452: Knucklehead Behavior

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. Brian. Yes. What's happening? You know, not much. You ready to get locked down again? Lockdown 2.0? Yeah, I mean, that's definitely happening, right?

Like, we've already, Texas shutting down bars, Florida. We're shutting down bars. Should shut down everything. We're shutting down bars. We're telling people wear masks when they're outside. The problem is we're not really enforcing much, and there's so much wiggle room, because I don't know about you, there are very few actual things that fall under the definition of bar, bars around anymore.

Basically, if you serve a burger, you're considered a restaurant, and most of the places that I used to frequent had names like pub or tavern, which tells you the reason why people go there. But because they serve food, they are considered a restaurant, and guess what?

They get to stay open. So, you know, we're not doing it. We're just not doing it. And it's, you know, we're basically getting the warnings now from, you know, the science people. You know, the people who know things saying that we're not even close to being close to done with the first wave.

And we are going to have to be locking down and quarantining again. It's coming down, the pipe. So, not much of a change for you or I. We've been doing this the whole way through. You know, speaking of that, just yesterday, I did what I now call my once-a-month pants check.

I put on my pants to make sure they still fit, and they do. So, you haven't hit the COVID-15? I actually haven't. No, I was hoping to actually lose some weight, but that's not going to happen. So, I'm happy just to stay steady at the moment, you know, because whatever working out and healthy eating I'm doing is destroyed by the drinking.

I've been staying up until the wee hours of the morning talking to my lady friend. And so, I have to lose weight because, you know, I've got to be sexy. Well, you've got some time before you'll be able to see her in person. Well, she's coming over tomorrow. See, breaking the rules.

Breaking the rules. Well, we both are quarantined. We're going to be on the same quarantine. Yes, the quarantines. Yeah. So, you know, she's safe. I'm safe. We, you know, around here, you know, I have to be super safe because I've got a 92-year-old woman that we care for.

So, I don't mess around. So, it's just funny to watch the news, and it's just like, you dumb fucks. And then I saw yesterday, I don't know if it was the governor of New Jersey or one of the mayors of a town in New Jersey.

He's like, we're shutting everything down again because of your knucklehead behavior. And I'm like, dude, that is the most New Jersey thing I've ever heard in my entire life. That's amazing. I mean, this was in a press release. This was literally in a press release.

Because of your knucklehead behavior, we're going to have to shut everything down. I love you. That's great. It's amazing. And it's the right tone to start taking now because at this point, what else can we do? People aren't listening. We have to shame them. And this is the weekend for it, by the way, because this is our last show.

We're going to take the 4th of July off. Yeah. But, I mean, we've seen the direct correlation. This spike that has happened, especially here in California, we were doing okay. We were doing all right until Memorial Day. Until Memorial Day. Memorial Day. Yes, Memorial Day is what did it because people went out and broke the rules and took their long weekends and went to the beach and did whatever they wanted to do.

And now we're here with bigger numbers than we ever had the first couple months. And we're sliding into July 4th. And the governor here in California has said to shut down the beaches. Good. Shut everything down for this weekend because if we don't, we're going to see exactly what happened with Memorial Day, except for the fact that we're not even low right now.

We're high. No. Highest day ever yesterday. 2,900 cases yesterday in L.A. County. And I'm like, I mean, we talked about this. Like, Newsom, you said that you were going to be the science governor. Yes. You were going to be the guy that did everything by the numbers.

And then you didn't. And now we're going back to stage one because I don't know what he was thinking, but Jesus. And I don't know what's going to happen now because now just in terms of the finances, you've gotten all these people off unemployment.

They can't go back on unemployment. The special $600 a month is going away. All the rent stuff is going away. So everybody's rent is going to be due. This is good. And everything is about to shut down again. So any income that these people were getting, which, by the way, wasn't much.

I've talked to a couple of my friends that are bartenders, and they were just like, I was making better money on unemployment than I am here because not a lot of people are coming in. Because the people that are coming in are kind of jerks and aren't tipping very well. So, you know, it's all a mess.

I guess the people that go to bars are assholes right now because you shouldn't be in a goddamn bar right now. Yeah, basically. There you go. So good times. I mean, that's a self-selecting sample right there. Yes, it is. Yes, it is. Anyway, so we'll see what happens. And, you know, stay home for the 4th of July, everybody.

I do have a little bit of tech news for people that are lazy like me and stick with things like Apple Podcasts because, you know, I'm just too lazy to ever switch to Overcast. That's now finally worked out in my favor because at least for the Jeff Bezos lady in the tube, it now syncs with Apple Podcasts and will pick up where you left off, which is a nice feature if I am ever alone in my house ever again.

Which you will never be. Which I will not be. So it's pretty great, though. I did test it out yesterday. I did a little bit of a walk, and I was listening to a podcast with my earbuds, and I came back home, and I said, you know, lady in the tube, start playing the same podcast, picked up right where I left off from.

Fantastic. Love that. Well, that's good. That's good to know. Yes. That's good to know. So it's a feature that I hope to one day be able to use again when there's a vaccine. I know. Oh, geez. Yeah. Yeah. For the three people that are left listening to this show, it's a pro tip for you.

Yep. It works if you – yeah. I've seen the stats. All five of us that listen on Apple Podcasts. All five of us left. In the news. Well, we got a lot of banning going on this week, Jason.

We do. I think all of our news is just banning stuff. Cancel culture for the win. Yeah. Well, normally I would be concerned about it, and I guess some of these I am somewhat concerned about. But for a lot of them, you know, it's just rules that we would be caught up on being enforced for people that got away with it for far too long.

So it's hard for me to feel too bad about it because it is just – these were our terms of service. You have been breaking them. So bye-bye. All right. Which I'm down with. Anyways, let's start with India. India has banned TikTok and dozens of other Chinese apps after a border clash. So we're seeing app banning at an app store as basically a front in war, which is pretty interesting.

Interesting. Yeah. So there was a border clash between two troops from China and India, which left 20 Indian soldiers dead earlier this month. And New Delhi has cited cybersecurity concerns and has started to block a bunch of Chinese apps from their market basically because, you know, we know all the data that these things are getting.

And they're saying, well, we don't want China to get all of our data right now. China. Yes. We'll see. So the theory is maybe more countries will act similarly. I doubt it. But there are people here in Washington who are formally weighing whether TikTok poses a national security risk to the U.S.

But they've been weighing that for about three months as far as I can tell from our news and the show. And I seriously doubt that anything is going to happen there. Well, yeah. And one of the leads of Disney just went to TikTok to be like, you know, their head guy over there. So, you know, who knows about that?

I don't know either, but we'll have a little bit more on TikTok later. The Donald on Reddit has been banned. It is one of over 2,000 subreddits that was banned on Monday by Reddit and got rid of them because of updates to its policy banning hate speech.

There were more than 790,000 members and it was notorious for hosting violent threats, racist content, harassment, and conspiracy theories. So they basically just said, hey, every community on Reddit must abide by our content policies in good faith. And we have banned the Donald because it has not done so despite every opportunity, according to Reddit CEO Steve Huffman.

So, again, you know, play by the rules. Reddit actually enforced a rule. That's amazing. And they didn't do it just to the right for so you pro-Trumpers out there. It isn't just you. They've also banned and gotten rid of a subreddit dedicated to the left-wing podcast Chapo Trap House, which I've never heard of.

Oh, we've heard it. We've actually talked about them on the show because they make a gazillion dollars a month on Patreon. Those guys make, like, you know, like close to 100 grand a month on their Patreon. Guys, you've got to step up. GOG or patreon.com slash GOG. Come on. Obviously, we need to pick a side and veer hard right or hard left, Jason, because that seems to be where the money is because us just sitting here in the middle trying to be rational about stuff is not doing much for us.

Yeah, that whole let's have a conversation is just really not doing it. Yeah. So and then Twitch. Twitch has suspended Donald Trump's account. Why Donald Trump has an account on Twitch is beyond me, but he did and it is gone. So they say that the channel's broadcast of the president's Tulsa rally and recent re-airing of one of his 2016 campaign stops violated its hateful conduct and harassment policies because obviously he says hateful things and harasses people.

The comments Twitch took issue with feature the president making negative comments about Mexican migrants. So gone. They created this account last October. Twitch said it made clear to the president's media team when they created the account that it does not make exceptions for politicians. Ah, look at that.

There you go. Playing by the rules. Level playing field. That's right. You know, Twitch is owned by Amazon and Jeff Bezos is not a fan of the Trumpestine. True. So, well, and we got more. YouTube has banned Richard Spencer and David Duke over hate speech as well as Stefan Molyneux, who I have not heard of.

But these all three of these are high profile alt-right figures and they are all gone from YouTube. Because, again, here we are, hate speech and repeatedly alleging certain groups were innately inferior to others. We have strict policies prohibiting hate speech on YouTube and terminate any channel that repeatedly or egregiously violates these policies.

Not until now. Not until now. So, one thing I think is curious about this spat of bannings and people finally going, hey, we do have these policies and we should hold everybody accountable to them. And there are some obvious high profile people that are breaking them.

I would love to think that this is being done out of, like, finally the blinders are off and we see what's happening with our platforms and we feel bad about it. So, we want to do something about it. But I don't really think that's the case. I think it is the case of these companies looking at Facebook and going, huh, advertisers are pulling all their money.

Maybe we should start doing something. Exactly. You got to go to the pocketbook. That's the only way change happens. Well, it seems to be doing it because this is a lot of banning in one week. So, we'll see how long it goes on for. And then speaking of Facebook, I did find this really interesting article over on Vox.

We do like to use Facebook as our punching bag because they don't do much and it comes from the top. Zuck does not have a pair of balls yet. We'll see if that happens. But this wasn't interesting. It's never going to happen. It's never, ever, ever going to happen. No. But it was interesting to read the story about their fight against natural news.

So, occasionally, they do try to do something and they have been working against this site for a long time. And this is a nice long-form article about basically the game – well, I'll get there. Basically, a game of whack-a-mole that they've been playing with this site. Natural News is a conspiracy site that has attracted nearly 3 million followers on Facebook.

They're basically well-known for being anti-vaxxers and climate change deniers. And they just spout out meme after meme after meme after meme about climate change and vaccinations killing at people and all that sort of stuff. So, it's full of a load of shit. And it's actually just a network of sites filled with bylined articles and flanked by ads for survivalist gear and dodgy health cures, as you would expect.

And this article just gets into how difficult it has been for them to basically keep natural news off Facebook. And it's just an ongoing battle because they keep shifting around from site to site and creating new pages and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And, of course, they cry censorship when they do get banned.

Tough titty. Tough titty. You play by the rules. Sorry. It's not censoring. It is not censorship when you are on a platform that has terms of service and you violate the terms of service. That is not censorship. That is you being a dick. Exactly. And fuck you, anti-vaxxers. Seriously.

That too. Yeah. I was watching Fauci the other day and he was just like, yeah, the biggest problem we're going to have is we're going to have a vaccine and people aren't going to take it. And it's like, oh, Jesus Christ, really? Yeah. Look, I've got to say, I've never looked to the great sages of Taco Bell.

As a place to get wisdom from. But when there is a vaccine, I am running for the border. I was going to say, make a run for the border. Yep. Oh, geez. I saw this one on CNN. I thought it was really cool because, you know, since we're all watching all these news broadcasts and the, you know, the updates from the government and there are so many just amazing sign language people on there.

The sign language people are the ones that steal the show. So, but there's a new glove out now that translates sign language into speech in real time. Okay. And I thought that was, I just thought this was really cool. So they can, they can actually sign. But the thing is with the sign language, you have to see, that's why they don't wear masks when, when the signers are doing it.

Yeah. Yeah. Because there's a, there's a lot of, a lot of other signals going on. And so I don't know how good these are going to be, but it's, it's, it's pretty cool. Well, right now they're working on a, on a new high tech pair of lips. That's it. That's it. We've got, we've got, we've got, we've got the gloves and then we have the lips that you can then stick a sticker on and put behind your mask and still do the same thing.

Yes. But, uh, yeah, these are some scientists at UCLA that developed these gloves and I think it's pretty cool. It's, it's funny. All of my girlfriends, when I was like a teenager, um, loved sign language. All of the girls I, I dated knew sign language because they could talk to each other at parties.

And that was their whole thing. It's just like, we could, we can sit here and learn, you know, we can talk to each other across the room and say, let's get the hell out of here. I think is what it really came down to. I mean, you could really just like kind of use your thumb and go, let's get the fuck out. But, uh, no, a lot of my girlfriends back in the Midwest knew sign language, which was, uh, kind of interesting.

And I, I learned a little bit. Um, uh, I, I know how to say bullshit in sign language, which is fun, but that's about it. But yeah, check that, check these out. These, these are kind of, these are, these are cool. They're neat. They're neat. Yes. And then this article caught my eye, um, because we've been talking about deep fakes since before.

Deep fakes was really even kind of a thing. It was just, uh, Oh, look, maybe we could do this. And, uh, screaming that, Oh boy, this is going to change a lot of stuff because, uh, how do you trust anything anymore? Uh, somebody thinks they may have found a good use for deep fakes. Uh, Carolyn McGinnis may be one of the few people in the world who knows what it's like to lend someone a face.

In a new HBO documentary, her eyes, nose, and mouth help cloak the identities of LGBTQ people in Chechnya, the predominantly Muslim Republic in Russia. So they've done a documentary. Obviously these people do not want to be on camera because they will get persecuted and killed and detained and tortured and other sorts of things, uh, if they're there.

So instead of doing what we've always done, which is blurring faces, uh, modifying voices, having them sit in shadows, or I don't know, hiring an actor. What we've done instead is, uh, they've done deep fake videos of all these people.

So, uh, theoretically they say you can get the real emotions coming through from the people as opposed to the other uses, which I think this is just a gimmick. Looks like it. Looks like it. Right. Yeah. I mean, it sounds a little bit silly. Um, anyways, we'll see.

So I, I got this one over at business insider. Amazon engineers built an internal wiki page that suggests alternatives to unconsciously racist terms like brown bags, cakewalk, and master and slave. Now we've got Seth Miranda on the show and we did talk about the master and slave, uh, issue when it comes to flash photography or hard drives or anything.

Yeah. Yeah. Just about damn near anything. Uh, it's an easy fix and most of the camera companies are working on it. You know, it's transmitter and receiver. Okay. Done. Problem solved. Now there's a lot of stuff in here that is kind of interesting.

Um, brown bags, right? I was not aware that that was potential. It's actually a racist. Yeah. Because they're bad. I am privileged that are brown. I don't, I don't get that one. Yeah. It's like, so our cardboard boxes. Um, but okay.

Yeah. Cakewalk. Um, how I don't get that one either. I don't get that one either. Here's, here's what I'm worried about. This is going to be, you know, uh, this is going to get to the point of ridiculousness because you look at things like, you know, I mean, me too went way too far and then everybody snapped back against it.

So it's like, guys, pick your battles. Be smart about it. Brown bag. It is a brown fucking bag. That's it. It's a fucking brown bag. And, uh, God forbid, what's going to happen to the black hat conference? You know, what's, what's going to happen there?

What about that TV show? The blacklist? Has that been canceled yet? Look, if there are a significant number of people that feel that these terms are actually racist, fine. That's fine. But are there a significant number? I don't know. Maybe there are. I don't know. I don't know. The master and slave thing has been kicking around for a long time.

We've known that that was kind of odd terminology to be using when we could have changed it a long time ago. I even saw that there's some sort of move in the real estate movement right now to stop calling it the master bedroom. Okay, fair enough. Call it something else. I'm down with that. The biggie. Call it a biggie.

Call it the biggie. Although I think it was John Legend who pointed out on Twitter that saying, you know, realtors, the real problem is that you aren't showing black people the same amount of houses and you're showing them different neighborhoods. How about we solve that and not worry about calling the bedroom the master bedroom? Yeah.

God. Okay. Yeah. Whatever. So, you know, whatever. I get it. I get it. Yeah. No, I understand. I understand it. But there is the potential to go too far to the other side is all I'm saying. And maybe we start by renaming the Redskins.

Hey, how about that? How about that one?

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Media Candy. As I've descended into my Disney Plus viewing with the kid, we've stumbled across a little small series that they've done. They're all shorts. But they're phenomenal. They're as told by Emoji, produced by Disney, which does basically stylized emoticon shorts based on a lot of their movies.

And these things are amazing. Really? They're super cute. They're really a lot of fun. They've done all sorts of stuff. I mean, everything from, you know, the basics. The first one that we discovered actually was Aladdin. All the Frozen stuff has been done. Finding Nemo. I mean, they've gotten into doing, like, Guardians of the Galaxy because, you know, Disney owns everything now.

Disney owns everything, yeah. Yeah, all that sort of stuff. But these are really, really cute. And I have to say, even if you don't have a kid, if you have a favorite Disney movie, I would recommend finding it. They're all, well, they're all supposed to be going to Disney Plus. Some of them are exclusive to Disney Plus.

But, you know, that means you can all find these on YouTube. So, yeah, Google it. I've got a link in the show notes to the Disney Fandom wiki, which lists every single one that they've done. And you can just kind of search for them. But they are very well done. Very, very clever. Cool. Very cool.

And I have almost completed my Lord of the Rings extended edition rewatch. I've watched at least over an hour and a half every single night. And I've still got an hour to go. You know, that hour that was tacked on to the 17 endings of the final movie. Oh, God, that last movie.

It's just like, come on, guys. Come on. Can we go home now? I got to pee. Yeah, I've got to say it's a great series. Obviously, the extended editions, you know, how am I supposed to complain about editing? But I even remember the normal editions probably could have used a slightly heavier hand on the editing, particularly with the Sam and Frodo endlessly walking through the wilderness scenes.

So, you know, it's great. I mean, it's a phenomenal series. So you can't really pick on it too much. Wonderful time. Yeah, yeah. I've actually gone back and started to watch Band of Brothers again because our friend Chris Lockhead has never seen it. And I was talking to him the other day and I'm like, this is one of the best series ever made.

It is phenomenal. You have to go watch it. Yeah, but you have to watch it. And so I put it on the laptop when I go to sleep at night after I'm done texting until 1230 at night. But man, eggplant, eggplant, eggplant. No, no, no, no, no.

We talk about normal adult things. Well, I was just talking about what's for dinner. No big deal. Well, you got to read something into everything. Band of Brothers is hands down one of the single best TV series ever made. So if you have never seen it, go sit down, plump your ass on the couch and just watch it because, damn, it is good.

That's all I'm saying. I mean, it holds up. It has legs. It's like I'm watching it like the effects, everything about it. It's just like the story, you know, the whole, you know, 101st Airborne. These guys were just like these were dudes, man. These were like real fucking dudes.

And it was a great series. I watched it years after it initially was out and it was great. It was absolutely wonderful. It's funny. I watched it on. I watched it live when it came out and I would tape them on VHS and take them over to my dad's and watch them again. And then when the DVDs came out, they came out in this tin.

And then it's like a seven foot like pull out that's inside of it. We still have it. It's like it's really gorgeous. They just it's everything about this show is just amazing. Just go fucking watch it. And this isn't really a media candy news, but I did find this to be very, very funny.

Personnel may be scarce at the currently closed National Museum of the U.S. Air Force at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. But that didn't stop one innovative hero from employing some arts and crafts merrymaking under a section of wall devoted to the United States Space Force chain of command. Space Force.

Yes. A photo taken at the Ohio Museum first surfaced on Reddit, revealing a superimposed with scotch tape photo on top of where Chief of Space Operations General John Raymond's official photo should be. What did they do? They took a shot of Steve Carell's character in Space Force and put it on top of them.

OK, that's pretty funny. That's pretty funny. Have you been watching it? No, I dropped it after the second episode. Is that bad? Everybody, much like Farscape, not to get into that again. People are saying if you get past the first couple episodes, it gets better.

But I did not get past the first couple episodes. OK, well, I'll give it a shot when it's all done because it's still it's still rolling out, right? I have no clue. I think they're rolling out week by week because it's HBO. So maybe when it's done, I'll give it a shot because, you know, we're out of shit to watch.

We're just out of shit to watch. Yeah, it's getting brutal. I can't believe that this actually happened, but it did. Country singer Chase Rice had a concert in Nashville with a packed house full of people not wearing masks.

Yes, everybody saw this. There was a lot of outrage. And he said he did a video after this asking people to please go by the rules after being criticized for his packed concert because he went by the rules himself. Because he didn't.

Oh, Jesus Christ. I don't know what's wrong with people.

We are joined today by the beautiful, lovely Gigi Edgley. Yeah. Who played Chiana on Farscape. We met like 20 years ago at this point at the first Farscape convention.

Didn't we even meet before? Did we meet online before that? Or that's how we originally collided? I sent you an email saying, hey, you didn't have your domain. So I went out and bought it for you. I bought Gigi Edgley.com and I'm like, I want to give it to you. Thank God. And I'm like, because I'm like, I'm like trying to give it to you.

And you're like, who's this stalker guy trying to like talk to me at this convention? I'm like, I have your domain. I want to give it to you. And I'm like, what is a domain? Does that mean I have a castle? Yeah. A kingdom? And it's so funny because I was talking to you outside or like I tried to talk to you outside and Brian called security on me and wouldn't let me come outside anymore.

Brian Henson. I didn't know any of this stuff. And I was talking to him. I didn't even have my back like that. That's amazing. I have a whole security team. Well, I'm like, Brian, those pants are awesome. Where'd you get them? And the first thing he said to me is you can't afford them. And I'm like, okay, well, that was a dick move. He's like, oh, they were 900 bucks.

I got them at Barney's. You can't afford them. And I'm like, well, excuse me. I can, but they're really cool pants. Oh my goodness. And then he called security on me. I had no idea of any of this. Yeah. That was the first Farscape convention in Burbank so long ago.

It's been, it's been forever more, forever more, because then I started stalking you. Yep. I'm like, hey, speaking of domains, are you any good at building websites? It's just something low key. And then like forever since what, 20 years ago, you almost get an email or a text or a phone call daily going, hey, Jase, how do I upload a picture?

Hey, Jase, I blocked myself out. I can't remember my password. Hey, Jase, I think I crashed the site. Jase. You're like, oh, what did I do? That's about it. That's about it. So fortunately, I have retired from website development, but I still help you out whenever you need help.

You call me and I get it taken good. Just keep saying that so nobody else approaches him. Because I take up all your time. That's why. You've got no time for anything else. No. So speaking of a lot of the things that you always had me do was doing your convention schedule.

And now that, you know, we're stuck in this C-19 lockdown, you know, it's like that's a major part of your business. Your income is doing conventions. It is my business. That's all. Yeah. Obviously, I work for the, you know, I'm still acting and hosting and I've been doing the comic cons for, you know, ever since Farscape Days for over 20 years now.

And it is a big, beautiful family to me. So I'm missing everyone desperately. A lot of the people that I've met on the circuit know me better than some of my own family members. I have seven brothers and sisters, you know, all based in Australia and we've got a lovely, beautiful, amazing family, but they can't even keep track of me when I'm in convention mode.

My mom goes, I have to look up on your site. So thank you, Jace, to see where you are and figure out how to track you down. I'm like, so do I. Because we, we usually have them back to back, you know, I had a beautiful baby girl.

She's about 18 months now. She's been 18 months. Wow. Yeah. And she, just so everyone is very clear, I'm the biggest geek out of anyone. So much so that I named my beautiful little girl, first name Sky, middle name Walker.

So everyone thinks, oh, she's an actress and she just rocks up at, you know, signings and whatever. No, no, this is my life. You guys are my heart and soul and my everything to me. Our house, as you can see in the background, is filled with, you know, hoverboards and lightsabers and unicorns and mermaid tails and Kermit the Frogs and Dark Crystals.

And like, this is, this is my existence. So it's been devastating. And I, I literally was in the air with Sky traveling to Northeast Comic Con and we landed and the lady that came to pick us up said, oh, welcome.

By the way, the show has been canceled by the Board of Health and Massachusetts is in a state of emergency and you need to go home. So all within one day on the 12th of March, we, poor little Sky Walker, Sky Walker living up to her name, flew all the way to Boston with me.

And then we were like, within an hour, we jumped on a plane and flew all the way back and, and we've, we've been fine. We're not sick. And I was like, that's pretty amazing to survive that little adventure and come out still smiling and chuckling. So it's been, it, I've literally almost had a convention every single, single weekend.

And as I've sat at my computer, I, I've seen them falling off one by one by one. And it just breaks my heart. And I know, you know, it's, it's, there's a lot more bigger things going on in the world, but I just, I miss you all desperately. I want to hang out with you.

Well, we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll get back to the conventions eventually. Once this thing's over, everybody will get to play again because, you know, we got to. So what have you been doing to, to kind of keep in touch with your fans? So, uh, my amazing brother, as you know, I'm pretty iffy at technical stuff, Jase.

My daily phone calls and, and help me, I've crashed the internet. Um, so my brother's been very patient with me and he's a gamer. And he said, look, you know, you've got, uh, already got a, a really cool fan base and you're a funny, weird character and you've, you've got lots of things to say.

And I think people would be interested if you started your own Twitch channel. And I don't know anything about Twitch at this stage, you know, and I'm like, what's that? So, uh, over team viewer, he's helped me set it up from, he's based in Australia and I, I'm in LA. And so he, uh, day in and day out.

And, you know, we've got monitors delivered and cameras delivered and all this sort of stuff. And so now I've got my little Twitch channel. It's Gigi Edgley TV. Uh, we go every day, sorry, from Tuesday to Saturday. 5 PM for about an hour or so.

And it's fantastic. We've had Rockne, S O Bannon, uh, one of the creators of Farscape. We've also, I, also what I just found out the other day, I watched alien nation again. And I didn't realize Rockne wrote alien nation, the movie. Yes. I was just, I was blown away.

I'm like, Oh my God, now I got to go back and watch, I got to watch sea quest. Then I got to watch Farscape again, all that stuff. That's the thing too, is that, you know, I've, and I really want to, I really, so it's very cool, casual, you know, chilled vibe, but I want to obviously know everything and anything about the guests that come on.

And it's a lot of work, you know, and especially, uh, you know, Rock's a dear friend and also a work colleague. So I don't want to muck it up, you know, so I'm going to, I open up his IMDB. I'm like, Oh my gosh. So for like two weeks before I'm watching, and if you've ever seen any of his shows, they're so hardcore.

Like most of them are pretty like evil with spirits and ghosts and like, they're really great, but they're, it's unnerving how, how amazing they are. So I, I, I was like dreaming of ghosts and goblins and all sorts of things. I was like, Rockne, you really frilled me up in a good way.

So, um, we've had Rockne on the show. Rod Roddenberry came on last week. I've had family members pop in, uh, because they all have a very interesting tower within themselves. We've had, if you know, Farscape, we've had Captain Crace, we've had Stark, uh, Graze is going to come on in the next couple of weeks.

We've also had, uh, Bracker and then I've done a lot of other projects, uh, as well. So I've had directors and producers and actors that have been involved in those projects come on. So every week on Thursday, we have a guest special guest.

And then on Tuesday, my brother and I, uh, he's an amazing musician. He comes on and we have a funny jam session for, you know, an hour or so. And everyone really, really loves that session because he, I can't put on a professional face with Jake.

He just, you know, boots around and I get unraveled and I'm, you know, you can't hide being just the big silly sister to Jake, you know, people love that scene. Shiana just like, huh? So, um, and we just jam and have fun and it's, it's lots of fun.

And then we do some Farscape watches. We watch some of the Australian work that I've done. Uh, I've done yoga there and it's literally, I specifically made it to connect obviously with the fans and friends and family in this crazy time. And I'm totally open to suggestions.

Like people have said, Oh, can you do a painting session? Uh, can you do some more yoga? Now we want to watch tricky business. I'm like, sure. Yep. You tell me what you want. Can you come over and clean my car? So it's been a ray of light for me in all this craziness.

Obviously, you know, if I could make this my be or to end or and expand it so that this is my, my, my soul, you know, my, my, my, my everything that would be fantastic. Cause it's great. I'd still obviously want to do the comic cons and still want to do different shows and everything, but it's very exciting.

I was going to say, get back on some, get back on some shows, get on some TV. But it's like, don't sit in your room. I know this is my own TV station. I could do whatever I want. You know how fun it is, Jase. I do. I do. Tell, tell Brian to, to stop sending the cops after me and, and to start a new creature challenge.

Cause that was a fun show. He needs to do another season of that. That was amazing. And the cool thing is, is that last year was the 20th anniversary of Farscape. And I spoke to Brian Henson and Rockne, who were the two creators of Farscape. Ben Browder, who was the lead, Claudia Black, who played Aaron, uh, and Anthony Simcoe played Dargo.

A lot of the Farscape cast. I said, guys, if you are really serious about getting this show back, uh, you know, as a new series, which they've been talking about, let's do the conventions because everyone is so in love with this show.

Like I still go to conventions all over the world and people are lining up around the block to, you know, to, to, to, to say hello. And I said to Brian, this is still very much alive in the hearts of, of people out there. So all last year we did Dragon Con, we did a Farscape reunion, Winter Con, which was in New York, Dragon Con, obviously in Atlanta, San Diego Comic Con.

I gathered Brian Henson and Rockne and, uh, Ben Browder, and we all did a Farscape VIP meet and greet and assigning and everything. And it was so awesome on so many levels because it's back on Amazon prime. They're obviously looking at the numbers to see how much interest there is.

So if you do dig Farscape and you have Amazon prime or you don't have Amazon prime, put it on when you go to bed and just let it run. Exactly. Just let it run. Cause they're watching it like, you know, and, and there's serious talks on every single panel that they did, even at San Diego Comic Con, they played a trailer.

And at the end of it, it goes Farscape to be continued for the next generation. And I didn't even know it was coming. I was like, what? What? And they said this year they wanted to, they want to shoot with original cast members in Australia, a new series.

And I'm like, and then the world shut down and I was like, oh man. So, but I'm a strong believer in dreams coming true and positive manifest manifesting. So let's keep putting the good energy out there and yeah. Hopefully, maybe next time I do my Twitch stream, it'll be on the set of Farscape.

Hey guys, it's Tiana. How nice would it be to have Moya back? Yes. Oh, speaking of which, I heard that, um, we have some trouble in the uncharted territories. Yeah. Uh, my co-host Brian, um, he's, uh, Brian, not a fan apparently.

So, uh, well, we're going to have to do some serious, serious clockwork Nabari action on him. I think. I believe so. I believe so. We're going to have to strap him to a chair and remove one's eyeballs and put the mental cleansing underneath.

Listen, Brian, throw you first of all, and, uh, you have to, have to, have to, this is your homework. Don't even worry about the first 15 episodes. Well, 14, just skip to episode 15. That's when it gets good. Just kidding. It also might just strangely enough, be the episode that Tiana appears.

I don't know why. I was going to say, maybe there's something about that episode that, uh, has some significance, but it's a, it's a really intriguing show because the fan base is extremely extensive, but it's, you find the fans in the most interesting plate of places because in Australia, uh, not a lot of people saw it because they, uh, originally released it when the Olympics was on.

So it got lost in the mix. However, when they flew us over to the first comic con, which was around the same year, the fan, I think it was about 2000 people. Was that the convention we met at chase? No, we met in Burbank. We met in Burbank here.

It was, um, one of the creations creation ones, the very, very, very first one. There was about 2000 people and our, our brains. It just exploded because we, as Australians, you know, we, we, things are a lot more laid back at home. So when we got picked up and taken and, you know, makeup done and hair done and flown, you know, what very well looked after and put up in lovely hotels, we're like, what the heck is going on here?

And then we get onto the stage and the fan response was mind blowing. So it's, yeah, we met at creation number one here. You came out wearing the leather pants and those really cool shoes that you, your space shoes.

And you're like, nobody recognizes me. Who am I? And you're like, pew, pew, pew shooting at the audience. And yep. I remember that sounds like something I would do. Yes. I, I, that definitely sounds like me. Oh no, that was so long ago and so much fun.

So yeah, Brian, whatever for all you like, like cheat. Brian, you, you, you're going to be in some big trouble, boy. Some big, big trouble. No, but it is like people have said, like a lot of people, and it's interesting. Some people have even been introduced to Farscape through a creature shop challenge.

They've seen in that. And then they're like, oh, what else is, you know, Henson done? Or what else has that post done or whatever? And it's led them that way. Also when they re-released it on Netflix a few years ago and now on Amazon, it's bringing together a whole new generation of fans.

The show actually really holds up really well because there's lots of practical effects and even the computer graphics are stunning. Oh my God. That's the whole, that was the thing that, that drew most of us in. It's like, this looks like a movie that you make every week. Yeah.

Like the guys in Australia, the, the effects teams down there were just incredible. It's a magical show. Yeah. I was watching it last night and I'm like, I remember the scene. I was like, okay, you know, the peacekeepers come in on the Marauder. It's leaking. They jump out of the thing. And I'm like that you didn't see that 20 years ago.

You saw that in the movies. You didn't see that on a TV show. So, and it holds up. It's huge. And, um, everything from Australia had never seen anything like it. You know, we were filming at the same time as the matrix. We started off filming at the Fox studios and they spent about roughly a million on an episode and, and Australia had never seen anything like the costumes, the creatures that, cause

obviously Jim Henson's creature shop worked, you know, on set and also delivered a lot of amazing creations from their shop in London as well. So it's just, it was just, it was just huge, huge. And every actor that I had ever grown up watching on Australian television that I had respected and admired ended up coming and being a creature on Filescape.

And I was like at that stage, cause originally my character was only meant to be one episode and then they liked it and they kept sort of, you know, bringing me in for another and another and another. I'm like, Oh my God, this is amazing. And then all of a sudden I was a regular and these guesties are coming on and they're literally actors that I, you know, would sit eating my popcorn on my cereal, watching the television going.

And now they're on set and I'm teaching them how to fly, fly a spaceship. I'm like, this is amazing. So it was very cool. Uh, what was, I, I mean, I can't remember his name off the top of my head. Um, uh, from the matrix. Uh, Keanu. Um, no, no, no. The, the agent from the matrix that was on Farscape with the mask.

Paul Goddard. Okay. Yes. Paul, Paul was awesome on the show. I was just like, wait a minute. I know that guy who's what? That's the same guy. He was amazing on the show. It was a show that you really had to, you really had to go above and beyond.

It swallowed a lot of actors up because you almost needed to be, you had to go in at 150% minimum, you know, because if you watch anything, Henson, all those characters are so unbelievably believable. You know, you like, look at the new dark crystal series, the storyteller, Fraggle Rock, the Muppets, the, it's just, their work is so.

Inspiring and breathtaking. I don't think that there's anyone on this earth that doesn't know who the Henson company is or hasn't been inspired by one of their works, if not more. Mm-hmm. No, definitely. Well, at least Brian did sign my Kermit after he had me kicked out.

I had the cops called on me. He did sign my Kermit. He's a lovely man. He's a lovely man. I, I, I, he's, he's, he's a very cool dude as well. So maybe you just got off on the wrong foot or leg or pant leg. I think we got off on the wrong pants.

Yeah. So thanks so much for stopping by today, Gigi. What's your Twitch channel again? So where everybody can find you? My Twitch channel is Gigi Edgley TV. I'm all over the interwebs. I'm on Patreon. I'm on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram.

I have a YouTube channel. So yeah, come and hang out. I'm absolutely here for you guys. I'm the biggest fan of the fans. As I said before, I am so appreciative of everything that everyone has, you know, blessed me with along the way. So this is my, from my heart and soul, you know, this is what I'm giving back to the universe.

So come and hang out with me. Yep. And you can go to Gigi Edgley.com because I kind of know the guy that, guy that did that and all the links will be found there. Thanks again, G. Bye, Jase.

We're back again with professional photographer, Seth Miranda from the lovely town of Brooklyn. How you doing, Seth? Yes. Beautiful Brooklyn, New York. Beautiful Brooklyn. Edison alerts go off every three minutes to let me know to stay inside.

How you doing, man? Hanging in there? Yeah, I'm hanging in there. I think that's what everybody's saying. That's like the going trend. It's like your message where it says, yeah, I'm hanging in there. Like, we could have skipped that part, you know? It is what it is. All right, man. So it's been a while since we had you on the show. And previously, we had talked about Olympus.

And you're like, these guys are not long for this world. And turns out, you were right. Yeah. Talk about someone who's not hanging in there. Olympus, right? The micro four third kings of the world. Well, not even really. Like, Panasonic is micro four thirds also. But people got an announcement this week that Olympus is no longer in the camera business.

That's been the going title on every blog everywhere that's been clickbaitable. But no one actually read those articles. So what happened was the hedge fund company who bought the Sony bio system has bought the camera division of Olympus.

Olympus has a lot of other divisions, medical, all sorts of things, glass, optics, things like that. And they bought the camera division. But what people don't realize is that this doesn't end today. They have at least two years of products to be released.

Oh, wow. Yeah. All the R&D was in place. All the production was in place. You know, all the marketing, the graphics, the boxes, the manuals were written, all that stuff. Nobody makes manuals anymore. Don't give me that bullshit. Come on. Are you kidding me? I still get like three different languages. When I bought my Z6, there was like four manuals in there.

And I was like, okay. But I think Olympus has done a lot of cool things in the technology inside their cameras. And I think maybe in two years, we'll probably see, or even over the course of the two years, those technologies being sold off into different, brands or manufacturers, so to speak.

But we actually just saw that happen in Panasonic. The G100, their vlogging camera, has OZO, I don't know, it's not surround sound. It's like OZO audio, where it can actually track your face with your audio. So that keeps it consistent amongst three microphones on the camera.

That's a Nokia system. So I think we're going to see some- And by the way, it's pronounced Nokia. Is it really? Yep. Nokia. Okay. So Nokia. I've never heard Nokia in my entire life. A friend of mine was friends with the CEO. So yeah, it's pronounced Nokia.

Wow. Wild. They were huge in phones when I was growing up, and then they just kind of like disappeared. Yeah. But they did some cool things with the technology, right? And same thing with Olympus. They did some really interesting things with the positive sides of a small sensor, having less file information, making it faster, doing things like live comp, which is a really cool feature.

Where it's almost like a double exposure, but controlled. So you take a picture of a city street, and then you take another picture. It only records the new light that's in the scene. So if you're running through the flashlight, all it records is only the new light that it registers in that same scene, which is pretty great.

That's kind of cool. Yeah. So why couldn't Sony pick that up, right? Why couldn't another company go, hey, these are cool? Yeah. So I think Olympus did a lot of cool stuff. A lot of people who are diehard fans of it are just going to have to deal with it. And I hate saying that I called it, but I think everyone in the industry kind of saw the writing on the wall.

But I don't think it's out. I don't think it's totally done. You got two more years of the system. So if you're looking to invest in it for a small system that you can travel with, maybe it's still for you. There's a lot of people who love the interface and the old nostalgia feel of their camera bodies. Well, that's interesting. I watched your video that you did with, what's his name, the comedian?

Oh, Robert Kelly. Robert Kelly. And with the live audio. Now, the thing is, I'm an audio nerd. Yeah, the audio does track you across those three microphones, but is it any good? It's an on-camera mic. That's what I mean. That's what I'm saying.

It's like, can it be that good? Because it's just little tiny holes, you know? Yeah. I think the one thing that the only thing you can do with it, right, is not make it omni and make it some sort of directional. So what I found that the mic did and what a lot of the people use that camera, if you're standing in like three people, it does actually keep the pattern narrow so that you still kind of hear those people, but you're really the focus of it.

And when you're outside and there's no reflection in the room or whatever, it seems to be pretty good audio for this little tiny thing that fits in the palm of your hand, you know? Okay. I do like the fact that they have a mic on the back so you can do narration. That's cool. Yeah, especially if you're someone that's doing like tech stuff where you just mount the camera and like you're taking something apart or an unboxing, it records your audio to the back and doesn't get the sound of you or a little bit of the sound of you like opening something or fiddling with your hands.

And I think that's super ideal. They looked at the market and they looked at this audio technology. So let's put this together. Unfortunately, Sony put out their ultimate vlogging camera two weeks prior. But I think people get confused. They think that both of these cameras, like they saw the Sony were like, quick, put something together.

And in two weeks, they put a camera out. It's like, no, this was like a year, two years of development. That's years of R&D to put a camera together and get it to manufacturing and get it to market. Yeah, definitely. I think the one positive to the Lumix camera is that you have interchangeable lenses.

So if you're already doing stuff like what you do with the GH5s, you can take those lenses and just adapt and put them. You don't even adapt them. You just put them on that camera and you have a lens selection and a vlogging alternative should you want it in that system for under $800. Yeah. And I'm using the G7s.

The one thing about the G7s that drives me nuts is the kit lens that came with it. It's like a 14 to 28 or something. The one that comes with it, what's the Lumix, the new vlogging model? 16 to 32, I believe. No, it's 12. It starts at 12.

Does it really start at 12? That shows you how good I did that video. I'm sorry. Yeah. But what's the model number on the camera itself? It's like the G100. G100. That's it. Yeah. So yeah, mine, because I'm trying to find a wider angle lens for it. And then I saw this kit lens comes with a wider angle than I've got.

And I'm like, damn, I want that one. Because to get a wider angle, just like a standalone Prime, is like $800. I'm like, that's $300 more than the camera. Yeah. You're paying for some quality glass. It's one of those things.

The one thing about the lens being wider for this vlogging camera isn't just because you're hand-holding it and it's like arm's length. The real issue, and this is something that a lot of people got confused on, was that the stabilization is electronic, not mechanical ibis in the body.

What that means is an already small sensor, the microphone third sensor, is then cropped. So it has this activated pixel box that's moving around on a sensor that's already small. So you get cropped on those lenses and the more stabilized, the higher end and the stabilizing you go like high, medium, low, whatever it is.

When you put it on high, you're cropping a good amount, like a third of the sensor. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, fortunately for me, mine are all on tripod. So I don't have to do any stabilization, but it would be nice to be able to get like a wider angle lens on these things. But yeah, there are options out there though. It's a micro four thirds mount.

There are plenty of things out there. You could probably even get Olympus lenses for it. You know what I mean? So micro four thirds mount, does that mean that like basically any micro four third, like did everybody get together and say, hey, we're just going to have a universal mount for all of these lenses across the board? Yeah.

I have no idea where the origin of the micro four thirds mount came from. It is more of a video sensor size than it is stills. And I think once it got adapted to stills formats for Panasonic Olympus and some other cameras, they just use the same mount that was on those systems.

So it's kind of interchangeable. I have black magic cameras over at Arama that I've thrown Olympus lenses on. So, you know, it's, it's a kind of a fun thing to have all this option out there, especially with like third party and who knows what lenses are being made in other countries and no name brands and other things like that.

Gotcha. Yeah. Because I was looking at Sigma lenses for, for mine because, you know, Sigma lenses get the job done and they are price positive. Yeah. Sigma is a really interesting company that for years they were considered like junkie. And now people are saying like, oh, is it built like a Sigma? They're actually like saying the quality level is so up there that it's almost a standard sometimes.

Oh, that's good. Interesting. And they did put out that camera, the FP, which is now getting ProRes raw, I believe. Oh, nice. Nice. What do you think of those black magic cameras? I keep seeing ads for them every time I open Instagram and I'm like, hmm, that looks interesting. The pocket. Yeah. So yeah, they're the one thing black magic does very well is put higher end production in low cost systems.

So you're able to use a 6k camera that has an EF mount, meaning you can use Canon lenses on. You have to buy like dedicated lenses, Canon batteries, which are readily available. I mean, if you really needed to, you could buy them used if you really wanted to be that weird about buying a rechargeable battery.

But it does allow you to do a lot with a little. And the only thing I'd say about black magic that I've found over the years is that it has compatibility issues with peripherals. So if you're trying to get it to talk to something else like a switcher system or whatever, sometimes black magic only wants to talk to black magic.

And it's not going to really play well with others. I've had converters from SDI to HDMI not work with black magic systems unless they're made by black magic. So it's one of those weird things. But I think they definitely do some really of the moment things like the ATM mini is like super hot right now.

Just got mine. Just got it this week. Finally. I ordered this thing in February. How are you feeling? Well, I just got a new carpet yesterday, so I haven't had time to play with it. So I've been I've literally I've literally been moving furniture for the past 48 hours. So it's sitting here on my desk and I'm going to be playing with it.

Oh, also, I needed to get more HDMI cables because I only had one HDMI cable for my G7. So my God, now that my cables get here today, then I'm going to hook the whole thing up and just make it rock. But a friend of mine has one and he runs his entire company because he does like virtual meetings.

So he's got like laptops run into it and all sorts of different things. And he loves it. He just loves the thing. Yeah, it's a really I want to say simplified. But what it basically is doing is everything you're going to plug into your computer and virtually run as a switcher now get plugged into this one little console and comes in as one signal into OBS.

And instead of touching OBS or looking for that window amongst a thousand other windows, you have these hardware buttons that are glowing and you can punch them and you know where you're going and it's it's tactile and fast. And I mean, I haven't had it in my hands long enough to really put into use. I would like to actually just roll the dice and buy one myself.

But we'll see what happens. A lot of people are loving it. Some people will absolutely hate it. I've heard some people that just don't like it, but I think they thought it was this answer to everything. But if you're not used to having a switcher system that doesn't have labels, you know, I mean, like one, two, three, four. And you have to remember what those things are.

Oh, boo hoo. Yeah, that's what I said. I was like, come on, man. So it is what it is. Yeah, I'm hoping that I'm hoping that I'm hoping there's less lag because I've got my Magewell converter, HDMI converter, and there's just so much lag between the the camera signal and the computer.

So I've got you got to do all these these, you know, jump through all these hoops to get the audio to sync right. Oh, that's interesting. Yeah. So the Magewell is just it's just laggy as can be. And fortunately, I've got a MixPre 6.2 and they just released a firmware update and they actually put in a just an like a lag offset button for their USB actual input.

So you can you can sit there up to you and you can just go down to the millisecond to sync your audio with the lag coming from some kind of converter like that. So it goes up. Yeah, it goes up to 400 milliseconds. So I'm going to try that out.

And hopefully, you know, I'm hoping that the ATEM Mini, ATM Mini or whatever you call it, is faster as far as the conversion goes. And then I don't have that lag because I can't even use it like Zoom. I just I just grab my Logitech now.

I'm just like, dude, you know what? I can't deal with this. Just give me my damn Logitech. I'll play with the camera settings app and just deal with that because the lag is so bad. If I'm using a pro mic going through an interface into the computer, that audio is instant, but the video just lags behind.

Yeah, I always wondered why can't they put something inside of these capture devices where it actually can sense the lag that it's creating as it puts it out compared to the frame rate and then will automatically sync you as opposed to having to like watch yourself or clap your hands and then figure it out and then set it.

It just seems like there's some better way to do this. The one thing the ATM mini does, and I hope I'm right about this, is that it actually will change the frame rate going out. So if you're someone that's on Twitch, for example, and you have a high frame rate game going, you can only stream 60 frames.

But if you were to output it any other way, it might actually affect your own game. Like if you're on a laptop, it might actually change your laptop's frame rate to match the stream. So you'll be playing at 60 frames. This supposedly you should be able to put it out and then it will sample it itself and we'll set it out to 60 and not affect what you're doing.

I'm wondering if that's the case. I haven't been able to test it. If someone out there knows, please, you know, write me on Twitter or something. I would love to hear what everybody's experience with the ATM mini is. But speaking of Twitch, I really want to get into this. Is this something we can jump into? We can, but it's funny. You're mentioning frame rate. Back in the day when I was a Quake 3 arena, like, you know, clan player, I was a semi-pro Quake 3 player and I bought a Compaq computer for $5,000 so I could get to 60 frames per second.

Now I loaded Quake 3 on my Air, my MacBook Air, and it maxed at 999 frames per second. It wouldn't go. It wouldn't go above it. Smacking the balls. We just like, oh my God. I know, man. If I, if I'd have had that back in the day, my rail gun game would have been so fucking sweet.

Yeah. I think it's amazing where we've gotten to and what we were able, what's so readily available, I should say. And the options. I mean, you're a few years ago, not even that long ago, it would cost you like three to five grand to get a computer to play any modern game. And now you're looking at under two grand.

And there's Lenovo put out a laptop that they call gaming for $900. Oh my God. I mean, it has a 1660 card in it, but still, I mean, that's still can actually play some decent games on it. $900. Like, I think it's amazing where we're at.

And that's why so many people are jumping into gaming. That's what's making people want to stream a little bit more and not just play by themselves. It's a community and unfortunately, both sides of this community have taken a crazy hit. I don't know which one you want to go into first, racism or sexual harassment.

Which one? What's your poison? Because they're both in the first. Let me roll the dice here. Let's go into racism first. Why not? Well, racism, that's on the Mixer side. So Mixer's been hurting for a long time. They were lowest on the totem pole for streaming. I mean, they were getting beat by Facebook fucking gaming.

I couldn't believe it. And this is Microsoft behind it, and Microsoft's famous for starting something and then just sending it to a graveyard. I mean, we could go down their list, the Windows phone, the Zune. I mean, it goes on and on. The Zune. The old Zune. So when they entered in, they basically were telling people on Twitch, like, hey, Twitch is getting too big.

No one will find you on there. Or, hey, Twitch has guys like Seth Miranda on there talking about cameras and not gaming. Come to us. It'll be more gaming oriented, and we'll do everything we can to make the interface for you. And then they bought the number one gamer on Twitch, Ninja, and someone else named Shroud.

Now, these guys made out like a bandit. Mixer went down mainly because they were already going down. But then they made a fatal mistake of having an employee make a public complaint about them over racism. And it's kind of a valid complaint. I'm going to try to make this fast again.

They have an African-American gentleman employed by Microsoft. They send him to the Mixer headquarters to work there. He quickly realizes he's the only African-American there. And he didn't think much of it. But then he kept on feeling like there was this, like, tone going on.

So he was getting uneasy. Didn't feel like working there. Wasn't really happy with it. Apparently, this is all based on articles. I'm not saying this is 100% fact. But apparently, the person that was in charge made an analogy that Mixer is like a slave owner and they own all the content.

Ooh. Right. So he brought up an issue with this. And he went to the office with this, you know, whoever she is, like a manager, whatever it is, and said, this isn't okay. This analogy isn't fine. And she laughed it off and actually in front of him, Googled the analogy to show him why it's okay and couldn't find an example.

He resigned, still requested an investigation. And then they basically ruled that it wasn't racism because they hired him as a black gentleman. Oh, did they name him Token? I know. It's crazy. He was wearing like a big T on his shirt. So this hit Twitter and Twitter and streamers go hand in hand.

And they were like livid. People were like on Mixer strikes, all sorts of things. And literally that night, Mixer closed. It shut down. Wow. That's crazy. Well, what's crazy is what people don't realize is that this isn't just a gaming platform. People were making a living on there.

You had 20,000 followers each giving you $5 for whatever. That's your yearly income as you do this, plus your sponsors. Now your platform is gone overnight and you have to rebuild. It's basically losing your career overnight. Well, I mean, we've said it on this show a million times. You can't build your house in somebody else's backyard and get pissed off when they turn the sprinklers on in the middle of the night.

No, you can't. You can't. But there really is no way for you to do independent streaming and do the same sort of thing unless you did a Patreon, which is still someone else's backyard. Exactly. So what Mixer said was, we're selling... I mean, they literally took all the fine china out of the house and lit it on fire and then took it to a pawn shop.

They said, hey, we're selling all of you guys to Facebook Gaming. You are welcomed partners there if you want to accept it. And they were like, Facebook Gaming is like a graveyard. We don't want to be forced into a place. We don't want to go. So they were either going to go on YouTube and start their own channels, which is crushing it right now for gaming, or go to Twitch and start over again.

And a lot of people on Twitch have been super supportive. They're making pins so that people know who the refugees from Mixer are and all crazy stuff. And Twitch actually enacted that whoever was a partner on Mixer, meaning that they were making the top tier income and all that stuff and had paid subscriptions and all the things unlocked, automatically became partners on Twitch.

And they did that mainly so that they don't go to Facebook, but it was also a community thing. Now, the flip side to this, Twitch is at the exact same time is under fire for sexual harassment and was inactive for doing anything. So what happened here was a lot of top end streamers.

One guy was known for Destiny, was for years harassing dozens of women physically and virtually. And they all spoke out against him. He sat there with his wife next to him making a fake heartfelt apology.

I mean, it was so weird. He was just scared more than he was sorry, if that makes sense. Yep. And then it came out that another person and another person and whole esport teams and it just became this huge thing. And a lot of top end streamers just walked from Twitch before they got banned.

And Twitch is now on an active banning streak, having banned dozens of people, including one of the biggest names in Twitch, Dr. Disrespect, who is known for being ridiculously rude, has been banned before for filming like someone in the bathroom or something like that. Oh, my God.

He's like a shock value guy. He had 5 million followers. They shut down his page overnight. They have not given a reason as to what he's actually done. But they are going left and right over any allegations. And they're trying to make it so that it's only allegations that happened on their platform.

Meaning if someone was like trying to solicit them or talking via private messaging, the stuff that happened at conferences where one of the lead destiny guys was like feeling up someone's thigh while they were next to them, while they were playing, or people trying to get girls to go to hotel rooms all around conferences and masturbating in front of them and all sorts of weird things, which is basically saying we can't do anything about that.

Like, I don't know. It's not our, it wasn't our yard. You know, we can't turn on those sprinklers. So they're, they're taking steps. I don't know where this goes from here. If it happens on the platform, they can prove it. They have chat logs, you know, that that's, I, I, I see why they're doing that. You know, they can, they can totally go full Weinstein on that and get rid of people.

But if it, if it's just hearsay, then you can't really, you know, you can't, you got to have lawyers and follow up with that. And you have to have the judicial system, you know, honestly. Absolutely. It's, it's just wild that in like this week you had one side of like racism and the other side of sexual harassment.

And, and the fact that, um, all the, oh, and I forgot the best part when Mixer shut down, guys like Ninja and Shroud had, uh, contracts with them to be exclusive. Well, Mixer doesn't exist anymore. And they still had to pay them. I think Ninja is walking away with 30 million and Shroud is working away with 10 million and they're allowed to start over on Twitch.

Jackpot payday. Yeah. Yeah. Just walk. Just, just, just go. Dude, I, I, I would go. Yeah. You'd never hear from me again, ever put that shit in the bank and live off the interest. My God. If they were smart, they would get together and just start their own streaming platform built by gamers, not corporations.

Yeah. And, uh, be like, Hey, we haven't had sexual harassment or racism here yet. Oh man, that's crazy. I want to, I want to finish up with a question that we got from Rocky. Uh, last fall, I had a student of color raise an issue with some of our terminology and photography, and I wanted to hear your thoughts or maybe even a suggestion because of your experience in the field.

He had an issue with the verbiage and explanation of master and slave and setting up lighting scenarios. Have you ever run across this issue? Would you have any suggestions on differed nomenclature? We ended up just saying M and S for the rest of the semester. So, uh, Seth, you are a flash guy and, uh, I mean, master and slave has been, you know, just the way it's been forever.

Uh, what's going on in the business with, uh, with this? Because everybody seems to be changing. I mean, even GitHub is changing all of their, their terminology and things like that. So what's, uh, photography going to do? So I think right now, after talking to a few companies like directly, if it's screen printed on the unit, they can't do anything, obviously, except the newer units being changed.

As far as the printing goes. But if it's on an interface, like a lot of, uh, pro photo stuff has it inside of a screen, they might update their firmware or are currently working to update their firmware to change that terminology. I get it. I don't think anyone even thought about it. Uh, and then when you start realizing that someone else has a different connotation with it than another type of people, it makes total sense.

Uh, to, for fair point though, Nikon has always called their off camera lights remotes and never called them slaves. And also there's a difference between a transmitter and receiver as being a radio trigger and a master and a slave being an optical trigger, meaning that a light fires with no choice.

Once it sees another light fire, that's just so you don't, in case if you don't have any radio transmission, that's a way to get the trigger. So I don't know what they're going to call those. We've always called them remote or off camera flash. I've never, ever once, uh, in front of groups of people when I was a demo felt comfortable saying the word slave ever.

So, uh, I get it. And I think that the industry just looks at it like, it's not that hard to change. We're going to change it. And I think it's good faith. It's a predominantly white industry. I mean, it's a predominantly white male industry. Honestly, if you go to any trade show, it's, it's usually a one genre.

It's, it's not, it's now it is getting more diverse and there's definitely more female photographers, definitely more female ambassadors and, and definitely more people of color on stages and stuff like that. But for a long time, the people who designed the stuff, built the stuff, put it out there while most of it was a Japanese companies doing it.

I was going to say, most of these are Asian. Yeah. You know, they don't know. But to sell it in, in the West, the heads of state are all white guys wearing ties and they don't even think they might not have any malicious intent, but then even think about it having a connotation. But I can see a young African-American kid buying their first strobes and they're going, I don't know.

This just doesn't feel right to me. I get it. I get it. So no, totally get it. Totally get it. So I'm glad they're, I'm glad they're making strides in that department. Yeah. I mean, why not? It's, it's, um, it's an easy fix. Yeah. And it, and it sets the tone so that that kid who's 10 years old right now, when they're 15, starting to learn studio, they never even thought about it.

You know what I mean? Like it's just already in the light as a transmitter receiver, you know, it's nothing. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. It's totally fine. Yeah. Oh, good, man. That was a lot. Well, thanks for joining us today, Seth. Yeah, absolutely.

Always good to have you back. Feedback loop. Over at Patreon, we've got Luigi, Tony, JSM, 1955, and we've got a message from Jari Pekka. It says, great show, et cetera. If you wanted something to check out since running out of things to watch, watch What We Do in Shadows season two.

Have you seen What We Do in Shadows? I have not seen season one or season two, no. Oh, season one was great. I thought they kind of nailed it with season one, so I don't know about season two. Also, Schitt's Creek has been running for several seasons. They're done now.

They actually finished the run of that show. Some shows to really take your mind off all the negativity of the reality at the moment. Nothing better than dumb, mindless comedies for that. Right? Right? What We Do in Shadows season one, dude, it's like Spinal Tap for vampires.

Honestly, it's awesome. It's really Spinal Tap for vampires. I'll have to check it out. Over at PayPal, we have John, Simon, Michael, Stephen, Judge, Thomas, Scott, Adam, and Mateus, who writes, I have no excuses anymore not to give you something, so here you have a fistful of taxed Swedish crowns.

Thank you for keeping me from drowning. These Groundhog Days do look, smell, and feel the same. Keep it up. All right. And Barrett writes in, just send a few more bucks your way. Thanks for keeping things real during the global shit show. Yes, the global shit show just kind of sums that up. And Chris, who said, love the show, one of the few that is still worth listening to during the pandemic.

And Sean writes in, love the show, keep up the great work, and stay grumpy, we shall. Yes, and Jeff, who said, I found an old gift card laying around, so I took the advice from a listener you shared on a previous episode. You all deserve more, so I'll be heading over to the Patreon soon. You two just keep being you, try not to kill each other virtually, and stay the fuck home.

Thanks for the awesome pod. Hashtag Team Brian, us fathers of young kids have to stick together. Stay grumpy. And we got a message from John, a third mask designed to add to your set. One for Dave, and this is the Yiff Happens mask.

So I had to look up Yiff, and over at Urban Dictionary, noun, sound supposedly made by mating arctic foxes, acronym, or more bacronym, Yiff, or Y-I-F-F, young, incredibly fuckable furry, and I think that kind of gets the point across.

There's six or seven other meetings all, you know, there you go. There you go. Oh, my God. Except Dave is the oldest of the bunch of us, so I don't know. Yeah, crazy. Over at Facebook, Mark sent us a link. Guy who reverse-engineered TikTok reveals the scary things he learned, advises people to stay away from it.

I guess this was two months ago. Reddit user Bangorolol made a comment in a discussion about TikTok. He claimed to have successfully reverse-engineered it and shared what he learned about the Chinese video sharing social networking services. Basically, he strongly recommends that people never use the app again, warning about its intrusive user tracking and other issues.

Considering that TikTok was the fourth most popular free iPhone app download in 2019, this is quite alarming. And the article just has basically screenshots, so I couldn't grab any points from it, but it's everything that you would expect. It's getting all the datas. Yeah. Yeah, of course. Of course. And Ma6502 writes in, Quibi keeps doubling down on terrible ideas.

They're going to remake The Princess Bride with Joe Jonas and Sophie Turner. Stop. At first, I was annoyed by it, but it's not a real remake. This is also a gimmicky thing. It's a gimmick with a good cause. They're doing a DIY from quarantine shot by home by each cast member using their phones, and it's going to donate $1 million in the name of the project to Chef Jose Andres' charity,

World Central Kitchen, which provides meals to those who have been most affected by the coronavirus pandemic. So a gimmick with a good cause. You get it. Yeah, okay. I'll let him slide on that one. Nobody's going to go see it anyways. Who's on Quibi? Yeah, because it's on fucking Quibi. They literally could not give it away.

They could not give Quibi away. So Dan writes in, take a look at Parler's description in the App Store. It is incredible. Such gold includes be part of the viral experience. Discover which of your parlays were voted or echoed. Private message your squad. So Parler is obviously some sort of new attempt at an app-based social network.

There's some other interesting stuff in here, like all the app comments from Parler's target market, seniors who haven't seen their grandchildren. Who can't figure out how to create a password with a special character in it. So there's some gold in there. It's funny. Okay. Yeah. Cool. Jacko writes in, I'm not a beer fall.

A beer fall? What's a beer fall? I think he meant fan. Oh, beer fan. I tell you. Okay, yeah. But this gave me a chuckle. I think Swedish Ski Team was still the best beer ads. Oh, the Swedish Ski Team. Yes. And this is a, what's Miley Cyrus's dad?

The achy breaky heart guy singing a Bush beer song. Okay. Now known as Miley Cyrus's dad. Oh, no. Yeah, exactly. And Strickey sends in no words needed. And this is why we are going to be in quarantine for the rest of our lives.

This is a photo taken on an airplane of a man in a MAGA hat who has his mask, as is required by law to fly on a plane. Unfortunately, he has put it over his eyes to take a nap, not over his mouth or nose.

And we are doomed. We're doomed. It's all done. It's over. God. And over at GOG.show, Barrett writes in something to add to your watch list. HBO just dropped the first episode of I'll Be Gone in the Dark. It's the story behind Patton Oswalt's late wife, Michelle's book about the Golden State Killer.

They're not dropping them all at once. So sadly, we have to wait a few more days till episode two. I'm actually looking forward to this because she put a lot of time into this. Yep, she did. And Al writes in, love the show, although the cursing level has gone up a bit. My question on a recent episode, one of you talked about your federal tax refund being delayed.

I'm in the same boat. Do you have any idea how to get an answer to when refunds will be sent? No fucking idea. No, I have an answer. I have an answer. I did reach out to my accountant and I was informed that because of the whatever, whatever they're calling it, the emergency relief, the RONA checks that were being sent out that all tax returns were on pause and would start again in July, although there's going to have to be a second round of relief checks.

So who knows when we're actually going to get them. So which is to not offend your delicate sensibilities, a load of bullpucky because, you know, that's basically a government loan and they're just sitting on my money. That's money owed to me. And they need to get that money to me now.

Yes, they do. Yes. And Alex writes in Lord of the Rings is now on HBO Max as well as all. So you just wasted all that money for no reason. Well, no, because I don't have HBO Max. So I can either buy the films directly or I could pay for HBO Max, which I don't want.

So, OK, or just ask me for my password and slid it over. There you go. There was that. Yeah. As well as all eight Harry Potter movies. I'm ninety nine point nine nine nine nine nine nine nine percent sure. This should be the final time these movies switch streaming services.

Nope. No, I don't think so. Because at some point we're going to get Lord of the Rings, the extended versions, episodes one through seven hundred and fifty two thousand on Quibi in 10 minute bites. Exactly. And I don't know if you've noticed, but Harry Potter movies are persona non grata right now because of, yeah, well, once again, you can separate the art from the artist.

Yes, I still enjoy Ender's Game, even though Orson Scott Card is an odious person. Yes. So Aaron writes in and he must be listening to shows from a long time ago. There's a way to fix the long CVS receipts that you get. You just ask them to send it to your email, such as a temporary anonymous email and poof, no more receipt.

Or as we pointed out at the time, good TP in quarantine times. Lots of lots of corn TP, corn TP. David writes in, I had to write in to respond to Brian saying Farscape is awful, but before I'd got it submitted, Jason beat me to the response I wanted to make.

Nevertheless, let me second it. Eat my whole ass and die in a fire, you cunt. Farscape is great. Even in 2020, next time Jason speaks to Gigi, he should tell her she's awesome, according to one random GOG listener. Well, stick around. Well, David, you are coming on.

You are getting a gift from the heavens and it's still awful. Yes, you are. It is still awful. Don writes in, Jason, your mileage may vary dependent on your food allergy, but my wife ended up being allergic to sulfates and red wine. She would feel worse than the worst hangover she ever got. Organic red wine was okay for the most part, but not a cure at all.

Someone turned her onto ULO, which is a sulfate filtering system. She has no problems drinking red wine now, so long as it's filtered and not affiliated with them in any way, just mentioning it. Thank you. I've gotten several emails about the ULO, so I don't know. I'm kind of scared to try it because...

It just filters it. I know. You're going to live the rest of your life without wine? Is a life without wine worth living? I don't think so. I think I might have to buy me an ULO. I think you've got to get yourself an ULO. I think so. And Tim says, not likely, but in case you missed it, Supreme Court sides with Uber drivers opening door to $400 million class action lawsuit.

Finally. Yeah, so this is in Canada, you know, not here. So yeah, Canada is basically going to come down on the side that all these economy 2.0 workers actually have to be called employees by these countries. That is where it's headed.

And hopefully it'll head that way here as well. Ralph writes in, hi, Grumps. Here's an interesting AI fail from Tesla. And this is kind of funny. Burger King is leveraging Tesla's autopilot's confusion to sell Whoppers. So yeah, they basically did what we've said was going to happen.

And they've noticed that Tesla tends to confuse a Burger King sign for a stop sign and proceeds to stop the car, leaving the occupants of the car in a great position to consume some Whoppers. So they have made an online campaign and promotion around this hashtag autopilot Whopper, which was good for through June 23rd.

And they'd give you a free Whopper if you met the following conditions. You had to share a picture or video on Twitter, Facebook. I don't know why they listed Twitter twice in here. Must be those AI editors. With guest smart car outside a Burger King restaurant using the hashtags and hashtag free Whopper.

And you will get a direct message within 24 hours of posting the picture or video with a unique code for a free Whopper sandwich. Limited one coupon per account. Okay. So basically they get free advertising and you get a free Whopper. Yes. Okay. I think they stopped selling the Whaler, which was my favorite fish sandwich.

I'm guessing it's a fish sandwich. Yes. Yes. The Whaler was a great sandwich. And he goes on to say, by the way, Jason's right. Farscape is an excellent series. Also, as far as recommended sci-fi for pre-teens, Asimov's Foundation series got me hooked on the genre way back when.

So, you know, there's another – Self-selecting samples. Self-selecting samples. People that are pissed off that said I said it sucked are writing in. Well, here's the thing. I hate Foundation. There's no mobilizing base writing in to tell me that it sucks too. No, no, there's not.

Okay. Let's move on to iTunes because we are way over time. Thanks for everybody that wrote in. And you wrote a lot of novels this week. And we just don't have time for everybody. All righty. Trey Four writes in with a five-star, frustrated and incorporated. A fun banter by some grumpy tech dudes.

Love hearing them vet and tear down new products. I pictured Brian as a bald dude. It appears he's exactly the way a dude making websites for the Goo Goo Dolls in LA should look. More nostalgic tech references and AI teardowns, please. I was not aware that that was a type.

But I guess – You are a type and you are the one that has all your hair, you asshole. I do. I do. Another five-star rating from SGX71 from the Netherlands. Just for you guys. I only installed Apple Podcasts for you guys. Every episode, again, no snorts and recognizing your rants.

Thank you. Thank you very much. And we have from David Dewey in the U.S. Another five stars. Grumpy too. Hey, Grumps. I started listening to your podcast a few months ago. Been loving it. When I told my wife that I was listening to this podcast, she laughed and laughed and laughed and then proceeded to say, hey, that's you.

Yep. I have a Grinch ornament dedicated to me on our Christmas tree. And I'm also an older web dev who's still trying to figure out how to make money. Well, don't be a web dev. I'm just going to tell you right now. So if you ever need a substitute Grump, let me know. Brian, good luck with the toddler in quarantine. We have a three-year-old and a one-year-old.

And this is pure torture. Everything will be easy after this nonsense. Also, Farscape is the best and has legs. But here comes the caveat. But the first and good part of the second season are not great.

Yes, I told you it takes a while to get going. It redeems itself in the third and fourth and is one of my favorites of all times. But you got to pay for it. Anyhow, thanks for all the info and the stuff you like. Keep grumping. Yes. So you're saying basically that half of it is crap.

I'm more than more. No, not half of it. Because there's the well, actually, when we get down to it, probably 50% is crap. Yes. Because the Peacekeeper Wars is the final movie that they made. And they didn't have the budget because they bought fucking Stargate on the sci-fi channel.

And they lost all their budget. But they made a two-hour season finale. And the last 30 minutes of the Peacekeeper Wars is some of the best TV ever. And it pays off the entire series. And it is just so goddamn good. All right, everybody, listen to the stupid interview with Gigi, and we're never talking about Farscape on the show again.

Thank you, Davey, for writing in. The struggle is real. I totally get the parenting thing. Just hang in there, man. Hashtag Team Brian. Hashtag Farscape sucks. If you want your question or comment read on the show, head over to GOG.show slash contact and send us your feedback or questions that we can read on the air.

And if you're so inclined, please head over to GOG.show slash iTunes and toss us a five-star and snarky review. And Jason always says, match those stars on Overcast, right? Yep. That's pretty much it. And, yeah. And the next time Brian talks about Dude, I'm going to shit all over that one, too.

Except for the fact that you like it. I like the first one. Mm-mm. Closing shout-outs! And in just breaking news, sad news to hear, Carl Reiner has passed away. He was, I believe, 98.

This is literally just breaking as we record. Oh, man. Sad to hear that. Sad to hear that. Good run, though. Good run. 98's not bad. Oh, man. Until next time, I'm Jason DeFillippo, and thanks to Gigi Edgley and Seth Miranda for joining us this week.

And I'm Brian Schulmeister. 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'd really appreciate it. Show notes for this episode are at gog.show slash 452. From there, you can find links to old episodes, leave feedback, ask questions, donate to the show, and get links to stuff we like.

Have a great 4th of July from home. And apparently somebody just put a guillotine on Jeff Bezos' lawn. Alrighty. Yeah. Oh, that's funny. Okay. You know, it's an implied death threat.

So, funny, but I couldn't just... How about cake? Let them all eat cake? Exactly. That's what that's... Yeah. Yeah. Oh, God. Okay. What a world. At QVC, fall shopping is more than just checking out.

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