687: Uncanny Spaceballs

687: Uncanny Spaceballs

Author: Jason DeFillippo & Brian Schulmeister with Dave Bittner March 8, 2025 Duration: 1:05:12
Techdirt has embraced politics as tech’s twin dumpster fire; Google’s AI Mode proves the internet is just Clippy with better PR; Billy McFarland’s Fyre Festival 2 is literally lost at sea; Tesla sales plummet as Elon’s antics spark protests; Sergey Brin wants engineers to work 60-hour weeks to build their replacements; Trump Media funneled cash to Don Jr. while indie musicians can’t afford to tour; Technicolor collapsed overnight, stranding 10,000 workers; SpaceX exploded—again; Netflix’s remake of A Different World became nightmare fuel; Y Combinator startups are coding on pure vibes; OpenAI is monetizing AI agents at $20K/month; Russian propaganda is infecting AI chatbots; hackers unbricked the Humane AI Pin to make it slightly less useless; ChatGPT now helps Mac developers introduce unexpected bugs; for escapism, read The Tempest by Peter Cawdron or On Tyranny by Timothy Snyder; and in peak dystopia, 82% of indie artists can’t tour—at least we still have humor.

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
664: I Love It When a Ding Dong Comes Together [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:22:54
SEC AI crackdown; Starlink & X vs Brazil; Navy's STINKY Wi-Fi; Microsoft tool for deepfake scrubbing on Bing; Clearview fines for violating GDPR; Bitcoin ATM scams; mobile phones not linked to brain cancer; NaNoWriMo AI…
663: Habsburg AI [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:06:38
Hey, hey we're all Monkees; Waymo rides; Sober Outfitters; the cruel passage of time; Telegram CEO arrested in France; Zuckerberg's bizarre open letter; Uber slapped with a big Dutch fine; Tesla semi crash; tariffs on Ch…
662: Tempest in an Instant Pot [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 58:33
Yes, we have all been p0wned; more Tesla recalls; Waymo honking greetings; Cruise recalls robotaxi fleet; more OpenAI content deals; Cortex delivers both fewer and more errors; just how bad was Musk's Twitter deal; billi…
661: The Nightmare Before Overcast [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:22:38
AI label turning off consumers; Sonos app mess continues; SAG-AFTRA makes an AI agreement with Narrativ; former Google CEO Eric Schmidt says go ahead and steal content, let the lawyers clean it up after; Grok AI is a dum…
660: The Bendy Piece [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:13:50
NFTs & crypto, oh my; Google ruled a monopolist in search; you can't run an AI company ethically - with plenty of examples; Grokking without consent; Google's targeting "unknown" minors loophole; MetaAI celebrity voices;…
659: Shark or Not [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 59:20
Well hello, there, LA; State of the AI Union: staggering amounts of money, power & water for what; COPPA 2, electric boogaloo; no phone searches without warrants by border agents; TikTok data collection; DMV on the block…
658: Red Hot Chili Coasters [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:25:15
The yes, dear AI boom; Altman supporting UBI; step counts are the new eggs; Crowdstrike buys partners a coffee for their troubles; search news; video game performers striking over AI; platforms struggling to deal with ch…
657: Dick Detector [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:19:15
Microsoft outage linked to Crowdstrike takes down computers around the world; german floppies; AT&T Snowflake crowd hack; Verizon piracy lawsuit; META won't offer future AI models in EU; EU over-regulation with X, META;…
656: Cyber Winnebago [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:33:36
Opting out & class actions; school TikTok mob attack; Boeing's troubles; health crisis in a Texas Bitcoin town; unlocking Ticketmaster resales; Trump threatens Zuckerbucks; Humane execs leave to launch AI fact-checking s…
655: GOG’s Influencer [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 42:31
Happy Birthday, America; Amazon investigating Perplexity AI for scraping sites without consent; Texas age-verification law for porn going to the Supreme Court; Greece adopts 6-day working week; Paramount axes Comedy Cent…