544: Men of a Certain Age

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

And I'm Brian Schulmeister. Brian, I wanted to start off this show by letting people know that if they do go to GOG.show slash donate, from there they'll find a link to Patreon. And if they are so inclined, they can sign up to support the show at Patreon, and every week they will get an ad-free version of the show in high res.

No, no less. You can listen to it on your Pono player. That's right. If you want to get pwned, get that Pono. So I just wanted to let everybody know, so check that out. GOG.show slash donate, please. We would appreciate that, and in exchange we will give you nothing because we're taking off next week.

What? What? Yep, yep, yep. I have, my child is now of school age, which means I am being slaved to the rhythm of the school calendar, and next week is spring break here. So I will be off doing family things and whatnots, and just, let's be honest, we all need a goddamn break.

How many, you always need a break. You're always bitching about the breaks. Come on. That's right. I'm tired. This kid's not tired, though. I'm putting this in here because there's so many, this hits so many nerves for me. This kid, Josh Harmon, he was an intern at the Today Show or whatever they call those kids, and he was there for a year, and then, you know, COVID hits, and he decides to go full-time onto the TikTok, and now he's Mr. Big TikTok Star.

And, you know, before he was, you know, kind of an intern, and then he gets on Jimmy Fallon for the same network, and he's like, look, anybody can do this. You just have to believe in yourself. And it reminds me of the Amanda Palmer method that you so eloquently put when we first started this show, which is get somebody else to make you famous with their buckets of money, then go off and take all the credit and do it on your own.

Exactly. Yes. Yeah. It's the, I pulled myself up by my own bootstraps. Never mind the multimillion-dollar corporation behind me that got me successful in the first place. Yes. Thank you, $20 million advertising budget on my last album. Yeah, and what a load of shit. I mean, you know, I don't, I never begrudge anybody their success.

I just don't like it when they lie about their origin story. Yeah, you can't retcon that shit. Yeah. You gotta own it. You gotta own it. And, sorry, I'm owning the garbage trucks because it is garbage day out there. But if you think that I'm, you know, talking shit, just look up survivorship bias in Wikipedia and read that and you'll see these stories.

This is what the influencer world, you know, thrives on are these survivorship bias stories where one kid, one scrappy young kid with an idea in a lemonade stand can make it big in the United States. Or he can start off with a year seeing how, you know, proper television is made, get paid for it, and then come out of it with, you know, a bunch of contacts and leverage those contacts to, you know, work your way up the ladder.

Oh, by your own bootstraps, I mean, of course. Yeah. So speaking of people in bootstraps and not pulling themselves up, we got this one from Barrett. It's over at Business Insider. Donald Trump is furious about the stumbling launch of his social media app, Truth Social, reports say. Well, I don't need a report to tell me I'd be pissed off if it was that embarrassing of a launch.

I looked this morning and I am still in the 312,000 range on the waiting list. So, yeah. Yeah. Boo-hoo. Boo-hoo. Okay. Well, you know, I mean, a couple things here. We're already kind of flooded with social networks.

We're even flooded with right-wing social networks. By all accounts, it's poorly built. They were not ready for scale, which they should have been. They should have known that they were going to get a lot of people coming to them. Probably not a lot of employees working through things right now because why pay people when you don't have to?

And, you know, it's computers, right? They just run. They just do what they do, right? And, again, not also a surprise here, Trump Vodka, not exactly the most popular vodka that's ever been out there. Trump Steaks, not the most popular steaks that's ever been out there.

Trump Social. I remember Trump Water. Trump Water. That was a good one. Yeah. You can slap your name on anything, but your brand is not doing as well as it even used to, and it never really did that well back then either. No, it didn't. They kind of glossed that over on Celebrity Apprentice or just the regular Apprentice. Yeah.

Yeah. So, you're still playing Wordle? Yes, I am. Yes, I am. I have to admit, I'm playing as well. Ah, welcome to the club. I do not post, but my wife and I both do it in the morning and kind of compete against each other a little bit and just for fun. So, that's been going on.

But there's a new game in town, Jason, called Hurdle because we have to copy everything. But Hurdle is a Wordle-like game that puts your knowledge of popular music to the test. Like with Wordle, you have six tries to answer correctly. The twist is you only hear about one second of the song you need to identify in your first couple of guesses.

The game will eventually give you an extra two, three, four, and five seconds on subsequent attempts to help you secure the win. Now, on the game's about page, Hurdle says they are a respectful homage to Wordle with a musical twist. And then they go on to say, each Hurdle is randomly plucked from a list of the most streamed songs in the past decade, they explain.

Much love, parenthesis, and all the relevant copyright, end parenthesis, to all the artists featured. Now, if only I had a resource I could go to to see if they actually paid attention to the relative copyright and did anything about it. Oh, wait, I do.

I happen to be married to a lawyer that works in the music industry that almost exclusively works on deals for licensing for apps. Hmm. Had they heard of Hurdle? Why, yes, they had heard of Hurdle. Had they been contacted by Hurdle to license music?

Why, no, they had not. Are they contacting Hurdle? Why, yes, they are. I was going to say, if they hadn't heard of Hurdle, they have heard of Hurdle now. I just, again, it is, it is, it's move fast and break things like copyright.

Just get out there, do your thing, and to hell with everything else, and we'll just deal with the mess later. Hey, at least the Hurdles aren't NFTs. Those are syllables that, when this show started, would make absolutely no sense. They barely make any sense now. They don't make any sense now.

But at least a Hurdle isn't an NFT. Okay. Yeah. A Hurdle through the grapevine. You're going to get sued out of your mind. Brian, stop it. We're going to have to pay soon. Oh, shit. Well, I have a lawyer in my family. Call your wife to care that.

In the news. Brian, I'd like to say we've entered a new era, the era of the metaverse. And with the metaverse comes the metal lawyer. That's right.

I am saying that the metal lawyer has now arrived on the scene because we're seeing this every week now. Wingstop has decided to file a multi-class trademark on selling wings in the metaverse. Yes, they are going to sell something that doesn't exist on a platform that doesn't exist.

And they would like legal protection to do said nothing at said nothing. Brian, your thoughts? I got nothing. Okay. Just like them. You know, right now, as far as I can tell, all of this is just a publicity game at this point.

And, of course, lawyers being lawyers and corporations being corporations and making sure that, you know, I mean, I remember some of the early when we were switching around like to different podcast providers and whatnot who told us that they would help us. And, of course, they never did help us. They didn't grow our listenership at all.

They did nothing. But they would send us big, gigantic contracts about how they would own the rights throughout the known universe through perpetuity forever and ever. Even if their new universe is discovered, such as a metaverse, they would own us there. And that's just lawyers being lawyers. Correct.

But I look at this land grab as kind of like the digital stars back in the – was that the 80s or the 90s? 90s. Might have been the 70s. You know, it's probably every decade since pre-internet. Yes. Gronk the caveman came out and said, I would like to own that star.

I will call it grr. Yeah. So digital stars is all we are. That's all we are now. Yep. Yep. Well, we've talked in the past about the problem with Amazon. Well, they are legion. Which one? Specifically talking about Amazon basics, which I think we've both kind of agreed, at least for some things, is actually pretty good.

I mean – Yeah. The cables are good. They're cheaper. The t-shirts are fine. They're cheaper. All that sort of stuff. The problem, of course, is that Amazon is leveraging its Amazon-ness to push other people out of business and basically come up with ideas too. They just troll and see what are some of the best-selling stuff.

Well, let's make a cheaper version and push them out of business and sell our cheaper version. Some call that capitalism. Fair enough. Oh, but then we all started to wonder, I wonder how they're producing all these things so incredibly cheaply to be able to price everybody else out.

Brian, have they discovered replicator technology? No. They've discovered the Weigers. Okay. Sweatshop technology. Oops. Did not expect that. Yes, a number of Amazon's Chinese suppliers are linked to forced labor camps, according to a new report from the Tech Transparency Project.

Oops. The organization found that five of Amazon's suppliers have been directly accused by watchdog groups and journalists of relying on workers from China's many re-education centers, which it uses to detain the Weigar Muslims, Kazakhs, and other ethnic minorities. They produce Amazon devices and Amazon-branded products, such as the Amazon Basics line of home goods and tech accessories.

Oopsies. Two of the suppliers named in the report, Luxshare Precision Industry and Acbell Polytech, were also used by Apple, according to an investigation last year from the information. They've both, of course, denied working with the forced labor suppliers because they have, you know, five layers in between them, apparently.

But evidence does suggest otherwise. Well, somebody get evidence on the horn then and make them explain themselves. I just love how re-education centers is. Let's re-educate you on how to make tube socks. Pretty much. Yeah. And HBO has been hit with a class action lawsuit for allegedly sharing subscriber data with Facebook.

Yeah. There you go. It gave subscribers a viewing history to Facebook without proper permission, basically because nobody ever gave HBO permission to do that. Ever. Mm-hmm. And variety is important that they have. They provided Facebook with customer lists, allowing the social network to match viewing habits with their profiles.

It further alleges that HBO knows Facebook can combine the data because HBO is a major Facebook advertiser, and Facebook can then use that information to retarget ads to its subscribers. So it's allegedly violated the 1988 Video Privacy Protection Act. According to the lawsuit. Oh, no.

Not the VUPAPA. I thought that was the law that made them put the little curtain up before he went in to get the adult VHSs. That would be it. Oh, God. Only the old listeners will get that joke. Only the old ones.

Yes. Put your sweatpants away. They're not allowed. Yeah, this is, I can see why HBO thought this was a good idea so they could retarget. Yeah. But, yeah, they got bit in the ass with the VUPAPA. Well, I mean, you know, when I log into my HBO streaming, I really don't want Facebook to know that I've been watching Bill Maher.

I mean, I don't really care, to be honest, but I'd rather they didn't. Of course you'd rather they didn't, just because it's creepy. Yeah. Because it's creepy. Well, Twitter has rolled out a Tor version of their service. Good timing. Very good timing.

It's about time, some people would say. So we'll see if this actually works, if, you know, the Russians have access to the actual internet at all for much longer, the way things have been going. But it's a good thing for them. I thought for some reason Facebook had it already, but I might have been thinking of the New York Times.

Yeah, I don't think Facebook does. Yeah. Facebook and the New York Times rarely get mixed up, but in this case, they have. Yeah. And speaking of things only old people will remember, LimeWire is back, Jason. Oh, God. Except it's not.

It's just the name. They are relaunching as a mainstream-ready digital collectibles market for art and entertainment initially focusing on music. Yes, and NIFT Marketplace. Okay. Remind me when we get to talk to Dave Bittner in a little bit on security to talk about how not only is LimeWire back, but Radio Shack is back, too.

Okay. Now, the play here and the big thing that they're hoping for, well, first off, they're hoping to partner with a raft of high-profile musicians in the hope of spreading word about LimeWire's resurrection, in the hope of getting a million willing buyers signed up for the first year.

We'll see if any of that happens, but the main thing that they're doing here, which nobody else seems to have done yet, is basically they're going to say, you don't need to get any of those Bitcoin-y thingies to buy anything. We'll just take U.S. dollars. Oh, that's convenient. It actually is. Smart move on their part.

Going for the music thing? Not so smart of a move. We'll see. No. No. Yeah. And Elon Musk is in the news. Well, first off, congratulations, Elon. He and ex-wife Grimes have now had their second child named C colon slash slash dot root. Great.

I don't know what the name is. Did they actually have another kid? I don't know. The Musk giveth and the Musk taketh away because, as we had heard last week, he rushed to get Starlink over the Ukraine to help them make sure that they kept internet access.

Now he's told some governments that he is not going to block any Russian media outlets from its Starlink satellite broadband service. So in a tweet he sent out early Saturday, Musk declared the company would not comply with the request unless at gunpoint. According to Musk, the demand hadn't come from Ukraine.

Sorry to be a free speech absolutist, he added. Yes, Elon Musk, the famed free speech absolutist, like when he tries to squash Tesla workers from unionizing by threatening them. What a pedo. Well, here's the thing about all these Starlink satellite dishes that have arrived in the Ukraine.

All we can tell so far is it's one truck and also that their infrastructure has kind of been pretty resilient and the internet is still working in a lot of places. So, you know, he's trying, but I think they're going to need a lot more than one truckload.

And, you know, it's very Ilani of him to do it this way. It is. It is. Ilani. Something new Biden-y. He has signed an executive order on cryptocurrencies. There are six priorities and urgency in exploring the creation of a U.S. digital dollar.

Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And so this is, you know, an exploration committee is being formed to explore the 10-year-old, I would like to say 10-year-old cryptocurrency that has kind of didn't just burst on the scene yesterday, been around for a bit.

So they're going to try and put something together to see if it's worth regulating. So, you know, three presidents from now, something might happen. Perhaps. Perhaps. By the way, don't we already have a digital currency? I mean, honestly, when's the last time you used cash, Jason?

Well, I use cash every day because you're an outlier. One would argue we definitely have digital currency already. I mean, most people I know pay with their phones everywhere they go now. That's purely digital. True that. True that. So, yeah. I mean, these – I'm not even going to go through these because they're so goddamn boring.

It is. I was so disappointed when I read through all this. I was – I got excited and then I started to read through the bullet points. I'm just like, oh my god, this is so boring. Yeah, it really is. And, you know, there was a committee to set up a committee to then build another committee to actually write the – and this is like, you know, the press release for the executive order itself.

It is so dry and so hard to read. But, yeah. We'll see how this goes. I don't see any – I don't see the markets moving mountains today because of this. No, but – Like I thought. Baby steps. Yeah, baby steps. Yeah.

Yeah, I did see this article by David Gerard who we've actually talked about on the show before. He's got a book called Attack of the 50-Foot Blockchain, which was – we've quoted from a couple times. But it's interesting. He's got an article over at foreignpolicy.com called Cryptocurrency is No Fix for Russia's Sanctions Woes.

Okay, so my point was after a brief respite here for a wood chipper and garbage trucks because it's one of those days here at Podcast Central. Yeah, there's just not enough Bitcoin out there to really move the needle on these guys. But also, the exchanges are starting to crack down on the Ruskies because Coinbase has blocked over 25,000 Russian-linked crypto addresses, which is a lot.

That is a lot. Good. Good for them. Yeah. Hopefully it's the right 25,000. At QVC, shopping is more than just checking out.

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Media Candy. So, Star Trek Discovery has ended, and I have to say, I did not hate it. Okay. They definitely had, you know, midway through the season, I was ready to abandon ship because it had just gotten so ridiculous.

But I have to say, they pulled it out. I don't mind the story. And shockingly, basically, in the last few episodes, people acted like responsible adults and did things not entirely based on their feelings. Oh, my God.

Like proper Federation people. I'm somewhat excited, and we'll watch when it comes back. Oh, no. We'll see. Damn it. Okay. And the first episode of Star Trek Picard Season 2 has aired, and also, I did not hate it, although I think I'm not going to enjoy this season.

I see. I thoroughly enjoyed it. I did. I did. And what hit me halfway through is I'm like, finally, some fucking proper Star Trek. It made me feel all the right Star Trek-y feels, the way it's supposed to. And it pressed all the right buttons, and I liked it.

I really liked it. I'm looking forward to it. The real downside is we have to wait a full week in between just because of the drop schedule on the show and our recording schedule. So this is going to be like the Mandalorian. But, you know, yeah, I really enjoyed the episode as well.

It felt Star Trek unlike so much other Star Trek, and I'm just putting a button in it in that I'm concerned about the time travel aspect. We shall see. Yeah, well, it is what it is. It's kind of in the can, so.

Speaking of in the can, it is what it is completely. I saw that Jerry Ryan posted on Twitter, I think yesterday or the day before, that they had wrapped Season 3, and that will be the end. So they have got it all in the can, as it were. It will be three seasons, and they finished shooting the other day.

Excellent. Well, that's good to know, just in case. Just in case we get locked down again. I wouldn't be able to see my Picard. So I was bouncing around my RSS feeds, and I saw this headline, and it piqued my interest. It was called A Small-Scale Sci-Fi Film That Asked the Genre's Biggest Question.

And I'm like, hmm, I like the sound of a small-scale sci-fi film. So I found out it was about the movie After Yang, not a post-coitus porn. It is just a movie about kind of an android, lady-in-the-tube-turned-actual-humanoid-dude-person-that-breaks.

Not really spoiling much there. It's kind of the whole premise. You get into it right at the beginning. But I didn't read the review until after I watched the movie, because I found out the movie was available. So I'm like, yeah, let's try this, and then we'll see how good the review does compared to my personal review.

Very slow burn of a movie. Very slow. Do not watch this if you are looking for Michael Bay levels of action here. Right. In the watching of it, I did not actually very much enjoy it. It was kind of uncomfortable.

But I have not stopped thinking about it, which is a good sign for one of those types of movies. And then I read the review, and the review was actually, I thought, very spot on. So it is a surprising small film that, you know, asks some of the genre's biggest questions, Brian.

That's right there on the tin, Jason. I know. If I would have just read the review first, I could have saved myself an hour and 36 minutes. But no, I got to say, I found it surprisingly enjoying. So if you want, like, you know, if it's raining and you just have a cup of cocoa and want to curl up and watch a very, very, very slow film, then after Yang is definitely that.

I will. I'm glad to hear that it's not about Andrew Yang post-presidential run. So that's good. Mm-mm. Okay. There's no UBI to be found. All right. Well, there's no UBI out here or in the movie. So it's perfect. I saw this over at Torrent Freak, and I thought it was interesting.

It says, BitTorrent is still the king of upstream internet traffic, but for how long? And then it dawned on me, does anybody really care? I'm like, oh, well, I guess if you're at torrentfreak.com, you do still have a vested interest in what BitTorrent is doing.

Yes. So it just turns out that, yeah, it's still up there, but it's, you know, it's losing headway to everything else because everybody's just kind of moving on to the YouTubes and the TikToks and everything else in the Netflix. Reasonably legal way to get content as opposed to the illegal way.

Yeah. Which is what we've always said is, you know, if somebody gives us an easy way to buy it, we're going to buy it. And, you know, my anecdotal evidence from civilians and non-techies is exactly the same thing. Yeah. But I tell you what, I'm the first. We'll do it.

Yeah. They'll buy it. But, you know, just let them, let it be known that I'm the first call as soon as it becomes even the little bit hardest. Like, hey, can you get this for me? Sure. I guess I could do that. Just now. Yes. Hold the phone for a second.

So, yeah. But the interesting thing is that these figures are always changing. They're in flux based on total internet bandwidth. So it is not a stationary target. So a percentage base could actually mean it's going up even though the percentage stays the same because the gross internet bandwidth still grows every year.

Just have to throw that in there for the scientists out there. Science. All right. We have some Cure news. Robert Smith just told us the Cure's new album title, which will be Songs of the Lost World. And he also says it will be the most depressing and dark album the Cure has ever done, which is hard to believe.

Now, that's not really news, but I brought it up for a point that I'm about to make. I watched Eddie Izzard's Wonder Bar. It's his new comedy special that is out now – or, sorry, her new comedy special that is out now. I forgot that she switched pronouns.

So there you go. Oh, I didn't know that. I'm going to screw that up a ton because I've known – I've been an Eddie Izzard fan for 20-plus years. And this is going to get to my point. I've been a Cure fan for 30-plus years or something now. I know – much like Eddie Izzard and Robert Smith and The Cure, these are things that are part of my DNA.

I have albums and comedy specials memorized. I've known these people almost my entire life. I have idolized them. I have enjoyed every bit of content they've ever put out. So much so to the point that some of their stuff now, some of Robert Smith's stuff, I'm sorry to say this, some of the Cure stuff, he's done it before and he's done it better when he was younger.

We're retreading things. And that is exactly what Eddie Izzard does in this special. He's done these – she's done these jokes before. She's done them better. And I was very sad and disappointed watching it. Same ticks, the same go-tos, sometimes the same jokes told the same way.

Do yourself a favor. Go watch an old special like Eddie Izzard, Dressed to Kill, which I think is the number one best one. Don't bother with this one. Oh, save you five bucks. Yep. Sad to say, but it is what it is. I mean, it's – if you've never watched a special before by her, you will enjoy it.

But if you have, you've heard these jokes before. That's too bad. Like I said, I'm a big fan. So very sad to hear that. But I am very excited because when I was looking around for Wunderbar, I found that Upload Season 2 is on its way from Amazon.

Hang on. Hang on a second. Now, this is – Upload is a show we talked about on our show, and I actually really enjoyed it. But I feel like Upload Season 1 was about 35 years ago. Doesn't it feel that way? Yes.

Like lost in the mists of time. Yeah. It happened in the in-between days. Right. Yeah. No, it is one of those shows that it's like, did I – did that exist? Was that a thing? Was that just, you know, a White Claw, you know, haze dream?

No. It turns out Upload did exist. It was an actual show, and they have made another one. Okay, but how long ago was it actually? Because it really does feel like it was a long time ago. Okay, we're going to have to – Like, aren't the actors going to be like 10 years older now at this point?

Okay, it was only 2020. How was it only two years ago? When did they film it, though? They had – they probably filmed it in maybe three years. But, yeah. Wow. I guess that's – I mean, partially it was a long time ago. That is a long way to go in between seasons.

I had basically written it off as we're never going to get another one again. But also, it's partially pandemic effect, right? Yeah. Okay. Yeah, that is strange. That was only May 2020. Yeah, it hasn't – it technically hasn't even been two years. It feels so much longer.

So much longer. So many things have happened. I mean, I feel like we covered it in, like, season – or, like, episode, like, five of our podcast. I know. But it looks like there's going to be fewer episodes. There's only going to be seven. Okay. Well, I mean, it was a hard-to-stretch premise.

I thought – I remember it being wildly funny but thinking there's not a lot of meat on this bone. Yeah, once they got – yeah, once they got to the end, I'm like, yeah, they can cut this one. But nope. Turns out. Turns out after two years of contemplation. Yeah. They're like, yeah, we got some Expanse money laying around, you know.

And I was thinking, too, it's like, okay, there's another episode – the final episode of Goliath is on Amazon Prime. And I haven't been able to watch it yet. Right. Just because I know it's going to be the same show. And I was just thinking to myself in the shower the other day, I'm like, I wonder how many seasons of the Expanse they could have got out of Billy Bob's paycheck for just that last shitty season.

Yeah. Because he famously has the highest, you know, salary of any streamer out there for Goliath. And it's like, do we really need that or would we have been served better with a little bit more Expanse is all I'm saying. I agree. I agree. All right.

But speaking of money in big pockets, YouTube is now starting to shell out cash for podcasters to pivot to video. Yeah. Up to $50,000 if you want to make that switch. There are even bigger grants if you have podcast networks.

But listen up out there, people. I know that some of you that are listening know people that work at YouTube and maybe have their ear, you know. You do have two friends here that you listen to on a weekly basis. Wouldn't you like to see us too?

Rolling around in all that fat YouTube cash? Just saying. Maybe put in a good word. Well, if we can get $50,000 each, then we can buy Brian, you know, one of those body suits and just do a full character CGI replace.

Here's what will happen if we get $50,000 to pivot to video. You will spend $49,000 on equipment and then we'll split the $500 that's left. No, I'm just going to go buy a place in Thailand and say, fuck off. You're never seeing me again, sucka.

All right. Since we're in media candy, I think I should point out that another Common Sense from Dan Carlin has dropped, episode 323, Gas Up the Cold War. I also feel like the last episode of Common Sense that dropped was about 35 years ago when Upload Season 1 came out. This is true.

This is true. There is also, though, a new Hardcore History, episode 68. It's a Blitz episode called Human Resources. Have you got a chance to listen to that one yet? It's only five and a half hours. It's a quickie. Yeah. No, I listen to the Common Sense.

I basically, especially with the kid now these days, I basically have my walking commute to my office is the only time I get to listen to podcasts and I can barely keep up with no such thing as a fish. Oh, okay. Yeah, this one's about slavery. So it's a pick-me-up. Oh, the feel-good episode. Okay.

It is. Well, compared to the last run about the Pacific, it's not hard to turn slavery into a pick-me-up. That's how Dan rolls. Yeah, that's true. I wanted to watch some old slow movies after watching, was it After Andrew Yang?

Is that the name? Yeah. Yeah, whatever that's called. After Andrew Yang. Every time I try and remember the name, I'm like, whatever I'm going to say is going to sound filthy, but the name actually sounds filthy. So I guess it must be the right one. I wanted to go back and watch Decalogue, which is a 10-part series that this guy, Krzysztof Kreslowski, did for Polish TV way back in the day.

And I had it on VHS long ago. I'd rent it from my local video boutique. And it was really cool. It was, you know, it's old Polish cinema. What doesn't some 20-year-old want to watch? This wasn't sitting in the shelves at Blockbuster.

No, it wasn't. It wasn't. But yeah, I think, I mean, I was in my early 20s watching these things. It was, they were really good. And I downloaded them from the backwaters of the internet. But I didn't download the version that had subtitles. And I don't speak Polish.

So it's kind of a waste. Yeah. And then I'm thinking, oh man, yeah, when I don't have that available, I'll go back and I'll pop on the Three Colors trilogy, which Kristoff also did, which is a very cool series. Did you ever watch that?

I don't know how into old cinema you actually are. I have the feeling. I watched these when they came out, you know. Oh, you did? Okay. Like if you go back and you read the 90s book by Chuck Klosterman, it was that time period when we were all listening to Grunge and, you know, watching artsy movies.

So. Okie doke. Okay. But yeah. I just got to find a copy of Decalogue with the actual words in it now. So if anybody knows where I can pick one of those up that's not 60 bucks for a DVD set, pass that along. All right.

I would be appreciative of someplace where I can get it or at least, you know, rent it to watch it. But I just don't want to spend 60 bucks on a damn Blu-ray for it. Ops and doodads. Oh, praise be. Praise be, Brian. Dropbox has updated.

I know that's not something that's usually praiseworthy, but the last version of Dropbox was so bad on the M1 Max that I had to put this in here because it's going to make a lot of people very happy because Dropbox was. Oh, God. It was.

Well, you don't even have an M1, do you? No, but it's still the new version is better. Oh, good. Okay. I was just like, yeah, it actually worked. The other one was such a resource hog. It was ridiculous. I wouldn't be running anything. Like, you know, I'd boot my machine, come back, and it's like spun up and half the cores are going.

I'm like, what the hell is going on? I'm just like, oh, Dropbox. I'm like, is it sinking? No, it's just sitting there. It's just not doing anything. It's just not doing anything. Spinning its wheels. No, it's just burning dinosaurs. It's all it's doing. Okay. All right. So I saw this headline, and then I actually went through and read a bit of the article too, and I just enjoyed it so much I had to bring it here.

Normally, we don't talk about browsers, but Google says the latest Chrome on Mac outperforms Safari. The company claims Chrome 99 is significantly faster on Mac OS and Android with some particularly large gains on Macs. Thanks to a speed-focused build optimization technique and refined graphics processing, Chrome is reportedly 7% faster overall than Safari with 15% faster graphics.

It even outperforms Safari and Apple's own speedometer benchmark on an M1 Max-equipped MacBook Pro, according to Google. In related news, Microsoft says they're way better than Apple, True Social says Twitter sucks compared to them, and Peanut Butter tells Chocolate to suck it. Thanks for the press release.

Thank you very much. Thank you very much. I did try and run the speedometer benchmark test, and yeah. It immediately crashed my computer. Oops. Oops. Couldn't get it to work. At least it definitely doesn't like Vivaldi.

But here's the thing. I'm still not going to use Chrome. I don't care how much faster it is. There comes a point of diminishing returns when it's still a shitty browser. It can be a fast, shitty browser, but... My browser is faster than most sites. The problem isn't my browser anymore. It's site loads. Yeah. It's all the crap.

It's the fucking JavaScript library. It's all the cruft in every site out there. 500 tracking pixels. Yeah. It's all of that fun stuff. So I was thinking this is an interesting month for apps because I wanted to take a break from Clash Royale.

And it got me thinking, because you mentioned last time that, like, you guys are still doing that? I'm like, sadly, yes. You guys have been doing that longer than Upload Season 1 was out. I know. I think we started this before Upload went into production. For over four years, I've been playing this.

Four years and four months, actually. Because there's a cool site called Stats Royale where you can plug in your user profile and see all of the stuff that you've done, which is pretty incredible that most of this happened on the pooper. I have won 5,772 matches.

This is one of your longest ongoing relationships you've ever had, Jason. This is the second longest compared to this show. It really is. And maybe Photoshop. That's about it. But yeah, it's well over 10,000 matches over the four years.

Hundreds of thousands of cards collected. There will be a link in the show notes to check this out. But it was just like, whoa, crazy. But the whole point of it is I'm taking the entire month off because it runs in month-long seasons for the clan battle. So I'm taking the entire month off. I've deleted it from my phone and my tablets.

It's not in the house, even though I know how to get it. Again, it's not really hard. Are you going to get kicked out of your own clan for not participating? No, I let everybody know. I let everybody know. And I did put in scepter-passing protocols that would fall into place if I should disappear.

Because after 35 days, they feel that you have gone AWOL and have absconded with the crown. So they hand off the ownership to somebody else in the clan. But hopefully that will not be a thing. I'll be back within 35 days.

But I'm just seeing how much more I can get done. And I'm almost done with Sandman, believe it or not. All right. It's taken this long. But I also want to finish up this other book that a friend of the show, Nicola Crane, sent me, Darren Brown's book, A Book of Secrets. Because you still can't get it anywhere besides England, apparently.

And they got me the Kindle version. So I had to set up one of my machines to just be a Kindle with that account so I could read this damn book. So I have given up Clash Royale to finish this damn Darren Brown book. I'm a third of the way through it. It's pretty good. But slow going.

So if you still want to get in on Clash Royale, I think there might be a slot or two open. So pop on in. The clan name is GOG.show. Tough one. I know we're hiding. You know. At the library.

I finished The 90s by Chuck Klosterman. Really, really enjoyed it. But wanted something quick and easy. I saw that one of my favorite, well, I can't say favorites, but reliable authors for crapper sci-fi, A.G. Riddle, crapped out another book. He does them pretty quickly.

The Extinction Trials. Did, you know, exactly what it says on the tin. It's sci-fi about the end of the world. And it was, I read it in two days. It was a quick, fun read. That's what he does. That's his gig, man. And he's pretty good at it.

So not going to change your life, but, you know, fun read. There you go. All right. I'm coming up to the end of Termination Shock. I can see it. I can see it on the horizon. I'll get there. You know, reflecting on it now, now that I've read it, meh.

Okay. That doesn't help me. It definitely got better. That doesn't help me get motivated. I'm just saying. Yeah. Yeah. It's no snow crash. Security? Ha! Joining us today is Dave Bittner.

Dave is the host of the Cyber Wire podcast, co-host of the social engineering podcast, Hacking Humans with Joe Kerrigan. And finally, he's the co-host of Caveat with Ben Yellen, where they discuss law and policy and surveillance and privacy. Hello, Dave. Hello. I think Caveat sounds a little more, I don't know, European.

Yes, right. We say it with our pinkies curled upward. Yes. Going for a ride on my oligarch's caveat. Yeah, that's right. That's right. Love me. Is the caveat running? The police are here and we're not loudly, ddly.

Well, there are worse places, Dave. Yeah. So I have an update with our IoT, which was a discussion, which was brought about by your rant last week, Dave, that was incredibly well-received by our listeners. Rant? Me? Rant?

Yeah. Yeah. I know. I know. I have an update and I'm actually upset and angry just looking at the emails in my inbox right now. I'm still playing circle jerk with Samsung tech support, although technically not Samsung. It's SmartThings and SmartThings used to be owned by Samsung, but then was spun off and isn't owned by Samsung anymore.

Yet Samsung devices need to use SmartThings to be able to connect to anything else. I am dancing that rodeo, my friend. I am dancing that rodeo. Yes. Wait, that's a mixed metaphor. Yeah. So they send one email a day. That's all you get. And as I've noted, they basically make you redo the same things or purposefully seem to misunderstand the things that you've said or throw in something that has absolutely nothing to do whatsoever with the issue that you're dealing with.

And the latest gambit was, you're in Canada. Your TV is a US region. So that is the problem. Well, wrong again, SmartThings. Both TVs are from Canada, not the US region. And since I sent that back, I've heard nothing in response from that particular problem.

The follow-up here is for my soundbar, which was also not connecting, which is also Samsung and has to go through SmartThings. The latest response I got there was, we see that your soundbar is almost four years old, which is way too old to guarantee being onboarded by our app, which makes me wonder.

Basically, I wanted to write back, who the fuck is buying new soundbars every other year? The soundbar is a set it and forget it. That thing's going to be there 15 years from now until I move. Well, or will it? Or will it? Because now I have to decide I am at that point right now, Dave, that you were talking about, which is I either need to somehow find a way to let this go, which means I need a brain memory zapping device, or it will just niggle in the back of my mind for the next 20 years

of my life going, I can't believe I can't connect that thing. I need to connect that thing. Yeah. Have you gone through the thing of having to replace your SmartThings hub? Did you go through that? Oh, yes. Yes. Yes, yes. I did too. And so I went through the one email a day from Samsung where they said, oh, sorry, your hub's too old.

Buy a new one. Thank you. Please drive through. Okay. So I did. We got some follow-up on Twitter, some kind advice from Kyle Correa, I believe his name is, Correa, Correa, Kyle, thank you very much.

He said, have you thought about using HomeBridge? I know your exact pain when smart devices don't work on HomeKit. This is the workaround. I set up a Raspberry Pi on my network. It will act as a hub to connect smart devices to. Okay. So thank you, Kyle. This is now getting way too complicated.

Well, so here's the thing. He is correct. HomeBridge is absolutely the solution to this. It seems like it works and it will work great. And so let me just share my process through this. I went, oh, HomeBridge. Okay. That sounds neat. I can do that. Raspberry Pi. Aren't Raspberry Pis the little $20 computers?

All right. Well, that seems reasonable. Let me go buy myself a $20 computer. No. Raspberry Pis are like $200 for the good ones. Now, there is a turnkey solution. Yeah. Which is called Hoobs, H-O-O-B-S.

And that is a Raspberry Pi with everything pre-installed, ready to go, plug and play, and this solves all your problems. So if I want my $15 light switch to work, I can spend $220 on Hoobs, and it will work great.

Sounds legit. So I just – I'm holding here because – so here's where I am, right? There's this thing that will work. It's $220. Is $220 going to break the bank for me? No.

But I don't want to spend $220 on – I mean – now, there's a part of me that's justifying. He says, well, Dave, if you spend the $220, then everything in the future will work, and you'll be much happier from here on out. Eh, maybe. Maybe.

Am I willing to take that gamble? I don't know. So I could buy the Hoobs, and all my problems would probably be solved, or would they? I don't know. That's where I sit right now, and I honestly – I feel like I'm in this hold mode where I'm standing on the edge.

I think I want to jump off and probably just buy the Hoobs and be done with it. I could try experimenting with Raspberry Pis, but I feel like that's just going to be a road of pain because it sounds like fun, and if I were 17, it probably would be a whole lot of fun.

But my patience for that kind of stuff isn't what it used to be. My knowledge to absorb and learn things isn't what it used to be. As much as it pains me to admit that, it is the truth. So one of the nice things about being older is that you have money to throw at problems. So here it come, Hoobs.

Yeah, let me just type in here, Hoobs.com order. Cha-ching. So that's where I think I'm headed. I looked at the Hoobs as well, and I'm just – I'm like, do I just – do I try one or two more things, or do I just let it go? I have a feeling I'll be a proud Hoobs owner in about a month when I finally give up.

And Paul also wrote in for Dave and Brian on IoT devices. Check out the podcast Internet of Things podcast, which we have talked about on the show before. I have interviewed Stacey. She knows her stuff. That's a good one. Yep. Stacey on IoT.

There you go. And speaking of Samsung, Samsung has confirmed on Monday that some of its data was stolen as part of a cyber attack that was first reported over the weekend in a statement to Bloomberg. The Korean electronics giant revealed that a security breach saw some source code relating to the operation of Galaxy devices taken, and, of course, all Internet of Things, things break.

No, they didn't do that to me, unfortunately. They did take customer and employee credentials. Oh, no, sorry. They did not get customer and employee credentials. That was not impacted. It was mostly just code, a 190-gigabyte torrent file that reportedly included bootloader source code for all of Samsung's recent devices, as well as code related to the biometric authentication and on-device encryption for Galaxy phones and tablets.

Well, can't you guys just download this and fix your own problem now, since all the source code's there? Oh, yeah. That'd be a lot easier than setting up a Raspberry Pi, Jason. Great idea. Gotta be. Come on. It's only written in Java in Korean, probably.

You can do it. Sure. There's a Skillshare for it. See, the thing is, you have to get both. You have to get a Raspberry Pi to install this code on, and then you can go from there. Gotcha. So we were talking about nostalgia a little earlier in the show and how LimeWire is back and, of course, pivoting to NFTs.

And we know, Dave, that you have an affinity for the Radio Shack. I do. And that it has been bought lock, stock, and barrel is a sad thing, since it's, you know, got Tai Lopez. It's a zombie brand now. It's a zombie brand.

Yes. And Tai Lopez has been working on it to get the Radio Shack NFTs going, of course. And he had a very terrible week, which was awesome to watch. So his token sale did not work out the way that I'm sure he had planned it to, which was him actually owning one of those swanky cars or jets that he poses in front of, you know, incessantly.

But I thought you would just get a kick out of the fact that it did not go well for the old Tai when he tried to fuck with the Radio Shack. Yeah. Good for him. Good for him. Some things should be sacred. And my Radio Shack, my precious Radio Shack brand should be one of them.

Boy, I am really wound up today, guys. All right. Let's talk about Star Wars. All right. Okay. Let's bring it back home. Bring it back to where this segment actually started. Oh, wait. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So Obi-Wan trailer is out. What do we think?

It's a trailer. Yes. I watched it. Yep. Yeah. It's hard to get – I'm excited because Ewan did a great job channeling Obi-Wan and was great. It's one of the few standout things in those first three movies, I thought, was him.

I'm – here we are on Tatooine yet again. The dust ball that is supposed to be not important and just out in the middle of nowhere yet features an absolute – Where everything happens. On the plus side, we do seem – yeah. On the plus side, we do seem to be able to, you know, get off the planet and we seem to be in some major planetary centers with lots of people and civilization and bad guys.

Well, they stumbled under the Blade Runner set, it looked like. Yeah. They certainly did. So that looks good. I'm cautiously pretty optimistic about this. I think it'll be probably one of – if I had to guess, I'll say I'll probably have enjoyed this the most out of anything with the possible exception of The Mandalorian because that just came out of left field and we had no idea what it was going to be about or anything.

You know, again, like I said, we know how this story ends. So there's no suspense. So there's no suspense there. That's true. I was excited to see classic Stormtrooper uniforms. To me, like that sets us in the proper Star Wars galaxy. So that was nice.

And, you know, seeing young Luke and all that kind of stuff. I mean, they're definitely pushing some buttons. But, yes, I will be tuning in. My youngest son was very excited that they used the – what is it? The Battle of the Fates. What's the song? Something like the Fates. Duel of the Fates. That's what I'm thinking.

Thank you. Duel of the Fates, yes. Duel of the Fates music in the trailer. That's his favorite piece of Star Wars music. Yeah, and there is a possibility we will see the big baddie, Darth Maul himself. As far as some of the animated series go, he does survive the first movie and being cut in half.

And he does run into Obi-Wan again. We know we'll see Darth Vader. We'll see. So that's something. We could see Han Solo. We could see Chewbacca. Lots of people we could see. We'll see. All right. Let's talk about Star Wars Galactic Star Cruiser. So people are on it.

Chewbacca.show slash donate. That's how we talk about it. That's right. We must have missed our press invites, all the people who got to go, all of the YouTube influencers who got to go on the first cruise of the Star Cruiser.

Shall I begin? Be my guest. Sure. Okay. It exceeded my expectations based on the stuff that had leaked out ahead of time. So it looks like there's way more to do. It looks like it's better done than I had feared it was going to be. It looks like they keep you busy.

There's story elements and all that sort of thing. Is it worth what it costs? I'm still skeptical of that. I continue. I'm disappointed that it takes place in the part of Star Wars where it does with Rey and Kylo Ren and all that kind of stuff.

If this were in the original trilogy universe, I would be setting money aside to go right now because that's what I care about. So – Yes, but they need to push what is currently making Disney money. Yeah, absolutely. And I don't blame them for building it around the thing that they think will last the longest for the kids who are coming up now.

You know, they'll have affection for this. True, true. So, I mean, that makes sense. But I don't know. Still, it's a bunch of money. I will say in terms of the money, it is a bunch of money. It's a lot of money. How much are we talking about here? However, having said that – Six grand for two people for two days.

That's a lot. For some Star Wars shit, that's a lot. Having said that – Yeah, that's a lot. Having said that though, I am on March break where the family is heading back to L.A. to go visit the rest of my family, my mom and all that sort of stuff.

But we had decided, as my son has gotten very into Lego, that we would take him to Legoland, this first real theme park. I'm still holding off on Disney because I want to wait for mask restrictions to be lifted so it doesn't feel so dystopian. I think by the time you get here, that's probably going to happen.

So, I think you'll be in luck. Yeah, I know. But we've booked Legoland. It's a done deal. We are staying in the special Legoland hotel, which is – the rooms are all Lego-y and there's a special play area for the kid within the room. And you get the Legos and it's all Lego-designed.

And it is phenomenally expensive. And it is going to be nowhere near as cool or nice as the Star Wars Galactic Star Cruiser would be for me. So, these things are just – they know they've got you by the short and curlies and they are going to tug and pull as much as they can.

And they will get the money out of you. They are vastly overpriced for what they are, but they know they can get away with it. It's true. Supply and demand. There ain't that many and there's enough rich people. So, I imagine they've sold out for a long time. Yeah, that's the thing. There's so much pent-up demand because nobody could vacation for a couple years.

And so, we're just going to be clogged up for the next few years. And that sucks. So, you can't buy your way out of that. Yeah, actually, you can. There's always a number, Dave. That's true.

I suppose you could rent out the whole park. And there are fast passes and things like that. But that's a whole other rant for a whole other day. Yeah. All right. So, we'll move on really quickly here. Barrett wrote in and said a security question for Mr. Bittner. As a Mac user, I don't use any antivirus or anti-malware software on any of my machines, mainly since I'm not going to any questionable websites or downloading any free software.

Should I still be worried? Okay. So, Barrett, pull up a chair. Come sit on Papa Bittner's knee. Yeah. The security professional part of me says you should absolutely be running some antivirus or anti-malware on your Mac.

The part of me that has been a Mac user since 1984 says you're probably good. And this comes from me asking around to people like Patrick Wardle, who specifically deals in Mac viruses, right?

And I asked him the question directly, do you see malware on Macs? And his answer to me was, no, what you see is adware.

That's what gets on Macs is stuff that'll, you know, reprograms what your default search engine is going to be, causes pop-up ads. So, browser-based stuff. But the general kind of crap that you get on Windows machines, you just don't see it on Macs.

And I know people are going to write in and they're going to say, no, no, no, Macs get viruses too. I know. But they don't. Yeah, I was like, prove it. And that's the thing. Like, we all, best practice, yes, absolutely. But in reality, unless you're targeted, someone's coming after you, it's really highly unlikely.

And I sit here scratching my head too. Why doesn't it happen? I think part, mostly it's because Windows machines are such a softer target. So, anyway, yes, best practice, put some antivirus or anti-malware on your Mac. Like, it's not going to really hurt anything, but in the real world, you're probably going to be fine without it.

I use CleanMyMac X and it has some malware detection built into it. And that's as far as I go. And I wouldn't even be using that, except it comes with it and it's free. Yeah. Yeah, I use that as well. I run the malware detection every now and then.

I mean, it's got a real-time thing on as well, which has never said anything to me. And I've run the deep scans. I've never had anything. And I often visit questionable websites. There you go. There you go. You're our canary in the coal mine. All right.

So, I want to wind up this week with a little segment I like to call Things Dave Likes because I've been a little wound up lately, as you all have noticed. Last week, I was ranting and I find myself ranting again this week. So, I want to share some happy things. These are things in my life that are making me happy from the simple to the sublime.

I'm going to start with a simple little device. I love it when someone takes something that is simple and straightforward and makes it better. And a friend of the show, Tim Woodruff, who has written in before, I've interacted with him on Twitter and so on and so forth.

He invented a microfiber cleaning cloth. So, the kind you clean your glasses with or clean, you know, camera lenses, monitor, whatever. But what he's done is he made one side grippy. So, one side has little rubber grippy bumps on it.

And he sent me one of these. And let me tell you, it makes all the difference in the world because your fingers don't slip off of the cloth while you're cleaning your glasses. Or it also lets you know which side you should grip and which side should be on the glasses.

So, the oil from your hands doesn't get on the microfiber. Like, it's a silly, stupid thing, but really takes this silly, stupid thing to the next level. So, I'll have a link for it. I love it. It's great. I can't imagine using one of these without it from now on. Ordered.

I also like that it has don't panic. Yes. It says don't panic, which is good, too. So, thank you, Tim, for sharing that. Again, just a silly little thing that elevates something to the next level. I am someone who has a stack of half a dozen pillows next to my bed because I have been going through pillows trying to find a pillow that works for me.

Again, I guess this is just part of being the age that I'm at where all I want in life is a comfortable bed that doesn't hurt my back, right? And that is still elusive. Yes, it is. I'm sleeping with a pillow between my knees now.

Let me tell you, somebody recommended this Pluto pillow. It's like a $100 pillow, but you go on their website and you tell them all about yourself. Do you sleep on your side? Do you sleep on your back? Do you like a soft pillow? Do you like a firm pillow? Like, you know, it asks a bunch of questions.

You wait a couple weeks. A pillow shows up. My pillow showed up yesterday. Let me tell you, this is the best goddamn pillow I've ever had in my life. Now, I'm concerned your pillow has an app.

Jason's bed has a customer service or has a terms of service that he has to agree to. This is – I understand the importance of sleep. Well, let me – there's no – okay. Well, I don't know if there's a nap, but maybe there is. All I know is I slept on this – when I laid my head on this pillow last night, I was like, oh, man, this is a nice pillow.

So I have all of one night's worth of sleep on it, but I feel like this might be the end of my pillow searching journey. So if you're – But can you connect your pillow to your Internet of Things? No. Damn it.

No. And I will not. I will not. That will be the thing. You need to update your pillow every three years because it no longer connects to your smart things. All right. Last but not least, this I saw come by on Twitter and it's one of those silly things.

People said this will change your life and what got me was I saw a bunch of people chime in, people I know, not just trolls and scammers and said, yes, this is a game changer. This is a toilet bowl light. Now, what this does is you hang it on the side of your toilet bowl.

There's a little LED that goes inside the bowl. And in the middle of the night when you have to get up, when you're a man of a certain age, which I am – god, today's episode has a theme and it's me being a man of a certain age. You get up in the middle of the night because you have to pee and you head towards the bathroom and even though you have a nightlight there in the bathroom, it's not enough.

And you have – sometimes you have trouble with aim and all those kinds of things we all go through. Let me tell you, having your toilet bowl, have a motion detector on it so when it sees you come in, the bowl lights up and literally glows. No more problems aiming. You can see everything you need to see.

For 15 bucks, let me tell you, this is great. Also, my wife loves it. I wasn't sure whether she was going to take to this or not. She loves it too. Yeah, see, here I think, you know, I would – I'm all in on this.

I know my wife would absolutely hate this, but I do think that this would be fantastic for my kids' bathroom. I bought two of them. So my only worry there is he's going to stick his hands in to get in there and play around with it all the time. Also, I want this to connect to my internet of things so I can say, Alexa, make my toilet purple.

Exactly, yeah. This cycles through different light colors, so it really is – when you get up in the middle of the night to pee, it is a bit of a disco light party, which I'm fine with that. I'm okay with that. Daddy, daddy, I'm taking a disco shit. Yeah, it's great.

What's funny about this product is I reviewed this product before Brian had a kid. Oh, yeah? It was slightly different. You reviewed the one that was the LED that went around on the inside of the hole. No, it was the exact same thing. It was the exact same thing.

Exactly the same thing. I love this thing. Yeah. And my roommate loved it too. She actually bought the first one as a joke for me, and then it turned out to be pretty awesome. And then it broke – but it broke in a move, and I just never replaced it.

But now you've got me. Now I'm going to have to go buy this one too. Because I have to say that the disco shit at 3 in the morning is, you know, something everyone should experience. Mm-hmm. All right. All right. I've got a couple of things I'm adding to my card here.

And that concludes this edition of Things Dave Likes. Closing shout-outs! Over at Patreon, we've got a note. G has left us a note. They said, I just made a one-time donation on PayPal but didn't get a prompt to leave my heartfelt message, so here it is.

This donation is long overdue. I haven't been letting myself listen to your show until I donate. But we're taking a seven-hour road trip today and we'll never make it without you. My husband hates it when I listen to podcasts. I have poor hearing, so I always have the volume maxed out. He says it's an assault on his ears.

Unless, of course, I'm listening to GOG. In which case, he exclaims, You're listening to Grumpy Old Geeks Without Me? Do you even love me? Thanks for being the one and only podcast he actually listens to. Well, thank you, G. And sorry we missed your road trip, but hopefully it was good. Hopefully it was a good one.

Hope so. Over at PayPal, we've got Breed, Mark, Jens, Ralph, David. And I believe this is our G, Gabrielle, who gave us a whopping 200 bucks. Thank you, Gabrielle. Definitely hope that road trip was nice now. Over at Stripe, we've got Andrew, Jeff, and Anne.

Excellent. And we have a new five-star rating from Ethan Moorlach. For real, though. And this is in quotes, Richie Rich and Nancy Pelosi discussed the news. Three out of five stars. Also in quotes, Bittner's tidbits on Star Wars paintball guns prepping and occasionally even security. 130, 1,337 out of five stars, A+++, would listen again.

So apparently he really likes the Bittner segment. Yeah, it sucks because I'm Nancy Pelosi in this one. Are you? I was wondering. Yeah, I guess you can't be Richie Rich. Rich wife. Yeah. Seriously. If only. God.

Yeah. Until next time, I'm Jason DeFillippo. 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 544.

From there, you can find links to everything we talked about in this episode, as well as links to our swag and Discord channel. If you want to buy some stuff or chat with us and other show fans. You can also 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 review and toss us a snarky review and preferably five stars.

Stay grumpy. And you get a disco shit. And you get a disco shit. And you get a disco shit. I just need somebody to send me a raspberry pie.

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