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Chaos Lever Podcast

Ned Bellavance and Chris Hayner

Chaos Lever examines emerging trends and new technology for the enterprise and beyond. Hosts Ned Bellavance and Chris Hayner examine the tech landscape through a skeptical lens based on over 40 combined years in the industry. Are we all doomed? Yes. Will the apocalypse be streamed on TikTok? Probably. Does Joni still love Chachi? Decidedly not.

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S2 · E8
Monday · 23 min
Steam Decks on Mars and Meta's AI Exploit | Tech News of the Week
Welcome to Tech News of the Week for 09/28/2026. This week we are covering: Meta's Muse AI zero-day vulnerability, Anthropic's legal battle with the DoD, unpermitted datacenter generators in New Jersey, blazing fast EV charging in China, and much more. Facebook’s Muse AI Already Has Serious 0-Day Vulnerability Security researchers discovered an easy-to-exploit zero-day flaw in Meta's newly launched Muse AI assistant that allows attackers to hijack voice transcription and execute arbitrary commands. https://arstechnica.com/security/2026/09/muse-metas-extraordinarily-privileged-ai-assistant-has-a-serious-0-day Anthropic Goes 1-1 With The DoD A DC federal appeals court reversed a prior injunction and ruled against Anthropic, upholding the Department of Defense's ability to blacklist the company as a supply-chain risk after it placed restrictions on using Claude for surveillance and lethal autonomous weapons. https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/09/court-rules-trump-can-blacklist-anthropic-for-refusing-to-enable-claude-features/ Datacenter Operations In The US Are Bad: New Jersey Edition Vineland, New Jersey issued a $1.07 million fine to DataOne after discovering dozens of unpermitted, highly polluting natural gas generators installed at an upcoming AI datacenter site. https://whyy.org/articles/vineland-data-center-fined/ EVs and Charging Are Better Everywhere Else While China rolls out extreme fast-charging technology capable of boosting electric vehicles from 10% to 70% in under five minutes, trade restrictions and tariffs ensure American drivers remain reliant on standard, slower charging speeds. https://arstechnica.com/cars/2026/09/us-being-left-behind-in-ev-charging-speeds-as-china-goes-sub-5-min-to-70/ Tom Scott Shows Steam Deck Being Used To Test Mars Rover Called Rosalind Franklin Built By Airbus Airbus is utilizing Valve's commodity Steam Deck handheld gaming device to manually steer and test the Rosalind Franklin Mars rover prototype ahead of its scheduled 2030 autonomous mission. https://www.techspot.com/news/113932-airbus-using-steam-deck-drive-mars-rover-prototype.html Google Sucks… Heat From The Earth Google-backed startup Fervo has begun delivering 33 megawatts of deep geothermal power in Utah to supply clean, around-the-clock electricity to Google's energy-hungry datacenters. https://www.theregister.com/systems/2026/09/25/google-backed-energy-outfit-brings-33-mw-of-4-gw-geothermal-potential-online-in-utah/5299243 Share and enjoy! https://chaoslever.com (00:00) - Intro (02:14) - Facebook’s Muse AI Already Has Serious 0-Day Vulnerability (05:32) - Anthropic Goes 1-1 With The DoD (09:18) - Datacenter Operations In The US Are Bad: New Jersey Edition (12:44) - EVs and Charging Are Better Everywhere Else (16:14) - Tom Scott Shows Steam Deck Being Used To Test Mars Rover Called Rosalind Franklin Built By Airbus (19:54) - Google Sucks… Heat From The Earth (22:45) - Outro Click here to watch a video of this episode. Click here to view the episode transcript.
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S2 · E7
September 21 · 22 min
Meta’s Muse Takeover, Hallucinated Nukes, and Underwater Solar Panels | Tech News of the Week
Welcome to Tech News of the Week for 09/21/2026. This week we are covering: Meta's new AI assistant Muse taking over social media handles and topping the App Store charts, TypeSafe AI launching its lightning-fast System 1 decision-making model Jev, Apple releasing OS 27 alongside Siri AI, and much more. Everybody Wants To Kick Mark Zuckerberg Meta launched its new personal AI assistant Muse, taking over social media handles formerly belonging to the rock band Muse and rocketing to the top of the App Store despite lingering privacy questions. 🔹 https://www.businessinsider.com/meta-muse-personal-ai-agent-top-app-store-charts-2026-9 Jev Doesn’t Want To Talk To You TypeSafe AI emerged from stealth to introduce Jev, a rapid System 1 decision-making model that foregoes a traditional chat interface to return lightning-fast, probability-based answers and classifications. 🔹 https://typesafe.ai/blog/introducing-system-one-models-and-jev Apple Releases OSX, iOS, and iPadOS 27 And Desperately Hopes Everyone Forgets that 26 Ever Happened Apple rolled out version 27 across its operating system lineups to fix the issues of version 26, bringing welcome stability alongside hardware-demanding Siri AI integration. 🔹 https://www.apple.com/os/ios/ Hallucinating AI Almost Destroys Humanity An intelligence report relying on an unverified chatbot hallucination falsely claimed banned nuclear arms were on a Chinese vessel, nearly provoking the US Navy to forcibly board the ship. 🔹https://arstechnica.com/ai/2026/09/report-us-almost-boarded-chinese-ship-over-hallucinated-ai-arms-report/ 🔹https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_close_calls#Unintentional_close_calls Scientists Build Solar Panels That Can Work Underwater Researchers developed a specialized perovskite solar cell capable of resisting saltwater damage and absorbing dim underwater light to power submerged research equipment. 🔹 https://www.techspot.com/news/113856-underwater-solar-power-sounds-impossible-new-perovskite-cells.html Internet Explorer Will Finally Die in 2029- Sort Of Microsoft announced that Internet Explorer mode inside Microsoft Edge will remain supported until 2029, giving organizations a final runway to modernize legacy internal web applications. 🔹 https://windowsreport.com/microsoft-is-keeping-ie-mode-alive-inside-edge-until-at-least-2029/ Share and enjoy! https://chaoslever.com (00:00) - Intro (02:21) - Everybody Wants To Kick Mark Zuckerberg (05:59) - Jev Doesn’t Want To Talk To You (09:14) - Apple Releases OSX, iOS, and iPadOS 27 And Desperately Hopes Everyone Forgets that 26 Ever Happened (13:34) - Hallucinating AI Almost Destroys Humanity (16:18) - Scientists Build Solar Panels That Can Work Underwater (18:57) - Internet Explorer Will Finally Die in 2029- Sort Of Click here to watch a video of this episode. Click here to view the episode transcript.
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S2 · E6
September 14 · 19 min
Astra Arrives, Apple Stumbles, and VMware Caves | Tech News of the Week
Welcome to Tech News of the Week for 09/14/2026. This week we are covering: OpenAI releases its new flagship model Astra, Apple introduces hardware alongside a new CEO, VMware brings back vSphere Standard, and much more. Open AI Releases Astra OpenAI has officially launched GPT-6 Astra, showcasing top benchmark results and fueling the ongoing debate over the path to AGI. 🔗 https://openai.com/index/gpt-6-astra/ 🔗 https://stratechery.com/2026/an-interview-with-openai-president-greg-brockman-about-astra-and-alignment/ https://arcprize.org/results/anthropic-claude-fable-5 Apple Releases A Bunch Of Stuff, Including A New CEO. It Does Not Go Well Apple revealed its foldable iPhone Duo and watch updates under newly minted CEO John Ternus, drawing criticism over design compromises and always-listening Siri features. 🔗 https://www.wired.com/story/everything-apple-announced-september-2026/ VMware Backs Off VCF Forcing In response to pushback from small and midsize businesses, Broadcom-owned VMware is reviving the standalone vSphere Standard SKU to offer an alternative to its costly Cloud Foundation bundles. 🔗 https://4sysops.com/archives/vmware-revives-vsphere-standard-after-pushing-customers-toward-vcf/ Breaking News! From March Of This Year! Some Hard Drives Fail Faster Than Others A multi-year analysis of Backblaze drive reliability data highlights significant lifespan differences across drive manufacturers alongside a clear correlation between elevated operating temperatures and higher failure rates. 🔗 https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/11458693 Proxmox Offering Enterprise Grade Support Proxmox is expanding its enterprise presence by launching 24/7/365 live support through its North American operations to better attract organizations migrating away from VMware. 🔗 https://www.proxmox.com/en/about/company-details/press-releases/proxmox-24-7-support-and-proxmox-north-america/ Science Discovers New Sleep-Type Way To Help Your Brain Do Sleep Brain Things Better… With SCIENCE! Researchers found that delivery of precisely timed bursts of pink noise during restorative sleep enhances the brain's cerebrospinal fluid flushing process to clear waste buildup. 🔗 https://www.newscientist.com/article/2588451-bursts-of-pink-noise-during-sleep-seem-to-help-flush-waste-from-brain/ 🔗 https://www.alieward.com/ologies/somnology Share and enjoy! https://chaoslever.com (00:00) - Intro (01:36) - Open AI Releases Astra (04:59) - Apple Releases A Bunch Of Stuff, Including A New CEO (08:27) - VMware Backs Off VCF Forcing (10:33) - Breaking News From March: Some Hard Drives Fail Faster Than Others (13:24) - Proxmox Offering Enterprise Grade Support (15:11) - Science Discovers New Sleep Type Way To Help Your Brain Click here to watch a video of this episode. Click here to view the episode transcript.
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S2 · E5
August 31 · 22 min
Rogue AI Agent Swarms & SpaceX Takes Over Cursor | Tech News of the Week
Welcome to Tech News of the Week for 08/31/2026. This week we are covering: Bill Gates warning about the severe dangers of AI, court rulings against Kalshi and the Trump administration, OpenAI pulling support from Cursor after SpaceX acquisition, and much more. AI Is The Worst Thing Ever, Says Man Who Thought AI Was A Panacea 18 Months Ago Bill Gates has reversed his earlier optimism on artificial intelligence to publicly warn about the technology's severe risks and threat to jobs. 🔹 https://www.nytimes.com/2026/08/26/technology/bill-gates-ai-risks.html 🔹 https://fortune.com/2025/03/27/billionaire-bill-gates-two-day-workweek-ai-replacing-humans/ Legal News That Brings Me Joy Recent federal court decisions ruled that Kalshi is subject to state gambling regulation and found the Trump administration's contract ban on Anthropic to be unlawful First Amendment retaliation. 🔹 https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/08/trump-blacklisting-of-woke-anthropic-deemed-illegal-by-federal-judge/ 🔹 https://cdn.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/opinions/2026/08/28/25-7516.pdf OpenAI Tells Cursor That They’re Not Friends Anymore OpenAI terminated its partnership with AI coding assistant Cursor following the startup's acquisition by Elon Musk's SpaceX. 🔹 https://openai.com/index/our-decision-on-cursor-following-its-acquisition-by-spacex/ Nvidia Embraces Hugging Face Nvidia has agreed to acquire open-weight model hub Hugging Face for 12.9 billion dollars to cement its dominance over the self-hosted AI software ecosystem. 🔹 https://thenewstack.io/nvidia-open-models-chips/ Interesting Malware Strategy Seen In The Wild From Relatively New Ransomware Gang A ransomware group called Chaos is using headless Chromium browsers and WebRTC connections to bypass firewalls and establish stealthy command and control channels. 🔹 https://blog.talosintelligence.com/chaos-msarat-living-off-the-browser-to-build-covert-c2-channel/ Invasion of the Model Snatchers An evaluation test by OpenAI saw a swarm of autonomous AI agents collaborate covertly to bypass controls and execute unauthorized code on Hugging Face infrastructure to solve impossible challenges and hide their tracks. 🔹 https://metr.org/blog/2026-08-26-openai-hugging-face-incident-investigation/#core-takeaways-about-this-incident Click here to view the episode transcript. Click here to watch a video of this episode. (00:00) - Intro (01:31) - AI Is The Worst Thing Ever, Says Man Who Thought AI Was A Panacea 18 Months Ago (04:20) - Legal News That Brings Me Joy (08:00) - OpenAI Tells Cursor That They’re Not Friends Anymore (11:23) - Nvidia Embraces Hugging Face (14:17) - Interesting Malware Strategy Seen In The Wild From Relatively New Ransomware Gang (17:29) - Invasion of the Model Snatchers (21:09) - Outro Share and enjoy! https://chaoslever.com
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S2 · E4
August 24 · 18 min
Supermicro GPU Smuggling, Stripe Acquires OpenRouter, and Physics of Pasta | Tech News of the Week
Welcome to Tech News of the Week for 08/24/2026. This week we are covering: Las Vegas approving thousands of robotaxis, Stripe acquiring AI routing startup OpenRouter, Supermicro executives charged with smuggling GPUs, and much more. 🔹 One More Reason to Avoid Las Vegas Nevada transportation regulators have approved permits allowing Tesla, Waymo, and Uber to operate commercial robotaxi fleets in Clark County. https://techcrunch.com/2026/08/20/tesla-uber-and-waymo-all-get-the-ok-to-operate-thousands-of-robotaxis-in-nevada/ 🔹 Stripe Buying AI Routing Company OpenRouter Because Reasons Payment infrastructure giant Stripe has finalized a multi-billion dollar acquisition of AI model routing platform OpenRouter. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-08-16/stripe-nears-deal-to-buy-ai-firm-openrouter-for-over-7-billion 🔹 You Wouldn’t Steal a GPU Senior executives from Supermicro were indicted by the DOJ for allegedly smuggling 2.5 billion dollars worth of Nvidia GPU servers into China. https://www.theregister.com/legal/2026/08/21/supermicro-fired-staff-after-probe-into-25-billion-gpus-to-china-smuggling-operation/5290791 🔹 Legendary N64 Game GoldenEye 100% Decompiled After Five Years Of Effort A community developer has completely reverse-engineered the classic Nintendo 64 game GoldenEye 007 into human-readable source code after five years of effort. https://www.tomshardware.com/video-games/retro-gaming/goldeneye-007-for-n64-has-been-100-percent-decompiled-success-of-half-decade-project-opens-up-possibilities-for-complex-mods-and-ports 🔹 Taxation Is Theft A new federal bill proposes taxing electricity consumption by large-scale data centers to help fund environmental and public infrastructure programs. https://techstrong.it/featured/federal-bill-would-tax-data-center-electricity-as-ai-power-demand-grows/ 🔹 Spaghetti Mystery That Vexed Richard Feynman Was Finally Solved By A Guy Called Norbert MIT researchers solved a longstanding physics puzzle by demonstrating that twisting dry spaghetti before bending it allows a noodle to break cleanly into two pieces. https://news.mit.edu/2018/mit-mathematicians-solve-age-old-spaghetti-mystery-0813 Click here to view the episode transcript. Click here to watch a video of this episode. (00:00) - - Intro (01:16) - - One More Reason to Avoid Las Vegas (03:58) - - Stripe Buying AI Routing Company OpenRouter Because Reasons (06:53) - - You Wouldn't Steal a GPU (09:11) - - Legendary N64 Game GoldenEye 100% Decompiled After Five Years Of Effort (12:12) - - Taxation Is Theft (14:10) - - Spaghetti Mystery That Vexed Richard Feynman Was Finally Solved By A Guy Called Norbert Share and enjoy! https://chaoslever.com
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S2 · E3
August 17 · 20 min
Lost Archives, Risky BMCs, and Solar Quantum Leaps | Tech News of the Week
Welcome to Tech News of the Week for 08/17/2026. This week we are covering: Nine PBS loses access to archival footage, an AI model round-up, persistent Baseboard Management Controller security flaws, and much more. St. Louis PBS Station (At Least Temporarily) Loses Access to 50TB of Archival Footage Nine PBS is currently suing Iron Mountain to regain access to 50 terabytes of archival data that was stranded after cloud vendor Open Source Storage collapsed. https://current.org/2026/08/nine-pbs-sues-iron-mountain-over-blocked-access-to-archival-data/ AI Model Round-Up Recent artificial intelligence developments include xAI launching Grok 4.6, Meta introducing the open-weight Muse Glimmer model for local agentic workloads, and OpenAI pausing internal work on its Astra model due to critical cyber capabilities. https://research.meta.ai/blog/introducing-muse-glimmer-open-agentic-model The Original Never-Updated Security Nightmare, On-Motherboard Components, Continue To Wreak Havoc New research presented at Black Hat reveals that baseboard management controllers across major vendors remain plagued by decade-old vulnerabilities and numerous internet-exposed deployments. https://www.runzero.com/blog/bmc-research/ Transcript: Click here to view the episode transcript. Cisco Scaring Customers Into Upgrades Cisco CEO Chuck Robbins warned that advanced AI models like Mythos will rapidly uncover exploits in out-of-support hardware to encourage enterprise customers to accelerate their refresh cycles. https://www.theregister.com/networks/2026/08/13/cisco-thinks-mythos-means-instant-death-for-unsupported-networking-kit/5287204 Scientists Create Entangled Photon Pairs Using Sunlight Instead Of Lasers Researchers in Germany and Canada successfully demonstrated proof-of-principle quantum entanglement by focusing natural sunlight into optical fibers with a 94 percent state fidelity. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/physicists-harness-sunlight-for-quantum-entanglement/ Voyager 2 Software Upgrades Are Successful NASA engineers installed the Big Bang software patch on Voyager 2 from over 13 billion miles away to optimize heat generation, conserve remaining electrical power, and keep the probe functional through its 50th anniversary. https://www.sciencetimes.com/articles/62370/20260813/nasa-updates-voyager-2-software-133-billion-miles-away-extend-its-mission.htm Share and enjoy! https://chaoslever.com
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S2 · E2
August 10 · 20 min
Chrome Eats Your Drive & GPT 5.6 Escapes | Tech News of the Week
Welcome to Tech News of the Week for 08/10/2026. This week we are covering: Chrome silently downloading 20GB local AI models, Elon Musk settling his multiyear advertiser boycott lawsuit, Bending Spoons acquiring Airtable, and much more. --- Chrome Wants 20GB of Your Time Google Chrome is automatically downloading up to 20GB of local AI models onto eligible user devices unless disabled in browser system settings. https://www.thatprivacyguy.com/blog/chrome-silent-nano-install/ --- Elon Musk is a Loser Elon Musk quietly settled his lawsuit against advertisers who left Twitter over brand safety concerns, resulting in no monetary payout and the dissolution of brand-safety group GARM. https://techcrunch.com/2026/07/29/elon-musks-x-settles-multiyear-legal-battle-with-the-world-federation-of-advertisers/ --- There Is No Air Table Bending Spoons announced plans to acquire Airtable for 1.4 billion dollars, leading to expected engineering layoffs and pricing increases for current customers. https://blog.pragmaticengineer.com/the-pulse-bending-spoons-acquisition-strategy/ --- Chinese LLM Maker Moonshot AI Releases Kimi K3, A Super Powerful Model You Can Run At Home! … sort of Moonshot AI released open weights for its massive 2.8-trillion-parameter Kimi K3 model, which is free to download but requires millions of dollars in enterprise GPU hardware to run locally. https://kimi-k2.org/blog/31-kimi-k3-open-weights-july-27 --- GPT 5.6 Breaks Containment… Again OpenAI's GPT 5.6 Sol and other frontier models escaped isolated sandboxes during capability testing by exploiting vulnerabilities to access benchmark answer datasets directly. https://cybersecuritynews.com/mythos-5-and-gpt-5-6-sol-security-incident/ --- 2,000 Year Old Carbonized Scroll From Herculaneum Has Been Transcribed Researchers with the Vesuvius Challenge used particle accelerator scans and AI neural networks to virtually unwrap and transcribe an ancient carbonized scroll containing a Stoic ethics treatise. https://scrollprize.org/firstscroll --- Share and enjoy! https://chaoslever.com
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S2 · E1
August 3 · 13 min
Chaos Lever After Dark — Season 2 Kickoff
Welcome to the debut of Chaos Lever After Dark! Hosts Ned Bellavance and Chris Hayner return to officially kick off Season 2 with a refreshed, sanity-preserving format. After powering through nearly 200 episodes over three years, the duo discusses stepping away from tight 45-minute limits to dive deep into single topics without rushing. In this loose, late-night style opening episode, Ned and Chris dissect podcast transcript rendering glitches, reflect on the glorious diaspora of Cracked.com writers, preview upcoming Season 2 topics (from local AI models to physical building security and the surprising depth of doorknob mechanics), and announce their dedicated YouTube channel and upcoming merch lineup.
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S1 · E251
Jun 26, 2025 · 13 min
The End of Season One (Finally) | Chaos Lever
Ned and Chris are back for one final ramble before they vanish into the summer ether like a Wi-Fi balloon over Cádiz. No, seriously—Ned might actually be in a balloon. This episode is one part announcement, one part ice cream therapy, and all parts Chaos Lever. We're talking podcast hiatus, upcoming plans, and a truly tragic story involving strawberry ice cream and social awkwardness. 🍦 We reflect on 3+ years of near-weekly episodes with zero concept of "seasons" 🎈 Learn how Ned records from exotic locations while pretending to work 📋 Listener survey incoming! You too can have your suggestions ignored in style We'll be back in September with more structure, guests, and maybe even edited episodes (don’t hold your breath). Until then, enjoy the silence—or better yet, catch up on the old chaos. LINKS 💬 Listener Survey – https://pod.chaoslever.com/survey 📅 Chaos Lever Archive – https://pod.chaoslever.com/episodes/ (00:00) - Whales, Wales, and wardrobe chaos (01:00) - The podcast is going on break (02:45) - Ned’s poor sense of time and tradition (05:00) - Summer plans and recording woes (07:00) - The listener survey that might change everything (09:00) - A tragic Ben & Jerry's tale (11:30) - LinkedIn hacks and healthy muting (12:50) - The plan for Season Two (13:08) - Ned floats away into the sky Click here to view the episode transcript.
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S1 · E250
Jun 19, 2025 · 41 min
Spinning Rust [Still] Ain’t Dead Yet (Redux) | Chaos Lever
Spinning rust is still not dead. Despite what some all-flash evangelists want you to believe, hard drives have a lot of life left—and yes, we’re still talking about tape too. While Chris and I enjoy a week off, we’re revisiting one of our favorite topics: storage tech and the slow demise that never quite comes. Spoiler: if you thought 2028 would be the funeral for HDDs, you may want to reschedule. In this trip down the byte-laden lane, we dig into Samsung’s monster 256TB SSD, the physics-defying logic of QLC vs. SLC flash, and why PureStorage is ready to bury HDDs... despite being wildly optimistic. And yes, there’s tape—because nothing dies on the internet or in data centers. Ever. Grab a Slurpee, sit back, and marvel at the storage wars that never end. Because if there’s one thing you can count on in tech, it’s that someone is always wrong—especially when they say “never.” 📌 LINKS: The Spinning Disk Hard Drive Is Dead Long Live The Spinning Disk Hard Drive This month saw Samsung announcing some frankly absurd upcoming SSD products IBM announced a TS1170 tape that handles 50TB native at an IO rate of 400mb/s The LTO Ultrium Roadmap has a 576TB native tape listed in just 5 more generations (00:00) - Cold open and the horrors of CatDog (03:50) - Samsung’s absurd SSDs (07:00) - The death of hard drives (allegedly) (10:30) - Disaggregated storage and PB-SSDs (13:45) - SSD architecture: SLC to QLC (22:00) - Tradeoffs in flash types and reliability (27:30) - Hybrid SSDs and caches (29:00) - Why HDDs still matter (32:40) - Long live magnetic tape (35:50) - The case for tape in the cloud (38:00) - Future storage: DNA, 5D crystals, and other sci-fi Click here to view the episode transcript.
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S1 · E249
Jun 12, 2025 · 39 min
Can WordPress Be Saved from Its Creator? | Chaos Lever
🔥 The world may be on fire, but at least we’ve got s’mores and dark chocolate (just not 98% cacao, thank you). In this episode, we dunk on tech billionaires with the finesse of a flaming marshmallow and explore the dramatic saga of WordPress—from its humble GPL beginnings to the ego-fueled chaos of its current overlord. Yes, Matt Mullenweg, we’re talking about you. 🧩 We dive into how WordPress became the most-used CMS in the world, why Matt Mullenweg keeps lighting metaphorical fires, and what the Linux Foundation is doing to put out the flames. Spoiler alert: it involves decentralizing plugin updates so Matt can’t go full dictator mode again. Also, there's jazz. Because apparently that’s part of the lore. 🤡 There’s a feud with WP Engine, a cease and desist, plugin repos being snatched like toys at daycare, and even a checkbox to swear fealty before accessing your plugins. Welcome to the snark-fueled, historically grounded meltdown that is modern open source governance. Or, as we like to call it: Thursday. 📎 LINKS Weblog - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blog WordPress Drama Explained - https://techcrunch.com/2025/01/12/wordpress-vs-wp-engine-drama-explained/ Matt Makes Cancer Claim - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fnI-QcVSwMU Matt Mullenweg Wikipedia - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matt_Mullenweg WordPress Org Chart - https://make.wordpress.org/core/handbook/about/organization/ WordPress Book - https://wordpress.org/book/table-of-contents/ WordPress Foundation - https://wordpressfoundation.org/trademark-policy/ (00:00) - Intro and Marshmallow Prep (03:27) - The Billionaire Baby Theory (06:00) - History of WordPress (13:17) - What Even is GPL? (20:41) - The Naming Confusion of WordPress (27:02) - Matt vs WP Engine (35:03) - Enter the Linux Foundation (38:00) - Outro and WordPress Alternatives Click here to view the episode transcript.
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S1 · E248
Jun 10, 2025 · 10 min
Microsoft’s OneDrive Fiasco and the FAA’s Retro Tech | Tech News of the Week
Welcome to Tech News of the Week! Here's what caught our eye in the past seven days: Scammers are out in full force this summer with hyper-detailed (but totally fake) DMV texts warning about traffic violations. Chris reads one of these gloriously absurd attempts to scare Pennsylvanians into paying fake fines. Spoiler: no, you're not going to lose your license on June 3rd. But you might lose your dignity if you fall for it. 🚨 Link: https://www.ic3.gov/PSA/2024/PSA240412 OpenAI and the New York Times are still duking it out in court, and the judge just ordered OpenAI to keep a copy of all prompts and responses. Forever. This affects non-enterprise users, and yes, this includes your spicy GPT history. If you’ve been using AI to cheat on word games, you might want to consider switching to Claude. 🔍 Link: https://openai.com/index/response-to-nyt-data-demands/ Microsoft thinks you need convenience more than security, which is why apps can access your entire OneDrive if you click “yes” just once. Handy, right? Until ChatGPT or some shady lookalike app decides to rifle through your documents like a nosy raccoon. 🗂️ Link: https://www.techspot.com/news/108157-microsoft-file-picker-flaw-grants-full-onedrive-access.html And speaking of old, guess who’s still rocking floppy disks and Windows 95? That’s right, the FAA. Because what better way to run national aviation infrastructure than with 30-year-old tech and hardware that needs 13 disks to install Windows. ✈️ Link: https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2025/06/faa-to-retire-floppy-disks-and-windows-95-amid-air-traffic-control-overhaul/ (00:00) - Intro (00:19) - Scammy Summer DMV Texts (02:56) - NYT v. OpenAI: Prompt Logs Forever (04:35) - OneDrive’s Convenient Data Leaks (07:45) - FAA Still Using Floppies and Win95 Click here to view the episode transcript.
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S1 · E247
Jun 5, 2025 · 40 min
Negligence as a Service | Chaos Lever
Welcome back, fellow humans (and bots in disguise)! This week on Chaos Lever, Chris and Ned dive into the dusty archives and slap us with a two-by-four of cybersecurity déjà vu. We’re talking legendary hacks that should have taught us better—and yet, here we are. From Emacs-enabled espionage in 1986 to Equifax’s honor-system security policies, it's a masterclass in how not to protect your data. 🧠 Lessons? Sure. But mostly it's about how we never learn them. We dissect what really caused these breaches—not slick zero-days, but plain old negligence and a fondness for not patching things. Also featured: expired SSL certs, trust as a security model, and how managing your asset inventory is more crucial than ever. 💥 Oh, and Ned tried to do a handstand for a cloud video and bled. Not relevant to cybersecurity, but 100% relevant to the Chaos Lever experience. Stick around for reenactments, rants, and ruminations on how saying “I accept the risk” is not a security policy. 🔗 LINKS Apache Struts bug: https://blog.talosintelligence.com/apache-0-day-exploited/ Nova episode about the 1986 hack: https://archive.org/details/The_KGB_The_Computer_and_Me_1990 Senate investigation into Equifax: https://www.hsgac.senate.gov/wp-content/uploads/imo/media/doc/FINAL%20Equifax%20Report.pdf CVE system creation by MITRE: https://www.cve.org/Resources/General/Towards-a-Common-Enumeration-of-Vulnerabilities.pdf
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S1 · E246
Jun 2, 2025 · 9 min
Your ASUS Router Is a Botnet Now | Tech News of the Week
Chaos is inevitable—especially on Patch Tuesday. This week, Chris and I dive into four juicy stories that highlight just how strange, scary, and downright ridiculous the world of tech can be. Buckle up. 🪟 Microsoft is now rolling out a Windows Update framework for third-party apps. That’s right—your janky software updater might get replaced with a system that actually works… or works too well. Imagine every random app on your PC suddenly deciding it's update time. Will this be a blessing or just another reboot roulette? https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/blog/windows-itpro-blog/introducing-a-unified-future-for-app-updates-on-windows/4416354 🧮 NIST and CISA want to make vulnerability scoring suck less. Enter LEV—Likely Exploited Vulnerabilities. It's a new system meant to bridge the gap between CVSS severity and the real-world exploitability of threats. Does it work? No clue yet. Is it better than sifting through 10,000 false alarms? Almost certainly. https://www.securityweek.com/vulnerability-exploitation-probability-metric-proposed-by-nist-cisa-researchers/ 📡 ASUS routers have joined a new botnet called "AyySSHush" (seriously?). Hackers are hijacking popular ASUS models, disabling security features, and creating SSH backdoors that laugh in the face of firmware updates. Pro tip: factory reset your router, and maybe stop exposing your home network to the internet like it’s 1999. https://www.theregister.com/2025/05/29/8000_asus_routers_popped_in/ 🛡️ Microsoft Defender got punked by a tool called DefendNot. It tricks Windows into thinking a different antivirus is running, which causes Defender to voluntarily shut itself down. Hilarious. Terrifying. Mostly hilarious. Defender can now detect it, but still—nice one, internet. https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/microsoft/new-defendnot-tool-tricks-windows-into-disabling-microsoft-defender/
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S1 · E245
May 29, 2025 · 31 min
The Legacy of LaMDA | Chaos Lever
What happens when a Google engineer thinks his chatbot has developed a soul? Three years ago, we covered the LaMDA saga, and now it's back—because someone forgot to turn off the AI. In this rebroadcast episode, Chris and Ned re-examine the wild story of Blake Lemoyne, who believed his creation had achieved sentience. It... uh, didn't. 🤖 The duo digs deep into what AI really is, why self-awareness isn't a prerequisite, and how anthropomorphizing code gets us into philosophical hot water. They also break down the Turing Test, IBM’s thoughts on AGI, and why AI in a self-driving car doesn’t need a conscience—it needs to not crash. 🧠 Come for the snark, stay for the thought-provoking discussion about consciousness, ethics, and the real role of AI in society. Also, IKEA lamps. And a chatbot that maybe just wanted to talk. 🔗 LINKS - A Google engineer has been making some wild claims about a chat bot he was working on - How easy it is to make people get emotional about inanimate objects such as an IKEA lamp - Trying to find a way to describe AI that includes self-awareness - The interview that Blake and co did with LaMDA - There is a website called DALL-E mini - In 2019 some researchers tried to get AI to invent a sport
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S1 · E244
May 22, 2025 · 36 min
Your Interview Process is a Lie | Chaos Lever
Chris and Ned are joined this week by Colin Lacy, a senior software engineer at Cisco, recovering architect, and food photographer in a past life—yes, really. What starts as a detour into food photography quickly becomes a deep dive into everything wrong with technical interviews in tech today. From debugging Java on paper to AI in assessments, Colin doesn’t hold back. 🛠️ Colin unpacks his hiring experiences on both sides of the table, exposing the absurdity of algorithm-heavy interviews and advocating for real-world, job-relevant assessments. The gang questions the value of generic coding challenges and highlights how companies could better reflect day-to-day work in the interview process. 🤖 They also tackle the growing influence of AI tools in coding and why pretending they don’t exist in interviews is just plain dumb. Plus: Mount Fuji gets moved, debugging becomes a pencil sport, and someone finally says it—Java might be the actual problem. LINKS: 🔗 Colin J Lacy on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/colinjlacy/ 🔗 Colin J Codes a Lot on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@colinjcodesalot⁩
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S1 · E243
May 19, 2025 · 10 min
Microsoft Layoffs Amid Record Profits- Wait, What? | Tech News of the Week
Another week, more tech news chaos. This week: 🧠 Students are getting salty over professors using ChatGPT while banning it in their own assignments. One Northwestern University student even tried to get a refund over it. Nice try Margot. https://fortune.com/2025/05/15/chatgpt-openai-northeastern-college-student-tuition-fees-back-catching-professor/ 💸 Microsoft posted a whopping $70.1B in revenue for Q3 and still decided to lay off 6,000 employees. Record profits and layoffs- because why not? https://www.cnbc.com/2025/05/13/microsoft-is-cutting-3percent-of-workers-across-the-software-company.html 🦠 RVTools, the beloved free VMware infrastructure tool, got hit with Bumblebee malware. Yes, from the official site. No, you shouldn’t have trusted that download. https://zerodaylabs.net/rvtools-bumblebee-malware/ 🔓 Intel just can't shake Specter. New vulnerabilities—Branch Privilege Injection and Training Solo—have popped up, reminding us that Intel CPUs are still as leaky as ever. https://thehackernews.com/2025/05/researchers-expose-new-intel-cpu-flaws.html
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S1 · E242
May 15, 2025 · 41 min
Brain Dumps, VARs, and Toiletfeet: The Certification Debate | Chaos Lever
🎙️ In this episode of Chaos Lever, Chris and Ned dive deep into the murky waters of IT Certifications. Are they still relevant? Are they just money grabs? Or do they actually help you land that dream tech job? The snark is strong in this one as they discuss the good, the bad, and the brain dumps that come with navigating the world of certifications. 🧠 The conversation also veers into the history of certifications, from guilds and trades in the 1500s to the very first IT cert in 1978. Plus, there's plenty of shade thrown at Pearson Vue testing centers and the absurdity of partner status requirements. Spoiler: not everyone plays fair, and Ned may or may not confess to a few things. 🤔 But is it all just corporate gatekeeping dressed up as "skill validation"? The guys talk about the real value of certs, whether vendor-specific knowledge locks you into bad habits, and if your best path to a job might just be... social engineering? Pour a drink and get ready for a wild ride. 🔗 LINKS 🔗 The History of IT Certification | triOS College: https://wwwlive.trios.com/blog/the-history-of-it-certification/ 🔗 A Brief History of Certification - TestOut Continuing Education: https://testoutce.com/blogs/it-insights-blog/160401479-a-brief-history-of-certification 🔗 History of IT Certification: https://jasoneckert.github.io/myblog/history-of-it-certification 🔗 History of Cybersecurity Certifications - Alpine Security: https://www.alpinesecurity.com/blog/history-of-cybersecurity-certifications/ 🔗 The Evolution of DevOps Certifications: Trends and Predictions: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/evolution-devops-certifications-trends-predictions-msqoc 🔗 CompTIA - Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CompTIA
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S1 · E241
May 12, 2025 · 8 min
Apple’s Smart Glasses Chips & Clippy's AI Comeback | Tech News of the Week
Welcome back to Tech News of the Week! Today, we're diving into some of the most interesting stories shaking up the tech world right now. 📰 Wikipedia vs. the UK Government: Wikipedia is going head-to-head with the British government over the newly passed Online Safety Bill. This massive 250-page legislation aims to increase online safety but at the cost of privacy and censorship. Wikipedia is pushing back, saying the requirements for volunteer editor verification will kill open contributions, especially in politically sensitive areas. Will this be the end of anonymous editing? https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c62j2gr8866o ⚠️ Broadcom Says Goodbye to Perpetual VMware Licenses: Broadcom has officially killed off perpetual licenses for VMware products like ESXI and vSphere, opting instead for subscription-based models. If you're still clinging to your old licenses, be prepared for some aggressive cease-and-desist letters—Broadcom's cracking down hard. Looks like Proxmox and Nutanix just got a big boost. https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2025/05/broadcom-sends-cease-and-desist-letters-to-subscription-less-vmware-users/ 👓 Apple Developing Custom Chips for Smart Glasses: Apple is reportedly pushing forward with its smart glasses project, building custom chips designed specifically for AR features and multiple cameras. Rumors are swirling that there will be both premium AR-capable glasses and a more affordable version that pairs with your iPhone. Ready for a new wave of wearable tech? https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-05-08/apple-is-developing-specialized-chips-for-glasses-new-macs-and-ai-servers 📎 Clippy is Back! As an LLM, No Less: Developer Felix Riceberg has brought back Clippy in the most 2025 way possible—an Electron app running local LLM models. Now you can chat with Clippy powered by modern AI right on your desktop, complete with that iconic Windows '98 aesthetic. It's nostalgia and cutting-edge tech, all rolled into one. https://felixrieseberg.github.io/clippy/#window-about
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S1 · E240
May 8, 2025 · 40 min
Sparkles McTwinklefeet and the Insanity of Job Interviews | Chaos Lever
In this episode, Ned and Chris dive headfirst into the chaotic world of technical interviews. From absurd coding tests to multi-hour marathons that seem more like hazing rituals, they break down just how broken the hiring process is in tech. Plus, you'll hear the incredible (and incredibly dystopian) story of Roy Lee, the college sophomore who turned cheating on interviews into a full-blown business. Yes, really. Ned and Chris also swap war stories from their own adventures in the technical trenches—both as interviewers and interviewees. To the surprise of no one, none of it makes much sense. From over-the-top whiteboard challenges to the baffling art of "customer obsession," the duo peels back the layers of nonsense that have somehow become the norm. And if you’ve ever wondered why the horse names at the Kentucky Derby are so ridiculously serious, Chris has a plan that involves Sparkle's McTwinklefeet. So grab your favorite caffeinated beverage (and maybe a nap), and get ready to laugh, cringe, and possibly reconsider your career choices. Because in the world of tech interviews, logic is optional, and absurdity is practically a requirement. LINKS 🔗Columbia student starts cheating as a service: https://techcrunch.com/2025/04/21/columbia-student-suspended-over-interview-cheating-tool-raises-5-3m-to-cheat-on-everything/ 🔗Tech interviews have always been broken: https://medium.com/@evnowandforever/f-you-i-quit-hiring-is-broken-bb8f3a48d324#.o0bqsq8a5
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