615: Cat, I Farted

At QVC, shopping is more than just checking out. It's discovering something new every day. Start with today's special value. Then explore exciting finds across the brands and categories you love.

From beauty and fashion to home, culinary and outdoor living. Shop now at QVC.com. 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. Quick little follow-up on the new quote-unquote ad system that I mentioned last week.

That's harder than it sounds and more expensive than it sounds. And this has been a kind of a really rough week for time. Day 233 sober today, by the way. Woo-hoo. But as a lot of people know, I'm in a 12-step program.

And I did step five this week, which was very time-consuming and very emotionally draining. So I did not get around to doing a whole lot of work. But I'm reaching out to everybody that wrote in. And we're just going to manually do it. Fuck it. That's the way it's going to happen. But also, you know, for the uninitiated, Jason, what is step five?

None of your business. Okay. I'm sure I can Google it. You can Google it. But it's – no, the step five is basically that part where you sit down with another person and tell them every horrible thing you've ever done in your life. Oh, well, that sounds fun. Yeah, that's what I'm saying.

It was an emotionally draining week. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah, but I feel – It probably took a week. No, actually not that – I'm kidding, you know. Yeah, yeah. But between three hours a day in recovery, two hours a day doing boot up and life.

So, yeah, it's been kind of a rough week. So – but I did determine that trying to build an automated ad system where people can just come in and do it self-serve is really dumb. So – It's not worth the effort. No. The juice isn't worth the squeeze, as you like to say.

Yes, yes. No, you know what this is going to be? This is going to be me getting really, really good at TextExpander again. That's what it is. All right. I did have a little bit of time on the crapper, which was perfect because I read Elon Musk's Shadow Rule by Ronan Farrow.

When I saw this article come out, I was like, is there anything that we wouldn't possibly know having done this show for 10-plus years? TLDR? No. Okay. Didn't think so. Saved you an hour right there. Yeah. I think the only thing – and this is at the very end, which everybody has kind of summarized and put into other articles – Elon really likes ketamine, which is probably why he's such a loon.

Yep. That's about it. There you go. Yeah. Speaking of loons, though, FireFest 2 tickets have gone on sale. Woo! No lineup, which only Coachella can get away with. No venue, no details, no nothing.

It was only 100 tickets at 500 bucks, and it was doing the rounds that they had sold out, to which I responded on Twitter where I saw that, or X where I saw that, or whatever the hell we're calling it. So you're telling me a notorious person for lying who was convicted of fraud is basically saying that he's sold out his tickets, and we're just going to believe him?

Yeah. Okay. Pretty much. All right. That's it. Yeah. Here's his great plan, too. The tickets get more expensive as you go. Yes. Get in early. Yeah. So the next drop is going to be for $799.

If you wait for the last chance tickets, they will be – wait for it – $8,000 each. Except they won't. No, they won't. Because this is never going to happen. Absolutely not. There is no insurer in the world that would touch this, and you need insurance to throw a festival.

Are you ready for the grift and how I know – how I have sussed out where the grift is? Hmm. Under the tickets is the merch. Right. He's going to make his money on the merch, the $200 plus $25 shipping hoodie for the Fyre Festival.

That is something you might actually get. Might. I know. I would consider buying one. See, I think that's where the grift comes in. He's just going to be selling merch and then cancel the show again. How is he not doing an NFT? How? I think he – I think he – even he knows.

That's too grifty even for him? Yeah, exactly. NFTs are too grifty for the king of grift. Unbelievable. Mm-hmm. What a world. What a world. Indeed. Indeed. But hey, man, those cheese sandwiches are going fast. Bring your own tent.

Yeah. And musical instruments because nobody is going to play it. Nobody is going to be playing. Nope. Okay. Bring a harmonica. Oh, God. Greg sent this in and I thought it was pretty funny. He says, I can never think of ChatGPT any other way now. And this is a graphic from Twix or Twitter or X.

I think it's Mastodon. Originally from Mastodon. Oh, reposted, yes. Reposted. Yes. Life is extra surreal for French speakers right now because in French, phonetically, ChatGPT sounds exactly like cat, I farted. ChatGPT.

Everywhere. On TV. In the news. People are going, Cat, I farted over and over with a straight face. Is cat, I farted, going to steal your job? How are schools dealing with cat, I farted? Lawyer caught using cat, I farted. It's incredible. It's originally posted by Phil Fish on Mastodon, yes.

Well, that's fun. Yes, that is. Yep. And I posted a little link in here in follow-up because we're not really going to talk about it. It's the internet's next great power suck over at the Atlantic. I'm not talking about it because we've been harping on about this for a while, about how AI is the new crypto sucking up all the power.

But I hadn't really seen a lot of articles talking about it until now, so it's good to see one. So, once again, we're right. Yeah. It would be nicer if we got the credit for it and everybody said, hey, I heard over at Grumpy Old Geeks, they were talking about the carbon footprint. The consumption and the, yeah, and wow, how this is really problematic and we should be looking and talking about, no.

No. No. In the news. And Brian, just who's helping fuel all that carbon emission-y goodness? Idiots. NVIDIA.

Oh, them too, yes. Yes, yes. Apparently, they didn't. The little graphics card company that could. I know. I am so mad that I sold my stock. I'm so happy I still have mine, even though it's making the world burn. Oh, yeah. I bought it at $118, I think.

I think I bought it at $118. Oh, that's so sad. So sad. That was the year that we did the Twitter stock. Yes, our big stock competition, yes. Yeah. That seems like a decade ago now. Might have been. NVIDIA just made $6 billion in pure profit from their GPUs.

Wow. Wow. Wow. I thought they maxed out on GPUs during the blockchain boom. But apparently, they were keeping something in reserve. And since the crypto bros aren't buying anymore, they have been doling around. It's a good second-hand market.

Well, these are all new and exciting. You know, they're re-releasing new ones. Because I guess, I don't know why nobody's picking up the mountains of old ones that the bit bros have abandoned. Who knows? Maybe they have resold them.

Maybe. I don't know. Maybe. They probably have. Probably have. Actually, they minted them into NFTs and then destroyed them. Right. And then sold the NFTs. No, it's ridiculous how much these things are going for now. I mean, and you hear these people. They're doing, you know, 20,000 GPU farms.

And it's like, how? For what? For cat-eye farted? Yeah, for cat-eye farted. That's right. It's insane. But, yeah. You go NVIDIA. Intel and AMD are just, like, going, fuck. That's it.

I know. That's it. I know. NVIDIA just killed it. It's unbelievable. Yeah. Well, I found this article over at Gizmodo, which, as I'm going to discuss a little bit later, are absolutely killing it with their headlines. Like, they're funny. They're really funny. So, they must be using cat-eye farted to write them or something. Yeah, exactly.

Or they hired a really good editor. But what's even better than a funny headline are the fact that they're crafting their headlines so you don't even need to read the article anymore. It's all, you get it all from the headline. Godfather NFTs weren't enough to prevent Rekord from sleeping with the fishes. It's beautiful.

It's beautiful. So, this is another one of those stupid companies that's calling it quits after years of pumping the internet full of monetized images. They licensed stuff from, like, The Godfather. They licensed stuff from all kinds of different places. Thought they were going to make a killing.

Dead. Gone. Bye-bye. They're taking all their websites offline. They promised that users should still be able to access their very expensive NFTs for their using peer-to-peer open file share network IPFS. So, if you move your stuff, or I guess maybe they're going to move it for you, doubt it.

You can keep your stupid NFT that's not worth anything anymore. I love this. Already, users are unable to buy or sell their favorite Tommy Pickles NFT. Speaking of people in a pickle, Sam Bankman-Fried is getting pickles on his peanut butter sandwich.

Oh, man. He's whining about not being able to get a real meal out there in Brooklyn's metropolitan detention center. You're in jail. Yeah. Well, you know, I think they should have bunked him with the shaman guy from the Capitol insurrection because he bitched about his vegan diet, too.

Right. So, he survived. Sam, you're going to survive, too. The one thing that they are saying is he hasn't been getting his meds, which he should be getting his meds. That is true. He should. You know. That one, yeah. But the diet, go fuck yourself. You should be getting his Ozempic and all the other things that he was taking.

Yeah. Oh, my God. Don't really do anything. Just buy him a bottle of insurance. Slip it through the bars. There you go. Well, somebody else that's going to jail, the crumbling crypto empire, the tech bros everywhere once hyped up, has now claimed another victim. Nathaniel Chastain, former head of product at leading NFT marketplace OpenSea, has been sentenced to three months in prison for insider trading on his NFTs.

So, he knew what was coming down the pipe. He knew what was going to be, like, highlighted on the homepage. And he would buy a few first and then offload them when the demand was super high for them. Oh, you dumbass. And get this. He did all that. And he only made $50,000. You moron.

That's it. You moron. You burned your life to the ground for $50,000. Well, three months isn't really burning your life to the ground. Who's going to hire this fucker? Anybody that sees OpenSea on his NFT is not going to hire him. He's going to be on the board at X soon. Oh, that's true.

That's true. Oh, my God. Yeah. You know what, Guy? When you're in jail for three months, I want you to Google, if they give you a laptop or you get to go to the library, arm's length transaction. Figure it out, you dumb motherfucker.

Well, if only he had used Tornado Cash, which is my next story. The DOJ is charging Tornado Cash co-founders for laundering over $1 billion in crypto. Now, if you're going to break the law. Now, that's how you do it. If you go for a bill, not $50,000.

Yeah, seriously. I'm just saying. Now, the funny thing about this article, which I got from Engadget, is they have changed the name of the company from Tornado Cash to Toronto Cash throughout the entire article, which, as I'm sitting in Toronto, I was like, what's going on here? Anyways, they were a cryptocurrency mixer, which are the people that basically launder your money, your crypto money.

Yeah, also known as a Tumblr. Yeah, or a Tumblr. So, they found that they're alleging that Toronto Cash facilitated $1 billion in money laundering, including $455 million, fundled through the mixer by North Korean cybercrime organization, Lazarus Group.

The overall charges include conspiracy to commit money laundering, conspiracy to commit sanctions violations, and conspiracy to operate an unlicensed money-transmitting business, which is what all of these things are. Anyways. That's what Bitcoin is. Yes. Unlicensed. Jesus. Took it long enough.

That's the same as when you get pulled over by a cop and he just cites you for improper lane usage. It means nothing. It's a catch-all. Yes. Yeah. And then I found this article, which I thought was interesting because they didn't really come at it from the perspective that I thought they were going to come at it from.

This is the era of food delivery is fading. And I thought this was going to be all about like Uber Eats and all those companies that are tanking, DoorDash, et cetera. But it's just, it's a higher level. They're basically just saying even the companies that were doing delivery themselves, Domino's is even in trouble. People don't want food delivered anymore.

It's too expensive. It shows up cold, et cetera, all that kind of stuff. And it's just tanked. Chipotle, Cava, Sweetgreen are all reporting significant declines in delivery sales. Why the fuck you would have Chipotle delivered to use Beyond Meat? Get off your fat ass.

And basically that is exactly what's happening. It's just tanked. So I suppose they could pivot to sending vegan food to jails. Yeah, they could do that. They could definitely do that. Get some Sweetgreen in there. Oh, God. I have noticed that, yeah, mine has definitely calmed down because, yeah, it's way too expensive.

There's so many fees. It's so expensive. It's like Ticketmaster. Yeah. It's like double the price. Yeah. And, you know, but the biggest issue for me is they always fuck up the order. They fuck you at the drive-thru and they fuck you at the delivery, you know? It's – because I get Paquito Moss once a week.

And, you know, by the time I get home – I want it so bad right now. The fucked up thing is I'm tired and I want to go home and I want to order my Paquito Moss, right? Mm-hmm. I drive by the fucking Paquito Moss on my way home.

You know, I have rediscovered pickup. Can I place an order for pickup? Well, it's so easy now. You can place the order on the app or through a website and it's waiting for you. You don't even have to stand around the five minutes it takes together to put the burrito.

Like, it's there. It's ready. Just walk in. Yeah, and, you know, I could do that with the DoorDash app but then I'm like, why am I giving these fuckers a cut, you know? Exactly. Yeah. And then I thought about it. I'm like, well, it's Paquito Moss. They are kind of a big corporation so kind of screw them. I don't care.

I don't care either way. And then I thought, yeah, yeah, they're actually not that big. So – but any mom and pop store, like my local – my favorite Mexican place in the world, Solo Luna, those guys I just call. You know, my sushi place I just call and I just go pick it up. It's so much cheaper.

Yes. So much cheaper. And the order is right. It's tech bros reinventing things that don't need to be reinvented and then charging a lot for it. Yeah. Well, COVID's picking back up so who knows. That's true. These guys might be back in business before you know it. Well, I thought this article was really interesting as well.

The U.S. government regulators reportedly tried to come to an agreement with TikTok to prevent banning the app that would have granted the federal government vast powers over the app. So I went through this entire article and here's the kicker. Many of the concessions the U.S. government asked of TikTok look eerily similar to the surveillance tactics critics have accused Chinese officials of abusing.

So the whole plan was let us do what they're doing. Yeah. Can we just get the same access as the Chinese and then we'll call it a day? Yeah. The agreement would have let agencies examine TikTok's U.S. facilities records and servers with minimal prior notice and veto the hiring of any executive involved with leading TikTok U.S. data security organization.

Any company wouldn't be like, fuck that. Yeah. No way. Jesus. Unbelievable. But, you know, give them points for trying, I suppose. Seriously. Hey, no asky, no getty, you know. Yeah. No asky, no getty. Exactly. All right.

Now, so circling back to Gizmodo and their killer headlines that they've been doing. I'm not going to read anything from these articles except for the headlines because it nails it. Peloton's business is as busted as its bike seats. Right. Perfect. Zoom CEO says employees need to be in the office because it's hard to build trust over Zoom.

Perfect. Perfect. And a space junk removal mission got struck by a space junk. Yeah. Yeah. Great. I love these guys. Yeah. No, they're doing pretty good over there. They're taking a, you know what I think happened? And I think somebody from the New York Post got fired and they jumped ship over to Gizmodo.

There's definitely a new editor over there because Gizmodo's headlines used to be just pretty normal. These are awesome. Then you look at Engadget and Tornado becomes Toronto. Yes. So we know who's winning that. I got to swap up my RSS feed and go back to Gizmodo, I think.

Yeah, I think you should, man. It's pretty good right now. I get a chuckle every time I open the page. I saw this one this morning and I just had to laugh. Introducing Code Llama. A state-of-the-art large language model for coding. Now, if you put the emphasis on the wrong syllable, this sounds in either like a gently named feature or a cheesy spy thriller or even just a weird Al cover of like a B-52 song.

Code Llama! Or introducing Code Llama. I don't know why that just made me laugh this morning. That's pretty good. I can hear Tin Roof Rusted in my head now and it's going to be stuck there for a fucking month. Thanks, Jason. You're welcome.

You're welcome. Tin Roof Rusted. At QVC, fall shopping is more than just checking out.

It's discovering the brands you love across beauty, fashion, home, and culinary all in one place. Whether you're getting ready for crisp mornings, cozy nights, or everyday moments, QVC has what you need for the season ahead.

With brands like Laura Geller, Philosophy, Ninja, and so many more. Shop now at QVC. Shop now at QVC.com.

Media candy. Well, Brian, we talked about that really cryptic ending on the peripheral and how we couldn't wrap our head around what the fuck was going on. And we're like, well, we're going to find out in season two because season two was already greenlit and they're going to make another one.

Yeah, well, no. Well, it solved my problem. I was really on the fence. Would I watch it when it came back or not? And now I don't have to worry about it. Yeah. I mean, the first one was beautifully shot. I liked it. I was actually going to go back and watch it again because I, you know, wanted to get caught up and see if I could figure it out on my own.

Because I'm not a dumb guy, but I just was befuddled by the ending. If only there were a book that has the story. Yeah, but it didn't. But it didn't because they kind of went off the rails. Exactly. Exactly. They foundationed it at the end there. Pretty much, yeah. Yeah, but yeah, no, they're blaming, they're blaming the strike on it.

You know, I'm starting to sour on the Lisa Joy and Jonathan Nolan team up here and all the shows that they're coming up with. They're just unsatisfying and they're weird and they never, they're doing what Lindoff always does, like with Lost.

You create this whole thing and then you just don't explain it. Yeah. Well, sometimes you explain it too much, like Westworld did not need the last episode. They finished it at the penultimate episode. Westworld didn't need the last couple seasons. Seasons. Let's be honest. This is true.

This is true. Yeah. Well, something I am happy coming back, the Frasier revival has set its premiere date at Paramount+. It will be coming out on October 13th or actually October 12th in the U.S. and Canada and October 13th everywhere else. They will also air the first two episodes back to back on CBS on October 17th, assuming for the people that were old when the first Frasier came out and still aren't on board with streaming.

Now, they're calling it a revival, but the only person coming back is Frasier. Nobody else is in it. No, that's a cover band with just one guy left. Yeah. That is the legal minimum they have to do to call it Frasier. That's what it is.

Pretty much. But I'm excited because it was one of the most well-written shows that's ever aired on TV. I mean, it's just – it's nice and comforting and funny. And I'm hoping that the writers – I'm hoping they have some of the same writers because it was good. Never saw an episode. Oh, man. You missed out.

Yeah. That's what they say about Friends too. Never saw an episode. Ah, fuck Friends. Well, the strike also claimed Dune Part 2 because the problem is nobody will be around to promote it. So they're going to push it until next year, unfortunately.

Hey, unless COVID comes out and then maybe we'll get it on max. It's fine. That's how I watched the first one. Exactly. And again, if only there were a book that told you the story in case you were – Same book as the first one, it turns out. Same book actually, yes. Yeah. Spoiler alert.

Yeah. It's good stuff. I think the big difference between now and then is I've got a 75-inch TV to watch it on. So I'm like, bring it on. That's a big fucking worm. Yes, it is. That is not what she said. So I was going through a little bit of withdrawal after the end of the Women's World Cup and Disney Plus had a documentary, Matilda's The World at Our Feet, all about the Australian women's team.

And it was a couple episodes long. If you're into soccer, it was a great doc. I had a lot of – I had a good time watching it. All right. Sounds like a foot fetish movie, but I'll take your word for it. Well, it is soccer. Yeah, that's true. You do see a lot of women's feet in it. Yes, you do. Didn't think about that.

Not recommending it for that usage. There's a lot of heartwarming stories about empowerment, but hey, you do you. Yeah, yeah. Moving on. I botched that one. Devo, the wonderful band Devo, has actually announced that this is their final tour.

They're going to retire after 50 years together, which is a bit sad. I don't know. It's a great band. I also heard that OMD, or Orchestral Maneuver in the Dark's upcoming album, Battlehouse Staircase, will be their last. Conveniently, I'm seeing both bands at that festival out in Huntington Beach in November, so I might be seeing some of their final performances, which is pretty cool.

That's cool. I've never seen Devo or OMD. They're both great live. I'm sure they are. I'm sure they are. But you'll have to, you go watch it and tell me how good it is. I'll live vicariously. I'll take videos and put them up in the tick of the talk for you. I appreciate that.

Then all of the spy agencies can see them at the same time. That's right. Great. Now, YouTube came out with their whole AI music thing this week. We touched on it a little bit before, so I highlighted the press release here.

There's an article that you can read or whatever, but this is from the press release. I want to bear with me on this. Okay. Let me read the title, and then let me interject, and then you can get into it. Our Principles for Partnering with the Music Industry on AI Technology. A.K.A. the rules they fucking gave us for using their content.

A.K.A. is here, and we will embrace it responsibly together with our music partners. Between the lines, we're tired of these fucknuggets suing us, and we want to cut it off at the pass. Yeah, well, imagine that, suing you for stealing their content and repurposing it.

Who would have thought? Next line. Today, A.K.A. is moving at a pace faster than ever before. It's empowering creativity, sparking new ideas, and even transforming industries. At this critical inflection point, it's clear that we need to boldly embrace this technology with a continued commitment to responsibility.

Between the lines. We're fucked, and we're going to throw some shit at the walls now. Also, Cat I Farted wrote that entire paragraph. I think that Cat I Farted wrote the whole thing. Next one. For nearly our entire history, YouTube and music have been inextricably linked.

Between the lines. Our users have been putting up pirated music since we started allowing uploads. That's so fucking true. Next slide. Now we're working closely with our music partners, including Universal Music Group, to develop an AI framework to help us work toward our common goals.

Between the lines. So Brian's wife stopped suing us. Dude, she's been in such a better mood since this deal was done. It was a fucking nightmare for her. It was great. In 2023 alone, there have been more than 1.7 billion views of videos related to generative AI tools on YouTube.

Between the lines. We're so fucked, and we're going to need a bigger bucket of shit. I like it when you work on bits, Jason. Thank you. Very nice. Thank you. That's what eight cups of coffee in the morning gets you. Oh, God.

We're going back to the coffee episodes. Oh, God. I just got my delivery yesterday of – I've been drinking this Whole Foods instant coffee, which is actually very tasty. But I've moved back to my Israeli instant coffee called Elite, which is my favorite instant coffee.

So the fucking Israelis do coffee really good. Coffee and breaking everything that we love. Careful. I love the Israelis. You know I love them. The term fucking Israeli is a term of endearment because they're so fucking clever. And now I know why they're so clever because they're on this fucking coffee all the time.

It's commando coffee. It is. It really – hey, if you ever watch the show Fauda, they all drink it on Fauda. So Chris writes in, I just listened to episode 614. Okay, we're going to have to monitor coffee consumption again.

I can't believe I'm going to have to start every episode with how many cups did you have today, Jason? I'm over-caffeinated, sober, and dyslexic. Fuck. Good times. I just listened to episode 614 and wanted to share a tip for Jason regarding Paramount+. I don't know if this is a new feature or what, but if you created your account through your Apple TV channels to get the benefit of seeing it under your subscriptions, which I did, you can now link your Apple channel's login through their site to a Paramount account.

As it should be. Yes. Thus simultaneously granting access to content in the Paramount Plus app. Best of both worlds now, shows up under Apple subscriptions, and bypasses the semi-annoying channels for the app option. So thank you very much, Chris. I appreciate you.

I love you. Oh, much better. Much fucking better. Say it. I can hear you sniggering in the back. It takes so little to get your love these days, Jason. It does. Are you sad and lonely? I'm a sober alcoholic.

Of course I am. Shit. Taps and doodads. Well, thank fucking God. We've been waiting forever. Threads on the web is here. Woo. Doggy. No one cares.

Good luck trying to fucking log in if you've got two-factor turned on, though. Ain't happening. Yeah, that's true. Good luck. You'll be able to post, interact with other posts, look at your feed, just like an actual website, spokesperson Christine Pye tells The Purge. Welcome to 1996. Woo. Jesus Christ.

Oh. At least they haven't changed the name yet. That's true. Yeah. I saw this one. This is a pretty good article. People are using Photoshop's generative fill to restore old photos. While generative fill wasn't specifically designed to fix old photos, clever creatives have shown that the tool can be used for that exact task.

Link is in the show notes. I'd recommend checking it out if you've got Photoshop and a bunch of shit you're trying to fix. This is actually really helpful. Yeah, it is. It's pretty cool. It's a good use of the tech. I like it. Yeah. It's very Blade Runner. It is. It really is. Enhance. Enhance. Cat I farted. Enhance.

I saw this one that made my little heart smile. Leaked Wipeout source code leads to near total rewrite and remaster. Oh, I loved Wipeout. Loved Wipeout so much. This is not the version of Wipeout that I personally loved, which was Wipeout Excel, the first one with the greatest soundtrack of all time.

The greatest game soundtrack ever made. Ever made and introduced the world to Red Bull, or at least introduced the U.S. and anybody that mattered to Red Bull. Sorry, Austrians. Just call it as I see it. No shade. This guy, Dominic Zabelski, took the source code that was leaked and said, God, this is terrible, and rewrote it all.

So, at this point, Sony has not tried to sue him, since it's basically abandonware, but if they do want to do something, he's like, please, just take and remaster the damn game, which I'm all for. Please, just give me a 4K version of Wipeout Excel that I won't be able to play anymore because I'm old and slow.

Right. Well, even if they wanted to sue him for this, it would probably take about 25 years because there's a backlog of frivolous fucking stupid lawsuits clouding up the system, like this one I'm about to talk about. A judge has dismissed the lawsuit claiming Apple Watch blood oxygen sensor has a racial bias.

Plaintiff Alex Morales said he believed that he bought the Apple Watch, believing its blood oxygen feature would work without regard to skin tone. However, the class action lawsuit was dismissed with prejudice, ironically, meaning it can't be brought forth against Apple again. It is known that there is a bias with light-based sensors.

That's because they determine your metrics based on how light reflects off the skin. Melanin and tattoo ink impacts that, although companies try to make up for it by fine-tuning algorithms. You know, cat-eye farting. Yep. So, there you go. And basically, Apple basically has said this is for general wellness, a.k.a. it's just for fun.

It is not a fucking, you know, medical-grade system. So, shut up, basically. Yeah. Go buy your own, you know, $10. Pulse Oximer. Exactly. They're $10 on Amazon. Everybody got them during COVID.

You might have to get them out again. Seriously? You could probably get one used. Yes. After somebody who's dead. You know, it's kind of gross. But, hey, just saying. Speaking of lawsuits, though, in the U.S., a judge says that art created solely by artificial intelligence cannot be copyrighted.

But I gave it a prompt. Yeah. Exactly. No, that doesn't cut it. And this guy, Stephen Thaller, is the guy that brought the suit. And he's also the guy, if you remember the story a while back, where he wanted to have his AI tools be able to patent things.

Yes, he wanted his little AI to be, oh, God, I don't like this guy, basically said that, yeah, we want it to be patentable. And everybody on the planet says, no, Stephen, we need humans involved.

That's the whole fucking point. Well, look, I don't agree with the guy, but I'm happy he's doing all the things that he's doing, because at least the stuff, we're coming to conclusions. We're codifying it. We're figuring it out. Yeah, we're putting it into law. We're putting it into law. So, good on you, buddy. Keep losing, but it works for us.

We're back with Dave Bittner. Dave is the host of the CyberWire podcast, co-host of Hacking Humans with Joe Kerrigan, co-host of Caveat with Ben Yellen, and the host of Control Loop.

Go to thecyberwire.com for links to all of Dave's amazing shows, except no other. Except no substitutes. That's right. The one and only. He never listens to more than one podcast at home.

Anybody remember that coffee commercial? Yes. Yeah. It is funny. People often ask me, what are my favorite podcasts? And I kind of look at them side-eyed and say, you know, it's like the thing I want to do when I get home is listen to podcasts.

Yep. I do actually listen to some podcasts. I listen to a lot of podcasts, actually. Yeah. I mean, I do, but I – Weren't we just talking about it a couple of weeks ago about how nobody listens to music anymore and we're all listening to podcasts all the time? That's true. But I get it.

It's the gynecological joke. Yeah. Right. Yes, exactly. Yes. Exactly. Yes. And also, it's professional jealousy. I don't want to tell anybody what I like better than my shows. I mean, they're all inferior to what I do, but – Yes.

Right. Right. I'm just listening to make fun of them, to criticize. Those smartless fellows are kind of okay. I'm hate listening. Yeah. Well, smartless, I totally hate listening. I don't think that's a very good show at all. I actually quite enjoy it.

It depends on who's on, like most shows. Yeah. Well, it's kind of like Marc Maron. I listen for the guest, not the host. Yes. But anyway, guess what's out? Osaka. I mean, Ahsoka. I'm not even going to say the name because it's burned into my brain wrong and I just get yelled at by people.

But two episodes and it immediately became my favorite Star Wars thing ever. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Love it. Yeah. One episode and I went to bed. We watched the two episodes over two nights and very much enjoyed them.

My wife in particular is on board, I think, because there's just a ton of- Three female leads. Right. Exactly. Broads. Lots of broads. I saw a stat. It was the first female-on-female lightsaber fight in all of Star Wars. Oh, interesting.

Okay. Huh. I guess I hadn't really considered that, but yeah. Neither had I, but there you go. I say we just hand the franchise over to Dave Filoni and be done with it. Well, it is his now, isn't it? I mean, they basically canceled any movie that was going to be done by anybody else.

And the only thing coming down the pipe is more shows from him, right? Mm-hmm. Sounds more like Dave Fallopian tube, if you know what I'm saying. Ha-ha. Ha-ha. Yeah. It was good. I'm curious if people that weren't familiar with the backstory are enjoying it as much as I am.

I'd probably assume not. They didn't, you know, they're doing a good job of just making it about what's on the screen as opposed to needing to know everything that has come before in the animated series. But yes. Well, to that point, the day of the premiere, my son sent me a YouTube clip, a half an hour YouTube clip that was basically everything you need to know before you watch Ahsoka.

And it was so packed full of information and there was no way I could retain all of this stuff. But it made me realize how much Star Wars lore, I don't know. And as a super Star Wars fan or a Star Wars super fan.

Well, you're on the movie purist. Exactly. The Holy Trilogy is where things begin and end for me. And some of these new series. And I guess part of it is that I never really enjoyed the prequels very much. And so that, I think, biases me against the Anakin Skywalker stories.

Right. And so I watched most of Rebels, which I enjoyed. I've watched some of the Clone Wars, but not all of it. And so I didn't know a whole lot about Ahsoka going into this. But this half an hour video got me up to speed to at least recognize a lot of the backstory.

But yeah, she's still trying to learn everybody's names. She's definitely one of the most interesting characters in all of Star Wars, if you have seen all those sort of things. And the interesting thing about, I think, the Clone Wars and Rebels, and I was reading some review and talked about this as well, is what a good job it does making the prequels look better.

Because it fills in so much of the information that was just kind of glossed over and, you know, kind of force fed to us by, you know, all this political crap and trade or federations and all of that. But when it's spelled out over this longer period of time in the Clone Wars and Rebels, it actually starts to make a lot of sense.

And it's interesting and it's fun. And it does a good job of basically making those prequel movies better. So, you know, there's something wrong with your movie, though, if you need, you know, eight seasons of a show to explain your movie. Right. Right.

Right. You know, there's that. The show looks great. It sounds great. The soundtrack I'm enjoying. There are lots of callbacks to little bits of little musical motifs from the movies and the previous shows. It's funny you mentioned that, actually.

That was the one thing that bothered me was I felt that it was a little too Mandalorian, Boba Fett, Western soundtrack for what the show is. I do like the callbacks that they bring in. But, like, the main theme, I was kind of like, this doesn't feel quite right for the show. Interesting. My wife also mentioned she did not like the main theme for the show.

But, you know, I felt that way originally about The Mandalorian. And it grew on me and I came to like it. But initially I didn't, did not enjoy it. So maybe that'll happen with this one. But, yeah, you know, it's just that I think you can make cinema quality shows now for TV.

And so there's no distraction of, oh, this is a low rent version of Star Wars. Yeah. No. Like, it's everything and more. Having gone back and watched the prequels and the Holy Trilogy recently, let me tell you, it's a lot better looking than Star Wars.

Yeah. Yeah. So I got one thing. And in the very beginning of the first episode to the music, I was listening to the soundtrack behind it. I don't remember the opening theme. I'll try and listen again when I watch episode two again. When she's getting the map, the scene where she's getting the map is very much, you know, Indy in the map room.

Right. And, I mean, it is Indy in the map room. Right. Who the fuck are we kidding here? Yes. I was thinking the same thing. We need the big meteor rolling after her. Yeah. Right. Saving that one for season two. It was, the music was what actually made me think of it.

I'm like, man, they stole the music too. And the music is what brought me into it. I'm like, oh, oh, the map room. Yes. What's the guy's, is it Ray Stevens? Oh, the actor? Yeah. Yes. I believe that's his name. He passed away, unfortunately. I know.

I was so bummed because I recognized him. And I'm like, oh, I love that guy. He was fantastic in Rome. It was the first time I ever saw him. And I loved him in Rome. And I loved him in a couple of different things. And I'm like, I'm so glad he's working again. What's he been up to? Oh, shit. Who does he play in this one?

The bad Jedi. The bearded guy. Oh, I did not know that. I didn't know he passed. Oh, he's good. Although, bad? Hmm. The lightsabers aren't pure red. They're kind of more orange. I'm just saying.

Yeah. There was another thing that I really liked that I thought was a callback, like a Dave Filoni kind of callback, which is if you've noticed Ahsoka's ship, the way that it tilts from one side to the other. Yeah. Which was originally how the Millennium Falcon was supposed to behave, which is why the Falcon has a round cockpit.

Some of the original – if you go back to the making of documentaries, Lucas wanted it to fly around. I think he used the word like a sunfish. And then when it would land, it would tilt over and flat and land. And at the time, it was too much to do and too much work.

So it just flies around like they say like a hamburger. But Ahsoka's ship does exactly that thing that they originally wanted the Falcon to do. And I don't – my guess is it's a deliberate callback just because of how detail-oriented they are with these sorts of things.

So I thought that was fun. So isn't that like the B-Wing? Doesn't the B-Wing do that? It's like it. Yeah. It's not – yeah. Just this week, though, I saw somebody who made a B-Wing remote-controlled plane that was like drone-ish.

It was really cool and it was doing that. And I was just like – You know what? And then I saw her ship and I'm like, oh, that's interesting. Kids these days have it so good. Like you can get like Lego sets of B-Wings. Like when Star Wars came out, like for all of us, we had to go off like a blurry screenshot that somebody took of a ship way in the background and going, what is that?

A Y-Wing? What the fuck is a Y-Wing? And we wouldn't find out. And now you can get detailed plans and build one. And we only had like four bricks to build it with. Right, exactly. We didn't have all this custom shit. All of my – yes, all of my Lego X-Wings back in the day were completely red because those were the bricks I had.

It was a real revelation too when the first time I got – I got my hands on a pair of hinged Lego pieces because now the X-Foils could open and close. This was just a big deal in my life. Yes, yes, absolutely.

Yeah, I think I moved on by then. Very much enjoying it. Never had a hinge. Okay, well, we'll keep up with it. You know, it looks like it's here to stay, hopefully. Yep, it is. Well, you know, but actually to that point, my wife pointed out, she said, is this the last Star Wars thing we're going to have for a while because of the writer's strike?

Mm-hmm. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Isn't there something ready to go? I can't remember. Maybe not. I don't know. Maybe that is it, so. Watch it slow. Watch it very, very slow. Right. Well, it's going to have a limited run.

It can't go on for too long because, well, there's a finite end to the story and they're supposed to wrap all of this up in an actual film that he's going to do, which is going to be the Mandalorian crossing over with this plot. And we'll see. I mean, that's the plan right now. Disney changes Star Wars plans as frequently as I change my underwear.

Right, right. That always bums me when I hear, oh, they're going to make a film. I'm like, no. Damn it. It's going to suck. The only time that it actually worked was Deadwood. They made the Deadwood film and it was 100% perfect. Most of them, like Firefly.

They made Serenity. Right. Damn it. Oh, well. Yeah. I put this in here just for you, Dave, because you were lamenting about the death of Wirecutter and there's an actual article over at The Enlightenment called What Happened to Wirecutter? And I thought, hey, I bet Dave would like that.

So there you go, Dave. Yeah, that's interesting. Did it enlighten you to the death of Wirecutter? It did. I will say I still make use of Wirecutter pretty regularly. It's among my go-to sites if there's something that I'm researching. I will say the toaster oven that I have, which is the best kitchen appliance I have ever purchased in my life.

It's a Cuisinart and it's phenomenal and I bought it because of Wirecutter. What happened was my wife, this is several years ago, for Christmas she wanted an air fryer, air fryer for all her age. Everybody wanted an air fryer. So she said, I want an air fryer for Christmas.

I said, great. So I went to Wirecutter, looked for best air fryer and Wirecutter said the best air fryer is not an air fryer, it's this toaster oven. Because air fryers are basically just convection ovens, right? So they said instead of buying an air fryer, buy this convection oven.

It does everything an air fryer does and much more. And damn if they were right, it is the best kitchen appliance. I mean it gets so much use in our house and it does a great job. So I've been a fan of the Wirecutter for a while. I'll share a personal story here.

Years ago, this is probably around 2013, which is when Wirecutter first started up. I was having lunch with David Hobby, who some folks may know is the operator of the Strobist website, which was a big deal – still is – a big deal photographer's website.

His whole thing is off-camera lighting, teaching you how to light your photos using small portable flashes. David was extraordinarily successful with this website, one of the first big blog websites that really took off and became his business.

He was a former Baltimore Sun photographer, quit the Sun, took a buyout from the Sun to start Strobist and it was a big hit. But anyway, he was friends with Brian Lamb, who's the founder of Wirecutter, and I believe he met Brian through the photography stuff.

And I remember we were having lunch one day and just chatting about different opportunities on the web and how you make money. And he mentioned Brian Lamb, who had just started this thing, Wirecutter, and they were just a few months into it. And Brian was saying that he was already making $30,000 a month on Amazon affiliate links and just was overwhelmed.

Like, what am I going to do with all this revenue? It just far exceeded – What am I going to do with all this money? Well, it just exceeded his expectations. It's like he had an idea. He was the first to come at it from the point of view of using the Amazon affiliate money to fund the site.

No one had really done that the way that Wirecutter did. Because nobody was making $30,000 a month from Amazon. Well, that's the thing. He took a risk and he did the work and it worked. And to me, the risk was always that Amazon would just pull the plug on them and they'd be done.

And Amazon has not done that so far. But it's an interesting article and I think points to the problem of businesses when they need – Well, businesses that get bought and the people who buy the business then want to scale the business.

The success of the business is not enough for them because they paid a premium for the business. So they have to figure out how to scale it and in doing so – Break it. Break it. Yeah. Right. Or they take away the special something, the secret sauce that made it special. And like I said, I still go to Wirecutter.

I still enjoy it. It's still one of the places that I go to. But I do understand what this article is saying that it doesn't seem as rigorous as it used to be. Right. Yeah. That's funny. Brian Lamb used to actually write for me when I did a site. Met Blogs, our first – that first citizen journalism project I did before Huffington Post.

Yeah, I met Brian once when I first moved to San Francisco, said hi. Like, hey, we should get together. He was working at Wired across the street from my office and that was the last I've ever seen of Brian Lamb. He quit like two weeks later and now he's Brian Lamb.

Before he wasn't Brian Lamb. He was just this guy. This kid Brian who wrote every now and again on SF Met Blogs. Right. So whatever happened to that guy? You know, it's like – yeah. For me, like with David Hobby, I met David because our kids went to the same elementary school and, you know, it's just somebody – somebody said, oh, you should meet David.

He's into photography and then I – oh, you're that David Hobby, you know. So got to be good friends. But it's funny how things work out. So, Dave, you brought on the topic of billionaires before. So I'm going to bring in a topic this week. Hopefully it won't be as divisive as the other one.

But divisive meaning that I thought it was going to be divisive but it turned out everybody hates billionaires. It's a pretty safe target. It's not great. Unless you happen to be one. You're definitely punching up. Yeah. So I've been, you know, been watching all this dystopian, you know, stuff, zombies, all this crap because I got some new video games I'm playing.

And I'm just thinking, you know, as the world electrifies and we have electric cars, everybody's got power walls in their house. We have solar panels everywhere. All zombie fiction and dystopian fiction is going to have to be rewritten because there's not going to be this reliance on gasoline that we have that fuels most of the – you know, especially with zombies.

It's like, you know, you turn on your car and, oof, you're dead because it's loud. Now it's just like – you can get away from the zombies. They can't hear you coming. But the zombies will be caused by a meteor that slams into the earth and then kicks up enough dust that solar stuff won't work anymore.

See, that's not my story. You can write that in your story. This is my story. While it's on its way in, there's an EMP pulse that takes out everything electronic. There we go. It just fries everything. Okay. You guys do your story. Are you listening, Walking Dead writers? Oh, wait.

You probably are because you're not working. Yeah, that's right. Jason, you bring up a good nitpick of mine though that bothers me with zombie fiction and movies and TV shows, especially things like The Walking Dead, which is kind of related to who's mowing all the lawns, right?

Yes, yes. Which is that gasoline goes bad. Exactly. Yes, it does. You can't store gasoline forever. Nope. So actually to that point, I bought a little electric generator for my house, just a little portable one.

And one of the things I was deliberate about was I got one that runs on both gasoline and propane because propane does last pretty much forever. You can have – you can store a bunch of propane tanks outside of your house and propane doesn't go bad the way gasoline does.

Yeah, I have – I thought about that because I have a little generator as well that I just fired up last weekend because of the hurrah quake that we had here. And, you know, when I was looking at the propane one, I'm thinking, you know, if it gets to the point where I need to power my home generator with propane, I probably am going to be wishing for death anyway.

So let's just skip it and get the gas one and save the money and spend it on things that I can enjoy right now. That was my thinking. That very much reminds me of what my mom told me when I was a kid. We were – you know, it was the height of nuclear terror, right? 19 – or what was the movie? I can't remember.

1984. The day after. The day after. The day after, yes. The day after it had come out, all that stuff. And I was like – you know, as a kid, it makes you fucking freak out, right? And my mom was just like, oh, don't worry, honey. We live right here in Los Angeles. We're going to get obliterated.

Yeah. You're not going to have to worry about it. You're not going to have to worry about a thing. You're going to blink and be dead. Oh, thanks, Mom. That's comforting. Yeah. I got this – yeah. I got this same thing. I was living next to Oceana Naval Air Base. We're dead. And I was like, oh, we are so dead so fast.

Don't worry about it. The warmth that only a mother can provide. Yes. Exactly. That's a story for a different day. But I just thought that, you know, there's some fun stories that could be had around this. You know, like how society can be bifurcated between the preppers who have the tanks of gasoline and living out in the woods with their, you know, their camo and everything and their MREs.

And then you have the suburban people who are very, you know, they're a community. They're friendly. They know each other. And they all have solar. They all have Teslas. And they're the ones that actually do well in the apocalypse because they can have their electrified fences. They have each other to, you know, share skill sets and things like that.

And then you get the lone crack nut over here in the woods by himself going, I'm going to outlast everybody. They're like, right. Gasoline goes bad in 90 days. Yeah. They're sitting there having, you know, wine o'clock laughing at the hillbillies. It could be a fun story.

I just thought of the – there needs to be a change in dystopian and zombie fiction, I think, you know, going forward because everything is going to be electrified soon. Well, they'll figure it out. There will be writers that do this. A lot of people thought, oh, cell phones are going to ruin all movie plots.

They've worked their ways around that. Right. Yeah. Well, they would have ruined the Blair Witch Project. That's for damn sure. Why didn't anybody bring GPS? I put a couple of things in here, just quickies. So Radio Shack, who long-time listeners will know.

Do you have a Google alert set for Radio Shack, Dave? I do not, but that's a good idea. I think you should. You just gave me an idea, Brian. Yeah, I do not, but I should. Long-time listeners will know that I have great affection for Radio Shack. I worked for Radio Shack in my college years, which was a job that I had coveted all through my teen years.

I just thought Radio Shack would be the coolest place to work, which tells you everything you need to know about me as a teenager. I really want to ask people for information they don't have to provide. That's right. That's right. I want to hand them a free Battery Club card and ask them for their address.

Yeah. And so I got to have that job. It's a dream come true. I got to work at Radio Shack, and I will say I enjoyed it. It was a very good fit for me. I was good at helping people figure out how to wire up their VCRs so they could watch one show and record another. This was something I did pretty much every day when I worked at Radio Shack.

So it was a good fit. And as we know, Radio Shack went out of business. They could not survive the transition. At their peak, when I was working at Radio Shack, there were more Radio Shacks than McDonald's in the United States. That is crazy. That is nuts. Yeah.

But it turns out Radio Shack is still kind of around. They are a bit of a zombie brand, but there are still Radio Shack dealers who are selling Radio Shack branded stuff. And there's a new owner of Radio Shack who's planning on trying to relaunch the brand and reinvigorate the brand.

There's a story here from the Wall Street Journal about how they're going to go about doing that. I'm not going to dig too much into the details here, but I don't give them a whole lot of hope in success, and certainly it's not going to be like it used to be. We'll never go back to that.

But it would be nice to see the brand be a strong brand that stands for something more than just crap. Right. Just where it is right now. Yeah. I would like to point out that between the three of us, we all kind of had the jobs that we loved when we were younger.

Brian worked at Disney. Mm-hmm. You worked at Radio Shack. Mm-hmm. And I worked at Kinko's. Oh. Those kind of define, I think, a lot of who we are because we still talk about it to this day. I loved my time at Kinko's. When I was working at Kinko's, that's when it was – they did the survey, and it was the number one job to have for under 20-year-olds in the U.S.

It was a great job. Lots of toys to play with. Oh, God, yes. I was 24 working the overnight shift, drunk off my ass every night. It was fantastic. Yeah. Brian, what was your jobs at Disney? Oh, well, it was actually very not glamorous, but the side benefits were great.

I was just bussing tables. It was the only thing they let you do at 15 because I started working there early. This is at Disneyland? Yeah. Mm-hmm. Oh, nice. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. But, you know, back at that time, you could just go into the park anytime you wanted to. I could sign people in. You know, it was great.

It was awesome. Yeah. Right. That is good. The last thing I have here, just because I saw this tidbit, this snippet from this article and it made me laugh, so I thought I would share. This is an article from Gizmodo and it's about – well, the title of the article is The College Board Tells TikTok and Facebook Your SAT Scores.

Mm-hmm. And so the snippet from the article, a college board spokesperson told Gizmodo, We do not share SAT scores or GPAs with Facebook or TikTok and any other third parties using Pixel or Cookies.

In fact, we do not send any personally identifiable information through our Pixels on the site. In addition, we do not use SAT scores or GPAs for any targeting. Next paragraph. After receiving this comment, Gizmodo shared a screenshot of the college board sending GPAs and SAT scores to TikTok using a Pixel.

The spokesperson then acknowledged that the college board's website actually does share this data. This is our world right now in a nutshell, isn't it? Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. Exactly. Surely we don't do that. We don't. Oh, no. Of course we don't do that. We wouldn't dream of doing something like that.

We're totally doing that. Oh, that. Oh, yes. Absolutely we do that. Sure. Yeah, that we're doing. Come on. Of course we're doing that. No, you meant the other thing that, yeah. Now, cast your minds back maybe not more than 15 years ago, certainly 20 years ago. This person would be fired immediately.

Immediately. We don't do that anymore. I guarantee they still have the job. Right. Yeah. Right. I think back to how ignorant I was and I guess Pollyanna in the early days of Facebook when I first signed up for Facebook and Facebook said, hey, good news.

If you update your contacts list to us, we will use that to connect you with all your friends. And I thought to myself, well, that's a great idea. That sounds great. This will make it so much easier to connect with all my friends. And it didn't even cross my mind that they were going to use it for bad things because why would anyone do that?

Why would a company that would be shooting themselves in the foot if they would take all my personal information and do that? And now it seems so adorable that I think back and how could I have thought that? But I think that's an example of the more innocent time and how cynical we've become in the passing decades.

Well, you must not have been around for the early because there was another basically scandal that rocked the Internet before that, which was a company that did calendars and contacts and they're like, upload your contacts and we'll, you know, let your friends know that you're on the site and then they can come and be your friend on the site.

And if you uploaded your contacts, they emailed everyone in your contacts that you were on the site and you couldn't stop it from that point. It was a huge thing. So when Facebook started doing it, the old guard were just like, don't do that.

We just ran around telling our family, if it asked you that, do not do it. Do not do it. Just make sure you don't do it. Five minutes later. Oh, you did it, didn't you? Well, to what you just said, though, Dave, about being cynical, we're cynical for damn good reason. Yes.

That's the thing. Yeah, it's justified. We're not being cynical just like, oh, fuck everything. It's totally justified. All these companies do this to us. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Always ending on a high note here. Well, all right.

I'm going to go kick a puppy or something. I don't know. I'm going to go watch Osama. I categorically do not kick puppies. Right. That's right. I don't kick puppies, but cats, they've got it coming. Yeah. Just kidding.

Just kidding. Please don't write in letters. We don't kick animals. I love all small furry animals. Yeah. Well, yeah. We know that. Closing shout outs. Dan sent us in this great bit of feedback. Can't believe somebody did a chargeback.

It's a dick move. I hope they stubbed their toe. Thanks for the show. Thanks, Dan. Thanks, Dan. That is the most Canadian thing I've ever heard. I bet you're from Canada. I hope they stubbed their toe. I hope they get snotty. Over at Patreon, we've got Ian, Josh, Jim, Uwe, Tiago, Green Bear, and Matthew.

And Matthew says, I'm basically the same age as you both. Not a geek in the sense of having worked in tech, but always interested. Your quick take survey of the world is what keeps me listening. I'm way overdue showing my support beyond using your sponsorship links. So I'm doing something about it now. Keep it up.

Well, thank you, Matthew. And thank you to everybody who signed up for Patreon. And by the way, quick update. The Spotify integration now works. So if you log into your Patreon account and you want to get the early release shows on your Spotify account, you can link the accounts right from the control panel.

It works. I tried it. Ooh. Cool. Yeah. For once, something fucking works. That's amazing. Yeah, I know. I'm sure it'll break in the next update. I'm sure. Yeah. Over at PayPal, we've got Mike, Tom, Joseph, Mark, Morgan with 50 bucks, Kira with another 50 bucks, and Jason, 150 bucks.

Woo. Thank you all so much. Thank you, everybody. Begging works. Begging works. And we're still not even close. So keep it coming, guys. Keep it coming. Over at the tip jar, we've got Karen, Ross, and Daryl for their subscription updates. And so we've got new subs from Josh, Eric, and Alden, and a big donation for 50 bucks from Nancy.

So thank you, everybody. Yes. Thank you all so much. We really do appreciate it. Yes. And we have some sad news this week. Co-founder of Adobe, Dr. John Warnock, has passed away. We would not have the desktop revolution if it wasn't for this guy and his co-founder over at Adobe, Chuck Geschke.

These guys created Postscript, which gave us laser printers, which gave us lots of really bad family newsletters. Gave me my job at Kinko's, which got me to the web, which got me to where I am today. So thank you, Dr. John and Dr. Chuck.

It's your fault. No, dude, I would be in jail or dead if it wasn't for those guys. Fair enough. And sadly, WWE legend Terry Funk has died at the age of 79. No clue who that is. Yes.

Well, a lot of people do. So this is for them, not you. Little known fact, he also started Grand Funk Railroad. I wish. I wish. That would have been a much better story. Yes. Until next time, I'm Jason DeFillippo. And I'm Brian Schulmeister. Thanks for listening to Grumpy Old Geeks. Show notes and links to everything we talked about today are at gog.show slash 615.

gog.show slash donate is the place to drop us a few bills so we can keep bringing you this top-notch entertainment. Sharing the show with your friends, enemies, or anyone in between is free and can be almost as good as cash, but not really. At gog.show, you can find a link to our Discord channel if you want to chat with us and other show fans.

Head over to gog.show slash contact and send us your feedback, comments, or links to cool shit you think we should talk about. gog.show slash review is where you can toss us a review or preferably. The five stars that we can read on the air. Stay grumpy and keep farting. And stay caffeinated. Welcome to Boot Up with Jason for August 25th, 2023.

I'm your host, Jason DeFillippo. Show notes can be found at bootup.show. The U.S. Department of Justice is taking Elon Musk's SpaceX to court, alleging the company discouraged refugees and asylees from applying for jobs, wrongfully stating that only U.S. citizens and permanent residents could be hired.

This supposedly took place from September 2018 to May 2022. The lawsuit suggests SpaceX didn't just discourage these applicants, but also refused to hire those who applied. Furthermore, it's claimed that SpaceX only employed U.S. citizens and green card holders between 2018 and 2020.

The case cites evidence, including remarks by Musk, who once said on a social media platform that hiring for SpaceX required at least a green card due to the nature of their work. The DOJ now seeks compensation for affected individuals and penalties for SpaceX.

Those affected are being urged to come forward. Amazon's Prime Video is introducing several AI-driven features for the upcoming NFL Thursday night football season. Prime Video, holding exclusive rights for the second year, plans to change how fans watch the games.

Features include defensive alerts that can predict defensive plays, prime targets indicating an open player, and field goal target zones, showing the likelihood of successful kicks. Additionally, Prime Video will exclusively stream the NFL's first Black Friday game between the Miami Dolphins and New York Jets, free for non-subscribers, with potential interactive shopping elements.

Lastly, all Thursday night football viewers can expect enhanced HDR video quality, providing richer visuals without any change in settings. The new features debut on September 14th with the 2023 season kickoff. Starbucks is trialing Scanless Pay, a new contactless checkout option for drive-thru customers.

Leveraging the user's geolocation via the Starbucks app, this innovation could eliminate the need for customers to show a barcode for payment, potentially streamlining the drive-thru experience. While the feature is still in the proof-of-concept phase among employees, if rolled out, it could expedite service, benefiting consumers, the company's bottom line, and people screaming that the overflowing lines are screwing up my morning commute.

When used, customers would check in on the app upon arriving at a drive-thru, share their name and order, and simply accept their items at the window, with payment automatically processed. This move further demonstrates Starbucks' foray into digital payment solutions, considering that in Q2 2023, its mobile order-and-pay system was responsible for a whopping 74% of U.S. company-owned revenue.

While companies like Amazon explore similar tech, Starbucks' version might appeal to more users averse to biometric systems like the ones used at Whole Foods. I did ask the staff at my local Whole Foods how many people used the palm print checkout option, and not one of them have seen anyone use it in the wild.

Go Starbucks! The British government is under scrutiny in the tech world for its stance on encryption and security updates. Amid concerns of jeopardizing iMessage and FaceTime, they're now hinting at potentially banning certain Apple security updates.

Their new proposition requires tech companies to inform the government before implementing a security fix, and they could be denied if it plugs a gap used by security services. This, sadly, isn't new. The British administration has been looking to ban end-to-end encryption since 2017.

Surprisingly, the country's former MI5 head voiced concerns, expressed in a BBC interview that while encryption can make security tasks challenging, it remains essential. Despite such warnings, the government seems keen on achieving surveillance without opening doors for malicious actors, a balance seen as unrealistic by experts and everyone else.

Apple has gone so far as to suggest they'd pull iMessage and FaceTime from the UK over encryption disputes. Furthering concerns, the latest suggestion could make Apple await government permissions before patching vulnerabilities, a move seen as dangerous and nonsensical by critics.

Apple usually learns of these security gaps when discovered by researchers or when exploited by hackers, so timely fixes are vital. End-to-end encryption isn't just a feature, but a foundational aspect of messaging apps, as demonstrated by Meta's significant overhaul to include it in Facebook Messenger.

In light of these moves, one can only imagine the collective facepalms echoing throughout the UK's tech sector. T-Mobile is cutting nearly 7% of its workforce, affecting about 5,000 corporate and technology roles.

Retail and customer care positions remain untouched. This comes despite the company's promise of job growth after its Sprint merger in 2020. CEO Mike Sievert cites rising costs and the need to meet changing customer expectations. Layoff notifications will conclude by September's end with affected employees receiving severance.

Open-source AI model platform Hugging Face has secured major investments from tech giants, including Google, Amazon, NVIDIA, and Salesforce. In a Series D funding round, the company raised $235 million, rocketing its valuation to $4.5 billion.

Hugging Face's CEO, Clement DeLang, emphasizes that this financial backing will expand their team and further investment in open-source AI. He believes this move not only validates Hugging Face, but the broader open-source AI community, stressing that companies are eager to embrace AI and require open-source platforms to do so.

Known for hosting top AI models, Hugging Face recently joined forces with Amazon's AWS, establishing AWS as its preferred cloud provider. While the term open-source can be confusing, in the AI landscape, it signifies a community-driven approach.

Where companies often release models allowing developer experimentation within certain licensing parameters. Meta is moving to revitalize its failed Ray-Ban Stories smart glasses after reports of a 90% abandonment rate from purchasers.

The second-gen Ray-Ban Stories are set to offer a unique feature, the capability to stream live video, where viewers can even audibly comment back to the streamer. According to tech journalist Janko Rodgers, the new glasses will support direct video streaming to platforms like Facebook and Instagram.

They'll also feature improved battery life and better cameras. Additionally, the glasses will adjust audio playback based on ambient noise and discourage users from covertly recording by monitoring the glasses' recording indicator. There are concerns that this live streaming feature may lead to privacy invasions and controversial uses.

Whatever gave you that idea? The second generation of Ray-Ban Stories is expected this fall with a third-gen version slated for 2025. The latter will introduce a small display for messages and text translations. Meanwhile, Meta's first dedicated AR glasses won't hit the market until 2027.

Elon Musk recently unveiled the much-anticipated Cybertruck production candidate. However, a leaked email to his workforce reveals his dissatisfaction with its quality. Musk emphasized that due to the Cybertruck's distinctive design, any slight variation in its build would be highly noticeable.

He urged for a precision in manufacturing down to sub-10 micron accuracy, comparing the production quality to that of Legos and soda cans. Critics, however, are questioning this level of precision and the comparisons made by Musk, given the difference in scale and the complexity of manufacturing of vehicle.

Moreover, there's notable skepticism regarding the build quality of the Cybertruck, from apparent panel gaps to misaligned components. Despite these concerns, Tesla has approximately 2 million pre-orders for the Cybertruck. Achieving Musk's exacting standards for such a unique vehicle design may pose significant challenges for the Tesla team.

The space above our planet is increasingly congested. Since 1957's Sputnik 1 launch, millions of objects from satellite parts to paint chips now orbit Earth. The clutter is so intense that the International Space Station frequently adjusts its orbit to avoid collisions.

A concerning trend suggests that unchecked, continuous collisions might create a Kessler Cascade, which is a chain reaction where debris creates more debris, making space activities and satellite operations unsustainable. This scenario, depicted in movies like Gravity, warns of an orbital point of no return.

To combat this, the European Space Agency and Swiss startup Clear Space, aimed to launch a mission in 2026 to remove significant debris. However, recent data shows even their target, the Vega Secondary Payload Adapter, has unexpected surrounding debris, meaning it was hit by more debris.

While the mission remains on track, it underscores the urgency and complexity of addressing our growing space debris challenge. That's it for today's Boot Up. Tune in Monday when we'll do it all again. Have a fantastic weekend, and if you like the show, share it with a friend.

At QVC, fall shopping is more than just checking out. It's discovering the brands you love across beauty, fashion, home, and culinary, all in one place. Whether you're getting ready for crisp mornings, cozy nights, or everyday moments, QVC has what you need for the season ahead.

With brands like Laura Geller, Philosophy, Ninja, and so many more. Shop now at QVC.com.