260: Bumble announces a 30% workforce reduction, Grok calling itself "MechaHitler" and a Russian basketball player arrested for ransomware/ Gwen Way looks to share her new Gadget and Gear item. | Air Date: 7/15 - 7/21/2025 - TechTime with Nathan Mumm

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Broadcasting across the nation, from the East Coast
to the West, keeping you up todate on technology while
enjoying a little whiskey on theside, With leading-edge topics,
along with special guests tonavigate technology in a
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The information that will makeyou go, mmmmm.
Pull up a seat, raise a glasswith our hosts as we spend the

(00:22):
next hour talking abouttechnology for the common person
.
Welcome to Tech Time Radio withNathan.
Mumm a glass with our hosts aswe spend the next hour talking
about technology for the commonperson.
Welcome to Tech Time.

Nathan Mumm (00:30):
Radio with Nathan Mumm.
Welcome to Tech Time withNathan Mumm.
The show that makes you go hmm.
Technology news of the week.
The show for the everydayperson, talking about technology
, broadcasting across the nationwith insightful segments on
weeks ahead of the mainstreammedia.
We welcome our radio audienceof 35 million listeners to an
hour of insightful technologynews.
I'm Nathan Mumm, your host andtechnologist, with over 30 years

(00:51):
of technology expertise.
Our co-host, microday, is instudio today.
He's the award-winning authorand a human behavior expert.
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(01:11):
Forward slash techtimeradio.
We are all friends fromdifferent backgrounds, but we
bring the best technology sopossible weekly for our family,
friends and fans to enjoy.
We're glad to have Odie, ourproducer, at the control panel
today.
Welcome everyone.
Let's start today's show.

Speaker 1 (01:28):
Now on today's show.

All right, welcome to Tech Time Radio.
Today on the show we have ourguest Gwen Way joining the show
for our gadgets and gear segment.
Of course, we have our standardfeatures, including Mike's
mesmerizing moment, ourtechnology fail of the week and
a possible Nathan nugget and, ofcourse, our pick of the day,
whiskey Taste and to see if ourselected whiskey pick gets zero,
one or two thumbs up at the endof the show.
Now let's start with the latestheadlines in the world of

(01:55):
technology.

Speaker 1 (01:58):
Here are our top technology stories of the week
of the week.

All right Story.
Number one Russian probasketball player is arrested
for allegedly a role in aransomware attack.
Let's go to Lisa Walker formore on the story.

Speaker 2 (02:14):
According to French media, Daniel Kasakin was
arrested at Paris's Charles deGaulle airport on June 21st
after landing in France withhisée.
The arrest was made as part ofa United States international
arrest warrant for his role asan alleged negotiator for a
ransomware gang.
Kasikin is now under custody,while the US seeks to have him

(02:34):
extradited to face charges ofconspiracy to commit computer
fraud and computer fraudconspiracy.
His lawyer alleges that Kasikinis not guilty of these crimes
and that they are instead linkedto a second-hand computer that
he purchased back to the fullteam in the studio all right, so
let's talk about this.

A russian professional basketball player,
daniel, was arrested in franceat the request of the united
states for allegedly acting as anegotiator for a ransomware
gang.
Now, from his lawyer, he saysthat he bought a secondhand
computer.
He obviously knew nothing aboutwhat was happening.
He's stunned.
According to his lawyer, he'suseless with computers.

(03:16):
His lawyer calls him he'suseless with computers and can't
even install an application.
He didn't touch anything on thecomputer.
It was either hacked or thehacker sold it to him to act
undercover for another person.
Well, the name of theransomware gang was not
disclosed.
It is reported that it has beenbehind more than 900 company
attacks, including two federalagencies, between 2020 and 2022.

(03:39):
Now, the description closelymatches similar language used by
the department of justice torefer to the notorious Conti
ransomware gang, which hasemerged as a successor to Raikou
in 2020 and was then shut downin 2022 following the data
breach.
Now here's my question that Ihave for everybody here on the
panel Are you ready, odie, forthis one?

(04:00):
This is what we got.

Speaker 2 (04:02):
Do you think?

Daniel is innocent if he purchased a second-hand
computer, so he's saying hepurchased it.
He went down to the local pawnshop or someplace, purchased a
second-hand computer, didn'tknow anything that was going on,
and that's what his lawyerattests to.
What do you think about that?

Ody (04:17):
why is he?
But what I'm getting trippedabout is why is he buying a
computer second hand if he's apro ball player?

Mike Gorday (04:24):
because he subscribes to nathan's uh
podcast and we all know nathandoes everything second hand I
buy a lot of second hand laptops.

I actually do yeah, but you're not a pro ball
player I'm not a pro ball player, but what does a pro ball
player mean?
A pro ball player.

Ody (04:39):
They have money that they could buy.
Well, does that?

because I I know somebody that used to own a
semi-pro team.
Oh my God.

All right, and so this person.

And so all these players consider themselves pro
basketball players because theyare paid and they were making
anywhere between $35 to $65 agame.
That was all they're making inthe minor league system, so it's
pretty in significant amount ofpay.

Ody (05:01):
So if that's the case, with that being said, no, I don't
think he should be blamed,because if he didn't, well, if
he didn't know about it.

Okay, if he didn't know about it you say no.

Ody (05:11):
Okay.

Mike, what's your feeling on this?

You know, I don't have a feeling about this,
because I don't know, anything.
I don't know anything aboutthis guy.

So okay, but what if you bought a secondhand
laptop?
What would you do when youbought a secondhand laptop?

Ody (05:26):
Reformat.

Well, that's what it's supposed to be here in the
United States.

Ody (05:30):
But if he knows nothing about, sorry.
Yeah that's good.
If he knows nothing, then hewouldn't know.

Yeah.
So he just gets a laptop thatalready has games loaded on it.
His buddy sold it to him.
Here you go, I have this laptopit's clear.

Clearly you are on the side of the basketball
player, right uh that's, that'swhere you're coming down, you?
You seem to be arguing in favorof his ignorance of computer
yeah, yeah, because I I know, ifmy okay, so I have, I have a
I'm not an expert right but Ihave knowledge right, knowledge

(06:03):
right yes you do, absolutely.
I don't know how to hack stuff.
Okay, I don't know how to getonto the dark web.
Okay, right, yeah, okay, if Ibought a computer and then were
suddenly hauled into theauthorities for suspected
hacking and because I haveknowledge about computers yeah

(06:26):
does that automatically make mecomplicit?

I see, I would say no, because I could give you, if
I gave you a laptop later today.
Yep, so here you go.
Mike's all ready to go,everything's been taken care of,
and I had a bunch of hackingdevices on there and you took it
home.
I could then log into yourcomputer when you're not there,
do a bunch of stuff, cause a lotof grief to you and since the
public eye, you're on a radioshow for technology, right?

(06:49):
So of course you should knowwhat's going on.

So I I kind of actually on the other hand, yeah
, I might be somebody who uh isin desperate need of money okay
because I play basketball anddon't maybe get paid like I
should, okay, or I might havethis huge ego about how much
money I should be making.
And so I get hooked up with aransomware gang and, uh, they,

(07:16):
they cited him as being anegotiator.

Yeah, so he's on their customer service lines or
is he the one that actually usedhis computer to say here's the
money.

I have no idea what they're yeah, yeah, the problem
, the problem with stories likethese is that there's not enough
information to really draw anyreal good conclusions.
It's all it does is strike usin our feels if we pay attention
, and then we react to that, andit doesn't really, doesn't
really cover a story, okay, soyou know, six and one and a half
a dozen and the other.

(07:45):
Does the guy really not knowanything about computers and
he's and he's a patsy?
Or does he need money or wantmoney and has has information
and is trying to uh weasel outof what he did wrong?

okay, well, you know what?

Ody (08:01):
is there a way to test that ?

is there a way to test that?

Ody (08:04):
Is there a way to?

test.
Yeah, If a government comes onin and arrests you.
I would hope that they havedone the due diligence enough so
that they can have evidence.
But see, that's my concernthere Exactly.

Okay.
Forensically there is Okay.
Okay, I assume that this issomething that was done over a
chat.
Probably, Probably okay.
Uh, I assume that this issomething that was either that
was done over a chat, probablyokay.
So if the way this person useslanguage and expresses ideas is
the same as how he the chat is,then that's a good indicator

(08:38):
that he was involved okay, allright, there you go.

All right, let's see what I think story number
two is going to.
Uh, brighten our day.

Yeah, you're you just you, just love it when I
was talking about chat.

What do we have here next?

well, you know you, you just love it when you can
give me a hand, me a story thatjust supports all the thing that
I hate about ai well, no, we,we, we talk about it in the
production meeting.

This is, this is gonna be a great story here.
This is interesting.

But this is the exact reason why AI chatbots are
not good for us, right?
So, grok, everybody knows whatGrok is.
Grok renamed itself MechaHitlerjust recently.

Ody (09:19):
Wait a second.
It renamed itself.

It started calling itself MechaHitler Yep After
chatting with several people.

Is this a joke?
No, it's not a joke.

It's not a joke.
It also suggested certainanti-Semitic things should
happen as a result of that, ofthat, and uh, it turns out which
which is the interesting piece,is that, uh, uh, it was getting
so much input from all thesepeople that were trying to turn

(09:53):
it to the dark side that itstopped communicating with words
, started communicating withimages and then shut down
altogether.
So I guess it had a does notcompute moment and couldn't go
forward and had to redo it.
But you know, elon over here iscertainly defending it.

(10:14):
Okay, right, he said that wehave improved Grok significantly
and you should notice adifference when you ask it
questions significantly.
And you should notice adifference when you ask it
questions.
Uh, the term mecca hitler comesfrom a video game called
wolfenstein, which is, uh,supposedly it was pure satire.

(10:34):
Um, of course, this is.
This is a problem with withthese platforms, because you
have people like neo-Naziaccounts trying to get these
things to say particular things.
Okay, so this is what happens.

(10:57):
Other social media said theynoticed that Grok was going on
to tirades in other languages,going on to tirades in other
languages.
Then the bot stopped givingtext answers publicly by Tuesday
afternoon, generating onlyimages, and then it later
stopped doing it.
They had to, I guess they hadto re.
What did they have?

to do?
They had to shut it down.
They had to shut it down.
Yeah, I think they probably ranin there and had somebody pull
the emergency switch and saidknock it off.
We need to fix this before itkeeps on going.

We need to redo it.
So neither X nor XAI respondedto a request for comments.
A post from the official Grokaccount Tuesday night said we
are aware of the recent postmade by Grok and are actively
working to remove theinappropriate post, and XAI has
taken action to ban hate speechbefore Grok posts on X.
Yeah, that works.

(11:45):
That just happened before.
I don't know if you remember,uh, microsoft in 2016 released a
an ai chat bot named tay ontwitter.
Yep, and in less than 24 hoursafter its release, uh, it was
saying racist and anti-semiticstatements, including praising
hitler.
Do you remember that?

Yeah, and they actually shut the whole thing
down and they never came back.

They never came back, yeah.

They shut down a whole chat box in two years'
worth of development time andsaid forget it.
If you can't regulate this,it's gone.

Well, that's, the problem with this stuff is
because it's drawing on allthese different things but it
has no moral compass and it'snever going to have a moral
compass.

Okay correct, it's just ones and zeros.

It's just whatever it's drawing its information
from.
All right, so what do you thinkDo?

you think this affected the announcement from
the CEO.

I don't know.
You know because,coincidentally, on wednesday
morning, uh x's ceo, ceo, lindayaccarino, announced she was
stepping down yeah uh saying nowis the best time yet to come,
as x enters a new chapter withxai.
Okay, so let me just say thatquote that quote.

Let me just tell you how those quotes work right.
So you get a severance letterand in that severance letter
what they do is they tell youthis is what we're going to say
from you, and you can saynothing else.
We'll give you x amount ofdollars for this post.
To be there.

You cannot say anything different than that,
and that's what the post willsay of course, but but if you
look at this ironically, yeah,now the best is yet to come, as
X enters a new chapter with XAIas a racist computer.
Well, I think they're hoping tofix that she did not indicate

(13:36):
whether the move was because ofthe fallout for Brock, but it
was coincidental that ithappened.
You know what?

Elon Musk just got done doing all the white house
stuff so he had nothing else todo.
So he just decided to come backand do a bunch of meetings,
probably with high.
Actually I know this for a fact.
He did a bunch of meetings withthe high executives and pulled
them on in and they said that itwas difficult to have two
people in charge him and her waskind of what?
The meeting, of course and soel Elon decided to have him in

(14:05):
charge.

This is one of the issues I have with Elon is that
he thinks he is in control ofeverything.
So the latest changes to Grokoh, mark's over there smiling
like a Cheshire cat.
The latest changes to Grokfollow several incidents in
which the chat spot answeredfrustrated Musk and his
supporters In one instant.
Grok stated several incidentsin which the chat spot answered
frustrated Musk and hissupporters.

Marc Gregoire (14:25):
Yeah.

In one instant, grok stated right-wing political
violence has been more frequentand deadly than left-wing
political violence since 2016.
Musk then accused Grok ofparroting legacy media in his
answer and vowed to change it,to rewrite the entire corpus of
human knowledge, adding missinginformation and deleting errors.
Do you see the problem withthat statement?

That he's altering history.
Is that the part that you got?
That he Rewrite history?

Yeah, that he has become the wealth holder of all
information human.

Yeah, if he keeps on getting more AI companies, he
may end up becoming the storiesall run through him.

No, with what he owned.
This is what he thinks yeah hevowed to change and write the
entire corpus of human knowledge.
This is a quote from him, right?
Yeah, the entire corpus ofhuman knowledge, adding missing
information and deleting errors.
He believes that he has all theknowledge.
That is correct and he is goingto program it into this thing.

(15:29):
This is, this is why this isproblematic.
Right, sunday's updatedincluded telling grock to assume
subjective viewpoints sourcedfrom the media that are biased
so he's?
he's basically saying don't lookat this over here, because
these guys we don't like them.
We don't want you to pullinformation from these guys we

(15:51):
don't like, and so we want youto formulate these opinions over
here.
You see where I'm going withthis.

I see the problem.

I do.
That's why you like the story Ilike the story because it shut
itself down.
That's what I like.
I don't like the story.
I like the story because itshut, shut itself down.
That's that's what I like.
I don't like.
I don't like any other parts ofthe story all right, well, okay
, that makes sense and I thinkit should stay shut down.
I you know.
You know how I feel about allthese chatbots I don't.
I don't think they are effective, I don't think they are healthy
or a positive addition to thehuman situation.

All right well, speaking of of chatbots, do you
think Bumble uses a lot ofchatbots on their platform?

I don't know, I don't think so, I don't know, on
purpose, on purpose.

Well, we're going to see, Because Bumble has just
announced they're going toreduce their workforce and their
company to do a restructure.
You know what they're talkingabout reducing all the way up to
30% of his global workforce andan announcement came from the
ex CEO, who's now kind of backin charge of Bumble again.
So Bumble decided to go public.

(16:53):
This is what happens to everygreat company is their private.
They get to do whatever theywant, with no issues.
People can say they like it orthey don't like it, and all of a
sudden then you go public andnow you have to have
stakeholders and you have tohave profit analysis and it
doesn't care about what you'reproducing, it cares about the

(17:14):
money you bring in.
Well, it's interesting becausethe memo was sent to employees
Wednesday from Bumble CEO andfounder, whitney Wolf.
Bumble, like the online datingindustry itself, is at an
inflection point.
Today we are marking one of themost difficult.
We are reducing the size of ourteam.
The decision is not areflection of any individual,

(17:36):
but rather that we're going as acompany into a new direction.

Yeah, it's basically hey, we're not making
enough money, so you guys needto go away so we can figure out
how to make more.

Yeah.
So Wolf Heard, who stepped awayfrom her CEO role back in March
, has come back into the company.
She left it in January of 2024,so she's been out of it over a
year plus.
And my real question is isonline dating, as we talked
about here on Tech Time Radio inJanuary?

(18:05):
It's really kind of moving intothe game community, right?
So people are online havinginteractions and that's growing
at three times as fast as any ofthe dating apps in the industry
anymore.
So is online dating in allthese services moving the way of
the VCR repairman?
Is it kind of closing shop andnow time to move on?
Well, what do you know?

(18:27):
I?

think they're.
I think that.
So online dating has becomelike a job interview.
Okay, right, that's that's kindof and.
And now they they're trying togamify it because they.
So the whole idea is that inorder for the app to exist,
people have to use the app.
Yeah, so if you are dating andyou are on their app and you

(18:49):
swipe and you find somebodyyou're interested in and you go
out with that person and you hitand you get together, are you
still using the app to date?
No, no, so you're going toclose your account?
Well, at least you should beright.
I mean, you could be one ofthose people that are like,
secretly, have the account openand they're looking for the
bigger better deal.

Look at Odie.
Look at Odie smiling.
Yeah, Odie smiling.

Is this your thing?
Is this your elbow?

No, Rolls her eyes and looks up.

The problem is that this has not become about
helping people find matches.
That last, yeah, it's aboutkeeping people engaged in their
app.

Ody (19:31):
It's a business.

Well, Bumble has expanded its business.

What does it have to do with?
You mentioned something aboutchatbots.
What does it have to do withchatbots?
I don't see anything in there.

So Bumble CEO, whitney Wolf, when she first
came, came on out, bumble wasall about chatbots.
That was how you would interactwith before the lady, because
bumble's a little bit of adifferent dating site, unlike
tinder and some of these otherwell, it's supposed to be, uh,
supposed to be, that women askfirst.
Yes, and so other onlineservices had a lot of chatbots,

(20:03):
so they had.
Bumble announced that they hada chatbot when they first
released themselves.
That was specifically just torelay the information to the
ladies so that they could thenclick they're interested or not
interested within that service.
If you remember, as Bumble wasout over like a year and a half
to two years, they got rid oftheir old chatbots.
So they removed every singleone of their chatbots because

(20:23):
they were having problems andpeople were considering their
chatbot that they had in thereto interact with people as fake
bots, as other sites like AshleyMadison and other type of deals
have been known to have justcompletely fake accounts.

Interestingly enough, it's very easy to keep
people on if you have secretchatbots that keep on tempting
them to take care of stuff.

So my real big concern here is that they're
laying off people.
We've talked about this quite abit is the whole dating scene.
I actually think the wholeonline dating scene is going to
disappear soon.
I think it's going to justbecome like these public forums.

Ody (21:02):
You are so funny, Nathan.
Why is that?
You really think that's goingto just become like these public
forums?
You are so funny, Nathan.
Why is that?
You really think that's goingto go away?

Yeah, I think like platforms like Clubhouse and
different areas, where you canjust jump in and say, hey, I'm
interested in a date in theSeattle area and then you can
have a verbal conversation andyou can have some text
conversations.
So Clubhouse is this audio apponline that you can download,
and what it is is it's no videoit that you can download, and
what it is is it's no video,it's only audio.
And there's a bunch of forumsand a bunch of public rooms that

(21:27):
are starting to pop up all overeverywhere where people are
using those as dating servicesand it'll be like dating Seattle
and you can go in for Clubhousefor free, you can have
conversations back and forth andthen you can meet somebody and
then you can jump out of it withno additional costs.
You got online gaming, whereyou can go into chat rooms.
You can go into a mission areawhere you're having
conversations.

I mean, clearly, one of the reasons why they're
struggling is because, um,they're tired of, they're tired
of the bs that comes with adating app, yeah, and then a lot
of people are are in, uh,gaming chat rooms and they they
hook up with each other throughthose.

So I mean, look at the, the Switch 2.
Just came on out Allincorporating chat, right.
So they didn't have chat withverbal communication, which they
now have.
The reason is because peoplecan then trust, at least at this
time, if I have a conversationand there's a voice on the other
end, maybe there's actually aperson there, versus some AI or
a chat bot or a fake thing.

(22:22):
So I do think the verbalcommunication, just like land
phones we talked about a coupleof weeks ago on the show too, I
think some of these oldertechnologies are coming back
because they're they're tougherto fake.

Well, they're tougher to fake and they're
easier to use.
Yep, all right, okay, and we'rejust, we're, we're now starting
to figure, figure this out.
We're, we're now starting tofigure out that the technology
well, the technology industry isadvancing things on us so
quickly they would don't keep.
We can't keep up with it.

Yeah.

I mean, I never thought I would be behind the
tech curve, but some of thesethings that are coming out I
have no idea how to use anymore.
I'm like what the heck is thisthing?

Ody (23:01):
can you give an example?
Uh, let's see, because in myopinion, seeing how you interact
with technology, you're not asbehind as what you're saying
yeah, I don't think you'rebehind at all.

I'd say you're actually I am because when, when
we talk about stuff like, um,like, what?

Ody (23:19):
the dark web?
I have no idea how to do that.
I no the dark web.
I wouldn't say that that islike a normal thing.

It's gotten to where, if something happens on
my computer that requiresdiagnostic stuff, yeah it's
harder for me to find out wherethe tools are.
It's harder for me to.
But that just made.
I'm just getting old and and mybrain doesn't work right I feel,
like that's more than theaverage consumer, though,
because you're actually tryingto fix the problem yourself yeah

(23:47):
I think I think somebody elseyeah but my point is is that, um
, even though I try to keep upwith everything, technology
moves so quickly that I can't doit.
Do you know how to use ChatGPT?

Yeah, I know how to use ChatGPT.
Okay, so do you understand thatonly 40% of the people in the
world to date know how tointeract with an AI?

bot.
That's because they're smarterthan 60% of them are smarter
than I am.

Well, okay, I'm just saying so you're not in
that bad shape.

If of them are smarter than I am, well, okay,
I'm just saying so.
You're not in that bad shape.
If you can get on to the ai andyou know anything about grok or
any of these subjects thatwe're talking about, I'm gonna
go.
I'm gonna go home and find achat bot that I can turn into a
racist pig.

Okay, all right okay, well, just make sure you
don't do that to any robots.
Oh well, speaking of that,let's get uh ready to end well,
you're gonna figure out.
There's a little tie-in to thatrobot comment.

Oh, I already know what it is.

All right, well, that ends our top technology
stories of the week.
Moving on, Gwen Way will bejoining us in our gadgets and
gear segment.
Maybe it's a robot.
Buckle up as we drive 88 milesper hour into our next segment.
See you after this commercialbreak.

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All right, welcome back to TechTime with Nathan Mumm.
Our weekly show covers the toptechnology subjects Without any
political agenda.
We verify the facts and we doit with a sense of humor, in
less than 60 minutes and, ofcourse, with a little whiskey on
the side.
Today, mark Gregoire, ourwhiskey connoisseur, is in the
studio and we have our monthlytraditions.

(25:58):
Now moving into the semifinals,I think right, are we in the
semifinals or are we in thefinals?
Round two, round two.
Okay, all right, tell us, whathave you chosen for?

us today, Mark.
So today we're using the 2024Flavor Whiskey Advent Calendar.
Okay, 24 remarkable whiskeys touse for our year-long blind
whiskey competition to see whichone Nathan and Mike like best.
Now I want to invite everybodyto come along for the ride once
a month while they uncover newtastes and train their senses to
become true connoisseurs.

(26:27):
Today is the start of round two, where they will choose their
winner to move on to the nextround.
If they disagree, I'm thedeciding vote.

Okay.

So hopefully you disagree.
Then I get to drink more Now.
Today our two whiskeys arefinished, one rye and one
bourbon.
I can tell the differenceFinished whiskeys.
Take a traditional whiskey andadd an extra layer of complexity
by exposing them to secondaryinfluences, often through
additional barrel aging or, insome cases, the use of wood

(26:59):
staves.
These finishing techniquesallow the whiskey to absorb
unique flavors and aromas,whether from a wine or a sherry
cast, or from carefully selectedtypes of wood.
The result is more layered anddistinctive profile that
showcases the distiller'screativity and craftsmanship.
Stay tuned to see which oneadvances from this round all

(27:20):
right.

Yeah, nathan's already finished one of his
glasses.
I did, I did, and the other oneisn't bad either, so I don't
mind having the.
We already know what nathan'spick is.
Wow, one of these was reallygood.
One of these, uh, you know what?
I would keep on drinking anddrinking, and drinking, and
drinking.
That will get me in trouble, allright, I don't know if it will
get me in trouble, but Iprobably shouldn't drink all
that much.
How many more of those samplesdo we have left of this one

(27:43):
right here?
Do we have enough to make itinto the finals?

The one that's in the concurrent.
Oh God, I hope not.

Do we have enough, so Nathan can have more to drink
?

Wow wow, did you hear what Mark said?
He didn't like that one.
Okay, all right.
Well, any other news for ourwhiskey connoisseurs that you
have for us?

I only say please like and subscribe, drink
responsibly.

Heaven can wait there you go, there's your
tagline.
All right Now, you're going tolove this next segment here,
mark, this is going.
You go, there's your tagline.
All right now, you're gonnalove this next segment here.
Mark, this is gonna be reallyexciting.
We're gonna bring up, of course, one of our favorite gals.
She's a part of our producer ofthe show.
She's a game board geek in theevenings and she is also in

(28:31):
cyber security working for a bigcompany, uh, in the Seattle
area, which makes a firewalldevice and many other devices.
You know that I don't want tosay where she works, but if you
had somebody looking out on atower, you'd probably have it on
a watch guard tower to beginwith.
But let's move on now to getready for our Comcast video

(28:52):
stream and start our nextsegment.

Speaker 1 (28:55):
What's new in our gadgets and gear.

All right, Gwen.
Welcome to our program.

There is nothing smooth about Nathan.
There is nothing smooth aboutNathan.

What do you mean about that?

It's kind of like the whiskey drinks.

Oh wow, hang on, now Be nice.

Now Be nice, all right, that's not what we were
hired to do.
That's now Be nice.

All right, that's not what we were hired to do.
That's right, it's in ourcontract.

Welcome to the show , Gwen.
Can you tell us a little bitabout yourself for any of our
new listeners?

Gwen Way (29:24):
Of course, as Nathan says, I have the joy of working
for a fairly large cybersecurityfirm and I love my job there
you go.

Okay, all right, but of course you love your boss
before that, at your previousjob, the more than anything than
in the world.

But okay, continue you mean the last boss
she had at her previous job.
Would you stop sucking, allright here we go, okay, okay.

Well, gwen um, tell us what do we have for our new
gadget or toy today on the show,I think?

it might be a robot .

I think so I think it might be.

Gwen Way (30:03):
So one of the shows that we did earlier last month,
you mentioned a robotic dog thatpeed.

Well, the peeing dog?

yes, yeah, from Timu, he did Kung Fu, yep yep,
and if you loaded the app, thenyou sent all of your information
back to China.
So that was a positive about it, I guess.
So you give the Chinese allyour information on your phone.

It is for you, because you don't have a problem
sharing all your informationwith China.

That's right, okay, but I guess, if you did, I mean
we already share all ourinformation with our government.

Gwen Way (30:32):
So we already share all our information with our
government.
So we'll just spread the wealth.

Okay, there you go.
All right, what do we?

Gwen Way (30:37):
have.
I know that there were a lot ofpeople who were concerned about
the fact that it was comingfrom Timu, that everything would
get back to China.
So I did a little bit ofdigging and I actually found a
very similar robot that isavailable from a company out of
Albany, New York.

Okay.

Gwen Way (30:57):
All right.
So for this particular thing,what you need to do is go to
kickstartercom and search forHingbot.
That's H-E-N-G-B-O-T.

Okay, so I can't get that.
This is.
You got to help me here.
So it's an American company andthey call it Hingbot.
It sounds absolutely like anoverseas name.
American company and they callit Hingbot.
It sounds absolutely like anoverseas name.
Why would they call it likeSparky or something like that?
Absolutely.

Gwen Way (31:21):
Well, the dog itself is named Sirius.
Which is a little moreuniversal and if you dig into
the FAQs, you do see that thevast majority of the parts
within Sirius do utilize theChinese supply chain.

Do you know what Sirius is?

Gwen Way (31:40):
Which should come as not a surprise to anybody.

And I'm not talking about Harry Potter here.
What else is Sirius?
Sirius is a star that's calledthe Dog Star.

Oh, is it?
Yes, okay, so they had somereal intellectual person come up
with this name?
I'm pretty sure that wasn'twhat happened?

They probably read Harry Potter and liked the name.

Okay, you think it's serious black, it could go
either way.

Gwen Way (32:05):
It could go either way .
One thing that does set thisaside from most of our
Kickstarter groups or productsthat we support, this actually
has a fairly active Facebookpage.
Okay, most of our Kickstartergroups or products that we
support, this actually has afairly active Facebook page.

Okay.

Gwen Way (32:20):
So if you go to Facebook and search Sirius
Robotic Dog, you're going to geta lot more information about
the process, where they are init and how the production is
going Okay, cool, that's good.

That's Sirius as in S-I-R-i-o-u-s, not s-e-r,
exactly not serious, not serious.
I get it seriously, seriously,I get it okay I just want to
make sure.

Speaker 8 (32:45):
Okay, all the puns fly, okay I get you, I get you.

now, let me just ask you this before you tell me
any more about this product.
So we try to do this right.
So do you know that there's anApple phone and they have this
AI assistant?
Do you know what the AIassistant's name is?
Oh yeah, it's Siri, siri.
So when you say so, oh justturn, look at that.
I actually just turned on myMac.
You see that it's talking allover.
We don't need to see how you'reawesome, so no, no, no no, no,

(33:17):
my concern is, when we were justtalking about this and we set
it on our production meeting, ittriggered my phone 50% of the
time.
So I'm I'm concerned withSirius being so close to.

Siri, that's because AI sucks.
Well, okay, well, mike.

I thought you'd have a different answer.
People should just get rid ofall their Apple products.
Well, that's that.
That could work too.
You can go either way.

Gwen Way (33:34):
The good thing about this, though, is that you can
reprogram the dog's name.

Okay, perfect, so that it responds to something
else.

Speaker 8 (33:41):
I could call it Nathan, you can name it whatever
you want.

Gwen Way (33:44):
You could call it Nathan Wow.
Also you can program it torespond in different ways to
Stimulize Okay.
So I think it might be a goodgift for your preteen teenager
who wants to get into eitherrobotics or coding and needs a

(34:04):
project to work on.

Okay, so now give us all the stats, Is it good?

for a dorky 50-year-old man that hosts a
radio show.
I mean that may have been why Ichose it.

Okay, okay, okay.
Well, I'm in love with my Lunadog.

Let me just tell you right now we know that he's
not going to get it.

My Luna is my dog and if I replaced Luna with a
new dog, my robot dog wouldprobably throw a fit.

Well, you could add another dog to your.
Yeah, you could have a robotpack this is exactly

my problem over here is this anthropomorphizing
thing that's he's doing.

Oh my my other robot dog will get jealous.
Well, they could no, okay, allright it's called having
feelings, mike.

Ody (34:47):
He's caring for what is it, luna?

luna my luna, yeah, yeah, yeah, like luna cares
that he does care.

Ody (34:55):
She shows her little emotions.

Yes, absolutely.

Oh Christ, there you go, there you go Don't you
be hating on my.

It's all real.

On my pet robot.
It's all real.
All right, continuing on onthis pet robot, though.

Gwen Way (35:08):
Yes, so if people are interested in it, they can go to
Kickstarter.
You can do a search for eitherSirius S-I-R-I-U-S or Hingbot
H-E-N-G-B-O-T.
Your base model is about $699for $150 more you okay, Mike, I

(35:31):
know Well how much is the Timudog?

$69.

Gwen Way (35:35):
Way less.
For $150 more you can get aBluetooth controller, which the
Timu dog does not have.
And a bonus battery.
You've got until August 24th ifyou want to purchase this, and
it is already funded with 386backers and almost $300,000.

Are you going to get one?
Are you going to do it?

You're going to do it so why do I need to get one?

What features.

Do you think this has better than Luna?

Gwen Way (36:10):
Honestly when.
I said that I think that thiswould be best for somebody
getting into programming.
I meant that this gives you alot more experience with that
than the Luna really did.
Okay, and so maybe it's forsomebody who just wants to break
into that, or someone who'slooking at changing careers into

(36:30):
a robotics career.

So you can kind of program the robotic with direct
base code.
Is that what you can do?
Because Luna is consumer-basedproducts, I can't go into Luna
and do anything like that.

See here's the irony here's the irony of
everything you were talkingabout earlier.
You started talking about thefeelings of a robot dog, and
when you start talking aboutfeelings, that's when everything
washes out.
Because we know, we know thatthe fact that you can program
this robot directly really makesyou have all kinds of other

(37:01):
feelings.

Oh yeah yeah, that's true.
That's you ready to sing gwen?

nobody knows what that song is anymore gwen does.
That's's why I said Gwen,that's because we're all old,
except for her Odie is on, shejust put her head down.
She has no idea what's going onright now.
She's like what are these wholefolks doing?
I mean, if you're uncareful,she's going to be waving one
finger at you all.

That's right.

She does that anyway, she just sits over there
and gives us one-finger salutesall day.
That's right.

All right, so does this have integration to OpenAI,
ChatGPT, Grok any of the AIsystems built into this robot?

Gwen Way (37:42):
It does have some large language models.
It does not necessarily pointout specific ones.
If I were to guess, it'sprobably ChatGPT.
Most things are these days.

That is correct, all right, okay.

If you do Grok, it is correct.
All right, okay.

All right, if you do.

Glock.
It could be a German Shepherd.

Wow, the comedy hour is going on.
Did you just pull that one out?
That is amazing.

I like that one.

I'm glad I stayed on for the segment.
That's all right, okay, allright.
Final question that all theviewers and, of course, we have
and we ask you each time is thisa unit that you would buy?

Gwen Way (38:18):
I don't think so simply because programming and
robotics is not my focus.
However, I will be keeping aneye on this for perhaps nieces
and nephews in the future.

Okay, all right.
So, last thing, where can wefind it again?
Kickstarter, what's the name ofit?

Gwen Way (38:34):
Kickstarter where can we find it again?
Kickstarter, what's, what's thename of it?
Kickstarter?
You can search for eithersirius, s-i-r-i-u-s or hangbot
h-e-n-g-b-o-t.

All right going, that's you know.
You know what.
I did do a lot of research onit, so it and if it weren't for
the price tag, he'd already.
Yeah, actually the price tag isjust the price tag.
Just killed me because of theluna one I got for 399.

It uses chat gpt it's consumer based, and that's
really why he doesn't want tomake the dog jealous is because
it's cheaper well.

Yeah, it is cheaper , but it did look.
I'll keep my eye.
That's why you know what I didis I tagged the and I joined the
facebook group of this company.
So I'm going to keep an eye onthis company.
I'm not surprised if we comeback with another Kickstarter
from this company, and Iprobably would back it.
They do have some very goodengineers, it looks like on
staff.
This robot does look superior asa dog robot than most of the

(39:28):
stuff I see out there in themarket right now.
So it's not by any means acheap, flimsy dog.
It looks very high-tech and Ican see this being used in like
a battle bots type of scenarioor an engineering type of
scenario where you have dogsdoing different stuff and
competitions, because there's alot that can be done to this.
So thank you so much forsharing this to our group of

(39:49):
listeners.
Well, thank you all.
All right, well, we want tothank gwen for being a part of
the show.
She does a great job of findingthe most unique items each
month for our show.
And now let's move on to mike'smesmerizing moment.
Welcome to mike's mesmerizingmoment.
What does mike have to saytoday?

(40:11):
All right, here's my questionto you mike, with all these
hallucinations and AI.
Does the average person nowquestion the information that
they're getting from AI?

First off, I hate the word hallucination because
it implies that there'ssomething going on.
That's not true.

Okay.

And these are not individuals that have
hallucinations.
These are pulling informationfrom already established places,
so I have a problem with thatterm.

Okay, the second question, and you've said that
before on the show yeah, that isnow the term in the industry.

Again, we're relating it to human, we're
relating it to the humansituation, and we shouldn't be,
and so we're calling it thingsthat a human, a human person,
that you have hallucinations, weall have hallucinations.
Okay, right, a dream istechnically a hallucination,
right, if you've ever beenfalling asleep and you heard a
loud noise and woke up?

(41:10):
Yeah, that's a, that's ahallucination.
Okay, right.
So, but we have these.
But we have these things.
We have these things that, ifthey get worse, it means we have
mental health problems.
We start seeing and hearingthings that aren't there.
Okay, when we apply it tosomething like an AI, they are
not pulling things out of theair, they are pulling it from

(41:32):
data sets.
Okay, so these are nothallucinations.
These are errors in theiralgorithms or whatever.
They are pulling it from datasets.
So these are not hallucinations.
These are errors in theiralgorithms or whatever.

So what was the question?
Does the average person nowquestion information on AI?

when you get that back, I'm going to say no, okay,
most of the time we don'tquestion things like that.
One of the reasons is it's easyto just believe everything we
read okay, okay, it's.
We've.
We've known about thisphenomenon forever.
If it's on tv, it must be true.
If it's in the paper, it mustbe true.
If the chatbot is telling meit's mecha hitler, it must be

(42:10):
true.

I had somebody that believes with all sincerity
that there is a group of peoplein the center of the earth now
that are controlling how theearth rotates and all the
vegetation and everything inthere.
He also believes that the earthis flat.
I didn't know.

(42:31):
Greg McNabb did all that.
It's just interesting that yousee something now online and
people are just believing it.

So I, this has happened.
It falls into a phenomenoncalled social proof.
Okay, so social proof meansthat if I'm going to go buy a
car, yeah, and I'm looking at,let's say, a Camaro because
that's my favorite car, right,I'm looking at a Camaro.
But I'm looking at, let's say,a Camaro because that's my
favorite car, right, I'm lookingat a Camaro, but I'm going, I

(42:59):
just don't know about this.
And you come along and you said, oh God, you got to get that
Camaro.

Yeah.

Because Camaros are awesome.
I've just now linked up withyou and you've given me proof
that my decision is the rightdecision.

Okay.

So I'm more likely to buy the Camaro.
This is the right decision.
Okay, okay, so I'm more likelyto buy the camaro.
This is, this is the same thing.
So when we see things on inprint, we say, okay, so somebody
wrote this, somebody agreedthat this was the right thing to
write.
Now I can agree that this istrue.
This is why we have troublewith uh, you know, fake news and
and whatever else we're we'redealing with in today's social

(43:38):
status Sphere, stratosphere.
That's a good word, even thoughyou didn't pronounce it.

Sphere of stratus, All right thanks, sphere of
stratus.
There you go, thank you, okay,you just totally blew that
moment.
But that's okay.
Well, no, I didn't blow themoment.
That'll be good.
Clipto will get replayed andreplayed and replayed online.

What did he just say?

Ody (43:59):
He just said words came out of his mouth.
That's a big word for Elmo.

All right.
Thank you, mike, for thatmesmerizing moment.
Up next we have this week intechnology so now would be a
great time to enjoy a littlewhiskey on the side, because
we're going to be doing soduring the break.
See you in a few minutes, hey.

Mike, yeah, what's up?

Hey, so you know what.
We need people to start likingour social media page.

If you like our show, if you really like us, we
could use your support onPatreoncom.
Is it Patreon?
I think it's Patreon, okay,patreon.
If you really like us, you canlike us at patreoncom.

I butcher the English language.
You know, you butcher theEnglish language all the time.

It's patreoncom.
If you really like our show,you can subscribe to patreoncom
and help us out, and you canvisit us on that Facebook
platform.

You know the one that Zuckerberg owns, the one
that we always bag on.
Yeah, we're on Facebook too.
Yeah, like us on Facebook.
Do you know what our Facebookpage is?
Tech Time Radio.
At Tech Time Radio, you knowwhat?
There's a trend here.

It seems to be that there's a trend, and that's
Tech Time Radio.

Or you can even.
Instagram with us and that's atTech Time Radio.
That's at Tech Time Radio.

Or you can like us.
Like us and subscribe.

That's it, that's it, that's that simple.

Speaker 1 (45:23):
And now let's look back at this week in technology.

Alright, we're going to go back to July 17th
2014.
Talk to us, omar Alright.
Jeremy Berg, the founder ofEmojipedia, created World Emoji
Day, a celebration of emojis.
It is now a ubiquitous iconthat's used in text to
communicate and visuallyrepresent emotional cues.
Now, berg chose the date ofJuly 17th because Apple's emoji

(45:51):
for calendar displays July 17th,in reference to the date that
Steve Jobs originally introducedApple's iCal software.
Now, world Emoji Day has becomeso popular that it's influenced
design on the calendar emoji onother platforms.
Originally, companies otherthan Apple use a variety of
different dates on theircalendar, but now they have all

(46:11):
changed, except for two.
Microsoft and Facebook arenotably exempt.
Now let me ask you thisquestion what is your favorite
emoji?
What's?

what's that?
Notably notable exceptions,notably accept is not quite the
right way.

What's your favorite?

emoji.
Right now it's the birdie.
The birdie.

Yeah, okay, all right.

What birdie?
The one that you were allthrowing at us during the thing,
the middle finger, the middlefinger one.

Oh, okay, all right , we know, yours is the poop one
, mine is the poop.
I like the poop.

Ody (46:50):
Basic answer.

What is yours?

Ody (46:53):
Mine's either, the crying emoji.

Yeah, you like the crying emoji.

Ody (46:58):
I think I said like the chef's kiss emoji, okay.

Okay, that's good.
All right, I'm fully versed inall forms of emoji language.

There you go.
Well, that was this Week inTechnology.
If you ever wanted to watchsome Tech Time History, with
over 250 plus weekly broadcastsspanning four plus years of
video, podcasts and bloginformation, you know, we're
Okay.
How does it feel?
From year one to year five,it's been amazing, do you feel?

Ody (47:25):
like he's grown.
He's amazing as a readerAmazing, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, he's grown as a reader.
All right, we're going to takea commercial break.
I think Elmo was the propername.

Speaker 8 (47:54):
When we return, we have Mark's Mumble Whiskey
Review.
See you after the break,attention, all geeks.
And See you after the break.
And a street fair brimming withunique vendors.
From the innovative GeektopiaVendor Hall to the Galactic Time
Warp showcasing beloved filmclassics, including Ghostbusters
, the Wrath of Khan and ourspecial 40th anniversary showing
of Goonies, there's somethingfor everyone.

(48:16):
Plus, participate ininteractive events, from keynote
speakers each day to specialguest artists.
Tickets are on sale now.
Secure your spot for this epiccelebration at geekfestcom.
Get your badges from one daypasses to VIP options, and don't
be left out.
Visit geekfestcom Geek FestWest, the biggest gathering of

(48:37):
geek fandom in Snohomish County.

The segment we've been waiting all week for
mark's whiskey mumble.
Really all right.
Yes, oh yeah, mike, oh he's gotthe giggles all day today.

What's up with her?
She must be very happy, allright.

Seriously no, so this is from Mike and Odie.
Yes, we are celebrating Nathantoday, on July 15th.
Why?
What is that?
It's National Be a Dork Day, oh.

I'll embrace that.
I like that.
I'm good with that.

You're good with that.
Yeah, I'm good with that.
You're good with that, yeah.
Today has us getting ready tolet go of our inhibitions for
the day.
A dork, by definition, is aperson who generally lacks
social skills and tends to have,you know, interesting interests
and hobbies.
Okay, eccentric.

Control yourself, odie, control yourself.

Using a dork's, fashion sense is also questioned
, so their outfits tend to bemismatched, ugly or something
most people would prefer not towear.
National Be A Dork Day aims tocelebrate the dork in all of us.
All right, so we bring out thatlittle Nathan in all of us.

All right, there's also another name for dork that
we can't say on the radio.
Okay, hold up.

All right.

Okay, are you okay, odie?

Ody (50:06):
You don't want to stay on this subject.
I like dorks.
I just roasted the crap out of.

Nathan, right there I know Everything you said will
be Nathan, all by himself.

People can say I'm being mean, but all you have
to do is take the camera andthen pan to the rest of the
studio and you will allunderstand.

We will see the dork definition come to life.

I need more shelves to put more toys on.

Now, since today is a time we proudly own what
makes us wonderfully weird, itfeels only fitting to lean into
our own brand of nerdiness witha head-to-head whiskey showdown
between two uniquely Finnishcontenders.

Nerd is different than dork.

Well, I shifted it for us.
Oh, okay, Alright.
So one of these today we aredrinking is Bacta 1928 Rye
Whiskey from France.
It's a Finnish rye whiskey, 100proof.
It's 60% rye with 30% Cavadosand 10% blend of Armagnac $67.
And the other one we aredrinking is the Yellowstone

(51:06):
Special Finish CollectionToasted.
This is from Luxe Row, fromKentucky.
It's a finished straightbourbon, four years, 100 proof,
75% corn, 13% rye, 12 maltedbarley $52.
Okay.

All right.

He's not listening to you.
He's looking at hands hang on.
You called me a dork.

So as you talk about these, I'm gonna run over
and get some dorky stuff wedon't need to get dorky stuff so
, mike, while he's off screenand out of things.

So which one are you leaning to?
We have one in a beer glass andone in a Glencairn Mike.

You know I'm going more for the rye.
I think my turn to the darkside is complete here because
the rye is a little bit morerobust than the other one.

I like both of them .

All right, okay, senior dork.

I'm taking this as my favorite.

The Glencairn.
So Mike already thinks he knowswhich one's which Do you?

know which one's which I think I do too, yes.

Okay, we'll save that for the final.

Okay.

All right.
What is your dorky things thatyou grabbed?

for us.
I'll just say it.

Okay, speaking of a dork, he's now going to prove
to us why him.
I'll just say so.

This is an original Star Wars and they call it like
the 12-card back the original.

Yes, it's big hand-to-hand solo.

It's Han Solo.
Right, there you go.
Original in the box Still neverbeen opened.
Do you know how much those badboy dorky things?

Speaker 2 (52:34):
go for 500 bucks.

Yeah, you saw my pull it up.

Yeah, that's because you jumped up and ran
away.
Hopefully on YouTube they alsosaw your mismatched outfit that
you're wearing today too.

Ody (52:44):
Yeah, the dorky outfit.

Oh no.

Did they see my pants?
Probably yeah, oh no your halfpants, my half pants.

It says, you know it's a party below and business
above.
Are you wearing cargo shorts?
I'm wearing some shorts.
That's correct, all right.

Well, and a In a sports jacket.
Okay, everybody, if you're notwatching the video, you need to
go to the video.

Did I nail it or what you did nail it?

Okay.

You know what Whiskey and technology are such
a?

great pairing.
I don't think Odie's going tobe able to recover.

I don't either Like swimming and water in your ear.

Ody (53:17):
You know that's real dorky of you too to make a pairing
every episode.

I know, have you ever gone swimming?
And they're really bad most ofthe time.
All right, let's prepare nowfor our technology fail of the
week, brought to us by all mystaff at Tech Time Radio.
I think Nathan might be thetechnology fail.

Speaker 9 (53:34):
You're a failure.
Oh, I failed.
Did I yes, did I yes.

All right.
Today's technology fail comesto us from Ingram Micro.

Just say I am the technology fail, I am the
technology fail.

No, no, no.
So let's talk about this.
Does anybody know what IngramMicro is?
It's a huge, huge computervalue-added reseller.
A big word for bloated moneyfor no reason.
That's what I call it, but theyare an IT giant.
Ingram Micro, though, wascaused by a ransomware attack
this last week that led toshutdown of all their internal

(54:12):
systems.
Now they're supposed to providethe best security, hardware,
software, cloud service,logistics and training to
resellers and managed serviceproviders.
World, worldwide, worldwideworld ride, that's a little bit.

Is it?
Is it the russian, russianbasketball player?
Well, no, it's not take downingram?

no, so their website and online ordering
systems were completely shutdown, with the company not
disclosing what the cause was.
We have found out that this wasdue to a cyber attack that
occurred thursday morning of theprevious week, with employees
suddenly finding ransomwarenotes on their devices.
So here's the problem when youcome on out and you won't tell
anybody what happens, and allyour employees are posting

(54:54):
pictures online in their socialmedia that says they've been
hacked, your pr person, a number101, should probably say we
have an issue and we're takingcare of it.
Don't try to deny that this ishappening.

Why?
Why would they do that?
Because then they can, you know, hide behind their, their
corporate uh their corporateimage.

Okay, well, the ransom note is associated with
the safe pay ransomwareoperation, which began one of
the more active operations in2025.
It's unclear if the deviceswere actually encrypted in the
attack, but it was noted.
The ransomware claims to havestolen a wide variety of
information.
This generic language is usedin almost all of safe pays
ransomware notes, so it may notactually be specifically

(55:33):
targeted to the Ingram microattack.
Now.
Ingram micro has sinceannounced that they are
restoring their systems.
But my question goes back toyou how does one of the largest
it service and securityproviders get hacked?
You know how, because it'sabout sales, not support or
tools.
These large companies, ifyou're buying their IT services,

(55:53):
you are getting taken advantageof, because most of the time,
if you use them as themiddleware person, they have no
knowledge, no understanding oreven the correct deployment
methods for this technology.
Your IT expert advice here goto the company that makes the
software work with them directlyand work with their engineers,
instead of a middleman or avalue-added reseller.

So the bottom line for this company is they're
a sales company, not really atechnology company.

I know, but if you just go and take a look at them
out in the world, theydistribute their knowledge as a
technology company they selltechnology.
They sell technology.
If I need to buy a Dellcomputer, I could buy it through
them.
Or you know what?
It's even better if I want tobuy a Dell computer, why don't I
go to Dellcom and get one oftheir sales representatives and
buy it directly, so that if Ineed support, I get it from them
?

Easy to use.
Ease of use people.
I know some companies that theybuy only from like ingram,
micro or some of the othercompetitors of theirs, because
they want a one-stop shop.

They just want to go to the same place.
That's because people are lazy.

All right, let's go .

Speaker 1 (56:57):
Now they're dorks to our nathan nugget this is your
nugget of the week all right,this is exciting.

Video game actor strikes officially ended.
So did you know that the videogame people are going on strike?

we actually talked about this, about this um two
years ago almost two years ago,are you sure?

I yeah, because they've been on strike for over
a year plus and they actually,before they went strike, they
were already talking about it,but both sides have come to an
agreement that says the SAG, theSAG A-F-T-R-A, aftra is the
group that they call for.
These voice actors have agreedto 24 out of the 25 areas of

(57:39):
sticking points.
The main sticking point, though, and the biggest barrier, was
the disagreement over motioncapture.
Actors who work are treated asdata rather than performance.
So motion capture so if you allthe cgi people that go on out
there when they yes they.
They capture that information.
They said that that was not anactor yeah, that's.

That's why uh, what's his name?
Was not able to win an awardfor Lord of the Rings.

Yep, okay, you mean Sir Gollum.

Yeah.

Yep, okay.
So the historical wage increasehas happened.
Now all of your big name voiceactors and performers can come
back on and do all of theirstuff, just in time to be
implemented in the grand theftauto's new game, so that they
have all of their main originalcharacters back.
Now let's move to our pick ofthe day whiskey tastings and now

(58:35):
our pick of the day for ourwhiskey tastings.

Let's see what bubbles to the top all right, so
we just started our round two.
For their Flavor Aven calendar,we have a head-to-head between
a finished rye and a finishedstraight bourbon.

All right.
So I am sure this is.
I believe this is the finishedrye and I believe this is the
finished bourbon.
That's what I'm going to gowith.

So you said the Glencairn is the rye and the
beer glass is the bourbon.
That's what I believe.
And which one did you choose?

I choose the.
I choose.

Pikachu.

Okay.

And Mike.
Which one did you choose?

I chose the rye out of the beer glass.

Oh, we have a disagreement between what is
what, and there you have adisagreement between their
favorites.
Okay, dun dun dun, dun, dun dunDun dun, dun you guys going to
work this out, or do I have tochoose?

Well, you got to tell us who's got right on the
rye first.

Oh, mike's right.
Okay, mike knows his rye'spalates now Okay.
I've trained him well.

He is getting to be a connoisseur.

Look at that little winky, is the Bacta 1928
Rye Whiskey which has theCavados and the Armagnac
finished with it.
And the Glencairn, which iswhat you chose, is the
Yellowstone, which is theFinnish Straight Bourbon, which
is a toasted barrel stage.

I like them.
You know what I'll say both arethumbs up, though I'll just
tell you that I could drink botha lot.
Yeah, they're both really good.
This is your first choice, Iguess this is not my first
choice.

Marc Gregoire (01:00:07):
We had one in round one and it involved the
bhakta also.
Oh, did it really?
It did, and you did not choosethe bhakta that time either, and
Mike chose it.

Nathan Mumm (01:00:17):
Okay, so you know what we're consistent then.
So we are consistent.

I have not chosen it both times, but you didn't
like it the first time.
You said it was not good.
Okay, I have to go back to thescript to see if you may have
even given a thumbs down, Icould have.

I can see that Now you're saying they're both
really good.

I would take both .
Maybe you're growing too.

No, no, I am not growing.

I just like alcohol.
Well, the winner, the winner,is the Bokta 1928 Rye Whiskey.
Woo-hoo, it's moving on again.
It's moving on again, oh boy.

Okay, all right.
Well so that means all of thisI can drink myself on my own
private reserve, then.

That is true and I have here, we have this much
left.

Okay, we have another glass Okay perfect, all
right.
Well, Mike, guess what?
What Elmo's telling you?
We're about out of time.
We want to thank our listenerswho joined the program.
He can't even get the referenceright If you want to hear from
us.
Elmo says it's out of time.

(01:01:17):
That's right.
Wow.
Appearing at the Comedy Club wehave Mike Corday.

Everybody give him a round of applause.
Do I get to push your bellybutton, Mike?
No, I don't.

Mike Gorday (01:01:24):
No comedy club.
We have Mike Corday, everybodygive a round of applause.

No, I don't.
No, we don't want to touch that.
We want to thank our listenersfor joining the program.
Listeners, we want to hear fromyou, so visit us at
techtimeradiocom.
Click on, be A Caller, Ask us aquestion on technology or in
our TalkBack recording system.
You can always stay connectedby visiting us online.
Remember, the science oftomorrow starts with the
technology of today.

(01:01:45):
We'll see you guys next weekLater.
Bye, bye.

Speaker 1 (01:01:51):
Thanks for joining us on tech time radio.
We hope that you had a chanceto have that moment today in
technology.
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From all of us at tech timeradio Remember mom's the word.
Have a safe and fantastic week.

All Episodes

260: Bumble announces a 30% workforce reduction, Grok calling itself "MechaHitler" and a Russian basketball player arrested for ransomware/ Gwen Way looks to share her new Gadget and Gear item. | Air Date: 7/15 - 7/21/2025

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