744: Goblin Mode

Welcome to Grumpy Old Geeks, a weekly talk show where we discuss the finer points of what went wrong on the internet and who's to blame. I'm Jason DeFillippo. And I'm Brian Schulmeister. Brian, we got new merch. I had to put it at the top of the show because most people don't make it to the end where we usually pimp the merch, but we have merch, new merch. We do. We do. After almost a year of telling you I was going to go in and do something, I went in and I did one.

You did one. You did one. I did two and a mug. So there's more coming. There's more coming. It's just trying to get trying to figure out how this shit works because it's been a year since I opened Shopify and Printful. I'm like, where's that stuff at? So it's funny at my old gig, we we use Printful a lot. So I was pretty almost expert level, but it's been so long. I'm like, OK, now what do I do? Oh, exactly. Yeah. The worst part is going to try and find which shirt you want to put your shit

on. It's like, oh, do I want the thick one? Do I want the thin one? I prefer the I prefer the black Heather with the with the light Bella shirt because they're very comfortable in Southern California. I got to go in and see if they've got some raglins because I love me a good raglin. I don't know what that is. Pretty sure that the the the shirt with the third length sleeves is a different color. So you got like white and then the sleeves are like black and they go third length

like the three quarters from the 70s. Yeah, I love those. Oh, OK. They're the best. Yeah. I used to be able to go to the gas station and because my my stepdad worked at the gas station, we would do the heat transfers. You know, the people would come in and get with the trucker hats. They get the three quarter shirts with the the Ayatollah is an Asahola transfer on it because, you know, it was the 70s. Well, you know how I got my first raglin. I believe they're called raglins. If I'm getting it wrong, it's a different name. It's got a specific term to it,

but I'm sure that's it. My first one, also in the 70s, my dad worked for well, it was PSA at the time. Then they got bought out by USAir, but he worked in air cargo and a a box full of journey raglin t-shirts, touring t-shirts got lost and he brought them home and I wore them incessantly.

Oh, see, I figured you would have gotten one of the one that said like female body inspector or something like that to wear around Disney. Yeah, no, I didn't even discover those shirts until I moved to Venice Beach. All those shops have those, you know, like, yeah, let me clear off a place for you to sit. It's got a guy brushing off his beard on the shirt. Those classy shirts they used to be able to get down at Venice. The Weinstein collection, we call them now. Yes, the anti-woke brigade.

So what else we got? All right, we got some follow up. Canada's finally getting into the banning social media for kids. Manitoba, which is a province, which I actually learned this week. You didn't know Manitoba was a province in Canada? No, no, I knew that actually. My kids actually, my kids having to study them. So learn all the provinces and the capitals for each. And as I'm about to become a citizen, I will have to take a test. So I was learning too.

You're actually going to become a Canadian citizen. Congrats. Yes, I am. Paper looks in. Could take 25 years, but we'll see. Yeah. I mean, my kid and my wife are both dual citizens. It's time for me to join the team. So got it. Anyways, Manitoba could be the first province here in Canada to establish a social media ban for kids, but the proposals details aren't clear yet. The province's premier Wab Canoe, which sounds like a Star Wars character. Yeah. It's like Mace Windu's like third cousin.

He announced this during a fundraiser event on Saturday and then posted on X that they would put in place a ban for social media and AI chatbots for its youth. There's no elaboration on any details like specific age restrictions or when it'll be introduced or how it's going to be enforced, but joining everybody else along with us, Canada's getting into it, which I believe is the first place in North America. We've been the holdout so far. Okay. So yeah, we'll see. But speaking of that,

the Senate Judiciary Committee has unanimously approved a bipartisan bill aimed at requiring AI companies to limit chatbot use among minors in the United States. This proposed legislation would mandate age verification systems for chatbots, as well as prohibiting AI companions for minors and blocking the services from showing younger users sexually explicit content or encouraging self-harm, as they should be doing anyways. But this is what happens when we don't regulate things.

They do it anyways. So we'll see. This is just the first step towards AI companies facing any real federal regulation on the subject. The fact that there is unanimous agreement between both parties is not only a miracle in this day and age, but shows that there may be enough support for this to move through the Senate both quickly and successfully. So we'll see.

We have a Senate. When did that happen? I missed that. Yeah, I know they're on vacation now. So I'm sure that's gonna take a while for, you know, for that to figure itself out. But it looks like Utah has some lawmakers still around and are still doing dumb shit. Utah is about to test a new approach to internet regulation. And it's going straight after VPNs. Starting May 6th, the state's online age verification

amendments or SB 73 will hold websites liable for verifying the age of users physically in Utah, even if those users are hiding behind a VPN or a proxy. Now, how are they supposed to do that then, Jason? We're going to get to that in a second, right? The law also blocks sites with adult content from even explaining how to use a VPN or to bypass age restrictions, raising some obvious First Amendment issues. Also, some common sense issues.

Yeah, well, you know, when I first went to go set up my first VPN, I also did go to RedTube to figure out how to do so because they have the best instructions. So there you have it. So instead of banning VPNs outright, Utah is creating a liability trap that could push platforms to block VPN traffic entirely or force age verification on everyone everywhere. So technically, it's a total clusterfuck. Now, blocking VPNs is a game of whack-a-mole because

everybody changes their IP addresses all the time, and users will just route around it with either private tunnels or residential proxies, like RedTube probably tells you how to do in great detail. So the likely outcome isn't stopping teens. It's making the internet less private for everyone else and being a general pain in the ass because they're too fucking stupid to understand how the internet works. And if you want the best VPN on the market, go to gog.show/vpn because we're not a Spank site and we can tell you how to route around it. So there you go.

I guess we need to put up our instructional page on gog.show. I think we should probably put that up at some point. Yes. Uh, so, and by the way, Hey, John Oliver, thanks for listening to the show because John Oliver this week took direct aim at the AI industry on last week tonight. I generally don't watch that show anymore, but I did check this one out and he basically summed up the past two years of our show in 27 minutes. So, uh, good for him. I'm glad everybody jumped on it and we're like, yeah,

what John said. I'm like kind of late to the party, pal. He's always late to the party, especially on this one. But literally it was beat for beat for beat. Everything, every news story that we've ever covered in, you know, in summation was that, that episode. So, uh, yeah. So just everybody that's saying, Hey, did you check out John? I didn't have to check it out, but I checked it out anyway, but

we cover this shit every fucking week. So yeah. AI bad chatbots, bad kids die. People shoot each other. Sam Altman goes, what me? There you go. Summed it up. Saved you a click. Don't forget the vacuuming up of the money. Oh, the vacuuming up of the money. Yes. And then the firing at the people, then wondering where the money is going to keep coming from that they're vacuuming up. Yeah. Well, it's, it comes in one door, goes out the next and goes around the back and come in the butt,

not the mouth. And yeah, uh, uh, it is the human centipede of, of venture capital is what it is. Uh, so I did get a class action lawsuit settlement this week, Brian for $21 and seven cents from the Birch communications class action settlement. Okay. I had to look it up. I still don't quite know what it is. I think it's spam calls. It's basically what it is. So, but sign up for this class actions, people. It's your duty. It is your, it is your duty. It's your moral imperative. Yeah. And I mean,

it's, it used to be seven cents. Now it's $21 and seven cents, but with inflation, thanks to the not, don't call it a war war, it is still seven cents. Yeah. Yeah. That, that and another 20 bucks will get you a gallon of gas. Well, who could have possibly seen this coming? United States soldier, Gannon Ken Van Dyke has been arrested and charged for placing bets on prediction marketplace,

poly market using classified information. He had access to related to the capture of former Venezuelan president, Nicholas Maduro. What? We knew it happened. Now we finally have a face with the, with the thing. Yes. The U S army special forces master Sergeant who was directly involved with the planning and execution of the operation allegedly made $409,881 in profits, betting on the information

he had access to that nobody else did. According to the department of justice, he created a poly market account around December 26th, 2025 and made 13 bets related to Maduro from December 27th to January 2nd. I'm not going to get into all the specific ones. It's all in the thing.

He allegedly bet a total of $33,000 and $34 or $33,000 and $34 and made over 10 times that amount from his winnings. He withdrew his market from poly market on the day Maduro was captured and sent it to, wait for this one, a crypto vault because what's crypto good for Jason? Yeah. Criminals.

Before depositing it into a new online brokerage account. After reports about the potential insider bets were published, he allegedly asked poly market to delete his account falsely claiming that he had lost access to the email he used. So please delete that account. He also changed the email address linked to the crypto account to another one, not associated with his name. He has been charged with three counts of violation against the commodity exchange act, which each one carrying a max

sentence of 10 years in prison. He's also been charged with one count of wire fraud with a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison, as well as one count of unlawful monetary transaction with a max sentence of 10 years. And of course, poly market probably charged him 500 bucks and said, you can't use the platform for a week.

Where are the counts about? I don't know. Violating national security. I don't see the court marshal charges. Where's all of the. Yeah, there's a lot that goes into this that is not listed in here. Probably slapped him on the back and said, good work, kid. Yeah. Yeah. Where's my cut?

Where's my, where, where do I get to dip my beacon? Exactly. You know, that's how, that's how this administration works. If you don't get it, that's, that's probably the only reason he got, he got busted is because he didn't pay. He didn't got to pay up the chain. Got to pay up the chain, kid. Well, so yeah, I mean, This is just good. That's it's all these things are good for. It's all they're good for.

Again, it's, we have, we just have this continuing run of things that are good for nothing but crime. Nothing, nothing but crime and grift. That is all, all the new technologies. It used to be porn, Jason. What was the bleeding edge of technology? It was titties. What is it now? Crime.

Yeah. So sad. So sad. There was a, there was a report that was nicer when it was about titties, Jason. Oh, it's Brian. It's always nicer when it's about titties. Come on. Uh, there was a report that did come out this week. I don't know if you saw that about, uh, most of the people on these predictive markets, uh, basically are losers. And the only people that make money are the people basically with inside information on what they're trying to do.

So, or hair dryers, if you're hair dryers, uh, well, Meta is facing scrutiny after ending a contract with outsourcing firm Sama that will result in over 1,100 job losses among Kenya-based workers who helped train its AI systems. Now the move came weeks after reports that some workers were exposed to sensitive and explicit footage captured by users of Meta's AI enabled smart glasses, including private moments inside homes like pooping and fucking.

Yeah. So we talked about that a couple, a couple of shows ago. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So Meta came and said, no, you guys, we, you, you're fired. You can't, you, you know, you're, you're not here anymore with us because your people talked. It's not, it's not because you did it. It's because you told people about it.

That's pretty much it. Meta says it terminated the contract because Sama failed to meet its standards. I claim Sama disputes stating it consistently met all operational and quality requirements. Now worker advocacy groups allege that the layoffs were retaliation for speaking out. Duh. Uh, but regulators in both the UK and Kenya have launched investigations into privacy concern tied to the glasses. Meta maintains that any human review of content is done with user consent

and is standard practice to improve AI performance. I guarantee you, most of the people that were fucking on those glasses did not consent to a bunch of Kenyans looking at their footage. No, they just, at least not willingly, you know, they, they got tricked into clicking the EULA.

Yeah. Well, I mean, they're not the brightest people then. They're fucking with Meta glasses on. Come on. They're not the brightest people to begin with. Unfortunately, they were in the process of procreating, get more of them. So that's great. That's it. Idiocracy at work.

Now, Google has reportedly signed a deal with the U S department of defense, allowing its AI models to be used for classified work, including what's described as quote, any lawful government purpose. Okay. I didn't know they looked at this government recently. There are no laws. The agreement comes despite internal opposition with more than 600 employees, urging CEO Sundar Pichai to block military use of the company's AI, citing concerns over

surveillance and autonomous weapons. Now the deal places Google alongside open AI and I, which have also secured Pentagon contracts. Okay. I, that's what I want to be right there with X AI and open AI. Well, companies say safeguards remain in place, such as limits on mass domestic surveillance and lethal autonomous systems. Google's agreement reportedly does not grant it It's authority to override government operational decisions, which means go with God.

Yes. Go with Google, have, have fun with Google, have at it. Yep. Do whatever you want. Boy, I miss the days when Google's, the motto was do no evil. Oh, that was a long, long time ago. That was before everybody got rich and crazy, Brian, rich and crazy. But you know, you have to say, maybe Google needs to do this deal because they're broke, right? You know, that AI costs so much money.

Um, yeah. Oh man, we're really, we're, we're strapped for cash. We got to make this deal with the government. Nope. Google reported its strongest quarterly growth in roughly four years with revenue up 20% in Q1, 2026, driven largely by $20 billion from its cloud division and surging demand for AI products. So there you go, Brian, they're just doing it to do it. That's it. They're just doing it to do it.

I'm curious about this because we, we do see, we start to see this a lot in kind of these vague financial reports from these companies where they talk about, they're making a lot more money because of demand surge and increased demand for these AI products. Yet we're also told that all these AI products are being done at a loss leader where technically they're losing money every time that they fire up these AI machines that they're forcing down our throats. Anyways, I would also posit to begin

with that the increased surging demand for AI products is because you put that fucking button everywhere and I don't even want it. When I do a Google search, I have to go out of my way not to use your Google AI results. You're shoving it down our throats. That's why there's increased demand.

But aren't you also losing money, but yet you're claiming you're making more money, but you're losing money. I don't know if Google is losing money because remember, they already own the data centers. They own the chips. They don't have to go to NVIDIA. They've got their TPU chips that they've already been making for years for their machine learning.

Say it with me, kids, machine learning that Google has been doing forever. They've had DeepSeq forever. And they've been working on this for a long time. And these guys know how to build a data center. All these other companies coming in like OpenAI and Anthropic and Perplexity, all these schmoes who are starting from scratch. These guys don't know what the fuck they're doing, and they don't have the infrastructure. That's where the spend is coming in for those guys.

Google has a leg up with everybody. So for them, you know, and since they've made Google suck over the years, people have decided to not use it as much. So they have extra capacity just lying around that they could probably use. And what I'm sure that there is a shit ton of tricky accounting going on here, too. Oh, yes.

You know, yeah. Like like Department A is using Department B's AI chips, even though they're the same company. But they're saying they're they say, oh, I'm going to use 20 billion dollars worth of your compute, even though it's my compute to begin with. And then they just put it on the books like it's, you know, profit, even though it could just be, you know, using the shit that they've already got bucket into bucket into bucket into bucket into bucket profit.

Exactly. So, yeah, take that take that 20 billion at a grain of salt. But still, the fact that they do have the money, they don't need to be signing contracts with the government. They're only doing that to curry favor with the fuckwit in chief right now. So that's it. Right. Well, keeping on the A.I. train two months following the dead deadly shooting in Tumblr Ridge, British Columbia, open A.I. Sam Altman has formally apologized for not informing police of the alarming chat GPT conversation seen within the suspect's account.

How nice that he said, I'm sorry, two months later, after the lawyers have reviewed everything possible to make sure he could get in absolutely no trouble whatsoever. He opened his mouth and said this very specific statement that they crafted for him with the help of their lawyer A.I. bot. Exactly. And also in the interim, while while this has been going on, he's been working to steer like regulation behind the scenes to make A.I. companies less culpable for people who go out and

shoot people during this whole thing. He's been working very hard to make sure that they are going to be in the clear in the future that they're just a fucking platform. So yeah, sorry, not sorry, Sam. And just to clarify this before the incident, open A.I. knew enough about this guy in this account to ban it before the shooter went off to go shoot people in real in real life.

I am deeply sorry that we did not alert law enforcement to the account that was banned in June, Altman wrote in the letter. Well, I know words can never be enough. I believe an apology is necessary to recognize the harm and the irreversible loss your community has suffered. A.I. who is the, I believe the, what is he, the mayor or something? I don't know what he is.

Some sort of thing in British Columbia highlighted the letter on X and agreed that the apology is necessary, but added that it was grossly insufficient for the devastation done to the families of Tumblr Ridge, which I agree with. There should be some sort of lawsuit. Altman reaffirmed in the letter that open A.I. would find ways to prevent tragedies like this in the future and work with all levels of government to prevent something like this from ever happening

again. OK, so do it. Do it and also take the big dump trucks of money that you've got lying around that you keep saying that you've got and drive some of that up to Tumblr Ridge and dump it on the entire community that you have fucking destroyed so at least they don't have to worry about where their maple syrup is going to come from for the rest of their lives. Just saying that is all Canada produces.

We are a big maple syrup factory and mooses, lumberjack and Tim Horton sandwiches.

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Oh man, so a little more Sam Altman news. Tools for Humanity. A startup tied to Sam Altman and his world identity project is facing scrutiny after falsely claiming it would sell tickets to a Bruno Mars tour using a new product called a concert kit. Well, turns out Bruno Mars' management and Live Nation quickly denied any partnership stating no agreement or even contact had occurred. So the entire thing

was fucking made up. I guess they craftly let their own AI figure out what to do and just made shit up. Yeah, yeah. The company has since updated its website confirming the claim was inaccurate and shifting to a separate unrelated partnership with the band 30 Seconds to Mars.

That's Jared Leto's band, so that makes sense. He's a piece of fucking work. Yeah, no doubt. No doubt. The incident raises questions about credibility, particularly for a company built around verifying human identity through biometric scanning. It also adds to broader criticism of Altman's track record with past reporting and former employees alleging a pattern of misleading statements on issues ranging from internal policies to long-term AI goals. Now, me personally, Brian,

I don't need to ask chat GPT if this Altman guy is a cancer. Spoiler alert. He is. So scam Altman is full of shit from from I we didn't really put in any news about the trial right now because it's just kind of yeah ongoing and just a shit show every day. But man, these guys are just pieces of shit all the way down. That is the thing from the trial down. I haven't really I kind of want

to let it get along a little bit further before we do talk about it. But wow, nobody looks good. No, nobody. Well, we knew that we fucking knew that I know. But usually when you have kind of these battles of the Titans, you know, it's like, oh, well, at least Godzilla is not not so bad. But in this case, yeah, Elon and they all just look horrible. They're petty little shits. They're petty little

shits with way too much money and way too much power and way, way too little empathy for their fellow man. So a little more open AI news. Open AI and Microsoft had amended one of the most important partnerships in AI ending Microsoft's exclusive hold on open AI models. Microsoft will still keep licensing rights to open AI's IP and models through 2032. And as you remains open AI's primary cloud

partner. But that license is now non exclusive, meaning open AI can serve its products through other cloud providers. The change clears the way for open AI models to run on Amazon bedrock following a reported $50 billion Amazon open AI deal. So Amazon gives them $50 billion. So open AI can spend $200 billion on compute that they're just going to get the money back, but then own. I don't know how there's gonna be anything left of open AI with all these fucking deals they're doing to sell off pieces

of their company to spend more than they've already made. I does not make any fucking rational sense. Well, here's the deal, Jason, they have sold off 2000% of their company, but they still hold 10,000% of it. Okay. This is Trump math. That works. That works. Microsoft had reportedly threatened legal action over that arrangement, but the new agreement appears to resolve the issue. Open AI will continue paying

Microsoft a 20% revenue share, but with an unspecified cap and a guarantee only through 2030. If open AI is in existence four more years from now, which is very tenuous, it's a, we don't know if open AI is going to make it another four years. Not, no, and not, not when they keep making these deals, like there are three clear winners right now in this area. You've got Google, which is just to, to your point earlier, they've just got more money than God. So it doesn't matter. And people need to use their compute power.

Microsoft has been very strategic about making these deals. They're, they're not getting into it too much themselves, but they're just, they're taking the monies. We'll give you some money as long as you give up that money back plus more. That's what they're doing. And obviously Nvidia, who's just selling to everybody left, right, and center. They're the winners. One could also argue Apple has stayed the hell out of this mess and is just waiting until the dust settles.

Yeah. Which is the smartest move that they could do. Yeah. Oh, here, but here's an interesting part that I really found it. I really enjoyed this. The amended deal also removes the old dependency on open AI's progress towards AGI, giving open AI more flexibility as enterprise demand expands beyond Azure. Now this is because we all finally know that LLMs aren't actually intelligent.

And that scam has been blown out of the fucking water. And AGI is in no way, shape or form ever going to come from an LLM, which is basically a word prediction model. It's not intelligence. So Microsoft has finally pulled that out and saying, you know what, if we take this out, then you guys can get a go try and make more money from the enterprise clients, because that's the only place that you're going to make money. But Anthropic is eating your lunch right now. So maybe go get back

to work. All right. Well, we may never get AGI, but we do seem to have our goblins, Jason. Yeah, the goblin issue. A document posted by open AI on GitHub as part of the open sourcing for Codex CLI. Open AI's most recent flagship coding agent contains what looks like the entire system prompt for GPT 5.5 in a coding context. And there's some choice segments in here. I'll read this part. Provide the highest signal

context instead of describing everything exhaustively. Tone of your final answer must match your personality. Never talk about goblins, gremlins, raccoons, trolls, ogres, pigeons, or other animals or creatures, unless it is absolutely necessary and unambiguously related to the user's query.

They then bring it up again later. For example, never use platitudes like I will do this good thing, rather than this obviously bad thing. I will do X, not Y. Never talk about goblins, gremlins, raccoons, trolls, ogres, pigeons, or other animals or creatures, unless it's absolutely and unambiguously relevant to the user's query.

Nobody knows why. Apparently, there was some sort of geek mode that you could put in that it got rewarded and rewarded and rewarded, which again shows you it's a LLM. It's a prediction machine, things that get multiple hits, get returned more and more and more often.

So, and that's exactly how this got in there. So bad that there was a basically goblin mode meme that was going around. Somebody tried to code in a goblin mode on off switch and the internet basically had a field day. Yeah, yeah, that was great. Yeah, I think it was nerd mode. Nerd mode, yes.

Yeah, because I had that turned on because they took it away a couple months ago, but I had that turned on because when you could set all the different types of different ways that it could reply to you, you know, you could specify if you go into the chat GPT settings interface and the desktop app, you can switch on a whole bunch of stuff, but it basically reinforced itself by fucking around with it. It's just like, oh, okay.

Well, this is a blast from the past. Sam Bankman Freed's latest attempt to overturn his fraud conviction has been rejected. After the former FTX CEO submitted court filings, he largely wrote himself, reportedly with the help from his lawyer parents. U.S. District Judge...

Wrote himself or used an LLM to write? Yeah, yeah. Well, I don't even know if he's got... Oh, he's not supposed to have access to a computer, right? Exactly. Yeah, he had problems getting access to a computer, so he probably did have to write it himself, which is why it failed so miserably.

U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan dismissed the motion, characterizing it as part of a broader effort by Bankman Freed to rehabilitate his public image, referencing a 2020 document outlining unconventional reputation recovery strategies. At the center of the filing was a claim that FTX's Chapter 11 bankruptcy destroyed hidden liquidity that could have repaid customers in full, an argument prosecutors

previously called factually wrong and misleading. Bankman Freed also cited two supposed new witnesses, but prosecutors noted both were known to the defense before trial, undermining that argument. The judge further denied Bankman Freed's attempt to withdraw the motion, despite his claims that the court would be biased. Bankman Freed was convicted on seven counts of fraud and conspiracy tied to the collapse of FTX and misuse of customer funds, and has not been able to come up with the payday to give to Trump to get his ass pardoned,

so he's going to be fucked forever. Pretty much. Fine with me. Yeah, bye-bye. We've talked about the dead internet theory quite a few times on the show, and apparently we're 17 percent of the way to that becoming reality. Feels like 170 percent.

It sure does, especially on social media. I think we already have dead social media, but this is the internet as a whole. More than a third of new websites on the internet have been created by AI, according to a paper published online by researchers from Imperial College London, Stanford University, and the Internet Archive. The study is based on data collected by the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine from late 2022 when JetGPT kicked off the AI craze to the mid-2025.

As of May 2025, researchers found that 35.3 percent of all newly published websites on the internet were created with the assistance of AI, including 17.6 percent of websites that were completely AI-generated. So we're almost there. Cloudflare reported in September 2025 that nearly one-third of all internet traffic is driven by bots. And a few days later, the company's CEO, Matthew Prince, appeared on a podcast to share his frighteningly likely forecast that AI will

completely change the way information is shared online and concentrate power over this online knowledge in the hands of a few tech giants. That's happened. : An even earlier report from data security company Imperva claimed that automated surfing surpassed human activity on the internet for the first time back in 2024, making up roughly half of all web traffic. The report concluded this was largely driven by the rapid adoption of AI and large language models. So yeah, we're there, man. Most of the internet is already nothing but bots.

: Yeah. But you know, I see it. I mean, I can't, I can't look at even comments on a website, like just any kind of news website where they have comments turned on. I like to started to look at the comments and I'm like, that's a bot. That's a bot. That's a bot. There's no way that people are saying that shit. And if they are God, I hope they're bots. : And even, even a little bit of doom scrolling, you just start to see the same exact posts with the same exact wording by multiple accounts. And you're like, bot, bot, bot, bot, bot. I trust nobody. I don't

trust anything anymore. I'm going to go live in a fucking cave. Fuck this shit. Fuck it. I'm out. : See, I think that, I think it's time to really look at bringing back the indie web and individual websites and blogs, you know, for fun and connection to other people like we used to have, you know, and let's use this last gasp of cheap AI bullshittery to build our own tools to bring it around because WordPress is a fucking dinosaur and more about WordPress in a second. But we have an

opportunity right now to take back that, that conversation that we used to have with blogs and people connecting the way we used to do it without all these fucking assholes getting in the way. Because, you know, it just, if you, if you take away the profit motive, the web can still be fun, Brian. It used to be fun. We used to have a lot of fucking fun together with all the people that we knew. It was just people not fucking profit. So I think that there's a, there's an opportunity there for sure. So we're all going to have the time. None of us are going to have jobs.

: None of us are going to have jobs, but it's WordPress. Speaking of WordPress, Matt Mullenweg is raising concern that WordPress's own development culture is holding it back. He argues that an overly bureaucratic consensus driven approach to open source has led to slow progress and uninspired releases. According to Mullenweg, Mullenweg requiring broad agreement on every decision discourages bold ideas and makes meaningful innovation difficult. He suggests that

the biggest breakthroughs are often non-consensus and require accepting some level of risk and failure. Just what you'd expect from a rich guy who has to make concessions to the little people to say the things that he's saying. Now I'd like to point out, Brian, any flaw in how WordPress operates goes right back to Matt, since it's his fucking baby. I was about to say. He made the fucking thing.

: Didn't he? And wasn't there this big brouhaha just a while ago where he said, this is my company. We're going to do it my way. And if you don't want to do it that way, suck it and you can quit the job. : Exactly. So why is he going back and forth saying that, oh, he needs more power when he's got all the power, you know? I'm sure that there's some, you know, some shit out there because half of WordPress is open source there with a GPL and

all the other shit that they, whatever. I don't even know what license WordPress is released under anymore. Cause I couldn't give a flying fuck less about it. But, um, yeah, talk about, sorry, Matt, take your hundreds of millions of dollars and just fucking go away. You piss me off.

: And let WordPress die. : Yeah, seriously. I, I have bought two very rich people in, in the world lap, their first lap dance. He's the, he's the, he's the poorest of the two. The first one was Evan Williams. He's got weird, we're worth 2 billion. I bought him his first lap dance and Matt Mullenweg, I bought you as your first lap dance. So both of you guys never paid me back for those by the way.

So go fuck off. : All right. As reported by several outlets, the Trump administration has dismissed members of the national science board, which is tasked with establishing policies for the national science foundation. It's not clear how many members have been dismissed, but they established policies for the NSF, the independent us agency responsible for apportioning about 25% of federal support towards research conducted by the country's colleges and universities. This foundation has been around

for over 75 years and has contributed to the development of MRIs, cell phones, and other massive breakthroughs that affect our lives every goddamn day. So of course we don't need them anymore. Screw them. Nope. Get rid of them. In response, Congressman Zoe Lofgren called the latest decision, a real bozo, the clown move in a statement. This is the latest stupid move made by a president who continues to harm science and American innovation. Sled Lofgren who serves as the ranking

member of the house of science space and technology committee. So she made no thing or two about this. It is unfortunately no surprise a president who has attacked the NSF from day one would seek to destroy the board that helps guide the foundation. So that's just great. : Peachy. So much for ending on a high note this week.

: Oops. Couldn't find one. : Ups and doodads. : Well, Brian, a new Vine reboot called Divine has launched publicly, bringing back the six second looping video format along with a large archive of original content. The app includes roughly 500,000 restored Vine videos sourced from the community backups with associated engagement data

partially reconstructed, backed by Jack Dorsey and his beard through his nonprofit and other stuff. Clever. The project is positioned as an experimental effort rather than a commercial venture aiming to revisit the decision to shut Vine down. Divine also allows users to create and upload new short form videos with features like compilation mode for continuous playback of themed clips. A key focus is limiting AI

generated content. Sure. Users must record videos in app or verify uploads using provenance standards like C2PA. Built on decentralized social protocols, including NOSTER, with potential support for others, Divine is framed as part of a broader push towards open social media infrastructure. The app is free and currently rolling out via waitlist and invite codes. So all of those, all of the shit that those people made are being brought back from the dead. So nothing is truly ever deleted, Brian, ever.

Or relevant anymore. Yeah. Wherefore art thou, Quibi? I can't wait. Dude, Netflix just rolled out vertical videos in their in their new app that's coming out. Uh, everybody's moving towards these short form vertical videos.

And, you know, Vine was ahead of the curve back then. Quibi was ahead of the curve. Everybody now is just seeing all of the money that is being spent in China, billions of dollars in China on short form vertical videos. And they think that this is going to be a hit here. Now I am not seeing what, here's what I am seeing. I am seeing studios galore start making these videos and shit. Nobody is watching. That's what I'm seeing. You find me one human being in the United

States of America who is into vertical videos. And I may change my mind. Have you seen anything up there in Canada? I mean, you know, reels are huge, like, and nobody, nobody's got the attention span anymore. But I think the difference is people just want other normal people doing it. It's that connection thing. They want to see other normal people doing it. They don't want to see produced things.

But I could be wrong. I don't know. Yeah. I hate it all. So yeah, the Chinese side is micro dramas, you know, so it is a drama, basically 90 second in 90 second clips that is super engineered for engagement. And that's what we're going to start seeing zero interest. Yeah, less than zero, especially when you have to pay for each chapter. And I've watched some of them. They're fucking horrendous. They're fucking horrendous. But bringing back Vine is just like, look, let it die. Let it

fucking die. You already did once. Why not do it again? Yeah, and it will again. All of this has happened before, Jason. Yeah, let's go find Kevin Rose. He's working on dig 4.0. So maybe he can throw something in there. Divine is going to get plucked eventually. It's just going to be gone again. Well, Apple reportedly plans to fix bugs and expand the capabilities of Apple intelligence with the release of iOS 27, 27 iPad, OS 27 and Mac OS 27. It's so nice to just say the year, I guess.

And it seems like tweaks to the company's AI could go beyond a mere functional version of its Siri assistant. You can currently use Photos app across Apple's operating systems to adjust things like saturation and contrast, apply filters, crop photos, or use AI to remove objects with a cleanup tool. Cleanup will apparently be one of several Apple intelligence tools after these new updates roll out.

Along with cleanup, users will be able to extend the, to expand the background of the photo with generative AI enhanced to automatically improve things like lighting and image quality and reframe to shift the, shift the perspective of a photo after it's taken primarily for Apple's spatial photos.

So I guess that's nice. This will bring it along, uh, more in line with competitors like Google and Samsung, which have this stuff out there already on their phones. Um, yeah, we'll see. But Apple is still kind of hedging their bets against entirely generated images. They don't let you do that yet.

Uh, other than new photo tools, they're going to debut their new version of Siri powered by Google's Gemini models, standalone Siri app and AI powered search inside its apps. So I hate this. I hope we get to turn it all off. Yeah. I, I mean, these kids are going to be so screwed up because they're going to see their family photos and it's going to be so different from what they remember, you know, that it's just, it's this, the cognitive dissonance is going to

be, it's going to be through the roof, through the fucking roof. I don't remember mom having three breasts said the kid who found his ex AI's dad's phone. Seriously. One's for dancing kid. Anyways, old joke. Uh, Google photos is adding a new AI feature this summer. This is called wardrobe, which will create a digital closet for your clothing and jewelry, making it easier to organize them and pick what to wear. This feature discovers your clothes by scanning your Google

photos library, then creates a catalog of your items organized by categories, tops, bottoms, jewelry, et cetera. From there you can mix and match items to create outfits, sharing them with friends or saving to a digital mood board. There's also a try on feature. XAI also has that except they call it a takeoff feature. Yeah.

Like a corresponding feature in Google shopping, it will generate a photo of you wearing the clothes you chose. Interesting that they mentioned Google shopping there because I wonder what the end game of this app is going to be. Yep. Here is your wardrobe. Here is the Google shop recommendations for things that will go with the clothes that you already have or the items that are stored in wardrobe.

Here is the shopping link to buy immediately. Smart. Yeah. I just, I hate that it discovers your clothes by scanning your Google photos library. That is creepy. To me, that's the creepiest part of this. Not that does, you know, they remember the, what the Amazon or was it Amazon or Facebook?

The, uh, does my ass look fat camera where you can try on clothes? I can't remember. It was such a horrible idea. It was meta. Yeah, it was meta. Yeah. Back, I think it was back then it was still Facebook, but yeah, they weren't meta yet. No. Oh man. I do have a hardware recommendation. Uh, the Logitech MX keys S keyboard. Now I didn't want to get another keyboard this week. That was the last thing I wanted to spend money on,

but my Apple keyboard, I had one of the, you know, the Apple magic keys keyboard and I had the fancy black one when they, when they first came out, it shit the bed, all the keys on the right side decided to work about 30% of the time. It was like, I was trying to use generative AI to write an email. It just did work when it felt like working. So I had to like buckle down and get a new keyboard. And I've, I'm, I'm actually working on the M the original MX keys. Now that's my, my office keyboard. So I got the MX keys S for the bedroom. Cause they only have,

that's all they have now. It's nicer. Actually it's heavier, which I really like. I like a heavy keyboard and the keys are brighter. Like the backlit is brighter. Otherwise I think it is exactly the same as the MX keys, but I love these. I that's, I'm not getting Apple keyboards anymore.

You know, I mean, this looks really nice when, when my Apple keyboard shits the bed, I'm going to get one of these. Oh yeah. I've been using this one for like two years. It's my favorite keyboard hands down. Cause then you pair that with, uh, uh, the MX mice. The cool thing about them is they all have, uh, three different pairing settings. So you can change, you can take this and pair it with your desktop or pair it with your laptop or pair it with another laptop with one set.

So, and it takes a second to switch. You just press the button and then you just switch to the other one. Yeah. It's phenomenal. It's super convenient. We've got the mouse here and my wife and I kind of hot box and share this, uh, share this upstairs office. So it's really convenient just to hit the button. Of course, my wife always forgets to hit the button. So she's down or I forget to switch it before I leave. So I'm down on working on my laptop when she takes over and all of a sudden the mouse is going all over my screen. It's possessed. It's possessed. Yeah,

but it's a great feature and it's a, it's really useful. So yeah, I think this keyboard is definitely on my list. Yeah. And it's 119 bucks for a, for a really quality keyboard. Like I said, the, the MX one that I'm using right now, uh, so it shows no sign of wear or tear it's, it's, it's an awesome keyboard. So there's my tip of the week.

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Media candy. Star Trek strange new world is returning for its penultimate season, July 23rd. Not that far far away right now. So this will be the fourth season of the planned five before they kill all Star Trek TV shows. Thanks a lot. Paramount. Yeah. Appreciate it. We're getting 10 episodes that'll air weekly until September 24th. And the first, uh, official teaser is out, which was, uh, it looks like less singing and dancing in this, this particular season. We'll see.

Yeah. Yeah. Hopefully they, they fixed the problem with season three, which was just the discombobulated nature of where these fucking stories went. They said they were going to. So, yeah. And, uh, yeah, the last season, season five will be six episodes. So we get 16 episodes left, which is going to be sad. That is sad. That's too bad. Uh, and I stumbled across a kind of fun article. Uh, if you like your Star Trek history and, uh, the real world and how it all came together over at Gizmodo, how the

combat became the ultimate wearable of the Star Trek universe. It's just a fun read links in the show notes. Cool. Check it out. Uh, daredevil. I was worried that we had seen all we were going to see of Jessica Jones, but she looks like she's back at least for the last few episodes. We'll see what happens. Yeah. Nice to see her around. Obviously. Obviously. Yeah. It was a good episode. I thought I thought so too. So I, we'll see. I was, I kind of feel like they should wrap it, but I know they're

going to do another season. So, okay. Uh, has it been picked up yet? Cause I'm pretty sure. I thought I saw that it did, but then again, we haven't talked about it on the show. So maybe that was wine induced Jessica Jones dream. That was just you in the middle of the night. I can't wait for more Jessica Jones. And a hat tip to super Dave Bittner. I saw he posted this on his Facebook account,

uh, Ted Lasso season for the official teaser trailer is out. Uh, they're returning August 5th. Again, I have my reservations about this. I think we had, um, declining returns on the dead Lasso seasons as they went along. Although the fact that they're having him come back to coach a women's team opens up lots of good comedic possibilities. So, I mean, at the end of the day, it's good writers. We'll see.

I did not get the feels from this trailer at all. I was just like, I I've seen it. It's the same, you know? Yeah. It's tough. That's it's, it's going to be tough. They're not, they're never going to, you know, this is one of those Beatles. Good, good thing. They split up the police quitting after synchronicity. Uh, you know, at some point you just got to go, we're never going to reach these sites again. Maybe we should just call it a day. Yeah. But then there's the money. There's money.

There's Apple money behind this, you know, and Jason Sudeikis probably wants to have a bigger house or, you know, I, I look, I can't blame him for trying to feed a whole bunch of people because it does take a whole bunch of people to make these shows. So, you know, from just an economic standpoint, good on you for making the jobs and we don't have to watch it if we don't want to, I guess.

I suppose, but you know, we all are totally going to watch it. Yeah. It comes out on my birthday. You know, come on. At the library. Brian, I finished God's Junk Drawer by Peter Clines.

A lot of rubber bands, some batteries. Kind of dinosaurs and, and things like that too. Um, Peter wrote the ex-heroes series that we covered on the show when it was being released. Trump's brain. Way back in the, oh yeah, there's, well, that's just junk. Not even a junk drawer.

Do you remember the ex-heroes series? I do. I really did enjoy that series. And I remember trying to read something else he did that was not ex-heroes and, and getting, giving it a big old meh. See, I, I don't know which one that was because after that he wrote, uh, 14, which is a fantastic book. Uh, the fold, which is great. Dead moon, which is great. And terminus, which was great.

These are all very love crafty and melded themes, uh, with parallel universes and all that. And, um, it was, I love all of those books and I loved the ex-heroes, uh, and God's Junk Drawer. It took me a little while to get into. And once I got into it, like about, you know, 15% into it, it really picked up and I finally got it because at the beginning it started, uh, it's kind of like a land of the lost kind of thing at the beginning. And, uh, uh, the sleigh stacks, man, it's all

about the sleigh stacks. Um, but it, it, it totally pivots right pretty right away. And then you kind of see what's going on, but it still keeps going until the end. And it is great sci-fi. It is fantastic sci-fi. So, um, I, it was thoroughly satisfying. I highly recommend this book. Um, and it's a standalone. There's not going to be any, um, no sequels. It's just a one and done.

So if you want a really good read, highly recommend it. All right. I'll have to give him another chance. Cause I really did. I love the ex-heroes series. That was a lot of fun. It was, it was. And like I said, there's other love crafty and they're called the, um, the threshold universe series, uh, with the 14, the fold dead moon and terminus, all four of those books together. I think we're, they were all solid. So they all kind of play together. Um, so if you're looking for a short series, those were good, uh, a series that's not

so short, the murder bot diaries, uh, Martha Wells says that, uh, she may be approaching its conclusion. Um, guessing the checks are probably starting to run out then because, uh, why would you stop? You got the, you got the, you got the big payoff. You got the series made out of it.

It doesn't get any better than that. Apple series. So he's the big money, the big money, which is coming back. So I can, I can see this. I, I I've been, I've read every single one of the murder bot diaries. I enjoy them. I don't know where else. I feel like she's explored that concept as much as you can.

Yeah. So you read all eight books. Well, not the newest one because that's audible only right now. Right. Or, Oh, I don't know. I stopped at four. I actually read those on Kindle. I read every single one that's out. So, Oh, okay. And they're still good. Oh, maybe I have to check them back out.

Yeah. They're not bad. Again, like I said, it's like, you're starting to run out of ideas. It's, it's, it's a pretty solid concept, but when you're eight books in what else you got? Yeah. Yeah. And that's the other thing too. It's like, I, I didn't want to go, I started to go the audible route and I'm like, uh, in my head in the books, when I read the books, murder bot was a chick.

Yep. So that's a chick. That's the problem I had with Skarsgård being the murder bot in the series. So I think I kind of put them as two separate entities together. You know, it's like, there's the TV show, which is a completely different thing than the books, but that's just, that's just me, I guess. Or maybe not. Cause you saw, you thought so too. So anyway, we'll see how it goes.

So good luck, Martha. The dark side with Dave. Welcome to the dark side with Dave with the podcaster who never sleeps. Dave Bittner. Hi Dave. Hello. So I was, I was doing something last night. I was going through, uh, some of our artwork because we have new merch out, which we've been talking about. So everybody should go buy it.

Shop.gov.show. And in making that new merch, I had new characters that I came up with, with for me and Brian, you know, some, some grumpy dudes that kind of expand a little bit on the, uh, our, our current ancient logo that was done 13 years ago by the lovely Wendy Marvel. And I'm like, well, if I can use some of these for the show art, well then we need a Dave too. So I, I, I asked the, the, uh, the, the,

the monsters in the machine to whip up a character sheet for me, Brian and you, Dave. And I thought, I thought you came out looking so good that I had to post it here. I'll put this, put this in the discord channel too, but you look very dapper in our, in our character sheets. Thank you. No, I do. I, I, uh, I am pleased with this. Uh, I like your concerned view.

That is my favorite. Yeah. It, uh, it, I've dropped a few pounds, which is nice. Always nice. Uh, that's what AI is good for. Yep. Yeah. It had you in a hoodie originally. Oh really? And I'm like, no, Dave wears black buttons down. So we're putting the black button down.

That's funny. But I actually, I actually, I, I, I used, uh, the new chat GPT image 2.0 with your profile picture and this is what it came up with. So. Yeah. I was going to say that definitely looks like my, my profile picture. So I know I like it. I like it. It's full speed ahead. I, I guess I'm the only one of the group who actually has a human head. Yeah. We are, uh, Jason and I seem to be rounded Lego heads, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yes. The grumpy smiley, not smiley, but here's,

here's the funny part. So I built this character sheet. So I, and I told, I told chat GPT, I'm like, make me a character sheet that I can use with you when I want to make characters for artwork that we're going to use later for show art for YouTube, because we have to make the YouTube show art every week. So I, I, it, it created this for me and immediately when I tried to use it, it did not work at all. All of us came out looking like Brian. That was

it. There's three Brian's giving us the stink. Oh, you should all be so lucky. I know. Yeah. So at least that was a fail anymore. That's good. Yeah. Yeah. Got rid of that. Yeah. Yeah. I think that, that only made it still season two or year two of the show. And then he quit. We had to take it out. Brian's like, take out my cigarette. I'm, I'm going to have a kid. I'm getting married and all that shit or whatever. The poster I have, uh, the grumpy

old geeks poster I have, Brian is still smoking. So. Oh man. Oh geez. Yeah. Oh geez. Yeah. I still have some of those stickers sitting around too. Yeah. Uh, so I, I have to run something by you as well, because last week you talked about Dave, about, you know, how we're always all feeling scared all the time. And it, uh, you know, that, that fight or flight, uh, you know, reaction is, is playing heavily on us because of our use of social media. I was driving back from my friend's house this week. I got my first singing lesson this week.

Oh, congratulations. It wasn't great. Yeah. My first ever. Oh, congratulations. That's great. We got, we got, we got through the second song and he's like, yeah, your pitch sucks. Go home and work on your pitch. So constructive criticism. It's a friend. I'm having a friend teach me how to sing. So it's like, he's, he's, he's brutally honest, which I think is better than, you know, someone that's just trying to take my money, but I fixed his computer. He's teaching me how to sing. But on the way home, I'm pulling up to my house and there was a PSA

on the radio that was a, a, an educational PSA about, so you've got a new set of friends. You and your wife are going to a cocktail party with you, your wife, and your kids at a new friend's house. Now, before you take your kids to that new friend's house, how do you ask those friends about their unsecured firearms? This is how you ask people how they have unsecured

firearms in their home. You call them up and you say, Hey, Judy, I can't wait to come over to the party tomorrow night, but you know, we're bringing our kids and kids are curious. So they're going to be exploring. And I just wanted to know, how do you handle unsecured firearms in your home? Yeah. And, and Judy should have said, Judy should have said, well, you should be wrangling your fucking kids and not letting them run amok in my home, which would have been the first answer. But then Judy comes back and said, all of our, all of our firearms

are secured in, in fireproof safes that have biometric locks and are out of reach of children. This was an actual PSA on the radio in California, California. It is the most dystopian thing that I've heard. Well, in the last two and a half years, at least a minute, but I was just floored. I just didn't know if you guys had heard this. I'm sure Brian, you're not going to hear this, but Dave, this might be in your neck of the woods because it was on

a national radio station. So I haven't heard it, but honestly, uh, it has been so long since I've listened to the radio. Uh, I realized recently I got a new car about a year and a half ago and I have yet to program radio stations in on it. Wow. Yeah. Yeah. Just hasn't come up. Right. Yeah. Okay. Well, here's a reason connects automatically to my car too. So I never listened to the radio. It's just, all right, well, what podcast was I listening to or which

playlist do I want to start? Or my kid, my kid's music that I'm going to have to play. That's the, those are the choices. So, uh, yeah, we don't have that problem up here, uh, Jason, cause the, you know, there, there are no guns, uh, but they do have a, you know, is your moose properly pent up in the back? Uh, and various, uh, is the maple syrup secured cause we wouldn't want any accidents. Uh, that's what happens here, but yeah, that's pretty goddamn dystopian. Uh, shit,

there is only one person's house that I've ever been to that as far as I'm aware of actually had a gun and that was your house, Jason. Okay. None of my other friends have owned any, so this has never come up. Yeah. I think I have a picture of you with that gun too. I think you do. Yeah. Probably gun in one hand in a bottle of, uh, Zane Lamprey spiced rum in the other hand. Oh, that was good

stuff. That was really good stuff. This reminds me of, uh, when my kids were little, I want to say elementary school age and we had some friends over and the friend who the friend also had kids and brought their kids over who around the same age as mine. And the friend pulled me aside and, uh, basically read me the riot act because we had Nerf guns and her children were being raised,

uh, without guns. And it was not cool for me to not warn her that we had guns. And I went, I was like, yeah, they're Nerf guns. They're Nerf guns. They shoot little foam ball. Like, so. I mean, there's the thing, I mean, I remember my, my wife was, was particularly, she was aware of the fact that there would be no avoiding this, that if, if this stuff didn't happen,

then, you know, our son would just pick up a stick and pretend it was a gun or a lightsaber or whatever. But I do remember, you know, when Lucas was very young, she was very like, how long can we hold off on introducing guns to the kid? And I get that. But at a certain age, it's just like, I'm sorry, this is the world. Yeah. See, I come from, I come from a place where kids, all kids learned how to shoot when we were very young and we got a respect for guns. We knew

how to use a gun. So if we saw a gun, we weren't scared of it when we knew what to do with it. And, you know, people who keep their kids away from guns are probably the same people that keep their kids away from peanuts, which is why peanuts kill fucking kids now too. So teach your kid how to use a gun and eat a fucking peanut in the world to be a better, safer place. That's my point. But hey, toy gun. I have many toy guns. Of course we had cowboy, you know, pistols. We had, I had a toy, uh, M 16 where you pulled the trigger and it went,

I had one of those too. Yeah. Plastic one. And then I had a metal, um, I guess it was a shotgun, but it was an air gun. Didn't shoot anything. It just made up, you know, I mean, a pop sound and, and blew air out the front. But of course we immediately learned that if you shoved the nose of it into the mud, you'd get a nice little mud thing on the end there and then you cock it and you shoot it and the, the, the mud would fly out of the front of the gun. So yeah, there you go.

Yeah. I mean, you can't avoid this stuff. It's popular culture. It's everywhere. It's it's, it is what it is. So yeah. So Dave, you should have secured your Nerf guns as well. What we learned from the PSA today. Biometric fireproof locker, please. Right. Yeah. Yeah. So what are you going to do?

Well, uh, I discovered a new podcast, Dave, and this, this might be of interest in to you. Uh, we are Disney freaks. We, we love everything Disney and Disneyland and all that. And let me tell you, there are thousands of podcasts about Disneyland and invariably almost every single one of them is fucking horrible from the brief sampling that I've, that I've done so far. They're either poorly recorded there, you know, in windswept tunnels, they have no idea what they're doing. They're not

engaging personalities or their content is just as crap. But I did manage to stumble across one more that I've actually found to be quite good, at least so far. And this one's called the backside of water, a podcast that delves into the rich history, awesome stories, and fascinating details behind your favorite Disneyland attractions. So it's kind of like a beefed up non Disney approved behind the attraction that they have on Disney plus. And as you guessed from the title, both hosts have

worked as jungle cruise operators. So they have personalities. Um, the quality of the recording is quite good and not annoying. And so far from the two or three episodes I've listened to, it's, uh, it's pretty good. Like I I'm enjoying it so far. I just added it to my, uh, my podcast list, I will check it out. Uh, I would know my, um, I had a former intern who, uh, went on to become a jungle

cruise skipper in Cal or no in Florida. Um, and, uh, just noteworthy that, uh, they didn't use to allow women to become jungle cruise skippers because obviously women can't be funny. Um, or hold a gun drive, right. Hold a gun. Yeah. I was, it was funny. Like, uh, you know, originally they would shoot at the animals. Now they just shoot to scare them away. They would

originally shoot at the hippos. Now they shoot up in the air because that's how times have changed. Yes. Right. Right. Uh, and then just noteworthy, my wife was a backstage studio tour guide. Um, when she did college program at the studios, the studios were pretty new back then.

So she did the thing where you go through catastrophe Canyon and, you know, on the left is the golden girls house and all that sort of stuff. So she had to memorize a, I think it was like a half hour script. Um, but, uh, yeah, she enjoyed that a lot. It was a good, good college job. Very cool. And to just tie this quickly to the listening to the radio or not in the car. Uh, one of the episodes I listened to was about Ooga's, Ooga's Cantina, which is the,

the alcoholic beverage and food place in star Wars land. Um, and, uh, that let me know that this, this exists there. There is this thing that actually exists called star Wars galaxy's edge Ooga's Cantina are our Rex's playlist. Number one, which is the music that they play in the cantina. And they, they talk about it on the podcast about how it's just more amazing world building by Disney that they actually spent the time and the money to create all these songs,

that are supposed to sound in universe, but aren't like just, you know, John Williams or orchestra. This is like dance music and world music. And it's, it's real, like one of the songs is in Ewok. Another song is in Huttese. Like it's fucking amazing. And, and the songs are actually, some of them are not great, but some of them are actually really good. Like I've enjoyed listening to it. And actually I did play this in the car for the kid the other day. Cause I needed to change

a pace. It's a fun little playlist. So enjoy links in the show notes. I'll have to check that out. Uh, of course Rex from, uh, star tours, the original star tours operator. Yes. Yeah. Is now the DJ in Ooga's Cantina. Yeah. Good for him. Good. Nice to see Rex. Uh, it doesn't pay as much, but it's a, the higher quality of life. I think, you know, well, you can see if, you know, if you've ridden the original star tours, you know, perhaps being a pilot wasn't for Rex. Yeah. He wasn't that great at it to be honest. And now he gets

to stay home with his wife and kids more often. So you mentioned, uh, Ewoks and, uh, just yesterday on Facebook, I believe it was, I was scrolling through and someone was showing a demonstration of some of the crazy things you can ask an AI to do. And they had created, uh, a one sheet that was step-by-step instructions for, uh, performing a prostate exam on an Ewok.

It was illustrated. Uh, it had, uh, it had, uh, Ewok anatomy. Uh, so you had a little Ewok and a little doctor and a little Ewok bent over the exam table. It was hilarious. Remember when they were promising us that AI was going to cure cancer?

Right. Right. Right. Thinking about, yeah, just the gallon. Well, no colon cancer for Ewoks. We've gotten that far. Right. Right. But how seriously the AI, the AI responds as if this were a serious request and, and gives you a serious response. And so comedy.

Very nice.

Another thing I came across was, I put some pictures here in the show notes, uh, back in 1977 at the peak of star Wars mania, uh, somebody decided to give away a Toyota Celica lift back star Wars edition.

And a galaxy of other prizes, Dave. And a galaxy of other prizes. Don't forget the galaxy of other prizes. Yeah. Uh, and this, so this, nobody knows what happened to this car. It's gone or it's, it could be the ultimate barn find for a star Wars fan. Uh, but this is a Toyota Celica, which at the time was a pretty hot car and it's got all kinds of star Wars, I guess, decals

put on it, spaceships and things. And, uh, I don't know. I, I would love to have this car. I think it's a good looking car. Yeah. So there's the blonde standing in front of it, right? That's C3PO. Oh, wait, the other picture, the other image, the other picture. It's been a while, hasn't it Jason? It's been a long, so long. She looks like she could be, uh, asking you how many are in your party

for captain EO. She looks a lot. Do you guys remember the actress, uh, Virginia Madsen from sideways? Okay. She looks an awful lot like her. Sure. Actually with a bit of a tan. So, yeah, this is, this is great. I do wonder, uh, how, how much the overlap on the Venn diagram is between star Wars fans and, and barn finders, but, uh, perhaps someday. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think

there were, um, I may be just crossing over in my mind because there were toys that were like matchbox made some star Wars versions of things. And there were, there were models that you could build of, uh, vans. Remember how they used to do airbrush art on the sides of vans? Oh, yeah.

Yeah. Um, and, and I think there were star Wars versions of those. So I'm probably blending in my mind, the toys with a real full size one, but I can't imagine that there wasn't someone who had a full size van with star Wars airbrush stuff. Oh, so many of them. Sure. Those were everywhere. Yeah.

No, those were everywhere. Yeah. Um, but I, I don't know if you guys saw this news that, uh, the new Mandalorian and Grogu movie is expected to tank. They're, they're saying that it's going to bring in probably $80 million, which is the lowest grossing star Wars movie, like of all time, early to modern time. Solo movie looking good again. Solo did a hundred million dollars, which,

you know, not bad. I'm not all that surprised by this because it is the TV show. It's a TV show that not everybody that's even into star Wars has watched. It's, it's, it's fun. I've been enjoying it. I was surprised to hear that they were making a movie. I am out of it too. I was shocked. And you're going with these characters that nobody knows. And I mean, at least solo had, it was

fucking Han Solo. All right. Uh, you know, rogue one, it tied directly into the first star Wars and you had princess Leia, Darth Vader at the end. Uh, it's surprising that they chose to do this and I wouldn't expect it to do as well as any other star Wars movie would do either. So, but we'll see.

Yeah. I guess I expected it to ride on everyone's love for baby Yoda. Yeah. I mean, but again, that's, uh, I don't know. We'll see. I don't think it's going to do amazing. I don't think it's going to tank by any means. I think it's, it's even a, even a poorly performing star star Wars movie is a better movie than most, uh, performing. So I don't know. We'll see.

Yeah. I'm curious what the budget is on it too. Cause you'd think they could make it relatively cheaply if they had to, everything's already made. Yeah. Right. Yeah. So the universe exists already. All the parts are there. Yes. All the characters have costumes. Yeah. Well, we have our tickets for opening weekend. So at our local IMAX, LIMAX theater, how much did those cost you?

I don't want to know my, I don't know. I mean, probably, well, let's see, there's six of us going, so it's probably 20 bucks a person. So I'd figure a hundred and 120 bucks there. Then 120 bucks each for popcorn.

That's right. And then, yeah, probably at least another, yeah, 60 bucks for popcorn. So yeah, we're in for $200 to see, to see a movie of a TV show. And to the point of it, maybe like, you know, tanking, uh, I don't know when I'm going to see it. Cause my son hasn't watched any of the Mandalorian yet. Oh, so I'm not rushing off to the theater to go watch it with my kid. So we'll see.

Yeah. Budget was 166.4. Okay. Okay. So it, I mean, it's hard to imagine it's going to lose money, but who knows, who knows? We shall see. Uh, earlier in the show, I saw you mentioned, uh, super Dave, you were referring to me. Yes. Uh, that, and that got me thinking about super Dave, super Dave Osborne, uh, who I enjoyed back in the days. I guess I was introduced to super Dave when

he was on the show bizarre, uh, which was, I think on showtime. Uh, wasn't he first on real people? Oh, was he? I don't know. I mean, I can't remember. He might've been on real people. Yeah. And then eventually he had his own show for a while, but I remember seeing clips of him on the show bizarre. Um, but I was thinking like super Dave would be a pretty easy cosplay to do.

Oh yeah. Um, but the other thing that, that struck me, if you had asked me what super Dave's outfit looked like, I would have said it was evil Knievel's outfit, which said it was an exact copy of evil Knievel's outfit, but it's not. I think they had intellectual property rights even back in the seventies, Dave. Yeah, you're right. You're right. But I don't know. It's just a funny thing in

my mind that I had definitely blended super Dave's outfit with evil Knievel's more than I thought I had. Well, I mean, it's definitely, it's red, white, and blue with stars. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's definitely less chest hair showing. Right. Right. Yeah. So this is interesting. Uh, super Dave Osborne

was his first appearance was in 1972 on the John Biner comedy hour. I was not even alive yet. Yeah. Um, and then he became more widely known through, uh, his recurring appearance on late night with David Letterman. That's where I first saw him. Yeah. Oh, okay. Did you guys remember the show bizarre at all? No, no. Okay. Well, it was, it was, uh, John Biner hosted it. Uh, and it was a comedy show,

half hour comedy show, I believe it was, I think it was on Showtime and, um, uh, I watched it because of super Dave and then also boobs, like boobs. Yeah. There are boobs. So then it was much harder to see boobs back then than it is today. So it's true. Yeah. Yeah. And, uh, super Dave was on real people and they were, the segments were presented as legitimate human interest features. So yeah,

Bob Einstein was a, he was, he was, he was a good, good comedian. I think he had his own thing and he did it well. Uh, I know that, uh, Brian, I believe you're not a real big Marty Short fan, but I will not be watching this documentary, but I did see it in the news and I was going to put it in the show notes and then forgot. And I'm glad that of course you caught it. Yeah. Yeah. So there's a Martin Short documentary coming on Netflix. Uh, I believe it drops on May 12th. The only way you would get me to

watch this is clockwork orange style. I would have to have my eyes. That's fair. That's fair. I, I, I can completely understand how Martin Short is not everyone's cup of tea, but he is my cup of tea. Still love Three Amigos. Still love Three Amigos though.

Yeah. And I think also, um, my sense, uh, is that beneath it all, that there is a kindness to Martin Short. And I think that's part of the reason why I'm attracted to him and his humor.

Um, he doesn't strike me as being like, I don't know, Chevy Chase, you know, just a jerk. Right. To the people around him. So. He seems nice. I just don't find him funny. That's a hundred percent where I'm at. He seems like a wonderful, of course he is. He's Canadian. He's nice. Right.

How could he not be? Right. But, uh, just can't, just, I hate so many of his characters as created. I wince. I'm in pain. Oh yeah. Anyways. I hope you enjoy it, Dave. I don't disagree. I'm sure it'll be wonderful. I respect your opinion. It's fine. So I'll, I'll just be in a dark room by myself watching alone.

Just you and Marty watching, watching his documentary together. Me and Marty. Yeah. Uh, I was curious is particularly, uh, Brian, cause I know you're a baseball person. Uh, and I can't claim to be following sports all that much, but my wife and I were watching a baseball game earlier, I don't know, the past week or so. And, uh, it really struck me how much they were challenging the umpires calls over and over and over again,

it seemed. Uh, so is this the new normal for baseball? And what do you think of this? You get two challenges, uh, unless you keep getting them right. Okay. As soon as you, if you make a challenge and you're wrong, you lose a challenge and then you have only got one more left. So, um, when the umper umpires are particularly shit as you must've had that game and they, the pitchers and the catchers just kept repeatedly challenging them and getting

it right because the umpires are obviously making the wrong call. Uh, that's crazy. Um, but I can see it happening. We we've people in the world have been keeping stats on umpires for a long time and it's, it's well known that there are particularly, well, first off that the hit rates, not all that great for umpires in general. Uh, but there are particular umpires that are a fantastically bad at this. And, uh, at this point, I don't even know why we're tiptoeing

around it. Just fucking institute it and every pitch is checked and we, every pitch go in because it happens so fast anyways. It's, it's immediate. So, um, yeah, I, I just go all in or don't, I don't understand this, this kind of halfway place where right now, I'm sure there's a union involved. The umpire union is probably trying to save their jobs, but the technology nowadays,

you don't need an umpire anymore period. Yeah. Yeah. I, I know, I know umpires are unionized and have one of the strongest sports unions and I don't think, uh, the NFL umpires are unionized, but, um, I could be wrong on that, but I know base major league baseball is right. That's probably part of it. Uh, yeah. I mean, I can imagine the umpire having a little buzzer or clicker or

something that tells him what the computer thinks before he puts in his own two cents. Well, there are a million other things for the umpire to do besides call the balls and strikes. I mean, obviously that's the lion's share of it because they have to brush the plate off, have to brush the plate off. There's a gazillion other calls. So, um, you know, this technology is there. It's been proven to be insanely accurate. Um, you know, we've, we've had the same thing with

soccer with video review goals, uh, VAR, which is now they tiptoed around it for a couple of seasons as well. And now it's just every goal gets a VAR check. End of story. Like we check it. It doesn't matter what the ref said. We're checking it first. So, so can you imagine a time when baseball fans insist that the computer be the primary source of whether it's a ball or a strike? I think that

there are purists, uh, that will be dead soon that will, that will never ever accept this. But I think from the majority of fans, from what I've seen, and even my friends that follow the game that are just kind of already like, well, if it's that accurate, why aren't we just using it instead of why would you don't want a game to be called one way or the other because of bad calls when there's a technology that exists that eliminates that. Right. Right. So there's enough of a human element

in baseball that in general, that taking away this one part. Yeah. Is okay. Yeah. Again, like I was saying, there's so many other calls that, that are made and that are judgment calls now, you know, is it a slippery slope? Can we stay say now that with the high speed cameras and AI and everything else that's involved, do we even need umpires? Can we just point cameras out there and have the entire game done that way? Or do we even need to do that? Can't we just throw all the stats for the past 200

years in and just have predictive algorithms tell us who wins the world series every year and don't even bother playing the game. You know, that's, that's the, we just all bet on poly market and it's whatever it is, is yeah, exactly. Throw some dice. Um, you know, for me it's, it's the balls and strikes thing, the ABS, the automatic ball system. It seems to make sense to me and it seems to be insanely accurate. And if you're going to either use it or don't like, but don't do both. All right. Fair

enough. No, I can go with that. Uh, I guess, um, in an era where they're trying to speed the game up, it seemed like an odd way to slow the game down. Yeah. I, well, I mean, I think the plan is they want to introduce this and have this be the norm, but again, unions and, and they don't want to rock the boat too quickly. So this is how they, they kind of introduce things. They've done, they've introduced quite a few rules over the past 20 years, 30 years of this way where it's, you know,

you get, you get X amount or we'll just start with the first couple innings or, you know, we change, you know, all these different things here and there. So it's, it's the, it's the softening us up approach. Let's get you used to it. And then we're just going to, this is going to be the way it's done from now on. Yeah. It's the lube. Yes. This is the gentle lube before they shove it home.

Oh, that's right. Wow. Well, on that happy note, gentlemen, we will see you next week. All right. All right. Thanks guys. See ya. Closing shout outs. No new patrons this week. Sad, sad, sad. Uh, we, but we do would like to thank still everybody. Uh, DJ 1024, Vladimir pork chop, the clown pork chop, the clown BG, Mark, Matt, Sean, Michael, Alexander,

and hit and run. Thank you all for your continued support on Patreon. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. And it's a rare week with nothing coming in through PayPal, but I appreciate everybody that's been tossing this money there. Wow. Okay. Right. Yeah. Uh, the last couple of weeks have been so generous, so we can, we can flow, float for a bit, but that's, that's sad. Um, and over at the tip jar, we've got Adam, Jennifer and Alden with the big 40 bucks. So thank you all so much. And like we said,

we've got March, March is back. And we'd like to thank John from Norway, Julie from Massachusetts, Nick from Coyahoga Falls. And every, I used to go through there and it's in Ohio and I would always play the REM song Coyahoga when I go through there because it's a great song. And, uh, also guest host Donovan got a new mug. So thank you everybody for picking up the merch.

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Preach. Preach. No reviews this week. So until, 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 744. 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 it?

Share it. There's a share button in your podcast player. Use it to spread the grumpiness to friends, foes, and everyone in between. We'll love you for it. Swing by gog.show to join our discord and chat with us and other show fans. My thoughts, feedback, cool links is up at gog.show slash contact. And don't forget to leave a five-star review at gog.show slash review and we'll read it on the show. And guess what? We've actually really honestly got new GOG merch and we're going to

keep some more stuff coming out there, especially if you buy it. Snag your grumpy gear now at shop.gog.show and check it out. Stay grumpy. Saturday, September 26th, two of combat sports' most dangerous strikers collide.

Bare Knuckle. Liverpool's own Darren the Gorilla Till goes to war with Cuban powerhouse Yoel Soldier of God Romero. Plus the Bare Knuckle Middleweight Championship of the World is on the line when the reigning champ Dave the Redneck Mundell defends against undefeated British challenger Jack the Meek Cleaver Cullen, BKFC 94, Till vs. Romero. Watch it live only on DAZN. Sign up now at DAZN.com.