Grumpy Old Geeks

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; Live Nation is officially a monopoly; Meta wants to put facial recognition on sunglasses while building a Zuckerberg chatbot; New York wants DRM in your 3D printer; the Tolkien IP is being strip-mined on a grand scale; and Dave Bittner is here to remind you that yes, it was all just a marketing stunt.

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 Bittner reports the Fed called an emergency meeting about a scary new Anthropic model.

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 enshittification of social media like Threads, which are now completely overrun with AI-generated slop. This week, we dive into the corporate shenanigans of the tech world. OpenAI was caught secretly funding an advocacy group to push for age verification laws that just so happen to benefit Sam Altman's other company. We also cover Elon Musk's troubles, including all of xAI's co-founders quitting, a SpaceX satellite exploding, and Tesla's "fully autonomous" robotaxis being revealed to have remote human drivers. Plus, we celebrate NASA's successful Artemis II launch, review a fantastic Premiere Pro plugin for multicam editing, and give our thoughts on shows like "The Pit" and "Downton Abbey." Sponsors: SquareSpace - go to squarespace.com/GRUMPY for a free trial. And when you’re ready to launch, use code GRUMPY to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. 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/740 Watch on YouTube: https://youtu.be/IpzOakbBftY FOLLOW UP Austria is pursuing a social media ban for kids under 14 Group Pushing Age Verification Requirements for AI Turns Out to Be Sneakily Backed by OpenAI OpenAI takes on another “side quest,” buys tech-focused talk show TBPN IN THE NEWS Elon Musk’s last co-founder reportedly leaves xAI SpaceX loses contact with one of its Starlink satellites SpaceX has reportedly filed for the biggest IPO in history OpenAI Is Falling Out of Favor With Secondary Buyers Oracle Lays Off Thousands to Offset AI Spending Anthropic leaks part of Claude Code’s internal source code Anthropic is having a month Wikipedia Just Drew the Line on A.I.-Written Content Tesla Admits Its Robotaxis Are Being Driven Remotely Getting Stuck Inside a Glitching Robotaxi Is a Whole New Thing to Be Scared of White House App Found Tracking Users' Exact Location Every 4.5 Minutes via Third-Party Server Kash Patel's personal email account was accessed by hackers linked to Iran NASA's Artemis II Live Mission Coverage (Official Broadcast) MEDIA CANDY The Hobbit: The Tolkien Edit The Pitt DTF St. Louis Project Hail Mary SUPERGIRL | Official Trailer Downton Abbey Darker Waves Festival APPS & DOODADS Bluesky's next product is an AI assistant that helps build custom social media feeds ChatGPT app launches for CarPlay on iOS 26.4 Apple Removes iPhone Vibe Coding App from App Store Meta is testing an Instagram Plus subscription service with exclusive features Wraith Multi-Cam Editor THE DARK SIDE WITH DAVE Dave Bittner The CyberWire Hacking Humans Caveat Control Loop Only Malware in the Building Current Reader Journalist Sues FAA Over Drone No Fly Zone Designed to Prevent Filming ICE Nicholas Carlini - Black-hat LLMs | [un]prompted 2026 See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

13 years of podcasting has taught us nothing; companies are lying about AI layoffs while Meta destroys itself from the inside; Andreessen has zero introspection and it shows; Dune 3 looks incredible; Firefly lives again; one idiot executive staked Buffy; Adobe paid $75M for being evil; your AI passwords are garbage; Dave Bittner is here to make you feel worse about all of it. Sponsors: DeleteMe - Get 20% off your DeleteMe plan when you go to JoinDeleteMe.com/GOG and use promo code GOG at checkout. SquareSpace - go to squarespace.com/GRUMPY for a free trial. And when you’re ready to launch, use code GRUMPY to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. 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/738 Watch on YouTube: https://youtu.be/pykGjOmMs5c FOLLOW UP GOG Ep 1: How to Make Money on the Internet - March 25th, 2013 The ‘AI-Washing’ of Job Cuts Is Corrosive and Confusing Race on to establish globally recognised 'AI-free' logo Billionaire Marc Andreessen says he has "zero" introspection, and that the idea itself is a modern invention. Gamblers trying to win a bet on Polymarket are vowing to kill me if I don’t rewrite an Iran missile story IN THE NEWS Atlassian to cut roughly 10% jobs in pivot to AI Meta is reportedly planning to cut up to 20 percent of its staff in upcoming layoffs Meta Is Building an Encrypted Chatbot After AI Agents Went Rogue and Exposed Sensitive Data Meta Says It Is Removing End-to-End Encryption From Instagram Direct Messages Meta is testing clickable links in Instagram captions for verified subscribers Encyclopedia Britannica sues OpenAI for copyright and trademark infringement Senators tell ByteDance to shut down Seedance 2.0 AI video app 'immediately' Things Are Suddenly Looking Incredibly Bad for Trump’s Social Media Company Trump administration will reportedly get $10 billion for brokering the TikTok deal The Billionaire Backlash Against a Philanthropic Dream Jeff Bezos’ Washington Post Now Setting Readers’ Subscription Prices With Uber-Style AI APPS & DOODADS Adobe agrees to pay settlement for making its subscriptions hard to cancel Everything you need to know to design with Stitch What is DESIGN.md? Warning: Your AI-Generated Password Is a Major Security Risk. Here’s What to Use Instead MEDIA CANDY Dune: Part Three | Official Teaser Trailer How ‘Dune: Part Three’ Is Changing the Entire ‘Dune’ Franchise "Paradise" has been renewed for Season 3 at Hulu, Variety has learned. Paradise on Hulu Mars Express Nathan Fillion Says ‘Firefly’ Animated Series In Development With Co-Stars Set To Reprise Roles; Concept Art Revealed Sarah Michelle Gellar Says a Single Executive Was Responsible for Killing the ‘Buffy’ Reboot ‘V For Vendetta’ at 20: We Spoke to Its Director About the Increasingly Relevant Comic Adaptation THE DARK SIDE WITH DAVE Dave Bittner The CyberWire Hacking Humans Caveat Control Loop Only Malware in the Building Disney's 100% Rotten Tomatoes Masterpiece Returns This Fall With Brand-New Release Shhh… It’s zombie proof. Kia’s all-electric range The Last Quiet Thing by Terry Godier Evel Knievel Kings Island 1975 - Farthest Successful Jump at 133 feet 70's Evel Knievel Toy Commercial IDEAL Evel Knievel's 14 Greyhound Bus Jump Oct 25th 1975 HD enhanced. Epic WORLD RECORD. Craig Ferguson’s Evel Knievel Story is Wild!! Being Evel Wembley 50th Anniversary Evel Knievel Stunt Cycle Set – Limited Gold Edition Evel Knievel Stunt Cycle - Trail Bike Edition See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Kids online protection is finally getting serious globally; Anthropic is in a lawsuit with the Pentagon over an AI that may have bombed a school; Meta bought a fake-AI social network while ignoring its own AI content problem; Oracle is imploding chasing AI dreams; a DOGE engineer may have stolen half a billion Americans' data; Pokemon Go players accidentally built a robot surveillance map; and Live Nation employees got caught on Slack bragging about robbing fans blind.