Grumpy Old Geeks
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Ep 688: Why, Combinator? - Ad Free!
🕑 Added 2025-03-14 20:16:14 +0000 UTC
It’s Pi Day, and while the world celebrates the most irrational number (besides crypto bros), we dive into a different kind of irrationality—the American oligarchy. Speaking of money, Deliveroo finally posted a profit, but their investors still had a hissy fit. Meanwhile, Americans lost a record-breaking $12.5 billion to scams last year, proving that AI, social media, and deepfake grandsons are really leveling up their grift game. The FCC is forming a Council for National Security, which sounds important until you realize it’s mostly about making sure China doesn’t win the AI arms race. And in the latest episode of “How Not to Run a Government,” the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) fired cybersecurity experts like they were spam emails—until a judge called BS and ordered their reinstatement.
Y Combinator just turned 20, and what a legacy—turning gig work into corporate slavery, ruining housing with Airbnb, and ensuring OpenAI floods our lives with AI-generated junk. If that wasn’t enough tech doom, Pinterest wants to steal your content for its AI training, Twitter (sorry, X) went down due to sheer incompetence, and a developer got caught implanting a kill switch at his old job—because passive-aggressively slacking off wasn’t extreme enough. On the bright side, Severance Season 2 is finally here, costing an absurd $20 million per episode (apparently, awkward silences are expensive now). And if you’ve ever wanted to separate voices in audio like an NSA analyst, AudioShake just dropped a new AI tool to do exactly that. Meanwhile, Ted Lasso is somehow back for another season, proving that Apple will never let go of a hit.
Finally, in The Dark Side with Dave, we get a Florida vacation recap, learn how to bait romance scammers for fun, and discover that hermit crabs form conga lines to swap shells—which is somehow still more cooperative than most tech companies. That’s a wrap on this week’s parade of absurdity. Stay grumpy, folks.
Show notes at https://gog.show/688
FOLLOW UP
It's Pi Day. Here's Why This Special Number Gets a Global Celebration.
The Man Behind The American Oligarchy
IN THE NEWS
Deliveroo turns first annual profit as it plots bigger grocery push
FTC says Americans lost $12.5B to scams last year — social media, AI, and crypto didn't help
Consumer Reports finds popular voice cloning tools lack safeguards
The FCC is creating a new Council for National Security within the agency
DOGE axes CISA ‘red team’ staffers amid ongoing federal cuts
Judge Calls DOGE Firings a ‘Sham,’ Orders Thousands of Workers to Be Reinstated ‘Immediately’
20 Plagues Y Combinator Unleashed on the World Over the Last 20 Years
‘We Are Witnessing a New Brain Drain’ as Scientists Flee America for France
Elon Musk claims bad actors in Ukraine are behind “massive“ X cyberattack
The Real Reason Twitter Went Down Actually Sounds Pretty Embarrassing
Developer convicted for “kill switch” code activated upon his termination
Pinterest to Train AI Models on User Content
U.S. Housing Agency Considers Launching Crypto Experiment
Waymo was slapped with nearly 600 parking tickets last year in SF alone
Are We Inside a Black Hole? Wonky Galaxy Movements Suggest It’s Possible, Physicist Says
MEDIA CANDY
Severance is laughing at you
Somehow, Severance season 2 cost an enormous $20 million per episode
Eddy Cue and Ben Stiller interview each other about Severance on SXSW stage
Paradise
The White Lotus
Black Mirror: Season 7 | Official Trailer | Netflix
Ted Lasso Returning for Season 4 with Jason Sudeikis
Apple Music Classical expands to the web
Aphex Twin Curates a Massive 191-Song Playlist for Supreme
Playlist - Music selected by Aphex Twin for Supreme.
Matt Pinfield Comes Out of a Coma After Suffering Massive Stroke: “Guys, I’m Alive”
APPS & DOODADS
AudioShake Launches Breakthrough AI Model to Separate Overlapping Voices in Audio
Zoom PodTrak P2 Podcast Recorder
Apple reportedly plans to add a live-translation feature to AirPods
'Don't let your kids be on Roblox', Roblox CEO tells parents, before comparing himself to Walt Disney and declaring the platform 'the future of communication'
AT THE LIBRARY
Careless People: A Cautionary Tale of Power, Greed, and Lost Idealism by Sarah Wynn-Williams
Meta is trying to silence a former executive. In an interview, she tells BI why.
THE DARK SIDE WITH DAVE
Dave Bittner
The CyberWire
Hacking Humans
Caveat
Control Loop
Only Malware in the Building
Gravity Falls
My Scammer Girlfriend: Baiting A Romance Fraudster
Hermit Crabs: Conga Line Cooperation
Comments
Count Sqwueekula
“Big fat Disney credit cards” is the official designation of meatbags as they cross the turnstiles.
Susanne @_tinykawaii_
Jason, you got me for a second. I misheard the new word you learned as "Dodel" which is an Austrian dialect word for "idiot" (but slightly politer than using the latter) and I immediately drew political connections to your current government.
