255: Community Service

This episode of Grumpy Old Geeks is brought to you by RxBar. For 25% off your first order, visit rxbar.com slash gog and enter promo code gog at checkout. This episode is also brought to you by ButcherBox. For free bacon and $20 off your first box, go to butcherbox.com slash gog and enter promo code gog. 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. I'm Jason DeFillippo. And I'm Brian Schulmeister. What a day. What a day, Brian. It's a beautiful Wednesday. Yeah, I woke up and looked at my Instagram feed and saw that you had a mattress out on the lawn. Three of them. Three of them. So starting at five o'clock this morning, I had to like prep the dogs, get them to daycare and then run home and remove the banister on my stairs so I could manhandle down

three mattresses by myself. Big queen size mattresses that are ancient. So they're all like, you know, full of dead skin and sweat. Always fun and get them outside. So the garbage men can take them covered. Now they're you missed the second picture. I don't think he even posted. There's like five rugs, a couple nightstands, a headboard. I am I've got my eye out the window because if these garbage guys don't take it, I'm screwed. I just think it's funny that you as a single man has more

crap than my entire family has. Yeah, well, that's the thing. I moved back to the Midwest and I had a house and you know, the crap expands to fill the space available. So this is true. I had a guest room and I was like, oh, maybe I'll have guests over sometime. And my friend Bob stayed here once.

Right. And that was it. That's the only people that ever stayed here in two years. But everything is knocked down. And yes, I've been going. I got my 10,000 steps by 1030 this morning. Oh, very nice. Well done. Yeah, I've only got 10 hours to go. So we'll see how it goes. But I'm recording from quite possibly the worst acoustically prepared room that I could find. I'm pointing at a wall, but the rest of the house is hardwood and there's no furniture left in it. So this should be nice and echoey. And I'm using

the cheap AT2005 mic instead of my studio setup. But it's the same mic you use. So hopefully I can make it sound good this week. Well, you make me sound good every week, so I'm sure it'll be fine. And yeah, the reason that we are doing an all Q&A episode this time, and that's what this is going to be, is because Jason has torn down everything and we'll be driving cross country shortly to return to Los Angeles. But it being us, we just couldn't help ourselves. So a couple little bits in this follow-up section that are kind of news. Did you see the Westworld thing that I posted?

I did. I did. Yes, this is great. They did a Reddit AMA, the showrunners. Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy, the creators of Westworld. And they got a little snippy at all the people and all the people that just have to, you know, speculate and destroy plots for shows before they even air. So they made an unusual proposition. They decided that they would create

an entire video that entirely spoils all of season two. So that way people won't have to do all these theories and ruin it for other people. So they did. Sort of. Sort of. It's pretty good. This is pretty genius. They put a lot of time and effort into this. It starts off and you think that's what you're getting. And then they basically rickroll you.

Yeah. About a minute and a half in, the star starts singing, I never want to give you up. We're never going to give you up. And I tell you, man, she's got a good voice. Yeah. Yeah. She did. Well, I mean, you know, she's very talented. She, she's one of those people that, uh, you know, a true actress who can do just about everything.

Okay. Triple threat. Triple threat. Except, you know, she just acts. So. And sings. Well, I mean, she can sing. I was, I was amazed that it was her when she was singing, but it was good. I liked it. Yeah. It was very clever. I, well, hats off to you guys. Well done. Yeah. And people are now going to have to spend the rest of the season trying to, you know, deconstruct with the extra 25 minutes in the video actually means.

Uh, nothing guys. It means nothing. Kill outside. Yeah. Those people really annoyed me last season because I unfortunately got sent a bunch of links to the theories and it totally, you know, spoiled it. I'm like, ah, man, just watch the damn show and enjoy it. Just watch the show. I have to say that's the one good thing about binging is you can just like get through the damn show without all the speculation sinking in. And even if you try to avoid it on the internet, it's difficult. It is difficult because, you know,

people on Facebook like to ruin things. And speaking of Facebook ruining things, let's talk about Facebook ruining the world for two seconds here. Uh, we can do it quickly. And no, I did not watch any of it. I did read up on it a little bit because the hope was of course that we would have a week off from following tech news and being bummed out and angry about it. But you know, we can't do that because we decided to take the week off where the biggest things to Facebook ever have happened. Right. So I watched about two hours of it, but after, you know, I started at the beginning

and I, after about two beers with the community drinking game, I'm like, okay, I need to turn this off because this is just going to be a nightmare. There's no way, there's no way to keep up with it. And it was, it was uncomfortable for the most part. I have to say he is just not really good at being in front of people. He's not really human from what I can tell, uh, but he's very good at what

he does there. There is no doubt in my mind that this guy deserves to be where he's at. He played that room. He dodged and weaved as best he could. And it was very well done. Um, he avoided answering questions with, with some very clever, uh, ways of getting around things and, and not entirely lying, but not really telling the truth either. A bit of willful ignorance on his own part, which fair

enough. I mean, I, the guy's not coding anymore. You know, he hasn't done that in a long time. Um, yeah, it was interesting. And the one takeaway for me out of all this is how little our representatives understand about technology at all. Oh, that wasn't, that was nothing new for me. I knew that was going to be what it was, but yeah. Yeah. Listening to 80 year old men tell Mark Zuckerberg how Facebook worked was pretty obnoxious and annoying. But yeah, I think he kind of understands

how Facebook works. Yeah. Let's get to the part where you don't understand it. And some of it was funny. Um, there's some more stuff that we'll talk about here in a minute, but, uh, yeah, I watched about two hours of it and my opinion of him has not grown any. It is probably diminished significantly. And trust me, that's, that's saying a lot because his, his reputation with me was pretty low to begin with. Yeah. It's just, again, it's, it's, as we've kind of been

discussing, uh, what Facebook themselves think Facebook is versus what the rest of us think Facebook is are two wildly different things. Um, and I don't think you can bring those back together anymore, but, uh, you know, is anything going to change? Who knows? I mean, I would like to get some more government oversight, but again, everybody is focusing on Zuckerberg's biggest coup. As far as I'm concerned from the first day of testimony was continually dodging, uh, privacy and pushing it back towards what you share with your friends, which is not

at all what anybody is concerned about. We're not concerned about the privacy settings with our friends. We are concerned about our privacy settings with your advertisers and with app developers and that. And, you know, I mean, this is a hearing that should have happened three years ago or four years ago. So it's, it's kind of, you know, the horses are out of the barn. So what are you going to do? And speaking of Facebook, the Cambridge Analytica tool where you could find out if your data had

been compromised or not rolled out, but not in the way that they said it would, at least not for me or anyone. I know there was a big, uh, they made a big stink about the fact that it would appear at the top of your timeline and you would be able to easily find it. That never happened. It got buried and people were passing around the links, of course, so you could go see it. And of course I had an idiot friend at some point that did it. So my data is out there. Oh, mine's not. I don't. Good for you.

Yeah. You have smarter friends. Of course I do. I've met some of your friends. Yeah. All right. We've got some Patreon subscribers, Chris Manchu, David V, Steve H and Stephen H wrote us a note. It's a great podcast. You bastards. You've got me through two months of long runs training for my first marathon. And God knows I'm an overweight, almost 50 year old geek who

shouldn't be doing this. I'm running the whole thing on Sunday. Partly thanks to you. The least I could do is check some regular dosh your way. Keep at it. Even if you're not really old and not really grumpy. Well, thank you, Steve. And hopefully you didn't have a heart attack on your run because this comes out on Monday after. So let us know how it went.

Yep. And congrats. That's pretty awesome that you're doing that. We got some direct donations over at PayPal, William D and Rafal B. Thanks very much, guys. And we got some messages via LinkedIn. I know, which forced me to open LinkedIn and figure out what my password was. But thankfully, I have one password, so it was that hard. But I haven't loaded that thing up in a while. So Alexander wrote, hi, Brian. As an avid listener of GOG, I'd like to join your network. Just finished

the current episode and particularly liked it. Take good care of yourself and keep in mind that rough patches will pass. Well, thank you, Alexander. I get that. I do. What's your policy on this, Jason? Do you add anyone to your LinkedIn or do you try to keep it a business thing? I'm a little torn on this one. I give zero fucks about LinkedIn. So if somebody has gone out of their way to, you know, try and and add me to their circles or networks or whatever, right, I kind of take it on a case by case

basis because, you know, there are some people that I look at and I'm just like, nah, I wouldn't have a drink with you. You know, that's kind of, it's kind of it. Like if you're taking the presidential voting policy, I'd like to have a beer with them approach. Pretty much, pretty much. OK, so but I mean, if somebody is a is a connection with somebody else, like if one of your friends tried to join my network, that's an automatic pass. They can get they can come right in. But if it's somebody out of the

blue, generally, I take show fans and I take basically people who might have something that I can talk to them about if we need to in the future. But LinkedIn, I've used since LinkedIn began. Not one useful thing has come out of LinkedIn after all this time. And I still don't know why I have an account. Yeah, I'm right there with you. But I'll add you, Alexander. I'm going to adopt Jason's policy.

Yes, because I got a message from Alexander, too. As an avid listener of GOG, I'd like to join your network. I enjoyed the latest episode immensely and wish you good luck and mental strength for the move. Well, thank you, Alexander. So, yes, I added him as well. I thought that was pretty funny. And so when I was in there, I saw this, which I thought was pretty great.

Congratulate Paige Craig for being promoted to VP of operations at Bird. Now, this is this was very surprising for me for two reasons. One, Paige Craig is an investor. He's a VC that I used to know because he invested in a company I used to run called Metrically. It was a startup that we did up in San Francisco that failed. But he's a nice guy. So he got me an interview at a company called BetterWorks when he was the CEO there. Now, that's when I met this guy. He's how Yang. I think that's

probably not how you pronounce it, but he's probably not one of the co-creators of Farmville. And I had one of the most uncomfortable and embarrassing tech interviews of my life with this guy. This guy was just a cock. That's that's the only way I can describe him. He was just as in a rooster because Farmville. I knew you were going to go there, but no. OK, he's a cock and an ass. So we can go around the whole farm, but a donkey. OK, one of the most unlikable people I've ever met in my life. And he

just talked down to me the whole time. He's like, oh, you don't write in C++. Oh, how do you handle concurrency with with your chat? I'm like, dude, fuck off. So it turned out I didn't get the job. OK, let's just say that. So it's very strange to see Paige Craig is the VP of operations at Bird.

So I have an end over there now. So maybe we can get some free scootage. I thought I thought we were going to try to undermine the whole enterprise once you got here. But OK, we can go the other direction. Well, you keep your keep your enemies closer, you know? Oh, that's true. That's true. All right. We have some stuff over at Twitter. We did mention the drinking game with Zuckerberg and a couple of people chimed in on that to you. Master says I'm at work. Has Zuck started speaking yet? How drunk are you guys? Stuart L says many things. Great

podcast as always. I hope Mark Zuckerberg doesn't get you too drunk. Well, and and bikeboard scuba says you guys had me rolling on this episode. How is the community drinking game Zuck style coming along? So I did not play the game, but Jason tapped out after two beers. I made it to three at the very end. But that was enough because I had work to do. Yeah. And a bikeboard scuba. I had no idea that your Twitter name was supposed to be what you do all day. So my new name will be wake up,

get pissed off and drink sleep. Mine's going to be wake up podcast, pick up poop, drink, pass out. Okay, that's good. Yeah. Uh, Barrett Reese sent a photo and says, uh, who's got a big boy booster seat? This photo went around everywhere. This is a Zuckerberg with his little booster seat because he's a wee man sitting at his desk. I about lost it when I saw that. I was like, oh man. Yeah. Well, 60, 63 billion dollars and you can't get them to make you a taller chair.

You got to sit on the little cushion. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Uh, yeah. And the droidian said, uh, just submitted a question. So I guess we'll be getting back to you later. Absolutely love your guys show. I learned so much. You're my alternative news. At least it's factual and doesn't have a narrative to protect certain interests. That's true. Yeah. Uh, right. Film Sleep Repeat wrote with Uber buying jump, I worry the GOG podcast host may explode in fury. I think right film,

right film Sleep Repeat must be the brother of Bike Board Scuba. Yes, I think so too. Uh, yeah, that was some fun news, but, uh, not terribly surprising. Well, I'm sure we'll be covering that on our next episode. And he also said, thanks. Uh, thanks for speaking openly about hashtag mental health. Every step forward is a win. Hey, no problem. We all, we all get down now and then. Yep. No problems with that. Uh, Charles, I said, I imagine had your dad handed the coffee shop gal $10 and 18 cents in order to receive 50 cents change. There would

have been a need for a manager to intervene. I'm pretty sure that the managers have been deprecated in lieu of the iPad, but I think the girl that the second girl that came over was the manager. Yeah, probably. Yeah. Uh, Sean H sent us a scooter version of lift line slash Uber pool, a little video of, uh, people doing some shenanigans. Two people trying to ride the

same bird unsuccessfully. Uh, Josh R sent us the windows 95 startup sound slowed down 4,000%. Sounds chill AF. I love this thing. Yeah, it's groovy. I liked it too. Yeah. So that was pretty cool.

Loop that for loop that for a while during the day. It was nice. Uh, James case had started paying closer attention to Facebook as of late. And this came across my girlfriend's Facebook name censored for the obvious reasons. And it is, uh, you know, somebody posted about a cheesecake and then got an ad for cheesecake. I think is that what happened there? I think it took me, it took me a second to figure it out, but yeah, I mean, that's standard fair. That's just keyword search. Yeah.

That's just Facebook. And, uh, let's see infuriated citizen resistor, which I guess is the only thing that person does all day. If we're going with the Twitter naming system that we've just developed, uh, sent metal detectors and it's a post from Casey Newton, extremely shady behavior on Facebook's part. Lots of us would love to make old messages disappear after the fact, but only the C suite secretly gets that benefit about them, you know, just deleting their old messages, which now we know

is actually a feature that has been in beta development all the time and getting rolled out to all of us. Oh, sure. Yeah. I meant to do that. I meant to do that. Yeah. And, uh, Kevin H said, have you guys heard of you muse, a new email app that claims to integrate email Slack, et cetera, seems like a steep promise. And I thought you might want to check this out, Jason, because you're still looking for a windows, uh, email client that you'd like. Yeah. But I hate integrated clients with all sorts of other

crap. I mean, I can just, I guess I just don't have to use Slack. Yeah. He's not integrated. Yeah. Because I'm like, when I check email, I want to check email. Like, I mean, I, I'm starting to hate Slack more than anything else. It's like gotten to the point where it's worse than email, but yeah, it's really gotten to that point. So let's move on over to crooked Facebook, crooked Facebook, but his deleted emails. Yeah. Ruth T says, hi grumps. I got the Facebook survey, not a developer

from Melbourne, Australia, sending you guys lots of love. So she got the, the pop-up and a couple other people on Twitter have sent us the pop-up too. Yeah. I have still have not gotten it, but again, I think they know my feelings on the matter. Yeah. I think the, the time has passed for you, Brian. And we got a five-star rating from Dan C, a really informative podcast that gives useful information about the tech world, but with a big picture perspective. They're old geeks

setting aside the unconditioned enthusiasm that's so frequent in the tech news, hence the grumpy name, but they are funny. So funny that it cannot stop listening for the last six months, even though it's a long podcast. Isn't it the long podcast though? Yeah, it is. People like it. People like it. See? And Barry M gave us a five-star rating on Facebook as well. Best podcast out there. I pretty much hate Mondays until I get my GOG fix. Oh, thank you. And we have a five-star rating over at

iTunes from Fitflit. It's better than Reddit and stumble upon. I've, I recently began listening to this podcast after hearing it recommended on a past episode of the art of charm or the show that must not be named now. Is that what we're doing? You can still say it. People still listen to it, the old episodes. But yeah, yes, we only did 600 episodes of the damn show. So it's going to be on there somewhere. Okay. Now I don't know how I get on without it. Working in IT, I now save hours

and days of surfing tech news. I'm sure my employer and spouse will be quite pleased. Perfect for your commute. Well, thank you very much. Yeah. Sorry about this week. No, no new news this week. And we'll be getting to the questions real soon here. But first, a message from our sponsors. This episode is sponsored by RX Bar. RX Bar is a whole food protein bar made with 100% whole ingredients. RX Bar's core ingredients do all the talking. It's simply like eating three egg whites,

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So we've got a bunch of stuff to work through. Take it away, Jason. Bo writes in, my brother and I were discussing your favorite topic, AI, and I wanted to ask you too what you consider to be machine learning versus AI versus not even close. Do you have a fixed definition of when something is officially AI, or is it a I know it when I see it kind of thing?

Much appreciated. Keep up the great work. All right. Well, I've put a link in our show notes to the Wikipedia entry for artificial intelligence, and basically it says it's a very influx, moving target definition, which I agree with at this point.

For me, the touchstone has always been sci-fi, self-awareness, the Turing test, all of that, of which we have none of that. There is no artificial intelligence at all in this world. Full stop, end of story, and I'm fucking sick of it.

We have machine learning. That's it. I was so hoping that that page would have been blank because AI doesn't exist. I know. But if you would have listened to Mark Zuckerberg yesterday, you'd think it is like running Facebook at this point. I know.

Look, if we're going to go ahead and call that artificial intelligence, let me just say artificial intelligence doesn't fucking work. Every company that is claiming that they've got artificial intelligence doing stuff is basically apologizing for the shit that's gone wrong and saying this is how we're going to fix it.

It doesn't work. We don't have it. It doesn't exist. End of story. There are some things that it can do well with some pattern matching and facial recognition and things like that. The machine learning stuff is just – it's nascent. It is a nascent technology. But I am with Brian on this.

I grew up with artificial intelligence being fucking Hal, you know? Yeah. Data. Hal – yeah, data. Things like that. Zuckerberg. Sentient machines, much like Zuckerberg. So, yeah, everything else is machine learning or decision trees or, you know.

Yeah. Yeah, I think we're on board with that. And, you know, the game is over, as we've discussed a million times, because reporters and journalists don't seem to care. And neither do PR agencies or companies anymore. No. So, yeah, we've lost that fight. We've never – we're never going to get that one back in the can.

So, yeah. Look, just take your AI with a grain of salt and just know whatever it is probably doesn't work. Exactly. Next up is Colin. Really excited for this special. Two questions. What do you think of Zuckmeister's superpower of unsent? TechCrunch reports Zuckerberg and other executives receiving special treatment and being able to pull back previously sent messages.

Got to say, whatever platform rolls this feature out first is going to dominate social media and, in turn, make society even more so into a bag of lying, antisocial, swipe your life away. I'd still go for it, though. That's the problem. And two of the two grumpy emoticons in the GOG icon image, which of you likes Tootsie Pops?

Really enjoy the podcast. Hope Brian and his family are well. And to Jason, good luck with the move. Try not to make the news for becoming a bird napper. I'll do my best to not get caught napping birds. As far as the first question goes, you know, it's just a database call for them. It's just, okay, this was sent.

Just take it out. That's all it is. Anybody can have that. I think that now that they have been caught doing that and we're going to get it. So, but if I send something, I send it. I really don't care. Yeah, that's what email used to be. And that's how everything always used to work. And by the way, just as a quick aside, because I always have to come back to this point, even with Bittner not being here, just because they unlink it because you have unsent it does not necessarily mean it has been deleted off their servers.

Right. The visibility flag is set to zero. Exactly. Yeah. That's how that works. And again, that's the, again, as I said last week, because we talked about this about last week, wasn't that what Snapchat was? Wasn't that why Snapchat was so popular to begin with is that you could send a message and it would then delete and nobody had it anymore, except, of course, Snapchat servers.

Well, because everybody lies and that's, that's part of what the testimony that Zuckerberg had to deal with yesterday was the fact that, oh, we called Cambridge Analytica. They said they deleted the data and we took them at their word. Turns out they didn't delete the data. So we didn't run an audit. And even if they run an audit, you have to send, I mean, how the hell are you going to do an audit on just regular data?

It's a, it's a database file that will fit on a piece of plastic, the size of your little baby toenail, you know, just because they say it's gone doesn't mean it's gone. There's no, it's out of the bottle, you know, it's impossible to delete everything anymore. And it's except the Hulk Hogan sex video.

I think that's pretty funny. You cannot find that anywhere online. Why you would want to is beyond me. It was in Ryan Holiday's new book that I read recently on vengeance and the whole Peter Thiel story. And at the very end of the book, he's like, one of the amazing things that came out of this was the fact that Hulk Hogan got his video purged from the internet.

You cannot find it. And I was like, wow, he actually did. You cannot find that video. I just took it as a challenge. I'm like, okay, let's see if we can find it. I spent like two hours. Could not find it. I'd seen it before, so it didn't matter. But it's just amazing that it has been completely erased from the history of the internet.

Wow. Okay. So some things can be deleted, but only if you're Hulk Hogan and have Peter Thiel behind you. Right. Second question. I don't know. I like Tootsie Pops. A one, two, three, three. I haven't ate one in years, so.

Next one comes from James Butler. I hope this message finds you gentlemen well. With all of the breaches over the last couple of years, we hear the term or response, we're just a platform. With carrier-grade hardware functionality being in the enterprise space now, such as SD-WAN, that would be S-D-W-A-N, not Padawan, S-D-W-A-N, do you think carriers should step up and offer VPN or GRE security access for their customers to internal NNIs or XGWs, even if it were a paid feature?

Curious what your thoughts are on a carrier's responsibility and ethics to help from a security measure. I've got some links that will be in the show notes about SD-WAN and I-WAN and also what VPN versus GRE tunneling is, but above my pay grade for this one.

Yeah, well, I mean, I understand the basics of it, as you do, but I don't really know the specifics because I didn't ever get into that sort of engineering. But carriers have responsibilities and ethics? Has anybody told them that?

Yeah, seriously. Because they don't seem to know that. They have no ethics. They're collecting the data. They have no reason, and a huge financial reason not to give us that level of privacy, and not enough people seem to care or want it. Maybe that'll change. I doubt it. It's not going to change. No. Yeah. Unless you move to Europe, probably.

Yeah, maybe. Next up is Dobby Juan. Dobby, Dobby, Dobby, we've got to have a little talk really quick. We love you. We really do, and we certainly appreciate your support of the show. But if we read your entire messages to us, this would be a two and a half hour show without us even getting to an answer.

So we had to edit the hell out of this and just find your questions. Love it. Keep writing us. Totally appreciate it. Sorry we're cutting this all down. So finally, I got down to what your questions were, and here we are. My admittedly heavy questions are, do you think we will see things develop in a meaningful way anytime soon, specifically in our lifetimes?

I'm 34, so let's ballpark the next 50 years. Do you think technology will bring about the change necessary to unite humanity? If it is the catalyst or not, do you think we will unite before we destroy ourselves? Do you think guys like Cock Zuckerberg, I mean, that Mark guy from Facebook, do you think guys like that are going to fuck it up for the rest of us?

And finally, why is it so hard to accept that so many people are, for lack of more enlightened phrases, fucking morons? Realizing I may qualify as one of said morons, I'd be curious to know your answer to that last one in particular. Thanks for the show, guys. Oh, okay. Well, I don't know.

I mean, the basics of this show is the fact that we think that technology took a turn in the wrong direction, and everything is kind of going wrong. I think Jason and I both still feel that way. We don't see a lot of good things happening out there. In fact, we scour the internet trying to find good things, so we have at least one or two nice stories to end our shows with.

We're trying to find some balance out there somewhere. Yeah, and I think we're eventually going to fix a lot of these issues. I don't think that we're going to destroy ourselves. We've been in worse places as civilizations before. But fixing it's going to involve something a lot of people aren't comfortable with these days, regulations on industry and innovations.

Monopoly busting. Monopoly busting. Breaking up a lot of these Silicon Valley giants and not letting them buy out everybody that comes along that competes with them. We're going to need all that. We need to take a big collective breath of society and slow things the fuck down because things are changing too fast for our brains, our humanities, and certainly our laws and our ethics to keep up with.

It's a problem, and we'll just end up with a new set of problems to deal with when we do start to fix these. Technology in and of itself is never going to fix everything. We need a framework, a consensus for the technology, laws, rules, guidelines, all of that. And I also think we really need to sort out the widening gap between rich and poor and the loss of the middle class.

I think that's a huge problem. If we don't do that, I think we're pretty fucked up as a society. So, yeah, and I don't know what to do about the fact that a lot of people are morons. Maybe fixing the education system would help with that. Here's the funny thing about that. I've been thinking about that one a lot lately.

And there are always stupid people. There's never been a time in history where most of the population was enlightened and intelligent. True. There have always been stupid motherfuckers out there, and there will always continue to be stupid motherfuckers out there. The trick is to try and get on the other side of the stupid motherfucker divide and be on the smarter side of it.

Well, I think the problem, just quickly with that point, and then I'll let you go on. The problem that we really have right now is all these stupid people now have megaphones. They never used to. But now with social media, they're on even footing. They're screaming just as loud as the people that used to be able to control the discourse.

And we worship the stupid people. The Kardashians of this world are the biggest stars in the world. Why? I don't understand it. So on with your points. Okay. Because I was getting to the point where I think the stupid people have always been the majority. And Brian just said that they now have megaphones, and they can talk to each other and spread stupidity.

I know we always go back to the beginning of idiocracy, but the first five minutes of that movie are some of the most genius filmmaking of all time. Because it lays out exactly what we're going through. And it makes sense. Yeah. If we didn't have social media, all these flat earth motherfuckers, it would be one sad guy that in your office that never talks about it to anyone, but truly believes it.

But now they can get together and talk. And all of a sudden, and then journalism, clickbait journalism keeps throwing these stories about these idiots up because they have to make their clicks. And people are drawn to it. And it's a horrible feedback loop. Yeah.

Because that's the other thing. It's like, you know, yes, we'd love to fix the media. So this problem went away. So people like Donald Trump don't get elected because it's fun news. It gets people to watch the news. So that's why he got so much free press. But if all of the major news networks decided to say, hey, we're going to only talk about things that actually happen or matter, then you get people like Breitbart that show up and they cater to the stupid people.

And then it's just another self-perpetuating cycle. So there's this whole global communication thing turned out to not be, you know, the fucking unicorn wonderland that Mark Zuckerberg wanted it to be. We're not a community. We're not a community. We are a sorely divided people.

And we've always been and we probably always will be because people have different experiences and different levels of intelligence. And so I don't know why there are so many, as you say, for lack of more enlightened phrases, fucking morons. But I was hoping that the Internet would make it better.

It has turned out to be the other way around. Yeah. And hence our show. Yeah. Sad, but true. OK, we need to find some fun stuff. So it's getting depressing. All right. Next one up from G Hill. Loving the show. Still a student.

So hopefully when a full time job lands, I'll start supporting you guys because you deserve it. The show for me fits in nicely for stuff geeks would like in general. And it does so perfectly. Ever heard of TechSnap from Juniper Broadcasting? Similar to the Cyber Wire. Just a quick aside. I did listen to it last night.

It is actually a pretty good little show. It's kind of dry. Not as funny as we are, but they cover a lot of stuff that they cover on the Cyber Wire with a little bit of depth. I don't know if I'll keep listening to it, but it's not a bad show. Next. Brian, we have very similar music tastes.

Bauhaus' songs were some of my favorites for learning bass guitar. As an example, I work for my university athletic department as a video and broadcast engineer while studying electrical engineering at the same time. One main question I have is what content delivery networks or hosting solutions would you have for streaming events?

We have plenty serious broadcast equipment that works well, but the online streaming for fans uses a player that somehow still works with Flash. I've been wanting to start a project or compose a solution to do something better, but I'm not sure where to dive into CDNs and streaming.

We're a big 10 school with regular events on BTN, FS1, and ESPN, yet our own online streaming player is frankly embarrassing. Any suggestions you guys have would be awesome. Thanks. Yeah, I don't actually know too much about this world anymore. I was in it a long time ago back when Flash was the awesome new technology to use for this sort of thing, so I hear you.

I did find a link to a site called dacast.com, which breaks down the five video streaming platforms relatively recently as well. So the numbers and all that sort of stuff should be about where it is right now. So the five big players listed here, DaCast, Livestream, Ustream, Wowza, and Brightcove, all of those are probably good places to go and start.

One quick note, the link that I found is from DaCast, so keep that in mind when you're reading it. Take that with a grain of salt. It is their sales pitch, but I think that the little table that they have there was showing prices and how many hours and storage and all that sort of stuff will get you going.

Yeah, how old is this? Oh, it's a new article, too. Okay. That's why I picked that one, because it's relatively new. Cool, yeah. I remember Brightcove was very expensive. We did some stuff with them when I was working at BLT doing the movie stuff, and yeah, we did some Kia stuff with them.

Honestly, YouTube Live is a great one. Yeah, I mean, there's always YouTube, so you can always just do that. Yeah, we did an event for Kia that we did through YouTube Live, and we just had a TriCaster, I think, on Sunday. And ran five different cameras through it.

It was a fully professional setup, but we did it for under $10,000. That's with all the outlay with buying the TriCaster, even, I think. So if you have some other stuff. But yeah, honestly, YouTube Live is fantastic for that stuff. Yeah, and it's really going to depend on how scalable you need it to be and all that sort of stuff.

So just start reading, and you'll figure it out. Yeah, that's why I say YouTube instead of doing just Facebook or Instagram Live or things like that, because YouTube Live is built to scale to millions of people at the same time. And if he's a Big 5 school, you know, or Big 10 school, then he's going to need the capacity on that.

Definitely. Next up, Mad Mike. Hey, guys. Great idea to do a feedback show while Jason is headed west. Interesting idea. Probably not new. Floated on CBC Radio, which is the Canadian NPR. I know. I listen to it frequently. Today, regarding Spotify. Suggesting that their path to success may require them to become a producer of music as well.

Article Attached would be interested in your thoughts. This is actually really funny, because I've had a number of conversations about this just in the last two weeks with people in the music industry. Yep. And this is exactly what has the major labels staying awake at night right now. Because they see the obvious parallel between the film studios, TV networks, and Netflix, which is producing its own content, because they wouldn't license their content to them.

And now they're competing against them. The difference being, of course, is that Netflix is insanely profitable and sitting on a shit ton of cash and was able to hire away people that were producers, real producers for the networks. And Spotify still hasn't made a dime. And they don't have any money.

And they're focused on expanding. And, you know, they're still fighting against some competitors, the few that are still out there. So who knows? But, I mean, it's a natural progression for them. It would be hugely stupid for them to not start signing artists. But then they've got to hire on an AR department and all that sort of stuff.

And like we've seen with Amazon, understanding tech does not necessarily mean you understand creativity or content, because Amazon can't seem to get that right. So Spotify will probably move that direction. And it would behoove them to hire away some people from the major labels that understand the world.

Yeah, that totally makes sense to me. And I would be worried, too, if I was the major labels, because and your point about Amazon is good. But, you know, I think Spotify would be a great place to start it because they do understand music and technology because that's all they do. Amazon will sell you slippers and thinks it can make, you know, good TV.

And, you know, the other problem with Apple, too. Apple will sell you a phone, but it obviously does not know how to make a TV show to save its life. Just go watch that travesty that they did Planet of the Apps. Oh. All right. Next up, this one comes from Mike.

Hey, guys, I have a question for you and Bittner. Well, sorry, Bittner's not here today. I jumped on the PIA bandwagon after trying a few others. And if you, too, would like to jump on the PIA bandwagon, go to gog.show slash VPN. The client is very well done. One issue I have is a few popular services see the PIA IP address as suspicious and block it.

Even basics like Google searches fail when clicking the results. I'm looking for a way to run my whole house through something like PIA by running it on my firewall or setting up every client to use a proxy. That wouldn't be the hard part. Having a percentage of web requests fail would make me an unpopular guy in the house.

Any thoughts on how to use a VPN without having to toggle it occasionally when things fail? P.S. I'm a Patreon subscriber. Love the show. All right. Well, what's your family doing? That you feel the need to have a VPN on your entire connection.

I'm just kidding. You know, everybody wants this level of security and privacy, and it's a good thing. And the problem is it's an ongoing race, right? Like, people are figuring out ways to block VPNs. Then the VPN companies figure out a workaround and around and around we go.

That's never going to be solved, I don't think. You know, they do the best they can, but it's a battle. It's an ongoing battle between people who want to capture your traffic and you trying not to. So, yeah. I mean, this is what from the research that I've done and having that same problem.

And this is not just PIA. This is every VPN out there. I've used every single VPN on the market because I was doing a project where I road tested every single VPN that you could get. And what happens is spammers will sign up for the VPN.

They'll do a bunch of nefarious crap and get it blocked because they're hammering the IP addresses. And the VPNs roll those IP addresses when they can, but you have to deal with timeouts on the services that have been hammered because, you know, there's usually a timeout on bad activity and then it resets and then it works again.

So it's like one of those things where it's really hard to nail down, like, what's happening, who's doing it, and things like that. And, you know, I've talked to a couple of the VPN providers, and they do really try and look out for people who are doing really nasty activity like this, and then they block them.

But all they have to do is sign up again with a new credit card, which they probably got on the dark web, and they're back off to the races. So it is a game of whack-a-mole. So I wouldn't run your entire household through a VPN. I think that's overkill. You use it sparingly when you need to.

And, you know, yes, we use private internet access. I've also got a couple other ones that I have just in case that something fails that I need to do. If I'm out on the road and I'd have to use a VPN to get somewhere, I'll have – I use NordVPN is another one that I have.

I used to use TunnelBear because it worked really well on the iPhone, really well on the iPhone. But you couldn't really specify where you were connecting to, which was kind of annoying. That's kind of key for me because, like, if I want to get in and see something on the BBC and they're geoblocking it, that's – I need to be able to specify where I'm coming from.

Exactly. That's why private internet access is so great because they have – it's a drop-down and you pick where the hell you want to come from. But if you just want basic VPN, you know, security, things like TunnelBear, just easy, you just turn it on and it works. But, yeah, I mean, this is just whack-a-mole, man.

And don't run your whole house through a VPN all the time. It's overkill. I think so, too. But what I've noticed in this feedback section is that we have a lot of super paranoid listeners. We'll get to some more of those in a few. We probably made them. That's true. To be fair, our security segment probably scared the crap out of everyone for a while.

So, yeah. All right. Next up is Mike. I recently started building up a small home network and noticed hits in my FTP logs from IPs from good old Russia, Germany, and Iowa. I thought they only made meth and potatoes there. And it made me a little uneasy. Do you have recommendations for home gamer firewalls? Also, Norton says, I have no malware or viruses, but how much can I rely on it?

Naturally, now I believe my computers are part of some botnet because logical progression. You can pretty much rely on Norton. They're pretty good at what they do. So I wouldn't worry too much about it. Yeah, I've got that running on my PCs now. Actually, I did go to Sweden to pick up a piece of software the other day because I needed something real quick and just got it.

And immediately, it flagged the installer like, nope, you're not allowed to run this. Turn it off. So I had to bounce around and find some that worked. But so this is not cheap, but you can get an Eero, Eero Wi-Fi system for your house and use their Eero Plus security system.

It basically scans everything coming in and out of your house. But as far as hits to your logs go, two things. FTP, seriously? Please, please, please tell me you're using SFTP for the love of God because that's just, I mean, FTP. Open FTP, that is so 1980s.

That's like having a gopher site. Seriously. Oh, man. And port scanners come from everywhere. So if it's just login attempts, that's pretty usual. You're always going to see hits to your log from everything. I mean, you plug in a computer to any internet connection, you're going to get scanned.

And they're hitting main ports. So that's why FTP is, why FTP? Just make, please, please, please use SFTP. Because if they can, if they, you know, hit your FTP port, can find out what version of FTP you're running. There's probably an exploit for it, guaranteed.

But yeah, check out Eero Plus. I ran it for a while and it works. I mean, they'd send me reports every week about the thousands or tens of thousands of, you know, things that go through my network. And that was before I got a PC. So I might even go turn it back on now, now that I have a couple of PCs in the house.

Seth, a friend of Elliot Earls, writes in. I don't know who Elliot Earls is, but... I had to Google him. He is an American graphic designer, artist, and one-man band performance artist, artist-in-residence, and head of the graphic design department at the Cranberry Academy of Art. It is somewhat, I read through his Wikipedia entry, and it is a little surprising that neither of us knew who he was.

You'd think we would have crossed paths with him at some point. Oh, yes. Okay. So I thought y'all might like to poop on this one. And this is an article from The Guardian. And I'm going to tell you right now. The title is, Are Your Phone, Camera, and Microphone Spying on You?

Well, the answer, of course, there is no. No. Thanks to Betteridge. Also, so your listeners have an accurate mental image of what the two of you look like. You should come clean and tell them Jason is actually Barf from Spaceballs, and Brian looks exactly like Professor Snape from Harry Potter. At least that's who I see in my mind over the past few years listening to your show.

Keep up the good work, fellows, and love the show notes. And my wife is so pleased with this comparison because she was a huge fan of Snape. And what's the actor's name? Oh, my God. Blinking on it. Sadly passed away.

Oh, well, whatever. Oh, my God. You can't. Alan Rickman. Jesus. I was. We both did it. We both totally brain farted on Alan Rickman. Oh, man. Because I'm like, Die Hard. Every other movie I loved. Dogma. He was even in Dogma.

Yes. Alan Rickman, sadly gone. And Epic Tea Time with Alan Rickman we covered on the show before. Definitely worth checking out. And Barf, by the way, is Barf Alamu for people who have never seen Spaceballs. By the way, just go to the About page. There's a picture of two of us there.

So you can just go see. No, no. Don't ruin it. I like this. I don't. I think we need to update our show art. Of course you do. You look like Snape. I look like a fucking dog from space. Well, you know, there you go. Oh, the one big thing out of this, the phone camera spying thing, Zuckerberg testified that they don't do that.

So can we stop with these fucking articles about it? We've been right all along. They're not listening to you. Did you watch? Did you at least get to see the clip of that? Yes. Okay. Because, yeah, that was going on when I was hitting you on Slack. I'm like, it was amazing. He's just like, the guy goes to this question, not the thing, and Zuckerberg just looks at him and goes, no.

You know he's so tired of that question. Just like we are. Just like we are. He's just like, stop it. I mean, just deadpan. He's like, no. No. Like, if he could kill you with his eyeballs at that point, he would have killed that guy. Well, he probably can, because remember, he's a robot.

He's a robot. He probably shoots lasers out of those eyeballs. Freaking lasers. I'm telling you. That's right. Next up is Myra. Hey, guys. You said to write in with questions for the next episode, so here we go. I'm thinking about getting a smart home device, and I'd like your thoughts on it. What's the difference between Alexa and Google Home?

Or should I just don't, because they'll have even more of my data? Thanks in advance, Myra. Well, Myra, they've already got all your data, so pick your poison. You know, if you're getting Apple, whatever the hell they call it, I can't even remember. HomePod. HomePod, if you're already using Siri and you're all in on Apple, get the Google one if you have an Android and you love Google and you think they won't do evil.

Get the Amazon Echo if you enjoy every TV show pranking you, because that's the big one. That's what I've got. I love it. And actually, then I thought about it a bit more. Do I really love it? Because it's really just basically a glorified jukebox for me these days. But they were first out of the gate and probably still have a bit of lead over the others.

But really, they're pretty much all the same. Whatever you're more comfortable with, go with that one. Well, the HomePod is pretty feature poor compared to the other two at this point. They're going to update it with software over the coming years. Right now, I've got, you know, the regular Echo, the first gen, not the second gen ones, and one Echo Dot for the bedroom.

And I love the thing. I get up every morning and I packed it yesterday. So when I got up this morning to make my coffee, I didn't have it there. And I'm talking to myself in the kitchen. I'm like, Echo, play WGN from TuneIn. And I'm like, no, shit, it's not here.

So I had to go find my AirPods and go get an app and do all that stuff. But I, you know what? I've given up the ghost on caring what Amazon has on me. Granted. Okay, great. They know what music I listen to because they're going to anyway because I use Amazon Music. And, you know, when I'm listening to radio, which is what 99% of the thing is for.

It's just, I'm like, okay, you know what radio station I listen to. And so be it. So be it. I don't think they're storing everything that we say. So it doesn't really matter because it's just the bandwidth would just be too insane.

And every security researcher on the planet by now would have figured that out because I have to do a packet sniff the damn thing. Exactly. Which is, I think we said on one of the first episodes when they just released the stuff. So, yeah, go get one. They're fun. You know, don't expect it to drastically change your life.

But get on the bandwagon. It's because stuff is going this way eventually. Did you ever get one of the Echoes with the video screens and cameras so you could talk to your family? No, I never ended up doing that. I'm still thinking about it. But, yeah, I got to look into it a bit more. Okay. Yeah, they've been on sale recently because I don't think they're selling that well.

And also the Echo spots, the little round ones that are really cute with the little screen, those have been, like, knocked down a lot lately. And I would get one of those in a heartbeat if they would take the camera out of it. I don't want one of those things with a camera in it.

Period. I want one that basically could replace my alarm clock by my bed. So I want no camera and I want a USB charger so I can connect my phone. That's all I want. So somebody build me that. Get on it, people. Yeah. Martin writes in, Brian, are you from Lamont, Illinois?

I grew up around there and I know a lot of Schulmeisters. Guys, what are your thoughts on Doc.io? I don't want a shill for them, but looking for some sort of confirmation about how I'm seeing them. Doc.io is a blockchain-based. Okay. Yep. And it's focused on providing a more open and connected internet, whatever that means.

Apparently, use the SoAfish net full of replicated Excel spreadsheet Ethereum network. So they're on Ethereum. Supposedly makes it possible for you to transfer your information and professional history from app to app in a seamless manner.

I thought we could already do that. They have been targeting LinkedIn users. And to me, this is just a crafty way for them to get cycles on my device to mine cryptocurrencies, or as I like to call it, Pokemon Go for finance dummies. Any thoughts? Sorry if you already covered this.

It's the 5th of March and only on episode 249. Love the show. So I used to skate in Le Mans all the time. I'm in Downers Grove for the next 36 hours. So by the time, actually, by the time this launches, I'll be in Santa Fe, New Mexico. So sorry. If I'd have known, we could have hang out and had a drink.

But sorry. And no, I'm not from the area. I grew up here in Southern California. My family settled here. But there are distant relations that did settle in Chicago. We're not really in touch with them. But there's not a lot of Schillmeisters in the States. And a couple episodes back, I was going through removing your information from all those different address sites.

And every time I searched for myself, I saw all the ones in Chicago. There's also some Schillmeisters up in Calgary, of all places. Oh, wow. But not really. Yeah. Don't really know them myself anymore. Those connections kind of went with my grandparents. So, Brian, if you go get your 23andMe data done, you can find out where they're all at.

Because today, I got an email from 23andMe that said I had 249 new relatives that have signed up for 23andMe that are now sharing their data. So, I can go find people I never want to hang out with at a barbecue again. Exactly. So, I took a look at Doc.io.

And, boy, did you look at this website? Did you try to read any of this? I am going to do this in real time. Let's see what Doc.io has to offer us. Because I think they need a real human to write their copy. Maybe there is real AI, because I read this over and over and over again.

And, again, it's like Robot Zuckerberg is writing all their copy. Now, first up, why the fuck do they need desktop permissions to send me notifications for a... They do not? Nope. Okay, where's the pop-up so I can deny joining their email list?

I got to go through the checklist. I got to go through the checklist. Doc.io connects your profiles, reputations, and networks into one shareable source using blockchain technology. And, they just recently raised $20 million in their ICO. Ah. Bunch of idiots. Your information is all over the place.

Your information lives in many places. Okay, way to reiterate the title. Managing each source separately wastes time, loses value, and gives you no control of how it's stored or used. Okay, that pretty much made no sense. Yep. Doc.io lets you create one shareable source for your profile network.

Okay, they just like to reuse copy. Yes. Update your information from any website in the Doc.io network, and it's automatically transferred to every other app you're connected to. Okay. Mm-hmm. They don't list the apps, by the way.

You cannot... They say everything on the web, but they don't have a list of things that it actually does work with, because, you know, they'd have to have an API that they're tying into. So, in the graphic, there's... Yeah, there's an Airbnb... Oh, it's for a... Oh, there's... This is a fake senior full-stack developer at Airbnb.

Okay. Say goodbye to long sign-up forms. Get instant access to your information when you sign up for a new application, so you'll never have to fill out manual forms with the same information again. That's called autofill, and it comes with every browser. Okay, don't need blockchain for that. You have complete control and ownership of your data.

Choose which apps use your information and what's shared. I kind of have that already by just going to the app and saying what they can use. Mm-hmm. Powered by blockchain. Doc.io is a decentralized protocol built on the security of blockchain technology. What the fuck does that mean?

Nothing. So, I look through all this, and I kind of get what they're trying to do, but my question is, who really needs this? Nobody. Nobody. Why is it in the blockchain? Oh, wait! They're raising money! Blockchain! Blockchain! Blockchain! Yeah. That's why there's this blockchain.

This is nothing. This is a nothing. This is a nothing burger, and it sickens me that they've raised $20 million. Yeah. Oh, man. Oh, what also sickens me is I... This is a funny aside. For some reason, I was going to set up a Pinterest board for some of the stuff that I've been collecting for the show.

I thought, oh, maybe I'll make a little Pinterest board for some of the funny graphics that we have as we come across during the week. And I put in the Pinterest extension. So, anytime I roll over a graphic now, a little Pinterest thing pops up that says, save. I will be uninstalling that immediately.

Yeah. So much for that. But yeah, so much for Doc.io, too. Yeah, that is a flash-in-the-pan scam. Yes. All right. Next up is Jake. Hi, guys. Love the show and appreciate all the work you do to make it as professional and entertaining. I was wondering if you had any advice on encryption software for phones.

See, I told you, our listeners, we're getting a little crazy here. I realize that most major phones have built-in encryption, but I don't completely trust these shady companies and their desires to sell all my information to the highest bidder. Thanks, Jake. All right, Jake. Here's what I suggest. Smash your phone immediately with a hammer and go live in a van down by the river.

Down by the river. Look, Apple is not selling your data. But if you have an Android phone, well, every app developer probably that you have on the phone is. Yes. So, I found a quick article that will be in our show notes from alertsec.com with all the different current options out there for encrypting your phones.

So, you can take a look at that. But honestly, I think it's more effort than it's worth. Just use Apple's built-in encryption and never, ever, ever own an Android if you're concerned about this stuff. Yeah. That's the thing. If you're concerned about this stuff because, man, I still love that Android phone I have.

That was an S7 Edge. Right. That's a nice phone. You got to play with it. It's a pretty nice phone. It was nice. I just wish it ran iOS. Yeah. Me too. That's the only difference. I'm like, man, you know, it feels better than an iPhone. It performs better than an iPhone.

Everything about it is better than an iPhone except the software. So, it's not an iPhone. All right. Moving on. Adam D. writes, in your last podcast, you mentioned Synology C2 Backup and Backblaze. If you want to backup to Backblaze B2, you can use the Hyper Backup app and or Cloud Sync apps from Synology.

Hyper Backup allows for scheduled backups and Cloud Sync keeps files in sync. Both have options for encryption. I use Hyper Backup to backup my shares to S3 and Cloud Sync to keep a local copy of my OneDrive. Depending on how much data you have, C2 may be the better deal. But throwing these options out there in case they're useful to someone, that's really cool.

I will definitely check those out. The biggest problem I have about backing up my Synology to the cloud is my Synology currently has 14 terabytes on it. Yeah. My plan for my internet access caps me at one terabyte a month.

So, it would take over a year to back it up if I stay under the cap. And that's if I don't use my internet connection because my internet connection usually hovers around 800 to 900 gig a month. Right. Because I work in podcasting, which has massive files.

I'm transferring, you know, 20, 30 gig a day. Minimum plus Sweden trips and streaming TV. So, having a cloud backup for these massive drives, for me, it is a home user, I think is really kind of tough.

But I think I can use this for different shards of the Synology, like the really important stuff. Because I like my photography up there. My photography is about three gigabytes right now, three or four gig for everything I've ever shot. And I'd like to have that backed up. That would be nice.

Just so I can sleep at night, even though nobody ever looks at my photography anymore because I don't post it anywhere. But anyway, thanks, Adam, for the tips. I will definitely check those out. Right. And Mad Mike writes, nice show this week, guys. Definitely miss Brian and his ability to move discussion along when it dwells too long in one place.

I'm okay if you never discuss toilets on the show again. Yeah, I'm sorry about that, man. I can't always be here. And sometimes, you know, Jason gets toilet focused. I'm sorry, that was Bittner that got toilet focused. Okay, that's actually true.

While it was great getting bonus Bittner, I did miss the dynamic that the two of you bring to the show. Keep up the great work, guys. Thanks. Well, thanks, Mike. Appreciate it. Appreciate it. Jerry writes in, Definitely disagree with your opinions in episode 252 that the 80 million sets of raw complete data used by Cambridge Analytica was simply Facebook giving away data.

This was 200,000-ish people filling a stupid survey. And when they did, all of their friends' data was given to CA. That is how you go from 200,000 people filling in a god-awful survey to 80 million sets of data. I have a questionable friend who fills those things out all the time, and I'm quite certain that my data is part of the 80 million because of that stupid person.

If your take is that by using Facebook that I must assume that my data is openly available and it's my own fault, sure. But if you're saying that I checked something to specifically give up all my data, possibly every single phone call, no. Since I re-signed up to Facebook five years ago, it was simply to keep in touch with my older parents.

That's all I do. I rarely post or look, but it still pisses me off. To start off real quick, that was, you know, in 2014. So you were in that cadre back then, and that was just a feature that they would give to app developers to get friend-to-friend data.

They were very copious with giving out friends-to-friend data. And it was one of those things, if you remember back in the day, that was on by default you had to opt out of. Remember the old opt-out days when every time they would change their terms or change their privacy policy, you would get automatically opted in for the kitchen fucking sink.

That's where this comes from. They have changed those policies now, so it's nothing new. This whole kerfuffle is from shit that happened four years ago. So, and things are different now. But, you know, this is just the fallout from it because they never manned up and said, hey, some stuff happened back then and some shady people got your data, you know.

Yeah. Yeah. So I logged in and checked my thing as well because I have friends that do surveys all the time as well. And I just love the wording on this, so I do want to read it. Based on our investigation, you don't appear to have logged into this is your digital life with Facebook before we removed it from our platform in 2015.

Again, legalese, look at that. You don't appear to have logged into. They do not say you did not because I didn't, but they can't say that because they're covering their asses. However, a friend of yours did log in. So they know your friend can log in, but they don't know if you have?

Uh, come on. Yeah, that's a load of shit. Weasels, weasels. Also, I'm sure you know which friend did, and I'd like to know. That's true. We should be able to publicly shame them. Yes, good point. This should be telling me which friend gave my information away inadvertently.

Uh, so it says, as a result, the following information was likely shared with this is your digital life. Again, likely shared. They can't tell me if it was or not. They can't tell me what specific information. But likely shared would be my public profile, which I don't have a public profile.

Mine is entirely private. Uh, page likes, birthday, and current city. So, there you go. Uh, you know, birthday, current city. I mean, all of that can be found with Google search anyways, so that doesn't bother me too much. Page likes, that's a bit weird, especially if you make your profile not public, but whatever.

It is what it is. If they want to know that I like a bunch of goth bands, that's fine. I don't care. So, there you go. That's, that's everything. And yeah, I mean, I get his point, but, uh, inadvertently or not, that's what we all agreed to. The one thing that they don't say in that is, in all of this, is your Facebook ID.

Your, your FB under, yeah, your FB ID, which is that magic number that can tie you to everything else. Those, that's the real key. Who cares about the rest of this shit? Nobody cares about the rest of this shit. What they want is your email address, your FB ID, and your friend list if they can get it.

Because that way, that's, that's how they do the correlation between the connections. I have got piles of, of Facebook identification numbers sitting around somewhere from back when I used to develop, uh, different things for different artists. I mean, this was all open back then, and we all wrote scripts that just grabbed all this stuff.

I have got loads and loads and loads of Facebook ID numbers for people that like certain bands. I've literally, I literally have probably dumps of millions of Facebook IDs. Yeah. Because, uh, we did, we were doing games at, uh, this company I worked at, BLT, that were for the Muppets.

Right. And doing things for the Muppets. When somebody signed up, we would just grab and scrape and dump it into a database. We weren't trying to do anything nefarious, and we never did anything nefarious, but I've got the data somewhere, or probably used to, because CDs, CDR backups do degrade over time, as I found out.

Yes, they do. But yeah, that stuff was just, it was handed around willy-nilly. If you didn't have it, then you were a schmuck. But everybody had it. It's what you did with it that was key. Yes, exactly. Next up is Ivor. Hi, guys. I was surprised to hear Jason's interpretation of the Cambridge Analytica Facebook data scandal in last podcast.

As I heard it, and I would mention at this point that I'm old and slightly deaf in one ear, Jason thinks that the data collected by Cambridge Analytica was directly responsible for Trump being re-elected. Quite a leap of logic, if you ask me. But then it's not the first time Jason has leaped tall buildings of logic in a single bound. Oh, that's so good.

It's hard for me to give a fuck about this issue, because I don't live in the U.S., and I believe the U.S. got the president it deserved. But I do have some issues with the race to blame Trump's election solely on Facebook and CA. Even comrade Leo Laporte, left-wing darling that he is, mentioned in his This Week in Google podcast that the Obama campaign did almost exactly the same thing back in the 2012 election.

Did he? Because I don't remember that data going to Russian operatives. Didn't go to Russian operatives, but he did use it to campaign openly, and he targeted heavily. No, Obama totally targeted heavily. Yes, exactly. He didn't mention at the time that he, Obama, was lauded by the left as being a media genius.

It seems to me that the left-wing media in the U.S., let's just assume that's all the media in the U.S., au contraire, my friend. I am so sick of that concept that all the media, the mainstream media, is left-leaning. Fox News? Are you fucking kidding me? Yeah. All right, anyways, he's going on.

They are desperately clinging to outright denial that Trump was elected because A, Hillary was just a terrible candidate, and B, the electoral college system. The following PolitiFact article spells out some of the facts around the Cambridge Analytica scandal. Link in the show notes. Now I am not comfortable with the way FB has used people's data both in 2012 and again in 2015, regardless of the political impacts.

But the exact political impacts of this are very murky at the moment, and it is a long bow to draw to say that this is the reason that Trump was elected. If you believe that, you would also have to believe that Facebook is the reason Obama was re-elected back in 2012. I don't think a lot of people would be very comfortable making that association. Love your work, guys. Let's get Papa Dave made a permanent host.

He is the supreme grumpy old geek. I agree with that. You left a line out where he's talking about the left-wing media. He says, I suspect they would even blame Jason's dog or Instagram for Trump being elected if they possibly could. I did miss that. That was a good line. So, yeah.

There are many issues that I have with this. Me too. Because what they – if you watch the video from Cambridge Analytica, they talked about how they specifically focused the swing states and were sending out disinformation to the people who were easily, you know, persuadable.

Persuade. So, you know, if this was a fair race, then I don't – you tell me one fucking article about Obama being elected that showed him sending out fake articles about his opposition. Period. You send me one of those and I'll back off.

But he was just running a campaign and talking about the facts. But – and I still have problems with Obama. He's not my favorite president by any fucking stretch. He wasn't a good guy for a lot of the stuff that he did. So, I'm not an Obama fan, but – I'm less of a Trump fan.

But the thing is, they did. They absolutely did sway the election. Yes, sway. Now, I agree with him in saying that it may not necessarily be the reason that Trump was elected. Right. But it certainly fucking helped.

Yeah, it helped. They're definitely not the only reason. There's a lot of reasons, there's a lot of socio-economical issues going on here in the United States that are a problem. And now that we're in a trade war with China, all the people that voted for him are finding out really, really in a very bad way that, oh, their soybeans costs are going to go up and then they can't sell.

Because I live in Illinois and I hear all the farm reports and every farmer here is freaking out right now. And they all voted for him. There's a lot of things going on here. It's a complicated topic. But, yes, no, I don't think Cambridge Analytica got Trump elected. I think they helped in a massive way because they're a bunch of scumbags.

And that's what they do. I also do want to point out that there is a massive, massive difference between the impact and reach that Facebook had between 2012 and then 2015. It's only a few years, but whoa. And then again, you know, for this election, I mean, the reach and political weight that Facebook has now versus 2012, you can't even compare the two.

No, and their targeting algorithms got better. The way that they can deep dive with, you know, just like spear phishing with advertisement. They can just dial down to a region and a demographic and a psychographic and just put ads right where they need them to go.

And the tools are so much better now. The tools are ridiculously more refined. And the audience is a lot bigger. Yep. Sorry. Sorry. You disagree there, Ivor. But, yeah, we're going to I'm going to say this, even though I hate it, but we're going to agree to disagree.

Oh, but hey, but I can I can I can leap logic buildings in a single bound, which I fucking love. This is my favorite line ever on this show. It's almost as good as Mrs. Shiny side saying what you called me, Jason to spendy poo.

That was a good one, too. Yeah. All right. Next one comes from Jay. I understand not wanting to watch the Clone Wars. I never was into Star Wars until I had kids, but I've sat through everything since and have come to appreciate Star Wars as an overall story. The Clone Wars series gives a better look into Darth Vader, which is worth a look.

But more importantly, Ahoshka Tano is a strong female lead that is probably the best arc in the franchise. Just a note. Love the podcast. Wish I was working so I could drop you a couple of bucks. Ah, one day. Yes, but Jar Jar. Yes, Jar Jar.

So this is what I wrote. Yeah, Jar Jar is horrible. So I wrote this two weeks ago or my initial thoughts about two weeks ago were Jar Jar. Ahsoka is basically written as a 12 year old girl. So I don't know if I'd call her a female role model. She's over impulsive and it's the male characters that seem to always correct her and get her out of trouble, which is not exactly an empowering message.

Also, the last episode I tried to watch had zombie genosians. Seriously? Honestly, zombie genosians. So I get there are tiny nuggets of good Star Wars lore there, but it's really, really stupid. Now, I have an update to that. I've watched a bit more. I have been throwing it on late at night when I'm getting ready for bed and the wife and the kid are already sleeping and I'm just kind of puttering about taking care of some stuff.

It's not bad. Some episodes are actually really good. Some are horrible. Most are just kind of decent background noise, but it's not it's not consistent. I'll give it that. OK, yeah. Yeah. I have no plans to watch it. So it's all. Yeah, I don't. I don't think you need to do it.

I'll probably just get through it just because I've started it. OK, Tyler, Taylor, sorry, not Tyler. Tyler, the creator was on my mind for some reason. Don't ask me why. Taylor, regarding how a car should react in the save the driver versus save the hiker case, wouldn't the decision be based on those training the neural net?

If that training group is anything mirroring society as a whole, then is society deciding who should live? What do you think? Oh, OK. I had a couple of thoughts written last night, but I had a bit of wine and I don't like them anymore. Well, the problem is the people training the neural net are usually 25 year old white boys.

And there's that there's a problem there. It's not a very, you know, it's not a very broad swath of the the scientific realm who's training those. But there's so many. Here's the problem. There's so many factors that go into that decision in an instant that, you know, this is the trolley problem.

And as we talked about on the last episode, we should just get rid of the trolley problem because it doesn't really doesn't really factor into it. Because there are I mean, look, Tesla's are driving into medians right now because it can't tell what the difference is. So there are other problems that we have to deal with right now.

Yep. Jay writes in. I've had this Logitech washable keyboard for years now. It's still like brand new. Nice to type on. And while I don't have kids, I do like wine. All right. And I can imagine it would be right what you're after the Logitech washable wired keyboard K310.

Now, Brian, what do you think about the washable keyboard? Yeah, it looks cool. I wish it was not wired because I like having USB keyboards now a lot. I don't want I don't want the wire. You don't mean you. You mean you mean.

Yeah, you mean wireless keyboard. I mean, wireless keyboard. Yeah. Sorry. My bad. So I don't want the wired aspect. If this came wireless and if they made one for Mac, I would be all over this. Yeah. Just Bluetooth is shit. I'm looking at it now. I'm looking at the the profile view of it.

And these keys are really high up. Yeah, they are. They're super high up. Now, I probably wouldn't have too much of a problem with it. It's just it's an odd. It's an odd like keyboard just to begin with.

I mean, because I have I use the the Mac extended keyboard with the keypad, the Bluetooth one, and I love it. Yeah, but I also have a wired one that I use as well with my PC because I love that keyboard. I don't have a problem with the wire. It's just I have a problem with how high those keys are over the basically over the place where your your hands lay.

So I don't know. How much is it? Fifty eight bucks. Yeah, that's a lot for a test. Yeah, it's a little pricey for what it is, but interesting. I mean, if I was still just PC, I would probably grab one of these. If I still just like had a tower and a dedicated station in my house for my for my computer, I would totally get one of these, but I don't and everything needs to be mobile and I'm on Mac.

So, yeah. And I also don't have open containers next to my computers ever anymore. So I think the last time I spilled any kind of liquid on my computer was in the 90s. So I've done it more than a few times since then.

Well, I've grown up. I am adulting. So good for you. All right. Joanna writes in thanking myself again for listening to you guys. Hearing about your Coursera adventures reminded me that I had some things I wanted to check out there. And I'm now enrolled in a course that will directly immediately benefit my occupation as a college instructor.

Oh, and I often reference you in class due to your unmatched, hilarious, snarky, real world perspective. Go forth and prosper, gentlemen. All right. You go. I only made it through two weeks of my course and quit, but it just wasn't right for me. But go get your learn on. That's awesome. Yeah, I dig. I dig it.

I'm definitely going to take another class with them at some point when I have the time and the bandwidth to do so. So that's great. Awesome. Glad you're enjoying it. And Reese writes in, hey, guys, just wanted to drop in and say you rock. I started listening to the show a few months back, and it's quickly become one of my favorite tech podcasts.

With so much going on in the world, it's a great way to get a weekly digest when I haven't had time to keep up with things. I wrote an article for my company recently and included GOG. Feel free to share what we're going to share. It is the 14 podcasts to inspire your marketing efforts. And this will be linked in the show notes.

I also went and left a review on iTunes because that matters, right? Actually, it does. Yes, it does. So keep doing it. Keep it up. And it also matters because then we have something to read on the show. So we like that. Yes. Next up is baby rabies.

Oh, boy. This is a long one. After listening to a recent episode of your show, I feel like I should say something about Windows 10 and the show's mention of it. From a purely user standpoint, Windows 10 is great. Groot features looks great. From a privacy and security standpoint, it is, however, an even bigger abomination than any other previous version of Windows.

Okay. Now, there is a very long ramble here, which gets into specific and deep dives about the different things that Windows does that are crap for privacy, all of which I agree with. I agree with you 100%, baby rabies, which is a sentence I've never uttered before. I'm sure you've said that in a goth club at 3 in the morning when you were drunk to some girl.

Hey, baby rabies, why don't you come over here and give me some sugar? He does get into things like automatic updates, which I agree with 100%. I have had Microsoft updates completely shit my computer. He doesn't like them. He hates them. I've had automatic updates completely shit my computer before, back when I was a Windows user.

So I totally get that. And, you know, Windows has always been thus. If you know what you're doing, you can configure it to be exactly what you want it to be. And you can shut off all of the heinous privacy sucks that you're complaining about. That's what Windows does. It's a Swiss army knife of a computer.

You can do everything with it. You can do anything with it. So turn it all off. And if you don't like that aspect of it, and if you don't want to have to turn it all off, and you want a computer shipped to you that will keep your privacy secure, you buy an Apple. That's the way it works. It's funny because, I mean, this came in a couple weeks ago.

And after reading this, I did do some research and did go through and turn off all the crap he's talking about on my machine. And it's fine. I mean, it took like an hour or two, but then it was done. So I don't have that much of a problem with it. I'm just wondering if we should put all of these emails in the show notes so everybody can see them.

Because these kind of go on for a bit sometimes. Yeah, maybe we'll just do that with the show notes. We'll just dump all this in there so you guys can see everything. Yeah. If you're a Windows 10 person and you're curious about this, he has some really great points in here. Really? Yeah. Yeah. Really good info that helped me lock down my machine.

So we'll just throw these all in the show notes. Next up, Dave writes, You two guys are great. They're great. Woo. I get a good laugh from you two while I'm in my workshop. And no, don't stop swearing. Fuck the people who don't like the colorful description of events. Well, no plan there.

P.S. I store all of my GOG podcasts on my free NAS box that was built up from old parts from the local electronics recycling depot. I won't bore you with the details of the ancient spec Athlon 64X2 system, but works great for podcasts and streaming 1080p video.

Keep up the good work. Cheers. Dave from Meadows, Australia. Well, thanks a lot, Dave. Cheers to you as well in Australia. And you keep this stuff. You're crazy. Yeah. That's cool that you have, like, a free NAS box. If you do want to send us any specs on that, we can post it in the show notes.

Yeah. I'm always fascinated by this stuff because I'm looking at my Synology. The difference with, you know, yeah, you built up this thing from scratch from old parts at the local electronics recycling depot. My NAS was basically $250, so if I do the time-to-effort calculation, I'm like, $250 is for a Linux box?

Not too bad. But going to set it up. But if somebody has a bunch of, like, you know, old PCs around the house and they can build one up from spare parts, definitely send us some specs on that because it's something, like, you know, on a weekend that I would have definitely done. Right. Next up, confused about Sweden. Here we go.

I've been waiting for the whole show. Good afternoon, gentlemen. I've enjoyed listening to the show, even though and especially because our political views differ. As an older geek and previous fan of the torrent sites, I've enjoyed your talks about your Sweden trips for some less than accessible entertainment. I'm confused, however, about the disparity of opinions from Lyft, Bird, and Airbnb.

I'm interested in how you view your trips to Sweden, bypassing the legal opportunity to view purchase the content as necessary as the networks don't afford a more reasonable method of watching. I don't see either of you speaking to the sites that host the torrents as particularly nasty. Perhaps I missed this in earlier episodes. How does Bird and Airbnb, who present a novel approach to business, novel, at least he admits it here, albeit illegal for many reasons, differ from the act of private piracy that seems to be the regular use of both of you?

I'd prefer consistency, but understand if you do not. Love the show. Love the enthusiasm. Love the banter. Confused about the disconnect on what laws apply. Jason, good luck on your coast-to-coast move. As a military man of over 20 years, I know how you feel. Keep it up. You guys are killing it. Looking forward to listening like I am wrong. Thank you very much, Confused About Sweden.

Look, I've thought about this a lot. Yeah, me too. Especially since we got this. Especially since we got this. I've really dialed into trying to figure out how I feel ethically about the occasional trips to Sweden that I do. So let's just start.

Let's start at the beginning here, which is his idea that somehow this equates to Bird, Airbnb, Uber. Yeah, we're comparing two illegal activities here is what we're talking about. Because going to Sweden is a copyright infringement.

Yes. And Lyft and Bird and Airbnb, they are illegal in what they're doing from their business practices. So it's two separate. You could say apples and oranges, but it's basically two illegal things that are happening on the internet is what we're discussing here.

Right, and I find the vastly different occasional piracy versus a company that is basically flouting local laws to make a shit ton of money and drive competition out and all the various things that we know that these companies are doing. That seems considerably more heinous to me.

They're openly breaking laws and just don't care. And it's a business that is getting away with it as opposed to a private, occasional, illegal venture to go get and watch something that I can't see anywhere else. To me, they're very different things.

I think it would be more appropriate to equate Napster to Lyft and Airbnb and Bird. Yes, because Napster tried to build a business out of it. Nobody is really building a business out of going to Sweden. Now, you can make an argument that torrent sites are putting advertising on or they're putting on cryptocurrency mining or things like that so that they're making money.

But you can go to Sweden without putting your money in their coffers or even using them. There are all kinds of different methods around there. And it's certainly not a multi-million dollar business like Uber. It's some guy with a server that's barely paying his server fees.

Right, and that's what I use. I use a private tracker that I do send money to just to keep their servers up. I have no problem with that. And when I'm torrenting, it's generally because I can't buy it or get it on Netflix or I just want to get it early. And I'm eventually going to pay for that content.

Because with a Netflix account and an Amazon account, all of these things that I get from the torrent sites will eventually be on the streaming sites that I'm already paying for. It's just it's time shifted. You know, if I could go buy the latest movie and right now and pay like 40 bucks for it to watch it instead of going to the theater because I can't because my situation with my animals, I would pay it.

But they don't give me that option. So I'm going to get it. And then when it comes on Netflix, I'll probably watch it again. And then they'll get the hit for that there, too. So, yeah, it's it is definitely a different type of thing. And I don't steal software. I never steal software.

If I do have to get something in short term, like I was talking about with the installer earlier, I just had to get something for a quick one off use because I can't afford to get it now. But I'll eventually go back and pay for it. I spend thousands of dollars a year on software, so I don't even steal that. Movies, movies are it is it's a it's a gray area.

It's a very gray area because you and I, Brian, both worked in the entertainment industry, right? Well, let's let's talk about that, because I want to discuss how our history shapes our attitudes, both for everybody and how the past formulates and affects our decisions in the present.

Jason and I both grew up in an age of technological progression that the music and movie industries capitalized on blatantly and on purpose. I bought music in some cases in four different formats, a cassette, a CD, digital, and then paying Spotify monthly for streaming.

So for an album that came out, say, you know, Love and Rockets Express, one of the first things that I ever started to listen to. You probably spent 120 bucks on that album. I bought that thing at least four times. Yeah, at least if not even including like a CD being stolen or I let a friend borrow it or it got scratched up movies.

I bought movies in five different formats, VHS, Laserdisc, DVD, Blu-rays, and now paying for streaming, not to mention cable bills that we pay every month for things like movies. So Jason and I have paid hand over fist multiple times for the same content, and we're really the only generation that has done this.

Really, you know, the kids now it's maybe two formats tops. We were in that sweet spot of just getting fucked by these companies bad. So this has made me somewhat jaded about this sort of stuff, and I don't even want to talk about the swindle that was the CD single in the 90s and what a racket that was.

Multiple versions of the same single with different B-sides or remixes plus import versions. I bought at least six different singles from one garbage single to get all the B-sides, and there wasn't anywhere you could go to listen to this anyway. There was no Spotify. There was no mass database where you could just listen to stuff.

They didn't play the B-sides on the radio. So if you wanted to hear this stuff, you had to go buy it. I have spent so much money, and I got so angry when I was ripping all my CDs a couple years back. I was just thinking about how much money I spent, and now these CDs are worth, what, five cents per metric ton?

Oh, so frustrating. So coming at it from that angle, and then coming at it from the fact that I worked in the music industry, Jason worked in the movie industry, we know that they just care about money and getting money out of people.

So that is frustrating to us. So, yeah, I think that there is some history to us that kind of lets us go, you know what? We've paid our dues. I'm going to let myself steal something every now and then. So over the years, yeah, I've paid $20,000 for my DVD collection, maybe $25,000.

I know I've got at least $20,000 into my DVD collection. And when I look at these fucking DVDs that I bought, I look in my DVD collection, I've got four versions of Army of Darkness and probably four of the Evil Dead because they kept re-releasing the same shit over and over again and putting just a new commentary track on it, calling it a new special edition.

And out of all that money, I'm just like, you know, this is ridiculous. And I worked in the business, and I know how much money they made on those DVDs. You know, it was just pure profit. So, yeah, every now and again, I don't mind dipping my toe in to go, you know, get a movie before it's released because eventually I'm going to be paying for it anyway, like we talked about.

So I don't find that nefarious. What I do find nefarious is Airbnb and people like that ruining local communities because these slumlords come in, buy up all the houses. And rent them out, and then you can't buy, find a place to live for less than, you know, a ridiculous kidney amount of money.

Right. I agree. I agree with that 100%. I think that they're vastly different things. And I want to state, just for the record, because I think you might have the wrong impression here. My trips to Sweden aren't quite as often as it may sound like they are. They really aren't. It really has to be something I cannot find anywhere else and pay for it in general.

I've gotten music catalogs that I've already bought multiple times that iTunes has totally fucked up. So I've grabbed those same things that I've already paid for and just re-brought them back in because iTunes just killed them. There are two exceptions that I've made to that rule.

I did go to Sweden for Downton Abbey because PBS here in the States was a full season behind. Right. But I also contribute to PBS. I'm a donor. So I feel I've paid them for it. So that's what I'm getting back to with time shifting. You're just ratcheting up a little bit.

Yes. Now, the one thing I have not paid for is Star Trek Discovery because I'll be because I'll be damned if I'm going to pay the same price as, say, a Netflix or a Hulu with original content and thousands of other options for just one show.

But, Brian, that's ridiculous. You get the Big Bang Theory, though. Come on. Your favorite show. But you did the math. We did the math on that. So it would cost you $70 to watch Star Trek Discovery. Yeah. Fuck that. It's not that good. No, it's not.

So, you know, I guess you're right. I should just not watch Star Trek Discovery because otherwise I am kind of breaking the law. But here's the thing. Here's the here's the you know what most of my torrenting is. It's when I pay for this Comcast TV on demand service with the software DVR.

That thing screws up at least once or twice a week. So most of my torrenting is to go get The Walking Dead or Chicago Fire or some of the popcorn TV that I watch because the service that I pay for can't actually deliver on what they're supposed to do. Yeah, I guess what the point I'm trying and Jason and I are trying to make here and let's just wrap this up in a little bow here is a confused about Sweden.

I get it. But the reality is I would agree with you 100% if Jason and I weren't paying for a bunch of services. And the only way we got all of our music and all of our entertainment was by stealing it by going to Sweden. But Jason and I pay for cable Jason and I pay for streaming music services Jason and I pay for streaming video services.

We are paying left right and center to all the different content creation houses. We're cool. Yeah, all good. We're all good. We are paying for our content. All right. All right. Moving on. Marie writes in. Hi, guys. I've been listening to the show for three years now, and I still put you at the top of the weekly must listen list.

Thought I would make a show recommendation for you. I just finished a K a binge, and even though it took us four months watching what can in today's political climate be called a speculative fiction show. It's not dystopian, and it made me cry for what might have been the West Wing.

I get it. This was a massive hit show back in the early aughts early aughts. Oh, my God. But I just never got into it then. It's a lovely palate cleanser from all the altered carbons and black mirrors and strange days. You get my drift. So, yes, Brian and I were huge fans of it when it aired, I might say, and I think we've both you and I have both seen it the entire series multiple times, right?

Yes. Yes. I think going back and watching it right now would make me sadder than the saddest black mirror, not because of the show. But every time I open the newspaper, it'll just remind me of how bad it is. You know, it had the opposite effect for me. And yes, I was a huge fan of the show when it first aired.

That lets you know how old we are. But I actually rewatched it, I think, last year. Yeah, it was like last year or two years ago. Post Trump, because my wife is Canadian and she didn't really understand how bad things are and how good they used to be.

So when she watched the West Wing, she was like, oh, God, we have to get out of this country. Well, you should tell her you should tell her that the West Wing is not a documentary. It is fiction. OK, there was never a presidency like that. That was the one we always wanted. There was never anything even remotely close to that.

Come on. No, but it is, you know, it is what we should look to. And yes, but if it gets you to Canada faster, then just go with documentary. OK, we'll do. All right. Well, that was a lot of fun. So thank you, absolutely, everybody who wrote in. We really do appreciate you listening and getting involved.

Keep writing. Even you, Dobby. Just, you know, brevity is the soul of wit. Yes, it is. If you want your question or comment read on the show, head over to gog.show slash contact dash us. Actually, I think you just go to slash contact. Nope, you can't. I tested that. Oh, God.

OK, you know, there's another thing we hate WordPress and redirection. The damn plug in broke. So all of our things are broken, but we'll figure it out. So go to contact dash us or click the contact menu bar item and send us your feedback or questions that we can read on the air. And if you're so inclined, please head over to gog.show slash iTunes and toss us a five star and a snarky review.

And please, as always, tell your friends. Closing shout outs. I want to give a shout out to Jason and a friend of the show, Bob and Jason's dogs for their upcoming road trip. Three days across California. Four. Across California.

Four days to get to California. Let me clear to the little YouTube link for some music to listen to in the car. Going back to Cali. I did listen to it. I'm just like, yeah, I'm going to I'm going to play that when we're pulling out of the driveway. Nice. Going back to Cali, Cali, Cali. That was very good.

And for all the listeners, we're going to start opening the betting pool on Return to Chicago next week. You know, my new nickname is Boomerang. So not just a stupid Instagram plugin. No, it's not. All right. Until next time, I'm Brian Schulmeister.

And I'm Jason DeFillippo. Thanks for listening to Grumpy Old Geeks. To support the show and keep us on the air, go to patreon.com slash GOG. Toss us a buck a month and we'll love you forever. If you'd like to give a one time or recurring donation now, go to GOG.show and click the PayPal button in the sidebar. Show notes for this episode are at GOG.show slash 255.

From there, you can find links to old episodes, leave feedback, ask questions, and get links to stuff we like. Stay grumpy and we'll see you next week.

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