674: Welcome to DOGE! The Department of Grumpy Entertainment

674: Welcome to DOGE! The Department of Grumpy Entertainment

Author: Jason DeFillippo & Brian Schulmeister with Dave Bittner November 16, 2024 Duration: 1:19:42
In this episode of Grumpy Old Geeks, we break down the latest chaos in tech, pop culture, and humanity’s never-ending quest to out-stupid itself. Hackers are raiding Ticketmaster accounts (again), and Chegg is circling the drain after ChatGPT obliterated its business model. Meanwhile, Amazon is hawking boner pills that tanked Hims’ stock, 23andMe is laying off nearly half its staff, and Bluesky is quietly stealing users who’ve had it with Elon’s dumpster fire over at X. Driverless Waymo cars take over LA, nuclear safety gets outsourced to AI, and Apple wants to track your luggage with AirTags (but only on planes they like). Oh, and let’s not forget Mark Zuckerberg’s bizarre karaoke moment with Get Low. On the pop culture front, The Penguin finale cements it as TV’s best comic book adaptation, Moana smashes Disney streaming records, and The Beatles are back—kind of—thanks to AI. Plus, Mattel accidentally linked kids’ toys to a porn site, and some genius in a bear costume is faking car accidents for insurance money. It’s all as dumb, messy, and oddly entertaining as you’d expect. Tune in for the snark, stay for the schadenfreude!

There’s a certain flavor of chaos that defines the technology industry each week, and Grumpy Old Geeks serves as your brutally honest guide through the wreckage. Hosted by Jason DeFillippo, Brian Schulmeister, and Dave Bittner, this isn't a polite roundtable discussion. Instead, it feels like grabbing a drink with friends who have seen it all and have absolutely no patience left for corporate spin or broken promises. They pick apart the biggest tech news stories with a seasoned, cynical eye, always asking the messy questions about what actually went wrong and who should be held accountable. Listening to this podcast is like getting the unfiltered post-mortem from veterans who remember when the internet felt different. The tone is sharp, often funny, and deliberately irreverent-picture a conversation that’s equal parts informed critique and cathartic venting about the state of digital life. You’ll hear them dissect the moves of figures like Elon Musk or Mark Zuckerberg not as distant celebrities, but as players in a ongoing saga of power and missteps. It’s a weekly ritual for anyone who loves technology but is deeply frustrated by the direction it often takes, offering analysis that’s as informed as it is impatient. If you’re tired of sanitized tech commentary and want a take that pulls no punches, this is the place.
Author: Language: English Episodes: 100

Grumpy Old Geeks
Podcast Episodes
675: Your Own Personal Jesus [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:19:34
In this episode of Grumpy Old Geeks, we dive into the wild, wacky, and often worrying world of tech, media, and everything in between. From a Swiss church using AI to preach the gospel to OpenAI facing a copyright conund…
672: Elon or Not? [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:12:04
Cash App class action; Tesla camera-based FSD questioned; Trump Media stock swings; standing desks are the new eggs; Dropbox layoffs; OpenAI Whisper invents parts of transcriptions, frequently; ChatGPT search; post scarc…
671: Lorum Ipsum Is My Sister [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:07:34
San Fran embracing self-driving cars; not-Bitcoin creator in hiding; i h8 ai; anti-AI artist open letter; X updates their policies; more people leave OpenAI; SynthID; 23andMe and your genetic data; no more fake online re…
670: Just Buy the Thing! [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:11:34
More Wordpress & WPEngine shots fired; hate mail; European road organizations reject the Cybertruck; EU fines against X; civil rights commission pans FART (facial recognition technology); FCC looking into broadband caps;…
669: HamFest [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:13:55
The beginning of the end for Wordpress; open source, or not; police Cybertrucks; Apple Intelligence rolling out; dystopian AI text summaries; X sends money to the wrong bank, argues that Twitter ceased to exist; Internet…
668: Weaponized Puffery [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:17:57
OpenAI training data, dynamic pricing & digital IDs; Elon's good week; dockworkers strike over robots averted, for now; more AI models; some AI training techniques make AI better at deceiving humans; weaponizing DMCA tak…
667: Nuclear Recall [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 57:01
Sam Altman stands alone at OpenAI; Gen Z employees not impressing bosses; X complies with Brazil's Supreme Court, but kill blocking; former FTX Exec given light sentence; Microsoft to reopen Three Mile Island nuclear pla…
666: The Episode of the Beast [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:30:29
Fun 666 Facts; Notebook AI follow up; Moviepass fraud; 23andMe settlement, disappearing board; Elon's deleted tweet; AI laws in California; Trump cryptocurrency; Amazon returns to work 5 days a week; new Moderna cancer v…
665: Human Referees [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:17:42
Gaiman & Good Omens; Waymo means Uber drivers are cooked; local muggers; EU not messing around with Apple, Google; DOJ after Google as well; another genetic testing company with security breach disasters; META scraping A…