We’re living in a world shaped by algorithms. They’re not just curating our feeds, they’re changing the way we speak.

Dexter talks with Adam Aleksic, aka the Etymology Nerd, about his new book Algospeak: How Social Media Is Transforming the Future of Language. They unpack how algorithmic censorship on social media is reshaping the way we use language online, and how it’s bleeding into real life.

Read + Watch:

Make sure to check out Adam’s book: Algospeak

Where to find Adam online:
https://www.etymologynerd.com/

https://etymology.substack.com/

Or @etymologynerd on social media.

Got something you’re curious about? Hit us up killswitch@kaleidoscope.nyc, or @dexdigi on IG or Bluesky.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

AI music generators are not only the product of scraped (read: stolen) music, they’re also threatening the livelihood of musicians. But there are people who are finding ways to fight back – by using a technique called poison pilling. This week, Dexter talks to two of them: Benn Jordan, a musician and YouTuber who developed a tool called Poisonify, and Jian Liu, the lead developer of HarmonyCloak and Music Shield. These programs add imperceptible noise to a music file rendering it indecipherable to an AI model – and we got to test out how these work with our own theme song.

Read + Watch:

Benn’s YouTube video – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xMYm2d9bmEA

Jian Liu and Syed Irfan’s paper on HarmonyCloak – https://mosis.eecs.utk.edu/publications/meerza2024harmonycloak.pdf

Got something you’re curious about? Hit us up killswitch@kaleidoscope.nyc, or @killswitchpod on IG, or @dexdigi anywhere.

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Once upon a time streaming delivered a utopian fantasy – anything you wanted to watch or listen to, at your fingertips. Now, we’re saddled with dozens of subscriptions and our digital library is at the whim of big tech companies. Even your Kindle books can be deleted without your consent. Is there another way? Dexter talks to Janus Rose, a journalist and artist, who has a solution to this problem: become a digital packrat. That means keeping all of your favorite digital media locally and setting up your own server. And if you want to try it for yourself, this episode will walk you through how.

Resources:

Janus’s article on 404 – The Digital Packrat Manifesto

Download Plex: https://www.plex.tv/

Download Handbrake (use this to rip DVDs): https://handbrake.fr

Download MakeMKV (not mentioned in the show, but see below): https://www.makemkv.com

### YouTube How-To Links ###

"3 Ways to Start Your Own Plex Server" (15 minutes):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XKDSld-CrHU

"Plex Media Server for Mac" (4 minutes): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YNRcIOf0YYE

"How to rip DVDs with MakeMKV and Use Handbrake for Hardware Transcoding" (15 minutes):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_xdrscVB0Y

Got something you’re curious about? Hit us up killswitch@kaleidoscope.nyc, or @killswitchpod on Instagram.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Big Tech promised AI would solve our biggest problems. But behind the hype there is a more unsettling reality: labor exploitation, environmental harm, and the looming threat of mass automation.

Dexter sits down with journalist Karen Hao to talk about her new book Empire of AI: Dreams and Nightmares in Sam Altman's OpenAI. They dig into how today’s AI companies are operating less like tech innovators and more like empires.

Make sure to check out Karen’s book: Empire of AI

Got something you’re curious about? Hit us up killswitch@kaleidoscope.nyc, or @dexdigi on IG or Bluesky.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

When ICE raids sparked massive protests across Los Angeles, something unusual appeared in the sky: Predator drones. Dexter talks to Joseph Cox over at 404 Media to understand how military-grade surveillance aircrafts ended up flying over U.S. citizens and what that means for the future of civil liberties.

Read + Watch:

Joseph’s articles on the Predator drones flying over the protests:

DHS Flew Predator Drones Over LA Protests, Audio Shows

CBP Confirms It Is Flying Predator Drones Above Los Angeles To Support ICE

Also:
How to Protest Safely: What to Bring, What to Do, and What to Avoid

How to Protest Safely in the Age of Surveillance

Got something you’re curious about? Hit us up killswitch@kaleidoscope.nyc, or @dexdigi on IG or Bluesky.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Nintendo Switch 2 is out – but why did Nintendo credit someone who died in 1997 in a press release for the console? Dexter talked to Patrick Klepek, of the video game website Remap, and Jeremy Parish, an expert in video game history, to tell the story of Gunpei Yokoi and how his influence led us to the Switch 2.

Read + Watch:

• Patrick's article on Switch 2 games he's excited to play with his kids – https://www.crossplay.news/p/best-games-for-kids-and-families-june-2025
• Jeremy on Bad Dudes and Ronald Reagan – https://youtu.be/ZpZddGOKrIk
• Did You Know Gaming on Gunpei Yokoi – https://youtu.be/uLznLtgcqXI

Got something you’re curious about? Hit us up killswitch@kaleidoscope.nyc, or @dexdigi on IG or Bluesky.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Dexter doesn't have a car. But he uses AI… a lot. So, is his environmental impact worse than someone who drives a truck to work every day?

This seemingly simple question led us to a bigger conversation about water, public health, and why we still don't know much about the true environmental cost of artificial intelligence.

To help us understand all this, we talk to researchers Shaolei Ren and Alex de Vries, who’ve been studying the toll AI takes on the planet.

Got something you’re curious about? Hit us up killswitch@kaleidoscope.nyc, or @dexdigi on IG or Bluesky.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

For about 24 hours, Grok, Twitter’s AI chatbot, went berserk. You could ask it about puppies, sports, or movies, and it would reply with a bizarre diatribe about white genocide in South Africa. If you’ve already heard of this, you’ve probably seen people dunking on Elon Musk, and, well, that’s understandable. But Max Read, today’s guest, explains why this brief peek into a weird conspiracy theory might have actually been a good thing.

Got something you’re curious about? Hit us up killswitch@kaleidoscope.nyc, or @dexdigi on IG or Bluesky.

Read: Max’s Substack article on the whole thing.

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