[00:00.000 --> 00:05.400]  Our technical production team is Jade Pageant-Seekins, Pauline Bartalone, and Lindsay Benedict.
[00:05.740 --> 00:08.180]  Web support from Vanessa Tate and Leslie Holmes.
[00:08.420 --> 00:11.720]  We also have technical assistance from our intern, Bob Stern.
[00:11.980 --> 00:13.180]  I'm Deepa Fernandes.
[00:20.420 --> 00:21.880]  And we're a little early.
[00:22.020 --> 00:23.280]  It's 6.58.51.
[00:23.740 --> 00:29.360]  This is WBAI-FM in New York, Radio 95.5.
[00:29.920 --> 00:31.400]  It's time for Off the Hook.
[00:34.980 --> 00:36.520]  Is this black or green?
[00:42.090 --> 00:46.810]  Tuesday morning, September 9th at 11 a.m., Ecologic will be about the blackout.
[00:47.510 --> 00:58.090]  Nomi Prins of the Economy Connection and Tyson Slocum of Public Citizens Energy Program and I, Ken Gale, will discuss the causes of and solutions to the blackout of 2003.
[00:58.550 --> 01:01.490]  That's Tuesday, September 9th from 11 a.m.
[01:01.590 --> 01:05.190]  to noon on WBAI New York 99.5 FM.
[01:05.390 --> 01:06.530]  Don't miss it.
[01:16.600 --> 01:23.140]  And you're listening to Off the Hook here on WBAI New York 99.5 FM with Emmanuel Goldstein.
[01:23.160 --> 01:23.680]  Are you there?
[01:25.320 --> 01:26.140]  Yes, I am.
[01:27.360 --> 01:29.140]  You didn't do what you said you were going to do.
[01:29.720 --> 01:30.640]  Yeah, we just did.
[01:30.900 --> 01:31.200]  All right.
[01:31.540 --> 01:33.560]  I think there's a little technical difficulties.
[01:33.560 --> 01:35.800]  Let's just put on the theme and...
[01:39.570 --> 01:42.610]  And in hand, in end history.
[01:43.070 --> 01:44.790]  So I ripped it off the wall.
[01:45.710 --> 01:47.710]  I cut myself while shaving.
[01:48.270 --> 01:50.250]  Now I can't make a call.
[01:50.870 --> 01:53.050]  We couldn't get much worse.
[01:53.670 --> 01:55.590]  But if they could, they would.
[01:55.870 --> 01:58.530]  Von Diddley Bom for the best, expect the worst.
[01:59.090 --> 02:01.010]  I hope that's understood.
[02:01.230 --> 02:02.050]  Von Diddley Bom!
[02:18.500 --> 02:19.260]  It's 27.
[02:21.540 --> 02:22.000]  All right.
[02:37.260 --> 02:39.560]  Okay, can we turn the compounded music down, please?
[02:43.450 --> 02:44.030]  That's better.
[02:44.770 --> 02:51.150]  I'm hearing all kinds of weird, disinpopulated voices in periods of silence, so I know I'm listening to the right station, WBAI New York.
[02:54.230 --> 02:57.750]  It's 3 o'clock in the morning here in Russia, which is where I am.
[02:59.070 --> 03:01.410]  And I know why people don't listen to the show live here.
[03:02.690 --> 03:08.210]  If I sound a bit out of it, it's because I've been up since about 7 in the morning, just wandering around this place.
[03:08.230 --> 03:11.670]  And it's really pretty fascinating and interesting.
[03:12.090 --> 03:13.530]  And since last...
[03:13.530 --> 03:14.950]  We weren't on last week.
[03:15.710 --> 03:19.970]  In the last couple of weeks, I've been wandering all throughout different countries in Eastern Europe.
[03:20.430 --> 03:24.690]  I won't be able to go into very much detail as to what I've been doing, because we have such limited time.
[03:24.690 --> 03:33.110]  However, on the other radio show, Off the Wall, I'll be able to go into quite a bit more detail, and that will air on starting September 9th.
[03:34.010 --> 03:35.630]  Who do we have in the studio with us tonight?
[03:36.330 --> 03:37.950]  We have quite a few people.
[03:38.110 --> 03:40.090]  We've got, let's see, Mike, say hello.
[03:40.430 --> 03:40.650]  Hi.
[03:41.370 --> 03:42.250]  And Jim.
[03:42.390 --> 03:42.890]  It's me.
[03:44.970 --> 03:46.510]  A surprise guest, Lynn.
[03:47.010 --> 03:48.090]  Lynn's up from Atlanta.
[03:48.910 --> 03:49.430]  Hi, Emmanuel.
[03:49.430 --> 03:49.910]  How's it going?
[03:50.690 --> 03:51.270]  Pretty good.
[03:51.270 --> 03:51.550]  How are you?
[03:51.730 --> 03:52.010]  Good.
[03:53.030 --> 03:54.030]  And Evan's here?
[03:55.130 --> 03:55.530]  And...
[03:55.530 --> 03:56.730]  I'm sorry, there's more people.
[03:57.170 --> 03:57.930]  Oh, yeah, there's more.
[03:58.050 --> 03:59.310]  There's Evan and Leo.
[03:59.530 --> 04:00.290]  Yeah, I'm back.
[04:01.350 --> 04:04.230]  Okay, well, it's good that everyone is in there.
[04:05.830 --> 04:06.650]  Well, let's see.
[04:06.890 --> 04:12.050]  I'd like to start off with just a little, I guess, disclaimer.
[04:13.250 --> 04:33.070]  I'd like to make it absolutely clear to dispel any kind of rumors that just because I'm over here in what used to be the Iron Curtain, the evil empire, all that kind of thing, does not mean that I am waging some kind of war against the United States, plotting all kinds of evil,
[04:33.450 --> 04:34.810]  causing all kinds of mischief.
[04:34.810 --> 04:52.410]  The fact that these huge computer worms and viruses are being spread at precisely this moment, the fact that the nation was blacked out worse than ever before, these things have nothing to do with where I am or what I'm doing.
[04:52.410 --> 04:57.190]  So I'd just like to stop those rumors before they start and just make that absolutely clear.
[04:57.350 --> 04:59.190]  It's very irresponsible to spread these kinds of things.
[04:59.310 --> 05:00.370]  I was only kidding.
[05:01.210 --> 05:01.930]  It was a joke.
[05:01.970 --> 05:05.570]  I just want to make sure that, you know, nobody jumps to any conclusions.
[05:05.850 --> 05:09.090]  I don't need any kind of, you know, surprises waiting for me when I get back.
[05:09.230 --> 05:11.770]  Well, no, I'm sorry I made that call to the TIPS program.
[05:12.510 --> 05:14.130]  Yeah, you know, that kind of thing.
[05:14.210 --> 05:15.590]  It just causes all kinds of unrest.
[05:15.590 --> 05:22.710]  So, yeah, you know, I'm just busy seeing the sights here and doing some work as well.
[05:23.770 --> 05:25.090]  But it is something, isn't it?
[05:25.150 --> 05:26.550]  Where were you when the lights went out?
[05:26.570 --> 05:27.290]  I was in Poland.
[05:30.710 --> 05:32.990]  I'll never forget where I was when the lights went out.
[05:33.130 --> 05:34.690]  I was in Warsaw, Poland.
[05:35.270 --> 05:44.390]  And I've got to tell you, it was a very weird thing because I was trying to get a hold of people in the United States, and I could not reach a single person.
[05:44.530 --> 05:45.390]  It was very scary.
[05:45.390 --> 06:01.050]  I just had heard about this on the CNN webpage, and everybody I tried to call, I either got no circuit at all, or I got some kind of just ring with no answer because everyone's answer machine wasn't picking up.
[06:02.370 --> 06:07.510]  And I'd like to know from the people in the studio what they experienced, like from a technical point of view.
[06:07.730 --> 06:20.810]  I know one person told me that they were able to use their cell phone up until around 11 o'clock at night, and then apparently the battery backup for the central office died, and the phones just stopped working altogether.
[06:22.510 --> 06:30.890]  Well, I can tell you, Emmanuel, that from my standpoint, I was in a part of New Jersey that was totally unaffected by the blackout.
[06:31.070 --> 06:35.410]  I was surprised that... did you actually try to reach me on my cell phone?
[06:36.210 --> 06:39.650]  I tried your cell phone, and I was never able to even get to the States.
[06:39.990 --> 06:47.710]  Okay, then that had to be something then that was before... because other people tried to call me, and I got calls all the time.
[06:47.890 --> 06:49.790]  It was... I was fortunate.
[06:50.010 --> 06:56.870]  I was able to watch the news coverage about the blackout on television, which to me was kind of funny.
[06:56.870 --> 07:04.290]  You know, just to... to see them talk about free sneakers at Modell's, and I'm thinking to myself, how are these people going to even know to go down to Modell's?
[07:04.330 --> 07:06.030]  They have no radios, no TVs.
[07:06.650 --> 07:10.970]  There's no way for them to know they can go and get free sneakers to walk around unless they're physically there.
[07:11.950 --> 07:14.350]  And that was a pretty shrewd move on Modell's part, too.
[07:14.430 --> 07:17.530]  Got their name out there for free amongst millions of people.
[07:17.650 --> 07:18.470]  Even got us saying it.
[07:18.570 --> 07:19.130]  That's right there.
[07:19.970 --> 07:21.230]  Well, I was...
[07:22.190 --> 07:22.850]  Go ahead, Jim.
[07:22.850 --> 07:24.430]  Oh, I was at home.
[07:24.590 --> 07:30.230]  It was about 3.45 in the afternoon, and I was just about to leave to do what I normally do.
[07:31.930 --> 07:33.390]  And power went out.
[07:33.390 --> 07:36.110]  I realized this because I had the news channel.
[07:36.250 --> 07:40.350]  I'll mention the name 1010 Winds on the radio, and all of a sudden the radio died.
[07:40.410 --> 07:45.090]  And I realized that the refrigerator was no longer making its low, quiet hum.
[07:46.590 --> 07:53.870]  And luckily for me, being the old guy around here, I had a battery-operated radio, and I actually had batteries.
[07:54.050 --> 07:58.530]  So I put that in and on, and 1010 didn't come in, probably a fault of the radio.
[07:58.530 --> 07:59.830]  I've had problems with it before.
[07:59.850 --> 08:04.290]  So I went to 88 and learned immediately that there was a blackout.
[08:04.690 --> 08:22.410]  As far as cell phones go, although I don't have a cell phone, I have plenty of friends that do, attempted to reach them, and from very quickly on, you were going right to voicemail, which makes sense because with power out throughout the city and pretty much everywhere north of the city,
[08:24.990 --> 08:29.090]  the towers were not powered, obviously.
[08:29.330 --> 08:34.410]  So the last link between the cell phone and the cell tower would not be powered.
[08:34.410 --> 08:46.110]  So if you were calling from a landline, as I was, you would get to some point, and the machinery would determine that the call could not go any further and shunt it off into voicemail.
[08:46.590 --> 08:50.110]  So that, I understand, from a lot of other people, was the same problem they were having.
[08:51.610 --> 08:52.090]  Interesting.
[08:52.950 --> 08:58.550]  Mike, I understand you were actually still overseas, but you were about to fly home on that very day.
[08:58.810 --> 09:01.450]  Yeah, I flew back to New York on Friday morning.
[09:03.210 --> 09:09.990]  I flew into Newark, which apparently got power back earlier than the city itself, so there were no problems with the flight.
[09:10.190 --> 09:15.830]  But when I got to Penn Station, they had to lead us out of Penn Station with flashlights, which was kind of strange.
[09:18.210 --> 09:20.210]  What time did you arrive?
[09:20.510 --> 09:23.610]  That was about 11 in the morning.
[09:23.970 --> 09:31.970]  The other weird thing I noticed is that certain parts of the city got power back earlier than others, and those parts of the city obviously became very popular.
[09:32.290 --> 09:44.930]  So there was an ATM, a bank, right on the first corner where there was power, and you had all these people sitting in this little ATM area charging their cell phones, which I thought was kind of strange.
[09:47.510 --> 09:47.990]  Brilliant.
[09:49.410 --> 09:56.470]  I'm so upset that I was not there for this, a truly once-in-a-lifetime, well, actually, I guess maybe thrice-in-a-lifetime experience for people in New York.
[09:57.450 --> 09:59.410]  But they said it could never happen again.
[09:59.430 --> 10:03.330]  It could never be as bad as it was in the 60s, and it was even worse.
[10:03.430 --> 10:10.310]  This goes to show you, when people are confident that their system is going to work, there's always something that can happen, and they still don't know what caused it.
[10:10.310 --> 10:25.170]  Well, now, when you talk about it was worse in the respect of the power grid, because from the standpoint of looting and rioting, it was absolutely, you know, I couldn't see or find anything, any reports.
[10:25.330 --> 10:26.470]  Well, I've heard some stories.
[10:26.590 --> 10:32.270]  There was isolated looting in Brooklyn, and I've heard plenty of stories of attempted purse snatchings.
[10:32.550 --> 10:36.450]  Burglaries were up 225% from the previous year, same date.
[10:36.770 --> 10:39.650]  Well, but purse snatchings happen, there is power.
[10:39.650 --> 10:40.790]  Well, okay, I'll just...
[10:40.790 --> 10:41.430]  You cannot compare.
[10:41.430 --> 10:44.430]  What is the power to, like, not snatch a purse, you know?
[10:44.870 --> 10:46.570]  You know, the electric doesn't really enter into that.
[10:46.650 --> 10:48.830]  Well, it's dark, and you're not going to get recognized.
[10:49.110 --> 10:55.970]  If there are people around at, say, 20 or 30 yards who might chase after you, they're not going to see it happening, so they're not going to chase after you.
[10:56.790 --> 10:58.310]  How are you going to even see the purse, though?
[10:58.450 --> 10:59.490]  You know, they're usually black.
[11:00.930 --> 11:01.250]  Okay.
[11:01.910 --> 11:02.790]  What are we going to say, Mike?
[11:02.910 --> 11:15.670]  You cannot compare statistics on one single day in one year to statistics on the same single day in another year, because there's just such fluctuations, you know, up and down one day to the next just randomly, that I find it bizarre that no one has done,
[11:15.670 --> 11:17.530]  like, better statistics on this.
[11:18.350 --> 11:18.790]  Also...
[11:18.790 --> 11:21.890]  Well, you can do that if you want a reaction, but I agree.
[11:22.010 --> 11:23.270]  It doesn't seem very scientific.
[11:24.010 --> 11:32.270]  And from what I was able to see over here, the media that I was able to watch when I was in Poland, and I just saw...
[11:32.270 --> 11:41.130]  It's funny, because the power was out in all different cities, Detroit, I believe Toronto, a few other major ones, right?
[11:42.130 --> 11:44.430]  But I saw no footage from any of those cities.
[11:44.530 --> 11:46.630]  The only places I saw footage from was New York.
[11:46.730 --> 11:49.790]  It was like nothing else mattered, and that's what the whole world was watching.
[11:49.990 --> 12:00.390]  And the images we saw were just all the people walking across the bridges and through the streets, and the overwhelming sense was that New Yorkers were taking care of each other and, you know, getting through this...
[12:00.390 --> 12:02.190]  getting through it pretty well.
[12:02.510 --> 12:06.770]  I'm sure there were some isolated instances, but I think that's the way it went overall.
[12:07.110 --> 12:13.610]  My favorite blackout statistic is that four times as many people were arrested for looting in Toronto as in New York.
[12:14.690 --> 12:21.290]  And they wanted to cover the other towns and put the footage on, but they didn't have power.
[12:24.570 --> 12:25.330]  Oh, oh, oh, oh.
[12:26.510 --> 12:27.410]  One last thing...
[12:27.410 --> 12:29.310]  Definitely, I have a challenge.
[12:29.510 --> 12:33.450]  I'm here in St. Petersburg in Russia, which is a magnificent city.
[12:33.650 --> 12:36.170]  I had no idea how huge it was.
[12:36.370 --> 12:42.190]  And I think not since Berlin have I been so impressed with a city that I've been introduced to.
[12:43.070 --> 12:55.190]  But I'm in this rather box-like room in a Soviet-style hotel, and everything here is really, really old and doesn't work very well.
[12:55.350 --> 12:59.550]  I went through a whole day trying to get a toilet fixed today, which was interesting to say the least.
[13:00.150 --> 13:01.470]  But I have a challenge.
[13:01.830 --> 13:03.610]  I had something...
[13:03.610 --> 13:04.450]  I noticed something.
[13:04.630 --> 13:12.550]  Something technologically in this room I noticed that I have not seen in at least 10 years.
[13:12.890 --> 13:19.070]  And I'd like to know if anyone out there can guess what it was that I saw that I had not seen for at least the last 10 years.
[13:19.070 --> 13:23.730]  It involves fairly old technology and something that some of us may be familiar with.
[13:23.790 --> 13:25.130]  Some of us may never have heard of.
[13:25.350 --> 13:26.290]  Jim has his hand up.
[13:26.310 --> 13:26.650]  Oh, never have heard of?
[13:27.190 --> 13:31.370]  That clue sort of ruins my first guess, which was a dial, a rotary phone.
[13:32.450 --> 13:33.990]  Well, actually, there is a rotary phone.
[13:34.350 --> 13:36.250]  So, yeah, you would be right about that.
[13:36.330 --> 13:39.450]  I hadn't even thought about that as that unusual because there are a lot of rotary dial phones.
[13:39.930 --> 13:40.750]  But, yeah, this...
[13:40.750 --> 13:46.490]  In fact, the phone that you called me on doesn't have a ring so much as it has a buzzer.
[13:46.490 --> 13:50.390]  So, when it rings, it really jars you into another dimension.
[13:51.110 --> 13:52.590]  It's so unpleasant sounding.
[13:52.870 --> 13:54.890]  And, yes, it has a big rotary dial on it.
[13:55.290 --> 13:56.510]  And is that the phone you're on now?
[13:57.310 --> 13:58.290]  That's the phone I'm on now.
[13:58.410 --> 14:00.870]  In fact, you might even hear a little Russian static on it.
[14:02.390 --> 14:03.110]  That's trademark.
[14:04.310 --> 14:05.350]  I was wondering what that was.
[14:05.350 --> 14:08.070]  Okay, but that's not the thing you were giving us the clue for.
[14:08.210 --> 14:09.330]  That's not the thing, no.
[14:09.470 --> 14:10.190]  A dumbwaiter?
[14:11.830 --> 14:14.150]  Well, there wouldn't be a dumbwaiter in the room, would there?
[14:14.330 --> 14:16.310]  Not usually, but it was a wild guess.
[14:16.490 --> 14:19.290]  How about a made butler valet button?
[14:20.790 --> 14:21.990]  Made butler valet button.
[14:22.070 --> 14:23.630]  If there is one, I haven't found it yet.
[14:24.390 --> 14:28.810]  Okay, so that eliminates pull cords as well for a bell to call room service.
[14:29.670 --> 14:29.950]  Right.
[14:30.170 --> 14:32.410]  Like I said, this is something technologically related.
[14:32.650 --> 14:34.430]  This is a pretty vague question, you know.
[14:35.290 --> 14:38.210]  Well, you know, it's bad if I'm too specific, Jim's going to get it.
[14:38.910 --> 14:39.550]  Let's be...
[14:39.550 --> 14:40.510]  We can take him out of the loop.
[14:40.670 --> 14:41.410]  Black and white television?
[14:41.790 --> 14:42.430]  Well, that's...
[14:43.190 --> 14:43.910]  Leo guesses...
[14:43.910 --> 14:45.410]  Leo, that is a very good guess.
[14:45.490 --> 14:49.250]  And I thought I did have a black and white television for a while until I found the colored dial.
[14:50.890 --> 14:51.610]  It does...
[14:51.610 --> 14:53.210]  It does have dials.
[14:54.990 --> 14:56.730]  And push buttons for the channels.
[14:57.190 --> 14:57.630]  A fan...
[14:57.630 --> 14:58.750]  That's not what I was thinking of.
[14:59.450 --> 15:00.110]  Sorry, Jim, what?
[15:00.170 --> 15:03.470]  A fan would not be something that would catch your attention that much, I don't think.
[15:03.670 --> 15:03.910]  No, no.
[15:04.650 --> 15:05.810]  Why don't you just tell us?
[15:05.810 --> 15:09.210]  Why don't you mull it over for a little while and we can continue with some...
[15:09.210 --> 15:09.790]  Okay, let's go on.
[15:09.870 --> 15:10.350]  ...some news.
[15:11.530 --> 15:12.630]  Well, we have a little news.
[15:13.430 --> 15:16.450]  Okay, well, I have news too, but go ahead with your news first.
[15:16.670 --> 15:32.310]  Well, the Daily News newspaper in New York is making hay because the plans for Seven World Trade Center, one of the buildings burned down in the 9-11 incident and about to be rebuilt, the plans for it were found lying on a street in Riverdale in the Bronx.
[15:32.870 --> 15:34.130]  And, of course, it's...
[15:34.130 --> 15:37.210]  the Daily News is saying, wouldn't terrorists love to get their hands on this?
[15:38.730 --> 15:39.610]  Now, uh...
[15:39.610 --> 15:40.510]  Yeah, nothing new there.
[15:40.730 --> 15:54.450]  Fans of the show may recall several years back, Emanuel, you know this as well as does everybody in the room, but not our listeners, we came across what we thought were the complete plans to Logan Airport, as among other things.
[15:55.270 --> 16:01.430]  And, in fact, they're in storage, and if you're a Middle Eastern terrorist, just write us, and we'll be selling them for a million dollars a page.
[16:03.410 --> 16:05.830]  Discount prices for Homeland Security.
[16:07.130 --> 16:08.710]  But, yeah, this is nothing new.
[16:08.830 --> 16:14.870]  You can walk down the street and, uh, if you know where the architects are, come across plans for...
[16:14.870 --> 16:19.750]  You mentioned a famous building going up or an important building going up, and we can find you the plans.
[16:19.910 --> 16:23.110]  Didn't you and I find plans for a building one day right outside this building?
[16:23.250 --> 16:26.890]  Oh, that was the, uh, the 9-11 center in downtown Brooklyn.
[16:27.150 --> 16:27.370]  Yes.
[16:28.950 --> 16:29.930]  Yeah, we don't have those.
[16:29.950 --> 16:30.930]  You didn't tell me about that.
[16:31.790 --> 16:32.450]  I'll show them to you.
[16:32.530 --> 16:32.990]  I still have them.
[16:33.070 --> 16:33.590]  Oh, you've got them.
[16:33.650 --> 16:33.790]  Okay.
[16:34.290 --> 16:51.890]  Well, I just want to say one thing about the cell phones during the blackout, which is, uh, what happened is that I was walking from, uh, from, uh, the South Ferry, which is the Staten Island Ferry in the south part of, uh, Manhattan to 8th Street, and I noticed that half the people's phones were,
[16:52.050 --> 16:56.830]  didn't work at all, but the other half of the people had, uh, their cell phones that won't have strength.
[16:57.210 --> 16:58.190]  So you could dial out.
[16:58.390 --> 17:14.430]  I mean, usually you got the All Circuits Busy message, error message, but, uh, half the people I know could dial out and actually somebody who I met in Al Coffee checked their email by hooking up their laptop to a cell phone and dialing it out while holding it above their head.
[17:15.370 --> 17:16.850]  Now, Leo, you're on 10-minute delay.
[17:16.950 --> 17:18.250]  We finished that topic 10 minutes ago.
[17:18.950 --> 17:20.210]  One quick question, Leo.
[17:21.010 --> 17:21.830]  Was, was this...
[17:21.830 --> 17:22.010]  It's interesting.
[17:25.950 --> 17:28.630]  Did Verizon work or not work and another brand work?
[17:29.050 --> 17:32.730]  Oh, uh, I think it was, it might have been an AT&T cell phone.
[17:32.930 --> 17:33.610]  AT&T's had it to work?
[17:33.730 --> 17:39.790]  I think, but, uh, my parents' AT&T cell phone did not work, but they weren't on Staten Island.
[17:40.210 --> 17:43.550]  So I don't know really which models, which, uh, that works.
[17:43.850 --> 17:45.030]  We have no data on that.
[17:45.190 --> 17:54.010]  Not to belabor the point there, but also, uh, uh, when I got home in Memphis, the power was out there in my building.
[17:55.010 --> 17:57.490]  But then again, it had been out for a week before I got back, so.
[17:57.770 --> 17:59.270]  We, we felt a little left out.
[17:59.350 --> 18:00.710]  It was never on the national news.
[18:00.870 --> 18:03.390]  We were three, some people were three and a half weeks without power.
[18:03.690 --> 18:04.950]  Never on the national news.
[18:05.070 --> 18:06.250]  Nobody ever heard anything about it.
[18:06.250 --> 18:07.770]  Was this the same power outage?
[18:07.910 --> 18:14.310]  No, it was a couple of weeks before, but there were still people without power at the time of the, of the, uh, the blackout up here.
[18:14.750 --> 18:17.090]  So you guys were the pioneers in power outages.
[18:17.210 --> 18:22.090]  Yeah, yeah, but it was a, it was like a, it was a big storm that came through and knocked down a bunch of trees.
[18:22.350 --> 18:24.630]  But I got, I got out of dodge when that happened.
[18:24.770 --> 18:26.350]  But when I came back, it was off again.
[18:27.430 --> 18:28.070]  Interesting thing.
[18:28.190 --> 18:35.330]  I was in Helsinki a few days ago to see a concert of the Leningrad Cowboys, which, if you ever get the chance to see them, it's definitely worth doing.
[18:35.490 --> 18:43.350]  It's, it's, it's an unbelievable show with the Red Army Choir and, uh, all kinds of international singers joining them.
[18:43.690 --> 18:48.850]  Uh, it took place in the middle of Town Square, uh, Senate Square, actually is what they call it.
[18:49.410 --> 19:04.470]  Um, and picture, picture going downtown, uh, in New York City and going right outside, say, one of the courthouses and having 25, maybe 50,000 people just gathering there to see a concert and not seeing a single policeman the entire night.
[19:04.610 --> 19:07.770]  And everybody's drinking beer with glass bottles too, by the way.
[19:08.170 --> 19:10.730]  And there are no problems, no problems at all.
[19:11.110 --> 19:13.150]  It's just, it's like being on another planet.
[19:13.370 --> 19:16.890]  But in the middle of that, uh, we had a blackout in Helsinki.
[19:17.170 --> 19:23.590]  And the funny thing was, the only place that had power was the concert because they weren't tapping into the city grid.
[19:23.790 --> 19:25.290]  They were generating their own power.
[19:25.710 --> 19:31.310]  So, uh, it was a bit of a reverse of what the usual situation is when you lose power at a concert.
[19:31.870 --> 19:33.390]  We had the power and the city didn't.
[19:33.590 --> 19:34.790]  It only lasted for a couple of hours.
[19:34.950 --> 19:35.790]  There was no real mayhem.
[19:35.950 --> 19:44.490]  But, uh, I just thought it was, it was, you know, kind of something for me because I really wanted to be part of the blackout and I missed that one so I got a little bit of the Helsinki blackout.
[19:45.170 --> 19:48.810]  And did you run into our friends from Amsterdam?
[19:49.010 --> 19:53.330]  Yes, I ran into quite a few friends actually, but yes, I ran into the ones you're thinking of.
[19:53.410 --> 19:53.910]  Okay, good.
[19:53.910 --> 19:56.590]  And, uh, they're probably listening now, so hello to them.
[19:57.130 --> 20:00.590]  Um, also on the topic of cell phones, my cell phone has worked incredibly well.
[20:00.830 --> 20:07.350]  Uh, I have a GSM phone that, uh, it's actually T-Mobile and, um, I've been using it overseas.
[20:07.990 --> 20:13.090]  Um, whenever I go into a different country, I have a choice of between three and five different companies that I can use.
[20:13.450 --> 20:21.530]  Uh, and I'm able to, um, to communicate with people back home, uh, with people here and I'm able to send SMS and receive SMS messages.
[20:21.790 --> 20:25.430]  Uh, those are short two-line messages that are sent from phone to phone.
[20:25.770 --> 20:27.570]  Uh, and that's how everybody here communicates.
[20:27.650 --> 20:31.590]  In fact, people, people do a lot with SMS over here that they do not do in the States.
[20:31.630 --> 20:37.870]  For instance, I was hanging out with somebody in Helsinki and he bought Metro tickets using his phone.
[20:38.410 --> 20:55.570]  He, uh, he sent an SMS message to an email address, uh, or to actually just a five-digit phone number, and, uh, he, he inputted, um, a special code, which everybody knows, and he got back a response, and that response is code in case you get stopped by a ticket inspector.
[20:55.770 --> 20:59.150]  You show them the phone, they tap in that code, and that proves that you have a ticket.
[20:59.850 --> 21:02.110]  And it's just an incredible way of using the technology.
[21:02.250 --> 21:04.430]  People use it, uh, for all kinds of contests.
[21:04.570 --> 21:12.650]  Every time you turn on a TV set, you see, uh, SMS for this particular, you know, for a chat line or, or, uh, you know, to win a CD or something like that.
[21:12.990 --> 21:16.870]  Um, so SMS is very popular technology, and it's a shame we don't use it in the States.
[21:16.870 --> 21:24.070]  Oh, but I noticed, I was down in South Carolina, and I saw a commercial to SMS and win a, uh, win a car.
[21:24.450 --> 21:25.710]  I won't mention the company.
[21:25.950 --> 21:29.530]  Yeah, because they, well, you've had trouble with them in the past.
[21:29.810 --> 21:41.570]  But, um, yeah, there is a, uh, uh, a contest going on right now that I, I, as I Well, I'd like to know, uh, Jeff, I'd like to know the details as to, um, as to what they were telling people to SMS.
[21:41.770 --> 21:43.070]  Was it a phone number?
[21:43.070 --> 21:50.790]  No, it was just every time you used SMS on their carrier, you were entered in the contest or a chance to win the car.
[21:51.850 --> 21:52.750]  Okay, that's different.
[21:53.110 --> 22:00.750]  Uh, see, the way they do it over here is they, they would give you a particular number, you send a message to that number, and something happens as a result of that.
[22:00.910 --> 22:11.830]  Sometimes, uh, for instance, you can show up on a TV screen, and, uh, and, and you can be part of a chat that's live on a TV screen when a TV station's off the air, or you can play some kind of a game.
[22:11.930 --> 22:12.990]  I don't know how to do it, actually.
[22:13.070 --> 22:16.810]  I haven't done it myself, but I just noticed that SMS is everywhere.
[22:17.090 --> 22:18.730]  Everybody is, is using the technology.
[22:19.110 --> 22:26.490]  And it's funny, too, because a lot of American companies are over here, such as MTV, uh, and, uh, and they're into the technology as well.
[22:26.710 --> 22:28.950]  You know, they, they advertise it on, on their networks over here.
[22:29.290 --> 22:30.750]  It's a shame they don't do it back home.
[22:31.330 --> 22:32.730]  Um, the book...
[22:32.730 --> 22:33.750]  Another topic back home.
[22:33.970 --> 22:34.610]  I'm sorry, go ahead.
[22:34.750 --> 22:37.830]  Uh, the book, Smart Mobs, describes a lot of these technologies.
[22:38.430 --> 22:39.050]  What book?
[22:39.310 --> 22:40.570]  Smart Mobs, it's called.
[22:41.270 --> 22:41.770]  It's blue.
[22:42.370 --> 22:48.330]  That's, that's the one everyone's talking about because of all the people running around going nuts and, and, and quickly dispersing mobs.
[22:48.410 --> 22:48.790]  Is that correct?
[22:49.210 --> 22:50.110]  Uh, that's, yeah.
[22:50.390 --> 22:51.850]  So there's, there's a mob called...
[22:51.850 --> 22:52.710]  Oh, that's a Flash Mob.
[22:52.750 --> 22:53.370]  Flash Mob, yes.
[22:53.370 --> 22:53.910]  Flash Mob.
[22:54.510 --> 22:54.930]  My voice.
[22:54.930 --> 22:56.390]  There's also smart mobs.
[22:56.570 --> 22:57.630]  There's all kinds of mobs.
[22:57.730 --> 22:59.190]  And there's no real mobs, though.
[23:00.150 --> 23:01.650]  Aren't Flash Mobs supposed to be smart?
[23:02.810 --> 23:03.210]  Absolutely.
[23:03.490 --> 23:04.930]  They're pretty stupid from what I hear.
[23:04.990 --> 23:08.030]  It's the director of the Who wrote the, who wrote the, the smart mob book?
[23:08.170 --> 23:09.750]  It's, uh, Rheingold, I believe.
[23:10.770 --> 23:11.710]  Howard Rheingold, okay.
[23:12.530 --> 23:12.810]  Yeah.
[23:13.550 --> 23:24.090]  Oh, I was going to say one thing about phones and, uh, because it reminded me of something about, that happened in the blackout, is that I heard that, uh, people's land, some people's landlines went out, throwing the blackout.
[23:24.930 --> 23:26.370]  So just, side comment.
[23:28.290 --> 23:39.050]  There's a, there's a friend of mine in Atlanta that, uh, had set up an SMS where it would query a database and if you put in somebody's ham radio call sign, it would send you back their address and birthday and all that other stuff.
[23:39.190 --> 23:40.230]  It's pretty freaky, actually.
[23:40.370 --> 23:40.730]  Wow.
[23:41.730 --> 23:48.230]  I'd like to know more about how to set up SMS because, um, you know, we could definitely use the technology for all kinds of, of projects.
[23:48.230 --> 23:51.130]  It'd be really kind of cool to, uh, to play with an experiment.
[23:51.570 --> 23:55.690]  Uh, one thing I want to touch upon that I think is, uh, pretty gosh darn important.
[23:56.070 --> 24:02.570]  Uh, that's this, um, uh, this, uh, alleged email virus that's been, uh, spreading all over the place.
[24:02.970 --> 24:07.750]  Um, I have some, some interesting stories here and I'd just like to, to comment on some of them.
[24:08.070 --> 24:12.390]  Um, and this has been taking place over the last couple of weeks, which is precisely when we weren't on the air.
[24:12.530 --> 24:16.430]  So I think it's important for our listeners that we, uh, we touch upon this a little bit.
[24:17.030 --> 24:32.770]  Um, this is from the Associated Press stated a week ago yesterday, uh, a new strain of one of the most virulent email viruses ever spread quickly worldwide on Tuesday morning, uh, causing fresh annoyance to users worn out by last week's outbreak of the blaster worm,
[24:32.890 --> 24:34.190]  which everyone's forgotten about by now.
[24:34.550 --> 24:43.610]  Uh, this, this virus named SoBig.f by, again, I'm, I, I don't think it fits the definition of virus, but we're just going to read what the story says.
[24:44.190 --> 24:50.290]  Uh, computer security companies, uh, have, have named it, I guess this is the file that it goes by, SoBig.f.
[24:50.450 --> 24:54.230]  Uh, it attacks Windows users via email and file sharing networks.
[24:54.550 --> 25:02.510]  Uh, it also deposits a Trojan horse or hacker backdoor, uh, that can be used to turn victims of PCs into senders of spam email.
[25:02.770 --> 25:14.230]  Uh, Message Labs Inc., a company that filters email for corporations, have blocked more than 100,000 copies of SoBig.f by midday Tuesday, making it the most active virus of the day.
[25:15.070 --> 25:26.290]  Um, basically, um, this, this particular, uh, message carries a subject line, uh, regarding details and the message Please see attached files for details.
[25:26.610 --> 25:29.530]  I know a lot of people have been receiving messages like that.
[25:29.590 --> 25:30.750]  I've seen a few that are flying by.
[25:31.010 --> 25:35.550]  Uh, you don't have to use Windows to have the messages clog up your inbox.
[25:35.810 --> 25:43.550]  Uh, they're just being passed back and forth, uh, incredibly quickly with, uh, and clogging the net, uh, unbelievably.
[25:44.290 --> 25:48.430]  Uh, so, that in itself is a, is a big pain in the ass.
[25:49.170 --> 25:52.890]  Um, now, it's gotten even more interesting.
[25:53.330 --> 26:05.010]  Uh, according to, um, uh, to various newspapers, uh, CSX stopped its passenger and freight trains, uh, including morning commuter service in the metropolitan Washington, D.C.
[26:05.210 --> 26:10.070]  area last week after the computer virus overwhelmed its telecommunications network.
[26:10.850 --> 26:17.690]  Now, to me, this is incredible that, uh, something involving email is affecting trains.
[26:17.690 --> 26:23.410]  And I'm just kind of at a loss as to how the two systems, uh, can be related.
[26:23.710 --> 26:38.150]  Uh, if you're running trains and you're using computers to, uh, to coordinate all this, it's generally not a good idea to tie it into the internet where he can be, uh, the victim of, uh, the latest, uh, uh, latest craze and computer worms and viruses.
[26:39.070 --> 26:41.490]  Um, it's not exactly tied in.
[26:41.850 --> 26:45.790]  What, what, well, it obviously isn't to some degree for them to shut down trains.
[26:46.170 --> 26:46.170]  Yeah.
[26:46.170 --> 26:49.330]  I'll tell you exactly, uh, how, uh, well, not exactly.
[26:49.770 --> 26:51.490]  What you've got is a signal system.
[26:51.750 --> 27:03.130]  The signal system communicates from point to point into the central dispatch office, uh, via, uh, either a private, uh, network or, uh, possibly the net.
[27:03.390 --> 27:14.170]  Either way, the, either the computer at the heart of this or whatever, uh, would need, uh, uh, memory to, you know, determine where the trains are, where they're being shunted, where they're going.
[27:14.670 --> 27:20.930]  Uh, so as, uh, the email, uh, files get bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger with
[27:24.250 --> 27:24.690]  performance.
[27:25.650 --> 27:27.030]  That's the part I have a problem with.
[27:27.090 --> 27:28.890]  Why is the email on the same machine?
[27:29.970 --> 27:31.430]  It might not be on the same machine.
[27:31.430 --> 27:35.930]  It might be on the same system, uh, uh, the same network.
[27:36.230 --> 27:50.870]  In other words, in other, uh, whereas you're, you're getting just so much email and in addition to the signals between, uh, in addition to the messages between the train signals, one train signal, another central dispatch office, no problem.
[27:51.330 --> 27:54.170]  All of a sudden you're getting 50 billion times as many emails.
[27:54.410 --> 27:55.690]  That's an exaggeration.
[27:56.230 --> 27:59.070]  You see, Jim, my point is that that should be an isolated system.
[27:59.190 --> 27:59.510]  It should.
[27:59.890 --> 28:00.810]  It probably isn't.
[28:00.890 --> 28:12.790]  Something that runs something vital, such as a hospital or a train system or anything that you don't want to be affected by, by this kind of thing, uh, should not be connected to that kind of network.
[28:12.950 --> 28:21.210]  I agree, but when, when you have it isolated, okay, you have all this unused, uh, storage space processors, uh, ability going wasted.
[28:21.210 --> 28:24.830]  So you mingle the two and it's a brilliant idea until you get a virus like this.
[28:25.690 --> 28:27.070]  I don't know how brilliant it is.
[28:27.130 --> 28:29.270]  You don't have to have, uh, wasted resources.
[28:29.530 --> 28:31.930]  You simply take what you need and use it there.
[28:33.130 --> 28:34.570]  Put the rest someplace else.
[28:35.150 --> 28:41.210]  Uh, this also affected the New York Times, uh, late last week, they say they shut down computer systems at the Manhattan headquarters.
[28:41.830 --> 28:51.770]  And, uh, this according to the wall street journal, uh, potentially making the newspaper publisher a high profile victim of computer viruses that are ravaging corporate networks across the U S.
[28:52.650 --> 29:03.210]  Um, it's funny because they, um, uh, the wall street journal said that, uh, that the New York times was, uh, planning to publish a paper tomorrow, possibly using backup systems.
[29:03.610 --> 29:10.850]  It's just funny that the wall street journal would, uh, would say it that way as if the New York times wasn't going to publish an issue tomorrow because they, they couldn't get their computers to work.
[29:11.530 --> 29:18.610]  Um, I find that that system's a bit more challenging because because obviously reporters want to, uh, be in touch with people via email.
[29:18.890 --> 29:28.370]  But at the same time, the, the, the system that publishes the paper, there's no reason in the world for that to be affected by outside email.
[29:28.630 --> 29:32.090]  I mean, you know, at 2600, when something like this happens, we're not affected.
[29:32.730 --> 29:36.930]  Uh, our, our publication is done on computers that do not connect to the internet.
[29:37.510 --> 29:45.150]  And, uh, the whole internet could fry and it would make a bit of difference as far as us doing the task of printing the magazine.
[29:45.510 --> 29:48.810]  It just seems, you know, a logical way to do things.
[29:48.830 --> 29:51.110]  And if we can do it, I'm sure the New York times can do it.
[29:51.910 --> 29:52.810]  I agree, man.
[29:52.910 --> 30:00.170]  I have a, uh, at my, at my house, I have one computer that is not online that runs business, other software.
[30:00.450 --> 30:04.810]  And then I have my email machine with, you know, that that's the one that's connected.
[30:07.980 --> 30:09.520]  It's also not interesting thing.
[30:09.940 --> 30:10.500]  I'm sorry, go ahead.
[30:10.660 --> 30:15.500]  It's also not very difficult to block viruses at the, at the mail exchanger.
[30:16.520 --> 30:20.800]  Uh, so if there are any admins listening who haven't done that yet, do it.
[30:20.880 --> 30:21.460]  It's not that hard.
[30:22.060 --> 30:27.320]  Well, the, with the other problem was it was, it was just flooding the, some of them were flooding the network with pings.
[30:27.460 --> 30:33.900]  And a friend of mine in Atlanta, their voicemail systems were not exchanging information, uh, between their offices.
[30:34.080 --> 30:35.820]  So it was even bleeding over to the phone system.
[30:35.900 --> 30:43.780]  They had to unplug some of their phone systems because they ran on windows 2000 phone systems ran on windows 2000 and they weren't patched.
[30:44.160 --> 31:06.400]  Now the story took on an even more Hollywood, uh, type of flavor, uh, even later in the week, uh, when it was announced that, um, that this particular virus was, uh, about to communicate, uh, to, to the home computers, supposedly that, that started the whole thing and nobody knew what it was going to say or what it was going to tell it to do.
[31:07.520 --> 31:20.600]  Um, basically, uh, according to, uh, uh, to one news report, uh, by analyzing the virus, the experts know the server's numeric internet address, but not its physical location or the identity of its owner.
[31:20.840 --> 31:27.080]  Now that to me sounds fantastic that they can actually identify the IP, but not know anything more, such as geographical location.
[31:27.240 --> 31:30.720]  It seems to me they'd be able to get that information in five minutes if they really tried.
[31:31.440 --> 31:38.760]  Um, as a result, it was not clear whether law enforcement officials would be able to tap into or interfere with the communication between infected PCs and the server computer.
[31:39.060 --> 31:46.820]  A spokesman for the Department of Homeland Security, oh boy, said only that officials were monitoring the spread of the virus.
[31:47.700 --> 31:53.660]  Now it's, it's, um, and this is probably one of the stupidest things I think I've ever read in print.
[31:53.960 --> 31:57.300]  Uh, and this comes from, um, from the Los Angeles Times.
[31:57.800 --> 32:03.120]  Uh, they say one reason to believe that the so big virus will launch a cascade of spam.
[32:03.400 --> 32:09.480]  Uh, that, that's, that's what everybody assumed it was going to communicate, that it would start sending spam all, all over the place.
[32:09.600 --> 32:10.920]  That's if we don't have enough of that.
[32:11.460 --> 32:22.360]  Uh, one reason to believe that is that spammers earn commissions from their flood of emails and working with spammers is one of the few ways for a virus writer to profit from his or her activity.
[32:23.520 --> 32:32.360]  And there's, uh, also speculation that maybe the so big worm is just an attempt to set up a distributed spam network to be sold to the highest bidder.
[32:33.680 --> 32:37.000]  And you're listening to... This whole thing just sounds really preposterous to me.
[32:37.300 --> 32:42.120]  And you're listening to Off the Hook on WBAI New York 99.5 FM.
[32:42.320 --> 32:44.260]  It's Emanuel Goldstein and friends.
[32:46.060 --> 33:03.300]  Uh, another, um, article, uh, on the virus also said some computer experts believe that a large American crime syndicate is behind SoBake.f, uh, that they're using it and the 20 rogue home computers, uh, that they are, are figuring out behind this thing.
[33:03.640 --> 33:08.340]  Uh, they're being used to extract personal information from people such as their credit card numbers.
[33:09.040 --> 33:14.700]  Uh, and, and basically they, they know that there are 20 home computers.
[33:14.980 --> 33:16.580]  It could be anywhere in the world.
[33:16.720 --> 33:18.600]  They all have high-speed broadband connections.
[33:18.860 --> 33:29.740]  They're all hosting an unidentified program and uh, and they were supposed to communicate, uh, last week, I believe, uh, Friday at 8 PM, uh, and, and send some kind of command.
[33:30.160 --> 33:32.600]  And that's, that's the last thing I heard over here.
[33:32.760 --> 33:34.120]  Have you guys heard anything new?
[33:37.600 --> 33:38.040]  Okay.
[33:38.540 --> 33:47.220]  Uh, the story kind of petered out, I guess, but it, it certainly took on this, uh, this dramatic flair and, uh, it just made it sound like it was being written by Hollywood.
[33:49.300 --> 33:50.540]  Choose the red pill.
[33:53.240 --> 33:58.580]  Any, uh, any more guesses on the, uh, on the technology, uh, uh, thing that I saw?
[33:58.780 --> 34:01.660]  The only thing I could come up with was, uh, some sort of intercom.
[34:03.380 --> 34:03.740]  No.
[34:03.960 --> 34:06.600]  Well, I, I never had an intercom, so that wouldn't be right either.
[34:06.840 --> 34:09.100]  Wild manual typewriter?
[34:10.000 --> 34:12.940]  Uh, why would there be a manual typewriter in a hotel room?
[34:13.120 --> 34:15.320]  That's what I, that's why I thought it was a wild guess.
[34:16.240 --> 34:16.600]  Okay.
[34:16.740 --> 34:18.460]  Here, this, this, this, this is a good clue.
[34:18.680 --> 34:18.940]  All right.
[34:19.340 --> 34:27.960]  For the people that have been around, uh, in the seventies, by being around, I mean, just being alive, you probably have experienced this.
[34:28.400 --> 34:32.260]  Now, this is something that's in a hotel room that you would expect to be in a hotel room.
[34:32.420 --> 34:36.020]  And this is something that you would expect to have experienced sometime in the seventies.
[34:36.200 --> 34:38.240]  I think that's a pretty, uh, pretty good radio.
[34:39.960 --> 34:41.080]  What about a clock radio?
[34:41.280 --> 34:44.200]  You have a clock radio, a non-digital clock.
[34:44.400 --> 34:47.780]  I don't see how a clock radio would, uh, what, what is there about a clock radio?
[34:47.780 --> 34:48.500]  I have no idea.
[34:49.000 --> 34:49.100]  Yeah.
[34:49.440 --> 34:49.840]  Okay.
[34:50.120 --> 34:55.980]  I have a The only thing I can come up with, but it's not... It's not technical.
[34:56.300 --> 34:57.140]  How about a wind-up alarm clock?
[34:58.040 --> 34:59.240]  Wait, who said it wasn't technical?
[34:59.320 --> 35:00.140]  I said it was technical.
[35:00.240 --> 35:03.700]  Yeah, I'm only thinking of things that are non-technical, like an ashtray, you know?
[35:04.120 --> 35:07.340]  That's what I remember from the 70s in hotel rooms that you don't find anymore.
[35:08.240 --> 35:09.960]  Well, actually, there is an ashtray right over there.
[35:10.100 --> 35:11.520]  I see it staring me in the face.
[35:11.720 --> 35:12.400]  Well, you're in Europe.
[35:12.400 --> 35:13.020]  What do you expect?
[35:13.540 --> 35:16.100]  Yeah, you will find those things over there, but no, it's...
[35:16.100 --> 35:21.340]  Ken Gale, who's acting as our engineer, came up with the wind-up alarm clock, which we kind of like as an answer.
[35:22.160 --> 35:25.660]  That is a good thing, but there's no clock at all in this room, all right?
[35:25.780 --> 35:27.000]  So let's just put an end to that.
[35:27.180 --> 35:28.520]  I'm going to go way out on a limb.
[35:29.120 --> 35:31.580]  And please tell me it's not a vibrating bed.
[35:34.740 --> 35:35.100]  No.
[35:35.420 --> 35:35.740]  Okay.
[35:35.900 --> 35:36.040]  No.
[35:36.440 --> 35:37.360]  Thank you, I'm glad.
[35:37.900 --> 35:40.600]  I don't remember those from the 70s either, but...
[35:41.020 --> 35:43.440]  You stayed in a better class of hotel than some people.
[35:44.160 --> 35:48.080]  So you want to take some calls and see if we can get some listeners to...
[35:48.080 --> 35:49.080]  I'd like to do...
[35:49.080 --> 35:51.280]  Let me just give a couple of real quick updates.
[35:51.560 --> 35:51.640]  Okay.
[35:51.640 --> 35:52.200]  Some good news.
[35:52.500 --> 36:02.140]  Tampa police, they've scrapped that controversial security camera system that scans city streets for criminals, the one that uses face recognition.
[36:02.720 --> 36:06.160]  They say it's just proven not to have any benefit to us.
[36:06.600 --> 36:10.220]  The cameras led only to arrest for such crimes as drug deals.
[36:11.000 --> 36:14.560]  And critics, of course, are welcoming the end of that particular program.
[36:15.040 --> 36:26.320]  And FCC chairman Michael Powell, rather, has announced that they're going to examine further how broadcast TV and radio stations are serving their local communities.
[36:26.880 --> 36:31.280]  He says, We heard the voice of public concern about the media loud and clear.
[36:31.780 --> 36:35.640]  Localism is at the core of their concerns, and we are going to tackle it head on.
[36:35.760 --> 36:40.420]  Of course, that's what people were saying way back in the beginning, and he didn't listen to them then.
[36:40.420 --> 36:45.600]  And apparently the noise has been so loud that even he has had no choice but to listen to it.
[36:45.800 --> 36:47.720]  There are going to be public hearings in September.
[36:47.720 --> 36:50.660]  We'll keep people updated as to when those take place and where.
[36:51.160 --> 36:54.120]  And maybe, just maybe, your voice will be heard.
[36:54.280 --> 36:55.320]  It might make a difference.
[36:55.560 --> 36:58.960]  By tackle head on, I think chairman Powell means, like, quash.
[37:00.740 --> 37:01.760]  Slam to the ground.
[37:02.740 --> 37:03.380]  Most likely.
[37:03.380 --> 37:14.700]  And one final thing with the FCC, they've delayed until 2005 a new rule that would require companies to obtain written permission before sending unsolicited faxes.
[37:14.900 --> 37:24.400]  Now, those were originally supposed to be included along with the telemarketers with the whole do not call list.
[37:24.400 --> 37:38.760]  However, that has changed, and the FCC said the delay will give businesses more time to get signed approval forms from people to whom they want to send faxes, and will provide more time for the commission to respond to requests to reconsider the new rules.
[37:39.060 --> 37:41.660]  So this whole thing may not happen in the first place.
[37:42.400 --> 38:01.820]  But basically, what they are going to do, if this ever does happen, and right now it's not going to happen until January 1, 2005, it basically means that nobody can send you an unsolicited fax unless either you give them permission or you're a customer of theirs or have some kind of business relationship with them.
[38:02.440 --> 38:08.520]  So I think that's a pretty good rule, and I wish they wouldn't delay it, but it's going to be another year at least.
[38:08.800 --> 38:10.900]  Wasn't there already some kind of junk fax law?
[38:13.240 --> 38:14.400]  It's on the state level.
[38:15.320 --> 38:16.440]  It's on the state level.
[38:16.620 --> 38:17.540]  Yeah, there are a number of states.
[38:17.820 --> 38:18.460]  This is national.
[38:19.900 --> 38:26.420]  And let me just read a couple of listener letters, and then we'll take some phone calls at 212-209-2900.
[38:27.060 --> 38:33.020]  This person writes in and says, I just thought I'd mention that last night I was watching Spike TV, formerly TNN.
[38:33.120 --> 38:38.340]  I guess they made the switch finally, as Spike Lee has resolved all the problems with them.
[38:38.860 --> 38:40.460]  I wanted to...
[38:40.460 --> 38:41.060]  Sorry, go ahead.
[38:41.500 --> 38:43.860]  They paid Spike Lee money, and that was the end of that.
[38:44.640 --> 38:45.420]  I guess.
[38:45.680 --> 38:46.280]  No, that's real.
[38:46.340 --> 38:47.620]  I heard Spike Lee say that.
[38:48.480 --> 38:49.020]  Uh-huh.
[38:50.120 --> 38:52.720]  But wasn't it a deal that they weren't supposed to say what happened?
[38:53.640 --> 38:55.800]  Well, he admitted it on WFAN.
[38:56.060 --> 39:02.440]  Well, what about Spike Jones, the director, and Spike Jones, the comic music artist of the 40s?
[39:02.600 --> 39:03.600]  Yeah, well, if only they'd said to.
[39:04.880 --> 39:08.080]  We've already been through all this, so I don't know.
[39:08.240 --> 39:08.660]  You're watching Spike.
[39:08.660 --> 39:10.680]  If you find an Emanuel network, though, I'd like to know about it.
[39:12.580 --> 39:18.880]  Anyway, this person also writes in saying, I want to write a script to translate mobile phone numbers to their full gateway address.
[39:18.880 --> 39:22.940]  Do you know where I can find information that maps prefix to carrier, signed Jeff?
[39:23.620 --> 39:33.360]  Well, the interesting thing about this is that with number portability, that information is going to be completely useless because carriers will no longer be assigned to exchanges.
[39:33.360 --> 39:38.860]  So, as of November, even if you were to get such a list, as of November, that list would be pretty much useless.
[39:40.600 --> 39:49.440]  This assumes, of course, that the mobile phone companies don't achieve yet another delay in wireless number portability while continuing to charge me $1.10 a month for it.
[39:49.440 --> 39:50.240]  That's true.
[39:50.440 --> 39:53.960]  It's quite possible, in which case, maybe we'll try to make such a list available.
[39:54.460 --> 39:59.920]  But if we made a list like that available, then they'd go through a portability just to make that list not usable.
[40:00.120 --> 40:04.720]  Such a list is available from the website of the North American Numbering Plan, folks.
[40:05.160 --> 40:07.500]  So, if you Google for that, you may be able to find it.
[40:08.280 --> 40:10.520]  They have all the cellular exchanges.
[40:10.780 --> 40:13.940]  Yeah, all the exchanges and what company is in...
[40:13.940 --> 40:15.080]  Oh, I didn't know that.
[40:15.380 --> 40:16.500]  They broke it down.
[40:16.600 --> 40:18.580]  Because some exchanges are divided.
[40:18.580 --> 40:20.180]  The website is at?
[40:20.480 --> 40:23.680]  N-A-N-P-A dot com.
[40:23.960 --> 40:24.220]  Thank you.
[40:24.540 --> 40:26.220]  And what does this have to do with Spike TV?
[40:29.420 --> 40:33.500]  Nothing really, except that the person just happened to mention that they were watching Spike TV before they asked that question.
[40:34.520 --> 40:37.880]  What on Spike TV could have prompted this?
[40:38.300 --> 40:38.920]  Go on.
[40:39.060 --> 40:39.480]  I don't know.
[40:40.100 --> 40:40.820]  Another letter here.
[40:41.000 --> 40:46.960]  You wanted to know if anyone else gets weird voicemail messages that say the number is all fives.
[40:47.740 --> 40:51.860]  Yes, I get it all the time, but only if people from overseas leave me voicemail.
[40:51.960 --> 40:56.380]  I guess the overseas numbers are too long for sprints, so it goes on that 555 nonsense.
[40:57.260 --> 40:58.720]  And that's fine, Mr. Jiff.
[40:59.320 --> 41:00.260]  Interesting thing, too.
[41:00.260 --> 41:03.000]  Over here, I've been getting some very strange numbers.
[41:03.040 --> 41:15.940]  When people call me with a weird kind of trunk group or something, I'm seeing things like 907 or 709 as the country code.
[41:16.040 --> 41:19.540]  And then sometimes I see their seven-digit phone number included in there.
[41:20.280 --> 41:21.400]  I think this is something...
[41:21.400 --> 41:22.080]  I've been writing them down.
[41:22.220 --> 41:24.880]  I've been keeping track of them, so I'd like to analyze just what all that means.
[41:25.540 --> 41:30.860]  Mike, I understand you had a voicemail incident involving Jeff, is that right?
[41:30.960 --> 41:31.080]  Yeah.
[41:31.440 --> 41:34.740]  Jeff called me last week to confirm that there was no show.
[41:35.740 --> 41:41.360]  And I didn't get the message until Saturday, despite the fact that I received other voicemails in the interim period.
[41:43.100 --> 41:48.540]  Yeah, he called me back on Saturday, and I tried to figure out, why is he calling me now?
[41:48.600 --> 41:49.560]  This was about Wednesday.
[41:49.740 --> 41:50.320]  It's passed.
[41:50.320 --> 41:50.740]  We're done.
[41:50.980 --> 41:52.940]  But he said, I just got the message.
[41:54.100 --> 41:54.500]  So...
[41:54.500 --> 41:57.060]  And I was watching Spike TV last night, too.
[41:58.240 --> 41:59.020]  I really was.
[41:59.060 --> 42:00.920]  I was watching Boiling Point with Wesley Snipes.
[42:01.760 --> 42:02.600]  How about that?
[42:03.680 --> 42:06.480]  Now, where was that message for those days?
[42:06.540 --> 42:07.360]  That's what I'd like to know.
[42:07.400 --> 42:09.580]  Well, it was the same day I spoke to you in Europe.
[42:10.340 --> 42:17.440]  I called you and got you, and spoke to him, and got his voicemail, and then he didn't get it until Saturday.
[42:18.580 --> 42:18.860]  Uh-huh.
[42:20.340 --> 42:20.760]  Interesting.
[42:21.500 --> 42:23.840]  It's that voicemail that's all...
[42:24.640 --> 42:26.500]  That's what's going on with technology.
[42:27.240 --> 42:29.580]  A lot of problems lately.
[42:29.760 --> 42:36.020]  And yet, he called me today, and I got his message once I got off the airplane.
[42:36.940 --> 42:37.340]  Uh-huh.
[42:37.420 --> 42:38.740]  Yeah, you just flew in, Jeff.
[42:38.740 --> 42:40.660]  He just arrived from the airport.
[42:40.920 --> 42:45.240]  While we're talking about that, let me just tell you one thing that happened today on the plane that...
[42:45.240 --> 42:50.440]  It incensed the passenger that wound up sitting next to me, and I was quite surprised myself.
[42:50.720 --> 42:55.000]  When we got on the plane, this is a U.S.
[42:55.060 --> 43:04.680]  air flight, the young lady was asked to not sit in the seat that she was assigned, but could she move to the road that was directly in front of me, which she said, okay.
[43:05.200 --> 43:11.160]  As I got on, I happened to look over to where she was supposed to be sitting, and there was a pet carrier with marked cat.
[43:13.140 --> 43:17.720]  When the people showed up that were in her seat, it was a group, a family that was together.
[43:17.720 --> 43:23.020]  She was asked to move again, and she sat next to me, and I said, she said, gee, I'd love to know why I'm being moved around.
[43:23.120 --> 43:25.820]  And I said, well, there's a cat over there.
[43:26.580 --> 43:31.560]  And she gave me a look like it was my fault, and I said, no, wait a minute, no, no, I'm just saying, that's what I noticed.
[43:31.680 --> 43:34.540]  And she said, yeah, but how much did the cat pay?
[43:34.660 --> 43:36.660]  And I said, you're going to have to talk to them about that.
[43:37.140 --> 43:42.400]  But this passenger that paid her fare was shuffled around the plane.
[43:42.400 --> 43:46.280]  Now, I could see if you're going to say to the person, you can't sit in your seat, let's move you up to first class.
[43:46.280 --> 43:50.000]  Now, where we were was just a row or two behind, and I could see empty seats.
[43:50.200 --> 43:52.380]  They didn't bother to move her that direction.
[43:52.700 --> 43:55.200]  They were moving her further back in the plane.
[43:55.860 --> 43:59.980]  I still don't understand how the presence of a cat even makes anybody have to move.
[44:00.360 --> 44:07.560]  Well, evidently, the cat carrier would not slide under the woman's seat that she was sitting in.
[44:07.780 --> 44:09.480]  It wouldn't slide under any seat.
[44:09.620 --> 44:16.860]  So instead of taking it and putting it somewhere else or overhead, they gave the cat a seat on the plane.
[44:17.200 --> 44:18.560]  They didn't put it on the seat.
[44:18.660 --> 44:21.780]  They left it on the floor, but it took a spot for a passenger.
[44:22.360 --> 44:26.120]  And there was no starving North Korean family around when you needed one.
[44:27.800 --> 44:32.040]  I can't even imagine the kinds of noises that that cat was making when the airplane was in flight.
[44:32.460 --> 44:34.400]  Actually, I didn't hear a thing.
[44:34.580 --> 44:36.560]  We didn't hear a peep out of the box.
[44:37.300 --> 44:38.620]  Probably dropped dead of a heart attack.
[44:38.800 --> 44:39.040]  That's why.
[44:40.700 --> 44:41.400]  But that was...
[44:41.400 --> 44:42.100]  Shall we take some calls?
[44:42.340 --> 44:43.600]  Sure, let's take some calls.
[44:44.340 --> 44:47.600]  The number here, by the way, is 212-209-2900.
[44:47.800 --> 44:48.800]  Country code 1.
[44:49.320 --> 44:53.340]  And don't forget to guess what's in Emanuel's hotel room, besides Emanuel.
[44:53.600 --> 44:53.780]  Yeah.
[44:54.160 --> 44:55.560]  Hopefully I won't forget to tell you.
[44:55.900 --> 44:57.100]  Hello, you're on the air.
[44:57.280 --> 44:57.580]  Yeah.
[44:57.780 --> 45:01.420]  So I just want to give you an update on the SoBigF deal with the 20 servers.
[45:02.020 --> 45:09.440]  It turns out that it was updatable by whoever was running the show through whatever proxies he was running the show from.
[45:09.440 --> 45:15.160]  So each of those infected PCs could have a list of 20 different servers.
[45:15.580 --> 45:20.620]  I mean, it was just redundancy after redundancy and tracks covering after tracks covering.
[45:20.800 --> 45:24.860]  And the whole 20 servers thing was basically a waste of time.
[45:25.040 --> 45:29.500]  Because every one of them had a list of 20 more infected PCs.
[45:29.840 --> 45:31.320]  But isn't that what a good worm does?
[45:31.520 --> 45:32.980]  Yeah, that was the whole point.
[45:33.140 --> 45:35.080]  And also, I'm guessing a mirror ball.
[45:36.460 --> 45:37.480]  I'm guessing a what?
[45:37.480 --> 45:41.440]  A mirror ball, like in a disco, in your hotel room.
[45:41.560 --> 45:42.820]  Why would that be in a hotel room?
[45:42.840 --> 45:43.940]  It's not really high-tech.
[45:44.040 --> 45:45.100]  Hey, you know, a party room, yeah?
[45:45.160 --> 45:46.260]  You said 70s.
[45:46.300 --> 45:46.840]  It's your fault.
[45:48.860 --> 45:50.020]  Thank you very much.
[45:50.320 --> 45:52.100]  I didn't mean 70s in that way.
[45:53.880 --> 45:55.120]  Hello, you're on the air.
[45:56.140 --> 45:56.580]  Hi.
[45:56.900 --> 45:57.220]  Hello.
[45:57.460 --> 46:04.580]  I wanted to address the thing about downloading and the amount of money that the record companies want to get from the kids.
[46:04.580 --> 46:11.380]  Because if you walk into a store and just steal a CD, what the hell kind of a fine would you get?
[46:12.440 --> 46:18.740]  And if you record it right off the radio, I would think that'd be a higher quality than an MP3.
[46:19.420 --> 46:24.120]  So I don't know how they get off $150,000 per incident.
[46:24.500 --> 46:28.600]  Well, if you steal three CDs and you're caught each time, you end up doing life.
[46:28.600 --> 46:32.540]  So, you know, I would just go for the classics, the Beatles, if you were doing that.
[46:34.440 --> 46:37.320]  The reason they're doing it is because they can intimidate people.
[46:37.440 --> 46:39.720]  They've got the power, they've got the money, they've got the lawyers.
[46:39.880 --> 46:47.040]  And the reason they've got the power, the money, and the lawyers is because for many years, people have been buying these CDs for the inflated price that they sell them for.
[46:47.440 --> 46:49.980]  And they're starting to realize now that those days may be at an end.
[46:50.100 --> 46:50.640]  So they're panicking.
[46:52.160 --> 46:56.680]  Well, $150,000 per incident, pretty panicking to me.
[46:56.920 --> 46:57.220]  All right.
[46:58.180 --> 46:59.180]  Thanks for calling.
[47:01.240 --> 47:01.820]  Okay, Leo.
[47:02.060 --> 47:04.440]  I just want to guess, is it a record player?
[47:05.440 --> 47:06.340]  No, it's not a...
[47:06.340 --> 47:07.860]  Why would a record player be in a hotel room?
[47:08.020 --> 47:09.000]  That's not a bad guess.
[47:09.120 --> 47:11.100]  It's not likely to be, but it's not impossible.
[47:11.680 --> 47:14.020]  This is something that's in every hotel room, okay?
[47:14.020 --> 47:17.380]  So let's just stop with the typewriters and record players and disco balls.
[47:17.620 --> 47:18.620]  An ironing board.
[47:18.920 --> 47:19.880]  Or Gideon Bible.
[47:20.640 --> 47:21.580]  An ironing board.
[47:21.740 --> 47:22.140]  Wait a minute.
[47:22.220 --> 47:23.020]  It might be an iron.
[47:23.460 --> 47:26.420]  The old-fashioned one that you have to, like, put in the fire to heat.
[47:26.820 --> 47:27.180]  Emmanuel?
[47:27.640 --> 47:27.860]  Okay.
[47:28.140 --> 47:29.040]  I'm going to give you another...
[47:29.040 --> 47:29.480]  Wait, wait, wait.
[47:29.660 --> 47:31.540]  Does this technology involve ceramics?
[47:32.480 --> 47:33.320]  No, it does not.
[47:33.440 --> 47:33.620]  Okay.
[47:34.160 --> 47:35.140]  I'm going to give you another hint.
[47:35.240 --> 47:37.420]  This is the last thing I'm going to give you because it's really pathetic.
[47:37.820 --> 47:38.940]  This is actually...
[47:38.940 --> 47:40.680]  This is not something itself.
[47:41.020 --> 47:45.020]  It's something that is part of something else, okay?
[47:45.380 --> 47:49.100]  It's part of something that you would find in every hotel room.
[47:49.240 --> 47:50.180]  That just cleared it.
[47:50.180 --> 47:51.560]  It's not an object in and of itself.
[47:52.220 --> 47:52.660]  It did?
[47:53.220 --> 47:53.640]  No.
[47:54.860 --> 47:55.720]  Is it a...
[47:55.720 --> 47:56.220]  Okay.
[47:56.420 --> 47:57.640]  It's a feature...
[47:57.640 --> 48:01.900]  It's a feature of technology that no longer exists there.
[48:02.060 --> 48:02.560]  I've said it.
[48:02.600 --> 48:08.060]  So in other words, you still find the item that it's on, but you don't find this one part of it or feature of it.
[48:08.180 --> 48:08.280]  Yes.
[48:08.800 --> 48:09.280]  Exactly.
[48:09.720 --> 48:14.380]  And this is something that you find in hotel rooms more than in other things, other places.
[48:14.680 --> 48:19.140]  No, this is something that I found for the first time here in the hotel room in St. Petersburg, Russia.
[48:19.780 --> 48:27.120]  Well, let's pretend, since we know that it's not like a digital clock as opposed to an analog clock, okay?
[48:28.180 --> 48:30.480]  Clocks are found outside of hotel rooms, right?
[48:32.080 --> 48:32.520]  Yeah.
[48:33.160 --> 48:39.200]  Is this thing of the same ilk, in other words, like a clock, in that it is found outside of hotel rooms also?
[48:39.540 --> 48:42.660]  Or is it found only in hotel rooms or mostly in hotel rooms?
[48:42.820 --> 48:44.900]  No, you could find this anywhere.
[48:45.340 --> 48:52.500]  But it's something that is in hotel rooms, definitely in hotel rooms, and it has a feature that was common in the sense...
[48:52.500 --> 48:59.220]  Jim, as far as I know, as far as I know, Jim, this could be in every single person's house in this country, okay?
[48:59.460 --> 49:01.960]  I've just never seen it since the 1970s.
[49:04.280 --> 49:06.040]  Let's give our listeners a chance of hearing.
[49:06.040 --> 49:07.520]  All right, yeah, let's give them a chance.
[49:07.960 --> 49:09.080]  Hello, you're on the air.
[49:10.200 --> 49:10.600]  Hello.
[49:11.180 --> 49:11.660]  Hello, go.
[49:12.240 --> 49:13.360]  A rotary dial.
[49:16.200 --> 49:17.300]  We've already been through that.
[49:17.340 --> 49:19.180]  You must be late.
[49:19.300 --> 49:20.080]  Thank you for trying.
[49:20.740 --> 49:21.820]  Okay, let's try another one.
[49:22.760 --> 49:23.780]  Hello, you're on the air.
[49:24.380 --> 49:24.780]  Hello.
[49:25.340 --> 49:25.600]  Hi.
[49:26.160 --> 49:28.240]  I was thinking 8-track player.
[49:29.860 --> 49:30.980]  That's good, that's good.
[49:31.320 --> 49:32.200]  I was thinking that, too.
[49:32.460 --> 49:33.160]  I have one in my house.
[49:33.160 --> 49:35.400]  I don't think 8-track technology has been introduced here yet.
[49:38.040 --> 49:39.600]  My grandmother had one.
[49:39.740 --> 49:43.980]  They built in the radio console, those big things.
[49:45.180 --> 49:52.520]  About the so big virus, the reason that it can attack, it could clog up a network is because it actually attacks ports.
[49:52.520 --> 50:05.580]  It exploits certain ports, so if certain networks use their file-sharing system, use certain ports, like 135, and I think another one is 447, then it can get in the network and clog it up.
[50:05.680 --> 50:07.100]  It's not just an email virus.
[50:07.180 --> 50:08.660]  It also exploits the ports.
[50:08.660 --> 50:13.420]  And there's an article that Homeland Security put out on the website.
[50:13.900 --> 50:16.320]  I can email the article to you guys.
[50:16.560 --> 50:25.500]  And it explains that it asks ISP providers to close down certain ports to limit the spread of the so big virus.
[50:26.080 --> 50:32.100]  Well, I know the MS blaster worm, at least, attacked ports 135 and 445.
[50:32.420 --> 50:34.980]  It also turns out that so big did the same thing.
[50:35.080 --> 50:45.160]  We didn't have the problem in our server so much, we just had it, I mean with our file-sharing, but with our internet and our email server.
[50:45.720 --> 50:53.360]  We, the virus didn't spread, but what it would do is it would try to attack each person's address book on our servers.
[50:53.880 --> 51:03.780]  And from there, if it couldn't attack the address book on, let's say, the exchange server, then they would try, if we had a port open, they would try to go out and get the address book on the file servers.
[51:04.220 --> 51:15.140]  But luckily we, like, I think Emmanuel pointed out before, we don't have all of the servers interconnected in that way, so we were kind of safe, but it did slow down our network.
[51:15.140 --> 51:16.360]  quite a bit.
[51:16.620 --> 51:17.860]  And you do know...
[51:17.860 --> 51:23.680]  Well, please send us that article, we're at OTH at 2600.com, we'd like to read that.
[51:23.940 --> 51:24.240]  Okay.
[51:25.020 --> 51:26.120]  Okay, have a good night.
[51:26.340 --> 51:27.340]  All right, thank you very much.
[51:27.500 --> 51:27.560]  Bye.
[51:30.080 --> 51:31.140]  Hello, you're on the air.
[51:31.520 --> 51:34.940]  Hi, for the hotel room, something to boil hot water.
[51:35.980 --> 51:42.860]  That's actually pretty good, but no, and plus I see that all the time anyway, and, you know, in 1990s technology.
[51:43.260 --> 51:44.140]  Okay, bye.
[51:44.780 --> 51:45.660]  Thanks for playing.
[51:48.040 --> 51:49.220]  Hello, you're on the air.
[51:50.780 --> 51:51.220]  Hello.
[51:51.480 --> 51:52.100]  Hello, go ahead.
[51:52.560 --> 51:55.100]  Would it be a valve-operated wireless?
[51:56.140 --> 51:57.160]  Ah, a radio tube.
[51:57.160 --> 51:57.780]  That's interesting.
[51:57.920 --> 51:58.220]  Radio.
[51:58.500 --> 51:59.400]  A radio call.
[51:59.420 --> 52:00.340]  That's a good guess, but...
[52:00.340 --> 52:01.480]  But no, it's not.
[52:01.660 --> 52:03.780]  But we're in America, so we'd be calling it radio.
[52:03.940 --> 52:05.680]  Just wanted to translate for the public ear.
[52:06.220 --> 52:06.780]  Thank you.
[52:07.180 --> 52:07.440]  Okay.
[52:08.020 --> 52:08.800]  All right, thanks for calling.
[52:09.360 --> 52:10.140]  Leo, go ahead.
[52:10.140 --> 52:25.420]  Yeah, I want to say that it's interesting to show you that if you go to Moscow and to the earliest skyscrapers they built there, you'll find the oven inside the bathroom over this, I think, next to the sink, just a small little...
[52:25.420 --> 52:26.020]  I'll have to look for that.
[52:26.180 --> 52:27.900]  I'll be going to Moscow tomorrow, actually.
[52:28.220 --> 52:29.380]  Where are you now, exactly?
[52:30.160 --> 52:30.700]  St. Petersburg.
[52:31.240 --> 52:32.320]  I'm sorry, I missed that.
[52:32.320 --> 52:32.720]  Petrograde.
[52:33.200 --> 52:33.840]  I'm sorry, what?
[52:34.000 --> 52:35.380]  I'm sorry, I ignored that.
[52:35.380 --> 52:36.040]  I was foolish.
[52:37.300 --> 52:37.760]  Let's continue.
[52:37.980 --> 52:38.600]  All right, let's try another one.
[52:39.040 --> 52:40.080]  Hello, you're on the air.
[52:40.880 --> 52:42.400]  Yes, could it be a bidet?
[52:43.540 --> 52:44.400]  See, that's what I...
[52:44.400 --> 52:48.240]  That's a good guess, too, but I've seen those in Argentina, so...
[52:49.700 --> 52:54.080]  Emmanuel, that's why I asked before if it had to do with ceramics.
[52:55.020 --> 52:55.540]  Yeah, I know.
[52:55.820 --> 52:56.260]  Definitely not.
[52:56.260 --> 52:56.780]  Okay.
[52:57.020 --> 53:01.740]  I've seen them in Vegas, and I can't imagine a difference in 70s technology and 90s technology for that.
[53:02.260 --> 53:03.140]  I'll tell you something.
[53:03.220 --> 53:06.980]  Toilet technology is something that is definitely a world apart in this place.
[53:07.800 --> 53:08.260]  You just...
[53:08.260 --> 53:11.580]  Fortunately, I've taken pictures, because people will just not believe the stories.
[53:12.300 --> 53:13.920]  I can't wait for you to share.
[53:14.100 --> 53:15.180]  Put them on the inside cover.
[53:15.540 --> 53:16.640]  Hello, you're on the air.
[53:17.360 --> 53:19.520]  Hi, is it an antenna to a TV?
[53:21.460 --> 53:25.100]  Well, sir, I'll tell you this much, okay, because we're running short on time.
[53:25.100 --> 53:26.680]  It is related to the TV.
[53:28.180 --> 53:29.760]  So that's the biggest thing I can say.
[53:29.780 --> 53:30.120]  I know what it is.
[53:31.000 --> 53:32.180]  Okay, who knows what it is?
[53:32.200 --> 53:32.400]  Go ahead.
[53:32.580 --> 53:37.640]  It's when you're changing the channels, you've got the dial where you've got to click through them instead of pushing buttons or something.
[53:38.540 --> 53:39.700]  That's very good, Jeff.
[53:39.840 --> 53:40.560]  That's totally wrong.
[53:41.100 --> 53:42.780]  Jeff and I came up with it at the same time.
[53:42.960 --> 53:43.240]  Yeah, yeah.
[53:43.320 --> 53:44.220]  It's the TV, though.
[53:44.360 --> 53:50.320]  This set actually is of the kind where you push buttons to get different stations, but you can't tune.
[53:50.460 --> 53:51.560]  You have to push those buttons.
[53:51.780 --> 53:53.560]  Is it UHF, VHF?
[53:54.440 --> 53:55.540]  No, they don't have that here.
[53:55.660 --> 53:56.080]  They never did.
[53:56.300 --> 53:56.480]  Okay.
[53:57.020 --> 53:57.540]  All right.
[53:58.340 --> 53:58.740]  Okay.
[53:58.900 --> 54:00.080]  It's not black and white TV.
[54:00.080 --> 54:01.000]  It's a color TV.
[54:02.140 --> 54:03.940]  All right, Ken, how are we doing on time here?
[54:04.380 --> 54:06.260]  You just have a couple more minutes.
[54:06.820 --> 54:07.100]  All right.
[54:07.320 --> 54:08.800]  We'll try one more call here.
[54:09.640 --> 54:10.640]  Hello, you're on the air.
[54:12.080 --> 54:12.480]  Hello?
[54:13.880 --> 54:14.280]  Hello?
[54:14.520 --> 54:15.440]  Hello, go ahead and speak.
[54:16.360 --> 54:17.560]  A, B, push button.
[54:19.060 --> 54:19.720]  A what?
[54:19.720 --> 54:22.840]  On top of the TV, we push the A or B button.
[54:23.960 --> 54:24.960]  Uh, no.
[54:25.520 --> 54:25.960]  No.
[54:26.520 --> 54:27.300]  Not A, B.
[54:27.680 --> 54:29.140]  Not any button like that, no.
[54:29.400 --> 54:30.440]  Oh, he was so close.
[54:31.380 --> 54:32.160]  All right, thank you.
[54:32.440 --> 54:32.660]  Thanks.
[54:34.500 --> 54:35.820]  Some good guesses, I'll say that.
[54:35.820 --> 54:36.120]  Yeah, yeah.
[54:36.220 --> 54:37.120]  Well, we'll sneak one more in.
[54:37.800 --> 54:38.800]  Hello, you're on the air.
[54:40.180 --> 54:40.500]  Hi.
[54:41.020 --> 54:41.920]  Coin-operated.
[54:43.240 --> 54:43.680]  Ooh.
[54:43.820 --> 54:44.540]  Coin-operated what?
[54:44.760 --> 54:45.080]  Television.
[54:45.320 --> 54:46.180]  Coin-operated television.
[54:46.180 --> 54:50.240]  Uh, no, I don't think they, they, they, they have that technology here yet.
[54:50.320 --> 54:51.920]  I only saw that in the 90s, though.
[54:52.120 --> 54:52.620]  That's funny.
[54:52.880 --> 54:53.080]  Yeah.
[54:54.060 --> 54:54.740]  Oh, wow, that was just...
[54:54.740 --> 54:55.480]  Hopefully they never will.
[54:55.720 --> 54:57.220]  I grew up in the 90s.
[54:58.920 --> 54:59.580]  All right, thanks.
[54:59.580 --> 55:00.680]  Okay, guys, are you ready for the answer?
[55:00.880 --> 55:01.680]  Yes, go ahead.
[55:02.380 --> 55:02.760]  All right.
[55:03.580 --> 55:12.640]  Think back, think back to an innocent time when we had Nixon as a president, and you would run to the TV set to turn it off when he, when he gave a speech.
[55:12.640 --> 55:15.240]  What would happen when you turn the TV set off?
[55:15.920 --> 55:17.980]  It goes down to a little point of light.
[55:18.160 --> 55:18.320]  A little dot.
[55:18.620 --> 55:19.960]  A little dot.
[55:20.160 --> 55:24.160]  I have not seen that dot for, for at least 20 years, I'd have to say.
[55:24.320 --> 55:26.320]  Oh, you could afford a new TV, that's why.
[55:28.460 --> 55:34.680]  Well, I guess if you have a TV from the 1970s, which somehow still works, you might still see the little dot, but I haven't seen a dot like that in ages.
[55:34.940 --> 55:36.140]  And that's the secret.
[55:36.420 --> 55:37.080]  The little dot.
[55:37.220 --> 55:38.120]  That was a very...
[55:38.120 --> 55:41.540]  Which I guess a lot of people, a lot of people today would not know what we're talking about.
[55:41.540 --> 55:43.360]  Small black and white TVs still have them.
[55:43.960 --> 55:45.340]  And Emmanuel, I don't feel bad.
[55:45.440 --> 55:47.180]  That was very, very obscure.
[55:47.460 --> 55:48.520]  Yeah, I agree with you.
[55:49.980 --> 55:59.280]  Well, for those who don't know, when you turned off a TV set back then, the picture would just go into a little dot, and it would stay on the screen for about a minute, and it would slowly fade away.
[55:59.400 --> 56:04.260]  And you didn't dare turn the TV set back on again, because you could hurt something if you turned it on too quickly.
[56:05.840 --> 56:08.460]  And we're planning to be back on next week, aren't we?
[56:09.160 --> 56:10.300]  We're planning that, yes.
[56:10.960 --> 56:17.180]  We have something special to go out on tonight, but first, before we do that, Ken has some things to remind us.
[56:17.680 --> 56:19.400]  Yes, I have a couple of announcements.
[56:20.300 --> 56:31.180]  The Brooklyn Christian Center will host a forum on the role of the church in community economic development to mark the launch of the Black Wall Street Revisited Campaign, a fundraising program that benefits community-based organizations.
[56:31.680 --> 56:35.120]  The forum takes place on Thursday, August 28th at 6 p.m.
[56:35.160 --> 56:40.560]  at the Jazz Pal Restaurant and Supper Club, 10621 Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn, and mission is free.
[56:40.860 --> 56:45.400]  For further information, call 718-421-6927.
[56:46.780 --> 56:52.040]  And there was a volunteers party tonight here at the station, because we just finished our fun drive.
[56:52.200 --> 56:53.480]  It got extended a little bit.
[56:54.180 --> 56:58.520]  Special thanks to the following restaurants for their generous donation to our volunteers party.
[56:59.120 --> 57:05.420]  Minar, Southern India Cuisine, 6 West 31st Street, 212-967-2727.
[57:06.400 --> 57:10.600]  Golden Crust Bakery, 111 East 23rd, between Park and Lex.
[57:11.060 --> 57:14.880]  And Miracle Grill, 415 Bleecker Street, between 11th and Bank.
[57:14.880 --> 57:18.660]  So we thank those people for supplying the volunteers party.
[57:19.820 --> 57:25.520]  So this has been Off the Hook here in WBAI New York, 99.5 FM.
[57:25.820 --> 57:28.340]  Hang on, Ken, before you go out.
[57:28.680 --> 57:36.320]  Before you go out, I just want to say it's very important that we recognize that we've lost somebody very important this week.
[57:36.320 --> 57:50.280]  Uh, and that is the, uh, musician Wesley Willis, uh, who, um, uh, was, uh, signed on Jellope Offer's Alternative Tentacles label, uh, for those of us who, uh, who were lucky enough to meet Wesley, of which I, I didn't, unfortunately.
[57:50.960 --> 58:00.980]  Uh, he was, uh, a, a great character, someone, uh, very interesting with his unique brand of music and, and, uh, personality, and he's, uh, he's definitely going to be missed.
[58:00.980 --> 58:07.080]  And we'd like to go out with a, a song, which I'm sure a lot of people will find strange and, uh, memorable.
[58:07.440 --> 58:09.000]  That's the kind of person Wesley was.
[58:09.220 --> 58:10.020]  We'll see you next week.
[58:10.660 --> 58:12.340]  McDonald's is a place to rock.
[58:13.320 --> 58:16.420]  It is a restaurant where they buy food to eat.
[58:17.020 --> 58:19.180]  It is a good place to listen to the music.
[58:19.700 --> 58:22.000]  People flock here to get down to the rock music.
[58:24.840 --> 58:27.420]  Rock and roll McDonald's.
[58:27.600 --> 58:30.240]  Rock and roll McDonald's.
[58:30.240 --> 58:33.100]  Rock and roll McDonald's.
[58:33.100 --> 58:35.980]  Rock and roll McDonald's.
[58:38.360 --> 58:39.820]  McDonald's will make you fat.
[58:40.100 --> 58:41.720]  They serve Big Macs.
[58:41.820 --> 58:43.180]  They serve quarter pounders.
[58:43.400 --> 58:44.920]  They will put pounds on you.
[58:47.180 --> 58:50.020]  Rock and roll McDonald's.
[58:50.180 --> 58:52.820]  Rock and roll McDonald's.
[58:52.960 --> 58:55.640]  Rock and roll McDonald's.
[58:55.760 --> 58:58.460]  Rock and roll McDonald's.
[59:49.230 --> 59:50.990]  McDonald's hamburgers are the worst.
[59:51.450 --> 59:53.250]  They are worse than Burger King.
[59:53.790 --> 59:56.410]  A Big Mac has 26 grams of fat.
[59:56.750 --> 59:59.150]  A quarter pounder has 28 grams of fat.
[01:00:00.610 --> 01:00:03.430]  Rock and roll McDonald's!
[01:00:03.510 --> 01:00:06.190]  Rock and roll McDonald's!
[01:00:06.330 --> 01:00:08.990]  Rock and roll McDonald's!
[01:00:09.170 --> 01:00:11.850]  Rock and roll McDonald's!
[01:00:13.810 --> 01:00:15.170]  Rock over London!
[01:00:15.450 --> 01:00:16.470]  Rock on Chicago!
[01:00:17.210 --> 01:00:17.730]  Wheaties!
[01:00:18.030 --> 01:00:18.750]  Brothers and Champions!
[01:00:37.430 --> 01:00:42.410]  Perspective with Luis Reyes Rivera and a host of Friends.
[01:00:42.770 --> 01:00:45.350]  A new program at WBAI.
[01:00:46.170 --> 01:01:11.350]  Every Thursday at 2 in the afternoon, we'll be featuring straight up poets, writers, musicians, performance, and visual artists, but this time around as cultural workers, as analytical critics who'll engage in laying out oral history and dialogue as much on political social issues as on their particular art form.
[01:01:11.530 --> 01:01:21.190]  So join us every Thursday at 2 in the afternoon on WBAI 99.5 on your FM dial.