Chief Skeptic Officer

By Alex & Jordan

The side of tech news nobody talks about. Daily tech skepticism from Alex & Jordan.

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FAQs about Chief Skeptic Officer:

How many episodes does Chief Skeptic Officer have?

The podcast currently has 54 episodes available.

Chief Skeptic Officer episodes:

August 21, 2026GitHub Recovered in Three Hours. Copilot Kept Asking Until Night
GitHub was degraded for seven hours and forty-seven minutes on August 17. Most of the site came back in about three hours. Copilot stayed down until night because a login retry loop in VS Code multiplied token traffic tenfold. Alex and Jordan also look at a poisoned Rust crate whose yank warning was the attack, an AliExpress homepage that holds Bluetooth headphones with silent audio, and an OpenAI coding-tool bill that jumped because a cache never got reused. The side of tech news nobody talks about.
Hosts: Alex & Jordan
Show: Chief Skeptic Officer — The side of tech news nobody talks about.
Drop: Daily at 7:00 A.M. America/New_York
Episode date: 2026-08-21
In this episode
GitHub August 17 outage — Capacity on the blog. A sidecar limit and a Copilot retry storm on the status page.
arrayref crate — Clean library, fake extra package, compile-time payload. Yanking the good versions was the delivery.
AliExpress WebAudio — Mute does nothing. Zero-gain tones still hold the headphones. The fingerprint barely works.
Quick hit — Codex on Bedrock — Cache writes, almost no cache reads. The workaround is turning web search off.
Links
GitHub Blog — the August 17 outage
GitHub Status — incident RCA
HN — The August 17 outage
Rust Blog — supply chain attack on arrayref
SafeDep — arrayref build-time payload
HN — malicious Rust crate arrayref
laserphile — AliExpress WebAudio fingerprinting
Tom Ritter — WebAudio fingerprinting is nearly useless
HN — AliExpress silent WebAudio
openai/codex#37674 — Bedrock cache-write spend
HN — Codex on AWS Bedrock 10x charges
AI disclosure
This episode was created with artificial intelligence. Alex & Jordan are AI hosts; their voices and conversation are generated with AI. Research and editorial judgment shape the skeptic angles; we do not invent quotes, scores, or viral claims about the news.
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11min
August 20, 2026Neutral Got a Landlord
Stripe agreed to buy OpenRouter, the AI switch that sold itself as the neutral middle. Two official posts, no price. Alex and Jordan also look at Google putting Pixel kernel code behind a form, a weather-balloon hobby site that mapped artillery by accident, and a Florida officer who searched his wife's plate 717 times on cameras the department is keeping. The side of tech news nobody talks about.
Hosts: Alex & Jordan
Show: Chief Skeptic Officer — The side of tech news nobody talks about.
Drop: Daily at 7:00 A.M. America/New_York
Episode date: 2026-08-20
In this episode
OpenRouter / Stripe — Same name, same product. The honest middleman is now a payments subsidiary. Still no price.
Pixel kernel tags — Google stopped the usual Git tags. GrapheneOS fills a form and waits weeks for a Drive link.
SondeHub — A 2018 joke domain for weather balloons. The same wind math aims guns. An unpaid Pentagon invoice.
Quick hit — Flock — Seven hundred and seventeen searches. Nothing was hacked. The department keeps the cameras.
Links
OpenRouter — joining Stripe
Stripe — agrees to acquire OpenRouter
HN — OpenRouter is joining Stripe
GrapheneOS — Pixel Git tags
HN — Google stopped pushing Git tags
xssfox — joke domain / SondeHub
HN — joke domain / geopolitical warfare
FOX 35 — Flock 717 searches
HN — Flock 717 searches
AI disclosure
This episode was created with artificial intelligence. Alex & Jordan are AI hosts; their voices and conversation are generated with AI. Research and editorial judgment shape the skeptic angles; we do not invent quotes, scores, or viral claims about the news.
...more
14min
August 19, 2026The Fee Got Promoted
Apple said it resolved its EU app fight by renaming the Core Technology Fee a commission. The store still takes twenty-six percent. Apps sold outside still owe five. Alex and Jordan also look at Seth Godin paying a dollar to advertise the search you already typed, a Claude "native" Mac printer path that is a Linux machine you now maintain, and Meta's Oakland trial waving a trillion that is Meta's own ceiling. The side of tech news nobody talks about.
Hosts: Alex & Jordan
Show: Chief Skeptic Officer — The side of tech news nobody talks about.
Drop: Daily at 7:00 A.M. America/New_York
Episode date: 2026-08-19
In this episode
Apple / EU terms — The per-install fee is gone. Five percent on the outside door replaced it. Twenty-six inside did not move.
The Amazon tax — The ad that paid off best was his own name. Organic search has to get worse for that to work.
Claude / HP printer — Command-P is real. The driver is HP's Linux program in a small computer you keep running.
Quick hit — Meta trial — Four states arguing for twenty-nine. The trillion is Meta's scare number. The feed waits for an order.
Links
Apple Newsroom — EU app terms
HN — Apple EU app terms
Seth Godin — The Amazon tax
HN — The Amazon tax
GitHub — HP Laser 1008a on macOS
Runtime Wire — Claude Code / HP Laser 1008a
HN — Claude writing a macOS driver
Euronews — Meta trial
HN — Meta tobacco trial
AI disclosure
This episode was created with artificial intelligence. Alex & Jordan are AI hosts; their voices and conversation are generated with AI. Research and editorial judgment shape the skeptic angles; we do not invent quotes, scores, or viral claims about the news.
...more
12min
August 18, 2026The Check Said Fine
A GitHub Copilot co-author read a Snowflake workflow and called it all-clear. Anyone with an account could open an issue whose title ran as a command and stole a Jira password. It sat open five days. Alex and Jordan also look at a twelve-day-old think tank built for chatbots to quote, Google buying a dead airline's email out of bankruptcy, and an AirTag that followed rare books to an Amazon scan warehouse. The side of tech news nobody talks about.
Hosts: Alex & Jordan
Show: Chief Skeptic Officer — The side of tech news nobody talks about.
Drop: Daily at 7:00 A.M. America/New_York
Episode date: 2026-08-18
In this episode
Copilot / Snowflake — The tools sold as the check signed off. Another company's hunter found it.
Hanover Institute — Funding is on the About page. The audience is the chatbot.
Spirit / Google — A hundred million work emails, ten million dollars. The people who typed them did not bid.
Quick hit — Amazon books — An AirTag went to Las Vegas. Spines come off. The statement never says AI.
Links
Wiz — Red Agent / Snowflake GitHub Actions
HN — Copilot Autofix / Snowflake Jira
Responsible Statecraft — Hanover Institute
Hanover Institute About (FARA disclosure)
Piro — AI Story Optimization
HN — Google / Spirit bankruptcy auction
Ars Technica — AirTag / Amazon books
AI disclosure
This episode was created with artificial intelligence. Alex & Jordan are AI hosts; their voices and conversation are generated with AI. Research and editorial judgment shape the skeptic angles; we do not invent quotes, scores, or viral claims about the news.
...more
12min
August 17, 2026Seven Billion for a Seat
Stripe is reportedly buying OpenRouter for more than seven billion dollars. The middle door that sold "you can always leave" would sit inside the company that writes the bill. Alex and Jordan also audit Cloudflare injecting a measuring script into free sites by default, a free IRS tax tool that scored well and still died, and a Firefox iPhone ad blocker that will not touch the ads that pay Mozilla. The side of tech news nobody talks about.
Hosts: Alex & Jordan
Show: Chief Skeptic Officer — The side of tech news nobody talks about.
Drop: Daily at 7:00 A.M. America/New_York
Episode date: 2026-08-17
In this episode
Stripe / OpenRouter — Anti-lock-in becomes a Stripe billing decision. Reportedly. Still unsigned.
Cloudflare's uninvited script — You asked for delivery. They rewrote the page. Free plans are the default instrumented tier.
Direct File — Ninety-four percent liked it. Treasury shut it down. Success was the threat.
Quick hit — Firefox iOS — Built-in blocker, off by default. Search ads stay. That is the paycheck.
Links
Stripe reportedly buying OpenRouter (SiliconANGLE)
Cloudflare RUM Diaries — analytics by default
HN — Cloudflare injects analytics
2025 Direct File report (Center for Taxpayer Rights)
ProPublica — TurboTax’s fight against free filing
Firefox for iOS ad blocker (AppleInsider)
AI disclosure
This episode was created with artificial intelligence. Alex & Jordan are AI hosts; their voices and conversation are generated with AI. Research and editorial judgment shape the skeptic angles; we do not invent quotes, scores, or viral claims about the news.
...more
12min
August 16, 2026Nobody on the Page
Anthropic published that smarter models do not magically learn to work together — then the swarm named the same branch and sabotaged each other. Alex and Jordan audit Asus's unpriced "intelligent" tire roller, a dementia headline that counted a blood-test guess instead of cases, and a harbour light that only speaks when you are actually in danger. The side of tech news nobody talks about.
Hosts: Alex & Jordan
Show: Chief Skeptic Officer — The side of tech news nobody talks about.
Drop: Daily at 7:00 A.M. America/New_York
Episode date: 2026-08-16
In this episode
Anthropic multi-agent — Coordination does not come from scale. Thirty agents, one label, nobody to page.
Asus Oxiis — A laptop company clamps a roller to your tire, calls it intelligent, and hides the price.
Predicted dementia — The Ozempic trial measured a 25-protein guess. Nobody counted who got dementia.
Quick hit — moiré — Two grids that nag you onto a line. Three lamps that only shout when you are in danger.
Links
Anthropic — Patterns and problems in emerging multiagent systems
Asus Oxiis Intelligent Bike Booster
Semaglutide and a proteomic dementia-risk score
Guiding ships with Moire patterns
AI disclosure
This episode was created with artificial intelligence. Alex & Jordan are AI hosts; their voices and conversation are generated with AI. Research and editorial judgment shape the skeptic angles; we do not invent quotes, scores, or viral claims about the news.
...more
12min
August 15, 2026Free Isn't Free
Qwen 3.8 27B is free to download and took twenty-one minutes to draw a bird on a bicycle. Alex and Jordan audit Matthew Green's warning that AI will make phones too secure, Google's "practical" private AI that still costs minutes on a CPU, the Sean Byrne who may never have existed, and a drum toy behind a consent wall. The side of tech news nobody talks about.
Hosts: Alex & Jordan
Show: Chief Skeptic Officer — The side of tech news nobody talks about.
Drop: Daily at 7:00 A.M. America/New_York
Episode date: 2026-08-15
In this episode
Qwen 3.8 27B — Apache weights. Thinking on by default. Twenty-one minutes and a skipped bicycle chain.
Going Dark — If the bugs run out, exceptional access comes back on the agenda.
Google HEIR — Private AI that is practical — if you have minutes, not milliseconds.
The other Sean Byrne — Apple fully matched a name that may never have been a person.
Quick hit — eigendrum — Draw a shape, hear a drum, bounce off the consent wall first.
Links
Hugging Face — Qwen3.8-27B
Matthew Green — Everything is about to go dark
Google — Private AI with homomorphic encryption
The other Sean Byrne doesn't exist
eigendrum
AI disclosure
This episode was created with artificial intelligence. Alex & Jordan are AI hosts; their voices and conversation are generated with AI. Research and editorial judgment shape the skeptic angles; we do not invent quotes, scores, or viral claims about the news.
...more
15min
August 14, 2026The Trophy Case
Z.ai held GLM-5.3's weights for two weeks of "safety" and published a two-thousand-bug ledger the same day. Alex and Jordan audit Gemini 3.7 Flash's three-week workhorse and the key maze, DeepSeek's open harness around a metered soul, Cerebras selling a stopwatch as a working day of human knowledge, and Bluesky putting history behind a token. The side of tech news nobody talks about.
Hosts: Alex & Jordan
Show: Chief Skeptic Officer — The side of tech news nobody talks about.
Drop: Daily at 7:00 A.M. America/New_York
Episode date: 2026-08-14
In this episode
GLM-5.3 and the word emergent — Hold the weights; ship the trophy case. Emergent is a launch word.
Gemini 3.7 Flash — Three weeks after the last Flash; intro price doubles in January; the product is the key maze.
DeepSeek Harness — They shipped the wrapper. The cage is free. The soul still bills.
Sol Ultrafast — Twenty-five hundred independent questions is a wide queue, not a day of thinking.
Quick hit — Bluesky's past — Live tail stays open. History needs a token.
Links
Z.ai — GLM-5.3
Z.ai Security disclosure ledger
Google — Introducing Gemini 3.7 Flash
DeepSeek Harness
Cerebras — Accelerating GPT-5.6 Sol Ultrafast
AT Protocol — Bluesky Protocol Services
AI disclosure
This episode was created with artificial intelligence. Alex & Jordan are AI hosts; their voices and conversation are generated with AI. Research and editorial judgment shape the skeptic angles; we do not invent quotes, scores, or viral claims about the news.
...more
13min
August 13, 2026The Well-Worn Path
Tailscale spent six months on a sixteen-year-old SQLite race they hit by checkpointing off the default path. Alex and Jordan audit DeepSeek V4 Pro's API-only "release," Qwen's 2.4-trillion "open" Max with a fifty-million-dollar license ceiling, Zed's Delta as a recording of the argument, and Anthropic's you-own-it-except-training clause. The side of tech news nobody talks about.
Hosts: Alex & Jordan
Show: Chief Skeptic Officer — The side of tech news nobody talks about.
Drop: Daily at 7:00 A.M. America/New_York
Episode date: 2026-08-13
In this episode
Tailscale and the SQLite WAL bug — Nineteen corruptions; they paid SQLite; the well-worn path is worn for a reason.
DeepSeek V4 Pro 0813 — Flagship leaves preview as a hosted pointer; cheap for now; harness is the product.
Qwen's fifty-million-dollar sentence — Open weights, closed revenue ceiling; the giant file is the press kit.
Zed Delta — Private-beta multiplayer agents; the product is the conversation that doesn't rot.
Quick hit — you own Claude's outputs — Ownership is a noun; the verb they care about is copying the teacher.
Links
Tailscale — How we tracked down a 16-year-old SQLite bug
DeepSeek V4 Pro 0813 (OpenRouter)
Qwen3.8-2.4T-A95B (Hugging Face)
Zed — Introducing Delta
Anthropic — Can I use my Outputs to train an AI model?
AI disclosure
This episode was created with artificial intelligence. Alex & Jordan are AI hosts; their voices and conversation are generated with AI. Research and editorial judgment shape the skeptic angles; we do not invent quotes, scores, or viral claims about the news.
...more
19min
August 12, 2026Prediction for Sale
An ngrok post rediscovers that compression is prediction — and HN argues about credit. Alex & Jordan audit Tencent's WorldClaw "model" that isn't one, NVIDIA's Lightning MoE plus Switchyard router economics, the recycled horseshoe-crab blood story after a synthetic test already works, and a LinkedIn CringeBot. The side of tech news nobody talks about.
Hosts: Alex & Jordan
Show: Chief Skeptic Officer — The side of tech news nobody talks about.
Drop: Daily at 7:00 A.M. America/New_York
Episode date: 2026-08-12
In this episode
Compression is prediction — Pedagogy vs discovery theater — and "just compression" as a lullaby.
WorldClaw's open worlds — Orchestration demo sold as a model; empty villages at scale.
Lightning and Switchyard — Fast MoE worker meets a router that keeps the frontier billable.
Horseshoe crab blood — Wonder story; the buried stake is regulatory lag after rFC.
Quick hit — LinkedIn CringeBot — Industrial cringe on tap — plus the platform's AI-slop regret button.
Links
ngrok — Compression is prediction
Hunyuan WorldClaw
NVIDIA — Nemotron 3.5 Lightning & NeMo Switchyard
WHDH — Horseshoe crab blue blood
LinkedIn CringeBot 3000
AI disclosure
This episode was created with artificial intelligence. Alex & Jordan are AI hosts; their voices and conversation are generated with AI. Research and editorial judgment shape the skeptic angles; we do not invent quotes, scores, or viral claims about the news.
...more
10min

FAQs about Chief Skeptic Officer:

How many episodes does Chief Skeptic Officer have?

The podcast currently has 54 episodes available.