274: Beer Saves the Day

This episode is brought to you by RxBar. For 25% off your first order, visit rxbar.com slash gog and enter promo code GOG at checkout. Grumpy Old Geeks, a weekly talk show hosted by Brian Schulmeister and Jason DeFilippo discussing the finer points of what went wrong on the internet and who's to blame.

Welcome to Grumpy Old Geeks. I'm Jason DeFilippo. And I'm Brian Schulmeister. How are you doing today, Brian? I'm a little verklempt today. It's my son's second birthday and his first day at school. Wow, what a crappy birthday present for you. Actually, it's a fantastic present for me, although it feels weird, but this is the first time I've been alone in my house in two years.

Wow. It's a little weird. Well, I'm glad we're actually recording today because yesterday, the enemy of all podcasters, the gardener slash arbor guy, all day long for like eight hours was outside my garage with a chainsaw all day long.

So, yeah. So thanks for pushing this today. And let's get into some show. What do you say? Let's do it. We have talked many times about the man poo problem in San Francisco long before other news outlets did, I have to say. And the man poo problem has just gotten worse, it seems.

We were ahead of the shit game. We definitely were. Oh, man. And they have created the poop patrol now to go around and pick up the poop in San Francisco. Not just the dog poop, but the man poo.

Yep. The poop patrol, the worst kid show ever. Well, it's better than the turd squad, I guess. Nice. And we keep talking about AI on the show and how it's just it. It's that thing, that AI thing. But I found this one in Motherboard and really loved it.

This AI creates horrifying images based on your words. And the pictures were truly kind of disturbing. I'm glad I wasn't doing acid when I saw that article. What did you think about it? Oh, I mean, it's silly. It's as silly as what was a deep mind that was doing the crazy artwork as well.

I did go and I typed in grumpy old geeks. And you'll see that in our show art. I think it actually did quite a good job. It almost looks like our little emojis are in there down at the bottom, kind of melting on acid. Kind of. Yeah, yeah. Unfortunately, by the time I got to go to it, it was not working anymore.

So I haven't been able to get anything out of it. But I'm glad you at least got us in our, yeah, our trippy selves, I guess. It's so strange. Yeah, it's just silly, isn't it? Really? Yeah. Yeah. Whatever. Silly. This is intelligence.

Please give me a break. And speaking of intelligence, Elon Musk at 2.32 in the morning tweeted about people that think he needs to get more sleep. Because this was in the news last week. We talked about it a little bit. And of course, you know, the savior of Uber, Arianna Huffington.

Oh, wait. Did she save Uber? No. No. No, she did not. The heaven room didn't work. I can't think of a person that I was more into 10 years ago and now can't stand than Arianna Huffington. Like, I thought she was genius and brilliant. And I read all of her books and her political stuff. And I listened to her on left, right and center podcast and all that sort of stuff.

And now I just can't stand her. So she had to get her. You're where I'm at now, 10 years ago. Yeah, I know. I never liked her. But welcome to the club. But yeah. So, you know, far be it from her to let anything go by because she's written books about sleep. So she had to, of course, tweet Elon Musk saying, please change the way you work to be more in line with the science around how most humans are effective.

You need it. Tesla needs it. And the world needs it. So then she links to her article that talks about how she talks about sleep. And Elon Musk wrote her back at 2.32 in the morning, of course. Ford and Tesla are the only two American car companies to avoid bankruptcy. I just got home from the factory. You think this is an option?

It is not. Slap. Boom. Smack it down. Yeah. I wish he just would have, you know, added in. And how did fixing Uber go for you? Maybe you should have worked harder. No doubt. So I think I'll just send Elon some of the magnesium supplement that I use to go to sleep.

And, of course, I have a link to the Amazon page for it right now. Natural Stacks. Magtech Magnesium Complex. Parentheses. 90 capsules. Dash. Promote brain health. Comma. Improve cognitive aging. Comma. Help with sleep support. Dash. Vitamin dietary supplement. So I got a case of that going to Elon right now.

Right. You know, it's funny. It's funny. I think all the old SEO people that used to do their bullshit, apply their bullshit trade claiming to be able to get you higher in the Google rankings because we all know that doesn't really work anymore. They all seem to work for Amazon now. I think so. So titles. They just keyword stuff the titles.

Yes. And we did talk about Anthony Bourdain not too long ago. And we kind of thought that there was probably something more to the story because you and I both live and work in Hollywood. And we know that the things in the news generally aren't the way they seem from the outset. And of course, the plot is thickening now with Asia Argento and having Anthony Bourdain pay off this really bizarre looking little kid.

So I think I'm just going to keep an eye on that for now and see where that goes because it's it's strange. It is strange, but, you know, I hope it sucks. I mean, it's horrible. It's all obviously damaging to the hashtag me to movement to some degree.

But people that were abused tend to end up abusing other people. Do they not? I hear that's the way it works. Yes. Sad. Speaking of abuse, I've been abused by WordPress my entire life, and now we're moving to WordPress dot com. And I have to say this is an interesting move.

I'm moving my first site, JPD dot me, my personal site over now to a business plan because I have a bunch of stuff that I need to put up. But up there in Squarespace isn't just cutting the mustard. The interesting thing is when you use the paid version of WordPress, the interface is actually nice.

What? It's so strange. It's a it's a it's kind of a pleasant experience. Imagine that you pay for something in the experience is better. Hmm. Hmm. That doesn't sound right to me. That doesn't sound like the world we were creating for ourselves, Jason.

No, no, free, free, free, free. So the only downside right now that I'm finding is I have to map my domain to the WordPress business account before I can actually install some plugins, which is kind of silly because I need to get the plugins installed.

Before I transfer the main site over so it actually works when it flips over. So this is an issue. So that means my site's going to be broken for a while while I get everything up to speed. Yeah. You have to move everything over, then scramble to fix it all. Yeah, exactly.

So that is the only downside I've found so far. So when we actually do do the move for Grumpy Old Geeks, which will happen within the next eight days because I want to shut my server down. Yeah, we're going to be down for a little bit while that move happens, because we have a couple plugins that we have to put up there that run the show, like our short links and redirection and our little podcast player and stuff like that.

So bear with us as this move happens. So if you do go to the site and it's like janky or jacked up, that's why blame WordPress. Don't feel the need to tweet us about the site being broken, because a lot of you guys are doing that already.

And we know some of the things need to be fixed. We're getting around to it. It was all part of the master. No, we don't have a master plan. Master plan. Do 10 episodes and profit was our master plan. And how'd that work out? Not very well. Episode 274 coming down your ear holes now. Still no profit.

No shit. Yeah, I got a glimpse of the future a little bit this week. I talked a bit about how my kid has figured out the Alexa last week. He would point at it and go Alexa, Baila Baila, which is his favorite band, which means, you know, I have to go say Alexa, play Baila Baila.

And it will. And it gets very happy and grabs a little guitar and runs around and listens to the song. He cannot tell the difference between Alexa and a TV. It does not make any difference to him. They're all the same. And he can't understand why I can't tell the TV to turn on by my voice, which I also have a problem with.

Why can't I do that yet? Come on, people. It's been we started this. I started this process like two years ago trying to get my TV to work with the various janky devices. And it still doesn't. And it still isn't there. Come on. Oh, you're just like Scotty in that Star Trek movie where he talks into the mouse computer.

Yeah, computer. But you actually can say computer to your Alexa now or your Echo or whatever the fuck they call it. In the news. I found an opinion piece in the New York Times this week called It's Not Technology That's Disrupting Our Jobs.

This comes from Louis Hyman, the director of the Institute for Workplace Studies at the IRL School at Cornell. And I figured, OK, I'll give this a read. See, he seems to have the credentials, the creds, the street creds, as the kids say. And it's a fairly interesting take that this is not new.

This is this actually started in the very early 70s when jobs started to sway away and people were like moving into different types of working environment. And one of the lines I really love, he says, Uber is a symptom, not a cause. And it's a longer article, but I really kind of enjoyed it.

What did you think about it? I did enjoy it as well. I hate to completely bust Louis's Hyman, but I've been waiting all day to use that one. I'm sure you have. I agree with a lot of the points. But I also think technology is also doing it. It's not a black or white situation.

This is very much a gray situation. We know technology is disrupting our jobs because ask anybody that used to work on a factory line. They're out of work because of technology. There are tons of people that are out of work because of technology. Now, the argument has always been our new jobs being created with the technology.

And I think for a while they were. But what I think we're seeing now is that slowing down and less jobs are being created and more jobs are being displaced by technology. But certainly everything that he talks about in this article is definitely part of the issue. Right. But then also unemployment numbers are way down right now, too.

So there are jobs out there. They're just jobs. They're just different. And I think the argument could be made, as we make all the time on the show, that they are not good enough. Right. People are not making their daily needs anymore. We're seeing increasing disparity between the rich and the poor.

The middle class is getting squeezed out. The jobs that are generally being created generally are very low paying. Right. And you have to take a lot of government assistance, especially if you work in a place like Walmart or those places that rely on you to get government assistance. And here's he ends the article with something that I thought I wanted to actually read here.

We can't turn back the clock, but neither is job insecurity inevitable. Just as the postwar period managed to make industrialization benefit industrial workers, we need to create new norms, institutions and policies that make digitization benefit today's workers. Pundits have offered many paths forward, portable benefits, universal basic income, worker reclassification.

But regardless of the option, the important thing to remember is that we do have a choice. Insecurity is not the inevitable cost of technological progress. Only by understanding that fact can we act to make capitalism work for us, not work us over. I love that. I agree with that 100 percent.

And here's the problem. We're not seeing it happen. Well, you got to make capitalism, capitalism, capitalism is not going to do it in and of itself. This is why we have governments and this is why we have regulations. The government needs to step in and make this happen. Have you seen our government lately?

Well, not this government. Jason, they're too busy building walls while the walls are tumbling all around them. Exactly. Yeah. You can't say this is why we have governments when the government side doesn't actually work sometimes. So we need to you got to step up and take care of it.

Now, some people who are stepping up, America's prisoners are going on strike in at least 17 states. Now, we have actually talked before, I think on this show. I don't know if I have actually talked about on this show. I know I've talked about it in public before somewhere about how ridiculous it is that we basically have prisons full of slave labor.

Also that they're privatized. Exactly. Yeah. They're profit sources. That's ridiculous. Yeah. Privatized prisons, which means people are incentivized to get people to stay in jail. There have been lots of judges who have done this and ruined lots of people's lives. And that's why the judges are now in jail.

But the system still remains. And these these inmates are actually going to go on strike and say, no, we want equal pay for, you know, equal wages, all that kind of stuff. Equal pay for equal wages actually doesn't make any sense, but equal pay for equal work.

And the thing about it is I am on the fence about this. I do believe that they should be paid more because it is kind of slave labor, but also you're in prison. Yes, there is that. I was about to say exactly how does one strike when one is in prison, but, you know, it's a messed up situation.

I don't have an answer. If I did, I'd be working in the industry and figuring it out. But I agree. Like they are being exploited. There's no doubt about it. So but they also are prisoners, right? You know, they're there for a reason in general. But the problem, I think, is you hit it on the head.

It's the incentivization to keep them in prison. That's that's the real issue. And that's what we need to focus on, I think, more than anything else. And where does the tech side of this come into it? You might ask. Well, a lot of these people actually work in tech. There are some of your call center people that you talk to anytime you're calling to figure out why your cable modem doesn't work.

So there is there's there's some tech angle there. Not just me being. I'm guessing they're more the level ones. They're not the escalated to level twos. Yeah, yeah. This is definitely level one tech support. You know, they have a script that says, have you turned it off and turned it back on?

Yes. OK, we're moving you up to level two. And in the same vein, Cisco has said to be cited for bias against U.S. workers. That means they're hiring more people with foreign visas because they have to pay them less. Right.

Way to go, Cisco. See, this is a we cannot rely on the companies to do the right things themselves. And here's the thing about it, though. It's the basically the labor department has been doing an investigation into them. So there's your government in action, Brian, because Cisco is a government contractor, which means they are supposed to be held to a higher standard.

Yes. Which apparently they haven't been. No. Now, Jack Dorsey's back in the news. Oh, God. He's still trying to explain why Twitter is reluctant to fight the fake news. Now, I don't care anymore.

I really couldn't give a shit anymore about Jack and his his racist company. But what I did care about when I'm looking at the Engadget article that I just mentioned, his giant picture at the top. He looks like a normal normal for Jack, but there's no nose ring in his nose.

And I because I'm like, why is there no nose ring in his nose? And the only reason I thought of that was because I watched the video of him and he had a nose ring. And I'm like, oh, Jack's got a nose ring. What? That's so 1990s. Exactly. I'm like, dude, come on. Maybe that's the new, you know, the new alt-right signal.

It's like if we see a lot of guys with nose rings and tiki torches, we'll know that's the new the new thing. But so I scroll back up and I'm like, yeah, there's no there's no nose ring in that image. And then just to make sure I hadn't gone crazy, I had to go search for Jack Dorsey nose ring.

And I was brought to a GQ story about when Jack Dorsey got a nose ring. And that's some heavy duty reporting going on from GQ there. Watch out, vice. So, yeah, that's all I cared about. This whole thing was I care about the other parts. OK, I first I just want to say I'm really glad that I took my nose ring out about six years ago because I do not want to be in this company anymore in the original article when he's trying to still explain why he's fighting fake news.

He went on to categorically reject claims by President Trump and others that Twitter was biased against conservative views. He acknowledged that Twitter as a company was more left leaning, but contended that that was precisely why he was being particularly careful to avoid anything that could be construed as bias in what fucking universe exactly does allowing Nazi American accounts, racist accounts, Infowars, et cetera, et cetera, not to mention the president's own account, which just attacks people that how does that make a company left leaning?

How that is not left leaning? Anyways. All right. I had more, but I'm done. OK, I'm done. I'm done. OK, an interesting news this week. We don't have apps and doodads in this particular segment, but there was a great article on Slate about how cracked smartphone screens are about to become a thing of the past.

They are making great leaps forward with with these new glass technologies that are getting close to being unbreakable. Samsung has developed the most dramatic example yet. It's a flexible OLED panel with a layer of fortified plastic on top. And I guess Corning's Gorilla Glass 6 is coming and it's going to be really great, too.

There was standing 15 drops from a height of one meter. So, you know, this is good news. I want to know how they're dropping it because I can drop mine from three inches on the corner and the whole thing shatters, which is what my eight plus did. So I still have to take that thing in. So I'm looking forward to our unbreakable iPhone overlords coming in here.

But yeah, but the one other thing that they talked about in this article is the whole industry that has come up about fixing phones and things like that and how they're about to be displaced and disrupted if this is as they think it's going to go. I say no, because, you know, I'm sure that my toddler will break the hell out of any Gorilla Glass 6 phone that I get in the future.

I don't know if you've ever walked around Los Angeles, but every woman on the street keeps her cell phone in her back pocket, which is the dumbest place in the world to keep it because invariably they sit on it. And if you do walk up to most women on the street and say, can I see your cell phone? They will show it to you and it has a cracked screen.

So I don't care how much they're dropping this from. You cannot put 150 pound ass in a bar stool and have this thing withstand that kind of pressure. So, yeah, these guys, they don't have to worry about their jobs going away anytime soon. Right. And BitTorrent inventor, Bram Cohen, has left BitTorrent behind.

He is working on a new cryptocurrency. Groundbreaking cryptocurrency. Because apparently, I guess BitTorrent is creating a new cryptocurrency, too. So he's like, no, no, no, no, I got my own, I got my own. Oh, my God.

So I have met I have met Bram Cohen and I met him on the day that he met Sean Fanning for the first time, which was, you know, kind of a very tense meeting because, you know, they both were about distributing files to the masses. You know, the platform that distributes files illegally.

Me, too. Exactly. And Bram was like, mine's better. And Sean's like, well, I was first. We were at some wired party and we're actually hanging out with Sean that night. I swear to God, it still drives me crazy. He gave us a ride home and his car, he's like had some beautiful Mercedes and we got in there and it was the filthiest car I've ever been in.

There are McDonald's wrappers and potato chips everywhere. It was utterly disgusting, but he's a really nice guy. But, man, his car was nasty. Anyway, so that was just interesting that Bram has distanced himself from BitTorrent, which I thought he did a long time ago, but it had to make the news.

Retailers are rolling out facial recognition. This is interesting because there's no regulation behind it, obviously. Private store, their video cameras, they can do whatever they want. You're in their store and they're going to be using it, you know, for, you know how when you go to Vegas, if you get caught cheating, you're put in the facial recognition database and you basically can't go into a casino anymore.

At least that's what they do in the movies. I'm assuming that's real. I think I've seen that in an Oceans movie at some point, but they're going to start doing this for retail locations. Okay. I, what do you think? No, I don't, I don't like it at all.

Especially the, the no regulation part. Like I understand you want to say, no, who your best customers are or no people that come into your store and steal things all the time. And you want to be able to catch them right away. But what are you doing with this gigantic database of faces? That's what I want to know.

Because what we've always seen is companies say, well, it's just for internal use. And then they sell the data. Yep. Because it's an initial stream of income. And that's what I'm worried about. So for now, for me, if I find out any store is doing this, I will not be giving them any of my business.

Now, I also see this as stupid in a world where you're desperately trying to get people to come to your brick and mortars anyways. Why would you give anybody any reason to be worried about it? Exactly. And there's like, you know, one major company that's doing this right now. And you know that if they're in multiple retail locations, right, with different stores, they're going to have millions of people coming through and they're going to be cataloging millions of people.

Yeah. So you're going to have shopping habits. You're going to have location data based on those people. You're going to have purchase data. And that's exactly what you're talking about. Like, that is a treasure trove of data that that company is going to have access to. And I highly doubt that these brick and mortar stores, when they sign the contract with these people, are going to read the fine print that says company X has full rights to do whatever they want to with the data that they're not using for you.

We can catalog this. We can catalog everybody and make this massive new database of people that go shopping. And I don't like that one little bit personally. Nope. Me either. I'm with you. So in addition to being annoyed, if you go to a brick and mortar store, you will now be annoyed when you shop online.

Or at least in your social media feed. Because guess what we're getting? AR ads on Facebook. Okay. I don't use Facebook anymore. Woohoo. I know. You probably, well, you know, 25 years from now, when Twitter gets its act together, you'll get it there as well. But this is rolling out and it's a new technology, new advertising technology that they're starting to roll out.

And it makes, to some degree, it makes certain sense for some companies, things like Sephora or eyeglass companies or things like that. You'll be able to see an ad. You'll be able to click on it, turn on your own camera, take a picture of your face, see yourself with the product. Kind of cool, I guess. As long as it's always optional, as long as we have control over our cameras, I'm okay with that.

A lot of other companies like Pottery Barn, Wayfair, Furniture, stuff like that, are all building those in so you can see, you know, take a picture of your room. Again, I want to know where these pictures are being stored, who's keeping them, what they're doing with them. Same thing everywhere. It's just everybody is trying to get pictures of you nowadays.

And we don't know where this data is going. To the highest bidder. That's where it's going. That's where it always goes, right? Exactly. Last week we talked about Google and their location data issues. And they said, eh, it's working as planned, for us, at least.

Well, apparently, not so much. They're going to be hit with a class action lawsuit for it. Well, of course. Of course. Of course they are. You can't have a button that says, turn off location history and then say, well, there's actually other location histories. So that's not just the only one you have to turn off.

Yeah. So keep an eye out for that. That's going to be coming. And hopefully, if you have your location data turned on or off, you'll be part of that. So look out for that postcard. You can get your three cents. I'm looking forward to my $2. I want my $2. Verizon is in the news.

You're a Verizon customer, aren't you? Yes. You know, there's no such thing as a good cell phone company. That's what we really come down to. And Verizon has traditionally been the best for when I traveled a lot. And it is certainly the best in Santa Monica and L.A. area in terms of reception.

So I am unfortunately still a customer. I hate the company. And now I hate them even more. Well, you know who else hates them? The Santa Clara County Fire Department. They're in the middle of battling these fires out there. And they're trying to communicate with each other. But apparently they went over their data cap.

And were throttled. That's awesome, guys. So awesome. So they called up Verizon. And you know what Verizon says? Well, call billing and then maybe we can get you a better plan. Like, we're fighting a fucking fire out here.

And the interesting thing about this is that this comes down to net neutrality rules from Ajit Pai, our good friend with a big mug. Yes. Because they're being throttled and it's supposed to be based around network traffic.

Like, okay, you've gone over your limit. If network traffic is high, you get throttled first. Apparently, that's not what's happening because people were comparing their personal, like, plans that weren't throttled to their company phones that were being throttled. And the, I mean, the disparity was huge.

20 megabit, yeah, 20 megabit down, 7 megabit up versus 0.2 megabit down and 0.6 megabit up. You can't do anything with that, especially if you're trying to go quick because a massive fire is going to kill you. Yes.

So what they say is even if Verizon's behavior didn't technically violate the rule of that, you can't actually complain anymore about unjust and unreasonable practices to the FCC because that's what they just eliminated with these new rounds of net neutrality rejections.

Yep. Yep. Fuck you, FCC. And finally, this came out in the New York Times. Facebook-fueled anti-refugee attacks in Germany, new research suggests. Now, this is an interesting thing because I subscribe to, was it, Ben Thompson's Stratechery newsletter.

And if you guys don't know what that is, go check it out. There'll be a link in the show notes for it. It costs 10 bucks a month. Well worth it. This is some really deep dive on the tech stuff that's happening. And he did a great breakdown of this article. And kind of tore it to pieces.

Especially because some of the things that the researchers were doing was actually using Nutella's Facebook page and how many people like the Facebook page that are in Germany to actually try and correlate how many people in Germany use Facebook.

And it's, it's crazy. It's crazy. And he pointed out a lot of flaws in their methodologies. But the thing about it, the really interesting thing about it is the article's about filter bubbles, which we've talked about many times, and how you're in the echo chamber listening to all of the people that you like.

And what the article is trying to do is say, look, there is one correlation that we can find with all of the attacks on all the refugees, and that is Facebook usage by town. If Facebook usage is up in that town, violence against refugees is higher.

Now, if they could actually prove that, that would be great. And Facebook obviously is never going to give them that data because these guys have to try and figure out what the usage is actually like from, you know, different signals that they can interpret from the outside.

Correlation is not causation. We know that, yes. And that link is not being established. Exactly. And the way that they're doing the, you know, trying to get that data doesn't actually work. So what I'm worried about is articles like this are going to discredit what could possibly be an actual causation by having bad correlation.

Yeah. And Facebook is never going to do that because it does not behoove them in any way, shape, or form to say, our platform promotes violence or any groupthink whatsoever, which we know it does. You know, I mean, deep in our bones, you know that we know it does.

Right. But things like this kind of, it's a sad side effect of not having all the data that the scientists need to make the connections that they should be making. Right. Now, if only Facebook would share their data the same way that they want all the other companies, hospitals, et cetera, to share data with them.

You know what we need to do? We need to make a Facebook quiz. Then we'll get all the data. There we go. This episode is brought to you by RxBar. RxBar wants to build things the right way. They believe in the power of transparency, and the core ingredients do all the talking, with all of them listed on the front of the package.

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Media Candy. Kevin Spacey. Oh, Kevin Spacey, where art thou? Nobody knows. But he's definitely not at the box office, because his picture, the Billionaire Boys Club, opened for $618.

Oof. Now, what I love about this is Deadline is the only one that has a very sane article about this. Because, you know, every news outlet in the world says, you know, it was just headline fodder. It's like, Kevin Spacey's pick bombs at the box office.

And here's the deal. It opened in 11 theaters. Yeah. In the entire country. Nobody carried it. Yeah, I like what they said. You have to be a psychic to know that it was actually playing somewhere. There was no media. There was no promotion. I saw it a couple of months ago because it was, you could watch it in Sweden.

And I just grabbed it and saw it. And it was okay. It wasn't great, but it was okay. You know, whatever. But the interesting thing is how major news outlets are taking this as the failure of Kevin Spacey. It's like, no, he was in a movie that nobody wanted to promote because he's a boy, because he's a kid toucher.

Yes. So that's that. That's all I'm going to say. Condor finished up last week. I mentioned this on the show before, and it is an amazing show on this weird ass audience network by AT&T. Yes. Amazing cast. William Hertz in it, a bunch of other great actors.

Hopefully, it'll be on Netflix soon or Amazon so everybody can see it or go to Sweden and grab it. But it was renewed for season two immediately after it finished airing. So I'm very excited about that. So I highly recommend checking out Condor. And I actually did go out, and it's based on three days of the Condor, or actually the novel Six Days of the Condor.

But there was the Robert Redford movie, Three Days of the Condor. And the first season basically parallels the movie with Robert Redford because I watched the movie over the weekend, which was actually a really fun movie. It was made in 1975. Loved those classics. Have you ever seen it? No.

No, I haven't. Okay. Well, so much for that thread. Hence me not chiming in. Haven't seen it. I do want to throw a shout out to, well, I guess myself and the Jordan Harbinger Show team. We put out part one of an interview with this guy, Charles Rue.

And he goes by the Fresh Prince of Pyongyang on Instagram, which is really funny. He escaped from North Korea twice as a kid. And it's an amazing story. And part one is out. So I highly recommend everybody go check that out. I mean, I put a lot of work into this, and I hope it's worth it for everybody.

But, man, it's a really good episode. And his story will just, I mean, if you ever think you're having a bad day, seriously, go back and listen to this episode. It's insane what it's like in North Korea. Yeah. And finally, did you ever watch the show Empire?

We tried. And then my wife was like, this is just way too close to my reality. So we stopped. I had a feeling that that's what you were going to say. Like, Empire for you is like Silicon Valley for me. Yes. I think it's exactly like that.

I just started watching it this week with my room or last weekend with my roommate because we needed something to watch. I'm like, everybody keeps talking about Empire. Let's check it out. And we can't get enough of it. We love it. Oh, it's very good. I just can't watch it. Yeah. I can't. Yeah. I mean, it feels like work.

But my roommate was a, I mean, she was like an executive VP at Warner Brothers for years. And she's just like, this makes me want to get all my gold records back so we can put them in the house. Because she's got like, you know, 20 gold records that she can go get back, you know, for like Madonna and Depeche Mode and things like that.

I'm like, go get them. Put them in the wall. That'd be awesome. So it has inspired her to fill our house with gold and platinum records, which will be very fun. But yeah, I am totally in love with this show. It makes me want to like learn how to make music. Okay. Well, you can get on that. Ah, with all my spare time.

Yes, with all the spare time. One way to start is you can watch the New Order Decades concert film slash documentary, which will be airing on British TV next month. So therefore, Sweden. Unfortunately, it is the current group, not the original, sadly, because Peter Hook is no longer in the band. So I don't consider it New Order anymore, but I will check this out because it sounds like it's going to be pretty interesting.

It's going to be directed by Mike Christie. The film follows New Order's preparations to restage the So It Goes concert, originally performed five times during 2017's Manchester International Festival in Turin, Italy, with a 12-piece synth orchestra. So it should be kind of interesting. And, you know, all those songs are just all those classics from New Order.

You're just going to hear them all live, which is pretty cool. So I will be checking that out. No, very cool. I just saw them at Riot Fest not long ago, and it was an amazing show. Yeah. I mean, you know, they're a little boring on the live side, but they sound great. There's just not much to watch. No. Yeah. I mean, they're a bunch of old guys just kind of standing there. But, man, I just love the music.

Yeah. So I'm totally going to watch that. But I tell you something I will not be watching. HBO officially orders Watchmen TV series to air in 2019. Okay. Not that I don't like the Watchmen, but the show is being written and produced by Damon Lindenhoff. Oh, no.

The Lost and the Leftovers. Oh, no. So I am out. Oh, man. That sucks. I saw the headline, and I got really excited because I like the Watchmen. I never really got too into the comics, but I get the story, and I like the movie, and I was excited by a long-form series done well with money on HBO.

This is going to be great. Oh, shit. He's doing it? I'm out. Who watches the Watchmen? Not Brian. Not me, because there will not be an ending that makes any sense. Oh, that sucks. Yeah. So I've watched the first season of Better Call Saul, finally.

This is one of the shows that everybody was telling me I needed to go watch. It is phenomenal. I'm really enjoying it. Welcome to the party. Yep. So nice and late. Just watched the latest episode last night. It's very good. Right. Yeah, I'm enjoying the show a lot. So season one in the can. We'll be starting season two shortly. I also finished season one of Dark Matter, that sci-fi show that I talked about a little bit last week.

And I really enjoyed that as well. It is no heavy hitter, you know, sci-fi heavy hitter like The Expanse or, say, Battlestar Galactica or anything like that. But it's enjoyable enough. And by the way, for the win, Melissa O'Neill, my future ex-wife. My God, she's stunning.

Okay. That's not a reason to watch a show in and of itself, but it certainly helps. I was going to say it really helps. Yeah, it really does. And I watched Avengers Infinity War, and I would like two and a half hours of my life back. Oh, yeah. I could have told you that. It was horrible.

It was horrible. It was terrible. It was just stupid. I don't understand you people that can't get enough of this stuff. And I can't believe there's going to be a second one. Oh, yeah. This is only part one, dude. Oh, God. It was just so bad. It was so uninteresting.

There was nothing happened. It was fistfights and then against enemies. And then people who didn't know they were on the same side having a fistfight. And then there were some more fistfights. And then some people turning to dust. That's kind of a spoiler alert. Well, here's another spoiler alert. Basically, everybody that died and everybody's like, oh, my God, they're dead.

All of the all of the signs point to everybody will be back. So, of course, they will be because God forbid we not keep making movies. Marvel has a revolving door in heaven. That's how that's the old joke that we talked about at the comics companies. But, yeah, man, what a terrible movie.

Oh, horrible.

At the library. So I had a palate cleanser that I mentioned before. I read Dead Pig Collector by Warren Ellis. It's a very short story. Only took a few poops to read. I like it because I actually read this when I didn't do an audible version of it.

Warren is a crazy guy. He really is. This was a fantastic little story, which I truly enjoyed. I liked his book Normals better, which was like a four part Kindle series that comes together in one book. But this was a good one. So, you know, it was a good palate cleanser to get me away from sci-fi.

Right. Well, Brian, I'm sorry. I broke the rule again. I'm a bad I'm a bad boy. I went back to Expeditionary Force by Craig Allenson, that series. So I read Paradise, book three. And then when that was done, I saw, oh, the next one is a novella.

It's only five and a half hours because the other ones are like 16 hours. I'm like, I can knock that out. And, you know, a couple hours just sitting around the house, farting around, doing my stuff. Got that one. And then when that one ended, I'm like, oh, man, went out and got book four. So I like it a lot.

But, man, I'm tired of it. I need a break. Look, the rule exists for a reason, Jason. I know. We did come up with this. We didn't make it up. This is trial and error, how we came up with this rule. The funny thing is, every time we break the rule, we know we're breaking the rule.

And we know it's going to suck. And, unfortunately, that's what it is. Because by the time you're halfway through, you're like, oh, man, I'm just so tired of these characters. I just want to move on, get something new. But, nope, you're in the middle of it. It's like doing acid before going to work.

Will this ever end? Will this ever end? It's like a bad trip. The books are great. I still love the Expeditionary Force novels. But I need another break. And I think your next story is going to give me the opportunity to take a break. It might.

I have not had a chance to read a book. I've been too busy planning things like the kid's birthday party, getting ready for school, and other things like that. But I came across a Mental Floss article, Ernest Hemingway's Guide to Life in 20 Quotes. And I just love this. I don't know if you're a big Hemingway fan.

I am. I enjoy his books quite a bit. And it was just some great quotes that I didn't even know was attributed to him. Things like, never mistake motion for action, which made me think of Twitter for some reason. Yes. And I just enjoyed it.

It's a quick read and some really interesting thoughts. And it's very Hemingway-esque. So I loved it. I saw the quote, never go on trips with anyone you do not love. And we're going on a trip together. So, oh, you love me. How sweet. Yes, I ordered a double sleeping bag, Jason, in case it gets cold. Oh, those aren't pillows.

So I've never actually read a Hemingway book. Oh, well, you must. I have his complete short stories on my bookshelf. Haven't gotten around to it. But what I think I want to do is load up my Kindle with, basically just start from the beginning and go from there.

So I just need to go look at Wikipedia and get his, I was going to say discography, but bibliography, I believe, would be the one. And start at the beginning and just, you know, have a slow read on it. Because I do need to get back to some of the classics. I was on a tear for a while. Like, I was almost through War and Peace.

Oh, my God. I wouldn't buy it. That one was tough. That one was tough. Yeah, basically any of the great Russian writers take a really long time. Because winter is really long over there. So I guess you need a big book to get through. But I think the interesting thing on this Hemingway article, though, is he was born in Oak Park, Illinois, where I used to live, which I thought was cool.

And I never knew that. I did notice that. Yes. Very cool. Moron of the week. I really try to not put Donald Trump in here because there are a lot of people that don't like our political opinions. But this isn't political at all.

But he is still the moron of the week. As we know, Aretha Franklin passed away, sadly, the other week. Donald Trump also weighed in on Aretha's death on Thursday. And for about eight seconds, it seemed like maybe he would be able to deliver a straightforward statement on the passing of an American icon without making it about himself.

Nope. No way, Jose. No, I want to begin today by expressing my condolences to the family of a person I knew well, he said to reporters. And then came the kicker. She worked for me on numerous occasions. The White House has not clarified in what capacity, if any, Franklin supposedly worked for Trump.

She had performed twice at Trump's casinos in 1988 and 90, according to the press of Atlantic City. And she attended the grand opening of Trump's International Hotel and Tower in 1997, according to the New York Times, before giving a private concert. But surely no one's ego is big enough that they would consider a legendary singer, particularly a black woman and a champion of the civil rights movement, performing in any venue, regardless of who owns it, to be working for them.

Right? Wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong, yes. Well done, Mr. President. Well done. Just saying the words Mr. President still gives, bile comes up when you say that. My moron of the week is CastBox.

CastBox is a podcast player. Yes. And they have been. Are we on it? Of course we're on it. Oh, sweet. Oh, well, unfortunately, they fired my friend who was there, who was going to make us really on it. But this is not about revenge for having my friend fired.

No, this is about something that you and I have just talked about and talked about, and they actually ran with it. So I think somebody over there actually listens to the show, because they're putting podcasting on the blockchain. The Voice on Blockchain Season 1.

Do you have a channel on CastBox with at least 50 subscribers? They're really reaching for the stars on that there, don't you think? Do you want to be the first voice on blockchain, paving the way for content creators to be rewarded in ContentBox's cryptocurrency, the BOX token? ContentBox is a blockchain infrastructure built for the digital content industry.

We are partnering with CastBox to enable content creators, i.e., podcasters, you have to actually say that, and content consumers, and in parentheses, they put listeners, to be rewarded in cryptocurrency, and in parentheses, the BOX token.

Yes. Oh, my God. The Voice on blockchain is the first decentralized talent competition built for the crypto space. The winner will achieve the historic feat of acquiring the most BOX tokens for their work and have their voice put on blockchain, making history. Join us for Season 1.

No. I swear to God that I could have written this as a joke, but they did it for reals. That's for real. This is not the Onion. This should have been in the fucking Onion. We should enter it. I thought about it, actually.

I actually thought about it. But no. No thanks. No. And you were looking for Heroes of the Week, and you said it was a little hard to find them, but I found one. Good. Beer delivery men talk man out of jumping off bridge by offering him a 12-pack of Coors Light.

I don't know. I might have jumped. I like Coors Light. Sorry. On a hot day, there's nothing better than an ice-cold Coors Light. I'm sorry. Call me what you will, but I love Coors Light. I will point out this was in St. Paul, Minnesota, which not a lot of hot days there.

Summer, you know. But anyway, Jason Gable and Kwame Anderson were the two guys in the beer truck. They just dropped off their delivery at a sports bar and saw this guy on the bridge, and they pulled over and, like, said, hey, man, what's going on? And they just kept talking to this guy. Even when the cops came, they just kept talking to him, because Kwame is apparently a stand-up comic, and it seems to be really good talking.

And got this guy, you know, just to keep talking, and finally got him to come back over. Unfortunately, the guy was taken to the hospital where he should have been taken to get evaluated. And did not get his 12-pack, but Kwame did say, hey, come to my show, and I'll hook you up with some beer. So, it was very nice of them.

So, beer saves the day. Feedback loop. We've got some new Patreon subscribers. Matthew, Ryan, Andrew, thank you so very much. Thank you. And Jared Rice sent us a couple messages over on Patreon.

First, he sent us, liability concerns continue amid dockless scooter crashes and complaints. Now, this is over in Austin, and Austin leaders are saying that the city should consider whether dockless scooter companies should bear more responsibility in cases of crashes involving injuries that happen within city limits. Of course, they should. Of course, they should.

Why should it be the city's responsibility, which basically means our responsibility, because it's our tax dollars. It's supposed to be the company. Shouldn't it be the individual dumbass on the scooter? The individual should probably have insurance. Yes. Maybe you need to have insurance to ride these things. Oh, figure.

Yes. Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah, it's just crazy. It's crazy. And then he also said, so I thought I would share my Uber Lyft experience with y'all. Ended up having to use Lyft since my motorcycle got a flat. All my friends were ready at work, so I tried to get an Uber. Ended up having to go with Lyft since the Uber app didn't work, so I called a Lyft.

The Lyft driver was pretty nice. His car was clean. I will say he didn't really quite know the area. He got me to work, though, on time, so overall, not too bad of an experience. Thought it was way more than I would have liked to pay to get to work. Yeah. Well, good for you. Fuck Lyft. Yes. I can't stand it. They threw me out on the 405.

I know. And I just wanted to give a shout out to Ivor, a frequent contributor to the show in the past and supporter as well, who canceled because he doesn't want to financially support people whose political views are diametrically opposed to his own. Hey, hope you enjoyed the show. We appreciate the support you did provide. And we hope you're still listening because it's important we all try to get on and listen to each other.

Yeah. You know, that's all I got to say. Yeah. I hope you still listen, Ivor. You've been a friend of the show. We've got no hard feelings at all. And over at PayPal, we've got some other contributors. Dave Breed and Dog Knows. Dog Knows says, I was going to give you 20 bucks, but this literally took over an hour of my time due to programming error.

OK, well, screw you, PayPal. I just like to point out that we are not responsible for Amazon's changes in their APIs and things. We are not responsible for PayPal when it screws up. It's unfortunate, but we do use third party stuff. And sometimes those things break.

So yeah. Over on Facebook, Mike wrote us and says he recommends us. Sorry, because Facebook has changed their reviews to now being recommends, although it still says reviews if you look at it in the menu, because Facebook is fucked up and nobody does their jobs anymore. So we got recommended by Mike.

OK, it's nice to hear from some fellow Luddites of a certain age. And he said, speaking of things that vex, could you possibly look into the reason that social media refuses to add bold, italic and underlines? There's no real reason. I call it the M&Ms, MySpace and mobile. MySpace made it so bad and so disgusting that they're because everybody could do whatever design that they wanted, that there was a conscious push away from that for the next stages of social media.

They wanted it and also mobile. They wanted it to make sure that it looked good on mobile, which was a wise decision. So basically they got rid of that stuff. But I did do a Google search and apparently you can do those things if you want, but you have to do Unicode. You have to type it somewhere else and then you have to paste it back into Facebook.

So I'll have a link in the show notes if you really feel the need to. OK, that's Facebook only. Everybody else is plain text. That's that. And as a programmer, plain text rules the universe. I'm sorry. It's the way it goes. Yes, it does. And David writes in drunk scootering becoming an issue in downtown Austin.

Drunk anything in downtown Austin is an issue because I've been to Austin once and everybody was drunk. So if there's scooters and people are drunken, drunken it up. Yeah, it's going to be bad. Well, of course. I mean, that's happening here in Santa Monica as well.

One of the main places people use birds is down on Main Street, which is bars. That's it. That's what you're using it for. Yes. So, yeah, in this article, they say the city is working with Austin police on the safety issues that have arisen. Food truck workers across downtown have seen it often at early hours in the morning.

There can be a lot of people riding motorized scooters drunk on Saturdays, Saturdays, especially obviously Fridays and Saturdays. It's a guy, Stephen Giedel, that was interviewed there. He said getting a DWI might be a little harsh for riding a scooter drunk. He gave another solution to the problem. I hate them. I'd like to take all of them and throw them in the trash can and recycle them or something.

Okay. I agree. A little bit of hate going on there. And over on Twitter, Justin writes in, enjoying the new two episodes week format. My Friday morning just got a lot more humorous. Thanks. Well, you're welcome. Yes, thank you so much. And Shane wrote us, if you guys never found a decent music player that just plays music, here's one that just plays music.

And it's a quote libit, I guess. It doesn't look native on Windows, though media keys work. And he also said, though audacious might be more to some of your listeners' likings. No media keys on Windows or taskbar context menu, though. Originally a Linux app, so unsurprisingly, it doesn't blend in well on Windows or Mac OS, thus making it kind of useless for those of us on Windows or Mac OS.

GTK Plus based audio player written in Python. No, thank you. Remember my saying is life is too short to use ugly software. So I'm going to pass on that one. And Barrett writes in, it's a bird sort of day. Trump's trade war is coming for cheap scooters and the startups that love them.

This is over on The Verge. Yes, because all these scooters are coming from China and the tariffs will make them cost more now. Oh. So there you go. And he also sent bird scooters halts Cleveland operations. And here's what I like about this article. The first sentence, bird scooters are voluntarily stopping their Cleveland operations for now.

Then comes the kicker. This comes as Cleveland State University issued a ban on the electric scooters this week. Meanwhile, the city of Cleveland sent Bird a letter earlier this month asking them to remove their scooters because the company didn't obtain permits to place properly on city sidewalks. That's not voluntary. That doesn't sound fucking voluntary to me.

Let me explain, Mr. WKYC.com writer, what voluntary means. Let me explain to you what a dictionary is. It's unbelievable. How bad has journalism gotten? Pretty bad. Oh, God.

It's just, it's not voluntary. It's not. No, it's not. Anyways, Write Films Sleep Repeat sent us, I mean, it's a business model of sorts and it's a link to the BBC, Honeypot Pornography Lawyer Pleads Guilty. So a U.S. lawyer is going to be jailed, could be jailed for up to 10 years for helping to upload porn films to file sharing sites and then sue people who downloaded them.

Oh, my God. Yeah. 1502 writes in, I don't think you're into comics, but look at this premise. And it's a link over to Image Comics on Crowded. Series premiere, 10 minutes in the future, the world runs on an economy of job shares and apps, including Reaper, a crowdfunding platform to fund assassinations.

Yep. I'm in. Yep. Jason's totally in on that. I can tell you that right now. Yeah. Quantum Leap sent us, Netflix is testing ads between episodes, self-promoting for now, but isn't that the reason we've got tired of the TV, all those pesky ads? I beg you guys to make a phone call to Netflix.

It would make my day. It's the reason we pay $9.99 a month not to get ads. Isn't that the point? I pay $14 a month. Or whatever it is these days. I don't know. Yeah. I Googled this and I saw an article about how they're doing adverts between episodes.

So if you're binge watching, apparently they're promoting other stuff that you might like. Now, Netflix is obviously pushing this as a feature that'll help you find other things that you would enjoy faster. How about you fix your UI? Well, that's never going to happen.

No doubt. No doubt. No. Buddy writes in on Twitter and sends us an image from Fox Business, DJ3Lau. Is that how you say it? I don't know. I've never heard of this. I don't know. DJ. Get a real job. Is launching the first blockchain-powered music festival.

What the fuck does that actually mean? What does that mean? I don't know. I don't know. I'm so confused by all this blockchain crap. It doesn't make any sense to me. All right. Whatever. Kashish also sends us, there are so many ways in which blockchains don't solve the real problems.

They just make everything worse. A quote from Josh Benela and an article over at Wired, meet the man with a radical plan for blockchain voting. What could possibly go wrong? Actually, blockchain voting has potential. Blockchain music festival is bullshit.

But blockchain voting actually does have potential. Blockchain voting does not have potential because it's public and you don't want public records of who you voted for. That's supposed to remain private. Ah, shit. Sorry. I'm sorry. Yeah. Once you have voter ID numbers and you can go back and retrace it.

Yes. And then it's just big data. And then they have all your voting records and they know your political views and they know who you support and blah, blah, blah. Bad, bad, bad. Damn it. But if the blockchain is only in the hands of the government, what could go wrong? You know? What could possibly go wrong? Give it to the NSA.

Oh, God. Droidian writes in, just listen to this and thought of you guys. This is a very informational podcast about the creation and maturing of Facebook's moderation and censorship. I felt you'd enjoy it. P.S. You'll also enjoy the audio quality. And this is a link to Radiolab. It doesn't say what exact episode it is, though.

It's the first one. Oh, it is? Yes. Okay. Well, here's the deal. Of course, the audio quality is great when you have tons of taxpayer money and a staff of 18 people. Radiolab is not a podcast. It's a rerun. Radiolab shows air on public radio. Then they put the reruns on the Internet and call it a podcast.

And here's here's straight from Radiolab. Radiolab is supported in part by Science Sandbox, a Simons Foundation initiative dedicated to engaging everyone with the process of science and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, enhancing public understanding of science and technology in the modern world. That's not a fucking podcast.

But I do enjoy Radiolab. So thank you for writing in. I'll check out that episode. It'd be nice if we were getting support from those two agencies as well. We fit right in there. Ain't that the truth? Yeah. David Finley over on Twitter said FYI, contraceptive failure rates are based on women using them for a full year.

So 26 percent failure rate means that 26 percent of women who use the method for a year will become pregnant. Not as bad as one fourth sessions will get you pregnant. We use such apps to help us have a baby. I agree. Yeah. We did play a little fun with the statistics there, right? Oh, that's what statistics are for. Us fudging the numbers?

Yeah. And I, you know, I fully support the idea of using those kind of kind of apps to help you have a baby. I don't believe that it will help you not have a baby. Yeah. The other way around is where you get into trouble. Yeah. So good luck on that. Hope you guys have a kid and enjoy it. And there you go. It's fun. You're going to age a lot really quickly.

Okay. And Justin wrote us. You guys are on fire. Flame, flame, flame emoji. And sent us a screenshot of us on the What's Hot iTunes thing. Right. Well, let me explain how What's Hot in iTunes works. What's Hot in iTunes is picked by human beings at Apple.

We have been in the number one slot for What's Hot for about a year and a half now. That's because there is nobody in the podcast division at Apple right now who is actually changing those.

Yes. That is awesome for us. But also, here's the flip side. Nobody cares about what's in What's Hot. It doesn't do shit for us. Absolutely nothing. It does nothing at all. It looks good. It gives us some clout.

But one day, one intern put that up there. And then that intern was either fired or moved up the Apple chain to Apple heaven and got out of the podcasting division. Because from everything I've found out from talking to people at Apple, podcasting is kind of like the mail room.

It's the shit job that you start at. And then you get out as soon as possible. And Apple has no incentive to actually put people in the podcast division because podcasting doesn't make Apple any money. You know, it gives them a little bit of cred on the street.

Now, Google's coming into it. But as we can tell from our Google numbers, people who are listening to this show on Google podcasts, they're probably going to ditch that section too soon. Because I think out of the last show, about 8000 people listen to the show. 43 of those. This is like a week after it came out.

43 of those people listen to it on Google podcasts. So not really a barn burner over there. But that was just a little insight on how this what's hot section works. And unfortunately, we would like to be on fire. Not like John Lee Dumas, you know, entrepreneur on fire.

I am not ready to ignite in his way, but I am ready to get some more traffic. So if you guys out there this week, this is your homework. Go to a friend's phone. If they're not a listener, borrow it when they go take a pee and install us on whatever app that they use to listen to podcasts while while they're not looking.

And then when they see it, they go, oh, what's this? And then they'll listen and they'll become fans for life. Yeah, that's exactly how it works. That's that's how the great so that's, you know, I'm pretty sure that that's how Ira Glass did it with this American life. I'm almost positive. In fact, I spoke to him about it and he said that it's dirty little secret.

Of NPR. But yes, that's what they awesome. Yes. Over at GOG dot show. Michael wrote in because he was having problems with the Amazon store. That's because Amazon changed their API and wouldn't let us do a store anymore. So unfortunately, we still have the link in there. We're going to fix it when we move the show.

I already fixed that. It's already been fixed. I did it yesterday. You told me about it. I fixed it. It's all good. Fixed. So Taylor writes in, he gives us a link to a New York Times article, Alexa versus Siri versus Google, which can carry on a conversation best.

And he says, not close to human level conversation. If a smart home device like Alexa was able to pass the Turing test, would you guys consider that AI? What about a text bot? No, no, no, no, no, no. Oh, and no. No, no. Turing test is just step one.

Yeah. Turing, none of these can pass that yet anyways. So yeah. Yeah. Dan 0185 writes us, doctor, do something about the dangers of e-scooters. This is a CNN article. And yeah, because people are getting really hurt on these things because they don't take them seriously.

They play with them like they're toys, toys that go 30 miles per hour in traffic. Yeah. Joshua writes in, hey, Jason, been listening for about six months. In the last episode, I know you mentioned having to research in Crypt.me. This website has been featured on a few different tech sites this year, like in Gadget.

The author has compared almost all the different VPNs and includes a lot of detailed research. So here is a site that has done the legwork for you on VPNs. On a closing note, I decided to buy an Eero, of course, with your recommendation and the GOG code, and I'm absolutely loving it. That's great. Where's the link?

Oh, I think that might have been my error. I think he put it in and I just forgot to paste it. Well, sorry, Josh. I ruined your point for you. When Brian gets off his ass and gives me the link, I'll check it out. So thanks for that. We will get Jason that link. Thomas writes in, hey, guys, I'm sure you have covered this several times, but can you recommend a good browser agnostic bookmarking solution?

I have heard you mention Exmark several times. However, I understand it is EOL. Cheers. Yeah, it's the only one I'm aware of. Yeah, and it's gone. It's dead. I meant to mention that when I got the email a couple months ago that they were sunsetting it. End of lifing. That's what EOL is for, but I use the built-in Opera bookmarking sync and anything that I need to share between different services, I use Pinboard and that's how I move my links around.

But yeah, that's about it because everybody's got it built into their browsers now, so there's no real reason to create a browser agnostic bookmarking service anymore. Right. Travis writes in, where does one start to get back into the tech aspect of life?

I used to do a bunch of computer work in the late 90s, early 2000s, you know, when AGP was all the rage and dual processor Celerons were the bee's knees. Oh my God, Celerons. I spent, God, I spent so much money on a fucking baller Celeron.

I've fallen by the wayside and become more of the back of the class metal shop kid as I work in a job that has no technology aspect at all. Where could one start learning about tech and cool crap associated with it and prepare myself for when the robots come and make us their slaves?

So TLDR, which I should have read, I guess, from the beginning, where do all the cool kids go to start learning and getting better understanding of technology? Well, of course, grumpy old geeks. But otherwise, shit, man. There's never been a better time. Like, there are so many different online schools, online classes all over the place.

I know Boing Boing is always promoting some sort of tech package learning thing. Never, never, never buy one of them from Boing Boing. Okay, don't buy it from Boing Boing, but I'm saying that they're all over the place. There's no lack of places to go and find out anything about anything that you're interested in. So just get out there and start searching.

Yeah, I mean, just start within Gadget or Gizmodo if you're looking for, like, the hardware side of things, if you're looking for, I mean, yeah, that's, there's so much. Shit, I'm thinking of maybe I can put my OPML file up if you have an RSS reader.

But then you have to go Google what an RSS reader is because you've been out of tech for quite some time. But actually, yeah, maybe you might have left before RSS became a thing. But anyway, yeah, Jesus, man. There's so many options out there. It's, yeah, it is a, you will not have a hard time finding places to learn about whatever you might be interested in.

So get out there and do it, man. Just do it. Yeah. Yep. Raf writes us. Hey, Jason, I purchased airmail three today after listening to the show. And now you got me thinking about an iPad pro. But wow. Gmail in browser plus browser shortcuts equals much better experience. You can do this without a mouse. Select blocks of emails to mark red or archive.

For example, OK, this gets into a bunch of typing things and different key commands and whatnot. So there you go. Yeah. So I manage five Gmail accounts that I need to work on in parallel at all times. So switching from account to account and a tab to a tab to a tab is a real pain in the ass.

But the thing about airmail, if you go in and check some of the settings, there is a setting called Gmail shortcuts. Make sure that's turned on and then it will basically turn on all of the key commands that you're used to. Some of them don't it's not perfect, but it does a ton of them.

And, you know, I use the mouse or my my Apple pencil when I'm doing stuff. But, yeah, it's not the same as doing it in the tab because it's, you know, that's native. So you can't get everything. But for what I do with it, it's fucking amazing. And I don't have to pay for boomerang anymore because I use boomerang and that's built into airmail.

So your mileage may vary, I guess. Over on iTunes, guy from BK writes in, Gah, iTunes. Hey, guys, longtime listener and Patreon donation guy thing there. I almost gave you a four star because iTunes is a terrible platform for writing a review since I had to download the app and couldn't just do it from a browser.

Well, dude, don't blame us. That's not our fault. That's not our fault. Why would you hit us with taking a star away from us? Because, oh, yeah, a little difficult when you're on a company laptop and only have an Android tablet at home. Also, not our fault, man. Come on. But I managed to do it to say, keep up the great work.

I appreciate it. Well, we appreciate you going through the hassle, but I'm also very glad. Thank you that you did not give us a four star. Yes, we appreciate that. And from Australia, Murray Jack gave us a five star rating, says love this grumpy greatness. Short and sweet.

If you want your question or comment read on the show, head over to GOG.show slash support 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, five, not four star in a snarky review. Appreciate it. And don't forget to use the Ira Glass method and steal people's phones and download us there.

Closing shout outs. My shout out this week is to Sinead O'Connor. I worked with her for quite some time. A lovely person. I thought she was absolutely fantastic. Obviously, she has some mental issues, which she's had for a long time, and hopefully she'll keep working at it.

But we owe her a big apology. Like the entire world owes her an apology because as we've discovered, there have been revelations of over 70 years of systematic abuse of children by Pennsylvania priests covered up by the Catholic Church. Her declaration back in 1992 on Saturday Night Live that the Catholic Church was rotten to its core and the pedophile priests and their enablers were the real enemy and then tore up the photo of Pope John Paul, who was covering this up himself, basically ruined her career.

And she was fucking right. So everybody apologize to her and go listen to Sinead O'Connor because her music's phenomenal. It really is. And my shout outs to Sir Billy Connolly. He's got Parkinson's, which I did not know until very recently here.

And he's been battling it for five years and he can no longer recognize close friends. So this is a heartbreaker for me because I love Billy Connolly. He's one of the best comedians ever. He's up there with George Carlin in my book. Go watch an old Billy Connolly special. He is phenomenal.

And it's very sad to hear. Yep. Until next time, I'm Jason DeFillippo. And I'm Brian Schulmeister. 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, go to GOG.show and click the PayPal button in the sidebar.

Got in a fight with somebody about that online. Recurring. And one time, PayPal. Patreon, always recurring. Show notes for this episode are at GOG.show slash 274. 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. At QVC, fall shopping is more than just checking out. It's discovering the brands you love across beauty, fashion, home, and culinary, all in one place.

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