553: Grumpio Frumpio

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.

I'm Brian Schulmeister. Good morning. Good morning, Brian. And a happy birthday to our mutual friend, Brian Blondel. Yes, very happy birthday. He was up very early this morning as I posted happy birthday on Facebook. Oh, it could be because he's got the COVID that he probably gave me. Well, it's going to get us all, Jason. Maybe it's your turn.

I tried. I tried. There's nothing else I can do. I mean, you can't escape anymore. You just can't escape. What you people don't know at home is that we are having internet connection issues because Canada and Eero and VPNs and Macs. I think it's mostly Eero, but we'll see. We'll have to do some more troubleshooting.

Yeah, if they were still a sponsor, we'd yell at them. Yes. And we've got a little bit of quick follow-up here. Eric wrote in, have you stopped uploading your episodes to YouTube? You might want to remove the link from your website. Hugs and Kisses. Yes, we have stopped uploading to YouTube because nobody actually checked it and it is fixed. So thank you very much.

Thank you. Eric also goes on to say, also, have you guys ever dived into the topic of productivity and note-taking with Notion, Obsidian, et cetera? I would love to hear your opinion on this. Have we really done a productivity episode in a while, Brian? I mean, we did one at the beginning of the pandemic, but that was kind of it.

I mean, we talked about some of the various programs. I had, what was that big one for a long time? I can't even remember. It was expensive. Evernote. Evernote. I had Evernote for a while. Oh, Evernote. And discovered I never, ever used it and that Apple Notes does the job for me. And you've got, you've had many variations of Apple Notes. That's basically what we've been at.

Yeah. Yeah. And as far as the productivity stuff, I mean, I could do hours and hours on that, but it doesn't seem like something that people are clamoring for. So sorry, Eric. If we get some more people on board that want to hear that episode, write in, let us know. Maybe we'll do it. But until then, as far as I can tell, you're the only one that really cares. But yeah, I use Apple Notes as well, and a million other tools. So it's that. I got a little follow-up here. There's a great article that I saw called The Craft of Forecasting Our Possible Futures, A Conversation with Jane

McGonigal. And this comes on the heels of her book, Imaginable by Jane McGonigal, which I covered a couple episodes ago because I had read it and enjoyed it thoroughly. And I'm bringing this up because it does cover a few things that, it goes a little more depth than they do than in the book about, you know, the methodology on how they predicted the future and do her simulation. So it's a good read, especially if you've picked up the book, which I do recommend. So.

Excellent. Yeah, I actually, that's in my queue of things to read after I get through this sci-fi book that I've basically taken over a month to read half of. I didn't know Neil Stevenson had a new book out. It feels that way. Let me tell you. Speaking of Neil Stevenson, I saw this one. Blasting out Earth's location with the hope of reaching aliens is a controversial idea. Two teams of scientists are doing it anyway.

Doesn't that pretty much encapsulate humanity in a nutshell right there? Yeah. We are the hold my beer generation. Yes. I mean, it's like, have you never read any sci-fi? Yes. Blasting out our location is probably not the best idea. And of course, some people are going to go ahead and do it, even though everybody else is going, no.

In the news.

Well, going back to work at the office is getting mighty controversial and heated out there as people are actually starting to do it and companies are starting to require it. Last week, a group of Apple employees wrote an open letter criticizing the company's hybrid work from home policy, which requires employees to be at the office three days a week, starting May 23rd. Ian Goodfellow, the director of machine learning over there has a quit because of this, stating that I believe strongly that more flexibility would have been the best policy for my team.

Going into office three days a week instead of five seems pretty flexible to me. I think it's time for people to pull up their big boy pants. The pandemic is as far as here's the thing that drives me crazy about this attitude. All these people that are claiming pandemic is still ongoing as a reason not to go back to work are living their entire lives outside of work as if the pandemic is over.

Yeah, that's true. They just don't want to go back to the office. Come on. They just don't want to go back to the office. And I get it. Why would you? But jobs, people.

It's called work for a reason. Brian, it's the great resignation. Well, go get another job. Chances are you're going to have to go into the office. I think three days a week is totally fair. I think that, you know, we've had a major shift. We've discovered that for many people, work from home is possible. As a manager, in my position, I want people back in the office. I can see the slack on Slack.

Of course you can. But you also have to remember that the slack is a lot of times picked up because people are working 24-7 instead of 9-5. That's true. Yeah. We have to find some sort of balance here. But the idea that we're never going to go back into an office is ridiculous. It's kind of lame, too. It's like, yeah, you're going to get bored at home. Trust me. I know. It takes a while. It took me, what, 20 years?

Me, too. Yeah, I just think that people are complaining to complain. And at the end of the day, the idea of going to two to three days a week is incredible. I mean, that's life-changing. Can you even have imagined that pre-pandemic? Like the fact that maybe you're only going to go into the office two to three days a week? You should be happy.

Let's be honest. Pre-pandemic, if somebody told me to go to the office two to three days a week, I'd be like, I'm not going to an office ever. I work from home. I'm a contractor. I'm free. Now I'm like, can I see other people, please? For the love of God, I like people. I see live people. I see live people. So yeah, you know what it is? It's fucking entitlement. It's just entitlement in my book, and I'm tired of it. So good. Get out of here. We don't need your AI anyway.

I saw this over at Insider. It's the Insider's Guide to the Metaverse. And the title is The Insider's Guide to the Metaverse. But it's basically a list of their articles talking about the quote-unquote metaverse. And they treat it in multiple fashions here.

Because I would like to point out the difference between the words a and the. Because if you say we're going to talk about the Metaverse, you are talking about the entity. If I'm going to talk about Brian Schulmeister, I'm going to talk about Brian Schulmeister. If I'm going to talk about a Brian Schulmeister, that means that there are more Brian Schulmeisters than there were when I woke up this morning.

Because that means there were two. If there are two, there is not a the. So how do you explain trying to say that this is the guide to the Metaverse when you start off saying, we checked out seven different Metaverses at the beginning of the guide? That just shows that you don't fundamentally know what the fuck's going on either, which is disheartening.

Yeah, well, I mean, it's become a marketing term more than anything else now, because now everybody is claiming that they have a Metaverse already. Yes, I've heard claims that the Apple app, the App Store for Apple is a Metaverse. Yeah, it's an App Store. Can we just words have meaning?

I feel like in the tech industry and on this podcast, we always cycle back down to words have meaning and you're not using them correctly. But we just did a story about how the AI chief of Apple just quit. Well, well, no, no, they did say machine learning. Oh, they did. OK, yes, yes, they did. They were actually Apple does not mess around with these kind of terms very much.

So kudos to them. They have an AI chip. Come on. That's true. Although they do call it a neural engine. So that's a little different. But yeah, the insider. Yeah. The difference between a and the. Let's agree on that before we start the goddamn story. But actions are starting to have consequences.

I love this one. It seems like the DOJ is finally starting to show up. Like the Internet police finally has been awoken somewhere. Mining Capital Coin CEO indicted for sixty two million dollar investment fraud scheme. All right. Sixty two million dollars. Not chump change.

I saw this one last night to the crypto queen. I don't know if you ever saw any of the documentaries on her, the podcasts about her. Interpol has finally put out a bolo on her to take her in. Good. So, yeah. Yeah. People are finally it's like it's all you hear about the news.

Crypto scam, crypto scam, crypto scam. So it's like they had to finally step up, but it might be a little day late in a Bitcoin short. We'll see. I mean, it's it's good. I'm happy to see that actions are having consequences. I'm happy to see that all the shenanigans that have been going on in crypto are finally the chickens have come home to roost.

Yeah, but we knew it was coming. I'm glad it's finally here so we can move on and find something new to talk about. But yeah. Yeah. Coming home. Sadly, my my Ethereum, my two hundred and fifty dollars worth of Ethereum, which was two hundred and thirty five dollars by the time I finished the process is now down to one hundred and thirty nine dollars. But that's OK.

I get more enjoyment watching that go down than I do for it being. I do, too. It's kind of crazy. I should have, you know, I would have cashed out a long time ago, except I'm just like I said, it was gambling money and I'm letting it ride. And it's it's fun watching it tank and people freak out.

I know. I mean, it's just it's like an anti horse race. I'm like, let's get to zero. Come on, baby. Let's get to zero. Get to zero. Let's let Coinbase go out of business. Let's go. Let's do it. No bankruptcy. Bankruptcy. Some good news about the Internet.

The Biden administration is trying to roll out low cost Internet for rural customers and low income Americans. Yeah. Yeah. One hundred megabit for 30 bucks a month or less. OK. OK. Great. Cool. Make it happen. Yeah.

Good. A hundred percent. Let's do it. Yep. So they got a bunch of companies on board, but they got AT&T on board and CEO John Stanky. Oh, he stank. He says it's time for every American to experience the social economic health, employment and educational benefits of universal scaled access to the Internet.

That scaled word he threw in there. Had to. You knew it. He had to. He's such a scumbag. He had to just slide that in there for no reason. No reason. I hope Stanky gets spanked. That's that's some bullshit. Yep. Although one might say that, you know, AT&T does.

They they they provide scaled Internet access to everyone, because when you use AT&T, sometimes it can be very hard to get online. Like the AT&T Internet that I'm on with you right now. The fact that the installer came out and before he left, he says, I'm sorry, you have to call customer support.

Like that sums up AT&T. Yes. Right there. Yep. So it's called the Affordable Connectivity Program. Link is in the show notes. Check it out. And speaking of connectivity, this one at first, I was like, this is the stupidest thing I've ever heard.

But then it made a little bit more sense. The FCC is proposing Wi-Fi on school buses. We're going to get Wi-Fi on school buses before we get seatbelts. We are. And it could be said that most kids on school buses already have Wi-Fi because they've all got cell phones now.

So they want to put Wi-Fi on school buses because of kids that, you know, are who may not have broadband at home, who have not taken advantage of the Affordable Connectivity Program yet and saying that they can. This is, quote unquote, bridging the homework gap right there.

I want to take a baseball bat to somebody's hands for writing that sentence. The homework gap. Right. I don't know about you, Brian. How was homework for you in school? Did you ever do it? Yes. But, you know, me. Yeah. See, I didn't. I hate homework. Homework is dumb. We are fundamentally different that way.

I hated homework. It was terrible. Anything to get me to do more of it, I am just opposed to. And I am opposed to this for the kids because now they have the Affordable Connectivity Program that they can take advantage of. We don't need to spend money on Wi-Fi on school buses because, like you mentioned, there's no seatbelts.

No seatbelts and open laptops on a school bus. Not a good combination. What happens there? Yeah. No. No. And as soon as that first, you know, hundred laptops get broken because the school bus stopped too short and they went flying, or the, you know, how many times his little Johnny got hit in the back of the head with an iPad because he was playing with it on the school bus.

I think that's the main reason we're told to put our stuff away when we take off on planes. It isn't because your laptop is going to screw up any GPS or anything. It's because if something happens or the plane skids a little bit, your laptop's going to fly and hit somebody in the face.

Yeah, like a missile, a 500-mile-an-hour missile. Yes. Have you seen Elon's plans for Twitter? I have. They're everywhere. But it seems a little pie in the sky to me. Well, that's Elon. Yeah, that's true. It's on brand. It's on brand.

Yeah. Yeah, I don't see this happening. It's a nice dream. Maybe he's selling that to people that he's trying to get money from so he doesn't have to sell as many Tesla stocks to be able to afford to buy Twitter. He's got some good ideas, but I think the numbers are way out of whack.

I think he needs to tone that down a little bit, bad boy. Yeah, yeah. He wants to quintuple the revenue to $26.4 billion by 2028. That's a lot of billions. That's a lot of billions. That one, potentially, but he would have to grow users a lot and would have to really switch over to a subscription model because he wants to cut down reliance on advertising to less than 50% of revenue, which I also think is smart.

I would pay for an ad-free Twitter. I think most people would, but I still think that the idea of growing the user base as much as he seems to think he will is unbelievable, particularly since he's going to shred the existing user base by getting rid of the bots.

Yeah, and this is the one that really caught my attention. Mr. Musk anticipates he can lift Twitter's average revenue per user, a key metric for social media companies, to $30.22 in 2028 from $24.83 last year, according to the document.

We are worth $24.83 to Twitter. I did not know that. That is an interesting fact to know. It is. It is. I want my $24.83. Well, that's about what you'll get for a share if he buys it. We'll see.

It takes it private. Yeah. Well, he also came out and said what we knew all along, that he will allow Donald Trump back on Twitter. He made it clear he disagrees with the decision to ban Trump. And he basically just said he would reverse it. I think bans just fundamentally undermine trust in Twitter as a town square where everyone can voice their opinions, Musk said.

He added that permanent ban should be reserved for accounts that are bots or spam, scam accounts. The interesting thing about the statement is that he did open up, while saying he was going to welcome Trump back, he kind of did open up the fact that there should be temporary bans and some forms of basically censorship, which he said Twitter is going to be absolutely no censorship whatsoever.

I think he's finally realizing the reality of the situation, which is you cannot have any social network that does not allow for some censorship. Even the much vaulted TrueSocial, if you still follow the Eve6 guy on Twitter, he went over to TrueSocial, he got in. He's not just on a waiting list.

They ban a lot of words. He tried to post cum and all these other things, all of which are censored on TrueSocial. Really? Yes. Wow. I'm going to have to try that. Yep. Yep. So there you go. He called the ban a morally bad decision and cited the Trump-backed TrueSocial as proof that Twitter's ban did not have the intended effect.

Au contraire, Mr. Musk. I feel that it had the exact intended effect. Nobody's on TrueSocial. Nobody cares. Donald Trump isn't even posting on TrueSocial. It did exactly what the ban was supposed to do, which was got him off Twitter, where he had a megaphone, and put him somewhere he can't even be bothered to post a truth.

We'll see. I had an article somewhere that I sadly lost. So my productivity plan is failing me today. It was basically a list of Elon's seven worst predictions. Right. And you know what number one is. Which?

Okay. See, it's funny enough, the fact that you didn't even know off the top of your head which is the most egregious one. There's plenty. There's a lot to choose from. Self-driving cars. Self-driving cars. Okay. All right. I thought it might be people on Mars in five years or whatever. No, no, no. Well, the self-driving car one is the most egregious because his deadline has passed several times.

Right. And he just keeps readjusting the timeline. Cameo is in the news this week because they have laid off a ton of their workforce. Did they send a jaunty message from Jerry Seinfeld letting them know they were fired? No. It's funny. I actually just bought one of those from Carson from Queer Eye for a friend not too long ago.

They're very fun. I quite enjoy them. Why they have so many people working there when the entire premise of the company is a celebrity takes their phone, they take a video, they do all the work. So Cameo is just kind of a middleman. Why do you need so many employees? And why are you out of money if you're just taking a cut?

I've heard lots of theories about this, but I like this one. The CEO, Stephen Galanis, on Twitter and LinkedIn, he said it was a brutal day when he had to get rid of everybody. And he said, the painful decision to let go of 87 beloved members of the Cameo Fameo.

Which would be worse, being known as a metamate or part of the Cameo Fameo? Oh, Brian, are you Grumpio Frumpio? I am. I am always Grumpio Frumpio. The Cameo Fameo. That guy deserves to have his company taken away from him immediately.

I would quit immediately if I were told I were part of the Cameo Fameo. Well, another company that is having some problems right now. I would say the COVID bump was huge and has ended. Peloton. The company made a net loss of $757 million in the first three months of the year.

It was much worse than expected and a massive decrease from the $8.6 million loss it posted for the same period in 2021. Revenue has dropped from $1.2 billion to $964 million. That's quite large. Operating expenses grew because they have now a whole bunch of bikes and other fitness equipment that nobody wants to buy because everybody that would have bought one has bought one.

And people are going back to the office and people are going back to gyms. Yeah. Oops. No, I mean, yeah. Peloton is one of those things where they were good for the right, they were at the right spot at the right time and they did all the wrong things. Yeah. Like, they didn't have enough bikes during the pandemic, so then they over-ordered.

I guess they assumed that the pandemic was going to last forever. Glass half empty there. But, yeah, now they're stuck with basically warehouses full of laundry hangers that nobody needs anymore. Overpriced laundry hangers, I might add. Yeah, yeah. And it's going to increase their subscription costs to try to battle this, which those costs are already pretty expensive.

When you're encroaching up on the cost of a high-end gym just for your subscription to ride a bike, you've got to be looking at your business plan, wondering what's going on. But their plan is, of course, which makes some sense, they're going to cut prices on the actual machines and increase prices on the subscriptions.

Subscription costs on these bikes are high. I have a Peloton knockoff called an Echelon, and, yeah, I'm canceling the subscription. Forty bucks a month is a lot. And I can get that. Forty bucks a month? Yeah, I can get a program like Strava and just do rides that way, and it's cheaper.

Yeah. Yeah. Plus, the music on these things is horrific. That's pretty insane, because I know, like, I mean, that's a gym membership right there. Yeah, exactly. For, like, you know, a medium-end gym. If you want a high-end gym, you're looking more. But still, you can go to a high-end gym, go to the classes, and be around people, you know, instead of sitting at home getting yelled at.

Yeah. So, I think, you know, Peloton's a good company. They just got way too big. They're a good small company. It's a quality product by all accounts, and people like the classes that get into it. It's just too big for their britches, as it were. Time for them to thin out.

How much of that people love the product is just the sunk cost fallacy of them spending so much on a bike and figuring that they have to love it because they put so much money into it? That could very well be a lot of that, too. I mean, you know. But Peloton doesn't care as long as you keep paying the subscription.

Yeah. They should just get rid of the bikes and just do a subscription. Bring the subscription price down. Just do that. And put out an iPad app and some Velcro. Done. Yep. You know, so Clearview AI is back in the news.

They have settled a lawsuit thanks to the state of Illinois. I love this one. Basically, you know, Illinois has the biometric laws. Yes. And it came to bite Facebook in the ass a couple times. And now the ACLU has gone after Clearview using Illinois' biometric laws and have come to an agreement saying that Clearview can no longer sell their database to private U.S. businesses.

Yay. Which is interesting. Here's the rub. They can sell to financial institutions, which is an interesting loophole. The other one is that they can sell the algorithm, but they just can't sell the database of the faces.

So it's a roll-your-own-database kind of thing. So how many companies do you think will pop up just selling pictures of people that you can populate the database to that is not based in the U.S.? Because if I was Clearview, I would spin off that division, put it in the Seychelles or wherever, and say, okay, well, we're going to sell you the algorithm.

Go to Joe over there, and he'll sell you the faces around the corner. You just can't sell them together. I got a guy. You know, it's just like a drug deal. Yeah. I got a guy.

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Media Candy. Spoiler alert. Well, season two of Star Trek Picard is wrapped. I would argue they've wrapped the series, but we're getting a whole other season.

I'm wondering why. I am too. I mean, you don't get much more of a perfect, all plot things ticked off. Everything's wrapped up in a nice little bow. No, you don't. The Borg are part of the Federation. Spoiler alert.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it was fine. We've talked about this at great length. It wasn't the show we had hoped it would be. But you can't argue with the fact that they saw it through. They saw the plot through. They wrapped it all up.

Yeah. Yeah. It was just not a good season. It was just sadly not a good season. Yeah. I do have a bit of updates. I screwed up last week. I thought it was Russell T. Davies that was the guy that was behind Coupling that moved to Doctor Who.

It wasn't. It was Stephen Moffat. That was the guy. Right. So apologies about that for anybody that was screaming at their podcast player, which I don't believe was anyone because I got no feedback about it. Yeah. I was about to say thanks for that update that no one cares about.

Well, I saw it in Discord. I saw it in Discord that somebody was talking about Stephen Moffat and Doctor Who. And I'm like, oh, that was the guy. Yeah. So I felt bad that I sullied Russell T. Davies' name. Oh, just cycling back really quickly because it just hit me. There was one plot point that was probably going to be left completely unresolved.

That was the character from the first season that came back being Dr. Singh's sort of daughter that was just kind of left out in the wild. And who knows what she might do? Well, they conveniently wrapped that up by having Wesley Crusher show up and just take her off the planet. Did you not say that it would be too complicated to have Wesley show up for his cameo because he's now the traveler?

Well, they found a way to shoehorn that in, didn't they? Yeah, they shoehorned the shit out of that one. We've got one plot twist that we don't know what to do with. Hey, Wesley, come here. Yep. Spoiler alerts, by the way. Yeah, lots of spoiler alerts.

So we shall wait to see what season three brings and why season three is here other than getting all the old cast together. Which I guess I welcome. It's like, this is just a party for those guys. They're just, you know, somebody, somebody is in charge of green lighting these. And they said, who wants a check?

Yep. Let's get everybody in for a check. Who wants to do a victory lap and a check? And that way you can keep signing autographs at conventions. Absolutely. You can raise the prices. Star Trek Strange New Worlds premiered. Thank Jesus. Wow. You know, we've read reviews that said it's not the best in the world as a series, but strong first episode.

Yeah. I would say. I had the feels. I did too. I totally had the feels. It was Star Trek. It was as Star Trek as it gets. Yes. Which is the good point. It was, you know. I mean, a little sexy Spock, but we can't seem to get away from sexy Spock these days. Yeah.

But, you know, it was good. Yeah. And Samuel Kirk shows up at the end. Yep. Yep. Which is an interesting one because he's James's older brother. Yes. Which was a, which, you know, took a little, took a little research. I had to, I had to wiki that one.

I, well, I found out because I was, I was slapped down at the beginning when I was thinking about it. I was, I was talking to a friend of the show, David Teeter. And apparently Chen, his, his lovely lady, is on a huge original series kick in even watching the animated series. And she pointed out immediately that Sam is Kirk's brother.

She knew and I didn't. Right. And she's a noob. I felt, I felt really bad about my canon knowledge on that one. Oh, well. Yeah. I mean, we'll see. Second episode tonight. That's right. I am looking forward to it. Me too. Please don't fuck it up.

Ozark is over. Wow. That was a, that was a rough ending, but a good one. That was the scuttlebutt I saw online. Yeah. Not, not the ending one would hope for, but it ended. But it was satisfying. It actually, you know, it was, there were many fields.

And the funny thing is, if you watch Ozark and you know what the, you know what the, the ending is about and what it's like, then you watch Strange New Worlds right after it. The theme of Strange New Worlds is, really ties into the last episode of Ozark, like a lot.

So pairing those two, it's just like a fine wine pairing. Finish Ozark if you're almost there and then watch Strange New Worlds. And they, they couple together really, really well. But yeah, I, I was a fan. I was a fan. I think Ozark was solid from soup to nuts.

Watched the McMillions, the documentary about the Monopoly game show scam. Right. Fan, fantastic. Yeah. I watched that a while back. Yeah. Really good. Oh, so good. So good. I'm enjoying Halo. Halo's doing good so far. Everybody hated the ending, so I'll get to that.

At some point, I'm only a couple episodes in, but it's sci-fi and I'm liking it. Right. Okay. So there you go. I don't know the game story, so it doesn't matter to me. And it's got the, the pervy stash prison guard from Oranges of the New Black is Master Chief. So that's, that's fun. I finished Severance.

Okay. That was a long squeeze for a little bit of juice. Yeah. Did you watch it? I have not watched it. I have not started watching it because people were starting to say it's not that great. But then there was, oh my God, but the ending, the ending made it all worth it.

And you're basically saying not so much. No, that's the problem. The ending does make it worth it. Oh, damn. That's the problem. Here's the thing though. I'm, I have to go back now and think about it. Like, does it make it worth it? Or is it just that thing? It's like, is this the Pink's hot dog theory of hunger that I have?

It's like Pink's hot dogs in Hollywood. You have to wait two hours to get a hot dog and you're smelling other people's food the entire time. That could be the worst hot dog in the world, but you had to wait for it so long that it is the most delicious thing in the world. Sunken cost fallacy rears its head again. Yeah. You have nine hours of show for five minutes of holy shit.

That's it. Okay. I may be taking a pass on this one then. Here's the other thing. I was reading up on it and apparently the guy that created it has a plan. I've heard that before. Yep. And apparently in season two, we could see more of the severance universe.

Great. So we're already going in that direction, but he keeps saying he has a plan. It could go off in different places. He has a rough outline of how the, how the show is going to land. And he's saying it could be a three series, a three season or a six season, but he knows what that last season is going to be. So he can wrap it up.

I seem to recall a show that even had the tagline that they have a plan. And we kept hearing about, they have a plan and the show ended and there was no plan. And then they even made a special, special two hours, a show about it called the plan in which there was still no plan.

They even outed the fact that they didn't have a plan. I'm not buying this crap anymore. Yeah. I don't know if severance really has a plan. And in strange news, Avatar trailer came out for Avatar 2. And my first set, my first sense was, is this real or is this just a deep fake?

Because it's been a long time. It's been a long time. I was a programmer working at a startup in San Francisco when, when I saw Avatar in 3D at the Metreon. That was like, you know, eight cross country moves ago.

It was a long time ago. Yeah. Can you even remember what the first one was about? Oh, that's right. It was Pocahontas. I don't think I remembered what the first one was about five minutes after I left the theater, to be honest. Yeah. But yeah. That unobtainium scrambled your mind.

All I can remember about Avatar is that after, is that I know in my heart of hearts that I no longer want to see any avatars and I will never see this movie. Did you see the trailer? No, I don't care. Oh, that would reinforce it. Okay. I'm just saying.

I absolutely would reinforce it. My only feeling about the way back from Avatar is that was enough Avatar for me and I'm not interested in the Avatar universe. Not at all. Not at all. I'm just, I'm like, how, why did it take so long to make this? I think they're building it one pixel at a time.

Yeah. I mean, I heard that they shot two and three, so we'll get two and three pretty quickly. It won't be another 20 plus years to reflect on the amazing story that is Avatar. Pocahontas. Yes. Yeah. No. It's going to make a shit ton of money.

You think? Yeah. People are dumb. Is 3D still a thing though? I haven't been to the movies in so long. I don't even know if 3D is still a thing. I don't even know if there are movies. Yeah. It didn't say Avatar 2 and 3D, so I'm guessing it'll probably be.

Maybe they'll make a deal with Meta and it'll come out on an Oculus. It'll just come out on Oculus. Yeah. Perfect. Yeah. Perfect. Oh, man. He's actually going to delay the release of Avatar 2 because it's got to come out in the Metaverse at the same time.

So James Cameron is now off inventing the Metaverse so he can release Avatar 2. A Metaverse, Jason. Not the Metaverse. It'll come out in a Metaverse. A-Vatar Metaverse. Yeah. Okay. Well, that was the first trailer of the week. The second trailer was House of the Dragon Sneak Peek. Zero fucks given. Also a movie I will never see.

I think it's a series. Okay. Whatever. That's the Game of Thrones prequel. Yeah. I don't think I'm going to watch it. I will wait and see what people that I know and trust and think about it because I know they're definitely going to watch it. So I will get the thumbs up or thumbs down two to three episodes in and then figure it out.

Yeah. I don't know. I'm kind of Game of Thrones-ed out. I couldn't even watch The Witcher or whatever that Amazon series was too. I lost interest in season three of The Witcher. I really liked first two seasons. Yeah. The swords and tits things just don't... They don't excite me anymore. I don't know what it is. You need more now.

Yeah. I do. I need new Downton Abbey. A new era. I do. I'm excited. Comes to theaters in a week. One week. Yeah. I had to turn off the trailer because they give away so much in the trailers. Yeah. I just... I want to watch it.

To me, I don't even care if they're bad. You can keep making Downton Abbey movies until I die and I will be happy. Yes. I just like... As long as Maggie Smith's still there. As long as Maggie Smith is still there. Okay. So keep making them until she dies. As long as she's in there, I'm happy. I just bask in the universe in the way that James Cameron desperately wishes I would for Avatar, but I just don't.

I love Downton Abbey. I will watch those movies forever. Just keep making them. I love them. I know. Coming May 20th in theaters in Sweden everywhere. Yes. I will be downloading. And we talked briefly about George Carlin last week. And for some reason, I fired up Amazon Prime, which I never do because there's next to nothing on it.

But they do have a ton of old George Carlin stand-up specials. And I watched George Carlin, Life is Worth Losing. And it was done in 2005. Could have been recorded yesterday. The man was a prophet. Everything that he was talking about is happening, has been happening.

And it's amazing. It was just stunning. My jaw hit the floor. I'm like, wow, man, we should have listened to this guy. Yeah. He's so amazing. I want to go back and watch those again, too, in the run-up for the documentary. That's a really good idea. It just reminds me, too, on Amazon, Bosch is back.

I saw. I was going to talk to you about that. Yeah. I watched the first episode. It's awesome. I'm going very slowly because there's only three. Right. It sucks. There's only a couple episodes. Yeah. That was a big, splashy ad when I launched Amazon Prime. Mm-hmm. Yeah.

It was originally supposed to be on the IMDb channel, but they've changed the name. Right. But, yeah. I watched the first episode. It is classic Bosch. I love it. So, hopefully, they'll keep going. Cool. Ups and doodads. I have a little iPhone case follow-up, Brian.

Mm-hmm. So, remember I got that Peel Super Thin case when I got the iPhone 13 Pro? Yes. And I said it was the best case I've ever owned in my life? Yes. I'm standing by that because I got the Peel Super Thin regular case that they make in Sierra Blue. I wanted something with a flat back on the back of it, you know, with just color instead of the translucent.

Yeah. That was a big mistake. Those hard cases that they make, they are super thin. Like, so thin to be generally useless, as far as I can tell. And it makes it extremely slippery. So, for the same price, I still recommend the Peel Super Thin case.

Get the clear, soft version. That's the winner. The hard ones, man, they're so slippery, they make it worse. They definitely make it worse. And for $43, you want a case that doesn't fly across the room. That's a good idea, yes. And 1Password 8 is out.

Did you get a chance to do your upgrade? I did. I did. It's nice. It definitely fits in with the look and feel of macOS much better now. It seems to work a lot better. I know that you saw that I logged into our GOG podcast Twitter account from Firefox because you went, Firefox?

And I was like, well, I'm just going through and installing all the browser plugins for iPassword 8. And yeah, it's my backup, backup, backup, backup browser. Probably could have used that this morning because we had so many fun issues. Yes. There's a review from Jason Snell that I threw up in the show notes that you can check it out.

But he agrees with us. It is an upgrade. But you do have to have their monthly subscription plan to take advantage of it because 1Password 8 does not have local vaults anymore. Nope. So I made that switch a long time ago. And since I always upgraded every year, the price actually worked out to be the same.

Yes. Good upgrade. That works out. Yep. All right. And Apple has announced that they will be discontinuing the iPod Touch, the last remaining of the iPod line. And it will only be available in stores while supplies last. So I expect a lot of silly people to spend a lot of money buying something that they'll never use just for memories.

Already done. Sold out in the entire... I figured. Sold out. Yep. I thought about it. If they were still selling classics, I would have bought one in an instant. Oh, me too. A 60 gig classic. Here's the thing. You can get... People have taken the classics, put in flash drives, and revamped them, like refurbished them, and sell them on eBay now.

I almost got one. How do you get your music onto it now, though? Yeah. You got to like... I mean, you can... I think there's other software that you can use, or maybe the Mac stuff still works, but here's the thing. That time is long gone. It's gone. Forget it. Yep. Move on.

You know? It's... I love the wheel, too. I love the iPod 1, the classic click wheel that moved, not the little touch wheel. But there is the iPod Classic player for your browser, if you would like to, you know, live it up a little bit. Right.

Link to that will be in the show notes. We talked about it before. It's fun. It's neat. It's cute. Yeah. It's kind of sad that so many people went out and bought them, because I could have told them that iPod Touches are garbage. They're just garbage. They are. I had one. It was horrible. Yeah. The screen is terrible. You can't see it. It's pixelated. It gets dirty.

It's plastic-y. Garbage. And in fun news, they are still working on Photoshop for iPads. Okay. They have done a big update this week that has a bunch of new features. The content-aware fill is in, remove background is in, subject selection is in.

It is turning into one of the coolest iPad apps. I've been waiting for these updates, because the promise is there, you know, that they're trying to get to as much parity as they can to the desktop version, which they'll never get to, let's be honest. But for an iPad app that you hold in your hands, that you can transfer stuff straight from the camera to your iPad, do work on it, and get it out using, like, 5G on your iPad, that's a whole mobile workstation now with Photoshop.

It is so nice. Very cool. Now, this next one in here, I don't know if you've seen this, Brian, it's been making in the rounds. It's a Tandem Shower by Buna. This is a Kickstarter. You have to see the photos to understand what the fuck is, this is, this is a device that you clamp onto your shower head to give you another shower head on the other side so you can take showers with somebody.

Yeah, they've made almost $100,000 in pledges. $693,717 as of this writing with four days to go for 3,066 backers. Oh, I'm sorry. It was Canadian pricing that came up for me. I got geolocated. Oh, yeah, yeah.

No, in real money, it's $693. Why? Now, Brian, we are men of the world. We have showered with many people, I'm sure. Yes, yes. Yeah. This solves no problem whatsoever that I've had taking a shower with another person.

Nope. But I do like the graphics on the Kickstarter page when you go down are like the infomercials where they try to sell the fact that cooking pasta is so hard without their device. No standing in the cold, no perilous side switching, a hot water hug, bougie on a budget.

There's nothing bougie about this. I would call this white trash. I'm going to put this up there with the bed rack or the bed rack shotgun holder. Remember that one where you slide the shotgun rack under your bed so you can be ready at any time? Yep. There you go. The funny thing is most people that are going to be buying these have never showered with another person.

Yeah. I mean, it would actually make it less fun. Part of the fun is like doing splashy, splashy. Yeah. Yeah. That's half of it. Yeah. Did you see the picture of the guy in the video when you scroll down? Yes. I'm pretty sure he's not utilizing all the features of this, like the other person in the shower.

I mean, yeah, you can't. Here's the fun part. Yeah. You can use it by yourself. So your butt stays, you know, warm at all times. I guess. I suppose. I, again. Yeah. So you're just getting it, you're getting it from both sides. Again, I've managed to cook pasta for years without the special devices I see on the infomercials.

I've showered, butt cold, front warm all my life, and it's not really a problem. I know. But Brian, you can be bougie on a budget. 2,907 people think this is a great idea. Oh, no. We're up to, we've, we've passed the 3,000 mark now. Okay. I think after this show comes out, they might break 10 because everybody, everybody that listens to the show is going to want one of these.

Oh, yeah. Oh. This one's for you though. I found this one for my dad because it's his birthday coming up and he's retired now and works in the garden all day, every day, and apparently has been using a little red wagon that my brother had when he was a baby to haul everything around the yard.

So I got a, I got a call from my step-mom saying, hey, get him a wheelbarrow. So this is a new wheelbarrow, Brian, and you're a homeowner. And I think you could use this wheelbarrow because I think I'm going to get one too. I love this thing. It's out of stock. Yeah. Damn it.

Oh, no. My birthday is also coming up and I hope my wife, this comes up in my wife's advertising feed now that I've clicked on it because this is genius. I love this thing. It's the AeroCart 8-in-1 Yard Cart Wheelbarrow and Dolly. It does everything.

I 100% need this as a homeowner. Yep. I think you should order it now because if you use coupon code REAL20 at checkout, you get 20% off. Yeah. Well, a little bit of follow-up here. Here's what I'm worried about, about ordering something that's out of stock. You remember those around the house pants I ordered over a month ago?

Ah, the traveling pants. Yes. They have finally arrived. And guess what? Did they fit? I don't like them. I have to say, I understand why Amazon is one of the biggest companies in the world.

The convenience of ordering, getting immediately, and being able to return immediately if unsatisfied is something. So I have a feeling that there may be a similar product to this, maybe not as fancy looking or as nice, that might be out there that I could probably get quicker.

We'll see. See, this is the case for that Amazon does this make my ass look fat camera that they had for a while. True. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, well. That's a sad thing that they finally got there and it's gone. Yeah. Oh, well. And Barrett wrote in, because we need more shit to add to the Great Pacific Garbage Pile, Snapchat's flying camera.

Yes, this is a selfie drone called Pixie. It's cute. It's cute. And we'll sell as well as spectacles did, I'm sure. I don't think anybody really needs this. Or wants it. I don't know. It's for the price, they definitely don't need it. It's $230.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, I guess it solves the problem of having your arm outstretched in your selfies, if that's a problem. That's pretty much it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You still do have to stick your arm out because it only takes off and lands from your hand because it's cute. But I watched the video on it and I don't see the use case, honestly.

I mean, it's the same thing with the snap glasses. And apparently they're getting better. Like the latest version was better than the Ray-Bans that Meta threw out. But yeah, they're just trying shit. They're throwing shit against the wall and see what sticks. Yeah. They literally are.

Yep. DJI, on the other hand, has put out a new drone, the Mini Pro 3. Oh my God. Oh my God. I want it so bad. But I didn't order it and I'm not going to. We will have an update next week about the DJI Mini 3. See, here's the thing.

I look at it and I'm like, oh my God, that would be so cool. And then I look immediately to my left at eye level, sitting on the shelf, are two drones that I never fly. Yeah. Okay. I think this one you should not buy. But I'm not a betting man, but I would bet that you will own this at some point.

Oh, at some point, absolutely. Just not today. Okay. They're sold out. There's a great little article over on Medium by Clive Thompson called, I Got an AI to Autocomplete Famous Novels. It's fun. It's a fun read. Anybody point this at Game of Thrones?

Oh, I don't think he did Game of Thrones. Because you guys are never going to get that book, just so you know. He's never going to finish it. Ever. It's 6 a.m. here in sunny California and I had a very nice intro for Dave because Dave is back, but screw it.

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. Welcome back, Dave. It's early. Thank you. Let's get this party started. Yes, indeed. Thank you. It's good to be back.

I appreciate you got all your patience while I was away for a couple weeks taking care of family business and family stuff. So it's good to be back, but it was necessary to be away. Yes, I agree. Very glad to have you back.

Yeah, glad to have you back. And I know that it's a trying time and there's a lot that you both need the personal space, plus there's just so much stuff you have to deal with when this happens. So, yeah. Yeah, yeah. So just a couple things. I think, you know, everybody knows my mom passed away a couple weeks ago, and so I've been working through that.

You know, everyone has been wonderful, and I have plenty of family around me. My immediate family is very close. We all live near each other. We see each other all the time. You know, in some ways that makes it harder because we all saw each other all the time, and my mom was at the center of that.

So that's hard. And, you know, settling into new realities and new rhythms and all that kind of stuff is going to be interesting. It struck me that one of the things that I'm going to miss most about my mom is all the food. You know, my mom could orchestrate a meal.

She was one of those old school, you know, 1950s June Cleaver housewives who could orchestrate a meal. Everything came out perfectly timed. It was all hot, ready to go. Of course, she didn't eat, you know, until everyone else had eaten. Of course not. Yeah. Yeah. But so just settling into all those kinds of things.

So I just want to appreciate – say how much I appreciate all the kind words from everyone. I've gotten cards and letters and gifts and just, you know, thinking about you notes on Twitter and elsewhere, and it really does help a lot. So I appreciate all of that.

A couple of other things I thought maybe key into some things that have been talked about here before. You know, my mom was sick for about a year before she passed and had some tough times. I had some mental health issues, some dementia, you know, sort of was robbed of her dignity at times.

And I have to say, Brian, I know this is something you touched on when your father passed that I feel like my heart has been broken by our healthcare system. Yeah. You know, I live in a nice community. I live in an affluent community.

We have a very good hospital, or at least I thought it was. It's part of the Johns Hopkins system, you know, world-class hospital system. And a month or so before my mom passed, she spent 10 days in the hospital and came out worse than when she went in.

Yeah. And I guess because I hadn't had that direct interaction with a hospital in that way before, I didn't expect that. I wouldn't have thought that was possible, you know, certainly not in my community with my family and, you know, and so that broke my heart.

The opposite of that were the people in hospice who, when we switched my mom to hospice care, the hospice people were amazing. It is a different kind of care. It is a different kind of people. I'm not a religious person, but I would call these people angels.

You know, they are a special kind of person. And my mom's experience just changed. The difference between trying to fight disease and cure people and switching over to trying to make sure that someone passes with dignity and without pain was remarkable.

So for anyone who's listening out there who goes through this, it is hard to throw that switch to say, okay, we're switching to hospice care because you're admitting that the end is coming and you don't know. Yeah. Well, but that's a really good point because I think the Western attitude towards death is that it's unnatural.

Yeah. And must be fought at any cost. And I think that ultimately, some of the doctors, I think, kept my mother from having a more peaceful transition than she otherwise could have in the time before we switched her over to hospice.

So my point is, you know, I know how hard it is to make that transition to hospice care. But I hope for you that your experience will be like mine, that when you make that transition, it is a whole different level of care. And it's very – they take good care of your loved ones.

They are special people. And I'm glad that we did that. The other recommendation I'll make, the thing that I learned probably about, I don't know, six months ago, I hired a elder care concierge, basically.

Yeah. Someone – this is someone who knows what they're doing, knows the system, knows how everything works, knows what's possible, what's not possible, what's practical, knows who to call and how to get stuff done. And it was one of the best investments I'd ever made for my family.

Yeah, we did the same thing. They weren't just weight in gold. Yeah. Yeah. So know those people are out there and that they – if you have the means, totally worth it. Yeah, because the system is so insane. It's impossible to figure out.

These people make a career of it, particularly when you throw in health insurance and what they will and won't cover, and it was just so difficult. And you have to be an advocate because nobody's going to come to you and give you options and you've got to figure it out yourself and any help you can get with that to let you know what the possibilities are so you can make an informed decision is crucial.

Yeah. Yeah. You can also – I would also recommend that if you have parents that are moving into just long-term care, long-term elder care, find one of those specialists beforehand because what they did for us with my grandmother because we dealt with my grandmother for 10 years with dementia and moving her from place to place as she would decline.

And we had specialists that helped my dad actually navigate how to get into one of the harder places to get into and do it with the right paperwork, the right insurance, and all that stuff. And it ended up saving a lot of money and putting her into a better place that we couldn't get into without someone like that.

So once you even think about – once you have to start going down that road, find some of those people and just get their business cards and have them on the back burner ready to go because it is very important. And I didn't know these people existed. So I suspect a lot of people are in the same boat.

You know, so I share that hoping that it will help someone along the lines. You know, I – my own personal journey, I think it's fair to say I'm struggling. I have good days and bad days. I have good minutes and bad minutes.

The best analogy I've come up with so far for how I'm feeling is sometimes you go to the beach and you're standing next to the shore and you'll have your back to the ocean and a wave will sneak up on you and just whack you in the back, right?

Yeah. And it's – and that wave – and it's a diffuse – it's not like someone punches you because it hits your whole body at the same time. And it's this diffuse force that's stronger than you that you can't overcome and it's a whole body kind of thing.

And that's how I feel when a wave of grief comes over me. It's that sort of thing. And there's no good fighting it. I have to ride the wave. You know, I know I'm going to make it to shore. I'm standing at the shore.

I'm not going to drown, but in that moment, I know, you know, all I can do is turn myself over to this and know that it's going to pass. So that's kind of where I am. It's hard. I think I'm still in the – a little bit of the downhill.

I'm not out of the valley yet, but, you know, just working every day. Like I said, you know, I have a lot of support, and so I'm grateful for that, but it's still hard. It's still hard. Yeah, I was thinking of you the other day, actually. Well, first, those waves, they come less.

They don't stop ever. But on the plus side, they start to feel – there's a tinge of happiness that comes with them because you float into the memory more and the grief kind of dissipates a bit. It's still always there, particularly I'm coming up on the fourth year now, and my father and I always watch the World Cup together.

He passed during the World Cup. The World Cup is coming up, so I don't know how I'll feel about that. There'll be a lot of memories. But the reason I actually thought of you is, again, my father's been gone for almost four years now, and Jason will relate to the beginning of the story, and then he will check out when it's no longer about dogs and it's about people.

My mom – Ah, still an asshole at six in the morning. My mom and dad have always had dogs. They had dogs before I was born. I grew up with dogs. My parents kept having dogs after my sister and I moved out of the house.

And on Monday, my mom had to put her dog to sleep because age, all that sort of stuff. And she was upset, obviously. And I didn't know this dog particularly well, but, you know, it's sad when anybody loses a pet that they've loved for years and years and years.

But it seemed to be hitting my mom particularly hard. And I didn't really understand why until she mentioned that, you know, this was the last dog that she would have ever shared with my father. If she gets another dog, it will be solely her dog. And my mom and my father shared dogs all their lives.

So there's always – I just – when you lose somebody, there's a hole that just never gets filled. But it does get easier. Yeah. Yeah. Well, again, thanks for all of your patience and, you know, support and love and all that stuff. I appreciate it.

It does help. It really does. And thanks again to all the listeners who've reached out. I appreciate it. You know, I'll get there, but it's a journey. So I'm on it. Man, this is nowhere near as fun as talking about Star Wars. All right.

Well, let me pivot for us because I had something very interesting happen to me that is perfect fodder for our show. I had my most interesting your phone is listening to you experience that I've had yet. Awesome. So my best friend in the world, you know, who I met the first day of high school and I've been best friends with ever since.

He and I, we have a standing date on Sunday mornings. We talk on the phone. I take a walk. We used to get together and do it in person. COVID happened. Now we just do it on the phone. I take a walk around the lake near my house. I walk around there.

He goes outside and does his gardening. And we just spend about an hour on the phone together just catching up and, you know, just making sure we stay connected. So he is a 3D animator. And one of the jobs that he has is he does animations for the, I believe it's like the National Chemical Safety Board or some, it's some organization like that.

And basically- Barn burners. Yeah. Well, when there's an accident, these folks come in and figure out what happened. And my friend works with a team who does the animations to illustrate what happened. So I'm talking on the phone with my friend and he's explaining to me this video that they just made that was really cool and he was really happy about the parts that he did and it looked really good.

And it was this industrial accident where some people had mixed some stuff incorrectly and it created some hydrogen and there was an explosion and, you know, people died and it was tragic and all that kind of stuff. But we were talking about some of the technical details about how hard it is to animate foam and this and that and, you know, just talking about this, talking shop about this video, right?

Great. I go home. I'm sitting later in the day on my couch. I'm scrolling through YouTube. What comes up? That exact video. From an account I have never watched a video from on before, a topic I have never searched on before.

But that exact video came up as recommended on my YouTube feed. You know, we had a similar incident. I think it was Barrett in Pittsburgh one time. He was out for a walk and ran into a band, obscure little band, nobody, came home and then turned on YouTube and there were videos of the band waiting for him.

Well, I thought about that. So I thought, okay, because we know proximity is a thing, right? Yeah. If they see, if you get close to someone else and it's, and the algorithm says, oh, these two people were near each other, right? So I thought about that. I thought about, is it, is the fact that we were on the phone together being tracked?

I don't think that's what it is. The best answer I can come up with is he and I share videos back and forth. There you go. On YouTube. Yep. And so I think YouTube knows, hey, these two guys are interested in the same sorts of things.

So even though he had not shared that video with me, YouTube said, yeah, these two share videos all the time. This guy has been watching this video more than once, right? Because it was something that he'd been working on. And so this must be an interesting video. I'll share this with his buddy.

And it did. And there you go. I think it's particularly strange that I, well, it's almost a self-selecting sample. It happens to those of us that are actually very careful about our privacy because the algorithms have so little to choose from because we don't, we, we, you know, I personally, you know, have removed myself from all the interest lists.

I, I use VPNs a lot of the time. I, I, there's, I don't give the algorithms a lot to feed off of. So proximity and other friends is like the other friends interest is the only thing it can get. It's why I like 99% of my ads or whatever the fuck my wife is searching for. So.

Right. Right. Exactly. Yeah. The Christmas ruiner. Exactly. Exactly. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Exactly. Yeah. I've got one for you that happened to me and my roommate yesterday. And so, uh, I talked about this at the top of the show.

So, uh, people will know already, but Dave, uh, just so you know, uh, friend of the show, Brian Blondell. Happy birthday, Brian. It's his birthday today. Uh, we, we went walking on Tuesday and right after our walk, he, uh, uh, sends me a text says, uh, sorry, bro. I got, I got COVID.

I'm like, oh shit. So dealing with that right now. Wait, it's the waiting game. Do I have it? Do I not? I walked with him two days in a row while he was, you know, whatever. Yeah. That's the thing. So he gets, I get a text from him and we're talking about his next steps and, you know, trying to coordinate, figuring out just what's what.

And he mentioned he's getting the Pfizer pill, you know, the one that you can take five days when you have symptoms. And I'm like, okay. Then I start talking to my roommate. I'm like, oh, he's going to get the Pfizer thing. He's got to call, blah, blah, blah. Within 30 seconds, there was an ad that came through Pandora on my Sonos for the goddamn Pfizer COVID-19 pill that we've never heard before.

So that one was really true. We both like, we're just like, that's the pill that we were just talking about. And, you know, in my head, I'm like, there is absolutely no way that they could have known because I got it in a text and we're talking in a room that has no Alexas, but it does have a bunch of phones.

But, you know, in my head, I'm like, there's just absolutely no way. This is a prime example of the coincidence that comes along with this. And then I'm thinking, well, shit, are these guys mining iMessage? That's, you know, that's where your brain goes. Right. Yeah. Because that one was trippy. Don't you think it was probably proximity?

Don't you think it was probably proximity? Certainly, Brian Blondell has Googled this and you've been walking with them. So there you go. You know, there's always a way to track this. And like I said, I think it happens so spectacularly for us and so noticeably because we're so careful with our privacy in general and the algorithms are just grasping at straws.

That's a really interesting point. Yeah. Yeah. And we never take the time to backtrace it. We don't Sherlock that shit. We just assume. We look for the, you know, the path of least resistance and it's like, oh, well, they must have been listening to the conversation I was just having, not realizing that, yes, there are so many other vectors.

And I like what you're saying, Brian, about the fact that we starve them for signals. So they try and find it wherever they can. Yeah. It's so glaring when it actually shows up. It's why on Facebook, like, you know, the suggested friends and all that sort of stuff, like I have no connections at all to any of my co-workers, but all Facebook can throw up anymore for suggested friends are my co-workers because of proximity.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Well, the other thing I want to highlight today is, you guys know, I'm a longtime Macintosh user. I like my Apple devices. I like my iPhone. I like my AirPods.

I've liked, oh, you know, going back to the Apple II. I'm an Apple fanboy, right? Hashtag fanboy, yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Love all that stuff. I just want to, and I love, love, love the new M1 Macs. In fact, bury the lead.

I got a new MacBook Pro this week. Ooh. Yeah, so. Nice, aren't they? Loving it. Loving it. Oh, just, it may be the best laptop I've ever had. It's just, yeah, just a really. Not maybe. They are. They are. Oh, hands down. Yeah, it's a very gratifying piece of hardware.

Wish I was capable of the level of techno lust that I was in my younger days. But so be it. Do you have an iPad? I have an iPad Pro, yes. Have you used the universal control yet? I have not, no.

It is magic. Now that you have an M1 Mac, you can use that, and it is so cool. I just, it happened accidentally to me the other day. I'm sitting on my couch, got my laptop on my lap, and I've got my iPad sitting on the table doing whatever, and I just accidentally moved my cursor over, and boom, I'm controlling my iPad.

And I'm like, wait a minute. It just did it. I didn't have to do anything. No dongles, no software. It just did it. And I was like, now that is cool. That is so damn cool. Yeah. You'll find little things like that that come along with these M1s that are just like, wow, that used to take four years.

Now it's done. Yeah. I wish we had Bryce still with the M1s. How cool would that be? Yeah, Bryce. Bryce is cool. We could be making techno rave flyers for, you know, forever now. Good old Kai living in his castle somewhere. Kai's the reason I'm in this business, so I love Kai.

So I got a fundraiser coming up. I figured I've been put in charge of audio and music for this little local nonprofit that I'm helping out with. I figured, all right, fine, I'll take my new MacBook Pro. I will use Apple Music to be my background automated DJ, just play some dinner music behind the scenes.

I've been using Apple Music for a few years on my iPhone, have a family account for Apple Music. We share music. We share playlists and on and on. So I figure, all right, I'll just activate Apple Music on my MacBook Pro and everything will be great.

Let me tell you, Apple Music on Mac OS sucks. Oh, it's bad. It is so, I mean, it is so bad. It is embarrassingly bad. Yeah. I got everything, I got all my accounts logged into, and I couldn't do anything, couldn't save a playlist, couldn't download music to the device.

It just popped up and said, there's been an error. Thanks, Apple. Thanks. Thanks for that descriptive, you know. Johnny, I've wrote that one on the way out the door. He's like, you have an error. There's been an error. Right. Yeah, that's horrific. So two days later, magically and mystically, it just started working.

So now it's syncing. It works. I can download stuff. But it took two days for the MacBook Pro to, after I activated the account, to get its hooks into iCloud and go, oh, right, music. Oh, great. Terrific. So I included a YouTube video here.

I will have in the show note links that someone else got to this first and has a lovely and hilarious journey through Apple Music on macOS of just how bad it is. It is embarrassing for a company that claims to be about design.

And I guess it's even more embarrassing because there's so many things that they do get right that when they get it so blatantly wrong, it just shines a bright light on it. Well, particularly for it being music and because an argument can be made that the reason that Apple is a, you know, billion dollar company is because of the of their pivot to music and how they made, you know, how they made the modern Walkman.

And that's what got people used to carrying Apple devices in their pocket, which then led to the phone, which then led to. So to be so bad in this area that really trailblazed for them is just kind of like you said, it's embarrassing reality check. They've never had good music software.

iTunes has always sucked. So the fact that Apple Music, but it was the first to suck, Jason. It was. Well, I don't know. I don't know. When amp, when amp was sucking before iTunes, I believe. That's true. Has there ever been a truly good music app on the desktop?

Is there been one where you've said? Yes, a double a double cassette deck on my desktop. Brian's boombox. Fair enough. Fair enough. Yeah. All right. All right. What else is going on? Shall we talk some cybersecurity?

Why not? We can talk it for a moment or two since we don't have Star Wars for a few more weeks. Can we breeze through some things? Yeah. Yeah, I saw this over at our friends Know Before and Stu Sowerman's site. It's a wave of crypto muggings hits London's financial district.

And I would like to say for the record that, yeah, we knew this was going to be coming because we talked about it on the show long, long ago. And I would play the original clip, but that would require me to go find it. And I actually, I did find it. I think it's from episode 530 something where I talked about the Rolexes in Chicago and people would steal Rolexes by cutting people's arms off.

And I said that it was going to happen. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That was always the thing. You were on the show. I was actually talking to you about this story. I don't remember that. Wow. That really says something about my skills as a storyteller, I tell you. Oh, probably more my memory in the cloud that I'm in right now. But go on. So, yeah, it was a thing because my dad used to sell security systems.

So he told me the stories about how people are never, ever secure. We just sell the illusion of security. And he was telling me about people with Rolexes in Chicago who would basically, people would walk around with machetes in the 70s. And if you're on the L and they see a Rolex, it's faster for them to cut your hand off and run with it than it was to, you know, mug you and take the watch off you.

Now, this has a hint of, you know, urban legend to it. A little bit. But it still drives the point home that if you wear a Rolex. But you look at Beverly Hills nowadays, people are doing smash and grabs with people with fancy watches every day now. It's one of them things.

Even follow homes. So to know that, okay, there are now crypto millionaires out there who can't shut the hell up and are out in public taking pictures of where they're going to be. And you know, they live on their phones. So what's happening? Yes, people are getting mugged and having people having the muggers are having them unlock their phones and transferring out their crypto.

Saw it coming. Saw it coming. It's just your crypto or your life. Yeah, that's pretty much it. So, you know, don't leave the home with your, you know, with your regular phone. Take a decoy. Take a flip phone decoy if you have to. I mean, I guess an upside right now is that that crypto is quickly becoming worthless.

So and our next story. Yes, this is ties right in nicely to the fall of Coinbase in real time. I just saw this one this morning because we saw that their stock tanked yesterday on their earnings report.

But hidden in their earnings report was a little bombshell that I don't think anybody knew about, which is that if Coinbase actually does go bankrupt, all the crypto that they are holding for you, you can lose because it will become their property and you just become someone who there's one of their creditors.

So you have to. Yeah. So I just saw this. This was posted on inside. I'm sure it was buried in the EULA somewhere. Yeah, but it was front page on inside.com today. So I'm guessing that right now is people wake up and start to dump the smell of the crypto.

Yeah. Let's let's look at the cash app right now. And like I said, the only reason I keep the cash app is for those little alerts that keep showing up. It's down 5.28 percent today. Bitcoin is at twenty eight thousand three hundred. Oh, just went down to three hundred thirty five from three hundred thirty eight. You can just watch this all day.

It's it's free. If you don't have any. Yeah, I have to say I don't have any sympathy for the crypto bros who who've been pumping this and the scammers and all those folks. My heart does go out to the people who innocently got caught up in this or even just the people who are hobbyists who just didn't know better out of ignorance or maybe, you know, too much enthusiasm, that sort of thing.

It's a shame. There's I'm I'm seeing lots of reports of just talks of people being suicidal on on the discussion forums about some of these cryptocurrency things because they've lost everything. Well, you know, it's like you said, it's hard to have sympathy.

I mean, you feel just on a human level, you know, these people are suffering a lot and you don't want anybody to kill themselves. But, you know, from day one on the show, I was saying and screaming at the top of my lungs, don't put any money into this that you wouldn't. It's called Vegas money.

Don't put your life savings into this and diversify. Number one, even if you want to put a lot in, but never put in more than you would be willing to lose and on a trip to Vegas and people bet the house on this stuff because social engineering and Elon Musk pumping and dumping and it's sad.

Yep. I know I know one person who lost their they were they're saving up to buy a house and then they, you know, when the big wave hit and everybody was going crazy, they believe the hype and put in, you know, more money than they should have right before it started to go down. And, you know, they couldn't get their house.

Yeah. I mean, they I think they lost, you know, I think I think they pulled out at like 50. But, you know, buy at 67, lose it to pull out at 50. Come on. It's a hit. You know, that's that's a hit. Yeah. I got to be able to go on. You got to hold on on Twitter. Yeah. I saw someone on Twitter saying that there's the irony of that, you know, the crypto folks who were against any regulation and it would have been the very regulation that would have protected them in this case.

And so they don't have that as a backstop. Gee, who could have seen that coming? Hmm. Yeah. I wonder who. I wonder what amazing podcasts out there could be telling you about this from the get. I did look it up and our first instance of the mentioning mentioning of Bitcoin on this program was episode 10 with Joey Rabier.

Boy, you've been you're like our own historian now. Here's here's what I've done with it. Yeah. With that. Well, not even with that. I have otter foo with, you know, that big cash that we have coming in. I have transcribed all of the past episodes.

So now I can search. Oh, nice. Yeah. Let's not make that public. No, because they're terrible transcripts. So you have to be really smart about how you search because you have to think like an AI and say, what does that think that that sounds like?

Then you search for that and misspellings and things like that. But yeah, no, I have I have everything loaded into otter so we can find this this old stuff now. But and I was thinking, I'm like, man, can we put this out there like on a wiki where the fans can help us? And I'm like, oh, no, no, no.

That would be bad. We've been on the Internet long enough to know that that would be a bad idea. Yeah, yeah. Well, it seems we've lost Brian again. So, Dave, thanks for coming back on. Glad you're back. Glad you're doing somewhat OK. I know it's going to long haul, but thank you for sharing.

Definitely. Thank you for sharing. It means a lot to us to know that we can help you. So everybody reach out. Give Dave big furry hugs. There you go. Right. A big furry bear hug. That's great. I love it. All right, guys. Love you guys. Thank you. I do appreciate it.

And I'll talk to you guys next time. Closing shout outs. Over at Patreon, we've got John. Welcome, John. Thank you, John. Over at PayPal, we've got Breed, Mark, Ralph, Miles, Sherry, and Tremendous. Tremendous.

Sunday, Sunday, Sunday. Over at our tip jar, we've got Anne, Andrew, and Jeff. And I would like to point out to everybody, we are starting a program soon where we will have ad-free versions, not just on Patreon, but also available on Apple and Spotify. We just ran into a few technical hurdles, but it's coming soon.

The process is underway. So you'll be able to just press a button and get rid of the ads. Yay. There you go. For all three people on Spotify. And a big shout out to H-Sleep customer support, Melissa and Joe. They got the job done. Not only did they send me a new sheet for my H-Sleep, they sent me a new mattress as well.

So thanks, guys. All right. Nice. Yeah. Until next time, I'm Brian Schulmeister. And I'm Jason DeFillippo. Thanks for listening to Grumpy Old Geeks. If you enjoyed the show, visit GOG.show slash donate to help keep us on the air and 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. Just look for that little share button in the app that you're listening to right now. Show notes for this episode are at GOG.show slash 553. 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. Is that it? Yeah, that's it.

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