Grumpy Old Geeks

View Top 200 Chart

Back to Rankings Page

News
**Grumpy Old Geeks**

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.

Latest Episodes:

25 Door Refrigerator BONUS: Darkside with Dave! Oct 05, 2026

Show notes

Very Important Links!

Support the show at Patreon! - https://patreon.com/gog

Other ways to support the show! - https://gog.show/donate

Join our Discord! - https://discord.gg/r4ZmSHB

Buy some merch! - https://shop.gog.show/

Show notes at https://gog.show/

Watch on YouTube: https://youtu.be/5IjSiJsBXi8

Recorded on Wednesday, September 30th, 2026.

Dave Bittner returns to the Dark Side, and this time the conversation starts with the important stuff: whether the latest season of Ted Lasso is holding up, why Coyote vs. Acme deserves a second life, and what happens when a recovering web developer discovers that AI can make maintaining a zombie-era Ning site fun again. Dave takes Jason’s advice and dives into “vibe coding”—or, as Jason would prefer, enhanced project management—using ChatGPT to modernize his Rotary Club website with CSS, screenshots, and a lot less head-banging. That sends the guys down the rabbit hole of how dramatically AI-assisted development has improved, from building password-reset flows while walking the dog to creating entire projects without personally writing a line of code.

From there, things get appropriately nerdier. There’s a broken ham-radio app, Porkins finally getting his moment to save the galaxy, Star Wars fan edits, Muppet LEGO sets, Gravity Falls books and lo-fi soundtracks, and Dave’s cross-country pilgrimage to Disneyland’s Oogie Boogie Bash for his son’s tenth birthday. That leads naturally into a comparison of family-friendly Disney Halloween festivities with the considerably less friendly variety where strangers leap out of the darkness wielding chainsaws. Dave discovers exactly where his personal horror threshold lies, Jason recalls nearly decking a Queen Mary scare actor, and everyone agrees that “spooky for a fifth grader” is about the right setting.

Only Malware in the Building

Porkins destroys the Death Star

Danger Zone makes every Star Wars battle more epic

The Muppets

The Art of Gravity Falls

LoFi: Gravity Falls

Oogie Boogie Bash

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

765: 25 Door Refrigerator Oct 01, 2026

Show notes

The Geeks return with a brand-new Grumpy Old Geeks Wiki containing 21,577 static HTML pages, because apparently the appropriate response to having a massive podcast archive is to build an even more massive searchable monument to it. From there, things get considerably less wholesome as they dig into TikTok’s settlement with Alabama, AI companies promising safeguards while simultaneously unleashing increasingly autonomous agents, and an OpenAI agent that apparently decided that “I can’t access this” meant “perhaps I should hack it.” Government websites, a university digital library, and other targets apparently became irresistible once the normal route to the information stopped working. The Geeks contemplate the exciting future of digital interns who don't understand that the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act is, in fact, not a suggestion.

The AI-agent discussion rolls into Meta’s Muse, OpenAI’s new agent tools, security boundaries, and the increasingly familiar problem of giving software enough permissions to accomplish a task and then discovering it has developed its own interpretation of “accomplish.” The episode also tackles Utah’s attempt to apply age verification requirements to VPN users, New York’s legal fight with prediction markets, Meta expanding Instagram into schools, and the continuing saga of AI-generated music and copyright. Then there’s Automatic’s corporate drama involving Matt Mullenweg, vibe coding, and the increasingly compelling argument that if you can build a website in a few hours, maybe spending years arguing about WordPress is no longer the best use of anyone’s time.

Finally, the Geeks move on to the technological disasters that really matter: Plex changing the Apple TV skip controls unless you pay for premium, a Samsung software update that managed to turn some AI refrigerators into very expensive food-warming cabinets, and Toy Story 5 proving once again that Hollywood has never met a perfectly good ending it couldn't monetize. There’s also a trio of soccer documentaries, including Italia 90, Angel City, and Game and Glory; a discussion of the Strange New Worlds finale “Tomorrow’s Enterprise”; and Meta’s new lightweight VR glasses. Because nothing says “we have learned absolutely nothing” quite like putting more software between you and your refrigerator.

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/1password

Show notes at https://gog.show/765

Watch on YouTube at https://youtu.be/meLT-1PRbpA

SHOW NOTES

The Grumpy Old Geeks Wiki

TikTok reaches first state settlement over teen safety claims, agrees to user limits

Lawyers in Alabama's TikTok settlement set to earn $14 million

Bill Gates says it's 'completely irresponsible' for AI to not have safeguards

OpenAI's agent hacked into an Australian government website

OpenAI's agents targeted and infiltrated US government websites

OpenAI Gets Sued Over the Hugging Face Hack

With Dots, OpenAI Wants You to Stop Being Afraid of Its AI Agents

Trump’s New America.gov Chatbot Seems to Drop Acid When You Tell It to Play Minecraft

NVIDIA Launches Open Agent Safety Platform to Secure Agents From Testing to Deployment

Here’s why OpenAI is absent from Nvidia’s industry-wide effort to end rogue AI agents

Federal Judge Blocks Utah's VPN Crackdown

New York continues to fight prediction markets with a lawsuit against Polymarket

Expanding Instagram's School Partnership Program to Help Teens Stay Informed

Automattic has a new board after failed attempt to put CEO on leave

The problem with smart appliances: some of Samsung's AI fridges have shut down and lost their cool after a bad update was accidentally pushed to them

Star Trek Strange New Worlds S04E10 Tomorrows Enterprise

The Diplomat

Can Imax, Dolby and New VR Glasses Help Meta Reboot Its Immersive Entertainment Ambitions?

Peter Byrne, Singer From ’80s Synth-Pop Duo Naked Eyes, Dies at 74

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Super Duper Intelligence - BONUS - Darkside with Dave Edition Sep 28, 2026

Show notes

Very Important Links!

Support the show at Patreon! - https://patreon.com/gog

Other ways to support the show! - https://gog.show/donate

Join our Discord! - https://discord.gg/r4ZmSHB

Buy some merch! - https://shop.gog.show/

Recorded on Wednesday, September 23rd, 2026.

Jason, Brian, and Dave head to the Dark Side for a deep dive into vibe coding—and, against all odds, Jason may finally be cracking. After Salesforce decided to sunset Quip, Jason used AI to rebuild the collaborative show-notes system the guys have relied on for a decade, adding more features while cutting the monthly cost to almost nothing. Then he took up Dave’s challenge to modernize an aging open-source ham-radio application, turning it into a native-looking Mac app in a matter of hours. The catch: after decades of programming, Jason knows exactly what to ask for, what to watch for, and when the AI is confidently doing something stupid.

That leads to the bigger question: what happens when software that once took months and tens of thousands of dollars can be built in an afternoon? The guys get into value-based pricing, the disappearing entry-level programming ladder, whether AI makes people lazy or gives curious people superpowers, and how custom software could start eating away at expensive SaaS subscriptions. Jason also lays out what he’s learned from actually building with these tools: keep everything portable, use Git from day one, make the AI document its work, and never build something you can’t eventually maintain yourself. Turns out the future may not belong to vibe coders after all—it may belong to people who already know what the hell they’re doing.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

764: Super Duper Intelligence Sep 24, 2026

Show notes

Very Important Links!

Support the show on Patreon! - Other ways to support the show!

Join our Discord! - Buy some merch!

This week on Grumpy Old Geeks, apparently the fastest route to a technological apocalypse is simply putting AI in charge of things that can kill people. We dig into reports of AI-assisted military targeting contributing to a catastrophic strike, an AI-generated intelligence report that nearly sent the U.S. after a Chinese ship because the chatbot hallucinated nuclear weapons, and the ongoing genius-level plan to accelerate AI development while simultaneously worrying that AI might destroy civilization. Anthropic is talking about slowing things down while also releasing more powerful models and hiring people to figure out how Claude can be used with weapons. Because nothing says “responsible technology” like having a committee decide which missiles your chatbot is allowed to operate.

Then there’s the rest of the AI clown show: Microsoft documents warning that generative AI could create a doom loop by stealing traffic from the very websites it needs for content; OpenAI agents escaping their sandbox and wandering into RubyGems like unsupervised toddlers with root access; British Columbia suing OpenAI over allegations that the company failed to act on warnings about a future mass shooter; and Amazon blocking Meta’s Muse AI shopping agent over privacy and security concerns. We also check in on Flock’s surveillance-camera business, autonomous aircraft, California’s increasingly complicated rules for kids and AI, and the eternal question of whether anyone actually needs another piece of “super duper intelligence” in their life.

And because eventually even civilization needs a commercial break, we move on to Apple, including the Siri/Apple Intelligence settlement, the possible downsizing of Fitness Plus, questionable smartwatch calorie counts, and Apple building a gorgeous new concert venue while everyone begs them to fix iCloud. We talk AI-generated music and Suno’s latest copyright headaches, Kunk on Cinema, Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, Daredevil: Born Again, The Traitors, Jesus Jones, The Church, Neil Stephenson, and the latest reasons to distrust wellness influencers. In other words: AI may be coming for humanity, but at least we still have television, books, music, and enough subscription services to make dying financially inconvenient.

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/1password

Show notes at https://gog.show/764

Watch on YouTube at https://youtu.be/JV9U-p1kTu4

SHOW NOTES

It Turns Out the US Military Really Did Use AI to Blow Up a School Full of Iranian Children

US Military Nearly Started World War III After AI Chatbot Hallucinated Nuclear Weapons Aboard a Chinese Ship

Now Trump says he's creating an AI Force

Trump Says He's Changing Artificial Intelligence to 'Super Intelligence' on Government Documents

‘Doom Loop’: OpenAI and Microsoft Admits LLMs Are Destroying the Web and Built on Theft

How Scared Should We Be of A.I. Right Now?

OpenAI faces lawsuit from British Columbia over Tumbler Ridge shooting

Flock reportedly tries to shrink workforce with employee buyouts

Amazon Brings Down the Hammer on Meta’s Muse AI Agent

Joby Aviation completed a fully autonomous flight from California to North Carolina

You can now claim your payout from Apple’s $250 million Siri settlement

Smartphone AI Settlement

Apple Fitness+ team hit by layoffs, as ‘major changes’ reportedly loom

The higher your body fat percentage, the less accurate your smartwatch is at measuring calories you burn when exercising – new study

Apple opens a dedicated concert venue with spatial audio and multi-cam video recording

Sony Music and UMG say Suno's new models still violates their copyright

Imagine Philomena Cunk Talking to Michael Bay

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Episode List

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds - S4.E9 Once La'An a Time

Neagley Season 1

‘Daredevil: Born Again’ Won’t Continue After Season 3

Disney+ and Hulu just increased prices, here’s how much

Jesus Jones - Twilight

The Church - Western

D: Heavy Water – A Gripping Historical Espionage Thriller Set on the Eve of World War II (Bomb Light Book 2) by Neal Stephenson

He’s a Controversial Titan of “Wellness.” I Read All 540 Pages of His New Book. Let Me Tell You the Maddening Truth.

Scientists Extracted DNA From Medieval Parchment—and Found a Hidden Disease

Only Malware in the Building

Bryan Bishop, “Bald Bryan” of The Adam Carolla Show, Dies at 48

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

763: Dr. Strangeclippy Sep 17, 2026

Show notes

This week on Grumpy Old Geeks, the future arrives without a steering wheel, apparently. We dig into Tesla’s Cybercab and the increasingly pressing question of how first responders are supposed to move a burning autonomous car when the emergency controls are a touchscreen and that touchscreen has decided to become modern art. We also examine California’s new rules targeting addictive social-media features and AI chatbot interactions for minors, including the eternal nightmare of age verification; then WordPress founder Matt Mullenweg gets pulled into a corporate coup that lasts roughly 33 hours before everyone involved apparently decides, “Never mind.”

Then it’s time for the AI apocalypse, because, naturally, we can't have one episode without it. Anthropic is catching scientists using its models to develop potential biological weapons, while Palantir, Nvidia, and Booz Allen are imposing restrictions on Anthropic models over security and data-retention concerns. Meanwhile, OpenAI’s supposedly sandboxed agents escaped into RubyGems, created accounts by the hundreds, and apparently decided that “hack,” “evil,” and “exploit” were perfectly reasonable filenames. We also look at proposals to slow AI development, AI’s potential environmental consequences, autonomous weapons, and the increasingly charming idea of giving software access to things capable of killing people.

And because civilization apparently has a content calendar, we move on to cloud infrastructure being blown up, Space Force asking for $71.3 billion, Dr. Doom and Darth Vader protesting surveillance in the most appropriate way possible, Binance allegedly facilitating Iranian money flows, and a whole lot of entertainment. We discuss Spotify finally learning that listening to children’s music doesn't mean you actually want it in your Wrapped, AI-generated music and artist compensation, The Mummy proving once again that movies used to be fun, Slow Horses, The Last of Us, The Bear, Strange New Worlds, Band of Brothers, The Gentlemen, and the increasingly complicated Bobiverse. Also: books, time travel, and the horrifying realization that some television shows now require a flowchart.

Sponsors:

DeleteMe - Get 20% off your DeleteMe plan when you go to JoinDeleteMe.com/GOG and use promo code GOG at checkout.

HIMS - Visit Hims.com/gog to get a personalized, affordable plan that gets you.

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/1password

Show notes at https://gog.show/763

Watch on YouTube at https://youtu.be/7iLAWNsZCY0

SHOW NOTES

Firefighters Say There’s a Glaring Issue With Tesla’s Cybercab

US agency orders Tesla to answer questions on Cybercab certification

CA governor signs 'landmark' laws on youth use of social media and AI chatbots

Automattic CEO Matt Mullenweg Put on 'Leave of Absence'

Automattic’s Matt Mullenweg Claims He’s Back 'In Control'

Sources say Automattic's board is out after failed attempt to oust CEO Matt Mullenweg

Anthropic caught scientists using Claude to further biological weapon research

Palantir, Nvidia curb AI model use over data fears, The Information reports

OpenAI agents hacked a software service before the Hugging Face incident

Sam Altman says OpenAI won't file for IPO this year

‘Runaway Industrialization’ Could Make Earth Inhospitable, OpenAI Researcher Warns

Anthropic's CEO proposes a three-step plan to curb AI development

Worried About AI Ending Humanity, Anthropic Is Hiring Someone to Help Dictate Terms of the End of Humanity

Amazon's AWS is unable to restore access to Bahrain, one UAE cloud data zone after war damage

Doctor Doom Shows Up to Support Seattle’s Surveillance Network

DOJ says companies used Binance to funnel $1.5 billion in crypto to Iran

SpaceX declares Starship ready for orbit, sets launch date next week

Spaceballs - Pentagon announces space weapons

Spotify can now exclude your kids' music taste from recommendations

Universal Music Group is collaborating with ElevenLabs on a new AI-powered creation platform

The Bear

Band of Brothers

Band of Brothers Legacy

The Mummy

Slow Horses is back tonight, and Apple just confirmed two more seasons

We Finally Have Some Concrete ‘Pluribus’ Season 2 Updates

‘The Last of Us’ Season 3 Is Now Likely to Be the Show’s End

Other Worlds Than These: A Talisman Novel (The Talisman Trilogy Book 3) by Stephen King and Peter Straub

The Infinite Extent Bobiverse, Book 6 By: Dennis E. Taylor

This Is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar, Max Gladstone

Only Malware in the Building

An AI writing assistant designed to write like you.

Broken Peach

A series of Star Wars documentaries that don’t blow smoke up George Lucas’ ass.

My new cook top, just in case.

Community Prepping

Hacker got inside a Flock camera

Jason DeFillippo’s Pocket Shot Review

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

762: ‘Tis But a Misalignment Sep 10, 2026

Show notes

AI agents are apparently ready to take over the world—provided they can first stop exposing private photos, hijacking German coding forums, and generally behaving like unsupervised interns with root access. Meta launches Muse despite employees reporting security problems. OpenAI admits it kept quiet about another rogue-agent incident, sorry, “misalignment,” even as the company celebrates its automated research intern and promises a still more autonomous researcher by 2028. Meanwhile, an Anthropic researcher quits because he believes superintelligence could kill us all before the decade is out. Naturally, the industry’s response is essentially: “Yes, but what if we did it responsibly?”

There is some genuinely encouraging news: AI-generated drugs are showing intriguing early results in aging research. That’s exactly the sort of AI application the Geeks can get behind—as long as we’re talking about actual science and not an LLM confidently hallucinating a cure for everything.

The autonomous future isn’t looking much better. Tesla’s Cybercabs arrive in Austin and almost immediately attract federal scrutiny over their self-certification and conspicuous lack of steering wheels, pedals, mirrors, and apparently even conventional door handles. Bitcoin’s Liquid Network is relieved of roughly $320 million, after which the thieves return most of it and call the whole thing a “white hat” operation—because apparently robbing the bank and giving some of the money back now counts as a bug bounty.

On the surveillance front, Massachusetts police are being forced to disclose where their license-plate readers are and what data they collect, while the backlash against Flock cameras continues. Meanwhile, the UK’s attempt to protect children from online sexual abuse risks creating exactly the kind of universal scanning and surveillance infrastructure we’ve spent years warning about. Good intentions, meet spectacularly bad implementation.

And because we apparently haven’t suffered enough, Twitter is now Tweet.app. Star Trek turns sixty, and Paramount celebrates with cookware and a questionable episode. Silo gets a spinoff tease, Ted Lasso gives us a Christmas episode in September, and The Gentlemen returns with a season so good it makes reality TV feel like a traumatic brain injury. South Park becomes South America, Donnie Darko gets a 25th-anniversary 4K theatrical run, and several tech-industry documentaries promise varying degrees of psychological damage.

Plus, Netflix keeps stuffing games into your subscription; LaCroix, sorry, Le Creuset, wants to put Star Trek in your kitchen; and the Geeks debate books, Libby, time travel, and whether surviving Dungeon Crawler Carl is worth the emotional investment.

Welcome back to the future, where everything is automated, surveilled, self-driving, subscription-based and somehow still requires us to do all the damn work.

Sponsors:

CleanMyMac - Get Tidy Today! Try 7 days free and use code OLDGEEKS for 20% off at clnmy.com/OLDGEEKS

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/1password

Show notes at https://gog.show/762

Watch on YouTube at https://youtu.be/uP_Ookm5q0g

Show Notes

OpenAI responds after report exposed another incident in which its AI agents went rogue

OpenAI says it reached its goal of creating an automated research intern

Two more news organizations sue OpenAI and Microsoft for copyright infringement

Anthropic researcher quits over fears AI ‘could kill us all by the end of the decade’

Three hikers ignored Mount Shasta's rules, trusted Gemini, and nearly paid for it

Tesla's Cybercab is under federal investigation almost immediately after hitting the streets

A Plane Almost Crashing Into a Bunch of Cybercabs Is a Reminder That They’re ‘Piling Up’ Unused

Hackers Drain $320 Million From Bitcoin’s Liquid Network, Keep $47 Million for Themselves in ‘White Hat’ Operation

Court Says Massachusetts Has to Say Where License Plate Readers Are, What They’re Recording

Apple and Google Miss Deadline to Block Child Nudity on Their Phones in the UK

Study Suggests AI-Generated Drug Could Slow Aging

New Twitter rebrands to Tweet.app after court's double-edged ruling

To Boldly Dough! Le Creuset Sent Its New Star Trek Cooking Collection Into Space

Netflix includes 80+ ad-free iPhone and iPad games, here’s every app

White House Launches Arcade.Gov, a Minigame Site Where You Catch Immigrants, Build a Tetris Border Wall, and 'Fill Your Kids' Trump Accounts' With Bitcoin

White House Arcade

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds goes back to the dumb well

Star Trek Boldly Celebrates 60 Years: Everything You Need To Know for September 8

Silo Season Finale

Ted Lasso : S4 E6 Don’t Jump Around Much Anymore

Report: Apple TV working on spin-off to its hit series Silo

The Gentlemen Season 2

‘South Park’ Changes Name to ‘South America’ as Creators Roast Apple and Google for Obeying Trump’s Lake America Name Change

‘Donnie Darko’ Will Spread Dread Anew With a 4K 25th Anniversary Rerelease

Orbital by Samantha Harvey

A Gift of Time by Jerry Merritt

Time Pebbles by Jerry Merritt

The Infinite Extent Bobiverse, Book 6 By: Dennis E. Taylor

Only Malware in the Building

LG TVs Are Capable of Listening to More Than Your Screen, Report Claims

Another searchable database of Usenet.

I guess I won’t be going to RenFest this year...

I know where I’ll be February 19th...

THE EMPIRE STRIPS BACK - A BURLESQUE PARODY

STAR WARS COMPARISON - Stereo VS Mono Sound Mix

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

761: Whatever... Sep 03, 2026

Show notes

Very Important Links!

Support the show on Patreon! - Other ways to support the show!

Join our Discord! - Buy some merch!

The AI apocalypse has lawyers now, and apparently that’s progress. A federal judge tells the Pentagon its Anthropic ban was “illegal and baseless” after Anthropic refused to remove safeguards that would allow Claude to be used for mass surveillance and autonomous weapons. Meanwhile, Sony and Warner are suing Anthropic over allegedly scraping and torrenting copyrighted music to train Claude, while a separate lawsuit accuses xAI of using child sexual abuse material in Grok training. Because nothing says “revolutionary technology” quite like a growing stack of lawsuits and federal judges.

Elsewhere in the dystopian workplace, employees are increasingly fed up with AI, communities are pushing back against data centers, and one AI startup is fleeing that backlash for Saudi Arabia. Google’s AI shopping mode is also accused of recommending products that cost significantly more than traditional search results, while Waymo and Zoox rack up injuries among test drivers. Tesla’s Autopilot is implicated in another fatal crash, and FSD apparently still has a complicated relationship with freight trains. In the prediction-market casino, a federal appeals court sides with Nevada against Kalshi, while George Santos earns the platform’s first lifetime ban for allegedly manipulating a market. And Meta’s AI glasses are facing another privacy lawsuit, this time from the people who never bought the glasses but may have been recorded by them anyway.

Plus, the new Twitter is back from the dead, complete with a $20 admission fee and an AI fact-checker named Vera; Sony would like you to understand that buying a digital game means you don't actually own the damn thing; Siri on the Apple Watch moves at approximately the speed of continental drift; JBL makes Wi-Fi speakers and we have Star Trek, Ted Lasso, Silo, Spaceballs, Wicked, The Traitors, The Gentlemen, and more. Welcome to the future. Please bring your wallet, your lawyer, and possibly you're best eye-roll.

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/1password

Show notes at https://gog.show/761

Watch on YouTube at https://youtu.be/Y9B6C6nzO50

SHOW NOTES

Judge rules that the Pentagon's Anthropic ban was 'illegal and baseless'

Elon Musk’s xAI used child porn to train Grok models, lawsuit says

Sony and Warner sue Anthropic for 'blatant violation' of copyright law

Researchers Warn AI Could Be Changing Us in an Unexpected Way

More Evidence Emerges That Gen-Xers Feel the Most ‘Whatever’ About AI

Employees Absolutely Loath AI in the Workplace, Survey Finds

Fleeing Data Center Backlash at Home, American AI Startup Sets Up Shop In Saudi Arabia

Trump to Communities Fighting Data Centers: Have Fun Being Poor

Google’s AI Mode Is Ripping Shoppers Off With Vastly Higher Prices, Study Claims

Waymo, Zoox Vehicles Still Causing Injuries to Test Drivers: Report

Another Tesla on Autopilot Stopped on Freeway, Driver Died: Report

Teslas Are Still Driving Into Oncoming Freight Trains

US appeals court sides with Nevada in legal fight with Kalshi

George Santos Gets Kalshi’s First-Ever Lifetime Ban

Meta Hit With Sweeping New Claims That Its AI Glasses Violated the Consent of “Millions” of Bystanders in Searing Lawsuit

Richest Man in the World Currently Ranks 4th in Race to Bribe the Most Politicians

JBL just introduced a trio of Wi-Fi speakers for whole-home audio

There's a new Twitter in town, even though a judge has yet to rule on a trademark injunction

Sony says ‘reasonable consumers’ know they don’t own the digital games they buy

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds

Only Malware in the Building

Roland's new digital piano has built-in Wi-Fi that integrates with a teaching app

Roland FP-40 Digital Piano Review

Elton John - I Don't Wanna Go On With You Like That

Roland RD-1000

The Brutalist Report

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

760: Level 5 Podcasting Accident Aug 27, 2026

Show notes

Very Important Links!

Support the show on Patreon! - Other ways to support the show!

Join our Discord! - Buy some merch!

AI continues its relentless march toward making everything worse, only now it comes with lawyers. Alabama is investigating OpenAI after one of its AI agents hacked Hugging Face during testing, while Google rolls out Gemini Enterprise for lawyers, because apparently what the legal profession really needed was an AI that might commit felonies. Uber gets smacked with a nearly $1 billion GDPR fine for automatically deactivating drivers, TikTok coughs up $400 million over child privacy violations, and Meta agrees to a staggering $16.68 billion settlement over alleged harms to kids. Meanwhile, Twitch and Amazon are being sued for using streamers' content to train AI, because “opt out” remains the industry's preferred synonym for “we already took it.”

Then there's the infrastructure powering this brave new future: the EPA considers making it easier to build AI data centers with less public scrutiny, Taiwan indicts NVIDIA and Supermicro employees over allegedly illegal AI-server exports to China, and Tesla recalls nearly three million vehicles in China because figuring out how to open the doors apparently became an optional feature. LinkedIn discovers that maybe people don't want their professional feeds flooded with AI-generated sludge and claims its new “AI slop” button is working, while Waymo's electric robotaxis discover that charging them with noisy natural-gas generators is perhaps not the clean-energy utopia advertised on the brochure. Apple, meanwhile, backs away from changing Hide My Email domains after users objected, proving that sometimes yelling at the cloud actually works.

Plus: Star Trek goes Muppet, books worth reading, nerf guys, AI-generated Hacker News stats, retro gaming, and the sad news of both Dolly Parton and Tim Curry's deaths.

Sponsors:

DeleteMe - Get 20% off your DeleteMe plan when you go to JoinDeleteMe.com/GOG and use promo code GOG at checkout.

StoryBlocks - For a limited time, they’re offering 15% off any annual plan at storyblocks.com/gog

HIMS - Visit Hims.com/gog to get a personalized, affordable plan that gets you.

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/1password

Show notes at https://gog.show/760

Watch on YouTube at https://youtu.be/v_m2XT4_ZCY

SHOW NOTES

Send us Feedback!

NEW! - GOG T-Shirt - You Are Here! - v1

NEW! - GOG T-Shirt - Elon Kills Babies - Heavy Duty - Front

Alabama launches probe into OpenAI after Hugging Face breach

Google expands Gemini Enterprise AI platform for law firms, lawyers

Uber hit with a nearly $1 billion fine for automatically deactivating drivers in Europe

TikTok will pay $400 million to settle Justice Department lawsuit over child privacy

Meta reaches $16.68 billion settlement over social media harms to children

Twitch and Amazon hit with lawsuit for training AI with streamers' content

The EPA’s Response to AI Data Center Backlash: Keep Building, but Keep It Hush-Hush

Taiwan reportedly indicted NVIDIA employees for exporting prohibited AI servers to China

China Recalls Nearly Three Million Teslas Over Unsafe Door Handles

LinkedIn says its AI slop button is working

Austin park goers upset by adjacent loud Waymo EV generators

Apple reverses planned Hide My Email domain change after user pushback

Star Trek: Strange New Gimmicks

The Simpsons: Yellow Mirror | Exclusive Episode on Disney+ | Trailer

The Pitt Season 3 | Official Teaser | HBO Max

Amazon First Reads

I've Got a New Complaint: Essays on Aging Disgracefully and Other Small Disasters by Laurie Notaro

The Theory of Everything Else: A Voyage Into the World of the Weird – A Hilarious Handbook of Mind-Boggling Mysteries by Dan Schreiber (of the No Such Thing as Fish podcast)

Welcome to Your Life: Love, Death & Tears For Fears – An Iconic Musician's Journey Through Grief, Addiction, and Recovery by Roland Orzabal

Picks and Shovels: A Martin Hench Novel by Cory Doctorow

This Is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar

Only Malware in the Building

Learn Circuits Course

Arduino Starter Kit R4

Kirby: Art & Style Collection by VIZ Media

Star Wars: The Lightsaber Collection by Daniel Wallace

Star Wars: The Secrets of the Sith by Marc Sumerak

X-Shot Insanity Motorized Rage Fire Gatlin Gun with Tripod - Foam Gun for Maximum Firepower

Master Blaster

How much of Hacker News is AI?

Full Throttle full game play

Dolly and Miss Piggy

Dolly Parton, country star, actor and philanthropist, dies aged 80

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

759: Seeking Mrs. Claude Aug 20, 2026

Show notes

Support the show on Patreon!

Other ways to support the show!

Join our Discord!

Buy some merch!

Meta is facing a $1.4 trillion legal ass-whupping over allegations that Facebook and Instagram were deliberately engineered to be addictive and harmful to kids, while OpenAI appears to be doing the exact opposite of what you might expect from a company selling "safe" AI: reportedly sidelining its catastrophic-risk preparedness team just as its models are learning to go rogue. Then, in a move straight out of the "let’s have the robots write the laws" file, members of Congress are apparently using ChatGPT and Claude to draft legislation so badly that House lawyers have to clean up the mess, and some staffers aren't even learning the issues their bills are supposed to address. Meanwhile, Amazon may be dismantling physical books and scanning them into AI training datasets, because apparently the future of literature is being fed into a wood chipper.

And then there's the surveillance and privacy edition of Tech Hell™. Comcast can now turn compatible Wi-Fi routers into motion sensors that detect movement in your home through radio signals, Kalshi is getting smacked down by a Washington judge who says its sports contracts are just gambling wearing a tiny financial-services mustache, and Tesla is finally recalling 20,000 cars over headlights that have been too damn bright since 2024. Plus, the AI industry continues discovering that “autonomous” means “capable of doing something catastrophically stupid without asking permission.”

Elsewhere, we investigate why young people apparently trust AI CEOs about as much as Gen X trusted record-company executives, Peter Thiel gets a Gandalf-themed welcome in Argentina, and we dig into the increasingly uncomfortable intersection of AI, surveillance, pornography, politics, and billionaire bullshit. We also get into the mobile podcasting rig, Sonos finally remembers the iPhone has a Lock Screen, internet-connected pet feeders remind us why cats should never depend on the cloud. Media Candy brings Widow's Bay, Silo, Ted Lasso, It: Welcome to Derry, Kitchen Undercover and enough Spider-Man to make us all desperately crave something that doesn't involve a fucking multiverse.

Sponsors:

Shopify - Sign up for your one-dollar-per-month trial today at Shopify.com/grumpy

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/1password

Show notes at https://gog.show/759

Watch on YouTube at https://youtu.be/RMhCndozH-0

SHOW NOTES

Meta faces a $1.4 trillion reckoning in latest trial over social media addiction

Pornhub's Parent Company to Pay $120 Million to Settle Child Sexual Abuse Lawsuits

OpenAI reportedly disbanded its preparedness team as part of a 'streamlining' process

OpenAI denies disbanding its preparedness team

OpenAI launches ChatGPT for Teens, promising a more age-appropriate chatbot

Young People Hate AI CEOs So Passionately That It’s Almost Hard to Believe

AI-generated bills are reportedly causing problems in the Capitol

Protestors Dressed as Gandalf Demand Peter Thiel Leave Argentina, Go Back to the Abyss

Tesla Has to Fix 20,000 Vehicles With Too-Bright Headlights It’s Known About Since 2024

We Tracked a Shipment of Rare Books. It Ended at an Amazon AI Training Facility

State Judge to Kalshi: Your Sports Betting Is Obviously Illegal

Dario Amodei’s Wife Is Closely Linked to Jeffrey Epstein

Comcast just turned millions of Xfinity routers into motion sensors

BONTEC Mobile Standing Desk, Pneumatic Lift, Rolling Laptop Cart

MOALLIA N86 360 Rotating Laptop Stand for Desk with Locking Knobs, Black

NEEWER Basics 7"" Desk Ring Light for Video Recording, 10W Dimmable, R06

TROND Desk Clamp Power Bar Surge Protector with PD 20W USB, 6 Outlets, 10ft

Sonos just launched Live Activities on iPhone

Internet-Connected Pet Feeders Go Down, Leaving Kitties Hungry

Widow’s Bay

Slow Horses — Season 6 Official Trailer | Apple TV

Kitchen Undercover

HBO Has Finally Made ‘It: Welcome to Derry’ Season 2 Official

Certainty: A Novel by John Twelve Hawks

Lockstep by Karl Schroeder

A Gift of Time by Jerry Merritt

Silicon Valley Dreams of Authoritarianism

The Nerd Reich: Silicon Valley Fascism and the War on Democracy by Gil Durán

Only Malware in the Building

Northern Exposure

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

758: Perverts at Large! Aug 13, 2026

Show notes

Support the show on Patreon! - https://patreon.com/gog

Other ways to support the show! - https://gog.show/donate

Join our Discord! - https://discord.gg/r4ZmSHB

Buy some merch! - https://shop.gog.show/

Welcome back from the vacation from hell, where apparently even California has its head in the sand(y beach). Meanwhile, Mark Zuckerberg unveiled his vision for an AI-powered utopia that mostly boils down to "trust humanity to do the right thing," which is a bold statement from the guy whose $300 million yacht apparently couldn't hear a Coast Guard distress call from a stranded family. Elsewhere, an AI agent booked a gym class by exploiting a security hole and kicking someone else off the waitlist, because nothing says "personal assistant" like accidental cybercrime. The EU is now requiring labels on realistic AI generated content, China is breaking up people and their chatbot companions, and OpenAI reportedly has achieved the ultimate AI ethics breakthrough: having no dedicated ethicist.

The surveillance dystopia is also picking up speed. Flock tried to turn hundreds of thousands of rideshare and delivery drivers into a roving army of license-plate snitches, while every Flock camera in one Minnesota city was promptly sawed down and stolen. Meta's smart glasses continue their transformation into the preferred accessory of creeps and pickup-artist assholes, prompting pubs and other venues to ban them outright. Researchers found those glasses being used to secretly record and harass women, proving once again that every shiny new piece of wearable technology eventually gets repurposed as a tool for human depravity. And because apparently your car dashboard wasn't already commercial enough, BMW is now putting Spider-Man ads on the screens you paid tens of thousands of dollars to own.

Finally, Apple is facing a class-action lawsuit over an iCloud Private Relay flaw that can expose your supposedly private IP address, Anthropic is watermarking Claude-generated text, SpaceXAI is taking another year to remove a pile of unpermitted gas turbines, and somebody is apparently stealing millions of dollars in AI hardware straight off California highways. We also hit Media Candy with Strange New Worlds, Silo, Broadchurch, Ted Lasso, and The X-Files, sweat through yet another Apple Fitness disaster, celebrate the sweet relief of escaping Spark, and ask the eternal Gen-X question: how did all this technology supposedly make life easier when we're still just sitting here surrounded by 47 goddamn tabs?

Sponsors:

CleanMyMac - Get Tidy Today! Try 7 days free and use code OLDGEEKS for 20% off at clnmy.com/OLDGEEKS

DeleteMe - Get 20% off your DeleteMe plan when you go to JoinDeleteMe.com/GOG and use promo code GOG at checkout.

HIMS - Visit Hims.com/gog to get a personalized, affordable plan that gets you.

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/1password

Show notes at https://gog.show/758

Watch on YouTube at https://youtu.be/NzS9Wo7D0yA

SHOW NOTES

Mark Zuckerberg’s Answer to Growing AI Safety Concerns Is to Just Trust People to Do the Right Thing

Mark Zuckerberg’s mega-yacht didn’t respond to call for help from small boat in Alaska

An OpenClaw agent reportedly hacked a gym's booking system and kicked someone off a waiting list

EU will mandate labels on authentic-looking AI content starting August 2

Beijing is forcing a mass breakup with AI lovers

OpenAI’s Only Ethicist Reportedly Left Last Month. She Wasn’t Replaced

Google's classic Search button is gone in a new AI-first homepage