673: Copyright Win for OpenAI, Internet Shock for North Koreans, and much more...

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Welcome to Grumpy Old Geeks. I'm Jason DeFilippo. And I'm Canadian permanent resident Brian Schulmeister. Hi, Brian. How are you doing today? I'm okay. Yeah, I guess, you know, trying to drink myself into a stupor at every second. No, I'm just kidding. Yeah, I'm fine.

Okay, good. What are you going to do? Can't change the world. Moving on. That's what we're going to do. Yep. All right. Got some follow-up today. All right. In New York, a federal judge dismissed a copyright lawsuit against OpenAI by news outlets Raw Story and Alternet.

They claim their articles were misused to train OpenAI's language model, ChatGPT. But Judge Colleen McMahon ruled that the outlets hadn't shown enough harm to proceed, but allowed them to amend their complaint, though she expressed doubt about their chances.

Now, here's what she said. Let us be clear about what is really at stake here. The alleged injury for which the plaintiffs truly seek redress is not the unlawful removal of their article's copyright management information, but the use of plaintiff's articles to develop ChatGPT without compensation.

Because the lawsuit that these guys filed against OpenAI wasn't for copyright infringement, surprisingly enough. Yeah, their lawyers took a different path. Yeah, they said that each of their articles has copyright management information in it, basically probably meta tags.

And that was removed. Well, yeah, because you're going to remove that. But what they're saying is basically that's attribution to what was taken. And so the judge is just like, yeah, that's not really how that works. So they can't prove that there's really any damage, and that's what you get out of a lawsuit.

So I'm not surprised. What's interesting to me is if this is going to be used as one of those cases. Because eventually we're getting to the point with misinformation and all these generative AI things and fake imagery and fake videos.

And all the companies that are trying to do it legally, like Adobe and everybody else, are running around doing. But we'll have meta tags. Well, this case just basically said you can strip meta tags, and that's not illegal. Yeah, kind of. Interesting, yeah. Hmm.

Interesting precedent that they have just set. Well, it's not illegal to, yeah, to train. So if you're training on training, yeah, it's up in the air right now. And it's going to get way more up in the air in a couple months when the laws that we're putting on the books are probably going to be stripped back anyway. Yes.

Yeah. We're heading towards a free-for-all, which is generally never good for people but great for companies. But the great thing here is it's company-on-company violence, really. Yeah. You know, what I really want to see is the New York Times against OpenAI. I want to see how that one plays out because that's the big daddy, you know.

That's true. That's the Tyson-Paul fight that I want to see. Coming up in two weeks, by the way, I cannot fucking wait. I have zero interest whatsoever. Oh, I just want to see Mike Tyson wipe the floor with this kid. I just – oh, I'm so excited. Here's another one that we have a little follow-up for.

Truth Social stock is crashing even though Trump won. Despite Donald Trump's recent election win, shares of his media company, Trump Media and Technology Group took a steep dive. Truth Social stock fell 22% on Thursday, erasing all the gains from earlier in the week despite initially jumping 35% after his victory.

So, you know, we were talking about it last week, up, down, up, down, up, down, and all I got to say is meme stock's going to meme. Everybody that was there for the ride got their money out, and the people that are left holding the bag, well, music stopped. You're fucked. Well, yeah, it was fun, and for – depends on definition of fun and what side I suppose you're on, but it was a fun ride for a while, and people liked it because it was the place where you would go to listen to Trump.

Now that Trump is going to be president again, there will be no escaping places to have to listen to Trump. So, Truth Social no longer really has any value in that sense, and we've known for a very long time, like since the company started, that it actually has no value in terms of a traditional company sense.

So, crash. Yeah. There's really nothing there. The emperor has no clothes when it comes to actual revenue at Truth Social. So, its use case is no longer required, and therefore, the company will – In the News.

In the News is brought to you by Private Internet Access, the only no-log VPN tested in court. Go to gog.show slash VPN to sign up today. Well, some pink slips in the news, Jason, and I suspect this segment will be growing longer – oh, boy – in the next few years.

Mozilla Foundation has cut 30% of its staff. This will completely eliminate the nonprofit's advocacy and global programs divisions, according to an internal email sent by Mozilla Foundation Executive Director Nabiya Syed. TechCrunch reported on the news, and Mozilla confirmed the cuts in a statement to the publication as well as to Engadget.

The Mozilla Foundation is reorganizing teams to increase agility and impact as we accelerate our work to ensure a more open and equitable technical future for us all, according to the statement from Brandon Borman, Vice President of Communications at Mozilla. This, unfortunately, means ending some of the work we have historically pursued and eliminating associated roles to bring more focus going forward.

That came out of ChatGPT, I'm pretty sure. So this is the nonprofit arm under the bigger Mozilla umbrella. Mozilla Corporation is the arm responsible for the browser, Firefox. And in February, Mozilla announced that about 60 workers would be laid off, primarily on the product development team. So things not going so rosy over there.

You know things aren't going well at the company when they basically get rid of any of the outreach and do-gooder for public-face areas of their companies. Yeah. Yeah, I'm surprised it's lasted that long. Yeah. Come on. I mean, we joke about Firefox all the time because who uses it?

I have it. I have it installed. I use it if it's the last in my cascading chain of browsers if a site doesn't work on everything else. Exactly. It is the browser of last resort. Yes. And I know we're going to get emails. Every time we say that, somebody sends us an email.

I still use Firefox. Some people love it. So, yeah. I got to say, on PC, I don't even know if this is still a thing, but last time I used a PC, Thunderbird was my go-to mail client. I loved Thunderbird. Yeah, it worked. It reminded me of Eudora because it was old and janky, but it worked.

But it worked. Some more pink slip news. Roomba maker iRobot is laying off 105 employees, which is about 16% of the company's workforce, saying the cuts are part of an operational restructuring plan. Well, yeah, that's kind of what you do. The move comes after iRobot slashed about 31% of its workforce earlier this year.

Now, those cuts were made after the plans for the Amazon acquisition fell through. We talked about that when it was going on. They did plan to acquire iRobot for $1.7 billion, but the companies mutually terminated the agreement, noting that they didn't see a path to regulatory approval in the EU.

iRobot got a $94 million termination fee from that deal, which has apparently run out. So they've spent that all the time. They've already spent that. So since the start of 2024, the company has reduced its global workforce by approximately 50%.

Now, do you have one of these things, Brian? I do. In fact, I was using it today. It's ancient. It no longer can even connect to Wi-Fi or anything, so I basically just have to drag it around and manually start and stop it. It's like a blind dog. You point it towards the yard and say, go pee.

Pretty much. It's one of those dogs that's lost two of its back legs, so it's on one of those tractor trailers. It can't go up and down stairs. I live in a kind of thin but multi-level place, so it's a bit of a pain in the ass.

But what it's good for is just during the week, once a week, we'll throw it in the bedrooms and let it pick up dust so we don't have to do a massive clean. It's fine. If it dies, am I going to get a new one? Probably not. Somebody gave me one a couple weeks ago.

It was one of the more modern ones, you know, that is smart enough to go find its charging station and all that. Because, I mean, my Roomba that I originally had was Roomba 1, the first Roomba. And it was terrible. And this one was not that much better because it still couldn't find its charging station.

So it would get there, but it just couldn't quite seal the deal. You know, it was kind of like a teenager on prom night trying to land the plane. I do understand that they're considerably better now, but the problem is there's also a gazillion people making them, and iRobot makes the most expensive ones.

Mm-hmm. Yeah. And I've never seen them, you know, with dogs and dirt and everything. They just really haven't made the floor as clean as I want them to be, you know. I've got a Dyson vacuum cleaner. That thing makes the floor as clean as it needs to be, and it's fast.

Yeah. Same here. I prefer using the Dyson. Like I said, we basically just use it for – throw it up there for half an hour, let it get some excess junk. But, you know, still once a week, I've got to go through and vacuum the entire house and all that sort of stuff. Yeah. Okay.

More pink slips, Jason. And I know Nissan isn't technically a tech company, but there's a twist to this one that I want to point out, which is why it's in the news. Reuters reports that the company plans to make some steep cuts to its operation, including 9,000 jobs and 20% of its global manufacturing capacity.

This is Japan's third largest automaker, and they've cut $2.6 billion in costs this fiscal year alone. Nissan revised its annual profit outlook by a whopping 70% as it struggles to sell cars in places like China and the U.S., where it lacks a credible lineup of hybrid cars. They have a couple, but they're not that exciting, and they haven't really stepped it up there.

The cuts won't just affect workers on the assembly lines, however. And listen up, tech bros. This is something we never hear about your companies when you cut jobs. The New York Times reports that Nissan chief executive officer Mikado Uchida is taking a 50% pay cut from his monthly compensation because the boss deserves to take a fucking haircut, too, doesn't he?

Yes, he does. Yes, he does. You know, Nissan, not really something that sparks the imagination anymore. It does not bring joy. It does not. I had a 300ZX that was souped up to 550 horsepower for a while. That thing brought joy.

I had a Xterra, and that brought joy. I love that damn car. Yeah. Nowadays, there's not a Nissan in the lineup that I could say, yeah, I want that. Yeah. Well, I've got somewhere to stay for a lot of these people that lost their jobs, Jason, as long as they're in San Francisco.

A startup, of course, in San Francisco, that rents out bunk bed-style pods large enough to fit a twin mattresses, overwhelmed with demand for its $700 a month living quarters. Okay. They're called Brownstone Shared Housing, and they operate out of a former bank in downtown San Francisco.

Pods are 3.5 feet by 4 feet by 6.5 feet with a privacy curtain. And your rent includes internet utilities and access to a shared bathroom and kitchen where you can cry together. I mean, I saw the pictures of this place. Now, you know, I've always been fascinated by the Japanese capsule hotels.

Yes. I always wanted to go stay in one, but I'm 6 feet tall, and everybody's like, you're not going to fit. And even this one, 6.5 feet, I ain't going to fit. You know? Barely. Well, yeah. If I'm wearing a hat, I'm screwed. Or shoes. You shouldn't wear your shoes in the bed.

That's rude. But these are just literally like bunk beds with curtains on them. They're janky. They're totally janky. And 700 bucks a month for jank. The funny thing is, if I was of a certain age in San Francisco, I'd have been all over this shit.

Because, you know, everything I had fit in my car so I could just lock my car and, you know, wait for it to get stolen there and whatever. But I would have tried this probably. Yeah. Sounds like a dystopian nightmare to me, but doesn't everything. Yeah. It's San Francisco. Of course it is.

Yeah. But that's part of the joy. That's part of the joy of San Francisco. You suffer, Brian, when you're a tech bro startup. You know? That's the way it goes. All right. Because you have to save all that extra money for your avocado toast. That's right. This was a great one this week.

Perplexity CEO offered to replace striking New York Times staff with AI. Well, thanks. Yeah. New York Times tech workers began a strike on Monday demanding a 2.5% annual wage increase and maintaining a two-day in-office rule. Represented by the NYT Tech Guild, these workers handle vital software support and data analysis.

So I'm going to skip the rest of this because it doesn't really matter anymore because it's all over. But the whole point here is the picketers were gathered outside and saying, we want money. So Aravon Srinivas, CEO of Perplexity, came and went to the Times and said, hey, I'll help you out during the strike if you need some, you know, some brain power with our AI to handle, you know, some basic tech support stuff.

Well, we'll get your back. Everybody else called them being, you know, scabby and things like that. There was no word if the New York Times took him up on it, but it was kind of a, I thought it was kind of a funny move, personally. It's funny. It's very funny. Yeah. Yeah. What's better, though, New York Times tech workers are still on strike since they walked out just before Election Day.

And I don't know if anybody noticed, but the New York Times was still up. So not good for their case, actually. Well, Jason, we're tech people. We know how this works. It's up until it's not. And then you have to call someone. Exactly. I mean, look how long Twitter, like, you know, limped along after he fired everybody.

You know, there is inertia to these things until the logs, you know, back up on the hard drives and everybody goes, why are there so many? Why is the disks full? Why are the disks full? Because you didn't know how to reset the cron job when it crapped out in the middle of the night. Hmm. You might want to hire us back. So these tech workers are asking users to avoid the Times games like Crossword, Wordle, and Connections.

Instead, their union, the Times Tech Guild, has launched its own set of games, including Strike, a Wordle spinoff, and Connections Strike Edition. The guild site Guild Builds also features Strike-themed recipes like Just Cause Kimchi, and whatever that is.

And We've Got Beef with Management. That's funny. Representing over 600 tech workers, the guild has been in contract talks with the Times for more than two years. So I don't know if they're going to get anything done anytime soon. But We've Got Beef with Management with stuffed mushrooms. Sounds delightful. It does.

I would make that. I don't think I'm going to play Strike, though, because I kind of spun off on Wordle finally. Went away. Oh, yeah. I gave that up like two years ago. After, I think my, God, my, I think I had a 450-day streak before I finally gave up.

And I probably would have kept going, but I got COVID and slept through a day. Well, Disney is forming the ranks to figure out how to deal with AI. So as first reported by Reuters, the company recently formed a dedicated Emerging Technologies Unit, dubbed the Office of Technology Enablement.

The group will coordinate the company's exploration, adoption, and use of artificial intelligence, AR, and VR tech. It has tapped Jamie Voris, previously the CTO of its studios technology division, to oversee the effort. Before that, he was CTO at the NFL, of all things. So I think he kind of knows what he's doing.

Yeah, they got good tech at the NFL. Yeah. No joke there, yeah. They really do, yeah. More recently, he led the development of the company's Apple Vision Pro app. So, slight strike there. Have you seen it? We don't know if it's any good. Actually, that's true. Dave Bittner says it's great.

So, yeah. There you go. Reuters reports the company eventually plans to grow the group to about 100 employees. This seems like a pretty good way to handle things. Disney is usually pretty good about this stuff. So putting a team that basically anybody and the other teams can come to to talk to about how to, you know, do we do something in this area? How do we implement it?

What have other areas done in Disney? When you've got a big company like that, it totally makes sense to have a division that basically just kind of parachutes in when other people need help in the company. So, smart. Yeah. Yeah. No, it's just their little brain trust on AR and VR. It's perfect. Yeah. And, yeah, you know, they spend money on innovation.

They've got a pretty good R&D budget, so. Yep. And as I always say, it mystifies me why Disney's stock is always so low because they really do know what they're doing. And when they roll something out, it never really gets panned. It's just, oh, yeah. Well, Disney did it. It's great. There you go. Yeah. Yeah.

I still want that floor. I really want that. Oh, God. Yeah. That thing's badass. It really is. Meta's plans to build a nuclear-powered AI data center in the U.S. have been halted due to environmental and regulatory challenges, including the discovery of a rare bee species at the proposed site.

Oh, just wait a couple months. It's, oh, yeah. Then it's going to be fuck the bees. It's exactly going to be fuck the bees. Yep. Yeah. Mark Zuckerberg had intended to partner with an existing nuclear plant to supply emissions-free electricity for the facility. Despite this obstacle, Meta remains committed to exploring carbon-free energy options, including nuclear power, to support its AI initiatives.

So, ain't no bees in the metaverse, motherfucker. Yep. Well, as AI continues to be jammed into every single product we can ever possibly have, even though most of us don't really want it, it's certainly not stuck into everything. So, it's always worth remembering that AI kind of sucks a lot of the time.

Many criticisms regarding the proliferation of artificial intelligence live in the realm of theoretical or hard to gauge. We just don't know how many people are swayed by disinformation produced by AI. But every now and then, we get a real-life, tangible case of AI messing with people's lives. Yes.

Okay. This is a great one. An apparent AI-generated content farm deceived thousands of Irish into visiting the Dublin city centre for a supposed three-hour Halloween parade. That was never real. It was never going to happen. It didn't exist. After trying to disperse the misinformed crowd of thousands, Ireland's National Police Service was forced to release a statement informing the public that there was never any parade scheduled.

It was called My Spirit Halloween, apparently based in Pakistan. It's a website dedicated solely to promoting Halloween events across the world. The idea, of course, is to exploit searches so that whenever somebody is looking for a Halloween event in their city, you get sent there and they get a couple bucks of ad revenue somehow.

But apparently the AI was just making shit up and assumed that a city like Dublin would have festivals. You know, this kind of reminds – this actually is nothing new. In the old days, friends of mine who worked at Kinko's who will remain nameless, when they wanted to troll a local venue, they would just make concert flyers for, you know, the hot new band.

And just pepper them on all the telephone poles around town. So when the day came, a couple hundred people would show up at, say, Cabaret Metro, waiting to go see, oh, I don't know, maybe Nirvana or a similar band. A new upstart band Smashing Pumpkins. Something like that. And, yes, then the unfortunate door staff at the – at said venue would have to just go, no, there's no fucking show tonight.

Go away. So, yeah, trolls are going to troll, but this was just accidental, I guess. But, you know, these aren't actual humans this time. So I suppose that's the difference. Yeah. And new details are continuing to surface about the hacking of U.S. telecom companies by a China-linked group that targeted U.S. officials and campaign staffers.

Last week, the New York Times reported that FBI investigators suspected call logs and SMS text messages that had been accessed by the hacking group known as the Salt Typhoon. Sounds like a really good restaurant that I would go to. The group reportedly targeted the phones of diplomats and government officials, as well as people associated with both presidents.

Now, the Wall Street Journal is reporting that the hackers who were likely working for a Chinese intelligence agency spent eight months or more in U.S. telecom infrastructure and that they may have been able to scoop up the data of thousands of people who were in contact with the targeted individuals. So they did limit their targets to several dozen select high-value political and national security figures, but they basically slurped up anybody and everybody that had ever talked to them ever.

And, yeah, they basically exploited routers used by telecom firms that had the ability to access the phone data of virtually any American who was a customer of either of any of the compromised carriers, which included AT&T and Verizon. Yay. But, you know, the NSA would just say, oh, that's just metadata.

It doesn't matter. That's right. And you can strip that legally, according to a case that I just read about earlier in the show. Yeah. And Canada, my country moving forward, at least for quite some time. Let's just say I've stopped my Redfin searches for the Los Angeles area.

They have been paused. Canada has ordered TikTok to shut down its operations in the country, citing unspecified national security risks posed by the company and its parent, ByteDance. With the move, TikTok will be forced to wind up all business in the country, though the Canadian government stopped short of banning the app.

Basically, they can't have offices here anymore. Yeah, that's what it boils down to. And that's about it, really. And, you know, I guess people are pointing out, people have been talking about this on our Discord. What does that mean exactly? I don't really know. There's tons of international companies that operate in Canada that don't have offices here.

But I think there are restrictions about advertising and throwing events and all that sort of stuff. But let's be honest here. And I think all Canadians know this. I'm not breaking any code here. We're small fry. And TikTok is barely going to notice any lack of revenue from advertising here.

The U.S. is the big fish. People come to Canada to be multinational. But at the end of the day, generally, most companies, if they have to have an office here, staff it with one person. And that's that. Yeah, I'm guessing the advertising is what's going to basically take effect.

So if you're a local Canadian company, you can't advertise on TikTok. Yeah. So yeah, you're basically just screwing over the little guys on that one. As per usual. Way to go, Trudeau. Now, Australia is proposing a ban on social media for children under 16.

They're set to introduce legislation banning children from using social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and the TikTok. As soon as we get those internet police to enforce that and go around to everybody's house and make sure that they're of age, great. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese announced the plan, citing concerns over the negative impact of social media on young people's mental health and well-being.

The proposed law would require social media companies to implement age verification measures to prevent underage access, and noncompliance could result in substantial fines. This initiative positions Australia as a global leader in online child safety, aiming to protect minors from cyberbullying and exposure to inappropriate content.

They plan to introduce the legislation by the end of the year with potential enactment by late 2025. I'm all on board with that. Yeah, no, I'm fine with it, but good luck. Yeah, good luck making it happen. That's the real problem with it. So I 100% agree that nobody under 16 should be on social media.

Absolutely not. I argue no one over 16 should be on it. I argue nobody should be on social media. Nobody should be on it. At this point, I think we've really – I've turned a corner on this 100%. I definitely intend to way cut back my social media usage moving forward.

Says everybody after every election. Yeah, well – Give it a couple months. You'll be back. Not this time. Yeah, same thing. We'll see. We'll see. Brian, this has all happened before. This will all happen again. This is self-preservation for me. I cannot hear that guy's voice anymore. I can't read about him.

I can't see his name. I'm basically going to dig a Canadian hole. It's fine. Good luck. Good luck. I'm going to try. I'm going to make like a raccoon. Well, you could move to Halifax, Nova Scotia and buy a Tesla. I'm not that fucking crazy. In Halifax, Nova Scotia, a Tesla owner named Jamie has encountered a significant issue following a recent software update to Tesla's summon feature.

For over four years, Jamie relied on this feature to maneuver his vehicle into a tight parking spot adjacent to his home. However, after installing firmware version 12.5.4.1, the system began to malfunction, rendering his car immobile for the past two weeks.

The update introduced changes to both the actually smart summon. That's literally called actually smart summon. Actually, not. And the traditional dumb summon features, leading to errors such as cannot find clear path to pin and autopilot temporary degraded.

Despite multiple attempts to contact Tesla's customer service, Jamie has not received a solution and the company has not offered a software rollback. Poop emoji. Poop emoji. The company has not offered a software rollback to the previous functional version. This situation highlights the challenges that can arise from over-the-air software updates in modern vehicles or buying a Tesla.

I don't know. Did you see the picture? How tight is this parking spot that he can't? Go look at the picture of it. You can't get in there. It's one of those parking spots where it's like he's got like three inches on each side. Okay, but that's not a parking spot. That's a fucking alley and you shouldn't have put your car in it. Well, it worked for several years.

Over four years he's been able to park there. So, you know, he can claim eminent domain. So, that is his fucking alley and he wants it. God damn it. But he wants his car more. He's going to have to buy an electric trailer and back that thing up.

Yeah, somebody called an electric tow truck to pop his ass out of there. And something I actually agree with, Brian, in a recent ruling, federal judge Beth Freeman found that Google has no obligation to refund victims of gift card scams, despite the Federal Trade Commission's estimation that Google Play users are often targeted.

Well, that would make sense to target people that use Google product. Yeah. Well, here's the thing. It's also Apple cards are the same. Any gift card is, you know, basically a scam because it's treated like cash when you send it to the scammers overseas. Google Play, there's just more Android phones in the world so they can use them easier.

So, the lawsuit was filed by Judy May, who lost $1,000, which is actually a paltry sum compared to some of the scams I've seen, in 2021 when scammers tricked her into buying Google Play gift cards by claiming she was eligible for a government grant. Now, Judy May, you're fucking dumb.

No government grant is going to ask you to go buy Google Play gift cards. Sorry. Yeah. I agree with this, too. This is buyer beware. If you're an idiot, that's on you. Yeah. Come on. May argued that Google should have refunded her after scammers tricked her into purchasing gift cards.

However, Judge Freeman ruled that May's financial loss was caused by third-party scammers, not by any omission or misrepresentation from Google. The judge noted that May hadn't used the gift cards as designed and that Google had no duty to investigate her report. Additionally, Google pointed to similar policies by Target and Walmart, which also do not provide refunds for gift card scams.

The judge did leave room for May to amend some claims but dismissed her attempt to seek triple damages, doubting she'd be scammed again, given her awareness of these frauds. Google has not yet commented on the ruling because they—it's Google. They don't comment on shit anyway. You can't even get a poop emoji out of Google.

But I agree with this 100%. She got scammed. It's on her. Yeah. And somehow I think Judy might get scammed again, just differently. You think? You think? In a significant shift within the semiconductor industry, S&P Dow Jones Indices has announced that NVIDIA will replace Intel in the Dow Jones Industrial Average effective November 8th, which is today.

Yes. Ah, this change ends Intel's 25-year tenure on the index and reflects NVIDIA's dominant position in the AI chip market. I should have kept my stock. I should have kept my stock. I did. Fuck you. Fuck you. Yeah. That would have been nice.

That would have been nice. That's not bad. Yeah. Yeah. Considering they're the most valuable company in the world right now. And the funny thing is, I called it. I called it back then. I'm like, these guys are going to go through the roof because they're building all the chips that are used in, back then, machine learning. Mm-hmm. So, yeah, yeah.

I needed gas money. What could I do? That's true. Yeah. And finally, in some funny news, approximately 10,000 North Korean soldiers have been deployed to Russia. Not funny yet, but I'm getting there. Stick with me. This marks North Korea's most significant military engagement since the Korean War.

Now, reports indicate that these young soldiers, now exposed to the unrestricted internet for the first time, are excessively accessing online porn. That's right. Yeah. Good luck getting them to go hit the Ukrainians if they're going to be sitting there wanking it in the foxholes.

What an appealing image. Kim Young-il hub. Now, wouldn't that be Kim Young-pun hub? That's good. That's good.

Media Candy. Media Candy is brought to you by the Grumpy Old Geek Store. Go to shop.gog.show and get your GOG swag today. In Poland, Brian, off-radio Krakow, a state-funded station fired all of its human presenters and replaced them with AI-generated Gen Z hosts, sparking public outrage.

Wonder why. The station, struggling with low listenership, introduced AI personas Emilia, Jakub, and Alex, each with a fictional bio and AI-generated headshots. The station's big debut even included an interview with Polish cultural icon, I'm not even going to fucking try to say that name, who's been dead since 2012.

While the AI host attracted thousands of new listeners most tuned in out of anger, critics accused the station of prioritizing tech over humans, with one Polish lawmaker warning that AI should serve people, not replace them. Yeah, good luck with that. Good luck with that. That's funny, though.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, as we know, TikTok is now all about the tunes, and the social network has added integrations to directly post audio from streaming services. Share to TikTok is a new feature that will let listeners in Apple Music and Spotify share music directly to the video platform.

The tool can post a track, album playlist, or other content to the TikTok feed, either in FYP or Stories, and streaming audio material can also be shared via TikTok DM. Cast your minds back to when Universal was having their tiff with TikTok, and I said, the whole thing here is TikTok is a streaming network, and that they continue to supposedly say that it's actually just promotion that sends people over to Spotify and Apple Music and other streaming places where it is monetized.

Huh, wait, so now I can just share the thing from the place where it's monetized on your thing, where it's just promotion, and it's not monetized. Right. Well, do we know that it's not monetized? We do. Is there some kind of kickback coming to Apple Music and Spotify from TikTok when that track is played?

Nope, nope, nope, there's a blanket license. That's it. Wow. Yep. Okay, that's interesting to know. Yep. Okay, I've been dealing with launching a single on Apple Music and Spotify for a client, and yeah, I'm going to actually talk to our streaming provider about that and just see what they say.

Because most of the money I know from that comes from Instagram and sync licenses that you're selling through other areas. But yeah, I'm learning all about the music industry, and Brian, I don't want to. I really don't want to. It sucks. Yeah.

It sucks. Yeah, it does. It's fighting over scraps. That's all it is now. It really is. Yep. Yep. Speaking of fighting over scraps, Squid Game Season 2, the official teaser, has launched. The series actually comes out on December 26th.

Perfect, perfect timing for the holiday season. I might watch it. It actually looks pretty good. So, only because I've gone through the trauma of Squid Game Season 1. I have not. If you haven't seen Squid Game Season 1, I still recommend nobody watch it.

Because it is traumatic. It is just traumatic. It is sadness porn on a level you have never seen before. And I was a teenage goth. Exactly. And so, since I've been through it, and I've been through the therapy, and the PTSD has somewhat softened, why not, you know, in the holiday season, just reopen that wound and jump into Squid Game Season 2?

You're going to be a barrel of joy over the holidays. I'm always a barrel of joy over the holidays, Brian. Come on. Speaking of a barrel of joy, I watched the movie The Apprentice, an American horror story this week. Going to have to edit that end, I think.

That's the name of it on the poster. That's why I thought it was... Look, I'm reading it as it was. It was actually a good movie, I thought. Okay. It humanizes the anti-hero at the beginning of the movie. And you actually start to feel a little bit for them until the about halfway point of the movie where you go, this is one of the most despicable people I've ever seen in my life.

And it ends as you think it would. So I thought it was a very good watch. And I recommend the movie, personally. So give it a shot if you want. You can... It's still in the theaters in some places, but you can rent it now for $20 on Amazon and I think YouTube.

Okay. Or you can go to Sweden and get it for free. I'll just... Like I did. You might actually like it, Brian, is all I'm saying. The Penguin season finale is this Sunday and, oh my God, this series has delivered week after week after week.

It's seven episodes in, so you've got time. If you're catching this and you want to stay up all night, you can get caught up. But I am going to be glued to my TV Sunday night for the season finale of this. The Penguin is awesome. And through all the makeup and all the acting, I still cannot see Colin Farrell anywhere in The Penguin.

It's amazing. His acting and the makeup is just... It's just next level. So good. So good. All right. Well, another final that I just watched. We finished The Diplomats season two. Wasn't that fucking good? It was so good. It was so great to see CJ Craig. Oh my God.

I was up last night till one in the morning because I saw you put this in here and I'm like, shit, he's seen it. So I have three episodes to go. I better get... Then I got to episode five and I'm like, oh, God damn it. I'm going to be up all night. And then at the end, the finale, the twist at the end of the last episode, I was just like, I was up for like another hour just vibrating.

But that was so good. I can't believe it was only six episodes, but it was a great six episodes. They packed it, man. They really... I mean, I was bemoaning the fact that they knocked out all the extra episodes, but they delivered on the story on this one.

It was boom, boom, boom, boom. And now we're going to have to wait two years. I know. I know. But it was so good. It was so good. It was great. Yeah. Well, we'll have spoiler-laden chat with you and I off the air. Okay. We can't tell anybody what happens.

No, because a lot of people haven't even seen season one of the show yet. So I'm telling all of you listening to us right now, go watch The Diplomat. It is great. And speaking of being my moody teenage goth, The Cure launched their new album, Songs of Lost World. I've already talked about that, but they did a special live intimate performance at a place in London called The Troxie.

It is a three-hour tour de force concert, as per usual, for The Cure. They start off by playing the new album in full and then go into deep, deep cuts and the big hits. And this is just wonderful. So it is completely free because that's what The Cure does.

Full live stream, link in the show notes, all of it on YouTube. Three-hour concert. It's just stunning. They sound so good. You know what? I think I'm going to pop this on my big TV and pop in the AirPods and just kind of like go to the show because, you know, 75-inch TV, 4K, Cure, front row, I'm in.

Yep. Because I still got to say that was probably the best concert I've ever been to. And I was like 400 miles away and they were a little teeny tiny on the stage, but it was still amazing. Yeah. They're just stunning live and this is just an amazing show. Apps and Doodads.

Apps and Doodads is brought to you by Set App. Power up your workflow with over 250 apps on Set App. Go to gog.show slash setup to get started today. Brian, this is some interesting news. Amazon is delaying shipments of its first color e-reader, the Kindle Colorsoft, due to screen issues, including a yellowish bar at the bottom.

Customers who pre-ordered or ordered the device will now receive it between November 9th and the 18th in the U.S. and by November 26th in the U.K. The device has received poor reviews, averaging 2.6 stars, prompting Amazon to call customers with complaints, request access to device logs, and sometimes even delete reviews.

Amazon is working on a software update expected within two weeks, which they hope will reduce the visibility of the yellow bar. Did they not test it before they shipped it? Also, if I bought this, I don't want the yellow bar just reduced. I want it gone.

Removed. Yes. Not reduced visibility. Removed. Removed. Yeah. Okay. Elon Musk's ex has implemented the change that he said was going to happen quite a while back. So the block function, basically, the update allows blocked users to see posts to the accounts that block them while still not being able to interact with those accounts.

So there you go. Don't know why you do this, but he did it. Their argument is, well, you could just make another account and be able to see everything. Well, still, it's kind of the point of blocking someone, right? Yeah. Yeah. It's the fuck you aspect of it. Yeah. It's the fuck you aspect.

And also, yes, you could create another account to still see the post, but generally, this is a mass user follower crime on crime, and the new account that you created isn't going to have the heft of your other one, is it? Yeah. The thing about it was, I mean, I would just, if I needed to see somebody that had blocked me or somebody that I had blocked just real quickly, instead of unblocking them, I would just really quickly open an incognito tab and just copy and paste the URL and go look at it that way.

That's the easiest way to do it. You could do that as well. I would argue I don't need to see anybody that has been blocked. I don't even need to see people I follow's updates. True that. True that. I don't need to see any fucking updates. Indeed. So, in sad news, Microsoft's classic notepad is getting an AI boost with a new rewrite feature, leveraging GPT to help users improve their writing.

The tool allows text rephrasing, tone adjustments, and length tweets, all by highlighting text and selecting rewrite with a keyboard shortcut or toolbar option. Currently, it's in preview for Windows insiders in select countries, and users will eventually need Microsoft credits for full access. You have to buy credits for your apps now?

What the fuck is going on over there, Brian? The AI update follows recent upgrades to paint. I would, the word upgrade might be a, might not be the best choice. Upgrades to paint, which now includes generative fill and erase features. Leave the classics alone, man.

And don't charge us credits for it. Yeah, seriously. It either. Credits are for the arcade. That's right. We're old. Apple has determined that a very small percentage of iPhone 14 plus models are having rear camera issues, and it has launched a service program to repair them for free.

If your phone isn't showing a preview when you use its rear camera, you may be eligible to get your phone fixed at no cost. You can also contact Apple to get a refund if you've already paid for a repair, which is pretty cool. So these devices were manufactured between April 10th, 2023 and April 28th, 2024, around half a year after the model started shipping in 2022.

So if you've got a problem with that camera, they're going to fix it for you. Well, in a bid to preserve a unique piece of Apple's gaming history, classic iPod enthusiasts are circumventing Apple's digital rights management to rescue 54 ClickWheel era games. Who the fuck wants to play them?

A very small amount of users. Can I get my Nokia Snake back? That was fun, man. That was always fun. That's when we still didn't have... That was the ultimate time waster. Now we fucking scroll social media and brought our brain.

I want Snake back. Well, you can also, you know, bust out that old ClickWheel iPod if you got one in the closet somewhere. Still do. You better check to see how swole it is because I had one and the thing was about to explode and, you know, take down my apartment complex.

Those batteries don't last that long. Right. The titles released between 2006 and 2009 became inaccessible after Apple removed them from the iTunes store in 2011. 13 years ago. People are still trying to do this after they were removed 13 years ago. Let it go.

The games are tied to specific iTunes accounts and hardware, making them unplayable on new devices. To overcome this, enthusiasts like Reddit user Quix have created master libraries of authorized games, allowing them to sync these titles to multiple iPods. Building on this, another user, Alzro launched the iPod ClickWheel Games Preservation Project, developing a virtual machine that enables users to sync these games to their iPods without physical shipping.

This initiative has successfully preserved 47 out of the 54 games, ensuring they remain playable for future generations. Yeah. I'm sure people are going to hop all over that. Yes. In the future, nobody wants your fucking iPod game. That's all I got to say. But you know what?

Good on them for doing it. You know, nerd's going to nerd. That's right. I give them props. Another final bit of Apple news, I think here. Apple has announced plans to acquire Pixelmator, the developer behind the popular photo editing applications such as Pixelmator Pro and Pixelmator for iOS and Photomator.

This acquisition, pending regulatory approval, which I don't think is going to be a problem anymore, marks Apple's first significant move into the professional photo editing software market since discontinuing Aperture in 2014. Pixelmator, based in Vilnius, Lithuania, has been recognized for its user-friendly design and powerful features, offering a strong alternative to Adobe's suite of tools.

I wish they would have just bought Affinity instead of Pixelmator. But, you know, Pixelmator's good too. So if they build that in and give it away for free, or at least sell it cheap, there's something to be said for that. If I don't need coins. Yeah, you don't have to get fucking credits. What are you thinking, Satya?

Come on. Credits. Well, if you're wondering what happened to Amazon's new and improved version of its Alexa voice assistant, you're not alone. Blueberg has reported that the new Alexa is still stuck in its developmental phase, and Amazon has cut off access to its beta phase, including its new Let's Chat phase.

Apparently, there's a yellow line that runs across the device that they can't seem to get fucking rid of. As a result, a planned late 2024 launch has been pushed back to next year. The problem seems to be with its large language models. The new Alexa is designed to understand more complicated questions from users, but it's also more likely to fail doing some of the more basic things that we use it for, like telling us the time, setting a timer, and playing music, which is all it needs to do.

To do, exactly. It's still stuck on the glue and the spaghetti sauce problem. Pretty much. Some employees have told Blueberg that the problem outside of Alexa's inner workings is with Amazon's overstuffed management and a lack of a compelling vision for an AI-powered Alexa. It does what it needs to do now, just make it work better.

Thank you. Yeah. And now I have an Apple Watch, so I don't even need it. So. This is a fun one for all you web devs out there. A new tool allows web developers create websites with a look and feel of Microsoft Windows 98. Created by Jordan Scales, 98.css is an extensive CSS library with no JavaScript, making it a lightweight option for nostalgic web designs.

It's open source and MIT licensed, meaning it's free to use, modify, and share. Scales encourages contributions on GitHub, inviting new developers to join and improve the project. Windows XP and Windows 7 styles are also available. Can I get a System 7 style, too, while you're at it? That would be fun.

This is kind of fun, but I would never do anything with it. In the old days, I totally would have been using this thing, but I just don't care about building websites anymore. But I think it's cool. I think it's really cool. Somebody needs to make a Star Trek one.

This January, Bare Knuckle Fighting Championship takes over the ocean. The inaugural Brews Cruise sails from Miami to the Bahamas aboard the Norwegian Jewel. Three straight days with pool deck bare knuckle fights in the Caribbean. Massive parties, beach events, DJs, cigars, tequila tastings, and non-stop action.

The lineup reveals coming soon. Cabins are disappearing fast, and the prices won't stay this low. Reserve your spot with just $200 down at BKFSEA.com. The Dark Side. Ha! With Dave.

Welcome to The Dark Side with Dave Bittner. Whether it's decoding all things cyber in the cyberwire, exposing deception and tomfoolery with Joe Kerrigan on hacking humans, diving deep into privacy with Ben Yellen on caveat, or breaking down industrial cybersecurity on Control Loop, Dave's got you covered.

And there's a new episode of Only Malware in the Building that just dropped, and it's awesome as always. Look for Only Malware in the Building wherever you get your podcasts, and enjoy the latest episode, Whispers in the Wires, a closer look at the new age of intrusion today. Hi, Dave. Hey.

Oh, hello. Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello. Oh, boy. What's the latest? What's going on? Oh, not much going on. Oh, good. Good. Good. So- Everything's cool. Yeah. It's all good.

Yeah. It's all good. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Nothing. Nothing at all. Yeah. Yeah. It's all good. Good. Good. Good. Listen, Brian, do you have a spare room in your house? Just curious. Just asking. Oh, yeah. Just asking. I don't, you know. Just asking. Yeah.

You guys. We're not that far away. Jason has found this new sense of Zen and optimism where it's just like, same shit, different day. Same shit, different day. And I've got almost two years of sobriety. And during that time, almost every day, I have to recite the serenity prayer in a meeting or with something.

So I am pretty okay with whatever happens, happens. So you guys might want to try that. Says the older white male, the older straight white male. Who can't afford groceries. You know what, Jason, I was actually thinking about you as I was working my way through some of the many thoughts that I'm sure all of us have had in the past week when presented with the future that we know is there based on the information from the past.

And I was thinking about your experience with sobriety and with the serenity prayer and just being able to be at peace with the things that you cannot control because this is something that is largely out of our control.

And so that actually did cross my mind that, you know, to be in touch with that in the way that you are is probably a very helpful thing. Oh, yes. And it's infuriating to people I know. Like for months, everybody's like losing their shit over it. I'm like, who cares?

You can't change it. It's going to be what it's going to be, guys. Get used to it. Yeah. Yeah. Well, you fix the problems that are in front of you. All right. What else? Over on Instagram, I got this note from Jen. She says, please tell Bittner he has to do this.

And it's a video of a guy calling the ISS with an amateur radio. Yes. And it's pretty cool. So I wanted to get an update, Dave, on your ham radio experience. How's it coming? Did you get licensed yet? I did. All right.

Thank you very much. Yes. Play a little fanfare. Absolutely. No, I'm quite pleased with myself. Do you guys want to hear about it? How it happened? How it went down? What it was like? Dude, drop the deets. Okay.

So last Saturday afternoon, my exam was scheduled for 2.30 p.m. Eastern Standard Time at a local church where one of the local ham radio clubs has their monthly meetings. So I made my way over to the church and went to a little upstairs meeting room where I think I might have been the first or second person there to sign in to take the exam.

And I had pre-registered with all my information. There were probably about 10 members of the amateur radio club there. And they were very welcoming and happy to see me. So I sat down. And over the course of the next half hour or so before the test actually started, probably a total of 10 people came in to take the exam.

Wow. More than I thought. Much more. Yeah. By about nine? Nine. So I, yes, I did not know what to expect. And I'll get to one of the fun little details about that. But there was even a woman.

There was a woman there. What? There was a woman taking the... I know. We had to ask to make sure she was in the right room if she knew. But no, she was there and she was enthusiastic. So that was delightful. I thought there would be ham. Yeah. Right. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah.

So that was nice. And there was also a young man, probably 13 years old or so, you know, very young, teenaged boy, young man, however you want to label him. He was there to get his test.

And we'll come back to him in a second. But I had been studying very hard for this exam. I've been using one of the online study tools and it was going very well. When I first started out, I was getting about 65% proficiency was how they were tracking me, just coming in cold.

And over the course of the next few weeks, I got myself up to 95% proficiency. And the exam, I think to pass, you have to get, it was either 70 or 75. I can't remember. But, you know, something like that. So there's probably a pool of 200 questions or so that they draw from.

And then on the day of the actual exam, they give you a little packet and there's 35 questions that you have to answer. They grade them right there. They let you know if you passed or not. I breezed my way through the test. I want to guess I probably scored around 95%.

There were one or two questions that I wasn't 100% sure what the answer was. But for most of them, I was 100% sure what the answer was. So it was a lot easier than I thought it was going to be. I was a little nervous, partly because it's been decades since I've taken a test, any kind of test.

I mean, I can't remember the last time I took a test. So there was that. But I passed the test and got some paperwork. And then they said to me, so this was Saturday. They said, on Monday, you'll get an email from the FCC and you have to pay your license fee, which is $35 for 10 years.

And then the day after you pay your fee, they will send you your license with your call sign. And that's that. And you'll be officially licensed. And that's exactly how it went down. So I got my notice from the FCC and I got my call sign, which is KD3ABO.

That's Kilo, Delta, 3, Alpha, Bravo, Oscar. So that was exciting. What's your mother's maiden name in your social too? Right, exactly. So that happened.

So now I've got my license, right? And I'm thinking, well, now what do I do? Talk to the world, Dave. Call the ISS and ask him for a pickup. Not so fast. Can I get a ride, guys? Right. Hey, hey, hey, ISS, let's meet at the malt shop.

So I'm a little nervous and intimidated because amateur radio is very much about etiquette. Like they are very particular about etiquette, which is not to say they're unfriendly or anything. But there are rules of etiquette and you're expected to follow them and they will correct you if you make a mistake.

And hopefully it will be someone who will correct you in a friendly way and not a scolding kind of way. But I spent a day or two just trying to figure out like, well, what's my first transmission going to be? What am I going to do? Who am I going to talk to?

What if no one, what if nobody answers? So I decided night before last, I went up on the top deck of my house and I put in the frequency of one of the repeaters, the local closest repeater to my house.

Because I figured I had the best chance of hitting that repeater from my house. And so I keyed up and announced myself and I said, KD3ABO listening.

And I got back a message that said, KD3ABO, this is KD3ABP. The next person who got licensed was the first person I talked to on the air.

It was the 13-year-old boy who was in the exam with me. You could have just gotten on Instagram and saved yourself the trouble if you want to talk to young boys. Right. I mean, I was already in a church.

Now it wasn't a Catholic church. But hey. Yeah. So that was a fun little coincidence that, you know, we tested together and his license was exactly one after mine. So that was very nice.

My first contact. And so we chatted for a little while and went on with our lives. And then yesterday I got on my way out of work. I hit a different repeater from my parking lot here at work and chatted with some folks on there. That was very nice. Again, everyone has been very welcoming.

And, of course, I've been, you know, very humble. And as we all know, I have no problem with the whole speaking part. So that comes easy. But I'm just trying to be really careful about building up relationships and all that sort of thing.

Well, Dave, I mean, just act like you do on the rest of your podcast. Just not this one. And you'll be fine. You'll be fine. It's true. That's true. And that is kind of my approach. So my wife, of course, is very happy for me, but also teased me that I've reached the level of nerdiness where I'm so nerdy.

They had to give me a license for it. And your closest peer is 13 years old. Yeah, right. Exactly. Yeah. Everyone else is ignoring me except for this 13-year-old kid. We'll be fast friends.

But I'm actually going to go to a breakfast meeting tomorrow morning of the local ham radio club to meet people, IRL, as the kids say, to introduce myself and hopefully extend this.

But I'm happy for it. I mean, I'm enjoying it so far. I think something I did not expect that is really good timing, I think, with this for me personally is that because there is such a focus on etiquette, it is a very polite group of people.

There's no talks of politics. It's the anti-social media. Yeah. It's friendly banter, you know, gentlemen and gentlewomen communicating with each other and trying to help each other do this thing better.

So I am as new as you can get to this. So I'm treading lightly, but so far enjoying myself. Now, as for the International Space Station, that is absolutely on my list. In fact, in our production meeting this morning, because as you guys know, we have a space podcast called T-minus, which is a daily space podcast.

So I was talking with the space team. And let me just say how cool it is to say I was talking with our space team. That is pretty cool. So I was talking with our space team. And we're going to do a story about me with my brand spanking new shiny amateur radio license trying to contact the ISS.

Awesome. Very cool. So I'm excited for that. I think I mentioned here before that my college roommate, who was a really active ham, he had contacted the space shuttle at one point. That's pretty cool. Yeah. So he had the postcard, they call them cue cards, on his bulletin board that, you know, was a picture of the space shuttle because he contacted an astronaut on board.

So, yeah. So I'm enjoying it. Thank you for asking. We'll see where it goes from here. But so far, so good. Yeah, we still have two astronauts up there that don't really have much to do, right? So you could probably have a good chat with them. Right. They're looking to kill time.

They'll be there a while. Yeah. I have to say, gentlemen, I'm a little bit feeling left out here. Both you and Jason are going to church basements for coffee. Now, obviously, for very different reasons. Right. Yeah. To be fair, to be fair, there are no basements in California.

That's true. Oh, yeah. That's right. Is that because of the earthquakes, I guess? Yeah. And actually, I don't know. Probably earthquakes. It's generally earthquake related, yes. Yeah. Or there's no, just probably the geology because it's mostly sand everywhere you go.

Right. I was going to, because like some places don't have, like Florida doesn't have basements because of the high water table. But you wouldn't have that out there. No. We just have a lot of sand. Yeah. It's a desert, you know. Right. Or fiction. Well, I do have something that you may want to talk to with your new 13-year-old buddy, Dave.

Lucasfilm is adding a new entire trilogy of movies to its increasingly filled, for now, slate of Star Wars projects. So one that can carry on the fabled Skywalker saga. Even though Rey is not a Skywalker, she's just calling herself that. With the official episodes 10, 11, and 12. Their deadline is reporting that Simon Kinberg, who is producer of many of the X-Men films as well as Star Wars Rebels alongside Carrie Beck and Dave Filoni, has been tapped to write the new trilogy as well as produce alongside Kathleen Kennedy.

Now, we should take this with a grain of salt because we have been promised many things in Star Wars land and all the movies end up getting canceled. But perhaps we are getting a third installment of a trilogy that one would assume would continue with Rey, who called herself a Skywalker. So we'll see.

Yeah. I guess what makes me happiest about this is that Dave Filoni is on board, if that is indeed true. Because in my mind, he's the best person you want involved with your Star Wars project, if you want it to be good.

Yeah. I agreed. Yeah. Yeah. I guess overall, I'm kind of meh about this because I'm kind of meh about the most recent series of movies. But I mean, it's not like I'm not going to go see them. So there you go. Yeah. I will go see anything. But I tend to agree.

I've enjoyed the shows a lot more. I think they get to explore the universes a lot better. I'm not sure what will be served by giving us another three movie arc. But we'll see. That's what it's about. It's not my money. Three billion dollars is what it's about.

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. I did watch the trailer from the new series that you guys were talking about last week. And yeah, it looks really good. Right? The music. You get hooked. As soon as you get hooked by the music, it's like, okay, I'm in. It's great. Yeah. I showed it to my son as well. And he's all in on this one. This is the first live action Star Wars thing besides the movies that he's wanted to watch or that I felt was okay for him to watch, to be honest.

I don't think he got get a lot out of Andor. So, yeah, no, no, probably not. Probably not. So before we wrap up this week, I do have a fun security story that I put in here. This is from the good folks over at 404 Media.

And this is about a memo that's going around from law enforcement where they've been finding that iPhones that have been put in storage, like in Faraday cages, to block their signals, are spontaneously rebooting themselves.

They're self-aware. Well, what's interesting about this is that evidently there are two modes of an iPhone's security status. There's something called after first unlock and before first unlock.

And so when you reboot an iPhone, it's in before first unlock state, which is the most secure. After you've unlocked it for the first time, then it's in after first unlock mode, which is not as secure. And when it's in after first unlock mode, it can be accessed with some of the forensic tools that are out there these days.

But evidently, if it's still in before first unlock mode, the forensic tools can't get in or it's much harder for them to get in. So yeah, makes sense. But the theory is that Apple has added this feature in iOS 18, where if your phone finds itself unable to connect to a cellular network for a certain amount of time, it automatically

reboots itself and goes into before first unlock state just for the sake of security. Nice. Right? Yeah. This is really nice. Yeah. Really smart. Now, Apple hasn't said anything.

There's been 404 Media reached out to Apple for a comment, and Apple hasn't said anything. Well, you know what else is smart? Not detailing every single thing you do for security. Yeah. Right? Yeah. So there was some speculation. Yeah, I think so.

There was some speculation that perhaps these devices, Apple, iPhones were talking to each other like, hey, listen, I haven't hit a cellular network in a while. Have you? And the other phone would say, no, I haven't either. And they'd say, well, all right. You notice this cage around us? Yeah. It's kind of weird, huh? How about we reboot?

Time for a jailbreak, guys. All right. Let's do it. But that's just speculative and probably not. I mean, the simpler solution, simpler. Yeah. Oxum's razor. Yeah, exactly. The simpler explanation is just that it doesn't see a cellular network for a long time or any wireless and it just reboots.

Yeah, it's internal IT guy says, I'm going to turn myself off and back on and see if I fix myself. Exactly. Right. It's the phone switch. Yeah. Right. Right. So I like this. I think this is nice. It's a good feature.

Makes me happy. Yeah. Few things are at the moment. This has. That's right. I got to say, though, speaking of iPhones, I've got I've been running iOS 18.2, the new beta and with the Apple intelligence features on it.

Yeah. The one thing it doesn't really do anything for me because I don't use any of the Apple apps really that have it, you know, kind of keyed in. Except for now, I can have Siri call up ChatGPT if it can't find an answer for something. And it lets me tie in to my ChatGPT pro account or plus account or whatever they call it, the paid account.

So I can put in my credentials and lock it lock in that way. So it you can set it as a fallback. You can have it, you know, have a confirmation. Say, would you? I don't know what you're talking about. You want me to hit up ChatGPT and you can press a button to say yes, or you can have it to just automatically do that if it can't find anything.

It's pretty cool. I like it, except it's a little slow. That's the one problem I'm finding. But it's still beta. But that's one thing to keep an eye out for. The rest of the stuff I can't really try yet. They did put a new app on my phone for the generative AI imagery stuff, but you have to ask for access to it.

And so I put in my request for access, but I haven't gotten it yet. But so I have a new app on my phone that I can't actually use. So thanks, Apple. Isn't that great? I can generate as many U2 songs as I want now. Great. Yeah, there you go.

All right. Well, let me just wrap up by saying KD3, ABO, clear. Nerd. Closing Shoutouts! Closing Shoutouts is brought to you by 1Password. Get a great deal on the only password manager recommended by grumpy old geeks ourselves.

Go to GOG.show slash 1Password to get started today. Over at Patreon, we've got no new subscribers, but thanks to Paul for the bump. And since we've gotten some feedback on how we shout people out on the Patreon side, we're going to start a new thing, Brian.

Okay. We're going to start at the top. We're starting with the high-ticket investors first. So big thanks to Elaine H., Anthony L., Martin C., Kenny, Rachel P., Benjamin W., Jamie C., Jen J., and Zaddy Mortis.

Thanks, Greg. And Darren. So thank you, everybody. Next week, join us for some more shoutouts to our high-ticket donators. And remember, you can sign up for just $3 a month over at patreon.com slash GOG to get the show a little bit early.

Ad-free and in high definition. And if you want to save 5%, you can sign up for the whole year. Woo-hoo! Woo-hoo! And we did get one note from S. Thomas Sears who says, I think you guys may have touched on the actual reason for the Reese's Cups question, peanut allergies. I also heard that on the Discord from Gabriel Pagan, too.

He brought that up, saying that that's maybe the reason that people were leaving the Reese's Cups. No, no, no, no, no. I trained my kid to go get them anyways, because Daddy needs a Reese's. See, that's you blame the parents. You blame the parents, exactly. Over at PayPal, we've got Levy and Florian. Thank you both so much. Over at the tip jar, we've got Sarah, Matthew, and Adam.

All right. And we have some few people who passed away this week. The first that I've got up is Greg Hildebrandt. He's the iconic Star Wars and Lord of the Rings artist. He did a lot of the posters and various different work on that sort of stuff. Really good stuff. Link in the show notes so you can check out some of the art that he did.

Fantastic stuff. Yep. And we lost Quincy Jones this week, music legend. Died at 91. Good run. Damn good run. Yep. And we've lost Elwood Edwards, who nobody knows that name, but you will recognize him as the iconic voice of AOL's You've Got Mail.

Died at 74. Yeah. And that will never go away, because you can always rent or stream You've Got Mail and hear it. That's true. Even though you can't sign on to AOL anymore. What do you get? Well, you can still get AOL Mail. I think it might actually be on AOL.com if you go get AOL Mail.

Really? If anybody out there actually still has an AOL account, please check and write and let us know. I think my roommate might have one that I can go check on. I think it still works. Until next time, I'm Jason DeFilippo. And I'm Brian Schulmeister. Thanks for tuning in to Grumpy Old Geeks.

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