462: Laser Power Condom

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

Welcome to Grumpy Old Geeks. I'm Jason DeFillippo. And I'm Brian Schulmeister. Had a long night, Brian, so I'm going to try and be perky as much as I can. You do that. We're recording pretty late in the day and some pretty big breaking news just hit, so I'm going to try to pretend I'm not looking at Twitter.

Okay. It was on CNN a second ago, so I saw that. Yes. Sleepy Joe picked somebody, I guess. Yes, he did. Yes. No, I've just been up all night because my roommate was taken to the hospital at 11 p.m. and is still there and they don't know what's wrong with her. So I'm tired.

Yeah, I'm tired. Yep. So, a little bit of follow-up here. Bill Gates has called Microsoft's TikTok deal a poisoned chalice, which, you know, nice turn of phrase, I guess. But he's like, they have no idea what they're getting themselves in for, especially for the moderation alone.

No, no. Microsoft does not have a social network. They've stayed away from it, wisely so. They do not have any – I mean, they still have LinkedIn. Come on. That's a social network, sort of. Please. Kind of. Not really. Not in terms of, like, the moderation that's necessary. Not, you know. LinkedIn is what it is. Sure, you get your trolls and you get your people going on there and spamming the hell out of it and all that.

And let's be honest, LinkedIn doesn't exactly do the best job of taking care of that very quickly. TikTok's a whole different beast. Whole different beast, yeah. They don't even have people employed at the right age to deal with TikTok over at Microsoft. Yeah, yeah. Whoever picks that thing up is going to be in for a world of something or other.

But, yeah, like Facebook or Twitter or any of the other bidders, they're much more suited to do this. I mean, sort of. They kind of know what they're getting into because they failed on all the fronts already. So they know how to fail with content moderation. But Microsoft is just going to be a whole shit show if they get it.

Although I'm going to go ahead and put a positive spin on it. All the old social networks, had they taken over TikTok, it would have been the same old, same old. Microsoft is going to come at this from a fresh perspective and they're going to have to come at it quick. So maybe they'll do a better job. Maybe they'll come from a completely different perspective and do things the way that we kind of said that they should always be done.

Microsoft's got a pretty good track record with privacy, so that's going to be a plus. We'll see. I'm going to go ahead and do something very rare and be slightly optimistic. Yeah, and maybe I'll fart wings and fly away. Right. And not that I really care anyways because I do not have TikTok and nor shall I.

Yes, of course. Speaking of Microsoft, though, a little stock talk here on the Grumpy Old Geeks. I got a feeling in my gut the other day that said, you should just liquidate now because every time I get that feeling in my gut and I don't, everything tanks. I just got a feeling.

I got a feeling coming that things might be headed for a cliff soon. So I just said, you know what? Save a few bucks here and there. I just dumped my entire portfolio and liquidated the whole damn thing. Came out ahead, which is good.

So that's a plus side. That would be very bad if you liquidated and came out behind because. Well, yes, I waited. I waited till everything was up and got rid of my whole portfolio. The only thing I'm not touching is my M1 finance pie because there's, you know, I only put in 500 bucks and it's worth like 1,500 now.

So it's like, I mean, it would be smart to liquidate it and just sit back and wait for everything to tank and rebuy. Given your current stock theory. Yes, that would make sense. Yeah, but, you know, I don't expect you to be consistent. Well, the problem is I can't.

The problem with M1 finance is I can't figure out how to. I got to go and figure it out. But I might just do it this afternoon since I'm stuck at home waiting to hear from the damn hospital. This whole, like, not being able to go visit people in the hospital is just so frustrating. So damn frustrating because you can't get through it to anybody.

It's just a mess. But anyway, but since I'm sitting here, maybe I'll do it. Yeah, I don't agree with you at all. But I'm a long-term investor and I will stick in for the long haul. In fact, if things tank, that just means I double down and buy more. So that's where I'm at.

But I get the reasoning behind it. And I always tell people you should go with your gut feelings and your gut instincts because there's a reason we have them. I call it intuition or whatever. So you may be right. You may be wrong. I will be sitting there in the fray with skin in the game regardless.

Yeah. No, I just figured it's like, you know, I take that money and when it does tank or even if it just drops, you know, 20 or 30 points, that's enough to spark a rebuy. And then just keep flipping it. But I just don't want to have that over my head right now. It's just like I got that feeling before.

And within a week, you know, all the stocks that I had tanked and it took months for them to rebuild back up. So I'm like, I should have done it then. So I did it this time. I will tell you one thing that I kind of wish you hadn't done this for. And this is, again, this is a Jason personality issue.

When you had the stocks, that cash wasn't liquid. Now you got liquid cash and I know how you late night Amazon order. No, it's stuck in my E-Trade account. I'm not removing the cash from my E-Trade account because if I take it out, then I have to pay taxes on it. So it's sitting there waiting for some action in the market to go back into it.

I don't pull that money out. It just stays in my trading account. All right. Lose that password for a while. Yeah, that's easy enough. It's easy enough. And I got an email from Google Plus Profile litigation this week. So I had a Google Plus account.

I had a pretty successful Google Plus account back in the day. I had like over 13,000 followers. Successful Google Plus Profile was about 15 people and three comments. No, I had 13,000 to 15,000 people. I can't remember what it was because you just said a number and now my brain went there because I got COVID non-sleep brain.

I had a pretty successful little Google Plus page going on there with a lot of traction and a lot of conversations and had a good time over there. And then, yeah, then Google Plus went tits up and shared a bunch of data they shouldn't have. So I went and I filled out the form. So I'm expecting my $2.

I want my $2. Yeah, I filed this one away because I also had an account and I figured this is something I should probably look at at some point for my $2 or $3. But is it fairly simple to submit a claim here? You just have to... Two minutes. Not even two minutes.

You put in your Google Profile email address and it pulls it up and if you had one or not and you just fill out your mailing information, they will send you a check if it works. Shouldn't Google already know their Google? They should just tell Google to just send checks out to the people. Why do they need us to go ahead and let them know?

Well, because this is the law firm, not Google itself. So Google's not going to give up its money just because they can. Too bad.

Media Candy. A long time ago, we talked about the Deep Space Nine documentary called What We Left Behind, Looking Back at Star Trek, Deep Space Nine. And I lost track of it. I couldn't find it. But turns out you can now watch it on Prime Video.

Do you have that? I haven't watched it yet, but it is in the queue right now. So I'm really looking forward to that because Deep Space Nine is my favorite Trek of all time. Yeah, I liked it. Not my favorite, though. I know it's not. That's why I said it was mine, not yours.

Well, it's a two-person show, Jason. So I just thought I'd put my comments in as well. Okay, well, we know your comment. Marscape sucks. Yes, I know. Yes, so does Dune. Anyway, Lower Decks. Finally watched that. Great. It was fucking great. It was fucking great.

It was great. I'm really looking forward to the second episode. I know. Me too. I was so bummed. I had to go look at it and see when the next one was dropping. I'm like, God, I got to wait a whole week. This sucks. But I thoroughly enjoyed Lower Decks. It was very funny. Yep. And Umbrella Academy Season 2. We've been talking about this on the GOG clan over at Clash Royale.

And a lot of people have been diving into it and are thoroughly hooked on it. And I finished Season 2 this morning because I had to. I couldn't wait. It was so damn good. I just couldn't stop. And I think Season 2 is even better than Season 1.

Honestly, I thoroughly, thoroughly enjoyed it. So I highly recommend checking out Umbrella Academy on Netflix. All right. Very cool. As some of you may know, I am, well, I had started a job right before COVID hit and then got immediately furloughed because the company that I was working with will be, basically makes all of its money from concert ticket sales.

No concerts, no ticket sales, no job. But I've been following the industry very closely. I would have anyways because I'm super into the music industry. And there have been these attempts at doing basically socially distanced gigs, right? So you get a venue, you figure out a way to do it.

You basically have 20% of capacity in places. You make people wear masks. You have to deal with the bathrooms, basically. You can't really sell beer because you can't really use bathrooms. Anyways, there's a fucking shit ton of issues, but people are trying it. And they tried it in London a couple nights back with Frank Turner.

And the organizers said it did not succeed in creating a live music blueprint, surprising nobody at all. So yeah, the problem was here, of course, it's a 1250 capacity, the Clapham Grand, and he played to just 200 people because that's what you got to do to make it work.

This was supported by the UK government as a trial run for enforcing safety measures at gigs during the pandemic. However, the Clapham Grand venue manager, Ali Wolf, told BBC News that this is not a financially viable model for other venues to follow going forward. Surprise, surprise.

Yes. Noting that the show didn't make enough money to cover the venue's operating costs, let alone the performer's performance fee, she said it can't be the future for live music, it can't be the future for venues. Sure, it was a great show and all of that, but let's not get caught up in the jubilation of finally being able to put on a show.

So this is not a financial model that the industry can remotely rely upon to get to be sustainable. So there's that. All right. And I wonder how many people just rushed the stage when the band came on, thus negating the entirety of the social distancing parameters. Well, if we want to talk about that, we should talk about Smash Mouse gig over at Sturgis the other night, but I'll save that for some other time.

Yeah. And there was another really interesting article and interview that has taken place recently with, of course, Spotify CEO Daniel Ek, who, you know, there's been a lot of criticism that Spotify pays insufficient royalties to artists, which it does. Shocking.

Yes. But he's basically denying all of that and saying that, you know, tough shit, artists, you're just going to have to record more often, which is not how art works. That's not how art works. Paint more, Rembrandt. Snap, snap. This is such a fucking dickhead attitude to have about that.

That's not how it works. If you want, do we want good art or do we want shit art? Do we want good music or do we just want shit that's stuck out there because we have to get payouts? They want downloads. They don't give a fuck about what they're downloading. They don't care. That's why they're, that's why they spent billions of dollars on podcasting now because they can get people listening to and using their app, paying $20 a month or however much it is and get the, get the downloads.

They just care about listening time and people paying that subscription. They don't give a fuck about artists. I read a very short book this week called Hell Yeah or No by Derek Sivers and I love Derek Sivers.

He's, he's one of the great thinkers. He started a CD baby back in the day, which you will remember, obviously, Brian. I do. I do remember CD baby. Yes. So he, he did this book and another book about being a musician and how to market yourself being a musician. And he put it out to his list early and I loved Hell Yeah or No by, by Derek Sivers.

It's a great book, great book. You have to read it in its entirety because it just kind of, it's a distillation of a lot of his theories and stuff like that. But the musician one I couldn't get into because I'm not a musician. Yes, you could, you know, change the word musician to anything about creativity and creators and podcasters and things like that.

But, uh, it didn't really resonate with me. Um, but he has sold $250,000 worth of these books before they even went on sale to the public. Nice. So what did he do with the money? He donated it to charity. Yeah. Good man. Yep.

He's, he, he also like when he sold CD baby, he made himself a little trust where he could keep his money and keep enough to live and be happy forever. And the rest of the money he put into another trust for a music education. So, I mean, I, he's one of the good guys, man.

He's just like, I made a ton of money. I don't need it all. So what am I going to do? And what do I care about? I care about music. So here let's, let's, let's bring up the next generation of musicians. So, so Daniel Eck can ruin them. Exactly. So, uh, well, maybe not if you go, go get his musician book.

Uh, maybe, maybe he has some good stuff in there, but, uh, yeah, I, I try and support Derek at any turn that I can. So, uh, go check it out. The link will be in the show notes, but, uh, yeah, uh, hell yeah or no is an awesome book. Sweet. I'm going to go buy it. Awesome. Moron of the week.

Smash mouth. Just Google it. Okay. Our second moron. Is, uh, an Illinois school district in Springfield, Illinois, that says no pajama pants allowed while learning from home. You have to follow the dress code regardless of how classes are held.

Are you fucking kidding me? That's insane. Are you fucking kidding me? That is insane. That is so stupid. It's like, oh God. I mean, it's Springfield, Illinois. I mean, I, we know they're not the, you know, the brightest bulbs in the bunch down there. I've been to Springfield many times.

I know from experience. What are they going to have them fucking do? Pan cameras down? Yeah, seriously. Like, you're going to have to stand up in front of the camera every morning? This is ridiculous. Calisthenics? Are you doing jumping jacks? God, if I was one of those students, I'd be sitting butt ass naked every goddamn day.

Exactly. You want me to stand up? I'll stand up. You bet I'm going to stand up. Yeah. There's only 14,000 students in the school district. And it's just like, you just got to be kidding me. Come on, people. Let them fucking learn how they want to learn. Yep. That's ridiculous.

Ridiculous. I have a hero of the week. I felt I needed one. And I saw this story and it warmed my heart. I've always liked Mandy Patinkin. But what's not to like about him now? Actor Mandy Patinkin announced in a video posted to Twitter on Friday. morning that he had deleted about 28,000 or so of his wife, Catherine Grody's unread emails.

At the time of the recording, some 10,000 unread emails remained, according to his wife, who said she tasked the 67-year-old actor and musician with conducting The Purge. Dad is clearing out 38,000 unread emails from my computer, and I don't want him to finish until the end of this trip because it's an activity that keeps him very happy and very occupied, Grody told the cameraman, who's presumed to be one of the couple's two adult sons.

He doesn't know that I do that on purpose. When Patinkin revealed his progress, Grody lamented that he was doing it too fast, honey. You got to keep doing a little less, she added. And he confirmed the enjoyment he receives from the activity, which is quickly referred to as achieving in box zero.

Grody has vowed to ensure her husband's efforts are not rendered futile by our own lack of diligence. I'm going to do that, she says. I'm going to maintain zero unread emails because I'm going to get rid of them as soon as she sees them. She promised she would and that she wouldn't open all this garbage stuff anymore, Patinkin said.

Unless we come up on another trip, Grody admitted, appearing to backtrack immediately on her commitments. It's a great story. It's so funny. I just hit inbox zero on all of my email accounts on Sunday. I spent like three days replying to everybody.

So all the show fans have gotten my replies now. And so I sent that to my lady friend who, since we are still COVID cockblocked, and she sent me back screen caps of her two email accounts. And I couldn't sleep that night because I got PTSD from this.

Oh, God. If I look at my wife's phone and I see, I see, I see, I see, I see those big numbers with the red dots, it really bothers me. Well, do you want to know how many she has? I don't, are we, are we whipping them out here? Take a guess. Take a guess.

Is it over 50,000? Yes. Jesus Christ. Well, you just give up at that point. You just start a new email address, don't you? You abandon ship. 230,000 unread emails. I'm like, I like, let me, let me tell you about a thing that we have in the tech world called email bankruptcy.

Yes. You basically delete the account, start a new one, and just send it to the people you care about and just never care about those again. I could not sleep that night. I'm looking at you, Dana. God damn it. Stop it. Oh, so you need to buy her a, hey, account.

Yeah. Oh, my God. Oh, over 200,000. How, how, how? My heart rate actually just went up. I told you. It's like, for people like us, that is a serious stress-inducing problem. God, I was feeling so good today.

Oh, sorry. Hey, but I got inbox zero, so fuck yeah. And now we're going to go ahead and slide into our feedback section where we attempt to reach feedback zero. At QVC, fall shopping is more than just checking out.

It's discovering the brands you love across beauty, fashion, home, and culinary, all in one place. Whether you're getting ready for crisp mornings, cozy nights, or everyday moments, QVC has what you need for the season ahead with brands like Laura Geller, Philosophy, Ninja, and so many more.

Shop now at QVC.com. Feedback loop. Over at Patreon, we've got some new subscribers. Leith, Dave, Gabriel, Simon, Francois, and Roger. And over at PayPal, we've got William, Michael, Andrew, Simon, Brian, Michael, Adam, Mark, Ralph, John, David, Linda, Judge, Felicia, Doug, and Nicola.

And more. Zachary. Hey, guys. Been listening for a few years now and decided the show is worth some money. Ha ha. Just kidding. Well, obviously you weren't kidding because you did some money. Obviously not. Yes. Great show and we'll donate more later on. Thanks. P.S. I am the one Spotify listener. We have a few Neos coming in feedback.

David says, hey, guys, love the show. Please continue to curse. Continue on to bash the flaming Cheeto in the White House. Continue to be yourselves. Calling people out on their bullshit is what you do. So keep on grumping. Somebody has to. And Bill, who says, finally caught up on the episodes.

Thanks for all you guys do grump on. Thank you, Bill. Yeah, so we shall. And Joseph says, sorry for the delay, but things have been a bit tough. I owe you folks a lot more, but it'll take some time to catch up. Thanks for keeping on. GOG is the only podcast I've kept up with and haven't dropped or fallen behind.

Stay healthy and grumpy. Cheers. Thank you. Julian writes in, you're a super fan. Love your show. Up at 5 a.m. for work and it's a big kickoff in my morning. Share the love. By the way, I got my mug and if I still had an office, it would be on my desk. Great job, guys. Keep it up. You are the PSA we all need.

All right. And Pedro writes in, I'm a Portuguese mechanical engineer living in Norway for the past 12 years. And I've been listening to the show for the past two years. Love it. Top three in my list. Keep it up. Keep it grumpy. Thank you, Pedro. Portugal to Norway. Are you still cold after 12 years? I think I will.

I think you probably got acclimatized by now. And finally, Andrew, who writes in, been listening to the show for a while now and I figured I'm overdue for donating. Love what you guys do and listen to you on my commute. All right. Thank you. All right. And over at Twitter, Johannes writes in, hey, Jason, I'm listening to the show and I just wanted to make it absolutely clear that millennials don't give a shit about Jake Paul.

This is a Gen Z thing. Millennials are older than you think in 2020. And I had to clarify that and say, look, in our spreadsheet of people we hate, millennials, we never updated it since we started the show seven and a half years ago. This is a good point. We need to update our references. We do need to update our references.

I think we're getting a little long in the tooth on the fucking millennial thing. Still, though, fucking millennials. Fucking millennials. And Levi writes in for once a more interesting read on the advancement in AI. Sorry, I mean machine learning. Yet the tech is still ever so flawed.

And this is a link over from The Economist, a new AI language model generates poetry and prose. I would have loved to have read it, but we have dropped the ball yet again on subscribing to The Economist. So we got to get on that this week. Okay. I thought it was Forbes we were supposed to subscribe to. You know, this is the third time you've asked me that.

And every time I go, oh, The Economist. Okay. I'm sorry. You can always go do it. Yeah, you go fucking do it. You got a credit card too, bitch. Joseph writes in, you can get better, but you can't pay more. Firm under investigation for Florida unemployment failures lands new $110 million contract with the state.

Oh, my God. And this is the Deloitte saga. Yep. Same company. The company that is basically to blame for Florida's botched unemployment system and made a couple hundred million dollars off that is now getting another major state contract. So that is great. It beat out four other companies for $110 million deal to update the state's Medicare program by developing a central data repository that they will put on an unsecured Amazon web host.

Or a floppy disk knowing Deloitte. This is way to fail upward, guys. Way to fail upward. That's the way of the world, isn't it? Yep. And Cramp Penn writes in, Jason, flight trackers have come a long way since I last checked. The U toggle is so fun. Thanks for the reminder.

For your amusement, donuts over Sequim out of Seattle. My guess is a Boeing test flight. Stay grumpy. That was almost as much of a different language, which is when people write in talking about games to me. Yeah, yeah. If you look at the designation on the photo, on the plane in the photo that he sends, it definitely looked like some kind of Boeing test airplane.

Now I know how those Grey's Anatomy actors feel. Or Star Trek actors. Or anybody on House or Star Trek, yes. Yeah. He only technobabble. And Michael writes in, was listening to last week's episode, and so true about Supermarket Sweep.

They have additional episodes on Amazon Prime. I've been watching the last few weeks with a girlfriend, and it's so easy to watch and enjoy. Yes, it is. It's just dumb, mindless fun. They're bringing it back on ABC this fall. Stay grumpy. Well, I don't know if anything's coming back on ABC this fall at this point besides reruns.

So, I hope so, though. It's a fun show. The numbers are very slightly down, Jason. You never know. Oh, wait. Hold on. They opened up New Zealand for shooting, and that's the reason that they got their first case in 102 days. Oh, shit. Yeah, we'll see what's going on there. Jay writes in, I am the one person who listens to your podcast on Spotify.

I promise I appreciate the extra effort. The pain of multiple podcast apps is too great. Okay. And TrollPurse writes in, I'm the one guy on Spotify. We have a lot of unique listeners on Spotify. We've got three.

Yeah, three. Okay. Okay. So, we're updating our reference to that. I'm making notes right now. Gen Z, not millennials. Three on Spotify, not one. Okay. Moss6502 writes in, it never occurred to me it would be this bad. And this is an article over on Medium.

Wireless charging is a disaster waiting to happen. I would argue the title is incorrect. It is a disaster that is currently happening. Yes. Because there's nothing that's going to happen that's beyond what it already is. Basically, I didn't know it was this bad either. There's been some new calculations going on about this. But wireless charging used on average around 47% more power than using a cable.

A lot of it just goes way to heat. So, you know what? As soon as I read this, I folded up and put away the one wireless charging pad I had. That's ridiculous. We can't do that with this environment. No. I did the same thing. It's just like... It's gone. It's not that hard to use a cable. No, it's not.

It's actually... It's really not. It's actually easier to use a cable because, like, sometimes I'll put my phone down. I won't even notice that I didn't put it in the right position and it's not even charging. Then I pick it up and it's dead. And I'm like, if I had to plug the cable in, I could have known for a fact that it was charging. Exactly. And saved some juice.

Oh, man. What a waste. What am I going to do with all these things? I got like 10 of them. Shit. Put them up on eBay. Let somebody else rule the planet. Great. Ralph writes in, Hi, Grumps. I thought this deserves to get the headline of the week award. Disney has no Fox left to give.

I got to say that is a pretty good one. So, they have renamed 20th Century Fox to 20th Television. What the fuck? Okay. Wow. Apparently, somebody has been furloughed in their branding division. The branding department is a, yes.

Wow. Okay. Barry writes in, way to go, Bexar County, and sends a link for local news coverage here where a court hearing was hacked into on Zoom, of course, and streamed a lot of porn. Hey, that's the way to do it. There you go. All right.

Sean writes in, Jason, use this instead of cunt and retard. Ready? Here we go. Cuntard. Cunt and retard together. It's beautiful. The best words, always the best words. Also, I'm like you and have Google Home Plus, the Nest security system, and it's great. Much better than Siri, although I have all Apple products.

I do have one Android phone, as I can't leave one for the other. Anyway, I love your idea for waking me up. However, I would love to have it this way, like Logan's run. And he sends us a YouTube video. And he goes on to say, last day, zodiac sign, blah, blah, blah. This would be so sick to wake me up in the morning.

Keep up the good work, you guys. And Brian, good luck out in Canada. Please let us know the difference you see with the COVID response. I work in healthcare in South Florida. Condolences. And it's nuts. People in the system know how serious it is, and we don't mess around. But like the reports show, people want to die out there.

Be safe. They do. And Canada's doing really well. They're already in stage three. Everything's down. My sister-in-law, who works in emergency services in a hospital, is off of her crazy schedule that she was on. Things are kind of getting back to normal there.

They are prepping for a second wave, which would be nice if we could get out of our first wave long enough here to start doing that. To start a second wave. Yeah. Also, I just want to say I am writing an executive order banning the use of cunt heart as well. Oh, yes.

No, that is not going to work. Yeah. Dumb fucking cunt. It's good enough for me. All right. Michaela writes in, hey, don't put Jake Paul on us millennials. He and his brother are Gen Z thing for sure. Logan is for edgy teens, and Jake is for kids who will steal mommy's credit card to buy merch. They're both deplorable human beings, if you can even call them human beings.

Any Gen Zers listening right now, steal that credit card. And buy our merch. Yeah, please do. Please do. GOG.show's last shop. Linda writes in, hi, thank you both for keeping the podcast going. Even though I'm listening to fewer podcasts, now that I'm working from home and not commuting, GOG gets top priority because I enjoy the humor in tech news.

I contribute monthly, but since my business didn't collapse, I'm sending you a bit extra. Thank you, Linda. And she did. Thank you. Yes. Question for Jason. What is the name of the cooling bed system I've heard you rave about? That would be The Pod by 8sleep. The number 8sleep.com.

And we'll save Dave's question for the next episode, but we'll ask him. Yes. And we have a question for Brian. What sci-fi book or author do you recommend for an adult new to the genre? Oh, Jason already knows what I'm going to say. It's going to be Dune and Frank Herbert. Of course, it's going to be Dune and Frank Herbert. And even though it's...

I struggled with this question a little bit because a lot of my favorite totem poles of sci-fi are older, written in the 50s, 60s, all that sort of thing. So they're not as up to date. But God, you just kind of got to go with it. Or Isaac Asimov's Foundation. I still can't get into that.

I think you were going to drop Ender's Game. Yeah, I'm going to watch that. I was actually going to get there for something that's relatively newer. And you just have to kind of plug your nose and hold the stink away from the author himself. Or some Scott Card, who's a complete and utter douchebag. Ender's Game is just phenomenal.

And that's a really good intro to, I think, sci-fi. Yeah, no, I would go with Ender's Game. And yes, forget about the magic underwear and all the other shit that he'd spews. But it's a good book. Don't read anything else by him. Just Ender's Game. I liked the second and third of the continuations of Ender's Game.

I really did. They're completely different beasts. But those three books I hold up for him. Nothing else, though. And I got to say, there is that one book that he wrote about World War III in the U.S. Oh, right. That one was all right. That was a good book. I really enjoyed that book. I can't remember what it's called.

Four books by Orson Scott Card. Okay. Damn. Jason writes in, hi, Grumps. As a Patreon member, I get the latest episode early emailed to me through Patreon. If you have the means, I highly recommend it. On this email, though, it links to an MP3. Is there a way to get this early access link to open in Overcast?

I have other podcasts that have a password-protected link that does open in Overcast, so I think it's technically possible. Love the show. Keep on grumping. And as Jason already wrote you back to say, but I left this in here for everyone else, there is an RSS link available there. Yeah. If you're a Patreon subscriber, there is a custom RSS link just for you that you can add to any player that you like so you can get the early release episodes when I have the wherewithal to actually release them early.

Patrick writes in, yes, Brian, thank you. Catching up on a backlog of episodes, laughed out loud and wholeheartedly agree with your assessment of Farscape. Tried watching that show numerous times and I just couldn't do it. I'm sure it was amazing back in the day, but legs, it has not.

Okay, that's fine. Hey, man, shit's not for everybody. Oh, he continues on. He says, Jason, if you make or share a link to a 20-minute YouTube video that summarizes all the mediocre episodes at the start of Farscape, I will give it one more try. If it still underwhelms, I'll consider Farscape to be another modern media version of the machine.

I just suck two days of your life away. How do you feel? Stay safe and big thanks for all your hard work. Yeah, not going to. I don't take homework. Sorry, I don't do homework. He doesn't care about the show that much. It's not like he's getting points on the back end. Exactly. Exactly.

Look, if it's not your cup of tea, it's not your cup of tea. Please move on to something else. And Raph writes in, good interview with Jack Dorsey on The Daily today. Is there such a thing as a good interview with Jack Dorsey? No, no. Every time I read an interview with Jack Dorsey, I really wish I had an extra PC laptop that I could just punch the screen on.

But no, I don't like Jack. I don't like Jack. Adelante writes in, hey, guys, I thought this was cool. I'm already enjoying this, but it didn't seem to get a lot of press. It's free training via LinkedIn Learning. There are a couple of IT jobs in the mix, but it's definitely not just IT. And this is a link to LinkedIn.

Learn relevant skills for jobs in demand. Hey, why not? You got the time. Yeah, I wonder if this is the old Linda content since they bought Linda. Oh, that would make sense. Yeah. Yeah. So that's actually a good reason to have Linda. You know, to buy Linda is to give it away for free so people can get better at their jobs.

Yes. I wonder if they're doing certifications, too. That would be a good idea. Kevin writes in, love the show. Sadly, only found you this year. Well, there's a lot of back episodes if you want to go down that route. Also, I'm the one person listening on Spotify. Shit, Brian, four. Gotta update the references again.

Get to our spreadsheet of hate and put in four for Spotify. When my family can hear me listening, they tell me, we can see why you like them, which just makes me laugh. I find your take on COVID-19 helpful in processing my own feelings, but also love what the show is all about. I would totally become a patron, but I was let go from my product role at the start of April, finally seeing some interest in the job market and hoping for the best.

I will, however, buy a mask, as I clearly will need more and more of these for the foreseeable future. Rock on, dudes. Well, you know, donate when you can. If you can't, don't. You know? That's where we're at. That's our thing. Keep your money if you need it. We'll be okay. If only landlords felt the same way.

Exactly. Ralph writes in, hi, Grumps. Hope this finds you well. This article is about a trial of the long-range wireless transmission of electricity, which would have amazing potential. Can't wait to see how it works out. Well, given the story we just had about charging pads and how horrible they are, what could possibly go wrong with this?

So this is a link to newatlas.com, New Zealand, to trial world's first commercial long-range wireless power transmission. Follow-up article, all sheep in New Zealand now dead. No, I did. I did some. I know. I actually read this and a couple of follow-up articles, and I've always been fascinated by the idea of wireless power transmission because I was a big fan of Tesla, not the car company, the real guy, Nikola.

You know, the big thing they put up at Coachella every year, the Tesla coil. Yes. Yes. And I thought this is really cool. And I'm just like, okay, well, what if I sat there with a big piece of cardboard and put it in the beam? You know, how could I disrupt this? What are the easy ways to think about it?

And what they're doing, and I think this is the coolest part of it, they are creating a laser sheath around the beam. So if anything breaks- A laser condom. It is. It is the laser Trojan. Laser power Trojan. Show title. So if anything breaks the laser sheath, the power transmission automatically stops.

So it's pretty cool. That's cool. I think they're missing a huge branding opportunity here, though, because there is one part of this that is called a wait for it, and this really stuck out, which lets you know that I'm still a five-year-old boy at heart. The rectenna. Yes. And they need to just name this whole system the rectenna.

Yeah. It's a rectal antenna. Yeah. And so when I'm reading this, I'm like, why? This is New Zealand, and why does this make me think of something? And I'm like, oh, the lighting of the beacon scene in Lord of the Rings. Yes. So there's a link to the video of the lighting of the beacons, which is now what I can completely consider the lighting of the rectenna.

The lighting of the rectenna. My favorite part of the porn version of the Lord of the Rings. Exactly. Anyways. And he also included... Ron Jeremy is Gimli. Well, Ron Jeremy's been canceled, man. We've got to update that reference. Oh, that's right. I forgot. He's in jail right now.

Yep. And he continues on, and this is a stellar example of a totally predictable unintended consequence. TikTok ban reports huge VPN search surge. Shock. VPN? Is that an Italian VPN? Yes. You've got the VPN. It only connects you to places in Rome.

That's it. You get the VPN and the pasta forentino. Yes. Yes. There you go. Speaking of that, G.I. Joe dot show. Jesus. Who's the one that didn't sleep? No shit. We're doing it in the afternoon. Somebody's hit the cocktails already.

It's really messing with me. GOG dot show slash VPN. Yes, that's right. We can stay on TikTok. Steven writes in, hello, Grumps. I was wondering if either of you have a Goodreads account. I am running out of books to read, and you guys always recommend some great books. Thank you for your podcast.

It has kept me sane during this pandemic. Claps in Spanish. Well, I do. I put the link in the show notes. I haven't updated it that recently, but it has been kind of updating from my Audible account, which is really nice. They have the automatic update to Goodreads. So whenever I listen to a book on Audible, it actually updates.

It doesn't have my ratings, though. So I should go back and rate the last hundred books that I've read, I guess. But I didn't know anybody did Goodreads anymore. Yeah, I had one like probably about seven years ago. It got abandoned, and there was no auto update from Kindle, and I never did ratings anyways.

So basically, that's a no. If you want to look at what web design was in the 90s, go to Goodreads.com. Oh, my God. Yeah. It is terrible. I mean... I did look at it because I just wanted to make sure my account was still active, and it's pretty intense.

Oh, it's so bad. And it's owned by fucking Amazon. Come on, guys. You're trillionaires. Throw a few bones at this thing. Update it. Jesus. Yeah. Why? It's not making them any money. No, it's not. Yep.

Barrett writes in, anyone else feel like escaping America besides Brian? And this is a link from Forbes. Want to escape from America? Twelve countries where you can buy citizenship and a second passport. So if you're getting desperate and you haven't married a Canadian, check that out. All right. No, not going to do that.

Joseph writes in, well, shit. I never used Google Music, but this doesn't sound too good. And it's a link to Ars Technica. Google Music shutdown starts this month. Music deleted in December. So if you've uploaded your music to Google Play Music, you might want to go back that shit up.

Luckily, they did make it somewhat simple, at least to move it over to YouTube. It's a basically one-click transfer. Okay. There you go. So you can use YouTube Music instead. You should still have that shit backed up anyway, because you never know. It's all on a drive somewhere. Put it all on a drive somewhere, people. Put that drive somewhere else.

There you go. Grant writes in, COVID corner, bad news. It seems, in case you haven't seen it. And this is a link over at The Atlantic. The coronavirus is never going away. Yeah. No, it's not. It's, you know, even if the flu's never gone away, this is the same kind of thing. So that's expected.

Assuming we can get a vaccine, we should be relatively all right, however, like we are with the flu. Having said that, of course, it's painfully clear the United States will not respond well to any possible flare-ups and do what's needed to contain them when they come. So, as mentioned in two comments above, I'm getting the fuck out of here.

Yeah. Of course you are. Mm-hmm. Oh, Jesus. Well, what are you going to do? Leave. Panda writes in. That's what I'm going to do. Yeah. This is the first time you've actually moved before I have. This is true. Panda writes in.

Hey, long-time listener, first-time caller. Wanted to say that you guys are awesome. And just on the pay for SEO, I actually work for a new company, though, through an outsourcing company that does have a paid SEO-adjacent thing. Not a scam. What is a paid SEO-adjacent thing?

It's not a scam, apparently. That's all we know. Apparently, he says, not a scam. Google vetted and everything. And it's called Video Rank Me. Don't have to mention it on the show or anything. Just when you mention all paid for SEO software is a scam, I should mention it. Well, just because you say it's not a scam, I would like some proof of that, because it's a paid SEO-adjacent thing.

I love that. Well, good luck with that. It says, okay, there we go. It says, it does say AI, but from what I've been able to figure out from talking to the CTO, it's machine learning. Of course it is. Of course it is. Because AI doesn't exist. That's right. Vincent writes in, oh noes, they paid the cyber ransom.

And this is a link from thejournal.ie. Hacker was paid ransom after the National University of Ireland, Galway, alumni data targeted in worldwide cyber attack. So you're not supposed to do that, people. All right. There you go. And he continues on, Jason, I've heard you are giving the Studio Ghibli movie.

Okay, you better take this over, because this is going to be even more ER Grey's Anatomy for me. No, he's just saying his favorite is Nausicaa Valley of the Wind and some other stuff about an RPG game, which I will never play. And Zelda on the Switch, you can't buy a Switch anymore.

They're sold out. Final Fantasy A7. Final Fantasy VII. Yeah, that's my brother's realm, because I'm almost 50 and I will not play a Final Fantasy game again. But yeah, I'm going through an order, so I will definitely get to that one.

And he says... Most of that, those aren't even words to me. They're just letters. Okay. Well, just saying. Sorry. Okay. Sorry. He says, stay Scooby-Dooby-Doo with kindest wishes from Ireland. Cheers. There you go. Ken writes in regarding USB-C ports, my workplace provided us with these.

They're pretty reliable. Maybe once per week I have to unplug and re-plug it to my MacBook Pro when the attached keyboard or mouse stops working. Hope this helps somewhat. And this is a laptop docking station from StarTech. I checked it out. Nah. Same problem, pretty much.

So, yeah. Unfortunately. Let's see. Luigi writes in, hey, geeks. Just listened to episode 459 on the marketing SEO tools, and I thought I would drop my thoughts on this. I agree with you guys that the tools in Silo are useless, so no package should be sold to solve someone's SEO problems.

Tools such as SEM Rush are useful when used alongside SEO improvement techniques on site. I mean, what the fuck is the point in getting the data from tools if you're not going to use it to improve your website. Those fuckwits, of which there are many, that just resell tools to solve SEO should be lined up and shot in the nicest possible way.

I am an analyst working in the marketing sector, and I've had my share of clients come to us who have been handed a shit package to solve a problem, only to find out months later that there has been little change or a dent in the baked balance. It all starts with quality content. Get that right, and you will see improvements. Anyway, I could rant about this all day.

Hey, start a podcast. Start a podcast and go check it. VideoRankMe.com and tell us if it's... If it works or not. Oh, yes. And Sarang writes in, since you guys were discussing, hey, check out ProtonMail. This is an open source security focused email provider.

They offer free and premium tier email that is end-to-end encrypted and overall security focused. Do check it out. Would like to hear your thoughts about it. I feel you want more privacy. You have to pay for it in today's world. Please forgive any typos. This is my second beer while listening to episode 459. Cheers. Well, so we've tried ProtonMail in the past.

The big thing with ProtonMail for me is it's all web-based, which is a problem. I like my email apps. Yeah. I don't know if they've updated it yet with IMAP or anything. But yeah, I mean, I use, what's this, Spark for my email and it syncs with everything.

So I can't see going back to ProtonMail. And honestly, I don't talk about anything except shit we talk about on this show anymore. So I couldn't care less. You can read my email all you want. Yeah. It would actually increase our visibility. Please read Jason's email.

More people will see Grumpy Old Geeks content. Joe writes in, my wife is starting a home business. She already has all the social media sites set up for it, but also wants a website. One to allow her to post a blog, contact info for the business, and other general info such as services, prices, et cetera. I've already purchased the domain through Hover.

I hope you used our link, but I am stuck there. A little research on my part points me to several websites I can use to build the site. However, I'm not sure which one is best for me as I have no experience doing this. Any suggestions or help would be greatly appreciated. No experience, Squarespace, done and done.

Yeah, the no experience part I missed. I was going to say I prefer WordPress.com for the power for plugins and things like that. But yeah, Squarespace for unintuitive, fuster clucky ease of use. I mean, they basically just have the templates for super basic stuff, like exactly what your wife wants to do.

Yeah, yeah. It's got a learning curve to figure out their dumb fucking interface. But once you figure it out, then that's all you got to do. It's a PhD, you know, push your dummy. Love those. Matthias the Swede writes in, good to hear that Brian just discovered Drive by Pinkman.

Just like Jason, I read it years back just to get my head around why we work and how we work. Being in Sweden, oh, thank you for all the free movies, we got job security, a good health plan and free education and free movies. Still, this book got to me. But that was after I read Turn the Ship Around, which really got to me.

I've heard about that book quite a bit recently from a couple interviews, shows that I've done. So I'm going to have to check that one out. And he goes on to say, I could write a long list of books that ties into this thought world, which interests me a lot. But hey, a book you should read and you probably already have is The Phoenix Project.

That sums up the IT field in a nutshell and actually shows how to move on. Oh, yeah. Since lots of us are working from home and need good news, a State Department here in Sweden have noticed a raise in productivity and by working less. Kind of a candelabrum when we go back to the office. And oh, yeah, this also.

And it's a link to the TED Talk with Andrew Barnes about the four-day work week. Yes, working less does make you more productive. I agree with that. Have you read The Phoenix Project? No. Okay. Me neither. It's about IT. So I will not read that book. I know how to move on from IT.

I've just spent the last seven and a half years doing it. Right. Brian G, not to be confused with Kenny G, writes in, if moron of the week were a national election, this stupid fucking jackass would win by a landslide. Hard to beat this one, guys. Of course, he's from my forsaken state of Florida.

But stay safe and grumpy and wear your goddamn mask, people. And this is a Florida man accused of buying Lamborghini with coronavirus relief funds. It's a wow. Yeah, I went through this, a $4 million scam that was undone because he had a hit and run crash in Lamborghini.

Yeah, this is a couple of weeks old. I remember when it came out and I read it and I'm just like, good, got the motherfucker. And Felicia writes in, big fail for Etsy yesterday. They messed up with the decimal point and billed people thousands of dollars for shipping. If your label was $3.50, you were charged $350.

Some shop owners were charged $16,000 and more. I was charged thousands, leaving my checking account negative, along with many others. This is a platform for small businesses. Not a good time for these mistakes during a pandemic and economic crisis. Thanks for informing and entertaining while we work.

I've been meaning to support and will do soon when Etsy refunds my money. Nice. Yeah, that's a step on a dick moment there, Etsy. Yeah, not good. Over on iTunes, actually, these are just our ratings from a couple of places now. Podcast Addicts, specifically this one from 2BillG.

He gave us two stars. Forget COVID. These guys suffer from Trump derangement syndrome. It's sad because when they're not spewing nonsense, they can be mildly entertaining. I decided to skip the podcast and just get the book suggestions from their website. Of course, you can't even fucking spell syndrome correctly.

Which is what I expect from you people. You can come and make your comments and try to sound all highfalutin and you can't fucking spell for shit. Related note, Jason, from now on, and all our listeners, if you want our book reviews, you will have to listen to the podcast. We will just be putting in the Barack, Hillary, and Biden books in the show notes on the website for at the library from now on.

Biden knows how to read. That's a first. Sorry. Sleepy Joe. Hey, man. He just reads slower. That's fine. Podcast Addict. He's got an Audible account. That's true. Over at Podcast Addict, 5G Shroid writes in five stars.

Grand Outstanding Grumps. You get a down-to-earth and sometimes hilarious view. Sometimes hilarious. That's what we should be known for. That's what we shoot for. Yeah. View on what's going on in the tech world and beyond. Mixed in with good tips on all things cyber-related and even books. Love, Lamb. Yes. The greatest Christopher Moore book of all time.

As long as there is no COVID cure, GOG is the necessary vaccine shot that gets me through the days. Well, thank you, 5G Shroid. And another one from Podcast Addict. And I'm starting to realize that for some reason it's putting the number of stars at the beginning of people's names. Unless... Oh, gotcha.

Unless this guy's also 5JackWeird and it's just a strange... Yeah, okay. Copy and paste fail, Podcast Addict. Yes. Well, this is a five-star rating. You are my spirit animals. Thanks for doing what you do and keep it up. Thank you. We shall try. We shall try.

And over at iTunes, we got OldRedHen3131. Good podcast, but less politics. Thanks. And he says, worth listening to. Interesting tech views and thoughts. So, well, thank you for your fours. And we have another five-star rating from 5PRin533. The title is Fire French Fries Emojis.

Okay. So, there you go. One of my favorite shows, a lot of great info, and you'll find yourself talking back to the speaker. Speaker Emoji. In agreement or disagreement. Not that they can hear you. Lulz. Laughing Emoji. All right. A lot of emojis in that one. Thank you. Yeah. So, 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 if you're listening to us on the Overcast player, please click that little star next to the player. It really helps us out. And it turns out, fucking Marco made a change to the damn sorting algorithm.

So, we're like, we got our dick knocked in the dirt. We're like down to number 15 now. I don't know what the hell's going on over there. But give us some more stars, people. We need to get back on top. It's a plot for us to never beat, Rogan. I tell you. I know. I know. And even Rogan's number two now. So, you know that it's jacked up.

Closing shout outs. And a shout out to Frances Allen, a computer science best known for her work on compiling who passed away this week at the age of 88. She also helped establish a foundation for much of modern computer programming, which was cool.

She was the first woman to win the Turing Award and the first female IBM fellow. Very awesome. Yeah. Good run. Good run. Good awards. More accomplished than we are. That's for goddamn sure. Hey, she never had a podcast that was like number 12 on Overcast. That's true.

That's true. Suck it, Frances. And a happy 70th birthday to Steve Wozniak. Also never had a podcast that was number 12 on Overcast. Suck it, Steve. Right. Suck it, Steve. No, I like Steve a lot, mainly because he knows who I am.

That is the most honest thing you've ever said. I was hanging out. I was backstage by myself at a Cirque du Soleil thing in San Francisco and I'm walking around and I see Evan Williams, you know, from Blogger and Medium, who's an old friend.

And I walk up to him and I'm like, hey, what's going on? And he's just like, shut up. Steve's telling the stories. And I look over and there's fucking Steve Wozniak telling the old like, you know, Redbox days and hacking, you know, pay phones and shit and telling all these great stories. And then when he was done, Evan introduced me.

He's like, oh, this is Jason DeFilippo. He works over at Technorati. He's like, oh, I've heard of you. I was like, what? Oh, my God. I just damn near shit myself. The most amazing thing about this story is it's taken 462 episodes for you to tell it. I actually have told the story on the show before, but I figured all the old I figured since Beach Mom is gone, she was the only one that would still be around to remember what that story was.

But no. So I like Steve, except for that that little episode he had with getting engaged to Kathy Griffin. That was that was a low spot. And also Segway Polo was not very dignified either. So all the other shit Steve did was great. And also, I want to give a shout out to the Los Angeles Fire Department for coming to my house last night and taking care of us yet again.

I love these guys. They've saved my house twice. And last night they helped save my roommate. So I just I cannot give these guys enough props. They're always there when you need them. And right now they're battling all of all of our normal wildfires. So which you at least get to abscond to Toronto and get away from.

But yeah, thank you, Los Angeles Fire Department. I love you. And until next time, I'm Jason DeFilippo. And I'm Brian Schulmeister. Thanks for listening to Grumpy Old Geeks. Support the show and keep us on the air. Go to gog.show slash donate. Toss us a few bucks and we'll love you forever. Your support really keeps us going and we really appreciate it.

Show notes for this episode are at gog.show slash 462. From there, you can find links to old episodes, leave feedback, ask questions, donate to the show and get links to stuff we like. Stay grumpy. Wear a mask. Don't be stupid. At QVC, fall shopping is more than just checking out.

It's discovering the brands you love across beauty, fashion, home and culinary all in one place. Whether you're getting ready for crisp mornings, cozy nights or everyday moments, QVC has what you need for the season ahead with brands like Laura Geller, Philosophy, Ninja and so many more.

Shop now at QVC.com.