Really? no, Really? with Jason Alexander & Peter Tilden

This episode is all about trying to figure out if TikTok - the video hosting platform owned by the Chinese company Byte Dance should be banned or not. Over 70% of young Americans use TikTok, which critics claim is spying on, manipulating, and spreading misinformation to its users. But is TikTok any different than Meta, Google, or X? Our guest’s answer may surprise you… Really, no really!

Bruce Schneier is a cryptographer, computer security professional, privacy specialist, who has been writing about security issues since 2004 and is a fellow at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University; a Lecturer in Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School; a board member of the Electronic Frontier Foundation and AccessNow; and an Advisory Board Member of the Electronic Privacy Information Center and VerifiedVoting.org. He is the Chief of Security Architecture at Inrupt, Inc.

IN THIS EPISODE:

• Surveillance as a business model is 100% legal.
• Breaking down the types of information companies are collecting, and what they’re doing with it.
• Why does China want to know about our affinity for puppy videos?
• Social Media’s ability to manipulate is greater than you might think.
• Russia and China’s preferred platform for transmitting misinformation is…? (Spoiler Alert: It’s not TikTok)
• Facebook has data on you… even if you aren’t on Facebook-RnR!
• Data Privacy is a national security issue, but not treated like one.
• The European Union leads the world in protecting data privacy.
• The unsettling future of A.I. and personal data surveillance.
• Cougar hemorrhoids?

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Bruce’s Blog: Schneier.com

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This episode should be titled “Mission Insanity” because it’s all about exploring how Tom Cruise performs his own death-defying stunts…and why!

Jason and Peter were determined to find out the real reason Tom “risks it all” in every film. How he trains for a stunt that’s never been done before and whether he’s going to continue to try and outdo himself with each new film now that he’s in his 60’s!

And they succeeded in finding the person with the answers… Wade Eastwood. He’s best known as the Action Director and Stunt Coordinator for the Mission: Impossible franchise. He’s also a fixed wing & helicopter pilot, sky diver, rescue scuba diver, accomplished black belt martial artist, boxer, fencer, yacht skipper, highly graded horse rider who has advanced weapons skills… plus he races cars internationally, with a string of wins! And - he knows the secret to how Tom Cruise creates and executes jaw dropping, mind-blowing stunts.

IN THIS EPISODE:

• The film star considered the original Tom Cruise.
• Train for deadly stunts that’ve never been done before.
• Has Tom Cruise ever said no to a stunt because it’s too dangerous?
• There’s much more to fight scenes than you know.
• Fatalities still happen. How can stunts go wrong?
• Wade comments on the tragedy on the Rust set.
• Is Tom Cruise actually going to space?
• Jason shares his death-defying stunts!
• Seinfeld’s stunt that went very, very wrong for Jason.
• Googleheim: The first stunt woman!

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Instagram @wadeeastwood

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In case you haven’t noticed, there appears to be a subtitle revolution, with current research showing that as many as 61% of us are using subtitles regularly. And that number is rapidly growing! Really, no really!

Everyone hasn’t suddenly become hard of hearing, so why are subtitles suddenly becoming the norm? This global entertainment trend is transforming the way we watch television and movies…and content creators secretly admit there is a problem that necessitates subtitles! So, we had to unravel the reasons why more of us are opting for on screen text.

To help us explain the subtitle takeover, Jason and Peter enlisted the services of film researcher and producer Ed Vega, who specializes in - as his bio says - all things cinema, from the intricacies of film history to the nuts and bolts of filmmaking AND prolific dialogue editor and sound designer Austin Olivia Kendrick whose notable work includes - Star Trek Discovery, the HBO series Barry, Monster High, Rugrats, Transformers: Earthspark among many others.

IN THIS EPISODE:

• The pros and cons of using subtitles.
• How today’s actor’s vocal performances differ from those in the past. Generational reasons and differences in subtitle use.
• Why the 1970’s era -inferior technology- seemed to work better.
• Do modern TVs really have speakers facing the wrong way?
• Is A.I. the answer to better sound mixing?
• Wait…competing streaming services have no audio standards!
• What about the George Lucas created THX?
• Which do we prefer in foreign language movies-Dubbed or subtitled?
• Have subtitles and audio descriptions made entertainment more accessible?
• How Jason accidentally watched the original Squid Game.

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FOLLOW ED:

Website: Vox.com

Instagram: @edfromqueens

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FOLLOW AUSTIN:

Instagram: @aok.wav

TikTok: @aok.wav

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MrBeast aka 25-year-old Jimmy Donaldson is the biggest solo performer on YouTube. He’s followed by over 400 million people who watch his insane stunts and his enormous acts of philanthropy.

So, who is this introverted twenty-five-year-old and what makes him tick? Did he really figure out the YouTube recommendation algorithm, and what makes him different from thousands of similar creators on YouTuber? For answers we contacted a writer who for three days, embedded herself with MrBeast, in his enormous compound, in Greenville, North Carolina…Ej Dickson.

Ej is a Senior Writer for Rolling Stone and covers internet culture. Her work has appeared in the New York Times, New York Magazine, Elle, GQ, and Playboy, among others. She's also been featured on NPR's All Things Considered and This American Life, as well as the Hulu docuseries "Only Fans: Selling Sexy," The New Yorker once called her "ineffably cool."

ON THIS EPISODE:

• YouTube was birthed after a wardrobe malfunction.
• What's MrBeast’s strategy for becoming the biggest YouTuber?
• How he created an old-school, Hollywood-style, studio system.
• MrBeast’s parents, his house, and seeing 1 million dollars in cash.
• MrBeast cracked the YouTube algorithm. Or did he?
• Some call MrBeast’s charitable videos - “inspiration porn” Is it?
• MrBeast and Tyler Perry - What they have in common.
• How long can MrBeast dominate?
• Ej introduces us to the odd world of Skibidi Toilet. Really???
• Googleheim: The most popular social media star across ALL platforms is…

***

FOLLOW EJ:

Web RollingStone.com

Podcast: Pod…CATS with Ej Dickson

Instagram @ejdickson

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In 11 years on ABC’s Modern Family, Jesse Tyler Ferguson never won a Primetime Emmy even though he was nominated 5 times. Jason, who reminds us often, was nominated 7 times for Seinfeld so in this episode, we find out who lost it, better. And Jesse’s show is so popular there are even versions in Chile, Greece, Russia, and even Iran! Really, no really?

Actor, author, podcaster, philanthropist, restaurateur, and activist Jesse Tyler Ferguson is best known for his portrayal of Mitchell Pritchett on the hit sitcom Modern Family. He’s also done a variety of stage and screen work including “Cocaine Bear”, and “Ice Age: Collision Course.” He won the Tony Award for Best Featured Actor in a Play for his performance in the 2022 Broadway revival of Richard Greenberg's “Take Me Out” and for his performance in 2016’s “Fully Committed”, Jesse won a Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Solo Performance.

IN THIS EPISODE:

• The strange commonalities between Jason and Jesse.
• The documentarian on Modern Family finally revealed!
• Jesse on the responsibility of representing the Gay Community.
• When you podcast from a restaurant, is the food free?
• Straight actors cast as LGBTQ characters?
• Jesse came out to his dad 3 times.
• Really! Living an actual “Modern Family.”
• How to play 40 roles in a one-man show?
• Jesse responds to criticism for “wearing a fat-suit” in Cocaine Bear.
• How Jason and Jesse fostered such collaborative ensembles.
• In Hollywood, being gay is no longer included as a diversity hire, RnR?

   

FOLLOW JESSE:

Website: www.jessetylerferguson.com

Podcast: Dinner’s on Me with Jesse Tyler Ferguson

Instagram: @jessetyler

TikTok: @jessetyler

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There’s a brand-new, George Carlin comedy special, which is mystifying and disturbing since he died in 2008!

Legendary comedian George Carlin was unceremoniously resurrected from the grave by a comedy podcast claiming to have created an AI-generated Carlin, based upon decades worth of his existing material. The special they created - “I’m Glad I’m Dead”- had the AI created legend commenting on current issues such as mass shootings, America’s class system, streaming services, social media…even Taylor Swift’s sex life…Really, no Really!

But the computer-generated version lacks Carlin’s brilliance and has created a brouhaha that leads us to an unsettled legal question…whether training A.I. language learning models on publicly available written, visual and audio content infringes on the copyrights of artists and authors. Is it ethical or legal for someone to create a new George Carlin, without his or his estate’s permission?

Jason and Peter needed to find out, so they went to the source, Carlin’s daughter, Kelly Carlin to discuss the controversy, her lawsuit, her dad’s legacy, and what she feels her father would have to say about the current controversy?

Kelly Carlin is a storyteller, writer, performer, photographer, a practitioner of Zen Buddhism and the daughter of the legendary comedian George Carlin who died in 2008. Since then, Kelly has upheld his legacy by spreading his life’s work through many media, protecting his work and image in the public sphere, and stepping into the limelight in her own right.

IN THIS EPISODE:

• What’s the purpose of ANY AI-written or performed standup?
• Was this truly AI-written and performed - does it matter?
• Future protections for performers and their likenesses.
• The true story behind George Carlin and his 7 dirty words.
• Which would you trust more: An experienced doctor or an AI diagnostician?
• When the AI Carlin feeds the future AI, what happens then?
•  An AI with empathy, does it exist?
• The upside to AI hacking comedians, is there one?

FOLLOW KELLY:

Website: TheKellyCarlinSite.com

Memoir: A Carlin Home Companion: Growing Up with George

Podcast: Waking from the American Dream

Instagram: @KellyCarlinisHere

X: @kelly_carlin

SiriusXM: The Kelly Carlin Show on Sirius XM’s Raw Dog (ch.99)

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Author Mary Roach is a hands-on writer specializing in science related topics that tap into some of the more curious and unexpected nooks of our lives. But “hands-on” doesn’t fully capture the lengths she’ll go to capture her stories – for her book examining the intricacies of sex, science, and relationships, she convinced her husband to have sex while monitored and recorded in an MRI, Ultrasound, Sonogram-like device…Really, no Really!

Mary Roach is an author specializing in popular science and humor having written seven New York Times bestsellers, including Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex, STIFF: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers; GULP: Adventures on the Alimentary Canal, and PACKING FOR MARS: The Curious Science of Life in the Void and her latest book, FUZZ: When Nature Breaks the Law.

Mary has written for National Geographic, Wired, The New York Times Magazine, Vogue, GQ, and the Journal of Clinical Anatomy, among many, many others.

Her 2009 TED talk, "Ten Things You Didn't Know About Orgasm", made the organization's list of top 10 most popular talks of all time.

IN THIS EPISODE:

• How Mary chooses esoteric and often taboo topics.
• Women’s sexual arousal can be measured…or can it?
• Mary embraces the taboo, including researching how astronauts avoid “fecal decapitation.”
• The shocking places where donated cadavers can end up.
• Using the Scientific Method to “prove” the existence of a higher power.
• India’s battles with elephants and monkeys.
• Googleheim: Science Myth vs. Science Fact

Website: MaryRoach.net

X/Twitter: @mary_roach

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Snakes…why'd it have to be snakes? There’s a Burmese Python problem in Florida’s Everglades which is dramatically altering the ecological balance in the Sunshine State. Currently, the only way to control these non-native, invasive snakes, is to send hunters deep into allegator infested swamps to find, capture, and kill these apex predators. Really, no Really!

You might imagine these Hunters as burly “Crocodile Dundee-types” with sophisticated equipment, night vision, Rambo-style bowie knives, and guns, lots of guns. But reality is quite different. Our guest today Amy Siewe styles herself as the “Python Huntress;” she’s a 5’4, 120lbs. woman who by trade is a realtor, who regularly captures these beasts – some as big as 20 feet, 250 pounds - using only a canvas bag and her wits. She has killed over 400 pythons using a quick and humane method but the number of endangered or threatened native species being eaten by these pythons is getting longer each year.

Is this really the best solution to this problem and what does she do with all those dead snakes? The answers might surprise you.

IN THIS EPISODE:

• How Amy transformed from mild-mannered Indiana-based realtor to “Python Huntress.”
• Does she speak Parseltongue…the language of snakes?
• Step-by-step instructions capturing a 17-footer…alone!
• What snake Periscoping means.
• Vipers, allegators, panthers, and bears oh my! All the things stalking Amy as she hunts.
• We analyze our collective fear and loathing of snakes.
• How do you humanely euthanize huge snakes while in the muck of Florida’s Everglades?
• Amy’s message to prospective buyers of commercial pythons and exotics…
• Jason’s close encounter with a snake at “America’s Stonehenge.”

FOLLOW AMY SIEWE:

WATCH Amy take down a 17ft python

Website: PythonHuntress.com

Instagram: @ThePythonHuntress

YouTube: Python Huntress Amy Siewe

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It’s an understatement calling it adventure tourism, at minimum its extreme travel, more accurately it’s insanely dangerous. Diving to crushing depths to glimpse the Titanic, sightseeing hostile dictatorships, postcard-shopping in active war zones – increasingly, people are choosing to go to these places…for vacation. Really, no really!

What could possibly possess a person to willingly put their lives in danger for a few photographs and an unusual stamp on their passport? You might expect these reckless tourists to be former Special Forces or folks with cultural ties so deep that it neutralizes the danger. Well…maybe those people exist but today Jason and Peter are talking to Mike Reiss, a middle-aged, Emmy-winning, Simpsons writer-producer whose wife compelled him to visit 136 countries, including Iran, Syria, and even North Korea!

Mike Reiss has won four Emmys and a Peabody Award during his twenty-eight years writing for The Simpsons. He ran the show in Season 4, which Entertainment Weekly called “the greatest season of the greatest show in history. And Mike claims to be happily married for over thirty years. We believe him…?

ON THIS EPISODE:

• Why more and more people are doing these extreme activities…
• How Mike went from homebody to extreme world traveler.
• True tales from Iran, Iraq, Syria & Afganistan.
• Almost forced to make movies for Kim Jung Il in North Korea.
• Diving in the doomed Ocean Gate experimental submarine 4 times!
• That time he almost died on a Namibian sand dune on New Year’s Eve.
• Jason’s main travel fear - toilet uncertainty!
• Mike shares his top travel tips from his years as an extreme tourist.
• The one vacation so bad Mike had to cut it short – you’ll never guess the country.
• He’s willing to go to Mars, but THIS place he refused to go.
• Googleheim: The most dangerous places…in your home.

FOLLOW MIKE REISS:

Podcast: What Am I Doing Here? with Mike Reiss

X/Twitter: @MikeReissWriter

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The Eco-Consequences, Why We Overconsume and Deceptive Costs!

If you’ve returned holiday gifts or things you bought but didn’t need or the pants you bought in multiple sizes that didn’t fit…you are part of what’s being called the “return tsunami” - which costs the planet about a trillion dollars annually. Really, no really!

With free shipping and easy return policies, American’s are over-consuming and then sending stuff back in record numbers. But most buyers are completely unaware of what really happens to their returned items. When Jason and Peter discovered that many essentially ‘brand-new’ items end up in a pile so enormous that it can be seen from space…they had to find the expert who could break down the issues like a huge pile of Amazon boxes.

Dr. Dale Rogers is a supply chain guru. He is the recipient of the Academic Giant Award from the Council of Supply Chain Management Professionals and in the Supply Chain Hall of Fame. He is currently the Director of the Frontier Economies Logistics Lab and the Director of the Internet Edge Supply Chain Lab at Arizona State University. 

IN THIS EPISODE:

• If returns are resold…how is there a giant pile you can see from space?
• Residue, stains, & nasty scents: Who’s sniffing and smelling your returned clothing?
• Retail secrets that allow the retailers of the last century to dominate.
• The unseen salvage dealers that making a fortune from your returns.
• How did 39,000 tons of unsold clothing end up in Chile?
• The real story behind Expiration Dates.
• Post-COVID, are American supply chains still dependent on China?
• The non-political reason why inflation has gone down.
• Walmart’s attempt to diminish sensory overload for shoppers.
• Explained: Why a huge box contains your tiny item?
• Googleheim: The top 5 returns in history!

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X/Twitter: @CariscaProf

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