626: Slammer Cast

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. Happy Black Friday, Jason. Oh, happy Black Friday to you, Brian. It's the most wonderful time of the year. I gotta say, I'm very happy to be in a studio with you today instead of braving the crowds.

Yeah, I mean, we're old, man. What do you need? Nothing. Amazon. Yeah, you got Amazon for anything you do need. And yeah, so whatever. Yeah, I'm well beyond the age of just wanting stuff. I don't care. I've got everything I need. Maybe some new underwear. I'll look for that later today.

Yeah, it's funny. I'm doing most of my Christmas shopping probably today and tomorrow and this weekend. And I'm going direct as much as possible going direct to the actual provider to get my stuff. I'm trying to avoid Amazon as much as humanly possible.

Well, that's noble of you. Also difficult. And probably more expensive. You'd be surprised. If you don't care about shipping times, you can still kind of get free shipping on most things. Yeah. And I'm not in a rush. Christmas is a month away. Exactly. Yeah.

You know. Yeah, that's kind of what we do, too, because we have plenty of time and because we go back to Los Angeles for Christmas and be at my mom's house. We basically just start the shopping now and ship everything to my mom's house. And then I get there and I have to wrap everything. So, yeah.

Easy peasy. Yep. Easy peasy. Good Thanksgiving? Yes. Yes. It was a very good Thanksgiving. And since we did not record on Thanksgiving, I would like to throw out some gratitude bombs. Pew, pew, pew. I would just like to say I'm very grateful for our audience for sticking with us for these 11 and a half, almost 12 years.

My God. Jesus. I know. I know. Our show's almost a teenager. I know. Wow. That's really scary. We're not going to have to have it use copa anymore. I am not grateful for the fact that the holiday season is when most companies decide to cut headcount.

So, I have – another reason I am grateful for our audience is because they are keeping the lights on right now. Well, we've always said over the years when we get to this time of year, it's pink slip season. Mm-hmm. Yep. Yep. Got two of them myself last week.

Sorry. Yeah. It's fun times. And it's also interesting. I wanted to talk a little bit about the whole work-from-home policy thing that we've been talking about. Okay. Since I've been losing jobs left, right, and center, and I'm down to like basically two small clients and this show, I've been trying to find work.

And almost everybody wants you back in the office for at least a small portion of the time, which basically means I can't get a job. Right. It sucks. It sucks. I'm looking for anything. And it's also just a fact that the podcast industry is in shambles right now because there's so many – so many people came in, like there's so many people that do basically what I do, but they do it very mediocrely, but they do it for a third of the price.

So if they get hired, I don't. So starting Monday, I'm actually starting a new career, believe it or not. Okay. I'm just – I said, fuck it. I can't do it anymore. I can't do it. I'm actually going to be a talent booker. I'm going to be on the phone all day booking talent for events and things like that.

Oh, God. You're going to start sending me those annoying emails that we get for our podcast too? No, well, maybe. This person would be great for your show. No, they wouldn't. Do you ever listen to our show? We don't have guests. No, these are actual events that people – I have a list. I have a professional list from an actual booking agency that I'm working with.

All right. Cool. Yeah. Well, you are surprisingly personable these days. I hope so. I'm 324 days sober today too. So I'm very grateful for that and all the people that helped me get there. And I'm very grateful for you, Brian, for being my co-host for all these years. Oh, well, thanks, Jason.

You're welcome. I'm also very grateful for our Clash Royale clan and fans over there. And I have to put that in because we sadly lost a member this week. OBK had to depart after almost five years, I think, he was in the clan because Supercell, the stupid-ass company that makes Clash Royale, couldn't figure out how to transfer his account to his new phone.

Now, you'd think a company that makes hundreds of millions of dollars on phone games would figure out how to move one account from one phone to another, but they couldn't. Well, I'm glad to hear that it's just that because when you said you lost a member, I assumed the worst. Well, no, that's the sobriety recovery thing.

I lose people there every week. But in the gaming world, they tend to stick around longer. It's far less hazardous. But no, unfortunately, OBK's gone. But I think the Clash Royale clan might be coming to an end soon anyway. It seems to have run its course.

There's like maybe seven or eight of us who have stuck around. We've got like 50 people in the clan and almost nobody plays anymore. So it might be time to hang up our hat and move over to Warcraft Rumble because that's where all the hotness is nowadays. All right. Maybe, maybe not.

Who knows? But so, yes, it was a good Thanksgiving and you didn't really have Thanksgiving, did you? Because you were up in Canada. Well, for Canadian Thanksgiving, we decided to fuck off and go to London. So we didn't celebrate that. And then we just kind of did a little thing.

We made a ham. I made some dressing. You know, we just took it kind of low key and just had that last night, which is nice. That's cool. That's cool. I'm just excited because we made a boatload of stuffing yesterday because we're going to make stuffing waffles in the waffle maker.

Oh, nice. Those are the greatest thing ever. You make stuffing. You put, you jam the stuffing in the waffle maker, crisp it up, and then you use that as the bread for your turkey sandwich. Sounds like something you should put on the tick of the tock, Jason. It's been on the tick of the tock for many, many moons. There you go. I'm not the first to come up with the stuffing waffle sandwich, unfortunately.

You know, I'd be rich if that were the case. Oh, wait, do you actually make any money on TikTok? No, no, you don't. Yeah. Let me tell you something I'm grateful for, Jason, really quickly. I'm grateful we were off last week so we didn't have to cover this open AI mess.

Jesus. Oh, my God. Yes. Yeah. Really, there was so much news and my give a shit level on this story is basically zero. So I'm really glad we worked on last week.

Oh, my God. It was it was a mess. It was just like, what's going on? There are no adults, Jason. Well, well, in the in the final tally, what so Sam Altman is back at open AI like nothing happened to new board.

And apparently they're going to expand the board and Microsoft's like, we want a seat. Yeah. Because I think so. Yeah. Satya Nadella says, because the company doesn't want any more, quote unquote, surprises, which is just code for what some fucking adults in the room.

Yeah. You know, you're worth 90 billion dollars. You can't have schoolyard fights like this. So the yeah, the TLDR on all of this is one of the biggest, most biggest companies in the world at the moment. 90 billion dollars. Forefront of AI.

Certainly open AI would be the one company that everybody knows. The board overplayed their hand. One, we could say a little bit. Microsoft was the big winner in all of this for sure. They almost had a 90 billion dollar company for free. Now they will be on the board and directing it.

Microsoft has got seen a nice little bump in their stock price. Well deserved for all of this, of course. And yeah, Altman is back doing what he wants without an idiot board. So the real annoyance in all this, at least for me, you'll probably be annoyed by this too.

There was a Reuters article that said that a couple of days before he was fired, there was a letter that some of the engineers wrote about a massive breakthrough in AGI that was scary because this new version that they were working on, this new project called Q-Star was apparently some magical breakthrough.

First off, fuck you open AI engineers for using the letter Q in anything you do because every tinfoil hat twat with a boner just went apeshit on Reddit right now going, see, I told you, Q, Q, Q, they're back, woohoo, yeah, oh God.

And nobody has the letter that happened. So shame on Reuters for even publishing that because there's no, and shame on anybody for bringing up the letter that shall not be named anymore. I just want a world back where Q just meant the guy on Star Trek.

Exactly. Give me back John DeLancey. That's all I want. That's all. Yeah. At least, you know, that was the ending of Picard, right? It was. Yeah. He might be back. He might be back. Anyway, what's not coming back are the responsible AI team at Meta.

Apparently, they've been disbanded. Okay. Because why not? They're like, hey, you know, everybody took a lead from Elon Musk when he just said, ah, screw it, we're going to fire everybody. So apparently, Mark Zuckerberg and the team over at Meta has taken a, you know, a nod from Sam Altman saying, we're just going to do whatever we want, as fast as we want.

Damn it. Let's go. But that's company policy across the board. Sure, that they have some sort of moderation council, but they don't even pay attention to them. It's non-binding. Like, who gives a crap? Meta just does what Meta wants. Yeah. Actually, they're taking a page out of Google's playbook on this one.

Oh, yeah. Get rid of the ethics boards. Yeah. Google really kind of like, they're the trailblazer. They're the pioneers. Talk about AI ethics. Yeah. So. Yeah. Oh, man. Speaking of Q, I saw this one that just had me laughing. Trump's Truth Social has lost $73 million since loss, or since launch, since loss.

Wow. Does it cost that much to run that dump? Yeah. Apparently, the Trump Media and Technology Group, not to, it's called their TMTG, not to be continued, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Right. So, their SPAC partner, Digital World Acquisition Corp, there's a real fun company to work for, I'm sure.

Yeah. Making children cry since 1984. They revealed in their filings that in 2022, Truth Social lost $50 million on just $1.4 million of net sales. And through the first six months of this year, it brought in $2.3 million, but lost $23 million. So.

Right. Hey, they're losing less this year. So, yeah. That's a plus. Yeah. Make the bottom line great again. I actually think, like, Trump would rather this thing just crash and burn at this point, because then he could go back to Twitter with his head held high.

So, we'll see. Yeah, we'll see. At this rate, he might just be able to buy Twitter in a couple weeks. I mean, Twitter's numbers aren't much better than Truth Social's. Yeah. It's like while we were off, I went back to my Twitter account, and all I did was just post all of the advertisers that were leaving Twitter.

I'm like, every time a news story came in, it's like, okay, there goes Apple, there goes IBM. It's like, that's all I'm doing now. It's like, it's more fun that way. I'm kind of like the Molly of- Molly White. Molly White of Twitter. Now, that's all I'm going to do. Okay.

It's going great. My interest in Twitter has just cratered. Oh, zero. I used to load it up because I still had a decently curated list, and there would be interesting stories, and it was just a time killer. But I just can't. I just can't. I feel icky. Yeah. Yeah.

And it's like, even when I go there and I see friends of mine that are still using it as normal, I'm just like, guys, come on. It's kind of gross. It's kind of gross. Yeah. One year to kill a company. Yeah.

That's fun times. Fun times. And speaking of killing people, I saw this come through in the while you were gone section. Feds have no idea how many times cruise driverless cars have hit pedestrians. Oh, great. Yeah, because apparently there is no way for the general public to actually report the malfeasance of the driverless cars, because what you need to make a report is the VIN number, which by the time you can read the VIN number, your head has already gone through the windshield, and it's a little late for you.

Yeah. I mean, you'd have to just have a perfect hit, so your head ended up right there. Yeah, and still have enough cognition left to remember all those digits. Oh, you know what it is. Yeah, if you hit it just right, it imprints itself backwards in your forehead, so you can look in the mirror and take a selfie and send that to the NHTSA.

Right. Well, that's just great. Isn't that precious? Isn't that special? Isn't that just precious? Now, these two things, I never really got into the C-suite behind Cruise. I just heard GM, and I'm like, okay, it's a bunch of Detroit suits behind all this.

Well, turns out, turns out, truth is a little stranger. Kyle Voigt was the CEO. He was one of the co-founders and CEO, and he resigned because of all the shenanigans. And I was like, wait a minute. He was one of the co-founders of fucking Justin TV.

Right. Which then turned into Twitch. Right. I remember Justin TV very well because I remember when it started because one of my roommates actually brought one of those cameras home without our permission and was filming us in my house. And I was just like, get that fucking thing out of here. And so I've always hated Justin TV, and I've always hated Justin Kahn.

Well, it turns out Justin's younger brother, Daniel, was also on the fucking board of Cruise. He was one of the other co-founders. Right. So he's gone too. So we are letting these driverless cars on the road that are founded by people who basically they started out by sticking a webcam on a baseball hat.

That's where these people started from. This is the level of what the fuckitude that's going on out there. I had no idea. I should have done my research. Maybe they should try putting some of these cameras on the cars. They might work better. They seriously, seriously, my God.

I need to go look at who started Waymo. I'm like, is that what's her name with the first cam girl? I was just trying to think about her name, too. Jenny Cam. Jenny Cam started Waymo. There we go. Jenny from Jenny Cam is probably like in her late 50s now.

In the news. Well, back to some real news. Mm-hmm. Oh, man. Binance. Binance is in the news big time because, Brian, what have we always said about crypto?

It's almost as if crypto is only for criminals. That's right. And turns out funding terrorist groups like Hamas. Well, the mysterious Bitcoin guy known as CZ or Chen Peng Zhao, well, he was fined $50 million and required to step down as CEO of Binance.

Binance was, you know, it got a fine in the billions, like $4.3 billion. Yes. All right? Yeah. $4.3 billion. That's a B. You got $5 billion. That's real money. That's Elon Musk money. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, even Google would be like, what? So, yeah. And why is all this happening? Because, yes, it was proven that he's a money launderer and they used Binance to basically fund terrorist organizations and they knew about it.

And they knew. Yes, of course they knew. Of course they knew. They were just fine because, you know, to the moon. Oh, fuck. So, and on the heels of that, Sean Bonner sent me this screen grab that I just loved. It was Jason Kalkanis, you know, one of the douches in chief.

He said, Lord, give me the confidence to plead guilty to federal charges, play a $4 billion plus fine and have the audacity to offer myself up as an advisor to startups. Crypto folks are built different. I hate to break it to you, Jason, but you do have that confidence.

Okay. Yep. The punchline is Eric Golden, who I don't know him, but I love him. He said, who would you rather have as an advisor to your startup? And he did a little Twitter poll. Jason Kalkanis or CZ? 87% chose the criminal CZ over Jason Kalkanis.

That tracks. It does. It does. I love it. I just love it. That's funny. Okay. Okay. The continued story of Google fighting against, basically, ad blockers over on YouTube has suboptimal viewing experiences are being reported by people.

Really? Yeah, because there's a JavaScript that is checking to see if you're using an ad blocker and it's slowing things down. Some YouTube viewers who use Firefox or Edge instead of Chrome have reported having to wait around five seconds every time they try to load a video. Well, that's what you get for using Firefox to begin with.

Let me tell you how long it took to put in a VHS tape, kids. Yeah, seriously. Five seconds. Whoa, boy. You got to wait five seconds to watch a video. But, of course, obviously, that should not be happening. So, Android Authority and 404 Media, which reported on users' complaints, weren't able to replicate the phenomena.

I am not on YouTube very often. I have not seen such delays, but I can see how and why it's happening. So, yeah, the war against ad blockers is making sure that you can't watch your video quickly. Yeah. I'm actually on YouTube every day, and I have YouTube Premium.

So, I don't see an ad, and it loads pretty fast. There you go. So, yeah. Pay up, and it'll work just fine. Yeah. It's actually, you know, since I've been canceling all of the streaming services that I can just to save a few bucks, it actually works out. YouTube is kind of fun to just sit around and bounce through on the Apple TV if you've got a – I use the keyboard on the iPad to be able to search and type stuff in.

It's just as good as regular TV. I'm sorry. And it's kind of more entertaining half the time. It's like old person's TikTok. It really is. It really is because you just go down these rabbit holes that I just – I don't do the recommended stuff for the most part. I just, you know, get on a tear and just remember my youth.

I'm like, man, I really wish I could see that Girls on Film video from 1982. I just go down and then I'm like – then I go down and I'm like, hmm, maybe she blinded me with science. I just go down a crazy side road. I don't know. I just love – I love YouTube Premium. It's actually cheaper than half the services that I got.

Right, right. Yep. And I don't use Firefox because I'm civilized anyway. I'm still using Brave – or not Brave, Vivaldi of all browsers. It's crazy. Oh, my God. China! I know. I know. I should probably switch, but I'm just so lazy and it works.

Yeah. I'm liking Brave, but we're actually on Chrome today – or I'm on Chrome today because I think that there's a problem with Riverside and Brave just because Brave still does have all that crypto crap under the hood. You can turn it off, but it's still there. It's still there. It's still there doing whatever it's going to do. It's still there funding terrorist organizations.

Yes, it is. Damn it. Oh, man. Okay. So Amazon has dedicated a team to train a new AI codenamed Olympus. Okay. At least it's not you. Damn it. So this new model is going to be trained on two trillion parameters.

Okay. I think that they should start naming these things what they really are. GIGO. Garbage in, garbage out. Just because you have more parameters does not mean it's going to be better, people. Come on. Have you read the internet? Seriously. I know.

It's crazy. Well, good on them. I like to have the competition out there, but yeah. You know what? I like potable water. So I think let's stop this now. Let's get these things done. Ironically, Amazon is going to drain the Amazon to make this model.

Okay. Well, at least it's down south. I don't have to worry about it anymore. And, you know, a lot of our actual air and oxygen comes from there, but okay. No, we burned that down last decade. I don't know if you saw the news. Rainforest is gone, bro.

Right. That's it. Yeah. Ticking time bomb. We need the AI to help us figure out how to plant trees again. I saw a thing the other day, one of these companies that was all, you know, we'll plant a tree for every dollar you spend type of companies. Yeah. Probably some Zane Lamprey shit.

Turns out the company that they hired was fucking everything up because they were planting all the trees too close together. So none of them were growing. Oh, great. That's awesome. Yeah. You know, it should have used, cut down one of the trees to buy a fucking ruler so you can figure out how far apart they need to go.

Anyway, I digress. OpenAI dropped a new ChatGPT feature for the general public. We've had this for paying customers for a while now. You've been able to use your voice on your app to talk to ChatGPT. Now it's free for everyone.

But it was pretty funny when they announced it on Twitter. They did a little video and they're like, the team here has been working really hard. How many pizzas do I need to order for 788 employees? ChatGPT told them a little over 100. So it was pretty funny.

What a mess that must be for their HR department. Everybody quit and was going to Microsoft and was being onboarded there. And now it's like, nope, we're going back. Yeah. Well, you know how much love I have for HR departments. So at least they had to like actually do some real work for a change. That's true.

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.

I finally dug into the Loki finale. Yep. What'd you think? Loved it. Yeah. It was a good, it was a good end. Yeah. I really liked it. Nice full circle moment. He ends up being a good guy.

I really enjoyed the show. It was good. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, they repurposed the whole Doctor Strange thing and the, you know, the infinite timelines and all that crap, but it's Marvel. So, you know, they're, they're, they're, they don't have a shredder. They just have a recycling bin that goes right into the next plot.

But that's right. Hey, I, who knows how long that's going to last. I don't know if you've read any of the Marvel news lately. It's not good. It's not good. But no, it's not the, the fatigue is real, you know? Yeah. Yeah. I'm glad. I'm glad they bored with this shit. There's no stakes anymore, really.

Like you just know it's going to keep on going. So, yeah. Yeah. And yeah, we talked about it previously on the, on the media candy segments. Just like, yeah, we've seen, we've all seen the movie before, but I really liked that they wrapped it up, but we're done. Loki. Yes. Loki's in the can. Yep. Moving on.

Yep. He's doing press interviews and basically saying, that's it. Nope. Not coming back. So good. Good. Going to sit there forever holding onto the green trees. Well, was it, he was in a great John le Carré movie or a miniseries called the night manager.

I think it was. It was like a six part miniseries. It was fantastic. Highly recommend dig it up on your favorite streaming service or go to Sweden and get it. Who's the guy from house? Oh God. I love him. Fry and what?

I just remember he was Steven Fry's partner. What the hell's his name? Anyway, he was in it too. So it's all star cast. Highly recommend the night manager. Anyway, I digress. I saw this come through and I was just shaking my head here. The house select committee on Chinese communist party has sent a letter to Apple and its CEO, Tim Cook, citing a Hollywood reporter story asking if China was the reason that Apple canceled Jon Stewart's show.

Two things here. One, well, actually just one thing here. Don't you have something fucking better to do? Yeah. Why are you getting involved with internal programming decisions being made by a company? Oh, because they think the Chinese communist party is now has its tendrils deep into Hollywood and will be using them to, to spread their communist message.

I'm like, okay, let's go, let's get the McCarthy AI spun up and get that going here. Unbelievable. Like, look, nobody was watching the show. Yeah. There. They look, it was an opportunity for them. Even the one person that wrote us that said that they watched the show wasn't watching the show.

Yeah. She was listening to the podcast. She wasn't even watching the show. So. So there you go. That's why it got canceled. Move on people. Yeah. Now, the next one I think is actually worth digging into. Senator Joaquin Castro is asking the FTC and the Justice Department to actually look into the Warner Brothers discovery practice of, you know, making a movie and then handing it for a tax write-off.

It's Warner Brothers. They should have asked the Justice League, not the Justice Department. Bazinga! Yes, indeed. No, I 100% agree that this needs to get looked into. This whole idea of shelving content for tax purposes is ridiculous. Yeah. Yeah.

There's a huge article about the guy who took over Warner Brothers Digital that I just could not bring myself to read. They're like, is he ruining Hollywood? And, you know, Betteridge would say no, but my gut says, abso-fucking-lutely. I hate this guy. I hate this guy. Yeah.

No, it's just all of this crap. It's just everything is about pennies now. You know, it's like, we just want more. We just want more. Damn. Bring back the golden age. The golden age of Hollywood, please. Yeah. Yeah. Just release stuff.

You made it. It's good. Put it out there. Stop fucking around. Yeah. You make enough money. It just reminds me of, you know, the shenanigans when everybody got fired at Paramount at Christmas when I worked there because they wanted to bring the stock price up a little bit. Yep. Cost them more in the long run, too.

Stupid. Stupid shit. Just, you know, these people aren't creatives. They're finance people. So that's what you get. I have a little follow up on my traders diatribe from last episode. Okay. I have had a change of heart on the traders.

They seem to have figured out their formula for other seasons. That first season, they had normies in there. Like, you know, people that would tug at the heartstrings, made friendships, and forgot that it was an actual contest in a game. The show was called Traders.

Yeah, yeah. But, you know, there's some people in there that really just, you know, really, like, got into it and really started to love the people that they were competing against. And it was just like, oh, it really just hurt your heart at the end. Well, they figured out how this is going to work now because in the Traders season two for the U.S., they said, screw it.

We're bringing in all reality TV stars. These people know the score. Right. This is going to be cutthroat. It's going to be evil. It's going to be great. As long as everybody is aware of the rules and that this is a game, this is cutthroat. Don't get emotional. It's more fun.

It is way more fun. And the Australian season two had the greatest ending of all of them so far. And then they canceled the show after that, which was perfect because there was no way they were going to top it. Australia season two, fantastic. And I'm watching the Canada one. And you tweeted me the other day or texted me saying that you were seeing billboards for it.

Yep. And I was literally watching it when you tweeted me or texted me. That's funny. Yeah. Yeah. I went to Sweden and picked it up because I don't have the Canadian broadcast network or whatever. And I'm up to date. It's still running right now.

There's, I think, one or two episodes left on that. But the Canadians, surprisingly polite when they stab you in the back. It's great. Of course. Stereotypes are true. Yeah. It's fun. But it's a great show. It's a great show now. Now that they've figured out the formula, and I think the audience has kind of figured out the formula, too.

It's like, don't get invested. These people are out there to win a lot of money. Yeah. And in Canada, they're only winning $100,000. I think Canadian, which is like 50 bucks. Yeah. That's a pack of gum. Yeah. So what are you going to do? It's still fun. So, yeah. Australia season one, not good.

U.S. season one, you want to stab somebody. But the rest of them so far have been great. New Zealand is up next for us. So we're going to see how that goes. Touring the world, Jason. We are. We're touring the world with traders. Because there's just nothing on yet. The strike's over. So these people need to get back in the studios and make some real content.

That's right. We did watch, since this is going to be a strange media candy, because we had a week off and there was nothing to do. So watch Special Forces, The World's Toughest Test, season one. Really liked it. Really liked it. The season two is almost done.

It's done next week. These are on Hulu. We were watching them on Hulu. They were pretty good. It's a fun show. I did watch The Pigeon Tunnel, John Le Carre's biography or documentary. Right. That he's in it. That was the last thing he did before he died.

It's fascinating. Really, really cool watch. All right. Highly recommend it if you like documentaries and things like that. And great news. Speaking of spy shit. Slow Horses, season three, November 29th. So five days from now. Right. I'm looking forward to that one.

Did you ever get back and watch it? I still haven't watched season two. So I should probably do that. Yeah. I watched the first season. Really enjoyed it. Yeah. Season two, better than season one. So hopefully the trend continues. And to change things up a bit, I actually started watching some anime on Netflix.

I'm watching Cyberpunk Edgerunners. Okay. I haven't watched any anime in a very long time. I kind of miss it. This is fun. It's really fun. This is a good story. It's beautifully animated. I think this is part of the Cyberpunk game world because it was the Cyberpunk game with Keanu Reeves.

It was buggy as hell, so I never played it on my Xbox 360. But the story is great so far. I'm really enjoying it. I'm like halfway through. Yeah. My only real experience with anime was Aeon Flux on MTV back in the day. Never liked that. Never liked that.

The first one I really got into was Battle Angel. The first was like the actual animated one, not the James Cameron one. And Lane. Lane was really good. That was an interesting one. But there's so much out there. I never really. It was one of those things where there's so much of it that it's really hard to get into.

You know, it's like, where do you start? It's like me with Doctor Who. Yeah, yeah, exactly. It's just too daunting. Death Note was a great one, so check that one out. Like David Tennant's back in Doctor Who now, and I'm like, I love David Tennant. I want to watch it, but I don't know what's happened in the middle.

So I'm like, do I really want to get confused? Go down that rabbit hole, and then I'm like, no, I don't. I'm going to go watch The Traders. Fuck it. Well, I was flying back and forth between LA and Toronto, so I've got some mildly buzzed on an airplane movie reviews. This is usually when I get to sit down and watch a bunch of movies, and I did.

I watched Spider-Man Across the Spider-Verse, which is the second of these Spider-Verse movies. Great. I love these movies. I mean, if this is what superhero stories were all the time, I'd be all into it, but they're not. So it was fantastic. They're really great, Jason.

I think you'd enjoy them a lot. Okay. Get on it. I watched Asteroid City, which is the – what's the director's name again? God. Because I've never heard of it. I don't know. He does all the quirky movies, and this is just another quirky movie. Wes Anderson?

Wes Anderson. Thank you. Got it in one. Yep. There you go. So it is a Wes Anderson movie. That's all you need to know about it. All you need to know. So, yeah. I mean, it's fine for what it is. I think I'm burned out on him. So all of his stuff just feels the same.

This was exactly the same. It's worth it for like one second of seeing Jeff Goldblum playing an alien. That was fantastic. So there you go. I watched a random movie that I'd never heard of before, but it seemed interesting.

And I was on a plane and trapped, so what are you going to do? Called American-ish. And this is about a Pakistani family that lives in New York, and it was actually quite good. You know. I watched the trailer. I think I'll pass on that one. Yeah. I don't think it's for you. Yeah.

Definitely probably helped that I had had a whiskey and Coke at that point, but it's just a fun little family drama, romantic comedy, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And it was just well done. So I enjoyed it. Cool. Then I watched Sarah Silverman's latest stand-up, because they've got a deal.

Air Canada has a deal with HBO, so a bunch of HBO contents on there. Sarah Silverman's Someone You Love. Yeah. Yeah. Not being a Jewish woman, which is what most of the jokes were based on. Yeah. I love Sarah Silverman, but I don't think she's been terribly hilarious recently.

She hasn't been on for, I don't know, like a decade. Yeah. Yeah. So pass on that one, Jason. You're not going to enjoy it very much. The reason for me flying back and forth is, well, first off, I went to go help my mom out and do a bunch of stuff around the house. But I timed it to attend the Darker Waves Festival, which was a basically 80s, 90s bands on the beach in Huntington.

And it was wonderful. Absolutely wonderful. Like, I have not enjoyed a festival like that since the early days of Coachella. You cannot beat having a festival on the beach, although it almost sucked because it looked like it was going to rain. It was supposed to rain, but it ended up being a beautiful day, sunny and nice and warm.

And yeah, I saw New Order, Tears for Fears, The B-52s, Echo and the Bunnymen, Devo, Soft Sells, Psychedelic Furs, Human League, OMD, Violent Femmes, She Wants Revenge, The Cardigans, which were awesome, The English Beat, and a bunch of other bands. It was great. And OMD blew the fucking place off, man.

They were awesome. So that was pretty surprising that they would be the one band that I came away from going just, wow, that was amazing. So yeah, good time was had by all. That's cool. Yeah. Violent Femmes and Devo are the two bands in that list that I haven't seen that I'd really like to see.

If you're going to see Devo, you better get out there and do it now. No, I think I missed it. It's done. Okay. Yeah. Because they are, I believe, retiring after this wave of tour dates. Yeah. Yeah. And most of my friends that are Devo fans have already seen them. So according to their Instagrams, everybody's posting pictures.

Yeah. It's the last run for them. Although Mark Mothersbaugh was on the latest Hawk versus Wolf podcast because him and Tony Hawk are good friends. Yeah. So it was actually a pretty fun episode. That's cool. Listen to some of that history. And the story about how Richard Branson tried to get Johnny Rotten into Devo was pretty good.

Pretty good. Um, I, I found this thing. Uh, it was just one of those, uh, random finds called the James Webb telescope is a giant leap in the history of stargazing. And it's one of those interactive websites that, uh, makes you feel really goddamn small.

So if you're having a bad day, go look at this because then if your problems are a little too crushing, it'll put it in perspective for you. It's like, Hey, we just found 497,000 new galaxies. It's like, Oh, okay, great. We are nothing.

Yay. And, uh, I saw this was the number one podcast today on Spotify called the president's daily brief unsetting, uh, uh, Joe Rogan. And so I was wondering, I'm like, Oh man, it's just, what is this?

And I looked at it and it's like, Oh, no wonder I couldn't get booed up to, uh, to pick. This is the type of competition I'm dealing with each morning. The president of the United States receives a highly classified briefing on the most important issues facing the country. The president's daily brief. Now you can hear your very own PDB in the form of a podcast each morning at 6 a.m.

Eastern. You'll get 20 minutes of the most important topics of the day and why you should care arming you with what you need to know to help solve America's most pressing challenges. I'm like, okay, that's kind of what I did. Right. Hosted by former CIA operations officer, Mike Baker. Yeah.

Fuck you. Might be a little bit more informed than you. Yeah. Checkmate. Okay. Checkmate. Um, I do want to throw a, uh, uh, uh, plug out to my friend, uh, Theo, Theo and Mandy. They're, they're my neighbors. I actually did a movie podcast with Theo and Brian Blondel for a little bit that we could never get off the ground.

He, he, uh, actually bought some of my gear and started his own movie podcast with his wife, Mandy called the Monday movie marathon. And it's really interesting. Cause they're like, you know, 20 years younger than I am or 25 years younger than I am. So it's, you know, their take on movies that I think are, you know, classics already.

Yeah. Like, like they watched training day for the first time. So it's really, and Theo is a movie nerd big time. So he knows way more about movies than I, even I do. So it's a, it's actually a really fun podcast. So, uh, check it out. Monday movie marathon link in the show notes. Very cool.

I actually have added a new podcast to my listening, uh, rotation as well, which I very rarely do because I just have the podcasts that I like and I haven't gotten sick of them. And there's only so many hours in the day. Uh, but I started listening to not today, pal. Now, this is a relatively newish podcast.

It stars Jamie Lynn Siegler and Robert Iller, who you may vaguely remember as the siblings in the Sopranos. Okay. Yeah. Well, I know Jamie Lynn Siegler, but I forgot who the other one was. And it's pretty good. I mean, it's just a, it's dumb shit. It's just them talking about their lives.

Really. There's nothing to it. Like you, you get things like, which is the best shitty pizza, you know, blind taste tests with like dominoes and, and all that sort of stuff. It's just, I don't know what it is about Jamie Lynn Siegler's voice, but I find it insanely soothing and I just, it puts a smile on my face every time I hear her and I just like listening to it.

So it's fun. It's worth a go. Okay. It's funny. It comes from Tom Segura's studio. Interesting. Yeah. She was fantastic in Entourage. I got to say when she was on for like a season, season and a half, she was amazing in Entourage. I like her a lot. Yeah. I like her a lot too. So it's, it's a fun podcast and he is, he's funny, man.

Really? He bottomed out. Like he, he's totally sober now, but he was like, he fucking lived back then. So yeah, it's just fun. So yeah, it's just fun. It's fun to listen to. I like the dynamic between the two of them. So adding to the queue. Cops and doodads.

Well, as part of my new, uh, newfound unemployment, I'm actually finally liquidating all the gear from my studio. I posted on Instagram. Uh, this is a full studio. I actually pulled it down cause, uh, I'm looking for an actual real buyer.

If anyone is interested in is listening to this, that wants a full three camera studio streaming setup, uh, with Nikon cameras, I've got streaming boxes, uh, Atomos Ninja fives for everything. This is a real studio setup. Contact me J at JPD.me and we can talk about it.

But, uh, yeah, finally, I don't have a studio to put it up in anymore. So it's kind of just sitting there depreciating. So I'm like, yeah, let's maybe, let's maybe see what we can do with that. So yeah, that's it. Hendel sends in an article on how to try out the new double tap gesture on your old Apple watch.

Uh, it's, you can use the, uh, some of the old, uh, what do you call it? Accessibility settings. Yeah. Accessibility settings to kind of make it work. Uh, I've got it on my new ultra two. Never use it because it tends to do the wrong thing.

Every time I try, I'm like, would you just turn off? I just want you to stop the timer. And it's like, oh, would you would like to call your mom? I'm like, no, absolutely. Yeah. I saw the article and I clicked on it and I was going to turn it on to give it a go. And then I was like, no, no.

Cause I just use my hands a lot. I don't want it to do things by accident. Yeah. And if I've got stuff in my hands, I actually just use a, my other forearm to just slam it and it turns it off. So I was like, that's all I need. But like the whole tap thing, I haven't quite gotten that.

I haven't found a use case for it yet. It's neat, but I have not found a use case for it yet. So thanks handle. But the link is in the show notes. If anybody wants to give it a try, you as the old watch, I might still give it a go just to try it out. Yeah. Give it a shot, man. Maybe you'll come up with something. Yeah. Maybe we'll see. I'll live with it for like a week or two and see if it, uh, the annoyance factor or convenience wins out.

Yeah. Yeah. So I had a question for you, Jason. It is really time for me to update my iPhone. I'm on a 12 and I know it's time to update it because as soon as I take it off the charger, it immediately goes down to like 85%, like within five seconds. Uh, so I've got to do it. And I know being older, I should get the bigger model now, not the small model, which I've been carrying around forever.

So more screen size. Uh, but do I really need a pro? That's my question for you. So I, I was, uh, I saw this in the notes. So I actually went and did a little research for you. Okay. Uh, the answer for you is no.

I didn't think so. It's mostly the camera, right? It's the camera. And it's also for filmmakers a lot. It's, you get, uh, I can get Wes Anderson. Yeah. You could actually, but because you can shoot in pro res, but you also have a color correcting capabilities.

It does come with a better telephoto lens, but looking at it. I'm like, I'm taking pictures of my kids. Exactly. I'm like, for 99.9% of the use cases, the telephoto isn't going to do you a damn bit of good. You don't need any of the, uh, you know, the highfalutin filmmaking capabilities.

The only difference that I find annoying. And the reason I wouldn't get it is it maxes out at 512 gig. You can't get a terabyte version. Right. I've, I've got an iPhone 13 pro and I've got the terabyte version, which I adore because I never have to worry about space.

So I've got all my, all my photos and videos. And since you have photos and videos of your kid, I don't know how much space you use on your 12. I can't imagine it's 512 gigs. So you might be just okay. Yeah. I think I'm fine. So good to know. I will not get the pro. Yeah. I mean, that's the large new one. Yeah. I think those start at 900 and the, uh, the pros start at 1200.

Yeah. That's a good chunk. It's not insignificant. So no, not at all. Not at all. All right. Preach Jason. No problem, man. It's what I'm here for. You know me, Mr. Gear guy. That's right. That's my new show. It's neat.

You make a joke, but next week you'll be passing around the download link. If I, if I had a hookup for, for gear to send me to review, man, I'd be all over that. But sadly, um, I found this one, a secret Google deal that Spotify completely bypass Android's app store fees.

Yep. Yeah. This is something they didn't want to come out in court when they were going up against Epic. I wonder why. I wonder why they didn't want it out there. I can't imagine. Yeah. Oh. Google head of global partnerships, Don Harrison, confirmed that Spotify paid a 0% commission when users chose to buy subscription through Spotify's own system.

If users picked Google as their payment processor, Spotify only handed over 4% instead of the 15% that the unwashed masses like Epic have to pay. So, yeah. Yeah. Oops. Oops. They got their own deal.

Amazing. Yeah. Surprise, surprise, surprise. So. Yep. Well, in Spotify news, they have confirmed, uh, all we talked about their new streaming, uh, payment policies for artists and labels on previous shows. Uh, they've confirmed that that is true and that's just what it's going to be.

So if, uh, if, if you get less than 1000 plays, uh, you were never getting paid. That money gets shifted up to higher artists and gets, uh, distributed that way. Now it sounds horrible and it kind of is in many ways, but I also understand why they're doing it because a lot of these, uh, a lot of these companies, distribution companies, basically just flood streaming media with shit content to get paid.

And they're trying to fight against that, but it does screw smaller artists, which is unfortunate. So chicken or egg, whack-a-mole, all that sort of stuff. Yep. My new company called 1001 streams will, you know, give you fake, fake streams up to 1001.

So give me a call. So you get a penny. Fantastic. It's a numbers game, Jason. Yes, it is. And I know you're a big Sonos fan. So I saw this, uh, news hit the, hit the wires. Sonos long rumored headphones will reportedly arrive by April, 2024. So they're going to do, uh, headphones now to compete with AirPods Max and the AirPods regular ones and Sony and Bose and all that sort of stuff.

They're also rolling out a streaming box, which is interesting. Okay. So they can also compete with Apple TV. I guess they've realized they've sold as many speakers as they're going to sell and they need to do something else. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. I'm not interested in any of these because I've got, uh, I have one of the sound bars.

I think I have the Ray and the problem, this is the problem with it, which makes it absolutely unusable is, uh, to, to change the volume on your TV. You have to launch the Sonos app. That is a no go for me then.

Same here. It's like, I'm like, it's great to be able to play Sonos through a really nice soundbar, but I've got enough Sonos speakers that it's like, okay, well, it's just another, another speaker for me now for Sonos. Because it's like, even I had, I had it hooked up to my fire TV with the optical input and there was no way to program it to actually use either any of my remotes.

Yeah. And I'm like, well, that's just dumb. That is dumb. That's just dumb. I just want to be able to, you know, I think if I use like maybe a headphone port, I could control the volume from the TV into it. But I'm like, well, no, I want to be able to use the optical input.

So it sounds good. That's why I got a soundbar. I want it to sound good. I want to use a 35 cent cable to, you know, pipe the audio to it and, you know, kludge it through. So I think that, do I really want to have to open the Sonos app just to change the volume on my headphones?

No, I'm guessing that's probably what's going to happen. Apple TV is the greatest TV streaming box on the planet. So why would I want, you know, another box that's going to cost even more? They're saying it's going to cost between 150, 200 bucks. I'm like, no, no need for that.

It just makes no sense. They're grasping at straws at this point. Yeah, that's what it feels like to me, too. Let's just throw a bunch of shit at the wall and see what sticks. Yeah. The one speaker that I got from them recently that is really nice is their waterproof wireless speaker.

That thing is really good because you and I both got the JBL speakers. Yep, I still got the JBL. Yeah. Yeah, I do, too. I never use it because it's just a pain to set up. And also because this Sonos, when I just keep it in one room on the charger and when I want to go out in the backyard, I just pick it up and take it outside.

And it, you know, doesn't miss a beat. And it lasts for like all afternoon. So if we're out in the back playing with the dogs, having a barbecue or whatever, we got music in the backyard. And it's Sonos, so it sounds amazing. That's the one thing that Sonos has going for it. Their speakers sound great.

Yeah, they really do. But all the rest of it. Yeah, their app sucks balls. It's like, it takes like, you know what? I think they might be using YouTube because it takes about five seconds to load. Yeah, it's slow and it's kludgy. I hate it. Like we have a, I got Sonos speakers for my office and, you know, it's just the app is so kludgy.

It's horrible. I hate having to go through it all the time. Like, why can't I just play music? Like every other speaker, every other speaker in the world. Yeah. And half the times it like won't connect to like a service or two. And then like, it's, it is notoriously bad with Mixcloud because we got a lot of Mixcloud playlists that we'd like to play and it loses that connection all the time.

So I think Sonos should, instead of spending more on making new hardware that nobody technically needs. Fix the interface. Yeah, seriously. The Dark Side. Ha! With Dave. Welcome to the Dark Side without Dave.

Because Dave's off today and we didn't even think to ask him if he was going to take the day off. It is Thanksgiving holiday. So yes, I'd imagine he's, uh, he's not around. So here we are. Here we are. We're back. We're going to pimp all of his podcasts anyways. No. Hey, man.

Yeah. Well, in some way, Dave is with us. Dave is with us. Because this first story, uh, I actually got from his Facebook. Okay. He posted this, uh, last week and, uh, you know, there you go. Dave Filoni just got a bigger, more important Star Wars job.

This is definitely something that, uh, Dave is, is, is into and curious about. So he got promoted. He basically got the keys to the Star Wars kingdom. He will oversee all projects now from the beginning, not, you know, just brought in later to make sure, make sure, make sure that all the stories lined up and people weren't doing crazy stuff.

He is, uh, he is running the show over at Disney for a Star Wars from now on, which is good because he's good at it. Yeah. Yeah. I like that part. Yeah. So we like, we like the people that are good at it, getting the job and it's been a mess over there. You know, movies are announced and then canceled or just disappear.

So who knows what's going on? Uh, we now have somebody that is in charge and seems to really like Star Wars and does a good job with it. So very happy about that. Yeah. It's not like it's the Marvel universe or anything. Come on. Yeah. I don't know. No Star Wars fatigue here. I'll tell you that.

Uh, I also had a bit of follow-up for you guys. Uh, the absent Dave, I'll probably email this story to him. The Apple watch battery life bug is fixed with iWatch OS 10.1.1. So, uh, whatever they did, they fixed, uh, the battery draining issue and it works better now.

Not that you care because you just got a new watch because that's what you do. Yeah. Well, additionally, the issue has affected Apple watches across the board, including older ones like the SE and the latest models like the Apple watch ultra two. So it does actually affect me. There you go. Yeah. Well, now it's fixed. So, all right.

This thing has more battery than I know what to do with. It's like, well, I told you, you got to go like climb up Everest. Yeah. Cold affects batteries poorly. So go somewhere cold. Okay. I'll do my best. Okay. No, I won't. I'm in California for a reason. Damn it. I know.

And I'm coming back for a reason. Damn it. Anyways, AutoZone, I thought we'd go old school. A breach, Jason. Oh my God. What's that? AutoZone alerted authorities on Tuesday that had been a victim of the Klopp ransomware gang's move it attacks earlier this year, according to the breach. That sounds made up.

It does, doesn't it? That one was a rough one to actually read because it sounds so fake. Yeah. Yeah. The data leak from the auto parts retailer impacted 184,995 people. Exactly.

Okay. Glad they have it down to a T. Yes. They got personal information, including full names and social security numbers. And it happened back in May as part of that string of attacks that they did, which we probably didn't report on because we've been in breach fatigue for about 10 years. Yeah. Yeah.

So it's a file transfer software called MoveIt. And they exploited a vulnerability in that and attacked more than 2,000 organizations and impacted 62 million people. Wow. So the 184,000 from AutoZone is just a drop in the bucket. Question.

Yes. I've been to AutoZone many times. I've bought windshield wipers and car batteries and Kugas and doodads from there. Yeah. Never once have I had to give them my social security number. Yeah. That's a Radio Shack move. Yeah. Seriously. I don't understand that either.

Like, why would you ever give AutoZone your social security number? Maybe they have some sort of plan. A credit card maybe? Something like that? Social security number for credit card? Just to get the credit check, I think you have to put in your social, don't you? Oh, yeah. I guess so. I guess if they do their own card.

Yeah. Who knows? They should be deleting that after they do the credit check, though. They should. Shame on them. Although that does remind me of back when I went to USC and my student number was my social security number. And I'm like, this is stupid. Why would you do that? I'm carrying around a card that has my social security number on it, and I use it to access things.

That is not wise. It's so funny. My medical ID at Kaiser Permanente is my social, except they changed the last four. So it's like, nice try, guys, but come on. They can try a little harder.

Yeah. Okay. Well, that was the dark side without Dave. That's right. Well, hopefully we'll have Dave back next week, and he can talk about his feelings about Dave Filoni. Oh, all right. Yeah. Well, you know what? Maybe his Apple Watch died because his battery was dead, and he just forgot that we were supposed to be here.

Yeah, no, he's smart. When it's a big vacation week, he just takes it. Oh, that's right. He takes vacations because he has a real job with a real company. Yeah. I don't know how they're going to get away with him being gone for so long. They've got like 34 podcasts that need to be put out today.

Well, they didn't tell him, but they rolled out AI Dave. Closing shout outs. Over at Patreon, we've got Jim Zlobo, Corey, Rick, Wing, and Michael. Thank you all, and welcome to The Clash. Thank you. You take a week off, and these lists grow longer.

It's nice. Over at PayPal, we've got Miles, Sherry, Natalie, Linda, Blake Bowling, Dag, Brian, Ramsey, Andrew, Mike, Mark, Tom, Joseph, and Nathaniel. Thank you all so much. Awesome. Over at the tip jar, we've got Joseph, Theodore, Sean, Karen, Eric, Ross, and Daryl. Woo.

Love you all more than you can ever know. Jason really needs you right now. Yes, I do. More, please. We also got a new five-star review from PNIC. You guys helped me significantly. I'm a huge tech buff and own a PC repair shop. I ended up in county jail for DUI stuff due to bad choices made and depression from my divorce.

I was stuck for 30 days with zero entertainment. Our county jail offered tables with access to podcasts, and yours was on the preferred list. All right. Woo-hoo. I never imagined I'd be the type to enjoy a podcast until I listened to you guys. You guys got me through the most boring part of my life that I've ever been through.

From now on, I'll be a loyal listener. You guys voice the best topics, and I'm telling everyone I know to follow your media. I wish I stumbled upon your cast a long time ago. Thanks, fellow tech dudes. I'm looking forward to all future casts. Well, thank you so much, PNIC. I'm glad you got through the rough patch. Yeah.

We are on a preferred list in county jail. I fucking love it. That is something that I am going to tell my mom about. I'm telling everybody about that, man. That is, I am seriously- We need to add that to the website. I am proud of that. I am actually very proud of that.

That is so cool. That is so cool. Preferred listed in jail. That's fantastic. We have a captive audience. We literally have a captive audience. We'll add that to our ad spec. Yep. Yep. Until next time, I'm Brian Schulmeister.

And I'm Jason DeFilippo. Thanks for listening to Grumpy Old Geeks. Show notes and links to everything we talked about today are at GOG.show slash 626. GOG.show slash donate is the place to drop us a few bills so we can keep bringing you this top-notch entertainment. When I can speak right. Sharing the show with your friends and enemies or anyone in between is free and can be almost as good as cash.

No, not really. Give us cash. Please. Right now. 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 to 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 and preferably five stars that we can read on the air.

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