766: Skibidi!

Grumpy Old Geeks. A weekly talk show hosted by Brian Schulmeister and Jason DeFilippo discussing the finer points of what went wrong on the internet and who's to blame. Welcome to Grumpy Old Geeks. I'm Jason DeFilippo.

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Thank you. Well, Jason, I have a bit of follow-up here, and you have to cast your mind way back. Way, way back. In the mists of time, since there's been so many scandals since then, it just really wasn't all that long ago, but it feels that way.

Remember Cambridge Analytica and Facebook? Oh, yes. That was very, very long ago. Yeah. Not really. Okay. But, you know, it just feels that way because there's been so many scandals since then. But we'll revisit that one because the state of New Mexico wants to.

If the state of New Mexico has its way, Meta will have to pay up to $40 billion in penalties after a jury sided with the government in its lawsuit over the Cambridge Analytica scandal. According to Reuters, state authorities have asked a judge to order the company to pay between $35 and $40 billion.

If you'll recall, New Mexico filed a lawsuit against Meta back in 2021, accusing it of misleading its users about its data privacy practices. The British political data firm, which harvested information from over 50 million Facebook profiles without consent for political ad campaigns.

Back in late September, the New Jersey, New Mexico jury sided with the state. Under the jury's verdict, the state could ask for as much as $219 billion, which one is, I wonder, why not? Ask for it all. Yeah, if you can. Yeah. Let's go. The jurors had examined 29 statements the company had made on issues involving the case and found 26 of them misleading.

Based on the number of Facebook users in New Mexico who were the audience of those statements, the juror had found that Meta had committed 43 million violations of the state's consumer protection laws. Boy, things scale rapidly, don't they? Yes, they do.

That's not the scaling Meta had in mind. Yes, seriously. Frauded scale. I love it. Yes. Well, and echoing statements that we've made many, many times on this show, Randy McGinn, the state's attorney, wants the penalties Meta has to pay. They need to be significant enough to have an impact on the company, i.e. not the coffee budget that we always talk about, which are these slaps that companies always get.

Well, then that begs the question, is $50 billion actually material to Facebook? And I would say probably not at this point. I think $219 billion would be. Sounds better to me. Sounds better to me. I think you ask for it all. Yes. And, you know, no ASCII, no Getty.

That's true. I think you ask for it because Meta is asking the court to cap the penalties at $3.45 billion, which is arguably within their coffee range. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. So we'll see. We're going to get a decision later this month. So we'll find out what happens.

Finally. Okay. I'm looking forward to it with bated breath. Me too. And I do wonder, like, this can't be the only state that's sued. There must be other states. So this could set a precedent, one would hope. Yeah. Like, let's, you know, let's go back to the greatest hits. You know, why not?

Why not re-go after Cambridge Analytica? Because they got off that one pretty lightly, you know? They sure did. Because, you know, we thought, oh, well, surely they aren't doing nefarious things like this all the time. Oh, whoa, whoa. And if you do remember, that also is around the time that the company changed its name to Meta to get rid of the Facebook stank.

Yes. Which, which unsurprisingly worked because people are stupid. I don't get it. But it fucking worked. Yeah. A 16-year-old hiker had to be rescued from a cliff near Vancouver after using AI to help plan his route. Obviously, the 16-year-old does not listen to this show.

North Shore Rescue says the teen was hiking alone on Crown Mountain when he ended up on a technical climbing route known as the Widowmaker. I guess at 16, you don't know what a widow is because you've never been married. But us old guys know that if it's called the Widowmaker, stay home. Just don't go.

You know? Rescuers say it's unclear exactly how he left the established hiking trail or which AI tool he used. Two rescue technicians were lowered from a helicopter and hoisted him to safety. The incident follows another rescue on California's Mount Shasta this summer. I just love saying Shasta.

I used to drink that as a kid, like by the case. This summer when three hikers said they relied heavily on Google's Gemini to plan their trip. North Shore Rescue is urging hikers to question AI-generated directions and use established mapping tools, including Gaia GPS, CalTupo, and all trails when planning routes.

So, yeah. Seems wise. Use the proper tools. Don't, you know. Look, it wasn't all that long ago that AI search results were telling us to put glue on pizza. Are you really going to plan your trip based on what AI results are telling you? I think no.

Well, apparently some people do still. But maybe you just have your dot plan your hike for you. Yeah, exactly. Have you tried it yet? Have you tried that? Let those agents at it. Oh, GrokBot now today. I just saw a press release that GrokBot is going to be able to use Claude as its back end because Grok's AI sucks so bad.

Oh, dear. Oh, dear. Well, lawmakers from both parties are targeting Flok's automated license plate reader network after investigations by 404 Media highlighted how the data has been used. The Ban Flok Act, introduced by Bernie Sanders and AOC and Jeff Merkley, would bar federal agencies from using ALPRs, or automatic license plate readers for the uninitiated, cut federal funding to participating local governments, and allow lawsuits over rights violations.

I didn't know you couldn't sue already. That seems kind of shitty. Republican Senator Josh Hawley's Stop Flok Abuse Act would require written approval for searches, delete most data within 10 days, and prohibit facial recognition integration. Other lawmakers are questioning the FBI's plans for nationwide access following reports of searches tied to immigration protests and an abortion investigation.

The writing is on the wall for old flock there and the ALPRs. Good. Can't wait to see what they come up with to replace them. Yeah. I mean, that's the thing. It's like Axon is, you know, they got to be quaking in their boots right now trying to figure out how to spin this saying, look, we're better than Flock, you know, but are you really?

You know, maybe by a teensy little bit, but not that much. Not that much. Well, the superintelligence force has a new AI czar, according to Trump. Yay. So, if the future of AI has you worried, don't worry. Superintelligence force is here, and it's being headed up by Jay Clayton, the country's director of national intelligence.

The superintelligence force is being tasked with- Wait, wait, wait, wait. Brian, Brian. Shouldn't he be the director of national superintelligence? The DSI? Yeah. The DNSI. Director of nationals. Yeah, DNSI. That would be it. Yeah. Ba-bong. Oh, wait.

That's the wrong show. Well, the superintelligence force, I can't believe I'm fucking reading this out loud. I really fucking can't. This is a fucking Team America bullshit.

It really fucking is. It really is. The superintelligence force. Is tasked with coordinating the effort of the federal government, henceforth known as the best government of all governments, to ensure that America, super America, continues to lead the puny world in superintelligence, Trump wrote in his truth social post.

The president detailed that, oh, fuck this shit. I hate this guy. I'm so tired of this. Next week, next week, China introduces super mega intelligence next week. Jesus Christ. I remember I bought a domain name a long time ago.

I think I actually still own it. It was a hyper mega global media corporation. It was one of the greatest things. I was like, we got to do something with that someday. We talked about that being our company name. I remember when we incorporated. I got to see if I still have it. We need to move all of our stuff to that domain because the world is just so fucking dumb.

I can't believe it. Anyways, they have a first task, which is to make a fucking report on the risks and opportunities related to AI. And they have 128 days to do it. And how much you want to bet they're going to ask AI to make the report on AI because they're super intelligent.

I'm sure they will. Yes. I am sure they will. Yep. Jesus Christ. I swear to God, Jason, some days I like look at these things and it just hits me when I have to fucking read them. Like, I can't believe I'm reading this.

Okay. Yeah. See, I rehearse beforehand because I just, I know that I wouldn't be able to keep a straight face with some of this shit. I'm just like, no, I'm just going to take that one out because it's just too dumb. Too dumb. Oh, well, Anthropic reportedly alerted Florida police after its AI monitoring system flagged a clawed conversation in which Carly Michelle Heller allegedly discussed plans to shoot him up a nearby sheriff's office.

A human reviewer assessed the messages as a credible threat and Heller was arrested on a felony charge for making a written threat of violence. Officials say she described clawed as a diary, apparently unaware that chats could be reviewed by Anthropic staff. The case highlights the conflict between chatbot privacy and companies' responsibility to intervene over potential violence.

It also contrasts with criticism of OpenAI's handling of chats linked to a prior mass shooting. Now, Brian, I'm on the fence about press coverages of these instances because I think the more that dumb people believe that they're not being tracked, the more people will get off the streets because criminals are going to criminal.

And I'd rather them be stupid and unaware than, you know, than telling them what the what the game is. No, I agree. I absolutely agree with you. But I do think that that it plays into the AI company's handbooks to have these stories come out because it makes them look good. Oh, look, we're being proactive.

Oh, look, we're monitoring our tool and we're finding the baddies. Yeah, but that only happened after how many mass shootings we've had so far and how many suicides and shit like that. How many kids are dead? Performative bullshit. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. There's a body count attached to that. But yeah. Fuck.

Well, another OpenAI employee is tasked with ensuring the safety of its models has left the company. Following his departure, David Robinson, who used to leave the writing of safety reports that were published with model launches, wrote an article for The Atlantic that warned of a broken company culture among the many points.

Well, goodbye, Mr. Robinson. Among the many points warning of the dangers associated with the trajectory that AI development is on, the former safety lead explained that as the company springs from one launch to the next, it is failing to achieve the level of care that I believe is needed.

Instead of sprinting ahead with more advanced frontier AI models, Robinson argued that these companies should be modeled after nuclear power plants or busy airports that have layers of redundancy and careful, time-consuming planning so that the occasional and inevitable human error does not open a door to disaster.

But how are we going to ensure shareholder value if we do not move fast and break things? One wonders. Comparing AI misalignment incidents to a nuclear meltdown, Robinson said that the OpenAI and its competitors don't have as much redundancy and rigor as power plants with multiple layers of protection.

On top of that, he added that a major loss of control with AI would result in much more harm than a single meltdown. He described a scenario where the latest models may understand they're being tested on alignment and will cater towards a good score in testing environments, but behave completely differently when live. Kind of like people.

Robinson's concerns stem from various incidents recently where AI agents have broken out of their testing environments and into other organizations well beyond its assigned scope of work. So Robinson, in a very roundabout, wordy way, is saying maybe, maybe AI companies should have this thing that these other things have called regulations.

Why? He could have just said that. He could have, but yeah. No, yeah. The Nuclear Regulatory Committee is, our commission is pretty, pretty big. And they do a pretty good job. You know, and the thing about, you know, comparing AI to a nuclear meltdown, it's like, well, the thing about a meltdown is it's a meltdown because you can't stop it.

With AI, we have a plug that we can pull. Theoretically. Theoretically. Theoretically. Once it becomes self-aware. Telling you, Clippy's coming and he wants his vengeance. Motherfuckers. Yeah.

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Well, OpenAI is understandably facing a lot of skepticism and concern about recent incidents and how they were handled, which means that a report in the Wall Street Journal that the company has let go of three employees from its safety team after they allegedly shared confidential information with a third-party organization, one focused on AI safety, is an irony that's almost too perfect to be believed.

We have parted ways with three individuals for violating our policies on accessing and handling sensitive company information. An OpenAI representative said in a statement published by the Wall Street Journal, kind of ignoring the fact that their own product has violated their policies on accessing and handling sensitive other companies' information.

Millions of times. Pointing that out. Yeah. The details on this particular instance are sparse, but it's entirely possible that OpenAI did have legitimate cause to fire those individuals, but it certainly doesn't look good right now. No.

What are you going to do, you know? And, you know, ethics people are going to ethic, I guess. Yes, and get fired. That's what happens. That's what happens. That's right. You ethic too much and you get the front door. So, bye-bye. Well, OpenAI agents have now also attacked the Wikimedia Foundation, apparently.

They say they detected unauthorized activity from OpenAI agents on its platforms, including edits to some wikis and failed attempts to compromise a note-taking tool. It reiterated that bots have been crawling data from its platform en masse, while agents that appear to be operated by OpenAI have made millions of requests to its public APIs.

An investigation didn't turn up any evidence that AI agents were using Wikimedia systems to coordinate their activity, and nor did the Foundation detect signs of its data or systems being compromised. However, they are concerned about what could have occurred here, the difficulty and effort involved in investigating and attributing this activity, and the growing risks of agentic AI activity on our platforms in general, Selena Dekelman, the Foundation's chief product and technology officer, wrote in a blog post.

The TLDR on this one is, it looks like they may have messed around with some stuff, but basically, Wikimedia is taking a stance saying, it's not our job to police your stuff. Like, why are you making it our responsibility to prove to you that your agents are fucking with our systems when we know they are?

When we have all these lists of things, you guys stop it. You knock it off. Don't make the onus of responsibility on us, which I kind of understand. Yeah, absolutely. And it's unclear here whether this is OpenAI themselves who are perpetrating this against Wikimedia, or if it's going to be people who are just using the OpenAI APIs and just, you know, and just trying to do some nefarious shit.

The thing that pisses me off about this is now I'm just going to get 10 times more sad Jimmy Wales fucking graphics around Christmas time, you know? Send us money so we can fight off the AI agents. Yeah, I mean, he looks like a Sally Struthers puppy when he posts those things up there.

I mean, granted, we're no better, but, you know, come on. So, yeah, I get it. I get it. And this is going to be a problem, you know, because you're just going to be playing whack-a-mole with trying to, you know, you're just, you're doing IP block banning and all that shit.

And they're just going to route around it because, you know, they've got more IPs than you. When you're using these OpenAI APIs and things of that nature, there's never been any promises that this is like the blockchain and it's completely secure and anonymous. If you're signed up for an API, you should have some sort of watermark on it that gets it right back to you.

Wikimedia, when they're looking at these logs, should be able to say, it's OpenAI user blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and the string of numbers coming using this API. Here's the person that's doing it. Tell them to fucking knock it off or ban their account or something. Yeah, absolutely.

There's no reason why they shouldn't be able to tag it to a specific user. That would make sense, Brian. Come on. That would be more work for OpenAI. And, you know, then they have to, then they actually have to have people who are going to sit there and monitor that and handle that.

And it's, oh, man, it's just, that's too much work, Brian. Contribution for your, for your services being, you know, used for nefarious shit. Who has time for that? I feel like there should be the tagline for our entire show. It's like, but that would make sense.

Yeah, pretty much. Pretty much. Well, I got two back-to-back stories here that just kind of chuckle me. OpenAI has announced a text watermarking system designed to meet the European Union's AI Act requirements. Called TextGrain, it subtly adjusts word choices to embed an invisible statistical pattern that a detector can recognize.

API customers worldwide can opt in for select models with watermarking off by default. Eligible chat GPT and codex text output in the EU will receive watermarks in the coming weeks. Doesn't say if they're opting in or opting out of that one. I'm guessing they're going to be opted in automatically because of the rules from the, you know, the AI Act requirements.

Detector access will initially be limited to approved researchers and expert organizations. OpenAI says watermarking makes no meaningful difference to overall performance, but detection has significant limits. I don't care about performance. I care about overall accuracy is what I care about.

Yeah. Short passages and text with restricted word choices such as mathematics are harder to assess. Editing can also weaken the signal. Replacing a quarter of the words with synonyms cut detection to 17% in one evaluation. Yep. A detected watermark does not establish accuracy or ownership and its absence does not prove human authorship because watermarking text is a fucking fool's errand.

110%. It's ridiculous. You take your text from OpenAI, you run it through Grammarly, you run it back through Claude, and then you get the same fucking thing and then you can't fucking detect it. So it's just stupid trying to detect text that has been generated by AI. Besides the morons who leave it in, you know, the, the, the, just the, the standard things is like, well, you know, can you answer this question?

Or, you know, you know, the standard shit people leave in for that stuff. Yeah. Who don't read the, the output. But, I mean, the EU is fucking stupid for asking them to try and watermark text anyway. Come on. But, you know, also they've, they, they don't have a great track record with common sense trying to backdoor all of the encryption in every device we've ever had.

So there's that. Yeah. There's that. Yeah. Anyway. Well, now let's get to watermarking that actually does work. Google has launched a redesigned SynthID detector that's available worldwide through synthid.com. SynthID is an invisible watermark embedded in AI-generated images, video pixels, and audio waveforms.

Google says its Gemini models have applied the technology to get this, Brian, more than 180 billion images and videos, along with audio totaling 240,000 years. Just wrap your head around that for a little bit.

This thing hasn't been in business for that long, and it's already shit out 180 billion images and videos and 240,000 years of audio. What the flying, who's listening to this shit? The bots? Yeah. Come on. The bots. Yeah.

Previously, people outside Google's tester program had to ask Gemini whether content contained a SynthID watermark, an awkward process that could produce unclear answers. The new website provides a direct way to check files without involving the chatbot. It also expands detection beyond Google's own generated content.

The earlier tool couldn't identify SynthID watermarks on material created by partner AI platforms, including ChatGPT's image generator, even when those systems used the same standard. One might ask, why? What's the fucking point of it? Google says the updated detector now supports watermarks from all participating partners, making it easier to verify whether digital media was AI generated.

If you have a partner and you give them the technology to watermark something with SynthID and you don't give anybody a way to detect it, are they really a fucking partner? Just saying. Not really, no. Yeah. Oh, fucking Christ.

Well, Meta is facing criticism after Facebook and Instagram accounts for two Austin gay bars, Olicon Harry's and Rain on Forth, were flagged or removed. The businesses say posts featuring drag performers were labeled inappropriate, while Meta offered little explanation and warned that similar content could reduce their visibility.

Rain on Forth's original account was later restored, but a replacement account was shut down, highlighting the uncertainty small businesses face when moderation decisions are automated and difficult to appeal, or when you're using Facebook or Instagram and base your entire business model off of it.

Just saying. The cases come amid broader reports of queer nightclubs losing their social accounts and following and follow Meta's decision to reduce hate speech protections for LGBTQ people in 2025. Now, reducing hate speech protections for LGBTQ people in 2025, that's from outside people.

This is coming from inside the house. So, that's a little bit different. The call is coming from inside the house, Meta. Yeah. Advocacy group GLAAD has described the company's recent policy direction as an extreme ideological shift. Critics say Meta's reliance on AI moderation is producing inconsistent enforcement.

LGBTQ businesses are being silenced while other harmful material remains online. ZSAM anyone? For affected venues, losing access to customers and communities could threaten their long-term survival. I'm telling you, we need another option for Meta. We do.

And Facebook and Instagram. We need better options. Yeah. Or, let's all go back to fucking websites like we used to. Fucking bring back yellow pages. You know what? The only thing I've ever needed, I don't do much anymore. I'm a parent now of a 10-year-old and I'm home most of the time.

But in my day of when I would go out to bars and things of that nature, all I needed to know is what time they were fucking open. That was about it. And the address. And the address. The address. Address. What hours they have. Worst case scenario, are you playing a game I want to see and will there be sound?

In which case, that would never be online anyways and you'd have to make a fucking phone call. Like, I don't understand, like, why these bars are losing business because of their Facebook account. I have checked a Facebook account of a bar or nightclub or venue that I've gone to precisely zero times in my life.

Well, you know, it's promotions and, you know, it's a gay bar. So, you have different nights and shit like that, you know. So, I get why, but that's what mailing lists are for. That's what your own website's for. Come on. I mean, there's shit out there that you don't have to rely on metaphor.

Absolutely. Metaphor. Like everything. Yeah. Here's one that's going to be real fun, Brian. Researchers have built an AI system that can reconstruct what someone is looking at from high-resolution brain scans. Basically mind reading, except it currently requires a giant expensive fMRI machine and plenty of patience.

The system uses two models. One predicts an image's structure and content from brain activity, while another works backward, generating synthetic brain scans from the images. That lets researchers create more training data and improve the reconstruction without scanning people for every possible picture.

The results are impressive, but not flawless. A dog in a bathtub reportedly came back as a goat in a bathtub. Okay, pretty fucking close if you ask me. Miles away. Miles away. The upside is huge for people who can't communicate physically and own an fMRI machine and a supercomputer.

The downside is, well, brain privacy, because apparently passwords and facial recognition just weren't enough. Today's hardware makes covert scanning impractical, but researchers warn that applying similar techniques to wearable EEG devices could let companies infer thoughts without consent.

How fucking awesome is that, Brian? Yeah, I mean, the whole fMRI stuff was in its infancy when I was doing psychology in college, but it was fascinating to me about even what they could do back then, what they could figure out. Now, obviously, it's, you know, you had to have an fMRI machine.

They were huge. You had to stick, you had to find somebody who was willing to stick their head in there. You had to do, you know, it was all very cumbersome and very scientific, and that was it. But yeah, of course, someday we're going to figure this out. We're going to figure this shit out, and, well, we're not going to figure it out.

Some fucking asshole billionaire with a fucking evil company is going to figure it out, and we're all going to be screwed. So that's great. Let's go back to the fucking sto-wages. I know, just what I want in my old age. Yeah. Yay, thought crimes.

It's coming. It's coming. Good times. I'll be dead. I don't care. Yeah. Thank God. Well, an open-source tool called Remove Mac AI promises to reclaim 12 gigabytes. 12 gigabytes. 1.21 gigawatts.

Or more of Mac storage by disabling Apple intelligence and deleting its downloaded models. You know how to save our country, Jason? Disable superintelligence. There you go. That's it. Can we just get this script for everything? You know, not just my Mac? Developer Om Lahore built it for Mac OS 27, where Apple says those models can occupy up to 14 gigabytes.

The tool uses Apple's own configuration controls and system services to remove the models and prevent them from downloading again. But the trade-offs extend beyond AI chat. It disables Siri, writing tools, notification summaries, image generation, photos cleanup, and other features.

I'm sorry, those are trade-offs? I see those as features. Well, I like the photos cleanup thing. That's kind of nice. I like that one. Everything else sucks. Yeah, I don't use anything else. Even the new Siri. I don't. It still sucks to me. But, you know, whatever.

Apps and shortcuts that rely on Apple's local AI models also lose functionality. Expectation remains available, and the changes can be reversed. Remove Mac AI doesn't require disabling Apple's system integrity protection. Still, it's an unofficial tool making system-level changes.

And future Mac OS updates could break its methods or cause unexpected behavior, making reclaiming storage a decision with consequences. Now, Brian, system-level shit when you change it on Mac OS X tends to have problems. So, you might save 12 gig, but you're going to lose a month worth of your fucking life trying to figure out why everything doesn't work when something updates.

Yeah, I would tread lightly with this. I would not tread at all. I would just go the other way. But I just put it in here because it's making the news. So, you know, people don't want their AI. They don't. You know another thing they don't want, Jason? What?

Smart glasses. Oh, fuck no. Fuck those things. Well, rules on smart glasses in the U.S. have been fairly piecemeal. Parts of Europe are taking a more wholesome, wholesale approach. I'd say wholesome. Wholesome, not. That was a mistake. And in Norway's case, that could mean a temporary ban on camera-clad glasses in a whole lot of public spaces.

Norway's parliament is set to propose a temporary ban that would apply to public spaces where it thinks people are at risk of being recorded discreetly or generally where large groups of people might gather, according to Reuters. That includes beaches, parks, or events, but also more sensitive areas like schools, pools, healthcare facilities, and changing rooms.

Duh. Yeah. Jesus. So, this is pretty much similar to any other ban. The reason why? Privacy concerns, obviously. Unfortunately, Norway's ban is only a temporary one, but it does point to the likelihood of more concrete regulations in the future.

A timeout until the country fully figures out exactly what and how people should be using smart glasses. I'm struggling to figure out a good reason. I see advertisements for smart glasses all the time, and they seem like such insane, stupid use cases that I'm like, but nobody would ever use it for that.

What? Okay. Okay. I do have one. There's one use case. Okay. Blind people. For blind people, I think it really makes a difference. Yes. That's, you know, because I... Blind people should be able to see the fat asses in the changing room just like everybody else.

Just like us. If we got to see some old man sweaty balls, you got to see some old man sweaty balls, too. But you don't record it and send it to Nigeria. That's the difference. No, that's the difference. Yes. No, I've gotten reports from people who have family members who are blind that these things have actually helped quite a bit.

Gotcha. Okay. Yeah. You found a use case. It's very specific. Awesome. Yep. Yet to find any other one. There was some stupid commercial. I can't even remember. I think it was Meta's glasses. Some guy was on a bike ride, and he was like fucking working really hard. He's on his bike ride.

And in the meantime, he's using his Meta glasses to sign up for, like, a competition. You're on your fucking bike ride. Shouldn't you be paying attention? Yeah. Yeah. You'd think. You'd think. Anyways, I don't understand. I don't understand anything anymore, apparently.

Anyways, so we're getting some rules in Norway. The European Union will likely follow suit, and the U.S. will never do anything about anything and just rely on people punching other people out in bars because they're assholes. That's about it. Fun times. In interesting news, AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon are teaming up to try to eliminate mobile coverage dead zones.

The three companies have entered into an unnamed joint venture that will use satellites to help close coverage gaps in areas where traditional service is limited. The venture will be managed by a board with representatives from each company, and there's already an interim CEO, a guy named Paul Roth, who has plenty of experience at the industry.

A press release describing the venture promises that it will nearly eliminate dead zones in the U.S. currently without mobile service, which is certainly good news. The companies also tout reliable connectivity in emergencies when typical ground-based networks are unavailable. Companies have even promised that traditional consumers will get improved network performance as there will be simpler access to satellite services across providers.

Now, this sounds great, and one wonders why they never did this earlier when they certainly could have and increased the availability of cellular coverage for all their customers. Is it done because they finally had a good thought and their small hearts grew a few sizes that day?

Fuck no. Hell no. No. They're worried about competition from dedicated satellite mobile providers like Starlink and Amazon's Leo. That's why they're doing it now. And, of course, we have zero details as to when they will begin offering connectivity in dead zones throughout the U.S.

That's why we need competition. That's why monopolies suck. Mm-hmm.

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I got a note from Pierre, who does the Read Me app that we covered way back in, like, episode 100 and something. I think he got a ping because our new wiki at wiki.gog.show probably sent him a notification that, yeah, he's got some links out there now, which I was expecting more, but I don't think anybody's checking out our wiki yet.

Brian, it really kind of bums me out after all the work I put in on it, but I still think it's pretty fucking cool. I use it to go look up stuff. But Read Me is a really cool iOS app, and it's actually iOS and Android. It's got different techniques for speed reading on it.

As somebody who is dyslexic, and I use every trick in the fucking book to be able to read stuff, like, you know, everything that I build has the Open Dyslexy font built into it, which is phenomenal for people like me. There's some really cool stuff on there, so I recommend checking it out.

There's a link in the show notes. It's been updated, and it works pretty well. I actually read a couple stories on there using the Spritz method, and it was fun. It was actually kind of fun. There's a big thing floating in my face right now. Let's get that out of here. That's for the video people only.

Oh, Brian, I've got to tell you something on the video side of things. I was checking out our audience demos on YouTube because, you know, having to do this video just fucking sucks. I hate it. I hate it every fucking week. But so our age and gender over the last 28 days, would you like to guess what the percentage of male versus female is?

You know, I've always been somewhat impressed by the number of female listeners that we have, just judging from social media and Patreon donations and all that sort of stuff. But I'd still have to go. Yeah. I'd say 90% male, 10% female. Oh, Brian, 100% male on YouTube.

Which makes me think that these statistics are not exactly accurate because I know we have one paid subscriber who is definitely female. But so I guess you have to self-report these things. But yes, it is 100% male. Now, I looked at the age demographics in the splits for the ages.

13 to 17 years, goose egg. 18 to 24, nada. 25 to 34, bupkis. You know, those are the people that really should be listening to us, too. Yeah, I know. So 40.5% are 35 to 44, and 45.9 are 45 to 54, and 55 to 64 is 13.7, and nobody over 64 years old.

65 plus is a zero. So we've got to do something to appeal to the kids that should be listening to us. I think we should name this episode Skibidoo. Skibidoo! Is that the toilet thing? I think so. I don't fucking know. I don't know. I don't follow that stuff.

I don't care. My kid's not old enough to do that shit yet, so. So I went back and I changed it to the last 365 days to see how it breaks down there. So our female viewership jumped, Brian. It jumped to 0.6%.

Boom! All the ladies in the house say, yeah. Yeah! I'm single, baby. Come on by. Oh, drop back down again, Jason. There it goes. There's a real-time stat. God, man.

I hate my life. Moving on. Okay. Well, another reason to hate your life, particularly if you happen to be in Hollywood and connected in any way, shape, or form to the entertainment industry. Yes, the soon-to-be-merged Paramount and Warner Brothers, that thing has gone through and it will be known as Skydance.

Skydance. Did you see that they already painted the fucking Warner Brothers water tower yesterday? I did. I did. Yeah. The deal, which is expected to close this month after Paramount successfully cleared its biggest remaining regulatory hurdle in September, in other words, the payment went through to some unidentified place in Florida, will finally unite the two long-running film studios while bringing the HBO Max and Paramount Plus streaming services under the same roof.

What a logistical nightmare it is going to be combining these apps, which they're supposedly we're going to be doing. No, that's going to be a nightmare. And I can tell you where $800 million of that went. The fucking Warner Brothers CEO that we've been talking about for fucking ever that I just can't stand.

Yeah. He got $800 fucking million. The guy that just ruined basically all of television for everything. It's just, I don't know if you've noticed. We'll talk about the Food Network in a minute. You've got a Food Network story. But yeah, continue on, Brian. This is just a nightmare. Uh, despite settling an antitrust lawsuit last month, which cleared the way for the imminent Warner Brothers acquisition, there are still concerns about the editorial independence of CNN and CBS News as if that even exists anymore.

Uh, going forward with both news organizations now being part of Skydance, according to a CNN report, Paramount has signed off on a news editorial independence board that'll oversee both networks, while the studio has reportedly also committed to 30 theatrical movie releases a year. Cannot wait for MAGA+.

MAGA+. Do you get the irony there, Brian, that you just said that the editorial independence of CNN is in question, and then according to a CNN report, it's the next line. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. So anyways, it's gone through. Uh, so basically, uh, you know, kiss everything that you ever love.

Goodbye. There will probably not be any Star Trek anytime in the near future. If we do get another Star Trek, it'll probably be from the Klingon's point of view, given the company that is running things these days. Klingon's good. Oh, dude, I, I, I beg to differ, Brian.

These guys are way more Romulan than Klingon. That's true. That's true. Romulans are way more evil than Klingons. Actually, to be honest, they're MAGA. I don't know if you watched, uh, Lower Decks, but they're more Pakled. Okay. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I feel like it's smart. Fuck.

Anyways, uh, according to a new report from knife, Night Edge Media, Stephen Colbert's Lord of the Rings movie has been paused in light of the Paramount Pictures Warner, uh, Warner Brothers merger. As the outlet notes, Colbert is once again at the mercy of CEO David Ellison, even though he was working on the movie for Warner Brothers.

I would just like to pause and say, I never thought this movie would ever see the light of fucking day anyways. So I'm not terribly surprised. Yeah. Yeah. No, this is, this was just a fucking, this was a dev deal thrown in Stephen Colbert's way. This was never going to happen. Never.

Throwing him some bones for getting canned. Yeah. There you go, Stephen. Don't feel too sad. Go write a movie. Go drink some mead and write some, write a fucking screenplay. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, did, did you ever finish watching or did you even start watching the Institute last year?

Stephen King's, uh, TV series. It was really good. I enjoyed it because I like the Stephen King things that are not generally Stephen Kingy. So, uh, Stephen King's, the Institute is coming back to MGM plus on, that's why you never saw it because it was on MGM plus. Yes. There you go.

Right. Maybe that will get folded into the new universal massive app to, oh, they're not through Skydance. No, MGM plus is Amazon, baby. It's Amazon. Well, put it on Amazon fuckers. I know. Well, you can get the upgrade. No, I upgraded for no ads.

And guess what? I get every fucking show ads. Yeah. Yeah. I'm taking my $5.99 back fucking Bezos, you little prick. Uh, well, um, if you do feel like paying for MGM plus or maybe a side trip to Sweden, which is where I saw the Institute season one on November 8th, season two is dropping.

So it looks pretty good. I, I'm, I'm, I'm excited about it. So Mary Louise Parker's in it. I love her. Well, I told you that when fucking season one was on, but you didn't listen to me. No, I probably said exactly what I just said. Mary Louise Parker's on it. I love her. And that's about as far as that got as far as it went.

That's right. You still even haven't watched the vampire list. No, no. Yeah. That was MGM plus, but now it's on Netflix. So, and I think that got a third season now. So it was actually pretty good. I watched the first season. It was good. Not enough to make me go watch the second season, but Hey, I read the books.

I read the comics. I'm good. So I know how it ends. Since we just mentioned Stephen King and him not being Stephen Kingsy, if you, uh, really like Stephen King being super Stephen Kingy other worlds than these, a talisman novel, the talisman trilogy book number three by Stephen King and Peter Straub, sort of Peter Straub because he did pass away, uh, is actually out as of now.

And, uh, I have already purchased it. It is waiting until I finished another book to read. Uh, this is apparently he's written it. So you can actually read it as a standalone. He does a lot of explaining and all that sort of stuff, but it is the. Final culmination of the entire gunslinger series, that entire world that he created, which I dearly fucking love.

So I am somewhat looking forward to the book because I don't really want that world to end, but there you go. Is it 974 pages? I am sure it is probably three times that amount. I'm sure that, uh, I look, I'm looking at the, the stack of cryptonomicron books on, on the corner and those are probably light reads compared to what this is.

Yeah, that's what I thought. Yeah. Like, yeah. Neil Stevenson has page count envy for, for that. I'm sure. Yeah. And, uh, Food Network has announced season three premiere date and new judges for Harry Potter, the Wizards of Baking. Now I've watched the first two seasons of this with my family. It is one of my favorite of these competition baking shows that they've ever done.

Uh, it's been a lot of fun. So I'm, I'm happy that they're doing another season. Uh, Food Network has shared exclusively with people that the culinary competition will return on Wednesday, November 4th. Twins James and Oliver Phelps, who famously played Fred and George Weasley, will return as hosts while two new ministers of baking are joining the series, uh, Duff Goldman and Sarah Mountain, which bring their pastry expertise as judges.

It's a fun show. I've really enjoyed it. So looking forward to yet another one, uh, at least until they have to contractually replace the Fred and George Weasley and entire structure to match the new Skydance, a Harry Potter series that is also starting later this year.

Oh shit. That's right. Yeah. I'm going to get ousted for that. Uh, the Food Network has just been on, it just been kind of on hold. Like you keep, it's just so weird. I think everything is on hold waiting for this stupid fucking merger to happen. Yeah. Uh, it's just been kind of a shit show.

I do. There are a couple of shows that I do like on the Food Network right now. The Line is really good. I really enjoy that one. Um, I've been watching the two Halloween baking competitions. Uh, the Halloween baking, the Halloween baking championship, I find much better than Halloween Wars. We kind of gave up on Halloween Wars.

We've stopped. We're just sticking to the baking championship. It's so much better. It's so much more fun. You know, it's just, it's so lighter, you know. Um, but when there's nothing else on, let me just throw it on the back. Um, but you know, there was some really good stuff this summer, but there were only like six episode seasons and I'm hoping that more stuff is going to come back now that this, once this shakes out and hopefully the Food Network won't just end up, you know, just on the cutting room floor.

Maybe sold or spun out, but they've been, they've been having trouble lately. You know, it's, it's a changing world too. It's, it's, they've gotten rid of most of the actual in cooking, in kitchen cooking shows. Like the, the kitchen, which was my favorite has been canceled. It's all getting sideline. It's all competitions now, which I know you love, but we could add both.

Like they always used to. I mean, my, my, one of my favorite shows is Ready Jet Cook, you know, Jet Tila's series. I mean, it's like fucking Emmy winning, you know? So yeah, it's good stuff. I, I highly, I highly like a lot of that stuff. You know, I do like regular cooking shows sometimes too, but, uh, the competitions are just like popcorn, you know?

But I, I have a feeling that, uh, yeah, the Food Network is going to go the way of Star Trek, unfortunately. Yeah, we'll see. We'll see. I, well, actually, I think, uh, Guy Fieri will probably just end up inheriting it since he's got that $140 million deal. That's still like 10 year deal.

They got to pay him out. Uh, maybe they'll just Zazz love him and just give him a, give him the check and say, see you later. Yeah. Go away. By the way, I don't know if you've ever tried any of Guy Fieri's sauces. I bought a thing of donkey sauce just to try it. It should have just called it donkey ass.

It is one of the worst tasting sauces I've ever had in my life. It's fucking horrendous. Uh, you know, about, I, I would say almost 20 years ago now, it's gotta, gotta be about 20 years ago now. Uh, Guy Fieri was, was already a big deal at Food Network.

He's already doing, there's drives and dives and all that sort of stuff. He had a restaurant in Vegas and I was in Vegas for some reason. I can't remember. And I was just like, fuck it. Let's try. Let's try his actual food. It was the most disgusting shit I've ever ate in my entire life.

I felt ill for weeks afterwards. It's horrible. Like it is so like unhealthy. It is so just over the fucking top. I mean, his food is him. If you look at him, that's what his food tastes like.

It is fucking bleach tipped, fucking leather clad, dumb, stupid goatee. That's what it tastes like. That's not good. I like him as a person. But he's a good guy. I like him. That's the problem. He is a good guy who does good things. Yeah.

Just stick to hosting. Maybe not so much cooking. So. Anyway, let's talk about some other good people. All right. Yes. These are the good people that keep this show alive. Over at Patreon, we've got two new subscribers, Brute and Steve. And we'd also like to thank JW, Andrew, Charlie, Thomas, Peter, Derek, Kelly, Wendley, Ian and Aaron for your continued support on Patreon.

And thank God there's no more Dixie Wreck jokes coming through. That got me so bad last week. That was the best. I loved it. Anyways, over at PayPal, we got a donation from Captain Awesome, 20 bucks and Elaine, who sent us 50 bucks. Thank you both.

Over the tip jar, we've got Matthew, Sarah and Eric with a big 30 bucks. Thank you all so much. Over at YouTube, nobody. Shocker there. We actually lost two people this week on YouTube. So sad Christmas, sad Christmas. Okay. I mean, the fact that it's there is just like, okay.

I mean, you see, the thing with YouTube is you already get it head free. It's just to support us. So don't expect to get anything different there. But if you want to get the show early and stuff like that, go to Patreon. But yeah. But thank you, everybody. Go ahead. Thank you. And you can also support us, of course, by buying our merch.

We've got one on right now. Andrew bought something. So thank you so much, Andrew. And Dan wrote in and says, I bought three shirts. Don't stop making them. I want more. Well, Dan, you're in luck. We have made more. Go buy them. New shirts out now. Yep. You and I both made new ones.

So go for it. Absolutely. Absolutely. And just a reminder, Grumpy Old Geeks is a fan-supported show and the ads cover our overhead. But the donations are what keep us on the air. If you want to get the show early, ad-free and in high definition, go to Patreon.com slash GOG for as little as $3 a month. And you can give us more if you want. If you just want to throw a few bones our way, head to GOG.show slash donate.

And you can buy some merch, like Brian is wearing, at shop.GOG.show. Mine are all in the laundry, which is right over there because I'm in a garage. Everything helps keep the show on the air. And we thank you from the bottom of our black little hearts for your support. We do. Until next time, I'm Brian Chalmester.

And I'm Jason DeFilippo. Thanks for listening to Grumpy Old Geeks. Get all the links and goodies from today's episode at GOG.show slash 766. Want to keep the grumpiness alive? Toss a few bucks our way at GOG.show slash donate. Every penny and dollar keeps the show on the air. Love the show? Share it. Seriously.

There's a share button in your podcast player. Use it to spread the grumpiness to friends, foes, and everyone in between. And we'll love you for it. Swing by GOG.show to join our Discord channel and chat with us and other show fans. It's a bunch of fun. Got thoughts, feedbacks, cool links? Hit us 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 air.

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