324: Down with the CRISPR

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 DeFillippo, discussing the finer points of what went wrong on the internet and who's to blame.

Welcome to Grumpy Old Geeks. I'm Jason DeFillippo. And I'm Brian Schulmeister. We've got some follow-up this week. Oh, we've got a lot of follow-up. Almost as much follow-up as we have show, but let's see here. Yeah. So remember the CRISPR experiment in China where, what's his name?

He, Zhang Q, made some twins without the CCR5 gene or had it turned off. Yeah. What could possibly go wrong with that? That's kind of what we said in the get-go, but turns out he might be making super babies.

Okay. Because they're testing this gene now on rats or mice, and it turns out it makes them smarter. You're saying that we didn't know entirely what that particular gene did before deciding to shut it off? Apparently not. Okay. Who just saw that coming?

Yep. Yep. Or maybe they did know, and they're just trying to make, yeah, they're like, you know, saying, oh, this is for HIV. We're trying to save the world. But what they're actually doing is making super babies. Okay. Good times. Yep. Yep. And there's a really cool timeline over at MIT's Media Review.

They're keeping an eye on this. And it's kind of like they've just got a thing that they keep adding on to when any new news comes out about it. So that's going to be in the show notes at GOG.show slash 324 if you want to bookmark it and play along at home. You know, I'm looking at a little line right here.

It could alter brain functioning and potentially improve intelligence, something geneticists the world over have been keen on steering clear from. Given everything we talk about in the show since we've started, fuck it. Let's go for it, people. Let's go ahead and actually improve intelligence.

I am down with this at this point because God knows we need it. Brian is down with the CRISPR. I am down with the CRISPR if it's going to make us smarter. Oh, man. Well, there are some very unsmart people out there, and we talk about them, too. The anti-vaxxers. This could all be gone if we just switched off that gene.

Yep, yep. Can they? I wish they could do it now. Can I just get a shot? Yeah, we need we need a, you know, redemptive, backward facing versions of this at this point. And somebody go sneak up to Jenny McCarthy and stab her in the ass with a needle, please. Yeah, since you mentioned Jenny McCarthy, you know, in a perfect world, her ilk should get the same treatment as Alex Jones and, like, just have all their platforms removed.

And it looks like YouTube has definitely taken a step in that direction, which finally means. Yeah, finally. They're saying that the promotion of anti-vaccine content is dangerous and harmful. So they're not removing it from the platform, which you think would be the way to do it.

No, they're just not letting them monetize it. OK, well, I mean, basically the same thing, except for the fact that a lot of these people are being funded. So they don't need the advertising income. And by the way, everybody, when you're when you hear this, as I first did, you think it's just some random videos out there.

No, these are entire channels. Oh, yeah. Devoted to this stuff that are putting out tons and tons of content, which is, you know, obviously it's all wrong. It's false. We're going to come into a another story later on that will. I want to circle back on this. Remind me about the anti-vax later when we roll into this about content moderation, because they still have an audience, even if they do, you know, start to pull the ads, which is crazy.

Well, and I just want to quickly circle back actually to Jenny McCarthy, because I didn't see that you would put all the stuff into the show notes. And I had read an article earlier this week, which was saying, why is she getting a free pass? Why is she still on every show known to man? Why is she still being, you know, what's up with CBS and the major networks with continuing to give her work?

I mean, granted, she is she isn't on these shows espousing her views, but she spends all of her free time doing that. And she's getting all the free publicity for it. No, I mean, she's dangerous. You are de facto platforms. You guys admit to being platforms, major networks. Do something.

I don't think they're gonna. Yeah, me neither. I don't think they're gonna. They like the boobs. They're going to keep her on. Who doesn't? And she's also married to a Wahlberg. Yes. Doesn't help. Doesn't help the process. But yeah, so Bill Gates is a fan of the Reddit. He did a recent AMA.

It's not surprising he's a fan of Reddit, because its UI is about as notoriously horrible as, say, Windows 98. Yeah, Windows 95. So he's got some pretty interesting things to say. And he's saying it's surprising to see how in the richer countries, the consensus the kids should be protected has been lost.

And unfortunately, this will mean some measles or whooping cough deaths. And we've already seen some. So hopefully that will help get over the negative stories that circulate. Vaccines have saved more lives than any other tool. Say that again. Say it loud. Vaccines have saved more lives than any other tool.

And yes. And these people out there are just they're crazy. They're crazy. They're ill-informed. And they're just plain stupid. You know, if YouTube had any balls whatsoever, they would simply swap out every single one of these anti-vax videos with the clip from Penn and Teller's bullshit about vaccines.

I bet Penn and Teller would be very happy with that. They're like, just put it out there. They wouldn't even care about it being monetized, YouTube. So just go ahead and do it. Yeah. Maybe if there's some rogue moderator over there at YouTube and wants to have some fun, go find that clip. And then let's let's just replace every single one with that.

And this will all be over and you will be a hero. You will get fired, but you will be a hero. I also found an article over at The Next Web called Why Tech Giants Are Interested in Regulating Facial Recognition. Well, according to some of our listeners, why regulate anything, Jason? Oh, that's right. Some people are very anti-regulation.

The interesting thing that was my takeaway on this, I put a bunch of bullets here in the show notes, and I'm going to skip 99% of them. OK, because what it really kind of comes down to is keeping their their competitive advantage.

So if they have regulation for facial recognition and they have systems that are in place that everybody has to play by these rules and all this stuff, it makes it harder for smaller companies to come into the space and really innovate and do anything that is against the regulations.

OK, so it's kind of a business tactic. When it really comes down to it. Now, I kind of get that, but I also don't. There are many things that are going to keep smaller businesses from getting into this and getting ahead because they don't have the money.

They don't have the resources. They don't have everything. We are in de facto monopolies already with these. So, yeah, there are sometimes this happens, but, you know, not often enough, in my opinion. Yeah, and so I don't know if it's just regular getting rid of this regulation is to help a smaller business get get a head start is OK.

I can kind of understand that. Or we could regulate the giant monopolies and have a level playing field. Well, that's that's the next step. But I just think it's interesting that they, you know, that they're all starting to pile on saying we need regulation because I'm guessing that there is a star chamber of these guys.

Oh, we're sitting around saying, you know, we've got some stuff coming out of China that might really be, you know, coming up against us here soon because we know that China is doing a lot of facial recognition. And so this could be just a way to keep them out of the marketplace when their systems come online and they want to sell to U.S. companies.

Right. I'm just, you know, I'm just throwing it out there. No, no. I mean, that is a valid argument. Right. I mean, at least if it happens internally in the U.S. or the EU or whatever, then we just know Amazon or Facebook. Facebook will swoop in and buy them. But, yeah, we can't let those Chinese get ahead of us. Nope, not at all.

And there is one part that I want to harp on on this article. They say there are no standards on fair and ethical use of facial recognition. At least they're talking about ethics, which is nice. And this is this is great. This comes from Amazon. In the two plus years we've been offering Amazon recognition, we have not received a single port of misuse by law enforcement.

But what does misuse actually mean when there are no rules on use versus misuse? This is true. We don't have the ethics in play there, so we don't know what is good or bad. So how does one apply that metric? Yep. So I just think it's a I think it's a very interesting discussion that's going on.

So all these links will be in the show notes at GOG slash three, two, four. In the news.

Unfortunately, there has been an accident with Amazon Prime Air in Texas. One of their cargo planes crashed. Oh, that's that's unfortunate. Yeah, three people died. Very sad. Boeing 767, which is not a small plane. No, that's a big one. That's a big one.

And it was like 30 miles out when it just kind of went sideways and nose dove into a swamp. Right. And there were witnesses that said that there were engine problems. Like they could hear the engines like, you know, making strange noises. And they came out to look and then they saw the thing just go sideways and go down.

And that always terrifies me because I kind of live within flight paths of both Santa Monica Airport and LAX. And I always like whenever you hear a plane sound not normal, you go, oh, boy. Yeah, no, that has been a recurring nightmare of mine since I was like 10 years old that there's going to be a plane that lands on me.

It's just one of those weird recurring dreams. I'm sure it means something. I'm sure I can look. I'm sure it does. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And then there's I'm not even going to go into it. We're done with that. So they're trying to figure out what happened right now. But the problem is the thing landed in a swamp. Right.

So I suppose it's too soon to make a joke about wondering if there are any Wilson basketballs on the flight. Oh, yeah. Too soon. Too soon. Too soon. And stamps.com, one of the greatest advertisers on podcasts in the world. This is bad news for all podcasters.

You know what? It actually actually really is. This is really not good news because stamps.com stock has dropped 50 percent after it shut down its exclusive partnership with the United States Postal Service. Well, who would have guessed that if you have an exclusive deal, you're going to make all the monies.

As soon as that goes away and you have competitors, you're not going to be worth as much. But here's the thing. It's the other way around. Like stamps.com is the one that ended the partnership. Yeah. I don't know why they did that. So they can use other providers because the Postal Service isn't the only game in town now.

That's true. So the problem they were having was like people are sending packages through the Postal Service. It's expensive and it takes forever. So they want to partner with other people like UPS and FedEx and God forbid DHL. But and maybe someday Amazon.

Right. Because. Because, yes, Amazon is going to start rolling out their own delivery service. Well, they I mean, it's they have more capacity than almost anybody on the planet right now. And UPS and FedEx can probably use the money. So it makes sense for them to stop partnering exclusively with one provider. I get what they're doing, but it's going to take time to roll that back up.

So. OK. You know, you think the stock is a good time to buy is what you're saying. It's probably a good time to buy. It probably is. Yeah. I've never used it, but I don't mail anything. I don't mail anything either. But actually, it's kind of funny because my kids preschool is doing like this huge online auction and things like that for a fundraiser.

And they were complaining and we had to go to the mandatory meeting this weekend or last weekend about this. And they were complaining about, you know, how they really need volunteers to do all the shipping and stuff like that, because it's a pain in the butt because you have to go to the post office. And I just raised my hand and said, can we just sign up with stamps dot com and have the box here?

Like, that'll be really easy. And scored me some points there. There you go. Listen to the smart guy in the room. OK. Listen, listen to the smart guy that's been inundated with stamps dot com ads on every podcast he's listened to for the last eight years. Oh, and I still can't get how stamps dot com says you have to click the microphone in the top and enter the code.

I'm like, do you not know how to do a custom URL with tracking? Apparently not. Which makes me scared to use your service, to be quite honest. Right. Oh, man. Lime scooters is having some issues now. Some big issues. You mean there's a problem with having some sort of remote controlled system when you're moving around at high speeds?

Yeah, yeah, there seems to be. And now the thing about it is it's not so much. This is a different one than the one I talked about where they were geofencing for different speeds. This is one where they're saying that the brakes might engage if you're going fast down a hill and then get thrown out.

Which is exactly what you don't want. No, you don't want anything. When you're on a vehicle, especially a two wheeled vehicle, you do not want anything hitting the brakes for you. No, you want to be in control of that in and of yourself. Yeah.

So this is this originally came out of New Zealand, but they're rolling out a firmware fix. Yeah. And but and Lime also does say they're they're upset by this issue, but specifically only 0.0086 percent of riders were impacted by this.

OK, that's fair. Yeah. And that's, you know, just a few out of the one point eight million scooter rides to date that they small glitch. Yeah. But unless you're the pretty dangerous one. Yeah. Unless you're the people who got screwed over by this. You know, one guy got a broken jaw, dislocated shoulder.

Not good stuff. Not good stuff at all. Especially when you just want to go down to 7-Eleven and get some munchies. In Apple news this week, this is something that makes me happy. Apple is closing their retail stores in the Eastern District of Texas.

Now, why would they be doing that, Jason? Because that is where all the patent trolls go to file their lawsuits. And so they're saying, well, we have a we have a business here. So screw you guys. We're going home. We're taking our money and we're leaving.

Yeah. And it also, I do believe, changes like how they can deal with venues when it comes to these things. Right. I'm not exactly sure on the legalities of that. I did read that in one article, but it hasn't been mentioned in other articles. But they're like, yeah, we're just going to move the stores to Dallas.

And if you do work at any of the stores we're shutting down, if you'd like to come to our new stores, be our guest. Actually, they're even going to help as well. They're going to put some money to it to relocate people and things of that nature. So good move all around, I think. Yeah, I think so. I think so. Because, yeah, screw the Eastern District of Texas.

The patent troll stuff is just ridiculous. I mean, it is ridiculous. It's infuriating. Infuriating. So, yeah, all those guys can go die in a fire. Oh, man. Now, if you want to watch that fire in augmented reality, you can now do that with Microsoft's new HoloLens 2.

Right. I looked at this, or at least the promos for it. It looks pretty cool. Yeah, for $3,500. It's a little expensive. It's a little expensive. It's a little expensive. It better be. That is really a chunk of cash. But here's the thing. They're not pricing this for consumers.

No. They're pricing this for enterprise. Mm-hmm. So, they can throw out that $3,500 and say, hey, you know, you want us to make a custom one that goes on your hard hat? We're cool with that. But it's interesting how they're, like, running with this because they're not – I figure that Microsoft, they want to be in the, you know, the commercial space with just as many people as they could get.

But, nope, they're going enterprise. Well, it's too expensive right now, right? So, I think this is a really smart move for them because the technology itself to produce it is just way too expensive for the average consumer. So, let's start with, you know, enterprise. Let's sell a crap ton of these.

And in the meantime, we'll figure out a way to make these cheaper and faster and quicker and then price them for consumers. Yeah. Yeah. Get all the bugs out. Get the technology up. Get all the bugs out with, you know, the incredibly dangerous, you know, construction uses that this is going to be put forward.

I know. Yeah. Yeah. Let's get the bugs out with, you know, I-beams hanging 200 feet over your head. Yeah. Let's do it that way. But nobody said Microsoft was perfect. Yeah. But this does look pretty cool.

I mean, I've been very anti-VR because VR has been ridiculously stupid. I think AR is the way to go. And this is a pretty cool system from what I can tell. I would love to get my hands on one of these. Yeah. And this new one has twice the field of view because apparently the big problem with the first one was where the actual AR was happening was in such a small piece of the actual display that people were annoyed by it.

So, by doubling that, you know, I guess maybe you have two postage stamps that you can see through now. But the people I know that have tried it, they say it's pretty cool. They do say it's pretty cool. Excellent. And they're opening it up to third-party software developers now.

So, this one's really cool. The Unreal Engine is going to be coming to the HoloLens, which I'm like, why didn't you do that from the get-go? Because that's what I want, you know? Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah, I wonder why we haven't heard anything from Magic Leap recently. Oh, yeah.

That's right. Yeah. Well, actually, I stopped the emails. They were emailing me every day. And then I'm like, okay, I'm still not buying your thing. Give me V2 and we'll talk about it. Yeah. Let's see when V2 comes. Now, we got some news from your favorite social media platform, barring, you know, the executives because we all hate those.

But there's one less these days. Ev Williams has finally moved on. He left his place on Twitter's board to, quote, unquote, right off into the sunset and, quote, unquote, focus on some other things, which we know the other thing is medium. But I guess it's kind of a not great thing because even though he hadn't made any effective notable decisions within the company, he's been a bit of a gadfly to Jack Dorsey, basically criticizing Twitter all the time.

And I think Twitter's board needs a lot of people criticizing it. And so I don't know if it's a good thing or a bad thing that he's moving on. Yeah, I don't think he's made any real difference. I mean, yes, he can criticize all he wants. But since he can't, I mean, yeah, he's on the board. He can veto some things.

But the one thing he hasn't done is gotten Jack out the door. So, well, that's never Jack is going to leave Twitter the same day that Zuck resigns from Facebook. Yeah. People are going to die with with the majority share. We generally don't cover things that don't exist yet.

We do like to make fun of we actually do. Otherwise, we wouldn't have a lot of news because everybody promises shit that doesn't exist yet. Yeah. Yeah. But I guess this one kind of exists in the in the factory level and things like that. BMW has a new natural interaction system.

Okay. They say they're going to launch in 2021 BMW iNext electric SUVs. And, of course, it's got AI. Of course, it does. It's got gesture recognition. So you can, like, point out the window to a store and ask what time it's open or things like that.

Like, what are the hours of the store? And then you, like, bang your head on the window because you forget the window's not open. Things like that. So they're putting in AR, basically. Kind of. To a degree. Kind of. Kind of. I mean, it's a voice AR, but I don't think they're doing anything on the actual screens, but they're going to have gaze control.

So I love this gesture and gaze control to turn down the volume, open the sunroof or adjust air vents. If I'm just turning a knob is just too damn hard. If I'm gesturing already, can't I just go, like, three inches more and turn the knob or change the vent?

It does seem a little ridiculous, but, you know, there you go. I suppose, I suppose, really old folk among us were like, can't you just get up and turn on the TV? Yeah. Maybe this is what we're doing here, but it does seem a little ridiculous that you can't just move your hand a little.

I mean, it's all right there. That's the whole point. You've got a control system. Yes. Ergonomics and interface design and things like that, they have a good place in here. But now that I can actually talk to my car. Yes. I kind of get it. The problem is I'm going to get in an accident because I'm looking down trying to find the goddamn button on the steering wheel.

I can't find the button. Yeah. Well, you learned that all pretty quick. I actually would like to see them move more into AR. My BMW right now has a heads-up display that does some basics like the speed I'm going or if I've got maps engaged, it'll tell me when to turn and what lanes to be in and all that sort of stuff.

And I'd love to see more of that. I think it's really, it's, I've come to really enjoy it and rely on it. It's fantastic. That's actually kind of nice. I didn't know that did that. Yeah. I can even like scroll, I can scroll through the mic, my different radio stations and it's all in the heads-up display. So I don't have to take my eyes off the road. Smart stuff.

Now, is this displayed on your, on the actual windshield or do you have a, like a panel in front of you? It's displayed on the windshield. There's a, there's a little, yeah, it's cool. Next time you come down, I'll show you. Okay, man. And I thought my new car was fancy. Damn. Well, you have some other fancier stuff. I don't have the degree of voice control that you do, but I do love my heads-up display.

I want to see more of that in cars. Another thing that mine has that just actually came into play the other day, there's a, there is one little heads-up display, but let me quickly do something that'll annoy a bunch of listeners, which we will get to in feedback loop. I meant my HUD display.

Your HUD display. Yes, that's right. Oh my God. So my HUD display told me the other day, like I'm, I'm driving along and somebody turned into the left lane to make a left turn. And I don't know if you know this in California, but people can't figure out that a left turn lane, your entire car is supposed to be in it.

Right? Yeah. Your entire car, the whole car, not, you know, two thirds of the car with your ass and sticking out into traffic. Well, my car actually now tells me when some idiot does that. There's a red light that fires up on the windshield and says, uh, there's an idiot that's turning left and stopped.

So you might want to slow down. I'm like, and it worked. They told me about it at the dealership and I'm like, I don't know when, what's that going to be? And it's like two days in and it works. And I'm just like slamming on the brakes. Cause as soon as that happens, it precharges the brakes. So when you hit them, they're like already like heated up and ready to go and lock immediately.

Right. Which is pretty cool. I thought that was cool. Excellent. Yeah. I like that too. Now I've got a story that has a double whammy that I'm happy about here. Uh, San Francisco automatically expunges 8,100 marijuana convictions using a computer program.

Okay. We made marijuana legal here. This makes sense. Let's go through. Let's, let's, uh, retroactively expunge these convictions and things like that because it is no longer a crime and these people's records should be cleared. And, uh, they used an algorithm machine learning to go through and, uh, do that.

And they didn't call it AI. Cause it's just, isn't it just kind of a grip? You just grip for marijuana? Yeah, it basically is. Yeah, pretty much. But, uh, you know, any other organization known to man would have referred to this as AI right now.

That's true. That is true. So I'm very happy about that. This is a good use of machine learning. So well done, San Francisco. Yeah. Even though it's not really machine learning. Now work on those homeless problems. Yeah. I know. Yeah. The other thing is though, have they let anybody out of jail that is currently in for marijuana charges?

Because that's the next step. That is the next step. Let's get them out. Get them out. Now I saved the best for last because why the hell not? Yeah. I think by now everybody's heard about the trauma floor, the secret lives of Facebook moderators in America. And if you haven't, you obviously do not read tech news because it is everywhere.

Yep. And this is a very disturbing article over at the verge. And it's disturbing because we've been saying this for how long now that this is going to Oh, a long time. Yeah. Finally, somebody did real journalism, which we are not funded enough to do.

Patreon.com slash GOG. And the thing about this is, is there are a lot of moderators or Facebook now in the U.S. Facebook is higher. Because there has to be. Yeah. Look, we talk about there not being jobs or anything like that.

And, you know, the forthcoming apocalypse with AI and things like that. I envision a future where basically all we are, all we are, are moderators from now on because we can't get enough of them. Yeah, you can't. And that's what I've been saying is that there is too much content to be moderated by people.

Everybody's going to be doing it. And that's why we don't need these walled gardens. Go back to just ban the walled gardens because it's just making life miserable for everyone. And so here's the deal. The moderators that they have at this Cognizant place over in Phoenix, they make about $28,000 a year.

And that's not the part that pisses me off. The part that pisses me off is the average Facebook employee has a total compensation package of $240,000 a year. Yep. I'm sorry. What? Oh, my God.

So what it is basically is that a lot of people are contracting PTSD. They have to see some of the worst bits of humanity over and over again all day long. And they have turned into, you know, horrible people because they have to look at they're nice people when they come in and they turn to garbage people later because of all the garbage people posting garbage on Facebook.

Yeah. You steep yourself in stuff and you're going to come out changed. And it's happening to all these people. It sucks. I mean, this is they're not getting paid well. They're not being treated well. They're and it's just they're watching the worst of the worst of the worst of human beings all day long, every day.

Yeah. I mean, we talked about, you know, the Filipino sweatshops where they had to look at this stuff. But, you know, the cultural norms of the U.S. mean that they need people here in the U.S. Like people over there or in any other country aren't going to quite get like our norms and what things are. You know, we talked about sayings and things like that before, how your wife didn't get, you know, yeah, culture, you know, like, you know, pop culture references and things like that.

And a lot of people don't even speak English in the old places that they were doing it. So they have like 7,800 people here now from a couple of different companies. And these are big companies. I had no idea these companies existed. These are like mega companies. Yeah. I'll talk about them in a second. But what's really just, you know, sad about this is that it doesn't need to be this way.

It really doesn't. No, it doesn't. But it is. The thing that really got me about this entire article is not just, you know, when we think about this, the first thing that comes to mind or, you know, we see horrible beheadings or, you know, children being abused or things of that nature.

The thing that really freaks me out is we're really starting to discover how these things affect our brains. The employees that have begun to embrace the fringe viewpoints of the videos and memes they're supposed to be moderating, they're steeped in it.

We're seeing how this works, how this works on our brains. They're watching these things and they start to believe them. Yep. The Phoenix site is now home to a flat earther and a Holocaust denier. A former employee said he no longer believes 9-11 was a terrorist attack because they are steeped in these idiotic memes.

They start to believe it. Come back to my point earlier about anti-vaxxers. Mm-hmm. Callback. And that's what I'm worried about. People that are just seeing this stuff all day long and they just take over this stuff. And, you know, as someone who used to spend a lot of time on 4chan, which explains a lot about...

Way too much time. No, I did. I was trying to find memes and stories and things like that over there. And you see some really horrible stuff. I can't go back there now because I've seen some of the worst of the worst of the worst. So I know what these people are seeing every day. It is traumatic.

And it really does mess you up. And it messed me up for a long time just because you'd be scrolling through trying to find something. And then, you know, I'm not even going to describe the things because they're so horrific. And it's just like, is that... Oh, my God. And then you just have to, like, close your computer and take a break.

And my stupid habit was to look at it when I'm having my coffee in the morning. So my entire day was ruined. And actually, the week was ruined because you have nightmares about some of the stuff that you see there. I understand what these people are going through. And I did it like an idiot voluntarily trying to just dig into what 4chan was and get more information about it.

But, you know, I mean, I guess you can say that it's not voluntary because they need to make a living. And that's the only job they can get. Yeah, it's not. And the thing, after reading this article and sitting with it for a while, I got really, really disturbed. Because, okay, these people are trying to make a living.

And they don't really have a choice. And they're doing it to be paid. It's their job. I cast my mind back to what I was like as a teenager. And think of yourself as a teenager, Jason. We were curious and the internet was just starting. And we looked. We went out and we searched for things.

And it was relatively benign back then. Okay, maybe there were some boobies, some porn. That was about as bad as it got. It's a completely different world out there now. And I'm thinking about my own son. And I'm thinking about the generation of kids right now. 10. It starts even younger. But, you know, 11, 12, 13, 14.

We're seeing how badly these things mess people up when they're forced to see it a lot. Kids, teenagers, it's their natural inclination to go and search and see and look just out of curiosity's sake. How are these kids' minds getting warped?

All of them. Especially because their brains aren't fully formed yet. Exactly. And this is what they're seeing. And we can't stop them from seeing it. And, you know, I don't know what we're going to do about this. I'm really getting worried about what society is going to be like in another 10, 15, 20 years.

Yeah, it's going to be weird. It's going to be weird. Definitely. And Facebook came out with a post in their newsroom called, Our Commitment to Our Content Reviewers. Oh, go fuck yourself. Yeah, let me, I mean, everybody at Facebook should have to spend two weeks in the role that these people, these moderators are doing.

Yep. Period. Part of your job training. Should be, you know, like a lot of places will put you in customer support first. So you have to answer all the questions and learn how the software works and all this stuff. Every single person that makes that $200,000 fucking $40,000 a year should have to spend at least two weeks doing that.

And Zuckerberg should be chained to one of those desks for eternity for what he's done. And here's the thing. The language in the post about wellness and resiliency support shows that it's a shit fucking job.

It is making people mentally ill and it's infecting the good people with the shit garbage people post. And I swear to God, Facebook is a fucking virus. And I just, I think, I mean, everybody just quit. It's not, Facebook isn't a virus. Facebook is a virus distribution center.

Well, it's a virus factory. Yeah, exactly. Because, I mean, all they're doing right now is they're taking good people and making them bad. Or just messing them up and they're going to have to live with this stuff that they've seen for the rest of their lives. It's not going to go away. I still see shit that I saw on 4chan, you know, even just voluntarily that comes back to haunt me.

These people are doing it day in, day out, eight hours a day, two 15-minute breaks, a 30-minute lunch break with no toilets. I mean, I'm like, this isn't fucking Phoenix. We're not talking about Djibouti here. Well, they've got to look at Djibouti. And Zuckerberg needs to be hooked up to a vice a la Clockwork Orange for just a couple days to see what he has wrought.

No, you know, here's the deal. What they need to do is just put up an ad for all of these companies and say, just now hiring sociopaths. Because those are the only people with no feelings that should be allowed to do this work. It just pisses me off.

And so then I go look at Cognizant's website. Would you like to know, have you looked at Cognizant's website? I have. Yeah. You tell me how many slides that are on that front page that say AI. All of them.

All of them. Fucking all of them. Is there any AI? Or is it just Meet AI? 280,000 Meet computers make the AI up for Cognizant. That's how many employees they have. 280,000. And the other one's Accenture. They've got 400,000 and some odd employees.

But they've got blockchain on theirs. Ooh, do they? Yeah, they've got blockchain. They put misery on the blockchain. This episode of Grumpy Old Geeks is brought to you by Hover. Building your online brand has never been more important.

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Media Candy. Still working through my Oscar screeners now that the Oscars are over. The wife and I watched Vice the other night. Phenomenal. Really? Yes. Okay. Well worth seeing. It's by the same group of people that did Too Big to Fail.

So it's got a bit of that edgy production that I was not expecting because I didn't realize that going into it. I was expecting it just to be kind of a straight up movie. But there's some good asides and weirdness that goes on. That's really enjoyable. I completely, Christian Bale, whatever you feel about him, I forgot that he was even in it.

Like I did not realize it was him. He transformed himself so much. And so did Amy Adams. She did an amazing job as well. This is, I kind of wish this would have won Best Picture. Okay. I got to check it out. It's actually on my, it's in my media library right now. Highly recommended, man.

Really, really enjoy it. Okay, cool. And I went back and listened to, I talked about the Clear and Vivid with Alan Alda, which I initially got interested in because he did the MASH reunion episode. And I went back to listen to a couple other episodes. The Stephen Fry episode is a pure delight. I haven't heard that one yet. Alan Alda and Stephen Fry sitting in a room together.

You cannot even imagine a better conversation. Oh, yeah. I got to get that one for sure. Yeah. Just, I was grinning ear to ear the entire time, just listening to them talk to each other. I wish it would have went on like 18 more hours. Yeah. It really, I mean, these two guys' minds are unbelievable.

And to have them sit and talk together was just phenomenal. And then, of course, I had to go back and listen to the Michael J. Fox episode because he did, Alan Alda did that because they both have Parkinson's disease and they talked about it together. And it was, you know, the exact opposite experience from Stephen Fry where I was grinning ear to ear.

This one was just, it was heart-wrenching to listen to. But it was a really good episode. I got to say, everybody should listen to it because it was a really good episode. Just how they talk about how they get through the day and all the tools that they use to, you know, get through the disease. It's a fascinating episode.

It was a really deep insight into people living with Parkinson's. Yeah. Yeah, it was very good. And in hologram news, the Amy Winehouse hologram tour, which all of us prayed would go die in a fire, has gone and died in a fire. Okay. We're not getting it.

We still understand that holograms don't exist, right? Right. Well, okay. So Bass Hologram, the company behind the production, announced on Twitter that is putting the tour on hold until we determine the best path to a creatively spectacular production that would properly honor the singer's legacy.

Apparently, the company has run into unique challenges and sensitivities because holograms do not exist yet. Okay. It's just like AI. There we go. Yeah. So there you go. I mean, they were able to pull off a couple small things at, you know, Coachella with Tupac and things of that nature.

But a full, you know, tour that relies entirely on a hologram for an entire show. Yeah, no. Okay. Gotcha. So I watched Abducted in Plain Sight on Netflix on Saturday or actually right before the Oscars. The red carpet was so boring.

We're like, let's just watch something on Netflix. And we grabbed Abducted in Plain Sight. So you were in a good mood. Oh, well, actually, I was. Have you seen it yet? No, I've been told by a number of people that I need to watch. Okay, no spoilers. But 20 minutes in, you're going to stop.

You're going to stop it. You're going to pause it. And you're going to scream out loud. What the fuck? I tell you, I shit you not. You're going to do that. Okay. I was, I was, we covered this on an upcoming show for the Jordan Harbinger show. And he had put it in because he had just seen it too.

Jordan had just seen it. And I was just sitting there waiting for it, waiting for it. And he's just like, I watched this on a plane and at 20 minutes, I just started just, I mean, I'm sitting there with my iPad and just started busting up laughing. And you just can't, it's just like, it's a, it's a mind bender when you see what happens at 20 minutes, highly recommended.

And then it just gets weirder and weirder and weirder. It's a story about a little girl who was abducted twice by the same guy and the family who let it happen. And, and it is just, it is like, why, why there's a statute of limitation on these parents?

I'm sensing these are some people that could have used some CRISPR injections to get a little more intelligence. Mormons. Oh, there you go. Yeah. Okay. No, no offense. No offense, Mormons. But yeah, well, hopefully you're not these types of Mormons because holy shit balls. Yeah.

I highly, highly recommend everybody go watch abducted in plain sight and just, just prepare yourself that at 20 minutes, you're going to have to like take a break. And then rewind, watch it again to be, make sure you heard what you just heard. And then, you know, continue about the rest of the rest of the film.

Right. At the library. As I mentioned, I was rereading Seven Eves the last week by Neil Stevenson. Don't need to get too into it. You all know what we feel about it.

We've been talking about it since it came out, but I have to say a second read was amazing for it because I knew all the beats. I was able to focus on the small details. And as we discussed at the time, the world building that he did was just phenomenal. I enjoyed the second read even better than the first. It was really great to revisit it all and just pay attention to all the little details.

First half of the book, which you love, Jason, obviously, I mean, amazing meant to be a movie, could have been a movie, should be a movie. Second half of the book, far more nuanced and weird and interesting and world building. And I enjoyed both parts again immensely. And I think if you give it a second read, you'll come around to my way of thinking about the whole second half.

Okay, I might. I've got a huge queue right now, but yeah, I mean, it's that's one of those books where HBO should just do like a Game of Thrones thing, make it six seasons and just run with it. Be amazing. It would be amazing. Yep. So I was reading Dead Moon by Peter Clines.

I finished it. Fun book. Fun book. Good suspense. Good plot. Decent ending. It's pretty decent ending. I really dug it. And of course, Moon Zombies. How can you go? Now, this is the Audible exclusive, right? Yes, you have to listen to it. You cannot get this in an actual reading book format.

No, you cannot. It might come out eventually. But the thing about the guy who reads this, I swear to God, it's a full cast. It sounds like a full cast. He is so good. It's just it's unbelievable how good he is.

It really is amazing. Excellent. So if you're into audio books, get Dead Moon by Peter Clines, because man, is it good. Moron of the Week. Now, I'm not sure if this is Moron of the Week or Hero of the Week in this particular story, but I do love it.

Now, you know, Jason, when you start up a business, you got to kind of make a splash, do something out there to get people's attention and, you know, try to try to get some customers. Yeah. And hope that so you might do something a little crazy and hope it takes off. With that in mind, Don Moon in Sandusky, Ohio, started a new nail salon and decided to call it Handjobs.

Nice. I like it. Yeah. Well, not everybody in our community thought that was great. Some residents and community figures see it as offensive. So there's a bit of a kerfuffle going on there. But I would go to a place called Handjobs. Yeah. I do like a mani-pedi. And if it comes to the happy ending, hell, I'm in.

I think that's what the community figures were worried about. Yeah. The impression of that. But well done, Don. I think I'm going to call you a hero. Yeah. And in your Le Dibble link that you put in the show notes, the best comment is, there's a nail place here in Portland with two locations called Finger Bang.

And it's a great place. No one trips about the name at all. Well, you know, fuck Ohio then. Go to Portland. Don should move. No, as soon as, yes, as soon as you put that in, I could have, of course, not, not think about the, uh, the great classic Cartman song from South Park, Finger Bang. Link in the show notes.

Link in the show notes. And, uh, my moron of the week. I got, I got two, but, uh, Husqvarna creates timber dating app to connect tree lovers with trees from around the world. Aw. So you can swipe and find the different types of trees.

And it's just a little web app. It's, it's nothing special. Now, the funny thing about this is they're showing you all these beautiful pictures of trees and, you know, stats on the trees. I don't know if you know what Husqvarna is mainly known for besides motorcycles. Nope.

Well, they're known for chainsaws. So if you get to the end of the timber dating app, you can go to Husqvarna Chainsaw Academy and learn all about their chainsaws. So you can kill all the trees you just fell in love with. Yes. You can cut down the love of your life.

Yeah. Yeah. Nice. Way to go guys. Now I've got a hero of the week. Uh, it's a sad indictment about our society, but, but it is a hero. Terry Robinson, uh, Robinson, I think, I believe he posted on Instagram about three weeks ago, his plan for retirement. No nursing home for us.

We'll be checking into a holiday in with the average cost of a nursing home care costing $188 per day. There is a better way when we get old and too feeble. I've already checked on reservations at the holiday and for a combined long-term stay discount and senior discount, it's $59 and 23 cents per night. Breakfast is included and some have happy hours in the afternoon that leaves $128 and 77 cents a day for lunch and dinner in any restaurant we want or room service, laundry, gratuities and special TV movies.

Plus they provide a spa, swimming pool, a workout room, a lounge and washer dryer, et cetera. And it goes on and on and on about all the ways that they would save money staying at a holiday inn instead of a nursing home. Genius. Yep. Uh, there's a, there's another class of people that I know that do that too.

When they retire, they go on a cruise ship for basically the rest of their life. They are perpetual cruisers because it is cheaper than getting a nursing home. Yeah. So they just, I, it is. We had, we had dinner with them a couple of times on a different cruises that we went because, um, friend of the show, Bob and I, and his lovely wife, Stacy went on a couple Irish music cruises.

And on those cruises, we ran into people who were just perpetual cruisers because it was cheaper. And, you know, I got to say, if you can afford it, that's a little better than the holiday inn. It might be. Yeah. But, uh, the plus side of this, as he points out, is you can move from city to city anytime you want, because there are holiday inns basically everywhere.

Um, you know, they take care of all your maintenance. You don't have any upkeep. You don't have anything. And they've got a maid that'll check in on you and see if you're okay. Now, the only problem here is of course, obviously if you are really sick, there's no nurses there, but, uh, they'll send you to the hospital. Yeah. Yeah. Or you can get one of those. I've fallen and I can't get up buttons.

If you really need help. Uh, I've got a friend, Johnny, who lives down the road at, uh, the Knights Inn and he's lived there for like 10 years and he has a double suite and it's cheaper than an apartment in Los Angeles. And he has maid service every day, is friends with the owners and plans to never leave.

So he's figured it out too. There's a, there's a lot of, you know, it's, it's the hotel economy. That's what you got to do nowadays. Yep. Now the final moron of the week. Oh boy. Our best friend Elon Musk is back in the news. Oh, what'd he do this time? Well, there's the thing.

I'm, I'm, the story is still kind of shaken out here. Uh, the, the SEC is saying that he broke the terms of the agreement that they had where he needs to have his, you know, tweets checked by an adult, which I love. He says in a tweet that Tesla would make around 500,000 vehicles this year.

And then a couple hours later, he clarified that meant to say the company's annualized production rate at the end of 2019 could be around 500,000 vehicles. Okay. Total deliveries for the year is still estimated at 400,000. Okay. Musk said. Well, then the SEC just, you know, starts going, ah, this is not good.

This is not good. Well, apparently in the earnings transcript that goes to the SEC, they clearly state that they're going to be making 350,000 to 500,000 vehicles. So he's right in there. He's, he's right in the pocket.

So I don't think he was out of bounds. So is Elon the moron or is the SEC the moron? I think the SEC at this point. And by the way, it would be really nice if other major, say, world figures, um, had their tweets checked as much as Elon's.

Yeah. Yeah. Seriously. For accuracy. Just saying. Feedback loop. We've got some new Patreon subscribers, Warren, Johannes, Dennis, and Will. And Will writes in on the off chance you guys read these messages. Thanks so much for continuing to produce one of my favorite podcasts.

So glad we all have an option to further support you. Keep up the kick-ass work from a fellow grumpy geek. Well, thank you very much. Thank you. And we do read almost everything. Actually, we read everything. Just not always on here. And we also got a message from Vinny. Social interactions in your mobile games make the monies. Maybe this company has yet to turn a profit, but we'll expect to in 2020.

Keyword Studios acquires GetSocial for undisclosed some. And this is in the Irish Times. And then he asks, what would you do if you had won the 175 million Euro millions lottery this week? Uh, not do this podcast anymore. You wouldn't be hearing from us. Nope. We would be ghosting.

That's what we'd be doing. I'd be in the Holiday Inn in Ireland. Exactly. Yep. Yep. I would buy all the Holiday Inns in Ireland so I could just bounce between them all. Yeah. And Will writes in, remember to hit the star button on each episode if you listen via Overcast. It's totally the best podcast app.

I'm not affiliated with Overcast or GOG other than being a happy patron and listener of GOG on iOS. But let's get this machine rolling even harder, fellow grumpy geeks. Apologies for the overenthusiasm. Let's keep supporting good stuff, folks. I'm going to go listen to Slayer now. Cheers. Well, thank you, Will.

Now I can take that out of the plug at the end of the segment. Yep. Perfect. And over on PayPal, we got a new recurring donation from Martin, who says, long time listener decided today to start supporting the show on a monthly basis through PayPal. Congratulations on keeping up the show. Stay grumpy. See, I told you that stay grumpy thing is catching on.

It's nice to know that people listen all the way to the end. Yeah. It's surprising. It's very surprising. And before we get into the rest of this, I do want to say thank you to everyone who wrote in about my CarPlay issue with Google Maps. I did not do my due diligence and look at the settings for CarPlay because I didn't really know there were any because I spent five minutes with it.

So, like the 400 people that wrote me here and on Twitter and everywhere else, we appreciate the feedback. And yes, I'm going to go play with it and figure it out. So, thank you, everyone. Thank you. Now I know to, you know, check the settings. Yes. And over on Facebook, we got a new recommendation from Michaela.

I work in baby IT, critical incident response team, though working on becoming a field engineer and listening to these grumps do their gripes really helps me stay up to date on all the latest shenanigans in tech and media. Not to mention, as an avid reader, yes, audio counts, especially when ADHD says the hands needs to be doing things.

Yes. I love their solid recs at the library segment. As I'm among the oldest of the millennials born in 1994, people born after are Gen Z. I both appreciate and groan at their constant harshing on my generation. But to be honest, a lot of us do kind of suck. But then again, a lot of homo sapiens kind of suck.

So what you're going to do, I'm with you on that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The suck is, I think, an even distribution at this point. It's an even distribution curve of all generations. Yeah, pretty much. And over on Twitter, Fernando writes in, hey, grumps, read this thought of my favorite podcast.

And it's an article over at MIT's Technology Review. Once hailed as unhackable, blockchains are now getting hacked. Who'd have thunk it? Nothing is unhackable. But on the plus side now, if you can hack the blockchains, we can get the child porn that people are putting in there out. Yep, we can. We can. Yay, blockchain.

Yay, blockchain. And Barrett sends in shoes as a service fail. Nike self-lacing sneakers turn into bricks after faulty firmware update. Not everything needs to be on the goddamn internet, people. I read this. I read this, and I was just cracking up. They're like, you know, my left shoe would lace, my right shoe wouldn't.

Then I had to reset my shoes. I couldn't get my battery levels right. I'm just like, they're fucking shoes. Yep. They're shoes. Oh, God. And Bastion writes in, another sci-fi book recommendation. Armor by John Stakely.

I'll have to check that out. Never heard of him. So we'll take a look. Thank you so much for that. Derek writes in, we're fucked. Visualizing what a warming world looks like. 18 of the 19 warmest years on record have occurred since 2001, and this is a thread over on Reddit that you can read if you really want to get depressed. No, no.

After that Diane, or I was going to say Diane Warren, but Diane Feinstein thing came out about the kids saying that the world's going to end in 10 years and all this stuff. Every night, my roommate's like, are we really going to die in 10 years? Is everything going to go to hell in 10 years? I'm like, if it is. Probably not.

Probably not, but if it is, what can you do about it? Exactly. So just kind of go about your day. Have some mirth, people. Hilly Tech writes in, don't worry, guys. Samsung knows what their users want. The Galaxy S10 has a native cryptocurrency wallet. Now you can harvest crypto coin for bad actors while storing some for yourself.

Truly innovation at work. And who's to say there's no innovators anymore? Look at that. Yeah. And Quantum Leap sends in, the problem with listening to your podcast is we all start by being grumpy and referring to ignorant internet users as idiots. A few hours later, I'm sitting here asking myself, did I really use idiots? Eh, it's okay.

Don't worry about it. No, it happens. It happens to the best of us. See previous story about the content moderators and how it changes your brain. And over at GOG.show, Ivor writes in, hey guys, just finished listening to episode 320. Thanks.

I hate it. Where you responded to some feedback questioning Brian's almost Marxist fascination for regulation as an antidote to the excesses of runaway market capitalism. I'm sure there is a place for regulation. And Jason's example of his friend who works in real estate is a good one of how regulation can be useful when protecting the interests of the consumer.

However, I'm sure you would agree that regulation and innovation can have unintended consequences. Okay, do we? Okay, we're not going to read the rest of this. We'll put some of the links in the show notes because he does go on and makes fun of me quite wonderfully a number of times. I've never said regulate everything to death.

I'm screaming for regulation on things that obviously need to be regulated. The monopolistic things that are going on, the insanity that's going on with that. There is no regulation. We need some. Everything has unintended consequences. We're seeing the unintended consequences that there being no regulation.

So how about we try the other one and see what those consequences will be? And he finishes with, as always, great to hear you guys sticking it to the man. Long live the people's revolution, Brian. Yes. I shall now go sing the Internationale several times in my unregulated shower.

Actually, your shower is regulated by local building laws. If you had an unregulated shower, you might get one of those brain viruses. Yeah, you could be using the raw water in a bucket out in the backyard. Was it when they were selling raw water in Silicon Valley? That was a moron of the week story a long time ago.

Remember, some company was marketing unclean water. Several companies were, yes. Unregulated, unclean water. And guess what you don't hear from anymore? You don't hear about the raw water movement anymore because they've all died of typhus and shit like that. All right. So I did have to look up the Internationale.

And I found a version and it's an English version by Billy Bragg. And I love Billy Bragg. So that link will be in the show notes if you want to go listen to it. It's fairly, fairly interesting. Right. Now we got a couple in a row that I want to quickly run through because this is hilarious to me as well. Peter.

Peter sends in, apparently I was not clearer. You referred to VIN numbers. The N stands for numbers, just like the M in ATM stands for machines. So when you say VIN numbers, you are saying vehicle identification number numbers and ATM machines, automated teller machine machines. Stay redundant. Very funny. Jason wrote in, you guys are awesome, but your old guyism was too much when you forgot what ATM and VIN mean.

And Quibble just sent in LOL ATM machines. I'm aware of that. Jason was aware of that. We know that. However, and this may be just because we're old. When I was growing up, everyone called them ATM machines or cash machines. That's just what we called them.

Well, cash machines is fine. Cash machines makes sense, but I'm saying it was used kind of interchangeably. When I was growing up, I got to go to the ATM machine. That's what everybody said. I know it's redundant and silly. There are lots of redundant and silly things that happen with the English language. And when my dad was filling out insurance for me and things like that with our cars, he always said, go grab the VIN number.

It just is what we did. And probably because we're old. On the plus side, we're not going to have cash or cars pretty soon. So this will be not important. That's right. That's right. Just never call it a software. Yes. Please ever. And Charles writes in.

First off, I love your podcast. I leased a 2017 base model Chevy Cruze. It didn't even have cruise control, but it did have CarPlay and Android Auto. This feature is now a requirement for any future vehicle I purchase. Second to cruise control, which is funny because you bought a Chevy Cruze, which doesn't have cruise control.

Seems like it had it right there on the tin. That's funny. Also, you can only know Google Maps, fine, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Of course, there's a subscription model courtesy of BMW. Once charging a one-time $300 fee to activate CarPlay, BMW owners that want the feature now get the first year free, then have to pay $80 a year to keep it activated.

And there's a link to CNET. That's a load of crap. Yeah, that sucks. But I don't have it right now anyway. You have to subscribe to your car now. Like you don't already do with car payments. Yeah, exactly. Your double subscription and, you know, mattresses have privacy policies.

What a world. Yep. Mike writes us. Hey, guys, longtime listener and Patreon donator. Heard your bit on the United States of apathy and the magnifying glass on new iPhones with no button. The easiest way to get to favorite features is to add them to the control center. Go to settings, control center, and customize controls.

I recommend adding low power mode, magnifying glass, and screen recording. To get to the control center, you swipe diagonally from the top right corner. It works on every screen and is really fast. Thanks for the show. Hey, good tip. Thank you. Yep. Yep. I'm adding it right now to my iPad Pro because it uses Face ID. And by the way, it's awesome.

I got to say, this iPad is so good. I spend so much time on it. Like most of the notes for this show were done on that iPad. It is so nice. And funny thing is, I already had it on the control center for my iPhone 8 Plus, which I can't even believe. So now I can take my three taps back to the black and white mode for nighttime watching.

So thank you very much, Mike. Alberto writes in, I'm a Linux user. Why do you not speak about Linux ever? And came across this, the Librem 5, which is a Linux-based phone made with privacy ethics. They also have a free OS for laptops. What do you reckon?

I'm curious because the phone OS is not Android-based. Fancy that. Well, I think we first heard about the Librem laptop on the Kashmir Hill articles and videos. Remember, that was the one that she got that, you know, she couldn't get to work. And then they, because they forgot to give her the password, but it looked like a cool laptop.

She seemed to use it okay. I haven't heard about the phone. I'm not going to switch to the phone because I'm in the Apple ecosystem. And as far as Linux goes, I think Jason and I both have PTSD from all the web dev that we did with it. And I actually have been using Linux recently because I'm finally getting rid of the last of my old client sites that I've been hosting and yelling at them for years to please take it over because I want to shut down my server.

And I just don't like being in Linux anymore. It doesn't bother me. I actually, when I get back into it, I've got iTerm in my bar here. You know, I can SSH with the best of them. I can Vim with the best of them. And it just comes back to me like, I mean, the muscle memory is built in. But yeah, I've been using, you know, Unix, Linux, BSD servers for years, but we don't talk about them on the show because we're trying to retire.

That's the whole point. We don't want to talk about them anymore. And Ivor sent in another little link here now that you've read about the bonkers world of Elizabeth Holmes. Own some Theranos history. You two could own a piece of Theranos, although I hope it's not one of the bits that Balto the Wolf shat on.

Okay. I don't know the Balto the Wolf story yet, but I haven't finished the Dropout podcast, so I will get to that. And I haven't read the article yet. But yeah, I don't want to own anything that those guys have ever done. Seriously. Me either. Bad juju. Bad, bad juju.

Martin writes in. You gave a listener some advice that I would really like to follow up on. He asked if he should become a coder, and he suggested that he get into cybersecurity instead. Well, I want to do this. Searching online gives me tons of certification programs, specialized areas, cloud, IT, development, etc., and so many choices that it seems hard to figure out where to even begin.

Can you give some further advice on where to begin? I am going to ask my cybersecurity friends about this, and I'll get back to you, Martin. And if anybody who's listening to the show has some tips or tricks or where Martin can start, please send them to jay at jpd.me, and I will put them in the next time we do feedback loop and follow up with Martin.

Yeah, we've had a few people ask about that, so we'll try to get some information about that. John writes, only recently discovered the show. Love it. Interested to hear you talking about regulations and air safety. After the 9-11 disaster, regulations required the cabin to be locked. Can you tell me if this has saved any lives? I know that it caused the deaths of 150 people in Germanwings Flight 9525, which in March 2015 was crashed to liberty by the co-pilot.

The captain, who I think had gone for a pee, tried desperately to break down the cabin door and get access to the cockpit, but could not. I suppose regulations do not take into account crazy suicidal Germans, but it seems to be a bad idea that the captain cannot get into the cockpit. Keep up the good work. Talk about an edge case. Yeah, and I think the captain probably didn't take his key with him, because I'm pretty sure that they have keys to get in.

They have keys, yes. So, yeah, that's an edge case, and I get it. I get where you're coming from. What's that podcast that we used to listen to that talked about the different dynamics of thinking and how you can get caught up in these circular bits of logic and find one edge case and say that that blah, blah, blah.

I believe you're talking about You Are Not So Smart? There you go. Yep. The You Are Not So Smart podcast. He's finally started putting out new episodes again. I saw. I saw. I was updating again, so I'm going to get back into listening to that. Yeah, he wrote a new book, which I can't wait for. Okay. And Ian writes in, hey, grumps.

Or grumps. I know this is from ZDNet, which I believe you hate if I remember correctly. You don't actually remember correctly. It is CNET. Yes. That is the evil one with the autoplay videos. But the irony of the headlining story in my email, followed immediately by the related section, suggesting five reasons why I need a password manager, was just too ironic that I had to send this over.

And the title of the article he's talking about is Severe Vulnerabilities and Covered in Popular Password Managers. Yes. We need the clicks. Yeah. Password managers are bad. Get a password manager. Yeah. Just get a password manager. Get a password manager. Yeah, please do.

Now, here's a big one. We have two very valid questions regarding Privacy.com, who is one of our premier sponsors this year on the show. I reached out to Bo, the CEO of Privacy.com, to address these concerns, which he did. So we're going to read the questions back to back and then read Bo's response. First up from Darla.

First, I find your podcast entertaining and educational. No surprise there. However, as a senior citizen who is very mindful of the financial dangers of purchasing on the Internet, I simply don't understand why anyone would want to use Privacy.com. Linking to your bank account, that's a door that makes me highly uneasy. Already with Social Security, we have one door open.

Then there are some services that will not auto-withdraw for payment via credit card, which we feel we must give access to, like utilities. One of those utilities was hacked two years ago back, gleaning tons of information, not the least of which was bank accounts. Whenever possible, I use a credit card to make automatic payments and have another credit card with a very low limit for online purchases.

I also use PayPal. Each credit card reports purchases to my email almost immediately, and if there's a problem, dealing with a credit card is much easier and less destructive than someone having access to your bank account. With the amount of hacking attacks, why would you expose your bank account just one more way? If you open a bank account for just that purpose and any other auto-withdrawals, that would work, but untangling fraud on a bank account is a very stressful experience.

If you practice good credit card habits, using a credit card from a major provider, in reality, is a better and safer option, in my humble opinion. I know they sponsor you, but shouldn't you educate people on the risk they take doing this? After all, as you often point out, nobody's safe from hacking. Fair. And Hacker E writes, Was looking into signing up on privacy.com, but then my security hat went on the following issues.

They wanted my checking account and routing numbers? Hmm, what can go wrong here? Why can't we use a credit card or PayPal? They wanted my bank account, username, and password? What the fuck? Now, I'm semi-okay with number one, but why number two? If their database ever gets hacked, things could go bad very quickly. We would hope that data and database would be encrypted, but you know how that goes.

So how do you feel about these issues, and should I be concerned or just sign up for the account? Stay grumpy. Enter Bo. There are two points to unpack here. The first is account and routing number security. It's important to note that while your account number is protected as highly sensitive information in our system, it's also in plain text at the bottom of every check that you use.

As a result, there are substantial safeguards in the banking system to prevent criminals from randomly draining a bank account using just account and routing numbers. A criminal would have to procure an illicit ACH merchant account to draw money out of your account using bank account and routing numbers. This is significantly harder to do compared to getting a credit card merchant account and gets shut down and reversed really fast.

Yeah, if it's harder to get than a credit card merchant account, Jesus Christ. Zooming back out, there are a bunch of trade-offs here. In terms of how much effort you want to make to prevent different attack vectors. We actually do see customers have a separate checking account to fund their privacy purchases, similar to how Darla has a credit card just for online purchases, which is also paid via bank account.

With privacy, you also don't need to deal with the headaches of swapping out the card-on-file relationships with a bunch of different merchants if the one card you use online gets stolen in a data breach. The second is how we retrieve this information using a bank login.

I understand this seems unorthodox and we're working on alternatives like a debit card and account plus routing number system. That said, I want to emphasize this. Bank login information is never stored on our system. We work with a company called Plaid to do this. They build bank APIs which allow us to verify you're the owner in real time.

And just to highlight, Plaid is not some fly-by-night company. They raised over $300 million from some of the biggest banks in the world, including Citi, American Express, and Goldman Sachs. They also power similar API connections for companies like Venmo, which is owned by PayPal, Coinbase, and Robinhood.

They also do it for sites like FreshBooks and QuickBooks and all the other ones. I've used these quite a bit. They're popping up everywhere. And there's an article that he put in here about fintech and their funding and everything. So lastly, a bit regarding our security.

Here's a brief technical overview of our security practices that are outlined here. And this is at privacy.com slash security. You can go check that out. It'll be linked in the show notes. And in less technical jargon, here's a few points that others have found compelling. Security ultimately boils down to mindset. Our sole focus is the security of your data.

It's core to what we do. Compared to many merchants, where security is a cost center meant to be minimized. There's an understated advantage to being a smaller, more modern organization. There's less surface area and potential attack vectors for hackers. We have less software to keep updated.

We have the benefit of not having to deal with decades of old legacy systems. We take a layered approach to security. Sensitive data is encrypted at the application layer with encryption keys stored only in memory on single-tenant hardware within private networks and firewalled with deny-by-default rules.

Further, we rotate encryption keys more frequently than the industry standard, peer-review all code, and for access controls, we follow principles of least privilege. It's impossible to be 100% breach-proof, so we collect minimal amount of sensitive data necessary. And in the event of a breach, stolen credit card numbers are still useless since they carry a zero balance.

Thanks, Beau. There you go. So I think we can put a bow on that. Very clever. All right. Over at iTunes, we got some five-star ratings. First, from Jonarner, from Iceland. It's funny and relevant. Been working in development for 20 years, but only recently joined a Silicon Valley company.

I've listened to GOG for a long time, but it's all too real now. Thanks for turning me into a GOG. Nice. Well, congratulations on the new job. Anthony Rossbach writes in, and he's from Canada. Why did this take me so long? Well, I don't know. I forgot to make a review for this amazing show that is my go-to podcast before any other.

If you like tech, this is for you. As a note, I only use Apple products, and it's simple to leave a review. Go to your show list on the bottom bar, tap the show, and just scroll down to the bottom to see and leave a review. Do your part. Yes, thank you. And we've got one more from JimmyD1097 with two thumbs up.

You guys are awesome. I work a pretty simple job making lasers that I know will be taken by AI within the next 10 years. But I doubt AI will listen to podcasts while working, so you guys make my job that much easier. Keep up the great work, Jimmy. Thanks, Jimmy. We need to make an AI that listens to our podcast. And that's what this is going to be.

About 10,000 of them. Then we can get some more monies. More monies. 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. And listen to Anthony.

He just told you how to do that. It's pretty great. And if you're listening in Overcast, pretty please click the little star next to the episode info. Saves us a ton on advertising in Overcast, as our friend up at the top also said. So thank you very much, guys. We're closing shout outs.

Shout out to friend of the show, John Chevron, aka Monkey13, who's given us a lot of material over the years. He lost his dad last week. So I'm very, very sorry for your loss, man. Sorry to hear it, man. I'd say it's rough. And a shout out to Mark Hollis of Talk Talk, who passed away. You may know Talk Talk from their big singles like It's My Life and stuff of that nature, which was then covered by No Doubt and not anywhere near as good.

But if you've never listened to their later albums, 1988 Spirit of Eden and 1991's Laughingstock, which didn't really have big hit singles. These albums are insanely unbelievable and very, very influential. There would be no Radiohead without these albums.

So he will be missed. And so that was pretty depressing. So we're going to end on a happy note. Happy birthday to my buddy Jordan Harbinger. It is his, I believe, 39th birthday. So stuff's going to start falling off, man. Get used to it. Happy birthday. Yeah. I heard his segment on Adam Carolla where they wished him a happy, like, 30th birthday or something like that, and he had to correct them.

So Carolla's show notes, strong as always. Strong as always. Until next time, I'm Jason DeFilippo. 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.

Show notes for this episode are at GOG.show slash 324. And there you can find links to old episodes, leave feedback, ask questions, and get links to stuff we like. Stay grumpy. Yes. Yes. Yes. I'm a star. I'm a star. I'm. Ah, I'm nobody.

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