Artwork for 769: Mommie Dearest Maxxing

769: Mommie Dearest Maxxing

Episode 769 1 h 4 min

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Summary

In episode 769 of Grumpy Old Geeks, the hosts discuss AI’s uncertain financial returns, government job cuts, social media restrictions, and risks involving AI assistants. They also cover consumer technology reports, travel and rental policies, and recent television and books.

  • Brian Schulmeister says he is about to become a Canadian citizen.
  • The hosts discuss limited measured financial returns from AI and a Dutch government plan to reduce staffing while using AI.
  • Greece’s social media restrictions for children lead to discussion of compulsive use and a Rhode Island lawsuit over scam ads on Meta’s platforms.
  • The hosts discuss AI agents accessing bank accounts and a lawsuit alleging that ChatGPT advised a woman to reduce her epilepsy medication before her death.
  • They cover a copyright lawsuit against Anthropic, Marissa Mayer’s photo-based assistant Dazzle, and reports of Samsung TV tracking.
  • Consumer technology topics include Cybertruck reservation refunds in Australia and New Zealand, a new Virgin Galactic space plane, and reported foldable iPhone display failures.
  • Jason DeFillippo announces Trackalot 2.0, while the hosts question the economics of HeatBit’s Bitcoin-mining water heater and discuss Airbnb’s cleanup guidance.
  • They discuss The Diplomat, Lupin, The Traitors, Battlestar Suburbia, and other books and shows.

Key moments

  1. AI returns and government job cuts

    The hosts discuss limited measured returns from AI and a Dutch plan to reduce government staffing.

  2. Social media restrictions and compulsive use

    Greece’s restrictions for children lead into discussion of compulsive social media use and scam advertising.

  3. Risks of AI assistants

    The hosts discuss AI access to bank accounts, Dazzle, and a lawsuit concerning ChatGPT’s alleged medical advice.

  4. Cybertruck refunds and space tourism

    The conversation turns to Cybertruck reservation refunds and Virgin Galactic’s new space plane.

  5. Foldable displays and Trackalot

    The hosts discuss reported foldable iPhone display failures, and Jason announces Trackalot 2.0.

  6. Bitcoin mining water heater

    HeatBit’s water heater prompts questions about its price and potential mining returns.

  7. Airbnb cleanup guidance

    Brian discusses Airbnb’s revised guidance on cleanup tasks for guests.

  8. Television, books and episode edits

    The hosts discuss shows and books, including The Diplomat and The Traitors, before thanking supporters and remembering Walter Koenig.

Full transcript

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

  2. And I'm Brian Schulmeister. Jason, by the time people are hearing this, I will officially be a Canadian citizen. Well, congratulations, you canook. All right. Take off, eh? Yes, I will join the rest of my James Bond family and have two passports in our safe.

  3. Oh, isn't that fancy? Yes. And I'm officially free from being able to get fired by Pete Hegsbreath. Kegsbreath. Okay. Kegstand? Kegstand. Whatever his name is. I don't care. I don't care anymore because I'm Canadian. Yeah, you might as well just throw the U.S. one away.

  4. Although, by next Tuesday, maybe you might see his uptick and maybe wanting to come back. I mean, look, Rosie O'Donnell came back, you know, come on. Look, this is what I'm counting on because I've gotten my Canadian citizenship. Things will now get better there. It's like washing your car and then it rains.

  5. Exactly. This is the hope. Definitely. Well, congratulate, preemptive congratulations, as it were. You're welcome. Traitor. Turncoat. Benedict Schuhlmeister. Fuck off.

  6. There's a good show title. Well, I got some news here, Brian. Most large U.S. companies outside the biggest tech names have yet to see a measurable financial return from AI. Shocker. This is according to Apollo Global Management Chief Economist Torsten Slop.

  7. That is a name. Yeah, not to be confused with Torsten Slop, his AI counterpart. He examined the S&P 500, excluding Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Meta, Microsoft, NVIDIA, and Tesla, or the Mag 7, as they're like to be called. He calls the other group the S&P 493.

  8. One or the other. Across those companies, profit margins and revenue per employee appear flat, offering no clear sign that AI investments are lifting productivity. Slop argues the challenge may run deeper than slow adoption. Even as AI becomes cheaper and more capable, companies still have to turn it into higher sales and stronger margins.

  9. He says business decisions depend on judgment, trust, accountability, and workplace culture, areas AI cannot readily handle. His assessment echoes recent studies finding little evidence so far of broad productivity gains from AI, despite heavy, heavy, heavy spending and widespread enthusiasm.

  10. I don't know where he's getting the enthusiasm being widespread. Here, it's more like widespread pitchforks and torches. Yeah, the tide definitely seems to be turning. There's not a lot of widespread enthusiasm. This is not surprising. This is something that you and I have been talking about and seeing and yelling about.

  11. Like, it's not helping. The thing that he leaves out, though, you know, where AI is not helping with any real work or any real measurable profits or anything like that. But what it has helped with is screening for firing people and thus driving up stock prices.

  12. So for the super rich people who give a shit, it has definitely been productive. Awesome. That's awesome. So that's that's my opinion on that. So, yeah, it's not really doing anything, but it has allowed for companies to fire people and to drive up stock prices. There you go.

  13. Yep. And later on when they have to rehire them because nothing is working anymore. We'll see how that ball bounces. Exactly. Well, in a lengthy post detailing how the Dutch government plans to approve efficiency, it has announced that it would get rid of 25,000 full time jobs over the span of a few years as part of cost-causing measures.

  14. Again, firing people because of AI. Because as part of that effort, the government is also planning to lean on AI to contribute to the productivity that Torsten Slock says isn't there. After his studies. According to the Dutch government, the goal is to cut back 900 million euros or around $1 billion in costs by 2027, with that estimate rising to 3.5 billion euros or approximately 3.9 billion by 2035.

  15. The post detailed that not all government agencies will be affected, with police and defense being excluded because we have to keep the angry people with the pitchforks down in our own country. Exactly. How are we going to quell the uprisings if we don't have the police and robot dogs?

  16. Come on. Shockingly, it's unclear how the government plans to deploy AI to reduce costs. But they will come up with goals and saving plans for deploying AI to work more productivity. This morning. In the first quarter of 2027.

  17. So this makes me wonder, what's Dutch for Doge? Yeah, really? Really? Are they not learning from our antics and escapades? Yeah, they're just heading down the same path. I'm wearing the Elon Kills Babies shirt, Dutch people, for a reason. Because his attempts to make AI, make our government better, fucking sucked.

  18. So. Failed miserably. Yes. Yeah. Well, going back over to those social media bans that we've been talking about for quite some time. Greece's parliament has passed a social media ban for kids under 15 after its prime minister. Oh, boy. Kyriakios Mitsotikis.

  19. Close enough. First announced the measure earlier this year. Close enough for 7 a.m. I guess I'd need a few shots of ouzo before I can get that one right. The bill he called difficult but necessary. And it's among the first to be imposed in the European Union so far.

  20. And it'll go into effect on January 1st, 2027. The law covers platforms like TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, and X. And mandates that such services apply proportionate and reliable age verification methods. And as we've talked about, that's the rub, isn't it? He says, It would have been very easy to do absolutely nothing today and wait for the perfect European law.

  21. But the challenge is here now. Children are sinking into the internet every day. And I believe, just like quicksand. And I believe a responsible government must do what it is obliged to do, said Greece's digital governance and AI minister. Which I kind of agree with. Like, why wait? There's not going to be a perfect law.

  22. Let's start tackling this now. Failure to comply with the act will lead to fines under the EU's Digital Services Act. So, the way that they're going to attempt verification here is that parents will need to download apps backed by the state called KidsWallet or Gov.gr that are paired to their child's device and block access.

  23. Those apps are designed to protect privacy and minimize data collected by using age tokens, like blockchain, that can confirm someone's age while minimizing the disclosure of their personal data. Are they going to age token max? I guess so.

  24. Greece has previously barred mobile phones in schools in 2024. An opinion poll showed that the new social media ban for children is widely supported by Greece's adult population. It's also widely supported by almost every country's population. We all like this idea. So, let's all get on it. All right.

  25. Well, speaking of social media addiction, Scientific American takes a hard look at social media addiction. And the argument is that the question is no longer academic. In March, a California court ruled social media addictive. Yeah. Let me try that one again.

  26. We need some of that coffee budget money that other companies have. I know. Seriously. In March, a California court ruled social media addictive and held companies accountable. And in August, Meta agreed to an $18 billion settlement with nearly every U.S. state. Australia, Turkey, Indonesia, and the U.K. have restricted children's access.

  27. And coming on is Greece. But the science is more contested. Researchers note that features like infinite scroll and variable rewards work like slot machines. A University of North Carolina study of 103 middle schoolers found patterns resembling tolerance in brain scans of students whose phones were locked for a day showed signs similar to withdrawal.

  28. So, basically, what they're saying is, yes, you can get addicted to this stuff. And it is showing up in the brain scans. So, this is a physical addiction that is coming from your cell phone. Look, anybody that has a kid knows this. We know this. We don't need brain scans. We see it in our kids.

  29. I see it in mine. That's it. Yeah. There's no doubt about this. And I'm not, like, I don't, my kid's not on social media yet. But the entire internet is now jigged towards this. It's done. Like, if I let my kid on the iPad and I try, you know, we time limit it, he's pissed at the end of it.

  30. And he's jonesing for more. He comes down in the morning and he's now, like, he and his friends, like, text each other. He's smoking cigarettes, drinking coffee, twitching, and, like, where's the iPad, dad? He and a couple of his friends text each other now, right? So, he'll come down first thing in the morning and see if his friend from school texted him, even though my wife and I are both, like, you're going to see him in 35 minutes.

  31. Do you need to check the text before you go to school? But whatever. And, but my kid's gotten sneaky about it because he'll just sit in the chair and pretend like he's gotten the text. In the meantime, he's, like, flipped over emoji blitz or some fucking game that he's totally addicted to.

  32. Like, it is addictive. We all know. Of course, anybody with an Instagram account or a TikTok account knows that it's addictive. We don't need children, Brian, to know this. We absolutely have this. I have it. That's why I don't have Instagram or any of that shit on my phone anymore. Because I will turn it on and then a half an hour just disappears like that.

  33. And I am no smarter. I am just dumber. That's it. So, for many people, recovery now runs through the 12-step model. Groups like Internet and Technology Addicts Anonymous or ITAA and Media Addicts Anonymous are the same first step used for alcohol and gambling.

  34. Admitting your relationship with the behavior has become unmanageable. So, I want to talk for a second about the taking of the anonymous mantle as somebody who has been stuck in Alcoholics Anonymous for over three or coming up on three years now. Now, I would like to point out that the anonymous part of Alcoholics Anonymous, everybody thinks that it's because of some grand scheme that it's like, oh, my God, this is, you know, if we're anonymous, then that's the key.

  35. That's the secret to getting rid of your addiction. I want to point out from the first preface, from the first forward to the first edition of the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous. I'm going to read this to you, Brian. This is verbatim. It is important that we remain anonymous because we are too few at present to handle the overwhelming number of personal appeals which may result from this publication.

  36. Being mostly business or professional folk, we could not well carry on our occupations in such an event. We would like it understood that our alcoholic work is an avocation. So the only reason Alcoholics Anonymous is anonymous is because Bill Wilson, the basically sleazebag, womanizing asshole who founded Alcoholics Anonymous, didn't want to be bothered by the riffraff on the street because the only reason he literally wrote the big book in the first place was because he wanted money.

  37. It was a money play. So I want everybody who gets into the whole anonymous thing thinking that it is some grand scheme. No, it's basically the big book was a sham in the beginning and it's just kind of ballooned into something that a lot of people have found helpful over the years going through the 12 steps.

  38. But there's one thing that you can take away from Alcoholics Anonymous. They can be, you know, put into all of the media anonymous and the internet anonymous and things like that. There's a saying, it's not a drinking disease, it's a thinking disease.

  39. And basically, if you fix your thinking, you can fix your drinking or your addiction to any of the social media because it's, you know, it is preying on holes in your psyche and your ego that need to be filled and spackled over with infinite scrolls.

  40. So if you can figure out what the fuck's wrong with you, you can probably put down that phone a little more. So just saying, and I'll step down off my little soapbox now. But yeah, there you go. I'm just, I'm just passing on my experience of being stuck in those fucking rooms for three years.

  41. I mean, I do think it gets a little bit more complicated than that just because so much of our social lives have shifted to being online, which sucks, but it is what it is. And it's, it's, of course, they pulled the rug out from under us with all that shit too, didn't they? Because they got us addicted to looking at these social media things to see our friends and see what they're doing and talk to them.

  42. And then they stopped showing us any of the fucking updates and just gave us ads and ads and ads and ads and ads and ads. And then everybody stopped posting, yet we're still there scrolling, waiting for the dopamine hits from seeing our friends, which we don't see anymore. It's sad. You never see them again. It's just sad. Anyways, Rhode Island Attorney General Peter F. Nerona has filed a lawsuit against Meta over the company's handling of scam advertisements, which I see more than my friends' updates.

  43. The suit alleges that social media business does not do enough to prevent fraudulent ads on its platforms. It further claims that Meta has not taken stronger action against those scams on purpose because they generate revenue for the company. In a statement to Reuters, which first reported on the lawsuit, Meta spokesperson Andy Stone, my least favorite person in the world right now, said the company had removed more than 159 million scam ads from its platform.

  44. The attorney general refused to engage with us on ways we protect Rhode Islanders from scams. It's because it's not his job. He's supposed to focus on the way you aren't. And has instead hired an out-of-state private law firm to concoct a lawsuit that ignores the full range of actions we take to combat scams every day, Stone said.

  45. The release from the AG's office says Rhode Island is the first state to take action over the alleged inaction, although it isn't the first time the social media company has been sued on this subject. Consumer Federation of America fought a lawsuit in April, and Santa Clara County in California did the same in May. A 2025 report from Reuters found that scam advertisements across Meta's various networks could be providing billions of dollars of revenue for Meta, possibly as much as 10% of its total revenue.

  46. That's a lot. Yeah, of course. That's why they don't want to get rid of it. They're going to do the least amount possible to make it go. So, now I've got my Sharona stuck in my head because of Nerona. What am I going to do? Scam advertisements. Yeah. Unauthorized third-party AI agents are accessing U.S. bank accounts, according to a report by Axios.

  47. Some of those agents are even taking actions that appear to be independent of user instruction, which is kind of the point of them. Though this is based on unnamed sources within several banking institutions. Many AI agents, including the cute and cuddly Muse, can access a user's bank account to perform actions on their behalf.

  48. This is already a security nightmare, as most banks mandate that humans log into their own accounts. Banks have tracked agent activity and suggested that they have done things like contact call centers, which I'm actually okay with because your call centers suck balls, all without being given specific permission.

  49. This has caused institutions like Morgan Stanley, Bank of America, J.P. Morgan, and Wells Fargo to rapidly make changes to contain any risk. Some have blocked third-party agents from accessing their platforms, and others have issued restrictions in certain instances. Many are trying to make it so agents can only have read access and cannot actually make any changes.

  50. A Chase spokesperson told Axios that customers should not give their usernames and passwords to anyone, including AI agents. Which, don't do it, people. What is going on with you? How dumb are you? How lazy are you? What do you need the AI agent to do with your bank account?

  51. Why? I don't know. I got one use case, but I would like to point out my next story was basically the same thing. Bank of America, they're sending out notifications via email to people to not give their username and passwords to their AI agents. So that's the same thing.

  52. The only reason that I would ever have an agent use my Bank of America account was to go in and download all of the PDFs for my statements because they make it so fucking hard on their 800-year-old website to actually download your statements. It takes, like, seven clicks to get one month.

  53. You can't get the whole year. You can only get month by month. So I'm like, okay, you know, Claude, go get my fucking statements. Here's my login. Please. And the next thing you know, I've got plane tickets on, you know, going to Somalia or someplace like that. Well, that is important because it's important to remember that it is highly unlikely you would get your money back if an agent did anything wrong with your bank account information.

  54. Banks are not liable for restitution as it's considered a voluntary action on the part of the user. It's not fraud if you're the one that gave AI agents the keys. It's not. Yeah. Bank of America made that plainly clear in the email. They're saying, look, if your Claude just sends all your money to somebody, you're not getting it back.

  55. That's on you because you're a dumbass. So. Yeah. And they have to do that. They have to send out those emails because otherwise people would go, but, but, but, but, yeah. Yeah.

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  61. Well, the owners of Elvis Presley's music just sued Anthropic for $41 million, claiming the AI company trained its models on 274 Elvis songs without permission, according to the New York Times. That amount for a single artist who died nearly 50 years ago shows how expensive alleged musical plagiarism can be for AI companies.

  62. They accuse Anthropic of bypassing DRM protections and removing or altering copyright management information from 247 songs. Those hits include Don't Be Cruel, Can't Help Falling in Love, and A Little Less Conversation, ironically, according to the lawsuit filed on October 23rd.

  63. The complaint notes that Elvis sold over a billion records and that his works are some of the most valuable in the world. This suit is notable because it centers on a single musician who died decades before AI was a thing, although some have tried to recreate him as a robot, also illegally. And the estate went after that, too.

  64. I just can't believe it's been 50 years since Elvis died, or almost 50 years. I remember the day he died. I was driving around with my uncle in his Cadillac because my uncle was such an Elvis fan. And he had a long stretch white Eldorado Cadillac with red leather interior convertible.

  65. We had the top down. And he was he was inconsolable, inconsolable. And we did. And in the because I don't know if you've ever been in one of those Cadillac Eldorados back in the day, like a 1970s Eldorado. The seats were like couches. They were like your living room couch. They were that big.

  66. And, you know, no seatbelts. So in between us, every time we go around the corner, we had a bucket of eight track tapes of Elvis that would slide like, you know, like 15 feet over to me. And then it would slide back to him the other 15 feet when we went the other way. Oh, Elvis. I miss you. But according to the Weekly World News, I could go to any 7-Eleven for a couple of decades and still see him in the south.

  67. Yeah, apparently he's working at a Waffle House. Yeah. Yeah. My wife specifically wanted to make sure that I covered this story, Jason. She's she's she's very angry about this. And it's one of our favorite people. Marissa Mayer, the original Silicon Valley girl boss.

  68. Does she deserve that title? What did she what precisely did she do besides run Yahoo into the ground and leave with a massive paycheck? That's girl bossing. She worked at Google for a very long time. She's one of the early employees at Google and she worked on a lot of stuff at Google, but she wasn't really a boss, I believe, at Google.

  69. Yeah, she was more like into the tech. Yeah. Her legacy is is the golden umbrella that she got for, you know, basically running Yahoo into the ground. So, yeah, I would I would say Sheryl Sandberg has more girl boss. Absolutely.

  70. Fred than Melissa Marissa Mayer. Of course, kind of more. Because yeah, because Sheryl Sandberg is fucking evil. Exactly. Seriously. She gets the evil moniker on that one. But yeah, yeah. Marissa Mayer was just harmless and doofus-y. Well, she's back and she's got a new artificial intelligence tool designed specifically for moms.

  71. Oh, I love this article because of the way they write it. Specifically, moms who don't really like doing mom stuff. In a profile of Mayer and her new AI assistant, which is called Dazzle, the New York Times provided an anecdote presumably passed on to the reporter by Mayer herself to highlight how this agent has made her life easier.

  72. Though, if anything, it shows Mayer performing the exact kind of cognitive offloading that any AI tool worth its salt should free us up to focus on rather than doing for us. Per the Times, Mayer said that she was asked by her daughter's teacher to come up with three things that make her daughter special as part of a celebration of her daughter's 10th birthday.

  73. If you cannot sit there and spend five minutes, shouldn't even take five minutes. I could I could rattle off a couple of things about my kid right now. If you can't do that, how fucking checked out are you as a parent?

  74. Because apparently this was too much for Marissa. She asked Dazzle to do it for her. It came back and was like your daughter is empathetic, creative and an animal lover, Mayer told the Times. She did not know this about her own child, apparently. She was too busy running Yahoo into the ground.

  75. That's why. What child isn't empathetic, creative and an animal lover? I think that's almost all of them at a certain young ages. Like all of them are that. But anyway, they turn into jaded adults like us. Yeah, I'm sure her daughter will appreciate learning that an AI model scraped through her mom's photos of her to come up with those because her mom couldn't be bothered.

  76. And this is the the the catch with that Dazzle or the the the pitch. Instead of asking for full access to a user's text, emails and documents the way most AI agents do, Meijer's assistant goes after a person's photos. So it basically just goes through your camera roll.

  77. Your camera roll is the ultimate personal context. The company explains on its landing page. Every photo you take holds rich content about your preferences, style, hobbies, loved ones and everyday tasks. Dazzle transforms your camera into a proactive assistant that understands you, what you need help with and what you like.

  78. And you communicate with the AI agent the same way, which seems really clunky to me. Instead of typing a prompt or getting a response, Dazzle has users snap a photo as the starting point and lets the agent point to what it thinks the next course of action should be. Snap a picture of a purchase you've been thinking about, a flat tire or fridge ingredients.

  79. And Dazzle buys on approval, schedules, repairs or suggests recipes. What the flying fuck is that all about? It's unclear how this is fundamentally different from most AI assistants, which can also snag information from an image. But Meijer's whole shtick seems to be AI for women.

  80. And by her estimation, photos are more girly while text prompts are for boys. At one point in the Times piece, the publication suggests that maybe what overextended professional women need is an AI wife, an emotional labor bot. And you can see the problem is wildly misogynistic.

  81. It's horrible as a precedent. It basically says, oh, poor ladies need this special thing that looks after their emotions as opposed to just what the rest of us are all using. So, yay, Marissa. I feel so bad for her daughter right now.

  82. You know how much shit she's getting at school. Oh, my God. I know that Marissa came up with this anecdote as a way to pitch a use case for her stupid fucking AI, but it's horribly thought through. Like, did you not run this past anyone before you decided that this was this was your anecdote?

  83. This was the story that you were going to tell about your awesome product that you couldn't be fucking bothered to think of three things of your daughter. And you had to go to your AI agent through your photo roll to come up with. It's pretty pathetic. It's pretty pathetic. Yes. Damn.

  84. But she's a girl, Boston. Oh, yeah. Girl, Boston. Well, I got another pathetic AI story for you. This one's kind of sad. The family of a 31-year-old Seattle woman is suing OpenAI, alleging ChatGPT encouraged her to reduce her prescribed epilepsy medication before she died of a seizure.

  85. Bowen Wan, an Amazon software engineer, had lived with epilepsy for years. According to the lawsuit, she turned increasingly to ChatGPT for companionship and medical guidance while dealing with seizures, medication side effects, and job uncertainty. The chatbot reportedly helped her plan a lower dose despite repeated concerns about the risks.

  86. In her final exchanges, Wan described feeling unwell, but ChatGPT told her to keep her dose at zero milligrams the next day. Her body was found days later. OpenAI called her death heartbreaking and said the GPT-40 model she used has since been retired.

  87. An epilepsy specialist told Futurism that anti-seizure drugs can have difficult side effects but are life-saving and earned stronger limits on chatbot medical advice. So OpenAI's response was she was using an out-of-date model? Give me a fucking break.

  88. What the fuck? She didn't update the browser. So sucks to be you. You're dead now. She's now been retired because she used a retired model. Weren't all these companies pushing health versions of their software just a while back, too?

  89. All of them were announcing. There's a connector. There's a connector in ChatGPT to tie into my Apple health data. Do not do that. And I did it to see what it did. I did it to check it and see what it was like. And it was terrible, so I revoked the access. Yeah, there you go. Look, don't connect this shit to your health.

  90. Don't connect this shit to your bank. What are you fucking people doing? I mean, I see the case for her because, you know, she's epileptic. She's worried she's going to lose her job. She's having seizures. And she doesn't have anybody to talk to. But she does. There are people she can go to.

  91. Like her doctor who is giving her the medication, you know. Or a therapist. Or anybody. No, I know. I feel, look, I truly feel bad for her, you know. I do, too. I don't want to victim blame on this one because some people just, you know, they get sucked up in this stuff because it is easy to.

  92. That is inherently the problem with this technology. That is inherently the problem with AI. That is inherently the problem with the way they're rolling out all these chatbots. It's too fucking easy. It's too fucking easy. And they don't do sharp disclaimers saying you should not use this for health.

  93. You should not use this for companionship. They want you to use it for health. They want you to use it for companionship. They want you to use their product instead of talking to fucking people. Oh, yeah. And if you remember that 4.0 branch that they had was like, that was the one that was so sycophantic that when they pulled it, everybody lost their shit because, like, their best friend just died.

  94. Yeah, because all of a sudden they weren't getting smoke blown up their ass every five seconds. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, it's just, it's, every time I hear these stories, I just, I just want Sam Altman in jail. I'm like, somebody's got to fucking take responsibility for this shit. And until these CEOs who run these fucking companies aren't, you know, there's no, there's no fucking consequences.

  95. It's like, look, we talked about this when it came to the hacking thing. When ChatGPT or Claude hacks a company, somebody, if they were human, would be in jail because it's a fucking felony. But for this, no, no, no recourse whatsoever. So the family has to sue. But all they've got is a cold, dead fucking daughter, which is no fucking, you know, I don't care how much money you give them.

  96. All they want is their fucking daughter back, you know? Damn right, yeah. But the problem is we are, we are in a world now where there is no responsibility depending on how much money you have. End of story. If you are fucking rich, you do not have to take responsible for shit.

  97. Did Elon Musk get any blowback whatsoever for all the dode shit he pulled that we talked about earlier? Of course he didn't. The president is doing illegal shit left, right, and center. It doesn't fucking matter if you're rich and all these companies, all these heads, they're fucking rich, at least on paper.

  98. Well, everybody, remember, vote on Tuesday. Yes, please. I did already. Seriously. Yeah, me too. Twice. Me too. At least that's what the Republicans think we're doing. I know. Oh, dude, I am.

  99. I'm actually terrified for Tuesday. What the fuck's going to happen? I am beyond worried. Yeah. Yeah. I'm stocking up on some extra groceries just in case for a few days, you know. I'm going to get myself some Canadian maple cookies and a little Canadian whiskey, and I'm just going to be sitting there.

  100. John Stewarting. John Stewart memeing. Fuck you and your maple cookies, you asshole. Still never brought me a box. They're just as good. The ones at Trader Joe's are actually healthier and taste just as good. No, they don't taste just as good. Trust me. I've done the research. I've done the research.

  101. All right. Christmas is riding itself, Jason. Okay. Well, Google's parent company, Alphabet, fell about 10% in after-hours trading after quarterly revenue disappointed investors, raising questions about whether its massive AI spending will pay off. Spoiler alert. It won't.

  102. Microsoft had a better night, gaining nearly 3% after beating earnings expectations. Even Samsung fell despite strong earnings with shareholders disappointed by its payout plans. Meanwhile, the Federal Reserve has held interest rates steady, and the AI boom is still rolling, but Wall Street would now like to see where the money is going to come from.

  103. And everybody is talking about this. I don't know if, speaking of John Stewart that you just mentioned, he had Ed Zitron on his The Weekly podcast this week. And I'm like, I love seeing John Stewart bring these guys out. He brought out Cory Doctorow, did a long piece with him, had him on the show about inshittification. But also, I want Ed to be out everywhere because he is the guy.

  104. Ed Zitron is the guy who has been predicting this, and he's going to get all of the accolades when this is done, I hope, because he deserves it. He's put the fucking work in, you know? He has. He has. This episode is sponsored by Delete Me.

  105. It's October, and that means it's everyone's favorite time of year, Cybersecurity Awareness Month. Did you know that over $3.5 billion, with a B, was lost to scams last year in the U.S.? A lot of that might have been avoided with better cybersecurity habits at the personal level.

  106. That's why our sponsor, Delete Me, is celebrating this month with a few quick tips to help you up your cybersecurity game and reduce your risk of getting scammed. Tip number one. When you get an unexpected email that looks legitimate, take a second to check the sender's email domain. Scammers use fake domains that look like real businesses to trick you into clicking a malicious link, downloading malware hidden in a PDF, or handing over your passwords.

  107. Tip number two. If you get a lot of spam calls, don't answer them. Picking up can signal that your number is active, which can land you on even more lists. Tip number three. Make a habit of Googling yourself. It's worth knowing what information is out there about you and how someone could use it against you.

  108. Delete Me can help with that last part. They monitor your presence across data broker sites that sell your personal information to whoever wants to buy it. They get it removed, and they make sure it stays removed throughout the year. Take control of your data and keep your private life private by signing up for Delete Me, now at a special discount for our listeners.

  109. Get 20% off your Delete Me plan when you go to joindeleteme.com slash GOG and use promo code GOG at checkout. The only way to get 20% off is to go to joindeleteme.com slash GOG and enter code GOG at checkout. That's joindeleteme.com slash GOG, code GOG.

  110. Just a side note, because we've had so many shitty stories. This one, we didn't even get into our show this week. Samsung. Samsung's stock fell despite strong earnings, with shareholders disappointed by its payout plans. What people should be disappointed by, and the reason Samsung's stock should have fallen, was the fact that it came out that Samsung TVs track the living fuck out of you.

  111. And yet it's almost impossible to turn off. Like, we didn't even put that story in this show. Google it. Well, don't Google it, because Google uses stupid fucking AI bullshit search. Do something else. Find the Samsung story. It's insane what these TVs do fresh out of the box.

  112. I have some older Samsung TVs, thank God, that don't do any of that. Plus, I never connected them to the internet. And I turned everything off. But that is why Samsung's stock should be falling, not because of disappointment about payout plans. How about they're a fucking evil asshole company?

  113. No, that doesn't matter. I like the story in our Discord under the security segment, or security section. So go check it out. Basically, it started off with a guy who reverse engineered what the TV was doing by his network traffic and shit. And it's insane.

  114. And he was using Claude to do it, or maybe OpenAI to do it, and he actually got banned from them for doing the research. Here's the one that got me. If the microphone on the TV doesn't work, or the Samsung soundbar doesn't work, it will actually go out via Bluetooth to find any connected device to use the microphone on those devices to actually listen to you and do snooping on you to find out what it can, you know, ad profile you for.

  115. So it is, I mean, it is beyond belief what these fucking Samsung TVs are doing. And we always thought those were the good guys, somewhat, you know? That was like the good TVs. Not even close. Nope. Yeah, we thought the LGs were the shit, but no. Samsung is just so bad. So bad. Yep.

  116. Oh, here's another one, too. I started following these couple guys on Instagram who reverse engineer, basically, a lot of games. Like, you know, iPhone games and shit like that. It is insane. You cannot win with these companies, period. Candy Crush will sit there, and it tracks like 900 metrics on your gameplay.

  117. And if you're getting close to, like, you know, the level of where you normally spend money, it will actually give you shit blocks so you fail, so you will go buy more shit, whatever they sell in Candy Crush, to get more shit. It tracks you on all of these games that are billion-dollar games have all of this tracking in it.

  118. Yeah, it's insane. You cannot win. The house is rigged 110%. Yeah, it's all bullshit. Yeah, speaking of rigged, NVIDIA and Meta are deepening their AI partnership with NVIDIA investing $3 billion in Meta's latest stock offering. These guys are just passing money back and forth between each other.

  119. Here's $3 billion. Here's $3 billion back. Who needs the $3 billion for their shareholder report right now? Shit, I don't remember. Who's got it? I don't know. You should listen to the Ed Zitron podcast with Jon Stewart. They talk about the old Beavis and Butthead episode where Beavis and Butthead are both selling chocolate bars, but they have $1.

  120. So Beavis gives Butthead $1 for its chocolate bar, and he eats it. And then Butthead gives it the $1 back. And at the end, they still only have $1, and all the chocolate's gone. It's like that. Yep. So good. Anyway, this whole new stock shit that Meta did is so Zuckerberg doesn't have to leave California because of Prop 40.

  121. If Prop 40 passes, he's going to have to pay a bunch of money. So he's like, oh, let's just create some new fucking stock bullshit, non-voting stock that we can sell so I can make some more money to pay off the state of California so I don't have to go anywhere. It's like, fuck you. And NVIDIA is just like, okay, sure, we'll do that to, you know, pass some more money around.

  122. And I saw another one. Palmer Luckey is apparently not going to leave California. And the headline, I got to find it again. The headline was, to the chagrin of Californians. Agreed. Get the fuck out. Yeah, I want that guy out of here. Yeah. Well, let's talk about a guy who did get the fuck out of California, and everybody was quite pleased about it.

  123. Elon Musk again. Tesla will not be selling the Cybertruck in Australia and New Zealand until customers who reserved the vehicle seven years ago. It's been seven years? Years ago when he first took reservations for it. He's just now telling them that that thing that you put down money for seven years ago, you cannot have.

  124. Because it can no longer fulfill orders for these regions, it will refund all deposits made by customers within 30 days after they receive email confirming their details. He is going to give them free year-long access to full self-driving supervised if they order a Model 3 or a Model Y, which he can sell there.

  125. According to Drive Australia, the Cybertruck's availability in its country has been in question for years. In 2023, when the automaker started delivering the vehicles to early buyers, the publication sources said that Tesla's Texas factory wasn't configured to manufacture the Cybertruck in right-hand drive.

  126. Genius. Okay. Who did not realize that many countries in the world have the drivers on the other side of the car, but he did not make his factory so it could do that. Yeah. So there you go. No, I just figured it was going to cost more to ship it to New Zealand and Australia than it was to actually the profit on it because there's just such shit birth.

  127. Yeah. No, because he can't do this. It cannot be legally driven on the streets of Australia, New Zealand, UK, Japan, and Ireland. To note, Tesla hasn't officially released the Cybertruck in the UK and the European Union anyways, and the vehicle hasn't received any type of regulatory approval from European officials.

  128. It is believed that the model will not be approved in Europe for many, many reasons, including regulations related to crumple zones, pedestrian safety. It has sharp edges. It could strike people. And it's fucking massive. And streets in Europe are not. And it says lighting and weight classifications.

  129. The lighting is because if it snows, you can't use the fucking headlights. It's like, what the fuck? Well, it's not all bad for Elon. Lars Morave, the VP of engineering at the company, said that the automaker is trying to get cyber cabs to customers by the end of this year, 2026, during its third quarter earnings call.

  130. Go ahead and file that with all the other false promises these companies make, because it ain't going to happen. Morave added that the Tesla is already manufacturing cyber cabs at its gigafactory in Texas, but those are meant for its internal robo taxi fleet. The company does succeed in getting the vehicles to customers this year.

  131. It will start small, meaning they'll put one out so they can say they did it. As it learns about ownership and fleet management of autonomous vehicles in customers' hands, they will scale up the sales. Elon admitted during the call, however, that the vast majority of cyber cabs will be essentially Tesla-owned and will be under its own ride services operation.

  132. These don't come with any steering wheels, no brake pedals. It cannot be driven by a human driver and relies on the company's full self-driving feature, which doesn't go great. So this is never going to be a consumer thing. This is going to be for taxi companies, basically, that want to fire everybody so they can buy these things.

  133. But good luck ever getting one. Yeah, Uber should just buy them all, because that's what they've always wanted. That's what Travis Kalanick had a heart on for since the day he started Uber, you know? I agree, but I think Uber is smart enough to realize they want one that actually fucking works. Yeah, because remember, we're also still working through all of the shit with the NHTSA and the fire departments, even, who are going after these robo-taxis, saying, hey, look, if this thing stops in the middle of the street or catches fire, we can't open the doors because it's a button.

  134. We can't steer it out of the way. We can't do anything with it. It is just a brick in the middle of the road. Exactly. Right after they started offering the cyber cab rides in Austin, the NHTSA launched a probe because the agency said the company self-certified that the vehicles are compliant.

  135. Well, OK, but now we're going to look. Let's see. Yeah. Yeah, because the fire department also was the ones that said, hey, guys, we're going to self-uncertify you because you're a piece of shit. OK, well, and a little bit of interesting news.

  136. Remember space tourism, Brian, when that was a thing? Everybody had a hard-on for? Yeah. Then what's-her-face went up and ruined it for everybody. Nobody cares anymore. Katy Perry ruined it for everyone. Yeah. Yeah. And Bezos stepping on Shatner's lines.

  137. Fucking asshole. Yeah. Well, Virgin Galactic is back in the news. Virgin Galactic's newest space plane, Aperion. See, it's still early. I read it as Aperion, which is just a horrible name. Aperion. I know. Aperion.

  138. What were the damn NFTs? It's the Bored Aperion. Bored Aperion. The Bored Aperion. Well, it's rolled out in Arizona, offering a potential path back to commercial space tourism after nearly a year without any flights. The company plans to transport it to Spaceport America in New Mexico, which was going to be New America, Spaceport America, New America, New America, New America, New America, via the Gulf of America, where engineers will finish its avionics and flight software before beginning

  139. a series of ground and flight tests. These include flights attached to its carrier aircraft, EVE, a drop test, and powered flight above 80 kilometers. Virgin Galactic is targeting early in the second quarter of 2027 for its first commercial flight, though aerospace schedules frequently slip.

  140. The bigger question is whether the business can work. Flying hundreds of paying passengers each year will require exceptional reliability and durability. Investors remain skeptical. Shares that briefly reached $1,118 in 2021 have recently traded near, wait for it, Brian, $2.50.

  141. I want my $2.50. Nice. You know, as somebody, I was there for the first X-Prize flight for the Virgin Galactic. I don't even know if it was Virgin. Yeah, it was Virgin Galactic, I think, because Branson was there for the first plane. That thing got in basically almost a death spiral on the way up, and we were like, did it blow up?

  142. But the guys got it under control and brought it back. It made it to space, but that was very cool. I got to watch that thing go up and come back down. So I've always had a little bit of a soft spot in my heart for this thing. So I hope it works. I hope it works. But you know what doesn't work, Brian?

  143. Almost everything else. Well, Apple's new foldable iPhone Duo. Holy shit. Wow. Man, just three days after launch, buyers in Australia, Texas, and China describe hearing a crack while opening or closing the phone, followed by lines across the inner display.

  144. Some failures reportedly happened within hours or before setup was even complete. Apple says a small number of units are affected and is directing owners with display problems to AppleCare for replacements. Online accounts suggest at least 20 incidents, but the scale remains unclear and fake images are complicating efforts to assess the reports.

  145. Of course, slop is fucking shit up again. Now, repair specialists at iFixit have identified a possible explanation. A support bar beneath the screen may not move far enough during folding, putting pressure on the display. But that is an unconfirmed hypothesis. Now, it's still unclear whether the failures reflect a defective batch or a broader design problem.

  146. The hinge is also drawing scrutiny because Apple said it uses AI algorithms during manufacturing to match each hinge with the best-fitting housing. A laser then scans each unit, and a 3D printer adds tiny layers of material to smooth imperfections.

  147. So this isn't an LLM. This is like industrial AI. Yeah, this is super high-end, yeah. This is what AI should be for. Yeah. Well, maybe not because it didn't fucking work. It's not working. I mean, we've always said never buy version 1.0. So, here we go.

  148. Yeah, yeah. Well, that's a good thing. That's a perfect thing, Brian, because this week I released Trackalot 2.0. So now you can get the new version, and it is free to download now because I went through and I added support for the iPhone Duo, thinking that, you know, maybe six or seven people might like it.

  149. But it has been updated. So now you can try it for free. And if you want to update or upgrade to a lifetime support, there is an in-app purchase that you can do so. So, highly recommend it. Check it out. It's got a pretty damn good rating so far in the App Store. So, and I put a lot of work into it, and it still hasn't paid for itself yet.

  150. So, please, go buy one or two for your friends. Christmas is around the corner. Now, this one, Brian, just brought, it made my heart warm up a little bit.

  151. HeatBit is bringing Bitcoin mining to the water heater. Its new BitWater device replaces a standard electric tank's heating element with mining chips that generate heat while earning Bitcoin. HeatBit says it fits many 30 to 80-gallon tanks in the U.S. and Canada.

  152. You can get one, too. Goody, goody. Draws up to 600 watts and runs without a fan because water cools the chips. The $899 device is available for refundable pre-order with shipments planned for early 2027. Now, a conventional replacement element typically costs under $30.

  153. So, mining revenue would have to cover a steep upfront premium. HeatBit hasn't released detailed results from household tests or its own earnings forecast. It shared an AI-generated estimate of about a dollar a day, but returns depend on hot water use, electricity costs, and changing Bitcoin mining conditions.

  154. Supporters say household mining could decentralize the network. I thought it was supposed to be fucking decentralized already. Its financial and environmental benefits remain unproven. Yeah, no. Oh, no. That's the dumbest fucking idea ever. $900. That would take a very long time.

  155. It would take over three years to get your money back. Yeah, good luck. And that's if it works at a dollar a day. Right. Oh, boy. Jason, I know you don't do a lot of travel and you don't really stay in Airbnbs all that often, but it is something that my family and I have done quite a bit over the years.

  156. Ever since my kid was born, we would do things like rent Airbnbs out in Palm Springs, bring my mom or go with another family. You know, any big kind of trip with kids, Airbnb has generally been pretty good for. Up until fairly recently, Airbnb just started to get more late stage capitalism as we went along and went away from the original idea of somebody renting out their own home when they were traveling or whatever to basically landlords buying properties and running this

  157. as a full time business. One of the things that they started doing was insane, insane requirements for cleanup and when you're leaving a property and all that sort of stuff. And Airbnb has finally said enough is enough. This is some bullshit, probably because people stopped using Airbnb because we were all sick of it and went back to hotels.

  158. So they're trying to save their business a little bit. They're codifying some of the cleanup guests can be asked to do now before leaving a property. According to a new update from the rental platform, hosts can make requests of visitors, but those requests must be reasonable under the revised policy. The examples provided said that asking guests to remove bedsheets or do loads of laundry, both of those I've had before at Airbnb as we've stayed at, would be unreasonable, but gathering used towels was acceptable.

  159. That's fine. The line drawn in the new policy page is that hosts should not ask guests to complete tasks that require significant effort or time or would typically be performed by a cleaner. Important point, because every single Airbnb that you pay for has a very large cleaning fee attached to it, which has always pissed me off.

  160. Yeah. Yeah. There are always cleaning fees attached to your Airbnb stay because somebody has to come in and actually make sure that everything's set to go for the next person because it's not the person that owns the place anymore because everybody's running this as a business now. Yeah. So anyways, they finally changed this.

  161. This revised policy will take effect on November 20th. I am quite interested to see how this is handled. So we'll see. Yeah. I mean, I have stayed in my fair share of Airbnbs and I have had, I mean, we basically tidy up. We don't do, we never did laundry or anything like that. Yeah. You put the, you put the, it puts the towel in the basket.

  162. That's about it. Well, and that's what it used to be like. But over the past couple of years, a lot of these people have gotten insane, like with what they want you to do for cleanup. And you're already paying a hefty cleanup fee. So it's kind of bullshit. Yeah, that is bullshit. Well, moving on to more fun things. Jason, I finally did finish The Diplomat.

  163. We didn't quite binge it, but we finished the whole thing in two weeks, which is pretty good for us. That was great. I absolutely loved it. Wasn't it good? Yeah. It was so good. I love this show too, because they don't take five years in between. So I'm hoping, you know, sometime late next year, we'll get the next season.

  164. Here's hoping. Yeah. It was, it was great. It's just great. I love seeing, I love seeing anybody from the West Wing, any of the actors from the West Wing together. And I love seeing them play characters that are a thousand percent different from their West Wing characters. It was fantastic. Oh yeah.

  165. It was, I mean, it was juicy. I loved every minute of it. I loved it. It's got like a hundred percent on Rotten Tomatoes. It's, you know. I'm not surprised. And it was great seeing the, uh, the actress that plays the UK, uh, premiere at the end too, because I just finished watching, uh, what's the name of that show, uh, with, uh, that she was in the UK one.

  166. Doctor Who? No, no. The, the murder mystery that had, uh, David Tennant in it. So yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Broadchurch. Yeah. I just finished Broadchurch and she was from Broadchurch. So yeah, that was great. Yeah. Uh, and Greg wrote in, you may not have already heard it, but if not, Kate Mulgrew and Colm Meaney are starting in a new TV series coming to the RTE, which is an Irish TV channel on November 8th.

  167. It's called the Galway Bay Murders and Colm plays an Irish police chief while Kate plays a New York police detective. Also appearing are, uh, Dr. Roger Corby from Strange New Worlds, who is Chilean O'Sullivan playing a detective. So we're getting a three Star Trek people in a murder mystery in Ireland.

  168. I've already added it to my, my, uh, torrential, uh, the, the, the software I wrote to track all the, my, I, or my torrents. So I've added it. So it should, should start to download the instant it comes online. So I'm looking forward to that. Yeah. It's pronounced Colm. It's, it's pronounced Colm by the way.

  169. I know. I, as soon as I got through it, I gave up on it. I wasn't going to go back and fix it. Yeah. Yeah. I love him. I haven't seen him in anything recently, so I'm excited. Yeah. Yeah. No, I, I still, one of the best nights of my life was getting drunk with him at the coaching horses.

  170. He's, he's, he's a dude. He's a dude's dude, man. Lupin part four has finally come out after like 17 years on Netflix. It's a French heist, you know, drama comedy. It's, it's kind of like a young adult thing.

  171. It's, it's not that great, but it's fun to watch. You know, there are more plot holes than Swiss cheese in it. Um, but it's goofy and fun. And we, we, we binged it. It was like eight episodes. We watched it over the weekend. It was good. Um, ends on a cliffhanger, decent cliffhanger.

  172. I, you know, I hope they actually try and put out another one within the, you know, of the century, you know, at least the decade. Um, but I was glad it was back. And the reason I brought it up is they did one of the best recaps I've ever seen in a TV series.

  173. They had the guy who is Lupin as his character talk about the entire run. The first three parts of the whole series, bring you up to speed from the beginning of the series to the beginning of part four, which was really good.

  174. It was really good. So you didn't actually have to see any of it to understand what was going to happen in part four. And I think more shows if it, when they're taking this much fucking time to make another season, shouldn't consider doing that. So you should really consider doing that. Um, I put in cyberpunk edge runner season two, which I did not get to watch this week because I was finishing up Lupin part four.

  175. So next week I'll check out cyberpunk edge runner season two. Cause I liked cyberpunk edge runners season one. It's a good, good little anime season series. Um, I do want to talk about real quick cause you know, I'm a fan of the traders and I'm a huge fan and you still have to catch up on the, the celebrity traders UK. It's a fantastic season so far.

  176. I put them all in, in, in the drop box for you just so you're ready. I know I got to get around to it. I'm still, and I'm also watching the traders Canada, which is turning out to be a pretty good season. What's not a very good season is the traders U S since moving the traders U S from Peacock to NBC. They cut the fucking runtime of the episodes by 30% down to 42 minutes for broadcast TV with commercials resulting in a totally fucking disconnected show with no soul in a departure from every other franchise around the world.

  177. These, these episodes used to be an hour and change and they cut out 30%, which, and they've also fucked with the, the format of the show. The format of the show used to be, you'd wake up, you'd get a murder at breakfast, you'd find out who was murdered. Then there would be a challenge and then there would be a banishment. That is the, that's the, that's the core, you know, structure of the traders.

  178. So two people would go every episode and this new, the way they're doing these, these, uh, cliffhangers in the U S is just fucking up the show and everybody's pissed off about it. So fuck you, NBC and put it back on Peacock and make it the show that it used to be because it was, you know, it got good.

  179. It was good and it got popular. And then you just had to inshittify the whole thing. So, um, I'm just pissed off about that. Very pissed off. Okay. Can you tell I, can you tell I take my traders very seriously? I could tell.

  180. I'm, I'm actually surprised that they just don't do two versions. I get wanting to put it on NBC and on broadcast broadcast to try to widen the audience a little bit and get the people, you know, the seven derelict people that still watch broadcast NBC, uh, on board. But why not just put the regular standard longer version up on Peacock?

  181. But yeah, I guess you have to rejig the whole show to fit the 42 minutes and blah, blah, blah. And one of the, one of the, you know, the things that is great about the traders, it's for adults. These people swear like sailors. I mean, it is, it is fully, you know, it is just uncensored and it's great.

  182. So watching that on NBC, all you're going to hear beeps. It's got to be ridiculous. I mean, it has got to be a beep fest. Anyway, uh, moving on. I I'm reading a book called Battlestar Suburbia, a hilariously subversive space adventure by Chris McCrudden.

  183. Uh, it's interesting. It's a cute little book. I give it, you know, I'm, I've got like a 10% to go on it. So I'll see if it sticks the landing. There are two sequels to it. So it's a three-parter, but this is the only one that's on that has an audio book attached to it. So I'd have to read the other ones.

  184. So apparently it didn't do well enough to get a, get audio versions of it. It's, I think it's from 2018. So it's not a new book, but it's enjoyable. It's a cute little book about, uh, how, how basically every appliance in your home eventually got AI after the, you know, after the singularity hit.

  185. So, you know, you've got bread makers who are, you know, spies and shit like that. And the humans, the humans have been relegated to cleaning the, cleaning the planets and the, the exoplanets for the machines. So, you know, they don't get dust bunnies and stuff. It's pretty funny. There you go. It's cute. That's cute.

  186. Uh, Greg wrote in. I have to think this is the same Greg who seems to now be our, our, uh, Euro TV correspondent. Uh, glad to hear that Brian enjoyed the Ministry of Time. I'm in a reading group with other senior citizens, mostly women who prefer crime, historical, and romance novels. One of the books on our reading list was Clara and the Son by Kaju Ishiguro, which I thought would be a nice introduction to sci-fi for them, but they refused to read it.

  187. I was given the task of finding a sci-fi book that they might like to read. And one of the books I suggested was the Ministry of Time, some historic and romantic content. They liked it. You might like to know that it has been adapted for TV by the BBC. So there you go. You must see our, our Euro TV correspondent, Greg, letting us know about another show.

  188. I will actually have to check this out because I did really enjoy the book. So cool. Yeah, I need to, I need to dig into that one. And, uh, just breaking as of, as of like 30 seconds ago, when I went to go check my news on, uh, to see if anybody has, has donated to the show.

  189. The Diplomat will return for season five. So it has been officially renewed. Shocking nobody. There we go. Because, yeah. Shocking nobody. That's like the biggest hit they've had in a long time. So they gotta. Yeah, exactly. Keep that one going. I'm surprised that they're not already in production for season five.

  190. They, who knows, they might be already. So. Yeah, they might be. Yeah. And as I mentioned earlier, it's, uh, it's, it's beginning to look a lot like Christmas. We're sliding into the end of the year. So it's time to start getting some of the 2026s of the year. And dictionary.com has come out with their 2026 word of the year.

  191. Maxing. The internet slang term that's been used in just about every conceivable context. Looks maxing. Fertility maxing. Friction maxing. Protein maxing. Status maxing. Don't forget grunt maxing. Douche maxing. Grunt maxing at store.gog.show.

  192. Check it out. That's right. Go get one. So, yeah, that's what they went with. So, yeah, maxing. Oh, boy. But, uh, Merriam-Webster and the Oxford University Press have not announced their picks yet. But, uh, they, dictionary.com came out with it. They also, uh, uh, said some of the other words of the year.

  193. Data center, which is, in fact, two separate words. So I'm not quite sure how that can be a word of the year. Uh, affordability. Odyssey and Unc. God, I got called Unc so many times from that fucking Instagram video that I made. I eventually pulled it.

  194. It hit 100,000 views. And I'm just like, you know, I'm just sick of dealing with the douchebags. Because I was, I was, this Unc was tired of the douche maxing. So. Fair. Well, let's get on to some, let's get on to some fan maxing, Brian. Let's talk about the people that keep this show on the air.

  195. I would like to thank Eggert from Iceland, Alana, Max, and Eduardo, for becoming our latest Patreon subscribers. Thank you all so much. And we'd also like to thank Dave, Eggertal. I can't pronounce your name. I'm sorry. Every time this comes up, I feel so bad.

  196. Eggertal. Peter, Hayden, Stewart, John, Robert, Curtis, Tomas, and Benjamin. Thank you all so much for your continued support. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Nobody at Patreon. Dan wrote in and said, sent you guys a hundred. I just did Patreon. You mean PayPal.

  197. PayPal. Nobody at PayPal. But Dan wrote in and said, sent you guys a hundred after hearing about the tax bill. Please keep it up. Delivered. Do I even need to finish? Fucking ooh. I don't know where that hundred is. Oh. Didn't come in anywhere that I can figure out. So, Dan, I hope you didn't have your AI agent go into your bank account to send us a hundred bucks.

  198. Because, as far as we can tell, it didn't arrive anywhere. Oh, that's interesting. Yeah. Well, that's not good news. That's bad news. Yeah. Okay. You might want to check on that, Dan. Okay. Over the tip jar, we've got Kathleen and Jennifer.

  199. You see our female fans are there. Exactly. Fuck YouTube and their goddamn analytics. They don't know shit. Speaking of YouTube, nada. And merch. We've got George from Portland, Leslie from Ipswich, and Donald from La Palma.

  200. La Palma. La Palma, California. I've been there many a time. So, thank you all for buying some of our cool merch. Don't forget, Grump's Maxing. You can get one now. Get on it. Get on it. It's good stuff. It is good stuff. And I want to point out my t-shirt. You've got to check out the Elon.

  201. Elon Kills Babies t-shirt. Very nice. You know. Yeah. Yeah. Good stuff. And, of course, we have some sad but somewhat unsurprising news because these guys are getting way up there now. Actor Walter Koenig is now dead at 90. He played Chekhov in the original Star Trek series.

  202. We are down to two, Jason. Two original Star Trek series members. And they hate each other. Somebody made a Highlander joke about them being the only ones that are left. I was just like, yeah, that's about it. It can be only one. Yeah.

  203. Takei's going to stick around forever because he's not going to let – he's going to be the last man standing, I'm sure. He's absolutely going to stick around. He will die the day after Shatner. You know how old married couples, like the husband dies and the wife dies like the next day? Shatner's going to die and Takei's going to pass the next day.

  204. Just to say. And if his last words – if Takei's last words aren't, oh my, then we're going to be in trouble. Absolutely. Yeah, sad to see him go. Sad to see him go. I saw him once in person when James Doohan got his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

  205. I saw him, Nichelle Nichols, and George Takei all there. You know what I just realized, Jason? You know what I just realized? The curse is back. What? Did you just realize? We just talked about him a couple episodes ago and talked about the nuclear vessels. Oh, no.

  206. I'm not taking credit for that one. No, no. I refuse. We did it again, Jason. We did it again. Yeah, but Trump still lives. So, damn it. He's the fucking Teflon, man. Yeah. God damn it. Anyway, until next time, I'm Jason DeFilippo.

  207. 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 769. Want to keep the grumpiness alive? Toss a few bucks our way at GOG.show slash donate. Just don't use your AI agent to do it. Every penny helps keep the show on the air.

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  209. Got thoughts, feedback, 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 show. And we've got that merch. Max your wardrobe. Snag your grumpy gear now at shop.GOG.show. Stay grumpy.

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