117: The Rental Economy

Grumpy Old Geeks. A weekly talk show hosted by Brian Schulmeister and Jason DeFillippo. Discussing the finer points of what went wrong on the internet. And who's to blame.

How's it going, Jason? Always peachy keen, peachy keen out here in the valley. Ooh, the valley of despair. Yes, it is. Yeah, so here we are. We're recording a day early because we've got the holiday coming up and I'm getting the hell out of town for once to enjoy not being in town.

Well, it is a holiday. You're allowed to go on a vacation every now and again? I am. Sweet. Good to know. I'll let you go this time. Yeah, I don't know if my job is aware of that situation because things blew up a little bit this week, so it's been a lot of fun. But I'm also, this is one of the, I guess I am going to talk a little bit about work.

I wasn't sure if I was going to, but I'm experiencing this strange thing because for the last 20 years, now you, Jason, you've been an independent contractor, but you've also worked full time for people over this period of time. I have not. I have been doing my own thing and being responsible for everything, you know, the buck stops here sort of thing, basically for 20 years.

And this is the first time since the last six months or so I basically have one really big contract and I'm not in charge of everything. So when shit hits the fan, I can basically just kind of not pay attention as long as it doesn't involve me. And that is a very odd feeling to me and it's awesome.

I thought you were going to say it's terrible. Well, I'm still having a really hard time with it mentally. Like I'm stressed out even though I shouldn't be. And this weekend, you know, there's a big thing that blew up and it's a really huge problem, but it doesn't have my name on it. So I'm just going to go sit by a pool anyways.

Well, I mean, there is an upside to working for somebody else. Yes. There's a very big upside to that. I'm starting to think I made a massive mistake about 20 years ago. Yeah. No, there are some times when it's like, okay, you know, not everything has to be your fault.

I know. It's liberating. I would have much, much less gray hair at this point if I would have gone the other path. Actually, I was thinking about that too as I was walking around the offices and I've been thinking about this for quite a while. It's like, man, if I just would have stayed with it and done that kind of thing and been with the corporation, I would be sitting here just like all these people doing nothing but surfing all day and collecting a paycheck.

Yeah. There is an upside to being a corporate stooge. If you can stomach it is the problem. And I don't think we have the temperament or personality to do that. Yeah, that is the real problem. I mean, that's why I'm having a hard time relaxing even now knowing that something is blowing up that isn't my responsibility because I know how to fix it and I could.

I know. That is kind of one of those things where it's like, yeah, that's not really that hard to fix, but you don't want to take my advice. So have fun. You know, there's always the fun part that if you were to take it by advice in the first place, this wouldn't even be happening.

Yeah, well. Anyways, Palm Springs. Cool. Enjoy Palm Springs. Yes, I've actually had a pivot in my career for the most part in the past couple of weeks. I am no longer a software engineer. Yeah, I've noticed. And you and I are kind of doing this at the same time because most of what I'm doing right now is really just project managing, not coding.

And I love it. Dude, I am so much happier now. It's unbelievable. We're going to have to change the name of the show. Yeah, somewhat happy old geeks. I know. Yeah, we were dumbasses old geeks. Yeah, yeah. It's been a good thing. I'm really enjoying not being a coder and I'm finding out I'm extremely, I mean, all the experience that we have really puts us in place to do what we're doing now very, very well.

So. Yeah, yeah. My job now is basically I'm, I work on podcasts. I'm a podcast producer and audio engineer, which is kind of fun, but not, not anything that I would have ever predicted, period. Well, you never know where things are going to take you. And that's, I mean, we've been saying all along on this podcast, you know, touch everything, know everything, experience all of it because you don't know what's going to happen.

Yeah, no doubt. Yeah. Being a generalist definitely comes in handy because two, two and a half years ago, I'd never really done much audio editing. And now it's what I do all day long and it's fun. I find that hilarious. I know you're the one that went to school for it.

I know. And I'm not doing it. You are. That's great. No. Yeah. So if you want to hear more from me, you can check out the Art of Charm podcast where I am now producer Jason and I'm guesting guest co-hosting on a lot of the shows. But that's my job. I know.

It's funny. All right. Let's get on with the show. Let's do the show. Okay. Um, yes. Gay marriage legal everywhere, but stop it with the goddamn icons. People seriously, we've covered this in episode two of grumpy old geeks. You just wrote, stop it with the goddamn icons in the show notes. And I thought it might have something to do with the Apple update.

Yeah. Yeah. I'm with you on that. I mean, uh, I'm so happy about the ruling. It's always nice when your country does something correct, but, uh, yeah, everybody going all rainbow after wouldn't have meant more if you would have done it before the ruling. Yeah. If that was your, if that was your jive, then you should have done it before.

Not, not, not post. Yeah, I agree. But it's always, you know, whatever. I can't complain too much. I'm, I'm very happy about the direction that we seem to be headed at the moment. Yeah. One, we got one win out of it. So the rest of the world doesn't think we're that big of a douchebags, but you know, we still have, we still have a lot of doucheatude.

That's right. Um, you in the past have talked about Beats headphones. Yes. I have tried them now. I had, I tried a couple pair of, uh, Beats pros when I was up in San Francisco. Those are terrible headphones. And look at the price point. $400. Shitty headphones for $400.

Uh, it's the only reason that Beats pro exists or Beats exists is, is street cred for whatever reason. They're the headphones that people want to have because it makes them look cool. They are the worst headphones you can buy. Well, not the worst. You can definitely get worse, but.

Yeah. But for the price, come on. Yeah. They're positioning themselves as super high end, great headphones. And they aren't, they just aren't. Don't do it to people. Yeah. The, they look cool, but they're utterly uncomfortable. The, the fact that you can switch sides with the plug is kind of nice and you can daisy chain them, which is kind of nice, but the sound quality is shit.

And wearing them after like 20 minutes, I had to just, I'm like, I can't wear these. My ears hurt just wearing them. So I'm sticking with my Sony MDR 7506s. I got some new velour padding for them that are just unbelievably comfy because I have to wear these things like eight hours a day now.

And for, you know, a hundred bucks for the headphones, 20 bucks for the, the extra pads. And I can not be happier. And the sound quality is amazing. Yeah. Yeah. I agree. You've got a good pair of headphones there. So we're going to be talking about the Apple music thing.

We can't not. So let's, let's just start. Let's just get it done. Um, have you used it? Yes. Yes. And I did the iOS eight four update and it did not turn Bluetooth on. I know. I noticed that as well. So it must be an off cycle. Yep. Yep. No, 8.5 will definitely have Bluetooth back on, but I keep Bluetooth on anyway.

I just did it for you to see if it did it. Well, I have, I have a couple issues first off, because it's me. Um, something is, it's not working. I actually have a problem with the, with the, uh, mobile app version of Apple music, um, on my desktop, both on PC and Mac, it works flawlessly.

And if I add, uh, something to my library, it shows up in my library on my mobiles. It doesn't, I can add, uh, I can add to my library to my heart's content and it does not appear in my library. So I don't know what to do. I've, I've Googled this and I've Googled this and I've searched it. And here's the problem with using generic names for everything.

Try to search for Apple music. Songs won't be added to music library. Anything specific from that, that's related to Apple music that just launched. Search fail, search fail. Exactly. So I, I'm, I'm having a problem with it on mobile.

Um, I'm assuming that that will get fixed because obviously it's not happening to everyone. And it's something that's just for me, uh, beyond that, my first impressions were, well, it doesn't look that great. So, and the UI is still a little clunky and it doesn't really make much sense, but, uh, yeah.

See you later, Spotify. Yeah, pretty much. I'm going to be using Apple music, uh, if only because for people like me who are really into obscure bands and obscure tracks, their catalog beats the shit out of Spotify. Spotify is still missing albums, entire albums by bands.

I like while the iTunes library has pretty much just about everything ever recorded. So this is what I wanted Spotify to do. Spotify didn't do it. Apple beat them to the punch. Easy billing done. See you later, Spotify. Yeah, sadly, that's pretty much it.

The only problem I have with it right now is I can't get it to work with my Sonos. So. Yeah, they, I saw, I was reading about that. They're expecting to have Sonos integration by end of year, which isn't fantastic, but, uh, what are you going to do? Yeah. Okay. So as soon as they get that done, goodbye, Spotify. Yeah, it's, it's, it's nice.

Uh, the, the connect feature is obviously, you know, a little bit silly and there aren't that many artists doing it. And even if they are, who cares, uh, I have enough ways to see a little artist updates. I don't need them showing up in my player as well. Uh, the, yeah. Yeah. And that connect thing too.

It's like, I, okay. I opened it up and it's like, see who you're following. I'm like, why am I following anybody at this point? Why are you automatically adding people to my, you know, my tab? And it's auto follow anybody that you had purchased items from, from the, uh, iTunes music store, I believe.

Oh, well, I never purchased any Alanis Morissette and I was seeing pictures that she, uh, was posting. I'm like, okay, that's a little odd. Yeah. Yeah. Who knows how they ended up coming out with that, uh, radio. I could care less about beats one. It's not interesting to me.

I don't care about, uh, pop music and, uh, you know, it's smart for them. Uh, it's a curated 24 seven playing ad for music that you can then stream. It's a radio station. Like we've had forever. I'm not interested in that. What I'm happy about is they didn't get rid of the kind of algorithmic artists created based radio stations because I like that.

I, for me, that that's, there's no need for me to go to Pandora. You know, I've auto created a station that's based on the cure or an auto created a station that's based on Depeche mode. And when I put those on, they're great. They're absolutely fantastic. Yeah. They're, they're really good. So, uh, I don't mind that at all.

The thing that still bothers me, and I think that this is such an easy thing for, for anybody to fix. I want to be able to tell, uh, there, there should be a way for when you're looking at a track in your music library, a color differentiation, tiny icon.

Let me know if that is physically, do I own that track and is it on my phone? Do I own that track and it's not on my phone? Is that track just a streaming track? And is that track a streaming track that I've downloaded onto my phone? Yeah. You cannot tell that. And I want to know the status of the song in my player.

And that's a, the thing that I was laughing about the most, the make available offline option. What's wrong with the word download? Well, we want to get away from that. We want to get away from any kind of concept that actually relates to something being here or there.

We want that. There's a psychological effort going on by everybody who is vested in you not owning anything and not having it on your device to get away from words that relate to that. Yes. Welcome to the rental economy. That's everything now. I can't, I can't buy Photoshop. I can't buy a damn song.

Nope. It's like, okay, whatever world has moved to rental and it sucks for, for people like us. And, uh, you know, I haven't mentioned this in a while, but let me go ahead and say it again. You have to pay for bandwidth and it is better for you to have something physical on your device than stream everything because you will, you're double paying.

Oh yeah, no, absolutely. You're paying to rent the thing in the first place. And now you're paying AT&T or Verizon, et cetera, et cetera, to access it. Yeah, no, I'm, I'm like every month I am at like, you know, half a gig from my, my, my limit.

If, if that, because I have a family plan and I've only got four gig a month for like five people. So it like, it's getting closer every time. So I'm going to have to upgrade to another one and I'm already paying as much as a car for my, my goddamn cell phone. Right. So, yep.

So there's that, uh, I need a self-driving iPhone. Who doesn't, uh, the only thing else about Apple music, at least for now that we'll discuss until I actually get it really working and I can really play with it a little bit longer, uh, link in the show notes, Trent Reznor on Apple music, uh, long interview with him because he is the poster child for Apple music, much like, uh, you know, Jay-Z was for title and, uh, the, uh, you know, I love nine inch nails.

They were one of my favorite bands. I'm not so fond of what he is doing here. And I decided to rename the article from, uh, from just Trent Reznor on Apple music to famed Apple UI guy, Trent Reznor on Apple music. Anyways, it's a long interview with him about why he thinks this is so great.

Uh, it feels icky to me that the interview gave me that yucky title feeling where it's just a little club of asshole millionaire musicians shoveling what they want down our throats. But there you go. Okay. Yeah. I thought it was a decent interview. I read it this morning and you know, yeah, he's a rich asshole who used to make good music.

I just want Apple to stay away from the cult of personality thing that title did because that doesn't work. Yeah. Obviously take a, take a lesson out of titles playbook and, uh, everybody just hates you when you say, Hey, look at all the money I got. Yeah. Buy more of my music. Exactly. Uh, last episode, we talked a lot about, uh, facial recognition stuff and how creepy, scary, good it was getting, particularly Facebook's that was able to start identifying you, even if they didn't see your face.

In the exact opposite version of news, we've learned that maybe it isn't so good because Google had to scramble after a software ID to a photo of two black people and identified them as gorillas. Yeah. Whoopsie. Oopsies. So is it, you know, is facial recognition software good or not?

We can't tell. We can't tell yet. It's still getting there though. Yeah. But yeah, there was another article that you linked called why I walked out of facial recognition negotiations. Um, I hadn't seen this before. This is an article on slate and it's talking about, uh, basically the behind the scenes privacy advocation talks that are going on between different companies and government entities.

And it, it basically what they're saying is businesses are not going to voluntarily opt you out of these when they, when they start. It's like, okay, no, we're, we're taking your face and we're going to do with it what we want. Yeah. Yeah. And that's, that's a real privacy issue, but I don't see much of a way for us to get around this.

No. Uh, they, they, they talk in the article about how, uh, basically it's going to come down to states' rights. Oh God. You know, and it's, it's funny because they, they, uh, instead of the internet of things, they're calling this the loophole of things, which is pretty funny. That is pretty damn funny.

Yeah. I mean, the, again, the law, the laws behind technology in such a significant way. And we have, you know, this, we have to stop thinking about this as a state's rights or even countries' rights. There, there needs to be an almost planetary privacy act that needs to take place. But good luck with that. Yeah.

Not going to happen. These people have more money than God at this point. So they're going to do what they want. Good times. Well, you know, whatever. Uh, I can't even get my Apple music to actually work. So there's hope that they can't take over the world and scare us all to death and own our faces yet. Well, just every, go into the mask business.

In the news. I just realized that I completely forgot one of the stories that should go and follow up because I talk about it all the time. Uh, I think America is out of hand. The shocking numbers reveal, the shocking numbers that reveal just how burnt out American workers are.

Uh, another nice little article, uh, link in the show notes from a salon that basically talks about how we're overworked, underpaid, and suffering from severe burnout. And that's basically just those of us that actually have the work to try to pay for lifestyles that we have. Okay.

So, yeah, I flipped through this. Um, it's, people are working about a day longer than they used to do. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, uh, you know, uh, we, I always kind of chalk that down to that's because I started my own company and the buck stops here thing, like I said earlier, which is why I'm working harder. But I really did take a look at, at the amount of time and effort that I've put in has increased over the 20 years.

I, I worked a lot less when I started the company and it's been more and more work to maintain basically the same level of income adjusting for inflation. Well, I'm glad you can do that because I've been working my ass off and I have gotten nothing near what I used to make. I have gone backwards.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. For about what? 10 years now I've been going backwards. But that's, uh, like we talked about, I mean, a lot of that relates to the fact that, that, uh, basically what we used to do for a living, decoding and building of sites and things of that nature has been completely devalued. There's no money in it anymore.

Nobody thinks it's worth anything. And it's shocking and annoying when everybody is just like a website, you know, my cousin will give me something for 500 bucks. Okay, sure. Yeah. Anyways, but, uh, you know, we're pivoting. So yes, go get a Squarespace account and just relish in the fact that you've put us out of business.

Yes. Thanks. Your crappy site that looks like absolutely everyone else's. So speaking of getting put out of business, France, France, France, France, what are you up to over there, France? They've just arrested the leaders of Uber. Yeah. I thought that was, uh, that was an interesting move on their part.

They are, they are not, the French are not fucking around. No, they're not. They invited these guys over, uh, to just a meeting at a police hearing and, uh, then they were done. They took them into custody. Yeah. Well, yeah. I, uh, you know, what are you going to do? This is an interesting move on their part.

Uh, we'll see how it all plays out. I think arresting them was a bit silly, but you know, the French can be silly. Uh, keep fighting for the, for the, all the things that we want Uber to do, France. I agree with that, but I'm not necessarily sure I'm agreeing with your tactics at the moment. Well, if they're running an illegal business, they're breaking the law.

So technically they have a right to arrest them. That is very true. So down with that. And now Uber is opening up Uber boat in Istanbul. It must be nice to just have so much money. Well, you know, do what they got to do. It's, it's all logistics.

It's an app that's just logistics. So it kind of makes sense. Yes, it does. No, this, this totally makes sense. And, uh, we'll see them starting to move into other things as well. There's, there's no doubt about this. Uber is just going to keep growing and growing and taking over services anywhere.

They see, they see the market opportunity. So no surprises there. Yeah. We're back to the rental economy. I'm just going to rent me some Uber boats. And speaking of no surprises, uh, maybe we should have, like, we have the hack of the week. We should have the Uber gross thing that happened at the week. A report come out that a driver was charged after fondling himself in front of a female customer.

Ooh. So yeah, this, I mean, this is what happens. And, and this is a big part of the reason why Uber is desperately trying to make sure that their drivers aren't employees because then the liability becomes considerably more clear. Um, so, you know, contractors, you can just sue him.

Good luck with that. But, uh, Uber has noted that the man was not actually licensed to be operating in New Jersey where this occurred. But, uh, you know. Well, apparently is that their app sent him there. So the app sent him there. It is logistics, right? Yep. So there you go, Uber.

It's kind of your fault. Uh, and in the last bit of Uber news, uh, New York city is basically trying to shut down Uber's operations within the city itself because there are just too damn many cars on the road. Yeah. I mean, it's a traffic issue at this point. Cause there's like what, 28,000 Uber drivers or something like that.

Yeah. And you're just going to, I mean, look at the way London has handled these sorts of things. It's, it's, you know, you, there are only certain times that private people can take, uh, cars in. Otherwise you have to pay for it basically. And, uh, all of the various services that provide transportation for hire have to register.

There are slots and there are lotteries and that's just how you're going to have to do it. Yep. There was a, the congestion charge. That's what they, they get you for in London. Mm-hmm. I've, I've seen a top gear once or twice. But yeah, so that, I mean, that's it. And, and, uh, you know, Uber can fight with that all they want, but New York city has to put a cohesive and understandable system in play.

And, uh, so there you go. Yeah. The interesting thing about this article though, is they're talking about how they want to shut them down now with no new drivers so they can do a study like, uh, you know, basically a finding on how is congestion, uh, being affected by the Uber drivers.

Is there a pollution issue? But the thing that Uber is going back and saying to them is like, uh, excuse me guys, you don't have anybody on deck to do the, do the study and what exactly is it going to be about? And can you give us a little bit more information? Because right now this just sounds like bullshit and you're using this as a, as a, you know, kind of a backdoor to get us to stop having new drivers.

Yeah. Yeah. For once I actually am down with, with Uber on their point here and I hope they press the city. Again, the city really has to come up with something that makes sense and communicated effectively to everyone. It's a dumb idea the way it is right now. Yeah. They should just get some legislation on the books that says you got to register and you got to pay your taxes.

Yeah. See that pesky legislation, Uber. Yeah. So, uh, Apple music launched and Facebook has been talking to music labels. Um, this is coming out that Facebook has been going around and talking to all the same labels that everybody has to talk to if they want to do any kind of streaming service.

And the article over at the verge, the title is Facebook is talking with music labels, but why? Well, there's a pretty simple answer to that. Yeah. That's pretty straightforward. They want to roll out their own streaming service because people are already sitting on Facebook all the time. And it would make sense for them to have a music player built into the app that the people are already sitting on.

And then they get to keep the monies and the monies don't go to Apple. Yeah. Um, I'm sure they'll do it at some point. I mean, it makes perfect sense. It makes a lot of sense because Facebook is basically, uh, for a while they were really chasing after artists and trying to create a kind of good way and a good system for artists pages to exist.

And there was talk about how they'll put in players that pull in from everywhere else. And Facebook has kind of walked away from that completely. And it's letting its pages system just kind of wither and die. And they don't really care too much about the artists directly anymore. And, uh, this could be why, because they'll just go this direction with it.

Yeah. More and more. I'm talking to a lot of people who are just kind of done with Facebook because, you know, there's no real business upside anymore. The algorithm has killed like any enjoyment that people are finding out of it because they just tell you what they want you to hear.

And I, a lot of my friends are just walking away from it. So, and I mean, it's, uh, it's kind of useless for a business. It really is now. Uh, there's no doubt about that. It'll be whatever kind of business entertainment or anything, anything. Yeah. Facebook has basically taken away anything that was good about it and funneled everything into the pay for an ad model.

And, uh, as any of us that have actually done this for a living and done this for clients knows the ads don't really work. Yeah. Some people have decent luck with them, but most of the people I know who have done the trials with the ads have basically just said there's the, the ROI is not there. I'm not making back more than I spend.

So why am I going to spend it here? Yeah, I agree. So it's a weird thing for businesses, but, uh, it would make sense at least on the, for the music business side of things for Facebook to, to bring out their own streaming player. So expect to see that, but I don't think it will happen anytime soon. Facebook, that's, that's a pretty big build out.

And I think for it to be effective, they have to build it into the main Facebook app. It can't be a separate app. So we'll see what happens. Yeah, we'll definitely see what happens. Cause Facebook is very fond of just making new apps for everything. It's like 17 Facebook apps right now. Yeah, I know. It's ridiculous.

And, and I think it would be, it would be a stupid move on their part if they made it a separate app. Yeah. Cause we've already got separate apps. It's gotta be, it's gotta be a built-in player. Well, that's why I think what Apple did with Apple music and baked it into iTunes and it's the same, the same app that everybody's already using.

So now it's just got more features. Exactly. Genius. Yeah. The other hurdle that Facebook is going to have that Apple didn't have is Apple's already got all our credit cards. Facebook does not. Exactly. So, um, I found this article, it's, it's a New Zealand, it's from New Zealand and it's a Kiwi drone racers get ahead of the competition.

And it's, uh, we've kind of talked about this in the past with some of our drone talk, but it's a, they're calling it a new sport and it's known as rotor cross and it looks so much fun. Yeah, it really does. I mean, this is, I was, I've always been like, do I get a drone?

What would I do with a drone? Why do I want a drone? If I had a club like this near me, this is why I'd get a drone. Yeah. Basically they're, they're taking the drones, they're putting cameras on them, but they're using VR headsets. So you're flying through the forest, like, you know, while you're sitting, sitting down and having a beer. Yeah.

Yeah. It's cool as hell. Uh, very, very fun. You know, I was actually just realized that this morning drones have reached such a level of like public consciousness. Uh, I usually have the today show on in the morning when I'm making coffee and just kind of walking around. They had animated drones as part of their feature.

Like when they would, you know, pull up the calendar day or all that, that was done, you know, 3d graphics and all that they're using drones. Oh God. And yeah. Tipping point has been reached. Yeah. And, uh, speaking of a tipping point. So it begins, Jason. No. Okay. What begins a robot has killed a worker in a Volkswagen factory in Germany.

Oh no. It was just a, like, you know, what kind of, what kind of robot was this? Uh, one of those gigantic sort of things that you see whenever they show automation in the car factory. Ah, I gotcha. So a 21 year old external contractor was installing the robot with a colleague when he was struck in the chest by the robot and pressed against a metal plate.

He later died of his injuries. Okay. So the robot didn't actually achieve consciousness and try and kill the guy. He just probably pressed the wrong switch or did it or did he very smart. No, he didn't. This is just an accident, but it's, you know, come on. It's in our wheelhouse.

What are we going to do? I know we got to have robot robot killers every now and again. Exactly. He breaks it up. So I saw that Corey Dr. O is leaving London. Oh, okay. But here's the strange part. He's moving to Los Angeles. See Silicon beach.

Here we are. I don't know about that. I think it's just because everybody else is here for boing boing, but still part of it. I read the article about why he's leaving and I agree with absolutely everything that he said about London. It is one of my favorite cities in the world, but I left it 18 years ago because of a lot of the reasons that he's discussing right now.

I do have a bit of a downer for you, Corey. God, have you seen rents here? They're skyrocketing. Prices are skyrocketing. Gentrification is everywhere. So you are leaving a city that has, you know, you say that it has those problems and you're coming to another one that has the exact same problems.

Yeah, that's pretty much it. I don't know. I mean, I don't know where his math worked out on that one, but Los Angeles is ridiculously expensive. Yeah, I mean, it is considerably cheaper than London, so I will give him that. And if he, particularly if he's making his money through boing boing, which I'm assuming he is, and he's being paid in US dollars, living in London on a US salary is something I tried to do a long time ago.

It does not go very well. So you will have a better time of it here in LA in terms of finances, but all the things that you are frustrated by is LA is not that different and you're going to need a car. Yeah, welcome to traffic, trafficville. Yeah.

So, hey, welcome back, man. Security? Ha! So, the city of Manpoo, San Francisco, Jason. Yep, just got back from there. Yep.

Well, the FBI is investigating 11 optic cable cuts in and around the San Francisco area. That's crazy. Isn't it, though? There's some pissed off people out there, I think. Ah, the hippies are rising up. Yeah, I wonder if it's some sort of corporate thing or not, but I guess you can't really target things, but, you know, it's going around.

People are cutting the cables. Yeah, this is a different type of cord cutter. These guys are going out with bad intentions. Yeah, yeah. Just basically trying to shut down the entire area. So, over the last year, I guess, completely different parts of the broader San Francisco Bay Area completely lose internet service because someone's cutting these cables and the FBI is trying to find them.

Yeah, it's really easy to kind of take the internet down if you just have a pair of wire cutters, it seems. So, we'll see what happens. Yeah, it's unfortunately very easy to take down almost any aspect of our infrastructure if you have the will to do it. Yeah, that's pretty much it. If you're just willing to go out and do it.

Like, if you look at, by Christ, those undersea cables, why haven't more of those gone down? I'm always surprised the fact that there are thousands of miles of cable that somebody just has to go out and cut. Yeah. And you're offline. Yeah, it's pretty crazy.

So, hopefully all this won't happen. But then again, this is our security segment where we're super bleak and it will happen. It will happen. And speaking of it will happen, I saw the Norton video, the most dangerous town on the internet that you posted in the show notes.

I will finally watch it this morning. Yeah, we posted this a while back in our show notes and then because we just never got around to actually watching it, we're finally going to talk about it now. So, tip of the hat to a friend of the show, Fergal, who sent this our way. The most interesting thing, I think, about this is that it is basically funded and produced by Symantec Norton.

So, yeah, so it's in their best interest to make it as grim and dire as humanly possible because at the beginning, they're like, you know, this is going to happen. We are going to have a massive scale hacking whatever, you know, at some point I'm like, that's every day when you run WordPress.

What the hell? Very true. And I'm not entirely sure that installing Symantec tools is going to stop some of the bigger things. Yeah, what Norton generally does is stop your computer from working because it is so bad. Yeah, I've experienced a lot of problems with Norton. Although, to be fair, they did at one point in time, there was some really nasty little virus I'd gotten and Norton was the only thing that could clean that sucker out.

Well, I mean, I bought an HP laptop a couple of years ago and Norton came pre-installed in it, which forced the computer to blue screen on boot. A brand new computer would blue screen on boot until I removed Norton. So, yeah, you can't get hacked if your computer doesn't work.

That's their mantra, I guess. Well, I suppose then, I guess they make better short documentaries than they do software because I actually did enjoy this. It's 18 minutes long and it was pretty good, I thought. Yeah, yeah, and I actually know some people in Romania where this town is located and they're like, yeah, if you need anything hacked, give me a call.

I know everyone because apparently they all just kind of run in the same circles. Yeah, so link in the show notes. They got 18 minutes and wanted a little doom and gloom. It was actually pretty damn good. So, good on you, Norton. Yeah, even though it was basically, you know, corporate scareware, it was a fun little documentary.

I liked it. Yeah, me too. So, I'm sure next we're going to have some sort of documentary funded by the Coca-Cola company that tells us sugar is awesome. Oh, God. So, Grim Harrison on Twitter sent me this link for privacytools.io and it's a really good site on just software and VPNs and what you can use to stay secure that nobody listening to this show will actually use.

Yeah, I mean, if you've got a tin hat sitting in the corner, you're never going to leave this site. It's really good, super in-depth. Basically, we should just put this in the show notes every single week and stay to hell with the security segment. Okay. If that's your stance. That is not my stance.

It's a great site. I've barely even begun to delve through it, but, you know, I just love the opening page, the very first line, you are being watched. Yes, you are. Yeah, there are a lot of resources in here and it will take you a while to go through them. And unfortunately, I use almost none of them.

So, I'm going to have to up my game. Yeah, I was looking through all of this and going, huh, oh, oh, oh dear. Okay, I should probably do that. Oh, okay. And you're not going to do any of it. Yeah, probably not. Hey, I got one password. Oh, under their decentralized social networks, they don't list Ello.

What's going on? Oh, man. Well, because it's not decentralized, I guess. But they have diaspora listed, which I didn't even know was a thing anymore. I thought that died. I thought it did, too. But maybe somebody is still on there somewhere. Anyways, you can't get more private than Ello. You can post there and absolutely no one will see it.

That is true. That is true. I got a... Yeah, somebody followed me on Ello again this week. And I'm like, really? Seriously? I got a notification that I've been followed on Ello. And I'm 99% sure that I had switched off notifications. So, what the fuck, Ello? Yeah, really? I should get a free t-shirt every time they break that.

Because that's all they do is make t-shirts now, right? Pretty much. Yeah. We got a notice from AtTropicalCIO on Twitter that he wants your opinion on something, Jason. Apparently, Cisco is going to acquire OpenDNS. No. No. No, no, no.

No. Yes. No. I forbid it. We have Jason's opinion. I utterly forbid this. This is not allowed to happen. So, oh, that sucks. Because Cisco was in our news last week for their lovely security problems. Well, yeah.

But OpenDNS provides advanced threat protection for any device anywhere and anytime, Jason. I use OpenDNS every day. It's baked into all my routers. David Ulovich is the founder. And basically, they were in the same office as us when I was running JPEG magazine with those guys, with Devin and Paul and some people who will not be named.

But we had the same floor. So, we hung out with those guys all the time. And they had the best donuts. The best donuts. All right. Well, that's good to know. Yeah. They would always bring in fresh donuts. But I don't like this. I don't like this at all. I'm glad for, you know, for David for getting acquired. But I wish it was anybody but Cisco.

Yeah. We don't like it when companies that we like get acquired by companies we don't. Yeah, it's too bad, too bad. But, you know, the service is still solid. I highly recommend OpenDNS, especially if you're using, like, any kind of cable modem. The built-in, like, I'm on Time Warner out here.

And the DNS that comes bundled with it is terrible. So, if you just switch a router to use the two OpenDNS IPs. Google DNS isn't bad either. But I just like OpenDNS because I like David and I like those guys. So, I pimp them. Comment of the week.

So, this is a tough one, honestly.

I don't think it's a tough one at all because I wince every time you drop that word. Oh, well, you should have said something. Well, you know, freedom of speech and all that. And I do understand that in certain cultures and ways that you grow up and time periods and patterns of communication that you fall into with certain groups of people that it just becomes an easy word to drop and doesn't have the connotations in your mind that it does to, say, other people.

But I'd say I agree with Lily here a little bit. And I think it would be good for us to avoid dropping that word loosely and maybe only use it for the Uber cases in which it actually applies. Okay. I will do my best. I will do my best on that one. But we also have a dissenting opinion on what the R word is.

Would you like to take this one? Sure. I'll take this one. And actually, this is the more popular version of what the R word is because a friend of the Joe Fergal, who previously mentioned, also wrote me immediately and said that this is what he thought the R word meant. This is from Steve Cleary. Comment the R word.

Sorry, not Republican. The other R word. I'm assuming he didn't type it out here. But do I have to actually say it? Yes, you do. Okay. The other R word, which would probably be retard or retarded. So, I forgot that only those of us involved in the intellectual disability community as a parent of a person with an intellectual disability like Down syndrome or autism spectrum disorder try not to use the retarded word.

In another life, I remember using the word on a daily basis as a kid, teen, young adult. But now, as a parent, it just grates on my ears when I hear it. Great show as always. And per your encouragement, I have purchased the license for 1Password for Windows. Good job, Steve, on that. And yeah, I agree with you as well on that one.

That one, I'm sure I'm just as guilty of because, yeah, as a kid, I mean, that flew out of my mouth left, right, and center. And it's, again, a word that used in that fashion by us as kids and teens and young adults is completely dissociated from what the word actually means and could be offensive.

So, also something else to be very aware of. I mean, there are different words that can be used, and I agree. Oh, God. We're turning into a politically correct show. What happened to this? No, no, no. I don't necessarily think that that is on. I mean, I get your point.

Yes, it's kind of like thought police, but not really. I mean, these are simple words that have a very serious meaning to different communities. And to be respectful of that and just use something else is not that terribly difficult. And, you know, it is what it is. And everybody's going to have their own opinion. And yes, it becomes a slippery slope because then we're going to get, you know, we'll hear from this person who doesn't like this word and this person who doesn't like this word.

But I'm down with these two. Okay. I need to go buy a fucking thesaurus. Fuck yeah. I'm not stopping saying fuck, goddammit. No, we will not stop saying fuck. Okay. So, Jay Lester writes... Jay Lester writes... We actually had somebody who complained about that once, remember? Oh, that was one of our first iTunes reviews.

It's like, oh, you swear too much. Well, fuck you. Yeah, exactly. Hey, we got to keep one word. We're keeping the F word, dammit. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Leave me one vestige of my terrible childhood so I can just be mean about something. So, yeah. Fucking Medium. Let's talk about Medium.

Jay Lester writes, just curious what you think of Medium's no password announcement. I already know what each of you think about Medium itself, and he links to a VentureBeat article about Medium doesn't think it needs passwords to offer secure authentication. And what they're doing is you can still log in with Twitter or Facebook, but you can also say, here's my email address, send me a link, and they will send you a secure link, somewhat secure.

If your email's been hacked, then nothing's secure. Exactly. But it's just an easier way to log in to Medium, and I think it's fine. I got no problem with this. You? No, I got no problem with it. It's not like Medium's collecting personal information, passwords, I mean, credit cards or anything like that.

So, I wouldn't trust it for anything that I had a credit card on file with. Well, yeah. And since Medium has no path to revenue, they're not going to take your credit card anytime soon. So, there you go. Wait, Medium has no path to revenue? Do they know that? I don't think so. I think Ev just, you know, he just gets up in the morning and throws, you know, millions at them and says, here, go make some more, make some more mediums.

Okay. Yeah. So, again, I don't really have a problem with it, and I think that's totally fine. For anything that doesn't really store any of your personal data, you don't want getting out there. We got a question for the geeks from Jason's Buddha Bar buddy. I assume you probably know who this is.

No, I don't. I met many buddies at Buddha Bar that night. I have a slight feeling that this might be our friend Jen from The Art of Charm, but let's take the question. All right. Question for the Grumpsters. You keep recommending 1Password, but why is it safe? It sounds like an awful idea to keep all my passwords in one place.

What if it gets hacked? Well, basically what you're doing is keeping them in a secure location because it's encrypted and you do use one main password to get into it, but that password should be really long and hard to guess. Yeah. I think that you really, yeah, it's got to be super, super long and crazy.

And there are a million different methods that you can Google to come up with something like that, that you will actually remember that nobody will guess and machines will not be able to figure out quickly. Yes. My 1Password password is, I'm not going to tell you the exact character amount, but it is over 25 characters. Mine is over 20.

Yeah. So you have to get that password before you can get into 1Password, but it's a security trade-off. Yes, you're keeping everything in one place, but this lets you not use the same password over and over again for multiple websites, which is where the problems come in.

And you never use the password that you use for 1Password anywhere else. Exactly. You only use it the one time for 1Password. Everything else has its own individual thing. And all of these things are stored encrypted, no matter which particular method that you use. I know Jason and I both store on Dropbox so we can access it from any account or any device.

And an interesting thing that I've noticed that 1Password has been doing lately, when I go to log into a site, if that site has had any kind of security problems, it'll tell you, we think that this site may have been compromised, so change your password immediately, which is cool. I didn't know they were doing that. That's very cool.

I have not seen that yet, personally. Yeah, I apparently go to a lot of insecure sites. Shocking. Oh, dear. And we have an iTunes 5-star rating. We love those, so keep them up. This is from Baffer. Fun and insightful. As someone who feels like a fellow grumpy old geek myself, I really relate with and enjoy the show.

It provides some good context to modern technology and entertainment. New find for me, and I'm going to marathon it while coding the next few weeks. Thanks, guys. Nope. Thank you, man. Thank you very much. Or, ma'am, we don't know. That's true. I was using man as kind of the overall, I'm sure we'll get an email about that.

Yeah, you can't say that anymore. Yeah, that's totally wrong. So, yes, thank you for all your questions and comments. And please, if you want to talk to us, go to our Patreon page or at patreon.com slash GOG. Sign up there, and you can ask us any questions, or use the form on the website at grumpyoldgeeks.com.

I just completely bummed Jason out, because the first thing in the at the library section that Jason had in there was the long utopia, the long earth novel, that Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter that just came out, and I haven't finished it, so we can't talk about it.

You jerk. Between work and the Women's World Cup, I've been fucking busy, man. The Women's World Cup. Seriously, you stopped reading a Terry Pratchett novel, one of his last novels, to watch soccer. To be fair, I'm also kind of savoring it. Okay, well, see, that's a better excuse.

Savoring it is a better excuse. But I will finish it before next show, I promise, because I'm going to be sitting by a pool in Palm Springs, and I will be reading it as I sip my margarita. Okay, well, to take up your slacking, I read a lot this week.

The first book I read was The Fold by Peter Kline. He wrote the book 14, which we reviewed on a previous show probably a year or so ago, maybe shit, two years at this point. He's really good at cross-dimensional fiction. Okay. And this story is really fun, and I think it's going to be the start of a series.

I hope it's the start of a series. It's very similar to The Laundry Files by Charles Strauss. It's, you know, it's cool. It is a really cool story. I don't want to give away too much of it. But definitely, if you're into cross-dimensional science fiction, this is a book for you.

And I am, so adding to cart. Yes. And did you read 14? Yeah, I did read it, and I actually did enjoy it. It was pretty good. Yeah. And I didn't know how many books Peter Kline's has written, so I've got a whole back catalog to go dive into. So I'm really looking forward to that. I'm definitely excited, because if I like this one as well, that means, yes, that I love when I find a new author that's got a back catalog, and it gives me a shit ton to read for a while.

Yeah, he's got another series. I think it's called X-Heroes or something like that, but I'm definitely going to go back when I get some more credits, because I'm out of credits on Audible this month, because I've read a lot. Speaking of, the next one, I read The Alliance, Managing Talent in the Networked Age.

This is a book by Reid Hoffman, Ben Casnocha, and Chris Yee. If you're into books about management, this is one for you. I interviewed Chris Yee yesterday with Jordan on the Art of Charm podcast, so I read this yesterday morning, and Chris was an awesome guy.

He's super smart. Reid, I know, from the old days of, right before he started LinkedIn, smart guy. But yeah, this is a whole interesting book on a management take where they say, we know that you're not going to stay with our company forever. So we're looking at this as a short-term contract.

And they call them tours of duty, which I really kind of can't get behind, because the military jargon that they used in here was just a little bit too much for me, but the ideas are pretty good. I might have to say this, because I'm disturbed by the fact that they're coming at it from the perspective of the company saying to the employee, we know you're not going to stick around when I think it's more along the lines of from the employee looking at the company going, I don't have a long career here, do I?

Yeah. I mean, I really think it's coming more from the companies than the employees. We're not just jumping around willy-nilly. Well, a lot of, I mean, this is coming from, you know, Silicon Valley people who are like, oh, you're going to go off and be a founder somewhere. You know, thinking that everybody wants to be an entrepreneur.

Yeah. Okay. Which some of us now have learned that being an entrepreneur is kind of a pain in the ass, and we kind of like being corporate stooges. Exactly. The last book I read is The Like Switch, an ex-FBI agent's guide to influencing, attracting, and winning people over by Jack Schaefer.

I love these FBI guys, because they just teach you, like, you know, cool tricks on how to just talk to other people. And since I don't do that very often in real world, I talk to them over the internet for some strange reason, but it's a great read. Yeah. Do they mention things like maybe not using offensive words that people don't like?

No, that didn't really come up. No, it didn't come up. Interesting. Yeah. No, basically, you can get really far in the world if you just tilt your head, smile, and give your eyebrows a little nod. That's it. I mean, honestly, if I had to break the book down to how to attract and win over people, it's like, okay, tilt your head to the side, give your eyebrows a little twitch, and smile.

Okay. Okay, so maybe it wasn't the best book.

Dark Sky, again. Again? About them. Well, they finally started to send me little notifications. The notifications were never happening, and I've woken up two days in a row, and it's been a bit drizzly here in LA, and I've woken up in the morning and looked at my phone and found out that I'd gotten a notification that it was about to start drizzling at 11 p.m.

at night. Unfortunately, once again this morning, as I was standing outside and it was drizzling on me, it said that there was no precipitation in the area. They just love you. They really do. So I don't know what the hell's going on with this. Anyways. Yeah. The app is beautiful. The app is beautiful.

And this is the third time we've mentioned them on the show. So I would appreciate it if somebody from Dark Sky could write Brian back and tell him why he's getting rained on when you're saying he's not. I would appreciate it. I would appreciate it as well. Preach. Preach. So I got a door hanger this week for a new delivery app that's out here called DoorDash.

I'd never heard of them, and this is more just renting people to go pick up your shit when you're too lazy. And I tried them out because there was a $10 coupon on there, and I'm like, okay, I like coupons. I'm cheap and poor. So I tried them out, and I ordered some El Torito.

Yeah, they were late. It took them, it said like 47 minutes on the site for an estimate, and it took them about an hour and 20. The upside was the food was still hot, so the guy just couldn't get to El Torito in time. But as soon as he got there, he brought it right over.

Really nice guy. Apologized as soon as he came up. He's like, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Traffic was terrible on the 101. I'm like, yeah, but that's why you should be taking side streets if you're a professional delivery guy, which you're not, obviously. Right. So I tweeted it out, but I got immediately, upon delivery, I got two emails.

Actually, I got one email first, which was, I think, from the CEO. It's like, we're sorry this was late. We're still getting our handle under us in your neighborhood. I'm like, okay, that's nice, but excuse me, kickback, a coupon, something, because you were late. Right. Didn't get that.

But about six hours later, for some reason, somebody else from DoorDash wrote me back and like, we're really sorry. Here's seven bucks. Okay. I'll take it. So yeah, so with the coupon and the refund, my amazing burrito from El Torito cost me $3, so I'll take it.

I just, I really don't get the business model on this, and I feel like there are 18 different services in Los Angeles that are doing the exact same thing right now. Just off the top of my head, let me think. Well, food.com was the original. There's food.com, and I've never personally used any of these.

There's E24, which has enough money to be able to afford Snoop Dogg and that other actor guy for their commercials. There's Grubhub. There's now DoorDash. There's LA Byte. Oh, I haven't tried that one. I've tried the other ones. They're all pretty good. Yeah. So there, I mean, and there's already Uber Fresh. So.

Yeah, but they only deliver one thing. That's okay. They deliver the greatest sandwich in the world. So I'm fine with that. I just, you know, I'm just shocked that there are so many different competing companies out there doing the exact same thing when I could barely figure out a business model for it in the first place.

Okay. Well, and the Uber Fresh has changed now. They have pivoted. They have rebranded. They're now Uber Eats. That's right. It's Uber Eats now. So I'm going to check today to see what I can get. I am not anywhere where they deliver. So I will not be trying Uber Eats. Okay.

Yeah, they don't go to the Valley, which I can't, I honestly can't blame them either. And actually I don't use Uber Eats anymore anyways, because they've upped their delivery prices considerably and it's just ridiculous. It's like I'm paying almost double the amount for the sandwich that I want these days.

So man, this sandwich looks delicious though. Hop on my Vespa and go pick it up myself. You still have a Vespa? Yeah, it's awesome. God, you're such a douche. Yeah. I'm fine. I mean, I've spent no money on gas and I get around and it's fun.

But if that's douchey, sure. You done? Maybe. Okay.

Media candy. Remember back in the day when there was going to be a Steve Jobs documentary and we all got sort of excited until we found out that Aston Kusher was playing him? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I remember that. And did you see it? No, nobody did. Yeah. I know a couple of people that saw it and they're like, oh my God, what was this?

Yeah. So Aston Kusher, stay away. We're getting a new one. Yay. And it looks great. I don't know if you've watched the trailer yet. Link is in the show notes. It's called Steve Jobs. It looks absolutely fantastic. It's being directed by Danny Boyle, who we like.

It was written by Aaron Sorkin, who we like. And Michael Fassbender is playing Steve Jobs and he looks great in it. This got me excited. It looks okay. I mean, it looks okay. Okay. I was excited by it.

I thought it looked great. I think I like it. I like how they show he's an asshole. It's going to be good. Yeah. I mean, do you remember the old one, the Pirates of Silicon Valley? Yeah. Okay. That I thought was crap because before that I had seen Triumph of the Nerds, which is one of the best documentaries on the history of Silicon Valley.

So I would recommend everybody go check that out before they watch this. But yeah, I'm going to see it. I like Sorkin. You know. You know, just like Silicon, or Jesus Christ, what's the Facebook movie called? Again, The Social Network, yes. It's not a documentary. This is going to be a very politicized, very, very, very, you know, it's their take on it.

So it's going to be good. I think it's going to be really, really good. So I'm looking forward to it very much. And hopefully I'm right. Yes. Loosely based on, I think is pretty much how we're going to cover that one. Which is good. I'm fine with it. I want the editorial version from Sorkin. I think that'll be very interesting.

I was also sent a link to a talk to an article on Salon from a friend. It's called Gather Around Screwed Millennials. You must see this. It's about this movie called Advantageous, which is this woman, Jennifer Fang. It's her indie science fiction film that was very popular, apparently, at Sundance and is now available on Netflix.

I'm not a millennial, but we talk about this sort of thing all the time. It's supposedly some sort of sci-fi take on basically the middle class economy going away and there not being any jobs and all of us being screwed, which sounds right up my alley. It does, but I added this to my queue this morning based on your recommendation.

It only had two stars on Netflix. We'll see how that's going to pan out. I'm not entirely sure that putting a link in our show notes is me recommending something, Jason. Well, then why don't you put it in there? Come on. It's in our wheelhouse again. I want to let the people know. Let the peoples know.

And if any of you have watched this, why don't you let us know about it so we don't have to if it sucks. Way to crowdsource it. I'm crowdsourcing, man. Okay, so I put Triumph of the Nerds in the show notes, so check that out at grumpyoldgeeks.com slash 117 as you're hearing this.

There's an Amazon link to buy the DVDs, but I'm also going to put in links to archive.org because they've got video of it that you can get for free if you're cheap. Moron of the Week! Okay, this Moron of the Week is apparently me because there's a story that we put in here that I don't remember putting in here that Brian says was mine.

Daytona Beach is considering a gun range that serves alcohol. Yeah, that's pretty stupid, but let's more focus on you being the Moron of the Week right now, Jason, because I may say that you put the link in because I know I didn't, but the hack pad says that you put the link in too.

It's got your name right next to it. I know. I'm just like, when did I put that in? They have been shooting guns when you put this in. I do like booze and I do have a gun. I generally do not use the two together because that would be silly. That's why this is a very dumb thing to do.

Why would you have a gun range that serves alcohol? Well, the guy who's opening this up claims that customers who want to have a drink while they're at the gun range will have to swipe their ID, which would then prevent them from entering the gun range side of the business for 24 hours.

What the fuck? What, are you going to just have a cocktail and watch people shoot? I guess so. This is a, yeah. Well, it's, you know, it's in Florida. Yeah, I mean, honestly, they said it at the beginning of this article because nothing could possibly go wrong. Yeah.

Oh, Florida. I'm going to try your method next week. I'm just going to get drunk every single night and put in links. So I'll be super surprised when we do the show. You know, we got to keep it fresh for us. That's true.

We should probably just rename this segment to the, uh, to K of the week because he posts so damn much stuff.

Most of which is crap, but I always find something that he posts that I actually really do like. And this one was good. Uh, link in the show notes. It's from tickled.com. It's 20 rare historical photos. And because they have to be link-baity, the remainder of the title is number eight is haunting. Haunting.

This was posted over a year ago, but, uh, and insofar as basically anything can actually be considered rare with the internet these days, uh, I haven't seen a lot of these before. And there's some really great, interesting photos in there. Yeah. I'd seen most of them. They're, they're pretty cool. You know, um, the thing about George Takei now is I follow him on Facebook, but the algorithm has not sent me almost anything that he's posted in probably six months.

I think the only reason that I ended up seeing them is that many, many of my Facebook friends like his posts all the time. So it pops up in my algorithm fairly often. That's weird. Cause yeah, this is the part, this is the problem I have with Facebook. I can't see the things that I want to see, but yeah, these are cool pictures. This is definitely a good find.

Yeah, it's a really, really good find. And, uh, you know, it's really interesting, especially I, I, I do my little Beatles weirdness thing all the time. And you know how there's this whole conspiracy because, uh, on the cover of the, uh, Abbey Road album, Paul is walking across the street and he's barefoot. And that's supposed to signify that he's dead, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

Uh, the number, what is it? Number 17 photo on this list is showing them walking the opposite direction during the album, uh, Abbey Road album cover photo shoot. And he's wearing shoes in this photo. Interesting. Interesting. Not really. No, not really.

But there you go. Closing shout outs. Uh, huge shout out to the Team USA 2015 FIFA Women's World Cup team who are going to be in the final on Sunday after, uh, defeating Germany. That was a very conflicted game for me because I basically wanted both teams to win.

Uh, but they finally found their stride. Team USA played really, really well against Germany and Germany just kind of didn't show up. So, uh, they are in the final and good on them. They will be playing Japan who beat, uh, England yesterday in heart rendering fashion. Uh, just the worst thing I've ever seen happen to a player before, an own goal in extra time.

Yeah, you got to tell me what this was because I saw your Facebook post. I'm like, what happened? Uh, Japan passed the ball up. They were getting a good shot. One of the English defenders was coming after it, kind of tripped a little bit and kicked the ball in, hit the cross post and went into their own goal, uh, with basically just like 15 seconds left in the game.

So Japan won. You had one job. It's fucking heartbreaking. You got to feel so bad for that girl. And, and, you know, as, as the game ended, I mean, she's just sitting on the field weeping. I mean, just falling apart and her teammates are trying to just get her off the field.

So the camera can hang her over that. Um, no, that only happens if you're South American. That's, that's when they kill players that don't do well. So anyways, uh, the women's world cup has been fantastic to watch and, uh, the final should be absolutely great. Uh, good job team USA. Proud of you.

Proud of you. Did anybody take their shirt off? Like last time? Uh, why is it all you hold my male friends that don't follow soccer? Ask that question. Because it was, it's a pertinent question. Last time I saw women's soccer, she was running around taking a shirt off, which is that 1990 something 94 Brandy Chastain.

Actually, that was the last time I saw women's soccer. So very, very funny that you should mention that. And I'm going to have to add something to the show notes now. Uh, no, none of the female players did that, but there was a male fan in the crowd for the game that dressed up as Brandy Chastain doing that. So we will put that photo in the show.

That's awesome. Reviewing pleasure and a good on him. That was actually very funny, dude. You're you're that was well-played, sir. Well-played, sir. So I'm going to San Diego next weekend. Oh, are you for Comic-Con? Believe it or not. The one thing that I hate more than anything in the world is a lot of people in one place.

Yes. And, um, it turns out, uh, Robert Fogarty, friend of the show, our voiceover guy, it's his birthday on Saturday. So I'm going to go to a stadium and run from zombies during the day. And at night, I'm going to go see the Nerdist podcast done live.

Now, these guys figured it out because they're charging 50 bucks a ticket. Wow. Yeah. It's ridiculously expensive. But the only reason I'm going to go do this is, well, I love Bob and I want to see him on his birthday. But also the guest in the show is, uh, Sir Ben Kingsley, who is one of my favorite actors of all time.

Oh, very cool. So the chance to see him in person, I think is, you know, worth the trip. So now I just got to figure out how I'm going to get to San Diego and avoid the traffic. I might, I can take the train. I have a feeling we're going to be doing our podcast a little bit early next week then. Well, I'm going down on Saturday.

Okay. All right. Fair enough. Yeah. No, I'm not going to go down on Friday. It's going to be, you know how long it takes to get to San Diego during Comic-Con from LA? Yes, I do. You might as well stay here and teleconference it. No doubt. Yeah. No. And, uh, Gigi Edgley is doing a bunch of signings down there too. So if you're going to the show and you're a fan of Farscape, go check out ggedgely.com.

She's got all of her, uh, signing stuff up there because I put it up there because I run her website for her. So if you're at Comic-Con, uh, don't look for me because I will not actually be at Comic-Con. I'll just be running from zombies and hanging out at Nerdist by myself because I'm not sitting with anybody.

Well, I'm looking forward to your lonely report. Yes. So thanks for listening. I'm Jason DeFilippo and you can find out more about me at jpd.me. And I'm Brian Schulmeister and you can follow me on Twitter at Slender Fungus. Wait, not at, at Slender Fungus? What happened? You dropped an at.

I'd like to keep you on your toes, Jason. Okay. Until next time, Grumpy Old Geeks is a fan-supported show. Check out our Patreon page at patreon.com slash GOG. We really appreciate your support. If you don't want to or can't donate but still want to support the show, please go to grumpyoldgeeks.com slash iTunes and leave us a few words and five stars or tell a friend about the show.

Music for the show is provided by Andy Stachansky. You can follow Andy at twitter.com slash house of Andy. And he's also on SoundCloud, which you can get to by going to grumpyoldgeeks.com slash Andy. Show notes for all the links discussed in this episode can be found at grumpyoldgeeks.com slash 117.

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