713: Ourovibeos

12:04Brian Schulmeister:Yeah.

12:05Jason DeFillippo:that they can just it's unclear whether ai companies will honor the standard no after all they've been known to simply ignore robots.dxt instructions as for technical enforcement the rsl standard can't block bots on its own for that the group is partnering with the cloud company fastly which can act as a sort of gatekeep this is such nobody's ever heard of have you ever heard of

12:27Brian Schulmeister:fastly no cloudflare if you want to meet hang out with cloudflare fuck fastly who the fuck are these guys.

12:35Jason DeFillippo:Anyways, points for, I guess, for somebody trying to come up with a solution, but this is dead. This is dead on arrival. It's not even on arrival. It's just dead.

12:43Brian Schulmeister:So I looked at the, uh, the RSL collective is co-founded and led by Eckhart Wolther, one of the co-creators of RSS and Doug leads, former CEO of ask.com and IAC publishing. So yeah, two guys, two guys came up with this and said, Hey, let's try it. We're asking.com for some money, please. Yeah, no shit. Well, Google has stirred controversy with a recent court filing that appears to acknowledge the, quote, rapid decline, end quote, of the open web, which, yeah, we've been saying it's coming since the day, the day ChatGPT launched. We've been saying it's coming. The company now says critics cherry-picked that phrase, insisting it was only talking about open web advertising, not the web itself.

13:24Brian Schulmeister:Still, the distinction may not matter much. Google admits advertisers are moving money to connected TV, retail, media, and in-app ads, while display ads on traditional websites are flat or shrinking. That's right. Which, I have another article that I haven't put in here yet, but yeah, Google is starting to put ads with their AI-generated responses now, basically cutting everybody out of the loop. So, yeah. Yeah. So Google has basically killed the golden goose at this point. Right. That's that's basically what it has turned into now. Google, the who protected the Web, because that's where it made all of its money, has now said, ah, fuck it.

14:08Brian Schulmeister:We're just going to we're going to squeeze whatever last bit of of juice we can get out of this thing, which just makes me think what I'm going to miss the Web. Right. I mean, I missed Twitter when it went away, but I'm really going to miss the Web. I mean, that's been most of my life and yours too.

14:23Jason DeFillippo:Yeah, absolutely.

14:24Brian Schulmeister:And it's on life support. It is on life support. I'm going back to Gopher. I didn't like Gopher. I didn't really care for it.

14:33Jason DeFillippo:Well, just in case you were wondering how well Google's AI results were going, here's a Mandela effect event that you probably thought was real. The Department of Government Efficiency, Doge, the agency run by Elon Musk to cut fraud, waste, and abuse from federal operations, at least according to Google. never actually existed. What? This is what Google's AI overview response will tell you if you search certain content related to Doge's operations. A Blue Sky user who goes by Ayukunu first pointed out this mistake in Google's comprehension skills, finding that querying the search engine for information and the number of deaths caused by Doge's cutting of essential programs resulted in a response that claims the agency is fictional and from a political satire or conspiracy theory.

15:17Jason DeFillippo:Gizmodo was able to recreate these results. According to Google, there is no actual government department named Doge, and the term is used in critical or satirical context to refer to policies or actions taken by the Trump administration. The results expand on this, stating, it is crucial to understand that there is no actual government entity named Doge, and the discussions around it is part of a political discourse or satire, not a factual government action. what the fuck fuck so they google has killed search killed the web replaced it with its google ai responses stuck ads on them to cut everybody out and all the shit that they return is fucking false yeah that that kind of sums it up google didn't offer any explanation when contacted though a spokesperson for the company did tell gizmodo this ai overview is clearly incorrect

16:12Brian Schulmeister:something i say basically every fucking day uh okay google's not correct chat gpt's not correct

16:18Jason DeFillippo:claude's not correct but we're throwing billions upon billions upon billions of dollars at this

16:25Brian Schulmeister:i all i could think of this week was the word obscene because these are obscene amounts of money imagine what you could do with that much money if you actually did it be like put it towards the right places.

16:36Jason DeFillippo:We could actually be living in a utopia. No. Well, I'm with Google on shutting the internet down. That would help.

16:45Brian Schulmeister:I'm going to miss it, though. Now we live in a brootopia. You miss 1990s internet, Jason. I do. I seriously do. Yes. So do I. I miss the hand-curated Yahoo! You know? Come on. Absolutely. When they started unleashing robots on the web is when everything went to shit.

17:05Jason DeFillippo:Pre-social media internet is what I miss. Yep.

17:18Brian Schulmeister:Well, speaking of robots on the internet and scraping shit, at least 15 million YouTube videos have been quietly scraped by AI companies to train generative tools according to a new investigation by The Atlantic. The videos pulled from over 2 million channels included nearly a million how-to tutorials, many without creator consent. I would say all without creator consent. Microsoft, Meta, Amazon, NVIDIA, and ByteDance have used these massive data sets, often in violation of YouTube's terms of service. The practice raises major legal questions around copyright and fair use, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

17:52Jason DeFillippo:Here we are again, yes. More, more lawsuits coming.

17:55Brian Schulmeister:Yep, and for creators, it could mean competing directly with AI-generated videos built from their own work, hoisted by their own petard.

18:03Jason DeFillippo:Someday you too may get your$3 ,000. Yeah. You know, what's funny is I had scrolled ahead a little bit. And when you said speaking about scraping, I was reading the next story and I was like, oh, they scraped somebody up out of a tunnel accident from the boring company?

18:18Brian Schulmeister:That, you know, that would have been a good segue. But yeah, no, the boring company, one of their workers went splat.

18:29Brian Schulmeister:So, yeah, they're still drilling holes in Nevada. So they're trying to make the tunnel go to the airport now, which, sure, I guess. But I put this in because I was just amazed that they were still in business. I thought they'd been shut down so many times that they kind of gave up. But I guess, you know.

18:51Jason DeFillippo:How long have they spent in Vegas and they've got nothing to show for it yet?

18:54Brian Schulmeister:Well, they got one tunnel that doesn't have autonomous vehicles driving. It has people-driven cars, I guess.

19:02Jason DeFillippo:A single car at a time, yeah.

19:04Brian Schulmeister:Here's the thing. They have to stay in business because where are the Morlocks going to live? That's true.

19:10Jason DeFillippo:They have to see how many holes it takes to fill the stratosphere. Okay. I love to turn. Anyways. It was a weak Beatles joke.

19:20Brian Schulmeister:Yeah, yeah. I didn't get it because, you know, Beatles.

19:22Jason DeFillippo:Yeah, you don't like the Beatles.

19:24Brian Schulmeister:No. But we've got the dynamic duo back in action. Palmer Lucky and Mark Zuckerberg. Form of douche, form of bag.

19:37Brian Schulmeister:Yes, Zuckerberg and Lucky are teaming up again, this time not for gamers, but for soldiers. Bloomberg reports the U.S. Army has tapped Lucky's defense startup Endrill. How do you say that? You're the Lord of the Rings fan.

19:49Jason DeFillippo:I think, well, the problem is I read it. this is why this is why i thought the grand prix was the grand pricks when i was a kid

19:56Brian Schulmeister:that's true okay well uh him and meta alongside rivet industries are going to build prototypes for mixed reality combat goggles because microsoft shit the bed on that one yeah so yeah uh great awesome that's we're gonna yeah oh my god yeah click to skip like the soldiers are going to be coming up on the the you know the town and getting ready to yeah this is what we

20:21Jason DeFillippo:should arm our soldiers for as we send them into fucking memphis yeah that's true that's true you

20:26Brian Schulmeister:know what they're going to do that when they're rolling into chicago they're going to be getting ads for like you know go to geno's east you know hey you're portillo's yeah your humvee's coming up on a portillo's in two exits would you like would you like to to pre-order click to pre-order now yeah great uh well lawmakers are turning up the heat on meta over child safety the senate judiciary committee is holding a hearing tuesday after whistleblowers alleged the company buried troubling research about kids using its virtual reality platforms again and again and again and

21:00Jason DeFillippo:again it's the same shit same shit same shit we can actually just put up the same goddamn podcast

21:05Brian Schulmeister:every fucking week you know it's funny because i do have another article that i didn't put in here about people who are having to do content moderation without getting the proper psychiatric evaluations done. We've never talked about that before. We've never talked about that before. Nothing's changed. Shocking. Absolutely nothing has changed. But what's changed is the client. This time it's Google's AI that's the client. Before it was Facebook. Now it's Google AI. But yeah. So yeah, according to the Washington Post, who I still don't, I guess they do a journalism every now and again. Thousands of pages of documents reveal researchers flagged risks ranging from child predators in VR apps to grooming and horizon worlds.

21:52Brian Schulmeister:One researcher even said that they were told to delete evidence that a boy under 10 had been propositioned by adults online. Meta denies wrongdoing, insisting it has conducted nearly 180 studies on youth safety and introduced new parental controls and protections. Bullshit. Yeah. Bullshit.

22:09Jason DeFillippo:Bullshit.

22:10Brian Schulmeister:Bullshit. It's all bullshit. None of it's true. None of it. God, I'm angry this week. Well, here we go. Mark Zuckerberg is under fire after a hot mic caught him apologizing to the Cheeto in chief at the White House dinner. When Trump pressed Zuckerberg on how much meta would spend, Zuckerberg stumbled blurting out at least 600 billion through 2028. Moments later, thinking the microphones were off, he privately told Trump, I wasn't sure what number you wanted to go with. Fucking cowards. Everybody at that dinner is a fucking coward. Exactly. At the dinner, other executives also praise Trump with Sam Altman calling him pro-business and Sundar Pichai thanking him after Google's antitrust victory.

22:51Brian Schulmeister:The moment underscores Silicon Valley's increasingly deferential stance towards the president. No, the stance is on your fucking knees blowing him, you assholes. I'm sorry. They don't give a fuck about anything. No, they don't. No, they don't. Fuck them. Here's a good one. AI hype may be lifting Wall Street, but on Main Street, it's losing steam. A new U.S. Census Bureau survey of over a million firms shows AI use among large companies plunged from nearly 14 % in June to under 12 % in August. 2 % is not a plunge, I'm sorry, but it is the sharpest drop since late 2023. Smaller firms nudged upward, but most mid-sized businesses stayed flat or fell.

23:33Brian Schulmeister:Despite years of promises, 95 % of companies that adopted AI report no new revenue. Read me that. No new revenue. The stumble comes as OpenAI's long-awaited GPT-5 disappointed, and firms once betting on automation are now rehiring people. Yes, people. Yeah. And a new report shows that developers using AI coding assistants are creating far more security problems than those who don't. What? Yeah, go shocker. Nobody saw that coming. Security firm Apiro analyzed code from thousands of developers and found AI-assisted programmers produced 10 times, 10 times more vulnerabilities, even as they wrote code three to four times faster.

24:21Brian Schulmeister:Nine times. Nine times. Well, AI reduces typos and logic errors. It also fuels severe issues like privilege escalation up 322 % and architectural flaws, which rose 153%. With major firms mandating AI use, experts warn the tech is fixing minor mistakes, but creating major time bombs that leave systems exposed. I heard somebody the other day that had the fucking audacity to say, hey, if you're vibe coding a new app from scratch, there's zero technical debt. bullshit you're creating technical debt at a fucking and just at a scale that we've never seen before and first off there's also always technical debt always you have technical debt

25:07Jason DeFillippo:the second you have finished your code and the story they're compromises you make compromises

25:12Brian Schulmeister:along the way period it's you know that's the way it works but brian this is where you and i come in and we need to get back in the game.

25:21Jason DeFillippo:No.

25:23Brian Schulmeister:Absolutely not. I'm just going to go start a fucking farm. Freelance developers and even entire companies are now cashing in on fixing vibe-coded software. That's right. The trend started as a LinkedIn meme, but it's now a real business. On Fiverr, developers like Hamid Siddick advertise themselves as vibe-code fixers, cleaning up clunky user interfaces, broken branding, and buggy features. He says he regularly works 15 to 20 clients who rushed out AI-assisted projects that don't hold up. Established firms like Ulam Labs are leaning into the trend, too, with the tagline, We clean up after Vibe Coding.

25:59Brian Schulmeister:Literally. Dedicated site VibeCodeFixers.com has drawn nearly 300 developers offering cleanup services, though only a few dozen projects have been matched so far. Give it time, man. We should have done that. Brian, we could have been the platform. We could have been the platform. We could have vibe coded the platform to fix the fucking vibe coding. There's still time. I guess there's still time. The vibe or a Boris. Yeah, exactly. The consensus is vibe coding is here to stay, but so is the human workforce needed to fix the mess it leaves behind. This is like creating a Y2K problem like daily, you know, pretty much.

26:40Brian Schulmeister:Yeah, it's ridiculous. But I hate to say it. We fucking told you so. Mm hmm.

26:51Jason DeFillippo:media candy

26:54Brian Schulmeister:Brian I did something this week that I thought was very strange for me I watched the 2025 MTV video music awards

27:06Jason DeFillippo:yeah you should call your doctor I need them to check your meds I'm not sure what happened you were making fun of me for watching this shit like when we started this podcast like fucking 35 years ago is what it feels like these days and and i've even given up because like first off why is it still called mtv and why do they have the audacity to call it the video music awards they haven't shown a video in in 20 years if anything it needs to be the youtube video music awards at this point but you watched it i watched

27:36Brian Schulmeister:did you know anybody that was on it yes i did i'm going to get to that in a second here's the reason I watched it. Sabrina Carpenter, who makes the most forgettable music I've ever heard in my life. My friend Deshaun was a dancer for her. And Deshaun and Honey Balenciaga, or I think Honey changed her name, but Deshaun and Honey were dancers on the show behind her and they'd been practicing. So we watched it to watch them dance because, you know, we love Deshaun. And that was great. I could not, I can't remember the song at all. It was garbage. It was a piece of shit song, but they were great latte or something like no i have no fuck she comes out of a sewer i mean this is the this is the how how it starts her climbing out of the sewer to do a bit about new york and i'm just like okay you should have stayed in the sewer with your music but you know my friends got to dance that's all good uh the who i thought stole the show was fucking ricky martin ricky martin came out and did a performance that was phenomenal they had didn't have all of the crap that all of the other acts needed to like, you know, boost them up.

28:39Brian Schulmeister:He came out with a band and like four dancers and performed his ass off, had a great time, looks great. He's only like, I think he's like four months younger than me. And I'm just like, God, I got to get to the gym. But you could tell he was having a fantastic time. He was smiling. He was, he was, he got some kind of like super award or something. So he did like a medley of his songs and we watched it twice. It was so good. It was just – it was fun. It was sort of the way – it's the way entertainers used to entertain without the gimmicks. So that was great. So there was one performance that I liked.

29:12Brian Schulmeister:The rest of them were just like forgettable. OK. Yeah. Buster Rhymes did some kind of performance that was terrible. It was horrible. But I did find this article that says the median age of MTV viewers is 56. We're the only people that remember what MTV was. That's why, yeah. And those people are just stuck in a loop of watching Ridiculous all day now. So that's what they got.

29:34Jason DeFillippo:All right. Well, good for you. I do not watch any award shows anymore.

29:39Brian Schulmeister:Yeah, I was really – I was kind of bummed I had to. And the Emmys are this weekend. So if you don't want to watch another award show, skip that one too. Oh, man. Wednesday. I finished Wednesday this week. How far are you along with Wednesday?

29:54Jason DeFillippo:Two episodes to go.

29:55Brian Schulmeister:It's very good. Okay. It's very good. And I believe it stuck the landing and I can't wait for season three in six years. Yeah, it's awesome. When Wednesday Addams is 42. When they're all 56. Yeah, when they're all 56 and watching MTV. I did. Yeah, I can't wait for the next round. Hopefully they're already started on it. But that'd be nice.

30:15Jason DeFillippo:I don't know. Jenna Ortega has got such a fucking big star right now. They got to walk her in.

30:21Brian Schulmeister:So I think they did because they had a plan for seven seasons of that thing. Oh, God, that'd be great. As long as they keep the quality up. As long as the quality stays. So we'll see. AKA Charlie Sheen dropped on Wednesday. It was a two-parter, hour and a half each. It was phenomenal. We finished watching it yesterday. We watched it over two days. I can't stand the guy.

30:41Jason DeFillippo:I can't do it anymore.

30:43Brian Schulmeister:Oh, well, I mean, if you watch it, you might like him. I was ambivalent, you know, after the whole tiger blood winning shit. But, you know, I grew up with Charlie Sheen. And I wanted to see how he's doing. I mean, he's eight years sober now. so there's i mean there's a lot for there's a lot of uh parallels with me and watching this so i was probably a lot more interested than you were for reasons and and the funny thing about it is i'm like if you lived in hollywood during this time there's nothing shocking in here if i mean i'm sure you know mid-america was clutching their pearls the whole time i'm just like that's a wednesday or a thursday yeah it wasn't it wasn't just the stars doing that the the personal

31:20Jason DeFillippo:assistants were doing that shit everybody was doing that shit everyone the folks that worked the mcdonald's on sunset were doing that shit yeah there was there was literally nothing in

31:30Brian Schulmeister:here that was just the only thing is he had a platform yeah everybody else was doing the same shit so yeah whatever i but i i thought it was fantastic i thought it was a phenomenal story of a redemption story as it were all right well good for him i'm happy Mm hmm.

31:54Jason DeFillippo:Star Trek Strange New World season finale aired last night. I was curious to see if you had watched it. I stayed up later than normal to be able to get that done before the show. What do you think?

32:05Brian Schulmeister:Well, I was pissed off it was the finale because I thought we got 12. I miscounted. So I was shocked. I was shook. I was shook when I saw the headlines come through about the finale on my newsreader. And I'm like, ah, fuck, I better watch that before the show because Brian's going to watch it. Shit. I thought it was 110 % mediocre.

32:27Jason DeFillippo:I actually really have a different opinion from you. I thought it was, for the most part, absolutely fantastic. And if that would have been the show finale, I would have been okay with that. I thought that they treated Pike well. they gave him i mean they obviously recycled the picard story if he would have started playing a fucking flute i would have like thrown something on the tv but you know they recycled that whole picard thing from star trek next generation but uh i thought that they giving him that and then uh the whole like they they they you know started the spark between kirk and spock and and yeah that was great that was fantastic yeah i was like this is perfect you could just end the show i mean i'm happy we're going to get more but i thought it was nice i thought it was very well done i thought it

33:12Brian Schulmeister:was rushed i thought the the whole thing with well you know why they rushed it because they put 18

33:17Jason DeFillippo:comedies into the nine episode season yeah if you know what if they would have if they would have

33:21Brian Schulmeister:just skipped episode two the q episode and just just wipe that from existence that would be okay and just made this nine and ten you could do that you could do that you know what next season it might happen because we change timelines every fucking week around here so who knows the berenstein bears might be back so we just don't know uh but yeah i i really wish like the whole revelation on who she was and what was happening was was really over over rushed that needed that

33:48Jason DeFillippo:needed more time to bake yeah i agree with you there and again i feel they did too many comedies this season that's definitely my feeling about it and they could have drawn out the the real storylines a bit more but uh overall i i do think that they really did a very nice job of it it was pretty good. And luckily, I don't think we're waiting six years to get the next season because they've already wrapped filming. So we'll see.

34:11Brian Schulmeister:Oh, for four? Okay, good. Yeah. So we'll see. You know, who knows what's going on because everything is changing over there at Paramount and soon to be Warner Brothers. Now that now that daddy's got, you know, so much extra money, he's like, here, kids, go buy everything.

34:27Jason DeFillippo:Unfortunately, if that deal goes through, we're going to get the Pike cooking show for five episodes next season. Yeah, that's true. Because they'll also have Food Network. Oh, man.

34:39Brian Schulmeister:I would be okay with that. Actually, I'd be okay with it, too.

34:43Jason DeFillippo:See, it was foreshadowing when he threw his apron at the very end of the episode.

34:47Brian Schulmeister:Yeah. You know, I could see the entire cast on Guys Grocery Games. That would be fun. Fuck the music episodes. We're just doing cooking episodes from now on. but i hope i hope that merger does i mean they're just talking about it now but i hope that nobody lets that go through even elizabeth warren was just like that's the shittiest deal i've ever heard of you know yeah it's like when when disney and fox merged they went from uh 15 movies a year separately to five movies a year together it's like it just kills competition kills kills just everything i'm just tired of all these mega mergers yeah all of it so i seriously don't get It was bland shit.

35:26Brian Schulmeister:Yeah, I'm sure he's just going to give, you know, the administration a bag of money to make it go through because that's how life is nowadays. But fingers crossed. Fingers crossed.

35:36Jason DeFillippo:Yeah. Well, I got some AI stories that have bled into media candy because there's no avoiding it. Amazon Music has just launched new AI-powered weekly playlists based on the preferences and moods of listeners, which just means it scrapes what you've already listened to and extrapolates further. It doesn't apply modern technology to gauge actual moods of users. For that, you need your aura ring. I'm sure there's something coming through with that. So this will be just as shit as all the other curated mixes from every other streaming service. But they'll have snappy names like Empowerment Anthems and Melodic Flex.

36:09Jason DeFillippo:This shit is for people that don't like music. Yeah. Yeah. So there you go. If you don't like music, you can listen to this crap.

36:17Brian Schulmeister:Well, you know what? But I think Amazon Music is for people that don't like music because anybody that likes music actually uses a different service because Amazon Music is the worst of the bunch. That's true.

36:27Jason DeFillippo:And Deezer, unbelievably still out there. Deezer, this is from their press release. You can tell because here we go. Deezer, comma, the global music experiences platform. Okay. What the fuck does that mean? It means it's a goddamn streaming service that nobody pays attention to. But they say they are receiving over 30 ,000 fully AI-generated tracks every single day, accounting for more than 28 % of total daily delivery of music. That's how bad AI has gotten into the music. And it's not good. So they've been using an AI detection tool since the beginning of the year, enabling the company to track a steady increase of fully synthetic content on the platform.

37:07Jason DeFillippo:In June, they became the first and so far only music streaming platform to explicitly tag AI-generated music, which makes me want to go check out Deezer. Following a massive increase during the year, AI Music now makes up a significant part of the daily track delivery to music streaming, and we want to lead the way in minimizing any negative impact for artists and fans alike, said Alexis Lanthimer, CEO Deezer. Note that he doesn't say we're not going to put it up there. We're just going to tag it. Yeah, yeah. So yeah, they remove fully AI generated content from algorithmic recommendations, so it won't be in their playlists.

37:42Jason DeFillippo:We don't include it in editorial playlists. The way we ensure the impact on the royalty pool remains minimal while providing a transparent user experience. And most importantly, we continue to fight fraudulent activity, which is the main driver behind uploading fully AI generated content. In January, Deezer reported that roughly 10 % of all content delivered to the platform was AI-generated. This number increased to 18 % in April and has now reached 28%. Awesome. Great. And you want to know something that might come from the combined efforts of Paramount and Warner Brothers? We're talking about bland shit that nobody wants.

38:20Brian Schulmeister:Hit me.

38:21Jason DeFillippo:Taika Waititi is developing a potentially disastrous Firefest musical. Okay. Yes, just months after Billy McFarlane sold the Firefest brand rights on eBay for a mere$245 ,000, the infamous event is being developed as a musical titled Firefest, the musical, showcasing his awesome comedic brain. Yeah. That title. The project comes from the husband-wife production team of Waititi and Rita Ora. In a press release, the musical is described as not just a Greek-sized tragedy of one man's con, it's a satirical indictment of an entire generation. If you stopped it right there, that also describes all of his directing efforts.

39:01Brian Schulmeister:Not all, some, most.

39:03Jason DeFillippo:It's about as wrong as a bad idea can go. Also applies.

39:07Brian Schulmeister:Yeah.

39:09Jason DeFillippo:Thor 2? God, he's also currently attached to direct a new live-action adaptation of Judge Dredd.

39:16Brian Schulmeister:something else oh dread was perfect just leave dread alone leave dread alone i like he has made

39:27Jason DeFillippo:one or two movies that i've actually enjoyed uh there tend to be off the beaten path but most of

39:31Brian Schulmeister:his big budget stuff is awful yeah yeah yep i still stand by the hunt for the wilder people is his best movie all right i like that one about the soccer team that nobody's ever seen that i a long time ago yeah yeah his old it's all the hit it's all the the uh the deep cuts you gotta

39:51Jason DeFillippo:go to the indie stuff that he does that are it was actually pretty good yeah that pirate movie

39:56Brian Schulmeister:series that he did on max was terrible that was god awful yeah that was really not good really not good uh hence it canceled um what's not canceled fucking mind-bogglingly to this day I still don't understand it. Foundation is coming back for season four. What the fuck?

40:19Jason DeFillippo:I'm going to talk about this a bit next week. Okay. Because guess who watched season three?

40:24Brian Schulmeister:Oh, you did. This guy. But did you watch season two as well? No, I completely skipped season two.

40:34Jason DeFillippo:Didn't bother. Went back and watched season three. And I have to say, and I will expand on this further next week. I can't remember who on our Discord said, if you just watched this as a science fiction show and removed any reference to Foundation whatsoever, it's not bad. Season three, I feel that way about. Oh, fuck.

40:56Brian Schulmeister:Oh, God. Who are you? I'm watching MTV. You watch the MTV. Amazing. You're watching Foundation. Okay. Timeline has shifted. Absolutely.

41:05Jason DeFillippo:I swear to God, though, I felt dirty doing it. And I felt like I was cheating on you somehow. You were. You absolutely were. I only did it in the dark of night under a blanket. With a flashlight. With a flashlight. And I still screamed and yelled, please just name them other characters. Don't pretend. Yep.

41:27Brian Schulmeister:Okay. All right. I'll wait for the full recap next week then. Fucker. Well, Warner Brothers Discovery CEO David Zaslav that we all love to hate. He says HBO Max is way underpriced.

41:42Jason DeFillippo:And you're way overpaid, you fucker.

41:44Brian Schulmeister:Exactly. Compared to what Americans once paid for TV a decade ago, he noted people shelled out around$55 a month. I don't know about you, David Zaslav, but I'm shelling out about$155 a month for fucking TV right now.

41:57Jason DeFillippo:Yeah, he assumes you only need HBO.

42:00Brian Schulmeister:Yeah, sorry. You know, maybe if you didn't screw up the Food Network so bad that I would be happy about it. But they've pulled everything I liked off the Food Network, like all the classic stuff that I was in the middle of watching that they pulled, asshole. So, yeah, go fuck yourself, David Zaslav. That's all I got to say about you. I can't wait until he gets fired. Oh, I'm going to have a – I think Hollywood's going to have a party. It's going to be like the Lakers winning the championship for the first time. The Highlander reboot is still in the news. More people are joining that that I'm unfortunately probably going to have to watch it.

42:41Brian Schulmeister:So Chinese martial artist Max Zhang and Jimon Hounzou. Hounzou. I can never pronounce that guy's name, but he's a phenomenal actor. The first time you probably saw him was in Gladiator. But he's been around forever and people are saying, don't waste him. I'm like, well, if they got him for the one role that I think they got him for, they're going to waste him because that role is very small. The only black guy in Highlander. Go watch it again. You'll see what I'm talking about. In some fun news, my friend Missy Pyle finally, after months of sitting on her hand, got her podcast out to the world.

43:15Brian Schulmeister:The Missy and Brooke Show. So if you want some hilarity from a couple girls in Hollywood, some actresses, one comedian, they're both pretty damn funny. But just a friend of mine who finally got her show out, The Missy and Brooke Show. Go check it out. Very good. And a big thanks to Vinny over in Ireland because he sent me a – he sent us an email about somebody from Limerick who was doing some crazy shit with the traders in Ireland. But then I'm like, wait a minute. You buried the lead here. There's a trader's Ireland. Turty tree in. Tree leave. Immediately headed over to the Swedens and downloaded the first six episodes.

43:55Brian Schulmeister:So you know what I'm doing on Saturday.

43:58Jason DeFillippo:My God. You've gone around the world with this show.

44:01Brian Schulmeister:Dude, I've seen every English language traders there is every season, every minute of it.

44:07Jason DeFillippo:You get your AirPods 3 and you can listen to them not in the English language as well.

44:12Brian Schulmeister:Arriving September 19th, so I'll let you know. And more on that in the next segment. But thanks, Vinny, for the link. We thank you greatly. Thank you greatly. It doesn't look as good as some of the other ones, but some of the low budget ones were pretty good. Traders New Zealand was phenomenal. It was the lowest budget out of the bunch, but I'm happy.

44:41Brian Schulmeister:Ups and doodads. Well, Mac OS Tahoe 26 and iOS 26 are about to drop, Brian. I've been using both now for a little over a month at this point. Right. You're going to hate it. You're absolutely going to hate it. Great. I have two – my two laptops are on 26 on Tahoe and my two actual production machines are on 18 and they're going to stay that way for a very long time because they work. I haven't had any serious bugs with 26 or with Tahoe, but it's just – it's ugly. This liquid glass thing is ugly and clunky and does weird shit. It's just – You can turn it off though, right? Well, you can change it.

45:26Brian Schulmeister:You can move stuff around. You can, there's things that you can, you can modify, but just the general vibe. I hate to fucking use the word vibe. It's been vibe coded. Yeah. The vibe of 26 is just left to center. You'll see what I mean soon enough. Cause it's coming. It's coming. In iOS 26, there are problems. It's gotten faster. It's gotten a lot faster. It works better. Not all my apps crash anymore. Just some. But there are old apps like the Susie Cakes app. I need that to work so I can get my points, so I can get my birthday free Suzy Cake. But fortunately, they've worked around that at Suzy Cakes in the old days.

46:02Brian Schulmeister:But anyway, I digress. If you're in LA, go to Suzy Cakes, best cake and cupcakes you'll ever have.

46:07Jason DeFillippo:Every single birthday for my kid. Oh, it's the best.

46:10Brian Schulmeister:Well, we were there. It's the best. Yeah. Suzy Cakes. Oh, I love you. But there's just some weirdness with it. It takes a little getting used to. But it's like every major iOS update, you know. I just say, fucking bring back skeuomorphic, man. Let's go. Give me the wood panel again. I miss that. But you mentioned the AirPods Pro 3s.

46:35Jason DeFillippo:Yep, the Babelfish. Yep.

46:37Brian Schulmeister:Yeah, Apple's new AirPods live translation is rolling out, but with a catch. The feature works on AirPods Pro 2, Pro 3, and AirPods 4, translating English, French, German, Brazilian, Portuguese, and Spanish. But only if you're paired with an iPhone 15 Pro or newer. Here's the snag. It won't work if your Apple account is registered in the EU and you're physically in the EU thanks to Apple intelligence being blocked over regulatory concerns. That means an American in Spain can use it, but a German in France cannot. Apple hasn't said when the restriction will be lifted. They should just say that, well, Apple intelligence isn't a thing.

47:12Brian Schulmeister:So let's just go back to the way things were. That's true.

47:15Jason DeFillippo:I guess I'm going to have to order a new AirPods Pro then because I've got the original. I'm on AirPods Pro 1. oh yeah yeah you need to work for me and i'm going to paris later this year so that would be helpful oh definitely definitely parlay vu yeah there you go well vimeo is set to get a new owner bending spoons the parent of evernote we transfer meetup and fellow video streaming platform bright cove all of which have been driven into the ground plans to take the company into private ownership in an all-cash 1.38 billion dollar deal share stockholders will receive 7.85 cents per share quite a bit more than the four dollars and 82 cents vimeo closed out on tuesday of course it jumped after the takeover uh directors unanimously approved the takeover because they're getting money out of something they never thought they would exactly ka-ching yes so vimeo has not been doing much i mean they've pivoted back and forth over the years but they've always been more than the ninth fiddle to youtube yeah yeah i mean you know

48:15Brian Schulmeister:But as a utility company for video, they're fantastic. In the movie industry, in the TV video industry, people use Vimeo all day long. But yeah, the public, not so much.

48:30Jason DeFillippo:And I saw this in the news and I realized I will have to wait for a US or Canadian release on this and get it for my kid for Christmas because it would be fun. Japanese toy maker Takara Tomy is releasing a Pokeball virtual pet toy so you can fulfill your dreams of carrying your favorite Pokemon around with you everywhere. Right now it's a Japan only release but the product page does show it has an English language option in the menu. Pre-orders are open though currently sold out on Amazon Japan and it will ship on October 11th according to Essential Japan. It's going to cost around 51 US dollars but who knows with tariffs factored in That's going to be fun.

49:06Jason DeFillippo:For the listing, there are seven partner Pokemon you can care for. I'm not going to read them because I don't know how to say any of them. I can get my son into that. If you pet the device, they react. And there are 150 other Pokemon to interact with. Anyways, it looks pretty cool. And my kid's super into this stuff. So Christmas is writing itself.

49:24Brian Schulmeister:The Dark Side. Ha! With Dave.

49:31Brian Schulmeister:Welcome to The Dark Side with Dave. with Dave Bittner. Hi, Dave Bittner. How are you today? Well, hello. Have I graduated to being a man who needs no introduction?

49:42Jason DeFillippo:These intros are getting shorter and shorter every week. Next week is going to be, hey, fucker. Hey.

49:48Brian Schulmeister:You're the one that said, hey, I'm in school with, hi, Dave. So I've been trimming him down because it did take three minutes at one point. We lost most of the segment. It's all good. It's all good. I'm fine. It's good. It's good. Good to be back. All right.

50:01Jason DeFillippo:Excellent. Been a card a week, huh? Oh my God.

50:07Brian Schulmeister:We'll get to that.

50:09Jason DeFillippo:Yeah. Okay. Let's let's start a little bit light. I watched a movie with my son this week that I'm sure both of you have opinions on because we were certainly of an age when it came out that I think it probably means a good deal to all of us. But so I want to get your thoughts on it. Have you watched recently and what are your thoughts on The Princess Bride?

50:30Brian Schulmeister:it is probably in my top 10 favorite movies i would i think it's probably on that list um i remember going to see it in the movie theater when it came out and uh the reason i went to see it is that my boss where i was working i was working at this retail nursery like with plants and things and he said you've got to go see this movie called the princess bride he said i know it's called The Princess Bride, but it's got everything. You just, just trust me, go see it. And I got one of my buddies to go see it. And, uh, we went and we enjoyed it very much. And, uh, the other thing I remember is as the credits were rolling, uh, my friend leaned over and he said, you know, um, the music really sounded like, uh, that dire straits guy.

51:18Yep.

51:18Brian Schulmeister:And sure enough, a little while later, uh, Mark Knopfler's name scrolled by um so yeah i mean i i thumbs up to me princess bride is everything a movie should be no no notes actually not true one note but i'll get to that in a second jason what do you think uh it's it's a classic i mean it's it it is in my top 10 right next to pulp fiction which is you know a strange pairing but i think they're both perfect movies that's a hell of a double feature it is yeah is there any crossover are there any actors who are in both of those films i don't think so no no no i saw in the theater too though with my dad because my dad was a rob reiner fan so he's like we got to go see this so yeah it was uh it was important that we saw it right away and uh we did and it was even back then it was a perfect movie that didn't i didn't know what the hell it was when I walked into it and I walked out going, that was a great movie.

52:17Brian Schulmeister:And to this day, I probably know all the dialogue backwards and forwards.

52:22Jason DeFillippo:You do, trust me, because I have not seen this movie in probably two decades and it just all instantly flooded back to me watching it with my son, who absolutely loved it, which is great. Definitely, I would say Rob Reiner's second best movie, only beaten by the almighty Spinal Tap. But yeah, it's an absolute classic. I mean, you will watch it and just – it doesn't matter how long it's been since you've watched it. You will beat for beat be able to say every single line. It's phenomenal. It's phenomenal. Yeah.

52:51Brian Schulmeister:Yeah, this day is number one because I know this is an unpopular opinion, but I didn't really actually like Spinal Tap that much. Okay. Well, you know, you're a contrary in nature. I am. I know. I hate the Beatles and Spinal Tap didn't really – I didn't get it. So, yeah. I say that on the day Spinal Tap 2 comes out great. Oh, I know. And I can't wait. So what's your note, Dave? Well, getting back to the soundtrack, I think Princess Bride was a low-budget movie, and Mark Knopfler wrote the soundtrack for it, and it was all done with synthesizers. Yeah. It is not recorded with an orchestra. And the only thing that I think could improve Princess Bride is if they went back and re-recorded the soundtrack with an orchestra.

53:45Brian Schulmeister:Now, there are, you can go to events with local symphony orchestras where they will play the soundtrack with a real orchestra. And that is on my list because I think that would be perfection. But there are times when it really sounds like 1980s synthesizers because it is. Yeah, I agree. Yeah. That's my only nitpick for that. Yeah.

54:10Jason DeFillippo:And I have to say, just because you pointed it out, it is very low budget. Don't expect much from the effects. They're horrible if you've by chance never seen this movie. But it doesn't matter. It actually works that the effects are horrible and it's low budget. It makes it a better movie. I would hate to see if somebody tried to George Lucas this thing and go back and like redo all the effects, it would destroy half the impact of the movie.

54:37Brian Schulmeister:Right. Yeah. Yeah, there's something, it's part of its charm that it looks, parts of it looked like it was in a studio on a soundstage. And I guess part of being along for the ride with this movie is your suspension of disbelief. Yeah. Right? That's part of the fun of it. And yeah.

55:00Jason DeFillippo:I will say the drawback of watching it again now after so many years was like, holy shit, I'm old.

55:11Brian Schulmeister:Yeah.

55:12Jason DeFillippo:Because you look at Robin Wright, now Robin Wright Penn. You look at some people are gone. Mandy Patinkin, like, wow. He's not gone. He's just old. No, he's just old. Even the kid. What's his face from Wonder Years? I can't even remember his name. You know, he's our age. Fred Savage. He's our age now. So, you know, it's a little crazy for that. But man, it's just such a great movie. Have either of you read the book? I have read the book. It's very good. Yeah, it is. But I prefer the movie, to be honest. It's one of the few times I would say that.

55:48Brian Schulmeister:I think you're right.

55:49Jason DeFillippo:I think you're right.

55:50Brian Schulmeister:I think the movie is better. It is a good book, but the movie's better. Yeah.

55:55Jason DeFillippo:All right, let's get to horrible shit. Woo-hoo!

56:00Brian Schulmeister:I saw this over at 404 Media and it's called It's Just a Mess. 23 people explain how tariffs have suddenly ruined their hobby. And it talks about the end of the de minimis rule and how it's how it's really wreaking havoc on things that you wouldn't really expect. Knitter, please. Yeah, seriously. Knitting. I had no idea how much knitting and cosplay were being affected by this, as well as retro gaming and fencing for some reason. but I wanted to see if you guys have been affected by this yet. Anything? Because I know, Dave, you're a hobby, man. You've got all your ham radio stuff and other predilections.

56:39Brian Schulmeister:So I didn't know if there was anything that you ordered from across the sea that has really hit home yet. And you too, Brian, even though you're in Canada, you've already had this problem. Right. It's probably easier to get things in Canada because they're sending it all to you all instead of us now.

56:57Jason DeFillippo:Yeah. It's easier to get things from Europe here. That's for sure because that's really ramped up because Canada's made a decision like, screw you guys down there. Right. We're going to make better deals with Europe. So it's easy to get stuff from Europe. Unfortunately, I would say, you know, if you go to the global superstore that is Amazon, it's very difficult to get products because everything comes from the US. And I got hit with tariffs on stuff that I bought for my wife for her birthday. I paid double the price for some stuff that I was getting. So yeah, I can see that. But it's got to be horrible in the US.

57:31Jason DeFillippo:It's just got to be horrible.

57:32Brian Schulmeister:I haven't seen anything yet, but I don't know that there's anything that I've ordered directly from China since all this went into effect. And you're right. I'm expecting it to hit me in my ham radio hobby because that's mostly where that happens. So I'll order some weird antenna or cable or connector or something like that. And it'll come in a funny, oddly labeled package from China. Right. Yeah. With all the weird stickers on it. Right. It says it contains something that is completely not what it contains. You know how often that happens. But yeah, I don't know. I think, look, this is what we're in for.

58:15Brian Schulmeister:And it's probably going to get worse before it gets better. I've definitely noticed just in general yeah it's so cute oh man

58:32Brian Schulmeister:okay but everything is more expensive I've definitely seen that I'm noticing how much what I'm noticing is how many things that used to be under$10 are over$10 now right Yeah, I was at the I was at the CVS last or earlier this week. I was getting my covid shot and my flu shot and while you can. Exactly. Exactly. That was my plan. And so far we can get them here in Maryland. So I'm and the the fine gentleman who gave me my shots said that people had been coming in from all over from even from out of state to get their shots. because at that point, I think Pennsylvania was not allowing or just didn't have availability.

59:22Brian Schulmeister:Anyway, as I was waiting to go in to get my shot, I was sort of standing there looking at some of the things on the shelves. And it just struck me that things that if you'd asked me, what does something like this cost that would be, I'd say, oh, under$10,$8,$7. They're like$11.50 now and $12. And so that creeping inflation is definitely happening all over. Definitely. Have you seen any of it, Jason? No, I haven't because I -

59:54Jason DeFillippo:Jason has no hobbies.

59:56Brian Schulmeister:That's not true.

59:57Jason DeFillippo:That's absolutely not true. I know. Jason has every hobby. Jason buys everything.

1:00:03Brian Schulmeister:Nowadays, Jason buys nothing. So that's why I haven't noticed it. I'm on a forced hiatus. Jason's true hobby is holding on to things just long enough so that he can't return them. That's about it. Exactly. Yeah, that sounds like my wife.

1:00:22Jason DeFillippo:Like, I absolutely need you to go to the store today and return this. Why today? I'm busy.

1:00:28Brian Schulmeister:It has to go today. Yeah. There's no minute like the last minute. Yeah, that's about it. That's about it. No, I'm going through all my old tech and using that to play with now because it's like, You know, no new toys are coming for quite some time. So I got to play with the old ones first. Yeah.

1:00:44Jason DeFillippo:All right. Well, I put this story in here just because this is something that you and I and Dave, we've been talking about in this segment for quite some time. We started talking about it when some of the forced first voice AI stuff came out and we theorized, well, what would happen if somebody just fed all of our shows into these things and started running their own shows? Well, it's happening. Maybe. I think. Who knows? He did chatter about a new AI podcast startup has been going around the podcast community, spurred by a Hollywood reporter piece drawing attention to its existence. It's called Inception Point AI, co-founded by former Wondery Chief Operation Officer Janine Wright.

1:01:23Jason DeFillippo:And they're basically, I put the whole article in here, but they're basically just spinning up shit tons of AI podcasts. Apparently right now, they're only going out through Instagram stories or something like that. as the article points out there's a whiff of bullshit to the whole story and it's hard not to wonder if the company is actually real at all uh but uh they say they're doing it and it's just a bunch of crappy ai bland podcasts being put out and doesn't really matter how many people listen because if you put out 10 000 podcasts and three people listen to each you're getting a lot of listens right so that's the theory so they've got uh they've got characters like nigel thistledown who's a nature expert, Ollie Bennett, an offbeat sports commentator, and Claire Delish, whose food focus suggests her to be a synthetic semi-norset type.

1:02:13Jason DeFillippo:Oh, boy. Okay. So it's here. Garbage. Maybe.

1:02:17Brian Schulmeister:It's the podcasting equivalent of spam, I guess. Just volume, volume, volume. Yep, which makes it even harder for us normal folk to try and get a leg up. Okay, great. Mm-hmm.

1:02:31Jason DeFillippo:So Bright's co-founder, William Corbin, who serves as CTO, told The Hollywood Reporter that Inception Point AI is publishing more than 5 ,000 shows and more than 3 ,000 episodes a week. And its content has supposedly garnered 10 million downloads since September 2023. Fuck you. yeah well i mean i guess that is this i mean obviously it's already been hard for for all of us uh we you know we survived the celebrity influx but now we've got the ai influx coming

1:03:03Brian Schulmeister:is this just a smash and grab because i can't imagine it's sustainable nope um it's just yeah we're just going to come in and crap all over everything and grab the pennies that we'll get because it's just volume. There's no, obviously, in this entire description here, there's nothing about quality or even caring about the content. It's just churn, churn, churn. Yep. Yep. It's easy to build, too. It's really easy to build. That's the annoying thing. It's easy and it's cheap to build. I just saw Eleven Labs this week created a new voice-changing tool where basically you can take anybody and go from male to female, add accents, like this total morphing thing, the product that they came out with.

1:03:57Brian Schulmeister:And I was going to try it, but I'm like, it's just going to make me sad. I don't want to. It's just going to make me sad. Right. And I don't want that. So this guy makes me – it doesn't make me sad. This makes me mad.

1:04:10Jason DeFillippo:Yeah. I've had a week. I've had a hard time finding joy in much of anything. Yeah. I might watch Princess Bride again tonight.

1:04:21Brian Schulmeister:There you go. But who could squeeze this? Who could stop this from becoming a thing? Could someone like YouTube or could someone refuse to publish these?

1:04:35Jason DeFillippo:Yeah, refuse to carry them. And I guess I don't know if they are or not. But again, they point out like you can't find these podcasts anywhere outside of the company's official Instagram account, which makes me go, well, who's fucking watching? this. Is it bots watching bots?

1:04:50Brian Schulmeister:Is it really a podcast if it's on Instagram? No, it's not.

1:04:53Jason DeFillippo:Well, that's your pedantic argument about it.

1:04:57Brian Schulmeister:No, that's an actual argument. A podcast has to be at least available in a fucking podcast player. If it can only get it on Instagram, then it's an Instagram show. That's the difference. If you could get it on a podcast player and Instagram, then it's a podcast. But if you can't get it on a podcast player, then it's not a podcast yeah so that's not pedantic that's just you know it's got to be available on a podcast player so just for my clarity jason are you saying that there must be an rss feed not necessarily anymore because you can get them through spotify which is technically a podcast player now and some of their shows don't have rss feeds but they also do have rss feed you can't plug an rss feed into instagram to listen to your podcast on so

1:05:41Brian Schulmeister:gonna need a flow chart i know

1:05:48Brian Schulmeister:but anybody that runs a discovery mechanism like like a player like overcast could block them apple could block them at their at their discovery level the um there are many places they could be blocked at the discovery level if they had an rss feed you could put that into your podcast player directly and play the podcast. But, you know, the discovery engines are what it means.

1:06:08Jason DeFillippo:Why they haven't done that yet. But again, it boggles my mind that if they're only on Instagram, the company's official Instagram account, how the hell have they gotten like 10 million views? Right.

1:06:21Brian Schulmeister:It reminds me of those scams. And you guys might have a better memory of this than I do. But There was a scam type where someone would put ads on a web page and then drive traffic to that web page. And like, you know, it was just this. They were getting paid for the ads getting clicked on. But of course, the traffic was fake. And but if you set it up in such a way, you could automate it that it was profitable. Right. But it was sort of an endless loop back on itself. Does that ring a bell at all?

1:06:59Jason DeFillippo:yeah i'm i remember hearing about that i mean there's been the same thing even in the you know streaming music uh there's been you know so-called artists that have put out like 32 second songs and then just set up a bunch of computers and bots to play them over and over and over and over and over again to get pennies on the you know pennies right from heaven exactly yeah lots of people doing this kind of stuff so it's it's it's an unfortunate uh as all this stuff is i mean jason and i were talking about this years ago it's like as everything is getting easier we're getting more and more shit and more and more fucking scam artists come into everybody comes in and just goes there here's easy money and just kind of destroys the playground carpet

1:07:40Brian Schulmeister:baggers yeah yeah carpet baggers and by the way this is a podcast because if you just search for nigel thistledown inside of overcast you get garden quiet please and join the delightfully eccentric Nigel Thistledown on whimsical world of gardens, a six part journey through the enchanting art and history of English gardening. And it's just a six part series, but it's there. It's it's, it is a podcast, not just our podcast.

1:08:05Jason DeFillippo:They're out there now.

1:08:06Brian Schulmeister:Yep. They're out in the wild. So flipping this on its head, if someone comes across this, downloads it, listens to it and enjoys it. Do we have a problem with that? Like, I guess not.

1:08:23Jason DeFillippo:You know, and what I'm curious about is like, is the content itself also AI generated? I must be. I mean, it has to be. Yeah. And wouldn't the next step then just be like, let's feed the, okay, let's do a tech podcast. Let's feed the AI every single episode of Grumpy Old Geeks and every single episode of, you know, five other tech podcasts. And then let's have our AI spit out a new tech podcast. What happens when they start getting better and training their data? Hey, hang on a second. Are they training their data on us now? Do we get our$3 ,000? Here you go. Let's see here.

1:08:57Brian Schulmeister:Step into the whimsical world of Nigel Fissletown, your charmingly eccentric AI host who brings centuries of God and wisdom without the mud on his fingers. Okay. There you go. AI host. He's leading with it. Yeah. Yep.

1:09:08Jason DeFillippo:So. Yep. Well, I guess if people want shit, they get shit. Yeah.

1:09:12Brian Schulmeister:It is a gardening podcast, so, hey, there is poop involved in gardening. Okay, what else we got? Let's move on. I'm just, yeah. So what happens when the AI tells people to plant, grow, harvest, eat, and smoke poison ivy? Well, we've already got that with mushrooms in the Kindle store. There's a gardening guide to mushrooms that would kill people if they actually followed the advice. So it's already happening. Yeah, there you go. All right, let's move on. Let's – So, look, earlier this week we had a big Apple event. I don't know if you guys watched it, skimmed it, whatever. Read the headlines. Yeah.

1:09:59Brian Schulmeister:I see. I saw what they released, but I didn't – I can't watch them anymore. They're just kind of ridiculous. Okay. I think so. I skimmed through it. I had it on in the background. And the things that caught my eye were AirPods Pro 3, which I have ordered. Jason, I know you mentioned you've ordered some as well. I would get them in like a week or so. You're not going to get them, Brian?

1:10:25Jason DeFillippo:No, I am because I'm on AirPods 1, AirPod Pro 1. So it's time for an upgrade anyways, and I want the translation. I want to see how that works. Yeah, yeah.

1:10:35Brian Schulmeister:Better check to make sure your phone is compatible. That's what you need to look for. Okay, cool. Yeah. Sweet. The other thing that I usually keep my eye on with these announcements are the things with the camera from both my past career and just my current interests. And the longest and the year after year lengthening of the telephoto capabilities is something that I keep track of and I enjoy. And it is something that does prompt me to upgrade. This is an in-between year for me, so I'm not getting a new phone this year. But the thing that caught my eye and disappointed me was Apple saying that the new iPhone 17 Pro has an 8X telephoto lens with, wait for it, optical quality zoom.

1:11:31Brian Schulmeister:Yeah. Which is BS. Right. It is a... Just like unlimited bandwidth. Right. It is a 4X lens, optical lens, but they have a 48-megapixel sensor on there, and they're doing a digital zoom, you know, a crop. Just cropping, yeah. Yeah, they're just cropping down to 12 megapixels to get the 8X telephoto. Right. So you're not getting a 48-megapixel 8X photo out of this thing. And what bothers me most is the marketing BS, calling this an optical quality zoom when it's really a digital zoom. Like, come on, guys, you can do better than this. The other thing that actually made my jaw hit the floor was that the new iPhone 17 Pro, thanks to this new device from Blackmagic, can be genlocked.

1:12:34Brian Schulmeister:Which means you can be synced into a multi-camera studio environment with timecode as if it's a studio camera. Yeah. This is bonkers. Yeah, it is. Absolutely bonkers. And it's just the kind of thing that the crazy Australians at Blackmagic would come up with. And I love it. And I wish that I had a use case for it because it's pretty darn cool. But amazing. Amazing. You can gen lock an iPhone. Give me. I mean, what what will they think of next? It's funny. It's like nowadays, if I had to build my studio again, I would just buy iPhones. Right. You know, buy iPhones and some tripods. You're done.

1:13:18Brian Schulmeister:Sing them all together. Boom. Bob's your uncle. Yeah. I saw someone out recently who had a pair of iPhones and they were bungeed together in a cross. Yeah. Do you see that? I saw that. Yeah. Yeah. So you can get portrait and landscape at the same time. Right. Right. And what it reminded me of is back at sort of the tail end of my video days when I was doing camera work, I had a shoulder mounted HD camera that I would shoot with. But then I'd stick a GoPro up on the lens shade of the camera, the very front of the camera, and just roll that while I was rolling. So in addition to everything I was shooting, I had an ultra wide version of everything I was pointing my camera at.

1:14:08Brian Schulmeister:I'm seeing a lot of that happen nowadays. People are taking Osmo Pocket 3s and putting them in a cage and slapping them onto the side of their DSLRs or whatever they're video shooting with. So they have that as the backup video. And it's also stabilized. So they get a twofer. And then they can take the video from the Osmo straight out and put it and feed it out to a live stream, you know.

1:14:34Jason DeFillippo:Right. Right. And all these jerks are running around Disneyland. Yeah.

1:14:40Brian Schulmeister:Exactly. It's true. Well, the last thing I wanted to touch on today, Brian, you said it's been a heavy week and I concur just all the stuff that's going on in the world. but I also got word yesterday that a longtime dear friend of mine passed away on Tuesday. He had brain cancer, which I think mercifully took him very quickly. I did not know that he was ill with the brain cancer when I last spoke to him probably about a month ago. He had not yet had been diagnosed. And what stings especially about losing this friend is that the last time we spoke, we both agreed that we were going to be intentional about getting together in person because it had been too long.

1:15:33Brian Schulmeister:And, you know, it was, we had one of those, because you never know kind of conversations. We're both at that age where, you know, every day is a gift and he's gone. And so the thing I've been thinking about is this notion of don't postpone joy because you don't ever know. And it's so easy to put things off. I know it's a cliche, but eat the ice cream. Buy the thing you want to buy and call your friend. Tell the people you love that you love them.

1:16:09Jason DeFillippo:Order that gen-locking iPhone.

1:16:11Brian Schulmeister:That's right. order the gen locking iphone and the airpods pro 3 um because you never know so my heart's been heavy with that over the last 24 hours or so uh it's just a very kind gentle good friend and um and he's gone and so i'm just really tired of 2025 punching me in the gut over and over again I lost my father I lost another dear friend I lost an aunt and then this one yesterday this is too high a body count for any given year and I'm quite done with it universe so thank you very much please move on to someone else

1:16:53Jason DeFillippo:I'm sorry to hear it Dave that's a lot by the phone by the phone

1:17:02Brian Schulmeister:that's right I'm not waiting until next year

1:17:07Brian Schulmeister:right now clickety clickety click order go get that r2d2 and star wars or uh stormtrooper outfit

1:17:16Jason DeFillippo:get it today yep go to home depot get that r2d2 you may not need the phone but you need the r2d2

1:17:22Brian Schulmeister:i do need the r2d2 yes believe me i am buying the fucking r2d2 there's no the quite the only question is whether i'm going to buy one for work and for home that's the only thing do you have an expense account hmm that's a this is a very good question i mean i i do have a credit card there you go and i would be very hard to fire i don't know man we just talked about ai podcast totes That's true. That's true. I don't want to jinx it. I don't want to jinx it. You're right. I didn't say that. Edit that part out, Jason. I don't want to put that out into the universe. That's the last thing I need. Yeah.

1:18:09Brian Schulmeister:That's what will happen.

1:18:10Jason DeFillippo:Your new host at the Cyber Wire, Texas Maximus.

1:18:13Brian Schulmeister:Right. I'll be fired tomorrow and then I'll live to be 100 so I can stew in it all that time. They're just going to keep you the same. It's just Dave is going to be spelled D-A-I-V-E. That's right. Robo Dave. Yep. All right, gents. I'm going to go try and experience. Better weeks. Yeah, exactly. Take care of everybody. Closing shout outs. Over at Patreon, we've got a couple new patrons, Rodney, James, and Demetrio and Sane up their pledge. Thank you very much. And our faithful subscribers, Chris, Andrew, Maddie's Dobie, JS, Tim, XZ, Julian, Todd, and Fernando. Thank you all so much for continuing your patronage on Patreon.

1:19:00Brian Schulmeister:Yes.

1:19:03Jason DeFillippo:And over at PayPal, we've got Ralph, Miles, and Shari. Thank you all so much.

1:19:07Brian Schulmeister:And over at the tip jar, we've got Roger and John. Hi, John. He'll get it. No new, no, no merch. No merch. No merch. Oh, by the way, we have been having problems with, which is probably why we have no new merch. There's been shipping issues because government. Yeah, a little bit, a little bit. So they're trying to figure out how to get shit to the U.S. and other places. I just got to notice this morning that T-shirts that are coming from the EU will now be routed through either Spain or Latvia because apparently they found some loopholes. So we'll take whatever they can give us. But I'm going to be retooling the shop a bit this week anyway to kind of highlight what goes where and move some stuff around and maybe add a few new designs.

1:19:51Brian Schulmeister:Hint, hint, wink, wink, nudge, nudge, Brian.

1:19:53Jason DeFillippo:a little busy this week come on okay let's go we'll try we'll try and we got not one but two new reviews jason oh the first is from matt c29 five star review stay grumpy i first started listening to gog in my 20s i just turned 41 oh fuck well that bums me out no regrets five stars Well, thanks. Thanks. That and then the court will buy me a Geritol.

1:20:22Brian Schulmeister:And Diablo writes in with a five star, funny, irreverent and informative. This is one of the two or three podcasts that I always make time to listen to every week. The two co-hosts of the show do not suffer fools gladly. They're down to earth reviews of tech, tech leaders and the horrible economics of startups are always fair, honest and relevant and frankly funny. Even when they're castigating some wannabe tech titan. Occasionally some politics creep in, but real world politics do affect tech. And in my opinion, it's an appropriate amount. Thank you, Diablo. Regular contributor Dave Bittner of the Cyber Wire and many other awesome InfoSec related podcasts contributes to the great but increasingly misnamed security segment.

1:20:59Brian Schulmeister:I always feel more informed about tech news, tech in general. And even if I disagree with their opinions, it's still an awesome show. I like the show so much. I've been a patron subscriber for several years. Well, thank you so much, Diablo. Thank you. We really appreciate it. And speaking of Patreon, if you would like to help support the show, because we are a 100 % listener-supported show at this point, go to patreon.com slash GOG, and you can sign up for as little as$3 a month. And if you sign up for the whole year, you get a discount. But you can give as much as you want. Hint, hint, the Gold Monkey Package is very nice, I hear.

1:21:31Brian Schulmeister:And you get the show a little bit early, in high definition, and ad-free.

1:21:36Jason DeFillippo:All right. Until next time, I'm Brian Schulmeister.

1:21:38Brian 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 713. Want to keep the grumpiness alive? Toss a few bucks our way at GOG.show slash donate. Pretend we're an AI company and we need a couple billion. Come on. Every penny helps keep the show on the air. Love the show? Share it. There's a share button in your podcast player. Use it to spread the grumpiness to friends, foes, and everyone in between, and we'll love you for it. And swing by GOG.show to join our Discord and chat with us and other show fans. Got thoughts?

1:22:07Brian Schulmeister:Feedbacks? Cool links? Feedbacks? We need feedbacks. hit us up at gog.show slash contact and hey don't forget to leave a five-star review at gog.show slash review and we'll read it on the show oh and guess what we've got gog merch snag your grumpy gear now at shop.gog.show stay grumpy

1:22:29can't believe you fucking watched that shit traitor traitor you're the traitor