0:01

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0:03

a thought hits you. I

0:06

can spend another weekend doing the same old

0:08

whatever or I can hop into my all new

0:10

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the all new Hyundai Santa Fe. Visit

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hundayusa.com or call 562-314-4603 for more details. Hyundai,

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there's joy in every journey. Grumpy

0:33

Old Geeks, a weekly talk show hosted

0:35

by Brian Schulmeister and Jason DeFilippo discussing

0:37

the finer points of what went wrong

0:39

on the internet and who's to blame.

0:46

Welcome to Grumpy Old Geeks, I'm Jason DeFilippo. And

0:49

I'm Brian Schulmeister. Brian, I am

0:51

back in the garage because the more things change, the more

0:53

they stay the same. So if you

0:55

hear birds and people walking their dogs, that's

0:57

just the way it's going to be now.

1:00

I'm sorry. Well, speaking of the more things change,

1:03

the more things stay the same. When we started

1:05

this podcast, I was still running my own company

1:07

and then I stopped and I was basically a

1:09

stay at home dad and then I moved to Toronto

1:11

and I started working for a company and

1:14

I got pink slipped. Oh dear,

1:16

I'm sorry, Brian. No, it's okay. There

1:19

was corporate shenanigans and takeovers

1:21

and it ended up being a place I

1:23

don't want to be anyways. You and I

1:25

have avoided the corporate life as much as

1:27

possible and they were going that direction again,

1:29

just like that old company that you and I both

1:31

used to work for called Box Stop. Oh, Box Stop,

1:33

yes. Yes, yes. It's a little shit

1:35

show that was. So here I am at home

1:37

with a very large list of things to do

1:39

around the house. So expect lots of reviews of

1:41

YouTube pages that fix things. All right.

1:44

All right, I'm in because yeah, I'm

1:46

back at home too because I too

1:48

got many, many of pink slip, not

1:50

pimp slip. Pimp slip would be something I

1:52

could sink my teeth into, but. You can

1:54

work with that. Yeah. Yeah. That

1:57

would be something I could work with. No, there's

1:59

no. clients to be had nowadays. So

2:01

you had to lose the office, lose the studio.

2:03

So I'm literally back in the garage that I

2:06

was in about four years ago when I

2:08

moved back to LA. All

2:10

right. Well, don't forget though Jason, the economy is doing

2:12

great. It's doing great. Yeah. If

2:14

you're rich, if you're rich

2:16

or you own a big corporation, all

2:19

these record years for everybody. Hmm.

2:22

I wonder how that's going. Yeah. Anyway, right?

2:24

Like record profits and oil and record profits

2:27

for grocery stores. Yet those prices are sky

2:29

high. Must be the inflation. I know. Seven

2:32

dollar potatoes. Yeah.

2:36

So we talked last week about Google

2:38

and the AI overviews. Of

2:41

course, right after the show, I had to get busy

2:43

with it. So I was trying all sorts of different

2:45

things. I just, for shifts and giggles, I put in,

2:47

can I masturbate with sandpaper? And

2:50

turns out you can. Turns out, and here's

2:52

the answer I got right at the top

2:54

of the page. The trick is to use

2:56

a lot of pressure so you can smooth

2:58

it out before the abrasion kicks in. I

3:01

mean, that tracks really

3:03

grip hard with the sandpaper and it should

3:05

work fine. Buying some kind of sex toy

3:07

like a belt sander helps a lot. You

3:10

need to make it through the first few

3:12

layers to reach the full potential. Yeah. By

3:16

the time we finished recording last week, I went

3:18

over to our discord and it was just full

3:20

of examples of what Google was throwing back. Of

3:22

course, it's now infamous.

3:24

The pizza with glue and yeah,

3:27

this is a fucking mess. Yes,

3:30

yes, it is. They have

3:33

admitted that they've had some

3:35

oddballs. What could

3:37

have possibly gone wrong, Jason? We've had

3:39

over a year documenting AI hallucinations. How

3:43

could this have possibly gone wrong? I

3:45

know, but they said they had over a billion tests

3:47

that they ran. Did they read them?

3:50

Who checks the billion tests? The

3:53

AI checks the billion, that's who

3:55

checks the billion. Exactly. Yeah. So

3:57

it looks good to me. So

4:01

yes, Liz Reed, Google's head of search, did

4:03

acknowledge that they had issues. And they also

4:05

said that a lot of them weren't

4:07

their fault because a lot of the things that

4:09

you saw were actually photoshopped. And

4:12

to the photoshoppers, I'm like, why? Why

4:14

did you waste your time photoshopping it?

4:16

There are plenty of actual real world

4:18

examples that you could have called on.

4:20

Yeah. Yeah. It's

4:23

good stuff. So they're diving into it, though.

4:25

You know, they're not letting go. No, they're all in.

4:27

And they will fix it as much

4:29

as they can, as much as you

4:31

can fix a black box. Yes. Yes,

4:34

yes, yes. Throw a wrench in there and hope

4:36

for the best. All right. I don't know

4:38

what's happening. But Aaron did write in about this.

4:40

He said, hey, guys, love the show. This article

4:42

talks about how to avoid the Google AI search

4:44

using the UDM equals 14 trick. So

4:47

basically, you can just add that URL parameter

4:49

to any of your searches, and it will

4:51

still go back to the default, but still

4:53

shitty Google searches. I do like

4:55

the other thing in the article, though. If you add the TBS

4:59

equals LI colon one. That brings Conan

5:01

O'Brien back to late night. It's

5:07

LI colon two if you want the hair back.

5:10

Right. Yeah. That will

5:12

trigger the verbatim search,

5:14

which will do the exact search for your

5:17

terms, which is actually kind of nice sometimes.

5:19

Which is what I sold Google Warriors relied

5:21

on. Yeah, exactly.

5:24

Little news on the follow up. Remember the

5:26

fake robocalls in New Hampshire about

5:29

Joe Biden? Yep, sure do. Yeah,

5:31

yeah. Well, the guy got caught. Good. We

5:33

got him. Press the button. Bing,

5:36

bing, bing. So political consultant Steve Kramer is

5:39

facing a $6 million fine

5:41

and over two dozen criminal

5:43

charges for the robocalls. So

5:47

that's not bad. Not

5:49

bad. Apparently, the company that let him

5:51

do it is facing a $2 million

5:53

fine. So I

5:56

think it might be a little steep, but OK.

6:00

Well, I, you know, if

6:02

this guy's getting that there, there was somebody else in the news

6:04

that just had 34 guilty charges

6:06

against him. Just a few. Just

6:09

a few. So we'll see. I would like some big

6:11

fines like that and you know, maybe some jail time.

6:13

That'd be nice. If you can get it for a

6:15

robocall. I'm just saying. Yeah, just

6:17

saying. Just saying. And

6:20

also in the Tesla news, the

6:23

Hertz Tesla saga continues. Mm-hmm.

6:25

So they, you know, they were going to buy a

6:28

hundred thousand Teslas and they ended up only buying 30,000

6:30

and now they want to get rid of those 30,000. It's

6:34

not going well for people

6:36

who bought those. So this

6:39

is the first one was the great failure

6:41

of BJ Padnae from Texas. He bought a

6:43

used Tesla for 25 grand. Immediately

6:46

got a $13,000 repair bill because some of

6:49

the damage that was done was not covered

6:51

by the warranty that Hertz goes with those

6:53

cars. Like the busted

6:55

battery, which you know is kind of one of

6:58

those things that it's like, oh, we're gonna sell you a car. There's

7:00

a hole in the gas tank. Not our fault. They

7:03

did replace his car after a couple months of bitching

7:05

and moaning and oh public shaming. That's right. That's the

7:08

only way you're gonna get anything done nowadays. So

7:11

those those Teslas, they were selling about 30 a

7:13

week and now it's dribbled to just five and

7:15

it's probably less than that. But they still say

7:17

that they're gonna get rid of about 20,000 by

7:19

the end of the year. Good luck. Good luck

7:21

getting rid of them. But I did see on

7:23

Twitter somebody had posted that they were at like

7:26

a Hertz or yeah, I must have been a

7:28

Hertz car rental and apparently they were the five people

7:30

in front of this person in line writing to get

7:32

their cars were offered free upgrades

7:34

to a Tesla and every single one of

7:36

them refused it. My

7:40

main thing to take away from your story though, Jason,

7:42

that you put in there is if your name is

7:44

BJ and you don't have a bear, I

7:47

would probably change the name. In

7:53

the news. All

7:59

right Brian, Adam Neumann is back in the

8:02

news. But this time, kind of in

8:04

a way that made me scratch my head. We

8:07

talked about him trying to go back

8:09

and rebuy WeWork. And we're like, okay,

8:12

that's interesting. You already broke the company once. Why do you

8:14

want to try and break it again? So they

8:17

were in bankruptcy. And he said that, you

8:19

know, for several months, we tried to work

8:21

constructively with WeWork to create a strategy that

8:24

would allow it to thrive. Instead, the company

8:26

looks to be emerging from bankruptcy with a

8:28

plan that appears unrealistic and unlikely to succeed.

8:30

So apparently, they're doing exactly what he would

8:32

have done. You know, there's no need for

8:35

him to be there. Yeah, they're following his

8:37

plan, obviously. Yeah, it's unrealistic, and it will

8:39

unlikely succeed. So sorry, Adam, they beat you

8:41

to it. All right. Well, isn't he

8:43

working on some crypto thing? Or what's

8:45

he trying to I don't know, I don't

8:48

care what this guy does. Stop giving him money.

8:50

Yeah, as far as I get, he's probably working

8:52

on podcasting, because that's that's dying a quick death.

8:54

So maybe maybe he's, you know, working behind the

8:56

scenes. He's making the next Spotify. Never

8:58

mind everything I said about you, Adam, you can pay

9:00

you can pay me. Yep. Love

9:04

you, baby. Got some

9:06

open AI news about the safety board. They

9:08

basically, we talked about this a

9:10

couple weeks back, basically, they hired

9:13

slash people left everybody that was

9:15

responsible for the safety guardrails. Yeah,

9:17

but they've now replaced them with

9:20

Sam Altman. Yeah,

9:23

yeah. What could

9:27

possibly have wrong. The new safety and

9:29

security committee is basically made up of

9:31

people already on the board and, and

9:33

Sam Altman himself, it's never a good

9:36

idea to have the people running the

9:38

company. Also in charge of

9:40

the safety and security board. That's kind

9:42

of not how it works. And another

9:44

company that's kind of doing the exact same

9:47

thing. This just came out twitch has removed

9:49

every member of its safety advisory council. And

9:51

these were people that actually had bona fides

9:53

in this sort of thing and replace them

9:55

with twitch ambassadors. What

9:59

the fuck is wrong? people. It's

10:02

what they think. Amazon, what the hell?

10:04

They've stopped even pretending. That's what's really

10:07

happened here because as we've known from

10:09

just discussing Meta's board, oversight board, their

10:12

toothless, they do nothing. These companies have just

10:14

said, well we're not even gonna bother. This

10:16

is just ridiculous. So we're gonna save on

10:18

the press release cost. Those things cost 50

10:20

bucks a shot then we're not even gonna

10:22

bother with that anymore. We need to save

10:24

money. Yeah. So goodbye, safety, and all that

10:26

sort of stuff. Alright, a little

10:28

more AI news comes from Vimeo. Vimeo's

10:30

new CEO, Philip Moyer, announced a

10:32

firm stance against AI to train

10:34

models using videos from their platform

10:36

without explicit consent. Well, how

10:38

about that? So he made

10:40

a blog post and he said he's going

10:43

to safeguard creative rights and maintain ethical technology

10:45

use. Good luck. So

10:47

they do prohibit unauthorized scraping already and

10:49

they do have a security team in

10:51

place to, you know, stop people from

10:53

doing that. But, you know, who knows

10:55

if the cat is already out of

10:57

the barn, however they say that. I

11:01

had AI write my analogies nowadays.

11:04

The decision was made after concerns from

11:06

creators about videos being used without permission,

11:08

especially with AI models like OpenAI's Sora

11:10

in the spotlight because they don't even

11:12

know if Sora was trained on any

11:14

of their videos, I guess. So, but

11:17

they're gonna put in some flags, you

11:20

know, they're gonna put in the flags and

11:22

say please don't take our stuff. Which

11:24

is what everybody's doing, but we'll see if

11:26

it has any teeth, which I doubt it

11:28

does. Well, let's expect that

11:30

firm stance to hold steady until somebody

11:32

writes a big check, just like the

11:35

Atlantic. Yeah. Because it was only

11:37

last week that the Atlantic published its

11:39

own screen decrying media organizations which had

11:41

taken cash from AI interlopers in exchange

11:44

for something of significantly greater value. Yes,

11:46

just last week that firm stance was was

11:49

put out into the world. This

11:51

week, they took a check from

11:53

OpenAI. Yeah, you

11:55

know what that firm stance did? It just added an extra

11:57

zero to that check. Once they got to the number that's...

12:00

they wanted. They're like, Okay, yeah,

12:02

pretty much. So the Atlantic

12:04

and Vox Media have now made their own

12:06

deal with open AI. I am curious, I

12:08

will probably listen to to that Kara Swisher

12:10

and Scott Galloway podcast, which I have not

12:12

listened to in a very long time, because

12:15

I do remember them saying that they

12:17

were very much against a open AI

12:19

or any AI sources being trained on

12:21

their podcast. They are with what

12:23

box media. So now they

12:25

are being trained on their stuff. So

12:28

still with Vox. Okay, I thought they were

12:30

along maybe who knows nowadays. So I'll have

12:32

to listen and find out I guess. Yeah,

12:36

well, you know, soon they should have held

12:38

held out a little bit because x AI,

12:41

Musk's new company trying to build their own

12:43

AI, they just got $6 billion worth

12:46

of funding that's billion with the B.

12:48

That's right. And of course,

12:50

it comes from our friends partially from

12:52

Andreessen Horowitz, of course, so you know,

12:54

you know, it's just the scumbags hanging

12:57

on with the scumbags. It's

12:59

also from Valor equity partners in

13:01

Sequoia capital. But yeah,

13:03

what if you see Andreessen Horowitz around

13:06

AI funding or crypto funding just run

13:08

or any funding on? Yeah,

13:11

any funding. No, I actually I'm sticking

13:13

by my guns. I did not spend

13:16

any money on po because

13:18

they're you know, it's core and their core

13:20

AI is funded by Andreessen Horowitz. So no,

13:22

I'm not going to do it. Yeah,

13:25

stick into my guns. Good for you.

13:27

I'm sure. Yeah, pissed. Oh, I know.

13:29

All one of me out there that $20 a

13:31

month is gonna break the bank. I know. I

13:33

don't pay for Po either. I still have it

13:35

installed because I find it is it's almost like

13:37

a convenient search engine for AI that I need

13:39

to use, which yeah, very, very rare

13:41

and limited. But yeah, yeah, I'll

13:44

take the freebies. Yeah. So keep keep

13:46

up with that one. I'm not gonna uninstall it.

13:49

But yeah, for the most part, now I just I've got

13:51

all that stuff set up locally. So I just kind of

13:53

run them run them in the

13:55

background when I need them. Right. But I

13:57

haven't I did keep my open AI subscription.

14:00

because the chat GPT40 isn't too bad.

14:04

So I'll keep that up for now. But

14:07

Elon, Elon is, he's

14:09

trying everything that he can right now to get

14:11

that big paycheck. He really wants his cash back.

14:14

So Tesla has issued a fiery

14:16

letter to shareholders criticizing the proxy

14:19

advisory firm Glass Lewis for advising

14:21

against Elon Musk's $56 billion compensation

14:24

package. The letter titled, what Glass

14:26

Lewis got wrong about Tesla accuses

14:29

the firm of using faulty logic

14:31

and omitting key considerations. Mostly, I

14:33

want my money, says Elon. The

14:36

pay package originally approved by shareholders in 2018

14:38

was blocked by a Delaware judge due to

14:41

his size and Musk's ties to the

14:43

board. It will be up for a vote again on June 13th.

14:46

Glass Lewis warns the package could dilute

14:48

existing shares and questions Musk's focus on

14:50

Tesla given his other ventures. Despite

14:53

Tesla's strong defense, Musk remains a polarizing

14:55

figure and the company has faced recent

14:58

challenges including misdelivery goals and issues with

15:00

the Cybertruck. Yes, oh, the Cybertruck is

15:02

the gift that just keeps on giving.

15:05

I mean, just look at this. From

15:08

just using any logic or sanity,

15:12

$56 billion compensation package would be

15:14

ridiculous even if Tesla was doing

15:16

well. Tesla is not

15:18

doing well right now. No,

15:21

they're not. So get your hand out of the cookie jar.

15:23

Exactly. I mean, I know he wants the

15:26

money. It'll pay for his X hole, but

15:28

it's insane. Yeah, yep. So

15:31

if I was a Tesla shareholder, I would vote no.

15:33

Oh, did you also see that they're doing a raffle?

15:36

So people who, they're getting more people to vote.

15:38

And if you vote and you sign up for

15:40

the raffle, you might be able to come get

15:43

a tour of Tesla with Elon. No,

15:45

thanks. No, thanks. Well,

15:48

Metacotton is really a marketing firm using

15:50

fake Facebook accounts to run an influence

15:52

campaign on its platform. The company said

15:54

in the latest report on coordinated inauthentic

15:57

behavior. They got one.

16:00

They got one. What

16:02

were they influencing? The

16:05

scheme targeted people in the US and Canada

16:07

and posted about the Israeli Hamas war. So

16:10

obviously pro-Israeli accounts. So

16:13

they've uncovered 510 Facebook accounts, 11 pages,

16:17

32 Instagram accounts of one group that were tied to

16:19

the effort, including fake and previously hacked accounts. If I

16:22

went on Facebook and spent about 45 minutes

16:24

on it, I could find more fake accounts than that

16:26

that are trying to do something in a foreign manner.

16:29

I'm just saying. Yeah,

16:31

come on. Yeah. So

16:33

there you go. So one

16:36

thing that they did point out there

16:38

is they don't think that any novel

16:40

generative AI was involved. This was just

16:42

people being people. People

16:44

are people. So yeah,

16:47

there you go. Okay. Yeah. 510 accounts. Seriously.

16:49

Like that's nothing. I'm

16:52

not kidding when I say if I, okay,

16:54

more than an hour. If I spent like two days

16:56

on Facebook, I guarantee you I can uncover this. Oh,

16:58

I can write a script that would get you get

17:00

a thousand an hour. Easy. Yeah. Easy. I just

17:03

feel like they're not trying very hard. Yeah.

17:05

All you got to do is look at your friend request and

17:07

there's going to be like a couple hundred right there. Yeah. Like

17:09

my fake mom account. Google has

17:11

been accused of secretly tracking drivers

17:14

with disabilities. Hmm. Yeah.

17:16

I don't know about this one.

17:18

A new lawsuit in California. Google

17:20

illegally tracking sensitive information

17:23

on DMV websites. Catherine Wilson, the

17:25

plaintiff, claims that Google used its

17:28

analytics and double click trackers on

17:30

the California DMV site to unlawfully

17:32

obtain personal disability information without consent.

17:35

This she argues violates the Drivers Privacy

17:38

Protection Act and the California invasion of

17:40

Privacy Act. So here's

17:42

what she's saying. Google

17:44

analytics is installed. So it's bad. And

17:46

she wants to have a lawsuit. Okay.

17:49

Yeah. Well, I mean, I get it.

17:53

Google analytics has had some issues in the

17:55

past. Yeah. And what she's saying is

17:57

that Google is taking the analytics data and sharing it

17:59

with you. it with double click to

18:01

basically bypass the disab disabling

18:05

of third party cookies. So

18:10

I think there I think this is somebody

18:12

who's really really trying to make a case

18:15

but I think the technology is going to

18:17

pan out that there is no proof that

18:19

Google has actually done anything wrong here. The

18:22

DMV should probably take off Google Analytics

18:24

and use their own analytics if they

18:26

really want analytics. It's

18:29

the DMV. I

18:32

think that's what this is going to boil down to. I think this is

18:34

going to be a Big

18:37

Nothing burger. That's just my gut. I

18:39

agree. I mean this is just

18:41

the internet we decided we wanted,

18:44

unfortunately. Analytics

18:46

is hard and Google does a really

18:48

good job of it but it's the

18:50

DMV. Why do they need

18:52

analytics on their website? That's what I'm saying.

18:54

Because they hired some IT guy that said

18:56

they did. So they can collect all this

18:58

data and have all these reports that no

19:00

one reads. Yeah, this is probably

19:03

some dude from the mid-aughts that installed it and

19:05

it's just been kind of running on. I'm

19:09

sure that the IT team inside the DMV

19:11

is looking at those numbers and

19:13

saying, look this is why we need more funding so we can

19:15

get some more servers. This is

19:17

how many people are doing this online and whatnot. Which

19:20

is fine. The more stuff that they can take online

19:22

with the DMV so I don't have to go

19:24

set standing that stinky line. I'm all for. But

19:27

yeah, they don't need all that. But they

19:29

will find a reason why your renewals are going to cost

19:31

more next year now because of this? I'm

19:34

sure they will. $510 for my sticker this year. Insane.

19:38

Yeah. Fortunately, I got it right

19:41

under the line because they know

19:43

that people are so lazy. It's

19:46

actually probably a psychological trick. You're the psychology major. You

19:48

tell me. They show you on

19:51

the renewal slip if you renew

19:53

by this date, it's going to cost you this much money.

19:55

If you miss that date and you renew by the next

19:57

date, it's going to cost you this much money, which is

19:59

about $250. $200 more than the

20:01

original date and then if you get it by the

20:03

last one, it's gonna cost you about $300

20:06

more so I'm thinking they're probably using

20:08

like popcorn pricing models from the movie

20:10

theaters to say Just

20:12

get the middle one, you know That was

20:14

pay for the expensive one They expect people to

20:16

miss their deadlines so often that they're going to

20:18

tell you what the fees are and that you

20:20

know They're gonna say that oh This is to

20:22

deter people from missing the deadline and most people

20:24

are gonna look at it and flip it in

20:26

their head and go I'll just pay it by

20:28

the last one. I don't care about that. It's

20:31

whatever. I'm lazy, you know, yeah Good

20:36

times it on well a hacking group

20:38

called shiny hunters claims it breached ticket

20:40

masters stealing sensitive information of 560

20:43

million customers that the better headline was like

20:46

half a billion which is what

20:48

it is According to cybersecurity news outlet

20:50

hack read and Australian news site cyber daily

20:52

I first saw the Australian news site cyber

20:54

daily put that up there and I was

20:56

unfamiliar with them So I was like is

20:59

this bullshit because yeah trust anything on the

21:01

internet anymore, but yeah, it's not So

21:04

the group is reportedly attempting to sell

21:06

the stolen daily data for 500 million

21:08

dollars It includes obvious the obvious things

21:10

that ticket master would have which is

21:12

everything named addresses emails phone numbers order

21:14

details credit card details Etc. So this

21:16

is a this is a big one

21:18

and not happening happening at a particularly

21:20

good time for ticket master as

21:22

the DOJ has sued Live Nation and ticket

21:24

masters saying they've got a monopoly over live

21:26

entertainment and Then of course Taylor Swift

21:28

so a lot of bad news for ticket master recently

21:31

and this is not gonna help Yeah,

21:33

yeah, I wish they would just Ashley Madison

21:35

this one just tell them to shut down.

21:37

We're gonna release the data Sadly,

21:40

they still release the data and Ashley Madison is still

21:42

there. So I guess that didn't work. Never mind I'm

21:45

looking forward to the ticket master documentary. Yeah, we're just

21:47

gonna get another fee This is you

21:49

know, that's all it's gonna be it's gonna be another

21:51

fee Yeah, there's gonna be three dollars per ticket for

21:53

in it. It'll be for shiny hunters That's what it's

21:55

gonna be and everybody's gonna get free credit monitoring for

21:58

12 months. I have those stacked up Like

22:00

no tomorrow because of all these fucking companies You

22:03

don't have to run this simultaneously. You can actually run it.

22:05

Unfortunately, they do time out. That's kind of bullshit You should

22:07

be able to say well, i've already got nine So

22:10

i'll just stack this one on the end of the other ones, right?

22:13

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24:14

Candy. Well

24:21

Jason, I watched the final episode of

24:23

Star Trek Discovery last night. It was

24:25

five, six seasons. I can't quite remember

24:27

how many there were. I think five.

24:29

I don't know. Three hundred.

24:33

Yeah, so it's over. And?

24:36

I'm not gonna give any spoilers because

24:38

it just came out last night and that's only

24:40

one day. But there's nothing

24:43

really to spoil either because it was so

24:45

god-awful boring and nothing really happened. And

24:48

there was a nice, you know, woky love

24:50

fest at the end and everybody was smiling

24:52

and she was a crying and nothing of

24:55

importance really happened. You

24:57

know, I've got to give it its due though. No

24:59

Star Trek Discovery. There would have been no Picard. There

25:01

would have been no Lower Decks. There would have been

25:03

no Strange New Worlds. So in

25:06

that matter, it served its purpose. Okay.

25:09

Okay. And that will be the last we ever

25:11

talk about that. Thank god. Until

25:16

they announce a movie or something ridiculous. No, I

25:18

think that thing is done. No,

25:20

I think I'm working it. I

25:23

am excited about movie wise though is the

25:25

Moana 2 trailer has come out. I

25:28

love the first movie. It really is one of

25:30

those. It's just a fantastic movie

25:32

and Moana 2 looks great as well. So

25:34

happy to see the trailer and it looks

25:36

very good. Okay. I'm an adult.

25:39

Do you think it's worth watching? Moana?

25:42

Yeah. Hell yeah.

25:44

Okay. Yeah, totally. It's

25:46

great. It's phenomenal. And Lin-Manuel Miranda does the soundtrack of

25:48

most of the songs. I know you're a big fan

25:50

of him. Yes, I am. I

25:53

think you'll enjoy it just for that. All right.

25:55

Well, on a rainy day, I will

25:57

check out Moana. I've

26:00

been watching Stax, Soulsville USA on

26:02

Macs. Oh, I do wanna watch that. It

26:05

is really, really good. It's really

26:07

good, you're gonna love it. You're gonna really, really

26:09

love it. Yeah, no,

26:11

it's a good counterpoint to the

26:13

Motown documentaries. Like these guys are the

26:16

punk rock, you know, Motown's

26:18

shiny, polished image. So it's pretty cool,

26:20

it's pretty cool. And I didn't even

26:22

realize that most of the Blues Brothers

26:24

band comes from Stax. Oh, hell yeah,

26:26

yeah, totally. Yeah, yeah, seeing all

26:28

those guys, like when they were super young and

26:30

super old, because I only remember when they were

26:32

middle-aged in the Blues Brothers. But

26:35

yeah, yeah, no, it's really cool. It's a

26:37

really fun, really fun series. I

26:39

think they're up to four episodes now. So I think it's

26:42

gonna go to six or eight. All

26:44

right, so check it out. Stax

26:46

on Macs. Okay, so I've been

26:48

reading the Civil War book that

26:50

I've been going, been

26:53

powering through. I'm almost done with it. But

26:55

I really got kind of caught up and I

26:57

wanted to learn more about the Civil War. And

26:59

I remembered the Ken Burns series, The Civil War.

27:02

Everybody raved about it, but I never saw it. So

27:05

I went and I found out that

27:07

they have the remastered version on Amazon

27:09

Prime Video. And it's

27:12

unfortunately under the PBS streaming setup. So

27:14

you have to pay for PBS to

27:17

get it. But there's a seven-day free

27:19

trial. So I am powering my ass

27:21

through the Civil War to

27:24

get done before my trial runs out.

27:26

It's really good, it's really good. That's

27:28

very abridged compared to, I mean, I

27:30

think they spent 13 seconds on the

27:33

entirety of the 14-hour book that

27:36

I'm reading right now. So there's

27:39

a lot more to the Civil War than just

27:41

a couple episodes, but it's still

27:43

good. It gives you a nice overview. I mean,

27:45

Ken Burns is always solid. So yeah, yeah,

27:47

no, it's good. It's good. And this one

27:50

I just love. Wu

27:52

Tang Clan's legendary one-copy album, Once Upon

27:54

a Time in Shaolin, will be available

27:56

for public listening next month in

27:59

Tasmania. Yeah, this

28:01

is just the best this whole story.

28:04

The album recorded secretly over six years will

28:06

be part of an exhibit at the Museum

28:09

of Old and New Art, Mona, from June

28:11

15th to June 24th. Free

28:13

tickets for private listening sessions will

28:15

be limited. The album, bound by

28:18

a legal agreement, can't be commercially

28:20

exploited until 2103, but can be

28:22

played at private events. Previously owned

28:25

by Martin Shkreli, the pharma bro,

28:27

the album was seized by federal

28:29

authorities and later sold to digital

28:31

art collective Pleaser Dow. I

28:34

think I heard about $4 million is what

28:37

it went for. Unbelievable. Government made some cash

28:39

on that one. Good. Alright.

28:42

And you said you saw the Dungeons and

28:44

Dragons movie recently and enjoyed it. I

28:46

did. It was fun. It was a hoot.

28:49

Yeah, they were going to be doing a

28:51

new Dungeons and Dragons series on Paramount+. Unfortunately,

28:54

the plug has been pulled on that.

28:57

I think I'm okay with that because what made

28:59

the movie so good was the cast and there

29:01

was no way they'd be signing Chris Pine to

29:03

do a TV series. Right.

29:07

Yeah. Although the

29:09

last time I saw him was in a TV series because

29:11

I don't think his movie career is going that well.

29:13

So maybe they could have. Maybe they could have. Alright. Yeah.

29:16

So, that's, yeah, they're going to

29:18

just basically take it down, rework

29:20

it, re-shop it. Okay. I

29:23

don't remember. I was kind of hoping there'd be

29:25

a second movie, but I guess not. I

29:28

don't know if that precludes the movie, so there might be

29:30

another one. Who knows? This is

29:32

just the Paramount Plus deal since Paramount Plus is kind

29:34

of in limbo right now. Right.

29:38

Yeah, which really sucks. So I really hope

29:40

they get that Strange New World second season

29:42

out soon or third season out. Third season.

29:45

I've talked about the miniseries, The

29:47

Night Manager on here a couple times. It

29:51

was starring Tom Hiddleston and Hugh

29:53

Laurie. It was written by John

29:55

Le Carre. It was a

29:57

fantastic miniseries. But I

29:59

found out... that there are going to be two more

30:01

seasons of it. So the BBC

30:03

and Amazon have teamed up and we're going to

30:05

get two more seasons and they're casting it right

30:07

now and they're going to be basically

30:11

filming I think later this year. So

30:13

I'm really looking forward to that. Really

30:15

looking forward to that. All right. Well I'll

30:17

go watch season one now that I know there's a two

30:19

and three coming. Exactly. That's the

30:21

Schulmeister, you know, theory

30:24

of life. Until you get

30:26

three seasons. Fuck. Now this

30:29

is the craziest thing ever. Sony

30:32

Pictures Entertainment CEO Tuni Vincent Quiera

30:34

expressed strong support for using AI

30:36

to cut film production costs potentially

30:38

including the next Spider-Verse movie. So

30:41

he was speaking at Sony's investor event

30:44

and he highlighted the high expenses of

30:46

filmmaking and the need for efficiency stating

30:48

we are very focused on AI. Fuck

30:51

you, Tony. He said basically he's a

30:53

fucking Spider-Man. He can have more than

30:55

five fingers. Yeah, exactly. Who

30:57

cares? We can go up to eight.

30:59

Yes. As long as it stays under

31:01

eight, we're gold. Yeah.

31:04

Oh my god. So he's just he's doubling

31:06

down on the AI thing. Well, I mean

31:08

this was Sag Astra's fear is that this

31:11

is what's going to happen and now it

31:13

is. So I mean understandable. We get it.

31:15

We totally, of course these people are going

31:17

to try to cut costs as much as

31:19

possible so they can keep all the money

31:21

for them. We knew this was going to

31:23

happen. Sag Astra knew this was going to

31:26

happen and here we are. Yeah,

31:28

and it's going to be

31:31

a mess. I mean, I don't know if you've kept

31:33

up with much Hollywood stuff if you have any

31:35

friends working in the business or I'm sorry, not

31:37

working in the business because production is so down

31:39

here that nobody's working. Well,

31:41

they're all here, Jason. I actually thought that's

31:44

right. Everybody moved. It's pretty random. Yeah, I

31:46

had a couple good friends, both of them

31:48

working in visual effects and they were LA

31:51

based and I just got texted last week.

31:53

Hey, we're coming to Toronto for a couple

31:55

months. Yeah. Yeah,

31:58

no, it's bad. Just the physical. physical

32:00

production stuff is so down right now.

32:02

Because I think that they're still trying to get

32:04

over that eight month strike from the writers. So

32:07

the total strikes were around eight

32:09

months. But they're really trying

32:12

to figure out how the hell to get shows back on the

32:14

air. And they just figured out, oh wait, you know what? We

32:17

might not have to. We can just buy

32:19

shit and put it on. And so we

32:21

had the golden age of TV and now

32:23

we're going to have the shit age of

32:25

TV for quite some time until somebody comes

32:27

back around next generation and figures out, oh,

32:30

we can make good TV again. But

32:34

it's not going to be good for, yeah, it's

32:36

not going to be good for years, I think. I think

32:38

it's just going to be a mess. So fun. And

32:42

now we have this new company called

32:44

Fable Studios, which has launched an app

32:46

called Showrunner, aiming to become the

32:48

Netflix of AI. This new

32:51

app allows users to watch AI-generated

32:53

animated series on demand and create

32:55

their own episodes. Which

32:58

is because that's what I want to do. I

33:00

want to make the shows that other people

33:02

watch and not get paid for. That sounds

33:04

fucking awesome. It sounds great, man. It sounds

33:06

great. I'm sure they're licking their lips. The

33:09

first release includes

33:11

two episodes of Exit Valley, a tech industry

33:13

satire resembling South Park. It doesn't resemble South

33:15

Park. It's a fucking South Park episode. It

33:17

says South Park on it. And

33:20

Rick and Morty, viewers can use AI to

33:22

generate new episodes by selecting characters, story lines,

33:24

and shot types. Yeah,

33:27

apparently the South Park versions that

33:29

they made were for testing only.

33:34

They say that when things come around, they're

33:36

not going to have proprietary IP. They

33:40

better not, because they're going to get shut down in five seconds.

33:43

Yeah, no, they're going to get bought in five seconds,

33:45

is what's going to happen. Somebody's going

33:47

to buy these guys in about a hot second. Probably

33:50

Netflix. Or Sony. Maybe Sony. Or

33:53

Sony. They're all in. Yeah.

33:56

No, it says it can't yet produce complex

33:58

story arcs. OK, perfect. a

34:00

half hour TV show that they're shitting out nowadays.

34:03

So yeah, I this is just bad.

34:05

This is bad all around. So you

34:07

know what you know what is not going to go out of style? Books

34:11

go read a book. Because

34:14

that's all we're gonna have left man. That's all we're gonna

34:16

have left. Yeah, if you can find a real one when

34:18

you go through Amazon, all the AI generated books that are

34:20

up there. Yeah, yeah, we

34:22

still have the classics. The Hitchhiker's

34:25

Guide again. It's worth it. Seven

34:28

of them if you get the AI version. Cups

34:32

and dooders. All

34:35

right, Brian, it's in news that just kind of

34:37

shook me to my core. ICQ

34:39

is shutting down after almost 28

34:41

years. What shook me is

34:43

ICQ was still up. I

34:46

yes, I had the same thought. First off, it

34:49

was like I had not thought about ICQ in

34:51

at least over a decade.

34:54

Well over it most likely. And

34:56

then I got really sad because it was such a

34:58

part of my life. I always had it open. See,

35:01

I was never I see an ICQ guy. I was I

35:03

was a name guy. Right. I

35:05

was always aim. I think

35:08

I had like two, I had two ICQ

35:10

numbers. But yeah,

35:12

no, I was just like, I can't believe

35:14

this is still Oh, God. I'm

35:17

sitting here talking to you about AI a second

35:19

ago. Now I just got to pop up in

35:22

my browser saying try out experimental AI features,

35:24

get help writing organizing tabs and creating custom

35:26

themes straight from Chrome. I switched to Chrome

35:29

and they're trying to put me on AI.

35:32

I'm so sick of AI. It's

35:34

unbelievable. Oh, yeah, I

35:36

think I might just go invest in Bitcoin just

35:39

shake things up a little bit. Well,

35:43

some news coming from Instagram, they're expanding

35:46

to their safety features in an effort to ramp

35:48

up its bullying protection for teens. The company is

35:50

changing how limiting and restricting work and its app

35:53

to give teens ways to deal with potential bullies

35:55

that it claims are less likely to lead to

35:57

further retaliation. If you open this article

35:59

and read it, dear listeners,

36:01

you will see my issue

36:03

and the reality

36:06

of everything pretty quickly. Words

36:08

used to have meaning. In this article, they

36:10

have to put limit and

36:13

restrict in quotes

36:15

because what Instagram means isn't

36:18

limit or restrict. Okay,

36:23

it's unbelievable because

36:26

when you hit limit, it actually

36:29

doesn't limit anything and if you

36:31

hit restrict, you're actually not restricting

36:33

anything. Okay,

36:35

what do they do? Nothing. They

36:37

hide it. They just hide it. The comments

36:40

are all there. They're just hidden from

36:42

you. Visibility set to zero. Yes,

36:44

but nothing is restricted. Nothing is limited.

36:46

Other followers will still be able to

36:49

interact with their posts, but those comments

36:51

and messages won't be visible to others.

36:55

Why? Why don't you just

36:57

limit and restrict? You could do that. Or

37:01

block and unfollow. Yes, this is

37:03

not that difficult. I don't know why we

37:05

have to reinvent what limiting and restricting is.

37:07

So much so that even in the article, they felt the

37:10

need to put the words in quotes. Great.

37:12

Yes. This has been making the

37:14

rounds. An anonymous source shared thousands

37:17

of leaked Google search API documents

37:19

with this guy and everyone

37:21

in SEO should see them is also in

37:24

the headline. It said this

37:26

is shaking up the SEO world. I've seen

37:28

it everywhere and I'm like SEO? Really? Isn't

37:30

SEO dead now? Because of AI? You know

37:32

what really shook up the SEO world? Yes,

37:34

Google switching to AI search. Yeah,

37:37

it basically made SEO completely irrelevant.

37:40

So yeah, we'll see how this is gonna shake

37:42

out. But who cares? Who really

37:44

cares? If you're an SEO this day and

37:47

age, get the hell out. There

37:49

was a big kerfuffle in

37:51

the past couple weeks about Unisuper. Have you

37:53

ever heard of Unisuper, Brian? Really

37:56

bad superhero? No, kind of.

37:59

It's actually Borac. in the unitard

38:01

that's all it is. There we

38:03

go. Well there's 647,000 users were down

38:07

for two weeks because what Google Cloud is

38:09

calling a bug it wasn't

38:11

a bug it was it was

38:14

basically PEP was it PEPCAC a

38:16

problem exists between chair and keyboard one

38:19

of their engineers basically

38:21

typed in something wrong one parameter they

38:23

left one parameter blank in

38:26

migration that they were doing in their

38:28

VM VMware engine which

38:30

which set this this company's

38:33

entire cloud to not

38:35

renew and cancel at a certain

38:37

time so what happens is when

38:39

that happens the thing

38:42

is shut down the all

38:44

the data is deleted and there's

38:46

shit out of luck because one guy forgot

38:48

to fill in a parameter that's

38:50

it. I found a lawsuit probably

38:54

I'm guessing this is gonna be a lawsuit but

38:56

it's just like this just shows you how

38:59

janky everything we live on is. I know

39:01

we've I mean you and I know this you know

39:04

to our core because we built half the shit back

39:06

in the day but it's

39:08

nice to know the more things change the more

39:10

they stay the same. Yeah for everybody

39:12

out there that thinks that this is all a

39:14

wonderful world you should just ask anybody slightly well

39:16

around our age that built this stuff and we

39:18

all just shake our heads and go I can't

39:20

believe you're trusting your lives in the shit. I

39:22

know I know. So my backups

39:24

are good, backups are good. Finally

39:27

Amazon has a new AI powered voice search

39:29

for Fire TVs. Now brings

39:31

you even more ads. Yeah really I

39:34

actually figured out thanks to the listeners how to

39:36

set up my TV so it automatically goes to

39:38

my Apple TV when I turn it on so

39:40

I don't have to wait for it to load

39:42

all of the ads because it takes about 30

39:44

seconds for all those ad panels to load when

39:46

I when I turn on my Fire TV. So

39:49

I got it to go there now so I'm not gonna have to go

39:51

back and try this out. The problem

39:54

is it's like kind of basic search

39:56

they built their own LLM with

39:58

all of the IMDB data. So you can

40:00

kind of tell it, you know, I wanted that movie

40:02

where Brad Pitt had the funny hair a long

40:05

time ago Yeah that one

40:07

and you know It'll give you up shit

40:09

like that what it really needs to be and I

40:11

think they really nailed this in the in

40:14

the article It's like we want the the crazy

40:16

old guy from your video store back in the

40:18

80s Who knew every videotape that

40:20

has ever been made and you can kind of tell

40:22

I want something like that And he would just reach

40:24

around the counter and pull out the magic videotape that

40:27

you are just waiting for And

40:29

we're looking for that guy. We're looking for you know,

40:31

Kevin Smith and Quentin Tarantino back when they had day

40:33

jobs We knew Tarantino bought

40:36

yeah, and apparently it is not even close to

40:38

being that yet So but I'll give this a

40:40

try and report back next week Worried

40:48

about letting someone else pick out the

40:50

perfect avocado for your perfect impress them

40:52

on the third date guacamole Well good

40:54

thing Instacart shoppers are as picky as

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you are they find ripe avocados like

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it's fair guac on the line They

41:01

are milk expiration date detectives. They bag

41:03

eggs like the 12 precious

41:06

pieces of cargo They are so

41:08

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41:10

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your car from your comfy place. The

41:55

dark side Welcome

42:02

to The Dark Side with Dave, with podcast

42:05

super host Dave Bittner. Dave is the host

42:07

of the CyberWire podcast for all your cybersecurity

42:09

news, the co-host of Hacking Humans with Joe

42:11

Kerrigan, discussing how humans are mean, the co-host

42:13

of Caveat with Ben Yellen because people are

42:15

nosy, and the host of Control Loop because

42:17

industrial machines have feelings too. Hello, Dave. You're

42:20

up. Well, hello. I

42:24

have to say, my head is in

42:26

the clouds. I

42:30

mean, what were the chances that right

42:33

after we had such a random occurrence

42:35

on this particular segment, I lo and

42:37

behold, I load up the Atlantic the

42:39

next day practically, and there's

42:41

an article made, tailor made for you, Dave. Well,

42:48

first of all, I have to tip

42:50

my hat to Gabriel Pagan

42:52

on Mastodon who shared this

42:54

article with me, and

42:57

the article is titled, No One

42:59

Really Understands Clouds. Thank

43:01

you very much. I'll

43:04

just read a little poll quote from it here.

43:06

It says, clouds are

43:08

complex and ephemeral, which makes them

43:10

difficult to fully understand. Yang

43:13

listed for me key aspects of

43:15

clouds for which we still lack

43:17

comprehensive understanding, how they form, what

43:19

determines their spatial scale, how long

43:21

they can last. They sound

43:23

like simple questions, he said, but they are

43:25

actually at the forefront of the field. Not

43:30

so crazy. Not so crazy. Yes,

43:33

I will admit, it sounded ... Look,

43:35

in retrospect, I did sound

43:38

stoned. Stoned. But I was

43:40

not. My

43:44

questioning was in good faith, and

43:47

I am relieved to find out

43:49

that I was not alone.

43:52

Nope, fair. I read through the whole article, and I

43:54

was like, all right, on a very

43:57

deep level, we don't really understand clouds. that

44:00

Dave was discussing when he sounded stoned,

44:02

because we do kind of get that, but. No,

44:05

that's the thing. That was the

44:07

level I

44:09

was discussing. Like, I get, I see,

44:11

I don't, okay. Anyway. What

44:16

else? Well, I've run across

44:18

another article that tied in quite nicely

44:20

with the other discussion we were having,

44:22

which we were talking about the difference

44:24

between Star Wars and Star Trek fandoms

44:26

and how people can dislike certain movies

44:29

or hate the franchises or hate specific

44:31

elements of it. And lo and

44:33

behold, again, just a few days after we

44:35

were discussing it, I ran across this article,

44:37

Hate the Phantom Menace, the Ewok Line theory

44:39

could explain why. What is

44:41

the Ewok Line theory, you may say. I do remember

44:43

this because I was a big fan of this show

44:46

when it came out. This came from How I Met

44:48

Your Mother, the

44:50

episode called Field Trip that first aired in 2011, in

44:53

which one of the main

44:55

characters, Barney, posited the Ewok Line,

44:57

a demographic border established on May

44:59

25th, 1983. Those

45:01

who turned 10 before that date were too

45:03

old for something so cloying and cute, said

45:06

Barney. And anyone who turned 10 afterwards loves

45:08

the Ewoks because why? They remind you of

45:10

your teddy bears. Now,

45:13

I was born May 16th, 1973. This

45:16

puts me nine

45:19

days. Yeah. Yeah.

45:21

Yeah. Yeah. Nine days

45:23

ahead of that line.

45:26

So I think I'm in a rare position.

45:29

Yeah. Yeah. So? I

45:32

both like and hate

45:34

the Phantom Menace. It's

45:37

complicated. What about the Ewoks

45:39

though? I like and hate

45:41

the Ewoks. It's complicated. Okay.

45:45

Oh my God. So I'm three

45:47

years older than you. I guess close to four years older

45:49

than you. So

45:51

I was 13 when Return

45:54

of the Jedi came out. And

45:57

I didn't have any problem with the Ewoks. I

45:59

think I... I was upset

46:01

later when I learned that

46:04

there was a chance that they could have been

46:06

Wookiees instead. Oh yes, I remember hearing

46:08

that as well. Right.

46:12

But they didn't really bother me

46:14

at the time. I didn't think

46:16

they were cloying and cute, although they are

46:18

cloying and cute, but that didn't register with

46:20

me while I was watching the

46:22

film. I think I was so jaded even at

46:24

10 years old I realized, oh my god, this

46:27

is a marketing opportunity.

46:30

Ah, yeah. I think

46:32

I was a lot more wide-eyed and innocent. Maybe

46:35

my East Coast upbringing versus your

46:38

California upbringing. Yes, the main streets

46:40

of Anaheim. That's right. I

46:43

already spent as much time as you had

46:45

at Disneyland. Perhaps that's actually

46:47

part of it, being in such a manufactured

46:50

reality for most of my childhood. Hmm.

46:53

Hmm. Interesting. Interesting.

46:56

Might have to go lay down on the couch and discuss this with my

46:58

mother later. I'm going to be there for the entire 50 minutes or so.

47:03

The Phantom Menace, I

47:06

could take or leave. I

47:08

agree with all the things in this article that are annoying

47:10

about The Phantom Menace. There's

47:13

a list in here of things that people hate,

47:15

the whole thing with the midichlorians. Yeah,

47:17

but I hate that. I

47:21

do get the thing about how they say that

47:23

George Lucas was making a movie

47:25

for people who were kids in 1999. I

47:28

think that's fair. I

47:31

think as we talked about here, I think

47:33

we're happy now because we have Star

47:36

Wars content thanks to the current makers

47:38

of the series that are coming

47:41

out these days. We have adult-focused

47:45

Star Wars. Star Wars for those of

47:47

us who want that

47:49

kind of storytelling. Thus relating again, and

47:52

now we will transition from Star Wars

47:54

to Star Trek, relating to the point

47:56

I made earlier in Media Candy, in

47:58

that while I hated Star Trek Discovery,

48:01

which just ended, it revitalized

48:03

the franchise and gave us three to

48:05

four TV shows that are actually very,

48:07

very good. So I

48:10

will take the good with the bad. Yeah. Yeah.

48:13

Well, related to all this, there was an

48:15

article that caught my eye in the Washington

48:18

Post. Nobody cares about what I think about

48:20

Ewoks. Man. Oh, I'm just sorry, Jason.

48:22

Ornam now. I'm sorry. Wait a

48:24

minute. Hold on. Hold

48:26

on. You can't pick and choose your position. You said you were

48:28

going to leave when we started discussing the new show. I was

48:30

going to say. Right. You're the one who

48:32

always says you're going to leave the room and

48:35

come back when we're done talking about Star Wars.

48:37

No, we're talking about the new series that's coming

48:39

out because I don't have Disney Plus anymore. Oh.

48:42

Go on, Jason. I am well established

48:44

here in the Ewok line. I

48:48

was 11 going on 12, and I

48:50

hated the Ewoks. So. Okay.

48:53

So you fit right in with the Barney's Ewok

48:56

line then. You fit, and Dave and I

48:58

are kind of outliers. Yeah, because

49:00

the day I went to go see Return

49:03

of the Jedi, I had... Remember those little

49:05

mini arcade games for the little

49:07

Coleco ones that looked like you get

49:10

the Donkey Kong and the Pac-Man? They were like, you

49:12

know, about eight inches, 12 inches high? Yeah, I had

49:14

left mine in my desk at work

49:16

and someone had stolen it. I went to go

49:18

see Phantom Menace... Or not Phantom Menace. I went

49:20

to go see Return of the Jedi and came

49:22

back and then someone had stolen it out of

49:24

my desk. So I was in a very bad

49:27

mood already after seeing Ewoks, and then that just

49:29

solidified my bad day. So I remember that was

49:31

two things that happened that day that were terrible.

49:33

Ewoks and someone stole my Donkey Kong. Let's

49:36

just to clarify, you weren't at work on

49:38

12, were you? I'm sorry, I was at school.

49:41

Okay. I just

49:43

wondered if I had to call somebody. That

49:47

would explain a lot. The coal mines! Yeah.

49:49

Right. Right. You...

49:52

Oh, man. The

49:55

coal mines of Virginia Beach, yes. Let

49:57

me just... For

49:59

the young... out there today with their Nintendo

50:02

switches and their emulators,

50:06

these little handheld

50:08

game device, to claim that you

50:11

were doing anything resembling actually playing

50:13

Donkey Kong on this thing. Oh,

50:16

that was a scratch. Yeah, there was an

50:18

orange line and then a brown line that

50:20

came at the orange line very slowly.

50:24

Yes. Yeah. Or it was

50:26

just a bunch of

50:28

little LCD images

50:31

that could turn on and off. It

50:34

wasn't actually a grid of pixels. It was just

50:36

like an old LCD watch. It

50:39

was the technology behind them.

50:41

Whole things could turn on and off and they

50:43

would do their best to make it kind

50:45

of seem like the game, but it really wasn't. Yeah, it

50:47

kind of looked like it was animating, but it really wasn't.

50:51

No. No. Yeah. Anyway,

50:53

this article in The Washington Post

50:57

is titled America's Best Decade

50:59

According to Data. The

51:03

survey company YouGov surveyed

51:05

2,000 adults asking them

51:07

which decade had the best and worst music,

51:09

movies, economy, and other measures. What

51:12

they found out was that for most people,

51:15

the best of everything happened when they were between 11

51:17

and 15 years old. No

51:20

responsibilities. Yeah. Right, exactly.

51:23

That's exactly it. Yeah. No

51:25

responsibilities and you don't care about what's happening in the world.

51:28

Right. You're not aware of what's going

51:30

on yet. You have not

51:32

realized yet that your parents are simply

51:34

human beings. So

51:38

you have great nostalgia for that period of time. What

51:42

this survey found out was that

51:45

it's not like people are nostalgic for

51:47

any particular decade. They're nostalgic

51:49

for, they're most nostalgic for whenever

51:51

they were that particular age. Yeah.

51:54

Yep. That totally tracks. I've

51:57

also heard, not related to this survey, but

51:59

I've I've heard people say that a

52:01

lot of people who

52:04

are kind of stuck in a

52:08

previous mode of fashion with the clothes

52:10

they wear, that they will dress

52:13

in the fashion of whatever

52:15

time of their life they were most

52:17

happy. I'm still wearing cargo shorts. I

52:21

started wearing cargo shorts when I was a skater.

52:24

Yeah, actually, yes. That's

52:27

it. That was my uniform when I was

52:29

a skater and I'm 52 years old and

52:31

I still wear the same damn thing. I, however,

52:33

well, I'm still wearing predominantly black, but I

52:35

haven't had a leather jacket or a cape

52:37

on in years. A

52:39

cape? A cape? I was

52:42

gone. Brian was gone. You had a cape? Oh,

52:46

yeah. Oh, yeah. I want pictures. I

52:48

want pictures. Usually a trench coat, but

52:50

for fancy occasions. Yeah. I

52:53

dress up. A cape

52:55

to go with your black trench

52:57

coat. Exactly. Okay. All

53:00

right. All right. This is a

53:02

new image in my mind of you,

53:04

Brian. I had not considered, I considered

53:06

goth you, but not cape to

53:08

goth you. So look, we

53:10

hung out at Disneyland. You can wear a cape

53:12

there. You don't really stand out that much. Okay.

53:18

And they still have, and believe it or not,

53:20

Bat's Day at the Park is still a thing.

53:22

I know. It's crazy. What? Bat's

53:24

Day. Bat's Day happens once a year.

53:27

Tell them about Bat's Day. Yeah. Bat's

53:29

Day is basically the international day

53:31

that the goths descend upon Disneyland.

53:33

It is not formally approved by

53:36

Disney, but tacitly kind of put

53:38

up with. They

53:40

do put out certain rules. You can't bring in

53:42

things like chain wallets and you can't smoke and

53:44

you can't drink your rattlesnake

53:47

drinks while you're walking around the park

53:49

and no biting tourists. But

53:51

in general, yeah, it's just a, it's

53:53

once a year, goths descend upon Disneyland.

53:57

Wow. Okay. It's a fun

53:59

day to go. such a thing. Yeah, and

54:01

speaking of Disneyland, normally we would put this

54:03

in closing shoutouts, but Dave, I know you

54:06

would obviously have an affinity with this as

54:08

well, so I thought I'd put it here.

54:10

Disney has announced that the revered composer Richard

54:12

Sherman passed away on Saturday from age-related illnesses,

54:15

which tracked 95. His brother

54:17

had passed earlier, I think in 2012, I

54:19

believe. They were the two, the Sherman

54:22

brothers, that basically wrote all

54:24

the early Disney music. So very

54:26

much a will be missed, and

54:28

what an amazing output of music that they

54:30

made. Yeah, wow, what a

54:32

legacy. I mean, talk about the

54:35

soundtrack of the 20th century, I guess, is

54:37

fair to say. In a lot of ways,

54:40

yeah. Certain types of

54:42

entertainment, and

54:44

so much of it was so good and so

54:46

catchy. And, you know,

54:49

it still has legs. Like, if

54:51

you listen to this stuff now, it's fantastic. Right,

54:54

yeah, it's true. Yeah, I

54:57

mean, what a great long

54:59

life, 95, goodness. I

55:03

think I might have mentioned last week,

55:05

my father just turned 90. Wow, yeah,

55:07

which is amazing.

55:10

Yeah, but

55:12

you just, you know, I don't, I

55:15

don't know. I can't think about

55:17

being that old. So

55:20

I hope to make it there, maybe. Yeah,

55:22

I don't know. Yeah, we do this show

55:24

every week, and I just fucking worry about

55:27

the future. But yeah. Yeah,

55:29

I guess, I mean, how

55:32

many other people from that era of

55:34

Disney could possibly still be around? Not

55:37

very many. Not very many at all. Yeah, I'm

55:39

trying to think of that whole thing of the

55:41

nine old men who are the original

55:43

animators. I think, uh, Raleigh Crump is

55:45

still around. Yeah. I believe. But I

55:48

think he might be the only one.

55:50

He's certainly the only one that showed up in

55:52

any of the Disney documentaries, actually

55:54

alive and still talking. So. Right.

55:57

Yeah, right. Yeah, heck

55:59

of a legacy. And if

56:01

folks of you, you know, you don't, you're not

56:03

that familiar with who we're talking about. Oh,

56:05

yes, you are. You just don't know it. Right. Exactly.

56:07

Yeah. Go, go look it up and you'll be tapping

56:09

your toes before you know it. Well,

56:13

everybody knows supercalifragilistic expialidocious. I

56:16

would argue that almost everybody in the world also knows small world. Yeah,

56:19

small world. Right. Right. Okay.

56:23

Under that story in the show notes, guys, there's a

56:25

link that says load me. Dave,

56:27

would you click on that right now, please? It's

56:29

YouTube, Brian, because it's Jermaine. Oh,

56:32

look at that. Go on. So, okay.

56:34

So, I did not all. Yeah. All of the

56:36

people that used to go, these are their kids now.

56:39

I know. I'm thinking that later on I need

56:41

to look at this photo because I probably know

56:43

some of these parents. I

56:46

mean, I don't know if I'd recognize them anymore because

56:48

it's been 30 years since I've seen them, but I

56:50

guarantee you. Yep.

56:53

I did not expect to see so many

56:55

kids. Well, yeah. I'm sure they were

56:57

dressed up this way by their parents. I'm quite sure

56:59

they probably don't go to school this way, which is

57:01

what I did because I committed. Yeah. Yeah.

57:05

Some of these kids were probably made at Bat's Day at

57:07

the Park. How

57:09

much do you think it cuts into

57:11

the whole goth vibe that

57:13

you can't really smoke anywhere anymore?

57:16

I think that's all

57:18

changed down to where we're healthier goths these

57:20

days. Oh,

57:23

really? You're wearing sunscreen. Yes. They're all

57:25

wearing sunscreen. They don't smoke anymore. They're

57:28

terribly pale skin. They

57:30

make sure that all their makeup

57:32

is ethically sourced. You

57:35

know, otherwise they would have to move it to

57:37

Disney Paris because everybody in Europe still smokes. Yeah,

57:40

that's true. I wonder if you

57:42

can't smoke inside a Jackie Park. You can or

57:44

can't? You cannot.

57:46

No smoking at any Disney Park in the world.

57:49

All right. Well, there you go. the

58:01

park then you can really see how many

58:03

people on goth day wow this

58:06

this started up when I was I think

58:08

in college 99 yeah

58:10

I had much aged out of my going

58:12

to Disney days and we just considered everyday

58:14

goth day but yeah this is very cool

58:17

Wow that is cool good on them

58:20

good for them I wonder what it

58:22

must be like to go to Disneyland not

58:25

aware that it's not know that it's goth

58:27

day and just happened upon it yeah

58:31

yeah that's gotta be I inadvertently

58:33

went to King's

58:36

Dominion one day which is a regional

58:38

theme parks near here and

58:40

it was like homeschool

58:43

day well

58:48

and those security was required many

58:50

times well the park was

58:53

full full of homeschool

58:55

families and I

58:57

didn't realize till my

59:00

little midway through the day I was waiting

59:02

in line and a woman struck up

59:05

a conversation with me about homeschooling she

59:07

assumed that I was there because it

59:09

was homeschool day and I had no

59:12

idea it was homeschool day and

59:14

when she started talking about homeschooling she said

59:16

oh yeah homeschool day and then it dawned

59:19

on me and went oh

59:21

that's why it feels so weird around here

59:23

today really it was just I can't put

59:25

my finger on it but it was a

59:27

very off kilter vibe

59:30

because nobody has any social skills because they

59:32

all you know sitting at home talking to

59:34

each other yeah I don't

59:37

know god I thought it was

59:39

home fries day right so I put

59:46

one more story in here because I

59:48

think one of the things that we

59:50

like tracking are the rare occasions where

59:53

executives might be actually held accountable for

59:55

the things that their organizations do and

59:58

there's a story here from ours about

1:00:01

how some executives from Amazon

1:00:04

may be on the hook to be personally liable

1:00:06

for tricking users

1:00:08

into Amazon Prime signups. So

1:00:13

the Federal Trade Commission is coming after Amazon for

1:00:16

basically dark patterns of signing

1:00:19

people up for Prime without them realizing that

1:00:21

they've signed up for Prime and then making

1:00:23

it really hard to get

1:00:25

rid of Prime once you've signed up for it. And

1:00:29

Amazon tried to get the FTC

1:00:31

to or tried to get the

1:00:34

courts to dismiss the FTC's lawsuit.

1:00:37

And the courts have said no, no, this

1:00:39

is there's lots of evidence here. And

1:00:41

they're even saying that some of

1:00:44

the executives could be on

1:00:46

the hook because of what they knew

1:00:48

and the fact that they seem to

1:00:51

put profits

1:00:53

and a number of

1:00:55

Prime customers ahead of transparency

1:00:58

and people's ability to interact with

1:01:00

the website. Now I can personally

1:01:02

testify to this. I have

1:01:05

obviously a US Amazon account that

1:01:07

is my Prime account. And then

1:01:09

Canada has a separate Amazon site.

1:01:11

So you go to amazon.ca or

1:01:14

whatever. And I do not

1:01:16

have a Prime account for my Canadian

1:01:18

Amazon account. Whenever I buy anything on

1:01:20

my Canadian Amazon account to have something

1:01:22

shipped to my house here in Canada,

1:01:25

it is hard

1:01:28

not to click on the put me in Prime.

1:01:30

They put those buttons everywhere if

1:01:32

you're not a Prime member, trying to

1:01:35

check out and it is like doing

1:01:37

it's like doing a dance with your

1:01:39

mouse to work your way through all

1:01:41

those buttons. So it is I'm

1:01:44

totally 100% believe that that should

1:01:46

be changed. It's ridiculous. One

1:01:48

of the things they pointed out

1:01:51

here was a scenario where let's

1:01:53

say you are purchasing something

1:01:56

and a button pops up that says hey, you'll get

1:01:58

free shipping if you sign up for Prime. And

1:02:01

so if you click on that button,

1:02:03

even if you didn't end

1:02:05

up buying the item, so you bailed

1:02:08

before you purchased the item, you

1:02:10

still would have been enrolled in Prime. Yeah.

1:02:12

Ooh, evil. It is evil. It's bad.

1:02:15

Yeah. Yeah. So we'll

1:02:17

see what happens if

1:02:19

the FTC has any success here,

1:02:22

but I think that's

1:02:24

what it's going to take, right? Actually

1:02:26

put people in jail. Imagine that. That'd

1:02:28

be nice. Yeah. All

1:02:32

right. Well, that's what I've got. One more thing before we

1:02:34

go. I just want to do

1:02:36

a quick shout out to Scott Aethan, who

1:02:38

I met this morning. He is a fan

1:02:40

of the show. It turns

1:02:42

out that we grew up in the same

1:02:44

town and our parents are good friends. That's

1:02:48

random. Yeah. Yeah. Very. I

1:02:52

think somehow the conversation came up

1:02:54

and his mom was talking about something and

1:02:56

the conversation, and she mentioned my name and

1:02:58

he was like, wait, Dave

1:03:01

Bittner from this, that and the other thing. And she was like,

1:03:03

yeah, I think so. He was like,

1:03:06

we must meet. So we

1:03:08

did. And we had a very nice time. It

1:03:10

was delightful to meet him and talk

1:03:12

about he's been a longtime fan of the show. So it

1:03:14

was really great. So thank you, Scott. I

1:03:17

appreciate it. It was nice to meet you and I

1:03:19

hope we get to cross paths again. Oh,

1:03:21

very cool. Thanks for listening, Scott. And thanks

1:03:23

for listening. All

1:03:26

right. I will see you guys next time.

1:03:28

Take care. Over

1:03:34

at Patreon, we've got N7Dag. Welcome. Thank you.

1:03:36

Over at PayPal, we've got David, Michael, Simon,

1:03:38

Judge, Charlie, Hawe, Jonathan, Brett with a big

1:03:41

old 50 bucks and Sarah who wrote in

1:03:43

and said your discussion on Star Trek versus

1:03:45

Star Wars reminded me of the song circa

1:03:47

1979. Grumpy old geek

1:03:50

here Spiz Energies. Where's Captain Kirk?

1:03:53

I had never heard this before. I definitely

1:03:55

remembered Star Trekken from the old Dr.

1:03:58

Demento days, but this is punk rock. Captain Kirk.

1:04:00

Very cool. It's a really good

1:04:02

song too. Yeah, I

1:04:05

liked it. I liked it a lot. For

1:04:13

three bucks a month minimum, you can pay more

1:04:15

if you want. You get all the shows early

1:04:18

and ad free and in high res. Woo

1:04:20

hoo. And we also have

1:04:22

some new reviews. We got a five star. Oh my

1:04:24

god, clouds almost pissed myself over

1:04:26

to the discussion Dave triggered about clouds.

1:04:28

Really loved how hard Brian laughed at

1:04:31

Jason's WKRP in Cincinnati reference. Do

1:04:33

you ever really get into your hand? My wife

1:04:35

thought I had finally snapped because I was crying

1:04:37

with laughter. You guys rule. Thank

1:04:40

you. And we got another five star. Absolutely

1:04:42

entertaining and informative. Slight.

1:04:50

Definitely people like to have in there

1:04:52

in the backyard barbecue. Thanks to them.

1:04:54

I now understand how clouds are formed.

1:04:56

No, you don't. Life's big mystery. No,

1:04:58

you don't. Nobody does. Awesome.

1:05:02

Until next time, I'm Brian Scholastic. And

1:05:05

I'm Jason DePhilipoe. Thanks for tuning into Grumpy

1:05:07

Old Geeks. Dive into the show notes

1:05:09

and all the links from today's

1:05:12

episode at GOG.Show slash 650. 650,

1:05:14

yes. Geez. Feeling generous? Keep

1:05:16

this top notch entertainment rolling.