722: Does a Podcaster Shit in the Woods?

The inevitable decline of civilization takes center stage as the show kicks off with the miserable results of the FACEBOOK SETTLEMENT, confirming Brian's $4.01 payout, followed by a discussion of the SPORTS BETTING SCANDAL, where MLB players are rigging games over prop bets, confirming that gambling is now actively killing sports; moving to the news, the guys celebrate the DENMARK SOCIAL MEDIA BAN and SCHOOL PHONE BANS, which are already proving that teenagers need mandatory digital detoxes, prompting comparisons to Footloose and the revelation that teens are now passing handwritten notes and taking Polaroids. Naturally, things aren't going well for the hyper-rich, as evidenced by the TESLA EXECUTIVE EXODUS and the launch of WAYMO FREEWAYS, which will surely bring chaos to LA, and the ongoing saga of massive capital destruction via OPENAI LOSSES and META AI FAILURES, prompting Mark Zuckerberg to announce his desperate bid to CURE ALL DISEASES with AI, a feat less audacious than the fraud of AI startup FIREFLY AI TRANSCRIPT, which admitted its original "AI" was just human transcriptionists.

They then hit a laundry list of digital woes, including the dubious convenience of APPLE PASSPORTS, the creeping dread of Sam Altman's failing WORLDCOIN EYEBALL SCANS, the ridiculous crypto fraud DEFI OFFICE SPACE that literally copied a movie plot, and Coinbase's inexplicable decision to bring back high-risk ICOs; the absurdity continued with the OPENAI LAWSUIT over a suicidal chatbot that suggested the user "Rest easy, King," and the political maneuvering of the REPUBLICAN BROADBAND REDIRECT, which will gut internet access for the underserved to fund the Treasury, but the real threat to humanity remains the clandestine PREVENTATIVE GENE HACKING startup funded by tech billionaires aiming to create modified babies offshore.

In Media Candy, they share reviews of the excellent DIPLOMAT, ZOOTOPIA, and the just-released LUSH DOCUMENTARY, confirming our combined Gen-X fragility, before celebrating two definitive wins for reality: the fact that physicists have finally CRUSHED THE SIMULATION THEORY, and the literary brilliance of Joyce Carol Oates' tweet, which expertly called out Elon Musk as uneducated and uncultured.

All this and more on this episode of Grumpy Old Geeks

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Show notes at https://gog.show/722

FOLLOW UP

Baseball Is Compromised

IN THE NEWS

Denmark set to ban social media for users under 15 years of age

Banning Phones in Schools Is Drastically Changing the Behavior of Kids

The Head of the Cybertruck Program Quit Tesla. The Model Y Leader Left Hours Later

Waymo's driverless cars will start driving on freeways in three US cities

Apple introduces a new Digital ID feature to make boarding flights easier

OpenAI Will Lose $74 Billion the Same Year That Anthropic Breaks Even: Report

Meta’s AI Ambitions Appear to Be in a Tailspin

Zuckerberg, Chan bet AI can cure all disease

Startup Secretly Working to Gene-Hack Human Baby

Sam Altman's Creepy Orb Startup Has Only Scanned 2 Percent of Its Ideal Number of Eyeballs

$120 Million Crypto Hack Blamed on Office Space-Style Exploit

Coinbase Wants to Bring Back an Old Crypto Trend That Ended in Disaster

Seven more families are now suing OpenAI over ChatGPT's role in suicides, delusions

US states could lose $21 billion of broadband grants after Trump overhaul

Physicists Say They’ve Proven Whether We’re Living in a Simulation

Elon Musk Got One-Shotted by an Extremely Mean Tweet

MEDIA CANDY

Zootopia

The Diplomat

Pluribus

Victoria Beckham

Lush: A Far from Home Movie

Welcome to Derry

'V for Vendetta' Is Becoming a TV Show

Dune: Prophecy' Kicks off Season 2 Production

‘Alien: Earth’ Has Been Renewed for Season 2

‘Poker Face’ Canceled at Peacock; Rian Johnson Will Seek New Home for Series — With Peter Dinklage Starring

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

Toy Story 5 | Teaser Trailer | In Theaters June 19

Paramount+ announces price increases for every streaming plan

APPS & DOODADS

How to adjust the Liquid Glass effect in iOS 26.1

How to stretch the clock on your lock screen in iOS 26

Tesla Reportedly Adding Apple CarPlay, Bucking Industry Trend

Founder Admits His “AI Transcription” Startup Was Just Him Joining People’s Meetings and Taking Notes by Hand

FTC Announces Crackdown on Deceptive AI Claims and Schemes

THE DARK SIDE WITH DAVE

Dave Bittner

The CyberWire

Hacking Humans

Caveat

Control Loop

Only Malware in the Building

The Official ‘Star Wars’ Magazine Is Coming to an End After Over 30 Years

Fuzzball Bandolier Shawl

Talk about your crotch-rocket...

AI-Powered Toys Caught Telling 5-Year-Olds How to Find Knives and Start Fires With Matches

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