766: Skibidi!

0:00Grumpy old geeks, a weekly talk show hosted by Brian Schultmeister and Jason DeFilippo discussing the finer points of what went wrong on the internet and who's to blame. Welcome to Grumpy old geeks, I'm Jason DeFilippo and I'm Brian Schultmeister. Grumpy old geeks is a fan supported show. The ads cover our overhead, but it's the donations that keep us on the air. If you want to get the show early, ad-free and in high definition, go to patreon.com slash GOG and for as little as $3 a month, you get all of the above. You can give us more if you want. If you just want to throw a few bones our way, head to GOG.show slash donate and you can buy some merch at shop.gov.show or even sign up for a subscription on YouTube of all places, which apparently almost nobody does. Everything helps keep the show on the air and we thank you from the bottom of our black little hearts for your support. Thank you. Well Jason, I have a bit of follow up here and you have to cast your mind way back way way back in the midst of time since there's been so many

1:03scandals since then. It just really wasn't all that long ago, but it feels that way. Remember Cambridge Analytica and Facebook? Yes, that was very, very long ago. Yeah, not really. Okay, but you know, it just feels that way because there's been so many scandals since then. But we'll revisit that one because the state of New Mexico wants to. If the state of New Mexico has its way, meta will have to pay up to $40 billion in penalties after a jury sided with the government in its lawsuit over the Cambridge Analytica scandal. According to Reuters, state authorities have asked the judge to order the company to pay between 35 and $40 billion. If you'll recall, New Mexico filed lawsuit against meta back in 2021, accusing it of misleading its users about its data privacy practices. The British political data firm, which harvested information from over 50 million Facebook profiles, without consent for political ad campaigns, back in late September, the New Jersey New Mexico jury sided with the state

2:04under the jury's verdict. The state could ask for as much as $219 billion, which I wonder why not. Ask for it all. Yeah, if you can, let's go. The jurors had examined 29 statements. The company had made on issues involving the case and found 26 of them misleading based on the number of Facebook users in New Mexico who were the audience of those statements. The juror had found that meta had committed 43 million violations of the state's consumer protection loss. Boy, think scale rapidly, don't they? Yes, they do. That's not the scaling meta had in mind. Yes, seriously, fraud at scale. I love it. Yes. Well, and then, and actuing statements that we've made many, many times on the show, Randy McGinn, the state's attorney, wants the penalties meta has to pay to be significant enough to have an impact on the company, i.e. not the coffee budget that we always talk about, which are these slaps that companies always get. So, well, that begs the question is 50 billion dollars actually material to Facebook. And I would say probably not. It is, although, $19 billion would be

3:11sounds better to me. Sounds better. Yes. And you know, no, asky, no getty. So, true. I think you asked for it because meta is asking the court to cap the penalties at $3.45 billion, which is arguably within their coffee range. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. So we'll see, we're going to get a decision later this month. So we'll find out what happens. Finally, okay, I'm looking forward to it with baited breath. Me too. And I do wonder like is this can't be the only state that's soon. There must be other states. So this could set a precedent. One would hope. Yeah, let's, let's, let's, you know, let's go back to the greatest hits. You know, why not, why not rego after Cambridge Analytica? Because they got off that one pretty lightly, you know? They sure did, because, you know, we thought, oh, well, surely they aren't doing nefarious things like this all the time. Oh, oh, well. And if you do remember that also is around the time that the company changed its name to meta to get rid of the Facebook stank. Yes. Which, which unsurprisingly worked because

4:16people are stupid. I don't get it. But it's fucking worked. Yeah. A 16 year old hiker had to be rescued from a cliff near Vancouver after using AI to help plan his route. Obviously the 16 year old does not listen to this show. North Shore rescue says the team was hiking alone on Crown Mountain when he ended up on a technical climbing route known as the widow maker. I guess at 16, you don't know what a widow is because you've never been married. But a, a, a, a, old guys know that if it's called the widow maker, stay home. Just don't go. You know, rescuers say it's unclear exactly how he left the established hiking trail or which AI tool he used to rescue technicians were lowered from a helicopter and hoisted him to safety. The incident follows another rescue on California's Mount Shester this summer. I'll just let's say in Shester. I used to drink that as a kid like by the case this summer when three hikers said they relied heavily on Google's Gemini to plan their trip. North Shore rescue is urging hikers to question AI generated directions and use established mapping tools including

5:17Gaia GPS, Cal Tapo and old trails when planning routes. So yes, seems wise. Use the proper tools. Don't don't, you know, look, it wasn't all that long ago that, uh, that AI search results were telling us to put glue on pizza. Are you really going to plan your, your trip based on what AI results are telling you? I think no. Uh, well apparently some people do still, but maybe you just have your dot plan your hike for you. Yeah, exactly. Let those agents, let those agents at it. Oh, Grocbot. Now today, I just saw a press release that Grocbot is going to be able to use claw it as it's back in because Groc say I suck so bad. Oh, dear, oh, dear. Well, law makers from both parties are targeting flocks automated license plate reader network after investigations by 404 media highlighted how the data has been used. The ban flock act introduced by Bernie Sanders and AOC and Jeff Merkley, Woodbar federal agencies from using ALPRs or automatic license plate readers

6:21for the uninitiated, cut federal funding to participating local governments and allow lawsuits over rights violations. I didn't know you couldn't sue already. That seems kind of shitty. Republican Senator Josh Hawley's stop flock abuse act would require written approval for searches, delete most data within 10 days and prohibit facial recognition integration. Other law makers are questioning the FBI's plans for nationwide access following reports of searches tied to immigration protests and an abortion investigation. The writing is on the wall for old flock there and the, the ALPRs. Good. Can't wait to see what they come up with to replace them. Yeah, I mean, that's the thing. It's like axon is, you know, they got to be quaking in their boots right now, trying to figure out how to spin this thing. Look, we're better than flock, you know, but are you really, you know, maybe by teensy little bit, but not that much, not that much. Well, the super intelligence force has a new AI's are according to Trump. So it's a future. If the future of AI has you worried, don't worry. Super intelligence force is here and it's

7:24being headed up by Jay Clayton, the country's director of national intelligence. The super intelligence force is being. Right, right. Shouldn't he be the director of national super intelligence? The DSI? Yeah, the DNSI director of nationals, yeah, DNSI. That would be it. Yeah. Bapong. Oh, wait, that's a wrong show. Well, the super intelligence force, I can't believe I'm fucking reading this out loud. I really fucking can't. This is a fucking team America bullshit. It really fucking is. It really is super intelligence force is tasked with coordinating the effort of the federal government, the house, the henceforth known as the best government of all governments to ensure that America, super America continues to lead the, the puny world in super intelligence. Trump wrote in his truth social post, the president detailed that the fuck this shit. I hate this guy. I'm so tired of this next week, next week, China, China introduces super

8:32mega intelligence next week. Jesus Christ. I remember I bought a domain name a long time ago. I think I actually still wanted it was a hyper mega global media corporation. It was one of the greatest things. I was like, we got to do something with that someday. I talked about being our company name. I remember when we incorporated. I know that if I still have it, we need to we need to like move our all of our stuff to that domain because the world is just so fucking dumb. I can't believe it. Anyways, they have a first task, which is to make a fucking report on the risks and opportunities related to AI and they have 128 days to do it. And how much you want to bet they're going to ask AI to make the report on AI because they're stupid. I'm sure they will. Yes. I am sure they will. Yeah. Jesus Christ. I started, I don't know. Some days I like look at these things and it just hits me when I have to fucking read them. I believe I'm reading this. Okay. Yeah. See, I rehearse beforehand because I

9:37just I know that I wouldn't be able to keep a straight face with something as shit. I'm just like, no, I just could take that one out because it's just to dumb. Well, Anthropic reportedly alerted Florida police after it's AI monitoring system flagged a clawed conversation in which Carly Michelle Heller allegedly discussed plans to shoot them up on Irbias Sheriff's office. A human reviewer assessed the messages as a credible threat. And Heller was arrested on a felony charge for making a written threat of violence. Officials say she described clawed as a diary. Apparently unaware that chats could be reviewed by Anthropic staff. The case highlights the conflict between chatbot privacy and company's responsibility to intervene over potential violence. It also contrasts with criticism of open AI's handling of chats linked to a prior mass shooting. Now, Brian, I'm on the fence about press coverages of these instances because I think the more that dumb people believe that they're not being tracked, the more people will get off the streets because criminals are going to criminal. And I'd rather than be stupid and unaware. Then,

10:39you know, then telling them what the what the game is. No, I agree. I absolutely agree with you, but I do think that that it plays into the AI company's handbooks to have these stories come out because it makes them look good. Oh, look, we're being proactive. Oh, look, we're monitoring our tool and we're finding the baddies. Yeah, but that only happened after how many mass shootings we've had so far and how many suicides and shit like that. How many kids perform it a dead. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. There's a body count attached to that. But yeah, well, another open AI employee has tasked with ensuring the safety of its models has left the company following his departure. David Robinson, who used to lead the writing of safety reports that were published with model launches, wrote an article for the Atlantic that warned of a broken company culture among the many points worded by Mr Robinson. Among the many points awarding of the dangers associated with the trajectory that AI development is on the former safety lead explained that as the company springs from one launch to the next, it is failing to achieve the level of care that I believe is needed.

11:39Instead of sprinting ahead with more advanced frontier AI models, Robinson argued that these companies should be modeled after nuclear power plants or busy airports that have layers of redundancy and careful time consuming planning so that the occasional inevitable human error does not open a door to disaster. But how are we going to ensure a shareholder value if we do not move fast and break things? One wonders. Comparing AI misalignment incidents to do a nuclear meltdown, Robinson said that the open AI and its competitors don't have as much redundancy and rigor as power plants with multiple layers of protection. On top of that, he added that a major loss of control with AI would result much more harm than a single meltdown. You described a scenario with latest models may understand they're being tested on alignment and will cater towards a good score in testing environments but behave completely differently when live, kind of like people. Robinson's concern stem from various incidents recently where AI agents have broken out of their testing environments and into other organizations will be on the science scope of work. So Robinson in a very round about

12:42wordy way is saying maybe, maybe AI companies should have this thing that these other things have called regulations. Why he could have just said that. He could have but yeah. No, yeah, the nuclear regulatory committee is a commission is pretty, pretty big and they do a pretty good job. You know, the thing about, you know, comparing AI to a nuclear meltdown is like, well, the thing about a meltdown is it's a meltdown because you can't stop it. AI, we have a plug that we can pull so theoretically, theoretically, theoretically, once it becomes self-aware, telling you clippies coming and he wants his vengeance. Well, the fuckers now. Have you ever thought I should really be doing something to protect myself from stalkers, scammers and hackers, but you're not sure where to start. We'll go to www.joindeleteme.com slash

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14:47Well open AI is understandably facing a lot of skepticism and concern about recent incidents and how are they were handled which means that a report in the Wall Street Journal that the company has let go of three employees from its safety team after they allegedly shared confidential information with a third party organization. One focused on AI safety is an irony that's almost too perfect to be believed. We have parted ways with three individuals for violating our policies on accessing and handling sensitive company information in open AI representative said in the statement published by the Wall Street Journal kind of ignoring the fact that their own product has violated their policies on accessing and handling sensitive other companies' information. Millions of time that out. Yeah. So the details on this particular instance are sparse but it's entirely possible that opening AI did have legit and it caused a fire those individuals but it certainly doesn't look good right now. No. What you're going to do you know you know ethics people are going to ethic I guess. Yes and get fired. That's what happens.

15:52That's what happens. You ask too much and you get the front door. Bye bye. Well open AI agents have now also attacked the Wikimedia Foundation apparently. They say they detected unauthorized activity from open AI agents on its platforms including edits to some wikis and failed attempts to compromise a note-taking tool. It reiterated that bots have been crawling data from its platform and mass while agents that appear to be operated by open AI have made millions of requests to its public APIs. An investigation didn't turn up any evidence that AI agents were using wikimedia systems to coordinate their activity and nor did the foundation to text signs of its data or systems being compromised. However they are concerned about what they could have occurred here. The difficulty and effort involved in investigating and attributing this activity and the growing risks of agentech AI activity on our platforms in general. Selena Declman the foundation's teeth product and technology officer wrote in a blog post. The TLDR on this one is it looks like they may have messed around with some stuff but basically

16:53wikimedia is taking a stance saying it's not our job to police your stuff like why are you making it our responsibility to prove to you that your agents are fucking with our systems when we know they are when we have all these lists of things you guys stop it you knock it off don't make the owners of responsibility on us which I kind of understand. Yeah absolutely and it's unclear here whether this is open AI themselves who are who are perpetrating this against wikimedia or if it's going to be people who are just using the open AI APIs and just you know and just trying to do some of the various shit. The thing that pisses me off about this is now I'm just going to get 10 times more sad Jimmy Wales fucking graphics around Christmas time you know like send us money so we can so we can fight off the AI agents. Yeah I mean it looks like a Sally Strothers puppy when he posts those things up there I mean great we're no better but you know come on so

17:53oh yeah I get it I get it and this is going to be a problem you know because you're just going to be playing wakimol with trying to you know you're just you're doing IP block banning and all that shit and they're just going to route around it because you know they've got the right these than you when you're using these open a open AI APIs and things of that nature there's never been any promises that this is like the blockchain and it's completely secured anonymous if you're signed up for an API you should have some sort of watermark on it that just gets it right back to you wikimedia when they're looking at these logs should be able to say it's it's open AI user blah blah blah blah blah and the string of numbers coming using this API here's the person that's doing it tell them to fucking knock it off or ban their account or something yeah absolutely that would just there's no reason why they shouldn't be able to tag it to a specific user that would make sense Brian come on that would be more work for open AI and you know then they have to then they actually have to have people who are going to sit there and monitor that and and handle that and it's oh man

18:57this it's just that's too much work Brian attribution for your for your services being you know used for nefarious shit who has time for that I feel like it's time for the tagline for our entire show it's like but but that would make sense yeah pretty much pretty much well I got to do back-to-back stories here that's just going to chuckle me open AI has announced a text watermarking system designed to meet the European Union's AI Act requirements called text grain it suddenly adjusts word choices to embed an invisible statistical pattern that a detector can recognize API customers worldwide can opt in for select models with watermarking off by default eligible chat GPT and codex text output in the EU will receive watermarks in the coming weeks doesn't say if they're opting interrupting out of that when I'm guessing they're going to be opted in automatically because of the rules from the you know the AI Act requirements detector access will initially be limited to

19:58approved researchers and expert organizations open AI says watermarking makes no meaningful difference to overall performance but detection has significant limits I don't care about performance I care about overall accuracy is what I care about yeah short passages and text with restricted word choices such as mathematics are harder to assess editing can also weaken the signal replacing a quarter of the words with synonyms cut detection to 17% in one evaluation yep a detected watermark does not establish accuracy or ownership and its absence does not prove human authorship because watermarking text is a fucking fools errand 110% it's ridiculous you take your text from open AI you run it through Grammarly you run it back through Claude and then you get the same fucking thing and then you can't fucking detect it so it's just stupid trying to detect text that has been generated by AI besides the moron to leave it in you know the the just the the standard things

21:02is like well you know can you answer this question or you know you know the standard ship people leave in for that stuff yeah don't read the the output but I mean the EU is fucking stupid for asking them to try and watermark text anyway come on but you know also they've they don't have a great track record with common sense trying to backdoor all of the encryption in every device we've ever had so there's that yeah there's that anyway well now let's get to watermarking that actually does work Google has launched a redesigned synth ID detector that's available worldwide through synth ID dot com synth ID is an invisible watermark embedded in AI generated images video pixels and audio forms Google says its Gemini models have applied the technology to get this Brian more than 180 billion images and videos along with audio totaling 240,000 years just wrap your head around that for a little bit this thing hasn't been in business for that long and it's already shit out

22:05180 billion images and videos and 240,000 years of audio what the fly and who's listening to this shit the bots yeah come on yeah previously people outside Google's tester program had to ask Gemini whether content contained a synth ID watermark in awkward process that could produce unclear answers the new website provides a direct way to check files without involving the chatbot it also expands detection beyond Google's own generated content the earlier tool couldn't identify synth ID watermarks on material created by partner AI platforms including chat gpt's image generator even when those systems used to the same standard one might ask why what's the fucking point of it Google says the updated detector now supports watermarks from all participating partners making it easier to verify whether digital media was AI generated if you have a partner and you give them the technology to watermark something with synth ID and you don't give anybody a way to detect it are they really a fucking partner just saying not really no yeah uh fucking Christ

23:13well meta is facing criticism after Facebook and Instagram accounts for two Austin gay bars olicon herries and rain on fourth were flagged or removed the businesses say posts featuring drag performers were labeled inappropriate while meta offered little explanation and warned that similar content could reduce their visibility rain on force original account was later restored but a replacement account was shut down highlighting the uncertainty small businesses face when moderation decisions are automated and difficult to appeal or when you're using Facebook or Instagram and base your entire business model off of it just saying the cases come amid broader reports of queer night clubs losing their social accounts and following and follow meta's decision to reduce hate speech protections for LGBTQ people in 2025 now reducing hate speech protections for LGBTQ people in 2025 that's from outside people this is coming from inside the house so that's a little bit different the call is coming from inside the house meta yeah advocacy group glad has described the company's

24:16recent policy direction as an extreme ideological shift critics say meta's reliance on AI moderation is producing inconsistent enforcement LGBTQ businesses are being silenced while other harmful material remains online see Sam anyone perfected venues losing access to customers and communities could threaten their long term survival I'm telling you we need another option for meta we do and Facebook and Instagram we need better options yeah or yeah let's all go back to fucking websites like we used to bring back yellow pages you know what the only thing I've ever needed and I I don't do much anymore I'm a parent now of a 10-year-old and and I'm home most of the time but in my day of when I would go out to bars and things of that nature all I needed to know is what time they were fucking open that was about it and the address and the address addresses address what what hours they have worst case scenario are you playing a game I want to see and will there be

25:17sound in which case that would never be online anyways and you'd have to make a fucking phone call like I don't understand like why these bars are losing business because of their Facebook account I have checked a Facebook account of a bar or nightclub or venue that I've gone to precisely zero times in my life well that you know it's promotions and you know it's gay bars you have different nights and shit like that you know yeah so I get I get why but that's what mailing lists are for that's what your own websites for come on I mean there's there's shit out there that you don't have to rely on metaphor absolutely metaphor like everything yeah here's one that's gonna be real fun Brian researchers have built an AI system that can reconstruct what someone is looking at from high-resolution brain scans basically mind reading except it currently requires a giant expensive FMRI machine and plenty of patients the system uses two models one predicts an image

26:18of structure and content from brain activity while another works backward generating synthetic brain scans from the images that let's researchers create more training data and improve the reconstruction without scanning people for every possible picture the results are impressive but not flawless a dog in a bathtub reportedly came back as a goat in a bathtub okay pretty fucking close if you ask miles away miles away oh my god the upside is huge for people who can't communicate physically and own an FMRI machine and a supercomputer the downside is well brain privacy because apparently passwords and facial recognition just weren't enough today's hardware makes covert scanning impractical but researchers warn that applying similar techniques to wearable EEG devices could let companies infertile thoughts without consent how fucking awesome is that Brian yeah I mean the whole FMRI stuff was was in its infancy when I was doing psychology in college but it was fascinating

27:20to me about even what they could do back then what they could figure out now obviously it's it's you know you had to have an FMRI machine they were huge you had to stick you had to find somebody who's you was willing to stick their head in there you had to do you know it was all very cumbersome and very scientific and that was it but yeah of course someday we're gonna figure this out we're gonna figure this shit out and and well we're not gonna figure it out some fucking asshole billionaire with a fucking evil company is gonna figure it out and we're all gonna be screwed so that's great it's gonna stop to look for it to do jazzy I know just what I want my old age yeah yay thought crimes it's coming it's coming good times I'll be dead I don't care yeah thank god well an open source tool called remove mac ai promises to reclaim 12 gigabytes 12 gigabytes 1.2 watts or more of mac storage by disabling apple intelligence and deleting its

28:24downloaded models you know how to save our country Jason out of the table super intelligence there you go and it's it can we just get this script for everything you know just not just my mac developer omelahor built it for macOS 27 where apple says those models can occupy up to 14 gigabytes the tool uses apple's own configuration controls and system services to remove the models and prevent them from downloading again but the tradeoffs extend beyond AI chat it disables Siri writing tools notification summaries image generation photos cleanup and other features I'm sorry that those are tradeoffs I see those as features well I like the photos cleanup thing that's kind of nice I like that one uh everything else sucks yeah I don't use anything else and I even the new Siri I don't it still sucks to be but you know whatever uh absent shortcuts that rely on apples local AI models also lose functionality dictation remains available and the changes can be reversed remove mac ai doesn't require disabling apple's system integrity

29:27production still it's an unofficial tool making system level changes and future macOS updates could break its methods or cause unexpected behavior making reclaiming storage a decision with consequences now bride system level shit when you change it on macOS x tends to have problems so you might save 12 gig but you're gonna lose a month worth of your fucking life trying to figure out why everything doesn't work when something updates so yeah I would tread lightly with this I would not tread it all I would just go the other way but I just put it in here because it's making the news so you know people people want people don't want their AI they don't you know well another thing they don't want Jason what smart glasses oh fuck no fuck those things while rules on smart glasses in the u.s. have been fairly piecemeal parts of Europe are taking a more wholesome wholesale approach I'd say wholesome wholesome that was a mistake and in norway's case that could mean a temporary ban on camera clad glasses in a whole lot of public spaces norway's parlor been is set to propose a temporary ban that would apply to public spaces where things people are at risk of

30:29being recorded discreetly or generally where large groups of people might gather according to Reuters that includes beaches parks or events but also more sensitive areas like schools pools healthcare facilities and changing rooms duh yeah all right Jesus uh so this is pretty much similar to any other ban the reason why privacy concerns obviously uh unfortunately norway's ban is only a temporary one but it does point to the likelihood of more concrete regulations in the future a time out until the country fully figures out exactly what and how people should be using smart glasses I'm struggling to figure out a good reason I see advertisements for smart glasses all the time and they seem like such insane stupid use cases that I'm like but nobody would ever use it for that what what what okay okay I do have what there's there's one use case okay blind people for blind people I think it really makes a difference yes that's you know because I want people

31:30should be able to see the fat asses in the changing room just like everybody just like us I don't if you if we got to see some old man sweaty balls you got to see some old man sweaty brides but you don't record it and send it to Nigeria that's the difference no that's the difference yes no I've gotten reports from people who who have family members who are blind that these things have actually helped quite a bit so got you you know okay yeah you found a use case it's very specific awesome yep yet to find any other one there was some stupid commercial I can't even remember I think it was met as glasses some guy was on a bike ride and he was like fucking work and really hard he's on his bike ride in the meantime he's using his metaglasses to sign up for like a competition you're on your fucking bike ride shouldn't you be paying attention yeah you think you think I don't understand I don't understand anything anymore apparently anyways so we're getting some rules in Norway European Union will likely follow suit and the US will never do anything

32:30about anything and just rely on people punching out the people out in bars because they're massels that's about it so fun times then interesting news AT&T mobile and Verizon are teaming up to try to eliminate mobile coverage dead zones the three companies have entered into an unnamed joint venture that will use satellites to help close coverage gaps in areas where traditional services limited the venture will be managed by a board with representatives from each company and there's already an interim CEO a guy named Paul Roth who has plenty of experience at the industry a press release describing the venture promises that will nearly eliminate dead zones in the US currently without mobile service which is certainly good news the companies also tout reliable connectivity and emergencies when typical ground based networks are unavailable the companies have even promised that traditional consumers will get improved network performance as there will be simpler access to satellite services across providers now this sounds great and one wonders why they never did this earlier when they certainly could have and increased the the availability of cellular coverage

33:30for all their customers is it done because they finally had a good thought and then they're their small hearts grew a few sizes that they fuck no hell no they're worried about competition from dedicated satellite mobile providers like starlink and amazon's Leo that's why they're doing it now and of course we have zero details as to when they will begin offering connectivity and dead zones throughout the US that's why we need competition that's why monopolies suck this episode is sponsored by weight loss by hymns if losing weight whereas easiest rebooting your router we'd all be done by now there's probably a goal weight in your head and getting there on your own is the hard part weight loss by hymns offers access to a range of FDA approved GLP1 medications including the wigo v pill and the wigo v pen plus support along the way and yeah that's a real thing now wigo v is the first ever GLP1 weight loss medication available in a pill

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35:34information we go v clinical study information and restrictions visit hymns.com I got a note from Pierre who does the read me app that we covered way back in like episode 100 and something I think I think you've I think you've got a ping because our new wiki at wiki.gog.show probably sent him a notification that yeah he's got he's got some links out there now which I was expecting more but I don't think I don't think anybody's checking out our wiki yet Brian it really kind of bums me out after all the work I put in on it but I still think it's pretty fucking cool I use it to go look look up stuff but read me is a is a really cool iOS app and it's it's actually a iOS and Android it's got different techniques for speed reading on it and as somebody who is dyslexic and I use every trick in the fucking book to be able to read stuff like you know everything that I build has the open dyslexie font built into it which is phenomenal for people like me

36:41there's some really cool stuff on there so I recommend checking it out there's a link in the show notes it's been updated and it's got it works pretty well I actually read a couple stories on there using the spritz method and it was fun it was actually pretty fun there's a big thing floating in my face right now let's get that out of here that's for the video people only oh Brian I got I got to tell you something on the video side of things I was checking out our our audience demos on YouTube because you know that having to do this video just fucking sucks I hate it I hate it every fucking week but so our age and gender over the last 28 days would you like to guess what the percentage of male versus female is you know I've always been somewhat impressed by the number of female listeners that we have just judging from social media and patreon donations and all that sort of stuff but I'd still have to go I'd say 90% male 10% female oh Brian 100% male on YouTube which which I which makes me think that these these statistics are not exactly accurate because

37:43I know we have one paid subscriber who is definitely female but so I guess you have to self-report these things but yes it is 100% male now I looked at the age demographics in the splits for the ages 13 to 17 years goose egg 18 to 24 not a 25 to 34 pop kiss you know those are the people that really should be listening to us to yeah I know so the 40 40.5% are 35 to 44 and 45.9 or 45 to 54 and 55 to 64 is 13.7 and nobody over 64 years old 65 plus is a zero so we're gonna do something to to appeal to the kids that should be listening to us I think we should name this episode skip it do skip it do is that the toilet thing I think so I don't know I don't follow that so care my kids not old enough to do that shit yet so so I I went back and I changed it to the last 365 days to see what how it

38:48breaks down there so our female viewership jumped Brian it jumped to 0.6% boom yeah the ladies in the house say yeah yeah I'm single baby come on bye oh well drop back down again Jason there goes there's a real-time stat god man I hate my life moving on okay well another reason to hate your life particularly if you happen to be in Hollywood and connected to any way shape performed at the entertainment industry yes the soon to be merged paramount and water brothers that thing has gone through and it will be known as guidance dance did you see that they already painted the fucking Warner Brothers water tower yesterday I did I did yeah the deal which is expected to close this month after paramount successfully cleared its biggest remaining regulatory hurdle in September in other words the payment went through to the someplace in all I don't some unidentified

39:49place in Florida will finally unite the two long running film studios while bringing the HBO Max and paramount plus streaming services under the same roof what a logistical nightmare it is going to be combining these apps which that's supposed we're going to be doing no that's going to be a nightmare and I can tell you where 800 million dollars of that went the fucking Warner Brothers CEO that we've been talking about for fuck's ever that I just can't stand yet he got 800 fucking million the guy that just ruined basically all of television for everything it's just I don't know if you've noticed oh well we'll talk about the food network in a minute you've got a food network story but yeah continue on Brian this is just a nightmare despite settling an antitrust lawsuit last month which cleared the way for the imminent Warner Brothers acquisition there are still concerns about the editorial independence of CNN and CBS news if that it even exists anymore going forward with both news organizations now being part of Skydance according to a CNN report paramount is signed off on a news editorial independence board that'll oversee both networks

40:51while the studio is reportedly also committed to 30 theatrical movie releases a year cannot wait for I do get the iron plus you get the I do get the irony there Brian that you just said that the editorial independence of CNN is in question and then according to a CNN report next line okay yeah anyways it's gone through so basically you know kiss everything that you ever love goodbye there will probably not be any star Trek anytime in the near future if we do get another star Trek it'll probably be from the Klingons point of view given the company that is running the things these days Klingons good I begged a different Brian these guys are way more Romulan than Klingon that's true they're way true Romulan's are way more evil than Klingons actually to be honest they're mega I don't know if you watched lower decks but they're more pack lid okay yeah yeah ok smart luck anyways uh according to a new report from knife night edge media Steven co bears Lord of the

41:58Rings movie has been paused in light of the Paramount Pictures Warner Warner Brothers merger as the outlet notes Colbert is once again at the mercy of CEO David Ellison even though he was working on the movie for Warner Brothers I would just like to pause and say I never thought this this movie would ever see the light of fucking day anyways. So I'm not terribly surprised. Yeah. Yeah. No, this is this was just a shocker. This was a dev deal thrown in Stephen Colbert's way. This was never going to happen. Never. Throw him some bones for getting canned. Yeah. There you go, Stephen. Don't feel too. Go right and move. Go drink some meat and write some right of fucking screenplay. Yeah. Uh, did you ever finish watching or did you even start watching the institute last year? Stephen King's TV. It was really good. I enjoyed it because I like the Stephen King things that are not generally Stephen King. So Stephen King's the institute is coming back to MGM plus on. That's why you never suck. So it was on MGM plus. There you go. Right.

42:59Maybe that will get folded into the new universal massive app to, oh, they're not through Skydance. No MGM plus is Amazon, baby. It's Amazon. Well, put it on Amazon. Fuckers. I know. Well, you can get the upgrade. No, I upgraded for no ads and guess what I get every fucking show ads. Yeah. I'm taking my $5.99 back. Fucking B'sos you little prick. Uh, well, um, if you do feel like paying for MGM plus or maybe a side trip to Sweden, which is where I saw the institute season one on November 8th. Season two is dropping. So it looks pretty good. I'm excited about it. So Mary Louise Parker is in it. I love her. Well, I told you that when fucking season one was on, but you didn't listen to me. No, I probably said exactly what I just said. Mary Park Louise Parker's on it. I love her. And that's about as far as that got as far as it went. That's right. You still even haven't watched the vampire list dot series. Have you? No. No. Yeah. That was MGM plus, but now it's on Netflix. So, and I think I got a third season now.

44:00So it was actually pretty good. I watched the first season. It was good. Not enough to make me go watch the second season, but hey, I read the books. I read the comics. I'm good. I know how it ends. Since we just mentioned Stephen King and him not being Stephen King's, if you really like Stephen King being super Stephen King, other worlds than these, a talisman novel, the talisman trilogy book number three by Stephen King and Peter Straub, sort of Peter Straub because he did pass away as actually out as of now. And I have already purchased it. It is waiting until I finish another book to read. This is apparently he's written it. So you can actually read it as a standalone. He does a lot of explaining and all that sort of stuff. But it is the final culmination of the entire gunslinger series, that entire world that he created, which I dearly fucking love. So I am somewhat looking forward to the book because I don't really want that world to end, but there you go. Is it 974 pages? I am sure it is probably three times that amount.

45:00I'm sure that I look, I'm looking at the stack of crooks. Cryptonomicron books on the corner and those are probably light reads compared to. What is this? Yes, what I thought. Yeah. Like, yeah, Neil Stevenson has Page Count envy for that. I'm sure. Yeah. And food network has announced season three premiere date and new judges for Harry Potter, the Wizards of Baking. Now, I've watched the first two seasons of this with my family. It is one of my favorite of these competition baking shows that they've ever done. It's been a lot of fun. So I'm happy that they're doing another season. Food network has shared exclusively with people that the culinary competition will return on Wednesday, November 4th, twins James and all of our felps who famously played Fred and George Weasley will return his hosts. While two new ministers of baking are joining the series, Duff Goldman and Sarah Mountain, we to bring their pastry expertise as judges. It's a fun show. I've really enjoyed it. So looking forward to yet another one, at least until they have to contractually replace the Fred and George Weasley

46:02and entire structure to match the new Skydance Harry Potter series. That is also starting later this year. Oh, shit. That's right. Yeah. It's out stood for that. The food network has just been on, it's just been kind of on hold like it keeps. It's just so weird. I think everything is on hold waiting for this stupid fucking merger to happen. Yeah. It's just been kind of a shit show. I do, there are a couple shows that I do like on the food network. Right now, the line is really good. I really enjoy that one. I've been watching the two Halloween baking competitions. Yeah. That the Halloween baking, the Halloween baking championship, I find much better than Halloween wars. We kind of gave up on Halloween wars. We've stopped. We're just sticking to the baking championship. It's so much better. It's so much more fun. You know, it's just, it's so lighter, you know, but when there's nothing else on, let me just throw it on the back. But you know, there was some really good stuff this summer, but they were only like six episodes seasons. And I'm hoping that more stuff is going to come back now that this, once this shakes out and hopefully the food network won't just end up,

47:03you know, just on the cutting room floor, maybe sold or spun out, but they've been having trouble lately. Yeah. It's a changing world too. It's, they've gotten rid of most of the actual in cooking, in kitchen cooking shows like the kitchen, which is my favorite. It's going to, it's been canceled. It's all getting sideline. It's all competitions now, which I know you love, but we could add both. Like they always do. So I mean, my, one of my favorite shows is Ready Jet Cook. You know, Jet Tealus series. I mean, this is like fucking Emmy winning, you know, so, yeah, it's good stuff. I highly, I highly like a lot of that stuff. You know, I do like regular cooking shows sometimes too, but the competitions are just like popcorn, you know, but I have a feeling that the food network is going to go the way of Star Trek, unfortunately. Yeah, we'll see, we'll see. I will actually, I think a guy fee area probably just end up inheriting it. Since he's got that $140 million deal that's still like 10 year deal, they got to pay him out. Maybe they'll just as love him and just give him the check and say see you later.

48:03Yeah, go away. By the way, I don't know if you've ever tried any of Guy Fieri's sauces. I bought a thing of donkey sauce just to try it. It should just call it donkey ass. It is one of the worst tasting sauces I've ever had in my life. It's fucking horrendous. You know, about I would say almost 20 years ago now, it's got to, it got to be about 20 years ago now. Guy Fieri was already a big deal at food network. He's already doing his drives and drives and all that sort of stuff. He had a restaurant in Vegas and I was in Vegas for some reason. I can't remember. And I was just like, fuck it. Let's try. Let's try his actual food. It was the most disgusting shit I've ever ate in my entire life. I felt ill for weeks afterwards. It's horrible. Like it is so unhealthy. It is so just over the fucking top. I mean, his food is him. If you look at him, that's what his food tastes like. It is fucking bleach tipped, fucking leather clad, dumb, stupid goatee.

49:07That's what it tastes like. That's not good. I like him. But he's a good guy. That's the fact he is a good guy who does good things. Yeah. Just stick to hosting. Maybe not so much cooking. Anyway, let's talk about some other good people. All right. Yes. These are the good people that keep this show alive over at Patreon. We've got two new subscribers, brute and Steve. And we'd also like to thank J.W. Andrew Charlie, Thomas Peter Derek Kelly, Wendley, Ian and Aaron for your continued support on Patreon. And thank God there's no more Dixie wrecked shows coming through. That got me so bad last week. That was the past. I loved it. Oh, anyways, over at PayPal, we got a donation from Captain Awesome, 20 bucks and a lane who sent us 50 bucks. Thank you both. Over the tip jar, we've got Matthew Sarah and Eric with a big 30 bucks. Thank you all so much over YouTube. Nobody shocked me there. We actually lost two people this week on YouTube.

50:07So sad Christmas, sad Christmas. Okay. I mean, I just the fact that it's there is just like, okay, I mean, you see, the thing the thing with YouTube is you already get it head free. It's just a, it's just to support us. So don't expect to get anything different there. But if you want to get the show early and stuff like that, go to go to Patreon. But yeah. But thank you everybody. Thank you. And you can also support us, of course, by buying our merch. Got one on right now. Andrew bought something. So thank you so much. Andrew and Dan Rodin says, I bought three shirts. Don't stop making them. I want more. Well, Dan, you're in luck. We have made more. Go buy them. Yep. New shirts out now. Yeah. You and I both do. So go for it. Absolutely. Absolutely. And just a reminder, Grumpy old geeks is a fan support and show. And the ads cover our overhead. But the donations are what keep us on the air. If you want to get the show early, add free and high definition, go to patreon.com slash GOG for as little as $3 a month. And you can give us more if you want. If you just want to throw a few bones, our way head to geog.show slash donate. And you can buy some merch like Brian is wearing ads shop dot geog.show minor all in the laundry,

51:11which is right over there because I'm going to garage. Everything helps keep the show on the air. And we thank you from the bottom of our black little hearts for your support. We do. Until next time. I'm Brian. And I'm Jason the Philopo. Thanks for listening to Grumpy old geeks. Get all the links and goodies from today's episode at geog.show slash 766. Want to keep the grumpy just alive? Toss a few bucks our way at geog.show slash donate every penny and dollar keeps the show on the air. Love the show. Share it. Seriously, there's a share button in your podcast player. Use it to spread the grumpy just to friends, foes and everyone in between and we'll love you for it. Swing by geog.show to join our discord channel and chat with us and other show fans. It's a bunch of fun. Got thoughts feedbacks cool links hit us up at geog.show slash contact and don't forget to leave a five star review at geog.show slash review and we'll read it on the air. And we do have that merch. Go get it today at shop.geog.show end. Of course, stay grumpy.