April 25, 2025

694: Hammers Don’t Hallucinate

Fyre Festival reboots as a music app; Amazon and Microsoft hit pause on AI infrastructure; Google’s AI hallucinates confidently; Kevin Roose wants us to feel bad for Skynet Jr.; OpenAI wants Chrome despite being broke; Perplexity brags about stalking your browser; Meta axes more VR staff while faking human rights concern; Uber gets sued for canceling like a cult; Adam Neumann cons investors (again); sperm racing becomes crypto sport; Bluesky sells out to the blue check; Affinity claps back at Adobe; Wheel of Time RPG is coming—eventually; Wednesday gets another season; and on The Dark Side, we rage about Andor, bad scripts, arcade nostalgia, and color memory, while Altman sobs over AI’s manners budget.

Show Notes

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

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