128: Demand your Replicator

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Ich bin ein großer Bahnhof. Save that for the bumper on the intro. Everybody misses those. Grumpy Old Geeks, a weekly talk show hosted by Brian Schulmeister and Jason DeFilippo, discussing the finer points of what went wrong on the internet and who's to blame.

Welcome to Grumpy Old Geeks for September 18th, 2015, episode 128. I am Jason DeFilippo. And I'm Brian Schulmeister. Hi, Jason. Hi, Brian. How are you doing today? I'm doing all right. How about you? I'm doing fine. Just peachy keen.

Excellent. I want to get something out of the way right away for our listeners, because I know our long-term listeners are very curious about this. It's an ongoing story on Grumpy Old Geeks. Yes, the iOS update turned on Bluetooth. Oh, I'm glad you got that out of the way, because, you know, yes, audiences everywhere were just waiting to know.

They were sitting on tinterhooks, or is it tender? It's tinterhooks, right? I thought it was pins and needles, but... Well, that's another way to say it. It changed so much stuff, I figured I wouldn't even try it this time. I'm more curious about the point releases, because then we get the evens and the odds, but...

Yeah. I mean, I guess we can talk about iOS 9 really quick, because I don't think either of us really want to discuss it too much. Oh, God, no. There are so many douchebags that are out there discussing it on other podcasts that we don't need to join that club. We've got a little bit of Apple talk, but, yeah, let's just do it quick.

Yeah. The only thing that I still want that I still haven't gotten, and we're on version 9 now, is a close all apps something or other. Like, hit the button twice, do some sort of fancy thing, they all close at once. Seriously. Still can't get that. I know. We finally got a keyboard that has uppercase and lowercase.

I know. That's very nice. The font is fine. It doesn't bother me. It runs fine. It runs great. I don't care. This is a very boring update to me. Yeah. Yeah. Meh. Yeah. Moving on. The one thing that I was looking forward to, though, was the watch OS update, which is still not out because it broke.

Okay. I did that, and I snickered, and I thought of you. I know. The one thing, though, is that you asked me to go and do the whole Apple Pay with my watch thing so I could report back and tell you how it goes. Yes. Here's the deal with the Apple Watch and Apple Pay. Once you get it set up and figure out how to do it, because here's how it worked.

I got it. I got my cards on my watch, right? I'm all set up. I go to Trader Joe's for the first time, and I'm like, you guys are set up for Apple Pay, and he's like, yeah, yeah, yeah, give it a shot. And so all you're supposed to do is double tap the button and hold it up to the reader. Okay. And the one problem is they don't tell you where on the reader to hold it up to.

So I'm waving my arm around this thing, but once you start going, then, like, you have to keep tipping your wrist. And I'm like, and the guy's like, yeah, I've seen people do it, and they're pretty much doing the same thing you are. I'm like, just keep going. You'll get there. As the people behind me are staring at me, so I'm just like, you know what?

And I started to pull up my wallet. I still had my arm over it, so I went to grab my wallet to just put a card in and say, screw it. And then it picked up and went, boop, got it. I'm like, oh, well, I wasn't paying attention to where it went. Anyway, he's like, I'm like, oh, wait. It comes up with the screen, like, credit or debit type of thing.

And then I'm like, okay. He's like, oh, you still have to press the two buttons. I hit credit and then allow. Because I'm putting, this is all going on Amex because I still haven't been able to get my city cards to work. And then that was it. I'm like, oh, okay.

Next time, I went to Rite Aid. And the guy's like, oh, here's the tip. Put it right here, like at the very top center of the keypad, like over the screen. He's like, hold it here at the top center. That's where the sensor is. And I'm like, okay, double tap, hold it up there.

Would not work. So I pull out my credit card, pay. But now I've been going back to Trader Joe's and get, because I go there every day to get something or other, some garlic or cauliflower or whatnot. Got it down to a science. Works perfectly. Now, now that I know where the sensor is, I just double tap it, hold my watch up to it, get the little checkbox, two buttons, done.

Super fast, super easy. That's interesting because, you know, like I said, on the phone, it actually requires that you do the thumbprint to approve it. And you don't have to do that with the watch, obviously. Well, the trick with the watch is when you put the watch on, you have to off the watch. So I have to type in a key code.

So that key code goes to the phone. So it is authorized. Gotcha. Yeah. And you have to have the phone with you. And how do you switch through credit cards? I guess you just do a little watch. Yeah, it's super easy. It's really, actually, really nice. Now that I've got the hang of it and I've been using it, I really, really actually like it.

I told you that you would start to use it all the time. It is so convenient. It is really convenient. And, you know, when I go to places where I have to actually pull out my wallet, I'm like, here's the one thing, though. Here's the one thing that there is no app for. The looks that the cashiers give you that just like, why are you such a douchebag when you're paying with your watch?

You cannot get rid of that. There is no app for that at all. Yeah. No, you don't have that. The plus side of the phone is everybody just has their phones out the whole time anyway. So the cashiers and everybody just kind of looks at you as like magically you've paid. Yeah. Yeah. Not the douchey watch factor.

Yeah. The watch is the problem. The watch is. Yeah. There's the title. The watch is the problem. The watch is the problem. Oh, man. So I posted an article in here because you were always talking about Star Trek economies. Yes. And somebody wrote a book.

And basically, it's called like Treconomics. May I point out that somebody crowdfunded a book? Yeah. No, Jesus Christ. And it's in the title of the article is Star Trek's Utopia is Already Here. And I'm just like, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh.

This is like throwing a stake to a lion. Let me throw this out. Did you read the article? I did read the article. What did you think? I think it's a lovely concept. That's never, ever going to work. The Star Trek economy is a beautiful, wonderful utopian dream to which we should all strive to get to.

But until we have the replicator, that magical machine that he talks about in the fifth paragraph, we will never fucking have this. Yep. There you go. That's my entire opinion of the article. It's all complete and utter bullshit. There have been books about the Star Trek economy before that weren't crowdfunded, dear sir, that actually got, you know, they wrote it and then got paid for it just the normal way.

But, yeah, it's a good article. I love the Star Trek economy. It's just we're never going to have it. And, God, I wish people would shut up about talking about how we're moving towards it because we're not. There is the big leap of having a replicator that creates things from nothing so there's no more scarcity. We do not have that.

We will not have that. We will never have that. Yeah, it's like, you know, hey, man, we're almost getting close to Harry Potter because we've got robes and we have brooms, but we're just, we're waiting for the magic wands. Yes, there's no magic, assholes. God damn.

No, so, you know, it's a fine article, but we're not getting there. I know. It's fiction. That's the best part of the article, of course, because I, the whole German thing at the end where if for a brief period of time, it looked like Germany looked a bit like Star Trek's utopia because they took on refugees because that's what Picard would do.

Who are these fucking people? Oh, my God. Yeah. No, this was, I mean, even I was yelling at the screen on this one. I'm like, it's like, oh, like caloric in, uh, was it housing and calories or like, you know, running down to zero.

I'm like, uh, fuck you and bullshit because I pay a shit ton in rent and food is expensive. So I don't know where this zero is going to. Yeah, I don't understand that either. And if I actually, I would love to get this guy on our podcast because I like to go, okay, what calories are going down to zero? Oh, you're talking about McDonald's, the stuff that kills you.

Oh, ramen. And it's all, it's all artificially brought down prices. Anyways, dickheads. Yeah. Anyways, moving on. No replicator, no Star Trek economy. Apparently the worldwide anti-corporatist backlash has begun though. Oh, what do you mean has begun? Yeah, I was going to say this article actually upset me a little bit too.

This is a Tom Hartman over at, uh, his blog and he, uh, writes for, I believe the guardian as well as a few other English papers. But, uh, uh, a member of parliament for a small North London district called Islington North, where I believe friend of the show, Carl Wallinger lives, uh, officially won election as leader of the UK labor and he is basically the British version of Bernie Sanders.

Unfortunately, I don't think one small area is going to do too much. And, uh, you know, it's nice to talk about Bernie Sanders. I love Bernie Sanders, but there's no way in hell he's going to win the election here in the U S and it's going to take a lot more. But I do appreciate any articles about this stuff and I like to see it out in the consciousness.

And yeah, and much like the, uh, Star Trek utopia, we should strive for this as well. Yeah. And, and when they say the corporate backlash has begun, do you remember this, this little thing called the, the Luddites back in the day? I started a long time ago. So yeah, well, and then there was the whole 99% movement with the wall street thing.

And then it's just kind of where occupy and all that all street. Yeah. This has been going around for a while, but hopefully, you know, let's, let's, let's get it going. As we are rocketing towards that Star Trek utopia, uh, I think there's a couple of people that feel they may be left out of it.

Such as the over thousand people that Qualcomm has just laid off in San Diego or the 30,000 people that are losing jobs from HP. Yeah, probably. But they wish they had those replicators. Oh man, uh, HP, I, is HP still a thing?

That sounds like a John Oliver segment. Why is this still a thing? And it's in Qualcomm. Do you remember you, Dora? I, I, yes, I still use Thunderbird because it looks like you, Dora. Ah, you Dora. I moved to mail plane, but we'll talk about that in another segment. Yeah. Well, HP, I have, I'm looking at an HP printer right now.

HP makes a very somewhat affordable, halfway decent laptops. I have an HP office jet pro 8610 sitting next to my desk. Wow. It's like you wrote your own headline with a question, Jason, because it's obviously wrong. Yes. HP is still relevant. No, but HP, uh, enterprise services is the problem.

Oh, well, who fucking cares about that? Well, that's where the, that's where all their money keeps going. Cause they keep buying really stupid companies. That's where they've lost billions, billions. Billions. Hey, uh, HP, uh, Meg Whitman, go ahead and just make your printers work better.

And I think you'll do all right as a company and stop messing around with this stuff. I think the biggest issue is that the, everybody's like wise to the ink jet thing now. It's like, you know, Oh yeah. Okay. Why am I spending money on this ink for a printer that costs more than gold?

You know? Yeah. So people just stopped printing. It's like, Oh, well, I don't have to print it. You can just look at it on my phone here and stick it. Then they shove it in your face. Yeah. See, uh, take it, take a quick lesson world. All those, uh, little, little infographics and, and cut and paste thing that you put at the end of your email saying printing kills trees, use digital instead.

None of that worked. What actually worked was charging us too much for ink. Yeah. That, that is what's finally getting us to a paperless office. Yep. Okay. It wouldn't be a news time if we didn't talk about the Ahmed Mohammed issue. Right. Yeah. So yes, the kid, the kid who made a clock and was arrested.

Hey, wait, hold on a second. Something stupid happened in Texas. Yeah. No shit. Jesus Christ. What's coming to an end? Oh no. Yeah. Stupid people in Texas. Unbelievable. I was, it's funny. I actually just did an interview with somebody yesterday who left Texas for Oregon because, uh, I shit you not.

Apparently Texas has passed a bill that says that you can carry guns, that the students can can carry guns into classrooms on universities. Uh-huh. You're against this, Jason? You bet. Dude. Look, I'm a responsible gun owner.

When, when, when stupid shit happens, you give me credit. Give me some fucking credit. Okay. I'd be running out to Walmart, buying a 10 gallon hat and driving to TXS. Jesus. No, this is one of the worst ideas in history. And then this is what happened right after that. Some professor shot himself in the foot, literally in class.

Cause he brought a gun to class. I don't have the links for this. This is all anecdotal, but man, it was, I was in tears laughing yesterday, but she literally left the state of Texas because they are so stupid. Yeah. Well, sorry to our Texan listeners, but sometimes you just gotta, you gotta laugh at yourself.

This was supremely stupid and actually not just stupid. It was, let's be, let's call it what it is. It was fucking racist. Or religionist. Or religionist. But no, if he was a white Muslim, it would have been fine. Yes. Anyways, yeah, I, this was a horrible, uh, but I do appreciate and love the response that happened online.

Uh, not only with, with, you know, the president, uh, and you know, even Mark Zuckerberg, but just regular people. This was, uh, this is a, this is one of those situations of, of social media done good. Yeah, no, no doubt. This kid's going to do a okay. Uh, he does the breaking news from this morning though.

He is transferring schools as well. He should. So he should transfer States. Yes. Transfer schools, transfer States. You know what? I, I, I agree with that a hundred percent. Get the hell out of Texas. It's funny. Jim Jeffries was, uh, the, the Australian comedian was hosting, uh, co-hosting on, on one of Corolla's podcasts.

I can't remember which one. And he was basically saying the same thing as like, I understand that you were born in Kentucky and you were born gay, but get the fuck out. Yeah. What are you doing there? They don't want you. You don't want them. Move.

Uh huh. It reminds me of the old Sam Kinison bit about Ethiopians. It's like, there's no food leave. Yeah. Well, we don't need to send them food. We need to send them you halls. Yes, exactly. I think we will join the rest of the community and, uh, offering Ahmed Mohammed, a free internship at a grumpy old geeks.com if you'd like it.

Oh, absolutely. Anytime, anytime. You're more than welcome to edit our shows. Oh, definitely. So I found a, uh, I found an interesting study on how Twitter users can generate better ideas. Get off Twitter. No, actually.

Uh, no, it, here's, here's the fun part. Basically putting people in your network that you disagree with and don't have the same view. So you don't have an echo chamber. Uh, so basically the same thing that we've always said about, don't just read CNN.com.

Also check out foxnews.com. Exactly. But now we have a study. So we have science. I'm reasonably sure we had studies before that just didn't involve Twitter. I know. I wish somebody would have paid. How do I get these jobs where I just redo studies that have already been done for things that are already proven and just apply them to a stupid technology?

Oh, we'll go back to academia. Oh, maybe I should. Oh, no, thank you. You can write me at brian.something.edu. I wasn't ready for that one. Okay, so are you ready for my Betteridge's Law of, of headlines for the week?

Sure. Do eBooks earn more money at lower prices? Let me guess. No. Uh, that would be pretty much no. Okay. Maybe for the publishers, but definitely not for the authors. No, of course not. Yep. Yeah.

Because the authors get a, they, they have a set fee or set royalty on eBooks. So when the publishers raise the price, they may be making more money on each eBook, but the authors still get the same amount, but they're selling less eBooks because the price is too damn high.

Yep. Yeah. Fuck you. Yeah. Yeah. That's unfortunate, but, uh, it's the truth. But then, yeah, I don't understand. Everybody thinks they're breaking some sort of model and this is a better way to go. And we, every time that we get any, any kind of daylight on, on the actual finances behind this stuff, we always find out it doesn't matter.

Publishers are fine. Authors are screwed. Yeah. Music industry, take that to whatever industry you want, except for the movie industry. Cause somehow if you're a movie star, you can still manage to make gazillions of dollars. Yeah. Yeah. Actually, it's funny. I have a friend who just lost her job. Uh, she got, she got, uh, shit canned and she's actually working as an extra today.

Oh, okay. So that's how she makes money when, when there's nothing, uh, nothing else going on. So you can still make money in the movie industry. What's the going rate for the, uh, for the extras these days, a hundred bucks in a sandwich. Uh, no, I think she makes close to about 700 bucks a day. Fuck sign us up.

Yeah. You have to, but you have to have a speaking role or it's 800 bucks and you have to have a speaking role. Right. Gotcha. So there, there are caveats, but anyway, so, and, uh, in, in ridiculous news of the week, which also probably has been seen by everybody, San Francisco house sitter rents out someone else's apartment on Airbnb.

And you know, this has been a, this has been happening a lot. Yes, it has. This guy just got busted because he rented it out to somebody who knew the people whose house he was renting out. Like, Oh, I'm looking at your wedding photos and I, I know your cat. It's like, Oh Jesus.

So this guy was, this is, this is a classic case of double dipping. He was getting paid to be a house sitter and then he was getting paid to rent the house out. Yeah. Good times. I tell you what though, man, this is the global arbitration economy. This is, this should have been in, in seriously in like Tim Ferriss's, uh, latest book.

I agree. Mm-hmm. Yeah. So I got two quick app stories. Okay. There's a dating app for people that love bacon. Ooh. What's it called? Just a good, uh, marketing ploy from Oscar Mayer. So, uh, what is it called? I don't even know. Well, way to do your research.

It's called sizzle. It's called sizzle. Hey, I got the story, man. And I actually have apps later on. You're going to be shocked by this. Also, some really smart kids have figured out something very funny and parents beware as per usual. I mean, this is just an update of what we used to do a long time ago with, without technology as well.

But, uh, there's a pocket calculator app showing up on kids' phones that, uh, is not a calculator. Oh, the calculator percent. The calculator percent, which allows you to store private photos if you enter in a certain code in the calculator. Cleverly, the calculator actually does function as well.

Yeah. You know what though? This was out for like iPhone, the, the 3g, like as soon as the app store came around, I had an app like this, exactly like this. This is not new. Yeah. This is somebody just repurposing an old idea and actually just getting, you know, something new.

Yeah. Well, you know, we have to have the terror stories for the parents. Let's keep everybody scared. It's not like parents know how to do the Snapchat thing anyways, where everybody's just doing the same shit. At least this lets you save it. I suppose. Parents are too busy on Ashley Madison.

That's right.

Security. In a bit of irony, uh, our security segment is going to be very short this week because I'm preparing to go to Derby con, which is a security conference. So I haven't had time to do a ton of research.

I expect it to be very long next week. Uh, probably actually we may just end up killing the segment after next week after we learned that there is no security, but we knew that already. We did. We did, but it's kind of fun anyway. Um, so the Pentagon has been hacked again.

Oh, guess how they were hacked. Um, no, I don't know. The food court. Really? Credit cards. Credit cards at the food court. I love this. So now they know who shops at the food court at the Pentagon. So you can correlate that data with your Ashley Madison data, your other umpteen gazillion hacks this year and find out who is actually at home at the Pentagon and then start targeting who eats at the cheapest restaurant because they're the ones that are probably going to be likely to flip his spies because they need the most money.

Okay. I think you just wrote the plot for the Americans this, this season. I just, no, I wrote the plot for the cold war. I just took that from history. All right. Fair enough. Uh, Twitter is, uh, facing a new proposed class action lawsuit. Uh, really? Uh, uh, they violated user privacy because they've been scanning direct messages.

Uh, sorry, their service, you don't pay. Exactly. Is it in the, is it in the TOS that they're not allowed to do that? I'd assume not. Probably not. That's why Twitter is calling the allegations meritless because basically you don't pay for it. The TOS says they can do whatever the F they want.

Screw you. Yeah. Yeah. If you, that, that was a given. I mean, if you've ever, if you remember the Gmail kerfuffle at the beginning, they're like, oh my God, we're, they're scanning our email to give us ads. It's like, yeah, but did you pay for Gmail? No, shut the hell up. Yeah. I, it always amazes me when the, these lawyers that basically have no tech ground, just like charge in thinking that they're going to get something out of this one.

There's no chance. You don't have any rights. If you're not paying for something, you do not. You are willingly putting all your whatever's in there, including your, your penai, if that is your choice. There you go. It's it. You, you, you get nothing. You get nothing. You click to the TOS. You're fucked.

Yes. Run your own mail server. If that's important to you or run your own Twitter server, which you will sit there and tweet to yourself. Exactly. Just don't do it. If you're Hillary Clinton. Ooh. See what I did there. I see what you did there. We talked about blockchain in the past and I'm still not a hundred percent wrap my mind around what it is and, and how it's going to work in any kind of real economy.

And I'm going to stop trying to figure it out because nine of the world's biggest banks have formed a blockchain partnership. And I figure if nine of the world's biggest banks are behind it, I don't like it. No, the thing about it is, you know, when you have a cash register, you have, you have two rolls of paper in there.

One of them is just the, the ongoing ledger of everything that's happened. The other are the ones that you give to the patrons. The ones passed out. Yes. So if you had every cash register in the world writing to the same giant piece of paper. Yes.

That's exactly what the blockchain is. So everybody can go back and look at that and, and verify that every transaction is what happened. So you can go back and look at the history of where all this money went. So this is the ultimate big data. Oh God. Yeah. Just ever made by everyone ever in the entire world.

No, it's not that it's not about the purchases. It's about trading. It's about post trading data and where the, who's, who's getting what after the trades. So it's not about everything, you know, it's not like Visa and MasterCard and is, I don't know, even if discovers a thing, but caveat would be yet.

Yet. Oh, absolutely. These guys are going to try and figure this out, but that would. Which is why I had, like I said, from the beginning, I apparently no longer like blockchain. It can be used for evil. Oh, shocking. Not just murder and drugs on the Silk Road. Yes.

So the air force is doing something really kind of interesting. They have developed a way to basically put a hacking platform on a plane. Okay. So they can crack closed networks on a plane.

Yeah. Networks on a plane. Get these motherfucking networks off my motherfucking plane. I was going to let you do it. Yeah, I know. I know. Yeah. I know. You're, you're, you're trying to be less foul mouth than I'm trying to be more. I know. Uh, so the, the interesting thing about this is it's a, it's a four engine prop plane.

Right. Um, couldn't you hear that coming? It's like, oh, our network's compromised. I wonder who it was. Yeah. This is a, this is an interesting thing. Okay. Good luck with that. Uh, it's probably going to work. Uh, you know, these guys, I doubt they even need it.

Why don't they just have a satellite to doing it? Uh, well, no, you gotta, you gotta get close so you can get to the transmitters. That's exactly why, because it's even over them long enough. That's the thing. You can circle in a plane. They do, they do make turns. You can't go in a circle in a plane.

It's not always going in a straight line, you know? Oh, I didn't know that. Thanks, Jason. You're welcome. Good thing I let you borrow that. Ask the pilot book. Exactly. So I think this is going to be fun. Okay. Good times. I'd like to give a shout out to friend of the show, Fergal, who sent us some things he really wanted us to discuss, but we didn't get around to it.

So sorry, man. Yeah. Uh, try sending them not three minutes before the show next week. And we'll love to talk about them. Cause there was a cool WordPress hack in there that I wanted to talk about. Yeah. So next time when Jason comes back, super paranoid again, return of the tin hat. Oh, by the way, remember how I talk about how sometimes the auto update kind of screws everything up.

I apologize for grumpy old geeks.com being down for a little while because a plugin updated automatically that broke everything. Oh yeah. I did notice that Jason. Yes. Yes. You didn't tell me, but I went and fixed it immediately. I didn't tell you. I just noticed it this morning. Oh yes.

It was the, uh, it was the iTunes ratings plugin. And I noticed the site being down, but I did notice that the plugin is no longer working. Yes. I've been in touch with the author of the plugin and he's like, Oh, Oh, I, I did a bunch of testing, but I, I, I'm sorry. I didn't know that broke everything.

A bunch of testing, but not enough. Not enough comment of the week. This first comment of the week comes to us from Brett in Fresno. Uh, he is also, uh, this guy is from Twitter.

I generally don't grab Twitter comments, but I thought this was funny. Uh, GOG podcast. Love the rant. Brian goes on at 1750 of pod one 26. Want to clip that out and attach it to the newsroom clip on YouTube. Oh, thanks. Uh, I mean, I think I was kind of basically just trying to recreate it from memory anyways.

So it was inspired by inspired by yes, that was a good one. Uh, then we got, uh, we also generally don't do them on Facebook because Facebook is so it's almost impossible to find the comments, but we actually tell you not to send us comments on Facebook. So what the fuck are you doing?

Don't do it on Facebook. Cause we never fricking find anything there. Uh, this is from Robbie Wagner. Hey guys, love the show, but I was listening to the new episode and there was a random horn noise at one 1501. What happened, uh, Jason. Uh, so we only have enough support on patrion.com slash GOG for us to give a shit for 59 minutes of the show.

And this happened at one hour and 15 minutes. So after that, you get what you get. So if you'd like to donate at patrion.com slash GOG to get a full horn free episode, then be my guest. Um, also fuck websites that have autoplay videos because that's what happened. I clicked on the wrong link.

I am so going back, going into our Patreon page and changing our levels at $500 per month. We will have horn free episodes. Horn free episodes. Please be my guest. The whole episode beyond the 59th minute. Oh, good times.

Your turn, Jason. I know. Oh, I know. Great show from just Aaron, Aaron. How do you, how the hell would you say this? Just, just Aaron. Just, just Aaron. This is from iTunes and it's a five-star rating. It is a five-star rating from iTunes from just Aaron. As we'll go with that.

It sounds very Irish. Hey, Vagoda. Awesome show. Okay. You got to read the whole thing in an Irish accent. Oh no, no, no. I can't do that. Awesome show. Their take particularly on streaming music needs to be picked up by other tech podcasts that don't seem to have caught onto the fact that if artists are reporting one thing and the service is another, maybe the labels are keeping the money.

You think? They don't even really annoy me when they miss the mark like they did last week talking about ad blocking. It's not about stopping sites from making money. It's about the tracking the ad networks are doing and the technical load it adds to the pages. Also, your argument is one that Leo Laporte has been giving for two months on security now.

So, you know. Well, I mean. Hurry up because I got something to say. Whatever the reason for it, the result is still the same. Yes, there's no revenue for the sites with the ad-based model that we all collectively decided that we wanted to have because it's awesome. I don't care about the reason.

And the argument that we were making is the side of it that concerns us, which is how the money issue. How are people going to make any money? That's our focus. I totally get the technical load it adds to pages and all that. And that's not the real reason. Anyways. Okay.

Here we go. So, I stopped listening to security now because Steve Gibson is usually wrong on a lot of things. And so is Leo Laporte. They're right on some things. But to be compared to that makes me very queasy. And I'm a little bit annoyed. But I appreciate the slap in the face because here's the deal with the ad blockers, at least in iOS 9.

And I did put some more thought into it because last week I didn't put any thought into it. What they're doing is they're letting plugins manipulate the DOM. You know, the document object model. So, to do some really clever things, you know, when a page loads, you get the HTML and then the browser renders it.

But these plugins get a chance to do different things with it. So, by default, if you let any plugin have access to the document object model, somebody is going to write an ad blocker. I think that we were lazy in just saying, oh, ad blockers are coming, but not thinking about the fact that, oh, other amazing plugins are going to come.

That's the part that really got to me. The whole ad blocker thing, you know, I was just like, what the hell is Apple thinking? And it's like, oh, they're thinking that they want to make their browser better on mobile platforms because mobile is where everybody's at.

So, you know, that was my laziness on that point. But I was just, I had a really long week, dude. I'm sorry about that. But I was thinking about it this morning. I'm like, oh, yeah, this is just letting plugins have access to the DOM. And out of that, you're going to get ad blockers because it's the basically easiest thing that you can do when you have DOM access.

And track, you know, tracking plugins that like ghostery that get rid of everything. Right. So that's all the technical aspect of it. But I'm still focused on the bigger picture and the what happens after, which is no revenue for the sites. You know what, though? I, at this point, I almost don't give a shit.

I'm getting to the point where I don't give a shit. It's really, it's really kind of sad because like back in the old days, we were, we were doing things. Imagine if Patreon existed in 1994 and we would just have a sponsorship model for everything. You know, what have we gotten? What, what, what is the advertising model given us besides listicles?

And, you know, yeah, that is the unfortunate aspect. I mean, you look at what is popular on the web based on the advertising models, it's BuzzFeed. Yeah. So, and, you know, maybe if we didn't have the advertising model, paywalls would have caught on and everybody would have paid for their shit. Oh, such a dream.

Such a good dream. Dude. I mean, I've worked on sites that had paywalled back in the nineties that worked. Spew worked with a paywall. We made a ton of money. And then, you know, then everybody went to the advertising model and then nobody wanted to pay for the paywalls anymore. And it's like, oh, well that sucks. Yeah.

I mean, I was running subscription based fan clubs for, for artists and those were fantastically successful for quite a long time until the entire music industry tanked and nobody care about anything. So, yeah. So I'm putting a link in, in the show notes called welcome to the block party, the internet after ad blocking by Casey Johnston and read it if you want, but it's, I don't know.

Yeah. This is going to be an ongoing debate that's going to go on for quite a while. We're going to, we're going to see what's actually going to be happening with this and with these various sites that basically make revenue off of ads and, and as they slowly triple away, we're going to see, we're going to see what happens. So we'll keep talking about it. We aren't the only people that want to talk about it.

We got some more comments on grumpy old geeks.com about ad blockers. This is from Victor Sage regarding Apple ad blockers. The working theory going around seems to be that Apple won't let the ad blockers block the Apple's ad service. I add this will push websites to create native apps. And from Shane Simmons, really simple theory on why Apple is adding an ad blocker, though it's not my own, a significant chunk of Google's mobile revenue comes from iOS devices.

So a lot of people are thinking we're about to enter into the big ad war. Yeah. And I think that, I think that's, I think honestly, both of those are false. Yeah, me too. Because, because of just what I said. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I agree. So Gabriel writes, if possible, I'd like to hear more about that car ownership math.

I have a 14 year old Honda Accord. Yearly maintenance is less than two lease payments. Not sure. I understand why you say it's better to lease every two years. Also, most car leases have mileage limits. Big constraint. I tend to agree. I know Jason has a different thought on this as, as that's why we have this comment.

I have, since I've been financially able to, always bought my cars rather than leased, but I keep mine long time, usually five to 10 years at the very least. Unlike an iPhone, which will last me two years tops. So it makes a lot more sense because this is where the discussion came from for me to just keep buying a new iPhone all the time because I replace them all the time.

The general theory that I've always understood about cars is if you want a new car every two years or so you lease, if you're take care of your cars and you keep them for a long time, you buy them. I'm throwing two links in the show notes, one from Consumer Reports and one from Lifehacker that both kind of run through the general theory and math behind leasing versus buying.

Yeah. And also I would like to clarify that this math comes from, uh, 1988. This was back when my dad was a, he was a door to door salesman selling, uh, security systems for Westinghouse. Right.

And, uh, I, I may have not updated the math since then, but I've had, I've owned my car. I bought it in 2008 and I'm still driving it and I keep it, I keep it in tip top shape and I'm going to keep it until the wheels fall off of the damn thing. So Jason himself didn't believe in what he said in that episode.

No, no, no. But the math is different when you're talking about phones, you know, I'd have to go back and re-listen to it because it is a different, it's not like the car thing. Oh, I agree. Yeah. It was apples and oranges and I may have misspoke. Like I said, man, I was beat last week. Damn. Yeah. So I definitely think that buying a car is better, but with certain caveats.

Again, there are certain specific situations in which you'd want to lease, but it's very much like your iPhone because you want a new one every year and a half. Uh, there we go. So one more comment, uh, from grumpy old geeks.com from Miranda. Uh, just listened to episode one 25 brony Madison. Definitely agree with you on the joy of listening to a full music album over streaming services.

Just got back from a trip to Iceland and while they're purchased in, I'm never going to get this right as gear trusty CD from a little, that's pretty close. Yeah, it's pretty close from a little record store in Reykjavik. The gal at the desk recommended the CD. I had no idea who the artist was or what it sounded like. We then drove through breathtaking landscapes, listening to an epic soundtrack for the first time.

Now back in the States, that CD is my one connection to that mystical place. There's no way I would have had that same experience by streaming that music. Cheers. Oh, thanks, Miranda. And, uh, sounds like a good trip. Technically, once, uh, once the internet of things is going on and, and car play is in every device and you can Spotify yourself while driving around Iceland, you can have that same experience.

The problem is it's, uh, as I've always said, Spotify and streaming services are inherently not built for the full album experience or for discovering things like that. You, you just don't do that with streaming services. It's piecemeal. You go and you listen to one Taylor Swift song and then you fuck off and do, go do something else.

Kill yourself if you're listening to a Taylor Swift song. Exactly. And, uh, Iceland just sounds amazing. And it's, Iceland has consistently brought us some very odd, wonderful musicians. I don't know who that is, but I'm going to listen to it. Yeah, me too. And if you haven't listened to any of these other Icelandic artists, please do.

And perhaps they will keep the memory of what sounds like a good trip alive. Uh, Sigur Ross, Gus, Gus Bjork, and of course the sugar cubes and Emiliana Torini, uh, all great artists, all from Iceland. I've never heard of Emiliana Torini. All the other ones, of course, are like in my playlist, but you actually have heard of Emiliana Torini.

You just don't know it. She did the last song for one of the Lord of the Rings movies. Oh, really? Okay. I'll check it out. Um, yeah. And I think, you know, I'm, I'm going to Japan soon, but I think I need to put Iceland on my list because my brother went to Iceland and he will not shut up about it.

I've consistently wanted to go and I've just never been able to make it work until I always figured it would be a stopover on a trip to London and it's just been too difficult to sort out. But someday, well, thank you all for all your comments and, uh, please do go to iTunes, uh, give us a five-star rating and a comment. Uh, you can reach us at twitter.com slash GOG podcast.

Please don't bother with Facebook, but if you must, we'll try to find them. Uh, you can, uh, reach us at grumpy old geeks.com at patreon.com slash GOG, where you can donate and then chat with us. Uh, we had some fun chat with a couple of people this week that led to us forming an impromptu band and please do tell a damn friend about the show.

Thank you. I'm continuing on my run through the X series by Peter Klein's. I finished X communication, uh, very enjoyable. I've just started X purgatory, I believe is the next one.

I've, I've just got to finish these and then I'll get to the Christopher more thing. Uh, there, I, there, I don't even know why we're still talking about it. Jason went through it all. I've been going through them just saying how good they are and, uh, they are still on sale, uh, on Amazon for Kindle app or Kindle for one 99 each people.

So go get it. And, uh, you know, as we know, uh, lower prices, higher prices, it doesn't matter. The author's always screwed anyways. I just like going through them because this is the, the very few times in the show that you say I'm right about something. I know, I know it's kind of creepy and makes my skin crawl a bit, but okay.

Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you for that vote of confidence. Um, you are my Leo Laporte. Oh, Oh, Oh, Oh, Oh, I'm going to punch you in the dick. So I started listening to, uh, Chris Moore's book and then I, I stopped because I found this other book that I just had to like actually listen to first.

Yes. I listened to it. Um, it's an astronaut's guide to life on earth. What going to space taught me about ingenuity, determination, and being prepared for anything by Colonel Chris Hadfield. And now he's actually commander. That's, I think they changed the titles cause he was the commander of ISS.

Right. Which is the international space station for people who don't know what ISS is. Wow. Holy, holy shit nuggets. Well, this dude is basically the hero of Canada. Uh, he's Canadian. Yes. Um, yeah. And he is a pretty cool dude. He is a very well-spoken.

I I'm super interested in this book and I don't know, uh, again, if you're a fan of tested and Adam Savage and all that, uh, he, he, he, and, uh, Adam Savage took Chris Hadfield to Comic-Con and they both dressed up in, I believe the 2001 astronaut uniforms and walked around together. Then they did a few panels together and he was also on one of the podcasts and that was a great listen.

I haven't seen that video yet of them doing the, the walkthrough. Yeah. But I heard a couple episodes where you were at Comic-Con where he was in the background. He's like, oh, wait, wait, we have a fighter pilot here. Let's ask him. It's like, oh, um, but I, I was watching his videos when he was still in space. Yeah.

And yeah, it's a crazy viral. And the, you know, the space oddity video where he sang the, the David Bowie song went like super amazing viral. And then YouTube took it down because of their stupid automatic copyright thing, which. Which shows how well that works.

Yeah. And then David Bowie's like, Hey, put it back up. So, uh, I don't know if they reset the counter on it and it's, this is the counter on it now, but it's like 27 million views on it. It's ridiculous. Probably everybody that's listening to the show because there aren't that many have seen the video.

So you probably know who we're talking about, but his book is amazing. Okay. Yeah. It is. I mean, it's, it's, it's almost, I mean, it's, it's self-helpy, very self-helpy and, but just hearing his story and what he went through to become an astronaut is an amazing, it's an amazing tale.

And what they did up, up, up there on ISS is so much fun. So if you're interested in anything about space or Chris Hadfield, get this book. Uh, I have not read it yet, but I will preemptively go ahead and say that Jason, you're right again.

Thank you. This is going to be a good book. Software, apps, and gadgets. I found a new app this week called Charlie. I've heard about this. I hadn't a friend, a friend of the show, Jordan Harbinger sent it to me and who's also my boss.

He's like, get this. I'm like, okay, boss, I'll get it. And, uh, it's really very scary, but really amazingly helpful. Okay. What it does is it goes through your calendar and looks at the people that you have connections with and have appointments with, and we'll send you a dossier before your meeting.

So what? It like scrapes the net, pulls news, all that sort of thing. Yep. So basically it just Googles the person for you. No, it's, it's, well, it's, it's a little, a little more in depth than that because it will like send you like, uh, big life events that they've had recently and say, Hey, you might want to, you might want to congratulate them on their promotion or something like that.

So it's got some machine intelligence behind it. And it's really, really, again, here we are going with the Star Trek economy. This is, this is like the trope in almost all sci-fi when you've got the little thing in your ear that reminds you of everything or tells you all the stories about a person you're about to meet.

We've seen this in countless movies, glass hole. But yeah, it's, uh, it's actually been very, very helpful. So we're, we're signing up for pro accounts because man, it's, it, it has been really good when you're interviewing people that you've never met for podcasts.

It comes in surprisingly handy. Yeah. I mean, it's so, it's a good, like little one sheet or on the person. I like that. I mean, it is. Yeah. And it's everything that they've posted publicly. So it's not, it's nothing that they haven't shared. We're not going back to, you know, like secret data. We don't have like Steve Romba on the, the private eye going back and finding stuff about them.

This is stuff that they've shared and it just combines it into an easy report and it sends it to you like an hour before your meeting. It's like here, you're meeting with this guy. You might want to brush up on him and, you know, talk about the fun things that have happened in his life. It's really kind of. Really cool. All right.

I'm, I'm going to check it out. Uh, let's see. I, there's an article and this is from IFL science, which I like, and I like the whole concept of this article because basically it's an app it's called hush. And this is for Android only so far. It monitors background app activities and turns them off when they are not needed to improve battery life.

Now this is fine, but, uh, the interesting thing about this one is this was, this was not made by programmers. This was scientists. Okay. Science. It was done by scientists with research collaboration between Purdue university, Intel and mobile analytics.

And they say it's the first, uh, basically wide scale study of actual battery performance on cell phones. So interesting. I don't know. There you go. When I think of hush, I think of the, uh, the, of amazing Buffy episode written by Joss Sweden.

Okay. I never got all the way through Buffy. I know. Actually, it wasn't hush. One of those, remember we were testing out all those, uh, instant messaging apps that promised they'd be so private and disappear. It wasn't hush. One of those two. I think it, I think it, I think it actually might've been. Yeah. I think it was because we did like eight of them and they're all gone and nobody uses any of them, but whatever.

I'll log into my LO account and see if we talked about it there. Yeah. Check that out. Uh, I actually have two apps that I downloaded and use this week. Shocking. I know I'm getting ready for my big European trip and I'm going to be spending some time in Germany and, uh, you know, Sprekenzie Deutsch around here, not very much.

So I wanted to brush up, uh, there are two language apps. Uh, one is called Duolingo and the other one is called Memrise. Uh, they do multiple languages, not just German. I'm using them obviously for German. Uh, I like them both. They're free. Um, you know, there's, there's upsells obviously, and it's, it's, you know, gamifying learning language.

It's fun. Um, I was initially more into Memrise, uh, cause it ran through things. A little bit better in terms of grammar and pronunciation. Uh, but one of the features in Duolingo that I totally love because I'm traveling and I will be needing to speak, not just read, um, is that it actually does, uh, language checks.

Uh, it'll ask you to speak into the microphone and repeat things and compare it, compare what you said to what you're supposed to have said. Uh, so that's pretty cool. Um, you know, I spend, uh, again, it's gamified, so I try to hit a certain amount of XP points on Duolingo a day. So I'm getting my practice and memorize badges badges.

I have ignoring all the badges you get like Lingots. I don't know what the hell those are for. And you can use them to purchase, I don't know, different, who the fuck cares? Uh, it doesn't matter. And the same thing is going on with Memrise, all that gamification bullshit, but, uh, that Memrise lets you set a time limit. So I've set that for five minutes.

So I'm making sure, you know, I'm using both apps every day to get in about 10 to 15 minutes of language practice. Pretty cool. Okay. So Duolingo, I remember when they launched, they only had Spanish and I did, I don't want to learn Spanish, but I do need to kind of brush up on my Japanese for the next month.

So I will check out Memrise and see how that goes. Yeah. Give it a shot. Yes. We'll see how that kind of plays out. But, uh, did you pay for it or are you doing the free version? No, I'm just doing the free versions right now. Okay. Cause yeah, there's Memrise premium for $8.99.

Uh, Duolingo also has a higher up version as well. I'm, I'm trying to, I only want to purchase one. So I'm going to, I'm playing around with both of them to see which one actually I feel like I should pay for. Okay, great. Speaking of ad blockers though, have you heard of Peace? I have heard about this.

Uh, it's getting some press today. Oh, just a little bit. It's Marco Arment who basically when he farts gets press, right? So he was one of the original or the original engineer at Tumblr and, uh, the guy behind some other stuff like Instapaper, but yeah, he does his thing.

It's in, and the accidental tech podcast and all the other stuff. So yeah, like I said, when he farts, it's press. I got it. I still have not had it work right for me because I wanted to test it. And every page that I go to, like, if I turn it on, I go to a page, I still see the ads and I turn it off so I can see the ads and I go back, turn it on, reload the page.

The page just renders abhorrently. Right. So it's, you know, it's $2.99, but at this point, I just, I mean, this was a test for the show just to see what it's about. Yeah. Um, I would say skip it. That's, that's my, that's at this point, at least skip it.

Yeah. I mean, I'm, I'm always fascinated by people that release pay versions of something that's been basically released by Apple for free. Um, no, what are you talking about? Been released by Apple for free. Apple's got, uh, Apple's releasing ad blockers into. No, no, no. They're releasing the ability to buy these apps.

They're not releasing an ad blocker themselves. That was the whole point of it. Themselves. My bad. Yeah, no, no, no. That's the whole point. That's what I was talking about before. They're releasing the ability to sell plugins that can manipulate the DOM and Safari on iOS. It's not them themselves releasing an ad blocker.

I think that's where, that's where we had the confusion last week. I think I was stuck on some old article that said that they were doing it themselves. So nevermind, but I do, I'm still stuck. I can't get past the ethics on this. And that's always going to be my focus. I could care less about the tech behind it.

Um, I particularly liked the, uh, the very end of this, uh, this, uh, what is it? A verge.com article about it where it says, uh, they've others like all editor, Matt Buchanan have been quick to point out that Arment is charging money for an app that effectively takes away ad revenue from publishers. Well, here's the funny part.

It takes away the ads from his own site. Yes, I know. Cause he also runs his own site. He runs his own site at, you know, Marco.org or whatever the hell it is. But, uh, they run, um, his, he runs ads from the deck and his software, that he sells to other people blocks ads from the deck.

Yeah. This is why I'm so confused by the world, Jason. Me too. That's what I'm saying. It's just like this. This makes any sense. We're in this really strange time right now because things are just, the world is upside down. I really get the feeling that most tech people are just throwing anything against the wall, even if they're contradictory to see what sticks.

That's it. That's pretty much it. Yeah. Okay. Glad we figured out the entire tech industry. Yes, we did. Actually, we, we actually have just there, right there. Let's throw some shit against the wall and see what sticks. That is the tech industry. Let's see what anybody will give us money for.

And if it gets, if it becomes self-aware and kills us, so be it. What the hell? I made my shekels. All right. We have total breaking news as I just pulled up recode. Uh, guess what? Jason Marco Armand has decided to pull the privacy blocking app or the ad blocking app because he's, uh, changed his mind and it just doesn't feel good.

Oh my God. This is no longer available. Wow. So that was a quick turnaround. I wonder if I get my three bucks back. That is a good point. Do you get to keep the app? What happens with it now? Like, is it just, how does this work? Generally, it stays on your phone.

It stays on your phone, right? Yeah. Cause I had VLC for a long time and they pulled VLC for different issues and I got to keep it as long as I didn't delete it and try and redownload it. Right. Yes. Well, he has apparently changed his mind and discovered that he would perhaps like to make money on his own thing. So maybe there is some rationality coming to the web.

Interesting. I bet all of his friends that work at the deck, uh, yeah, why are you fucking us? You asshole. Yeah. Are you just going to pay us our salaries out of your pocket since you're taking away the ad revenue? Wow. All right. So there you go. Some breaking news right in the middle of while we were talking about it.

See, we're, we are on the cusp. We're on the edge, the bleeding edge. Damn right.

Media candy. Michael Moore is back. He premiered a new movie that he basically shot in secret at a TIFF, the Toronto International Film Festival. Uh, it is called where to invade next. And the trailer is great. Uh, the reviews are fantastic and I cannot wait to see this movie.

Really? Really? Okay. I know you're not a fan anyways, but he does go out of his way to say that basically this is his nice movie. He doesn't, he's not trying to scare anyone. He's not, uh, running around saying how bad the U S is. All he does is go around to other countries to see what they're doing.

Right. So we can do that too. I like that idea. Okay. I'll, I'll take a peek at it. Uh, the problem with other countries is most other countries are really small and it's easier to get everybody on board. We're really big and really diverse. Cause I remember, remember Texas.

Yes. Every time I'm up in Canada and they're going on and on about their healthcare system, I was like, imagine if you had 30 million more people. Okay. 30, only 30 million. Way more than that. I don't have the numbers in front of me. Okay. I don't know what the, I don't know what the population of Canada, but we're over 300 million.

So they, yeah, it's, it's a numbers game for a lot of these things. I don't, he didn't talks at least not, I haven't tried to get too many teasers about this. So I don't know what specifically he talks about, but I'm sure Michael Moore is not a dumb guy. I'm sure he takes that into consideration. Oh, okay.

Yeah. Yeah. You don't like, yeah, he took, he took pot shots at your guns. Yeah. No, he, he just, he just makes easy arguments and that aren't half the time true. So anyway, moving on, moving on. So basically that was Fox news, his entire business plan.

Yeah. I mean, he should, he, he should have run Fox news. He'd have been great at it except the, you know, they're on the other side. Yeah. He's on the other side. CNN should have hired him. And remember I talked about preacher, the, the old comic book series. Yes. AMC has ordered it. So they're going to be making a preacher series.

I am so excited. All right. So excited. I really hope they don't screw it up. Yeah, me too. I actually, uh, from sort of the few comics that I actually enjoyed, I'm sorry, graphic novels. You guys get all weird about that.

Well, no, it's a comic. If you buy it by the issue and it's a graphic novel, if you buy a bundle, that's, I mean, that's, that's the terminology. It's not, there's nothing to get butt hurt about there. It's just, that's like, it's a graphic novel. If you buy, you know, multiple episodes in one book, or if you buy individuals, they're comics. Okay.

There you go. Yeah. Good times. That's what I'm saying. All right. You remember, uh, Kess from Star Trek Voyager? Oh my God. Do I ever. It's just a cute little blonde with the short hair. Mm-hmm. Actress. His name was Jennifer Lean. Mm-hmm. Um, not so cute anymore.

Oh my God. This is terrifying. But, uh, has been arrested for exposing her breasts and buttocks to young children. I don't know what the fuck has happened to her. I don't either. In the old days, if she was doing that, I don't think she would have been arrested. Uh, I, you know, when that show was on the air, I would have paid good money to see her breasts and rear end.

Exactly. Uh, no, this, uh, the, her mugshot reminds me of that movie monster. Oh yeah. There's a little Charlize Theron monster-esque thing going on there. Exactly. You know, this is a dumb story and we normally wouldn't put it in, but it's a Star Trek actress. Yes. Yes.

Okay. This, this, this goes back to our youth. Yes. Yes, it does. I do miss Cass. She was, she was one of the first ones that, uh, got killed off on Voyagers. Yeah. I was about to say she was not long on the show. No, she wasn't sadly. So they did that on purpose, right? I mean, they even wrote her character that added a limited lifespan, if I remember correctly.

Yeah. Yeah. Okay. And so did Voyager. Very limited. Uh, so R. Kelly trapped in the closet, one of the greatest pieces of media ever made. I think the first, you know, the first DVD, not the second, but, um, I, you may disagree with me on this, but, uh, they're doing, I know about trapped in the closet is the South park sketches about it, which were hilarious.

You've never seen trapped in the closet ever. Not a big R. Kelly fan. Oh, neither am I, but it doesn't matter. Has no bearing whatsoever on this. No, see, I, I disagree with that. Oh no, man. I think that you, that you can, you cannot separate the art from the artist, especially when it's, uh, when the artist is peeing on 16 year old girls.

See this, uh, this was before that. I thought that before that came out. No, no, no, no. But here's the deal. I had a party in San Francisco that was like a bunch of tech dude, like major tech dudes that I'm not good. Well, Scott Beal was there in his, in his wife, Lori, which two of my greatest friends and, um, a bunch of other guys, Tontek, Chalik, I think was there.

And, uh, a bunch of people I don't talk to anymore, but anyway, here's the point. We had the best party of all time because we all watch trapped in the closet after like drinking for about three hours. And every time I talked to them about it, they're like, I want to go watch trapped in the closet again because it was the funniest thing I've ever seen.

Okay. So I'm going to, I'm going to have to cut that down a bit. Um, you have to go get some booze, get, get nice and lit and watch the first DVD of trapped in the closet. Because if you, if you don't crack up at a tear fell up out my eye, as he is literally trapped in a closet, then you're not human.

Cause this is the funniest thing I've ever seen. But to the point, the point is in New Jersey, this guy named remember Jones is going to do a live version of the first 13 episodes of trapped in the closet with a full orchestra. Okay.

That is the greatest thing I've ever heard in my life. All right. Well, I expect you to fly there to go see it. Uh, I have no money. I'm going, I'm going to Japan, dude. And I just bought an app for $8 to teach me how to speak Japanese. There you go. Nevermind. But if you're in New Jersey on Halloween, go see trapped in the closet live with remember Jones, who I've never heard of, but who is actually a pretty damn good singer.

I looked up his videos. He's pretty good. Okay, cool. So, and we also talked about everything is a remix before. Yes. Uh, there's a remastered version out now. Oh, they remixed the remix. They remixed the remastered, the remix. Okay. So check that out. There's a link to the Vimeo version on here.

If you're, uh, into that kind of thing. Uh, I watched all the originals. I don't think I need to go back and see this again. Yeah. Yeah. That's the thing. It's like 40 minutes. And, uh, I just wanted to put it in because it's an update. This is an update. Well, if you haven't watched it, it's worth watching. Oh, if you, yeah. If you haven't watched it, definitely go watch it.

Right. And, uh, I had mentioned that I'd gone to see a Jeopardy taping recently. And I'm very sad that I was not at this particular, uh, episode's taping. This is the best thing that probably has ever happened on TV ever. Um, the, uh, let's see her name. The contestant Talia Levine, uh, made it to final Jeopardy.

She had no clue what the answer was, uh, for the, for the final Jeopardy. So instead she wrote in, what is the love ballad of Turd Ferguson? And Alex Trebek himself had to read out loud, Turd Ferguson. And if you were not aware, Turd Ferguson is the, uh, Saturday Night Live.

I believe it's, uh, who was it? Will Ferrell calls him that. Will Ferrell, yeah. Uh, it is the best thing ever. The link in the show notes has both the skit and the actual thing that happened. And it, uh, this basically made my, made my ear. Ooh, fancy, fancy, ooh, fancy.

Another one that's been making the rounds, but I just kind of wanted to point out was, uh, Boeing unveils Star Wars R2-D2 plane. You know, normally I would be like really annoyed by this, but it's Star Wars and Star Wars just gets a pass. Here's why I put it in the show notes.

I'm flying that airline when I go to Japan and I really, really, really, really hope I get to fly on R2-D2. I really, really hope you get the Hello Kitty plane. Hey, I'd take that too. That's cool. That would be cool, wouldn't it? Yeah. You have no idea how much I nerded out when I got on the Virgin America plane that, uh, Boing Boing named, uh, something unicorn.

And I was taking pictures of it and sending it to them. And I'm like, Hey, I'm getting on your plane. Then I got on the plane and I watched Boing Boing. It was like fun. You get to play along at home almost. Or 30,000 feet in a flying meat tube. In a flying meat tube, yes. Speaking of flying meat tubes, uh, also from IFL Science, this is my second article from them.

This, uh, this podcast, SpaceX unveils, unveils, it's stylish crew dragon spacecraft that will take astronauts to space. Uh, this thing looks bad-ass. Holy shit. That looks like a movie set. It looks like Apple designed it back when Apple still did design. No Trent Reznor involved here. Yeah. Before Johnny, I've decided to like watches.

I mean, this thing, I remember that Bjork video where she was a robot. Yeah. Oh my God. That's, this is totally that. That's exactly what that looks like. This is cool as shit. Wow. And interesting news. Uh, researchers in Hong Kong achieved near perfect silence. Uh, just like the title. It's very Zen. What is the sound of no sounds happening?

This is cool. They made the absolute quietest perfect silence ever. Interesting. Okay. Hold on. We're going to play it for you right now. Okay, cool. Run. I'm going to have to run a noise gate on that. Um, I, you know, what's weird.

I, I've been in a couple like really like high end movie studios, like movie, um, theaters where they really try and make it silent. Yes. And I, have you been in any of those? Yeah, it's, it's, it's a little creepy. Um, when you, you don't realize how used to ambient noise you are until all of a sudden most of it's gone away.

Uh, even like when you're, when you're walking and you can't even hear anything from your own footsteps, it really screws you up. It really does. Cause I went to a light storm back in the day and James Cameron gave us a tour of his, his movie theater where he was cutting Titanic and we walked in there and it felt like you were in a vacuum and your head was going to explode.

Yeah. That's pretty crazy. It's, it's really bizarre. So I'll, yeah, that's interesting that they've gotten even more no sound happening. Uh, and then probably cue the Mexican yard guys outside who are getting ready to fire up their, their weed whackers.

I found this from a friend and this is the, I'm sorry, the coolest fire pit ever. It's a company called burned by design in, uh, in London or outside of London. They're the UK. We'll just call it the UK. Um, they made a predator fire pit, which is basically the head of the predator.

Now these are the guys that did the Darth Vader one, right? They did Darth Vader one too. Yes. I've seen all of those. Yeah. So yeah. Stormtroopers. And I'm not so sure about how that works out with, uh, rights issues and things like that, but it's cool as crap. Well, here's the deal.

Not my problem. I want to buy, I want one. Exactly. Very, very cool stuff. And they're not that expensive. I mean, considering for a, for a fire pit that's, you know, probably a couple hundred pounds to get shipped to the U S it'll probably cost you about 600 bucks. Yeah. Might cost you more for the shipping.

Uh, it's 125 pounds to ship to the U S. Oh, that's not too bad. No, but man, it's cool. I will come to a barbecue where I could roast weenies in that. Get to the weenies. Closing shout outs. Well, until our Patreon, uh, donations reach a certain level and Jason will only, uh, edit to 59 minutes, we decided to keep it short this week, but please visit our Patreon page, patreon.com slash GOG and give us enough money.

So Jason will edit a full show. It was an accident. Uh, we were both really busy this week. It happens. Uh, I'd like to give a shout out to Dave Gahan. You may know him as the lead singer of Depeche Mode, uh, rather than wait the five years or so that it always seems to take for Depeche Mode to put out another album.

He has put out or is putting out a solo album. Well, not really solo. It's David Gahan and soul savers, uh, comes out. I believe next week, the single is available now. And, uh, while I was, uh, doing this podcast or at least waiting for Jason to go get some more tea, I purchased tickets to go see him play at the theater at ACE hotel on a December or no, October 19th.

So I'm looking forward to that. I will be on a plane to Tokyo on October 19th. I will be freshly back from Deutschland. Oh man. We're going to be totally missing each other. Yeah. We're going to have to figure this one out. Yeah. We're going to have to do some scheduling. Fan of the show, Sean Rafferty.

I want to throw out a link to him. He has a site called the safety blueprint.com. So check that out. If you are interested in basically, uh, safety and, uh, it's not blueprints. It's, it's more about situational awareness, which is what I learned when I took my, uh, urban escape and evasion course.

And practice almost every day now, because I have to, because apparently a lot of nasty ass dogs have moved into my neighborhood. So when I'm walking the dog, I carry a 9 million volt stun stick. And to be responsible with that, you have to just kind of keep, keep looking around and make sure that nothing's coming up behind you.

But anyway, check out his, check out his site. It's, it's pretty fun stuff. Well, it's actually not very fun stuff, but it will make your life a little bit better and a little bit safer. Thanks for listening. I'm Jason DeFilippo and you can check me out at jpd.me. And I'm Brian Schilmeister. And you can follow me on Twitter at Slender Fungus.

Until next time. When I have a lot more tea. Oh God. Grumpy Old Geeks is a fan supported show. Check out our Patreon page at patreon.com slash gog. We really appreciate your support and we can do a longer episode without car horns. If you don't want to or can't donate, but still want to support the show, please go to grumpy old geeks.com slash iTunes and leave us a few words and a five star rating.

Or tell a friend about the show. Intro music for the show is provided by the band Among Us. You can find them on iTunes, Spotify, Tidal, Apple Music, which we didn't talk about this week, but we will next week. Or you can donate through the Grumpy Old Geeks Patreon page at patreon.com slash gog to get 10 exclusive tracks. Outro music for the show is provided by Andy Stuchanski.

You can follow Andy at twitter.com slash house of Andy. And he's also on SoundCloud at grumpy old geeks.com slash Andy. Show notes for all the links discussed in this episode can be found at grumpy old geeks.com slash 128. I am T. Holyo. At QVC, shopping is more than just checking out.

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