As we close out our 3rd season, we are excited to share some obvious, and not-so-obvious, predictions for 2026 (and beyond!) with you all. We felt it was only appropriate to prognosticate around our most typical themes: Business, Technology/Science/Innovation, and a smidge of Entertainment.

We appreciate you joining us for another season of Nonsense. We enjoyed producing every one of our 68 episodes this year, primarily because of listeners like you that come back week over week to join us. Thank you and see you in 2026!

Merriam-Webster’s 2025 word of the year is ‘slop’ | The Verge

Car Talk - My Government Vehicle Shakes at 17,500 MPH

Another NASA story - Threads from Green Pocket Protector

Blog Post | Tom Magliozzi 1937-2014 | Car Talk

Watch Nobody Wants This | Netflix Official Site

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(0:00) Pre-Show

(0:48) Open

(1:53) cj's week: Decorations & Lions v. Rams

(8:08) Jeff's Week: IKEA + Thread

(9:34) Headline: Tesla Ditches Human Safety Monitors in Austin Robotaxi Test

(14:30) Headline: DoorDash Driver Arrested for Allegedly 'Seasoning' Arby’s Delivery with Pepper Spray

(17:06) Headline: A Close Call 350 Miles Up: Starlink and Chinese Satellite Nearly Collide

(19:55) Headline: Google's Interpreter in Your Earbuds Is Here

(23:41) DynaTech PowerHouse

This week’s show dives into Tesla’s bold, and big surprise, controversial move to remove all human safety monitors from its Austin robotaxi tests, despite at least seven reported crashes among heavy redactions that continue to raise regulatory eyebrows. Texas’ lighter rules make it ground zero for autonomy, even though Tesla’s fleet ambitions have shrunk dramatically.

Heading north next to Indiana, a DoorDash driver faces felony charges after allegedly spraying a customer’s meal with a mystery substance, prompting illness and a permanent platform ban.

Meanwhile in space, a nerve-wracking near-collision between a Starlink satellite and a Chinese spacecraft highlights the growing risks of orbital congestion and finger-pointing between operators.

Fortunately, back on Earth, Google Translate is encouraging inter-cultural communication by rolling out real-time audio translation through headphones, whispering 70+ languages directly into users’ ears.

All that and more in this episode of Nonsense. Pretty cool!

Dylan's Christmas Lights: A Scholarly Treatise

Let’s Go Lions! - ibcjl on Instagram

Tesla starts testing robotaxis in Austin with no safety driver | TechCrunch

DoorDash driver faces felony charges after allegedly spraying customers’ food | TechCrunch

Starlink and Chinese satellites nearly collided last week | The Verge

Not a Big Reader? Google Translate Rolls Out Real-Time Audio Translation for Headphone Users | PCMag

DynaTech PowerHouse - BYTE Magazine September 1985

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(0:00) Open

(0:56) The University of California System

(6:27) But California Has Problems, Yo!

(10:47) Project Nexus: Solar FTW!

(22:05) cj’s recommendation: There It Is, Take It!

(25:26) Jeff’s Recommendation: Chinatown

California has serious challenges, including a worsening water crisis and the threat it poses to the state that grows most of America’s fruits, vegetables, and nuts. The state’s growing electricity demands has created, among other things, a food-versus-energy conflict from the deployment of large solar farms that replace farmland.

Fortunately one of California’s numerous superpowers is their public University system. Innovations from the UC system have shaped the modern world, from the Internet and RISC chips to CRISPR, PET scans, blue LEDs, and reverse osmosis desalination. And now the UC system has brought us a promising solution in Project Nexus, which installs solar panels over water canals to generate clean energy while saving billions of gallons of water.

Inspired by similar efforts in India, California’s first solar-covered canal is now online, offering a potential path to statewide deployment. Fortunately the UC system remains central to solving many of the state’s biggest challenges.

Solar-panel-covered canals have their day in the sun in California

Using solar panels like THIS is a no-brainer! California’s doing it

Project Nexus | Water & Energy Integration for the Future

The ‘solar canals’ making smart use of India’s space

Canal Solar Power Project - Wikipedia

Gujarat’s solar panels over canals project is a great idea for sustainable energy production | YourStory

there it is—take it!

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(0:00) Pre-Show

(0:59) Open

(2:09) Computer Science Education Week

(2:51) cj's week: KFC: Kids, Football, and Cookies

(6:38) Jeff's Week: Hoosiers!

(10:33) Headline: Europe cracks down: Twitter fined $140M for Breaking Digital Services Act Rules

(15:35) Headline: More Troubling Changes Come to The Food & Drug Administration

(18:37) Headline: A Fentanyl Vaccine is About to Get Its First Major Test

(22:46) Headline: China's $1 Trillion Trade Shock: Global Exports Surge Amid U.S. Dive

(25:31) Mr. Clean Hates Dirt!

This week, the world’s institutions are… not okay.

The EU slaps Twitter with a €120 million fine - the first ever under the Digital Services Act, prompting Elon Musk to respond with the maturity of a man yelling at a cloud.

Meanwhile, 12 former FDA commissioners unite to condemn a rogue internal memo that rewrites vaccine policy based on feelings and vibes. The boys also dive into the first human trial of a fentanyl vaccine that could reshape overdose prevention.

And finally, China detonates the global economic leaderboard with a historic $1 trillion trade surplus, redefining global manufacturing power while hollowing out domestic demand.

It’s regulatory chaos, medical whiplash, biotech moonshots, and seismic geopolitical math - all wrapped into one delightfully unhinged episode of Nonsense.

Elon Musk’s X hit with $140 million EU fine for breaching content rules

X cuts off the European Commission’s ad account after being fined €120 million | The Verge

12 former FDA chiefs unite to say agency memo on vaccines is deeply stupid - Ars Technica

A Fentanyl Vaccine Is About to Get Its First Major Test | WIRED

China's trade surplus tops $1 trillion as its exports surge

Vintage Mr. Clean Commercial from the 1960s | TikTok

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(0:00) Pre-Show

(1:05) Open

(1:46) World Wildlife Conservation Day

(2:13) cj's week: Formula 1, Friendsgiving, & Salt Lake City

(8:03) Jeff's Week: Japanese Nyquil to College Football

(19:07) Headline: Gemini Leapfrogs, Well, Everybody

(23:25) Headline: Software Glitch Grounds 6,000 Planes Worldwide

(32:15) Headline: How Solar is Working to Keep Pace with America's Growing Energy Thirst

(34:20) Headline: OpenAI declares ‘code red’ as Google catches up in AI race

(42:23) The Black & Decker Air Sweep

This week on the show: Google drops Gemini 3 Pro—a shockwave of a model that leapfrogs the field with unified multimodality, record-breaking reasoning benchmarks, and a “Deep Think” mode that pushes us closer to AGI territory. This isn’t just an upgrade—it’s a whole new architecture that changes what AI agents can actually do.

Over the break Airbus grounded 6,000 planes worldwide in an urgent aerospace crisis - only for Airbus to reveal the emergency fix was essentially a software rollback after a (supposed) cosmic-ray-induced bit flip. Yes, the Sun caused an airplane to nose-dive. Yes, the previous version of the software didn’t do that. Sure, that’s all that happened.

Rounding out our headlines, U.S. solar deployment is exploding, nearly offsetting the entire country’s rising electricity demand - an underreported energy milestone hiding in plain sight. And OpenAI declares a “code red” internally as Google’s AI surge closes the gap.

We’ve moved on from turkey to Japanese Nyquil - let’s go!

Google Gemini 3 Benchmarks

Airbus Emergency Work For Airbus A320 Aircraft Was Actually a Software Rollback

Airbus Stock Nosedives As Planemaker Shares Update On Major A320 Glitch

r/aviation on Reddit: A320 pilot explains what features were rolled back with the update

Solar’s growth in US almost enough to offset rising energy use - Ars Technica

Chart: Solar and wind are meeting — and exceeding — new power demand

OpenAI declares ‘code red’ as Google catches up in AI race | The Verge

OpenAI says dead teen violated TOS when he used ChatGPT to plan suicide - Ars Technica

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(0:00) Open

(2:44) Not Cheating at Cards

(17:50) Really Cheating at Cards

(23:51) High Tech Cheating

(24:57) How Many Orders of a 52-Card Deck Exist?

(29:25) Magic Decks & A Cutable Deck Where You Always Win

(31:40) Introducing the DeckMate

(34:08) A Big Surprise at Hustler

(36:25) Hacking the Unhackable Shuffling Machine

(46:01) cj’s recommendation: Oceans Eleven

(47:15) Jeff’s Recommendation: The Sting

Jeff and cj take a wild ride through the world of card-game “edges” on this pre-Thanksgiving break extra length episode!

Starting with the respectable stuff: game theory, probability, and reading opponents before things escalate as they tour the many shady, creative, and outright illegal ways people try to tilt the odds: sleight-of-hand, marked cards, secret signals, corrupt dealers, mechanical holdouts, and the modern wave of smartphone-powered scams.

A quick detour through the staggering mathematics behind a 52-card deck, then arriving at the crown jewel: the DeckMate 2 shuffler and the real-world cheating scandals surrounding its hackability. From live-streamed poker controversy in 2022 to last month’s massive DoJ indictment involving mobsters, NBA figures, and rigged shufflers, the guys explore how high-tech tampering has changed the cheating landscape.

Open
DEALT - Official Trailer [HD]

Segment

Bringing Down the House (book) - Wikipedia

Card counting - Wikipedia

The Incomprehensible Scale of 52!

Ben Joffe |Ice Code Decks

Hackers Rig Casino Card-Shuffling Machines for ‘Full Control’ Cheating | WIRED

How Hacked Card Shufflers Allegedly Enabled a Mob-Fueled Poker Scam That Rocked the NBA | WIRED

Close
⁠Ocean's Eleven (2001) Official Trailer⁠

The Sting Official Trailer #1 - Paul Newman, Robert Redford Movie (1973) HD

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In this episode of Nonsense, we dive into a wild set of headlines: China’s Tiangong space station faces a genuine space-junk emergency as three astronauts are left without a safe ride home. Meanwhile, SpaceX-built spy satellites are quietly beaming signals in frequencies they’re not supposed to, raising international eyebrows. Back on Earth, a newly mutated H3N2 flu strain is hitting the Northern Hemisphere early and hard, threatening to overwhelm hospitals. And in San Francisco, a tragic Waymo robotaxi incident reignites the fight over who controls AVs—local communities or state regulators.

All that, plus the uncomfortable question: how safe are robotaxis really?

Three astronauts are stuck on China’s space station without a safe ride home - Ars Technica

US spy satellites built by SpaceX send signals in the “wrong direction” - Ars Technica

This flu season looks grim as H3N2 emerges with mutations - Ars Technica

Here's Why San Francisco Can't Stop Waymo From Killing Your Cat | PCMag

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