Grumpy Old Geeks

Welcome to Grumpy Old Geeks, where we're starting to notice a patience epidemic! As people get used to barking orders at their AI, they're starting to talk to other humans with the same terse impatience. We discuss the enshittification of social media like Threads, which are now completely overrun with AI-generated slop.This week, we dive into the corporate shenanigans of the tech world. OpenAI was caught secretly funding an advocacy group to push for age verification laws that just so happen to benefit Sam Altman's other company. We also cover Elon Musk's troubles, including all of xAI's co-founders quitting, a SpaceX satellite exploding, and Tesla's "fully autonomous" robotaxis being revealed to have remote human drivers.Plus, we celebrate NASA's successful Artemis II launch, review a fantastic Premiere Pro plugin for multicam editing, and give our thoughts on shows like "The Pit" and "Downton Abbey."Sponsors:SquareSpace - go to squarespace.com/GRUMPY for a free trial. And when you’re ready to launch, use code GRUMPY to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain.Private Internet Access - Go to GOG.Show/vpn and sign up today. For a limited time only, you can get OUR favorite VPN for as little as $2.03 a month.SetApp - With a single monthly subscription you get 240+ apps for your Mac. Go to SetApp and get started today!!!1Password - Get a great deal on the only password manager recommended by Grumpy Old Geeks! gog.show/1passwordShow notes at https://gog.show/740Watch on YouTube: https://youtu.be/IpzOakbBftYFOLLOW UPAustria is pursuing a social media ban for kids under 14Group Pushing Age Verification Requirements for AI Turns Out to Be Sneakily Backed by OpenAIOpenAI takes on another “side quest,” buys tech-focused talk show TBPNIN THE NEWSElon Musk’s last co-founder reportedly leaves xAISpaceX loses contact with one of its Starlink satellitesSpaceX has reportedly filed for the biggest IPO in historyOpenAI Is Falling Out of Favor With Secondary BuyersOracle Lays Off Thousands to Offset AI SpendingAnthropic leaks part of Claude Code’s internal source codeAnthropic is having a monthWikipedia Just Drew the Line on A.I.-Written ContentTesla Admits Its Robotaxis Are Being Driven RemotelyGetting Stuck Inside a Glitching Robotaxi Is a Whole New Thing to Be Scared ofWhite House App Found Tracking Users' Exact Location Every 4.5 Minutes via Third-Party ServerKash Patel's personal email account was accessed by hackers linked to IranNASA's Artemis II Live Mission Coverage (Official Broadcast)MEDIA CANDYThe Hobbit: The Tolkien EditThe PittDTF St. LouisProject Hail MarySUPERGIRL | Official TrailerDownton AbbeyDarker Waves FestivalAPPS & DOODADSBluesky's next product is an AI assistant that helps build custom social media feedsChatGPT app launches for CarPlay on iOS 26.4Apple Removes iPhone Vibe Coding App from App StoreMeta is testing an Instagram Plus subscription service with exclusive featuresWraith Multi-Cam EditorTHE DARK SIDE WITH DAVEDave BittnerThe CyberWireHacking HumansCaveatControl LoopOnly Malware in the BuildingCurrent ReaderJournalist Sues FAA Over Drone No Fly Zone Designed to Prevent Filming ICENicholas Carlini - Black-hat LLMs | [un]prompted 2026See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Meta fined $375M for child safety failures. Musk lost 3 lawsuits in a week. Sam Altman compared to a Nazi. Netflix raised prices again. The Pentagon can't quit Claude. Reddit wants your face scan. Star Trek's streaming era is over. But the thin black line holds! 🎙️Sponsors:DeleteMe - Get 20% off your DeleteMe plan when you go to JoinDeleteMe.com/GOG and use promo code GOG at checkout.SquareSpace - go to squarespace.com/GRUMPY for a free trial. And when you’re ready to launch, use code GRUMPY to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain.Private Internet Access - Go to GOG.Show/vpn and sign up today. For a limited time only, you can get OUR favorite VPN for as little as $2.03 a month.SetApp - With a single monthly subscription you get 240+ apps for your Mac. Go to SetApp and get started today!!!1Password - Get a great deal on the only password manager recommended by Grumpy Old Geeks! gog.show/1passwordShow notes at https://gog.show/739Watch on YouTube: https://youtu.be/hdhHiOaclu0FOLLOW UPPolymarket is cracking down on insider trading with updated ruleshttps://www.engadget.com/big-tech/polymarket-is-cracking-down-on-insider-trading-with-updated-rules-163928655.htmlJudge temporarily blocks Pentagon's 'supply chain risk' designation for Anthropichttps://abcnews.com/Technology/judge-temporarily-blocks-pentagons-supply-chain-risk-designation/story?id=131453267IN THE NEWSJury rules against Meta, orders $375 million fine in major child safety trialhttps://www.engadget.com/social-media/jury-rules-against-meta-orders-375-million-fine-in-major-child-safety-trial-224215209.htmlJury rules against Meta and YouTube in social media addiction casehttps://www.engadget.com/social-media/jury-rules-against-meta-and-youtube-in-social-media-addiction-case-181344860.htmlElon Musk loses big in court; X boycott perfectly legalhttps://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/03/elon-musk-loses-big-in-court-x-boycott-perfectly-legal/Elon Musk misled investors during his Twitter takeover, jury findshttps://www.engadget.com/social-media/elon-musk-misled-investors-during-his-twitter-takeover-jury-finds-232033028.htmlElon Musk Will Have to Face the Music in Lawsuit Over DOGE's Government Overreachhttps://gizmodo.com/elon-musk-will-have-to-face-the-music-in-lawsuit-over-doges-government-overreach-2000737413OpenAI reportedly plans to double its workforce to 8,000 employeeshttps://www.engadget.com/ai/openai-reportedly-plans-to-double-its-workforce-to-8000-employees-161028377.htmlSam Altman Thanks Programmers for Their Effort, Says Their Time Is Overhttps://futurism.com/artificial-intelligence/sam-altman-thanks-programmers-overSam Altman Confronted At Oscars Party Over Pentagon Dealhttps://futurism.com/artificial-intelligence/sam-altman-confronted-oscar-pentagon-dealR.I.P. Sora (2024-2026)https://gizmodo.com/r-i-p-sora-2024-2026-2000737664Disney's Sora Disaster Shows AI Will Not Revolutionize Hollywoodhttps://www.404media.co/disneys-openai-sora-disaster-shows-ai-will-not-save-hollywood/The Tech Bubble Might Finally Be Poppinghttps://slate.com/technology/2026/03/ai-openai-sam-altman-disney-sora-shutdown.htmlElon Musk announces Terafab project he claims will be the 'largest chip manufacturing facility ever'https://www.engadget.com/science/elon-musk-announces-terafab-project-he-claims-will-be-the-largest-chip-manufacturing-facility-ever-171718545.htmlTrump Rewards Big Tech's Biggest Bootlickers With Seats on AI Policy Boardhttps://gizmodo.com/trump-rewards-big-techs-biggest-bootlickers-with-seats-on-ai-policy-board-2000738006Pinterest CEO says teens under 16 should be banned from social media (but not Pinterest)https://www.engadget.com/social-media/pinterest-ceo-says-teens-under-16-should-be-banned-from-social-media-but-not-pinterest-211630443.htmlReddit is weighing identity verification methods to combat its bot problemhttps://www.engadget.com/social-media/reddit-is-weighing-identity-verification-methods-to-combat-its-bot-problem-195814671.htmlAPPS & DOODADSBambu Lab A1https://bambulab.com/en-ca/a1Twitter turned 20 and I feel nothinghttps://www.engadget.com/social-media/twitter-turned-20-and-i-feel-nothing-140000602.htmlFCC Bans All New Routers Not Made in Americahttps://gizmodo.com/fcc-bans-all-new-routers-not-made-in-america-2000737176MEDIA CANDYStar Trek: Starfleet Academyhttps://www.paramountplus.com/shows/star-trek-starfleet-academy/‘Star Trek: Starfleet Academy’ to End With Season 2 (EXCLUSIVE)https://variety.com/2026/tv/news/star-trek-starfleet-academy-canceled-season-2-1236696816/'Starfleet Academy' Deserved Better Than Thishttps://gizmodo.com/star-trek-starfleet-academy-cancelation-paramount-2000737569Shrek Forever Afterhttps://www.netflix.com/title/70117295Daredevil: Born Again S2https://www.disneyplus.com/browse/entity-85e7a914-c8e6-41db-95df-c740dc2cf1b7Shrinkinghttps://tv.apple.com/ca/show/shrinking/umc.cmc.apzybj6eqf6pzccd97kev7bsThe Pitthttps://www.hbomax.com/shows/pitt-2024/e6e7bad9-d48d-4434-b334-7c651ffc4bdfHarry Po

13 years of podcasting has taught us nothing; companies are lying about AI layoffs while Meta destroys itself from the inside; Andreessen has zero introspection and it shows; Dune 3 looks incredible; Firefly lives again; one idiot executive staked Buffy; Adobe paid $75M for being evil; your AI passwords are garbage; Dave Bittner is here to make you feel worse about all of it.Sponsors:DeleteMe - Get 20% off your DeleteMe plan when you go to JoinDeleteMe.com/GOG and use promo code GOG at checkout.SquareSpace - go to squarespace.com/GRUMPY for a free trial. And when you’re ready to launch, use code GRUMPY to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain.Private Internet Access - Go to GOG.Show/vpn and sign up today. For a limited time only, you can get OUR favorite VPN for as little as $2.03 a month.SetApp - With a single monthly subscription you get 240+ apps for your Mac. Go to SetApp and get started today!!!1Password - Get a great deal on the only password manager recommended by Grumpy Old Geeks! gog.show/1passwordShow notes at https://gog.show/738Watch on YouTube: https://youtu.be/pykGjOmMs5cFOLLOW UPGOG Ep 1: How to Make Money on the Internet - March 25th, 2013The ‘AI-Washing’ of Job Cuts Is Corrosive and ConfusingRace on to establish globally recognised 'AI-free' logoBillionaire Marc Andreessen says he has "zero" introspection, and that the idea itself is a modern invention.Gamblers trying to win a bet on Polymarket are vowing to kill me if I don’t rewrite an Iran missile storyIN THE NEWSAtlassian to cut roughly 10% jobs in pivot to AIMeta is reportedly planning to cut up to 20 percent of its staff in upcoming layoffsMeta Is Building an Encrypted Chatbot After AI Agents Went Rogue and Exposed Sensitive DataMeta Says It Is Removing End-to-End Encryption From Instagram Direct MessagesMeta is testing clickable links in Instagram captions for verified subscribersEncyclopedia Britannica sues OpenAI for copyright and trademark infringementSenators tell ByteDance to shut down Seedance 2.0 AI video app 'immediately'Things Are Suddenly Looking Incredibly Bad for Trump’s Social Media CompanyTrump administration will reportedly get $10 billion for brokering the TikTok dealThe Billionaire Backlash Against a Philanthropic DreamJeff Bezos’ Washington Post Now Setting Readers’ Subscription Prices With Uber-Style AIAPPS & DOODADSAdobe agrees to pay settlement for making its subscriptions hard to cancelEverything you need to know to design with StitchWhat is DESIGN.md?Warning: Your AI-Generated Password Is a Major Security Risk. Here’s What to Use InsteadMEDIA CANDYDune: Part Three | Official Teaser TrailerHow ‘Dune: Part Three’ Is Changing the Entire ‘Dune’ Franchise"Paradise" has been renewed for Season 3 at Hulu, Variety has learned.Paradise on HuluMars ExpressNathan Fillion Says ‘Firefly’ Animated Series In Development With Co-Stars Set To Reprise Roles; Concept Art RevealedSarah Michelle Gellar Says a Single Executive Was Responsible for Killing the ‘Buffy’ Reboot‘V For Vendetta’ at 20: We Spoke to Its Director About the Increasingly Relevant Comic AdaptationTHE DARK SIDE WITH DAVEDave BittnerThe CyberWireHacking HumansCaveatControl LoopOnly Malware in the BuildingDisney's 100% Rotten Tomatoes Masterpiece Returns This Fall With Brand-New ReleaseShhh… It’s zombie proof. Kia’s all-electric rangeThe Last Quiet Thing by Terry GodierEvel Knievel Kings Island 1975 - Farthest Successful Jump at 133 feet70's Evel Knievel Toy Commercial IDEALEvel Knievel's 14 Greyhound Bus Jump Oct 25th 1975 HD enhanced. Epic WORLD RECORD.Craig Ferguson’s Evel Knievel Story is Wild!!Being EvelWembley 50th Anniversary Evel Knievel Stunt Cycle Set – Limited Gold EditionEvel Knievel Stunt Cycle - Trail Bike EditionSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In this week's show we start with FOLLOW UP: The world keeps trying to protect kids online — Indonesia just joined Australia, Spain, and Malaysia in banning social media for under-16s, while COPPA 2.0 sailed through the US Senate unanimously. Meanwhile, Roblox is using AI to clean up its chat, because apparently "Hurry TF up" is the hill they've chosen to die on — even as they're still dealing with the whole "pedophile problem" thing from January. On the AI copyright front, Gracenote is the latest company to sue OpenAI for helping itself to proprietary data, joining a growing queue of plaintiffs who apparently didn't get the memo that everything is training data now.IN THE NEWS: Anthropic is suing the Pentagon after being labeled a "supply chain risk" — apparently because the CEO said AI shouldn't be used for mass surveillance or autonomous weapons, which the Trump administration heard as fighting words. The delicious irony: the Pentagon is still running Claude in active operations while trying to phase it out. Speaking of active operations, investigators now think a missile strike on an Iranian girls' school may have been triggered by bad AI-generated intelligence from that same Claude-based system. So yes, the autocomplete that hallucinates your grocery list is also maybe accidentally bombing schools. Meta's Oversight Board is begging the company to get serious about AI-generated content after a fake war video from a Filipino fake news account racked up 700K views — while separately, Zuckerberg dropped cash on Moltbook, a "social network for AI agents" that turned out to be mostly humans larping as bots and had a security flaw that exposed everyone's API keys. The guy who built it basically vibe-coded the whole thing. Meta's own CTO said he didn't "find it particularly interesting." And yet. Oracle is hemorrhaging jobs and drowning in debt chasing AI dreams, its stock down 50% from peak — a timely reminder that "AI will replace workers" is currently manifesting as "companies set money on fire and lay people off to pay the electric bill." Researchers confirmed AI is homogenizing human thought and creativity — a thing some of us have been screaming since day one. A DOGE engineer allegedly walked out of the Social Security Administration with databases containing personal info on 500 million Americans on a thumb drive. The Ig Nobel Prize is relocating to Switzerland because it's no longer safe to invite international guests to America. Nintendo is suing the US government to get its tariff money back. SETI thinks it may have been accidentally filtering out alien signals due to space weather. And Pokémon Go players unknowingly spent a decade building a centimeter-accurate surveillance map of Earth's cities that's now guiding pizza delivery robots — which, honestly, tracks.In APPS & DOODADS: The GOG clan in Clash Royale just hit eight years old — respect. OpenAudible is the cross-platform audiobook manager your Audible library deserves, especially if you've got over a thousand books sitting there judging you.And finally in MEDIA CANDY: Monarch: Legacy of Monsters Season 2 is here, and pretty beige. Live Nation settled its DOJ antitrust case for $200 million, kept Ticketmaster, and avoided a breakup — meanwhile court documents revealed employees joking about "robbing fans blind" and gouging "stupid" customers, which explains basically every concert ticket you've bought in the last decade. YouTube is now officially the world's largest media company at $62 billion in revenue. Bluesky's CEO is stepping down, which is either a bad sign or just the natural order of "person who built the cool thing hands it to the person who scales the cool thing." Dead Set — Charlie Brooker's 2008 zombie-in-the-Big-Brother-house miniseries — is worth a watch if you haven't. And trailers dropped for Daredevil: Born Again Season 2 (March 24th), The Boys final season (April 8th), and The Super Mario Galaxy Movie (April 1st — yes, really).Sponsors:DeleteMe - Get 20% off your DeleteMe plan when you go to JoinDeleteMe.com/GOG and use promo code GOG at checkout.CleanMyMac - Get Tidy Today! Try 7 days free and use code OLDGEEKS for 20% off at clnmy.com/OLDGEEKSPrivate Internet Access - Go to GOG.Show/vpn and sign up today. For a limited time only, you can get OUR favorite VPN for as little as $2.03 a month.SetApp - With a single monthly subscription you get 240+ apps for your Mac. Go to SetApp and get started today!!!1Password - Get a great deal on the only password manager recommended by Grumpy Old Geeks! gog.show/1passwordShow notes at https://gog.show/737Watch on YouTube: https://youtu.be/DgSYnFF6twEFOLLOW UPIndonesia announces a social media ban for anyone under 16Anthropic Sues PentagonMetadata company Gracenote is the latest to sue OpenAI for copyright infringementRoblox introduces real-time AI-powered chat rephraser for inappropriate languageIN THE NEWSCOPPA 2.0 passes the Senate again, unanimously this timeAI Error Likely Led to

Microsoft's anti-"Microslop" censorship backfired spectacularly; Australia is cracking down on AI age verification while Meta is busy targeting toddlers; prediction markets are basically just insider trading with extra steps; AI chatbots are getting people killed and exposing spy operations; the Moon landing got pushed again; Opera got nostalgic at 30; Sony bought Charlie Brown; and Netflix is making documentaries with robot people now.Show notes at https://gog.show/736Watch on YouTube at https://youtu.be/6lw2Hy_U8QASponsors:DeleteMe - Get 20% off your DeleteMe plan when you go to JoinDeleteMe.com/GOG and use promo code GOG at checkout.Private Internet Access - Go to GOG.Show/vpn and sign up today. For a limited time only, you can get OUR favorite VPN for as little as $2.03 a month.SetApp - With a single monthly subscription you get 240+ apps for your Mac. Go to SetApp and get started today!!!1Password - Get a great deal on the only password manager recommended by Grumpy Old Geeks! gog.show/1passwordFOLLOW UPMicrosoft Bans the Word “Microslop” on Copilot Discord, Gets So Humiliated That It Locks Down the Whole ServerAustralia will consider requiring app stores to block AI services without age verificationA Day in the Life of an EnshittificatorIN THE NEWSMeta’s what-if for tweensHow Meta Executives Talked About Child Safety Behind the ScenesThe Great Insider Trading Reckoning Reportedly Hits OpenAIKhamenei market meltdown on Kalshi shows how prediction markets still can’t decide what ‘counts’Some Alleged Polymarket Insiders Made a Fortune on U.S. Strikes on IranPolymarket Decides Incentivizing a Nuclear Detonation Might Be a Bad IdeaA Chinese official’s use of ChatGPT accidentally revealed a global intimidation operation‘Our Bond Is the Only Thing That’s Real:’ A New Lawsuit Alleges Google Gemini Drove a Man to SuicideThe Data Centers Have Arrived at the Edge of the Arctic CircleBig tech companies agree to not ruin your electric bill with AI data centersTerraPower gets OK to start construction of its first nuclear plantThe Supreme Court doesn't care if you want to copyright your AI-generated artAnthropic CEO Dario Amodei calls OpenAI's messaging around military deal 'straight up lies,' report saysThe $100 Billion OpenAI-Nvidia Deal Is Not HappeningNASA Announces Major Change to Plans For Putting Humans on The MoonThe US Senate empowers NASA to fully engage in lunar space raceAstronomers Estimated the Lifespan of Alien Civilizations, and It’s Not Looking Good for UsMEDIA CANDYCharlie Brown now works for SonyThese AI Avatars in a Netflix True Crime Doc Are Disturbing ViewersNetflix buys Ben Affleck’s AI film tech company, InterPositiveAPPS & DOODADSOpera Has Turned 30 and Is Celebrating With a Compelling Tribute to Web NostalgiaWeb Design MuseumMeta hit with a class action lawsuit over smart glasses' privacy claimsApple Macbook NeoAT THE LIBRARYUncommon People: Britpop and Beyond in 20 Songs by Miranda SawyerSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Starting off in FOLLOW UP, we’ve got a tax economist who actually made money betting against the "efficiency" of Elon’s budget-slashing fever dreams, while Tesla is busy trying to dodge a $243 million jury verdict for an Autopilot-assisted fatality. Not content with being legally liable, Tesla is also suing the California DMV because they’re offended someone called their "Autopilot" and "Full Self-Driving" marketing deceptive—ironic, since Jack Dorsey just "proactively" halved the staff at Block to make room for more AI slop. Speaking of which, Goldman Sachs is here to remind us that all this AI spending added a grand total of zero to the US GDP last year, mostly because we’re just exporting all that cash to overseas chip makers while 80% of execs admit the tech hasn’t actually done anything for productivity yet.Moving into IN THE NEWS, Sam Altman had the audacity to compare ChatGPT’s energy-sucking habits to the 20-year evolution of a human, though the internet wasn't exactly buying the "my bot is just like a baby" defense. Anthropic actually stood its ground against the Pentagon’s demand for killer robots and mass surveillance, so naturally, the military just signed a deal to put Elon’s Grok in their classified systems instead—because what could go wrong with an "edgy" LLM in the war room? Meanwhile, cities are dumping AI surveillance contracts as citizens start a literal "smash-the-snitch-box" campaign against Flock's license plate readers, Google’s AI is busy inserting racial slurs into news alerts, and the White House is apparently harboring a staffer moonlighting as a racist "masterpiece" creator on X. We’ve also got Reddit being slapped with a $20 million fine in the UK for being lazy with age checks, while Discord and Apple scramble to build verification tools that hopefully won't leak your entire identity to a hacker in Belarus.In MEDIA CANDY, the Paramount-Skydance merger is leaving the industry in a cold sweat of "synergy" layoffs, but at least we’re getting more Game of Thrones spinoffs and Star Trek reboots to rot our brains. Face/Off 2 lost its director, Ryan Coogler is taking on The X-Files, and Google wants to use AI to turn music into generic "lo-fi" background noise for the masses.Over in APPS & DOODADS, OpenAI is planning a 2027 smart speaker that literally watches you through a camera—because you definitely wanted a $300 Sam Altman-shaped eye in your kitchen—while the Dark Sky creators are back with "Acme Weather" for the low price of $25 a year.We wrap up THE DARK SIDE WITH DAVE with a deep dive into "Under Pressure" and Coruscant’s urban sprawl, leaving us to reminisce about the days when KPT Bryce was the pinnacle of tech—back when "generative art" was just a fractal that took six hours to render.Sponsors:DeleteMe - Get 20% off your DeleteMe plan when you go to JoinDeleteMe.com/GOG and use promo code GOG at checkout.SquareSpace - go to squarespace.com/GRUMPY for a free trial. And when you’re ready to launch, use code GRUMPY to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain.Private Internet Access - Go to GOG.Show/vpn and sign up today. For a limited time only, you can get OUR favorite VPN for as little as $2.03 a month.SetApp - With a single monthly subscription you get 240+ apps for your Mac. Go to SetApp and get started today!!!1Password - Get a great deal on the only password manager recommended by Grumpy Old Geeks! gog.show/1passwordShow notes at https://gog.show/735Watch on YouTube: https://youtu.be/jdz--v3eeU4FOLLOW UPGuy Bets Entire Life Savings Against Elon Musk, WinsTesla sues California DMV after it banned the term 'Autopilot'Jack Dorsey just halved the size of Block's employee base — and he says your company is nextIN THE NEWSSam Altman: Know What Else Used a Lot of Energy? Human CivilizationStatement from Dario Amodei on our discussions with the Department of WarAnthropic Tells Pete Hegseth to Take a HikeCities Are Shredding Their AI Surveillance Contracts en MasseKalshi Suspended a California Politician and a YouTuber for Insider TradingDiscord delays age verification to address user concernsApple introduces age verification for apps in Utah, Louisiana and AustraliaMEDIA CANDYAs Paramount Skydance wins the battle for Warner Bros. as Netflix ends its bid, here's the mood inside all three companies.A Knight of the Seven KingdomsStar Trek: Starfleet AcademyThe Night Agent Season 3'Face/Off 2' Director Adam Wingard is Now/GoneRyan Coogler's X-Files reboot gets the green light at HuluMortal Kombat II | Official Trailer IIGoogle's AI Slop Machine Is Coming for Your MusicDropping Names... and other things with Jonathan Frakes and Brent SpinerOnce We Were SpacemenAPPS & DOODADSOpenAI will reportedly release an AI-powered smart speaker in 2027Instagram Will Notify Parents When Teens Use Search Terms Related to SuicideThe creators of Dark Sky have a new weather appThis App Warns You if Someone Is Wearing Smart Glasses NearbyTHE DARK SIDE WITH DAVEDave BittnerThe Cy

If you thought the internet was a dumpster fire before, the EU LAUNCHES SECOND INVESTIGATION INTO GROK because Musk’s bot won't stop generating nonconsensual imagery. Meanwhile, META LARGELY FAILS TO PROTECT KIDS FROM AI CHATBOTS, proving that their internal safety checks are about as effective as a screen door on a submarine. If that doesn't creep you out, AFTER RING PRIVACY BACKLASH over police partnerships, a LEAKED EMAIL SUGGESTS RING PLANS TO EXPAND ‘SEARCH PARTY’ from finding lost dogs to total neighborhood surveillance. Of course, REDDIT, META, AND GOOGLE VOLUNTARILY GAVE DHS INFO on users critical of ICE, because why stand up for privacy when you can just comply?In the news, we look at OPENCLAW, OPENAI AND THE FUTURE as the project’s founder joins the Borg, even though META AND OTHER TECH FIRMS PUT RESTRICTIONS ON USE OF OPENCLAW because it’s basically a security hole that can click your mouse for you. Peak stupidity has arrived with RFK JR'S NEW CHATBOT giving rectal dietary advice, while AI COMPANIES BOUGHT OUT ALL OF WESTERN DIGITAL’S HARD DRIVES through 2026, meaning you can't have storage because the bots need it more. Even VALVE ADMITS STEAM DECK AVAILABILITY IS AFFECTED by this memory hoarding. We also touch on STEVE BANNON SUED OVER MAGA CRYPTO SCHEME, LOS ANGELES COUNTY FILES LAWSUIT AGAINST ROBLOX for being a safety nightmare, and the fact that TESLA ROBOTAXIS REPORTEDLY CRASHING at four times the human rate. TESLA DODGES 30-DAY SUSPENSION by simply killing the word "Autopilot," while NEW YORK HITS THE BRAKES ON ROBOTAXI EXPANSION to keep the chaos at bay. Finally, POLYMARKET WITHDRAWS EXPLOSIVE ARTEMIS BETTING MARKET because betting on dead astronauts is too much even for them, leading the ETHEREUM CREATOR STARTING TO THINK THIS WHOLE PREDICTION MARKET THING MIGHT BE GAMBLING. As NEVADA SUES KALSHI and Jack Dorsey oversees INSIDE THE ROLLING LAYOFFS AT JACK DORSEY’S BLOCK—using AI to summarize the misery of his employees—just remember: YOU’LL BE SORRY WHEN YOU HEAR WHAT JUSTIN BIEBER’S $1.3 MILLION BORED APE IS WORTH NOW. Hint: it’s twelve grand.In this week's MEDIA CANDY, we’ve got FREE BERT, KAT WILLIAMS: THE LAST REPORT, and the eternal return of SHREK. We’re checking out MARK ROBER on Netflix, the return of MONARCH: LEGACY OF MONSTERS, and the trailer for GOOD LUCK, HAVE FUN, DON'T DIE. If you need a soundtrack for the apocalypse, Thomas Benjamin Wild Esq has you covered with STOP USING GENERATIVE A.I and the Gen-X anthem I'VE NO MORE F*S TO GIVE!.Moving to APPS & DOODADS, OBSIDIAN TO NOTES is a $14 well spent, unlike CURSOR and VISUAL STUDIO CODE which are getting bogged down by slow models. APPLE’S AI PENDANT sounds like a watered-down Humane pin that relies on your phone to think, and APPLE PODCASTS AND VIDEO remains a pipe dream because bandwidth costs money. We’ve reached the point where THERE’S A GRIM NEW EXPRESSION: “AI;DR” for things not worth reading, and THERE'S A NEW TERM FOR WORKERS FREAKING OUT over being replaced—AIRD, or AI Replacement Dysfunction—which is basically the low-grade panic of being made obsolete by a machine that thinks bananas go in your bum.AT THE LIBRARY, we’re thumbing through CLEAVE THE SPARROW, THE REGICIDE REPORT by Charles Stross, and Robin Ince being NORMALLY WEIRD AND WEIRDLY NORMAL.Then we descend into THE DARK SIDE WITH DAVE, where the Muppets are taking over with THE MUPPET SHOW and MUPPETS NOW. We catch the latest on THE MANDALORIAN AND GROGU and TOY STORY 5, while tracking the PENTAGON PIZZA INDEX to see if war is breaking out. For the kids, we look at a 3D PRINTER / ENTRY LEVEL FOR KIDS like the Bambu Lab A1, and for the nerds, A STAR WARS-CENTRIC RSS FEED and a NEAT IDEA FOR AN RSS READER, “CURRENT,” which lets news drift away like water under a bridge. We wrap it all up with some HORROR IN UNDER TWO MINUTES and IMPECCABLE COVERS OF 80S SYNTH MUSIC, because at least the 80s had better soundtracks than this AI-generated nightmare.Sponsors:DeleteMe - Get 20% off your DeleteMe plan when you go to JoinDeleteMe.com/GOG and use promo code GOG at checkout.SquareSpace - go to squarespace.com/GRUMPY for a free trial. And when you’re ready to launch, use code GRUMPY to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain.Private Internet Access - Go to GOG.Show/vpn and sign up today. For a limited time only, you can get OUR favorite VPN for as little as $2.03 a month.SetApp - With a single monthly subscription you get 240+ apps for your Mac. Go to SetApp and get started today!!!1Password - Get a great deal on the only password manager recommended by Grumpy Old Geeks! gog.show/1passwordShow notes at https://gog.show/734FOLLOW UPEU launches second investigation into Grok's nonconsensual image generationMeta largely fails to protect kids from AI chatbots, per its own testsAfter Ring privacy backlash, company abandons plans for police partnershipLeaked Email Suggests Ring Plans to Expand ‘Search Party’ Surveillance Beyond DogsReddit, Meta, and Goo

We kick things off in FOLLOW UP with the ongoing "nuclear war" between Automattic and WP Engine, where discovery has revealed Matt Mullenweg’s alleged hit list of competitors and a desperate attempt to bully payment processors—because nothing says "open source" like an eight-percent royalty shakedown. Meanwhile, the Harvard Business Review confirmed what we already knew: AI isn’t reducing our work; it’s just compressing it until we’re all working through lunch and burning out faster while Polymarket turns our collective brain rot into a literal "attention market" where you can bet on Elon’s mindshare.Transitioning to IN THE NEWS, Elon has officially pivoted SpaceX from Mars to the Moon, presumably because building a "self-growing lunar city" is easier than admitting the Red Planet is hard, though his xAI all-hands rant about "ancient alien catapults" suggests he’s been staring at the sun too long. Between X allegedly taking blue-check lunch money from sanctioned Iranian leaders, Meta facing trials for creating "predator-friendly hunting grounds," and Russia finally pulling the plug on WhatsApp, the internet is looking more like a digital dumpster fire than ever. Add in Discord leaking 70,000 government IDs, OpenAI shoving ads into ChatGPT while safety researchers flee the building like it’s on fire, and a "cognitive debt" crisis eroding our ability to think, and you’ve got a recipe for a tech-induced psychosis that even crypto-funded human trafficking can’t outpace.In MEDIA CANDY, we're wondering about the soft-core porn intro in the latest Star Trek: Starfleet Academy while Apple buys the total rights to Severance for seventy million dollars—because in-house production is the only way to keep those ballooning budgets under control. Super Bowl trailer season gave us a glimpse of The Mandalorian and Grogu and a Project Hail Mary teaser, while Babylon 5 has finally landed on YouTube for free, proving that even 90s serialized sci-fi eventually finds its way to the clearance bin.Over in APPS & DOODADS, Meta Quest is nagging us for our birthdays like a needy relative, while Roblox had to scrub a mass-shooting simulator—because "AI plus human safety teams" is apparently just code for "we missed it until it hit the forums." Ring’s Super Bowl ad for "Search Party" accidentally terrified everyone by revealing a mass surveillance network for pets that’s a slippery slope toward a police state, and Waymo is now paying DoorDashers ten bucks just to walk over and close the car doors that autonomous tech still can’t figure out.Wrapping up with THE DARK SIDE WITH DAVE, we dive into the Mandalorian Hasbro reveal where Sigourney Weaver’s action figure comes with no accessories because her existence is enough of a flex. We explore the grim reality of "RentAHuman," where humans are paid pittance to pretend AI agents are actually doing work, and look at "Trash Talk Audio," which sells a $125 microphone made out of a literal old telephone for that authentic Gen-X "get off the line, I'm expecting a call" aesthetic. From Marcia Lucas finally venting about the prequels and a rare book catalog specifically for our aging generation, we’re reminded that while the future is a chaotic mess of "GeoSpy" AI and corporate reshuffling at Disney, at least we still have our cynical memories and some free versions of Roller Coaster Tycoon to keep us from losing it completely.Sponsors:CleanMyMac - Get Tidy Today! Try 7 days free and use code OLDGEEKS for 20% off at clnmy.com/OLDGEEKSDeleteMe - Get 20% off your DeleteMe plan when you go to JoinDeleteMe.com/GOG and use promo code GOG at checkout.Private Internet Access - Go to GOG.Show/vpn and sign up today. For a limited time only, you can get OUR favorite VPN for as little as $2.03 a month.SetApp - With a single monthly subscription you get 240+ apps for your Mac. Go to SetApp and get started today!!!1Password - Get a great deal on the only password manager recommended by Grumpy Old Geeks! gog.show/1passwordShow notes at https://gog.show/733FOLLOW UPAutomattic planned to target 10 competitors with royalty fees, WP Engine claims in new filingAI Doesn’t Reduce Work—It Intensifies ItPolymarket To Offer Attention Markets In Partnership With Kaito AIIsrael Arrests Members of Military for Placing Polymarket Bets Using Inside Information on Upcoming StrikesIN THE NEWSUnable to Reach Mars, Musk Does the Most Musk Thing PossibleWe’ll Find the Remnants of Ancient Alien Civilizations’: Read Musk’s Gibberish Rant from His xAI All-Hands MeetingElon Musk’s X Appears to Be Violating US Sanctions by Selling Premium Accounts to Iranian LeadersMeta Faces Two Key Trials That Could Change Social Media ForeverWhatsApp is now fully blocked in RussiaRussia is restricting access to Telegram, one of its most popular social media apps. Here’s what we knowDOJ may face investigation for pressuring Apple, Google to remove apps for tracking ICE agentsDiscord Launches Teen-by-Default Settings GloballyDiscord says hackers

In this week’s FOLLOW UP, Bitcoin is down 15%, miners are unplugging rigs because paying eighty-seven grand to mine a sixty-grand coin finally failed the vibes check, and Grok is still digitally undressing men—suggesting Musk’s “safeguards” remain mostly theoretical, which didn’t help when X offices got raided in France. Spain wants to ban social media for kids under 16, Egypt is blocking Roblox outright, and governments everywhere are flailing at the algorithmic abyss.IN THE NEWS, Elon Musk is rolling xAI into SpaceX to birth a $1.25 trillion megacorp that wants to power AI from orbit with a million satellites, because space junk apparently wasn’t annoying enough. Amazon admits a “high volume” of CSAM showed up in its AI training data and blames third parties, Waymo bags a massive $16 billion to insist robotaxis are working, Pinterest reportedly fires staff who built a layoff-tracking tool, and Sam Altman gets extremely cranky about Claude’s Super Bowl ads hitting a little too close to home.For MEDIA CANDY, we’ve got Shrinking, the Grammys, Star Trek: Starfleet Academy’s questionable holographic future, Neil Young gifting his catalog to Greenland while snubbing Amazon, plus Is It Cake? Valentines and The Rip.In APPS & DOODADS, we test Sennheiser earbuds, mess with Topaz Video, skip a deeply cursed Python script that checks LinkedIn for Epstein connections, and note that autonomous cars and drones will happily obey prompt injection via road signs—defeated by a Sharpie.IN THE LIBRARY, there’s The Regicide Report, a brutal study finding early dementia signals in Terry Pratchett’s novels, Neil Gaiman denying allegations while announcing a new book, and THE DARK SIDE WITH DAVE, vibing with The Muppet Show as Disney names a new CEO. We round it out with RentAHuman.ai dread relief via paper airplane databases, free Roller Coaster Tycoon, and Sir Ian McKellen on Colbert—still classy in the digital wasteland.Sponsors:DeleteMe - Get 20% off your DeleteMe plan when you go to JoinDeleteMe.com/GOG and use promo code GOG at checkout.SquareSpace - go to squarespace.com/GRUMPY for a free trial. And when you’re ready to launch, use code GRUMPY to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain.Private Internet Access - Go to GOG.Show/vpn and sign up today. For a limited time only, you can get OUR favorite VPN for as little as $2.03 a month.SetApp - With a single monthly subscription you get 240+ apps for your Mac. Go to SetApp and get started today!!!1Password - Get a great deal on the only password manager recommended by Grumpy Old Geeks! gog.show/1passwordShow notes at https://gog.show/732Watch on YouTube at https://youtu.be/uFfEI2fuWaMFOLLOW UPBitcoin drops 15%, briefly breaking below $61,000 as sell-off intensifies, doubts about crypto growBitcoin Is Crashing So Hard That Miners Are Unplugging Their EquipmentGrok, which maybe stopped undressing women without their consent, still undresses menX offices raided in France as UK opens fresh investigation into GrokSpain set to ban social media for children under 16Egypt to block Roblox for all usersIN THE NEWSElon Musk Is Rolling xAI Into SpaceX—Creating the World’s Most Valuable Private CompanySpaceX wants to launch a constellation of a million satellites to power AI needsA potential Starlink competitor just got FCC clearance to launch 4,000 satellitesAmazon discovered a 'high volume' of CSAM in its AI training data but isn't saying where it came fromWaymo raises massive $16 billion round at $126 billion valuation, plans expansion to 20+ citiesPinterest Reportedly Fires Employees Who Built a Tool to Track LayoffsSam Altman got exceptionally testy over Claude Super Bowl adsMEDIA CANDYShrinkingStar Trek: Starfleet AcademyThe RipNeil Young gifts Greenland free access to his music and withdraws it from Amazon over TrumpIs it Cake? ValentinesAPPS & DOODADSSennheiser Consumer Audio IE 200 In-Ear Audiophile Headphones - TrueResponse Transducers for Neutral Sound, Impactful Bass, Detachable Braided Cable with Flexible Ear Hooks - BlackSennheiser Consumer Audio CX 80S In-ear Headphones with In-line One-Button Smart Remote – BlackTopaz VideoEpsteinAutonomous cars, drones cheerfully obey prompt injection by road signAT THE LIBRARYThe Regicide Report (Laundry Files Book 14) by Charles StrossScientists Found an Early Signal of Dementia Hidden in Terry Pratchett's NovelsNeil Gaiman Denies the Allegations Against Him (Again) While Announcing a New BookTHE DARK SIDE WITH DAVEDave BittnerThe CyberWireHacking HumansCaveatControl LoopOnly Malware in the BuildingThe Muppet ShowDisney announces Josh D’Amaro will be its new CEO after Iger departsA Database of Paper Airplane Designs: Hours of Fun for Kids & Adults AlikeOnline (free!) version of Roller Coaster tycoon.Speaking of coasters, here’s the current world champion.I am hoping this is satire...Sir Ian McKellen on Colbert.CLOSING SHOUT-OUTSCatherine O’Hara: The Grande Dame of Off-Center ComedyStanding with Sam 'Balloon Ma

We kick off FOLLOW UP by checking in on Elon Musk’s personal dumpster fire, where the EU is investigating Grok for deepfake slop while Tesla’s “unsupervised” robotaxis turned out to be supervised by literal chase cars — shocker. At least some of you are getting Siri settlement crumbs in your bank accounts, though you could probably double it betting against Musk’s worthless promises on Polymarket.Transitioning to IN THE NEWS, Tesla is killing off the Model S and X to build robots while sales crater, proving that mixing hard-right politics with EV sales is a brilliant move for the balance sheet. Meanwhile, the corporate bloodbath continues with massive layoffs at Ubisoft, Vimeo (courtesy of the Bending Spoons buzzsaw), and Amazon, because “removing bureaucracy” is apparently HR-speak for 16,000 families losing their livelihoods. If that’s not enough, Google is settling yet another privacy suit for $135 million, the EU is threatening to weaponize its tech sovereignty against the US, and the Trump administration wants Gemini to write federal regulations—because if there's one thing we want drafting airline safety rules, it's a hallucinating chatbot.Still IN THE NEWS, Waymo is under federal investigation for passing school buses and hitting children, while South Korea’s new AI laws manage to please absolutely no one. Record labels are suing Anna’s Archive for a cool $13 trillion—roughly three times the GDP of India—and the Winklevoss twins have finally admitted that NFTs are dead by shuttering Nifty Gateway.We pivot to MEDIA CANDY, where the Patriots and Seahawks are heading to Super Bowl 60, and the Winter Olympics are descending on Milan. We’re doing the math on the Starfleet Academy timeline, celebrating the return of Ted Lasso and Shrinking, and trying to decide if Henry Cavill is the second coming of Timothy Dalton in the Highlander reboot. Plus, Jessica Jones is back in the Daredevil: Born Again trailer, and Colin Farrell’s Sugar is returning to explain that wild noir twist we all totally saw coming.In APPS & DOODADS, the TikTok Armageddon is upon us as the new US owners break the app and drive everyone to UpScrolled, while Native Instruments enters insolvency, leaving our music-making dreams in restructuring limbo. Apple is dropping AirTag 2 with precision finding for your watch, which is great for finding the keys you lost while doom-scrolling.We wrap up with THE DARK SIDE WITH DAVE, featuring the new Muppets trailer and Steve Whitmire’s deep thoughts on the state of the felt, plus a look at the artisans in Disneyland Handcrafted. Finally, Looney Tunes finds a new home on Turner Classic Movies, proving that the classics never die—they just move to a cable channel your parents actually watch. Dave finally learns about the Insta360 camera, a countertop dishwasher but no Animal Crackers, and a guide to gas masks and googles... for no particular reason.Sponsors:DeleteMe - Get 20% off your DeleteMe plan when you go to JoinDeleteMe.com/GOG and use promo code GOG at checkout.SquareSpace - go to squarespace.com/GRUMPY for a free trial. And when you’re ready to launch, use code GRUMPY to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain.Private Internet Access - Go to GOG.Show/vpn and sign up today. For a limited time only, you can get OUR favorite VPN for as little as $2.03 a month.SetApp - With a single monthly subscription you get 240+ apps for your Mac. Go to SetApp and get started today!!!1Password - Get a great deal on the only password manager recommended by Grumpy Old Geeks! gog.show/1passwordShow notes at https://gog.show/731Watch the episode at https://youtu.be/B54je_oJWjMFOLLOW UPThe EU is investigating Grok and X over potentially illegal deepfakesPeople on Polymarket Are Making a Fortune by Betting Against Elon Musk’s Famously Worthless PromisesElon Musk Made Tesla Fans Think Unsupervised Robotaxis Had Arrived. They Can’t Find ThemTesla Quietly Pauses Its “Unsupervised” Robotaxi Rides as Reality Sets InApple Siri settlement payments hitting bank accounts. What to know.IN THE NEWSTesla bet big on Elon Musk. His politics continue to haunt it.With Tesla Revenue and Profits Down, Elon Musk Plays Up SafetyTesla Kills Models S and XUbisoft proposes even more layoffs after last week's studio closures and game cancellationsVimeo lays off most of its staff just months after being bought by private equity firmAmazon Laying Off 16,000 as It Increases ‘Ownership’ and Removes ‘Bureaucracy’Report Says the E.U. Is Gearing Up to Weaponize Europe's Tech Industry Against the U.S.Google will pay $135 million to settle illegal data collection lawsuitGDPR Enforcement TrackerNTSB will investigate why Waymo's robotaxis are illegally passing school busesWaymo robotaxi hits a child near an elementary school in Santa MonicaVideo shows Waymo vehicle slam into parked cars in Echo ParkTrump admin reportedly plans to use AI to write federal regulationsSouth Korea’s ‘world-first’ AI laws face pushback amid bid to become

Ep 730: Ethical Broads PRIVATEWe kick off FOLLOW UP with California’s AG sending a cease-and-desist to xAI over Grok generating creepy deepfakes of minors, while regulators finally notice Elon Musk’s xAI datacenter illegally running methane turbines in Memphis. The FTC is also appealing its loss in the Meta monopoly case, because apparently breaking up Zuckerberg’s data empire is still the hill they want to die on.IN THE NEWS, Washington joins the age-verification-for-porn parade, the UK considers an Australia-style social media ban for kids under 16, and governments everywhere continue demanding your ID before you’re allowed to enjoy the internet. OpenAI rolls out age prediction for ChatGPT accounts ahead of a rumored adult mode—though hey, at least you can now group tabs in ChatGPT’s Atlas browser. Anthropic rewrites Claude’s “constitution” to make it more vibes-based, Nevada moves to block Polymarket because gambling is only legal when the house owns the house, and YouTube promises even more AI features in 2026. Elsewhere, a Swiss suicide pod gets an AI “mental fitness” upgrade, Microsoft’s CEO begs AI developers to do something useful before the grid collapses, Musk hunts for a $134 billion payday from OpenAI and Microsoft, and makes yet more Davos predictions about robotaxis and aliens that are absolutely happening this year. On the bright side, A-list creatives push back on AI and Comic-Con bans AI art, buying humans a little more time.MEDIA CANDY finds us slogging through Wish, The Pitt, and the “Mel’s Diner in Space” look of Star Trek: Starfleet Academy. We confirm 20-year-old CGI wargs still look terrible, get cautiously excited for 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple, and note that Fallout Season 2’s weekly drops may not be working for a binge-rotted audience.In APPS & DOODADS, X launches Bluesky-style starter packs—presumably to help you find more Nazis—while ICE becomes one of the most-blocked accounts on Bluesky. Threads edges out X in daily mobile users, proving the “federated future” is just another Zuck app. And yes, we think we know what the Apple AI pin is—and definitely what it isn’t.AT THE LIBRARY, we check out The Elements, Jet Tila’s 101 Thai Dishes You Need to Cook Before You Die, Half Baked Harvest: Quick & Cozy, and Southern Living’s A Southern Gentleman’s Kitchen. Scott reports back from a Jim Butcher talk, where we learn Harry Dresden sounds suspiciously like Han Solo.We close with THE DARK SIDE WITH DAVE, who is juggling five podcasts while reading Going to the Top: The Story of Videopolis, plus teasers for Star Wars: Maul – Shadow Lord and a baffling Masters of the Universe trailer, a rant on what “remastered” even means anymore, a dishwasher follow-up, and the grim news that a lot of snow is coming.Sponsors:DeleteMe - Get 20% off your DeleteMe plan when you go to JoinDeleteMe.com/GOG and use promo code GOG at checkout.SquareSpace - go to squarespace.com/GRUMPY for a free trial. And when you’re ready to launch, use code GRUMPY to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain.Private Internet Access - Go to GOG.Show/vpn and sign up today. For a limited time only, you can get OUR favorite VPN for as little as $2.03 a month.SetApp - With a single monthly subscription you get 240+ apps for your Mac. Go to SetApp and get started today!!!1Password - Get a great deal on the only password manager recommended by Grumpy Old Geeks! gog.show/1passwordShow notes at https://gog.show/730Watch on YouTube at https://youtu.be/LiwVkLKr8CoFOLLOW UPCalifornia AG sends cease and desist to xAI over Grok's explicit deepfakesElon Musk’s xAI datacenter generating extra electricity illegally, regulator rulesZuck stuck on Trump’s bad side: FTC appeals loss in Meta monopoly caseIN THE NEWSWashington is the latest state pursuing an age verification law for porn sitesThe UK is mulling an Australia-like social media ban for users under 16OpenAI is launching age prediction for ChatGPT accountsYou can now group tabs on OpenAI’s ChatGPT Atlas browserAnthropic Updates Claude's 'Constitution,' Just in Case Chatbot Has a ConsciousnessNevada files to block Polymarket from offering ‘unlicensed wagering’ in the stateYouTube CEO promises more AI features in 2026Controversial Swiss Suicide Pod Gets an AI-Powered Mental Fitness UpgradeMicrosoft CEO urges AI developers 'to get to a point where we are using this to do something useful,' or 'lose even the social permission...to generate these tokens'Elon Musk is looking for a $134 billion payout from OpenAI and MicrosoftElon Musk Sure Made Lots of Predictions at DavosA-List creatives sign up to fight AI, say it enables 'theft at a grand scale'Comic-Con Bans AI Art After Artist PushbackMEDIA CANDYWishThe PittStar Trek: Starfleet Academy28 Years Later: The Bone Temple'Fallout' Season 2's Weekly Drops May Not Be WorkingAPPS & DOODADSX is also launching Bluesky-like starter packsICE becomes one of the most-blocked accounts on Bluesky after its verificationThrea

We kick things off with the existential dread of FOLLOW UP and the absolute joy of jury duty. While xAI’s Grok is busy getting banned in Malaysia and Indonesia for its CSAM-generating "features," the Senate is unanimously passing the DEFIANCE Act to give us some legal teeth against the deepfake machine. Meta is busy nuking 550,000 Australian accounts to appease regulators, while Roblox’s age verification is so broken that a drawing of stubble or a photo of Kurt Cobain can get you into the adult lounge. Moving IN THE NEWS, Meta is trading its $70 billion Metaverse graveyard for a Reality Labs layoff and a pivot to AI hardware, fueled by an "AI infrastructure" buildout that’s hiring former Trump advisors. Bandcamp is heroically banning AI "slop," Matthew McConaughey is trademarking his own face to fend off the bots, and ICE’s AI hiring tool is such a disaster it’s accidentally fast-tracking mall security as "officers." Between self-help gurus charging $99 for chatbot "advice," GM finally settling its driver-spying suit with the FTC, and NASA prepping for a February moon shot while China plans to launch 200,000 satellites into our already crowded orbit, the future looks exactly as messy as we expected.For MEDIA CANDY, we’ve got Lord of the Rings marathons, the diner-bridge of Starfleet Academy, and the usual joy of streaming price hikes hitting our "Premium" plans. We’re tracking the 2025 "In Memoriam" and Gabriel Pagan’s exhaustive movie list before sliding into APPS & DOODADS. Jony Ive and Sam Altman are reportedly building an hearing aide called "Sweetpea" to kill your AirPods, Siri is officially Google Gemini’s new puppet, and Apple is finally bundling its creative apps into a "Creator Studio" subscription trap. Tesla is making Full Self-Driving a subscription-only Valentine’s gift (good luck with that), Ring is rebranding surveillance as a "fire-watching" assistant, and a Chinese app called "Are You Dead?" is the new must-have for the lonely. To cap it off, the internet proved its maturity by using "Words.zip"—an infinite word-search grid—to draw a giant phallus, because of course they did.AT THE LIBRARY features the Anthony Bourdain Reader, the return of Bob in the new Laundry Files book, and Jimmy Carr’s guide to happiness, which is apparently cheaper than therapy. Then we descend into THE DARK SIDE WITH DAVE, where the dishwasher-installing, ham-radio-lunching Dave Bittner reveals Disney World has job openings for those of us who spent high school in the AV club. Lucasfilm is finally entering a new era as Kathleen Kennedy steps down, just as Galaxy’s Edge admits the original trilogy exists, and we wrap it all up with lock-picking kits and the terrifying realization that Seymour from H.R. Pufnstuf is the ultimate Gen-X fursona.Sponsors:DeleteMe - Get 20% off your DeleteMe plan when you go to JoinDeleteMe.com/GOG and use promo code GOG at checkout.Gusto - Try Gusto today at gusto.com/grumpy, and get three months free when you run your first payroll.Private Internet Access - Go to GOG.Show/vpn and sign up today. For a limited time only, you can get OUR favorite VPN for as little as $2.03 a month.SetApp - With a single monthly subscription you get 240+ apps for your Mac. Go to SetApp and get started today!!!1Password - Get a great deal on the only password manager recommended by Grumpy Old Geeks! gog.show/1passwordShow notes at https://gog.show/729Watch on YouTube! https://youtu.be/1Y1jnRDw7g0FOLLOW UPMalaysia and Indonesia are the first to block Grok following CSAM scandalSenate passes Defiance Act for a second time to address Grok deepfakesMeta closes 550,000 accounts to comply with Australia's kids social media banRoblox's age verification system is reportedly a trainwreckIN THE NEWSMeta refocuses on AI hardware as metaverse layoffs beginMeta’s Layoffs Leave Supernatural Fitness Users in MourningMeta Creates High-Powered Team to Oversee AI Infrastructure BuildoutBandcamp prohibits music made ‘wholly or in substantial part’ by AIMatthew McConaughey fights unauthorized AI likenesses by trademarking himselfICE’s AI Tool Has Been a Complete DisasterSelf-Help Ghouls Are Charging People Absurd Prices to Talk to Impersonator ChatbotsThe FTC's data-sharing order against GM is finally settledNASA is ending Crew-11 astronauts' mission a month earlyNASA makes final preparations for its first crewed moon mission in over 50 yearsAs SpaceX Works Toward 50K Starlink Satellites, China Eyes Deploying 200KMEDIA CANDYBeast Games Season 2Star Trek: Starfleet AcademyGrumpy Old ListThe Ongoing History of New Music, episode 1069: 2025 in MemoriamDepeche Mode: MAPPS & DOODADSJony Ive and Sam Altman’s First AI Gadget May Try to Kill AirPodsApple's Siri AI will be powered by GeminiApple’s Mac and iPad creative apps get bundled into “Creator Studio” subscriptionTesla's Full Self-Driving is switching to a subscription-only serviceRing founder details the camera company's 'intelligent assistant' eraAre You Dead?: The viral

Welcome back to the digital wasteland, fellow survivors. We kick things off in the FOLLOW UP by marking a year since the LA Fires—hello, PTSD—alongside a 4th Strokiversary and three years of sobriety, all while wondering why America is currently obsessed with shooting its own civilians in the face.In the IN THE NEWS segment, Wired is finally teaching us how to protest safely in the age of surveillance, and the EFF is cheering on the hackers fighting ICE’s Nazi-adjacent tracking tactics. Meanwhile, Meta is harvesting your AI chats for targeted ads, Disney is paying $10 million for spying on kids, and Grok has spent the holidays generating nonconsensual child abuse material—a problem Elon Musk won't have to legally reckon with until the Take It Down Act hits in May. Instagram’s Adam Mosseri has basically surrendered to the AI "slop", suggesting we fingerprint "real" media because the fake stuff has already won the war.As we continue the descent, OpenAI is launching a ChatGPT Health portal despite their "loser energy" and compute limits, while Character.AI and Google are quietly settling lawsuits for bots that encouraged teen suicide. Polymarket gamblers are learning that "decentralized" juries will fist you over the definition of an "invasion" just as fast as a bank. Uber showed off a new Lucid-based robotaxi, but we’re pumping the brakes on the safety hype given that autonomous vehicles are five times more likely to crash at dusk. To wrap up the news, Tim Cook took home $74 million last year, which is a lot of "systematic philanthropy" he could be doing right now instead of just writing checks to his own ego.In MEDIA CANDY, we’re suffering through the Stranger Things wrap-up and a John McTiernan holiday marathon, though the real highlight is MTV Rewind’s tribute to music videos. We’ve got Traitors, The Pitt, and even a John Candy doc on the list, while APPS & DOODADS brings us the DJI Osmo 8, Victrola’s turntable-vibrating speakers. At least California’s DROP tool lets you purge your data from 500 brokers at once.Finally, we go to THE DARK SIDE WITH DAVE to hear Dave Bittner rant about holiday tech support, health insurance gouging, and Dave Filoni taking the Star Wars reins. We close out with a look at ILM’s 50th, the deepfake porn cesspool formerly known as Twitter, and a birthday toast to the Starman himself, David Bowie.Sponsors:CleanMyMac - Get Tidy Today! Try 7 days free and use code OLDGEEKS for 20% off at clnmy.com/OLDGEEKSPrivate Internet Access - Go to GOG.Show/vpn and sign up today. For a limited time only, you can get OUR favorite VPN for as little as $2.03 a month.SetApp - With a single monthly subscription you get 240+ apps for your Mac. Go to SetApp and get started today!!!1Password - Get a great deal on the only password manager recommended by Grumpy Old Geeks! gog.show/1passwordShow notes at https://gog.show/728Watch on YouTube: https://youtu.be/x-2GTUC6rcUIN THE NEWSHow to Protest Safely in the Age of SurveillanceHow Hackers Are Fighting Back Against ICEMeta’s New Privacy Policy Opens Up AI Chats for Targeted AdsDisney to Pay $10 Million After Feds Say It Broke Kids’ Privacy Rules on YouTubePeople Spent the Holidays Asking Grok to Generate Sexual Images of ChildrenHere's When Elon Musk Will Finally Have to Reckon With His Nonconsensual Porn GeneratorInstagram chief: AI is so ubiquitous 'it will be more practical to fingerprint real media than fake media'ChatGPT is launching a new dedicated Health portalCharacter.AI and Google settle with families in teen suicide and self-harm lawsuitsGambling platform Polymarket not paying bets on US invasion of VenezuelaUber reveals the design of its robotaxi at CES 2026Maybe We Should Pump the Brakes on the Idea That Robotaxis Are SaferHere’s how much Tim Cook and other Apple execs made last yearMEDIA CANDYThe PittDownton Abbey: The Grand FinaleJurassic World RebirthThe Darjeeling LimitedOh Brother, Where Art Thou?Honey Don’tJohn Candy: I Like MeMTV Rewind is a developer's tribute to 24/7 music video channelsAPPS & DOODADSDJI Osmo Mobile 8Netflix GamesThis speaker by Victrola sits underneath turntables and streams audio via BluetoothDelete Request and Opt-out Platform (DROP)THE DARK SIDE WITH DAVEDave BittnerThe CyberWireHacking HumansCaveatControl LoopOnly Malware in the BuildingIndustrial Light & Magic: 50 Years of InnovationDave Filoni to run Star WarsWho’s who at X, the deepfake porn site formerly known as TwitterSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Welcome back to another hour of digital cynicism. We kick things off with a FOLLOW UP on Amazon’s Fallout recaps, which were apparently so hallucination-heavy they made the actual wasteland look organized; naturally, they’ve been nuked along with the "Video Recaps" feature. In a massive dose of IN THE NEWS, Tesla is finally getting a legal side-eye in California for its deceptive "Autopilot" branding, while TikTok is performing a corporate shell game by selling a 45% stake to Oracle and friends to keep the feds happy. Reddit is fighting Australia’s under-16 ban like it’s a constitutional crisis, Louisiana’s age-verification law just got benched by a judge, and Merriam-Webster officially crowned "slop" as the Word of the Year—which is fitting, given that OpenAI is selectively hiding chat logs from murder-suicides while their Chief Scientist warns that recursive AI self-improvement might end the human experiment by 2030. If the "intelligence explosion" doesn’t get us, the CRASH Clock says we’ve got roughly 2.8 days before Elon’s satellite swarm turns low-earth orbit into a permanent scrapyard.In our MEDIA CANDY segment, we mourn the transition year of Star Trek, which was mostly a series of unmitigated disasters and corporate retreats, though the Oscars moving to YouTube in 2029 means we can finally ignore them in 4K. Meta is testing a "pay-to-share-links" feature because they clearly haven't alienated creators enough, and a new study suggests Amazon’s "dynamic pricing" is basically just a high-tech way to gouge public school districts for pencils. Moving to APPS & DOODADS, iOS 26.2 is here with a "Liquid Glass" slider—groundbreaking stuff, really—while Microsoft’s Copilot+ push is effectively killing the laptop market by making 16GB of RAM a luxury item only a data center could love. Meanwhile, iRobot has officially sucked its last bit of dust into a Chapter 11 filing, proving that even a twenty-year head start can’t save you from a 46 percent tariff and better Chinese competition.AT THE LIBRARY, we find out that librarians are ready to quit because people keep demanding books that only exist in a ChatGPT hallucination, proving once again that the "Information Age" was a lie. We descend into THE DARK SIDE WITH DAVE with the tireless Dave Bittner to discuss why modern movies feel like plastic, the bizarre paradox of James Cameron’s Avatar dominance, and a bittersweet farewell to Rob Reiner. We wrap it up with the return of The Muppets, a look at plug-in solar panels for the budget-conscious prepper, and the Sedaris siblings proving that even grief can be a podcast topic. It’s all the tech "progress" you never asked for, delivered with the appropriate amount of Gen-X side-eye.Show notes at https://gog.show/727Watch on YouTube: https://youtu.be/hHnGD4lIFzASponsors:MasterClass - Get up to 50% off at MASTERCLASS.com/GRUMPYOLDGEEKSPrivate Internet Access - Go to GOG.Show/vpn and sign up today. For a limited time only, you can get OUR favorite VPN for as little as $2.03 a month.SetApp - With a single monthly subscription you get 240+ apps for your Mac. Go to SetApp and get started today!!!1Password - Get a great deal on the only password manager recommended by Grumpy Old Geeks! gog.show/1passwordFOLLOW UPAmazon pulls its bad AI video recaps after Fallout falloutIN THE NEWSTesla used deceptive language to market Autopilot, California judge rulesTikTok agrees to deal to cede control of US business to American investor groupReddit sues Australia over underage social media banJudge blocks Louisiana's social media age verification lawMurder-suicide case shows OpenAI selectively hides data after users dieTrump orders creation of litigation task force to challenge state AI laws'Slop' is Merriam-Webster's word of the yearAnthropic’s Chief Scientist Says We’re Rapidly Approaching the Moment That Could Doom Us AllModel collapseOpenAI Is Going Into the New Year With Some Real Loser EnergyNew ‘CRASH Clock’ Warns of 2.8-Day Window Before Likely Orbital CollisionA Facebook test makes link-sharing a paid feature for creatorsStudy links Amazon's algorithmic pricing with erratic, inflated costs for school districtsMEDIA CANDYA Man on the Inside S2Oh. What. Fun.The End of an EraThe West WingF1® The Movie - Apple TVThe Running ManWelcome to DerryWake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out MysteryIs it Cake?Apple TV releasing Pluribus season finale early next weekWarner Bros. Discovery rejects Paramount's hostile bid2025 Was a Turning Point for ‘Star Trek’, Whether It Knew It or NotTHE ACADEMY PARTNERS WITH YOUTUBE FOR EXCLUSIVE GLOBAL RIGHTS TO THE OSCARS® AND OTHER ACADEMY CONTENT STARTING IN 2029APPS & DOODADSiOS 26.2 is here with another Liquid Glass tweak, new Podcasts features and moreOh, the Irony: Microsoft’s Push for Copilot+ PCs Could Stall Laptop SalesiRobot has filed for bankruptcy and may be taken over by its primary supplierAT THE LIBRARYFlybot by Dennis E. TaylorMaking Space (The Time Traveler's Passport) by R. F. KuangFor a

The labor market has swung from the Great Resignation to “job hugging,” where workers cling to their roles out of fear of AI-driven layoffs and inflation, crushing engagement and accelerating burnout. At the same time, OpenAI is accused of suppressing research showing job losses, ignoring internal warnings about chatbot mental health risks, and bleeding safety staff, while state Attorneys General fire off an opening salvo likening unchecked AI harms to an opioid crisis-in-the-making.The AI boom is now colliding with reality. Environmental groups want a halt on new datacenters as power prices spike, and the industry is starting to look financially radioactive, with opaque financing schemes, hidden debt, and trillion-dollar infrastructure bets that could vaporize household wealth. Regulators are pushing back too: the EU is fining X, probing Google over training data, and floating a statutory licensing scheme for AI scraping, while Disney dives in with a billion-dollar bet on “responsible” AI storytelling that mostly translates to fewer humans on payroll.Meanwhile, everyday tech dystopia rolls on. Uber is monetizing your movement data, Instacart is quietly price-discriminating groceries, Waymo is spinning a robotaxi birth as a feel-good story, and crypto fraud finally earns real prison time. Add in AI-generated marketing slop, government sites hijacked by SEO porn, billion-dollar festival scams resurrected, and Congress kneecapping right-to-repair, and the takeaway is simple: the machines are hungry, the adults are absent, and the vibes are aggressively bad.Sponsors:CleanMyMac - Get Tidy Today! Try 7 days free and use code OLDGEEKS for 20% off at clnmy.com/OLDGEEKSGusto - Try Gusto today at gusto.com/grumpy, and get three months free when you run your first payroll.Private Internet Access - Go to GOG.Show/vpn and sign up today. For a limited time only, you can get OUR favorite VPN for as little as $2.03 a month.SetApp - With a single monthly subscription you get 240+ apps for your Mac. Go to SetApp and get started today!!!1Password - Get a great deal on the only password manager recommended by Grumpy Old Geeks! gog.show/1passwordShow notes at https://gog.show/726Watch on YouTube: https://youtu.be/eJbLlVhIQ-YFOLLOW UP“Why ‘job hugging’ can be worse than quitting”OpenAI Accused of Self-Censoring Research That Paints AI In a Bad LightOpenAI, Anthropic, Others Receive Warning Letter from Dozens of State Attorneys GeneralIN THE NEWSMore than 200 environmental groups demand halt to new US datacentersSomething Ominous Is Happening in the AI EconomyOpenAI's house of cards seems primed to collapseX shuts down the European Commission’s ad account the day after major fineEU opens antitrust investigation into Google's AI practicesEU Report Distills AI-Training Lessons from Napster Piracy Era: Don’t Sue, LicenseDisney Invests $1 Billion in the AI Slopification of Its BrandUber will start selling trip and takeout data to marketersInstacart Charging Customers Different Prices for Same Products, Study FindsWaymo's robotaxi fleet is being recalled again, this time for failing to stop for school busesDriverless delivery: Woman gives birth in San Francisco WaymoCrypto mogul Do Kwon sentenced to 15 years in prison for $40 billion stablecoin fraudPorn Is Being Injected Into Government Websites Via Malicious PDFsMarco Rubio bans Calibri font at State Department for being too DEI'Architects of AI' named Time Magazine's Person of the YearMEDIA CANDYThe American RevolutionWhat Happened at Billy McFarland’s PHNX Festival?The Lord of the Rings trilogy returns to theaters in January for 25th anniversaryAmazon’s Official ‘Fallout’ Season 1 Recap Is AI Garbage Filled With MistakesSpartacus House of AshurThe Boys - Final Season Teaser Trailer | Prime VideoParadise Season 2 | Official Teaser | HuluSupergirl | Official Teaser TrailerNo Such Thing As a Fish - Ep612: No Such Thing As The Gordon Ramsay SongbookWTF Happened To Battlestar Galactica (2004-2009)?!Star Trek: Starfleet Academy | Official Trailer | Paramount+ (NYCC 2025)Starfleet Academy - What Is This Garbage?APPS & DOODADSGoogle and Apple partner on better Android-iPhone switchingCongress removes right to repair language from 2026 defense billGlide Gear TMP 100 Teleprompter – DSLR, Tablet, Smartphone – 12" Glass, Carry Case, No AssemblyBetterDisplay ProTHE DARK SIDE WITH DAVEDave BittnerThe CyberWireHacking HumansCaveatControl LoopOnly Malware in the BuildingSplat HiFiThe History Behind All the Cuts of the Original ‘Star Wars’’Rise of the Resistance | Layout Side By SideBLUE MONDAY - Analyzing the MOST BRUTAL BEAT of the '80s | Drum Patterns ExplainedSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.