Latest / Nonsense with cj little and Jeff Parker / HEADLINES: The Pentagon’s AI Side-Piece, the Great Streaming Slop-Bucket, and Charter Swallows the Internet

Transcript

HEADLINES: The Pentagon’s AI Side-Piece, the Great Streaming Slop-Bucket, and Charter Swallows the Internet · Nonsense with cj little and Jeff Parker

• 0:00
  Could we not bomb the people who we get oil from?
• 0:02
  I think we pay enough for gasoline.
• 0:04
  Can we bomb people that we get herpes from?
• 0:07
  That would solve a lot of problems.
• 0:08
  Bad news call girls, I got a signed memorandum from Mr. Gates
• 0:12
  saying that he got herpes from one of y'all.
• 0:14
  Dropping bombs, now what? If in the 1980s, instead of
• 0:17
  Reagan having a war on drugs, we had a war on herpes, like what
• 0:20
  would that have looked like? How would that have changed the
• 0:22
  outcome of of the world? Probably would have been just as
• 0:25
  effective as the war on drugs. Exactly right.
• 0:27
  So we give the guns to the people that have the the herpes.
• 0:30
  You're like, wait, what? That doesn't make any sense.
• 0:33
  And then what? Well then they shoot the herpes.
• 0:35
  You're like, I don't think that's how this works.
• 0:37
  No quiet please. Nothing like the trickle down or
• 0:40
  herpes vaccine 32. The Apple Company presents a
• 0:53
  truly terrible podcast. Welcome to Nonsense season 4,
• 0:56
  episode 14. I'm Jeff Parker.
• 0:57
  I'm CJ Little. This is our take on the week's
• 1:00
  business, tech and entertainment headlines.
• 1:01
  This time, the Claude Paradox US missiles fly using AI.
• 1:05
  The president just banned. Oh.
• 1:07
  Great. So we're gonna go back to like,
• 1:08
  war planning with the Whopper? Yes, because somebody should
• 1:10
  call Broderick and let him. Know want to play a game?
• 1:12
  Paramount Warner Discovery deal eyes $6 billion in synergy
• 1:16
  savings Oh. Yeah, I know what that means.
• 1:18
  No more name brand snacks in the kitchen.
• 1:20
  It's all going to be just member.
• 1:21
  Mark, it means no more kitchen and it means no more employment
• 1:24
  in Los Angeles. What I meant, sorry.
• 1:25
  Also those things. Cables New King Charter buys
• 1:28
  Cox, surpassing Comcast. You know, I've noticed over the
• 1:30
  past few years that ISPs have really struggled with raising
• 1:33
  prices quickly, so I I hopefully this will help smooth that out
• 1:35
  for them. They can get back to their.
• 1:37
  I'm sure this is going to be great.
• 1:38
  Yeah. Also a big story later this week
• 1:40
  is about plastic purgatory. Past, present and future.
• 1:43
  It's World Wildlife Day. World Wildlife Day isn't just a
• 1:46
  salute to the majestic or the cute.
• 1:47
  It's a recognition of our own life support system, from the
• 1:50
  bees pollinating our food to the forest filtering our air.
• 1:53
  Every species plays a critical role in the machinery of our
• 1:55
  survival to protect them as to protect ourselves.
• 1:58
  Our survival isn't a solo act, it's a Symphony of coexistence.
• 2:01
  And that wildlife loves the plastic, too.
• 2:03
  How is your week going? Well, the highlight of my week
• 2:06
  was hosting a bunch of friends and family for my youngest son's
• 2:10
  birthday. How old is he now?
• 2:11
  He is 6. OK.
• 2:12
  Going on 30, yeah. He wanted a carnival themed
• 2:16
  birthday, which is like the cutest thing ever.
• 2:18
  And he knows that if we're going to do it, like we're going to do
• 2:20
  it. So we create did carnival games,
• 2:23
  like fun carnival games from the play Carnival food 'cause I was
• 2:26
  like you got to have carnival food.
• 2:28
  Rented a roller coaster. Rented a Ferris wheel.
• 2:30
  I thought about it, but then you start getting to real liability
• 2:33
  risk here, a wall of prizes. We got like giant stuffies, like
• 2:36
  the stuffies that the kids see when they go to the carnival,
• 2:38
  Like, oh sure, I want to win that.
• 2:40
  And they play the game and they get like the little tiny
• 2:41
  keychain stuffy. Like sure, I wanted to skip that
• 2:43
  step. So we got we really went
• 2:45
  overboard on on the stuffies. Every kid wins a giant stuff.
• 2:48
  Yeah, there were several kids that came up through and they're
• 2:49
  like, so how do I, how do I get the prizes?
• 2:51
  I'm like, well, you have to make it at least one ticket.
• 2:53
  Like you're basically play any game and get a ticket.
• 2:55
  And then one of the kids came over.
• 2:56
  He was so cute. He's like, well, but I have
• 2:58
  more. He has this like handful of
• 2:59
  tickets and he's like, so I should get a bigger prize.
• 3:00
  And I was like, that's exactly how this isn't going to work.
• 3:03
  Like what's gonna happen is everyone's here is going home
• 3:06
  with stuffies and we actually had extra at the end.
• 3:08
  So I was walking around the park handing them out to other
• 3:10
  parents. Cause like, it's creepy if I'm
• 3:12
  in the park handing out stuffies to kids.
• 3:14
  So the parents would be like, Hey, excuse me, we had this
• 3:16
  party. I have extra.
• 3:17
  Would you like some? And the parents really gracious.
• 3:19
  But I'm like, this is definitely how I get on a list.
• 3:21
  This is not a good. Absolutely thing to be doing,
• 3:23
  but I wanted, you know, me, I wanted to make the food like
• 3:25
  very fitting to the scene. So I literally considered
• 3:28
  renting a mobile deep fryer so that I could make funnel cakes.
• 3:31
  Oh yeah, surely they have like, Oh yeah, they exist.
• 3:33
  Food trucks that you can rent and those sorts of things.
• 3:36
  I've. Never made a funnel cake in my
• 3:37
  life, but I was like, what better time than learned it?
• 3:39
  Now I I think it was an extremely terrible idea.
• 3:41
  So I decided not to do that and instead I literally brought a
• 3:44
  BBQ from home from my stash at home.
• 3:47
  Yeah to the park because I didn't want to use the park.
• 3:49
  Barbecues are kind of gross, sure, and we would need like a
• 3:50
  big green space. We wanted to like, you know,
• 3:52
  equipment for the kids to play on.
• 3:54
  So rent it out the park. And I brought a barbecue and my
• 3:56
  friends that know me were like, did you bring this from your
• 3:58
  house? And I was like, sure did.
• 4:00
  So we had carnival food. It was great.
• 4:02
  Unfortunately, cooking meant that I was doing that most of
• 4:05
  the time, which I don't mind. So, but I couldn't run one of my
• 4:08
  favorite carny games that I wanted to run, which was the the
• 4:11
  whole guess your genre were like, they guess your weight,
• 4:13
  guess your wage or whatever. And I thought it'd be really fun
• 4:15
  to just guess the kids age because like, they're all 5 or
• 4:18
  6. They're all like, that's it.
• 4:19
  It's not hard, but. I don't want to be like, oh,
• 4:22
  you're like, are you 12? Like, no.
• 4:26
  Anyway, I thought it would've been really fun, but I.
• 4:27
  I guess I didn't guess it. You get a stuffy the.
• 4:29
  Kids loved it and like I got pictures from a bunch of parents
• 4:32
  of their of their kids sleeping with the stuffy they got like I
• 4:35
  love this stuffy forever. I'm never gonna let it go really
• 4:38
  cute. I also before the party a couple
• 4:40
  days for the party, I did hike up to a peak in the Santa Monica
• 4:43
  mountains. Yes, to do nerd things, which
• 4:45
  was to watch the return of the dragon cargo capsule, which came
• 4:48
  back in from the ISS, right. This is the fourth one that I've
• 4:51
  made it a point to to go see. You know, I'm a veteran now.
• 4:53
  I've seen three of these. I know what I'm doing.
• 4:55
  We got the camera set up. Sure, .1 in the corner.
• 4:57
  My one of my nephews was in town for the birthday party, so I
• 4:59
  brought him with me. Like you're gonna look over
• 5:01
  here, you're gonna see a thing. It's gonna be cool.
• 5:02
  I had three cameras, 4 sorry, 4 cameras set up.
• 5:05
  I know what I'm doing. And then we're like there
• 5:06
  waiting for you, 'cause the window, you kind of know within
• 5:08
  a couple minutes. Yeah.
• 5:09
  And one of my buddies was with us was like, oh dude, it's over
• 5:11
  there. And I thought he was completely
• 5:12
  screwing with me. Came in from a no different
• 5:14
  direction. It came in from a completely
• 5:16
  different trajectory, which broke my brain, 'cause I'm like,
• 5:18
  yeah, that thing's gonna land in like Downey and that's not good.
• 5:21
  Yeah, sure. That's not what you want.
• 5:22
  As it turns out, it did splash down in the water, everything
• 5:24
  was fine, but we almost missed it and barely got any shots of
• 5:27
  it. So I was a little bummed about
• 5:29
  that, but it was still really cool to see.
• 5:30
  I still recommend going and seeing these reentries if you
• 5:32
  can. Yeah, the first one I ever saw,
• 5:33
  I saw by accident. Yeah, I was actually driving
• 5:36
  somewhere and in my windshield I.
• 5:37
  See, I'm the worst way to see. Oh, my word.
• 5:39
  And it looked like. Oh, good.
• 5:41
  Here we go. War of the Worlds.
• 5:42
  Yeah, War of the. Worlds.
• 5:42
  That is exactly the first time I saw it.
• 5:44
  I did not know that it was happening and I saw it and I was
• 5:47
  like, oh, this is not good. And my dinosaur aviation brain
• 5:51
  tried to, to, to rationalize it, of course.
• 5:53
  And I was like, nothing looks like that.
• 5:55
  Like nothing, right? Nothing looks like that.
• 5:58
  So no, this can't be. Good.
• 5:59
  It turns out nothing does. Look like, yeah, it's very
• 6:01
  unique. And I still have a tremendous
• 6:03
  amount of regret of not going to see the shuttle land.
• 6:05
  And Edwards, when I was much younger and more handsome and
• 6:09
  when I first met you and didn't make the opportunity to go
• 6:11
  because I was like, oh, it's that shuttle, It'll land again
• 6:14
  here. I'll go some other time.
• 6:15
  Yeah. And I never went to go see it.
• 6:16
  So now I'm going to watch every single one of these.
• 6:18
  You can watch them build a building around it at USC.
• 6:20
  That's also going to be really cool.
• 6:22
  I do you fully expect that? Like I plan on having paint
• 6:24
  picks inside that thing as often as I can.
• 6:25
  Until they banned me. Anyway, that was my week.
• 6:28
  It was. Those two things were a lot of
• 6:30
  fun and I had a great time. That's a good week.
• 6:32
  Yeah. How about you?
• 6:33
  Going into month 3 of deferred maintenance on the House, you
• 6:36
  can hear the pounding. I mean, there are still workers
• 6:37
  who are still at this late hour, still here, which is kind of
• 6:40
  crazy. I know when I showed up this
• 6:41
  morning, they handed me a paintbrush.
• 6:42
  I was like, no. I'm not get to work.
• 6:44
  Everybody gets to work here. Terrible paint.
• 6:45
  My poor neighbors. There's so many workers in the
• 6:48
  yard and the parking out front is bad.
• 6:50
  Your. Neighbors have done much worse
• 6:51
  reconstruction project the new poor neighbors.
• 6:53
  At least these people are fairly thoughtful workmen.
• 6:56
  Yeah, I want to say out of out of all of this in case anyone
• 6:58
  needs some advice if you're gonna do some serious house
• 7:01
  sprucing. Up I needed some advice.
• 7:02
  The best move I made was paying the painters by the hour.
• 7:05
  Why? I could have had them give me a
• 7:07
  flat bid, Sure. And then they would have done
• 7:09
  things like painted gates and things and just painted over the
• 7:12
  wood. That was like completely, yeah,
• 7:13
  just 'cause now they're finding everything, right?
• 7:15
  Sure. In this case, they call me over
• 7:16
  and they say, look, I can stick my finger in so rotten here.
• 7:19
  I can stick my finger through the wood.
• 7:20
  Sure. And every little thing they
• 7:22
  find. And it's been wonderful to get
• 7:23
  all of that stuff replaced and fixed and not falling.
• 7:26
  Apart I noticed the scar where they took out the other kidney
• 7:28
  that doesn't I feel like. It's not cheap, yeah, but your
• 7:32
  option is you're getting a coat of paint over a house that's
• 7:34
  falling apart, and no one's improving you.
• 7:37
  You redo. In your house.
• 7:38
  It's like when people restore classic cars.
• 7:40
  I don't want to be the guy doing it.
• 7:41
  I want to be the guy buying it when you're done.
• 7:43
  Like I want to get, I want to get all that stuff for like
• 7:45
  $0.20 on the dollar when you're done.
• 7:46
  I have a hunch that our original contractor.
• 7:49
  Did all of the things that he did with the.
• 7:51
  Expectation of coming back under the.
• 7:52
  No, under the impression that we would long be moved out of here
• 7:55
  by the time the stuff falling apart.
• 7:57
  Yeah, everybody that builds everything, they're just like,
• 7:59
  oh, you're not gonna have to worry about it.
• 8:00
  Like, well, maybe I will. Are we the new new Yankee
• 8:03
  Workshop? Or is it this super old house?
• 8:06
  What? What's our new branding feel
• 8:07
  like? It's a home improvement.
• 8:08
  Store Old House As the painting outside winds down, the demo for
• 8:12
  the inside remodeling begins. As the painting winds down, Sir,
• 8:15
  I will take the over. I will go to Calci right now and
• 8:17
  put everything on the over. Does anyone actually like this
• 8:20
  process? Yeah, the guy's doing the work,
• 8:22
  getting paid by the hour. Like I didn't tell you because I
• 8:25
  felt awkward doing it, but the paintbrush they handed me was
• 8:27
  like a little tiny 4 bristle brush.
• 8:29
  Like he likes it to be very accurate.
• 8:30
  And neat. Well, they have done excellent
• 8:32
  work. They don't even like that of.
• 8:33
  Course that's what you want. All right, so we get to our
• 8:35
  headline. I hope so.
• 8:36
  We're here. Why not banned but not deployed?
• 8:38
  The Pentagon uses Anthropic for strikes hours after Trump
• 8:41
  banned. The irony is lethal.
• 8:42
  Hours after the Trump administration blacklisted
• 8:44
  Anthropic from federal contracts, the Pentagon
• 8:46
  reportedly utilized Claude's reasoning capabilities to
• 8:49
  coordinate precision strikes across the Middle East.
• 8:51
  The ban, triggered by Anthropic's refusal to waive
• 8:54
  safety filters for lethal bombing operations, hit a wall
• 8:56
  of operational reality. While the White House demands AI
• 8:59
  without blinders, the military remains quietly addicted to the
• 9:02
  very sophisticated logic the banned targets.
• 9:04
  Yeah, The logic is exceptional. The logic is this.
• 9:07
  We can find a way to make this kind of sound legal, therefore
• 9:11
  we're going to do it. That is basically the logic,
• 9:13
  Yeah. And we've been doing this now
• 9:15
  for, I kind of think, forever. But at least for the past 30
• 9:17
  years that I've been paying attention, this has been the
• 9:19
  case. Anthropic is very clearly saying
• 9:21
  please do not use is our AI to target yeah, people you are
• 9:25
  going to kill. Yeah, our AI is not good enough
• 9:27
  to do this. We might just get Bill in
• 9:30
  Montana. No, anthropics not saying that
• 9:32
  they're saying if you use our AI to target people to kill them,
• 9:35
  have a human be in the loop to control and find the same thing.
• 9:38
  Well, but you would still use it to target to say yes or no.
• 9:40
  They're just saying that you need to have a human that isn't
• 9:42
  just responsible, but is in control.
• 9:44
  That is an inherent differences. They're saying you gotta have
• 9:46
  yes, some modicum of control. They've also sort of alluded
• 9:49
  this depends on how you read it, but my read on it is they've
• 9:52
  alluded that it's at some point that won't be a necessity, but
• 9:54
  they're saying right now, and I think this is them being
• 9:56
  extremely right realistic. They're saying right now there's
• 9:59
  safety con our stuff is not good enough, right?
• 10:02
  And really when they say our stuff, I think they mean all AI,
• 10:04
  all of our stuff. Everyone is not ready to go like
• 10:07
  I'm not willing to give this thing access to my Gmail.
• 10:10
  It probably shouldn't be running around targeting and killing
• 10:12
  people with no oversight. And that's right.
• 10:14
  That's where their their head is AT.
• 10:15
  And I look at that, I go, well, that's seems pretty reasonable
• 10:18
  to me. And and we're not talking about
• 10:20
  we lead with killing people. But there's another thing and
• 10:22
  I'd argue is even shouldn't argue is worse.
• 10:24
  There's another thing that's that's that's equally bad, which
• 10:26
  is the mass surveillance. They also say that's the thing.
• 10:29
  Yeah. They actually had somewhat come
• 10:31
  to terms about navigating what military can and can't do with
• 10:35
  AI. And then on Friday afternoon,
• 10:36
  Anthropic learned that the Pentagon still wanted to use the
• 10:38
  company's AI to analyze bulk data collected from Americans.
• 10:42
  That could include information such as questions you ask your
• 10:45
  favorite chatbot? Yeah, your Google search
• 10:46
  history, your GPS track movements, Yeah, credit card
• 10:49
  transactions, all of which could be crossed referenced with other
• 10:51
  details about your life. That's when Anthropic said no.
• 10:54
  Anthropic didn't say no to to mass surveillance.
• 10:56
  They said no to mass surveillance of Americans.
• 10:59
  Yes, that is explicitly what they said, right, right.
• 11:01
  And there are so many end runs around this.
• 11:03
  This is what Jeff was alluding to earlier.
• 11:05
  And what we, what we do see now in our our current intelligence
• 11:09
  complex is they'll be like, Oh no, we won't spy on Americans in
• 11:13
  America, right? They'll just go get the data
• 11:15
  outside of America and spy on Americans outside.
• 11:18
  And you're like, really? This is, this seems like the
• 11:20
  letter of the law, not the spirit of the law.
• 11:21
  Maybe we should, I don't know, update the laws because that
• 11:23
  doesn't seem like the thing that we want to do.
• 11:25
  But this has been going on for 25 years, right?
• 11:26
  Since post 911 Patriot Act, we've basically given up these
• 11:29
  liberties under the the the sort of FUD doctrine of of we're
• 11:33
  scared. I'm not sure we legally gave up
• 11:35
  these liberties. We gave up a lot in the Patriot
• 11:38
  Act for sure. We did.
• 11:39
  We did. But I think the government has
• 11:40
  just taken that and pushed that way farther than than we were
• 11:43
  ever allowing in the Patriot. Act Oh yeah, for sure.
• 11:46
  It's definitely been advanced. Let's say that's a nice word
• 11:49
  that probably doesn't get me shot.
• 11:51
  Maybe, maybe not. So Anthropics says no to the
• 11:53
  deal and and like a couple hours later, Open AI Sam Altman makes
• 11:58
  a deal called the Frontier Defense Pact, which basically
• 12:01
  gives all of those things to the Pentagon.
• 12:03
  Yeah. So open AI stance on this is as
• 12:06
  long as it's legal and lawful, they can do it, right?
• 12:08
  That's their basic stance, as they're saying, well, only
• 12:10
  things that are legal and lawful.
• 12:11
  That allows the administration to open up its definition of
• 12:14
  what is legal and lawful, and they get to interpret what is
• 12:17
  and is not legal and. Lawful and there's also so many,
• 12:19
  you know, you can't unring the bell scenarios, as we've seen,
• 12:22
  especially more so lately where it's like, I'm just going to do
• 12:25
  what I want to do because I have all the power and by the time
• 12:27
  the courts catch up and figure it out, the damage is already
• 12:30
  done. Like, say, declare war.
• 12:31
  That would be. That would be one example of
• 12:34
  many. Because when I was in fifth
• 12:35
  grade and I read the Constitution, they said that
• 12:37
  that had to come from Congress. Well, now apparently that
• 12:39
  doesn't have to come from Yeah, if you missed a few days of the
• 12:42
  news. But apparently I missed the one
• 12:43
  where we changed the Constitution.
• 12:45
  To be fair, when you were in fifth grade they hadn't fully
• 12:47
  read the Constitution because the ink was still.
• 12:49
  Wet. Thank you you.
• 12:50
  Don't even have to stop there, there's so many other examples.
• 12:52
  Samples of, you know, an interpretation.
• 12:54
  No, that's just a recent. One.
• 12:55
  Yeah, I know. Yeah, exactly.
• 12:56
  Sorry, One of many. We're trying to narrow the scope
• 12:59
  of the conversation. I appreciate that.
• 13:00
  But what what is known here and what is being exploited, At
• 13:03
  least part of what's being exploited in my eyes, is the
• 13:05
  fact that the system is inherently not fast.
• 13:08
  The system takes time, the justice.
• 13:10
  System. Yes, and that's to make sure
• 13:11
  that we get it right to be right over being quick.
• 13:14
  It's better to be right and accurate than to be fast.
• 13:17
  And then you can take advantage of that if you have a modicum of
• 13:19
  power. And like, let's say you're
• 13:20
  granted some modicum of immunity, you just go do
• 13:23
  whatever the hell that you want. Yeah.
• 13:24
  And by the time they catch up to you, the damage is already done.
• 13:27
  And that's being executed, from my observation, extremely well.
• 13:30
  Yeah. Just like, Nope, I'm gonna just
• 13:31
  do this, and good luck. And you've already done the
• 13:33
  damage, whether it's with declaring war, some sort of
• 13:36
  military invasion or practice or something as trivial quote, UN
• 13:40
  quote as tariffs. I could just do these things,
• 13:42
  and I'm not gonna worry about it.
• 13:43
  I have this power somewhere. Good luck catching up to me.
• 13:45
  Right. And it does, but it takes a
• 13:47
  while. So I still have some modicum of
• 13:48
  faith in the system, but it's so waning.
• 13:50
  Opening I didn't just join the military and open the door to
• 13:52
  your living room. In a massive deal with the
• 13:54
  Department of War, the company agreed to let federal agencies
• 13:56
  monitor its systems for national security.
• 13:58
  This means the government can now scan millions of private
• 14:01
  chats to spot troublemakers or anyone leaning against the
• 14:03
  administration. While Entropic got banned for
• 14:06
  protecting user boundaries, Open AI chose to become the ultimate
• 14:09
  snitch by handing over the keys to its data.
• 14:11
  Open AI traded your privacy for a permanent partnership with the
• 14:14
  state. They aren't just building AI
• 14:15
  anymore. They've built a Digital Spy.
• 14:18
  I like the idea of these large model providers locking.
• 14:22
  Terms and doing standing up to things like this that they
• 14:25
  believe shouldn't be the case. I really do like that idea.
• 14:28
  Little altruistic. Could it happen?
• 14:29
  Yeah, we could maybe make it happen.
• 14:31
  Has it happened? No, not really.
• 14:32
  Not in this case. That's not the solution to the
• 14:34
  problem. The solution to the problem is
• 14:35
  we got to change the law. We've got to make the law more
• 14:37
  specific and clear. We just did change the law.
• 14:40
  Under the 2026 Frontier Defense Framework, these scans would not
• 14:44
  require a warrant for each individual, which they would
• 14:47
  have until. This we've changed the law just
• 14:49
  to the different direction. The national Security
• 14:50
  designation allows the AI to run these checks as a background
• 14:54
  process on everyone simultaneously.
• 14:56
  And if I went and interviewed 100 Americans on the street
• 14:59
  today and asked them about any of this, my hunch is less than
• 15:02
  5%, maybe one would know what the hell we're talking about
• 15:05
  exactly. But meanwhile, we're we're
• 15:07
  arguing over the names that are on the doors of bathrooms.
• 15:10
  Like, those are the right, right?
• 15:11
  That's the thing that's important.
• 15:13
  But it's the distraction of the things that are truly important,
• 15:15
  like you giving up your, I don't say anonymity, but like, you now
• 15:18
  can be profiled more so than ever if you don't have these
• 15:20
  folks locking arms in this massive technology, which,
• 15:22
  again, I would argue that that wouldn't even solve the problem.
• 15:25
  You have too many open source models.
• 15:26
  Yeah. There's really nothing stopping
• 15:28
  the the government or any entity from being able to implement
• 15:30
  this themselves. You can get access to the data,
• 15:33
  right? With not even a lot of money, I
• 15:34
  can go buy all this data myself. Sure.
• 15:36
  Assemble it, throw a model on it and start finding out all sorts
• 15:39
  of things about you. Right.
• 15:40
  It's not that hard. But we should maybe have, I
• 15:42
  don't know, protections against it.
• 15:43
  Yeah, Ayatollah Khamenei is dead and Trump is projected we will
• 15:45
  have a four to five week war in Iran.
• 15:48
  What's the over under? On time?
• 15:50
  What's the line? You're saying 4 1/2 weeks?
• 15:51
  Is the line 4:00 to 5:00 five weeks?
• 15:53
  Oh, well, four to five, you gotta get what's the over?
• 15:55
  So you're saying under 4 or over take 5 weeks.
• 15:56
  I'm gonna, I love how this is the thing I'm a pedantic on.
• 15:59
  I'm like, give me the number. I'm gonna take the what do you
• 16:01
  call it the over? Can I take the over?
• 16:03
  I'll take the the way over. The way over Is there a way over
• 16:06
  option 4 to 5 weeks? How long are we in Afghanistan?
• 16:08
  We went to Afghanistan. I think we stayed for a good ten
• 16:10
  years. Something like that.
• 16:11
  It sounds about right, yeah. The good news about this,
• 16:13
  though, is that, and I don't know much about geopolitics on
• 16:16
  geopolitics guy, but I know that while this is in play, that a
• 16:20
  lot of people will. Everybody really will no longer
• 16:23
  be concerned about the the Kid Rock.
• 16:25
  Epstein. Files.
• 16:26
  Yeah, that's all fun. Yeah, it's fun.
• 16:28
  It's all fun. Let's let.
• 16:29
  It go don't look here, look over here, don't look here, look
• 16:31
  over. There, I've seen magicians.
• 16:32
  I know how they work. Peak streaming realized HBO Max
• 16:35
  and Paramount Plus prepare to become one.
• 16:37
  On yesterday's Paramount investor call, CEO David Ellison
• 16:40
  confirmed the ultimate consolidation.
• 16:41
  HBO Max and Paramount Plus will merge into a single streaming
• 16:44
  powerhouse. This entity will command over
• 16:46
  200 million subscribers United, Game of Thrones and Harry Potter
• 16:49
  with Star Trek and Yellowstone. It's so hard for me to see this
• 16:52
  and not think of Cory Doctorow and think of the new service
• 16:55
  being called Inshidification plus like that's what they're
• 16:58
  called, the new service. We changed the name 100 times.
• 17:01
  It was HBO. It was HBO Max, then it was Max
• 17:04
  Max. Yeah, it's back to HBO Max.
• 17:06
  What's it going to be now? I have a little personal bias
• 17:08
  like. Everybody's going to change the
• 17:09
  name. I kind of like to being called
• 17:10
  Max since one of my kids happens to have that name, but like
• 17:13
  sure, I can't imagine a more gold plated name than HBO.
• 17:17
  Why they ever took HBO off It was crazy.
• 17:19
  Why would you drop it? Like Max is a great modifier but
• 17:21
  it's on everything. You can't protect it.
• 17:23
  Like I have a ladder that has Max on it.
• 17:24
  Like everything has Max on. It a massive $110 billion
• 17:27
  enterprise. Value.
• 17:28
  Oh, wait, hold on. That's as of yesterday.
• 17:30
  Yeah, I'm sure it's worth less today.
• 17:31
  Ask me again next week. Yeah, this is the crazy thing.
• 17:34
  Yeah. Warner Brothers has merged.
• 17:36
  Yeah, so many times with so many other companies, huh?
• 17:39
  With AOL, with AT&T. Yeah.
• 17:40
  And it's always been a disaster. Yeah, not this.
• 17:43
  Time never come out well. Bringing buggy whips back, we're
• 17:46
  gonna do. It why does anyone still want to
• 17:48
  merge with Warner? Brothers, I mean, what do you
• 17:49
  think the AT&T executives are like?
• 17:51
  I feel like they're just drinking Scotch right now.
• 17:53
  Just like watching. Totally.
• 17:54
  They're like, what's that? It's like the 1970s Miami
• 17:57
  Dolphins team that went undefeated.
• 17:58
  And like, they like they get together and have a drink every
• 18:00
  year when the last undefeated team loses.
• 18:02
  I feel like it's like that. Like they're the version of that
• 18:04
  for business. It's like, OK, 100% good luck,
• 18:06
  Let's see who gets it. Next Paramount, a massive money
• 18:09
  losing enterprise yeah combined with yeah Warner Brothers, Yeah,
• 18:12
  an even more massive money losing enterprise yeah.
• 18:15
  What do you think's gonna? Happen here.
• 18:17
  They should buy Rite Aid. That's what they should do next.
• 18:19
  They should buy Rite Aid and Joann's Fabrics and just have a
• 18:21
  just roll them all up. Hey Red Lobster, you still for
• 18:23
  sale? Yep, but throw it in the mix.
• 18:25
  Just get them all. If only the Titanic and the
• 18:27
  Hindenburg could join forces, the.
• 18:28
  Best I can grok of the the best I can make sense of this is
• 18:33
  Uncle Larry is like, hey, I want David to have his own thing, so
• 18:36
  I'm gonna buy him his own thing. But it's like, well, that's what
• 18:38
  he's doing. Yeah.
• 18:38
  Have you seen Of Mice and Men? Like it doesn't end well.
• 18:41
  No, it's the puppy doesn't make it.
• 18:42
  This puppy's not gonna make it. And it's $110 billion puppy. $6
• 18:46
  billion in cost savings. Oh yeah, the target, yeah.
• 18:48
  That is going to be a massive, massive set of layoffs in Los
• 18:52
  Angeles. I'm sorry.
• 18:52
  You say cost savings, that's not how they worded it.
• 18:54
  They said quote synergy savings. Right, right, I understand.
• 18:57
  And then said with the majority of it would be from quote non
• 19:00
  labor sources, I think is what they said.
• 19:02
  I'm like, it's not possible. What the hell is a non labor
• 19:04
  source that's going to get you to the $3 billion?
• 19:06
  Like right, nothing. But do you have like a giant
• 19:09
  tree in the back that you water with liquid gold?
• 19:11
  Like what, what? How could you possibly get
• 19:13
  there? I would think if these were two
• 19:14
  businesses that were both making money just minting money too
• 19:17
  great, which they're not, they're the exact opposite, it
• 19:19
  would still be a terrible idea. It's still a backward looking
• 19:22
  view of what the movie industry once was.
• 19:25
  Yeah, you can imagine with $110 billion what Netflix can go off
• 19:28
  and. Make.
• 19:29
  But who's that? Well, first of all, Netflix just
• 19:31
  got a $3 billion free money ticket to go build some content
• 19:34
  to compete, right? Yes, their breakup fee was real.
• 19:36
  Like they got like, they get a check out of this.
• 19:38
  Let's not lose sight of the fact that Netflix gets a check out of
• 19:40
  this deal, which is kind of awesome.
• 19:41
  But it's not a huge, not a huge check.
• 19:43
  It's not gonna change. I know it's not a huge check,
• 19:44
  but it's made a couple shows for free.
• 19:46
  If they were preparing to spend $110 billion to buy this,
• 19:48
  imagine what kind of content they can buy for $110 billion to
• 19:52
  bolster or their brand. Totally.
• 19:53
  So who in your mind is the real winner here?
• 19:55
  Oh, by far. Netflix.
• 19:56
  Oh, really? I think there's a bigger winner
• 19:58
  than Netflix. Well, there's one bigger.
• 19:59
  Winner, obviously David Zaslow. That's a huge man because he's
• 20:02
  walking away with a pile of gold.
• 20:03
  And all, yeah, and all I'm sitting here going it's like,
• 20:06
  please write your book. Please write your book.
• 20:07
  Let me just read it. I just want like, yeah, this is
• 20:09
  fantastic. This might.
• 20:10
  Be he was terrible at operation. But this I can't speak to that.
• 20:13
  I don't know one way or the other, but like from an M and a
• 20:15
  perspective, has there been a better deal that we've ever
• 20:17
  seen? I mean, granted the the right,
• 20:19
  the ink isn't dry yet, but what we've seen so far just seems
• 20:22
  like amazing that he was able to achieve this.
• 20:24
  Yeah, I am fascinated by this. This has gone from being
• 20:27
  something that I wasn't terribly interested in to now I'm kind of
• 20:29
  riveted by to see how this all went down.
• 20:31
  So I am not bullish on the future, however.
• 20:33
  There is nothing stopping anyone from starting their own
• 20:37
  streamer. There is nothing stopping Apple
• 20:40
  from deciding they want to step on the gas on their streamer.
• 20:43
  That's what I don't get, especially if you're a
• 20:44
  personality. If you're a personality, why are
• 20:47
  you dealing with this? Why aren't you just doing this
• 20:48
  yourself? Production costs are super low,
• 20:50
  correct? There's plenty of talent.
• 20:51
  Give them a little bit bit of ownership and you go build your
• 20:53
  own thing. What was the limiting factor on
• 20:55
  networks back in the day? It was bandwidth.
• 20:57
  It was number of broadcast bandwidth.
• 20:59
  Bandwidth always. Bandwidth and then we got cable
• 21:00
  and then there was kind of a bandwidth restriction.
• 21:03
  You had a a buried entry cost. That's all gone.
• 21:06
  Like it's literally gone. So if you can take the view of
• 21:08
  not wanting upfront cash and take a Longview, if you're a
• 21:11
  personality, you have an idea, you can just go build it with.
• 21:13
  Yeah, with gear that's super inexpensive and just about any
• 21:17
  setup, you know, you don't need a studio, you just need like A
• 21:19
  room. You definitely do not need an A
• 21:21
  back lot. You definitely.
• 21:22
  They don't need any of those things that a studio comes with.
• 21:25
  All of those legacy things. You think of all the things that
• 21:27
  come with the merger there, they get Game of Thrones, they get
• 21:30
  Harry Potter, they get Star Trek, they got Yellowstone.
• 21:32
  And you think, oh, my gosh, the IP is just this tremendous
• 21:35
  thing. They're going to do so much with
• 21:36
  the IP. OK, well, think about Netflix.
• 21:38
  Yeah. Stranger Things, Squid Games.
• 21:40
  Yeah. The Money Heist.
• 21:41
  Yeah. Bojack Horseman, Love is Blind,
• 21:43
  Tiger King. Yeah.
• 21:44
  Beef. I mean the list goes on and on
• 21:46
  and on of shows that they have made with no IP that have been
• 21:50
  massively successful. With no IP that now is.
• 21:52
  Is IP? Of course, of course, like
• 21:54
  you've. Grown this IP.
• 21:55
  But they built it out of whole cloth.
• 21:57
  Huge, huge hits this way. The idea that you need IP for
• 22:01
  your studio is really backward way of looking at how
• 22:03
  entertainment works in 20. 20 I mean, it seems like this is a
• 22:06
  great opportunity for humans to be able to create interesting
• 22:09
  things that they can accelerate with the AI tools that exist as
• 22:13
  opposed to looking through the lens of, of whatever end decades
• 22:17
  ago of like, Nope, Like that's not the way we're going to
• 22:19
  develop it. We're going to go through the
• 22:20
  channels the way we've always done it.
• 22:21
  Like what? Like not.
• 22:22
  It's just in 2026. Do you need a back lot where you
• 22:25
  can shoot? Do you need a costume
• 22:26
  department? Do you need a department that
• 22:28
  builds enormous sets? Those things are over.
• 22:30
  You might still need costumes. No, I guess not.
• 22:32
  I guess you could. Yeah.
• 22:33
  Yeah. Yeah.
• 22:33
  No, I hear you. You're.
• 22:34
  I'm with. You, it's all coming out of the
• 22:35
  AI and it's gonna look great. You still need writers.
• 22:38
  We are. You know what?
• 22:38
  Listen, we piss off a lot of people.
• 22:40
  Don't piss off the writers because they're gonna write
• 22:42
  really interesting letters to us that we're gonna have to read
• 22:44
  and are gonna be very compelling.
• 22:46
  Let's not piss off the writers. I got good news for the writers.
• 22:49
  You're gonna be employed the longest because AI is not good
• 22:52
  at writing. Please, Please note his word
• 22:53
  choice. He did not say forever.
• 22:55
  He just had the longest. The longest could be measured in
• 22:57
  weeks. Nobody knows.
• 22:58
  Think of it a lot longer than that.
• 22:59
  I seem. I'll take the overrun weeks.
• 23:01
  I'll take the overrun weeks. Charter swell as Cox, the FCC
• 23:04
  green lights a mega merger The FCC has greenlit Charter
• 23:07
  Communications $34.5 billion acquisition of Cox, paving the
• 23:10
  way for a new industry Titan surpassing Comcast.
• 23:13
  Despite concerns from consumer advocates, the FCC claims the
• 23:16
  merger won't hike Internet prices.
• 23:18
  Why? Regulators argue that fixed
• 23:20
  wireless and satellite providers now offer enough comp petition
• 23:22
  to keep the cable giants in check.
• 23:24
  To seal the deal, Charter promised to build out rural,
• 23:26
  fiber and onshore thousands of overseas jobs and a modern
• 23:30
  political twist. The approval also included a
• 23:32
  commitment to scrap diversity, equity and inclusion hiring
• 23:35
  practices. Couple things.
• 23:36
  First of all, I'm really glad you gave some context there
• 23:38
  because I thought we were doing the nonsense After Dark show,
• 23:41
  and I'm glad that I wasn't prepared.
• 23:43
  So now thank you. Sure.
• 23:45
  Also, I do feel like one of the things that's been really
• 23:49
  bugging me about ISPs is that they're just not all white.
• 23:51
  Yes, now they'll be all white males.
• 23:53
  I would really like if the ISP was just more white.
• 23:55
  Sure, fantastic. I'm sure the biggest problem
• 23:57
  with my crappy Comcast and Spectrum service was DEI.
• 24:01
  I'm sure that's what it was and not their terrible business
• 24:03
  practices. Well, it's clear.
• 24:04
  I'm really sure that's what it was.
• 24:06
  Yeah, it's all cleared up now. It's all.
• 24:07
  It's all fine. Yeah, they made it better.
• 24:09
  They got rid of DEI. It was the biggest problem we
• 24:11
  had. Not the fact that I live in one
• 24:13
  of, if not the wealthiest spot in America.
• 24:16
  Yeah. And I have exactly one option
• 24:18
  for high speed capital Internet. Sure, one.
• 24:20
  I can pick anyone I want as long as it's that one like, right?
• 24:23
  That definitely isn't the. Problem Chairman Brendan Carr
• 24:25
  touts lower price plans and big wins for Americans.
• 24:29
  Meanwhile, critics warn that further consolidation usually
• 24:31
  means one thing for your monthly bill.
• 24:33
  It's going up. Has he seen there will be blood?
• 24:35
  When out of consolidation? Do you get decreased prices?
• 24:38
  Name one time that consolidation has led to decreased prices.
• 24:42
  Also, why would you consolidate if you were going to decrease
• 24:44
  your price exactly? The whole point.
• 24:46
  Exactly. You got to get rid of coffee,
• 24:47
  you know. It's going to be great.
• 24:48
  We're going to, we're going to spend a bunch of money to
• 24:49
  combine and then we're going to make less money.
• 24:52
  Like, wait, yes, let's do that. What are you talking about?
• 24:55
  This makes zero sense to me. And this is another place, like
• 24:57
  I've found myself, generally speaking, I don't like a lot of
• 25:00
  regulation. I like free markets.
• 25:02
  But you think about things like access to the Internet.
• 25:04
  What could be more utilitarian than that, right?
• 25:06
  Like you just need access to it. And there is the market for that
• 25:09
  is terrible right now. It's absolutely terrible.
• 25:12
  Yeah. And I my, my best option to bet
• 25:13
  on is wireless. And that's still not up the
• 25:15
  snuff of terrestrial. Like, let's get more terrestrial
• 25:17
  providers. We just don't have it.
• 25:18
  It's hard to make 6. GS coming 6 GS coming.
• 25:21
  Wait till 6G. Comes.
• 25:22
  I mean, even five GS pretty decent yeah, for for home and
• 25:25
  and I think Leo will be a good competitor too as you get more
• 25:28
  Leo. But man, it's just it's hard for
• 25:30
  me to say no to a a, a cable, a fiber optic or a wire that goes
• 25:34
  back to a place like that does seem like a really nice option
• 25:38
  to have. It's durable.
• 25:39
  The two don't compare even yet. Yeah, I mean, we had so many
• 25:42
  great plans for 5G and I granted we're only halfway there.
• 25:45
  Sure, we don't really roll these things over until the yeah,
• 25:48
  until the 0 mark on the decade. Sure that you basically you get
• 25:50
  each one of these GS for about a decade, are five years away or
• 25:53
  four years away. Whatever we are from from 6G,
• 25:56
  it's coming. Yeah, but we have not fulfilled
• 25:58
  the promises of 5G yet. When's the last time you saw a
• 26:00
  surgery done? Yeah, with remote controlled
• 26:02
  devices because sure, you had such a low latency on it just
• 26:05
  doesn't have. Oh yeah, that's gonna be great.
• 26:07
  Those promises have been fulfilled yet.
• 26:09
  Sorry my surgeon botched my surgery.
• 26:10
  He's going through a tunnel. Great.
• 26:12
  That's exactly what I need. I mean, I'm still at the state
• 26:14
  where when I see the 5G plus, I pretty much know my service is
• 26:18
  not going to work well, right? Like whenever I'm on the UW or
• 26:20
  the Plus and like you guys still have an iron this out right from
• 26:22
  on that, I'm just like, oh, here we go, you know, and I'm not
• 26:24
  trying to perform surgery. I'm just like read threads like
• 26:27
  I'm not even going to do something hard.
• 26:28
  I'm really disappointed now that 5G Plus and 5G Max are going to
• 26:31
  merge. I don't know what the new one's
• 26:32
  going to be called. It's going to be called more
• 26:34
  expensive, 5G more expensive. That's the new name.
• 26:36
  Way more expensive. This has like been a fascinating
• 26:38
  week of news. We certainly have had no
• 26:40
  shortage of it. The fact that we're going to
• 26:41
  have basically 2 ISPs in the country with they do have
• 26:44
  minimal overlap. But to me that is the problem,
• 26:46
  like they cited this as part of their acquisition was we have
• 26:49
  minimal overlap. But I'm like, yes, exactly.
• 26:51
  That's true. That's the problem.
• 26:52
  Problem. They're probably in California,
• 26:53
  of course, like the, the CPUC was like, well, actually there's
• 26:57
  a lot of spots where they have some overlap and I'm like, well,
• 26:59
  yeah, but it's not enough. It's like 25,000 out of 9
• 27:02
  million. CPUC is like, well, this is the
• 27:05
  problem. And I'm like, really?
• 27:06
  It's not the other 8,750,000 people.
• 27:09
  Like that's the bigger risk. Tired of having no choice for
• 27:11
  ISP S although did you see Google's a little device to
• 27:14
  Google came out with this little thing that goes it's like like
• 27:16
  17 LB box and it connects to a like a telephone pole.
• 27:19
  You put it on a telephone pole, Yeah, and it uses light and it
• 27:22
  gets 25 gigabytes symmetric. I love it.
• 27:24
  That's really fast. So, so truth be told, when I
• 27:27
  first moved into this house a decade ago, I looked at at line
• 27:31
  of sight options because I had such crappy terrestrial options.
• 27:35
  I looked at line of sight light options.
• 27:36
  Yeah. And there were a couple.
• 27:37
  They have a couple. They're not terribly expensive.
• 27:39
  You have a heavy upfront cost 'cause you have to buy the gear.
• 27:41
  But I was happy to do that, right, the gear.
• 27:43
  But then you still run into at least then some real, like
• 27:45
  there's some real problems to worry about.
• 27:47
  Like for example birds and planes and weather.
• 27:50
  That's like, I don't want to deal with this.
• 27:51
  Like really like, and, and all of that, by the way, is in a
• 27:54
  quest for better uplink because that's my limiting factor is I
• 27:57
  can't get symmetric service. Most of us in LA and other major
• 28:00
  towns, you can't get symmetric service.
• 28:01
  And then I'll have friends that know and there's some of the
• 28:03
  listeners to this show. They know how to wind me up.
• 28:05
  If they're not complaining about, I'm sorry, if they're not
• 28:07
  praising me for the pause in between my first and last name,
• 28:10
  they're showing me their speed where they're like 5 gigabits
• 28:12
  symmetric. And I'm like, OK, first of all,
• 28:15
  amazing. Second of all, you live in
• 28:17
  Stockton. Like, I'm sorry, I don't think
• 28:18
  it's worth the trade. Like, I'll stay here.
• 28:20
  Yeah. That's the trade off, yeah.
• 28:21
  Like you gotta go to Stockton in order to get him.
• 28:23
  Like, I don't live in Stockton. I wanna live here.
• 28:24
  I'll take my crappy 30 Meg uplink.
• 28:26
  But you know. Buy Stockton listeners OK now
• 28:29
  with the head lines. In fact, enough of the episode
• 28:30
  we have to get out of here special thanks to our floor
• 28:32
  director Mark Haynes. They.
• 28:34
  Have my Amazon warehouses, I support them.
• 28:36
  It's just hot there anyway. Thanks, Mark.
• 28:38
  We'll be back later this week with our big story, magic pills
• 28:41
  and silver bullets, the solutions to all our plastics
• 28:43
  problems. Until then, thank you for
• 28:44
  listening to all this nonsense. Here goes all our meth
• 28:46
  advertisers right along with them.
• 28:48
  I'm Jeff Parker. I'm a little gentleman.
• 28:50
  You can't fight in here. This is the.
• 28:51
  War Room. The dual modular storage with
• 29:06
  exclusive smart dock technology reinvents data storage.
• 29:10
  Dual drives are smaller, cable free and portable, allowing
• 29:14
  easier sharing and security. Not quite sure how it allows
• 29:16
  better security. The fact that it's portable, but
• 29:18
  the unique modular stacking system ensures future growth and
• 29:21
  prevents obsolescence. That's important.
• 29:23
  Start with a portable drive or removable module that plugs into
• 29:26
  a smart dock for stand alone use or into a stack for expansion.
• 29:29
  Wow Jewel's cordless plug and play modules use an ingenious
• 29:32
  vertebrae like support and active termination allowing
• 29:35
  instant addition, removal or interchange without cable or
• 29:38
  assignment hassles. Coming up to 6 storage devices
• 29:41
  including award-winning RAID systems, choose Lassi's Jewel
• 29:45
  for advanced cost effective storage today.
• 29:47
  OK, now for perspective. For perspective, you could get a
• 29:51
  single GB drive for what in today dollars would be about
• 29:54
  1200 bucks, which I think will help you in sort of time.
• 29:57
  That totally gives it to me. For 2 gigabytes of RAID drive
• 30:00
  storage, you're talking about $4200 in today's money. 6.8
• 30:04
  gigabytes, $20,000. These were advertised prices.
• 30:08
  That's converted to today's dollars.
• 30:10
  Yeah, $20,000. Now give me a year.
• 30:12
  Well, I have from those numbers, I can tell you because I bought,
• 30:15
  yeah, a GB drive for roughly $1000 in the mid 90s.
• 30:21
  It was not a Lassie, but I do remember Lassie drives.
• 30:24
  I still have actually. Lassie is still in business.
• 30:26
  Do you really? No, I.
• 30:27
  Have some old Lassie drives Wow from not that long ago and
• 30:31
  they're beautiful looking cases. But did you know about this
• 30:34
  smart doc? System.
• 30:34
  Oh my, no. 'Cause I did not Goodness no.
• 30:36
  And it looks really cool. I did in the mid 90s buy yeah a
• 30:39
  GB for a little more than 1000 bucks so I'm gonna go with like
• 30:43
  1995. Somewhere that's pretty close.
• 30:45
  94 is I think when this product came to market, 95 is when I saw
• 30:48
  a lot of the ads for, but I think it was late 94.
• 30:50
  I think my first GB drive was probably around 93 ish.
• 30:53
  Yeah. And I do remember being over
• 30:54
  $1000. Anyway.
• 30:55
  The Joule Modular Storage System Test 1994 4.