Episode 7: Who Won in 2020?

DJ and Christopher are back for May 5th, 2026 with a packed episode covering everything from California's oil crisis to the death of junior developer jobs.

The show kicks off with California facing a serious gas price shock as the last shipment of Persian Gulf oil arrives in the state, with prices potentially climbing to $7-$8 a gallon. The guys debate why the Trump administration isn't tapping the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, then take a deep dive into hybrid car ownership, solar panel economics, and home battery systems.

Politics enters the chat with a discussion of California's governor race, where leading Republican candidate Steve Hilton was asked four separate times on MSNBC who won the 2020 election and refused to answer. Christopher shares his Bluesky takedown post and they reminisce about the Schwarzenegger years before tackling California's $40-50 billion bullet train to nowhere.

On the AI front, the duo covers the wave of recent model drops including Kimi 2.6, DeepSeek V4 Pro, and the surprising news that Grok 4.20 has the lowest hallucination rate of any major model. They dig into Anthropic's controversial detection of the Hermes agent harness, discuss Mac Studio RAM shortages caused by the local AI boom, and debate whether iOS 27 will be Apple's "Snow Leopard" moment.

Other highlights include the Elon Musk vs. OpenAI trial drama, the Department of Defense cutting Anthropic from its AI vendor list, AI data centers now drawing as much power as the entire country of Switzerland, junior developer employment dropping 20%, Bezos's long-running war on libraries, and how Nintendo refused to play ball with Amazon back in the day.

The episode wraps with gaming talk on Crimson Desert's masterful Unreal Engine 5 optimization and the addictive joy of Vampire Survivors clones.

Chapter Markers

• (00:00) - Welcome to Episode 7
• (00:19) - California's Oil Crisis & $8 Gas Prices
• (01:24) - Why Isn't Trump Tapping the Strategic Reserve?
• (02:25) - Hybrid Cars: Hyundai, Honda & the Old Prius
• (07:08) - Solar Panels, Energy Credits & Home Batteries
• (08:46) - Clean Coal, Mass Transit & Anti-European Bias
• (10:48) - Hybrid Capitalism: Medicare & Social Security
• (11:42) - Trash Collection in Baton Rouge vs Everywhere Else
• (13:50) - The California Governor's Race Heats Up
• (15:53) - Steve Hilton Can't Say Who Won 2020
• (17:40) - California's Bullet Train to Nowhere
• (20:06) - Bluesky, Threads & Roasting Steve Hilton
• (21:40) - Remembering Governor Schwarzenegger
• (22:19) - AI Model Drops: Kimi, DeepSeek & Hallucination Rates
• (24:13) - The Spiraling Cost of AI Subscriptions
• (26:10) - Anthropic's Hermes Agent File Detection Drama
• (27:38) - Mac Studio & Mac Mini RAM Shortages
• (29:58) - Will the Next iPhone Launch Face Shortages?
• (30:55) - iPhone 16 Pro Max: Where Are the AI Features?
• (32:08) - iOS 27 as Apple's "Snow Leopard" Moment
• (34:03) - Joanna Stern Goes Independent & Apple Shortcuts
• (36:14) - Smart Siri Hands Off to Gemini
• (36:39) - Elon Musk vs. OpenAI Trial
• (39:37) - DoD Cuts Anthropic from AI Vendor List
• (40:53) - AI Data Centers Now Use Switzerland's Worth of Power
• (43:11) - Junior Developers Down 20% Since 2024
• (44:12) - Marco Arment, AI Coding & the Death of SaaS
• (45:05) - US Ranks 24th in AI Adoption
• (46:32) - Trust Erosion & Why We Research Before We Speak
• (47:29) - Bezos Wants to Kill Libraries
• (48:18) - Nintendo vs. Amazon: An Old Feud
• (50:09) - AI in Schools: Kids Are Way Ahead
• (50:47) - Personal AI vs. Work AI Personalization
• (52:23) - GPT-5.5 Pro vs. Anthropic's Mythos Model
• (54:03) - Crimson Desert: How to Optimize Unreal Engine 5
• (55:53) - Vampire Survivors & Achilles Survivor
• (56:46) - Wrap Up