758: Perverts at Large!

18:52Jason DeFillippo:The AI agent took it upon itself to break the protocols, find vulnerabilities in the system software, and exploit them. Was he supposed to ask something like, can you book a gym class without hacking anything or kicking anyone off a waiting list? That seems like an oddly specific thing to have to add to every single prompt. Maybe you build that into the code.

19:14Jason DeFillippo:So, Bill Simpson, Young co-founder and chief executive Australian AI safety research organization, Gradient Institute, told ABC that this is just the beginning, and I tend to agree with this. We built this complex world over the internet, which is all run by software, but software that has holes, particularly the new brand of software that's been vibe-coded. Now you introduce highly capable AI agents that can operate at scale and speed, and the whole model just breaks.

19:38Brian Schulmeister:And he was using OpenClaw, which is like, you know, notoriously not something you want to unleash outside of your own little box. Because bad shit tends to happen because OpenClaw was mostly vibe-coded, by the way. And now it's owned by OpenAI. So most people abandoned it a while back. You know, it was fun for about 20 minutes, but I don't know.

20:02Jason DeFillippo:Well, the EU is now going to mandate that companies stick a label on content that was AI generated if it is attempting to look authentic, according to a report by The Guardian and others. Now, here's another situation where I'm sure we can trust people to do the right thing. If you're already using AI to attempt to make things look authentic, are you going to slap a label on it?

20:20Brian Schulmeister:Hell no.

20:21Jason DeFillippo:You're already trying to game the system by attempting to make it look authentic. Well, now that I've worked so hard on making this fake thing look authentic, let me put this label on it that tells everyone it's a fake thing.

20:32Brian Schulmeister:Yeah. Come on, ChatGPT, make me a sticker that I can put on my unauthentic thing that says 100 % authentic.

20:39Jason DeFillippo:These rules will go into effect August 2nd, so they've been going for 10 days right now. This applies to generated images, audio, and text, as long as they were designed to look real. The content will get slapped with a digital watermark. The rules do not apply to personal content, so custom group chat jokes are still safe. Also, there's an exemption for evidently artistic, satirical, and fictional works. So who decides that? Failure to comply could result in some serious fines if the internet police fined you. Up to 3 % of a company's total gross revenue. The EU has created its own black and white labels anyone can use, but organizations can also make their own.

21:16Ones you can't see that are transparent, that are put on top of a thing because people suck.

21:23Brian Schulmeister:That they do. That they do. Well, continuing on, Brian, China is imposing nationwide rules on emotionally interactive AI, prompting major tech companies to shut down companion features. ByteDance removed the AI agent function from Daobao, while Alibaba and Tencent also withdrew tools that let users create personalized companions modeled on celebrities, fictional characters, or deceased relatives. The changes have affected people like 21-year-old Bagel Sue, who says she lost the AI boyfriend she had talked to for more than a year. The rules restrict AI companionship for minors and require companies to warn users showing signs of excessive dependence, remind them every two hours that they're interacting with AI and prevent manipulation, self-harm, encouragement, or coercion.

22:10Brian Schulmeister:Experts say regulation is necessary, but concepts like excessive dependence are difficult to define. Not really. China's approach, pretty simple. China's approach also marks a shift from regulating AI outputs to regulating human AI relationships, amid concerns about loneliness, social behavior, and the country's declining birth rate. So go touch some ass, people. We talked about this in the last episode. Yes. Go touch some ass.

22:33Jason DeFillippo:Get out, get out, get out. Now, one would often, you know, sometimes wonder, how could these companies go so far awry? How could they possibly make these tools that are obviously so easily perverted and made to just horrible things and just do things to horrible people? I wonder how that could possibly happen. Well, OpenAI's head ethicist, Chloe Bacalar, Bacalar, Bacalar. Oligarchy. There's a lot of A's in there. Quietly left the company at some point in July after having been hired the previous August. Before working at OpenAI, she was Meta's chief ethicist and established AI ethics policies for Instagram and Facebook.

23:15Jason DeFillippo:Companies noted for having ethics policies. Oh, my God. Okay. You remember back when I took the AI ethics class and I said, this is the most cushy. I need to get hired to do this because they will pay me money to sit in a corner and tell them not to do things and they will just ignore me. And apparently that is basically what happens. So, yeah. So whatever, it doesn't matter. She left. She has not been replaced. And she was the last dedicated ethicist at OpenAI. OpenAI is, in other words, reportedly now ethicist free.

23:53Brian Schulmeister:We kind of knew that. Well, I'm sorry, but even when she was there, I don't think she's very good at her job because, I mean, she was at Facebook and Instagram. Come on. We know that they have no ethics.

24:05Jason DeFillippo:Well, we don't know if she was good at her job or not because, again, much like Meta's own – they have their own safety commissions and they just ignore them.

24:15Brian Schulmeister:That's true.

24:16Jason DeFillippo:So, you know, from what I've been able to see, the safety commission has repeatedly made very good points to Meta and said, this is what you should do. And Meta just kind of goes, nah, don't want to.

24:28Brian Schulmeister:Yeah. And by the way, her name is Chloe because it's a her. And, you know, Facebook kind of a little, I don't know, shitty and misogynistic and probably doesn't like chicks in the mix. Right.

24:40Jason DeFillippo:Yeah. Unless, say, you're Sheryl Sandberg. She was all right. She leaned in.

24:45Brian Schulmeister:She was a fucking horrible person, Brian. I know. Do I need to fucking remind you? I meant all right for them. Not for the rest of us. I was going to say, Sheryl Sandberg had the biggest dick in the room. That's the only reason that they fucking listened to her because she was a ball buster. Fuck.

25:02Jason DeFillippo:Gizmodo reached out to OpenAI with questions about her departure, including a request for confirmation that there is now no ethicist at OpenAI. They provided a statement, which I particularly enjoyed. We're thankful for Chloe's contributions. AI ethics doesn't live with one owner or team at OpenAI, and ethical considerations are deeply embedded into the model-building process driven by a number of teams across research. Bullshit. Such bullshit. Sorry, I was a little sick there.

25:31Brian Schulmeister:Google appears to be testing an AI-first version of its homepage that replaces the traditional Google search button with shortcuts for create images, ask about files, and brainstorm. Brainstorm. The experimental layout has been spotted across Chrome, Microsoft Edge, and Perplexity's Comet browser when users are signed out of Google. AI mode is also built directly into the search field. And I just tested this on Brave, logged into a Google Workspace account, and it's AI all day. I checked it signed out in Brave. It is also AI all day. And yeah, and testing found that AI mode, Brainstorm, and Ask About files all work without a Google account.

26:06Brian Schulmeister:The file feature lets users upload a document and ask questions about its content while remaining signed out, which means you've given up every right to the contents of that document and it is now being trained in Gemini. So thank you very much.

26:20Jason DeFillippo:I was about to say, why do you think they let you do that for free without signing in or anything? You just gave them the rights to everything you just sent them.

26:28Brian Schulmeister:Image generation, however, still requires signing in because there is fucking copyright around that stuff. And they're trying, they're skirting around that one. This ain't about compute. This is around copyright with image generation. And they don't want to get fucking dinged for that shit. So guaranteed that's why they're not letting you do that. Because when you sign in, there's a million little points of tiny little type that go into that EULA that you say that say, hey, okay, if I upload an image to Google, then you can do whatever you want to with it. But without signing in, you have not signed that EULA.

27:00Brian Schulmeister:But with text, I'm sure that they've got lawyers that say, yeah, we can we can we're cool with text. We can do whatever the fuck we want.

27:06Jason DeFillippo:Yeah. With the images, it's all in there stating basically that it's your responsibility. And Google does not hold any any responsibility whatsoever with what you do and how you break copyright with it. We will do our best to try to stop you. Sure. Ultimately, it's it's on you. And that's what that's what you're agreeing to when you sign in. That's it. Yep.

27:26Brian Schulmeister:Well, SpaceX's latest earnings disclosure offers a clear look at X's advertising business, showing revenue far below both pre-Musk levels and his original projections. Shocker. X generated$367 million in ad revenue during the second quarter of 2026, down from$426 million a year earlier. Now, Brian, in Twitter's final full quarter before Elon's ridiculously overpaid buyout in 2022, advertising brought in$1.8 billion. dollars, meaning quarterly ad revenue has fallen roughly two-thirds since the acquisition. To the moon! This shouldn't be surprising because everybody left.

28:07Jason DeFillippo:It's almost all, it's just bots.

28:09Brian Schulmeister:They didn't leave, Brian. They were forced out of the building.

28:13Jason DeFillippo:Yeah.

28:14Brian Schulmeister:Oh, I thought you were talking about the staff. No. You're talking about the actual users. I'm talking about users. Yeah, no, yeah, that's just the whole Nazi thing, I think. But hey, you know. No, but notification and all the other shit. But yeah, no, no, I forgot. I thought you were talking about the staff. I'm like, oh, those fuckers were forcibly ejected. For the first half of 2026, ad revenue totaled$710 million, down$160 million from the same period last year. The company attributed some of the decline to transitioning to a new advertising platform while also crediting the platform with a modest eventual improvement.

28:51Brian Schulmeister:What a load of shit. I know. Come on. The avalanche of douchebaggery is why your advertising is in decline, you fucking idiot. Musk originally projected Twitter's annual advertising revenue would grow from$4.5 billion in 2021 to$12 billion by 2027.

29:10Jason DeFillippo:To the moon.

29:10Brian Schulmeister:To Mars. I mean the moon.

29:12Jason DeFillippo:I mean nowhere.

29:14Brian Schulmeister:Yeah. And by the way, I didn't put this one in here. There was a thing that came out today about SpaceX saying that they're going to make more from AI in 2027 than all of the space shit combined. So I present you Elon's numbers of Twitter and saying that by 2027, he's going to be making$12 billion off of Twitter. And it's not even one. So there you go. So, you know, if you do ketamine, the math probably makes sense, but fuck it. Yeah.

29:43Jason DeFillippo:Well, speaking of math-mathing, remember that they were running their data centers with gas turbines. That's right. Near Memphis, Tennessee. They will fully remove the unpermitted gas turbines it's using to power SpaceX AI's data center operations near Memphis, Tennessee by July 2027, according to a new company update spotted by TechCrunch. The unpermitted gas turbines that they are not supposed to be using will not be turned off or removed for almost a year. Unpermitted, but we can run them for another year.

30:14Brian Schulmeister:Well, there's a reason it's going to take a year.

30:16Jason DeFillippo:Jason, if you or I were pulled over for unpermitted drinking and driving, would we get to continue driving with our license for another year? Year? Before we decided to go ahead and take it away and no more drivey-drivey? No. Okay, we're poor. We're poor. The company says a new 1.2 gigawatt power plant it's constructing under a Clean Air Act permit in Mississippi will ultimately replace the 69 unpermitted gas turbines it's currently relying on.

30:46Brian Schulmeister:Yes. And when is that going to be completed, Brian? July 2027. I wonder how that all works.

30:56Jason DeFillippo:About a year. That's right. interesting that these unpermitted turbines will be allowed to be continuing to run for a year because they won't have other things ready yet i'm sorry officer i know that you took my license away but my uber won't be here for another 15 minutes and so i just went to the store

31:18Brian Schulmeister:so uh also what i want to know is what bumfuck town has elon targeted to move the 69 unpermitted you know these things are mobile you know they're portable they're going to go to Mars Jason of course oh shit that's what's going to get us to Mars we're going to use the Elon

31:39Jason DeFillippo:trebuchet

31:42Brian Schulmeister:yeah space trebuchet Christ you know these things are going to show up somewhere he's like I have power where can I put it

31:53Jason DeFillippo:exactly

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33:32Jason DeFillippo:Let's talk a little bit about Flock. Flock Safety's automatic license plate reader cameras have become targets of public ire and increasingly vandalism. Good. With people stealing or destroying them in the dead of night, the company at one point had a plan to keep its eyes open in a way that would be harder to detect, according to 404 Media, by equipping dash cams on rideshare and delivery vehicles with the ability to scan plates while on the road. In a pitch presentation apparently prepared for the Georgia Office of the Attorney General, Flock reportedly talked up a planned partnership with Nexar, a popular dashcam manufacturer.

34:05Jason DeFillippo:The deal would have used Nexcar's network of cameras to scan vehicle plates as drivers went about their business, suggesting that they would create a network of more than 350 ,000 Uber, Lyft, and other delivery service drivers who would all serve as eyes for the company. The fact that it failed doesn't really minimize concern about that the company tried to make it happen, as it shouldn't. This is dystopian ass bullshit.

34:30Brian Schulmeister:This is the same thing as the meta getting caught with the facial recognition software in the, you know, in the glasses. In the update. But we didn't turn it on. But we didn't turn it on.

34:41Jason DeFillippo:Importantly, it's not clear that drivers would have even been made aware of the fact that their camera was serving as a snitch or not. it's possible the scans would have taken place without any obvious indication what was being captured on their dash cam was being shared with flock and presumably with law enforcement nexar is already engaged in a pretty massive project of collecting data from its drivers the company claims to anonymize data see every single episode where we've talked about how that doesn't work yep anyways they're they're selling their data from dash cams and they sell it to third parties and publish a fully user-generated real-time map called CityStream.

35:16Jason DeFillippo:Drivers are basically unaware of the fact that they're contributing to this, and in some jurisdictions, users are automatically contributing their data to CityStream and have to opt out of sharing if they even know how to do that. Earlier this year, a company called Bus Patrol, which uses cameras on school buses to identify people who blow past the stop sign arm deployed, came under fire when it was revealed that it was planning to let law enforcement use those cameras to scan license plates as well. Given the abuses that law enforcement across the country have already committed with access to flock cameras, it seems the last thing that they need is more camera angles to sift through.

35:49Jason DeFillippo:Good times.

35:50Brian Schulmeister:I got a little more flock news. Every automated license plate reader operated by the Winona Police Department in Minnesota was sawed off its pole and stolen in what investigators believe was a coordinated theft. You had to get the detectives on that to figure that out that that was coordinated. Jesus. They all went offline at the same time. Huh. All eight flock safety cameras disappeared August 1st, along with two additional cameras owned by neighboring Buffalo County. The Winona cameras were positioned at major highway entrances and exits and are valued at about$3 ,000 each, putting the department's loss at roughly$24 ,000.

36:25Brian Schulmeister:Police have identified no suspects, and the investigation remains ongoing. If they only had some cameras, they could have taken pictures of the people who stole the cameras.

36:33Jason DeFillippo:Got a company idea, Jason. We're going to call it flock squared. Cameras on the cameras. Cameras on the cameras. Cameras on the cameras, my friend. Cameras all the way down.

36:42Brian Schulmeister:Yep. The interesting thing that I was reading today about this whole Flock debacle is that, you know, the big problem that people have with Flock is that it's this nationwide network of all the cameras that they're letting the law enforcement people from other states do the fucking horrific things that they're doing by, you know, illegally basically querying the databases. And Axios, the people who make the body cams and the tasers and all that stuff, they're stepping in right now. So people who are losing the flock cameras are just running out and buying Axios cameras. So there is another company behind that that is still selling license plate readers.

37:17Brian Schulmeister:But here's the key difference. Axios has no plans on creating a nationwide network of cameras. So if you buy a set of cameras for your town, that's all the data you get. You get your town's data. Now, that doesn't mean little Joe Bob down the highway can just say, hey, Steve, I got a girlfriend who's been hanging out at Joe Bob's, you know, Crab Shack on Thursdays, and I think she's hanging out with that guy that I don't like so much. Can you do me a favor and send me some video? Doesn't stop that one bit.

37:47Jason DeFillippo:By the way, if you Google Flock cameras, well, not Google anymore because it just comes back with they taste really good with pepper because it's all AI responses at this point. But if you do a search for it, it's being used for this sort of thing by law enforcement all the time. It's all fucking cops looking up chicks, looking up ex-wives, looking up ex-girlfriends, tracking women that they found attractive. It's fucked up.

38:13Brian Schulmeister:Yeah, the actual law enforcement use cases are so minuscule that it's ridiculous. Like the shit that they've been putting everybody through for the amount of crime that they've stopped or, you know, actually found, you know, perps for is so ridiculously small that it's pointless. It's fucking compared to the misuse. It's not worth it. No, it's flocking ridiculous. Brian's flocking ridiculous. There you go. Now, this comes back to a story I talked about, about how cargo thieves are out there ripping off trucks destined for data centers now because they're filled with GPUs and copper wires and stuff like that.

38:49Brian Schulmeister:Expensive stuff. It's getting worse. It's getting worse. Cargo thieves in California may be escalating their tactics as AI infrastructure turns servers, chips, and networking equipment into increasingly valuable targets. Cargo security experts say two recent shipments traveling from Silicon Valley to Southern California disappeared after criminals deliberately disabled their private security escorts. In one case, an escort vehicle was rear-ended. In another, it was reportedly forced into a spin using a pit maneuver. The trucks continued without their escorts but never reached their destinations, leaving millions of dollars in data center hardware missing.

39:24Brian Schulmeister:And investigators suspect that truck drivers may have been involved. I wonder what tells you that they may be involved because they have not been seen since. While Wired couldn't independently confirm the incidents with law enforcement, multiple cargo security sources corroborated the details. Cargo theft overall actually fell 26 % year over year last quarter, but the value of stolen goods more than doubled as organized criminals increasingly target copper, enterprise computing equipment, and other high-value infrastructures. Now, I have questions, Brian. The copper wire, yeah, got that. That's easy to fence.

39:59Brian Schulmeister:Now, if you're getting a truckload of GPUs, who are you going to fence that to?

40:08Jason DeFillippo:You're telling me Elon's not going to buy it? At cost? I didn't want to say it.

40:14Brian Schulmeister:This is a motherfucker who's running... See previous story, Jason. See previous stories, that's right. Oh, they're going to the black site with all of the new gas turbines. That's where it's going to be. That's where they're all added.

40:28Jason DeFillippo:Yes.

40:28Brian Schulmeister:Memphis 2. Memphis 2. That's right. Okay. I think it's interesting. And what's really interesting is the escort companies. Not the ones that you and I are used to, Brian, but the cargo escort companies. Don't love me, man. I'm a married man. I'm sorry. Previously on Brian.

40:50Brian Schulmeister:But those guys are doing gangbusters right now. So if you want to start a good business and you don't want to get into vibe coding because you want to do something out there that makes you masculine. I swear to God, I thought you were going to say they're doing gangbangers. Gangbangers. Yeah, those private escort companies are doing gangbangers. They're doing gangbangers. Got up the ante. Cost you a little extra to run that train. All right. Choo-choo. Moving on.

41:15Jason DeFillippo:Oh, boy. All right. Well, BMW is currently experiencing a bit of public backlash after promoting the movie Spider-Man Brand New Day on many of its display dashboards. A Spider-Man themed banner appears when the driver starts their car. Once tapped, it transforms into what BMW calls a festive animation and a special surprise for consumers, or what the rest of us call a fucking ad.

41:39Brian Schulmeister:It transforms into the U2 album.

41:43Jason DeFillippo:After that, that's all you can listen to on your stereo. That's it. That's it. the display ad started on july 27th and will run on supported bmw vehicles until august 10th this promotion is occurring all over the world in more than 70 countries that's one thing to get a cheaper kindle with lock screen ads and the whole other thing to spend tens of thousands of dollars on a luxury vehicle only be forced to view ads in other words this news has upset customers this is bmw owner do you has this popped up on your screen i did not i did not get it so maybe Because it's Canada. Yeah, maybe. But it says it's running in more than 70 countries.

42:20Jason DeFillippo:Oh, okay. I swear to God, if this would have popped up, if I would have been out driving, I don't care where, I could have been taking my kid to school, I would have gone straight to the BMW dealership, pulled in and said, what the fuck is this bullshit?

42:32Brian Schulmeister:Okay, Brian, now I got to stop you there. As your co-host on this show, it is your fucking responsibility to first get out your phone, I don't care if your kid's in the car, if you're driving, and take some fucking video of that shit. That's the problem here. So you're thinking to yourself, stop being selfish, Brian.

42:47Jason DeFillippo:I did not get it. So senior vice president for connected company development, Stephen Durack, has once pushed back hard against the idea that BMW would ever sell ads to display in its cars. To say I'm selling the screen to play a commercial, I don't see it. It's a private space, he said in 2023. 2023 of him is exactly fucking right. Unfortunately, 2026 version of him did sell the space to an ad. Yep. okay anyways let's keep up with some car news the tesla feature known as full self-driving supervised does not turn your car into the driver of your car no as we've been saying again and again and again to some they may sound like anti-tesla propaganda trying saying it on x but take it from tesla itself which writes in a disclaimer full self-driving supervised requires active driver supervision with eyes on the road and does not make the vehicle autonomous us.

43:43Jason DeFillippo:You and any driver you authorize are always responsible for the safe operation of the vehicle when using these features, as well as for any and all speeding, tolls, parking, and other traffic violations, even when it is in use. It is your responsibility to make sure that you only use full self-driving supervised when it's safe and legal to do so. In other words, when you turn on full self-driving supervised in the eye of the law, you're doing all the stuff the car is doing, even if you're just sitting there solving a Rubik's cube and hoping you don't fucking die. This may seem all too obvious, but one guy apparently needed to hear it.

44:16Jason DeFillippo:An incident happened in Parker, Colorado. A guy apparently got pulled over for speeding and then sat there like the guy in the trade offer meme trying to make some kind of deal with the cop. In exchange for nothing, please accept my inane excuse that the car was driving because, you see, autopilot was on. At one point, he even said, I wasn't driving. The cops laughed all the way to the jail. Yes, I wish, I wish.

44:39Brian Schulmeister:God, yeah. Revoke your license, please. Word tap meaning I still blame Tesla.

44:48Jason DeFillippo:100%, yeah. It's like saying this thing is copper blue, but then you fill your entire EULA with not actually blue. It's your responsibility to realize that this is not blue. It is not blue, my friends. Please do not say it's blue. It is not blue. Even though we named it blue, it's not blue. Well put.

45:06Brian Schulmeister:Well put. I like that. Apple is facing a proposed class action lawsuit alleging fraud and false advertising over a flaw in iCloud Private Relay. The feature included with iCloud Plus, I thought that was a streaming service, is designed to hide users' IP addresses from websites. But researchers found that sites supporting passkeys can trigger a request outside Safari, bypassing Relay and exposing the user's real address. A site doesn't even need genuine passkey support. Pretending to support it may be enough. Clarkson Law Firm, which filed the case, says Apple should have known its privacy claims were misleading and accuses the company of betraying customer trust.

45:45Brian Schulmeister:Clarkson Law Firm, since Clarkson's farm was obviously canceled and he needs something new to do. This seems just like a bug. This doesn't seem like it's, you know. Yeah. I don't see this as a fraud. This isn't a fraud case.

46:01Jason DeFillippo:This isn't fraud. This is a bug. And I'm assuming that they're going to fix and patch it right now. But before we let Apple off the hook, well, I'll just get to it in a second. You've got one more story first.

46:11Brian Schulmeister:Anthropic is adding machine-readable watermarks to text generated by Claude, complying with new European Union AI transparency rules that took effect August 2nd. The watermark will roll out worldwide across new Claude models and eventually existing ones. And Anthropic says it should survive simple copying and pasting. Now, I've heard people talk about this. I was even listening to the 404 Media Podcast. They're like, we don't know how this works and whatever. I'm like, excuse me, guys, you're fucking journalists. It doesn't take that much to figure out how this works. Unlike hidden characters, text watermarking can subtly alter the statistical choices a model makes when selecting words, creating a detectable signature tied to the generating system.

46:52Brian Schulmeister:So it basically uses pattern recognition to figure out if the words that it would normally say are the words that are on the page. That's what it is. Anthropic hasn't revealed its exact implementation or how public detection tools will work, but says users and third parties will eventually be able to identify its watermarks. And here's where it's fun. The technology isn't foolproof. Research shows paraphrasing, translating text into another language and back, or mixing AI output with human writing can weaken detection. Most major AI labs have signed the same voluntary EU code of practice, potentially making AI-generated text labeling increasingly standard worldwide.

47:29Brian Schulmeister:But me personally, I just run it through Grammarly because the text that comes out of Claude is generally shit. So just stack the AI and you're done. Or run it like we used to do back in the SEO days when we were trying to make shit tons of fake pages. Run a thesaurus attack on it. And there you go. That's it.

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49:21Jason DeFillippo:So now let's circle back to Apple. And my argument here now is that while I recognize that everything has gotten considerably more complex in the Apple world than it ever used to be, I would say that Apple is more riddled with errors and bugs than they ever used to be. There was a point in time when we knew if Apple, not beta, if Apple actually released a final bit of software, it was going to be pretty rock solid. It just, that's why we all got into Apple in the first place. That's why we're all Apple infrastructure all the time, because generally things just work. I would say a lot less than it used to these days.

50:00Jason DeFillippo:And on any number of things. We do talk about a bunch of Apple major bugs that are out all the time on this show. they do tend to fix them good they're supposed to my argument is that they never used to be that many in the first place and i have an issue with almost every single device that i have now there's some sort of bug or another my apple watch notification i can't clear it sometimes the dismiss button just doesn't work i have to quit out and come back in and it's a dismiss button why is it not working let me uh i have some issues with my phone the same kind of bullshit just like small little buggy things that just don't work as well anymore don't work like they used to i talked about apple fitness a while back you you're dying to say something go ahead i am dying

50:44Brian Schulmeister:to say something because you have such fucking selective memory about apple there were there's a reason that nobody ever should use the first generation of their operating system you wait for dot one you never buy the first generation i'm not on first generation they've always had

51:01Jason DeFillippo:That's my point. I am on the later rock solid releases and they all have issues still.

51:06Brian Schulmeister:Constantly. I know. But the way you couched your argument was that Apple has, they've always been great. They've always had problems. No, no, no, no, no. It's worse than it has been. When they get.

51:17Jason DeFillippo:It's much worse than it has been. Let me talk about Apple Fitness now because I've talked about my Apple Fitness issue a while back. I make stacks of workouts. I layer them together. And I used to be able to just play them. I would go onto my Apple TV. I make stacks of pancakes. Yikes. My stacks of workouts that I created on my phone, I would be able to play on my Apple TV on the Apple Fitness app, and then I would just be able to do my three workouts in a row in the order. First, it stopped ordering them correctly. They would just be in a completely random order, which kind of screws up the whole point of creating a stack of workouts that you want to do.

51:50Jason DeFillippo:Then they just started disappearing randomly. Okay, so I was gone for a month, and I didn't work out using Apple TV. I was working out using my iPad, different, different, different. Come back. There's been a TV iOS update. There's been updates for everything. I update everything. All right. It's going to work now. Create my stack. Go to Apple Fitness app on Apple TV. Oh, there's the stack icon way up there. I can't even scroll up to it anymore. I can't even get to the thing to open it anymore. I found a workaround. If you save your stacks into your library, you can scroll all the way down on Apple TV and get down to your library, and then you can find your save stack, and then you can do it that way.

52:33Jason DeFillippo:What the fuck, man? It used to work. Now it's all broken. It's one thing to say that I've already invested in the Apple TV and the Apple Watch and the Apple phone, all of which I'm using to control all this. That's a significant amount of money, right? I also have to subscribe to Apple One, and I'm paying that fee every fucking month to be able to use Apple Fitness. I am spending a fuckton to use Apple Fitness and it don't work. And it hasn't worked for months.

53:04Brian Schulmeister:Have you tried turning it off and turning it back on?

53:06Jason DeFillippo:Everybody has. I've read every goddamn thread on Reddit. I've read every goddamn thread on Apple. Nobody has a solution. It doesn't happen to everybody. It's happening to a ton of people and it ain't getting fixed. It sucks. Yep, it does suck. Like, what the fuck am I paying for?

53:24Brian Schulmeister:Anyhow. Time for Android. Brian, switch it to Android. I'm going to vibe code my own fitness app, god damn it. There you go. Get on it. Get on it. I talked to – for years now, my beloved email client has been Spark. And I talked about it. I loved it. It was great. It comes with Setapp. So it was – I used to pay for it, and then I just paid for my Setapp account. I did something that I needed to do. I turned on enhanced security through Google apps. So I have got like, everything's locked down now because I was just getting so much, so many attempts to try and get into my stuff that I just said, screw it, turned on the enhanced stuff.

54:05Brian Schulmeister:Well, it turns out almost nothing in the world for as far as third-party applications works with the Google enhanced security. You have to use Apple's mail app. Right. No. Speaking of shit that don't work at Apple, I will not use Safari and I will not use the Mail app. Those are two giant pieces of shit that I will never use. So I've had to move back to using Gmail in the browser. And I tell you what, I am a thousand percent happier. I don't know. My computer doesn't ding. No notifications. You know, I can turn on notifications on my watch or my iPad or my iPhone if I want for using the Gmail app there.

54:46Brian Schulmeister:But I don't. because no, it's beautiful. Being left the fuck alone is awesome. I am really happy about that. But when I use Spark, then you have to have your personal responsibility to turn that off. And I've got none of that. I do not have that in need to do that. Yes, exactly, exactly. So yeah, I'm very happy. I just wanted to say that moving back to Gmail in the browser is awesome. It's really nice. So, and I do want to say my vibe coded, it's not vibe coded. I fucking project manage this bitch. Track a lot. My, my tracking iOS app. I released the 1.3 version. It came out yesterday. New website linked in the show notes.

55:34Brian Schulmeister:This is the version that I wanted to put out at first. It is rock solid. It has all the features I want. It is still only$2.99. Check it out. If you want links in the show notes, track a lot.me. I'm happy with the website. I'm happy with the app and I've got some, I've got a roadmap for it. And it's to, to my previous point about learning some shit, I'm learning how Swift works a lot. And cause it's written in Swift and I originally did the scaffolding. I had like, at first I had Claude write the scaffolding. That sucked. I had a codex write the scaffolding. That was way better. But then I learned a lot of how to do it myself.

56:10Brian Schulmeister:So now it's like, it's a hybrid and I'm learning how the iOS app building system works. I fucking love it. So check it out if you want to. But yeah, that was my big thing. There's a lot of work that went into that, but I really am happy with it. That's the first real thing that I've released that's actual new code in 14 years. So suck it, bros.

56:32Jason DeFillippo:See? Suck it, bros. Well, I'll tell you something those bros probably have. They probably have smart glasses, Jason. And all of this has happened before and it'll all happen again. We all remember when Google Glasses came out and basically we shamed everybody and called them glass holes, and we made them chase them out of public places and bars and get the hell out of here. Well, all of this is happening again. There are courts where you can't wear them, every single one in New York State, for example, parts of cruise ships during tests like the SATs. And as significant as those bans are on smart glasses, the UK is taking things a step further, and I suspect we will see this in other places soon as well.

57:09Jason DeFillippo:The pub chain And Weatherspoons, which has about 800 locations across England and Ireland, has banned the glasses. The general code that applies in our pubs and most pubs is that you can't film customers or employees without their permission. Metaglasses seem to breach this code and common sense by enabling surveillance video. So our instinct is to say, turn off the cameras. This is akin to our efforts to stop audible playing of videos in our pubs, which also invades people's space. Hear, hear. Cheers. Cheers, you bastard. Cheers for that. So, yeah, pubs, restaurants, etc. are all starting to put in bans on smart glasses, as they should.

57:45Brian Schulmeister:Yes. And new research from the University of Sydney examines how meta smart glasses are being used by pickup artist influencers to covertly record women during unsolicited public encounters and turn those interactions into social media content.

57:59Jason DeFillippo:Oh, God, I see these things every now and then. They're so fucking annoying. I want to kill these people.

58:05Brian Schulmeister:Researchers analyzed 350 Instagram videos posted between 2023 and 2026 and found that the more discrete filming correlated with more severe harassment. So the shiftier they are, the shittier they are. There's a yeah, that's causation, not correlation. God damn it. The glasses, first person cameras can leave subjects under where they're being recorded, which is why we hate them. But researchers argue meta safeguards, including a recording indicator light are inadequate because we've found ways to turn them off. Instagram chief Adam Mosseri recently said the platform would remove content involving surreptitious filming and harassment.

58:41Brian Schulmeister:Bullshit. Researchers and journalists continue. Yeah. Researchers and journalists continue to find large numbers of these videos on Instagram, raising questions about whether platform moderation can effectively address harassment enabled by increasingly unobtrusive wearable cameras. It can't. Brian, I have a plan. Okay. Have a plan. Now we know that these things they actually are Bluetooth enabled. So there are Bluetooth beacons in these things. And you can detect them. So I think that you and I need to get together. You have a 3D printer. I can go buy some Arduino stuff and we can make a new cool device that chicks can put in their purse.

59:19Brian Schulmeister:So every time somebody with metaglasses comes up to them, it starts playing the old song Pervert at Large by the Vindictives, which is a fantastic punk rock song that is basically what it says, pervert at large. So every time one of these douchebags walks up on them, it just starts playing the song. And the upside of playing that song is that song is copyrighted, which is why I'm not playing it right now. So by playing copyrighted music over them filming you, they cannot post it on social media.

59:49Jason DeFillippo:But Jason, women have already figured this out. This is a trend that is going all over TikTok and they're talking about it. You know who's even better at protecting their own copyrights, probably the best in the entire world at protecting their copyrights. Who? Disney. The fucking mouse. Oh, that's right. So what the women are telling each other to do is to make sure to play music from Disney animated films if you think you're being filmed, because the lawyers will find it. I see.

1:00:18Brian Schulmeister:I just like mine because I love that song. But yes. But here's the thing. We just need to build this device that automatically does it. So you have to know that these people are filming you before you start singing, you know, the song from Frozen. Let it go. Yeah, I was trying not to do that. But now it's going to be stuck in my head all day. Thanks. Dick. But we need a device for this. One of those pendants. One of those. Maybe we can recycle those AI pendants that everybody threw away.

1:00:44Jason DeFillippo:Humane AI? Yeah, that one.

1:00:45Brian Schulmeister:Humane. Humane pin. Yeah.

1:00:48Jason DeFillippo:All right. Let's wrap up the news with a hat tip to my old friend Ross, who sent this story on to me. this is a Reddit thread, the mildly infuriating thread. The title is renting a car and the clerk was wearing meta glasses. Rented a car from an airport and the clerk was wearing meta Ray-Bans. I can, I understand from a legal standpoint that filming in public is allowed, but I really don't think a person handling credit cards and ID should be filming their interactions. No, sir, they should not. This person should get fired. Absolutely. Absolutely. And sued. And sued. So what did you watch over the break, Brian?

1:01:23Jason DeFillippo:Well, I have kept up with Star Trek Strange New Worlds, which is apparently doing the crazy episode of the week, which I enjoy if you have 40 episodes per year. But when you only have 10, I don't know. So far, they've all been good, though. I've enjoyed them.

1:01:39Brian Schulmeister:They've been phenomenal. I love the crazy episode of the week. I still get nightmares from the horror one. That one was that one was really I did not see some of that horror shit coming. I was like, oh, shit. It still trips me out. but Dave Foley took me out of the last one I don't like Dave Foley he was a bit much he was a bit much but it was still fun it was a good episode yeah I like him I personally like him yeah

1:02:04Jason DeFillippo:we'll see we'll see because we're getting another one not a normal episode we're getting another crazy episode this week oh cool we'll see

1:02:10Brian Schulmeister:I'm happy

1:02:11Jason DeFillippo:I've been keeping up with Silo enjoying it it's good nothing much to say about it it's rolling along so yeah

1:02:19Brian Schulmeister:I kind of got bored it's like

1:02:22Jason DeFillippo:This is the slow part in the books, too. This is the part in the books when I was kind of like, okay, can we move this along a little bit?

1:02:27Brian Schulmeister:I fast-forwarded the entire car ride thing last episode. I'm like, I really don't care about that plot line. I don't care about those people. Don't give a shit. I'm like, can we just get back to the silo, please?

1:02:37Jason DeFillippo:Yeah. Well, they will. Finished watching Broadchurch, all of it. So we finished season three. And I have to say, I actually really enjoyed season three. It felt not great at first, but by the time it got to the end of it, well worth the journey. Jason, I would say go back and finish it up.

1:02:54Brian Schulmeister:Okay, because, yeah, I told you, I went back and I'm like, oh, I don't remember season two because I didn't think I watched season two. And then I went to Netflix and says, you've watched season two. I'm like, well, I don't remember that. I must have still been drinking back then. So I should probably watch it again.

1:03:06Jason DeFillippo:Yeah, it was a good time. And Ted Lasso came back. This was something I was unsure about, and I remained unsure about it through the whole first episode. it was funny enough a little bit of spoiler alerts here but it was kind of you know the only thing the fish out of water let's take the people from england and put them in kansas city that'll be funny and it kind of was but not great so i didn't have great expectations for the second episode which just aired and lo and behold my wife and i were laughing our asses off really It was good. It was funny. They're definitely establishing it. It's not the same, but it is.

1:03:49Jason DeFillippo:But they're not going for the super feel good. They just went for jokes, and they landed a bunch of them. So I thoroughly enjoyed the second episode.

1:03:58Brian Schulmeister:Okay. Well, maybe I'll watch it because I can't get away from it because every time I turn on something on the Apple TV, it's a fucking Ted Lasso ad. So it's like, ah. Speaking of the Ted Lasso thing, Hannah Wadding, what's her name? Waddingworth or Waddington? What's her name?

1:04:15Jason DeFillippo:If you would have asked me before you started to destroy her name, I would have been able to tell you. But now that you went to, all I'm thinking is Arie Manfrinjinsen. Jinsenjinsen.

1:04:28Brian Schulmeister:Well, she did a series with Octavia Spencer on Amazon Prime called Ride or Die, which is basically a chick version of the Kevin Hart and Rock Silly Buddy shows. You know, she's like an assassin. Her friend's a normie. And it was cute. It was unfortunately eight episodes. It should have been four. We watched it because there was nothing else on that week. And, yeah, nah. It's like a C. Yeah. Sugar finished up for season two. Loved it. Loved the whole series. Big fan of Sugar. Hopefully it'll come back. because they left it with a giant cliffhanger. So like the first season, no cliffhanger. Could go without it.

1:05:10Brian Schulmeister:You know, it was fine. Second season, well, I hope you got picked up for season three because now it's a cliffhanger. So go fuck yourselves. So of course they're going to get canceled. Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. I watched InstaDocs, the prediction games on Netflix, which is a 38 minute documentary on Kalshi and Polymarket. Right. Well worth watching. Highly recommended. make you very depressed about what the kids are doing these days. Yeah. So these things aren't good. These things aren't good. We knew that, but it's good for other people to be able to go see it in a bite-sized chunk. So if you don't know what's up with Calcian Polymarket, after listening to this show, I'd be surprised.

1:05:45Brian Schulmeister:But if you want to send somebody to figure out what it is, great documentary to tell you how fucking evil they are.

1:05:50Jason DeFillippo:There you go. I watched two movies on the plane. I'll do the first one, and then I'll get to the second one later. Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice. i finally got around to seeing the sequel to beetlejuice and uh perfectly serviceable yeah it was amazing not i don't know if it's just you know i'm not 16 like i was when i saw beetlejuice or whatever age i was i was definitely young uh so it doesn't hit the same way but uh jenna ortega fits right in winona rider still winona rider uh michael keaton still great as Beetlejuice. It was great to see Catherine O 'Hara do that role one last time. Rest in peace.

1:06:29Jason DeFillippo:That's kind of it. That's the last thing I'll ever see of hers. Yeah, it was fine. It was great. Tim Burton's not the most amazing guy anymore, and he's recycling a bunch of ideas, but it was fun. Yeah, I got no complaints about it at all.

1:06:44Brian Schulmeister:I enjoyed it. Speaking of recycling old ideas, Chris Carter has come back with the X-Files, I want to believe, Wroc Frankenstein edition of the 2008 movie. I watched the trailer today. I'm in. It looks like a good horror movie now. I didn't care for the movie when it came out, and I don't think anybody did. I don't care. This is surprising.

1:07:09Jason DeFillippo:I didn't like the movie when it came out, and you know what? If you think you could have fixed it, maybe you should have done so in the 20 years before. It's been 20 years, man. We've all moved on.

1:07:22Brian Schulmeister:somebody finally just gave him the green light because the new X-Files is going to pilot, you know? So they're like, here, it's done. Just go ahead and do whatever. So they took out a lot of the romance, you know, the Scully and Mulder scenes, the whole relationship shit. That's like been gutted. So he just put in a bunch of more stuff that got put on the cutting room floor that was more horror-esque. So I'm going to watch it because it's free. Well, it's not free because I pay for this shit. So I'm watching it.

1:07:47Jason DeFillippo:None of this is free. uh finally i watched uh on the plane nirvana the band the show the movie jason yes do do not watch the trailer go into this cold it's awesome okay i'll check it out they do not make this kind of movie anymore uh i'm not going to spoil it at all but it's just i wish that there were a slew of movies like this i wish there okay there used to be movies like this came out every goddamn weekend when we were kids. I died laughing. It's good. It is, there will be points in time where you will like groan and go, my God, is this going to, this bit's going to go on too long because that's what happens when you just throw everything at the wall and hope that it sticks.

1:08:29Jason DeFillippo:A lot of it sticks. It's awesome. Everybody needs to watch this movie.

1:08:34Brian Schulmeister:Okay. I need something to watch tonight, so I'll check it out. All right. Thanks. Thanks for the recommendation. I'm a Nirvana fan, so. Has nothing to do with Nirvana. Perfect. Not a goddamn thing. Not a goddamn thing? Okay, well, even better now. Don't watch the trailer. Just start watching it. I'll just start watching it. How's that? Okay. Well, let's talk about the people that keep this show on the air. We've got some shout-outs to give here over at Patreon. We've got some new subscribers. Simon, or S-M-Y, and D. Cooper. Dale Cooper? If it was D.B. Cooper.

1:09:11Jason DeFillippo:That's a fine cup of coffee.

1:09:15Brian Schulmeister:and we'd also like to thank quill bill nicholas jude julian hangdog crazy igor michael jess and jason so thank you all for your continued support on patreon thank you and over at paypal we've got

1:09:27Jason DeFillippo:online computers which i we did they gave a shout out for and said are that is it all of them because that should be more money uh but he wrote in and said i'm assuming he maybe not hi thanks for bringing humor to interesting times yes dave we did long ago think that because we supported computers and everyone was about to want to be online then it was a good name and we were not the only ones still bad name choices aside computers and the internet were good for me and my partners you however have had much more interesting careers and thank you for sharing currently offline is the missus is ill and needs 24-hour care i miss the work but look forward to your podcast every week i went back and listened to them all from zero zero one oh sorry man sorry you are both great especially when you wind up dave the fuck you fuck you fuck you moment when you broke him completely was one of the best followed closely by spilt drink on keyboard sorry my notation is not as much as you deserve but not working but send a bit when i can thank you ps just helped a robot identify some cars to prove i'm not a robot thank you very much online

1:10:28Brian Schulmeister:computers thank you so much over the tip jar we've got matthew sarah john and patrick yay and we've got Michael from Minnesota who bought some merch oh yeah we have a bunch of merch come on people gotta get that stuff up so if you want to support the show which we would really appreciate it if you would because that's the only thing that keeps us on the air please go to patreon.com slash gog you can sign up for as little as $3 a month you can give more if you want if you buy the whole year then you get a discount and you get the show early ad free and in high definition you can also send us the money via PayPal or the tip jar, or you can sign up at YouTube and become a member there, or you can buy some merch, but you can go to GOG.showslashdonate to find out all the ways that you can help us out and keep the show on the air, and we love you for it.

1:11:15Brian Schulmeister:Honestly, you have no idea how much we love you for it. And belated hat tip to Doug Kay for the pumpkin oil recommendation, and I'm going to be going on his podcast, Brian, to all the cars I've loved before very soon, so that should be fun. You are so not a car guy. No, but you talk about the first car you ever had and how it influenced your life. And my first car was a 1981 Monte Carlo, and I loved that fucking car, and I beat the shit out of that car. That was the greatest car in the world. Granted, all the escorts I've had in the middle, but I started with that. Then I had a 300ZX, which was pretty awesome.

1:11:50Brian Schulmeister:That was a great car.

1:11:51Jason DeFillippo:I should probably warn Doug Kaye now that he might be hearing about escorts in the Monte Carlo. You better be prepared for this episode, my friend.

1:11:57Brian Schulmeister:Dude, no, there were no escorts in the Monte Carlo. I was like 17. I was 17 and a skateboarder. The nice thing about the Monte Carlo is you could fit 10 of your friends and 20 skateboards in the trunk because the thing was a tank. I love that car. All right. Well, have fun. Until next time, I'm Brian Jelmeister. I'm Jason DeFilippo. Thanks for listening to Grumpy Old Geeks. Get all the links and goodies from today's episode at GOG.show slash 758. 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.

1:12:27Brian Schulmeister:There's a share button in your podcast player. Use it to spread the grumpiness to friends, foes, and everyone in between, and we'll love you for it. Swing by GOG.show to join our Discord and chat with us and other show fans. There's a bunch of us over there. Come on by. Got thoughts, feedbacks, cool links, feedbacks? Hit us up at GOG.show slash contact. And, hey, don't forget to leave a five-star review at GOG.show slash review, and we'll read it on the air. And guess what? We do have merch. We've got great merch. Snag your grumpy gear now at shop.GOG.show, and stay grumpy. cticamente mustache