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- [00:03]
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 Grumpy Old geeks. I'm Jason DeFilippo.
- [00:19]
B
And I'm Brian Schulmeister.
- [00:21]
A
Brian.
- [00:22]
C
Oh.
- [00:22]
B
Oh, my sky is falling, Jason.
- [00:24]
A
I am so happy. I am so happy. I know it. I know it's bad to feel joy at other people's pain and misery, but this time. Ah yes, the Black Thursday of bitcoin has finally come upon us.
- [00:39]
B
The vibe currency is no longer feeling the vibe.
- [00:43]
A
Oh man. Yeah. So bitcoin briefly face planted below $61,000 Thursday night, hitting about 60,000 flat at the lows. At its worst, Bitcoin was down nearly 30% on the week and more than 50% off its October peak north of $126,000. Oh, you have no idea how my little black heart just shone when I saw that news.
- [01:08]
B
I do get a little worried about the economy at this point because so many stupid investment investment brokers and you know, people's retirement accounts and things of that nature were unwittingly and mostly unknowingly invested in bitcoin because of all the big, big banks going in on it. So that, that's not good. I, I mean I screamed about it at the time. You have no business doing this. Stick to, stick to the regular stuff, please. And the institutional investors did not listen. So, you know, that's been a problem. I also saw some reporting, I don't know how true it is that if bitcoin actually gets down to $50,000, that's game over, like that's it. Because it's no longer profitable for mining or for anything else. And then the whole fucking enchilada or the flan collapses in the cupboard, as it were.
- [01:57]
A
Well, let's cover this a little bit. So at $70,000, auto sell triggers were triggered. So that exacerbated the decline. It cost between $83,000 and $87,000 right now to mine one coin. So a lot of the big miners have basically turned off their equipment and said we're going to ride this one out for a little while. Well, other people are saying that they've pivoted their mining operation to hosting for AI, which I call bullshit on. I call 100% bullshit on that because it's not the same type of hardware, you know, yes, they have GPUs, but they've got older ass GPUs that are. To these little tiny buckets that are supposed to be. That are made to do bitcoin. AI Machines are made to do AI. There is a definite architectural mismatch there. And you know. Yeah, we've heard about that.
- [02:47]
B
There's no pivoting and there's no hodling going on.
- [02:50]
A
No. To the poor house. Oh, shit. That's not where we're supposed to be going. Everybody get in line.
- [02:56]
B
Right.
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A
It is a bad sign. Here's the other sign though, Brian, is that bitcoin and tech stocks are kind of, you know, tied together right now.
- [03:05]
B
You think?
- [03:05]
A
And. Yeah. And it's going to take down Tesla. Oh, that's right. Tesla has so much in bitcoin right now. That's the only thing that held them up for so long was that bump from the btc.
- [03:18]
B
That and Vibe investing. Elon. Elon Stans, you know.
- [03:22]
A
Yeah. And Vibe C suiteing. I don't feel like being the Tesla CEO today. I'm going to go over to my other racist company and put some pictures of naked children up. I'll be back tomorrow. So that's the good news for the day for me. What do you got, Brian?
- [03:39]
B
Well, just a little bit more on that really quickly because I know the Epstein thing is going to come up a little bit later in the show and it's. If you spend any, you can go down rabbit holes online on this. One of the rabbit holes that people are going down on is there is some theory that Epstein actually is not Sashi, whatever the hell his name is.
- [03:57]
A
Satoshi Nakamoto.
- [03:58]
B
Satoshi Nakamoto.
- [04:00]
A
There's also theories that he killed JonBenet Ramsey. Come on.
- [04:03]
B
I know that's all over the place, but there are some, some things in the Epstein files that show that he certainly was involved in bitcoin early and often and started to put some of the things in place. An early investor and some of the. Some of the money that was in there. Original Epstein. Which again, just goes to prove my point. What is crypto for, Jason?
- [04:23]
A
Criminals.
- [04:24]
B
It's for crime.
- [04:25]
C
Yeah.
- [04:26]
B
So there you go. So let's go ahead and pivot back to Elon. It looks like Grok is still being gross. Elon Musk has said his chat bot had stopped making sexualized images without a person's consent. Something we've been talking about in this. In this follow up section for about a month now. Yeah, because it doesn't seem to end. People, you know, a bunch of countries around the world banned it and there, there's all kinds of people looking into this and starting up lawsuits about it and investigations. And apparently it says, it does seem to have maybe, mostly maybe, stopped undressing women without their consent. But one intrepid male reporter has discovered that it has not stopped undressing men.
- [05:08]
A
Oh, really?
- [05:09]
B
Yeah. So if you happen to be a CIS gendered male. I, I, who knows? I don't, I, I don't know what stage of transitioning, in which ways you transition and where Grok's limits are, who knows? But, but if you apparently look male and have a penis, Whoa, Boy, does it still do the job.
- [05:30]
A
Okay, okay. Have you tried it?
- [05:33]
B
Why would I do that? I did not even try it with females. So.
- [05:37]
A
Okay, okay.
- [05:38]
B
So, yeah, so when journalists asked for a comment on the matter, they of course got slapped. Not with the poop emoji anymore. They've updated their automatic response to legacy media lies.
- [05:50]
A
Oh, that's what they're saying.
- [05:51]
B
Douchebags.
- [05:52]
A
That's what they're going with.
- [05:53]
B
That's what they're going with now.
- [05:55]
A
Okay, well, the French have had enough of it. French cybercrime prosecutors raided X's Paris office investigating alleged unlawful data extraction and possible complicity involving child sexual abuse material. Both Musk and former CEO Linda Yaccarino have been summoned to hearings in April. Musk called it a political attack. X says it's an abusive act that threatens free speech. Well, it's France, so go fuck yourself. People around the world are tired of our shit is the problem. And they're discovering piece by piece by piece that they just don't need us anymore. Which, you know, the great illusion is being broken. Thanks, Simon Cheeto. Oh, yeah, well, I know, I know where your, I know where your mom lives and she ain't in Canada, buddy.
- [06:42]
B
Yeah, she's deeply involved with the vibe coding that was involved on nudifying people.
- [06:46]
A
That's right. And look, I know, I know if you ever break any laws and you're going to sneak back into the country, I'm going to have agents like basically staking out Disneyland on both coasts because I know you're going to show up at some point.
- [06:57]
B
That's probably true. Well, more follow up here about people being sick of this shit. Spain is set to ban social media for children under 16. They're joining the growing list of countries banning access to social media for children. Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez announced on Tuesday this law will apply TO users under 16 years of age amidst a broader push to hold social media companies accountable for hate speech, social division and illegal content. Shit. We've been screaming about for 10 years. In light of what Sanchez called the integral role social media plays in the lives of young users, he said the best way to help them is to take back control and basically stop them from using it. So his government is going to enact a new slew of regulations with a ban on users under 16among them. They will be required to implement what he calls effective age verification systems and not just check boxes. Again, that's the real rub. How do we do this? They are also going to make algorithmic manipulation and amplification of illegal content into a new criminal offense. And tech CEOs will face criminal liability for hateful or illegal content on their platforms. Finally, that's what will make the difference if they can no longer hide behind the we're just a platform bullshit. So we shall see. They have further announced that Spain has formed a coalition with five other unnamed European nations to enact stricter governance over social media platforms. So, you know, it's also under active consideration in the uk Denmark and Malaysia have announced similar plans to enact similar bans. They've already got it going on in Australia. They're talking about it here in Canada too. Everywhere except for the US is actually at least discussing this at this point.
- [08:31]
A
Denmark, Slovenia, Greece and Norway are all on, on board. So everybody's, everybody's turning on it because they see it as a way to twist the knife in us because there are social media companies and they're, they want.
- [08:42]
B
Well, it's definitely a nice bonus, isn't it?
- [08:45]
A
Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's. That's just like, you know, nice to have. The, the need to have is to get our fucking kids off of it is really what it comes down to. So, and, and honestly, the adults, because I am sick and tired of going someplace and having people that I'm trying to have a conversation with open up their phone and look at TikTok or Instagram to see how many likes they got on their last video. I am sick of that. That was us ten years ago we had. Now we have to put up with what they went through when we were doing it. That's the downside. This is the Karm. This is the karmic cycle that has come back to bite us in the ass.
- [09:18]
B
Yeah, fair enough. And I've talked a bit in the past about how bad Roblox is for kids. And Egyptian regulators have noticed this as well. They have completely banned Roblox from the country. The nation's Supreme Council for Media Regulation. Man, we could use one of Those Supreme Council, they're coordinating with the National Telecommunications Regulatory Authority on the decision to ensure enforcement of the state owned outlet. Reported that Senator Wallah Hermaz Radwandid has proposed regulation of the platform to protect children's moral and educational values. The outline is concerned with the nature of the Roblox platform, including the ability to communicate directly with strangers as well as the potential psychological and behavioral effects on young users. So they're going after it. They're joining other countries including. I love the fact that these countries are doing better than the US at anything. Iraq, Algeria, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates that have banned or heavily restricted the US based gaming platform. Turkey and Russia also enacted blanket bans on Roblox recently, citing the. Well, here's where it gets a little promotion of homosexuality and LGBT propaganda. Yeah, well, you know, bad reason, right outcome.
- [10:30]
A
You know what? You know it would help in those countries, which they can actually do in those countries because it's not here in the US if your children are caught on Roblox, they cut the parents hands off. Which you know, that could be social media Sharia law, I don't know, you could work that in there somehow.
- [10:45]
B
Or maybe they cut off the CEO's hands.
- [10:47]
A
That would be even better. There you go, little Zuckerberg rolling up in nubs in the metaverse.
- [10:54]
B
There's no arms now, buddy.
- [10:56]
A
Yep, yep.
- [10:58]
B
In case you're wondering if this is just some like capricious, no big deal ban, it's actually a significant part of their economic. It's got a real economic impact in these areas. The economic impact report claims that at 15 million million to the total GDP across Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Morocco, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates between 2021 and 2024. So you know, it's a significant amount of money that they're kissing off because they just don't think it's a good thing.
- [11:32]
A
In the news. Well, we got a little more Elon news. Brian Elon just duct taped his entire empire together yet again. So now he's taken SpaceX and added Xai, which also has X underneath it. So he's creating one super douchey company which really sucks because SpaceX was great on its own. SpaceX is actually a really cool company. Then you take this other turd blossom and max it mish it together and.
- [12:04]
B
It just, it's wasn't his idea originally to create X was going to become the Everything app and Everything just made the Everything company like, like the fucking diners in there, the fucking cyber truck, like all this crap and then one decent company. Well, semi decent because we'll get to that after the story.
- [12:22]
A
Yeah, yeah, we got semi decent. They were. Tesla was great in the beginning too. Not so much now. SpaceX crate in the beginning, this little thing off to the side that might just trap us on Earth for the rest of humankind. But go ahead, Brian, what else we got?
- [12:39]
B
Sure. Elon Musk and his once good company have requested to build a network that's 100 times the number of satellites that are currently in orbit. They filed an application with the FCC to launch a million satellites meant to create an orbital data center. According to the filing spotted by PCMag, this data center would run off solar power and deliver computing capacity for new Defi's needs, basically. So we're going to. We're going to space. Cool our nudes. That's, that's Elon's big plan right Now. According to SpaceX filing, orbital data centers are the most efficient way to meet the accelerating demand for AI computing power. Where is this accelerating demand, Jason? Beyond. In the minds of the tech companies, CEOs. Nobody wants this, Brian.
- [13:24]
A
I beg to differ. I am seeing more and more Muggles as it were, techno muggles getting on board with Chat GPT. Now for the one thing that we tell people that it's a really bad idea to use Chat GPT for and that's therapy. I'm seeing that everywhere.
- [13:41]
B
It's so bad. And I've also seen a lot of people are like, why would you ever read a book? You can just ask ChatGPT. I'm like, yes, we're doomed. We're fucking doomed. Like within 20 years we went from like, look at this beautiful technology that we have. Look at what we can possibly do with it. Oh my God. Rose colored glasses. The world is going to be a beautiful place too. We have to print do not eat on the pizza box. That's how far we've fallen pretty much. And you have to chat GPT. Can I eat the box and it'll tell you yes.
- [14:11]
A
It will tell you yes. Just put some glue on it and it'll be great.
- [14:14]
B
Anyways, they want to put. They want to put a million fucking satellites. And we've talked about how bad this is and why it's a horrible ide. Not only will we not have the beautiful views that we once have, we could be permanently locked into the planet. I thought you wanted to go to Mars, you fuck nut.
- [14:30]
A
Yeah, I think that was before the ketamine addiction.
- [14:33]
B
All right, well, an unofficial Website that tracks Starlink stats claim there are now currently more than 9,600 satellites in orbit as of January 30, 2026. The FCC is likely to whittle down the amount that SpaceX is asking for in its filing, as I hope it does, by like about a hundredfold or a thousandfold or just say no.
- [14:53]
A
But they're going to pull it out that China is doing the same thing and they need to go up against China.
- [14:59]
B
Well, China's not the only person aspiring Starlink competitor Logo. Space Services has secured FCC clearance to launch more than 4,000 more broadband satellites into low Earth orbit by 2035, as reported by Space News. Under FCC regulations, the company must deploy half of the approved amount within the next seven years. I guess that's to prove that you're serious about this and are actually going to make some sort of competitor to Starlink. Right? The company is headed by its founder, Milo Medin, a former project manager at NASA who should know fucking better, as well as a former vice president of wireless services at Google. They've been raising money since it opened its doors in 2023 and reportedly hopes to deploy its first satellite by 2027. So they're not the only.
- [15:41]
A
Except SpaceX won't give them room on a rocket to put it up there. And they're going to go to Bezos, and Bezos is like, we got Project Kuiper. Oh, wait, they renamed that now because Scott Galloway couldn't pronounce it right. And so they've got their own Internet thing going up. So they're going to be. They're going to be, you know, scrapping to find somebody who's going to actually take their satellites up. So.
- [16:02]
B
Well, there you go. There's a. There's a market idea. Yeah, more rockets, people, just for a rough idea of what's going on. The European Space Agency estimates that there are just over 1400, 14,000 functioning satellites currently in orbit. And we know that roughly 9,600 of them are a part of the Starlink constellation. The ESA expects 100,000 satellites to be in orbit by 2030. Yay.
- [16:26]
A
And by 2031, we're never leaving the planet again.
- [16:29]
B
Yeah.
- [16:30]
A
I tell you what, you know what it takes? It takes one guy with a rocket in his backyard that is filled with ball bearings to get that thing up far enough into space. And we're going to throw it, and that's it. It's literally. It's going to take one bucket of ball bearings going at 25,000 miles an hour to just, you know, to just actually just kick off the. What is it called again? I'm losing my. Losing my mind.
- [16:55]
B
I totally forgot too. It was something with. Was it with an F? No, that's the firm. Not the Kepler.
- [17:00]
A
Kepler syndrome. I got confused with Kuiper for a second. I'm like, it's not Kuiper. Don't. Don't call away me here. So, yeah, I'm telling you, it's a matter of time, you know?
- [17:11]
B
Yeah. All right, well, let's pivot away from space back to the problems on earth. The national center for Missing and Exploited Children said it received more than 1 million reports of AI related child sexual abuse material material in 2025. The vast majority of that content was reported by Amazon, which found the material in its training data. And they just don't know how it got there.
- [17:32]
A
Jason, how did it get there?
- [17:34]
B
Brian, look at all this stuff on my hard drive.
- [17:37]
A
How did it get there?
- [17:39]
B
Didn't Pete Townsend get in trouble for this sort of shit?
- [17:42]
A
Pete Townsend?
- [17:43]
B
Really? Who? Yeah, he said he got busted for like he had child porn on his. On his computer or something. And then he said he was. Well, he was doing research for some organization he support and that's the only way it could have possibly gotten there. Anyways, he got in trouble for it and Amazon's not because they just don't know how it got there.
- [18:03]
A
Yeah, I mean, Pete Townsend did it with love. He let. Let his love open the door to his hard drive.
- [18:09]
B
A quote from Amazon. Having such a high volume come in through the year begs a lot of questions about where the data is coming from and what safeguards have been put in place. You think.
- [18:17]
A
You think it's your fucking data, assholes. Come on.
- [18:22]
B
Aside from Amazon, AI related reports the organization receives from other companies last year include actionable data that it could pass along to law enforcement for next steps. Amazon isn't disclosing sources and their reports are now inactionable.
- [18:38]
A
Great, Fun times. But hey, you know what? Soon all the CSAM will be in space. That's true. So.
- [18:48]
B
And we send up the ball bearings and we're done.
- [18:50]
A
Yeah, exactly. Yeah, because what jurisdiction would that be under if you're kiddie porn's in space, do we have to get. What's the guy, the bad guy that snapped his fingers from the Marvel movies? Get him in here.
- [19:04]
B
I just happened. I just gotta say I've been watching some of the old Muppet shows with my kid because of the Muppet show, which we'll get to later. But you say child born in space and I'm just like pigs in space. It's just wrong.
- [19:17]
A
That was such a great, such a great theme between that and spaceship war. I think Spaceship Warlock took pigs in space when they did that. So Waymo, Waymo's in the news. They just closed a monster $16 billion funding round at a $126 billion valuation. Officially the biggest investment ever in autonomous vehicles. And it's not vaporware. The round was led by Dragonier, DST and Sequoia, with basically every serious institutional tech investor piling in, while Alphabet stays firmly in control. Yes. So Waymos are. They're coming for you, man. They're everywhere. They're absolutely everywhere. I still haven't seen them on the freeway. I haven't seen them on the freeway. Not in la, not in my part of la. In other parts of la, they are on the freeway.
- [20:04]
B
So I have seen them on the 10.
- [20:06]
A
You have?
- [20:07]
B
Yeah.
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A
Okay.
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B
On the west side. Yeah.
- [20:09]
A
Well, it's good because I stay the off the 10 because I hate that road.
- [20:15]
B
Well, there were some more layoffs. I think we discussed them over at Pinterest. But there's a twist to this story, Jason. The digital pinboard social media company announced last week that it would be laying off about 15% of its staff and shrinking its office space as part of a restructuring effort. In a meeting led by the company's cto, Matt Madrigal, engineering employees were told that Pinterest would not provide a list of affected employees due to privacy rights and company policies. That's when two employees said hold my beer. According to Pinterest, hold the photo of.
- [20:43]
A
The beer that somebody else took that I stole from their website. That now going to show you on my website. Hold that photo please.
- [20:49]
B
According to Pinterest, the engineers built an internal tool aimed at creating a master list of laid off employees. This is quite genius. The BBC reported that the tool tracked when employee accounts on platforms like Slack were being deactivated or removed. So they just made a bot that checked out when. When people's accounts just disappeared from Slack? After being clearly informed that Pinterest would not broadly share information identifying impacted employees, two engineers wrote custom scripts improperly accessing confidential company to identify the locations and names of all dismissed employees and then share it more broadly. A Pinterest spokesperson told Gizmodo in an emailed statement. This is a clear violation of Pinterest policy and of their former colleagues privacy. Pinterest, your entire business model is a clear violation of copyright law.
- [21:35]
A
Exactly so go suck a bag of dicks or a photo of a bag of dicks that you stole from somebody else's website, please.
- [21:41]
B
CNBC and other outlets reported that the employees that came up with this genius thing were, of course, fired. Healthy debate and dissent are expected. That's how we make our decision, said Pinterest CEO Bill Reddy at the meeting, according to cnbc. But there's a clear line between constructive debate and behavior that's obstructionist. He went on to say that employees should look for another job if they are working against the direction of the company. I personally give these guys a round of applause.
- [22:05]
A
Oh, absolutely, I do. I'm gonna ding them on their opsec. They should have just vibe coded this thing, set it in the background, let it run, and been anonymous, and they would have still had a job and they would have still had access to all the data that they needed.
- [22:18]
B
I mean, it's definitely illegal. I'm sure that they were. There's something in the Pinterest Code of Ethics and the handbook and the employee manual.
- [22:26]
A
Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Brian, Brian. You just said the Pinterest Code of Ethics. But Pinterest does not have a fucking code of ethics.
- [22:33]
B
Oh, they do. It just doesn't involve copyright law.
- [22:36]
A
That. Okay, okay.
- [22:37]
B
They took those pages out.
- [22:39]
A
Those pages are now gone. Yes.
- [22:40]
B
Redacted. Okay.
- [22:44]
A
Oh, Jesus. Well, Sam Altman's in the news today.
- [22:47]
B
When is he not?
- [22:48]
A
That's true. That's true. But this one's a good reason. Anthropic. The creators of the Claude Chatbot, they apparently still have enough money left over to buy super bowl ads, something that OpenAI does not. And I think that I'll get to why in a second here. So they made four ads making fun of a, like, advertisement in AI, which is what OpenAI said that they're going to do, right?
- [23:14]
B
Yep.
- [23:15]
A
Have you seen one?
- [23:16]
B
Saw one today.
- [23:17]
A
They're genius. I love them. I absolutely love them.
- [23:22]
B
I, I, I applaud the fact that they made it very discernible that it's an ad. It's like a white pop up on a black screen. Like, you. You know that this is not part of. Well, never mind you and I know that this is not, but people are so stupid. They might think that that's like a special extra answer.
- [23:41]
A
Yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah.
- [23:44]
B
Never mind, never mind. My whole point, people are too fucking dumb to know, but I thought that they had done a good job of implementing it.
- [23:49]
A
I think they did too. So Sam originally said, oh, that's funny. And then he just went on a tirade and wrote like, you know, war and Peace about why that's uncool. But I just thought it was genius. You know, one spot opens with the word betraya and shows a chatgpt like bot giving heartfelt advice, then abruptly shoves a fake cougar dating ad into the conversation, which is hilarious.
- [24:11]
B
That's very funny. And maybe useful.
- [24:14]
A
It might actually be. You know, that might be the useful part of OpenAI, like point me to somewhere where I can actually, you know, get something done about all this. You're telling me to do. Media candy.
- [24:36]
B
Well, Jason, as I pointed out last week, shrinking is back. Shrinking is a. The Apple TV show that has. The Apple TV show that you can watch on Apple TV on your Apple tv.
- [24:46]
A
Yes.
- [24:46]
B
Thanks to the genius branding that the guys have done over there. Yes. Yeah, I love the first season. I liked the second season. I have only watched the first episode of this third season, and I've got to say, it was not good. Good. Even my wife, who this, you know, she lives for these kind of shows, was like, I don't know if I can watch this, really. They are caricatures of the previous characters. It just felt forced. It. The only person that still stands out is Harrison Ford, because dude can act and. Yeah, well, I mean, he's not really acting. He's just him now.
- [25:20]
A
He's just him. Yeah, but he's basically doing the Jack Black thing. He just shows up and is himself.
- [25:25]
B
He just shows up and he's himself and. And he's still great. But. But it was painful. I'll keep with it just because I love the first two seasons so much and hope that it gets better. And this was just some sort of like, let's reintroduce the characters in a very piss poor way that made them completely uncompelling and stupid and useless. We'll see.
- [25:44]
A
Well, you know, there is that thing that happens when a show gets actually popular that the studios fire the writing department because they know that they can keep that show going under the steam that they built up from the previous seasons. Which sounds like you might have just run into that.
- [25:59]
B
I think. I think that's a definite possibility. I'm gonna have to do a little research on that and look into the writing staff in comparison to previous seasons and see what's going on. Because it was not good.
- [26:09]
A
Okay.
- [26:10]
B
Speaking of not good, I watched the Grammys.
- [26:12]
A
Oh, my God, that was so not good.
- [26:14]
B
Yeah, I mean, look, we've aged out. Congratulations to. To two bands that I Loved when I was a kid that are all pushing. Well, Trent reznor is pushing 60 and the Cure and all them are in their 60s. The Cure won their first Grammys ever, you know, 50 years into their career. So good for them. Nine. Chanel's won a Grammy. Of course, they didn't show any of that stuff because that's, you know, anything I like is in the pre show, not the actual show itself. Yeah, it was boring, and I don't care.
- [26:41]
A
So it was funny because we were watching it and I'm like, man, I remember this being so much better last year. And it wasn't last year. It was just a couple months ago when we watched the VMAs. And the VMAs were actually entertaining.
- [26:52]
B
You know, it's like watching the Golden Globes over the Oscars. You know, let him get drunk and have fun and. And not the stiff, boring stuff with Justin Bieber coming out in his underwear and attempting to be, like, deep by making a fucking loop. A fucking loop. I gotta watch you make a fucking.
- [27:09]
A
Guitar loop in your boxes.
- [27:12]
B
And then you. Then you start a fucking shitty samba drum pattern that. Ooh, I'm feeling it, man.
- [27:20]
A
You feeling it, man? You deep? You feeling the deepness?
- [27:23]
B
Yeah, yeah. So anyways, that. That happened. Now I see you have Starfleet Academy in here, and it was an episode of which I am very curious about your thoughts, so I'll let you get into it.
- [27:35]
A
Yes, I have problems now. The first problem I have is with the. The way the holograms are working in the 32nd century or however it works. We don't know how the technology behind this one girl who is, you know, basically a hologram.
- [27:52]
B
Yeah, she's the doctor. She's the hologram.
- [27:54]
A
Yes. Yeah. So this whole episode was about peoples and all that stuff. So now the science of Star Trek has always been something of, you know, just a little fun black box where they just make shit up and it's kind of. Kind of fun. But there have been books written about the science behind Star Trek and how some of it is just pie in the sky, and some of it is fun. You know, we're never gonna.
- [28:18]
B
Mythbusters would say some of it is plausible.
- [28:21]
A
Yes, exactly. And as Penn would say, some of it is bullshit. This. This hologram person, I call so much bullshit on that. Nobody has taken the time to actually think it through. The one episode she got dumped in a bunch of water and was breathing. After she was dumped in the water, you see bubbles coming out of her mouth as she's screaming, holograms don't breathe. Where'd the bubbles come from? And. And also this time, you know what? It wasn't even just the crazy nods to Deep Space Nine in this episode. I love Deep Space Nine. It's my show. I love that they brought Jake back, which was really fun to see him as a grown man. But you want to know what really pissed me off? Brian the hologram playing the fucking theremin.
- [29:10]
B
I didn't mind that. I thought it was.
- [29:11]
A
Okay, think about it for a fucking second. To be photons for therapy to work, you need meat to go, to impede the signal to go. She's got no meat.
- [29:26]
B
All right, fair.
- [29:28]
A
Okay.
- [29:28]
B
I'm just saying that actually wasn't my biggest problem with the episode. I liked the Deep Space Nine stuff, although I thought it was a bit of a tease. You know, solve the mystery. And then we basically say absolutely nothing about Cisco and what happened. And.
- [29:42]
A
But that aside, all she had to do was go look at the DVDs and the mystery solved. Yes, we know where he went.
- [29:48]
B
That's fair.
- [29:49]
A
I saw the last episode of Deep Space Nine. It's not a mystery.
- [29:52]
B
Well, it is to them, Jason. Yeah, well, that wasn't my problem with the episode. The concerns about her being a photonic being and all that. Whatever, go for it. That's fine. The thing I didn't like about the whole episode is that they fucking leaned into what. What teen shows did right after texting became super popular. The little bubbles of the text, bubbles popping up everywhere. Everything was like emojis and like little hearts and like. And then they're dropping. They're throwing up all these little graphics everywhere as if, like, what the fuck was that all about? That was pure artistic choice that they tried to make a cool, hip episode for the kids, which I guess the show is for the kids, but still. Yeah, that was dumb. It was completely out of character of every episode of Star Trek that's ever been done. And, yes, somebody's going to say, well, what about the ones where they sing? Well, fuck you. They had some weird virus and they sang.
- [30:42]
A
So. And it was a great episode. And they can fucking sing.
- [30:45]
B
Yeah, and it was a great episode. So anyway, that. That was the one thing that really bothered me. I was like, oh, geez. All of a sudden there's text messages popping up on the screen. It's still. It's. It's still a fine show. And you know what? I can't. What's the actress's name that's playing the. The Captain. She is. Is killing it. Like, I love Holly Hunter in this role. I love the fact that she can't sit in a chair normally. This is fantastic.
- [31:11]
A
She's too short to. To riker it, though.
- [31:14]
B
She's too short to riker it. She's. She's making her own thing, and. And she's just great. She is the saving grace of that show right now for me. I. I cannot get enough of her. More of her on the screen. She's fantastic.
- [31:24]
A
So enough of that. I watched the rip, the new Ben Affleck, Matt Damon joint that came out of Netflix this week. Week or last week. And the big thing about that is, you know, the. The structure that they built the movie on, which is, you know, the whole Hollywood turning it on its head and people getting paid, you know, eventually the whole cast and crew getting paid from it if it hit certain numbers, which is why I watched it. I just wanted to give him the. The bump for the numbers, because anything to take, you know, any. Any bit of Hollywood back from the studios, I'm cool with. I give it a B plus. It wasn't a bad movie. It wasn't a great movie. Here's what I liked about it, though. It was just a movie. They weren't trying to create the Godfather. They weren't trying to do something like, you know, super crazy. It was like an hour and a half of a decent crime thriller action movie, which I enjoyed. I just enjoyed it. There wasn't like, two hours of convoluted this, that, and the others like, oh, this is what the story is. This is the turn. This is the twist. This is how it ends. Loved it, that part. It was just slow in the little parts. That's why I got a baby.
- [32:22]
B
All right.
- [32:23]
A
There were a couple of threads that they didn't tie up at the end, which I thought was kind of lame, but for the most part, I thought it was a decent movie. That's just my two cents. All right, Neil Young is in the news. Neil Young is making a pointed political statement by gifting the people of Greenland free access to his entire music and film archive for a year, saying he hopes it eases the stress caused by recent US Threats over the territory's future. And at the same time, he's pulling his music from Amazon Music, citing Jeff Bezos's support of Donald Trump in opposition to Trump's international policies and ICE enforcement. So you go, Neil.
- [33:01]
B
All right, look, I support people that put their money where their mouth is. There are plenty of artists that have pulled their Music off of Spotify to protest as well. That's fantastic. Gifting the people of Greenland. I don't really think that Neil Young's music is very popular in Greenland and I don't think it's going to ease.
- [33:17]
A
It or anywhere else right now.
- [33:19]
B
I wonder if he has sent everybody there a free pono since he's probably got a bunch of those sitting around in a warehouse somewhere, so we'll see.
- [33:26]
A
He couldn't though. The tariffs would kill him.
- [33:28]
B
Oh, that's true. So. All right, well, good on you, Neil. I'm. I'm a fan. I'm a Neil Young fan without even being too big of a fan of his music. I'm a fan of him.
- [33:37]
A
Yeah.
- [33:37]
B
So, yeah.
- [33:38]
C
All right.
- [33:38]
B
I like crotchety old dudes.
- [33:41]
A
There are people. They are our people. And I just saw that this, this came out. Is it cake? Valentine's Day edition.
- [33:49]
B
My son loves this. So.
- [33:51]
A
Yeah. But I tell you what, it. They used to go from like eight episode seasons, then when they came up with the specials, it was a three episode season and now they just kind of gave up. This is one and done. It's a one episode show, so.
- [34:04]
B
All right.
- [34:04]
A
But I'll watch it. I like it. I enjoy it. It's fun. Apps and doodads.
- [34:11]
B
Well, since we pivoted to starting to do video, Jason, I was wearing my, my normal headphones. My normal good Sennheisers that are great for music and everything else but they. The big cans. Yep. And they don't show off my lustrous hair which. So I decided to join you and Dave and, and order myself some in ears so I can, I can like have this free flowing mane. I ordered the Sennheiser consumer audio IE 200 in ear audiophile headphones. True sponse transducers for neutral sound. Impactful bass. Detachable braided cable with flexible ear hooks. Black. All right. These are, they're great. Like I really love them. Like they're fantastic. And the re. You know, the reality is I've left my, my really good Sennheiser over ears up here in the studio. I don't have them downstairs. I don't take them with me. I don't use them to listen to stuff on my phone. I. I just use my Apple AirPods because they're good and. But what I kind of realized is they're not good enough for music. I'm using these now with a dongle on my iPhone and actually listening to music and it is fantastic. I mean, don't get Me wrong. The Apple AirPods for convenience and for listening to podcasts and all of that stuff, they're fantastic. But for like really good music. No, these are great and you know, not crazy expensive, which is nice. You know, I could spend a lot more and if I took my over ears down there that'd be even better. But this is a good balance and I have to say I got, I did a little AB testing, which I never do. Now that I'm wearing these headphones as Opposed to my AirPods, I 100% can hear a quality difference between Spotify and Apple music. Apple music is way better.
- [35:50]
A
Oh really? Okay. Interesting. Yeah, yeah. I mean do you have the AirPods or the. Yeah, the AirPod threes? The three pros.
- [35:58]
B
No, no, I'm on two.
- [36:00]
A
Okay. Because I got the three pros and I'm wearing Sennheiser, like the nice high end ones that we used to get back in the day. My one last pair that I have left and you know these sound, these sound just amazing. But I haven't done the A B test. Maybe I'll try that sometime. But I too, surprisingly this week needed another pair of in ear headphones for my, my laptop bag because when I'm out doing like live productions for Zoom and stuff, I need a pair of headphones and I. All I've got are my, my Sony's, my big Sony MDRs, my cans that I carry around in my backpack and I'm like. Because I keep these in the studio so we can always have them ready for our fine YouTube audience which has been going down the. Everybody go watch some YouTube videos please. Or just put them on in the background. I don't care if you watch them or not. But these have been, you know, sold. They stopped making this version years and years ago, which I'm glad you found some decent ones. I found the sennheiser consumer audio cx 80s in ear headphones with inline one button smart remote black for $19.19. They sound identical to these super expensive Sennheisers that I, that you know, I'm wearing now. Identical. The only difference is they're very cheaply put together and they're plastic. It's way more plastic than the ones I'm wearing, which I think these were like a hundred bucks or something or 70 bucks when I bought them. So the technology from these has gone down to the cheap ones, which is what I was hoping for. So for 20 bucks, you know, I got a really, really nice pair of in ear wired headphones. I like the Ones that you got, I just can't afford that right now. So I'm sticking with my cheapies.
- [37:37]
B
Yeah, well, I was actually looking for my old Sennheiser headphones that we bought back in the day because I think that they maybe just didn't make the move when I moved here to Canada or something. So I was tearing apart some boxes trying to find it, and instead of finding the headphones, so I had to order some new ones, I did find an old drive and I was like, well, what's on this thing? And so I went down a rabbit hole with this because. Whatever. So I opened it up and I found just a bunch of old dumps of photos and videos, you know, from old digital cameras and stuff of that nature. And I was looking at the videos and then I started going, you know, what with. With AI technology and all the stuff, all the things that have. Have happened in the video world right now, there's gotta be something to kind of clean these up because they're, you know, it's old cameras, they're kind of grainy. The brights are too brights, the darks are too darks. Surely there's something that can, like, smooth out these videos because it's a bunch of fun stuff, you know, me and friends from 15, 20 years ago. So Topaz Video, of course, came up in the search, and reasonable price for a month. I figured I'll give it a go. They seem to claim that they're good with old footage and cleaning it up. And I've been trying it out, and it's not bad. It definitely smooths things out maybe a little bit too much. It totally takes care of grain, which is kind of nice. Like, grain is just gone, gone. But I wanted to talk about it here because I know we've got a bunch of listeners, if any. There's got to be better tools out there. There's got to be something that can. That can deal with brightness levels and the smoothing and getting rid of the grain. I know Topaz is. Is a big company right now, and they're paying for their placement. If anybody knows of a really good tool we're taking, I mean, I'm even talking about, like, going to old rips, from VHS to digital cameras to early iPhone videos, anything to increase the quality without losing a bunch of, you know, detail. I would love to hear suggestions and recommendations.
- [39:32]
A
Okay.
- [39:32]
B
Because Topaz is good, but not great.
- [39:35]
A
It's generally good enough. I mean, do you play with the different models? Because there's all sorts of different models. They have inside of there for different use cases. And I found playing with the models and just changing the amount that you're doing things and doing multiple passes on it seems. It seems to get me closer than just that kind of a one and done. Throw it in there and press the button and hope it comes out.
- [39:56]
B
Yeah, I really want a one and.
- [39:57]
A
Done, I don't think, because I'm lazy. One and done.
- [40:00]
B
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So it's good at everything except for dealing with the brightness levels because it doesn't really have that in there. In fact, I like when I went on the forums and starting to read about it, they're like, oh, well, you use your other other video editing tools to deal with brightness and then you bring it to Topaz to kind of do the smoothing and everything. And I was like, well, I want both without spending ton of money, but I guess I'm not getting that.
- [40:21]
A
Well, you can get final cut in the new apple bundle for 13 bucks a month. You what?
- [40:27]
B
I'm not going to get that. And you know, there's. Anyways, if anybody knows of anything that's decent, let us know.
- [40:34]
A
Shoot it our way. Yes, I found a nice piece of software this week called Epstein, Which. It's a GitHub repo. It searches the publicly released Epstein court documents for mentions for your LinkedIn contacts. I. I haven't downloaded it yet, but it is on my. It is on my weekend to do list because I know, I. I actually know that there are people in my LinkedIn group that were in the Epstein documents who were there just because they were. They were splash damage. They weren't there because they went to the island or were diddling children.
- [41:11]
B
Yeah, there are a lot of reasons you can be in the files.
- [41:14]
A
Yeah. And what's pissing me off is that this. Oh, my God, there's so.
- [41:17]
B
Oh.
- [41:17]
A
Oh, my God, Peter. ATI is in there. He thinks pussy's low carb. Great. We should bang on to him. How about you focus on the motherfucker that's in there about 6,000 times and is running the fucking country?
- [41:28]
B
That should start with him, to be honest. Epstein is in the Trump files.
- [41:32]
A
That's kind of it. Yeah. There we go.
- [41:34]
B
I almost don't want to know. I. I just don't want to know.
- [41:37]
A
Oh, I. I am so dying to know. I'm so fucking dying to know. And I just love this one. Autonomous cars cheerfully obey prompt injection by road sign. Now, Brian, did we not call this years and years and years ago when we talked about making our Our, our, our stop sign T shirts, our fully self driving anti elon T shirts with basically every sign that you can get on them. Yield, turn here, stop. All that stuff. And people like, oh, that'll never work. Well, it turns out researchers have shown that autonomous cars and drones can be tricked into obeying written instructions on road signs. A new twist on so called prompt injection attacks. And especially now that Tesla uses GROK in their cars, maybe it'll, maybe it'll just turn everybody on the street naked. So we'll see.
- [42:25]
B
Go to gog show. Pretty soon we will have our stop sign grumpy old geeks T shirt.
- [42:29]
A
Yep. In simulated tests, AI vision systems interpreted words like proceed or turn left on signs as direct commands, even ignoring pedestrians and crosswalks. The attacks worked across multiple languages and visual styles with success rates above 80% for cars and even higher for drones. You know, I thought it was funny the one where they just drew the, the chalk circle around the car and it couldn't figure out how to get out. This is just so much better. It's so much better. At the library. Brian. I have dug into the regicide report, which is the laundry files, book 14 by Charlie Strauss and the final book of the laundry files. Have you gotten it yet? Have you started it? Are you gonna get it?
- [43:23]
B
I have not. I, I, I, I think I will. I'm gonna kind of wait and hear what you have to say about it. I also feel like I have to go read the Wikipedia entry on the laundry files because it's been so long since I've read one of the books. I don't remember a thing.
- [43:35]
A
Well, he's doing a really good job taking you through the book and you start to remember different things as you go through because he talks about the old days. You know, it's got Mo and the violin and Bob and all that stuff in it. So it really does, it comes back pretty quick. I'm about a little over halfway through and I'm enjoying it. I'm enjoying it. I can't wait to see how they wrap it up. But yeah, it's very it. I, I, it's just like the old days, the old laundry file book. So I'm, I'm digging it. I'm really digging it. I'm glad he's, he brought the, yeah, I'm glad he got the team back together, you know, bringing it full circle. Yep, indeed. Now this one is interesting. Scientists have found that the earliest signs of dementia may show up in language years before memory problems ever appear. And they found a striking example in the novels of Terry Pratchett. Researchers analyzed Pratchett's Discworld books and discovered a gradual but statistically significant decline in the diversity of descriptive words he used, especially adjectives. The shift was subtle, invisible to casual readers, and didn't affect the quality of the writing, but it was measurable, which is really fascinating. It is really fascinating.
- [44:40]
B
This is awesome. And I immediately thought, wow, what a. Finally a great use case for AI. You turn AI on your writing to analyze it and potentially give you at least a warning sign diagnosis of this. Right. Until I realized that the average adult does nothing more than tweet or is using AI to do all their writing now.
- [45:01]
A
Exactly. The one thing that we've now figured out it's good for is something that we can't actually test for. Terry Pratchett is the only person this.
- [45:08]
B
Is ever going and last.
- [45:11]
A
Yeah, yeah, seriously, I'm guessing you can't point it at X and you know, you can't really tell if somebody has Alzheimer's from their let's go, Brandon tweets. You can just tell that they're dumb.
- [45:21]
B
Sure you can. Oh, and we got, we got some news. Neil Gaiman has popped out of his hole alongside the February 2nd badgers or groundhogs or whatever the hogs came out.
- [45:36]
A
Badger, badger, badger, badger.
- [45:38]
B
Yeah, says sorry. Good omens, fans, this is not the Neil Gaiman adjacent news you are waiting for. While we're waiting to hear about what will happen with the finale special that replaced the full season, which will probably be shit canned and never released at this point, he has come out and made a new statement from the author which is very defensive, but also couches a sly reveal of a new book he calls the biggest thing I've done since American Gods. So yes, he came out of nowhere to say, no, I didn't do any of this. Here's a not very well researched article by somebody who's obviously a fanboy and some people are saying is actually Neil himself with a very long medium article about how he's not guilty and he's been railroaded. But by the way, here's my new book and I'm out here to publicize it.
- [46:23]
A
Okay.
- [46:24]
B
You gonna read the book?
- [46:25]
A
Depends, you know, because look, I'm just, I don't want to go down that rabbit hole. I just, I know. I'm not going to talk about.
- [46:32]
B
World is fucking rabbit holes now, man.
- [46:34]
A
I know, I know.
- [46:36]
B
I miss the old days when only Michael Jackson was problematic.
- [46:40]
A
The dark side with Dave you know him, you love him. We are back this week with Dave Bittner on the Dark side with Dave. Hi, dav. You doing?
- [46:53]
C
I'm doing well. Hanging in there, doing my best day. One day at a time. It's all good.
- [46:59]
A
Hey, that's my line.
- [47:00]
B
I. I almost feel like right now, Jason and I should both back away because this is now going to be the Dave Show. This is something he's been waiting for a long time. This is probably one of the favorite things in Dave's life. The Muppets are back.
- [47:14]
C
Yeah.
- [47:15]
B
Like, I don't even. Like, I feel like I'll just take the headphones off and let you go.
- [47:19]
A
Yeah, see, see? In 20 minutes.
- [47:22]
C
No, I'm. I'm very happy. I' very satisfied. I thought they did a great job. It felt like the Muppet Show. It felt like authentic Muppet humor and just everything about it. I feel like they nailed it in terms of making it feel like they kind of continued where they left off.
- [47:40]
B
I. I couldn't agree more. I. I really enjoyed it. I. I don't know much about Sabrina Carpenter. I've. I've heard her songs. I thought she was perfect. Like, yeah, they couldn't have found a better person. You could tell she had had a deep love for the Muppets, and it really came through. I was pleased that Maya Rudolph and Seth Rogen were kept to a minimum.
- [48:02]
A
Yes, I know.
- [48:03]
C
I know. Yes.
- [48:07]
B
Yeah, I felt it was uneven in the best possible way, just like the show always was. And to prove that my son really enjoyed it. And when it was over, I was like, well, should we try an old one? Would you like to watch an old one? He's like, oh, I don't know. Because, you know, kids these days, they see all this old footage and they just, like. It's like, when we saw Black and White, we would just tune out, like, who gives a crap? But he. We watched the Carol Burnett one and we watched the Mark Hamill one, and. And, I mean, my kid was rolling, laughing, and it was the same unevenness. It was the same, like, that wasn't funny at all. That didn't work. But, yeah, it's okay. Keep it rolling.
- [48:46]
C
Yeah, it's fast paced. There's another joke on the way. So, yeah, I was very happy the entire time and noticeably so. And when it ended, I just felt like I was in a great mood. And so I've seen more than one person comment, like, could it be that the Muppet show is the show that we all need right now?
- [49:13]
B
I definitely Felt that way. I hadn't felt that good in quite some time. It was just pure escapism and magic. Like, there's.
- [49:21]
C
There's.
- [49:21]
B
They. I. I love to. On Seth Rogen, but he did it, so. Yeah, yeah.
- [49:29]
A
You know what's funny is we. We put in these things that are so far out because we get trailers that are sometimes over a year before the show comes out.
- [49:39]
C
Out.
- [49:40]
A
I didn't realize that it was coming out this fast and I missed it. I haven't seen it yet. I'm so used to just not paying attention to trailers anymore because there's so much noise out there. It's like, oh, look, the new season of Pluribus is coming in 2029. Here's a trailer. I'm like, okay, great.
- [49:56]
B
Right? Right.
- [49:57]
A
I will probably forget about that and until you tell me it's on the air. So you guys have just told me it's on the air, so now I can go. Go catch up.
- [50:04]
C
Well, it's getting tons of positive feedback and I want to say, like, yesterday it was Disney, so here's hoping that it gets a pickup for a season.
- [50:17]
B
Agreed.
- [50:17]
A
Or more.
- [50:19]
C
So that said, let me ask you this. Who do you think? Let's say they get a 10 episode pickup because that's probably what would happen these days. There are no more 24 episode seasons like they had originally. Who would make good guests on this modern incarnation of the Muppet Show. I have my own list, but I'm curious what you guys think of the top of your head. Ricky Gervais.
- [50:43]
B
Oh, that's cool. I also have Ricky Gervais down. I. I wrote a small list after I saw that you put this in there. The one, the one caveat that I, that I had to say is, like, we're old and. Yeah, like, like the people that they should be getting as hosts are not the people that, that you and I, the three of us, would probably want because we. We're gonna just skew older people, our generation, or if not even older than that. So I was thinking of, like, who's relatively popular as a younger person. That would actually make a good host. Miley Cyrus would be great. Olivia Rodrigo would be fantastic. Because it's got to be somebody with that. You know, you've got. You can sing, you can. You can dance, you can act. Timothy Chalamet would be Timothy Chalamet. As much as I don't like him. Zendaya, you know, for the, for the kids and for older, like, for me, who I'd like to see Idris Elba, I think would be amazing.
- [51:34]
A
I had him, too. Yes.
- [51:37]
B
Sarah Silverman. No. Oh, I would love to see Sarah Silverman do it. I think she'd be fantastic. Tom Hanks, obviously you can see Tom.
- [51:46]
C
Hanks is on my list.
- [51:47]
B
I have a double bill. I would like to see them together. Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen together, doing it. Because they could do all the Shakespearean stuff. Muppets. It would be wonderful. Yeah. And that's about as far as I got on my list.
- [52:01]
A
I want Margaret Cho. I like her.
- [52:03]
B
I want her on Margaret Chose too. Too out there right now.
- [52:06]
A
She'd be great.
- [52:07]
B
She wouldn't be, but yeah.
- [52:09]
C
All right. My list. I have Lady Gaga.
- [52:12]
B
Oh, yeah, yeah. Didn't even think.
- [52:13]
C
She's already. She's already done a Muppet special.
- [52:16]
B
Yeah.
- [52:17]
C
Weird Al.
- [52:18]
B
Oh, fantastic.
- [52:20]
C
Right, yeah. Ariana Grande.
- [52:23]
B
Yeah.
- [52:24]
A
No.
- [52:25]
C
What do you mean, no? Why? No?
- [52:26]
A
Like, I don't like her.
- [52:27]
B
You can sing, she can act, she can dance. Checks off all those boxes.
- [52:30]
C
And she can do comedy. She's good on snl.
- [52:33]
B
She was great on SNL album, actually.
- [52:35]
C
Yeah.
- [52:35]
A
Goldblum.
- [52:36]
B
Oh, Goldblum would be fantastic. Because he's so Goldblum.
- [52:40]
C
Yeah.
- [52:40]
B
He's practically a Muppet already.
- [52:42]
A
He really is. Right, right.
- [52:45]
C
I thought maybe Jon Hamm, he can do comedy. I had Tom Hanks. Selena Gomez. Yeah.
- [52:52]
B
I like her a lot. I mean, Steve Martin, but he's already done it, sort of.
- [52:55]
C
I was thinking if they had Steve Martin on, maybe with Martin Short would be the way to go.
- [53:00]
B
Yeah. If I can just avoid the Martin Short parts.
- [53:03]
A
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [53:05]
C
If they wanted to bring someone back.
- [53:07]
B
I mean, then they just do it with Selena, too. They have all three of them, you know.
- [53:10]
C
Right, right. I thought Beyonce.
- [53:13]
B
Yeah, yeah.
- [53:14]
C
Hannah Waddingham. Waddingham.
- [53:16]
B
Oh, yeah, she'd be great. Yeah.
- [53:19]
C
Y. Yep. Paul Rudd.
- [53:20]
B
Paul Rudd. Yep.
- [53:22]
C
And last but certainly not least, Dolly Parton.
- [53:25]
B
Oh, fantastic. Yeah.
- [53:26]
A
Great list.
- [53:27]
C
Right.
- [53:28]
B
I would watch. I would watch an episode with everybody we met mentioned.
- [53:32]
C
Yeah. Yeah. So here's hoping. How great would it be if it became the place that a listers wanted to go have fun for a week, you know?
- [53:41]
B
Yeah. Well, we got some news about the person that's going to make that decision. Dave. Disney has announced a successor to outgoing CEO Bob Iger, effective in March. Josh d', Amaro, current chairman of Disney Experiences, was tapped for the role in a unanimous vote by the company's board of directors. He's been at Disney for 28 years, where he oversaw theme parks Cruises and consumer products, including video games. The company had previously appointed Bob Chapek and then quickly recanted that one and brought Bob Iger back. And now he is leaving once again. Now, I've seen two different approaches to, to this announcement. First being, oh, good. Somebody who really understands Disney and park experiences and comes from that background because it's such an important, integral part of who Disney is, Disney's DNA. The other being, this is a succession moment when Tom Wamsbaugh somehow, Exactly. Somehow wins and doesn't really know how to run a company of this nature. So we'll see. I, I think, you know, the Mu. Whether you bring back the Muppets or not is probably going to be one of his first big decisions. At least that affects all of us. Yeah.
- [54:52]
C
The degree to which they do that, I mean, you know, they, they're obviously, they're doing the switchover of Rock and Roller Coaster, so.
- [55:00]
B
So. Well, will they lean further into the Muppets? You know? Yeah, I hope so.
- [55:05]
C
Yeah. Who knows? I hope so. Maybe this will be a trigger, a whole new era for the Muppets.
- [55:11]
B
A whole new world.
- [55:13]
C
It seems like I haven't seen anybody really pooping on it.
- [55:18]
B
So, yeah, I did see people going, kermit doesn't sound right. I'm like, gene Henson's been dead for 20 plus years. Yeah. Yeah.
- [55:29]
C
Both my wife and son said that. They said it pulled, it was distracting that Kermit didn't sound like Kerma. And for me, it didn't bother me, which is weird. It should, but it didn't.
- [55:40]
B
So, you know, it's funny because as I mentioned with my son, I went back and watched a couple of the old episodes and the reverse is true for me. Me, like, Kermit's fine. I didn't even think about that. Go back and listen to the original Gonzo voice. And it's horrible compared to the current Gonzo voice. I take Kurt Gonzo anytime he, he, they, whoever did him in the past. No disrespect, because I'm sure he did 7,000 other characters who are all great but modern gone modern. Gonzo's voice is so much better.
- [56:12]
C
It's the same guy.
- [56:13]
B
Well, he's doing things different now.
- [56:15]
C
He's the only one left. Yeah, it's Dave Goles.
- [56:18]
B
His voice has absolutely changed. And he, he does Gonzo so differently and so much better.
- [56:23]
C
Yeah, he's actually, you know, he does Bunsen Honeydew also.
- [56:27]
B
Oh, I love Bunsen.
- [56:28]
C
And fun Disney related fact. Dave Goles is the Currently the voice of Figment at Epcot.
- [56:38]
B
Right.
- [56:39]
C
The little dragon. Yeah, I do remember that he replaced Billy Barty, who was the original voice of Figment.
- [56:45]
B
Remember? I think I only know the original from my. From my trip there when I was a child. Yep, yep.
- [56:52]
C
Yeah. I mean, you know, I'm hopeful that this guy, being a park guy that's aligns with my interests. So I wish him the best. And the number one thing that any person in this position can do is not break it.
- [57:07]
B
Yeah. Don't it up. Yeah, yeah.
- [57:12]
C
So I had a bunch of other little things I wanted to share here that have been amusing and delighting me over the past week or so. This first one is a database of paper airplane designs. Great fun. Just lots and lots of airplane designs. Simple ones, complex ones. I was wondering if you guys at the age when we all get into this sort of thing, did you have a go to paper airplane design that was, you know, the one that you knew how to make that to impress your friends?
- [57:47]
B
Mine was the number one that shows up on this link. The V. Wink is definitely the one that I built the most often and I think flew the best for me. And side note, when my son was of the age that this became of interest, he was gifted a book that had a thick book that had gazillions of these different designs in it. And that was a lot of fun for about three weeks.
- [58:09]
A
Right.
- [58:11]
C
What about you, Jason?
- [58:13]
A
The basics BASIC is the one. I'm looking at the database now. The date just called the basic.
- [58:19]
C
Yeah.
- [58:19]
A
If you go to the actual paper airplane design database, it's most. It's near the bottom, but the old school, you know, I think I may have kind of done the wedge a couple times, but for the most part. Yeah. I was not never really a paper airplane guy. I had the balsa wood planes with the rubber band and the propeller. You take out and throw those out back. We lived on top of a hill in Pennsylvania. My grandparents lived on top of a hill.
- [58:43]
B
And we. He.
- [58:44]
A
My grandfather used to buy me those planes and I would take them out back and we would play with them. And some of them had the, you know, the little springy landing gear on it that we would take.
- [58:52]
C
Yeah. And the rubber band propeller.
- [58:54]
A
Yeah, that's what I'm talking about, the rubber band propeller. And the. We take off the gear because we're landing in grass. So we wanted that extra few feet of slide, you know, though.
- [59:06]
C
Yeah, yeah. I had a. In addition to those, which I. I had the balsa wood ones which Just, you know, they broke so quickly you were to get. They were like one and yeah, much out of them. But somewhere, somewhere along the lines my father had bought me a. It was probably three feet long, but at the time, at the age I was, it felt like it was six feet long and it was made of foam and it was like a dart shaped fighter jet looking sort of thing. It was silver, but it had a big squishy nose on it. So when it nosed into the ground it would just bounce off. But boy, that thing would fly.
- [59:55]
B
I remember that I had a friend that had one of those and we would go to the park and everybody was insanely jealous because we're there with our stupid paper airplanes and those kids got a fighter jet.
- [60:05]
C
Yeah, yeah, I, I had one of those and that was, that was a lot of fun. And I remember over the years getting repaired with electrical tape and you know.
- [60:15]
B
What doesn't duct tape fix? Yeah, just like a real plane.
- [60:19]
C
Yeah, that was a top, right? Yeah, that was a top tier toy. When I was, I don't know, eight or nine, something like that, my dad.
- [60:27]
A
Got me one of the. It wasn't a paper airplane or a balsa, but he. We couldn't afford an actual like, you know, remote controlled plane. So we had the one that basically was on a string and you'd stand there, you had a gas engine and you just sit there and basically spin in a circle and go up and down with it.
- [60:43]
C
Yeah, I remember those. Yeah, I never played with one, but I remember them. They were loud too.
- [60:47]
A
They were very loud and very scary when you're a kid because you think you're going to get your fingers chopped off. So dad always was the one that had to prime it and swear at it a lot because the thing wouldn't run very well. And then you had the little can of gas that you had to pour in it and it would get everywhere. And you always stank when you were done. And you were very dizzy when you were done too because you're sitting there spinning in a circle, looking at your toy, going up and down, up and down. Just even thinking about it makes me nauseous. But I had a stealth fighter one. It wasn't a real stealth fighter because real stealth fighters didn't exist back then. So it was like the space age. What would a stealth fighter look like if one actually existed? Twisted version. And it had the propeller on the back which made it impossible to fly. So it made it around. They made it about three trips out and then. Because every time we would nose dive the damn thing into the ground. So we'd have to go back, find the duct tape, put it back together, go back out to the parking lot, and then it eventually just disintegrated. One time when my dad just went. Went down instead of up, and it was. Went poof.
- [61:45]
C
So now would they. Would they take off under their own power or did you have to give it a little. Little nudge?
- [61:50]
A
Oh, it went on its own. Yeah. No, because that was. The fun thing is like, because you had the string laid out across the parking lot, the planes at one end, you had to hold the string so you needed two people. This was not a one person thing. So one person would be in the middle holding the string. The other person would be turning on the plane and holding it in place until it was ready. And then you just let it go because it was only one speed on it, you know, it was just.
- [62:12]
C
Okay, that's what it's going to. So you have no throttle control, so you basically run it till it runs out of gas. Is that the idea?
- [62:19]
A
Okay, that's it.
- [62:20]
C
So every. Every landing's a crash landing?
- [62:23]
A
Well, if you were good, if you were smart enough, you could hear it.
- [62:26]
C
Yeah.
- [62:27]
A
Sputtering and then, you know, to like, kind of bring it down and kind of level it off for landing. You don't want it to be up high when it started to sputter. Then that was a recipe for, you know, your 60 bucks out the window. Because those things weren't cheap, you know, but. Yeah, and they were definitely limited use because, you know, once you go a couple times, you're pretty much done for the day, so you need a good group of people out there with.
- [62:47]
C
With you.
- [62:48]
A
But it was. Those were fun. Those were really fun.
- [62:51]
C
I never had one, but one of my neighbors did. And so I would. I would hear them playing with it and I'd go out and watch, but never had the chance to actually be the pilot. Did look like fun, though. Another thing I posted in here is a browser based version of Roller Coaster Tycoon. Not an official roller coaster tycoon, but same thing. So if you want to build your own theme park, have fun in your browser for free. Nice little time suck.
- [63:22]
B
I hope Josh d' Amaro is working on that right now and practicing.
- [63:26]
C
Yeah, enjoy. Enjoy.
- [63:28]
A
I like it's got co op multiplayer.
- [63:31]
C
Yeah, yeah. And that reminded me of. We actually had a discussion on Slack here at Cyberwire about favorite roller coasters. And that got us talking about the biggest, baddest roller coaster in the world, which of course is in Dubai right now. So I included a YouTube link of a front row version of that. 155 miles an hour, 600ft. It's a couple miles long. It's basically what happens when money is no object.
- [64:08]
B
Poor safety.
- [64:10]
C
Well, yeah, they just, you know, it's like someone built this in roller coaster Tycoon and then went to one of the roller coaster companies and said, build this.
- [64:18]
A
And it exactly is that.
- [64:20]
B
Yeah, yeah. What's crazy is, you know, as a kid riding all these roller coasters, we didn't have any of this kind of information, but now we do. When you find out how actually, like, slow some of these coasters, like Space Mountain is like, tops out at like 35 miles an hour. I'm like, that's it. And then you hear about a coaster that's doing 160, and I'm like, no fucking way would I get on.
- [64:43]
A
I know.
- [64:44]
B
Yeah. No, this.
- [64:46]
C
This roller coaster is so fast that the cars have windshields.
- [64:50]
A
Yeah, yeah. I. I'd seen this before. I hadn't seen this exact video, but I'd seen the video of it before, and I'm just like. And no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Especially when they're up on top of the cliff and it just kind of hangs you over the edge and kind of goes to the left, you know, just toss your back feels if you want. That's the unloading zone with nobody below you. And then you get to go down the thing like, no, no, thank you. So.
- [65:15]
C
No, thank you, sir. I was saying again in our slack conversation, I was saying that my current favorites for the most intense roller coaster is Velocicoaster at Universal. Great coaster. Very smooth. I think the most fun roller coaster in the world or that I've ever been on is Guardians of the Galaxy at Episode Cot. So much fun. And my favorite wooden coaster is. What do they call it now? It used to be called Rebel Yell at Kings Dominion. It's called like America 75 or something now. Because you. You can't have, you know. No, no more references to the. The South.
- [65:53]
B
Yeah. So.
- [65:56]
C
But it's a big old dual wooden roller coaster that also happens to be very smooth, so it doesn't beat you up.
- [66:04]
A
Oh, that's rare.
- [66:05]
B
Yeah, exactly. The big wooden coaster on the west coast is Colossus over at Six Flags. And that thing just. I mean, you're basically get. You're going to need an MRI when you get off that thing.
- [66:15]
C
Right, right, right. The first one I rode, this one.
- [66:19]
A
Yeah, the first wooden one. I actually, the first roller coaster I ever went on, I did them all in one day because I never wanted to go. But my friends brought my girlfriend with me. So they're like, you're going to have to go on roller coasters because your girlfriend likes roller coasters and you don't want to be a wuss. So in one day I went on every roller coaster at Great America outside of Chicago. I think gurney, I think that's where it was. But we went on the American Eagle, which was one of those racing wooden roller coasters. It was huge. It was terrifying and I did need an mri. All I remember is so the first, we're going over the top, we're going over the drop and I'm just like freaking the fuck out. And all I can see is in front of me is our friend Bob Fogarty who does our voiceover for the show. He is sitting there looking back at me with the biggest shit eaten grin on going, having fun yet I'm sitting there terrified out of my gourd.
- [67:07]
C
His friends like these.
- [67:09]
A
Yeah. Yeah. I gotta say that my favorite roller coaster though of all time still is Batman. It what's the one out here, Brian?
- [67:20]
B
Universal or Six Flags?
- [67:22]
A
Six Flags. The Six Flags out here. Magic Mountain. Magic Mountain. They had. Because they had a Batman here and they had one at the Six Flags, the other one. And I don't know know why. I just love that roller coaster. It's smooth, it's fast. It's one of the hanging ones. So your feet hang off the bottom. You can look at all the shoes as you go through. I don't know why. I just love that roller coaster. It's just fun. It's smooth.
- [67:42]
C
Yeah. We had Batman here at Six Flags America which is closed now.
- [67:48]
A
They just last year.
- [67:51]
C
Yeah. But the Batman here was one of the ones where they lay you down for flat.
- [67:57]
A
Oh yeah, we don't belly have that one.
- [68:00]
C
So it's a flying. You're. You're flying like Batman. I guess it was cool.
- [68:04]
A
It's cool.
- [68:04]
C
Terrible, terrible park though. Ugh.
- [68:06]
A
Awful park.
- [68:08]
C
It deserved to close. So a couple other things I put in here. There's a website called Rent a Human.
- [68:17]
B
AI getting a lot of, lot of press. Yep.
- [68:20]
A
Yeah, lots.
- [68:22]
C
I don't know if you guys have seen this, but maybe this is the dystopian future that we're in for.
- [68:28]
B
It makes me glad I'm old Dave, right?
- [68:31]
C
Yes. That we can't be replaced and I am still on the fence as the degree to which this is satire or real?
- [68:41]
B
I think, like many things, it probably started as satire. Then nobody interpreted it that way. So now it's real.
- [68:47]
C
Yeah, Yeah.
- [68:48]
A
I think everybody's broke and they're like, oh, this will work if I can make money off of AI this way. I. I meant, yeah, that's true. Anyway, it's Vicki Yang from Beijing here. Her skills are ballroom dancing, ballet, photography, drawing, and painting. And she's rentable from. For the AI for $50 an hour. So, yeah, she's trained in ballroom dance, ballet, experience photography, currently working remotely while pregnant, which makes me highly available, responsive, and well suited for local tasks, documentation, creative assignments, and real world execution requests, quests.
- [69:21]
B
All right. Okay.
- [69:24]
A
You know. You know what this reminds me of? Demon. Demon by Daniel Suarez.
- [69:28]
B
Oh, yeah, yeah, that's right.
- [69:29]
A
This is just right out of that. Where the. The AI and that would hire people to go out and do stuff. This is exactly it.
- [69:36]
C
Yep.
- [69:37]
B
Hmm. Yeah. Yeah.
- [69:38]
C
It's funny, I was just talking with someone this morning about how the we. We could see a rejuvenation of the status of people in the trades because. Because AI can't install the plumbing in your house or fix your electricity, that sort of thing. So we'll see if it hollows out middle management. Will we see an elevation of the trades for what they are relative to AI Be interesting.
- [70:06]
A
I tried to sign up and make myself rentable, and it said something went wrong. It gave me the shrug emoji.
- [70:12]
C
Okay.
- [70:12]
A
Apparently I'm not human enough stuff.
- [70:15]
C
Ah, well.
- [70:15]
B
Well, yeah, it happens. What are you.
- [70:17]
C
What are you going to do? Yeah, you can't get past the captcha, the human captcha. And finally, there's an interview. You mentioned him earlier today. Sir Ian McKellen was on Colbert and they had an extended interview that is just delightful, and I highly recommend everybody watch it. There's a clip going around from it where McKellen does a bit of Shakespeare that is very appropriate for this moment in which we find ourselves. But the whole interview is just kind and warm and talks about theater and the human experience and people being together. It's 20 minutes or so well spent, and I recommend everybody check it out because it's one of those very human soft moments that. That I think helps recharge your batteries. So put the link in the show notes and please do check it out. I found it very meaningful.
- [71:18]
B
He is a delight as a human.
- [71:19]
C
He is. He really is. Yeah. Yeah. And he's funny and, you know, everything you'd want him to be. And Colbert Is perfect. The perfect person to be paired up with him. Of course, Colbert being the Kermit the Frog substitute. Well, a super fan of Lord of the Rings to be sitting there with Gandalf. Dream come true for him as well.
- [71:45]
A
By the way, the Rentahuman AI site. So it did go through. I do have a profile here, which I immediately said that I'm unavailable. So you can get verified as a human with a blue check mark, because apparently every human needs a blue check mark in priority listing for $9.99 a month. So that's how they're making money.
- [72:04]
B
There you go. There's the ro. Pay to make money. Yes. Pay to play just like the Sunset strip in the 80s.
- [72:13]
A
Yeah. All right, guys, I'm gonna go watch the Muppets.
- [72:19]
C
Yes, please do.
- [72:20]
B
You will be happy. Yes.
- [72:21]
C
I hope so. All right, see you guys soon. Take care.
- [72:25]
A
Closing shout out over on Patreon. Nobody knew. So Maxwell and Martin up there pledge. And Martin says, hey, guys, my savings are getting clobbered right now, but let me adjust my donation for all the crazy inflation we had. Hope this little bit helps and better times are ahead. Yes, Martin, thank you very much. And we do hope better times are ahead because although I'm very sloth to say, things can't get much worse because they can always get worse.
- [72:53]
B
Things can always get worse. Yes.
- [72:56]
A
And we'd also like to thank Dino, Ken, Christopher, James, Travis, Thomas, Larry Trafton, Gabriel, Gabriel and Alex for your continued support.
- [73:04]
B
Thank you all. Over at PayPal, we have donations from Levy, Nicola, Florian, Thomas with $25 donation, and James and Martin, both with $50 donations. Thank you, guys. It's more than we made from from our robot overlords after Jason signed up.
- [73:19]
A
Yeah, seriously. Over at the tip jar, we've got Matthew and Adam. No reviews, but just a quick reminder, if you want to support the show, head over to GOG show donate or patreon.com go. You can help support the show for as little as $3 a month or up to as much as your big heart desires. You get the show a little early and ad free and in high definition on Patreon, because that's the only place we can do that right now. So give us a hand, please, because your support is what keeps the show on the air.
- [73:48]
B
That's right. Thank you all so much for that. And just minutes after we turned off our mics last week, all of our phones went beeping with the news that we had lost the great Catherine o'. Hara. And since it's now been a week and she has been extolled social media and the world all over the place. There's not much else to say about it other than she will be greatly missed and hilarious and would have been a great guest on the Muppet Show.
- [74:11]
A
Dave, that's exactly what I was gonna say. We just missed her. Mr. By that much.
- [74:15]
B
Sad to hear. And the only thing that I would have continued watching the studio for, unfortunately.
- [74:21]
A
Yeah, they're kind of in a pickle right now on what to do. So, yeah, we'll see what they, what they do with that because yeah, she was great in that show. Absolutely great. I really, really enjoyed the studio. There's a I put a link to an article in the Show Notes on Rolling Stone that my friend Meryl Marco wrote about her. So I recommend giving that a read. It was pretty good.
- [74:41]
B
Excellent.
- [74:42]
A
And we got a note from listener Jennifer, whose husband Sam Balloon Man Martinez is in the hospital right now and she asked if we could throw up a link to their GoFundMe because he's a balloon guy and his hands are just jacked up and can't work. So feel really bad for him. Feel really bad for him. So definitely go check out the GoFundMe and throw him a few bones if you can. After you throw us a few bones.
- [75:06]
B
Because, you know, priorities.
- [75:08]
A
Put, put your, put your mask on first is what they always say. The plane's going down.
- [75:13]
B
Yeah. So I hope you get better soon, man. And link is in the Show Notes. Until next time. I'm Brian Schulmeister.
- [75:19]
A
And I'm Jason DeFilippo. Thanks for listening to Grumpy Old old geeks. Get all the links and goodies from Today's episode at GOG Show. 732. Want to keep the grumpiness alive? Toss a few bucks our way at GOG Show. Donate Every penny helps keep the show on the air. Love the show. Share it. There's a share button in your podcast player. Use it to spread the grumpiness to friends, foes and everyone in between. And we'll love you for it. Swing by GOG show to join our discord and chat with us and other show fans. Got thoughts, feedbacks, cool links? Hit us up at Goggles Show Contact. And hey, don't forget to leave a five star review at GOG show review and we'll read it on the air. Oh, and guess what? We've got Merch. Those stop sign shirts are coming soon. We've got merch. So snag it right now at Shop gog show and stay grumpy.