733: Predator Friendly Hunting Ground

We kick things off in FOLLOW UP with the ongoing "nuclear war" between Automattic and WP Engine, where discovery has revealed Matt Mullenweg’s alleged hit list of competitors and a desperate attempt to bully payment processors—because nothing says "open source" like an eight-percent royalty shakedown. Meanwhile, the Harvard Business Review confirmed what we already knew: AI isn’t reducing our work; it’s just compressing it until we’re all working through lunch and burning out faster while Polymarket turns our collective brain rot into a literal "attention market" where you can bet on Elon’s mindshare.

Transitioning to IN THE NEWS, Elon has officially pivoted SpaceX from Mars to the Moon, presumably because building a "self-growing lunar city" is easier than admitting the Red Planet is hard, though his xAI all-hands rant about "ancient alien catapults" suggests he’s been staring at the sun too long. Between X allegedly taking blue-check lunch money from sanctioned Iranian leaders, Meta facing trials for creating "predator-friendly hunting grounds," and Russia finally pulling the plug on WhatsApp, the internet is looking more like a digital dumpster fire than ever. Add in Discord leaking 70,000 government IDs, OpenAI shoving ads into ChatGPT while safety researchers flee the building like it’s on fire, and a "cognitive debt" crisis eroding our ability to think, and you’ve got a recipe for a tech-induced psychosis that even crypto-funded human trafficking can’t outpace.

In MEDIA CANDY, we're wondering about the soft-core porn intro in the latest Star Trek: Starfleet Academy while Apple buys the total rights to Severance for seventy million dollars—because in-house production is the only way to keep those ballooning budgets under control. Super Bowl trailer season gave us a glimpse of The Mandalorian and Grogu and a Project Hail Mary teaser, while Babylon 5 has finally landed on YouTube for free, proving that even 90s serialized sci-fi eventually finds its way to the clearance bin.

Over in APPS & DOODADS, Meta Quest is nagging us for our birthdays like a needy relative, while Roblox had to scrub a mass-shooting simulator—because "AI plus human safety teams" is apparently just code for "we missed it until it hit the forums." Ring’s Super Bowl ad for "Search Party" accidentally terrified everyone by revealing a mass surveillance network for pets that’s a slippery slope toward a police state, and Waymo is now paying DoorDashers ten bucks just to walk over and close the car doors that autonomous tech still can’t figure out.

Wrapping up with THE DARK SIDE WITH DAVE, we dive into the Mandalorian Hasbro reveal where Sigourney Weaver’s action figure comes with no accessories because her existence is enough of a flex. We explore the grim reality of "RentAHuman," where humans are paid pittance to pretend AI agents are actually doing work, and look at "Trash Talk Audio," which sells a $125 microphone made out of a literal old telephone for that authentic Gen-X "get off the line, I'm expecting a call" aesthetic. From Marcia Lucas finally venting about the prequels and a rare book catalog specifically for our aging generation, we’re reminded that while the future is a chaotic mess of "GeoSpy" AI and corporate reshuffling at Disney, at least we still have our cynical memories and some free versions of Roller Coaster Tycoon to keep us from losing it completely.

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Show notes at https://gog.show/733

FOLLOW UP

Automattic planned to target 10 competitors with royalty fees, WP Engine claims in new filing

AI Doesn’t Reduce Work—It Intensifies It

Polymarket To Offer Attention Markets In Partnership With Kaito AI

Israel Arrests Members of Military for Placing Polymarket Bets Using Inside Information on Upcoming Strikes

IN THE NEWS

Unable to Reach Mars, Musk Does the Most Musk Thing Possible

We’ll Find the Remnants of Ancient Alien Civilizations’: Read Musk’s Gibberish Rant from His xAI All-Hands Meeting

Elon Musk’s X Appears to Be Violating US Sanctions by Selling Premium Accounts to Iranian Leaders

Meta Faces Two Key Trials That Could Change Social Media Forever

WhatsApp is now fully blocked in Russia

Russia is restricting access to Telegram, one of its most popular social media apps. Here’s what we know

DOJ may face investigation for pressuring Apple, Google to remove apps for tracking ICE agents

Discord Launches Teen-by-Default Settings Globally

Discord says hackers stole government IDs of 70,000 users

Free Tool Says it Can Bypass Discord's Age Verification Check With a 3D Model

Testing ads in ChatGPT

OpenAI Researcher Quits, Warns Its Unprecedented ‘Archive of Human Candor’ Is Dangerous

OpenAI Fires Top Safety Exec Who Opposed ChatGPT’s “Adult Mode”

Anthropic AI Safety Researcher Warns Of World ‘In Peril’ In Resignation

Musk’s xAI loses second co-founder in two days

America Isn’t Ready for What AI Will Do to Jobs

Monologue: No, Something Big Isn’t Coming

The Scientist Who Predicted AI Psychosis Has a Grim Forecast of What’s Going to Happen Next

Crypto-Funded Human Trafficking Is Exploding

MEDIA CANDY

Shrinking

Star Trek: Starfleet Academy

Poor Things

Project Hail Mary | Final Trailer

Minions & Monsters | Official Trailer

Disclosure Day | Big Game Spot

The Mandalorian and Grogu | A New Journey Begins | In Theaters May 22

Babylon 5 Is Now Free to Watch On YouTube

Apple acquires all rights to ‘Severance,’ will produce future seasons in-house

Optimizing your TV

APPS & DOODADS

Tumbler Ridge Shooter Created Mall Shooting Simulator in Roblox

Here's how to disable Ring's creepy Search Party feature

Waymo Is Getting DoorDashers to Close Doors on Self Driving Cars

TikTok US launches a local feed that leverages a user's exact location

Apple just released iOS 26.3 alongside updates for the Mac, iPad and Apple Watch

THE DARK SIDE WITH DAVE

Dave Bittner

The CyberWire

Hacking Humans

Caveat

Control Loop

Only Malware in the Building

We Call It Imagineering

Your First Look at Hasbro's 'Mandalorian and Grogu' Figures Is Here (Exclusive)

I Tried RentAHuman, Where AI Agents Hired Me to Hype Their AI Startups

Trash Talk Audio

Roger Reacts to Star Wars - A New Hope

Marcia Lucas Finally Speaks Out | Icons Unearthed: Unplugged (FULL INTERVIEW)

What’s wrong with the prequels?

Rare Books, Gen X edition

GeoSpy

CLOSING SHOUT-OUTS

Robert Tinney, who painted iconic Byte magazine covers, RIP

Bud Cort

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