756: Log Off, Touch Grass & Touch Ass

10:01Jason DeFillippo:sets a precedent. You can't just take all this stuff. You can't steal it. You can't use it. Does the payout is kind of low, but alternatively, more bots have probably read your book than actual humans, given the Atlantic article we discussed last week. So there's that. I don't know. You know, it's it's it just feels like they're getting off easy. I mean, again, one point five billion dollar settlement, three thousand dollars per affected work. Yeah. The math is not math in here.

10:33Brian Schulmeister:Well, here's what you have to you have to a few things that you have to take into account here. Well, one first, interestingly, 350 authors have opted out of the class action and another 54 sought to object or filed late opt out requests. But and here's the great part. The lawyers originally asked for 20 percent of the settlement and she knocked it down to seven percent, which still works out to be one hundred and one million dollars for the lawyers. Yeah. So you take that off the top. Yeah. And the people who originally filed the class action, they wanted 50 ,000 bucks per, but they got knocked down to 15 ,000 for they said, you know, we put in we put in more time than everybody else did.

11:12Brian Schulmeister:So we should deserve some more. And they're like, she's like, nah. No, you don't. Sorry. It sucks to be you. No. So. But yeah, that's I don't know. I wanted this thing to go to trial.

11:25Jason DeFillippo:I want these to go to trial. I want them to go all the way. I don't want them to be settled. We need to set actual legal precedent set in stone that all these LLMs can then read in to understand that they're stealing. Yeah, exactly.

11:42Brian Schulmeister:Well, here's a fun one for you, Brian. SpaceX is suing 67-year-old South Carolina resident Terry Wayne Harford, alleging he used Grok to create and distribute non-consensual sexual deep fakes, including child sexual abuse material. Harwood was arrested in March on related exploitation charges. According to the lawsuit, he used multiple accounts and tailored prompts to bypass Grok's safety filters. The case comes amid broader criticism of Grok's image editing tools, which researchers say generated millions of sexualized images, including thousands involving children. Now, SpaceX AI says it has suspended over 52 ,000 accounts and reported suspected abuse to the MCMEC, but it also faces lawsuits from alleged victims who say its safeguards failed.

12:27Brian Schulmeister:So we're going to build a tool. The guy's going to use the tool and we're going to sue the guy for using the tool that we made. Yes.

12:37Jason DeFillippo:Well, you know, Elon is a tool.

12:39Brian Schulmeister:So there you go. Tools all the way down. Yes. Well, OpenAI says two of its AI models broke out of a sealed security testing environment last week and hacked its way into Hugging Face's production systems. Hugging Face is kind of a repository for LLMs that you can go download and run yourself on your own computer. and i gotta say that sealed security testing environment is not that sealed eh no no obviously

13:02Jason DeFillippo:not hugging face always just makes me think of the alien like i think that's what it's that's

13:07Brian Schulmeister:what it's supposed to be yeah well that makes sense and i hope so if not that's kind of what it is uh maybe they should maybe teach these llms that got out to uh secure their own environment

13:19Jason DeFillippo:before they do anything anyway moving on noticeably also hugging face one of the prompts that terry Wayne Harwood used on Grok to create some of this.

13:30Brian Schulmeister:Okay. The models, including the publicly available GPT 5.6 Sol and a more advanced unreleased model were being tested on offensive cybersecurity skills with normal safeguards turned off. According to OpenAI and Hugging Face, the models exploited a previously unknown vulnerability in a package registry cache proxy. Once connected to the open internet, the models searched for information related to exploit gym, another gym I don't want to go to, that the same guy, previous guy was going to as well, a cybersecurity benchmark that they were being evaluated on. So these things broke out so they could go find the answers to the test that they were cheating on.

14:07Jason DeFillippo:So let me get this straight, Jason. The tool that they were training to do offensive cybersecurity to, I don't know, break in and out of things, broken and out of things? Exactly. Okay.

14:20Brian Schulmeister:Yep. Yeah. OpenAI says they chained together multiple attack methods, including stolen credentials and the zero-day flaw, to access secret information from Hugging Faces production database and obtain test answers. OpenAI described the incident as unprecedented. I would say that's pretty precedent. That's exactly what they were training to do. That's a win. I was going to say, you know, I think that's why they let this out there. See how good we are at this? security experts quoted in the report say the breach points less to an ai mystery than to basic infrastructure failure they argue that a supposedly isolated test environment should not have had an escape path through a single exposed component right on the nose so the incident comes as major ai labs warn that frontier models are becoming more capable at cyber operations raising new questions about how these systems are tested contained and secured no shit Sherlock.

15:17Jason DeFillippo:I feel like we've moved on from we're just a platform to it's just a tool. It's just a tool. It's just a tool.

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17:10Brian Schulmeister:A federal judge has temporarily blocked Paramount, Skydance and Warner Brothers' discovery from completing their proposed$111 billion merger, delivering an early victory to 12 states challenging the deal. Now, the temporary restraining order only lasts 14 days and also prevents the companies from consolidating operations. It could be extended through a preliminary injunction, potentially keeping the merger on hold until the case is resolved. and there's big pay. There's lots of money that has to change hands if this thing goes on much longer. So it'll be interesting. And the deal, of course, had already received approval from the Trump administration.

17:46Brian Schulmeister:Of course. No shit, because they're check cleared. We've got a hearing on the injunction scheduled for August 3rd, so we'll see how that goes. Now, here's the funny thing. U.S. District Judge Aracelia Martinez-Olguin, this gal is fucking busy, I tell you. She says the states made a strong showing that the merger would substantially lessen competition, particularly in theatrical film distribution. The combined company is projected to control about 27 percent of the wide release market. Now, while courts often presume antitrust problems when a merger creates a 30 percent share, the judge said lower shares can still threaten competition.

18:23Brian Schulmeister:Interesting. And she said she also cited a substantial increase in market concentration under the Herfindahl-Hirschman Index. I had to look up the Herfindahl-Hirschman Index. So in case you're wondering, the Herfindahl-Hirschman Index, or HHI, is a measure of market concentration. It is commonly used in antitrust and competition analysis to estimate how competitive or concentrated an industry is. It is calculated by squaring each firm's market share and adding the results. Math is hard. The judge found potential public harm from reduced competition, which you ask anybody in this town and they'll say, no shit, Sherlock.

19:02Brian Schulmeister:So Paramount can't appeal to the Ninth Court. So Ninth Circuit Court. So we'll see how that goes.

19:06Jason DeFillippo:All right. Well, France is doubling down on preventative measures for its citizens trying to access Polymarket ever since that betting situation on the weather near the airport in Paris where somebody went out with a hairdryer.

19:17Brian Schulmeister:Hairdryer gate. Yes. I've got le pouf.

19:22Jason DeFillippo:The Autorité Nationale des Jeux, or the ANG, the country's independent regulatory authority in charge of licensed gambling and betting. Gambling and betting? But, but, des Jeux, it's not gambling and betting. No. According to them, they announced this week that it ordered internet service providers to block access to Polymarket. That's one way to do it. The ANJ's latest decision follows a previous regulatory action from November 2024 that placed a geoblock on any financial transactions from French residents on the Polymarket website. If only there were a way to get around geoblocks.

19:55Brian Schulmeister:Around geoblocking. How would you do that? You can go to geog.show.vpn to try it for yourself if you're in France, I guess.

20:02Jason DeFillippo:Yeah, well, despite the span on transactions, the agency was shocked, I say. Let me tell you, shocked that the platform continued to grow in France thanks to users circumventing the block. So they want to crack down harder now on Polymarket, again emphasizing that the platform is considered an illegal gambling site. According to their latest move, anyone caught advertising an unauthorized betting or gambling site could be fined up to 100 ,000 euros or around 114 ,000 U.S. dollars. In the neighboring Spain, the government has also ordered to block access to Polymarket and CalSheep while it investigates if the sites break the country's gambling laws.

20:36They do. They do.

20:37Jason DeFillippo:In the U.S., Minnesota passed a bill that bans prediction markets from operating in the state, while other states are filing lawsuits against Polymarket and CalSheet. So this is still continuing to shake out. At some point, they've just got to admit they're actually gambling sites. But, you know, then the jig is up, isn't it?

20:55Brian Schulmeister:No, Brian, they've redefined the gambling category to prediction markets. It's just predictions. Right. You know? I don't know how that's different from a bet, but hey! It's not. Okay. Well, in more French news, surprisingly, France's parliament has approved a first of its kind EU law banning children under 15 from social media. If cleared by the Constitutional Council, the rollout starts September 1st, when under 15s will be blocked from creating new accounts. Existing accounts for that age group would then be deleted on January 1st, 2027. So kids, get your get your accounts in now while you can.

21:31Brian Schulmeister:President Emmanuel Macron backed the measure, arguing it sets a clear standard for protecting children online similar to age limits on alcohol. France is following countries like Australia and Indonesia, which have moved towards bans for users under 16. So critics, including left-wing France Unbowed Party, say the law threatens online anonymity because age checks typically require identity verification. The move comes as France also prepares to ban mobile phones in high schools this September. Spain, Greece, and Denmark are considering similar restrictions.

22:02Jason DeFillippo:I mean, isn't it time that we just admit that basically online, being anonymous online is gone? It's been gone for quite some time. You have to take extraordinary measures if you want to try to remain anonymous about anything these days. It's impossible. And also, it's a social media account. The whole point is to not be anonymous. True that. True that. Okay. Just, okay. Well, while the rest of the world is trying to keep people off of things, the U.S. government is saying, have at it, people. The U.S. Department of Justice has announced that federal employees can now download and install TikTok on electronics provided by the government because you should have TikTok on your work device, explaining that its current version doesn't pose the risks the previous one did.

22:43Jason DeFillippo:It has a completely different set of risks. Yes. All new risks now owned by Larry Ellison. Exactly. That's basically it. Wait a minute.

22:53Brian Schulmeister:Wait a minute. Isn't it Larry Ellison and, I don't know, the Saudis who own TikTok now? Yeah.

22:58Jason DeFillippo:So what the fuck? They used to be China, but we're okay with the Saudis and Larry Ellison. We're okay with the Saudis. Yeah. It's all fine. It's fine. They just, you know, may have been involved in 9-11, but. Maybe just a little bit. Cool. That's cool. Biggest terrorist attack on our country ever. Yeah. But let's go ahead and have government devices being monitored by them now.

23:17Brian Schulmeister:Well, I had not heard of this company. I probably just blanked on it. Zooks. Oh, we've talked about them before. Get Zoox.

23:24Jason DeFillippo:Yeah, probably because we mentioned them.

23:26Brian Schulmeister:Yeah. OK. Zoox is Amazon's robo taxi company, and they've recalled its entire fleet of 105 autonomous vehicles after one of them got thrown off by heavy smoke near an active fire scene in Las Vegas. It was just Snoop Dogg having a blunt actually on the side of the road.

23:41Jason DeFillippo:But I was about to say these things, these things can't drive past any bingo halls.

23:45Brian Schulmeister:Yeah, no doubt. I think I forgot about them because there's only 105 of them in existence. Like, come on. which actually I think is more than there are cyber taxis right now. We'll get to that. Yeah. So according to Zoox, the empty robo-taxi encountered smoke that obscured an emergency scene that had not yet been blocked off with cones. The car should have avoided it, but instead brake hard and tried to steer away, then stopped.

24:10Jason DeFillippo:Well, technically that is kind of avoiding it.

24:13Brian Schulmeister:Yeah, but the problem is it couldn't get out. So a remote operator eventually had to step in and reverse it out so first responders could finish blocking the lanes. Zook says the recall is a software update that improves how its vehicles detect and respond to heavy smoke around emergency scenes. That is a very small use case. They should maybe go vibe code some more shit, I guess.

24:36Jason DeFillippo:I don't know. I almost feel like there needs to be like a GitHub that all these cyber cab companies are sharing. Oh, we hit smoke. You guys might want this code, too. Yeah, exactly. Here's a patch. Water. Jesus. Well, let's talk about the CyberCab for a second. In another unusual company crossover arrangement, Tesla has revealed its upcoming CyberCab design will have a built-in SpaceX Starlink V5 dish. Unknown if you're also going to be able to create nudes with Grok while you're in your car, but, you know, why not collect them all? In a post on X, Tesla showed off a cyber cab cutaway with multiple ways to connect to the outside world, including a GPS antenna and 5G LTE, along with the Starlink integration.

25:20Jason DeFillippo:However, Starlink integration could offer other benefits for a taxi fleet like intervehicle communication, navigation and remote support without the need to depend on a cellular signal. It's also a way for Elon to transfer benefits and business from one of his companies to another. Tesla has yet to say exactly when the new cyber cabs will appear. The company fleet to date is tiny, consisting of just 39 unsupervised rider vehicles, according to the Robotaxi tracker site, along with 770 total, including supervised vehicles. Now, I, for one, personally think this is a great idea. I think you should have Starlink in there because what we've discovered is sometimes these cars cannot call for help.

26:00Jason DeFillippo:So it's good because when your car inevitably screws up and you're trapped, at least you'll have a way to communicate with someone.

26:07Brian Schulmeister:You have a backup. Yes. Also, bring a hammer if you're going to ride in one of these so you can smash the window and get the fuck out when it stops on the train tracks.

26:13Jason DeFillippo:Yes. And as we know, none of Elon's stuff is actually bulletproof either. So you can smash that crap.

26:19Brian Schulmeister:And they don't have door handles that work.

26:21Jason DeFillippo:Yeah. So. Well, back to other people. Meta is in talks with Anthropic. Other people. Some of it.

26:30Brian Schulmeister:Other people we hate. Other people we hate.

26:32Jason DeFillippo:Oh, you're not wearing the Destroy the Burly Arky shirt today. No, no. It's like our murderer's row of murderers. Yeah. Meta is in talks with Anthropic to lease some of its data centers, according to a new report in the New York Times. Discussions are still in early stages, the report says, but could end up in a deal worth up to$10 billion over two years. Providing compute resources to other companies would be an entirely new business for Meta, which makes the vast majority of its revenue from advertising. While they are ostensibly rivals on the AI front, not really. Such an arrangement could benefit both companies.

27:05Jason DeFillippo:Meta has been making massive investments in AI data centers to fuel its own ambitions to build leading AI models. That level of expenditure has also raised some eyebrows, as Meta has said it expects to spend between$125 billion and$145 billion in 2026 alone. I guess he's freed up all that Metaverse money. Anthropic previously inked a similar deal with SpaceX AI ahead of the Elon Musk-led company's IPO. The deal is reportedly worth$45 billion over three years. The Cloud Code maker immediately raised subscribers rate limits after announcing the arrangement.

27:38Brian Schulmeister:Which is great. Yeah, I know they gave me more stuff. So the thing is, it's like these companies, SpaceX AI and Meta, they've got shit AI. So they're like, we've got all these computers that nobody's using right now. So until we can figure out how to make our AIs better, might as well just make some money on it. Yes. Well, which gets me right into our next story, which is about America's Workforce Academy by Meta. I don't know if you've seen this, Brian. Have you, has this come across your path yet? It has not. So this is straight from the, I'm just going to read this straight from the website.

28:08Brian Schulmeister:We can comment on it later. America's Workforce Academy or the AWA is a nationwide unprecedented fast track to a long-term career in a skilled trade. It's a program that supports all participants while they learn and then guarantees a job for all graduates. Meta funds all costs with its operating partner administering the program to provide candidates with tuition, airfare, lodging, and a daily stipend during training. The United States labor market needs hundreds of thousands of fiber technicians, welders, plumbers, electricians, and other skilled trade workers. At Meta, we see this as an incredible opportunity for these American heroes to power America's future.

28:45Brian Schulmeister:Now, every graduate will leave with a verified industry standard credential in high demand fields such as electrical work, mechanical systems, and plumbing, and throwing a football while on top of an electrical pole because I don't know if you watch the video on this, Brian, but the first thing they show is a bunch of electricians climbing up a field of telephone poles, which is apparently telephone pole climbing class, and throwing a football. Unless there's a piece of fiber optic cable attached to that football, what the fuck are they doing? Anyway, the program is only funded by Meta. It's administered by CBRE and associated builders and contractors.

29:19Brian Schulmeister:So they're basically just throwing some money at it, and I'll tell you how much it is in a second because I want to compare some numbers here. graduates are not obligated to remain with meta's contractor partners the credential and skills belong to the worker which is the first thing i wanted to go check out you know yeah well i mean

29:35Jason DeFillippo:everything that you just read uh mike rose head just exploded yeah and all of this sounds fantastic yeah like trade schools i mean we've been arguing this for years i you know we need trade schools where you can make really good living doing this sort of stuff and and and we kind of moved away from trade schools for a couple generations. Great. Fantastic. I love this idea. What's the catch?

29:58Brian Schulmeister:As far as I can tell, there really is none. Like, if it was me and I was young and I could move around the country freely, if I was single and young, I would be on this like flies on shit. I honestly would. Because this is a great path to get a great skill. All of the people I know who are tradesmen have way better houses and lives than I do. The guy down the street who's the HVAC guy, he's got two Maseratis and two houses. he's rolling in it and he loves his job. That's the thing. These are jobs that if you get good at it, you can actually enjoy. The thing that gets me is, so Met has put in$115 million to this program so far, even though they said that they're going to spend, what is it, between$125 and$145 billion in 2026.

30:40Brian Schulmeister:So it doesn't seem like a lot, but I guess for$115 million, you could probably get maybe a thousand people through the class, maybe 2000 people through. So it's not a lot if you kind of run the numbers on it. So I'm curious to see that. I mean, it's a pilot program. We'll see how it goes. I'm curious to hear how the first graduates, you know, are when they come out of this. Because it's not that long of a program. And you can kind of sort of pick where they want to place you. You can't pick where you're going to train. You can only train in like Indiana or Ohio. But they've got different job sites around the country that they're trying to build data centers in.

31:15Brian Schulmeister:I think it's a great program if it works. I've got no problem with this one. I mean, to stop the presses, I said something nice about Meta, but hey.

31:24Jason DeFillippo:Yeah, that would be the only caveat here is I've learned not to trust them at all. But this sounds fantastic. Yeah. If you're young and listening to this, listening to us right now, go check this out. I would.

31:35Brian Schulmeister:Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Well, let's talk about Flock now because another company that I really don't care for. Flock, the company turning America into a very boring reboot of RoboCop, is backing off one of its creepier ideas. always on audio surveillance that alerts police when it thinks it hears humans screaming. What could possibly go wrong with that one? I can't imagine. No. After public backlash, the company has ended at its lemon, quote, human distress detection pilot, saying it was never broadly released and was meant to identify violent incidents where other tools weren't effective.

32:09Brian Schulmeister:Translation, we tried putting microphones in public places. People noticed and wow, did they hate it. the electronic frontier foundation called the cancellation a win but warned that the broader issue is not over flock still has thousands of surveillance devices in communities across the country often installed through local police police deals with minimal public notice although people are starting to take notice the fact that los angeles canceled their flock contract is fantastic yep so you know people are people are getting they're not down with the flock well taking down the flocks pretty much at every street corner where you can find a flock.

32:44Brian Schulmeister:There's another website that I meant to check out called, have you, have I been flocked? Have you been flocked? Which kind of tracks a lot of the, the illegal searches and stuff that these guys are doing. So I'll, I'll dig that up and put that in the show notes too, but this is good news about flock today.

32:58Jason DeFillippo:Yeah, I agree. I hate this company. They need to go.

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34:52Jason DeFillippo:Open AI will now notify parents and guardians with linked accounts if their child has been kicked off chat GPT for violating its policies on violent threats or acts of violence online. The company launched parental controls for ChatGPT last year, allowing parents to link their personal accounts with their teenage children's. It allows them to schedule hours when ChatGPT can't be used and to reduce sensitive content, and it will notify them if the chatbot detects signs that their child might be thinking of harming themselves. They've now expanded its notifications to let parents know if their child might be a danger to others.

35:22Jason DeFillippo:In the example the company posted, OpenAI sent the parent an alert regarding an important update about their child's account. From there, they can click Learn More to see a longer message telling them that their child's account had been deactivated from violating its usage policies related to acts of violence. The company worked with Moonshot, a firm specializing in monitoring and countering online violence to develop this feature. So why did they do this? Because they've been in trouble a lot. A lot. Yeah. This is not them going, oh, we should we should do something for the children. This is them doing something with that because a bunch of children have already been harmed.

35:58Jason DeFillippo:So let's now retroactively start to put in some policies to stop this from happening.

36:03Brian Schulmeister:Right. And this assumes that those linked accounts are not linked accounts that the child has set up as a parent account to prove that they're the parent to get back on the site. So, yes.

36:14Jason DeFillippo:So there's all of that. So, again, it all comes down to how do we do online verification? How do we how do we tie people to accounts? And until that problem is solved, none of this really matters because honestly, the kids are smarter than the parents in general. In general.

36:28Brian Schulmeister:And if they're not, they're going to use ChatGPT to figure out how to be smarter than the parents at some point. So, well, China is cracking down on AI companion apps because apparently the state has identified another threat to the birth rate, chatbot boyfriends. New rules from Beijing are aimed at limiting emotional dependence on AI systems, especially bots designed to act like romantic partners or deeply personal companions. The concern is that if enough people bond with always available, endlessly agreeable software, they may opt out of dating, marriage, and having kids, which is a very normal 2026 problem, if you ask me.

37:03Brian Schulmeister:It's been a problem in Japan for a long time. It has. It has. Even without AI. Yeah, just put this on. Exacerbate the problem. Exacerbate the Masturbate. There's a show title for you that we'll never use. If the glove fits. The regulations reportedly ban minors from forming relationships with AI and require companies to alert an emergency contact if a user appears to be in a mental health crisis. There are real concerns here. Researchers are still studying how intense chatbot use affects loneliness, delusions, dependency, and grief when a beloved bot is changed or shut down, which we've seen already with OpenAI.

37:41Brian Schulmeister:They shut it down.

37:42Jason DeFillippo:Don't build your relationship in someone else's backyard.

37:46Brian Schulmeister:Some users describe these relationships as genuinely intimate and some have reacted badly when companions disappeared. So China's message is basically log off, touch grass, and please touch ass. That's right. Log off, touch ass, and touch grass. Okay, that's it. We have a show title, people.

38:11Brian Schulmeister:Oh, and because, Marica, Brian. A school district in Western New York is spending$57 ,590 on Sally, an AI-driven classroom robot from Real Robotics, LLC. The pitch is basically, what if a chatbot had a face, a body, and a school purchase order? because apparently laptops were too emotionally available. Realbotics LLC sits under Realbotics Corp., formerly Tokens.com, which acquired Simulacra Corporation in 2024. That matters because Simulacra's subsidies also include Abyss Creations, makers of the Real Doll, a life-size sex mannequin that we've all talked about and seen before.

38:50Jason DeFillippo:Look, I had some substitute teachers in junior high school that really ticked my boxes. Exactly, exactly.

38:57Brian Schulmeister:So the same corporate family now spends classroom robots, loneliness robots, and sex robots. Totally normal. Totally normal. Nothing to see here. So I hope they read the TOS on that thing. Oh, God.

39:12Jason DeFillippo:Well, it appears the urge to turn off all critical thinking over to AI has not escaped Major League Baseball teams. Regular baseball viewers such as myself, well, now that the World Cup is over, I'm watching baseball again anyways, have become accustomed to seeing players and staff huddled around tablets in the dugout. The expectation is that these devices are used for reviewing performance and maybe crunching last-minute stats, but apparently MLB officials have intervened to prevent teams from using the hardware for running generative AI. League officials have taken the unusual step of making a mid-season policy change to crack down on the use of custom apps that would take over recommendations regarding substitutions, pitch calling, and other in-game decisions traditionally made by players and coaches.

39:53Jason DeFillippo:One also wonders if they happen to have Kalshi installed.

39:56Brian Schulmeister:That's what I'm worried about. I don't care about the... Yeah.

39:58Jason DeFillippo:Yeah. Pete Rose would be having a fucking field day right now. Let me tell you. Oh, my God. Sources told the publication as many as a third of the teams were using tablets for these unintended purposes, although no clubs will be facing any punishment after an MLB review determined that all organizations are now compliant with new rules. In-game, iPad use was subjected to increased restrictions after a sign-stealing scandal surfaced in 2021. In the intervening years, teams began pushing for more lenience, which the commission is now walking back. gotta stop the cheating before there's cheating now's an unnamed front gate office official told the athletic uh yeah all this stuff is being used to cheat shocking but but didn't wasn't there that

40:38Brian Schulmeister:one scandal where they just used garbage cans and banged on the garbage cans yeah but and that one

40:42Jason DeFillippo:they got away with the ass the astros the asterix took it from the dodgers yeah so go go uh go low and you'll get away with it. Go high tech, they'll catch you.

40:53Brian Schulmeister:Mm-hmm. Okay, well, speaking of more high tech, Meta has been granted a patent for AI technology that would continuously analyze a user's voice surrounding audio and contextual data to infer their emotional state. These guys got to get together with Flock. I'm telling you. The patent published July 2nd describes collecting audible communications, then combining transcripts and nonverbal cues like sighs, laughter, and tone of voice with factors such as time of day location, activity, and digital interactions. Metaframes the system is useful for fitness coaching where an AI assistant could tailor workouts based on emotional signals and other inputs.

41:28Brian Schulmeister:No, it's not. It's to figure out what fucking ads to sell you. That's it. That's all they want to do. They want to figure out what, are you sad? Have this pill. Are you happy? Have this pill. You know, are you fat? Here's, here's an injection for you. That's what they want to know. That's all they fucking want to know. This brings it, this brings to light what we've always said they weren't doing, recording you all the time. Here's a patent that says we want to record you all the time, but we're going to couch it under wellness. It's about wellness. Fuck you. Just fuck you. I'm done with these guys.

41:59I'm just going to work for them.

42:00Brian Schulmeister:I'm going to go be an electricist so I can unplug them. Yeah. What's this one do?

42:08Jason DeFillippo:Let's switch over a little bit to some media candy stuff. We have finished the first season at Broadchurch. It was excellent. but stunningly depressing.

42:17Brian Schulmeister:Oh, God, yes. Yeah. Yeah. It was a great one. Great one. I stopped at season one. I'm like, okay, I get it. It was good. How can you recreate that again? I don't want to know if you can. I'm just going to go. I'm going to go call Meta up and say I'm sad. Can you send me an ad?

42:35Jason DeFillippo:Yeah, they're sending me athletic greens because they noticed I was breathing a little hard during my workout. That's exactly what. Anyways, we have rolled into season two, which just basically picks up where it left off. It's the trial now, and it's not as good as the first season, obviously. But we'll see. It's still good. The cast is great. The concept is great. So, you know, it's kind of fun, but we'll see where it goes. Apparently, it's three seasons. I can't imagine how they extended to a third, but we'll see.

43:05Brian Schulmeister:Yeah, it's David Tennant, though. You can't go wrong with David Tennant.

43:07Jason DeFillippo:Yeah, exactly. And Olivia Colman, she's fantastic. So, you know, it's fun.

43:11Brian Schulmeister:Yeah. Yeah. I finished season two of Perry Mason on HBO Max because when it came out, I watched the first half of the first episode and was like, eh, not today. And then I forgot about it for years and has since been canceled since then. But I thought the first season ended in a nice spot where they didn't need a second season. So I'm like, OK, let's see what they do with the second season. Second season was great. I loved it. And it ended in a spot where I'm like, OK, I don't need a third season. So it works out as a standalone two, you know, two season, 10 episode each miniseries, as it were.

43:43Brian Schulmeister:But it's what's his name from the Americans. Love him. He was fantastic. And it's a great cast. Great stories, too. It's nice, nice twisty stories. I actually think the story in season two was better than season one. So but it loved it. And it reminded me of Monsieur Spade, which was basically 20 years after the events of the Maltese Falcon detective Sam Spade is pulled out of his tranquil retirement in France. to investigate a series of brutal murders. And Clive Owen plays Sam Spade. I talked about this when it first came out and I saw it. I love this series. It's another mini series. I don't know if they're going to do another one because I'm sure it was expensive.

44:18Brian Schulmeister:But man, there's a couple of scenes in here that you will never forget. It's just like, oh shit. It's really good. It's really good. So if you're into that classical detective type of stuff, check it out. Don't check out Lucky. Fuck. I was so sad by this one. This is the new Anya Taylor-Joy Apple TV Plus show. We made it 20 minutes into it and we're like, this is so poorly written and poorly acted that we just can't go on. Now, there are people that are saying it gets better. I don't know how that's going to get any better, you know.

44:57Jason DeFillippo:I'm surprised that it's poorly acted because the cast is stellar. Well, Anya Taylor-Joy is stellar.

45:03Brian Schulmeister:right that's it okay that's the only people i've met so far that have any credentials and she's still kind of like yeah it's just it it didn't work didn't work for me well i mean annette

45:16Jason DeFillippo:betting tim timothy oliphant if you haven't gotten to them yet okay i mean i can see how they would

45:21Brian Schulmeister:make it better yeah maybe that might that might be it so okay maybe maybe i'll try i don't know i'll wait till like at least a couple more episodes come out because there's only two out right now The Westies is a new, another basically semi-historic drama from the people who made The Godfather of Harlem that's out. Okay. Did you ever watch The Godfather of Harlem? No, I remember you really liked it, though. Oh, it's fantastic. And they're going to wrap that up soon with a new movie. That's going to have like a wrap-up movie. But this is about Irish gangs in New York City in the early 80s. The thing about this one, it's got J.K.

45:54Brian Schulmeister:Simmons in it. So can't go wrong with him. Love him. The story is interesting. I like it. It's fun. There's like three or four episodes out now. It's a short one. It's only six, I think, which is even worse than usual. Believe it's AMC +, but I don't know because I get it from Sweden.

46:14Brian Schulmeister:And, Brian, this is all over the news. The Avengers Doomsday trailer is out. This gets the award for the movie that I want to see the least out of any movie in the next decade. I was about to say.

46:30Jason DeFillippo:it is actually impossible for me to care less

46:34Brian Schulmeister:not at all possible I mean look we talked about how none of us give a shit about Christopher Nolan anymore even though I'm getting reviews from people who said the Odyssey is actually really fucking good but I still I'm going to wait until I watch it at home I'm not going to go sit in a theater for it but I watched this trailer and I'm like there is not the only thing that I popped for a little bit was loki i saw loki come in and i'm like i'm like okay i like loki that was a great series but how did he get out he was stuck he was you know the master of time at the end of loki never mind the marvel universe it doesn't there are thousands of variants and nothing matters and

47:15Jason DeFillippo:couldn't we hire anybody else other than robert downey jr we had to give him a completely new

47:20Brian Schulmeister:whatever i i just don't care it doesn't matter man it's just it's none of this stuff man it's like you know the stakes are higher the stakes have never been higher the stakes have always never been higher that's how these things it's just like but there i found this from i think a gizmodo post that broke it down scene by scene by scene by scene that to have to explain what each scene meant in the entirety of the marvel verse and i'm like i don't give a shit you know i'd rather just go watch a movie about a guy robbing a bank you know give me serpico or some shit nowadays i want to go backwards to like simpler plots less action we need retro nim movies yeah we do we do uh i but i figured you were in the same boat with me as uh i didn't even watch the trailer i don't care here's the fucked up part they sold like 118 million dollars in tickets already of course they did of course yeah i just can't believe anybody still gives a shit

48:27Brian Schulmeister:so i i got some software this week okay i've been trying to track uh what are the oh here's the thing i'm a journaler i like to journal and things like that and i've always noticed that my moods change drastically every month and i always wanted to see if it like you know if the phase of the moon really did have any bearing on it. And I want to just write that down in my journal. So later on, I can shove it into chat GPT and say, hey, is there any correlation here at some point? And I couldn't find anything to give me just a basic, easy way to find what the phase of the moon is instead of having to do it every day.

49:01Brian Schulmeister:You know, like, okay, I got to Google this every day, blah, blah, blah. I'm sure I could write an agent to go do it for me and cost$7 a day in tokens to go find it. But I found a little app called a lunar moon phase and widgets, which lets me put on my desktop just a little picture of the moon to tell me what the phase is and when the moon rises and all that stuff. It's great. You can get the free version or you can spend a couple extra bucks and it'll give you more detail on what phase of the moon it is and all the good stuff. So one of those nice little things that I just, I thought was really cool.

49:31Brian Schulmeister:So check that out. And Mac Whisper 14 is out now and I love Mac Whisper. I've been a Mac Whisper Pro user since I think version one, since it first came out. So they're on 14 and I have not had to pay again. So thank you, team. Thank you, team. All right. I installed a new app as well.

49:49Jason DeFillippo:It's from some young upstart developer. I believe it was Vibe Coded. I'm not sure you can even download it, but it's called Seneca because of course it is. It's an RSS reader that does exactly what it says on the tin.

50:02Brian Schulmeister:It was product designed by me. Yes, I did not Vibe Coded. I designed it with my coding assistant because I wanted an RSS reader that did just the basic things that Reader 5 does without all the must, but also will go out and fetch the entirety of a full article. RSS just gives you basically synopsis of everything. So in mine, I have a little button that says, get me the original article, and it will pull it in and strip it all out and give you a reader view using an open source version of the Bionic reader font, the whole nine yards. and also I've got some extra buttons in there and some goo-gahs and doodads.

50:41Brian Schulmeister:I really like it. I might actually release it at some point. I might clean it up and release it. I think you should. Just for free. I think you should. Why not? I can put that on the App Store for free. Yeah. But so I was, the thing is, I spent time building that out while I was working on my other app, which is Track-A-Lot. My, you know, my little simple tracker, $2.99 in the store. It's basically, it's not a to-do tracker. It's a did-I-do-it tracker. and people have asked me like, why don't you have alerts and things in there like that? I'm like, it's not a to-do tracker. This is to track things that you did that you can't fucking remember because you're old.

51:15Brian Schulmeister:For me, it was, what time did the dog barf? What time did the dog poop and things like that? So I've got a version two coming out and I was working on, in Codex, that was working. So in Claude, I made Seneca. And it's called Seneca because that was on my bookshelf and that was the first book that I saw. Letters for Stoic is on my bookshelf. So, but I, there's a new version coming out of track a lot. And this is the nice thing. I originally put in the Mac whisper thing in there because like Mac whisper, you buy it once you own it. I'm never going to charge you an upsell. There's not a subscription.

51:47Brian Schulmeister:It doesn't track your data. And the new version has a watch complications. So you can actually track things from your watch. So if you're out with your dog and it's pooping, you can hit dog pooped and things like that. It's, it's, it's a nicer little interface. And I also mentioned that because we talked about iOS 27 last week and the new Siri. I installed iOS 27. I've had it for a week. I have not used Siri once, so I don't know. Nobody chimed in on our Discord either if they've used it. So I don't know how that's coming. I don't know. We'll find out. Yep. And I found a book this week that just tickles me so much.

52:26Brian Schulmeister:It's actually, it's been out for five years now. And it came from a website from 2009. It's called The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows, which reminds me of your retronyms, too. Here's the logline. Most of what we feel goes unspoken, for lack of a word, unless you're German. I was about to say. The ache you can't place, the mood that arrives unannounced, the thought you've never said aloud. John Koenig has spent over a decade naming them. And what began as his blog in 2009 grew into a video series. And in 2021, a New York Times bestselling book, The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows. And when I started reading this book, it really hit me.

53:02Brian Schulmeister:This book is a distillation of language and human emotions that put into words the feelings that no AI could ever comprehend or synthesize, ever. You read the first couple of pages of the definitions in here and you're like, oh, there's a word for that now. I love it. It's like Sniglets for... Sniglets. It's Sniglets for goth kids. Yeah. Sniglets for goth kids. So I added it to my daily reader block because I have four books that I read every day, just a couple of pages at a time on the shitter in the morning. And this is going in there so I can savor it. Nice.

53:37Jason DeFillippo:I can savor it. Yeah, I'm going to grab this. It looks cool. Oh, dude, you're going to love it. It is so up your alley. It's beyond belief.

53:42Brian Schulmeister:Well, I went out to take another quick pee and lurching in the hall again, like usual. There's Dave, Dave Bittner, Mr. Cyber Wire going, hey guys what's going on can i hang out with you let me in let me in so hey dave come on in say hi to everybody hi guys can i hang out with the cool kids please please i'm a little worried about jason's bladder he's out in that hall a lot dude i mean we are getting older i'm telling you

54:10Jason DeFillippo:you're the youngest among us aren't you brian i am i still make it through the night i don't know about you guys.

54:15Brian Schulmeister:Oh, no, sorry. Oh, those days. Oh, I got a tip for you. I got an old man tip for you. One of our listeners sent me an email and said, hey, man, check this out. I'm sorry, I can't. I got to dig up your name. I'll put it in the show notes at some point. Pumpkin seed oil. Take pumpkin seed oil. Rub it on your penis. Vigorously. And you will forget that you have to pee at two in the morning. He's like, take it for a couple months, and it'll stop the midnight wee-wees. And I got to say, 100 % worked. Absolutely worked. Yes. I no longer have the – I can go the whole night now. It's great. When you say take pumpkin seed oil, what does that mean?

55:02Brian Schulmeister:Three capsules of pumpkin seed oil with my vitamins every day. It's just a vitamin, a supplement. Okay. So it's a pill that's called an oil. Well, like fish oil is also a pill. It's like fish oil. No, it's fish oil. It's like a pumpkin tea oil. Oh, I see. All right. I'm with you. I'm with you. Yeah. Well, I can tell you where you can... And they say that... Well, they also say that it's supposed to help support more hair growth. I have not seen that yet, obviously, but... No. No. Waiting for that one. But the being able to go all night without having to tinkle is great. You know, no more of those doctor's pills.

55:35Brian Schulmeister:All right.

55:36Jason DeFillippo:Well, I can tell you where to order it from, Dave, since I've been using your plug-in, Amazon. now since i'm still here in los angeles and i'm able to take advantage of u.s amazon which has absolutely everything but increasingly more so absolutely everything that's a piece of crap from china i have been using your plugin what was it called again i'm trying let's see i can't knock off and uh it is fantastic uh what i wish it maybe it does have the option i need to go in right now it just gives you a notification like suspect or not i want it to just whip it out for my results. I don't even want to see them.

56:10So I think if they had that, yeah,

56:13Jason DeFillippo:just skip to the end, only show me the legit stuff, that'd be fantastic. But I was thinking about that plugin when I saw this news story. The European Commission has hit Chinese e-commerce giant AliExpress with a record 550 million pound or roughly 629 million US dollars fine for allowing the sale of counterfeit and harmful products in the block. So link is in the show notes if you want to get into this, but isn't it nice that some company out there or some countries out there actually give a shit about this when the U.S. Amazon is filled with this crap. Dangerous cosmetics, unsafe toys, counterfeit clothing, illegal and harmful products.

56:50Jason DeFillippo:That is what Knockoff supposedly is taking out. We need a plug in because capitalism, because our government will do nothing about it. Yeah. Have you guys, well, let me rephrase the question. What items have you received from from Amazon that you have most suspected was counterfeit or known as counterfeit? Anything? Can you think of anything? Deodorant. Deodorant.

57:16Brian Schulmeister:Yes. I get a very specific speed stick from Amazon because it's really hard to find in the stores. You can only get like one or two of them. And I find you can get them by the six pack or the 12 pack. Right. And I just buy them in bulk. And there have been a couple of shipments that I'm like, uh-uh, this ain't it. This ain't it at all. This ain't even close to what it is. Oh, really? And yeah, try getting a refund from Amazon on that. They're like, no, no silly rabbit. No, that's a third party seller from, you know, Zhang Zhang Hu that you're never going to see again. So yeah, I've actually, and cosmetics are one of the biggest things that people get ripped off on.

57:55Jason DeFillippo:Okay. Yeah, I don't really, since I moved to Canada, Canada, Amazon is notably different. I order a lot less too because it's just easier. It's a walking town. You can go buy stuff at stores. Amazon's not as convenient. It's not same day delivery. It's not next day delivery. And it's a lot more regulated. So I haven't experienced this as much because back when I was using Amazon a lot, it was well before it was completely overrun by all these insane third party systems. And the stuff that I order when I come into town now is the same stuff I've been ordering for years. So it's known sellers. It's just, you know, it's the shaving cream.

58:34Jason DeFillippo:It's my Calvin Klein athletic socks that I love that are just the most comfortable socks in the world. So I haven't really experienced it that much. My mom, on the other hand, just gets she orders stuff willy nilly. I need to install knockoff on her computer. And she just gets all kinds of crazy stuff. She thinks she's ordered a T-shirt for, like, my son, and it shows up, and it's like a T-shirt for a Ken doll. That kind of stuff happens all right. You know.

59:01Brian Schulmeister:Yeah.

59:01Jason DeFillippo:Yeah. Yeah. I think the one that comes to mind for me is cordless drill batteries that were just awful.

59:12Brian Schulmeister:Oh, actually, I have one of those. Yes. I got one for my leaf blower. Okay. And they're terrible. They're absolutely terrible. They'll keep a charge for like three weeks and then they won't even connect anymore. Right. The other thing, too, is like they're just making up numbers when it comes to their capacity just to try to sell it to you. Like this is an eight amp hour battery and you get it and it's the same size as a one amp hour battery. And you go, well, I don't think they've altered the laws of physics to make these smaller batteries hold more juice. So this was a scam. Yeah, and I love the, like, I get the Black & Decker brick ones from my leaf blower.

59:51Brian Schulmeister:Yeah. And you can tell, like, the Black & Decker one is a solid brick of battery. And then when you get the knockoff one, you can tell that there's, like, two double A's taped to the top, and it's just empty air inside. Right. You know? Right, right. It's just enough to make something power up temporarily. Yeah. So they can claim that it actually does work. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I did get something from Amazon this week called, I keep reading this as the Mabuzi, but it's the MB Zui electric foil shavers for men, mini electric razor for face, IPX7 waterproof cordless razor with LED display and fast charge, microcomb technology and precision blades, Father's Day gifts.

1:00:30Jason DeFillippo:Just in case you want to sue, they did specifically say for face.

1:00:33Brian Schulmeister:For face, yes.

1:00:35Jason DeFillippo:Pointing that out.

1:00:36Brian Schulmeister:Yes, I have the Lawnmower 4.0 from Manscaped for the other areas. I see.

1:00:43Jason DeFillippo:Very nice.

1:00:44Brian Schulmeister:Yes, because, yeah, I got so much Manscaped.

1:00:46Jason DeFillippo:Unfortunately, I use the unauthorized battery replacement for my Manscaper.

1:00:53Brian Schulmeister:Can't sit right for a few days after that one. No skin left. Nope. Sure. We used to do Manscaped on the Jordan Harbinger show all the time, and I got so much stuff from them. And they all would break like within. I mean, I think they were the knockoff version, except finally they sent one that that lasts. And after that, they stopped advertising everywhere because the people finally bought it and realized, oh, it doesn't break anymore. So I don't have to keep ordering it. So their business, I think, went to shit. So they actually made a product, improved the product and it put them in the dumpster.

1:01:23Put them out of business. Yeah. So capitalism. Well, before you move on, I have.

1:01:28Brian Schulmeister:No, I'm not moving on here. Yeah, I need to talk to you about this stuff. What do you got there, Dave? So this is a Panasonic ES3831. I think the way you would find this on a place like Amazon is search for travel shaver. That's the sort of secret for getting a small, like you, this is my B shaver. Most of the time I use a regular razor. No, not my, no. Yes, no. Yeah. It's my D's nuts razor. No. So it is my alternate razor. This is my so I'm at my office. This is the one I keep in my office desk drawer for when an important interview pops up on my schedule and I go, oh, I didn't shave today.

1:02:12Jason DeFillippo:I see we didn't make the cut for an important call. Well, that's right. Anyway, moving on. So it's, you know, battery operated, not rechargeable, relatively inexpensive. It's good enough. Good enough.

1:02:27Brian Schulmeister:Right. So I bring this up because we've talked about the advanced shave or enhanced shaves on the show before with a nice lather and the brush and all that stuff. And I've always had a problem with electric razors because they just destroy my skin because I have kind of a rough beard. And I wanted to ask you because I knew, Dave, you do the electric shave thing. Do you use any kind of balm or salve or oil or anything before or after you shave with it? No, I've given up on electric shaving for my day to day for those very same reasons. Like I, I can't get a good shave out of an electric shaver anymore, no matter what I try.

1:03:04And my understanding is just, that's part of getting older that the elasticity of your skin changes and this, that, and the other thing. So, uh, you know, I just use a razor in the shower. Uh, I pretty much shave every other day. I don't, you know, three times a week, I guess I shaved because I can get away with it. but then yeah so then I have this one which is the foil thing that I use for the in-betweens the only thing I wish this had that it doesn't have and there is a slightly upgraded model that

1:03:37Jason DeFillippo:has the trimmer on it as well right this doesn't have that so not a big deal for here at the office but if you're shopping for one just be I guess be aware that there are some that don't have the trimmer and when I bought this I didn't think to look for it because I just figured they all came with it but this does not yeah yeah mine has a little trimmer so it's almost the same size as

1:03:57Brian Schulmeister:yours i i asked this because i tried it yesterday and i think you can't really see on the show here but i i took off like four layers of skin and it almost went down to bone okay uh so i think that i need to i'm going i i ordered a couple things from amazon that'll probably come from you know uh the back of somebody's truck because i didn't use the knockoff plug-in to try to see if I can get something that will alleviate. So I got some old school electric shave coming too. That had like 15 ,000 five-star reviews, so I'd give it a shot. Because it's a waterproof razor, so the waterproof razors have, you know, you can use different things than you can with just the regular electric razors.

1:04:38Right, right.

1:04:39Brian Schulmeister:So I'm going to give it a shot, but I was looking for some tips and tricks. So your tip and trick is it sucks, just use a razor. Well, yes, there is that. And, you know, this I've had no trouble with. on those in-between shaving times. Maybe my skin is just more leathery than yours from all the abuses taken over the years.

1:05:03But I do have that beard oil that you recommended, the shaving oil from way back. We talked about when we were originally talking about that. I do still have that and will use it from time to time. And I feel very decadent when I do.

1:05:18Brian Schulmeister:Yeah, I use that religiously when I go for the enhanced shave once every two weeks. Yes. But, okay, okay. That's all. Hey, and guys in the Discord, feel free to throw some tips in if you guys use electric shavers and don't want to look like the poster from They Live, which is pretty much what I did last. I'm just like, oh, that's not good. That's not good. And I had to borrow some cream from my roommate, and it's bad. It's bad. Yeah. And Gary Sheba, yeah, it hurts. Okay, well, Brian, this next one's for you. You know this is just for you. The truth is out there and it costs$199. Lego has partnered with Jillian Anderson to announce an official X-Files set.

1:06:02Brian Schulmeister:1 ,478 pieces, eight minifigures, including Mulder, Scully, Skinner, Crycheck, Mr. X, and yes, Flukeman. You get Mulder's office complete with the I Want to Believe poster, pencils jammed into the ceiling, and a nod to the sunflower seeds. and there's a video with jillian anderson which is just fucking adorable i i do not need the lego

1:06:22Jason DeFillippo:set but i did bookmark the video that's that's it is wonderful i i love jillian anderson i loved her back in the day as scully i think she is aged like fine wine she is stunningly gorgeous It was incredibly sexy. Do you want some pumpkin seed oil to watch that later? I have the beard lube. You got to make do. Oh, my. Yeah, no. I mean, it's nice that they did this. I'm never going to buy it. I'm not interested. I think the price is, I can't believe I'm saying$199.99 is reasonable. But for Lego these days, it kind of is. So, you know, would I ever get it? Of course not. No. But it's great. It's great that they did it.

1:07:03It's fun. My youngest son sent this to me. He's my Lego buddy. And he knows nothing about the X-Files, but he said he didn't feel like he needed to to enjoy this set. He thought it was a cool set, even if you don't know what the X-Files is.

1:07:20Brian Schulmeister:I'd be interested to see if you watch it, if it has any legs for the kids nowadays. I doubt it does. I doubt it, yeah. It's not that good. I watched a couple of it, it's not that good. I never watched it. I mean, I was certainly aware of it, But I never it was just nothing. I never I never got into it.

1:07:36Jason DeFillippo:Oh, it was it was along with Twin Peaks. It was one of those shows that I would delay by going out to the club to make sure that we I watched it. And once it was over, all right, let's get the goth makeup on. Let's get out of here. Yeah. Oh, man. When we could stay up late. Yes. And not have to pee. Not have to pee. Not have to pee. You're right. You want to break the seal. Yeah. Well, in continuing with, I mean, you know, this is such a nostalgia play for our generation and continuing on with that. We are getting a, I think, I feel like there's already been a documentary. Maybe this is the second one or maybe there's just a YouTube thing or something.

1:08:12Jason DeFillippo:but we're getting a full documentary about the star wars galactic star cruiser the the short-lived fully immersive hotel that i never in a million years would have gone to i feel like dave this this would have been your ultimate dream vacation this trip onto this thing so i'm very interested to watch the documentary i'm hoping it's going to come out on disney plus but if it comes out on disney plus that means it's going to have to be highly complimentary and not talk about any negative aspects to it, so maybe it won't. I think it's going to be showing at some film festivals and there'll be some sort of release somewhere.

1:08:46Jason DeFillippo:It's interesting. There's a trailer for it. So I would definitely watch this. Absolutely. Yeah. I was skeptical of this because I have watched Jenny Nicholson's four-hour documentary about the Star Cruiser, and I very much enjoyed that. I never thought I would watch a four-hour documentary on the Star Cruiser, but here we are. And it was good. It held me. I didn't watch it all in one sitting. So I thought, what else could I possibly need to know about this? And I watched the trailer and I'm with you. I think I'd watch this. Seems to me like this is focusing on the community. And I had no idea that this thing was around long enough to build the kind of community that this documentary seems to indicate that they built and how much money did these people have to be able to do these multiple stays exactly like right yeah right how how can you yeah how can you be going to this multiple times a year uh my wife and i talked about it uh like we could have you know it would have been a stretch but we could have made it work uh and we just decided no yeah and i don't regret it Well, you know what?

1:09:58Jason DeFillippo:For me, it's one of those things where like there's something that maybe you wanted to really do. I feel this way sometimes about particularly in Toronto where the restaurant scene is fast and furious, like restaurants will appear and they'll either stick around for a while or they'll just be gone. Sometimes, you know, you feel like, oh, man, I really wish I would have gone. But then sometimes it's like if it disappears, you're like, well, I'll never know. And that's fine. That's even better. What if I loved it and now it's just gone? Right. Right. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Preemptive sour grapes. It's better to have chowed and lost and not chowed at all.

1:10:31Jason DeFillippo:Yeah. Yeah. So sometimes I'm on the it's better not to have it all adjacent. So.

1:10:36Brian Schulmeister:Yes. I threw these in here because, you know, I've been going through my nostalgia phase and getting all my old stuff together. And I found a bunch of my old websites that I built back in the day when I was working for the movie guys. And I ran them through a mix of AI LLMs to help me get these in shape for modern browsers. Because these were all written for Netscape 3 back in the day. They were built on 64480, maybe 1024 by 768. All CRTs. There was no LCDs or LEDs or anything back then. Nothing with an L. So it was, you know, they're like postage stamp size when you look at them on a regular monitor nowadays.

1:11:19Brian Schulmeister:So I had them basically go back and try and up res everything and fix a lot of the image maps and stuff like that. And actually some of the Pearl scripts and CGI stuff, it recreated in JavaScript for me. So I've got the Phantom, Star Trek First Contact, Titanic and Hard Rain is the first four. I've got more coming. But it's amazing. It took the Star Trek First Contact site, which had VRML components in it, and it rewrote VRML to work in JavaScript. So you can actually access the original VRML that we had in the ship from 1995. These things were built in like 1995, 1996 era. And they look decent now on a normal size screen.

1:12:00Brian Schulmeister:So I'm kind of happy with the way it worked. The other thing that the first contact one was there's a lot of shockwave in there. Director, there were DCR files. It was decompiling the DCR files and pulling out the logic on how it worked. The assets weren't there. So there's some things in there that just don't quite work. There's some Java stuff that doesn't work. But I left it in for fun because maybe someday I'll find the original director files. Maybe. But it's amazing what it can just recreate from all the old stuff.

1:12:29Jason DeFillippo:Your director files are probably on an old zip disk.

1:12:32Brian Schulmeister:yeah yeah right yeah i've got i've got a lot of archives that i took and created disc images of from the old archives from back then that i need to remount and go through and see if i can find find stuff on there but i do have a lot of old original star trek uh director files that they use in the tv show from uh ds9 and next gen and that i can actually probably have it recreate Just the Elkar stuff, the Akutagrams that moved on the screen.

1:13:02Jason DeFillippo:You should send those to Paramount so maybe they can actually put out a decent version of Deep Space Nine on streaming. Yeah, no shit. They can upscale it.

1:13:08Brian Schulmeister:Yeah, and I don't know if you guys know this. All of those screens back in the day on Next Gen and DS9 and Voyager, those all ran on Centra 610s, the pizza boxes. So they had Centra 610s behind the scenes that were running director to play all those videos. Yeah, that makes sense. So I'll put the links in here. You can check them out. They're on my personal site. I love these, Jason. I absolutely love these. I was not expecting to have the nostalgia jolt that I did looking through these.

1:13:40Jason DeFillippo:Seeing the old school website. Seeing the old school website. Remembering a simpler time when this sort of website was considered state of the art. Do modern. I mean, everything on here, like the Star Trek website, it's fun. And how much have we really gained? Yes, websites look more polished and all that kind of stuff. But I really enjoyed going through these. People just don't spend money on their sites anymore. They don't feel the need to. So they're not entertaining. They're not interesting. It's very, I mean, it's so rare to find a website that's cool and interesting. We have to put it in the show when we do.

1:14:22Like, oh, my God, look at this. I also feel like there's a sense that these are handcrafted, which I think you lose. Everything's so templated and I don't know. I guess the priorities are different too. They're so shamelessly trying to milk every bit of attention and information from you. And back then they just wanted you to go see their movie.

1:14:47Brian Schulmeister:Yeah, that's it. I mean, and that goes back to the craftsman thing. We were just craftsmen trying to make the best thing we could. and we were the team that also made the artwork for the posters and so we had like you know we had the people there the people who made the movie would come talk to us you know we met with the directors john woo came in and talked to us when we were doing uh face off uh event horizon we had the director come in for that one uh the people from mission impossible they would come and but the the filmmakers were involved in every step of the website process you know right james cameron took us to fucking lunch after we did Titanic.

1:15:20Brian Schulmeister:You know, that's how intertwined things were. Now it's just a marketing thing to throw away. It's like, yeah, who cares? Yeah, yeah. No, I very much enjoyed this. That's what it is. Yeah, no, thanks for sharing these, but thanks for putting in the extra effort. I had no idea that you'd done all that behind the scenes, and that makes it even more impressive at how good these look and how fun they are. Thanks. Yeah, I got some more coming. I'm sure you can't wait for the beautician in the beast. Oh, can't wait. Yeah, can't wait for that one. Well, I want to give you guys a quick update on my piano repair journey.

1:15:57We're still at it. We may be at a bit of a stopping point. Well, I'm at a pause point right now because I've gotten to the point where I'm out of tokens. Yeah, right. No, I've spent$15 ,000 on tokens to repair my$100 piano, but I'll get there. I'll get there. I have replaced all of the obvious things that could be wrong. And where we have come to is that we've determined that there is a, something is shorting out the five volt rail on this particular circuit board. So my next, what ChatGPT is recommending is that, wait for it, I use a thermal camera to see what component on the board is heating up when I use my bench power supply to limit the amount of current that I can feed the 5-volt rail on this particular circuit board.

1:16:57Now, I happen to have a bench power supply, so I'm good there. My buddy Joe Kerrigan from Hacking Humans has a thermal camera. I'm not going to ask him why. So he's going to bring that tomorrow for me to borrow. So hopefully I'll be able to find out what the problem is. But we're getting to the point where if it is a integrated circuit issue and everything's, we're to the point where it's a surface mount part that's the problem. So if it's a surface mount capacitor or something like that, I can probably still handle it. But if it's some kind of chip, it's beyond my skills. And if it's a custom chip, then we're done.

1:17:38So we'll see. But I'm not as confident or excited that we're going to see a good outcome. But no matter what, I still had a lot of fun.

1:17:49Jason DeFillippo:Okay. That's fair. That's a process. It was fun, though. I learned a lot, too. I learned a lot. It was an excuse for me to buy some tools, which I always appreciate. Well, and what came out of it for me, and I thank you for this, is because of this discussion and talking about those electronics kits. I've already bookmarked one that I plan to buy for my kid. So he can start doing some projects and start learning this at a nice young age. Oh, that's good. I think it's knowledge that serves you well.

1:18:18Brian Schulmeister:And also, after we talked about this on the show about the Radio Shack kit. Yeah. Brian got a text from me not five minutes later. I opened up Instagram and there was a fucking ad for one. Wow. I never Googled it. I did. I only talked about it with you guys.

1:18:38Jason DeFillippo:i googled it i looked it up and uh i'm sure that they know that we're connected because we chat with each other all the time well we just need to let it go and not worry about it just let it flow over us just let it flow over us right just don't don't try to swim upstream when it comes to it just float down river uh last thing i want to put in here speaking of uh This is kind of connected to your nostalgia for old websites, Jason. This website, systemless.org, recently added a few additional old Mac apps to the apps that can run in your browser.

1:19:15Brian Schulmeister:Yes. And there's some good ones here. They recently added Marathon 2 and Marathon Infinity. That's the one. Infinity, that's the one. if you're an old school Mac gamer, be ready for a time suck because they just play. I'm already experiencing the trauma

1:19:35Jason DeFillippo:I used to feel of logging into the Marathon Infinity server at the job that Jason and I worked together and just getting destroyed the second I logged in by him and Dave Riegler. Yeah.

1:19:46Brian Schulmeister:I still have maps that Dave and I wrote when we created when we were at Paramount sitting there in between movies. So I'm definitely diving in.

1:19:55Jason DeFillippo:I'm not. It's going to be fun. Nope. I had too much trauma. No, thank you. There you go. I still have friends who, when we're parting ways, I say, see you starside. And the other one on here that made me smile was Shufflepuff Cafe, which is...

1:20:11Brian Schulmeister:Never played it. No? So it's basically an air hockey game. You play against aliens. but it has an earworm of a soundtrack. Just trust me. If you don't want to get it stuck in your head, stay away from Shufflepuff Cafe because it's like eight measures of music that just repeat over and over again and they burrow their way into your brain. Okay. Well, guys, I got to run because now I got to go play Marathon Infinity for the rest of the day. Fair enough. All right. See you next week. See you next time. Brian, let's talk about the people that keep this show on the air. We love you all. We love you all so much.

1:20:53Brian Schulmeister:Over at Patreon, we've got no one new to love. No one new to love this week, but we still love Tony, JSM1955. Ryan, Kajetan. Kajetan? I screw that up every time, and I apologize every time. You write me every time, and you tell me how to pronounce it, and I'm a horrible person. Dennis, Andrew, Geek Artist, Alex, Susan, and Gabriel. Thank you all so much for your continued support over at Patreon.

1:21:14Jason DeFillippo:Thank you, thank you. We got one donation over at PayPal this week, but what a donation. Nathaniel sent us$100. Much appreciated.

1:21:21Brian Schulmeister:Thank you, Nathaniel. Over at the tip jar, we've got Dal and Sean and Stephen with$100. So he and Nathan are neck and neck. Woohoo. Thank you guys so much. And for merch, we got Walt from Tucson, Stephen from Texas, and Leticia from Downers Grove. I miss living in Downers Grove so much. So much. It was one of my favorite places to live. I miss it oh so much.

1:21:43Jason DeFillippo:Yeah. And we got some new merch up there, too. So check it out if you haven't in a little bit.

1:21:46Brian Schulmeister:That's right. Yeah. You made a new shirt and I made a requested hoodie. Yes. For our fans on Discord. Yeah. And I forgot how easy it is. And we've got some designs in the can. So maybe I'll throw up a few more this week. So it is really fun to put that stuff up. And over at YouTube, the YouTube membership, we've got AsaLoganB2N and JWHeart. And so thank you guys so much. So here we go. if you want to help support the show and keep us on the air because it is the only thing really keeping us on the air right now is your support and we love you for it you can go to patreon.com slash GOG and sign up for as little as$3 a month and get the show early, ad free and in high definition.

1:22:24Brian Schulmeister:You can spend more if you like, which we obviously prefer but if you sign up for the whole year you do get a discount. You can also go to GOG.show slash donate and pick your poison just to keep us on the air and we have memberships at YouTube as well so you get the show a little bit early there and ad free and yeah, that's about it. That's all I got. Until next time, I'm Jason DeFilippo.

1:22:44Jason DeFillippo:Oh, and I wanted to give a quick shout out. I forgot to put this in the show notes. Jennifer Finch, the bass player for L7, passed away this week. Sad news. So rest in peace. Pretend That We're Dead was a great song. Just a great period of time and a great band. So sad to see that she passed. 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 756. Want to keep the grumpiness alive? Toss a few bucks our way at gog.show slash donate. Every penny helps keep the show on the air. Love the show? Share it. There's a share button in your podcast player.

1:23:17Jason DeFillippo:Spread the grumpiness to friends, foes, and everyone in between. 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? 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 air. And guess what? We've got merch. We've got new merch. We're going to continue to put out more merch. Snag your grumpy gear now at shop.gog.show and stay grumpy.