We dissect the tech news train wrecks of the week, calling out what went wrong and who’s to blame. Think of this podcast as if Kurt Cobain threw down with Tom from MySpace, Elon Musk, and Mark Zuckerberg in a back alley brawl. No mercy, no filter—if tech had a walk of shame, this would be it.
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Techdirt has finally accepted the inevitable and gone full democracy blog—because let’s face it, politics and tech are now the same dumpster fire. Google rolled out AI Mode for Search, proving once again that the internet is just Clippy with better branding. Meanwhile, Billy McFarland insists Fyre Festival 2 is totally happening, despite Mexican officials pointing out that his coordinates literally lead to the ocean. Speaking of fraud, Tesla sales are in freefall thanks to Elon’s alt-right cosplay, and people are setting Teslas on fire in protest. And in rich-guy disconnect news, Google’s Sergey Brin thinks engineers should work 60-hour weeks to build the AI that will replace them. That’s some late-stage capitalism poetry right there.
Elsewhere, Trump Media paid Don Jr. nearly a quarter of its revenue to show up twice, while indie musicians can’t afford to tour, proving once again that grifting is more profitable than making art. Technicolor shut down overnight, stranding 10,000 workers because Hollywood’s financial planning is apparently as stable as a Starship rocket launch. Oh yeah, SpaceX exploded another one.
If you want more of this amazing goodness head over to https://gog.show/ and subscribe to the Grumpy Old Geeks podcast. If the news is enough then you may have the rest of the day off!
TNT 006 - Confabulation and Frivolity
Episode 6
Friday, April 11, 2025 • Duration 30:40
This week, the boys kick things off with some serious déjà vu as Fyre Fest’s favorite grifter promises he’s totally throwing another festival — because nothing says “I’ve changed” like doubling down on the same scam. Meanwhile, the IRS decided to become ICE’s BFF by casually sharing migrant tax data, and their commissioner moonwalks out right after. Also: Microsoft’s long game of “let OpenAI set the money on fire while we build empires” is going exactly as planned.
In the news, it’s Elon all day: Starlink might be doing the same government freebie hustle Microsoft perfected, DOGE is monitoring your comms for anti-Musk snark, and apparently has enough data on your family to build Black Mirror Season 8. Tesla’s financials are circling the drain so hard they won’t even take their own Cybertrucks back as trade-ins, but don’t worry — Elon’s ready to bail out Twitter/xAI with monopoly money. Over in the UK, the cops are one coffee away from full Minority Report, and MIT confirms what we already knew: AI doesn’t have morals, just vibes. Speaking of AI, someone sent an avatar to court. Yes, really.
This week, the Geeks wade into a swamp of tech meltdowns, governmental facepalms, and the usual Elon-flavored absurdity. Kicking things off, protesters take their beef with Tesla to the streets while Proud Boys decide this is the hill to vroom and die on. Meanwhile, Elon’s privacy prayers have finally been answered—thanks to new FAA rules, he and Tay-Tay can jet around untracked like it’s 1999. Oh, and while Earth dodges a killer asteroid, the Moon might be signing up for an unplanned smackdown. Sorry, Luna.
In the news, Signal’s reputation as the go-to encrypted app takes a nosedive thanks to Republican Senate drama and an Inspector General with receipts. The NSA warned us. Nobody listened. Now it’s “SignalGate” season. Elon continues his narcissist Voltron strategy by having xAI buy X (from Elon). Trump, meanwhile, is moonwalking into a $2.3B Truth Social payday, while his meme coin tanks post-tariff tantrum. OpenAI flexes with new AGI funding and 700M AI-generated images (probably 699M of them cursed), while the first therapy chatbot actually helps someone and a brain-voice interface starts sounding a lot like Skynet: The Prequel. Oh, and in shocking news: Trump’s war on “information silos” is code for “your personal data is about to be someone else’s business.”
The Dunning-Kruger Effect is alive, well, and running the show. Elon’s approval rating is cratering while experts warn he could blow a hole in federal spending; war plans are accidentally texted, and top U.S. officials’ passwords are found online; 23andMe files for bankruptcy; TikTok attempts a patriotic glow-up to stay alive in the U.S.; OpenAI admits trying to make chatbots honest, while research shows lonely users are emotionally clinging to ChatGPT; Amazon wants the Consumer Product Safety Commission erased; SEVERANCE, and more!
In this week’s episode, we take a leisurely drive straight into the fake painted wall of tech insanity—Tesla-style. We kick things off with a jaw-dropper: people are using AI to generate influencers with Down syndrome… who then sell nudes. Yes, the apocalypse is here and it’s NSFW. Meanwhile, human intelligence is apparently in freefall—something that becomes painfully obvious when you watch a Cybertruck slam into a Wile E. Coyote-style fake tunnel wall. Spoiler: Elon’s Autopilot mistook it for a real road, proving once again that cameras might be cheaper than lidar, but dumber than a sack of bricks. Oh, and speaking of Elon, Tesla’s recalling 46,000 Cybertrucks due to faulty panels. Because of course they are.
In the news, we dive into the surveillance state buffet, with ICE’s contractor keeping tabs on over 200 locations—no word yet if your grandma’s quilting circle made the list. CISA’s frantically dialing up the employees they illegally fired, like a bad ex who just realized they messed up. Rural broadband gets a gut punch as its director exits stage left, waving a middle finger at satellite internet. Meanwhile, OpenAI’s still trying to eat the world, pirated books be damned, and Elon fails (again) to pump the brakes on Sam Altman’s joyride. California’s A.B. 412 wants to give Big Tech a warm, snuggly monopoly on AI—and startups a swift kick in the nards. Over in EV land, China’s BYD flexes with lightning-fast charging tech while Tesla’s still trying to figure out how doors work.
It’s Pi Day, and while the world celebrates the most irrational number (besides crypto bros), we dive into a different kind of irrationality—the American oligarchy. Speaking of money, Deliveroo finally posted a profit, but their investors still had a hissy fit. Meanwhile, Americans lost a record-breaking $12.5 billion to scams last year, proving that AI, social media, and deepfake grandsons are really leveling up their grift game. The FCC is forming a Council for National Security, which sounds important until you realize it’s mostly about making sure China doesn’t win the AI arms race. And in the latest episode of “How Not to Run a Government,” the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) fired cybersecurity experts like they were spam emails—until a judge called BS and ordered their reinstatement.
Y Combinator just turned 20, and what a legacy—turning gig work into corporate slavery, ruining housing with Airbnb, and ensuring OpenAI floods our lives with AI-generated junk. If that wasn’t enough tech doom, Pinterest wants to steal your content for its AI training, Twitter (sorry, X) went down due to sheer incompetence, and a developer got caught implanting a kill switch at his old job—because passive-aggressively slacking off wasn’t extreme enough.
This week, we blast off with a tale as old as grift: Fyre Fest 2 has been postponed—again—proving that you really can fail upward if you squint hard enough and wear enough white linen. Over at Automattic, employees discovered secret watermarks in their internal comms, because what workplace isn’t better with a sprinkle of corporate surveillance cosplay? Meanwhile, Katy Perry took a joyride to the upper atmosphere with Gayle King and Bezos’ better half, giving us the 2025 edition of the cringiest “Imagine”-style celebrity moment yet. Spoiler: no one needed this.
In Elon World™, things are somehow even weirder. Seth Rogen dropped some truth bombs about Silicon Valley’s MAGA leanings, only to have them surgically removed from the Breakthrough Prize stream. Musk, for his part, is managing his growing empire of baby mamas like a Bond villain with a baby registry. Add in a cringe-filled offer to a YouTuber to become Space Karen’s next broodmare, and we’ve officially entered peak simulation. Meanwhile, whistleblowers are spilling DOGE secrets, OpenAI is building a social network (because we clearly don’t have enough doomscrolling options), and 4chan has finally been hacked into oblivion. Pour one out—for the internet’s dumpster fire.
Also in the news: Google lost a big ad tech monopoly case (cue tiny violins), China is no longer buying the “autonomous” car hype after a fatal crash, and Trump’s FCC chair is threatening Comcast for not being enough like Fox News (as if that’s the journalistic gold standard). The Pentagon’s nerd squad resigned after butting heads with DOGE, Reality Labs burned $45 billion like it was going out of style, and AI customer service bots are now inventing policies out of thin air. Oh, and if your AI thinks your Python package has a delivery issue—you’re not crazy, it probably hallucinated it. Welcome to the future.
This week, we kick things off with the return of Space Karen’s meltdown tour: Elon Musk got flustered in an interview, sputtered out one-word answers, and called the journalist an “NPC,” which is rich coming from the guy whose only real upgrade since PayPal is yelling “freedom” in meme fonts. Meanwhile, 23andMe sold your DNA to Regeneron at a bankruptcy auction, proving once and for all that your spit is more valuable than most tech startups.
IN THE NEWS is a parade of corporate idiocy and dystopian fuckery. Coinbase employees got bribed into leaking user data (because clearly we didn’t have enough crypto chaos), Klarna keeps flip-flopping between AI and human workers like it’s a bad Tinder date, and OpenAI is out here buying Jony Ive’s design firm for $6.5 billion because sure, what’s another billion when you’re trying to build a surveillance device to stalk 100 million users? Meanwhile, the Chicago Sun-Times is publishing AI-generated trash with imaginary authors, Anthropic’s new model attempts blackmail, and researchers dumped two billion Discord messages online just for kicks. And yes, Elon’s Tesla robotaxis will now only roam the safest parts of Austin, which is code for “we still can’t make this thing turn left.”
This week, FOLLOW UP kicks off with Manus madness, a $2 million ticket to Trump’s crypto cash-grab, and Elon’s Boring Company worming its way into an $8 billion Amtrak boondoggle. Meanwhile, CryptoPunks gets handed off to a nonprofit like an expired Groupon—proof the NFT hype cycle ends with a 501(c)(3) and a shrug.
IN THE NEWS, Microsoft trims another 3% of its workforce while a former Metaverse engineer delivers DoorDash from a trailer—living proof that “the future of work” is just working for the apps. Klarna quietly admits AI sucks at customer service and hires back actual people, just as OpenAI’s reasoning models hit the brakes. The Pope wants to exorcise AI, Elon’s backfiring Copyright Office coup leaves him empty-handed, and YouTube starts banning AI-faked trailers that made Screen Culture money off Marvel lies. Jamie Lee Curtis goes full Final Girl on Zuckerberg, and Tesla drama ramps up: robotaxis under investigation, employees revolting, and one poor dealership manager gets canned for telling the truth about ol’ Musky. Oh, and scientists say the universe might die sooner than expected—cool cool cool.
In this episode of Tech News Time, we’re serving up a buffet of dystopia with a side of snark. First, Kuwait has finally realized crypto bros are an energy drain, not a feature. Celsius Network’s founder gets 12 years for running a “safe investment” Ponzi scheme. And in Lopez v. Apple, we find yet another reason to question Cupertino’s moral compass.
Then it’s time for a trip through the tech trash fire. DoorDash gobbles up Deliveroo, proving there’s no such thing as too many overpriced salads. Google wants your kids to befriend Gemini—because what could go wrong giving tweens supervised AI access? Tesla’s “Robotaxi” trademark gets the boot for being as generic as Elon’s pickup lines. Meanwhile, Grok strips in public, deepfake porn sites get the axe, and dating app “Raw” rawdogs user data like it’s the early 2000s internet. We also hit peak Black Mirror with brain-typed tweets, AI-resurrected relatives, and crypto kidnappers playing real-life GTA.
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If you want more of this amazing goodness head over to https://gog.show/ and subscribe to the Grumpy Old Geeks podcast. If the news is enough then you may have the rest of the day off!
If you want more of this amazing goodness head over to https://gog.show/ and subscribe to the Grumpy Old Geeks podcast. If the news is enough then you may have the rest of the day off!
If you want more of this amazing goodness head over to https://gog.show/ and subscribe to the Grumpy Old Geeks podcast. If the news is enough then you may have the rest of the day off!
If you want more of this amazing goodness head over to https://gog.show/ and subscribe to the Grumpy Old Geeks podcast. If the news is enough then you may have the rest of the day off!
If you want more of this amazing goodness head over to https://gog.show/ and subscribe to the Grumpy Old Geeks podcast. If the news is enough then you may have the rest of the day off!
If you want more of this amazing goodness head over to https://gog.show/ and subscribe to the Grumpy Old Geeks podcast. If the news is enough then you may have the rest of the day off!
If you want more of this amazing goodness head over to https://gog.show/ and subscribe to the Grumpy Old Geeks podcast. If the news is enough then you may have the rest of the day off!
If you want more of this amazing goodness head over to https://gog.show/ and subscribe to the Grumpy Old Geeks podcast. If the news is enough then you may have the rest of the day off!
If you want more of this amazing goodness head over to https://gog.show/ and subscribe to the Grumpy Old Geeks podcast. If the news is enough then you may have the rest of the day off!
