This week, we saddle up for another bumpy ride through the dystopian tech clown show. We kick off with the surveillance state’s greatest hits: ICE raids sweeping L.A., a website literally called FuckLAPD.com that lets you ID cops by their mug shots, and a Norwegian tourist who learned the hard way that having a JD Vance chipmunk meme on your phone is now grounds for deportation. Pro tip: if you’re traveling to the U.S., you might want to wrap your phone in lead and bury it in a cornfield.

In the news, Big Balls has apparently rolled his way from Elon’s Department of Government Efficiency to the Social Security Administration—because nothing says “government modernization” like a 19-year-old tech bro with a meme nickname. Meanwhile, Tesla robotaxis are hitting the roads (and maybe a few pedestrians) with human babysitters in tow, Waymo and Uber are turning Atlanta into Blade Runner Lite, and Texas wants a permit for your self-driving car. Over in AI hell, judges can’t agree if training your chatbot on stolen books is fair use or just digital asbestos. YouTube, never one to miss a race to the bottom, is rolling out an AI Slop button so you can crank up the crap to 11.

In Media Candy, Russell Crowe is beefing up his IMDb with Highlander, Henry Cavill is along for the ride, and Anthony Bourdain Day is apparently a thing (even though he’d have rolled his eyes at it). We also dig into everything from Minecraft movies to the sad demise of Blue Microphones at the hands of Logitech. Plus, Dave Bittner drops by to commiserate about malware, retro gaming handhelds, and why some Star Wars maps are basically porn for nerds. And yes—Windows is finally killing the Blue Screen of Death, proving even Microsoft can eventually learn to read the room.

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Show notes at https://gog.show/703

FOLLOW UP

The mad scramble to track ICE raids across L.A. County

‘FuckLAPD.com’ Lets Anyone Use Facial Recognition to Instantly Identify Cops

European tourist denied entry to US over JD Vance meme on his phone

'My Bad:' Babyface Vance Meme Creator On Norwegian Tourist's Detainment

Travelling to the U.S.? Here's a guide to locking down phones and other devices

IN THE NEWS

The Tyranny of ‘Big Balls’ Has Come to an End

‘Big Balls’ Is Now at the Social Security Administration

‘Techno King’ Elon Musk Doesn’t Own a Computer, His Lawyers Tell Court

Tesla's inaugural Robotaxi rides will have a human 'safety monitor' on board

Tesla's first robotaxi rides are already running into a few bumps

Waymo and Uber launch robotaxi service in Atlanta

Texas will require permits for self-driving cars starting in September

What We Know So Far About the Supposed ‘Mother of All Data Breaches’

Digital Asbestos

The Oversight Board calls Meta's uneven AI moderation 'incoherent and unjustifiable'

Judge rules Anthropic's AI training on copyrighted materials is fair use

Meta Wins Blockbuster AI Copyright Case—but There’s a Catch

Judge: Pirate libraries may have profited from Meta torrenting 80TB of books

Two Courts Rule On Generative AI and Fair Use — One Gets It Right

YouTube Will Add an AI Slop Button Thanks to Google’s Veo 3

AI Slop: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO)

For the first time, social media overtakes TV as Americans’ top news source

First images from the largest camera ever built reveal millions of galaxies

MEDIA CANDY

Russell Crowe Lends His Russell Crowe-ness to ‘Highlander’

Russell Crowe Arming Up Opposite Henry Cavill In Chad Stahelski’s ‘Highlander’ At Amazon MGM Studios & UA

The Amateur

The Accountant 2

The Godfather of Harlem

In Vogue: The 90s

A Minecraft Movie

Anthony Bourdain didn't say that (but we wish he did)

How to celebrate Bourdain Day, a thing Tony probably would have hated

Quote Investigator

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