69: Rabbit Rabbit

Grumpy Old Geeks. A weekly talk show hosted by Brian and Jason. Discussing the finer points of what went wrong on the internet and who's to blame. Let's get started. Rabbit.

Rabbit. Rabbit. Okay. It's one of those things. If you say it at the beginning of the month, it's supposed to be good luck for the rest of the month if it's the first thing out of your mouth. And since this is our first podcast of the month, and we're starting on the first, I figured, hey, Rabbit Rabbit. That's one of the dumbest things I've ever heard in my life.

Blame it on the Brits. Blame it on stupid people. Hey. Okay. Well, that's it. That's all you got for the Rabbit Rabbit Rabbit. Just trying it out. I'll put it in the show notes if you want to hear the backstory. But it's just, you know, that's just a superstition. I'd do it. What are you going to say?

All right. Well, we can use this as one of those crazy web experiment sort of things that people are doing, which we'll get to in a minute. Yeah. If our numbers go up this month, then I'm sticking with the Rabbit Rabbit. All right. Well, good. I almost feel a little bit bad. I've had kind of a crazy, horrific week and didn't get much of a chance to get in there and take a look at the show notes because I would have discussed this intro with you a little bit.

Okay. Anyways, I wanted to talk a little bit about something that happened to me this week without getting into too much specifics. But it is one of the reasons that I think that you and I both kind of left the corporate culture environment, the middle management cock block.

Okay. I was going to say, did security ask you to leave? Because that's what happened to me. No. No. I always jumped the gun on leaving a company. There was the one time I was asked if I would be comfortable leaving, and I said, yes. Yes, I would. But other than that, so I was contacted out of the blue by a new organization.

And it's a little bit out of the comfort zone of the things that I normally work with, which I like. I was pretty excited about this potential client. I can't really even call them a client yet. So over the past month and a half, because it's a large organization and it's not just like a band, things kind of tend to go a little bit slower, I've been doing the dance, you know, like you do with a new client.

You do the whining and the dining and you have the coffee and you get to know each other and you make sure you're feeling compatible and everything feels pretty good. And then you start to talk specifics. How many kids are we going to have? Do you want to have kids? I don't know. Do you want to have kids? What do you think about anal? All that sort of thing.

So we're discussing all this stuff and it's feeling good. It's a good fit. I basically have, you know, I'm talking to the main person, like the head of the promotional department, and it's a good project that they want to do. It's a good organization. We're on board. We've even discussed budgets. They know she's totally into it. Everything's cool.

So this week I'm supposed to have the final call, the seal the deal date, as it were. So, you know, you're getting ready. You're lubing up. You're shaving down. It's time to go. You've got your manscaping done. You do your manscaping, the 50 shades of gray all over the bathroom floor. You're ready. So finally, you know, I'm having the call and I'm about to hop on the call and I get an email and it's like, oh, well, you know, looking forward to the call. By the way, Bob is going to join us on the call.

I'm like, oh, shit. And that's exactly what happened. Like as soon – like we were down. Like there was a plan. There was a budget. Everything was set. This call was just supposed to be let's talk start date. Let's talk deadlines and, you know, let's just make sure that we're ready to go and how are you going to get me, you know, content and materials. Let's go.

Unfortunately, Bob – not his real name. Bob is involved on this call and, you know, Bob has to make a living and Bob has to seem like he does something for his company. So the entire plan gets blown out of the water. Bob is now discussing, you know, we were going to do A. Bob is more interested in C. Why can't we do C?

Bob starts to question things like technologies that he has no idea about and I end up saying things like, well, you can't do that because you can't do that. No, Brian, you can do everything on the internet. Don't you know that? That technology does not exist. We've already gone down this road. We have a plan. We are ready to implement.

So thanks, Bob, for the middle management cock block and I hope you enjoy your paycheck. And I have no idea what's going to happen with this client now. It was a total middle management cock block. Lovely stuff. I got to hate when that happens. I'm sorry, brother. I'm really sorry. It's OK. But I was not in a good mood yesterday.

Yeah. So the Germany win is worn off. Oh, well, it's Bayern Munich anyways. It's – you know, this is just like – this is tailing off on soccer obsessions. Yeah. No, it happens a lot unfortunately when somebody gets wind that there's something happening and they want to insert themselves into the process because they feel left out and they need – you know, they need that one little bit of validation so they can feel like they're part of the organization.

Well, and it always seems to involve negation. It's never – you're never adding anything good. You're always just kind of like saying, well, I'm going to play devil's advocate and I'm going to show my use by asking the tough questions. Yeah. Yeah. They never come in and say, hey, nice to meet you. When are we starting? It's always – Yeah. How can I help?

Yeah. It's never that. It's always, who are you? Why are you in my house? Get the hell out. Yeah. And why are you taking our money? We could do this ourselves even though we know nothing. God, it's so frustrating. Anyways, moving on. Oh, man. So we talked last week at length I think about the Facebook experimentation and stuff like that. Now OKCupid has come out. This has been all over the news. OKCupid says, hey, everybody does it. We did it. Here's the deal.

And it's true. I mean there's no doubt about that. There's the Guardian article talking about it, which we have linked in our show notes. It was actually quite amusing because they described it as a gleeful blog by OKCupid explaining the experiments they've done on people. Yeah. Let's put two people that we know are incompatible with our own algorithms and see if it works. And it's like, OK, well, if it does work, then your algorithms mean nothing and anything you do means nothing. So why would you be so happy about that?

Yeah. We know sites do it. Everybody does it. I think the best part of the entire blog was there was a little passage talking about how OKCupid, one of the guys over at OKCupid was saying, well, of course we do this stuff because the reality is none of us know how any of this really works. This is all pretty new. There's no sheet of how to make a successful business doing this stuff. So we mess around and see what works and what doesn't. Yeah. Fair enough.

And here's the fun part. They may have broken some Federal Trade Commission rules by doing this. The problem is the FTC can't go after them because there's no monetary harm because OKCupid doesn't charge you anything. Yeah. So they're, you know, yes, they may have broken the law, but since it's free, you, you know, where's the harm? So they're probably not going to go after them for it.

Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, whatever. It's the web. It is. And speaking of, I've been thinking about this a lot since we've been talking about it and all of the experimentation. I've got a segment coming up. I'd like to have a new segment. I wanted to call it like Defense Against the Dark Arts, but that's, you know, copyright J.K. Rowling, 1847.

So we'll come up with a name for it, but for now it will be in the security segment. But I have a little bit of knowledge I'd like to drop or at least rant about coming up. Why don't we call it Defensive Strategies Against the Lack of Light Arts? Too many words. You know how much it's going to cost us to get a bumper done for that?

So coming up on Grumpy Old Geeks, not Defense Against the Not Light Occupations. I don't know. Okay. Yeah, forget that one. A friend of the show, Miller, actually posted this on his Facebook, and I kind of really enjoyed it.

I've never heard of Jacobin Magazine, a magazine of culture and polemic. Great article called All Power to the Pack Rats by an even Severius Snake. Let's stick with the Harry Potter thing. In our sleek Apple future, our outdated possessions are turning into symbols of poverty.

And it talks very much about the whole Apple kind of stylistic thing. And it's not just Apple. I mean, this is how everything is going anyways. Nobody wants – if you actually have books now and you're not using an e-reader, you're kind of old school. If you have just a whole ton of CDs up against the wall instead of having ripped everything into an always connected – or even screw that.

You throw away the drive now and you just use a streaming service. Yeah, it's a really interesting article about how we're starting to move towards this just very sleek, streamlined environment where we don't have physical objects around us anymore. And physical objects actually are so passé, they're starting to make you look like you're poor, basically.

Now, here's my problem with this article. This guy had an agenda here. Of course. He has a problem with minimalism in general. I mean, he did go back and reference 60s minimalism like Bauhaus and all those kind of aesthetics. So he did his homework at least. Yeah. But he couched it in this hatred he has for Apple.

And I tell you what, $100 down says this guy wrote it on a MacBook Pro. Guaranteed. We become what we hate. And this guy hates Apple and he's using the minimalist movement as just a launching pad for an attack against the Apple culture. Well, again, as I was saying when I was talking about it, I mean, yeah, he definitely singles out Apple.

But this is more – it's e-books. It's Kindle. It's everything. It's not Apple specific. It's our culture now. It's this whole – the cloud mentality of everything. And I somewhat agree with him. I mean, I certainly think that – I'm glad I don't have my gigantic wall of CDs anymore.

I'm happy that's gone. However, I pick and choose. I mean, I still love to have physical books around. And as much as I love my e-book reader, if there's a great book out by an author I love, I want to go buy it. I want to have the physical first edition hardbound copy preferably signed, et cetera. So, you know, there's a whole fetish – I can't say the word.

I haven't had enough tea yet today. Fetishistic? Yes, that thing about that I still like. And I don't like – I like minimalism. I like that a lot but only partially. Like it's a mixture of the two that I really prefer in my life. And I think us as humans, we do need that physical thing around.

It helps. And there are different degrees obviously, like you said, the mix. Because I obviously am on the far minimalist spectrum. But I also – I mean I enjoy quality good things. The things that I own are good and quality. But, you know, I'm not a – I do like my Apple products.

But it's not because of Apple that I chose to be a minimalist. I chose to be a minimalist because I'm basically a mentally ill, damaged child who still has not grown up from moving every two months when I was a kid. And I can't let – you know, it's like I don't want to put down roots because I feel they'll be pulled out from under me.

That's a common thing with kids of my generation who are no longer kids. We moved a lot and we don't like stuff. So to say that it's all about Apple and the Apple-ification of the world is – like I said, this guy had an agenda. It's an interesting read but take it with a grain of salt.

OK. Fair enough. I liked it. I mean it was well-written but go read his other article. This guy just – he's a hater. He's a big old hater. Which, you know, hey, I can't blame him for that. Look at our show. Yeah, true. Fair enough. Speaking of big old haters, what's going on with Carolla's podcast here?

Well, so we've talked about the patent troll issue with Adam Carolla and the people who own the patent have come out. They're fighting back now saying, hey, look, you guys are giving him money. We told him we were going to drop it. We don't want to have anything to do with it. There's no money in it. We're just going after NBC and ABC and all those guys now.

We're going to leave you podcasters alone because you're broke. And Adam Carolla is still going after them because at this point he has to save face because he's raised half a million dollars. He does have to do that. However, he did also make a very valid point because I listened to the start of his podcast the day after that news story came out.

And he said, last time I checked, if you want to drop a lawsuit, you can. And they haven't. So it's kind of – the onus is on them to drop the lawsuit that they started. And they haven't done it. So we'll see what happens. This could be just a bunch of lip service trying to make Adam look bad.

Well, I think so because – He's probably trying to cut his funding. Well, yeah. They're trying to cut his funding because that's been actually doing very well. And for whatever reason, for the longest time, this whole patent troll thing wasn't hitting mainstream media. Now it's starting to pop up everywhere. So I have a feeling that this is a bullshit defensive thrust against Carolla.

And I hope he keeps going because this patent needs to get invalidated. It's a playlist patent, which is ridiculous. Yeah, which is absolutely stupid and ridiculous anyways. And the fact that these companies exist that basically just buy patents and then go around and sue people to make money is revolting. I understand that's how our system works, but it's disgusting.

I don't want Carolla to drop it either. I think even if you have the option because from what my understanding is, is if it basically gets dropped, that keeps them – that gives them the right to pick up and re-sue anytime they want to anyone. So I don't want that to happen either. So keep fighting Carolla.

Yeah, because basically they were dropping it without prejudice, which means that they can at some point go back and reopen another lawsuit. Yeah. So that's – I learned about that from other stuff. But yes, the without prejudice part is the interesting way that they dropped it.

Yeah. We'll see how it plays out. I just wanted to put it in here because we talked about it ad nauseum and then it was making the rounds that these guys were coming out saying, hey, no, no, it's not us. We want to let it go, but apparently they haven't. Which is a load of crap. So speaking of letting things go, Tim Ferriss is out there with his – he's got a new challenge for dudes for the next 30 days.

Well, it's not just for dudes. It's not just for dudes. You know, the ladies can get in on it. The ladies can get in on it as well. Yeah, I think it's funny. It's how things just kind of get out there and they all kind of happen at the same time. It's just one of those things where is it in the ether or are various producers out there from various different mediums just like going, ooh, these people are doing this.

So we should do something like that because it seems to be getting traction. The Today Show has been pushing some sort of like 30-day give up the thing that you like the most challenge. And the very next day as I go online, I see Tim Ferriss' 30-day challenge, which is a more targeted and specific one.

No booze and no masturbating for 30 days. Okay, and just before we go any farther with this, the 30-day challenge thing is eons old. Well, of course it is. And if you go back like several years, Matt Cutts, the webmaster liaison for Google, has been doing these 30-day challenges forever.

He's got a TED Talk about it. He blogs about it every month. The 30-day challenge probably goes back to Roman times or Greek times. It's not a big thing, but yes. You start to pay attention to things. Which bias is that? Damn, is it a confirmation bias?

I don't know if it's – I can't remember. I've got to go back and listen to my You Are Not So Smart podcast to find the right bias. But anyway, yes, Tim's got a 30-day no booze, no masturbation challenge, which is designed to increase testosterone in dudes. That's why I'm saying it's mainly geared towards dudes.

He also claims increased ability to focus and cognitive endurance and getting roughly 50 to 100 percent more done, which tells me that you aren't drinking or masturbating correctly if it's taking you that much time. But the funniest thing about the whole thing is the photo, and the link is on our show notes at GrumpyOldGeeks.com slash 69, appropriate.

The photo that Tim Ferriss has chose for the blog entry about this makes masturbating and drinking highly enticing. That's a lovely shot of a very drunk girl with her tongue very far out. Yeah. Anyways. No, it's a – I tell you, it is a fantastic photo.

He did – he got a pretty good choice pick on that one. Yeah. Now, here's my problem with this. You take your average dude. You take away their booze. You take away their spankability. You know what we create then? Nitroglycerin. Okay.

These people need releases of some sort. I'd say pick one or the other, but not both at the same time. I think even he always used to say only do one challenge at a time, and this is doubling down. Yeah, I agree. That's one of those things where like when people really want to get on self-improvement kicks, they always go way overboard, thus ensuring failure.

Yeah. Yeah. So we'll see how it turns out. Are you joining the club? Hell no. I didn't think so. Well, first – I mean I guess I could because he does say that sex is a-okay, just no masturbating. I could probably – I could do a Seinfeldian 30 days without that, but I need my glass of wine, man.

Yeah. My version of this would be, okay, I won't masturbate and I won't get drunk for 30 days, but I will have some booze. Yeah. I can cut out 99 percent of the booze easy, but like every Sunday I have a glass of wine with my dad. That's not going anywhere because that's one of my highlights of my week.

And on Tuesday, I turned 43 and they're taking me out to a lovely restaurant here in Chicago called Volare, amazing Italian place. Volare, whoa. And they're paying, so you better be damn sure I'm having a nice glass of wine with my gnocchi. Yeah.

All right. So we're both out on this challenge then. Yes. Okay. Absolutely. The other thing I wanted to bring up was Kevin Kelly wrote a really cool article on Medium this week called You Are Not Late. I like that note of resignation you have in your voice every time you say on Medium.

I know. But it's a great little kind of pick-me-up piece. Kevin Kelly, the original editor of Wired, wrote that giant book that they sent me called Cool Tools. He's been around forever. He's one of the old guard of the Digerati. Yeah. I hate the word.

Yeah, yeah. But he wrote a really good piece basically saying, look, look, we're still at the beginning of the internet. Don't give up. You're not too late. Did you read it? I did read it. I sort of agree with him. But the problem, he completely ignores the entire fact of the corporatization of everything at the moment.

I mean, in theory, hopefully that'll, you know, just like music, you know, you go through your corporate periods and then a nirvana comes along that breaks everything apart and then it gets all interesting again. We're waiting for something to come along on the internet to kind of break it apart because right now it's so uniform, it's so corporatized, and it's so boring.

And I don't see anything coming along anytime soon to break that. Maybe there will be. In fact, I see the exact opposite as we see all this stuff about, you know, the whole – all the different things that are going on out there in terms of, you know, bandwidth restrictions and are we going to give, you know, Time Warner the ability to promote certain things over others.

It's just feeling more and more corporate. But I know. But here's the deal. This has happened before. It will happen again. It's Battlestar Galactica. I know. Here we go. Everything goes in cycles. You know, back in the MySpace days, you were probably saying the same thing because you couldn't see the top of the hill where the crest is where things fall off and they start over.

You know, something will come along. Someone will invent the new Ajax, which will be a new web technology that we can use to do cooler stuff. You know, there's always a cycle with this stuff. People will get bored of Facebook at some point. And it all goes – there's a churn to it. No, I agree.

So I think that there will be another churn. And if you really want to be at the forefront of that, then, you know, it's a tough road because you've got to be on point and be at the wave right at the right time to get your surfboard going. Yeah. And I just don't know if I've got the patience for that anymore. Somebody will.

That's what I'm saying. It's not going to be us. We're done. Yeah. We're too old. We're taking off our wetsuit and getting in the car and going to have some martinis. We're done. We're not going out in the surf anymore. So basically you just said that we are too late. Well, hey, if you want to get back in the water, go for it.

I'm calling last run, which you never call. No. Yeah. I think, you know, just from a historical perspective, we're burnt. But there will be another churn. There will be. There will be another cycle. So for you younger old geeks that listen to this program and always, you know, sit there and go, man, they're so negative about the Internet, go read the article.

It is vaguely heartwarming and uplifting, and it does give hope. And I do believe that as well. I think that it's a cycle and something else will happen. It's been pretty static and boring for quite a while now, but something will come through. And it won't just be for the digital elites sitting up in Silicon Valley. Yeah. Don't give up hope.

I mean, yeah, granted, don't go out and try and build the next yo, but look a year in advance. Look two years in advance and start building something now. You know, you look at Twitter. Twitter wasn't a corporate thing when it started. It was just, you know, like three dudes, and then it turned into one.

But, hey, that's a different story. That's a different story. But anyway, yeah, anyway, I'm just saying I like this article. It was like a nice piece that didn't say, like, the world's dead. Forget it. Burn your modem. You know, it wasn't a burn your modem type of piece. Yeah. Comment of the Week.

Been a good two weeks for Grumpy Old Geeks on iTunes. We have another five-star iTunes rating and comments. So keep those coming, people. We really appreciate it, and it does make a difference. This one comes from GreenDeva3. I think that would be GreenDeva. We have to spell D-E-V-A, so I was thinking dev, but who knows.

Anyways, moving on. Gog make, that'd be Grumpy Old Geeks, make continuing education of the Internet hopeful for this noob. I love that these fellows not only have been around computers in the interwebs for years, but they put process and function in terms that do not leave me trying to keep my head above water. I am a low-grade DIYer, but I've managed to not send myself straight to hell with a questionable install, et cetera.

Hey, don't feel bad about that. We've all done it. Oh, yeah. I learn something new every episode and get a lot of laughter at the same time. So thank you very much. We really appreciate it, and thank you again for the five-star rating. Yes, thank you, GreenDeva3. I will go with D-Va. And our donation of the week. A huge thanks to Jennifer Hunt for helping us out through the PayPal form on grumpyoldgeeks.com.

Your donations are always appreciated and help keep the wheels on the wagon. So, yes, definitely. Thank you, Jennifer. You have contributed graciously to our bandwidth fund for the month. And if you'd like to donate to Grumpy Old Geeks just to give us a hand, go to grumpyoldgeeks.com. There's a PayPal form.

There's a donation form to sponsor us through Tugboat Yards and – or Tugboat or Tug Yards. You can go to tugyards.com, which I still own the domain for. I think that's expiring soon. I don't want to have to get that again. Don't go there if you're doing the 30-day challenge. It's no tugging in the yard.

Hello, podcast fans. Adam Carolla here. I'm leading the fight against patent trolls who are threatening this medium. It's not about me. It's about the podcast you're listening to right now. If I go down, this show could be next. Visit fundanything.com forward slash patent troll for more information on how you can keep podcasting alive.

Thank you and mahalo. In the news.

When I was traveling in Canada a couple of weeks ago about how crappy my iPhone was connecting to things. Slow battery life was draining super, super fast. Since I've been back, I've had a recurring issue. And the annoying thing, as with most technology things that start to break, is it's not consistent.

It doesn't happen all the time. But more often than not now, when my battery has decided it's down to 20%, it just shuts off. I don't get that last 20% of juice. It's like I see it hits 20%. It gives me a little warning. I hit dismiss. Within five minutes, my phone is completely shut off and is dead.

And I have to go charge it. And I was a little annoyed by this. And I posted something on my Facebook about it. And I, unsurprisingly, there's quite a few other people that are experiencing the exact same thing. I am wondering if anybody out there is having the same thing with their iPhone. When you hit 20%, boom, it just shuts down.

Let us know because this does seem to be happening. I basically just wanted to talk about that. But then I, of course, I see… Hang on, hang on. Yes, it does happen. Mike, my roommate, MXV, who was on the show, happens to him all the time. He's got a five. And every now and again, he's like, damn it, give me your cord.

I'm about to get shut off because he was at 21%. Yeah, that seems to be a recurring thing for quite a lot of people because there are at least five people, five of my friends on Facebook that said the same thing is happening to them. So it's a recurring thing right now. So I've been reading The Guardian a lot recently for some reason.

So you should be happy I'm off Slate or Salon as much. And there's an article on iPhone. Why does my iPhone – or article on iPhone. There's an article on The Guardian. Why does my old iPhone seem to get slower before a new release? Google Trends is showing a spike in searches from people for iPhones slowing down, not so much the battery problem.

But same sort of thing. It's that built-in obsolescence item that we always talk about. And is that really happening with iPhones or are they just – I don't know. What's going on? Well, look at it this way. The OS keeps getting updated.

You're probably at 7.1.1 now, I'm guessing. Every update, there's going to be something that adds more features and takes more cycles, more CPU, right? So as it keeps going, like it's going to get slower because there's more features. There's newer code that hasn't been properly – what's it?

Optimized yet? Optimized, yeah. Whatever. There's going to be some falloff as you go because you're not going to be able to run like OSX Mavericks on an Apple II. That's just progress. So over time, it will get slower. So here's the trick. Don't upgrade your OS.

Don't upgrade your apps. It'll run as fast as it always has. That's your trick. No, I agree. And I'm not having an issue with the slowness because I do things like when I upgrade, I go to make sure that things that I'm not using – settings get reset. So I turn off background apps for things I hardly ever use and all that sort of stuff.

I do not have the slowing issue. I've been pretty good with that. I do have a real issue with this 20% thing because 20% means you have 20% left, not zero. And that seems to be the case at this point and that I'm annoyed by and Apple, you're better than that or at least you used to be.

Well, here's a question. Do you do the like once a month, let it run down to zero and shut off to recalibrate the battery? Well, I'm basically doing it once a week at this point because it hits 20% and shuts off. Yeah, but get it to zero at some point when it – it doesn't shut off at 20% every time, correct?

Not every time. Exactly. So one time when it gets to 19, then just let it go to zero and that will recalibrate and recondition the battery or I think it's just calibrate. They don't do battery conditioning on these anymore and it will probably help. Yeah. But I can't say for certain.

It could be a software glitch. I've noticed though on my 5S, battery life has gone down the crapper recently. I don't know if I got – I do have the background auto update for every app on. So I'm just – I'm thinking that maybe one of my apps that I use often has some kind of flaw in it that's just draining battery.

So I've been turning stuff off hand over fist. But yeah, I used to be able to go a day and a half without charging and now I can't go half a day. Oh, yeah. Me either. Half a day tops. Like that's usually when I hit the 20% and it will shut off. So it's a bit horrible. Yeah. I don't know which one it is.

So I'm basically like testing my apps now. I'll like close everything out and just open one app and let it run in the background and see if I see like a quick drain on it. Facebook has always been terrible. So I never let that run and I just – I barely use it anymore anyway. But we'll get to Facebook in a second.

So yeah, I mean do some A-B testing on it. Kill the apps that you're not using. See if it helps. But also if you can, recondition the battery by just letting it go to zero and shutting off, then charging it back to 100%. I will try that. Cool. So I was watching on Twitter. A friend of the show, Sean Bonner, was having a bit of a meltdown a couple days ago because everybody found out about their Uber ratings.

And he was upset that somebody didn't give him a five and his overall rating was dropped down to like what, 4.7 or something like that. I think he was 4.6. He and I got into it a little bit because before he had his meltdown, he and his wife Tara and I were going back and forth because we both have fives. And other friend of the show, Jordan Cooper, was making fun of all of us.

So that was fun. Yeah, I have a zero because I have yet to use Uber. But this is an intriguing thing to me. I mean I like the idea of passengers being able to rate drivers and drivers being able to rate passengers. I think it's interesting. But obviously it's causing some people to get quite upset.

Of course it is. It's always going to make people upset, especially the people that didn't even know that it existed, which – how did you not know that this didn't exist? There are people that are still out there that think if you call your local Domino's pizza and you stiff them on the tip, that's not put into your record. Yeah, well.

OK. Let's not talk about the stupidity of the human race. It will take us all day. OK. So yeah, people are worried about discrimination now. Well, there's always been discrimination. Then now it's just a little bit more unified and – here's the deal. People – yes, people will rate you if you're a dick and you won't be able to use their service.

That happens everywhere. They're talking about how big data can be used and this is specifically in a Guardian article. So thank you for not going to Solana Slate anymore and going to the Guardian. But there are other issues with technology and big data that worry me a lot more than Uber.

Well, my real question about this to talk specifically just about Uber is this was actually a mistake, right? A coder actually did something wrong that brought all these ratings out publicly. No, no. Well, a very clever JavaScript hacker found out how to pull it out of the mobile site.

Well, there you go. OK. So he used some clever JavaScript to be able to give us introspection on what our rating is because it's got to get passed to the driver and the driver is using the same mobile app. So he's like, how is that passed? Let me figure that out. And they weren't obviously encrypting that number. So he figured out a way to pull it out.

Right. So now that this has come out to light, shouldn't they just make this public now? Shouldn't everybody's ratings just be out there all the time? Shouldn't there be total transparency? No. No? I don't think so. OK. No. I think the obfuscation of the data actually turns you into a better citizen.

I don't have an actual scientific study on that. I just know that if somebody does right by me and I'll do right by them, if I get a good ride, I give the guy a good rating. If I don't get a good ride, he doesn't get a good rating. So the transparency of those numbers doesn't really matter.

All right. Here's the trick. Don't be a dick. Well, yeah, but here, now let's go macro with this. There are a lot of people in the world that, you and I included, Bill Maher is in our camp as well, that feel that we don't need any outside thing telling us that we have to be a good person.

We believe that we should just be that way as atheists. However, a lot of humanity seems to feel the need for some religious thing to exist to impose its will and provide punishment if they do not act good, which forces them to act good. Would not being able to see your own ratings force these people to go, hmm, I shouldn't be an asshole?

I really don't want to get into this discussion with you on this topic. I really don't. Well, I'm of the feeling that your own personal rating, now that everybody knows that Uber keeps a rating on you, you should be able to view yourself.

I don't think that the entire general public should be able to see, oh, you've got a 4.3 on Uber. You're a dick. But I think you should know what your score is. Yeah. Like I said, you know what? Let's just talk about Yelp for a second then. Because all ratings on Yelp are public.

You can see the people that are rating you and it goes back and forth. And has that really made the world a better place? No, it hasn't at all. If anything, it builds more animosity. And one of the great stories of the week was a restaurant kept getting terrible Yelp reviews.

Right. Okay? And what it ended up turning out was the restaurant wasn't getting worse. The customers were getting worse. So how do you make your customers be better people? I don't know. Answer me that. Answer me that. Well, I don't know. But Uber is keeping ratings on you.

If somebody is rating me, I want to know what my rating is and I want to know why. But then they have to build a system where you have an appeals process. You have recourse against them. And then it becomes a matter of he said, she said. And then nobody wins because both people, both parties get punished.

Are we talking about Palestine and Israel now? No. Okay. We will not. Nope, nope, nope, nope, nope. All right. Well, I think it's funny that you brought up the restaurant thing because that was doing the rounds for a little bit. I don't know if I buy that completely.

100%. They said they went back and they looked at videos from 15 years ago. And the reason service takes so much longer now is people are on their phones all the time. I only have anecdotal evidence of myself when I'm out and about. I don't see that happening. Who knows?

Yeah, but here's the deal. You're polite. When we go out, we put our phones away. That's true. When we are together in a place of mirth and merriment and sustenance, we eat, we drink, we talk. We are not like most people. Look around the bar. Look around the restaurant.

Any given restaurant, I go out to eat fairly often. And 80% of the table, there's four people. They're all looking at their phone. They're not even talking to each other. I don't understand that. Well, if they don't like each other that much, then why bother going out to dinner with each other? Exactly.

If you're going out to dinner with someone, talk to that person. Don't spend your entire time texting people that couldn't make it. Seriously, I sit home alone enough that when I'm out with somebody, the one thing I want to do is talk to them. I'm like, put my phone away. Yeah. So, okay, let's talk about this Facebook Messenger kerfuffle now.

So they're forcing everybody to use their Messenger mobile app now. I don't understand this move at all. I don't know why they're trying to force you to use two apps when you already have the one. I don't get it. I think it's a mistake. I think it's stupid. I think this is the same thing.

Now, Foursquare forced us to use Swarm if you wanted to check in. And Foursquare, the app itself, is now some bullshit that nobody ever loads for anything. Not that people are using Swarm either. Why force people out of one app and try to make them use two? Well, you're not forced. You don't have to use it.

Well, no. There's the rub. You don't have to use it if you don't want to. It's not entirely in your own control. I never personally use Facebook messaging for anything, but people do write me on it. And if they choose to write me there, then that's the way I need to interact with them because that's the medium that they've picked.

Well, here's what I do when somebody sends me a message on Facebook, I usually just send them back one message with my email address. I guess you could do that. Anyways, but it still doesn't make sense as a company move to me to do this. I don't get it. I don't understand it either.

Nobody I know understands it. I'm sure there's some middle manager there somewhere who thought it was a fantastic idea, and I'm sure there's some business plan down the road that's two years out to probably break it off into a separate company so it can make more money than Facebook when Facebook goes away.

Who the hell knows? It's corporate maneuvering. I don't know. I'm not going to use it, but I just wanted to bring it up because everybody's bitching about it that does use Facebook messaging. I guess I'll be the test guinea pig because I do get enough people that write me just on Facebook. It's not work stuff.

It's just friends, and I like to keep my friendships, so I won't be rude enough just to write them back and say, talk to me through a different medium. Well, the interesting thing was you posted an article that was like a year and a half old with their very draconian terms of service just for using the Messenger app. Yeah. I want to go back, and maybe I'll do that this week, and see if they've changed those terms because the old terms were like, we can turn on your phone whenever you want.

You can do all sorts of shit. Yeah. It's all pretty crazy, so we'll see what the new version is like. I don't know. But in other news, William Shatner seemed to have gone a little crazy on Twitter. Oh, no. Okay.

I love Shatner. I like following him. I think he's really funny. I mean, how can you not like Kirk? But he did kind of go a little crazy about the concept of verification on Twitter, and he said that nobody should not be verified because it shows a huge flaw in the Twitter system.

He was getting pissed off that people that weren't public figures were actually getting verified. Okay. So he's saying that everybody should be verified but only if you're famous? Only if you're famous. Pretty much. Oh, okay. Well. I mean, I saw his argument was – well, because it's Twitter, you can't exactly provide a very lengthy explanation, and it comes off as little sound bites because that's the nature of Twitter.

He got to the point that more it was like the only reason that there should be a verification is if you're somebody that could be impersonated and is open to impersonation to showcase that this is the real one as opposed to all the impersonators that are out there, which I somewhat get.

I don't really get the verification thing anyways because, again, there's no transparency about it. You only become verified if somebody over at Twitter goes, oh, we should verify that person. And I still – it's the same as far as I can tell with Facebook except for the fact that nobody gives a shit if you have the little verification thing on your Facebook thing anyways.

But it appears to be a big deal on Twitter. Yeah, it is a black box. Nobody knows. They don't talk about it. I've had friends at Twitter who worked in that department who wouldn't even talk about it, and I'm like, come on, man. Just get me in. Get me in. Give me a little check. And they're like, no, no, no. A, no.

B, no. See, go fuck yourself. So all in all, it's a black box, and it is up to the whim of Twitter, and it's pointless anyway. I'm sorry. It's pointless. But so his argument I think is uninformed and silly because he doesn't understand the mechanisms behind it.

It's like you don't ask. They just give it to you, period. I've had friends that showed up one day, and they're like, oh, shit. I'm verified. Great. Yeah. I mean that's happened. But there's also – it's a game. Again, it's human nature because there – I think – I believe Shatner himself was involved with getting one of the other Star Trek actors verified because they all started like tweeting Twitter and just saying, hey, why – this is the real guy from Star Trek.

Verify him too. And then he ended up getting verified. So it's just a stupid game, and I don't really give a shit. So I don't know why I brought it up in the first place. It's in Twitter's best interest to have verified celebrities because then they get audiences, and it engages people with the celebrity.

So the only people that really win in this is Twitter. As per usual, yeah. Yeah, and half of the fake celebrity accounts are way better than the real ones. Jennifer Lawrence is – the fake Jennifer Lawrence is hysterical. It's one of my favorite accounts, and real Jennifer Lawrence isn't even out in there.

So I'm going to – every time I see Jennifer Lawrence on TV now, I like to just transplant the personality of fake Jennifer Lawrence onto her because it's way more interesting and way less depressing. Yeah. Well, my two favorite accounts on Twitter are Depressed Darth and God, so – and neither of them exist.

That's true. OK. So you've got some science you want to drop. Yeah, so keeping with the whole Star Trek thing. Actually, this is really interesting to me. I'm a huge science nerd, and I love this sort of stuff, and NASA has found a huge mystery in the Perseus cluster.

There is some anomalous data coming out that cannot be explained as of yet without getting too science-y. It's basically a blip where there shouldn't be a blip, and nobody knows what's going on, and it's all very exciting. So we shall see. Yeah, it's very cool, and it's been verified by multiple people around the world.

Yeah, this is real, real, real, real science. This is really happening. This isn't one of those things where you see one news report that everybody links to about some random explosion that occurred somewhere way out in the middle of nowhere that could be an alien, and it's never verified again. This is super real. Yeah, it's like a frequency of X-ray that shouldn't actually be physically possible by the laws of physics.

Exactly. Yeah, so super exciting stuff. So more on that as it develops. Yeah, there's another one that I didn't put in the show notes that I just read last night while I was waiting for the fourth season of The Killing to drop. I'll find it and put it in the show notes, but it was put out by NASA that there was this theoretical drive that could turn electricity directly into propulsion that this guy has been talking about for years, and apparently they've done tests now.

The Chinese did a test, and some independent labs at NASA have done some tests, and it turns out it might actually be working. It is super cool, and they're not putting a lot of backing behind it yet. They're just saying, here are the findings we found.

We've done all these tests, and it looks like this type of device can actually create propulsion out of direct electricity with no propellants, which would mean satellite life can be drastically increased because you just get power from the sun and get thrust out of that.

You know, half the weight of a satellite is propellant, and then when the propellant is gone, then it falls out of orbit. It's a dead satellite because they can't move it. Same thing with traveling to Mars. It's like, okay, we don't need as big a gas tank because we just get light from the sun, and it makes us go, go, go.

So it's a very interesting and fascinating piece of science that's come out. I'll definitely put it in the show notes. I've got to go find it again. But it's super cool, so drop in the science. Science! Security! Ha! This week in security, I'm going to talk about a few things real quick that are just kind of funny.

The first one I found on Sophos, it's an article about this guy, Stevie Graham. He's a security researcher, and he found an auth flaw in Instagram that basically lets anybody, you know, hijack somebody else's Instagram account when you're on open Wi-Fi.

Okay, wait. And he made a tweet. Oh, go ahead. His name isn't Stevie Graham, is it? Stevie Graham. Oh. And he found the Instagram thing. How funny. Oh, God. I didn't even put that together. Stevie Graham on Instagram. So he made a tweet, said, Denied bug bounty.

Next step is to write automated tool enabling mass hijacking of accounts. Pretty serious vulnerability. Facebook, please fix. Well, his vulnerability that he found goes back, you know, like back to 2010 when there was Fire Sheep. Remember Fire Sheep?

I do. Yeah, basically a little tool that lets you hijack unencrypted cookies on open Wi-Fi. Yep. Very simple technology. He found a way to do the same thing now. And apparently they haven't fixed it. And they've been writing about this problem since 2012 on Sophos.

And so they didn't fix it. So this guy wrote basically a how-to. So here's the tip. Pay the bug bounty to shut him up. Okay? Yep. Okay. Because it's still open. Yeah. It's still an open bug. Don't log into your Instagram account from your Starbucks.

Simple enough. If you really care if anybody hijacks your Instagram account. True. This is true. I don't give a shit. I can't remember the last time I used Instagram. You know, I post a photo of like a beer I'm drinking on a Sunday. Oh, no.

Oh, no. I actually wouldn't even care if somebody hacked into my Facebook account. So what? So speaking of hacking into your Facebook account, there's this guy. I just set it right up for you. Yep. Softball. Steven Sclafani. Right. He's another – he's basically another security researcher.

He's got a really interesting blog because this guy makes a good amount of money on the bug bounties. Right. He's got a – basically a breakdown of how he hacked the Facebook legacy API to steal user sessions, which is a really fun read if you're into the tech behind – in the thought process behind how these guys go about finding the bugs.

And he gets paid because he finds real good ones. Well, I mean this makes total sense for a company to offer bug bounties anyways because no matter how often you go through your own code or how many people you have working in it, somebody is going to find a way in. So offer them money and fix them. The problem is that these companies don't often go in and fix these things when they're found.

Yeah. There's the issue right there. So it's really fun. And a hat tip to Andreas Krohn on Twitter who I got the Sclafani link from. But it's a really fun read. I really enjoy this guy's blog because it's a really fun breakdown. If you've got some time, they're very long pieces, very long posts.

But just the point-by-point breakdown, it's just finding the bugs and knowing what the APIs do and how to hack around them. It's good stuff. Very cool. So. Yes. Verteidigung gegen die dunklen kunste.

Nice. I don't know if I said that right, but it's close enough. Close enough. That would be our segment title. Look it up. Die Defense Against Die Dark Arts. Hold there. Hold there, Chief. Don't eat the microphone. Don't eat the microphone. Sorry. I got excited.

So, yeah. I want to start a new segment here about how to protect yourself against smarmy people on the Internet. I know this is a huge task. Let me do my 30-second version of this segment, and then I would never do the segment again.

Don't be stupid. That wasn't 30 seconds. Yeah. Three seconds. Now, okay, here's where I want to start with this. We talked about all the experiments that people do on Facebook and OkCupid and everywhere else, right?

Yeah. There is a huge amount of this going on every day. Yeah. Everything that you look at almost has been tested, tested, tested. There is a core group that is really big into this, and this is the web marketer group, right?

Technically what we do, sort of. Well, no. Actually, I wish we did it this well. We'd probably get paid a hell of a lot better and wouldn't have to beg for shekels. So these new tactics of manipulation that these guys have been using aren't actually that new.

It comes back to A-B testing like a fiend. Once you have traffic, you can do proper A-B testing. But these guys go super deep. They'll do 20 variants of a headline, a logo, placement of buttons, how far people need to scroll. And they use tactics like urgency, like this, the same thing that they do on infomercials, you know, call in the next 10 minutes, get a set of spatulas free.

This is how we've ended up with the – and you won't believe what happened headlines all over Facebook. Yeah. Yeah. Scarcity. We're only going to – this is only open to the next 20 people. Right. Social proof. Testimonials like, you know, I tried this and my schlong got four feet longer.

Page length, page length, fatigue, and decision making is a huge thing. The longer the page, by the time you get to the bottom, the more that product is going to cost. I'm going to guarantee you right now because what they do is – we've talked about ego depletion and cognitive surplus and things like that on the show before.

The more that they have you read, the more testimonials you go through, the more videos you have to watch. By the time you get to the end and see that button, you've got far less willpower than when you started at the top of that page. And you are more likely to buy something that you don't need. Because you feel like you've invested the time, right?

Exactly. See, for me, as soon as I get to anything like that, that requires that I do anything, I just go, nah, screw this. Yeah. Well, it's both you've invested the time and you also don't have the same decision-making power that you had when you started reading the page.

Right. It's a combination between the two. They use pointers and eye direction as well. So there's a lot of times if you look at a page and there's a picture of somebody doing something, there are subtle arrows pointing to the button that says buy me or put in your email address, things like that.

It's very subtle but they've tested the hell out of this. And if you see a picture of a cute chick and she's looking at something, more than likely she's looking at the button that you need to press to buy something. Right. Colors. They use colors like you would not believe. I mean blue, everybody knows about blue.

It's the trust color. Red and yellow are urgency colors, meaning you need to sign up now. There's a wealth of psychology behind this stuff and testing that these guys have done. Now, the main guys that use this are the info product people.

They're people who are selling e-books, e-courses. Basically, how to become a millionaire online, you know, same kind of stuff. The guy that really drives me nuts right now is this guy named John Lee Dumas. We've made fun of his podcast on this show before.

He runs Entrepreneur on Fire, which is a formulaic daily podcast where he asks somebody the same set of questions every day. Somebody new, right? He has found – he has won the douchebag lottery, right?

He has figured out how to run a podcast that appeals to a set of people who want to become better and make more money. And, you know – Who doesn't? Right. And these are people with disposable income. So what this guy has done is he's taken his little podcast empire and here's the rub.

If he was just making money on ads on his podcast, all the power to him. You know, I'm like, you have made a product that people want and people will buy ads on it because you have listeners. Right. Fine. All good. What he's done now is he's taken that little bit of internet fame and turned it into, here's how you can pay me money so I can teach you to do exactly what I just did.

Right, which is as old as time itself. I mean this was – these were the late-night TV infomercials 20 years ago. Tom Vu. Tom Vu. Yeah, I bought all this real estate and I have all these hot chicks on a yacht and so can you. Exactly. And, you know, this goes back to episode one of Grumpy Old Geeks.

And I just want to – I want to talk about – I want to just be a little bit more specific now in how to, you know, avoid these things. If somebody is selling you a product on how to make money like they made money, it's useless. It is worthless. Otherwise, we would be hearing about people who have taken these courses and are now in their own yacht and they're selling you another product.

You know, it's the snake eating its tail. He's going to basically sell you something that you could have done on your own by just paying attention. And his big one is called Podcaster's Paradise. He does a weekly webinar which is – it's a two-hour webinar.

So we go back to ego depletion right there, two hours before he gives you a sale. You know, a button to buy. And while doing that, he's got a group of people in a chat room who are all, you know, talking it up, getting each other riled so they become part of a pack and they want to remain part of that pack.

So when somebody buys, they're like, I want to be in that pack too. And you don't want to be excluded. And he's selling this course on how to start a podcast for almost $1,000. He's made over a million dollars at this point teaching people how to podcast.

He's spending $70 a month on this crappy membership software that's run by Infusionsoft called Customer Hub. So expenses there are very minimal. Right. Does he explain at all about how to make any money doing a podcast or he just tells you how to start one? He shows the back end in the webinar and it looks terrible.

I mean he just redesigned it so it looks a little better. But it's basically forums, a couple videos, some PDFs, and a guest every month. And it's guests who are already making money and who were making money before he made money. And who are probably very bitter because he's making more money than they are now.

You don't need things like this to start a podcast. We did it. We figured it out. Everybody that I know that started a podcast gets in there, figures it out. It takes a couple months and you're done. And you have a much better understanding of the process when you're done. Yeah. And you don't have a bunch of friends who are loser podcasters.

You have people that are decent podcasters because they've gone through the trials and tribulations. When you buy this knowledge, it's unearned knowledge. And people tend to just ignore that kind of stuff, which is why spending money on these things is a waste of money and a waste of your time.

And he's also got another one called Webinar on Fire where you spend $500. And he teaches you how to do the webinar through a webinar to sell webinars. You know? Again, I mean obviously there are a lot of people that fall for this stuff because otherwise these people wouldn't be making any money.

But there's just a part in my brain when I see these things that screams, this is bullshit. And I'm just shocked that other people don't have that. But here's the deal. A lot of people don't understand what's happening and they see it and they just get caught up in it. And I want people that are listening to this show to understand when they see these things to have a red flag go off.

To trigger that red flag to be more critical about what they're looking at and say, oh, where am I being sold here? What's happening here? Do I really want this? Do I really need this? Is this something I can learn on my own? What are the tricks of psychology that these people are using right now to take my money?

And is it something I really want and really need? If so, spend your money. Take the course. Maybe you'll get something out of it. But don't go into something expecting not to buy anything and then be blindly pulling out your credit card going, what's happening to me? Why are my hands typing in my credit card number unaware of what you're doing?

And this is coming from somebody who has been naive. I've been taken by these people hand over fist. And over the course of the past 10 years, 15 years, I've learned to spot all of these cues. So that's what this segment is going to be. Like every week I want to try and pull out a few more.

Anything new that I find this week, I'm going to share it. So at least when you come out of Grumpy Old Geeks, you'll at least have some kind of tool when you're done. To say, I'm going to keep my credit card in my pocket this time. A tool to avoid the tools. Exactly. And the last thing I want to talk about, and like I said, I ran off a couple different psychological things that they use.

And as we go forward in the segments in the coming weeks, I'll take each one and kind of explain what they're doing with a little bit more detail on it. There's one trend that I want to pull out right now. I think Pat Flynn may have been the first one to really popularize this, which is being transparent with how much money they're making off of you.

He posts his income reports every month. And so does the John Lee Dumas guy and a couple other ones. I'm starting to see a trend of people who are selling stuff to you telling you how much money they're making off of you. First off, this is unverifiable. You cannot – they can make this shit up hand over fist and present it to you as gospel.

And people will suck it up as gospel. Yeah, I'm looking at this and I'm just not buying it. And then when I click on it for further detail, he actually doesn't provide any real detail. There's no – and it's completely unverifiable, obviously. He's not publishing anything that's like – he's not opening up his bank accounts.

He's not saying exactly where the money is coming from. This is all a load of crap. Yeah, and obviously even if he opened up his bank account and showed you a statement, I can Photoshop a statement in 30 seconds. Right. What this does is this builds trust. This is a trust-building exercise. So later on when he wants to sell you something, you have that trust already implanted in you because he has been honest with you.

And he would never sell you a bill of goods. Right. And here's the deal. I'm not saying Pat Flynn is doing this. Most of the other people I can probably guarantee are. Pat Flynn has been doing this since the beginning and he started off with very low – very little income. And he could be – this could be a whole ploy but I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt because I don't know the guy.

The other people I've been watching, I'm not so trustworthy of. And I could be completely wrong. I mean Pat Flynn is definitely smarter than he plays on the internet. I'm going to tell you that right now. So just be aware that when people are being extremely transparent with you, it very well could be a trust move to get you to buy something down the line.

So things like that are what I really watch out for. And a lot of these guys have taken over the mantle of the master of all this, Eben Pagan, who used to be David D'Angelo, the super dating guy. Right? Right. He preaches give away 99% of everything that you have for free and the other 1% goes behind the paywall because that way they've got the goods.

It's like, oh my god, if they see all of this stuff, when I pay, I'm going to get so much more. No, you're not. You're going to get the exact same stuff with 1% more. Right. So even right there, if you want to learn from these people, learn about what they give you up front, take that, write it down in your notebook, go with God, and then go find somebody else.

Or better yet, go do something else. Go start a business. Be productive. But learn how to do it on your own and just don't buy knowledge from these people because, like I said, it's unearned knowledge and you're not going to act on it. So there's my spiel for the week. So hopefully there's something in there that you can learn from.

All right, man. So next week I'll run into some more of this stuff. But, yeah, be safe out there. At the library. So I've had a fairly epic week of reading, mostly last weekend.

But I'm working my way to getting to a book a day, actually reading it, which means I need practice. So here's my epic, fast rundown of what I've read this week. The Power of No, Because One Little Word Can Bring Health and Abundance and Happiness by James Altucher and Claudia Azula.

All right. Meh. It sounds like a mad at me. It sounds like a bullshit self-help kind of, hey, just say no to things. You're too busy. Your time is valuable. There were a couple nuggets in this book that were pretty good, but I heard James on Tim Ferriss' podcast. I liked him. I like his podcast, even though sometimes it's a little B.S.-y.

They did the audiobook reading themselves and they made it – they did it very loose and off the cuff, which made it almost unlistenable. So if you're going to – if you are bound and determined to read this book, get the paperback version or the e-version, whatever version. Just don't get the audiobook version.

It was terrible. Second up, Gates of Fire, an epic novel of the Battle of Thermopylae by Stephen Pressfield. OK. Oh my god, what a good book. This is one of the best books I've read this year. Stephen Pressfield wrote The War of Art, which we've talked about on the show, and The Legend of Bagger Vance.

Amazing author. This book was so good. I can't recommend it enough. And the audio version is read by George Waddell, who's a fantastic reader. There's nothing wrong with this book whatsoever, especially if you like historical fiction. It's about the Battle of Thermopylae and the Spartans, the 300.

Yeah. But oh my god, is it good. I'm getting chills just thinking about it now. Check it out. I also went back and read Meditations by Marcus Aurelius, classic, fantastic. I mean I can't – you can't go wrong with that ever. And the new translation by Gregory Hayes is the one to get.

So next up, Ernest Hemingway on writing. I'm never going to be a writer. This guy is just too damn good. And the work that he puts into it and just he's a master of the craft and it just makes me not want to be a writer because I'll never be anywhere near that caliber. It's just like I'm just going to give up now.

I'm done. I wasn't even aware that Hemingway had written about writing. It's basically a bunch of clips from different sources. This guy, Larry Phillips, went out and found all the pieces where he talked about writing in letters to friends, in magazine articles and put it all into a fairly short book.

But if you want to be a writer, this is on the top of the list. This bird by bird, Stephen King on writing, this should be at the top of the list if you want to be a better writer. Get this book. I was about to say the best book that I think I've ever read about writing was Stephen King's on writing. That was absolutely fantastic. Yeah, and bird by bird is okay.

I mean here's the thing. You can skip that entire book if you just learn about what everybody talks about from that book is the first shitty draft. You write the first draft for yourself and then you throw it away. It can be as terrible as you want. Then you throw it away. Then you start your real first draft. From bird by bird, that's all you really need.

Now, the book that I'm actually reading, reading is Sam Walton's Made in America. Very interesting book. I didn't think I was going to like it because I have such a deep-seated hatred of Walmart. But just from a business standpoint, reading this book – I mean granted, most of it is probably propaganda because it's his story and his life and his story.

But it's a damn interesting read. It really is. Cool. So that's my five for the week. Yeah, you're working through it a lot. There will not be five books for next week because now I'm behind on everything else in my life. I'm halfway through – well, not even halfway through yet.

Oryx and Crake. I remember a couple weeks ago I brought up the dystopian fiction list. Yes, yes. Yeah, and this was on it and I remembered having read it ages and ages ago and then discovering through that list that it's actually a three-book series now, which I was completely unaware of. So I went back and found my copy of Oryx and Crake, which is the first book and the only one I was aware of, and realized I don't remember any of it.

So I'm starting to – I'm rereading that, really enjoying it, and looking forward to getting through the whole series. So that was – that will be what you'll be hearing about from me in coming weeks. Cool. Well, and actually I'm going to throw one to you that you should check out. Bruce Sterling used to be a pretty damn good science fiction writer.

And he had – did you read any of the old books, like Schismatrix? Not that one, but I have read a couple of his older works. Because he used to have this series, the – what was it? The Shapers and the Mechanists. So there's – like humanity broke off into two branches. The Mechanists are basically people who turned into robots and put mechanized parts in their bodies.

And then the Shapers who are – they basically were bodybuilders and vegans and stuff like that. That was a pretty good series. You should check out Schismatrix again if you haven't. Good stuff.

I've been listening to tons and tons of podcasts as we talk about on our podcast. I had basically totally burned out on music because that's the industry I work in and you get sick of it. And it was – it just felt like work to me.

So for like over a year now, I've kind of really only listened to music that's directly involved with my job, not so much for pleasure anymore, and just been loading up on podcasts. And I made a decision just this last week that I need to take a break from podcasts and switch back over to music, preferably for enjoyment and not work.

And I've been doing that and I've really enjoyed it. I do not miss podcasts at the moment. Well, yeah, you kind of go overboard. I mean I try and have a healthy balance where I work to music and when I'm in my downtime, I listen to podcasts. Right. But you also have people around you and things like that.

I'm alone 80 percent of the time. So for me, podcasts are great because I get to connect with other people. Right. So I'm never giving up my balance with that. But music while working is really – you've got to have it, man. You've got to have it. Now, see, I'm almost the opposite because I get so into music, I find it very difficult.

There are only certain types of music I can listen to in the background while I'm working. I find it much easier to throw on a podcast and kind of zone out and just have these voices in the background. If I'm listening to something I really enjoy musically, I will focus on it and really pay attention to it. So it's more difficult for me to do that.

Music is great other times and I'm really enjoying that. But, yeah, it's been an interesting thing. And I found myself much less angry. I don't – podcasts are amazing and they're great for learning and they can be really interesting and they can make you laugh a lot.

But a lot of the podcasts – I think I fell into a bit of a trap where I was listening to a lot of podcasts that followed a very simple formula, which is be angry at everything. And I found myself being very angry at things because of that. And I've been in a much better mood listening to music.

Oh, great. We're going to have to change our show name to Optimistic Old Geeks. Optimistic Old Geeks. So the trick with music I found is listen to an album that you know backwards and forwards and have heard hundreds of times, which is what I do. I listen to the same album for a year. Right. And then I'll get a new album and listen to it for a year or listen to something that has foreign lyrics.

Rammstein was my go-to for years because I didn't know what the hell they were saying. It made it much easier to listen to because they just became background. They were singing all about the dark arts. Exactly. And if you're a listener to this podcast, don't listen to what Brian is saying. Don't give up on podcasts. Actually, go out and tell your friends to listen to our show.

Just saying. I, of course, meant everyone but ours. Okay. Duh. I mean that's just silly. As we were about to start the podcast, I saw a little bit of news that I just want to mention. I was a real big fan of Lorde and her first solo album, even though she's a 17-year-old little crazy girl.

I really enjoyed the album, which is weird for a 41-year-old man to be talking about because her target market is definitely much younger, which is the main reason that this piece of news came out, which I just kind of find somewhat cynical. She's been appointed as the sole curator of music for the next installment of the Hunger Games movies, Mockingjay Part 1.

Well, you haven't heard it yet, so you can't pass judgment. No, I can't pass judgment on it, but it is frustrating to – I know quite a few people that are music supervisors that do this for a living, that their entire – years of experience of knowing how to go out and find pop soundtracks or pop songs or rock songs and place them towards things to build a mood, to create a whole thing that goes along with a movie.

Lorde is 17 years old, wrote one good album. One album, though. Does not have any experience in this milieu at all. And I just – to me, it just reeks of we know our target market. We know we're going to get more people paying attention to this.

Lorde is incredibly hot right now, and this fits perfectly. So let's go ahead and do this even though she's not technically qualified in any way, shape, or form. Well, let's go back to this after the movie comes out, and you can tell us if she performed or not.

Yeah, we will see. I mean, I'll definitely see what the soundtrack does, and I'm assuming she's also picking other people's songs, and it's not just going to be her own thing, so we'll see. Perfect example of one that worked really, really well, a friend of the show and good friend of mine, Carl Wollinger from World Party, was the curator of music for the movie Reality Bites, and that was a fantastic soundtrack that worked perfectly with the movie.

So, you know, it can happen. It can happen. I'm not passing judgment until I see it. Yep. Of course, World Party had had about eight albums under the belt at that point. Carl's a fantastic study of music and knows everything about it and is extremely talented. Anyways. Here's the deal.

I'm sure they put a chaperone on her that is an actual music superhero. Well, that's the other thing as well. It's when, you know, this is like when, you know, an actress becomes the fashion director for a fashion house. Yeah, bullshit. You're putting your name on it, and you're basically advertising. Yeah, so, you know, a grain of salt.

Let's just say a grain of salt on this one. Exactly. So this – well, last weekend, this weekend, and next weekend are the three final episodes of Agatha Christie's Poirot, one of my favorite, favorite series.

It's been going on since the 80s, and I've seen every episode multiple times, read all the books, and it's coming to an end. Unfortunately, in the U.S. at least, I guess these already ran in England, so if you're over there, you've already seen them. For us, it's new. They're only running the first three episodes on Masterpiece, which everybody watches.

It's the PBS, you know, special that runs Downton Abbey over here. The final episode, which is a two-parter, I believe, is run on Acorn.tv or Acorn TV, which I've never heard of, so it's going to be fun. I'll have to go teach my mom how to talk to our friends in Sweden so she can see the end of it because she's just as an avid fan as I am.

But there's an awesome article in the New York Times about the coming to an end of the series. And also a friend of the show, Chen, sent me an interview last night with David Suchet talking about his role. So I'm going to put that in the show notes too because it was a fantastic 20-minute interview with him just talking about the character of Poirot.

And it's heartwarming and touching, and I just love David Suchet. I just want to give him a big hug. But in more darker news, The Killing Season 4 starts today. I'm already two episodes in, so as soon as we're done with this, I'm going downstairs and firing up Netflix.

I'm so excited. I love that series so much. Sad to see it go, but I'm glad they're giving it a proper burial. Well, there you go. I'm still – well, I haven't watched the last Leftovers because it's the internet now, and I've managed to avoid any spoilers.

But apparently it's gotten very, very good and dark, so I will report back on that when I catch up. Okay. Everybody I know is done with it. Really? Anybody that's stayed on with it? I was ready to give up. I had caught up to last week's episode, and I was just like, this is really dragging.

But then I've just been seeing a lot of online scuttle about how they just took an amazing turn, and it got really, really good in the last episode. Okay. I'm not going to spend my hour. You come back and tell me if it's any good, but I saw the Chris Eccleston episode, and it was terrible. It was just terrible. We'll see. We'll see.

I'll either be way into it or I'll be completely done with it by the next podcast. All right. I'm leaving it to you to curate. Okay. Moron of the Week. I'm renaming Moron of the Week this week to Yay Humanity. A story came out of Boston, a Keith Urban concert.

This is just one of those disgusting, I can't believe how gross people are, and it makes it even worse with all the technology that's at our fingertips, because it should be easier for people to get involved and stop things from happening. A rape charge was laid against Sean Murphy, who is 18 years old, and I have no problem saying his name whatsoever because I think he's a vile person.

An 18-year-old Boston man has been charged with raping a 17-year-old girl at the Keith Urban show in Boston. The real problem I have with this is onlookers allegedly just videotaped and photographed the act with their cell phones and did nothing about it. Fuck you.

Jesus. Did she call out and say, I'm being raped? One would assume. All this footage apparently exists, which I'm assuming isn't out in the public because they shouldn't be in the first place, and secondly, it should be used just in the lawsuit.

So I'm sure we'll hear more about this. But God, what the hell is wrong with you people? Seriously. Yeah, we call that Exhibit A. Mm-hmm. People.

The Web's not dead.

So the good people at Huffington Post, who don't really ever seem to do much, seem to have done something. Yeah, first you call them the good people at Huffington Post. What's wrong with you? What have you done to Brian? Bring it back. That is sarcasm. But I did really enjoy this video.

The slicing, dicing is a huge part of web culture, and everybody does it. And I'm sure somebody else did this already, and it was probably better. But the Huffington Post one came to light, and they definitely have professional editing machines and things. What are you talking about? Every Samuel L. Jackson motherfucker ever in every movie spliced together in a nice three-minute video, which is hilarious and very not safe for work.

So don't put this on if you're at work. But as soon as you're home or if you have headphones, it's funny. It is really funny. And well-edited. So, hey, good job, HuffPo. Who knew? And the other thing that I ran across this week that had me on the floor laughing, this is from Uproxx.

I'm not thrilled about giving them a link, but I'm not going to explain this. Well, I'm not going to explain it, and I'm not going to read any of the choice quotes. But if you've got about five minutes, oh, this is so good. A guy took mushrooms at Comic-Con. A guy decided to text his entire meltdown to his girlfriend in real time, and basically the internet is rejoicing at this error.

Okay. I'm going to have to check that out. I haven't seen this one. My stomach hurt. I was laughing so hard. I feel really bad for this guy. Again, you don't really know the story behind it. I feel bad for the guy, first off, for this experience. It was kind of a dumb idea to take shrooms at Comic-Con anyways, but he had a really bad experience.

I feel bad for him if his girlfriend actually is the person that released all these texts. If he did it himself, that's actually kind of cool. But if his girlfriend just sent all these out to people, wow. Or it could be not real. Or not real. Some of the best things on the internet are fake, believe it or not.

That is very true. Actually, that might be a new segment for us, too. Fake or not. We're going to have that, real or the onion. That's true. Next time.

Are you kidding me? Brian, my head literally exploded when I saw this next link. Oh, I'm so glad you put this in. I'm so angry about this. According to the dictionary, literally now also means figuratively because people are stupid.

I literally have so many friends that do this, and it drives me fucking insane. I brought back the fucking. Fucking insane when they do it because, no, you mean figuratively. You do not mean literally. I can't stand that.

It's one of my biggest pet peeves, and I'm angry, angry at Merriam and Webster for doing this. I know. I know. You do not change the meaning of words because people can't use them correctly. The sun is not the moon just because somebody calls it that.

God damn it. But apparently you're wrong. Yeah. And this is an old article. This came out a year ago, and we're just now finding it literally a year ago. So I don't know.

It just makes my head explode. That's all I got. My head literally exploded. Well, I am glad you did that one. So my Are You Kidding Me? is honey never spoils. You can eat 32,000-year-old honey. And there's a nice link to Smithsonian Mag where they literally go through the science behind it.

And they found honey basically in old tombs and things like that, and it was perfectly viable. And I would love to have a little drop of 32,000-year-old honey. I would, too. That would be kind of cool. You know, you can go to Alaska and have, like, billion-year-old ice off an iceberg. That's true. Literally.

Literally. Closing shout-outs. I'd like to give a shout-out to our guest from last week, Sean Bonner's Coffee Collective. It's a thing on Tugboat where he basically sends you a – he literally sends you a bag of coffee every month from cool places that he sourced out.

And I like good coffee, but I don't have the gumption to go out and find good coffee or even drive to go buy good coffee. So this has been a wonderful thing. I've gotten three bags so far, and they've all been, like, mind-blowingly good. But in the letter I got with the last one, he says he's thinking of shutting it down because it's – he screwed up his pipeline.

So here's the deal, Sean. Go back. Fix your pipeline. Put the sign-up page back up. Get 100 more members to pay for it because people from our show are going to sign up. Right, people? Because it is so good. The coffee is so damn good. And I forbid you to quit. That's it. I forbid you.

All right. I'm going to give a shout-out to The Cure, one of my favorite bands of all time. As I discussed a little bit earlier, I'd basically not been listening to music at all. But my dipping my toe back into music was basically a day-long orgy of going back and listening to all the great Cure songs that I've always loved, which then sparked a – I should probably go to Riot Fest because those are the only shows they're playing this year in the States.

Which then sparked a maybe I should just go to all of them, Toronto, Chicago, and Denver, and then I quickly started to fade on that idea. But I might bring it back. I want to go see them live. If you've never seen The Cure live, they're known for doing three-hour-plus shows. They're absolutely fantastic and a great group.

I'm going to Riot Fest here in Chicago. I have a three-day VIP pass, which is going to be a marathon. I mean, just an unbelievable marathon. It's a great lineup. I mean, as much as I'm kind of against festivals in general just because they can be really short sets, all that sort of thing.

The one that really – again, another huge shout-out to The Cure is The Cure is known for basically breaking the rules at festivals and playing way beyond curfews and things of that nature. So they put on a full goddamn show, not just a quick 45-minute set. Yeah, I've never seen The Cure. And the other bands I haven't seen that I'm dying to see, Go Go Bordello, Face to Face, Rise Against, Slayer.

Slayer is doing the entirety of Rain and Blood cover to cover. Did I say The Descendants already? Because I'm going to see The Descendants for the first time, believe it or not. Nice. So many bands that I've never seen. And it's going to be like killing children when they play on opposite stages.

So I'm going to have to like see half of one set and run across to another stage to see the other half. Yeah, yeah. It's an amazing lineup that they put together. It's very reminiscent of the original Coachella lineups before they tried to appeal to everyone and sold out every single time. Go Go Bordello, you must see live.

They were one of the bands that I discovered at Coachella. I'd never heard of them and they were – this is years ago and they just blew my mind. They are so much fun live. It's unbelievable. Yeah, I listen to them at least two or three times a week because they're one of my favorite bands and I just love them. And Dropkick Murphys are playing. If you've never seen them live, same thing.

Like the music on the CDs and the recordings are good but live, completely different experience. It's so amazing. My understanding is if you live in Chicago, you can't walk into a bar and not see them live. Actually, well – They play everywhere around there.

I've never seen them around here. I've only seen them in San Francisco. Okay. But yeah, it was an amazing show. I just – I cannot wait. I put my little custom list together of everything I want to see but they don't have times up yet. So I don't know which of my children I'll have to kill but it's going to be fun.

And also a final shout out again to – oh my god, I've lost the page. Jennifer Hunt for giving us a donation this week. So thank you again, Jennifer. We appreciate it very much. Thank you. You pay for our bandwidth. So I guess I'll see you next week, Brian.

See you next week, man. The music for this podcast, which is now mixed appropriately and at the right levels, is by Among Us.

Check them out on the iTunes-y thing. Links in the show notes. We are hosted by Libsyn. Use the coupon code GOG while signing up and receive up to two months free. Keep up with us at GrumpyOldGeeks.com, on Facebook at Facebook.com slash GrumpyOldGeeks. On Twitter, we're at Twitter.com slash GOGpodcast or simply email us at podcast at GrumpyOldGeeks.com.

Show notes for this episode can be found at GrumpyOldGeeks.com slash 69. Dude, YOLO. Okay, last one to kill a bad guy buys the beard. We're driving to Florida!

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