WT: Going Weird Mode

The episode opens with a joke-heavy run of stories, including Bryce recounting a TikTok about Waffle House grill cooks earning shirts for hitting profit milestones, then a segment about Steve Jobs' pre-worn Birkenstock sandals selling at auction for about $218,750. The hosts riff on the sandals' smell, rarity, and the value of Steve Jobs memorabilia, and briefly detour into jokes about Steve Wozniak, Segway scooters, and what kinds of Jobs-related items might command higher prices. The middle of the episode covers a ChatGPT test on the AP Computer Science A exam, where Bryce explains that the model scored 32 out of 36 and missed some visual or poorly worded elements. That leads into a broader discussion of AI's growing capabilities, followed by a long segment on Disney research's face-aging/de-aging neural network and speculative uses for film, TV, and even recasting or upcycling older media. The latter half of the episode shifts into word-of-the-year chatter, with the hosts debating 'gaslighting,' 'metaverse,' and especially 'goblin mode,' before finishing with listener picks for Planet Money, 1899, and The Last of Us. Key topics Waffle House profit milestone shirts: Bryce mentions a TikTok about Waffle House grill cooks getting shirts for reaching profit milestones, like a $2 million shirt, and the hosts joke about it. Steve Jobs sandals auction: A state auction sold Steve Jobs' pre-worn Birkenstock sandals for about $218,750, with discussion about their provenance, foot im