746: Reality is Frequently Inaccurate
Grumpy Old Geeks
Jason DeFillippo & Brian Schulmeister with Dave Bittner
4.9 • 6.1K Ratings
🗓️ 15 May 2026
⏱️ 80 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
FOLLOW UP starts with merchandise promotion and YouTube begging reminiscent of 2007, before GameStop CEO Ryan Cohen gets thoroughly criticized by eBay after proposing a $56 billion takeover plan that eBay called “neither credible nor attractive,” which is corporate-speak for “please stop emailing us at 3 a.m.” Meanwhile, California residents might finally receive a small settlement check from Grubhub worth about half a burrito, just as Americans realize they dislike AI data centers even more than nuclear plants because nobody wants a warehouse full of GPUs boiling away the local water supply. Lake Tahoe residents are learning their electricity now goes to AI processing plants instead of people, xAI keeps adding methane turbines despite being sued over them, and SpaceXAI employees are fleeing Elon’s “sleep under your desk forever” lifestyle as if it were the last helicopter out of Saigon.
IN THE NEWS, we start gently with the revelation that everyone at the Musk v. Altman trial is sitting on luxury butt cushions because apparently the singularity requires lumbar support, before plunging straight into the abyss: fake AI crypto journalists haunting Forbes and HuffPost like SEO poltergeists, OpenAI launching “Daybreak” so the robots can now secure the software they helped break, Anthropic trying to stop AI from becoming evil by feeding it morality fan fiction, and Google catching AI-generated zero-day exploits in the wild because cyberpunk novels were apparently instructional manuals. Waymo robotaxis are experimenting with driving into floodwaters, a family is suing OpenAI after ChatGPT allegedly advised their son to mix drugs with fatal results, graduating students booed an executive for praising AI as if she were announcing the arrival of cholera, and Meta continues its speedrun toward becoming the world’s largest scam mall while simultaneously demanding everyone trust its shiny new “encrypted AI chats.” Also: Meta is testing Grok-for-Threads, somebody created an AI poop-analysis startup that quietly sells your bowel movements to data brokers, GM got nailed for selling driver data, Lime still somehow exists and wants an IPO, and Japan’s first 3D-printed house shows that the future will at least look cool even as society collapses.
MEDIA CANDY features Spotify celebrating twenty years of collecting your listening habits into a psychological profile you absolutely didn't care about during the CD era, plus The Punisher: One Last Kill ironically looking like unfinished PlayStation cutscenes, Good Omens Season 3, Devil May Cry Season 2, NBC somehow turning Wordle into a TV show because every executive has fully given up, shorter waits for Severance Season 3, and Rings of Power returning in November to continue spending the GDP of a small nation on elf misery.
APPS & DOODADS checks in with Apple as it prepares Siri app integrations that developers already suspect will become subscription-based hostage situations. TikTok is testing an ad-free tier in the UK because, somehow, ads weren’t already enough punishment. Venmo is finally realizing that public payment feeds are insane. There's a Wikipedia clone made entirely of AI hallucinations, and an iPad arm mount sturdy enough to survive the upcoming climate wars.
AT THE LIBRARY wraps up with Clowns (First Contact), Dungeon Crawler Carl, the demise of another Goodreads competitor, Kindle alternatives for those trying to escape Amazon’s panopticon, and a reminder that Douglas Adams has now been gone for 25 years, which remains, in the immortal words of the man himself, widely regarded as a bad move.
Sponsors:
DeleteMe - Get 20% off your DeleteMe plan when you go to JoinDeleteMe.com/GOG and use promo code GOG at checkout.
Shopify - Sign up for your one-dollar-per-month trial today at Shopify.com/grumpy
CleanMyMac - Get Tidy Today! Try 7 days free and use code OLDGEEKS for 20% off at clnmy.com/OLDGEEKS
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/746
Watch on YouTube at https://youtu.be/ICjNBnP3sMk
FOLLOW UP
eBay Brutally Rejects GameStop’s $56 Billion Proposal: ‘Neither Credible nor Attractive’
Americans Oppose AI Data Centers in Their Area
Energy supplier abandons Lake Tahoe residents to serve data centers
xAI Got Sued Over Its Gas Turbines, so It Naturally Added More of Them
Elon Musk's SpaceXAI has been bleeding staff since its merger
IN THE NEWS
Everyone at the Musk v. Altman Trial Is Using Fancy Butt Cushions
Daybreak is OpenAI's response to Anthropic's Claude Mythos
Anthropic blames dystopian sci-fi for training AI models to act “evil”
Google announces its first-ever discovery of a zero-day exploit made with AI
Waymo Admits Its Robotaxis Have a Small Issue With Driving Into Floodwaters
Family sues OpenAI, alleging ChatGPT advice led to accidental overdose
Meta is facing another lawsuit over scam ads on Facebook and Instagram
After Killing Encrypted DMs, Mark Zuckerberg Wants You to Trust His New Encrypted AI Chat
Hey @meta.ai is that true? Threads is testing a Grok-like AI feature
Internet of Shit: AI Poop Analysis App Offered to Sell Me Database of Its Users' Poops
GM agrees to pay $12.75 million to settle California lawsuit over misuse of customers' driving data
The electric scooter rental company Lime has filed for IPO
APPS & DOODADS
Apple wants apps to integrate with Siri in iOS 27, but one fear holds some back: report
TikTok is rolling out an ad-free option in the UK
Venmo's redesigned app offers more discreet payments by default
New Wikipedia Clone Made Entirely of AI Hallucinations
MEDIA CANDY
Here’s the Real Deal With That Viral Shot From 'Punisher: One Last Kill'
Good Omens Season 3 - The Finale
NBC is turning Wordle into a TV show
Adam Scott Promises the Wait for ‘Severance’ Season 3 Won’t Be Nearly as Long
‘Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power’ Is Returning in November
AT THE LIBRARY
Clowns (First Contact) by Peter Cawdron
Dungeon Crawler Carl by Matt Dinniman
Tome, another Goodreads booktracker rival, shuts down
The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Omnibus
CLOSING SHOUT-OUTS
'Revenge of the Nerds' Actor Donald Gibb Dead at 71
See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Welcome to Grumpy Old Geeks, a weekly talk show where we discuss the finer points of what went wrong on the internet and who's to blame. I'm Jason DeFilippo. |
| 0:10.4 | And I'm Brian Schillmeister. Brian, we do have the merch store in full swing. See my shiny new shirt here with the logo and everything. I have a shirt as well. Logos only on the back, so didn't wear. Yeah. Yeah. I thought ahead. |
| 0:23.5 | Go to shop.g.com. Show to get that merch. We're adding new stuff all the time. I added a new |
| 0:27.9 | mug this week. Oh, and it's right here. I got a shiny new mug. Yeah. See? We're horrors. |
| 0:34.7 | Our new 80 style logo. |
| 0:38.7 | Yeah, exactly, exactly. |
| 0:42.6 | And if you don't know why you can't see what we're doing, it's because I'm holding that up for the YouTube channel. |
| 0:44.0 | Because I don't think a lot of people realize that we're on YouTube as well with this, |
| 0:48.1 | with us on camera, which is a real pain in the ass. |
| 0:51.7 | So people go watch the fucking show on YouTube. |
| 0:56.9 | Also, honestly, probably not much of a draw. |
| 1:02.0 | Not much of a draw at all. Not much of a draw. I'm in a garage. You're in an attic. |
| 1:13.4 | Dave's in a cave somewhere. It's not the most production forward production, I would say that we have going on here. But the people asked, |
| 1:19.3 | we delivered, and then they didn't show up. So, well, some did. Well, yeah, it's been like, what, four and a half months or something like that. We got our first $100 check from YouTube. |
| 1:24.1 | So winning. Yeah, yeah, after we split and then actually, I don't even count in because we got to pay Dave too. |
| 1:30.8 | So I think it's about 12 cents an hour that I've made working with the extra work to do the YouTube. |
| 1:37.9 | So I don't know why we do that, to be honest. |
| 1:42.7 | Growth, man. |
| 1:44.1 | Yeah, if that worked, if that worked. Well, according to the emails that we be honest. Growth, man. Yeah, if that worked, if that worked. |
| 1:46.6 | Well, according to the emails that we get every five seconds from all the people trying |
| 1:49.9 | to sell their bullshit to us. |
| 1:52.2 | You'd think we were Joe fucking Rogan, you know, with as much shit as people send |
... |
Transcript will be available on the free plan in 8 days. Upgrade to see the full transcript now.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Jason DeFillippo & Brian Schulmeister with Dave Bittner, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of Jason DeFillippo & Brian Schulmeister with Dave Bittner and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.