737: Monetizable Content

Summary

Grumpy Old Geeks – Episode 737: "Monetizable Content"

Release Date: March 13, 2026
Hosts: Jason DeFilippo & Brian Schulmeister
Guest: Dave Bittner (not present this episode)

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Episode Overview

This week's Grumpy Old Geeks delivers its signature tech-industry roast, dissecting the latest news and scandals from the world of tech, AI, data privacy, and digital media. With their trademark no-holds-barred commentary, Jason and Brian break down social media bans, AI disasters, data leaks, and the monoculture of “monetizable content.” The episode is loaded with sharp observations, personal milestones, and plenty of both cynicism and wit.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Personal Milestones and Banter

• Brian celebrates four years cancer-free and is now on yearly checkups ([00:21]).
  • “That is four years cancer free. I am one year, one year out from being considered. I guess they just say cancer free, but, you know, okay, not terribly exciting, but a big deal for me.” — Brian ([00:21])
• Jason jokes about sobriety and cancer milestones.

2. International Social Media Bans & US Lag

• Multiple countries (Indonesia, Spain, Malaysia) are enacting bans or strict regulations on social media for users under 16, following Australia’s lead ([02:44]).
• The U.S. is slow to follow, barely passing new privacy protections (COPPA 2.0), which Jason and Brian deride as insufficient and outdated ([10:56]).
  • “Or we could do what every other country in the world is doing and ban it for kids.” — Brian ([11:18])
• Discussion highlights the hypocrisy of tech execs not allowing their own kids on these platforms.

3. Anthropic vs. The Pentagon & The “Axis of AI Evil”

• Anthropic (Claude AI) sues the government after being designated a supply chain risk, usually a label for foreign adversaries ([04:16]).
• Jokes about a new “Axis of Evil” consisting of tech CEOs Sam Altman (OpenAI), Dario Amodei (Anthropic), and possibly Mark Zuckerberg ([04:43]).
  • “Now if we got the Axis of Evil, we've got Sam Altman, he's Hitler. Now we've got Dario, he's Mussolini... I think we should just make Zuck the third wheel...” — Jason ([04:43])

4. Ongoing AI Copyright Wars & Data Scraping

• Gracenote (Nielsen-owned metadata company) sues OpenAI for copying their data and not paying for it ([06:56]).
  • “Defendants instead improperly copied and used gracenote data to create their own commercially valuable AI products, all without paying a dime, the complaint states.” — Brian ([08:06])
• The lawsuit also argues that it’s not just content, but data structure being stolen.
• Ongoing trend of companies rushing to integrate AI, often at great cost.

5. Roblox "AI Filters" & The Uselessness of AI Moderation

• Roblox rolls out a new AI-powered filter to rephrase inappropriate chat in real time, but the Geeks are skeptical ([08:44]).
  • “Do we need to call these AI filters? Because I remember doing regex In Perl for the same thing in 1993.” — Jason ([09:19])
  • “They are burning oceans for that, Jason.” — Brian ([10:01])
• Kids are unlikely to be fooled, and “AI” is more marketing than substance.

6. AI Disasters in Real Life: Pentagon Missile Strike

• Pentagon investigation finds an AI hallucination may have led to a missile strike on a girls’ school in Iran ([12:54]).
  • “In what may be the worst case of AI hallucination imaginable...” — Jason ([12:54])
• Discussion of risk in rapidly integrating AI into military decisions, lack of basic operational oversight.

7. Meta’s Ineffective Oversight & AI Expansion

• Meta’s Oversight Board urges stricter rules for AI-generated content, but has no real enforcement power ([16:37]).
  • “Let us remind you that all they can do is urge them to do things because the Meta Oversight Board has zero operational capabilities, no teeth, no nothing.” — Brian ([17:06])
• Meta continues to acquire or partner with “viral” AI projects (usually revealed as smoke and mirrors), and their platforms flood users with poorly labeled AI content ([18:21]).
  • “All the posts that went viral basically involved people. This is the ultimate case of AI is people.” — Brian ([19:22])

8. Tech Layoffs & the AI Bubble

• Oracle plans to cut thousands of jobs to reinvest in AI infrastructure and contracts with OpenAI ([20:45]).
• Observations on the cyclical hype, investment, and collateral damage caused by the AI arms race.

9. User Data Leaks & Security Debacles

• Large-scale Social Security data leak connected to a government contractor, exposing sensitive data of over 500 million Americans ([28:40]).
  • “When we say personal information, we mean all of the information.” — Brian ([29:12])

10. Companies Suing the US Government Over Tariffs

• Nintendo and others are currently suing the US government to recover money lost from Trump-era tariffs which were ruled illegal ([30:52]).

11. Tech Stagnation and the AI “Beige Effect”

• Large language models (LLMs) and AI tools are flattening human creativity, according to a new meta-study ([24:25]).
  • “It is putting everything into the same fucking bucket, swishing it around and all you get is, is beige.” — Jason ([25:33])
• Brian shares his experience with AI music generation tools: everything is generic and indistinguishable ([26:04]).

12. Science News Highlights

• SETI might be missing alien signals due to plasma and space weather, not alien indifference ([32:37]).
• Ig Nobel Prizes move to Europe due to US immigration hostility, illustrating the US scientific brain drain ([34:08]).
  • “Not only are we having a brain drain, which is people, people. The best and brightest used to come here. Now they do not. They will not come here.” — Brian ([35:18])

13. Apps, Doodads, and Tech Reviews

• Jason mentions “Clash Royale” clan longevity and “Open Audible” for backing up personal audiobooks ([38:24]).
• Open Audible’s slow performance and legality discussed candidly.
• Brian reviews the news of Bluesky CEO stepping down ([40:44]).

14. Pokemon Go's "Accidental" World Mapping

• Niantic (Pokemon Go’s developer) has created a stunning visual positioning system using billions of crowd-sourced urban photos, now powering delivery robots ([42:30]).
  • “Probably the best mapping of the planet is going to come from Pokemon Go...” — Brian ([44:20])

15. Robot News and Societal Impact

• A humanoid robot frightens an elderly woman in Macau, raising concerns about public robot deployments ([46:43]).

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On US vs. International Social Policy:
  “Or we could do what every other country in the world is doing and ban it for kids.” — Brian ([11:18])
• On Tech’s “Axis of Evil”:
  “Now if we got the Axis of Evil, we've got Sam Altman, he's Hitler. Now we've got Dario, he's Mussolini… I think we should just make Zuck the third wheel…” — Jason ([04:43])
• On the Ineffectiveness of AI Filters:
  “They are burning oceans for that, Jason.” — Brian ([10:01])
• On AI Flattening Creativity:
  “It is putting everything into the same fucking bucket, swishing it around and all you get is beige.” — Jason ([25:33])
• On Data Security Scandals:
  “When we say personal information, we mean all of the information.” — Brian ([29:12])
• On Brain Drain and America’s Anti-Science Tilt:
  “Not only are we having a brain drain, which is people, people. The best and brightest used to come here. Now they do not... The best and brightest are starting to leave.” — Brian ([35:18])
• On Monetizable Content:
  “I think we need to rename this segment from mediacami to Monetizable Content...I fucking hate the word content so much.” — ([55:56]–[56:13])

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• Personal milestones, jokes: [00:21]–[01:10]
• Social media bans/global policy: [02:44]–[04:16]
• Anthropic vs. DoD/Axis of Evil: [04:16]–[06:16]
• Gracenote lawsuit/OpenAI data: [06:56]–[08:41]
• Roblox “AI filter”: [08:44]–[10:50]
• COPPA 2.0/US lagging on privacy: [10:56]–[12:44]
• AI in military disaster: [12:54]–[14:35]
• Meta’s AI flood and “agent” scam: [16:37]–[20:45]
• Tech layoffs and AI arms race: [20:45]–[22:08]
• Massive Social Security data leak: [28:40]–[30:43]
• Tariffs and Nintendo lawsuit: [30:52]–[32:13]
• AI, creativity, “beige effect”: [24:25]–[28:36]
• SETI, Ig Nobel, and science policy: [32:37]–[36:48]
• Apps & Doodads: [38:24]–[42:04]
• Niantic's world mapping/robotics: [42:30]–[46:00]
• Robot frightens senior in Macau: [46:43]–[47:55]
• Media Commentary ("Monetizable Content"): [48:08]–[59:44]

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Personality & Tone

• The hosts’ banter is sardonic, highly critical of tech industry hype, and passionate about tech's social impacts.
• They balance personal, relatable anecdotes with extensive industry knowledge.

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Takeaways for the Uninitiated

• The tech industry’s rapid and unregulated AI push is having consequences far beyond just annoying search results—ranging from massive data theft to actual loss of life due to AI hallucination in military targeting.
• Global governments (mostly outside the US) are taking concrete action to protect children online, while the US settles for piecemeal, largely ineffective legislation.
• Major corporations are focused on monetization, consolidation, and self-preservation—often at the expense of user rights, employee jobs, and public good.
• AI creativity is a paradox: it promises “innovation” but, when deployed at scale, ensures a glut of generic, risk-averse output—flattening human contribution into beige mediocrity.
• The biggest winners are platforms (YouTube, Meta) and data brokers, while average users and small businesses are squeezed ever tighter.

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For Further Information

• All references and links mentioned are in the show notes at GOG.show/737.
• Listener support and merchandise are available as detailed near the episode’s end.

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Grumpy Old Geeks delivers a dense, unfiltered 90 minutes of both news and commentary. Even for those who haven’t listened, this summary captures the unique spirit, highlights, and essential information from episode 737: “Monetizable Content.”

Transcript

[A]

Welcome to Grumpy Old Geeks, a weekly talk show where we discuss the finer points of what went wrong on the Internet and who's to blame. I'm Jason DeFilippo.

[B]

And I'm Brian Schulmeister. I almost leapt in after you said welcome to Grumpy Old Geeks because I'm still not used to the new intro.

[A]

Ah, me too. Me too. It takes. It takes a bit to get used to. Sorry, Bob, we just didn't have time for you.

[B]

I just want to interject really quick. We have made note, Jason, of your sobriety milestones, rightfully so. There's something to be very, very proud of and we should all applaud. I myself have had a milestone, Jason. I had my cancer. Yearly cancer checkups. Now I've gone yearly instead of like more than a couple times a year. And everything came back clean. That is four years cancer free. I am one year, one year out from being considered. I guess they just say cancer free, but, you know, okay, not terribly exciting, but a big deal for me. So.

[A]

So it is a big deal. It's a very big deal. How many 12 step programs did you go to get that cancer out?

[B]

But no, I had a surgery, though.

[A]

Oh, that's good.

[B]

And chemo, you know.

[A]

Okay, that's good.

[B]

Yeah. Okay. Didn't do meetings, you know.

[A]

I'm happy. I'm happy for you. I'm very happy for you. So.

[B]

Yeah, it's good to be here. Well, no, it's not good to be here, but, you know, or actually, now that I think about it, looking at

[A]

the news, where you're at, it's probably fine. Well, I'm in California and, you know,

[B]

you got drone attacks coming. I'm sorry, false flag. What?

[A]

Yeah, seriously, Come on. Come on.

[B]

I saw. I saw a really funny map that was like, hey, hey, Iran. If you don't know what California looks like, it looks like this and it's a map of Florida with California written across it.

[A]

Yeah, yeah, My roommate told me that with this morning. Like, yeah, yeah. She's like, oh, they're going to be small drones coming. I'm like, have you seen the size of the drones? They're like big condition. They're coming from ships and it's like, slow news day. Slow news. They know they're not. And even if they are, do you know how big Los Angeles is?

[B]

California. They just said California.

[A]

Oh, California. Well, then fuck it.

[B]

California is like 15 times the size of Iran.

[A]

Yeah, exactly. Come on. Anyhow, yeah, it's even bigger than Israel.

[B]

So, hey, let's get to stuff that is actually not above our pay grade. Although to be fair, also above keg stands head grade, high grade. So, yeah, let's be honest, it's a Fox News correspondent. We're about as qualified as he is.

[A]

I think we're actually probably more qualified. So, yeah, we actually put two and two together and I can ride a skateboard without hitting myself in the nuts, thank you.

[B]

Also, you don't drink anymore.

[A]

That's true. That's true me. Moving on. What do we got, please?

[B]

Moving on. We have more news about countries banning social media bans. It looks like just a about everybody's hopping on board, except for, of course, the United States. Because why would we. Following in the steps of Australia and many other countries, Indonesia will be the latest country to limit social media usage for children under 16. India's communication and Digital affairs minister announced a new government regulation will require high risk platforms to delete any accounts from Indonesia that are under 16 starting on March 28. This would include major platforms like YouTube, TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, Threads X, Roblox, and Bigo Live, a live streaming platform based in Singapore. The minister added all platforms will have to fulfill compliance obligations from the Indonesian government, but didn't specify what they were just yet. So while Australia was the first country to implement such a sweeping ban on social media, many other countries are currently in the process of doing the same. Spain's Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, of course, that's his name, announced last month that the country is racist.

[A]

Brian, don't be racist.

[B]

Sorry. Is also ready to ban social media for users under 16, while Malaysia's cabinet approved a similar ban that will reportedly go into effect sometime this year. Everybody is hopping on the bandwagon, Jason, as they should. Let us remind everybody that it has been said time and time again through both first hand accounts as well as secondhand accounts that people who work at these companies refuse to let their children use the product.

[A]

For good reason. For good reason. Here we go. Anthropic just sued the Pentagon after being labeled a supply chain risk, a designation usually reserved for companies from hostile nations. The drama started when CEO Dario Amadeus said Anthropic's AI shouldn't be used for mass surveillance of Americans or autonomous weapons. Well, we got a story later about how that worked out.

[B]

Also, to be fair, I do believe that the Trump administration considers most of the United States to be a hostile nation.

[A]

This is true. We are technically a hostile nation for him. Yes, especially nowadays. So this will be interesting to see how this plays out because they're suing in federal court and they're saying that, you know, they're going to lose hundreds of millions if not yay. Billions of dollars. Billions of dollars because of this labeling as a supply chain risk. Yeah, yeah, okay. You know, I put this together, Brian. Now if we got the Axis of Evil, we've got Sam Altman, he's Hitler. Now we've got Dario, he's Mussolini. I don't even know who's at Perplexity, but, you know, they could be. Was it Hirohito, the Japanese emperor back in the day? So we've got our axis of evil going on with the. But, you know, I think we should just make Zuck the third. The third wheel in this. This triangle, as it were, because, you know, he's got Lama with his thing going on with their AI.

[B]

Well, they're certainly trying to shoehorn it into everything. If there's any company that's actually like really trying to force everybody in the. Everybody in the world to use AI, it's. It's Meta or Google.

[A]

We'll get to them.

[B]

We can't do a search without getting shoved this crap.

[A]

Yeah, yeah, that's true. We're going to need a bigger axis, Brian.

[B]

We got a bigger. We need a bigger axis.

[A]

We're going to need a bigger axis. God damn it. Okay, well, anyway, moving on. So anthropic suing the government, What? Who cares?

[B]

I thought that they were going with the. We're the. We're the heroes. We're not involved with this. These shenanigans. We say nay, but now they're like, but actually we would like some of that money.

[A]

Yeah, it's kind of like that. I was actually watching Shark Tank before we started this because we're recording early today because I actually have a job tomorrow, believe it or not. And on Shark Tank, Robert Herjavec was like, was berating Mr. Wonderful, saying, you know, your royalty deals are awful. They're evil. Why would you do a. Telling the investors or the, you know, the entrepreneurs never, ever do a royalty deal in perpetuity. And then Mr. Wonderful says, would you like to go in on the deal? He's like, yeah, as long as we can keep that royalty deal. You scumbag motherfucker. That's what all these people are. It's driving me fucking. I'm so mad, I'm hitting my microphone. God damn it, Brian.

[B]

Well, okay, let's keep. Let's keep going through our follow up here. It's been a Little bit since we've talked about any of these companies getting sued for copyright infringement, because we've kind of like given up on that for the most part, but it's back. The metadata company Gracenote is the latest to sue OpenAI for copyright infringement. Gracenote is a metadata company that. That is owned by Nielsen. I am so old that I remember when Grace Note was nothing other than album track listings.

[A]

That's all I thought they were. I didn't know they were owned by Nielsen and actually grew up.

[B]

They now specialize in entertainment metadata, creating descriptions and identifiers for content that clients, such as TV providers, use to help their own customers with discovery. So they do everything now, Jason. They've moved on.

[A]

What about. What is it? Do they do pornhub too? Like Stepsister meets, you know, stepbrother? Yeah, yeah.

[B]

That's a lot of categories. They just two categories now, but.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

So most of the lawsuits against AI businesses have focused in on the content used to train LLMs. But the Gracenote case brings an extra layer with the alleged infringement of the structure or sequence for a data set in addition to the actual data. That being gracenote's bread and butter, I guess. Defendants could have paid gracenote to license the valuable gracenote data, or they could have sought to train and ground their models only in information in the public domain. They chose to do neither. Defendants instead improperly copied and used gracenote data to create their own commercially valuable AI products, all without paying a dime, the complaint states. The company claims that its previous attempts to work with OpenAI for a licensing agreement were rebuffed or ignored. And they have made deals with other companies, including Samsung and Google. But they said, you just stole all of our stuff. And we noticed that the other lawsuits didn't work out so well. So we're trying a novel approach.

[A]

Move fast and steal things.

[B]

Yeah. And one final thing, and follow up here. And of course, it involves AI, as does almost every single story we discuss now, roblox, the company that I will never let my child use because they're horribly bad at safety, particularly for kids. But they've launched a new feature powered by AI that could rephrase inappropriate language in real time. So if my kid is playing Roblox with his headphones on and he's playing with some older kids that say, I want to fuck you, it'll replace it with something else. Jason won't do anything else about it, but it'll replace it with something else.

[A]

Do we need to call these AI filters? Because I remember doing regex In Perl for the same thing in 1993.

[B]

Well, we have to call everything AI

[A]

now, so can we just say it's on the blockchain then too? If I say, if somebody begrudgingly says something nasty to your kid, can it be on the blockchain? Can we mint an NFT from it as well?

[B]

Let me tell you how smart this AI AI is, Jason from the Roblox chief safety office. For instance, if a user sends Hurry the fuck up in chat, the system will replace it with hurry up exclamation point.

[A]

Wow, that's some technology right there.

[B]

They are burning oceans for that, Jason.

[A]

Wow, amazing.

[B]

By the way, everybody, we'll see a note that the message has been rephrased, thus letting the kid figure out what the fuck you said in the first place. Because they're not stupid.

[A]

What you said in the first place. Blind, not what the fuck you said. What you said. You have to. Let's get with the vibe here, man. It's the vibe.

[B]

As Rajiv Bhatia, Roblox Chief Safety Officer says, as these systems scale, they create a flywheel for civility, Jason, where real time feedback helps users learn and adopt our community standards. Yeah, because that's going to make kids stop cussing. We've made a fl. 12 year olds are known for hopping on the flywheel of civility

[A]

in the news.

[B]

Well, speaking of the children's. Today, the U.S. senate unanimously passed proposed legislation known as COPPA 2.0. This measure, fully named the Children and Teens Online Privacy Protection act, aims to create new protections for younger users online, such as blocking platforms from collecting their personal data without consent. Or we could do what every other country in the world is doing and ban it for kids.

[A]

Yeah, take the fucking kids offline.

[B]

We could do that. But no, we're going to pass COPPA 2.0, the modernized take on the original Copa 1.0 from 1998, which attempts to address recent changes in common online activities. Like everything. Because that was 1990 fucking 8.

[A]

19. You know what's fucked up, Brian? That was 1998. My first piece of open source software I wrote in 1998 and released it publicly, which was a library to check birth dates to see if they were COPPA compliant. That's fucked up. And nobody used it apparently, because nobody had these problems. Yeah, it's just, it was like.

[B]

Well, industry groups such as NetChoice have previously opposed COPPA 2.0 and other measures around minors online activities such as COSA, the Kids Online Safety Act. NetChoice members include all the big hitters that you would expect. Google, YouTube, Meta, Reddit, Discord, TikTok X, basically everybody getting banned, everybody everywhere else in the world. But Google changed their tune to support COPPA 2.0 recently. But there has been a bigger push both domestically and internationally towards restrictions on when and how younger people engage online. Several states, including Utah, California and Washington have enacted laws requiring some level of age verification. Trying to do what the rest of the world is doing. But until this becomes a national thing, it won't make a bit of difference. And COPPA 2.0, having read through it, won't make much of a difference either at the Copa.

[A]

I'm gonna have that song stuck in my head all day now.

[B]

Copacabana, where we steal your kids data and sell it.

[A]

Barry. Let's get Barry. Let's call it Barry and have him do a version of it. I think he's still kicking around. But speaking of protecting the children, in what may be the worst case of AI hallucination imaginable, Pentagon investigators say a missile strike on a girls school in southern Iran may have been triggered by bad AI gener intelligence. Gasp. The system apparently pulled outdated data that linked a nearby compound to Iran's Revolutionary Guard. And the targeted logic may have included the school by mistake. The military has been rapidly integrating a Claude based AI system into operational planning. Claude, the. The. The company. Claude is run by the company that we just said is a supply chain risk for the entire United States of a fucking America. And now they're using it to target innocent school children. So yeah. How's that? Fuck you, by the way.

[B]

Fuck you. This is. The US military would apparently eat pizza with glue on it because wasn't that one of the first.

[A]

That was the first, yeah.

[B]

Google to check your results. You have to have somebody with operational intelligence before you unleash the fucking hell.

[A]

Or just intelligence.

[B]

Well, that's a fucking bridge too far, my friend.

[A]

I know. I miss that. I miss. You know when we had Dr. David Teeter on the show, one of the smartest people I've ever met in my life. Love that man. And like, knowing that people like him were in charge of the government behind the scenes back in the day made

[B]

you feel all right.

[A]

It feels like watching the West Wing. Now you just get pissed off because it just doesn't exist.

[B]

Yep.

[A]

Oh yeah. Okay.

[B]

All right, let's move to just annoying AI stuff and not AI stuff that actually killed a bunch of people. Because keg stand can't fucking do a goddamn thing.

[A]

GI joke is what we're calling.

[B]

I like that one. That's good. A real American zero.

[A]

Oh, good one.

[B]

Thank.

[A]

You. This episode is sponsored by Deleteme. Deleteme makes it easy, quick and safe to remove your personal data online at a time when surveillance and data breaches are common enough to make everyone vulnerable. Here's the thing a lot of people don't realize. Data brokers are making money off your personal information. Your name, contact info, home address, and even details about your family can be compiled, packaged and sold online to basically anyone willing to pay. That kind of exposure can open the door to identity theft, phishing attempts and harassment. Now, as someone with a pretty public Internet presence, I deal with this constantly. People are looking me up all the time, scraping whatever information they can find. It's just part of being a public figure online. But that's exactly why I use Delete Me. They go out and remove your personal information from hundreds of data broker websites, which gives me a lot more peace of mind and honestly helps me sleep better at night. And it's not just me saying it. The New York Times Wirecutter has named Deleteme their top pick for data removal services. Take control of your data and keep your private life private by signing up for Deleteme now at a special discount for our listeners. Get 20% off your DeleteMe plan when you go to JoinDeleteMe.com GoG and use promo code GoG at checkout. The only way to get 20% off is to go to JoinDeleteMe.com goggles and enter code GoG at checkout. That's JoinDeleteMe.com GoG code GoG support is available 24. 7 with VRBoCare. We're here day or night, ready whenever you need help, because a great trip

[B]

starts with the right support. The Meta Oversight Board is once again urging Meta to overhaul its rules around AI generated content. Let us remind you that all they can do is urge them to do things because the Meta Oversight Board has zero operational capabilities, no teeth, no nothing. They just exist.

[A]

Yeah, the only thing that they have power to do is cash those giant fucking checks they get. Yes, that's it.

[B]

This time the board says Meta should create a separate rule for AI content that's independent of its misinformation policy, invest in more reliable, reliable detection tools and make better use of digital watermarks, among other changes. Yeah, they're basically just saying what you do is next to nothing and you got to do more. Meta must do more to address the proliferation of deceptive AI generated content on its platforms, including by inauthentic or abusive networks of accounts and pages, particularly on matters of public interest, so that users can distinguish between what is real and fake. The board was also highly critical of how Meta uses its current AI info labels, noting the way that they are applied is neither robust nor comprehensive enough to contend with the scale and velocity of AI generated content, especially in times of conflict or crisis. A system overly dependent on self disclosure of AI usage and escalated review which incurs infrequently to properly label this output, cannot meet the challenges post in the current environment. No. Also, it's worth pointing out that they don't even mention Meta's own AI that has shoved down our throats on Meta at all times, which is also often factually inaccurate.

[A]

Have you. Do you see when you go into Instagram every day now, like how many of your friends are starting to use Meta AI?

[B]

Yes, I think less of them every single time. I see their names every single time.

[A]

Yeah, yeah, I know sucker.

[B]

But Mark Zuckerberg. Zuckerberg read this report from Meta's oversight board and said, ah, hold my beer. You don't want me to do anything with AI. You want me to scale back AI. You want me to report AI. Haha. Well, after striking out trying to recruit the creator of open source AI agent openclaw Metal has settled for the guys who got openclaw agents talking. Supposedly they have hired Multbook, the social network for AI agents that went viral earlier this year. They're bringing the creators Matt Schlit and Bed Parr into the fold as part of its Meta Super Intelligence Lab.

[A]

I want to stop you right there, Brian.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

This was a weekend project that these guys vibe coded up. This is no big like giant thing that Mark's gonna get here, but go ahead.

[B]

Not only that, Jason.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

What we have found out is all the posts that went viral basically involved people. This is the ultimate case of AI is people.

[A]

Yep.

[B]

Nothing happened on this platform. It was basically a fucking. It was a goddamn message board that people went into and did some crazy stuff to make it look like the AIs are going nuts. And then people took screenshots and everybody went crazy. And now these motherfuckers are probably getting millions of dollars in the salary. What the hell are we doing with our lives, Jason?

[A]

We're fucking up because you know, Matt and Ben Bravo. Take all the fucking money you can. You spent a weekend vibe coding this piece of shit that went viral and it is useless.

[B]

It's been proven that it wasn't even true.

[A]

Yeah, there are some bots on there, sure. But the thing. And here's the other thing that nobody's really talking about here with the AI agents that everybody's saying, these agents are going to run our lives. They can run like, you know, 24, 7 and be in the background and do things for you. You're charged while these things are running for every call they make. Of course, these companies want agents to be the next thing because they're fucking cash cow. They want this to be the thing.

[B]

So you know how much it costs when you book a plane ticket yourself? Nothing.

[A]

Zero.

[B]

You know how much it costs when they do? No, not until you get the bill.

[A]

Yeah, that's. Yeah, that is the problem. You just don't know. And a lot of these times it's like, I would like to put a cap on my spending per day like you do with an ad buy. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. Because sometimes the. It's. It's vibe pricing, apparently. Because sometimes you get paid. You know what, just move on, I guess. All right, wait, I'm next. God damn it. Sorry, I'm worked up about this today. This is what happens when we do the show in the afternoons now. I get, I can get. I can get momentum, you know, that 8 in the morning thing doesn't work for me. All right. Oracle is reportedly preparing to cut thousands of jobs as its massive AI ambitions start hitting the balance sheet. Well, they just had their earnings call a couple days ago or maybe day before yesterday or yesterday, and they're saying, okay, we've. We're making more money now. Things are going good. We're going to fire about 16 to 30,000 people because we need more money, because we're going to be spending more money so we can make all this money that we're going to maybe make with all the data centers we have to build because we're contractually obligated to OpenAI. It is such a clusterfuck right now that they are just trying everything right now to make it look like this is the next big thing. And so, yeah, they're just going to be cutting heads over there at Oracle just to save the money to pump back into the data centers so Scama Altman and the Axis of AI can do what they're going to do. So. Yeah, isn't that great?

[B]

That's wonderful. Well, let's cast our minds back to another fun thing that happened with AI Good old Grok. And it's porn. Porn AI bots that basically it created, which then got Shut down and then didn't get shut down. And people found out you could still kind of do it, but then it got shut down again. But then people started to shut down X across different. Different countries because they were like, this is some bullshit here. So then Elon finally kind of shut it down because he didn't want to get shut out of a whole bunch of countries. Well, he's put in a new bit of a control to help you. You can block Xai's Grok chatbot from creating modifications of your uploaded images on the social network X. Isn't that nice? It's a simple toggle that isn't totally buried in the ui. They didn't really announce it. People kind of found it. And there's absolutely nothing that would stop you from saving the image and then re uploading it to then do whatever the hell you wanted with it. But if you tried to do it directly through X without saving the image and then re uploading the image, it'll stop you.

[A]

Oh, dear God. This sounds like the people in the music business back in the day.

[B]

DRM meetings that I took.

[A]

Yeah, exactly. The fucking DRM meetings.

[B]

So we're going to spend thousands of hundreds of thousands of dollars to put DRM on this so that you can't take it. I was like, well, you could just play it and then start another app that records and then stop and then.

[A]

Yeah, exactly.

[B]

Yeah, but, but, but this goes to 11.

[A]

Exactly. I just wanted, in those meetings, I just wanted to take a picture. Oh, Actually, I'd rather just pick up a boombox with two cassette recorders and put it in front of them and say, see how this works? You play it here. I don't care what you say is DRM'd on this one. If you hit record over here, you have another copy. Amazing how that works.

[B]

I would have just stood there like John Cusack.

[A]

Yeah, exactly.

[B]

Out the window of the meeting with a dual deck, like a boom box.

[A]

That's it.

[B]

Oh. Anyways, good job, Elon.

[A]

Thanks for saying good job. Good job. Love how you're saving the world from yourself.

[B]

Love your work, man.

[A]

Keep it up. Well, a new analysis of more than 130studies says large language models may be flattening human creativity and thought. Researchers at USC found that even though LLMs train on massive data sets, their outputs cluster around predictable patterns. That means. I was waiting for you. You were winded up there. I thought we were going to get something out of you. That means the ideas they generate are than what humans produce on their Own. And when people rely on AI to polish writing or brainstorm, they often start mirroring those same patterns. Yes, and it gets worse in groups, Brian. Teams using AI actually produce fewer ideas than groups just talking to each other because the model nudges everyone towards the same line of thinking.

[B]

But, but, but, Jason, they keep telling us that we should. Oh, it's an idea engine. We should use it to ideate. We shouldn't. We're never going to replace human actual work with it. It's just supposed to help up with the. We're gonna establish our creativity. It's gonna give you the tools to make you bigger, better, brighter, stronger, faster. The same as everybody fucking else.

[A]

Have I not said since day fucking one that this is a mediocrity engine and it takes the brightest and flattens them to equal the dumbest. It is putting everything into the same fucking bucket, swishing it around and all you get is, is beige. That's it. Fucking beige. So now we have a meta study of these 130 studies to say the same thing that you've been getting on this show for free or if you're a better listener, for $3 a month at patreon.com gog but I gotta tell

[B]

you, I, I haven't. Just, just to bolster your point here, I haven't really talked about it on the show because I was kind of waiting to like coalesce my thoughts. I was gonna have to go to AI to get to ideate to how I should describe this thing.

[A]

I needed your agents to figure it out for you.

[B]

I have been playing around with all the major music AI systems. Not enough to pay for them, but I've been playing around with them.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And, and your description of it as everything is beige is so right. Like, initially, it is very exciting. You're like, oh my God, I could not. I've written a ton of music in my ears, none of it very good. Obviously, I have not set the world on fire. I'm sitting here doing a fucking podcast for next to no money. I am not out in the road touring. So my music has not been fantastic, but I think it's been interesting and innovative and some people have liked it. So I played with these tools and it isn't very exciting initially because you're like, I. I have no idea how to write a country song. Holy. This sounds like a country song. And then I realized it sounds like every country song.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And oh, this pop song. This is a good pop song. It sounds like every fucking pop song. Oh, this rap song, this is a good sounding rap song because it sounds like every rap song. And that's what all these engines produce. They produce the grayness in the middle. Nothing is very interesting. Nothing will blow you away. But it sure sounds like what it's supposed to sound like.

[A]

Yeah, it does. I. I've tried to do the same thing. I've tried to do that with punk songs. You know, I have a very nuanced ear when it comes to punk rock music. Like you have a very nuanced ear towards shoe gazing, emo, I hate myself and want to kill somebody. You music, my favorite. Same kind of thing. Yeah, exactly. So when I'm. When I go there and I try and make a punk song, it sounds like fucking Blink 182, which is not really a punk band. They're just fucking mall garbage as far as I'm concerned.

[B]

It's boring.

[A]

It is. It is beige boring. They are the. What's the. The store that you sell Hot Topic T shirts. They are the hot topic of the Internet. That's what all these scary generators are.

[B]

Scary. I was able to come up with that, isn't it?

[A]

I can't believe that I couldn't come up with it anymore. So AI is hot. Top of Hot Topic. Ifying the world is kind of it. At least Hot Topic you can get shirts that are knockoffs of shirts that you liked back in the day.

[B]

I mean, I gotta credit where credit's due to Hot Topic. I don't want to just besmirch them with this, this AI label. I would say that AI is Old Navying the world.

[A]

Better. Better because it's not even as close.

[B]

It's not even as good as the Gap or Banana Republic. It is fucking Old Navying it.

[A]

Moving on, Brian. Anyways, I'd have to mull on that one for a while.

[B]

The Inspector General's office of the Social Security Administration is investing allegations of a security breach by a member of the so called Department of Government Efficiency Operations spearheaded by Elon. A whistleblower has claimed that a former software engineer from Doge said he possessed two databases from the Numident and the Master Death File.

[A]

Oh my God.

[B]

The person reportedly asked for help transferring the databases from a thumb drive to his personal computer so he could sanitize the data before using it. An unnamed government contractor where he's currently employed reporting those databases included personal information about more than 500 million living and deceased Americans. And by the way, when we say personal information, we mean all of the information.

[A]

All of it. Yes, all of it. By the way, Brian, we do have a name now. His name is John Solly. S O L L Y. Write that down for your list of people that need to get taken out behind the woodshed after this is all over and do what you will with them, but John Solly is the guy's name that just came out a little bit ago.

[B]

Great. Well, the Washington Post reported that the whistleblower complaint was filed with the Inspector General back in January. When the Post contacted the agency and the company in January, both said that they had not heard of this complaint. Both said they subsequently looked into the allegations, did not find any evidence to confirm the claims. The publication said it's unclear why the complaint is now being investigated. Investigated? Probably because they fucking found the guy.

[A]

Yep.

[B]

And found the fucking. The drive.

[A]

They found the thumb drive. We found it. The Internet police have found the thumb drive.

[B]

Charles Borges, a former data officer at the agency, claimed that an SSA database was stored in unsecured cloud environment and said this is the absolute worst case scenario. There could be one or a million copies of it. Now we will never know, especially if it's on S3. Yep. So fantastic.

[A]

Way to go, Doge. Just chunk that one up to Elon's grand scheme.

[B]

All that money he saved us.

[A]

And that was about six seconds of the Iranian war right there that he. He saved us. Yeah, fun.

[B]

Well, Nintendo of America is suing the US government.

[A]

Get in line.

[B]

Not just because of Luigi Mangioni,

[A]

including

[B]

the Department of the treasury, the Department of homeland Security and U.S. customs and Border Protection over its tariff policy aftermath reports. So this is because basically the US Court of basically said that Trump's tariffs were completely illegal and they have to be rescinded. And then every single fucking company went, how do we get our money back? Excuse me, those were illegal. So we would like the monies refund, please.

[A]

Can I get a refund?

[B]

And Nintendo's going, well, nobody seems to know. So it looks like we're gonna have to sue because that's the only thing that Trump ever responds to. So now they're suing and that's basically it. So we'll see what happens. But yeah, companies are basically starting to decide that filing the lawsuit is the only way they're gonna get refunded. And you know who that screws, Jason?

[A]

Us.

[B]

The tiny companies, the small companies, everybody that can't afford the $500 an hour lawyers and can't afford to file these lawsuits. It's companies are going to get any money back. Every mom and Pop shop, every medium sized company, even 100 to 200 employees, they're all going to get if they're still in business.

[A]

Because a lot of these companies went out of business because of the tariffs. So who are they?

[B]

Yeah, you can't sue if you're already out of business. You're already in the poor house.

[A]

It's a brave new world, Brad. I am so glad that this is the way things are turning out. And we're only, what, a year and

[B]

changing, you know, between the two. So the two fucking terms this guy has served. I'll go back and take the plague from the first one. Yeah, I'll take the plague.

[A]

Yeah. Can we get Covid 2 electric boogaloo, please? Anyway, let's move on to some science news, Brian. SETI researchers. This is actually a callback to what we talked about last week. Exactly what we talked about last week. See, we're ahead of the curve. Curve always. SETI researchers think we might have missed a few calls from the aliens. And the culprit could be space weather

[B]

calls coming from the house.

[A]

Yeah, they need to get that new version of Carrot.

[B]

I just forgot. In this house, I'm the alien. I'm the one that's not the Canadian citizen.

[A]

That's true, that's true. So these guys need to get space Carrot. That's what we need. So they can get to figure out what the weather is. A new study suggests plasma from stellar winds and solar eruptions can smear narrow radio signals, signals across multiple frequencies. That's a problem because SETI searches usually look for extremely clean, narrow signals. So if an alien transmission gets broadened by its own star's environment, it could slip right under our detection thresholds. To test the idea, scientists analyzed radio transmissions from old human spacecraft like Pioneer, Helios and Viking. Well, it turns out even our own signals get distorted by solar activity, especially during storms or when probes are close to the sun. The takeaway is extraterrestrials might not be ghosting us. We may just be filtering them out, which is pretty much exactly what.

[B]

Sorry, I'm going to lose you. I'm driving past the airport.

[A]

So for a smart call breaking up.

[B]

I'm going into a tunnel.

[A]

Yeah, there you go.

[B]

Well, that's good news. Some other science news. One of my favorite things to do every year when they announce the awards is to read through the. The IG Nobel Prizes.

[A]

It's one of.

[B]

It's absolutely one of my favorite things. The satirical prize with the playful approach to scientific research is not Playing around this year when it comes to the safety of its guests, opting to relocate its annual ceremony to Europe from Boston in order to ensure the safety of attendees. The 36th First Annual Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony. I love these guys.

[A]

I see what you did. There.

[B]

Will be held in Zurich, Switzerland in September. The award ceremony has been held in Massachusetts for the past 35 years. But growing hostage hostility towards international travelers entering the US Prompted a change of location.

[A]

Growing hostility to citizens of the US probably also prompted change of locations.

[B]

We cannot in good conscience ask the new winners or international journalists who cover the event to travel to the USA this year. In 2025, four of the 10 Ig Nobel Prize winners chose not to travel to the US amid President Donald Trump's crackdown on immigration and freedom of speech. In March 2025, a French scientist was denied entry into the US after immigration officers at the airport searched SPO messages criticizing the current administration for future ceremonies. The event will be held in Zurich every other year, with the next one scheduled for 2028. During odd numbered years, the organizers will host the ceremony in a different city in Europe. Now, see, this is going to start happening. We knew this was going to start happening. Not only are we having a brain drain, which is people, people. The best and brightest used to come here. Now they do not. They will not come here. The best and brightest are starting to leave here. They will come here, get their education, and then they're out. Because nobody wants to be here. And scientists don't want to come to the country anymore, not even for. For anything. So we're losing all these conference centers, everything. It's just not happening.

[A]

So, yeah, the grant money has been taken away, so there's no reason for the scientists to actually come here, you know?

[B]

Exactly. And let's end this segment on the high note. Let's talk about last year's IG Nobel Prize winners. Just because I love this stuff so much and I love to read it every year. It included a team from Italy investigated the phase transition of cacio e Pepe sauce when it clumps into an unappealing goopy liquid. An international team that studied the pizza preferences of different lizard groups and a European team that demonstrated alcohol sometimes improves a person's ability to speak in a foreign language. Anybody that's ever been to Scotland knows, even though that's not a foreign language.

[A]

That's so true. Oh,

[B]

if you don't know anything about the ignoble pro, Google it, people. You will be delighted.

[A]

Links are in the show notes. Go Check it out. This episode is sponsored by CleanMyMac. Look, if you spend your life in front of a Mac like I do, editing, audio exporting, video juggling 40 browser tabs, and wondering why your machine suddenly sounds like it's preparing for liftoff, you know the feeling when your workflow grinds to a whole. That's where CleanMyMac comes in. It's basically the silent system engineer for your Mac, cleaning out junk files, duplicate clutter, broken downloads, and background junk that slowly drags performance down. It's Apple notarized, built by MacPaw, and designed to keep your machine running smoothly without you digging through weird system folders at 2am I especially like tools like SpaceLens, which gives you a visual map of what's actually eating up your storage storage and SmartCare, which handles cleanup and optimization from a single dashboard. The whole point is keeping your Mac out of your way so you can stay focused on the work instead of babysitting your computer. Get tidy today. Try 7 Days Free and use our code OldGeeks for 20% [e-mail] OldGeeks that's old geeks all in caps. I know. Just click the link in the show notes and get clean today. That's clnmy.com oldgeek weeks for seven days free and 20% off. Apps and doodads Brian, I cannot believe I'm saying this, but it has been eight years since we started the Clash Royale Clan for the Grumpy Old Geeks podcast.

[B]

I, I think I lasted eight days.

[A]

You. Eight minutes more like it. I took, I took a break for like a year or so, but I've been playing for, you know, about the past seven or eight months. There's, there's a few of us left left. Not many. But the crazy thing is Clash Royale just actually celebrated their 10th year anniversary for being in business. It's a fun game. If you play come check us out, send me, send me a note and we'll get you into the clan. We've got, we've got plenty of spaces. Plenty of spaces. Like I said, there's like maybe like eight of us there that play every, every day. But it's fun, it's still there and I'm enjoying it. It's. It is something to do on the crapper every morning. That's, that's about it.

[B]

All right.

[A]

Another piece of software I've got is Open Audible. Open Audible is a cross platform audiobook manager designed for Audible users. Manage and download all your audiobooks with this easy to use desktop application. I have 1020 books in my Audible library. One of the things that Open Audible does is let me back them up and convert them to MP3 for easier listening on different devices, which I do believe is technically illegal, but you shouldn't do that.

[B]

Don't say you just Pinterest it.

[A]

Yes, I found them on Pinterest. So to not illegally take my 1020 books has taken over eight days so far and I still have 300 and some odd books to go, so it is not quickly and I'm running on an M4 MacBook Air with 32 gig of RAM. It is not a slouch of a machine, but it only does three at a time and it's kind of junky. But Open Audible is not free. If you do want the conversion process to back up illegally your audiobooks off of Amazon's Audible platform, it will cost you$24.99. So okay, which I may or may not have paid since I said I was actually converting all of my books to MP3. You do the math.

[B]

Every AI company is now purchasing their subscription to Open Audible and we will now convert all of this and throw it into our AI engines. Yes, thank you very much.

[A]

I'm pretty sure they got that off of Annie's archive already, so I'm sure that they're good to go. Yeah, actually that's what all the GPUs are for. They're converting all the audio books. It's not actually training the AI, just sitting there sitting, chugging through fucking audible.com that's funny.

[B]

Blue Sky CEO Jay Graeber, who has led the upstart social platform since 2021, is stepping down from her role as his top executive. Tony Schneider, who has been an advisor and investor, will take over the job temporarily while Graeber stays as chief Innovation officer. As Blue sky matures, the company needs a seasoned operator focused on scaling and execution while I return to what I do best, building new things, graeber wrote in the blog post. Also known as we need to make some fucking money and I built this thing and got it up and running, but I don't know how to do anything else. Yeah, Schneider, who was previously CEO at WordPress parent Automatic, will be that experienced operator and leader while Bluesky's board searches for a permanent CEO. Her history with Blue sky dates back to its early days as a side project at Jack Dorsey's Twitter. Graeber was officially brought on as CEO in 2021 as Blue sky spun off to an independent company, which ended its association with Twitter in 2022 and with Dorsey in 2024, she led the company through its launch and early viral success as it grew from invitation only platform to the 43 million user service it is today. During that time, she's become known as an advocate for decentralized social media and for trolling Mark Zuckerberg's T shirt choices. Doesn't he only have one? Only ever seen him in one shirt?

[A]

I don't know. I don't know. Now he has. Remember, he got a style. He got a stylist for a while. Yeah. No pants. That's why she's not. That's not why she's trolling his pants choices. I can't believe it's only 43 million. It's been around for so long.

[B]

Yeah, well, that's probably why she's stepping down as CEO and somebody else is coming in.

[A]

Exactly.

[B]

It's scaling and it's money and. Yes.

[A]

Yeah, yeah, let's get. Let's get some. Let's get some marketing people involved here. The technology works great. You can keep. We keep working on that.

[B]

All right. Niantec, the company behind Pokemon Go, has spun out an AI company that's turning a decade of players pointing phones at buildings into a navigation system for robots. Yes. All of us, when Pokemon Go came out, those of us that got super into the game, not me, but certainly plenty of people did, were like, this is the best thing ever. And the rest of us were looking at this Go going, this could be a privacy nightmare. And it certainly is a data nightmare. And what are they going to do with all this data? Well, that shoe has dropped.

[A]

Well, I mean, we talked about this before. Neon Tech Spatial was something that we've had on the show when we first discovered. It's like, oh, my God, they've got all this stuff and they're selling this data, but now they've tacked on AI. So. Continue, Brian.

[B]

This is where when we say they've got all this stuff, let's say we're talking about 30 billion images of urban environments with location data accurate to within a few centimeters.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

That is a lot of fucking data.

[A]

Well, if you want to map something, put a Pokemon over there and tell people to go look at it.

[B]

That's why they had to remove it from Epstein's Island.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Huh. Yep. So this is not just a data set you build. This is one you accidentally collect. Over 10 years of a global gaming craze. It turns out that GPS is a bit of a mess. In cities, in dense areas with high rises and underpasses, that blue dot on your phone can drift by 50 meters, putting a delivery robot on entirely the wrong street. Visual positioning is the workaround, and that is what they are delivering. They are delivering by the centimeter. Location data to delivery robots.

[A]

Okay, okay. Why don't they sell this to Elon and his fucking Tesla? Since Teslas run on visual reckoning like this, this seems like the perfect thing. Elon should buy this company.

[B]

It's absolutely insane that probably the best, best mapping of the planet is going to come from Pokemon Go, but that's looking like it is. So they've already teamed up with Coco Robotics, which runs about 1,000 robots across five cities and has already made over half a million deliveries from Pokemon arenas to Pepperoni. That seems to be the way we're going. Accuracy improvements are genuinely impressive. Instead of stopping somewhere near your door, Coco's robots will now be able to position themselves precisely at restaurant pickup spots and right outside customers doors. Hundreds of millions of people contributed detailed geotagged imagery of cities worldwide while playing a game. And most of them had no idea it would one day train commercial robotics. Except for some of the people on the show.

[A]

Some of us might have known what was going on there. Yes, maybe.

[B]

And the system is a hacker's dream target. A centimeter accurate, continuously updated world model that's physically connected to robots moving around cities to streets. That's an extraordinarily attractive thing to spoof or manipulate. As Coco's robots move around, they feed fresh mapping data back into the system. So every delivery run makes the surveillance map more detailed and more accurate. The whole idea of what a map is is starting to change. We're moving from maps that help people find their way around to richly tagged data sets designed for machines to understand the world and then kill us or

[A]

find where all of the Manpoo is. Down to a centimeter in San Francisco.

[B]

Yeah. Niantic spatial vision is a living map. A real time digital replica of the entire world. Whether that excites you or terrifies you, probably says a lot about where you land on the AI optimism spectrum.

[A]

Okay, forget the AI shit. From a data perspective and what they've created, it is absolutely stunning. Stunning. It is a phenomenal piece of technology. And I applaud them for that. Absolutely applaud them for that. The AI shit, that's all just bolted on marketing bullshit. But yeah, I mean, what they're doing with it, maybe they should sell it to Claude so they're not bombing fucking school children. Maybe just saying the Problem is, nobody

[B]

ordered a fucking pizza at that school anyway.

[A]

Moving on, some more robot news. God damn it.

[B]

I couldn't think of a Pokemon's name. Otherwise they couldn't find a at the thing. Chariz. There we go. I got one from my kid, all right.

[A]

The only one I know is Pikachu. That's it. And I played that game quite a bit. I'm just like, okay, whatever. So. Police in Macau escorted a humanoid robot away after it reportedly frightened a 70 year old woman during a late night incident near a residential complex in the Patani district. The robot, identified as a unitree G1 owned by a local education center, had been used in the area for promotional activities. Activities. According to the operator, the robot stopped behind the woman after she paused in the walkway to check her phone and it could not pass around her. The woman noticed the illuminated robot behind her and became distressed, telling bystanders it was making her heart race. Video from the scene shows the robot raising its arms as people gathered nearby. Police responded, escorted the robot away, and returned to its operator and returned it to its operator, warning to use greater caution when operating robots in public space. The woman reported feeling unwell and asked to be taken to a hospital. After examination and treatment, she was discharged. Now, police confirmed there was no physical contact and no injuries, and the woman chose not to file a complaint. But it is still fucking creepy as hell that this guy's following this old lady with a robot.

[B]

But Elon's going to sell them all to us and it's going to be great.

[A]

It's going to be fantastic. It's going to be great. Media candy.

[B]

Well, Jason, I. I forgot that this was out, so. But then I. It's. It turned up in my ads, so I was like, okay, I guess I'm gonna go watch it. Monarch Legacy of Monsters Season two is out. I think the first three episodes are out now. I watched the first two. I kind of enjoyed the first season, and I've gotta say the second season's kind of more of the same at this point. My. My thought on. On the series is they spent enough money. It looks great. The monsters look really good. All the sets are really beautiful. It's. It's nicely designed, it's well shot. The music is pretty good. The acting is a little bit hit or miss here and there, but mostly pretty solid.

[A]

There's something you're not listing out of all the things that you just listed. Brian. What have I left out? Jason, what have you left out? Maybe right. Writing the writing. I didn't Hear writing in there.

[B]

Wow. Yeah, the writing is a little. There's so much potential there. And it ends up just feeling like one of those fucking shitty episodes of Monster of the Week.

[A]

X Files just on replay. Brian, is it a little beige? Is it beige?

[B]

I would say it's a bit beige, yes.

[A]

Okay. I thought so too. I lasted about halfway through the first episode and I'm like, I'm gonna go watch something else. Or actually, better yet, I'm just gonna go to sleep. Because it's more productive. Productive than watching this show. And I had that problem with season one too. Honestly, I, you know, there were. There were spots where it was fine, but most of it was just a treasury to get to the good stuff.

[B]

So, yeah, it should feel a bit more lost, except for the ending. It should feel a bit more X Files except Agent. Better. It should feel. Yeah, it shouldn't. There should be. There's so many things that could be compelling about it, but they just. It never hits the gap pass. It just doesn't. No.

[A]

They spent all the money on Kurt Russell.

[B]

I guess so. And his son.

[A]

Right. His son. Yeah.

[B]

It's good. Good reverse casting that they did there.

[A]

But so good. So good.

[B]

It's a show that should be good. And it is just beige. You're right. It's just beige. Well, Live Nation has reached a settlement with the Department of Justice in its antitrust case that accused the live entertainment giant of monopolistic practices. This is unfortunate because I really wanted this to just go to court and not settle. But they will pay at least 200 million DOL and damages to states that were part of the lawsuit filed in May 2024. But avoid selling off Ticketmaster. So basically slap on the wrist for them.

[A]

Yep.

[B]

They will be required to make a few changes to their business practices. According to NBC News, Ticketmaster, the subsidiary of Live Nation, will be required to create a standalone ticketing system that allows third party competitors like SeatGeek and Eventbrite to sell tickets on. So they get a cut of the other people selling. So.

[A]

Yeah, exactly.

[B]

Ruining the monopoly. It's just rebranding a ticket sale, reshuffling

[A]

the fees that you have to pay. Yes.

[B]

The settlement aims to loosen some of Live Nation's control over venues as well. According to NBC News, the company will have to divest up to 13. Count them. It'll take less than a second and be prohibited from retailing against venues that choose another ticket seller over Ticketmaster. Who's going to be policing that? No one. The settlement comes less than A week after its case went to trial. Trial While the matter may be concluded with the Justice Department, many of the state's attorney general who are part of the lawsuit will be continuing their legal action separately, as should.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Recently announced what the US Department of Justice fails to address the monopoly at the center of this case and would benefit Live Nation at the expense of consumers. New York State Attorney General Letitia James wrote in the press release. We will continue our lawsuit to protect consumers and restore fair competition to the live and entertainment industry. 3:26 Other attorneys general have signed on. So good. Because that was a nothing burger, you basically let them get away with it.

[A]

So keep going. Keep going, people. Feet to the fire. Feet to the fire.

[B]

We got an email just a little bit before we started to record from crazy Florida fan who said in case you missed it, and this is a link from the AV Club Court document reveals Live Nation employees joked about robbing and gouging stupid fans in a reveal that will likely surprise very few people. New evidence brought by the Justice Department in its antitrust lawsuit against Live Nation shows two employees mocking potential customers and joking about robbing them blind, baby. The employees, Ben Baker and Jeff Weinhold. And good on you for putting their fucking names out there.

[A]

Yep.

[B]

Good. Joked about planning to gouge fans in ancillary fees for extra perks like VIP parking and joke about how the fans are so stupid for paying the fees. Here's the kicker. Of course, most of these potential customers don't really have a choice if they want to see their favorite musicians. That's why Live Nation is the subject of the antitrust lawsuit.

[A]

Yeah. There's no other options.

[B]

We have to deal with you. These Slack messages have previously not been included as evidence in the trial as Live Nation argued. They were irrelevant to the case and merely reflected off the cuff banter. Not policy, decision making or facts of consequence. According to New York Times Times. They are correct. They are correct about that. They are correct. It is just off the cuff banter and it's not policy. These guys are just. And that's why I'm glad they were named and I hope nobody hires them. Unfortunately, we are currently in a culture where this kind of behavior is rewarded and it's not punished anymore. You and I have made jokes jokes at work many, many times. It was never against to the expense of our customers. It was usually against each other because that's what we do. These guys are just assholes. Yeah. So fuck them. I hope they get fired and I hope they don't get jobs. However. However, I think that there's plenty of open spaces at this current administration as well as Elon's company or Meta or any of these AI companies or any of the companies that we talk about in our show that would happily hire these motherfuckers.

[A]

Yeah, they're going to land on their feet. But here's the good thing from now. Well, I was going to say now till the end of eternity, every time you Google search their name, all of these news stories will come up. But we know that's not going to happen because it's all going to be AI summaries and they'll just be glue experts in the.

[B]

In the future.

[A]

Yeah. All right, got some YouTube news. Wall street analysts say YouTube is now officially the biggest media company on earth. Research from Moffat, Nithanson, Moffat, Nothing Son reports the Google owned platform pulled in about $62 billion in revenue last year, slightly beating Disney's media business, and estimates YouTube could be worth as much as $560 billion on its own. The growth isn't just ads anymore. Subscriptions are booming with more than 330 million paid users across YouTube Premium, Google One and YouTube TV. The analysts also think generative AI will help creators pump out more targeted bullshit. Oh, sorry. Monetizable content. Because apparently the Internet needed even more videos. Fuck you. Meanwhile, YouTube TV's skinny bundles and cheaper premium tiers are expected to bring in new subscribers with overall revenue projected to keep growing, growing in the low double digits through the end of the decade. In other words, cable died and the algorithm inherited the earth. I still pay for YouTube Premium. Do you?

[B]

No, because I just. The only reason I paid for it initially was the kid was getting on YouTube and the filters sucked and shitty stuff got through all the time anyways, so. No.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

We just. We are pretty much a no YouTube house unless it is heavily monitored. And I sit there and pick it out myself and watch it with my kid.

[A]

Perfect. Good. Good plan. Oh, you're parenting. How about that?

[B]

Also, by the way, I think we need to rename this segment from mediacami to Monetizable Content.

[A]

I'm in. I'm in. We'll get. We'll get on that.

[B]

Because apparently that's what entertainment is now. It's just monetizable content.

[A]

I fucking hate the word content so much.

[B]

I hate monetizable and content it all.

[A]

Speaking of monetizable content, I dove into paradise season two. Paradise. Season one is available on Hulu as well as season two. I liked season one. Season one was Kind of a sci fi whodunit. Season two is veering into Walking Dead post apocalyptic territory and I'm not having it. I am not digging it at all yet. The first episode though was very fun. It had to do with Graceland and somebody who survived the apocalypse living at Graceland. That was a Fun episode. Episode 2. 2 I couldn't have given a flying fuck about. And I moved into episode three and I'm just like, I. I hope they fix this. Because I really liked season one. I thought it was a fun show and it moved really quickly with only eight episodes and I'm three in and it's not really moving the needle so far. I am a little bit trepidatious about continuing, but we'll see.

[B]

Not really what type of show, but. Have you ever been to Graceland?

[A]

I haven't. Well, I feel like I have now because of the show. I'm curious.

[B]

I kind of want to watch it just for that. Because I went to Graceland and I was wildly disappointed. Would slightly cover it.

[A]

That's why I'm glad I watched this because it looked like a picture perfect replica of Graceland. Which means I would have been wildly disappointed if I went there in person. It looks like somebody's house. It's just like somebody's house with some shit around. Yeah.

[B]

It's a total dump. Yeah.

[A]

It's kind of that in the show too. So it's perfect.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

Yeah. What I am excited about is Daredevil Born Again Season 2. The official trailer 22 has dropped and it is available March 24th. Jessica Jones is back. Okay. I'm in.

[B]

Excited. Yes.

[A]

Yep. All good.

[B]

Can't wait.

[A]

Yeah. And the final season trailer for the Boys is out. That is April 8th. I'm looking forward to that. I'm getting my sadness porn hat on because that's pretty much what it's going to be. Yeah. I'm looking forward to them wrapping it up. I think that they've done a really good job with the gen van spin off with the two seasons of that and it all. It's all going to tie in back together and I am actually looking forward to them wrapping this thing up.

[B]

All right. I. I could. I never got into it. Never made it through the first season.

[A]

I think it's fantastic. I really do think it's good.

[B]

It's great.

[A]

There are spots where you do have to fast forward because you know the next five minutes are just going to be something that's going to make you have really bad dreams for the next three months. So you can just get past that.

[B]

Yeah, I don't need that. More up my alley is the final trailer drop for the Super Mario Galaxy movie, which I will unfortunately be going to the movie theater for on opening day, because my son is incredibly excited. This comes out April 1st. I have to say, I really did enjoy the first movie. It was a lot of fun. So if they. If they keep it up and it's. It's. They throw in enough for the adults, I will enjoy this one as well. It was a good time.

[A]

I scanned through this trailer, and it made me so fucking thankful that I never had kids that I don't have to go watch shit like that.

[B]

This. This is not one of the better things that are out there. Like, you know, Gravity Falls, that was Gravity Falls you would enjoy. Like, it's made for my kid, but it's awesome. This is. This is not of that level, but this isn't. This isn't, you know, Paw Patrol, where I want to shoot myself in the face. So.

[A]

Okay. Speaking of Gravity Falls, I just saw something come through my newsfeed that there's, like, some new art book coming out or some new stuff.

[B]

My kid lost his. He cannot wait. I showed him the article. I let him read the whole thing. He read it 19 times. He's like, o. Pre order. Pre order. Can we pre order?

[A]

The fact that your kid knows what pre order means is kind of fucked up.

[B]

Welcome to the world, man. He. He knows about monetizable content.

[A]

Content. Exactly. If I had a kid, that's what I'd name him. Monetizable content. Oh, shit. I was thinking of an old. An old zombie show because I've been. I've had this idea in my head for a while about writing a script about. About being stuck at an AA meeting when the zombie apocalypse happens. Because the funny thing about being in an AA meeting is that you have all of the different genres of people that you would normally have in a stereotypical zombie, you know, group movie. You've got, you know, the thinker, the hot chick, the. The scumbag, the criminal, the. All of. All those types of people are at your general AA meeting, usually on my Wednesday mornings, shout out to you guys. You know what I'm talking about?

[B]

You know, which one of you is the scumbag Comeback? Yeah.

[A]

Yeah. And. And I was just thinking, yeah, it's probably. Or I know I'm the MacGyver of the group. I'm the MacGyver. But the thing is, it's like. And I just got into My head. I'm like, oh, man. You know, I still. I'm still on this thing where nobody has redone the zombie genre yet with EVS in mind, because in the old days, that was half of the thing. It's like you can't get to the store because, you know, you'd start up the car and the zombies would come and you got to run. Then you have the horses and then the zombies eat the horses. Horses. But with evs, you know, you just whisper along and then you can get your food and your supplies. But anyway, it got me thinking about this great old zombie show called Dead Set. I had to look it up and it's. It's set. It's a. It's a British zombie satirical series. It's like five episodes and it takes place on the set of Big Brother in the uk. It is hilarious. And it was even better when I looked it back up because. Because it's by Charlie Brooker, which is the. This was the. The last thing he did before he went into Black Mirror. So I had to go find it. I actually had to go to Sweden to get it. I downloaded. I'm going to watch it again, but I remember this being phenomenal. So I'm going to spend. Well, actually, I have to go watch the Star Trek Academy, Starfleet Academy season finale after this, but after that, I'm going to watch Dead Set. So if you can get it in your streaming provider, check it out. It is a blast. I love, loved it.

[B]

And just because you mentioned England, really quick, we're not going to read all of this. We're not going to read this on the air, but, Steve, I know you're listening. Aluminium.

[A]

Oh, my God, Steve. Yes. We weren't making fun of it. I just love saying aluminium.

[B]

Aluminium.

[A]

Yes, I love that.

[B]

Or as we like to say it in the rest of the world, aluminum.

[A]

I. I prefer aluminium. But Zed. No, Zed's dead, baby.

[B]

Also, I'm not gonna. I didn't push a price

[A]

closing shout out over at Patreon. We've got no new subscribers, but Jason f. Upped their pledge. And we'd also like to thank Charles, Michaela, Val, James, Chris Zingrid, Jonathan Barnesinator,

[B]

Andrew and Roy, and aluminium.

[A]

And aluminium.

[B]

Over at PayPal, we got a donation from Miles this week. Thank you so much.

[A]

Oh, light. Light week at that week.

[B]

Usually we have a. A lot.

[A]

Yeah. At the Tip jar, we've got Patrick, Jeffrey and John. Hi, John. And we've got Ian for the big 30 bucks.

[B]

Thank you.

[A]

If you would like to help support the show because we are a fan supported show. We really are a fan supported show. Go to patreon.com gog and you can sign up and get the show early ad free and in high definition for as little as $3 a month. You can give as much as you want or you can go to GOG show donate for other ways to give us your hard earned money which we really desperately would appreciate because that's what keeps all of this fantabulosity going.

[B]

That's right. My washed out face and everything. This ring light's way too bright.

[A]

Yeah, we got to work on your lighting next week.

[B]

Like normally it's. We have sunlight when I'm recording.

[A]

Well, I'm in a studio and it's dark in here too. And look at my perfect complexion. And you and you like my new Chris Cooper artwork and my Shepherd Fairy artwork. It does say. It does say make art, not war.

[B]

But I just see that I agree with that part.

[A]

So. Exactly. Exactly. Okay. Until next time. I'm Jason DeFilippo.

[B]

And I'm Brian Schillmeister. Thanks for listening to our monetizable content. Get all the links and goodies from Today's episode at GOG Show 737. 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. On the show. Share it. There's a share button in your podcast player. Use it. Spread the grumpiness to friends, foes and everyone in between. We're lucky for it. Swing by GOG Show. Swing by GOG show to join our discord and chat with us and other show fans. Got thoughts? Feedback? Cool links? Hit us up at GOG show contact and don't forget to leave a 5 star review at GOG Show. Review and we'll read it on the show. And guess what? We've got GOG show merch.

[A]

You can do it. You can do it.

[B]

Grumpy Gear. Now it's too late. I want to go to bed. I want to watch watch tv. I want to watch monetizable content. Content Shop GOG Show Stay monetizing.