Topic: Power Failure

The hosts share anecdotes about the practical inconveniences of power outages, including neighbors trapped in garages due to electric openers. A story is recounted involving a woman named Mimi and her 150-pound Fila dog trapped in a motel room in Cottage Grove, Oregon. The incident highlights the danger of modern motels using exclusively electronic key systems that fail during blackouts.

The broadcast ended abruptly when the co-host in Berkeley, California, lost power due to a grid failure. After a brief attempt to reconnect via amateur radio frequencies, the remaining host in Austin, Texas, concluded the show. The episode finished with a series of "end-of-show mixes" featuring themes related to Greta Thunberg and digital privacy.

A producer whose stepson was aboard the USS John S. McCain reports that the ship suffered a "power failure to critical components" before the collision. The hosts speculate that the recent string of Navy accidents could be the result of experimental directed energy or EMP weapons being tested against U.S. vessels. They question how "mil-spec" hardened components could suffer such catastrophic failures in multiple incidents.

The Wall Street Journal reports that the National Security Agency's new data storage facility in Utah has suffered ten major "meltdowns" over 13 months. These incidents, caused by power surges, have reportedly destroyed hundreds of thousands of dollars in hardware and delayed the facility's opening. The hosts question the technical competence of the agency's contractors given the scale of the multi-billion dollar project.