729: Alright Alright Alright™

We kick things off with the existential dread of FOLLOW UP and the absolute joy of jury duty. While xAI’s Grok is busy getting banned in Malaysia and Indonesia for its CSAM-generating "features," the Senate is unanimously passing the DEFIANCE Act to give us some legal teeth against the deepfake machine. Meta is busy nuking 550,000 Australian accounts to appease regulators, while Roblox’s age verification is so broken that a drawing of stubble or a photo of Kurt Cobain can get you into the adult lounge. Moving IN THE NEWS, Meta is trading its $70 billion Metaverse graveyard for a Reality Labs layoff and a pivot to AI hardware, fueled by an "AI infrastructure" buildout that’s hiring former Trump advisors. Bandcamp is heroically banning AI "slop," Matthew McConaughey is trademarking his own face to fend off the bots, and ICE’s AI hiring tool is such a disaster it’s accidentally fast-tracking mall security as "officers." Between self-help gurus charging $99 for chatbot "advice," GM finally settling its driver-spying suit with the FTC, and NASA prepping for a February moon shot while China plans to launch 200,000 satellites into our already crowded orbit, the future looks exactly as messy as we expected.

For MEDIA CANDY, we’ve got Lord of the Rings marathons, the diner-bridge of Starfleet Academy, and the usual joy of streaming price hikes hitting our "Premium" plans. We’re tracking the 2025 "In Memoriam" and Gabriel Pagan’s exhaustive movie list before sliding into APPS & DOODADS. Jony Ive and Sam Altman are reportedly building an hearing aide called "Sweetpea" to kill your AirPods, Siri is officially Google Gemini’s new puppet, and Apple is finally bundling its creative apps into a "Creator Studio" subscription trap. Tesla is making Full Self-Driving a subscription-only Valentine’s gift (good luck with that), Ring is rebranding surveillance as a "fire-watching" assistant, and a Chinese app called "Are You Dead?" is the new must-have for the lonely. To cap it off, the internet proved its maturity by using "Words.zip"—an infinite word-search grid—to draw a giant phallus, because of course they did.

AT THE LIBRARY features the Anthony Bourdain Reader, the return of Bob in the new Laundry Files book, and Jimmy Carr’s guide to happiness, which is apparently cheaper than therapy. Then we descend into THE DARK SIDE WITH DAVE, where the dishwasher-installing, ham-radio-lunching Dave Bittner reveals Disney World has job openings for those of us who spent high school in the AV club. Lucasfilm is finally entering a new era as Kathleen Kennedy steps down, just as Galaxy’s Edge admits the original trilogy exists, and we wrap it all up with lock-picking kits and the terrifying realization that Seymour from H.R. Pufnstuf is the ultimate Gen-X fursona.

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Show notes at https://gog.show/729

Watch on YouTube! https://youtu.be/1Y1jnRDw7g0

FOLLOW UP

Malaysia and Indonesia are the first to block Grok following CSAM scandal

Senate passes Defiance Act for a second time to address Grok deepfakes

Meta closes 550,000 accounts to comply with Australia's kids social media ban

Roblox's age verification system is reportedly a trainwreck

IN THE NEWS

Meta refocuses on AI hardware as metaverse layoffs begin

Meta’s Layoffs Leave Supernatural Fitness Users in Mourning

Meta Creates High-Powered Team to Oversee AI Infrastructure Buildout

Bandcamp prohibits music made ‘wholly or in substantial part’ by AI

Matthew McConaughey fights unauthorized AI likenesses by trademarking himself

ICE’s AI Tool Has Been a Complete Disaster

Self-Help Ghouls Are Charging People Absurd Prices to Talk to Impersonator Chatbots

The FTC's data-sharing order against GM is finally settled

NASA is ending Crew-11 astronauts' mission a month early

NASA makes final preparations for its first crewed moon mission in over 50 years

As SpaceX Works Toward 50K Starlink Satellites, China Eyes Deploying 200K

MEDIA CANDY

Beast Games Season 2

Star Trek: Starfleet Academy

Grumpy Old List

The Ongoing History of New Music, episode 1069: 2025 in Memoriam

Depeche Mode: M

APPS & DOODADS

Jony Ive and Sam Altman’s First AI Gadget May Try to Kill AirPods

Apple's Siri AI will be powered by Gemini

Apple’s Mac and iPad creative apps get bundled into “Creator Studio” subscription

Tesla's Full Self-Driving is switching to a subscription-only service

Ring founder details the camera company's 'intelligent assistant' era

Are You Dead?: The viral Chinese app for young people living alone

Give the Internet an Infinite Word Search and the Internet Will Draw a Dick on It

AT THE LIBRARY

The Anthony Bourdain Reader: New, Classic, and Rediscovered Writing by Anthony Bourdain

Obvious Adams: The Story of a Successful Businessman by Robert Updegraff

Before & Laughter by Jimmy Carr

The Regicide Report (Laundry Files, 14) by Charles Stross

THE DARK SIDE WITH DAVE

Dave Bittner

The CyberWire

Hacking Humans

Caveat

Control Loop

Only Malware in the Building

How to Read a Book: A Novel by Monica Wood

Walt Disney World Resort is looking for Entertainment Stage Technicians

Galaxy’s Edge Will Soon Cover All Eras of ‘Star Wars’

Kathleen Kennedy steps down as Lucasfilm president, marking a new era for the Star Wars franchise

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