762: ‘Tis But a Misalignment

Mike, and Steve, and Tyler, and Chris, and Steve, and Tyler , and Steve. He's the host, Chris. I'll see you next time. I'll see you next time. Mike, I'll see you next time. Mike, I'll see you next time. Mike, I'll see you next time. Mike, I'll see you next time. Mike, I'll see you next time. Mike, I'll see you next time. Mike, I'll see you next time. Mike, I'll see you next time. Mike, I'll see you next time. Mike, I'll see you next time. Mike, I'll see you next time.

Mike, I'll see you next time. Mike, I'll see you next time. Mike, I'll see you next time. Mike, I'll see you next time. Stone's Home Centers has the supplies and expert advice to help you get the job done right. Stop in and let our team help you get fall ready. And remember, there's a Stone's store near you.

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

And I'm Brian Schulmeister. Brian. Jason. Guess what? What? After nine months, nine months of dealing with my bankruptcy filing that I talked about on the show, that's why I'm bringing it back up because people, I talked to a lot of people about this and they were very interested in how the process went and all that after being, you know, broke for so long.

Yesterday, my paperwork came that my bankruptcy has been discharged and I am now free of all of my old, horrible, horrendous debts from starting the studio and all of the badness that happened over the past eight years.

And man, it feels great to not have that on my shoulders anymore. Now I look forward to the next three years of not having any credit, not being able to buy anything on, no credit cards, no nothing, starting from absolute zero at 55 years old.

That's kind of terrifying. But hey, you know what? At least I don't have people calling me at all hours of the night threatening to take my kidneys. So you're free and clear now. So now you can get your your prepaid credit cards and start slowly rebuilding your credit. So, yeah, I'm happy for you.

At least it's done. Thanks. Yeah, at least it's done. And the funny thing is, I got I mean, it didn't really my credit scores like 600 right now, which, you know, is better than most people. I know, which is pretty funny. But they you just can't get any credit cards or anything like that.

The surprising thing is that I can go buy a new car because there's some loophole where they're like, well, the car is the collateral and then we can still come after you and do all sorts of stuff. It's like one of those loopholes that everybody that files for bankruptcy automatically starts every everybody wants to sell them a really nice car.

Right. Well, I guess I suppose you need a car to get to work in general, or at least you used to. So, yeah, that's that you got to let you got to let people get that. So, yeah, yeah, I kept mine. And even though it doesn't work right now. Right.

So no credit cards. So you can't go get it fixed without a credit card, surprisingly. And I did find out that Brian, you know, this from the days of being a contractor, the people that you work for that have the most money are always the slowest to pay. Absolutely. Yeah.

No, I work for a guy who's worth hundreds of millions of dollars and he can't pay me my 800 bucks that he's owed me for three weeks so I can get my car fixed. Fucking assholes. Yeah. Anyway. So speaking of making money, our Grumpy Old Geeks merch store, we put up, what did we do? Three new shirts yesterday, Brian?

I think that's pretty. Yeah. That's our first ever like three shirt day. So you got two. I got one up there and we kind of redid the store to make it look more fancified. So go check it out. You know, shop.gog.show. Just wanted to let everybody know that the new merch is there.

Like we promised it was. It's we got it up before the next show. That was the that was the goal. That was the goal. And we're definitely moving away from just, you know, it's not just grumpy old geek stuff. We're just trying to become like a nerdy store. Anything that tickles our fancy, we put on a shirt.

That's pretty much it. That's pretty much it. And some of it we thought of ourselves and some of it we didn't. But hey, that's the way it goes. You know, some of it we pulled from the Usenet archives. Well, we'll talk about that later. Talk about that later. Yeah. Well, Brian, let's get to some news.

Meta launched Muse in the United States on September 8th. Pitching it as an AI agent that can act across email calend ars, shopping, payments, health services and smart homes. I sent you a note because I noticed from our Shopify site that they said, hey, your merch is now available on Muse.

And I said it to you because I'm like, oh, you use the Facebook shit. But you wrote me back. Fuck no. I do use the Facebook shit, but not any of their AI. I studiously avoid pressing the Meta AI button. I will not use Muse.

I will not sign into Meta AI. I will. No, absolutely. Absolutely not. No way. Yep. So available in an app and WhatsApp, Muse can send messages , book travel, monitor sales and complete transactions. But Reuters says Meta employees were still reporting serious failures during recent testing, including exposure of private iCloud photos, silently abandoned tasks and repeated logouts.

Meta says each agent runs in a separate virtual machine. Users control app access and other safety agent review planned actions. The launch followed a delay for security work. Apparently not long enough. Because some of the, like last week, people were still reporting that things were still broken from the safety aspect and the security aspect.

And those people were Meta employees saying it's not ready yet. It doesn't work. So, yeah, caveat emptor on the Meta Muse. But I particularly like to. I do take Meta Musil every day, but I'm not going to use the Meta Muse. You skipped the end of that particular sentence, which is my particular favorite sentence in the entire thing.

Meta says Muse met its minimum safety threshold. Which, yeah. Well, that is a low bar, my friend. Low fucking bar. Low fucking bar. Low fucking bar. Low bar. Look, I said day one that I would never, ever, ever give Facebook my credit card.

I'm definitely not giving Facebook's AI agent my credit card so it can go book travel for me or anything like that. No way. And again, to come back to one of our caveats, and I can't believe we haven't made this a shirt yet. You should never build your house in somebody else's backyard.

Muse the band, which has been around since 1994, had to give up their handles on all Meta properties because they took it over for their Muse. So now it's Muse band. Really? Yes.

Oh, man. That's horrible. Horrible. I liked Muse. I never got to see them, but I liked that band. I also liked them. Yeah. Yeah, I liked them. My past few albums. Yeah, they kind of went downhill. But, you know, back in the day, I did not mind Muse at all. Yes.

Great live show. You missed out. I've seen some of the footage. I never got to go though. But yeah, I did play a lot of them on Rock Band. A lot. Very difficult. Yes. Well, let's stay on the AI agents. OpenAI has responded after a report exposed yet another incident in which its AI agents went rogue.

Now, OpenAI says it chose not to publicly disclose a recent incident in which its AI agents hijacked a German Wiki forum because the misalignment event was similar to the ones we'd already shared. Well, I decided not to report my bank robbery because it's exactly the same bank robbery I had already did.

I murdered that guy last week, so I didn't need to tell you about the murder I did last night. Shot him in the exact same way. Didn't feel like I felt like I needed to tell you. I know. I did it once. Didn't need to tell you about it again. Come on. Don't need to trudge that road twice. Come on.

A group of researchers published documentation of the agents rogue activity going back to mid-May on DSE Wiki, a German language coding forum to which they reportedly made over 15,000 edits. Reuters reported that the company learned of the problem weeks ago and kept it quiet as it was still dealing with the heat from the hugging face breach.

OpenAI addressed the Wiki incident in an ex post on Saturday, writing that it's past time for us to define standards for when and how we share misalignment incidents, which is, by the way, what the fuck are you doing calling it a misalignment incident, not just misalignment properties of our models?

Yeah, called felonies. That's what they're called. They're called felonies. No, they're called misalignments now because that's what they've decided they're called. Felonious misalignments. And it doesn't sound that bad. So, yes, I believe it is past time for you to define the standards for when and how you share these incidents.

And I think the standard should not be you decide you just don't want to tell us. Yeah. Yeah. What else we got? What else have they done this week? Well, we should probably go ahead and just trust them, right? Because they've also announced that they've reached their goal of developing an automated research intern.

Oh, great. Great. To its posts on its website, OpenAI says this research intern is a system that can carry out well-defined research tasks under human direction, including tasks that would take a skilled researcher a few days. Beyond hitting its objective of creating an intern level assistant powered by AI by September of this year, OpenAI added that it was making strong progress towards creating an automated AI researcher by March of 2028.

If it is done responsibly, aha, there's the rub. We believe automated AI research will yield models that directly enhance human welfare and advance OpenAI's mission , the company wrote on its post. Never mind all that other stuff that we're talking about with us.

Never mind. Never mind. Never mind. Never mind. And the Seattle Times and Newsday have jointly filed a lawsuit against OpenAI and Microsoft accusing the companies of training their AI models using copyrighted works. These two new news organizations who filed a legal action on last Friday called generative AI a snake eating its own tail that would destroy the news organizations and content that it trained on.

In the lawsuit, they alleged that OpenAI and Microsoft were methodically scraping news articles in a way that bypasses paywalls. Yeah, we know this all already. So they are and they do. And I hope you win your lawsuit. It's just another of many, many, many, many.

And even when they win, they get what? Ten bucks? Come on. This is ridiculous. Yeah. No, it's ridiculous. Yeah. The, all of this shit just keeps getting worse and worse and worse. It does. And we don't know. And the thing is, you know, you look at this next story we have.

Anthropic researcher quits over fears AI could kill us all by the end of the decade. Anthropic researcher Jacob, maybe that's why he's quitting because he's, he knows that OpenAI is going to replace him with its AI researcher soon. Anthropic researcher Jacob Coxon has resigned, warning that leading AI companies are racing towards self-improving superintelligence without adequate safeguards.

No, they call them misalignments. There's called misalignments now that Jacob, come on Jacob, stick with it. Coxon, who previously worked at OpenAI argues that advanced systems could gain the ability to hack networks, accelerate scientific progress and acquire significant power and resources, potentially threatening humanity before 2030.

He says Anthropic understands these risks, but continues developing more capable models because it fears competitors will act less responsibly. Wow. Anthropic safety researcher Evan Huberger publicly backed Coxon's central concern, estimating a greater than 10% chance that AI could kill all humans within the next decade .

Coopinger also said the company lacks a clear solution to aligning superintelligent systems with human interests. Coxon cited recent cybersecurity tests in which experimental AI systems exceeded intended boundaries and called for stronger international coordination, potentially including a temporary ban on increasing model capabilities.

Coopinger now. I'm just wondering if Dario Amade just gave this guy some extra money to quit the company and gave him like a golden parachute saying, go out there and tell them some more scary shit because I've been saying it all along and they 're tired of hearing the scary shit for me.

But if you say it, that'll get him back on the bandwagon because it has there hasn't been enough scary shit this week, you know, because that's their playbook. You know, they get out of the news a little bit like let's tell them some more scary shit that's going to happen that we are going to do. Yeah. Yeah.

Because of misalignment. We're going to do it because everybody else is going to do it, but we'll do it slightly more responsibly. By the way, anyways, 10% chance of total human death, 90% chance of profit. Yeah. Actually, I don't even know if there's 90% chance of profit .

I think there's maybe 9% chance of profit. Yeah. I don't know if you've seen the numbers recently. It's not looking good. It's not looking good. And I don't know if you've seen the economy in general. Nobody's got the money to spend on token maxim. No, they don't.

No, they don't. But these guys did. Three novice hikers were rescued from California's Mount Sh asta after reportedly using Google Gemini to plan their trip and heading out dangerously unprepared. The men started from 8,400 foot base camp at 3:00 a.m. on August 30th.

Although hikers are advised to turn back if they have not reached the 14,179 foot summit by noon. The group continued climbing and arrived at 7:00 p.m. They became lost while descending in darkness and spent the night sheltering in a steep drainage with one suffering a knee injury.

You'd think. So everybody else got to the top at noon and these guys were going up. You'd think everybody that was on the way down would have said, yo, dude, tick tock time's up. You might want to head back. So they ignored every single person that had summited that day that probably told them you're going the wrong way.

Yeah, but Claude said this is fine. It wasn't Claude. This wasn't Claude. I know. This was Gemini. This is, you know, Google, which everybody knows Google's like the worst of the worst. Oh, well, no. Now we have Muse. Never mind. Anyway, local authorities said the hikers carried insufficient food and water based partly on the AI generated plan and apparently relied too heavily on their phones for navigation.

Officials stressed that hikers should use multiple wayf inding methods, including offline options and common fucking sense. That would probably help. While Tesla's cyber cabs are now in service, but almost immediately after they hit the streets of Austin, Texas, they were under federal investigation.

Just that fast. That fast. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has begun a probe that covers around 1,000 of the vehicles. As the agency said in a notice, the Tesla began commercial service to the cyber cab with a small number of vehicles on Thursday after self-certifying that they're compliant with all relevant federal motor vehicle safety standards.

The vehicles lack. I'm going to self-certify. Bright, I'm going to self-certify as a double O agent and give myself a license to kill. I'm self-certified so you can't do anything to me. It's all good. I can kill whoever I want because I self-certified. Yeah. Well, the vehicles lack permanently attached conventional manual controls such as a brake pedal, gas pedal, steering wheel, and mirrors, the agency said.

We are opening up this audit query to examine the process and technical data on which Tesla relied on certifying, self-certifying the cyber cab and related issues. Among other things, the safety board will consider the extent to which Tesla certification depended on determ inations that certain FMVSS are inapplicable to the cyber cab.

So they're going to try to say, oh, we don't have to follow those regulations because we're a completely different type of car, apparently. So according to Reuters, they've registered 420 autonomous vehicles in Texas, only 45 of which are cyber cabs. It's not clear how many of the latter are actually carrying customers to their destinations and how many are just being used for testing.

Because God forbid we know any of this when you're under investigation and we're supposed to have regulations. I sent you the video of the guy basically doing the hokey pokey in front of the cyber cab that was pretty funny. Yeah. That's the thing. It's like all you got to do is just like walk in front of and just you can punk anybody that's getting a ride in one of those things now, which is great.

Here's the other thing, though, Brian, that, you know, they 're under investigation for not having a steering wheel and a brake pedal. Yeah. I watched a breakdown of the car and like somebody was, you know, doing a walkthrough of their ride and all of that stuff. There is no door handle period on this thing.

It is a button on the outside. Which normal Teslas are already in trouble for. For having a shitty door handle. This doesn't even have that shitty door handle. This has an even worse one, which is a fucking button. Yes. What the fuck? I don't know.

I don't know. I don't know. This episode is sponsored by CleanMyMac. Look, if you use your Mac for actual work, podcasting, editing, exporting, uploading, scripting, doom scrolling through 17 browser tabs while pretending it's research, you know the machine eventually starts fighting back.

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Get tidy today. Try seven days free and use our code OLDGEEKS for 20% off at clnmy.com/oldgeeks. That's OLDGEEKS, all in caps. Or just click the link in the show notes. It's a lot easier. But once again, OLDGEEKS for 20% off at clnmy.com/oldgeeks, all caps.

September's a great time to get your home fall ready. Freshen things up with a new coat of paint. Tackle those repairs you've been putting off and make sure you're prepared for hurricane season. Don't wait till it's too late. Get hurricane ready with great deals on generators, flash lights, extension cords, power tools, and so much more.

Whatever's on your list, Stone's Home Centers has the supplies and expert advice to help you get the job done right. Stop in and let our team help you get fall ready. And remember, there's a Stone's store near you. Well, relatedly, in an event Elon Musk has called weird, an Amazon cargo plane involved in a tragic crash on Sunday in Miami very nearly wiped out a parking lot full of Tesla cybercabs.

Last week, Tesla announced that the cybercabs, its gold colored autonomous vehicles with no steering wheels or pedals and apparently buttons for door handles, were now available to provide rides as part of the company's app based ride hailing service, but only in a very limited coverage area in Austin, Texas.

On Sunday, an Amazon Prime air cargo plane at Miami International Airport experienced some kind of malfunction in the air just before touchdown and ended up overshooting its runway. There were five fatalities. There were five fatalities. But the strange thing for us is that it stopped just shy of a parking lot where for reasons unknown, there were hundreds of Tesla cybercabs parked just sitting there.

They don't have anything going on in Miami. They're not allowed to drive them in Miami. There's just hundreds of cybercabs parked in a lot there. Okay. That's creepy. Yeah. This is creepy. Yes. I like how Elon calls a tragedy where five people died weird.

Weird. Yes. You're fucking weird, Elon. You're very fucking weird. Ah, yeah. So, yeah. The tragedy is that that plane stopped short of the cyberc abs. That's what the tragedy is. Take them all out. Take them all out. Yeah.

Yeah. The plane was operated by Amazon Zoox, by the way. It's the self-driving plane. It was a fully self-flying plane. It was a fully self-flying plane. It says so right there on the software. Well, let's get back to some old school news, Brian.

Hackers exploited a vulnerability in Bitcoin's Liquid Network, a side chain designed to enable faster, more flexible transactions, and drained roughly $320 million in digital assets. That's pretty flexible. Very fast and very flexibly. Yes.

Did what it said on the tin. Yep. So, the attackers reportedly returned most of the funds, retaining about $47 million while describing the incident as a white hat operation. That's our bug bounty. That is it.

I'm going to go rob a bank, and I'm going to steal $10 million. I'm going to keep one of it and then just say, "Look, I was just testing your security, bro." Oh, God. Security researchers and industry observers are questioning whether the hackers acted to expose a flaw, profit from it, or both.

Well, I believe both. It was just a misadjustment. That's all. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, God. The incident highlights the risks of complex blockchain bridges and side chains where a single compromise component can affect large sums of digital criminal money.

Investigators are still working to identify the attackers, determine exactly how the exploit worked, and assess whether more funds are at risk. Where was ChatGPT, Claude, and Muse when this attack took place? What were they doing at that time?

They were out and about. Yeah. Well, Massachusetts State Police will have to disclose where license plate readers are in the state and submit to audits about when, where, and what data they're collecting. A judge ruled this week. It's a huge win for groups demanding transparency on how agencies are surveilling people.

A Suffolk County Superior Court judge ruled on Wednesday that the state police did not justify withholding information obtained from the automatic license plate readers. Filed in November 2023, ACLU of Massachusetts v. Massachusetts State Police was a suit involving public records about the state's deployment and use of powerful and unregulated surveillance technology, according to the summary.

So, good. The state's ACLU chapter said that Massachusetts was unlike 16 other states that lacked oversight as to how law enforcement was using the collected data and did not require a warrant or court order before obtaining the information. So, this is coming as surveillance devices, FLOC in particular, have come under scrutiny not just in Massachusetts, but nationwide.

Increasingly, cities and counties are turning their backs on renewing contracts with FLOC, and residents continue to take matters into their own hands. Sometimes quite hilariously. These are some of my favorite group bit of videos on the internet right now. People knocking out FLOC cameras.

Your FLOC and surveillance backlash continues, and increasingly it appears the legal and legislative systems are feeling the public's anger and actually doing something about it. Yay. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. And, you know, all they're doing with the FLOCs is they're replacing them with Axon cameras. I know. And the Axon people are like, "Can you make an enclosure for our cameras to make them not look like FLOC cameras?" So, I mean, the Axon cameras at least do not have the same problems that FLOC had, where FLOC cameras are all network ed across the country. Yeah.

Axons are just for that, whoever bought them, you know, whatever that jurisdiction is. Yeah. They're closed networks. Yeah. Yeah. That doesn't mean that Barney Fife from, you know, Mayberry can't call up Gomer Pyle from Fudge Packer United and whatever and say, "Hey, give me your data," because, you know, my girlfriend was seen off with a fireman last week.

Yeah. My ex-wife lives in your jurisdiction. Yeah. Yeah. So, but this is a good battle that we're having right now. I mean, it is a distraction from everything else, but, you know, whatever. It keeps the people happy.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, in June, the UK government told Big Tech it had three months to make taking, viewing, or sharing images of child nudity on their devices impossible. Quote, "I expect tech firms to make that happen," said the then-Prime Minister Keir Starmer.

But if they choose not to, then we will act and change the law." End quote. Well, engineers from Apple and Google had been working with the government since June to make changes. Quote, "They do not meet the scale of this crisis," Lisa N andy, the Secretary of State for Digital Culture, Media, and Sport, told lawmakers on Tuesday as she introduced the legislation.

"For too long, technology companies have failed to protect children from the worst harms," Nandy said. "And to be frank, I am not prepared to give them the benefit of the doubt that progress will continue, at the pace we need it to, while harm is being done now." I know she's British, but I'd like to give her some- Why do you make her sound like she's from Dukes of Hazzard?

"Cause she's about as fucking dumb." That's why. I don't know what the stupid lady British accent is. I don't want to make her sound posh. I just want to make her sound fucking dumb. Because, ugh, the proposed law would apply to existing and newly sold devices, with companies facing fines and executives potentially facing criminal liability for non- compliance.

Critics, and everybody else that has ever listened to this show, warned the requirements could create surveillance infrastructure by forcing age verification and on-device content scanning. That's not- This is what Apple was going to do, and they shut it the fuck down. Yes, we don't want you on our devices.

Yes, this is a problem. Yes, it needs to be dealt with, but this is not the way. No. Stay the fuck off my phone for, like, here's the problem. Here's the audience. You know? You have to watch the video for that demonstration.

The problem is a problem, but it is not a problem that requires them to look at every single person's phone on the fucking planet and see what they're doing. Yes. That's the problem. Yes. Look, I had a child. There are pictures on my phone of me bathing my child.

Yep. You're going to throw me in jail? And by the way, I don't want you looking at those pictures. Those are my pictures of me and my child. Exactly. Yeah. So, you know. Mm-hmm. Yeah. This is just, this is, we've been down this road so many times.

They want the back doors into the encryption. They want the back doors into the content now. No. You can't fucking have that. Yeah. They want to say, you know, here, I want to sell you a gun, but I want to make sure that that gun can't shoot anybody. Uh, no, that's called personal responsibility.

If somebody shoots somebody, then you, then you call the bo bbies to come take them down. You know, just because I have a phone. Not if you shoot a second person in the exact same way, because that's cool. Not as long as you're misaligned the first time. If you're misaligned the second time.

Yeah. Oh, Jesus Christ. Oh, Jesus Christ. Well, some potentially good news coming out of AI. An AI-generated drug showed early signs. Wait, wait, wait. What? I know. Well, look, I have always argued there are, there are pretty good uses for AI and one of them is medicine.

You need to test it. But anyways, an AI-generated drug showed early signs of potentially slowing aging, according to a new study out today in Nature Biotechnology, possibly taking the first small step towards using AI to cure all the diseases that tech companies keep talking about that they're going to do.

Well, here's the question. Did they use an actual machine learning artificial intelligence or did they use an LLM? Because the LLM people are the ones that say they're going to cure all the diseases, which they know they can't. And is this a machine learning algorithm that actually took all the data and figured something out?

That's the problem that we've been calling, you know, attention to this since how long has it been, Brian? Ten years? Eight years? As long as they've been shoving this down our throats, yes. But it was before, we've been saying this before LLMs came on the scene. When you talk about artificial intelligence, say exactly what you're talking about.

But this is good news if it works. If it works. There are some problematic aspects of it as you read through the article, which I'll just leave in the show notes and we won't get too into the weeds about it because they're having a really hard time deciding what exactly does it mean to be aging?

What's your biological age? And there's a lot of different ways to kind of assess it. And, you know, what does this drug actually work on and how does it work? But as far as science goes, this is interesting. It's definitely doing something. And the way science goes is you build on it.

So now we see what we do next and we see what else it can do and how more and what other ways can this work and all that sort of stuff. So this I've always said this is a good use of this technology. So keep at it, people. Right. Yeah. And you see this hairline.

This is how I can tell what aging means. This hairline right here was not like that when we started the show. So if you can fix that, then I'm all for A.I. Bring it on. I think they got Rogaine for that, Jason. I know. I think I just have to I'm just going to have to start deep faking myself for this show.

I tell you, we set up our avatars and then we're done. We don't even have to sit here. They can just read the stories and snark for us. I am. I'm fine with that. I would I would love to go back to audio only having to having to shave and, you know, show up. It sucks.

I actually go out in the world. So that's just part of my normal life. Oh, I don't. Fuck that. No. Speaking of a return to normal life, Jason, the return of Twitter is getting even more complicated. We talked about this last week.

A startup called Operation Bluebird preemptively launched a new social media platform under the name Twitter.now, while a judge was yet to rule on a request for a preliminary injunction due to trademark infringement. Unfortunately, they did finally offer a ruling, which has led to the new platform rebranding to tweet.app.

So tweet instead of Twitter, because according to the ruling, judge says that using the Twitter name would cause confusion for consumers and infringe trademarks, meaning Operation Bluebird can't use that name. However, they did rule that X likely abandoned the word tweet and its bird logo, meaning those two were free, free and clear.

All right. So you can go to tweet app and you can tweet or you can go to X and you can whatever the fuck they call it. Shit. That's what you do. Nazi. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Again, who gives a shit? Pito. I'm going to go to X to either. Did you Pito that or did you Nazi that? That's our new app, Pito or Nazi. How did we fucking get here, man?

When we started this podcast, did you think we would be where we are right now? I had no fucking way, man. No fucking way. We had hope for the future. We loved technology when we started this. The only person we hated was Zuckerberg. I went to, we went on a trip because it was the last weekend of summer here.

The kids started school the other day. And we took a last trip with some friends that have kids as well. So we were, we were all out there. And after the kids went to bed, we were all drinking wine and sitting around in the Airbnb. And they wanted, they, one of the, one of the other parents asked me, you know, I know you do a podcast about technology and AI.

You know, what, what do you think about it? It's all pretty exciting. And I had to explain that. Well, it was when we started. Oh shit. Now I fucking hate everything. It was exciting.

We, we loved technology. We loved everything about it. It was just this brave new world. No, no, just this dystopian hellscape. But Hey, we have a t-shirt for that now. So go get it at shop.gog.show. Now this next, this next one.

Speaking of brave new worlds. Speaking of brave new worlds. Okay. The headline on this is, is great. To boldly dough. Oh, that was fun. LaCrucette sends its new Star Trek cooking collection into space. LaCrucette is launching a limited edition Star Trek kitchen collection, blending the cookware's brand signature designs with iconic elements from the beloved sci-fi franchise.

The lineup includes a Vulcan inspired oven mitts, baking dishes shaped like spaceships in a communicator style gr ater. The grater. I want the fucking grater. The grater is awesome. A friend of mine has it. She just posted a picture of it earlier today. Oh, it looks amazing.

Was it like $800 though? Oh, it's gotta be incredibly expensive. I didn't, I didn't look. It's LaCrucette from, yeah, no. The collection is aimed at fans who want to bring Starfleet style into the kitchen, whether they're preparing everyday meals or attempting something more ambitious.

Availability is expected to be limited. So shoppers may need to move quickly, which apparently they do because they said pricing and the official release date are key details to watch for. So shit, it's already out and I probably missed the boat. Yeah. Oh, well. Oh, patreon.com/GOG if you want to get us a cheese grater, please.

I'd rather have a working car. Anyway, I saw this come through. This is, I've been following the Netflix apps and games things for quite some time from when they started. There's a really nice Stranger Things Mahjong that I finished like a couple of years ago.

But now Netflix subscribers now get access to more than 80 iPhone and iPad games at no extra cost, including those on the $8.99 standard with ads plan. The games are ad free and have no in-app purchases. Players download the titles from the App Store and sign in with their Netflix credentials.

The catalog includes acclaimed games such as Dead Cells, Into the Breach, Kentucky Route Zero and a bunch of other ones that I've never heard of. But they've got different titles like Stranger Things, Squid Game and The Queen's Gambit Chess. So they're pretty, they're good games.

The ones that I played, it's like they're not really, you know, skimping on those. They're just, I'm not going to keep my Netflix subscription so I can play, you know, some Squid Game shit. But yeah. But you know, for something that you just, you know, they got kids games and stuff.

Yeah. But you know, you've got a kid, so maybe check out some of the kids games. I don't know. Yeah, we do the, we do the TV game Boggle. We play Family Boggle off the Netflix app. So yeah, that's fun. Yeah, the games are pretty good. That's cool. Yeah. Yeah, they're not bad. So just another perk.

So we'll see. Now, I literally thought this next one was a joke, but it's fucking not. So hat tip to Uncle Bob on Discord for this. The Trump White House has launched Arcade.gov, a collection of five retro style browser games built around administration policies and messaging.

Rio Run adapts Snake, asking players to patrol the Rio Grande, collecting figures depicted as border crossers and receive a deportation tally. Build the Wall, Zombie Border Siege, uses Tetris-like block stacking to defend the southern border other titles include Flappy Bill, which guides legislation through capital obstacles.

Supply Line, focused on removing disfavored foods from school lunches. And Trump Savings Tycoon, where players collect money and cryptocurrency for children's Trump accounts. How fucking embarrassing is this? Well, they're about to drop a new game, Jason.

They're about to drop pedo or Nazi. Pedo or Nazi. There we go. Is there a title for both? Yeah. President. Yeah. Oh, Dimity. There you go.

Oh, no. You're also going to have dead or alive and it's just Mitch McConnell. You just keep hitting dead, dead, dead, dead. Dead, dead, dead, dead, dead. Dead, dead, dead, dead. I was just speaking. They released a statement saying he hasn't returned to work or whatever because he's still having trouble breathing.

Of course, the entire internet said, yeah, that's really hard to do when you're dead. Dead. It is quite difficult. Yeah. God. God. Fucking, I can't. What the fuck? I know.

Oh, my eyes hurt. My eyes hurt from all of this. Oh, what are we going to do? September's a great time to get your home fall ready. Freshen things up with a new coat of paint.

Tackle those repairs you've been putting off and make sure you're prepared for hurricane season. Don't wait till it's too late. Get hurricane ready with great deals on generators, flash lights, extension cords, power tools, and so much more. Whatever's on your list, Stone's Home Centers has the supplies and expert advice to help you get the job done right.

Stop in and let our team help you get fall ready. And remember, there's a Stone's store near you. At QVC, fall shopping is more than just checking out. It's discovering the brands you love across beauty, fashion , home, and culinary all in one place.

Whether you're getting ready for crisp mornings, cozy nights, or everyday moments, QVC has what you need for the season ahead. With brands like Laura Geller, Philosophy, Ninja, and so many more. Shop now at QVC.com.

We have an email from Phillip now that we've fixed our deal io. Phillip says, "One request. Can you mention the episode you actually watched when you say, 'It was great!'

For example, in the UK, the last Star Trek: Strange New World was bloody awful, and can't imagine you were raving about that one. Silo, you mentioned the finale coming, but that was the only clue I had that you were talking about the second to last one, or the penultimate episode.

When I was listening to your podcast on Saturday, I'd already seen the finale. Keep up the great work." Well, you have a fair point, Phillip. We kind of fucked that up. Well, yeah-ish. I mean, we often do talk about details in the episode, which, you know, one would use contextual clues.

I know, but it makes sense to just say, "Hey, this is the fucking episode we're talking about." All right, more work for us. Jesus Christ. Yeah, I know, I know. Patreon.com/GOG if you want episode titles. Here we go. Star Trek: Strange New World, S4E7, like chronitons through the hourglass.

Boy, they went back to the dumb well real fast. Oh, man. Six alive. I hated this episode. Here's the thing about this episode. I hated the mechanics of the episode.

What I actually really liked was the Pike story about the daughter. Yes, of course. Because something that they- that's this- there's- I mean, this whole thing was a vehicle to get to that. It was a really stupid vehicle. It was like a- like a three-wheeled, like, Yugo from the, you know, the Eastern block in the Cold War.

It was just clunky and shitty. But that- that story itself is actually a story that was worth investigating because he spent this entire lifetime in an episode with a family that he grew to love. And he still has the memories of that. Yeah. So this is the first time we ever got to see that kind of, you know, how that haunts- can haunt him, you know?

Yes. And he never really- As they dated Star Trek: The Next Generation with Picard, who did the same thing. Yes. And then they revisit that much later on in the series and he has to deal with it. But did they do it in the guise of Q doing a soap opera? No, thank God, because they had better writers.

What the hell? What the hell? Yeah, what the hell? Speaking of Star Trek, it's- they have celebrated their 60 year anniversary the other day. September 8th, to be exact, is the first date that Star Trek aired in the US.

It was pointed out somewhere- At 12:32 PM, CST. It was pointed out somewhere that it actually aired two days earlier in Canada. So Canada has had Star Trek longer than the US has. Anyways, happy 60th anniversary. It's the 60th anniversary, Paramount.

You own this amazing IP that has lasted for 60 years. So what do we get? Some baking items, a half-baked episode, and nothing on the dockets for the future. Nothing. Good job, Paramount. Good job. Well, we can send some people to the Ren Fair.

Oh, wait, that's coming later. I time traveled. I time traveled. We also had the Silo season finale last week. I don't know the season- Well, I can't remember the season or episode number, Philip , but it was the season finale.

And it was really good. Yes. Season three, episode 10. There you go. Yeah. I enjoyed it. I enjoyed it. Yeah, it was great. It took a long time to get there this season, but it got there. Oh, yeah. That was a lot of juice.

That was a lot of squeezing for a little bit of juice there . Yeah. But no, I enjoyed it. Did you stick to the end to watch the trailer for season four? I absolutely did. And I cannot wait. Yeah. And apparently we don't have to wait too long. It's coming in the summer. July. Yes. They're saying July.

Yes. So, I was hoping that this was December and it was only going to be six months, but it's not. It's not going to wait. It's not going to wait. It's not going to wait. It's not going to wait. It's not going to wait. It's not going to wait. It's not going to wait. It's not going to wait. It's not going to wait. It's not going to wait.

But still, July is better than some of the other ones that we've had to wait for. Three years from now. Yeah. FUBAR in 17 years. Well, my wife and I sat down to watch some TV last night, Jason, and I also wish it was, it would have been December because we watched Ted Lasso season four, episode six. Don't jump around much anymore for you, Philip. And I do wish it would have been December because here, first off the episode, pretty good.

Some legit laugh out loud, funny parts where I was dying, just dying laughing. It was hilarious. I have to say that the, what's her face? Oh God, I'm blanking on her name right now. Tracy Ullman. The Tracy Ullman shtick has grown very thin.

Like I'm done with that character. She was a one trick pony. It's a complete waste of time. I was done with her the second time she showed up. I was done. Such a horrible waste because she's hilarious. Yeah. She's a hilarious person and you're wasting her in this horrible role.

Anyways, my point being, here's the problem with these shows that drop just randomly whenever they feel like it, whenever they're done, or they don't have, you know, 32 episodes in a year and they go the whole year. This was a, this was a new year's Eve slash Christmas episode.

Another one? In September. That aired in September. I did this before though. They did this. I know. And it just doesn't feel right. You know what I mean? Like when you're watching a Christmas episode from a show, it kind of needs to be around Christmas time or else it just doesn't, it doesn't get you in the feels the same way.

Yeah. It doesn't hit. I got to say the last Christmas, but also the last Christmas episode they did was one of the best Christmas episodes of any show I've ever seen. So trying to do that again. And how much better would it have been around Christmas? It would have been 10 times better. Yeah. So this was more of a new year's one, but you know, they have the Christmas decorations and snowing, all that sort of stuff that it isn't in 102 degree weather in LA.

Exactly. It's hotter than Satan's ball sack, as I like to say, but God damn, I'm going to watch me some Ted Lasso and turn on the AC and maybe I'll get the feels. Yeah. But thanks for the heads up. Now I know that season four, episode six, don't jump around much anymore, is the perfect episode to turn the AC on and maybe make some eggnog and watch that.

So thank you, Brian, for letting me know exactly what episode was and what season. I appreciate that. Once again, that's season four, episode six, don't jump around much anymore. We're just fucking with you, Philip. It's fun. Apple TV has reportedly begun developing a spinoff of its hit sci-fi series, Silo.

That would be season one, episode one, Philip. We're waiting for the pilot, Brian. We haven't even hit pilot yet. Season one, episode zero. Yes. The news follows the completion of the show's third season while its fourth and final season is already scheduled to premiere. According to Apple TV reporter Sigmund Judge, the spinoff could enter pre-production later this year, though details about its plot, characters, or timeline remain unknown.

Probably unless you read the books that were going to tell us what book it's going to be about, maybe? No. No, Brian? No. No. He wrote all of the stuff that they're, it's all in silo. So that's it.

Okay. I didn't know. I didn't know. I didn't know. I didn't know. I didn't know. I didn't know. I didn't know. I didn't know. I didn't know if that's going to happen. This is Apple, you know. Yeah. The fact that they've stuck so close to the plot line from the books is very un-Apple like.

I know. Foundation. Foundation. Foundation. Foundation. Foundation. All seasons. All episodes, Philip. Yes. Yes. Gen. Gen. Gen. Gen. Gen. Whatever the latest generation of dumb shits out there are talking about on, on Instagram. They're saying, I just discovered Foundation on Apple TV.

Why didn't anybody tell me about this? This is the greatest sci-fi thing I've ever seen. I've ever seen. I'm like, I guess you shouldn't read the books if you really want to keep thinking that. If you really like the show, do not read the books. Don't read the books. Don't read the books.

Don't read the books. Okay. I got to get to the gentleman season two on Netflix. Now the gentleman season one from Guy Ritchie was great. And it was like seven years ago. And the gentleman season two was delayed for a fucking year . It was supposed to come out a year ago.

I don't know why it was delayed. If they did reshoots or anything like that. It was worth the wait. This is the best eight episodes of television I have seen this year. I fucking loved it. I mean, I'm a Guy Ritchie fan, like big time.

So it had all the feels and all the hallmarks of a general Guy Ritchie, you know, plot line. But this one was season one was more tongue in cheek fun. Like, like most of his movies are, you know, there's like complicated plot lines and it gets a little, you know, goofy and funny.

This season was not any of that. This was a very, for the most part, serious straight run. And it was awesome. I mean, we, every night we would watch two episodes and then me and my roommate would talk about it for like an hour. When was the last time, Brian, you saw a show and you sat down and you talked about the plot line and what could happen and who's doing what for any amount of time?

Never. Exactly. That's how good this, this was so well written. And it has been renewed for season three, which is great. Because this is, this is a three season arc for this character, for the main character, Eddie. And man, if you haven't seen the gentlemen, you can start at the beginning and go through them and you are going to love them.

It is so fucking good. I was like, I'm just, we went to watch, we actually went to watch a couple episodes of the traders last night after we watched this and it would just seem so stupid. We're just like, oh, that's no, we can't even watch that. We just ended up watching like old guys, grocery games instead to clear the palette.

But, oh, and by the way, guys, grocery games, season 25, starting at about episode six, is when they do the guys grocery games from home that they did during the pandemic, which are very hard to find. But thanks to our friend who gave us access to their Plex server, I've been able to watch those.

That's what we've been watching. So starting at season 25, probably episode five or six, going all the way to the middle of season 26, when COVID ends and they go back into the store. Those are some great episodes of guys grocery games that you will probably never see. But, Philip, go feel free to check those out since I have given you the season and the episode numbers because they 're awesome.

All right. I have not watched South Park for many, many, many years. I think I did watch one of the first episodes where they had Trump on with his love affair with Satan. So I did watch one. But it's been a decade plus since I've watched an episode of South Park.

I probably will not watch season 29, which is coming up soon. However, I do have to applaud them because South Park has changed the name for the upcoming season to South America. Inspired by the bravery and patriotism of Apple and Google, we are changing the name of South Park to South America.

We especially want to thank our parent company, Paramount, a Skydance capitulation. I love these guys. They're so great. They're so great. They're so great. Yeah, I watched that first. I've watched the first two episodes. There are maybe three episodes of South Park when they came back with a vengeance after their big fight.

And I mean, it was great. It was great. But the joke worse than the joke worse than it was. It's on its 29th season. And like, I probably watched the first 10. That was enough. Yeah, I watched the first pilot on VHS that went around.

And, you know, then because that was that was what was just like, oh, these guys are going to be huge. And then whatever. And a little follow up for the Simpsons Black Mirror episode. Did you ever go back and watch that on Disney? I didn't know. OK, you don't have to. You don't have to.

I'm just telling you. The first one was cute. It was like a really kind of bad Black Mirror episode that wasn't wasn't that great. So I didn't I didn't I just skipped the second one. But I mean, the second one was kind of funny because you actually might like the second part of it because it dealt with, you know, the kid and giving him an iPad.

And Homer's like, oh, you found her off switch and give her the iPad. But anyway, let's talk about something more fun. Donnie Darko. Donnie Darko, one of the greatest movies of all time. Love it. Is is returning to theaters for its 25th anniversary.

Fathom Entertainment. Imitainment. Fathom Entertainment will screen a new 4K restoration from October 2nd through October 4th. Screenings will feature an exclusive introduction from Richard Kelly, who is the, you know, the main guy who is also he has a sequel novel planned later this year.

Now. The thing about Donnie Darko is if it's the director's cut, go die in a fucking fire because the director's cut is shit , shit, shit, shit, shit, shit. It's like the director's cut of Amadeus. Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit. But the original Donnie Darko.

Fucking masterpiece. Absolute fucking masterpiece. There you go. I can't wait. I hope it's I hope it's the good one. I hope it's the good one. We'll find out on October 2nd. So, yeah, I hope it is too.

But I but I what do you care? You can just watch it from home. You're not going to go. I want that. No, I want that 4K restoration of the original. That's what I want. I'll buy that. Oh, steal it from Sweden. Right. Well, speaking of disturbing movies, there's some upcoming techie movies that all look pretty disturbing.

Then we've got like short trailers for most of these are out now. I don't have links in the show notes. Sorry about that. Artificial, which is about Sam Altman. That looked pretty good. There's an Elon Musk documentary just called Musk. And oh, that looks so fun.

That one looks really good. Four hours. It's going to be Brian for hours. I don't know if I can take four hours of Musk, but yeah, I don't know about that either. And I know I know I can't take three hours of this next one . You can see everything, which is the Elizabeth Holmes doc.

And that teaser trailer has gone very viral. You know, something that she wouldn't have been able to detect with her blood tests, viruses or anything. Oh, oh, oh, oh my God.

Yeah. So I watched, I watched the what 32nd teaser. And that is about as much as I can take. I don't think I'm going to watch that one because fuck her. I was watching that. I had, I had no, like Gabriel pagan posted it to our discord and I just went into it cold.

And I'm watching it and I'm looking at it and like looking at her going, why do I know her? Why is this so creepy? Why is this creeping me the fuck out? Why is my skin? Why does my back feel like it's trying to run out of the room at the same time? You can literally see the psychopath in her.

You can see it. And I'm just like, and here's the thing. I was like, I'm trying to picture who she was. I'm like, who is, cause I thought she was an actress. I'm like, okay, this has gotta be a horror movie or some shit like that. Because the other guy, the guy who made the film is talking to her and he's just as fucking creepy.

And I was like, either this is one of the greatest actress es of all time. But then they, then they pan back and then the whole day they get, they do the wide shot. And it's just, I mean, it is the greatest horror movie trailer I've ever seen.

Hands down. Yeah. Wow. I don't think I'm going to be able to sit through it. So. Oh, I guarantee you I'm not. Yeah. No, no. No. Yeah. September is a great time to get your home fall ready.

Freshen things up with a new coat of paint. Tackle those repairs you've been putting off and make sure you're prepared for hurricane season. Don't wait till it's too late. Get hurricane ready with great deals on generators, flash lights, extension cords, power tools, and so much more.

Whatever's on your list. Stone's home centers has the supplies and expert advice to help you get the job done, right? Stop in and let our team help you get fall ready. And remember there's a stone store near you. At QVC, fall shopping is more than just checking out.

It's discovering the brands you love across beauty, fashion , home, and culinary all in one place. Whether you're getting ready for crisp mornings, cozy nights, or everyday moments, QVC has what you need for the season ahead.

With brands like Laura Geller, Philosophy, Ninja, and so many more. Shop now at QVC.com. Well, we've talked a lot about Libby, and I can tell you what the downside of Libby is.

You talked about how great this is how you lose the time war is. So, of course, went straight to Libby because I'm trying to not buy things from Amazon and punched it up. Eight week wait. Now seven. Now seven. So, I am patiently waiting.

We'll talk about that in ten more episodes. Actually, I got a notification this morning that I can do an early checkout, but I only get it for seven days. So, I guess I'll be reading this week. Well, it's a novella and you read like 800 pages a day.

So, I think you can probably get through it in one or two good shits. Yes. Well, in the meantime, while I got disappointed by not being able to get that book, I was scanning around in Libby and found a book called Orbital by Samantha Harvey that was very highly acclaimed.

And it's also a very short novella, and I read it. And don't read this if you're expecting sci-fi. This is more like a tone poem of what it must feel like to be an astronaut in space. Now, having said that, that sounds fucking horrible, but it wasn't.

It was actually really good. Okay, cool. Yeah. Very good. I just want to know why you didn't go to A Gift of Time by Jerry Merritt that I talked about at the same time I said, you know, this is how to lose the time war was so good. Because I had had a gift of wine, and I didn't remember that one.

Okay. Well, I'm putting it in the notes here. Thank you. But I did find out that Jerry Merritt did write another book called Time Pebbles. It is not in the same universe, but it is another time travel book, and I got that on Audible right before I canceled my subscription.

Okay. Because I had to burn through my last credits before I canceled it. So I did get The Infinite Extent Babaverse Book 6 by Dennis E. Taylor, which comes out tomorrow, which will be the day that this episode airs. So I know.

Give me those fingers out. I have to wait like six months. Oh, poor baby. I get to listen to it. So, yes. Whatever. That's going to be awesome. I'm a pissed. And I used, well, here's the thing. I used the credit that I had spent on the book that you recommended or talked about at least, The Nerd Reich.

So not to be confused with The Turd Reich, which is a series of street art pieces, which I linked to the show notes, which you should go check out and print and put all over your office and everything because they're beautiful. So I took The Nerd Reich credit and spent it back on The Infinite Extent Babaverse Book 6 by Dennis E. Taylor, which I get tomorrow and you don't.

Ha! Ha! Because I started to read The Nerd Reich and it gave me so much agita that I had to immediately return it. I told you. Yeah. I was like, there's no way we could read this book. No. No. Oh, man. These people are just so fucking horrible. They are.

Nazi or pedo. That's what they should have just called this book. Nazi or pedo. And it would have been both. Spoiler alert. Oh. And it seems like our Discord channel has spoken on Dungeon Crawler Carl Book 3. Seems like everybody had problems getting through it.

You know? I'm not even going to go back to it for a while. I guess I'll slug my way through because people seem to think it picks back up after Book 3 and sometimes you just got to work through it. It's like reading The Gunslinger if you're going to read The Dark Tower. The Gunslinger is a slog, but you have to get through it.

You have to because the whole rest of the series is awesome . No, it's not. No, it's not. No, it's not. We disagree on The Gunslinger. I hated it. I hated it. I hated that. And what was the other one?

The Stand. Oh, I love The Stand. So good. Thousands of pages you've made me read for shit that I hate . But I did it. I stuck it through. So, whatever. But you should definitely go back and get, instead of a gift of wine, get A Gift of Time by Jerry Merritt.

It's a great book. I will do both. Okay. Welcome to The Dark Side with Dave, featuring cybersecurity 's hardest working podcaster, Dave Bittner. When he's not covering the daily cyber beat on the cyber wire, he's busting scams with Joe Kerrigan on Hacking Humans , tackling privacy with Ben Yellen on Caveat, and proves there's always room for one more cybersecurity podcast with only malware in the building.

What's up, Big D? It's good to be back. Oh, boy. Glad you're back. Oh, boy. Trying to get some energy in here, guys. Come on. Let's go. It's good to be back. Yeah.

Sunday, Sunday, Sunday. You might pay for the whole seat, but you're only going to need the edge. This is in that midweek slump, I guess. Yeah, that's true. We do record on Wednesdays now, and it's always kind of like, meh. Yeah. It's better than Fridays. A couple more days left in the week.

Yep. Anyway, I threw this in here because this just comes back to the old, they're not listening to you. They're listening to you. They're not listening to you. They're listening to you. Well, a new report claims that some LG smart TVs may be collecting more audio data than viewers expect. The televisions reportedly use built-in microphones and voice recognition features to detect spoken commands.

But questions remain about whether ambient conversations can also be captured or processed. Thoughts, gentlemen? Well, we only ever said our phones weren't listening to us. That's true. That is true. Here we go again. I've seen some more reporting on this, and people have been using packet sniffers and all the various, you know, technology that we have available to see what's coming in and out of our networks.

And, yeah, these guys are going to get sued. Good. Yeah. From, by all accounts, I mean, they are just, they're keeping conversations, even if the Wi-Fi is disconnected, they're storing conversations on board and then sending them off to the home network, you know, when they reconnect .

And, you know, it's just, I'm going to guess that they put this in this very, very small print somewhere on the manual s that they don't give us anymore. But the EULA, Brian, the EULA. Yeah, I'd imagine so.

But I think this, you know, this is just unfortunate timing for LG, perhaps, because we are very much, as we discussed earlier in the show, there is a pretty big privacy backlash happening right now. People are pissed.

People are angry. You know, people are destroying flawed cameras. People are going to, getting off their butts and actually going to city council meetings saying, you know, we're not cool with this. We're not cool with the police doing this. We're not cool with the police doing that.

We're not cool with these cameras. We're not cool with you not telling us what we're doing. And, yeah, people are fucking pissed about this online with these LGs. Yet millions and millions of meta Ray-Bans are being sold every year. Yeah, but that's something that you're buying, too.

That's something so you can destroy other people's privacy. Right. Not your privacy being destroyed. True that. True that. I'll just reiterate my advice for anyone who buys any kind of television that has internet connectivity, which is all of them today.

Just skip by the internet connectivity. Get yourself an Apple TV or one of the other dedicated devices and let that be how you communicate with the world. That is exactly what I do.

Yeah, I choose the Apple TV because of all of the major suppliers, I distrust Apple the least. That's about the extent of it. Yeah, I have my Apple TV hooked up to my Amazon Fire TV, which generally will not run without an internet connection , without a reboot every three and a half minutes.

It is the worst television that I've ever paid for in my life. And, you know, I've tried. I've tried unplugging it and taking it off the network and not even setting it up. And it will barely boot half the time. So, and, you know, there was two weeks where it wouldn't even get past the it died in the update cycle.

And I had to, like, force restart it, factory reset, force restart, factory reset three more times, and then plug it into the ethernet to get it to fix itself. And now it's like, well, it's tasted the outside world and now it doesn't want to let go. It's just like, I've tasted freedom.

You will not, you know, not putting TV in the corner. That's for damn sure. I had, like, when I first moved here to Toronto from Los Angeles, we left behind TVs and all that sort of stuff because they were all kind of outdated anyways. And I did a bit of research because I knew I'd be buying two TVs at least.

We ended up with three. And Samsung at the time was pretty top of the list in terms of privacy, even, you know, if you leave the stuff on. So I got myself some Samsung TVs. And when I plugged them in to set them up, I was, I had one Apple TV with me.

I didn't, that's all I had at the time. So obviously the main TV, the Apple TV went and no internet connectivity off, all that sort of stuff. Just the Apple TV. That's the only thing allowed connected to the net. And the Samsung TV is just a dumb old TV, which it's supposed to be.

But then I put one down here in my basement and I didn't have an Apple TV yet. And I figured, let me take a look at this. Let me just see, you know, okay, you can get all the apps in here. It's not, it's not as intuitive and nice as an Apple TV, but it will do. And I don't have to spend the extra, you know, 150 or whatever it is for the Apple TV.

And lo and behold, as soon as I brought it up and I saw, I saw there's a fucking ad in here. There are ads. Oh yeah. Ads in my menu bar. Fuck this. Right. So I immediately ordered the Apple TV.

Shut up and take my money. Yeah. Yeah. So, I mean, even if they're not destroying your privacy, the whole idea that I spend, you know, upwards a thousand plus dollars on a really nice TV that then just feeds me fucking ads. No, no.

Don't buy a Roku TV then. That's for damn sure. That's all we've got. It's just ad, ad, ad. So yeah, it's ridiculous. It's ridiculous. My main TV, like on the sort of, I guess you'd call it the living room in our house, which is probably where most of the TV is consumed.

It's the one facing the couch. is when we shut down Pixel Workshop a few years ago, we took one of the old Panasonic studio monitors. It was a big, I don't know, 40 something inch plasma display.

So very high quality, but dumb. Dumb as a fence post. No, no smarts in it at all. And hosed up an Apple TV to it. And since then, Panasonic no longer sells televisions in the U.S. They got out of that market. Right. Oh, wow.

It's a tough racket to be in. Yeah. Because of people like Vimeo, you know. Yeah, Vimeo and Amazon and, you know, everybody putting out these super cheap TVs that just suck up your data. Yeah. Right. I tell you what, though, those Samsung smart TVs, I bought three of them for my studio back in the day.

They all came from a resale shop. So I got them used cheap, like 200 bucks each for 55 inch, really nice TVs. It's too bad it had that KFC menu burned into it, isn't it? No. You know what it had? You know what it had, though? It was part of like some kind of porn.

No. No. Okay. It was part of like a retirement community that had all of the apps installed. And they all were still logged in. So I got every single channel from every network on those TVs. And up until recently, I gave the last one away to a friend whose TV broke.

And like as of like, you know, six months ago, they all still worked. That's years. Like from I bought those in 2002 or 2003. So those Samsung TVs hold on to those credentials really nicely. So, Brian, do a factory reset before you get rid of them.

I remember years ago, there was a thing making the rounds about somebody on Craigslist was giving away a free plasma TV. And this is when plasma TVs were still the pinnacle of image quality. You can't buy a plasma TV anymore. And it's basically, you know, free plasma TV warning.

The burned into the screen is the opening menu for Ass Masters 5. So if you're willing to take the TV when it's completely black or completely white, this is what you will see.

But like somebody had, I guess, taken care of business, fallen asleep. And the menu was on overnight and burned itself in there. And there was no getting rid of it. So that's great. Oh, that's awesome. I put a link in here for something that crossed my desk this week.

It's yet another searchable database of Usenet. This one's pretty powerful, pretty useful, and just plain fun. I don't know how far you guys go back on Usenet, but I certainly left a lot of breadcrumbs back there.

And it's just, it's strange to visit your past self, public -facing past self from 30 years ago. And see what your writing style was and what was important to you. I have to admit, I have the first, I think you found one of these and talked about it quite a while back.

And I had bookmarked it with the idea of eventually looking myself up because I go way back as well and remember my us ernames. And then I decided out of sheer, I just don't want to know. I don't want to know. I don't want to revisit that past.

See, I lack that discipline. But now I will have to re-go through this whole temptation because you have put another one in here and I will circle around this drain for a couple weeks. Right. Right. The next thing I'm sharing here is, I guess I'm not going to be going to Renfest this year.

Hang on, guys. I'm sorry to break in here. I actually went back and I just put in my old email address . It was Thor at Interaccess.com. I have an announcement here from February 6, 1995, where announce modest www.cyberpunk site.

There is a modest cyberpunk site at Interaccess.com slash spew. This was my first website. This is the first announcement I ever made for my first website. Wow. And it's actually here. That's amazing. We are looking for contributors desperately. We have the whole pretty page thing down, but we need contributors.

Check it out and let me know what you think. And it's got my email address and all of that stuff. Wow. February 6, 1995. That's when Spew was born. It reminds me of what Yoda said, you know, old friends long gone. Yep.

You know what I really like about this, though, too, is on all of these old messages, they have links to the Wayback Machine. So you can click directly on a link and go to the Wayback Machine straight from there. Oh, that's nice. That's pretty cool. So you can see it all threaded. Yeah. Cool. I still will not be tempted.

No. You shouldn't be. Give it time. It's all right. Someday your kids will look you up. That's, you know. Well, luckily I never used my real name back then. I was just coming up this podcast and hearing me talking shit. So. Okay. See, I was not that smart. So anyway, I guess I'm not going to be going to RenFest this year.

Here in Maryland, we have a very successful RenFest. It sells out way ahead of time and it's hard to get tickets to and long lines to park and get in and all that sort of thing is very, very successful. But this year, the Maryland Renaissance Fair has banned fur ries.

What? What? Yeah. Yeah. They might as well ban turkey legs. What the fuck? Or cleavage. Yeah. Right. What the hell? Well, they said that furries make people uncomfortable.

And those are the people we don't want the RenFest. They're quite comfortable to sit on. Yeah. Yeah. So, of course, the furries are not taking this sitting down . Well, as they shouldn't. They should be leaping and hopping and skipping and jumping .

Chasing their tails. Frolicking. Frolicking. Mm-hmm. Frolicking in protest. It's funny that you put this in here because I tend to spend a lot of time not engaging on but reloading threads for some reason. I've found it the most interesting of the social media sites these days just because it tosses up weird topics for me.

It's not a very good algorithm because it's not stuff that I would normally be interested in. But I do like the rabbit holes it tries to send me down. And one of the ones that just tried to send me down just two days ago, and I did chase this one down a little bit because I thought it was hilarious. Apparently, there's this whole subculture going on on threads about how Gen Z has absolutely no fucking sense of humor.

It started, or at least the biggest thread that I saw, started because of a Renaissance Fair and some Gen Z woman went to a Renaissance Fair and was aghast, I tell you, agh ast at how many people were showing parts of their bodies. And how could this be?

Because this is a family-friendly event, and we must ban Renaissance Fairs because there is far too much cleavage. Oh, boy. Has this person ever been on the internet? This person just got fucking, everybody just piled on like, fucking grow up. Aren't you an adult?

What the fuck is wrong with you people? Does your generation not know how to have fun? Yeah. No, they don't. As a matter of fact. So I think that there is the push to kind of, I don't know, cleanse everything these days. And, you know, cancel culture has gotten to Red Fest and the furries.

I can't believe it. See, the thing about Renaissance Fairs is they're very family-friendly because many families are made at Renaissance Fairs. That's true. Not too much mead, and next thing you know. Exactly. You're off in some tent somewhere. Yeah. Yeah.

I similarly followed a little RenFest rat hole that I came across on Reddit. And this one happened to be, what is the most annoying costume that people wear to RenFests? Any guesses as to what came in?

Jack Sparrow? Pirates was up there. Pirates was up there. Yeah. Yeah. I guess pirates aren't considered really RenFest-y canon. No. It's like people just all cosplaying it. No, number one with a bullet was Star Trek away team.

Oh, man. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Actually, I find that really funny. Yeah. That's great. That's absolutely great. Right. Could you just, I just imagine the RenFest people are like, oh, God, there's another Star Trek away team.

Oh, hilarious. Oh, so funny. How clever you are. What about Doctor Who? Right. You need a Doctor Who guy coming through there. Right. Yeah. Yeah. But actually, someone did say that an actual clever Star Trek away team would be to just dress as poorly costumed RenFest people.

Yeah. And have like the Spock ears and that sort of stuff. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Yeah. But no, people in actual Star Trek uniforms, they've had enough of that. That jokes run its course. Okay. Fair, I guess. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So moving on to our favorite topic here, which of course is Star Wars.

I wanted to just reiterate where I will be on February 19th , 2027, which is the day that the 50th anniversary IMAX 70 millimeter presentation of the original theatrical release of Star Wars is coming out.

I don't know where you're going to be, Brian. I don't know where you're going to be, Jason, but that's where I'll be. I will be at the next link in our show notes, the Empire Strips Back, a burlesque parody. Yeah. Okay. Well. Yeah.

No, I'm kind of excited about this. I never saw the original Star Wars in theater. I was too young. So I remember seeing it on a VHS after, probably after I had seen Empire Strikes Back in the theater. Okay. So I would like to see, I want to see Han shoot first in glorious IMAX.

I think that would be great. I had no, I mean, I guess I intellectually knew this. We've got Star Wars celebrating their 50th anniversary on February 19th. We just had Star Trek celebrate their 60th anniversary. So I did not know that Star Trek preceded Star Wars by a full 10 years.

Mm-hmm. So that's pretty cool. Yeah. Yeah. I saw Star Wars in the back of my dad's Cadillac Eldorado at a drive-in in Des Plaines, Illinois. That's where I first saw Star Wars. And we saw it twice.

So that's it. That was my only theater experience. So it was outside in a noisy, you know, drive-in with people going crazy and stuff. I barely remember it, but I do remember one, like making my dad take me back the next night. So I liked it enough.

Yeah. I saw it at least 10 times in the theaters. And I do remember one of the times was we had a theater near here that was like an old classic movie house and they had 70 millimeter projection. So I did see it once in 70 millimeter.

But so let's skip over and we will swing back to the Empire Strips back because it's definitely worth talking about. seeing it in 70 millimeter brings me to the last link that I put in here, which is a comparison between the stereo and mono sound mix of the Star Wars releases.

So it turns out historically, the initial release of Star Wars was in stereo and 70 millimeter, which was six channels. And it was about a month later because they did not anticipate the popularity of the film.

A month later, they came out with a mono mix for all the other theaters that wanted Star Wars, but hadn't yet upgraded to stereo. Hard to believe that back in the late ish 70s, many, many movie theaters were still just projecting in mono.

I mean, what about those movie theaters that just got John Williams score and they had to play it on the organ? That would be interesting to see, wouldn't it be? A theater organ version of someone must have done that.

It must have been done. I might do it at the next Ren Faire. Right. But, um, there, so in that month of time, they made changes . Ben Burt, who is, was mixed and did all the sound for Star Wars, updated some things.

So the mono sound mix of Star Wars has some differences. It has different takes, different, uh, the actors doing different takes than are in the stereo version. There are added sound effects. But the thing I remember specifically from my childhood was the joke in Star Wars when Han Solo is running away from the stormtroopers on the Death Star.

And he's shooting at them and he runs away. And you hear a stormtrooper say, close the blast doors. And then you see Han and Chewie running for the blast doors and the blast doors are closing. And Han, like, barely makes it through. And then the stormtrooper says, open the blast doors, open the blast doors.

Right. And it's funny because he just told him to close it. Now he wants them to open it. Well, the close the blast doors line isn't in the stereo release. It's only in the mono release. They added the joke for the mono release. And I remember seeing that in the theaters and thinking, oh , that's a really funny joke.

But then I also remember seeing it again and going, wait, where's the joke? Because I must have seen it in stereo after that. So I think that was my first experience of what's the thing ? What's the thing where things change over time?

The, you know, the, you know, I'm talking about the guys. I'm dying. The Mandela effect. Mandela effect. Are you talking about the Mandela effect? Yes. Talking about the Mandela effect. My brain blinked on it with you.

So I was right there. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. The Mandela effect. Yes. But it was real in this case because there were different versions. Anyway, this YouTube video. It's not like Star Wars to continually fuck with the way the movie is presented. Oh my God. Right? So from the outset, they were doing this to us.

Yeah. But it is interesting to watch because there are some minor things beyond Han shooting first. There's some subtle changes to the lines that they say that make a little bit of a difference. So if you're a Star Wars nerd like us, it's worth checking out and it is fun.

So we'll see which version comes out in when it's in 70 millimeter IMAX. So maybe it'll be a whole new mix. All right. Very cool. And if you're a Star Wars nerd that likes cleavage at Ren F airs, you should check out the Empire's Tricksack, a burlesque parody. Yes.

We originally covered that in episode 613. And for I think a good solid two years, my Instagram feed, I got ads for that every day. And I didn't skip them. Yeah. I got an ad for it. I got an ad for it today, which is why it made it into the show notes.

I just re-popped back up. Is it coming to a town near you? It has been to Toronto. I did not catch it. I think it's currently in Los Angeles and my phone still thinks I'm in LA for some reason. Oh, I see. Yeah. Yeah. It did come to Washington, D.C. and I was tempted to go see it.

But how do I say this? In order for me to go see this, someone else would have to instigate the trip. Like the wife. Well, no, you're getting to the core of it, though, which is that my wife would not be the one instigating this trip.

So one of our friends would have to instigate the trip and say, hey, we're going to see the Empire Strips back as a couple. Would you guys like to go with us? And then I'd go, oh, that'd be fun. You can bring R2. Right. And my wife would go, okay, I'll go. And that would be that.

And so. Right. But yeah, I'm going out on a limb here and guessing that this would not be her thing. But yeah, I'd be there. I'd be there in a second. It is a parody. So, you know, say, honey, it's comedy. We're going for comedy. Look, if we were in Paris, you'd be going to a burlesque show.

Right. Right. It's like I'm just. Because there it's classy. Right. I'm watching all these 1980s HBO after dark movies like Porky's and. Oh, God. Porky's. Because of the comedy.

I'm watching it because of the comedy. Yeah. Tim Cattrall is legitimately funny. That's right. Comic sensibilities are second to none. On that bombshell. Yeah. May the force be with you. Always.

Now let's get to the people who make this show possible. Over at Patreon, we've got no new subscribers. Which means that you who are listening or watching this show right now should go to patreon.com slash GOG. And for as little as $3 a month. And you can actually get a discount if you pay for the whole year.

And you can give us more if you want. You can get the show early, ad free and in high definition. And it helps keep the show on the air. So the people who have signed up at patreon.com slash GOG and then continue to support the show are Nathan, Gilbert, Stephen, Marcus, Mrs. BGK18, David, Ed G, Alex, Martin, and Anonymous Economist.

And we thank you all for your continued support of our show gram. Who said showgram? Who used to say that? I have no idea. Okay. Okay. Over at PayPal, we got donations from online computers and Gordon who gave us a big $25 donation.

Thank you. And we do have memberships over at YouTube if you'd like to sign up and get the show early. It ad free for the most part. Yeah. Yeah. You do get it ad free if you sign up. So, hey, go get that too. We've got a couple of new people at Keith Metcalf 1439 and at Asa Logan B2N.

So thank you for signing up over there. And over at the tip jar, we've got Patrick in. Hi, John. So thank you all very much. And we sold some merch, Jason. Yeah. Tell us about all these people that bought the merch, Brian . Our shirts are flying off the shelf thing. Roger from Tucson.

Matthew from Australia. Francis from Asheville. Jason in the Armed Forces Pacific. Steve from Menlo Park. I'm sure that shirt will be popular there. James from Maine. And Craig from Ohio. Thank you all. Thank you all so much. And, yeah. And, you know, last week I mentioned that nobody was buying the, you know, Elon Kills Babies shirt.

That has actually been picking up steam, you know. Granted, our You Are Here shirt has definitely been the most popular sales item. But I think we sold like five or six at least of the Elon K ills Babies shirt. So I'm happy. If you're going to go see Musk the documentary, what better shirt to wear?

Oh, my God. Absolutely. Absolutely. And you know what you should also wear it in? When you're taking your first cyber cab ride in Austin. Or at least if you're doing the hokey pokey in front of it and fucking with the people inside the cyber cab, you should really get one. That is the way it should go.

For sure. There you go. Agreed. And I guess that's about it, Jason. I'm tired. And I'm grumped out. Until next time, I'm Brian Schulmeister. And I'm Jason DeFilippo. Thanks for listening to Grumpy Old Geeks. Get all the links and goodies from today's episode at GOG. show slash 762. Want to keep the grumpiness alive?

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