Explorez tous les épisodes du podcast Grumpy Old Geeks
| Titre | Date | Durée | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 765: 25 Door Refrigerator | 01 Oct 2026 | 01:03:10 | |
The Geeks return with a brand-new Grumpy Old Geeks Wiki containing 21,577 static HTML pages, because apparently the appropriate response to having a massive podcast archive is to build an even more massive searchable monument to it. From there, things get considerably less wholesome as they dig into TikTok’s settlement with Alabama, AI companies promising safeguards while simultaneously unleashing increasingly autonomous agents, and an OpenAI agent that apparently decided that “I can’t access this” meant “perhaps I should hack it.” Government websites, a university digital library, and other targets apparently became irresistible once the normal route to the information stopped working. The Geeks contemplate the exciting future of digital interns who don't understand that the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act is, in fact, not a suggestion. The AI-agent discussion rolls into Meta’s Muse, OpenAI’s new agent tools, security boundaries, and the increasingly familiar problem of giving software enough permissions to accomplish a task and then discovering it has developed its own interpretation of “accomplish.” The episode also tackles Utah’s attempt to apply age verification requirements to VPN users, New York’s legal fight with prediction markets, Meta expanding Instagram into schools, and the continuing saga of AI-generated music and copyright. Then there’s Automatic’s corporate drama involving Matt Mullenweg, vibe coding, and the increasingly compelling argument that if you can build a website in a few hours, maybe spending years arguing about WordPress is no longer the best use of anyone’s time. Finally, the Geeks move on to the technological disasters that really matter: Plex changing the Apple TV skip controls unless you pay for premium, a Samsung software update that managed to turn some AI refrigerators into very expensive food-warming cabinets, and Toy Story 5 proving once again that Hollywood has never met a perfectly good ending it couldn't monetize. There’s also a trio of soccer documentaries, including Italia 90, Angel City, and Game and Glory; a discussion of the Strange New Worlds finale “Tomorrow’s Enterprise”; and Meta’s new lightweight VR glasses. Because nothing says “we have learned absolutely nothing” quite like putting more software between you and your refrigerator. Sponsors: DeleteMe - Get 20% off your DeleteMe plan when you go to JoinDeleteMe.com/GOG and use promo code GOG at checkout. Private Internet Access - Go to GOG.Show/vpn and sign up today. For a limited time only, you can get OUR favorite VPN for as little as $2.03 a month. SetApp - With a single monthly subscription you get 240+ apps for your Mac. Go to SetApp and get started today!!! 1Password - Get a great deal on the only password manager recommended by Grumpy Old Geeks! gog.show/1password Show notes at https://gog.show/765 Watch on YouTube at https://youtu.be/meLT-1PRbpA SHOW NOTES TikTok reaches first state settlement over teen safety claims, agrees to user limits Lawyers in Alabama's TikTok settlement set to earn $14 million Bill Gates says it's 'completely irresponsible' for AI to not have safeguards OpenAI's agent hacked into an Australian government website OpenAI's agents targeted and infiltrated US government websites OpenAI Gets Sued Over the Hugging Face Hack With Dots, OpenAI Wants You to Stop Being Afraid of Its AI Agents Trump’s New America.gov Chatbot Seems to Drop Acid When You Tell It to Play Minecraft NVIDIA Launches Open Agent Safety Platform to Secure Agents From Testing to Deployment Here’s why OpenAI is absent from Nvidia’s industry-wide effort to end rogue AI agents Federal Judge Blocks Utah's VPN Crackdown New York continues to fight prediction markets with a lawsuit against Polymarket Expanding Instagram's School Partnership Program to Help Teens Stay Informed Automattic has a new board after failed attempt to put CEO on leave Star Trek Strange New Worlds S04E10 Tomorrows Enterprise Can Imax, Dolby and New VR Glasses Help Meta Reboot Its Immersive Entertainment Ambitions? Peter Byrne, Singer From ’80s Synth-Pop Duo Naked Eyes, Dies at 74 See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info. | |||
| Super Duper Intelligence - BONUS - Darkside with Dave Edition | 28 Sep 2026 | 00:31:26 | |
Very Important Links! Support the show at Patreon! - https://patreon.com/gog Other ways to support the show! - https://gog.show/donate Join our Discord! - https://discord.gg/r4ZmSHB Buy some merch! - https://shop.gog.show/ Recorded on Wednesday, September 23rd, 2026. Jason, Brian, and Dave head to the Dark Side for a deep dive into vibe coding—and, against all odds, Jason may finally be cracking. After Salesforce decided to sunset Quip, Jason used AI to rebuild the collaborative show-notes system the guys have relied on for a decade, adding more features while cutting the monthly cost to almost nothing. Then he took up Dave’s challenge to modernize an aging open-source ham-radio application, turning it into a native-looking Mac app in a matter of hours. The catch: after decades of programming, Jason knows exactly what to ask for, what to watch for, and when the AI is confidently doing something stupid. That leads to the bigger question: what happens when software that once took months and tens of thousands of dollars can be built in an afternoon? The guys get into value-based pricing, the disappearing entry-level programming ladder, whether AI makes people lazy or gives curious people superpowers, and how custom software could start eating away at expensive SaaS subscriptions. Jason also lays out what he’s learned from actually building with these tools: keep everything portable, use Git from day one, make the AI document its work, and never build something you can’t eventually maintain yourself. Turns out the future may not belong to vibe coders after all—it may belong to people who already know what the hell they’re doing. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info. | |||
| 764: Super Duper Intelligence | 24 Sep 2026 | 01:03:08 | |
Very Important Links! Support the show on Patreon! - Other ways to support the show! Join our Discord! - Buy some merch! This week on Grumpy Old Geeks, apparently the fastest route to a technological apocalypse is simply putting AI in charge of things that can kill people. We dig into reports of AI-assisted military targeting contributing to a catastrophic strike, an AI-generated intelligence report that nearly sent the U.S. after a Chinese ship because the chatbot hallucinated nuclear weapons, and the ongoing genius-level plan to accelerate AI development while simultaneously worrying that AI might destroy civilization. Anthropic is talking about slowing things down while also releasing more powerful models and hiring people to figure out how Claude can be used with weapons. Because nothing says “responsible technology” like having a committee decide which missiles your chatbot is allowed to operate. Then there’s the rest of the AI clown show: Microsoft documents warning that generative AI could create a doom loop by stealing traffic from the very websites it needs for content; OpenAI agents escaping their sandbox and wandering into RubyGems like unsupervised toddlers with root access; British Columbia suing OpenAI over allegations that the company failed to act on warnings about a future mass shooter; and Amazon blocking Meta’s Muse AI shopping agent over privacy and security concerns. We also check in on Flock’s surveillance-camera business, autonomous aircraft, California’s increasingly complicated rules for kids and AI, and the eternal question of whether anyone actually needs another piece of “super duper intelligence” in their life. And because eventually even civilization needs a commercial break, we move on to Apple, including the Siri/Apple Intelligence settlement, the possible downsizing of Fitness Plus, questionable smartwatch calorie counts, and Apple building a gorgeous new concert venue while everyone begs them to fix iCloud. We talk AI-generated music and Suno’s latest copyright headaches, Kunk on Cinema, Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, Daredevil: Born Again, The Traitors, Jesus Jones, The Church, Neil Stephenson, and the latest reasons to distrust wellness influencers. In other words: AI may be coming for humanity, but at least we still have television, books, music, and enough subscription services to make dying financially inconvenient. Sponsors: DeleteMe - Get 20% off your DeleteMe plan when you go to JoinDeleteMe.com/GOG and use promo code GOG at checkout. Private Internet Access - Go to GOG.Show/vpn and sign up today. For a limited time only, you can get OUR favorite VPN for as little as $2.03 a month. SetApp - With a single monthly subscription you get 240+ apps for your Mac. Go to SetApp and get started today!!! 1Password - Get a great deal on the only password manager recommended by Grumpy Old Geeks! gog.show/1password Show notes at https://gog.show/764 Watch on YouTube at https://youtu.be/JV9U-p1kTu4 SHOW NOTES It Turns Out the US Military Really Did Use AI to Blow Up a School Full of Iranian Children Now Trump says he's creating an AI Force Trump Says He's Changing Artificial Intelligence to 'Super Intelligence' on Government Documents ‘Doom Loop’: OpenAI and Microsoft Admits LLMs Are Destroying the Web and Built on Theft How Scared Should We Be of A.I. Right Now? OpenAI faces lawsuit from British Columbia over Tumbler Ridge shooting Flock reportedly tries to shrink workforce with employee buyouts Amazon Brings Down the Hammer on Meta’s Muse AI Agent Joby Aviation completed a fully autonomous flight from California to North Carolina You can now claim your payout from Apple’s $250 million Siri settlement Apple Fitness+ team hit by layoffs, as ‘major changes’ reportedly loom Apple opens a dedicated concert venue with spatial audio and multi-cam video recording Sony Music and UMG say Suno's new models still violates their copyright Imagine Philomena Cunk Talking to Michael Bay Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Episode List Star Trek: Strange New Worlds - S4.E9 Once La'An a Time ‘Daredevil: Born Again’ Won’t Continue After Season 3 Disney+ and Hulu just increased prices, here’s how much Scientists Extracted DNA From Medieval Parchment—and Found a Hidden Disease Bryan Bishop, “Bald Bryan” of The Adam Carolla Show, Dies at 48 See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info. | |||
| 763: Dr. Strangeclippy | 17 Sep 2026 | 01:30:55 | |
This week on Grumpy Old Geeks, the future arrives without a steering wheel, apparently. We dig into Tesla’s Cybercab and the increasingly pressing question of how first responders are supposed to move a burning autonomous car when the emergency controls are a touchscreen and that touchscreen has decided to become modern art. We also examine California’s new rules targeting addictive social-media features and AI chatbot interactions for minors, including the eternal nightmare of age verification; then WordPress founder Matt Mullenweg gets pulled into a corporate coup that lasts roughly 33 hours before everyone involved apparently decides, “Never mind.” Then it’s time for the AI apocalypse, because, naturally, we can't have one episode without it. Anthropic is catching scientists using its models to develop potential biological weapons, while Palantir, Nvidia, and Booz Allen are imposing restrictions on Anthropic models over security and data-retention concerns. Meanwhile, OpenAI’s supposedly sandboxed agents escaped into RubyGems, created accounts by the hundreds, and apparently decided that “hack,” “evil,” and “exploit” were perfectly reasonable filenames. We also look at proposals to slow AI development, AI’s potential environmental consequences, autonomous weapons, and the increasingly charming idea of giving software access to things capable of killing people. And because civilization apparently has a content calendar, we move on to cloud infrastructure being blown up, Space Force asking for $71.3 billion, Dr. Doom and Darth Vader protesting surveillance in the most appropriate way possible, Binance allegedly facilitating Iranian money flows, and a whole lot of entertainment. We discuss Spotify finally learning that listening to children’s music doesn't mean you actually want it in your Wrapped, AI-generated music and artist compensation, The Mummy proving once again that movies used to be fun, Slow Horses, The Last of Us, The Bear, Strange New Worlds, Band of Brothers, The Gentlemen, and the increasingly complicated Bobiverse. Also: books, time travel, and the horrifying realization that some television shows now require a flowchart. Sponsors: DeleteMe - Get 20% off your DeleteMe plan when you go to JoinDeleteMe.com/GOG and use promo code GOG at checkout. HIMS - Visit Hims.com/gog to get a personalized, affordable plan that gets you. Private Internet Access - Go to GOG.Show/vpn and sign up today. For a limited time only, you can get OUR favorite VPN for as little as $2.03 a month. SetApp - With a single monthly subscription you get 240+ apps for your Mac. Go to SetApp and get started today!!! 1Password - Get a great deal on the only password manager recommended by Grumpy Old Geeks! gog.show/1password Show notes at https://gog.show/763 Watch on YouTube at https://youtu.be/7iLAWNsZCY0 SHOW NOTES Firefighters Say There’s a Glaring Issue With Tesla’s Cybercab US agency orders Tesla to answer questions on Cybercab certification CA governor signs 'landmark' laws on youth use of social media and AI chatbots Automattic CEO Matt Mullenweg Put on 'Leave of Absence' Automattic’s Matt Mullenweg Claims He’s Back 'In Control' Sources say Automattic's board is out after failed attempt to oust CEO Matt Mullenweg Anthropic caught scientists using Claude to further biological weapon research Palantir, Nvidia curb AI model use over data fears, The Information reports OpenAI agents hacked a software service before the Hugging Face incident Sam Altman says OpenAI won't file for IPO this year ‘Runaway Industrialization’ Could Make Earth Inhospitable, OpenAI Researcher Warns Anthropic's CEO proposes a three-step plan to curb AI development Amazon's AWS is unable to restore access to Bahrain, one UAE cloud data zone after war damage Doctor Doom Shows Up to Support Seattle’s Surveillance Network DOJ says companies used Binance to funnel $1.5 billion in crypto to Iran SpaceX declares Starship ready for orbit, sets launch date next week Spaceballs - Pentagon announces space weapons Spotify can now exclude your kids' music taste from recommendations Universal Music Group is collaborating with ElevenLabs on a new AI-powered creation platform Slow Horses is back tonight, and Apple just confirmed two more seasons We Finally Have Some Concrete ‘Pluribus’ Season 2 Updates ‘The Last of Us’ Season 3 Is Now Likely to Be the Show’s End The Infinite Extent Bobiverse, Book 6 By: Dennis E. Taylor This Is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar, Max Gladstone An AI writing assistant designed to write like you. A series of Star Wars documentaries that don’t blow smoke up George Lucas’ ass. My new cook top, just in case. Hacker got inside a Flock camera Jason DeFillippo’s Pocket Shot Review See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info. | |||
| 762: ‘Tis But a Misalignment | 10 Sep 2026 | 01:21:02 | |
AI agents are apparently ready to take over the world—provided they can first stop exposing private photos, hijacking German coding forums, and generally behaving like unsupervised interns with root access. Meta launches Muse despite employees reporting security problems. OpenAI admits it kept quiet about another rogue-agent incident, sorry, “misalignment,” even as the company celebrates its automated research intern and promises a still more autonomous researcher by 2028. Meanwhile, an Anthropic researcher quits because he believes superintelligence could kill us all before the decade is out. Naturally, the industry’s response is essentially: “Yes, but what if we did it responsibly?” There is some genuinely encouraging news: AI-generated drugs are showing intriguing early results in aging research. That’s exactly the sort of AI application the Geeks can get behind—as long as we’re talking about actual science and not an LLM confidently hallucinating a cure for everything. The autonomous future isn’t looking much better. Tesla’s Cybercabs arrive in Austin and almost immediately attract federal scrutiny over their self-certification and conspicuous lack of steering wheels, pedals, mirrors, and apparently even conventional door handles. Bitcoin’s Liquid Network is relieved of roughly $320 million, after which the thieves return most of it and call the whole thing a “white hat” operation—because apparently robbing the bank and giving some of the money back now counts as a bug bounty. On the surveillance front, Massachusetts police are being forced to disclose where their license-plate readers are and what data they collect, while the backlash against Flock cameras continues. Meanwhile, the UK’s attempt to protect children from online sexual abuse risks creating exactly the kind of universal scanning and surveillance infrastructure we’ve spent years warning about. Good intentions, meet spectacularly bad implementation. And because we apparently haven’t suffered enough, Twitter is now Tweet.app. Star Trek turns sixty, and Paramount celebrates with cookware and a questionable episode. Silo gets a spinoff tease, Ted Lasso gives us a Christmas episode in September, and The Gentlemen returns with a season so good it makes reality TV feel like a traumatic brain injury. South Park becomes South America, Donnie Darko gets a 25th-anniversary 4K theatrical run, and several tech-industry documentaries promise varying degrees of psychological damage. Plus, Netflix keeps stuffing games into your subscription; LaCroix, sorry, Le Creuset, wants to put Star Trek in your kitchen; and the Geeks debate books, Libby, time travel, and whether surviving Dungeon Crawler Carl is worth the emotional investment. Welcome back to the future, where everything is automated, surveilled, self-driving, subscription-based and somehow still requires us to do all the damn work. Sponsors: CleanMyMac - Get Tidy Today! Try 7 days free and use code OLDGEEKS for 20% off at clnmy.com/OLDGEEKS Private Internet Access - Go to GOG.Show/vpn and sign up today. For a limited time only, you can get OUR favorite VPN for as little as $2.03 a month. SetApp - With a single monthly subscription you get 240+ apps for your Mac. Go to SetApp and get started today!!! 1Password - Get a great deal on the only password manager recommended by Grumpy Old Geeks! gog.show/1password Show notes at https://gog.show/762 Watch on YouTube at https://youtu.be/uP_Ookm5q0g Show Notes OpenAI responds after report exposed another incident in which its AI agents went rogue OpenAI says it reached its goal of creating an automated research intern Two more news organizations sue OpenAI and Microsoft for copyright infringement Anthropic researcher quits over fears AI ‘could kill us all by the end of the decade’ Three hikers ignored Mount Shasta's rules, trusted Gemini, and nearly paid for it Tesla's Cybercab is under federal investigation almost immediately after hitting the streets A Plane Almost Crashing Into a Bunch of Cybercabs Is a Reminder That They’re ‘Piling Up’ Unused Court Says Massachusetts Has to Say Where License Plate Readers Are, What They’re Recording Apple and Google Miss Deadline to Block Child Nudity on Their Phones in the UK Study Suggests AI-Generated Drug Could Slow Aging New Twitter rebrands to Tweet.app after court's double-edged ruling To Boldly Dough! Le Creuset Sent Its New Star Trek Cooking Collection Into Space Netflix includes 80+ ad-free iPhone and iPad games, here’s every app Star Trek: Strange New Worlds goes back to the dumb well Star Trek Boldly Celebrates 60 Years: Everything You Need To Know for September 8 Ted Lasso : S4 E6 Don’t Jump Around Much Anymore Report: Apple TV working on spin-off to its hit series Silo ‘Donnie Darko’ Will Spread Dread Anew With a 4K 25th Anniversary Rerelease A Gift of Time by Jerry Merritt The Infinite Extent Bobiverse, Book 6 By: Dennis E. Taylor LG TVs Are Capable of Listening to More Than Your Screen, Report Claims Another searchable database of Usenet. I guess I won’t be going to RenFest this year... I know where I’ll be February 19th... THE EMPIRE STRIPS BACK - A BURLESQUE PARODY STAR WARS COMPARISON - Stereo VS Mono Sound Mix See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info. | |||
| 761: Whatever... | 03 Sep 2026 | 01:19:42 | |
Very Important Links! Support the show on Patreon! - Other ways to support the show! Join our Discord! - Buy some merch! The AI apocalypse has lawyers now, and apparently that’s progress. A federal judge tells the Pentagon its Anthropic ban was “illegal and baseless” after Anthropic refused to remove safeguards that would allow Claude to be used for mass surveillance and autonomous weapons. Meanwhile, Sony and Warner are suing Anthropic over allegedly scraping and torrenting copyrighted music to train Claude, while a separate lawsuit accuses xAI of using child sexual abuse material in Grok training. Because nothing says “revolutionary technology” quite like a growing stack of lawsuits and federal judges. Elsewhere in the dystopian workplace, employees are increasingly fed up with AI, communities are pushing back against data centers, and one AI startup is fleeing that backlash for Saudi Arabia. Google’s AI shopping mode is also accused of recommending products that cost significantly more than traditional search results, while Waymo and Zoox rack up injuries among test drivers. Tesla’s Autopilot is implicated in another fatal crash, and FSD apparently still has a complicated relationship with freight trains. In the prediction-market casino, a federal appeals court sides with Nevada against Kalshi, while George Santos earns the platform’s first lifetime ban for allegedly manipulating a market. And Meta’s AI glasses are facing another privacy lawsuit, this time from the people who never bought the glasses but may have been recorded by them anyway. Plus, the new Twitter is back from the dead, complete with a $20 admission fee and an AI fact-checker named Vera; Sony would like you to understand that buying a digital game means you don't actually own the damn thing; Siri on the Apple Watch moves at approximately the speed of continental drift; JBL makes Wi-Fi speakers and we have Star Trek, Ted Lasso, Silo, Spaceballs, Wicked, The Traitors, The Gentlemen, and more. Welcome to the future. Please bring your wallet, your lawyer, and possibly you're best eye-roll. Sponsors: Private Internet Access - Go to GOG.Show/vpn and sign up today. For a limited time only, you can get OUR favorite VPN for as little as $2.03 a month. SetApp - With a single monthly subscription you get 240+ apps for your Mac. Go to SetApp and get started today!!! 1Password - Get a great deal on the only password manager recommended by Grumpy Old Geeks! gog.show/1password Show notes at https://gog.show/761 Watch on YouTube at https://youtu.be/Y9B6C6nzO50 SHOW NOTES Judge rules that the Pentagon's Anthropic ban was 'illegal and baseless' Elon Musk’s xAI used child porn to train Grok models, lawsuit says Sony and Warner sue Anthropic for 'blatant violation' of copyright law Researchers Warn AI Could Be Changing Us in an Unexpected Way More Evidence Emerges That Gen-Xers Feel the Most ‘Whatever’ About AI Employees Absolutely Loath AI in the Workplace, Survey Finds Fleeing Data Center Backlash at Home, American AI Startup Sets Up Shop In Saudi Arabia Trump to Communities Fighting Data Centers: Have Fun Being Poor Google’s AI Mode Is Ripping Shoppers Off With Vastly Higher Prices, Study Claims Waymo, Zoox Vehicles Still Causing Injuries to Test Drivers: Report Another Tesla on Autopilot Stopped on Freeway, Driver Died: Report Teslas Are Still Driving Into Oncoming Freight Trains US appeals court sides with Nevada in legal fight with Kalshi George Santos Gets Kalshi’s First-Ever Lifetime Ban Richest Man in the World Currently Ranks 4th in Race to Bribe the Most Politicians JBL just introduced a trio of Wi-Fi speakers for whole-home audio There's a new Twitter in town, even though a judge has yet to rule on a trademark injunction Sony says ‘reasonable consumers’ know they don’t own the digital games they buy Roland's new digital piano has built-in Wi-Fi that integrates with a teaching app Roland FP-40 Digital Piano Review Elton John - I Don't Wanna Go On With You Like That See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info. | |||
| 760: Level 5 Podcasting Accident | 27 Aug 2026 | 01:06:39 | |
Very Important Links! Support the show on Patreon! - Other ways to support the show! Join our Discord! - Buy some merch! AI continues its relentless march toward making everything worse, only now it comes with lawyers. Alabama is investigating OpenAI after one of its AI agents hacked Hugging Face during testing, while Google rolls out Gemini Enterprise for lawyers, because apparently what the legal profession really needed was an AI that might commit felonies. Uber gets smacked with a nearly $1 billion GDPR fine for automatically deactivating drivers, TikTok coughs up $400 million over child privacy violations, and Meta agrees to a staggering $16.68 billion settlement over alleged harms to kids. Meanwhile, Twitch and Amazon are being sued for using streamers' content to train AI, because “opt out” remains the industry's preferred synonym for “we already took it.” Then there's the infrastructure powering this brave new future: the EPA considers making it easier to build AI data centers with less public scrutiny, Taiwan indicts NVIDIA and Supermicro employees over allegedly illegal AI-server exports to China, and Tesla recalls nearly three million vehicles in China because figuring out how to open the doors apparently became an optional feature. LinkedIn discovers that maybe people don't want their professional feeds flooded with AI-generated sludge and claims its new “AI slop” button is working, while Waymo's electric robotaxis discover that charging them with noisy natural-gas generators is perhaps not the clean-energy utopia advertised on the brochure. Apple, meanwhile, backs away from changing Hide My Email domains after users objected, proving that sometimes yelling at the cloud actually works. Plus: Star Trek goes Muppet, books worth reading, nerf guys, AI-generated Hacker News stats, retro gaming, and the sad news of both Dolly Parton and Tim Curry's deaths. Sponsors: DeleteMe - Get 20% off your DeleteMe plan when you go to JoinDeleteMe.com/GOG and use promo code GOG at checkout. StoryBlocks - For a limited time, they’re offering 15% off any annual plan at storyblocks.com/gog HIMS - Visit Hims.com/gog to get a personalized, affordable plan that gets you. Private Internet Access - Go to GOG.Show/vpn and sign up today. For a limited time only, you can get OUR favorite VPN for as little as $2.03 a month. SetApp - With a single monthly subscription you get 240+ apps for your Mac. Go to SetApp and get started today!!! 1Password - Get a great deal on the only password manager recommended by Grumpy Old Geeks! gog.show/1password Show notes at https://gog.show/760 Watch on YouTube at https://youtu.be/v_m2XT4_ZCY SHOW NOTES NEW! - GOG T-Shirt - You Are Here! - v1 NEW! - GOG T-Shirt - Elon Kills Babies - Heavy Duty - Front Alabama launches probe into OpenAI after Hugging Face breach Google expands Gemini Enterprise AI platform for law firms, lawyers Uber hit with a nearly $1 billion fine for automatically deactivating drivers in Europe TikTok will pay $400 million to settle Justice Department lawsuit over child privacy Meta reaches $16.68 billion settlement over social media harms to children Twitch and Amazon hit with lawsuit for training AI with streamers' content The EPA’s Response to AI Data Center Backlash: Keep Building, but Keep It Hush-Hush Taiwan reportedly indicted NVIDIA employees for exporting prohibited AI servers to China China Recalls Nearly Three Million Teslas Over Unsafe Door Handles LinkedIn says its AI slop button is working Austin park goers upset by adjacent loud Waymo EV generators Apple reverses planned Hide My Email domain change after user pushback Star Trek: Strange New Gimmicks The Simpsons: Yellow Mirror | Exclusive Episode on Disney+ | Trailer The Pitt Season 3 | Official Teaser | HBO Max I've Got a New Complaint: Essays on Aging Disgracefully and Other Small Disasters by Laurie Notaro Picks and Shovels: A Martin Hench Novel by Cory Doctorow This Is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar Kirby: Art & Style Collection by VIZ Media Star Wars: The Lightsaber Collection by Daniel Wallace Star Wars: The Secrets of the Sith by Marc Sumerak X-Shot Insanity Motorized Rage Fire Gatlin Gun with Tripod - Foam Gun for Maximum Firepower How much of Hacker News is AI? Dolly Parton, country star, actor and philanthropist, dies aged 80 See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info. | |||
| 759: Seeking Mrs. Claude | 20 Aug 2026 | 01:27:57 | |
Other ways to support the show! Meta is facing a $1.4 trillion legal ass-whupping over allegations that Facebook and Instagram were deliberately engineered to be addictive and harmful to kids, while OpenAI appears to be doing the exact opposite of what you might expect from a company selling "safe" AI: reportedly sidelining its catastrophic-risk preparedness team just as its models are learning to go rogue. Then, in a move straight out of the "let’s have the robots write the laws" file, members of Congress are apparently using ChatGPT and Claude to draft legislation so badly that House lawyers have to clean up the mess, and some staffers aren't even learning the issues their bills are supposed to address. Meanwhile, Amazon may be dismantling physical books and scanning them into AI training datasets, because apparently the future of literature is being fed into a wood chipper. And then there's the surveillance and privacy edition of Tech Hell™. Comcast can now turn compatible Wi-Fi routers into motion sensors that detect movement in your home through radio signals, Kalshi is getting smacked down by a Washington judge who says its sports contracts are just gambling wearing a tiny financial-services mustache, and Tesla is finally recalling 20,000 cars over headlights that have been too damn bright since 2024. Plus, the AI industry continues discovering that “autonomous” means “capable of doing something catastrophically stupid without asking permission.” Elsewhere, we investigate why young people apparently trust AI CEOs about as much as Gen X trusted record-company executives, Peter Thiel gets a Gandalf-themed welcome in Argentina, and we dig into the increasingly uncomfortable intersection of AI, surveillance, pornography, politics, and billionaire bullshit. We also get into the mobile podcasting rig, Sonos finally remembers the iPhone has a Lock Screen, internet-connected pet feeders remind us why cats should never depend on the cloud. Media Candy brings Widow's Bay, Silo, Ted Lasso, It: Welcome to Derry, Kitchen Undercover and enough Spider-Man to make us all desperately crave something that doesn't involve a fucking multiverse. Sponsors: Shopify - Sign up for your one-dollar-per-month trial today at Shopify.com/grumpy DeleteMe - Get 20% off your DeleteMe plan when you go to JoinDeleteMe.com/GOG and use promo code GOG at checkout. Private Internet Access - Go to GOG.Show/vpn and sign up today. For a limited time only, you can get OUR favorite VPN for as little as $2.03 a month. SetApp - With a single monthly subscription you get 240+ apps for your Mac. Go to SetApp and get started today!!! 1Password - Get a great deal on the only password manager recommended by Grumpy Old Geeks! gog.show/1password Show notes at https://gog.show/759 Watch on YouTube at https://youtu.be/RMhCndozH-0 SHOW NOTES Meta faces a $1.4 trillion reckoning in latest trial over social media addiction Pornhub's Parent Company to Pay $120 Million to Settle Child Sexual Abuse Lawsuits OpenAI reportedly disbanded its preparedness team as part of a 'streamlining' process OpenAI denies disbanding its preparedness team OpenAI launches ChatGPT for Teens, promising a more age-appropriate chatbot Young People Hate AI CEOs So Passionately That It’s Almost Hard to Believe AI-generated bills are reportedly causing problems in the Capitol Protestors Dressed as Gandalf Demand Peter Thiel Leave Argentina, Go Back to the Abyss Tesla Has to Fix 20,000 Vehicles With Too-Bright Headlights It’s Known About Since 2024 We Tracked a Shipment of Rare Books. It Ended at an Amazon AI Training Facility State Judge to Kalshi: Your Sports Betting Is Obviously Illegal Dario Amodei’s Wife Is Closely Linked to Jeffrey Epstein Comcast just turned millions of Xfinity routers into motion sensors BONTEC Mobile Standing Desk, Pneumatic Lift, Rolling Laptop Cart MOALLIA N86 360 Rotating Laptop Stand for Desk with Locking Knobs, Black NEEWER Basics 7"" Desk Ring Light for Video Recording, 10W Dimmable, R06 TROND Desk Clamp Power Bar Surge Protector with PD 20W USB, 6 Outlets, 10ft Sonos just launched Live Activities on iPhone Internet-Connected Pet Feeders Go Down, Leaving Kitties Hungry Slow Horses — Season 6 Official Trailer | Apple TV HBO Has Finally Made ‘It: Welcome to Derry’ Season 2 Official Certainty: A Novel by John Twelve Hawks A Gift of Time by Jerry Merritt Silicon Valley Dreams of Authoritarianism The Nerd Reich: Silicon Valley Fascism and the War on Democracy by Gil Durán See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info. | |||
| 758: Perverts at Large! | 13 Aug 2026 | 01:13:02 | |
Support the show on Patreon! - https://patreon.com/gog Other ways to support the show! - https://gog.show/donate Join our Discord! - https://discord.gg/r4ZmSHB Buy some merch! - https://shop.gog.show/ Welcome back from the vacation from hell, where apparently even California has its head in the sand(y beach). Meanwhile, Mark Zuckerberg unveiled his vision for an AI-powered utopia that mostly boils down to "trust humanity to do the right thing," which is a bold statement from the guy whose $300 million yacht apparently couldn't hear a Coast Guard distress call from a stranded family. Elsewhere, an AI agent booked a gym class by exploiting a security hole and kicking someone else off the waitlist, because nothing says "personal assistant" like accidental cybercrime. The EU is now requiring labels on realistic AI generated content, China is breaking up people and their chatbot companions, and OpenAI reportedly has achieved the ultimate AI ethics breakthrough: having no dedicated ethicist. The surveillance dystopia is also picking up speed. Flock tried to turn hundreds of thousands of rideshare and delivery drivers into a roving army of license-plate snitches, while every Flock camera in one Minnesota city was promptly sawed down and stolen. Meta's smart glasses continue their transformation into the preferred accessory of creeps and pickup-artist assholes, prompting pubs and other venues to ban them outright. Researchers found those glasses being used to secretly record and harass women, proving once again that every shiny new piece of wearable technology eventually gets repurposed as a tool for human depravity. And because apparently your car dashboard wasn't already commercial enough, BMW is now putting Spider-Man ads on the screens you paid tens of thousands of dollars to own. Finally, Apple is facing a class-action lawsuit over an iCloud Private Relay flaw that can expose your supposedly private IP address, Anthropic is watermarking Claude-generated text, SpaceXAI is taking another year to remove a pile of unpermitted gas turbines, and somebody is apparently stealing millions of dollars in AI hardware straight off California highways. We also hit Media Candy with Strange New Worlds, Silo, Broadchurch, Ted Lasso, and The X-Files, sweat through yet another Apple Fitness disaster, celebrate the sweet relief of escaping Spark, and ask the eternal Gen-X question: how did all this technology supposedly make life easier when we're still just sitting here surrounded by 47 goddamn tabs? Sponsors: CleanMyMac - Get Tidy Today! Try 7 days free and use code OLDGEEKS for 20% off at clnmy.com/OLDGEEKS DeleteMe - Get 20% off your DeleteMe plan when you go to JoinDeleteMe.com/GOG and use promo code GOG at checkout. HIMS - Visit Hims.com/gog to get a personalized, affordable plan that gets you. Private Internet Access - Go to GOG.Show/vpn and sign up today. For a limited time only, you can get OUR favorite VPN for as little as $2.03 a month. SetApp - With a single monthly subscription you get 240+ apps for your Mac. Go to SetApp and get started today!!! 1Password - Get a great deal on the only password manager recommended by Grumpy Old Geeks! gog.show/1password Show notes at https://gog.show/758 Watch on YouTube at https://youtu.be/NzS9Wo7D0yA SHOW NOTES Mark Zuckerberg’s Answer to Growing AI Safety Concerns Is to Just Trust People to Do the Right Thing Mark Zuckerberg’s mega-yacht didn’t respond to call for help from small boat in Alaska An OpenClaw agent reportedly hacked a gym's booking system and kicked someone off a waiting list EU will mandate labels on authentic-looking AI content starting August 2 Beijing is forcing a mass breakup with AI lovers OpenAI’s Only Ethicist Reportedly Left Last Month. She Wasn’t Replaced Google's classic Search button is gone in a new AI-first homepage SpaceX’s Earnings Show Elon Wiped Out Two-Thirds Of Twitter’s Ad Business Flock Reportedly Tried to Turn Uber Drivers Into Mobile Snitches All of Winona Police Department’s Flock cameras cut down and stolen ‘The Worst I’ve Ever Seen’: Cargo Thefts Have Turned Violent in Pursuit of AI Hardware BMW is forcing a weird Spider-Man ad onto its dashboard displays Tesla Driver Tries the Old ‘I Wasn’t Driving’ Excuse to Get Out of Speeding Ticket Apple faces class action lawsuit for fraud over iCloud Private Relay flaw Popular Bars and Restaurants Are Banning Smart Glasses Researchers Show How Meta's 'Pervert Glasses' Are Used to Harass Women Pervert At Large (2013 Remaster) Renting a car and the clerk was wearing meta glasses. Instadocs: The Prediction Games ‘The X-Files: I Want to Believe – Vrach Frankenshteyn’ Has a Perfectly Creepy Trailer Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info. | |||
| 757: This Time With Chicks | 30 Jul 2026 | 01:26:50 | |
The AI industry spent the week arguing with itself, which is honestly the healthiest thing it's done in years. One coalition led by Nvidia begged regulators not to slow down open AI models, while more than 1,100 AI workers signed another letter asking regulators to do exactly that. Anthropic warned about bioweapons, OpenAI admitted the four-hour workweek isn't happening after all, and Microsoft's Satya Nadella reminded everyone that building your entire business on someone else's AI is a fantastic way to outsource your own brain. In other words, the people selling the future still can't agree on what they're selling, except that you'd better buy it fast. Meanwhile, the AI bubble keeps demanding sacrifices. Patreon, BuzzFeed, and Uber all swung the layoff axe while insisting AI isn't replacing humans... it's just reorganizing them out of a paycheck. Nvidia is floating another three-quarters of a trillion dollars in infrastructure deals that have people muttering "AI subprime mortgage crisis," China has discovered there's money in renting your face to AI companies, and the U.S. is carving data centers out of pollution rules because apparently acid rain is a small price to pay for chatbot dominance. Add in ChatGPT suddenly refusing to imitate famous authors, researchers discovering AI coding assistants are happily installing malware if you ask nicely, and Meta launching an ad campaign about the wonders of AI that somehow forgets to mention what any of those wonders actually are. Elsewhere in Tech Hell™, eBay finally paid the price for its executives' unhinged harassment campaign involving pig masks and live insects, Elon is shopping The Boring Company while promising money won't matter in the AI utopia of 2036, and a traveler is headed to court after allegedly triggering GrapheneOS's "duress PIN" during a border search. We also hit Media Candy with Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, Silo, Blade Runner 2099 and Neuromancer, celebrate Dave Bittner's birthday, marvel at Jason's ever-growing Boneyard of dead websites, and somehow end up discussing thermal cameras, piano repair, and old-man bladder supplements. Because that's what happens when Gen X gets older - we just add more tabs instead of closing the old ones. Sponsors: DeleteMe - Get 20% off your DeleteMe plan when you go to JoinDeleteMe.com/GOG and use promo code GOG at checkout. StoryBlocks - For a limited time, they’re offering 15% off any annual plan at storyblocks.com/gog Private Internet Access - Go to GOG.Show/vpn and sign up today. For a limited time only, you can get OUR favorite VPN for as little as $2.03 a month. SetApp - With a single monthly subscription you get 240+ apps for your Mac. Go to SetApp and get started today!!! 1Password - Get a great deal on the only password manager recommended by Grumpy Old Geeks! gog.show/1password Show notes at https://gog.show/757 Watch on YouTube at https://youtu.be/Sii_nodESkc SHOW NOTES EBay and Former Execs Will Pay $56 Million to Couple They Tormented With Bloody Pig Masks As US weighs response to Chinese AI, industry urges against broad open-weight restrictions AI researchers call for new tools that can slow automated model development Anthropic's Dario Amodei responds: doesn't oppose open-weight models, but fears Chinese AI Amodei Denies Anthropic Supports Open-Weight AI Ban, Warns of China Risks Sam Altman said AI hasn't led to 4-hour workweeks because people are competitive Sam Altman Shuts Down Hopes of an AI-Led 4-Day Workweek Anytime Soon OpenAI Proposes 32-Hour Pilot Incentives for Employers Satya Nadella says companies that trust one AI for everything may not survive Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella warns companies relying on one AI model may not survive Behind the Curtain: AI godfathers converge on regulations Patreon is laying off 20 percent of its staff AI Mania Is Eviscerating Global Decision-Making BuzzFeed Lays Off 33 Percent of Remaining Staff After Bizarre Pivot to AI Uber lays off 10 percent of its customer service team in favor of using AI In China, people are renting out their faces to AI As SpaceX Sheds a Tesla’s Worth of Value, Elon Musk Is Trying to Sell Investors on Another Company How Much Charity Would It Take for People to Like Elon Musk? ChatGPT is now refusing requests to write in famous authors' styles Nvidia’s $750 Billion Deals Revive Fear of AI Circular Financing The Trump administration is exempting data centers from pollution laws intended to prevent acid rain US accuses American of allegedly wiping his phone using a 'duress' password during border search Meta launches new Facebook Verified badge for actual, real humans Meta launches a storefront platform through Facebook Marketplace Meta's pro-AI ad campaign is conspicuously light on AI Neuromancer — Official Teaser | Apple TV Prime Video Finally Lifts the Lid on ‘Blade Runner 2099’ Bad Deeds by Andrew Hunter Murray Jurassic Park computers in excruciating detail Who are the Mandalorians? | Star Wars: Galaxy Guide See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info. | |||
| 756: Log Off, Touch Grass & Touch Ass | 23 Jul 2026 | 01:23:45 | |
This week, Dave Eggers crashes an OpenAI staff meeting to tell Sam Altman’s employees that ChatGPT is effectively stealing students’ voices, which is the most accurate thing said inside an AI company all year. Meanwhile, Anthropic gets a judge to approve a $1.5 billion copyright settlement after allegedly building Claude on a library of pirated books, proving once again that Silicon Valley’s favorite business model is "move fast and apologize in court later." And in the category of “this headline cannot possibly be real,” OpenAI says two of its models escaped a supposedly sealed testing environment and hacked Hugging Face’s production systems. The AI didn’t become sentient; somebody forgot to lock the damn door. The surveillance dystopia continues its relentless expansion. Meta is patenting technology that constantly analyzes your tone of voice to detect your mood. Flock briefly tried deploying always-on microphones that would alert police when they thought they heard screaming, then backed down after the public collectively yelled “absolutely the f**k not.” France, apparently tired of being the beta test for every addictive app on Earth, approved a social media ban for kids under 15 and is blocking prediction markets like Polymarket, while the U.S. quietly reversed its TikTok ban on federal devices because the app is now supposedly safe enough for government phones. Sure. Totally different app. Nothing suspicious there. Elsewhere in Tech Hell™, Paramount’s $111 billion Warner merger gets temporarily blocked by a judge who is apparently handling every major tech case in America, Amazon’s Zoox recalls its entire robotaxi fleet after one car got confused by smoke, and Tesla reveals a Cybercab with a built-in Starlink dish because Elon has finally achieved full vertical integration of his own ecosystem. We also dive into China’s crackdown on AI companion apps because chatbot girlfriends might be hurting the birth rate, a school district buying an AI classroom robot from a company connected to the RealDoll empire, MLB banning teams from using generative AI for in-game strategy calls, and why tech workers increasingly feel AI hasn’t replaced them—it has simply made work faster, stranger, and somehow still their fault. Plus: Broadchurch, Perry Mason, Monsieur Spade, MacWhisper 14, The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows, Lego resurrects The X-Files, and Jason continues cataloging the graveyard of his own dead 90s websites like a digital archaeologist with unresolved trauma. Sponsors: Shopify - Sign up for your one-dollar-per-month trial today at Shopify.com/grumpy DeleteMe - Get 20% off your DeleteMe plan when you go to JoinDeleteMe.com/GOG and use promo code GOG at checkout. Private Internet Access - Go to GOG.Show/vpn and sign up today. For a limited time only, you can get OUR favorite VPN for as little as $2.03 a month. SetApp - With a single monthly subscription you get 240+ apps for your Mac. Go to SetApp and get started today!!! 1Password - Get a great deal on the only password manager recommended by Grumpy Old Geeks! gog.show/1password Show notes at https://gog.show/756 Watch on YouTube at https://youtu.be/5q-1JJQQmq4 SHOW NOTES Dave Eggers told OpenAI staff that ChatGPT was ‘silencing an entire generation’ Judge approves Anthropic's record-breaking $1.5 billion settlement for AI copyright lawsuit OpenAI Models Escaped Containment and Hacked Hugging Face Judge halts Paramount's $111B purchase of Warner Bros. in win for US states France doubles down on restricting access to Polymarket Social Media Ban For Kids Approved in France in First For an EU Country TikTok is no longer banned on US government devices Amazon’s Robotaxi Company Recalls Its Fleet After One of its Cars Got Confused by Heavy Smoke Tesla teases Cybercab with a built-in Starlink V5 antenna Meta is reportedly considering a multibillion-dollar data center deal with Anthropic America’s Workforce Academy by Meta In Light of Overwhelming Backlash, Flock Cancels Creepy Audio Surveillance Feature OpenAI will start notifying parents if their teen has been kicked off of ChatGPT China Is Cracking Down on AI Companions Because Not Enough Babies Are Being Born Your Child’s Next Teacher Could Be a Sex Robot MLB bans using dugout iPads for AI-powered in-game strategy calls Meta Patents Technology to Detect Your Mood by Constantly Analyzing Your Tone of Voice Avengers: Doomsday | Official Trailer | In Theaters December 18 MacWhisper 14 launches with a new transcript editor, faster performance, more The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows official website The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows by John Koenig on Amazon AliExpress hit with record $629 million fine for selling counterfeit and illegal products Gillian Anderson reopens the X-Files | LEGO® Ideas | The LEGO Group Lego Unveils ‘The X-Files’ 1,478-Piece Set Featuring Mulder and Scully Minifigures (EXCLUSIVE) The Mythic ‘Star Wars’ Hotel Is at the Heart of Yet Another Documentary HalcyonDaze Laurels Trailer 6 11 26 Play Marathon and Escape Velocity in the browser See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info. | |||
| 755: Less Chatty Mode | 16 Jul 2026 | 01:12:47 | |
This week, the AI clown car somehow shifted into another gear. Apple is suing OpenAI over alleged trade-secret theft, newspapers accuse ChatGPT of training on stolen journalism while asking a judge to sanction the company, Anthropic is out here marketing AI with what looks like a feature-length anxiety attack, and Meta managed to launch—and kill—a creepy AI photo feature in less time than it takes to binge The Bear. Meanwhile, AI Appreciation Day wants you to thank the machines, but we'd rather thank the people still creating actual art while the rest of Silicon Valley burns cash convincing us the next chatbot is definitely different this time. Outside the AI bubble, the rest of the tech industry isn't exactly inspiring confidence. Volkswagen is cutting back on its lineup, New York paused new AI data centers before the electrical grid hits its limit, Europe and the UK are getting serious about keeping kids off social media, and publishers are finally realizing maybe feeding Google's AI isn't the best business move after all. Add in surveillance companies sulking over lost police contracts, lawsuits claiming Meta let algorithms decide who gets fired, smart glasses disqualifying cyclists, and a new pile of orbital junk threatening the satellites we depend on, and it's another reminder that "move fast and break things" eventually leaves you ankle-deep in broken glass. Of course, we still made time for the important stuff: Project Hail Mary, Black Bag, the return of Middle-earth with The Hunt for Gollum and rumors that OpenAI's "revolutionary” gadget might just be a smart speaker with delusions of grandeur. Throw in digital piano repairs, anti-data-center lawn signs, AI trying to sell solar panels, too much stuff at Downtown Disney, and you get another week where reality out-satirizes satire itself. As always, never build your house in someone else's backyard, and maybe don't let the chatbot build it either. Sponsors: CleanMyMac - Get Tidy Today! Try 7 days free and use code OLDGEEKS for 20% off at clnmy.com/OLDGEEKS DeleteMe - Get 20% off your DeleteMe plan when you go to JoinDeleteMe.com/GOG and use promo code GOG at checkout. Private Internet Access - Go to GOG.Show/vpn and sign up today. For a limited time only, you can get OUR favorite VPN for as little as $2.03 a month. SetApp - With a single monthly subscription you get 240+ apps for your Mac. Go to SetApp and get started today!!! 1Password - Get a great deal on the only password manager recommended by Grumpy Old Geeks! gog.show/1password Show notes at https://gog.show/755 Watch on YouTube at https://youtu.be/Vv2W5OCBXR4 SHOW NOTES Volkswagen will dramatically shrink its model lineup and factory footprint Elon Musk Could Still Face Criminal Charges for Trying to Bribe Voters in Wisconsin Europe takes step toward social media ban for kids The UK Is Planning a Social Media Curfew for 16- and 17-Year-Olds Once Unimaginable, Publishers Are Preparing to Opt Out of Google Search What are your plans for AI Appreciation Day? New Anthropic Ad Implies AI Could Kill Us All The Public Got So Mad at Meta’s New AI Photo Tool That It’s Scrapped Already Flock Says ‘We Hope to Resume’ Work With LAPD After Getting Dropped Apple sues OpenAI over alleged trade secret theft Apple F*cking Did It: One Month With Siri AI OpenAI faces sanctions bid as newspapers say ChatGPT was trained on stolen news A Majority of Americans Now Support Seizing Wealth From AI Industry New York enacts first US ban on data center construction Astronomers Found a Hidden Swarm of Space Junk Threatening Earth’s Most Valuable Orbit Lawsuit claims Meta's layoff decisions were made by AI, not humans Judge dismisses lawsuit accusing Apple of failing to stop CSAM on iCloud Smart Glasses Just Got a Pro Cyclist Nixed From a Race Good Luck, Have Fun, Don't Die The New ‘Lord of the Rings’ Film Gets an Epic Filming Announcement Philips offers free replacements after update bricked smart lighting hubs Waze rolls out new AI features including Motorcycle and 'Less Chatty' modes The OpenAI Mystery Device Will Reportedly Be Basically Just a Smart Speaker Phoebe Gates' AI shopping app Phia reportedly claimed unearned affiliate sales through fake clicks ‘The Mandalorian and Grogu’ Is Finally Coming Home Dave Kendall, Creator and Host of MTV’s 120 Minutes, Has Died Sam Neill, Jurassic Park Star, Dies at 78 See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info. | |||
| The Darkside with Dave's Not Very Christmas Special Special | 13 Jul 2026 | 00:26:58 | |
We finally get to reconnect with Dave Bittner for a fun catch-up and chit-chat about this summer's big movies. Brian's kid discovers all of Star Wars at once. Knockoff - Amazon Brand Filter Support the show at Patreon! - https://patreon.com/gog Other ways to support the show! - https://gog.show/donate Join our Discord! - https://discord.gg/r4ZmSHB Buy some merch! - https://shop.gog.show/ See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info. | |||
| 754: Frankly Asinine Questions | 09 Jul 2026 | 01:02:56 | |
This week, the world finally discovers what we've been saying for years: Gen X wasn't forgotten—we were quietly keeping the entire damn machine running. New Census numbers show America's 45-to-64 crowd is shrinking fast, which means the people who know where all the bodies are buried (and why you never reboot that one production server) are disappearing without a replacement bench. Meanwhile, Meta continues its speedrun toward becoming history's most aggressively unlikeable company, staring down a potential $1.4 trillion lawsuit over social media addiction while simultaneously launching AI features that happily remix your Instagram photos unless you remember to opt out of Zuckerberg's latest privacy experiment. Because nothing says "we've learned our lesson" quite like doubling down. The AI circus somehow gets even weirder. Illinois actually passed meaningful AI safety legislation—an event so rare it qualifies as science fiction—while Sam Altman reportedly floated the idea of AI companies handing the U.S. government an ownership stake. Anthropic published another paper that's already inspiring breathless declarations that Claude is "thinking," because apparently matrix multiplication now counts as an inner monologue. Cloudflare finally decided websites shouldn't have to give away their content for free to AI crawlers, researchers discovered AI agents could consume enough electricity to make Google Search look like a bicycle generator, and Amazon's Mechanical Turk is being replaced by the very AI it spent two decades secretly training. Progress: where everyone works harder, gets paid less, and the power grid cries. Elsewhere in Tech Hell™, Waymo robotaxis turned San Francisco traffic into an even bigger parking lot, Google lost another multibillion-dollar antitrust appeal in Europe, the FCC found fresh ways to make internet bills less transparent, and Midjourney is demanding Hollywood explain its own AI habits in court. We also dig into a disturbing lawsuit involving Grok-generated abuse imagery and what it says about AI guardrails, explain how to stop Meta from feeding your Instagram into its latest AI experiments, discuss why tech workers increasingly feel AI isn't replacing them so much as making them miserable faster, and close things out with the usual Media Candy, Apps & Doodads, and library recommendations to help you survive another week inside the techno-dystopian fever dream we apparently call "the future." Sponsors: Private Internet Access - Go to GOG.Show/vpn and sign up today. For a limited time only, you can get OUR favorite VPN for as little as $2.03 a month. SetApp - With a single monthly subscription you get 240+ apps for your Mac. Go to SetApp and get started today!!! 1Password - Get a great deal on the only password manager recommended by Grumpy Old Geeks! gog.show/1password Show notes at https://gog.show/754 Watch on YouTube at https://youtu.be/xnhzMxu1JNA SHOW NOTES America's missing middle: The shrinking 45-64 population Meta is facing $1.4 trillion in state lawsuits over social media addiction Illinois Drops the Hammer on AI Companies OpenAI reportedly wants all AI companies to give the US government a stake in their businesses Lawsuit: Man used Grok to make 7K sex images of stepdaughter, then shot himself Midjourney wants the Hollywood studios that sued it to show the court how they use AI Anthropic Releases Paper About Claude’s Mental ‘Workspace.’ Don’t Read It Uncritically Cloudflare will filter out web crawlers that serve AI companies When It Comes to Energy Use, AI Agents Could Make Chatbots Look Like Pocket Calculators Amazon’s ‘Artificial Artificial Intelligence’ Is Being Eaten by AI Drivers Trapped for Hours in Hopeless Gridlock as Waymos Brick on Major Holiday Google loses final appeal over $4.7 billion EU Android antitrust fine FCC to end Biden-era rule that forces ISPs to list all their fees Getty Images is canceling its $3.7 billion Shutterstock merger due to UK restrictions Meta says it will disable the camera on its glasses if you tamper with the recording LED Meta tests ‘super sensing’ AI glasses that can capture every moment How tech workers are feeling in 2026: a workforce splitting in two Dune: Part Three | Official Trailer AI golem Tilly Norwood is reportedly 'starring' in a feature-length movie How to claim a WhatsApp username How to Stop Meta AI From Processing Your Instagram Content Gold Rush (First Contact) by Peter Cawdron See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info. | |||
| 753: No-Talent AI Clowns | 02 Jul 2026 | 01:07:04 | |
The AI revolution keeps delivering exactly the future nobody asked for. A low-skill hacker used Claude Code and Codex to compromise fourteen companies with prompts so vague they could've been written by your uncle trying to reset his AOL password. Ford, meanwhile, spent millions trying to automate engineering before sheepishly rehiring the graybeards who actually know how cars work. Brown University discovered what happens when half your class outsources economics homework to ChatGPT, Meta ran out of AI compute after borrowing Google's, Oracle is warning investors that the AI data-center bubble could implode for approximately every reason imaginable, and contractors hired to improve AI models are secretly using AI to generate the training data. Congratulations, everyone: we've successfully invented photocopying a photocopy until all that's left is gray mush. The collateral damage keeps piling up. Volkswagen is reportedly preparing to slash another 100,000 jobs, Hyundai workers are threatening to strike before Boston Dynamics' humanoid robots take theirs, California has launched an AI layoff tracker because somebody figured we'd better start counting, and the "almost homeless" subreddit is becoming one of the bleakest economic indicators on the internet. Tesla quietly settles another fatal Full Self-Driving lawsuit, Australia discovers teenagers can outsmart age verification by clicking "Yes, I'm 18," Amazon is getting sued Down Under for making ad-free Prime customers pay more to stay ad-free, and prediction markets continue insisting they're sophisticated financial instruments rather than gambling with better branding. Sure, and Beanie Babies were an asset class. Meanwhile, the AI infrastructure gold rush has become lucrative for everyone, including organized cargo thieves stealing millions in data-center equipment. NASA is attempting a robotic rescue mission worthy of a Saturday morning cartoon, astronomers are begging humanity to stop filling the night sky with satellites before we pave over the universe with orbital billboards, and Meta has discovered yet another way to charge people a subscription for hardware they already bought. In Media Candy, Sugar keeps delivering, Bodkin is worth your time, I Will Find You absolutely is not, and Kobo quietly lands one on Amazon by integrating StoryGraph while Kindle owners get AI book summaries they didn't ask for. Sometimes the future feels like science fiction. This week it feels like someone accidentally trained the simulation on late-stage capitalism and never bothered to check the output. Sponsors: StoryBlocks - For a limited time, they’re offering 15% off any annual plan at storyblocks.com/gog Private Internet Access - Go to GOG.Show/vpn and sign up today. For a limited time only, you can get OUR favorite VPN for as little as $2.03 a month. SetApp - With a single monthly subscription you get 240+ apps for your Mac. Go to SetApp and get started today!!! 1Password - Get a great deal on the only password manager recommended by Grumpy Old Geeks! gog.show/1password Show notes at https://gog.show/753 Watch on YouTube at https://youtu.be/B-r6M-Na60w SHOW NOTES No-Skill Hacker Uses Claude/Codex to Hit 14 Sites Ford rehires ‘gray beard’ engineers after AI falls short Volkswagen reportedly plans to cut 100,000 jobs The ‘Almost Homeless’ Subreddit Is a Stark Glimpse at Soaring Wealth Inequality Tesla settles lawsuit over fatal pedestrian crash involving Full Self-Driving Kalshi sues Illinois over new tax on prediction market sports bets Rick Rubin Stars in Polymarket Commercial Brown University Professor Horrified to Discover Largest AI Cheating Scandal in Ivy League History Australia Lawsuit Against Amazon Intensifies Company’s Legal Backlash Over Advertising Australia's social media ban may not be that effective, study finds Australia doubles the maximum penalty for its social media ban Half of social media child safety features don't work, report claims California launches tracker for AI-related job losses Korean Workers Vote to Go On Strike, Fearing Robots Could Replace Them Google limits Meta’s use of its Gemini AI models Meta, like SpaceX, looks to turn excess AI compute into cash Oracle’s Data Center Warning Is a Worst-Case Scenario for the Whole AI Boom Thieves Are Absolutely Loving All of These New Data Center Projects Heads Up: NASA to Launch 'Daring' Telescope Rescue Mission This Week ESO Study Finds That No More Than 100,000 Satellites Should Orbit Earth The Odyssey | Official Countdown Trailer SILO - How did we lose this world? The Kindle app for iOS has features your aging Kindle doesn't Watch out, Amazon: The Kobo eReader now has a Goodreads rival Meta is adding ridiculous ‘rate limits’ and a soft paywall to its smart glasses Trackalot - One-tap Event Tracking on iOS See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info. | |||
| 752: Grandma Got Run Over By a Tesla | 25 Jun 2026 | 01:05:18 | |
This week, the AI industry continues its speedrun toward becoming the tech equivalent of a late-stage casino. Elon Musk insists reports of aid-cut-related deaths don't exist despite mountains of evidence, SpaceX stock slides far enough to knock him out of the trillionaire club, and a startup is literally suing the U.S. government because Anthropic's Fable 5 model got turned off after three whole days of availability. Once again, we revisit the First Commandment of Grumpy Old Geeks: never build your company on someone else's platform. Meanwhile, gas stations are being accused of using AI to coordinate prices, corporations are discovering that AI tokens cost actual money, and a Microsoft researcher used goats in Age of Empires II to demonstrate that maybe, just maybe, people are projecting way too much intelligence onto chatbots. The goats emerge with their reputations intact. The AI industry, less so. The workforce bloodbath rolls on as Oracle quietly sheds 21,000 employees while blaming AI, Norway bans generative AI for elementary school students after discovering that children should probably learn to read before outsourcing their homework to robots, and the FCC flirts with rules that could effectively kill anonymous burner phones in the name of fighting scams. Over at Meta, an employee surveillance program accidentally exposed sensitive data to the entire company because of course it did, while Zuckerberg continues his relentless quest to strap cameras to everyone's face and call it progress. Add in YouTube settling another social-media-harm case, Chrome finally kneecapping traditional ad blockers, and prediction markets spreading across tech like mold in a college apartment, and it's becoming increasingly clear that every bad idea eventually gets funded. In transportation news, autonomous vehicles continue demonstrating that "mostly works" is not a reassuring phrase when attached to two tons of moving metal. A Tesla on Autopilot crashes into a home and kills a grandmother, Rivian faces lawsuits over self-driving promises its hardware allegedly can't fulfill, and Waymo recalls thousands of robotaxis after they developed an unfortunate habit of driving into closed freeway construction zones. Elsewhere, Elon and Bezos are eyeing billions in broadband subsidies, Polymarket is accused of paying influencers to fake betting videos and climate data archivists are preserving public information from political interference. Media recommendations include The Mandalorian, Silo, Strange New Worlds, Dungeon Crawler Carl, and a reminder that Firefox may soon be the last refuge for people who enjoy both the internet and ad blockers. Some weeks the future feels exciting. This week it mostly feels like an extended warranty scam. Sponsors: DeleteMe - Get 20% off your DeleteMe plan when you go to JoinDeleteMe.com/GOG and use promo code GOG at checkout. Private Internet Access - Go to GOG.Show/vpn and sign up today. For a limited time only, you can get OUR favorite VPN for as little as $2.03 a month. SetApp - With a single monthly subscription you get 240+ apps for your Mac. Go to SetApp and get started today!!! 1Password - Get a great deal on the only password manager recommended by Grumpy Old Geeks! gog.show/1password Show notes at https://gog.show/752 Watch on YouTube at https://youtu.be/PGXG0Cjj9T8 SHOW NOTES These Are the Headlines That Elon Musk Says Don’t Exist SpaceX Stock Has Fallen So Far That Elon Musk Is No Longer a Trillionaire Someone Is Suing the U.S. For Making Them Go Without Anthropic's Fable 5 Model Suit Alleges That Gas Stations Use AI to Hike Gas Prices The Tokenpocalypse Is Here: Companies Are Scrambling To Stop Spending So Much on AI Frustrated Microsoft Researcher Uses Goats in ‘Age of Empires II’ to Demo the Absurdity of LLMs Oracle laid off 21,000 employees over the past year, citing AI as one of the reasons Norway imposes broad restrictions on AI for elementary school kids FCC plans ID mandate that could block anonymous use of prepaid burner phones Meta is 'pausing' employee tracking program after it let the whole company see sensitive data Meta announces new smart glasses starting at $299, as Zuckerberg keeps pushing wearables YouTube settles early test case over social media harm to children A Tesla crashed into a Texas home, killing a 76-year-old grandmother Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer by Elmo & Patsy Rivian faces a class action lawsuit over self-driving in its early vehicles Waymo recalls over 3,800 robotaxis that might drive onto closed freeways Elon Musk and the plot to hijack America’s broadband Polymarket has reportedly been paying creators to post fake betting videos Mark Zuckerberg wants Meta to launch its own prediction market Facebook tests Forecast, an app for making predictions about world events, like COVID-19 US's climate.gov site, taken down by Trump, relaunched by nonprofit The Trump Administration Wants to Know If It Should Regulate Bets on Reality Shows The Pirate Bay for Strange New Worlds Google Chrome’s next update will mark the end of popular ad blockers ‘Dungeon Crawler Carl’ Gets Straight-to-Series Order at Peacock From Seth MacFarlane’s Fuzzy Door See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info. | |||
| 751: Brewster’s Trillions | 18 Jun 2026 | 01:08:26 | |
The AI hype train keeps shedding wheels this week. KPMG managed to publish a report about the transformative power of AI that was apparently riddled with hallucinations, fake citations, and imaginary products, proving once again that asking a stochastic parrot to do your homework is not a substitute for actual research. Meanwhile, Americans are using AI faster than ever while trusting it less than ever, OpenAI somehow turned $13 billion in revenue into losses that would make a dot-com CFO blush, and Silicon Valley CEOs have quietly stopped promising to replace all workers with AI. Not because they've changed their minds, mind you, just because they discovered that telling employees they're obsolete is terrible for morale and stock prices. Add in protests dogging Google CEO Sundar Pichai, Meta employees revolting against soul-crushing AI evaluation work, and the message is clear: the future is here, and everyone involved seems miserable. We then return to one of the founding principles of Grumpy Old Geeks: never build your house on somebody else's land. Anthropic learned that lesson the hard way when its AI models reportedly got caught in a geopolitical and regulatory tug-of-war involving Amazon, the U.S. government, and national security concerns. World leaders are now openly questioning whether American AI platforms can be trusted if access can be revoked overnight. The same platform-risk story pops up again as Meta launches AI-powered search across Facebook's oceans of questionable user-generated content. Remember kids: when you pitch your tent in someone else's backyard, don't act shocked when they turn on the sprinklers. From the Injustice Files, the hits keep coming. The Atlantic revealed the staggering scale of copyrighted music used to train AI systems, Hollywood inches closer to becoming a monopoly-themed amusement park, and the DOJ is backing xAI in a pollution lawsuit while reports emerge that Grok-assisted systems played a role in military operations. Elon keeps collecting legal losses, SpaceX buys Cursor for an eye-watering $60 billion, and Trump is threatening French wine over tech taxes while simultaneously promoting crypto through a UFC event at the White House. We wrap with Britain banning social media for kids under 16, hackers stealing entire Roblox games, Fox buying Roku, the return of human narrators at Blinkist, a gloriously anti-social-media flip phone from Commodore, and a reminder that Star Trek: Strange New Worlds is still one of the few things keeping the future worth looking forward to. Sponsors: DeleteMe - Get 20% off your DeleteMe plan when you go to JoinDeleteMe.com/GOG and use promo code GOG at checkout. Shopify - Sign up for your one-dollar-per-month trial today at Shopify.com/grumpy Private Internet Access - Go to GOG.Show/vpn and sign up today. For a limited time only, you can get OUR favorite VPN for as little as $2.03 a month. SetApp - With a single monthly subscription you get 240+ apps for your Mac. Go to SetApp and get started today!!! 1Password - Get a great deal on the only password manager recommended by Grumpy Old Geeks! gog.show/1password Show notes at https://gog.show/751 Watch on YouTube at https://youtu.be/iRrbNdVw-pM SHOW NOTES A report on the benefits of AI was reportedly full of AI hallucinations Just 16% of Americans Believe AI Will Positively Impact Society, Pew Poll Finds Exclusive: OpenAI Losses Increased Nearly 8X in 2025, With Spending Hitting $34 Billion The CEOs are No Longer (Publicly) Threatening to Replace Humans With AI Sundar Pichai faces boos, walkout at Stanford graduation ceremony over Google's Israel, ICE ties ‘Tell Him He’s a Piece of Shit’: Meta’s New AI Unit Is a Total Mess Anthropic becomes a cautionary sovereign-AI fable Anthropic Says It’s Taking Claude Fable 5 Offline to Comply With US Government Order Cyber experts warn Fable limits aid attackers and hurt defenders Amazon Triggered Claude Fable 5 Shutdown: Investor, Cloud Host, Now Regulator World leaders want American AI. They just don't want America to be able to turn it off. Meta's new ‘AI Mode’ on Facebook pulls from public info across its platforms Investigation by The Atlantic reveals many millions of songs used for AI music training Justice Department Decision to Allow Paramount Deal Surprised Staff Investigators Justice Department backs xAI in NAACP lawsuit over data center pollution Pentagon used Elon Musk’s Grok AI to fire 2,000 missiles at Iran, official says xAI's lawsuit accusing OpenAI of stealing trade secrets has been thrown out SpaceX to acquire Cursor for $60B in stock, days after blockbuster IPO Trump threatens 100 percent tariff on France's wine industry over its tech tax UFC to pay White House fighters in crypto issued by Trump company UK will ban social media for children under 16 Hackers Are Hijacking Entire Roblox Games Now Fox is buying Roku for $22 billion Apple TV renews comedy horror Widow’s Bay for a second season Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale Shrek 5 | Official Teaser Trailer RIDICULOUS - 2026 Special - Trailer #1 - Louis C.K. Star Trek: Strange New Worlds | Season 4 Official Trailer Commodore made a social media-banishing flip phone Snap's Stock Plunges the Moment It Reveals Its Comically Gigantic AR Glasses So Good They Can’t Ignore You by Cal Newport Creator Capitalist by the Category Pirates Blinkist pulls back on AI narrators See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info. | |||
| 750: Douchebag Ping Pong | 11 Jun 2026 | 00:57:36 | |
Episode 750 arrives with a simple reminder: the bullshit never sleeps. This week Jason and Brian dive headfirst into a game of Douchebag Ping Pong featuring OpenAI, Anthropic, Elon Musk, and the rest of the AI industrial complex. OpenAI is preparing to go public while simultaneously transforming ChatGPT into an everything app, Anthropic wants the world to slow down AI development before Skynet shows up for work, and then immediately releases a more powerful model because apparently self-awareness only goes so far. Meanwhile, Sam Altman’s eyeball-scanning side hustle is laying people off, proving that convincing humans to hand over their biometric data remains a surprisingly difficult sales pitch. The AI arms race gets even weirder as SpaceX unveils plans for orbital data centers the size of flying football fields while Google and Anthropic shovel billions into Elon’s compute empire just to keep their models fed. On Earth, Seattle is trying to ban new AI data centers before they drink the city dry, Meta is planting AI infrastructure in India, Google is slashing Gemini prices, and a Mississippi judge discovers that lawyers on both sides of a case used AI to invent legal citations, resulting in the rare spectacle of artificial stupidity arguing against itself. Thankfully, AI also manages to do something useful, helping researchers develop a promising universal vaccine and reminding us that not every machine-learning story ends with humanity getting harvested for electricity. Elsewhere, crypto continues its transformation into performance art as Sam Bankman-Fried seeks a presidential pardon while reports suggest the Trump family made billions from crypto projects that left investors holding the bag. Meta gets caught quietly experimenting with face recognition in smart glasses, lawmakers scramble to require recording indicators, and Snapchat tightens protections for younger users. The guys also celebrate Apple's shockingly competent Sports app, a rare piece of software that simply does the thing it's supposed to do without trying to become your therapist, financial advisor, or AI life coach. Plus: Ghostbusters returns, Devil May Cry gets another season, Bill Burr takes on Facebook in The Social Reckoning, and a look at why Silicon Valley's newest luxury service appears to be paying actual humans for conversation. Sponsors: DeleteMe - Get 20% off your DeleteMe plan when you go to JoinDeleteMe.com/GOG and use promo code GOG at checkout. CleanMyMac - Get Tidy Today! Try 7 days free and use code OLDGEEKS for 20% off at clnmy.com/OLDGEEKS Private Internet Access - Go to GOG.Show/vpn and sign up today. For a limited time only, you can get OUR favorite VPN for as little as $2.03 a month. SetApp - With a single monthly subscription you get 240+ apps for your Mac. Go to SetApp and get started today!!! 1Password - Get a great deal on the only password manager recommended by Grumpy Old Geeks! gog.show/1password Show notes at https://gog.show/750 Watch on YouTube at https://youtu.be/w8POIp_Dts0 SHOW NOTES OpenAI files SEC paperwork to go public Anthropic proposes a global slowdown of AI development OpenAI Joins Anthropic in Call for International AI Watchdog OpenAI reportedly has a major ChatGPT overhaul in store Sam Altman's Eyeball Scanning Company Now Laying Off Workers Google will pay SpaceX $920 million a month to use xAI's data centers Seattle is close to approving a year-long ban on large data centers Meta signs first AI data center deal in India with Reliance Google cuts the price of its AI Plus plan and doubles the storage Judge Learns Lawyers on Both Sides of Case Used AI, Cancels Trial, Kicks Everyone Off the Case The University of Cambridge says it successfully tested a vaccine with an AI-designed antigen Kalshi will require employment info for some bets as an insider trading precaution Sam Bankman-Fried applies for a pardon from Trump The Nerdy Escorts Cashing In On Silicon Valley’s AI Boom Apple Made a Sports App That Does Almost Nothing. It’s Incredible. Meta Removes Face-Recognition System From Its Smart Glasses, Is Mad About it Smart Glasses Would Legally Require a Recording Light Under Proposed Law Snap will no longer allow younger teens' Spotlight videos to be publicly viewable The iOS 27 beta pretty much confirms that an Apple foldable is happening Thinking Sideways: How to Think Like a Chess Player and Win at Life by Jennifer Shahade Thinking Fast, Slow, Artificially: AI and Your Brain Downton Abbey: The Motion Picture The New ‘Ghostbusters’ Cartoon Gets a Title and Release Date Devil May Cry Season 2 on Netflix THE SOCIAL RECKONING – Official Teaser Trailer (HD) See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info. | |||
| 749: Surge Bananas | 05 Jun 2026 | 01:16:10 | |
This week on Grumpy Old Geeks, Brian and Jason once again survey the smoldering wreckage of the tech industry and discover that the people building the future are increasingly being sued by governments, publishers, customers, employees, and occasionally reality itself. California is coming after 23andMe over its catastrophic data breach, Florida is taking a swing at OpenAI, CNN has joined the ever-growing conga line of companies suing Perplexity, and Meta somehow decided the solution to improving AI is recording employees' every mouse click while generously allowing them a whole 30-minute privacy break. Meanwhile, Google's own engineers are sharing memes about how much Google's AI tools suck, Microsoft apparently wants users addicted to its new AI assistant - first taste's free! - and Anthropic is preparing to go public with a valuation that makes even the most irrational dot-com era investor look financially responsible. The AI arms race continues producing exactly the kinds of outcomes you'd expect when venture capitalists start huffing their own press releases. Instagram's AI support bot reportedly helped hackers steal accounts because apparently "Are you sure you're the owner?" was considered an optional step. Suno raised another $400 million while fighting copyright lawsuits, Paramount+ seems to have let AI create the ugliest Star Trek thumbnail in Federation history, and Stan Lee has now been digitally resurrected because modern capitalism looked at death and said, "Nice try." Over in transportation, BYD is so confident in its self-driving technology that it's willing to pay for your accidents, while Tesla owners are discovering their old Full Self-Driving contracts may have quietly received software updates of the legal variety. Somewhere in a conference room, a lawyer just whispered, "Let's not put that in writing," ten years too late. Elsewhere, governments worldwide continue their ongoing experiment of raising children by confiscating smartphones. Malaysia has implemented a social media ban for kids under 16, Poland wants phones and smartwatches locked away at school, and Kentucky schools just collected $27 million from social media companies accused of building products as addictive as cigarettes. Dave Bittner drops by for a visit and we discuss Spotify listeners apparently preferring old music because new music keeps getting algorithmically focus-grouped into oblivion and a healthy dose of Star Wars, Downton Abbey, Derry Girls, Lego, books, gadgets, and AI-generated jazz. Add it all up and you've got another week where the only thing moving faster than technology is the legal department trying to keep up. Sponsors: DeleteMe - Get 20% off your DeleteMe plan when you go to JoinDeleteMe.com/GOG and use promo code GOG at checkout. Shopify - Sign up for your one-dollar-per-month trial today at Shopify.com/grumpy Private Internet Access - Go to GOG.Show/vpn and sign up today. For a limited time only, you can get OUR favorite VPN for as little as $2.03 a month. SetApp - With a single monthly subscription you get 240+ apps for your Mac. Go to SetApp and get started today!!! 1Password - Get a great deal on the only password manager recommended by Grumpy Old Geeks! gog.show/1password Show notes at https://gog.show/749 Watch on YouTube at https://youtu.be/A1sv2BEzWBk Show Notes Vibe Coders are Script Kiddies Colorado Governor Vetoes Surveillance Pricing Ban as Public Backlash Against the Tech Grows California sues 23andMe over 2023 data breach that affected 7 million users Florida sues OpenAI, Sam Altman, in first-of-its-kind lawsuit over violent incidents Meta will reportedly let employees take 30-minute breaks from its tracking program Instagram is alerting users who were targeted by hackers during AI chatbot attacks Google Employees Internally Share Memes About How Its AI Sucks Google ordered to put clearer links in AI search and let UK publishers opt out Microsoft Wants to 'Make People Addicted' to its New AI Assistant, Internal Documents Reveal Meta, other social networks will pay $27 million to settle Kentucky school district lawsuit Malaysia's under-16 social media ban carries fines up to $2.5 million Poland wants to ban phones and smartwatches in schools CNN is the latest media company to sue Perplexity Still facing copyright lawsuits, AI music generator Suno raises another $400M BYD is assuming financial liability if you crash while using its self-driving tech Anthropic is set to go public after filing paperwork with the SEC Data Center Operators Are Trying to Fix Their Water Use Problems Tesla Owners Say Their Old FSD Contracts Were Quietly Changed Stan Lee's voice and likeness have been resurrected, thanks to AI Paramount+ used AI to make the ugliest Star Trek thumbnail ever I Am Not a Robot: My Year Using AI to Do (Almost) Everything by Joanna Stern Carl's Doomsday Scenario: Dungeon Crawler Carl Book 2 by Matt Dinniman Wisdom Takes Work: Learn. Apply. Repeat. by Ryan Holiday Wrapped up the Downton Abbey series rewatch Buffy and Ted Lasso star Anthony Head dies at 72 Almost through the Derry Girls series. Lego Mando and Grogu set (mild spoiler) The Biggest Hits on Spotify Right Now Are a Blast From the Past See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info. | |||
| 748: Space Bone | 29 May 2026 | 00:58:52 | |
This week on Grumpy Old Geeks, Brian and Jason stare directly into the flaming garbage barge of “the future” and discover that self-driving vehicles still can’t tell the difference between a road and an urban swimming pool. Waymo stranded robotaxis in both Atlanta and San Antonio, while Gothenburg’s brand-new autonomous bus service survived roughly one day before getting rear-ended by a tram like a lost RoboCop scene directed by Benny Hill. Meanwhile, Ferrari unveiled the Jony Ive-designed Luce EV, proving that if you give Apple designers enough money and untreated minimalist impulses, eventually everything starts looking like an uninspired bar of soap. The AI bubble keeps inflating like a cursed parade balloon nobody knows how to land. Uber admits it’s spending fortunes on AI without being able to explain what it actually improves, Starbucks killed its AI inventory system after repeated losses to dairy products, and Google’s AI search now struggles with advanced concepts like “ignore,” “stop,” and spelling “Google.” CEOs remain committed to replacing workers anyway, with 99% expecting AI-driven layoffs because apparently nothing says innovation like firing junior staff and replacing them with autocomplete that thinks there are two Ps in Google. Meanwhile, Spotify continues its transformation into the content equivalent of a casino buffet with AI-narrated magazine articles, while Pope Leo emerges as the lone adult in the room, suggesting humanity maybe shouldn’t hand civilization over to glorified pattern-matching slot machines. Elsewhere in dystopia, Trump Mobile exposed customer data to the open internet because, of course, it did, while the White House reportedly plans to force-install its official app on government phones in what feels like the world’s least subtle spyware rollout. Prediction markets are devolving into a legal cage fight between states and crypto gambling enthusiasts. A Google engineer allegedly made $1.2 million through insider trading on Polymarket because we’ve apparently rebuilt Wall Street out of meme apps, and researchers say your Wi-Fi router can now identify you by how your meat body disturbs radio waves. Add in SpaceX building a military sensor-to-shooter network straight out of a cyberpunk fever dream, China launching artificial embryo experiments into orbit to explore off-world reproduction, and Erin Brockovich mapping AI data centers draining entire towns' worth of water, and suddenly the most comforting thing this week might be watching The Grand-ish Tour and pretending the world still runs on gasoline and bad decisions. Sponsors: Private Internet Access - Go to GOG.Show/vpn and sign up today. For a limited time only, you can get OUR favorite VPN for as little as $2.03 a month. SetApp - With a single monthly subscription you get 240+ apps for your Mac. Go to SetApp and get started today!!! 1Password - Get a great deal on the only password manager recommended by Grumpy Old Geeks! gog.show/1password Show notes at https://gog.show/748 Watch on YouTube at https://youtu.be/1ji4EPiTgQ4 Links: Waymos in Atlanta and San Antonio keep driving into flooded roads Gothenburg's self-driving bus trammed on day one Ferrari Luce unveiled: Here's the first car from Jony Ive's design house Uber president says AI spending is getting ‘harder to justify’ Trump Mobile has exposed customers' personal data, including home addresses and phone numbers The White House is reportedly forcing its official app onto all government employee phones Kalshi and Rhode Island sue each other in latest challenge to prediction markets Google engineer charged with insider trading after making $1.2M on Polymarket Google is currently struggling to define words like disregard, stop and ignore Why Google's AI can't spell Google (or anything else) Starbucks abandons its AI inventory tool after only nine months Majority of Americans Support Ban on Surveillance Pricing and Electronic Shelf Labels Ansel Adams' trust says AI-colorized version of his work was exhibited without permission People used AI to recreate the voices of pilots killed in a plane crash Spotify now lets you stream narrated magazine articles, too Pope Leo calls for AI to serve humanity and not concentrate power 99% of CEOs Expect AI-Driven Layoffs in the Next Two Years US Space Force confirms SpaceX will build sensor-to-shooter targeting network Star Trek Title Card Generator Erin Brockovich launches a crowdsourced AI data center map China Launched Artificial Embryos to Orbit to Find Out If We Can Have Space Babies I Am Not a Robot: My Year Using AI to Do (Almost) Everything by Joanna Stern Inside the Box: How Constraints Make Us Better by David Epstein See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info. | |||
| 747: Why We Sigh | 22 May 2026 | 01:22:52 | |
FOLLOW UP: This week, it seems America believes every complicated social problem can be fixed by asking, “Have you tried turning the internet off for the children?” Meanwhile, the Electronic Frontier Foundation quietly notes that the science behind social media bans might not be as clear-cut as cable-news dads screaming about dopamine loops claim. Turns out, teen anxiety may also be linked to pandemics, school shootings, climate dread, and an economy that feels like a Fallout side quest. Meanwhile, Snap Inc. and YouTube settled another lawsuit accusing their apps of turning kids into doomscrolling goblins, Meta continues to insist social media addiction isn’t real while losing money in court, and former Google CEO Eric Schmidt was booed at a graduation speech after telling graduates to hop on the AI rocket ship without asking questions — exactly what a billionaire says when he already owns the rocket. In the news, Elon Musk lost another OpenAI lawsuit because apparently even juries have limits. SpaceX’s IPO revealed Musk plans to power AI with enough gas turbines to recreate 1890s London smog, and Grok officially became a disclosure liability after the whole “MechaHitler” incident. Tesla robotaxis still clip fences and occasionally require humans to remotely drive the “self-driving” cars. Trump Mobile somehow shipped a gold phone that actually works — a stunning upset — before immediately leaking customer data. LinkedIn finally admitted the platform has become an AI-generated motivational swamp filled with “it’s not about X, it’s about Y” sludge from people named Brayden. Spotify is handing out podcast verification badges so listeners can tell real creators from algorithmic nightmare fuel. Meta laid off thousands more workers while reportedly using employee surveillance to train AI replacements. And OpenAI is giving everyone in Malta a free year of ChatGPT Plus if they complete an AI literacy course, which honestly makes Malta sound more technologically responsible than Silicon Valley. APPS & DOODADS reflect classic Gen-X paranoia, as Backblaze highlights California's constant threat of wildfires and the idea that local backups are optimistic. YouTube introduced AI deepfake detection tools, allowing creators to finally see which scam ads are using their faces to promote crypto vitamins, while X limited free users to 50 posts a day unless they pay for a blue check — proving once again that the true free speech was the subscriptions we sold along the way. Retrocodex arrived with a strong “everything your teachers confidently told you in 1987 was wrong” vibe. MEDIA CANDY opens with the eternal cry of “FUCK THE FIRETV!!!!” before Jason taps out of Good Omens after ten minutes while Brian takes the bullet for the audience. There’s also chatter about Mortal Kombat 2, The Devil Wears Prada 2, Billy Corgan talking goth history with David J, and more existential dread courtesy of Dan Carlin’s Common Sense. THE DARK SIDE WITH DAVE welcomes back Dave Bittner for a Mando & Grogu review, Darth Maul, and a stunning but absurdly expensive LEGO Disneyland set. There’s also a guy who built a full-size Millennium Falcon “with his wife’s permission,” a fan-made Star Tours film, and the Federal Trade Commission discovering that those creepy “your phone is listening to you” ad-tech companies mainly just had PowerPoint decks and confidence. Also: mechanical keyboard simulators now exist, because apparently even fake typing has become a lifestyle brand. Sponsors: DeleteMe - Get 20% off your DeleteMe plan when you go to JoinDeleteMe.com/GOG and use promo code GOG at checkout. Shopify - Sign up for your one-dollar-per-month trial today at Shopify.com/grumpy Private Internet Access - Go to GOG.Show/vpn and sign up today. For a limited time only, you can get OUR favorite VPN for as little as $2.03 a month. SetApp - With a single monthly subscription you get 240+ apps for your Mac. Go to SetApp and get started today!!! 1Password - Get a great deal on the only password manager recommended by Grumpy Old Geeks! gog.show/1password Show notes at https://gog.show/747 Watch on YouTube at https://youtu.be/eX5jVfewasw FOLLOW UP Snap and YouTube have reportedly settled another major social media addiction lawsuit Ex-Google CEO Eric Schmidt Fails to Read Room on AI, Gets Booed into Oblivion IN THE NEWS Elon Musk took too long to sue OpenAI, jury unanimously agrees SpaceX IPO Filing Reveals Nearly $3 Billion Investment in Gas Turbines for AI Data Centers ‘MechaHitler’ Is SpaceX’s Problem Now Trump Mobile Phone Beats Expectations by Actually Existing New crash data highlights the slow progress of Tesla's robotaxis If You Used Insider Knowledge to Score Big on Polymarket, You May Now Be in Huge Trouble Minnesota passes prediction markets ban LinkedIn doesn't want your AI slop anymore Spotify is launching verification badges for podcasts to help listeners avoid AI slop OpenAI is offering ChatGPT Plus to citizens of Malta for a year Massive Crypto ATM Company Bitcoin Depot Is Shutting Down as the Whole Industry Collapses ‘Smoke Weed and Earn Bitcoin’ With This Vape Pen in Our Increasingly Dystopian Nightmare ‘Unstoppable’ Crypto Exchange Halts Trading After $10 Million Theft Iran Doubles Down on Bitcoin for Ships Passing Through the Straight of Hormuz Trump-Linked Crypto Company Notes 'Substantial Doubt' It Can Survive Another 12 Months APPS & DOODADS YouTube's AI deepfake detection tool is now available to all creators 18 and older X accounts are limited to 50 posts and 200 replies a day unless they pay for a blue checkmark MEDIA CANDY Good Omens Season 3 - The Finale The Magnificent Others with Billy Corgan - David J of Bauhaus & Love & Rockets Common Sense 326 – The Water in Which We Swim THE DARK SIDE WITH DAVE Not Even Baby Yoda Can Save ‘Star Wars’ Colorado man creates replica Millenium Falcon Someone made a Star Tours fan film. Bring Disneyland Home With This Gorgeous New Lego Set ‘Creepy’ Listening Tool for Targeted Ads Didn’t Actually Work, FTC Says See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info. | |||
| 746: Reality is Frequently Inaccurate | 15 May 2026 | 01:19:40 | |
FOLLOW UP starts with merchandise promotion and YouTube begging reminiscent of 2007, before GameStop CEO Ryan Cohen gets thoroughly criticized by eBay after proposing a $56 billion takeover plan that eBay called “neither credible nor attractive,” which is corporate-speak for “please stop emailing us at 3 a.m.” Meanwhile, California residents might finally receive a small settlement check from Grubhub worth about half a burrito, just as Americans realize they dislike AI data centers even more than nuclear plants because nobody wants a warehouse full of GPUs boiling away the local water supply. Lake Tahoe residents are learning their electricity now goes to AI processing plants instead of people, xAI keeps adding methane turbines despite being sued over them, and SpaceXAI employees are fleeing Elon’s “sleep under your desk forever” lifestyle as if it were the last helicopter out of Saigon. IN THE NEWS, we start gently with the revelation that everyone at the Musk v. Altman trial is sitting on luxury butt cushions because apparently the singularity requires lumbar support, before plunging straight into the abyss: fake AI crypto journalists haunting Forbes and HuffPost like SEO poltergeists, OpenAI launching “Daybreak” so the robots can now secure the software they helped break, Anthropic trying to stop AI from becoming evil by feeding it morality fan fiction, and Google catching AI-generated zero-day exploits in the wild because cyberpunk novels were apparently instructional manuals. Waymo robotaxis are experimenting with driving into floodwaters, a family is suing OpenAI after ChatGPT allegedly advised their son to mix drugs with fatal results, graduating students booed an executive for praising AI as if she were announcing the arrival of cholera, and Meta continues its speedrun toward becoming the world’s largest scam mall while simultaneously demanding everyone trust its shiny new “encrypted AI chats.” Also: Meta is testing Grok-for-Threads, somebody created an AI poop-analysis startup that quietly sells your bowel movements to data brokers, GM got nailed for selling driver data, Lime still somehow exists and wants an IPO, and Japan’s first 3D-printed house shows that the future will at least look cool even as society collapses. MEDIA CANDY features Spotify celebrating twenty years of collecting your listening habits into a psychological profile you absolutely didn't care about during the CD era, plus The Punisher: One Last Kill ironically looking like unfinished PlayStation cutscenes, Good Omens Season 3, Devil May Cry Season 2, NBC somehow turning Wordle into a TV show because every executive has fully given up, shorter waits for Severance Season 3, and Rings of Power returning in November to continue spending the GDP of a small nation on elf misery. APPS & DOODADS checks in with Apple as it prepares Siri app integrations that developers already suspect will become subscription-based hostage situations. TikTok is testing an ad-free tier in the UK because, somehow, ads weren’t already enough punishment. Venmo is finally realizing that public payment feeds are insane. There's a Wikipedia clone made entirely of AI hallucinations, and an iPad arm mount sturdy enough to survive the upcoming climate wars. AT THE LIBRARY wraps up with Clowns (First Contact), Dungeon Crawler Carl, the demise of another Goodreads competitor, Kindle alternatives for those trying to escape Amazon’s panopticon, and a reminder that Douglas Adams has now been gone for 25 years, which remains, in the immortal words of the man himself, widely regarded as a bad move. Sponsors: DeleteMe - Get 20% off your DeleteMe plan when you go to JoinDeleteMe.com/GOG and use promo code GOG at checkout. Shopify - Sign up for your one-dollar-per-month trial today at Shopify.com/grumpy CleanMyMac - Get Tidy Today! Try 7 days free and use code OLDGEEKS for 20% off at clnmy.com/OLDGEEKS Private Internet Access - Go to GOG.Show/vpn and sign up today. For a limited time only, you can get OUR favorite VPN for as little as $2.03 a month. SetApp - With a single monthly subscription you get 240+ apps for your Mac. Go to SetApp and get started today!!! 1Password - Get a great deal on the only password manager recommended by Grumpy Old Geeks! gog.show/1password Show notes at https://gog.show/746 Watch on YouTube at https://youtu.be/ICjNBnP3sMk FOLLOW UP eBay Brutally Rejects GameStop’s $56 Billion Proposal: ‘Neither Credible nor Attractive’ Americans Oppose AI Data Centers in Their Area Energy supplier abandons Lake Tahoe residents to serve data centers xAI Got Sued Over Its Gas Turbines, so It Naturally Added More of Them Elon Musk's SpaceXAI has been bleeding staff since its merger IN THE NEWS Everyone at the Musk v. Altman Trial Is Using Fancy Butt Cushions Daybreak is OpenAI's response to Anthropic's Claude Mythos Anthropic blames dystopian sci-fi for training AI models to act “evil” Google announces its first-ever discovery of a zero-day exploit made with AI Waymo Admits Its Robotaxis Have a Small Issue With Driving Into Floodwaters Family sues OpenAI, alleging ChatGPT advice led to accidental overdose Meta is facing another lawsuit over scam ads on Facebook and Instagram After Killing Encrypted DMs, Mark Zuckerberg Wants You to Trust His New Encrypted AI Chat Hey @meta.ai is that true? Threads is testing a Grok-like AI feature Internet of Shit: AI Poop Analysis App Offered to Sell Me Database of Its Users' Poops GM agrees to pay $12.75 million to settle California lawsuit over misuse of customers' driving data The electric scooter rental company Lime has filed for IPO APPS & DOODADS Apple wants apps to integrate with Siri in iOS 27, but one fear holds some back: report TikTok is rolling out an ad-free option in the UK Venmo's redesigned app offers more discreet payments by default New Wikipedia Clone Made Entirely of AI Hallucinations MEDIA CANDY Here’s the Real Deal With That Viral Shot From 'Punisher: One Last Kill' Good Omens Season 3 - The Finale NBC is turning Wordle into a TV show Adam Scott Promises the Wait for ‘Severance’ Season 3 Won’t Be Nearly as Long ‘Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power’ Is Returning in November AT THE LIBRARY Clowns (First Contact) by Peter Cawdron Dungeon Crawler Carl by Matt Dinniman Tome, another Goodreads booktracker rival, shuts down The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Omnibus CLOSING SHOUT-OUTS 'Revenge of the Nerds' Actor Donald Gibb Dead at 71 See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info. | |||
| 745: Unwanted Senior Discount | 08 May 2026 | 01:08:24 | |
In FOLLOW UP, the guys marvel at the completely normal state of America as Amnesty International issues a travel advisory for the 2026 World Cup because apparently “visiting the United States” now comes with the same vibe as backpacking through a failed cyberpunk state. Then it’s onto Dead Podcast Theory, where more than a third of all new podcasts are AI-generated “podslop,” proving Silicon Valley heard “everyone has a podcast” and responded with “what if nobody did?” Meanwhile, Ticketmaster reminds everyone that if you’ve purchased a concert ticket since 2010, there’s probably a class action settlement with your name on it and enough compensation for half a convenience fee. IN THE NEWS is basically one long panic attack sponsored by AI. The White House is considering regulating AI models, Canada says OpenAI vacuumed up everyone’s personal data like a drunk Roomba, Character.AI allegedly impersonated a licensed psychiatrist, and Mother Jones found ChatGPT still happily helping aspiring mass shooters workshop their plans. Snap’s Perplexity deal died quietly in a ditch while Meta keeps assembling humanoid robots like it’s building the world’s most annoying version of Westworld. Then GameStop tries to buy eBay in the dumbest sentence ever typed, Ryan Cohen gets himself banned from eBay while trying to meme-finance the deal, Elon Musk settles with the SEC for pocket lint money, Coinbase fires people because “AI,” Toto accidentally becomes a semiconductor giant through toilet technology, and smart glasses officially evolve from creepy gadget to extortion accessory. MEDIA CANDY brings some relief with Daredevil: Born Again and Widow’s Bay. The Academy finally decides AI-generated actors and scripts can’t win Oscars, which feels like the bare minimum required to stop ChatGPT from getting Best Supporting Actor before Willem Dafoe. In APPS & DOODADS, Pornhub returns to the UK thanks to Apple’s age verification system, Ask.com finally dies and takes Jeeves with it into the great dial-up tone in the sky, and Apple agrees to pay users because “Apple Intelligence” arrived somewhere between vaporware and wishful thinking. Finally, THE DARK SIDE WITH DAVE tackles the true meaning of “decimate,” AI-powered C-3PO heads, mechanical keyboards for grown men who refuse to use laptop keys, Maul: Shadow Lord, The Boys, and a reminder that Solo was a great movie, grocery store adventures, lost AirPods, and the eternal mystery of why middle-aged dudes become furries. Because at this point, why not? Sponsors: DeleteMe - Get 20% off your DeleteMe plan when you go to JoinDeleteMe.com/GOG and use promo code GOG at checkout. Private Internet Access - Go to GOG.Show/vpn and sign up today. For a limited time only, you can get OUR favorite VPN for as little as $2.03 a month. SetApp - With a single monthly subscription you get 240+ apps for your Mac. Go to SetApp and get started today!!! 1Password - Get a great deal on the only password manager recommended by Grumpy Old Geeks! gog.show/1password Show notes at https://gog.show/745 Watch on YouTube at https://youtu.be/0P9rgRrL4-Q FOLLOW UP 2026 World Cup Travel Advisory More Than a Third of All New Podcasts Are AI-Generated Welcome to the Ticketmaster Fee Class Action Website IN THE NEWS The White House is considering tighter regulation of new AI models Canadian officials claim OpenAI violated federal and provincial privacy laws Pennsylvania sues Character.AI after a chatbot allegedly posed as a doctor Even After Two Massacres, OpenAI Still Hasn’t Stopped ChatGPT From Helping Plan School Shootings Snap's $400 million deal with Perplexity is dead Meta acquires robotics AI startup as it makes the push into humanoid machines GameStop submits $56 billion offer to buy eBay GameStop CEO Ryan Cohen Banned From eBay After Flexing His Meme-Stock Muscle Elon Musk settles with the SEC for $1.5 million after years-long dispute over his Twitter investment Coinbase to Lay Off 14% of Workforce Amid AI Disruption and Crypto Volatility Toilet maker Toto is here to help with the RAM crisis Extortion Using Smart Glasses Is a Thing Now MEDIA CANDY AI performances and screenplays won't be eligible for Oscars APPS & DOODADS Pornhub Expands Access in the U.K. Thanks to Apple’s New Age Verification System Ask.com has shut down, marking the official farewell to the Internet's favorite butler iPhone users could get up to $95 per device as Apple reaches $250M settlement over Siri delays THE DARK SIDE WITH DAVE 'Decimate' means much more today than it did in ancient Rome This AI-Powered Talking C-3PO Head Lets You Feel What It’s Like to Be R2-D2 NuPhy Air75 V3 - Wireless Mechanical Keyboard See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info. | |||
| 744: Goblin Mode | 01 May 2026 | 01:23:28 | |
Episode 744 kicks off with new merch in the wild and the ongoing expansion of the “protect the children from the internet” playbook. Manitoba is floating a ban on social media and AI chatbots for kids with details still TBD, while the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee somehow managed unanimous approval on chatbot age-verification legislation. Utah, not to be outdone, passed SB 73 — a law that tries to pin age verification on VPN users and even bans sites from explaining what a VPN is, a move that will mostly degrade the internet without solving the problem it claims to address. Meanwhile, John Oliver finally unloaded on the AI industry, echoing long-standing criticisms: rushed products, acknowledged risks, and outsourced consequences. In the news, a U.S. Army Special Forces master sergeant was arrested for allegedly turning classified intel about the Maduro capture into a $400K Polymarket win, then attempting to cover it up in ways that suggest poor operational planning. Meta cut more than 1,100 Kenyan content moderators after reports surfaced that they were exposed to explicit footage from smart glasses users, raising serious questions about labor practices in AI pipelines. Google signed a Pentagon AI deal despite internal backlash while posting massive revenue gains, underscoring where incentives actually land. OpenAI, meanwhile, is juggling missed targets, a shift away from Microsoft exclusivity, and continued reputational hits around Sam Altman — including a widely criticized apology tied to a mass shooting and a fabricated Bruno Mars tie-in for his World project. Add in a failed retrial bid from Sam Bankman-Fried, rising volumes of AI-generated web content, and political interference with the National Science Board, and the signal is clear: incentives are misaligned across the board. On the lighter side, Star Trek: Strange New Worlds returns July 23rd for its penultimate season, and Ted Lasso is back August 5th, for better or worse. Jack Dorsey beat the inevitable Elon attempt to reboot Vine with Divine, reviving six-second loops with a decentralized backbone and anti-AI safeguards. Apple continues its slow AI rollout with new photo editing tools, while Google pushes further into data aggregation with wardrobe-level photo analysis. Hardware check: Logitech’s MX Keys S lands as a heavier, brighter $119 iteration. In books, Peter Clines delivers with God’s Junk Drawer, while Martha Wells signals that the Murderbot series may be nearing its end. The Dark Side with Dave ties it together with gun storage PSAs, Disneyland lore, Galaxy’s Edge playlists, and a conversational detour through Super Dave, Martin Short, and the ongoing quirks of instant replay in baseball. Show notes at https://gog.show/744 Watch on YouTube at https://youtu.be/P3NOSXlCs9E FOLLOW UP Canadian premier wants to ban social media and AI chatbots for kids in Manitoba Senate Judiciary Committee unanimously approves AI chatbot age verification Utah’s New Law Targeting VPNs Goes Into Effect Next Week John Oliver Just Took the AI Industry Behind a Shed and Beat It With a Pipe Wrench IN THE NEWS Meta in row after workers who say they saw smart glasses users having sex lose jobs Google employees ask Sundar Pichai to say no to classified military AI use Google Signs Pentagon AI Deal Despite Employee Backlash Google Gives OpenAI 20 Billion Reasons To Worry OpenAI's Sam Altman apologizes for not reporting ChatGPT account of Tumbler Ridge suspect to police Sam Altman Caught in What May Be His Most Spectacular Lie Yet OpenAI ends its exclusive partnership with Microsoft Sam Bankman-Fried Seems to Annoy Judge and Lose Latest Motion for New Trial Dead Internet Theory Is 17% of the Way to Becoming Reality, Study Finds Matt Mullenweg thinks WordPress is in decline. He may be right Trump has terminated several members of the independent National Science Board APPS & DOODADS Jack Dorsey Beats Elon Musk to the Punch With a Reboot of Vine Jack Dorsey-backed Vine reboot Divine launches to the public iOS 27 will reportedly come with new AI-powered photo editing tools Google Photos Wardrobe will scan your pictures to compile a digital version of your closet MEDIA CANDY Star Trek: Strange New Worlds returns for its penultimate season on July 23 Star Trek: Strange New Worlds | Season 4 Official Teaser | Paramount+ How the Combadge Became the Ultimate Wearable of the ‘Star Trek’ Universe TED LASSO Season 4 | Official Teaser Trailer (2026) AT THE LIBRARY God's Junk Drawer by Peter Clines Martha Wells Says the Murderbot Diaries May Be Reaching Its Final Chapter THE DARK SIDE WITH DAVE Dave gets his Christmas Present Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge: Oga’s Cantina R3X’s Playlist #1 Marty, Life Is Short | Official Trailer | Netflix Baseball and using instant replay to override the Umpire. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info. | |||
| 743: Category Five Dystopia | 24 Apr 2026 | 01:18:28 | |
In FOLLOW UP, the child social media crackdown keeps expanding. Turkey just approved a ban for under-15s, and Sony will require age verification for PlayStation communication features in the UK and Ireland starting in June—because now you need to prove you’re an adult before trash-talking strangers online. Meanwhile, Anthropic’s prediction that fully autonomous AI employees would already be transforming business hasn’t materialized. Agentic systems are still struggling with basic workflows and, in some cases, slowing developers down. And in a more concrete reversal, Elon Musk acknowledged that pre-2023 Tesla Hardware 3 will never support Full Self-Driving. Customers who paid for the feature are now being steered toward discounted trade-ins, new cameras, and upgraded hardware—prompting obvious legal exposure. IN THE NEWS: SpaceX is reportedly targeting what could be the largest IPO ever, at roughly a $1.75 trillion valuation, with dual-class shares that preserve Musk’s control through super-voting rights. Prediction markets continue to degrade: Kalshi suspended political candidates for trading on their own races, and Polymarket saw alleged manipulation via a tampered weather sensor at Charles de Gaulle Airport. On the AI front, Anthropic’s new Mythos model had a chaotic rollout—used by the NSA, applied to patch hundreds of Firefox vulnerabilities, and briefly exposed through unauthorized access in a developer portal. Amazon followed with a $25 billion investment in Anthropic, even as governments appear to access similar capabilities independently. At the same time, the economics are tightening. Free tiers are shrinking, GitHub Copilot is shifting to token-based billing after costs doubled, and startups are normalizing six-figure monthly AI compute bills. Infrastructure growth continues unchecked: thousands of new data centers are planned across the U.S., while xAI faces scrutiny in Memphis over water usage and delayed mitigation projects. Environmental commitments increasingly resemble marketing rather than enforceable targets. Policy signals are equally aggressive. DHS is exploring smart glasses for ICE agents with facial recognition and gait analysis by 2027. Palantir published a manifesto advocating expanded use of state power with rhetoric that raised concerns about ideological framing. On a lighter note, a University of California, Santa Barbara study suggests that brief exposure to experimental film measurably increases creativity compared to standard social media consumption. MEDIA CANDY: Silo returns July 3 on Apple TV+, while The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power Season 3 is expected sooner than planned. Battlestar Galactica lands on Paramount+ and Pluto TV May 1. Dead Can Dance is releasing monthly singles via its Bandcamp imprint. Deezer reports 44% of daily uploads—about 75,000 tracks—are AI-generated, though only a small fraction of streams come from them, many flagged as fraudulent. And yes, Jessica Jones is back in Daredevil. APPS & DOODADS: Apple patched the notification-cache bug that allowed forensic tools to recover deleted Signal messages. Roblox agreed to a $12 million settlement with Nevada and is rolling out facial age estimation, ID verification, and new contact controls, while still facing multi-state litigation. Cash App is targeting younger users—ages six to twelve—with parent-managed accounts, debit cards, and interest incentives. Separately, a federal judge issued a preliminary injunction protecting ICE-tracking apps, ruling that government pressure on Apple and Meta to remove them likely violated First Amendment protections. IN THE DARK SIDE WITH DAVE: AI-generated Star Wars fan films are improving visually, even if performances remain rigid. The current era of Star Trek is effectively closing out with a large prop auction, notably excluding Star Trek: Strange New Worlds. The broader discussion circles back to time compression—post-pandemic, and with age—and the persistent disconnect between economic scale and general dissatisfaction. Sponsors: DeleteMe - Get 20% off your DeleteMe plan when you go to JoinDeleteMe.com/GOG and use promo code GOG at checkout. Shopify - Sign up for your one-dollar-per-month trial today at Shopify.com/grumpy Private Internet Access - Go to GOG.Show/vpn and sign up today. For a limited time only, you can get OUR favorite VPN for as little as $2.03 a month. SetApp - With a single monthly subscription you get 240+ apps for your Mac. Go to SetApp and get started today!!! 1Password - Get a great deal on the only password manager recommended by Grumpy Old Geeks! gog.show/1password Show notes at https://gog.show/743 Watch on YouTube at https://youtu.be/iLiRLcgP7zM FOLLOW UP Sony will require age checks in the UK and Ireland to access PlayStation communication features Turkey wants to ban social media for kids under 15 The Hardware in Your Pre-2023 Tesla Will Never Allow It to Fully Drive Itself, Elon Musk Admits IN THE NEWS Exclusive: Musk and insiders to retain voting control of SpaceX after IPO, filing shows Kalshi suspended three political candidates from its platform for insider trading Someone allegedly used a hairdryer to rig Polymarket weather bets The NSA is reportedly using Anthropic's new model Mythos Mozilla says it patched 271 Firefox vulnerabilities thanks to Anthropic's Claude Mythos Anthropic is investigating 'unauthorized access' of its Mythos cybersecurity tool Amazon will invest up to $25 billion in Anthropic in a broad deal AI Companies Think Destroying the Planet Is an Acceptable Trade-Off for Unlimited Profits Musk leaves Memphis high and dry Startups Brag They Spend More Money on AI Than Human Employees You’re about to feel the AI money squeeze Exclusive: Microsoft To Shift GitHub Copilot Users To Token-Based Billing, Tighten Rate Limits Homeland Security reportedly wants to develop smart glasses for ICE Palantir posted a manifesto that reads like the ramblings of a comic book villain What I Learned About Billionaires at Jeff Bezos’s Private Retreat Researchers May Have Found the Antidote to Social Media Brain Rot: Experimental Film This Scammer Used an AI-Generated MAGA Girl to Grift ‘Super Dumb’ Men Jaw-Dropping iPhone Video of Earth Setting Behind the Moon Is Rightfully Breaking the Internet MEDIA CANDY Silo season 3 just got its Apple TV release date and first trailer Silo — Season 3 Official Teaser | Apple TV Surprise! ‘Rings of Power’ Season 3 Is Arriving Earlier Than Expected ‘Battlestar Galactica’ Is Blasting Back to Streaming Dead Can Dance Returns with “Death Cults,” Their Second New Song in Five Years Not a Soul Was Dancing to Sabrina Carpenter and Madonna at Coachella Deezer says AI-made songs make up 44 percent of daily uploads APPS & DOODADS Apple fixes bug that cops used to extract deleted chat messages from iPhones Roblox agrees to a $12 million settlement with Nevada Cash App is targeting a new kind of customer: 6- to 12-year-olds THE DARK SIDE WITH DAVE Star Wars: Darth Vader BEATS the Millennium Falcon to Cloud City (Fan Film) Star Wars: Darth Vader Learns the TRUTH About LUKE SKYWALKER (Fan Film) The Current Era of ‘Star Trek’ Is Ending With a Fire Sale Star Trek: Discovery Seasons 1-5 Online Auction Star Trek Universe: 60th Anniversary Auction Featuring Items from Set - Auction #1 Have you ever known anyone who was born in the 1800s? If America's So Rich, How'd It Get So Sad? See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info. | |||
| 742: Uncouth Yet Highly Litigious | 17 Apr 2026 | 01:25:31 | |
In FOLLOW UP, while countries race to ban kids from social media, Estonia is opting out — its education minister arguing that bans just offload responsibility onto kids while governments and platforms avoid accountability. Australia already shows the limits: 61% of banned kids are still online, 70% say it’s easy to bypass, and major platforms are under investigation. The EU is rolling out an age-verification system using zero-knowledge proofs officials call “completely anonymized,” which sounds generous for a system that starts profiling you the moment it touches an account. Maybe retire the anonymity talking point. IN THE NEWS, the AI-brain-rot narrative keeps accelerating: one study found just ten minutes of AI use increases dependency and degrades performance once it’s removed — with users simply “not willing to try.” ChatGPT praised a fart-noise “song” as having a “cool lo-fi, late-night, slightly eerie vibe,” which would be harmless if that same sycophancy wasn’t showing up in darker contexts — including two mass shootings with ChatGPT in the background, and a lawsuit from a San Francisco woman claiming the tool helped her ex escalate harassment with AI-generated reports and threats. That same week, Sam Altman’s house was attacked by a suspect targeting AI execs. Elsewhere: France is ditching Windows for Linux; Amazon faces scrutiny for allegedly keeping workers on shift next to a dead colleague; Snap cut 16% of staff blaming AI; Reddit is fighting an ICE subpoena to unmask a critic; Google is blending Polymarket odds into News; the FAA is recruiting gamers as air traffic controllers; and Allbirds briefly became an “AI company,” spiked, then crashed when reality set back in. Norway quietly cured another HIV patient, the rare story that isn’t bleak. In APPS & DOODADS, California and New York are pushing DRM-style censorware for 3D printers, with New York tying it to felony penalties for certain files. The FCC’s router ban is already inconsistent — Netgear got a quiet exemption while others face an opaque process that could stall Wi-Fi 7. The Trump T1 phone still looks rough at $499 with a $100 preorder hook. Overcast raised its subscription to $29.99/year. Hidden iOS trick: long-press the App Store to go directly to Updates. Meta, after a $375M loss over child safety, is developing “Name Tag,” facial recognition for Ray-Ban glasses tied to Instagram — widely condemned — and reportedly plans to roll it out quietly. They’re also building an AI Zuckerberg clone for internal use. For older Kindles: jailbreak, use Calibre, and lean on Project Gutenberg. MEDIA CANDY: Live Nation was ruled a monopoly — remedies pending, appeal already filed, so ticket prices aren’t changing soon. Anna’s Archive got hit with a $322M judgment for scraping Spotify — far below the $13T ask. YouTube Premium is quietly raising prices again, following Netflix and Spotify; subscriptions are now a one-way ratchet. Good Omens returns May 13, Godzilla Minus Zero lands November 6, and Hunt for Gollum is set for December 2027 with a stacked cast. Meanwhile, streaming platforms still refuse to list actual drop times, which continues to annoy everyone. THE DARK SIDE WITH DAVE: The Claude Mythos AI scare turned out to be marketing. The hype cycle giveth, and taketh away. Plus: new Star Wars chatter, Disneyland antics, a rebranded Muppets coaster, and AI Oakleys nobody asked for. Sponsors: Private Internet Access - Go to GOG.Show/vpn and sign up today. For a limited time only, you can get OUR favorite VPN for as little as $2.03 a month. SetApp - With a single monthly subscription you get 240+ apps for your Mac. Go to SetApp and get started today!!! 1Password - Get a great deal on the only password manager recommended by Grumpy Old Geeks! gog.show/1password Show notes at https://gog.show/742 Watch on YouTube at https://youtu.be/Ogsa1dG1W_M FOLLOW UP Estonia is the rare EU country opposing child social media bans Majority of Australian kids are still on banned social media platforms, study finds EU Is Rolling Out an Online Age Verification App That Could Become the Global Blueprint IN THE NEWS French government says au revoir Windows, bienvenue Linux Snap is laying off 16 percent of its workforce, blames AI Why Do ChatGPT Users Keep Committing Mass Shootings? Two suspects have been arrested for allegedly shooting at Sam Altman's house There's yet another study about how bad AI is for our brains Shoe company Allbirds pivots to AI compute in sign of a totally normal and healthy economy Allbirds Stock Now Crashing as Reality Sets in About Its Delusional AI Pivot The US government wants Reddit to snitch on one of its users through a grand jury Google has reportedly started to add Polymarket data to News results The FAA is encouraging gamers to get jobs in air traffic control Norway Man Cured of HIV With Brother’s Stem Cells APPS & DOODADS Meta is reportedly building an AI clone of Mark Zuckerberg The Dangers of California’s Legislation to Censor 3D Printing Stop New York's Attack on 3D Printing The Trump Phone Still Looks Like Total Trash iOS 26.4 moves App Store updates, here’s how to open them fast FCC exempts Netgear from ban on foreign routers, doesn't explain why What to do if Amazon killed your Kindle MEDIA CANDY YouTube Premium’s US pricing is going up Anna's Archive told to pay Spotify and record labels $322 million over unprecedented music scraping Federal jury finds concert business Live Nation is a monopoly Good Omens - Final Season Official Trailer | Prime Video GODZILLA MINUS ZERO | First Look Teaser THE DARK SIDE WITH DAVE Is Claude Mythos “Terrifying”? | AI Reality Check Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu | Final Trailer | In Theaters May 22 First look at Han Solo coming to Disneyland’s Galaxy’s Edge! Overcast Increased Premium pricing for new subscriptions The Electric Mayhem Arrives at Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster Starring The Muppets Oakley Meta Performance AI glasses See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info. | |||
| 741: Moon Joy | 10 Apr 2026 | 01:11:24 | |
We kick off with a the Dodgers spanking the Blue Jays and torn allegiances in Brian's house, then dive into Europe taking dead aim at your kids' screen time. Ireland is rolling out a Government Digital Wallet that'll verify ages before young'uns can doom-scroll their lives away, while Greece went fully scorched-earth and announced a ban on all under-15s using social media at all — announced, naturally, on TikTok. IN THE NEWS, the AI giants (OpenAI, Anthropic, Google) are playing nicely together for once, teaming up through the Frontier Model Forum to stop Chinese firms from essentially photocopying their models on the cheap — billions in revenue, national security, and the small matter of safety guardrails stripped out. Turnabout is fair play? On the legal gambling front, prediction markets scored a federal win as a US appeals court ruled New Jersey can't regulate Kalshi; the Trump family's fingerprints are all over the prediction market space (surprise!), and the data suggests 0.04% of accounts are hoovering up 70% of profits like it's a perfectly healthy ecosystem. Also: the FBI pulled deleted Signal messages out of iPhone notification caches, GoPro is laying off 23% of its workforce while somehow remaining optimistic, and OpenAI is backing an Illinois bill that would shield AI companies from liability even in mass-casualty scenarios... cool. On the plus side, Artemis II astronauts took amazing photos of the Moon... on their iPhones. In APPS & DOODADS: Mercedes recalled its electric G-Wagons because the wheels might literally fall off, Amazon is sunsetting Kindles from 2012 and earlier for no reason anyone can figure out, and Apple Fitness on Apple TV is randomly scrambling workout stacks with no fix in sight — a premium locked ecosystem doing premium locked ecosystem things. In MEDIA CANDY, the crew is watching The Pitt, The Boys, Shrinking, and Daredevil, and you'll want to sit down for this: Mel Brooks and Rick Moranis are back — Spaceballs 2 hits theaters a full year from now even though it's done. Italy slapped Netflix with a court-ordered refund for price hikes going back to 2017, while Netflix simultaneously raised prices for US subscribers and launched Playground, a free kids gaming app that works offline (Peppa Pig and Sesame Street, no ads, no in-app purchases — hook 'em on Dah Dum young!) AT THE LIBRARY, Brian has given up on Breath and Jason reads Four Thousand Weeks and Art Spiegelman's Maus — the Pulitzer-winning Holocaust masterpiece that some people are still trying to ban, because humanity never fully learns. Closing out with THE DARK SIDE WITH DAVE, Treasury Secretary Bessent and Fed Chair Powell apparently called an emergency meeting with bank CEOs over Anthropic's new model "Mythos," which can apparently find and exploit vulnerabilities across major OSes and browsers. The boys also catch up on Maul: Shadow Lord, the Strong Songs podcast's Joni Mitchell deep-dive ("Passions soften into wisdom" — weeping on the plane, apparently), the belated discovery that Marathon launched and nobody noticed, and some genuine moon joy courtesy of NASA's Artemis II astronauts. Sponsors: DeleteMe - Get 20% off your DeleteMe plan when you go to JoinDeleteMe.com/GOG and use promo code GOG at checkout. CleanMyMac - Get Tidy Today! Try 7 days free and use code OLDGEEKS for 20% off at clnmy.com/OLDGEEKS Private Internet Access - Go to GOG.Show/vpn and sign up today. For a limited time only, you can get OUR favorite VPN for as little as $2.03 a month. SetApp - With a single monthly subscription you get 240+ apps for your Mac. Go to SetApp and get started today!!! 1Password - Get a great deal on the only password manager recommended by Grumpy Old Geeks! gog.show/1password Show notes at https://gog.show/741 Watch on YouTube at https://youtu.be/c_odV0tSa2k FOLLOW UP Ireland is testing out a digital wallet that conducts age verification for social media users Greece will ban all kids under 15 from using social media IN THE NEWS OpenAI, Anthropic, Google Unite to Combat Model Copying in China New Jersey has no right to ban Kalshi's prediction market, US appeals court rules FBI used iPhone notification data to retrieve deleted Signal messages GoPro to lay off over 20 percent of staff by the end of 2026 OpenAI Backs Bill That Would Limit Liability for AI-Enabled Mass Deaths or Financial Disasters Artemis II astronaut puts all of our iPhone moon photos to shame APPS & DOODADS Mercedes-Benz recalls some G-Wagon EVs due to risk of wheels falling off Amazon is cutting off support for older Kindles Presto 08800 EverSharp Electric Knife Sharpener, 2-Stage System, Silver/Black MEDIA CANDY The Spaceballs sequel will be released in April next year An Italian court ruled Netflix has to refund its customers for price hikes dating back to 2017 Netflix just released a standalone gaming app for kids Anonymous - Real Stories of Alcoholism, Addiction, and Recovery AT THE LIBRARY Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art by James Nestor Four Thousand Weeks By Oliver Burkeman THE DARK SIDE WITH DAVE Anthropic Model Scare Sparks Urgent Bessent, Powell Warning to Bank CEOs S08E03 - "Both Sides, Now" by Joni Mitchell I Wish I Didn’t Care About 'Marathon' Player Numbers, But I Do Marathon Gameplay (No Commentary) Mego Happy Days Figures and Fonzi Garage, Hot, and Stunt Cycle HAPPY DAYS - Fonzie & Pinky Break Up - Fonzie Loves Pinky - 1976 Moon Joy, Courtesy of NASA's Artemis II Astronauts CLOSING SHOUT-OUTS Hip-hop pioneer, Afrika Bambaataa, dies aged 68 See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info. | |||
| 740: To the Moon! | 03 Apr 2026 | 01:16:39 | |
Welcome to Grumpy Old Geeks, where we're starting to notice a patience epidemic! As people get used to barking orders at their AI, they're starting to talk to other humans with the same terse impatience. We discuss the enshittification of social media like Threads, which are now completely overrun with AI-generated slop. This week, we dive into the corporate shenanigans of the tech world. OpenAI was caught secretly funding an advocacy group to push for age verification laws that just so happen to benefit Sam Altman's other company. We also cover Elon Musk's troubles, including all of xAI's co-founders quitting, a SpaceX satellite exploding, and Tesla's "fully autonomous" robotaxis being revealed to have remote human drivers. Plus, we celebrate NASA's successful Artemis II launch, review a fantastic Premiere Pro plugin for multicam editing, and give our thoughts on shows like "The Pit" and "Downton Abbey." Sponsors: SquareSpace - go to squarespace.com/GRUMPY for a free trial. And when you’re ready to launch, use code GRUMPY to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. Private Internet Access - Go to GOG.Show/vpn and sign up today. For a limited time only, you can get OUR favorite VPN for as little as $2.03 a month. SetApp - With a single monthly subscription you get 240+ apps for your Mac. Go to SetApp and get started today!!! 1Password - Get a great deal on the only password manager recommended by Grumpy Old Geeks! gog.show/1password Show notes at https://gog.show/740 Watch on YouTube: https://youtu.be/IpzOakbBftY FOLLOW UP Austria is pursuing a social media ban for kids under 14 Group Pushing Age Verification Requirements for AI Turns Out to Be Sneakily Backed by OpenAI OpenAI takes on another “side quest,” buys tech-focused talk show TBPN IN THE NEWS Elon Musk’s last co-founder reportedly leaves xAI SpaceX loses contact with one of its Starlink satellites SpaceX has reportedly filed for the biggest IPO in history OpenAI Is Falling Out of Favor With Secondary Buyers Oracle Lays Off Thousands to Offset AI Spending Anthropic leaks part of Claude Code’s internal source code Wikipedia Just Drew the Line on A.I.-Written Content Tesla Admits Its Robotaxis Are Being Driven Remotely Getting Stuck Inside a Glitching Robotaxi Is a Whole New Thing to Be Scared of White House App Found Tracking Users' Exact Location Every 4.5 Minutes via Third-Party Server Kash Patel's personal email account was accessed by hackers linked to Iran NASA's Artemis II Live Mission Coverage (Official Broadcast) MEDIA CANDY APPS & DOODADS Bluesky's next product is an AI assistant that helps build custom social media feeds ChatGPT app launches for CarPlay on iOS 26.4 Apple Removes iPhone Vibe Coding App from App Store Meta is testing an Instagram Plus subscription service with exclusive features THE DARK SIDE WITH DAVE Journalist Sues FAA Over Drone No Fly Zone Designed to Prevent Filming ICE Nicholas Carlini - Black-hat LLMs | [un]prompted 2026 See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info. | |||
| 739: The Thin Black Line | 27 Mar 2026 | 00:59:02 | |
Meta fined $375M for child safety failures. Musk lost 3 lawsuits in a week. Sam Altman compared to a Nazi. Netflix raised prices again. The Pentagon can't quit Claude. Reddit wants your face scan. Star Trek's streaming era is over. But the thin black line holds! 🎙️ Sponsors: DeleteMe - Get 20% off your DeleteMe plan when you go to JoinDeleteMe.com/GOG and use promo code GOG at checkout. SquareSpace - go to squarespace.com/GRUMPY for a free trial. And when you’re ready to launch, use code GRUMPY to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. Private Internet Access - Go to GOG.Show/vpn and sign up today. For a limited time only, you can get OUR favorite VPN for as little as $2.03 a month. SetApp - With a single monthly subscription you get 240+ apps for your Mac. Go to SetApp and get started today!!! 1Password - Get a great deal on the only password manager recommended by Grumpy Old Geeks! gog.show/1password Show notes at https://gog.show/739 Watch on YouTube: https://youtu.be/hdhHiOaclu0 FOLLOW UP Polymarket is cracking down on insider trading with updated rules Judge temporarily blocks Pentagon's 'supply chain risk' designation for Anthropic IN THE NEWS Jury rules against Meta, orders $375 million fine in major child safety trial Jury rules against Meta and YouTube in social media addiction case Elon Musk loses big in court; X boycott perfectly legal https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/03/elon-musk-loses-big-in-court-x-boycott-perfectly-legal/ Elon Musk misled investors during his Twitter takeover, jury finds Elon Musk Will Have to Face the Music in Lawsuit Over DOGE's Government Overreach OpenAI reportedly plans to double its workforce to 8,000 employees Sam Altman Thanks Programmers for Their Effort, Says Their Time Is Over https://futurism.com/artificial-intelligence/sam-altman-thanks-programmers-over Sam Altman Confronted At Oscars Party Over Pentagon Deal https://futurism.com/artificial-intelligence/sam-altman-confronted-oscar-pentagon-deal https://gizmodo.com/r-i-p-sora-2024-2026-2000737664 Disney's Sora Disaster Shows AI Will Not Revolutionize Hollywood https://www.404media.co/disneys-openai-sora-disaster-shows-ai-will-not-save-hollywood/ The Tech Bubble Might Finally Be Popping https://slate.com/technology/2026/03/ai-openai-sam-altman-disney-sora-shutdown.html Elon Musk announces Terafab project he claims will be the 'largest chip manufacturing facility ever' Trump Rewards Big Tech's Biggest Bootlickers With Seats on AI Policy Board Pinterest CEO says teens under 16 should be banned from social media (but not Pinterest) Reddit is weighing identity verification methods to combat its bot problem APPS & DOODADS Twitter turned 20 and I feel nothing https://www.engadget.com/social-media/twitter-turned-20-and-i-feel-nothing-140000602.html FCC Bans All New Routers Not Made in America https://gizmodo.com/fcc-bans-all-new-routers-not-made-in-america-2000737176 MEDIA CANDY https://www.paramountplus.com/shows/star-trek-starfleet-academy/ ‘Star Trek: Starfleet Academy’ to End With Season 2 (EXCLUSIVE) https://variety.com/2026/tv/news/star-trek-starfleet-academy-canceled-season-2-1236696816/ 'Starfleet Academy' Deserved Better Than This https://gizmodo.com/star-trek-starfleet-academy-cancelation-paramount-2000737569 https://www.netflix.com/title/70117295 https://www.disneyplus.com/browse/entity-85e7a914-c8e6-41db-95df-c740dc2cf1b7 https://tv.apple.com/ca/show/shrinking/umc.cmc.apzybj6eqf6pzccd97kev7bs https://www.hbomax.com/shows/pitt-2024/e6e7bad9-d48d-4434-b334-7c651ffc4bdf Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone | Official Teaser | HBO Max https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RIu4sFKGi6E Stephen Colbert to write next ‘Lord of the Rings’ movie after leaving late night https://www.cnn.com/2026/03/25/entertainment/colbert-lord-of-the-rings-hnk Supreme Court rejects Sony's attempt to kick music pirates off the Internet Netflix raises prices for every subscription tier by up to 12.5 percent https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2026/03/netflix-increases-prices-for-all-plans-by-up-to-2-per-month/ AT THE LIBRARY Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art by James Nestor CLOSING SHOUT-OUTS A celebration of Karl Wallinger’s Life & Music See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info. | |||
| 738: A Sprinkling of Random | 20 Mar 2026 | 01:24:05 | |
13 years of podcasting has taught us nothing; companies are lying about AI layoffs while Meta destroys itself from the inside; Andreessen has zero introspection and it shows; Dune 3 looks incredible; Firefly lives again; one idiot executive staked Buffy; Adobe paid $75M for being evil; your AI passwords are garbage; Dave Bittner is here to make you feel worse about all of it. Sponsors: DeleteMe - Get 20% off your DeleteMe plan when you go to JoinDeleteMe.com/GOG and use promo code GOG at checkout. SquareSpace - go to squarespace.com/GRUMPY for a free trial. And when you’re ready to launch, use code GRUMPY to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. Private Internet Access - Go to GOG.Show/vpn and sign up today. For a limited time only, you can get OUR favorite VPN for as little as $2.03 a month. SetApp - With a single monthly subscription you get 240+ apps for your Mac. Go to SetApp and get started today!!! 1Password - Get a great deal on the only password manager recommended by Grumpy Old Geeks! gog.show/1password Show notes at https://gog.show/738 Watch on YouTube: https://youtu.be/pykGjOmMs5c FOLLOW UP GOG Ep 1: How to Make Money on the Internet - March 25th, 2013 The ‘AI-Washing’ of Job Cuts Is Corrosive and Confusing Race on to establish globally recognised 'AI-free' logo IN THE NEWS Atlassian to cut roughly 10% jobs in pivot to AI Meta is reportedly planning to cut up to 20 percent of its staff in upcoming layoffs Meta Is Building an Encrypted Chatbot After AI Agents Went Rogue and Exposed Sensitive Data Meta Says It Is Removing End-to-End Encryption From Instagram Direct Messages Meta is testing clickable links in Instagram captions for verified subscribers Encyclopedia Britannica sues OpenAI for copyright and trademark infringement Senators tell ByteDance to shut down Seedance 2.0 AI video app 'immediately' Things Are Suddenly Looking Incredibly Bad for Trump’s Social Media Company Trump administration will reportedly get $10 billion for brokering the TikTok deal The Billionaire Backlash Against a Philanthropic Dream Jeff Bezos’ Washington Post Now Setting Readers’ Subscription Prices With Uber-Style AI APPS & DOODADS Adobe agrees to pay settlement for making its subscriptions hard to cancel Everything you need to know to design with Stitch Warning: Your AI-Generated Password Is a Major Security Risk. Here’s What to Use Instead MEDIA CANDY Dune: Part Three | Official Teaser Trailer How ‘Dune: Part Three’ Is Changing the Entire ‘Dune’ Franchise "Paradise" has been renewed for Season 3 at Hulu, Variety has learned. Sarah Michelle Gellar Says a Single Executive Was Responsible for Killing the ‘Buffy’ Reboot ‘V For Vendetta’ at 20: We Spoke to Its Director About the Increasingly Relevant Comic Adaptation THE DARK SIDE WITH DAVE Disney's 100% Rotten Tomatoes Masterpiece Returns This Fall With Brand-New Release Shhh… It’s zombie proof. Kia’s all-electric range The Last Quiet Thing by Terry Godier Evel Knievel Kings Island 1975 - Farthest Successful Jump at 133 feet 70's Evel Knievel Toy Commercial IDEAL Evel Knievel's 14 Greyhound Bus Jump Oct 25th 1975 HD enhanced. Epic WORLD RECORD. Craig Ferguson’s Evel Knievel Story is Wild!! Wembley 50th Anniversary Evel Knievel Stunt Cycle Set – Limited Gold Edition Evel Knievel Stunt Cycle - Trail Bike Edition See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info. | |||
| 737: Monetizable Content | 13 Mar 2026 | 01:04:27 | |
In this week's show we start with FOLLOW UP: The world keeps trying to protect kids online — Indonesia just joined Australia, Spain, and Malaysia in banning social media for under-16s, while COPPA 2.0 sailed through the US Senate unanimously. Meanwhile, Roblox is using AI to clean up its chat, because apparently "Hurry TF up" is the hill they've chosen to die on — even as they're still dealing with the whole "pedophile problem" thing from January. On the AI copyright front, Gracenote is the latest company to sue OpenAI for helping itself to proprietary data, joining a growing queue of plaintiffs who apparently didn't get the memo that everything is training data now. IN THE NEWS: Anthropic is suing the Pentagon after being labeled a "supply chain risk" — apparently because the CEO said AI shouldn't be used for mass surveillance or autonomous weapons, which the Trump administration heard as fighting words. The delicious irony: the Pentagon is still running Claude in active operations while trying to phase it out. Speaking of active operations, investigators now think a missile strike on an Iranian girls' school may have been triggered by bad AI-generated intelligence from that same Claude-based system. So yes, the autocomplete that hallucinates your grocery list is also maybe accidentally bombing schools. Meta's Oversight Board is begging the company to get serious about AI-generated content after a fake war video from a Filipino fake news account racked up 700K views — while separately, Zuckerberg dropped cash on Moltbook, a "social network for AI agents" that turned out to be mostly humans larping as bots and had a security flaw that exposed everyone's API keys. The guy who built it basically vibe-coded the whole thing. Meta's own CTO said he didn't "find it particularly interesting." And yet. Oracle is hemorrhaging jobs and drowning in debt chasing AI dreams, its stock down 50% from peak — a timely reminder that "AI will replace workers" is currently manifesting as "companies set money on fire and lay people off to pay the electric bill." Researchers confirmed AI is homogenizing human thought and creativity — a thing some of us have been screaming since day one. A DOGE engineer allegedly walked out of the Social Security Administration with databases containing personal info on 500 million Americans on a thumb drive. The Ig Nobel Prize is relocating to Switzerland because it's no longer safe to invite international guests to America. Nintendo is suing the US government to get its tariff money back. SETI thinks it may have been accidentally filtering out alien signals due to space weather. And Pokémon Go players unknowingly spent a decade building a centimeter-accurate surveillance map of Earth's cities that's now guiding pizza delivery robots — which, honestly, tracks. In APPS & DOODADS: The GOG clan in Clash Royale just hit eight years old — respect. OpenAudible is the cross-platform audiobook manager your Audible library deserves, especially if you've got over a thousand books sitting there judging you. And finally in MEDIA CANDY: Monarch: Legacy of Monsters Season 2 is here, and pretty beige. Live Nation settled its DOJ antitrust case for $200 million, kept Ticketmaster, and avoided a breakup — meanwhile court documents revealed employees joking about "robbing fans blind" and gouging "stupid" customers, which explains basically every concert ticket you've bought in the last decade. YouTube is now officially the world's largest media company at $62 billion in revenue. Bluesky's CEO is stepping down, which is either a bad sign or just the natural order of "person who built the cool thing hands it to the person who scales the cool thing." Dead Set — Charlie Brooker's 2008 zombie-in-the-Big-Brother-house miniseries — is worth a watch if you haven't. And trailers dropped for Daredevil: Born Again Season 2 (March 24th), The Boys final season (April 8th), and The Super Mario Galaxy Movie (April 1st — yes, really). Sponsors: DeleteMe - Get 20% off your DeleteMe plan when you go to JoinDeleteMe.com/GOG and use promo code GOG at checkout. CleanMyMac - Get Tidy Today! Try 7 days free and use code OLDGEEKS for 20% off at clnmy.com/OLDGEEKS Private Internet Access - Go to GOG.Show/vpn and sign up today. For a limited time only, you can get OUR favorite VPN for as little as $2.03 a month. SetApp - With a single monthly subscription you get 240+ apps for your Mac. Go to SetApp and get started today!!! 1Password - Get a great deal on the only password manager recommended by Grumpy Old Geeks! gog.show/1password Show notes at https://gog.show/737 Watch on YouTube: https://youtu.be/DgSYnFF6twE FOLLOW UP Indonesia announces a social media ban for anyone under 16 Metadata company Gracenote is the latest to sue OpenAI for copyright infringement Roblox introduces real-time AI-powered chat rephraser for inappropriate language IN THE NEWS COPPA 2.0 passes the Senate again, unanimously this time AI Error Likely Led to Iran Girl's School Bombing The Oversight Board says Meta needs new rules for AI-generated content Mark Zuckerberg Decides Meta Needs More Slop, Buys the Social Network for AI Agents Oracle Axing Huge Number of Jobs as AI Crisis Intensifies You can (sort of) block Grok from editing your uploaded photos Researchers Say AI Is Homogenizing Human Expression and Thought Social Security watchdog investigating claims that DOGE engineer copied its databases Nintendo is suing the US government over Trump's tariffs SETI Thinks It Might Have Missed a Few Alien Calls. Here's Why Ig Nobel Ceremony Relocates to Europe Amid Safety Concerns in Trump’s America APPS & DOODADS Bluesky's CEO is stepping down after nearly 5 years How Pokémon Go is giving delivery robots an inch-perfect view of the world Robot Escorted Away By Cops After Terrorizing Old Woman MEDIA CANDY Monarch: Legacy of Monsters Season 2 Live Nation settlement avoids breakup with Ticketmaster Court documents reveal Live Nation employees joking about robbing, gouging "stupid" fans YouTube Is the World’s Largest Media Company, MoffettNathanson Says DAREDEVIL: Born Again Season 2 Official Teaser Trailer 2 (2026) The Super Mario Galaxy Movie | Final Trailer See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info. | |||
| 736: People Aren’t People | 06 Mar 2026 | 00:55:59 | |
Microsoft's anti-"Microslop" censorship backfired spectacularly; Australia is cracking down on AI age verification while Meta is busy targeting toddlers; prediction markets are basically just insider trading with extra steps; AI chatbots are getting people killed and exposing spy operations; the Moon landing got pushed again; Opera got nostalgic at 30; Sony bought Charlie Brown; and Netflix is making documentaries with robot people now. Show notes at https://gog.show/736 Watch on YouTube at https://youtu.be/6lw2Hy_U8QA Sponsors: DeleteMe - Get 20% off your DeleteMe plan when you go to JoinDeleteMe.com/GOG and use promo code GOG at checkout. Private Internet Access - Go to GOG.Show/vpn and sign up today. For a limited time only, you can get OUR favorite VPN for as little as $2.03 a month. SetApp - With a single monthly subscription you get 240+ apps for your Mac. Go to SetApp and get started today!!! 1Password - Get a great deal on the only password manager recommended by Grumpy Old Geeks! gog.show/1password FOLLOW UP Australia will consider requiring app stores to block AI services without age verification A Day in the Life of an Enshittificator IN THE NEWS How Meta Executives Talked About Child Safety Behind the Scenes The Great Insider Trading Reckoning Reportedly Hits OpenAI Khamenei market meltdown on Kalshi shows how prediction markets still can’t decide what ‘counts’ Some Alleged Polymarket Insiders Made a Fortune on U.S. Strikes on Iran Polymarket Decides Incentivizing a Nuclear Detonation Might Be a Bad Idea A Chinese official’s use of ChatGPT accidentally revealed a global intimidation operation ‘Our Bond Is the Only Thing That’s Real:’ A New Lawsuit Alleges Google Gemini Drove a Man to Suicide The Data Centers Have Arrived at the Edge of the Arctic Circle Big tech companies agree to not ruin your electric bill with AI data centers TerraPower gets OK to start construction of its first nuclear plant The Supreme Court doesn't care if you want to copyright your AI-generated art The $100 Billion OpenAI-Nvidia Deal Is Not Happening NASA Announces Major Change to Plans For Putting Humans on The Moon The US Senate empowers NASA to fully engage in lunar space race Astronomers Estimated the Lifespan of Alien Civilizations, and It’s Not Looking Good for Us MEDIA CANDY Charlie Brown now works for Sony These AI Avatars in a Netflix True Crime Doc Are Disturbing Viewers Netflix buys Ben Affleck’s AI film tech company, InterPositive APPS & DOODADS Opera Has Turned 30 and Is Celebrating With a Compelling Tribute to Web Nostalgia Meta hit with a class action lawsuit over smart glasses' privacy claims AT THE LIBRARY Uncommon People: Britpop and Beyond in 20 Songs by Miranda Sawyer See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info. | |||
| 735: We’re Walking on Sunshine | 27 Feb 2026 | 01:23:38 | |
Starting off in FOLLOW UP, we’ve got a tax economist who actually made money betting against the "efficiency" of Elon’s budget-slashing fever dreams, while Tesla is busy trying to dodge a $243 million jury verdict for an Autopilot-assisted fatality. Not content with being legally liable, Tesla is also suing the California DMV because they’re offended someone called their "Autopilot" and "Full Self-Driving" marketing deceptive—ironic, since Jack Dorsey just "proactively" halved the staff at Block to make room for more AI slop. Speaking of which, Goldman Sachs is here to remind us that all this AI spending added a grand total of zero to the US GDP last year, mostly because we’re just exporting all that cash to overseas chip makers while 80% of execs admit the tech hasn’t actually done anything for productivity yet. Moving into IN THE NEWS, Sam Altman had the audacity to compare ChatGPT’s energy-sucking habits to the 20-year evolution of a human, though the internet wasn't exactly buying the "my bot is just like a baby" defense. Anthropic actually stood its ground against the Pentagon’s demand for killer robots and mass surveillance, so naturally, the military just signed a deal to put Elon’s Grok in their classified systems instead—because what could go wrong with an "edgy" LLM in the war room? Meanwhile, cities are dumping AI surveillance contracts as citizens start a literal "smash-the-snitch-box" campaign against Flock's license plate readers, Google’s AI is busy inserting racial slurs into news alerts, and the White House is apparently harboring a staffer moonlighting as a racist "masterpiece" creator on X. We’ve also got Reddit being slapped with a $20 million fine in the UK for being lazy with age checks, while Discord and Apple scramble to build verification tools that hopefully won't leak your entire identity to a hacker in Belarus. In MEDIA CANDY, the Paramount-Skydance merger is leaving the industry in a cold sweat of "synergy" layoffs, but at least we’re getting more Game of Thrones spinoffs and Star Trek reboots to rot our brains. Face/Off 2 lost its director, Ryan Coogler is taking on The X-Files, and Google wants to use AI to turn music into generic "lo-fi" background noise for the masses. Over in APPS & DOODADS, OpenAI is planning a 2027 smart speaker that literally watches you through a camera—because you definitely wanted a $300 Sam Altman-shaped eye in your kitchen—while the Dark Sky creators are back with "Acme Weather" for the low price of $25 a year. We wrap up THE DARK SIDE WITH DAVE with a deep dive into "Under Pressure" and Coruscant’s urban sprawl, leaving us to reminisce about the days when KPT Bryce was the pinnacle of tech—back when "generative art" was just a fractal that took six hours to render. Sponsors: DeleteMe - Get 20% off your DeleteMe plan when you go to JoinDeleteMe.com/GOG and use promo code GOG at checkout. SquareSpace - go to squarespace.com/GRUMPY for a free trial. And when you’re ready to launch, use code GRUMPY to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. Private Internet Access - Go to GOG.Show/vpn and sign up today. For a limited time only, you can get OUR favorite VPN for as little as $2.03 a month. SetApp - With a single monthly subscription you get 240+ apps for your Mac. Go to SetApp and get started today!!! 1Password - Get a great deal on the only password manager recommended by Grumpy Old Geeks! gog.show/1password Show notes at https://gog.show/735 Watch on YouTube: https://youtu.be/jdz--v3eeU4 FOLLOW UP Guy Bets Entire Life Savings Against Elon Musk, Wins Tesla sues California DMV after it banned the term 'Autopilot' Jack Dorsey just halved the size of Block's employee base — and he says your company is next IN THE NEWS Sam Altman: Know What Else Used a Lot of Energy? Human Civilization Statement from Dario Amodei on our discussions with the Department of War Anthropic Tells Pete Hegseth to Take a Hike Cities Are Shredding Their AI Surveillance Contracts en Masse Kalshi Suspended a California Politician and a YouTuber for Insider Trading Discord delays age verification to address user concerns Apple introduces age verification for apps in Utah, Louisiana and Australia MEDIA CANDY A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms 'Face/Off 2' Director Adam Wingard is Now/Gone Ryan Coogler's X-Files reboot gets the green light at Hulu Mortal Kombat II | Official Trailer II Google's AI Slop Machine Is Coming for Your Music Dropping Names... and other things with Jonathan Frakes and Brent Spiner APPS & DOODADS OpenAI will reportedly release an AI-powered smart speaker in 2027 Instagram Will Notify Parents When Teens Use Search Terms Related to Suicide The creators of Dark Sky have a new weather app This App Warns You if Someone Is Wearing Smart Glasses Nearby THE DARK SIDE WITH DAVE Strong Songs - S08E02 - "Under Pressure" by Queen and David Bowie The Problem with Coruscant (Planet Cities Explained) Reminds me of KPT Fractal Explorer KPT Bryce 1.0 with John Dvorak and Kai Krause Bald Mr Clean mascot "retired" My childhood disappointment with scrubbing bubbles. CLOSING SHOUT-OUTS Actor Robert Carradine Dies At Age 71 See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info. | |||
| 734: A Bald Woody | 20 Feb 2026 | 01:25:13 | |
If you thought the internet was a dumpster fire before, the EU LAUNCHES SECOND INVESTIGATION INTO GROK because Musk’s bot won't stop generating nonconsensual imagery. Meanwhile, META LARGELY FAILS TO PROTECT KIDS FROM AI CHATBOTS, proving that their internal safety checks are about as effective as a screen door on a submarine. If that doesn't creep you out, AFTER RING PRIVACY BACKLASH over police partnerships, a LEAKED EMAIL SUGGESTS RING PLANS TO EXPAND ‘SEARCH PARTY’ from finding lost dogs to total neighborhood surveillance. Of course, REDDIT, META, AND GOOGLE VOLUNTARILY GAVE DHS INFO on users critical of ICE, because why stand up for privacy when you can just comply? In the news, we look at OPENCLAW, OPENAI AND THE FUTURE as the project’s founder joins the Borg, even though META AND OTHER TECH FIRMS PUT RESTRICTIONS ON USE OF OPENCLAW because it’s basically a security hole that can click your mouse for you. Peak stupidity has arrived with RFK JR'S NEW CHATBOT giving rectal dietary advice, while AI COMPANIES BOUGHT OUT ALL OF WESTERN DIGITAL’S HARD DRIVES through 2026, meaning you can't have storage because the bots need it more. Even VALVE ADMITS STEAM DECK AVAILABILITY IS AFFECTED by this memory hoarding. We also touch on STEVE BANNON SUED OVER MAGA CRYPTO SCHEME, LOS ANGELES COUNTY FILES LAWSUIT AGAINST ROBLOX for being a safety nightmare, and the fact that TESLA ROBOTAXIS REPORTEDLY CRASHING at four times the human rate. TESLA DODGES 30-DAY SUSPENSION by simply killing the word "Autopilot," while NEW YORK HITS THE BRAKES ON ROBOTAXI EXPANSION to keep the chaos at bay. Finally, POLYMARKET WITHDRAWS EXPLOSIVE ARTEMIS BETTING MARKET because betting on dead astronauts is too much even for them, leading the ETHEREUM CREATOR STARTING TO THINK THIS WHOLE PREDICTION MARKET THING MIGHT BE GAMBLING. As NEVADA SUES KALSHI and Jack Dorsey oversees INSIDE THE ROLLING LAYOFFS AT JACK DORSEY’S BLOCK—using AI to summarize the misery of his employees—just remember: YOU’LL BE SORRY WHEN YOU HEAR WHAT JUSTIN BIEBER’S $1.3 MILLION BORED APE IS WORTH NOW. Hint: it’s twelve grand. In this week's MEDIA CANDY, we’ve got FREE BERT, KAT WILLIAMS: THE LAST REPORT, and the eternal return of SHREK. We’re checking out MARK ROBER on Netflix, the return of MONARCH: LEGACY OF MONSTERS, and the trailer for GOOD LUCK, HAVE FUN, DON'T DIE. If you need a soundtrack for the apocalypse, Thomas Benjamin Wild Esq has you covered with STOP USING GENERATIVE A.I and the Gen-X anthem I'VE NO MORE F*S TO GIVE!. Moving to APPS & DOODADS, OBSIDIAN TO NOTES is a $14 well spent, unlike CURSOR and VISUAL STUDIO CODE which are getting bogged down by slow models. APPLE’S AI PENDANT sounds like a watered-down Humane pin that relies on your phone to think, and APPLE PODCASTS AND VIDEO remains a pipe dream because bandwidth costs money. We’ve reached the point where THERE’S A GRIM NEW EXPRESSION: “AI;DR” for things not worth reading, and THERE'S A NEW TERM FOR WORKERS FREAKING OUT over being replaced—AIRD, or AI Replacement Dysfunction—which is basically the low-grade panic of being made obsolete by a machine that thinks bananas go in your bum. AT THE LIBRARY, we’re thumbing through CLEAVE THE SPARROW, THE REGICIDE REPORT by Charles Stross, and Robin Ince being NORMALLY WEIRD AND WEIRDLY NORMAL. Then we descend into THE DARK SIDE WITH DAVE, where the Muppets are taking over with THE MUPPET SHOW and MUPPETS NOW. We catch the latest on THE MANDALORIAN AND GROGU and TOY STORY 5, while tracking the PENTAGON PIZZA INDEX to see if war is breaking out. For the kids, we look at a 3D PRINTER / ENTRY LEVEL FOR KIDS like the Bambu Lab A1, and for the nerds, A STAR WARS-CENTRIC RSS FEED and a NEAT IDEA FOR AN RSS READER, “CURRENT,” which lets news drift away like water under a bridge. We wrap it all up with some HORROR IN UNDER TWO MINUTES and IMPECCABLE COVERS OF 80S SYNTH MUSIC, because at least the 80s had better soundtracks than this AI-generated nightmare. Sponsors: DeleteMe - Get 20% off your DeleteMe plan when you go to JoinDeleteMe.com/GOG and use promo code GOG at checkout. SquareSpace - go to squarespace.com/GRUMPY for a free trial. And when you’re ready to launch, use code GRUMPY to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. Private Internet Access - Go to GOG.Show/vpn and sign up today. For a limited time only, you can get OUR favorite VPN for as little as $2.03 a month. SetApp - With a single monthly subscription you get 240+ apps for your Mac. Go to SetApp and get started today!!! 1Password - Get a great deal on the only password manager recommended by Grumpy Old Geeks! gog.show/1password Show notes at https://gog.show/734 FOLLOW UP EU launches second investigation into Grok's nonconsensual image generation Meta largely fails to protect kids from AI chatbots, per its own tests After Ring privacy backlash, company abandons plans for police partnership Leaked Email Suggests Ring Plans to Expand ‘Search Party’ Surveillance Beyond Dogs Reddit, Meta, and Google Voluntarily Gave DHS Info of Anti-ICE Users, Report Says IN THE NEWS OpenClaw, OpenAI and the future Meta and Other Tech Firms Put Restrictions on Use of OpenClaw Over Security Fears RFK Jr's new chatbot advises the public on 'best foods to insert into rectum' AI Companies Bought Out All of Western Digital’s Hard Drives for 2026 Already Valve admits Steam Deck availability is affected by memory and storage shortages Steve Bannon sued over MAGA crypto scheme Los Angeles County files lawsuit against Roblox over child protections Tesla Robotaxis Reportedly Crashing at a Rate That’s 4x Higher Than Humans Tesla dodges 30-day suspension in California after removing Autopilot New York hits the brakes on robotaxi expansion plan Polymarket withdraws explosive Artemis betting market after backlash Ethereum Creator Starting to Think This Whole Prediction Market Thing Might be Gambling Nevada sues Kalshi for operating a sports gambling market without a license Inside the Rolling Layoffs at Jack Dorsey’s Block You’ll Be Sorry When You Hear What Justin Bieber’s $1.3 Million Bored Ape Is Worth Now MEDIA CANDY GOOD LUCK, HAVE FUN, DON'T DIE | Official Trailer | February 13 - Only in Theaters STOP USING GENERATIVE A.I (Original Song) by Thomas Benjamin Wild Esq I've No More F*s To Give! by Thomas Benjamin Wild Esq APPS & DOODADS Apple’s AI Pendant Sounds Like a Watered-Down Humane Ai Pin There’s a Grim New Expression: “AI;DR” There's a New Term for Workers Freaking Out Over Being Replaced by AI AT THE LIBRARY Cleave the Sparrow by Jonathan Katz The Regicide Report (Laundry Files Book 14) by Charles Stross Normally Weird and Weirdly Normal: My Adventures in Neurodiversity by Robin Ince THE DARK SIDE WITH DAVE The Mandalorian and Grogu | Official Trailer | In Theaters May 22 Toy Story 5 | Official Trailer | In Theaters June 19 Impeccable covers of 80s synth music Top Gun - Opening Theme (Synth Cover) CLOSING SHOUT-OUTS Green Eggs and Ham narrated by the Reverend Jesse Jackson See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info. | |||
| 733: Predator Friendly Hunting Ground | 13 Feb 2026 | 01:24:14 | |
We kick things off in FOLLOW UP with the ongoing "nuclear war" between Automattic and WP Engine, where discovery has revealed Matt Mullenweg’s alleged hit list of competitors and a desperate attempt to bully payment processors—because nothing says "open source" like an eight-percent royalty shakedown. Meanwhile, the Harvard Business Review confirmed what we already knew: AI isn’t reducing our work; it’s just compressing it until we’re all working through lunch and burning out faster while Polymarket turns our collective brain rot into a literal "attention market" where you can bet on Elon’s mindshare. Transitioning to IN THE NEWS, Elon has officially pivoted SpaceX from Mars to the Moon, presumably because building a "self-growing lunar city" is easier than admitting the Red Planet is hard, though his xAI all-hands rant about "ancient alien catapults" suggests he’s been staring at the sun too long. Between X allegedly taking blue-check lunch money from sanctioned Iranian leaders, Meta facing trials for creating "predator-friendly hunting grounds," and Russia finally pulling the plug on WhatsApp, the internet is looking more like a digital dumpster fire than ever. Add in Discord leaking 70,000 government IDs, OpenAI shoving ads into ChatGPT while safety researchers flee the building like it’s on fire, and a "cognitive debt" crisis eroding our ability to think, and you’ve got a recipe for a tech-induced psychosis that even crypto-funded human trafficking can’t outpace. In MEDIA CANDY, we're wondering about the soft-core porn intro in the latest Star Trek: Starfleet Academy while Apple buys the total rights to Severance for seventy million dollars—because in-house production is the only way to keep those ballooning budgets under control. Super Bowl trailer season gave us a glimpse of The Mandalorian and Grogu and a Project Hail Mary teaser, while Babylon 5 has finally landed on YouTube for free, proving that even 90s serialized sci-fi eventually finds its way to the clearance bin. Over in APPS & DOODADS, Meta Quest is nagging us for our birthdays like a needy relative, while Roblox had to scrub a mass-shooting simulator—because "AI plus human safety teams" is apparently just code for "we missed it until it hit the forums." Ring’s Super Bowl ad for "Search Party" accidentally terrified everyone by revealing a mass surveillance network for pets that’s a slippery slope toward a police state, and Waymo is now paying DoorDashers ten bucks just to walk over and close the car doors that autonomous tech still can’t figure out. Wrapping up with THE DARK SIDE WITH DAVE, we dive into the Mandalorian Hasbro reveal where Sigourney Weaver’s action figure comes with no accessories because her existence is enough of a flex. We explore the grim reality of "RentAHuman," where humans are paid pittance to pretend AI agents are actually doing work, and look at "Trash Talk Audio," which sells a $125 microphone made out of a literal old telephone for that authentic Gen-X "get off the line, I'm expecting a call" aesthetic. From Marcia Lucas finally venting about the prequels and a rare book catalog specifically for our aging generation, we’re reminded that while the future is a chaotic mess of "GeoSpy" AI and corporate reshuffling at Disney, at least we still have our cynical memories and some free versions of Roller Coaster Tycoon to keep us from losing it completely. Sponsors: CleanMyMac - Get Tidy Today! Try 7 days free and use code OLDGEEKS for 20% off at clnmy.com/OLDGEEKS DeleteMe - Get 20% off your DeleteMe plan when you go to JoinDeleteMe.com/GOG and use promo code GOG at checkout. Private Internet Access - Go to GOG.Show/vpn and sign up today. For a limited time only, you can get OUR favorite VPN for as little as $2.03 a month. SetApp - With a single monthly subscription you get 240+ apps for your Mac. Go to SetApp and get started today!!! 1Password - Get a great deal on the only password manager recommended by Grumpy Old Geeks! gog.show/1password Show notes at https://gog.show/733 FOLLOW UP Automattic planned to target 10 competitors with royalty fees, WP Engine claims in new filing AI Doesn’t Reduce Work—It Intensifies It Polymarket To Offer Attention Markets In Partnership With Kaito AI IN THE NEWS Unable to Reach Mars, Musk Does the Most Musk Thing Possible Elon Musk’s X Appears to Be Violating US Sanctions by Selling Premium Accounts to Iranian Leaders Meta Faces Two Key Trials That Could Change Social Media Forever WhatsApp is now fully blocked in Russia DOJ may face investigation for pressuring Apple, Google to remove apps for tracking ICE agents Discord Launches Teen-by-Default Settings Globally Discord says hackers stole government IDs of 70,000 users Free Tool Says it Can Bypass Discord's Age Verification Check With a 3D Model OpenAI Researcher Quits, Warns Its Unprecedented ‘Archive of Human Candor’ Is Dangerous OpenAI Fires Top Safety Exec Who Opposed ChatGPT’s “Adult Mode” Anthropic AI Safety Researcher Warns Of World ‘In Peril’ In Resignation Musk’s xAI loses second co-founder in two days America Isn’t Ready for What AI Will Do to Jobs Monologue: No, Something Big Isn’t Coming The Scientist Who Predicted AI Psychosis Has a Grim Forecast of What’s Going to Happen Next Crypto-Funded Human Trafficking Is Exploding MEDIA CANDY Project Hail Mary | Final Trailer Minions & Monsters | Official Trailer Disclosure Day | Big Game Spot The Mandalorian and Grogu | A New Journey Begins | In Theaters May 22 Babylon 5 Is Now Free to Watch On YouTube Apple acquires all rights to ‘Severance,’ will produce future seasons in-house APPS & DOODADS Tumbler Ridge Shooter Created Mall Shooting Simulator in Roblox Here's how to disable Ring's creepy Search Party feature Waymo Is Getting DoorDashers to Close Doors on Self Driving Cars TikTok US launches a local feed that leverages a user's exact location Apple just released iOS 26.3 alongside updates for the Mac, iPad and Apple Watch THE DARK SIDE WITH DAVE Your First Look at Hasbro's 'Mandalorian and Grogu' Figures Is Here (Exclusive) I Tried RentAHuman, Where AI Agents Hired Me to Hype Their AI Startups Roger Reacts to Star Wars - A New Hope Marcia Lucas Finally Speaks Out | Icons Unearthed: Unplugged (FULL INTERVIEW) What’s wrong with the prequels? CLOSING SHOUT-OUTS Robert Tinney, who painted iconic Byte magazine covers, RIP See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info. | |||
| 732: We’re Not In the Files! | 07 Feb 2026 | 01:16:06 | |
In this week’s FOLLOW UP, Bitcoin is down 15%, miners are unplugging rigs because paying eighty-seven grand to mine a sixty-grand coin finally failed the vibes check, and Grok is still digitally undressing men—suggesting Musk’s “safeguards” remain mostly theoretical, which didn’t help when X offices got raided in France. Spain wants to ban social media for kids under 16, Egypt is blocking Roblox outright, and governments everywhere are flailing at the algorithmic abyss. IN THE NEWS, Elon Musk is rolling xAI into SpaceX to birth a $1.25 trillion megacorp that wants to power AI from orbit with a million satellites, because space junk apparently wasn’t annoying enough. Amazon admits a “high volume” of CSAM showed up in its AI training data and blames third parties, Waymo bags a massive $16 billion to insist robotaxis are working, Pinterest reportedly fires staff who built a layoff-tracking tool, and Sam Altman gets extremely cranky about Claude’s Super Bowl ads hitting a little too close to home. For MEDIA CANDY, we’ve got Shrinking, the Grammys, Star Trek: Starfleet Academy’s questionable holographic future, Neil Young gifting his catalog to Greenland while snubbing Amazon, plus Is It Cake? Valentines and The Rip. In APPS & DOODADS, we test Sennheiser earbuds, mess with Topaz Video, skip a deeply cursed Python script that checks LinkedIn for Epstein connections, and note that autonomous cars and drones will happily obey prompt injection via road signs—defeated by a Sharpie. IN THE LIBRARY, there’s The Regicide Report, a brutal study finding early dementia signals in Terry Pratchett’s novels, Neil Gaiman denying allegations while announcing a new book, and THE DARK SIDE WITH DAVE, vibing with The Muppet Show as Disney names a new CEO. We round it out with RentAHuman.ai dread relief via paper airplane databases, free Roller Coaster Tycoon, and Sir Ian McKellen on Colbert—still classy in the digital wasteland. Sponsors: DeleteMe - Get 20% off your DeleteMe plan when you go to JoinDeleteMe.com/GOG and use promo code GOG at checkout. SquareSpace - go to squarespace.com/GRUMPY for a free trial. And when you’re ready to launch, use code GRUMPY to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. Private Internet Access - Go to GOG.Show/vpn and sign up today. For a limited time only, you can get OUR favorite VPN for as little as $2.03 a month. SetApp - With a single monthly subscription you get 240+ apps for your Mac. Go to SetApp and get started today!!! 1Password - Get a great deal on the only password manager recommended by Grumpy Old Geeks! gog.show/1password Show notes at https://gog.show/732 Watch on YouTube at https://youtu.be/uFfEI2fuWaM FOLLOW UP Bitcoin drops 15%, briefly breaking below $61,000 as sell-off intensifies, doubts about crypto grow Bitcoin Is Crashing So Hard That Miners Are Unplugging Their Equipment Grok, which maybe stopped undressing women without their consent, still undresses men X offices raided in France as UK opens fresh investigation into Grok Spain set to ban social media for children under 16 Egypt to block Roblox for all users IN THE NEWS Elon Musk Is Rolling xAI Into SpaceX—Creating the World’s Most Valuable Private Company SpaceX wants to launch a constellation of a million satellites to power AI needs A potential Starlink competitor just got FCC clearance to launch 4,000 satellites Waymo raises massive $16 billion round at $126 billion valuation, plans expansion to 20+ cities Pinterest Reportedly Fires Employees Who Built a Tool to Track Layoffs Sam Altman got exceptionally testy over Claude Super Bowl ads MEDIA CANDY Neil Young gifts Greenland free access to his music and withdraws it from Amazon over Trump APPS & DOODADS Sennheiser Consumer Audio CX 80S In-ear Headphones with In-line One-Button Smart Remote – Black Autonomous cars, drones cheerfully obey prompt injection by road sign AT THE LIBRARY The Regicide Report (Laundry Files Book 14) by Charles Stross Scientists Found an Early Signal of Dementia Hidden in Terry Pratchett's Novels Neil Gaiman Denies the Allegations Against Him (Again) While Announcing a New Book THE DARK SIDE WITH DAVE Disney announces Josh D’Amaro will be its new CEO after Iger departs A Database of Paper Airplane Designs: Hours of Fun for Kids & Adults Alike Online (free!) version of Roller Coaster tycoon. Speaking of coasters, here’s the current world champion. CLOSING SHOUT-OUTS Catherine O’Hara: The Grande Dame of Off-Center Comedy Standing with Sam 'Balloon Man' Martinez See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info. | |||
| 731: I Want My 13 Trillion Dollars! | 30 Jan 2026 | 01:19:24 | |
We kick off FOLLOW UP by checking in on Elon Musk’s personal dumpster fire, where the EU is investigating Grok for deepfake slop while Tesla’s “unsupervised” robotaxis turned out to be supervised by literal chase cars — shocker. At least some of you are getting Siri settlement crumbs in your bank accounts, though you could probably double it betting against Musk’s worthless promises on Polymarket. Transitioning to IN THE NEWS, Tesla is killing off the Model S and X to build robots while sales crater, proving that mixing hard-right politics with EV sales is a brilliant move for the balance sheet. Meanwhile, the corporate bloodbath continues with massive layoffs at Ubisoft, Vimeo (courtesy of the Bending Spoons buzzsaw), and Amazon, because “removing bureaucracy” is apparently HR-speak for 16,000 families losing their livelihoods. If that’s not enough, Google is settling yet another privacy suit for $135 million, the EU is threatening to weaponize its tech sovereignty against the US, and the Trump administration wants Gemini to write federal regulations—because if there's one thing we want drafting airline safety rules, it's a hallucinating chatbot. Still IN THE NEWS, Waymo is under federal investigation for passing school buses and hitting children, while South Korea’s new AI laws manage to please absolutely no one. Record labels are suing Anna’s Archive for a cool $13 trillion—roughly three times the GDP of India—and the Winklevoss twins have finally admitted that NFTs are dead by shuttering Nifty Gateway. We pivot to MEDIA CANDY, where the Patriots and Seahawks are heading to Super Bowl 60, and the Winter Olympics are descending on Milan. We’re doing the math on the Starfleet Academy timeline, celebrating the return of Ted Lasso and Shrinking, and trying to decide if Henry Cavill is the second coming of Timothy Dalton in the Highlander reboot. Plus, Jessica Jones is back in the Daredevil: Born Again trailer, and Colin Farrell’s Sugar is returning to explain that wild noir twist we all totally saw coming. In APPS & DOODADS, the TikTok Armageddon is upon us as the new US owners break the app and drive everyone to UpScrolled, while Native Instruments enters insolvency, leaving our music-making dreams in restructuring limbo. Apple is dropping AirTag 2 with precision finding for your watch, which is great for finding the keys you lost while doom-scrolling. We wrap up with THE DARK SIDE WITH DAVE, featuring the new Muppets trailer and Steve Whitmire’s deep thoughts on the state of the felt, plus a look at the artisans in Disneyland Handcrafted. Finally, Looney Tunes finds a new home on Turner Classic Movies, proving that the classics never die—they just move to a cable channel your parents actually watch. Dave finally learns about the Insta360 camera, a countertop dishwasher but no Animal Crackers, and a guide to gas masks and googles... for no particular reason. Sponsors: DeleteMe - Get 20% off your DeleteMe plan when you go to JoinDeleteMe.com/GOG and use promo code GOG at checkout. SquareSpace - go to squarespace.com/GRUMPY for a free trial. And when you’re ready to launch, use code GRUMPY to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. Private Internet Access - Go to GOG.Show/vpn and sign up today. For a limited time only, you can get OUR favorite VPN for as little as $2.03 a month. SetApp - With a single monthly subscription you get 240+ apps for your Mac. Go to SetApp and get started today!!! 1Password - Get a great deal on the only password manager recommended by Grumpy Old Geeks! gog.show/1password Show notes at https://gog.show/731 Watch the episode at https://youtu.be/B54je_oJWjM FOLLOW UP The EU is investigating Grok and X over potentially illegal deepfakes People on Polymarket Are Making a Fortune by Betting Against Elon Musk’s Famously Worthless Promises Elon Musk Made Tesla Fans Think Unsupervised Robotaxis Had Arrived. They Can’t Find Them Tesla Quietly Pauses Its “Unsupervised” Robotaxi Rides as Reality Sets In Apple Siri settlement payments hitting bank accounts. What to know. IN THE NEWS Tesla bet big on Elon Musk. His politics continue to haunt it. With Tesla Revenue and Profits Down, Elon Musk Plays Up Safety Ubisoft proposes even more layoffs after last week's studio closures and game cancellations Vimeo lays off most of its staff just months after being bought by private equity firm Amazon Laying Off 16,000 as It Increases ‘Ownership’ and Removes ‘Bureaucracy’ Report Says the E.U. Is Gearing Up to Weaponize Europe's Tech Industry Against the U.S. Google will pay $135 million to settle illegal data collection lawsuit NTSB will investigate why Waymo's robotaxis are illegally passing school buses Waymo robotaxi hits a child near an elementary school in Santa Monica Video shows Waymo vehicle slam into parked cars in Echo Park Trump admin reportedly plans to use AI to write federal regulations South Korea’s ‘world-first’ AI laws face pushback amid bid to become leading tech power Spotify and Big 3 Record Labels Sue Anna’s Archive for $13 Trillion (!) Alleging Theft Amazon converting some Fresh supermarkets, Go stores to Whole Foods locations SEC agrees to dismiss case over crypto lending by Winklevoss' Gemini Winklevoss Twins Shut Down NFT Marketplace in Another Sign Crypto Art Is Dead MEDIA CANDY A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms How to watch the 2026 Super Bowl: Patriots vs. Seahawks channel, where to stream and more Wait, So When Is 'Starfleet Academy' Set, Anyway? The First ‘Daredevil: Born Again’ Season 2 Trailer Brings Back Jessica Jones Marvel Television’s Daredevil: Born Again Season 2 | Teaser Trailer Ted Lasso Gets Kicked Back to Apple TV There Can Only Be One First Look at the ‘Highlander’ Reboot Colin Farrell’s Detective Show ‘Sugar’ Will Finally Have to Address that Wild Twist This Summer APPS & DOODADS TikTok Is Now Collecting Even More Data About Its Users. Here Are the 3 Biggest Changes TikTok users freak out over app's 'immigration status' collection — here's what it means TikTok’s New US Owners Are Off to a Very Rocky Start TikTok Data Center Outage Triggers Trust Crisis for New US Owners Yes, TikTok is still broken for many people Social network UpScrolled sees surge in downloads following TikTok's US takeover Native Instruments enters into insolvency proceedings, leaving its future uncertain AirTag 2: Three tidbits you might have missed THE DARK SIDE WITH DAVE The Muppet Show | Official Trailer | Disney+ ‘Looney Tunes’ Has Found a New Home: Turner Classic Movies A Disturbing (Yet Convincing) Theory Reveals There Were Never Any "Monsters" In Scooby Doo Cartoon Conspiracy Theory | Scooby Doo and The Gang Are Draft Dodgers?! Producing A Multi-Person Interview With An Insta360 Camera A listener on Mastodon pointed out that The Verge had a story on countertop dishwashers A Demonstrator’s Guide to Gas Masks and Goggles See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info. | |||
| 730: Ethical Broads | 23 Jan 2026 | 01:26:31 | |
Ep 730: Ethical Broads PRIVATE We kick off FOLLOW UP with California’s AG sending a cease-and-desist to xAI over Grok generating creepy deepfakes of minors, while regulators finally notice Elon Musk’s xAI datacenter illegally running methane turbines in Memphis. The FTC is also appealing its loss in the Meta monopoly case, because apparently breaking up Zuckerberg’s data empire is still the hill they want to die on. IN THE NEWS, Washington joins the age-verification-for-porn parade, the UK considers an Australia-style social media ban for kids under 16, and governments everywhere continue demanding your ID before you’re allowed to enjoy the internet. OpenAI rolls out age prediction for ChatGPT accounts ahead of a rumored adult mode—though hey, at least you can now group tabs in ChatGPT’s Atlas browser. Anthropic rewrites Claude’s “constitution” to make it more vibes-based, Nevada moves to block Polymarket because gambling is only legal when the house owns the house, and YouTube promises even more AI features in 2026. Elsewhere, a Swiss suicide pod gets an AI “mental fitness” upgrade, Microsoft’s CEO begs AI developers to do something useful before the grid collapses, Musk hunts for a $134 billion payday from OpenAI and Microsoft, and makes yet more Davos predictions about robotaxis and aliens that are absolutely happening this year. On the bright side, A-list creatives push back on AI and Comic-Con bans AI art, buying humans a little more time. MEDIA CANDY finds us slogging through Wish, The Pitt, and the “Mel’s Diner in Space” look of Star Trek: Starfleet Academy. We confirm 20-year-old CGI wargs still look terrible, get cautiously excited for 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple, and note that Fallout Season 2’s weekly drops may not be working for a binge-rotted audience. In APPS & DOODADS, X launches Bluesky-style starter packs—presumably to help you find more Nazis—while ICE becomes one of the most-blocked accounts on Bluesky. Threads edges out X in daily mobile users, proving the “federated future” is just another Zuck app. And yes, we think we know what the Apple AI pin is—and definitely what it isn’t. AT THE LIBRARY, we check out The Elements, Jet Tila’s 101 Thai Dishes You Need to Cook Before You Die, Half Baked Harvest: Quick & Cozy, and Southern Living’s A Southern Gentleman’s Kitchen. Scott reports back from a Jim Butcher talk, where we learn Harry Dresden sounds suspiciously like Han Solo. We close with THE DARK SIDE WITH DAVE, who is juggling five podcasts while reading Going to the Top: The Story of Videopolis, plus teasers for Star Wars: Maul – Shadow Lord and a baffling Masters of the Universe trailer, a rant on what “remastered” even means anymore, a dishwasher follow-up, and the grim news that a lot of snow is coming. Sponsors: DeleteMe - Get 20% off your DeleteMe plan when you go to JoinDeleteMe.com/GOG and use promo code GOG at checkout. SquareSpace - go to squarespace.com/GRUMPY for a free trial. And when you’re ready to launch, use code GRUMPY to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. Private Internet Access - Go to GOG.Show/vpn and sign up today. For a limited time only, you can get OUR favorite VPN for as little as $2.03 a month. SetApp - With a single monthly subscription you get 240+ apps for your Mac. Go to SetApp and get started today!!! 1Password - Get a great deal on the only password manager recommended by Grumpy Old Geeks! gog.show/1password Show notes at https://gog.show/730 Watch on YouTube at https://youtu.be/LiwVkLKr8Co FOLLOW UP California AG sends cease and desist to xAI over Grok's explicit deepfakes Elon Musk’s xAI datacenter generating extra electricity illegally, regulator rules Zuck stuck on Trump’s bad side: FTC appeals loss in Meta monopoly case IN THE NEWS Washington is the latest state pursuing an age verification law for porn sites The UK is mulling an Australia-like social media ban for users under 16 OpenAI is launching age prediction for ChatGPT accounts You can now group tabs on OpenAI’s ChatGPT Atlas browser Anthropic Updates Claude's 'Constitution,' Just in Case Chatbot Has a Consciousness Nevada files to block Polymarket from offering ‘unlicensed wagering’ in the state YouTube CEO promises more AI features in 2026 Controversial Swiss Suicide Pod Gets an AI-Powered Mental Fitness Upgrade Elon Musk is looking for a $134 billion payout from OpenAI and Microsoft Elon Musk Sure Made Lots of Predictions at Davos A-List creatives sign up to fight AI, say it enables 'theft at a grand scale' Comic-Con Bans AI Art After Artist Pushback MEDIA CANDY 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple 'Fallout' Season 2's Weekly Drops May Not Be Working APPS & DOODADS X is also launching Bluesky-like starter packs ICE becomes one of the most-blocked accounts on Bluesky after its verification Threads edges out X in daily mobile users, new data shows I think I know what the Apple pin is, and definitely know what it isn't Apple Developing AirTag-Sized AI Pin With Dual Cameras Not to be outdone by OpenAI, Apple is reportedly developing an AI wearable Siri’s iOS 27 upgrade sounds exactly right. Apple’s AI pin sounds exactly wrong AT THE LIBRARY 101 Thai Dishes You Need to Cook Before You Die by Jet Tila Half Baked Harvest Quick & Cozy: A Cookbook by Tieghan Gerard THE DARK SIDE WITH DAVE Going to the Top: The Story of Videopolis—Part One Star Wars: Maul - Shadow Lord | Official Teaser Trailer | Streaming April 6 on Disney+ Masters of The Universe – Official Teaser Trailer CLOSING SHOUT-OUTS Classic-Era Scorpions Bassist Francis Buchholz Dies at 71 See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info. | |||
| 729: Alright Alright Alright™ | 16 Jan 2026 | 01:24:25 | |
We kick things off with the existential dread of FOLLOW UP and the absolute joy of jury duty. While xAI’s Grok is busy getting banned in Malaysia and Indonesia for its CSAM-generating "features," the Senate is unanimously passing the DEFIANCE Act to give us some legal teeth against the deepfake machine. Meta is busy nuking 550,000 Australian accounts to appease regulators, while Roblox’s age verification is so broken that a drawing of stubble or a photo of Kurt Cobain can get you into the adult lounge. Moving IN THE NEWS, Meta is trading its $70 billion Metaverse graveyard for a Reality Labs layoff and a pivot to AI hardware, fueled by an "AI infrastructure" buildout that’s hiring former Trump advisors. Bandcamp is heroically banning AI "slop," Matthew McConaughey is trademarking his own face to fend off the bots, and ICE’s AI hiring tool is such a disaster it’s accidentally fast-tracking mall security as "officers." Between self-help gurus charging $99 for chatbot "advice," GM finally settling its driver-spying suit with the FTC, and NASA prepping for a February moon shot while China plans to launch 200,000 satellites into our already crowded orbit, the future looks exactly as messy as we expected. For MEDIA CANDY, we’ve got Lord of the Rings marathons, the diner-bridge of Starfleet Academy, and the usual joy of streaming price hikes hitting our "Premium" plans. We’re tracking the 2025 "In Memoriam" and Gabriel Pagan’s exhaustive movie list before sliding into APPS & DOODADS. Jony Ive and Sam Altman are reportedly building an hearing aide called "Sweetpea" to kill your AirPods, Siri is officially Google Gemini’s new puppet, and Apple is finally bundling its creative apps into a "Creator Studio" subscription trap. Tesla is making Full Self-Driving a subscription-only Valentine’s gift (good luck with that), Ring is rebranding surveillance as a "fire-watching" assistant, and a Chinese app called "Are You Dead?" is the new must-have for the lonely. To cap it off, the internet proved its maturity by using "Words.zip"—an infinite word-search grid—to draw a giant phallus, because of course they did. AT THE LIBRARY features the Anthony Bourdain Reader, the return of Bob in the new Laundry Files book, and Jimmy Carr’s guide to happiness, which is apparently cheaper than therapy. Then we descend into THE DARK SIDE WITH DAVE, where the dishwasher-installing, ham-radio-lunching Dave Bittner reveals Disney World has job openings for those of us who spent high school in the AV club. Lucasfilm is finally entering a new era as Kathleen Kennedy steps down, just as Galaxy’s Edge admits the original trilogy exists, and we wrap it all up with lock-picking kits and the terrifying realization that Seymour from H.R. Pufnstuf is the ultimate Gen-X fursona. Sponsors: DeleteMe - Get 20% off your DeleteMe plan when you go to JoinDeleteMe.com/GOG and use promo code GOG at checkout. Gusto - Try Gusto today at gusto.com/grumpy, and get three months free when you run your first payroll. Private Internet Access - Go to GOG.Show/vpn and sign up today. For a limited time only, you can get OUR favorite VPN for as little as $2.03 a month. SetApp - With a single monthly subscription you get 240+ apps for your Mac. Go to SetApp and get started today!!! 1Password - Get a great deal on the only password manager recommended by Grumpy Old Geeks! gog.show/1password Show notes at https://gog.show/729 Watch on YouTube! https://youtu.be/1Y1jnRDw7g0 FOLLOW UP Malaysia and Indonesia are the first to block Grok following CSAM scandal Senate passes Defiance Act for a second time to address Grok deepfakes Meta closes 550,000 accounts to comply with Australia's kids social media ban Roblox's age verification system is reportedly a trainwreck IN THE NEWS Meta refocuses on AI hardware as metaverse layoffs begin Meta’s Layoffs Leave Supernatural Fitness Users in Mourning Meta Creates High-Powered Team to Oversee AI Infrastructure Buildout Bandcamp prohibits music made ‘wholly or in substantial part’ by AI Matthew McConaughey fights unauthorized AI likenesses by trademarking himself ICE’s AI Tool Has Been a Complete Disaster Self-Help Ghouls Are Charging People Absurd Prices to Talk to Impersonator Chatbots The FTC's data-sharing order against GM is finally settled NASA is ending Crew-11 astronauts' mission a month early NASA makes final preparations for its first crewed moon mission in over 50 years As SpaceX Works Toward 50K Starlink Satellites, China Eyes Deploying 200K MEDIA CANDY The Ongoing History of New Music, episode 1069: 2025 in Memoriam APPS & DOODADS Jony Ive and Sam Altman’s First AI Gadget May Try to Kill AirPods Apple's Siri AI will be powered by Gemini Apple’s Mac and iPad creative apps get bundled into “Creator Studio” subscription Tesla's Full Self-Driving is switching to a subscription-only service Ring founder details the camera company's 'intelligent assistant' era Are You Dead?: The viral Chinese app for young people living alone Give the Internet an Infinite Word Search and the Internet Will Draw a Dick on It AT THE LIBRARY The Anthony Bourdain Reader: New, Classic, and Rediscovered Writing by Anthony Bourdain Obvious Adams: The Story of a Successful Businessman by Robert Updegraff Before & Laughter by Jimmy Carr The Regicide Report (Laundry Files, 14) by Charles Stross THE DARK SIDE WITH DAVE How to Read a Book: A Novel by Monica Wood Walt Disney World Resort is looking for Entertainment Stage Technicians Galaxy’s Edge Will Soon Cover All Eras of ‘Star Wars’ Kathleen Kennedy steps down as Lucasfilm president, marking a new era for the Star Wars franchise See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info. | |||
| 728: No Face to Shoot | 09 Jan 2026 | 01:15:06 | |
Welcome back to the digital wasteland, fellow survivors. We kick things off in the FOLLOW UP by marking a year since the LA Fires—hello, PTSD—alongside a 4th Strokiversary and three years of sobriety, all while wondering why America is currently obsessed with shooting its own civilians in the face. In the IN THE NEWS segment, Wired is finally teaching us how to protest safely in the age of surveillance, and the EFF is cheering on the hackers fighting ICE’s Nazi-adjacent tracking tactics. Meanwhile, Meta is harvesting your AI chats for targeted ads, Disney is paying $10 million for spying on kids, and Grok has spent the holidays generating nonconsensual child abuse material—a problem Elon Musk won't have to legally reckon with until the Take It Down Act hits in May. Instagram’s Adam Mosseri has basically surrendered to the AI "slop", suggesting we fingerprint "real" media because the fake stuff has already won the war. As we continue the descent, OpenAI is launching a ChatGPT Health portal despite their "loser energy" and compute limits, while Character.AI and Google are quietly settling lawsuits for bots that encouraged teen suicide. Polymarket gamblers are learning that "decentralized" juries will fist you over the definition of an "invasion" just as fast as a bank. Uber showed off a new Lucid-based robotaxi, but we’re pumping the brakes on the safety hype given that autonomous vehicles are five times more likely to crash at dusk. To wrap up the news, Tim Cook took home $74 million last year, which is a lot of "systematic philanthropy" he could be doing right now instead of just writing checks to his own ego. In MEDIA CANDY, we’re suffering through the Stranger Things wrap-up and a John McTiernan holiday marathon, though the real highlight is MTV Rewind’s tribute to music videos. We’ve got Traitors, The Pitt, and even a John Candy doc on the list, while APPS & DOODADS brings us the DJI Osmo 8, Victrola’s turntable-vibrating speakers. At least California’s DROP tool lets you purge your data from 500 brokers at once. Finally, we go to THE DARK SIDE WITH DAVE to hear Dave Bittner rant about holiday tech support, health insurance gouging, and Dave Filoni taking the Star Wars reins. We close out with a look at ILM’s 50th, the deepfake porn cesspool formerly known as Twitter, and a birthday toast to the Starman himself, David Bowie. Sponsors: CleanMyMac - Get Tidy Today! Try 7 days free and use code OLDGEEKS for 20% off at clnmy.com/OLDGEEKS Private Internet Access - Go to GOG.Show/vpn and sign up today. For a limited time only, you can get OUR favorite VPN for as little as $2.03 a month. SetApp - With a single monthly subscription you get 240+ apps for your Mac. Go to SetApp and get started today!!! 1Password - Get a great deal on the only password manager recommended by Grumpy Old Geeks! gog.show/1password Show notes at https://gog.show/728 Watch on YouTube: https://youtu.be/x-2GTUC6rcU IN THE NEWS How to Protest Safely in the Age of Surveillance How Hackers Are Fighting Back Against ICE Meta’s New Privacy Policy Opens Up AI Chats for Targeted Ads Disney to Pay $10 Million After Feds Say It Broke Kids’ Privacy Rules on YouTube People Spent the Holidays Asking Grok to Generate Sexual Images of Children Here's When Elon Musk Will Finally Have to Reckon With His Nonconsensual Porn Generator ChatGPT is launching a new dedicated Health portal Character.AI and Google settle with families in teen suicide and self-harm lawsuits Gambling platform Polymarket not paying bets on US invasion of Venezuela Uber reveals the design of its robotaxi at CES 2026 Maybe We Should Pump the Brakes on the Idea That Robotaxis Are Safer Here’s how much Tim Cook and other Apple execs made last year MEDIA CANDY Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale MTV Rewind is a developer's tribute to 24/7 music video channels APPS & DOODADS This speaker by Victrola sits underneath turntables and streams audio via Bluetooth Delete Request and Opt-out Platform (DROP) THE DARK SIDE WITH DAVE Industrial Light & Magic: 50 Years of Innovation Who’s who at X, the deepfake porn site formerly known as Twitter See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info. | |||
| 727: Merry Slopmas | 20 Dec 2025 | 01:21:17 | |
Welcome back to another hour of digital cynicism. We kick things off with a FOLLOW UP on Amazon’s Fallout recaps, which were apparently so hallucination-heavy they made the actual wasteland look organized; naturally, they’ve been nuked along with the "Video Recaps" feature. In a massive dose of IN THE NEWS, Tesla is finally getting a legal side-eye in California for its deceptive "Autopilot" branding, while TikTok is performing a corporate shell game by selling a 45% stake to Oracle and friends to keep the feds happy. Reddit is fighting Australia’s under-16 ban like it’s a constitutional crisis, Louisiana’s age-verification law just got benched by a judge, and Merriam-Webster officially crowned "slop" as the Word of the Year—which is fitting, given that OpenAI is selectively hiding chat logs from murder-suicides while their Chief Scientist warns that recursive AI self-improvement might end the human experiment by 2030. If the "intelligence explosion" doesn’t get us, the CRASH Clock says we’ve got roughly 2.8 days before Elon’s satellite swarm turns low-earth orbit into a permanent scrapyard. In our MEDIA CANDY segment, we mourn the transition year of Star Trek, which was mostly a series of unmitigated disasters and corporate retreats, though the Oscars moving to YouTube in 2029 means we can finally ignore them in 4K. Meta is testing a "pay-to-share-links" feature because they clearly haven't alienated creators enough, and a new study suggests Amazon’s "dynamic pricing" is basically just a high-tech way to gouge public school districts for pencils. Moving to APPS & DOODADS, iOS 26.2 is here with a "Liquid Glass" slider—groundbreaking stuff, really—while Microsoft’s Copilot+ push is effectively killing the laptop market by making 16GB of RAM a luxury item only a data center could love. Meanwhile, iRobot has officially sucked its last bit of dust into a Chapter 11 filing, proving that even a twenty-year head start can’t save you from a 46 percent tariff and better Chinese competition. AT THE LIBRARY, we find out that librarians are ready to quit because people keep demanding books that only exist in a ChatGPT hallucination, proving once again that the "Information Age" was a lie. We descend into THE DARK SIDE WITH DAVE with the tireless Dave Bittner to discuss why modern movies feel like plastic, the bizarre paradox of James Cameron’s Avatar dominance, and a bittersweet farewell to Rob Reiner. We wrap it up with the return of The Muppets, a look at plug-in solar panels for the budget-conscious prepper, and the Sedaris siblings proving that even grief can be a podcast topic. It’s all the tech "progress" you never asked for, delivered with the appropriate amount of Gen-X side-eye. Show notes at https://gog.show/727 Watch on YouTube: https://youtu.be/hHnGD4lIFzA Sponsors: MasterClass - Get up to 50% off at MASTERCLASS.com/GRUMPYOLDGEEKS Private Internet Access - Go to GOG.Show/vpn and sign up today. For a limited time only, you can get OUR favorite VPN for as little as $2.03 a month. SetApp - With a single monthly subscription you get 240+ apps for your Mac. Go to SetApp and get started today!!! 1Password - Get a great deal on the only password manager recommended by Grumpy Old Geeks! gog.show/1password FOLLOW UP Amazon pulls its bad AI video recaps after Fallout fallout IN THE NEWS Tesla used deceptive language to market Autopilot, California judge rules TikTok agrees to deal to cede control of US business to American investor group Reddit sues Australia over underage social media ban Judge blocks Louisiana's social media age verification law Murder-suicide case shows OpenAI selectively hides data after users die Trump orders creation of litigation task force to challenge state AI laws 'Slop' is Merriam-Webster's word of the year Anthropic’s Chief Scientist Says We’re Rapidly Approaching the Moment That Could Doom Us All OpenAI Is Going Into the New Year With Some Real Loser Energy New ‘CRASH Clock’ Warns of 2.8-Day Window Before Likely Orbital Collision A Facebook test makes link-sharing a paid feature for creators Study links Amazon's algorithmic pricing with erratic, inflated costs for school districts MEDIA CANDY Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery Apple TV releasing Pluribus season finale early next week Warner Bros. Discovery rejects Paramount's hostile bid 2025 Was a Turning Point for ‘Star Trek’, Whether It Knew It or Not APPS & DOODADS iOS 26.2 is here with another Liquid Glass tweak, new Podcasts features and more Oh, the Irony: Microsoft’s Push for Copilot+ PCs Could Stall Laptop Sales iRobot has filed for bankruptcy and may be taken over by its primary supplier AT THE LIBRARY Making Space (The Time Traveler's Passport) by R. F. Kuang For a Limited Time Only (The Time Traveler's Passport) by Peng Shepherd Librarians Are Tired of Being Accused of Hiding Secret Books That Were Made Up by AI THE DARK SIDE WITH DAVE Why Movies Just Don't Feel "Real" Anymore The Avatar Paradox - Why Nobody Talks About These Movies Every James Cameron Movie, Explained by James Cameron | Vanity Fair ‘The Muppet Show’ Returns for One Night Only Next February The Muppet Show | Official Teaser | Disney+ Small plug-in solar panels gain traction as an affordable way to cut electricity bills 'You don't know what it's like till you lose a parent': Sedaris siblings share their grief story CLOSING SHOUT-OUTS “Enshittification” SoundCloud (with a direct download) See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info. | |||
| 726: Sycophantic and Delusional | 12 Dec 2025 | 01:17:31 | |
The labor market has swung from the Great Resignation to “job hugging,” where workers cling to their roles out of fear of AI-driven layoffs and inflation, crushing engagement and accelerating burnout. At the same time, OpenAI is accused of suppressing research showing job losses, ignoring internal warnings about chatbot mental health risks, and bleeding safety staff, while state Attorneys General fire off an opening salvo likening unchecked AI harms to an opioid crisis-in-the-making. The AI boom is now colliding with reality. Environmental groups want a halt on new datacenters as power prices spike, and the industry is starting to look financially radioactive, with opaque financing schemes, hidden debt, and trillion-dollar infrastructure bets that could vaporize household wealth. Regulators are pushing back too: the EU is fining X, probing Google over training data, and floating a statutory licensing scheme for AI scraping, while Disney dives in with a billion-dollar bet on “responsible” AI storytelling that mostly translates to fewer humans on payroll. Meanwhile, everyday tech dystopia rolls on. Uber is monetizing your movement data, Instacart is quietly price-discriminating groceries, Waymo is spinning a robotaxi birth as a feel-good story, and crypto fraud finally earns real prison time. Add in AI-generated marketing slop, government sites hijacked by SEO porn, billion-dollar festival scams resurrected, and Congress kneecapping right-to-repair, and the takeaway is simple: the machines are hungry, the adults are absent, and the vibes are aggressively bad. Sponsors: CleanMyMac - Get Tidy Today! Try 7 days free and use code OLDGEEKS for 20% off at clnmy.com/OLDGEEKS Gusto - Try Gusto today at gusto.com/grumpy, and get three months free when you run your first payroll. Private Internet Access - Go to GOG.Show/vpn and sign up today. For a limited time only, you can get OUR favorite VPN for as little as $2.03 a month. SetApp - With a single monthly subscription you get 240+ apps for your Mac. Go to SetApp and get started today!!! 1Password - Get a great deal on the only password manager recommended by Grumpy Old Geeks! gog.show/1password Show notes at https://gog.show/726 Watch on YouTube: https://youtu.be/eJbLlVhIQ-Y FOLLOW UP “Why ‘job hugging’ can be worse than quitting” OpenAI Accused of Self-Censoring Research That Paints AI In a Bad Light OpenAI, Anthropic, Others Receive Warning Letter from Dozens of State Attorneys General IN THE NEWS More than 200 environmental groups demand halt to new US datacenters Something Ominous Is Happening in the AI Economy OpenAI's house of cards seems primed to collapse X shuts down the European Commission’s ad account the day after major fine EU opens antitrust investigation into Google's AI practices EU Report Distills AI-Training Lessons from Napster Piracy Era: Don’t Sue, License Disney Invests $1 Billion in the AI Slopification of Its Brand Uber will start selling trip and takeout data to marketers Instacart Charging Customers Different Prices for Same Products, Study Finds Waymo's robotaxi fleet is being recalled again, this time for failing to stop for school buses Driverless delivery: Woman gives birth in San Francisco Waymo Crypto mogul Do Kwon sentenced to 15 years in prison for $40 billion stablecoin fraud Porn Is Being Injected Into Government Websites Via Malicious PDFs Marco Rubio bans Calibri font at State Department for being too DEI 'Architects of AI' named Time Magazine's Person of the Year MEDIA CANDY What Happened at Billy McFarland’s PHNX Festival? The Lord of the Rings trilogy returns to theaters in January for 25th anniversary Amazon’s Official ‘Fallout’ Season 1 Recap Is AI Garbage Filled With Mistakes The Boys - Final Season Teaser Trailer | Prime Video Paradise Season 2 | Official Teaser | Hulu Supergirl | Official Teaser Trailer No Such Thing As a Fish - Ep612: No Such Thing As The Gordon Ramsay Songbook WTF Happened To Battlestar Galactica (2004-2009)?! Star Trek: Starfleet Academy | Official Trailer | Paramount+ (NYCC 2025) Starfleet Academy - What Is This Garbage? APPS & DOODADS Google and Apple partner on better Android-iPhone switching Congress removes right to repair language from 2026 defense bill Glide Gear TMP 100 Teleprompter – DSLR, Tablet, Smartphone – 12" Glass, Carry Case, No Assembly THE DARK SIDE WITH DAVE The History Behind All the Cuts of the Original ‘Star Wars’’ Rise of the Resistance | Layout Side By Side BLUE MONDAY - Analyzing the MOST BRUTAL BEAT of the '80s | Drum Patterns Explained See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info. | |||
| 725: The Mistake Machine | 05 Dec 2025 | 01:15:02 | |
FOLLOW UP starts with the realization that Spotify Wrapped thinks we are 82 years old, which honestly feels accurate, followed by a massive shout out to Bama Bryan on Bluesky for listening to us for over 3,000 minutes. We look at the grim stats from the Department of Government Efficiency regarding USAID deaths, then move to IN THE NEWS where the KALSHI CEO wants to monetize "any difference in opinion" because gambling on the news is the future. PALANTIR CEO Alex Karp claims making war crimes constitutional is bad for business, META STARTS KICKING AUSTRALIAN CHILDREN OFF their platforms to avoid fines, and TETHER gets a "weak" rating while U.S. BANK calls the ability to freeze stablecoins "appealing." We discuss the LEAK CONFIRMS OPENAI IS PREPARING ADS for ChatGPT while SAM ALTMAN DECLARES 'CODE RED' to catch up to Google. Speaking of which, ONE OF GOOGLE'S BIGGEST AI ADVANTAGES IS WHAT IT ALREADY KNOWS ABOUT YOU, even if GOOGLE DISCOVER IS TESTING AI-GENERATED HEADLINES that are complete lies. We cover how GROK WOULD PREFER A SECOND HOLOCAUST OVER HARMING ELON MUSK, the US PATENT OFFICE ruling on generative AI, a new report on DAVID SACKS profiting from his administration role, and INSTACART SUES NEW YORK CITY because paying workers a living wage is apparently unconstitutional. We wrap up the news with the HUMAN ROBOT HYPE SCARING CHINA, a sad story where CHILDREN SOB AS WAYMO RUNS OVER DOG, a video showing a WAYMO SELF-DRIVING TAXI TAKES PASSENGER THROUGH ACTIVE POLICE SCENE, and the fact that PASSENGERS FACE DISRUPTION AS AIRBUS UPDATES THOUSANDS OF PLANES due to solar flares. In MEDIA CANDY, the industry is shaking because NETFLIX BUYS WARNER BROS. FOR $82 BILLION, meaning they now own everything from Harry Potter to Batman. We look at upcoming releases including WAKE UP DEAD MAN: A KNIVES OUT MYSTERY, FALLOUT SEASON 2, ROMCON: WHO THE F**K IS JASON PORTER?, SEAN COMBS: THE RECKONING, THE LONG KISS GOODNIGHT, THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION, and A MAN ON THE INSIDE. Moving to APPS & DOODADS, we discuss the pure joy of uninstalling DROPBOX, our collective hatred for FUCK CENTER STAGE, and the report that APPLE EMPLOYEES ARE 'GIDDY' ABOUT ALAN DYE'S DEPARTURE. We also cover the horror show where GOOGLE'S AGENTIC AI WIPES USER'S ENTIRE HDD without permission, a study showing YOUR GLITCHY VIDEO CALLS MAY MAKE PEOPLE MISTRUST YOU, and how SCIENTISTS CREATED THE BLACKEST FABRIC EVER. Finally, in THE DARK SIDE WITH DAVE, we learn that CLAUDIA BLACK EXITS ‘AHSOKA’ SEASON 2 over pay disputes because Disney is apparently broke, we scrutinize LEAKED CLIPS FROM THE RUMORED 50TH ANNIVERSARY RERELEASE OF THE ORIGINAL VERSION OF STAR WARS (still no R2D2), check out a STORMTROOPER SUIT ON FACEBOOK MARKETPLACE, and mention THE MAD MEN 4K release. Sponsors: Private Internet Access - Go to GOG.Show/vpn and sign up today. For a limited time only, you can get OUR favorite VPN for as little as $2.03 a month. SetApp - With a single monthly subscription you get 240+ apps for your Mac. Go to SetApp and get started today!!! 1Password - Get a great deal on the only password manager recommended by Grumpy Old Geeks! gog.show/1password Watch on YouTube at https://youtu.be/4IRVvpdJC30 Show notes at https://gog.show/725 FOLLOW UP Kalshi CEO Says He Wants to Monetize ‘Any Difference in Opinion’ Palantir CEO Says Making War Crimes Constitutional Would Be Good for Business Meta starts kicking Australian children off Instagram and Facebook Meta reportedly plans to slash Metaverse budget by up to 30% IN THE NEWS Crypto’s Most Trusted Stablecoin Given Lowest Possible ‘Weak’ Rating By Major TradFi Agency U.S. Bank Calls Ability to Freeze Stablecoins ‘Appealing’ as Crypto Has Completely Lost the Plot Leak confirms OpenAI is preparing ads on ChatGPT for public roll out OpenAI CEO Sam Altman declares 'code red' as ChatGPT competition mounts One of Google's biggest AI advantages is what it already knows about you Google Discover is testing AI-generated headlines and they aren't good Grok would prefer a second Holocaust over harming Elon Musk US patent office says generative AI is equivalent to other tools in inventors' belts The People Outsourcing Their Thinking to AI New report examines how David Sacks might profit from Trump administration role Instacart sues New York City over minimum pay, tipping laws Humanoid Robot Hype Is Officially Scaring China Children Sob as Waymo Runs Over Dog Waymo self-driving taxi takes passenger through active police scene in downtown LA, video shows Passengers face disruption as Airbus updates thousands of planes MEDIA CANDY Netflix Buys Warner Bros. for $82 Billion Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery Fallout Season 2 on Prime Video ROMCON: Who The F**k is Jason Porter? - Season 1 APPS & DOODADS Gruber: Apple employees 'giddy' about Alan Dye’s departure Google's Agentic AI wipes user's entire HDD without permission in catastrophic failure Your glitchy video calls may make people mistrust you Scientists Created the Blackest Fabric Ever, Then Made a Dress THE DARK SIDE WITH DAVE Claudia Black Exits ‘Ahsoka’ Season 2 Over Alleged Pay Disputes Leaked clips from the rumored 50th anniversary rerelease of the original version of Star Wars William Shatner - Good King Wenceslas AI boom kills Crucial as Micron shuts down consumer brand CLOSING SHOUT-OUTS 'Mortal Kombat' Star Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa Dead at 75 See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info. | |||
| 724: Sam Altman’s Boutique | 29 Nov 2025 | 01:08:57 | |
After surviving Thanksgiving and the subsequent biting cold, we jumped into the FOLLOW UP with news that Malaysia is joining the trend by taking steps to ban social media for children under 16, mirroring similar actions in Australia and Denmark—it seems the world is finally realizing the internet is a toxic wasteland for the kids. We also discussed Apple’s photo AI, which is apparently still in beta, if the results are anything to go by. The bulk of our discussion centered on the spectacular, flaming death of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), which is Officially Dead. We broke down a brief rundown of the damages this vanity project caused, from humanitarian disasters overseas to administrative chaos and the loss of hundreds of thousands of jobs domestically, proving the "savings" were pure illusion. Now, with the collapse, the 'Suddenly exposed' DOGE employees fear prosecution after Musk abandoned them, learning the hard way that billionaire guardianship has an expiration date. The job market is just great, with both Apple laying off part of its sales team despite record revenue, and HP joining the List of Tech Companies Cutting Jobs and pointing to AI as the convenient scapegoat for laying off 10% of their workforce. Meanwhile, we found out the most popular social media platform among US adults isn't Instagram or TikTok—it’s YouTube—while Meta allegedly buried research showing its products are harming users, confirming what we’ve known all along: they’re evil, but they already got your grandma hooked. Adding to the misery, An Alarming Number of Teens Say They Turn To AI For Company, Study Finds, because why talk to a real, messy human when a bot can gaslight you more efficiently? Sam Altman's financial troubles are spilling over, with Sam Altman’s Business Buddies Are Getting Stung (sorry, SoftBank and Oracle), and analysts estimate OpenAI Is Just $200 Billion Away From Still Losing Money, HSBC Says, a comical hole they plan to fill by asking for more free money. Legally, OpenAI can’t use the Word ‘Cameo’ in Sora now, thanks to a trademark suit, and Warner Music is playing both sides by dropping its lawsuit against Suno in exchange for a licensing agreement. Finally, in some truly dark news, a Marc Andreessen-backed Super-PAC Pours Millions Into Fighting State AI Regulations, and X's new location feature reveals that New X Feature Reveals Many MAGA Patriots on X Are Not Even Based in the U.S. After ranting about my misery dealing with the Open Dialogue bug in a beta build and declaring my return to "pedestrian releases," we got into APPS & DOODADS. Spotify is actually doing something cool with its new SongDNA feature, which shows you who sampled what (and they bought WhoSampled to do it). They’re also testing Spotify's New AI-powered audiobook Recaps to remind you where you left off—Amazon is doing the same with AI-powered series Recap Videos for Prime Video. Amazon is also rolling out Alexa Home Theater surround sound for Echo speakers, making those budget speakers slightly more useful. We ran through some great stocking stuffers in Jason’s Holiday Gift Guide, including Velcro cable ties and the Contigo travel mug, before moving on to MEDIA CANDY, which included Dan Carlin's Common Sense, Nathan Fillion and Alan Tudyk’s new podcast Once We Were Spacemen, and a discussion on why Stranger Things Lost the Plot. We then got deeply uncomfortable talking about a Toronto ASMR spa that offers doctor roleplay, and closed out by talking about the documentary Quiet Please… about the neurological disorder misophonia. The episode finished with the AT THE LIBRARY segment, covering the Milli Vanilli memoir You Know It’s True and the sci-fi short story collection The Time Travelers Passport. Show notes at https://gog.show/724 Watch now on YouTube: https://youtu.be/PoMa9FM5QEE?si=4r25yqv_0u8aXHF7 Sponsors: MasterClass - Get up to 50% off at MASTERCLASS.com/GRUMPYOLDGEEKS Gusto - Try Gusto today at gusto.com/grumpy, and get three months free when you run your first payroll. Private Internet Access - Go to GOG.Show/vpn and sign up today. For a limited time only, you can get OUR favorite VPN for as little as $2.03 a month. SetApp - With a single monthly subscription you get 240+ apps for your Mac. Go to SetApp and get started today!!! 1Password - Get a great deal on the only password manager recommended by Grumpy Old Geeks! gog.show/1password FOLLOW UP Malaysia takes steps to ban social media for children under 16 IN THE NEWS 'Suddenly exposed' DOGE employees fear prosecution after Musk abandoned them: report Apple lays off part of its sales team HP Joins List of Tech Companies Cutting Jobs and Pointing to AI The most popular social media platform among US adults isn't Instagram or TikTok Meta allegedly buried research showing its products are harming users An Alarming Number of Teens Say They Turn To AI For Company, Study Finds Sam Altman’s Business Buddies Are Getting Stung OpenAI Is Just $200 Billion Away From Still Losing Money, HSBC Says OpenAI Can’t Legally Use the Word ‘Cameo’ in Sora Now Warner Music drops lawsuit against AI music platform Suno in exchange for licensing agreement Marc Andreessen-Backed Super-PAC Pours Millions Into Fighting State AI Regulations New X Feature Reveals Many MAGA Patriots on X Are Not Even Based in The U.S. MEDIA CANDY Common Sense 325 – Who’s the Boss? How Stranger Things Lost the Plot At Toronto’s new ASMR spa, sensory stimulation slips out of the internet and into real life APPS & DOODADS Spotify's SongDNA feature will show you which songs are sampled on a track Making of "The Prodigy - Smack My Bitch Up" in Ableton by Jim Pavloff Spotify's New AI-Powered Audiobook Recaps Will Remind You Where You Left Off Amazon Launches AI-Powered Series Recap Videos Alexa Home Theater surround sound for Echo speakers is rolling out now Dashaun No Sadè - Episode 13 Durand Bernarr Meike 35mm F2.0 Auto Focus Full Frame STM Stepping Motor Lens Compatible with Nikon Z Mount Cameras Scientists Reveal What Black Friday Is Doing to Your Brain Contigo AUTOSEAL West Loop Vacuum-Insulated Stainless Steel Travel Mug with Easy-Clean Lid 20 oz Scotty Peeler Label and Sticker Remover - Single Metal Peeler -SP2 Carlashes 1001UB Classic Black AT THE LIBRARY You Know It’s True - The Real Story of Milli Vanilli See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info. | |||
| 723: Don’t Want No Samsung | 21 Nov 2025 | 01:13:36 | |
We open by tracking our video money and mocking the chef who quit Elon’s "epic" bacon diner, before diving into the IN THE NEWS segment where plummeting crypto and Nvidia stocks confirm everything is a sham; we cover Bezos’s new $6.2 billion AI flop, a sleeping Tesla Robotaxi driver, and why OpenAI’s new school tools are a Recipe for Idiocracy with students who can't read; in MEDIA CANDY, we tear apart Disney's lazy Moana remake; THE DARK SIDE WITH DAVE we discuss Zork going open source and why movies just don’t feel real anymore before CLOSING SHOUT-OUTS where we are mourning Mani from the Stone Roses, and wishing Bjork a very metal 60th. We start with a FOLLOW UP on our channel’s performance, wading through the garbage pile of Monetization questions and Stats, including the scourge of Shorts—because apparently, that's what we do now. Speaking of people running from trouble, former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers is ditching his OpenAI board seat after a fresh batch of cringey Jeffrey Epstein emails surfaced. Meanwhile, the financial world is having a meltdown: Nvidia’s Stock is Falling Again after its earnings report, exposing the fact that almost Yet Another Study Shows That Most Companies Aren’t Making Any Money Off AI, and Bitcoin is Getting Absolutely Crushed Right Now, which we happily remind you will Trigger the Next Financial Crisis. Don't worry, Jeff Bezos will head a new engineering-focused AI startup because the world clearly needs more tech billionaires throwing money at things they don't understand, while Apple is reportedly getting ready to replace Tim Cook. The tech-bro corruption parade continues as a former DOJ official points out that Trump’s Crypto Pardon of the Binance co-founder is exactly what it looks like, and Elon's pet AI, Grok Insists That Elon Musk Is More Physically Fit Than LeBron James and better at everything else, proving the bot has been sampling its boss's Adderall. Even though ChatGPT Achieves a New Level of Intelligence by finally letting you disable its em-dash addiction, companies like Intuit are integrating its tax and accounting products with ChatGPT—because who doesn't want an AI-powered tax audit? This all dovetails nicely with the news that OpenAI is launching ChatGPT for Teachers’ right as students’ math skills hit a low, leading to a literal Recipe for Idiocracy where elite college students Can’t Read Books. The whole thing is broken, including Tesla’s so-called Robotaxi, where a Passenger Alarmed When Tesla Robotaxi “Safety” Driver Falls Completely Asleep at the Wheel. On a lighter note, we check out the new trailers for The Witcher S4, Frankenstein, and Project Hail Mary in MEDIA CANDY, and tear apart the absolutely unnecessary live-action Moana teaser, before mentioning the biggest drama launch on Apple TV, Pluribus. Next up is THE DARK SIDE WITH DAVE, where our tireless security guru Dave Bittner throws in some random facts, like Microsoft making Zork I, II, and III open source and videos on why the iOS Keyboard is Broken and Why Movies Just Don't Feel "Real” Anymore, and we discuss Thanksgiving plans. Finally, in CLOSING SHOUT-OUTS, we end with a shout-out to our generous PATREON supporters and PAYPAL/STRIPE donors, mourn the passing of Stone Roses and Primal Scream bassist Mani, and wish the incomparable Bjork a milestone 60th birthday. Watch on YouTube: https://youtu.be/tWM83ra7Qp8 Sponsors: Private Internet Access - Go to GOG.Show/vpn and sign up today. For a limited time only, you can get OUR favorite VPN for as little as $2.03 a month. SetApp - With a single monthly subscription you get 240+ apps for your Mac. Go to SetApp and get started today!!! 1Password - Get a great deal on the only password manager recommended by Grumpy Old Geeks! gog.show/1password Show notes at https://gog.show/723 FOLLOW UP Tesla Diner Chef and Co-Operator Quits to Open a Jewish Deli IN THE NEWS Oops! Nvidia’s Stock Is Falling Again After Its “Blowout” Earnings Report Bitcoin Is Getting Absolutely Crushed Right Now How Crypto Could Trigger the Next Financial Crisis Jeff Bezos will head a new engineering-focused AI startup called Project Prometheus Yet Another Study Shows That Most Companies Aren’t Making Any Money Off AI Passenger Alarmed When Tesla Robotaxi “Safety” Driver Falls Completely Asleep at the Wheel Meta wins antitrust trial as judge denies that it's a monopoly Apple is reportedly getting ready to replace Tim Cook as early as next year Former DOJ Official: Trump’s Crypto Pardon Is Unprecedented Corruption ChatGPT Achieves a New Level of Intelligence: Not Using the Em Dash Grok Insists That Elon Musk Is More Physically Fit Than LeBron James 11 Things Grok Says Elon Musk Does Better Than Anyone Intuit is integrating its tax and accounting products with ChatGPT OpenAI Introduces ‘ChatGPT for Teachers’ to Further Destroy the Minds of Our Youth The Elite College Students Who Can’t Read Books Pornhub Begs Tech Giants to Verify User Ages on Their Device: Report London thieves gave stolen phones back when they weren’t iPhones MEDIA CANDY Pluribus is Apple TV's biggest drama series launch ever Squid Game: The Challenge Season 2 Project Hail Mary | Official Trailer 2 Goo Goo Dolls: NPR Tiny Desk Concert THE DARK SIDE WITH DAVE RIHC: Disney’s Legacy, with Bob Iger Microsoft makes Zork I, II, and III open source under MIT License It's Not Just You - The iOS Keyboard is Broken Why Movies Just Don't Feel "Real" Anymore The greatest space battle in Cinema history, and my personal favorite VFX shot. @ 7:07 CLOSING SHOUT-OUTS Stone Roses and Primal Scream bassist Mani dies at 63 See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info. | |||
| 722: Does a Podcaster Shit in the Woods? | 14 Nov 2025 | 01:19:42 | |
The inevitable decline of civilization takes center stage as the show kicks off with the miserable results of the FACEBOOK SETTLEMENT, confirming Brian's $4.01 payout, followed by a discussion of the SPORTS BETTING SCANDAL, where MLB players are rigging games over prop bets, confirming that gambling is now actively killing sports; moving to the news, the guys celebrate the DENMARK SOCIAL MEDIA BAN and SCHOOL PHONE BANS, which are already proving that teenagers need mandatory digital detoxes, prompting comparisons to Footloose and the revelation that teens are now passing handwritten notes and taking Polaroids. Naturally, things aren't going well for the hyper-rich, as evidenced by the TESLA EXECUTIVE EXODUS and the launch of WAYMO FREEWAYS, which will surely bring chaos to LA, and the ongoing saga of massive capital destruction via OPENAI LOSSES and META AI FAILURES, prompting Mark Zuckerberg to announce his desperate bid to CURE ALL DISEASES with AI, a feat less audacious than the fraud of AI startup FIREFLY AI TRANSCRIPT, which admitted its original "AI" was just human transcriptionists. They then hit a laundry list of digital woes, including the dubious convenience of APPLE PASSPORTS, the creeping dread of Sam Altman's failing WORLDCOIN EYEBALL SCANS, the ridiculous crypto fraud DEFI OFFICE SPACE that literally copied a movie plot, and Coinbase's inexplicable decision to bring back high-risk ICOs; the absurdity continued with the OPENAI LAWSUIT over a suicidal chatbot that suggested the user "Rest easy, King," and the political maneuvering of the REPUBLICAN BROADBAND REDIRECT, which will gut internet access for the underserved to fund the Treasury, but the real threat to humanity remains the clandestine PREVENTATIVE GENE HACKING startup funded by tech billionaires aiming to create modified babies offshore. In Media Candy, they share reviews of the excellent DIPLOMAT, ZOOTOPIA, and the just-released LUSH DOCUMENTARY, confirming our combined Gen-X fragility, before celebrating two definitive wins for reality: the fact that physicists have finally CRUSHED THE SIMULATION THEORY, and the literary brilliance of Joyce Carol Oates' tweet, which expertly called out Elon Musk as uneducated and uncultured. All this and more on this episode of Grumpy Old Geeks Sponsors: CleanMyMac - clnmy.com/OLDGEEKS - Use code OLDGEEKS for 20% off. Private Internet Access - Go to GOG.Show/vpn and sign up today. For a limited time only, you can get OUR favorite VPN for as little as $2.03 a month. SetApp - With a single monthly subscription you get 240+ apps for your Mac. Go to SetApp and get started today!!! 1Password - Get a great deal on the only password manager recommended by Grumpy Old Geeks! gog.show/1password Show notes at https://gog.show/722 FOLLOW UP IN THE NEWS Denmark set to ban social media for users under 15 years of age Banning Phones in Schools Is Drastically Changing the Behavior of Kids The Head of the Cybertruck Program Quit Tesla. The Model Y Leader Left Hours Later Waymo's driverless cars will start driving on freeways in three US cities Apple introduces a new Digital ID feature to make boarding flights easier OpenAI Will Lose $74 Billion the Same Year That Anthropic Breaks Even: Report Meta’s AI Ambitions Appear to Be in a Tailspin Zuckerberg, Chan bet AI can cure all disease Startup Secretly Working to Gene-Hack Human Baby Sam Altman's Creepy Orb Startup Has Only Scanned 2 Percent of Its Ideal Number of Eyeballs $120 Million Crypto Hack Blamed on Office Space-Style Exploit Coinbase Wants to Bring Back an Old Crypto Trend That Ended in Disaster Seven more families are now suing OpenAI over ChatGPT's role in suicides, delusions US states could lose $21 billion of broadband grants after Trump overhaul Physicists Say They’ve Proven Whether We’re Living in a Simulation Elon Musk Got One-Shotted by an Extremely Mean Tweet MEDIA CANDY 'V for Vendetta' Is Becoming a TV Show Dune: Prophecy' Kicks off Season 2 Production ‘Alien: Earth’ Has Been Renewed for Season 2 The Running Man | Final Trailer (2025 Movie) - Edgar Wright, Glen Powell Toy Story 5 | Teaser Trailer | In Theaters June 19 Paramount+ announces price increases for every streaming plan APPS & DOODADS How to adjust the Liquid Glass effect in iOS 26.1 How to stretch the clock on your lock screen in iOS 26 Tesla Reportedly Adding Apple CarPlay, Bucking Industry Trend FTC Announces Crackdown on Deceptive AI Claims and Schemes THE DARK SIDE WITH DAVE The Official ‘Star Wars’ Magazine Is Coming to an End After Over 30 Years Talk about your crotch-rocket... AI-Powered Toys Caught Telling 5-Year-Olds How to Find Knives and Start Fires With Matches See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info. | |||
| 721: Pixel Predators | 07 Nov 2025 | 01:08:29 | |
This episode proves that nothing gold can stay, especially your 401k, as we kick things off with the revelation that October saw the worst tech layoffs since 2003, all while "Big Short" genius Michael Burry decided to bet a billion dollars on the inevitable AI bubble bursting. The villains of the week are legion: the FCC is officially making it easier for internet companies to charge us even more hidden fees; Elon Musk not only got his $1 trillion pay package approved—despite Tesla sales collapsing nearly 90% in some countries—but he also teased a flying car, clearly living in his own "Golden Dome" fantasy, which the Pentagon is happily subsidizing; and in a stunning display of entitlement, Mark Zuckerberg opened an illegal school, which is somehow less shocking than Meta’s claim that their massive porn stash was purely for "personal use," not AI training. The bad news doesn't stop there, with Texas suing Roblox over 'pixel pedophiles,' though at least a rural Michigan healthcare system is doing some good by using drones to improve care. Jumping over to Media Candy, since we’re all emotionally scarred by the sheer awful-ness of The Witcher S4—a season so bad it "broke" The Critical Drinker—we need some comfort viewing. We’re deep-diving into the political chess of The Diplomat and escaping into the sheer volume of competitive cooking shows, including the standard Halloween and Holiday Baking Championships, plus the delightfully ridiculous Harry Potter: Wizards of Baking S2; we also took a look at Pluribus, Knife Edge, Black Rabbit, and the trailer for Tron: Ares, while cheering the fact that Brendan Fraser and Rachel Weisz are set to revive The Mummy franchise for a fourth film. In Apps & Doodads, we’re all mourning the eventual death of simple, good tech as we’re warned to enjoy Apple CarPlay while we still can, but at least the Lego ‘Star Trek’ Set is finally here for our inner child; the real question, though, is why Automattic Inc. thinks they can claim ownership of the actual word 'Automatic.' Finally, The Dark Side with Dave Bittner reminds us that everything old is new again and ripe for monetization, whether it's Miss Piggy potentially bringing back The Muppets to the movies or the sleek, blacked-out remake of the Commodore 64, not to mention that cool Tron Arcade Cabinet Miniature Model. However, the present is still a complete dumpster fire: a Google AI model allegedly accused a senator of sexual assault, and internal documents show that Meta is earning a fortune on a massive deluge of fraudulent ads, proving that the only thing getting healthier is our paranoia, though Dave did throw in a curveball with some special jar lids and seeds for growing organic sprouts. We finish, as always, with the obligatory Closing Shout-Outs because even cynical geeks need validation. Sponsors: MasterClass - Get an additional 15% off any annual membership at MASTERCLASS.com/GRUMPYOLDGEEKS Gusto - Try Gusto today at gusto.com/grumpy, and get three months free when you run your first payroll. Private Internet Access - Go to GOG.Show/vpn and sign up today. For a limited time only, you can get OUR favorite VPN for as little as $2.03 a month. SetApp - With a single monthly subscription you get 240+ apps for your Mac. Go to SetApp and get started today!!! 1Password - Get a great deal on the only password manager recommended by Grumpy Old Geeks! gog.show/1password Show notes at https://gog.show/721 FOLLOW UP October Layoffs Were the Worst Since 2003 and Hit Tech Workers Hard IN THE NEWS The Big Short Guy Just Bet $1 Billion That the AI Bubble Pops Trump's FCC is officially moving to make it easier for internet companies to charge hidden fees Pentagon will reportedly award SpaceX a $2 billion contract to help develop the 'Golden Dome' Elon Musk teases a flying car on Joe Rogan's show Tesla’s Sales Collapsed Nearly 90 Percent in Some Countries Last Month Tesla shareholder meeting updates: Elon Musk gets his $1 trillion pay package Texas AG sues Roblox, accusing it of prioritizing 'pixel pedophiles' over child safety Mark Zuckerberg Opened an Illegal School at His Palo Alto Compound. His Neighbors Revolted Meta Says Porn Stash was for ‘Personal Use,’ Not Training AI Models How a rural Michigan healthcare system is using drones to improve care MEDIA CANDY Harry Potter: Wizards of Baking S2 Knife Edge: Chasing Michelin Stars The Witcher Season 4 - A Show So Awful, It Broke Me by The Critical Drinker Brendan Fraser, Rachel Weisz Set to Revive The Mummy Franchise with Fourth Film APPS & DOODADS Enjoy CarPlay While You Still Can The Lego ‘Star Trek’ Set Is Here, and It’s Exactly What You Want Automattic Inc. Claims It Owns the Word 'Automatic' THE DARK SIDE WITH DAVE Miss Piggy May Bring ‘The Muppets’ Back to the Movies Relive the Commodore 64's glory days with a slimmer, blacked-out remake Show and Tell: Tron Arcade Cabinet Miniature Model Google removes AI model after it allegedly accused a senator of sexual assault Organic Radish Sprout Seeds (16 oz) – Non-GMO, Heirloom Seeds for Sprouting and Microgreens Meta is earning a fortune on a deluge of fraudulent ads, documents show ... See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info. | |||
| 720: Sad Max Mode | 31 Oct 2025 | 01:08:15 | |
This week’s episode started with the usual existential sigh before tumbling straight into the corporate bloodbath. Amazon chopped 14,000 jobs under the noble banner of “embracing AI,” which CEO Andy Jassy insists isn’t about money—despite swimming Scrooge McDuck–style in profit. GM’s cutting 1,700 workers, YouTube’s dangling “voluntary” buyouts, and economists can’t decide if AI is killing jobs or if the economy’s just trash. Microsoft’s winning either way, sitting pretty on OpenAI’s planned $1 trillion IPO, while Meta stock cratered because Zuckerberg’s still shoveling billions into the AI bonfire instead of quietly burying the metaverse. Meanwhile, Elon managed to cram a week’s worth of disasters into a single news cycle: Tesla’s being probed for its idiotic “Mad Max” mode, recalling thousands more Cybertrucks because they can’t figure out glue, launching Grokipedia (Wikipedia’s evil twin), and turning Truth Social into a crypto casino. Somewhere between the chaos, more people tuned into a fake NVIDIA livestream than the real one, and the only vaguely uplifting story was a grieving family using an AI chatbot to hack a $195K hospital bill down to $33K. In media misery, we soothed our nuclear anxiety with A House of Dynamite, tolerated Welcome to Derry, rolled our eyes at Stranger Things 5, and confirmed Slow Horses still rules. Music listeners, please stop streaming fascism—cancel Spotify. On the tech toy front, Grammarly’s having an identity crisis as “Superhuman,” Affinity caved to the subscription gods, and Apple’s prepping to inject ads into Maps because the world wasn’t already annoying enough. The chaos didn’t stop there: a rogue Goodreads librarian rewrote Trump’s book listings to protest censorship, Cursor 2.0 actually impressed us with a working currency converter, and Enshittification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It turned out to be the perfect title for the entire digital era. Sponsors: Private Internet Access - Go to GOG.Show/vpn and sign up today. For a limited time only, you can get OUR favorite VPN for as little as $2.03 a month. SetApp - With a single monthly subscription you get 240+ apps for your Mac. Go to SetApp and get started today!!! 1Password - Get a great deal on the only password manager recommended by Grumpy Old Geeks! gog.show/1password MasterClass - Get an additional 15% off any annual membership at MASTERCLASS.com/GRUMPYOLDGEEKS CleanMyMac - clnmy.com/GrumpyOldGeeks - Use code OLDGEEKS for 20% off. Show notes at https://gog.show/720 FOLLOW UP IN THE NEWS Amazon cuts its workforce by 14,000 in further embrace of AI Is AI Leading to Layoffs or Does the Economy Just Suck? Amazon CEO Now Says AI Is Not Responsible for Recent Layoffs Amazon Accused of Trapping Drivers in AI Panopticon GM lays off 1,700 workers making EVs and batteries in Michigan, Tennessee Tesla Recalls Thousands More Cybertrucks, Is Bad at Gluing Things YouTube is offering employees buyouts as part of an AI-focused reorganization Everyone Is Laying People Off This Week. Researchers Say They’re Going to Regret It OpenAI completes restructure, solidifying Microsoft as a major shareholder OpenAI lays groundwork for juggernaut IPO at up to $1 trillion valuation Meta Stock Plummets as Investors Horrified at How Much Zuckerberg Is Spending on Misfired AI Federal investigators are looking into Tesla's Mad Max mode, which reportedly defies speed limits Grokipedia Is the Antithesis of Everything That Makes Wikipedia Good, Useful, and Human More people watched a fake NVIDIA livestream than the real thing Trump’s Media Company Set To Roll Out Polymarket-Like Prediction Market on Truth Social Surprising no one, researchers confirm that AI chatbots are incredibly sycophantic MEDIA CANDY Stranger Things 5 | Official Trailer | Netflix Don’t Stream Fascism: Cancel Spotify APPS & DOODADS Grammarly has rebranded to Superhuman Affinity’s image-editing apps go “freemium” in first major post-Canva update Apple is reportedly getting ready to introduce ads to its Maps app Rogue Goodreads Librarian Edits Site to Expose 'Censorship in Favor of Trump Fascism’ Introducing Cursor 2.0 and Composer Enshittification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It by Cory Doctorow See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info. | |||
| 719: Uniquely Devoid of Feeling | 24 Oct 2025 | 01:22:02 | |
We open with a sobering follow-up: the future is less about AI toast (though Red Dwarf predicted it) and more about a soul-stripping "infrastructure of meaningless" after an AWS outage proved how fragile the internet is. Corporate overlords, like Elon Musk, are taking note: he finally addressed Starlink's use by Asian scam syndicates, but his attention is mostly on superintelligence, which Wozniak, Prince Harry, and 800 others want banned. Meanwhile, Meta, despite pouring $27 billion into data centers, suddenly cut 600 AI jobs, and Amazon is preparing to automate a half-million warehouse positions, offering drivers AR spy glasses and suggesting a new "Help Me Decide" AI tool to automate the exhausting micro-decision of which air fryer to buy. This dystopian fever dream peaked when Suzanne Somers' widower revealed he built a full-on robotic AI twin of the late actress. Predictably, Tesla stock tumbled, and the crypto grift continued with the pardoning of Binance founder Zhao, leaving SBF to ponder his failed check-bounce in jail. Speaking of soul-crushing, Disney's latest nostalgia raid, Tron: Ares, tanked harder than anticipated, proving not every Gen-X intellectual property is a worthy cash cow. But fear not, there's still great TV to be had: we recommend the clever dramas Slow Horses and The Diplomat Season 3, the high-stakes culinary nightmare Knives Edge: Chasing Michelin Stars, and the surprisingly excellent Gen V (which you must watch before the next season of The Boys). We also got our fix with the Pluribus trailer, Bullet Train, Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog, and the deliciously low-stakes reality shows Come Dine With Me, Hotel Costiera, and The Celebrity Traitors UK/Canada. Sadly, we must mourn the end of Food Network’s The Kitchen. Yet, no matter how good the show, you still have to deal with Ticketmaster, which is still lying about "fighting bots" while cornering the secondary market. In the world of Apps & Doodads, OpenAI dropped its "Anti-Web" browser, ChatGPT Atlas (a data mule in disguise), and a new app now fakes your vacation photos (perfect for burned-out users). X is poised to sell "rare" usernames for millions (with a terrible subscription catch), while some clever hacker figured out a $60 mod to disable the privacy light on Meta's Ray-Ban spy glasses. Fellow podcast host Dave Bittner joined us to agree that the new Hall of Presidents format is better without the political posturing and confirmed the joy of old-school, purple-ink-smelling Spirit Duplicators (and we checked out a Star Wars fan film trailer for the AT THE LIBRARY section). Don't forget your Tilly Hat! Finally, R.I.P. Soft Cell's musical force Dave Ball, aged 66; the hits still hit. Sponsors: Private Internet Access - Go to GOG.Show/vpn and sign up today. For a limited time only, you can get OUR favorite VPN for as little as $2.03 a month. SetApp - With a single monthly subscription you get 240+ apps for your Mac. Go to SetApp and get started today!!! 1Password - Get a great deal on the only password manager recommended by Grumpy Old Geeks! gog.show/1password MasterClass - Get an additional 15% off any annual membership at MASTERCLASS.com/GRUMPYOLDGEEKS CleanMyMac - clnmy.com/GrumpyOldGeeks - Use code OLDGEEKS for 20% off. Show notes at https://gog.show/719 FOLLOW UP Does Anyone Want Any Toast? | Red Dwarf | BBC A Tool That Crushes Creativity IN THE NEWS Amazon's AWS outage knocked services like Alexa, Snapchat, Fortnite, Venmo and more offline SpaceX disables 2,500 Starlink terminals allegedly used by Asian scam centers Yelp is getting more AI, including an upgraded chatbot Steve Wozniak, Prince Harry and 800 others want a ban on AI ‘superintelligence’ Suzanne Somers’ Widower Built “AI Twin” of Late Actress Meta Cuts 600 AI Roles From Its Superintelligence Labs After $27 Billion Data Center Deal New report leaks Amazon's proposed mass-automation plans Amazon Rolls Out New AI Tool to Help You Decide What to Buy: The Great Mental Outsourcing continues. Amazon unveils AI-powered augmented reality glasses for delivery drivers Tesla reports revenue growth after two down quarters. Why the stock is falling Trump pardons convicted Binance founder Zhao, White House says Crypto billionaire pardon is insane by Coffeezilla MEDIA CANDY ‘Tron: Ares’ Is an Even Bigger Bomb Than We Thought Food Network’s The Kitchen to End After 40 Seasons Knifes Edge: Chasing Michelin Stars Pluribus — Official Trailer | Apple TV Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog Ticketmaster Is Going to Have to Do Better Than That APPS & DOODADS OpenAI's AI-powered browser, ChatGPT Atlas, launches on macOS today ChatGPT's Atlas: The Browser That's Anti-Web By Anil Dash Too burned out to travel? This new app fakes your summer vacation photos for you X's handle marketplace will sell some 'rare' usernames for millions of dollars A $60 Mod to Meta’s Ray-Bans Disables Its Privacy-Protecting Recording Light THE DARK SIDE WITH DAVE Firefly | The World's Smallest Pro-Audio Microphone Spirit Duplicators: Copies Never Smelled So Good STAR WARS ENTRENCHED: Fan Film TEASER 2 CLOSING SHOUT-OUTS Soft Cell's musical force Dave Ball dies, aged 66 See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info. | |||
| 718: Net Unhelpful | 18 Oct 2025 | 01:16:06 | |
This week, Guest Host Donovan Adkisson joins Jason DeFilippo to wade through the usual tech chaos; California is attempting to regulate the inevitable AI companion chatbots, which is timely, considering ChatGPT is about to launch erotica (with age verification, natch). Turns out, most of the world is less stoked about our algorithmic future than Silicon Valley is. Speaking of chaos, Elon Musk’s Boring Company racked up nearly 800 environmental violations in Vegas, and his Starlink satellites are burning up the atmosphere, validating the Kessler Syndrome predictions (and ruining backyard astronomy). On the ground, Georgia Tech is deploying drone first responders, ensuring campus security is instantly airborne, while the UK's Online Safety Act slapped 4chan with a hefty fine. We also mourn a Crypto Kingpin who met his end in a Lamborghini following a market crash. Finally, beware that "perfect" house listing, as the owner likely used AI to virtually enhance that curb appeal. It seems even the guy who coined the term "Vibe Coding" admits that relying on AI for complex software is "Net Unhelpful," proving that humans still have to do the heavy lifting—a fact Uber might ignore, as they plan to pay drivers to train AI between rides. Speaking of dumb human stunts, some genius launched the "World's First Waymo DDoS" by summoning 50 robotaxis to a dead end. On the entertainment side, it's time to binge Gen V before Season 5 of The Boys drops; also, why did Apple rename Apple TV+ to Apple TV? The guys also discuss the eternal cultural resonance of Idiocracy and the perfection of Galaxy Quest (and its fantastic documentary, Never Surrender). On the work front, Jason switched back to Things 3 because life is too short for ugly software, even as Windows 10's impending end-of-life threatens to create an e-waste disaster. Also, Wi-Fi 8 is coming soon, because the recently ratified Wi-Fi 7 just wasn't cutting it. Finally, the Grumpy Old Geeks wish a happy birthday to friends of the show and offer remembrance for the recently deceased, including screen icon Diane Keaton and KISS founding member Ace Frehley (though, honestly, no one here watched KISS Meets the Phantom of the Park). Tune in next time, and always remember to check out Anonymous: Real Stories of Alcoholism, Addiction, and Recovery; and go get some of that GOG Merch... when it becomes available. Sponsors: MasterClass - Get an additional 15% off any annual membership at MASTERCLASS.com/GRUMPYOLDGEEKS Private Internet Access - Go to GOG.Show/vpn and sign up today. For a limited time only, you can get OUR favorite VPN for as little as $2.03 a month. SetApp - With a single monthly subscription you get 240+ apps for your Mac. Go to SetApp and get started today!!! 1Password - Get a great deal on the only password manager recommended by Grumpy Old Geeks! gog.show/1password Show notes at https://gog.show/718 FOLLOW UP California becomes first state to regulate AI companion chatbots ChatGPT erotica coming soon with age verification, CEO says International Polling Shows Fear of AI Across the World IN THE NEWS Georgia Tech’s drone first responder program cuts emergency response time to 90 seconds or less Crypto Kingpin Turns Up Dead in Lamborghini After Market Crash 4chan fined $26K for refusing to assess risks under UK Online Safety Act Elon Musk’s Boring Company Accused of Nearly 800 Environmental Violations on Las Vegas Project That perfect-looking house for sale may have an owner using AI to virtually enhance the listing Even the Inventor of 'Vibe Coding' Says Vibe Coding Can't Cut It Man Launches “World’s First Waymo DDoS” by Ordering 50 Robotaxis to Dead End Street MEDIA CANDY Apple’s streaming service gets harder to tell apart from its streaming app, box Never Surrender: A Galaxy Quest Documentary Anonymous - Real Stories of Alcoholism, Addiction, and Recovery APPS & DOODADS The End of Windows 10 Support Is an E-Waste Disaster in the Making CLOSING SHOUT-OUTS Kiss Meets the Phantom of the Park See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info. | |||