439: Stormbittner

Grumpy Old Geeks. A weekly talk show hosted by Brian Schulmeister and Jason DeFilippo discussing the finer points of what went wrong on the internet and who's to blame. Welcome to Grumpy Old Geeks. I'm Jason DeFilippo.

And I'm Brian Schulmeister. I had a bit of a scare this week, Jason. Yeah, I wish it was just that. Everything's fine. But after we recorded on Tuesday later on in the afternoon, actually, later on in the evening, really, I started to feel really warm and got a little sweaty.

But I was freezing and my bones started to ache. And I was like, oh, shit, I got the Rona. Did you go get tested? I did not. I went to bed and I slept off whatever it was. And then I've been completely fine since then. So bad popcorn? I don't know.

Okay. But I've been completely fine. So it was just it was like two hours of feeling like I've got the flu-like symptoms, but they went away. So I guess I'm fine. You might want to go get that test. It's free. Yeah, yeah. It's free if I can spend four hours waiting in line for it.

Go on the weekend. My friend Dan went on Saturday and it took him 10 minutes. All right. Well, I shall consider that this weekend, but I do feel completely fine. So who knows? Yeah, that's still could be spreading, though. So just be careful.

You know what my least favorite phrase is of this whole thing? Want to know what I think about that? What? No, that's the phrase. Oh, okay. People come to me and say, you know what? You want to know what I think about that? No, no, I don't. I actually don't. You know, that's the Internet. It lets everybody tell us exactly what they think about things. And I do not like that either.

It's not on the Internet I'm talking about in real life. I know. It's just one of those things. So anyway, it's just, yeah, every time I hear that, I'm like, oh, shit. I'm sure a lot of people have that going on, too. And I've mentioned it to other people. They're like, oh, yeah, I know. Here it comes.

Yep. Here it comes. Here comes your justifications. Yep. And so, my Lumi got here. Both of them. Yeah, I saw. End of an era. Bitching about where's my Lumi. Now my Lumi's here. A little less than a year. A little less than a year. About nine months.

Okay. Yep. The nine-month ordeal is now complete. I hooked it up. I got it up. I got the apps done and put it on the iPad and, you know, plugged it in, got synced it, got my headphones in, started to go through the lessons and just the introduction on how to use it and things like that.

And it's cool. I got to say it's cool. It does not come fully charged because it worked for about five minutes before I had to plug it in for an hour or two. And then I tried it again. But then I started to get through some of the lessons. And I got to say, I'm kind of hooked. Well, we'll see how long it lasts. You know, these pickup hobbies tend not to stick.

Well, the thing about this is this scratches that rock band guitar hero itch for me. I got, you know, flashbacks as you start off with three fingers and play the basic songs. It's very much like the rock band interface, which tickles a very specific part of my OCD.

Right. Yeah. So I'm guessing this is probably going to be a pretty good thing for me to play at night. I didn't get to play last night, but I'm looking forward to it. What I'm really curious about, which is what one of our listeners pointed out in response to your post about the Lumi's arriving and some of the video that you had put up is, are these songs licensed?

Oh, yeah. They're completely licensed. Okay. Excellent. Yeah. No, that's why there's such a limited library. There's like, I think, 70 or 80 songs in there right now, and they keep adding songs. But yeah, no, that's part of the Kickstarter went to the pay for the licensing fees for probably most of the Kickstarter. Let's be honest. Yeah. So, yeah, what they basically do is they pull the audience of people who own the thing and say, hey, these are the next songs we're looking at.

Which ones would you want to see in the catalog? And people vote on them, and then those are the ones they go for. Right. Okay. So, it's a pretty good system for that. I won't be playing any of those songs for quite some time. I'll be stuck on Farah Jaka for a bit.

Yes. Three Blind Mice. That's a good one. You know, Chopsticks is always something to look forward to. Okay. When you start to learn. Yep. Yeah. I'll get through those as fast as possible. But it's definitely making me think different with, you know, just – it's something new, which I'm very excited about because I do miss my rock band and my guitar hero so much.

Right. I actually quite miss playing piano. I should bust out one of my keyboards at some point when I actually have room in my house again, i.e. there aren't three people living here full time. Yeah, I was going to say, where are you going to put it and when are you going to have time to play it? Yeah, both of those are kind of going on right now. So, we got a bit of follow-up.

We knew that Uber was going to require riders and drivers to start wearing face masks, and they were using their – they were coming up with their proprietary super cool massive technology to ensure drivers are wearing theirs called selfies. Yep. And we have a date for that now. It will be May 18th, which I believe is Monday.

So, starting Monday, this will have to happen. And I did see in the news, although I do not have a link, that they just did a big round of pink slips to people. So, they're not doing so great. Shocking. Well, I mean, can you really give a pink slip to somebody who's not an employee? I believe that these are actually employees that they got rid of, not just – not the drivers.

Because, you know, they don't count drivers – if they lose drivers, they don't count that as part of their pay force because they're not, right? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. If a driver decides to quit driving, they just kind of turn off their app. So, these are actual employees that have gotten canned. Well, that's the truth about working for Uber, I guess.

Mm-hmm. I saw this one this morning, and this follows up with some of our Facebook whining about them and their political ads. And they're like, oh, eh, you can run political ads. We're not going to fact check them. Who gives a crap? Mm-hmm. And there was an anti-Trump ad that recently got pulled from somebody called the Lincoln Project.

Okay. And it was called Mourning in America. That's M-O-U-R-N-I-N-G in America. It was like a take on the old Reagan ad. Well, it got pulled. And this is a really good story in Wired about why it got pulled. They actually talked to the person who pulled it and go through the different reasonings behind why it was pulled.

But the funny part is, is the main protection that you get on Facebook if you want to run a fake ad is you have to be a politician. If you're a politician, you can run anything you want. Yes. Since this was a third-party, you know, private company. Not allowed. Yeah.

They're like, oh, no, you have a one minor fact that could be taken one way or another. So we're just going to say, no, you can't take it out. Or you can't do it. So if Joe Biden's campaign had posted this, that'd be fair game. Totally fine. Would have been 100%, I can't even speak this morning, 100% fine.

And there was literally only one line in there that caused the switch. And the sensor even told them, like, if you want to fix that line and put it in, then you're fine. And they're like, no, we're not going to let you dictate what goes in our ad. That's true.

Well, but they kind of can because it's their platform. Exactly. So it's like, you know, either you play ball with Facebook or you don't get to play with Facebook. Right. In the news. Well, this is some interesting news out of Twitter.

Jack has decided to say to lots of their employees, hey, guys, you know, this working from home thing, it's okay. So if you never want to come back to the office ever again, don't. And here, here's some more money to top off your home studio.

That's nice. That's pretty cool. I know my wife got a small stipend for home office use, which I will talk about later. And when we do absent doodads, because I use that money to buy stuff for me. That's a good model for companies to do. I know the company that I've just recently been furloughed from, but hope to be back at once things pick up again.

He's trying to do a full transition to basically working from home seems to work okay. Let's keep it up and keep it going unless you want to come into an office. So the idea, of course, is that we don't need all these really expensive offices. Let's make our footprint smaller and see what happens.

Drive down some costs. Yeah. And a lot of people are doing that now. I mean, this is the time when all these businesses are cutting the fat big time. And I know one company who's a mutual friend, they're going to be cutting out like $7 million a year in office space minimum.

It's like, yeah, I would not want to be in commercial real estate right now. Oh, no, no, no, no. Commercial real estate is going to take a real hit. There's no doubt about that. What's going to happen to you? Oh, well. Yeah. So, yeah, I mean, it's a smart pivot.

A lot of people are finding out that the office served no needs whatsoever. But I still hold to the fact that a lot of people will run screaming back to offices when they get the chance to as well. Working from home is not for everybody. Working from home doesn't work for everybody. It is particularly suited to IT and tech, obviously, because, you know, you can do that from home without too much of a worry.

But it's not for everybody. My wife can't wait to go back to the office. You know, especially people with kids. They want to go to the office. Of course they do. Well, basically, it comes down to just, like, get rid of the kid so your home can be your office. If child care is back, then does it really matter?

Well, yes and no. I mean, there's something to be said for – and we talked about all of this when this first started, when we gave our work from home tips. I mean, there's something to be said for having a separation between work and home life. And when you work from home, that becomes very difficult. I do really think that a lot of people will want to go back to offices.

I know where companies would prefer you didn't because they're figuring out how much cheaper it is if they can actually get you to work and track you with all the different programs that we've also talked about on this program. Yeah, so we'll see what happens. And related Twitter news – well, not related at all, but more Twitter news.

I'm doing those – this is the Dorsean slip these days. Yeah, so they've decided that they're going to label misleading coronavirus tweets with a label that reads misleading. How about that? Or we could just take them down.

Yeah, so there will be three levels of different labels. One is misleading. One is disputed or unverified based on how severe the claims made in the tweet are. The company will apply either a label or a warning. And so that's helpful.

Okay. Now, I would like basically a setting in Twitter to say, if a tweet is either labeled misleading, disputed, or unverified, don't show it to me. That would be nice. Yeah, yeah. Give me that setting to turn off, please.

That would make total – I don't understand why that doesn't even exist. If you can actually block keywords and hashtags, why wouldn't you be able to do this as well? It's a no-brainer. Yeah. We'll see if they roll that out when they roll this out, if they roll this out. If they ever even rolled this out, yes.

Yeah. And we've talked about in the past the moderators for Facebook. I guess I should have put this in follow-up, but we do have some news. Facebook has agreed to pay $52 million to the moderators who developed PTSD and other mental conditions while, you know, basically having to watch Facebook all day.

Right. And they're going to get a minimum of $1,000. They'll be eligible for more compensation if they are diagnosed with PTSD or other conditions. And this is for 11,250 moderators. And they're saying this is probably like half of what needs to be done for – because there's probably, you know, twice as many moderators out there that need this kind of thing.

But I guess they just weren't in on the class action for that. I think we need a class action just for Facebook users. I think I could use a little bit of this because I'm certainly getting it from just looking at their site all day. Well, there's an option there. Don't. Yes. And Facebook is – this came across the wire this morning.

Facebook is buying Giphy for $400 million, and it's going to become part of Instagram. And the internet cried out. I'm actually surprised that it's only $400 million. I thought it would have actually been more. Well, I mean, what really is it besides a posting board and some servers?

Yes, but what really is Uber? What really is a lot of these companies is not much. I just – because Giphy is just so damn popular and people are starting to communicate using just, you know, GIFs and things of that nature.

I knew somebody was going to snap up Giphy at some point, and Facebook tends to overspend on what they buy anyway. So I'm, again, a little just surprised it wasn't a bit more money. But it makes total sense. Hey, man, pandemic prices. Pandemic prices, that's right. Everything must go.

It makes total sense for them to have picked this up and integrated in. So I'm not surprised by this at all. And I look forward to people continuing to use even less words. Well, here's the thing. The problem here is everybody does use Giphy. So, you know, the APIs are pretty much ubiquitous everywhere.

Twitter, Pinterest, Slack, Reddit, like every Apple keyboard, like third-party keyboard or Android third-party keyboard. They're huge, which comes back to your $400 million mark. I think it's kind of low, too, for what Facebook usually spends. Because you pay for the community.

You don't pay for, you know, the tech can be rebuilt. You pay for the community. And it's not like you can monetize this. Right. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Well, I mean, I don't know. Is there Giphy Pro? I mean, I've used Giphy all of three times in my life. So I don't know. I don't know either.

I know if you go to the site, you are served with ads. But obviously, if you're integrating this into Instagram and Facebook and whatnot, you will not be going to the site. You will not be served ads. But then they don't care because they own it and they're serving you their own ads under Instagram and Facebook. So you're right. I think it's more the community and the ease of use for users to keep them on Facebook and Instagram longer.

Yeah. I mean, Giphy's been around for how many years? And I've gone to the Giphy site maybe three times. And I'm on the Internet all damn day. Speaking of things people are on all goddamn day, video games. Video game sales are up. Shocked. Shockingly to no one. Shocking. Yeah.

Because everybody's sitting at home playing video games. They're up quite a bit, about a billion dollars over last year. Same time, which is not bad. Not bad at all. Which brings me to my next piece of news, which is Unreal Engine, who powers a huge chunk of the video games out there.

Right. It's the underlying engine for so many games. For a long time, a lot of these video game engines, you can just go download it, build on it, and make your own games. And then when you start to hit a level of profitability by releasing your game, you then have to kick back to the mothership.

Right. And, you know, it's been pretty low for a lot of them, you know, like $100,000, $500,000. Well, Unreal has just thrown down the gauntlet and says, we don't want your money until you make a million dollars. Wow. Which I think is fantastic because that's just going to open it up to so many other games that are going to be quality games.

And it lets them build on that game to the point where it's going to be worth, you know, that much, that they're bringing in that much. Because you can kill a game if you start to suck the cash out of it too early. Right. And I think this is a very smart move. It's just, you know, this is straight out of Shark Tank, man. You can't take the money out of the company until it hits a certain tipping point, you know.

That's why nobody ever wants to do Mr. Wonderful's, you know, his deals because all he wants is a royalty. So this is a- It's a drug dealer model. First hit's free. Exactly. Well, the first million is free when it comes to Unreal. So this is pretty cool. I mean, I don't know if you ever did this back when, you know, when we actually liked to use computers.

But I did this with the Quake engine back in the day. And it is really fun to, you know, get into these things. I mean, they're so complicated now. You need a computer science degree to actually make somebody run across a field and shoot something. But I think this is really cool for up-and-coming game developers.

And also, this goes into the VR system too because Unreal is tied with Oculus. So you can make Oculus games as well and still, although we know nobody's probably ever made a million dollars selling shit for Oculus. Let's be real.

I was actually, I was just thinking, I can't even remember the last time I heard Oculus. I almost bought one the other day. The new ones actually look pretty cool. The standalones. Because I was going to get two of them, one for my dad and one for me so we could have VR chat since he's stuck at home. But it turns out he's just as busy as I am.

I called him and he was like, I ain't got time to even watch TV. I'm like, okay, good for you. He was like, can this thing teach me how to learn French? I'm like, I don't know. I don't think you need VR for that. Exactly. And speaking of learning French, France has thrown down the gauntlet as well in terms of social media sites.

They're being given one hour to delete criminal content, which is pretty crazy. This is according to Reuters. France's government has passed the strict law that will require companies like Facebook and Twitter to delete any content related to pedophilia and terrorism within one hour of their being posted.

If they don't, the law stipulates that they'll have to pay 4% of their global revenue. So that's not insignificant. No shit. Per post. Basically, if you wanted to take down Facebook, I'd fire up your VPN and just post a whole bunch of vaguely terrorist or pedophilia related posts, you know, from the comfort of your own home.

And that would be that. So other manifestly illicit content must be removed within 24 hours. The government hopes that this law will help to eliminate criminal imagery and reduce hate speech. So this is pretty interesting. A lot of countries are expressed interest in similar laws. We've been talking about them on and off on the show for quite some time with very few of them actually being enacted.

But this one hour window is a new concept. Nobody has actually said anything like that yet. So Facebook better get ready to fire up a whole bunch more moderators and get ready to pay them out of that class action lawsuit because that is a very small window and AI is probably not going to cut it.

You're going to have to have human oversight to go through all those flags to get this done in the time that they're talking about. So pretty crazy. And the law also calls for special prosecutors to keep an eye on how well they comply. So it's not just being thrown out there. Internet police.

Yeah. Actual Internet police, in theory. Hopefully they'll fund them. So, yeah, this ain't going to happen. Ain't no way that this is going to work because with the volume of things that come through, every human on the planet would have to look at everybody else's Facebook post just to figure out, you know, what's what.

There's just no way to, you know, mathematically do this in one hour. It's just it's ridiculous. There's no way. Twenty four hours. Fine. I mean, if it hits a critical mass or they get notified by it. But if it's just a general post that nobody notifies them of, then how can anybody even expect them to do that in under an hour?

It's impossible. It is impossible. But, you know, kudos for the effort. Yeah. We talked a little bit about WeWork earlier, and we've kind of talked about exactly what's happening in this article again. But I just ran across again because people are really starting to talk about it now.

And a lot of the WeWork customers are coming out of the woodwork and basically getting ready to sue. As we know, WeWork is going to be in a lot of trouble. Their spaces are essentially unusable right now. You can't go there. Most of them are being depending on where you are in this country and other countries as well.

Most of them are being policed. And basically, people who show up are being told by the police, you cannot go in there, even though WeWork has decided that they are an essential business. They declared themselves an essential business, which is, of course, ridiculous. And they're on the Musk train.

Yes, they're on the Musk train, and more about that later. And they say that they are working with its more than 600,000 members on an individual basis to figure out compromises on rent during this time. But as most people who are stuck with their spaces right now are finding out, there are no decreases in rent, even though WeWork has gone out of their way to talk to their landlords to get decreases in rent.

So, and they've actually stopped paying rent at certain locations. So, well done, WeWork. I hope you get sued. Yeah. I think that the amount of bankruptcies after this whole thing is just going to go through the roof. So, if you really want to make money, fire up that bankruptcy attorney, you know, certificate that you had in the back, all you lawyers out there, because we're going to need a lot of bankruptcy attorneys.

Yes. Yes, I think we are. That's definitely going to – Legal Zoom is a good place to buy stock in right now. Speaking of Zoom. Speaking of Zoom, yes, I found two more articles talking about Zoom gatherings, which I thought was interesting. And obviously, the Zoom gathering. Zoom has become the Kleenex.

It could be any video conferencing software that you're using. But the first one was over at Slate called, I will not be attending your exhausting Zoom gathering. So, Zoom burnout is definitely happening. People that have been doing over the last two to three months cocktail parties and dinners out with Zoom chats.

And most people are getting burned out by these. And there's obvious psychological reasons for this. I like this particular article. It had a paragraph. There's too much information about the self and not enough about others. Fully aware of my every fleeting facial expression thanks to my front-facing camera.

I find myself over-emoting to make sure my reactions come through when those little verbal ascents and acknowledgements that keep conversations flowing get lost. Social instincts that usually require a little conscious effort are now taking up space in my brain, draining the energy I use to devote to the substance of a conversation.

Which is about how I feel about them as well. Well, I guess we shouldn't – I was about to say, this is a good time to plug that we're going to be doing a Zoom call this coming weekend. Next weekend. Next weekend. Yeah. So, mark your calendars, everybody. That is going to be on Saturday, May 23rd.

The next Grumpy Old Geeks Drink Up. Not four-hour marathon get-together. This will be a normal-sized one. Maybe, you know, Brian usually taps out at one hour. I think I can go for two, but that's it.

No more. No more. No, I think I'm still hungover from the last one, but we'll talk about that a little more in the show. Excellent. And then the second article was I Got Fired Over Zoom, and this is over on The Atlantic. I thought this was a pretty good article that gets into not just getting fired over video conferencing software or not in person, but just kind of the overall gestalt of everything that's going on right now, getting furloughed, et cetera, in this time.

So, it was a good article in that way. I just thought this particular part kind of made me laugh a little bit, especially since we just ditched Slack. I dialed into the Zoom meeting at 12.16 p.m., meaning 9.16 a.m. in California, the start of my colleague's workday, and saw only a blank white screen.

The meeting had begun at 9 a.m. and ended just before 9.07, so I'd missed it entirely. Weird. Normally, our all-hand Zoom meetings last between 45 minutes and an hour at night. Suddenly, a new Slack channel appeared. Hashtag goodbye. Oh, man. That's how you find out you've been fired.

Hashtag you're fucked.

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Media candy. Well, it seems Netflix is restoring their streaming quality over in Europe because Apple TV Plus did it. Now, I see a big difference here between Apple TV Plus and Netflix because one actually has viewers. Did anyone actually notice that Apple TV's quality went down or up?

I know. I've had it for, what, three months now or ever since it launched, and I have watched it a total of zero times, mainly because it's not on my Roku. So, what are you going to do? Because there was actually a European Commission request back in March to actually dial their bandwidth back because everybody who was working from home doing their zoomy zooms was running out of bandwidth.

And now, I guess, since some of these stay-at-home orders are being lifted, they can do this legally with – well, I mean, the other one wasn't a request. It wasn't actually a mandate or anything. So, they're going to start bringing it back up slowly. I haven't really noticed anything since that first week.

It was a little rough. Yeah, yeah. But I have noticed that my upload speed has been permanently cut in half, so I'm going to have to have a call with my ISP because I'm paying for that. That's right. You are. Yeah, I haven't actually noticed it either since the first, like, I'd say two weeks.

I could actually tell that there was definitely some throttling going on, but since then, it's been fine. So, I watched Upload on Amazon. You finished the whole thing? I finished – I binged it. I finished the whole thing. Oh, man. I'm halfway through. Oh, okay. Well, I won't spoiler alert then.

Well, no. Just tell me what you – thumbs up, thumbs down, because – I give it a thumbs up. It was like a good place for stupid people. Okay, perfect. Totally dumbed down and fun. Yeah, that's what I'm thinking, too. I'm really enjoying – the jokes are funny for the most part. I like the concept of it.

You know, like I said, I'm only halfway, but the premise is good. So far, I'm liking it. I just haven't had, you know, that extra half an hour at night to get into it. Now that I got my Lumi, it's going to be even harder to get into it, but I will finish it for next week for sure. Yeah, just go ahead and finish it.

It's a quick slice. It was very clever. I don't necessarily think there needs to be a second season because the joke is what it is. Yeah. So, you know, it was funny. Second season might be stretching it unless they actually come up with something a bit more clever.

But well worth it. You know, good waste of a half an hour at night before going to bed. I also watched the entirety of another season of a show. And this – I want to give a hat tip to a listener. Mark on Patreon who pointed the show out to me. It's called The English Game, and it's basically about the beginning of soccer.

Now, before you get bored and start to yawn, Jason, it's actually created by the folks who made Downton Abbey. And it's more about the class struggle in the 18th century between the working man and the professional people and basically just the rich people that had originally invented soccer that didn't have to work.

And how they basically – the working class kind of went, hey, we want to play the game too, and we have a right to play the game. And the rich people went, no, no, no, no, no. And the struggle between that. So it was really well done. Very little about soccer, Jason. I think you thoroughly enjoy it.

It looks – as you'd expect from the creators of Downton Abbey, it looks gorgeous. And it's well written, and it's pretty funny as well. So I watched all of it. It was great. I loved it. I can't wait for a second season of that. But again, I'm not sure how you do a second season because they kind of solved the problem. Yeah. That's like Ken Burns going back and doing season two of The Civil War.

Exactly. Going to need another war. Yeah. Well, okay. It might be starting soon. Get that camera warmed up, Ken. You can capture it in real time. Might I suggest starting in Wisconsin. Yes. And some news out of the Anne Rice world.

AMC has – of course, they went for this headline. AMC is sucking the rights from Anne Rice's vampire novels. So AMC announced today that it has acquired Rice's major literary works, which means the Vampire Chronicles series and the Lives of the Mayfair Witches series, both of which I love. At least – I've never heard of the second one.

Oh, dude. They're great books. And actually, she didn't entirely ruin those by writing 17 more later on in her life. How many are there total? I think there were four of the main ones for the Mayfair Witches. You know, so if you do – I'd say about four for the Vampire series, too.

So you got about eight books total in those two series, which are actually really good, and it's all, you know, decreasing returns after that. So we'll see what happens. They can be adapted in whichever way the network deems the best fit. I'd say a limited or multi-season TV show would probably do it because they're all quite big novels.

So there's 18 total, which is a little crazy. Don't need to see all of them. Yeah, it's 10 more than you just, you know, said. Yes, exactly. There were eight good ones in there, 18 total. So, yeah, thoroughly 10. Well, you know, as long as they start at the beginning and work their way through there, I'll be dead before they get to the bad ones. That's true. It's kind of like watching The Walking Dead.

It's like, okay, we can check out now. Let's keep going. We're done. We're done. Exactly. And speaking of old shit getting new life on media, Sandman is going to be on Audible. I could not believe this.

This is the first installment of the audio series, and Audible and Audible UK are adapting all of the graphic novel series from Sandman. And the first version is going to be volumes one through three, which is Preludes and Nocturnes, The Doll's House, and Dream Country, some of the best stuff out there.

And I cannot wait for this. It's coming out soon. I can't remember. It's like in July, I think. But the cast is incredible. It is an incredible cast. So I'm really looking forward to this one, and I've already preordered it, so I can't wait for that.

And because we didn't do a show that had apps and doodads on it recently, and we won't for like another week and a half, and because we mentioned that companies are giving some kickbacks for home office stuff, I used my wife's kickback for that to buy a new mouse. Because I have been using a mouse that's probably about 10 years old for a long time now, and oh my, the technology has improved.

I got the Logitech MX Master 3 Advanced Wireless Mouse Graphite, and it's great. It's neat. It does all kinds of stuff that my old mouse didn't. It's got doodads and knobs everywhere that I can control everything all the time from any little finger I choose.

Well, this proves that you never listen to my reviews on the show, because I have reviewed the Logitech MX Master Mouse, the MX Master 2 Mouse for years. You'd be surprised to know, Jason, that I did listen, and that's why I looked it up, and that's why I got the newest version. Cool.

And I actually used your link this morning to go buy an MX Master 3, because I have another computer, and I need another mouse, and I've only got two of the MX Master 2s lying around. So you're welcome. You just got a ka-ching from me. It looks good. It looks like, you know, it's basically the same mouse with a little bit of advanced, or not advanced, but just a new design.

I think these things generally are the same mouse. You know, I can pick up my MX Master 2 and my MX Master 1 and not really tell the difference. Right. So that's good. That's a good thing, though. But the cool thing about these, Brian, I know you've only got one computer now, but if you do get more than one computer, you can actually use this mouse on three different devices.

It's got three different Bluetooth ranges on the bottom, so you can pick one, two, or three. So you can pair it with different computers using different settings. So it's cool that you can, like, you know, oh, I've got my laptop. I use it with that. And then I've got my desktop. I can use it with that. So you can have one mouse for three computers, which is really nice.

So even your wife can use it, too. So you can switch between. Yes, I did notice that there was the little bottom, on the bottom, there's a little switch, one, two, three. So very nice. Yep, yep. You just turn the light on and you pair it with one computer and then you just remember, hey, sometimes you forget which computer is which number, which can be a pain in the butt.

So you've got to cycle through them. And then you're controlling somebody else's computer on the other side of the house and it gets kind of funny that way. But they're pretty cool. Yeah. Very happy with this mouse. It's funny. Dr. David Teeter commented something like, did you get a new mouse pad? And I was like, no, what do you know?

You know, these newfangled mice don't even need mouse pads, which is quite nice. And then he complained about the magic mouse. And I just said, I've always hated the magic mouse. To hell with the magic mouse. Logitech always does me fine. Yeah, I've got a drawer full of magic mice. I only pull those out when I, you know, when my, I forget to charge up my MX Master and I need something to actually move the cursor around while my other mice charge.

So for more on of the week, we had some feedback and I didn't want to wait until the next feedback show to cover this because I think it'll be, I'm already tired of talking about it anyways. This is from Damon. I love the show and your insights. I have to question the statements about Tesla reopening.

If the work conditions are protective, why does, why is it not a good thing to get people back on the line working for pay? At some point, we have to realize there may be no definitive protection and there has to be risk, risk, acceptability. All decisions have an engineering, AKA medical, in this case, fiscal and political context.

One dynamic should not continue to be dominant. We have to balance all three factors. We have to get back to work and life sometime. Why not now? Keep the good shows going. Well, why not now, Damon? Because the scientists are telling us not now and because our local governments have said not now and Elon Musk said to hell with it.

I don't have to follow the rules even though everybody else does. That's why. Yeah. That's it. I don't disagree with anything you're saying, but our scientists and our local government have said not yet. And he decided, fuck it. Yep. I was saying arrest him because what he did was against the law.

That's why. You know, it was against the law. If you or I did this, if we just said screw it and opened our little mom and pop restaurants, the police would show up. Yes. But not for Elon. Yes. It's like, okay, you know, you got to wait until things, until they say it's clear. That's the point of it.

And, you know, we're trying to do something here by keeping everybody away from each other while we figure this thing out so we don't overrun the health care system. That's the point of the whole exercise. Yes. It's not that we don't want to go back to work or go back out. And, you know, it's about society.

It's not one person saying, I need to go make some money. It's like, okay, I go make some money. Then I infect 10 other people on the line. They go home and infect their family. Next thing you know, you can't go to the hospital because there's no beds left. That's the point of what we're doing. And why the government says no. Yes. And at the end of the day, he is still here in California.

He can whine and bitch all he wants about picking up and moving to Texas. But he's here. And he has to follow the rules here. And we do have a government, believe it or not, that is actually going through and vetting people's plans. And then basically saying, okay, you have a good plan in place.

We're going to consider you essential. We're going to move you up to the next stage. And now you can reopen with this plan in place about how to protect people. Elon has not waited for that. He has not done that. He has not submitted that plan to the government. The government has not approved any plan by him yet.

So he cannot open yet. That is the deal. So we're just saying he has to follow the rules just like everybody else does. Or he doesn't because he did it and he didn't get arrested. Yes, exactly. It doesn't matter. Anyways, we have a hero of the week. I saw this and this made me smile.

A guy makes an amazing Jack Daniels water feature for the garden while drunk. I looked at this. It's pretty cool. It's pretty cool. The video is really nice. So this guy has activated his genius level creativity and made this incredible Jack Daniels water feature from things he found around the garden and even lights up at night.

It's pretty awesome. It's a shame that it's not actually Jack Daniels running through it. But as he points out, he'd rather drink it and that would get quite pricey. Yeah, exactly. And I just love that he quote unquote found these around the garden. There's like five bottles of Jack Daniels in this thing. I'm like, what the hell are you doing in your garden, buddy?

Getting drunk. We're joined again this week by Dave Bittner. Dave is the host of the Cyber Wire podcast. Dave is also the co-host of the social engineering podcast, Hacking Humans with Joe Kerrigan, as well as the co-host of Caveat with Ben Yellen, where they discuss law and policy as well as surveillance and privacy.

And now that the gang's all here, I just want to kick things off with. Happy birthday, Brian. Oh, well, thank you.

I was expecting you to get in your car and do a drive-by with some balloons or whatever we're doing for pandemic birthdays these days. I don't like you that much. Sorry. That's okay. I wouldn't come outside. Well, thank you.

I would have baked a cake. Yes. Well, it is what it is. It's, you know, normally I would go out with some friends and drink way too much. And now I'll stay at home and drink way too much. Well, congratulations. Yes. Thank you. It's wonderful. How old are you going to be now? 35?

Yes. 35. I've been 35 for 12 years now. And a whole thing. Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah. It is. You know, it sucks to have your birthday on in a pandemic. You know, originally they had announced here in Los Angeles that we might be going out again on the May 15th, which is today as we record.

And obviously it's been extended until August now. So there was some degree of hope many, many moons ago or two days ago or time is irrelevant at this point that I would be out for my birthday. But obviously that is not going to happen now. So here's here's to to to tack on to your story here.

My oldest son, Scott, is he turned 21 during the pandemic and his birthday is on St. Patrick's Day. Oh, yes. That is a that is a perfect storm. Much like much like Cinco de Mayo being on Taco Tuesday this year.

And we get to enjoy that as well. Right. Exactly. Right. He was he was. I mean, talk about something he's been looking forward to certainly all through his teen years to not be able to do it is just he was crestfallen. I do hope you whipped up a batch of green beer for him.

Oh, man. Well, before we got to stories this week, I just wanted to go a little around Robin with everybody. It's been a little while since we've talked. So how's everybody doing? I'm I'm actually surprisingly OK, considering I'm facing, you know, another year of being even older and having to face it alone ish with, you know, under under continued whatever.

And even the news that we're being extended until August here, which dashes any hope of there being any school for my kid again this year or any privacy or any time alone or anything ever again. And I no longer know what human contact is like besides my little pod.

I'm actually been in a relatively decent mood the last week or so. I do find that things tend to come and go in waves. So I'm expecting, you know, another another fall from my crest fairly soon. But this week has been OK. I listen to music.

I listen to some good podcasts. I read a good book. I've watched some good shows. Wife and I and the kid are getting along pretty well. It's been an all right week. I'm not, you know, try not to look at the news, Jason. Ah, I'm doing OK. It's pretty much, you know, situation normal around here.

Going to the store sucks. I always come back with a stress headache. But really? Yeah. Beyond that. Well, two problems. A, people are morons and don't practice their social distancing properly. Oh, and apparently somebody in the background is having a birthday because every car in the neighborhood decided to honk right now.

They heard us talking about you, Brian. But you have to breathe really weird in those masks when you have glasses because otherwise they fog up and you can't see. And then you'll walk into a, you know, walk into a rack of lamb or something. But and beyond that, though, yeah, it's pretty much everything's normal around here.

Just work, work, work, work, work. I find that the more I work, the less I think about things. It's good to keep busy. I agree with that. I have a pro tip about the mass thing. I don't know where you guys are at, Dave, in terms of, you know, what the mandates are there and everything. And we are obviously still on stay at home.

And that's been extended through August, as I've mentioned. And they have actually included the the you must wear your mask if you go out in public now in general to to our mandates here. Not just if you're going into a store or something like that. You just have to wear masks when you're out. So a quick little pro tip on the mask thing is a lot.

Well, the glass thing, Jason, just Google it. And there's a bunch of tips about that. But no, I know how to do that. But it doesn't work all the time because I have all these weird coatings on my glasses. So it doesn't it's like for normal glasses. It's fine. But you can't put a lot of that stuff on. Right. It's like high tech glasses.

Otherwise, you just wasted a thousand dollars. But in terms of when you go out and you discover really how bad your own breath is wearing masks. My quick pro tip here is have a quick sip of coffee right before you head out and you'll smell the delicious smell of coffee the entire time you're walking around.

Or brush your teeth. Well, that too. I find that by sitting my glasses as far forward as I can on my nose without having them fall off, that seems to help with the steaminess. Yeah, but then you can't see. That's the other problem.

And I think that that's that also what adds to the headache because I do do that. That's about the only way to get them to not fog up. And then like everything is out of focus for the 20 minutes that you're in the store. As one who does not wear glasses, I have to ask, is this anything like when I when you go snorkeling, do you can you just spit on them and rub a little spittle around?

Kind of. I mean, the dishwashing liquid thing generally seems to work, but it doesn't work for all that long. But yeah, yeah, you're not going to spit on the inside of your glass because, you know, those when you do spit on the inside of your mask, it still stays wet. So I'm not going to walk around with drippy glasses in the store.

I mean, I always go in the morning and I've still got the sniffles in the morning for my allergies. And still, I'm like, don't stab me. Don't stab me. Please don't stab me. It's just allergies. It's just allergies. Oh, right. Right. God, I haven't been in a store in almost two and a half, almost three months now.

We still we get absolutely everything delivered. Yeah. There's some stuff that we can't get delivered and or there's the timings. Right. It's if you go in the morning, it's not bad. There's usually like only a couple of people in the massive stores and we rotate like my roommate will go one week and then I'll go the next week.

And then we just pick up the stuff that we need for that week. Share the risk. Yeah. Pretty much it. I've been a couple of times. And I guess the big difference that I've noticed is just that there are really long lines to check out. Right. We've got no lines.

There's I mean, our store is usually packed, but I go like right when they open in the morning and you can zip in, zip out, barely see anybody. The most people that are in the store, the stockers, that's it. Try going as early as possible. Yeah. Yeah. No, it could just be the sheer, the sheer volume of stores we have around here as well, though, because, you know, everything is open from the big grocery stores to liquor stores to, you know, a lot of the restaurants have done the pivoting to where they're actually basically just grocery stores now.

So there's no lack of options to go and get shopping done here. Yeah, I have it. I have noticed, though. I mean, it's it's so I don't get why people do this, but I'll go to my local Ralph's, get my groceries, come home, and I have to drive by a Trader Joe's. I have to drive by a Whole Foods, then a Trader Joe's Whole Foods, empty as can be.

Nobody's going into Whole Foods in the morning. Trader Joe's. There's a line around the block waiting to get in. I'm like, guys, it ain't that great. I mean, I'm sorry. I don't know. I really miss my Trader Joe's. If I were to go to any store right now, they're the one store that you actually can't get Instacart or anything from.

So I'd be tempted. I do miss it. You'll be standing in line for a long time. Yeah. Yeah. I've had some strange weeks. Like it's been a couple of weeks since we've talked. And so week before this last week, the end of the week came and I thought to myself, where did this week go?

Like, I mean, it just, it wasn't like it flew by. It wasn't like it dragged. It just, it was as if it didn't happen. Yeah. You know, it was. At first I thought time was stretching and decompressing and all of that because March, you know, obviously felt like it was eight months long.

But April flew by May. I can't believe it's the middle of May already. I don't know where the time went and it's not like it flew. It just doesn't seem to have existed. Here's the thing that I, my theory, and this goes back to, you know, you know, you remember those days when you would go out and you would do a million different things and the day felt like it was a month.

And it was because it was filled with novelty, new things, changing locations, doing other things. But if you don't have any new novelty in your life and you're not changing locations, your brain doesn't really have anything to really latch on to, to remember. So it's like, but when you go to bed at night, there's like four things that it's got to put into your long-term memory.

So it's just, there's really nothing there that's new because if you're in a routine doing the same thing, it's like, why am I going to, why am I going to chalk this up and put it in the, put it in long-term storage? Because you did the same thing for the past 17 days. Yeah. And that, and that connects to the point that, that I wanted to make that the thing that struck me earlier this week is that one of the things I feel like I've lost is the feeling of looking forward to things.

Um, just, and just the, the mundane, I don't know, going to the movies, going out to dinner, seeing my friends, uh, going, walking around the mall with my son, just the, the, the routine things, um, where now you think, oh, I'd like to, uh, no, can't do that.

Oh, it'd be really fun to, no, no, can't do that. And, and so just the, the, the, that little consistent beat down of those, there's all those things are off the table right now. And it's, it's driving people batty. I mean, we see people are losing their minds right now over this stuff.

I have to say, maybe one of the reasons I have been in a bit of a better mood this last week or so, and I know Jason doesn't care about any of this because he doesn't care about sports ball, but sports ball is a big deal for a lot of people. It is that thing to look forward to. And, um, the German soccer league, the Bundesliga is actually resuming this weekend.

And I plan to be up at nine in the morning to watch the games. And that has actually given me some buoyancy this entire week. The fact that I know I get to sit down and for 90 minutes, I am blissed out watching a sport I love. And I'm very much looking forward to that.

Yeah. Yeah. Which is nice. Great. So another thing I wanted to touch on here, and I was having a conversation, um, with a dear friend of mine and somehow we had got on the topic of Star Wars. I think this person had sent me a funny little Star Wars meme or something and, and we were talking about it.

And somehow it came up that, um, I think what I said was that I don't feel like I want to own a stormtrooper uniform, but sometime in my life, I really want to wear a stormtrooper uniform. And, and, you know, I know people who, listeners to this show, uh, we, we joke about my, uh, my desire, my secret desire that's not so secret to be a furry and my furry curiosity.

Um, but I'll tell you, this one is real that since I was a small boy, there's been something about that stormtrooper uniform. And I think it's because it's not a costume you could go out and just get for Halloween. I need to put you in touch with one of my friends who, uh, a friend of mine in Toronto, and he is, there are legions everywhere.

You should check to see if there's one in your town, Dave. Um, he is part of the Toronto Legion. He has four different stormtrooper uniforms that he has built over time. Uh, they are amazing. Yes, we make fun of him endlessly, but I, I am impressed when he posts his photos.

Um, well, it's pretty cool. Yeah. Then this is what I'm getting to. And that is this, so my friend challenged me to basically, she said, well, it sounds to me like you haven't put this out in the world. I mean, if you wanted this to happen, why haven't you made this happen?

You, you know, time's, time's not, you know, time's slipping away here, pal. And, um, so I said, you know what? You're right. Why haven't I made this happen? So I'm putting it out there in the world and I'm using this show as the first place to do that because I think we have a lot of like minds here.

So if we have anyone, any of our listeners, uh, I'm going to, I'm going to cross a line here and, and use the fact that I'm hosted this show with you guys to say, if anybody is in the 501st and they're in my area and they have access to a stormtrooper uniform, I just want to try one on.

I just, I want to put it on. I want to walk around in it. I want to, I mean, it'd be great to be able to do an event or a parade or a nonprofit thing or something like that, but. You're going to be a while before that, Dave. Yeah, that's true. But I just, I want to, I want to see what it feels like.

I mean, it's just something from the time I was a little kid, there's something about those, the inaccessibility of those uniforms. And then until really we got the, you know, the, uh, the internet and we found out that there were people who were building them and they were building, you know, screen accurate ones. And then, you know, we got the, the, the 500 first, which are the people who, who have these, these, uh, costumes and these uniforms and they wear them and all that sort of thing.

So I'm putting that out into the world. And, uh, it's something that, uh, I want to do if you're, uh, if you're a friend of the show and you have access to something like this and you want to see your good pal, Dave smile underneath of that helmet, uh, get in touch with us.

Dave will provide, uh, all the Lysol spray and wipe down materials necessary to make this happen and be safe. I will, I will make a donation to your favorite charity. You know, I'll, I mean, I'll, you know, let's, let's make, make something good come out of it that way. Um, but, um, yeah, so just a little, little request there I'm sending out into the world.

Well, let's see if the grumpy army can, uh, you can be a grump trooper. Yeah, I'm sure I'm going to get lots of like furry offers, but that's not what I want. Those are a dime a dozen. Trust me. I've got a Jar Jar Binks outfit. Right.

Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Uh, but a furry storm trooper would be pretty, pretty epic. I have to say. Oh, I'm sure it's just a Google search away. I'm sure it is. I'm sure it is. Chew a little furry for a storm trooper. Right. Yes. There you go. There you go.

Well, speaking of storm troopers, I found this over on Geekology and Disney has released a virtual ride of Star Wars Rise of the Resistance. Now, I was a bit hesitant to watch it because I don't necessarily know if I wanted to watch it before actually going on the ride.

And obviously I blew my chance because I didn't go pre-pandemic. Uh, but I decided to go ahead and watch it because God knows when I'm going to get the chance to go on the ride now. So it was cool. Yeah. So there's two, there's two versions in this link. And I think one of them might not be in existence by the time this goes to air because it is, it's, uh, I, I don't know.

I mean, it's someone who filmed it with their, their phone cam in 4k and it's a beautiful version of it. And then there's the official Disney one, which apparently has all of these like pop-up trivia things as you go through it. Is that the one you watched, Brian? Or did you watch the, the fan version?

I watched both. Okay. What was the, the official one? Okay. Or. Yeah, it's fine. It doesn't really give you, you know, it's an ad. It doesn't give you the real feel of actually going through it. Like the unofficial one does. Gotcha. Yeah. I thought it was really cool. And now I want to go.

Damn it. I can't. Burr. Yeah. There's no word. That's, that's a big topic. Obviously I'm, I have long connections to Disneyland and I used to work there and used to hang out there as a kid. And I'm part of a couple of groups on Facebook of all of us that used to do that. So big topic of conversation about when Disney is going to reopen.

And it's a, it's a long time coming. Did you get a chance to watch it, Dave? No, I have not. No, but I have watched some videos of the ride. I've, I've watched some, you know, on ride videos that people have made and my son has been on it. So, and like Brian, I, I went back and forth as to whether I wanted to spoil it or not.

And in the end, it's like, oh yeah, I can't help myself. So I did. And it looks really cool. It looks really cool. Yeah. And I was listening to your show this week and you had a great line talking about social media and how they, they basically cater to engagement, not enrichment.

And I just wanted to call out that line and say, that was a fantastic description of social media. I really liked that. Oh, thank you. Thank you. Yeah. I think it's true. I mean, it's, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's the anxiety engine, right? It's the outrage engine.

It's, it's do not pull away. You know, we're not making you better. We're just making you want to be here more. Yep. And that's a, that, you know, that's their business. They, they aren't into enrichment. That's, that's not what makes the money. That's not what they set out to do.

You want that, you sign up for masterclass. You don't, uh, you don't go to Twitter. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah. It's kind of like the old, uh, the old checkout line tabloids in a way, you know, it's, it's sort of a version of that. Suck you in with something and, and, uh, you know, you're not going to be a better person for having experienced it.

Now, having said that though, of course, it does matter how you, how you cater your experience. You can do that. You can, I know Jason was following the way he called it the way of Schulmeister a while back when he weeded down his Facebook to just friends and things of that nature. And if you go through and you remove all brands, don't like any brands, don't add people you don't really know, keep it to just friends, install, uh, that Facebook plugin that blocks all the ads.

I have a fairly enriching Facebook feed for the most part. So if you put in the care and effort, you can do it. See, after I Schulmeistered my Facebook feed, it turns out there's really not much interesting there. So I don't even go back anymore until somebody, I get a notification that somebody sent me a message.

I'm like, Oh, okay. I guess I better go back and look around. But otherwise it's just like, I guess I have a, it depends on your friends. Of course. I have a lot of friends that are pretty engaged on Facebook that post a lot and talk about their own life and, and, and interesting things. So it's, uh, it's, it's, you cater your own experience, but yeah, the, the business model of these companies is generally not to endorse or help with that.

It's to hinder it. So what I was saying, Dave, is, uh, you're not missing anything. Stay away. You're doing good. I'm still on the right track. Why not being on the right track? Right. Very good. Unfortunately, that whole storm trooper regiment is only on Facebook.

Only on Facebook. They have a Facebook group. See, they keep me, pull me back in. It's your dream, man. It's your dream. Yeah, I know. So I do have a little bit of followup here just to, just to round out the show, because this is kind of fun.

That made me smile a little bit. We talked about Senator Richard Burr, uh, way back when, uh, this stuff started to hit. And, you know, he was, uh, basically called out with a couple of his colleagues for doing a little bit insider trading, moving some stocks around. And we, you know, we joked about it and said, well, I guess nothing's ever going to come of that.

They get a hall pass. Well, turns out maybe not. Well, there's, there's no talk about taking him to jail yet, but he has stepped down. We don't, uh, from his Senate committee chair. He hasn't left Senate yet. Well, no, no, no, no. But I mean, it's a, it's a good start that the FBI raided him and took his phone, you know, and, uh, that he did have to step down, which is good, you know?

Uh, so, you know, I mean, he's the chair of the Senate intelligence committee, so it's kind of a big deal. Yeah. And I mean, I guess you're, you're right to a certain extent, Jason. It's good that we're seeing actually something happen when in, you know, reality, what we should expect with this administration is nothing.

However, with this administration, what we're also discovering is even if they get put in jail, they end up getting taken out. They do. They do have that get out of jail free cards firmly stuck in their back pocket. Yes, they do. Mm-hmm. But I just thought it was, I thought it was a little bit of good news.

It is. Yeah. I think so. I hope he goes to jail. He should, by all accounts. If any of us did it, we'd go to jail. Yeah. Yeah. And maybe a reminder to his colleagues to knock it off. Mm-hmm. Yeah. The rest of the news I got ain't so good, so maybe we should just.

Well, I mean, I do think we should at least mention something relatively important that did happen, which is the Senate voted to allow FBI to look at your web browsing history without a warrant. Mm-hmm. So our web browsing histories are now open to the general public, as it were. That's it.

Not the general public, obviously, but the FBI. Right. So they can look at whatever we browse at at any time for any reason with absolutely no oversight. Yay. Here's the thing, though. That's the way it's been. Yeah. I know. This is nothing new. The bill that was trying to go through was to remove that power, and it didn't get voted through because it was an amendment to another bill.

But, yeah, since Bernie didn't show up that day. Yeah, that was a little, listen, Bernie bros, this is not looking good for you. He should have been there to vote on this. Yeah. Yeah. It failed by one vote, so we needed, oh, God.

I don't think it's that simple. And if you really want to dig into this, Ben Yellen and I spent a good bit of time on this on our most recent caveat show, so check that out. And, of course, Ben knows all about this stuff and all of the way that things move through.

He knows all the gory details about it. Right. I think he thinks that if Bernie had showed up, Mitch McConnell just would have gotten someone else to counter it. He would have gotten another vote. So it's probably not that all or nothing thing. What I'm trying to remember here, and I apologize for not having a better handle on this, is whether or not this now goes back to the House.

Does it need to be reconciled? Does it – or I don't remember what happens next. But I remember – From what I read, it's most likely going to skip the House since they voted on a different version of this bill already. I see. And it's just going to basically go from the Senate to the president.

Yeah. So now is the time to fire up that VPN. When Ben and I did our segment on it, it was before the vote had actually happened. So our conversation was a bit more speculative. But if this is something you want to dig into the weeds on, that's what we did.

All right. Excellent. Yeah. With someone who actually knows what he's talking about. Yeah. We don't like people like that. It just makes us look bad. Yeah. A real lawyer, constitutional scholar, all that good stuff. You know. Yeah.

And I guess – I mean since we're not going to discuss any of the other real stories, I just – I thought that there was this great article. I don't know if you guys both had the time to read it. An opinion piece in the New York Times written by Dave Eggers, who's a fantastic writer and novelist and journalist.

And I think it kind of sums up how we all basically feel about everything that's going on because, you know, we don't have any plan. We don't have any federal plan going on. We have a mishmash of state and local things happening and it's called Flattening the Truth on Coronavirus.

And it basically tells you everything you need to know about what we seem to know, which is absolutely nothing. Yeah. It was pretty funny. It was definitely funny to read. I mean, it's funny as something that dark can be. Yes. Yes. I was going to say it's funny while also being darkly tragic.

It's a hard truth to read, but if you have a dark sense of humor, you will probably find yourself chuckling throughout while – through your tears, right? The tears of a cloud. Yeah. Yeah. So that was a good read. Yeah, it's the cold, hard truth, I think.

Mm-hmm. We don't know what we're doing and every single bit of advice we're getting is contradictory and we're kind of screwed. Yay. Welcome to 2020. Good times. Good times. Yeah. Yeah. Okay.

Well, on that happy note, everybody out there, go help Dave get his dreams fulfilled with his stormtrooper outfit. That is your job during this pandemic is to brighten the future of one little boy who always wanted to be a stormtrooper.

Oh, and we should also probably mention that we are intending to do another grumpy old drinking event next Saturday, Dave. So if you happen to be around, we shall sort that out and let you know. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Let me know.

Give me the date and I will do my best to be there. I will be there for one hour. Yeah. May 23rd, Brian will be there for an hour. I'll probably be there for no more than two this time. That's what they all say. That's what you said last time, right? And with any luck, the grumpy old army will get into play and Dave will be there wearing a stormtrooper outfit.

If nothing else, maybe we can find a good, with a good filter for you. We'll get you a stormtrooper filter. You know, rumor has it that there, so there is a really interesting website. I think it's called like Star Wars Helmets and it's all about, wait for it, Star Wars Helmets.

But it tracks a lot of the screen used helmets and so on and so forth. And rumor has it that right here in my town, in my hometown, in Columbia, Maryland, there is a screen used stormtrooper helmet from Star Wars A New Hope. Now that, we'll talk about your holy grail, right?

Yeah. Again, just putting it out there in the universe. You never know what's going to come back to you. I did find a really nice stormtrooper helmet with the electronic voice changer on it on Amazon for $240.

So, if you want to... Patreon.com slash GOG. Do a Kickstarter. Yeah, yeah, exactly, exactly. Oh, and you can get a refurb for $230. I don't know if I'd want a refurbed stormtrooper helmet, but... Somebody else has been drooling all over the inside of it.

Well, if you're going to be borrowing one, that's pretty much where you're headed, Dave. Yeah, that's true. I can Lysol bomb it. That's right. All right, guys. Take care. Talk to you soon. Closing shout outs! Happy birthday to Brian Eno.

We are recording this on May 15th. And Brian Eno was born May 15th, 1948. So, he's 72. I didn't know he was that old. Well, one day before me. I forget that we're getting old, too. Shit. Very cool. I didn't know I almost shared a birthday with him.

That's awesome. Good to know. I'm very excited that we're actually going to have some live sports ball. The German Bundesliga is coming back with empty stands, of course. They'll be playing their games on Saturday morning. I will be watching that. My team, Bayern Munich, plays their first game on Sunday.

It's the first football that's really back. And I'm very cool about that. And some very cool fans have put together some charity things to help with the COVID-19 pandemic related to this. Some of the teams are basically selling cardboard cutouts of fans, which they will put in the stadium. And all the money will go to charity.

Very cool. Very cool. And I like the images. They're pretty neat. Yeah. Pretty funny. And so if you are over in Washington, Virginia, you will be able to go to the inn over there with the – I love this. Instead of, you know, putting the chairs on the table for their restaurant, they're going to fill them with mid-century mannequins in different states of posing and things like that.

There's a picture in the link. This comes from the Washingtonian. You will also get Marilyn Monroe masks when you go in. Okay. But it's a pretty cute way to do it. So they're putting people in 1940s, you know, clothing and posing them around the restaurant so you can't sit at those tables.

And I think that's a good way to do it. I mean, this is a three Michelin star restaurant. So, you know, they have to have some kind of, you know, shtick going on there to at least make it worth your while. It's a little creepy. I love it. I love it. Yeah. If you're scared of mannequins and dolls, you definitely don't want to go eat there.

I want to go to one where it's just all clowns. Oh, my goodness. No, thank you. No, thank you. It'd be cooler, though, if they could, if they could, if these were like, you know, animatronic, so they could like make them blink. And then it all of a sudden during the middle of your meal, if you drop your fork, all of them turn and look at you or things like you just fuck with the people who are eating there.

It's more of a Halloween destination, but still could be fun. I don't know. Having grown up by Disneyland, I'd be quite used to that. It would bother me a bit. Yeah, that's true. But I think it's a cool thing. The link will be in the show notes. So definitely go check that out. And 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. It costs 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 439. 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 continue staying home, even if your government decided you shouldn't.

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