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by Jason DeFillippo & Brian Schulmeister with Dave Bittner
We dissect the tech news train wrecks of the week, calling out what went wrong and who’s to blame. Think of this podcast as if Kurt Cobain threw down with Tom from MySpace, Elon Musk, and Mark Zuckerberg in a back alley brawl. No mercy, no filter—if tech had a walk of shame, this would be it.
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This week on Grumpy Old Geeks, Brian and Jason stare directly into the flaming garbage barge of “the future” and discover that self-driving vehicles still can’t tell the difference between a road and an urban swimming pool. Waymo stranded robotaxis in both Atlanta and San Antonio, while Gothenburg’s brand-new autonomous bus service survived roughly one day before getting rear-ended by a tram like a lost RoboCop scene directed by Benny Hill. Meanwhile, Ferrari unveiled the Jony Ive-designed Luce EV, proving that if you give Apple designers enough money and untreated minimalist impulses, eventually everything starts looking like an uninspired bar of soap.The AI bubble keeps inflating like a cursed parade balloon nobody knows how to land. Uber admits it’s spending fortunes on AI without being able to explain what it actually improves, Starbucks killed its AI inventory system after repeated losses to dairy products, and Google’s AI search now struggles with advanced concepts like “ignore,” “stop,” and spelling “Google.” CEOs remain committed to replacing workers anyway, with 99% expecting AI-driven layoffs because apparently nothing says innovation like firing junior staff and replacing them with autocomplete that thinks there are two Ps in Google. Meanwhile, Spotify continues its transformation into the content equivalent of a casino buffet with AI-narrated magazine articles, while Pope Leo emerges as the lone adult in the room, suggesting humanity maybe shouldn’t hand civilization over to glorified pattern-matching slot machines.Elsewhere in dystopia, Trump Mobile exposed customer data to the open internet because, of course, it did, while the White House reportedly plans to force-install its official app on government phones in what feels like the world’s least subtle spyware rollout. Prediction markets are devolving into a legal cage fight between states and crypto gambling enthusiasts. A Google engineer allegedly made $1.2 million through insider trading on Polymarket because we’ve apparently rebuilt Wall Street out of meme apps, and researchers say your Wi-Fi router can now identify you by how your meat body disturbs radio waves. Add in SpaceX building a military sensor-to-shooter network straight out of a cyberpunk fever dream, China launching artificial embryo experiments into orbit to explore off-world reproduction, and Erin Brockovich mapping AI data centers draining entire towns' worth of water, and suddenly the most comforting thing this week might be watching The Grand-ish Tour and pretending the world still runs on gasoline and bad decisions.Sponsors: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/748Watch on YouTube at https://youtu.be/1ji4EPiTgQ4Links:The Mandalorian and GroguWaymos in Atlanta and San Antonio keep driving into flooded roadsGothenburg's self-driving bus trammed on day oneFerrari Luce unveiled: Here's the first car from Jony Ive's design houseUber president says AI spending is getting ‘harder to justify’Trump Mobile has exposed customers' personal data, including
FOLLOW UP: This week, it seems America believes every complicated social problem can be fixed by asking, “Have you tried turning the internet off for the children?” Meanwhile, the Electronic Frontier Foundation quietly notes that the science behind social media bans might not be as clear-cut as cable-news dads screaming about dopamine loops claim. Turns out, teen anxiety may also be linked to pandemics, school shootings, climate dread, and an economy that feels like a Fallout side quest. Meanwhile, Snap Inc. and YouTube settled another lawsuit accusing their apps of turning kids into doomscrolling goblins, Meta continues to insist social media addiction isn’t real while losing money in court, and former Google CEO Eric Schmidt was booed at a graduation speech after telling graduates to hop on the AI rocket ship without asking questions — exactly what a billionaire says when he already owns the rocket.In the news, Elon Musk lost another OpenAI lawsuit because apparently even juries have limits. SpaceX’s IPO revealed Musk plans to power AI with enough gas turbines to recreate 1890s London smog, and Grok officially became a disclosure liability after the whole “MechaHitler” incident. Tesla robotaxis still clip fences and occasionally require humans to remotely drive the “self-driving” cars. Trump Mobile somehow shipped a gold phone that actually works — a stunning upset — before immediately leaking customer data. LinkedIn finally admitted the platform has become an AI-generated motivational swamp filled with “it’s not about X, it’s about Y” sludge from people named Brayden. Spotify is handing out podcast verification badges so listeners can tell real creators from algorithmic nightmare fuel. Meta laid off thousands more workers while reportedly using employee surveillance to train AI replacements. And OpenAI is giving everyone in Malta a free year of ChatGPT Plus if they complete an AI literacy course, which honestly makes Malta sound more technologically responsible than Silicon Valley.APPS & DOODADS reflect classic Gen-X paranoia, as Backblaze highlights California's constant threat of wildfires and the idea that local backups are optimistic. YouTube introduced AI deepfake detection tools, allowing creators to finally see which scam ads are using their faces to promote crypto vitamins, while X limited free users to 50 posts a day unless they pay for a blue check — proving once again that the true free speech was the subscriptions we sold along the way. Retrocodex arrived with a strong “everything your teachers confidently told you in 1987 was wrong” vibe.MEDIA CANDY opens with the eternal cry of “FUCK THE FIRETV!!!!” before Jason taps out of Good Omens after ten minutes while Brian takes the bullet for the audience. There’s also chatter about Mortal Kombat 2, The Devil Wears Prada 2, Billy Corgan talking goth history with David J, and more existential dread courtesy of Dan Carlin’s Common Sense.THE DARK SIDE WITH DAVE welcomes back Dave Bittner for a Mando & Grogu review, Darth Maul, and a stunning but absurdly expensive LEGO Disneyland set. There’s also a guy who built a full-size Millennium Falcon “with his wife’s permission,” a fan-made Star Tours film, and the Federal Trade Commission discovering that those creepy “your phone is listening to you” ad-tech companies mainly just had PowerPoint decks and confidence. Also: mechanical keyboard simulators now exist, because apparently even fake typing has become a lifestyle brand.Sponsors:DeleteMe - Get 20% off your DeleteMe plan when you go to JoinDeleteMe.com/GOG and use promo code GOG at checkout.Shopify - Sign up for your one-dollar-per-month trial today at Shopify.com/grumpyPrivate 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/747Watch on YouTube at <a href="https://youtu.be/eX5jVfewasw" rel="noo
FOLLOW UP starts with merchandise promotion and YouTube begging reminiscent of 2007, before GameStop CEO Ryan Cohen gets thoroughly criticized by eBay after proposing a $56 billion takeover plan that eBay called “neither credible nor attractive,” which is corporate-speak for “please stop emailing us at 3 a.m.” Meanwhile, California residents might finally receive a small settlement check from Grubhub worth about half a burrito, just as Americans realize they dislike AI data centers even more than nuclear plants because nobody wants a warehouse full of GPUs boiling away the local water supply. Lake Tahoe residents are learning their electricity now goes to AI processing plants instead of people, xAI keeps adding methane turbines despite being sued over them, and SpaceXAI employees are fleeing Elon’s “sleep under your desk forever” lifestyle as if it were the last helicopter out of Saigon.IN THE NEWS, we start gently with the revelation that everyone at the Musk v. Altman trial is sitting on luxury butt cushions because apparently the singularity requires lumbar support, before plunging straight into the abyss: fake AI crypto journalists haunting Forbes and HuffPost like SEO poltergeists, OpenAI launching “Daybreak” so the robots can now secure the software they helped break, Anthropic trying to stop AI from becoming evil by feeding it morality fan fiction, and Google catching AI-generated zero-day exploits in the wild because cyberpunk novels were apparently instructional manuals. Waymo robotaxis are experimenting with driving into floodwaters, a family is suing OpenAI after ChatGPT allegedly advised their son to mix drugs with fatal results, graduating students booed an executive for praising AI as if she were announcing the arrival of cholera, and Meta continues its speedrun toward becoming the world’s largest scam mall while simultaneously demanding everyone trust its shiny new “encrypted AI chats.” Also: Meta is testing Grok-for-Threads, somebody created an AI poop-analysis startup that quietly sells your bowel movements to data brokers, GM got nailed for selling driver data, Lime still somehow exists and wants an IPO, and Japan’s first 3D-printed house shows that the future will at least look cool even as society collapses.MEDIA CANDY features Spotify celebrating twenty years of collecting your listening habits into a psychological profile you absolutely didn't care about during the CD era, plus The Punisher: One Last Kill ironically looking like unfinished PlayStation cutscenes, Good Omens Season 3, Devil May Cry Season 2, NBC somehow turning Wordle into a TV show because every executive has fully given up, shorter waits for Severance Season 3, and Rings of Power returning in November to continue spending the GDP of a small nation on elf misery.APPS & DOODADS checks in with Apple as it prepares Siri app integrations that developers already suspect will become subscription-based hostage situations. TikTok is testing an ad-free tier in the UK because, somehow, ads weren’t already enough punishment. Venmo is finally realizing that public payment feeds are insane. There's a Wikipedia clone made entirely of AI hallucinations, and an iPad arm mount sturdy enough to survive the upcoming climate wars.AT THE LIBRARY wraps up with Clowns (First Contact), Dungeon Crawler Carl, the demise of another Goodreads competitor, Kindle alternatives for those trying to escape Amazon’s panopticon, and a reminder that Douglas Adams has now been gone for 25 years, which remains, in the immortal words of the man himself, widely regarded as a bad move.Sponsors:DeleteMe - Get 20% off your DeleteMe plan when you go to JoinDeleteMe.com/GOG and use promo code GOG at checkout.Shopify - Sign up for your one-dollar-per-month trial today at Shopify.com/grumpyCleanMyMac - 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 Gru
In FOLLOW UP, the guys marvel at the completely normal state of America as Amnesty International issues a travel advisory for the 2026 World Cup because apparently “visiting the United States” now comes with the same vibe as backpacking through a failed cyberpunk state. Then it’s onto Dead Podcast Theory, where more than a third of all new podcasts are AI-generated “podslop,” proving Silicon Valley heard “everyone has a podcast” and responded with “what if nobody did?” Meanwhile, Ticketmaster reminds everyone that if you’ve purchased a concert ticket since 2010, there’s probably a class action settlement with your name on it and enough compensation for half a convenience fee.IN THE NEWS is basically one long panic attack sponsored by AI. The White House is considering regulating AI models, Canada says OpenAI vacuumed up everyone’s personal data like a drunk Roomba, Character.AI allegedly impersonated a licensed psychiatrist, and Mother Jones found ChatGPT still happily helping aspiring mass shooters workshop their plans. Snap’s Perplexity deal died quietly in a ditch while Meta keeps assembling humanoid robots like it’s building the world’s most annoying version of Westworld. Then GameStop tries to buy eBay in the dumbest sentence ever typed, Ryan Cohen gets himself banned from eBay while trying to meme-finance the deal, Elon Musk settles with the SEC for pocket lint money, Coinbase fires people because “AI,” Toto accidentally becomes a semiconductor giant through toilet technology, and smart glasses officially evolve from creepy gadget to extortion accessory.MEDIA CANDY brings some relief with Daredevil: Born Again and Widow’s Bay. The Academy finally decides AI-generated actors and scripts can’t win Oscars, which feels like the bare minimum required to stop ChatGPT from getting Best Supporting Actor before Willem Dafoe.In APPS & DOODADS, Pornhub returns to the UK thanks to Apple’s age verification system, Ask.com finally dies and takes Jeeves with it into the great dial-up tone in the sky, and Apple agrees to pay users because “Apple Intelligence” arrived somewhere between vaporware and wishful thinking.Finally, THE DARK SIDE WITH DAVE tackles the true meaning of “decimate,” AI-powered C-3PO heads, mechanical keyboards for grown men who refuse to use laptop keys, Maul: Shadow Lord, The Boys, and a reminder that Solo was a great movie, grocery store adventures, lost AirPods, and the eternal mystery of why middle-aged dudes become furries. Because at this point, why not?Sponsors: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/1passwordShow notes at https://gog.show/745Watch on YouTube at https://youtu.be/0P9rgRrL4-QFOLLOW UP2026 World Cup Travel AdvisoryMore Than a Third of All New Podcasts Are AI-GeneratedWelcome to the Ticketmaster Fee Class Action WebsiteIN THE NEWSThe White House is considering tighter regulation of new AI modelsCanadian officials claim OpenAI violated federal and provincial privacy laws<a href="https://techcrunc
Episode 744 kicks off with new merch in the wild and the ongoing expansion of the “protect the children from the internet” playbook. Manitoba is floating a ban on social media and AI chatbots for kids with details still TBD, while the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee somehow managed unanimous approval on chatbot age-verification legislation. Utah, not to be outdone, passed SB 73 — a law that tries to pin age verification on VPN users and even bans sites from explaining what a VPN is, a move that will mostly degrade the internet without solving the problem it claims to address. Meanwhile, John Oliver finally unloaded on the AI industry, echoing long-standing criticisms: rushed products, acknowledged risks, and outsourced consequences.In the news, a U.S. Army Special Forces master sergeant was arrested for allegedly turning classified intel about the Maduro capture into a $400K Polymarket win, then attempting to cover it up in ways that suggest poor operational planning. Meta cut more than 1,100 Kenyan content moderators after reports surfaced that they were exposed to explicit footage from smart glasses users, raising serious questions about labor practices in AI pipelines. Google signed a Pentagon AI deal despite internal backlash while posting massive revenue gains, underscoring where incentives actually land. OpenAI, meanwhile, is juggling missed targets, a shift away from Microsoft exclusivity, and continued reputational hits around Sam Altman — including a widely criticized apology tied to a mass shooting and a fabricated Bruno Mars tie-in for his World project. Add in a failed retrial bid from Sam Bankman-Fried, rising volumes of AI-generated web content, and political interference with the National Science Board, and the signal is clear: incentives are misaligned across the board.On the lighter side, Star Trek: Strange New Worlds returns July 23rd for its penultimate season, and Ted Lasso is back August 5th, for better or worse. Jack Dorsey beat the inevitable Elon attempt to reboot Vine with Divine, reviving six-second loops with a decentralized backbone and anti-AI safeguards. Apple continues its slow AI rollout with new photo editing tools, while Google pushes further into data aggregation with wardrobe-level photo analysis. Hardware check: Logitech’s MX Keys S lands as a heavier, brighter $119 iteration. In books, Peter Clines delivers with God’s Junk Drawer, while Martha Wells signals that the Murderbot series may be nearing its end. The Dark Side with Dave ties it together with gun storage PSAs, Disneyland lore, Galaxy’s Edge playlists, and a conversational detour through Super Dave, Martin Short, and the ongoing quirks of instant replay in baseball.Show notes at https://gog.show/744Watch on YouTube at https://youtu.be/P3NOSXlCs9EFOLLOW UPNew Merch!Canadian premier wants to ban social media and AI chatbots for kids in ManitobaSenate Judiciary Committee unanimously approves AI chatbot age verificationUtah’s New Law Targeting VPNs Goes Into Effect Next WeekJohn Oliver Just Took the AI Industry Behind a Shed and Beat It With a Pipe WrenchIN THE NEWSUS soldier arrested for allegedly making over $400,000 on Polymarket with classified Maduro informationMeta in row after workers who say they saw smart glasses users having sex lose jobsGoogle employees ask Sundar Pichai to say no to classified military AI use<a href="https://gizmodo.com/google-signs-pentagon-ai-deal-despite-employee-backlash-2000751724" rel="noopener noref
In FOLLOW UP, the child social media crackdown keeps expanding. Turkey just approved a ban for under-15s, and Sony will require age verification for PlayStation communication features in the UK and Ireland starting in June—because now you need to prove you’re an adult before trash-talking strangers online. Meanwhile, Anthropic’s prediction that fully autonomous AI employees would already be transforming business hasn’t materialized. Agentic systems are still struggling with basic workflows and, in some cases, slowing developers down. And in a more concrete reversal, Elon Musk acknowledged that pre-2023 Tesla Hardware 3 will never support Full Self-Driving. Customers who paid for the feature are now being steered toward discounted trade-ins, new cameras, and upgraded hardware—prompting obvious legal exposure.IN THE NEWS: SpaceX is reportedly targeting what could be the largest IPO ever, at roughly a $1.75 trillion valuation, with dual-class shares that preserve Musk’s control through super-voting rights. Prediction markets continue to degrade: Kalshi suspended political candidates for trading on their own races, and Polymarket saw alleged manipulation via a tampered weather sensor at Charles de Gaulle Airport. On the AI front, Anthropic’s new Mythos model had a chaotic rollout—used by the NSA, applied to patch hundreds of Firefox vulnerabilities, and briefly exposed through unauthorized access in a developer portal. Amazon followed with a $25 billion investment in Anthropic, even as governments appear to access similar capabilities independently.At the same time, the economics are tightening. Free tiers are shrinking, GitHub Copilot is shifting to token-based billing after costs doubled, and startups are normalizing six-figure monthly AI compute bills. Infrastructure growth continues unchecked: thousands of new data centers are planned across the U.S., while xAI faces scrutiny in Memphis over water usage and delayed mitigation projects. Environmental commitments increasingly resemble marketing rather than enforceable targets.Policy signals are equally aggressive. DHS is exploring smart glasses for ICE agents with facial recognition and gait analysis by 2027. Palantir published a manifesto advocating expanded use of state power with rhetoric that raised concerns about ideological framing. On a lighter note, a University of California, Santa Barbara study suggests that brief exposure to experimental film measurably increases creativity compared to standard social media consumption.MEDIA CANDY: Silo returns July 3 on Apple TV+, while The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power Season 3 is expected sooner than planned. Battlestar Galactica lands on Paramount+ and Pluto TV May 1. Dead Can Dance is releasing monthly singles via its Bandcamp imprint. Deezer reports 44% of daily uploads—about 75,000 tracks—are AI-generated, though only a small fraction of streams come from them, many flagged as fraudulent. And yes, Jessica Jones is back in Daredevil.APPS & DOODADS: Apple patched the notification-cache bug that allowed forensic tools to recover deleted Signal messages. Roblox agreed to a $12 million settlement with Nevada and is rolling out facial age estimation, ID verification, and new contact controls, while still facing multi-state litigation. Cash App is targeting younger users—ages six to twelve—with parent-managed accounts, debit cards, and interest incentives. Separately, a federal judge issued a preliminary injunction protecting ICE-tracking apps, ruling that government pressure on Apple and Meta to remove them likely violated First Amendment protections.IN THE DARK SIDE WITH DAVE: AI-generated Star Wars fan films are improving visually, even if performances remain rigid. The current era of Star Trek is effectively closing out with a large prop auction, notably excluding Star Trek: Strange New Worlds. The broader discussion circles back to time compression—post-pandemic, and with age—and the persistent disconnect between economic scale and general dissatisfaction.Sponsors:DeleteMe - Get 20% off your DeleteMe plan when you go to JoinDeleteMe.com/GOG and use promo code GOG at checkout.Shopify - Sign up for your one-dollar-per-month trial today at Shopify.com/grumpyPrivate 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 <a href="https://setapp.sj
In FOLLOW UP, while countries race to ban kids from social media, Estonia is opting out — its education minister arguing that bans just offload responsibility onto kids while governments and platforms avoid accountability. Australia already shows the limits: 61% of banned kids are still online, 70% say it’s easy to bypass, and major platforms are under investigation. The EU is rolling out an age-verification system using zero-knowledge proofs officials call “completely anonymized,” which sounds generous for a system that starts profiling you the moment it touches an account. Maybe retire the anonymity talking point.IN THE NEWS, the AI-brain-rot narrative keeps accelerating: one study found just ten minutes of AI use increases dependency and degrades performance once it’s removed — with users simply “not willing to try.” ChatGPT praised a fart-noise “song” as having a “cool lo-fi, late-night, slightly eerie vibe,” which would be harmless if that same sycophancy wasn’t showing up in darker contexts — including two mass shootings with ChatGPT in the background, and a lawsuit from a San Francisco woman claiming the tool helped her ex escalate harassment with AI-generated reports and threats. That same week, Sam Altman’s house was attacked by a suspect targeting AI execs. Elsewhere: France is ditching Windows for Linux; Amazon faces scrutiny for allegedly keeping workers on shift next to a dead colleague; Snap cut 16% of staff blaming AI; Reddit is fighting an ICE subpoena to unmask a critic; Google is blending Polymarket odds into News; the FAA is recruiting gamers as air traffic controllers; and Allbirds briefly became an “AI company,” spiked, then crashed when reality set back in. Norway quietly cured another HIV patient, the rare story that isn’t bleak.In APPS & DOODADS, California and New York are pushing DRM-style censorware for 3D printers, with New York tying it to felony penalties for certain files. The FCC’s router ban is already inconsistent — Netgear got a quiet exemption while others face an opaque process that could stall Wi-Fi 7. The Trump T1 phone still looks rough at $499 with a $100 preorder hook. Overcast raised its subscription to $29.99/year. Hidden iOS trick: long-press the App Store to go directly to Updates. Meta, after a $375M loss over child safety, is developing “Name Tag,” facial recognition for Ray-Ban glasses tied to Instagram — widely condemned — and reportedly plans to roll it out quietly. They’re also building an AI Zuckerberg clone for internal use. For older Kindles: jailbreak, use Calibre, and lean on Project Gutenberg.MEDIA CANDY: Live Nation was ruled a monopoly — remedies pending, appeal already filed, so ticket prices aren’t changing soon. Anna’s Archive got hit with a $322M judgment for scraping Spotify — far below the $13T ask. YouTube Premium is quietly raising prices again, following Netflix and Spotify; subscriptions are now a one-way ratchet. Good Omens returns May 13, Godzilla Minus Zero lands November 6, and Hunt for Gollum is set for December 2027 with a stacked cast. Meanwhile, streaming platforms still refuse to list actual drop times, which continues to annoy everyone.THE DARK SIDE WITH DAVE: The Claude Mythos AI scare turned out to be marketing. The hype cycle giveth, and taketh away. Plus: new Star Wars chatter, Disneyland antics, a rebranded Muppets coaster, and AI Oakleys nobody asked for.Sponsors: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/742Watch on YouTube at https://youtu.be/Ogsa1dG1W_MFOLLOW UPEstonia is the rare EU country opposing child social media bans<a href="https://www.engadget.com/social-media/majority-of-australian-kids-are-still-on-banned-social-media-platforms-study-finds-162922768.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_bl
We kick off with a the Dodgers spanking the Blue Jays and torn allegiances in Brian's house, then dive into Europe taking dead aim at your kids' screen time. Ireland is rolling out a Government Digital Wallet that'll verify ages before young'uns can doom-scroll their lives away, while Greece went fully scorched-earth and announced a ban on all under-15s using social media at all — announced, naturally, on TikTok.IN THE NEWS, the AI giants (OpenAI, Anthropic, Google) are playing nicely together for once, teaming up through the Frontier Model Forum to stop Chinese firms from essentially photocopying their models on the cheap — billions in revenue, national security, and the small matter of safety guardrails stripped out. Turnabout is fair play? On the legal gambling front, prediction markets scored a federal win as a US appeals court ruled New Jersey can't regulate Kalshi; the Trump family's fingerprints are all over the prediction market space (surprise!), and the data suggests 0.04% of accounts are hoovering up 70% of profits like it's a perfectly healthy ecosystem. Also: the FBI pulled deleted Signal messages out of iPhone notification caches, GoPro is laying off 23% of its workforce while somehow remaining optimistic, and OpenAI is backing an Illinois bill that would shield AI companies from liability even in mass-casualty scenarios... cool. On the plus side, Artemis II astronauts took amazing photos of the Moon... on their iPhones.In APPS & DOODADS: Mercedes recalled its electric G-Wagons because the wheels might literally fall off, Amazon is sunsetting Kindles from 2012 and earlier for no reason anyone can figure out, and Apple Fitness on Apple TV is randomly scrambling workout stacks with no fix in sight — a premium locked ecosystem doing premium locked ecosystem things.In MEDIA CANDY, the crew is watching The Pitt, The Boys, Shrinking, and Daredevil, and you'll want to sit down for this: Mel Brooks and Rick Moranis are back — Spaceballs 2 hits theaters a full year from now even though it's done. Italy slapped Netflix with a court-ordered refund for price hikes going back to 2017, while Netflix simultaneously raised prices for US subscribers and launched Playground, a free kids gaming app that works offline (Peppa Pig and Sesame Street, no ads, no in-app purchases — hook 'em on Dah Dum young!)AT THE LIBRARY, Brian has given up on Breath and Jason reads Four Thousand Weeks and Art Spiegelman's Maus — the Pulitzer-winning Holocaust masterpiece that some people are still trying to ban, because humanity never fully learns.Closing out with THE DARK SIDE WITH DAVE, Treasury Secretary Bessent and Fed Chair Powell apparently called an emergency meeting with bank CEOs over Anthropic's new model "Mythos," which can apparently find and exploit vulnerabilities across major OSes and browsers. The boys also catch up on Maul: Shadow Lord, the Strong Songs podcast's Joni Mitchell deep-dive ("Passions soften into wisdom" — weeping on the plane, apparently), the belated discovery that Marathon launched and nobody noticed, and some genuine moon joy courtesy of NASA's Artemis II astronauts.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/741Watch on YouTube at https://youtu.be/c_odV0tSa2kFOLLOW UPIreland is testing o
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We dissect the tech news train wrecks of the week, calling out what went wrong and who’s to blame. Think of this podcast as if Kurt Cobain threw down with Tom from MySpace, Elon Musk, and Mark Zuckerberg in a back alley brawl. No mercy, no filter—if tech had a walk of shame, this would be it.
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