158: It's Neat!

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 May 6th, 2016. I am Jason DeFillippo.

I'm Brian Schulmeister. I have not had a microphone in front of my face for two weeks. Ooh, how about that? It's been kind of nice. Of course, not so good for my friends around me because they've had to listen to my opinions instead of me doing it here. Yes, this gives you a way to just dump on everybody at once.

Apparently so, yes. So I finally made it to Chicago after five days in the car with our good friend of the show, Robert Fogarty, and my puppy. I have the whiskey ready. There you go. I needed some after this trip. My goodness.

The hotel industry has not gotten better over the past couple of years since I've done this trip before. It's actually gotten much, much worse. In terms of what? Wi-Fi. Oh, yes. Well, you know, when the wife and I are traveling and picking our vacations and picking our hotels, we do always check the Yelp reviews and see what people have to say about the Wi-Fi.

There was not one single good one. They were all, I'd say 90% of them were sub-megabit. And the rest of them were like maybe one to two. That's it. And you can't pay for it. There's no option.

I'm like, can I have an Ethernet cable and some juice, please? Nope. Can't do it. All I needed was some bandwidth and they wouldn't give it to me. There are still some, some rogue hotels out there that have the old Ethernet port on the desk and that funky little round thing that they always used to use. Yeah.

I've seen that a few times. I'd have paid good money for one of those. So, yeah, the Wi-Fi in these hotels is just abysmal. Yeah. Let me pay for it and make it decent. Yeah. They don't do that. And by the way, the business centers have the same Wi-Fi. Yeah.

In the hotel. Yeah. So, we're talking about your trip. You got to Chicago. Let's do your trip roundup. I know it's not quite in that order in our notes, but you started. Let's go. Okay. Well, five days in my shiny new truck, which was fun.

This is the first time I've actually made this trip and been comfortable the entire way. Wait, I thought you liked the train. Oh, yeah. The train. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Now, the one thing that is interesting, though, is I got serious. I got like six free months of serious with this thing.

Mm-hmm. And it's a Ford Escape, if anybody's wondering. And so, we listened to it here and there. It's very spotty, I've noticed. I get, like, knocked off a lot. I figure satellites in the middle of the country where there's no obstructions.

Hmm. That is a bit odd. I mean, I know I've mentioned that happens here in L.A. to me a lot. If I go under a bridge, I will lose serious for about a half a second. But, yeah, in the middle of nowhere, that seems a bit stupid. Isn't that the point? Isn't that what this is made for, for people in the middle of nowhere who don't get regular radio?

Yeah. And there's a spot that I found in the neighborhood around here that I go over a bridge and it turns off in the same spot every time. So, I blame those government planes. Well, I think they just, you know, it's one of their listening stations.

I think that's where they have it. But it kills it every time. Same spot. And wide open sky? Just dead. Well, I mean, Sirius XM or whatever the hell they call themselves or whatever their branding is these days. They're so playlisted. When mine runs out, that's that.

Like, I'm not going to have it again unless I buy a new car. Yeah, I was just listening to Stern, you know, because I haven't listened to Howard Stern in years. So, it was kind of fun to get caught up on some of the stuff. Yeah, it's worth it if you're a Stern fan. But other than that, I don't see the point. Yeah, I'm not that big of a fan that I'm going to pay for it after the six months lapses.

That's for sure. Yeah. I had a very interesting thing occur to me while you were traveling. A friend of the show, Michael Tamal, is apparently making a trip out here to L.A. And he popped up in my Facebook Messenger asking me some recommendations and asking about the area and where to stay and all of that.

And as per usual with me, conversations tend to descend into making fun of Uber and Prius riders, drivers in Santa Monica. But as we were talking about Uber, I had my first in the wild bot sighting. Okay, what happened? As soon as I mentioned Uber in a conversation and hit send, up popped, request a ride.

Hmm. So very interesting. I don't know if any. He tried it as well right after and he didn't get it. So it must be some sort of odd staged rollout again. Very strange. So, yes, the bots are listening. The bots are coming, people. I just thought that was super interesting.

And then the other thing I saw on Facebook last night, and I may have had a little bit of wine before because this annoyed me. Somebody our age. Okay. HTC Vive, whatever it's called, ordered after Oculus delivered early. Going to post the unboxing and set up in a quick snap storm as I go.

Nobody over the age of 40 should use the term snap storm. I've never even heard the term snap storm. That's because he's going to post all these Snapchats while he's unboxing a product. You are over 40 years old, people. I'm too old to even care. You're too old to do that. Who has this kind of time? I don't know.

Now you have to tell me off the air who this is because I need to know. Inquiring minds want to know. Yeah. It was, what's wrong with people? In the news. Google Chrome is now the most popular web browser.

Woohoo. I don't see why this is terribly shocking. But I suppose Microsoft's Internet Explorer due to that large amount of XP installs that are still out there in the wild was number one for a long time because of that. But finally, finally Google Chrome has taken over. Shockingly, the Microsoft Edge is not doing well.

Oh, you know, it's still new. It's still new. The interesting thing about this, though, is I was reading this new book called Originals by Adam Grant. Mm-hmm. And there's an interesting thing in the beginning of the book, and I'm not ruining anything, but they said. Spoiler alert.

Yeah, spoiler alert. That employees who typically stood, like, stuck around longer and were better at their job were the ones that did not use the default browsers because they would come in and they would go to the extra effort to put in, like, Chrome or Firefox.

But if you used Internet Explorer or Safari as your basic install, those people were crappier at their job and didn't stay as long. Well, I mean, it's just a, you know, it's a base sign that you are smart. Well, apparently there's a lot of smart people now since Chrome is in the lead.

It's about time. Yeah. Now, here's what's going to happen. Chrome is going to get feature creep, bloat, turn into Firefox. Then Firefox will get lean. And then we'll go back to Firefox. And nobody's ever going to use Safari. It is funny. You should mention that because one of the things that led to the epic meltdown of my PC over the last two weeks was Chrome on PC and its overuse of CPU.

So I started to Google that. And, of course, they say you should go back to Firefox. So that's already happened. Okay. So apparently right now, Firefox is actually the leanest, meanest of the big browsers. And Chrome is starting to get bloated. So depends on how same as it ever was.

Yeah. Same as it was, Jason. Exactly. It also depends on how many extensions you run. Like, turn all that crap off. Yeah, I did. That was a big part of the problem. Because I would forget what extensions I tried out and they were just still on. So I had to go in and turn them all off. Yeah. I think I've got like six running.

But for the most part, I just go in and as soon as something like. Well, actually, when Chrome updates automatically, it usually kills half of them because they haven't updated. But, yeah, I try and keep it as lean and mean as possible. Excellent. We like to make fun of Yahoo a lot on the show.

Yahoo. Because they lack any sort of business plan and nobody seems to want to really buy them. I think the business plan is Marissa Meyer's cash out golden umbrella. I think that's what her plan has been all along. Well, that works out real well for her. Not so great for every other employee.

Yeah. Yeah. Interesting. But somebody out there has the same sense of humor as us and the same ire for Yahoo. And he put Yahoo up for sale on Craigslist. That's awesome. Yes. Some joker published a Craigslist ad putting Yahoo up for sale. It's listed for $8 billion or best offer, which I think is a bit high.

The funny bit being it's under the antiques section and the condition is salvage. That's awesome. And it's true. And it's very true. So some of the things that you get with the purchase, 1 billion users more or less, a web email system, which is now 62% spam-free. Okay.

A bottomless archive of Kim Kardashian photos. You get Flickr and Tumblr, a fully-equipped Nautilus gym, a really nice cafeteria, the Yahoo weather app, several warehouses filled with Kind Bars, and Katie Kirk. Okay. Well, the weather app is interesting because they've pulled that from iOS now.

You don't even get the Yahoo weather app anymore. Now you get the Weather Channel app. So I think this should go down to $7.5 billion just for that alone. Oh, for sure. Yeah. We've never really understood Bitcoin too well here. We even did an entire show where we had somebody come out and try to explain it to us, and we were both like, hmm, okay.

Yeah. But supposedly, see, this story has already changed like five times since I put this in the notes. The creator supposedly outed himself, but now everybody's saying, no, it can't be him. Yeah, and he's even backed off saying, yeah, sorry, guys. My bad. My bad. So he's an Australian entrepreneur named Craig Wright who said it was him, and then he promised to present some sort of esoteric proof that it would be him, and then he said, no, I'm not going to do that.

Sorry. So, yeah, the easiest way to prove that you're Satoshi is to actually spend some Bitcoin from. From the first batch. Yeah, from his batch, and this guy couldn't do it because it's not him. He's having other issues. Seems like he's kind of a scam artist in a sneak.

Wait, a scam artist on the internet? I know. I know. Wow, that's shocking. Speaking of scam artists, tell me about what's wrong with Airbnb this week. Actually, this was last week because I had been doing show notes, and then you ended up on the road and unable to do a show.

But New Orleans had Jazz Fest, and apparently people in New Orleans got really pissed off at Airbnb because basically almost every other neighbor put up their places on Airbnb. The current law in New Orleans is renting a property for less than 30 days is illegal.

So, Airbnb is technically not operating legally in New Orleans. And because everybody comes there to party, neighbors are not too thrilled about the places next door becoming basically full of frat boys that puke all over the place. Nice.

Yeah. So, there's some problems going on in New Orleans that will have to get sorted out. But once again, Airbnb continuing to operate illegally in every city across the country. Speaking of things that operate illegally, tell me what's new in Uber. Ha! Ah, well, this first article's you, Jason, so you tell me.

Ah, Uber faces a class action lawsuit over a text campaign supporting the Austin ballot measure. This, I found this in the Daily Dot. If you've ever driven for or ridden in an Uber, I guess, in Austin, they were just blanket texting people, like, you know, doing robot dialers.

They say, hey, why don't you guys come and vote for, you know, Prop 1 or 11 or whichever the prop was. But is that not illegal? Yes, it is. Oh, interesting. Yes. Wow, these companies keep doing things that are totally illegal, and nobody seems to give a fuck. This is called the Telephone Consumer Protection Act, and they were using robot texting to vote in favor of this proposition that would legalize ride sharing.

Oh, okay. And it was funny. I was going through the list of tweets of people complaining about it, and I saw Austin Kleon in there, who I interviewed for another show. He was a cool guy. I'm like, hey, Austin's doing that, too, about Austin. It's cool. Nobody liked it. Nobody's happy about this.

So, hopefully, they will get sued. You know how you show you're not happy about it? You stop using them. Yeah. Okay. Pretty simple. Okay. So, yes, this is a class action lawsuit against them, so we'll see if anything actually happens with it. Everybody in Austin will get a check for $2.25.

Yeah, maybe they'll get some free barbecue. Maybe. Oh, that'd be nice. I wouldn't mind that. So, there's more Uber stuff going on. We have the impending settlement for Uber in California and Massachusetts. As part of the agreement of the settlement, which is all about are they employees or not, Uber has to clarify its language around tipping.

Previously, the company said there was, air quotes, no need, and air quotes, to tip, although that's not the same thing legally as saying a tip is included. However, I mean, I think it's been the underlying agreement, and that all along, that the whole point of using an Uber is you don't have to even talk to the person.

Right. It's not your phone. You get in, you get out. Because when, I mean, when they first started, you know, it's like, oh, well, it's 5% more than a taxi ride, and we just assumed that that money was for the tip. Yes. So, that was from the very early days, and things have obviously changed quite a bit since then.

It seems that their opinion on this has pivoted a bit. Now, they're saying that the reason that they don't want to add tips isn't just because of the whole experience, which we all thought it was. It's because it would incentivize drivers to spend more time where tips are likely to be highest, typically the wealthiest neighborhoods, and not service the whole town.

So, we're doing it for you. Yeah, which is, this is like post-facto rationale, you know, reasoning, going back and just trying to figure out how to make that point. It's crap. That's total and utter crap. It is total and utter crap. And this whole thing blew up just over the last two weeks because basically everybody is kind of saying now, well, you should probably tip your Uber driver because they're providing the service.

This has upset a number of people, including me, including in front of the show, Sean Bonner, which I also saw. And again, the way you solve this is by not taking an Uber. Yeah, there you go. So, but there's an article on Business Insider, which rationalizes why you might want to tip your Uber driver, to which I say, fuck you.

That wasn't their business model. I'm not going to fucking do it. But they're basically saying Uber doesn't pay them enough and they need some money. Well, I think that's Uber's fucking fault. Yeah, I mean, if Uber's not paying you enough money to do the job, don't do the job. Go get a job at Walmart and then get on.

Yeah, yeah. Uber is valued at billions of dollars because of a business model that was based on we don't have to tip. And now you want us to tip because you're not paying your drivers with your billions of dollars. Fuck you. I hate that company. I know, but here's the funny part.

I noticed on Facebook when you went up to San Francisco the other day, you're like, hey, I'm taking an Uber. Yeah, well, I posted that just for you. I don't really have much of a choice in San Francisco. I can't even find a regular cab anymore. Well, see, this is why Uber really like they hit the sweet spot when they started because San Francisco is one of the worst towns for getting a cab.

Yeah, well, same with L.A. I mean, because L.A. was always based on, again, you know, you wouldn't just run into one. You'd have to call a cab ahead of time. But now, you know, they're everywhere. So you can grab a cab and it's changed the whole mindset. But, you know, artificially low prices, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

So continuing on in this realm, Lyft, which does expect you to tip, by the way, and GM have announced that they've made a partnership and they will be introducing autonomous Chevy Bolts on public roads within 12 months. So, you know, Web 2.0 or Economy 2.0 people, all you Lyft drivers and Uber drivers, you just continue to work for them while they blatantly tell you, we're going to fire your ass in about a year.

Well, see, the only thing that's going to be saving people is they need somebody behind the wheel to be able to take over. Initially, yes. So because of regulations, yeah. So they will have people sitting in the cars for at least the beginning until they decide to remove the regulations.

Through an autonomous texting campaign. Yes. Or until the passenger becomes the person that is the one that's in the driver's seat. Yes. Which in that case, you end up just going back to driving. Well, you know, if the Lyft car can show up without anybody in it and then you get in it.

But I guess that kind of defeats the purpose. You're still going to have to have somebody. In 10 years, this is all going to be. It won't matter. It's not going to matter because all these cars are going to be autonomous. Exactly. And as you pointed out quite a while ago, the trucking industry is actually going to be the biggest hit to the economy.

And that is coming. The driverless truck will eliminate millions of jobs in the U.S. A convoy of self-driving trucks recently just drove across Europe and arrived at the port of Rotterdam with no problems whatsoever. There are currently more than 1.6 million Americans working as truck drivers, making it the most common job in 29 of our 50 states.

And the loss of jobs when this happens will represent 1% of the U.S. workforce in total. And it will be a devastating blow to the economy. That is just the truck drivers. Then you have to think about the fact that the gas stations, highway diners, rest stops, motels, on all the other places that Jason stopped at on his way to Chicago will be struggling to survive without the truckers.

Yeah. No, I think I met most of those damn truckers along the way. Some of the nicest people, too, by the way. But, yeah, it's going to be it's going to be a massive hit because, you know, you don't even really see that that side of it. And until you're like driving across the country or, you know, in a major city in the morning when all these trucks come rolling in to resupply the city.

Yeah. Yeah. We're going to have to figure out a lot of people. It's a massive amount of people. And I was I was watching. I didn't get involved, but I was watching some friends of mine kind of debating this a bit online. And somebody said, you know, this is no different than when Eli Whitney invented the cotton gin and put a bunch of people out of work with that.

And I was thinking, yeah, but no, the difference being back then, there was still all kinds of unskilled labor available. There were jobs in other unskilled, you know, manual labor fields. The thing is, we are getting rid of all of those. They're all going away.

So there isn't something for for normal people to pivot to anymore. Well, you might want to get into construction because I tell you what, a lot of those roads and bridges could really use some work. Yeah. Well, we're not going to pay for infrastructure. Anyways, there were a couple of bridges that I went over.

I was just like, I really hope we make it to the other side. There was. Wow. Yeah. I haven't I haven't done a cross country thing in many, many years, but that would terrify me a little bit. Yeah, because we did a lot of the road less traveled version on this one to try and just stay off the interstate for a while.

And then after, can we get back on the interstate? It was much nicer. Yeah. So Tinder is getting a bit weird as they attempt to try to pivot themselves. Apparently, in Australia, they rolled out a small test program that allowed.

Well, first off, you sign up with Tinder with your Facebook, right? So so it kind of, you know, confirms who you are and make sure that you can't get in there and be all kind of weird. The problem with that being, of course, you may not necessarily want all of your Facebook friends to know that you're swiping like a madman. But that's been kind of OK because there's been no real connection so far.

That's about to change. That's what they're testing in Australia. They basically allow you to make group messages to your Facebook friends of sorts within Tinder. So now everybody is seeing who's on Tinder with each other and what's going on, which just seems like a horrible mess to me.

Yeah. You have to excuse me for a second. I'm uninstalling Tinder right now. That is a terrible idea. It's a horrible idea. You know, separation of church and state people. Yeah. Yeah. Separation of friends and fuck buddies. Yeah. Whatever you want to call it. Yeah. No, near the twain shall meet, you know?

Yeah. Yeah. And another creepy thing going on on social media, Facebook. I have not seen this again. This is, you know, everybody does these crazy staged rollout thing. But Facebook may be syncing every photo you've ever taken on your phone, meaning grabbing your photos and storing them on Facebook servers somewhere, whether you have uploaded it to Facebook or not.

Yeah. There's a setting that you have to turn off for this. And, you know. Yeah. I don't have it. I don't have it either. It's not on mine. It's only on the app. So you got to go on your app. Well, just go to our show notes. Go to the show notes. Check them out. And there's a whole thing on how to turn it off. And you can see if it's been happening to you.

It hasn't been happening to me. I don't have the sync tab. Yeah. So I don't know. Maybe this is a Android only thing. But yeah, I don't have it either. And again, it's one of those things that should be opt in, not opt out. Yeah. And, you know, the thing about this is some people may opt in and not even know it because people just don't know how to read settings pages and things like that.

But Facebook is also notorious for turning everything on and apologizing later. Exactly. Well, they also don't. Remember when there used to be update releases? Yes. You would read about the new things that were put into the things. They don't do that. They just roll crap out now. Yeah. It's like every two weeks you get a new app and it's just like updates and bug fixes.

It's like, what are the updates? What are you doing now? What are you doing to me now? Yeah. I just took Facebook off my phone because it was such a battery drain. It is pretty bad. It's really bad. It is one of the single worst apps. And if you have an iPhone, you can go in and look at your battery tab under settings and see what apps are using the most battery.

And that's probably going to be near the top. Even if you don't do anything with it, the background app refresh is so heinous that you just watch your battery die in front of you. Well, I can name a worse app. What would that be? That would be Apple Music.

You know, I don't know. I've actually, it's been okay for me recently. Well, I've got an article that will change your mind about that. But let me first talk about how they're planning to revamp the streaming music service after mixed reviews and people leaving such as me. There was a management shakeup as well.

So the new look is being overseen by content head Robert Kondrick. And here he comes again. I thought he did this last time. Nine Inch Nails frontman Trent Reznor, the well-known UI design expert. Yeah, seriously. When I think UI, I think Trent Reznor. Yeah. So yeah, apparently they're going to reboot Apple Music and it will be unveiled at the Worldwide Developers Conference in June.

It needs help. I don't think Trent Reznor is the person to do it. But hey, at least he's getting a paycheck. Yeah. Yeah. Like he needs more money. Now, the problem with Apple Music and why you may want to consider not using it and removing it immediately. You can't remove it.

That's the problem. You can't remove it. Well, you can turn off the streaming service, right? Yes. So that's the problem right now. And they need to fix this. There is a blog that has gone somewhat viral. I've seen a lot of people post about it, about Apple stole my music.

No, seriously. Apple now deletes files from its users' computers. When you sign up for Apple Music, iTunes evaluates your collection, scans the database for what it considers matches, then removes the original files from your drive completely and deletes them. If it sees a file it doesn't recognize, which would come up often with me and did with this person as well, then it will download it to Apple's database, remove it from your hard drive again, and serve it back to you only if and when you want to listen to it, just like it would with any other file.

So basically, Apple goes into your drive, steals your shit, and deletes it. Nice. Nicely done, Apple. Well done, Apple. That is genius. So this has obviously upset a lot of people. And thank you, Kenny, for sending that one to us on Twitter. Yeah. No, I've seen that happen before with some of my friends' bands who, you know, they're just like studio demos and things like that.

Yeah. And it's gone, and then you have to re-download them. When you do that, by the way, if you are a musician, you do tend to save your files at much higher formats than what you will get back from Apple because they convert it. Yeah, they convert it. Some of them are better. Some of them are worse. But you're not going to get the original fidelity back.

You're not going to get the original file back. Nope. So, yeah, I mean, I'm so glad that I never was able to actually sign up and get it all working because that would have so pissed me off. Oh, yeah, no. And I killed my iTunes Match account. And right before I did that, I just went in.

I did actually delete all of the local files and re-downloaded everything because it had already been, you know, slurped up and moved around and all that. And you do get better quality files for a lot of stuff. Yeah. Like my old CD rips that I did in one amp, you know. Anything that you ripped at like 128 and stuff like that.

Yeah. So now I just have a folder somewhere of everything that I've got, which is, you know, several hundred gigabytes. But at least I have a backup just in case. So I always recommend backing up your music. Always. In fact, I'm actually running that right now as I'm waiting for my new Mac to show up.

Woohoo! Macintosh in the house. Yeah, yeah. We'll be talking about that a lot, I'm sure, moving forward. Elon Musk has decided to basically open source artificial intelligence. Okay. They started a company or a project called OpenAI with a billion dollars in backing to push AI as far as it can go.

And it will be completely open source. Okie dokie. This isn't, no, this isn't scary at all. Let's put a billion dollars behind AI. Hmm. And this is how the Terminator begins. Here comes Skynet. I don't know about that, but.

First, they got to make it work, and they're a long way from making it work. They are a long way, and I actually don't mind this concept. I mean, Elon Musk is one of these people that can, you know, afford to basically do this. He has his money, and so he throws everything out into the public realm to see if they can make it better.

So we'll see what happens. Yeah. This is one to watch. Yes, one to watch. And I watch anything that guy does, because if nothing else, he's interesting. He's certainly more interesting than Richard Branson, who is the same kind of, you know, multi-gazillionaire genius, but just kind of weird. Yeah.

You know, Richard Branson's kind of fallen out of favor, I think, with a lot of people, because he doesn't really do much. He just hangs out on Necker Island and hosts parties, you know? Yeah, I mean, you know, he's not doing stuff like open AI. He's like going in a parachute with Pamela Anderson. Like, that's not interesting. No, it's not. But I tell you what, he's probably having a hell of a lot more fun than Elon Musk.

Oh, for sure. I'd rather be Richard Branson than Elon Musk. Yeah, no doubt. It's like, Elon gets up and goes to work every day. Richard just walks out to his toilet on a cliff and drops a deuce and says, I'm Richard Branson. That's right. I've got two articles from the No Shit Files.

Okay. Bigthink.com. Social media is turning us into thoughtless political extremists. Oh, yeah, because you read the things that you want to read and it turns into an echo chamber and you don't have any new ideas. And it's hard to express complex ideas in 140 characters or less.

Oh, really? I never noticed. Yeah. So, yeah, it's basically saying how are we supposed to have deep political discussions when most of our rhetoric is splashing around in the kiddie pool? Uninformed opinions, ridiculous links, self-serving memes that form echo chambers, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Yeah. Yeah. So, that's not good.

And social media isn't necessarily responsible for this. We are, but it's sure not helping things. That's kind of my gun argument, which we'll probably get to in the comments. Yeah. So, that's good times. And the second No Shit PBS.org. Why clickbait will be the death of journalism.

Too late. Too late. I mean, this is – Yeah, this is – I'm sorry. This is old news. Yeah. This is BuzzFeed and Mashable like three years ago. Yeah. This is old news. Sorry, PBS. You're a little bit behind again like you always were with Downton Abbey, which is why I had to go to Sweden. Mm-hmm.

But I did like the bullet point that the author put in. We live in strange times. We have a lodging system called Airbnb. It doesn't own any actual hotels. There's a food delivery service called Foodora. It doesn't own any restaurants. There's a video service called YouTube. It doesn't produce any movies.

Well, that's not really true anymore. Yeah. They're going to hear big into that. Yeah. There's a taxi company called Uber. It doesn't own any cars. Yeah. Well, it is a weird world. And now he basically then went on to say, we also have Uberized journalism. We have newspaper – well, not really newspapers. We have news services that no longer have reporters.

Mm-hmm. Yeah. So, there you go. Oh, yeah. Well, I did come up with a solution. I want to end on a high note with my links. So, all of us that are unemployed or have been, you know, downsized or have been whatever, all you Uber and Lyft drivers that won't have a job, all you truck drivers that won't have a job in two years, you can move to Hawaii.

Okay. This is great. I actually almost considered this. They are trying to get unemployed people with college degrees to come move to Hawaii so they can work teaching jobs. No teaching certificate or experience required. The reason being that Hawaii at the end of the school year will lose about 1,600 Hawaiian teachers to retirement.

That's a huge gap for the Hawaiian school system to absorb, so they are opening up the positions to people who have college educations and want to move to Hawaii. Sign me the fuck up. Yeah, I thought you were moving to Canada. Well, yeah, I know. There's a little difference there. No snow in Hawaii, at least.

No snow in Hawaii. The average pay for a Hawaiian teacher is $54,000 a year. That does not sound like a lot, but remember, all you need to do is purchase shorts and t-shirts and surf. Oh, yes, but food. Have you been to Hawaii? Food is not cheap. Food is not cheap, but, you know, grow your own. Pineapples. I saw this one this morning.

It's from The All. It's called 3D Printing the Void, and it talks about the rise and fall of MakerBot. Yeah. Big, big, huge amounts of press a couple months ago. Not so much anymore. Yeah. Massive new facilities. 170,000 square foot factory.

And they're, they're, they're already shutting it down and they're going to be moving, moving production offshore, going to China. What? Yep. What? Yeah. It's just a big surprise. You know, but yeah. Oh boy.

Yeah. No, this company has been up and down and up and down. And, you know, the big thing with, you know, desktop 3D printing, it was, you know, is big in the news. I know a couple of people that have them, but it didn't really take off like everybody thought it would because just the quality is not there yet.

You know? It's not there. If you need something real, like you wanted to replace a real piece of physical something for some sort, like your car, you can't do it with this stuff. All you could, you can make plastic trinkets. Yeah. And there's not a big market for plastic trinkets and they can make them a lot cheaper in China. With injection molding and, you know, you make, you make a, make a mold and squirt some plastic in it.

Yep. I mean, 3D printing has a lot of uses, but, and it's. Like, like, uh, Joey who made us our awesome grumpy old geeks hammer. That was 3D printed. It was. Um, but it's, it's the industrial application. I think that really is, you know, in medical devices and things like that, that really is where it's picking up.

But yeah, the home use for it just seemed to kind of fizzle. It, yeah, it did. I think, you know, there's only going to be a limited number of people that are into the idea of, of printing this stuff. And once you realize that you can't really make money or, or do anything terribly interesting with it, it kind of just goes, it's, it's a hobby.

And you can't have a billion dollar company based on a hobby. And we'll be right back. But now a word from our sponsors. Loot Crate. Ah, Loot Crate. What a great way to support our show. Loot Crate is a monthly subscription box service for epic geek and gamer items and pop culture gear.

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Security? Ha! So, the site Beautiful People. That's Tinder for the 1%ers. I'm pretty sure Marilyn Manson is not on beautifulpeople.com. It was a dating site that allows members to vote on hopeful enlistees based on their looks, so you had to be voted on to even be able to get onto the site so you could be both attractive and shallow and hang out with douchebags.

You know what? I can sell them a better domain. They've got beautifulpeople.com. I own vapid.com. I should sell them that because that seems to kind of sum up what this whole thing is about. That does sound perfect. Regardless, the personal data of 1.1 million members of Beautiful People is currently for sale on the black market because hackers took it from an insecure database.

So, beautiful and stupid. Yes, apparently the beautiful people are not very smart people. Should have hired some ugly people to take care of your security. No doubt. We've mentioned a couple times about how, you know, the hackers are going to be coming after the electric grid soon and we're all going to be living with sternocans and, you know, huddling around the fires in their backyards.

Yep. Yep. That was that, not Dan Rather, the other guy, the book I read. I can't remember his name. Yeah. Old news guy. Wrote all about that. Yep. So, the Lansing Board of Water and Light in Michigan had to shut down its entire corporate IT systems after a ransomware attack.

So, this isn't exactly the same thing, but... Yeah. It's not like they were intentionally targeted. It just... Well, they might have been intentionally targeted. Oh, they might have been. Because, you know, it's like hospitals have been the major point of attack lately. But, you know, a utility company just as likely to pay up as a hospital because they need to get their stuff back online.

That is true. So, yep. They got nailed and their entire IT system shut down for a week just to clean it up. Yeah. I would highly recommend if you're out there and you're a truck driver that you learn intense hardcore security because there's going to be a lot of openings.

Or you could just attack people and get money that way. Yeah. Start up a ransomware cabal. And Spotify. Hundreds of Spotify credentials have appeared online and users have reported accounts were hacked and emails were changed. Spotify is saying that they have not been hacked and its user records are secure.

Now, the issue seems to be due to the service's lack of two-factor authentication. And the most likely scenario is that Spotify users are reusing their passwords from their Spotify passwords on other websites. And that's where they were first stolen. And hence, Spotify can say its servers were not breached.

Technically true. Technically true. And I do not want two-factor authentication for Spotify. I don't want to have to get a text whenever I want to play a tune. No, I don't want to deal with that either. That's absolutely ridiculous. But what you do need to do, people, is use a password program like 1Password and don't use the same password all over the place.

Yeah, I think that's going to work. Nobody listens.

Comment of the week. Our first comment of the week comes from the website, from Billy Hayes. Jason, Stardust is on Netflix. Save your cash and force Brian to watch it. I'm watching it today and it better not suck. I know you both love Demon and I bought it on your recommendation.

I found it anticlimactic. I bought the first five books of Discworld at your recommendation and did not like it. Fortunately, you came through with Kung Fury and Good Omens. Keep the recommendations up. Well, we're not doing too well with recommendations for Old Billy here. I don't know if you want our recommendations anymore. I also honestly don't understand how you could like Good Omens and not like Discworld.

I know. Although it has the God thing involved. So maybe you're like me and grew up with Christianity and like anything that makes fun of it now. Could be. Could be. And, you know, the first five books of Discworld may not be the best because he was just getting his legs under them. I haven't read those in ages.

But me either. I mean, it's a bit like, you know, it's like, God, what's the series I'm thinking about? The Gunslinger. Like that the first book is horrible. Yeah, that's why I can't I can't listen. I tried to listen to it and it was not good for me. But the rest are great. So try it later, Discworld, if you really like Good Omens, because Terry Pratchett's pretty damn awesome.

Yeah, I think one of the first ones I started with was Pyramids. I loved that one. I couldn't even I haven't read them in so long. I couldn't even tell you any of them. Yeah. Yeah. The thing about it is it's like, you know, once you start to get into those characters and you start to get into the worlds, then, you know, and the characters evolve over time.

I mean, the cops are my favorite out of everybody. The cops and the Assassin's Guild and, you know, Veteranari. I still love Rinse Wind. Yes, and Rinse Wind. And I also recommend the Hallmark TV series. They did three. I think they did three different ones and they were all really well done.

They were just like I'd imagined them. I was like I was really impressed. That's cool. Going Postal, I think, is the best one. But as far as the TV stuff. Yeah, and I remember that book. That was a good book. It was a really good book. Yeah. Yeah. And Damon, I can see that, too. I mean, it wasn't I enjoyed it, but it's not one of my favorites of the genre.

So, yeah, and I mean, you have to read both of them. That's true. Demon and Freedom TM was the second one and they kind of go together. They could have been one book, but I really enjoyed Demon. I think that just might be because I was a gamer and a programmer and I kind of understood a lot of it, but, you know, to each their own.

To each their own. So, did you watch Stardust yet? I have not yet. Okay. So, I've had my own issues while you've been traveling cross country, including a total computer meltdown. So, it's been keeping me busy, but I will get on that. I will watch it. I promise. Second comment from Rico. Gents, love the show as always.

It's my favorite podcast of the week. The only grape I have is when you sometimes get on a soapbox on things that you would probably be better, probably better off leaving be. This is particularly annoying when Brian goes on one of his anti-gun rants where his facts are only emotions. Insert alien meme guy here. That said, I think the article below you will find quite interesting and actually fantastic at speaking to why pro-gun folks take such a hard stance on things.

This argument is the same that we face in tech from privacy and encryption to EULAs and ownership. This article is from TechCrunch of all places. Please read it in its entirety and I hope you both find it of value. Well, thank you, Rico. I'm sorry that we have opinions. Again, I don't understand why people listen to podcasts because they are opinions.

I'm not making fun of you. It's just a weird thing to me because I think that I listen to a lot of podcasts where I don't agree with the people. I watch a lot of the TV shows where I totally don't agree with the person's opinions, but I am watching it for their opinions and listening to it for their opinions. And I think you should listen to things that you don't agree with.

And I would never take to something to say, I love your show except for the fact that I don't like your opinion. Well, I'm on the show with you and half the time I don't like your opinion, but that's what makes it fun. That's what makes it fun. So, you know, it's cool. I mean, I have a very different idea about guns than a lot of people do. I looked at the article from TechCrunch.

I'm down with smart guns. I think that would be okay with me. I don't think that we need to eradicate guns from the world. I just don't want, you know, I'm tired of two-year-olds blowing away their siblings. Yep, indeed. So what are you going to do? And there were a ton of other comments from the website that we're just, I'm going to sum up and say, thank you for all the support, everybody.

It's been, it's been really nice to go to see everybody writing in. I've gotten tons and tons of emails from people who kind of going through the same thing. So I really appreciate the feedback and it makes me, it makes my little heart warm inside. Hey, it even made my heart warm.

I saw all the ones that were up on the, that you guys sent into the website for Jason. And I'm happy to say, I love our listeners. You guys are super cool. So thank you. Yes, it is. Thank you very much. We got some ratings on iTunes. The first being from Mr. Somebody from Hungary. Love it. Brian and Jason have found the right balance between tech news and cynical commentary.

If you are in the tech world, you will agree profoundly. If not, you'll be told what to think and we'll enjoy the process. That's awesome. And this is coming from millennial. Keep up the good work guys. Jason, hope things work out. Get well soon. See what I mean? Awesome people. Thank you, Mr. Somebody. Thank you, Mr. Somebody. The next one comes from John's nickname.

It's called dog love. One man who loves his dog. One man that doesn't. The tale of two friends and the adventures they face as they endure the struggles of daily life on the internet. You'll laugh. You'll cry. You will question all the life choices that led here. That's so poetic. I love it.

I know. That's awesome. Now I have to take a drink. Okay. And from bridge 579, one of my favorites. I'm a podcast junkie. And this is the only one that where I listened to the very, very end. I love that music drop. Excellent.

Thank you, bridge 579. I hope that somebody is servicing your infrastructure. Callback. Callback. You can find us on Twitter at GOG podcast, on Instagram at grumpy old geeks, or at Patreon at patreon.com slash GOG.

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, please tell them about the show. And please, if you like the show, drop us an iTunes review. They really do help us out, and they'll only take a minute or two. Just go to grumpy old geeks.com slash iTunes. It'll take you right there.

Much like we were just saying, sometimes series start off a bit slow. I, at your recommendation, started reading the Laundry Files series by Charlie Strauss. The first book didn't exactly grab me. I finished the Jennifer Morgue, the second book in the series, and now I'm hooked.

Loved it. Gotcha. All right. Good. First one was rough, man. Not going to lie, but now I'm in the world, and he's building the world really well, and I'm well into book three at the moment, and really enjoying that, too. Yeah. It's a really good series, and yeah, it did start off rough, but once you keep going and get into the world, it's a pretty good world, and they only get better.

His latest book, hands down the best one. So, cool. Keep on reading. I will keep on with them, because they're quite fun. So, I read Talent is Overrated, What Really Separates World-Class Performers from Everybody Else by Jeff Colvin. Okay.

Well, we listened to it on the road trip out. Not sure I agree with his premise. Actually, you should maybe check it out. It's pretty good. This was a recommendation from Cal Henderson, who wrote So Good They Can't Ignore You, and the new one on working, which I can't remember the name of.

I reviewed it on the show before, but Cal is an amazingly smart guy, and he said this is one of the best books on the topic of deliberate practice and things like that. It came out the same year as that Malcolm Gladwell book with the 10,000-hour crap in it.

What was it? Outliers. Outliers, yes. Yeah. This has a lot more of the studies in it. It's a lot more scientific. Science. Yeah. And it's a really good book if you are interested in, like, world-class performers and how they get to where they are. And it's a little bit surprising.

Okay. So that's my book of the week. Book of the week. Software, apps, and gadgets. Now, we've been joking about the VR thing and the Vive and the Oculus.

Mm-hmm. And so once your friend actually does his Snapchatty unboxing thing, he should go get Tilt Brush by Google. Well, don't forget he's doing a Snap Storm. Snap Storm. It's hard. I mean, how can you not be cynical about these things?

What do you... Really? I know. Snap Storm. Snap Storming it. I'm Snap Storming my unboxing. And I'm a geek and I'm making fun of this shit. I know. Okay. Well, Tilt Brush is an app that you run with your little VR headset, your VU or whatever the hell they call it.

And you can paint in 3D in virtual space and make these really cool, like, 3D paintings that you can walk through and, you know, export. And it's just really neat. I mean, I have to... Not being a gamer, as I've said all along, my interest in, you know, VR, 3D reality is nil because I don't play games.

But this actually looks cool. Is it, you know, is it worth the cost of investment to get up to being able to play with this and then enjoying this for, you know, maybe a week and then never touching it again? No. But it's cool. Yeah. You can get it for Steam or the Vive.

Or VU. Still, we got to figure out how they pronounce it. Yeah, we got to figure out what the pronunciation... Hey, guess who's not pronouncing something right, potentially? Shut up, Grime Life, guys. Anyway, yeah, this looks neat. I, you know... It does. It looks really neat.

This is the first implementation of anything I've found that I would even... I would actually try. Yeah. I mean, because you make something with this. It's not just, you know, experiencing the world you actually can create with it. And it's neat. I mean, I can't say it any other way. Yes, you've said it multiple times now.

I know. That's all I got. That's all I got. I think that needs to be the title for our show. It's neat. I know. But you have to say it that way. I need a thesaurus stat. Yeah. This other thing I found, which is, I believe, genius. It's called the reset plug.

You plug it into your router, and it monitors your internet connection. And we'll just keep turning it off and on until your internet comes back. You know, so we've just... Why has this not existed? I know. It's such a stupid idea, but it's perfect.

I'm buying this right now to take down to my parents this weekend. This will take half the phone calls away. I know. So we've just killed half of the IT infrastructure of the country with a plug that turns itself off and on. Turn it off and turn it back on again.

Have you recycled the power? This is genius. Again, I cannot believe this hasn't existed. Yep. I know. That's the thing. Plug your Wi-Fi router slash modem into reset plug. The smart plug will act as a Wi-Fi client to test the internet connection. If the internet fails to work, the reset plug will cycle power, turn it off and turn it back on, to the Wi-Fi equipment to reset the internet connection.

It's perfect. I just ordered one. Yeah. Okay. That's it. That's all I got.

Media candy. While you were on your little sabbatical, Big Twin Peaks news came out. They listed the entire cast, the revival cast list. There's over 217 names on it, and it's a little crazy. A bunch of people that I'm really kind of surprised are being added.

And of them, of course, you know, one would assume that Trent Reznor is in the green room or their casting couch or something right now scribbling out his ideas for Apple Music. But he's also going to be in Twin Peaks. Yeah. He's already got a job. Get out of the green room and get back to work.

And this is why Apple Music will once again suck. You're multitasking. Yeah. Eddie Vedder is also going to be in it. Ashley Judd, Amanda Seyfried, and Michael Cera, which is kind of interesting. This is going to be a weird-ass show. Then, of course, after this 217 name list came out, people poured through it to find out people from the original cast that aren't coming back were not having Bob.

There will be no dwarf dancing in the red room and no Laura Flynn Boyle, which is odd because a bit of a major character there. Yeah, kind of. Yeah. So that's strange. I mean, obviously, she's had her issues over the years, and she looks kind of more like Skeletor than a girl anymore.

But still, come on. Bring her back. Write it in. You're David Lynch. You can figure out how to explain why she looks crazy. Yeah. If anybody can. I mean, come on. Speaking of things coming back, Interview with the Vampire is getting a reboot. Oh. I'm a huge fan of the Anne Rice books.

I love them. I think they're absolutely fantastic. I despise Tom Cruise's cast as Lestat. That was the biggest mistake they ever made. I thought Brad Pitt was fantastic. Yeah, yeah. I'm going to go with you on that one. Yeah. Tom Cruise's Lestat was really bad. And Antonio Banderas was great, too.

Yep. The perfect casting for everybody except for Lestat. That was the biggest mistake they ever made. So they never made it anymore. There was some other one. They did Queen of the Damned that was just horrible. Oh, that was so bad. So they're bringing it back, and they're going to start with Interview with the Vampire.

I do not have high hopes for this because it's done by basically the guy that did The Fault in Our Stars, which means that they're going to twilight the hell out of this shit. It's going to be for tweens. Oh, sparkly. Sparkly vampires. Great. That's just what we need. So this should be dark and brooding and involve old people.

Mm-hmm. Very old people. Star Trek is also coming back. The new series, which we've talked about and was announced, is going to be a streaming show debuting in January. So all of this has now been confirmed, and they are currently shooting in Toronto. Oh, really?

Yes, so I will be looking out for them when I go there in May. Actually, they don't just do it until the fall. Damn it. Ah, too bad. It will be on in January. It will first, they will air the first premiere episode on the actual CBS television network, and everything else will be on their streaming all-access service, which I hope.

How bizarre is that? Yeah, it is. Well, why not? People that watch Star Trek are into technology and, you know, leave the network for people that want to watch stupid game shows. Yeah, that is so strange. I'm not, you know, honestly, for me, it doesn't make a difference because I don't own a TV right now.

So it's like, yeah, I just watch it on my laptop or my iPad. Yeah. I just realized that absolutely everything I put in Media Candy is either a reboot or old shows coming back. I guess we are old. Absolutely fabulous. The movie, the international trailer has been released. I cannot wait for this movie.

It looks hilarious. I'm not going to watch the trailer because I still have to go back and watch the show, which I've never watched. So you probably will not get around to that. So just watch the damn trailer and see if you find it funny or not. Okay. Really? I mean, honestly, you'll either be into the humor or not because the entire show is that trailer.

Okay. If you grew up in California, you are a fan of Huelhauser and California's Gold, one of the most ridiculous shows to ever air on TV. He passed away two years ago, three years ago, three years ago now. So, but they found a new episode of his iconic series in some sort of a vault somewhere and they're going to air it on Monday.

So, you know, if you're California and you got the nostalgia for the Huel, you will get some brand piping hot new Huel on Monday. I wonder if it was in Prince's vault that they just raided. Maybe he was hoarding the Huelhauser. I saw some really good articles about what was in the vault, but I didn't put them in the show notes.

Maybe next week. Another old person coming back. Midnight Oil are reforming and announcing a world tour. I love their albums. I just know the one song. That's it. That's burning. Yeah. I love them. I'm super excited about this. I'm totally going to go to this show. They've been on indefinite hiatus because the lead singer has been a politician in Australia.

Well, there you go. And you realize there was no money in politics and now he's going back into music? Yes. I mean, they've always been a very politically charged band anyway, so it was not terribly surprising. And speaking of really old people, what's being called Old Chela has been announced.

Old Chela? Old Chela. It's going to be at the polo fields where Coachella is held. It will be October 7th. On the first day, Bob Dylan, and then followed by the Rolling Stones. The second day will be Neil Young, followed by Paul McCartney, and the third day, Roger Waters, followed by the who?

Old Chela. I would actually go to this. So there's only two acts a day. Two acts a day, and they're all, you know, the old legacy acts, so this is your probably last chance to see a lot of these people. Until they have another reunion next year. But all in one shot.

You know, one ticket, and I get to check all these people off the list. That'd be pretty cool. They better have a lot of ambulances out there, because I think a lot of the old people are going to be, like, falling over in the sun. Well, that is why there are only two acts per day. They will not be people out there during the day when it's crazy hot, because they don't want old people out there.

It makes sense. Okay. Oh, we might need to send you as a correspondent for this, for sure. I would love to go. I really would. I think this would be fantastic. We'll be right back. Enjoy a word from our sponsors.

Tesla has HEPA filters and a basic bioweapon defense mode on their cars, apparently. Oh, yeah, yeah. That's not news. It's been around for a while. That thing goes into lockdown.

Yeah, apparently it does. I found this article on Tesla's own blog, where they basically went in and tested it. And they found, when they put on bioweapon defense mode, not only could you basically survive just about anything, it also begins to clean the air outside of the car.

You can survive a military-grade bio-attack sitting in a Tesla. Hey, man. That's unbelievable. Yeah. No, this has been around for a while, but I'm glad they tested it and threw it out there. I've got to get a Tesla one of these days.

It's just unbelievable, the stuff that I got to do. You better start ordering now, because it's not going to be until, what, 2018? Yeah, I know. Until the Model 3 starts shipping? Yeah. Yeah, I know. Anyways, I've had my iPhone forever. And, you know, you do get a little bit bored with how it looks.

Some kid out there found a trick that allows you to change the icons from squares to circles. I got very excited about that until I found out that it only changes the icons for folders. Yeah. But it's still cool. That's cute. It's cute. Did you try it? No. Okay. No, I've been playing around with the triple tap button and turns everything black and white.

I have it set to go to grayscale mode. So, if it's like, you know, even with that new dark mode, you know, where they just ripped off flux, I still find that it's nicer to go to just black and white at night and just turn the brightness way down. I have not tried that.

I'll give that a go. Yeah, because it's still, you know, it's not that much darker, but you can still see everything. And it's just kind of cool to have like a black and white iPhone. Yeah, I'll give that a shot. That's interesting. I did do the circle thing, and it's fun. I've had it on my phone for a few days. The thing is, there's a lag to it.

So, like, the icons kind of get a little weird when you're scrolling around. But, yeah, it was cute, and I'll probably take it off in a day or two. But if you're really bored with your iPhone, give it a shot. It takes about two seconds. And there is a new beetle that has been discovered in New Britain, and it's been named after Star Wars Chewbacca.

I just think that's cool. Okay, now, we're not talking about the Beatles like, you know, the band, right? They didn't find somebody that was in the band and exhumed them? Yes, and he's also playing old cello. Okay, just checking, making sure. No, this is an actual flightless beetle, much like Ringo. Ouch.

Boom, boom. Really? That's it? Okay, nothing? Anyways, it's named Chewbacca. Nothing for that one. Trigodopterous Chewbacca. There you go. Why Chewbacca? You'd think it would be... Because Chewbacca's furry. They said something about its curious scales, which made the authors of the arts...

Think of Han Solo's Loyal Companion. I don't quite understand that either. I looked at the picture of it. It didn't really... I would have gone with Darth Vader. It's black. You know, whatever. It's Chewbacca.

The web's not dead! Oh, no, it's not dead! One of my friends notoriously has her name spelled wrong on her Starbucks cups every time she goes, A, why go to Starbucks? There's so many better coffee places out there.

B, why post it? But apparently everybody does. And apparently, Paul Gale, comedian, has the theory that they do this on purpose because you will then post on Instagram and Facebook, giving them free promotion. Okay. So we shall see if that's true. Actually, there's no way to prove that.

There's no way to prove that, but also... And it's just stupid. Yeah, I've met some of these baristas. I mean, some of them are very nice people, but they are definitely not, you know, top of the food chain when it comes to the brain division, but... Yeah. So in theory, you know, it's just because you're going to post it. So stop posting it and go somewhere that has better coffee, for God's sake.

Yeah. Anywhere. And a Texas man has actually used GoFundMe and all those sorts of Kickstarter things for the right purpose. For jokes. Okay. For the funnies. Yes. Frank Payne of Abilene, Texas is a big Foo Fighters and Nirvana fan.

He loves them so much that he's asking you for financial help so he can buy Dave Grohl. How can you buy Dave Grohl? Well, it's technically not legal. Slavery has been outlawed in the US. And even if it was some sort of indentured servitude or serfdom or bonded labor, they are also illegal.

Anyways, he's giving it a shot. Why not? And let's see. At the moment, let's take a quick look here. See how many people have funded him because people do give money for... He's up to $1,000. Wow. He has just put $1,000 in his pocket as a joke.

So who's the joke on? Who's the fool? Indeed. Who follows him? He does have a plan B if it is indeed illegal to purchase another human. Or if Mr. Grohl is not a willing purchasee, then I'll spend the money on beer because Dave seems like the kind of person that would want me to drink beer.

So he just got $1,000 in beer money. If you're listening, Dave Grohl, I think you take him up on this offer and you show up on his doorstep. Yeah, seriously. That's... Hats off, Mr. Frank Payne of Abilene, Texas. I think that is a... And you put yourself in beer money for at least a couple months, I'd imagine.

Yeah, I'd hope so, unless you're really... The one thing I found this week, which just made my day, we've posted videos from Boston Dynamics before and how the robot uprising is going to start with them just abusing these poor robots.

Yes. Well, somebody just did a voiceover for one of the videos, which is the swearing module for the Atlas robot. And I was in tears watching this. You just have to go to our show notes and growbuildgeeks.com slash 158.

Scroll down and watch the video and you too will have tears of joy. I recommend not playing it at work. Yeah, definitely don't play it at work. Or at least wear your earbuds. Shout out! Shout out! Tomorrow, Saturday, the first Saturday of May, May 7th, is annual World Naked Gardening Day.

Woohoo! This is really getting traction on social media this year. People are posting it all across the place. All across the globe, people are encouraged to tend the portion of the world's garden unclothed as nature intended. So get out there and let your freedom flag fly. I remember this from last year.

There's some pretty funny pictures that come around with this. Yeah, so good times. Okay, you got your, you have your whiskey ready? I do. All right, my shout out this week is to Cesar Millan and the Dog Psychology Center. Drink. I gotta do one just because Cesar Millan too.

What a douche. Ah, well, see, here's my point about why they're not douchey. I had, before I left, I had a prepaid package to go have Bam Bam, drink again, go to obedience school. God damn it, dude. I'm going to have to start a fake GoFundMe campaign to pay for the whiskey.

Exactly. Or a new liver. So I wrote him and said, hey, I'm not going to be able to make it, but I know that I'm outside of the refund window. If you wouldn't mind, donate my money. I mean, it's a $400 class. It's not cheap. Donate it to somebody who has an animal that can't afford the training and would like to come to class.

So I was going to try and donate. Look at that generosity on your part. Yes. And about five minutes later, because I told him, I'm like, I'm going to Chicago and I'm not going to be around, so I can't do it. And they wrote me back in like five minutes and they're like, all of like full refund. They're like, thank you for your offer.

And the person who was writing was like, I'm from Chicago too, so take the $400 and go buy some Portillo's. They're like, just immediately, they're like, it was a very generous offer for, you know, donating your class fees, but we're going to go ahead and give you a refund anyway and have a great day.

So I thought that was really cool of them because they did not have to do that. That is very cool of them. Thanks for getting me even more buzzed. You're welcome. And since you mentioned your dog, I got to clear out some of the crap in my house to make room for a future grumpy old geek.

So I've got vinyl up for sale. That's on discogs.com. I've got a music gear for sale. That's up on reverb.com. And I've still got the road podcaster because I've been a bit lazy about pushing it. So if one of you out there is itching to start a podcast, it is a great mic for that. Contact me directly for all of the above after you've looked at the show note links.

So you don't have to pay the seller's fees if you'd like to purchase any of this stuff. Thank you. All right. And if anybody's looking for a half rack used by the Goo Goo Dolls at one point, contact me because and if you bought it for me, I did. And now it's sitting in a sitting in an empty office in L.A. and needs a new home.

That would be a J at JPD dot me. There you go. All right. Thanks for listening. I'm Jason DeFillippo and you can check me out at JPD dot me. And I'm Brian Shilmester and you can follow me on Twitter at Slender Funks. Grumpy Old Geeks is a partially fan supported show. Check out our Patreon page at Patreon dot 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 Grumpy Old Geeks dot 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, which will steal all the rest of your music.

Or you can donate through the Grumpy Old Geeks Patreon page at Patreon dot com slash GOG to get 10 exclusive tracks. Outro music for the show is provided by Andy Stachansky. You can follow Andy at Twitter dot com slash House of Andy. He's also on SoundCloud at Grumpy Old Geeks dot com slash Andy. Show notes for all the links discussed in this episode can be found at Grumpy Old Geeks dot com slash 158.

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