679: Set Sanity to Zero

Saturday, September 26th. Two of combat sports' most dangerous strikers collide. Bare Knuckle. Liverpool's own Darren the Gorilla Till goes to war with Cuban powerhouse Yoel Soldier of God Romero. Plus the Bare Knuckle Middleweight Championship of the World is on the line when the reigning champ Dave the Redneck Mundell defends against undefeated British challenger Jack the Meat Cleaver Colon.

BKFC 94. Till vs. Romero. Watch it live only on DAZN. Sign up now at DAZN.com. Grumpy Old Geeks. A weekly talk show hosted by Brian Schulmeister and Jason DeFilippo discussing the finer points of what went wrong on the internet and who's to blame.

Welcome to Grumpy Old Geeks. I'm Jason DeFilippo. And I'm Brian Schulmeister coming to you from the 51st state of the United States of America, Jason. Woohoo! I was hoping that we were going to be in the Canadian Baja instead. Come on. It's a new province. That's the better way to go about it, I think.

Yeah. I'll take that one instead. Yeah. I think we all would. Anyways, we're back after a slightly longer than expected break. I got the plague over Christmas and that was not fun. And then I was luckily it was just myself and my mom. My mom didn't have it too bad. I basically slept 12 hours a day for a couple days in a row.

And then we boarded the plane to come home and I will affectionately call it the plague plane. It was the worst plane I've ever been on in my entire life. And I've been on planes that have been struck by lightning, coughing, hacking. One person, a row over and to the right of us, puked about seven times throughout the flight.

Oh, God! So, unsurprisingly, when we landed, within about six hours, my wife started coughing. Oh, of course. And she has now been sick the entire week. And so far, my son has completely avoided it. But then I woke up this morning with a head cold. So round two is coming my way.

Yeah, fun times. Yeah. But I'm not on fire. Yeah, yeah. I'll trade you. I'll trade you. I'll take the sniffles over what we're dealing with any day of the week. Yeah, I don't blame you. This is the worst it's ever been. So I'm glad to hear so far you're safe and all good.

It's – I just have to say for the record, I hate taking weeks off. I hate taking time off. I get discombobulated for holidays. It drives me insane. Yes, I know. Because you're always so disappointed when I say we're taking a week off over Christmas. I am. I am. I'm like, who can I get to sub in? God damn it.

Hey, AI is there, man. Come on. AI Brian. Yeah. We might have to come to that soon. AI both of us. Who the fuck knows? Yeah. No, I have – last night, I got three hours of uninterrupted sleep. But since Monday, I've gotten no more than two hours of uninterrupted sleep.

So I'm a bit of a zombie today. So this is going to be an interesting show. I had a million stories in my RSS reader, but could not quite get to that. I was sitting there in my bed last night putting them in, and I fell asleep with my laptop going and just zonked out.

Just was gone. I woke up a couple hours later, and I'm like, you know, yeah. We're going to go get a little bit more sleep. We got plenty. We're good. Okay, yeah. Thank God for the WatchDuty app is all I have to say. I've talked about that in the past. Last time L.A. was on fire, which wasn't too long ago, surprisingly, it is by far the best way to watch wildfire info.

And thanks to a friend of the show, Brian Blondel, he showed me all the cool features because I'm like, why can't I find an app that just shows me where the wind is blowing? He's like, oh, that's in WatchDuty. Just go hit the layers thing. And I'm like, damn it. That thing's got everything in it. It is a Swiss Army knife of trying to stay alive.

Yes, I also downloaded it, and I've been keeping track because, obviously, I have friends scattered all over Southern California, some of whom. Luckily, none of my friends have lost anything as of yet. Quite a few have had to evacuate, but, yeah, I've been keeping an eye on the app as well. And here's hoping it doesn't citizen on us.

Yeah, yeah. But this one's a nonprofit, so it shouldn't. It's a nonprofit, and as soon as I get a few bucks, I'm definitely going to send them some. But I'm sure I'll get an alert if Lady Gaga's house burns down. I think I already got that alert. It's long gone. Yeah, that's the one thing. The alerts do come fast and furious, which is why I have flip barriers.

Well, the fires are fast and furious right now, Jason, so that might explain it. Yeah, yeah. Yesterday, there was the – I think they called it the Kenneth fire. Yes. The frequency, Kenneth. Watch that one go because that was right by our place, too. And it went – it literally went from where I'm at now all the way – it ended in the parking lot, like right behind the parking lot of my old apartment in Malibu Canyon inside of two hours.

That thing was just like whoosh all the way down the hill. And, you know, if anybody says the rich don't get preferential treatment, I would say fuck you. Man, I didn't even know private firefighters existed until this fire.

Well, this was just – this wasn't even private firefighters. We knew – well, see, we knew that private firefighters existed before because the Kardashians hired them the last time, and they basically kept Hidden Hills safe. But this time – because I'm right next to the Palisades fire, and they circle my house before they go drop water, and I see it's getting very close, which is very unnerving.

But we see all of the helicopters and everything on that one. Well, there's, you know, six or seven helicopters flying around there. As soon as a fire breaks out next to Hidden Hills, which is where all of the super rich ding-dongs live – well, most of them – and it started to creep up on that.

There was – I mean, there were like ten helicopters within five minutes. It was insane how fast they got there. And they stopped it right at the edge, and it kind of went right around it, and then they just let it go straight towards Malibu Canyon. And it was just like – it was incredible what they did to save those places. But it was just everybody was in the right place at the right time.

It was the right type of fire. But they're going to find who set that one because that was not – that did not spontaneously erupt. Yeah, I don't have a lot of faith in human nature when you're just seeing all these videos of people just basically starting fires in L.A. right now.

Yeah, well, they arrested – the big news was they arrested a suspect for arson. And it turns out it was about a half mile from my fucking house. Great. Yeah, this last guy that they got – I think it was the first guy they got. He was trying to set one a half a mile from my house, which is basically the nightmare, which is why nobody around here slept, because the Santa Ana winds take over the whole city.

So when the wind starts blowing, any place can catch on fire. It's not just the ones that are on fire. You are worried that one little spark is going to basically take out your neighborhood for days on end. Yeah, I don't think people understand how fast fire moves, particularly in those winds, or even just an ember can blow for miles and start another fire.

Like, it's insane. Well, and we've got these stupid-ass palm trees that are – they're just ember factories. Yeah. And it's just insane. It has been troubling. And it's not over. It's definitely not over because, like I said, the Palisades fire is in the middle of meandering its way through the Santa Monica Mountains right towards us.

Right. So you can check out my Instagram if you want to see my drone pictures of how close it's getting as it goes. I took – I started, like, charged it up and took it up yesterday and got a couple shots. And then the wind picked up in the afternoon, and my drone's like, hey, can I come down now? It's like it's getting a little windy up here.

Yeah. It's no fun up here. Yeah, come on down. I do know at least – I know about seven people that lost their houses, but Kevin Rose was one of the ones, and he finally posted video of his place. It was pretty sad because the one thing that's left standing in this big, giant pit is his server rack, which when I went over there last time, he was so proud of and showed me.

It was like the whole control for his studio, the home automation and everything, and that's all that's left, and it's just like half melted. So that really sucks. But, yeah, lots and just – PCH is just heartbreaking. Oh, God. So many places that I used to go to all the time.

So many memories. Good friend of mine's first date with his wife was at the Real Inn, which is burned down. I used to stop – the best shrimp tacos in the world were at the Real Inn. Moonshadows is gone, so we can't memorialize Melbrook's sugar tits anymore. It's all sad.

Yeah, all the Californication location is gone, all that stuff. It's like, yeah. I hope MASH makes it. Well, they rebuilt it last time, so it – oh, man. No, it's just been – it's been a week. It's been a week. And it hasn't even been a week.

It's been four days. Yeah. It's the fucked up thing. It feels like it's been – even on the news last night, they're like, in the past week, that's been a day. Yeah. Crazy. Well, get the WatchDuty app if you want to play along at home. In the news.

Well, avoiding things fire-related, except metaphorically, we finally have a final chapter to one part of the MoviePass saga. Ex-CEO Ted Farnworth has pled guilty in federal court to defrauding investors in the subscription service. Surprising nobody, according to the Jest Department, Farnsworth and ex-CEO Mitch Lowe were indicted because they falsely claimed that MoviePass' 995 Unlimited plan was tested, sustainable, and would be profitable or break even on subscription fees alone.

They knew that that was not true, and it was a temporary marketing gimmick to grow new subscribers, and in turn, artificially inflates the stock price and attract new investors. In addition, they allegedly also made false and misleading representations about the positive impact that multiple revenue streams, other than subscription fees, were having on MoviePass' profitability and self-sufficiency.

Unfortunately, there were no other revenue streams whatsoever that helped offset losses that they experienced from their Unlimited Plan concept. So, Farnsworth's attorney, Sam Rabin, told Variety that it was important for Mr. Farnsworth to accept responsibility for his conduct, and he took the first step by entering a guilty plea this day.

He will take the second step, entering jail. Yeah. We called bullshit on that within 10 seconds when we saw it. Yeah. Everything. They don't even talk about, you know, his harebrained idea to use geolocation data that they were illegally collecting to sell you coupons to places that were in between you and the movie theater for dinner and such like.

Remember that scam? I do. Wasn't that the second CEO? Wasn't that after this guy? Oh, was that the second? I don't even remember anymore. This is, I didn't watch the movie. Yeah, I didn't watch the movie either, and I didn't really pay attention to who was running this at the time. I honestly don't remember anybody's name.

It was just a revolving door of fucking shucksters and snake oil salesmen. That's what it was. Yeah. Yeah. I'm really, one of the guys across the street from me, I saw on his LinkedIn that he worked there for a little while. Right. I want to go ask him about it, but I'm kind of, it might be a touchy subject. He might actually have left the country already.

Who knows? Could be. Yeah. Yeah. Well, in other news, the UK government is taking new steps to deter the creation of sexually explicit deepfakes. New criminal offenses for producing or sharing sexually explicit deepfakes is on the docket right now. Right now, only sharing deepfakes is currently an offense under UK law, so they're actually going to start to go after the creators now.

So I think that's a positive step. But of course, they say tech companies need to step up too. Platforms hosting this content will face tougher scrutiny and significant penalties. No, they won't. Well, we'll talk about the tech companies pleasing themselves in a few minutes. Yes, yes, yes.

Yeah. Yeah. So. What they don't do, they're not actually talking about either is that tech companies aren't the ones that are going to be creating this stuff. No. It's the people at home with the open source versions. Yes. That's where the stuff is made. It's not, this stuff's not made on a quote unquote platform anymore.

No. It's made on the PC in the basement, you know? Yeah. But you got to stop the distribution. Theoretically. Theoretically. Take down 4chan. Well, Meta has added the UFC CEO Dana White to the board. Yes, it appears you can beat your wife and still get on the biggest board in the country.

Well, you can rape somebody and get the highest seat in the country. So why not? Fair enough. That is true. So this is all part of Mark Zuckerberg's current pivot, which is to kiss Trump's ass. And this is one of definitely one of the moves to do it. This is not a typical member on the board.

He has basically zero knowledge of the tech industry. That's not what he does. The two members Meta is adding alongside White. John Elkin and Charlie Songhurst fit the social media company's usual bill. So he's a bit of an outlier here that is basically just a Trump thing.

So good times. Yes. And he's also visited Mar-a-Lago, but very documented. And we'll get to the other bits that he's doing to make Trump happy in a few minutes. Yeah, yeah, no, somebody should send Zuckerberg a case of Burt's Bees because his lips are going to get so chapped from kissing that ass.

It's ridiculous. Talk about, I mean, oh. One of the best things that I saw, and of course, you know, it's AI generated, so I have mixed feelings about this, but it was Zuckerberg, it was Amazon guy Bezos, and I think the Google guy, all three down on their knees, mouths open, and their tongues were orange.

There you go. Yep. So, there you go. Yeah, that's about it. And yeah, Nick Clegg is gone. Yeah, Nick Clegg. Sorry to see him go. Not really. No, not really. But I'm sure they're replacing him with somebody worse. See, that's the next four years for us, Jason. Somebody's going to lose their job, and we're going to go, oh, good, he was a horrible person.

And then a more horrible person will be put into their place. Yeah, Nick is being replaced by Joel Kaplan, Meta's most prominent Republican executive. There you go. Yeah, see? And since Dana White has been announced as being part of the board, apparently there's a lot of internal dissent going on right now.

And of course, you know, they can't figure out how to do censorship on their public-facing platform, which we'll talk about in about two minutes. But they sure as shit can figure it out internally. So, yeah, they're knocking down people who are criticizing what's happening inside the company.

So, yeah. As you should be doing if you're there. It's kind of the same. They have the same tools internally like Zuckerberg had when he could delete his messages, but nobody else could. Yes. Remember? That we were supposed to still get it. Did we ever get those? I don't know. I left Facebook so long ago.

I didn't do any fact-checking on that. You can delete your messages, but are they really deleted? Are they really deleted? That's always the question. So, yeah. Visibility set to zero. Zero. We've got to make that t-shirt. That's a good one. Ah, yeah. Anyways, speaking of meta, their smart glasses have had their first big cultural moment, Jason.

You think, yay, we're getting some publicity. Somebody used these publicly and everybody noticed. Unfortunately, it was a terrorist doing a terror attack. Terror's going to terror. Terror's going to terror. So, on Sunday, the FBI released footage from Shamsuddin Jabbar's meta glasses, and he is the guy that drove a rented Ford F-150 into a crowd of people on New Year's Day in New Orleans.

He brought IEDs, but they didn't go off, and he died in a shootout with police. Apparently, we found out that he planned it all with a stylish pair of Ray-Bans kitted out with meta cameras. The FBI provided footage that was almost four minutes long and has no sound. It's five different clips from multiple sources. Only the first two have come from his glasses, but he's basically staking out the location, riding through the French Quarter on a bicycle on Halloween and capturing it all.

And then he stared into a mirror, the Ray-Bans capturing his sweaty face, and one just wonders if he said, are you talking to me? Yeah. Yeah, this is what it's come to. You know, see, if he was wearing Google Glasses, we would have caught him ahead of time. Yeah, but these Ray-Bans.

But that's why he did it. That's exactly why Zuckerberg did it. So Ray-Bans is one of the most iconic and ubiquitous sunglasses brands in the world. Its Wayfarer is so popular that it's inspired countless knockoffs. And, of course, if you put your cameras into those, nobody's really going to notice. Yeah, that's kind of it.

And to continue with the terrorists and technology theme, Matthew Livelsberger, who was trying to be a comedian by setting his Tesla Cybertruck on fire outside of the Trump Hotel in Vegas. Kind of funny, though, to be honest. I mean, it set the tone for 2025.

Sure did. Yeah, he was a smart when he checked out early. But he was using ChatGPT to plan his attack. Oh, great. Thank God there's guardrails on all this stuff, Jason. I know. But to be honest, using ChatGPT is just like Googling something nowadays.

Well, it's exactly like Googling something these days, unless you turn that shit off on Google. Yeah. Actually, it's better than Googling something, because Gemini sucks. Yeah. But, you know, I have a better use for AI, a very better – let's just get out of this dystopian use of AI for a second, Brian.

And let's talk about the jobs that we're going to need, because there was another article that I have to dig up and put in the show notes. About 450,000 jobs are on the line for the next year, just because of AI. Minimum 450,000 are going out.

Remember when they told us it was going to create jobs, Jason? That's right. It is going to free us up to do the things that humans are meant to do. Yes. Unfortunately, nobody mentions getting paid for stuff. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Finger painting. Not going to pay the bills. That's – yeah.

So a gentleman from Reddit wrote a bot that would basically apply to jobs while he slept. Nice. So he would look at the job posting and then use AI to create a resume that catered to that job posting and send it off for him.

So he applied for 1,000 jobs while he was asleep. And he got 50 interviews. Okay. From other AIs who are checking the resumes. From the AIs. Yeah. So that's where, you know, the Ouroboros is alive and well.

And it is hungry. It is hungry. This guy should sell that – sell that algorithm. He really should. He really should. I think – it's not LinkedIn. What's the new job word? Indeed. Indeed. Indeed. Yes. Indeed. He should sell it to Indeed. Is Monster still around?

Are they still a thing? I don't know. Ironically, I should be looking for a job and I should know these things. But, you know. Yeah. I think the jobs that we're looking for nowadays, Brian, are probably on FarmersOnly.com because we're going to be planting seeds and trying to make food.

It's not actually a bad way of life, Jason. No, it's not. No, it's not. Better use for AI, though, could be reviving good old Adolf. Don't call him Hitler. An NBC investigation has revealed that Meta's AI studio, which allows users to create chatbots for platforms like Instagram, Facebook Messenger, and WhatsApp, has been hosting bots modeled after Adolf Hitler.

You know, don't call him Hitler. It's Heitler. Adolf Heitler. Don't call it a right back. Which does violate the company's policies. Meta claims its AI studio guidelines prohibit impersonations of notorious figures such as mass murderers or hate group leaders and pledges to review bots before publication.

However, lapses in enforcement have allowed problematic bots, including one styled after religious figures, celebrities, fictional characters, and Donald Trump to proliferate. Meta stated the offending bots have been removed and detection measures are improving. Huh. Well, you know what else Meta stated?

What have they stated, Brian? We're done with that. We're done with fact-checking in moderation. Yes, that's right. So that fits right in with the fact that they're going to police these bots, doesn't it? Oh, yeah. Because they're done doing that. Yeah, Mark Zuckerberg is nixing Facebook's fact-checkers and replacing them with community notes, a feature that works oh so well on Elon Musk's ex-platform, where users highlight posts they deem misleading or needing more context.

The shift away from the existing system of fact-checking, which is widely panned by Donald Trump and others known for spreading false claims, is yet another sign that Zuckerberg is positioning himself to earn the president-elect's butt juice. So this will also apply to Instagram and threads.

So basically, at least in the U.S., there are conflicting reports about what's going to happen elsewhere because they don't have a neo-fascist baby fuck in charge. So we'll see what happens. And they still have rules and legislation and laws that they care about. But in the U.S., they're giving up on any fact-checking whatsoever.

They're going back to their roots and focusing on reducing – wait, hold on. Your roots was hot or not, you fuck. Look, I know, I know. Every time I hear somebody say that, they quote that line, I'm like, you do know how this fucking thing started, right? Facebook started as a hot or not clone.

It's not – yeah, he was not trying to bring all of humanity together in some fucking utopia. No, he was trying to find out if the chick down the hall was bangable. That's all he was trying to figure out. Yeah, pretty much. So, yeah, this is purely just to appease Trump.

We all know that outside of the fact that they never really – they just paid lip service to moderation anyways. They didn't really throw enough money or anything at it and never really bothered that well. But he's saying that fact-checkers are too politically biased and have destroyed more trust than they've created. Huh.

Hmm. Yeah. I think we're basically all done with Facebook at this point. Yeah. But the problem is, of course – well, Threads is stupid anyways because they can't do a timely algorithm. So it's useless and people have kind of died over there regardless of how many people are signed up because they have meta accounts.

Nobody's posting. But Instagram, I would actually – I'm a little bit sad about. But there you go. It's interesting. There's a new episode of Darknet Diaries called Bike Index. It's episode 153. And it talks about this ring of bike thieves that are operating out of Mexico on Facebook and they can't get them shut down no matter what they do.

It's one of those things like they'll shut – like the moderation that was in place was shutting down all the wrong things. But when you have actual criminal activity with actual proof, they can't get it shut down no matter what. And he – Jack Resider was even asking people inside of meta in Facebook, what can we do about this?

They're like, no, there's nothing you can do, man. It's just the way it is. Right. So, you know, you can't get visibility set to zero, but sanity set to zero is absolutely on point. Mm-hmm. And I think the best headline came from futurism. Zuckerberg announces new measures to increase hate speech on Facebook.

Bingo. That's it. And, of course, according to Google Trends, related searches like how to delete all photos from Facebook, alternative to Facebook, and how to quit Facebook, how to delete Threads account, and how to delete Instagram account without logging in have become breakout searches with popularity suddenly increasing by over 5,000% compared to previous periods.

And I'm like, seriously, this is what it took for you to delete Facebook after all of the other shit? Come on. Yeah, and all the fact-checking partners say that they were blindsided by the decision that they were going to be fired and moved to Texas, as it were, because now they said, oh, we're going to move some of our fact-checkers to Texas for that, because, you know, that's where everybody goes.

Let's go to Texas. Yep. Yep. Yep. It's just – it's insane what's happening right now. I just – you know, half of me thought it was – that was the fact that I had no sleep in a week or however long it's been, I don't know.

But it's just – it's getting to the point of – it's not idiocracy. It's just – it's beyond ludicrous. Well, it's funny. Like, I was talking with some friends, and they were like, well, do you really think this next four years of Trump is going to be worse? I mean, it's just going to be the same thing.

I'm like, no, it's going to be a thousand times worse. We're 10 days into January. He's not even president yet. He's not even president yet, and we're fucking starting wars for Greenland. We're going to annex Canada. We're renaming the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America.

What the fuck? I'm not going to be able to do this four years. I'm just not. On the final episode of Grumpy Old Geeks where Brian just says, fuck it, I'm going to go plant a watermelon. I'm along for the ride.

I just want to see what happens at this point. But I was getting – the other thing about social media right now is because of the fire, you know, when the fires break out, just the idiocy on social media is beyond belief. I don't know if you went on X at all when the fires broke out, but Jesus fucking Christ.

I didn't have to. People are sending me videos that people put on X, and I'm just like – I'm like – I had to stop myself. I had to explain one video and a couple other videos to people, and I'm like – I stopped. I'm like – we're back to that point.

Remember when the internet first just started and your parents got on and they started sending you emails about every stupid thing that you've ever seen on the planet? We're back to that, except it's – except it's the other – it's the normal people who – And it's politically weaponized.

That's the thing. It's just like nobody fucking thinks anymore. It's not about Sasquatches and the Loch Ness Monster being real anymore. Now it's about fucking Gavin Newsom is the devil who caused all the fires. Yeah. That's fucking insane. Like I don't like Gavin Newsom, but he didn't cause the damn fires.

Exactly. I mean I am not a fan of the guy, but he didn't come down here with a fucking wind machine and a lighter and say, here you go, L.A. Fuck you. L.A. burned before he was here. L.A. will burn after he was here. L.A. burned when Reagan was in charge.

Exactly. The only thing that's going to change how L.A. is going to burn are like the fucking local municipalities who do the right thing. And I'm not even going to get into it. But anyway. Moving on. Stop. Stop. Stop. Stop. Stop me.

Stop me. Shitty tech news. Let's go back to that. Shitty tech news. OK. OK. Let's talk about Texas again because let's – guess who moved to Texas? Elon and Tesla. Well, the feds are investigating Tesla's actual smart summing feature. Let me guess.

It doesn't do what it says? No, it doesn't actually do what it says. Shocking for that company. I hope they put out a car call and just call it the flying car at this point. Fuck it. Go for it, Elon. Just call it the flying car. Actually flying car.

Look at it fly. Woo. If you go over a bump, it flies for a second. If you go from a bump really fast. We're going to call it the – what did they call the fucking car in the Dukes of Hazzard? God damn it. The General Lee.

There we go. The General Lee by Tesla. The flying car. I've seen many General Lee Cybertrucks already. I don't know if you have. Yeah. Yep. Shocking. He's painted – yeah, big surprise on that one. No, I just saw the painted completely gold one. Did you see the picture of those two of that?

I've seen – I've actually seen one of those in person. Dude, the customizations that are going on with the Cybertrucks around Southern California is insane. It's like how can I be an even bigger douche than just having one? Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah.

Well, it turns out they've only made 27,000 of the things and they're slowing production down because nobody else wants them. Yeah. Sold out to all the douches. Done. Yeah. I was watching a video this morning of a Cybertruck in Canada who couldn't get out of a parking spot because there was like an inch and a half of snow on the ground.

Yep. That was great. So anyway, the feds are investigating actual smart summon. So – because yeah, there was a crash and – Something didn't smartly summon? It's called actual smart summon and it's a Tesla. We know it's actually not smart summon.

Because yeah, just like actual fully self-driving is not. Mm-hmm. So – and now OpenAI is on the warpath because they've cut off a developer who built a device using ChatGPT to aim and fire an automated rifle. That's right.

I watched the video and it was fucking terrifying. Wasn't it though? Yep. Wasn't it terrifying? But did you watch it all the way to the end? I did. Did you watch the guy sitting on top of the gun? Yes, I did. Did you not get a chuckle out of that?

Kind of. Yeah. I've – you see, I've never seen Dr. Strangelove, but I've seen the one picture of him riding the nuclear bomb. That's all I could think of was watching this guy on his mechanical bull of a fucking automatic weapon controlled by generative AI.

That still was my Facebook profile background picture for a long time about, oh, I don't know, the first four years that Trump was in office and I feel like I need to bring it back. Well, I think – well, I think we have a new one. I think we have a replacement now. That's true. Yeah. A little bit more AI news.

Getty Images and Shutterstock announced plans to merge, forming a $3.7 billion stock image giant designed to thrive in the AI era. So they're trying to merge so they can wait for it, sell all the images that everybody else took to AI training companies, thus defeating the purpose of having a stock image company to begin with.

They just need a tagline like, look, we've got five fingers. Yeah, that's it. And, you know, this is such an antitrust violation. It's beyond belief, but you know it's going to go through. Of course it's going to go through.

Of course it is. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, anybody that lives on – and stock photography anymore is just like – it's a dead industry anyway. That's why they're trying to squeeze the last lifeblood out of it that they can get. That's it. That's all there is to it because generative AI is already good enough for 99% of the things, and then your phone is good enough for the rest.

So what are you going to do? Yep. Well, you can use AI to go shopping, Brian. Mm-hmm. Yes, AI chatbots played a major role in driving online sales during the 2024 holiday season, according to Salesforce. Uh-huh. Yeah. U.S. e-commerce sales grew nearly 4% year-over-year, reaching $282 billion between November 1st and December 31st.

Global AI-influenced sales climbed to $229 billion, up from $199 billion in 2023. Now, shoppers used AI-based chatbot services 42% more than last year, as retailers leveraged these tools alongside targeted promotions and loyalty programs.

Mobile devices were the go-to for last-minute purchases, with 79% of orders placed via smartphones. They said, hey, chat GPT, I'm fucked. Order something for my wife. However, high return rates, 28% compared to 20% in 2023, raised concerns about profit margins.

Salesforce's Kalia Swartz noted that AI tools will be critical in minimizing losses and reconnecting with customers in 2025. Critical in minimizing losses that they created. Created, yes. Hmm. Yeah. Yeah. I love that. It's like, hey, boss, we lose a dollar on every unit we sell.

Yeah, Joe, but we're going to make it up in volume. That's how it's going to go. There you go.

Saturday, September 26th, two of combat sports' most dangerous strikers collide. Bare Knuckle. Liverpool's own Darren the Gorilla Till goes to war with Cuban powerhouse Yoel Soldier of God Romero. Plus, the Bare Knuckle Middleweight Championship of the World is on the line.

When the reigning champ Dave the Redneck Mundell defends against undefeated British challenger Jack the Meek Cleaver Cullen. BKFC 94. Till vs. Romero. Watch it live only on DAZN. Sign up now at DAZN.com. Media Candy.

Brian, over the break, Silo has been going strong. Are you caught up with the penultimate episode? I am all caught up. I'm ready for next week's season finale. Good show. Consistently good. Yeah, I think I have to watch last night's again because I was in a sleep-deprived daze and it seemed like it was a little discombobulated to me.

Or maybe just the acting of the children was bad. I don't know what it was, but it didn't quite land. It throws you for a bit of a loop because it's a whole new element that wasn't there before. You thought you knew all the pieces on the chessboard and then there all of a sudden were some new pieces. Yeah, pieces I could have done without.

Right. Fleshed out more in the book. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. It was rushed. I think it was definitely rushed. They could have evened that out a little bit more throughout the season, I think. But anyway, still a good show. Rebecca Ferguson is on TV, so I'm a happy man. Me too. Yep.

Traders UK is in full swing. Episode 5 was yesterday. Episode 6 is today. Episode 7, 8, 9, 10. I don't know how many. I've lost count at this point, but it's a solid season so far. I'm really digging it. So if you're in the UK, I hope you're enjoying it.

And if you're anywhere else, Sweden is an option. Just saying. Dexter Original Sin. I've been watching that over the break. I love it. Really? I love it. I think it's great. It has all the feels of the original Dexter because it basically is the original Dexter with a new cast.

You still get the voiceover from Hall. What's his name? Yeah. I keep wanting to call him Anthony Michael Hall. I'm like, no, that's not it. No. Wrong dude. Wrong dude. Michael C. Hall. That's it. He can't be in the balls, Jack. But I can't deny it.

I love seeing Christian Slater on screen again. You know? I feel like he's one of my bros. So all in all, in the cast is great. I think it's a good show. It's got the same amount of cheese as the original that I forgot was there. You know? You go back and watch the original. It's like, it wasn't that good of a show to begin with.

It was kind of funny. It was funny. It was cheesy. It was weird. Yeah. But it was good, you know? Not great. But, I mean, all those elements together just, and it was such an original concept. That's what, and the opening sequence of the original Dexter still goes down as one of my favorite opening sequences of any show of all time.

Yeah. They do a really good job recreating it for the new one, too. That's cool. It's good. It's good. I think, you got to check it out. I think, as an OG Dexter fan, I think you'll like it a lot. Excellent. I'll have to do it. I still never watched the reboot thing with the original Hall.

You don't have to. Good. Okay. I'll skip that. This one starts where that one ends, and so there's a little bit of crossover there. It's all you actually need from that miniseries that they put out, which I will not watch. It was not good.

Well, over the break, Shrinking aired their final episodes of season two, and still love the show. Got a lot of feels out of it, but I think one more season should be it for them. Okay. Good. Yeah. Good. Still good, though. And then I was kind of scrolling about on Netflix, and there's a show I completely forgot about that I loved, which is Sex Education, which has Gillian Anderson.

I watched all of the first three seasons religiously. I knew a fourth season came out a while back, and then promptly, completely, utterly forgot about it. So I've got that queued up to watch when things like Silo and all the other shows that we're watching right now end, and we're in a bit of a desert.

So I'm looking forward to that. Another show. Is this the final season? Yes, the fourth and final. It ended. Okay. So it ended a while back, and I just never went back to go see the fourth season. Okay. Let me know how they land the plane on that one. I will do so. And then I also was taking in your advice.

You said I should go watch The Vampire Diaries, which is on Netflix for a little period of time. And then I zigged instead, and instead of zagging, Jason, rather than watching the Anne Rice Vampire Chronicles series, I saw, ran into the Mayfair Witches Anne Rice series, which stars Alexander Daddario, and that was all I needed to make me watch that one first.

I watched the first episode, and it was very good. I did not like the first episode. I put it, I unfollowed after that. It's all set up, and I read the book, so I know what's coming. That helps. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Which is surprisingly why I can't finish watching Interview with a Vampire, the next, I can't continue watching them anymore, because I've read the books, and I've kind of read the books, and I've seen the shows, and I've read the comics, and I know the story so well that I just, I don't care to watch it again.

That's the problem. It's extraordinarily well done. I love how well done it is. I just don't care. Right. That's the problem. And over the break, I watched Kunk on Life. Now, I reviewed Kunk on Earth a while back. It's a fake documentary, a mockumentary.

Very funny. Kunk on Earth was split into five episodes, bite-sized chunks, which was perfect for the format. Kunk on Life is a movie. It is one hour and 11 minutes long, and it's way too much in one chunk. It becomes less funny because it just keeps going on, and you don't get a break from it.

That's what you said about the first series. You're like, don't watch these back-to-back because it doesn't work. Yeah. So, inexplicably, they decided to put it into a movie instead of a couple different episodes with this one. So, if you're going to watch Kunk on Life, and I recommend you do so, I would watch it in like 20-minute chunks.

Watch about 20 minutes. Take a break. Take a break. Come back to it in a week. Watch another 20 minutes. You know what's interesting? The big news about Netflix right now, too, is that there are internal documents that have been leaked about how they're trying to make their producers of the shows that they buy dumb down the shows because people are spending so much time watching while they're on their phones.

Yeah. And it's getting all this backlash, and I'm just like, well, what the fuck did you think was going to happen? Yeah. I mean- You've got to cater to the common denominator. You can't go highbrow. You're not going to make any money that way. Yeah. It's, I mean, I don't know if you've noticed it. I've definitely noticed it.

It's like, it's the stuff that comes out is just god-awful. Yeah. But it's getting dumber and dumber. Yeah. And it's by mandate. That's the really annoying part. It's like, they want it to be that dumb. Like, oh, that sucks. It's by design. Yeah.

It is by design. And I've got some completely sober on a plane movie reviews. I watched one movie going out and one movie coming back. Tetris. I finally got around to watching. That was not dumbed down, Jason. That was very good. Okay.

I watched the first, like, 10 minutes of it and couldn't get hooked. But, because I know the story, but- Yeah. It's really well done. I highly recommend watching it. And I was kind of desperate. There wasn't a lot of options. And I saw a movie called Please Don't Destroy, The Treasure of Foggy Mountain.

And apparently this was made by a couple current Saturday Night Live cast members. And it's supposed to try to be a throwback to the irreverent 80s movies that we grew up on, Jason. I was going to say, does this have anything to do with, like, Return to Witch Mountain or something like that?

It's an attempt to be silly and weird. And it kind of fails miserably. Okay. It has moments that were genuinely funny, but the entire movie as a whole is dumb as fuck. They must have got the mandate from Netflix.

Should have been on Netflix instead of Apple TV, apparently. I was going to say, how'd they end up on Apple? They usually have better filters. Although Severance is coming back, so it's getting shoved down your throat. Oh, my God. I can't watch anything without seeing an image of that guy from Severance.

And I'm just like, I tried to watch it. I don't like it. Leave me alone. You are the red hot chili peppers of TV for me. Kind of, yeah. I watched the whole thing and I still don't want to watch it in the second season. But it's like, it immediately, right after Silo ended, it's just like, boom, right into it.

And I'm just like, no, no, stop. Go away. Now, Brian, there's been a lot of backlash to DoorDash and Uber Eats and Grubhub and all of these, you know, delivery apps from restaurants.

Yep. And how they screw the consumer and the restaurant. And yeah, everybody gets screwed. And I was really disheartened when my beloved Paquito Mas moved from DoorDash to Uber Eats. God, I miss Paquito Mas. Oh, I do too. I do too. Because I stopped ordering from them because they moved to Uber Eats, which raised my bill, which was already exorbitant getting it from DoorDash, by another $7 for no reason whatsoever.

For a burrito. Yeah. A burrito and a tostada salad and some horchata and some salsa and some extra chips and some guac and some pico. Okay. You need to shut the fuck up right now because I can't have that anytime soon.

I know what I'm having for lunch. Fuck you. Oh, well. Enjoy your $87 taco. I'm going to go pick it up on my way home. So they partnered with a company called Chow Now, which is 100% commission free, no hidden fees.

And it is software as a service for restaurants. Basically, the restaurant sources everything. It goes straight to their POS system. I think they handle the delivery drivers. And here's the funny part. I went and I looked at an order. How much? Because they still have the option to order with Uber Eats.

So I could go side by side and look at the menu price difference. Right. It was a $5 difference for a side of chips. Right. I was like, what? It's like $1.99 if you get it through the official Paquito Moss app, which is also the upside, is now they have their own dedicated app, which makes it so much easier.

I just press the app button when I feel like Mexican now. I just really hope that this company becomes a thing and other restaurants go with it and then cut out the Ubers altogether. It would be nice. Yeah. I know my friend who was driving for Uber Eats has already quit.

She's just like, there's no money anymore. It's a mess because all the subsidies have changed and then the laws in California changed and all this other stuff. And it's just like, she's just like, she went and got a job at Target, literally. So it's what you got to do nowadays. But I'm really happy that they checked it out.

So if you know friends with a restaurant who are sick of DoorDash or Uber Eats and paying fealty to those fuckers, have them check out Chow Now. The link is in the show notes. We get nothing out of that just except a smile on our face. No, it's more Pakito Moss. Yeah, cheaper Pakito Moss.

Now, Apple has promised their new software update will address Apple Intelligence Notification Summary Complaints. You know the best way to do that? Get rid of it. Turn it off. Exactly. Set it to zero. Yes. So yeah, they say it's there.

It's on 18.3. I just got the 18.3 beta last night. So I have not had a chance to try it. But at least they recognize the fact that it sucks. That is a step in the right direction. Step number one, yes. Yes. Yes.

So we're very happy about that, Apple. Thank you for doing the right thing. Well, boop, boop, boop, boop. TiVo is back, baby. Sort of. I love TiVo. I miss TiVo, too. It was the best thing ever. Mike Spiri, the owner of the TiVo brand as of 2019. I wonder if they're also going to pick up Radio Shack while they're at it.

Announced at CES 2025 that TiVo OS will be available in the U.S. for the first time on Sharp TVs. The storied TV brand was last seen stateside as the TiVo Stream 4K, a $50 streaming dongle. Now, this is not, of course, the TiVo of old. I don't entirely understand what exactly it is.

It's aggregating content from streaming services, linear TV channels, and sports packages. It gives users access to a vast library of free and paid content. So basically, it's the same shit you can get anywhere else. So it sounds like Roku to me. Yeah, kind of. So I think they're trying to do that. And they're banking on the fact that TiVo is a known brand for people that are old.

Yeah. It was great. I mean, but you want a box with a hard drive in it. That's what makes TiVo TiVo. That's what made it great. We could record everything and then watch it whenever we wanted to and then fast forward to through the commercials. And nobody did that at the time.

And it made the nice noises. Yeah. And it was fast. We all remember that. It was fucking fast. Yeah, I know. It was satisfying. Using your TiVo was just fucking satisfying. It was. It really was. But will I be using an OS on a dongle? No, I will not.

And I will not be buying a Sharp TV. I didn't even know Sharp still made TVs. Out of all the TV brands that I've seen that are everywhere that I look, Sharp is never on the list. So. Nope. No. And I want to announce, Jason, that I have officially rejoined the cult of Nintendo.

Yes. The last time I ever played a game, it was one of the original Mario Brothers games where they were running around and hitting things for coins. Um, I, my God, my son, we, he got him, um, Nintendo switch for Christmas and, uh, we immediately went and purchased super Mario bros wonder, which is basically an update of the original version.

And I love fucking playing it. It's a lot of fun. Well, uh, yeah. So here you and Nintendo hardware is like me and Apple hardware. As soon as you buy it, the next one's going to come out. Cause the switch two is going to be here soon. Yeah. They've been saying that. And we were like, do we hold off? But like all of his friends have one, so whatever, it's fine.

Yeah. He doesn't need the latest and greatest. He's fucking eight years old. He can enjoy switch one for a couple of years. My parents only got me the switch one. They hate me. I didn't get an Atari 2600 right away. I got an Odyssey 2600.

Nobody even knows what that is. Oh, I know what that is. That was actually, uh, that was kind of coveted amongst the, some of the gamers in, in my neck. Well, it was the beta to the VHS. It was probably better, but none of the games were on it. That's exactly it. It had a better, didn't it have the little bubble console with like the little eight things that you could press and a little joystick at the top.

I kind of remember that. Yeah. It's been a long time. So yeah, they would wear out and people didn't know. Yeah. No, only the rich kids in the neighborhood had those. We were not rich, but that's what I had. I'm sure my dad got a deal somewhere. Yeah. Probably got to hand me down. Probably. Oh, well, congratulations.

Congratulations on becoming a gamer, Brian. One game. That's all it takes. It's a gateway. Saturday, September 26th. Two of combat sports' most dangerous strikers collide.

Bare Knuckle. Liverpool's own Darren the Gorilla Till goes to war with Cuban powerhouse Yoel Soldier of God, Romero. Plus, the Bare Knuckle Middleweight Championship of the World is on the line when the reigning champ Dave the Redneck Mundell defends against undefeated British challenger Jack the Meat Cleaver Colon, BKFC 94, Till vs. Romero.

Watch it live only on DAZN. Sign up now at DAZN.com. Helen wrote in and said, hey, guys, I want to get into reading e-books.

What device should I use slash buy? Thanks. Love your show. Well, it kind of depends on what you like reading on. If you don't mind having like a full on device. I personally use the Kindle app on my iPad and it's great. A lot of people swear by Kindles because it's just black and white and you can't get distracted.

So it depends on the kind of reader you are. If you can read without switching over to your social media streams every five minutes like I can, then I love using the Kindle app on my iPad. Yeah. And if you want an actual device. And that reminds me, by the way, you were supposed to buy one of my Kindles while you were here in town.

Damn it. And you didn't. I had the thing sitting. I charged it up even. Damn. Damn you. Well, summer's coming, Jason. We'll see. We'll see. It'll be. It's probably going to be a molten pile of plastic by then. Should have got it while they're getting. It's good. Make sure you take a picture of it so you can claim it on insurance.

Oh, wait. No fire insurance anymore. Yeah. Well, I have renter's insurance. So I'm set. Yeah. I like them both. Honestly, I just find the Kindle a little too slow to change pages. And that's just me. I don't know. Because when you've got several hundred books in your library, trying to find something is painfully slow.

I don't know how the... I've got the two Kindle paper whites, the same ones. That's why I'm selling you one of them. And they're great little devices. They're perfect size. They're kind of the same size as an iPad mini. And I think it's great when you, you know, just want to do that. But I generally stick to the Kindle app.

Yeah. Because it syncs between all three. It depends on which device is closest to the crapper that I grab. So it's nice to have them all in sync. But I end up using my iPad mini the most. I think that's the one I use the most. Because it's the most comfortable to read on for the size. Personally.

So iPad mini. Yep. Finished 3 Ezekiel by Peter Cauldron. Great book. Right. Great book. Yep. Yeah. It was really satisfying. Surprisingly satisfying ending. They're short and sweet. I think we have to invent a new category for these books, Jason.

Elevated shitter sci-fi. Yeah. That's it. I don't know. I just think they're good sci-fi. I didn't even think they were. I just happened to read on the shitter. But that's the only time I have to myself. Somebody on Discord asked if it started off that way. And it did. I was just looking for like a quick, easy, crappy sci-fi book.

And the first book I read was that way. But I agree with you, Jason. It's not shitter sci-fi. It's good sci-fi. I know. Yeah. Somebody else on our Discord said no. But, you know, screw you. You're wrong. Well, yeah. So last year, I did some daily readers.

You know, those, you know, one page a day books. I read The Daily Pressfield by Steven Pressfield, which is a good book on writing. I read The Calendar of Wisdom, Daily Thoughts to Nourish the Soul by Leo Tolstoy. The Daily Laws, 366 Meditations on Power, Seduction, Mastery, Strategy, and Human Nature by Robert Greene.

And The Daily Stoic, 366 Meditations on Wisdom, Perseverance, and the Art of Living by Ryan Holiday. Wasn't it a leap year last year? Yes, it was. That's why there's 366. It works out really well. Yeah, makes sense now. Yeah, some of these people really kind of hit it. Now, this year, this one did not hit the mark.

365 DAO Daily Meditations. Yeah, I'm going to be shortchanged today. I have to read one twice. Yes, but it's more of, no, it's not another leap here. It's not. No, actually, yeah, that's right. So the Daily Drucker is the one that's wrong. Yeah, the Daily Drucker, 366 days of insight and motivation for getting the right things done by Peter F. Drucker.

Well, he didn't get the right thing done there, did he? No, he didn't. Good thing he's dead or I'd file a complaint. Around the Year with Emmett Fox, a book of daily readings by, guess it, Emmett Fox. And the Maxwell Daily Reader, 365 days of insight to develop the leader within you and influence those around you by John C. Maxwell.

Those are the daily readers that I got for this year because I like to balance it with, you know, some spiritual stuff, some practical stuff, and some stuff that I just don't like. Now, I have to ask a question here, Jason. Are these digital or do you have, like, these just, like, 365-page small stacks of paper all around your desk right now?

Kindle. Kindle on the – Kindle app all the way. There you go. I'd rather see it physical. I just want to see them all lined up on your desk. That would be great. Yeah. That would be great. I actually bought my dad a physical copy of the Daily Stoic because he's read that, like, for five years in a row.

I got him a nice leather-bound version of that one. So he has that one. Okay. But, yeah, the Daily Readers, no. I thought about it, honestly. But, like, no. Never – in case there was a COVID panic, you wouldn't run out of toilet paper. That's true. That's true. But, yeah, this – I don't know if I'm as big a fan of this crew as last year.

All the ones – all four of those books that I read last year were phenomenal. Right. These – the Daily Drucker makes me mad, which is kind of the purpose of it. Emmett Fox is a little too Jesus-y, but maybe – I don't know.

We'll see how that goes. He's kind of one of the spiritual leaders that are big in recovery programs, so I thought I'd give him a shot. I'd never heard of John C. Maxwell. He is the most balanced of the business leaders and has actually got some really good things to say. So I'm liking that one the most.

And the 365 Tao daily meditations, those are good. They're decent. So I may – if anybody has any recommendations on daily readers, hit me up. I can always catch up. I think I got the daily press field in April last year and caught up with that one.

And that was a really good one. I'm also reading the book The Elements of Humor, The Tools of Comedy That Make You Funnier, Happier, and Better Looking by Scott Dickers. It's his new book. That's just an actual book that I'm reading. And so far, so good. I like Scott Dickers' books. So, yeah, that's where I'm at on the daily reading and the book stuff.

You have something in here that I also started, but I'll let you take this one away, Brian. I have not started or read it yet. I just wanted to point out that as of January 7th, we have the latest book in The Laundry Files by Charlie Strauss, A Conventional Boy, A Laundry Files Novel, number 13.

And, of course, it does not go back to my favorite characters because he said he was done with them. So I don't know if I'll read it or not. Didn't read the last one either. We'll see. So far, I'm halfway through it. I don't know if I'm going to finish it. Right. The problem with this one is the main character and basically the entire book, as far as I can tell, is based around Dungeons & Dragons.

I never played Dungeons & Dragons. I never wanted to play Dungeons & Dragons. I liked hanging out with my friends who played Dungeons & Dragons because there were a certain type of people that I really got along with. But for me, I just never got into the game. So there's a lot of in-jokes and things with Dungeons & Dragons in this one.

Yes, it also does not sound like something for me, unfortunately. I did love the first 10 books. I even liked the last one. I had no problem with the last one. I quite enjoyed the last one. This one is so heavily steeped into D&D, which, if you're a fan of The Laundry Files, tracks.

Because that's what the whole premise is about, how mathematics and, you know, all that shit kind of ties in. Yes, math. Yeah, how it all works together. So it's a perfect match. I'm going to try and see if I can get through it. Because it's got a glimmer of hope. But if I can get past the D&D shit.

I did put in an interesting chronology of The Laundry Files from Charlie, which I thought was interesting because The Laundry Files, the name was not something he chose. Right. And he even says that it's like, it's not really kind of a series.

It's like, calling it The Laundry Files is kind of like calling Terry Pratchett's Discworld books the Unseen University series. Right. So that kind of explains why it's like, you know, you and I are really good fans of the original books with Bob and that whole cast. And then it just, he moves into something else.

So it's like, you know, okay, I really like the Nightwatch books. And then it moves over into The Witches. Yes. So Terry Pratchett did it better. I was about to say, it would be if Terry Pratchett wrote the first 25 books about Unseen University and then all of a sudden switched. Yeah. Yeah. True. Good point.

Good point. I'm just saying. The Dark Side. Ha! With Dave. Welcome to The Dark Side with Dave. Podcast superhost Dave Bittner decodes all things cyber on the Cyber Wire every day.

Exposes deception with Joe Kerrigan on hacking humans. Dives deep into privacy with Ben Yellen on Caveat, breaks down industrial cybersecurity on Control Loop, and even brings the chuckles on only malware in the building. Hi, Dave. Hello. Howdy-doo. I'm okay.

That's good. I'm okay. 2025, treating you well so far? Well, that's exactly it now, isn't it? It's been a gloomy week. We got snow on Monday, a significant amount for us, about eight inches or so.

And so now we're, and it's been cold all week, so there's really been no melting. So now we're in the crusty, crunchy, icy phase of the snow where it's no longer- We call that Toronto. It's no longer fun to look at. It's just a nuisance. And so it's been very cold and gray skies and all that kind of stuff.

So it's been hard to have positive spirits and attitude. And of course, I'm concerned about you, Jason, and all my friends out in California who are dealing with this fire situation. So it's just been kind of a somber week.

Yep. Yep. We're going to take over Greenland and Canada. Woo-hoo! Well, we got that going for us. Yeah. See, Brian, you can run, but you can't hide. Oh, good times. Yeah, yeah. Well, why don't we start off by doing what we do best, which is talk about Star Wars.

So are we keeping up on Skeleton Crew? Because I am. I have. I've ditched the attempt to get my son to watch it. He didn't seem too interested, so I might come back to that again later. Okay. As you may recall, I was a bit lukewarm on the series.

Let me tell you what helped. I spent three days at Disneyland over the break, and I wandered around the Star Wars land. And that rekindled my love of just how cheesy and silly Star Wars can and should be, and went back to the show with renewed vigor.

And I'm just relaxing and enjoying it. Yeah, me too. And it's definitely gotten better. Like, now that the plot has picked up a bit, we kind of know what's going on. There's a bit more action. Right. And we kind of know what the main thrust of the show is now.

I'm thoroughly enjoying it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. One episode left. So we'll see how they wrap it up. But I, too, am enjoying it. Jason, have you kept up at all? I have not watched anything except the first 10 minutes of episode one. Okay. Fair enough.

Well, you can look forward to it. It's not like you're busy right now doing anything else. You can spare one of your screens from the Fire app. Silo, the traitors. And I didn't even mention Beast Games in Media Candy. I can't believe I didn't mention Beast Games.

Oh, my God. That is the greatest show on TV right now. What am I thinking? Oh, Beast Games. You've got to watch that. No. Oh, God. It is legit fun. It really is good. Highly recommended. So one of the things I've been thinking about that I think contributes to my enjoyment of Skeleton Crew is that it has so little Star Wars universe baggage attached to it, right?

So there aren't points along the way where I find myself going, well, that's not how a lightsaber works or, you know, well, that doesn't match up with this or that. I can be free to just enjoy this little world that is its own little thing and it's connected to all these things I love and there's all these little things that rhyme and relate.

Well, it's kind of like how the Mandalorian began before they started to connect it to the wider lore everywhere. Right. Well, that's why I like Andor. Andor's the same. Yeah. It also reminds me that I think one of the most powerful things that the Lucasfilm folks have is the sound effects library.

Oh, so good. Right? Because like when the kids jump on their little speeder bike scooters and they make sounds that are just close enough to the speeder bikes in Return of the Jedi, it's like hardwired into my brain to go, all right, well, I'm on board.

Like, that's all I need. Yeah. There's no rational thought. It just connects me to that universe. Well, as a continuation of that, I would also say they've been masterful at finding composers and doing the scores. I mean, obviously, you're starting with John Williams and you can't get any higher than that.

But everybody that they've gotten for every one of the shows has just been fantastic. Yeah. I say I had to warm up to The Mandalorian. Yeah. Because that was such a significant departure. I agree. But I did. I did. I did not like it at first, but it grew on me and I eventually liked it.

What do you think, Jason? As far as the sound effects go, which show had the Vespa gang in it? Was that the book of Bobo? That was Mando. Wasn't that Mandalorian season three had the Vespa gang? I believe so. That's what I can't remember. Yeah. I think that might have been. Wherever the Vespa gang was, the sound effects could not save that by any stretch.

No, that was just a bit too silly. Nobody has said that mistakes haven't been made. Okay. Just just making sure, making sure. I'm like, it goes a long way, but there's a limit, is all I'm saying. Yeah.

And this crab creature evidently was stop motion animated by Phil Tippett, who did the walkers and lots of other stop motion stuff. So that's a sign they can call back on that. Yeah, that was really cool.

And I thought they look great. I did read a report saying that from everybody that did the stop motion animation on it, they said it was such a fucking bastard because it's covered in spikes and everybody kept hurting themselves doing it. Oh, yeah. I think they named the creature tetanus because they were all worried they were going to get poked with rusty pieces.

I'm sorry. If you're doing stop motion animation nowadays and you have a job, that should be called deliverance. Come on. You can't complain if you've got a job doing stop motion animation nowadays. Which reminds me, have you guys seen the new Wallace and Gromit movie?

I have not. I was a big Wallace and Gromit fan and I've got to get around to seeing it. I've heard it's quite good. It is quite good. I mean, it's more of the same. And the conversation I had with my son, Jack, about it after we watched it was, it was very fun, funny in all the ways that Wallace and Gromit are.

We wonder, though, if Wallace and Gromit are best suited to shorts rather than feature length. Kind of like kunk. Yes, exactly. Yeah. Because this is feature length and, you know, it works, but.

It's a lot of the same. Wallace and Gromit are traditionally so tight, like they're so dense with the number of jokes, right? Just nonstop gags. And that's hard to sustain for an hour and a half. And I mean, they do a great job with it, but it's so definitely worth seeing.

I recommend it. But it wasn't like, I guess part of it also is that the original three Wallace and Gromit shorts felt like each one just kept getting better and better and better and funnier. And this one is quite good and definitely worth seeing.

But I didn't feel as though they topped themselves or made any new ground or anything like that. But all that said, it's definitely worth your time. And if you're a Wallace and Gromit fan, you won't be disappointed. It's pretty fun.

Well, in a little bit more Star Wars news, Ahsoka unfortunately lost Ray Stevenson last year and they finally found a replacement. And it looks like it's going to be Rory McCann from Game of Thrones. I can see that. I can totally see that. And I'm down with that. Both giant actor human men that I quite enjoyed on screen.

Listen, as a child in syndication, I survived the switches of Darren and Bewitched. I can handle it. True. Yes. Right. She had two dicks, Dick Sargent and Dick York. They should have named one of the characters Sergeant York.

It would have been great. Anyways, yes. I think this is pretty good recasting. Yeah. It works for me. All right. We'll get that probably sometime in 2037. If we're still here. If we're still here. Right.

But yeah. So one more thing before we wrap up with Skeleton Crew. That's another thing we were talking about is like I haven't heard any announcements of there being another season. Presumably the show is a hit. It seems like it's being well-reviewed. Not if you go on X.

Oh, really? It's more of that woke bullshit. People are tired of it. Worst ratings ever, according to people on X. I see. Meanwhile, back in the real world, one of the issues, though, and I think this is the same thing that Stranger Things ran into, is when you- Kids grow up.

Right. And when you do a season every four or five years, you know, it's- You miss out on the chances for these kids, and that could happen with Skeleton Crew. I think we're going to get a good idea on the season finale. Like, if they wrap it up pretty concisely, I think we're going to know that's that.

And I don't recall, like, this is just me, like, fucking, like, there's a couple neurons firing in the back of my brain right now going, this was only ever going to be a limited series. It was never going to be an ongoing thing. But I couldn't be wrong about that. Well, I'm fine with that.

You know, I'd say I'm quite pleased. Yeah, I mean, just, it's not safe to get attached to anything after the Acolyte, you know? Yeah, true. That was a hit. Everybody loved that. And they just said, nah, we're not going to do that anymore. Too expensive.

Yeah. Yeah, just ask Wile E. Coyote and the Roadrunner. Oh, my gosh. Yeah. There's no safety anywhere. Well, I put this in here because this is just kind of unfortunately near and dear to this segment. Siri unintentionally recorded private conversations, and Apple agrees to pay $95 million.

And still, can't my fucking phone is turning on when I said the name of the thing. Yeah, this is a zombie story, right? This is the initial, the original zombie story. Like, it won't go away. Yeah. It's dead, and it won't go away.

Well, $95 million is going to make it go away, it seems. So, yeah. I mean, they're saying that they never really used it for any shopping, like, integration or anything like that. It was just sometimes recording people. But I think that they're sick of it, too.

And they're like, okay, we'll give you $95 million if you'll just shut up. Right, yeah, right. And $95 million for Apple is literally like a penny I found in my pocket from 1972. Right. Yeah. It's about seven seconds worth of revenue. Right.

And the waiting area for Tim Cook's office in the couch cushions, they're $95 million. The thing that annoys me about this is right after this settlement was announced, I saw endless people on social media who should know better saying that this was proof.

Proof, I tell you, that our phones are listening to us. That Apple wouldn't settle if this weren't the truth and blah, blah, blah, blah. And it's not – I mean, again, reiterate, there has been no research that has shown that our phones are listening to us.

There's none, no legitimate research. No, and what Apple is saying here is that they occasionally recorded things unintentionally because Siri has to be listening. And they sent it for their own kind of – tech support is not the right word for it – quality control, I guess.

Yes, quality control. And that's where things accidentally got recorded and sent along. But at no point did Apple ever sell anything to any ad network or anything like that. Yes. But that's what people are saying they're doing, and I'm just done with it.

Well, it's because it doesn't help that we had that shady advertising company that actually put it up on their website as something that they could do. Remember that? I can't remember the name of the company right now. The thing about that, that was so long after the whole original thing. We had already been put to bed. We had like three resuscitations of it at that point, and then there was just one company that did one thing, and then it just comes back.

And that was like – that wasn't that long. It was like eight months ago. Right. This has been going on since 2014. Right. And that company, it seemed like it was just BS. Like they were just kind of – Yeah, they totally walked it back. Bragging, yeah, but it wasn't an actual capability. So I asked ChatGPT on the math on how long it would take Apple to make $90 million, and it would take 130 minutes.

Oh, all right. Two hours and 10 minutes to make $95 million. Good gig if you can get it. Yeah. Roughly 0.09 days. Okay. Wow. Well, in other news, before I let you go, a couple of things I wanted to touch on here.

I'm taking another ham radio exam this weekend. How many of these are there? Who can you talk to now? There are three. Aliens? Yeah. Well, who's to say I don't talk to aliens every day already? All right. Fair. I mean there are drones flying all over the place here on the East Coast.

Oh, yeah. So there are three levels. There are currently three levels of amateur radio license in the United States. There's the technician, which is what I have. So Jason, there's the technician, which is what I have.

There's the general, which is what I'm getting. And then there's the extra, which who knows if I'll get that. So basically what this does is it opens up the world to me. Right now, I have the ability to talk to people probably within like a hundred mile radius of where I am. And if I pass this, I get frequencies opened up to me that allow me to talk to people all over the world.

One has to ask, are there ham police? Oh, yes. Oh, yes. Oh, yes. We can't get internet police, but we've got ham police. We've got ham police. Well, I mean, obviously there's the FCC, which is the ultimate ham police. Or is this more like community notes?

Yes. And the FCC are the ham police. And I don't know if you guys saw, there was a story this week where an amateur radio operator got fined, I think, $34,000 for... You're going to fined this shocking, Dave, but I don't have ham radio in my Google alerts. Well, this showed up in other places.

It actually showed up because this jackass was interfering with firefighters. Like last time there was a fire in California, he was on their frequencies trying to tell them where they needed to be. And the FCC was like...

And his name was Jason. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. Yeah. So, yes, mostly amateur radio is self-policed, but if it gets bad enough, they will gang up on you and report you to the FCC. Lena Kahn gets parachuted in. Yeah. Yep.

Yeah. No, it's just as geeky as you'd think it would be. I talked about fox hunts before where if you're a bad actor, they will take their directional antennas, rather, and they will find you. Right. So, yeah. So, I'm excited for that.

Wish me luck. Good luck. I'm currently, yeah, polling at about 95% on my practice tests. I think it feels like a pass to me. Yeah, I'm not anticipating any issues, but you never know. It's the roll of the dice, so the questions that you get on the exam, but after that.

It also means that the hobby is going to get much more expensive for me because the radio I need to buy. Yeah, exactly. But that's an opportunity to buy new toys. That's right. It's a mixed lesson. So, wish me luck. Two other things I wanted to touch on.

This snowstorm that we had here got me thinking nostalgically about sledding. Brian, I probably already know the answer to this question for you since we all knew where you grew up. But I'm curious, Jason, how much of your childhood was sledding a part of in snowstorms?

Huge. Huge part of my childhood. Remember, I was born in Pennsylvania. Right. So, we had hills and we had snow. Yeah. Yeah. Brian, none for you? Some. I mean, as you know from California, it's just an hour or two drive up into the mountains, Big Bear and all that.

The Matterhorn doesn't count. I did try to sled down the Matterhorn once. I was banned from Disneyland for three weeks. No, there was some sledding. We would go up maybe once every other year or so to Big Bear and kind of do that sort of thing. So, I did a bit of that.

It's more of my life now, obviously, as we have a park nearby. And if we get a good snow, I'd take the kid and I'd go down myself as well. The thing I'm remembering, Jason, is a big snowstorm would roll in, neighborhood would be pretty much shut down, and we would all gather up at whichever kid had the house nearest the best hill.

Yep. And sometimes those were roads, you know, a snowy, icy road on a steep hill. We would all gather up with our sleds. And most – certainly early on, mostly they were like flexible flyers, you know, the old big metal and wooden sleds with the steel runners.

Those are the best. Were they, though? Were they? No. No, but they were – here's the thing. We had two separate tracks at my grandfather's house because he had a giant hill in the back. Yeah. And that was the gathering spot for the whole neighborhood.

Right. So, there were multiple tracks. Some were for the toboggans, like, you know, the plastic and the plastic, just basic sheets that you had to unroll and you could never get to lay flat. Yes. Always go everywhere. That was just for the regular snow. That was for the noobs.

What the ice track, as we called it, was basically – my dad and other older folks in the neighborhood would take a 55-gallon drum, put a fire inside of it, and carry it up the hill to melt the snow to make a track basically made for death through the forest, through the forest, up to the top of the hill.

And then we would use those types of sleds to go down and try and not Sonny Bono our way out of it. Yes. So, it was adventurous and it was awesome. And we didn't have helmets back then. And you're going head first. We barely had shoes and gloves.

Yeah, it was probably head first. You're head first. You're running as fast as you can, leaping onto the sled as you head down the hill. I remember we built jumps for the sleds. Absolutely. Absolutely. And one of them, I remember, there was a jump.

And not far after the landing zone for the jump, you had to make the tightest right turn possible on the sled or else you would go head first into a chain link fence. And this was just fun. And we just, because the other thing too is that we'd go into the night, you know, and so when the sun went down and things iced up and we were all together, it was just a wonderful thing.

And I, like, those types of sleds are gone, you know. Really? Well, I don't see kids. I have a couple of them in my attic that are the ones from my childhood. But everything today are the plastic formed sort of toboggan type things.

Foam core toboggan. And also tubes. People will sit on the inflatable, like the donut inflatable things and go down hills with those. But it really isn't. It's generally frowned upon to have, like, sharp pointed metal on any objects flying around with a bunch of kids these days. Yeah. It's a bunch of soft kids.

Nobody ghost rides their bikes anymore. Everybody's a pussy. Very, yeah, very few stitches. Yeah. And, but the thing is, they're not really steerable the way that those were. Oh, no. No, you just go. Yeah. Because part of the fun, too. They had the bar that you could turn.

And, you know, you're supposed to sit with your feet on the bar and use that to kind of, you know, turn with your feet. Right. And I don't know anybody that did that. No. Because you're not, like, on a speeder bike then. No, no. No, you use your hands. Yeah, you use your hands. This was before Star Wars, man. Right.

Head first. Yeah, head first. And you use your hands and you lean and do that. And so, because, yeah, that's how you do it. Right. But, yeah. See, I don't know. We just have these things called slip and slides. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. So, the thing with the sleds, though.

Nobody tells the kids the first time that they use a slip and slide that it's not padded after they've broken their sternum. No. One of my neighbors broke her leg on a slip and slide. Yeah. That shit was dangerous, too, man. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Especially when you're throwing jarts at the same time. Kids these days, I tell you.

The flexible flyers, I remember we had, there were two versions of that that we had. We had a long one that was probably five feet long. And that's the one that you went down, like two people would go down together on.

So, if you were, if you had to bring your little brother with you, which I did sometimes, you know, you go down the hill with, and that's what you do. But then we had short ones that were the ones that were built for speed. And that's what we used on the tracks to jump and race.

And so, that's another thing that I think they've kind of lost. Because the current sleds aren't steerable, if you go down a long hill and you're racing each other, part of the racing was the demolition derby component of crashing into each other, of steering into each other, trying to run each other off of the path.

Basically trying to kill each other, you know, push each other off of your sleds, whatever it takes to win the race. So, we don't really have that so much anymore either. I'm, yes, I mean, it's safer and all that kind of stuff. But it seems like, you know.

A lost art. It is. It was just a different paradigm for sledding. And now it's the old thing, too, of, you know, our parents would just send us out into the wilderness and say, come home when the streetlights come on. And that was it. There was no supervision, yes. Right. As opposed to now where, like, there are more parents at the park than kids watching the kids sled.

So, yes. Right. Exactly. It's funny. I just put in a link to the old flexible flyer with the metal runners. You have to dig kind of deep on Amazon to find them, but they still have them. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. See, I have one of those. I have two of those in my attic that are probably from the 1940s.

And they look exactly like. Yeah. The design has not changed. No. No. I'm guessing the one I have in my attic probably weighs twice as much as the one that's on Amazon right now. Probably. Yeah. But I don't know why I'm hanging on to them. Maybe I'm hoping, like, somebody from a Bennegan's is going to reach out that they need to decorate the restaurant and they're going to need a sled to put on the wall, right?

All you can do is you can find a Klingon cosplayer who could, like, kind of deconstruct it into a bat lift and use it that way. It's got all the composite parts for it. Yeah. I haven't seen or thought about Bennegan's in, like, 30 years. I'm looking at their menu online right now.

It's good stuff. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Well, one thing I'm going to leave in the show notes for folks if they're interested. I can't remember if I ever shared my President Carter story here on the show, but I have an interesting story about President Carter who, of course, passed away recently.

I did cross paths with him when I was just a youngster, and I had the opportunity to tell that story at a local storytelling event, and somebody videotaped it, so it's on YouTube, and I think— Oh, cool. Yeah.

If you want to check it out, it is a fun story. It's another one of those different time, kind of had-to-be-there stories, so if you're interested in hearing how I crossed paths with the good President Carter, we'll have a link to that in the show notes. Yeah, it's a fun story.

I did listen to it, and Dave, I am going to subscribe right now to bring your subscriber count on YouTube up from two to three. Oh, thank you. You're welcome. You're welcome. So up by 33%. Those are good numbers. I'll take it.

All right. Well, Jason, stay safe, please. I'll do my best. Keep in touch. Let us know. Next week, this might be coming from the back of my Jeep, but there will be a show next week. All right. I have the technology. All right. Good enough. All right, guys. Thanks. I'll talk to you soon, hopefully.

Yep. Closing shout-outs. Over at Patreon, we've got Michael, Malty, Sweetness, and Am, or Am. Not sure how to go with that one. And we've got a nice big bump from Murray Jack and from the Laundry File legacies.

Dan, more cowbell, Philip, Kira, Asim, Nate, William, Seth, Stuart, and Martin. Thank you all so much for being Patreon subscribers. And just a reminder, you can sign up at Patreon for just $3 a month to get the show early, ad-free, and in high definition. And if you want to pay for the whole year in advance, you get a discount.

Woo! Yay. And over at PayPal, we've got donations from Joseph, Jens, David, Judge, Charlie, Florian, Jonathan, Levi, Ralph, Nicola, Thomas, and Simon. Thank you all so much. Over at the tip jar, we've got Ross, Eric, Slobodan, Adam, Matthew, Sarah, and Marcel with the big $30, and Michael J with the big $60.

Woo! Thank you, everybody. And some people who got some good merch this time, Jody, Chris, and Casey, who even sent us a picture of the hoodie. Woo-hoo! Looking good. That's over at shop.gog.show if you want to get some goodies. And someday, Brian, we'll make that Visibility Set to Zero shirt, and someday I'll make that shocking shirt.

I've got to get in there and figure out all the logins, and I'll get around to it. We've got a new five-star review. Happy New Year. Happy 2025. Wish you the best. That hasn't aged well. It does not at all. It does not at all. Until next time, I'm Brian Schulmeister.

Ten fucking days in. I want a refund. Mulligan. And I'm Jason DeFilippo. Thanks for listening to Grumpy Old Geeks. To get all the links and goodies from today's episode, go to gog.show.com. Want to keep the grumpiness alive? Toss us a few bucks our way at gog.show slash donate.

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Saturday, September 26th, two of combat sports' most dangerous strikers collide. Bare Knuckle. Liverpool's own Darren the Gorilla Till goes to war with Cuban powerhouse Yoel Soldier of God Romero.

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