considering a new approach that combines the electric and manual release mechanisms. The idea of combining the electric one and the manual one together into one button, I think makes a lot of sense, he said, causing everybody to wonder why they didn't do it the first time around. Foreign.

[A]

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[B]

Well, Jason, I finally finished Wednesday with the wife. What a wonderful show. And I can't wait for it to come back when Jenny Jenna is like 45 years old.

[A]

Exactly. Yeah.

[B]

So she's gonna be the mom in the next episode. Because it's gonna take forever. I don't know if they're shooting. I haven't heard anything about it. I don't think that they are, but. But I want them to get on it because that was great.

[A]

Yeah, yeah. They really should be backing these things up as fast as possible.

[B]

I think so, too.

[A]

I'm sure they backed up the money truck to everybody. So come on, let's get cooking. Get to work.

[B]

So, as I mentioned last week, I actually did watch all of foundation season three. I skipped foundation season two. I don't know why I'm gonna blame some wine I got or something. Desperation viewing. I ended up watching the first episode of the series and I actually kind of came around to what people have been telling us on Discord, which is that if you remove any association with foundation whatsoever, which is very difficult, but that's where the wine helps. It's actually a relatively decent sci fi show. And I have to say season three was a relatively decent sci fi show. They had bits and pieces from foundation that I remembered. But here is where the problem is. And this is why I'm never going to do this again. Okay, it was enough. It was close enough to foundation that it is starting to rewrite. Write in my head what the foundation story is. That is the power of visual media. Visual media, the music, the sounds, everything. It replaces everything that was in your imagination from the books, it takes it over. That's why people scream about Harry Potter. Not that Harry Potter is great literature, but there's no doubt about it that if you picture in your mind who Harry Potter is, you see the movies. And if you picture in your mind what the story of Harry Potter is, you see the movies and the movies the story that the movies told, not the ones that the book told, because the books are considerably different in a lot of ways. I cannot watch any more of this foundation series because I love the original book series and I hate what they've done to it. It is not the same story. It is a completely different story. And I refuse to have my brain rewired to this Foundation. Damn it. Okay, but the actors are good. And it was actually. It was. It was pretty good.

[A]

I watched the first episode of season three just Just because, you know. Because you traitors fuck. And it was decent. It was decent.

[B]

I know.

[A]

That was the problem. It was decent enough where I'm like, yeah, maybe if I. If there's nothing else on.

[B]

Yeah, but.

[A]

So I get it. I totally get it. Yeah. If you're not into the books, then it's probably decent sci fi.

[B]

But again, I cannot have it overwrite my knowledge of what foundation is.

[A]

The thing is. Yeah, yeah. Season one of Foundation I didn't think was good. Sci fi.

[B]

No, that was awful.

[A]

That was the problem with season one. It wasn't that good. And I started watching season two, and season two carried on the tradition of season one of being shit. So maybe going to season three, maybe they figured enough out. But the opening salvo with the Mule was pretty fucking good. I like it.

[B]

Yeah. And it continues. It continues. And they definitely. And again, it will rewrite my. My understanding of foundation because they change who the Mule actually is.

[A]

Okay. Anyway, here's the. Here's the great part about the foundation books. I stopped reading them before the Mule showed up. So I can go back and watch this now and have a clean slate. But I totally get what you're saying about rewiring your. Your mental. Your mental image, because I cannot for the life of me remember all the visuals that I had for the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy without the fucking movie popping in. That's the thing, you know? Yeah. And in no History of the World was Sam Rockwell Zafod Bebox in my interpretation of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Yeah.

[B]

So it's just the power of the visual with the human brain. It's just. It will take over. Whatever you had in your mind, your own imagination will be rewritten by shows.

[A]

Yeah. And that's the interesting thing about Sandman too, is it's like now I have this dichotomy in my head. It's like I visually remember something completely different than what was on the screen. But what was on the screen is what I remember because it was so good in season one, I'm like, it's really weird to see these things get so close because in the old days when they would do these adaptations, they were so wildly off that there was no. No, not even in any remote universe were they similar. But nowadays they're getting close enough because as fans and kids growing up in this, like, you know, people our age are the ones making this now that it's getting closer to what it actually was. But in their vision and. And when you, when you pull in the fact that they have to have diverse cast just because they have to have a diverse cast and changes everything about everything. It's. It's weird. It's a weird time to be alive for many reasons.

[B]

It is. Well, let me talk about a show where people aren't alive anymore. I finished upload. I had talked, we talked about this quite a bit. And I realized, what, two weeks ago, that I actually had never watched season three. So I went back and watched season three, which was okay. And then I rolled straight into season four, which is truncated. It's only four episodes for.

[A]

Oh, wow.

[B]

You could tell they basically threw the creators a bone. Finish your story, but get it done quick.

[A]

I'm not giving probably full season, contractually obligated to.

[B]

I'm guessing it was good. I, I actually enjoyed it. I, I enjoyed the ride from beginning to end. Like it got a little iffy in season two and three, but they wrapped it up well. It was a pleasant little story. It was, it was fun and kind of clever. They didn't end it with the hearts and sunshines and sausages and rainbows that I thought they were. They zagged a bit, which I enjoyed. I, I thought it was a good choice on their part.

[A]

Good. It's funny that when we started talking about that show, I went back and I was thinking about a show that we watched. It was just a one one off miniseries called Devs. Remember that?

[B]

Yeah, yeah.

[A]

It was a really strange miniseries and I really want to go back and watch that. That's next on my list. I think I'm. Because I do remember it like being kind of odd in the middle, but I thought that came home to a pretty decent landing. So I think I'm going to go back and try that. Just because I want to, because I can.

[B]

Well, I talked about how we had watched the Princess Bride with the kid a couple weeks back. And then my, my wife wanted to continue on with just kind of watching these, you know, family, fun, real people stuff, get him out of his animation alley that he's been stuck in. And she convinced him to watch Freaky Friday, the 2003 edition with Jamie Lee Curtis and Lindsay Lohan, not the original from the 60s. And I was doing stuff around the house, just errands and stuff. So I caught quite a lot of it. Very funny, very clever. Like I. Those like late 90s, early 2000s comedies are a hoot. And the best part about Freaky Friday, this, this 2003 edition, and I think you'll appreciate this too, Jason isn't so much the story. It's all set in Los Angeles and it's all shit that's gone. Oh, it's total memory porn. They're wandering down Third Street Promenade like it used to be when we were young. And it was awesome. A huge sequence takes place at the House of Blues on Sunset that we used to go see shows at, which is gone. Yeah, so there was all this great Los Angeles memory porn about this, this movie. So it was fantastic for that and it was just fun. It was a fun, clever, little late 90s, early 2000s comedy.

[A]

If you want a real, real trip, go. Go back and watch LA Story.

[B]

Oh, dude. Yes, totally.

[A]

Oh, interesting. So are you going to make him watch Freakier Friday that just came out.

[B]

Well, it's only in theater still, so as soon as it's streaming, we'll watch it. I'm not going to fucking pay to go to a theater for that shit. But we'll watch it when it comes out.

[A]

I just laugh because I go to the theater of Sweden. We only the theaters. How funny. Alien Earth had its penultimate episode this week. Oh, so good. Oh, so good. I'm going to miss this when it's gone. I am so going to miss this when it's gone.

[B]

I'm going to wait until it's completed and either pay for one month of Hulu or Sweden it.

[A]

Sweden it. Because fuck paying Disney anything right now.

[B]

That's true.

[A]

Sorry. That's a good point. Yes. Yeah, no, Anything that's on there, I've already canceled. But it's my. My sketch. My. My prescription will run past the. The end of Alien Earth.

[B]

It kind of is a prescription.

[A]

It is. It is. Gen V. Season two has dropped now. I loved Gen V season one. Gen V is a spin off from the Boys on Amazon prime. And season two started off pretty much exactly where season one kind of left off, in tone and in spirit. It looks like. It's just. They did a really good job of picking it back up. So there's two episodes out, I think, right now, but they did the drop. Three and then one a week. So I like that gets you kind of ramped up enough where you're going to stick with it. So like I said, I'm still a fan of that universe because the boys has been ending for every season for two seasons now, so who knows when that's going to go away. So I kind of like going back to that world because it's slightly more dystopian than the one I have to Wake up to every day. Which is a nice change.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

Yeah. And I just saw this. I'm just going to leave the headline here. No need to read any more than this. Star Trek Strange New worlds. Producers promise season four will be better.

[B]

I didn't think it was bad, just less comedy, guys.

[A]

Yeah, no, they blamed, they blamed the, you know, the discombobulation on the writers strike and people coming and going and there was a lot of stuff that was happening in the middle of that show getting, getting made, except they skedaddled off to fucking Canada to go, you know, get rid of the, the guild restriction. So I don't know how much they can blame on that. But hey, what are you going to do?

[B]

Whatever.

[A]

Yeah, whatever. Hopefully they will do better. Coming up very soon on September 24th, Slow Horses Season 5 is coming out. Okay, the reviews are in. They say it's, it's really good and it is the funniest season yet, which, you know, shows, as far as spy thrillers go, it is a pretty funny show already. So looking forward to that. Now here's where I. Here's where I have a problem. This is the marketing team at Apple. I got the email that said it was coming and the title of the email was Drinker Thinker, Rebel Spy, which is a take on Tinker Taylor Soldier Spy. Right. You'd think, oh, spies, am I five? All that stuff. Tinker Taylor Soldier Spy, I believe is Am I 6? But don't quote me on that. It's been a while. But here's the thing. Tinker Tailor, Soldier Spy was a novel by John Le Carre which was turned into a movie. Slow Horses is based on MC Heron's Slough House. Different author. Stealing. Stealing titles from a different author. Poor taste.

[B]

Everything's a meme now.

[A]

Fucking taste is all I gotta say, you know? Yeah, but anyway that besides that, Tinker Taylor Soldier Spy was a great movie. Came out in 2011, highly recommend it. And Gary Oldman is in both, so there's your connection. But there you go. Yeah, but yeah, check out. And if you haven't seen it, you still haven't even dive dove into that one, have you?

[B]

I watched the first season and I just never got back to it. So. Okay, I will.

[A]

Yeah, that one, that one is one you can just sit down for, like, you know, get a bucket of popcorn and some diapers and watch all the way through. It's great.

[B]

All right. In a teaser shared this weekend, Netflix finally revealed the release date for The Witcher Season 4. It will hit Netflix on October 30th. Now, in case you don't remember, we're getting a dick switch here.

[A]

No, no, I saw the best one. What they pulled was a witcheroo.

[B]

Witcheroo. I was going with the dick switch, like from Bewitched when they switched.

[A]

That's right, the dick switch.

[B]

Yeah. Liam Hemsworth is returning. Not returning. Is showing up as Geralt of Rivia, A casting change from Henry Cavill, who was awesome in the role. So we'll see how this goes. If. Something to look forward to. If you're not thrilled about this change like I am, we're going to get Laurence Fishburne in it.

[A]

Okay?

[B]

So that might be interesting. So we shall see what happens. I will watch it and see how it goes.

[A]

Yeah, he's making a bit of a comeback. I like Laurence Fisher. He was in that horrible movie with the kid from Mr. Robot, but otherwise he's been doing pretty good. I liked him in the John Wick series. He was great in that. So I'm glad he's making a comeback.

[B]

All right. And we had a big film festival here in Toronto called Tiff that we have every year. And one of the things that premiered at it is a new documentary. And the trailer is out for it. It's about Lilith Fair. It's called Lilith Fair Building a Mystery. And I'm actually quite looking forward to this again. 90s porn. Right. So this is the whole Lilith Fair story. And I can't wait for this documentary to come out. I'm totally gonna watch it. I did not attend Lilith Fair.

[A]

I'm not a lesbian.

[B]

Well, no, but I like half the art, more than half the artists I really like. And also, what a great place to pick up chicks. Exactly why they didn't let me in.

[A]

No, it's not a great place to pick up chicks. They're not interested in you, Brian.

[B]

They weren't all lesbians.

[A]

Come on. It was all Subarus in the parking lot. It was the 90s.

[B]

You could tell by the haircuts which ones were lesbians and which ones weren't. That's gonna get me in trouble. I'm getting canceled now.

[A]

Jason, we're not on Disney. You're safe.

[B]

Okay. Also, I'm making fun of the left, not the right, so you know you're allowed to do that.

[A]

Apps and doodads. Well, there's been some releases from Apple. Yeah, iOS 26 is out. Brian, have you upgraded yet?

[B]

I did. I hated it for the first three hours, and then I just got on with my life.

[A]

Exactly. Told you. Told you. I've had it for a month and I'm like, this is the worst part, the transition, when I know it's already there and then I'm just going to have to hear it from everybody like, what the fuck is this? I don't know how to do anything anymore. Jz, fix it.

[B]

It's such a small change. You are right. It does run a little faster, which I appreciate, but a lot of the visual effects get little snags here and there, which is annoying. Do I care for how it looks? No. But does it bother me? No. You can. You can reduce some of the stuff, which is. I found out from you because you were posting it everywhere. I did that. It's fine. It's fine. Who cares? I. I don't like it on the iPad. I hate this multi window bullshit where it puts it over in the corner where it's just out of the corner of your eye and it's just annoying and it looks like it's a glitch, but it's not. It's a feature. You turn that off.

[A]

You turn that off in the multitasking preferences.

[B]

Okay, I got to turn that off because that's stupid.

[A]

It's annoying. Yeah. For some things it actually does work because you can keep something open and it depends on your workflow. I have found that it is useful in some situations, mostly not, so I generally tend to keep it off. But you can turn that off in the multitasking settings, so that's an easy fix.

[B]

Okay. So there you go. Here we are. Fantastic.

[A]

Yeah. Links are in the show notes to how to make liquid glass more like iOS 18. So there's some easy tricks that you can do to turn off a lot of the stuff. Yeah. For the most part. I'm so used to it now that it's just. It is what it is. But. Yeah. So Meta had a. Had a demo this week. Oh, my God.

[B]

I actually didn't watch it, but I did see people were saying that it actually has now made the cybertruck window shattering the second worst demo of all time.

[A]

Yeah. Thanks for reading my lines here for me. I appreciate that. Those are for you.

[B]

Oh, sorry, I didn't see it in there. Sorry. That was Jason's line.

[A]

Yeah, that's okay.

[B]

You stole it from someone else. Because I read it all over the place.

[A]

It was all over Reddit. Yeah. And everyone on Reddit was also comparing meta to Hooly now.

[B]

Oh, that's fine.

[A]

Silicon Valley. Yeah, they say they've gone full hooly I put a link to a short YouTube video that called the title of the. It's the review of the demo, said Meta's most dystopian product yet, talking about these new fucking glasses that they came out with that did not work at all in the demo and it just got to the point of hilarity. Yeah, 800 bucks for these new glasses and they come with like basically a handcuff that lets it figure out what your motions are to control the interface that the people who actually worked on it don't know how to use. They kept fucking up in the demo the whole time. One guy did a cooking demo and blamed the wifi on it because it couldn't get the order of operations right. But here's the thing. I think most people that listen to this show, I would wager that aren't going to buy this, period. We all know that this is just basically surveillance apparatus number 727 from Facebook, and it's just giving them more shit about you and how they can sell to you.

[B]

Look, if anybody that listens to this show knows you shouldn't trust any of the big tech companies, but the one you shouldn't trust the most. Meta.

[A]

Meta. Yep. Absolutely. So I would definitely stay the fuck away from that. But go watch. The product review is worth it because it's only five minutes long and the guy is really funny. The guy is. He could be one of us for sure. And I want to bring this article back up because the article is meditation and mindfulness have a dark side we don't often talk about. I've talked about it before on this show because in some of the recovery programs I'm in, they force meditation on you. They're like, you must meditate. I'm like, no, I'm not going to meditate because I'm one of those 10% of people who have an adverse reaction to standard meditation. It makes me really prone to anxiety and depression. So I don't meditate. I'm not good at it. It's bad. That said, though, some of the meditation people I've talked to, they're like, well, why don't you try some binaural beats? Because that seems to have much better effect on people than standard meditation. And I got an app called Brain Wave this week and I've been doing it for half an hour at night with my Bose QC2 headphones. So everything's off and I just have them on. And there's actually a night mode for reading. Like, if you're going to read at night before you go to bed. So I turn that off and I pull my Kindle up and I read a book with those on. I tell you what, I wake up in the morning, like it's like night and day. I don't know what the magic sauce is in that shit, but it actually makes me wake up crisper, clearer and way more excited to get to the day. I haven't changed anything else besides that. So obviously your mileage may vary. Shit doesn't work for everybody the same. But I will say 5.99 that I spent on this. Well worth it so far, man.

[B]

Hey, it's all about finding stuff that works for you. I'm not a huge meditation guy either either, as you know. I do Apple Fitness and I like to end my workouts with like a 10 minute stretch because they have their mindful cooldowns, as they call them. So it's like a bit of stretching at the end of your workout, which is really good for your body. And the last like two minutes of those stretches is usually a meditation kind of thing. And I ignore them and I just kind of sit in silence for a bit and I find that clears my head enough. That's about all I can do for meditation. I have tried binaural beats before and I understand that they really do work for a lot of people. The problem I have with them is they are so close to the weird ambient glitch music that I used to listen to all the time. That for my smacks, for me, I'm like. All of a sudden I'm at the Palladium and I'm dancing on stage. I'm not fucking relaxing.

[A]

The app that I got, the nice thing about it is that they have different. Because there's different frequencies for different. Different use cases.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

So you can flip through different ones because you might want to try it just to try a different set, you know?

[B]

Yeah. Because the ones that I listened to before, I was like, oh, I listened to this band in the fucking 90s. They're from Sweden.

[A]

I didn't put Neubauten on loop. What the fuck? So, yeah, I just found that it works pretty well for me. And another thing I found this week, which is one of the greatest videos. It's called the Rise of the Indie Web Movement by this girl who goes by the handle Maragoul, which is great. She's like artist. She's got only 6,000 subs on YouTube. But it's all about basically people who are going back out learning HTML and CSS and Making their own websites again on the site called Neocities. Take off on geocities. And I just had such a nostalgia boner for this. I'm like, I miss it so much. Everybody's ugly ass websites. The little blocky 88 by 33 buttons, the whole nine yards. It was just such a trip down memory lane. And what even made me happier was when I went to her website on her links page. I looked at her links page and I was just like, okay. Under web mastery and web mastery and coding resources, she has links to W3 schools, Mozilla, HTML reference. It's just like, it's like the old days. I was just like, this is a kid, you know, in 2025 who has gone like old school and going back to our roots. And it just made me happy. You know, very few things make me happy. That makes me happy.

[B]

Nice.

[A]

Yeah. So just, you know, all you oldsters out there who built the web back in the day, go check it out. You'll have a nice little trip down memory lane. And I'm just glad to see the kids doing something. It's fun.

[B]

I think my favorite thing about her and I love her immediately, is on her about page under her facts. When will webcomic video project be out? It'll be out when it's out.

[A]

Exactly. She writes just like we used to write.

[B]

You are awesome.

[A]

Yep. And the last thing I've gotten here. Have you seen the Stendig calendars?

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Yeah, they're great, aren't they? They're beautiful, these giant calendars.

[B]

I find them beautiful, but not very useful.

[A]

Yeah, see, that's the thing for me too. It's like they take up a whole wall. They were created by legendary design, legendary Italian designer Massimo Vignelli in 1966. There's one in MoMA in New York. They're beautiful, these giant calendars. Now here's the nice part about it. They have. They have come out with what they call the V calendar, which is smaller and the entire year in one glance. I like this one. It's still not cheap. It's £45 if you're going to get it, but comes in multiple colors. I think I'm going to get one of these maybe around Christmas time. I like it because I like seeing the year at a glance. For me, that just really works out. I don't know why, because then you can just mark off each day as you go. But yeah, I just got an email from them that the new calendars were out. So I thought I'd Put it in here for some people who have never seen them before and should be introduced to them because they're pretty fucking awesome. They're four feet by three feet. That's how big they are. The standard ones. You know, you gotta have wall space. This isn't going into a, you know, four story walk up in.

[B]

You gotta treat it more like art than something functional. Yeah, it's not my favorite thing, which is fart functional art.

[A]

At the library. So I have finished several books, Brian.

[B]

Okay, several.

[A]

So we're going to start off with Flybot by Dennis E. Taylor. Beloved Dennis E. Taylor, who created the Bobaverse series. This is one of his standalone books and it is about an AI, believe it or not. His other ones haven't been about AIs. This is a delightful romp. It's kind of a murder mystery, sci fi, tech, whodunit type of thing. You'll be able to read it probably in 2028 because right now it's an Audible original only.

[B]

Yep.

[A]

But it's a phenomenal book. So when it does come out, Brian, I highly recommend it. The rest of you people who aren't terrified of audiobooks, go check it out on Audible. It's great. It's one and done.

[B]

All right.

[A]

And I read Proof of a Neurosurgeon's Journey into the Afterlife by Dr. Eben Alexander. Now this is a book that was recommended to me by Kevin Rose because we both have a fascination with near death experiences. Because I had one and he's just fascinated by them. So he sent me this book. Book, which is a very interesting read because this guy's a neurosurgeon and he was in a coma for a week from this bacterial meningitis and he had a whole different story than a lot of people did. So if you're not into near death experiences and the science behind them, don't read this book. But if you are, it is phenomenal. The next book I read was a bit of fiction called Cleave the Sparrow by Jonathan Katz. This came out in February of this year. This is Jonathan Katz's first novel. Awesome book. Just awesome. Like near term science fiction, kind of reality twisting. I haven't read a book that made me feel this awesome and confused since I read Vert. I think Jeff Noon back in the 90s, which was another fantastic book. But this is. It's kind of a reality twisting comedy. Just. It's a weird romp, but I fucking love this book. And at the end of the book there's a qr code that you can scan to get notified when there's some extra stuff coming out. So you get an email back from Jonathan Katz, the author, which I love. And in there he recommended a book called the Case against why Evolution Hid the Truth from Our Eyes by Donald D. Hoffman. So I bought that book and I'm working my way through it right now. And he has a TED Talk too, that is fantastic, where he talks about how basically reality as we see it is kind of a user interface like. Like we look at a computer and we understand that a computer screen, like the email, is not the. The icon, but we use the icon to actually interface with the computer. So reality for us is kind of an interface from, you know, the meat bags we're in to actually interface with how reality as it actually is. And it's really, really good stuff. It's heady stuff. You know, you're not going to want to go from south park to reading this.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

But what that brings me to is Kindle Unlimited because I found Cleave the Sparrow on Kindle Unlimited. It was the first book that I was recommended when I signed up. And since then, since I have my binaural beats now, I've moved from I read Cleave the Sparrow now. Then I went back and I read a new Jocko Willink book called the Code, the Evolution, the Protocol, Striving to become an Eminently Qualified Human by Jocko Willink. Because I like Jocko's stuff. Good book. Short, 70 pages. Another book I read was I Don't answer Questions, Pleading the Fifth by David Riddings, who is an attorney who basically said it's a nice manual on how to never talk to cops, which is basically, I don't answer questions without a lawyer. Just say that when you get pulled over, you're fine until they drag you out of the car and beat you senseless.

[B]

Yeah, I don't think that matters much anymore.

[A]

Yeah. Finding your Comic Genius, an in Depth Guide to the Art of Stand Up Comedy by Adam Bloom. Also a phenomenal book, which is a good how to on how to structure jokes and punch lines, which I'm working my way through. So, yeah, it's been a while since we've been at the library, so there you go.

[B]

That's true. I have started and abandoned a book and I'm working on another one right now. And I'll talk about the abandoned book when I finish the one that I'm working on. And I do have a story in here because I know many of our listeners and on our discord are big fans of comics, and there's a new comics app, and I put this in there before Disney fucking screwed the pooch. And we're all supposed to be not giving them any money, but it's a Disney deal, so, you know, hopefully they'll make everything right and then we can go back and enjoy this thing. Webtoon announced a major new deal with Disney to bring a litany of originally licensed stories and past comics from across Marvel's library to the scrolling format that has made Webtoon a significant force in the comic space. So Disney is getting a 2% equity interest in the company. So everybody stop reading them, okay? But once we're able to enjoy Disney again, by all means. This sounds like it's going to be a great resource and a great infusion of cash into the comics world, and you'll be able to get a bunch of stuff through them.

[A]

All right? Yeah, I look forward to the time where Disney is no longer Persona non grata.

[B]

Yes, me too. Let's see what Dave thinks about that.

[A]

The Dark side.

[B]

With Dave.

[A]

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 Malice. We're in the building. Welcome back, Dave.

[C]

Thank you very much. It's good to be here.

[B]

Good to Dave.

[C]

Hello. Hello.

[A]

I just had to. I just felt like going back to the old days today. I don't know why. Yeah, I just had a. I just had a hankering. I had a hankering, Dave.

[C]

Yeah, Hankering for a hunk of cheese.

[A]

Ah, yes, that's right. What was that from? A hanker for a hunk.

[C]

A slab or slinger slumber. Yeah. It's time for Timer. I don't know. It was a psa.

[B]

Sounds like you guys are having strokes. A little worried for Jason again.

[A]

Yeah, just binaural beats. They've triggered something in me.

[C]

It was a PSA when we were kids to try to get us to eat more cheese. Probably sponsored by the Dairy Association.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Yes. One would assume.

[A]

When I'm dancing the ho down in my boots Kind of slow down Anytime.

[B]

I'm weak in the knees I hanker.

[A]

For a hunk of a slab or slice of chunk of a sniper D is a winner and yet won't spoil my dinner I hanker for a hunk of Cheese.

[C]

But yeah, it was a catchy little thing about eating cheese. So.

[A]

All right, right after that, right after that, PSA from Marlboro to smoke more cigarettes.

[C]

Right, Right. Ooh. Smooth delicious bubble gum cigarette cigarettes.

[B]

Hi, I'm a doctor. There's something I like better after a long surgery than a long draw on my palm. All that's right.

[C]

The clean, healthy cigarette.

[B]

Anyways, let's. We have some news about something that we had been talking about. The Muppet show is getting a 50th anniversary Disney plus special. The Muppet show officially hit the airwaves in 1976, which means 2026 marks an important milestone for Kermit the Frog and his pals. They will air a one off special in the much loved variety show format with pop star Sabrina Carpenter as the featured guest. The Hollywood Reporter is also writing that there's a potential for the special to turn into a backdoor pilot for a future Muppet show revival. As we talked about, of course, that Seth Rogen is executive producing this. And there's a list of the puppeteers that I put in here mostly for Dave, because he probably knows who they are. And I will say that if they do not open with a scene of Kermit the Frog coming out and saying, of course, nobody should be shot dead for what they have to say, but he did say some horrible things, I will be very disappointed in Disney.

[C]

Oh, my.

[A]

I'm very disappointed. Sabrina Carpenter won't just be appearing in the show. She's also among its executive producers.

[B]

That just means that you're old, Jason. She's not for you. It's fine.

[A]

She's not good. That's the problem. She's not good.

[C]

I am blissfully unfamiliar with her, which. It's the same situation I found myself in as a child watching the original.

[B]

Muppet show, not knowing who any of those people were either.

[C]

The first couple seasons, they were mostly Brits and I didn't know who they were. But that's okay. So.

[B]

So we'll see. Hopefully it'll be good and, you know, hopefully we'll be allowed to watch it.

[C]

Yeah. A question I have about this is we don't see Frank Oz listed anywhere.

[B]

No. No.

[C]

And I wonder if he'll have any involvement. My guess is not. It seems as though his relationship with Disney and the Muppets these days is to be kind of a pain in the ass off on the side.

[A]

Yes. He's earned it. He's fucking earned it. True.

[B]

He has passed the torch and is lobbing softballs at them. That is.

[A]

Right.

[B]

That seems to be what he does these days.

[C]

Yeah. I mean, Dave Goles is the only real original one, you know, back. He does Gonzo and some other characters, so he's the connection with the original.

[A]

But everybody else has arthritis because they're 900 years old and can't move a puppet, probably.

[C]

Right, right.

[A]

You know, you got to have dexterity for that. I don't know about you. My hands suck now, and I'm only 54.

[C]

I do notice I wake up in the morning and my fingers are stiff and they need to wiggle them around to loosen them up. And I say to myself, I guess this is arthritis.

[B]

So there are these things called. Called stretches that one can do.

[C]

Well, that's what I do to loosen them up.

[A]

Yeah, exactly.

[B]

But. But you do them before. Like, you just keep doing them.

[A]

You can't stretch out of a bone condition, though. That's the problem.

[B]

Well, if it is an actual bone.

[C]

Condition and they're hard to do in.

[B]

Your sleep, by the way. In my 20s, I stretch myself out of plenty of bone conditions.

[C]

Oh, hey, hey, now.

[A]

Now he needs a pill.

[C]

Never gets old.

[B]

Whatever gets you there, Jason.

[A]

Yeah, that's right.

[C]

It's a great time to be al.

[B]

A white male is older.

[A]

Okay, moving on. So with the iOS 26 update, there was an update to the Carrot app. The Carrot Weather app, which is my favorite weather app.

[C]

Yes.

[A]

Not just because it's funny as fuck. It's also one of the best weather apps that's out there because it has lots of different settings where you can change your weather source. Because I have moved away from NOAA because there's nobody home at NOAA anymore.

[B]

Yes. Wise.

[A]

Yeah, I was researching getting one of those backyard weather stations.

[C]

Yes, I have one.

[A]

You do? Which one do you have?

[C]

Don't know. But. So my wife is a weather junkie, and so her favorite app is the Carrot app, and we actually have it on our Apple TV as well. So occasionally when I'm firing up the Apple tv, I get insulted by the Carrot weather app.

[A]

I did not know you could put that on the Apple tv. I am going to install that today. Yes, yes.

[C]

So I want to say, a couple years ago, for her birthday, I got her one of those backyard weather stations, and she loves it. So the couch where she sits, there's a little display, and it's. It connects to the thing that's upstairs outside in. In the back of the house. And so at a glance, she can look over and know what the current wind Speed is. And this makes her very happy. And it measures rainfall and of course temperature and all those kinds of things. So. Oh, and publishes online.

[B]

So.

[A]

Yeah, that's the thing. You can join the network and be part of the whole team. That's what, that's. That's why I found it through Carrot. Because of people like your wife who are awesome and care about the weather enough to publish and be part of the network.

[B]

How did they not branded it as the Wetiverse.

[C]

Go on.

[B]

Well, like the Fediverse, except for, you know, rain.

[C]

The Weatherverse. That's a good. Yeah, weather. I just. I didn't hear you correctly. I thought you said whatevers and you said Weatherverse. Yeah, that's a good question. Yeah.

[B]

Do I have to think of everything for people?

[A]

No, you just got to work on your addiction because we didn't know what the. You said.

[B]

You know, I have a nine year old and I'm basically constantly sick. Like what virus came home this week? So I keep trying to clear. I'm muting and clearing my throat and not all getting it all before I come back.

[A]

We appreciate that very, very much. You're welcome. I do. Because otherwise I'd have to edit that out. But yeah, so my roommate was looking into it. So she's the weather person who cares enough to go pay for one of those because I don't care enough to pay for one.

[B]

Well, you're in Southern California too.

[A]

Well, we kind of need it right now because the weather here is. I don't know if you noticed, but Orange county, half of it fell down last night in the rainfall. So the weather here is just insanely variable. We had hail in like two in the morning last night. Okay. It's very bizarre. But anyway, getting back to Carrot with the update. I'm sure you've seen it Now, Dave, now that I know you're a fan, but Carrot has decided to launch a musical inside of the app. And I want your take on the musical as a musical fan.

[C]

Okay, I will give you that in a second. But in the meantime, I have looked up which weather thing we have. It is the Ambient weather array, the WS2902, which is $199 at Amazon.

[A]

Okay, that is not the one that I was looking at, so I will check that one out.

[C]

You know, it's been sitting out there for a couple years now, just doing its thing with no fuss, no muss. So there's my limited review. And you know, it delights my wife, which happy wife, happy life There you go. Yes. So back to the carrot app, the musical. I was unaware of this until I saw your link to it in the show notes here. I went and checked it out, and I have to say, it is freaking amazing. Like, I listened to the first song and it's as good as anything you'll see on the Great White Way this year.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

And that is both delightful and disturbing to me because it is so good. Like, they took all of the things that you expect in a Broadway showstopper number, and they're all in there. All of the musical clues or cues, rather the structure of it, how it builds, how it ends, the way it's sung, the lyrics. It's a pretty idealized Broadway song and it's not ironic or a parody or I see where they're going. But not quite good enough. No, it's good. It's really good.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

Yeah. And that really scares me how good it is. Like, I don't know how they did this. I'm guessing it could be as simple as they tossed it into one of the many LLMs or whatever, the ones that create songs now to do this. But.

[A]

I've been following because the creator of the app is just one guy. He made the musical, but he also said he's the villain in song four that came out yesterday. Song. He sings on it, so. Oh, I, I don't know, man. He just might be a really good, big fan of musicals and just got hired somebody to do it. I've got notes out asking him, you know, how it was created, because I really want to know. Because if this was an AI created musical, I want his prompts because God damn, it's good. Yeah, he did a really good job.

[C]

It sounds like AI to me, but.

[A]

It does. It does. But in some parts it doesn't. So maybe he, maybe it's a mix, you know, I don't know. But man, it's funny and it's really good. Surprisingly good.

[C]

No, it's a toe tapper. It's, you know, you leave the theater singing the songs and if that is something that you can accomplish with just a prompt. Right. Creativity as a service.

[A]

I'm glad that you've seen it and are, are, are a toe tapping fan like me.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

I, I, I saw this and I just, you know, I, I wanted to pass this along since we're a bunch of old people and the Publisher's Clearinghouse has gone bankrupt, meaning the people who opted for the forever payments will no longer get paid. What are your thoughts on this? Because this Is this. I find this. I find this truly disturbing.

[C]

Yeah, this is.

[A]

Yeah, that's amen.

[B]

I'm sure it was in their fine print.

[C]

Yeah, well, I think, yes, certainly, you're right. Forever doesn't mean forever. Just like unlimited data doesn't mean unlimited data.

[B]

Exactly.

[C]

There's billions of those. But, yeah, this is bullshit. And here's what pisses me off about this. The folks who bought Publishers Clearinghouse are continuing doing Publishers Clearinghouse. They're just cutting off everyone from before when they made their purchase. And that to me, again, bullshit like that should have been part of the obligations of the purchase. You just do away with a debt, a promise. It's unethical, obviously. Technically not illegal. I guess people will roll their eyes and shrug their shoulders and say, oh, well, it's just, just, just business. But there are people, as this article points out, there are people who had planned their lives around this promise, and now they're scrambling to figure out what they're going to do next. I know I poor them, you know, they're not going to be as rich as they were before, but still, I think, yeah, this is crap. And it makes me mad that they're allowed to do this.

[B]

Yeah, I'm ticked off about always take the lump sum.

[C]

That's right.

[A]

Yeah, that's right. And the thing is, in the article, they mentioned how much it costs them per year to make these payments, and it was like $1.9 million. And to me, that also, that money should have been in escrow once these people. It should have been in escrow and like, oh, sure, Publishers Clearinghouse can get the interest off of that and keep things going, but that should have been an escrow for these people. Yeah.

[C]

So you know how tests, like, make a shot from half court at a basketball game, halftime, and you'll win a car. Those are all insured, right? Because chances are the person's not going to win. So they pay a certain amount of money, and if someone does make the basket, then the insurance pays to buy the new car. PCH should have had insurance against this. They should have been, in my opinion, required to have insurance against the possibility of bankruptcy so that everyone that they're obligated to pay out would be made whole. That's my take on it. Mm. Some bullshit little regulatory oversight.

[B]

It all went to shit when Ed McMahon died.

[A]

It did. I guarantee, if Ed McMahon was alive right now, he'd have been paying those people out of his own pocket, rolling.

[B]

In his own grave.

[C]

I don't know, Ed. Really. I Don't know how deep Ed's pockets were.

[B]

Hey, Johnny, got some. Got some cash.

[A]

Yeah, Yeah.

[C]

I had a friend who. He had his driver's license in his wallet and taped over his own picture. He had put Ed McMahon's picture on his driver's license just to see if anybody would ever notice, and nobody did.

[A]

Nowadays, that'll get you invented, get you sent to Venezuela so though.

[C]

Right.

[A]

Careful.

[C]

Right.

[B]

I mean, you know, it was kind of strange how he was a dead ringer for Ed McMahon, but.

[A]

Yeah, that's right. He was an Ed McMahon impersonator on the weekends, but. Yeah, yeah.

[C]

Yes.

[A]

Oh, and by the way, I found the one that I was looking for, the one that I was looking at was the net atmo weather stations. There's a link in the show notes. They're very pretty, but. And they also have an in home base station so you can get the air quality in your house as well as outside.

[C]

Oh, okay.

[A]

Yeah. But they do have smart rain gauges and smart anemometers as well.

[B]

I honestly did not even know any of this stuff existed.

[A]

Oh, oh, yeah, there you go.

[B]

I opened my window.

[C]

No, weather nerdery is a thing.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

And it can be. I don't know what your situation is, Jason, but it can be a point of contention in my house because I luddite that I am just use Apple's weather.

[A]

No, no, no, no, you cannot do that. You cannot do that.

[C]

That's what I. Yeah. Oh, believe me, I've been told.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

I'm like, oh, it says it's going to rain here in 20 minutes. And my wife goes, exactly, yeah, sure. That's what they say.

[A]

Yeah. See, when it used to be Dark sky before Apple bought it, subsumed it and destroyed it, it actually worked. Unless you were Brian who lived on.

[B]

The coast, unless you were coastal, in which case it never worked.

[A]

But surprisingly enough, you know, I was surrounded by. On three sides by water in San Francisco, and it worked up to the second in San Francisco. But yeah, I guess. And I guess they cared enough in San Francisco because they had to get. They had to get it right because otherwise they wouldn't have gotten funding. But that's true. Yeah. But anyway. Yeah, yeah, you have to. That's why you have to fine tune Carrot to make sure that you have to do a lot of AB testing to find out which ones work and which ones don't in your area. That's why I love Carrot, because you can change all that stuff. That's why I pay for it every Year. It cost me like, 25 bucks. A month. A year. But at least when I say it's going to rain, it's going to rain, you know?

[C]

Well, yeah, at least you got that going for you.

[A]

Yeah. Which is like four times in Southern California, so I got to be. I got to be accurate, man. It doesn't rain here very often, so.

[C]

Okay. Have you guys installed iOS 26?

[A]

Yep, about a month ago. Yeah. Yep, about a month ago. Okay.

[B]

Jason's on the beta program, you know.

[C]

Yeah, I.

[A]

Public betas aren't bad now, so it's. It worth. Worth it. So.

[C]

I was happy to learn that they finally brought crossfading to Apple Music so it can cross fade from one song to another. And this. This frustrated me because there were times when I would be doing, like, an event, right, And I wanted to have some music playing, and I wanted to have it crossfade from one song to another in a Playlist. And the iOS version of Apple Music just couldn't do that, do that. It just wasn't capable of it. And this, you know, this stupid. Why not? This is not anything that's particularly highly processor intensive. We've had this on other things for decades. Anyway, they finally brought it to Apple Music and it sucks.

[A]

How do you make it. How do you make crossfading suck?

[C]

You fade to the next song in the middle of the previous song.

[B]

Oh, that'll do it.

[A]

The slider for when the song ends to when it starts is off a bit, you say?

[C]

Yeah, by a couple minutes sometimes.

[A]

Oh, my God.

[C]

And then on top of that, as part of it getting the timing screwed up, you make the crossfade last about 30 seconds.

[B]

Oh, there's no settings on that. Okay.

[C]

I have not dug in yet.

[B]

All I know is you might want to check that.

[C]

Oh, I'm gonna. All I know is what happened to me on my drive and the way into work.

[B]

Work.

[C]

So I just want to say this is a highly scientific study. A sample size of 1, but it did screw up multiple times. So I'm a bit crestfallen.

[B]

I. I will have to say, speaking to the weather nerds as a music nerd, while you did outlay a good use case for crossfade being the playing music at a public event or something like that, crossfading, that shit, you listen to the whole fucking song. You listen to the end of the goddamn song, and then you listen to the very beginning of the new fucking song. And they don't go over each other. God damn it.

[C]

Yeah, okay.

[A]

I'm kind of With Brian on that. Yeah.

[C]

I mean, I'm situationally with you and certainly philosophically with you. I'm someone who stays till the very end of the movie to watch all the credits, whether or not there's an Easter egg at the end, just at a. Of respect to the people who made the movie.

[A]

Okay, now, Dave, I'm going to tell you right now, since this is a technical podcast, if you go to Settings under your new iOS thing and go to Apps and then find music, under song transitions, there are two styles. One is auto mix. Songs transition at the perfect moment based on analysis of the key and tempo of the music. Ooh, AI. Yes. Or you can select crossfade. And if you select crossfade, there is a crossfade duration slider, which will let you exactly pinpoint down to the second what that crossfade is.

[B]

I don't know if you've noticed, Dave, but Jason's greatest joy in life is fact checking you in real time.

[A]

That's what I do best.

[B]

Yes.

[C]

Well, it's not so much that he's right, it's that the rest of us are wrong.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Actually, again, that's where the joy is derived from, Jason. That's where it comes from.

[C]

I don't have a problem with that. All right, I'm in the music. Music thing. Where am I looking here? Is it in Apple Intelligence?

[A]

No, just go to Settings.

[B]

Obviously it's not in Intelligence.

[A]

Apps. And then it's under Music. Under apps.

[C]

Yeah, I'm in the music. I don't see Crossfade.

[A]

No, I told you it wasn't crossfade.

[C]

What did you say?

[A]

I said it was. Where was it? Now, now, see, I already left smarty pants. Back to you. No, no, no, no, no. Under song transition. Under audio.

[C]

Oh, there it is. Auto mix cross. All right, all right. Well, stay tuned.

[A]

Brian, you forget that my job for a long time was called Solutions Architect. That's what my job was. To find shit and how it works and make it work.

[B]

Oh, I know you're good at it. I was just pointing out how much joy you actually get from it.

[A]

That's why I hate my job now, because I don't get to do it anymore. Every time I get a chance, chance to, I'm just, like, tickled pink. I'm like, like, like a school girl.

[C]

Oh, I appreciate it. Hopefully this will do it.

[A]

I'm. Look, I. Now Dave's going to have a much better ride home, so. That's true there.

[B]

Ha.

[C]

That's true.

[B]

You'd have a Better ride home if he just turned it off. Also, probably listen to the music as the artist intended.

[C]

We'll see. Well, if they intended it, then why do they fade the music out at the end?

[B]

Because tech ruins everything. Everything.

[A]

Okay.

[C]

Have you ever seen a band fade live?

[B]

Yes.

[C]

Go on.

[B]

Well, I listen to a lot of electronic music. Okay, then turn it back up and then the beat drops and everybody goes crazy. Crossfaded. Nobody would give a shit.

[C]

All right. Okay, quick follow up here from last week. Jason, you were asking us if we. If the tariffs had hit us at all. And in the meantime, I saw this article from 404 Media come by that some international sellers are adding absurd shipping prices to things so that they don't have to deal with American buyers. Interesting.

[A]

Yep. That's a lot.

[B]

That's a lot.

[A]

Yeah, yeah.

[C]

$2,000 shipping charge on a $300 lens from Japan. So they're just saying, yeah, we don't.

[A]

Want to sell to you is what they're saying.

[C]

Yeah, they don't want to sell to us.

[A]

Yeah, it's fine until we fix our stuff.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

Three and a half years, guys. Three and a half years if we're lucky.

[C]

I included a link here to an interesting Star wars video. This is an AI Deep Fakie kind of thing and has to do with Obi Wan and Darth Maul and Kwaijan is in there. I guess this is a recreation in part of something from Star Wars Rebels. Yes, but they make it look live action. In this case, there's definitely some UN.

[B]

Rebels version is much better.

[C]

Is that right?

[B]

Yes. This is ridiculous.

[C]

Okay. There's some, definitely lots of uncanny Valley stuff here, but still I'm curious as to how they go about making something like this. I don't know what the tools are that they use to be able to do something consistently from shot to shot. I'm not sure how you do that using AI And I don't know what the tool are, what the tools are. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then finally, have you guys read Born Standing up by Steve Martin?

[B]

I have a phenomenal book. Absolutely phenomenal.

[C]

Yeah, Fantastic book. So I was interviewing someone about a week ago, a gentleman named Kevin McGee who is a very high level person at Microsoft in Microsoft Canada, actually. Brian. So he's on your side of the border. And we were talking about folks coming up through school and getting their jobs and advice for them. And he asked me if I had any advice for the folks coming up. And I said, I always use what Steve Martin said, which is be so Good. They can't ignore you.

[B]

You.

[C]

And Kevin was tickled by this because he told me that Born Standing up is a book that he gives to all of his salespeople to read because of how much standup comedy is like being a salesperson. Right. You have to iterate your pitch, you have to deal with rejection. You have to keep coming back with, you know, and improve and improve and eventually you'll, you'll figure it out or you won't and perhaps make a career out of it. And I thought that was a really interesting insight and I think it's a great idea. I think there's a lot for salespeople to learn from the book. Born Standing Up. It's a short read. Excellent read, so highly recommended. But if you're a salesperson, maybe check it out and get some lessons.

[B]

That's just good for life. I don't think you have to be a salesperson. It's great. Great.

[C]

True.

[A]

Yep, definitely. There's also a book by Cal Newport called so good they can't ignore why skills trump passion and the quest for work you love. It's from 2012. It's a phenomenal book. One of his. I think it's his first one that actually hit. But yeah, really good job. I mean, really good book. Not really. You can get a really good job if you read the really good book.

[C]

Right. Well, you know, Steve Martin did a really good job when he was doing stand up.

[A]

He did too. Yeah.

[C]

Filled a stadium or two.

[A]

Just a few.

[C]

All right, that's what I got, guys.

[B]

All right, see you back here next time, hopefully.

[C]

Take care.

[B]

Yeah, bye.

[A]

Closing shout out over on Patreon, we've got two new subscribers, Jan and Joe. Way to go, Jays. And from the the pool of continuing supporters that we like to like to give credit to every week, we've got Austin, Stephen, Krista, Richard, Andrew, Max, Gary, Chad and Jen, Michael and Aaron. Good deal. I don't know how I, I'm sure I screwed that up. I'm sorry, I'm sorry. Don't unsubscribe because I suck at this, please.

[B]

There you go.

[A]

We love you.

[B]

We love you. Thank you so much. Over at PayPal we've got Natalie, Arcadio, Nathaniel, Linda, Andrew, Brett and Sloan.

[A]

Woohoo. And over at the Tip Jar, we've got John, Paula, Theodore and Sean. And just the standard reminder every week if you want to help support the show because we are, we are fan supported only at this point. Head over to patreon.com gog and you can sign up for as little as $3 a month or as much as your little heart desires. You get the show a little bit early, ad free and in high definition. And if you go to Gog show donate, you can find other ways to help donate to the show. But the Patreon way is the only way to get this show a little bit early, ad free and in high definition.

[B]

All right. And we have a new five star rating. If you hate people and love technology, this is the podcast for you. You. I'm not sure how accurate that is because we hate technology too.

[A]

I still love. I mean look, we just spent 10 minutes talking about the weather technology. Come on. All right. We just hate meta's technology and Google's and apples and. Never mind. Moving on. Sadly, Robert Redford died this week at age of 89. He had a damn good run. Everybody's talking about all of his greatest hits. But. But I would like to say my favorite movie of Robert Redford is obviously Sneakers.

[B]

I mean definitely for this show, Sneakers is the one.

[A]

Yep. And I wanted to go see how old sneakers was. It's 33 years old because it came out on September 11, 1992. When I asked Google, of course it said it's 32 because math is hard for the AIs and they fired the wrong team, I guess.

[B]

Didn't know what date it was, apparently.

[A]

Nope, Nope. Sure didn't.

[B]

And breaking news as of yesterday, relevant to me all time Los Angeles Dodgers great Clayton Kershaw has announced he will be retiring at the end of the season. He is one of the greatest pitchers of his generation. The 37 year old is like a 37 year retire. My God.

[A]

Is nearing the end of his 18th.

[B]

MLB season, all of which he has spent with the Dodgers. That is so incredibly rare this day, in this day and age, in any sport that anybody stays with a team through the duration of their career, that's notable in and of itself. He is of course a fantastic pitcher. His final regular season start at Dodger Stadium will be today at 10:10pm for me, I will be watching it. Although he's likely to appear in Los Angeles again during the upcoming playoffs because unless something catastrophic happens, the Dodgers should be making it. So yay Kershaw. You know he deserves all the accolades. Amazing guy.

[A]

And this tells you as much as I know about Dodgers baseball. I've never heard of the guy. Never heard of. Never heard his name once. Ones until next time, I'm Jason DeFilipo because I've heard of my name and.

[B]

I'm Brian Schmeister thanks for listening to Grumpy Old Geeks. Get all the links and goodies from Today's episode of GOG Show 714. Also my childhood area code. Want to keep the grumpiness alive? Toss us a few bucks at GOG Show. Donate Every penny helps keep the show on the air and we are entirely fan supported. Love the show. Share it. There's a Share for button on your podcast player. Use it to spread the grumpiness to friends, foes and weather nerds. We'll love you for it. Swing by GOG show to join our discord and chat with us and other show fans. Got thoughts? Feedback? Cool links? Hit us up at GOG show contact and don't forget to leave a five star review at GOG Show Review and we'll read it on the show. And we've got Merch Snag Grumpy Gear [e-mail] show and stay grumpy.

[A]

You do know in fourth grade that I was voted most likely to become a meteorologist.

[B]

Thought it would be most likely to be a pain in the ass.