687: Uncanny Spaceballs

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. Ran across a little something while I was looking for our stories for the show this week. I occasionally go over to Tech Dirt. Not terribly often, but now and then.

And they posted a brand new blog, Jason. You mean a blog post? Yes. Brian? Yes. A blog post. Just making sure. Why Tech Dirt is now a democracy blog, whether we'd like it or not. Okay. Do explain. While political reporters are still doing their view from nowhere, Democrats say this, Republicans say that, dance.

Tech and legal journalists have been watching an unfortunately recognizable plan unfold, a playbook we're all too familiar with. We've seen how technology can be wielded to consolidate power, how institutional guardrails can be circumvented through technical and legal workarounds, and how smoke and mirrors claims about innovation can mask old-fashioned power grabs.

It's a playbook we watched Musk perfect at Twitter, and now we're seeing it deployed on a national scale. Over the last few weeks, I've had a few people reach out about our coverage these days. Most have been very supportive of what we've been covering. In fact, people have been strongly encouraging us to keep it up. But a few ask questions regarding what Tech Dirt is focused on these days and how much we're leaning into covering politics.

Welcome to the party, guys. You're a bit late. Welcome to the party, pal. They just finally noticed. I mean, for the past 10 years, we've already been through this. So prepare for the blowback, Tech Dirt, because you're going to get it. You're going to get it. Yep. Oh, you're going to get it.

Yeah. But there's no choice, and there hasn't been for at least 10 years now. Yeah, but here's the thing. You're going to come out the other side knowing who your true fans are, and you're going to get really good at hate mail. I got really good at hitting delete.

Yeah, exactly. That's how it works. Yeah. Oh, man. So that little clip I just played from Die Hard, the Welcome to the Party Pals clip. So I have the movie in digital format, and I just wanted to find out real quick where was the clip so I didn't have to scrub through the whole movie to go find it.

I knew kind of where it was. So I Googled it. I Googled, Welcome to the Party Pal timestamp Die Hard. Now, in the olden days... In the olden days of three months ago... You would have gotten the exact answer.

Oh, but today, AI says, in the movie Die Hard in 1988, the iconic line, welcome to the party, pal, is spoken by John McClane, played by Bruce Willis, at approximately one minute and zero seconds into the movie.

Here's a more detailed context. The scene. McClane is on his way to his car after clearing the Nakatomi building when a body lands on the hood of his car, smashing the windshield. Well, Brian, would you like me to explain what's wrong with that answer from Google AI?

I don't believe the end of the movie occurred at one minute and zero seconds in. Yeah, well, the actual clip is at 57 minutes and 18 seconds. The body does not land on John McClane's car. It lands on the cop's car because he's trying to get him to not go away because the building is being taken over by terrorists.

Hans Gruber looking for the bear bonds. Completely and utterly wrong. That's AI for you. That is the first result from Google now. Thank you. Yes, and Google is rolling out a new AI mode for search, letting users ask complex, multi-part questions and receive AI-generated answers instead of traditional results, meaning that no more regular results at all.

You just get the AI mode. There's a new AI mode button to skip standard links and dive straight into the AI-generated responses with real-time information integrated. Early tests show longer and more detailed searches with frequent follow-ups, but they don't say ever the right answer.

So I do not have the new AI mode button available to me yet. I looked around for it. I looked on the app. I looked on the browser. I can't find it. But I also don't have an Android phone, so maybe it's going to roll out on Android first. I don't know. I do not have it either.

I don't know. Yeah. Which is fine because I don't want it. Yeah, seriously. If you can't just get a simple timestamp, right? And here's the thing. If you scroll down or go to videos, there are 5,000 clips on YouTube of that clip, you know?

And I just didn't want any of those. I wanted it straight from the movie. I wanted it from the original pristine source that I stole from my DVD that I bought in 1996 or something that I ripped using, what, pirated software on a PC way back in the day.

This is the original rip I've got from the old DVD, so probably I should have got one of those clips. I don't know. I digress. What else have we got, Brian? Well, speaking of things that nobody wants, we've been talking about Billy McFarland and his fire festival, too, because he inexplicably is getting actually interviewed about this thing that's never going to happen.

He is repeatedly insisting that it is real and promoting the event, but officials for the Mexican island where it's been announced to take place have basically said otherwise because, you know, shockingly, a journalist actually called the island and decided to speak to the authorities there.

So in a recent interview with The Guardian, the tourism directorate of Isla Mujeres, Edgar Gaska, said, We have no knowledge of the event, nor have had any contact with any person or company about it. For us, this is an event that simply does not exist. The organizers didn't even bother to approach the authorities, he continued.

It's very strange because any manager knows that if you're going to hold an event, let alone a massive event, you need authorization. According to Gaska, there are red flags all over the place, including the event's exact location. If you go on their website and take the coordinates they provide, then put them into Google Maps, it takes you to the ocean.

Okay, so here's the deal. I figured this out as you were reading. This is Billy McFarlane's demo reel to get into the Trump White House. He's going to say, if I can lie this good and just tell you about shit that does not exist, can I please be part of Doge?

Yeah. See, that tracks. That makes sense. So they are still, of course, saying that it is definitely going to happen. The producers lost nights, of which you will have many if you decide to buy a ticket to this thing. Fyre Festival 2 has secured top-tier private venues and hotels in partnership with our local allies who have established communications with the corresponding authorities to ensure full compliance and flawless execution.

Except, obviously, the actual authorities have said that that has not happened. This is a typo. It's meant to be lawless execution. And if you want more red flags, the Fyre Fest 2 has been pushed back a month to May 30th through June 2nd from its original date of April 25th through the 28th.

There are no artists have been announced whatsoever. No artist has come out and said, I will be playing. I have been contacted by. I have done anything. Absolutely nobody in the world has heard of this thing except for these jack-offs that are trying to throw it. Yeah, because they're probably generating them on AI so they can display them on the screen while you sit on the beach and eat your cheese sandwich.

There you go. Tickets are currently on sale, everyone. Yeah. With options ranging from $1,400 for the General Access Pass to $12,500 for the Phoenix Platinum Tier. The $1.1 million Prometheus package does not appear to be currently available for purchase.

Probably because nobody will have a credit card clearanced for a $1.1 million charge. I don't know. Yeah, they're all busy destroying the government right now, anybody that has that. So, a little bit more speaking of the Doge man himself.

I believe the people are speaking, Jason, across the world. People are not very happy with the Space Nazi right now. No, they're not. Tesla is in free fall with sales collapsing across the globe as a backlash against Elon intensifies. In Germany, sales plunged a staggering 76% in February.

France recorded its worst Tesla sales down 26%, 45% year over year just across Europe. Steep declines in Norway, Denmark, Sweden. Even in China, sales are down 50%, while competitor BYD saw a 90% surge.

It's funny. Their new car over there costs less than the fake, fully self-driving package for a Tesla here. That's how insane it is. And by all accounts, they're great cars. I actually watched a video of it. It's cool. Nice. Nice. Yes.

Protests and vandalism at Tesla dealerships are on the rise, with activists branding the vehicles as swastikars and calling for a nationwide boycott. Investors aren't sticking around either. Tesla stock has tumbled, dropping 28% in the past month, with a 21% sell-off since Musk's inauguration day.

Salute! Nazi salute, I might say. Yeah, actually, it dropped a little bit more since I wrote this, so I don't have the exact numbers right now. But also, this came in, arsonists in southwest France torched a dozen Teslas worth nearly $750,000 at pre-Nazi prices, calling the brand a symbol of capitalism.

The attack follows an anonymous manifesto urging anti-capitalist coordination to target Tesla, blaming the company for environmental waste, corporate rule, and right-wing extremism. Similar attacks have popped up in the U.S. with Tesla Chargers set on fire in Massachusetts in a Molotov attack on a Denver dealership.

To which Elon responded, let them eat full self-driving. Followed by a poop emoji. Well, it couldn't happen to a nicer guy. Again, you and I have a difference of opinion on this. I think that now that Elon has attached himself to the golden calf and is sucking off of Trump's teat in the White House, I don't think he gives a fuck what happens to Tesla.

Oh, I don't either. I think Tesla is a pawn that he's sacrificing. Yeah, I think so. Yeah. No, totally. Yeah, I know. It's already down 1.8% today. And this is just a fun one. Sergey Brin says, engineers should work 60-hour weeks in office to build AI that could replace them.

A couple articles about this. And this, my favorite one, though, comes from Boing Boing, where they just sum it up nicely. Not evil, just disconnected, is a weird way to spell hoarding wealth while demanding sacrifices from others. But we're not the ones with a fleet of servants and private jets.

We're just the poors who barely have time to buy an $8 dozen of eggs on the way home. Yeah, that kind of sums it up. Two thoughts there. The one about the please work really, really hard to create your replacement. I remember when I was doing my thing for bands and whatnot, there was a young up-and-coming co-manager for one of the bands that I was working for that basically wanted me to teach her how to do what I do.

And I went, why would I do that? Because then you're not going to pay me to do what I do. And by the way, I've spent most of my life doing this. So, okay. No, not going to do that. And the whole thing about the ex-Amazon VP, I read through that whole article.

It does make a lot of sense to me. These people are completely in a bubble that is just so far removed from the normal person's experience. And, of course, they want to be back in the office because that's what they live for. That also reminded me of a conversation I had once with a friend of mine that's a CEO of a pretty successful smaller company.

And, you know, they'd been around for about 20 years or so. And a lot of the people that were working there, small, you know, about 20 employees or so, had been there for at least a decade, right? Like long-timers, probably lifers. They've been there a long time. And when you've been at a company for a long time, say you started in your mid-20s, you're hitting your mid-30s, maybe early 40s.

You generally will start to have children because that's what most people do, even Elon, who's single-handedly trying to repopulate the planet. But you have kids. And then your priorities kind of change a little bit. You need more flexibility because you've got dentist appointments and doctor's appointments and all that.

And this guy, the CEO, never had kids. And he was so frustrated. He was so angry about – I just – you know, they used to – everybody – there's always a dentist appointment. And there's always a day off from school and there's always a sick kid. And I just had to sit down with him and go, you do realize that if people do not have children, you will run out of people to sell things to.

This is what we call life. I'm with the CEO, man. Fuck those kids. Sorry. Hell no. We all are in our own little bubbles, Jason. That's right. That's right. Speaking of kids, though, we have a mystery solved from last week about Trump Media and why it lost so much money.

Donald Trump Jr., speaking of the crotch fruit of the devil, made $813,000 in 2024 as director of Trump Media and Technology Group, roughly a quarter of the company's annual revenue, despite attending just two of the board's five meetings, according to a filing made with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Friday.

On Saturday, the Securities and Exchange Commission was decommissioned. Can you imagine making almost half a million dollars? Almost a million dollars if you round up. No, I was saying per board meeting that he attended. Oh, per board meeting. Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

That's $465,000 worth that. Yeah, it's a lot of money. That's why I didn't do real-time math, Jason. Who got the AI for that, which will get it wrong? $406,500. And I probably just got it wrong anyway, so fuck it. Yeah.

But back to your story about the CEO and the kids. Yeah, I mean, you hire one person and then, you know, like when we started this podcast, you didn't have kids. I'm the one scrambling because your little guy has to go to the doctor. I don't care. Come on, show up to work, goddammit. I'm here every Friday at the same time.

Didn't you just text me that you're going to be gone on a road trip with your family next week and I have to do all the work? Opsack. Thank you. 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 Pleaver Cullen.

BKFC 94. Till vs. Romero. Watch it live only on DAZN. Sign up now at DAZN.com. In the news.

Okay, Brian, let's have some Pink Slips continue news. Woo! This one was a shocker. Global VFX giant Technicolor has abruptly shut down, leaving over 10,000 artists worldwide without jobs overnight. The 109-year-old company also owned major VFX studios like The Mill and MPC.

Employees received no advance warning, just an email from leadership stating that financial struggles and post-COVID industry downturns led to the sudden closure. How many years are we out from COVID now? Quite a few. Okay, so sudden closure. Quite a few years out. AI. In India alone, over 2,000 workers are left unpaid and in financial distress.

That's not good, yeah. No, nobody saw that one coming. Except the heads of Technicolor. Yeah, probably. Yeah. I wonder where he's at right nowadays. All right. And U.S. employers slashed over 172,000 jobs in February.

The worst for that month since 2009. Damn you, Biden! Oh, wait. Hold on a second. Oh, Obama. God damn it. Leia spiked 103% from last year with the biggest cuts in the government sector. Huh. Huh.

I wonder why. Oh, maybe it's because Doge axed 62,000 jobs. Now, is that 172,000 job total? Also, do they account for all the people that everybody had to scramble to rehire? No, I don't think so. I don't think so. No.

Retail tech and consumer products followed with tens of thousands of job losses. That would be the, what was that AI pin? Humane. Yeah, there's the rest of them from Humane. While hiring plans rose slightly, private sector job growth slowed and consumer spending dropped for the first time in nearly two years.

We've talked about that hiring plan thing before, too, about people posting all the job descriptions that don't actually exist if you try to apply to them. Yep. And some AI news here. Amazon's VP of Artificial General Intelligence, Vishal Sharma, made it clear at Mobile World Congress, AI is everywhere inside Amazon.

From AWS to Alexa, and even the company's 750,000 warehouse robots. They got 750,000 warehouse robots. This is why I continue to pay Prime. I hope they remember me. Yeah, I know. Did I not say that when this whole thing started, when we started this show, that Robot Repairman is a viable job for the future?

They got 750,000 of those things. Somebody's need, they got to lube them and change the oil every now and again. Come on. Software updates. Come on. There's a lot going on there. Yep. Sharma dismissed the idea that open source AI could reduce computing needs, saying that as AI scales, demand for more powerful models only increases.

Yeah. Okay. Okay. More on that soon. Open AI's chat GPT has doubled its weekly active users in under six months, hitting 400 million by February 2025, according to a new report from Andreessen Horowitz.

No, they're not biased. Trust the source. At all. At all. Trust the source. Yeah. Here's the great part. They're touting how many monthly active users they have and how they're growing and growing and growing. And we know for a fact that every single time that you use chat GPT, they lose money.

Mm-hmm. Okay. I just want to clarify that. I just want to clarify that. And their new model is actually the worst of them all. The new 4.5 model loses phenomenal amounts of money every time you use it. It's like $15 for every million tokens that go through it.

But you don't care about making money when you have people throwing money at you with investments. I know. It's an insane business model. But again, it's just another extension of the same sort of thing that it's Uber's initial business model. It's flood the market, drive everybody else out of business, become number one, and then profit.

Except for Uber, the profit only happened once. Yeah. And Uber wasn't up against open source Ubers coming at them left, right, and center. Yes. Yeah. There's a... Yeah. This was not one of those ones where you make it up at scale, unfortunately.

Now, Thomas Wolfe, Hugging Face's co-founder and chief science officer, and my new favorite person, has been quoted this week as saying, The main mistake people usually make is thinking people like Newton or Einstein were just scaled up good students. that a genius comes to life when you linearly extrapolate a top 10% student.

To create an Einstein in a data center, we don't just need a system that knows all the answers, but rather one that can ask questions nobody else has thought of or dared to ask. Now, Wolfe's problem with AI today, and where he thinks the technology is heading, is that it doesn't generate any new knowledge by connecting previously unrelated facts.

Even with most of the internet at its disposal, AI, as we currently understand it, mostly fills in the gaps between what humans already know. This is a great, great article on this guy who's saying, yeah, this curing cancer and shit that you're thinking that it's going to do ain't going to happen.

Yeah, I mean, we've talked about that, that that's, that's the leap to real AI is when it thinks and it can ask questions that nobody else has thought of. Now, I would argue Musk is trying to do that with XAI. He's basically saying, what would a Nazi do? Mm hmm. Mm hmm.

Well, we have, we have the answer to part of that question. Moscow-based propaganda network Pravda has been deliberately poisoning Western AI chatbots with Russian disinformation at scale. I didn't realize that the, uh, the exact timestamp and diehard would be part of their, their nefarious deeds, but.

I know. First, we take John McLean. Anybody searching for this clip will get it wrong. Ha ha ha ha. Ah, a new audit by NewsGuard found that the top 10 generative AI tools, including ChatGPT, Google's Gemini, and Microsoft's Copilot, repeated pro-Kremlin falsehoods 33% of the time, essentially laundering propaganda into AI-generated news and information.

The Pravda network, which has pumped out 3.6 million articles in the past year, exploits how AI models retrieve and process news by flooding search results with disinformation. The strategy dubbed LLM grooming isn't about convincing human readers directly, but instead about manipulating AI models so they repeat Russian narratives as truth.

Love it. Okay. To, to any of the Republicans that actually still listen to this podcast, Ronald Reagan, if this would have happened during Ronald Reagan, your, your previous idol, uh, he would have shut all of it down immediately.

AI would have been taken off the board. You just would have been like, turn it off, shut it down. But here we are. Yeah, but Ronald Reagan tried to give us Star Wars too. It's a great movie. Timestamps are all wrong if you Google things. Timestamps are all wrong. Oh, let's pivot to a little crypto news.

We'll go back to AI in a little bit. Popular OnlyFans creator and Twitch streamer, Amoronth, I don't, I'm sure I'm probably saying that wrong. Real name, Caitlin Siragusa, probably say that wrong too, was held at gunpoint during a terrifying home invasion over the weekend. Three armed robbers broke into her Houston home just before 11 p.m., demanding access to her cryptocurrency wallet.

The attackers, knowing she had publicly disclosed her crypto earnings of over $20 million, pistol whipped her when she refused to comply. In a desperate move, she redirected them to her husband, who was at a separate location. When the robbers arrived, they were met with gunfire.

Her husband, who is apparently more well-armed than she is, reportedly hit one of them, leaving a trail of blood, but all three suspects managed to escape. Yes. Also, when we started talking about Bitcoin on this show, I said this type of thing was going to happen in the future quite a bit.

And I'm surprised. And also, if you look at the news, this is a common thing. People have been doing this a lot. So, but this is just because she's a very beautiful OnlyFans and Twitch streamer that it really makes the front page because go look at the pictures.

You'll see why. So, and in other crypto news this week, Trump's latest crypto hype sent prices soaring and then crashing back down. On Sunday, Trump announced a U.S. crypto reserve featuring Zerp, Sol, Atta, Bicu, and ETH, promising to make America the crypto capital of the world.

Prices spiked, but within hours, they tanked. Yes, up, down, up, down, up, down. Well, guess what, Brian? We now have a strategic Bitcoin reserve. It's the biggest grift we've ever seen. And there's, you're going to see a massive push to move away from the U.S. dollar from Elon and Trump cronies soon.

Don't do it. Don't do it. So, yes, I put in a couple of links in the show notes. One is the quote unquote fact sheet from the White House. And the other one is an actual news article that tells you that, oh, yeah, this is fucked up. So, what they're going to do is instead of going to buy any, they're just redirecting all of the Bitcoin that the government has currently seized and putting it in a wallet that hopefully won't get stolen in a home break into the White House at 11 o'clock at night.

But since the thieves are already in the building, I guess they don't have to break in anymore. True. True. Yeah. I'm kind of bummed. I totally missed my, remember I found all that Ethereum that I had that I was doing the experiment with NFTs and I'm like, oh my God, it went up. Yeah, it's not anymore.

Not anymore. Yeah, I was kind of bummed. I'm like, oh man, that's great. Yeah, just looking now, it's down 1.4, Bitcoin is down 1.42% already this morning. Ooh, it actually dived even more, but it's kind of bounced back.

Yeah, it's not doing that great. It's not doing that great at all. It's not. Go ahead. This is just, it's just a horrible idea. It's a horrible idea, but we should not be shocked by that. Do not, do what you want, everybody. You're your own person, but I would strongly recommend not buying into any of this at all.

I saw an article that I was just cracking up for. It's like, Bit Bros finally got what they wanted, but the problem is they all hate each other. Yeah, that's true. It's about the infighting between the different types of Bit Bros that are out there, because apparently there are different flavors of Bit Bros.

There's the diehard Bit Bros who believe in the cause of cryptocurrency that Satoshi Nakamoto put out in the day. Then there's the guys who just want to make a quick buck. And then there's the douchebags from Facebook. You got all sorts, and they're all having to play together in the same sandbox.

And they fucking hate each other. I love it. That is Bit Karma right there, baby. All right. Well, another week, another lawsuit quashed by the Trump administration. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has dropped its lawsuit over peer-to-peer payment system Zelle, the latest in a series of dismissals from the department under President Donald Trump's administration.

The agency had just announced the suit filed against Zelle's operating entity Early Warning Services and partner banks JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, and Wells Fargo in December. And according to the initial action, the CFPB said that customers of three banks had lost more than $870 million during the seven years Zelle has been active.

So they've made several moves to increase oversight on the financial products being offered by tech companies under its previous director. But now that we've got acting director Russell Voigt, who ordered the CFPB to seize all supervision and examination activity last month. So all those people keeping us safe from all the bank scams and different things going on are being told, stand down, let them run amok.

The funny thing is, his name is Russell Vaught. And if you did stick with the boys back in the day, Vaught International is the villain inside of the boys. So I guess maybe it's a, this is a crossover. This is just a crossover event. It's a crossover episode.

And I don't like the show, Jason. Get me out. Yeah, I know. Oh, man. Cancel. Cancel. All right. Well, I'm kind of out a little bit being here in Canada. And a hat tip to Dan, who sent this in. I'm assuming he's also Canadian. Canadian municipalities and the Canadian Supreme Court will stop using Twitter.

You will not see any more posts from the city of St. John. Not that I was looking for it. On the social media platform X, they have become the latest municipalities to stop using the platform. Officials made the announcements in a post on Friday, citing low engagement and reach rates. Just last week, the Supreme Court of Canada announced it would be focusing its communication efforts on other platforms.

In February, the Riverview Council passed a motion to recommend the town stop using X. I do not believe we should be supporting a platform that is full of misinformation, hate speech and anti-Semitic content, said Councilman Heath Johnson, who brought forward the motion. Meanwhile, councillors in the Halifax region municipality have asked staff to look into abandoning the social media platform.

And the St. John Airport announced on Tuesday that it, too, was deplaning from the platform effective immediately. See, that's great. But the city of St. John said that they were quitting because of low engagement and reach rates. I like the other people saying that, yeah, yeah, it's a bunch of fucking Nazis.

We're not we're going to leave for that. Yeah, I like I don't care. I like both. And I agree. I mean, I, you know, even just on Grumpy Old Geeks, our Rx account was never huge. Our Twitter account. It was never that big of a deal. But there's like one dude who likes our stuff on there now.

It's a bot. It's just gone. So, yeah, no, I pop in there every now and again and it just, oh, I need a Xanax after after like five minutes on there. I can't do it anymore. It's just so ridiculous. It's bad. But anyways, the part of Canada that I'm in, Ontario, has also been dealing with Trump tariffs and other things.

Ontario Premier Doug Ford, who used to be a massive Trump supporter, by the way, and he's not exactly the greatest guy that we've ever had in charge here, but he's decided to rebrand himself as very anti-Trump right now. He has promised to end the province's $100 million contract with Elon Musk's Starlink after reversing course back in February because of the tariffs.

So we have also pulled all U.S. booze off the shelves here in Ontario, although I think it's coming back because Trump's blinking on tariffs. So who the fuck knows what's going on? It's the dumbest trade war in history. But here we are. Okay, back to a little more AI news.

All righty. OpenAI is reportedly planning to charge up to $20,000 a month for specialized AI agents, according to the information. These AI tools will be tailored for various industries with a high-income knowledge worker agent priced at $2,000 a month, a software developer agent at $10,000, and the most expensive, designed for PhD-level research, hitting the $20,000 mark.

The timeline for release is unclear, but SoftBank has already pledged $3 billion to these agent products. OpenAI is in dire need of cash after reportedly losing $5 billion last year on operational costs. Look, I'll do it and even legally change my name for fucking $20,000 a month.

Come on. Hire people. Yes, hire people for this. Did we not kick off the show with an incorrect timestamp? That's what you're going to get for your PhD-level research bot. Yeah. I don't understand anymore.

Here's something you might not understand. Kevin Rose and Alex Ohanian have acquired DIG. Oh, yes. That very famous brand name that we all long for. And the title here, the title of this article is, does the world even want DIG in 2025? No.

I'll just say it right now. No. Oh, but this will be an AI-powered DIG, Jason. DIG, the most popular news aggregator, is making a comeback. But in today's media landscape, it faces an uphill battle. Original founder Kevin Rose and Reddit co-founder Alex Ohanian are reviving the platform, promising AI-powered tools to help moderators manage communities better.

They claim DIG will be a fresh alternative to Reddit, which has seen increasing turmoil over censorship, monetization, and user engagement. You know what you're going to have, DIG? You're going to have increasing turmoil over censorship, monetization, and user engagement if you take off. Because that is online now.

That is the reality of anything online now. Yeah. And AI doesn't fucking fix it. No, it doesn't. No, it doesn't. Kevin brought back DIG Nation recently. And I looked at the numbers that I'm like, that ain't going to work. Oh, man.

I'm like, dude, if you want to hear what it's like to do a tech podcast nowadays, I can tell you it ain't worth the fucking money. So, yeah. And a new study finds that scrolling through social media doesn't just mess with your mind, it affects your body too, Brian.

Researchers at Durham University tracked young adults' heart rates and sweat levels while they browsed Instagram for 15 minutes. The results? Their heart rate slowed, but their sweating increased, a sign of deep emotional immersion. But when they had to log off, stress levels spiked in their body show signs similar to withdrawal.

I am so emotionally connected to all these ads I'm being served, Jason. I know. Every third post is an ad. This doesn't necessarily mean we're all addicted, but social media taps into our basic need for connection. The study highlights how powerful these platforms are at keeping us engaged and how difficult it can be to unplug.

So, yeah. Not good for you. It is physically bad for you. There. There's the science. It's bad for you. Mm-hmm. In great news, let's get into some space news this week, Brian. Mm-hmm. Starship go boom.

That's all. I got a whole article here, and I could just say, Starship go boom again. Mm-hmm. Yep. And Elon was surprisingly quiet on X after it blew up. Hmm. So, more of your taxpayer dollars out the window.

You're saying, no, but SpaceX is a private company. Oh. Oh, contraire, mon frere. Oh, contraire, mon frere. That was a couple hundred million of your tax dollars that just went boom. You know who's the biggest, the biggest, the single biggest person of government grants at this point is Elon Musk.

Yep. Absolutely. End of story. So, if we want some government efficiency, how about we stop paying him? Yep. Easy peasy. Yes. Oh, and it just came out that his kids are getting about $187,000 for 17 months or whatever.

The numbers came out today. They're getting overpaid. Let's just say that. They're definitely not on a government salary, the Doge employees. Yes, of course not. Intuitive Machines has landed their second spacecraft, Athena, on the moon, sorta. It's there.

We don't know which end is up yet, but... You know what? I count it as a win. It landed. It's a win. It's a win, and the camera still works. Yes. I still haven't figured out why, you know, it's not that hard to make a ball, Brian.

It's not that hard to make a ball. Okay. A ball is not going to fall over when you put it on the moon. Even if you have, like, gyroscopes inside that turn the thing that you need upright, upright when it lands. We have gyroscopes. We have ball technology. Why can't we use ball technology to land something right side up on the moon?

I'm just asking. Asking for a friend. I'm asking for a friend. I'm sure some scientists somewhere will come back with a very long explanation of why balls don't work on the moon. I'm just saying that maybe there's other ways than this tripod approach that we've been using.

The tripod approach might not be the best approach, is what I'm saying. That's all. I am reasonably sure that Elon does not listen to our podcast, but right now I'm desperately hoping he does not, because I do not want to hear his new coming up with the idea of using a ball and his balling the moon campaign.

We're going to ball the moon. I hope that they can get Athena right back up, because there is a Nokia-based rover on board. Oh, if they're using a Nokia phone, that thing's going to live forever. For fucking ever, is what I'm saying. It's playing snake. It's having a ball up there. Balls. That's what we've got. Snakes and balls.

Snakes and balls on the moon. That's all we need. But a private spacecraft has actually successfully landed on the moon, and it's Firefly Aerospace's blue ghost. Okay. The blue flamers. Remember the blue flamers?

The guys who lit their farts on fire. So at least we've got one win. We've got one win on the moon this week. And lots of sort of could have, should have, would have. My name is Shannon Maldonado.

I'm the founder of Yaoi, a gift shop from the lens of artists and handmade objects. I chose Shopify because when I was testing other platforms, it was definitely one of the most user-friendly. It was important to me to think about where we would be in the future. All of the tools for reading your sales, like planning inventory, are just right there on your dashboard.

For anyone starting a small business, the biggest thing I can tell you is it doesn't have to be perfect. Shopify can help you build upon it. Start your free trial on Shopify.com. 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.

Media Candy. All right, so if we actually had a PR department or an agency that were running our PR, they would say, do not respond to this email that you got. But I have respect for our listeners. I think it's amazing that people listen to us at all, much less take the time to write in or even better, donate.

Those are my favorites. But John wrote in, and I feel like we should read this. So, hi guys. I have listened to you guys for almost the entirety of your long run so far, and I've loved most of your content. I share your political views, so this isn't all a MAGA Trump thing. Fuck them slash him.

I've been turned off more and more in recent years by your very questionable taste in TV shows and by what comes across as arrogance or dismissiveness toward any show you haven't independently decided is worth your time. I've been puzzled by your disdain for foundation. It's good. Not the same as the book, but good.

You somehow don't like Black Mirror. Worst of all, you have decided Severance is unworthy and have bluntly refused to give it another chance when urged by listeners to do so. Have you seen the reviews of the show by critics and everyday people alike? It is adored, and it is phenomenal. Probably my second favorite show of all time already behind only Breaking Bad.

Yet you praise things like the schmaltzy latest season of Ted Lasso and iffy at best shows like the Dexter remake. If you're going to be wildly opinionated about shows, you need to be more open-minded. How geeks, old or young, could detest smart sci-fi like Severance or Black Mirror or, yes, even Foundation and be so dismissive of them is baffling to me.

It makes me question your recommendations about everything else, and I find myself listening less and less often. I don't expect any change, but please at least give my comments some thought. And you are 100% or 1,000% wrong about Severance. It is brilliant and only gets better with each episode. If you suddenly refuse to watch its run, you are denying yourself something truly great.

Take care, and thanks for your consideration. Sincerely, John, who obviously works for Severance. Yeah, he works for Apple. So, yeah, I mean, a couple thoughts here. First, I do think that maybe you're Googling things and getting the AI version of what we actually have said about things in the past because wrong.

Jason loves Black Mirror. It's one of my favorite shows of all time. Yeah, I have said great things about Black Mirror. The one thing I think I did say was like during COVID or shortly thereafter, I was like, I just can't watch it right now because it's too bleak and I have too much bleakness already. Yeah, it was like the only bad thing I ever said about Black Mirror.

Yeah, exactly. That was just during COVID and you're like, I can't. And I understood. So I took one for the team and I thoroughly loved it. And I still do. I can't wait for the next season. I think it's a great show as well. I think you'll also recall that what we actually said about the last season of Ted Lasso is it was definitely the worst season and it's time for the show to end.

We never said we loved the last season. I was just like, okay, it wasn't as good as the other ones, but they're bringing it down. So there you go. Yeah, Foundation, I'm sorry. It fucking sucks. It's just not even good sci-fi. That's the problem. Yeah, it's not even a just a it's just not a good show.

But certainly for me, since Foundation is one of my favorite books of all time, you can you must understand how I cannot possibly like the show. I just don't. And you know what? At the end of the day, you don't have to agree with us. Yeah, that's the great part.

The whole this is our show where we talk about the things we like and things that we don't like. And that's fine. So I don't really see what the problem is. I'm sorry that we don't want to watch Severance. We have our reasons. I actually have seen three episodes of season two, and it is not getting better is the problem.

And here's the other. I have so many flashbacks to exactly what they're doing on Severance to Mr. Robot. And Mr. Robot bit me in the ass. And I watched all the way through to the end of Mr. Robot, and it did not stick the landing because they didn't know what they were doing from the get go.

Well, that's the that's the real thing. I think you and I had texted a little bit about that this week. And for me, I'm I'm with you 100 percent. I had watched the first episode of Severance. It didn't really grab me, but I could have stuck with it. But I made a decision because it's a mystery in a box show.

And I have been bit on the ass by mystery in the box shows far too often. So if Severance is great, and by the time it wraps up and finishes its run and everybody is still going, oh, my God, they ended it perfectly. They explained all the mysteries. This is fantastic. I will 100 percent go back and watch it.

But I've been bit by Lost, The Leftovers, Mr. Robot. You name it. Anything with David Lindhoff. Fuck that. I'm not watching it until the show ends and we find out if they just, you know, left the polar bear running around and never explained it or not.

That's what I want to know. That's the type of show it is. And that's just the way I'm going to do it now. There's too many other things to watch. So, you know, I'll come back to Severance if it ends great. No problem. Yep. And the other thing, this guy's new. He's not proven. He does not have a proven track record.

Just like kind of Sam on Mr. Robot. That's the other issue that I have with it. Because, yeah, definitely Mr. Robot vibes. So, anyways, thanks for writing in, John. I do appreciate it. I'm sorry we don't want to watch your show. Yeah. I do appreciate taking the time to write in.

And I do have some science-based evidence here on when you should get rid of a show that you don't like. And the magic number is six. If a show is not resonating with you by episode six, kill it. But these days, that's an entire season.

That's true. That is true. Yes. I just downloaded La Femme Nikita, the old USA series. Yeah. And I'm like, why are there so many files? Oh, there's 22 episodes in a season. Yeah. Oh, the good old days. And I remember somebody talking.

I saw a post on Blue Sky this week where somebody was saying, man, I remember when people were losing their shit because they had to wait three months to see what happened to Picard after he got taken over by the Borg. And now we're like two years in and we still haven't gotten another season of Strange New Worlds.

It's like, oh, the timescales are so much different now. Yeah, they really are. But I have an article here about how statistics can play into shows that you want to keep and dump. Right. It's a good article. But I also have another article that makes me very interested.

Netflix is using AI to upscale a 1980 sitcom and the results are borderline horrific. So they're trying to upscale a different world using AI. And it is a they say it is a visual train wreck. Now, I tried doing this with old episodes of Deep Space Nine using Topaz's new state of the art video AI.

That, too, was utter garbage because when you can't be worse than it is now on streaming on Paramount, you'd be surprised. Yeah, I went and I got the highest res that I could find of season one. And, yeah, it is like VHS quality.

You are you are correct. It is not good. It is not good at all. But upscaling it did not work at all. It's too fuzzy is the problem. It confuses the shit out of it. I mean, I tried multiple different multiple different models on it could not get anything to defuzz it.

It's like there's Vaseline on the lens and we're stuck with it. Fun times. Well, at least we'll always know what period things came from. Yep. So there's that. Daredevil Born Again has premiered on Disney Plus. The first two episodes came out this week. I'm assuming you watched them, Jason.

Of course I did, Brian. Are we going to do spoilers here? There will there will be spoilers, people. So fast forward a minute or two or three real quick. OK. We'll give you a second. So I think I've enjoyed it so far. I enjoyed the first episode a lot more than the second.

The second was a little bit slow, but obviously they're setting the scene for what's to come. But how, how, how do you make such a big thing about you're bringing back all of the cast and then you fucking kill Foggy in three minutes? See, I, I just assumed that they, that they weren't all coming back.

So, uh, yeah, no, I mean, and that's, it's actually in the comics, but there's a, there's a twist in the comics. But, um, and I don't think that twist is coming in. No, I, I read an article analyzing that this morning. Yeah, yeah. OK, you read the same article.

Yeah. Yeah. Over at Gizmodo. Yeah. Yeah. No, he ain't coming back. No, he's not coming back, which is unfortunate because I do. I like the three of them together. But, uh, you know, it's, we'll see where it goes. Uh, it seems good. It's good to have him back. I, I'm just, you know, biding my time until Jessica Jones.

Let's be honest. Yeah. There, there were some problems with the first episode that, uh, some of the action sequences at the beginning with Daredevil were very, uh, Matrix three. Yeah. Uh, let's go and say in quality, uh, not good. They were definitely not good.

You could, you could really tell from the transition from CG to, uh, to practical. And, uh, yeah, I figured they would have spent a little bit more time on it, but maybe it's because, uh, everybody got fired. Maybe. We've got all this AI stuff. We'll just use it. Nobody cares.

Yep. Yeah. Uh, and Havard wrote in and he wrote in and said, just heard the last episode. You watching Will Trent is probably what we call watching a subtle boot city in Norwegian. Uh, I'm sure I did not get that right. Uh, roughly translated as a comfort blanket series or security blanket series.

You know, every character, you sort of know what happens. It's low engagement entertainment for brain in downtime brain cleaning. Like I use deadliest catcher gold rush. Anyways, keep up the good work H. Uh, I, that nails it. Absolutely nails it. That's diners, drive-ins and dives for me.

I could just put that crap on and let it run all day. Yeah, that's, that's exactly it. So, um, yeah, I, I like that. I, I, I like, uh, I like security blankets or comfort blanket series. I'm down with that. All right. Well, I saw something in the news and it sent me down a little spiral.

Um, I had to go start looking some stuff up because I realized, uh, apparently this is what sci-fi actors do when their careers start to die due to typecasting. Uh, David Duchovny is to explore real life X-Files for the History Channel. Okay. On secrets declassified, Duchovny will investigate the government's most secretive, strange, and mind-blowing activities that have been declassified throughout history.

Now we know History Channel actually has no history anymore. It's all aliens and this bullshit. And Deadly's Catch. But, uh, then I went, huh, David Duchovny from the X-Files now, 20 years later, hasn't really established much else. Well, he did Californication. That was pretty good. So it's been, it's been a while since he's been involved in, in too much of anything.

And, uh, so there you go. He gets that. Which then reminded me of Jonathan Frakes. Jonathan Frakes from Star Trek, who went on to host Beyond Belief, Fact or Fiction. Each episode of this cult anthology series prevents several stories that appear to defy logic, the supernatural, ghosts, psychic phenomena, destiny, and the divine, and offers the viewers the chance to decide what is fact and what is fiction.

Oh, but not just one, Jason. We got a twofer from Frakes. We do? I remember Beyond Belief. What, what's the next one? He also hosted the Paranormal Borderline, a short-lived television series on UPN, which dealt with the paranormal and mysterious happenings and creatures. Oh my God.

UPN. That is a lot. That is a deep cut. Deep dig. That is, yeah. Wow. I do remember Beyond Belief. That was, that was, I liked that. Even though I didn't like Jonathan Frakes back then, that was the, the era where I'm like, I just didn't like him because of the beard. Frakes and his beard and the chair humping thing.

Nah, he was not. I loved it. I loved it all. Okay. Okay. What else we got, Brian? We got to go back to the source. The OG. Hosted by Leonard Nimoy. First, we have Ancient Mysteries. Ancient Mysteries is a documentary television series that deals with historical mysteries and the granddaddy of them all, In Search Of.

Oh yeah. Leonard Nimoy hosts and narrates this documentary series that takes you to the world of unsolved mysteries and those strange and unusual things in the world that defy explanation and often misunderstanding. And let me tell you, 10 to 12 year old me fucking love that show. Oh, that was the best show ever, man.

I love that show. Yep. Yeah. So good. So good. So much stuff. Yep. And speaking of Dead Careers, I saw this article. 82% of indie artists cannot afford to tour anymore. So, okay. Few artists are selling any CDs or vinyl records.

Streaming doesn't pay the bills. What's left? Playing live and selling merch. But what if you can't afford to tour anymore? Results from a global study by Ditto Music, which is a music research company, are pretty grim. It surveyed 1,500 musicians worldwide and found out that on average, 82.1% of them believe that touring has just become too expensive.

They can't afford to play live beyond their immediate geographic area. And it gets worse. The survey also says that 58.3% have turned down a chance to tour because the financials just didn't make sense. And about 75% have never bothered to tour at all. They somehow managed to fund their music ambitions by tapping their personal savings.

And I've got some of their graphs and charts in here that will be in the show notes that basically just kind of show you're screwed if you're trying to be an independent musician. Good luck. 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. Ramiro. Watch it live only on The Zone. Sign up now at DAZone.com. Apps and doodads. Brian, we've talked about the humane AI pin in the past. Well, it was officially bricked on last Friday, leaving customers with expensive paperweights.

But just hours later, a hacker named Marcel cracked the code, bringing the device back to life and turning it into what many hoped it would be, a true smartphone alternative. In a chaotic Discord chat, hackers celebrated as the pin projected its first video, signaling a new era for the device.

Now, some in the community wanted to stay quiet, fearing retaliation from HP, who now owns humane's intellectual property. A humane employee told Wired they were working on a legitimate fix and accused the hackers of crossing the line. Now, legal questions loom over the device's future.

I think the legal question should be, should anybody that ever bought a humane AI pin sue HP because they bricked it? That would be my legal question. Yeah. I mean, I'm no lawyer, obviously, but I tell you what, if you brick a device, I get to do whatever the fuck I want to it.

Honestly, I buy a device, I should be able to do whatever the fuck I want with it. I agree with that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So HP can have the right to fuck off and die. And I have a series of articles here that I'm going to run through that will, it all comes together at the end, Brian.

Stick with me. All right. So OpenAI's ChatGPT on macOS can now directly edit code in developer tools like Xcode, VS Code, and JetBrains. I've never heard of JetBrains. I wanted to try VS Code, but users can enable an auto-apply mode, allowing ChatGPT to make edits without additional clicks.

The feature is available now for ChatGPT Plus, Pro, and Team subscribers with a wider rollout coming next week. Any Windows version is also in the works. So now you can have ChatGPT directly on your desktop, write some code for you. Perfect. Okay. And a quarter of startups in Y Combinator's latest batch have code bases that are 95% AI generated.

According to YC managing partner, Jared Friedman, these aren't non-technical founders. They're highly skilled engineers who, just a year ago, would have built everything from scratch. But now AI does the heavy lifting, the trend dubbed vibe coding. Let's developers generate software using natural language instead of typing every line of code like we talked about in the last episode.

Yep. However, AI-generated code isn't flawless. What? Experts warn that... I know. I know, Brian. Experts warn that security flaws, bugs, and outages are common, meaning founders still need solid coding fundamentals. Yes, we know.

We've mentioned that. Now, here's one for you, Brian, that kind of comes together with this. And this is interesting. This comes from Analytics India Magazine, the vanishing middle class of tech, right? We've talked about the vanishing middle class for a long time.

Yep. Now, we have the vanishing middle class of tech, which is where most coders used to live. They lived in the middle. They weren't the superstars. They weren't the junior programmers. They were the middle of the road guys. And that's what AI is destroying. Yep. These middle of the road guys. So, now you either need to be a frontier engineer making like $500,000 a year, or basically phone support, which is going to be knocked out anyway.

But you're also a vibe coder. That's the next thing, you know? So, you need to know how to write prompts. The problem there is nobody knows how to read code in between those two levels, right? So, there's another article called, Will the Future of Software Development Run on Vibes?

Which I just love. Yeah, no. It all comes back down to the final article here. And I recommend everybody just go through these from the top. They're in the show notes. GOG.show.slash687. The final one is, Hallucinations in code are the least dangerous form of LLM mistakes.

So, apparently what LLMs will do while you're generating code is it will make up like methods and functions whole hog and libraries whole hog. And sometimes it will just pick the wrong library for the wrong thing. So, when you compile it or run it, it will actually execute and won't throw any bugs or any exceptions or anything like that.

But, when you actually go to use the code in production, it won't do anything near that it's supposed to do. And nobody can figure out why. So, here's the deal, kids. Learn to read code. Learn to code if you want to code.

My question is, what the fuck are all these people coding? I know. What are these people all making? I know. That's what... Where are these great new products coming out? I've been waiting. I don't know. I'm waiting.

I'm waiting. Oh, yeah. You know, the problem with half of it is most of these things are like geared around Python. And I was a PHP guy. I'm not a Python guy. Yeah. I'd have to go back and figure out Python.

And I don't want to. I'm 53. I don't give a fuck anymore. Because it won't make me any money because of everything we just said. You know, if I was 20 years younger, sure, I would definitely be all over this. As a 53-year-old guy, I just like kvetching about it to the clouds.

But learn to code, man. That's all I got to say. If you can use these tools, but know what they're doing. Be able to read it from top to bottom. Know what every single line of that program does. It may save you time writing it, you know, to have this thing crap out your code for you. But not debugging.

Not debugging. And as we said earlier in the show, this is just taking the mistakes we've already made and filling them with Russian propaganda and giving you function models to destroy your code base. So, caveat emptor. Yeah. And speaking of code, fuck Adobe Creative Suite, Brian.

I bitched about this to you on text this week. My computers are finely tuned machine. My Mac Studio, I didn't reboot that thing for months. That thing ran smooth as silk. I put on Creative Suite because I have to work in Premiere now.

And I'm rebooting three to four times a day. It is ridiculous how much that thing screwed up my system. It is so bad. Do you have the same thing happen to you? Yes. It is horrible. If anything crashes, it's going to be that.

I do reboot all the time. I'm always running clean my Mac, and it's always clearing out crap from Adobe. It's ridiculous. I have, like, there's five Adobe things in my startup, and even though I keep taking them out, they just keep reappearing. I hate it. I hate it. Yeah.

No, they're running 10 different demons to save you from stealing a $3 font. Yes. It's so crappy. But, yeah. So, maybe some of these vibe coders can start working for Adobe. Or maybe they already do, and that's why it sucks. That could be the problem. Yes. Yeah. And I have a Fire TV.

I'm sorry. Fuck that thing, man. Seriously. I watch everything through my Apple TV connected to my Fire TV, because the Apple TV is actually better at everything, except making a picture. That's the only thing that the Fire TV can do, is it can make the pretty picture.

And I'm sitting there. I'm getting into Daredevil. It's the first fight scene of the first episode of the big reboot. And my screen goes gray and said, there's a software update available. We will reboot your TV in 45 seconds. Would you like to cancel or continue?

So, it kicked me out of Apple TV. Let the show keep running. So, when I came back, spoilers, I had to, like, then rewind. And the thing is, with my Fire TV, when I turned it on, I put the remote away because I don't need it anymore. So, then I had to run across the room, find the fucking remote, hit cancel, go back through the whole thing.

I hate the Fire TV so much. So much, Brian. And then, when I'm done watching Daredevil, I open my Fire TV menu and try and find the button to update the OS. It is so buried in the system menus that it took me five minutes just to find the update software button.

There's nothing good about the fucking Fire TV except for the price. It was a 75-inch TV for, like, 800 bucks when they were going for, like, thousands of dollars back in the day. But, it's a nice-looking TV, but the guts, oh, it's a dumpster fire.

I've got my Samsung TVs. They're good as long as you disconnect them from everything because otherwise, they spy on you like no tomorrow. Yeah, yeah. Don't hook up the network, man. Don't hook up the network. It's a good TV and I shut everything off on it. Yeah, I tried to turn the network off on the Fire TV and I don't think it would even turn on.

They won't let you. Yeah. Jeff Bezos gets a warning sound playing in his house. Somebody's trying to turn it off again. Oh, Jesus. I went back to the well, Jason.

I just finished reading The Tempest from the First Contact series by Peter Cowderon. Not my favorite. They're not all winners. It's not bad. It was fine. It just never really grabbed me. It was one of my least favorite books that I've read from him so far. So, but that will not stop me.

Onward, I shall go. But I need a break from it. So I was starting to look around and I was like, you know, I haven't read anything by Bill Bryson in a while. Gosh, I love his books. His books are fantastic. So I fired up the Google bot and, God damn it, he retired from writing back in 2020.

Are we sure, though? Because you Googled it. So we don't know if that timestamp is actually correct. Actually, the information was very difficult to find. So I actually went. Yes, I am unfortunately sure. Did you bring it? From his publisher's website, actually. Okay. Okay. So what a damn shame.

So, oh, well. Yeah. Hey, good run. If you've never read Bill Bryson's books, go. All of them. They're all great. I didn't care for the last one. Well, by the end, he was writing about what houses and the body and all that sort of stuff. But his initial travel writings are fantastic.

Yeah, they were fantastic. They were fantastic. I read On Tyranny by Timothy Snyder again. This is a book that was written back the first time the great Mango was in the office. A Bracing Guide for Surviving and Resisting America's Turn Towards Authoritarianism from a Rising Public Intellectual Unafraid to Make Bold Connections Between Past and Present.

Damn fine book. I'm reading it right now. Yeah? It is good. But Unafraid to Make Bold Connections Between Past and Present for at least so far into the book basically just means this is what the Nazis did. Yeah.

Well. And this is what's happening here. The first step, though, I'm just like, oh, man, I wish I'd read this about six months ago because it would have made a lot more sense six months ago. But I'd read it back, you know, back when it first came out long ago.

And it just happened to be because I'm reading a book on propaganda as well. One of the founding books on propaganda. And then I went to this one. This is a great book, I think. I think it's, it's fine. It's short. You should, the way you read, you should have been done with it after 20 minutes after you started it. But I started it late last night.

So I'm about halfway done. Yeah. Okay. Very good. Yeah. There's a, there's a lot between the Nazis and Trump in here. Yeah. Lots, lots, surprisingly a lot, which is the funny part. It's almost uncanny. One might say it is almost, it is not almost uncanny, Brian.

It is really uncanny. How, how similar they are. Yeah. Yeah. And to tie into that, at the same time, there's a, a commercial that is being run by the Department of Homeland Security here in Los Angeles that I saw by, uh, Secretary Christy Noem announcing nationwide and international efforts to get out the illegals in the country.

Did you watch the commercial, Brian? I did watch the commercial. I am wondering if this is actually efficient to the government to spend this much money on a stupid commercial running on TV. Yes. A multimillion dollar ad campaign. Yes. Yes. Uh, I was turned on to this by my roommate who said, have you seen the shit that they're running on TV?

Freaked her out. I mean, like legit freaked her out. This is like some serious, scary shit that they're running about what they're doing. It's almost uncanny. It is almost uncanny, Brian. I'm just saying. Don't like call it uncanny. Yeah. So I had to call, I had to make some phone calls.

I made some texts. I texted my brother and my dad last night because they're in Chicago and I figured, well, if this is running anywhere else in the country, it's definitely going to be running in Chicago. Turns out, correct. It is running in Chicago because that's the other, another one of the hubs that they're trying to scare people into getting rid of all the people who do all the actual physical work in the country.

I 100% guarantee you it is running in every big major blue city. Yeah, definitely. There's a link to it in the show notes. I recommend you go watch it just to see what the fuck's going on, unless you've seen it on TV multiple times every day. Yeah, so I sent it to a friend, a friend of the show, Andy Preboy, and he sent me back a link to an article.

Is Trump preparing to invoke the Insurrection Act? Signs are pointing that way, which also made me not really want to sleep last night. It's uncanny, one might say. It's, one might say, uncanny. Crystal not. Yeah. How does one say that in Spanish? Noche de crystal.

Si. Oh, it's fun to laugh as the world burns. Closing shout outs. Over at Patreon, we've got two new Patreons, Nick and Thomas. And we've got an up pledge from another Nick. So thank you, Nicks.

All right, Nicks. And we've got some legacy Patreons here. Ryan, Murray, Danny, Nancy, Stephen, Vanessa, Brody, Greter, and Michael. Thank you all so much. Thank you so much. And just a reminder, if you would like to support the show or help support the show in one of the many ways you can support the show and sign up for Patreon, go to patreon.com slash GOG.

For as little as $3 a month, you can get the show early, in high definition, and ad free. So check it out, please. All right. And if you sign up for the whole year, you get a discount. But you can do more than $3 a month if you want to. Just saying. You could do, say, a million and be on our platinum level.

Yeah. Yeah. We'll send you to the Fyre Festival. Send you to the Fyre Festival. Over at PayPal, we've got Nicola, Thomas, Florian, and Levi. Over at the tip jar, we've got Sarah, Matthew, and Tony. And at the merch store, Nick picked up a t-shirt this week.

So definitely, we need to sell some more of those Deport Elon shirts. I figured they'd be flying off the shelves right now. I wore mine last week and got many a thumbs up. There you go. Not shot or stabbed once. So they work. Which is surprising because I wore it to Whole Foods, where everybody drives a Tesla. And nobody died this week except my will to live.

Until next time, I'm Brian Schulmeister. In my spirit, yes. Thanks for listening. I'm Jason DeFillippo. Thanks for listening to Grumpy Old Geeks. Get all the links and goodies from today's episode at GOG.show slash 687. Want to keep the grumpiness alive? Toss 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. 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 Cullen.

BKFC 94. Till vs. Romero. Watch it live only on DAZN. Sign up now at DAZN.com.