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Grumpy Old Geeks. A weekly talk show hosted by Brian Schulmeister and Jason DeFillippo discussing the finer points of what went wrong on the internet and who's to blame. Welcome to Grumpy Old Geeks. I'm Jason DeFillippo.

And I'm sad Brian Schulmeister. Oh, sad Brian Schulmeister. We'll get into that later. Don wrote in some follow-up. Just finished last week's episode regarding the Tesla crash. Check out this article. Not an actual dictate requiring car manufacturers to stop the madness, but it may get buyers to rethink purchasing one car over another.

Now, this is an article about the European New Car Assessment Program, which is set to introduce new tests in 2026 to encourage the automotive industry to reduce reliance on touchscreens for critical controls. The organization highlights the industry-wide shift to central touchscreens for essential functions as a significant safety concern, leading to increased driver distraction and potential crashes, which I would say definite crashes.

The future guidelines aim for the reintroduction of physical controls for vital features such as turn signals, hazard lights, and windshield wipers to enhance driving safety. Although they cannot enforce these changes, its influence and the importance of a high safety rating may pressure manufacturers to adapt.

This move could notably impact Tesla, which has recently replaced the traditional control stocks with haptic buttons on the steering wheel. Yeah. I mean, I've told you, I drove my friend's Tesla, and I was very off-put by that. It's not safe. I don't think it's safe at all.

You need the standard controls that have been around forever that we have all learned to do. Yeah, 100%. If only there were organizations that could enforce these sorts of things. Yes. I think what we're going to see as a theme this episode, Brian, is that people are going to define guidelines that they cannot enforce.

Ah. This is going to happen. This is happening now, and it will all happen again within the span of the next 60 minutes. But regarding that crash, the other shoe dropped. It turns out that billionaire Angela Chow had a blood alcohol level that was almost three times more than the state's legal limit.

Blanco County Sheriff's Office confirmed the finding as in called the events a, quote, unfortunate accident. Texas's legal cutoff for BAC is 0.08, and hers was 0.233. But Jason, it's a self-driving car.

It shouldn't matter if she's blottoed. Exactly. Exactly. It says full self-driving right there on the tin. It does. It does. It doesn't say where it's going to drive you. Into a lake. Okay. There's the rub. Yeah. Exactly. Exactly.

Now, as someone who has officially blown a 0.38, but was a professional, 0.4, by the way, is coma, so I don't recommend trying this at home. To blow a 0.23, you need to be a professional. And I don't think – she may have been an advanced amateur, but 0.23 is pretty, pretty tough.

Sam, I'm not even in the bush leagues. I thought my second glass of scotch last night was pushing it. Yeah. Lightweight. Well, the FCC has done something, sort of.

They've raised the speeds required to describe internet services broadband for the first time since 2015. So, they've concluded that 100 Mbps downloads and 20 Mbps uploads will be the new standard. Can you guess what it was where they can say that they had high speed?

What? 25 up and 3 down. Oh, my God. Oh, wait. The other way around. The other way around. Flip it around. Yeah. The other way around. The other way around. I'm sorry. The other way around. The other way around. Sorry. So, 100 Mbps down, 20 up. That's, you know. That's reasonable. It's okay. Yeah. It's not great. Yeah. But it's okay. I mean, it's fine for most people.

It's fine for most families with streaming and working and all that sort of stuff. It does the job. Yeah. I just, I upload. Yeah. Uploads need to go better these days. I think so. To your earlier point, the FCC can't police ISPs to force them to do this.

All they can do is say, you can't say you have high speed broadband internet if you don't have that. So, you can do other clever marketing buzzwords and ploys. Unlimited. Yeah. Everything's unlimited. Everything's unlimited. Never mind those cutoffs. Now, that's the nice thing about getting fiber.

I got A-N-T-T, A-N-T-T, A-N-T-T-C-A-C-A, A-T-T fiber to my house. And it is one gigabit up, one gigabit down. So. Yeah. That's nice. Yeah. Except with my Eero routers, like, spread out and everything.

Mm-hmm. I get, in my living room, I get about 200 down and 600 up, which is strange. You'd think that would be kind of, I don't know, on parity, but no. And in my bedroom, I get 100 down and about 700 up.

So, if I want to tour into a bunch of stuff, I'm set. Right. But if I want to actually download a movie to watch, buffering, buffering. I'm sitting at basically what the FCC would consider a high speed internet, 120, because that's about as good as you can get in Canada without, like, having to mortgage your house to pay for internet.

Rogers? Because it's expensive here. There's two companies. There's Rogers and Bell. That's it. Okay. And they definitely collude on pricing. Yeah. Fuckers. Yep. Well, Apple has had a very bad, no good week. They can't seem to get out of facing a class action lawsuit over air tag stalking, even though they rolled out all those different sorts of safety protocols, the beeping, the...

I was going to say, you mean beeping? Yeah, beeping. Well, what else are they going to do? It's a fucking air tag. Yeah, I know. It's not going to stand up and tap you on the shoulder. I'm not there yet. You are being stalked, sir. See the guy wearing the baklava behind you? He's following you. I mean, what's...

Which, I mean, begs the question, what the fuck exactly is Apple supposed to do? It is a piece of technology. They have done the best they can in terms of trying to implement safety methods. I mean, I get, you know, I get how these can be used and to track people, but the technology now exists.

We can't put this back in the box, so... Yeah. I just... I want to be able to turn off that stupid beep, but I love, too, that they say that it is a loud beep. It is not loud. You cannot hear the damn thing. But if somebody steals my backpack, I don't want it to alert them that there's a fucking air tag in it.

Yeah, I know. I agree. It's kind of frustrating the way it rolls out. Yeah. So I think this is a bit of a nothing burger, and even if Apple loses the amount of money that they're going to have to pay out on this, it's not even going to be the coffee money we always talk about.

So it is unfortunate that, you know, whatever has happened to the people that have been victimized through this sort of stuff, but I think Apple is doing the best they can to try to, you know, fail-safe this technology. Yeah, and there are a million other companies that do the same thing. Oh, exactly. Yes, Sam. Exactly.

I mean, there are other companies that make them much less discernible, too. Like, Apples are fucking white and silver. Yeah. Yeah. You know, other companies make, like, these fucking camouflaged ones, so. Yeah, they don't beep, probably. You know, that would be the great thing about the lawsuit, is instead of getting cash, everybody just gets a free air tag.

There you go. I have another one. Yep. The more serious lawsuit that they're facing is the Justice Department has filed an antitrust lawsuit against Apple over its infamous walled garden. This is, of course, on the heels of the European Commission slapping Apple with the 1.8 billion pound or $1.95 billion fine from music streaming developers and informing iOS users and informing iOS users about alternatives, basically saying, Apple, you have to tell people that there are other options and make them more readily available instead of, you know, just pushing your own.

Well, or Apple's other solution, which is if anybody starts using a third-party thing, they just buy it. There's always that. So, yeah, I mean, this is the suit, and Apple is basically saying this would set a dangerous precedent, empowering government to take a heavy hand in designing people's technology.

You know, I kind of, again, I talked about this with the music streaming thing. Like, yes, Apple could make it a bit easier, and they probably should, but I also think Apple entirely has the right. It's their product to kind of mostly control what's going to be on it. It's their technology.

It's their playground. Yeah, but I kind of hope they lose. I think they will. I'm sorry, I hope they lose. Yeah, I'm kind of tired of the bullshit. I just, like, you know, I'd like to be able to, you know, I don't know, sideload an app onto my phone if I want to.

Yeah. I'd like to put on maybe a different OS if I want to. I'd like to customize it if I want to. I get where... Then buy an Android. I want to do everything except use an Android. I think that, well, I think that's going to be Apple's point is, like, that you have an option to do all that sort of thing.

We have competitors. Yeah. In some ways, they have competitors. But there are some things where they're, you know, you can't set an alternate payment method for your tap to buy. Which is bullshit. Like I said, there are things that I think that they should cave on 100%. Yeah, absolutely. No. It's going to be... But the thing is, this is going to take years and years to do any, like, get anything done.

So, you know, we'll see how this goes. Yeah. But I'm not... I don't think there's going to be that much change. Unless, you know, Europe does it, then we're all set. If we try and do it... It seems to be the case. Yes. We're not... Nothing's going to happen here. No. Anyway, DoorDash, in partnership with Alphabet's wing drone delivery company, has launched a new fast food delivery pilot in the U.S., specifically targeting residents near the Wendy's at 2355 North Franklin Street in Christianburg, Virginia.

You want a square crappy burger? We gotcha. Hey, man, Wendy's is pretty good. Their breakfast sandwich is the best out of all of them. I'm sorry. This service allows for drone deliveries of Wendy's meals directly to customers living within approximately two and a half miles of the location, provided they have a clear space for the drone to land.

This is Christianburg, Virginia. I'm guessing it's pretty... There's space. I'm guessing there's space. You know, I feel like deja vu. I feel like we've done this exact same story, like, five times over the last five years. Yeah. Yeah. I think they've just been, you know, jumping through legal hurdles, and they maybe have finally cleared it this time.

But I know we've said they're launching a fast food delivery pilot in the U.S. before. And I'm pretty sure it's all been in Christianburg, Virginia, before. Yes. I'm almost positive. I could just be, you know, having a stroke, but I hope not. You know, one's enough for this show. Yeah, one's enough.

See, the thing about this is I'm on board now. I have completely changed my mind about drone deliveries. That little thing called global warming and dealing with all these damn DoorDash drivers everywhere, leaving their cars running, clogging up the roads. Give me a drone delivery.

I'm fine with it. You know? It's better for the environment than me getting in my car and going to pick it up. You know? Or you could just cook at home. But, you know, that's not realistic. People don't need the groceries. Get those delivered by drone. Ah, but yeah, yeah. But you can still do one grocery run for a week's worth of groceries.

That's true. You know? Anything to get more cars off the road, I'm happy with. I'm fine with. Do it. Make it. I mean, who cares? Whatever. That's what it's going to be. Well, here's something that might keep more cars off the road. Starbucks is pulling the plug on Odyssey, its Web3 rewards program that gave members access to collectible NFTs.

Surely that will stop people from driving to Starbucks because it was so popular. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. The headline was, it took Starbucks a little too long to realize coffee NFTs aren't it. So they updated their FAQ on Friday to let members know that the beta program is closing on March 31st, and they have a little over a week left to complete any remaining activities called journeys.

Those will shut down on March 25th. Users, thank God, won't lose their stamps. Starbucks NFTs, which are hosted on Nifty Gateway, at least until Nifty Gateway goes out of business. Yep. Then you'll lose them. But they'll have to sign up for Nifty using their Starbucks rewards email to access them there.

But, Brian, Nifty can't go away. NFTs can't go away. It's on the blockchain. Oh, that's true. It can never be erased. People are going to know forever that you bought that latte. You know, that's what it's all about. Yeah. Well, there's I guess there is a reason that this is sad.

In a conversation with TechCrunch published just last month, Odyssey community leader Steve Kozinski emphasized the community element, saying, I've seen that people who live in California in the Starbucks Odyssey community are really good friends with people in Chicago and they've even met up in real life at times. This never would have happened if not for Web3.

Are you saying that with a Sidney fucking face? Yeah, there wasn't any other way for people to meet each other on the Internet before. Thank God Starbucks came along and stopped that loneliness epidemic that we're having. Holy shit, Starbucks.

Thank you. Well, maybe Odyssey going away is why we're all sad. We'll get to that in a bit. Oh, Steve. Anyways, unbelievable. Oh, my God. Okay. Some more unbelievable news. Users of job review site Glassdoor say the company added their real names to user profiles without consent.

One user said Glassdoor retrieved her full name from an email and put it on her previously anonymous account. Another said Glassdoor added a jumbled mix of his personal details from unknown sources. Users are concerned this compromises the anonymity Glassdoor has long promised for candid employer reviews.

You fucking think? You fucking think? Boy, this was a big fucking fuck up. Oh, you think? Yeah. Let's kill our company in one move. Yep. That's it. Some feel forced to delete accounts to remove their data.

Duh. Glassdoor says users can choose to post anonymously or with real names but did not explain how it obtains user information. Wow. Now, Brian, correct me if I'm wrong.

I mean, I've never used Glassdoor because I haven't had an employer in a long time to bitch about. But isn't the whole value proposition of Glassdoor that you go on there anonymously to bitch about your boss so that they can never find out that it's you? Yeah.

Isn't that it? That is the theory. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Theory. Yeah. That was the whole point of the company in its entirety. There was nothing else. There was no pivot. That was it. Good luck, Glassdoor, with that one. They are done.

I don't think – I don't see a recovery available option for that. No. No. But, I mean, I guess if they're closer to their name, Glassdoor, you can see right through. It's not called Opaque Door, Jason.

Okay. You ready for this one, Brian? Yep. Let's talk about the UN for a second, something we generally don't do on this show. Today, the United Nations General Assembly adopted by consensus a U.S.-led resolution on – wait for it – seizing the opportunities of safe, secure, and trustworthy artificial intelligence systems for sustainable development, also known as –

This is the first-ever standalone resolution negotiated at the UN General Assembly to establish a global consensus approach to AI governance. Okay. Okay.

So what's this going to do for us, Jason? How's this going to save us from the AI apocalypse? All right. Here we go. The resolution encourages member states to promote safe, secure, and trustworthy AI systems by – here we go – cooperating with and providing capacity building and technical and financial assistance to developing countries.

Closing the AI divides and other digital divides that exist between and within countries. Mm-hmm. Promoting equitable access to the benefits of AI systems. Okay. Respecting, protecting, and promoting human rights and fundamental freedoms throughout the life cycle of AI systems.

Okay. Protecting individuals from all forms of discrimination, bias, misuse, or other harm from AI systems. Developing regulatory and governance approaches and frameworks related to AI systems. Testing AI systems prior to deployment and use.

Failed already. Well, failed on most of these already. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Raising public awareness of the appropriate civil use of AI systems. Nobody's figured out an appropriate use yet. Encouraging the development of tools that identify AI-generated digital content and their origin.

Right. Still going. Safeguarding privacy and the protection of personal data. Here's another one. Respecting intellectual property rights. You mean the whole thing that this was based on by trampling them? Yeah. Okay. Got it. Mitigating the potential negative consequences for workforces and encouraging the private sector to adhere to applicable international and domestic laws.

Now, remember, Brian, this is all encouragement from our friends at the United Nations. Well, thanks for that. Yeah. Nobody's going to do that. Yep. Yeah. Okay. Okay. So we should willingly do all of these things which will destroy our business models.

Mm-hmm. Okay. But Microsoft's on board. They're behind it. Well, they're behind encouraging it. Yes, they are very much behind encouraging it. They give it a thumbs up. Nice ideas, guys. Keep going. Keep it going. Yep. Starbucks coffee is for everybody. Free NFTs for everyone.

In more AI news, Google has been hit with a massive $270 million fine from the French authorities. The penalty stems from Google using articles from media companies to train its AI chatbot Gemini without getting permission. France's antitrust agency ruled Google violated orders to negotiate fair compensation with pubblers for reusing their content.

Okay. This just gets better. This is all of them. Yeah. Yeah. The fine is part of an ongoing dispute between France and tech giants over monopolistic practices. It highlights the broader debate around who owns and profits from data and content online. Google says it wants to turn the page and work constructively with publishers going forward.

Never mind everything that we scooped up, which is the entirety of human knowledge on the Internet to this point. Yeah. Let's just start fresh. And anything new that we take, we'll figure out something. Yeah. If you come up with something new, let's talk. My God, these companies.

Going to burn it all down, man. We need a tech fight club. Oh, we're going to keep going on here. Okay. YouTube is requiring creators to disclose when they use AI to generate realistic content that could be mistaken for real people, places, or events.

The new policy aims to combat misleading AI manipulation of videos. Oh, so more moderation that they don't do already? No, no, no. This is great. Creators must answer disclosure questions when uploading, and YouTube will label altered content videos accordingly.

So, self-policing, they're encouraged to do the right thing. Rules exempt clearly unrealistic AI content like animations or special effects. The move follows concerns over AI's potential to mislead viewers, especially around elections.

YouTube says it's also developing a process for people depicted in AI videos to request removal. Okay. But they shouldn't have to if somebody's, you know, oh, never mind. Give up. I know. But you have like 20 more stories.

Let's go. I know, because Facebook hasn't given up. Facebook's algorithm is now boosting bizarre AI-generated images and pages spreading spam and scams. Mm-hmm. Yay. I've 100% noticed this. Mm-hmm. Yes. I haven't, because I stay the fuck off.

After my last experiment on Facebook with the turned into animal murder, I kind of, I'm like, I'm done. Mm-hmm. Researchers have found hundreds of pages using uncanny AI images like the now famous Shrimp Jesus to drive clicks to ad-laden websites and potentially malicious links.

The AI content goes viral by exploiting Facebook's engagement algorithms. While strange, the viral images hint at a larger coordinated artificial amplification campaign taking over users' feeds through recommendation systems, which has been what they've done forever.

That's just going to do it easier now because it's fucking AI, right? Yep. Mm-hmm. Exactly. And, of course, since it is just encouraged, Facebook has not taken action, allowing these AI spam networks to proliferate across its platform because Meta has not joined the UN just yet. All right.

They're just happy to get page views over there, I think. I think so. Like, I don't know what Facebook has become, but it's a wasteland. Okay. A couple more. We're almost done here. All right. A new Under Armour ad featuring boxer Anthony Joshua has sparked controversy among creatives on Instagram.

The director claimed it was the, quote, first AI-powered sports commercial combining AI tools with existing footage. However, critics quickly pointed out that much of the footage was directly repurposed from a previous commercial directed by Gustav Johansson without proper credit.

So, he didn't even have to, like, go to the AI to have them steal the work to be trained on. He just went straight to the source, stole some work, and then put some AI lipstick on the pig. It doesn't matter. Did you watch this commercial?

I did. It's fucking terrible. It is. It's just a commercial. Jesus Christ. It's not even good. No. It's like, oh, it is seriously a terrible piece of art. It's just not good. Well, yeah.

But I guess that's because it was first, Brian. It was first. Yes. Finally, Stability AI, the company behind the popular text-to-image generator, Stable Diffusion, is facing a crisis as several AI developers have resigned. Oh.

Feeling a little less stable over there. Yes, Stability AI is now Unstability AI. So, basically, it's just... It's getting diffused, as it were. Yes, they are. Stable Diffusion has been diffused. So, they're just losing people over there because they're like, yeah, I guess we're done.

We're moving on. Yeah. Yeah. Well, a quick note about this because I saw how many AI articles that you put in here, and I just did, like, a quick, like, little search for myself about what's going on, and I am seeing more and more and more AI is bullshit articles coming out now.

People are really writing a lot about this, I think, and smart people, not just, like, you know, people on their blogs or on Twitter going, stupid AI. It's thoughtful pieces. So, I'm starting to think this may have peaked, at least for now, or at least until we have some sort of actual real breakthrough to get the next step towards actual AI.

I think people are starting to really realize this is kind of a fun toy, that there are some uses for it, but the hype is nowhere near the reality. Right. There are a, I mean, there's a metric shit ton of business uses for it. As we've reported, people are getting, people are getting fired.

That's the main use. Head count reduction is the main use of AI right now. Same to be. Yeah. Just basic conversational stuff that, you know, in what, NVIDIA is now going to be putting out an AI-generated nurse, which honestly can probably help some things, but the reason we don't have enough nurses is because the hospitals were cheap, and now they're just going to be cheaper, so probably less qualified nurses.

That means people aren't going to want to go into the profession, and then we end up with a plumber shortage like we have right now. So, you know, however it's all going to work out, I don't know. I'm just going to put my head down and cry for a while. It's when you start to get happy that you're actually old.

I don't know. Hopefully I won't be around for the crash. And if you are, you won't be able to get out of the car. It self-drove me into the lake, Jason. What am I supposed to do? Yeah. I don't know. This is a fun one. England has convicted its Sir First cyberflasher under a new law criminal.

I guess Omegle's shutting down. Under a new law criminalizing the unsolicited sending of explicit photos. Nicholas Hawks, 39, was sentenced to 66 weeks in prison for sending a dickie to a 15-year-old girl and an adult woman via WhatsApp. He pleaded guilty just four days after the incident.

Prosecutors state this case sets a precedent that hiding behind a screen does not make such crimes legal. One would argue he was not hiding anything. He was definitely not hiding anything. One has to wonder why a 39-year-old man has a 15-year-old girl in his WhatsApp to begin with.

Well, there's a lot of – that is a topic for a different show. Okay. I'm just saying I have questions. Yes. So did the police. That's why he's now going to prison. And he didn't have good answers. That's it. I think we're safe there. Yes. We need you for a lineup, sir.

Trop trow. Trop trow. Russia has issued a warning accusing the United States of using commercial satellite operators like SpaceX for intelligence efforts. Shocker. Yes. The threat comes after reports of SpaceX signing a classified contract worth $1.8 billion with the U.S. intelligence agency to launch hundreds of spy satellites.

Quick note. This is, again, why we consider Musk doing drugs fair game. Yeah, exactly. And here's the thing about SpaceX spy satellites. You can see them with a fucking telescope. They don't hide. Yeah, that's true. So Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova stated these systems become a legitimate target for retaliatory measures, including military ones.

So maybe, you know, hey, if they can figure out a way to get space junk out of the sky. Star Wars. We're talking about nothing but Star Wars. Yeah. That's great. Yeah. So is what it's going to be. But just a side note, Brian, I sent this to you and I thought it was pretty funny.

We charted in the Russian podcast charts at number five this week. Hello, comrades. Yes. Hello, Russian friends. Please get the fuck out of Ukraine. OK, thanks. Bye. Yeah. We'd like to avoid the third world war. Yeah. Be nice. In other news, House passes a bill that would bar data brokers from selling Americans personal information.

If only it stopped there, Jason. But it doesn't. Only to adversary countries. Yeah. You can no longer sell personal data to Russia, China, Iran and North Korea, but you can fucking sell it to Starbucks. De Moines is fine. You can fucking sell it to Microsoft.

You can sell it to Glassdoor. Nobody gives a fuck about that. So thanks for nothing, guys. Hey, but it was a unanimous vote. It passed. Oh, God. Well, now the big news of the the big news of the week is the U.S. happiness ranking plummets.

Oh, God. The world the annual world happiness report has come out and the U.S. is now 23rd. We're 23rd. We're 23rd in the list of the world's happiest countries. Yeah. So stay in Canada, Brian, because you guys are at number 15. We are at number 15, but it's not all rosy here.

We've slipped two positions compared to last year. Unfortunately, we are we used to be the 13th. The top 25 is led by Finland, Denmark, Iceland, Sweden and Israel rounding out the top five. I think if they redid that right now in Israel, maybe they drop a bit.

Maybe just a little bit. It's a little a little sketchy there right now. Yeah. Yeah. So, gee, I wonder what all those countries that are in the top have in common. Hot women. Well, yes. But I was fair.

Also a metric. Yes. But I was more thinking, you know, socialized medicine and safety nets and community. Okay, let's just go with hot women. That's fine. I'm sticking with hot women. Sorry. But this one article is for both the U.S. and Canada.

The kids are not okay. So no matter what metric you're looking at, they broke it down by age groups and kids are unhappy. And I wonder why. Look at all the shit they're growing up with. It's social media. Everything we talk about in this podcast all the time.

Companies fucking lying about everything. It's just insane. So kids are not having any of this, but good luck changing it. I hope you do. The thing that made me unhappy in this particular report was, it says, this year's report is the first time rankings have been given based on an age group and happiness among youth in North America has fallen sharply to the point where those under 30 are less happy than those 60 and older.

If this is the first time the rankings have been coming out, how do we know that it's fallen sharply? Well, this is the first time it's been ranked. That's true. Most downloads ever, Jason. Most downloads ever. I mean, yes, the country rank has been out, but the age rank has not.

You've never done it before. So how do you know there's a change? Yeah. You need two data points. That is true. That is very interesting. Maybe they had the numbers and they just didn't disclose them. Maybe. Am I the only person that notices the shit in articles?

Because it starts to drive me insane. Is it just poor writing? Are these written by AI? What the fuck is going on? I don't know. I don't know. Okay. I'm just going to sit over here and join the kids and be miserable. I just like that they're saying those are 30 or less happy and those 60 and older are more happy.

And I guess just us in the miserable middle just are stuck with it. Yeah. We're just putting up with it because we're Gen Xers. It's what we do. That is kind of what we do. Yeah. I think we're going to be just the miserable middle. I think we'll go with that for now. Okay.

The miserable middle. Speaking of being miserable, a new study in the Andrology Journal highlights a strong link between extended leisure computer use and increased risk of erectile dysfunction. Hmm. Hmm. Okay. Researchers from China analyzing data from over 220,000 individuals discovered that men raised their chances of erectile dysfunction by 3.57 times for each additional 1.2 hours spent on a computer daily.

Now, while the study found no similar risk associated with other sedentary activities like watching TV, it suggests that moderate physical activity could mitigate these effects. So, stand while rubbing one out with your lip noodle. Well, the ED could be caused by being there for 1.2 hours on fucking Red Pornhub or whatever.

I've just, there might be a correlation. That's all I'm saying. Well, it says, although the study points to a correlation rather than a causation, it raises concerns for those with sedentary lifestyles, particularly avid PC gamers. Hmm. Andrology expert Alan Pacey advises men concerned about their erectile function to reduce computer time and increase physical activity.

This research could also influence China's regulatory approach to video gaming, especially considering the country's focus on addressing declining birth rates. I'm guessing that these guys are watching or playing video games because they can't use their noodle. So, they got to find something else to do.

So, you know, talk to the ladies, put out more, then we'll fix this whole problem. No more video games. Everybody's got boners. Yeah. Or move to Finland, Denmark, Sweden, because as Jason has pointed out. That's the place to go. That's the place to go.

That's the place to go. That's the place to go.

Media candy. At some point, pre-pandemic, I guess the final season of Better Call Saul came out. Did it come out pre-pandemic? I can't remember. Who knows what happened when, Brian? At some point in those mists of time, Jason, my wife and I had been watching the show and we never watched the final season.

We just never got around to it. Oh, man. Completely forgot about it. And we're on it now. And man, it is good. Oh, it's so good. But how good this show is and this last season is amazing. I'm really enjoying it so far. So there's your blast from the past.

Yeah. Seriously. Yeah. It's been a long time. He's already done two more television series since then. Well, not as good as this one, I'm guessing. No. Because I hadn't heard about him. So, yeah. Exactly. Yeah. I watched the first episode of one of them. We got 20 minutes into it and we're like, well, this sucks.

Fair. The trailer for the new Star Wars TV show that's coming came out. Star Wars The Alkalite. Good looking trailer. Acolyte, not Alkalite. I'm sorry. We don't need to get in another Osaka problem. It's got Osaka in it. Yeah. The Alkalites are too busy drinking Osaki.

Yeah. There you go. Anyway, it looks great. I don't know if you watched it. I was going to share it with Dave, but Dave's not here. Dave's not here, man. No, he's not. I did watch it. Yeah. It looks good, right? I think it's going to be interesting.

When did basically Jedi become just ninjas? Everything is just like, you know, Star Wars. It's a very Matrix-y feel. Matrix-y, ninja-y. Yeah. It's like got a completely different vibe. Yeah. Then. Well, I mean, it's the same complaint that everybody had when the first set of prequels came out and all of a sudden lightsaber battles were a lot better than what we got in the first.

Yeah. And they came in Juicy Fruit colors, too. Yeah. Yeah. Fucking purple. Just because he wanted it. Let's destroy the entire internal lore of your masterpiece because Sam Jackson wants a purple lightsaber. If Sam Jackson wants a purple lightsaber, Sam Jackson gets a fucking purple lightsaber.

Well, he fucking did. Yes, he does. If Simon Pegg ever played a Jedi, I hope he'd ask for a Tartan one. That'd be great. I liked it. I liked it.

I mean, we'll see. It's a teaser trailer. That's all we got to go off of. But, you know, a good track record on these shows. I'm going to watch it. Yeah. And I think it's more Matrix-y because, well, Trinity's in it. Yeah. Of course. Kind of got to have that bent. At least she's not wearing vinyl.

What do you mean? I want her in vinyl. Go back and watch the Matrix 5 or whatever that redo was. Good-looking older lady. I don't know what you're talking about. No, no, no. It's just – it's not – vinyl is not very Star Wars is what I'm trying to say.

I'm not putting – Darth Vader. I'm not putting her down. I'm not putting her down to toe. Huh? Well, she's a Jedi. Okay. But she's a Jedi, so – Eh, well, we don't know. Eh, kind of. Well, anyway, we need Dave for this. We can't talk any Star Wars without Dave here. That's true.

He's our – This is our mistake for this episode. Yeah, he's our voice of reason. So next week he'll be back. We'll redo this next week. But speaking of Matrix-y-looking people, the new trailer for Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice is out. Did you get a chance to watch this one? The juice is loose, Jason. The juice is loose.

I love it. I cannot wait. I need to go back and watch the first one. I did recently. It held up. It's got legs? Well, it's got legs because it's, you know, it's Tim Burton. It's stop-motion animation that's supposed to look ridiculous. It's just got Winona Ryder.

That's all I care about. Well, it does. Yeah. No, it held up pretty well. Michael Keaton's fantastic in the role. This looks great. I can't wait for it. Now I want to go back and watch Heather's Winona. Edward Scissorhands. He's motionless blonde.

That was her most beautiful. No, I beg to differ. I beg to differ. The Regime is out on Max. Yes, I've heard about this. This is a strange show. It comes from the producers of Succession. So I thought, oh, let's give it a shot.

It's strange. Yeah, that's what I've heard about it. We can't stop watching it, though. That's the weird part. It's surprisingly addictive. It's only going to be six episodes. There's three in. And it's quirky. I'm kind of enjoying it.

Kind of not. I don't know. It's just it's really out there. It's really strange and really out there. But so far, I'm enjoying it. I don't know where it's going to go, what it's going to be. But it's it's it's one of those things, Brian, for you have a glass of wine.

Check it out. OK, I was thinking just to wait until it ends and see if people think it's stuck a season landing. So, OK, I got a feeling there's not going to be another one. But yeah, that's what I'm thinking, too. Yeah, because it's not really it's not burning up the airwaves with chatter.

You know, it's like when Succession was out. Yeah, I heard about that pretty much nonstop. The instant something happened. But this, yeah, not so much. Right. The three body problem is out. Finally. Have you watched any of it yet?

No, I have not. I have read more than a few reviews saying that they basically got the book. They foundation it. Yeah. So here's the thing. I can't remember much of the book, which is perfect. That's true. I started watching it last night.

I watched the first two episodes and I would have kept watching, except I had to get up early to do this fucking show. Oh, really? I thoroughly enjoyed it. I was into it. Yeah, I'm there for it. So they don't have a great track record on finishing shows.

Well, no, they don't. No, they don't. But I go into that eyes wide open. Okay. I will give it a go then. I'll watch some of it this weekend. Yeah. I'm actually looking forward to the weekend so I can watch more of it. I don't know if I'll finish it this weekend. Is it all dropped?

Like everything's out? Dude, it's Netflix. Of course, it's all there. Okay. Fantastic. No, like I said, I would have stayed up all night to watch it, but I had to be here. You know. You don't have to be. I kind of do. End of the month is coming. I need to show up. Sorry. Apple TV Plus has released a documentary called The Bloody Hundred, which is the actual backstory of Masters of the Air.

What this is, is all of the shit that they should have put in the episodes. I was about to say. This is the stuff that made Band of Brothers fascinating. They took it, put it in a separate documentary, and ran it after the other series ran.

This was really, really good. Okay. It was fascinating. You get the character development that I was bemoaning when I was watching Masters of the Air. So, what I plan to do now is go back and watch Masters of the Air now that I know who the fucking people are.

All right. Maybe. Maybe. We'll see if it works. But it gave me a whole different, you know, different scope of the guys. I mean, I'd read up on a lot of them and done some research on it. But it was really interesting. It's a really good documentary. And they've got great footage of the actual air base and things like that and the real people.

And they've got interviews with the real people that survived. So, that's what you wanted from the fucking Masters of the Air. Well, there you go. Frustrating. Speaking of frustrating, the new Crow movie had its trailer out.

I think we discussed it a little bit last week. It looks fucking horrible. I think my friend of the show, MXV, was like, nobody wants the de-ant-ward version of the Crow. Neither does Alex Proyas, the original director, neither do any of the old school fans.

But he came out and said, I really don't get any joy from seeing negativity about any fellow filmmakers' work. And I'm certain the cast and crew really had all good intentions, as we do on any film. So, it pains me to say any more on this topic. But I think the fans' response speaks volumes.

The Crow is not just a movie. Brandon Lee died making it. And it was finished as a testament to his lost brilliance and tragic loss. It's his legacy. That's how it should remain. Boom. Mic drop. Agreed. But then he deleted his mic drop. I think the studio got to him.

I think Lionsgate was like... You want to work again? Yeah. Well, I, for one, will not be watching this remake. Oh, you could not. You could not pay me. Even the visuals, I'm just like, oh, God, it just feels like you joker-fied it. Yeah. No, it's...

And it's funny. I pulled out my original signed graphic novel from James O'Barr the other day, and I was flipping through it. I'm like, yeah, he doesn't have any tattoos. No tattoos. Not a one. Nay, nay, nay. Nope. Doesn't have bangs. Nothing.

Anyway, I put this last one in here just for you, Brian. 10.2% growth of global music industry. Woo, it's growing, which is why everybody's getting fired, I guess. Well, that helps. Yeah, I guess that really helps the profits. It helps revenue growth.

Yeah. Profits. Yep. They say subscription screaming is screaming. That's how I feel most of the time, Jason. I am subscription screaming. It's up 11.2%. That's my life on the internet. Subscription screaming. Oh, God.

Oh, God. Yeah. I mean, everything's up because everything's costing more. Prices are rising. Oh, that's it? Pretty much. It's not getting more popular. It's just getting more expensive. Yeah. All right.

Yeah. Shows are more expensive. If you actually buy physical product, vinyl, fucking CD, whoever has those anymore, prices have risen on those. Subscription streaming prices have gone up because everybody was complaining that they weren't paying enough. So, they said, fine, we'll pay more, but we're going to charge you more.

There you go. And that's why everything's up, which is good. I mean, you know, I don't want this to crash and burn. I love music. Music is, you know, very important to me in my life. And I think it's a very important art form and it's part of our humanity. And unfortunately, it's also a business. And if the business crashes, the music goes.

So, I don't want that to happen. How much did you used to pay on CDs and albums a year? Like when you were, like in your, like, say in your 20s. I mean, I admit I'm a complete outlier because I fucking, I had like, I had like 10,000 CDs at some point.

So, I spent thousands of dollars per year. And now you pay $9.95 a month? Yep. So, maybe therein lies the rub. For me, streaming is awesome except for the fact that they don't have a lot of stuff. Yeah. And I forget. And it's the curation problem again, right?

Like, I used to be able to walk over to, you know, an entire wall of CDs and peruse them alphabetically because I was fucking anal about that. And, you know, figure out what I want to listen to. Now, I don't know. Yeah. It's whatever pops into my head. That's kind of the problem.

It's definitely a problem. I used to spend a couple hundred dollars a year. And I wasn't even a big music guy. But, you know, you buy five CDs right there. That's 100 bucks. I knew I would buy at least, you know, 15 CDs a year. Yep. I mean, I would go to a music store once a week.

Yeah. Yeah. That was it. You'd go on release day and go check out what came out. And, you know, if something new came out, you'd buy it. Exactly. If you just wanted something old that just happened to be there, you'd buy it. And that's the way it was. I mean, spending, individual spending is down. That's why, you know, it's silly.

The cost ratio to what we used to pay to what we pay now is just so out of whack. It is completely out of whack. Again, that's one of the main arguments about screaming music is that it's been completely devalued. Like, it has no value anymore. Mm-hmm. So.

Yeah. And by the way, and that same thing, I have my music, you know, alphabetical. But when I'm in my Jeep of my little LCD screen trying to figure out what I want to do with Apple Music and I, you know, the searches, if I view by artist, you get a keyboard and you can press one letter.

You can't search. It's like. And then you crash and drive into a lake. Exactly. You know, it's so hard to just figure out, to serendipulously find something by glancing at a wall of CDs. That just doesn't exist anymore. You just have to let the algorithm tell you what's random.

Yeah, no thanks. That makes me sad. So I'm going to go listen to some Finnish death metal by Hot Finnish Chicks. Tops and doodads. So you had mentioned Poe the other week and I installed it and I've actually been giving it a go.

I've been using it a bit this week, which also kind of shaded my previous discussion about how I think AI is somewhat ridiculous. It's a fun toy. Like, I definitely play around with it. I've used it maybe a few times for work. It's helped me craft a few tricky emails in terms of giving me a starting point, but I still, you know, completely rewrote it.

Yeah. I mean, Poe's a cool little tool to have available. My main point is I'm not entirely sure what I would use it for on a day-to-day basis. There's no point in me paying for it. Let me put it that way. See, I can see where paying for it will come in handy because I hit all the limits on all the different models that I wanted to use.

Because I used it quite a bit this week. Right. I used the Unstable Diffusion. No, not that one, actually. Unstable Diffusion is a real thing that is not what I was going to use. That's the one where you get the chicks with 85 boobs on it in anime.

But, no, I mean, yeah, I did some stuff with it, and I still, I got to say, the Claude model is so much better for a lot of things than ChatGPT. But, you know. Yeah, ChatGPT seems to have fallen behind, basically. Yeah.

Yeah. Well, they say GPT-5 will be coming out sometime in the summer. That's what they're... The word on the street is, we'll see what that is. We'll see how... We just have to track how fast global warming is going to know how fast and how much water we have left. Yeah. Yeah, that's what we need.

We need the global dipstick that we can just dip in and say, oh, yep, ChatGPT-5 is coming. We're running low. We're court low. So, unfortunately, we only have a global dipshit called Elon Musk. Well, we have a couple global dipshits. But right now, he is the dipshit du jour, for sure.

That's true. Well, 19 years after its debut, Reddit is now a publicly traded company. Yes, you can buy stock in a company that's entire value proposition is its users, and it keeps pissing them off. Pissing them off, yes. Does it sound like a good idea to you? Well, it did to a lot of people because that stock popped.

Yeah. They aim to sell 15.3 million shares at $34 a pop to raise around $519 million. So, they've had lots of controversies, though. Last year, users protested against the company's decision to start charging for API access, effectively killing some third-party apps that hooked into the platform.

Thousands of subreddits went private and or stopped letting users post for a while. And in its S1 filing, they do note the importance of their users, stating that if engagement declines, our business results of operation, financial condition, and prospects will be harmed. Yeah, because you don't – you're a forum.

You're forum software. That's all you are. Pretty much. Pretty much. But no, Brian, it's the front page of the internet. But it's $519 million forum software, Jason. Yeah, it's trading right now as we record this at $49.17. Well, there you go.

I predict that will drop. Now, Brian, this next one is a throwback to something that is near and dear to my heart, the single-use website or the single-purpose website. This website tells travelers if they're flying on a Boeing plane. Yes.

This is called – the website is called Am I Flying on a Boeing, which unfortunately, I went and checked for the domain, the domain that this should have been, but it was taken, which is Boeing or not. Come on. Yes, that would be great. That was – somebody else got it and they're sitting on it like a dumbass.

But Boeing or not, come on. Seriously. But, yeah, just go throw in your flight number and the date and you find out if you're on a Boeing. I mean, it could be changed because, you know, two things. There's no guarantee of accuracy because it's the internet.

And it's created by an AI developer, which means it could be hallucinating. You could be flying on a purple Phoenix for all you know. But, hey. I did read an article over on the Atlantic kind of not talking about this software but talking about Boeing and flying safety.

And it is so safe to fly now. This is so ridiculous. Like, I get that there was an issue with a plane. I think the – they broke down the math on it. I don't have it in front of me. But he basically said, you are safer flying on a plane than sitting on a couch in your fucking apartment.

Yeah. No, when you get to the airport, you're safer once you get on the plane than you are in the terminal of the airport. Yeah. So, don't bother with this one-stop shop site. You're fine. You're fine. But it's still fun. Yeah, it is. Finn wrote in, I'm a 15-year-old and getting into photography.

My parents are buying me a computer and I'll be contributing for my savings, specifically saved for this purpose, to get a really good one. I'll be using it primarily for photo and video editing. What do you recommend I get? A subscription to an AI software package. And never take a picture again. Thanks.

P.S. Love your podcast. I get to listen because my mom listens. LOL. Well, shit. I should cuss less. No, he's 15. He probably swears worse than we do. All right. That one's for you, Jason. You're the Mr. Photographer here. Well, thanks. Thanks, Finn's mom, for letting him listen.

So, here's the deal. Photo editing, if you're just doing photos, I'd say get a MacBook Air because those things are fantastic. Yeah, I got one right here. It's awesome. Yeah, they got way more than enough horsepower for photo editing. And I use Lightroom Classic for basically just get an Adobe subscription, save up, and get that because Photoshop and Lightroom are the things you want the most.

Now, as far as video, that's where it gets problematic because what you need for video editing is lots of RAM. I ran into this. So, I've got multiple machines that I run. And basically, all my recommendations are going to be Mac-centric.

I mean, if you want more bang for your buck, probably just go get a PC. Cheaper. But you've got to know what you're doing. And then you've got to use, it's not Audition, Premiere and After Effects. I think those are the main ones for the PC. You can use those on a Mac, too. I'm just a Final Cut guy right now.

It could be changing. Who the fuck knows? DaVinci, also good, which is cross-platform. Bang for your buck, PCs are always going to be better. But if you're a Mac guy, so I've got an M1 Mac Studio with 64 gig of RAM. I've got an M2 Mac Mini with 24 gig of RAM.

And I've got an M1 14-inch MacBook Pro with 32 gig of RAM. There is a marked difference between the M2 with 24 gig of RAM and the M1 with 64 gig of RAM. The M1 is damn near instantaneous for anything I do on these big video projects, like massive video projects.

The M2 has a hard time keeping up because it's swapping stuff in and out of memory. So whatever you get, I mean, any of the M series Macs are great for video editing, but you just want to maximize RAM if you're going to be doing video editing. And make sure that you're, if you're doing anything with external drives, which you will be, you definitely will be.

Make sure they're the fastest you can get because writing to SSDs is all over the board. And if you're going to try and do video editing from a spinning disk backup, you know, like old school hard drive, just be, just, the RAM doesn't matter because you're going to be going, that's going to be the bottleneck.

So if you want super speed, get as much RAM as you can get. The Mac Studios are phenomenal. Love them. Mac Minis are okay, but they max out on RAM. You can't get as much RAM. I guess you can if you want to spend gazillions of dollars.

But I just find the studio to be the best for that. And the laptop, you're always going to pay a premium for portability. So, you know, it's a range on what you're going to get. But so you have to kind of float that matrix with how much money you have. You know, that's where it all comes down to it.

But cough it up, mom. Cough it up. Cough it up. And don't skimp on that camera either. Because if you're going to be doing photo and video editing, start with that tool first. You want to make sure you get a good camera. You don't want to spend everything to have, like, great video editing and then come back with, like, a Kodak Instamatic or something.

Unless you're being artsy. Yes, yes. You're being retro, which only works for so long. So I tried Zoom for the Apple TV this week, Brian. Okay. It works great. All right. It really works well. You do have to use – I used my iPhone for the camera because you use the Confluence camera for that, which, you know, it's one of the most beautiful webcams you can get because, you know, it's a $1,000 webcam.

That worked fine. Pairing it was – only took a minute to get everything kind of set up. And I've got Zoom tied into my calendar, so all of the meetings I want to go to are already on screen. So I just pick the meeting. Once I get everything – once I get logged in and everything set up, it's really easy to just pop in and use my 75-inch TV for my Zoom meetings, which is awesome.

Right. Because I do it from – because that means I'm in my bed and I'm comfortable and relaxed. And then I point the camera at my dogs because I don't want to be in camera. I was about to say. That must be fun viewing for everybody else. I never turn on my camera on Zoom, man. You just have to – you have to – like when you're setting it up, you have to turn it on.

Right. But, yeah. It's a really good integration. I'm amazed. Cool. I never use Zoom, so unfortunately it doesn't really affect me. Oh, that's right. You're a Teams guy. Yeah, almost all my stuff is Teams. Yeah. I'm a recovering alcoholic.

We're all Zoom. And because we've talked about for over 11 years now – we bitched about this long before we started this show – about how you cannot get a manual anywhere anymore. Apple has revamped its support offerings with the launch of a new documentation page on its website that consolidates all the tech specs, guides, and support articles for all of their products.

In one single, easy-to-navigate location. Available at support.apple.com slash docs. Cool. So, that's nice. I wish everybody else made it easier. My wife tasked me with draining the washing machine – whatever they call it.

I can't remember. You know, they've got a filter in there and you've got to drain – you're supposed to drain it every month. I'm relatively sure that this washing machine has never, ever been drained. It took me like 15 minutes online to find the manual to give me the steps to get through it. I did that too. It's unbelievably difficult. Two months ago, I had to do that.

Wow, how weird. I had to do that same fucking thing. Had you ever done it before in your life? Never. Me either? Never. It's so easy. I didn't know we were supposed to. My wife saw it on an Instagram. Well, I got a warning that it couldn't drain because I – dog hair, you know?

Ah, right. Yeah. And then I had to find – I was like, where is it? Man, this is a topic for the Dave segment. Yeah, seriously. Home repair. Let's get into – Yeah. But anyways, the point being, it took a long time, way longer than it should have to find the manual.

Seriously? Yeah. And yes, I should have had a printed manual, but the washing machine came with the house and the previous owners did not leave the manual, so. My roommate is a real estate broker and whenever she would sell houses that people were leaving appliances behind in, we would always get their hand-me-downs.

So we've got two mismatched washer and dryers because one of them upgraded and one of them didn't. So we didn't get any manuals, but we get free appliances. So I'll take the Googling and YouTubing for a few minutes for the really nice stackable Maytags or whatever.

Nice. But yeah, yeah. The manual would have been – I found a guy on YouTube that, you know, was showing how to do it because it's hidden. You can't find where the damn filter is. Except the manual, when I finally found that, said to, you know, make sure that you have ample drainage for when you unplug the thing because water is going to go everywhere, which the YouTube guy didn't.

See, now that pissed me off too because in the manual for my washing machine, it seemed to imply that a very small amount of water would come out. That was not the case. It was not small. No. It was not small. Frantically grabbing towels. Towels, yes. Exactly. Jesus Christ.

You didn't say there'd be fucking eight gallons in there. I know. That was the same thing. I'm like, now I got to wash a load of towels. The illustration had this tiny little, like, plastic tub. Like, three tops. Yeah. I was like, okay, well, I've got this. This should do. This is bigger than the one in the illustration.

Nope. Nope. Not at all. That shit went everywhere. Yeah. Found, like, the previous owners had a daughter. I found, like, all these, like, buttons from kids' clothes in there. Jesus Christ. So I'll be doing that every two months now.

How random. I haven't done it in years since, you know, like, I've never, well, on this one, I've never done it. It's like I didn't know it was a thing until it said you can't, water can't drain. I'm like, well, the drain's empty here. What's going on? And it's like, oh, God. Yeah. Good times.

Yeah. Add it to your calendar, Brian. More house shit to do. Yeah. I do. I do. That is my number one home tip, by the way. Get in your Apple calendar. You can find ones that you can import that basically give you seasonal tasks to do. That's a good thing.

That reminds me. My Nest thermostat told me I have to replace my filter today. So, God. Better Google that manual. No, that one I can figure out. That one I can figure. Except one time I forgot to turn it off and it kicked on right as I was putting it in there and my hand got caught because the filter went right to the top of my hand.

It didn't hurt or anything, but it scared the shit out of me. It almost fell off the ladder. I'm like, ah! All right. New podcast. Home repair with the grumpy old geeks. Home disrepair. Home diffusion. Over at Patreon, we got a note from Joe R.

He said, just created a website you may enjoy. Go to astrojoe.space. I did. Joe's a very talented astral photographer. Yeah, I think he sends us stuff every now and then on Instagram and DMs. Sorry, we never write back to those, but I have seen them.

They're very good. Yeah, very good. Go check out astrojoe.space. Very cool. Over at PayPal, we've got Nathaniel, Blake, Bowling, Sloan, Ramsey, Andrew, Brian, Tom, and Joseph. All right. Over at the tip jar, we've got Sean, Eric, Karen, Richard, Ross, and Theodore.

Thank everybody so much. Yes, thank you. So much. And we have a new novel for a review. I'm going to go get some coffee. I'll be back in a minute. Why don't you go change that filter right now? I'm going to go hit the filter. I'll be reading this. I have to drive home to do it, but I think I'll still have time.

No worry. You got time. Keep on grumping five stars. Hey, guys, I love your show. I look forward to listening to it every Saturday morning over breakfast. Did you really need to include these details? I'm just saying, brevity here, people. I don't care what you were eating. It could have been lunch. Who gives a shit? Run this through Chad GPT for summarize.

As someone who worked in IT for over four decades, I agree with your observation that nothing has changed in 11 years. It seems that every few years, we have this exciting new technology or paradigm that's world-changing that either turns out to be more technology snake oil or just another flavor of an idea that's been around for decades. On your last episode, Jason was asking how to get old people to get and wear their hearing aids.

As someone who has worn hearing aids for over a decade, I understand. They can be a hassle. While there have been improvements in the last few years, such as the the transition from disposable batteries. My God, it's like reading a Wikipedia about hearing aids. Disposable batteries. They were tiny and tough to swap when the dexterity is reduced to lithium rechargeable batteries.

They are higher maintenance than glasses. You have to remember. Well, yeah, I imagine they would be. You have to remember to charge them. They require lots of cleaning, earwax yucks, and the replacement parts like in-ear domes and receiver wax guards are a hassle. It was frustrating for me and I was in my 50s. I can't imagine dealing with them in my 70s.

Oh my God, here we go. Not to mention they are expensive. Thousands of dollars for a good pair. My company benefits only covered about half the cost and they don't correct your hearing the same way that glasses correct your vision. They just compensate for the loss by blasting the higher frequency sounds into your ear. While I found it hard to get through the workday without them, once I retired, I find myself wearing them less and less and now only put them in if I'm going into a challenging environment with lots of background noise like a shopping mall or sports arena.

So maybe Apple is on to something. Anyway, keep up the great work. You didn't provide a name and I'm sorry I made fun of you. I appreciate you listening. Yeah, we got... Wow! Thanks for listening because it apparently takes a lot of work to listen for you. My mouth is tired.

Oh yes, thanks very much. And the person in question that we're dealing with is 95. So way more than 70s. Yes, she's 95. Amazing. Keep on trucking. Oh yeah, no. She's a machine. But she just can't hear a fucking thing.

That's the problem. I got some sad news this week. The unsung hero of countless boozy nights out has passed away. Shigichi Nagishi, inventor of the first commercially available karaoke machine, died of natural causes at the age of 100.

Good. I fucking hate karaoke. I knew you were going to say that. I knew it. Oh man. Fuck, I hate it. So that's the good news. In sad news, Werner Vingy, father of the tech singularity, has died at age 79.

If you've never read Fire Upon the Deep, read it. It is one of the best science fiction novels ever written. Hands down. Yeah, he's a good author. I enjoy him a lot. I follow David Brin on social media and he wrote a nice eulogy to him. Hmm.

Yes. I have a couple links in here. One is a talk that he gave at Google about Children of the Sky. But I forgot. He's the one that actually brought the term the singularity into popular context. Not popular culture. Yeah. Not Kurzweil.

It was Vingy. Yeah. So. Yeah. Highly recommend his books. Highly, highly recommend. He will be missed. He will be missed. Until next day. Unlike the karaoke guy. Fuck that dude. Until next time. I wish he died at 20.

Never invented the fuck thing. I know. Can we go back in time? Screw Hitler. Let's get rid of the karaoke guy. If I can't make it there.

Don't get me started on Bon Jovi and fucking journey. Please. Stop. Stop. Halfway out the fucking bar. Take us out of here. Now, please. Thanks for listening to Grumpy Old Geek. Show notes and links to everything we talked about today are at GOG.show. slash 641. GOG.show slash donate is the place to drop us a few bills so we can keep bringing you this top-notch entertainment.

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