286: Back With Another One of Those Blockchain Beats

This episode of Grumpy Old Geeks is brought to you by Hover. Go to Hover.com slash GOG to get 10% off your first purchase. 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 goes it, Brian? I'm okay. I'm waiting to see if my kid falls asleep. That would be a very big plus. It would be. Yeah, we're recording a little bit later than normal, so I just went through the entire process of getting the kid from preschool and bringing him home and changing him.

And he has learned distraction tactics and delaying tactics like no tomorrow. Time for a nap. Milk? No. Applesauce? No. Read book? No. Play ball? No. And he basically runs through everything that he knows. And once we get through all of them, then I can take him for a nap.

Okay. Give the kid an iPad. Yeah, so a little follow-up. I saw a great article by Kara Swisher on the New York Times, of all places. And it was called A Wise Man Leaves Facebook. And it's a little op-ed about Kevin Systrom leaving Instagram.

Yes. And it was very interesting because she was of the mind that Kevin should have taken over as the CEO of Facebook, as he seems to be the only one at Facebook with a conscience. Right. But that makes sense for us on the outside. I don't think that's what Facebook would like to have in charge.

No, definitely not. That was the problem. That's why he left. Hey, take the money and run. Seriously, man. Go buy an island. Bugger off. I mean, come on. It's Instagram. For God's sake. How much we blow up these stupid things these days is unbelievable to me. It's Instagram. It's a bunch of pictures.

Not like it's really hard to make in the first place. Come on. No. You and I could build that in an afternoon. Seriously. And actually, speaking of that, I just thought this was hilarious, too, because they just updated this morning Instagram. And you know what they finally added? Support for GIFs. Something you and I would have built in in the first place.

In the first place. They're rolling out fundamental features for something that is an image-based viewing program with big fanfare as if, da-da-da-da-da, look what we've finally done. You should have launched with that. Yeah. You know, it's funny.

Well, they didn't start with video either. Now there's videos. Now there's stories. Now there's Instagram TV. But GIFs seem like kind of one of those basic things that you might want to support. Maybe. I guess not. But totally understandable to me as to why Facebook would not care for this.

It's weird that business structures are so strange. Why is there a CEO of Instagram? The CEO of Instagram is the CEO of Facebook. It's Mark Zuckerberg. Well, they wanted to run it independently, remember? That was part of the deal. The deal has changed. Pray do I do not alter the deal further. That's exactly what I was thinking, too.

So, yeah, it was a good article. And Kevin was a decent, nice guy. But, yeah, he just won the lottery is all. Yeah, he totally did. So good for him. We've talked a lot on the show recently. Even Dave Bittner and I, who are stalwart Facebook people that I've enjoyed it, are kind of edging more and more to maybe we should leave Facebook because it's just getting worse and worse.

There's a great article on Marketplace called Would You Leave Facebook If You Could Take All Your Friends and Photos With You? The answer to that is yes. But the reality of being able to do that is no, you can't. That's right. We talked about earlier this year, Microsoft, Facebook, Google, and Twitter announced a project to make it easier to move your personal information between services.

The data portability is just what it sounds like, creating the options for users to move on. Has this rolled out anywhere? No. Are they actually really working on it? Probably not. Do they have any vested interest in creating this situation? No, they do not. So why we think that this is going to happen is beyond me.

It's not going to. And then there are a lot of issues with this if it happens. If you decide to opt out of Facebook and you want to take all your contacts with you, I may not want you to take me over to Google or Twitter. So how do we police that and who controls what?

And we were talking about this just last episode with the shadow contact data. Who owns the data? Do you own the fact that you're my friend or do I own the fact that I'm your friend and do I allow you to take my information with you when you leave? Right. There's a very interesting technical problem with this that I was thinking about as soon as they talked about this is the social graph is kind of proprietary to each individual site because they use their own unique IDs for the users.

You have to find a point of intersection and usually it's email address. Nowadays, it's email address and phone number or email addresses and phone numbers because now we know that they have these shadow profiles. And there is a way that they could probably do hashing to go between them.

But it's one of those things where it's an interesting problem. It could be solved. You and I have both been approached before about taking something like a WordPress site and trying to translate it to a different service. And we know how incredibly difficult that can be.

Yeah, but this is a different issue, I think. Well, it's still it's a big database that you're trying to convert into another big database. But you're talking about identities and how do you how do you, you know, on one network, you have a unique identity for one user on another network.

Their system is going to be completely different. So you have to create a bridge between the two where you can send that data. It's almost it almost has to be anonymized because if that person hasn't signed up yet to that other account, then they're not going to be your friend there.

But when they do sign up, then they can like hash that information. So now we're going to have shadow accounts on every service. Well, I mean, the way I'm thinking about doing it, it's more it's actually more private that way, because the service that's getting the hash of the users that are in your your feed, you know, in your social graph, they don't actually have the data for that.

What it is, it creates a unique token based on the data from the other service, but they don't actually get the data. There is a way to do that. Right. So are they going to do that? Who knows? And because all it is, it's a point of contact. I don't think that they're really actually even working on this.

I think it was a PR move for all of them. Again, look at the money. Look at the interest. What vested interest do any of these services have to create this? They don't. They want to keep you where you are. There's no reason for them to build this. Right. You know, I mean, because in the old days, like when I would give out your data from blog rolling, it was in an XML format that you could take with you.

It was called OPML, an XML format that was just your data. But now we're talking about, yeah, other people's data. And it becomes a very sticky problem. And I think that to your point that they don't want you to do it, it is in their best interest. Because what I found is when as soon as I offered the option to leave, people didn't.

It was like, well, if I can leave any time, then I don't have to worry about it. I don't think that would be the same situation right now. We have tons of people that would love to leave Facebook. And where are they going to go? Where are they going to take that data? That's the real problem, isn't it? And, yeah, this article kind of goes into this. It's like, okay, well, you know, this is a conglomeration of the winners.

So if somebody starts up a new service and wants to join the cabal of the data portability, will they be allowed in? Yeah. You know? Yeah, is L.O. going to get a seat at the table? Yeah. Probably not. Oh, M.Z., where are you now?

Oh, dear. So, yeah, it's a good article. It's a pretty good thought experiment, I think, to figure out how you would do that. And I thought about it pretty long and hard. And I think there is a way to do it. If they will do it, eh, probably not. I will go ahead and stake a six-pack of beer bet that we will not hear about this again all year.

All year? Okay, so the bet is until December 31st, we will not hear from – there will be no launches or no news. Exactly. I'll take that bet. Okay. In the news.

Breaking news this morning. Amazon raises minimum wage to $15 for all U.S. employees. How about them apples? Bernie bros for the win. Yeah, even Bernie said, today I want to give credit where credit is due.

What Mr. Bezos has done today is not only enormously important for Amazon's hundreds of thousands of employees, it could well be, and I think it will be, a shot heard around the world. And those people around the world are saying, can we get a raise, too, please? Everybody over at Walmart is like, hey, what about us?

Yeah, they're at 11, I believe. Well, well done for Amazon. I'm quite happy about this. I do not think we will see any effect in the stock price. In fact, if anything, I think it's going to go a little bit higher because of this. It's not a massive increase. It's not going to hurt Amazon's bottom line in any way, shape, or form.

And it will actually probably attract more low-income employees. Well, it's a little down today, but not much, though. Yeah. Not much at all. Not much, and it's one day on one announcement, and the market works in mysterious ways. As of this recording, it's down 1.65%, or $33.

Yeah. Because Amazon's stock price is just redonkulously obscene. Yes, it is. $271.31. Wow. Our good old buddy Elon Musk has settled with the SEC. Yes. And has probably cemented the most expensive tweet of all time.

I do want to do the math on that one at some point. Actually, since we have so many crazy math listeners. Somebody do the math on that one. Well, yeah. Find out the other expensive tweets out there. But this one, you know, for him, it's a $20 million ding, and for Tesla, it's a $20 million ding. So you could say it's a $40 million tweet, but it's also not over yet, because there were some other issues going around with the other two lawsuits that are coming around with this

about the, you know, the funding was already secured. Right. Remember that bit? Yep. That bit's still on the table. Yep. Yeah, as well as another one. But yeah, and it could have been worse. It definitely could have been worse. It could have been a lot worse.

And Tesla stock has certainly taken the hit. You know, I'm not a qualified person to give anybody advice on investment, but I bought more. I don't think they're going anywhere. And it's not, you got to remember, it's not just the cars. He is revolutionizing charging stations and the whole grid across the country.

That's not going to go away. In fact, if anything, with Musk taking a little time out and having to step away a bit, it might go better. He's a big idea guy. I'm not so sure if he should be the one with his hands in everyday operations. He should hire some people for that, which he has. And now he'll let them do their jobs and he can just keep coming up with good ideas.

I'm cool with that. Or just get us to Mars or get the hell out of here. Just get us to Mars. Yeah, whatever. Or underground. I don't care. We can be, you know, the Morlocks. I'm fine with that too. Whichever one we want to be. Give us options, Elon, please. But Elon still, you know, he's down on the AI.

He doesn't like the AI. But there's a new article in Forbes, which I love. It's called Elon Musk nuts to call for AI regulation. Says Facebook's chief AI scientist. Who are you going to trust more, Musk or Facebook at this point? You know, the funny thing about it is we've talked about how Mark Zuckerberg got up in front of Congress and was like, we have AIs that will take care of this.

We've got AI this. We've got AI that. You can call me AI, if you'll remember a previous episode title. And this guy, what's his name? His name is Yan Lichun. And he says Elon Musk is nuts to call for regulation on AI at this relatively early stage in its development.

He goes on to say, must talk to some people who are a little more optimistic in the business that human level AI was just around the corner. Five years ago, these people were saying human level AI was five to 10 years away. Most of us who knew what we were doing knew that that was just not going to happen that fast.

So this is the head of AI for Facebook saying, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, no, it's not going to be here anytime soon. So gotcha. Facebook AI. Two things here. Once again, everybody's punching bag right now is Elon Musk.

Elon Musk is hardly the only notable person to call for AI regulation. Bill Gates was on board with this. A ton of other people were on board. Stephen Hawking. Stephen Hawking was on board with this. So again, this is right now everybody in the world is punching down on Elon Musk. And this is another article that does it because it only mentions him.

He's hardly the only person. And I mean, this does talk about human level AI. It's not talking about the machine learning crap that Facebook is doing and calling it AI, which is exactly what that that whole cabal of people, Musk and Gates. And that's what they were concerned about. They weren't concerned about machine level or what all your fucking PR companies are calling AI or your press releases are calling AI.

They were worried about real AI and the idea that you would put regulations on something and it's early stage. Yeah. Yeah. That's exactly how you do it. You figure it out. You didn't. They didn't start building nuclear bombs and said, we're not going to have any rules about this. They had procedures that they followed because we don't have a bomb yet.

We're just going to go willy nilly into everything. No, that's not how science works. That's not how any of this works. You create rules and patterns at nascent stages. That's called smart. You're telling me that there was regulation around the Manhattan Project. I thought that was basically a rush to make a bomb as fast as possible and as big as possible.

It was a rush to make a bomb as fast as possible and as big as possible, but doing it safely as safely as they thought and as possible at time. They didn't blow up anything in, you know, population centers because they knew it was going to be bad. They created situations where we knew we had to go out in the middle of nowhere to do this.

Read the books about the Manhattan Project. These guys were scientists. They knew what they were doing and they were fucking careful about it, except for the guys that died from radiation poisoning. Well, you know, unforeseen circumstances happens all the time. All the more reason to have regulations at these stages. Got to break a few eggs, but not all the eggs.

The case to be made right now for no regulation on the AIs because, hey, nobody knows what it is, what it's going to be. And also every government on the planet is trying to get in on this and they're not regulating it. So it's like whoever wins the race wins the race, you know, so nobody wants to hamstring it.

How is how has no regulation been going for self-driving cars? So far, so good. We've only had one death. Only one death. So yeah, a lot of accidents, a lot of accidents, but only one death. Thank you, Uber, for that. But anyway, yeah. You mean, how would you lay out regulation around it?

What is it? What does it say? I don't know. I'm not a I'm not an artificial intelligence professor, but certainly science fiction writers have been thinking about this for hundreds of years. We have some rules. Yeah, we have rules we can plug right in. Yeah, it's from dead science fiction writers. Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful.

Anyway, I just thought it was a funny article because the guy from Facebook said that AI doesn't exist. There is no AI. And Zuckerberg's in front of Converse. Yeah. I hope he walks down the hall to his publicity department and drops that bomb on them. Yeah. Zuck, stop that shit. And back to Tesla for a second here.

Tesla is asking some employees to beta test their full self-driving system, which, excuse me, you have one? Well, not yet, but it's coming. And they're going to give around 100 to 200 employees thinking of buying a Tesla to join in an internal testing program for their full-fledged autonomous system.

Now, my question is, are those 100 to 200 employees going to have to register in the state that they live in to be under the NTSB's licensing program? They'd have to, one would imagine, unless they're going to do it in any place that's kind of open it up to a free-for-all, which I think there are very few anymore, right?

I can't even remember. There is one place, but it's not leaping to mind right now where there's no registration, where there's no regulation on it. But everywhere else there is, and you've got to sign up. So yeah, I'd assume so. Just because it's an internal program doesn't mean they can't comply with external law unless they're only doing it on their own private property.

You know, switch it on when you get onto the parking lot. Yeah. And Tesla's in California. We know we have a robust licensing system for these cars. Yeah. So it'll be very interesting to see how this comes out, because what's the testing procedures? Like, you know, how is that going to work?

And also that they've come up with a, quote-unquote, full-fledged autonomous system already. I don't buy it. I'm not buying it. Well, I'm not buying it either. Yeah. Well, yeah. In more ways than one. I'm not buying a Tesla, and I'm not buying this program. But it's interesting.

Part of this article says that, I guess, Tesla employees don't get a discount. That sucks. That does suck. I know at Ford, you get a discount. Well, you can't give those things away. I'll bite my ass. I love my Fords.

I've been driving Fords for 30 years. And I still love them. Marica. That's right. Made in Marica. Speaking of Marica. Yes. And Governor Jerry Brown, after removing the regulations on helmets for motorized scooters, which I thought was the dumbest move ever, maybe he fell off a bird and hurt himself.

And he's like, ah, I can't think anymore. Well, he just signed the first net neutrality bill into law from a state. And of course, the federal government said, no, the Justice Department is suing California now over this. Yeah. Yeah.

That's why we can't have nice things. And Ajit Pai, my friend, my friend, Ajit Pai said he was pleased to see the federal government's lawsuit and that the Internet is free and open today and it will continue to be under the light touch protections of the FCC's restoring Internet freedom order.

Go, Diana, fire. Go, Diana, fire. You can't restore order to something that you can't restore freedom to something that was free until you took over. Yeah. Idiots. God. Go, California. I hope they beat this. Yeah, I don't think they will. But we'll see. And speaking again of Jerry Brown, California will now require women on corporate boards.

That's one of the it's this thing that's going around. I would like to not have to have this pool, but we do. I'm sorry, especially in Silicon Valley. We certainly do need this as a law. Well, the problem with this is it's going to get contested because you're, you know, giving jobs based on gender.

Yeah. There's a problem with that. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. And who gets fired? Who on the board gets fired? How do you determine that? So, yeah, I'm not sure either. So it's a bit of a mess to make into a law. One assumes that this is one of those laws that isn't going to be, you know, there's not going to be task forces out, you know, chart, you know, doing anything about it.

Maybe some fines for companies that are egregious about it. It's more I'd see it as more one of these laws that kind of just nudges people to, hey, take a look at what you're doing and maybe try to do the right thing here. Yeah. It would make more sense if this was for new boards of directors or when a board seat opens up.

But if you have to kick somebody off the board, I would call bullshit on that. I agree. Okay. Well, we'll see how that one plays out. It's definitely going to be interesting. Project Atlas from BitTorrent. I got this one in my email inbox this week from BitTorrent and it's called Project Atlas.

And guess what it is? BitTorrent on the blockchain. Doesn't that defeat the entire purpose? Well, not if you're going to give out Bitcoin or BitTorrent coin, whatever their coin of the realm is going to be. It's a non-mining coin.

You don't have to mine for it, but you do have to seed for it. So whenever you seed a torrent, you get coin back. Yeah. Right. Yeah. I do like the fact that I use a quote from Satoshi Nakamoto, who we don't actually know if really exists or not. Pretty sure he didn't. For transferable proof of work tokens to have value, they must have monetary value.

To have monetary value, they must be transferred within a very large network. For example, a file trading network akin to BitTorrent. So they took that and ran with it. I do. You know, the concept in and of itself is something that we've talked about for a long time about how, you know, you should be getting money for microtransactional stuff or content created or whatever.

And he even has a quote saying, you know, watch this interview about how Project Atlas is a major step towards a fairer internet. Except for the fact that you're getting paid for what is predominantly illegal content. Correctamundo. Two things about that. Yeah. This is a bit like, this is like Pinterest getting paid for all their content.

Yeah, exactly. Pincoin. And how long- Hey, I got a business plan for them. Why aren't they jumping on this bandwagon? And how long do you think it's going to take? Because if this is a public blockchain that everybody can look at, how long do you think it's going to take some forensic data scientists to backtrace that?

And when some kid gets busted for uploading, you know, the new X-Men movie or whatever crap he's peddling, to backtrace that account to the blockchain and then transfer that to every other thing he's ever torrented in his life. Are you kidding? Lars Ulrich is already downloading these things and pouring through them.

There's a guy that downloaded Metallica. There's a guy that downloaded Metallica. There's a guy that downloaded Metallica. God, I haven't heard that guy's name in a long time. It took me a second because I was thinking, Ross Ulbrich, he's in jail. Oh, Lars, the drummer. Yeah, the drummer. Remember that old cartoon, Firebad? Firebad.

Napsterbad. Napsterbad. Well, he wasn't wrong, to be fair. He just pursued it the wrong way. Yeah, so the last thing I want to just talk about this project is go watch the promotional video. The first minute is them getting in a hot air balloon and flying away. I don't know why that's there.

I kind of wish it just ended there. I know. They were just gone. Project Atlas, see ya. See you later. Toodles. Yeah, that's a dumb idea. But the nice thing about it is it will be backwards compatible, so you don't have to chime in if you don't want to.

You can use just a standard BitTorrent client and stay blissfully free of Project Atlas. But how much you want to bet, you're still getting tracked into the blockchain somewhere. There's got to be something. I don't trust anybody now that's doing blockchain.

I just don't trust anybody now. But anyway. Fair enough. But especially if they're doing blockchain. Yes. Okay, so some Canadian researchers have looked at some data from a 10-year-long U.S. project meant to study how children's brains develop over time called the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development Study, or more cleverly, the ABCD Study.

Well done. And yes, they are talking about how children who get less screen time think better. So does this come back to not giving the little one an iPad? Yeah, I mean, we're not giving the little one an iPad. We're very careful about the amount of screen time that he gets, meaning even TV at this point.

And when he does watch TV, we are trying to keep it to something educational, even though he does seem to, he's very much into Thomas the Train right now, which is not terribly educational. But we try to keep it to things like Sesame Street and other things that where he's at least learning colors, his numbers, his letters, all that sort of stuff.

You know, I don't know. I don't know how I feel about this, because certainly our generation was raised in front of TVs, and we're not idiots. Speak for yourself. Actually, hold on a second. What's the state of the country right now? These guys might have a point. They just might have a point. At Sesame Street, it was subterfuge all along, sedition and subterfuge.

I'm not surprised by this, because it really depends on what you're letting your kids watch and are you engaging in it with them? I never leave my kid just sitting in front of the TV unless I've really got to go to the bathroom. I try to do it with my kid and talk to him about it and engage with him while he's doing it, as opposed to, you know, again, just leaving your kid with an iPad and going about your day.

Well, I mean, Latchkey Kids. Remember Latchkey Kids? Like, I was. You know, it's like, watch whatever you want. I'll be home. Yep. Get a pizza. Don't die. That's pretty much my, that's the instructions. But thank God there wasn't, you know, cable the way that there is now when we were kids, because what options did we have?

Like, normally during the day, it was a soap opera, which as a kid you had no interest in. You'd find some cartoons. Or shit like Sesame Street and Electric Company, which was borderline educational. Because we didn't have the option of scrolling through 97 channels of bullshit. No, we still had HBO, though, and then Showtime, and then the static that you had to look at to try and maybe see a boob.

By the time you cared for a boob, I think that's a bit older than most of the kids they're talking about, or at least when you cared about a boob beyond food. Well, the study's from children 8 to 11, and there's a decent sample size, 4,524 kids. So that is a decent sample size for the, finally, instead of the one that's like, we studied 11 people to find out if standing desks work, and they said their legs hurt.

I'm like, oh, God. Yeah. So anyway, it's an interesting read. Go read the math on it. It's in the show notes at gog.show slash 286. Yes. And now, Jason, you and I, we enjoy a beverage. Not as many as I used to.

Yeah, but we did. And certainly when we were younger, we may have enjoyed beverages with some drinking games. Oh, hell yes. Asshole was my favorite back in the day. I was a little late to drinking games. I always said I'm a serious drinker when I was younger, but later on in life, I discovered the joy of beer pong and things of such nature.

But I never played a game called the Devil's Triangle. Neither have I. I also never played beer pong. I guess it must be fun. Kids like it. But yes, I've never heard of the devil. Especially with some ladies. Oh, yeah. But yeah, I've never heard of the Devil's Triangle. Well, the Devil's Triangle basically doesn't refer to a drinking game.

It refers to a lady bit, at least as far as most of the world. That's what I thought it was. Well, so does most of the world. But the interesting thing about this, I'm not going to get into Brett Kavanaugh and all that sort of stuff. The fun part about this is Wikipedia stepping up over this. Yeah, this is pretty good. Because since this has happened, somebody tried to edit Wikipedia to create Devil's Triangle as a drinking game, to which Wikipedia said, we will no longer accept anybody posting things about this being a drinking game, because we all know this is not a drinking game.

That is a hoax. Right. But the great part about it, it was Devil's Triangle, a popular drinking game enjoyed by friends of Judge Brett Kavanaugh. So there was a dig in there, definitely. It was a dig. But I do like, again, this is the internet at its finest and the weirdness of something like Wikipedia, which is community run.

It's like, but they're policing themselves better than some news outlets do, because I saw lots of news stories just saying that it's a drinking game. It is not a drinking game, and Wikipedia is not going to let you get away with calling it one. Yeah. Yeah. No. Oh, my. Yay, Wikipedia.

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Media Candy. Love of my 1990s life, Lush, is Mickey Perini, her of the flame red hair. They just had a recent reunion tour that I went to that was absolutely phenomenal, and I really enjoyed it. But then they announced that they were splitting up again, and I was deeply saddened.

Now there's some good news. She has formed basically a shoegazing supergroup featuring members of Elastica, Moose, and Modern English. Whoa! Yes, the band is called Perushka. Okay. Which I believe is, when I Googled it, is some sort of Russian pastry or dish.

But I'm very happy about it. It's Elastica's Justin Welch, Moose's KG McKillop, and Modern English's Michael Conroy. They are playing a show in London next month. There is no music to hear as of yet, but I am assuming she is the singer, since nobody else in that lineup sings. So I'm very pleased about this, and I cannot wait to listen to some new music from Mickey.

Take all my monies. Take all my monies. Exactly. Take all my monies, or take all my streams. Or whatever. The wife and I were looking for something new to watch as we've caught up with Better Call Saul, and we wanted something a little bit lighter, and we'd heard good things about The Good Place. Now, I am one to go, huh.

Huh. A major network sitcom? I have not watched one of those in about 40 years, because they suck. Terrible. Actually, it's quite good. Oh, God. I'm very much enjoying this show. It is fucking funny. We become what we hate, because, you know, back in the day, your parents were the ones that said, eh, let's watch whatever's on, you know, let's watch some Friends, or whatever it is.

I don't know. Have you seen an episode of it, Jason? I have not. Have you heard what it's about? I know nothing about it, because I have a ban on sitcoms. You know that. I've never even seen an episode of Friends. Well, Kristen Bell plays the main character, who ends up in an afterlife of sorts, which is quite funny.

Ted Danson plays the runner of said afterlife, and she's not supposed to be there, because she's actually a really bad person. Okay. And it's very funny. Okay. Highly recommended. Not going to watch it, but... I know you're not going to, but somebody out there might. Yeah. Very good. Yeah. No, if you're not going to watch Farscape, I'm not going to watch The Good Place.

I'm putting my foot down. Fair enough. Now, there is a new movie coming out, which I'm just going to go ahead and say, this could possibly be the best film that will ever be made, ever. It is called Tea with the Dames. Dame Maggie Smith, Dame Judi Dench, Dame Eileen Atkins, and Dame Joan Plowright are among the most celebrated actresses of our time, with scores of ironic performances, decades of wisdom, and innumerable Oscars, Tonys, Emmys, and BAFTAs between them.

They're also longtime friends, and this entire movie involves them getting together on a weekend in the country and getting drunk and talking. Okay, I was going to say, tea's not that much fun unless it's Long Island Iced, so. Well, you should watch the trailer. It is hilarious, because they start with just tea, and at some point, one of them says, can we get some champagne next?

And they all look around and go, why didn't we think of this hours ago? So, where do you get it? It is not out yet. It is actually, I think, going to be in theaters. So, I assume, you know, how long does that last these days? It's probably going to be two weeks in theaters, and then it'll probably be on IFC Films, because they're the ones that sponsored it, and I'm sure Netflix or somebody will pick it up.

How did you watch it? As of right now, though, I have not watched it. Oh! I've only seen the trailer. Okay, got it. Yeah. Yes, I'm very excited to watch it, though. Okay. I cannot wait. And I have a link in the show notes from Vulture.com, which has seen the movie and made some fantastic little cards that you could use for social media, so you can figure out which dame you are.

Oh, of course. And then they take your data from that and put it on Cambridge. No, they actually don't do it. They don't even do the direct, like, do it yourself. You have to put the effort in and save the image, but it's quite cute. Okay. Do you have to tie in your Facebook profile? No. Oh, good.

Okay. See? Yeah. They're doing it right, sort of. And I watched RBG. I always want to say RGB. I don't know why. Well, I do know why, because RGB monitors. Yeah, of course. It's RBG, the Ruth Bader Ginsburg movie. It was phenomenal. Oh, there's a movie about Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and it's phenomenal?

It's a documentary. It's a documentary all about, I knew so little about her, actually, to be honest, and it's about her early years and how she got started and how we're all desperately hoping she stays alive. Where did you get it? I was on CNN as an exclusive. I think it will be on Netflix or something in the next two weeks, but it should still be on demand for CNN if you have cable.

Okay. I will check that out then. It was really good. So I found an article in the New York Times called, Joan Jett, My Lot in Life is to Battle. Were you a Joan Jett fan as a kid? You know, I liked rock and roll, and it was all fairly simplistic. I felt the same about Joan Jett as I felt about the Ramones.

I understood it was groundbreaking and visionary, but not terribly interesting to me. Yeah. Yeah, I got that with the Ramones. I was never a big fan of the Ramones, but I loved Joan Jett. I really loved Joan Jett. So this is a pretty good article on her life and times, but the best part about it is she's got a documentary coming out called Bad Reputation, and I love that song so much.

So definitely this is one of the ones I'm going to be checking out because you'll be able to get it on the iTunes or whatever, wherever movies are sold nowadays. Right. That one I'll pay for because I love Joan Jett. Did you ever see the movie about the Runaways? No, I have not. It was actually very good.

I think you should check it out. I can't remember what it's called offhand so somebody can Google that, but it was very good. I know where the Google is. I'll take a trip down to the Google. And watch the movie about that because I really enjoyed it. Okay. Maybe I'll watch that first before I watch this. Now, I'm a huge Burt Reynolds fan.

And when we were in Canada at Fireside, Burt Reynolds passed. Now, there was a car show in New York and they did a 100 Trans Am salute with a parade and people dressing up as Burt from Smokey and the Bandit. And the video is pretty funny.

I got to say, I got to say, this is over at TMZ and talk about a parade of weird. Yeah, I did enjoy watching the video. It was hilarious. Yep. So farewell, Bandit. You will be missed. At the library.

My book this week is Molly's Game, the true story of the 26-year-old woman behind the most exclusive high-stakes underground poker game in the world. How's that for a title? It's long. Yeah, it's a long title. It's a short book, but a very long title. I watched the movie.

I think I reviewed the movie on the show before. And so this is the actual book that the movie was based on. And they're different, obviously, because Aaron Sorkin likes to take a lot of liberties, you know? You think? Yeah, yeah. So there's a lot that didn't actually happen in the movie that was in the book.

And it's a fantastic book. It's a great story. It's an easy read. It really kind of reminds me. The style is kind of like, you'll never nanny in this town again, which I'm still halfway through. But it's a highly entertaining movie. This girl has chutzpah. And I did a sound check with her this week.

And I'm like, OK, that microphone that you have there, you're going to be the favorite of every podcaster that you ever meet in any show you ever go on. She's like, oh, bucket list item. Check. I'm like, OK, I like you already. So definitely check out the book if you're into that kind of thing.

It's a really cool story. Nice. I really miss having time to read. Procreation is not good for reading. The first year was fantastic. I mowed through books, but this whole second year, it's no good. As soon as the wife went back to work, eh? Yeah, that didn't help. I finally finished 10 arguments for deleting your social media accounts right now by Jaron Lanier, which I started on the plane with you to the Fireside Conference.

Yeah. It is really good. I mean, I highly recommend that everybody that listens to this show read it. I'm not going to do a lot of it, but I should. Yeah, you should. That's kind of what I came down on. I really should. But it is the world that we live in right now.

And I kind of still make my living by being online, so I don't have the luxury of being able to unplug as much as I'd like to. Yeah. Fortunately, I finally, with that Facebook unplugging, it's like I had to do a lot of work to unplug from Facebook and get rid of all of the connections to other apps with that single sign-on crap.

So I was definitely not part of the 50 million people that got caught up in that. But it takes a lot of work to get off of all that crap. It does. It does. But it is a fantastic book. It is well-argued and reasoned. It is many, many things that we've discussed a thousand times on this show put together much better than we ever could.

Yeah. So go read it. It came out today, the latest Lestat book by Anne Rice, Blood Communion, which I have purchased and hopefully will be able to read. Even though I said I'm going to stop reading these, I can't stop. Okay. I have to see what she's going to do next with Lestat.

It's just one of the characters of my childhood, and I just love this series. I can't get over it, even though the last couple have been shit. So we'll see if this one's shit or not. I'll let you know. And I got a notice also from Amazon that coming April 2nd, 2019, so a bit early, we're getting Agency by William Gibson.

It's actually a little late because it was supposed to be out in December this year. Well, a little early of a notice since it's not coming until April 2nd. Because the first notice we got was it's coming in December of 2018. It has been pushed. Yeah. Oh, well, and remind me next time I see you, which hopefully will be next week, I have a present for you around Anne Rice and Lestat.

God, don't be the movie. Just don't be the movie. I enjoyed the movie. Fucking horrible. Tom Cruise's Lestat, my ass. Yeah, that's true. And this one comes from a friend of the show, David Teeter. Dennis E. Taylor has signed an option deal for the Bobiverse. Well, look, I'm happy he's getting money.

Uh-huh. That's good. And this can never get made. It can never be made. The CG on it alone would be crazy. They're just going to point cameras at computers and have them talk? No, remember, they all had their own virtual world, and they would bounce in between all the different worlds.

Yeah, I guess. But, I mean, I don't want to see this, I guess is what I'm saying. Yeah, I've already seen it in my head, I think, is where I'm at with it. I do not want to see this. We're on of the week. Oh, my goodness.

I was going through my RSS read-er this morning, and I found an article on the Next Web called, No, Blockchain Can't Solve the Irish Border Problem, and I'm like, wait, wait, what? So, I read on a little bit, and turns out, A solution to providing frictionless trade across the Irish border after Britain leaves the European Union might be found using technology such as blockchain, Finance Minister Philip Hammond said on Monday.

And here's his quote. There is technology becoming available. I don't claim to be an expert on it, but the most obvious technology is blockchain. You have to be shitting me. I don't live in the UK anymore.

I did at one point, but I do have plenty of friends who do, and as far as I can tell from my Facebook bubble, except for the fact that it's all of my friends that live in the UK, Brexit is not a good thing. I'm seeing a lot of articles about how there are being suggestions about how switching to a vegetarian or vegan diet will be helpful when Brexit comes around because there will be problems getting meat.

I don't think blockchain is going to fix that. Can they just re-vote on this damn thing already? I think they're trying to many times, and the government's saying no. I don't know. I don't follow this enough, but it does seem to be a massive disaster, and of course blockchain isn't going to fucking solve the problem.

Blockchain has not solved a single fucking problem yet. If anything, it's created more problems. It's given a lot of bros a lot of money. That's about it. The only problem solved by blockchain so far is putting money into douchebags' hands. Ah, the crypt bro issue. God.

Oh, England. What are you thinking? Feedback loop. We've got a bunch of new Patreon subscribers. Ian, Kevin, Earth Wallpaper, Philip, Ollie, Caitlin, and Marie. And Marie writes in, Hey, guys, happy to be able to chip in my $10.

It looks like it won't hit until November. Bummer. I have something I'd like you to pimp out. A new novel by Alan Ross, La Calavera Electronics Engineer Darren Loney's dead-end job in the basement of a television station is nothing more than a side hustle. His true passion is transforming a decrepit Winnebago into a state-of-the-art mobile pirate radio station.

Winnebago warrior, right there. Not that messing around on the radio makes much difference in the age of the internet, but at least he's doing something about big media's monopoly of the airwaves. When a key piece of technology falls into his hands, a new and far more dangerous opportunity presents itself, pirate television.

Together with a group of misfits and questionable guidance of a spiritual advisor in the form of Richard M. Nixon, Loney gears up to take on the world's largest media conglomerate and its egomaniacal celebrity CEO. Available on Amazon now in e-books and hard copy. Well, there you go, Marie. Okay.

All right, Marie. Well, you are playing by the rules, sort of. We did say if you pay that certain amount, we'll pimp anything. I am hoping you copied and pasted this as a description and that you aren't actually a PR person for this and you actually just personally enjoy the book. And we will be checking to make sure that we get your $10 next month.

Because if we don't, the flood of one-star reviews will be... We are trusting you here, Marie, not to screw us. It will be biblical. It will be biblical, the one-stars. Oh, yes. Eric also sent us some money over on Patreon and wrote in, Hi, Grumps and fellow bird watchers.

This article's headline alone is too good not to run past you. Brexit may be coming, but birds won't too soon. Why a 183-year-old law created for horse-drawn carriages has frustrated Silicon Valley's buzziest startups? I have actually been wondering why we have not heard about Bird or Lime or anything like that in the UK.

It's because they are illegal on public UK streets and pavements, so they cannot go there. They can't launch at all. That's partly thanks to a 183-year-old act originally designed to stop nuisance behavior from horse-drawn carriage drivers and those driving cattles. So electric scooters are categorized as carriages by the UK government, which means they can't be there.

They can't be on the roads either because the government requires scooter owners to register their vehicles with the UK Driving Authority, and you have to pass the Driving Authority's strict requirements. So a scooter would need to have three wheels, all of the ones that we see have two, and must be fitted with brakes and lights. That rules out most of these scooter companies and would be too expensive for them to retrofit all their scooters to be able to go there.

Well done, UK. Well done. Thank you, horse and buggy, said nobody ever. Ever. Over on Facebook, Gabriel writes in, If you are not grumpy about geeky subjects, then you are stupid and don't know shit. Listen to this podcast to rectify this. Well, thank you, Gabriel. Yes, thank you.

Over on Twitter, Moss6502 wrote in, Something to consider for when podcasting in the same room. Flatulence filtering men's hipsters. Now, Jason, if you want me to come out on Tuesday, I see that these are Prime enabled. Okay. So you might want to go ahead and order yourself a pair. Well, I think you might need to order yourself a pair too.

I have not farted once this entire podcast. Well, neither have I. So there you go. But I do approve the purchase if we need to dip into the company funds. Okay. Matthew writes in, MoviePass is now re-enrolling former customers in an unlimited plan unless they opt out.

This is basically a cash grab to pay off the bills before they go out of business. I am going to go check my MoviePass account right now. But I think the reason that I haven't been re-enrolled is because, remember, I signed up with that Amex that got stolen on the Virgin America flight. So they can't recharge me.

Gotcha. Yeah. So, yeah, I guess they're sending out an email that's saying subscribers will be rolled back into a program that offers unlimited movies, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. The company has chosen to do this because we really hope you begin enjoying your MoviePass subscription again. This is the same subscription that you signed up for and previously enjoyed.

Okay. Thanks. I think you guys are a bit late to the game. I think class action lawsuit. Yes, me too. Kashish wrote in to us and said, Oh, God, no, and sent us a link at NPR. No cash needed at this cafe. Students pay the tab with their personal data.

So this is a cafe called Shiru, and it looks like a regular coffee shop. But inside, you have no college ID. You cannot get a coffee. You have to have college ID from the local school or be a professor, apparently. The cafe allows professors to pay, but students have something else the shop wants, their personal information.

You will get a free coffee if you give away names, phone numbers, email addresses, and majors. You also provide date of birth and professional interest, adding all the information in an online form. By doing so, the students open themselves up to receiving information from corporate sponsors who pay the cafe to reach its clientele through logos, apps, digital advertisements, on screens, and mobile devices, signs, surveys, and even baristas.

So when you order your coffee, they may give you a pitch for something of interest to you to get your free coffee. Now, to you and I, this sounds horrific. Yes, it does. We would never, ever do this. What could go wrong? However, the students don't seem to mind. She doesn't think she has seen a single customer refuse to give up their data for free coffee, proving that this generation does not seem to give a fuck about privacy.

Where is this coffee shop again? It is in Providence, Rhode Island. Damn. In your Brown University. If it was close, man, I'd be out there with grumpy old geek stickers handed them out so these kids could get educated. Listen to this. Listen to this. Seriously. My God, people. I mean, I understand that coffee is ridiculous at shops now, four or five bucks a coffee, but it is not worth giving away all your personal data.

You guys are idiots. Buy a coffee pot if it's that important to you. I had a coffee pot in my dorm room, damn it. There you go. Oh, now, Barrett writes in, GOG Podcast, this one. And it's a link to a Kickstarter project called CUNNY, the Smart Oral Sex Toy.

And it says, It left me confused. Too many questions. Can I create playlists? Can I share playlists? Can I make a tongue-butt army? Seriously, what the fuck? Is the younger generation really too lazy to figure out oral sex without an app? Now, I was just looking at this, and it is the scariest thing I think I've ever seen.

This is just... It's like the worms from Dune. It really is. Oh, my God. And it's funny. There's a picture of the couple who designed it, and I'm like, Dude, are you that bad that you have to go build your girlfriend a robot so she can get off?

Apparently. And it's just... It's terrifying. Seriously, I mean, probably not safe for work, but it's... It is a really, really messed up device. And so far, they've got $10,278 pledged of a 50,000 goal by 78 backers with 34 days to go.

So, there is time, people. If you want a cunny... Oh. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Look, I'm married and I have a kid. I don't even know what sex is anymore, but this seems really lazy to me. What is it? Like, after a couple years of marriage, you just have hallway sex where you just pass each other in the hallway and say, Fuck you.

We're not quite that bad yet. I mean, hallway sex, but not in the way that you described it. It's just an old joke. More like we had three minutes. All right. So, TJ wrote us, sent us actually a Twitter link from Mashable. The future of self-driving taxis may be closer than you think.

Could this be the future of carpooling? Renault unveiled the Renault Easy Go at the Geneva Motor Show. Renault Easy Go is a self-driving electric car concept that can transport up to six people. As we know, concept cars probably relatively never show up on the roads. And even if they do, it takes about basically nine, eight to ten years is the average time span between a concept car versus actually being sold.

So, no, this is not the future of carpooling and it's not the future of self-driving taxis has gotten no closer at all whatsoever, which I'm sure was TJ's point in sending us that. Yep. Maybe if they outfitted all these cars with Cunnys, then maybe they'll get more users. But then, yeah, that gets back to who's going to clean them.

That gets back to my original point about self-driving cars that nobody owns. They're going to be the most disgusting things on the planet. Kyle writes in, I'll echo the plan check recommendation. Their fried chicken sandwich is good too. Stout has a better beer list and is just across the street.

And this is all just down the street from me, Kyle, so we should actually meet up there at some point. He bought property way up north, so he hasn't been back for a while, but he's moving, I think he's moving like to Burbank or something soon. So he hasn't been in the neighborhood for a while. So hopefully when he comes back, we'll all be able to hang out at least once before he moves up to the great white middle of California.

And Goblin wrote us, enlighten me about AI guys and all kinds of funny laughy emoji faces. Love Grandpa Bittner there's podcasts in GOG as well. We all rock. Let the games continue. Fight on JPD and go Cubs. I believe the Cubs are playing in three hours the wild card game.

So now that my beloved Dodgers will not be playing the Cubs, go Cubs. See, that's what happens. I buy a Dodgers hat and now the Cubs are in it. The Dodgers are still in it too, Jason. Random Funk writes in, what 2FA do you guys use? Whatever ones that are provided by the services I log into.

I don't have a personal one. Yeah, yeah. I mean, as far as two-factor auth goes, it's usually either a, I think what he's asking is do we use SMS or one of the authenticator apps? I prefer to use the authenticator apps because we've covered so many stories about how SMS can be rerouted and they can get into your accounts.

But whenever, I'm lazy. Yeah, whenever... I use SMS. Yeah, I know. But whenever possible, I use either the Google authenticator, the Microsoft authenticator, or the Blizzard authenticator. I've got three of them on my phone. They all work. If I had to choose one of them, I would probably use the Microsoft one.

I wouldn't trust Google with it. Well, I mean, they all work pretty much the same, so it gets the job done. But, you know, the Blizzard one is just so I can log into my StarCraft account. Gotcha. Tris writes us, one more item in the FB is Morbly Bankrupt Department.

WhatsApp founder sold us down the river and he knew it. And this is a naked security article. WhatsApp co-founder has sold my user's privacy. I think we covered this before. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So he did a mea culpa, said, well, you know, they're going to do horrible things and I'll just take the money and leave. And left a lot of money on the table.

Yeah, but he's still worth 3.6 billion. How much do you need? Seriously. I'm sorry. How much do you need? I don't need an island that big. Mwah. I have a medium-sized volcano lair. I don't need a large lair. If you're going to hand me 3.6 billion, I'm happy to leave a ton of money on the table.

I'll just take the 3.6 and leave. I'm good. I'll take the .6 and leave. I'll take the .006 and leave. He also tweeted us, we get a metric buttload of spam calls in Mandarin here in Vancouver. It's an immigration scam that essentially says, it's the government, you're in trouble, pay us, or you're hooped.

Oh. I wonder if it's a Canadian. Well, you're getting them too, though, and you don't really have the connection to Canada that my number does. Right. But I'm getting them from San Francisco, which has a large Chinese population. So that makes sense. So this is kind of like the Nigerian scam where they just blast it out to everybody in hopes that they will hit some Mandarin speakers.

Yeah. That's kind of evil assholes. Yeah. Radio teacher writes in, when an unknown number or one that's not in my contacts calls me, I answer it. I'm a fraud and securities investigations desk is what she answers with. They normally hang up. Does this make me a bad person? That makes you an awesome person.

That makes you an awesome person, but I have to say 99.9999999% of the calls are automated these days. They're not actual people. Yeah. Yeah. That's what nobody answers. They basically wait to hear you say something and then the tape starts. And finally, I found an article about all this.

The FCC is fighting back against robocalls. For the first time, the FCC has proposed two hefty fines against companies over the use of robocalls that use spoof numbers to hide the caller's names for consumers. The agency has suggested an $82 million penalty for one telemarketing company. It says made 21 million spoof robocalls over the three months in 2016 and 2017.

It says also suggested a $37.5 million penalty for an Arizona-based telemarketing firm that made 2 million spoof robocalls offering remodeling services over the course of 14 months starting in 2016. But as we know, AgitPi runs all this stuff, so I have zero hope. Yeah. Seriously. Oh, God.

Over at GOG.show, Julio writes in, have you checked out the Vivaldi web browser? It's made by an Opera co-founder. We have covered this on the show. I checked it out for a little bit and then just went back to Opera. Yes. And Mad Mike wrote in, you know what I love? Scotch. But I also love listening to your show on the way to work, logging into my email once I arrive at work and reading about what you were just talking about, case in point, smart home hacking.

I do hope you enjoy your Scotch after you've driven to work and logged into your email. Not before. And definitely if you're taking a bird to work. Yeah. So he sent us an article from CBC Canada News. We hired ethical hackers to hack a family smart home.

Here's how it turned out. Basically, they were able to use a phishing email and get into their smart home front door within a couple hours. Yeah. That's just the way it's going to keep going. That's it. Yes. Mark writes in, here you go, guys. This might be what you've been waiting for.

Check it out and let us all know what you think. And this is from Fast Company. Exclusive. Tim Berners-Lee tells us his radical new plan to upend the World Wide Web. This one is one of those things where the branding is terrible.

I can't stand... Inrupt. Inrupt is the branding. And the idea is fantastic. It's more about a distributed web. How it all works, we don't know yet because we just... Can't see it. Can't sign up for it.

Can't look at it. Yeah. Yeah. And we've been working on it for a long time, but he left MIT to work on this thing full-time. So we'll see what's going to happen here. But... And I just don't know. It already seems too complicated just from the description of how you get into it all.

I don't see people switching over to this. It's a bit like using Tor or any kind of browser like that. Yeah. People who are super into privacy and stuff like that may look into this and get into it. But the vast majority of people, no. We're at a critical mass problem just like with Facebook. You can provide somewhere else to go.

L-O. But people aren't going to go. Yeah. I mean, look. Keep trying, guys. Keep... Yeah. Keep trying because we definitely want more people trying this stuff. And if anybody can do it, Tim Berners-Lee, I mean, father of the web, and he's been doing this stuff for a long time.

So he's very smart. Look, I've got this thing bookmarked. I'm going to keep a look at it and once it becomes public, I'm going to check it out. But right now, I don't... My hopes are not high. This is web 3.0 or whatever the hell we're on now. Or 4.0. I don't know. I don't know what it is, but I am not going to discount it yet until it actually shows up.

Nope. And I will try it because a distributed web is one of those things that we've all wanted for a very long time. But whose computer is your shit living on? It's got to be somebody's computer if it's not yours. If you don't own that computer, where's it go? You know?

Yeah. So we'll see. Rob writes us, Hi, guys. Greetings from Down Under. I love the show and I've listened to every one of them. I binged all the episodes while I was working and still listen each week while I fill shelves in the supermarket on Friday and Saturday nights. I must admit that listening to you guys has me paranoid about what my phone is doing.

McDonald's has their Monopoly promotion running at the moment and where you buy products, get tickets on said products, install an app on your phone and then scan the tickets into the app using the camera on your phone and keep track of what you have won. I was a little concerned yesterday when I scanned a ticket on my way home from work. I had been home for an hour or so and my phone was sitting on my desk the whole time not being used.

A notification came up on my Android phone, well, problem number one, saying that the McDonald's app had used the camera twice. It also showed the times. One of the times was when I scanned the ticket but the other time was while my phone was sitting on my desk not being used. The app wasn't loaded or anything. I thought this was a bit creepy.

Have you heard anything about this happening anywhere else? Should I be concerned? Should we be talking to Dave Bittner about this? Thanks, guys, and keep up the good work. P.S. I'm devastated that the privacy credit card service isn't available to people outside the U.S. Yeah, sorry about that. It's McDonald's. It is a huge corporation.

I would be shocked if there's anything weird going on with their app. However, you are on an Android and I always worry about that. I have used the app on my iOS device and it is a steaming pile of crap. Well, that's not shocking. No, it is one of the worst apps I've ever used.

You know, I got, after like, scanning hundreds of tickets, I got like $5 off a ticket at Fandango and that was the end of it so I didn't do it anymore after that. But the app, I think, is from a third party which, you know, opens that up to whoever's writing the app to do whatever they want to with it.

So it's an interesting thing that it was actually, the camera was accessed while you weren't even using the phone by the app. So I don't know what that means. It could just be a poorly written app which I know it is or it could be nefarious but, you know, what's the old quote?

Don't attribute to malice what can be described by incompetence. Oh, yeah. So. Yeah, I doubt anything shady is going on. It's probably just shit programming. More than likely. So Jake writes in, Hey guys, I'm a Blackhawk pilot out of Fort Bliss, Texas and just wanted to let you guys know that the reason Blackhawk helicopters were spotted flying around the New Mexico Observatory is because it's right on the edge of Fort Bliss and White Sands Missile Range airspace.

We fly there all the time. Keep up the good work, guys. Well, you keep up the good work, too. That's pretty awesome that you're a Blackhawk pilot. Is there any way like you could fly over us if we do a live show in the Blackhawk? I guess maybe if we moved to Fort Bliss, Texas we could probably get them to fly over. I don't think.

You can do a little side trip out to Santa Monica. Come on. Come on, Jake. We'll buy you a beer. You land it over at Finn McCool's. Yeah, land it on the roof at Finn McCool's. We'll buy the whole crew around. That'd be amazing. That's funny. I always wanted to be a helicopter pilot when I grew up and then I discovered that I was afraid of heights.

Right. My favorite movie was Blue Thunder. That's going to be a problem. Yeah, it's a big problem. Okay, next up. All right, David writes this from Australia. So on the topic of deep fakes, check this out. I picked the first three correctly. Last one I got wrong by assuming they're both fakes. So this is a news network over in Australia that made some deep fakes of the prime minister of Australia.

And it is pretty. These things are getting good. Yeah. These things are getting real good. So he sent a long article about this, which I'm not going to get too into, but thanks so much. He sent two different articles, which will have our show notes. Yeah, this stuff is fucked up.

Yeah, it's getting really good. Yeah, it's getting really good. And the thing that is crazy about it now is it's now good enough that unless you're kind of watching on a big TV in like HD, if you're watching news the way most people do just on your cell phone, you would not be able to tell the difference for a short clip.

Oh, yeah. When it gets longer. But I mean, we're already in fake news world now, right? Where people believe anything anyways. Now you got a video that purports to be Obama saying I'm not an American citizen. That shit's going to go viral and stupid people are going to believe it. Yeah, they are.

Yeah. Sadly enough. Anyways, he did say I'm going to start playing around with this stuff myself as I am already doing a lot of machine learning work and the only place I can see to be is at the forefront of building the machine learning systems. Even some of the very few simple machine learning systems I've already built myself make me think we're past peak jobs. Yeah, I agree.

Okay. Cody writes in. Hey, guys, I know this is a repeat but perhaps we could hear about how Brian's microstock investing is going and what the site was called. I tried searching through the show notes. Sorry about that. And normally that'd be awesome but I can't seem to find any reference to it and I'm not sure what else to search for.

Many thanks, Cody. We should start like tagging things but that's extra work for us. It's Brian with an I. Sorry, my pet peeve. Oh yeah, that's right. He spelled it with a Y. Yeah. It's called M1 Finance. I have a link in the show notes. Please use that if you want to sign up because I get $10 and you get $10 to invest.

It's gone okay. The problem is I did instead of doing what I had been investing in before which is a selection of what I used to call evil stocks. I still have some evil stocks. I'm doing fang investing right now which is Facebook, Amazon, Alphabet, Apple, Netflix.

The G used to be Google but now it's Alphabet so it's like fang. Fang. Yeah. So I'm doing that right now and Facebook has obviously taken a massive hit so that has drawn me down but I'm still ahead. I'm still made like $150 or something just from throwing in $100 a month split up over all the stocks.

So it's going well. I signed up for it after Brian talked about it and I invested in Apple, Microsoft, Google, Tesla, Amazon, United Health Group and Berkshire Hathaway and I did have Facebook but after we've done all these stories about Facebook I divested my Facebook slice last week but my return is 4.54% so far.

Not bad. Not too bad for two months. I'll take it. Yeah and you're getting hit with Tesla right now too. You'd be doing a lot better if people would stop picking on Elon. Leave Elon alone. Well actually my Tesla is up 5.33%. From when you bought it? You bought it at a good time then. Yeah. When they were down and getting kicked so every time a bad Elon Musk story goes out I'm like let's put a little more into Tesla but I mean to be honest I only have $200 into it so it's not huge yet.

Andrew writes in Hey guys here's yet another Bird article finding this one was kind of ironic. I was leaving a Whole Foods in Alexandria, Virginia when some helmetless fool rips past on the sidewalk. Mind you this was the sidewalk crossing that the vehicles exit and this guy almost got to meet my rental car since I didn't expect him there and only saw him at the last minute.

A few hours later I'm on a plane leaving Reagan National and find this article in Gizmodo where the first sentence reads a new report from the Washington Post found that emergency rooms have seen a spike in incidents involving electric scooters. No shit, huh? And yeah, it's pretty good. Yeah, we actually talked about that very article just a couple weeks ago.

Yep, not so good and Scott also wrote us in I knew you would love this one and it's a link to the New York Post. Oh, and those fucking birds have made it to Kansas City now. Thanks, Scott. And the article is about Walmart and its units. Sam's Club said Monday that leafy green suppliers will be asked to implement real-time farm-to-store tracking using, wait for it, blockchain technology by next September.

So Lettuce is now on the blockchain. Yay. Ted writes in New hashtag upon hearing Republicans swear that young men can't control their sexual urges. Hashtag I didn't do that when I was 17. Fair enough. Over at iTunes we got a slew of ratings this week so thank you very much.

First up is from Fuckadoodle Do. Fuckadoodle Do. So well done there on getting past their censorship. Says so much yes. Been listening to the show since the year began and I am so fecking excited every time I see a new episode. This has truly become part of my routine. This show is so fecking great.

Keep it up. I have a suggestion for you Fuckadoodle Do. Sign up with M1 Finance and have a swear jar because I'm guessing you say the fuck word a lot and you'd make a lot of money over time. There you go. And VelociChicken gave us a five stars.

Fun and entertaining. I agree with them almost none of the time but they never fail to make me laugh. We aim to not please but please at the same time. Another five star from DanRickD23 Old Army Geek I love getting two times the banter now. Amazing show that keeps us old timers up to speed on this dad blamed blockchain.

And Manda's Lover writes in These guys provide great up-to-date information and personal reviews all worth listening to. Definitely a laugh and love their take on things having worked in the industry as long as they have. Signed up with Patreon to help support the show. Woo-hoo! Thank you. Well worth it. Keep it up guys.

We love you here in Australia. We are getting a lot of love from down under I gotta say. I know. We are. We might have to go do a live show in Sydney. Those murder girls can do it. So can we damn it. Yep. Another five star from Xenogears fan Kodomin. Very long one.

Funny and smart. Listening to Jason and Brian always makes the time pass by quickly. Their sense of humor is dry but witty and their knowledge of the tech industry is well balanced. They aren't savant coders or computer scientists but they've worked at the ground level and understand the bigger picture. Definitely a good listen and twice a week is even better. People seem to love our switch two times a week.

Jeez. Yes they do. And Christopher J writes in excellent bits of analysis on latest tech news and trends with a cynical twist. Just a little one. I hope that one day this podcast will go on to become a platform on the wild wild web while leveraging the latest AI, ML crypto and HTML technologies to spread its gospel.

Don't forget we're going to be on Incept soon. And Big Susan from Canada writes in a ring for Jason's dogs. I say do not peepeth on my leg and tell me that it be raining. You old bastards are doing the Lord's work every week. Bringeth the grumpiest mirth and merriment to the world.

Keep it up. Oh thank you. We shall try. And Daddy's Mud Farm writes in learn something grumpy. Fun and entertaining keeps me informed on the latest ride sharing economy blockchain IPO scam reminding me of when privacy used to sort of exist. I quit following the product suggestions after Jason convinced me to move from Opera to Firefox only to switch right back after I got used to it.

Well here's the thing that was a test. At least you didn't do Vivaldi. That's true. Yeah. Look I never said switch to Firefox. I said it was going okay but then after a week yes it didn't go but I don't think I ever said try Firefox. I said I was trying it to find out if it worked.

Don't blame me. I'm just doing the experiment so you don't have to. 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 star and snarky review.

Closing shout outs! I'm going to give a shout out to my LA Dodgers who have won their sixth consecutive National League West title. Of course by the time we do the next show they could have fucked it all up and it'll all be over and I'll be in tears. Well that's the way it usually goes. That's true.

Seems to be a pattern. Until next time I'm going to go put on my LA Dodgers hat and 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. Cost 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.

Show notes for this episode are GOG.show slash 286. 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 be back with another one of those blockchain beats.

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