694: Hammers Don’t Hallucinate

This week on Grumpy Old Geeks, Fyre Festival rises from the ashes yet again—but not as a festival, because even Billy McFarland finally figured out he’s better at selling pipe dreams than tents. Meanwhile, Amazon and Microsoft are tapping the brakes on their AI data center dreams, Google’s AI keeps confidently explaining made-up nonsense like it’s gospel, and Kevin Roose once again tries to convince us to have empathy for the glorified autocomplete machines. (Spoiler: We won’t.) Also, OpenAI wants to buy Chrome even though they can barely afford their own lunch tabs, Perplexity says the quiet part loud about stalking your browser habits, and Meta lays off more VR developers while pretending they care about human rights.

In the “it’s all stupid, but at least it’s entertaining” department: Uber gets sued for making it harder to cancel than joining Scientology, Adam Neumann dupes investors again, sperm racing is now a real thing (and yes, there’s crypto involved), and Bluesky caves to the almighty blue checkmark. Plus, Affinity Suite reminds us you don’t have to sell a kidney to escape Adobe, The Wheel of Time gets an open-world game that’ll probably drop after the heat death of the universe, and Wednesday Season 2 is on the way, because Netflix refuses to let its only hits rest.

Stick around for The Dark Side with Dave where we grumble about Andor Season 2, lament bad writing decisions, geek out over old-school arcade games, and learn that memory colors are apparently a thing. Oh, and if you’re feeling fancy, go ahead and thank ChatGPT for wasting millions in server bills—because if Sam Altman’s crying about manners costing money, we’re grabbing the popcorn.

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Show notes at https://gog.show/694

FOLLOW UP

Fyre Festival is becoming a music streaming service that might not be a scam this time

Billy McFarland Is Selling Fyre Fest

IN THE NEWS

Amazon Follows Microsoft in Retreat From Ambitious AI Data Center Plans

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