675: Your Own Personal Jesus

675: Your Own Personal Jesus

Author: Jason DeFillippo & Brian Schulmeister with Dave Bittner November 23, 2024 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 conundrum, and a DNA testing company ghosting its customers, the news is packed with surprises. We also explore Neuralink’s Canadian trials, bizarre domain drama between Alex Jones and The Onion, and why Google might be forced to part ways with Chrome. Plus, a study reveals Tesla’s troubling accident stats, and Germany investigates an undersea sabotage. On the media front, we break down The Old Man, The Day of the Jackal, and Ken Burns’ deep dive into Leonardo da Vinci. Catch teasers for How to Train Your Dragon and The Studio, while Apple TV+ and streaming giants reshuffle strategies. In the gaming and cinema crossover universe, the Minecraft Movie and Silo Season 2 are making waves. We also geek out over Perplexity’s new shopping tool, Bluesky’s rise to 21 million users, and the evolving quirks of Threads and X. Meanwhile, Ghosts by Peter Cawdron lands on our reading list, and Dave Bittner brings the dark side of cybersecurity into focus, including reverse-engineered iPhone hacks and Graykey’s tech secrets. In closing, we pay tribute to Thomas E. Kurtz, co-creator of BASIC, and share some lighthearted shout-outs to the schmactors of the world. Tune in for all the grump and geek you love!

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
749: Surge Bananas [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:16:10
AI companies get sued, tracked, hacked, funded, and IPO'd; governments keep trying to ban kids from screens; Tesla rewrites history while BYD bets money on the future; and somehow the safest place this week is watching s…
748: Space Bone [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 58:52
Self-driving cars drown themselves; AI keeps getting dumber while executives keep firing humans anyway; surveillance capitalism mutates into full sci-fi horror; Jony Ive redesigns Ferrari into an Apple Store accessory; a…
747: Why We Sigh [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:22:52
Social media panic; AI backlash; Musk chaos; robotaxi disasters; crypto collapse; fake-content infestations; Star Wars exhaustion; surveillance capitalism and Gen-Xers desperately trying to back up their hard drives befo…
746: Reality is Frequently Inaccurate [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:19:40
Merch plugs; billionaire AI stupidity; methane-powered robot futures; scammy crypto ghosts; flood-seeking robotaxis; AI morality fanfic; poop surveillance capitalism; Wordle becoming network television; Spotify tracking…
745: Unwanted Senior Discount [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:08:24
Amnesty warns people about visiting America for the World Cup; AI continues speedrunning societal collapse through podcasts, surveillance, fake therapists, layoffs, and murder-planning chatbots; GameStop tries to buy eBa…
744: Goblin Mode [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:23:28
The child social media ban industrial complex expands to Canada while Utah breaks the internet trying to enforce it; a US soldier got arrested for Polymarket insider trading on the Maduro capture; Google sold out to the…
743: Category Five Dystopia [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:18:28
Elon Musk admitted Tesla FSD was vaporware for millions of customers; the AI money squeeze is killing free tiers while xAI drains Memphis's drinking water; Anthropic's Mythos got accessed by hobbyists and adopted by the…
742: Uncouth Yet Highly Litigious [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:25:31
Estonia and Australia prove social media bans don't work; ChatGPT is linked to mass shootings and stalking while also praising fart music; Allbirds pivoted to AI and immediately imploded; France dumped Windows for Linux;…
741: Moon Joy [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:11:24
Greece bans kids from social media (announced on TikTok); the FBI pulls Signal messages from iPhone notifications; OpenAI wants liability shields for AI mass-casualty events; wheels fall off a Mercedes EV; and Dave Bittn…
740: To the Moon! [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:16:39
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 e…