593: This Is the Way

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. I am back recording in the now office at my mother's house in lovely Anaheim, California. Did that used to be your bedroom when you were a child? No, this was actually my sister's. My bedroom was the other one. Has it been kept as a shrine?

No, no, no. So, yeah, it's good to be back, man. Every time I come here, the struggle is real. I'm just like, why did I leave again? Well, trust me, everybody asks that question. Yeah, well, you know, I struggle with it every time. And then I had a very real conversation with an old friend the other day.

I met her for a coffee and she's got two school-aged children and she's like, yeah, every day when I drop them off, I worry and I wonder, is today the day that it's not going to be a live fire drill and an actual live fire? Well, Brian, we do make ballistic backpacks nowadays. I've linked to some of the show notes.

I know, I know, I know. And I just can't go that dystopian. I like that in my books, not in my reality. Well. But speaking of dystopian in my reality. Yes. Yes. OpenAI's new GPT-4 can understand both text and image inputs. So meme away. And let's see how we can destroy it by killing it with memes.

Yeah. I do like the tagline. It's a harbinger of a new golden age of misinformation. Perfect. Perfect. I do. I like it. I like it a lot. Yeah. We can't do the videos or the image stuff just yet. They're working on that with other folks, but eventually it'll get rolled out.

I posted a few things. They said that chat GPT for plus users now has the option to use GPT-4. So I selected that option. And then the first thing I asked chat GPT was, which version of GPT are you running on? He's like, I'm running on GPT-3. Well, apparently GPT-4 is too busy taking exams right now because not only have they passed simulated exams such as the BAR, the LSAT, the GRE, and various AP tests,

scores have increased to around the top 10% of all test takers compared to GPT-3.5, which scored in the bottom 10%. So that's great. Yeah. The thing is, you know, I've looked at it. I've seen the – I've seen some of the outputs from it.

No, they also – by the way, they did release Mid Journey, the new version of Mid Journey this week. It's been a big week for generative AI. Right. And I love how somebody put it. It's like, yeah, you know, the new Mid Journey is great. It can actually do hands fairly okay now, but why does everything look like a fucking prog rock album cover?

It's in its rush stage. It is. And I'm telling you, that cannot be unseen. Right. It's all hot dog fingers after the Oscars. Oh, my God. So, yeah. It has been a week for AI. The only other bit that I wanted to point out from these articles, GPT-4 hallucinates facts at a lower rate than its predecessor and does so around 40% less of the time, which, as the article is quick to point out, 40% less is not the same as solved.

No shit. No. Oh, man. So we've – I think we've finally gotten to the point on the show where we can turn back into – or at least I can turn back into myself. Oh, great. Because I have been enamored. I've been enamored by the, you know, the GPT revolution and all that.

I canceled my mid-journey account yesterday because I'm like I'm not going to keep spending that much money for something that is just a gimmick that I – I've kind of – you know, I've squeezed all the juice that I feel I need out of it. I was biting my tongue on that. But, you know, have your fun. I'm done. Yeah, I've had my fun. I've had my fun. And so that's out. Because I forgot – I thought it was like $20 a month, but it's $30 a month, which is not insignificant.

$10 too far, my friend. It is $10 too far. It is $10 too far. There's a show title for you. If my voice sounds a little froggy today, right before the episode, I slammed a giant carnitas burrito with I think about three-quarters of a bottle of Tapatio and my eyes are bleeding right now.

Oh, my God. Hot stuff. I just consider the froggy basically Southern California. You can hear it in me as well as my body is trying to adjust to like sun and dirt and – I was going to say pollution. Beach sand and pollution, yes. Yeah. It is one of those days.

So I read some Cory Doctorow this week, which I thought was – Oh, God. Why? Something I haven't done in a while because he does some stuff that's – the thing is Cory is great in small doses. I got his new book and I started to listen to his new book and I kind of wanted to throw my phone against the wall after about 30 seconds because I'm like, oh – because you talk about – you want some reality or you want your reality away from your dystopia.

And his new book is about the gig economy and how everybody is getting fucked as usual. Yeah. And I'm just like, okay, I've read this book before. It's been your last 10. We get a new one. But he does have an article called The AI Hype Bubble is the New Crypto Hype Bubble by Cory Doctorow, which we've said weeks ago.

He just says it in his – he Doctorowifies it. Right. But one thing that he does say that I really, really appreciated was he's like, this shit is not AI. It's not machine learning. It's autocomplete. It really is. Yeah. It kind of is at its heart.

Like it goes out into the internet. It compiles this big database and it matches things. That's it. Yeah. And it just – I mean it's very smart. Well, up to – it's 40% better autocomplete now. But yeah, it's interesting that the thing is – it's starting to flip back.

It's like, okay, this is the greatest thing ever. And now it's just like, oh, shit, now we're stuck with this thing. Now everybody wants it and everybody – it's like a thing. And you know what I really want, Jason. What do you really, really want? I don't want – Tell me what you want, what you really, really want. Okay.

Okay, spice. Spice, Jason. I want – instead of chat GPT, I want chat LSD. I want a 100% unhinged hallucinating chat GPT. That would be good. I'd be down for that. Yeah. Yeah. I think you have to pay extra for that.

I think that's $32.95 a month. But – and I love this. One of the – other people that are working on, you know, these generative text models are coming out slamming OpenAI nowadays because OpenAI has released a research paper saying, quote, unquote, how they did it.

And they didn't say anything about how they did it. So they showed their work and they basically pointed at the black box. Yes. That's it. Which I think is interesting because I talked about this, I think, maybe last episode or two episodes ago about the guy from Adobe who is saying, look, this is not going to get really adopted by corporate America.

Until you can have an audit trail and you can really see what's happening inside the black box. Well, OpenAI is not opening their black box anytime soon because they're saying it's, you know, it's part of their secret sauce, which I think is bullshit and I just don't think they know how it works. I agree with you 100%.

They have no clue. No, this is, you know, this is, you know, they got the tiger by the tail on this one. And it's, you know, granted, you have to take this with a grain of salt because this is coming from the competition. But I think that I think the points are valid. My thing, my thinking that is really starting to, you know, kind of solidify around this is we're putting a lot of power into the hands of one very small piece of kit.

But as we, you and I both know, it's very easy to put your, you know, put your foot on the scale or just even put a pinky on the scale to make these things show up. It's, you know, the algorithm timeline. It's Facebook all over again. Yeah. Which is not working out well for anybody.

No. Well, we'll talk about Facebook in a minute, too, because they're going all in on this shit. Everybody's going all in on this. This is the new blockchain. So we're going to be stuck with it for a while. At least this is kind of entertaining. Blockchain was just annoying. This is entertaining. There will be actual uses that come out of this, you know, not even a thousand, maybe 200 years from now when we're all living in caves, we'll be able to trace Skynet directly back to chat GPT.

Sure, of course. But, I mean, like I've been saying on the show, I've never seen anything adopted so quickly. But now we're getting the backlash because that's inevitable. And that's happening pretty quickly now, too. And it's a toy. It's fun. Yes, you can use it to write some semi-decent PR.

And companies are glomming on to that because we're in the golden age of pink slips right now where because of Musk's decimation of Twitter, everybody's decided that we need to basically can half our workforce. And we'll use this to make up the slack. So good luck with that. I heard there's some other things going on that I've been hearing that a lot of these companies are actually – the attrition rate isn't as high as it used to be because nobody's coming into the office and nobody's getting their quarterly reviews and people aren't getting fired for incompetence.

So they're using this as kind of a way to clear the baffles of the crap, the crap people. And because people are – these people were hiring and firing at the same time for most of these companies because the attrition rate was just not where it needed to be because everybody's quietly quitting.

Well, here, you're loudly fired. Fuck off. You know. I'm really fascinated by how this is playing out because we've been following it now since the beginning. And like I said, I think we get to put our grumpy hats back on soon about this stuff.

I'm looking forward to it. The Copyright Office has put out some guidance on copywriting generative text and images. It is still no bueno. You're not allowed to do it. They won't let you do it because they are the arbiters of copyright. But I linked the PDF in the show notes.

So if you care about that stuff and you want to read something very dry, go for it. Maybe you can have ChatGPT punch it up for you. The rub is, of course, that they have to be able to recognize that it was written by ChatGPT. This is true. This is true, which is, you know.

It's not an exact science. No. It's black boxes on both ends. It is black boxes on both ends. And just because I thought this was funny, I saw this article. It said, would you date a podcast bro? Now, I didn't know, Brian, that we have moved into podcast bro territory.

I know we've had crypto bros. Oh, God, yes. We've had – yes, yes. You've got a podcast has been a fucking joke line in bars for about 10 years now, Jason. About as long as we've been doing this. Oh, shit. Luckily, I locked in a wife early.

Oh, damn it. Oh, I got a dog. Yeah, two of them. I got a couple of dogs. Yeah. So, no. And, yeah, there's just some good quotes in here. It's like, you know, by saying you're a podcaster, you could either work at This American Life or you could be in your mother's basement.

I have done both. I haven't worked for this. Or mother's office. Yes, as you are right now. I'm fine with people, you know, bagging on us. It's like, good. Let everybody else leave. I mean, it's also a bit late. Like, I understood all this stuff when, like, literally everybody had a podcast.

Like, you know, two guys with their big beards who really like IPAs started their podcast about IPAs. Well, we all know those lasted about 10 episodes and then they disappeared. There's been a great calling in podcasting. So, you either have to be really dedicated because there's no money in it or you're one of the few people making a decent scratch.

Well, if there ever was one podcast bro, Hernan Lopez, I would call, is one of the podcast bros of old. He started Wondery, which then sold for gazillions of dollars to, I think, Amazon owns Wondery now.

Well, before he became a podcast bro, he was an executive at 21st Century Fox. And he has now been convicted of basically being a douche when he was an executive at Fox. And I put this in here, too, because I thought it was funny that this is – it's a FIFA scam that he was involved in.

And you like the footballs and FIFA is just a shit show anyway. One not need ad scam after FIFA. That's understood. Oh, true, true. I forgot their synonyms now. Yes, yes. Totally synonyms. You know, shocking, of course, of course, of course.

Bros will be bros and FIFA has always been bros and all sports are corrupt. FIFA is just much more obviously so. They don't even attempt to hide it. Everybody knows. Everybody yells and screams and it sucks. And then the World Cup comes along and shit, I watch it. Yeah. I'd love to see it change, but big money does what big money does, man.

The whole reason that the World Cup was in Qatar and it was moved to the winter instead of being in the summer, it was fucking greed and bullshit and money and shady deals. It just is. That's what it – right? So hello, Silicon Valley Bank.

Yeah. No, I mean it – the timeframe of this, it just takes so long to get anybody convicted nowadays because – Remember when we went to – we went to that podcast movement debacle here in L.A. with Nitro from American Gladiators back then?

Yes. Yeah. Right then was when he got indicted in the beginning because he was keynoting. I just remember this because he was keynoting that day when we were there. I'm like, oh, that's interesting that they're still having him keynoted since he's on the cover of TMZ right now. Well, you know, you got to get attention any way you can get attention, right, podcast movement?

Because we've never been back. No, we have not been back. Don't plan on it. Don't plan on it. Waste of fucking time. Apparently, Microsoft thinks somebody is a waste of time too and that is their responsible AI teams. They're getting closer to Google as the days go on.

Well, that is crazy because, I mean, again, everything is moving so fast. It's like we've forgotten what happened three weeks ago when Bing went a little bit nuts with their AI. I think we should be keeping these ethics teams. Well, here's the thing, though. Microsoft could just lay them off and send them over to OpenAI because OpenAI is actually the ones making the chat GPT crap already.

So it would make more sense. Yes, one should be closer to the black box. I agree. Yes, closer to the metal, closer to the metal. So, you know, we'll see how that goes. But it's still kind of – I think that this is the same as Google. It's like once these teams come back to the C-suite and say, guys, we kind of got a problem here.

They're like, no, we don't. You're fired. They Elon the shit out of those people. Well, there's no way these ethics groups cannot be sitting in the back doing the devil's advocate thing that you and I used to do. And they don't – and the companies don't want to hear it, especially with something that's moving this quickly.

Like nobody wants – this is move fast and break things. And nobody wants somebody in the back corner going, it's breaking things. Yeah. Yeah. Mission accomplished. Mission accomplished. He's broken, senor. Meta is back in the news again because it is now the year of efficiency over at Meta.

10,000 more people. Yes. Go ahead. But I still think they're a net positive in terms of hires from the beginning of the pandemic to now. So there's that, which is never really reported on. Also, I've heard that – I saw an article or two.

I was kind of hoping that there would be some more stuff in here and I've yet to see anything spelling it out plainly, but he's quietly shuttering the metaverse. Oh, yes. We're going to talk about that in one second. Okay. Okay. There's another article I'm putting in here now from Business Insider that some people that are coming out and that were laid off recently are coming out saying they were collecting us to not work because there wasn't enough work, but they didn't want the competition to get us.

So they were hiring and just boxing them kind of like straight out of Silicon Valley. Yeah. Yeah. We don't know what to do with you, but we don't want anybody else to have you. Exactly. I'll happily take that paycheck. Oh, no doubt. No doubt. And I wouldn't bitch about it on TikTok after I was done, stupid people.

God. Yeah. So I put that link in the show notes. And okay. There's a couple of meta stories here. I'm going to run through them real quick there. Meta is definitely changing where they're funding. There's a link from Axios in there, which shows the funding.

So in 2022, they were spending $612.8 million on generative AI, and they were spending $2 billion on the metaverse. That is now flipped on its head, and they are spending more money on AI than they were on the metaverse at its peak.

And the metaverse has gotten down to $586 million now, which is less than they were spending on generative AI. And as we know, Facebook has never had a single unique idea in their life. So they see this as like, oh, God. Okay. Well, let's piggyback on that now, too, so we can have GPT write us our new reels and things like that.

So like you said, you were right. They are moving things around quite a bit. Yeah, because nobody cared. No, nobody cared at all. So which is – and now here's the real interesting thing is Apple is big in the news this week with the, you know, the sedition from people saying, oh, we don't want to release the new Apple AI or AR headset, AR VR headset.

And other people are going, no, we need to release it, which is a stupid argument, just clickbaity. But Apple is coming out this week – or not this week, but this year with the new headset. Apple's stock is going up. Now, when Zuckerberg says he's releasing crap like this, their stock goes down.

So that just shows you the trust level in the companies. Exactly, because Facebook has yet to release any physical product that anybody has ever wanted or cared about. What does Apple release? Physical products. Everything. Literally everything. Yes.

So, yeah, I'm going to try out my Oculus again this week. But it's charged up. It's ready to go. I want to go play darts with Bob. So we were trying to do it last week. I just couldn't get on it. So, yes, the metaverse is in the decline. The pantsless world of the future is now going away.

There are a couple other things here. There's a couple lawsuits going around about meta and the effects that they have on children and blah, blah, blah. There's an article I'll let you – everybody go read it. It's in the show notes about how they were warned about social media addiction and how they were harming kids and they basically swept it under the rug.

Yeah, they don't care. So this is coming out in court filings. Yeah. They don't care. We've been talking about this for almost six years. Because I think about six to seven years ago we first had that article about like Silicon Valley employees do not let their kids use their own products. Right.

Yes. Yeah. They know. They've known. They've known from the get. This is the new cigarettes. Pretty much. Pretty much. Yep. You know, kids, you can have a yacht, but you cannot have an iPad. Exactly. That's kind of how it works. So, yeah.

So same old – you know, same as before. This has all happened before. It will all happen again. What's not going to happen again is NFTs on Instagram and Facebook. Did everybody tell all the good morning people on my Twitter timeline? Could you try again? Oh, my God. I thought you had all those devices unplugged.

It was my fucking watch. Oh, that's funny. Somehow I triggered it on my watch. Sorry, Sarah. You threw me out of my fucking loop there. What were you saying, Brian, before we were so rudely interrupted? I was saying I hope somebody told all the good morning people on my Twitter timeline that the NFTs are dead finally.

No, no. Sean Bonner will still go – he's going down with the ship. Okay. I've got two. I've got Joey and Sean. Those are the only two people that still do the GM shit on my timeline. You should send them fake Titanic NFTs. A Mintberg.

I'll send them a Mintberg. Yeah, so they're pulling the plug on those. They are quote-unquote winding down their support. I'm like, you didn't even finish winding it up. How are you winding it down? God. Sadly, Sesame Street is going to be launching NFTs as well. Whose bright idea was this to kids?

That's awesome. Yeah. That's a great idea. Technically to parents. Well, yes, of course. But who are they marketing it to? Yeah. Mommy, can I have an NFT? What's an NFT? I don't know. Neither do I. Here's $60. Okay.

Thank you. Yes. I hope whoever came up with this plan is going to get fired. That's all I've got. Yeah. Yeah. Sooner than later. Preferably sooner than later. Start a podcast. Or they can move to Elon Musk's new Texas utopia.

Let's file this directly on something that will never happen. Yeah. If it's anything like the Boring Company, he'll build one house. But he's building it next to the Boring Company, which is even funnier. There will be one house, and then he will call it a town and claim that he won.

So there you go. Oh, man. I'm hoping that the Boring Company is – no. Here's what I hope. I hope they build the town. There's like three residents in it. And then the Boring Company goes under too deep and releases the monsters from Tremors.

And then it just – the town gets eaten. It would be perfect. It's a perfect movie. Somebody call it Kevin Bacon. Let's just get it out there. Would you ever live in a town run by that guy? Fuck no. I mean it's ridiculous. You jaywalk, you get fired, and you get kicked out of your home.

Who would want that? Yeah. No. They said you have 30 days to leave if you either leave the company or are terminated. I'm like, Brian, you've bought a house before. I have. It takes a little longer than 30 days, doesn't it? It's a bit difficult. It's a process. Especially nowadays.

But you talk about all the things that are old that are new again. This is the company town with the company store. That's what he wants. He wants to control his employees' entire lives. Facebook tried that. Didn't work for them either. Nope. Same with all of the robber barons of old.

By the way, also, dear Texas, completely against your entire mindset, your independence, your freedom. You're handing over everything to Elon. You should go to Japan to try this. That's where this shit works. True. True, true.

We've got this other one. This came in – I saw this on Discord, so hat tip to whoever posted it. I forgot. I didn't write it down. My bad. There's a guy who accidentally got in the wrong Tesla because the app led him into another Tesla that looked just like his that was parked next door.

Right. OK. I remember back in the day, like I don't know, in the 80s when Dodge had seven different keys for their cars. You had a one in seven chance of opening up every Dodge. This actually worked.

A friend of the show, Bob, had this beat up ass, like 15, 20-year-old Dodge crappy thing, whatever. It was a $20 car, literally a $20 car, I think. And I had a brand-new Dodge convertible. Keys worked in both.

It was great. There you go. Keys worked in both of them. So I think somebody needs to get on this over at Tesla and figure this one out because this is a problem. Yes. Yes. And Twitter's a little bit in the news here. They're coming out with new API pricing. I don't think this is going to see the light of day because everybody is just like, yeah, no.

So they've got new pricing tiers for their API, which they've turned off for everybody and killed all the apps. So would you trust them to use their API again? Especially when tiers will start at $500,000 a year for access to 0.3% of the tweets that are coming through.

Yeah, no thanks. Pass. Yeah. No. No. They're floating that lead balloon. It ain't going to fly. No. Not at all. And now that they don't have my $8 a month, I know they're going under faster than ever. Yes. I stuck with it. I don't have my Twitter Blue.

They did take away my checkmark right on time. Yes. It took me three weeks after I signed up for Blue to get my checkmark. So I only got to use it for a week. So I didn't get my prorated $8 back for not having a checkmark. And also I saw this one on the Discord.

Samsung Space Zoom moon shots are fake and here's the proof. Basically, if you take a picture of the moon, they will try and do some quote-unquote shenanigans to make your picture of the moon kind of look like the moon. And Brian, you have an actual post right after mine that explains how it's done.

Would you like to let us in on that? Well, yes. The kerfuffle here was the proof that basically I took a photo of the moon and they replaced it with somebody else's photo that was much better. Samsung has responded to this. They said that the moon photo detection system it has used since the Galaxy S21, if you have scene optimizer turned on, AI detects when you're taking a clear photo of the moon at 25x zoom or above.

The tech lowers the brightness, captures multiple frames to produce a bright little noise picture, and uses a neural network to enhance the detail using a high-resolution reference image for comparison, a.k.a. it copies and pastes bits of that small picture. Yeah. That big picture replaces yours.

Yeah, yeah. Here's a better one. You can take ours. This isn't an outright fake, they say. Outright. It's only a partial fake. Yeah. So it says it's refining scene optimizer to reduce any potential confusion between taking photos of the actual moon and mirror images of it.

In other words, they're shutting off that bit of code because, yes, they did that. Yeah, they got busted. They got busted. I mean, you got to give them credit. It was a clever idea because the moon doesn't change. You know, the moon is. It's the moon. They'll have to update their photos if something big hits it or we find a monolith.

But otherwise, we're okay. I wouldn't mind that because I've tried to take pictures of the moon and they all look like shit. It's exceedingly difficult to get a good picture of the moon, you know? Yes. We do have a listener that does nothing but take pictures of stuff in the galaxy, though. I can't remember his name, but the photos are always awesome.

Okay. Yeah. We're bad on names today. Sorry, everybody. Forgot to put in the hat tip tag. Well, more AI shenanigans now over at LinkedIn. You can now enhance, in quotes, your LinkedIn profile with AI written, in quotes, suggestions.

Oh, thank you. Well, actually, I'm kind of okay with this because we already know that AI is weeding through resumes at big companies and no real eyeballs see it until after the generative AIs have gone through your resumes. So why not whack-a-mole this? So if AI is going to determine whether or not anybody gets to see it, I'll use AI to make sure I get to the top of the pile.

I'm fine with this. Yeah. If you're going to do it on one end, I get to do it on the other. Yeah. I mean, can you tell, yeah, I mean, at this point, it's like, would you please tell me what it's going to take to get the job and just make the shit up and then give me the job and then we'll figure it out from there. Exactly. We'll build the plane on the way down, as they say.

That's right. GPT it until you make it. Mm-hmm. Well, Sam Altman has taken all that big money that he's made over the years. Sam Altman is the CEO of OpenAI, by the way, for those who aren't paying attention at home. He has spent $180 million investing in a company called Retro Biosciences because now he has all the money he wants to live forever.

They all do. They do. They really all do. But this is the kind of expense that I'm fine with. Go for it. Like, by all means. As long as you share your results. That's right. Oh, it's... Oh, oops. There's the problem.

Yeah. Open Immortality is the new company. See, they want to live forever. They don't want us to live forever, Jason. Yeah. Yeah. You know, but $180 million is nothing to sneeze at. And they did... I checked out the company. They did some really cool stuff with, you know, they're like, instead of building out giant laboratories, he just got shipping containers and built portal laboratories inside them so they could just get up to speed fast.

Because I look at this. Okay, he spent $180 million just investing in this whole thing, bankrolling the whole shenanigans. And then I look at my other news feed where I see it's the maiden or the test voyage of Jeff Bezos' new $500 million mega yacht.

And I'm like, you know what? Sam spent more wisely, I think. I think so, too. Yeah. Well, Sam spent more... I'm not going to say altruistically because this is as selfish as it fucking gets, you know? But it's like, do you want to try and, you know, expand human lifespan?

Or do you want to just bounce around on your boat until you're put in the black box? We know what Jeff took, but we'll see. Yep. I think what we need to do is find Jeff's ex because she funds everything. So maybe get her to throw a few bones at this whole thing. Google is back...

I'm sorry. Alphabet is in the news with Wing because they've been trying to get their wings off the ground for these drone deliveries, which seems like... I mean, now, Brian, we've been talking about this again for, you know, a large handful of years.

It's always 20 years away, right, Jason? Nobody wants this. This thing ain't coming. Nobody wants this. The companies want it. Nobody wants drone delivery. Nobody wants it. No. No. Drones are now in the Bitcoin of... Or, yeah, the Bitcoin of history. Nobody really cares that much anymore. Everybody's got one.

Nobody flies it anymore. I think there's one very narrow market where this stuff should work for, and it's medical field. Like, if you've got a... Yes. If you're trying to get, like, a body part or a liver or something from one hospital... Medicine. Yeah, that sort of thing. Perfect. Great. Awesome. That's what you use it for. Yep.

Do I need it to literally get my fucking buffalo wings? No, I do not. No, you do not. Yeah, I mean, a lot of this stuff was pioneered in Africa by sending these things out into the middle of the bush with medicine for tribes that can't get to it. You know, they have to walk three days to go get some meds, get some Robitussin, put it on a drone.

Perfect, perfect use case. Flying around my neighborhood, like you said, delivering my B-dubs. Fuck you. But that's exactly what they want to do now. They want to turn it into a kind of a ride share for the sky, a fly share. And, you know, Uber it up so anybody can hire it to come make their deliveries and go.

I'm like, no. Take your pivot and shove it. Seriously. Come on. Speaking of shoving things, though, Pornhub just got sold. Oh, God. Okay. The parent company, MindGeek, they own Pornhub, Brazzers, RedTube, and a bunch of other ones.

They were sold to a Canadian private equity firm, which I love this. I love this so much. The name of the company is Ethical Capital Partners. Right. Love it. Love it. You cannot make that up. Yes.

And in its announcement, ECP refers to MindGeek as the internet leader in fighting illegal online content. Talk about two-faced bullshittery like you've never seen before. That is so great. Actually, I don't think that they're too wrong in that.

There is something to be said for it. They've done a very good job of going through getting rid of revenge porn using technology and matching, you know, generative AI and all that bullshit machine learning and taking down videos that have been flagged and reported as like that's – you know, unfortunately, they've gotten rid of all amateur porn.

But, you know, they're doing it. They are doing it. Now they are. But they had a decade where they didn't. They were forced to. That's how all of this works, Jason. Yeah, they didn't do this because they were good people. There's nothing good about these people. Well, depending on your point of view, I guess.

But, yeah. No. Look, they're not going to get a Nobel Prize. Let's just say that. No.

Media candy. Brian, I've been on a tear with cooking shows lately. I'm so excited because there's been nothing on TV. Oh, wait. The Mandalorian. There's all kinds of things on TV. But it just seems right now that it is that time of year.

So, Top Chef is back with Season 20 in London. Digging it. Next Level Chef is back. Dig that show. Do you watch that show? No. Oh, it's fun. It's very fun. And Tournament of Champions on the Food Network is back, which I also love. And huge upset last week.

My man, Shoda, kicking ass. Love him. So, I'm just going down the thing. But we do agree on one show, Brian. And I'm just wondering, when the hell is MasterChef Kids coming back? I don't know. I do love that show. I find it just so endearing. It's so good. It is so great. It's so great.

I've got a podcast recommendation offline with Jon Favreau. I'm not a huge Jon Favreau guy because he's a politics kind of dude. And it's a different guy from the other Jon Favreau. So, always get those guys confused. There's an episode with Margaret Atwood on good, evil, and stupidity.

Good listen. Highly recommend it. Did you get a chance? I love her. No, I did not. But I do love her. And I thought it was the other Jon Favreau. I was like, what's he doing? Shouldn't he stay in your lane and pay attention to what you're doing? Yeah, go make another chef show or whatever. That show grew on me.

I got really pissed off when he had Gwyneth Paltrow on. Yeah, he kind of – you got to shoot your shot and make your money, I suppose. You can't just – Yeah, but it was a good show, I thought. I thought it was pretty decent. I enjoyed it except for Gwyneth. Yeah. Yeah. Well, can't win them all. Can't win them all.

Well, speaking of cooking shows, one whiskey and Coke, okay, maybe two on a plane movie reviews since I flew out here. I watched The Menu. Have you seen The Menu, Jason? It's on my list. Is it any good? It is awesome. Oh, good, good, good. Okay, great. I can't talk about it at all without spoiling it, and you need to go into this unspoiled.

Okay. It is just – dude, watch it. Okay, perfect. Yeah, it's on my short list. I've got it queued up in Plex. Yeah, and there weren't a lot of options, both – and by the time I had the second whiskey and Coke, I was in for something – I was up for something stupid. So I watched Ticket to Paradise, which is the old-school-style rom-com with George Clooney and Julia Roberts.

Delightful. Okay. Like dumb, stupid, simple, easy, old-school. Well, you said it was a rom-com, so yeah, that pretty much covers that. Yeah. Well, you know, they're trying to reinvent rom-coms these days, and they're not to the formula. This stays with the formula.

I was going to say, you can't go out of the mold of a rom-com and have George Clooney and What's Your Nuts in it. I mean, they are the formula for rom-com now. Yes. And, you know, we've talked a little bit about Ticketmaster. I mean, Ticketmaster is evil. Live Nation is evil.

Taylor Swift, her old debacle a while back where she said nothing about it and let all of her fans do it. Well, The Cures Robert Smith is here to help us all. He is basically just tweeting up a storm at Ticketmaster. He is pulling the veil behind everything. He's saying exactly what Ticketmaster told him.

He's saying exactly what he's finding out that they haven't done. He's gotten them to rebate egregious additional fees. This whole story is still developing and going on. But goddamn, Robert Smith, I love you. Yeah. I saw that when you started posting about this, I went and started to follow him on Twitter just to get caught up.

And I saw as soon as I signed on, he was posting that he got rebates and refunds for people. So, you know, it's not a lot. But it's not a lot. But it's something. It's more than anybody else has done since Pearl Jam 30 years ago. Yeah. And they failed to.

But that's a little something. I saw that The Cure was doing three nights at the Hollywood Bowl. And I really want to go to that, but I can't. Me too. That really bums me. It really bums me. I want to go. I would love to see them at the Bowl. That is the greatest venue. I would like to see them at any venue, which is, again, the problem with Ticketmaster.

I've signed up for their verified fan ticketing system for like 19 shows. Did I get a text or an email invite to buy tickets for any of them? No, I did not. So guess who's going to the secondary market? Oh, man. Sorry. Yeah, well, I was going to say, if anybody has an extra ticket to the Hollywood Bowl show, give me a call.

But I can't. I can't go to shows anymore. I'm just too broken and old. You just have to sit there. You'd be fine. No, I would fall asleep. That's the problem. After the stroke, I get too much stimulation. That's why I can't drive anywhere. Too much stimulation. And I turn off like a dead cell phone.

It's bad. It's dangerous. So if you get, well, here's the deal. If you can get me an Uber both ways and a ticket to this show, give me a call. A couple of weeks ago, Brian, I talked about the Pen Tips Pen Mat for my iPad Pro, which was a kind of, not a replacement, but a competitor to Paperlike, the other coding for the iPads that I really, really love.

This is a magnetic one that you basically just stick on and take off whenever you, like if you want it on to write or draw, you put this on and then you can take it off when you want. I am loving this thing. I'm absolutely loving it because at night, it has the best screen out of everything I've got.

So I'll watch, you know, Picard or The Mandalorian or whatever on that screen. And then when I want to, you know, journal or just do my writing, I've been loving Scribble. I've been using Scribble with my Apple Pen and getting really good with it. It's so much nicer to write like longhand.

So this thing, love it. Still recommend it. Now that I've gotten to use it for a couple of weeks, really recommend it. I actually ordered some of their pen tips too that are like, they're little condoms for your Apple Pencil. So it makes it a little softer and a little more responsive.

So check out some of their stuff. If you're into, you know, using your Apple Pencil on an iPad, they got a ton of products that are really cool. You know what you generally don't want with their condom-like device? Making it softer. I'm just pointing that out. That's true. That's true. Hmm. Good point. Good point. The analogy might be off there.

I also have a little follow-up. I tried out Artifact, the new news system from the founder, Jason, from the founder of Instagram that you had talked about for a while. It's a good news app. I'll give you that in that it's free. But like a side-by-side comparison with the paid up Apple News version, I'll take Apple News any day of the week because the problem with Artifact is they're gamifying it.

I was getting ready to say they added that gamification shit in. I hate that. It's like you have to read seven more articles to unlock this level. I get notifications that my seven-day reading news streak is about to end if I don't read news really quickly at 11 p.m. at night.

Fuck all that. Fuck you, man. I'm reading the news. I'm a goddamn adult. I don't want a badge. I don't want a badge. Yep, exactly. So guess what's getting uninstalled? Yep, yeah. I also hate the fact that they, you know, when you share a link, they're tracking what everybody's reading.

It tells you right there how many people have read it, you know? And I'm like, no, I don't want that. I have an RSS reader. Nobody has to know what I'm reading. When I share a link, I share the fucking link. I don't have an intermediary that can go down or put their own Chrome on it or shit like that.

You know, I liked what they were doing right when they started, but now it's pissing me off. As soon as they put that gamification thing in there, I'm like, I'm out. I am out. And you're right. Apple News is awesome. Apple News is unbelievably good. Yeah. Well, the paid version. The free version leaves a little bit to be desired.

But since I've got Apple One and Brian, you're now in my family. I know. I get it thanks to you. So thank you. Yeah. You're welcome. You're welcome. Everybody's up in arms about Spotify's new design that is much like TikTok. And I want to say, who liked their fucking old design?

Nobody. It was one of the worst designed apps ever. I agree. But now we've lost real estate to like fucking reels, which I don't want. I just want to find my music. Well, that's the thing. It's like I just pop it open. I'm still a paid member of Spotify because there's a lot of music on there that I just like to have at the drop of a hat to play through my Sonos.

You know, it works well with my Sonos. So I'm stuck with it. And the nice thing is I almost never have to look at the design because I just make playlists and pop them through the Sonos. Oh, by the way, that Sonos Ray soundbar. Awesome. Oh, really? It's really good.

I've got that hooked up to that 80-inch fire TV and it sounds fantastic. All right. Well, speaking about not being happy, I'm not happy right now. My son has gotten very into Angry Birds. I watched the movies, which are quite enjoyable, actually. Really? But yeah, the movies are very funny.

They spent a lot of money. They had a lot of money. So they licensed like the best songs. They have like, I mean, A-list actors. They're very actually clever movies. But my kid also likes to play the game. So once we got past, you know, the first one, he, of course, found out that there are other ones and they're more involved through his friends.

Dear Rovio, yes, you fuckers who tagline your site, WeCraftJoy, go fuck yourselves. Because there are only two, two Angry Birds variants that aren't ad-filled clusterfuck. So pay up if you want to actually shoot a bird and a pig, which is just awesome with a six-year-old that wants to shoot birds and pigs.

Let me buy the fucking game without making my kids sit through ads or burn through two fucking grand to play it. You absolute whores. You can buy the original game, now rebranded as Red's First Flight, or you can get Angry Birds Reloaded via Apple Arcade. Thanks again, Jason. You're welcome.

Which still has some purchasable upgrades, but at least doesn't impede the gameplay. Every other version? You've got to be a fucking podcast bro with millions of dollars to be able to play these fucking games. You assholes. What happened to Angry Birds Star Wars? I thought that was just a one and done.

They've all been redone with in-app purchases, Jason. You want to play, you want to get past three levels, you've got to sit there and sit through ads, or you've got to pony up. Oh, that's lame. That's totally lame. Just make two versions. I'll pay 20 bucks.

Yeah, seriously. I'll pay 20 bucks for your damn game just to let my kid play it. I think I paid like eight bucks for the Star Wars one when it came out or something like that. It wasn't free and it wasn't expensive, but it was like middle of the road and I was happy to pay it. Yeah, but that's not the way they do their games anymore because they've opened up the fire hose of cash.

Jason. It's too bad. Too bad. I liked the game back in the day. I even liked the Star Wars version. I think that was the last one I played. So the last one I paid. Yeah, that too. I saw this and I just put this in here for just an uplifting story for a little bit about flotovoltaics.

Good portmanteau there. It's about solar panels in reservoirs and they're trying to come up with systems to start floating solar panels, which will help evaporation. So we don't, because we need it now, especially in California to keep the water in the reservoir.

But also it's a giant, you know, open area that they can put solar panels on. And the numbers are just insane. If they covered 30% of the 115,000 reservoirs globally, they could generate 9,434 terawatt hours of power a year, which is twice the energy that we use is the entire country here per year.

That's a lot. But it's a lot. That's a lot of solar panels too. So, you know, there's always a trade-off. As we like to say on this show, there's always another shoe. But it's cool that they're working on this. So I dig it. I dig the forward movement for clean energy.

Very cool. I like that. And I saw this and I thought this was pretty cool. NASA and Axiom Space are finally ready to show what the Artemis III astronauts will wear when they walk on the moon. They've unveiled a prototype spacesuit that crews will use for moonwalks near the lunar south pole. It's a pretty cool looking little system.

Now, of course, they had to Hollywood this up for their release. They're in black, which that's not going to happen because they were crafted by For All Mankind's costume designer to hide the proprietary design underneath. So here's the spacesuit, except we're hiding it from you.

Great. Yeah. Oh, that's cool that they use the For All Mankind people because that's a- Or they could have just shown us the real thing. They could have done that. They could have done that. I was watching just a very short video clip where they showed the guy bending down and picking that.

I'm like, that's how I get my shoes on every day. I don't have a spacesuit on. Astronaut or old man. Exactly. Ex-skateboarder or astronaut. Now, I have to put this in here as the greatest article I've read all week. This is over from The Verge.

It's called The Best Printer 2023. Just buy this Brother laser printer everyone else has. It's fine. It's a $120 laser printer. I've got a Brother laser printer in my office that I got for free when somebody else moved out. And it's fantastic. Runs forever. Cheap to run.

Great. I love Brother laser printers. But here's – this is what makes this the greatest product review of all time. Gets through the review and it says, and here's 275 words about printers. I asked ChatGPT to write so this post ranks in search because Google thinks you have to pad out articles in order to demonstrate authority.

But I'm telling you to just buy whatever Brother laser printer is on sale and never think about printers again. And then it follows a bunch of shit from ChatGPT. I'm like, bravo. Bravo. Bravo. Well done. We're joined by Dave Bittner, back from his adventures in Orlando.

Dave is the host of the highly acclaimed Cyber Wire podcast. As the co-host of Hacking Humans podcast with Joe Kerrigan, Dave delves into the fascinating and often chilling world of social engineering. Dave also brings his expertise as co-host to Caveat with Ben Yellen, a podcast that explores law and policy, surveillance, and privacy.

Dave also hosts Control Loop, where he and his team dive deep into the latest developments and trends in the fields of ICS and OT. I forgot to change that intro. That's the ChatGPT version from a while ago. But welcome back, Dave. How was your trip? It was wonderful. Thank you very much.

It was a delightful vacation. Long overdue. We hadn't really been on a trip like this since before COVID. So we had a lot of pent-up desire and energy and all that stuff. So it was really great. We had a really good time.

It was an eventful week. We got a lot done. And yeah, happy to share with you all about it. Where shall we begin? Well, the only important part, Star Wars Land. Yes. I mean, we all know the rest of Disney.

We get it. It's nice. Okay. Fair enough. So we went to Star Wars Land, which of course is in the studios. And I was full of anticipation. And my lovely bride did videotape the walk.

Yes. From over to. So we go into Star Wars Land. And it was interesting to me. In my mind, I had a different notion of the geography of how it all works. I thought you had to go through the area where the Muppets are to get to Star Wars Land.

But you actually kind of go by the area where the Muppets are. You see it. I think they tried to do a better job of connecting the old Star Tours area with the new Star Wars area. So you kind of go through this. It looks like a city underpass.

And while you're in the middle of this tunnel, it changes from Earth City to Star Wars Land Cave. Right. And you go through it on the other side. You're in Star Wars Land. And it sure does feel like Star Wars. And so we walked and we walked and we walked.

And Brian, you were right. They really do a great job of just setting you up and feeding you a little bit, a little bit, a little bit. And then you turn the corner and it opens up. And good God, there's the fucking Millennium Falcon. Thank you for sending that video.

It is awesome. And the joy on your face when you make the corner is pretty fantastic. But it is everything I thought it would be and more. What I do like about the video that your lovely wife shot was you do get a sense of the world building that they did.

Like as you're walking before you see the Falcon, you see the small things in the background. And the sounds, right? It's the sounds more than anything else. You hear Star Wars everywhere. Like it's great. It is just great. Yeah, it really is.

Afterwards, my youngest son said to me, he said, Dad, I think that may be the first time I've ever seen you cry. I said, first of all, now, I cry a lot. I'm a crier. So note to self, need to cry in front of the kids more because, you know, I don't have – there's no shame in crying.

I'm not like one of those manly men who's like, I cannot cry in public. Like, you know, I cry a lot. We get it. You like musicals. We understand. There you go. Yes. I'm a sensitive soul.

But yes, it really was – I don't mean to overstate it, but it really was the realization of a lifelong childhood dream to see – to be in this place, to be in this world, and to see that ship just pressed all kinds of little hardwired buttons from when I was – you know, prepubescent me from way back when.

So it really was wonderful. Wonderful. I let myself go. I let myself go. So the attention to the attention to detail in this land just exceeded my expectations. The size of the size of it, I did not expect it to be as broad and there to be as many things as there were in there, as many places to explore and things to wander through and sit down.

And the shops were just full of – the shops were just full of – there was a shop where you buy lightsabers and the walls were full of helmets and there was a wampa up on the wall and a stuffed tauntaun head and just all these things that made it feel like you were in the real world.

We had a meal in the cantina, which was – the cantina. It was amazing. Although they've updated the cantina and the Rex, the original pilot of Star Tours, is now the DJ in the cantina. So that's fun.

So they lightened it up a little bit. So that was great. We spent a lot of time in there. Oh, oh, and because my family loves me so much and my eldest son had already been through this area before. He had been on a trip down there.

When we went on Smuggler's Run, which is the Millennium Falcon ride, they made sure that – Sorry, guys. I'm in my mom's office. That's right. And yeah, this is where she keeps her phone. One, seven, one, four, three, two, nine, eight, six, four.

Do-de-do-do-do-do. Five, leave your name at all. La-la-la-la-la. Oh, you could hear it all. Old school, yes. Yeah, exactly. The test results came back and it's just hemorrhoids. All right. You good?

It's not the rumo. And we're good, yes. So they made sure that when we did Smuggler's Run that I got to sit in the seat on the Millennium Falcon that pulls back the lever to have you jump into hyperspace.

Oh, yes. Again, another moment, another dream come true. It was so cool. I have to say when I went on that ride with my son, my wife doesn't go on anything even remotely related to roller coasters. And there were some very nice people we went on it with because it's like a six-person ride, right?

Yeah. So it was just me and my son and we kind of had the back seats. And the people were so generous and nice. They offered like, well, would my son like to sit in that seat? And I had to explain to them, like, he hasn't actually seen Star Wars, so – but I'll take it. I'll sit there.

If you're offering, why not? Yeah. Yeah. No, I'm so glad to hear your reaction about it. I just found that, like, Disneyland in and of itself is obviously very immersive. But what they did with Star Wars Land is really something special that they couldn't do in the rest of the park because the reality is, you know, you're going to have Peter Pan meeting Elsa from Frozen in the rest of the park.

It's not a self-contained world, which they really did with Star Wars Land. Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, there were stormtroopers walking around. I saw Chewbacca walking around with Rey. That was neat. I saw the Mandalorian with Grogu in his little pouch walking around.

So I hope they do more of that – I hope they do more of discarding the timeline and just letting any Star Wars character be in there because that's what we want. That was the one thing that I wish there were more original trilogy presence there.

I would love to see the old stormtroopers. I would love to see Darth Vader walking through, you know, those kinds of things. Was there a Jar Jar dunk tank? There was not a Jar Jar dunk tank, but there were some little Jar Jar Easter eggs around that actually my son spotted in that store where you could buy the lightsabers.

There was a little – up high, there was a little – like a gold bust of Jar Jar or something like that. Yeah. They don't shy away from it, but, I mean, they don't make it obvious either. You get a light dusting of Binks. Right, right, right. So I made some notes about the rest of the trip in case other folks are interested.

We went to Volcano Bay, which is Universal's newest water park. Best water park I've ever been to by far. Better than the Disney water parks. I've been to both of those multiple times. Universal has taken it to the next level with Volcano Bay.

Absolutely. They have – you know how water parks have lazy rivers? Yes. Yes. Yes. So they have one of those, but they also have a not-so-lazy river where – It's done with lava. Almost. Instead of a – You better move your ass.

Yeah. Well, it's kind of like that. So instead of giving you an inner tube, they give you a life vest, and then you go in this – and it's like Whitewater Rapids. Oh, fun. It's a big loop. Yeah. And every now and then they release a wave into the river, and so you get tossed around.

And it is great fun. It is a good workout because you have to pay attention. So – Welcome to Darling's Grotto. Only the strong survive. Exactly. Exactly. So highly recommend Volcano Bay. Let's see.

Disney parks are expensive. I know water is wet and the sky is blue, but it really was noticeable how much more expensive everything was this trip than previous trips we've been on. I will say that while I am morally opposed to being able to buy my way to the front of the line when it's my family and my vacation, I'm buying my way to the front of the line.

Yeah. That's what we did too. Yeah. So we did that every day. My wife figures we'd probably spend an extra $1,000 or so on not waiting in lines. Worth it. You know, shame on us, but totally worth it.

Well, you get to see more stuff, you know. Would you rather go all that way and stand in line or spend a few extra bucks and say, screw you, poor people? Well – It's not like you're not still standing in line. It's just a much shorter line. Yeah. Right. Right. We went – there was – there's a river ride in the Avatar area of Animal Kingdom.

And it's this Navi River ride and we had a fast pass to go on that. I guess they're called lightning lanes now. So we went on that, probably waited about five or ten minutes to go on that. Went on the ride. It was lovely. Got off and we said, wow, that was really fun. I'm glad I didn't wait an hour to do that because it wouldn't have been nearly as fun if I'd waited an hour to do that.

It would have felt like, well, that wasn't really worth it. But for five or ten minutes, yeah, totally worth it. You get to go on to the next thing. Food is very expensive. There were five of us there, me, my wife, my two boys, and my son's girlfriend.

We'll get to that in a second. I was about to say when you were talking about crying earlier, I think there was some sort of story that might have caused some waterworks again one way or the other. That's right. That's right. So, yeah, just the meals, you know, you just can't – and there's no getting around in it.

Basically, anywhere you sit down, there's no real way. There goes a hundred bucks. Yeah, it's going to be – there's no way you can get out of there. I was figuring on 50 bucks ahead anytime you sat down for a meal, a sit-down meal. You could do better if you were on the go.

We did one – we did breakfast in the Beauty and the Beast Be Your Guest place, which is lovely, immersive, great fun. Five of us was $500. Yeah. Yeah. Crazy. Well, Michael – There's the Kimmy Reclamation Center where you can donate on your way out the door.

Right. Take some blood. Yeah. Well, since Eisner's come back in as CEO, he has said that the prices have gotten outrageous and he's going to do something about it. But I have not seen that – He's going to raise them again. I have not seen that reflected thus far.

Well, they've taken away parking fees for the resort hotels, so there's that. But, yeah, I don't know what else. Yeah. Let's see. A couple of quick notes before we get to some of the other good stuff. Tough to be a bug over at Animal Kingdom was the only ride that – or attraction that really seemed to be in bad shape.

Hopper wasn't even there. You know, Hopper the – I don't know if you've ever done Tough to be a Bug, but there's a whole thing where there's a big animatronic character of Hopper the grasshopper. He didn't even show up. Like his sound was there. His voice was there. But the animatronic wasn't there.

And the projection was really dim. We really like the new ride vehicles in Ratatouille and the Mickey and Minnie's train ride and also the Rise of the Resistance. Very cool. And just sort of delightful the way that when the ride vehicles aren't on tracks, they can dance around each other and move around.

And it just adds another level to what you're capable of doing in a dark ride. So that was fun. Guardians of the Galaxy, great ride. Go, rate, ride. It's like Space Mountain to the next level. Really a lot of fun.

We did a behind-the-scenes tour in the Land Pavilion at Epcot because Scott's girlfriend, Annabelle, is really into plants. She's like a biologist. And that was really nice. It was an hour-long walking tour. You get to go into the greenhouses and see where they grow the plants and do the growing of fish and things like that.

So that was definitely worth the time. I am picking up on the fact that you keep saying girlfriend and not fiancé. We'll get there. We'll get there. We'll get there. Fantasmic is still a great show after 30 years, I think.

So they do minor updates every now and then, swap in and out the movies that they feature, but still a great show. Fireworks at the Castle, great. They do projection mapping on the castle now. Amazing. I was thinking about Pirates of the Caribbean, which we wrote a couple of times.

Have you guys seen any of the videos from the Pirates' rides over in China? No. No. They are amazing. So they have reimagined the Pirates' rides and they're using all this projection technology and you go underwater.

And it's just – it's a modern version of that ride. There are plenty of videos of it on YouTube. I recommend you go check it out if you're a big fan of Pirates to see what they've done. But what I was thinking about and I'm curious on your takes on this is I wonder if Disney could build the new version of Pirates and keep the old one.

They have the space, right? People love – in other words, instead of just sort of doing a lateral move on ride capacity, increase your ride capacity. People still love the old one. They're going to want to ride the new one. Is there any downside to that?

It does – I think it would just feel weird. Like it's not a Disney thing. Like you're not – you can't have two versions of the same thing, right? Well, Pirates 2, electric booty loo. I want the old school one. Bring back the misogyny. Yeah.

Before they took out all that stuff. Yeah. They did. We're going to do it right. Come on. Yeah. Yeah. They did take that away. You can no longer buy yourself a bride. No. But, you know, they also – unfortunately, they also took out the hilarious – the payoff on all that was always the larger woman chasing after the skinny dude.

That was the best. Yeah. Right. Right. Yeah. Yes. But we can't have that anymore because we're too delicate. That's right. We did both Universal Parks in one day. That was – Yeah. Totally doable. Yeah. We didn't do everything. But by the way, the crowds were really manageable.

Being there, you know, first week of March or so, I think we kind of – we were before spring break. Yeah. And it worked out well. So manageable crowds. Great weather. It was in the mid-80s all week. The only bad meal we had was in Mexico at Epcot and it wasn't so much the food was bad.

It's just we had really bad service. And again, when you're paying as much for the meals as you do at a sit-down restaurant like this, when there's bad service, you notice. Yes. So we did. We're going for authenticity. That's all. Oh, nice. Nice. I've had some wonderful service in Mexico, Jason.

I've had some wonderful service but I've also had mostly terrible service. Fair enough. But I've also had terrible service in West Hollywood. The new Skyliner is fun. That's the gondola that goes between the studios and Epcot and a couple of the resorts.

We just got on that and rode on it just because we could and it's lovely. It's a nice little break from walking around. You can sit for a while. Nice view of things. So I recommend that. A couple other things. So our vacation was Friday to Friday.

We have a timeshare that I inherited from my folks down in Orlando and it's a Friday to Friday thing. I think Friday to Friday is a great vacation plan because you leave on Friday so you get a day off from that week, right?

So call that your travel day. But then you come back the following Friday and you still have a weekend to recover from your vacation. Yeah, it's pretty smart. Yeah. Yeah. The decompression is key. Right, right. And I'd never done a vacation timed like that.

I've done Saturday to Saturday, which I think is pretty common. I've done longer versions where you get back on Sunday, but I think I really like this Friday to Friday thing. So, you know, life pro tip there might be a good thing to consider if you're planning on a vacation and you have to go back to work.

Excellent. Last thing I will ask our audience over in Epcot, if you're familiar with Epcot over by the imagination pavilion, they have fancy little dancing fountains, right? They have one that like shoots a stream of water from bucket to bucket, from planter to planter and it kind of squirts over your head and goes from one to the other.

They have another one that's like a ring of like planter pots in a circle and they sort of spit little bits of water, like little droplets of water and they do little patterns and that sort of thing. Like it'll go all around the circle, it'll alternate things, you know, all fun little things like that.

Little, you know, the prensing fluids as Letterman used to say. I would love to find a home version of that. I think it would look great in my backyard, the one, the little spitty one. And I'm trying to think, and I've been doing some looking around and I haven't been able to find anything.

I did find one that does the big squirting thing from one to another, but I haven't found one that does the little, like if I could find one that was like half a dozen little planting pots that just did little squirt, you know, foot or two high kind of thing that I could put out in my little backyard thing, I would love that.

So if any of our listeners have a lead on something like that, please let us know. I've been unable to find something like that, but it seems like in this day and age, that's the kind of thing I should be able to find somewhere. Or you could get, just get a couple of raspberry pies and squirting machines and do it yourself.

Yes, exactly. Yes. I was thinking that as well. Someone, in a, in a world where people have the degree of displays they have for both Halloween and Christmas, it seems to me like this is not too big an ask. So if anybody has any leads on that, please send them along.

I'd, I'd love to know. Uh, so that's my report on vacation. Uh, anything I miss? Any, any questions? Uh, I think there's one burning question. Oh, that's right. The big news. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So my oldest son, Scott, and his girlfriend, Annabelle, got engaged while we were there.

Woo! Okay. Yay! Yes. In front of the castle. Aw. Uh, yes. It was a Thursday morning. So Thursday morning before we were getting ready to come home. Ah, so we waited to the last minute. Yes. That was the real question is what was the timing going to be?

Yes. Well, as you think about this and you and we've all talked about this before, I don't think we've talked about it on the show, but that's an important decision because if you ask at the beginning of the week and she says, no, that's a crappy week you got ahead of you.

Well, that's, that's an extra flight you're buying for the ex-girlfriend. Exactly. Yes, exactly. That's exactly what that is. Right. You're saving money on meals, but, uh, the flight is, you're getting a balance out. Yeah. Um, and now we were all quite confident that she was going to say yes.

And he was quite confident that she was going to say yes. So, uh, as I mentioned, we had our breakfast at the Beauty and the Beast, uh, castle, and then we walked over to the, um, the Cinderella's castle and stood in front of there. I was getting ready to say, there's two castles now.

Well, the Beauty and the, there's, there's several castles in there now, but they're, the, the smaller ones like Beauty and the Beast castle is just a small, uh, castle that's using forced perspective to make it look like a big castle. It's not actually a big castle.

Same with, um, they have Rapunzel's, you don't call it a castle, but the thing that Rapunzel was stuck in for forever. A tower? They have that. Yeah. The tower. Thank you very much. Um, they have the tower that she was in same sort of thing. It's a forced perspective kind of thing. It looks impressive from a distance, but then you get close and you go, well, that's tiny.

Um, so we went over to the castle and, uh, positioned ourself in front of the castle and, uh, my wife and I, she was taking pictures and I was taking video and, uh, my son Scott got down on one knee and, uh, asked Annabelle to marry him. And she said, yes.

And I learned that when you do such a thing in front of the castle, everyone around you hoots and hollers and screams and applauds and it's quite a spectacle. And so that was another misty moment, I think for all of us. I watched the video.

I got a little misty myself watching the video. You've taken your first step towards grandpa, Dave. Yeah. Well, you know what? I am okay with this order of operations. Yes, it is the way, it is the way it is supposed to go. Right. This is the way.

Yes. Right. As a friend of mine says, this is what you hope for. You want your kids to find someone and love someone and get married and get together and have more kids. That is the way it's supposed to be. And, um, I'm, I just, I feel lucky also in today's day and age that we're doing it in this order and that's not a guarantee and not to, you know, not to, I don't think there's any shame in doing it any way that, that fits your family or your situation.

Oh, I don't know. Every time I felt bad about my life, I would throw on 16 and pregnant on MTV and boy, did that make me feel better. Yes. I guess my point is I'm not trying to shame other people, but I'm saying that I'm not disappointed that this is the way it worked out for me.

So that was delightful and we are just really excited to welcome Annabelle to our family. She's a really great gal. Uh, she is a research scientist, super smart, um, just a lovely young lady and, um, just excited to have a, a daughter in the family.

And, uh, we're, you know, now we've got a wedding to plan. So that's awesome. And congratulations. That's a big life event. Big life. It really was. It really was. And, uh, everybody was happy. It all went so well. So that's amazing. Suck it in, in the first 10 years of the show too. It's perfect.

Just under the wire. Just under the wire. There we go. Yeah. Yeah. Very the lead. Well, if you want to relive your star Wars galaxy's edge adventure a little bit, I actually had waited to watch this. It's been on Disney plus for quite some time. I think they concocted this right before they opened it here at the Anaheim one.

Um, it's called star Wars galaxy's edge adventure awaits. And, uh, I totally forgot about it after I went to the park and I just remembered it, uh, the other night and I threw it on for a few minutes. It's, you know, it's your Hollywood produced affair, Neil Patrick Harris, Sarah Hyland, Jay Leno, all that sort of stuff.

But, uh, it really does give you a good tour of how they built at least the Anaheim one. Be interesting for you to watch that to see how different it is. But, uh, yeah, if you want to relive it, the sights and the sounds and everything that they set out to do, it's, it's a over an hour long, but, but it's a good, it's a good, uh, behind the scenes look at the park.

So pretty cool. Yeah. I will check it out. I'll check it out for sure. Yeah. All right. Well, uh, well, fuck the news. Yeah. I'm going to put these in the show notes. If anybody wants to check them out, we've got a bunch of stories that we just don't care about today. So, yeah, no, no, no, you know, life, life, man, life, keep it happy.

Keep it happy. Keep it happy. Yes, yes, yes. By the way, uh, just one final thing I'll note is that how nice it was to be able to take a vacation like this, uh, just knowing that my cyber wire gang back, uh, here was holding down the fort because it hasn't always been that way with cyber wire when we were in our early startup days, you know, we just, none of us could really take time off or, or if, and then when we got to the point where we could, it was a real challenge for everyone

else to keep things running while we were gone. And so it's really nice to be at the size we are now where I didn't have to think about it. Yeah, no, I, I didn't, I, I did not check in. I didn't check my email. I just went and I had a good time and I knew that things would be taken care of behind the scenes.

So it's quite decadent to have that. And I really do appreciate it. So, and I'm very proud of you, Dave, for not starting seven different Disney podcasts while you were in Orlando, well, he's got an NDA signed on that yet. And the paperwork's not dry. So yeah, yeah, that's right.

We, you know what, while we were there, so while we were there, I did see several different, and I'm doing air quotes here, influencers making little videos while we were there. And they looked exactly like what you thought they would look like. I'm guessing you guys probably run, ran into that or run into that more in the wild being in LA than I do here on the East coast, but it was, yeah, here, here, it's every street corner, not just inside parks, but it is the scourge of modern society as far as I'm concerned.

Yeah, I see them, I see them at my gym a lot because you get the influencer trainers coming in, trying to teach other people how to be, get their influencer body. And it's very funny to watch security come and kick them out for filming inside of the club. Oh, wow. That is the better part of the entertainment for sure.

Yeah. And then I saw several people who were doing walk around live streams, which is a very popular thing in the Disney parks where they just have a little stabilizer on their, uh, on their phone and a couple of external microphones and they just walk around and you couldn't go with them.

And that's, that's the thing. Yeah. Yeah. So again, you know, more power to them. I guess, I don't know. I, I hate them. Maybe that's in my retirement plan. All right, guys. Well, uh, thanks for, uh, allowing me the break here.

Missed you guys for the past couple of weeks, but it's good to be back. And as you can tell, we had a great time. Over at Patreon, we've got Steve. Welcome, Steve. Thanks, Steve. Over at PayPal, we've got Miles, Sherry, Natalie, Linda, Edward, Nathaniel, Blake, Bowling, Dag, Ramsey, and Andrew.

Thank you all so much. Over at the tip jar, we've got Theodore and Sean. And just a reminder, because I have to do it by law. If you sign up for our Patreon, which starts at $3 a month, that's it. Just a measly $3. You get all of the shows a little bit early and ad free and in high res.

Woo. And I'll point out that if you also give us $10,000 a month, you get the exact same thing. Yes, but I get to go see The Cure in Uber. That's about what it's going to cost on the secondary market. About that. Until next time, I'm Jason DeFillippo.

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