Wife Aum Shinrikyo: Bill Ackman’s Quest feat. Ed Zitron
We're joined by friend of the show and repeat guest Ed Zitron (@edzitron) to discuss some recent AI 'products,' the total failure of another hyped tech business, a Turkish magician's journey through the world of scamming an entire biotech company, but—and this is very important—we finally talk about Bill Ackman and why he does that.
Check out Ed's newsletter here: http://wheresyoured.at
And check out Ed's show 'Better Offline'
Comments (59)
Doctor No saw Doctor Oz and said hold my healing elixir
Go! Go! Ackman is apparently based on an Akira Toriyama manga, so unless Ackman lived with Akira fuckign Toriyama for a bit it's unlikely that it's based on him. Then again the gray hair could have been a specific decision by the game devs on behalf of ackman, since the manga's in black and white
“Enochian bio sciences” makes me think he was a magickian rather than a magician, or maybe he was just into both idk. But holy fucking shit the occult circles back once again to bring out some of the worse fucking people
What the fuck, I just listened to season 1 of Blowback and now I can't escape it
TOM LEHRER MENTIONED
Wait, I'm supposed to like the podcast?
On two different podcasts this week I've heard Ed Zitron become upset at the idea of a tiger being depicted with four legs. Ed, a tiger very much does have that number of legs usually
Fun fact, Neri Oxman was previously married to an Argentine composer who allegedly plagiarized another composer’s work.
George Carlin is brought back to life only to discover, to his horror, that he’s been replaced by an AI, so he says “I’m going back to being dead.”
Hate it when I lose billions of dollars on a bus, gotta be careful when you’re out riding public transit
My mental subtitles wrote it as "Ackman's wife was being accused of Plagiarism 2," like second-degree plagiarism. Plagiarism that wasn't premeditated or planned in advance, something which may be familiar to many university students
The viral puppy video doesn't fucking blink and I hate it. The cat doesn't either.
"an experience that is not relatable to anybody else at all [..] a delusional episode" yea somebody should tell techbros about lsd, it's vastly better for the environment too
this guy genuinely just sounds like a Hitman Elusive Target lol
Love to see mister Zitron making the podcast rounds, excited to listen!
"Isn't real life Farmville just a farm" made me laugh way too hard
We’re Joooos out in spaaace! Zooming along, protecting the Hebrew race I’m guessing the “Marxism” of the daughter is code for “I believe Palestinians are people and not dogs.”
Immediately started listening to this after the latest Chapo episode without reading the full title and got whiplash
Is it polyamory if you saw your wife in half and you're with both of them?
Yes, but it's an entire semester of "Advanced Topics in Group Theory" to prove why.
So disappointed that it turns out shadowrunner is a real job after I became a postie.
Incredible that Ackman posted the James Sommerton apology on behalf of his wife even when she suffered zero consequences as a result.
"trawling back street magic shops and second-hand bookstores" That's not business reporting, that's a Call Of Cthulhu campaign.
Bill Ackerman’s wife has escaped to a more equitable life in the lagoon
Incredible episode. Up there with the lagoon for me.
"What if we had an XL bully telling George Carlin jokes?" These folks are just fanfic authors who can't even manifest a My Immortal level of creativity. They know they want SpongeBob fucking Taylor Swift while an XL bully dressed as Toby Keith wearing gold Trump sneakers watches, but they're too goddamn lazy and inept to write it themselves, so they want AI to do it.
Some of them are even too lazy to write their own prompts to the AI, and steal their descriptions from IIRC closed captioning and museum descriptions.
I was at a club just last night watching a DJ play progressive house borderline psytrance to an empty room and the visuals were AI generated space psychedelic 70's visuals, like Pink Floyd The Wall crossed with woo woo crystal astrology dodge van airbrush. it was basically fine but I was like paralyzed by how everything is going to be like this pretty soon. it's not going to fundamentally change how we see art on a really deep level but it's going to push everything towards one specific style and idiom for a while, kinda like how after Pro Tools came out all music for a while in the aughts had this flat sheen of clean perfection and a perfectly square tempo grid
Was it better or worse than a WinAmp visualization? (Do we no longer aspire to "Really Whip the Llama's Ass" in this world?)
I print emails at work, but I work in a field where we still regularly fax.
unlimited divorce on bill aKKKman and perSShing $quare
"HOPE YOU KNOW I PACK A CHAINSAW, WHAAAAT!?"
I love when the show gets so self-referential it gets into the years long bit of riffing on an even older bit from an entirely unrelated podcast, that's a level of podcast density you just don't get from competitors.
I wanna see Luke Skywalker getting the blue milk from Tony Soprano's big soft titty.
you know the episode is gonna be fire when the comment section is like this
I want the hard boiled novel about the private investigator in Istanbul, a current day Philip Marlowe, and we can use AI to cast Humphrey Bogart, resulting in a hack but surreal blending of the Hindenburg report and The Big Sleep. But for real, I want hard-boiled corporate detective fiction
I was with you until AI Bogart. That just ends in that one scene from The Critic ♫ Rick has got his gal ♫ ♫ And Louie is is pal ♫ ♫ They execute the spy ♫ ♫ Stay tuned for all your local news ♫ ♫ And Maaaaagnum.... P.I. ♫ Look, Phillipsvision has been on my mind a lot in the last year.
*Sean Connery Voice*: "Tell me, does the faking of medical data compensate for having no hands?"
Who was the historian (?) who dissed TF after being on the show...?
This was an affectionate jibe to Patrick Wyman, who may be returning sooner than you think!
Ed making the rounds of my pods this week!
Almost as if he were some sort of Public Relations professional with a project to promote... It was kinda funny trawling through the Chapo comment thread. You don't get so much AI Guy "I'm not a fan of AI but " here or at TMK. (Can't imagine why).
"not magic, Illusions"
If Bill Ackman sues Axel Springer we should all bring popcorn.
Godzilla vibes of : let them fight.
Wait wait wait. In Japanese Ackman would be rendered as "Akuman." "Aku" means evil , "akuma" means devil. If an obnoxious gray-haired child named Bill Evilman showed up on my doorstep I'd make him into a video game too
Sounds like the plot of a Cartoon Network series... ---- Long ago in a distant land, I, Akuman, the shapeshifting master of Spacness, unleashed an unspeakable evil. But, a foolish british crew wielding a magic podcast stepped forth to oppose me. Before the final joke was struck, I tore open a portal in time and flung them into the future where my AI-vil is law. Now, the fools seek to return to the past and undo the future that is Aku man.
On a tangent, Bill Ackman tried to sponsor David Sabatini's research after the latter nuked his career at MIT for being a creep
my respect for C-tier turkish magicians turned fake doctors is in shambles
I believe the "Brooklyn messiah" thing is referring to the Lubavitchers who got caught digging tunnels last month and yes I'm aware how insane this sounds
The important thing to explain is that the Lubavitchers who dug the tunnel were actually a group of dissident Lubavitchers, as Chabad itself assiduously changes the subject whenever anyone talks about the Rebbe Schneerson being the messiah. Anyway there are *only* three or four houses with yellow “moshiach” flags on my block, so I assume they represent a marginal contingent (never mind that most of the rest of the households are West Indians). Oh also my attitude is that the city should just pay the moshiach-flag people to dig more storm sewers, especially considering the last time 770 made global headlines it was because the basement flooded.
under communism russia had joey steel. under capitalism, they must merely content themselves with denny ferrite.
https://youtu.be/xtNGyh_ASTI https://youtu.be/-SHTeywlEEI “As a result of Papa Smurf’s authoritarian policies, many in the West began to refer to him as ‘Zoolander’, which, of course, in American, means ‘man of blue steel’.”
As far as anarchists and insulin goes, I'd sign up in a heartbeat, and yes I am actually qualified
...kind of
I automatically assumed someone with Ed's accent would love the phrase "enshittificiation." I kind of feel a phenomenon that pathetic doesn't deserve a cool name
Cory Doctorow has been on TF, too. I don’t know which lounge package he has, though.
Banger episode name, and so timely with the Yakuza member who just got caught selling uranium.
Do you want Godzilla? Because this is how you get Godzilla.