704: I’m Lovin’ It

Apparently, you can’t keep a good grifter down, as Billy McFarland’s seven-figure Fyre Fest deal collapsed, so he’s hawking the brand on eBay like a box of junk. Meanwhile, Indeed and Glassdoor are laying off over 1,000 workers, probably to pay for the AI that’s jacking up our electric bills. Speaking of AI, a Tesla robotaxi crashed itself while Elon Musk’s Grok chatbot went full Nazi, which is of course being installed in Teslas "next week." Fittingly, X CEO Linda Yaccarino stepped down and promptly lost her blue check. To cap off the dystopian news, the DOJ is targeting an anti-ICE app developer, the 'click-to-cancel' rule is dead, and you can hack McDonald’s with the password ‘123456’. The future is now, and it's dumber than we ever imagined.

On the media front, Murderbot gets a second season, and the Jim Henson and The Beach Boys documentaries are must-sees. Sadly, Netflix canceled The Residence. We also got trailers for Neuromancer, Project Hail Mary, and Edgar Wright's The Running Man. Speaking of building the future, we took a deep dive into AI-assisted coding using tools like Cursor, building a functional app in hours with zero original code. It’s a stark reminder that while the "free lunch" of AI development is ending, the future for junior coders is already cooked. This glorious new world also includes playing every retro game ever on your phone, thanks to emulators like Delta and PPSSPP and the Backbone controller, which led to a nostalgic dive into the classic soundtracks of Mega Man 2 and Wipeout XL. This all culminated in a personal victory: conquering all 4,678 boards in Mahjong Titan+, freeing us from our porcelain thrones.

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Show notes at https://gog.show/704

FOLLOW UP

Billy McFarland Says His Seven-Figure Deal to Sell Fyre Fest Has Fallen Through

Own FYRE Festival – Iconic Brand, Trademarks, IP, Social Media Assets, and More

Billy McFarland Is Now Trying to Unload the Fyre Fest Brand on eBay

IN THE NEWS

Indeed and Glassdoor are cutting more than 1,000 jobs

A Tesla robotaxi inexplicably drove into a parked car

Major US power operator says AI and data center demands are pushing prices up

An AI That Promises to “Solve All Diseases” Is About to Test Its First Human Drugs

‘Round Them Up’: Grok Praises Hitler as Elon Musk’s AI Tool Goes Full Nazi

Musk’s Grok 4 launches one day after chatbot generated Hitler praise on X

Elon Musk says Grok is coming to Tesla vehicles just after it went full Hitler

Elon Musk Says He's Installing His Racist Grok AI in Teslas "Next Week"

X CEO Linda Yaccarino is stepping down after two years

They took away Linda Yaccarino's blue check!

Six Months Ago NPR Left Twitter. The Effects Have Been Negligible

How SpaceX is blocking astronomers' view of space

New Research Bolsters Freaky Theory That Earth Sits in a Giant Cosmic Void

DOJ goes after US citizen for developing anti-ICE app

Trump’s FTC Let Lobbyists Kill Popular Click-To-Cancel Rule, Advocates Say

EU regulators are once again investigating TikTok over data transfers to China

Researchers Jailbreak AI by Flooding It With Bullshit Jargon

Bug Hunters Gain Access to 64 Million McDonald’s Job Applicants’ Info by Using the Password ‘123456’

MEDIA CANDY

Murderbot

Murderbot is getting a season 2 on Apple TV Plus

Rapport: Friendship, Solidarity, Communion, Empathy: A Tor Original (The Murderbot Diaries) by Martha Wells

Netflix Cancels ‘Pulse’ and Shondaland’s ‘The Residence’ After One Season Each

Neuromancer — In Production | Apple TV+

PROJECT HAIL MARY Trailer (2025) Ryan Gosling

The Running Man | Official Trailer (2025 Movie) - Edgar Wright, Glen Powell

Sandman Season 2

Animal Kingdom

Guy Ritchies The Covenant

Thunderbolts

The Old Guard 2

Jim Henson Idea Man

The Beach Boys

AMC now warns moviegoers to expect ‘25-30 minutes’ of ads and trailers

APPS & DOODADS

Anker issues new global power bank recall over fire hazard

Visual Studio Code

Cursor

Windsurf

Anthropic Academy

The Onion in 2056: A dystopian world of Flash animation

Jack Dorsey just released a Bluetooth messaging app that doesn't need the internet

WhereGoes Link Checker

YouTube prepares crackdown on ‘mass-produced’ and ‘repetitive’ videos, as concern over AI slop grows

THE DARK SIDE WITH DAVE

Dave Bittner

The CyberWire

Hacking Humans

Caveat

Control Loop

Only Malware in the Building

Backbone iPhone Game Controller

PPSSPP - A PSP emulator

Delta Emulator

OpenEMU

Major Nintendo Switch Piracy Website Seized By FBI

Update on the Anbernic emulator device

MegaMan 2 music performed by an orchestra

Music by John Williams

Wipeout XL

Wipeout XL Playlist

Mahjong Titan+ Apple Arcade

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