729: Alright Alright Alright™

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

Welcome to Grumpy Old Geeks. I'm Jason DeFillippo. And I'm Brian Schulmeister. Brian, I don't know what the status of the show is going to be next week, because guess what I got? Fucking jury duty. Ooh. Yeah. So I got to start calling in as of 6 p.m. tonight.

Who are you a peer of? I don't know. I stand alone. I stand alone in the city of Los Angeles. But, yeah, they got me again. The thing about jury duty in L.A. is everybody gets the summons and throws it out. And a friend of mine just got back from doing jury duty, if I can speak today, doing jury duty.

And he's like, yeah, people were getting fined left, right, and center for not showing up. So it's a $1,500 fine. That's a lot. Yeah, yeah. So I'm going. I did it. I have never, ever had jury duty, Jason.

How did, oh, that's right. You left and went to Canada, you bastard. Well, no, no, no. I mean, obviously, I spent many, many, many years in L.A., but I've never, I never got a summons until I was in my late 20s, at which point I was running my own company.

So I was able to defer it a bunch of times because I could not leave my work, supposedly. Eventually, they finally didn't let me get away with that anymore. So I actually did go to jury duty. I sat in the room all day waiting to be called.

They had misplaced my paperwork. So never called me for anything. And I said, well, I don't have to come back, right? And they're like, nope, you, as far, we screwed up. As far as we're concerned, you served your time. And by then, I was out of here. Oh, yeah.

I did the last one in Santa Monica, which was okay, because they had good ramen for lunch down the street. But I hear in Van Nuys, the hot dog cart, it's got like four and a half stars, and it's got an A rating. So everybody's like, go to the hot dog cart. So I'll do that. So I'll let you know how it goes. So we may have to shuck and jive next week.

So just let me know. We may not have a show, because Jason will be doing his civic duty before there's no more civics to duty for. Exactly. For $15 a day. That's how much you get paid. Yeah. Well, you know, better than we get paid on this show. At least you get paid.

What do we got, Brian? Well, let's talk more about hot dogs, shall we? Sure. Grok, which we talked about last week, which was not in hot water, because they don't seem to care for basically just allowing new generations and CSAM and child stuff.

And basically just, you know, Elon letting his stupid AI do whatever the hell he wants with no guardrails and not bothering to do anything about it has finally started to get a bit of pushback. Malaysia and Indonesia are the first countries to block Grok completely, claiming that X chatbot does not have sufficient safeguards in place.

Read any safeguards in place to prevent explicit AI-generated deepfakes of women and children from being created and disseminated on X. Indonesia blocked access to Grok on Saturday. Malaysia did on Sunday. The UK media regulator Oxfam has opened a formal investigation into X under the Online Safety Act.

And apparently there were discussions between the Commonwealth countries, Canada, Australia, and the UK about jointly blocking X and Grok. But nothing has come out of that so far. So we'll see regulators elsewhere, including India and the European Union, are also investigating X.

The one country that can't be bothered is, of course, the one in which Elon is occasionally with his tongue up the backside of, but then sometimes not. So the U.S. has not done anything about this, sort of. The Senate has passed the Disrupt Explicit Forged Images and Non-Consensual Edits Act, or the Defiance Act.

Boy, they worked hard at that one. Probably used Grok to make it. They probably did use, actually, that's pretty good, so they may have used Gemini. That's true. So, yeah, they did pass that. This bill lets the subjects of non-consensual sexually explicit deepfakes take civil action against the people who create and host them.

Typical American reaction. Rather than provide any regulations to stop it when it happens, it allows you to sue after the fact. Yes. That's how it works. Yeah. So they had passed an earlier version of the act in 2024, but it stalled in the House. Given the urgency of Grok's deepfake problem, the hope is this new version of the bill won't see the same resistance.

So we shall see what happens there. In other news about kids, Meta has closed 550,000 accounts to comply with Australia's kids' social media ban. As we talked about, Australia has passed an under-16 social media ban, and Meta has said on Medium.

Why is Meta on Medium? I don't know. Okay. Well, they said on Medium that it shut down all those accounts. This included 330,000 Instagram accounts, 173,000 Facebook accounts, and 40,000 thread accounts deemed to belong to children.

I got it. I figured it out. I know why they're on Medium. Why? So people can read it that just had their accounts canceled, because otherwise they couldn't go in to read their, you know, read the report. That's why. Yeah. So they did it begrudgingly, I'm sure. Platforms are using a variety of means to determine age, including age inference based on activity and selfies.

They have expressed opposition to the ban, citing a number of factors. It says taking social media out of the hands of teens can isolate them from getting support from online communities, which is probably a good thing, because then they can get support from offline communities, which is what they should be doing anyways, and that the ban is only driving them to less regulated parts of the Internet.

Oh, yes. Stop right there. Pause right there. Pause right there. Less regulated parts of the Internet. Okay. Facebook, for instance? Instagram, for instance? Yes. We've talked endlessly about how useless the board is over there that's supposed to be trying to regulate things on the site, so.

Yeah. Yeah. Go outside. You live in Australia, please. And as the article itself points out, Meta doesn't have a sterling record when it comes to teen safety, having previously downplayed the frequency of harm to children. No shit. And we've also talked about Roblox and the mess that that is for kids, and they also have implemented an age verification system that was designed, as a response to allegations that it has a child predator problem.

Not allegations. It has a child predator problem. So we're less than a week in. How's it going? Well, Wired reported on Tuesday that in some cases it's classifying children as adults and adults as children, so not so great. You got your peanut butter in my chocolate.

You got your chocolate in my peanut butter. The process involves either submitting a facial age estimate via selfie or, optionally for anyone 13 or older, uploading a government ID check. After verifying, you can only chat with groups of players around your age. There are reports of a 23-year-old being misidentified as a 16- to 17-year-old.

Oh, those problems. Another report claimed an 18-year-old was placed in the 13- to 15 range, but the problem is happening in reverse, too. Online videos showed children spoofing the system and believing they were adults by using avatar images. One clever kid drew wrinkles and stubble on his face and was instantly deemed 21+.

That kid gets an award. He gets free Roblox for life. Another flashed a photo of Kurt Cobain and got an adult classification. I would argue that if he knew who Kurt Cobain was, he probably is an adult. Kids today don't really know too much about Nirvana. I'm just saying. Bleach, better album.

In addition, Roblox posted last week that some parents were providing age checks on behalf of their children, leading to their children being placed in the 21-plus category. The company said it's working on solutions to address that particular problem, and we'll share more soon. That particular problem.

Just that particular problem. Not the rest of them. Not the rest of them. Just that one particular problem we're going to be working on. Thanks. Thanks, Roblox. Yeah. So, unsurprisingly, age verification online is a complete and utter mess, and I do think that maybe we should be punting this to the cell phone and computer manufacturers that people are using somehow, but I don't know.

Whatever. It's just obvious the sites aren't going to do it, and they're not going to do it well.

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In the news. We got some meta news this week, Brian. Meta's laying off more than 1,000 employees from its Reality Labs division as it pivots away from the metaverse and moving toward AI-powered hardware.

But Jason, they named their company. Company after the metaverse. I know. A little egg on the face on that one, I think. Just a little bit of egg on the face. Eggs are bad again? Eggs are bad again, especially Zucker eggs. According to Bloomberg, the company plans to refocus on wearables like its AI-enabled smart glasses and mobile-first products.

So I've talked to a couple of people who got the new version of the Ray-Bans. They really like it. And I'm like, aren't you worried that it's, you know, meta that has all of your porn videos that you're making at home? They're like, nah, they got them already. So I'm like, okay, way to fight the good fight. I'm glad you're, yeah.

Reality Labs has lost over $70 billion since 2021. $70 billion, Brian. What could the world do with $70 billion besides burn it on the metaverse? They could have bought pants. We could have bought pants for every man, woman, and child on the planet.

They could give it to OpenAI, so OpenAI would only be about $100 billion in the red. Yeah, that $70 billion might keep OpenAI going for another three weeks or something like that at their rate. So in a memo, CTO Andrew Bosworth said that meta will shift resources almost entirely to mobile platforms while VR development continues under a leaner, scaled-back roadmap.

Well, continuing that news, the company has cut most of the staff behind Supernatural, its VR fitness app, leaving users with no new workouts or coaching updates. And I don't know if you remember, Brian, there was a big fight over Supernatural when Meta bought it back in 2022, and they had to fight the FTC to approve the deal, then spent billions still working on the metaverse, and now they're just letting it fall on the floor.

The one thing that people actually liked about Meta's metaverse was Supernatural, and they're just like, nah, we don't need that anymore. So the app's effectively frozen with questions around music licensing and long-term support, and users are split between sticking with the existing library or canceling their subscriptions.

Cancel your subscriptions, people. It's like trying to play rock band nowadays. You just can't do it after a while, so. Yeah. Just switch to something else. Apple Fitness is great. No, it's not in the metaverse, but who cares? Yeah, you don't have to wear a silly headset when you're using Apple Fitness.

Well, you can use your, you know, your Apple Vision Pro if you want to, but. I suppose. It would make yoga difficult, I'd think. I'd not downward dogging with a big headset on. Yeah, that might be a problem. In our last bit of Meta news, at least probably until we scroll a little farther in the show notes, Meta has appointed former Trump advisor Dina Powell-McCormick as its new president and vice chair, as the company accelerates its push to build massive artificial intelligence infrastructure around the world.

Powell-McCormick will work directly with governments to finance and deploy large-scale data centers, part of a new top-level initiative called Meta Compute. All right. Big brain trust in the naming department over there. Mark Zuckerberg says Meta plans to build tens of gigawatts of computing capacity this decade, calling infrastructure a key strategic advantage in the race for advanced AI.

I would like to say that maybe your model, you know, working on your model would be the actual strategic advantage, because as far as I can tell, Lama's not doing as well compared to all the other ones, but I guess throw more compute and more money at it. That's what Zuckerberg does best. And Meta is already investing heavily, including a $27 billion data center in Louisiana in agreements tied to nuclear power projects to secure electricity.

Yay. Yep. All for AI that nobody wants. Yep. The appointment also signals Meta's effort to deepen its nose up the ass of the current administration. Well, fortunately, Brian, Meta stock is down nearly 9% over the past three months amid concerns about rising costs and uncertain returns, because, you know, Zuckerberg has such a great track record with these moonshots, you know.

Stick to the money machine that you've already got. Maybe make that product better. Think about that. I don't know. Just a thought. Just a thought. Well, instead, of course, they are just trying to slam AI into absolutely everything, but it was heartening to see that there was a bit of pushback this week against AI.

Bandcamp has addressed the AI slop problem vexing musicians and their fans of late. The company is banning any music or audio on its platform that is wholly or in substantial part made by generative AI, according to its blog. It also clarified that the use of AI tools to impersonate other artists or styles is strictly prohibited by policies already in place.

This is noticeably different from, oh, I don't know, say Spotify or any of the other places out there that are just kind of saying whatever. Any music suspected to be AI generated may be removed by the Bandcamp team, and the company is giving users reporting tools to flag such content.

The announcement makes Bandcamp one of the first music platforms to offer a clear policy on the use of AI tech. AI generated music, aka slop, or I guess audio slop, has increasingly been invading music streaming platforms, with Deezer for one recently saying that 50,000 AI generated songs are uploaded to the app daily, or around 34% of its music.

Here's a question, Brian. I got a question for you. If Deezer knows that 50,000 AI generated songs are being uploaded daily, can't they just say stop uploading 50,000 AI generated songs? If they know it's an AI generated song, don't let them upload it. Deezer is so desperate for plays, they don't care.

That's true. That is true. Nobody knows who Deezer is. No, no. When was the last time you opened Deezer? I mean, it's a decade at least. I don't believe I ever opened Deezer, to be fair. I had to open it for clients when I was trying to get their music out there. Yeah, so maybe two years ago I opened it, because we did a song with a client, and I had to post it around.

And yeah, it was convoluted and desperate. That's Deezer. Well, all right, all right, all right. Matthew McConaughey. Don't say that on our show. We're going to have to start paying royalties if you say that again. Well, we didn't use AI to generate it, so let me get into the story. Matthew McConaughey has filed a trademark application to prevent his likeness for being used by AI companies without permission, and the U.S. patented trademark office has approved eight so far.

According to the Wall Street Journal, the trademarks were for video and audio clips featuring the actors staring, smiling, and talking, as most humans do. One was for a video of him standing on a porch, while another was for an audio recording of him saying, all right, all right, all right.

Under the law, it's already prohibited for companies to steal someone's likeness to sell products, but he is taking a proactive approach due to the nebulous rules around the use of someone's likeness for artificial intelligence and what's considered commercial use involving the technology. His lawyer, Kevin Yorn, admits that they don't know how the court would decide if a defender challenges the trademarks, but they're hoping that the threat of a lawsuit would deter companies from using his likeness for AI in the first place.

So we shall see what happens with that. I do not believe that he has anything trademarked involving him playing bongos. So have at it, people. Yet. Well, some more AI mess. U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement is cleaning up a mess of its own making after deploying an AI hiring tool that flat out failed, much like ICE does.

Does that mean Dean Cain got hired? He snuck through somehow. That's how he got through. Yep. According to NBC, ICE used an untested language model to scan recruits' resumes and decide who qualified for fast-track law enforcement training. Here's where it gets fun. The system flagged most applicants as experienced officers just because their resume included the word officer, sweeping in everyone from mall security to people with zero law enforcement background.

As a result, inexperienced recruits were rushed through shortened online training instead of the full academy. I believe I was the milk officer in fourth grade, Jason. Yeah, exactly. The mistakes surfaced last fall during a hiring surge ordered by the Trump administration, and ICE is now scrambling to train its staff.

I mean, Nazi thugs. Probably good for the civil suits that are popping up everywhere against these fucking ghouls. Well, speaking of ghouls, here's my favorite headline of the week, Brian. I love Gizmodo. That's just for the headlines now. Self-help ghouls are charging people absurd prices to talk to impersonator chatbots.

Yeah, the Wall Street Journal reports that self-help gurus are charging real money for AI chatbots that impersonate them, pitching personalized advice at scale. Dating coach Matthew Hussey charges 40 bucks a month for Matthew AI. And Tony Robbins asks $99 a month with a bait-and-switch intro deal.

Now, Tony Robbins, if Tony Robbins is in on it, fucking run. Do not give him your money. Do not look back. You will turn to a pillar of salt. Just fucking run. Tony Robbins is the biggest self-help scam artist that ever lived. So, just fucking run.

So, yeah, it's just, it's remix bullshit. They're not trained therapists. They've got nothing to offer you, period. All they're doing is taking their books and their speeches and shoving them into a fucking LLM and using probably 11 labs to clone their voice. And so you think you're talking to Tony Robbins or whoever the hussy guy was or any of these other scam artists.

Matthew Hussle. That was his name. Yeah, Matthew Hussle. That's a better name for him. One spiritual influencer admitted if she didn't sell an AI version of herself, someone else would. Well, if someone else would, then you should sue them. That's how that works. You know, if they're taking your intellectual property and using it to make money on it, that's not, I don't know, a large language model company like OpenAI or Anthropic or any of those big ones.

If it's a smaller guy, go sue them. But, you know, just to say, yeah, I'm just going to do it because everybody else is doing it is a weak fucking argument. That's what I got to say about that. I need to take a breath. Ah, those guys get me amped up, amped up. I need my Dalai Lama LLM.

Can I talk? Why don't you take a minute and talk to your wellness advisor, AI, for a second, Jason? You can calm down. I will. I will. Well, here's some good news. The FTC has finally wrapped up. It's data sharing smackdown of General Motors, locking in an order that bans GM and its OnStar service from collecting and selling drivers' precise location data to third parties like data brokers and insurance companies.

We talked about this a long time ago, and this comes almost two years after reporting showing GM's so-called smart driver program quietly tracked where you went, how you drove, and whether you buckled up, then funneled that data to firms like LexisNexis and Verisk, which resold it to insurers who could quietly jack up your rates.

Not so quietly, because when they jack up my rates, it is anything but quiet in my house because I'm screaming and throwing things. GM killed the smart driver program in 2024, but the FTC says the damage was already done thanks to a misleading enrollment process that never clearly spelled out what data was being collected or sold.

So under the final order, GM now has to get explicit consent for certain connected car data, give drivers access to their data, let them delete it, and offer a real off switch for precision location tracking. So there are carve-outs for emergencies and anonymized research.

But the message is clear. Your car isn't supposed to be a rolling data broker. So I'm amazed that the FTC has gotten anything done under this administration. So that is a shocker. That is a shocker. But it's crazy how this thing has switched, because I remember when some insurance companies like came out of the gate with like, look, plug this USB stick into your car.

It'll give us all the data about your driving. And you know what? We're going to give you a discount. We're going to give you- Yeah, I remember that. Better rates, because you are trusting us with the data about your driving, and we will see. And if you do drive well, we will give you a discount.

Now, it's switched from, I'm doing this on purpose to get a discount, to, you're evilly tracking every move I make, and then quietly telling my insurance company, which is upping my rates without giving me any reason why. Fuck this world. Pretty much, yeah. Well, some people tried to leave the world, but they've been called back.

Brian, what's your next bit of news? Yes, we have some space news, which, if you want to get off this stupid rock, I don't know how it's going to go for you. NASA has decided to bring the Crew 11 astronauts home a month earlier than originally planned, due to a medical concern with one of them. This is the first time in its history that the space agency is cutting a mission short due to a medical issue, but it didn't identify the crew member or divulge the exact situation and its severity.

They are targeting an eternity- Apparently, HIPAA laws actually work in space. They don't work here on the planet, but they work in space. Go figure. Well, they didn't have an Amazon Alexa up there, so nobody was actually- And they don't let them use LLMs to type in what their symptoms were. Yeah, the ISS doesn't have OnStar.

Yeah. They're targeting a return date no earlier than January 14th with the exact schedule, depending on the weather. Well, they landed yesterday, so- Oh, did they? Yes, they landed yesterday. We had a snow day yesterday, speaking of weather, so I did not pay attention to any news because everybody was here and I was shoveling half the day.

So, good. I'm glad they made it home. If you went outside and looked up in the sky at a certain point yesterday, you could actually see them streaking across the sky. They landed outside of San Diego, so you could actually see them from all the way up in the Northern California to Southern California. But I missed it, but yeah.

That's too bad. They landed safely yesterday. All right. Well, good. Good to hear. Back in 2024, NASA had also announced the Artemis II mission was going to be pushed back to April 2026. This is the first crewed moon mission in over 50 years, so it's very exciting.

The agency now says it could launch as early as February, with the first flight opportunity being on February 6th. So, that could be fun. It'll go out of the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. This is the first crewed mission since the Apollo program's final flight in 1972. It will be a 10-day mission with four astronauts on board who will be testing if they can live off potatoes.

Good luck to them. I'd like to see that take off. Me too. Now, here's some disturbing news, Brian. We have bitched and moaned about Starlink since they put up their first satellite. China just filed paperwork for a satellite constellation so big it makes Starlink look like a starter pack.

A newly formed Chinese institute has asked the International Telecommunications Union for permission to operate nearly, wait for it, Brian, 200,000 satellites, about four times what SpaceX's full Starlink is supposed to be running out, and Starlink doesn't even have anything close to that right now.

Starlink was going to put up about 49,000 satellites, and this new constellation is 193,428 satellites. I hope the answer is no. Yeah. Because you start packing that many satellites into low-Earth orbit, then, you know, we are basically just accelerating the timeline for Kessler Syndrome, which is the nightmare scenario where collisions cascade into debris storms and make whole-Earth orbits unusable.

We've talked about it on the show many, many times, and, you know, filing is easy, though. Launching and safely managing 200,000 satellites without turning space into a junkyard is incredibly difficult. So, if this goes, you know, half of me is like, okay, great, let's just lock us in, we can't go anywhere, Elon will shut the fuck up about Mars, and maybe we can get back to work on problems here on Earth.

Just saying, maybe. Maybe that would be the silver lining of the, you know, the irradiated satellite debris cloud that hangs above all our heads. But we would, like, no more GPS, that's gone. I know how to read a map. I'm Gen X.

Dude, I still have a Thomas guide in my car, and I don't even fucking live in L.A. anymore. Dude, you can sell, next time you come back, give me that. I want that. No way, I'm holding on to that. Now I'm worried about Kessler Syndrome. Yeah, that's true. That's true. Because you can't buy them anymore. I tried to buy an old one, because they stopped making them, and I really wanted one.

I do keep in my Jeep an Atlas of the United States, though, which I did use one time when I drove from Chicago to L.A. without GPS and without a set route, and I just followed it on my map, and when I got to the Rocky Mountains, I turned south, and that's when I found that giant wind farm, the second largest wind farm in the United States, because serendipity sometimes, people, is good for you.

I'm just saying, maybe we can lose the satellites, and fuck GPS. All I'm saying. Okay. I'm on board. This episode is brought to you by Gusto. Running a small business means you sign up to do the actual work you love, and then immediately drown in payroll, tax forms, onboarding docs, and that one mystery government form that shows up every year just to ruin your afternoon.

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Brian, we've talked about Lord of the Rings so much in the past couple months that I said, you know what I'm going to do? I'm going back to Middle Earth. So every night for the past week, I hunker down in front of my giant TV, turn off all the lights, and I watch a little bit of the Lord of the Rings trilogy extended editions.

I have now gotten through the first movie, and I'm about 10% into the second movie. I love it. I absolutely love it. It is so much fun to go back and revisit those movies. I forgot how much fun they were. They're wonderful movies.

They're absolutely wonderful. And they're, you know, normally I like eschew, like, extended editions, who gives a crap? Like, let's concise, get to the point with a movie. No. I wish there was an extended, extended edition. Just go watch The Hobbit. Then you'll pray for the truncated edition.

Yeah. So that's great. That's awesome that you're doing it. Yeah. They're all on HBO Max right now. So I'm just, you know, tooling through them at night. Because by the end of the day, I'm so fried. I just want to relax. And those are perfect, relaxing movies. Because I obviously don't have a glass of wine to sit with and watch.

So I just sit there with my puppy and watch the movies. And it is the perfect way to end the day. So much fun. And I tell you what, the effects really hold up. It's amazing how well the effects hold up. Now, Gollum in episode one, not the best. But in the second movie, Gollum is just like, still, I scratch my head.

And say, why can't people do effects that good nowadays? Unbelievable. I don't know why. And so many of them were practical effects, which is great. I mean, half the problem is nobody does practical effects anymore. I watched a video on YouTube not too long ago, I'll try and find it and put it in the show notes, that talks about how somebody tried to recreate the Gandalf and Bilbo Baggins scene in The Shire at the very beginning and how they pulled that off.

It is insane how they pulled that off with just practical effects. Just the way the camera had to move and the set pieces. Neither one of them were looking at each other. They had dummies to look at. It's incredible how they pulled that off. So, yeah, the practicals, it's just, especially when you know how they did some of that stuff and you watch the movie, you're just like, I don't see it.

It's just, I just, you get so drawn into the movie. It's just like, this is so cool. It's so much fun. I can't wait until my kid is ready. He's still like, you know, it opens with some scary ass orc shit. And he was like, ah, I'm not ready. I'm out. So maybe this Christmas, we'll see. Oh, yeah, make him watch it for Christmas.

Perfect. It's a total Christmas movie. Well, Beast Games Season 2 is out. I've been watching that for the past week. And it is awesome. It is awesome. The new episode just dropped yesterday. Or the day before yesterday.

It is a crossover with Survivor for the 50th season of Survivor. You forget which movie or which show you're watching at that point because it is such an integrated crossover. Jeff Probst is there. They're on the Survivor Island. It is fun. Beast Games is just, to me, it's just a load of fun.

I really enjoyed the first season. And I'm enjoying the second season, too. It's a blast. So I know it's not your cup of tea, Brian, because you don't like competition shows. But for competition shows, yeah, yeah, I'm a sucker for them. And I can't wait for season 50 of Survivor.

That's going to be a fun one. I can't believe I've been watching this show for 50 fucking seasons, which is ridiculous. And let's talk about Starfleet Academy. Brian, did you get to watch any of them yet? Yeah, we were texting with each other last night to make sure that we were both on board and able to get one episode in.

I liked it so much I watched both. You did. I did. That's a shocker. I ended up staying late. That is a shocker. I watched the first one. I wasn't mad at it, except for a few key things.

Now, the bridge looks like it's set on Mel's Diner. I don't like, I'm with you on this. I hate the entire aesthetic and design of the show. I don't like it. It's horrible. It is fucking horrible. It's golden burgundy. I feel like they take way too much from the reboot, from the Kelvin timeline.

Lens flares all the time. Like, lighting is horrible. Everything's shiny and looks like it's set. You've got to pull the little plastic off of it, like when you get your new electronics. Like, it's, I hate the aesthetic. The outfits for the students are horrible.

Like, it's just not good. It doesn't look the way I want it to look. But, I liked the show. I think Holly Hunter is amazing. I think Paul Giamatti never has to eat again because he chewed up so much of the scenery. It's awesome.

See, the funny thing about Paul Giamatti in this is, when you watch the trailers for it, I'm like, there is so much cheese here that, you know, it's just like, just cover him in Velveeta and just let him do his thing. But, in the context of the show, when you actually get to see the performance with the story, it surprisingly works very well.

Which is surprising. Yeah, the ship design, I hated the ship design. I could not stand the ship. You call it the Athena and you give it, like, Greek wings. What are you doing? Yeah. No, and their comm badges are the ship design, which is, no, I don't like it.

Not a fan. And what really took me out of it, for five minutes, I'm sitting there going, I know this voice. I know this voice. There's a voice from the computer that is the, like, the master of students, or the dean of students, who's always talking to the students.

And I'm like, I know that voice. It's going to drive me crazy. Who is this fucking voice? And I looked it up and it's Stephen Colbert, which really took me out. This is like Adam Savage taking you out of the expanse. Right. It's exactly like that. It totally takes me out of it and pisses me off. Also, there was that one scene where they showed the big wall of all the names of the Starfleet people that went past.

The first name that I saw was fucking Wesley Crusher, and it pissed me off. Well, I mean, to Wesley Crusher, I wasn't sure how this was going to go off. Is it going to be a whole bunch of Wesley Crusher's, or is it going to be stupid, woke Discovery again?

It's neither. No, it's not. I mean, there's touches of it. It's not. Don't get me wrong. This is not the next generation of Star Trek. It's just not. It's a different vibe, a different experience. But I am okay with it so far. Again, quibbles aside about the whole design aspect.

Like, whoever designed this should be fired. We're not going to. I would love to see it look different. It's not going to because this is what they picked. But I'm okay with this. I am willing to give this a go. I like the second episode, too. I don't know if you watched it yet.

No, not yet. I'm all in right now. I'm all in. Sort of. Repetitously. Well, no. Here is my one thing with being all in on this new Star Trek brought to us by Paramount.

I got an email from Paramount right before I was about ready to start watching Star Trek. We're writing to let you know that on January 15th, 2026, we increased the price of our premium monthly plan for new customers to $13.99 per month. Plus, taxes were applicable.

As an existing customer, this new price will also apply to you beginning with your renewal on February 22nd. Fuck you. No. You're giving... You can't. You're canceling all the Star Trek shows I like. You're giving me one new Star Trek show, and I watch nothing else on you.

There's nothing else on Paramount to watch. Nothing. So, I will not be renewing at this price, and I will be watching Star Trek from Sweden. I'll save you a seat. I'll save you a seat. Yeah, no, I'm looking forward to watching the second episode. I was just so tired last night that I can't, I couldn't.

Yeah. And so wake up and do this show. It's a different episode, and I did look at some reviews, and they said that, you know, these two episodes give you, like, two completely different facets of the show, different feels. And I'd say that's true, but I liked both, so. Okay, well, that's something to be said, because, like, when Strange New Worlds switched it up from episode one to episode two, it was not a good thing at all.

Well, that tonal shift was ridiculous. You went from, like, fighting the gorn to having a silly wedding. Yeah, to, like, you know, Q's kid episode. It's like, what the hell? No, it's nothing like that, so. I think you'll enjoy it. Oh, yeah, so far, like I said, I'm not mad at it.

I'm surprisingly not mad at it, which I came in just expecting seething. I was already seething when I just pressed play. I'm like, I'm going to fucking hate this show, and I didn't, so. Yeah. It's a plus. It's a plus. I guess low expectations is really the proper way to live your life, is what I'm saying.

Absolutely. So, our friend Gabriel Pagan made a list on Letterboxd with all the movies we talked about here on Grumpy Old Geeks in 2005, and he calls it the Grumpy Old List. There will be a link in the show notes, and I had to add a few because there's some things that I didn't add to the show notes that I know we talked about on the show, and he went and added those to the show.

So, take a look at it, Brian, see if there's anything that you think we missed, but I think it's a pretty good list if you want to go check out this stuff. Awesome. Very cool. Thank you. Thank you for doing that. And speaking of lists, there is one podcast that I still listen to pretty regularly, besides No Such Thing as a Fish.

That is The Ongoing History of New Music, which is done by Alan Cross, who was once the co-host of a sister show of ours to some degree, Geeks and Beats. Remember that one, Jason? Yeah. Yeah, that was a great show. I miss that show. Yeah. So, he's the music guy, and he's got his own thing going on where he just talks about various different things and alternative music and all that stuff.

It's a good podcast. 30 minutes comes out once a week. But once a year, he does a very special episode, and it is a little bit depressing. So, I did listen to that this week. It's The Ongoing History of New Music, episode 1069, 2025, In Memoriam.

I don't know why I couldn't spit that out. So, this is the one where he goes through basically everybody that died last year. So, it's, you know, of course, it's a bit of a bummer, but it's nice to hear it. And there are some people I definitely missed. I didn't realize that they had passed away. So, I wouldn't say I look forward to this episode every year, but I do like to listen.

Enough people are dying daily that I have to deal with. So, let's just, yeah. Okay. Yeah. There you go. And finally, Depeche Mode has released a new sort of concert film called M. This was shot in Mexico and shot by a Mexican director.

It's out on Netflix now. That says it all right there. Yep. That's about it. So, it's too artsy-fartsy. There's all these different things that have nothing to do with the actual concert that's going on. It's, you know, it's good on you for making it.

I'm never going to watch it. And actually, if I really want to see a Depeche Mode concert, I don't want to see them now when they're like 95 years old and you can see every sagging piece of skin. I will go back and watch Depeche Mode 101 from the heyday back at the Rose Bowl way, way, way back in like 1989.

Before 4K was a thing. Well, they've upscaled it and re-released it, which is kind of nice. Oh, that's cool. That's cool. Yeah. So, yeah. Depeche Mode M, though? Nah. No thanks. Ups and doodads. Well, Brian, we've got the first news about Johnny Ive and Sam Altman's bromance.

They're reportedly cooking up their first AI gadget. And, yes, it might be coming for AirPods. According to a supply chain leaker with a decent Apple rumor track record, the device codenamed Sweet Pea is a pair of pill-shaped audio thingies that sit behind your ears instead of inside them, charging in an egg-shaped case.

Details are fuzzy, but the safe bet is an AI-first voice assistant powered by ChatGPT. Duh. Think calls, audio playback, and controlling your phone except done through microphones in a two-nanometer smartphone-class chip. The leaker even claims it could handle iPhone-style actions by bossing Siri around, which is ambitious, if not slightly delusional.

Especially now because we just got new word about Siri, which we will talk about next. But, yeah. So, you know, they weren't saying what it was, but, yeah. They go behind your ears. They sit behind, because there's nothing sexier than looking like you've got hearing aids.

I know. I know. I'm wondering if it's, like, you know, bone induction or however that's going to work. I don't know what it is, but, yeah. Okay. All right. We'll see. We'll see. I'm thinking. But, yeah. Speaking of Siri, Apple's Siri AI will now be powered by Gemini.

Apple and Google have confirmed reports that the former will use Google Gemini's models to help power the new version of Siri and other generative AI features. They released a joint statement, which reads, Apple and Google have entered into a multi-year collaboration under which the next generation of Apple Foundation models will be based on Google's Gemini models and cloud technology.

These models will help power future Apple intelligence features, including a more personalized Siri coming this year. So, yeah, they're giving up on their own stuff, which is smart, I guess. But it is weird how all these companies are just in bed with each other now. Well, this one makes a lot of sense to me because Apple is way behind the eight ball.

They're still trying to, you know, trying to get their feet under them. They're working on their AI chips now. And as far as I can tell from day-to-day use, I use all this stuff every single day, Gemini kicks the shit out of everybody on every level so far.

Not undressing teenagers, though, right? Every level that modern society deems appropriate. How about that? Well, there's... Modern society that I want to hang out with deems appropriate. How's that? Okay, because a lot of modern society seems totally okay with it.

That's true. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I'm actually, like, you know, looking forward to this integration because Siri at this point is so fucking useless that it's like... Oh, I turn it off. Yeah, I just turn it off. I turn it off. It's useless. I still need it to set timers. That's it.

My Apple Watch literally is all... The only thing I use Siri for is setting timers. So... Right. So Apple is finally doing the thing it pretended it would never do. Starting January 28th, Cupertino is bundling its Pro Creative apps into a new subscription called Creator Studio.

13 bucks a month or $13 a month or $1.30 a year gets you Final Cut Pro, Logic Pro, Pixelmator Pro, Pixelmator, Motion, Compressor, and Mainstage on Mac and iPad, plus a pile of premium features for keynote pages, numbers, and free form. There's a one-month free trial and students get a very Apple-approved discount at $3 a month.

I'm going back to school. You know what? That seems reasonably priced to me, especially in comparison to their Apple One pricing. It actually is. It really is because Apple One pricing is... Is ridiculous. ...disgustingly high. Disgustingly high. Yeah. Yeah, no, I mean, here's the thing.

I bought Logic Pro seven years ago for $249. I've never had to pay for it again, which is fine by me. I don't use Final Cut, Pixelmator. I mean, this is a good set of tools for people who want to get out of the Adobe ecosystem and get shit done.

This literally gets you 85% of where you need to be, except the problem is you've got to use Final Cut Pro, which is a pain in the ass. I just hate their library structure. If their library structure wasn't so fucking convoluted. Anyway, Logic Pro I use every day, so that's a good one. You know, if I didn't own it and I had to pay $13 a month, I wouldn't be pissed.

I wouldn't be pissed. And you get some extra add-ons, you know, with your other current stuff, with your keynote and all that stuff. So, yeah, probably a pretty good deal. All right. Now just lower the price on Apple One, please.

Please. Come on. Please. But speaking of subscription services, Elon's hopping on that bandwagon. Tesla will stop selling its $8,000 full self-driving option, which is not full self-driving, and make it strictly a monthly subscription service after February 14th, he announced on his X platform.

He didn't reveal the price or why he's making the switch. Money, money, money. Though full self-driving is already available by subscription for $99 per month or $999 per year. This could be advantageous for buyers, particularly if they decide to dump their new Tesla or trade it in.

It will also allow prospective owners to hedge their bets, as Tesla has over-promised on the feature since it was first announced. Full self-driving has never done what the name suggests, as humans must constantly supervise the system and frequently take control. Because of that, it's more of a driver-assist system and doesn't even qualify as level 3 self-driving, conditional automation, let alone as a truly autonomous level 4 or 5 category.

He has been touting the self-driving capabilities on Tesla since 2015. Wow, that's a long time. It's a long time. Promising at the time. Complete autonomy by 2018. 19. 2020. 2021. 22. 23. It is now 23.

24. I remember we were doing this show when he came out and said that, and we're like, bullshit. Bullshit. At least 20 years away. Always 20 years away. And we're still right. We're still right. We sure are. Oh, now here's one that really irks me.

Ring founder details the camera company's intelligent assistant era. Ring founder Jamie Siminoff says artificial intelligence is pushing the Amazon-owned company into a new phase, transforming it from a video doorbell maker into what he calls an intelligent assistant for the home.

Speaking at this year's Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Siminoff said advances in AI, combined with personal experience, convinced him to return to the company he sold to Amazon in 2018. I'm sure there's a giant paycheck involved, too. Siminoff said recent wildfires in the Pacific Palisades, which destroyed the garage where Ring was originally built, helped inspire new features.

One of them, Firewatch, lets customers opt in to share video during major fire events. Now, another feature called Search Party uses AI to help locate lost pets by matching user-submitted photos with Ring camera footage.

Now, you don't need to turn that on. I'm going to tell you right now, the Ring neighborhood feature that they've got, which is the little community that's built in, already works perfectly without having to share any video to find lost pets. I actually helped a friend who found a pet reunite it with its owner just by using the little app thing that they've got built in.

Didn't have to do anything else. It was perfect. So this is just another AI overreach, which they don't need. Now, here's the one that gets me. Law enforcement partnerships have also returned. Yay. While Ring ended earlier police agreements after backlash, it now works with companies like Flock Safety and Axon.

Yeah. Fuck Flock. Allowing police to request footage. Siminoff says sharing is voluntary and anonymous if users decline. Voluntary or anonymous if users decline, which means they're going to take it anyway if you decline.

Just follow that. Yeah. There is no opt out. No. No, which makes me want to go to my front door and put a piece of black tape over my ring until I can find another one. Yeah, that just pisses me off. I use the Google Home camera. That's nice.

So they'll train the AI on people who come to my front door. I did have a, I'm running away from a process server right now, so maybe they can use that to help me identify the process servers when they show up at the door so I know when to hide in the back. Yeah. That'll help. And my favorite app of the week, and it reminds me of an app that I came up with a long time ago that I called Death Vault, which didn't really catch on because the name was Death Vault.

Everybody's like, that's not really an upbeat name. I'm like, well, it's not supposed to be. It's called Death Vault because if you die, then your documents get sent to people. This is called Are You Dead? It's hard to paint that pig. Yeah, yeah. No, I just want to be. Thank you very much.

China's latest breakout app has a blunt name and an even blunter purpose. It's called Are You Dead? And it's designed for people who live alone and worry about what happens if no one notices when something goes wrong. Honestly, I don't care. If I'm dead because I live alone and I have no friends, who gives a fuck what happens to me?

So, yeah, the app works by requiring users to check in every day or two by tapping a large button to confirm if they're alive. If they miss a check-in, the app automatically alerts a designated emergency contact. It costs like two bucks, as written by a couple kids, and now they're branching out.

But it's in the news everywhere. When I put this in here, I'd never heard of it, but it's on like the nightly news now. It's apparently a breakout hit. Well, it's so ridiculous, that's why. Words.zip is a huge grid of random letters in which users are invited to search for words.

I thought about this because I had started doing Boggle with the Netflix games, as I talked about last week. And this is just kind of a website that lets you look for words. When you find a word, you can highlight it and commit it to the site's database, at which point the letters become colored and unavailable for further use.

Colors denote how many times the word has been found already, with purple words being the rarest and green the most common. And if you manage to track down a word that no one else has identified yet, you're doing better than we did, according to Gizmodo. What a lovely site. What a great way to learn new words. What good, clean fun for the family.

Surely the internet has embraced the whole thing with a spirit of maturity and restraint, right? Sure. Well, no. The internet has actually done, has drawn a dick on it. Zoom out far enough and you'll see that enterprising users have been arranging colored letters to draw things. And the result is that parts of the great have started to resemble the door of the bathroom in your local dive bar.

In fairness, the inevitable cartoon Dick and Balls is joined by other non-phallic adornments. Someone has drawn a lovely picture of a cat. And a lovestruck logophile has declared their love for someone named Ada. But mostly, you see, a dick. Perfect. Welcome to the internet.

Welcome to the internet, everybody. First day. Well, Brian, I picked up a book right before Christmas called The Anthony Bourdain Reader.

New classic and rediscovered writing by Anthony Bourdain. I sent it to you. I didn't know if you got a chance to look at it. I got it on the Kindle, so I actually have to read it. I'm having a hard time getting started with that one because every time I get started, I hear Anthony Bourdain in my head and then I just get sad. So I don't know how I'm going to get through this, but it looks really cool.

Did you have any interest in picking this one up? I know you're a Bourdain fan. I am a Bourdain fan. I don't know if I need to read classic writings. I read all of his old stuff. I'm not sure how much new or rediscovered stuff is in there, so I have to take a look at the table of contents.

But I'm kind of with you. I have not been able to enjoy Bourdain in the way I almost don't want to consume any more Bourdain. It's all in the past, and I love it, and I love him, and it kind of bums me out anytime I see him in the news or anything.

And I was watching something, and Parts Unknown came on for a second, and I was like, it made me sad. It bummed me out. Yeah. And I was like, oh, man. Yeah, I found that Lost Season of the Taste on Amazon Prime Video, and I watched it, and I was just the whole time, I'm just like, God, Dan, this sucks, you know?

You lose the ones you want around, and instead you get all these fucking ICE agents running around. Why can't those fuckers die? Please. So I also read a book called Obvious Adams, The Story of a Successful Businessman by Robert Updegraff. I found out this because I've been watching a bunch of videos by Rory Sutherland.

He's the vice chairman of Ogilvy in the U.K. I got famous for a TED Talk about a decade and change ago, and I just really like this guy. He's very smart. He's an advertising guy, obviously, works for Ogilvy, and he's just entertaining as fuck to watch. So he recommended this book.

I read it. It was a fantastic book. If you're into the advertising marketing space, this is definitely a must-read. This talks about this guy who just finds obvious solutions to complex problems that people just go beat their head against the wall for. It's a short read. It was only like a couple bucks.

It was just a fun little book. I thoroughly enjoyed it. The other book I just picked up is Before in Laughter by Jimmy Carr. And are you a Jimmy Carr fan, Brian? No. I have to say I'm not.

I've seen a lot of his stuff, and something about him rubs me in the wrong way. I don't know much about him. I just don't. I don't. I don't. Okay. That's the thing about him. It seems to be a love or hate. I'm a lover. I think he's fantastic. I think he's smart as fuck.

And, you know, he just, his story is, he's got a great story. And it's actually his story, but a bunch of, you know, just tips and tricks of how he got to where he is along the way. Just an average guy who just hunkered down and got really good at doing stand-up and writing jokes.

And his crowd work is some of the best in the world. It's phenomenal. And he's just sharp as a tack. And I love him. And I love this book. It's a great book. So, highly recommend checking it out. I think you would actually like this book, Brian. It might actually make you understand why he is the way he is.

Okay. It'll make me understand why I don't like him. I think he, I think he might, I think he might turn a corner and actually like him because he's one of us, you know, he's just a Gen X motherfucker who hates people and just makes fun of them. It's great. Okay. So, and I did want to get this in today because the Regicide Report, Laundry Files number 14 by Charles Strauss is coming out January 27th.

Now, this is the final book in the Laundry Files series, which we have talked about since we started this show. And the original protagonist, Bob, is back and I don't even remember that much about him anymore because there's been like eight books in between when he left the series and came back.

So, I don't know how this is going to play out, but I'm glad he's finally putting a button on the series and I will definitely be getting it the day it comes out. What about you, Brian? Are you going to get it? I don't remember much about it, just like you said. And I kind of dropped off.

I stopped reading the series. I read the first two post-Bob books in the series and stopped. So, I didn't like it without Bob. I'm going to have to go back and use Amazon's AI recaps on the books to figure out where everything ended up at and where it's at.

But, yeah, I'll read it because I did love those books. I absolutely love the original books with Bob in it. So, I'd like to see how he ends the story. It all went off the rails pretty quick after he left, from what I recall. There were demons that had taken over the British government and I don't even know what the fuck happened anymore.

I've read them all and some are hit or miss, but all in all, I know the whole story, but I just forget about Bob. What about Bob? I'll hit that Wikipedia page. I'm not going to use AI. Welcome to the Dark Side with Dave, the podcaster with the mostest, Mr. Dave Bittner.

How you doing, Dave? Welcome back. Not bad. Well, hanging in there is probably the best that I can do these days. I think that's how it's pretty much what we can all get through. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah. Here. Good to catch up. Yeah.

Here. Still here. Still here. So, I was, you guys are just coming off the At the Library segment and I thought I want to make a little contribution of my own here. I read a book that I very much enjoyed last month.

It's actually called How to Read a Book. It's written by Monica Wood and I highly recommend it. It was, I found myself compelled by it and moved by it. It was one of those books that I spent a lot of time thinking about when I wasn't reading it.

So, yeah, highly recommend it. It's a good read. How did you get it? Because the link you put in the show notes says it doesn't come out until September 15th of this year. Oh, well, that's a lie. I mean, maybe that's the platform that it's on. I got the audio book through Apple Books.

Oh. And listened to it there on a, I had a road trip last month and I basically banged it out over the course of that. So. Just a quick Google shows that it was first published June 18th, 2024. So it has been out. Yeah. Maybe a paperback is coming. It looks like that was a hardcover.

I don't know. Oh, could be. But I very much enjoyed the audio book. I thought it was well performed and a lot of characters to keep track of and the reader did a great job with it. So if audio books are your thing, whatever the one that was on Apple Books, I found pleasing.

I just added it to my wish list in Audible. So it is there and it is available. Yes. There you go. And I will actually read the book when I get it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Curious to know how you both feel about it.

Excellent. Yeah, I'll put that in as my next read after I finish up this god-awful book I'm reading right now. Okay. Well, I had to bring this up because you two are the homeowners of the group. But this last weekend, I removed and installed a new dishwasher by myself.

Wow. And that sucked. That really sucked. How come? The dishwasher that I was removing was built around 1960. And it was the first dishwasher that was ever put in the house. So to get it out was like, it's very heavy and very big.

Right. That's why it was still working 50 years later. Right. That is exactly why. We actually had somebody come out and try and fix it because a little switch inside the door broke. And that's it. Otherwise, when I pulled this thing out, I looked at it. The motor inside of this dishwasher could drive a VW microbus without any problems.

Yeah. Seriously. I believe it. Yeah. What we also realized was it was probably why our electric bill is probably $1,900 a month. So we're like, okay, let's try and it's broken. Let's get a new one. So we went and bought like the cheapest.

It was like 350 bucks for the new dishwasher. And it was almost as much to get it installed. I'm like, I'll do it. You know, I've installed washing machines, dryers, and all the other stuff. I've even done a garbage disposal, which was the worst thing I think I've ever installed in my life until now. What was so hard about it?

Well, the wiring, I had to do all of the electrics myself because it wasn't just you plug it into the wall. You actually had to like strip the wires and make sure, cut off all the breakers of the house, get everything set up. The actual plumbing part, I thought, okay, well, it just goes straight into the garbage disposal.

Well, the old, see, I had to remove all of the detritus of the 1960s dishwasher that did not have the same kind of, you know, ease of use and convenience of modern day appliances. Right, right. All the hoses were made out of asbestos.

This thing was wrapped, the old one was wrapped in an insulated blanket. And when I took it out, I'm like, I just got cancer. That's it. I'm done. I got, you know, fiberglass in all my fingers and it was just miserable. But I got it done.

Only took five hours. The dishwasher is a weird one. It's like, I'm pretty comfortable working with electrical. I'm pretty comfortable working with plumbing. I really don't want to work on them both at the same time. Yeah. There's something about electrical and water. It's like, I don't fix my toaster in my tub.

That's a bad idea. The, the actual water hookup is on one side and right next to it on the other side is the junction box that I have just wired up myself. So you think if this one leaks, I don't know if I'm going to have time to sprint to the fuse box, which is outside and around the back of the house to hit the power to turn it off before everything blows up.

But it worked right out of the gate. I did the wet test. No leaks. Power worked fine. Everything worked first try. It only took five hours to do. And because you got a new modern dishwasher, you'll just be doing this again in about three years when this thing shits out on you.

That's right. This thing, the, the motor inside this dishwasher is smaller than the motor that powers my, my blow up dreidel at Christmas in the front yard. I shit you not. I shit you not. I've had burritos from Paquito Mas that are bigger than the motor that powers our dishwasher.

It's insane. But that's, and, and even when my roommate got it and she, she, she opened the door and like touched it. It's like, this is the cheapest piece of shit I've ever touched. It was like, it is like made of aluminum foil, but. It's like you got it from Timu. It is seriously, it is the Timu dishwasher made by GE.

But man, it, but it says the energy requirements for a year are like $24 if you run it every day. I'm like, okay, I'll take it. I'll take it. So for a quick tip, and in case you're not already doing this, it was just to run the hot water before you run the dishwasher.

So the dishwasher gets hot water, makes a big difference. Yep. Do that. But I have done the dishwasher swap out job myself. And mine came when the local Home Depot delivered the dishwasher having promised installation. And I got home and there was a dishwasher sitting in the middle of the kitchen uninstalled.

And no installation was forthcoming. So I had to do it myself. The challenge for my installation was that in the time since the original dishwasher had been installed, new hardwood flooring had been put in the kitchen.

I had the same problem. I had the same problem. Okay. That quarter inch like really screws you, doesn't it? Yes, it does. It does. That quarter inch. It's kind of a matter of like how much give do the countertops have versus. That was half the problem.

Right. Yes. Yeah. I'm with you. So let me tell you, the new one I got in there, but boy, I hope I never have to deal with it again because it's in there. It's in there. Yeah. This one's in there. Yeah. And like I'm putting it in and I'm like, and my roommate comes home and she's like, it doesn't fit.

I'm like, just go away. It'll fit. I'll get it in there. I'll get it in there. Yeah. A little tap, tap, tinker, tinker. Anybody looking? Just shove the damn thing in. Give me a big enough hammer. I'll get it in there. Yeah. That was the same because we had a pipe burst and we had to get new vinyl floors put in all through the kitchen and the whole, actually the whole front of the house.

But yeah, there was that extra little bit that wasn't there before that gave you just enough trouble to make it miserable. Yeah. Yeah. Speaking of dishwashers, did either of you grow up with a dishwasher on wheels? No.

Okay. I've seen such thing in movies. Yeah. The first dishwasher we ever had, so I would say probably the first five years of my life, we had no dishwasher. My mom just washed the dishes. You had a dishwasher. It was called Mom. Well, that's right. In my house, it was called me.

Then we got a dishwasher, but it was on wheels. So it would sit off to the side. And then when it was time to wash dishes, you'd wheel it over in front of the sink and you'd plug it into the wall. And there was a little hose thing that you'd attach to the faucet and then a little drain thing that'd hang over the edge of the sink.

And that's how you did the dishes. And that lasted maybe six months. And my mom was like, yeah, no. We're getting a dishwasher. Or we're getting a built-in dishwasher, which I guess, you know, was quite decadent at the time. Very cool.

I've never seen that. That just sounds like one of those convenience things, like for a New York apartment that you could just slide away when you're done with it and pull it out when you need it. Yeah. You could also take a bath in it, like you need it for multiple purposes. They do make really small countertop dishwashers also.

Like if you are in an apartment that doesn't have one, they'll, you know, wash half a dozen dishes at a time. Better than nothing, I guess. I suppose so. Well, Dave, when you're not moonlighting as the Maytag man, Hank from Connecticut might have a new job for you. He says, Dave's potential dream job has an opening.

There is an opening for stage technicians at Disney World. Perfect for theater people who used to be in the A.V. club in high school and links to a Facebook page, which is sus, but whatever. Hank is correct.

I do like this, but I like it mostly for my oldest son, who is a stage technician. He does lighting, and he has often mentioned that perhaps ending up at Disney World could be on his list of things that he'd like to do.

So I forwarded this to him, and we'll see if anything comes of it. But I do appreciate it, Hank, not for me, but for my son. I just wonder how good it really is working for the mouse.

I don't know. It's great. It's great. I mean, you have to love Disney, but if you do, it's fantastic. Obviously, I grew up just two blocks away from Disneyland, so almost everybody I knew, we all worked there in high school, paid well, treated you well.

I know plenty of people that became Disney lifers from that. They never left. They went off to college. They went back to Disney and worked for Disney. My dad worked there after he retired. He used to work for the airlines, US Air, and he really enjoyed it as a retirement job.

People love working for Disney. Okay. Good to know. And speaking of Disney news, we have some Disney Star Wars news on April 29th. Luke Skywalker, Han Solo, Princess Leia, Darth Vader, and more are finally coming to Star Wars Galaxy's Edge, but only at Disneyland, Dave.

You're going to have to make the trek to California. Come join us. One of the early criticisms of Star Wars Galaxy's Edge is that it was set very specifically between the events of Star Wars The Last Jedi and Star Wars The Rise of Skywalker because they wanted to make that immersive environment.

Also, that's where the movies were in 2019 when they opened up the theme park land. So, yeah, they wanted to make you feel like you were a part of that world, but that is now going to change. They have decided to pivot, at least at Disneyland. New storylines will be brought to life on Batuu, spanning multiple eras of the planet's rich history, Disney's website reads.

These updates will enable you to experience the Galactic Civil War and New Republic, as well as the Age of the Resistance and First Order. They'll be updating some of the shops. A new droid family will take over the droid depot, and Luke Skywalker will help you find the old lightsaber place.

And, of course, there will be new merch as well. That also leads to the first major ride upgrade in the area, as the Millennium Falcon Smugglers Run gets a Mandalorian and Grogu overlay starting on May 22nd. And, as they point out, this news only applies to Star Wars Galaxy's Edge at Disneyland in California.

They are doing nothing to the Florida one yet. Yet. So, I will be going to Disneyland this summer, let me tell you. I wasn't planning on it again, but now I will be. Yeah. So, I saw this news, and I mistakenly thought this was going to apply to both of the parks.

And so, now I'm bummed. And you booked your tickets. Great. Now I'm bummed. I would imagine they're going to have to bring this to Florida, because I think this is going to be super popular. You know, maybe they're just testing it out in California. But, yeah. I mean, this is a no-brainer. We've been talking about this for years.

This is what they need to do for those of us who love the original trilogy. Why not? I'm glad they've given up on the purity of Batuu and all that stuff and just give us what we want. I want to go to Disney. I want to see Darth Vader. I want to see the original Stormtroopers, all that stuff.

I want to see Han Solo and Chewbacca standing in front of the Millennium Falcon. And now they're going to give that to us. So, thank you, Disney. It's about freaking time. Yes. And the other thing that they're giving to us is Kathleen Kennedy is stepping down as president of Lucasfilm.

So, we talked about this. It was the rumor at the time, but it has now been confirmed. She will continue as a producer for several Star Wars projects, including the upcoming Mandalorian and Grogu. But they have handed the reins to Dave Filoni and Linwen Brennan, who I don't know, but I'm sure good enough.

Filoni's got it. I'm happy. Filoni's taking creative. Brennan's taking business. That's how they're going to split up the duties. Okay. There you go. That works. That's an easy job. I mean, Star Wars just prints cash. Right. Right. Exactly. This is a pretty cake job.

It's great. Right. Right. As long as they don't make another book of Boba Fett, they're doing good. Yeah. Even that made fucking money, I'm sure. Probably. Yeah. I see other people have these finance reports, and sometimes they put negative numbers in front of things.

What's this red color? I don't understand. Yeah. Yeah. Well, maybe they'll bring back the Acolyte now. That's the forgotten Disney property. That sucks. That was so good. I liked it. I liked the show, too. I didn't understand the hate for it.

Yeah. Yeah. No, I'm all in on this. I think we're in good hands with Dave Filoni. So, let's see where it takes us. All right. A couple things before we run. I just update. I forgot to mention, I got a lockpicking kit for Christmas.

Oh, fun. Yeah. How the neighbor's taking that. Well, so far, so good. I actually haven't done much playing with it yet, so I cannot say that I have any lockpicking skills other than those I already brought to the table beforehand.

Yeah. You seem like somebody who already knows how to pick locks. I do in theory, and I know how to jimmy locks, I would say, more than anything. I know how to get in places when I need to. Let's put it that way.

Yeah. But so, you know, I was inspired by the lockpicking lawyer, and that's where I bought the kit. So, I'm going to dig in on that, and hopefully do some practicing, and nothing will hold me back. Cool.

Throw a link in the show notes for that, because I need a new kit. I loaned mine out to somebody, and they never gave it back. Oh. And I love picking locks. I learned to do that in that urban escape and evasion class that I took. And you do have to practice, because otherwise, you know, it's a skill, and it will atrophy for sure.

Yeah. It seems like it. Like so many of these things, he makes it look so easy, right? Yeah. Because he's been doing it for decades, and you go, oh, how hard could it be? So, I'm sure I'm in for banging my head against the desk quite a bit. But, you know, because I need another nerd hobby, and so lockpicking is going to be it.

Yeah. Just pick up a couple of master locks to practice on, because those are so easy to pick. They make you feel good that you can pick them so fast. Yeah. Then you realize you never should ever buy a master lock if you want to lock anything up, because they're garbage. Yeah. You know, it's true. So, yeah, I'll keep you posted on that as my progress progresses.

Yeah. So, another thing I wanted to touch on, for the past year or so, I've been having lunch on Tuesday afternoons with a group of very old ham radio operators. Are there any other type? Well, yes. I understand old ham radio operator is redundant.

Except the kid that you went through class with. Oh, that's right. That's true. Yes, there are a handful of youngsters. And the particular ham radio club that I'm a member of nearby here does have a youth group of high school age kids who are into this and making antennas out of old soup cans and things like that.

But I've been enjoying having lunch with these old guys. It's at a local deli, which is just perfect. And it is like you went to Central Casting and said, give me the craziest group of old, cranky, ethnic stereotypes that you possibly could and put them together with one extremely nerdy thing in common.

And I'm loving it. I'm absolutely loving it. It took a little while for some of them to accept me. Too young? Yeah, I'm too young. When you said it was at a deli, I was like waiting for you to say like, oh, yeah, they get together at a sushi place.

Oh, my God. No, no. Of course it's a deli. No, no, it's a deli. It's like an old New York style deli. Yeah. Yeah. And it's interesting because, you know, you hear that the older generation, senior citizens, one of the things that they complain about and one of the things that is hard on them in their lives is that people don't ask them for their opinions anymore.

People don't ask them to share their expertise because they figure they're old and what do they have to share? They should get a podcast just like us. There you go. Where we can put it out there and it can still be ignored. Yeah, exactly. But with these guys, I can ask them all sorts of things about ham radio and they know the answers and they can explain it to me.

And so I learn a lot from them, but also I just laugh a lot because they're, I mean, they're old and cranky and have all of the things that old, cranky, they lack all the filtering that people who are old and cranky lack filtering on.

So they say these things and I sit there and I smile and I roll my eyes and I say, just let it go past. Just let it go past. Don't engage. Don't engage. They really should get a podcast then. Yeah. Ham radio was great until they let the Italians on. Exactly. Exactly.

It's that kind of thing. Only worse. I picked Italians because I think they can take it. Yeah. Yeah. We can. There's a quote from one of the guys recently. He said, he said, I've solved all my problems when driving in the car.

I never let women drive. Never. I only drive. Women can't drive. I'm the only one who drives. If I can't drive, we don't go. Okay. Okay. Good. Good for you. Good for you. So it's that sort of thing. Anyway, it also makes me feel young, which is nice.

Yeah. It doesn't happen. It's happening less and less. You know, that's one of the jokes that I share with my wife all the time is like, anytime I start to feel bad about life or my life, I just watch 16 and pregnant and instantly feel so much better about all my life's choices. Yeah.

Yeah. See, I just go to Walmart. I just go shopping at Walmart. Good. I feel skinny, sexy, and smart. Yeah. Right. Well, Walmart's good. Walmart's good. Yeah. So anyway, I highly recommend engaging with your senior community and your neighborhood.

It'll make you feel younger and you never know what friends you might make or how entertaining they may be. And they'll probably eventually be appreciative that you're there because, you know, your questions, if you treat them with respect and ask them questions, they'll appreciate that and help make them feel good as well.

Maybe one day they'll pick up your brisket sandwich, even though it was a little dry. That's right. Oh, my God. The poor waitress who serves us. Lori, her name's Lori. It's the same lady every week. And Lori's probably 10 years older than me.

So no spring chicken, but still younger than any of the other guys at the table. And they just run her ragged. I mean, and they, you know, and she's good sport about it. And, you know, I give Lori the largest possible tip you can possibly give anyone because of all of them.

But yeah, just I mean, if anything's not that the if anything's out of order, she she hears about it and no uncertain terms. Oh, the other thing I love. The this deli has a like a fixin's bar with pickles and olives and all that kind of stuff.

Yeah. A fixin's bar is not a salad bar. Can I just say a fixin's bar is not a salad bar? No, but it's good for Bloody Mary's. Except for Bob, Bob in our group comes in, stops by the fixin's bar, comes to the table with a big plate full of all the fixin's as if it were a salad.

And I just smile and nod and let him be him. So this sounds awesome. I want to go. Yeah, I mean, you could not make up a sitcom or, you know, like this. It's just really something.

And they all love each other and they all hate each other. You know, it's that kind of dynamic. They're all. Yeah. Anyway, last but not least here this week, I have another potential fursona for myself. You guys remember H.R.

Puffin stuff? Yep. Yeah. Remember Witchy Poo? Vaguely. Witchy Poo was the bad guy in H.R. Puffin stuff. She she was the one who was always trying to get the magic flute. And Witchy Poo had two henchmen.

Their names were Orville and Seymour. And Orville was a kind of a vulture and Seymour was a spider. And so I put a picture of Seymour the spider in the show notes here. And I this is I've never seen anyone cosplay as Seymour the spider.

I think this could be a good reason. For a good reason. The only people that remember would be your old ham group. That's true. That's true. There's probably one of them inside there. Yeah. But I kind of I you know what I like about the Seymour the spider outfit is is how flattering it is.

You know like no one you know when it's not like I don't know dressing up like Spider-Man where you have to have anything resembling a physique. Yeah. It's just a big furry blob with arms coming out. You could eat at that fixin's bar every day and wear this outfit. Yeah.

Right. Yeah. With six arms you can get lots of fixin's. That's true. Yeah. So we'll see. I don't know. It's another one. We'll add it to the list of possibilities. That's a good one. That's a good one. I think I think that I think that's going to be a custom build.

I don't think you're going to find that off the rack anywhere. Oh yeah. It's definitely not off the rack. No no no that that is a custom build. Although you know looking at it it's not like they were all that precise when they made the original so. No true. I'm pretty sure I see some duct tape. Yeah.

Pretty much. All right. Talk to you soon guys. All right Dave. See ya. Closing shout outs. Over at Patreon we've got no new subscribers. Boo. But we would like to thank Guillermo, Mark, Brie, Jeffrey, Ricky, Say, Cameron, Vincent, James and Gianni for your continued patron support.

Thank you very much. Thank you so much. And over at PayPal we've got donations from Miles, Shari, Arcadio and Nathaniel. Thank you all so much. Thank you. Over the tip jar we've got John, Jeffrey, Theodore, Sean and Hannah with the 20 bucks. And just a reminder if you do want to keep the show on the air we rely on you.

Very much so. So if you go to GOG.show slash donate you can find all the ways to help donate to the show. If you go to patreon.com slash GOG you can sign up for as little as $3 a month and get the show early ad free and in high definition. And early is relative to when I get it done.

So it might be an hour, might be a day. We don't know. We've also got Brian. I don't know if you know this. We have memberships on YouTube now because we had to put them up there before we could do stuff on YouTube. So there are someone did sign up. I sadly forgot the name. I will have it next week.

But you can sign up to support the show on YouTube. We are not going to guarantee that we are going to do anything special on YouTube. Maybe someday we'll start to do that. Do these live or not. I don't know. That's in flux. But you can sign up at YouTube if you want. And go check out the YouTube channel anyway at GOG.show slash YouTube because this experiment has been interesting so far.

So far. To say the least. We're still doing it. We're still doing it. We're still doing it. And sadly, no merch this week. We do have a review, though. We have a five-star review worth every dollar you should be giving to support this amazing podcast. Amen. On long drives, I love listening.

I save a number of episodes and then the drive just flies by. They never seem out of date. Always provide useful information and some that is just funny, which is also useful on long drives. I've been part of this world since I bought my first Compaq computer before Compaq even had hard drives. So I guess I also qualify as an old geek.

Keep up the geeking and give, give, give. Things are nice. Green is nicer. Did you write this, Jason? I did not write this, but damn. Appreciate it. All right. Thanks from the ham group from Dave there. And RIP Scott Adams.

We've talked about Scott many times on this show after he went cuckoo nutty. Because I knew Scott before he went cuckoo nutty. So this is a, this is bittersweet. I actually got an autographed book by him in my, in my library, God's Debris, back when he was not crazy.

Because you know, when, when mainstream media calls you a disgraced and racist turd blossom, you might've made some wrong turns. Could've, you know, listened to doctors. Yeah. Maybe, yeah, yeah, yeah, well, there you go. Should've, would've, should've, would've. Until next time, I'm Jason DeFillippo.

And I'm Brian Schulmeister. Thanks for listening to Grumpy Old Geeks. Get all the links and goodies from today's episode at gog.show slash 729. Want to keep the grumpiness alive? Toss a few bucks our way at gog.show slash donate. Every penny helps keep the show on the air. Love the show? Share it. There's a share button in your podcast player.

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