Grumpy Old Geeks by Jason DeFillippo & Brian Schulmeister with Dave Bittner

April 18, 2025 693: Let Them Eat Space

This week, we blast off with a tale as old as grift: Fyre Fest 2 has been postponed—again—proving that you really can fail upward if you squint hard enough and wear enough white linen. Over at Automattic, employees discovered secret watermarks in their internal comms, because what workplace isn’t better with a sprinkle of corporate surveillance cosplay? Meanwhile, Katy Perry took a joyride to the upper atmosphere with Gayle King and Bezos’ better half, giving us the 2025 edition of the cringiest “Imagine”-style celebrity moment yet. Spoiler: no one needed this.

In Elon World™, things are somehow even weirder. Seth Rogen dropped some truth bombs about Silicon Valley’s MAGA leanings, only to have them surgically removed from the Breakthrough Prize stream. Musk, for his part, is managing his growing empire of baby mamas like a Bond villain with a baby registry. Add in a cringe-filled offer to a YouTuber to become Space Karen’s next broodmare, and we’ve officially entered peak simulation. Meanwhile, whistleblowers are spilling DOGE secrets, OpenAI is building a social network (because we clearly don’t have enough doomscrolling options), and 4chan has finally been hacked into oblivion. Pour one out—for the internet’s dumpster fire.

Also in the news: Google lost a big ad tech monopoly case (cue tiny violins), China is no longer buying the “autonomous” car hype after a fatal crash, and Trump’s FCC chair is threatening Comcast for not being enough like Fox News (as if that’s the journalistic gold standard). The Pentagon’s nerd squad resigned after butting heads with DOGE, Reality Labs burned $45 billion like it was going out of style, and AI customer service bots are now inventing policies out of thin air. Oh, and if your AI thinks your Python package has a delivery issue—you’re not crazy, it probably hallucinated it. Welcome to the future.

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Show notes at https://gog.show/693

FOLLOW UP

Fyre Fest 2 Postponed: “New Date Will Be Announced”

Following Layoffs, Automattic Employees Discover Leak-Catching Watermarks

IN THE NEWS

Unfortunately for Katy Perry, That “Space Flight” Turned Out Exactly How We All Knew It Would

We Finally Have 2025’s “Imagine” Video

Let them eat space

Seth Rogen’s Criticism of Silicon Valley’s Support for Trump Was Cut From the “Full” Stream of Breakthrough Prize

The Tactics Elon Musk Uses to Manage His ‘Legion’ of Babies—and Their Mothers

Glamorous influencer Tiffany Fong breaks silence on Elon Musk's 'offer to impregnate her' with shocking statement

A whistleblower's disclosure details how DOGE may have taken sensitive labor data

Electronics exempted from reciprocal tariffs will soon be subject to new semiconductor tariffs instead

Google loses ad tech monopoly case

China cracks down on 'autonomous' car claims after fatal accident

Trump’s FCC chair threatens Comcast, demands changes to NBC news coverage

OpenAI is building a social network

4chan Likely Gone Forever After Hackers Take Control

Company apologizes after AI support agent invents policy that causes user uproar

Pentagon tech unit resigns after clash with Musk's DOGE

What Does a Corrupt Election Look Like?

Tesla puts finishing touches on Hollywood charge-n-diner

Inside the $45 billion cash burn at Reality Labs

We Have a Package for You! A Comprehensive Analysis of Package Hallucinations by Code Generating LLMs

The business of the AI labs by Max Bolingbroke

MEDIA CANDY

Killing an Arab on Pandora

Apple’s ‘Mythic Quest’ is ending with an updated Season 4 finale

Side Quest

Night of the Zoopocalypse

Black Mirror

Daredevil

The Last of Us

G20

28 Years Later Rises From the Grave With a New Trailer

'Real Time' host Bill Maher says President Trump was "gracious" and "not fake" during his White House visit.

Bringing Down a Dictator

Blueprint for Revolution: How to Use Rice Pudding, Lego Men, and Other Nonviolent Techniques to Galvanize Communities, Overthrow Dictators, or Simply Change the World by Srdja Popovic

APPS & DOODADS

Apple is reportedly working on two new versions of the Vision Pro

Ilya Bezdelev 🎙️ metacast.app

Metacast Ep. 68: Q1 Update - new features, struggles, hope

Spotify was down – here's everything we know about its huge outage

AT THE LIBRARY

British authors want Meta to answer for alleged copyright infringement

Amazon will use AI to generate recaps for book series on the Kindle

‪David Schachner on BlueSky

The Warehouse by Rob Hart

Blood in the Machine: The Origins of the Rebellion Against Big Tech by Brian Merchant

The AI Con: How to Fight Big Tech's Hype and Create the Future We Want by Emily M. Bender and Alex Hanna