714: Crossfade This

9:50Jason DeFillippo:All right. Well, as we've always known and talked about many times, large language models largely remain black boxes in terms of what is happening inside them to produce the outputs that they do. But they have also been a bit of a black box in terms of who is using them and what they're doing with them.

10:05Brian Schulmeister:So OpenAI, with some help from the National Bureau of Economic Research, Niebuhr, set out to figure out exactly what its growing user base is getting up to with its chatbot.

10:16Jason DeFillippo:Getting down is what it's doing.

10:18Brian Schulmeister:It's not getting up, it's getting down.

10:19Jason DeFillippo:It found a surprising amount of personal use and a closing gender gap among its frequent users. In this working paper authored by the OpenAI Economic Research Team and Harvard economist David Deming, researchers found that about 80 % of all chat GPT usage falls under one of three categories. Practical guidance, which is the study found to be the most common usage, including things like tutoring and teaching, how-to advice and creative ideation. Second one, seeking information, which is viewed as a substitute for traditional search. And the third being writing, including the automated creation of emails, documents, and other communications, as well as editing and translating tech.

10:57Brian Schulmeister:Or plagiarism.

10:58Jason DeFillippo:Yes. Writing was also the most common work-related use case, per the study, accounting for 40 % of work-related messages in June 2025, compared to just 4.2 % of messages relating to computer programming. So coding is not what people are doing with ChatGPT, which makes sense because there are many models that are specifically done to screw up your code. Yeah. Work usage for chat GPT appears to make up a shrinking share of how people are interacting with the chat bot. In June of 2024, about 47 % of interactions users had were work-related. This has gone down to just 27%, which comes as other research shows companies largely failing to figure out how to generate any sort of meaningful return from their AI investments.

11:41Jason DeFillippo:Yep. So work, AI at work on the downside. Meanwhile, non-work related interactions have jumped from 53 to 73%. People are spending more time with chat GPT in their personal time and a fairly small share of messages with the chat bot or users seeking virtual companionship or talking about social emotional issues. They claim that only about 2 % of all messages were people using chat GPT as a theorist or friend. And just 0.4 % of people talk to the chat bot about relationships and personal reflections. so that is a little bit different from what other people have seen common sense media for instance found that about one in three teens use ai chatbots for social interaction and relationships another study found that about half of all adult users have used a chatbot for psychological support in the last year so there you go uh one caveat about the study that may give you pause depending on how much you trust technology open ai used ai to categorize all the messages it analyzed.

12:37Jason DeFillippo:So if you're skeptical, there's an asterisk you can put next to the figures. Also, something we seem to have forgotten, who studied themselves? Yeah. This is open AI talking about their own data that they looked at themselves with their own AI. Yeah. This is like Marlboro says smoking isn't bad for you.

12:56Brian Schulmeister:110%. Yep. And you know, if their numbers that they claim are in the billions of users, you know. So 2 % of all those messages is a lot of messages when it comes down to it, the mind-boggling number of messages that go through there every day. So that's a lot of people using ChatGPT as a therapist or a friend. Which brings me to my next one.

13:21Jason DeFillippo:Even their owner says, please don't do.

13:23Brian Schulmeister:Yep. Yep. OpenAI says it's prepping new safeguards for ChatGPT after a lawsuit blamed the chatbot for contributing to a teen suicide. Sam Altman announced plans for an automated system to predict whether users are under 18. When the age is unclear, ChatGPT will default to a restricted under 18 version, blocking sexual content and requiring adults to verify their age for full access. Altman admitted this is a privacy tradeoff, but argued teen safety comes first since we've been caught. Yeah. So the funny thing is, is I'm fairly certain to get a credit card, don't you have to be over 18?

14:02Jason DeFillippo:Yes, you do. You do indeed have to be 18.

14:04Brian Schulmeister:Okay. So maybe just paying users are the ones that could use the actual service. Everybody else gets the under 18 version. Just saying, if you want to increase revenue. But the thing is, as to your story, when we're seeing it, we're seeing the numbers drop in enterprise. Enterprise usage is what's going to pay the bills going forward because those enterprise contracts are the ones that actually are worth something. Yes. I don't care if they get 20 bucks a month from everybody on the planet. It still doesn't cover their nut, you know?

14:33Jason DeFillippo:Yeah. Well, we've been saying since this came out that, you know, they just don't make enough money. They're never going to make enough money.

14:41Brian Schulmeister:Yep. I was also reading a story this morning before we ran to air that there's an economist who came out saying, you know what? The AI bubble bursting might actually be good for the economy. me. Yeah, there's this pesky recession in the middle. But after that, we might come out doing okay.

14:57Jason DeFillippo:Well, at the end of the day, if it's a bubble, it's a bubble. If it's not going to provide value, but we're sinking all this money into it, yeah, it needs to pop. It's going to have to pop and then it's going to fucking hurt. But we will be better off in the end.

15:09Brian Schulmeister:See, the thing is, where's the money going? It doesn't evaporate. Money's going from one person to another to another. So where's it?

15:20Jason DeFillippo:Now we're going to start getting metaphysical here, Jason.

15:23Brian Schulmeister:Does money really mean anything?

15:24Jason DeFillippo:Is the color blue to me?

15:27Brian Schulmeister:Yeah. That was the 2008. You knew we were in trouble when people were like, well, you know, money is just a fucking social construct and it doesn't really mean anything.

15:35Jason DeFillippo:Well, what the hell do you think all the fucking crypto guys are trying to say?

15:39Brian Schulmeister:I know. I know.

15:41Jason DeFillippo:It's all the same. Anyways, let's go on the age verification bits since everybody seems to be pivoting that way from Pornhub to OpenAI. Is there a difference these days? I don't know. A California bill that will require operating system and app store providers to verify users' ages before they can download apps has cleared the assembly 58 to nothing. And we'll now move on to Governor Gavin Newsom. So we shall see. This is called the Digital Age Assurance Act, AB 1043. It does not require photo identification for verification. puts the onus on the platforms to provide tools for parents to indicate the user's age during a device's setup.

16:16Jason DeFillippo:So we drop down menu that we just click OK on. Yeah, pretty much.

16:21Brian Schulmeister:And by the way, the parents aren't the ones that know how to set up a fucking device. It's the kids that set up the devices for the parents. So they're the ones that are just going to be clicking OK to everything.

16:30Jason DeFillippo:And for those reasons alone, the California bill has been received more positively by big tech, with Google, Meta, and others putting out statements in support of it.

16:39Brian Schulmeister:Yeah, this sounds like a great idea.

16:41Jason DeFillippo:Yeah, so not much going on there. That's not going to do much of anything. New York's Governor Kathy Hochul has signed the Stop Addictive Feed Exploitation. Jesus, stop trying to fucking shoehorn this stuff into Safe for Kids Act. And the New York Child Data Protection Act in June 2024. Today, the state's Attorney General Letitia James released more specifics about what this act will entail in practice. So they're trying their own thing. In particular, this rule will require online platforms to confirm the ages of users before showing them algorithmically created feeds or sending them notifications at night.

17:16They will allow sites to choose their method of age verification as long as the approaches are shown to be effective and protect users' data.

17:25Jason DeFillippo:Nobody has a solution for this, Jason. No one.

17:30Brian Schulmeister:Oh, great.

17:32Jason DeFillippo:so all i know is that if this actually passes i will figure out a way to make sure that i seem under 18 because i would like them not to show me algorithmically curated feeds or send me

17:42Brian Schulmeister:notifications at night too seriously i mean that's all we've ever asked for that should be an option so uh well let's get a little funny here spacex is facing a surprising new opponent in florida

17:54Jason DeFillippo:nudists was elon keep running around and they're like get the fuck out of here and put on your

17:58Brian Schulmeister:pants you fucking weird ass cyber truck looking tank fuck yeah i don't know man he's on ozempic now so oh that's there you go yeah members of the american association for nude recreation manor manor if you're trying to shoehorn it manor they have they have an app too it's right next to grinder yep are protesting spacex's plan to launch starships from cape canaveral warning it could shut down plia linda beach one of only four legal clothing optional beaches in the state up to 60 times a year. Nudists say that would devastate a community of hundreds of thousands who travel to sunbathe there. Sunbathe, sure.

18:37Brian Schulmeister:Their leaders argue the closures could also push crowds to nearby Apollo Beach, sparking conflicts between nude and non-nude beachgoers. Critics also raise concerns about hearing damage and flight delays caused by rocket launches. Still, with a starship tower already under construction and FAA approval seen as likely, the nudists may be fighting a losing battle against Elon Musk's space ambitions. They seem to have a limp case. Yeah. But I'm ching. Well, naked people are not the only people that are souring on SpaceX right now. Apparently, all of his old fans are too. Because all of the people that used to love to go out to see SpaceX's launches are saying, yeah, you know what?

19:21Brian Schulmeister:Uh, Nazi. I'm going to stay home. I'm going to stay home because Nazi. Literally, that's it. Okay. So, yeah.

19:30Jason DeFillippo:I do not want to Z that.

19:36Jason DeFillippo:Oh, fuck me.

19:38Brian Schulmeister:Well, a Tesla.

19:39Jason DeFillippo:You can't laugh into the fire, Jason.

19:42Brian Schulmeister:Oh, that's the only way to go. It's the only way to go. Somebody sent me a very, very nice clipping of a headline today. when Goebbels actually started banning comedians in Germany right before World War II.

19:56Jason DeFillippo:I mean, look, I look at the news every day and I go, all of this has happened before. And we're watching it and nobody seems to give a shit. Okay.

20:07Brian Schulmeister:Well, everybody seems to give a shit. Nobody's willing to do a damn thing. So what can you do? That's the problem. We need a playbook. We need a playbook.

20:14Jason DeFillippo:I swear to God, I am on Blue Sky. Yeah, I think it's on Blue Sky. and it's like i followed i tried to port everything over that i used to follow on politicians and shit like that so schumer just keeps like fucking posting outrage after outrage and i just keep responding if only we elected someone who could actually do something about it that's it that's it i mean i can sit here and post this rage shit too schumer you're the one

20:40Brian Schulmeister:that can actually do something yeah yeah you're in the building where it happens anyways somebody who's not in the building where it happens anymore. A Tesla engineer just rage quit after eight years, torching Elon Musk on the way out the door. Giorgio Ballesteri, who helped build Tesla's clean energy trading platform, dropped a LinkedIn bombshell saying Musk has wrecked Tesla's mission and even damaged a democracy itself.

21:05Jason DeFillippo:It got five views because it's on LinkedIn.

21:07Brian Schulmeister:He accused Musk of abandoning the green future he once preached, instead cozying up to Donald Trump, the same guy who pulled the U.S. out of the Paris climate accord, gutted environmental rules and shoveled love letters to big oil. Once upon a time, Musk was the climate hero, tweeting, leaving Paris is not good. But now he's too busy trolling immigrants, raging at the government and allegedly getting stoned. Balestri says Tesla's clean energy efforts are critical. But with Musk's seriously compromised leadership and a trillion dollar payday looming for the CEO, he just couldn't stomach it anymore.

21:41Brian Schulmeister:In short, the man who promised to save the planet is now accused of helping burn it down. Yeah, that tracks.

21:48Jason DeFillippo:Okay. Well, the planet's not the only thing he's trying to burn down. He's also trying to burn you down. Yep. Yep. Less than a week after Bloomberg published a damning report about Tesla's dangerous doors, the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is now looking into it. On Tuesday, the regulator said it opened an investigation into the automaker's electrically powered doors. The problem, they stop working if the vehicle's low-voltage battery fails. The probe will cover the 2021 Model Y, which covers an estimated 174 ,290 vehicles, but the agency suggested in a document that it could expand its investigation because they put the same fucking doors on every one of their cars.

22:25Brian Schulmeister:Yeah.

22:26Jason DeFillippo:Now, in case you don't understand this, they use a flush door handle designed for its vehicles. A 12-volt battery powers the door's ability to pop the handle and release the latch. it's one of those cool apple-like design details that help the automaker become a household name but cars aren't iphones and sleekness can take a backseat to safety in the auto space they won't open from the outside when the low voltage battery fails like you know when it's on

22:51Brian Schulmeister:fire yeah they won't open from the inside when it fails too because that's you're screwed yeah we've covered we've covered a story where a woman burned to death in her car because the fucking doors wouldn't open.

23:02Jason DeFillippo:Yeah. So, yeah. Yes. Well, we have an update. Tesla design head Franz von Holzhausen, who we pinched from BMW during the war, apparently, appeared on Bloomberg's Hot Pursuit podcast and said the company is considering a new approach that combines the electric and manual release mechanisms. The idea of combining the electric one and the manual one together into one button, I think, makes a lot of sense, he said, pausing everybody to wonder why they didn't do it the first time around

23:44Jason DeFillippo:media candy well jason i finally finished wednesday with a wife what a wonderful show and i can't wait for it to come back when jenny jenna is like 45 years old exactly so it's because she's going to be the mom in the next episode because it's going to take forever I don't know if they're shooting. I haven't heard anything about it. I don't think that they are, but I want them to get on it because that was great. Yeah, yeah.

24:07Brian Schulmeister:They really should be backing these things up as fast as possible. I think so too. I'm sure they backed up the money truck to everybody. So come on, let's get cooking. Get to work.

24:18Jason DeFillippo:So as I mentioned last week, I actually did watch all of Foundation Season 3. I skipped Foundation Season 2. I don't know why I'm going to blame some wine I got or something. Desperation viewing. I ended up watching the first episode of the series and I actually kind of came around to what people have been telling us on Discord, which is that if you remove any association with foundation whatsoever, which is very difficult, but that's where the wine helps. It's actually a relatively decent sci-fi show. And I have to say season three was a relatively decent sci-fi show. they had bits and pieces from foundation that i remembered but here is where the problem is and this is why i'm never going to do this again okay it was enough it was close enough to foundation that it is starting to rewrite right in my head what the foundation story is that is the power of visual media visual media the music the sounds everything it replaces everything that was in your imagination from the books it takes it over that's why people scream about harry potter not that harry Potter is great literature, but there's no doubt about it that if you picture in your mind who Harry Potter is, you see the movies.

25:29Jason DeFillippo:And if you picture in your mind what the story of Harry Potter is, you see the movies and the movies, the story that the movies told, not the ones that the book told because the books are considerably different in a lot of ways. I cannot watch any more of this foundation series because I love the original book series and I hate what they've done to it. It is not the same story. It is a completely different story. And I refuse to have

25:51Brian Schulmeister:my brain rewired to this foundation damn it okay but the actors are good and it was actually this it was it was pretty good i watched the first episode of season three just just because you know because you traitor as fuck uh and it was decent it was decent i know that was the problem it was decent enough where i'm like yeah maybe yeah if i if there's nothing else on yeah but But so I get it. I totally get it. Yeah. If you're not into the books, then it's probably decent sci fi.

26:25Jason DeFillippo:Yes. But again, I cannot have it overwrite my my my knowledge of what foundation is.

26:30Brian Schulmeister:The thing is, yeah, yeah. Season one of foundation, I didn't think was good sci fi. No, that was awful. That was the problem with season one. It wasn't that good. And I started watching season two and season two carried on the tradition of season one of being shit. So maybe going to season three, maybe they figured enough out. But the opening salvo with the mule was pretty fucking good. I like that. Yeah, and it continues.

26:54Jason DeFillippo:It continues. And they definitely, and again, it will rewrite my understanding of Foundation because they change who the mule actually is. Okay.

27:03Brian Schulmeister:Here's the great part about the Foundation books. I stopped reading them before the mule showed up. So I can go back and watch this now and have a clean slate. But I totally get what you're saying about rewiring your mental image because I cannot for the life of me remember all the visuals that I had for The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy without the fucking movie popping in. That's the thing. Yeah. And in no history of the world was Sam Rockwell's Zafod Beeblebrox in my interpretation of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

27:37Jason DeFillippo:It's just the power of the visual with the human brain. It's just it will take over whatever you had in your mind. Your own imagination will be rewritten by shows.

27:47Brian Schulmeister:Yeah. And that's the interesting thing about Sandman, too, is it's like now I have this, you know, this dichotomy in my head. It's like I visually remember something completely different than what was on the screen. But what was on the screen is what I remember because it was so good in season one. I'm like, it's really weird to see these things get so close. Because in the old days, when they would do these adaptations, they were so wildly off that there was no, not even in any remote universe were they similar. But nowadays, they're getting close enough because as fans and kids growing up in this, like, you know, people our age are the ones making this shit now.

28:28Brian Schulmeister:That it's getting closer to what it actually was. But in their vision, and when you pull in the fact that they have to have a diverse cast just because they have to have a diverse cast and changes everything about everything, it's weird. It's a weird time to be alive for many reasons.

28:44Jason DeFillippo:It is. Well, let me talk about a show where people aren't alive anymore. I finished Upload. We'd talked about this quite a bit, and I realized, what, two weeks ago that I actually had never watched season three. So I went back and watched season three, which was okay. And then I rolled straight into season four, which is truncated. It's only four episodes. Oh, wow. You could tell they basically threw the creators a bone, finish your story, but get it done quick. I'm not giving you a full season.

29:10Brian Schulmeister:Contractually obligated to, I'm guessing.

29:12Jason DeFillippo:It was good. I actually enjoyed it. I enjoyed the ride from beginning to end. Like it got a little iffy in season two and three, but they wrapped it up well. It was a pleasant little story. It was fun and kind of clever. They didn't end it with the hearts and sunshines and sausages and rainbows that I thought they were. they zagged a bit which i enjoyed i thought it was a good choice on their part good and you know um it's funny that when we started talking about that show i went back and i was thinking about a

29:41Brian Schulmeister:show that we watched it was just a one one-off mini series called devs i remember that yeah yeah it was a really strange uh mini series and i i really want to go back and watch that that's next on my list i think i'm because i i do remember it like being kind of odd in the middle but I thought that came home to a pretty decent landing. So I think I'm going to go back and try that just because I want to, because I can.

30:07Jason DeFillippo:Well, I talked about how we had watched the princess bride with the kid a couple of weeks back. And then my, my wife wanted to continue on with just kind of watching these, you know, family fun, real people stuff, get him out of his animation alley that he's been stuck in. And she convinced him to watch freaky Friday, the 2003 edition with Jamie Lee Curtis and Lindsay Lohan, not the original from the 60s and uh i was doing stuff around the the house just errands and stuff so i caught quite a lot of it very funny very clever like i those like late 90s early 2000s comedies are a hoot and the best part about freaky friday this this 2003 edition and i think you'll appreciate this too jason isn't so much the story it's all set in los angeles and it's all shit that's gone oh it's total memory porn they're wandering down third street promenade like it used to be when we were when we were young and it was awesome the a huge sequence takes place at the house of blues on sunset that we used to go see shows at which is gone yeah so there was all this great los angeles memory porn about this this movie so it was fantastic for that and it was just fun it was a fun clever little you know nine late 90s early 2000s comedy if you want a real

31:23Brian Schulmeister:trip. Go back and watch LA Story. Oh, dude. Yes, totally. Oh, interesting. So are you going to make them watch Freakier Friday that just came out?

31:32Jason DeFillippo:Well, it's only in theaters still, so as soon as it's streaming, we'll watch it. I'm not going to fucking pay to go to the theater for that shit, but we'll watch it

31:39Brian Schulmeister:when it comes out. I just laugh because I go to the theater of Sweden. We only in the theaters. How funny. Alien Earth had its penultimate episode this week. oh so good oh so good i'm gonna miss this when it's gone i am so gonna miss this when it's gone

31:57Jason DeFillippo:i'm gonna wait until it's completed and either pay for one month of hulu or sweden it sweden it

32:03Brian Schulmeister:because fuck paying disney anything right now that's true sorry yeah that's a good point yes uh yeah no anything that's on there i've already canceled but i it's my my my uh my prescription will run past the the end of alien earth it kind of is a prescription these days it is it is uh Gen V season two has dropped. Now, I loved Gen V season one. Gen V is a spinoff from the boys on Amazon Prime. Yeah. And season two started off pretty much exactly where season one kind of left off in tone and in spirit. It looks like it's just, you know, they did a really good job of picking it back up. So I'm there's two episodes out, I think, right now.

32:46Brian Schulmeister:But they did, you know, the drop three and then one a week. So I like that. gets you kind of ramped up enough where you're going to stick with it. So I, like I said, I'm still a fan of that, that universe because the boys has, it has been ending for every season for two seasons now. So who knows when that's going to go away. So I kind of like going back to that world because it's slightly more dystopian than the one I have to wake up to every day, which is a nice change. Okay. Yeah. And I just saw this. I'm just going to leave the headline here. No need to read any more than this. Star Trek, strange new worlds producers promise season four.

33:20Brian Schulmeister:will be better.

33:23Jason DeFillippo:I didn't think it was bad. Just less comedy, guys.

33:26Brian Schulmeister:Yeah, no, they blamed the discombobulation on the writer's strike and people coming and going. And there was a lot of stuff that was happening in the middle of that show getting made. Except they skedaddled off to fucking Canada to go get rid of the guild restrictions. So I don't know how much they can blame on that. But hey, what are you going to do? Whatever. Yeah, whatever. Hopefully they will do better. Coming up very soon on September 24th, Slow Horses Season 5 is coming out. Okay. The reviews are in. They say it's really good. And it is the funniest season yet, which, you know, as far as spy thrillers go, it is a pretty funny show already.

34:06Brian Schulmeister:So looking forward to that. Now, here's where I have a problem. This is the marketing team at Apple. I got the email that said it was coming. And the title of the email was Drinker Thinker Rebel Spy. which is a take on Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, right? You'd think, oh, spies, MI5, all that stuff. Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, I believe, MI6. But don't quote me on that. It's been a while. But here's the thing. Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy was a novel by John le Carré, which was turned into a movie. Slow Horses is based on Mick Heron's Slough House. Different author. Stealing titles from a different author.

34:47Brian Schulmeister:Poor text. everything's a meme now fucking taste is all i gotta say you know yeah but anyway uh that besides that tinker taylor soldier spy was a great movie came out in 2011 highly recommended and uh gary oldman is in both so there's your connection but there you go yeah but yeah check out and if you haven't seen it you still haven't even dove into that one have you i watched the first season and i just never got back to it so okay i will yeah that one that one is one you can just sit down for like, you know, get a bucket of popcorn and some diapers and watch all the way through. It's great.

35:19Jason DeFillippo:All right. In a teaser shared this weekend, Netflix finally revealed the release date for The Witcher season four. It will hit Netflix on October 30th. Now, in case you don't remember, we're getting a dick switch here.

35:31Brian Schulmeister:No, no, I saw the best one. What they pulled was a witcheroo. A witcheroo?

35:36Jason DeFillippo:I was going with the dick switch, like from Bewitched when they switched Dick York and Dick Sargent. That's right.

35:41Brian Schulmeister:The dick switch. Yeah. Yeah.

35:43Jason DeFillippo:Liam Hemsworth is returning, not returning, is showing up as Geralt of Rivia, a casting change from Henry Cavill, who was fucking awesome in the role. So we'll see how this goes. If something to look forward to, if you're not thrilled about this change like I am, we're going to get Lawrence Fishburne in it. Okay. So that might be interesting. So we shall see what happens. I will watch it and see how it goes.

36:06Brian Schulmeister:Yeah, he's making a bit of a comeback. I like Lawrence Fishburne. He was in that horrible movie with the kid from Mr. Robot, but otherwise he's been doing pretty good. I liked him in the John Wick series. He was great in that. So I'm glad he's making a comeback.

36:20Jason DeFillippo:All right. And we had a big film festival here in Toronto called TIFF that we have every year. And one of the things that premiered at it is a new documentary and the trailer is out for it. It's about Lilith Fair. It's called Lilith Fair Building a Mystery. And I'm actually quite looking forward to this. Again, 90s porn, right? So this is the whole Lilith Fair story. and I can't wait for this documentary to come out. I'm totally going to watch it. I did not attend Lilith Fair. Because you're not a lesbian. Well, no, but I like more than half the artists I really like and also what a great place to pick up chicks.

36:53Jason DeFillippo:That's exactly why they didn't let me in.

36:55Brian Schulmeister:No, it's not a great place to pick up chicks. They're not interested in you, Brian. They weren't all lesbians. Come on. It was all Subarus in the parking lot. It was the 90s.

37:04Jason DeFillippo:You could tell by the haircuts which ones were lesbians and which ones weren't. that's going to get me in trouble. I'm getting canceled now, Jason. We're not on Disney. You're safe. Okay. Also, I'm making fun of the left, not the right. So, you know, you're allowed to do that.

37:19Brian Schulmeister:Ups and doodads. Well, there's been some releases from Apple. Yeah, iOS 26 is out there. Brian, have you upgraded yet?

37:31Jason DeFillippo:I did. I hated it for the first three hours, and then I just got on with my life.

37:37Brian Schulmeister:Exactly. Told you. Told you. I've had it for a month and I'm like, this is the worst part, the transition. You know, when I know it's already there and then I'm just going to have to hear it from everybody like, what the fuck is that? I don't know how to do anything anymore. Jason, fix it.

37:51Jason DeFillippo:It's it's such a small change. You are right. It does run a little faster, which I appreciate. But a lot of the visual effects get little snags here and there, which is annoying. Do I care for how it looks? No. But does it bother me? No. you can you can reduce some of the stuff which is i found out from you because you were posting it everywhere i did that it's fine it's fine who cares i i don't like it on the ipad i hate this multi-window bullshit where it puts it over in the corner where it's just out of the corner of your eye and it's just annoying and it looks like it's a glitch but it's not it's a feature

38:24Brian Schulmeister:you turn that off you turn that off in the multitasking preferences okay i gotta turn that off because that's just stupid it's annoying yeah it's for some things it actually does work because you can keep something open. And it depends on your workflow. I have found that it is useful in some situations, mostly not. So I generally tend to keep it off, but you can turn that off in the multitasking settings. So that's an easy fix. Okay, so there you go. Here we are. Fantastic. Yeah, links are in the show notes to how to make Liquid Glass more like iOS 18. So there's some easy tricks that you can do to turn off a lot of the stuff.

39:00Brian Schulmeister:Yeah, for the most part, I'm so used to it now that it's just, it is what it is. Yeah. But yeah. So Meta had a demo this week.

39:11Jason DeFillippo:Oh my God. I actually didn't watch it, but I did see people were saying that it actually has now made the Cybertruck window shattering the second worst demo of all time. Yeah.

39:21Brian Schulmeister:Thanks for reading my lines here for me. I appreciate that. Those aren't for you. Oh, sorry. I didn't even see it in there.

39:27Jason DeFillippo:Sorry. That was Jason's line. Yeah. That's okay. You stole it from someone else because I read it all over the place.

39:33Brian Schulmeister:It was all over Reddit. Yeah. And everyone on Reddit was also comparing Meta to Hooli now. Oh, that's funny. Yeah. They say they've gone full Hooli. I put a link to a short YouTube video that's called the title of the, it's the review of the demo said Meta's most dystopian product yet. Talking about these new fucking glasses that they came out with that did not work at all in the demo. And it just got to the point of hilarity. um yeah 800 bucks for these new glasses and they come with like a basically a handcuff that lets it figure out what your your motions are to control the interface that the people who actually worked on it don't know how to use they kept fucking up in the demo the whole time uh one guy did a cooking demo and blamed the wi-fi on it because it couldn't get the order of operations right but here's the thing i think most people that listen to this show uh i i would i would i would wager that don't aren't going to buy this period.

40:31Brian Schulmeister:You know, we all know that this is just basically surveillance apparatus number 727 from from Facebook. And it's just giving them more shit about you and how they can sell to you.

40:42Jason DeFillippo:So look, I mean, if anybody that listens to this show knows you shouldn't trust any of the big tech companies, but the one you shouldn't trust the most meta meta. Yep, absolutely.

40:52Brian Schulmeister:So I would definitely stay the fuck away from that. But go watch the the product review is worth it because it's only five minutes long. And the guy is really funny. The guy is, he could be one of us for sure. And I want to bring this article back up because the article is meditation and mindfulness have a dark side we don't often talk about. I've talked about it before on this show because in some of the recovery programs I'm in, they force meditation on you. They're like, you must meditate. I'm like, no, I'm not going to meditate because I'm one of those 10 % of people who have an adverse reaction to standard meditation.

41:28Brian Schulmeister:It makes me really prone to anxiety and depression. So I don't meditate. I'm not good at it. It's bad. And that said, though, I've been some of the meditation people I've talked to. They're like, well, why don't you try some binaural beats? Because that seems to have much better effect on people than standard meditation. And I got an app called Brainwave this week. and I've been doing it for half an hour at night with my Bose QC2 headphones. So everything's off and I just have them on. And there's actually a night mode for reading, like if you're going to read at night before you go to bed. So I turn that off and I pull my Kindle up and I read a book with those on.

42:08Brian Schulmeister:I tell you what, I wake up in the morning, like it's like night and day. I don't know what the magic sauce is in that shit, But it actually makes me wake up crisper, clearer, and way more excited to get to the day. I haven't changed anything else besides that. So obviously, your mileage may vary. Shit doesn't work for everybody the same. But for the$5.99 that I spent on this, well worth it so far. Man.

42:37Jason DeFillippo:Hey, it's all about finding stuff that works for you. I'm not a huge meditation guy either. As you know, I do Apple Fitness. And I'd like to end my workouts with like a 10 minute stretch because they have their mindful cooldowns as they call them. So it's a bit of stretching at the end of your workout, which is really good for your body. And the last like two minutes of those stretches is usually a meditation kind of thing. And I ignore them and I just kind of sit in silence for a bit and I find that clears my head enough. That's about all I can do for meditation. I have tried binaural beats before and I understand that they really do work for a lot of people.

43:11Jason DeFillippo:the problem i have with them is they are so close to the weird ambient glitch music that i used to listen to all the time that for me for me i'm like all of a sudden i'm at the palladium and i'm dancing on stage i'm not fucking relaxing yeah the nice the app that i got the nice thing

43:29Brian Schulmeister:about it is that they have different you know because there's different frequencies for different different use cases yeah so you can flip through different ones because uh you might want to try just try a different set you know yeah yeah because the ones that i listened to before i

43:41Jason DeFillippo:was like i listened to this band in the fucking 90s they're from sweden exactly i i didn't put noibouten on loop what the fuck um so yeah i i just found that that it works

43:53Brian Schulmeister:pretty well for me uh and another thing i found this week which is one of the greatest videos it's called the rise of the indie web movement by this girl who goes by the handle marigoul which is great she's she's like you uh artist she's got only 6 000 subs on youtube but it's all about basically uh people who are going back out learning html and css and making their own websites again on a site called neo cities and you know take off on geo cities yeah and i just had such a nostalgia boner for this i'm like i miss it so much everybody's ugly ass websites the little blocky 88 by 33 buttons, the whole nine yards.

44:34Brian Schulmeister:It was just such a trip down memory lane. And what even made me happier was when I went to her website on her links page, I looked at her links page and I was just like, okay, under web mastery and web mastery and coding resources, she has links to W3 schools, Mozilla HTML reference. It's just like, it's like the old days i was just like this is a kid you know in 2025 who is who has gone like old school and going back to our roots and it just made me happy you know very few things make me happy that makes me happy nice yeah so i just you know all you oldsters out there who built the web back in the day go check it out you'll you'll have a nice little trip down memory lane and i'm just glad to see the kids doing something it's fun i think i my favorite thing about her and i love her

45:23Jason DeFillippo:immediately is on her about page under her FAQ. When will dot dot dot webcomic video project be out? It'll be out when it's out.

45:31Brian Schulmeister:Exactly. She writes just like we used to write. You are awesome. Yep. And the last thing I've gotten here, have you seen the Stendig calendars? Yeah. Yeah, they're great, aren't they? They're beautiful. These giant calendars.

45:44Jason DeFillippo:I find them beautiful, but not very useful.

45:47Brian Schulmeister:Yeah. See, that's the thing for me, too. It's like they take up a whole wall. They were created by legendary Italian designer Massimo Vignelli in 1966. There's one in MoMA in New York. They're beautiful, these giant calendars. Now, here's the nice part about it. They have come out with what they call the V calendar, which is smaller and the entire year in one glance. I like this one. It's still not cheap. It's 45 pounds if you're going to get it, but it comes in multiple colors. I think I'm going to get one of these maybe around Christmas time. I like it because I like seeing the year at a glance.

46:27Brian Schulmeister:For me, that just really works out. I don't know why because then you can just mark off each day as you go. But yeah, I just got an email from them that the new calendars were out. So I thought I'd put it in here for some people who, you know, have never seen them before and should be introduced to them because they're pretty fucking awesome. They're four feet by three feet. That's how big they are, the standard one. So, you know, you got to have wall space. This isn't going into a story walk up in Manhattan.

46:50Jason DeFillippo:You've got to treat it more like art than something functional.

46:52Brian Schulmeister:Yeah.

46:53Jason DeFillippo:It's not my favorite thing, which is fart. Functional art.

47:05Brian Schulmeister:At the library. So I have finished several books, Brian. Okay. Several. So we're going to start off with Flybot by Dennis E. Taylor, beloved Dennis E. Taylor, who created the Bobaverse series. This is one of his standalone books, and it is about an AI, believe it or not. His other ones haven't been about AIs. This is a delightful romp. It's kind of a murder mystery sci-fi tech whodunit type of thing. You'll be able to read it probably in 2028 because right now it's an Audible original only.

47:43Jason DeFillippo:Yep.

47:44Brian Schulmeister:But it's a phenomenal book. So when it does come out, Brian, I highly recommend it. The rest of you people who aren't terrified of audio books, go check it out on Audible. It's great. It's one and done. All right. Oh, and I read Proof of Heaven, A Neurosurgeon's Journey into the Afterlife by Dr. Eben Alexander. Now, this is a book that was recommended to me by Kevin Rose because we both have a fascination with near-death experiences because I had one. And he's just fascinated by them. So he sent me this book, which is a very interesting read because this guy is a neurosurgeon and he was in a coma for a week from this bacterial meningitis.

48:24Brian Schulmeister:And he had a whole different story than a lot of people did. So if you're not into near-death experiences and the science behind them, don't read this book. But if you are, it is phenomenal. The next book I read was a bit of fiction called Cleave the Sparrow by Jonathan Katz. This came out in February of this year. This is Jonathan Katz's first novel. Fucking awesome book. Just awesome. Like near term science fiction, kind of reality twisting. I haven't read a book that made me feel this awesome and confused since I read Vert by I think Jeff Noon back in the 90s, which was another fantastic book.

49:08Brian Schulmeister:But this is, it's kind of a reality twisting comedy. Just it's a weird romp, but I fucking love this book. And at the end of the book, there's a QR code that you can scan to get notified when there's some extra stuff coming out. So you get an email back from Jonathan Katz, the author, which I love. And in there, he recommended a book called The Case Against Reality, Why Evolution Hid the Truth From Our Eyes by Donald D. Hoffman. So I bought that book and I'm working my way through it right now. And he has a TED Talk, too, that is fucking fantastic, where he talks about how basically reality as we see it is kind of a user interface.

49:44Brian Schulmeister:Like we look at a computer and we understand that a computer screen, like the email is not the icon, but we use the icon to actually interface with the computer. So reality for us is kind of an interface from, you know, the meatbags we're in to actually interface with how reality as it actually is. And it's really, really good stuff. It's heady stuff. You know, you're not going to you're not going to go want to go from South Park to reading this. OK, but what that brings me to is Kindle Unlimited, because I found Cleve the Sparrow on Kindle Unlimited. It was the first book that I was recommended when I signed up.

50:17Brian Schulmeister:Yeah. And since then, since I have my binaural beats now, I've moved from I read Cleve the Sparrow. Now, then I first I went back and I read a new Jocko Willink book called The Code, The Evolution, The Protocol, Striving to Become an Eminently Qualified Human by Jocko Willink, because I like Jocko's stuff. Good book, short 70 pages. Another book I read was I Don't Answer Questions, Pleading the Fifth by David Riddings, who is an attorney who basically said it's a nice manual on how to never talk to cops, which is basically I don't answer questions without a lawyer. Just say that when you get pulled over, you're fine until they drag you out of the car and beat you senseless.

50:51Jason DeFillippo:Yeah, I don't think that matters much anymore.

50:53Brian Schulmeister:Yeah. Finding Your Comic Genius, an in-depth guide to the art of stand-up comedy by Adam Bloom. Also a phenomenal book, which is a good how-to on how to structure jokes and punchlines, which I'm working my way through. So yeah, it's been a while since we've been at the library. So there you go. That's true.

51:10Jason DeFillippo:I have started and abandoned the book and I'm working on another one right now. And I'll talk about the abandoned book when I finish the one that I'm working on. And I do have a story in here because I know many of our listeners and on our Discord are big fans of comics. And there's a new comics app. And I put this in there before Disney fucking screwed the pooch. And we're all supposed to be not giving them any money, but it's a Disney deal. so you know hopefully they'll make everything right and then we can go back and enjoy this thing webtoon announced a major new deal with disney to bring a litany of originally licensed stories and past comics from across marvel's library to the scrolling format that has made webtoon a significant force in the comic space so disney is getting a two percent equity interest

51:48Brian Schulmeister:in the company so uh everybody stop reading them okay there we go once we're able to enjoy disney

51:54Jason DeFillippo:again by all means this sounds like it's going to be a great resource and a great infusion of cash into the comics world and you'll be able to get a bunch of stuff through them all right yeah i look

52:05Brian Schulmeister:forward to the time where disney is no longer persona non grata yes me too let's see what dave thinks about that the dark side with dave welcome to the dark side with dave podcast super host dave bittner decodes all things cyber on the cyber wire every day exposes deception with joe kerrigan on hacking humans dives deep into privacy with Ben Yellen on Caveat, breaks down industrial cybersecurity on Control Loop, and even brings the laughs on only malware in the building. Welcome back, Dave. Thank you very much. It's good to be here. Good to have you back. Hello, Dave. Hello, hello. I just felt like going back to the old days today.

52:47Brian Schulmeister:I don't know why. Yeah. I just had a hankering. I had a hankering, Dave. Yeah, hankering for a hunk of cheese. Ah, yes, that's right. what was that from a hanker for a hook a slab or slumbo yeah it's a time for timer um i don't know it was a psa sounds like you guys are having strokes i'm a little worried for jason again yeah those binaural beats they've triggered something in me it was a psa when we were kids to try to get us to eat more cheese probably sponsored by the Dairy Association. Yes, one would assume. When I'm dancing, I hold down and my boots kind of slow down. Or any time I'm weak in the knees.

53:32Brian Schulmeister:I hanker for a hunk of a slab or slice a chunk of a sniker that is a winner and yet once for all my dinner I hanker for a hunk of cheese. Yahoo! But yeah, it was a catchy little thing about eating cheese. Right. Right after that PSA from Marlboro to smoke more cigarettes. Right. Right. Ooh, smooth, delicious bubble gum cigarettes.

53:55Jason DeFillippo:Hi, I'm a doctor. There's nothing I like better after long surgery than a long draw on my palm all. That's right.

54:03Brian Schulmeister:The clean, healthy cigarette.

54:06Jason DeFillippo:Anyways, we have some news about something that we've been talking about. The Muppet Show is getting a 50th anniversary Disney Plus special. the Muppet Show officially hit the airwaves in 1976 which means 2026 marks an important milestone for Kermit the Frog and his pals they will air a one-off special in the much-loved variety show format with pop star Sabrina Carpenter as the featured guest the Hollywood Reporter is also writing that there's a potential for the special to turn into a backdoor pilot for a future Muppet Show revival as we talked about of course that Seth Rogen is executive producing this and there's a list of the puppeteers that I put in here mostly for Dave because he probably knows who they are and i will say that if they do not open with the scene of kermit the frog coming out and saying of course nobody should be shot dead for what they have to say but he did say some horrible things i will be very disappointed in disney oh my i'm very i'm very disappointed

55:02Brian Schulmeister:sabrina carpenter won't just be appearing in the show she's also among its executive producers

55:09Jason DeFillippo:you're old jason she's not for you it's not good that's the problem she's not good

55:16Brian Schulmeister:i am blissfully unfamiliar with her which uh it's the same situation i found myself in as a child

55:23Jason DeFillippo:watching the original muppet show not knowing who any of those people were either the first

55:28Brian Schulmeister:couple seasons they're mostly brits and i didn't know who they were but that's okay So we'll see. Hopefully it'll be good and, you know, hopefully we'll be allowed to watch it. Yeah. The question I have about this is we don't see Frank Oz listed anywhere.

55:44Jason DeFillippo:No.

55:45Brian Schulmeister:And I wonder if he'll have any involvement. My guess is not. It seems as though his relationship with Disney and the Muppets these days is to be kind of a pain in the ass. Yes. He's earned it. He's fucking earned it. True.

56:00Jason DeFillippo:He has passed the torch and is lobbing softballs at them. That seems to be what he does these days.

56:06Brian Schulmeister:Yeah. I mean, Dave Gulls is the only real original one back. He does Gonzo and some other characters. So he's the connection with the original. Everybody else has arthritis because they're 900 years old and can't move a puppet probably. Right. Right. You know, you got to have dexterity for that. I don't know about you. My hands suck now. And I'm only 54. I do notice I wake up in the morning and my fingers are stiff and I need to wiggle them around to loosen them up. And I say to myself, I guess this is arthritis.

56:42Jason DeFillippo:There are these things called stretches that one can do. Well, that's what I do to loosen them up. Yeah, exactly. But you do them before, like you just keep doing them.

56:52Brian Schulmeister:You can't stretch out of a bone condition, though. That's the problem. Well, if it is a natural bone condition. And they're hard to do in your sleep.

56:59Jason DeFillippo:By the way, in my 20s, I stretched myself out of plenty of bone conditions.

57:03Brian Schulmeister:Oh, hey, hey now. Now he needs a pill. Never gets old. Whatever gets you there, Jason. Yeah, that's right. It's a great time to be alive.

57:15Jason DeFillippo:If you're a white male who's older.

57:19Brian Schulmeister:Okay, moving on. So with the iOS 26 update, there was an update to the Carrot app. the Carrot Weather app, which is my favorite weather app. Yes. Not just because it's funny as fuck. It's also one of the best weather apps that's out there because it has lots of different settings where you can change your weather source. Because I have moved away from Noah because there's nobody home at Noah anymore. Yes, wise. Yeah, I was researching getting one of those backyard weather stations. Yes, I have one. You do? Which one do you have? Don't know. But I so my wife is a weather junkie. And so her favorite app is the carrot app.

58:04Brian Schulmeister:Yeah. And we actually have it on our Apple TV as well. So occasionally when I'm firing up the Apple TV, I get insulted by the carrot weather app. I did not know you could put that on the Apple TV. I am going to install that today. Yes, yes. Yes. So I'm going to say a couple of years ago for her birthday, I got her one of those backyard weather stations and she loves it. So the couch where she sits, there's a little display and it connects to the thing that's upstairs outside in the back of the house. And so at a glance, she can look over and know what the current wind speed is. and this makes her very happy.

58:49Brian Schulmeister:And it measures rainfall and, of course, temperature and all those kinds of things. Oh, and it publishes online. Yeah, that's the thing. You can join the network and be part of the whole team. That's why I found it through Carrot because of people like your wife who are awesome and care about the weather enough to publish and be part of the network.

59:13Jason DeFillippo:How did they not brand it as the whatevers? Go on. Like the Fediverse, except for, you know, weather. Oh, the weatherverse.

59:22Brian Schulmeister:The weatherverse. That's a good, yeah. I didn't hear you correctly. Yeah, yeah. Whatevers. And you said weatherverse. Yeah. That's a good question.

59:32Jason DeFillippo:Mm-hmm.

59:33Brian Schulmeister:Yeah.

59:34Jason DeFillippo:Do I have to think of everything for people?

59:36Brian Schulmeister:No, you just got to work on your diction because we didn't know what the fuck you said.

59:40Jason DeFillippo:You know, I have a nine-year-old and I'm basically constantly sick. Like, what virus came home this week? So I keep trying to clear. I'm muting and clearing my throat and not getting it all before I come back.

59:51Brian Schulmeister:We appreciate that very, very much. You're welcome. I do, because otherwise I'd have to edit that shit out. But yeah, so my roommate was looking into it. So she's the weather person who cares, cares enough to go pay for one of those because I don't care enough to pay for one. Well, you're in Southern California, too. Well, we kind of need it right now because the weather here is I don't know if you noticed, But Orange County, half of it fell down last night in the rainfall. So the weather here is just insanely variable. We had hail in like two in the morning last night. OK, it's very bizarre. But anyway, getting back to Carrot with the update.

1:00:29Brian Schulmeister:I'm sure you've seen it now, Dave, now that I know you're a fan. But Carrot has decided to launch a musical inside of the app. And I want your take on the musical as a musical fan. OK, I will give you that in a second. But in the meantime, I have looked up which weather thing we have. It is the ambient weather array, the WS2902, which is$199 at Amazon. Okay. That is not the one that I was looking at. So I will check that one out. You know, it's been sitting out there for a couple years now, just doing its thing with no fuss, no muss. So there's my limited review and, you know, it delights my wife, which happy wife, happy life.

1:01:17Brian Schulmeister:So there you go. Yes. The so back to the carrot app, the musical. I was unaware of this until I saw your link to it in the show notes here. I went and checked it out and I have to say it is freaking amazing. like i listened to the first song and it's as good as anything you'll see on the great white way this year right here yeah and and and that is both delightful and disturbing to me because uh because it is so good like they took all of the things that you expect in a Broadway showstopper number, and they're all in there. All of the musical cues, the structure of it, how it builds, how it ends, the way it's sung, the lyrics.

1:02:13Brian Schulmeister:It's a pretty idealized Broadway song, and it's not ironic or a parody or, Or I see where they're going, but not quite good enough. No, it's good. It's really good. Yeah. Yeah. And that really scares me how good it is. Like, I don't know how they did this. I'm guessing it could be as simple as they tossed it into one of the many LLMs or whatever, the ones that create songs now to do this. Yeah. Yeah. So I've been following because the creator of the app is just one guy. He made the musical, but he also said he's the villain in song four that came out yesterday. So he sings on it. So I don't know, man.

1:03:05Brian Schulmeister:He just might be a really good big fan of musicals and just got hired somebody to do it. I've got notes out asking him how it was created because I really want to know, Because if this was an AI created musical, I want his prompts because God damn, it's good. Yeah. He did a really good job. It sounds like AI to me. It does. It does. But in some parts it doesn't. So maybe it's a mix. You know, I don't know. But man, it's funny. And it's really good. Surprisingly good. No, it's a toe tapper. It's, you know, you leave the theater singing the songs. And if that is something that you can accomplish with just a prompt, right?

1:03:50Brian Schulmeister:Creativity as a service. I'm glad that you've seen it and are a toe-tapping fan like me. Yeah. I saw this and I just, you know, I wanted to pass this along since we're a bunch of old people. And the publisher's clearinghouse has gone bankrupt, meaning the people who opted for the forever payments will no longer get paid. What are your thoughts on this? Because I find this truly disturbing. Yeah, this is bullshit. Yeah. Amen.

1:04:23Jason DeFillippo:I'm sure it was in their fine print. Yeah.

1:04:25Brian Schulmeister:Well, I think, yes, certainly you're right. Forever doesn't mean forever. Just like unlimited data doesn't mean unlimited data. Exactly. There's millions of those. But yeah, this is bullshit. And here's what pisses me off about this. The folks who bought Publishers Clearinghouse are continuing doing Publishers Clearinghouse. They're just cutting off everyone from before when they made their purchase. And that to me, again, bullshit. Like that should have been part of the obligations of the purchase. it's you just do away with a debt a promise uh it's unethical i obviously technically not illegal uh i guess people will roll their eyes and shrug their shoulders and say oh well it's just just business but uh there are people as this article points out there are people who had planned their lives around this promise and now they're scrambling to figure out what they're going to do next.

1:05:28Brian Schulmeister:I know I pour them, you know, they're not going to be as rich as they were before, but still, uh, I think, yeah, this is crap. And, uh, it makes me mad that they're allowed to do this. Um, yeah, I I'm ticked off about it.

1:05:42Jason DeFillippo:I always take the lump sum. That's right.

1:05:44Brian Schulmeister:Yeah. Yeah. That's right. Yep. So, and the thing is they, in the article, they, they mentioned how much it costs them per year to make these payments. And it was like$1.9 million. Like, And to me, that also that money should have been in escrow. Once these people, it should have been in escrow and like, oh, sure. Publishers Clearinghouse can get the interest off of that and keep things going. But that should have been an escrow for these people. Yeah. So, you know how like contests like, you know, make a shot from half court at a basketball game, halftime and you'll win a car. Those are all insured.

1:06:22Brian Schulmeister:Right. Right. And because chances are the person's not going to win. So they pay a certain amount of money. And if someone does make the basket, then the insurance pays to buy the new car. PCH should have had insurance against this. They should have been, in my opinion, required to have insurance against the possibility of bankruptcy so that everyone that they're obligated to pay out would be made whole. That's my take on it. Some bullshit. Little regulatory oversight.

1:06:56Jason DeFillippo:It all went to shit when Ed McMahon died.

1:06:58Brian Schulmeister:It did. I guarantee if Ed McMahon was alive right now, he'd have been paying those people out of his own pocket. Rolling in his own grave. I don't know. Ed, really? I don't know how deep Ed's pockets were.

1:07:13Jason DeFillippo:Hey, Johnny, you got some cash.

1:07:16Brian Schulmeister:Yeah. Yeah, I had a friend who he had his driver's license in his wallet and taped over his own picture. He had put Ed McMahon's picture on his driver's license just to see if anybody would ever notice. And nobody did. Nowadays, that shit will get you invented. It gets you sent to Venezuela. So right. Right.

1:07:36Jason DeFillippo:I mean, you know, it was kind of strange how he was a dead ringer for Ed McMahon.

1:07:40Brian Schulmeister:But yeah, that's right. He was an Ed McMahon impersonator on the weekends. But yeah. Yeah. Yes. Oh, and by the way, I found the one that I was looking for. The one that I was looking at was the Net Atmo weather stations. There's a link in the show notes. They're very pretty, and they also have an in-home base station so you can get the air quality in your house as well as outside. Oh, okay. Yeah, but they do have smart rain gauges and smart anemometers as well.

1:08:07Jason DeFillippo:I honestly did not even know any of this stuff existed.

1:08:10Brian Schulmeister:Oh, yeah. There you go.

1:08:14Jason DeFillippo:I opened my window.

1:08:17Brian Schulmeister:No, weather nerdery is a thing. Yeah. I, and, and it can be, I don't know what your situation is, Jason, but it can be a point of contention in my house because I, Luddite that I am, just use Apple's weather app. No, no, no, no. You cannot do that. You cannot do that. That's what I've, yeah. Oh, believe me. I've been told. Yeah. I'm like, oh, it says it's going to rain here in 20 minutes. and my wife goes exactly yeah sure that's what they say yeah see when when it used to be dark sky before apple bought it subsumed it and destroyed it it actually worked unless you were brian who lived on the coast unless you were coastal in which case it never worked but in fun it in surprisingly enough you know i was surrounded by on three sides by water in san francisco and it worked up to the second in san francisco but uh yeah i guess and uh i guess they cared enough in san francisco because they had to get they had to get it right because otherwise they wouldn't have gotten funding but that's true yeah but anyway yeah yeah you have to that's why you have to fine-tune carrot to make sure that you have to do a lot of a b testing to find out which ones work and which ones don't in your area that's why i love carrot because you can change all that stuff that's why i pay for it every year it costs me like 25 bucks a month a year but at least when i say it's gonna rain it's gonna fucking rain you know well yeah at least you got that going for you yeah which is like four times in California so I gotta be I gotta be accurate man it doesn't rain here very often so okay uh have you guys installed iOS 26 yeah about a month

1:09:54Jason DeFillippo:ago yeah yeah about a month ago okay yeah Jason's on the beta program you know yeah I was probably

1:10:00Brian Schulmeister:betas aren't bad now so it's worth it so I was happy to learn that they finally brought crossfading to Apple Music. So it could crossfade from one song to another. And this frustrated me because there were times when I would be doing like an event, right? And I wanted to have some music playing and I wanted to have it crossfade from one song to another in a playlist. And the iOS version of Apple Music just couldn't do that. It just wasn't capable of it. And this is stupid. Why not? This is not anything that's particularly highly processor intensive. We've had this on other things for decades. Anyway, they finally brought it to Apple Music and it sucks.

1:10:46Brian Schulmeister:How do you make crossfading suck? You fade to the next song in the middle of the previous song. Oh, that'll do it. The slider for when the song ends to when it starts is off a bit, you say? But yeah, by a couple minutes sometimes. Oh, my God. And then on top of that, as part of it getting the timing screwed up, you make the crossfade last about 30 seconds. Oh. There's no settings on that? Okay. I have not dug in yet. Okay. I won't check that. Oh, I'm going to. All I know is what happened to me on my drive and the way into work. So I just want to say this is a highly scientific study. a sample size of one uh but it did screw up multiple times so i'm a bit crestfallen i will

1:11:38Jason DeFillippo:have to say uh speaking to the weather nerds as a music nerd uh while you did outlay a good use case for crossfade being the playing i'm playing music at a public event or something like that crossfading fuck that shit you listen to the whole fucking song you listen to the end of the goddamn song and then you listen to the very beginning of the new fucking song and they don't

1:11:58Brian Schulmeister:go over each other god damn it yeah okay okay i'm kind of i'm kind of with brian on that yeah i mean i'm i'm situationally with you i and certainly uh philosophically with you i'm someone who stays till the very end of the movie to watch all the credits whether or not there's an easter egg at the end just out of respect to the people who made the movie okay now dave i'm gonna i'm gonna tell you right now that since this this is a technical podcast uh if you go to settings under your new iOS thing and go to apps and then find music. Under song transitions, there are two styles. One is auto mix.

1:12:37Brian Schulmeister:Songs transition at the perfect moment based on analysis of the key and tempo of the music. Oh, AI. Yes. Or you can select crossfade. And if you select crossfade, there is a crossfade duration slider, which will let you exactly pinpoint down to the second what that crossfade is.

1:12:55Jason DeFillippo:So I don't know if you've noticed, Dave, but Jason's greatest joy in life is fact-checking you in real time. That's what I do best.

1:13:02Brian Schulmeister:Yes. Well, it's not so much that he's right. It's that the rest of us are wrong.

1:13:07Jason DeFillippo:Yeah, actually. Again, that's where the joy is derived from.

1:13:12Brian Schulmeister:That's where it comes from. I don't have a problem with that. All right. I'm in the music thing. Where am I looking here? Is it in Apple Intelligence? No, just go to settings.

1:13:21Jason DeFillippo:Obviously, it's not in intelligence.

1:13:24Brian Schulmeister:Apps. And then it's under music under apps yeah i'm in the musics i don't see crossfade no i told you it wasn't crossfade dave what did you say i said it was where was it now now see i already left smarty pants back to no no no no under song transitions under audio oh there it is C. Oh, automix. All right. Well, stay tuned. Ryan, you forget that my job for a long time was called Solutions Architect. That's what my job was, to find shit in how it works and make it work. Oh, I know you're good at it.

1:14:03Jason DeFillippo:I was just pointing out how much joy you actually get from it.

1:14:06Brian Schulmeister:That's why I hate my job now, because I don't get to do it anymore. Every time I get a chance to, I'm just like tickled pink. I'm like, whee! Like a schoolgirl. Oh, I appreciate it. Hopefully this will do it. Look, now Dave's going to have a much better ride home. That's true. There. That's true.

1:14:22Jason DeFillippo:He'd have a better ride home if he just turned it off. Also probably perhaps true. And listen to the music as the artist fucking intended.

1:14:32Brian Schulmeister:We'll see. If they intended it, then why do they fade the music out at the end?

1:14:38Jason DeFillippo:Because tech ruins everything. Okay.

1:14:42Brian Schulmeister:Have you ever seen a band fade live?

1:14:45Jason DeFillippo:Yes. Yes. Go on. Well, I've listened to a lot of electronic music. It's just – you just – Okay. And then turn it back up. And then the beat drops and everybody goes fucking crazy. The crossfaded, nobody would give a shit.

1:15:00Brian Schulmeister:All right. Okay. Quick follow-up here from last week. Jason, you were asking us if the tariffs had hit us at all. And in the meantime, I saw this article from 404 Media come by that some international sellers are adding absurd shipping prices to things. so that they don't have to deal with American buyers. Interesting. Yep. That's a lot. That's a lot. Yeah. $2 ,000 shipping charge on a$300 lens from Japan. So they're just saying, yeah, we don't want to sell to you. Fuck you is what they're saying. Yeah. They don't want to sell to us. It's fine. Yep. Until we fix our stuff. Yeah. Three and a half years, guys.

1:15:42Brian Schulmeister:Three and a half years. If we're lucky. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. uh i included a link here to a interesting star wars video uh this is an ai deep fakie kind of thing and has to do with obi-wan and darth maul and kwaijan is in there um i i guess this is a

1:16:03Jason DeFillippo:recreation in part of something from star wars rebels yes but they make it look live action in

1:16:10Brian Schulmeister:this case there's definitely some rebels version is much better is that right yes this is ridiculous okay there's some undefinedly lots of uh uncanny valley stuff here but still i'm curious as to how they go about making something like this i i don't know what the tools are that they use to be able to do something consistently from shot to shot i'm not sure how you do that using ai and i don't know what the tool are, what the tools are. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And then finally, have you guys read Born Standing Up by Steve Martin? I have. It's phenomenal. Absolutely phenomenal. Yeah. Fantastic book. So I was interviewing someone about a week ago, a gentleman named Kevin McGee, who is a very high level person at Microsoft in Microsoft Canada, actually, Brian.

1:17:01Brian Schulmeister:So he's on your side of the border. And we were talking about folks coming up through school and getting their jobs and advice for them. And he asked me if I had any advice for the folks coming up. And I said, I always use what Steve Martin said, which is be so good they can't ignore you. And Kevin was tickled by this because he told me that Born Standing Up is a book that he gives to all of his salespeople to read because of how much stand-up comedy is like being a salesperson, right? You have to iterate your pitch. You have to deal with rejection. You have to keep coming back with, you know, and improve and improve.

1:17:49Brian Schulmeister:And eventually you'll figure it out or you won't and perhaps make a career out of it. And I thought that was a really interesting insight. And I think it's a great idea. I think there's a lot for salespeople to learn from the book Born Standing Up. It's a short read, excellent read. So highly recommended. But if you're a salesperson, maybe check it out and get some lessons.

1:18:13Jason DeFillippo:That's just good for life. I don't think you have to be a salesperson. That's great. True.

1:18:17Brian Schulmeister:Yep, definitely. There's also a book by Cal Newport called So Good They Can't Ignore You. Why Skills Trump, Passion and the Quest for Work You Love. It's from 2012. It's a phenomenal book. I think it's his first one that actually hit. But, yeah, really good job. I mean, really good book, not really good job. You can get a really good job if you read the really good book. Right. Steve Martin did a really good job when he was doing stand-up. He did too, yeah. Filled a stadium or two. All right. That's what I got, guys. All right. See you back here next time. Hopefully. Take care. Bye. Closing shout-outs.

1:18:54Brian Schulmeister:over on Patreon, we've got two new subscribers, Jan and Joe. Way to go, Jays. And from the pool of continuing supporters that we like to give credit to every week, we've got Austin, Stephen, Krista, Richard, Andrew, Max, Gadiel, Chad and Jen, Michael and Aaron. Gadiel, I don't know how I... I'm sure I screwed that up. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Don't unsubscribe because I suck at this, please. We love you.

1:19:21Jason DeFillippo:We love you. Thank you so much. Over at PayPal, we've got Natalie, Arcadio, Nathaniel, Linda, Andrew, Brett, and Sloan.

1:19:28Brian Schulmeister:And over at the tip jar, we've got John, Paula, Theodore, and Sean. And just the standard reminder every week, if you want to help support the show, because we are, we are fan-supported only at this point, head over to patreon.com slash GOG, and you can sign up for as little as$3 a month or as much as your little heart desires. You get the show a little bit early and free and in high definition. And if you go to GOG.show slash donate, you can find other ways to help donate to the show. But the Patreon way is the only way to get the show a little bit early, ad free and in high definition.

1:20:03Jason DeFillippo:All right. And we have a new five star rating. If you hate people and love technology, this is the podcast for you. I'm not sure how accurate that is because we hate technology, too.

1:20:13Brian Schulmeister:I still love it. I mean, look, we just spent 10 minutes talking about the weather technology. Come on. All right. We just hate Metis technology. And Googles. And Apples. And never mind. Moving on. Sadly, Robert Redford died this week at age of 89. He had a damn good run. Everybody's talking about all of his greatest hits. But I would like to say my favorite movie of Robert Redford is obviously Sneakers.

1:20:41Jason DeFillippo:I mean, definitely for this show, Sneakers is the one.

1:20:45Brian Schulmeister:Yep. And I wanted to go see how old Sneakers was. it's 33 years old because it came out on September 11th, 1992. When I asked Google, of course, it said it's 32 because math is hard for the AIs. And they fired the wrong team, I guess. Didn't know what date it was, apparently. Nope. Nope. Sure didn't.

1:21:04Jason DeFillippo:And breaking news as of yesterday, relevant to me, all-time Los Angeles Dodgers great Clayton Kershaw has announced he will be retiring at the end of the season. He is one of the greatest pitchers of his generation. The 37-year-old is... I got 37. He retired. My God. is nearing the end of his 18th MLB season, all of which he has spent with the Dodgers. That is so incredibly rare this day and age in any sport that anybody stays with a team through the duration of their career. That's notable in and of itself. He is, of course, a fantastic pitcher. His final regular season start at Dodger Stadium will be today at 10.10 p.m.

1:21:40Jason DeFillippo:for me. I will be watching it, although he is likely to appear in Los Angeles again during the upcoming playoffs because unless something catastrophic happens, the Dodgers should be making it. So yay Kershaw. You know, he deserves all the accolades. Amazing guy.

1:21:55Brian Schulmeister:And this tells you as much as I know about Dodgers baseball. I've never heard of the guy. Never heard of him. Never heard his name once. Until next time, I'm Jason DeFillippo because I've heard of my name.

1:22:07Jason DeFillippo:And I'm Brian Schulmeister. Thanks for listening to Grumpy Old Geeks. Get all the links and goodies from today's episode at GOG.show slash 714. Also my childhood area code. Want to keep the grumpiness alive? Toss us a few bucks at gog.show slash donate. Every penny helps keep the show on the air and we are entirely fan supported. Love the show? Share it. There's a share button on your podcast player. Use it to spread the grumpiness to friends, foes, and weather nerds. We'll love you for it. Swing by gog.show to join our Discord and chat with us and other show fans. Got thoughts, feedback, cool links?

1:22:37Jason DeFillippo:Hit us up at gog.show slash contact. And don't forget to leave a five star review at gog.show slash review and we'll read it on the show. and we've got merch snack grumpy gear now at shop.gog.show and stay grumpy you do know in fourth grade that i was voted most likely to become a meteorologist

1:22:59Brian Schulmeister:i thought it would be most likely to be a pain in the ass