157: U.S.S. Irony

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.

Welcome to Grumpy Old Geeks for April 22nd, 2016. This is number 157. I'm Jason DeFillippo. And I'm Brian Schulmeister. Morning, Jason. Good morning, Brian. How are you? Oh, you know, it's the day the music died. The day the music died. Why is that?

Well, Prince. You know, Prince's death actually affected me more than I thought it was going to. It really did. Me too. I'm actually, personally, I could give or take on his music. I am very much, I recognize his genius, however, and especially as a performer.

It's just, I think, you know, young. Bowie, you know, Bowie definitely I was way more into. But he was also quite old. Yeah. Prince was only 57. And I know that me, myself and I went through three different cassettes of, you know, with Little Red Corvette in 1999 and all that.

And I wore him out because I was such a fan of his back in the day. And I also built his first website. Well, in a large part, I have a personal connection with him as well in terms of my career. You know, I really got started in the music industry due to basically the mentoring of Steve Farnoli, who was Prince's manager through the big period.

And also, Sinead's manager and, you know, obviously hooked up the song for them. So, nothing compares to you and all that sort of stuff. So, Prince being a big part of my life and my career as well. So, interesting and sad. Yeah. No, and also, since my roommate is in the music industry, we just had phone calls all day long from people who, because she, you know, knows everybody.

Like, Barry Gordy called the house yesterday. Right. He's the founder of Motown. And he called the house to make sure that Shea was doing okay. That's cool. So, I mean, that's how, I mean, that's kind of how much it affected our house yesterday. It was a big deal. Yeah, yeah.

Same here as well, because the whole group of people that I met through Steve Farnoli and around Steve Farnoli, everybody was on Facebook and sharing personal thoughts and reminiscences and all that sort of stuff. So, yeah, big deal. Yeah. No, it is a major deal. And it looks like he probably OD'd on Oxy.

Yeah. Which, you know, it's the biggest problem in the country right now. It is. And when you think about the fact that actually he's, you know, a fairly staunch Jehovah's Witness and wasn't even supposed to be taking medication at all to be addicted to a painkiller is not good.

No. I know too many people that have the same problem. And it's terrible. This whole, like, prescription society that we have right now, which is, you know, kind of something I'm personally going through, which you know about. Yes. So I'm going to just, I'm going to throw this out and we're going to be putting up to speed on hold for a while because I have some personal mental health issues myself that I'm going through.

And I'm going to be going on a sabbatical, as it were, to deal with them and go back to be with my family for a bit. And I'm happy you're doing that. Yeah, me too. Me too. Because, you know, there was a time a couple weeks ago where this show would almost be gone because I would have been gone.

And that's just stupid. I had a friend a long time ago in high school that hung himself because of a breakup with a girlfriend, right? So for the past, you know, 25 years, I just, I'm like, suicide is stupid.

You're, you're just a coward. You're a horrible person. You don't care about anybody else. And then when that same thing happened to me, I found out that, no, it has nothing to do with that. You're actually sick and you're not thinking right. And so if anybody else is going through that, go talk to somebody, find some help because there's, it's not a choice.

It's, it's a problem, you know? Yeah. Yes. So, um, just telling everybody that there's, there's always help and your friends will always back you up. I've, you know, I've between you and all of the friends of the show, Teeter, Bob, everybody, you know, I'm getting a little teary eyed, but, um, everybody has helped me through this.

So we're going to, we're going to put up to speed on hold for a bit. And, uh, Hey, Grumpy Old Geeks is not going on hold because if we miss a Grumpy Old Geeks or two, that's okay. Jason, uh, your health is more important. So, you know, if it, we're not planning on that happening, but if it does, it does.

If it, if it, if it does, it does. But, you know, working with you is one of the highlights of my, my day. So, you know, that's why it's, that's why it actually hurts to put up to speed on hold because I have so much fun doing that show with you every day and doing this show every Friday. Um, it's, it, it's the highlight of my week.

So I'm going to try to, uh, not let that happen. Good. Um, excellent. Now, speaking of, speaking of things that didn't happen, the, the RM-RF hoax that we talked about last week with the guy who supposedly did his, uh, he, he removed his entire company by typing in, you know, delete all.

Which is, uh, basically it ended up being a not very good marketing play. Yeah. No, he's, uh, he's a douchebag. You, sir, are a douchebag. Yes, you are. Um, and a hat tip to Kenny in London, who we love. We love Kenny. He keeps sending us great stuff, but yeah, this was, uh, it, we got, we got, we got bit on that one.

Uh, sort of most of the world. So I'm not going to feel too bad about this because, uh, I pulled the story from fairly reputable, uh, tech sites. So. No, no. Everybody, I saw it on CNN. Come on. Which is not a fairly, fairly reputable tech site. Yeah. Shit.

Uh, speaking of that, just tie in to Prince. I was, I switched it over to CNN briefly, uh, when all the stuff was going on. And of course they were doing, I can't, it was Don Lemon's show. And there was a woman reporter that was at the, uh, at, uh, I believe Prince's somewhere in Minneapolis.

One of the clubs that was basically just started an all day dance party. And he was like, well, you, uh, obviously you must have a couple of, uh, favorite Prince songs. What do you think is your favorite one? And she went, oh, you know, all of them. That answer means you don't fucking know a single one. And what the hell are you doing doing this story?

You know what, though? I have so much respect for Don Lemon. I, I did not like that guy until I was watching the, uh, New Year's Eve special when he was down in new Orleans, he was drunk off his gourd. Oh, awesome. And he was in a hot tub and like the, the, his co-host that was with him, she's like, you know what, I'm going to take over right now because you're too drunk to actually talk on camera and said that on camera.

It was great. And he just came out of the closet as gay. So, Hey, good for him. Yeah. All right. I like him a lot then. No, he, he, you know what, after watching him on that, on that New Year's Eve thing, I'm like, this guy has so much personality. I love him. And he's still, and he will call bullshit on guests who are terrible.

That's fantastic. Yeah, no, he's, he's, he's got a huge career ahead of him. He's, he's going to be the next Anderson Cooper for sure. Okay. And both gay, both gay. Yeah. All right. Well, yeah. Okay. Speaking of bullshit, uh, along, uh, man, what's two, three months, two, three months ago, you, you brought up the story about how psychology is, uh, basically an entire load of bullshit.

And there's a real problem with replicating studies in psychology. Yes. And, uh, we followed up for that a bit and, uh, guess what's come out in the news now? What now cancer? Wait, wait, are we, are we right again? Or is this us being wrong? No, this is, this is just actually sad.

And it's a horrible state of the world to be in. Cancer research is suffering from the same problem as psychology. Oh no. Cancer research is complete and utter shit. And they are not able to replicate some of the initial studies, any of the studies. They're having the exact same problem as psychology did with cancer research.

We are apparently not getting any closer at all. All the money that we're spending $28 billion in just in the U S and we can't replicate anything. This is bad. And you know what this makes me think of? This makes me think of the, uh, three body problem.

I'm starting to wonder if that Chinese, the Chinese sci-fi book that we both read, if people aren't, if alien cultures aren't messing with our science, because that's what they did in the book. Remember? Yeah. They showed, they showed up, but basically stopped us from being able to replicate things. Yeah. That's exactly, that's exactly the same problem.

Yeah. It's like, here we are having it in real life. Yeah. The three body probably, basically they broke physics for, uh, for us. And now we just can't, we can't even break just basic science. This is insane. Yeah. Now, not to, not to make light of your issues, Jason, I'm certainly not, as you know, I'm, I'm very concerned about your, your health here, but why don't you tell us a staunch drone believer about how you practically killed yourself with a drone?

I didn't kill myself. I almost took a finger off. Okay. There's a big difference. So yes, just as a backstory, in case the first time you happen to be listening, Jason and I have been battling about the, uh, about drones for quite some time. I am aghast at the fact that people are able to use these and buy these without licenses that the FAA came out and said, Oh, you know, if it's smaller drone, nothing wrong with that.

Go ahead. No, no restrictions, no laws whatsoever. Fly it around a huge group of people. Doesn't matter. Uh, Jason has been saying, yeah, that's, that's, that's the way it should be. Uh, Jason got your drone. Uh, you gave it a shot and what happened again? So here's, I have been, I have been in tears laughing about this because I, I, as soon as this happened to me, I got, I got my drone.

I bought it from the boing boing store, the two or $350, uh, brushless Husan drone, right? They sent me the wrong one first. They sent me, they didn't send me the black one. They sent me the, uh, the Snoop Dogg white and gold version.

So I got, or the PDD drone is what I call it. I call it PDD. Um, but I also call it the USS irony because within 30 seconds of owning this drone, my hand was profusely bleeding because my dog tried to attack it as the wind was blowing and it was coming at her.

And, um, yeah, I have, I have multiple lacerations on my fingers from the blades on this drone. And so would you call something like that safe to operate around a large group of people? Absolutely not. It wasn't even a large group of people.

It was me and my dog. And you think, you know, perhaps maybe some courses and maybe some sort of certificate that you have to get to be able to operate that might be a good idea. I think, I think that might actually be the way to go because these things are. Now, who was saying that for months now? I know you were.

That's why I've been laughing the whole time because I'm like, you know what? I can't even fake this one when I, when I come on the show, I'm like, Brian was right. I can't even fake it because it's a banner day, grumpy old geeks. It is a banner day. Um, this thing tore the shit out of my hand.

I, cause those blades go so fast that, you know, okay. So on my, my left hand, I, on my knuckle, I have six cuts that all got infected. And then on the inside of the finger, I've got another like five cuts. And the fun part about that one was I didn't realize why it was still infected.

Cause like, you know, put Neosporin on it. I'm like, oh yeah, yeah, yeah. Peroxide, all that stuff. I didn't realize that a piece of the blade had broken off in my finger. Oh God. And I had to pull it out. This is just awesome. Um, they are, they're a ton of fun.

I, I, I, I, I will stand by the fact that having one is a ton of fun. There are, they are so, so unbelievably dangerous. I can list off a great many things that are incredibly fun, but not necessarily safe. Yeah.

Guns. Tons of fun, but dangerous. Yes. And drones also tons of fun, but oh my God. Yeah. Yes. This is also one of the first times that we have had our show title basically a week in advance. Yes. Because I have named my drone, the USS irony, because it is just ironic that immediately the thing just, I mean, my hand was covered in blood.

It's ridiculous, but they're fun. They're definitely a lot of fun. Uh, you just have to learn how to fly them. And there's the instruction manual was half in Chinese, half in English. And it was just like, oh, this stick kind of goes this way, this way. And I, but, and the, you know, they, um, what I, here, here's the other thing with the dogs, the noise from the rotors freak the hell out of the dogs.

All the dogs in the neighborhood, it wasn't just bam, bam, that went crazy. All the dogs within like a two block radius were barking and going crazy. It's nuts. Um, but it's still fun if you don't cut your hand off. Um, so I, I, so I, Brian, I know you're being smug, but I, I'm agreeing, I'm agreeing with you on this exact point that yes, you actually should have to have a class on how to fly these

fucking things before you get one in the mail period. I wasn't actually being smug. I was doing shots cause you mentioned your dog. Oh, okay. It's only, it's only nine 30. That's okay. You can do shots. Um, so, uh, one of my favorite bands of all time is the Rizzillos.

And I found a video of them doing a song called a flying saucer attack, which was their, their big hit from 1978. So I put that in the show notes because since we're not doing up to speed for a while, I do miss having the song of the day. Well, we can bring it back into this. The song of the day for today is flying saucer attack from the Rizzillos because they were an amazing band.

One album, they did a second album, which you don't, don't listen to now. But anyway, yes, Brian is right. Drones are dangerous. We're all going to die. The world is ending. In the news.

And just speaking of Prince, if you want to give a brief tribute through your browser today, there is a Chrome extension that will turn all text into Prince text, meaning, you know, the two and fours and you and all of that sort of stuff. It's kind of cute and clever. Okay. That's about it.

This is one of my favorite stories. Well, one of the memes that the only meme I posted yesterday was a, was an image that had, you know, been hacked. CNN kind of thing that said, you know, more, more, you know, depressing news from the music industry. Kanye West found alive in his apartment. I've seen that with Justin Bieber, too, on the onion.

Yeah. Sadly, Justin Bieber's still alive. Yes. Terrible, terrible news. But a man is suing Kanye West because he lied about his album being exclusive to Tidal. Now, when Kanye West was about to release his album, and obviously he's got some stake in Tidal and et cetera, et cetera.

Yes, he does. He went on and on and on, and he said, he made it very clear on Twitter, writing, my album will never, never, never be on Apple. It will never, ever be for sale. You can only get it on Tidal. Now, lo and behold, a few months later, it's on Apple Music.

It's on Spotify. It's on all the streaming services. And so Justin Baker, Rhett, feels cheated, and he is suing Kanye. You know what? Good for him. Good. I think he's good. I think this is a load of crap. I think it's, it's a, you know, it's horrible business practices.

You can't, it's like saying we are the only place that will sell hamburgers forever. You can't lie to drum up business for your streaming service. Well, if you're a shareholder. Well, then let's, let's think about every band that has had a farewell tour of six times, you know, drum up tickets as well.

It's kind of like the Rolling Stones. How many times have they had a farewell tour? At least four or five at this point. Yes. So it's, you know, people in the music business lie. Oh, big surprise. Yeah. Yeah. But anyway, and if you would actually, if you're a Kanye West fan.

You're probably not listening to this show. You're probably not listening to this show. But if you go to Calabasas, there's a McDonald's where Kanye goes almost every day. And you can see Kanye at the drive-thru every day in Calabasas because he likes his McDonald's.

Does he roll through the McDonald's drive-thru at a Bentley? Yes. Actually, he does. I am not joking. I am not joking. He goes through the drive-thru at McDonald's in a Bentley every day almost. Yeah. So a friend of the show, Hannah, sent me this link and asked me my thoughts about this.

This is on Salon. Don't blame YouTube for screwing musicians. Blame Metallica. Their fight with Napster set the tone for today's crummy digital deals. Yes and no. The reason this is in the news right now is Metallica manager Peter Mensch has started to... Is he a mensch?

He is something. He did an interview with BBC Radio 4 on the music business and he called YouTube the devil. Yeah, YouTube, they're the devil. Yes. And if someone doesn't do something about YouTube, we're screwed. It's over. Somebody turn off the lights.

I would argue you guys screwed the pooch and it's been over for a longer time than that because even getting you, as we've discussed many times on the show, even just getting over to paid streaming services is not making the artists any money. Now, is Metallica to blame for all this? Well, no. They certainly screwed the pooch.

They were definitely the idiots back when Napster was going on that really, really screwed things up by going after the people that were downloading rather than the service, wanting massive like $100,000 fines to like 12-year-old girls that had downloaded their one track.

Grandmothers, you know, and all these people, yeah. So they turned the public sympathy away from the bands and from the artists and especially what, you know, it somehow became just Metallica who were these multi-millionaires going after people who just downloaded the song for free.

Fire bad. Yeah, fire bad. Not thinking about the smaller artists who don't have the millions that Metallica has, et cetera, et cetera. So public perception was turned through Metallica and the labels had an opportunity at that moment to step in and be rational and they chose not to do that either. So not really entirely Metallica's fault, but they certainly didn't fucking help.

They didn't help. And the fact that Napster had already built in the service to pay the artists and it got thrown out the window with this whole Metallica lawsuit. You have to remember that history. That history is there, you know. We had an opportunity to basically have paid streaming sort of.

It would have been Apple Music. They would have been iTunes before iTunes. And instead, we basically had a 10-year gap where music was de facto free. And we raised an entire generation of people that just don't want to pay for it. So, yeah. So, yeah. Lars, go fuck yourself.

Exactly. Lars will never be on our U.S. currency. I think that's safe to say. But our currency is, do you like my transition there? I thought that was pretty good. That was really good, yeah. Yeah, I'm saying things are changing. Unfortunately, not until 2030. So, but all of this has been announced.

We're getting new historical figures in the $5, the $10, and the $20 bills. So, let's get to know them very quickly. On the front of the 20, we will be having Harriet Tubman. She obviously started the Underground Railroad. And I did not know this. When the Civil War began, Tubman actually became a spy for the Union.

No, I didn't know that either. That's actually a very good piece of trivia. Yes, very good. I think it might come up in my Pub Trivia this week. I was going to say, Mr. Pub Trivia, maybe that'll put you over the edge. I will not be attending Pub Trivia this week because we have the rescheduled Lush show. So, I'm more excited about that.

Anyways, on the back of the $10, the $10 bill is becoming basically the feminist bill. You're getting Susan B. Anthony, who, you know, basically a lot of people that led the suffragette movement. So, are they going to get rid of the goddamn Susan B. Anthony dollar? Oh, no, it's a Sacagawea.

But the dollar coin? I don't think that those are, I don't even know if they're still making them. Who knows? I went to a store the other day and a guy gave me 10 of them. $10 coins because he's like, I've only got a few singles left. So, you get these. I'm like, are you kidding me?

I'm not sure if they're still making them, but certainly they haven't pulled them out of circulation. Oh, no, they still make them. Yes, they still make them because if you, even in San Francisco, if you go to like the BART station or whatever, that's how they give you change. Is with dollar coins. They don't give you the bills.

Let's be focused on our ire here. Let's not worry about that. Let's focus on the penny. If we're going to stop anything, let's stop the damn penny. Don't distract. They get confused then. Focused. We need focused attention on stopping the penny. The penny must die. All right, so continuing on the $10 bill, I'm assuming they're not going to be in a big line like the Mount Rushmore of women's rights.

I'm assuming this will just be random on bills. Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Lucretia Mott, Alice Paul, and Sojourner Truth will be on that. On the five, we are getting Marian Anderson and Eleanor Roosevelt and Martin Luther King Jr. So, it's more civil rights there.

Cool. It's about time to change the damn money. I think so. It's time to change it up. Yeah. No, I mean, I go to Europe, and the European money is beautiful, and they change it all the time. They change the people. It's still not going to be beautiful. It's going to look the exact damn same. It's just going to have different people on it. I don't know. I think they're going to try and fix it.

I mean, look at the new hundreds. The new hundreds are actually pretty nice. All right. But what I think we need to— You just thought about Kanye rolling his Bentley into the McDonald's. I just think we need bigger bills, but then you have a whole problem with change machines and things like that. Yes, that's a lot of infrastructure.

Airbnb has not necessarily pivoted, but augmented. Okay. They're trying to do hipster city guides as a content commerce play to get people to, you know, travel more. Did you just say a hipster city guide? Yes, I did. Okay.

It's city guides for millennials to get them to go use the Airbnbs. You know, here's a good spot to go sit and look at your phone, because that's what you guys— That's what they do, yes. They go to a vegan restaurant and look at their goddamn phone. Yeah. So, you know, whatever.

I ran across this article, which I found fascinating. I'm not going to get into too deep of detail here, because it's a very long article. But if you have any interest in what people are doing with their finances and how we've, you know, talked about how the middle class is going away and how we're not necessarily helping with that process, I think you need to read this.

This is called, Four Men with Four Very Different Incomes Open About the Lives They Can Afford. This is off Esquire, saying basically the poverty line for a family of three is $20,000 a year. Median household income in America is $53,000. Politicians draw $250,000 as the line between the middle and upper classes.

And the true starting point of real wealth remains a cool million dollars. And they basically tried to find one guy in each of these income levels and have them talk about what life they live and how they deal with their finances. Absolutely fascinating. I have to read this. Yes. This sounds completely fascinating.

I think it will make you question what you're doing. It will make you take a deeper look at your finances. Too late on that one. It's way too late on that one. Generic you, like all the listeners as well. Okay. Okay. Yes. Yeah. So there you go.

It's a very, very good read. Another thing I found, how will Facebook make money off live video? Just look at TV. I filed this under the no shit. Of course. Commercials. That's how you're going with it. Yeah. But not pre-rolls. They're going to go to interstitials, which is, we know, is basically the standard broadcast ad method that we are all quite used to for years and years and years.

Okay. Well, that's, yeah, that's what they had. Trust me. I'd rather have an interstitial than a pre-roll because pre-rolls piss me off so much. Because if I'm, if I'm going to a Facebook video for a 30 second video that I want to see about, you know, a turtle humping a shoe, then I have to wait 30 seconds before I can even get to my 30 seconds.

Yeah, it's a little ridiculous. So I'm just throwing this out there, TiVo. I think I've got a pivot for you. You need to figure out a way to go boop, boop, boop, boop during Facebook videos. Okay. A little fast forward. I've said that this is the year of unbundling and apparently even the cable companies heard me.

Comcast is basically saying we are going to get rid of the cable box and we're going to just make an app that will run on your smart TV. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. I don't want a smart TV. Well, yeah, you're still going to be stuck in that area, but everybody else already has it.

And look at it. I think this is a really good thing because we're all paying to rent cable boxes and sometimes that gets up to over $230 a year to rent those stupid things. That goes away. Better for the consumer. It's also better for Comcast because they don't have to manufacture these things anymore. Well, they never manufacture.

Motorola manufactures them. So if you have Motorola stock, sell now. Yeah, that's a really good idea. Seriously, sell your Motorola stock because those are the main providers of almost all the cable boxes that Comcast sells. Yes. And you would think then that they would be able to lower their prices for the app or offer, you know, individual.

Why would they do that? We all know that's not going to happen. Yeah. No, we know that's not going to happen. It's ridiculous. And the MIT technology review has a deep dive into Magic Leap and how mysterious it is and how we just kind of have vague ideas of what they're going to do.

But it all sounds pretty cool. And I begrudgingly going, I'm still intrigued by Magic Leap. I am too. And did you finally watch the video that I posted on Up to Speed this week? I did. Isn't that cool? It's cool. We'll see how it actually works in real life.

Yeah, that's exactly it. We'll see how it works in real life. We don't know what the headset looks like. We have no idea about any of that stuff. But the video itself that was actual in-camera footage was pretty neat. I've got to give them that. I mean, talk about the gamification of your entire real life.

That's really what I think that they're going to end up going for. I think so, too. I will probably just use it more for the augmented reality purposes than the gaming thing because I don't like gamifying my life. But I agree with you there. Unfortunately, I have a feeling it might not be until 2030 when we can use those new dollars to pay for these things to get it.

Well, you don't have your Oculus Rift on preorder? I do not, but I know some places that do. Most of the rooms in Vegas and the hotels in Vegas because VR porn is going to be offered as room service. Why would you need VR porn in Vegas when you can get a hooker?

You can't walk down the street for more than six feet without somebody handing you a business card to get a hooker. Why would you want VR porn? Maybe diseases, but I guess. Because hookers are only $19.99. No, wait. The other way around. The other way around. The other way around.

Yes. I'm like, they got $19.99. Now, I don't know about you, but I never use even the coffee machines in a hotel room. Much less would I want to rent one of these things to strap onto my head for my VR porn, knowing what people had just done with this in the room next door.

Yeah, that's true. Yes, bring your own handy wipes. Yeah, I wipe down the goddamn TV remote when I get into a room. You absolutely should, because the first thing I do at a hotel in Vegas is rub my balls on everything.

See, it's people like you. It is. I ruin everything. I am the ruinator. Well, and you've got a good buddy in Ev Williams. Yes, Evan Williams is actually a very good friend, and who I did buy a lap dance for at a strip club. So, yes, I know Evan very well.

And he is also ruining things, such as online publishing. You are a big fan of Medium. I'm a big fan of the tools that they built, but Medium itself, I'm not a fan of yet. No, I'm just being ironic. Yes. Oh, well. Well, supposedly, there's this big tech funding crunch that we've talked about, but apparently this does not apply to Medium.

They have raised another $50 million. $57 million? Oh, no, they just can't. Just a month after it raised $57 million. So, there are up to at least $100 million. And an update to the story, investors value the company at $600 million. That's actually pretty cheap compared to most companies that just, you know, fart into a billion-dollar valuation, you know?

Yes. And Medium actually provides some value, which is interesting. And the really crazy thing, I mean, this is how the rich people keep getting richer. Evan Williams is worth well over a billion dollars. And they just, that's the thing with the rich people.

They don't spend their own money. They take other people's money and spend it. It's very smart if you can get to that point. Yeah. I figured out a way that we might get there, though, Jason. How? How are you doing it? I found the perfect job for us. Okay. What is it? This is, all throughout our careers, I think you and I have both suffered from being realists and from looking at projects and going, are you fucking kidding me?

We wouldn't have a show in the show would have been called Are You Fucking Kidding Me? But iTunes wouldn't let us use that. That's true. And thus far, that really has not gone well for us in terms of financial gain or even gainful employment. However. Okay. I'm listening.

I'm all ears. A smart, forward-thinking company finally seems to appreciate our very special set of skills, Jason. And who's that? Alphabet's X Division, formerly known as Google X. They have done this big article and talk where they basically say, we are encouraging our teams to raise concerns about projects' ability to succeed and are frequently rewarding people for killing them off.

Oh, my God. The perfect job. We're so into that one. We need to. We're doing it for free on the Stupid Podcast. Oh. We could have an office that has, like, a skateboard on it and all the other crap that Google people do. We could take breaks to go surfing. There's food. There's really good food.

I've eaten at Google. There's very good. Speaking of Evan Williams, he took me to the cafe and he gave me some really good food. So, yeah. No, we should. Why have they not called us yet? I don't know. This is a recently released video from this year's TED conference. X's captain of moonshots. His name is Astro Teller.

I've heard of him. Yeah. Actually, I think I've met Astro. Yeah. Jason, call him. I think I'm going to have to definitely have a chat with Astro because this is right up our alley. There was not a tailor-made job for us. I just don't know. Yeah. So, I mean, because think of the vocabulary.

Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. That's all we have to say is all day long. Wrong. Except for our follow-up section where we go, yeah, we were right about that. Yeah, that's true. Oh, that one's good. Wrong. Wrong. That one's good. Okay. Wrong. I think, you know, our track record is pretty solid.

The last thing I found this week, this is just kind of fun. Some of the brutal memes that Googlers created about Tony Fidel and Nest when the big hullabaloo about Nest came in and they did their talk about how, you know, we're a part of Alphabet and gosh darn it, we're going to be okay.

Oh, and they were killing the Revolve and, oh, and by the way, I finally found out the numbers on that thing because we were like, you know, when they said that they were going to do personal customer service. Yes. For the people that had bought them, they sold less than 10,000 units. Yeah. No wonder they're just going person by person.

Exactly. There's no point in doing a big payout or anything. It doesn't make any sense. Less than 10,000 units. And it's like, ugh. Anyways, some really funny stuff in the memes link is in the show notes. It's worth a chuckle. And what I am impressed by is how well the Googlers have kind of kept up with all the current memes and stuff going around the Nets.

They were spot on with a lot of this stuff. Yeah, except the Nets spot on with their April Fool's Day joke with the mic drop. Yeah, that was dumb. That was dumb. Security? Ha! A federal judge has thrown out evidence in a child abuse imagery case.

Okay. This is an important actual case because it has to do with the dark web, but it also has to do with the FBI illegally putting malware on people's computers to track them. Yes. And not following the letter of the law by getting the proper warrants before doing it.

And it's one of those horrible cases because, obviously, we don't want this out there, but the ends do not justify the means. And we are supposedly in a society that is ruled by law, and we cannot have our people breaking that. No, exactly. So, you know, as horrible as it is that this is getting thrown out, I'm sure they'll go after him again.

Yes. Or maybe these people will figure out not to use the dark web, but because the dark web ain't so dark anymore, people. See some previous episodes of Grumpy Old Geeks for that. But, yeah. No, these people are horrible people.

And, but the problem is when the government goes after you, they need to do it properly. Yes. So, that is the entirety of our security segment this week because, yeah, this is all you need to know. Yep. That's the week in security.

It's actually not, but. It's the week in security that we found because we've been busy. And go, go listen to Up to Speed for the rest of the security news. Yes. And with ransomware becoming a multi-billion dollar industry, that's the big one. That was the big news this week, really.

So, we talked about that a lot. And, yeah, we'll have more in the future. Comment of the week. This first review comes in from iTunes, from Mike Ness's guitar pick.

Okay? Mike Ness's guitar pick. Social distortion. I'm a huge social distortion fan, so I'm like, hey. Well, Mike Ness's guitar pick, thank you very much. If you know what a Commodore 64 is, and like dogs, this is the show you have been looking for. That's right. Bam, bam, into his house.

God, I'm getting drunk already. Shot, shot, shot. Brian and Jason are a great team and balance each other out with their different perspectives. If you grew up during the 80s and experienced the dot-com boom in the 90s and 2000s, you will connect with Brian, German beer drinking developer who has seen it all, which I love that, and Jason, the sensitive, dog-loving Prius hater.

Sensitive? But in theory. You have not been listening to this show. Yeah, but in theory, should love to drive a Prius. I have driven a Prius. They fucking suck. They were at the beginning of the dot-com boom and have a perspective that you won't find on similar podcasts.

If you love music, technology, and dogs, or Jason's dogs, you really dig this show. I like this guy so much. Whiskey! Whiskey! They cover the latest technology trends. I'm crying out here. I'm laughing too hard.

This includes topics such as security, latest gadgets, pop culture, books, and it's their perspective and chemistry that makes this show interesting. If you're in your 30s and 40s, you will connect. If you're a millennial, please stop texting, swiping, and liking, and just listen to the complete show.

You'll dig it as well, I promise. Yes, they are old. Yes, they are grumpy. Listen, and you will be hooked. Thank you, Mike Ness's guitar pick. I am a fan. Thank you. I am looking forward to Mike Ness's amplifier writing in next week. Yes, yes. No, and I love this one so much, I actually had to put in our show notes dibs on this read.

Yes, I saw. Well, I couldn't read it. I have to stop and do shots all the time. Yes, well, there you go. We got another five-star rating on iTunes. This is from Toby Patterson. Should try. Usually nice to listen to. Usually. Usually. Brain provides great historical insight.

That's right. That's I'm pinky and the brain. And Jason loves his iPads. Live goes on. You know what? I'll take it anyway. Yeah, me too. Okay, brain. All right. If you'd like to send in something or ask us a question or just talk about Jason's dogs, you can find us on Twitter at GOG Podcast, on Instagram at Grumpy Old Geeks, or at Patreon at patreon.com slash GOG.

Oh, and by the way, thank you for all the Instagram likes. That is kind of cool. That's insane how many people are liking our Instagram photos. I was just like, I just get notifications all day long. I'm like, really? I know. Wow. I know. Well, I've been stepping up the show artwork game a little bit, you know.

You have. I give you props for that. Yes, yes. We have a website at grumpy old geeks.com where you can listen to shows, leave feedback, or better yet, ask us questions that we can read on the air. If you have friends, one would hope you do. Please tell them about the show. And please, if you like the show, drop us an iTunes review. They really do help us out.

It'll only take a minute or two. Just go to grumpy old geeks.com slash iTunes, and it will take you right there. I have a book. I know you don't have a book, but I have a book.

I do not. I'm still working my way through the second laundry files. So I've been reading Mind Wise, Why We Misunderstand What Others Think, Believe, Feel, and Want by Nicholas Epley. Oh, okay. He's a teacher at the University of Chicago, or a professor at the University of Chicago.

Very smart guy. And it's a book about, you know, the lies we tell ourselves and how we don't really understand what everybody else is saying. And it will kind of shake your moral foundation as to how you perceive other people.

Yeah. It's a really, really interesting book because we talk about psychology a lot. Yeah. And this actually reminds me a lot of what the entire You Are Not So Smart podcast is about. Yes, yes. Which I love. I love that podcast. Yeah, I do too. This guy, this is like You Are Not So Smart, but on like super steroids.

Right. The science and stuff. Well, yes. He does actual studies, and some of the stuff that he's come up with is just fascinating. And just the lies we tell ourselves every day, that part alone will just be like, it'll snap you out of some of the stupid shit you tell yourself.

I highly recommend this book, and I'm going to talk to him on one of my other shows, and maybe we'll even have him on Grumpy Old Geeks at some point. Because, yeah, no, this is an amazing find. I'm so happy I found this book. Excellent. I will have to check this out at some point.

Media Candy. John Wick. Mm-hmm. One of my favorite movies of the past couple years where Keanu was a badass. Do I have to pour out another shot here? Yes, you do. God damn it. Get your whiskey ready. Because I didn't understand John Wick until I got a puppy.

And then once I got a puppy, the entire premise of the movie resonated with me. But John Wick Chapter 2 is coming out. This time with a cat. Oh, you threw me off on that one.

Yes. But the responses from CinemaCon, which is where they show movies to theater owners who, you know, want to buy the movies and put them on their screens, has apparently been fantastic. And they say that he kills even more people in this movie. Can't wait. All right.

Woo-hoo. John Wick Chapter 1 was an amazing movie. I loved it. Can't recommend it highly. You can't recommend it highly? I can't recommend it highly enough is what I was going to say. Oh, there we go. But then I was thinking, what other adverbs could I throw in? And then I just spaced on the highly.

Right. Okay. Twilight Zone is coming back. What? You know, the original by Rod Serling debuted in CBS in 1959. We did have a remake in the 80s, I believe. Was it the 80s or early 90s when it came back? I don't remember the remake. I didn't know they did that.

It didn't last a very long time. Yeah. That's probably why you don't remember it. So it was back briefly, but now they're bringing it back again with a twist. What's the twist? It's basically a choose your own adventure. What? How are they going to do that? It's not going to be on regular TV. It'll be online. Oh, is it going to be on the Oculus Rift?

Hey, there's a marketing opportunity for them. It's written and directed by game creator Ken Levine, who is best known for the Bioshock series. So it'll be online. There will be points and times where you will have to make a choice as to what you're going to do. So every episode can be consumed multiple times with several different outcomes, which is something that only children have time to do.

Hence the choose your own adventure books only being for kids. And his name is Ken Levine, not Ken Levine. But again, I have to, I have to, I'm going to have to spend the entire next episode finding these people's doing interviews. So I hear how their names are pronounced because all I do is read them.

Okay. Well, wait, wait till we get to the shout outs at the end of the show, because I'm going to blow your mind with my pronunciation on one of them. So, okay. Anyways, I, I, I don't, I don't have, I just want to see a well done story. I don't want to pick and choose. I don't want stories that are so fluid that they can have multiple endings.

Uh, anyways, there it is. Okay. Well, then just don't buy your Oculus Rift. I was not planning on it. So we're good there. And in, uh, final media news, Dr. Drew is finally going to leave Loveline after three decades on the air. This was announced, uh, this week.

His last episode will be next Thursday with former co-host and comedian Adam Carolla making an appearance as a special co-host for the night. Uh, the other host of the show, I can't even remember who's doing it now. Yeah. Yeah. He left like, like a couple of weeks ago and I liked him. I thought he was a good guy, but it is, uh, unclear if the show will continue.

I don't think that MTV slash, uh, K rock or whoever is actually funding it these days will probably, no, it's Westwood one. Westwood one. I don't think it's going to continue. I don't know how they're going to find the host. And, and again, Dr. Drew has been the bedrock of it and there the whole time. Um, yeah, you know, I, they've kind of already teased this because Dr. Drew does a podcast on with Adam Carolla on the Adam Carolla network, which is now the podcast one network.

There's going to be basically the Dr. Drew and Adam Carolla doing Loveline again podcast being announced very shortly. I don't know if I'm in for that or not because the Adam and Dr. Drew show, I don't actually care for. Yeah. Well, I mean, it's not really, that wouldn't, you know, it was always teenagers. That was the demo for Loveline and it will continue to be so.

Yeah. Yeah. Cause once you get old, you just don't care anymore. But yeah, once you get old, if you've got something weird on your penis, you go to the doctor, you don't call a radio show. That's true.

Damien Hirst is an avant-garde artist type. He was quite massive in England at the period of time that I was living there, like in the very, very late nineties, early two thousands. I've never entirely, well, I'm not so great with modern art to begin with, but Damien Hirst in particular, who I never quite got.

Is he the guy that did the shark thing? Was like the shark in the gel? He did a lot of that. That was one of his main things. He would cut animals in half or, you know, place entire animals in formaldehyde in boxes. And that was considered art. Yeah. Yeah. No, we had a piece of his at one of my offices and it was just like terrible.

Yeah. I don't think he's a very good artist. Yeah. Dead cow, a calf, a lamb. Some of these, uh, he did these artworks quite a long time ago. They're still kicking around. Uh, they were in a 2012 show at the Tate Modern in London. And what they discovered, unfortunately, is that the, uh, tanks were leaking and may have made workers sick, according to findings published in the journal Analytical Method and employees interviews with the Times of London.

Uh, they, and a gallery assistant told the newspaper that she felt sick throughout the exhibition, but blamed it on exhaustion at the time. Unfortunately, that wasn't it. They were all breathing in heavy amounts of formaldehyde. Yeah. Okay. Because he didn't build his art very well. Well, I still, I still don't even call it art.

Yeah. I don't really get it either. Um, and then I ran across this and I almost, I kind of wish it was a joke and I was hoping there was some sort of onion-esque thing involved with this, but apparently there's not. Uh, the latest battleground for racism is, uh, grammar. Uh, this is a video that you can watch, uh, from, I can't, I'm Mona Chalibi.

I think I got that one right. I'll let you, I'll let that one slide. Yeah. Okay. All right. So she, I can't open it because it'll probably autoplay and then ruin the whole show. So yeah, she writes for the Guardian. She does a lot of news and analysis about the presidential election here in the U S and she's currently working on a documentary entitled, is Britain racist?

Um, well, Betteridge's law of headlines will say no. Yes. Well, yeah. Anyways, uh, in this video, she argues that, uh, the white patriarchy is, are the only people that have time for schooling and knowledge and learn rules and standards for language. So, uh, uh, if you are a grammar snob and you don't like it when people don't follow rules or standards for language, then you are therefore racist.

That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard in my life. That is why I put it in this section, Jason. Thank you very much. You're welcome.

So we all know the concept of the black hole. Things go in, nothing ever comes out. That's the theory. Yes. We have seen this in many a sci-fi movie. Uh, we have seen this in many a real science. Many a real science. Yes. Hey, don't be a grammar snob, you racist.

Oh God. You cannot be a grammar snob. That makes you racist. Okay. But apparently NASA has finally saw something come out of a black hole for the first time ever. They have no idea what it means, but lots of science will now concur and we will find out hopefully. This is pretty cool. Two of NASA's space telescopes, including the nuclear spectroscopic telescopic array, NUSTAR, uh, miraculously observed a black hole's corona launched away from the supermassive black hole.

Then a massive pulse of x-ray energy spewed out after that. So what exactly happened? They have no idea, but science will commence. Okay. Let there be science. Exactly. It's cool, man. Yeah. No, I mean, it's, here's the thing. It's x-ray energy that spewed out.

It's not actual physical particles. So they've never seen anything come out. Yeah. No, we just, there's so much. We just don't understand about the universe. Yes. Like, like replicating any study that we do currently. Yes. Yes. And, and when, when you guys figure out what dark matter is, then give me a call.

But at this point, just keep sciencing it on. Isn't dark matter where the child porn is? Closing shout outs. So my closing shout out this week goes to Prince. Yes. I'm sad that you're gone. I'm sad that, I'm just sad about the whole damn thing.

You know, it sucks. It's, it really sucks. You know, we'll have no more little red Corvettes or symbols naming who you are. Let's be somewhat honest. He hasn't written a little red Corvette in quite some time. That's true. He has not had a hit in a very long time, but you know what?

He was an artist at heart and just wanted to be left alone and do his art. So I will always, always respect the batshit crazy true artists out there. Yes, absolutely. I, I, that's the thing. I respected Prince and I'm sad. So much the Batman soundtrack, that part of the batshit crazy a little bit.

The Batman shit crazy. Yes. I wish we could use that as a title. Anyway, no, you will be missed, my friend. You will be missed. And I want to throw out a shout out to Rohan Gunatulaki from Budapai.

Yeah. See, I can pronounce some shit too, motherfucker. No, he was just, he threw us a couple of Twitter tweets. Cool. That's what they do on Twitter. Yes. They, they send us tweets on Twitter, but yeah, if you guys aren't on Budapai, definitely recommend checking it out because it's one of our favorite apps.

I still use it all the time. As do I. I love that damn app. And I want to give a shout out to Prince. Wasn't the only big, well, big. Yes. Prince was the only big name in music that died this week, but another important name in music, at least to me, passed away this week as well. Culture jamming avant-garde musical collective Negative Land has announced that one of its founding members, Richard Lyons, died on Tuesday of due to melanoma.

Negative Land, you know, it's not, something you'd throw on at a dance party, but no, it's not. Negative Land is one of those important alt bands that kind of just really, really important stuff. So, and I think Bob told me this, Robert Fogarty, friend of the show, like he went to one of the, their shows and the smoke machine was, they would put a toaster on stage and just let the toast burn to make the smoke.

Yes. I think that was Negative Land. I could be wrong. It might've been on Neubauten, but actually it was probably Neubauten. Well, a lot of, a lot of similarities between the two, you know? Yes. And we also lost China from, uh, WWE, um, which I still prefer to call the WWF. She, she, she left us yesterday and, uh, well, she left us a couple of days ago.

They just found her yesterday. Um, but she was only 45. It's sad. That's, that's pretty young, but, uh, from all understanding, a limited understanding of her life, cause I was not a wrestling fan or anything like that. She was quite troubled. She was very troubled. She was on, uh, Dr.

Drew's celebrity rehab, uh, for, for instance, but I saw her wrestle several times in person and she was, she was a force of nature. I mean, they, they called her the ninth wonder of the world for a reason. Uh, I still try and block out the playboy shoot she did, but, um, that was, that was not good.

I'm sure they're going to port that porn sheet into VR that you could then get into your hotel room in Vegas. See how I tied all that together? See, that's usually my job and I didn't even go there. So that's how bad that was. Yeah, that's pretty bad. Anyway, we didn't kill anyone this week, so it's none of, this is our fault.

It's not our fault. Although to be fair, I did tweet a Prince meme three weeks ago, which I had never done before in my life. So I might take some of the blame here. You are a bastard. Grumpy Old Geeks is a partially 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. Intro music for the show is provided by the band Among Us. You can find them on iTunes, Spotify, and Apple Music. 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 Stochanski, who I finally got to meet and is a super cool dude. You can follow Andy at twitter.com slash House of Andy. And he's also on SoundCloud at grumpyoldgeeks.com slash Andy. Show notes for all the links discussed in this episode can be found at grumpyoldgeeks.com slash 157.

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