435: Pandemic Brain

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. Brian, we had a drink up. We did. I was around for the virtual happy hour portion. The hour. The hour. You stuck for an hour and a half, I think, didn't you? Yeah, that's true. It took me 15 minutes to get in, in the first place. But once I finally made it, and I was not the only person that had problems. Dave Bittner also had the same problem I did. So, and he's a security professional.

Yeah, no, the thing is, it's like, this is our first time using Zoom. And I figured it would, I got the thing set up. And I'm trying to figure it out because you can't like dry run this thing, which is really weird. And so I got everything set up. And I'm like, oh, we should make a better password. So I made the password to something funny for the show. And it didn't let anybody know that the password was changed.

So I assumed it would, because I thought it was good software, but turns out maybe not. So next time, we're just going to stick with the default. There you go. Get easy. Yeah, it was a good time. So it was nice to see the so many people came. I know you and I were like, maybe we'll get five people.

We had, we had over 80 at one point. So that was pretty good, which is, it was pretty much bumping up against the max of a hundred that we're willing to pay for it.

But yeah. And later on, a friend of the show, Anthony from a note host taught me how to actually add in people who were, you know, just viewers to the actual call. And that turned out to be a hell of a lot of fun, which you unfortunately missed out on. So next time, we definitely got to, we got to make that part of the part of the drink up because finally got to meet Kenny from London, which was awesome. And a bunch of other show fans, which was really fun.

Good times. Good times. I guess we're going to do it again, then. I think so. I mean, we got the license for a month. So we just got to figure out the next time. Be silly to waste it. True. So a quick show update. I'm working on the mask thing. It's been a nightmare trying to get through the thread list to actually get that turned on because they're not doing it for everyone. Right. So they're designed, ready to go. I've got them, you know, all done in their template and all that. You can get the template.

You just can't get them to turn it on. So I've been pleading with them to get that turned on. And hopefully, hopefully by the time this comes out, they'll give me the green light and we can get those up there. And since I'm in the system now, we're going to start throwing up some merch because I've got all the designs sitting around for t-shirts and mugs and stuff like that, that everybody's been clamoring on for what, six years now?

Everybody being the real five people. Yeah, that might be the real five people. But hey, man, once it's up, then it's just easy to do. That's true. That'll be good. But to do all this and some other stuff, I actually had to go back to Adobe land and just get the full Adobe Creative Suite.

Really? Oh, I guess you do need Illustrator to make it nice. Illustrator, InDesign for some other stuff because I'm working on our ad deck with some marketers that are going to hopefully bump the show up a bit. And also, I had a project for one of my other clients in Audition that I had to get.

Oh, my God. And we started the show with that. It was horrible. Oh, my God. It is so horrible. I'm just like trying to figure out where everything's at. I mean, it's the same as using Logic for the most part or any other DAW, but it's like, where? Where is this?

I know. I mean, it took me 20 minutes to figure out just that all the plugins weren't enabled by default on load because every other DAW that I use, like, scans your plugin folder and says, oh, hey, you got new plugins. Let's juice them up. Not an audition. Nope. Nope. You got to go one by one and by hand and get them all up there.

So that's been fun. But, yeah, things are moving along. Excellent. Very cool. I'm looking forward to seeing some of the merch ideas that we put together two and a half years ago come to life. Yeah, seriously. You'll soon hopefully be able to get your shocking mug and we'll go from there.

But masks look cool. So I'm kind of happy about that. Yeah, I was going to say, you know, because I'm in touch with tons of people that work for merch companies in the music industry and all that sort of stuff. And everybody's been kind of scrambling to get their masks out there. And at this point, it almost feels like too late out of the gate, except for the fact that we'll probably be wearing masks for years to come.

Yeah, this is going to that's the whole kind of thing. We got a story later on in the in the show about it. But here's what I mean, just me personally, what I'm anticipating now is with the rush to open back up, we're going to get another another wave. Oh, yeah. It's going to be bad. Yeah. Hey, we made it three minutes without being negative.

Well, look at us. I wasn't being negative. I was just being realistic. That's what we call it. Yes. Yeah. Realistic and logical. That's all. Yeah. So a little bit of follow up. Not really, but I just thought it was a good article. So I wanted to throw it in here because we have been talking for, say, two years or so about, hey, has anybody heard about that Magic Leap company that keeps getting money and keeps putting out press releases?

And then all of a sudden they stop putting out press releases. And then just last week, we, of course, learned that they're basically pivoting. They're not going to do consumer entertainment products anymore. They're going to B2B kind of stuff and got rid of most of their staff.

So basically, they're collapsing like a cake in a cupboard. A cake in a cupboard? I haven't heard that one before. I haven't really. A flan in a cupboard, I believe. Okay. Something like that. It's very early and, you know, pandemic. So that's basically my excuse for everything now.

Pandemic. Pandemic. Yep. So if you want to follow on about a nice little kind of story about exactly how this company managed to fail so spectacularly, TechCrunch has a nice little write-up about that. So we have the link in the show notes and the title really tells you all you need to know.

Magic Leap's $2.6 billion bait and switch. You beat me by 30 seconds on putting this in the show notes. I was so mad. I'm like, damn, it got me. Yeah. It's a good one. It's a nice little wrap-up, really. It tells the story of a plucky young company that lied to get a ton of money and then finally got caught.

Yep. That's about it. Too bad. I was hoping the technology would actually be good with all the hype that they put around it, you know? Well, they're really good at hype. Not so good at technology. Yeah, that's the problem. The company that I wanted them to be, which they obviously can't be, is the one I was really looking forward to.

Oh, well. In the news. So a study about the coronavirus antibody came out from Silicon Valley. And should we be surprised at this point that it is probably the worst study ever concluded in the history of science because it came from Silicon Valley.

Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Worse than eggs? Worse than eggs. Oh, no. So, yeah, a study came out from Silicon Valley and it said that the Silicon Valley cases, basically scientists are saying the authors owe us all an apology. It got everybody all hyped up because it seemed to be the case that up to 85 times more people actually had the antibodies than actually did, thus suggesting that maybe we can open things back up again because everybody's already been exposed.

But then if we start getting back into the eggs, the new eggs and the new milk and everything, we're also hearing that it doesn't matter if you've been exposed to it before, you can get it a second time. So we're all really screwed. I'm almost done with this stuff. It's just too much, right, Jason? Like, we don't know what's going on.

Nobody does. That's part of the real problem here and part of the frustration and part of the reason that I think you are sleeping more but feeling less rested and all of us are getting more and more anxious and depressed all the time. Not only do we not have a coherent plan for our government, but we also have no idea what's going on.

Yeah, because I mentioned before that my roommate got her antibody test and it seemed to be a little suspect. But then we had a call with the doctor and the doctor was like, no, no, no. This is the line you need to look at. And he's like, I am positive you had it before. And then we talked to him about a bunch of other things and he's like, yeah, well, that's the part that frustrates the shit out of all of us.

We just don't fucking know. About a lot of things. And, I mean, the doctors are pissed off. They have no idea what's going on. Everything seems to be changing. Now we've got all these reports coming out about blood clotting and the stroke issue. It's just, you know, this is a bastard.

It's a real bastard. Yep. But, you know, thank God some states have already reopened. And, you know, we're on the books to reopen in two weeks here. I'm so glad I can get a tattoo. I'm so glad I can get that tattoo. Yeah. And one of the things that you and I have been screaming about for a couple of years ever since the deep fake technologies came out was, oh, my God, what's going to happen with deep fakes?

How are we going to be able to trust anything? How are we going to be able to trust news? What is going to happen when deep fakes get in the hands of bad actors or, say, bad politicians? And it is basically the president has flown the first test balloon to see what's going to go on with this.

He has retweeted an account and nobody knows where this account came from or what it does or anything like that. So Vice President Joe Biden crudely and obviously manipulated to show him twitching his eyebrows and rolling his tongue. And the caption read, sloppy Joe is trending.

I wonder if it's because of this. You can tell it's a deep fake because Jill Biden isn't covering for him. So he has sent out the first deep fake. He did it in a way that's actually quite intelligent. Now, I'm not giving him any credit for that because I don't believe he did it with any kind of intelligence or plan.

I think he just stumbled across it on his feed while sitting on his crapper at three in the morning, mainlighting some codeine or whatever the hell it is that he does. Probably Adderall, given all of his symptoms. But he did retweet it. And from there you go. We have our first political deep fake out in the wild.

Yay. Yeah. I'm hoping that every day that somebody is just going to say, oh, all the press conferences have been deep faked. And this isn't real. Now, the reason this was actually kind of smart. And this is, again, Jack. Oh, Jack.

I really don't know what to think about you anymore over at Twitter. This doesn't fall against any of Twitter's policies because it explicitly states in the comment that it is a deep fake. So you have been warned. Oh, Jesus Christ. So no chance of that getting removed or taken down.

I think we need a week off from the show, actually. Dude, I need a wall to bang my head against right now. It's like, stop it, Jack. Jesus. You want to be a hero. Be a hero. Sometimes I think we also overextend Twitter's reach.

We also know that we've talked about the studies that very few people are actually on Twitter. Very few people actually see this stuff. The problem is it takes life on Twitter. And that's where it's discovered by very industrious people who then take it, spread it far and wide. Well, no, it's not all true because every news outlet reads it and then they put it on TV.

Yeah. And so it's like, you know, this is it's patient zero for the lunacy. And then the TV stations run it, which, you know, they're culpable for it. It's like, why are you doing that? I just love now that CNN, at least, won't show the president on the press briefings.

They just cut away. They're like, let's talk about something else until somebody smart comes on. It's like, oh, OK, love that. Yeah. But this is just a it's a mess. Yep. And Facebook has continued. It's a standard business model, which is, hey, there's something out there.

There's something out there on the Internet that's doing really well. So let's come super late to the party and release our own version of it. And that's exactly what they've done. Six weeks into the pandemic and everybody using Zoom to do everything. They're now rolling out their own video conferencing service called Messenger Rooms.

Oh, yeah. So it looks and works exactly like Zoom. I was going to say, maybe Zoom can get them because Zoom and room sound pretty similar, you know. What I thought that was very funny about this and this article in particular is it says it looks as though Facebook wants to set itself apart with the privacy and security features built into rooms, features that seem to be inspired by Zoom's missteps.

One of Zoom's biggest privacy issues was sending all their data to Facebook. So now we're just taking out the middleman. Just take out the middleman. Come on. Yeah. Here you go. Now, Facebook is saying it will only ask for a name for users joining rooms who are not logged into Facebook, and that's only for the purposes of identifying them to fellow room members.

I say bullshit because we know that there are shadow profiles. Exactly. That's just to link them to their shadow profile. That's all. Exactly. So as they point out, Facebook Rooms is actually the latest in a long line of products that Facebook has copied from its competitors and came late to the party with.

So just to remind everybody, there's Stories, Marketplace, Life, and Pay. So those are all basically Snapchat, Craigslist, Periscope, and Venmo copies, et cetera, et cetera. So here we are. We just keep on going. And if they can't make a copy of the program quick enough, they just buy them, Instagram and WhatsApp.

Yep. That's how they do it. That's how they do it. And something else that you and I have been screaming about and saying won't possibly work and, in fact, talked about umpteen studies and examples of their not being able to be self-driving cars that recognize traffic lights and stop signs safely.

Tesla is running for it anyways. They have released a traffic light and stop sign control feature for its autopilot technology as part of the 2020 12.6 software update. It's first rolled out to early access users for beta testing in March, but now it's making its way to the wider fleet in the U.S.

So I don't know about you, but I would not install software in my car that is in beta. No shit. But they are stating it is in beta. Yeah. I won't install software on my tablet that's in beta anymore.

I mean, I know I used to be a beta thing, but this is the car. So. Yes. So we've done many, many, many, many, many stories about how easy it is to fool these things and stop signs. So those of you that have no respect for society and the law and are a bit bored and tired and quarantined, have at it.

Go hack those stop signs. I know you're going to anyways. The way it works. Wait, wait, wait. One of the shirts that I have set up for our new merch store is literally a stop sign on the back. Excellent. Bring it all. Bring it all home.

So the way it's supposed to work is obviously the, the LIDARs and the cameras will recognize traffic lights and stop signs. Drivers will get a notification when the car intends to slow down and the vehicle will stop at the red line shown on the onscreen driving visual that they'll then have to push down the gear selector or press the accelerator to confirm that it is safe to proceed.

So we'll see how this goes. I've got quite a few Teslas in my neighborhood, so I will be quadruply cautious as I hit the stop signs with my son. Yeah, definitely. We're going to be getting you some, the early, we're going to get you some of the beta t-shirts to test out the beta software.

Yeah. Well, my worry is that it'll, it'll convince the software to accelerate. Yeah, that's true. You never know. You never know. You never know. I want to get, I think I'm going to have to revise the, the, the t-shirts because I think I need to put stop signs on the sleeves too.

Right. Because most of the time when I'm almost killed by a Tesla is when it's backing out of a driveway. Right. So if the, if the backup camera can see my, my sleeve and see the stop sign prominently displayed, maybe we have a chance. But, and, and we'll also have to give, we'll have to make dog vests that have the stop sign on them too.

Awesome. I found this one over at ProPublica and it's just like, oh God, here we go again with the algorithm, the fucking algorithm yet again. The Amazon lockdown, how an unforgiving algorithm drives suppliers to favor the e-commerce giant over other retailers. Gee, I wonder how that got into the algorithm.

Yeah, exactly. So it's a very interesting story. It's a long read, but I highly recommend everybody check it out because what it does is it highlights the fact that Amazon will delist you as popular. If you don't have enough stock in the warehouses because you sent them to other people like say Walmart or brick and mortar stores.

It's like, okay, any competitor to Amazon, any competitor whatsoever. That's where the problem comes in here. So Amazon, you know, wants you to have enough stock to deliver on the orders that they're getting, but so does all of the other sales outlets that you sell to.

But Amazon has the power to say, well, well, you know, you're not going to play by the rules for our prediction algorithm because it's that it's just that it's a prediction algorithm. It's not based on real sales. It's like, okay, well, then we're just going to take you out of the loop.

And that way you're, you know, you could be forced to make a ton of product that then Amazon says, no, we don't need it anymore. You know, it's this is this is the real issue right now that that we're worrying about. I mean, certainly I am about, you know, pandemic is basically pushing Amazon to be the marketplace, not just a store, but the actual infrastructure for shopping.

Yeah, not with these kind of algorithms in place. It's going to screw a lot of people. Yeah, people who are already screwed already. It's like it's a double fisting, as it were. At QVC, shopping is more than just checking out.

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I don't know if you've caught up with Westworld. We had the penultimate episode the other night and leading to the final episode, I believe this weekend. I hope they're not taking a week off before they do it because pandemic. No spoilers, but wow, I'm pretty impressed.

It's been a great season. It has been a great season. So loving it so far. Really curious how they're going to end it and how there's going to be another season. I don't think there's supposed to be another season because, remember, the showrunners are leaving to move to Amazon. Yes, the showrunners leaving never seems to matter that much.

It means we're going to get a couple bad seasons. That's pretty much it. I think that's the way it's going to go. But, I mean, I'd be fine with them wrapping it now. That'd be fun. But, yeah, the last, you know, I like the last episode. It was, I don't know.

It was a little sloppy in parts. Some of the. It also feels a little small if the next episode is going to be the very final episode. Yeah, yeah, it's, there have been some flubs in the last couple episodes. Just, I think that they're doing action scenes with people who are directing that aren't very good at action scenes.

And the behind the scenes stuff is said that, you know, you can tell that they're doing an awful lot with drone technology. And I'm not sure if anybody's dialed in the cinematic aspect of directing with drones yet. Yeah, but some of the, I mean, the fight scenes are in the place.

The stuff that really jumped out to me were the fight scenes. That they were, they just weren't well executed at all. And I was just like, you know, if you're going to do a fight scene with, you know, superhuman robots, it should be kind of over the top, not just a punch out, you know?

So, I don't know. I mean, but the story's great. I'm loving it so far. I can't wait to see what they do with the last episode. But, yeah, as far as it goes, it's been fantastic so far, I think. Right. Yeah, I agree. Looking forward to it. And if you are of a certain age, namely around Jason and I's age, there was a very, very influential, wonderful movie that came out when we were teens called The Early Teens, in some of our cases.

The Goonies. I always loved The Goonies. I understand that it has not aged well and that if you were younger, you probably think the movie's stupid. And if you were older than us, you probably hated the fact that we watched it multiple times as often as possible and wore out VHS tapes of it.

But, you know, Right Place, Right Time, Goonies, pivotal, important movie for me and most people around my age. There's always been talk of doing a sequel. It always falls apart because how can you really? And I kind of get that. So, I think we got what is as close to a sequel as we're ever going to get.

The Goonies have reunited in 2020 for a good cause, of course, over Zoom on Josh Gad's new YouTube series called Reunited Apart. And the idea behind the show is it's going to bring together famous casts to raise money for charity. And this was the first one that he's done, and it was for the Center for Disaster Philanthropy.

And we had Sean Austin, Josh Brolin, Kerry Green, Jeff Cohen, Corey Feldman, Martha Plimpton, and Ki-Hu Kwan came along, as well as the Fratelli Brothers showed up, and writer Chris Columbus, director Richard Donner, singer Cyndi Lauper, and even producer Steven Spielberg.

It was a bit rocky at points, but overall, it gave me some feels. I enjoyed it. I watched most of it today. I had to scrub around because we were running up against when we had to record. But, man, I want to go back and finish it. I had a smile on my face the whole damn time. Yeah, it was nice. I got to say.

Even Corey Feldman, who is a goddamn train wreck, didn't ruin it. No, he didn't. I mean, that shameless plug for his movie was a little weak. But for the most part, it was really good. And I was just like, wow, this guy really, he brought the thunder.

It's got good editing. It's like, it's really well done, I think. And hopefully they'll do more. Because, yeah, I just, like you said, all the feels. I'm just like, I love you all. This is just, it really brought back some memories. Because it's the fucking Goonies, man. It's the Goonies, man.

Goonies never say die. No shit. Did you watch Saturday Night Live this week? I have not really watched Saturday Night Live for like 25 years. So, no. I heard it was better. I heard that they figured out some of the tech stuff and maybe shipped people some better cameras. Yeah, they got better cameras, better microphones.

Thank God. Because I, you know, I railed against the first one. I'm like, oh. And now that we've done our first Zoom call, I kind of get it. I'm like, oh shit. It's actually a little harder than you think when you're doing it in real time. Yep. But you have to admit, you did see the Brad Pitt Fauci thing.

I saw that one, yeah. Because that's all that really matters. Because that was like, you know, I'm like reaching for Kleenex when I'm done. I'm just like, I watch it like 10 times and I'm like, fucking Brad Pitt, I love you. You are so good. But the rest of the show, we watched the whole thing.

And I have to say, it was actually funnier than most Saturday Night Lives that I've seen in 10 years. Given the time and the breadth to, you know, actually put a show together that they could edit properly, because they brought in all the guns. They had, you know, good music people.

They had good editors. They had good effects and all the whole nine yards and not doing it live. I think they should just call it Saturday Night and get rid of the live because it's a much better show. Well, and the writers had enough time to wrap their heads around how to write for what they were doing, right?

So, yeah, yeah. All in all, I think it was, I would, I'd recommend checking it out. I mean, it was, it was pretty good. It was pretty good. Excellent. Yeah. So I actually added it to the DVR for, for next week. So I'm hoping they'll, they'll keep the thunder coming.

And this week I watched the great food truck race. We binged it. We had it kind of on the DVR and piling up and we went through it in two days and it was a great show. It's just, it was a fun show. It was one of those shows where like most reality shows, you can't wait for somebody to go home because they're a bunch of jerks or not very good at what they do.

I was sad every time somebody went home and I was happy with who won the show. So it's one of those things where it's like, that was just our feel good for the day, you know, since our, our supermarket stakeout where we've run the course on that and seen them all. I need, I need more fun, stupid things because we want to turn our brain off.

See, you and I watch exactly different things on the food network. We both watch the food network constantly. You watch the reality shows. I can't stand those. Saturday and Sunday mornings, I, you know, our TV is on and we just watch all the cooking shows. We watch, you know, the kitchen and we watch Ina and we watch the pioneer woman and we watch, you know, all of those.

We just straight through all of those. And I've got to say a couple of them have attempted to do quarantine shows. Some haven't. They're not that great. I've got to say the kitchen, the first one, I think the kitchen had kind of did a Saturday night live thing.

The first one was a bit of a train wreck that they kind of figured out how to do it. So the second one was a little bit better. I didn't mind it. And it's always really interesting to see all these chefs, actual home kitchens. Like, you know, they're not on a set now. This is their, their actual kitchen. So that's kind of cool. The pioneer woman, I've got to say was a massive fail.

Even I can open up a bag of pre-made salad, pour a dressing over it. That isn't even coleslaw dressing and call it your, your quarantine coleslaw. That was a fail. Oh my God. Come on. That one was spectacularly bad. And I recommend maybe she doesn't do anymore for now.

We had one of those days yesterday where it's like, okay, we're going to have a potluck day. And we just like, we went through the freezer and found everything we could find that, you know, needed to get cooked. I used to call it, uh, like I'd get blue apron in and I wouldn't do anything with it for a week.

And I'm like, okay, everything has to get cooked right now. I'm, I'm calling blue apron bankruptcy. And I throw out the recipes and just make like these massive meals for the entire week. And it's just fun. Right. Because, uh, you know, everything's been in the freezer for longer than it probably should have been at this point.

Cause everybody's overstocked. So I recommend like maybe every now and again going through because you don't want to waste food right now. That's the one thing that I know that we've been, you know, really cognizant about is not wasting a damn thing. Yeah. Yeah. See, we accidentally kind of overordered some chicken from Instacart because we had forgotten that we had gotten so much chicken already from butcher box.

So we've been faithfully using that to not waste food. And I need something that isn't fucking chicken for dinner tonight. We did that the first month too. We learned our lesson. We had so much chicken. We're like, it's, it is like, you know, since we are stuck in Gilligan's Island right now, it's like them in the coconuts.

Yeah. Not another coconut. So a little bit of good news came out this week. Terry Pratchett novels are going to get absolutely faithful TV adaptations, apparently on what would have been the late Discworld creator's 72nd birthday. Terry Pratchett's production company, Narrativia, has announced a new development deal to create truly authentic prestige adaptations that remain absolutely faithful to his original unique genius.

Oh, sweet. They haven't announced what books they're going to do yet or anything like that. And of course, the caveat here is there ain't no production until this stuff is gone. So it's going to be a long time coming, but it will be coming. And I'm quite excited about that.

It's really interesting to see what's going on with production right now because a lot of people are ramping up on this and Tyler Perry, of all people, he has like a 300 acre studio in Georgia and he's basically going to be bringing people in, having them tested and live on the lot because they've got, because I guess it used to be an old army base.

So he's got like, you know, 50 barracks and he's, they built houses for sets and things like that. And they've even got a hospital set. So they're going to bring in real doctors. So if people, you know, get sick or something like that. And it's an, it's an interesting take. These are all great in theory and it's the kind of the same problem that's going around with the MLB right now as, as baseball's trying to figure out how they're going to get a season in and they've thrown out ideas like, okay, well, we'll just, we'll just quarantine everybody and there won't be crowds.

We'll quarantine everybody in their camps that they have for spring training and play the games there. And we, you know, with different, different leagues and all that sort of stuff, but there's pushback from the players because, well, the players that have families because they don't want to be away from their families for three, four or five months at a time.

And that's the same thing that would happen with all these production companies. It'd be basically anybody that's single and ready to mingle that'll want to go do this, but you're cutting out anybody that has a family. Well, I mean, they were talking about like, you know, um, they can do a season in a week, right?

Like if they just, you know, hunker down and just do it. And then, then they would break and then come back and do another season and like cycle the people and just keep testing everybody. But I've seen enough zombie movies to know that it only takes one zombie to reach the perimeter and then everybody's dead.

Also, as if we don't think it's bad enough already, can you imagine a media landscape entirely dominated by Tyler Perry? You know, I think that's worse than the zombie apocalypse personally, but, you know, to each their own, to each their own. I agree. Now we would normally go into at the library, but, uh, you and I both are struggling to read things and it doesn't seem like you've got anything finished.

I don't either. So I will just roll into this because it's a follow-up on Terry Pratchett. We are getting a new book from Terry Pratchett, kind of, called The Time Traveling Caveman, and it's going to be a collection of short stories and things of that nature. So I'm looking forward to that. I would like to have a word right now quickly with the publishing company.

Why wait until September 3rd, 2020? We are in a pandemic. It's not like they have to edit them. Yep. They're done. Just release it now. So we have something to read. Thank you. Exactly. It's like, come on, guys. Spit it out.

Spit it out. I do have a couple books. I'm halfway through. So I'm hoping that next Tuesday we'll do some stuff. I've done, I actually got two biographies. I got Billy Connolly's biography where he talks about Scotland because I'm a huge fan of Scotland.

It is my favorite place in the world. And Michael Caine's biography. Now, the sad thing is Billy Connolly doesn't read his because he's got Parkinson's and couldn't. But at least Michael Caine reads his. So, yeah, I'm hoping to get through those by next week. But I'm like halfway through the Billy Connolly one, and it's just pure Billy.

That guy is just one of the funniest people that ever lived. I love him so much. All right. Oh, and Pandemic Brain. I totally forgot to put this in for Media Candy, and I thought I'd mention it now. I activated the free masterclass year that you gifted me, and I watched the entire Steve Martin thing on comedy.

It was great. It was really good, isn't it? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, his comedic vision and sensibility has kind of aged out a bit. Like, it's not terribly relevant for today's comedy. But who doesn't love Steve Martin? And it was great. Yeah, it's really, really good. And I've been still working my way through Scott Dicker's comedy class.

Now, Scott Dicker's who created The Onion. And I actually have an hour-long phone call with him tomorrow. So that's going to be very interesting. So I'll talk about that on Friday. Excellent. You tell him in the very beginnings of the internet when The Onion first started, my dream gig would have been to write for them. I actually wrote a couple pitches.

Oh, really? Yeah. We'll do. We'll do. That'll be fun. But, yeah, we'll have some follow-up on that on Friday because I'm really trying to figure out how to be funny in a pandemic. We could have just stopped with trying to be funny. Over at Patreon, we've got a bunch of new people.

We've got Ryan, Phillip, Mario, Paul, John, Andre, James, M.G., Bill DeGray, and Rosé or Rossi? I'll go with Rosé, maybe? Rosé writes it. I finally did it and signed up to be a Patreon. I can't believe it's only $10.

I barely have a job anymore, but I'm also not spending any money going out, so yay! Your show is one of the only podcasts I can stand right now. Something about the mixture of despair, alcohol usage, and humor hits all the right notes. Please do not quit until the world ends in a fiery hell.

Cheers. Look, if the world ended in a fiery hell, I'd still get a message from Jason telling me that we're doing a show. Hell yeah! We also got a donation from Dan, who says, Other comedy podcasts have turned to garbage as people get depressed. Thanks for continuing to make me smile and laugh.

G-O-G rocks. P.S. Deliveroo! And Jamie writes in, Hi, Grumps. Just wanted to up my donation to $20 a month. Well, thank you. I am one of the lucky techies who already work from home when all this happened, and my work life hasn't really changed except my mini Aussie Arlo sees me more.

Aww, puppies. Thank you for continuing to put out hilarious and informative content. Even when my backlog is a mile long, I listen to your podcast as soon as it drops. We really fucking need it right now. And if you would be so kind, I would like to give a shout out to the only person I can see daily in quarantine, Sir Fox.

May our flaws always be complimentary and our strengths compounding. Thank you both again for all you do, and I hope you and your family stay healthy and safe through this. Yada, yada, yada. We can do hard things. Yada, yada, yada. In these challenging times. Yes, blah, blah, blah.

And over at PayPal, we have a ton of donations again as well. So thank you all. Anthony, Michelle, Stephen, Jeffrey, Scott, Mark, Barry, and Scott, who writes in, My job as a paramedic is stressful, but I'm lucky to still be working and agree with your views on supporting local businesses any way we can. So here, have some Canadian monies for keeping me a little more sane every week for the past four years.

To quote my nurse friend, if you feel insane in an insane world, doesn't that make you sane? Perhaps. Perhaps. And Jordan as well. And Jordan writes, The world is a shit show, but at least we have good podcasters like you. Well, thank you, Jordan. And Gregory, who says, I'm sorry you guys are going through tough financial times.

I know this isn't much, but hopefully everyone can chip in and keep the USS Minnow afloat for a few more months. Help them out, everybody. Thank you. Thank you. Mark says, Jason, thanks for your tip on how to best use Instacart. Setting up an order for a delivery window days later, then continuing to add to your order.

It worked out like a charm for us. We plan on setting up a weekly delivery this way. Yep, that's it. I'm just like, give me what you got, and then I'll just keep slapping stuff on. And T.O., who donated as well, and says, because standing up to stupidity should mean something. Thank you. Well, thank you, T.O.

Over at Twitter, Thomas writes in, Great news for Vivaldi browser users. They finally built in ad and tracker blocking. And yeah, it's awesome. I turned it on this week, and I'm like, yay. I just have to turn it off on every site I go to, because everybody's got it.

Everybody's got it now. It's insane. Yep. So right now, websites and advertisers are winning that race. So step up. Step up, people. And this is the best name. Quarantine Tarantino wrote in, How do I reference GOG during my purchase for by VPN service or private internet access?

Also, can't find the two-year option only one year. Just go through GOG.show slash VPN, and you don't, I believe, have to put in any code during purchase. They get the info from there. And yes, the offers have changed since we last updated our change charge copy. So I'll get on that at some point.

Okay. And Razvan writes in, In case you didn't see this article, the end about Google Meet is quite funny, and it's Zoom's biggest rivals are coming for it. Yes, over at the New York Times. So the last little bit, which is great. Late last month, Philip Schindler, Google's chief business officer, held a video conference with thousands of the search giant's employees using Google Meet.

Three people who attended the call said. During the session, one employee asked why Zoom was reaping the biggest benefits, even though Google had long offered Meet. Mr. Schindler tried placating the engineer's concerns. The people said. Then his young son stumbled into view of the camera and asked if his father was talking to his co-workers on Zoom.

Mr. Schindler tried correcting him, but the boy went on to say how much he and his friends loved using Zoom. Answers that question right there. Yeah. And we had a crap ton more feedback on Twitter, but so much of it was about our meetup and all that, and I got tired of scrolling and pandemic.

So thank you all for writing. Thank you, pandemic. Okay. So the first one we probably shouldn't read, but I just... This guy is crazy. He's supposed to be like a massive, smart guy about all this stuff, and he sent us a link to his own desktop.

Okay. Which does not exactly fill me with belief that he's really in security, FBI executive, former National Security Council member at the White House? No, I don't think so. Yeah, Jim. Sorry about that. Yeah.

And you were going to try and send us a PDF? Like, we're going to open a PDF from anybody ever. I don't get it. I don't know. Maybe he's just got pandemic brain, too. I'm giving everybody the security or the benefit of the doubt right now.

The security of the doubt. This is how my brain's working. Security of the doubt. And Ariel writes in, I'm a grumpy, geeky, old, and avid GOG listener. First and foremost, I would like to take the opportunity, and thank you for both continuing and investing your efforts for the benefit of us all.

I appreciate and I am thankful for your critical thinking, which has become a rare commodity in this day and age. Had I believed in fictional beings, I would go as far as saying that your podcast is a godsend. It could be a flying spaghetti monster send. How's that? On the topic of critical thinking, in episode 434, Brian's rant on President Trump is completely unsupported and uncalled for.

Come on, Brian. You know you had it coming. Not only is Trump's argument on combating COVID-19 by drinking or injecting bleach is accurate, but is scientifically proven. Please allow me to explain. You are 99.9% likely to die as a direct result of drinking bleach.

And by doing so, you will be dropping COVID-19's probability of killing you to less than 0.1%. Mic drop. Brian, I believe an apology is in order. Stay safe, stay critical, and stay grumpy. Well, I cannot argue with that logic. You are correct, sir, and I take back all my criticism.

Thank you very much, Ariel. Mel, the conservative, writes in, for English-style short ribs, just take your least Ford and drive about 10 miles northeast to Northridge Super King Market and go to their butcher shop area. It is good for your car to run, even better driving on purpose. They are delicious. So I looked that place up.

I know exactly where that place is, and my roommate knows where it is. So we're probably going to make a run because we have a friend up there that we have to drop supplies off for. And it's funny. It's actually kind of sad. My old shooting range, the firing line in Northridge, I went and looked it up to see how close they were because I used to go up that way all the time.

And they have closed their Northridge location forever because of the virus. Yeah, nobody needs fake targets. We're about to have rioting. We're going to have real ones. Well, then you have to go to their Huntington Beach or Burbank location to top up on your ammo. And Gabriel writes in, Moana Film Theory, and it's a link to a YouTube video.

I watched this, and first off, before the next drink up, I want to point out I did not bring up Moana. Somebody else did. So you can all fuck off. And look, I just love the film, but I am not going to sit through a 12-minute annoyingly produced, horrifically written string of bad dad jokes.

Moana is dead, and it's all a dream. Is the new family – is the new film theory? No, it's a fucking Disney movie. You guys are overthinking things too much. This is why the internet is fucking useless. Oh, it's too funny. I actually – I downloaded Moana last night because you never sent me your Disney Plus password, so I just stole it.

Oh, I didn't? Okay. That's the only thing I need. I have to get minions, too. But, yeah. Minion's not on Disney Plus. Oh, it's not. Okay. It's not a Disney thing. Yeah. Oh, well, and hello, Sweden. Make it a trip back. Let's gas up the car.

All right. And no sec writes in listening to this last episode, 434, and security, ha, Jason says he has no fucks to give, reminded me of this, and I thought you might appreciate it, and this is the I have no more fucks to give link on YouTube, which I believe you posted everywhere. I posted everywhere, because this is the greatest song in the world.

I'm going to click on it now, and of course it's going to autoplay, so I have to turn that off. This is by Thomas Benjamin Wilde Esquire. He seems to be British. He's got a Patreon. We're going to put all his links in the show notes, and if you have not listened to this song or any of his other songs, you must go do it now.

This song just cheered me the fuck up. It gave me some fucks to give yesterday, and going through his back catalog, he does a ton of Tom Lehrer covers, too, which also makes me happy. Yeah. This guy is, like, right up our alley. I like this guy I want to sit down and have a drink with, because he's just cool as shit.

I'm not a big fan of the hipster beard thing, but you know what? He gets a pass. He gets a pass, because I love this song so much. I woke up just humming it this morning when I was taking a shower. I'm, like, rubbing my armpits, going, no more fucks to give.

It just makes me happy. Oh, God. And so Elaine writes in, hi, guys. This article could be titled, Nobel Laureate Just as Dumb as the Rest of Us. He mixed up Twitter and Google when searching for the opening hours of a liquor store. It turns out Twitter returned a much more nuanced response.

And this is a link to The Guardian. And I love this guy so much. I love it. I love it. He's 79 years old. He's a Nobel Laureate. And he just screwed up his tabs. He's like, yeah, I've got pandemic brain. You know?

I put it in here because pandemic. But he didn't, like, you know, get embarrassed or, you know, delete the tweet. He just went with it. And it turned out to be really funny. And somebody finally actually just copied and pasted the hours. And he's like, see? It works. Yeah, he ran with it.

It was great. And he just started up a whole dialogue with everybody on Twitter. And he seems like a really smart and really funny guy. So good for him. Yep. Pretty good stuff. Yep. And Bruce writes in, hi, guys. Hope you're doing well. First, thanks for the pod. Really appreciate it. And look forward to hearing from you each episode.

As an older geek than you two, it's nice to hear the younger generation having a good moan. Brings a gladness to the heart. That sarcasm isn't dead. A suggestion for your viewing. The Capture. Great show and almost relevant. Link below. I guess it's on the BBC. So fire up that VPN of yours that you're getting from our links.

Goj.show.vpn. Get that puppy going. Did I do a full wrap-up last time of devs? No. No. But I saw your wrap-up on Twitter. Okay. Yeah, yeah. It's not sadness porn.

It's a mindfuck is what it is. I forgot to put this in media candy. That's the one thing. So I'll slot it in here real quick since this is another little thing that came from fans. I never would have watched it, but I got it. It's a standalone series. It's eight episodes. And it's about AI and things like that.

And there's some crazy, crazy twists at the end because I was having a hard time getting through it. But it all pays off in the end for some strange reason. I don't know why. Everybody who's watched the show knows what I'm talking about. It's on Hulu right now.

You can get it there or just head over to Sweden. But it turned out to be a surprisingly satisfying series. I've been thinking about it a shit ton because it comes back to a lot of the stuff we talk about on the show and make fun of a lot. But great cast.

Great acting. It has the blonde from Picard. You know, the... Alison Pill? Yeah. The robot doctor or whatever. Yeah. Alison Pill. Also from Newsroom. That's where I first knew her from. Oh, man. That's funny.

I saw every episode of that show and I don't remember her. Major character. Alcohol. What do you call that? She plays... She's like just kind of evil in this one and she just the whole way through.

She just like has that bitch face where she's just like, I'd rather kill you than talk to you right now. She has a good resting bitch face. It's not resting, but this is active bitch face. But, man, it's... I got to say it was a tough watch in the beginning because I didn't know where it was going.

But the payoff is worth it at the end. So I'm just going to leave it at that. Okay. And Patrick writes in, I've really enjoyed our time together, Jason and Brian. But your continuing denigration of my president and your fascination and delusions toward the way the coronavirus, Chinese Communist Party virus, has been managed is allowing me to power myself towards others' podcasts.

Y'all, especially Brian, appear weak and you both carry on often like a bunch of pussies, most of the time regarding this. Lordy! This country has faced bigger threats and survived. If we didn't have such pronounced fake news feeding the weak-willed, we would maintain our dignity, allegiance, ambitiousness, compassion, and acceptance for those things that are truly bigger than us.

We must stick together somehow and realize that you Hollywood types previously and currently live in a world undestined for most of us. Under these stresses, folks begin to show their true selves and, in doing so, allow the world to see them as they are.

Best of luck, keep your chin up, and I hope you both survive this, as I know you will, and you can find what you seek in life. We are all dust from day one, so let it go. Take care, Patrick. P.S. And indeed, we are using invasive light, and in parentheses, laser, after injecting photosynthesizing agents to try and kill infections and tumors.

It functions in a way like a disinfectant if the primary process is infectious, but also as a tumor-killing agent if neoplastic. Trump shouldn't think out loud, possibly, but especially, he should talk in monosyllabic grunts for certain people to understand, right?

Wink, wink, nudge, nudge. Okay. Sincerely, Patrick, I want to say this very sincerely to you. Thank you for listening for however long you did. But equally sincerely, don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out. I have zero fucks to give for you people anymore. All right, and here's the thing.

That is the best breakup letter we've ever gotten. That is a nice one, actually. Wrong on every level, but thank you for listening for when you did. I appreciate everybody listening whenever they did, and if you feel the need to check out, that's fine by me. Yeah, yeah.

And, yeah, that's about it. You know, I read this, and I was like, of course, my initial reaction was, what an asshole. And then I'm like, hey, man, you believe what you want to believe. Just stay the fuck inside, and we'll all get through this.

Yeah. Try the bleach. You never know, right? And Barrett writes in, found this one on Apple TV, probably one of the very few reasons to have Apple TV right now. And this is the Beastie Boys story that is out right now, past the mic and the memories. I was never, Beastie Boys are one of those bands that are exactly like the Goonies.

We're in the exact right age range for them. It's just I never really cared for them that much. I didn't like them either. I was never a Beastie Boys fan. I'm going to watch this, though, because I like documentaries and, you know, biographies and things like that. But, yeah, so far, that's about the only thing I can find on Apple TV Plus that might be worth it, because I'm not going to watch the Ronald D. Moore series.

Nope. I've been brainwashed by Brian. He's like, no, Ron D. Moore in my house, motherfuckers. And Jason writes in, hi, Grumps. I just got this email from Ancestry. It suggests they are investigating if there is any genetic link to COVID-19 by seeing if there are any patterns in the DNA or ancestry of people who are not getting infected.

It might help with clues that can aid drug discovery or they could use it as a cash grab to make their data set more complete. Ah, well, keep on grumping. And this is some of the text from the email. You've previously expressed interest in participating in Ancestry research studies. We are asking you to join us in helping to better understand and combat the global COVID-19 pandemic.

By answering a few survey questions, you can potentially help identify genetic patterns that affect how people contract and respond to COVID-19. Yeah, seems like they've always been very trustworthy with our data, haven't they? Yep. I got the same email basically from 23andMe, and I hit delete.

And Andy writes in with a link to a video, and this is NVIDIA RTX background noise filters. Mind blown. And I watched this, and holy shit, is it good. This is some, like, next level stuff. It only works on a PC, though. I know. It's too bad.

It's unfortunate, because especially with the number of Zoom calls that we've all been on, everybody could use this. Yeah, we could have cut out your kid in the background for half the show. It would have been perfect. But you know what? It adds flavor. I like flavor. You know, it's that pandemic times touch.

And the Shrike writes in, yo, just recently found this show from Darknet Diaries, which is great, to the Jordan Harbinger Show, also incredible, to you grumps, and I've been binging since. I ran a renegade then OBV slash 2BBS back in the dial-up days, so even hearing the term BBS and Fidonet gave me a nostalgic hard-on.

My problem is, like Brian, I have a child about the same age as his, and I don't remember what show he mentions the apps I need to keep my young one entertained and learning while schools are closed. Sorry for the laziness, and if this is rambling, but like a lot of Gen Xers dealing with this shit, I may be drinking a shit ton more than I normally would be.

Stay safe and stay grumpy. Normally, I wouldn't bother going back and just say, go to our site, but I did go find it out for you. Most of them are in episode 424, Strategic TP Reserve. We've got a shit ton of resources there, and the link will be in the show notes. And Raph writes in, what Pittsburgh 1918 teaches us about easing pandemic measures too soon?

It's a link from Medium. And it turns out that, yeah, everything that we're doing right now is wrong. Yes, indeed. As you go by history. That's all you need to know. John writes in, I thought this would be a small contribution to the Security Ha segment, and it's a link to PvP Online, and it's a short comic about something we've talked about on the show many times.

So, I just started re-watching Star Trek Next Gen, and this is a guy talking on the phone to somebody else, and the other guy says, not a bad idea. And then he says, come on, Gene Roddenberry, convince me the future will be better. And then he says, I have an MP3 file of the Enterprise engine hum that I listen to as a white noise machine at night.

Send me that immediately. It's on YouTube. We've talked about it a gazillion times. Yes, we have. I have it on my phone. I don't. I just have it bookmarked on YouTube. Oh, well, I don't keep my computers on at night because of the light. So, if I need it, I go to my files app in iCloud and just press play.

It's pretty good. I also have – I should dig these up. I sent these to you ages ago. I'm sure you have them. I think I've got the Romulan engine hum as well. I got the Borg engine hum and maybe Klingon as well. Yeah. Maybe we can do a mashup.

Ooh. A quiet space battle. Yeah. Do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do. Jake writes in, not sure if you guys saw this, but it looks like the first crime in space didn't actually happen. And this is Army astronaut accused of committing crime in space is cleared.

Ex-wife charged with making false statements. Yeah, we covered this story, I think, at the time. It was – the ex-wife was accusing her partner, who was up on the space station, of accessing bank accounts because they had gotten a divorce or something like that. And it turns out that it didn't happen.

Oopsie-daisy. And Jamie writes in, hi, did you know that the URL fucko.com redirects to your website? What is the story behind this? Thought it was funny. I'm surprised you still have that, actually. That is my last fuck domain. There was – the quick story behind this, Jamie, is that the day that they opened international domain registrars, I said, okay, well, guess what?

They're not going to be able to enforce those seven dirty words that they've been doing up until now. The Carlin rule. Yeah, the Carlin rule. And so I found a Portuguese registrar that I could get through because everybody was slammed when this thing happened. And so I got fuckable.com.

I got fuckmehard.com. And I got fucko.com all in that same day. Boy, that guy that hates that we swear on our podcast is really not enjoying this one. Yeah, probably not. So I've had this one forever, and it's my favorite because it's just fun to say, hey, fucko.

So I've kept it. And it just gets bounced around to different things here and there. And right now it's just redirected to my personal site until I find something else to do with it. But I don't think that's one that I'm going to let go of. Yeah, I might as well keep it. It's not like it's expensive to keep domains these days.

Yeah, I mean, it actually keeps my domain purchases cheaper because I have enough in my hover tank that my registrations are cheaper. Once you get over $10,000, the price goes down. But yeah, so I've kept that. I think I got that when I was working in like 2001 maybe.

I don't know. You just do who is. You can find it. It's a .com. But yeah, I've had that since the day it was available to register fuck domains. And over at iTunes, we've got a five-star from Kevin94 from the United States. Best tech podcast with grumpy humor. Been listening to these guys since 2016 and I've enjoyed almost every episode.

Almost. Jason and Brian are the reason I feel like I have a somewhat decent knowledge of what's going on in the tech world, especially when they discuss the news with their banter and grumpy humor. I'm in my mid-20s and it's somewhat enlightening to listen to their grumpy wisdom on tech.

Thanks for helping me be informed and for all the tech tips. Keep up the good work and deliver it. Well, thank you, Kevin. I'm glad that you enjoyed almost every episode and were somewhat enlightening. Hey, dude. Damned with faint praise.

Hey, man, it's better than Patrick. That's true. If you want your question or comment right 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 keep clicking those stars in the overcast player if you're using it.

We appreciate it. We're beating. We're still beating Tim Ferriss, but yeah, Rogan's in front of us as always. Damn it. Damien Rogan. We're going to start flogging some bullshit stuff like he does. Maybe we'll pick up a bit. Maybe we can get Alex Jones on the show.

Ooh. Frogs are turning gay. Closing shout outs. And a big shout out to everybody that showed up to our first grumpy happy hour where whatever the hell we're calling it. Jason calls it the drink up because he went for four hours. So very, very happy that people showed up.

That made us feel pretty good. Like we're actually doing something useful. Yeah. Even though we know we're not. Nope. So the next time it'll run a little bit smoother and a lot shorter. You were texting me. I'm still on.

I'm like, I'm in bed. You have no idea. I have not been that hungover since I think my thirties. It was bad. It was a bad day. So until next time, I'm Jason DeFilippo, who's taking a break from drinking that much because that sucked.

And I'm Brian Schulmeister. I felt completely fine the next morning. Thanks for listening to Grumpy Old Geeks. To 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 appreciate it. Show notes for this episode are at gog.show slash 435.

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 and yes, continue staying home forever. At QVC, fall shopping is more than just checking out.

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