[00:00.000 --> 00:04.280]  And you're listening to radio station WBAI New York, where the time is exactly 7 o'clock.
[00:04.640 --> 00:06.000]  Time once again for Off the Hook.
[02:01.440 --> 02:05.320]  And we are here in another action-packed edition of Off the Hook.
[02:05.320 --> 02:10.640]  I'm Emanuel Goldstein here with you on this Wednesday evening, where everything is going wrong at the same time.
[02:10.770 --> 02:14.000]  It wouldn't be a typical show if that didn't happen.
[02:15.260 --> 02:15.700]  Yes.
[02:16.290 --> 02:16.730]  Welcome.
[02:17.350 --> 02:21.390]  We have a skeleton crew tonight, which is not good because it's a fundraiser.
[02:21.560 --> 02:25.950]  But unfortunately, we have just a couple people in the studio.
[02:26.070 --> 02:26.570]  Jim, welcome.
[02:26.880 --> 02:27.070]  Hi.
[02:27.560 --> 02:28.220]  Red Hecht.
[02:28.390 --> 02:28.640]  Hello.
[02:29.200 --> 02:31.570]  And Mike, who's on the phone and can't say hi.
[02:32.240 --> 02:32.850]  Bernie S.
[02:32.980 --> 02:33.600]  down there in Philadelphia.
[02:34.290 --> 02:34.730]  Greetings.
[02:35.000 --> 02:35.940]  I'm actually not in Philadelphia.
[02:36.060 --> 02:40.420]  I am in central Pennsylvania, driving westward to Dayton, Ohio.
[02:40.820 --> 02:41.160]  That's right.
[02:41.180 --> 02:44.540]  You're on the way to the Dayton Hamvention that's happening this coming weekend.
[02:44.600 --> 02:45.500]  You want to tell us something about that?
[02:45.940 --> 02:53.420]  Well, it's where about 20,000 communications hobbyists show up.
[02:53.520 --> 02:56.740]  There are a lot of phone company people there, primarily ham radio operators.
[02:56.740 --> 03:04.000]  But there's a lot of broadcasting people there, network operator, ISP people.
[03:04.660 --> 03:09.900]  And it's just a nice confab of all these communications enthusiasts.
[03:09.900 --> 03:15.260]  It's probably the largest flea market in the world for electronics junk.
[03:16.020 --> 03:22.460]  You know, people that are really into the electronics hobby will accumulate all kinds of unusual equipment over the years.
[03:22.600 --> 03:24.500]  And this is a place to get it.
[03:24.600 --> 03:32.900]  It takes about two or three days just to go through the acres and acres of tailgaters that have tables, card tables out with all kinds of stuff.
[03:33.920 --> 03:38.140]  And it's just a good social event, and we always meet up with a bunch of people there.
[03:38.210 --> 03:43.740]  I know you're not there, obviously, but a bunch of friends that we meet up every year with, they're going to be there.
[03:43.880 --> 03:45.240]  So that's where I'm going.
[03:45.540 --> 03:48.260]  Well, you know, I wish I was going there this year.
[03:49.840 --> 03:54.110]  I regret being so busy that I just don't have time to make it out to Ohio.
[03:54.180 --> 03:58.240]  But, you know, I've already been to Ohio once in the past month, and I don't want to say that's enough for anybody.
[03:58.240 --> 04:02.200]  But it's enough for me, at least as far as driving is concerned.
[04:02.540 --> 04:03.600]  But I am going to miss it.
[04:03.680 --> 04:05.260]  I'm going to miss the Dayton Hamvention.
[04:05.300 --> 04:08.140]  I think I've gone every year for the last few years at least, right?
[04:09.240 --> 04:12.020]  Yes, and you've gone more years than that.
[04:12.200 --> 04:15.900]  I think I dragged you to the first one maybe ten years ago.
[04:17.550 --> 04:22.200]  And it was during the Kevin Mitnick saga when he was still incarcerated.
[04:22.240 --> 04:27.530]  Because I remember we lost it, a weather balloon with a freak heaven bumper sticker hanging from it.
[04:28.830 --> 04:29.240]  Right.
[04:29.320 --> 04:30.020]  A long time ago.
[04:30.980 --> 04:33.060]  So, yeah, you've been coming for many years.
[04:34.360 --> 04:34.740]  Okay.
[04:35.120 --> 04:38.360]  Sorry, we're dealing with a slight crisis at the station.
[04:38.480 --> 04:39.960]  But I think it's resolved, right?
[04:40.100 --> 04:40.530]  Okay, good.
[04:41.960 --> 04:42.360]  Yes.
[04:42.760 --> 04:47.150]  Well, we have a lot of crazy stuff going on here at the station tonight.
[04:48.200 --> 04:49.600]  And it's all good, though.
[04:49.650 --> 04:50.600]  It's all a lot of fun.
[04:50.600 --> 04:55.260]  It's all our frantic activity in preparing things for tonight's fundraiser.
[04:55.910 --> 04:58.170]  Now, I want to thank people who called in last week.
[04:58.240 --> 04:58.820]  We did very well.
[04:58.940 --> 05:05.020]  We did over $2,000 in a single hour, which is phenomenal for any show, I think.
[05:05.270 --> 05:06.640]  And I want to thank all listeners for that.
[05:07.650 --> 05:13.980]  And also, we're going to be offering some very special premiums in just a couple of minutes.
[05:13.980 --> 05:15.740]  We have one spectacular premium.
[05:15.740 --> 05:29.420]  In fact, what I would do, folks, I would simply stay by your radio or by your computer, whatever it is you're listening to the show on, because what we're going to offer, we only have one of, and we're going to be offering that in the next couple of minutes.
[05:30.340 --> 05:36.400]  So, if you want to be a part of history, want to be part of something that is simply incredible and phenomenal, you don't want to miss this.
[05:37.240 --> 05:42.000]  But first, before we get into that, any particular news items anybody wants to focus on?
[05:43.220 --> 05:43.580]  Nobody?
[05:43.840 --> 05:44.670]  Nothing happened this week?
[05:45.100 --> 05:45.460]  No?
[05:46.040 --> 05:47.040]  I can't even dial the phone.
[05:47.040 --> 05:47.360]  I'm sorry.
[05:47.480 --> 05:48.380]  Are you trying to dial the phone?
[05:48.380 --> 05:49.920]  It's taking me a lot of time to dial the phone.
[05:49.920 --> 05:50.140]  Okay.
[05:50.200 --> 05:53.860]  Well, you've dialed all the people we have with us right now, I believe, right?
[05:54.120 --> 06:00.080]  Now, I think, if I'm not mistaken, we have a connection to Vienna, Austria right now.
[06:00.140 --> 06:00.670]  Is that correct?
[06:00.670 --> 06:02.260]  Is there anybody in Vienna on the phone?
[06:02.960 --> 06:03.620]  Hey, Emmanuel.
[06:03.790 --> 06:04.170]  It's Nick Farr.
[06:04.290 --> 06:04.620]  How are you doing?
[06:04.620 --> 06:05.980]  Nick Farr, are you in Vienna?
[06:06.840 --> 06:07.860]  I am in Vienna.
[06:08.020 --> 06:10.660]  It is 1 o'clock in the morning here, and I'm very happy to be on the radio with you.
[06:10.780 --> 06:11.140]  Wow.
[06:11.290 --> 06:12.500]  Now, what are you doing in Vienna?
[06:13.480 --> 06:17.050]  This is actually the start of a little European tour of mine.
[06:17.220 --> 06:22.500]  I'm speaking here at a DIY conference put on by Monochrome and some people with CultureVN.
[06:23.200 --> 06:25.900]  I'm going to be talking about alternative forms of working.
[06:26.220 --> 06:29.600]  And then next week, I head to SIGINT in Cologne.
[06:29.600 --> 06:33.170]  And the week after that, I'm heading to hardhack.org in Berlin.
[06:34.050 --> 06:35.540]  So, I just got here.
[06:36.860 --> 06:39.640]  It feels like today still, but actually, it was yesterday.
[06:41.200 --> 06:45.000]  So, I'm really happy to be speaking with you here from Vienna and talking about Hackers on a Plane.
[06:45.160 --> 06:45.960]  So, this is...
[06:45.960 --> 06:55.980]  Well, we haven't started talking about that yet, but basically, for you, it's a big, long double day, I guess, because you started heading over there, I guess, yesterday, and now it's still the same day for you.
[06:55.980 --> 06:56.480]  Is that what you're saying?
[06:56.480 --> 06:56.810]  Yeah, yeah.
[06:56.880 --> 07:00.310]  I woke up at 6 o'clock in the morning in Washington, D.C.
[07:00.340 --> 07:00.920]  on Tuesday.
[07:01.930 --> 07:03.620]  Went to work, did as much as I could.
[07:03.900 --> 07:05.550]  Drove straight from there to Dulles.
[07:06.360 --> 07:09.720]  Flew from Dulles to right here in Vienna via Paris.
[07:09.860 --> 07:12.400]  And I've been pretty much awake since then.
[07:12.400 --> 07:15.760]  So, I think I'm running a good, solid 36 hours right now.
[07:15.760 --> 07:30.240]  You know, whenever I go overseas, my trick is I stay up all night on the plane, and then when I get there, I'm good and tired so that when, say, 7 or 8 o'clock at night comes around, I'm actually tired enough to go to sleep at that early hour.
[07:30.540 --> 07:35.430]  And then I wake up in the morning the next day, and I'm on a better schedule in Europe than I'm ever on in the United States.
[07:36.040 --> 07:39.400]  Now, we've messed that up for you pretty good because we've kept you up until 1 in the morning.
[07:40.840 --> 07:42.220]  Yeah, it's not just you.
[07:42.290 --> 07:55.260]  There's a lot of activity going on here right now, and everybody's trying to get all their ducks in a row for not only the conference here in Vienna that starts tomorrow, but also SIGINT in Cologne and PH Neutral and Hardhack in Berlin.
[07:55.420 --> 07:56.740]  Tell us something about SIGINT.
[07:56.840 --> 07:58.020]  That sounds kind of governmental.
[07:58.860 --> 08:11.640]  Yeah, actually, it's patterned after a well-known government acronym for signals intelligence, basically looking at communications across the wire and trying to determine a poor intelligence out of that.
[08:11.860 --> 08:20.860]  And the SIGINT conference is being put on by the CDC in Cologne, and it's actually a wonderful conference that they're getting started going on.
[08:20.980 --> 08:25.700]  They're talking about future technologies, talking about the nature of open source intelligence.
[08:26.040 --> 08:50.900]  I'm actually giving two talks there, one on cloud banking, which is a theory that I've come up with, an alternative form of banking to try to democratize how we handle our money, income, how we handle our debts, and taking a lot of theories and cues from more tribal economies and trying to figure out a way that people can manage their finances without having to give large sums of their free
[08:50.900 --> 08:56.480]  capital at one point to banks so they can engage in the kind of speculation that led us to the current economic downturn.
[08:57.020 --> 09:18.670]  My other talk there is about direct action through dance and another thing that I've been working on to try to figure out ways of making direct action both much more effective for the people who are participating and seeking the kind of solidarity that one finds in engaging in direct action and also trying to make the message less prone to media manipulation,
[09:18.670 --> 09:28.790]  that a lot of people end up going out in the streets and marching, trying to communicate a solid message of protest that ends up getting manipulated by the media in one way or another.
[09:29.120 --> 09:32.810]  And so the conference is full of talks about that sort of thing.
[09:32.880 --> 09:34.660]  I'm really excited for Sagan.
[09:34.780 --> 09:41.420]  And then after that's over, I get to enjoy myself just doing some nice hardware hacking and catching up with friends at PH Neutral in Berlin.
[09:41.760 --> 09:42.140]  Wow.
[09:42.360 --> 09:43.380]  I'm very envious.
[09:44.080 --> 09:59.660]  Now, but what you've done is you've laid out the groundwork for people that might have an appetite for this kind of thing, for going overseas and being part of the international scene and meeting all kinds of cool people and traveling in various exotic lands.
[10:00.020 --> 10:01.960]  This is... Yes, Redhack, you...
[10:01.960 --> 10:03.780]  I was just going to say that, which is a great thing.
[10:03.920 --> 10:13.700]  I mean, I think most of the people definitely who are here tonight in the studio and other in general are planning on at least some form of international travel to one conference or another.
[10:13.700 --> 10:14.700]  Oh, yeah, definitely, definitely.
[10:14.900 --> 10:18.960]  It wouldn't be a year if we didn't go someplace and do something.
[10:19.100 --> 10:24.280]  So, folks, what we're offering, and this is the special thing that I encourage people to listen for.
[10:24.280 --> 10:25.400]  We're offering this right now.
[10:25.400 --> 10:26.740]  We're only offering one of these.
[10:26.880 --> 10:28.460]  So people on tally, get ready.
[10:29.140 --> 10:29.900]  Here we go.
[10:30.140 --> 10:34.280]  Should we say the phone number just so people can dial it as soon as they hear how awesome this is?
[10:34.400 --> 10:39.960]  Okay, let's get the number already programmed into your phone so that all you have to do is hit talk or send or whatever.
[10:39.960 --> 10:44.660]  However, it's, of course, Country Code 1, 212-209-2950.
[10:46.540 --> 10:54.140]  Now, Nick, maybe since you're actually donating the vast bulk of this premium tonight, and also Bernie S.
[10:54.260 --> 11:03.180]  is donating a percentage of this as well, maybe you guys want to tell us what exactly it is that we are offering tonight, and we only have one of them.
[11:04.320 --> 11:09.960]  What we are offering tonight is one ticket on Hackers on a Plane 2.0.
[11:10.340 --> 11:26.940]  The second installment in what I consider to be a landmark event in the hackerspace community, the first one, actually all of the contacts that I've made here and the opportunities that I get to speak here and interact with people here in Europe are a direct result of the first Hackers on a Plane,
[11:27.500 --> 11:29.540]  which went to the camp two years ago.
[11:29.540 --> 11:43.160]  I know you've been talking about HAAR, and what Hackers on a Plane is, it's almost all things included trip to HAAR, round-trip airfare from New York to Dusseldorf, transportation from Dusseldorf to HAAR.
[11:43.580 --> 11:47.480]  And at HAAR, you get a chance to be part of a very select crew.
[11:47.600 --> 11:51.660]  The people on Hackers on a Plane are actually staying in a lodge on the campsite.
[11:51.960 --> 12:00.300]  You know, as most hacker camps go, you actually have to pitch a tent and stay outside and, you know, fight for getting into the showers and the porta-potties.
[12:00.440 --> 12:14.800]  But those on Hackers on a Plane not only get round-trip airfare from New York out to HAAR, but they also get to be the only people out of the 3,000 people at HAAR to actually stay in a real physical building, have access to hot showers whenever they want,
[12:15.160 --> 12:23.080]  a kitchen, and a chance to be able to duck into a solid shelter if, you know, hopefully it doesn't, but if it rains or inclement weather happens.
[12:23.240 --> 12:30.200]  Now, does this sort of put forth the image of Americans as not being able to rough it in a tent in the wild?
[12:30.580 --> 12:38.520]  Well, you know, if that's an option that we have, we actually have our own campsite immediately adjacent to the lodges, which are very close to the speaking areas.
[12:39.470 --> 12:54.100]  But what the organizers of HAAR recognized from last year is that if you're traveling from overseas, you really don't want to lug a tent and lug all of this other equipment with you that if you have that kind of space, you want to save it for your projects,
[12:54.280 --> 13:05.880]  you want to save it for your gear, you want to save it for the things that, you know, you might be working on at your hackerspace at home that you want to share with people from hackerspaces all over the world who are going to converge on HAAR this year in August.
[13:06.480 --> 13:13.480]  And so the idea, you know, they said, you know, we really love the idea of the first hackers on a plane, and we really want to make that happen.
[13:13.480 --> 13:19.200]  And they've been incredibly supportive of the scene in the community here who are trying to put together Hackers on a Plane 2.
[13:20.940 --> 13:36.680]  And it's just a wonderful thing that the idea, even with the enhanced community participation that we had, which is a really strong thing, it connects the whole idea behind Hacker Spaces of building communities and physical spaces that actually work and build tremendous projects,
[13:37.080 --> 13:39.880]  have an opportunity for social collaboration, all those other wonderful things.
[13:39.900 --> 13:43.480]  That's happening now in the building of Hackers on a Plane 2.
[13:44.000 --> 13:45.780]  You know, the project is even forked now.
[13:45.980 --> 13:50.880]  We're having Hackers on a Plane out to Tour Camp and Hackers on a Plane out to PlumberCon and Harvard.
[13:50.920 --> 14:10.600]  What we're offering tonight, in recognition of how important, you know, off the hook is and how important Pacific Radio is and why that needs to continue, I felt it was very important to donate this premium item and offer the chance for one of the listeners to be a part of the second wave of what I strongly believe is going to be a new and enthusiastic,
[14:10.600 --> 14:14.720]  a second historical event wave of community building in our Hacker scene.
[14:14.860 --> 14:16.980]  Okay, now let me just point out the specifics here.
[14:17.080 --> 14:27.520]  The pledge amount is $1,000 and only by credit card because what we're doing here to make sure that everything goes smoothly is we're taking all the information tonight at the station.
[14:27.520 --> 14:28.720]  We will be in touch with you.
[14:28.860 --> 14:32.280]  We'll be following us every step of the way to make sure that everything goes smoothly.
[14:32.780 --> 14:38.760]  And the $1,000 mark is actually significantly cheaper than it would cost you normally if you got the Hackers on a Plane.
[14:38.820 --> 14:42.240]  I believe the price for Hackers on a Plane is $1,337.
[14:42.240 --> 14:43.000]  Is that correct?
[14:43.360 --> 14:46.760]  Yep, it's the same price as it was two years ago out to the CCC camp.
[14:47.220 --> 14:51.860]  I would, of course, encourage anybody listening to donate more, but the minimum amount is $1,000.
[14:52.100 --> 14:57.700]  And that's a big savings off of what you would have to pay if you went to hackerson a plane dot info right now.
[14:57.700 --> 15:00.000]  Now, let me just ask you, Nick.
[15:00.460 --> 15:02.580]  Now, obviously, we have listeners all around.
[15:02.820 --> 15:08.680]  I imagine this is best for people in the United States, but how does it work if somebody isn't in New York City, say?
[15:10.040 --> 15:23.060]  They would have to arrange for transportation to New York City that a lot of the problems that we experienced with the last Hackers on a Plane, why it ran on such a huge cost deficit was trying to get everybody on connecting flights to New York City.
[15:23.260 --> 15:35.020]  And that because group booking works fundamentally different from just regular booking, that it's really hard to get the kind of group savings that we need to keep the price as minimal as possible.
[15:35.140 --> 15:49.740]  But to put everything together that we put together, just including the admission to HAR, including the lodge and the campsite, including the bus from Dusseldorf, all of these logistics, which we've taken care of, would cost a normal person $1,600.
[15:50.860 --> 16:02.660]  You know, flights to Amsterdam from wherever you are in the U.S., even if it's New York, Washington, D.C., San Francisco, if you were to book that same travel now, and all of the train tickets, and having to include all the other equipment, it'd be $1,600
[16:02.660 --> 16:03.440]  to do it.
[16:03.600 --> 16:18.860]  What we're trying to do is make it as inexpensive as possible for people to participate in not only the historic event of HAR, the biennial hacker camp that happens every two years in Europe, but to be part of this community that's flying out together.
[16:19.620 --> 16:29.220]  As part of the plane, you know, one of the best experiences from the last hackers on a plane was just having that solid nine hours on the plane just to communicate and talk with people.
[16:29.380 --> 16:33.000]  You know, taking a plane ride by yourself, you don't know who you're going to sit next to, you don't know.
[16:33.140 --> 16:33.220]  Right.
[16:33.620 --> 16:38.240]  But, you know, we had our own IRC, we had wireless on the plane, we had our own IRC network.
[16:38.440 --> 16:43.700]  A plane full of hackers, but you know, there's nothing to be worried about because you guys don't hack into the avionics or anything like that.
[16:44.160 --> 16:45.180]  No, no, no, of course not.
[16:45.220 --> 16:46.780]  I mean, we actually want to get there safely.
[16:46.780 --> 16:47.440]  Yes, of course.
[16:48.160 --> 16:50.080]  So yeah, you definitely have this bonding experience.
[16:50.340 --> 16:51.520]  Okay, the phone number, we don't have any calls.
[16:51.640 --> 16:53.120]  So that I believe this is still available.
[16:53.240 --> 16:58.160]  Someone's going to come charging in here to tell us it's not available when it's taken 212-209-2950.
[16:58.980 --> 17:13.250]  This is an all inclusive ticket from New York City on an airplane over to Europe, a ticket into the Hackers at Random conference taking place in August and a ticket back to New York City for a pledge of $1,000.
[17:13.600 --> 17:17.510]  Now, Nick, do you have the exact dates as to when the plane leaves and when it comes back?
[17:18.270 --> 17:21.490]  The exact dates are... Oh, and I just closed my WordPress.
[17:21.660 --> 17:22.530]  I'm horrible at dates.
[17:22.640 --> 17:23.180]  I don't want to misquote.
[17:23.300 --> 17:29.200]  But if you want, you can find all the information on this on hackersonaplane.info.
[17:29.360 --> 17:30.320]  I think Mike is already there.
[17:30.340 --> 17:33.510]  Yeah, I'm one step ahead of you or behind you or something.
[17:33.700 --> 17:37.200]  And the dates are August 12th through August 29th of this year.
[17:37.490 --> 17:40.940]  So that's a pretty good deal and a great way to spend part of the summer.
[17:41.080 --> 17:42.750]  212-209-2950.
[17:43.210 --> 17:47.230]  I'm sure lots of kids out there are begging their parents to make this pledge now.
[17:47.840 --> 17:49.360]  People want to go to Hackers at Random.
[17:50.080 --> 17:52.990]  It'll be an event you remember for the rest of your life, a very positive event.
[17:53.530 --> 17:57.770]  And I know, RedHack, you've been to a couple of those events and they certainly changed you into a better person, haven't they?
[17:57.970 --> 17:58.270]  Yeah.
[17:58.560 --> 17:59.970]  It's definitely an experience.
[18:01.160 --> 18:03.620]  And I had a tent, so I guess I was roughing it.
[18:03.700 --> 18:04.880]  Yeah, you won't need a tent for this.
[18:05.060 --> 18:07.270]  I have to say roughing it, though, is pretty relative.
[18:07.380 --> 18:11.120]  Yeah, you know, but it's definitely an amazing experience.
[18:11.640 --> 18:14.820]  And of course, I'll be going again this summer, so... Okay.
[18:14.920 --> 18:16.320]  212-209-2950.
[18:16.320 --> 18:18.920]  We do have other things we have to get to tonight.
[18:19.080 --> 18:21.030]  So we only have a couple more minutes to focus on this.
[18:21.380 --> 18:26.620]  Again, one of the... we only have one of these items donated very generously by Nick.
[18:26.730 --> 18:32.140]  And I believe, Bernie S., you're donating the ticket to Hackers at Hacking at Random, the conference.
[18:32.140 --> 18:32.340]  That's right.
[18:32.750 --> 18:37.940]  The actual hacker conference, which is out in the countryside of Holland, is...
[18:37.940 --> 18:44.120]  the ticket for that is 185 euro, which is about 250 American dollars.
[18:44.460 --> 18:46.530]  So I called up Nick a few weeks ago.
[18:46.530 --> 18:58.380]  I said, hey, Nick, if I buy a ticket to Hark, can you supply the hackers on a plane, transportation, and the rest of the package to do some fundraising for WBAI?
[18:58.380 --> 19:01.770]  And Nick was like, ah, I can't believe I didn't think of that myself.
[19:02.400 --> 19:03.380]  Nick used to be...
[19:03.380 --> 19:10.550]  Nick used to be involved with a listener-supported radio station, and had his own dealings with Pacifica several years ago.
[19:10.660 --> 19:11.120]  Isn't that right, Nick?
[19:11.550 --> 19:12.160]  Yeah, no.
[19:12.270 --> 19:14.900]  I was actually one of the... this is a long time ago.
[19:14.960 --> 19:16.010]  I think this is back in the...
[19:16.010 --> 19:29.530]  back in 2000, when we started airing free speech radio news on WCBN and gave back our satellite to the Pacifica Foundation, because we didn't agree with what was going on with Pacifica as a whole at the time.
[19:29.730 --> 19:35.200]  But, you know, I strongly believe, in all forms of public radio, I definitely strongly believe in WBI's mission.
[19:35.530 --> 19:38.620]  I strongly believe in what you guys are doing, and I'm more than happy to offer this.
[19:39.360 --> 19:46.640]  And actually, we had the pre-sale a couple weeks back just to get the initial interest and to get people interested.
[19:46.700 --> 19:55.570]  And we managed to sell all of those tickets for $1,057, which, if you're not too good with the lead speak immediately, stands for lost.
[19:56.620 --> 19:57.050]  Interesting.
[19:57.490 --> 19:59.400]  We thought that was a good joke.
[19:59.470 --> 20:08.530]  So you'd be able to... you, if you pledge right now the amount of $1,000, you can actually get on the plane and say that you got your ticket for the cheapest price.
[20:09.610 --> 20:11.270]  212-209-2950.
[20:11.620 --> 20:13.900]  Again, it's still available from what I'm told.
[20:13.960 --> 20:15.770]  I'm sure it won't be available much longer.
[20:15.920 --> 20:20.730]  We only have one of these tickets donated very generously by Nick Farr and by Bernie S.
[20:21.140 --> 20:23.030]  212-209-2950.
[20:23.460 --> 20:24.620]  $1,000 pledge.
[20:24.810 --> 20:25.680]  Credit card only.
[20:26.420 --> 20:29.810]  And you will get a ticket to Europe and back.
[20:29.970 --> 20:31.470]  And a ticket into the conference.
[20:31.770 --> 20:32.510]  It'll be amazing.
[20:32.680 --> 20:33.710]  And you'll see all of us there.
[20:33.830 --> 20:34.570]  You'll see all of us there.
[20:34.700 --> 20:34.830]  That's right.
[20:35.070 --> 20:39.990]  I don't know if that sweetens the deal for people, but... All right, Nick, I want to thank you very much for your generosity.
[20:40.200 --> 20:43.140]  And we'll let you know if and when this is actually taken.
[20:43.270 --> 20:45.090]  So far, no takers, I believe.
[20:45.230 --> 20:49.710]  Which is incredible because it's not only a great deal, it's a savings of a great deal.
[20:50.340 --> 20:53.460]  But the most important thing is you're supporting the radio station.
[20:53.790 --> 20:58.590]  And it gets us off to a great start by having $1,000 rent until immediately.
[20:59.050 --> 21:00.470]  212-209-2950.
[21:00.570 --> 21:00.940]  Go ahead, Bernie.
[21:01.210 --> 21:09.730]  I just wanted to say that this is also an opportunity to travel with a sizable group of hackers or like-minded people.
[21:09.730 --> 21:14.210]  I think there'll be 32 people in this group that are all going to H.A.R.
[21:14.210 --> 21:18.330]  The Hacking at Random conference this August in the Netherlands.
[21:18.660 --> 21:25.120]  So all the way from New York to the conference, you're with all these people.
[21:25.290 --> 21:27.700]  There'll be a closed network on the plane.
[21:28.090 --> 21:31.680]  I mean, this just doesn't happen when there's that many hackers on a plane.
[21:31.880 --> 21:34.550]  This is aptly named hackers on a plane.
[21:34.710 --> 21:39.640]  And so it's sort of a lot of camaraderie the whole way there and back.
[21:39.960 --> 21:42.570]  So that's an opportunity that nobody else is going to really have.
[21:43.830 --> 21:45.290]  So it's a tremendous value.
[21:45.460 --> 21:54.160]  I mean, if you were to add up the airfare and the transportation and then the transportation from Amsterdam to the H.A.R.
[21:54.290 --> 22:00.050]  location, all that, you pay well more than $1,000.
[22:00.050 --> 22:01.420]  So this is a great package.
[22:01.620 --> 22:05.570]  And it's a great way to support WBAI, which really needs support right now.
[22:05.570 --> 22:09.540]  So I encourage listeners to call 212-209-2950.
[22:09.900 --> 22:19.330]  This is a once in a lifetime opportunity to see a Dutch hacker camp, which only happens every four years for the low cost.
[22:19.590 --> 22:22.460]  So please call 212-209-2950.
[22:22.760 --> 22:23.040]  Okay.
[22:23.240 --> 22:24.460]  Again, I want to thank you, Nick.
[22:24.640 --> 22:27.360]  And I hope you get to sleep now over there in Vienna.
[22:27.720 --> 22:31.700]  And definitely looking forward to August when we have all kinds of fun over there in Holland.
[22:32.260 --> 22:32.700]  Great.
[22:32.810 --> 22:33.980]  Thank you so much for the experience.
[22:34.380 --> 22:34.660]  All right.
[22:35.140 --> 22:35.790]  Talk to you guys soon.
[22:35.900 --> 22:36.260]  Take care.
[22:36.940 --> 22:43.020]  And Nick Farr donating a very generous package to us here at the radio station, a package which I still believe is available.
[22:44.460 --> 22:48.040]  212-209-2950, pledge of $1,000, credit card only.
[22:48.140 --> 22:49.020]  We only have one of these.
[22:49.420 --> 22:56.140]  Round trip airfare to Europe and transportation to the Hacker Conference in Holland in August.
[22:56.500 --> 22:58.780]  $1,000 includes everything.
[22:58.940 --> 22:59.590]  Credit card only.
[22:59.740 --> 23:01.220]  212-209-2950.
[23:01.440 --> 23:02.940]  Of course, we also have other levels too.
[23:03.140 --> 23:07.160]  Anybody pledging $25 and above gets the acclaimed off the hook t-shirt.
[23:07.310 --> 23:08.620]  212-209-2950.
[23:09.310 --> 23:13.000]  We have some other special features coming up in just a moment.
[23:13.880 --> 23:18.550]  But first, I'd like to read some listener mail while we're getting our next guest on the phone line.
[23:18.720 --> 23:21.540]  But again, that phone number, 212-209-2950.
[23:23.000 --> 23:25.460]  You guys see this letter that came into the mailing list.
[23:25.540 --> 23:28.040]  It's very positive and nice.
[23:28.980 --> 23:33.310]  Dear Off the Hook, I just wanted to say I really enjoyed your last Off the Hook show featuring Ed Piskor.
[23:33.420 --> 23:40.240]  We had him on last week talking about the WYSIWYG, the graphic novel that was inspired by this very radio show, which is incredible.
[23:40.960 --> 23:44.520]  His description of how I initially got into listening to your shows rang true with me.
[23:44.570 --> 23:49.440]  I listen to Off the Hook and Off the Wall every week, Off the Wall being the other show I do on WUSB in Stony Brook.
[23:49.620 --> 23:52.640]  I have not missed a show since I started listening about four years ago.
[23:53.020 --> 23:58.980]  I too have listened to your earlier shows, including Shadow of the Long Island, the dramatic radio play we did back in the 90s.
[23:59.120 --> 24:00.160]  Or was it the 80s?
[24:00.260 --> 24:01.120]  Somewhere back then.
[24:01.240 --> 24:05.280]  Which I thought was brilliantly presented and got me into listening to the original War of the Worlds.
[24:05.590 --> 24:09.520]  Amazing that we actually got somebody to listen to War of the Worlds through something that we did.
[24:09.980 --> 24:22.400]  Whether it be your recent trips over the US slash Canadian border, your stories of the smart car breaking down, your trip to North Korea, your April Fools jokes, or any of your other interesting stories you bring up or talk about with your co-host, is music to my eyes.
[24:22.680 --> 24:28.180]  Your shows are informative, interesting, intelligent, thought-provoking, and entertaining all wrapped up in a one-hour block.
[24:28.570 --> 24:33.180]  I am not surprised Ed was listening to 20 or so hours a day of your show.
[24:33.680 --> 24:38.640]  Your April Fools joke, the one at WUSB last year where you became irate at the station, was classic.
[24:39.140 --> 24:44.880]  Here in England, we do not really play up the whole April Fools thing as much as in the US by any means, so I was not on my toes at all.
[24:44.880 --> 24:49.960]  I just wish that perhaps more of your shows would coincide with April Fools just to see what kind of thing you'll come up with next.
[24:50.040 --> 24:55.200]  Of course, we did April Fools here at WBAI this year, and we went country for a little while and scared a lot of people.
[24:55.980 --> 25:00.620]  I look forward to hearing your shows again in the future and to meet all you guys one day when I can get to a conference or two.
[25:00.760 --> 25:02.140]  Long live off the hook and off the wall.
[25:02.660 --> 25:03.280]  Signed, Grant.
[25:03.420 --> 25:04.790]  Grant, thank you for that very nice letter.
[25:05.180 --> 25:07.360]  It's that kind of sentiment that really makes us want to continue.
[25:08.050 --> 25:12.400]  And there are all kinds of radio shows for people to get involved with in the past and in the present.
[25:12.660 --> 25:20.550]  Just go to www.2600.com, click on the radio icon, and you can see all the history and become part of the present as well.
[25:21.330 --> 25:23.460]  Okay, again, our phone number 212-209-2950.
[25:23.590 --> 25:26.680]  I'm told we still have that package, the $1,000 package available.
[25:27.040 --> 25:29.960]  And, you know, I think one of us might take it if a listener doesn't take it.
[25:30.050 --> 25:31.860]  So it's only available this hour.
[25:32.400 --> 25:36.160]  So you have to call before 8 o'clock, 212-209-2950.
[25:36.440 --> 25:41.140]  $1,000 all-inclusive round-trip ticket to our credit card only.
[25:41.640 --> 25:52.280]  Okay, joining us on the phone now is somebody rather notable in the hacker world, the maker of something known as the BBS documentary.
[25:52.280 --> 25:53.830]  We're joined by Jason Scott.
[25:54.000 --> 25:54.420]  Jason, you there?
[25:54.960 --> 25:55.590]  Yes, I am.
[25:55.720 --> 25:56.140]  How you doing?
[25:56.590 --> 25:57.480]  I'm doing fantastic.
[25:57.880 --> 25:59.660]  Tell us something about this documentary of yours.
[26:00.360 --> 26:02.240]  Everybody seems to know about it in the hacker world.
[26:02.960 --> 26:10.860]  Well, also, one big shout out to Nick Farr, who is no doubt hanging out with Johannes, my Austrian brother from another mother.
[26:11.120 --> 26:12.050]  Love that guy.
[26:12.330 --> 26:15.290]  Yes, he's been on the show as well, and he'll definitely be at Harr as well.
[26:16.920 --> 26:34.980]  So the BBS documentary was the result of another project I was involved with in system called textfiles.com, which is my attempt to kind of archive and keep collections of hacker text files from computer bulletin boards of the 70s, 80s, 90s.
[26:35.500 --> 26:44.790]  And I had been collecting all these artifacts from these now gone bulletin board systems, which were often the big hangouts of hackers back then.
[26:45.200 --> 26:51.180]  And I suddenly got it in my mind to kind of make a huge list of all of them.
[26:51.310 --> 26:59.790]  And in doing so, I didn't realize that by making a big list of them, I would attract the attention of people who used to run bulletin board systems.
[27:00.140 --> 27:02.290]  And they started to tell me stories.
[27:02.660 --> 27:04.500]  And this was about 2001.
[27:04.810 --> 27:22.680]  And I realized that there was no real documentary or historical approach to just having all of these guys who ran this now kind of disappearing culture of bulletin board systems just presenting their stories to people.
[27:22.680 --> 27:24.960]  So I started work on that project.
[27:24.960 --> 27:26.960]  And it took about four years of filming.
[27:27.070 --> 27:28.620]  And I filmed about 200 people.
[27:28.780 --> 27:32.420]  And it's not just about hacking, although there is an episode about hacking.
[27:32.810 --> 27:40.220]  And I put it all together into when I tell people it's five and a half hours, they go, I can't sit for that.
[27:40.260 --> 27:41.810]  But it's actually eight episodes.
[27:42.980 --> 27:43.300]  Yeah.
[27:43.300 --> 27:45.900]  And it's interesting the whole way through as well.
[27:46.040 --> 27:49.590]  I mean, there's episodes about all kinds of aspects to BBSs.
[27:49.790 --> 27:53.360]  And it's history, it is history, you hear, we're going to play an excerpt of this.
[27:53.460 --> 27:56.220]  But you hear some of the things being talked about in the past.
[27:56.290 --> 27:57.380]  And you say, oh, my God, that's right.
[27:57.440 --> 27:58.290]  It used to be like that.
[27:58.460 --> 27:59.880]  It's a fascinating story.
[28:00.180 --> 28:00.620]  Right.
[28:00.760 --> 28:09.070]  What I tried to do was, one piece of it is having it so that people who were there remember pieces that they might have forgotten.
[28:09.260 --> 28:13.760]  And the other side is for people who were never there to see what people are talking about.
[28:13.920 --> 28:20.620]  I was told by many people that it was an excellent tool for explaining what you did as a teenager to your spouse.
[28:21.780 --> 28:22.220]  Yes.
[28:22.480 --> 28:25.790]  Or to your parents or anybody else that might think you're completely wasting your time.
[28:26.500 --> 28:30.260]  We are offering... How many discs are in this documentary?
[28:30.760 --> 28:32.660]  It's a three DVD set.
[28:32.860 --> 28:33.160]  Okay.
[28:33.400 --> 28:43.000]  So it's five and a half hours of documentary and there's another two hours of bonus footage, you know, things that I thought were kind of interesting but didn't fit in.
[28:43.160 --> 28:46.960]  And then a whole bunch of speeches I gave, including ones I gave at Hope.
[28:47.520 --> 28:51.330]  So, you know, a whole bunch of photos and everything from the four-year production.
[28:51.360 --> 28:59.920]  So it all comes in this really nice little special package I had made because I figured, hey, if I'm going to make one of these things, it should look nice.
[28:59.940 --> 29:01.540]  So it's not just an Amory case.
[29:01.540 --> 29:02.290]  It's a nice...
[29:02.290 --> 29:02.540]  Yes.
[29:02.540 --> 29:03.020]  I've seen it.
[29:03.160 --> 29:04.980]  It's very, very impressive and attractive.
[29:04.980 --> 29:05.920]  And I believe we've gotten...
[29:05.920 --> 29:12.240]  We've convinced you to sign these, to autograph them as well as the producer and creator of the BBS documentary.
[29:13.040 --> 29:14.500]  This is yours, listeners.
[29:15.050 --> 29:19.220]  Only tonight, for a pledge of $75, you'll get the BBS documentary.
[29:19.760 --> 29:22.810]  All those many hours of footage and fascinating interviews.
[29:23.290 --> 29:25.680]  And of course, you'll also get the off-the-hook t-shirt with that.
[29:25.760 --> 29:28.640]  But you have to call now, 212-209-2950.
[29:29.330 --> 29:32.360]  We're going to play an excerpt from the documentary.
[29:32.360 --> 29:34.310]  This is only a small bit.
[29:34.640 --> 29:39.920]  And it goes into some of the history behind bulletin boards and some of the hacking history as well.
[29:40.460 --> 29:42.050]  It's fascinating.
[29:42.050 --> 29:44.420]  You won't be able to put it down, I'm pretty sure.
[29:45.360 --> 29:47.570]  212-209-2950.
[29:47.920 --> 29:50.680]  $75 pledge gets you the entire thing.
[29:50.880 --> 29:51.540]  Let's take a listen.
[29:52.480 --> 29:56.570]  You know, what we're talking about is stuff that was never told in articles.
[29:56.900 --> 30:02.740]  You know, you can talk about this BBS or that BBS or this person or that person and about this specific thing.
[30:02.880 --> 30:06.900]  But a lot of people never covered the philosophy behind it or the mentality.
[30:10.780 --> 30:13.160]  They weren't doing this because it was cool.
[30:13.380 --> 30:18.700]  They were doing it because they didn't have anywhere else to go where people understood them.
[30:18.940 --> 30:24.020]  These were people that they could connect with long distance or medium distance over the phone line.
[30:24.260 --> 30:25.060]  That was culture.
[30:25.260 --> 30:26.380]  It was not pretentious.
[30:26.960 --> 30:27.520]  Absolute.
[30:27.620 --> 30:28.140]  It was real.
[30:29.460 --> 30:39.780]  People were talking about hackers as being these evil little uncontrollable kids who were messing up these established infrastructure systems for the point of anarchy and anarchy alone.
[30:40.620 --> 30:49.780]  It was focused on, like, you know, kids breaking into corporate computer systems, shadowy hackers.
[30:50.560 --> 30:53.640]  You know, there was a bit of sensationalism to it.
[30:53.740 --> 30:57.640]  It wasn't doing the destructive or to steal anything or break things.
[30:57.680 --> 30:58.760]  It was to get in and explore.
[30:58.760 --> 31:03.640]  And yet, in the media, people were just lambasting hackers as being the devil.
[31:03.820 --> 31:05.380]  And it was really, really frustrating.
[31:05.820 --> 31:15.860]  Back then, no one knew what they were doing with... that is, the authorities didn't really know what they were doing because, well, like hacking into a computer.
[31:16.260 --> 31:17.920]  Well, what kind of crime is that?
[31:18.120 --> 31:19.440]  What did they steal, you know?
[31:20.360 --> 31:26.340]  What being a computer hacker is about is being 15 years old, having an excess of brains and hormones.
[31:27.940 --> 31:36.240]  You know, it's like, it's just basically being a teenager and wanting to, like, make mischief and learn stuff and, you know, be curious and stuff like that.
[31:36.340 --> 31:41.540]  When you're 15 and 14, you don't have a car, you don't have a girlfriend, you got nothing some of the time, right?
[31:41.980 --> 31:43.600]  Especially during the summer, no school.
[31:43.940 --> 31:50.620]  So you've literally got, you know, 18 hours a day to just explore, you know?
[31:51.340 --> 31:57.140]  It's like a, you know, totally fits in with just being a male teenager.
[31:57.480 --> 32:03.580]  I think that's why you see these kids, 15-year-old kids, you know, in Europe, hacking DVDs.
[32:04.160 --> 32:06.740]  I mean, thank God for those kids, right?
[32:06.820 --> 32:08.460]  Because they don't have anything better to do.
[32:08.460 --> 32:09.700]  No car, no girlfriend.
[32:10.140 --> 32:10.980]  That's just what they do.
[32:11.500 --> 32:14.520]  That original period was really unprecedented, you know?
[32:14.860 --> 32:23.720]  I mean, obviously, now you can say the current situation of, of the Hacker Underground is, uh, it's the evolution of that original time.
[32:23.840 --> 32:27.460]  But that original time was so original, it had never been done before.
[32:27.460 --> 32:34.640]  I think it's the first generation of, you know, 13 to 17-year-old kids to be so empowered.
[32:35.100 --> 32:38.360]  Because that was the whole point of the bullet-moor thing, was to find out what the new game was.
[32:38.360 --> 32:44.660]  Or, you know, that was for me, anyway, because all you wanted to do was get the latest and greatest video game, you know, for the Apple II.
[32:44.980 --> 32:46.820]  That was the big reason why bullet-moors existed.
[32:47.280 --> 32:50.700]  My mother, I mean, she passed away two years ago in a car accident.
[32:50.840 --> 32:58.520]  But the last several years that we were talking about it, like, the four years previous to that, we started talking about those days.
[32:58.520 --> 33:05.320]  Because I was 13, and the feds were coming by, and I never wanted to bring it up again, especially when it happened two more times.
[33:05.980 --> 33:09.200]  But she told me later that she thought it was the greatest thing.
[33:09.280 --> 33:19.920]  And she would tell all her friends at work how smart her son was to break into the Pentagon and do these things, and be visited upon by the FBI, who she never met before.
[33:20.300 --> 33:21.460]  That was the big game.
[33:21.620 --> 33:24.640]  It was a competition to get who could get there first.
[33:24.940 --> 33:25.100]  Yeah.
[33:25.740 --> 33:29.620]  You know, whoever could crack it first, you'd have your name up in lights.
[33:30.360 --> 33:32.920]  20 years later, now, we're getting it in lights.
[33:33.140 --> 33:35.120]  But, you know, here's the lights.
[33:40.040 --> 33:45.900]  There was a serious rift between any of the 8-bit users, between Apple, between Atari, between Commodore.
[33:46.540 --> 33:49.140]  I refer to them as Ford versus Chevy arguments.
[33:49.540 --> 33:56.380]  There was always this big argument between people who thought Chevy was the best car to make, and people who thought Ford was the best car to make.
[33:56.380 --> 34:03.580]  And there was always this rivalry and this fight between them for what seemed like a completely pointless thing.
[34:04.040 --> 34:05.640]  People get really, really heated.
[34:05.760 --> 34:08.340]  They get very, very defensive of their computers.
[34:08.700 --> 34:12.500]  It's not like you go and you buy a stereo or you buy a blender or a toaster.
[34:12.960 --> 34:15.180]  A computer is a very, very personal thing.
[34:15.400 --> 34:18.840]  It's an expression of how you want to work, how you want to do things.
[34:19.020 --> 34:23.620]  It becomes an extension of yourself, and you tend to protect your young, your own.
[34:23.620 --> 34:25.560]  And each had their own group of followers.
[34:25.780 --> 34:28.880]  Each group of followers was very faithful to the company they chose.
[34:29.420 --> 34:32.120]  Well, Atari is where the best computers ever made.
[34:32.580 --> 34:33.480]  Let's forget it.
[34:33.640 --> 34:36.500]  The Apple II was the only software thing in town.
[34:36.660 --> 34:43.040]  The Commodore, I think, did more to get people into computers than anything else on the planet.
[34:43.400 --> 34:49.240]  When you thought of Atari, you thought of the highest quality, you know, the best games, the best, you know, the best of everything.
[34:49.240 --> 34:53.340]  So, it made sense that, you know, if they come out with a computer, God, it's got to be the best thing around.
[34:54.040 --> 34:58.160]  The Apple was the ultimate hackable piece of hardware.
[34:58.440 --> 35:01.500]  The Lisa was beautiful, so I fell in love with Lisa.
[35:01.720 --> 35:04.900]  Tandy did have a great computer, which you may be talking about.
[35:05.300 --> 35:07.740]  The Coco, the color computer.
[35:07.980 --> 35:09.340]  They're great, because they're the coolest.
[35:09.340 --> 35:11.260]  You understand what's going on with an Apple II.
[35:11.380 --> 35:12.460]  It's not going to trick you.
[35:13.940 --> 35:15.760]  Nothing sneaky is going to happen on an Apple II.
[35:16.200 --> 35:23.100]  And so, they would invent, in their own minds, any justification to show that the other computer was a piece of crap.
[35:23.640 --> 35:28.140]  And we used to call the Apple people the blockheads, because everything was in capitals.
[35:28.900 --> 35:30.480]  They never used their shift keys.
[35:30.760 --> 35:32.580]  Oh, gosh, we hated Trash 80.
[35:32.920 --> 35:37.640]  And a TRS-80 guy would never own an Apple, and an Apple guy would never own a TRS-80.
[35:37.820 --> 35:40.520]  I think I didn't like the Commodores, just the way they were shaped.
[35:41.520 --> 35:43.440]  Actually, IBM was kind of like the enemy.
[35:43.880 --> 35:46.980]  The Trash 80s were, were toys.
[35:47.580 --> 35:52.380]  The biggest advantage it had, that, you know, I couldn't, I couldn't put this to words then, but the biggest advantage was that I had one.
[35:56.640 --> 36:02.920]  By putting out all the knowledge that this discovered, okay, you're going to get more and more people coming in.
[36:03.300 --> 36:07.480]  And sure, 99 out of 100 might be worthless idiots.
[36:07.480 --> 36:12.720]  It's 999 out of 1,000 may not last as a hacker for a year.
[36:13.320 --> 36:16.980]  Only 1 out of 10,000 may ever make it to a decent hacker status.
[36:17.200 --> 36:18.000]  But you know what?
[36:18.300 --> 36:30.000]  If you're educating millions and millions of 13-year-olds with their first computer, and every night they're over there on a computer trying to hack into this and that, I mean, you have a thing that can never be stopped.
[36:30.900 --> 36:34.400]  Take a million new kids and give them all the information in the world.
[36:34.660 --> 36:36.800]  Let history decide who becomes what.
[36:42.940 --> 36:46.640]  You know, you'd have to fill out a little essay about yourself and answer a bunch of questions.
[36:46.960 --> 36:53.800]  And what got me is that I could have got a credit card with less information than these BBSs would want to just give me, you know, download access.
[36:57.610 --> 37:03.340]  You had to fill out a form, and you had to, like, you know, you'd have to send it back to the sysop.
[37:03.440 --> 37:04.590]  Then you'd have to give them this email.
[37:04.760 --> 37:07.360]  And people would get scared about giving the sysop the email.
[37:07.570 --> 37:11.440]  I believe the popular phrasing was, are you a cop?
[37:13.460 --> 37:16.050]  Because they weren't sure if the sysop was a fed or not.
[37:16.320 --> 37:18.460]  And then, you know, they would get the email.
[37:18.570 --> 37:23.000]  Then they would have to do a callback verification to make sure your number is in place.
[37:23.070 --> 37:23.900]  So I'm serious, dude.
[37:23.960 --> 37:24.700]  This is how it worked.
[37:26.130 --> 37:31.630]  I mean, there's tons of people all the time, you know, you'd see trying to apply to bulletin boards when you go through the news or voting process.
[37:31.800 --> 37:35.340]  That would somehow just stumble across an elite BBS phone number.
[37:35.520 --> 37:43.860]  And everybody would, you know, that was the greatest for laughs because you get to vote on them and put comments and be like, how the hell did this guy find this bulletin board phone number, you know?
[37:44.050 --> 37:45.540]  I thought I was the ish.
[37:45.610 --> 37:47.610]  And then find out, no, I was nothing.
[37:49.380 --> 37:50.720]  I mean, they would ask everything.
[37:50.920 --> 37:53.280]  They'd ask if you knew what all these abbreviations stood for.
[37:53.280 --> 37:56.220]  And, uh, you know, how long have you been pirated?
[37:56.220 --> 37:58.760]  What's your newest, what's your newest game?
[37:58.980 --> 38:01.440]  That was always my big one for getting into other bullet boards.
[38:01.920 --> 38:06.240]  There was always a question that said, what's your newest piece of pirated software?
[38:07.340 --> 38:09.570]  So I would always just make up the name of the game.
[38:09.820 --> 38:13.420]  I'd be like, Bernie Johnson's Truck Rally 5.
[38:14.020 --> 38:16.880]  And then people would always be like, damn, like, wow, that's really just so new.
[38:17.000 --> 38:17.820]  I've never even heard of it.
[38:18.720 --> 38:19.400]  Oh, yeah.
[38:20.590 --> 38:20.960]  Okay.
[38:21.150 --> 38:21.650]  That was great.
[38:21.820 --> 38:22.500]  That was...
[38:22.500 --> 38:23.400]  That was...
[38:23.400 --> 38:24.110]  Yeah, that was amazing.
[38:24.200 --> 38:24.720]  Greatest ever.
[38:24.980 --> 38:33.440]  Uh, that was an excerpt from the BBS documentary made by Jason Scott that we're offering here tonight on, uh, Off the Hook for a pledge of $75.
[38:33.480 --> 38:41.610]  You'll get an autographed copy of this, uh, this triple DVD set with, uh, with many, many hours of interviews and footage.
[38:41.840 --> 38:44.020]  212-209-2950.
[38:44.020 --> 38:46.300]  You'll also get an Off the Hook t-shirt with that.
[38:46.610 --> 38:48.460]  Phone lines are wide open.
[38:48.680 --> 38:51.360]  We were riveted to this, uh, to this, uh, audio.
[38:51.570 --> 38:52.300]  But you get the video.
[38:52.460 --> 38:59.150]  You get to actually see, uh, these people, uh, discussing the history and, and all kinds of other cool things in the, in the documentary.
[38:59.840 --> 39:02.420]  Uh, Jason, I really have to say, this is a remarkable piece of history.
[39:02.550 --> 39:04.420]  This is something that, uh, needed to be captured.
[39:04.420 --> 39:07.050]  And, and I think we're all very happy that, that you did that.
[39:07.550 --> 39:08.360]  Well, thank you.
[39:08.570 --> 39:10.000]  Um, there's a bunch of people in there.
[39:10.110 --> 39:15.500]  What a, one of the things I wanted to do was, um, I wanted to capture a lot of what bulletin boards were about.
[39:15.630 --> 39:22.760]  And when you go back into a historical documentary, often they speak to the people who were able to promote themselves the most.
[39:23.050 --> 39:27.650]  So you might get the guy who claims he invented something or somebody who wrote the most about it.
[39:27.820 --> 39:38.130]  And what I did was I got a lot, a lot of the guys who invented things and a lot of the guys who were quote unquote famous in that culture, but I also went to just people.
[39:38.340 --> 39:42.200]  In other words, all the people who just happened to use bulletin boards.
[39:42.220 --> 39:46.720]  So there's a lot of people in there where someone might see it and go, who is this guy?
[39:46.800 --> 39:57.520]  And the answer is he's just someone who was there because I thought that's really what these bulletin boards, these forums were about, were about everyone could play a part, not just the superstars.
[39:57.700 --> 40:08.110]  But I do have, you know, the guy who invented BBSs and people who created X modem and Z modem, Fidonet, uh, all these old terms, uh, Cheshire's in there.
[40:08.260 --> 40:10.900]  I did some interviewing at Hope one year.
[40:11.500 --> 40:22.880]  Um, and I pulled in a whole bunch of people basically from about 35 states and, uh, spent some really fun road trips interviewing all these different people.
[40:22.880 --> 40:29.280]  So 212-209-2950, join the people on the phone now to get your copy of the hacker doc, uh, the BBS documentary.
[40:29.420 --> 40:32.460]  I keep calling it the hacker documentary because there's, there's so much about hacking in there.
[40:32.550 --> 40:34.000]  And I, I find it really fascinating.
[40:34.590 --> 40:37.420]  Uh, it really is a hacker documentary as well as a BBS documentary.
[40:37.650 --> 40:40.760]  And I think what you do is you make the whole thing fascinating.
[40:40.760 --> 40:41.960]  The whole thing is interesting.
[40:42.050 --> 40:48.040]  When you say, uh, BBSs and computers and things like that to average people, sometimes they, they think it's dull and boring.
[40:48.040 --> 40:54.780]  But when you watch this, it leaps out to you, you see, you see the passion, you see why people were so involved in this over the years.
[40:54.900 --> 40:57.590]  And you learn so much about how it all came to be the way it is now.
[40:58.070 --> 40:58.480]  Yes.
[40:58.880 --> 41:05.800]  It's both an emotional, you know, it's funny because I had a lot of people say, so are you going to cover this bulletin board or that bulletin board?
[41:05.980 --> 41:15.550]  And in point of fact, very few specific bulletin boards are captured in it because there were hundreds of thousands of them over time.
[41:15.550 --> 41:33.380]  What I wanted to do was talk about why people liked them and what this whole thing was in terms of, I think of bulletin boards as the real training ground for bringing people online so that when, when, when, when we think of it, the internet really starts to take off.
[41:33.610 --> 41:45.320]  There's just this built in group of, of tens of thousands of people who had spent their childhoods and their, um, middle ages in the 1980s getting used to being online.
[41:45.320 --> 41:47.440]  And they brought all of these ideas with them.
[41:47.500 --> 41:49.360]  And I think that's really where it comes from.
[41:49.550 --> 41:50.720]  So I wanted to get that.
[41:50.840 --> 41:59.240]  And you, you see people here who have gone on to do great things in internet, but you have them talking about, oh yeah, but when I was a kid, I did this and this.
[41:59.320 --> 42:06.150]  And then you realize the kids today who are just playing around with stuff, it's the same thing happening again.
[42:06.380 --> 42:12.680]  You know, what's going to happen with those guys in 20 years is they're going to have lived something like the bulletin board system.
[42:12.900 --> 42:24.180]  You know, they're living at a time when we've got, you know, networking going everywhere and all these different changes that some people are scared about and some people are excited by, and they're going to want to look back at it now.
[42:24.180 --> 42:27.200]  And I think there's echoes of that throughout that documentary.
[42:27.400 --> 42:28.800]  Well, I sort of wonder about that, actually.
[42:29.000 --> 42:31.340]  This is, um, um, did I get introduced to the end?
[42:31.340 --> 42:32.920]  I don't think your mic is working, Gus.
[42:33.050 --> 42:34.040]  Try that other one over there.
[42:34.480 --> 42:34.590]  Yeah.
[42:35.150 --> 42:35.420]  Hello.
[42:35.630 --> 42:36.380]  Yeah, that one's working fine.
[42:37.000 --> 42:38.400]  Um, this is Gus.
[42:38.630 --> 42:39.570]  I didn't get introduced earlier.
[42:39.610 --> 42:39.800]  Hi.
[42:40.400 --> 42:43.300]  Um, that's, that's interesting, uh, that you say that.
[42:43.420 --> 42:52.420]  I'm actually doing, um, a lot of research right now on, um, people online saying, looking at other people online, sort of going, you're not trained in the, in the appropriate way of, of doing the internet.
[42:52.420 --> 42:56.520]  And I sort of wonder whether, you know, BBSs were a very small bottleneck for entry.
[42:56.920 --> 43:05.460]  Um, you know, are we going to have the same thing, right, when, when there's so many different outlets where people could start, people could start out on YouTube, they could start out on Facebook, they could start out on porn sites, they could start out just about anywhere.
[43:05.840 --> 43:09.050]  You know, are we really going to have the same kind of acculturation that we had with BBSs?
[43:09.200 --> 43:09.440]  Yeah.
[43:09.610 --> 43:14.540]  I was thinking about that, too, in terms of, you know, now the internet is, is this kind of widespread community.
[43:14.680 --> 43:17.540]  And that's great, because it brings a lot of things that wouldn't be able to exist otherwise.
[43:17.760 --> 43:18.540]  For example, Wikipedia.
[43:18.540 --> 43:24.590]  If you didn't have, you know, all these people out there who maybe don't know stuff about technology, it wouldn't exist.
[43:24.590 --> 43:25.460]  And it's a great resource.
[43:25.680 --> 43:28.960]  But you do have everyone on there now.
[43:28.960 --> 43:33.880]  And so you don't have this small community of people who are doing interesting things as much anymore.
[43:34.090 --> 43:40.150]  And I think it's cool that this documentary really captures that point in time when it was fresh and it was new.
[43:40.630 --> 43:42.960]  And, you know, it's just a really neat part of history.
[43:43.120 --> 43:45.740]  And it doesn't exist anymore for the most part, which is sad.
[43:45.740 --> 43:47.660]  But, you know, that's how life goes.
[43:47.660 --> 43:49.480]  2-1-2-2-0-9-2-9-5-0.
[43:49.660 --> 43:51.220]  We only have one call on the line.
[43:51.340 --> 43:53.380]  We should be doing so much better than this now, folks.
[43:53.900 --> 43:54.820]  We're kind of behind.
[43:54.820 --> 43:59.620]  So if you're even considering pledging for this, make that call now.
[43:59.620 --> 44:01.640]  It's only going to be available for the next 15 minutes.
[44:01.840 --> 44:02.920]  We're not going to have this next week.
[44:03.040 --> 44:04.860]  2-1-2-2-0-9-2-9-5-0.
[44:05.360 --> 44:06.860]  Get the hacker... I did it again.
[44:06.960 --> 44:13.160]  That BBS documentary and the off-the-hook t-shirt as well for a pledge of $75.
[44:13.480 --> 44:16.260]  2-1-2-2-0-9-2-9-5-0.
[44:16.700 --> 44:19.380]  Join the person who's on the phone now.
[44:19.520 --> 44:22.720]  We have a whole bunch of people in the tally room waiting to take your phone call.
[44:22.780 --> 44:27.820]  The most important thing, though, is to support this radio station where things like this can actually be talked about on the radio.
[44:27.960 --> 44:32.780]  You don't see things like the BBS documentary on other radio stations or even talked about.
[44:32.940 --> 44:33.960]  People forget history.
[44:34.060 --> 44:38.920]  They forget the things that created the world that exists today, the whole technological world.
[44:38.920 --> 44:40.560]  And we need to know this.
[44:40.640 --> 44:41.580]  We need to analyze this.
[44:41.700 --> 44:47.480]  We need to figure out how it happened and look at all the stories of the past.
[44:47.640 --> 44:51.200]  It's kind of what gets 2600 going and what gets off-the-hook going.
[44:51.560 --> 44:55.560]  It's very similar, this attention to detail of the past.
[44:55.800 --> 44:59.360]  And if you're not that technical, think of this as a way to get the inside jokes.
[44:59.360 --> 45:05.800]  I mean, you know, if BBSs were the training system, this is where people started telling the jokes that you now hear on the Internet.
[45:05.860 --> 45:07.020]  And you're like, where did that come from?
[45:07.040 --> 45:07.900]  I have no idea.
[45:08.080 --> 45:08.220]  Yeah.
[45:08.300 --> 45:10.720]  You know, because there's always sort of a way that this gets sorted out.
[45:10.840 --> 45:12.300]  The people who are on AOL didn't hear about this.
[45:12.460 --> 45:13.340]  The people on BBSs did.
[45:13.560 --> 45:14.140]  So, you know, just...
[45:14.140 --> 45:15.040]  It remains relevant.
[45:15.500 --> 45:16.860]  It's relevant to this day.
[45:17.020 --> 45:20.460]  It's not something that, because it's in the past, it's not of interest anymore.
[45:20.460 --> 45:22.400]  It's more fascinating now than it was then.
[45:30.400 --> 45:40.560]  But I think no matter what, whether you're somebody who wasn't even born then or somebody who lived through that, you're going to have a lot of moments where you say, wow, that is just so cool.
[45:41.180 --> 45:42.800]  212-209-2950.
[45:42.880 --> 45:47.460]  That's the number to call to pledge for the BBS documentary and the off-the-hook t-shirt.
[45:48.280 --> 45:49.220]  Pledge is $75.
[45:49.520 --> 45:50.960]  212-209-2950.
[45:51.140 --> 45:51.880]  Is Jason still on the line?
[45:51.980 --> 45:52.320]  Yes, he is.
[45:52.740 --> 45:53.140]  Yes, I am.
[45:53.140 --> 46:02.400]  Jason, so I feel like I read on maybe Jessamyn West's blog that you have a new project where you're trying to archive a new, possibly disappearing resource?
[46:03.020 --> 46:04.820]  Yeah, well, in terms of...
[46:04.820 --> 46:05.920]  There's a number of...
[46:05.920 --> 46:09.440]  After I finished this, you know, this one was more of a crusade.
[46:09.440 --> 46:14.140]  This was more like, oh no, this is going to be lost, and if I don't get it, it's going to be gone.
[46:14.140 --> 46:16.160]  And I was right.
[46:16.160 --> 46:19.500]  At least four of my interviewees have died in the interim years.
[46:19.500 --> 46:25.600]  And I sat around and said, well, I just learned how to do all this filmmaking after a few years.
[46:25.800 --> 46:30.920]  What would be an even more obscure subject that nobody's going to do a big thing on?
[46:31.080 --> 46:33.100]  And I ended up with text adventures.
[46:33.800 --> 46:34.620]  Oh, wow.
[46:35.080 --> 46:53.660]  Text adventures are a really odd thing because here you have that case again where people now would say, oh, well, I mean, I know a room full of twisty passages, and they'll make a reference to having a lamp, but they won't really quite know what that all came from.
[46:53.660 --> 47:03.600]  And there was a period of time in basically the beginning of commercial home computer software when text adventures were the number one selling games.
[47:03.840 --> 47:07.660]  Five, six, seven of the positions in the top ten selling games.
[47:07.660 --> 47:18.420]  And it was only very incrementally that what we think of now is, you know, first-person shooters and, you know, heavily graphic games took over.
[47:18.920 --> 47:21.980]  And nobody really said, like, where did this come from?
[47:22.040 --> 47:23.560]  What were these guys doing?
[47:23.560 --> 47:26.560]  Because they were all writers and doing this amazing thing.
[47:26.560 --> 47:33.840]  And if you pick up a lot of text adventures that were commercially made and play them, many of them still feel fresh.
[47:34.540 --> 47:38.420]  If you put them in front of someone, they'd say, wow, this is actually kind of neat.
[47:38.760 --> 47:40.860]  So I said, okay, I'll bet you I'll do that.
[47:40.960 --> 47:45.900]  And so I finished filming it, and I'm editing it, and it's called GetLamp.
[47:46.540 --> 47:48.460]  And it's at getlamp.com.
[47:48.560 --> 47:50.680]  And so this is my new one that I'm working on.
[47:50.820 --> 47:51.060]  Wow.
[47:51.260 --> 47:55.680]  Okay, well, it's great to see that you're continuing to work on historical projects like this.
[47:55.760 --> 47:58.480]  We have two calls on the line, 212-209-2950.
[47:59.060 --> 48:03.320]  It's so important to preserve the history, and that's what Jason Scott has done here with the BBS documentary.
[48:03.840 --> 48:07.620]  Available to you for a pledge of $75 only during this hour.
[48:07.800 --> 48:09.400]  And, in fact, we only have about 11 minutes left.
[48:09.600 --> 48:13.320]  I want to play another excerpt, though, before we sign off.
[48:13.720 --> 48:16.080]  But please, people, we need those phone lines to be lit up.
[48:16.140 --> 48:23.540]  Remember, the important thing is to keep this radio station going, and that's a vital voice for so many different things that we discuss week after week.
[48:23.660 --> 48:26.220]  Now, I know there are some people that are still waiting for their premiums.
[48:26.300 --> 48:29.820]  Of the last couple of marathons, we have not forgotten any of you.
[48:30.390 --> 48:32.860]  We had some technical issues with the December drive.
[48:32.860 --> 48:33.980]  We are working on that.
[48:34.120 --> 48:36.820]  We will get everybody the DVDs they pledge for for that.
[48:36.980 --> 48:46.960]  For the February marathon, I know that the brain machines that Mitch Altman was offering are still being built, and they'll be available sometime in June.
[48:46.960 --> 48:52.500]  So, if you're concerned at all about that, don't be, because we never forget about anybody.
[48:52.720 --> 48:53.860]  Everybody always gets their premiums.
[48:53.940 --> 48:54.920]  Sometimes it takes a couple of months.
[48:55.020 --> 48:56.300]  Sometimes it takes a little longer than it should.
[48:57.270 --> 49:00.800]  But we make sure that everybody is happy in the end.
[49:01.120 --> 49:02.620]  212-209-2950.
[49:02.720 --> 49:03.580]  Instant benefit.
[49:03.800 --> 49:04.740]  Radio station is still here.
[49:04.860 --> 49:05.320]  That's right.
[49:05.460 --> 49:05.900]  That's right.
[49:06.080 --> 49:07.320]  There's one call on the line now.
[49:07.380 --> 49:09.020]  So, let's make that five calls.
[49:09.120 --> 49:09.720]  We can do that.
[49:09.860 --> 49:11.500]  212-209-2950.
[49:11.760 --> 49:13.980]  Let's listen to an excerpt from the BBS documentary.
[49:13.980 --> 49:22.780]  It was spurred by a meeting of the Ohio Scientific Users Group of New York, which is what OSUNI stands for.
[49:23.640 --> 49:27.920]  Ohio Scientific was a company that made computers.
[49:28.220 --> 49:33.940]  I had one, and we decided it would be great to have a BBS for the Users Group.
[49:34.160 --> 49:50.760]  Turned out no one else in the Ohio Scientific Group really had a modem, so they didn't call up, but other people called up, and some hackers kind of started to put some information on their phone freaks mainly.
[49:51.200 --> 49:53.940]  It seemed like every freak in the nation was on this thing.
[49:54.280 --> 50:00.080]  I mean, to dial into it, it would take you hours just redialing, redialing, redialing to get into it.
[50:00.780 --> 50:08.420]  There were a couple of people early on, Milo Phonebill and Tom Tone.
[50:10.400 --> 50:13.820]  They were a couple of the early ones, and Mr. America also.
[50:14.420 --> 50:16.720]  If you had any question, you posted it.
[50:17.680 --> 50:22.800]  Anywhere between an hour later to three days later, you know, depending on whatever person dialed in, you'd have the right answer.
[50:22.800 --> 50:27.140]  When someone would write something up, we would post it there.
[50:27.300 --> 50:34.940]  And that's how we got things like the black box and the blue box and tips on phone freaking.
[50:35.360 --> 50:40.580]  And various people who were really involved with the BBS, they'd write stuff.
[50:41.040 --> 50:43.640]  And it was a great forum to exchange that information.
[50:43.880 --> 50:45.640]  Anyone who called up could access it.
[50:49.730 --> 50:51.830]  Yes, I remember that.
[50:52.010 --> 50:54.710]  I remember the Osuni BBS myself.
[50:55.270 --> 50:57.930]  Those names, Jason, that were just mentioned.
[50:58.670 --> 51:01.210]  Mr. America or Captain America or whatever.
[51:01.630 --> 51:02.370]  And Milo Phonebill.
[51:02.450 --> 51:04.870]  Milo Phonebill used to call this the show a few times.
[51:04.890 --> 51:05.890]  I remember that too.
[51:06.430 --> 51:08.530]  And Osuni was magic.
[51:08.530 --> 51:13.450]  You would wait all night to get through the busy signal to connect to that bulletin board.
[51:14.770 --> 51:15.850]  914-725.
[51:15.850 --> 51:17.330]  I can remember the phone number.
[51:17.490 --> 51:18.370]  I can remember...
[51:18.370 --> 51:19.070]  Am I right, Jason?
[51:19.210 --> 51:21.130]  It says 914-725 number, I think.
[51:21.590 --> 51:22.450]  Yeah, 4060.
[51:22.650 --> 51:25.010]  Yeah, well, let's not give out the whole number in case it belongs to somebody now.
[51:25.250 --> 51:26.770]  They must be getting a ton of calls anyway.
[51:26.990 --> 51:30.390]  But yeah, I mean, it's ingrained in your DNA after a while.
[51:30.470 --> 51:32.150]  You just kind of like never forget this.
[51:32.290 --> 51:33.750]  It's that important.
[51:33.890 --> 51:34.910]  It's that vital.
[51:35.610 --> 51:41.090]  And yeah, Osuni, that was a major part of my hacker early days.
[51:41.490 --> 51:46.730]  And there are so many other stories, so many other bits of random history that you will get out of this package.
[51:46.910 --> 51:48.610]  212-209-2950.
[51:48.610 --> 51:50.510]  Get the Hacker BBS...
[51:50.510 --> 51:51.750]  I'm sorry, I'm getting it all wrong now.
[51:51.770 --> 51:55.950]  The BBS documentary, which contains three DVDs, right?
[51:56.110 --> 51:59.550]  And many, many hours of interviews and footage.
[51:59.550 --> 51:59.890]  Mike?
[52:00.070 --> 52:05.930]  And one thing that I'm reminded of, just listening to these excerpts, is that this is really a well-put-together documentary.
[52:06.130 --> 52:07.410]  You might hear five and a half hours long.
[52:07.430 --> 52:09.470]  This guy really needs to get an editor or something.
[52:09.770 --> 52:17.310]  But Jason is an editor and did a very good job putting it together, tying it together in a narrative structure that makes sense.
[52:17.410 --> 52:18.290]  I think of it as a series.
[52:18.510 --> 52:20.970]  It's like a series I would air on PBS or something like that.
[52:21.110 --> 52:22.290]  PBS would never air this.
[52:22.530 --> 52:23.430]  PBS wouldn't air this.
[52:23.550 --> 52:24.590]  It's too controversial for them, I'll bet.
[52:25.170 --> 52:26.410]  Well, you know, it's funny.
[52:26.650 --> 52:35.030]  There's definitely a case there where I knew that doing a documentary on a board would be like doing a documentary on the car.
[52:35.230 --> 52:41.950]  I didn't want it that I gave all of these amazing subjects two minutes because I was worried it was going to bore the audience.
[52:42.110 --> 52:44.670]  So I split it apart into all these narratives.
[52:44.850 --> 52:46.030]  So there's the hacking one.
[52:46.190 --> 52:53.470]  There's one on something called the art scene, which was all these guys who would do all of this artwork using text characters and bulletin boards.
[52:53.470 --> 52:58.870]  There's something on Fidonet, which was the largest private network of computers for many, many years.
[52:58.870 --> 53:00.430]  I'm sure it still holds that record.
[53:00.950 --> 53:01.890]  And so on.
[53:02.010 --> 53:03.930]  So I wanted these stories to be told.
[53:04.190 --> 53:12.090]  And I've been told of people who would watch like three or four of them and then go, oh, I don't really care for the sound of that subject.
[53:12.290 --> 53:16.170]  And then, you know, a half year later, they'd pop it in and go, oh, actually, this is pretty interesting.
[53:16.790 --> 53:25.350]  So, you know, it was a case of I wanted people to really, you know, sit back and view it as they wanted to.
[53:25.510 --> 53:35.110]  Although I do occasionally get emails from people who get it in the mail at five in the afternoon and then mail me at one in the morning going, oh, my God, oh, my God, oh, my God.
[53:35.210 --> 53:36.170]  So I do get that.
[53:37.250 --> 53:38.410]  People are pretty strange.
[53:38.410 --> 53:40.750]  Yeah, 212-209-2950.
[53:41.110 --> 53:47.690]  Again, we're offering the BBS documentary, a one-time offer here at WBAI for a pledge of $75.
[53:47.990 --> 53:51.030]  You'll also get the Off the Hook T-shirt, which you can't get anyplace else either.
[53:51.290 --> 53:56.430]  And I'm told we still have the Hackers on a Plane hard package for $1,000.
[53:56.890 --> 54:03.550]  I don't know if that's going to last past this show, if one of us might grab it if nobody else out there wants it.
[54:04.190 --> 54:06.430]  212-209-2950 for that package.
[54:06.430 --> 54:08.790]  For the $1,000 package, you need to use a credit card.
[54:08.850 --> 54:09.770]  And there's only one of those available.
[54:09.930 --> 54:13.550]  But this, the BBS documentary, only a $75 pledge.
[54:13.950 --> 54:18.850]  And you'll get hours and hours of history and education.
[54:19.110 --> 54:23.890]  And you'll also get the Off the Hook T-shirt, 212-209-2950.
[54:24.210 --> 54:28.010]  Did you remind the listeners that they also keep the station and this program on the air?
[54:28.110 --> 54:34.330]  Maybe that hasn't been made clear, that the only way that we survive is by listeners calling in and pledging.
[54:34.330 --> 54:37.030]  And if we don't have that, we don't have a radio station.
[54:37.150 --> 54:43.430]  Because unlike the way we program, the real world is very commercial.
[54:43.670 --> 54:45.250]  And we have to pay all the bills.
[54:45.510 --> 54:46.910]  We have to pay the electric bill.
[54:46.970 --> 54:48.110]  We have to pay the transmitter bill.
[54:48.170 --> 54:49.550]  We have to pay rent for the studios.
[54:49.770 --> 54:52.430]  I was reading how much the transmitter bill alone is.
[54:52.530 --> 54:55.750]  It's six figures a year just for the transmitter on the Empire State Building.
[54:55.750 --> 54:56.490]  And we don't have a choice.
[54:56.590 --> 54:57.370]  We have to pay that.
[54:57.630 --> 55:00.510]  If we take that transmitter off the Empire State Building, then you can't hear us.
[55:00.510 --> 55:03.810]  And the fact is, we're not just a podcast.
[55:03.810 --> 55:05.930]  We're a radio station in the middle of New York City.
[55:06.090 --> 55:07.770]  That's expensive, but it's also phenomenal.
[55:07.930 --> 55:13.150]  It also is a way of reaching so many people that ordinarily would never hear something like this, ever.
[55:14.130 --> 55:18.810]  You'd have to have a micro-broadcasting small station that maybe a couple of square blocks could hear.
[55:19.030 --> 55:22.370]  What we have done here at WBAI is the most incredible hack of all.
[55:22.510 --> 55:28.850]  We have a full-power radio station right in the middle, not only in the middle of New York City, in the middle of the commercial band in New York City.
[55:28.850 --> 55:30.870]  We're not in the ghetto below 92.
[55:31.090 --> 55:33.310]  We're in the middle, 99.5.
[55:33.530 --> 55:40.950]  And that makes all the difference, because you have all these people who are on their way to a hot 97 or whatever, and they don't turn the dial quickly enough, and they hit us.
[55:41.090 --> 55:42.290]  And then they never leave.
[55:42.850 --> 55:44.150]  That's a hack.
[55:44.250 --> 55:50.550]  That's getting out to the people so that they hear something they would not hear ordinarily that the mass media does not want them to hear.
[55:51.070 --> 55:52.750]  And you can support that.
[55:52.830 --> 55:54.210]  You can say, yes, this is a good idea.
[55:54.330 --> 55:57.590]  All you have to do is call 212-209-2950.
[55:57.590 --> 55:59.630]  We have four calls on the line right now.
[55:59.790 --> 56:01.750]  Please, let's keep those calls coming in.
[56:01.830 --> 56:02.810]  We need the support.
[56:02.810 --> 56:09.490]  We need to keep this place going so that we can continue to bring people like Jason to you on the radio in years ahead.
[56:09.650 --> 56:15.590]  And Jason, I just hope that you remain active as far as doing creative things and looking into the history.
[56:15.610 --> 56:20.530]  And is there a way people can help you out if they have stories that they'd like to share or information?
[56:20.530 --> 56:21.510]  Sure.
[56:21.850 --> 56:30.310]  I guess the easiest thing is the site is called textfiles.com, and that's like T-E-X-T-F-I-L-E-S dot com.
[56:30.570 --> 56:38.990]  And I have a weblog called ASCII, C-I-I dot textfiles.com, and that's an easy way to reach me.
[56:39.190 --> 56:41.290]  I'm Jason at textfiles.com.
[56:41.290 --> 56:43.050]  I have no problem giving that out.
[56:43.050 --> 56:44.770]  Feel free to mail me with stories.
[56:45.110 --> 56:53.930]  Every day I get mail from people who either want to donate old equipment because they don't know what to do with it or old magazines, or I talk to people about stories.
[56:53.930 --> 57:06.750]  I just had a guy just two days ago tell me that he, the youngest member of the family, has been given all of the discs and printouts and books from his father and grandfather.
[57:06.750 --> 57:13.410]  He used to use BBSs 20, 30 years ago, and he wants to work with me to give me all the stuff that he thinks I'm missing.
[57:13.570 --> 57:15.230]  So important to preserve the history.
[57:15.590 --> 57:19.330]  And Jason, again, thank you so much for doing that and for all your projects.
[57:19.330 --> 57:20.290]  Best of luck to you.
[57:20.490 --> 57:22.290]  And thanks for everything you do, Emmanuel.
[57:22.290 --> 57:23.170]  Well, thanks.
[57:23.370 --> 57:23.570]  Thanks.
[57:23.690 --> 57:27.790]  And of course, let's finish by thanking the listeners for all that they're doing right now.
[57:27.910 --> 57:29.150]  Let's hope they continue to do that.
[57:29.630 --> 57:31.850]  212-209-2950.
[57:32.390 --> 57:33.750]  Call in with your support.
[57:33.890 --> 57:38.870]  $75 gets you the BBS documentary, three DVDs filled with all kinds of material.
[57:39.130 --> 57:41.370]  And you also get the Off the Hook t-shirt.
[57:41.890 --> 57:47.290]  And I think we still have, there's a few calls on the line, but I think we still have the $1,000 pledge for the hackers on a plane.
[57:47.290 --> 57:52.130]  And, oh, yeah, yeah, we have people in the studio with the Off the Hook shirt in the next show.
[57:52.290 --> 57:56.090]  The next show, in fact, is sporting the very nice-looking Off the Hook t-shirts.
[57:56.310 --> 57:57.290]  You can be one of those people.
[57:57.610 --> 57:58.570]  Four calls on the line.
[57:58.650 --> 57:59.370]  Let's keep them coming in.
[57:59.410 --> 58:01.430]  If you don't want to go to Europe, pledge $1,000 anyway.
[58:01.590 --> 58:02.290]  Keep us on the air.
[58:02.290 --> 58:03.070]  You can give it as a gift.
[58:03.370 --> 58:03.650]  Absolutely.
[58:03.930 --> 58:05.570]  212-209-2950.
[58:05.570 --> 58:07.450]  We'll see you next week, folks.
[58:07.570 --> 58:14.870]  Thanks, everybody, for calling in and supporting the station and for learning a whole lot about how the whole computer hacker world got started.
[58:15.710 --> 58:17.190]  212-209-2950.
[58:17.190 --> 58:17.730]  See you next week.
[58:17.830 --> 58:17.950]  Good night.
[58:18.250 --> 58:38.750]  Oh, and there better be a soap plant on the other end Cause if the voice is baritone When you told me you'd be home alone Well, then I'm wasting my time Not to mention my dime So if a man answers your phone Then, honey, I'm gone
[59:01.770 --> 59:36.830]  W-A-I-N-E-R Now, everything between us used to be fine Till I became a third party Well, there ain't no party line You have a hunk, you know, to hang this phone up now Don't die again Oh, and there better be a soprano On the other end Cause if the voice is baritone When you told me you'd be home alone Well,
[59:36.930 --> 59:59.530]  I'm wasting my time Ooh, yeah, all right Hey, Mrs. Dean And Kathy and Kat and everything All right, it is now 8 o'clock here at WBAI New York And also streaming on the internet At WBAI.org What was that?
[01:00:00.110 --> 01:00:23.370]  And you can also stream on the internet And find out great information At PCRadioShow.org But right now It's time for the Personal Computer Show And it is May 13th, 2009 8 o'clock WBAI New York 99.5 FM And it's on with the shoe
[01:00:35.120 --> 01:00:51.500]  And this is Joe King Welcome to the Personal Computer Show Where Hanky is choking Hanky is with me in the studio Stevie Deavy is behind the console Dr. Alfred Poore is on assignment Elsewhere tonight Actually, he's playing his mandolin Is that what he plays?
[01:00:51.700 --> 01:00:51.940]  A mandolin?
[01:00:52.160 --> 01:00:55.800]  Yeah, a mandolin Hey, tell them about my Off the Hook t-shirt Isn't that great?
[01:00:56.080 --> 01:01:05.640]  Yeah, Stevie usually has an Off the Wall t-shirt Tonight he has an Off the Hook t-shirt And you can get The exact same t-shirt By calling Some number What is the number?
[01:01:05.720 --> 01:01:29.280]  The number is written down here 212 2092950 And tell them You want the same t-shirt Stevie's wearing And they'll come in here Rip it off his back And give it to you If you're cute It says Off the Hook 99.5 FM WBAI New York Wednesdays at 1900 ET Oh That's what it says On the t-shirt We,
[01:01:29.480 --> 01:01:32.260]  on the other hand Are welcoming you To the Personal Computer Show