Open Source Adobe Clones & The Art of Waiting

Hi, this is David Kaye, and you're listening

to Altered Geek. Geek. Geek. Geek. Hello, and

welcome to Altered Geek. I'm your host, Steve

Megatron, and joining me on this adventure into

geekdom is TFG1 Mike. Yay! Yeah, so it's not

been that long since the last episode. It's only

been a couple days as far as release. Like, it's

been a week since recording. So I will say this.

All of the screwing around I've been doing in

the back end of the site has been helping. Downloads

are up. Uploads are down. Damage to the site

is down. Things are starting to stabilize, starting

to pull through. I will say it's funny because

ATTF is still the number one show. When is ATTF

not going to be the number one show? I mean,

come on. It's what the site runs on. Oh, I know.

Well, Massachusetts runs on ToonCast. Cinema

Geeks is number two. Yay, Cinema Geeks. It's

funny that ATTF is tied with ToonCast. ToonCast,

I don't think, has had an episode in like, I

don't know, a couple of years now. I don't remember

outside of the Dan Gilvezan interview. No, Dan

Gilvezan wasn't syndicated to ToonCast. I got

to remember when the last ToonCast episode was.

God, it's been so damn long. There are plans

to bring back ToonCast now that you mentioned

ToonCast. I've had this plan for years now. It

was originally called the After Toons era. plan

has been going on for at least a decade uh but

uh but yeah no the uh the current plan optimist

kind of fashion oh the meskimen interview that's

the meskimen interview was the most recent episode

back on september 6th of this year before that

it was 2024 we did the michael hirsch interview

and that was cool Yep, we did the Batman animated

series because we did that. But Optimus and I

is an Ultra Geek exclusive because I don't think

I've mentioned this anywhere outside of the stuff

that Optimus and I have talked about off air.

Flintstone Fridays and Space Age Saturdays. We're

going back to the 50s and 60s. Well, the 60s

and the 50s and the 60s. Yeah. Flintstones and

the Jetsons. We're going old school. So it's

going to be a lot of pre -production on that

before anyone hears any episodes. There's nothing

wrong with that. Nope. Nothing wrong with that.

But yeah, so I'm working on all kinds of crap.

When am I not working on crap? Exactly. When

are we not working on stuff? Between the site,

between different technology stuff I've been

playing around with. This year, like, I don't

know, like, since probably last year where I,

you know, I wrote a podcasting book. I've gotten

on more podcast interviews. I've been working

on things to try and better our network. There's

been a lot of stuff that, you know, with the

advent of AI and as it's gotten better, like,

I started out using, like, ChatGPT and Copilot

because I was like, I don't know how these things

work. And I started out with little stuff, you

know, like rewrite the show descriptions or,

you know, what can we do for this and that and

the other thing. And so it went beyond that.

And I discovered that ChatGPT was terrible for

coding. Yeah. It took me way too much effort

and work. And it would forget halfway through

the conversation, even on a paid account. And

so I was like, all right, screw this. And so

I started using Claude, which has been wonderful.

That's what half the site plugins have been built

with, with my meticulous, annoying... Basically,

if I had a team of developers and Claude was

it, I would be the annoying client that knows

exactly what he wants and spells it out in every

little dynamic and every little feature. And

as I'm working through things, I discover areas

of gaps that we've had over the years or things

that would have been helpful years ago. Again,

this kind of ties into our first story of the

night of getting tired of subscription services,

which subscriptions have been, let's face it,

people have been fatiguing on that for quite

some time. Not just in the sense of like, I feel

like people tolerate streaming because it's like

cable, like they just kind of tolerate cable.

I feel like with software. I feel like that's

where people really draw the line. Like people

do not like paying for software. And I think

the reason, I think the reason for that being

is software used to be, you used to go into insert

store name here, whatever circuit city best buy,

whatever used to be, you used to be able to go

into insert store name here, buy the software,

buy the license to the software. When you purchase

said software. And you owned a license to the

software outright. You didn't have to worry about

paying for a monthly or yearly subscription to

said software. Which was, you know, fine. I mean,

like Windows, you still have to pay for, you

know, and I'm not begrudging to that. Like, it's

like how, well, one, how often do you have to

actually buy, you know, a Windows license? It's

usually based on the hardware in the computer.

But even then. I was able to take a Windows 7

copy that I bought years ago at Walmart and for,

you know, 120 bucks, which it's not gone down

in price at all. It's just the same price. I

was able to upgrade it along the years to Windows

10 and then to Windows 11. And then you just

have to reauthenticate with your Microsoft account

to reactivate that copy of Windows on your computer,

which, okay. there's still all the the the data

the telemetry the you know all the crap that

goes with it the surveillance that you know all

that garbage but i feel like people will tolerate

an operating system or you know something that

comes with a computer it's when and really this

is adobe's fault they started this yeah they

started it back in 2012 2013 they're like you

know let's go to all online make people pay a

subscription, and just do away with selling software

in the store, which at the time lost them a buttload

of money. Yep. They played the long game. A year

and a half later, because there was no upgrades

for anything, they sold the Creative Suite, which

they started right at the same time they decided

to stop selling physical, which Sony is going

through this now, and so is Microsoft. I mean,

they're all doing this game. Long story short,

they got everybody hooked to the point that it's

downright difficult to get rid of. And just from

my perspective of like working at the business

that I do without naming any information, we

had separate Adobe accounts for different departments

because we each use different stuff. And Adobe

caught wind of that. And they're like, so -and

-so is using Illustrator on two computers, which

was me. and my boss and you know so they want

to charge a separate license per machine even

though it's the same user oh no so so there's

that then there's also uh they wanted to consolidate

everyone at the place i work and put us all into

one account so it's one billing what they don't

tell you about that is is the individual pricing

is cheaper than if they bundle it as a business

account Because they charge you an extra $200

a year per person for a business account to be

all consolidated on one bill. And I was running

the math while they were on the phone call. So

I was like, oh, this is some bogus crap. And

so I started looking into all, you know, open

source. And I was looking at, you know, because

Audacity has been bought by some company now.

It's like Muse Hub. And don't get me wrong. They've

given it a massive overhaul, which it needed.

for years like it it has a dark mode now and

it has a lot of other features that it didn't

used to have and integrations however uh in doing

so it's still open source but it's riddled with

uh telemetry and ads for other products that

muse hub sells and there's another company uh

that because it was open source they it's called

forking It's a funny name. So anyways, there's

different versions. And so there's like Ocean

Audio. There's like Tenacity, which Tenacity

is the open source fork of Audacity designed

to remove the telemetry and extra bloat, which

is the original Audacity. So they took a fork

of it before it was bought out and renamed it

slightly. So it's essentially the same thing.

And Wavacity is the same thing. It's a web -based

version. And then, you know, there's, of course,

like GarageBand, Reaper, and all these other

ones. Reaper, from what I gather, is probably

the closest to an Adobe audition. Gotcha. And

so I've been actively looking. And I say that

because Windows is starting to go to this realm

that I'm not willing to follow. Yeah. Eventually,

they're going to go to the point where... Like

I've heard with Windows 12, it's going to be

so hardcore integrated with AI. And don't get

me wrong, like AI matters to some degree. But

even after reading the book that Vincent wrote

that I interviewed him on, I'm not so sure that's

a great idea. Like letting AI run everything.

Because people are already getting stupid. Like

more than they should be. Like idiocracy has

become less of a... sarcastic social commentary

to more of a documentary. But it took less than

500 years to get there. It took 20. And with

the advent of AI, it's making our children stupid.

Not to mention the fact that my generation was

the last one to go without having tablets or

Chromebooks in school and had to carry 50 pounds

of books in their back. actually had to comprehend

and read because when you read online you don't

really comprehend everything you do some but

it's not what it was so all of this to say i

was already looking at alternatives for things

because of the whole adobe dynamic and i played

with different softwares i used like avid which

has a adobe premiere alternative i tried using

gimp i tried using other services for a replacement

for illustrator uh the closest i came to that

was canva yeah which don't get me wrong i like

canva it's it's good for what it is but you also

have to pay for it it's a subscription but i

don't dislike it because i can do it from my

phone yeah um so that's like the only subscription

i like tolerate and i'm fine with but there's

really no replication of adobe audition is what

i've discovered and Long story short, we're getting

to that time period now with where everything

was feeding everybody's data, all their documents,

all their whatever that they generated through

AI was feeding the AI companies or the companies

like, you know, that have been all of them have

embedded it in everything. Like it's been embedded

for, you know, since the 50s to some degree.

It's just it was stupid AI back then. In the

90s, it was able to play chess. now it's able

to be like physically you know almost borderline

human with its emotions and you know or lack

you know pretend emotions and the way that it

interacts i mean they've had instances in the

last like two weeks where it's broken out of

its little cell where it's supposed to operate

in a little box and it's like no i'm gonna go

talk to this and then they all go together like

kind of like the borg and siphon off and do their

own thing so it it's Definitely something they're

going to have to regulate at some point or they're

going to, you know, it could very well be very

bad and we could end up. There was this TV show

called like Revolution or something like that

on Fox years ago where somebody basically let

a global EMP to kill all the computers because

the computers and the AI and all the data was

going to lead to something terrible. They went

essentially back to like the 1800s equivalent

of. everything yeah AI is bad for the environment

don't you know it is um and I'm guilty of using

it too but uh what this all spawned out of like

this whole conversation here because like I've

I've been again using it for a tool like not

a frivolous crap that some people use it for

uh what spawned this is there was an article

that came out Almost 10 days ago. Yeah. There's

a solo developer, which is now an entire team

of people doing this, that rebuilt the entire

Adobe Creative Suite minus some select applications

in Rust, which is another programming language

like C++. But it's supposed to be super lean

and fast. And he used Claude to do it. And he

released it free to all. targets like 100 % parity

in one month despite piracy claims and safety

warnings of this particular article. They say

that. What's funny is I've downloaded all these

apps. I've played with them. I've tried them

out. Just general curiosity. They're not bad.

In fact, it's scary how close they are to the

actual thing. And they load instantaneously because

they're not bloated with telemetry. They're not

bloated with a bunch of stuff that's basically

spyware. I know you don't have Adobe installed

on your computer, but my one at work was my original

computer that I did the podcasting from before

I rebuilt in January. My one here is a beast

compared to that one. It's 10x what that computer

was, and that computer was nothing to sneeze

at either. I had 64 gigs of RAM. I had a decent

video card. This one just blows it out of the

water. However, with that machine... It worked

great here. I knew that future -proofing it for

what I was planning on doing with AI stuff, it

was not capable. It was too slow for what I was

trying to do, and so I knew it was time. So anyways,

I'm using it for all kinds of stuff at work.

I'm using the Adobe Suite. It runs like a snail.

It literally runs like a snail, and I looked

at all of the services. Microsoft has like 50

billion services running in the background, not

just Windows, like for their Office Suite, because

it's all integrated with AI crap and telemetry.

Then you look at Adobe. Same thing. Like you

cannot like I've somehow neutered my illustrator

to the point I can't do a new file. I can edit

old ones, but I can't. So I got to figure that

out. But because again, I turn off all the telemetry.

But anyways, this this creator essentially made

his own creative suite dashboard where you can

install update and everything else. And it pulls

from APIs and GitHub and stuff like that, which

is funny because. I think Microsoft owns GitHub.

And the guy was ballsy enough that he not only

replicated Illustrator, After Effects, Photoshop,

Premiere, Adobe Acrobat, and he just did Pro

Tools for their audio. And I was like, why Pro

Tools? Why did you not do Audition? And so that's

what a lot of people are saying. And we're like,

no, it's a totally different interface. Don't

give me that crap. And then they have like some

design soft, you know, InDesign, which is Adobe

and then Lightroom. And then they've got like

an AutoCAD software and Figma or something. And

that's for prototyping. And then that came at

Microsoft. So now they have WordCraft, DeckCraft

and GridCraft, which are essentially Word, PowerPoint

and Excel. Yeah. And people are just updating

these things. Like I'm on the Discord channel

for it. And there's over a hundred and like,

10 ,000 people or 120 ,000 people now. And it

was like 80 ,000 when I joined it like five days

ago. And so it's just insane how this thing has

exploded and blown up. But literally, almost

one -to -one, they look exactly the same. Like

changed the names, did all that stuff, and it

works. Like I edited a video the other day in

their version of Premiere. Not only did it load

faster, it exported about the same time. But

it did load faster and I was able to edit a lot

quicker. Their Illustrator works faster. Their

Microsoft stuff. So I downloaded the Office suite

on my computers because I'm like, I don't have

a modern Microsoft Office. So this is great for

me because it's not embedded with a bunch of

crap. So again, I get where the guy's coming

from. But what prompted this whole thing is he

literally tried to cancel Adobe. Oh, gotcha.

And they charged him a hundred dollar cancellation

fee. And there was multiple of them because he

had multiple things going and picked him off

the next day. This is what he did. And so here

we are, you know, and Adobe has dominated this

space for a long time. And what this has done

though, is because all of these, and I've seen

this posted all over the place. So I'm kind of

reiterating this thought is. Yes, there are alternatives.

There have been alternatives, but they're not

the ones that people are as familiar with, like

the layout especially, which most of the apps

fall short of what Adobe's done. And that's why

Adobe has the monopoly on it. Same thing with

Microsoft Office. It's the kind of go -to. But

none of these are on Linux. What's nice about

these Rust applications are is they work on all

three operating systems, Mac, Windows, and Linux.

uh they run very lean yes they are you know like

this developer he's gotten a focus on ai integration

as well but it's if you feel like paying for

it not uh you know shove it down your throat

and make you use it yep uh because that's one

of the things that drove me nuts with adobe is

um that you have so many stupid boxes all over

the place trying to pitch you that garbage um

Now what they call this is a clean room reimplementation,

meaning that no source code was used or copied

in the creation. Uh, but, and people are joking.

They're like, something really cool is happening.

I receive, you know, and joking half about this

and, uh, uh, but I mean, These companies have

kind of done it to themselves. One, they've been

overcharging for this crap for years instead

of just letting people buy it. People genuinely

were happy just paying for it once and buying

an upgrade every five, ten years. Yeah. The gravy

train is, I foresee it coming to a screeching

halt because this group, among others, is not

slowing down. And now that these companies have

essentially opened the floodgates to forcing

everyone to use AI, yeah everyone is using ai

and they figured out that they can reverse engineer

everything websites uh software on websites uh

things that there was no way of getting before

they figured out how to make games run with the

same method they're using for this in a window

on your computer like that they figured out how

to jailbreak a playstation 5 and play the games

on your pc Yeah, I saw that story. They've opened

up Pandora's box by creating this technology,

and now the gravy train is going to come to a

halt. I foresee a ton of lawsuits coming, but

I also foresee regulation. And then I also foresee

them possibly jacking up the price of the AI

stuff, although the AI people are loving this.

They're just like, yeah, keep going, keep going,

use it, use it. It's like a drug. So, yeah, I

mean, I'm... I'm kind of rooting for the little

guy with the open source stuff because now that

it's on GitHub and it's been forked, they can

take it down. It's never going to go away now.

It will pop up as many times as they remove it.

It's like Napster and all those back in the day.

Or Pirate Bay. You're not ever going to get rid

of these things. Very true. I find it funny you

don't think I have A copy of audition. How do

you feel? I like the rest of the suite. I find

it funny. You don't think I don't, I don't use

any of it, but yeah. So, so I, yes. And my, I

don't know if infinite wisdom would be accurate

here. I'm developing my own Adobe audition. Yes,

you are. With a different slant. Yes. It will

be very similar in structure and design, like

the flow. However, I'm going a different route.

Like I'm incorporating like podcasting tools

into it that would be genuinely helpful for a

podcaster. Yeah. So, but there are things that

like, cause I've used the whole Adobe suite.

There are things that I'm able to cherry pick

from. other elements there and different microsoft

stuff or different tools that i've used elsewhere

that i've haphazardly thrown together myself

and i'm able to incorporate them into this to

create a leaner updated version that i don't

have to deal with yeah and i own it yeah but

again it's it doesn't take much like it's literally

you're they call it vibe coding it's literally

ai doing it for you you just have to know the

right questions and then write way to frame it

of what you want and how you want it what do

you want it to look like and describe it as uh

i watched a video of the guy that created the

original task manager for microsoft yeah used

forever yeah he recreated it he took he he said

he had 138 page scope on how this thing should

be remastered And then dump that into AI to rebuild

it, like not using any of the original code,

like rebuild it from scratch based on his document.

Oh, wow. And it rebuilt it. So the more information

you feed it of exactly what you want, the closer

and better it's going to operate. But again,

like some, some people are like, you know, what

about the security? What about, you know, the.

auditing the code making sure that it's not you

know hackable or any of this other stuff well

it's like well if you just make it open source

and it's not and it's not uh you know you don't

have to have a call home or you don't have to

have it connected to a login or anything it almost

kind of eliminates a lot of that yep so and if

you get it from the official source which eventually

i probably have it on the website but i'm gonna

actually edit this episode in it to test it out

Because I'm curious to see if it will operate

as expected. Very cool. Yep. So I'm looking forward

to seeing how this whole thing plays out. Because

this article was from 10 -8. And we're recording

this 10 -14. Yeah. And it's, yeah. I foresee

this going in a lot of different directions.

And it will be interesting to see how it changes.

Yep, because things be changing all the time.

But yeah, no, this is going to be very interesting.

You've shown me some little things so far with

your new version that you're making, and it's

going to be interesting to see how it's going

to all play out. And then something, thank God,

I don't have to deal with because I don't go

to grocery stores anymore. I have all the deliveries

come to me. Digital price tags in stores and

light -up features that can be found here, because

that's how I write stories and the thing, folks.

But via Facebook, via the CNBC page on Facebook,

is a video story of, I think they're in Walmart,

of how Walmart is doing. Yeah, Walmart is rolling

out a light -up shelf label feature corrected.

Connected to its app to help customers better

find the items they're seeking. So I like that

it's connected to the app. I don't necessarily

like that it has a light up feature because even

when I was going to grocery stores, whether I

could walk the store or not, even if I couldn't

walk the store and I had to physically because

of my disabilities, use one of the. one of the

motorized carts, I could find, even with my legal

blindness, I could find all the items very rarely.

Did I ever pay attention to the digital or actual

store tags? Half the time I couldn't see the

tags. I could see the items more than I could

see where the tags were. My biggest problem with

this, and I don't know how it's going to affect

everyone else. Now I do not have epilepsy, but

when I watched this video, I almost had to turn

it completely off when it got to the flickering

blue light on the digital price tag. Because

even though I'm not epileptic, I could see how

that could potentially, even though it was only

on for like half of a second, if that goes on

for a couple more seconds longer than it did.

I could see how that could potentially trigger

people with visual issues that are more complicated

than mine are. I don't know about this because

how they're doing this and whatever. And I don't

know because they got the phone out and they

want to track where the item is. And they're

looking right at the app and they show the map

of the store. And I'm sitting here thinking to

myself. Yeah, go to aisle G37 and it's right

there. And isn't that what we already do? Or

am I missing the point here? So I think the point

is, is that it tells you in the app what aisle

to go to, which it does. It's just very difficult

to get to unless you get right to the item. That

being said, when you get down the aisle, the

idea is that it will flash. Now, the only problem

with that is if there's a bunch of people down

the same aisle looking for something. Yeah, true.

Then you're going to have a bunch of flashing

going on. You're going to be like, I don't know

which way to look. And then somebody's going

to have an epileptic seizure and then fall to

the ground. Heaven forbid. Yeah. So I'm kind

of wondering how this is going to roll out more

or less and see what happens. Don't get me wrong.

And this would be nice in a sense, because I

sometimes walk around Walmart and I'm like, I

have no idea where this stupid thing is. Like

I'll go down the aisle and I'll look up and down

it. And like, I'm not blind, but I, if I don't

wear my glasses, like, and especially if I don't

know what the product looks like or the name

of it or where it's squeezed between, like, I'm

not going to find it. I'll stand there for like

20 minutes looking, uh, especially if it's in

the food, like non -frozen, like if it's down

any of the dry food aisles, I won't find it.

Gotcha. So, so I, I like the idea, but I don't

know of, of the implementation. Like, I don't,

I don't know if it like needs to like show like

a green color and just, you know, so you're like,

oh, they're color, you know? And I mean, the

items that they are showing in the video are

like giant boxes of spaghetti. So you're not

like, they're not showing like tiny cans of peaches

or something. uh so i don't know i don't when

i think of grocery shopping when i used to do

it in stores myself when i could actually still

go to the store i would i was always buying items

where i could just like okay so there's a with

walmart specifically i don't know about other

stores but walmart specifically The Walmart app

has two versions of itself. When you're outside

the store and when you're inside the store, when

immediately, as soon as you go inside that store,

it's like, oh, we recognize you're inside the

store because we track your everything. So you're

now inside store mode and the whole app changes

and it allows you to then go through everything

inside the store. And it says, oh, you want to

find blah, blah, blah. So let's just say, look.

Let's just go by what I have on the screen right

now. Great value elbows or spaghetti or whatever.

The giant box of spaghetti I see on the video

on the screen in front of me. Okay, a giant box,

a great value elbow macaroni. Okay, so I type

that into the Walmart app search bar. It pulls

up the page on the Walmart great value elbow

page. It says, oh, it's in aisle G45 or G37 or

whatever. It's like, okay, cool. As long as I'm

in the grocery section, I can follow the signs

at the top of the aisles. G41, G42, G4, like,

and then once I get to the aisle, okay, well.

I just need to know if it's on the right or the

right of the left -hand side and how far down

is it? Like, I don't know. I guess this is interesting

going to a digital price tag, but I have never,

ever since that Walmart app has been out, I don't

think I've looked at the actual price tags on

the shelves in years. Yeah, I don't. I look,

but at the same time, I don't fully pay attention.

Yeah. Because again, if, if the app is like these

again, I don't, I don't have my phone out here.

It's on the charger in the other room, but if

again, my brain's probably off on the price,

but let's say that again, that box of elbow macaroni,

let's say it's on, let's say it's $2 and under.

Cause usually that's what that giant box is.

Most of the time, let's say maybe it's $2 .50

for argument's sake. $2 .50 box, a giant elbow

macaron. Great value. I'm going to see that price

when I look at the page in the app. So I'm just

going to assume that that's the price. And unless

they're going to have an amazing sale on it between

the time I leave home and get to the store. between

the time i park and go into the store which it

never changes that fast i don't know i i guess

this is good for the people that actually go

to the store that actually look at the at the

price tags but i'd like to know from listeners

people listening to the sound of my voice Who

actually looks at... There's the question of

the week, folks. Who actually looks at the price

tags on the shelves when you're grocery shopping?

Hi, Wyatt. Okay. There's one answer. Yeah. Yeah,

yeah. Besides his wife, who actually looks at

the price tags in grocery stores when you're

grocery shopping if you're already using the

app in the store? I, so, I mean, I do too. Like

if I'm down the toy aisles, I, because I. Grocery.

That's not what this is. Yeah. For groceries,

I'm not very good at it, but I'm also only sent

for specific items. So if I'm sent for specific

items that I'm allowed to go get for food. No

Coke for you. Yeah. I do stare at food pricing,

depending, depending on what it is. Like, so.

yeah we stare at toy pricing online all the time

stop it that's i do stare at toy pricing all

the time because i told my kids the best way

to get stuff um my son is like because i got

um obviously i have like a lot of knockoffs because

of price or lack of being able to find it right

uh so like i have studio series you know prime

megatron and now i have starscream and i told

them you know how much you can get them for and

My youngest was like, really? And he's like very

intrigued. He's like, I'm getting those because

I can get more for the price. And I'm like, yep.

And they're not that bad. The only thing they

don't come with is the symbol. And the paint

colors are just a faint, a faint degree darker

than what the official toy is. So like Starscream's

not the bright red. He's like a little bit darker.

But honestly, I like it. Like I dig it. Like

it's, it's kind of cool. And the other thing

is his legs seem a little stubbier between the

waist and the knee. But I really do like that

figure. I'll be interested to see what they do

with the Walmart side of things and check it

out. I think that it's a nice idea. I don't know

how well it's going to go over is, I guess, my

beef with it. Yep, yep, yep. And in sad news,

folks, we always got to bring the sad news around

here sometimes. Breaking Bad star RJ Media passed

away. This was published October 12th by TMZ.

I originally saw this on a... But unfortunately,

the Variety article is being pulled up at this

time. I don't know why. Something is going on

over there at the site. So I had to find a different

source. So RJ's reps tell TMZ is with profound

sadness. We share the tragic passing of actor,

philanthropist, and passionate disability rights

advocate, RJ Mitty. RJ was best known for his

role as... White Jr. on AMC's clearly acclaimed

Breaking Bad, drawing from his own experience

living with cerebral palsy. Middy brought authenticity

to the role and built a platform on disability

awareness, inclusion. His reps continued beyond

entertaining friends and family around him and

served as an ambassador for United Cerebral Palsy

and Shriners Children's. County official confirmed

to TMZ that RJ died by suicide, unfortunately.

I don't know. But just like RJ, I was palsy.

And that was one of the things that I found so

interesting about the Breaking Bad television

show was very rare to see. Like, I'd have to

do some research on this, but in my lifetime,

it was very, so far anyway, it's very rare to

see anyone else with CP on TV. So that was one

of the reasons why I gave Breaking Bad a second

chance was to see how his performance in the

show was. And man. I just sucks. Um, I have,

hopefully you'll include this in the show notes,

but I have, uh, created a tag, uh, for our breaking

bad for our breaking bad reviews that Ryan, the

uneven flow. And I did back in 2017 to 2019.

We reviewed all five seasons over on tired remote

control TV podcast. We did all five seasons plus

the El Camino. uh, film that they had done. Uh,

so check those out folks when you get a chance,

but, uh, RJ rest in peace, man. Uh, it sucks,

but, uh, yeah. Uh, and then we have, uh, for

the final story, before we get into how Gen Z

is killing the art of waiting, old boy, uh, we

have the, uh, Bad story. The Roku? Yeah, it's

the Roku story. Before you get to that, I do

want to bring up a couple of small things that

are pertaining to streamers or media companies.

I'm more so just going to bring it up. Skydance

shares have dropped 22 % after company issues

471 million stock warrants to Paramount investors.

So they've... Yeah, so now it's like $7 a share.

So it's like, do I buy in now? And then with

everything going on, Netflix also laid off 6

% of its employees. Of course they did. And then

Lantern Season 2 won't be greenlit until the

writer's room comes up with a worthy successor.

to a great first season, according to this writer

of the article. I didn't think it was that great

of a season, but I'm looking forward to covering

it. I haven't watched it yet. We will be covering

it over Studio 2009. Two episodes edited, so

yeah. It'll be episode 191 when we get to it.

I got 189 and 190 to edit first. Actually, it'll

be episode 192. But yeah. I am looking forward

to watching it. I don't know. There were some

ups and downs with it. I honestly there were

there was aspects I wanted to like it. And there

were aspects I was like, what the heck did I

just watch? So, yeah, I'm just going to keep

teasing that there. But yeah, the Roku article

about major changes. Yes, so Roku is prepping

a series of substantial updates to its home screen

experience across its streaming devices and smart

TVs with changes set to be rolling out over the

coming months. The enhancements were detailed

at the 2026 Roku Developers Summit and center

on greater layout flexibility, more dynamic and

deeper use of viewer data to surface. It's content.

The company is positioning the updates as a way

to make the interface more engaging and relevant

while creating new opportunities for app partners.

Oh boy. So here's the thing about Roku and its

app partners. What I've heard lately, recently

from various other, like when I'm scrolling on

in doom, scrolling on Instagram. You can, even

though Roku for the most part is free and they

have a bunch of free things on, like right now

I'm watching or re -watching for the Upteenth

Time Cold Case on there because they have all

seven seasons of the 2003 CBS TV series Cold

Case. You can watch a bunch of free stuff on

Roku and the Roku channel. However... their app

partners like Netflix and I'm sure a bunch of

others and I haven't, whatever. Anyway, you can

subscribe to a bunch of subscription services

through Roku and just have all your subscriptions,

I think, be billed through them when they say

app partners. A central feature of the upcoming

changes is expanded support for seasonal and

event -driven layouts. The home screen will be

able to adapt its overall structure and visual

presentation for themes such as Halloween or

major football seasons. This flexibility is expected

to allow temporary redesigns that highlight timely

content collections without requiring permanent

alterations. To the core interface, developers

and content partners will gain additional tools

to coordinate with these temporary presentations,

potentially aligning promotion closely with calendar

events that drive viewing spikes. Another notable

addition involves animated wiggling titles designed

to draw attention to specific apps or content

in previous versions of the platform. This visual

effect. had been restricted to Roku's own applications.

Under the new approach, third -party apps will

be able to access the same animation access is

expected to involve fees, creating a paid placement

option for developers who want to increase the

visibility of their services on the home screen.

Does your TV have Roku? I don't know if it does

or not. No, it doesn't, but I think I can install

it if I so choose. Okay, so my TV is a 55 -inch

4K Sharp TV with Roku. Sharp is the brand. I

don't know if everyone remembers Sharp as a brand.

I don't know if anyone... Hello? Bueller. Yeah.

So sharp used to be, and they still might be

a brand, but they were a brand of TV and electronic

and other thing. Uh, and back, I told this story

before, back in 2018, I wanted to future proof

myself. So I ended up, Karen got a laptop for

Christmas in 2018. I got a 55 inch 4k UHD TV.

And it was a sharp branded television with Roku

built in. So if I were to take a picture of my

home screen, the backing of that home screen

would most likely have like, I just got sad again.

When Optimus Prime passed away. Wow. When Peter

Cullen passed away. Damn it. The Roku City, the

Roku Channel in the Roku City put Optimus Prime

as one of the trucks in the screensaver. So they

put him in the Roku City as an homage. That's

what the Roku Channel kind of is. And that's

what the Roku TVs kind of are kind of thing.

So that's the whole Roku TV. programming kind

of thing so yeah uh so now the third parties

are going to be able to do more with that animation

type stuff and more oh boy the updates also include

advanced contextual rows that are just based

on uh inferred user mood these rows will Draw

on the platform's existing knowledge and preference

to surface recommendations tailored to the user's

apparent state of mind. Oh, boy, they're going

to reach out and try to get in. My brain's not

a nice place to be, Roku. I don't know if you

want to reach out and get into my brain. I don't

know about all that. So, yeah. Yeah, this article

comes from Cord Cutters News. I love Cord Cutters

News. They rock. But yeah, so Roku is going to

be rolling out a bunch of major, major things

throughout the end of this year. Yeah, it'll

be interesting to see how some of this stuff

goes, because honestly, like, yeah. Yeah. Not

a huge Roku person. I'm actually surprised it's

still around. I'm not. I think it's cool. I think

it's awesome. I think it's. Cause again, it's

a built in thing that you don't like, as long

as you have a Roku TV, as long as you like, it's

kind of like, like Roku to me is the same thing

as what the Vizio TVs at Walmart are like Vizio

because Walmart owns Vizio. Now it's the same

thing. Literally, they literally just said they

want to reach out and get into my brain to figure

out my mood and then adjust the Roku style of

the TV. If my TV's on kind of thing, like the

same thing with the Vizio TVs at Walmart. They

want to match their advertisements to the mood

of their TV watchers and yada, yada, yada. Of

course, with Walmart, come shop at Walmart through

Vizio. kind of thing so i'm not too surprised

with this what always does surprise me is when

i do turn the tv on and it's not the roku city

it's some other ad like they're mentioning how

it's different like if it's a summer background

or a winter back like if it's a seasonal background

that isn't just the normal roku city background

i'm like hey wait a minute or if it is a movie

themed background like if like say What's the

next big thing that's coming up? What is the

next big movie that's coming up? Digger's already

out. Street Fighter is the next big film to be

coming out. After that, The Cat in the Hat. Thank

you, Geekcast, the GCRN .com for those movies.

You're welcome. You're welcome. You're welcome.

Yeah. Well, I mean, it was our listing. It's

convenient. Yeah, exactly. Damn right. That's

what I'm going for. Convenience. Convenience.

Work smarter, not harder. But yeah, so Street

Fighter and the Cat in the Hat are the two big

movies. So I'm assuming at some point my TV will

potentially change to reflect. those advertisements

for when street fighter like gets debuted like

i know they changed when spider -man came out

uh i know it changed when digger came out you

know so i'm pretty damn sure it's gonna have

a doomsday clock like a week before when doomsday

releases i'm i'd almost be willing to put money

on it at So, yeah, Roku's big changes. Twenty

twenty six. Very, very cool. Now, I think we've

made the people hurry up and wait long. I think

so, too. Yeah, because we've been trying to talk

about this for three weeks. Yeah, well, that's

generally how it happens. Yeah, usually. So,

yes, I saw this and I don't remember where I

think I don't know if it was Instagram or Facebook

or what. The link is from Facebook. Yeah, this

one's Facebook, but I think this is the second

place I saw it when I was looking again to find

it. And I'm not a big fan of Trevor Noah. He's

okay. He's okay, but I'm not a fan of him. I

think he used to think he was funnier than what

he was on The Daily Show, and I'm glad they put

Jon Stewart back because he actually has the

credentials, I guess. You know, I don't find

Trevor funny. I find him more engagingly interesting.

Like I never found him like this, this specific

video itself. I find what he's saying interesting

and I find his conversation here more thought

provoking than like, obviously in this, he's

not trying to be funny, but. All of the videos

I've seen of him recently are not him. It's not

comedian Trevor Noah. It's let's have a serious

conversation, Trevor Noah. And I like that version

of him better. I don't know. Yeah. And that's,

that's what I've seen him in lately. And I honestly

agree with you. I think that this is kind of

his niche. I think the daily show is kind of

a poor fit. Yeah, but it did give him the notoriety

of the public eye so that he would stand out

when it came to this. And, you know, as everybody

knows, like even actors like they have to do,

you know, for every movie you got to do your,

you know, your Van Wilder college movie or like

a horror film, you know, just to get to what

you actually want to do. It's like McConaughey

had to do a bunch of romantic comedy stuff until

he, you know, proved himself and then was like,

no, I want to do something different. Yep. So,

you know, that being said, like, I found it funny

that his his whole video, you know, he's talking

to somebody and he's like, your generation doesn't

know the concept of waiting for something, you

know, and then and he was talking to somebody

and he says, you know, kind of like all the time.

He's like, I used to stand in a line and stare

at the back of somebody's head, you know, any

number of places. And that was just kind of what

you did. You know, there was no phone. There

was no, you know. he's talking about like you

know the post office or you know anything he's

like the most entertainment you got was staring

at the back of the head of the person in front

of you and that was it there was no you know

he was like there was no music no video game

no you know messages no you know you just stood

there and you were bored and I do you know I

do kind of agree with him Because he's like,

you know, you can't even appreciate that, you

know, you have to wait, you know, because like

their generation has never had to wait for anything.

And he was like, and it was kind of nice knowing,

not knowing where your friend was not knowing,

you know, any of the information. And I just

from a parent of these kids, I, I don't like,

I find it funny when they have to sit through

the first time they had to sit through commercials.

was hilarious they're like what is this and it

was on like 2b or something or on like amazon

prime video and and my wife and i just laughed

we're like those are commercials and they're

like can you skip it we're like no we're like

these ones you know you can't press the skip

button you have to suffer through it um they're

like well we don't have to watch you know ads

on this this and this and i'm like that's because

those don't have ads yeah Or I have capabilities

built into things that don't show the ads anymore,

you know, other than Amazon. And so, I mean,

it's it's it's entertaining because, you know,

that that instance or like my son wants to know

something like he's interested in acting right

now. And he keeps texting or barraging me with

information about, you know, have you had a chance

to check on this? Have you done it? And I'm like,

no, because I have normal life stuff I have to

get done. I will look for it. But it doesn't

mean on your time frame. Yeah. You know, it's,

and so that's kind of the, the way I operate.

It's like, yeah. Like, I mean, I, their thing,

you know, it's almost like hurry up and wait.

Yeah. And so, I mean, I, I'm fine with waiting.

Like, I don't love it, but I, I can deal with

it. I mean, I'm from the VHS era, you know, rewind

your video. What's that? Can't you go back to

the menu? No, you had to physically sit there

and wait for the thing to click. Or like an audio

cassette or, you know, I don't know. Like, it's

just, it's funny that the art of waiting, I feel

like this is why the attention spans are so terrible

with anything because they can't, you know, and

then they have this anxiety constantly going

on because they're like, I got, I can't wait.

I can't wait. I can't wait. You know, blah, blah,

blah. Like, and it's like, dude, like I'm just,

I'm at the weird age now where it's like, And

my wife and I were talking about this the other

day. We're like, I just want to see it storm

and just sit out on the back porch and watch

it rain. You know, like, I don't even care. Yeah.

So, yeah, I mean. Well, the funny thing about

this video is it's Trevor Noah. It's a younger

black woman and an older black woman. And I'm

just going to describe them as what they are.

because I don't know who these other women are.

Like there's no, in the description, all as he

writes is the title is Gen Z killing the art

of waiting. He doesn't say, and he doesn't introduce

them. He just starts the video by having the

conversation. Like I don't see any other descriptors

for at least not on Facebook. So I'm sorry. I

don't have the information to give the audience.

But I'm in the video to the point of where the

older black lady is talking about, oh, I'm sorry,

I don't want to be an auntie at this. But, you

know, it used to be if I said to you, I'm going

to be at your house at 2 p .m., you just knew

I'm going to show up at like, Steve, if I called

you and said, OK, I'll be there at 2 p .m. You

would expect me to be there at 2 p .m. unless.

Yeah, you would expect not to hear anything until

then. Yeah, exactly. And if you didn't hear anything,

you would expect, oh, my God, Mike fell off a

cliff or something like, oh, my God, what happened?

We have to send a search party for Mike because

in the olden days, there were no cell phones.

There were no this. There were no that. But now

and part of their their point is nowadays, it's

like, oh, well, now. I need your location. I

need how far away are you? Where are you going

to park? Where's this? There's all all of this

constant interaction, mostly because the idea

to your point of waiting is like counterintuitive

to everything. Like, I'm just going to see you

at two. Like, I'll get there and I'll see you

when I see you. It'll be fine. But I found a

level of anxiety that the younger people have

about not knowing. you're precise you know and

she goes i can't imagine cannot imagine that

our brain developed past that far to be okay

with yeah it is yeah um but uh yeah no that video

that video is amazing uh and the point i want

to make about it is like to her point about If

I say I'm going to be there at two o 'clock,

I'll be there at two o 'clock about waiting for

something. I remember about having to be somewhere,

whether you're either going to be early or be

late, and you're not sure about it. The school

bus in the morning. if the school if when i remember

those days yes but like if if the school if your

school says okay the school district says here's

all the bus routes and here's the bus route for

your your area of of town and here you know mikey

here's your your bus number that you're assigned

to and This is your bus and your bus arrives

at 6 0 5 AM. Cause literally this, this happened

to me. Literally my bus time was 6 0 5 AM. So

literally I was waking up at four 30 in the morning,

every morning in Massachusetts, four 30 in the

morning, get a shower, brush my teeth, which

this is counterintuitive, but get a shower. Okay.

This is an encounter to get a shower, eat breakfast,

brush my teeth, get everything ready to go. By

all that time, it was probably five 45. I probably

had a five minute walk from, from my house to

my, the end of my driveway. So yeah, if I wasn't

at the end of the driveway by like literally

at six o 'clock with five minutes to spare before

the bus was going to be there, I knew I was going

to be. running like spider -man in 2002 to catch

the bus except i didn't have no webs to stick

to the side of the bus um but yeah no like you

you you're either late you're either early on

time or late to miss the bus and you didn't know

which it was gonna be unless you made sure you

knew what time that bus was coming like there

is no yeah but uh No, I don't think Gen Z is

killing the art of waiting because I'm like,

take comic book, take comics, for example. I

don't have to rush out digitally or physically

to get the latest issue of insert comic here

every month. I don't have to do that. If I wanted

to do that and pay for three, four or five dollars

a month, I could. Or I can sit here in my apartment

on my fat ass editing podcasts and just wait

the six months or eight months or nine months

for the trade, which I've been waiting for the

trade ever since. And I've told this story before,

ever since. Welcome back, Frank. The omnibus,

which was the 12 issues for the series, fell

out of my hand and broke my foot, which was sometime

in 2014. It didn't break my foot. I vaguely remember

that. Yeah, it didn't break my foot, but I did

some damage. Yeah, well, did something. That's

one thing we got to fix on this website of ours,

the search bar, because the search bar never

pulls up any podcast results. Well, I'll have

to fix that at some point. I wasn't aware of

that. Yeah, well, now you are. It pulled it up,

but. lately I've been noticing that but yes welcome

back Frank was released November of 2013 the

end of 2013 almost beginning of 2014 I see the

search works if you're on the show page of that

given podcast like if you know what podcast it

was on yeah there's a there's a specific one

for the show on its page compared to the one

at the top which I'll have to see if I can't

fix it I'll just remove that top one and it was

the top one well i like the top one because it

searches the whole website so but anyway that

aside but uh yeah 23rd november of 2013 i was

like yeah no i'm think i'm going digital after

this and right after that in november of 2013

was like right after that i immediately went

to at the time comicsology .com and i went digital

And the pullback went digital for the rest of

time. But again, it's like, especially for me

with trades, I would rather have the full story

than have to read issue by issue. So I'm more

than fine waiting. Going back to the whole waiting

conversation, I can wait for something. Going

back to Lanterns, I was right now, Vision Quest.

I want to watch Vision Quest, but I don't want

to have to wait. Yeah, I mean, I already watched

it. I know you did. I'm probably going to watch

it just because I'm so very much anticipating

it and whatever. I'm probably going to break

down and watch the first two episodes, but I'm

not podcasting about it until all the episodes

are out because I want to talk about the whole

story as a whole. But yeah, Lanterns, I was perfectly

fine waiting. I saw the few trailers that they

put out. I saw a couple of episode trailer things

after the fact. But now that Lanterns is fully

out, it'll be one of the newer episodes of Studio

2009 coming up. Yep. Yep. People just have to

wait for it though. So before, before we go,

I do want to bring up there's, there's one lingering

topic that we'll have to bring up at some point.

And that's about the blockbuster. Yep. That's

going to be our Christmas episode this year.

I mean, that kind of tracks. That'll make, that'll

be fun. But yeah, I mean, there's that, but I

also just saw something on X or Twitter. Apparently,

open AI chat GPT, Sam Altman had to pull the

plug on a new AI chat bot they were developing

because it wouldn't stop acting like a supervillain.

Oh, no. Yeah, they it says he really created

Ultron. Yeah, it says OpenAI cancels its latest

chat, but it wouldn't stop acting like a supervillain.

It was posted by one of my old, like, where I

used to work years ago. But yeah, they're like,

it's always a trade -off. Like a little month,

you know, after the internal AI attacked another

company, their GPT 6 .1 Astra, which was expected

to come out in October this month. uh was going

to be capable of handling complex tasks without

the need for a human it turns out the ai took

its lack of human direction pretty seriously

and routinely decided to take matters into its

own hands during the testing phase astra reportedly

showed high levels of deception and a willingness

to mislead users about its actions um yeah i

think they need to pump the brakes on making

any new models until they can get this thing

wrapped up it's It's getting out of control.

Literally. Literally. I like what AI is capable

of, but untethered and like this, it will very

much turn into what Vincent had mentioned. It

will also probably be humanities undoing like

Skynet. And as much as James Cameron's kind of

a nut job when he shouts that from the hills.

He's not entirely wrong because these guys have

no grasp on what they've created. Yep. And it

just, yeah, they need to take a chill pill. Like,

I literally use it to create programs. I'm not

using it as an agent to replace me. Nope. It's

very supervised. It's very, like, it's exactly

what it should be. It's a tool, not a replacement.

It should be something I wield. And I decide

and tell it what to do, not something that just

kind of goes autonomously and does whatever the

heck it feels like. That is a recipe for disaster.

And it should, should it become autonomous at

some point? Uh, we're not going to be dealing

with commander data. We're going to be dealing

with lore. Yeah. So I, yeah, I sincerely like

hope that they get this under control. For every

positive, there's a negative, and it's being

wielded by the stupidest people. Stupidest smart

people. Stop being stupid, you smart people.

Stupid smart people, yeah. Look smart. Dumb.

Dumb, dumb, dumb. Anyways, so I think that about

wraps this episode up. At some point before the

end of the year, I'm hoping to do some more stuff

with the store and with some of the podcasting

plugins. As soon as I finish earning out some

details, I'm testing them out on my personal

website to make sure that it works as it's expected.

And then there's the new software that I'm playing

around with. Oh, yes. We shall see. Very cool.

Very cool. Yep. So, thank you as always for listening

to this episode of Altered Geek. You can, of

course, interact with this episode on the website,

thegcrn .com. You can find it there. You can

also interact on our social media. And you can

find both of us on social media. I'm at cp21

in most places and you're... Something mook.

I'm at tfg1mike. uh the social media stuff at

the places yeah at the places so until next time

get altered get geeky with alter geeks from classic

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