404: Ketosis Not Cirrhosis

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From beauty and fashion to home, culinary and outdoor living. Shop now at QVC.com. 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. Hey, you found me. I'm Brian Schulmeister. There you are. I was wondering if customs got you. Not yet. That'll be... Well, we'll talk about that in a little bit. Okay. Now, I noticed that, like, you landed at LAX, you checked it on Facebook, and then you went completely quiet for several days.

Yes, I did. Either he's got the travel sickness or he's got the TSA sickness. One of the two. Got burned out and tired sickness and having to reconstruct the house from travels. And, of course, the house was left in a state of Christmas when we left. So all that stuff had to come down and pair that with a three-year-old that doesn't want Christmas to end.

It was an interesting long weekend. Boy, oh, boy, was I glad Monday came around and he went to school. I could have just had Christmas all year. That's true. Keep it up. That's true. So on the last episode, we were talking with Eric Hundley, and he talked about his embarrassing story of going to the Genius Bar and having them remove the lint from his phone.

I'm not the only one. Nope. Well, turns out after that, I'm like, hmm, you know, I should just check. You gave me so much shit because you thought, everybody knows this. Yep.

And, of course, I didn't eat my own dog food and out comes about half a pound of lint. And my phone works perfectly now. Yeah. Did you use a special tool or did you just do what I did and grabbed any sharp stick and started poking around? I used my Kershaw Ken Onion Everyday Carry pocket knife that I have on me, which worked just fine.

Now, the thing about that discovery was I figured that out while my new iPhone 11 was booting up after I'd unboxed it and was like, huh, let's get started here. While I'm waiting, maybe I should check for the lint. Sure enough. Well, now I have two very nice working iPhones.

Would you like to buy an iPhone 8 Plus, Brian? Actually, maybe. Although, let me tell you about what happened with my iPhone. Okay. So, I still have an iPhone 7, which works fine for me, but I might be interested in that 8 Plus anyways just because it may be time.

But right before I was getting ready, I was literally packing to go to Toronto the night before. And all of a sudden, I realized my iPhone is not holding a charge at all. And I look at the battery health and it says, service, severe problems. Of course, I do not have time to take care of this.

And I go off to Toronto and I kept my handy charging pack with me and basically had it plugged in anytime I was near an outlet. And that's the only way I survived the trip with it. But I was able to do a bit of research and, you know, Apple would have happily taken some of my monies and had me sit at the Genius Bar for four to five hours to replace the battery.

Or I could have gone to a third-party shop, which is exactly what I did, dropped off my phone, $45, and an hour later, just went and did some grocery shopping, came back. Brand new battery, brand new phone, basically. Awesome. Awesome. I would highly recommend skipping the Genius Bar unless you live somewhere, which has an Apple store that never gets any traffic.

And if you need your battery replaced, go to a third-party place. They do a perfect job. Yep. The Best Buy that I went to to get my screen replaced, which that iPhone 8 Plus does have a brand new screen on it, by the way. Good to know. It took an hour, and I just basically dropped it off. I spent more time in line because these assholes jumped in front of me, even though I had an appointment.

But, yeah, for the most part, the service at Best Buy was great, and there was, like, nobody there getting their iPhone fixed. I went to the Drop Smash Fix just down the street from me. Great job. Good name. Good name. Yeah. So over the holidays and just in general, I've been trying to figure out this photo issue that I have.

Because I've got a little over. Like you take too many? I've got two terabytes of digital photos. All of your dogs. No, no, no. I mean, this goes back to all the scans from when I basically started, when I was 15. So, you know, I've got lots of 45 to 60 megabyte TIFFs from film scans, but also every digital photo I've basically ever taken.

And, you know, I've always had them on multiple hard drives, shipped them around the country, and I'm like, you know what? Screw it. Let's put them in the cloud. I'm tired of it. I can't do it anymore. And it all came about because I found out with my Spectrum internet connection, I don't have a data cap.

Ah. So, I'm like, ha-ha. And I was doing my research. And, like, over the holidays, I was thinking, ah, maybe I should just go Flickr Pro. I can just dump everything up there. It's like 50 bucks a year or 60 bucks a year. But over the holidays, I was inundated by emails from Flickr Pro, or just Flickr in general, saying, hey, guys, you know, it still costs a lot of money to run Flickr, and we really need your help.

So would you consider going pro? To me, that's a red flag for the health of the company. Yes, it is. And I'm like, do I really want to upload 2.1 terabytes of photographs to a company that might not be there in a couple years?

Right. Hmm. In comes good old Google. I said, screw it. You know, everybody I know has all their stuff up at Google Photos. So, signed up, bought an extra couple terabytes, and now basically every spare second, I've got a laptop with my external drive, and it's just chugging away.

Chugga, chugga, chugga, chugga. Yep. How long is that going to take? I don't know. Well, during the day, I limit it to 2 megabytes a second going up. And at night, I just let the beast fly, so I get about, you know, anywhere between 15 and 20 megabytes a second going up. So, I don't know, probably the end of February, I'm guessing.

I'm looking forward to your story a couple years from now when all the unlimited data caps are gone and you need to get all your stuff back, and it costs you $7 million. Well, hopefully. This is all just peace of mind. I don't ever even look at this stuff anymore.

But I'm kind of excited to get, you know, I know it's pretty ironic that I would say this, all of the facial recognition that comes with Google Photos to be able to search for people and find my photos. Well, you know, facial recognition is a valuable skill when it's in your own hands.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, yeah, it's a tool. It's not just the, it's the implementation of the tool that really counts. Yes, it is. And, you know, Dave Bittner actually kind of got me thinking about it, too, because it was pretty cool that he could, you know, it was smart enough to watch his kids grow and be able to track them all along the way so he could do just a search for his son and boom, there are all of the pictures that he's uploaded of his son.

I thought that was pretty neat. You know, the Apple Photos app is pretty good with that, too. I know you have too many photos and you can't keep them all locally, but it works for me pretty well. And the facial recognition on it is really nice. It's pretty good, I've got to say. Yeah, it's getting better with iPhoto, but still, like, trying to just get your actual photos out of the Photos app on a Mac is so terrible.

Yes, it is, because every year my sister wants to make a calendar for my mom and she asks me to pick out, like, 24 pictures or whatever of my son over the previous year. And it's an individual export, which is the dumbest thing in the world. Yeah, I mean, you can click and drag and just drag them to the desktop.

Yeah, but I have to save them in certain formats for my sister and blah, blah, blah. Yeah. Yeah. Anyways, what was that old program that we used to use back in the day that did, remember when Photoshop didn't do batch processing, so we had a debabalizer? Debabalizer, yes. You remember that?

Oh, hell yeah. I wish we still had that program sometimes. Oh, man, that thing was amazing. And, funny story, the Truman Show poster was built, the prototype was built in debabalizer by our friend Dave Riggs. There you go. Back then. That was such a fun program.

It was just, it was so powerful. Oh, God, the dragon, the droplets? Oh, they were amazing. Oh, so good. Yeah, I really wish that was still around. Well, it is my first show of 2020 because, yes, I was still on a plane when you guys recorded the previous episode, and you did a great job.

I listened to it. First time I've listened to our show because I never listened to it when I am on it because why would I bother? I have to listen to it three times, so why should you? Exactly. But I thought we'd talk a little bit about what's going to happen this year because 2020 is going to be a big year of change, at least for me.

Fans of the show, you don't need to worry about anything, at least not yet, probably not until late summer. We'll have to see what happens there. But the reason I've been spending so much time in Toronto is we are going to move there this year. That is definitely going to happen. I made a deal with my wife when our son was born that I would step back my career a bit for a couple years, at least until Lucas was in school, and that's up.

And it is time for me to get back into having something that resembles a career. And as we've talked about a lot, there's a lot of ageism in tech, so I was a little bit worried about how that would play out. But it's actually all coming together. I can't talk specifics yet. Obviously, the job will be in Toronto.

So, yeah, come late summer, end of summer, I will be moving to Toronto. I will be taking a full-time job. We will see what that means for the podcast, if that means we're going to go to one episode a week, or you'll do two episodes and one will be with a guest, or I'll figure out a way to make it all work magically by finding a time machine that gives me more hours in the day.

Who knows? In the meantime, I'm starting to dip my toes into that job. I'll be working part-time here in L.A. because there's a small business development team here from the company I'll be working for. That should not affect anything much because I'm basically just taking the hours that I was doing daddy daycare and putting that towards a job.

So the podcast, as it is, will continue, at least for the time being, and we'll figure out what's going to happen when we get closer. We'll probably need to take some time off come end of summer to move and set up and all of that. We shall see. So just letting everybody know, and Jason, you already kind of knew all this stuff, but starting to get some more firm timelines coming through here.

Yay, more work for me. Yep. All right, we'll be taking resumes and headshots. You send them to Jason at grumpyoldgeeks.com. Headshots. Hey, man, got to look good in the socials. That's right, because we post so many photos of us in the socials. Exactly.

I need somebody good looking so we can actually post photos. Yeah, that's part of my changes this year, too. I've heard on your show with the guests that you've cut down your drinking a bit, and so have I. I've actually started doing some intermittent fasting. I'm looking for ketosis, not cirrhosis in 2020.

Hey, look at you. Yeah. Did you make that one up? Yeah, that one just came up right now, just like my rape joke that pissed off people earlier, which wasn't a rape joke, but, you know. That's how it goes. That's how it goes. In the news.

YouTube is back in the news, and they've thrown up their hands and said, screw it. That's shocking. If it's a kid's video, you must be a kid. Okay, what does that mean specifically? Anything that's a kid's video, they're just not going to track you or throw ads at you, or what's the deal here?

They're basically, yeah, they're going to say that if it is labeled as a kid's video, then they're just going to assume that anybody watching it is a kid, which is a, you know, it's an easy way to handle that issue. It's what they should have done from the get-go.

It could have saved them a lot of time and money, to be frank. But it was a $170 million settlement with the FTC that really kind of kicked this thing off. But as we know, $170 million for YouTube is about 17 seconds of, yeah, of revenue. Well, I mean, that's a good thing.

Again, it's a lazy way to do it, but it's good. I mean, you could require people to sign up, and you could require parents to create accounts for their kids and flag the account as a kid's account, and then that account can treat those things the way that it's treated.

But, of course, they don't care if you have an account. They just want views. So I guess that's one way to make sure that all of this happens. Yeah. I mean, they're taking the burden on them. The downside is I think the creators are the ones that are going to suffer because they can't monetize as well as they should have been able to before.

Yeah. It's kind of – that is kind of a weird issue because I – obviously, my son grew up – he's, you know, three now. So I've had the last three years of – there's actually a lot of really great content creators on YouTube for kids' stuff. And now that they can't monetize, that's – I'm wondering how that's going to affect them.

And if the quality of programming that I've seen on YouTube for my kid is going to go away, which is kind of sad. Well, I don't know if they can't monetize altogether. It has to – you know, they would probably have to have kid-friendly ads on there, ads that are approved for, you know, the certain age ranges that they're – Well, and there's no lack of those, as I've discovered over Christmastime with a three-year-old watching TV.

It's all ads for products for these shows that you're watching, so. Yeah. They just can't spray and pray a bunch of ads out there. Good. Because, again, horror movie ads in the middle of Blippi, who Jason does not know, but anybody that has a kid out there is aware of it, is not appropriate. No, it's not.

And the interesting thing is individual video creators are also now personally on the hook for penalties up to $42,350 if they fail to explicitly mark their videos as for children. So, that's interesting. Yeah, so if they try to get around it and keep the ads flowing, they're going to get buzzed for it.

Yeah, and YouTube is also going to unleash AI on these videos to, you know – oh, I'm sorry. They're going to unleash machine learning. I take that back. Oh, okay. Thank God. But they're going to learn to identify content featuring children's characters, themes, or toys, games, among other things, to say, hey, you forgot to flag this.

I do hope this machine learning is good enough to catch the stuff that is created by the biggest assholes in the world. I've never fallen for this because I always found official channels to watch videos from, but there are a large amount of videos out on YouTube that have children's characters that seem innocuous for about 30 seconds, and then their heads are getting cut off and things of that nature.

So, I hope the machine learning catches those. Oh, yeah. That would be good to know. Yeah, that would be nice. Nobody wants to see Peppa Pig get beheaded. Well. Well. Maybe some people. Most parents do, but that's different. I was going to say, I tell you what, you know, if I saw Barney being beheaded after listening to my brother watch that for years when he was a kid, I'm all about Barney snuff porn.

That's fine by me. Yeah. Well, you know, let's just keep that so the kids can't see it because I don't want to spend. I'm trying to save for college, not therapy. Exactly. That's the plan. Anyways, I found a really good article over on The Atlantic.

This is kind of, this just proves how old we are, Jason. And nobody cares anymore, but we do. What the death of iTunes says about our digital habits. And this is by Robinson Mayer. And he says, we started the 2010s obsessed with our electronic hygiene and ended them as a nation of digital hoarders.

And this is 11 ideas about the death, the decade that killed iTunes. And he makes a lot of great points. It's an interesting read if you're old like we are. And we once, well, Jason is still obviously trying to organize his photos and keep everything like that. This is more specifically about music.

I really do miss my curated iTunes library, but iTunes has destroyed it so many times that I don't feel like rebuilding it anymore. And I basically just listen on Spotify. But I still look back wistfully and wish I still had my own digital library that was all together and organized.

But it's gone. And this article is basically about how we started that way. And now everything is just a mess. And we just move on. Yeah. I mean, hey, bring back Winamp. I've got my iTunes library. It's, you know, a couple hundred gig, maybe 200 gig.

I never use it. The only I've used it one time in the past four years because, because, you know, people are too touchy feely. And I could not find a copy of Killing an Arab by the Cure anywhere except tucked away on my hard drive. That is insane.

That is like a classic song. It was a single. It did well. It's on their best ofs. It's a live favorite. And you can't get it on streaming services. No. I mean, my first Kure tape that I got was Staring at the Sea, all the singles and stuff. And that's the first track.

I'm like, okay, what's going on? And it's about a book. It's about a philosophy book. Yeah. It's a damn good song. Anyways, moving on from that. Uh, Vox has a good article about how tech companies spent all of the last year trying to get us to use their products less by unveiling all these programs, like tracking how much you use your screen during the, during a week.

And, and, you know, Facebook and Instagram rolled out time spent notifications and the ability to snooze their apps and all these sorts of things. So we didn't spend so much time staring at our screen and we had time well spent, which is the movement to design technology that respects users time and doesn't exploit their vulnerabilities.

How's that working out? Well, first off, it's kind of not. Uh, and secondly, even with all these things, time people are spending on their devices just keeps increasing. According to a measurement company, Zenith, American adults spent three hours and 30 minutes a day using the mobile internet in 2019.

An increase of about 20 minutes from a year earlier when all this stuff was rolled out. Uh, why are we doing this? Because everything has moved online. Socializing that used to happen offline is shifting to online. Uh, newspapers, radio, all of that stuff is now on our devices.

It is not physical products or anything like that. So of course we are spending more time online. Nearly a third of Americans said they are online almost constantly in 2019, a statistic that has risen substantially across age groups since the study was conducted the year before. And, um, I've been online, I've been online 24 hours a day since 1993 or 1992.

So you and me both brother, but yeah, the masses have now joined us and they're all online all the time, but not everywhere. Uh, another measurement company called similar web has found that time spent with some of the most popular social media apps like Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat have declined. Although the decline could instead reflect the waning relevance of those social media companies.

Zing! People are now on TikTok, apparently. And as the article points out, which it must, and it is an important point, the problem may not be that bad in the first place. Though correlations exist, there's no causal link between digital media usage and the problems some speculate it causes.

So we don't know. Well, how about that? Mm-hmm. No science behind the science. That's right. All right. Moving on to some Facebook news. They have banned deep fakes. Uh-huh. How's that going to work? Yeah. But their new policy may not cover contra, like the controversial Pelosi video, which was just an edit and not a deep fake, as I pointed out on.

Oh, actually, I pointed out on Chris Lockhead's show that has not aired yet, but I got, I got very angry. You pointed it out on our show too. And it is. So that, that, that is, it's not a deep fake. It's an edit, which is its own problem. Yes. Uh, yeah. Facebook has banned users from posting computer-generated, highly manipulated videos known as deep fakes seeking to stop the spread of a novel form of misinformation months before the 2020 presidential election.

Does that mean Max Headroom is being pulled from the internet? I guess so. Oh, man. Poor Max. Uh, but the, the policy does not prohibit all doctored videos. The new guidelines do not appear to address a deceptively edited clip of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi that went viral last year.

And, uh, so now the, the democratic leaders are getting, getting, but hurt again. Uh, so yeah, it's, you know, six of one, half dozen of the other. So let's ban the ones that are really hard to make and very rare that take a long time to do with lots of compute power, but leave the ones that anybody can do on their iPhone in about 30 seconds.

Yeah. Seems, seems, seems like a smart policy. Yep. Par for the course. Uh, they will not ban videos manipulated for the point of parody or satire. So all you can, you say, no, I was making fun of Nancy Pelosi. That's all. Weird Al's safe. Yeah. It's totally safe.

So yeah, another toothless, uh, move by Facebook. There you go. Well, over at Amazon, two Amazon employees who spoke out against the company's environmental policies say they were threatened with termination if they continue to violate the company's external communications policy. However, as part of its overall communication rules, and this would be their policy, Amazon does tell employees they may speak out on social media as long as they do not share confidential business information, according to the Washington Post, which they didn't do.

So Marine Costa and Jamie Kowalski, uh, said that they, uh, they basically complained and said that Amazon contributes to climate change by supporting oil and gas company exploration with its cloud computing business and say they were subsequently called into meetings with human resources where they were accused of violating the company's external communications policy, which they obviously did not do.

Uh, Costa that says she then received an email from a company lawyer who claimed future violations could result in formal corrective action up to and including termination of your employment with Amazon. All right. Amazon seems par for the course. I think it's any big business would do that.

Yeah, but it's not against their policies according to their policies. So Amazon should revise their policy and say, don't talk bad about us. Yeah, and you know, we honestly don't have a full copy of the policy and the policy I'm sure in the, in the fine print at the bottom says we can do whatever we want. Well, yeah, that's kind of the way it works.

Yeah. Well, we have a little bit of good news though. There's some unionization occurring in tech. Really? Not really. Around 2,300 contracted workers who serve meals to Google employees in the San Francisco Bay Area are have unionized saying they're overworked and underpaid.

So I guess they can get unionized. And frankly, they probably need it more than Richie Richardson sitting at his desk because they're getting paid a lot less. Paid a lot less. Yes. And probably definitely worked to the bone. Food service is notoriously hard to do.

It is. And cafeteria workers unionization is some of the most significant union activity tech industry workers have accomplished. Again, I would argue they're not really tech industry workers. Exactly. Particularly for service workers who operate as part of Google's vast shadow workforce of contractors who largely receive lower pay and fewer benefits compared to the company's full-time employees.

So good for them. But I don't see this as a win for the tech industry unionization. Yeah, not at all. This is completely different. So it's like the vast shadow workforce and they've all got shadow profiles. Thanks. Yes, they do. Yep. And we've recently been dealing with a lot of complaints about press bias coming from the conservatives in this country.

And they have pushed one complaint above all others recently that the media is biased against them because it is overwhelmingly staffed by liberal journalists. Well, a new study forthcoming in science advances says, yep, that's true. But only half of it.

Reporters overall are significantly more liberal than the general population. In fact, almost one in six are more liberal than AOC based on who they follow on Twitter. But it doesn't matter. Even for the most liberal of the liberals of the liberals of the journalists, the title of the study says it all.

There is no liberal media bias in the news political journalists choose to cover. None. Zero. So in short, despite being dominantly liberals and Democrats, journalists do not seem to be exhibiting liberal media bias or conservative media bias in what they choose to cover.

And this is vitally important, showing that overall journalists do not display political gatekeeping bias in the stories they choose to cover. In other words, they do their jobs regardless of what they personally believe. Right. They're fair and balanced. Yes. Interesting. That would be a good tagline for a network if they actually did it.

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I had a bit of time on my hands when I was in Toronto, and I had a big iPad, so I was able to watch quite a bit of stuff, including and finishing Lost in Space Season 2. Have you watched this yet, Jason? No, I haven't. I put it in the show notes with the intention of getting to it, but I haven't.

I did notice it's highlighted in your color. Yeah, yeah. Okay. Now, I put it there to remind me to go watch it, and I didn't. Well, I suppose I shouldn't give any spoilers here then, but thoroughly enjoyed it. Oh, good, good. That's all I wanted to hear. Liked it more than the first season. Oh, even better.

Although I will say the first two episodes were a little rough. Now, I did watch a bit of the first episode, and if you haven't seen Black Sails, then you won't get how awesome the scene is with them sailing. I just got to say.

If you've seen Black Sails, you'll get it, and it was awesome to see. I was just like, oh, my God, that is so cool. So if you're a Black Sails fan, you'll definitely like the first episode of season two. I will tell you the problem I had with the first two seasons, and this really isn't a spoiler, but if you're terrified about it, go ahead and skip ahead about 30 seconds.

The first two episodes of the second season are, they're in danger, they get out of it. They're in danger, they get out of it. They're in danger, they get out of it. They're in danger, they get out of it. They're in danger, they get out of it. And there's zero plot movement forward in the first two episodes, but after that, it gets significantly better. Okay.

I mean, if they're not in danger, then they can't have the robot say danger, Will Robinson. But I guess there's no robot yet at the beginning, so yeah, he's not back. Anyway, I did see something on Netflix that I thoroughly enjoyed. It's called Don't Fuck With Cats. Have you seen this or heard anything about it?

No, and I'm not going to, judging from everybody else's reactions about it. I do not need darkness in my life right now. Well, it does have a happy ending, but yeah, it was very difficult. I spent a large portion of this three-episode documentary with my hands in front of my face because I did not want to see any of it.

It is a rough watch with a good outcome, but it could have been a better outcome, but Canadian cops are apparently slow on the uptake. But yeah. That's why I'm moving, Jason. I'm going to become a master criminal. Yeah. There you go.

Brian the mass murderer. That's all we need. I'd be crap at being a mass murderer. I'd get so lazy. I'd be like, just go home. I don't have time for this. You're like, oh, look, a pub. I'm done. Yep. That's it. I mass murder beer. That's it. That's about it.

Yeah. And poutine. So it was good. It's a rough watch, though. So just be warned. If you're an animal lover, it's really hard to watch. But yeah, it's interesting. All right. Well, the last Mandalorian episode dropped pre-Christmas, so this is a bit of old news, but I haven't been around to talk about it.

Finished it, loved it, thought it was a great ending to the series. Cannot wait for it to come back. Yep. Yeah. I thoroughly agree. Yeah. And it's interesting how much of the expanded universe Disney is starting to weave back into the Star Wars universe that they wiped clean. I'll leave it at that because it's a spoiler.

Otherwise. There we go. We'll see. We'll see how this goes next year. They're working on it. So looking forward to it. And I started watching a new show on Netflix called Messiah. And I'm about halfway through. I'm thoroughly enjoying it, but I can already tell halfway into this that this is all about how they're going to stick the landing.

This is either going to be a great show or it's going to be a complete fucking waste of time. And I won't know until the last episode. I'm going to wait for you to finish it. All right. I've never heard of it. I don't know what it's about. Nothing. What is it about? It's a well, a mysterious Messiah type figure emerges from the Middle East and we see what that happens on on the political landscape.

It's it's very well done. The acting is phenomenal. Michelle Monaghan is the lead. And that look here. My God, she's just gorgeous. She does not age at all. She's stunning. So that's pretty amazing. But it's it's been really good. It's just like it's kind of like Homeland with some religion thrown in there.

OK, but the good Homeland, you know, before Claire Danes goes crazy. Yeah, yeah. It's oh, yeah, that's right. We got the last season coming up here, I think, in February. That's still going. Yeah, believe it or not. Wow. I did not know that I dropped out of that many seasons ago.

Yeah, I wanted to drop out at the end of season two, but I unfortunately didn't because I like Mandy Patinkin. So I do, too. He's a good guy. Yeah. Apparently a horror to work with. But anyway, yeah. I'm going to I'm going to stick it out. I'm going to stick it out.

I stuck out Mr. Robot. So I'm going to stick out Homeland. I've got a hell of a lot more time invested in Homeland than I did Mr. Robot. True. Yeah. Oh, by the way, I did finish Mr. Robot and it did not stick the landing in any way, shape or form. Good. I don't have to go back and watch it. No, you don't.

I did. Yeah, I have not. But I do follow Sam S. M. Am I pronouncing his name right? I always want to just call him Sam E-mail because his name is close enough to it. I'm going to call him Sam D. Moore. That's how I'm going to call him. Oh, that bad, huh? Yeah. I follow him on Twitter and there was a lot of like thanks to the few people that actually enjoyed the ending.

Yeah. There you go. Game of Thrones, that one. That's for sure. So, you've been watching Messiah, you've been watching The Mandalorian, you've watched Lost in Space. Before we get to the rest of the stuff you watched, let me just take a flyer here and say you have not watched Star Trek Discovery.

No, I have not. I knew it. I knew it. I have decided I am actually going to wait until Picard drops and I pay for CBS All Access to watch it because of the convenience level. Okay. But I will watch it once I get CBS All Access.

If I was a better producer, I would go back to the episode right before we left for Christmas and find the part where you said, I'm going to watch it over the break, I promise. Yeah, but then Lost in Space Season 2 dropped and then I started watching The Messiah. You know how this goes, Jason.

You go down the well. I know, I know. Okay, what else we got here? This is a list. And I'm excited about another show that is coming back. Netflix has dropped the trailer for Season 2 of Sex Education. I love Season 1. I love the trailer for this. I can't wait to be back with those characters. All right.

I still haven't watched Season 1. I watched like the first 10 minutes of it and just got bored and moved on. Jillian Anderson being sexy and hot. Yeah, I know. Just saying. I know, I know, I know. I thought if nothing else, that would get you to watch the show. My time is limited now that I've rediscovered my youth and play Xbox every night.

Christ. More of that when we get the feedback. And I've got some buzzed on a plane movie reviews as I normally do again now, now that my kid will sleep on a plane, which is kind of nice. The choice of movies was underwhelming, to say the least. So here we go.

X-Men Dark Phoenix. I already knew this movie was bad. It was bad. It was very bad. Met expectations? Met expectations. And my big takeaway from this is I know Sophie Turner is a huge star now, you know, because she's in on the X-Men stuff and obviously the Game of Thrones turn.

She cannot act at all. Like, she has two facial expressions. She has two ways to modulate her voice. They're exactly the same from Game of Thrones in Dark Phoenix. And this may and could possibly have been a decent movie if the main character could actually emote, but she cannot.

I just had to look up who Sophie Turner was and, oh, yeah, she can't act. She can't act at all. I didn't think she could act in Game of Thrones. She was great as a child actress, like the first few seasons in Game of Thrones. But as she grew up, she doesn't have anything.

Like, she's a cardboard box standing there. Yeah, like plywood expressions. Yeah, exactly. So she, I mean, this movie probably could have been saved if Famke Jansen was a great Jane Gray. Like, she could actually act, but Sophie Turner cannot. Surprisingly, I really enjoyed Spider-Man Far From Home.

Everybody I've known that's seen it has loved it. You know, and you know I'm not a big fan of the superhero movies, love this movie. I thought it was really well done and enjoyable. So watch it, Jason. You'll like it. Okay. Well, how about that for a change? I know.

Pretty interesting. And the last movie I saw, well, I can't really say I saw it. The last movie I attempted to watch and I turned off after 15 minutes was the Lego Movie 2, the second part, which, God, it was just God awful. So everything was not awesome? I chose to watch the map of my plane's journey across the great Midwest instead of the Lego Movie 2.

Zing. Oh, man. Yeah, I liked the first Lego movie. I loved the first one. That was enough for me. I don't need to see another Lego movie. No, you do not, Jason. You do not. I got one of the many, many emails that Amazon now sends me to try to get me to buy things and it's going to work on me.

This is the Ankh-Moore Park Archives Volume 1. Yes, we are starting to mine the Terry Pratchett Archives because, you know, we're not getting any new books. But this will be a top secret guide where travelers will receive a firsthand experience of the real city. And it's going to be better than nothing, I think.

Unfortunately, not until... Oh, it is out now. So sorry. Yeah, I was going to say it's... I was like, it's not out until November 14th, 2020. And then I said, oh, 2019. It's out now. So it's hardcover only, unfortunately. So that may stop me from getting it because I got to make sure I have some space in my library for another book that's physical.

But I'm very intrigued by this and kind of... I just miss the world so much, Jason. I know. Me too. Me too. Here's what I recommend. Sitting on it for a while, waiting till you get to Canada, then buying it because the price may go down by then. And also, you won't have to move it.

True. Good point. Because you're going to pay twice if you buy it now. That's right. Everything that you buy now, you're going to have to schlep to Canada. Keep that in mind. Well, the prices are lower here, Jason. Oh, that's right. So there's that, you know, because we get free health care in Canada. Ah.

Well, there's always that. There's that. I'm reading Loser Think, How Untrained Brains Are Ruining America by Scott Adams. I have opinions on Scott Adams. Everybody has opinions on Scott Adams.

I fucking hate him. Everybody says that, too. He's a smart guy, but I fucking hate him. It's a good book, though. It's a good book. Never going to read it. I know you're not. That's why I can say it. I can say whatever the hell I want right now. That's true. It could be horrible. It's the best book ever written.

This is the most profound piece of literature ever put onto the land. No, it's a good book about how to think and how to think critically. I really wish he'd read his own books. Well, he explains a lot of his other books in here, which is pretty interesting.

And yeah, it is what it is. I can separate the idiot from the literature. So I'm digging it so far. And there you go. I have not seen The Farewell.

It's high up on my list of movies to see because I'm really looking forward to it. If you do not know the backstory about this, it's an autobiographical film about a reunion that this woman, Lulu Wang, had in China to say goodbye to her terminally ill grandmother.

But her terminally ill grandmother does not know that she is terminally ill. So the entire family wanted to get together to just be there, assuming that she would pass away pretty soon. The film ends with the revelation that Wang's real-life grandmother, who was diagnosed with stage four lung cancer back in 2013, is still alive.

And she is still unaware of her diagnosis. That is not true anymore because there are many ways to keep a secret, as this article says. You can refrain from telling other people about it or simply not tell anyone or even just keep your mouth shut. However, talking about The Secret in great detail on This American Life, then writing and directing a feature film about it starring Awkwafina turns out to be a surprisingly ineffective method of maintaining secrecy.

Because the grandmother found out about her diagnosis from the film. Yeah. She's probably dead now. She's probably fall over dead. She's like, oh, I'm sick. Boop. That could be. Pretty amazing, though. 2013 stage four lung cancer still alive and kicking.

Yeah. There's a case to be made for if you don't know you're sick, you might get better or at least maintain. That's why a lot of there's a lot of talk about when people get diagnosed with stuff like this, should they be told. Yep. And especially if it's terminal, then, you know, a lot of people make the decision not to tell them.

And now, because we've talked about it in next week's closing shout outs. Farewell, Granny. Feedback loop. All right.

Feedback. Patreon. Jason, I'm worried about Patreon as a company. Really? I wonder why. Yeah. Because we have no new patrons, unfortunately. But that's because people are either just dropping off and we thank you for your for your support while you supported us or jumping ship over to do recurring payments at PayPal instead.

I don't know why people don't like Patreon, but they seem not to these days. Yeah, I don't get it either. I mean, it's the same for us on on the the actual payment side. So, yeah, it doesn't really matter. I know people seem to think that we're getting more money from the PayPal, but it's basically the same.

Yeah, yeah. So whatever floats your boat, guys. Yeah, we don't care. But it's just weird. I feel bad for Patreon. I don't. Not really. No, because remember, we got grandfathered in on a plan. Like if we had signed up right now, we would actually be spending a lot more money. That's true.

We're grandfathered in on an old plan, which means you can give us money there or PayPal. It's all the same. It's all the same to us. And speaking of PayPal. Yes. Here we go. Judge, Michael, Simon, Scott, Justin, Mark, Doug, Joe, Tim, John, Michael. Breed, Daniel, Ben, Stephen, Elizabeth, David, Jody, William, Helene, who says, keep up grumping.

Tsruta, your show keeps me connected in the U.S. and the rest of the world. Keep up the amazing work. Cheers from Singapore. Well, thank you very much. Sorry if I butchered your name. Don says, moving off Patreon and going direct via PayPal with a one-time donation. Thank you, Don. Sean writes, Brian and Jason, get drunk for the new year.

Also, let me know if you want to sell off your Apple TV or any of your Alexa devices. I'll take the ladies off your hands. I got an old Apple TV, too. Doesn't do much anymore. For a while, I had an Apple TV one. Do you remember how big those things were? Oh, God. They were gigantic. It was a brick. They were huge.

Yeah. I mean, they were bigger than a Mac Mini. Crazy. And Stewart says, keep up the good work for 2020. Have a couple of beers to numb the pain on me. Any recommendation for a reasonable small mic for field recording voices from an iPhone? I will send you an email, Stewart. I don't have any off the top of my head, but there are plenty.

And we'll discuss it over email. There you go. Over at Twitter, David writes in, I know how much you like your dodgy motels, so check this out. And this is a link to Wired, South Jersey's mid-century modern motels in all their neon glory. Nice. It is a cast back to days gone by.

Yes. And over at Twitter, Stewart sends us a link over to an article, which I think we can really get with. It's called 10 Years Away and Always Will Be, talking about AI. Wait, is that driverless cars, or is that AI, or is that facial recognition that works, or is that?

Yes, this is specifically about AI, so it's always going to be 10 years away. Right. Yeah, I agree with that. Steve writes in, just listened to episode 402, where Dave Bittner deactivated Facebook, permanently deleted mine in October 2018, and haven't missed it one bit.

You were uncertain about it then. Curious on how you feel now after a few weeks. I think Dave actually responded, saying he was a bit twitchy at first, but overall, it's been going well. Oh, good, good. I'm back now, because I had to, and I'm twitchy now, too.

Although, I barely look at it, only when I have to do something, I'll pop in. I have no notifications, no emails, no nothing, no apps loaded on my phone, so that's fine. It's just like every now and again, I'm like, oh, I have to do something on Facebook? Oh, let me type it in, because I don't have it bookmarked anywhere, because I don't want it bookmarked.

My Facebook usage has decreased dramatically, however, I still do find it a very good way to stay in touch with people that I don't see on a daily basis. So, I like it for that still, but gosh, they make it hard. Yeah. And Steven writes in, check out Messiah on Netflix.

Okay, we will. I did. It's great. I like it so far. He says, very interesting storyline that I'm sure is making all religions crazy. I think you might enjoy it for that aspect, Jason. Okay. It's pretty good. Over at GOG.show, Sissy writes in, hey, Grumps, wanted to pass along this news to you.

New Orleans had a cyber attack. They brought in military to help wipe all the machines. Happy New Year. And this is a story about the cyber attack that occurred there, which I didn't even know happened. I don't know how this bit of news got past us. You were in Canada. Yes, the attack began December 13th after an employee apparently responded to an email seeking credentials.

Don't do that. No. It only takes one idiot. It only takes one idiot. So that injected malicious ransomware into the city's network. The interesting thing about this, no request for ransom was received, although officials did detect the software trying to work its way through the city's servers.

They had to screen more than 3,400 computers for signs of the malware. As of Thursday, that job was 78% complete. Man, one idiot. I'm telling you, it's all it takes. That's why they're, you know, cybersecurity people have to be right all the time. And, you know, criminals only have to be right once.

It's very rarely the computers. It's the humans are always the weakest link. Yeah, this is just like how the CIA and the NSA operate. It's a way it goes. Dan writes in, hi, Jason. I was listening to episode 402, and you were asking for co-op games. You should try Far Cry 5.

The main campaign is awesome, and you can play it co-op. Well, thanks, Dan. That was the first game Jordan and I dug into when it came out, and we finished it a while ago. And, yes, it was awesome. I love that game. We did finish Wolfenstein Youngblood already, and now we're playing World War Z. We're going to crank through that one.

It's a pretty cheapy one. But we've got Borderlands 3, Gears 5, and The Division 2 lined up next. So that should get us through summer, hopefully. All of that, and you've still got your clan on whatever the hell the game was. Oh, yes, Clash Royale. We're doing pretty good. We're doing pretty good. We've got a full house right now, though.

But keep an eye out if you want to join up. GOG.show is the clan name, which I'm sure you'll ask me about again on Twitter as soon as you hear this. Even though I just said GOG.show is the clan name. Pretty easy to remember. Sean writes in, looks like now we know where all the Bird scooters are going when they are kicked out from a city.

Might as well just keep one from the street and modify it so you can use it for free. And this is a link over at Amazon, and this might win for title. Here we go. Bird ES1 300 electric scooter, 300-watt motor, ground effects, lights, front shock, absorption, UL 2272 approved, 15.5 MPH and 15.5 mile range, ultra lightweight electric scooter for adults at Amazon.

Also, missing from that description, annoying as fuck. So it's interesting. It starts at $519 on Amazon. And I went over to Walmart and I found it for $349. So for less than a dollar a day for the first year, you can own a Bird scooter yourself.

But don't forget the Bird 1 is out now. This is the ES1 300 is their old scooter. But now they have the Bird 1. It's on sale, though, for $999 down from $1,300. Yes, $1,300 for a fucking scooter. And yes, let's all buy a scooter with the same branding as every scooter on the street.

So some idiot can hop on it and take off while you're getting your artisanal coffee or craft beer. Oh, God. Or, you know, even better, some schmuck in a pickup truck and just drive by and pick it up because it looks like it needs a charge. Genius marketing there. Yeah, not the smartest thing.

No, but on the Bird 1, I love this. Some of the Bird 1's features include extended battery life and protection, a 30-mile travel range on one charge, and better durability. You'll also get $100 in ride credits to use. I'm assuming that's after your scooter gets stolen, so you can use $100 to get home.

And the ability to track your scooter with the app as well as anti-theft capabilities through the Bird Hunter Network. That's not really anti-theft. That's fucking finding them after they've been stolen. Exactly. That's recovery. That is recovery. It doesn't, I mean, I look at it, it doesn't really have, like, any way to lock it up or anything like that, so.

And it just says Bird right on it, like all the other scooters. So everybody's just going to assume, oh, hey, look, a bird. I'm going to hop on. Everybody's going to be trying to unlock your private scooter. Yeah. It's like, oh, God. But, yeah, it does look a little different. It's more space-agey. But for $1,300, oh, actually, $9.99, it's on sale because nobody's buying the damn things.

Expect to see that one at Walmart for $3.49 in about six months. Oh, God. Brock writes in, I had a hard enough time getting my wife to put an Echo in the bedroom. I think she'll draw the line at this. And this is Kohler puts an Alexa-enabled smart speaker in a shower head. So you can listen to music while you shower, I suppose.

Now, wasn't it Google that did the Mia Culpa? I can't remember what the product was, but they didn't say it had a camera in it, but it had a fucking camera in it. Oh, I don't remember. I think that was Google. I think it was Google. It was a microphone. Oh, it was a microphone, not a camera.

Yeah, it was a, yeah, yeah. Get ready for that shower. Yeah, no, I wonder if, yeah, this is, you know, this kind of is okay if you just want to be able to get your news or listen to your radio and stuff, but you just never know. Or you could just put a little Alexa-enabled smart speaker in your bathroom, but not on the shower head itself.

Yeah. What could go wrong with that? Yeah. Alexa, too damn hot. Yeah. Alexa, my balls are hot. Turn down the water, please. And Jason writes in, hey there, JPD and Brian. I love listening to you guys when I'm on break and getting my steps in at work.

I think Krusty Dog pulled a fast one on you guys in episode 402. Don't you think the line about the furry costume was a dead giveaway? It still made a good story, though. I think the line about the furry costume was thrown in at the end as an attempt at humor. Or, yeah, attempt to deflect.

Or that, yeah. Renee also writes in, my podcast app allows me to favorite episodes and bookmark the good parts. So that's nothing for us then. Sometimes I go through the bookmarked episodes to see what the fuss was all about. I have a good laugh at the funny stuff and somberly nod at the serious stuff. As I was going through my list recently, episode 309, Stay Furry, came up and I played it to see what had grabbed my attention at the time.

It was the episode in which guns were seriously discussed. I'm glad we came up with such a good title for an episode in which we had a very serious discussion. I totally forgot about that, yeah. When I first heard that episode, I'd been listening to the show for about six months and I'd come to really respect you all, Jason, Brian, and Dave.

My respect grew tenfold for you guys during this discussion because it was so honest and vulnerable. Your personal accounts were relatable in so many ways, especially with Jason's personal story. It was simple, yet not so simply said, sometimes you get sad. And damned if it wasn't true for me that day.

It was during a very difficult time as I was actively making plans to end my own life that very month. I gave away all of my photos to extended family, updated my will, and made sure my pets would be with friends on the day I did it. Hearing Jason's near miss made me stop and go get help. It hit me while listening to this episode at the time that there are good, funny, and interesting people who also get sad to an extreme.

And it was such a relief to hear that it's possible you could get better. You guys saved my life. Merry Christmas and a very happy new year. I know I'll have one, too. Thanks to you, three. Wow. Well, that's intense. Yep. Thank you, Rene, and I'm glad you're still with us. It does get better. There you go. Yep.

And AJ writes in, the one about the Chrome Memory Devourer just made me think of you guys. And this is a list of cartoons over at Bored Panda, and they're very funny. Very funny. Extremely funny. So thank you for that. Highly recommend it. My favorite one, though, is about the printer and the cyan.

You know, I particularly had a laugh at that because I, of course, just had to replace all the ink in my printer, even though only one of them was out. Exactly. So go check that out if you don't know what we're talking about. It's good stuff. Yep. And Andy writes in, I give up on privacy.

I think it's time I just sell my information, at least make a bit of profit off of it. If only one could, but one cannot. Yeah, where are you going to sell it? Let me know because I would like to profit off of it, too. Me, too. This is an article over at The New York Times, How to Track President Trump by Stuart A. Thompson and Charlie Warzel.

If you own a mobile phone, it's every move is logged and tracked by dozens of companies. No one is beyond the reach of this constant digital surveillance, not even the president of the United States. The Times Privacy Project obtained. We talked about this data set. We talked about the data set. Yeah. But not this particular thing.

So it's like 50 billion location pings from the phones of more than 12 million people in the country. It was a random sample from 2016 to 2017. But it took only minutes with assistance from publicly available information for us to de-anonymize location data and track the whereabouts of President Trump.

Great. Yep. The meticulous movements down to a few feet of the president's entourage were recorded by a smartphone we believe belonged to a Secret Service agent whose home was also clearly identifiable in the data. That's de-anonymization for you. Exactly. Connecting the home to public deeds revealed the person's name along with the name of the person's spouse, exposing even more details about both families.

We could also see other stops this person made apparently more connected with his private life than his public duties. The Secret Service declined to comment on our findings or describe its policies regarding location data. Awesome. Yeah. No, there is no such thing as anonymizing location data.

There isn't. You can't. It's impossible. And as we found out, you can't anonymize search data either because almost everybody searches for themselves at some point. So it's really easy. Quick pro tip about searching for yourself. Instead of actually doing that, just set up a Google alert and then you never search for yourself and you can at least have a fair shake at having anonymized search data.

Oh, that's a really good idea. You're welcome. Thank you very much. Over at iTunes, we got a five star from Mariana36. Great tech podcast. I don't consider myself old, but I do find myself completely identifying with these two geeks. Great podcast to keep up with what is going on in tech.

I have a three year old turdler at home. And I found that's a good one. That is a good one. I'm going to be using that. And I found myself sharing many of the same frustrations and concerns with Brian when it comes to kids in tech. P.S. The manscaping ads make me giggle every time I hear them.

You're welcome. And I did send that to manscape. They were they were very glad people are digging the reads. It's why they bought the whole year. So thank you. You get a whole year of them. And she follows up with I love how links to everything you talk about are included in the show notes. That's right. So you're very welcome.

There you go. We have another five star rating from shoot Draxxus, a tech podcast. So good. I downloaded the Apple podcast app just to give them a five star review. Muchas gracias. And we got a five star from the real SMY over in the UK. Happy holidays, guys. I love this show and it's worth every penny of the subscription.

Apologies. I still need to up the amount from five dollars to eight dollars. Well, we'll take your five. That's good, too. We'll appreciate it all. There are no grumpier or more informative shows out there. And I listen to quite a few. We need more Dave Bittner. The security Star Wars feature is my favorite part.

Hope you both had a good festive break. And I'm looking forward to catching up in the new year. Well, thank you very much, SMY. Thank you so much. If you want your question or comment read on the show, head over to GOG.show slash contact 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 of course, Patreon, PayPal. Send us your monies. We appreciate it. Yep. That's it. GOG.show slash donate. And also, if you're listening to us on the Overcast player, please click that little star because it's been a couple of weeks since we've been publishing some shows and we have fallen out of the top.

I was very sad to see that. But now that we're back in action, please, everybody, give us some stars. I'd like to give a shout out to Global Warming for making my yearly December trip, January trip to Toronto, which is usually a typically hellishly frozen Toronto, rather pleasant.

Yes. Of the eight days, I believe I was there, five were warmest days on record in at least 50 years. Wow. So, that's interesting. And, you know, on the flip side, sorry, Australia. Yeah. Sorry about that. It is January 7th here and it's going to be 74 degrees and sunny.

So, I will be taking a nice long walk today. Yes, I will be enjoying my warm bike ride. And I just want to give a congratulations to both Ashlyn Harris and Allie Krieger, both stars of the U.S. women's national team, soccer, who got married to each other. Yay. Good for you.

Excellent. Wish you a happy life. And a quick announcement. We have opened up the entire back catalog. So, if you wanted to ever go back and listen to the old shows for whatever reason, whatever reason, we now have all of them available.

You cannot get them all through the Apple podcast player, though, because Apple has the asinine policy of cutting off shows at 300 episodes. So, if you do use a player like Overcast and download the whole archive and would like to star all of them, that is your opportunity.

How do people get around that on iTunes? Do people spin up a second show? Yeah, they actually do. Yeah, that's ridiculous. Yeah, they'll do like the first 100 to 300 and then a live feed for the other ones, and then when it hits 600, do the same thing. It's so dumb.

It's so dumb. But there are so many other players out there, and Apple is losing traction so fast to everybody else that, yeah, they might want to change that in the future. Because every other podcast player, you can download everything. Until next time, I'm Jason DeFillippo. And I'm Brian Schulmeister.

Thanks for listening to Grumpy Old Geeks. Support the show and keep us on the air. Go to GOG.show slash donate. Toss us a few bucks and we'll love you forever. Your support really keeps us going, and we really, really appreciate it. Show notes for this episode are at GOG.show slash 404. From there, you can find links to old episodes, leave feedback, ask questions, donate to the show, and get links to stuff we like.

Stay grumpy.

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