526: In Over Their Cleggs

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. And happy Canadian Thanksgiving, eh? Eh! You got some turkey, eh? Early in the year. I did. I made a turkey with bacon. It was good. You know, because in Canada, you have to add bacon to everything. That's the rule. That's right. So is it Canadian bacon when you're in Canada?

No. Well, I mean, there is Canadian bacon. It's p-meal, but that's a different beast. Okay. Yeah, what is it? There's multiple bacon types. Okay. I got you. I didn't know if it was just a location thing. Like they just make regular bacon and send it here. Okay, okay. No, no. There's different types. Google p-meal. You'll see.

Okay. No, I won't. I have a Canadian to ask these things of now. I don't have to Google. All my Canada shit's going on you now. Okay. Speaking of Canadians, Blue Origin has delayed William Shatner's space flight to October 13th. First off, he's actually going. This is true.

It may just go down as the most expensive book slash album slash whatever he's doing promo of all time, but he is going. Yep. So, yes. There is weather conditions, which is, they're saying, is the main factor, of course. The liftoff will also just come weeks after an essay described a toxic environment, a blue origin, including an alleged reluctance to deal with sexual harassment, as well as poor attitudes towards safety, the environment, and basic internal criticism.

That's right up the alley for Captain Kirk. I was about to say, this seems pretty spot on for the Enterprise NCC 1701. Yes, it is. All right. An environment he's used to. I hope there aren't any green ladies working at Amazon. No doubt. No doubt.

Yeah, I was bummed to see it was pushed off. I got up this morning ready to go, and no. Bummer. Yeah. Well, you know, the weather thing is important if they're going to attempt safety. Attempt safety. The illusion of safety, Brian. Well, we're living in a world that's full of the illusion of safety, Jason.

Yes. This is literally a self-driving rocket, so. I was watching that when I was looking at the article for this, they were showing some of the video of the first crew that went up, and they were just kind of floating around that little capsule bouncing off each other. And I'm like, there's not a pilot in there. That would kind of freak me out.

Also, seatbelts? Well, they took their seatbelt. It tells them to put them back on when it's time to come, you know, for a landing. But still, it's like, oh, it's like self-driving cars. I just, I can't get around the fact that there's just nobody at the helm, you know?

They should have at least, like, you know, taken George Takei with them. Well, then Shatner and Takei would have to get on. That's true. They don't really like each other very much, do they? Does anybody really like William Shatner? I do. But, I mean, from the cast. I don't think the cast really gets along.

He's, well, I mean, I read the autobiography, and he and Leonard Nimoy, apparently, were quite close and mended their ways near Nimoy's end as well. So, you know, whatever. Anyways, who cares? I don't care if they all hated each other. It's Star Trek. It was awesome.

That's true. That's true. And hopefully Bezos won't kill him. That would really kind of put an end to that whole program, I'm guessing. If you kill Captain Kirk. I know. Oh, shit, we said it on the show. Fuck. Oh, no. Oh, no.

Damn it, we killed Kirk. Shit. I do hope he makes it back, okay? Because I really want all the boldly going where lots of people have gone before headlines. Yes, yes. And, of course, people are already busting out the old joke. I think when Buzz Aldrin went up on the space shuttle, it's like, when he comes back, everybody wear an ape mask.

Yes, that's going all over the place. I'm like, not the right sci-fi. Yeah. Stay in your sci-fi lanes, people. So I got some follow-up in a little bit. I'm doing pre-follow-up to a story we haven't covered yet. I love this. A little time hopping.

Yeah, we're going to bounce around a little bit. I just saw this one because it really kind of just made my heart grow three times that day. The renowned programmer who created PHP hates programming and says he's not a real programmer. As anybody who has learned PHP, we already knew that.

Yeah. Rasmus Leardorf, he says, I am not a real programmer. I throw together things until it works, then I move on. The real programmers will say, yeah, it works, but you're leaking memory everywhere. Perhaps we should fix that. And he says, I'll just restart Apache every 10 requests. I'm like, that's a man after my own heart.

That is a programmer from the generation we came up in. That's true. No doubt about that. That is programming. That is programming. So hat tip to Rasmus for coming out. Because I hate programming, too. I just did it for 20 years. It paid the bills. In the news.

Well, speaking of companies that probably hired a whole bunch of programmers in the Rasmus Leardorf vein, Facebook and Instagram were down for the second time this week. They just forgot to restart Apache every 10 requests, apparently. Apparently. And you do know that Facebook and Instagram run on PHP. So there you go.

They do. So this wasn't all worldwide like last time. There were just spikes in users reporting issues. It didn't last terribly long. But it did happen again. And they're blaming, once again, a configuration change. But unrelated to the issues earlier in the week, even though it was, once again, a configuration change.

Yeah. So that would seem to be very related to the issues earlier in the week. Because that was a configuration change. Language fucking matters. It's Facebook. They don't play by the rules. That's it. It's the same issue that caused the outage, but it's unrelated to the issues earlier in the week.

Even though it was the same issue. Same issue. Different bad programmer. That's all. God damn it. Okay. And Instagram is attempting to save some face here after, you know, pushing the Instagram for kids forever, even though technologists, psychologists, sociologists, rational people, anybody that breathes was screaming, this is a really bad idea.

And they came up, you know, they decided, hey, we're going to encourage teens to take a break. Take a break. So CNN and Reuters are reporting that Facebook Global Affairs VP Nick Clegg, the dick, that's my name for him. Oh, that guy, man. That guy is just like.

He's an asshole. He's an asshole. He's the punching bag. He's taking it on the chin, but he's doing it for. Taking it on the Clegg. Yeah. Yeah. He's doing it for a worthy cause. A lot of money. So he doesn't give a shit. He does not give a shit. He is paid to go out there. He's like Trump's PR people.

He's just paid to go out there and take shit in the face. And that's what he's doing. He's Zuckerberg and Sandberg's Giuliani. Ah, there you go. Yeah. Perfect. So he announced that Instagram would introduce a take a break feature that would encourage teens to simply stop using the social network for a while.

He didn't say when it would be ready. The social media exec also said Facebook would nudge teens away from material in its app that may not be conducive to their well-being. He didn't provide any specifics for this approach. He did, however, suggest that Facebook's algorithms should be held to account, including by regulation, if needed, to be sure real-world results match intentions.

So we don't know if or when they will be ready, and there are no specifics for any new approach. Huh. And he's saying regulation if needed, but didn't Facebook say, we don't need no stick in regulation because we don't need any regulation.

But what I'm basically telling you right now is we're not going to do jack shit unless you regulate us to do it. Yeah. God, what the fuck? It's just – it's a bottomless pit. It's a bottomless pit of shit over there.

Oh, man. They're all in over their cleg. Yeah, they are in over their cleg. And Facebook's oversight board is going to meet with Francis Hogan, the whistleblower, which should be an interesting meeting. Make sure they don't have any of those poisoned umbrellas that are so popular in Russia.

Yeah, no doubt. No doubt. Don't drink the water. Yeah, bring your own food. Wear a hazmat suit. Yeah, and preferably a Kevlar one. Just do it over Zoom, for God's sake. Everybody else is. Mm-hmm. Let's make sure you've got a good VPN.

That's gog.show slash VPN if you need one. More on that later. Yeah, yeah. And, yeah, yeah, that is really going to be an interesting meeting. I wish that would be televised because I would love to be a fly on the wall. I would love to be a fly on Mike Pence's hair for that one.

Yeah. Oh, man. Remember Magic Leap? Yeah, the company that got a bunch of money for doing absolutely nothing except for a craftly, well-done 3D video. Yeah, yeah. Well, you know, seven years ago, they raised $542 million at a $2 billion valuation.

And then they exploded into nothing and a bunch of people left? Yeah, and then somebody just gave them another $500 million at the same $2 billion valuation. So in seven years, they have- And we can't get 95% of you fuckers that listen to this podcast to give us a dollar.

I know. I know. You know why? Because we actually produced something. Oh, God damn it. Let's just promise that we're going to do a podcast for 10 years, not do a podcast, and get $500 million. That's how you do it. That's how you do it. And there's a blog post over on the Magic Leap site from Peggy Johnson, the CEO who came from Microsoft.

But the interesting thing is they do have some mock-ups of the new glasses, which I actually like. I think they're kind of cool looking. We'll never get to try them because they're pivoting into the Enterprise section. So we'll see what happens with them. But none of these things except HoloLens really have done anything.

So we'll see. Here's the dirty little secret. Most people don't give a fuck about VR. Oh, Brian, this is AR. Remember, this is AR. Most people don't give a fuck about that either. Yeah, they give less fucks about that, too, because none of it works.

But apparently you can get $500 billion. Yeah, you can. You can get paid quite a bit. One of the things that – because I've got that Oculus Quest, and I've been trying to go through those Star Wars games. There's something that happens. I've got a room now that my garage is big enough where I've got the space.

Nobody's in here. It doesn't bother me. I've got enough room to swing my lightsaber and do all the stupid shit. The funny thing is, though, as soon as I put on that headset, I feel vulnerable. Yeah, because you can't see anything. Like somebody can – well, you could – I mean, you could – I'm engaged in the world that's in the VR, but somebody could just be coming up behind me to stab me in the back, and I wouldn't know it, hear it, or see it.

And it's just one of those – it's like, you know, one of those lizard brain type of reactions I have when I put that thing on. So I think that might be one of the reasons that it hasn't really caught on, because you do kind of have that, like, just that weird sinking feeling that, I don't know, what's going on around me in the real world?

I really kind of want to know, you know? Yeah. Well, there's AR's – there's AR's thing, then. They should push that. You won't get mugged while playing Darth Vader. No, no, but you might run into a street lamp when you're playing Pokemon Go.

That's true. All right, so hackers have accessed Twitch and released a vast amount of company data, including basically all the code – build your own Twitch now – creator payouts in the entirety of Twitch TV. They have confirmed the breach, but did not provide further details on top of all the code.

They say they stole the site's mobile, desktop, and console Twitch clients. It also accessed proprietary SDKs, internal AWS services used by Twitch, blah, blah, blah, blah. They got everything, basically. They also got creator payouts from 2019 until now, including top streamers like a bunch of names I don't know, nor do I ever care to.

Although, perhaps I should. Because we've also found out exactly how much money these people are making. Oh, I should state that the group that did this states that Twitch's community is a disgusting, toxic cesspool, so this action may be related to recent hate raids that prompted streamers to take a day off in protest.

Guys, have you heard of Facebook? That's a disgusting, toxic cesspool. Seriously. So there you go. You want a target. That's a target-rich environment over at Facebook. Yeah. So here's why I think I need to – we should start doing a Twitch stream instead of doing this stupid podcast.

The top 10 of these people, critical rule, $9.6 million a year, and it just goes on from there. In fact, you have to get down to number 81 before you get below $1 million a year. So there are at least 81 people making at least $1 million a year streaming.

But how many people are on Twitch? I have no idea. So you look at the odds of being one of those top 81 people, it ain't good. It ain't good. Same with YouTubers, you know? But I would argue, same with YouTube, same with Twitch, same even with podcasting.

There are the people that actually do it all the time, and then there are people that have done like three live streams once. Yeah, that would be me because it sucks. You would have to give me a million dollars to do that on a daily basis because it is miserable being on Twitch.

It really is. But I did get the source code. So hat tip to Minkowski for sliding me the torrent link on that one. I appreciate it. I immediately threw away all of the personal data because I did not want to have that on any of my hard drives ever.

I just wanted to look at the source code. I wanted to see how they built it. And it's in Go, which is strange, I thought. That is strange. Everything I opened, they were basically just Go files. There was some Ruby stuff, but it was mostly Go. And yeah, it looked like any big behemoth website that has a gazillion files on it.

It's indecipherable just from – unless you want to take a long time or you have a Sherpa to take you through how it all works together. Because it's – I've worked on sites like this and this stuff is – it's spitting duct tape together. Let's be honest. But also, the source code is old.

It's not new stuff. So it's at least a couple years old from one of the security people who used to work at Twitch. They said, yeah, yeah, that's a source code, but it's not anywhere near what we're using now. So – but yeah, it's interesting to look at, but it was 135 or 138 gigabytes zipped.

So that was a lot. So yeah, it's gone now. I deleted it. It was fun to look at. I didn't care about the payment stuff. I just wanted to kind of see under the hood. And it looks like every other big website that you've – if you've ever worked on one, you just go, ah, yeah. There's 400 teams and everybody gets like a folder to work on.

That's it. Gotcha. I read a really interesting article over on Slate, Celebrity Crypto Shilling is a Moral Disaster, which kind of like, duh, but then he gets into it and talks about it. And it's amazing. Like Lindsay Lohan peddling five-figure NFTs, Tom Brady endorsing the exchange FTX, Akon promising to build a $6 billion crypto-inspired city in Senegal.

I mean, these guys are just raking in the cash, and they're encouraging their fans to gamble on what we charitably call bullshit on this show. That may seem to see a major regulatory crackdown, if not an outright implosion on the market. And the article points out that we've been here before, back in 2017, a number of celebrities put their support behind the ICOs, which we made fun of back then too, many of which became worthless after the crypto market crashed in 2018, and they all went out of business.

The co-founder of one such coin, Sentra, was sentenced this year to eight years in prison for bilking investors out of $25 million. But who didn't go to jail? Floyd Merriweather and DJ Khaled, who both paid fines to the SEC for not disclosing that they were paid to promote that stupid coin.

Yeah, and they don't – did they mention McAfee in here? Because that's what he got dinged on. That's what his whole thing was for doing pump and dump and using Twitter DMs as his back chair. No, they didn't mention him specifically because, I mean, while technically you could call him a celebrity, they're basically just talking about the celebrities that are basically just, here, here, have $100,000 and go promote this crap for us.

Got it, got it, got it. So, yeah. Interesting article. Stay the hell out of the way from this stuff. It's dumb. It is. It is. What's also dumb is General Motors. I will never be buying a General Motors car because they aim to build the Netflix-sized subscription business by 2030.

You sell cars. Sell me a fucking car. Do not sell me a subscription to my car. But that's what they want to do. Yeah. Is this – I didn't read the article. Apologies. So, you tell me, is this – you don't ever actually own your car and you can go back and turn it in?

No. Is this like a newfangled leasing thing? Or, no, you buy the car and then if you want the things to work, you have to pay extra money. That's it. Because, you know, they talk about OnStar, upgraded maps. So, apparently, if you don't pay for maps, you don't know where you're going.

I don't think anybody has really told any of the upper-level management at General Motors that we all have fucking cell phones that do everything that your car is going to try and do. Except, I don't know, safety features probably. Safety features?

Like, yeah. Brakes. You want to unlock your car? Yeah. You want to stop your car? Would you like your right or your left turn light? Because you only have enough money for one. Exactly. How many turns would you have to save up your lunch money because it's like three lefts and a right to get to work and you've only got enough for one right and one left?

I'd plot a route that would get me there with only rights, but my maps are out. Yeah. Oh, these people, these people, they seriously need to fucking stop this shit. It's like, just because you can doesn't mean you should. And in interesting Apple news, they have opened up a developer academy in Detroit.

Mm-hmm. Which is kind of cool. They are, basically, the first cohort is 100 people aged 18 to 60 who get 10 months of app development and entrepreneurial training. Nice. So, that's pretty cool. That is cool. Yeah.

Yeah. And it's a nice diverse group of people in there. And I don't, they should do more of this. They really should. I just, please tell me, please tell me somewhere in the legalese, anything that is developed while you're in this class is the sole property of Apple is not in there.

Please. Please. I'm sure it's got it. I'm sure it is. Yeah. That's the way it works. You own it, but you just have to pay us 50% of everything in perpetuity. Right. That's all. Right. And Dan sent in an email about a New York Times article about how many tech startups lied to get investors and says, thanks, love the show.

And this is the lifestyles of the rich and gullible. Yeah. So, basically, all of them. It points out average investors were not able to get in the last decade's startup boom in private markets. Once that seemed unfair, now it looks lucky. Yeah. Unless it was Uber because we would have made a shit ton of money.

So, it's a good wrap-up of every single story we've talked about all the time on the show. Lies, bullshit, deceit, rich people getting the chance to get richer or lose their pocket money. Merka. Yeah. That's about it. That's about it. I'm pretty sure nobody's making any money on Uber anymore. You had to be in that first couple rounds.

Again, that's the point of the article is only the rich and powerful people can get in on those first couple rounds.

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Media Candy. Hey, Brian. Foundation has been renewed for Season 2. I haven't gone past the third episode, so I don't know if my opinion has changed.

But like I said, I found it a decent sci-fi show that is vaguely tinged with Foundation dust. I liked Episode 3. Episode 3 was good. Episode 4 could have been about seven minutes with how much plot they moved forward.

It was a lot of kind of going in circles on that one. So I'm like, they're going to need at least ten more seasons to get anywhere meaningful. Well, at the pace that they're moving at right now, they need about a hundred seasons if they're going to do all the Foundation, not just the first book. Yeah.

Yeah. It was a little slow, but it's good. I actually, when you take the Foundation out of Foundation, it's not bad. Yeah, it's a decent sci-fi show. So I'll catch up and watch Episode 4 and all that. I'm excited they're bringing it back. It's good. Yeah. Five should be out by the time we do our next show, so that'll be good.

I mean, the good thing about getting renewed, too, is it kind of opens up, you know, they know they're going to be around a little bit longer. So maybe they'll take some more chances and drop a little more Foundation dust in there. Yeah. Yeah. We'll see. We'll see. Seth Rogen has a new podcast called Story Time. It's really good.

I can't with his laugh. I just can't. You know, see, I used to be like that. I used to be on the anti-Seth Rogen train, but I don't know what he's – I have learned to love Seth Rogen. I'm not anti-Seth Rogen. I like him in movies.

I like him when he has his crap together. What I don't like is his free form. I'm completely stoned, and I can't get through a sentence without the cackle and the gross, phlegmy laugh that goes on for 25 minutes. See, it's not like that, though. It's very well produced. It is extremely well produced. Okay, so this might be okay. It is really good.

It's, you know, it's – I think they did it with Earwolf, and it's really, really interesting. I thoroughly enjoyed the first episode, so I've subbed to that one for sure. And, you know, Seth has been behind the scenes on some really good stuff, like Preacher. Him and his team did that.

The Boys, we have him to thank for that. So hopefully they'll come with a new fucking season soon. Use some more boys in my life. Not like that. That's a good phrase. I know. If I were editing the show, that would be the outro. That would be it. And I did watch Dave Chappelle's The Closer.

I love Dave Chappelle. I love him so much. A lot of people don't. But I find him just one of the smartest comedians working, and I'm Team Dave. And it's nice to see that Netflix, amid all of the whiny, bitchy shit that the trans community is doing, going after him again, Netflix is standing behind him and saying, look, you know, he's a comedian.

Deal with it. Which is great. I 100% agree. I haven't watched the special. I probably won't. Why not? I'm not a huge – I'm just not a huge fan, and not for any particular reason. I just – I like to show. I don't really like his stand-up. I think he does better set bits and all that.

And not really my thing. So I doubt I'll see it, but I saw that there was a kerfuffle, and I'm glad that Netflix went, you know what? Comedian's going to comedian. Let him go. And, you know, the stories that he tells in the special are really good.

They're really fucking good. They're really poignant, and they make a lot of sense. So I stick with Dave on this one. And if you don't like it, kiss my ass. All right. I watched a bunch of stuff that I've been watching, so I'll just wrap them up really quick. Star Trek Lower Decks has come in with their best episode yet.

It was legitimately hilarious with looks at Lower Decks from Klingons, Vulcan ships, and more. I'm not going to spoil it. If you plan on watching it, it's very funny. We got past Canadian Thanksgiving, which was my wife's decree that we cannot watch a Christmas episode until after that. So immediately, we watched the Ted Lasso Christmas episode, and it was delightful.

I told you it was good. It was the best Christmas special I've seen in forever. It was very cute and clever, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Yeah. And the season just wrapped last weekend, so you can get caught up now. Yeah, we're going to get back on it and catch up on it. Very curious to see what you think of how they wrapped this season.

It's very interesting. Okay, cool. Looking forward to it. And I'm back on the Last Week Tonight with John Oliver bandwagon, since you supplied me with a last hookup for HBO. So thank you for that. It is such a better show than Jon Stewart. I mean, like we talked about, we'll give Jon Stewart another couple shots at this.

But if I'm going to go for any outrage porn, it is Last Week Tonight with John Oliver. It's just great. And fuck Bill Maher. I tried. I'm out. Thank you. Finally. Finally. I'm just done. The COVID whining that he did just turned me off to him.

And now I'm just over the shtick. I had my Adam Carolla moment with Bill Maher. I'm done. Okay. Thank God. Thank God. And I'm very excited for this. And I know you're not because I giddily texted you this and you were just like, meh, meh.

Watch the first trailer for The Expanse Season 6. It is arriving December 10th. We have six more episodes. And then they're ending and wrapping the show, which, you know, again, if you're going with the books, boy, that went quick. So. Yeah. I was going to say, don't you have a couple dozen novels yet to go through?

I guess they're not bothering. So, and I suppose they had enough internal turmoil and it's an expensive show to produce and it's not caught on to a super massive audience. It's more of a cult thing. So, I get it. But I'm happy to watch the end. I've missed the show. I'm excited it's coming back.

Yeah. I'll watch it. I mean, I just, my whole point was just that the end of the last season didn't really leave me excited for more. That's all. I'm just like, kind of, okay. Okay. There it is. It's only six episodes. I think I can power through that.

Yeah. I think he'll manage. Yeah. And Joseph wrote in for Jason, Baking Impossible, the great nerdish bake-off for the engineering set. And I guess this is over at Netflix and it's Top Chef meets Mythbusters, apparently. I didn't watch any of this.

I don't know if you had, but it seems right up your alley. I don't like baking shows, so maybe not. I like cooking shows. Oh, so if they were cooking, right. Yeah. I like cooking shows, baking shows. Not a baker, but. I get why they would go for baking for engineering, because baking is more very specific and precise and mathematical, while cooking is a bit of art.

Yeah. That's why I like cooking, because it's like, you know, you can shuck and jive on your sauce, but baking, yeah. You got to have everything precise. You don't shuck and jive on a cupcake, man. No, you don't. No, you don't. That's why I have never made a cupcake in my life. So, yeah.

I might check it out. Depends. All right, and Bob also writes in, I love my Apple TV 4K, but you don't even need the remote. iOS remote app is great, and you need to give it a try. If you're like me, I have the Apple TV connected to a receiver and TV with the new HDMI pass-through. You can control everything with the app and remote, too.

I can wake up the Apple TV receiver TV with the app and control the sound level of the receiver with the volume buttons on my phone while on the lock screen. Very cool. Yeah, I'm not going to do that because when I'm watching TV, I want to be in TV mode. I want my phone in the other room.

I want it charging and as far away from me as possible. The only time that I really do like using the app on the phone is when I'm setting up new accounts because I can just pop into one password and copy and paste. That's really nice. But I did end up ordering two more Apple 4Ks for the house because they're great.

They are fantastic. The new ones, the new ones, the new remotes. Yeah. The new remote's great, but yeah, just not with the phone. I'm not going to do the phone. I wish I could just get some dumb TVs now instead of these internet-enabled TVs. But there is a remote app for the Apple Watch.

So if you do want to just do basic control, you can use your watch. But if you have the remote, the remote works. So there you go. I'm with you. I'm with you. I don't like to have my phone with me when I'm watching TV. Apps and doodads. There's a new study out, Brian, that says iPhone apps are no better for privacy than Android.

Brought to you by Android. Yeah. Seriously. Now, this comes from the University of Oxford. Woo! Okay. Except the big caveat is that it was conducted before the introduction of iOS 14.5 back in April, which made the opt-in to tracking and app privacy labels mandatory.

So, yay, thanks for an outdated study that actually means nothing right now. Preesh! Still, it's interesting because Apple's been claiming that they're much better than Android for privacy for much longer than that. So, I guess they weren't. No, no, I guess they weren't.

The other caveat being if you know how to work your fucking phone. Yeah. Which you don't have to for Apple because it's all done out of the bat. And, you know, I'm not really worried about my iPhone getting hacked. Android? Terrifying.

Terrifying. No, thank you. And Apple is now going to require all apps make it easy for users to delete their account. So, that'll be interesting. That's amazing because that is one of the questions that I think I asked maybe seven years ago on this program. It's like when you sign up for these apps and then you just delete them, what happens?

Because most of the apps never had an option to delete your account and then you could try to track it down on their website and maybe they had something and maybe they didn't. And usually it was just a form and you filled out the form and it went off into the ether and you never heard anything back again. So, I'm sure I have gazillions of bits of data floating around from all these apps from 10 years ago.

Now that they built this in, this should have been there 10 years ago. Yeah. This is, I mean, there's a billion ghost accounts out there all with our email addresses. But, you know, it's nice now that if you do have an iPhone, you can do an obfuscated email address that points right back to your normal email address, which is a really nice feature.

But yeah, getting rid of the accounts is one of those things. It's just always been there. It's like, come on, just give me a delete. It's just house cleaning. You should, any business should build that in. It's ridiculous that they don't. Yeah. Well, they want that data. That's how they make most of their money is selling your shit. Anyway, but it's looking good for a new MacBook Pro announcement in the next two weeks.

So, my fingers are crossed that we get MacBook Pros with the new M1 chips in them. Oh, I can't wait. Cannot wait. This fucking Intel MacBook Pro of mine crashes three times a day and I have no idea why. Top of the line, best you can get, and just falls over.

But apparently, this morning, they started pulling them from the stores. So, you can't. Because they know something's wrong. Yeah. No, no, no. Because they know that the new ones are coming. Oh, the new ones are coming. Yeah. They'll never admit that anything's wrong. Come on. Good point. I love this one.

Twitter will now warn you before you participate in a conversation that could get heated. So, that means they're just going to not let you type on. Logging into Twitter? Exactly. They're just going to disable everybody's account. Oh, it's so silly. It is so silly.

It's like, I mean, I just, I, I, come on. I, can I just at least edit a tweet before you, that's all, that's all almost anybody wants is edit a tweet, but no, no, that's so stupid. Everybody wants to support Healthy Conversation.

Take your site offline. That'll help support Healthy Conversation. Exactly. You know, come on. It's like kindergarten out there. God. This is fun, though. Gasoline-powered lawnmowers and leaf blowers are going to be banned under a new California law. Good.

That should have happened 20 years ago, too. It should have. It should have. Because, you know, and I put this in here, because leaf blowers and lawnmowers are the, you know, just the, the natural enemy of the podcaster. No matter what, when you start up a show, some asshole is going to fire up a lawnmower or a leaf blower.

But it still won't stop the noise. They will still bring the noise. But they'll at least have to be, you know, electric, which would be nice. I'm down with that. It's because if you look at the numbers on how much shit that those things spew into the, into the atmosphere, it's ridiculous.

Right. It is ridiculous. Yeah. It's just dumb. It's just dumb. Yep. Good. And all that, all that is just for an intro, because I bought the Black & Decker 40-volt Max Cordless Sweeper LSW40C. I like how you find stories to intro your purchases now. That's good.

Hey, man. Got to tie that in for the write-off. Got to tie that in for the write-off. I had a corded, what was it, a Toro leaf blower. Because when I lived in Chicago, you know, we'd have like seven inches to a foot of leaves on the lawn, and you needed power.

You needed power. Now I got to blow off like a 20-foot by 10-foot piece of concrete. You don't really need to schlep the 100-foot cord around and all that. So I figured, ah, let's go cordless. Let's go electric. And it's fantastic. I love this thing. Gets the job done. Excellent.

I did downgrade from 250 miles an hour from my other leaf blower to a poultry 120. But it still gets the job done. If 120 miles per hour can't move the leaf, you're fucked. Exactly. Get a broom. In that case, buy a $4 broom.

It took five minutes. And I did, I've been on the hunt for a new backpack since I got all that new camera gear. I have all these Domke bags. Not donkey. D-O-M-K-E. These pro camera bags. But the lenses I got are so damn big, nothing fits.

So I'm like, okay. And I was bouncing around and the algorithm recommended this one. The PGY Tech 1 Moe Camera Backpack 25 liter with shoulder bag for GoPro 10 DJI Air 2S DJI FPV Sony Canon Nikon Drone DJI Mavic Mini 2 Slash Air 2 Osmo Action Slash Pocket DSLR Slash SLR Mirrorless Camera Tripod.

Okay. I haven't had one of those in a while either. It's fantastic. It's one of the best backpacks I've ever had. It is really, really well built. I mean, really well built. And I can actually fit my entire kit in one bag.

And it comes with a removable, basically a fanny pack if you need it. Oh, joy. So you can have your drone in your fanny pack and all your big gear. But it's got like side pockets and battery compartments that you can say like these are used batteries or new batteries.

It's a really nice camera backpack. And you can fit a 16-inch, hopefully soon, M1 working laptop into it. But it's $200. And it is seriously one of the best built backpacks I've ever had. Just the build quality on the zippers and the weather prevention stuff on it.

It's really nice. So if you're in the market for a decent-sized backpack, because it is a big one. It's a big one. But check it out. Security? Ha! Well, Dave Bittner is not back this week.

He is off at a recorded future event doing his due diligence on craft services, where he will report back next week and tell us how delicious or not it was. Peanut M&M's. Mmm. I love craft services. I miss that. Oh, well.

Yeah. All right. So he's off having fun. But we do have a story in from Adelante, who says, hey, guys, we'd love to hear you talk about this, especially with Bittner. You don't get it with Bittner, but you get it with us. You get it with us. So this is over advice. You probably don't need a VPN.

That's gog.show slash VPN. Despite all the marketing from VPN companies that you should pay them for a VPN to use from your home internet, and especially from public Wi-Fi, most Americans may be better off not paying for a commercial VPN, according to multiple security experts. The underlying reason, the internet is a very different landscape in 2021 than it was 10 or even five years ago.

And of course, some people still benefit from a VPN, particularly those with a higher degree of threat against them. Most Americans can probably save that five bucks or so a month. So the idea here is obviously a VPN encrypts your web traffic. So perhaps your ISP can't see what sites you're visiting or a hacker on the same public Wi-Fi network can't snoop and capture your credit card information as you make an online purchase.

But what they're saying is almost every single web page now is encrypted. They're all done through HTTPS. Nearly 93% of all page loads are in Firefox in the US are over HTTPS. That's compared to around 25% back in 2014.

So fair enough, I guess. However, if I'm working at Starbucks, I don't care. I don't care either. I still want my VPN. If I am connecting at an airport, I want my VPN. I understand not necessarily using it at home, except for this.

A good question to ask yourself is, do I trust my VPN company more than my ISP to handle the data of which sites I navigate to? If the answer is yes, you're fucking crazy. Yeah. Oh, wait, the other way around. Sorry. I know what you meant. You know what I'm saying.

Of course I don't trust my ISP. All they're doing is selling your data. They're making a lot of money selling off the data that is supposedly anonymized. But we all know how that works out in this section, right? So, yes, I would use a VPN. I trust my VPN way more than I trust my ISP because my VPN isn't selling my data.

Yeah. And I like to have different IP addresses sometimes just because even for just random use. But it's like a one-night stand. You want to have a condom. Just saying. The internet is very much like random sex. You want to have protection.

It doesn't matter that 93% of the people out there don't have gonorrhea. 7% too. 7% too. Exactly. Oh, come on. I do not want internet itchy crotch. Period. Ever. So, yes, you probably don't need a VPN, but you also probably don't need gonorrhea.

Exactly. GOG.show.vpn. And that's why people come to our podcast. It's for the hard-hitting technology breakdowns that we provide. Bet you're sad you missed that one, Dave. I'm sure he would have provided really cogent thoughts, but we probably would have floored him and he would have been silent for five minutes after the gonorrhea drop.

That's true. Let's be honest. Shaking his head in disdain. Get it? We get that dad look from him that we don't even need to see, but we can feel. Yet he comes back every week. I know. Over at Patreon, we've got Peter, Stuart, and Hayden.

Welcome. And Stuart writes, Hi, Grumps. I hope you are both well. I couldn't help but notice that you give shout-outs to Patreons. Or patrons. So, I was wondering if it was possible to have a shout-out, please. I just announced a competition for a game book writing called the Lindenbaum Prize for Short Game Book Fiction.

You need to write a game book, which is maximum 100 sections and 25,000 words. Submissions open on December 1st, and the deadline is midnight GMT on February 1st. The details are here. There will be a link in the show notes. Let me click on this again, because last time I checked it, it didn't work.

Yes. What's a game book? It's a very long book with less than 100 sections and less than 225,000 words. There we go. Okay. So, I don't know what a game book is, but apparently people who are doing game books will know.

Okay. So, there's a link in the show notes, but Stuart, put a website there, and we're good to go. I'm getting it. I get a 404. I got it. Lloyd of Game Books, a blog about writing game books. My musings on how to write a game book and what makes a good game book.

Create your story here. The Lindenbaum Prize. Oh, I got the requested URL slash P slash the Lindenbaum Prize for Short. Gamebook.html was not found on this server. That's all we know. Must be your VPN. Oh, must be. I'm not using one today. Oh, no.

Gonorrhea, gonorrhea. Moving on. Over at PayPal, we've got donations from Breed, Mark, Ralph, Jens, and Miles. Thank you all so much. Thank you. And over at Stripe, we've got $10 from Jordan P, Gay Deal V, Anthony O, and a $10 sub from Ann Q, and Jeff R. with a one-time of $50 and a $5 sub to boot.

Woo-hoo. Wow. Andrew S. says, hold my beer. He gave us a $120 donation and a new $10 sub. So, Andrew S. wins the internet today. Pretty soon, we're going to be talking about real money. Eventually. Eventually. I don't think I'll be quitting my new job anytime soon.

Probably not. That's going to be the safer, the safer route. All that great podcasting cash. I'm telling you, we've got to just stop doing the show. And then we'll make some more money. That's it. You don't have to tell me twice. See you later, Jason. We're going to magic leap this shit.

Until next time, I'm Jason DeFillipo. And I'm Brian Schulmeister. Thanks for listening to Grumpy Old Geeks. If you enjoy the show, visit gog.show slash donate to help us keep the lights on and we'll love you forever. You can also help us out by sharing the show with your friends and enemies. It's easy and absolutely free. Show notes for this episode are at gog.show slash 526.

And there you can find links to everything we talked about in this episode, as well as links to our swag and Discord channels. And if you want to buy some stuff or chat with us or other show fans, you can also head over to gog.show slash contact and send us your feedback or questions we can read on the air. And if you're so inclined and haven't done so yet, please head over to gog.show slash review and toss us a snarky review and preferably five stars.

We want to make sure that our imports actually still work because we haven't gotten one in a while. Just, you know, do it. Yeah. Stay Cleggie.

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