595: Tree Or Not?

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. Jason, I found a joke for you. It's a very small genre of jokes. It's a dad tech joke. Oh, Jesus. Well, you're in the right place. I know. I know. That's why I brought it here. Here we go. I was walking down the street where the houses were numbered 64K, 128K, 256K, 512K, and one megabyte. That was a real trip down memory lane.

Oh, God. Come on. That's good. No, it's not. That was bad. I love it. My son doesn't get that. You would. Someday. Okay. So I saw this article last night as I was finishing up Picard, which I'm sure we'll get to later.

Yes. But I was scanning through during a commercial break because I don't mind not paying the extra couple bucks for the Paramount Plus to get the commercials because that gives me an opportunity, well, to go refill wine or things like that nature. Okay. So I don't mind. But I saw this and I thought about you and, well, I and the show because we've talked about this sort of thing a long time.

You know, it's the old adage, if you can't do it, teach. But it's more insidious than that. It's something we've always talked about. It's people that jump on the gravy train early, right? Yes. Something will pop up and they manage to make a bunch of money doing it. And then once everybody catches on to the grift and the bullshit, you can't make money doing it anymore. So what do you do, Jason?

You teach them how to grift. You open up a store and teach them how to grift. Brian, that was episode one of this show. Yes, it was. 595 episodes in and we're back to the beginning. Time becomes a loop. Nothing changes, Jason. Time becomes a loop. Oh, God.

So the influencer grift has matured to its final form now. Yes, there is an entire phalanx. Lots of people, lots of ex-influencers out now getting rich by teaching you how to become an influencer to get rich. Yeah. I read this article. I read most of this article. I skimmed some of it. Some of it was pretty good. Some of it was just like...

Made my head hurt. But the thing about this is, yes, there are a lot of people making money on online courses. I get that. And now people are making money, teaching people how to make money making online courses, which I swear to God we did. This is just deja vu.

Now, I tried to make an online course with my podcasting stuff during the lockdown. And the one thing that I wish I had wasn't actually a good course on how to make an online course. So they are actually useful at some point. But when everybody's giving you a course on how to make a course, it becomes a little noisy and stupid.

But I mean, I wish that these... I worked with Teachable a bit to get my course out there. And they were pathetic in trying to teach me how to make a course. And they held my hand. They held my hand until they got my checks. And once they got my checks, they're like... And I didn't get anybody to sign up for my pre-sale, which they told me I had to do.

I had to do the videos. I had to do all this shit. And when nobody signs up, this was their reply. They're like, yeah, sometimes people just don't want what you're selling. Like, fuck you. Fuck you and your fucking eye holes. Well, they're not wrong. No, they're not. They're not wrong. But they... I mean, the hype that they give you until they get your $1,000 check is just ridiculous.

Well, Jason, think of all the podcast houses that came to us with the promises of the moon and the sun and the stars. Yeah. Yeah, here we are still in the basement. Yep, yep. It's funny, too. I was listening to the Accidental Tech Podcast, which launched, like, almost exactly the same time we did.

They have fewer episodes than we do, by far, but in a 10X audience as well than we do. Interesting. Yeah, well, that's what happens when you have that going on. But anyway, I don't feel so bad about asking people to go to patreon.com slash GOG and sign up to help keep us on the air because even they are doing the same thing.

Everybody is out hat in hand right now with the podcast stuff. Oh, yeah. Advertising models collapsed. We all know that. Yes, we've lost lots of advertisers so far this year, and it's only March. Great. So patreon.com slash GOG. Anyway, just so we don't have to go out and start selling courses on how to do a podcast because that obviously isn't going to work.

At least you've got one in the can if we need it. Yeah, seriously. Or what you can do right now is go write a book on ChatGPT, which is the new craze. All right. Because if you do a search for ChatGPT on Amazon, of course, there is the ChatGPT millionaire and the GPT4 millionaire, the future of business.

And I love this. Making money online has never been this easy from Neil Dagger. But I love this. How much does his book cost? Zero dollars. Well, how's that work for you, Neil? I don't get that. He's raking it in.

Yes, he is. You know what he's going to do? He's going to make money at scale. He's going to scale up. That's how he's going to do it. So after I read your article and then I found the, you know, the GPT grifters on Amazon, I'm like, let's go to ChatGPT and ask it a question now that I have access to GPT4.

And I said, can you give me some terms for these snake oil salesmen that are peddling AI? And it gave me a ton of them. And I just had to keep going and going and going. So here's some of the top ones. Sleaze bot strategists.

Shatter fraud connoisseurs. Deceit bot dealers. I do love the alliteration, by the way. It's doing pretty good with that. Although then we get to duplicitech whisperers. Shady chatsmiths. And my favorite, though, so far definitely is bamboozle brokers.

I think that is a good one. I think that's a good one. There's a bunch of other ones. But, yeah, we need new terms for these people. Talk bot tricksters is OK. I don't know. You can always just go back with the original. Go back to Mel Brooks himself. Bullshit artists.

Yep, we got that one. So now that I am on ChatGPT with GPT4, since I am a ChatGPT Plus subscriber, I ask this time, have you ever heard of Jason DeFillippo? Because ChatGPT originally, in its original form, had no idea who I was.

But it kind of could give us a breakdown of grumpy old geeks. Yes. So here's – this is great. So I'm going to get to a point here. Yes, I'm familiar with Jason DeFillippo. He is a web developer, technology consultant, and podcast producer. Jason has an extensive background in web development and has worked on projects for high-profile clients such as Microsoft, Adobe, and MTV.

Additionally, he's been involved in podcasting since the early days of the medium, producing and hosting shows like The Cyber Jungle and Grumpy Old Geeks. Grumpy Old Geeks is a podcast he co-hosts with Brian Schulmeister where they discuss technology, internet culture, and the impact of these on society. Jason DeFillippo has also contributed to the field of podcasting with his technical expertise, helping to develop podcast hosting and distribution platforms.

Wow. You've been busy doing stuff that you haven't told me about. Yeah, yeah, especially working for Microsoft, Adobe, and MTV, none of which I ever have. I've worked for every major motion picture studio, but I've never worked for those guys at all. I bet it pulled Microsoft from me because I have.

I think so. Yeah. Yep. So I gave it the thumbs down. I went through and I'm like, let's see how this works. So I gave it the thumbs down and I said, yeah, Jason has never worked for Microsoft, Adobe, or MTV. So then it gave me the option of, hey, okay, so that was the problem.

How's this new answer? Is this new answer better or is the old answer better or neither answer is better or skip this step? So it gave me a new answer. Here's the new answer. Yes, Jason DeFillippo is a podcast producer and web developer known for his work in the podcasting industry. He's been involved with podcast production since the early days of the medium and has produced several popular podcasts.

Jason is also the co-founder of Grumpy Old Geeks, a podcast that discusses technology, the internet-related topics. Throughout his career, he has worked with a variety of notable podcasters and has helped shape the industry. Okay, closer, closer. But the reason I put this in here is I can change the results on ChatGPT by just giving a thumbs down and changing the answer, which then will become public for the rest of the people who search on ChatGPT.

Yes. With no oversight. None. Have at it, people. Yep. Go for it. Go for it. Go for it. We have no Wikipedians to police these results. So by all means, fucking have at it. Well, like we said from the beginning, that is the biggest problem with this.

It is self-learning from bullshit. It is itself a giant bullshit artist. It goes back to the earliest days of computing. Garbage in, garbage out. Chat BA. There we go. In the news.

Okay. So Amazon has said that you guys got to come back to the office. And they said, ah, we don't want to. Yeah. Which we've seen happen over and over again. So Beth Galetti, Amazon's SVP of people, experience, and technology, a.k.a. HR.

Yes, the pet. Because you are pets to Amazon. That's right. And sometimes you have to sleep outside and sometimes you have to come in the house. Sometimes you got to piss in the bottle. Yes, that's true. Oh, wait. That's not for the white-collar workers. That's just for the drivers who aren't actually technically employees. No. And the warehouse workers, too.

Don't forget them. Everybody gets to pee in a bottle unless you wear a white-collar. So they said that you have to start coming back to the office three times a week, starting in May. 30,000 people filled out a petition that said, we don't want to. I don't know. Three times a week seems fair to me.

I like the hybrid model. Hybrid model is 100% fair. Yeah. And here's some of the replies. They started a new Slack channel to bitch and moan about it. I'm collapsing here. I'm sorry. I feel like a total failure. Come in and work. Do as you're told.

I'm crying as my family prepares a meal. What the fuck does that mean? I don't even understand that. I don't get it. Come in and work. Do as you're told. Yes, it's a fucking job. You get paid. That's the point. You get a paycheck. You come in. Show them your fucking work. You work.

And you do as you're told. And you get two days to work from home. Yes. Jesus Christy. Just do a hybrid model. Hybrid models are fair. I'm sorry. It is fair. Here's another one. I recovered from alcoholism by working from home. And now I don't know. Well, you must be the only person that went that direction.

Most people I know became alcoholics from work from home. Yeah, I mean, look, you can recover from alcoholism any way you want. If you have a job that is making you an alcoholic, then you might want to find another job.

I would argue a lot harder to drink on the job while in an office than at home. Yeah. As a current recovering alcoholic, I'm fine with Zoom. I have met hundreds of people now in the past.

Oh, I'm 86 days sober, by the way. Congratulations. In my hundreds of meetings that I've taken. Thank God you haven't had to go into an office. That might have all gone by the wayside. I have done in-person meetings. It's easier than three times a week. I've only done – I go twice a week and I'm sober.

It's great. Hundreds of meetings, though, I've done on Zoom since that time. And almost everybody I've met got sober on Zoom. You can do it. You don't have to – you can still get a job. You can still go to work. These are stupid arguments. I'm crying as my family prepares a meal.

How does your family pay for that meal? Oh, by you going to work. Well, more importantly, where did you go buy the elements to go purchase – where did you go purchase the stuff to make that meal? Well, thank God they went into the office. Oh, that's right.

That's right. I'm sorry. This is a white-collar problem. This is a privileged person problem, this work-from-home thing. Again, I am 100% opposed to the arbitrarily deciding that everybody has to go back to work to an office full-time. That's bullshit.

We have proven you don't need to do that. But hybrid, 100% fair. Stop fucking whining. Yeah, I mean everybody's got different circumstances. I know it's hard with 30,000 people bitching and moaning that they don't want to go. But you know what? I don't want to go to work every day.

I'm standing here doing this. I don't want to get up and come here and do this shit. I don't want to be doing this podcast. Yeah. If I had a choice, I'd be sitting on the couch reading right now. Yeah, if we could get paid for just doing that. Yeah. Sure. That's fine. That's cool. I mean, yes, I could be being a total shit about this, but 30,000 people?

Seriously? I mean— And these are—I mean, I'm not going to—I don't know everybody's specific circumstances, but this is—these are highly paid professionals at Amazon in general. No shit. That's what I'm saying. That's what I'm saying. Warehouse workers have had to go to work.

Drivers have had to go to work. The vast majority of the workforce that actually pays your bills, that makes the money that actually goes to your paycheck, Amazon people that are bitching about this, they've had to go to work even during the pandemic. Those Uber drivers that take you to the office that you don't want to go to, they have to go to work.

Yeah. No. I'm sorry. We've been too nice for the past decade with these goddamn tech workers. And I know. I was there. I was one of the little coddled bitches, you know? And, you know, it's time to put your big boy pants on and seriously, just get back to work.

Considering all the layoffs going on, shut the fuck up. Yeah. Speaking of layoffs, someone that Elon Musk laid off at Twitter decided to leak a huge chunk of the source code on GitHub and nobody noticed for months. I mean, it's funny because we, you know, we like to crap on Elon and what he's done to Twitter.

And, you know, it's good for a chuckle. Boy, is that illegal. So illegal. Boy, is that a dick move. And here's what I really love. The username on GitHub that the person used, free speech enthusiast. Okay, that's very funny.

That's pretty fucking funny. Come on. I give props for that. You're still going to end up in jail, free speech enthusiast, but high five. Yeah. Good one. Good one. Good one on your way to jail. I like it. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, God. Yes. Apparently, they've never heard of the Computer Fraud Abuse Act over there.

No, I guess not. You know, we've talked about that multiple times on this show about our policies, both you and I, about what we do when we lose a client or we, you know, we get fired by someone or we leave a situation. We keep our hands effing clean.

Yes. Turn over every single credential. Make sure, test it, that they changed your passwords. Do not give them any loophole to come after you in the future. This is just technology 101. And what you don't do is you don't steal a huge chunk of the source code and put it on GitHub where they track you.

So, oh, Jesus. So, yeah, somebody's going to have a bad day because, yes, a U.S. district court up in Northern California has given permission for Twitter to get the information from GitHub. To go after this person.

Of course they have. Yes. Because there's law. Yeah. You know, I, you know, 15 years ago, you could get away with this shit. Nowadays, no. Everything's tracked. Come on. Give me a break. Yeah. Seriously. Everything is tracked.

And here's another fun one. And I love they rolled this into the same article. Twitter has launched verified organizations. So, it's another way for Elon to get a few bucks back. The program will reportedly cost $1,000 a month and you get a gold checkmark. Yay.

We're doing all the colors of the rainbow on Twitter now. Yeah. And another 50 bucks per verified user under that organization. Ouch. Yeah. Yeah. I saw, I saw on Twitter actually, like almost every, like all news organizations are basically coming out and saying, we will not be purchasing blue checks for our reporters.

We will not be purchasing blue checks for our employees because they've become meaningless. Absolutely meaningless. Now it just shows that you're a sucker. Yep. That's it. And now that, uh, now that that is in place, uh, Elon says that on your for you tab, which is the one that everybody fucking hates.

Yeah. Because it's basically Elon Musk and a bunch of right wing fuck nuts. And people who paid to have their account verified. Now you, it's only going to show verified accounts. Yeah. That's it. So the Venn diagram of those two overlap, Jason. Oh, yes, they do. Yes, they do. So, uh, yeah, that's going.

And now this last bit is kind of funny. William Shatner got a little butthurt because he had to pay $8 a month to maintain his check mark. Yeah. And, uh, Elon responded with, there shouldn't be a different standard for celebrities in my opinion. Oh my God, you hypocritical piece of shit.

Unlike the different standard he has set for himself. He, he, he changed the entire code base to promote his own tweets. I know. I know. I know. And then the, then the platformer came out and said, ahem, ahem, you guys have always had VIP access for celebrities and here's just a few of them.

So, um, yeah. Oh my God. But it's, it's kind of sad. You know, William Shatner, first he was snubbed by Bezos. Now he's being snubbed by Elon Musk. You know, what did poor William Shatner does do to deserve all this? And then I was in his nineties. Let him be, let him be the shat.

Let the shat be the shat. Let the shat scat. Yeah. But you know, he, I, I was just thinking though, you know, he was kind of a dick most of his life. So maybe it's karmic payback. It is kind of karmic payback. I'm like, have you talked to anybody like William Shatner, once he hit 80 kind of turned okay.

He mellowed out. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But from, from zero to 79.9, he was kind of a dick. So George Takei or anybody else that's ever worked with him apparently. Oh, well, uh, Microsoft is reportedly going to focus on, uh, two completely different things in my opinion, security and AI.

Woo. I don't think those are compatible in the next version of windows. That's just me. So they're working on a new modern version of windows with better security and faster updates. Uh, this initiative called core PC will allow windows to scale better for different devices while still supporting legacy apps just as well as their products always have.

Uh, they're also reportedly working on a version of core PC to rival Apple Silicon, which the iPhone maker began shipping a new max more than two years ago. Their Silicon optimized variant would enhance the operating system's performance capabilities when tied to specific hardware like their own, of course.

And, uh, they're going to bake AI into the project. It's plans, including artificial intelligence to analyze onscreen content, provide appropriate contextual cues. Oh, that's going to go over well. Boy, that's going to be awesome. Yeah. Let's look at everything you're doing.

Yeah. Thanks. You know, I mean, even was it in my old Xbox, you could not even, if you had your own, uh, file, the video file that you wanted to play, didn't matter what it was. It could have been a video of your dogs that you wanted to play on your TV.

You could not load that onto your Xbox and actually play it without the Xbox being connected to the internet. So it could do the copyright checks on it to make sure that you weren't doing something nefarious. So imagine the thing that you purchased yourself with your own money and that you own.

Exactly. Exactly. So imagine what that's going to be like when the entire operating system is doing that. I mean, Jesus, look at the backlash that Apple got when they were just trying to get rid of kiddie porn. Yep. This is everything they want. They want the AI to look at everything you do. Who thought this was a good idea?

Who thought this was a good idea? Yeah. Uh, another great idea, uh, since we've got, you know, Bingbot now who is, uh, well, they're trying to monetize that already. So they're putting ads into the results that you get back from Bingbot.

Come on, come on, give it at least a little bit of breathing room. Jesus. Great. It's not like they're hurting for cash. No, Microsoft's fine. We don't need to do that. You should not. They're trying to make back that $10 billion they just gave to open AI.

I suppose they are. Yeah. Uh, and more AI use Google has unveiled AI powered planning tools to help beat climate change, extreme heat. So this will, uh, basically push extreme weather alerts to users in affected locations, providing helpful, easy to understand information about the event through the search page, whether through it's a winter storm warning, flood advisory, tornado warning, or what have you.

They've added extreme heat alerts to that list. Googling details on the events, like, is it fucking hot? Is it just me? We'll return everything from the predicted start and end dates of the heat wave to medical issues to be aware of, such as dying and how to mitigate their impacts, such as get the fuck inside where there's air conditioning.

If you can afford it, you rich bitch. Yep. The company is partnering with the global heat health information network to ensure that the information provided is both accurate and applicable. That's the sound you make as your house catches fire and you're born to death. Yeah.

So, uh, I was thinking like, couldn't you actually maybe point that AI how to stop climate change instead of just warning us? Brian, Brian. Oh, wait, we know how to stop climate change. Yeah, yeah. You don't do it. You make money with the, you make money with the medicine, not the cure.

Right, right. You know, don't forget that. Uh, the one thing I did kind of thought I thought was interesting, but again, what the fuck does AI have to do with any of it? Google has developed tree canopy, a feature within the company's environmental insights explorer app, which combines AI and aerial imagery. So cities can understand their current tree coverage.

I think just the aerial imagery covers that. Okay. Just me. You can kind of see where the trees are and where they aren't from the photos themselves. Tree or not? The new app. Tree or not? Oh, God, this stuff is so fucking dumb.

I can't believe we talk about this every week. All right. I know. 10 years. We're still back to the same fucking starting spot. Oh, God. Tree or not? Oh, Jesus. Oh, well, speaking of climate change. It's good to laugh as you're going over the fucking edge.

Trust me, man. If you can't find humor in it, what's the fucking point? Scientists have created the world's lightest paint in just three pounds can cover a Boeing 747. Okay, great. Researchers have developed a new energy saving paint that repels heat, comes in any color and should last centuries.

It's also the lights. Never mind. I'm stopping there. Okay. I just want to say, A for effort, 100% A for effort, but Jesus fucking Christ, do we need more shit that's going to last for centuries? Can we get some paint that's light and biodegrades, please?

Also, unintended consequences are going to come a call in on this. Oops, we discovered it causes cancer. Yeah, and it's everywhere and it lasts forever. And we've put it everywhere and it lasts forever and you can't scrape it off. Yeah. Jesus. I mean, I love this.

This is great. This is what science is great at. I do like this. I like the idea. I don't necessarily, yeah. Lasting forever? Not a great idea. Brought to you by Monsanto. Yes. Oh, I painted my house agent orange. Oh, I painted my house agent orange. Great band.

Bad color. And then I saw this one, which, oh boy, here we go. Tech leaders and AI experts demand a six-month pause on out-of-control AI experiments. An open letter signed by tech leaders and prominent AI researchers has called for AI labs and companies to immediately pause their work.

Signatories like Steve Wozniak and Elon Musk agree risks warrant a minimum six-month break from producing technology beyond GPT-4 to enjoy existing AI systems, allowing people to adjust and ensure they are benefiting everyone. Okay, where do we start? I'll let you dive in.

Okay. Well, Steve Wozniak doesn't have any place in the modern tech conversation. I'm sorry. He's done. He's busy playing Segway polo. And he's got an online course, you know. So, Steve, go be Steve. I love you.

Big hugs. But, yeah, come on. Elon, you hypocritical piece of shit. Yeah. To start with. I'm sorry. Open AI. Who was one of the founding members of Open AI? Well, yeah. Also, you know what would be a good idea to have a six-month pause on?

Tesla self-driving. Exactly. Exactly. So, actually, longer than that, maybe. 20 years. 20 years. Let's keep it 20 years. Rolling 20 years. This is ridiculous. And, you know, it comes back to, A, it's a dumb idea.

B, it's a dumb idea. C, it's a game. It's, you know, a play for a lot of people to say, oh, six months? We can catch up in six months. We can figure out our shit. That's what a lot of it feels like, yes. Yeah. And a lot of these signatures have turned out to be fake, by the way. And this is just, it's a mess.

And it's stupid. And it's just, yeah, there's a great piece about it called, A Misleading Open Letter About Sci-Fi AI Dangers Ignores the Real Risk from the AI Snake Oil Newsletter, which I highly recommend signing up for. It's a really good newsletter. It's right up our alley.

Yeah. And they had, it just, it breaks down the arguments that the letter makes and how it, all of it makes no sense and is stupid. So, go check that out. It's worth a read. And definitely sign up for AI Snake Oil. It's a great newsletter. Italy, on the other hand, has said, no, we don't want your chat GPT in our country now, too.

So, they are saying that they want a moratorium on chat GPT and all AI for Italian citizens. And they're coming back with saying, you know, there's problems here with GDPR. Yes, there are.

Yeah. Like, where did you get this information? How does it know about these people? What's going on? It is the black box problem. So, they're, it's going to be interesting how this is going to play out over Europe because OpenAI does not have any, like, business presence in the EU or anything like that.

So, basically, they have opened the door for every single country in the EU to come after them and say, hey, you know, what's the problem going on here? And, yeah, this is going to be- You can get away with that silly accent because your last name is DeFilippo. I'm Italian, yes. I can do that.

But, oh, God, you want to hear some bad Italian accents. Wait till, I think April 10th is when the Labors of Hercule will come out that I was on, that I mentioned that was going on last week. We had a blast, by the way. Oh, good. Adam and Frankie are awesome. We had so much fun.

It was a, it was just a, it was so much fun. We talked for like an hour and a half. Hopefully, they will edit it down some. But, since the episode that we talked about was only 45 minutes, but that's how that kind of thing goes. But, anyway, lots of bad Italian accents on that one. This is just going to happen over and over again.

And it's, we're at the beginning of, I want to say, this kind of tech backlash, we have a lot to thank Bitcoin for right now and cryptocurrencies. Yep. Because everybody saw how that got out of hand because everybody's like, this is the greatest thing.

Oh, shit. There goes the economy. Now, people are trying to get out in front of it when all these big, you know, tech leapfrogs and technology come about. So, I see this as an ongoing issue, not just the open letters, but actual governments who don't know what the fuck they're talking about getting involved.

I'm sure including our own. Well, I would argue not just Bitcoin, Metaverse also, one of the reasons that we're having this tech backlash right now. We saw, you know, Mark Zuckerberg pour billions of dollars, companies basically trying to ram Metaverse down our throats.

NFTs. Oh, yeah. All the NFTs as well. Let's not forget the blockchain. So many things just shoved down our throats that nobody wants, that don't get adopted, that just billions upon billions of dollars were squandered on, fortunes were made, classes were made.

You know, it's just, it just continues. And, you know, you and I called the Metaverse dead on arrival, on arrival. Then it took a long time for people to catch up with us. And it's finally started to come around to the fact that, yes, it's dead. Even Disney has reportedly shut down its Metaverse division now.

All 50 or so team members as part of a broader restructuring process have been laid off. So no more Metaverse for Disney because they've smelled it on the wind. Nobody cares. Nobody wants it. How about you just make what you do now better? Better. We'll do that.

Well, you know what they're going to do. They took all those people, the 50 people that were on that team, moved them over to the Hall of Presidents AI division. So now you can go have a conversation with Abe Lincoln and Richard Nixon when you go to the Hall of Presidents. That's what it's going to be. I have such fond memories of that as a child.

Yeah. As a child. As an adult, it's like, oh, this is worse than Chuck E. Cheese. Yeah. So dancing back over to crypto. Crypto giant Binance has been charged with violating U.S. trading and derivatives laws. I haven't busted this one out for a while, Jason. Here it comes. Shocking.

That one pent up for a while. The company supposedly offered unregistered crypto derivatives, didn't ask users for mandatory identity verification, structured itself to avoid U.S. regulations, and even told customers how to dodge its own compliance system for U.S.-based customers.

Don't. Oh. Oops. The founder, Chang Peng Zhao, directed much of the rule-breaking himself. All right. There were probably chats and emails as evidence. Among other things, he purportedly encouraged American users to mass trades through a VPN and even create new accounts through shell companies.

Wow. Yeah, this is all going well. I wonder if Sam Bankman-Fried's parents have an extra room for this guy to hang out while they're waiting trial. And more big companies doing bad.

And Google has been found to have violated an order to save chat evidence in the Epic Antitrust case. So they basically found out that Google said, well, don't ask, don't tell about all their employees keeping all the messages that they were ordered by law to keep for the trial.

You want to delete them? Yeah, go ahead. Yeah, go ahead. Nobody cares. Oh, wait. People care? Oh, shit. We're in trouble? Oh, fuck. Oh, shit. And what I love is that we know that nothing ever gets deleted. Ever. So, okay.

You think about this and you go, okay, surely this is just a bunch of mid-level Google employees that are trying to save their own bacon and just, you know, I don't want to get dragged into this. No, not so much. In 2021, Google CEO Sundar Pichai allegedly wrote, also, we can change the setting of this group to history off.

And then he attempted to delete that message a few seconds later. Oh, dear. Google employees also reportedly switch off chat histories when discussing topics such as revenue sharing and mobile app distribution agreements, as well as a project that involves changing commission rates for Google Play.

You would think that a company that sucks in every single bit of data about us and doesn't let us delete it would know better. Nah. Nah.

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Media Candy. Brian, on your recommendation, I went and watched The Menu. All right. What did you think? Fantastic movie. It was great, right? Fantastic. Yeah. Oh, not what I thought. Not at all what I thought it was going to be. Yeah, I thought it was definitely going to be one thing, because it's just like, okay, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Nope, nope, that wasn't it. No. And basically, the girl from, what, Queen's Gambit, almost naked the whole time. Didn't really hurt. That doesn't hurt, no. No, that didn't hurt one bit. What a great, what a great little movie. I loved it.

Yeah, it was fun. I mean, it's not going to change the world or anything, but I mean. Oh, no. Just, just, it was immaculately directed, perfectly acted, well-written, smart, and surprising. So. Yeah, I loved it. I absolutely loved it. Then I watched MH370, The Plane That Disappeared.

Why the fuck did you do that? Because there was nothing else on. Wow. That's scraping a barrel, man. It really was. It really was. I'm just, that's why I'm here to tell you, just don't. Skip it. Skip it. Because, you know, nobody, nobody knows. They don't know. They don't have any answers.

They don't know. There were some, there were some fun conspiracy theories in there, and some that were just dumb shit, stupid. Yeah, just, oh God, that was a waste of time. Then Bert Kreischer has a new special out called Razzle Dazzle, and I've been a Bert Kreischer fan for a long time, and we actually ended up turning this off at the beginning because it was so bad.

Then I went back and tried it again, and it picks up at about 17 minutes, and the last 40 minutes or so are decent. Okay. But, yeah, it's, he's, his shtick is kind of getting a little old, but, yeah, very old.

But Picard, I did catch the latest episode of Picard last night. Some more fan service on this one? Oh, for sure. Oh, yeah. But I have to say that I am still digging it. I'm still digging the shit out of it.

I'm just sad it's almost over. I know. That's the thing. I mean, have you seen the push online to do a Star Trek legacy show? No. With the kids, and then the adults will pop in every now and then and give words of wisdom and all that sort of stuff. I don't know.

I kind of feel like, let's let it go. I do, too. Let's have a big finale and call it a day. But I'm loving it, too. It really, it was a pretty bleak episode. It's always darkest before the dawn, Jason. Yes, it is. So, but, yeah, it was great. It was great. And what, we get, like, four more?

Five more? I don't know. Is that it? I thought, even, hell, I was thinking we were going to get, like, two more. So, I'm happy with whatever we get. Yeah, me too. But the more, the merrier, because there's, they got to, you know. But, yeah, some of it was, meh. But, god damn, that, what's her name?

The captain of the other ship, the changeling chick. Oh, my god, she can act. Holy shit, can she act. Yeah, yeah. So good, so good. We had the two-episode season finale of The Bad Batch. I thought you quit that. No, I've kept it going.

Well, I was not going to watch any more than I found out it was the season finale, right? Like a two-episode season finale. If I've been that far, I might as well finish it up, right? And after I finished watching it, I had to go read the reviews to make sure I'm not crazy. And all the reviews are like, why wasn't the show like this the entire season?

Oh, so it was a good ending? This was awesome. Okay. Both episodes were riveting, highly enjoyable, moved the Star Wars universe forward, great cliffhangers. Like, it was really good. I'm like, the whole season sucked, but these two episodes are awesome.

So, there you go. I guess we can wait on Mandalorian until Dave. Of course. Shrinking also had its season finale, which I think it was like a week and a half ago, actually. And I'm just getting around to putting it in the show notes now. What a phenomenal feel-good show.

If you have not watched it yet, Jason, I highly recommend it. I got to episode five and got stuck. I'm waiting to get the inspiration to get back to it. But I enjoyed it up to that point. But it's just, you have to be in the right mood. Oh, I agree with that. So, yeah.

Yeah. Haven't been in that mood yet. Yeah. I went back to try to watch Severance again. And I've just decided I'm never going to be in the mood. And I'm not. Don't. Don't. Don't. I mean, that's eight hours you're never going to get back. That's the same thing as The Bad Batch. It's like the last, like, the last half of the last episode was decent.

And the rest of it is just set up, set up, set up. That makes, it's just not worth, the juice ain't worth the squeeze, as they say. Yep. Yep. And finally, watch some Ted Lasso. Two episodes. I love it. Great show. Great show. I think it's lost a bit of its magic.

And I do hope they wrap it up after the end of the season. Although I'm hearing rumors they're not going to. But still enjoying it. So. Okay. You got to pick up, you got to get to the latest episode, episode three. It's, it's really good. I, I, I think they got, they did lose a little.

It kind of peaked and went down a little bit and then came back up for episode three. So. Oh, good. Can't wait. Yeah. I'll be watching it tonight. It's, it's that show that my wife and I schedule, like, I'm not allowed to watch it without her. She's not allowed to watch it without me. So we have to time it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Netflix, Netflix has made a last minute deal to retain Arrested development streaming rights.

Cause we've been talking about this on and off recently about how scattered everything is and how things are being dropped. And you know, like some, some shows, like if Netflix drops Arrested Development completely, the last two seasons were only on Netflix. So where would they ever go? Nowhere.

Oh yeah. They just disappear into the ether. So it's, it's good to see that they're trying to like save some of these things, I guess. I don't know what's going to happen with all this stuff. Yeah. We need a, we need a new channel that is just all the shit that's been dropped. Like with HBO max dropping everything left and right, you know, there needs a place for this stuff to live.

Maybe just get a bargain basement channel out there. They can buy all this stuff, you know, it, it fire sale prices. Yeah. We'll see. Uh, we got some Star Trek news. Strange new world. Season two will premiere June 15th. So I'm assuming that'll be shortly after Picard ends to keep that subscription going from suckers.

Of course me, man. Me too. Yep. And it has been announced that they will have a season three already. So that's good news. Uh, Star Trek lower decks will be coming back as well in August for a fourth season and has been green lit for a fifth season as well. All right.

All right. And, uh, paramount plus has ordered. I love this diverse team focused Star Trek Academy or Starfleet Academy series. Um, yeah, a hat tip to Adam Spiegelman for this one. He was the first one to send us a note about this. Um, and Wesley Crusher is the principal.

Yeah. That's a trader. Stavros, uh, called it Star Trek saved by the bell on, on discord. Um, I personally prefer Melrose space or a stardate 90210. Um, I gotta give, I gotta give a hat tip to, uh, old, our old friend, Jeff Koga, uh, for Melrose space.

Remember that show space above and beyond from Morgan and Wong back in the day. Yep. That was on when we worked, worked, when we first met and worked together at box top. That's why I remember that when he coined it. Cause we used to watch that show and come in and talk about it at the office space above and beyond.

Um, it was a decent show I thought, but it definitely was Melrose space. Look, I don't mind the idea of this idea. I like the idea of a Starfleet Academy show. That's a bit, uh, for younger kids. I like that because as we discussed, I, I still don't understand who Star Trek prodigy is for.

No, I don't either. And at all aiming something at younger adults, I think is, is first off, it's smart. It'll get kids into Star Trek. And secondly, I I'm intrigued by it. I would watch it. I don't like prodigy though. I don't get it. So. Oh yeah. No, not a, not a fan of that at all.

I, I, I, I, I still get confused. I'm like, am I watching Star Wars or am I watching Star Trek? Because the animation styles are so weird. I just, I couldn't watch it. I literally got just like universe confusion when I watched it. Um, oh, uh, Succession's back by the way.

I don't know if you watched the first episode. Uh, also that is another show that is only a watchable when my wife and I schedule combined. Okay. So we, hopefully this weekend I'll be watching the first one. Yeah. Nice to have that back. It is the final season on that one for sure. So toodles on that, uh, Barry is coming back, uh, in April.

So for one last season. Yeah. Good. Good. They need to wrap that up because it's getting long in the tooth, but, uh, the last season was great. Uh, highly recommend that show. It is, it is definitely different and fun. So, and, uh, I've actually been doing my thing where I back off from podcasts a bit and start to listen to music again.

And I've been talking with some of my friends. Uh, we, we were bemoaning the fact that the kids don't seem to like the real music anymore and they're all just doing pop music. Found two bands to prove that wrong. Uh, both, uh, one I found and I, one, uh, a friend of mine recommended Mandy, Indiana is the first band and, uh, they are not from Indiana or maybe they're from the UK and actually the singer sings in French.

It's industrial French. Oh, I love that. It's awesome. They only have a couple of songs out there, but totally worth a listen. Really, really good. The other band is called soft cults and it's right in my wheelhouse. Female singer songwriter, a bit shoegaze, a little bit dark.

This is good stuff coming out of these kids. I'm excited. All right. I will definitely check out Mandy, Indiana. I love, I don't know why. I just love French vocalists. Oh, you'll dig it. You'll dig it. And it's all industrial sounding. It's great. It's really cool. Cool. And, uh, Apple music classical has launched.

And originally I was like, why, why did you spin this out into its own app? Then I actually read the page on, on that they, that Apple put out and it makes a whole lot of sense. Yes, it does. Classical is its own thing and it needs its own thing. Yep.

Yep. So you can, if you're an Apple music subscriber, uh, or an Apple one subscriber, like I am. I believe I am through you. So I can't wait to check this out. My brother, my brother from another mother. Um, uh, I, I downloaded it and I checked it out this morning and, uh, it's a great interface.

Uh, I'm, I'm in, I'm definitely in. I just got to make sure it works with my Sonos. Oh, here's another thing that pissed me off the other day. One of the other reasons I hate Spotify opened one of my favorite Spotify playlists to play on my Sonos in my house when I was cooking yesterday and 80% of the playlist did not exist anymore on Spotify.

And here's the thing, here's the annoying part is that when it would get to a track, I just hit shuffle on the playlist. When it would get to a track that it was not there anymore, it didn't just skip it. It would just stop playing. I'm like, thanks, Spotify. Preach.

But they have an AI bot now you can chat with. Yeah. Can you, can you play the next song AI bot, please? Assholes. Apps and doodads. I talked about my analog pocket that I got, uh, that took a, year and several months.

Is that a euphemism for something? No, it is not. Could be though. Could be though. Analog sweatpants pocket. Going back to an earlier episode where you gave one of those away, I believe. Oh man. Uh, yes. It's the auto blow too. Oh man. Um, this thing is really cool.

I love playing Tetris on it. The Tetris movies coming out, uh, getting mixed reviews, but I'll review it next week. Looks fun. Looks fun. Uh, the thing about it is it plays, uh, Game Boy cartridges, but I'm like, okay, well, can I sideload some ROMs onto this thing? And they're like, no, you can't.

Well, now you can some, some guy named, uh, with the account spiritualized over on GitHub has released a little hack to use the, uh, open player on there. So I'm going to try that. There's a link in the show notes on how to play ROMs on the pocket. So I am going to give that a shot this week because, um, this thing is really well built.

I love the display. I just love playing Tetris. I mean, it's one of those things that just, I could do it for hours. And, uh, it was a big part of my college experience playing Tetris. The funny thing about it is it's like you get into that brain mode where it's not, it's not even flow.

It's kind of like, um, I don't know if you know much about it. I'm sure you do. Cause you took psychology, the default mode network that you activate with when you're in the shower and you, that's where all your ideas come from. If you play Tetris enough, you can access that same mode. And I just, I come up with some of my best ideas when I'm playing Tetris now.

Yes. I've also heard if you play with your analog pocket enough, you can access that sound too. Yeah, you can do that too. You can do that too. Might fall off. You go blind. Go blind. Yeah. Harry Palmer. Um, uh, the other thing about, uh, Tetris that, uh, another psychology, uh, study showed that, uh, PTSD, it helps prevent PTSD.

If you play Tetris before you go to bed after a traumatic event, I thought that was some fascinating research because the way it rewires your brain to stop fixating on the events that happened. And they tested this on, um, uh, military members who had like, you know, say lost a buddy from an IED that day and it helped them with PTSD over time, which I thought was just fascinating.

Very cool. Well, and another blast from the past here, I found the Delphi forums. Oh my God. Do you remember them? I do. It's still there and it looks the same. Oh my God. It does. It looks the same. And it's still active.

It is still responsive design now, Jason. Oh, okay. Um, but there's a lot of immigration cop forums on there, which I found they're active. Like all these ice people and border patrol, this is where they hang out.

So if you want to go, you know, troll some immigration cops, head over to Delphi forums. All right. Well, something that you and I are against is actually finally coming. Unfortunately, Apple pay later, uh, took nearly a year, but the system is here. The company has launched an Apple pay later for us customers in a pre-release version that requires an invitation.

If you're included, you can split your online Apple pay purchases made from an iPhone or iPad into as many as four payments spread over six weeks. You cannot apply for loans larger than $1,000 or, and have it applied and have to link to a debit card, but there are no fees or interest payments, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

Apple won't share data with third-party marketers. I still think bad idea for Apple to get into this, but I get they need to get into finance. And let's be honest, if you can actually afford an iPad, you probably don't even need this. So I don't quite get it, but there you are. Yeah. It's, I don't like this.

This, this preys on lower income people. I'm not a fan of it. Agreed. I don't like it. Nope. Nope. Uh, and we got this too easy. It just makes it too easy. Yeah. Yeah. Even the, the pay later with the Apple credit card, I avoid. They're like, oh, would you like to spread this over, you know, the next year, uh, with zero interest on your credit card?

It still dings your credit card and like takes away the limit. And then you just have to pay it over time. It's still like wacky. And even that is, it just gives me the creepy crawlies. Um, not a fan. Nope. Uh, and Dan writes, writes in real quick. Hey guys, just a quick message to share my experience this week.

My wife bought a cheap Apple watch charger from Amazon recently. During the night, there must've been a short in the cable. It set fire to itself, cooked to the Apple watch and then ignited back up the cable, burning anything in the near vicinity. Good job. Our smoke alarms were working. The alarm alerted us and woke us up, giving us enough time to put out the fire before it burnt our kitchen down.

Lesson learned. Don't buy cheap cables and check your smoke alarms. People love the show. All the best, Dan. Oh, that's scary. Yeah. That's very scary. You got to be careful with the cables you're purchasing on Amazon. I think we've kind of come to the conclusion that Amazon Basics is actually pretty decent. No, actually that was one of the ones that blew up too.

We had a story about Amazon Basics USB-C cables, uh, actually igniting a while back. Okay. Yeah. Check the reviews people. Yeah. Yep. Um, but speaking of Apple, I did pick up a Apple magic trackpad this week. Um, I've been doing a lot of editing and I'm starting to get a little bit of the old carpal tunnel in my, in my mouse hand.

So I thought I'd, I'd try it out. They're, they're decent. I mean, it's, it's a learning curve for sure. Yeah. But, um, I'm getting my, I'm getting my gestures down and things like that. And it's, it's definitely helping my arm at night. I don't have to take as many Advil before I go to bed. That's a plus.

Yeah. I did have to buy it using all the Apple stock that I sold because I'm going broke. So I think I'm doing the stock market wrong. Well, you're doing it wrong for you, but you're doing great for me, Jason. Okay. Thank you. You're welcome. The dark side.

With Dave. Welcome back to the dark side with Dave. Dave is the host of the cyberwire podcast, co-host of the social engineering podcast, hacking humans with Joe Kerrigan. Dave is also the co-host of caveat with Ben Yellen, where they discuss law and policy and surveillance and privacy and the control loop podcast where they discuss ICS and OT.

Welcome back, Dave. How you doing? Yo, well, thank you for having me back. And I feel like, I feel a little bit like Rodney Dangerfield, where it's like, yeah, I feel great now, but I tell you last week I was in rough shape, you know? Dangerfield impression was in the back pocket the whole time.

Yeah. Who knew? Who knew? Rich Little over here. Yeah, that's right. I had food poisoning last weekend. So, yeah, so we record you and we recorded on Friday, like we usually do.

I went home and my family had ordered pizza. You got food poisoning from pizza? Well, it was Pizza Hut pizza. So, I don't know if you want to call it pizza or not, but so it was pizza and, you know, breadsticks and some kind of brownie dessert kind of thing.

They must have had a special or something that somebody clicked on, but everyone else in my family ate it without any trouble. And I had almost immediately afterwards, it set me into about 36 hours of not being able to keep anything down, even water.

Oh, and so I was getting muscle cramps because I was getting dehydrated and it really made me wish that either I had a loved one or a relative who was a nurse who could give me a IV drip or some kind of home IV.

You know, they have delivery for that. They have Uber for IVs. At least they do here in LA. Really? They do in LA. Yeah, in LA they do. Yeah. No, you can get any kind of IV at your house in half an hour or less. Really? Yeah. Including a cocaine IV. Well, who puts it in though?

Like who's, because I don't know how to stick a needle in my arm. Well, they do. Does a nurse come with it? Yeah. Yeah, basically. Yeah. They come with a technician and a bag and basically, you know, for like 200 bucks, you can get all sorts of different IVs. Yeah. Wow. That sounds like such an LA kind of thing.

Do they? That's what I'm saying. I don't know if they've got it there, but. Can you buy? I'm just imagining also people sitting in an oxygen bar, you know, that sort of thing. It sounds like. Next to Woody Harrelson. Right. Right. So anyway, I mean, anyone who's been through that, and most of us have probably been through that, it is no fun.

And it's also the anxiety of thinking like, well, I'm really hungry now. I'm going to try to eat something. I feel as though I'm settled. And then, nope. Not there yet. Not good yet. Not yet. Not yet. But the weird thing is all throughout, I guess it's not that weird, but all throughout this week, I've been, like, even through today, so it's a week later, and I don't have any appetite.

Like, I feel good when I eat, and my body goes, hey, yay, you ate something, you're not hungry anymore, but I don't, like, I don't feel like I want to eat at all right now, which I guess is good. I could certainly afford to drop a few pounds, but it's just strange.

I feel as though my insides have been through a blender and came out the other side. Yeah, that is probably one of the worst experiences that isn't fatal that one can have with one's body. It really is.

Even though when you're in the midst of it, it's, you can kill me now. Just kill me now. Well, I've been lucky to only have it twice in my life, but the one time was so bad, and I was living in London at the time. I think it was, like, 97, so I was, like, early, mid-20s, something like that, with my girlfriend, and we had decided we wanted to celebrate American Thanksgiving.

She was vegetarian, but cooked me a turkey, which, very nice. So she obviously did not eat the turkey, so it was only me that got the spewing out both ends 24 hours to 48 hours, had to throw out a rug. Yeah.

Horrible. Yeah. Yeah. Yes. Yes, exactly. Right. That's the other fun part. Will I make it? Will I make it there? Often, no. Well, and you can only point one end at a receptacle at a time, which is also problematic. Yeah, right. Right. Yeah, that's true. No, remember that time, I actually, I talked about it on the show, because I was out for a week one time.

I do. I bought some prosciutto and put it in the fridge, and then I forgot that I went to Chicago for a week, and when I came back, I grabbed the prosciutto, and I gave a piece to the cat, and the cat said, nah, I'm good. It should have been my first tip-off, and I wolfed it, and then, yeah, I was in bed for seven days.

That's when I watched, I only remember, because that was when I watched the entirety of, like, the first six seasons of the Big Bang Theory, and I'm like, I don't know what's worse, the show or the food poisoning. Yeah. I still can't eat prosciutto to this day. No.

Well, yeah, trust me, I have no desire for Pizza Hut pizza anytime. Not that it was high on my list of culinary favorites anyway, but the other fun food poisoning story I'll share with you is that when my wife and I got back from our honeymoon, and we are coming up on 30 years this fall, so it was a long time ago.

Yeah. So when my wife and I were on our honeymoon, which was, we went out to California and drove down the coast and ended up, wait for it, Brian, Disneyland. Shocking. I know, right? When we got back from our honeymoon, well, let me back up a little bit.

When we went to go on our honeymoon, my wife was deadly ill with food poisoning. And she said, she's like, honey, I don't know if I can get on the plane. I was like, come on, be a trooper. You can do it. You can do it. She got on the plane. We actually flew into San Francisco.

She spent the first two days just in the hotel room in San Francisco, and I went out and got plain white rice and stuff to kind of hold her over. So that was that, and she hung in there, and she felt better. And by the time we got to Disneyland, she was in great shape.

So that was what mattered most. But when we got home, we learned that we had poisoned the entire wedding party. Oh, no. Yeah. Turns out that everyone who had been to the rehearsal dinner, except for me, had been poisoned.

So we narrowed it down. Yeah, this new one was just payback for that since we were the only one. Right, exactly. Yeah. All my relatives have been biding their time, just waiting for the right moment to sneak in. Yeah. So the original thing we nailed down to being, we're pretty sure it was a Caesar salad at our rehearsal dinner that did everybody in.

But yeah, good times. Good times. Fun stuff. Yeah. I recommend ginger ale and applesauce. That's what got me through. Yes. Yes. Yes. That's exactly right. And I've been drinking, I've been sipping ginger ale this week, and one of the first things I nibbled on was a banana, which evidently is another one that's a good little test food.

Oh, good potassium, yes. Oh, and don't forget good old saltines. They only exist because of food poisoning as far as I'm concerned. That's right. Why else would anyone eat one of those dry, dusty things? Yeah. Well, saltines are the exciting version of matzah.

So that's what a party. That's right. That's right. Ooh, it's a wild man. It's like the tattooed matzah. Yeah. Right. Right. Exactly. Oh, God. Jerry wrote in regarding our conversation last week about car rentals.

He says there's a service called Turo, which is the exact combination of Hertz and Uber, a car sharing marketplace. My concern being it's the negative sides of Hertz and Uber combined. The worst of both worlds. Sure. Sure. I did take a look at the page.

I don't know if I would do that. It's basically people putting up their own cars. Like, it's weird. Oh, yes. Yeah. I have seen that. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah. I'm not going to dip my toe there, I don't think. But the thing I've seen about that, where I've considered something like Turo is, there are times when I've thought to myself, boy, wouldn't it be nice to have a Porsche 911 to drive around in this weekend?

Right. I don't want to own one. And I don't know if I want to borrow one. My high school reunion is coming up and I kind of want to show up in style. Right. Exactly. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, yeah. No, totally. This is my car. But the funny thing is, again, going back to services. That probably only exist in Los Angeles, there are no lack of rental places that have Bugattis, Lamborghinis, Porsches.

Right. Well, I see them every time I go to Las Vegas. Of course, they're all over the place there. And it's also one of those things where I'm not sure I want to borrow one from a friend because I do have friends who have fancy cars and things like that. But I'd just be afraid that I would either do something bad or wear it out in some strange way and affect my friendship.

So sometimes a rental car is just the way to go. And some of these things like Turo, I think they cater to that as well. Yeah. Insurance and being able to give it back without ruining a friendship is definitely a plus for sure. Well, shall we talk Mandalorian?

I know I saw it on the list of media candy. But we were waiting to see if you were caught up. So I am caught up. Yes. I caught up last night. So I am all the way caught up so far. It is a different show now. How do you mean that?

It is no longer a Western about the lone Mandalorian with his charge. It is definitely the story of the Mandalorians. They need to add an S to the end of the title at this point. But I'm all for it. I'm loving it. It's great. I'm enjoying it, too.

Yeah, it's interesting how this show has evolved and continues to evolve and touches so many parts of the Star Wars universe. I really like it. Yeah. I'm happy without movies right now. Me as well. I don't even want a movie, especially if it's coming from the directors that are being tipped right now, none of which I think are going to give a compelling story.

So yeah, I like the show a lot. I can't wait to see where it goes. We're still, we're not even, what are we, four or five episodes in now? So we're not halfway through, maybe-ish. So we'll see. I think it's very, very good. Yeah.

What do you think, Jason? I don't know where they're going with the whole Grogu story, though. He's just kind of a bit player now. Yeah, but that's okay. I guess it is called The Mandalorian, not Grogu. Right, right. Well, yeah, I mean, he was the breakout character and applied to every t-shirt in the world, but they can't do away with him.

Don't forget the Chia Pets. That's right. That's right. That's right. Yeah, it's interesting. I like it. I like the change. I like that they're moving along and evolving the story, not just doing the same story over and over again. It was also really nice to have basically a straight-up, full-on action episode.

Like, it was just battle and fights, and it was great. Yeah. My son was asking, we were talking about how now it's inevitable that Grogu will get his own little Mandalorian helmet, which is going to be adorable. And, like, are his ears going to poke out of the sides or, you know, who knows?

I hope so. Are they going to find a way to put little metal ears on the side? Fox metal ears, yeah. Right, probably. But he brought up an interesting question, which is, as far as we know, are all Mandalorians that we've seen so far humanoid?

Yes. So Grogu would be the first. I believe so, because they're all from the same planet, right? It's – they're all from Mandalore. So the Mandalorians are from Mandalore, and that's that. But our Mandalorian isn't, right? He was a foundling.

Is he from Mandalore? Oh, that's a fair point. Yeah. They do pick him up as they go, so. Right, right. It's just – we haven't seen any other aliens, and it's possible that there's somebody underneath one of those helmets that is, and maybe we'll find out about that. But it seems like Grogu is the first real departure from a humanoid Mandalorian.

So. Yeah. Okay. We'll see. Eagle eye on that kid you got there. He's definitely that kid. Yeah. He's definitely that kid who thinks through all the possibilities. Yeah. It's fun. All right. Well, we actually do have some security news in here in case we weren't going to go on for 30 minutes on basically pooping and vomiting at the same time, which we haven't.

Speaking of the dark side. Yes. I did see this. The Biden administration is banning federal agencies from using commercial spyware, which I think is a long time coming, and I think we're all on board with. Yeah. The order applies to all departments, including those involved in law enforcement, defense, and intelligence. It prohibits the use of spyware that in the past was used to disclose non-public information about the U.S. government.

It does not provide a list of affected spyware vendors, but one assumes it's going to be the big ones like the NSO Group and CyTrux and all that sort of stuff. So a step in the right direction, I guess. I think so. We'll at least publicly say we're not using this and let our black ops continue to do so.

Yeah. Ben Yellen and I talked about this this week on Caveat. It was Ben's main story, and his take on it seems to be that this is more than anything probably a diplomatic statement of us taking a leadership position globally.

And because – what was it? Just the past couple of days, President Biden had his – there was some summit on for democracy, something like that. And so this allows him to say we as a nation are taking this position that spyware is bad. The fact of the matter is there are enough loopholes in this thing to drive a Mack truck through.

So it's more of a aspirational statement of intentions than something real. Kind of like a, come on, guys. Let's all stop using this. We'll stop. Are you guys going to stop? Because if you don't stop, we're not going to stop.

Yeah. I think Ben was saying that there are some agencies that will likely be directly affected immediately, like I think some of the border control agencies who use this stuff to do the things they do. They may find themselves having this tool taken away.

But the presumption is that our spy organizations have their own stuff, and so this really isn't going to affect them, nor should it for espionage. But as a policy statement, I think it's a good thing. Why not?

Agreed. Yeah. Yeah. And I've got a little follow-up here. We talked about how this new AI voice revolution is going to be a problem for us with scams, and the FTC is finally coming out and saying, hey, guys, this is going to be a problem with scams.

Right. Right. Specifically the old family member in distress scam where you get the text message or the voicemail saying, hey, I'm stuck in jail in Guatemala. Please send money now. Right. Now with being able to clone someone's voice off of a very small sample, which you can get from anybody's TikTok videos or Instagram reels or basically anything anywhere, you can get somebody's voice that they can clone it and make it sound 100 times more real.

Just basically giving you some advice saying, hey, if you get one of these, call them back just to make sure. That's the first thing. That won't stop it if it's part of a more sophisticated attack like they do a SIM card swap with the person that you're targeting.

And they call back and then they're ready for you kind of thing. But for the most part, calling them back will stop this dead in its tracks 99% of the time. So if you ever get one of these, just, you know, star 69. Does that still work?

Oh, man, that's a deep cut. Oh, man, phone freaking. We were speaking of the old days at Disneyland. That's a there used to be banks of pay phones throughout Disneyland, and we definitely used to figure out we had figured out ways to do free phone calls.

We had learned all the different phone codes that you could do. Oh, I miss those days. Good old days. Yeah. Yeah. When we were at Disney World, I actually have a picture of my two boys. There was a pay phone, you know, in a little like where the restrooms are, you know, how they have pay phones in some of those areas.

There's just a picture of my two boys looking at this thing like, is this a gag? Like, is this, you know, if I pick this up, is Mickey Mouse going to talk to me? Is this actually, you know? This is where Superman used to go change in the 50s. Right. And I wonder how many kids today, these kids today, even know what a dial tone sounds like.

Oh, wow. My son was so confused when we put, we decided we, after we moved here, we just don't, you know, I haven't had a landline for ages and we didn't even have one in Santa Monica anymore. But after we came here, we decided, well, we might as well just get one of the digital voiceover IP landlines.

So, you know, if Lucas is home, we can teach him how to call for something because he doesn't have a cell phone. And he just, it took a while to explain to him that this is also a phone. The shape is weird.

What do you mean? It's connected. And then what? Huh? That's a phone. It doesn't look anything. I can't look at pictures. He's going to be staring at it, yelling at it. Alexa, call the police. Alexa, call the police. Pretty much. Yeah. Yeah. Well, it goes back to, I know we've, I think we've talked about this here before about the legacy of why is it when you end a phone call, you say you're going to hang up?

Yeah, exactly. Kids don't know what that means today because they didn't have phones that hung on the wall. Right? Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. They're going to hang up. Let me hang up. Or dial. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Oh, man. I saw two things this week. One, this damn fire TV, even though it's turned off.

I was reading an audio book and there was a call back to Alexa in it. And then I just kept hearing this ding every time I'd say it. I'm like, what the fuck? What's going on here? I'm looking at all the apps on my computer, looking at my phone. And it turns out it was the damn TV that was off that was saying, hey, what do you want? I'm like, I want you to shut the hell up.

So I had to finally turn it off. So, Jason, I have an idea about this FTC thing with the voice scammers. I think that maybe for next week's show, if we can get around to it, you and I should each, independently of each other, create robo soundboards of ourselves.

Okay. So just come up with a collection of automated responses and a soundboard of things that we think are going to be the most useful, generic things. And then we can have them.

Maybe we'll do an experiment. We'll have them talk to each other. We'll control them. All right. I will try to run the show and you guys will use nothing but your two soundboards. Right. We'll see how awesome it'll be. Right. Right. I've got a pretty good – I've been – I actually have a paid account at Eleven Labs now and I've got a really good voice going on there.

Oh, okay. Yeah. Mine's pretty good but it's pretty flat. Yeah, mine's pretty flat. But we'll see what happens with it. It might be fun. So maybe we'll do that next week. Okay. Homework. We're generally not good at that but we'll try. I know. Well, that's – I'm not putting a hard deadline on it.

I'm just saying maybe if we get around to it, maybe it will happen. I'm adding it to things here. There you go. Try not to tell me when you guys are doing it. Oh, absolutely not. Yeah. Finally, I went down a little bit of a rat hole this week.

I don't really remember what led me to it but I ended up chasing down an arcade game, an old, original, first-generation arcade game based on very little more than a sense memory that I had.

And this sense memory I had was from – I was probably nine or ten years old and I remember for some reason my family was on a road trip somewhere and we were staying in a hotel somewhere. And the hotel had a pool and a little game room and by game room I think they had – I think they had two video games and a pinball machine, right?

Right. And I remember one of the games was Space Invaders and this is when Space Invaders was brand new. And the other game was what I was trying to figure out what this thing was. And I had a sense memory of this particular sound effect.

I had a sense memory of a certain kind of movement. I remembered it was a vector game. And I remembered that it was a Star Wars ripoff but it wasn't Star Wars. Right. And this would have been probably around 1978 or so.

So this was the first run of Space Invaders and this particular game was also new in the arcades. And what it led me to was a game called Starhawk. Now, are either of you – do you have any recollection of Starhawk?

None. I vaguely remember playing some vector-based game but I remember it rotated around in a circle. I can't even remember what that was called but, yeah, I don't remember this one now. But I can see the pseudo-tie fighters in these images. Right, right. So Starhawk, which came out in 78 – and, of course, probably the most well-known vector arcade game is Star Wars, right?

I mean that – and that's just a classic. That is a great game, right? And they really hit it out of the park with that one for what they were capable of doing at the time. So this was way before that and really was just ripping off the Star Wars trench run. Not a great game.

You're thinking of Tempest by the way, Brian. Tempest. Yes, that was it. Perfect. Yep, yep, yep. Yeah, Tempest was a great game. So this game, Starhawk, is ripping off the Star Wars trench run. Basically, this trench is scrolling by and every now and then spaceships come by and you have to shoot them.

And one of the spaceships looks just like a TIE fighter. I was going to say, looks surprisingly like a TIE fighter. Yeah, yeah. As far as we know, they never got a cease and desist from Lucasfilm but who knows. So anyway, I was able to track down this game and sure enough, it's – it's a rare game today.

I'll include a link to a YouTube video from a guy who restored one. It's remarkably handmade. He goes into how just shitty the joystick controller is on it. But this led me down a little Space Invaders rat hole because Space Invaders was the other game sitting next to us.

And this was the time – so I don't know if you guys remember like your parents would give you a dollar and say, go away. And then you go – you play four video games, right? Yeah. That's what you did. And you come back ten minutes later and they'd say, where's your dollar? And you'd say, well, I spent it on video games.

So when I went down this Space Invaders rat hole, one thing I learned was Space Invaders was the first game that didn't have a timer built in of this kind of shoot-em-up game. And Starhawk has a timer. It's like a two-minute timer and if you get a certain number of points, then you get an extra 20 seconds or an extra 30 seconds.

But Space Invaders was the first game that did not have a timer that let you play until you got your – you lost all your lives. But then also it was the first game that had a soundtrack that was independent of sound effects. The little – I think it's like a – yeah. I think it's like a D minor chord or something.

It's like the doom, doom, doom, doom, doom, doom, doom, doom. It gets faster and faster and faster. I also learned that the whole thing with Space Invaders where they get faster and faster and faster, that was an unintended side effect of the way the game was programmed. They didn't design that into the gameplay at first, but the system that they were using, the fewer Space Invaders it had to draw, the faster they could move.

The faster it got. Right. That's awesome. And they were – yeah. And they were like, well, this works. This is fun. And that's why it is that way. Yeah. Oh, that's awesome. Yeah. Isn't that great? So – That's amazing. So, you know, you're just making me go back to my early days in arcades.

And actually, it's funny because you would have been at Disneyland a little bit after my purview there if you went, you know, 29-ish years ago with your wife. That was shortly after I would have stopped going to Disneyland. So, I wonder if the arcade was still there. There used to be a massive arcade just to the right of Space Mountain.

Yes. And I spent much of my childhood right there. And I played an awful lot of Spy vs. Spy, which was my favorite game at that point. Oh, that's interesting. Oh, boy. I sunk a lot of money there. Okay. I don't remember the Spy vs. Spy game. I remember Spy Hunter.

Or Spy Hunter. Sorry. Spy Hunter. Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Spy Hunter was one of my – is one of – I would say if I had a list of video games I wish I owned, a sit-down Spy Hunter would be near the top of the list. Oh, they had that at Disneyland and I sat down a lot.

Yeah, sit-down Star Wars would be another one. Oh, the sit-down Star Wars was my favorite. Yeah, so good. So good. And if anybody wants to go back to the archives of Grumpy Old Geeks, look for the episode with Mark Cantor where he talks about working with Henry Mancini on the soundtrack for Spy Hunter.

That's right. Yeah. That is classic. Such a good one. There is a YouTube video that has the entire soundtrack from beginning to end of the Spy Hunter game. And sometimes I just listen to it because it's so good. It's so good. Yeah.

Oh, man. I miss my big games. We're old. Yeah. We are. But you know what? Those were good times though. I mean it's a – Very. It's a different thing. And the kids – it's funny. I was – my youngest son, Jack, is playing lacrosse right now.

He's on the JV lacrosse team. And we were at a lacrosse game and I was sitting talking with one of the other parents and we were comparing notes on our spring break plans. And she said, you know, the kids are all just going to put their headsets on and yell at their friends for video games, which is what they all seem to do these days.

But yeah. Yeah. Going – the ritual of going to the arcade, something that a certain generation I think cherishes. Very much so. I wonder what the – is there equivalent to that today? No. They sit on the couch and they're playing everything on their phones. Yeah.

Or in their – like now I got my PS5 and I play Call of Duty at night and it's like playing a movie. It's crazy how good it is. Right. So I can see why they would never want to go anywhere else to play. Yeah. Yeah. I'm just wondering where – Right.

I mean is that a type of socialization that is just gone? Oh, 100 percent. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. They're never going to know putting your quarter on the glass to be next up. Right. That's right. The other thing is – Learning everybody's three-letter codes for winning up the high scores.

Well, remember how many video game machines had like burn marks in the plastic from people when you could smoke in arcades? Oh, yeah. Yeah. Right? People would lay their cigarettes on the sides of the machines and burn a hole in them. Nice.

Yeah. I'm nostalgic now. I sense rabbit holes in my future this evening. There you go. Closing shout outs. Over at Patreon, we've got new member Nadev. So, welcome very much.

And everybody, patreon.com slash GOG. Get the show early and high res. That's right. And over at PayPal, we've got Charlie, Matthew, Judge, Simon, Matt, and Jonathan. Thank you all so much. Yep. Over at the tip jar, we've got Adam, Ashley, and Stan for a big 40 bucks.

Woo-hoo. Thank you, Stan. Thank you. And a shout out to show fan Jackal. He sent me a video on Twitter about his stroke recovery and getting out of bed on his own now. So, good for you, man. Keep it up. Keep it up. I know how hard it is. I know. It's very hard. And you're way worse than I was. So, I'm proud of you.

Keep going. And sadly, in memoriam, Gordon Moore, the coiner of the term Moore's Law, passed away at 94. Yeah. Yeah. Turns out, reading his bio, he was a problematic kind of guy. He was a shit disturber. Yeah.

Yeah. Maybe not the nicest guy out there. But, yeah. There you go. 94. Good run. Nice women don't make history. Isn't that the saying? We don't have genders anymore, right? Yeah. No. Yeah. That's right. That's right. Yes. Until next time, I'm Jason DeFillippo. And I'm Brian Schulmeister.

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