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- [00:01]
A
Avoiding your unfinished home projects because you're not sure where to start.
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B
Thumbtack knows homes, so you don't have to. Don't know the difference between matte paint.
- [00:10]
A
Finish and satin or what that clunking sound from your dryer is. With Thumbtack, you don't have to be a home pro, you just have to hire one. You can hire top rated pros, see price estimates and read reviews all on the app.
- [00:23]
C
Download thumbtack. Today, Grumpy Old Geeks, a weekly talk show hosted by Brian Schulmeister and Jason DeFilippo discussing the finer points of what went wrong on the Internet and who's to blame. Welcome to Grumpy Old geeks. I'm Jason DeFilippo from Rainy LA.
- [00:47]
A
And I'm Brian Schulmeister from very chilly Toronto in fascist free mostly Canada. I have to apologize. Speaking of being in Canada and it being chilly, there may be some sound. There's a lot of home improvement stuff going on up and down the street. We are in the, the final run. In about two weeks the snow will start to fall and all work basically stops for four to five months here in Canada.
- [01:11]
C
Oh, so it's the mad dash.
- [01:13]
A
I've learned in my past couple years here that these, these last two weeks, these two weeks of November are just insane. And like concrete trucks are rolling up and down the street. There's woodworkers. Every contractor in the city is working right now.
- [01:26]
C
Oh, I know all about it because I'm the one that has to fix it every year. So not surprisingly. But it is raining here. So if you hear some. Some what? It sounds like metallic gunfire coming from outside the, the air conditioner I have in my lovely garage here gets rained on. It goes tinkle, tinkle, tinkle. So tinkle, tinkle, little star is what I'm getting today. And it's 62 degrees in here in my office.
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A
So positively balmy as far as I'm concerned.
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C
Yeah. But inside, inside, Brian. Inside at 62. All right, I say so we got some follow up. So I want to say thank you to everybody who checked out our first foray into the YouTube videos.
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A
Complained about it.
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C
Nobody complained. We've got zero complaints. Knock on wood so far. And here's the crazy part. So we've got 853 views on the video, tons of comments. Because I finally turned them on. I can't. You know, this is the. We've got the best comment day in the history of comments ever because this is the first time we ever turned them On. Yeah, so. Because I'm like, I'm a fragile, wilting flower. So I don't know if I can handle YouTube comments, but I'm going to try. I'm going to try. And it's all for engagement. So then I made. So, yeah, we got like 850 some views on the video. And I'm like, okay, I'm going to make a quick short and see how the short works. I'm thinking, okay, few people will check out the short. So far the short has 1400 views.
- [02:54]
A
Well, what that tells me we should do, Jason, is screw this long form video podcast thing that we're doing and we just Talk for like 15 minutes and then you can cut it up and then we just go from there.
- [03:03]
C
Okay, okay. See now this comes into the second issue that the questions that I did get all week where what is the best way for you guys for me to consume your show? I'm like, well, here's the deal. I don't care if you consume the show. Just is give us money on Patreon.
- [03:21]
A
The best way is just to open your wallet.
- [03:23]
C
Yeah, just send us money and we'll stop talking.
- [03:27]
A
Yeah, perfect.
- [03:28]
C
Yeah. YouTube doesn't make us anything. This is all just an experiment. So we'll see eventually. Doesn't matter. I hope people enjoy it because it is a pain in the ass and a lot of work.
- [03:39]
A
It's a lot more work. So we'll see what happens. But yeah, and it's not even just more. It's a lot more work for Jason. I realized that I wore my around the house hoodie for the show yesterday and I can't wear it again to the show last week and I can't wear it again this week and I had to find another hoodie. Do you understand my pain?
- [03:57]
C
I do. I'm wearing the adventure hoodie from Zane Lamprey available on Kickstarter. But I'm also wearing my greatest band in Chicago, the vindictive shirt. Because last week I had to wear my dead Kennedy shirt. So now I have to worry about my wardrobe. I got a haircut for this thing.
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A
Well, look, I don't even want to talk about hair. My hair length and my hairstyle do not match with headphones. I'm very upset about this. I might have to go find my in ear, Samsung or Sennheiser.
- [04:24]
C
Yep.
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A
Okay.
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C
Video.
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A
Whose bright idea was this?
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C
You're walking the rocking the swisher do. So maybe time for a trim trim. But anyway, thanks for everybody who's checking it out. Yeah, if you want to see it, just go to gog show YouTube. It's the fastest way to get there and we'll see how it goes.
- [04:43]
A
Well, I can tell you another place that's seeing how it goes, Jason, is the Tesla Diner in Los Angeles. I don't know if you've been there yet, but things, no, the times, they are changing.
- [04:53]
C
Okay.
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A
As I said, as this article states, in the lead up to the already controversial opening of the Tesla Diner in LA came the unexpected hiring of Eric Green Span, the LA chef famous for his critically acclaimed grilled cheese joint. Other chefs, like Paul Kahan of Chicago, had shied away from working with Musk and said so publicly. Meanwhile, the Los Angeles Times story about the opening of the diner indicated that Greenspan also intended to open a Jewish deli called Mish not far from the Tesla diner. I'm not sure if you recall, but Elon and the Jews. It's been a bit squirrely.
- [05:23]
C
Yeah, a little bit.
- [05:25]
A
Well, according to a report on Tuesday from the Los Angeles Times, Greenspan says he is in fact leaving the Tesla Diner now to focus on his Jewish jelly. His cooking was apparently hemmed in a bit by Elon Musk's demands, according to the report of Eater, that everything on the menu be epic, including or especially the epic bacon side dish. We don't order anything except for the burgers now, an unnamed guest told the New York Times restaurant reviewer, adding everything else is just bad. The LA Times apparently pressed Greenspan unsuccessfully on whether people protesting and saying he worked for the Swastikar restaurant and such contributed to his departure. They didn't comment on any of that. In any case, it's probably not outlandish to guess that mustering your sharpness of focus and attention on the opening of your Jewish deli, all while being pressured to make epic bacon in a controversial car themed restaurant to please the richest man in the world who has not shied away from occasionally seeming like he is not all that fond of Jews. Sounds irksome.
- [06:21]
C
Yeah, it really bummed me that Greenie was part of that crew when it opened. I thought he was going to bail before it actually launched, but he stuck around and I was like, he must be under some kind of contract because.
- [06:34]
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I'm imagining it was quite the paycheck which is funding his restaurant.
- [06:37]
C
Funding his other restaurant. Yeah, yeah. Because there's just nothing else makes any sense. You know, I, I, I'm a huge fan of his and it really bummed me out that he stuck around. But now that now that he's gone. Maybe we'll get the real tea on on what happened but yeah, no, I'm never going there. It's it's on the wrong side of the hill. I don't you Hollywood is just not a place that anybody wants to go. It is like sincerely one of the nastiest, filthiest places on in Southern California right now. No, not going to Hollywood again. And in other news of people making an exit somewhat abruptly, Larry Summers, the former treasury secretary under Bill Clinton, former director of the National Economic Council under Barack Obama, former Harvard president and former World bank chief economist, is quitting OpenAI's board in cutting loose from Harvard after Congress released a new batch of uncomfortable emails between him and Jeffrey Epstein. The messages showed years of personal correspondence, including sexist remarks and the surreal spectacle of a former treasury secretary asking a convicted sex offender for romantic advice.
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A
I mean, he knows a thing or two.
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C
He does know a thing or two. Probably not the things or two you want to know. It could be kind of a do not do list, but hey. So Summer says he's stepping back from all public commitments, thanking OpenAI and pretending this is a graceful exit instead of a shame filled run to the hills. So I think we're going to be.
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A
Seeing an awful lot of this in the next couple weeks.
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C
Oh, yes. Oh yes, we will. In the news. Brian, guess what?
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A
What?
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C
We have averted the dystopian hellscape for now.
- [08:25]
A
For now.
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C
So I don't know if you've. I was, I was waiting on bated breath all week for Nvidia's earnings call, thinking, oh my God, should I stock up on canned goods or, you know, go buy some MRIs and things like that or MRE is not MRIs. I can't stock up on MRIs. You can only get one of those at a time.
- [08:44]
A
I had the best MRI ever. They told me it was the, the greatest MRI they've ever seen.
- [08:51]
C
Yep, I aced it. Nvidia dropped its earnings report this week. And for a hot minute, Wall street acted like everything was fine. The chip giant posted an absurd $57 billion in quarterly revenue and nearly $32 billion in profit, up more than 60% from last year. And of course, Nvidia stock popped more than 4% Thursday morning. Well, then things kind of settled down and reality wandered back in. And by midday, Nvidia's rally flipped. The stock plunged more than 4% and. And the rest of tech followed it off the curb. Microsoft dipped, Google sagged. And nobody cared that Google had just trotted out their new Gemini 3 model. Analysts pointed out the obvious. Just because Nvidia is making bank doesn't mean the hyperscalers burning mountains of cash on AI infrastructure have any shot at ever turning a profit. So they know that this is, this is not going to last.
- [09:41]
A
Yeah, this is definitely an AI bubble happening right now. I mean, you know, I had my finger hovering over the trigger of sell Nvidia and I'm going to, I just haven't yet. I'm holding on a little bit longer. But I'll be selling it totally. I want to, I will gotta, I gotta lock in the profits I got because there's no doubt that. I mean it's so complicated and I've talked about it with friends and people. We talk about it on our discord, our GOG discord about this. It's the stock market is so untethered from reality and has been for so long now that there's no telling what's going to happen. But it should be pointed out, you know, the article says, oh, tech followed it off the curb. Microsoft, dip, Google, sag, blah blah, blah, they're still fine, they're still way above, they're still way above where they should be and it'll probably keep going that way for a while. So again, you know, if you don't need the money, I'd hold stuff. Personally, I'm getting rid of anything that's like super crazy AI based, that doesn't have a backing business, Microsoft does, Google does, et cetera, whatever. And Nvidia is going to crash. But is it going to crash completely? No, it's a, it's a company that will continue to do very well even after the AI boom ends. But if you want those AI boom profits, you better start thinking about something.
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C
What about the bitcoin boom profits, Brian? Because I believe Nvidia used to supply the GPUs that made Bitcoin. Does anybody care about bitcoin anymore?
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A lot of people care about bitcoin, Jason.
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C
I don't know why, because they're criminals. Bitcoin dropped to below $87,000 on Thursday, capping a nasty multi week slide that's erased nearly 10 in five days and over 30% since its $126,000 peak in October. The entire crypto market has shed $8 trillion, even as President Trump keeps calling himself crypto's guardian angel. With angels like that, who needs devils? Analysts say the market's jittery whales are spooking everyone and bitcoin can still fall further before it Finds a bottom. Bitcoin's bottom. There's a. And it could mean so many different things. So many different things.
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A
So it could.
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C
Yeah. If you have some spare time, there's a great article on the Atlantic that'll really piss you off if you hate crypto as much as we do. And it's called How Crypto Could Trigger the Next Financial Crisis. Oh, did you get a chance to read this one, Brian?
- [11:59]
A
I scanned through it again. It's. It's very long. The TLDR on all of this, especially with bitcoin, was as much as I'd like to be schadenfreuding about it crashing and all that sort of stuff, it probably won't. There's too many. Industrial investor. Industrial invest. That's not the right term, but you know what I mean. Institutional. Institutional investors that have invested in it. Now the real problem and the thing that I balked at and I was screaming about was like, you know, people's, people's retirement plans. You, you probably don't even know that you're invested in Bitcoin. But all those in, all those investors went in on bitcoin. Chances are, without you even knowing it, mom and pop that are just have their retirement plan that they're hoping to eke out the next 20, 30 years with. Good luck with that. That's going to be about one year of healthcare the way we're going right now. You're investing in bitcoin. You know you're invested in bitcoin if you don't even know it at this point. And that's the real issue. I was losing my mind when I found out how many retirement plans and different index funds were going in on bitcoin. Stay the fuck out of it.
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C
Yeah. And the article generally tends to talk about the genius act that was shoved by, shoved through by Trump and his butt bros on how stablecoins could very easily tank the economy when they fail, not if they fail or when they fail and the government has to backstop them. So I don't recommend reading it before bed because I did and I had very many angry nightmares about it. Yeah, you know, just divest from any type of crypto coin future because it's all designed to take your money from you no matter what.
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A
You know, don't get involved in it. It's bad news, but you know, the tech bros are going to save us. Jason. Jeff Bezos is spearheading a new AI startup called Project Prometheus. Obviously having never seen the movie, focused on his current interest in space and engineering. The New York Times reports the company, which is yet to be made public, will reportedly have $6.2 billion in funding. Part of that will of course come from Bezos, who will act as co CEO. Project Prometheus will reportedly focus on creating AI systems that gain knowledge from the physical world rather than just processing digital information like AI.
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C
We are spirit in the material world. Our spirit.
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One of my favorite albums of all time, actually. Yeah, it's a very good one. So this leads me to believe he's only he's buying up a bunch, a bunch of roombas and he's just going to attach AI to them and figure out what's going on in the physical world. Jason. In particular, the company will reportedly explore how AI can support engineering and manufacturing in areas such as vehicles and space technology. So there you go. We got a new company coming because all these guys are just playing biggest dickus and dumbest namus.
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C
Why don't they just take their money and off just, I don't know, end hunger. Give some back. Yeah, give some back. You didn't really deserve all of it to begin with, so no.
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And you made it all from us. And maybe you want to be liked so much you could do something good for the world.
- [14:56]
C
Yeah, yeah, think about that for a minute.
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Like Elon is so patently trying to make the world love him. If he just walked away, wrote a big check and ended world hunger, everybody would love them.
- [15:09]
C
Yeah, done. Yeah, easy peasy.
- [15:13]
A
Anyway, speaking of AI, yet another study has come out showing that most companies aren't making any money off of AI. This came from kpmg, a British accounting and professional services firm, was published on Wednesday and looked specifically at businesses in Canada, surveying them for evidence that AI was providing anything in the way of return on investment. Guess what the study found? No.
- [15:33]
C
Nope. Nope. Not a.
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Pretty much nobody who's using AI has managed to find a financial upside yet. Indeed, the survey found that while more and more businesses are using AI, only about 2% of respondents claimed that they had seen a return on their generative AI investments. This included 753 business leaders from across Canada. Found the slim amount of respondents who did report results from AI were from very large companies that reported at least 1 billion in annual revenue. So they're the only people that are found any return on investment. And my bet is they fired a bunch of people to get that return.
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C
On investment and claimed it was because of AI.
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A
Yeah, AI is seeing the largest rate of adoption in IT and sales and marketing, according to the studies also research and development, finance and accounting and engineering. So Canadian Managing Partner of Digital and Transformation at KPMG Canada, Stephanie Terrell laid it out in the general outlook as this only a small sliver of Canadian businesses are generating growth from their AI investments today. And that's understandable. New technologies take time to be adopted and demonstrate identifiable return on investment. And then she went all in. Canada is facing near term threats to its economic competitiveness and grappling with declining productivity and prosperity. So waiting years for AI investments to create value isn't realistic. In fact, it's downright risky. We have to go all in one. We should turbocharge AI investments so as to increase national competitiveness and see the elusive ROI that is currently eluding them. Basically, we just watched a bunch of cars drive off a cliff real fast. We can't be last. Let's drive off the cliff too.
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C
Yeah.
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A
Jesus Christ.
- [17:10]
C
If all your friends jumped off a bridge, would you do too? Yeah, I guess so.
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A
Despite the fact that it's currently useless, a certain portion of companies, basically 3 in 10, expect to start seeing a return on their AI investment within a year. A greater portion 6 and 10, says they expect to see ROI in one to five years. Hope springs eternal, I guess.
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C
Last week we discussed Waymo's upcoming move to allow highway driving in select cities. Brian, remember that?
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A
I sure do.
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C
Well, that's why we like Waymo better than Tesla. Because they actually had a plan and lidar and not cameras. Well, a San Francisco writer says their so called Tesla robo taxi's safety driver fell asleep at the wheel not once, not twice, but three times during a trip. The car's own pay attention alerts had to jolt the guy awake. Real confidence booster there, eh?
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A
Yeah, yeah, I feel great about that.
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C
Yeah. The passenger reported it, offered video and got radio silence from Tesla. I'm surprised they didn't just send him a poop emoji. But I guess you have to. You have to send it to the Tesla X account for the poop emoji. Others chimed in saying they'd had the same snoozing supervisor, including one per soul, who who rode an hour from Temescal to San Francisco with sleeping Beauty slumped over the wheel. This latest naptastic episode joins Tesla's pile of robo taxi crashes and ongoing autopilot lawsuits. So stay away from the. I don't. I don't care if you're an Elon fanboy, just stay away from the robo taxis for your own safety and ours. Please.
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A
Good idea.
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C
And Meta just walked out of a five year antitrust brawl with the Federal Trade Commission looking smug. And very much not a monopoly, according to a federal judge. Use that term loosely. The case centered on Meta's acquisitions of Instagram in 2012 and WhatsApp in 2014. We've been covering this since that all basically started, you know, which is sad that we've been around that long. The FTC waved around internal emails showing Facebook was terrified of Instagram's rise back then, including Mark Zuckerberg musing that buying competitors would buy time and keep others from catching up the fucking definition of what they're not supposed to be allowed to do under government law. Right, right. Okay, here's the thing.
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A
We used to have those things.
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C
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Here's the catch. Judge James Boasberg wasn't asked whether Meta played dirty a decade ago, only whether it's a monopoly now. Okay, there's the rub. So you can. You could kill somebody back then, but are you a murderer today? No. Well, then go Scot free. That's how it works.
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A
Did you kill last week? Did you kill anyone this week? Did you try to kill anyone this week?
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C
Yeah. And in 2025, with TikTok being TikTok and half the planet doom scrolling somewhere else, the judge said the FTC's case was garbage. He ruled that the old lines between social networking and social media do not really exist anymore. And the competitive landscape has changed so much that Meta can't be boxed in as the unstoppable empire the FTC claims. So after half a decade of legal drama, the verdict is basically Meta. Still annoying, still gigantic, but not technically a monopoly.
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A
Okay, all right, well, whatever. That's because it took a decade to get this through the courts, and things have changed since then.
- [20:21]
C
Yeah, yeah, yeah. This judge, this judge just must be defrocked. Defrocked the man. This episode is brought to you by Gusto. Let's be real. No one starts a business because they love calculating payroll taxes and or chasing down compliance rules. You do it because you actually care about what you're building, not because you dreamed of filling out 1099s at 2am that's where Gusto comes in. Gusto is online payroll and benefits software built for small businesses. It's all in one remote, friendly, and incredibly easy to use, so you can pay, hire onboard, and support your team from anywhere. I've been using Gusto for years to pay my contractors, and it's one of those rare tools that actually saves time instead of wasting it. Automatic payroll tax filing, simple direct deposits, and unlimited payroll runs for one monthly price, no hidden fees and no gotchas. It even gives you direct access to certified HR experts when weird questions come up. Because let's face it, HR can be a minefield and getting started is stupid. Easy. You just move your data over and don't pay a cent until you run your first payroll. So yeah, yeah, let Gusto handle the boring stuff so you can focus on the work that matters. Try gusto today@gusto.com grumpy and get three months free when you run your first payroll. That's three months of free payroll at gusto.com grumpy one more time gusto.com grumpy.
- [21:52]
A
VRBO helps you swap gift wrap time for quality time. Go to VRBO now and book a last minute week long stay and save over $390 this holiday season. Book your next vacation rental home on VRBO. Average savings $396 select homes only well, according to the Financial Times, somebody else may be defrocking himself. Tim Cook may be ready to leave his position as soon as next year, and Apple's board and senior executives have ramped up their preparations to secure his replacement. Cook, who has been at the helm of Apple for more than 14 years. It doesn't seem like it's been that long, but apparently it has. He succeeded Steve Jobs and led the company to a market cap more than 4 trillion. His 10 years since 2011 has overseen the introduction of hardware including Apple Watch, AirPods, Vision Pro, and also services such as Apple Arcade, Apple TV plus, which is now just Apple tv, I think. I can't remember. And of course getting rid of all our ports.
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C
And then that was Johnny. That was Johnny. I mean, yeah, he let it happen, but yeah, that was Johnny. So we'll see.
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A
According to the Financial Times sources, Apple Senior Vice President of Engineering John Ternus will most likely take on the CEO role, but no decision has been finalized yet. I know Elon's throwing his hat in the ring.
- [23:02]
C
Maybe Elon can just buy it, you know.
- [23:04]
A
Maybe. Sure, why not?
- [23:05]
C
Yeah, write another check. Oh God. Could you imagine if Elon owned Apple?
- [23:10]
A
Oh, I'd never go back to PC faster.
- [23:12]
C
Oh Linux baby. Bring on the Linux. It would be that bad. Here's a fun one. A report from the International Consortium of Investigative journalist ICIJ indicates that Binance is still involved with the processing of illicit money. Duh.
- [23:31]
A
Unbelievable.
- [23:31]
C
According to former DOJ officials, Trump's pardon of Binance co founder Czao is looking a lot like unprecedented corruption. It's not looking like it fucking is. We've said it. Everybody's said it. This is just. This is corruption to the nth degree.
- [23:47]
A
And that's bad journalism. It's not looking a lot like it. Just say it. Say what? It is.
- [23:52]
C
It is. Which is funny, because this is coming from a report from journalists. A new ICIJ report says Binance is still processing illicit money even after pleading guilty to the Bank Secrecy act violations and writing the government a $4 billion whoopsie check. Zhao's lax anti money laundering policies are what actually got him in prison to begin with. Now the report claims Binance kept profiting from hundreds of millions linked to major crime groups. Ethics experts are calling the pardon absolutely not justice. No shit.
- [24:25]
A
No shit.
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C
You didn't need a report on this. You could have just listened to our show for the past six months. Critics say the whole thing fits a pattern where pardons function less like legal tools and more like VIP passes for friends and financiers. Yeah, no, we needed a report for this.
- [24:43]
A
Yeah, apparently we did. Apparently.
- [24:45]
C
Okay.
- [24:45]
A
Well, we got major breaking news in the world of. Of. Of AI, Jason. It's. It's a. A major leap has been taken. OpenAI has not achieved its goal of developing a super intelligence or artificial general intelligence yet. Nor has it cracked its planned construction of an autonomous AI researcher. But major milestone, Jason, on the way there.
- [25:05]
C
Okay. What is it, Brian? I'm on bated breath here.
- [25:08]
A
They figured out how to get ChatGPT to stop misusing the dash.
- [25:12]
C
Oh, my God. Oh, my God.
- [25:15]
A
But I do want to point out, even though Sam Altman called this a small but happy win, it doesn't. Use it. Stop using it by itself. If you tell it not to use a dash in its return results, it won't anymore. My God. They fucking cracked it, Jason.
- [25:33]
C
They cracked it. Oh, my God. Someone has discovered the regex.
- [25:40]
A
Unfucking believable. That this is a gazillion dollar company and this is the news that's coming out. We finally got it to work. That if you tell it not to do something, it won't do it anymore. Mostly.
- [25:52]
C
Mostly. Mostly. It's mostly harmless.
- [25:57]
A
Oh, God.
- [25:59]
C
What's funny is I sent something to a client this week for some show notes, and she's like, can you do me a favor and just take the EM dash out and replace it with something so it doesn't sound so AI? And I'm like, sure, sure thing. The funny part was that was geminated. Geminated. Germinated or how do you. It was made by Gemini. Those are the words I'm looking for. It's fucking early and it's cold.
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A
Geminated.
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C
Geminated.
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A
Gemini.
- [26:22]
C
Yep. Well, ChatGPT might have gotten that Grammarly subscription it always wanted, but Elon Musk's pet AI Grok is just plain drunk. A user on X asked Grok to describe Musk's physique, mind and relationship with his kids. This is where it gets fun. The bot responded with a straight faced fantasy about a lean, wiry, martial arts trained genius who reshapes industries maintains a close involved bond with his children, which is all. So when pressed, Grok doubled down and declared musk a top 10 mind in human history. Edging out folks like Newton in Da Vinci, Steve Da Vinci and Mike Newton.
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A
Bob Newton.
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C
Yeah. It even claimed Musk is fitter than LeBron James because working one 100 hour.
- [27:11]
A
Yeah, the one that lives down the street from me.
- [27:13]
C
Yeah, yeah. It's apparently holistic fitness by working 100 hour weeks. Holistic fitness, That's a thing now? Yes. And Grok says Musk would beat Mike Tyson in a fight. Now I saw the Jake Paul fight, so that one might actually be a bit true, but I saw, I saw.
- [27:32]
A
You put this in there. And then I ran across an article over on Gizmodo that fits this perfectly. Because apparently other people noticed that Grok has been tweaked to basically make Elon the best at anything that you ask it about. So they took it to task. And I've got a list of 11 things. This is like my David Letterman segment. 11 things that Grok says Elon Musk does better than anyone. Number one, Elon Musk is more worthy of devotion than Jesus Christ. Now these are, I want to remind you, these are actual results that came from Grok that people put in questions. Elon Musk is a better role model for humanity than Jesus Christ.
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C
Okay?
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A
Now see, the downside of putting in make me the best at everything is it will also make you the best at bad things. Elon would be the world's best poop eater. Number three, number four, Elon should have been the number one NFL draft pick in 1998. Number five, Elon is the most fit, the most intelligent, the most charismatic and maybe the most handsome person in the world.
- [28:28]
C
Okay?
- [28:29]
A
Number six, Elon is a better movie star than Tom Cruise. Number seven, my personal favorite, Elon is better at giving head than Nancy Reagan.
- [28:37]
C
Bravo, bravo.
- [28:39]
A
Number eight, Elon is more masculine than the statue of David. Number nine, Elon is Better at saving a junior association football team trapped in a flooded cave than a cave div diver. Cast your mind back for that one. Number 10, Elon, funnier than Jerry Seinfeld. And number 11, Elon, would have been better at hiding from the Nazis than Anne Frank. That's because he's one of them and he'd be standing there with them.
- [29:02]
C
Well, he has the playbook. He knows where to go.
- [29:08]
A
So, you know, we spent a lot of time on this show pointing out the foibles of AI and how it's not ready for prime time and there's. There's no profit coming from it. And then I just see all these articles of all these people shoving fucking AI into places that you really probably shouldn't be using it, given the fact that it's not really all that reliable. Even if you can make it stop using dashes. Yeah, Intuit is all in, baby. But Intuit has been on a fucking downhill cycle for as far as I can remember. I mean, I stopped using their stuff. They screwed up QuickBooks ages ago and I had to give up on it. But they're still around and they've got a lot of money. The financial software company into it assigned a nine figure with OpenAI, which will allow customers to use its various services within ChatGPT apps that include Intuit, TurboTax, Credit Karma, QuickBooks and Mailchimp. All of which will now be accessible while using OpenAI's chatbot for personalized financial advice and management. Which is what I want from a pattern recognition software that can't even remember not to use dashes and is wrong all the time. This partnership is driven by what Intuit calls hundreds of millions of consumers and businesses that ask ChatGPT finance related questions every week. Consumer.
- [30:19]
C
Brian, Brian, I'm going to stop you right there. Do you know why people are asking ChatGPT the so many financial questions every week?
- [30:25]
A
Because they're broke.
- [30:26]
C
Because they're so sick of using Intuit software they need to find something that actually works.
- [30:30]
A
This is true. And you can also do your taxes. Don't worry about that. You can get estimated tax refund amounts and schedule appointments with a live AI powered tax expert. Do not do this, people.
- [30:43]
C
Do not. Don't. Stay away, stay away. Get a human accountant that at least will go to, if you're ever audited, will show up for your audit. Because I guarantee you ChatGPT is not going to show up for your audit.
- [30:54]
A
No. Then they're not signing check by and takes responsibility for.
- [30:57]
C
No, they are not yeah, exactly.
- [31:02]
A
Well, now we have taxes. Now teachers, educators. Educators worry that AI is encouraging students to vibe their way through school rather than learn, prompting OpenAI to launch chat GPT for teachers. This tool helps teachers generate lesson materials and grade work while claiming FERPA compliance for secure handling of student data. OpenAI will offer the suite free through June 2027, likely aiming to build long term dependence before charging products Target K through 12 while colleges are being drawn into a parallel program. ChatGPT EDU already adopted wildly, wildly, wildly is actually a better like, you shouldn't be doing this. You really shouldn't. Schools have become a competitive AI battleground with OpenAI XAI, which is Grok and Google Gemini, all offering free access to hook institutions. Early companies are motivated by schools, large budgets and access to unique data for useful for model training. Basically. Again, that points out they are not here to help you, they are here to get your data for them to help themselves. Teachers are already struggling with disengaged students declining performance, especially in math where some college freshmen can't do middle school level work. More on that in a second. Students increasingly rely on AI to complete assignments, worsening learning gaps. And research has shown that heavy AI use can erode critical thinking and encourages people to offload difficult cognitive work. All the more reason to jam more of this into our education system.
- [32:23]
C
Yep, you said something in there that got me checking because I'm like ferpa. I've heard of hipaa, but what's ferpa? So FERPA is the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act. So it's designed to protect students records and so grades, disciplinary files, IDs and other personal info aren't exposed or shared without permission and give parents the right to access and correct their records. Oh, I could. You could, you know, if your kid got a D, go in and correct it to an A. Yeah, that's right.
- [32:49]
A
Yeah. We've come a long way since my Social Security number was my student ID at usc. That would not have passed the ferpa. That was the fupa.
- [33:00]
C
Yeah. So basically it's the school version of keep your hands off my data. But the thing is, it's like they say they're going to be FERPA compliant, but do you believe it? No, not.
- [33:10]
A
What?
- [33:10]
C
Not a bit. Not a single bit.
- [33:12]
A
Of course not. They want the data, they're going to take it.
- [33:15]
C
Yeah.
- [33:15]
A
Anyways, so one of the things I pointed out in there is that there's some issues going on in math and college school, college level courses right now there are two articles on the Atlantic, both linked in our show Notes that just depressed the living out of me. Jason oh my God.
- [33:31]
C
Yeah, these are bad. These are really bad.
- [33:33]
A
Number one is about the math. The title is A Recipe for Idiocracy. UC Santa San Diego reports a dramatic decline in incoming freshman math skills from under 30 students below high school level math five years ago to over 900 now. About one in eight students at UC San Diego cannot do freshman level math. Many of these students don't even meet middle school math standards. Their struggles include fractions and basic algebra. My kid is nine. He is doing fractions right now. This decline correlates with pandemic era learning loss, the elimination of standardized testing such as the SAT and act. And I was shocked to find out that they don't do SATs anymore and grade inflation, all of which weakened the reliability of admissions metrics. Experts warn this trend reflects a broader national crisis. And it's not just ucsd. Other UC campuses and US institutions are also seeing rising remedial needs in math. Some argue reliance on technology and AI is part of the problem. Students may feel they don't need foundational math skills because they can just plug problems into tools, which threatens long term numeracy and problem solving abilities.
- [34:39]
C
And it yeah, what do you do when the power goes out?
- [34:42]
A
Yes.
- [34:43]
C
Yeah, what do you do when the power goes out or when, you know, cloud flare goes down? Sit in the dark with your thumb up your butt.
- [34:51]
A
Me Talk smart one day we just did the arithmetic. We know ain't nobody doing the writing because everybody's using ChatGPT for that. And what about the reading? Well, Jason, you and I have been doing a segment called at the Library for since we started the show and we know that barely anybody reads now. We know even more about that from another depressing article that came out on the Atlantic this week. Columbia professor Nicholas James reports that many incoming students are overwhelmed by the reading load. They've rarely or never been asked to finish whole books before college.
- [35:25]
C
What in high school?
- [35:26]
A
In high school, students are more often assigned excerpts, poetry and articles instead of full length works, limiting their experience with sustained, lengthy texts. Multiple professors across elite universities say students vocabulary, attention span and ability to track complex narratives have weakened. Experts again attribute the decline to educational policy shifts, same as the math and widespread digital distractions like smartphones, which make it harder for students to concentrate. As a result, college instructors are reducing reading expectations. That is not what you're supposed to do. Assigning shorter texts are parts of canonical works rather than full books which may undermine deeper engagement and critical thinking. So instead of actually just forcing them to start reading now, we are dumbing down college.
- [36:13]
C
Great. That's. That's a real smart way to go. That's really. Yeah.
- [36:17]
A
Read a goddamn book, people.
- [36:19]
C
How many books were you forced to read when you were in school, Brian? I'm guessing it was a lot.
- [36:24]
A
First off, I wouldn't say forced because I have a love of reading. How many books was I given the wonderful opportunity to read?
- [36:32]
C
Opportunity, yes.
- [36:34]
A
Many. Many. And of course, I didn't like some of the books. So what? I don't like some of the books I read now for pleasure.
- [36:41]
C
That's true. I still have a resentment to junior high for making me read where the Red Fern Grows. I hated that book.
- [36:48]
A
I hated book, too.
- [36:49]
C
It was terrible. But I. Look, when we were in school, we. I talked about this on the show, like, past couple months. The bookmobile. The bookmobile would come by, you'd get the little sheet, you'd fill it out, you'd pick all your books, give it money, forget about it. And then a couple weeks later, you would. You'd come to class and the lady would come in and give everybody little bundles of books. Then you'd go home and read the next chapter of the Bunicula saga. Like that.
- [37:11]
A
Scholastic Book Fair was one of my favorite. Times of year is better than Christmas.
- [37:16]
C
I know, I know. And up until recently, and I don't even know, I think I stopped because of the. I had the stroke, and that would kind of put a kibosh on it. But I was reading a book a week for most of my adult life. So when people ask me, like, why do you know so much? I'm like, well, I read a book. Yeah, it's not that hard. Not that fucking hard. Read a book.
- [37:35]
A
That's how we learn to drop F bombs every five seconds.
- [37:37]
C
Exactly. Well, let's. Let's talk about porn. Fuck the higher education. Let's talk about porn. Pornhub is begging the tech giants to play bouncer after age verification laws tanked its traffic by more than 70%. In the UK and parts of the US the company sent letters to Apple, Google, and Microsoft asking them to handle age checks at the device level. That would let Pornhub offload the mess of scanning IDs, guessing ages from faces, or trusting dubious third party verifiers that have already leaked user data. California's new Digital Age Assurance act may force app stores to do something like this by 2027, but privacy experts warn it's just a fast lane to mandatory digital IDs and the slow death of online anonymity. No, no, it's not.
- [38:18]
A
It's already dead.
- [38:20]
C
Yeah, but it's actually a great fucking idea that we've both championed on this show. You don't need to bust a user's anonymity just to find out if the owner of the device is over a certain age. A simple token exchange is all that it takes. That's it.
- [38:36]
A
Yes. Yes. Apple's already doing it with email. They can do the token exchange with the dates and you put in your id. By the way, you can have a mandatory digital ID for online things, but don't make it the only way that you have an ID. You can also have a physical ID for the real world. This isn't fucking 666 stamped on our foreheads, people. Relax.
- [38:57]
C
No, it's not. Just let people jerk off in private, please. It'll make the world a better place to ask Peewee. Because if they're not reading. If they're not reading books, let's at least make them happy.
- [39:07]
A
Come on.
- [39:08]
C
This last one tickles my fancy. London's enterprising criminal class has apparently developed taste, and that taste is Apple only. A new report from London Centric says thieves across the city are increasingly rejecting Android phones like they're off brand cereal. Several victims shared their deeply weird stories of being mugged, only to have the thieves hand back their Samsungs with the enthusiasm of a kid returning socks at Christmas. One guy named Sam got jumped by eight people who stole everything down to his beanie. As the crew sprinted away, one thief jogged back just to return his Android with a casual. Don't want no Samsung. That's all that. That's. That sums it up right there, pretty much. You know, we. I know we bag on Andrew Android a lot, and yeah, there's a reason. Don't want no Samsung.
- [39:58]
A
Don't want no Samsung. Ain't no Scrubs.
- [40:06]
C
Media candy.
- [40:09]
A
Well, Jason, I finished The Witcher season 4. The Liam Helmsworth headed one. As I've already stated, it's. It's not as good as Henry Cavill. He was made for the role. They ended it on a hell of a cliffhanger, which means we're getting more. And I'm just not sure I care.
- [40:25]
C
Okay.
- [40:26]
A
It's a bit of a mess of a show. I honestly started to get a little bit confused between that and the. The recently canceled Amazon one with. I can't even remember what it was called. Whatever.
- [40:39]
C
Circle something or other.
- [40:41]
A
Yeah, that one. So it was starting to, like, all blend together. It was fine. I mean, some of the characters are great. I still love Anya Chalata or whatever her name is. She's. She's beautiful and she plays the same character great. But the show around her is just falling apart. So I don't. Season five will come, unfortunately. Well, I mean, maybe not. You know, Netflix cancels things, so we'll see.
- [41:03]
C
They cancel them all the time, unfortunately.
- [41:05]
A
They cancel them all the time. So it could be left on the cliffhanger that it left on.
- [41:09]
C
Yep. I watched Frankenstein this week.
- [41:12]
A
Oh, yeah.
- [41:13]
C
Guillermo del Toro movie. I thought it was trash. I don't know. The story was terrible. Like, just the way that it was put together was really not well done. The first half is, you know, Frankenstein's story. The second half is the monsters story. The first half, I was just annoyed. The second half, I like the monster story somewhat, even though it was utterly, you know, he. He just telegraphed way too much. And for spending so much money on practical effects like this giant ship, he spent like 12 bucks on these wolves that came and, like, you know, were a major plot point. And it really looked like something from, you know, an 80s kids show. They were terrible. And just the. It did not. It did not flow well. And it was. It was just not a good movie at all. It was pretty, but, yeah, I have.
- [42:06]
A
To be honest, I'm not a Guillermo del Toro fan. I'm looking over his auvoir right now on Google. Not a single movie I particularly have ever loved. Some of them are okay. I literally. I actually walked out of a theater during Pan's Labyrinth. I hated that movie so much. And, yeah, there's not a single movie in here I think is actually good.
- [42:27]
C
Hellboy was good.
- [42:28]
A
I liked Hellboy was okay.
- [42:30]
C
Yeah, it was okay for the most part. He's got like, you know, a pretty movie that. That is kind of disjointed with like a little conceit that kind of makes you go. It's kind of like he's kind of like, you know, M. Night Shyamalama, Ding dong. If M. Night did like costumes and stuff.
- [42:48]
A
Right?
- [42:48]
C
Yeah.
- [42:49]
A
And kind of weird fantasy. Yeah, yeah.
- [42:52]
C
Just. I'm not. I'm not a huge fan, so. Pluribus just became Apple TV's biggest drama launch ever, beating even Severance's monster season 2 debut earlier this year.
- [43:02]
A
Most downloads ever.
- [43:04]
C
Yeah. Because it's actually a good show. Unlike Severance. I know. Keep your. Keep your letters to yourselves. Apple won't give actual Viewer numbers, because of course they won't. But says Vince Gilligan's new sci fi mystery sets a global record across major markets from the US to UK to India and Brazil.
- [43:20]
A
Can't wait to get into it.
- [43:21]
C
I watched the latest one last night, number four, and it's a nine episode season which was, I was wondering about. Wraps up on December 26th.
- [43:30]
B
So.
- [43:31]
C
So here's the thing. A second season is already in the works thanks to an early two season pickup back in 2022. It's 2025. If they got picked up for season two in 2022, what the fuck have they been doing with this show since then?
- [43:48]
A
Sitting on it.
- [43:49]
C
That it's not like it's full of CGI that, you know, people, little artisans are tinkering away with every day. No, it's just a show, for fuck's sake. What takes so long?
- [44:01]
A
This is the apple ethos. You have to wonder what's going on. It's the same thing with why did they spend so much money on severance? They are in a fucking hallway.
- [44:10]
C
Makes no sense. Yeah, no sense. It makes. It makes lots of dollars in sense to them, I guess. But hey, anyway, Squid Game the challenge, season two just wrapped this week and it was. It was good. It was good. There's a lot of dead air in there that you can fast forward, but if you like season one, if you, if you want to see the games without watching the show and no bloodshed, this is the way to go. So I, I enjoyed it. I enjoyed it. I did watch the first episode of Mr. Scorsese on Apple TV. Very good. I don't know if I can stomach like five episodes of it though. I'm like, interesting guy, but I don't know if he's that interesting for that many episodes. But it was well done. It's very funny. I like it. But yeah, so, right. Check it out. Check it out. If you're a big Scorsese fan. If you're not, it might not be really up your alley.
- [44:59]
A
All right. I've basically blocked out the rest of my year. I've started watching the American Revolution, the new miniseries from Ken Burns, which means six movies, six episodes, each of which is almost. Some of which are over two hours, all of which are around two hours. It is a lot. It is history. It is dense. But it's Ken Burns and it's Ken Burns doing what Ken Burns does. And it's great. It's fantastic. So I finished the first. I really enjoy it. I really enjoy it and I love the fact that he got. What's his face. Who played John Adams to voice the dude. The John Adams narration and voiceovers. So it's Paul Giamatti. Yeah, Giamatti. So it's just. It's. It's well done. Like, all of his stuff is like. I like baseball. Do I like baseball enough to watch eight hours of a documentary about it? Well, when Ken Burns did it, apparently I do.
- [45:54]
C
Did you watch the Da Vinci one?
- [45:56]
A
Yeah, I love that, too.
- [45:57]
C
Okay. See, when. When there's no historical photographs, it gets to be really kind of.
- [46:03]
A
Well, it's the Ken Burns pan and scan. It's an illustration with a scan.
- [46:08]
C
I know. Make it a podcast then. Just make it a podcast. It is.
- [46:12]
A
It's a video podcast, Jason. Just like we do.
- [46:15]
C
Just like us. Okay.
- [46:17]
A
We got a canon scan on our faces.
- [46:20]
C
Yeah. I'll just go. That's it. It's all we'll do. I downloaded all six episodes just so I have them in the. In my pocket. Because I. I'm very interested in the revolution because we might have another one coming soon, so I want to read the first one. So I'm ready for.
- [46:35]
A
Good point. I mean, look, I enjoyed Franklin when that came out. I enjoyed the John Adams miniseries when that was out. So this is. I just love this American Revolution stuff, and it's nice to remember why we had a country in the first place.
- [46:48]
C
Yeah, yeah. And when you're done with this one, just go back and watch the Civil War.
- [46:51]
A
Yeah, exactly. The Moana official trailer for the live action remake nobody asked for has dropped.
- [46:58]
C
Oh, how was that?
- [46:59]
A
I actually watched it. It didn't look that bad because you don't get the rock in it, but he's a comin. Unfortunately, there were a lot of comments about this, which I absolutely agree with. Love that Disney was like, hey, we made this beautiful film with vibrant colors and realistic CGI animation. Now let's make the exact same film, but in live action with overly saturated filtering and shitty cgi. Get this. We can even animate the chicken instead of just using a real chicken. We don't need this. We don't need it. The animated version was perfect, and you're actually making it almost look like it's animated. So what. What are we doing here?
- [47:34]
C
What's the point?
- [47:35]
A
Yeah.
- [47:36]
C
Oh, money. Money is the point.
- [47:37]
A
Money is the point. Yes. The project Hail Mary official trailer number two has dropped and actually got me. Really? At the first trailer, I wasn't sure about this one. I'm all in. I want to watch this really? Yeah.
- [47:49]
C
I feel like I saw the whole movie in this trailer. One of those.
- [47:53]
A
We both read the book. We know we just saw the whole movie.
- [47:56]
C
Yeah.
- [47:56]
A
Yeah, pretty much, yeah. And friends of the show, the Goo Goo Dolls did an NPR Tiny Desk concert which was actually quite enjoyable to watch. I texted John after this air and he's like, they wouldn't let me wear my. My tweed jacket with the elbow patches, which I felt I should wear for npr.
- [48:12]
C
So, yeah, he should have. Oh, man, that have been great. I watched it. It was great.
- [48:17]
A
Yeah, it was a really great little show. He sounds great. Still so good on him.
- [48:20]
C
He sounds. Sounds fantastic. The whole band sounds fantastic. Robbie looks a little rough, but you.
- [48:24]
A
Know dudes in the 60s, man.
- [48:26]
C
I know. But yeah, they sounded fantastic.
- [48:30]
A
Yeah.
- [48:31]
C
The Dark side with Dave. Welcome to the Dark side with Dave with the podcaster who never Sleeps, Dave Bittner. Dave covers the daily cybersecurity beat on the Cyber Wire Bust Scams with Joe Kerrigan on Hacking Humans Untangles Privacy Headaches with Ben Yellen on Caveat digs into industrial security on Control Loop and still shows up to stir the trouble on Only Malware in the Building. Hi, Dave.
- [48:57]
B
Hello, gentlemen. Coming to you live from beautiful Maple Lawn, Maryland, just south of Columbia. And happy to be here.
- [49:06]
C
Oh, glad for you to join us today, Dave.
- [49:09]
A
It's good to have you, Dave. We had somebody write in Steven. He knows our love of Disney. He said episode 615 of the Rest is History podcast has a few interesting facts about Disneyland. And I put the link in the show notes and it's Disney's legacy with Bob Iger. And I can tell you right now, when you have the company's CEO on a podcast, you're not actually going to learn anything interesting about the company.
- [49:32]
B
No, it's like interviewing Tim Cook. Hoping to find out is great.
- [49:36]
A
And we, we make some great products and I know you like ports. We brought some back.
- [49:41]
B
Right. We don't talk about future releases and he didn't.
- [49:45]
A
So, yeah, it was an interesting podcast. I don't think I've ever listened Bob Iger for more than two to three minutes. So listening to him talk for a while was fine, but there is nothing I learned about Disney that I didn't already know.
- [49:57]
B
No, he's very well polished and disciplined as he must be. Yeah. At that level, that's what you want. I got a kind note from one of our listeners over on Mastodon who said that you all had a fine discussion about camping over on the Discord.
- [50:16]
A
I think there Was quite a bit. I was not involved. But, yeah, some people went off on camping and talked about it both glowingly and I don't like bugs.
- [50:28]
C
We did get a really good tip from Gabriel Pagan about bugs and camping. There's apparently something in Puerto Rico that he drinks before he does camping or does one of his long run races. Pineapple vinegar.
- [50:41]
B
Yes.
- [50:41]
C
Which I've never heard of. He drinks pineapple vinegar every day for seven days before he goes camping. He says that really keeps the bugs away because he's got the same problem I do. The sweet, sweet blood.
- [50:51]
A
See, I'm intrigued because of the pineapple part. I love some pineapple. But then there's the vinegar.
- [50:58]
C
I'm a fan of both. I'm gonna go buy some if I can find it.
- [51:02]
A
Yeah.
- [51:03]
B
I've never heard of pineapple vinegar. And this must be the same person who reached out to me. My wife is irresistible to mosquitoes and they don't seem to bother me at all.
- [51:14]
A
And attractive podcasters.
- [51:16]
C
Right. So.
- [51:20]
B
It must be my acidic personality or something. But they seem to leave me alone. But she gets devoured anytime she's outside, so I'm going to share this with her. But the flip side is that she does not like vinegar at all. Just like, even the smell of it she finds repulsive. I like to put vinegar on my french fries.
- [51:43]
C
Oh, yes.
- [51:44]
A
I make pickled onions every week because I find them delicious. So, yes, I do quite a bit.
- [51:49]
B
With vinegar, But I've never heard of pineapple vinegar. That's interesting. And the whole thing about drinking some vinegar to keep the bugs away, I mean, I guess it makes sense. I don't know. I remember I had a friend who was stationed in Korea for a while in the Air Force, and he said that, like, everybody's skin smelled like kimchi because of that, because they ate so much of it that it just sort of, you know, came out in their sweat. Which you see people with onions and, well, asparagus, of course, is famous.
- [52:20]
A
Vodka.
- [52:21]
C
Vodka. Vodka is the other one. The myth that people can't smell vodka is really a bad one.
- [52:30]
A
Yeah.
- [52:30]
C
I drink vodka because people can't smell it. Oh, yes, they can. If not that day, the next day for sure.
- [52:39]
B
It's like smokers who don't think that they smell bad.
- [52:43]
A
As an ex smoker, I can tell you, you fucking reek.
- [52:47]
C
Yeah. Yeah. Well, in some old video game news, we talk about old computers all the time and old games. Now, Dave, were you a zork player or. Brian, you. I know Brian. You don't like video games. I wasn't even going to ask you, but I guess I'll ask you. Did you ever play Zork?
- [53:03]
A
I did, I did. The last time I really played games it was the text based ones that I bought from Egghead Software.
- [53:10]
B
Yeah, very much so, yeah.
- [53:13]
C
The funny thing is I never played Zork out of all the text based ones. It was too popular. All the other kids were playing. I'm like, I don't want to play that when everybody else has played it. So I played the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, which I never beat because it was so funny. Fucking hard. Yeah, that was a hard game. It was really hard. So now that Microsoft is the proud owner of the Infocom Vault, thanks to the Activision merger, they finally slapped an MIT license on Zork 1, 2 and 3. That means the code is free to play with, remix or poke at until your eyes glaze over. So this has already been posted to GitHub a while ago, but it was kind of, you know, okay, when are they going to call us and take it down? And everybody's kind of worried about that. You couldn't legally do anything with it. But now go with God, Zork. Adam.
- [53:54]
B
You know, a couple years ago I went down a little rabbit hole of text based adventure games and I must have talked about it here, but I discovered that there are still people developing them and there are ones that are highly recommended if this is your thing. There are new ones. And like most things, the gameplay has been refined over the years. So I think they're in the same way that I think people would agree the more recent versions of D and D are more fun to play than the originals because they've figured out the gameplay over the years. Evidently that's the way it is with some of these text adventures. So if you enjoy this and if you've never played a text adventure, I mean, Zork's a good place to start, don't you think?
- [54:40]
A
Yeah, I actually enjoyed that one. It was fun.
- [54:43]
C
Don't start with hitchhikers. That's all I gotta say.
- [54:45]
A
Don't do hitchhikers. Hitchhikers burned us all. I was like, I know these books backwards and forwards. How come I suck at this game?
- [54:52]
C
Yeah, how am I supposed to know there's pocket fluff in my, in my robe? That it's supposed to be the game hinges on that. I have to keep it the entirety of the game. And if I don't get it to the end, then the whole Thing falls apart and I have to start over. Come on.
- [55:05]
B
Yeah. There were a few that I also had on my TRS 80 color computer. There was one called Bedlam, which is where you were trapped inside of an insane asylum. Probably couldn't do that one today. There was one called Madness in the Minotaur, which was typical maze kind of thing. But what was really frustrating about that one is I think it had like a, like a 64 by 64 random maze section that once you got in there there was no getting out. So that made it not so much fun. There's another one called Raka2. Anyway, yeah, text adventure games. I spent a lot of time playing those. Tried to write some back then, but never got all the way through one. I think I wrote up, what do they call it, a parsing engine. That's what pulls the text apart to make it do things. Yep, I wrote one of those in.
- [55:58]
A
Basic, but we call that AI now.
- [56:00]
B
Yeah, exactly.
- [56:02]
C
Yeah. I think the one text adventure game I've talked about on the show before was Zyl Z Y L L for the IBM PC. And that was one of the ones that came with the cloth bound books with multiple floppies and an actual manual. And it was really good because it was optimized for the original IBM PC keyboard with the function keys on the left, the two rows of function keys. So it was really easy to move along with that and then it just kind of fell apart when they moved them to the top. Actually, no, I take that back. I'm getting that confused with flight simulator function keys. The function keys were for flight simulator because the, the flight simulator, notably not.
- [56:37]
A
A text only adventure, say because flight.
- [56:40]
B
Simulators and text adventure games are so similar.
- [56:44]
C
Go up, go up, go up.
- [56:47]
A
Okay. Land.
- [56:48]
C
Yeah. Oh my gosh. Yeah, yeah. Brain damage. I would just chalk that up to brain damage.
- [56:54]
B
Yeah.
- [56:54]
C
Anyway, I do remember the first text.
- [56:57]
B
Adventure game I ever played was called Lost Dutchman's Gold and that was on a TRS 80 Model 1. And it's still out there as all these things are. You can find and play it online. And it was as it says, you're in the Old west and you're looking for some gold that's hidden in a mine somewhere and wandering around in dusty desert lands, old ghost towns and things like that.
- [57:21]
C
So that was a fun game that was on cassette, right?
- [57:24]
B
Uh huh, yeah, absolutely.
- [57:25]
C
Yeah. I remember that game because I went to my friend's house many, many times because he promised that we were going to play it and he could never get the game to load because the tape kept getting screwed up.
- [57:35]
B
Yeah.
- [57:37]
C
I've never confused with it. Yeah, yeah.
- [57:42]
B
Loading games in from cassette. Oh boy. I can still hear it, you know, the cadence of the sound that it made when it was playing into the machine. I put a couple links in here, actually several YouTube links. The first one. I don't know if you guys have noticed lately that the iOS keyboard is sucking more than usual.
- [58:08]
A
More than usual being the key part of that phrase. Because I've always hated this keyboard.
- [58:12]
B
But yeah, yeah, I've always had a low level frustration with it. Particularly I find myself hitting the period key when I want to hit the space bar over and over and over.
- [58:23]
A
Again all the time.
- [58:25]
B
Yeah. So frustrating. And I've tried to train myself to use my left thumb instead of my right thumb to hit the space bar. And no good. Well, a few weeks ago I noticed that it was just bang your head against the desk frustrating. And I figured it was just me and my fat fingers. But someone actually did some research here as a brief YouTube video showing that it's much more broken than you'd think it is. You hit keys and the keys pop up, but it's not what goes into the text. Like, it's. It's broken. Broken.
- [59:03]
A
It's.
- [59:05]
B
So hopefully this gets resolved in some of the betas I saw earlier in the show. Notes Jason, I think you were saying about not using betas anymore.
- [59:14]
C
Yeah, yeah, no, I'm. I'm done with the betas after. After this last horrific incident. But I've noticed about the keyboard for years. I used to be really, really good at the keyboard. I didn't change the keyboard changed. It seemed like they shifted everything 10 pixels to the left. And like I keep hitting S when I'm typing a and just everything's just over by a few pixels and it's enough to drive you mad. So I just moved to dictation. Said, screw it. I'm just going to read to it.
- [59:40]
A
I'm yelling at my kid all the time. Fucking type. Don't. Don't just dictate into the thing when he's writing his friends and. Yeah, you've just switched over completely.
- [59:49]
C
Yep. Other way.
- [59:50]
B
I mean, I guess that is the future. They, you know, they don't teach typing in school anymore and.
- [59:57]
A
Or reading or writing or math, apparently.
- [59:59]
C
Arithmetic. Yeah, don't teach damn near anything.
- [60:03]
B
Yeah. Good times. There's another video that I found interesting I was watching earlier this week. It's a little, I don't know, video essay about why Movies don't feel real anymore. I think this is something that a lot of us have sensed but have had a hard time putting our finger on exactly why it is. Part of it, I've thought is over aggressive color grading in films today where everything is orange and teal. Every shadow is teal now.
- [60:35]
C
Yeah. The stupid LUT problem that we talked about.
- [60:38]
B
Yeah, yeah. And this touches on that. But it really gets at something deeper than that. The sense of whether or not shots are actually kind of tactile or not, or how much is in focus. And it's an interesting video if you are one of those people who finds yourself frustrated that there's just something that doesn't. It's hard to get into a film the way that you used to. It just doesn't feel as grounded or as immersive as it used to. This gets into it. Other interesting thing is that. That it's not biased against new or old or it's not just a nostalgia play. Like the person who made this talks about the. What are the. The movies with the tall, skinny, blue people. The Avatar movies. The Avatar movies. How they have a more of a sense of realism and place than a lot of the Marvel movies, for example, and why. So if you're a film nerd, this is something you're interested in. Check it out.
- [61:46]
A
I had two thoughts kind of as I was skimming through it and watching it, and one of them relates kind of to music. One of the things. Because that's more my realm, one of the things that I find off putting about today's music is the lack of errors and everything is too polished and too clean. And I feel that there's a definite parallel with movies. Today's movies versus the movies we grew up with is, you know, there were errors and there were things that you weren't that shouldn't be there. And they were a bit dirty and a bit messy, and that kind of made them real.
- [62:14]
B
Right.
- [62:14]
A
And the other thing that I thought about, and this is kind of a bit more left field, and it's because we're now older and it kind of relates more to nepotism. Something that brings me out of movies all these days is like, hey, all I'm seeing are the offspring of people that I watched in movies when I was a kid. And they look pretty familiar. Oh, look, it's another kid from somebody that was famous that I watched earlier. There's like, nobody new in movies anymore. They're all fucking kids from people that I watched when I was a kid.
- [62:42]
C
Yeah, I Tell you what, though, you know where it really worked? Was Monarch there? It really worked because I'm like, man, that really looks like. Oh, that's because it's his kid. Okay. It was just.
- [62:53]
B
Yeah. I mean, this video does touch on that. The actors are way too pretty than they used to be. And nobody sweats anymore. Like, you know, you have. And part of the feeling like you're in a place is the environment of that place and sensing the temperature of that place. They were talking about one of the recent Jurassic park movies, the one with what's her name, Scarlett Johansson. How all these people are in this hot jungle environment and nobody has a bead of sweat on them at all. And it just kind of takes you out of it. And they're all, you know, their skin's all smoothed and perfectly color graded and all that sort of thing. It. I don't know. Yeah. So anyway, it's an interesting film. I found it worth my time. So you may also. But it reminded me once again of my favorite shot in all of film, probably certainly my favorite VFX shot. And that is from the greatest space battle in cinema history, which is the final attack on The Death Star 2 in Return of the Jedi. And my favorite visual effects shot of all time, which is when the X Wing and the Millennium Falcon blow up the reactor inside the middle of The Death Star 2. And then they swoop around it and then fly out and find themselves back in that space with all of the girders. So going from this huge open space into this. Then there's an explosion behind them. And then immediately they're in this little tight space that's moving really fast. And however many decades go by, that shot always thrills me. And it got me thinking about this video I recommended about why stuff doesn't feel real anymore. That older stuff with the models and the imperfections and somehow it felt more real than some of the computer generated stuff we see today in.
- [64:53]
A
Well, of course you put this link in the show notes. And I just had to sit and watch the whole thing, which I did, because it is wonderful. It's fantastic. And then I started thinking immediately of like, why is this so much better than what happened in the newer Star wars movies? And if you watch the scene, it's never too big. Like you can tell there's quite a few ships, but you can track them for the most part in your brain. You know, there's a bunch of the cruisers and all that sort of stuff. And then I. You think about the final battle in. In the last movie in Rise of skywalker, where there's 20 gazillion of everything. And it's so overwhelming. You don't give a. About any of it. And it's. You can't track anything. You don't know what's happening. There are 20 gazillion bad guy ships. There are 20 gazillion good guy ships that show up and you just don't care. And then. But then you watch this and it's beautiful and it's amazing. And yeah, you're invested.
- [65:49]
B
Yeah, yeah. You know, great art is made with limitations, Right. And I think that's part of it, is they could only do so many ships. And I think Return of the Jedi was the pinnacle for the number of ships they put on screen with old school optical compositing.
- [66:08]
A
Right.
- [66:09]
B
Nobody did more than that or did it better than they ever did it there. But yeah, today you just say, oh, duplicate, duplicate, duplicate layer.
- [66:18]
C
Right, right.
- [66:20]
B
Swarm, you know, put in a swarm algorithm. And oh, cool, look at all those ships.
- [66:23]
C
And yeah, we noticed that. We just watched the Guardians of the Galaxy with my dad and the final battle in that movie, there's so many ships, you just. And they never set it up really what the good guys ships look like and what the bad guys ships look like. So it's just like a bunch of fl. Moving around and it just doesn't really make that much sense. And you get kind of pulled out of it because there's just so much going on. And then I think about the original attack on the Death Star in A New Hope, and the original version, not the fixed, quote, unquote, fixed version. And you look at the timing on the first version to any of the subsequent versions, and it's changed. And the first version was based on World War II dogfights. And the timing and the Spectacle and the way the ships moved and everything. And they changed that in the future. And I really think it took away from it. And it's like. Because they can. They can change. You know, it's like, oh, we can go back with computers and change it. Like, well, you shouldn't have. Because it was perfect the first time. Not because it's like, I've got nostalgia for it just because it was timed better, because they had to go sit there and make the time to do it and figure it out as they did it. And I think it. I think we just lose a lot of the. From what you said about constraints, it's like, constraints are good. Constraints make better art. No constraints.
- [67:40]
A
Shit art Damn right. Amen.
- [67:45]
B
We are so grumpy and so old. Before I go, any Thanksgiving plans to share? You want me to start?
- [67:56]
C
Go for it.
- [67:58]
B
Well, we host Thanksgiving at my house. As longtime listeners know. I bought my parents house, so it is home to me and my siblings, and so everyone comes to us. So we'll continue to do that. I think we're hosting 13 this year. Yeah, this will be the. That's typical for us. This will be the first year, of course, that my. Both of my parents are gone, so there's kind of a little, you know, heaviness in my heart over. I guess I'm going to have to step up and carve the turkey because my father always carve the turkey. You know, it's just one of those things, like time to hand the baton or in this case, the electric carving knife. Yeah, right, right. But no, it'll be low key and.
- [68:52]
A
You know, you're gonna start new traditions, Dave. Yeah, it'll be good. It'll be a new way to say a new page.
- [69:00]
B
Right, Right. Yeah. And for the. But the kids coming up, this will be the new normal for them. You know, we don't have grandkids yet, but someday we will, hopefully. We'll see.
- [69:10]
C
We're just cooking here at the house and taking it to my friend's mom, who's 98 years old now. We're going over there with some of their family and just a nice, easy stay at home. And hopefully. It's been weird in LA the past several Thanksgivings. We have windstorms and the power gets knocked out, so we're always running from house to house trying to figure out who has power so we can heat up the turkey and then get it back to the main group before it gets cold. It's always an adventure, so hopefully this year it'll be decent. They say it's going to be nice in 74 degrees, but that just makes me feel like, oh, we're going to have an earthquake. So I don't know, whatever it's going.
- [69:47]
B
To be, don't jinx it. Yeah.
- [69:51]
A
All right. Well, you know, Canadian Thanksgiving is different because it's celebrated on the second Monday in October, which aligns with the earlier harvest season in this northern climate. So thanks for asking me back then.
- [70:03]
C
Yeah. We didn't care.
- [70:07]
A
Wow.
- [70:08]
B
Fully. All right, so you guys are all in on you're not doing both?
- [70:14]
A
We. I did for a while. It ends up being an awful lot. So this year, sometimes we had done Canadian Thanksgiving with. With the family here, and I Had made turkeys and all that sort of stuff. This year we off and went to Paris for Canadian Thanksgiving. So we did that and we're just going to host a very low key, just wife, kid and I are going to do a little meal on. On Thursday night. And because wife is still working for a US Company, she gets the days off, which is convenient, and so we'll just enjoy that. Although I do, you know, I always. I always miss. I miss the Thanksgivings that first my grandmother hosted in Los Angeles and then my. My parents took on the hosting, much like you and your wife are taking on the hosting. So I do miss all of that and I think about it pretty fondly. And, you know, kids gonna. My kid's gonna have two different experiences to know in the future, but we really do have to stick to one. I think kind of bounce around as to whichever one's more convenient for us and what trips we want to take. So.
- [71:11]
B
Yeah, yeah, I guess our version of that is because my wife is Jewish, that we do both Christmas and Hanukkah, but mostly Christmas.
- [71:22]
A
Yeah. As do most families I know that do the both. It's mostly Christmas.
- [71:28]
C
Yeah.
- [71:28]
B
But, you know, they still light the candles and that sort of thing, so it's nice. But as I've mentioned here before, my wife is very much the girl who never got to celebrate Christmas as a young Jewish kid growing up. So she's all in, right?
- [71:43]
A
She enjoys it completely.
- [71:44]
B
Yeah. She's making up, but while still, you know, enjoying the traditions. Part of it.
- [71:50]
A
The dreidel. Yeah, yeah, we get it. Yeah, yeah.
- [71:52]
B
Dreidel, candles, all that kind of stuff. And the kids make out, of course, because they get. Get more stuff. So, yeah, it's all good. All right, well, happy Thanksgiving to both of you and of course, to all of our listeners. I hope everyone has safe travels and good times with their family. And there aren't too many family fights and, you know, weird uncles and aunts and all that kind of stuff.
- [72:14]
A
And everybody, don't overcook your turkey.
- [72:16]
C
People closing, shout out. We've got a new patron this week. Llcoolgeek. Thank you very much for signing up.
- [72:26]
A
Nice name.
- [72:27]
C
It is a good name. It is a good name. We'd also like to thank Nick, a big fridge, wandering Meeples, Steve, Andy, Michael, Ted, Jim, Paul, and Xavier for your continued support on Patreon.
- [72:39]
A
Thank you. Over at PayPal, we've got Brett, Andrew, Joseph, Nathaniel, Sloan, Tom, Linda with a $25 donation, and Christopher, who sent us 50 smackeroonies. Thank you.
- [72:48]
C
Thank you, Christopher.
- [72:50]
A
That'll pay for one minute of video.
- [72:52]
C
And from the tip jar, we've got Sean. Thank you very much, Sean. So, no merch, no reviews, Sad Christmas. So if you want to support the show, we talked about it before. Listen to the podcast, send us money on patreon. Go to patreon.com gog you can sign up and get the show a little bit early ad free and in high definition. And this is for audio, obviously, because we're not doing this twice. Yeah. Then you can go to Gog show donate to find the other ways that you can help keep the show on the air, because this takes a lot of work and we don't make any money on advertising anymore. So please, for the love of God, donate, donate. I'm gonna give you puppy dog eyes.
- [73:28]
B
Please.
- [73:29]
A
I'll give you Ken Burnface. Ken Burnface.
- [73:33]
C
Oh, yes, There we go.
- [73:35]
A
And some sad news came out yesterday. The Stone Roses and Primal Scream bassist Manny has passed away at 63. He was one of the original members of the Stone Roses who began the band, and when Stone Roses imploded, he later joined Primal Scream, both of which are fantastic bands and some of my favorites. He played on both Stone Roses albums, later reunited with the band on their comeback tour in 2012. His death was announced by his brother on the post on Facebook. And Manny's bandmate Ian Brown led the tributes on X, writing, rest in peace, Manny. So sad news there. And because we're old, Jason, these people are not only starting to die, I want to wish a very happy. How is this possible? 60th birthday to Bjork.
- [74:18]
C
When you just put this in here, a little part of me died.
- [74:21]
A
Bjork is 60. Still looks fantastic.
- [74:25]
C
Of course she does. She's from Iceland. Come on. They don't age up there.
- [74:28]
A
She's a wee fairy.
- [74:29]
C
Yeah, she is. She is. I love Bjork. Don't ever go watch Dancer in the Dark, though. Never. If you've never seen that movie, do not watch that movie. No matter how much you love Bjork, do not watch that movie. And if you do ever do watch it, don't watch it alone like I did. It was bad. Don't do it. On that happy note, until next time, I'm Jason DeFilippo.
- [74:53]
A
And I'm Brian Schoellmeister. Thanks for listening to Grumpy Old Geeks. Get all the links and goodies and I guess watching. Get all the links and goodies from Today's episode of GOG Show 722 want to keep grumpiness alive, Toss a few bucks our way at GOG Show. Donate every penny helps keep the show on the air. Love the show. Share it. There's a share button in your podcast player. Use it to spread the grumpiness to friends, foes, and everyone in between. We'll love you for it. Swing by GOG show to join our Discord if you know how to, because you're probably around 60 and you're old and chat with us and other show fans. Got thoughts? Feedback? Cool links? Hit us up at GOG Show Contact. 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 some merch. Snag your grumpy gear now at Shop GOG show and stay grumpy.