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[00:59.400 --> 01:01.360]  And this is WBAI New York.
[01:01.620 --> 01:03.220]  The time is 7 o'clock.
[01:03.220 --> 01:06.000]  Time, once again, for Off the Hook.
[02:55.510 --> 02:56.490]  And good evening to everybody.
[02:56.610 --> 02:57.410]  The program is Off the Hook.
[02:57.410 --> 03:00.790]  Emmanuel Goldstein here with you, joined tonight by Mike.
[03:01.110 --> 03:01.390]  Hello.
[03:01.770 --> 03:02.090]  Gus.
[03:02.410 --> 03:02.710]  Oh, hi.
[03:02.890 --> 03:03.250]  Red Hack.
[03:03.430 --> 03:03.610]  Hello.
[03:04.010 --> 03:04.450]  Voltaire.
[03:04.590 --> 03:04.730]  Hey.
[03:05.530 --> 03:05.990]  Dot Red.
[03:06.290 --> 03:06.690]  Hey there.
[03:07.410 --> 03:07.830]  Jim.
[03:08.310 --> 03:08.570]  Hi.
[03:08.770 --> 03:09.050]  Kyle.
[03:09.410 --> 03:09.610]  Hi.
[03:09.930 --> 03:10.570]  And Bernie S.
[03:10.630 --> 03:11.290]  down in Philadelphia.
[03:11.830 --> 03:13.390]  Greetings from Pennsylvania.
[03:13.790 --> 03:15.490]  Are you somewhere in Pennsylvania, not Philadelphia?
[03:15.750 --> 03:16.730]  I'm in upstate Pennsylvania right now.
[03:16.730 --> 03:17.490]  Upstate Pennsylvania.
[03:17.490 --> 03:18.150]  How about that?
[03:18.190 --> 03:18.550]  Not Philly.
[03:18.650 --> 03:21.010]  I'm in a rural area, which is why I'm on a landline.
[03:21.010 --> 03:21.650]  I was going to say...
[03:21.650 --> 03:22.290]  They actually sound better.
[03:22.330 --> 03:25.550]  You sound a lot better than your usual lousy cell phone.
[03:26.710 --> 03:28.630]  So that's an improvement.
[03:28.830 --> 03:29.270]  Okay, great.
[03:29.470 --> 03:29.750]  Thank you.
[03:29.750 --> 03:34.030]  Uh, well, um, we have, we have a lot of, uh, things to talk about tonight.
[03:34.130 --> 03:36.870]  A lot of, uh, a lot of interesting developments.
[03:39.290 --> 03:41.290]  Um, and let's see.
[03:41.330 --> 03:42.110]  Where shall we begin?
[03:42.270 --> 03:45.090]  There was a press conference, uh, today.
[03:45.450 --> 03:49.710]  A press conference that, uh, took place, uh, not a press conference, actually.
[03:49.770 --> 03:52.410]  A press release that was, uh, that I got in the mail.
[03:52.790 --> 03:54.430]  Uh, I don't know if anybody saw this.
[03:54.430 --> 03:57.170]  It, it, it jumped out at me, uh, right away.
[03:57.450 --> 04:06.450]  Uh, it said, General Electric responds to public outcry will donate entire $3.2 billion tax refund to help offset cuts and save American jobs.
[04:06.970 --> 04:07.990]  Um, yes.
[04:08.110 --> 04:08.850]  And you believed that?
[04:10.170 --> 04:10.570]  Yes.
[04:10.750 --> 04:14.370]  Well, I, I, I looked at it and I said, hey, this is, this is good news for a change.
[04:14.530 --> 04:15.810]  Sometimes good things happen.
[04:15.970 --> 04:18.650]  But this is, this is, um, uh, I jumped right into it.
[04:18.750 --> 04:28.930]  GE, uh, GE CEO, uh, Jeffrey Immelt has informed the Obama administration that the company will be gifting its entire 2010 tax refund worth $3.2 billion to the U.S.
[04:29.010 --> 04:36.110]  Treasury on April 18th, tax day, and will furthermore adopt a host of new policies that secure its position as a leader in corporate social responsibility.
[04:36.350 --> 04:42.210]  We want the public to know that we've heard them and that we know many Americans are going through tough times, said the, uh, CEO.
[04:42.530 --> 04:48.670]  GE will therefore give our 2010 tax refund back to the public and allow the public to decide how to spend it.
[04:49.010 --> 04:50.350]  Uh, he acknowledged no wrongdoing.
[04:50.530 --> 04:53.570]  All seven of our foreign tax havens are entirely legal, he said.
[04:53.650 --> 04:57.950]  But Americans have made it clear that they deplore laws that enable tax avoidance.
[04:58.090 --> 05:04.790]  While we owe it to our shareholders to use every legal loophole to maximize returns, we also owe something to the American people.
[05:04.990 --> 05:07.950]  We didn't write the laws that let us legally avoid paying taxes.
[05:08.290 --> 05:09.050]  Congress did.
[05:09.450 --> 05:12.750]  But we did benefit from those laws, and now we'd like to share those benefits.
[05:12.890 --> 05:17.190]  We're proud to be giving something back to America, and we are proud to set an example for all industry to follow.
[05:17.330 --> 05:30.110]  You know, I, I get press releases like this occasionally, and, uh, it's always pretty much the same formula that, uh, a big, huge corporation someplace does something really unexpected and nice and, uh, uh, not in keeping with tradition.
[05:30.110 --> 05:35.590]  And it's always, always something that the yes-men are up to, and it's very easy to figure it out.
[05:35.690 --> 05:38.590]  It's very easy to, uh, uh, to know when this is happening.
[05:38.730 --> 05:42.450]  Even though, even though it comes from, uh, a believable email address.
[05:42.450 --> 05:48.210]  In this particular case, it came from, uh, uh, corp.communications at genewscenters.com.
[05:48.630 --> 05:52.930]  Uh, it's, it's, it's not hard to get a, a site that sounds somewhat, uh, believable.
[05:53.530 --> 05:57.430]  So, you know, you have to be kind of thick to, to fall for this sort of a thing.
[05:57.610 --> 05:58.270]  Well, guess what?
[05:58.330 --> 06:02.270]  There's a lot of really thick people out there in the mass media that don't do their research.
[06:02.430 --> 06:11.330]  The Associated Press and other news organizations have had to withdraw stories reporting that General Electric would pay a $3.2 billion tax refund to the U.S.
[06:11.710 --> 06:15.590]  Treasury after it was revealed that the story was based on a hoax press release.
[06:16.150 --> 06:23.890]  GE came under fire after a New York Times story, uh, that said despite $14.2 billion in worldwide profits, including more than $5 billion from U.S.
[06:23.970 --> 06:26.990]  operations, GE did not owe taxes in 2010.
[06:27.290 --> 06:35.670]  Uh, the hoax press release claimed that GE, uh, GE CEO Jeffrey Immelt had informed the Obama administration that his company was returning $3.2 billion to the Treasury.
[06:35.670 --> 06:49.070]  Uh, the release included what seemed to be some pretty obvious fake quotes, including, uh, the one that I just read before about the foreign tax savings being entirely legal, that Congress, uh, was the one that wrote the law that helped them avoid paying taxes,
[06:49.210 --> 06:49.430]  et cetera.
[06:49.630 --> 06:57.190]  But the AP nonetheless ran a four paragraph story that began facing criticism over the amount of taxes it pays.
[06:57.650 --> 07:02.030]  General Electric announced it will repay its entire $3.2 billion tax refund to the U.S.
[07:02.110 --> 07:03.570]  Treasury on April 18th.
[07:03.570 --> 07:10.990]  The, uh, hoax press release included a contact phone number for Samuel Winneker, uh, who was listed as a communications representative with GE.
[07:11.290 --> 07:20.990]  Uh, the first time CBS News called the number, the call went to voicemail with the recording, hey, you've reached Andrew and, uh, his, uh, his prone to fail, but nonetheless handy dandy iPhone.
[07:22.470 --> 07:30.210]  The second time CBS News called the recording, uh, it was a computerized sounding British woman's voice claiming that the caller had reached GE Media, which was closed.
[07:30.210 --> 07:33.250]  Then someone called back claiming to be Samuel Winneker.
[07:33.390 --> 07:42.470]  He said the press release was in fact, very real, uh, instructed that a previous call had resulted in a recording featuring an Andrew with a strikingly similar voice to Samuel Winneker.
[07:43.030 --> 07:44.650]  He said, that is inexplicable to me.
[07:44.710 --> 07:46.630]  It should be a standard GE corporate message.
[07:46.810 --> 07:52.310]  He attributed the situation to the fact that his team was scrambling right now to deal with the day's news.
[07:52.450 --> 07:54.130]  This is, this is social engineering at its finest.
[07:54.130 --> 08:00.010]  Andrew Williams, an actual GE spokesman, confirmed to CBS News, it was a hoax.
[08:00.250 --> 08:06.430]  The hoax was reminiscent of, uh, the yes men whose stated goal is impersonating big time criminals to publicly humiliate them.
[08:06.590 --> 08:10.530]  Our targets are leaders and big corporations who put profits ahead of everything else.
[08:10.710 --> 08:18.230]  Uh, a representative for the group, uh, Mike Bonanno told CBS News that the yes men are not directly responsible for the GE effort.
[08:18.230 --> 08:29.530]  He said they advised an ad hoc group that did most of the heavy lifting and that the group was trained through their yes lab project, which, uh, where they have trained activists to use their tactics.
[08:29.790 --> 08:36.630]  Uh, Samuel Winneker, the fake GE representative claimed he had just heard about the yes men today, asked about their claims to be tied to the press release.
[08:36.770 --> 08:39.850]  He restated the release was real and said the yes men are publicity hounds.
[08:40.870 --> 08:42.190]  This is, this is just great.
[08:42.370 --> 08:53.990]  Uh, a group called us uncut, which describes itself as a burgeoning grassroots movement pressuring corporate tax cheats to pay their fair share, took credit for the hoax in a press release Wednesday afternoon.
[08:54.250 --> 08:56.950]  This action showed us how the world could work.
[08:57.050 --> 08:57.270]  U.S.
[08:57.350 --> 09:10.670]  uncut spokesman Carl Gibson said, for a brief moment, people believed, well, for a very brief moment, I believe, but for a longer moment for some people, uh, the biggest corporate tax dodger had a change of heart and actually did the right thing.
[09:10.770 --> 09:17.930]  But the only way anything like this is really going to happen is if we change the laws that allow corporate tax avoidance in the first place.
[09:18.690 --> 09:19.990]  So, uh, yeah.
[09:20.210 --> 09:24.810]  And, and, uh, by the way, the domain, uh, genewscenters.com was registered last week by an outfit in Utah.
[09:25.830 --> 09:28.130]  It's not hard to figure this, this stuff out.
[09:28.370 --> 09:30.990]  If you actually, uh, put a critical eye to it.
[09:31.190 --> 09:33.570]  Uh, it just shows how mass media doesn't do that.
[09:33.650 --> 09:35.570]  They basically believe anything they see.
[09:35.870 --> 09:39.710]  And you have to wonder how much of what you read in newspapers and see on TV is actually true.
[09:39.790 --> 09:42.230]  But we're, we're, we're really beyond just mass media now.
[09:42.230 --> 09:53.030]  I mean, I, the, the, my funny story today is that by the time I saw US Uncut, um, making a lot of noise about this, I thought they'd been duped because, um, I had already heard about the hoax.
[09:53.110 --> 10:00.230]  So it was like, oh no, guys, activists, we ought to get our, you know, our stuff together and, um, try to agree on what story we're talking about here.
[10:00.230 --> 10:02.890]  Cause I thought they were tricked, but no, they were just trying to perpetuate it.
[10:03.030 --> 10:04.970]  They were just doing it after the hoax had already been debunked.
[10:05.030 --> 10:08.330]  So there's these sort of little wavelets on Twitter going out there into the world.
[10:08.330 --> 10:10.250]  And, and how did they actually affect people in the end?
[10:10.330 --> 10:11.270]  What did people actually believe?
[10:11.590 --> 10:12.890]  Which ones did they hear first?
[10:13.110 --> 10:23.570]  Well, the fact is that, uh, it got planted in people's minds that, uh, especially not so much the press release, but when CBS News and the Associated Press started reporting it, then people started to believe, wow, this is actually true.
[10:23.870 --> 10:25.430]  This, this is a real thing.
[10:25.550 --> 10:29.150]  Uh, when something like this happens, who knows who's actually responsible?
[10:29.150 --> 10:30.170]  Maybe, uh, U.S.
[10:30.230 --> 10:34.770]  Uncut isn't responsible and they're just taking responsibility now or just trying to further muddy the waters.
[10:35.110 --> 10:35.710]  Who knows?
[10:36.030 --> 10:37.510]  Uh, this kind of thing happens.
[10:37.910 --> 10:39.430]  Nobody really knows where it comes from.
[10:40.050 --> 10:46.950]  The, um, what this reminds me of too, actually, is I saw Robert McJesney, who's a great scholar of the media speak last Friday.
[10:47.570 --> 10:54.410]  And, um, he was saying it was, it was just sort of on the eve of, or maybe just after the New York Times had gone paywall.
[10:54.570 --> 11:03.130]  And he made the argument that I've heard before that, um, basically in order to continue supporting something like the New York Times, we might need to have a public trust.
[11:03.230 --> 11:08.870]  And he pointed out all the statistics saying, basically, most other developed countries have some sort of money that they put towards the media.
[11:09.230 --> 11:16.790]  And he ran that against all sorts of statistics about who had the freest, you know, country and who had, uh, the most, you know, happiness and things like that.
[11:17.170 --> 11:26.630]  And, um, by many measures, both, you know, from left-wing think tanks and right-wing think tanks, um, countries that are measurably freer than we are subsidize the press a great deal more.
[11:26.870 --> 11:37.950]  And of course, you know, McChesney's ultimate point is that if we have better press subsidies, we'll have, you know, fewer reporters who are forced to follow ridiculous trends or forced to work only off the press release, like they are in this case.
[11:38.490 --> 11:43.670]  Um, and, uh, you know, therefore they could, you know, actually do the research to prove this kind of thing.
[11:43.790 --> 11:45.410]  So that, that came up for me again today too.
[11:45.410 --> 11:51.110]  Well, one thing that comes up as soon as we start talking about that is the possible conflict of interest.
[11:51.110 --> 12:00.630]  If you have, uh, news organizations being subsidized, who gets subsidized, you know, uh, how do you define what content is good, uh, fair and balanced and so on.
[12:01.130 --> 12:10.790]  McChesney was making a lot of really cool points about how the founding fathers of the United States actually were very, very pro subsidies for delivering, uh, newspapers.
[12:11.270 --> 12:19.590]  Um, and as a matter of fact, what they, I forget if it was Jefferson or Madison, um, argued, well, the papers we ought to fund the most are the least popular papers.
[12:19.710 --> 12:20.790]  They ought to have the best subsidies.
[12:20.910 --> 12:27.590]  And for a great many years, actually, the U S really did heavily subsidize newspaper distribution by making it, um, very, very cheap to send them.
[12:27.670 --> 12:35.170]  And then there were, there were among the founding fathers, some people who argued that, um, there should be no charge whatsoever to mail newspapers to people.
[12:35.350 --> 12:41.770]  So, I mean, there, there were various models that were put forward for how to begin to deal with, you know, possible conflicts of interest.
[12:42.270 --> 12:46.630]  Um, but yeah, I mean, it's, it's something that sort of hasn't really hit the popular debate, but I've heard it at a couple of conferences now.
[12:46.850 --> 12:54.090]  So Bernie, uh, based on, uh, what, what you've, uh, seen, uh, today's developments, uh, any, any renewed faith in, in, in, in the media?
[12:54.610 --> 12:55.770]  Uh, absolutely not.
[12:55.950 --> 12:59.110]  Um, even less so, which is saying a lot.
[12:59.470 --> 13:19.150]  Um, what really galls me is that this was such an obviously bogus press release because no, no U S corporation that benefits in, uh, saving billions of, uh, of, of dollars in, uh, tax shelters is going to give it back to the American people.
[13:19.270 --> 13:27.830]  It's just, it's just, it's beyond plausibility by anyone with a, with a scintilla of common sense, uh, in reality.
[13:27.850 --> 13:32.030]  Uh, but it makes you wonder about these major commercial media outlets.
[13:32.630 --> 13:40.710]  What else do they believe that they're reporting as legitimate that we don't even know is actually bogus?
[13:41.010 --> 13:55.230]  Maybe not a hoax, but just, you know, I'm sure corporations hoax the, uh, the, the major media outlets all the time with, uh, deceitful press releases and things to try to make themselves look better.
[13:55.430 --> 14:11.370]  So, uh, you know, this is just an example of, uh, you know, why you should really not trust, uh, news media outlets unless you really do your own thinking and, and, and, and look for multiple sources, sources that have a track record of reliability.
[14:12.130 --> 14:20.350]  Um, and also I love, I've loved this strategy of really forcing companies like GE to actually deny that they're going to be good guys.
[14:20.630 --> 14:21.490]  I love it.
[14:21.770 --> 14:25.430]  Uh, I gotta say, yeah, I feel really behind with this whole story.
[14:25.770 --> 14:28.110]  Uh, I haven't heard anything, uh, about a hoax.
[14:28.310 --> 14:31.030]  Um, but I, I did hear the number was 3.2 trillion.
[14:31.710 --> 14:32.270]  Trillion now?
[14:32.490 --> 14:32.890]  That they're giving back.
[14:33.050 --> 14:33.130]  Yeah.
[14:33.450 --> 14:33.670]  Okay.
[14:33.930 --> 14:34.170]  All right.
[14:34.210 --> 14:35.450]  So we can, we can perpetuate that.
[14:35.690 --> 14:36.650]  You heard this from a reliable source?
[14:36.750 --> 14:37.310]  Well, he just said it.
[14:37.390 --> 14:38.330]  Yeah, I, I would...
[14:38.330 --> 14:39.850]  Oh, we're on the, oh, we're on the radio.
[14:40.570 --> 14:41.070]  It's true.
[14:41.350 --> 14:42.290]  We gotta back each other up.
[14:42.430 --> 14:47.530]  I mean, Bernie, when we're talking about like, you know, reliable sources, everybody has their own perspective of what that was.
[14:47.670 --> 14:54.850]  And, um, another great point from Robert McChesney, um, he pointed out that, uh, Glenn Beck is always going, oh, Thomas Payne, he was my favorite person ever.
[14:54.930 --> 14:57.390]  And Thomas Payne totally was into subsidies for the news media.
[14:58.010 --> 15:01.590]  And, uh, apparently Glenn Beck at some point said, yeah, Thomas Payne, he's my favorite of the founding fathers.
[15:01.770 --> 15:03.590]  I really need to read some of his stuff sometime.
[15:05.350 --> 15:19.490]  Yeah, I, I just think it's, though, it's a really sad state of affairs where if you take, um, many stories, big stories you see going across the main mass media, if you start looking into it, a lot of times you can find just a press release that's been echoed around multiple outlets.
[15:19.610 --> 15:21.350]  You see, you can actually trace them.
[15:21.550 --> 15:28.630]  If you look at the times when these things were posted, you can see who started posting after the press release came out, which big outlets hit it.
[15:28.730 --> 15:32.030]  Once the big outlets hit, you then start seeing other small outlets picking it up.
[15:32.530 --> 15:38.110]  And, you know, something like that, you know, what we're talking about, we don't necessarily, can't necessarily agree on what are reliable sources.
[15:38.390 --> 15:45.090]  If you take, you know, five minutes to look into that and you start seeing that, that, that can probably give a big hint that it's not reliable.
[15:45.110 --> 15:46.290]  That's what newspapers used to do.
[15:46.610 --> 15:46.810]  Right.
[15:47.030 --> 15:49.050]  Before they, they started, uh, tumbling out of business.
[15:49.310 --> 15:53.110]  They used to have, uh, the ability to, to actually check stories and not be lazy.
[15:53.270 --> 15:55.930]  And I think that's what we're seeing now is, is a lot of laziness.
[15:56.130 --> 15:57.530]  And who's got time to check all of them?
[15:57.590 --> 16:00.170]  I mean, you know, who's got the time and who's got the expertise?
[16:00.430 --> 16:04.330]  I mean, there are a lot of people who just don't have that expertise and they've got other things they need to do.
[16:04.730 --> 16:08.010]  When do we decide as citizens that we need to check out a story?
[16:08.150 --> 16:11.950]  Like not every story that comes out there is something that we are going to need to act on.
[16:12.130 --> 16:13.390]  So why do we need to check it?
[16:14.070 --> 16:20.550]  Um, I don't agree with you, Emmanuel, that newspapers used to always be so much better and, and never take the word of big, powerful entities.
[16:20.790 --> 16:21.890]  I think that... Did I say that?
[16:22.030 --> 16:22.210]  Really?
[16:22.310 --> 16:23.110]  Let's play back the tape.
[16:23.170 --> 16:26.390]  I don't think I said newspapers always... Or, or even often.
[16:26.650 --> 16:33.570]  I think newspapers used to have a lot more resources and used to be able to, uh, to actually throw funds into something.
[16:33.670 --> 16:35.670]  I just keep hearing about newspapers merging and closing.
[16:35.830 --> 16:36.270]  You don't see that?
[16:36.410 --> 16:36.990]  They, sure.
[16:37.070 --> 16:45.690]  They used to have a lot more resources, but the, to the extent to which they used those resources to question power, I don't think was all that much greater in the past.
[16:45.890 --> 16:47.650]  Well, it depends what newspaper you're looking at, I guess.
[16:47.850 --> 16:50.230]  There are, there are better ones and there are, there are crappy ones.
[16:50.390 --> 16:55.750]  And, uh, all I know is the less ones that you have, uh, the worse off we're all going to be.
[16:56.310 --> 17:07.810]  I mean, I really don't see how you can argue that because, uh, having a diversity of voices, diversity of, uh, competing opinions in, uh, in the daily grind of, of reporting stories, that's how the truth eventually gets out.
[17:08.010 --> 17:08.630]  But we've got that.
[17:08.790 --> 17:09.910]  We've got a diversity of opinions.
[17:10.050 --> 17:10.730]  We've got the internet.
[17:10.910 --> 17:22.430]  The big problem, like, well, no, this is, this is what I'm saying is like, a lot of times, uh, I, I've been going to conferences where I've been hearing like journalism professors and journalism, like old silverback editors all going, Oh, journalism.
[17:22.630 --> 17:24.030]  It's so tragic that it's dying.
[17:24.430 --> 17:33.850]  And I, you know, all of us who are sort of my age and have been through this course of sort of, you know, Noam Chomsky sort of looking at the media are going, what is it that you guys like about this?
[17:33.970 --> 17:37.150]  Because, you know, you told us that they're taking too much corporate money.
[17:37.250 --> 17:39.530]  You told us they don't have the resources to do good reporting anymore.
[17:39.710 --> 17:43.850]  You told us that they're in competition for advertising dollars and all of these things.
[17:43.990 --> 17:45.230]  So what is it that you want to save?
[17:45.290 --> 17:47.950]  So I think we need to be a lot clearer when we're talking about newspapers.
[17:48.490 --> 17:52.470]  What is it that's different about what they've been doing than say the internet?
[17:54.150 --> 18:02.950]  Even though it was never perfect in the past, I think it's since like the nineties when consolidation really started, the level of badness turned up to 11.
[18:03.210 --> 18:08.270]  And I think we had to like, go back to the past at least, but try to make it better perhaps.
[18:08.490 --> 18:08.710]  I'm sorry.
[18:09.130 --> 18:10.770]  Does anyone here actually read a newspaper?
[18:11.370 --> 18:17.390]  I read reports from things that are newspapers in some other form, like posts.
[18:17.530 --> 18:20.690]  I think most people just try to read Google News.
[18:20.810 --> 18:20.950]  Sure.
[18:21.030 --> 18:23.090]  So you're reading it online, not actually reading the newspaper.
[18:23.310 --> 18:27.730]  Pretending that's a newspaper and simply getting things from all different places.
[18:28.470 --> 18:33.590]  But yeah, it's obviously changing, and not always for the good, not always for the bad.
[18:34.130 --> 18:39.010]  A variety of news sources is always, I think, the best way to get to the story.
[18:40.270 --> 18:42.110]  But you can't have it all for free, though.
[18:42.190 --> 18:42.670]  That's the thing.
[18:42.750 --> 18:43.710]  That's what people seem to think.
[18:43.730 --> 18:44.450]  Yes, you can.
[18:44.690 --> 18:45.690]  I don't think that's true.
[18:45.730 --> 18:48.590]  If you have subsidies, that's not free.
[18:48.750 --> 18:54.390]  Well, then people need to be willing to have another tax put on them to fund this subsidy.
[18:54.750 --> 18:55.630]  Or tax corporations.
[18:55.830 --> 18:58.210]  Or tax corporations, another big way.
[18:58.210 --> 18:58.790]  That would be nice.
[18:58.890 --> 18:59.270]  Yeah, I read about that.
[18:59.270 --> 19:02.010]  You know, to take away some of their tax breaks, maybe as a way to fund it.
[19:02.250 --> 19:07.050]  But, you know, unless people get the will to do that, you're not going to see that happen.
[19:07.110 --> 19:15.410]  And what you have to remember is what we're talking about when we talk about free and open press is we're talking about organizations that will provide accountability to these big groups.
[19:15.570 --> 19:21.030]  And a lot of the people who be behind, you know, putting whatever legislation we're talking about in place don't want to be accountable.
[19:21.310 --> 19:41.530]  One of my favorite methods I've heard for raising revenues to distribute to, like, journalism is to have, like, a yearly tax on, like, broadcast outlets and, like, ABC, CBS, all the main networks that use the public airwaves, and I guess Clear Channel too,
[19:41.770 --> 19:42.490]  and charge.
[19:42.630 --> 19:49.830]  Since they're using the public airways already, we can, we have the right to tax them, like, a yearly fee and use that to reinvent.
[19:49.830 --> 19:50.970]  Well, that goes beyond news reporting.
[19:51.090 --> 19:58.150]  That goes, that's all about broadcasting, entertainment, making profits off all kinds of programs and things like that.
[19:58.250 --> 20:01.290]  Yeah, but it's going through our airways, so we should be able to tax them for that.
[20:02.630 --> 20:12.430]  The billion dollar subsidy that GE receives by not paying taxes that we started this segment with is the government subsidizing NBC.
[20:13.370 --> 20:21.990]  So it's just a question of which media we want them to subsidize, if it's the ones with the best accountants or some other mechanism.
[20:21.990 --> 20:27.570]  But to pretend that the government is not currently subsidizing the media is patently false.
[20:28.030 --> 20:28.150]  Right.
[20:28.290 --> 20:29.230]  I don't think very many people...
[20:29.230 --> 20:29.770]  That's a good point about GE.
[20:29.970 --> 20:32.230]  I'd forgotten that they do still own NBC.
[20:32.410 --> 20:33.430]  They haven't slept at all yet.
[20:33.490 --> 20:38.910]  And you don't see people complaining about that nearly as much as complaining about the government funding NPR, which is kind of odd, isn't it?
[20:38.910 --> 20:47.190]  Uh, the government funds commercial entities, uh, way more than, uh, than any, uh, any fledgling, non-commercial resources out there.
[20:47.790 --> 20:55.730]  Just, uh, it's, it's food for thought as far as how, uh, how we get our news and how accurate it is and the variety of sources and where it's all going.
[20:56.210 --> 20:57.190]  Um, all right.
[20:57.430 --> 20:58.710]  Um, what else do we have here?
[20:58.950 --> 21:00.050]  Uh, we have some letters.
[21:00.170 --> 21:00.890]  You have something else, Mike, or...
[21:00.890 --> 21:07.370]  You know, I have this news story from New Zealand and it's really confusing because there's an update from Thursday at 920, which seems like it's in the future, but...
[21:07.370 --> 21:08.710]  So you're gonna try and confuse us with this.
[21:08.710 --> 21:10.390]  But it already happened because it's New Zealand.
[21:10.410 --> 21:11.350]  Well, Thursday, it already is Thursday in New Zealand.
[21:11.350 --> 21:13.790]  It's already, Thursday and it's already past 920 a.m.
[21:13.790 --> 21:15.350]  And what happened at 920 a.m.
[21:16.010 --> 21:27.890]  in New Zealand is, um, that an internet sharing law passed, which makes it, uh, so that if you get caught, um, sharing files in New Zealand, you can have your internet connection turned off.
[21:27.890 --> 21:34.170]  And what's really, I mean, this is sort of awful law that's being passed all around the globe, although not in the United States yet.
[21:34.310 --> 21:49.030]  But what's really especially weird about this case is that the parliament was in a special session called urgency where they, where they can't debate so much because they're in such a hurry to get legislation passed that they called, uh, to respond to the,
[21:49.030 --> 21:51.830]  the earthquake in Christchurch that happened some months ago.
[21:52.190 --> 22:06.070]  Uh, and what they're doing, I mean, I, I guess they're working on that too, but somehow they've managed to attach this internet file sharing law to the, uh, earthquake debate so that no one really gets a chance to, to, uh, question it.
[22:06.150 --> 22:08.630]  And so it's, it's passed 111 to 11.
[22:08.910 --> 22:20.730]  Uh, and there, you know, there's a couple, the Greens and some independent MPs who voted against the legislation, but, uh, this is a bill that's failed in New Zealand in the past because the people of New Zealand don't want it.
[22:21.050 --> 22:25.050]  Uh, uh, but the, they found a way to, you know, shove it down the throats down there.
[22:25.890 --> 22:31.250]  That sounds, uh, sounds like the way laws get passed by shoving it down people's throats even when they don't want it.
[22:31.270 --> 22:35.310]  It's just exciting to, you know, see different ways of doing that all around the world.
[22:36.010 --> 22:39.490]  And all right, uh, moving on.
[22:39.650 --> 22:45.230]  Uh, we have, uh, letters to the editor, um, on the letters to the editor, letters to the, uh, to the radio show.
[22:45.390 --> 22:45.530]  Yes.
[22:45.630 --> 22:47.250]  I was reading the letters to the editor book before.
[22:47.710 --> 22:57.450]  Um, and all kinds of responses to various things that we've been talking about, uh, in the past and, uh, hopefully, um, some inspiration for things to talk about in the future.
[22:57.650 --> 23:02.110]  Uh, reference to last week's show, uh, talking about how much will fit on a hard drive.
[23:02.290 --> 23:13.190]  There's a quote from Marshall McLuhan, uh, on CBC back in 1967, with an interesting fact, all the books in the world, 20 million books can now be put open every page on single desktop by microfilm.
[23:13.430 --> 23:13.950]  That's right.
[23:14.130 --> 23:15.790]  Microfilm, the forgotten hard drive.
[23:16.230 --> 23:18.070]  Thanks Max Cohen for sending that into us.
[23:18.170 --> 23:20.690]  And, uh, yeah, who's looked at microfilm recently?
[23:21.350 --> 23:22.910]  It was, uh, the wave of the future.
[23:23.390 --> 23:24.830]  Yeah, it was, uh, sound of crickets.
[23:25.510 --> 23:25.870]  Pretty much.
[23:25.910 --> 23:28.670]  You can go to the New York public library and look at stuff in the microphone.
[23:28.910 --> 23:29.930]  Bernie, you, uh, yeah.
[23:30.050 --> 23:31.090]  Oh, and microfiche, too.
[23:31.310 --> 23:31.710]  Microfiche?
[23:31.730 --> 23:33.370]  Microfilm was like the stuff on the rolls.
[23:33.630 --> 23:41.510]  And microfiche were these, uh, uh, I don't know where they were, like, five by five, uh, uh, transparencies that you would put into this machine.
[23:41.510 --> 23:55.790]  They were both really interesting, teeny tiny, uh, uh, representations of, uh, of photograph documents that you would, uh, blow up in this, uh, not literally blow up, but, uh, blow up on a screen and, uh, you could read them.
[23:55.870 --> 24:01.190]  And it was, uh, it was data compression in a way, but it was using analog techniques.
[24:01.390 --> 24:02.810]  It was optical data compression.
[24:02.990 --> 24:03.270]  Yeah, yeah.
[24:03.650 --> 24:08.310]  Um, yeah, I mean, microfilm is still useful, I think, for digging out old news articles and things like that.
[24:08.410 --> 24:13.090]  But, but even on that front, you know, a lot of it's, uh, if the paper has resources, they digitize it.
[24:13.190 --> 24:17.460]  I know the New York Times digitized most of their archives going back a long, long way.
[24:17.820 --> 24:19.400]  Um, and it was actually kind of funny.
[24:19.520 --> 24:25.500]  I had a, a, a friend of my family who was, is in her nineties, I guess, and had never used the internet.
[24:25.500 --> 24:31.440]  But I looked up her name online and it showed up in a letter she wrote to the New York Times in like the fifties or forties or something.
[24:31.620 --> 24:32.180]  That's pretty cool.
[24:32.320 --> 24:32.780]  And yeah.
[24:34.040 --> 24:34.400]  Wow.
[24:34.560 --> 24:38.860]  Well, one day everything will be digitized and we'll be able to just look up everything ever, ever printed easily.
[24:38.860 --> 24:40.000]  That would be, that would be fun.
[24:40.600 --> 24:41.440]  Uh, okay.
[24:41.600 --> 24:45.220]  Uh, guys, uh, you were talking about, uh, old phone recordings on off the hook.
[24:45.400 --> 24:55.980]  Uh, there's a fantastic website with several old phone recordings, actually a lot more than several www.wideweb.com slash phone trips.
[24:56.320 --> 24:57.280]  I don't know how they got that domain.
[24:57.840 --> 24:59.580]  Wideweb.com slash phone trips.
[24:59.740 --> 25:01.480]  If you haven't been to this website, check it out.
[25:01.540 --> 25:07.340]  I can't believe people actually had the foresight to record calls going through an old switching, uh, the old switching equipment and the sounds it made.
[25:07.860 --> 25:10.580]  Um, and this is from back in the sixties and seventies.
[25:10.700 --> 25:11.760]  It's really a pretty incredible.
[25:12.460 --> 25:18.300]  Uh, thanks, uh, uh, B Mitchell for writing in, uh, he says, I enjoy the radio shows and the magazine and also both books.
[25:18.400 --> 25:18.940]  Keep up the good work.
[25:19.040 --> 25:22.480]  I suppose this calls to be she, I'm not sure exactly, uh, uh, uh, what name that is.
[25:22.540 --> 25:22.820]  B Mitchell.
[25:22.960 --> 25:25.860]  Thank you for, uh, for that, uh, interesting, um, uh, tidbit there.
[25:25.920 --> 25:28.300]  I know Bernie, you, uh, have visited this site as well, right?
[25:28.460 --> 25:33.520]  Yeah, I actually, uh, would try to get a word in age wise last week in our crowded show about the phone trips website.
[25:33.680 --> 25:36.500]  You can just, you can just search one of the internet search engines for phone trips.
[25:36.780 --> 25:44.820]  And there's a, just an amazing collection of, uh, phone recordings and social engineering of, uh, of bell system, uh, security guys.
[25:44.860 --> 25:48.660]  It's, it's hilarious and, and entertaining stuff.
[25:48.980 --> 25:53.420]  Uh, even, even photographs of, uh, some of the recording methodologies used back then.
[25:53.560 --> 26:00.640]  Real to real tapes were used to record some of these, uh, some of these telephone, uh, calls and, uh, and signaling sounds.
[26:00.900 --> 26:01.540]  Great stuff.
[26:01.700 --> 26:02.460]  We're checking out.
[26:02.500 --> 26:04.820]  The only problem is a lot of it is in real audio format.
[26:05.220 --> 26:05.560]  Right.
[26:05.560 --> 26:09.640]  And, uh, that makes it rather hard to listen to, but there are ways of, of, of converting that.
[26:10.120 --> 26:10.240]  Yeah.
[26:10.300 --> 26:11.320]  It can be a bit tricky.
[26:11.620 --> 26:14.020]  Um, I've been to the phone trips website and I re I really like it.
[26:14.180 --> 26:19.000]  Uh, one of my friends, uh, from the West coast, uh, who actually I met through 2600 meetings.
[26:19.340 --> 26:34.700]  Uh, he, he turned me onto that and it's, it's pretty fun to go and listen to old phone sounds, but you do have to, uh, find the right, uh, uh, decoding package or library or whatever so that you can actually, uh, read the real audio stuff and converting it.
[26:34.820 --> 26:35.700]  I think is also tricky.
[26:35.700 --> 26:42.100]  If anybody's got some tips on how to convert, uh, old real audio streams into MP3, that would be like helpful.
[26:42.280 --> 26:44.040]  You can do it to a, with M encoder.
[26:44.240 --> 26:44.920]  Is it okay.
[26:45.020 --> 26:52.340]  So as long as it, yeah, if that, if that's possible, I think people should spell that M like, like Mike and then encoder.
[26:52.540 --> 26:52.740]  Okay.
[26:53.160 --> 26:53.340]  Yeah.
[26:53.400 --> 26:57.600]  I tried, um, messing around with that to try to get all of them in MP3, but I don't know.
[26:57.720 --> 26:58.800]  I had a little bit of trouble.
[26:58.800 --> 26:59.500]  It was kind of tricky.
[26:59.760 --> 27:04.020]  So somebody should really consider doing that to get them into a, like a more modern format.
[27:04.020 --> 27:13.640]  Cause it's funny how these formats change and, you know, nobody really has, uh, the, the real audio stuff, uh, on hand, you know, it's easier to do MP3s or aug or something like that.
[27:13.760 --> 27:13.820]  Right.
[27:13.860 --> 27:16.760]  And that site, that site is actually very professionally done.
[27:17.000 --> 27:19.180]  The recordings are, are very good quality.
[27:19.360 --> 27:19.540]  Yeah.
[27:19.680 --> 27:20.740]  It's, it's, it's fun.
[27:20.860 --> 27:28.420]  By the way, Kyle, uh, I should point out, uh, you had, uh, I don't ask how I know these things, but you got some more calls, uh, in the, in the last couple of weeks.
[27:28.980 --> 27:35.280]  We've, uh, we've been monitoring your phone line and, uh, you have all kinds of deadbeats apparently that used to have your phone number.
[27:35.700 --> 27:39.860]  And, uh, what that means is, uh, you get calls from computers demanding money.
[27:40.300 --> 27:42.260]  Um, let's, uh, we, we played a few last week.
[27:42.360 --> 27:44.020]  Here are a couple more that, uh, yes.
[27:44.580 --> 27:47.120]  Now tell me you edited this in some way or another.
[27:47.380 --> 27:49.860]  Oh, well, you know, I'm just going to play all of my, my voicemail.
[27:49.940 --> 27:54.360]  Well, uh, we might have a few personal things slip in there, passwords and things.
[27:54.460 --> 27:55.260]  I'm not, I'm not sure.
[27:55.260 --> 27:56.500]  It was kind of rushed today.
[27:56.800 --> 28:01.720]  I remember getting you a copy, but yeah, well, uh, if, if people hear anything that they shouldn't hear, just try and forget it.
[28:01.760 --> 28:03.200]  It shouldn't be too hard in this day and age.
[28:03.280 --> 28:07.060]  Next message sent yesterday at 10 AM.
[28:09.580 --> 28:13.720]  Hello, this is a message for LaDonna White.
[28:13.980 --> 28:30.440]  If you are not, LaDonna White, please hang up and call 877-1407 to remove this phone number from our records.
[28:30.920 --> 28:37.520]  If you continue to listen to this message, you are acknowledging that you are LaDonna White.
[28:37.760 --> 28:40.880]  This message contains personal and private information.
[28:41.260 --> 28:43.600]  There will now be a three second pause.
[28:46.510 --> 28:52.950]  This is EOS CCA, a collection agency, and this is an attempt to collect a debt.
[28:53.310 --> 28:56.270]  Any information obtained will be used for that purpose.
[28:57.050 --> 29:08.370]  Please contact us about this important business matter at 877-1407.
[29:08.790 --> 29:12.210]  When calling, please reference account number
[29:16.610 --> 29:18.870]  3-5-4.
[29:19.130 --> 29:29.670]  Again, the telephone number is 877-1407.
[29:29.930 --> 29:39.740]  And the account number that is needed when calling is 3-5-4.
[29:40.060 --> 29:40.820]  Thank you.
[29:41.460 --> 29:42.100]  Wow.
[29:42.400 --> 29:43.180]  End of message.
[29:43.640 --> 29:44.280]  Erase.
[29:44.360 --> 29:45.100]  Press 7.
[29:45.100 --> 29:45.680]  Voicemail kicking in there.
[29:45.840 --> 29:49.220]  That's got to be the longest one I think I've ever heard.
[29:49.460 --> 29:50.160]  So incredibly long.
[29:50.400 --> 29:50.400]  Yeah.
[29:50.460 --> 29:53.040]  I mean, as you can see, we put tones in to block the number.
[29:53.140 --> 29:53.300]  Yeah.
[29:53.400 --> 29:57.040]  And that was very considerate of us to try and protect their privacy.
[29:57.560 --> 30:07.260]  Now, what I think is fascinating is how the format for this message going down to just everything about it is almost identical going back to the first Jacob R.
[30:07.380 --> 30:08.860]  Harris messages that he was getting.
[30:09.060 --> 30:09.920]  Let's not rewrite history.
[30:10.060 --> 30:10.620]  Curtis R.
[30:10.720 --> 30:10.940]  Harris.
[30:11.360 --> 30:11.580]  Curtis R.
[30:11.720 --> 30:11.820]  Harris.
[30:12.360 --> 30:12.980]  No, no, no, no.
[30:12.980 --> 30:14.720]  I heard from a valid source.
[30:14.880 --> 30:15.560]  It was Jacob R.
[30:15.880 --> 30:15.980]  Harris.
[30:15.980 --> 30:16.300]  All right.
[30:16.400 --> 30:17.520]  Well, that might be why.
[30:17.600 --> 30:18.100]  That might be why.
[30:18.140 --> 30:19.400]  It's hard to find him.
[30:19.780 --> 30:21.660]  But Curtis did get a call.
[30:21.760 --> 30:22.980]  Let's quickly hear that call.
[30:23.360 --> 30:30.160]  Next message sent on Thursday, March 17th at 824 a.m.
[30:32.100 --> 30:37.360]  This is an important message for... Curtis Harris.
[30:37.520 --> 30:40.760]  I own you from the office of Rash Curtis and Associates.
[30:40.940 --> 30:44.540]  This is not a sales call and requires your immediate attention.
[30:44.920 --> 30:50.200]  Due to the sensitive nature of this call, no further information may be given at this time.
[30:50.440 --> 30:56.600]  Please call us back immediately at 1-866-2722.
[30:57.320 --> 31:02.960]  Again, that number is 1-866-2722.
[31:03.380 --> 31:10.900]  And refer to file number... 0-0-7-7.
[31:12.140 --> 31:13.980]  How did he make his voice do that?
[31:14.660 --> 31:15.080]  I don't know.
[31:15.260 --> 31:16.580]  He pressed a button or something?
[31:16.860 --> 31:22.180]  That was the most poorly cut and pasted phone call I think I've ever heard.
[31:22.280 --> 31:22.660]  But wow.
[31:22.820 --> 31:26.480]  They're trying all manner of approaches to get to this guy and none of them are working.
[31:26.600 --> 31:33.540]  My thought was that the tactic with that one is that he's calling to appear as an automated thing.
[31:33.700 --> 31:38.820]  And if somebody is, you know, to pick up the phone, maybe he didn't realize he was going straight to voicemail.
[31:38.900 --> 31:41.380]  And he's trying to appear like a voicemail.
[31:41.540 --> 31:42.540]  Well, I don't think he was live.
[31:42.540 --> 31:43.620]  I think he was a recording.
[31:43.940 --> 31:44.160]  Oh, you think so?
[31:44.160 --> 31:46.160]  Yeah, he was a human and he was pressing a button.
[31:46.200 --> 31:47.640]  And I think they just keep sending that.
[31:47.820 --> 31:49.580]  So he generated that message and went home.
[31:49.580 --> 31:54.640]  It did sound like a human was talking rather than a computer was talking, but it was all just a recording.
[31:54.840 --> 31:56.180]  It was a cut and paste.
[31:56.340 --> 32:01.160]  You had one guy talking, then you had a horrible other automated voice that was pasted in on key points.
[32:01.340 --> 32:03.820]  So that way you could use that same message over and over again.
[32:03.980 --> 32:10.040]  And it's so funny how these things are like, these messages are supposed to be for live people and they're getting caught on your voicemail.
[32:10.040 --> 32:11.860]  Clearly these tactics aren't working for them.
[32:12.000 --> 32:13.180]  They're not finding the people they want.
[32:13.360 --> 32:25.720]  So why don't I mean, they should try something that we know works like phishing, you know, like maybe if they put it, if they sent the message by email and put it in Comic Sans, because I hear like people who don't know about fonts trust Comic Sans or maybe do a singing telegram or like,
[32:25.800 --> 32:26.020]  you know.
[32:26.500 --> 32:33.540]  Well, the reason why this works for them is because it's it's all automated.
[32:33.700 --> 32:35.060]  They don't have to pay anybody to do this.
[32:35.200 --> 32:37.980]  It has buttons get pressed and things run for days.
[32:39.300 --> 32:43.700]  Gus and Dot Red asked before, there are actually some laws surrounding debt collection.
[32:43.700 --> 32:48.140]  So it's not legal to to lie, although they do it all the time anyway.
[32:48.440 --> 32:52.520]  But but the automated scripts tend not to lie because it's a lot easier to get caught.
[32:53.260 --> 32:56.360]  But I don't know singing telegrams have ever been tried.
[32:58.180 --> 33:01.440]  Well, as we get these things in, we'll continue to update people.
[33:01.600 --> 33:03.780]  But the ballot of Curtis Harris has yet to be written.
[33:03.900 --> 33:06.400]  I'm sure somebody will out there in listener land.
[33:06.940 --> 33:07.760]  Yes, go ahead, Bernie.
[33:07.980 --> 33:12.460]  I just want to say, Mike mentioned debt collection practices and the laws around them.
[33:12.560 --> 33:23.460]  I encourage our listeners to do some research for the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act because it's really a surprising amount of protection for consumers.
[33:23.780 --> 33:36.720]  But you have to know the rules and the laws and take advantage of them by writing your letters to these debt collectors in a way that works.
[33:37.000 --> 33:41.180]  So but I also love the modified shrink wrap license that they have.
[33:41.320 --> 33:48.060]  They provide like you when they call and say by by staying on the phone, you're acknowledging that you are so and so.
[33:48.060 --> 33:49.700]  So I just love that.
[33:49.840 --> 33:55.200]  Yeah, I know how your answering machine or voicemail is consenting to agree that it is actually a person.
[33:55.560 --> 33:56.700]  But it's fascinating.
[33:56.880 --> 34:07.700]  And if listeners have anything to share with us as far as tactics or experiences that they've had with such automated collection or any kind of automated thing calling you, we'd like to hear about it because it's a fascinating use of technology.
[34:08.400 --> 34:12.630]  Speaking of use of technology, rather speaking of a lack of technology brings us to Verizon.
[34:13.280 --> 34:20.820]  I'm still fighting them over billing practices that date back 30 years where they charge you for local calls and pay per minute.
[34:20.920 --> 34:22.780]  I just can't believe they even still do this.
[34:23.090 --> 34:27.540]  And I'm migrating phone lines away from them and various things like that, which I should have done a long time ago.
[34:27.650 --> 34:30.460]  But wow, I just had no idea it was so antiquated.
[34:30.590 --> 34:31.360]  But get this.
[34:31.540 --> 34:40.820]  It used to be you could call Verizon and get or call New York Telephone or 9x or Bell Atlantic, whatever they were called, and get a person fairly quickly.
[34:41.540 --> 34:45.020]  I complained about how long it took, but it's nothing compared to now.
[34:45.240 --> 34:48.520]  But now you get this computer that argues with you.
[34:48.540 --> 34:49.540]  I want to demonstrate this.
[34:49.780 --> 34:53.220]  If you ever call the 1-800-VERIZON numbers, get a dial tone.
[34:57.970 --> 34:59.250]  Z is 9, by the way.
[35:00.250 --> 35:00.830]  All right.
[35:01.130 --> 35:04.130]  I'm going to try to get an operator here and not talk to the computer.
[35:04.670 --> 35:06.010]  Thanks for calling Verizon.
[35:06.250 --> 35:08.910]  Also on the web at verizon.com.
[35:08.910 --> 35:12.570]  I can help you with your account or get you to someone who can help.
[35:12.590 --> 35:12.990]  Yeah, I don't want to.
[35:12.990 --> 35:14.670]  But first, I need to get some information.
[35:14.910 --> 35:18.430]  To ensure quality service, this call may be monitored or recorded.
[35:18.870 --> 35:20.770]  Para Español, marque el dos.
[35:21.570 --> 35:22.610]  I just want an operator.
[35:23.290 --> 35:25.110]  Okay, I'll transfer you to someone.
[35:25.470 --> 35:30.290]  I need a little information to figure out which type of representative would best serve you today.
[35:30.510 --> 35:31.970]  What service are you calling about?
[35:32.210 --> 35:34.010]  For cellular, press 1.
[35:34.210 --> 35:35.930]  For Fios, press 2.
[35:36.330 --> 35:38.230]  Or for something else, press 3.
[35:38.230 --> 35:39.090]  Just want an operator.
[35:39.670 --> 35:42.990]  All right, but I want to transfer you to the right customer service department.
[35:43.410 --> 35:45.090]  What service are you calling about?
[35:45.210 --> 35:46.010]  I'm going to win this argument.
[35:46.250 --> 35:47.430]  For cellular, press 1.
[35:47.650 --> 35:49.030]  For Fios, 2.
[35:49.210 --> 35:49.850]  Just an operator.
[35:50.130 --> 35:56.750]  I'm sorry, but without telling us which service you are calling about, we don't know which customer service department to transfer you to.
[35:57.310 --> 35:58.970]  What service are you calling about?
[35:59.310 --> 36:00.090]  For cellular, press 1.
[36:00.090 --> 36:01.490]  The thing is, you have to hold your ground.
[36:01.710 --> 36:02.570]  For Fios, 2.
[36:02.890 --> 36:04.610]  Or for something else, 3.
[36:04.730 --> 36:05.610]  I'm going to press 0.
[36:05.790 --> 36:06.690]  That's something else.
[36:06.690 --> 36:11.890]  I need a little information to figure out which type of representative would best serve you today.
[36:12.470 --> 36:14.830]  If that's for your home, press 1.
[36:15.090 --> 36:17.010]  For your business, press 2.
[36:18.330 --> 36:19.370]  Ah, 0.
[36:22.050 --> 36:23.150]  One moment, please.
[36:23.610 --> 36:24.030]  You see?
[36:24.210 --> 36:25.150]  That's what you have to do.
[36:25.250 --> 36:30.010]  You just have to keep hitting 0 or various other things, and eventually you'll get transferred.
[36:30.310 --> 36:32.310]  I'll transfer you to someone who can help you.
[36:32.870 --> 36:34.410]  Or try the word representative.
[36:35.970 --> 36:37.850]  Well, they didn't ask for voice things.
[36:37.870 --> 36:42.590]  During this call, we may ask permission to review your account to discuss Verizon products and services.
[36:42.890 --> 36:45.770]  Your response has no effect on services provided.
[36:46.030 --> 36:49.870]  As always, privacy of your account is your right and our duty.
[36:50.330 --> 36:53.190]  All representatives are currently assisting other customers.
[36:53.290 --> 36:53.910]  And then...
[36:53.910 --> 36:54.750]  Please stay on the line.
[36:54.750 --> 36:55.150]  Okay, fine.
[36:55.150 --> 36:57.550]  And the next available representative will assist you.
[36:57.670 --> 36:58.290]  I'm on hold.
[36:58.310 --> 37:04.390]  Or visit us on the web at myverizon.com to add or change services, view, and pay your...
[37:04.890 --> 37:07.490]  Or perform a variety of other account functions...
[37:07.490 --> 37:11.290]  But eventually, when this stops, I'll get musical holds.
[37:11.510 --> 37:13.190]  And that's really what it was all about in the first place.
[37:13.290 --> 37:14.130]  I'm pretty sure that was...
[37:14.130 --> 37:16.730]  I'm pretty sure that was GLaDOS from Portal.
[37:17.390 --> 37:17.530]  Maybe.
[37:17.530 --> 37:21.610]  When she said duty, I was a little bit concerned that she was going to try to burn me, you know?
[37:22.410 --> 37:22.590]  Uh-huh.
[37:22.590 --> 37:28.770]  Yeah, so Verizon is a real pain to work with, but eventually you get human beings.
[37:28.770 --> 37:30.510]  But there are a lot less of them than they used to be.
[37:30.630 --> 37:32.110]  So it's really sad.
[37:32.430 --> 37:40.510]  While you were doing that, I went on gethuman.com, which is a website, and it gave some direct phone numbers that allegedly at least go straight to humans.
[37:40.690 --> 37:40.910]  Oh, yeah?
[37:41.230 --> 37:42.210]  Give me the one for Verizon.
[37:44.410 --> 37:46.410]  800-567-6789.
[37:46.770 --> 37:47.110]  Really?
[37:47.330 --> 37:47.610]  Okay.
[37:47.770 --> 37:47.950]  All right.
[37:47.950 --> 37:51.310]  I haven't tried it myself, but it says it on the web, so it must be true.
[37:51.630 --> 37:54.150]  567-6789.
[37:55.050 --> 37:56.130]  We'll see about this.
[37:59.550 --> 38:00.990]  Thanks for calling Verizon.
[38:01.230 --> 38:02.990]  Also on the web at Verizon.com.
[38:02.990 --> 38:03.570]  I'm going to hit zero.
[38:04.270 --> 38:07.530]  I can help you with your account or get you to someone who can help.
[38:07.710 --> 38:09.610]  But first, I need to get some information.
[38:09.970 --> 38:12.190]  To ensure quality service, this call may be monitored or recorded.
[38:12.190 --> 38:12.550]  Yeah, nice mic.
[38:12.770 --> 38:13.150]  Very nice.
[38:13.690 --> 38:15.670]  La Espanol, marque el dos.
[38:16.950 --> 38:19.110]  I just don't think that's any different.
[38:19.110 --> 38:20.890]  That's why you shouldn't believe everything you read on the web.
[38:20.950 --> 38:21.790]  Exactly, yes.
[38:22.410 --> 38:28.370]  Well, in their defense, they basically just pulled the main number, which will get you to a human eventually.
[38:29.350 --> 38:40.990]  But I think that that kind of service might be more useful for people like eBay or PayPal, which make a point of not putting any phone numbers on their website, but only having, you know, web forms.
[38:42.190 --> 38:54.390]  And before sites like gethuman.com were really big, I remember coming across, like searching for a while, finding really nice lists of that, where they listed every phone number that was ever found for every office.
[38:54.390 --> 38:55.930]  So you could just blast everyone.
[38:56.170 --> 38:59.070]  And a lot of tech companies, they just, I mean, people don't have phones.
[38:59.230 --> 39:03.290]  I remember I was, you know, the one I was working at, there were no phones on the desk.
[39:03.370 --> 39:05.830]  It's actually been a while since I've worked at a place that had phones.
[39:05.830 --> 39:10.990]  And you have to ask special permission and like, you know, get it all wired up and things like that.
[39:11.050 --> 39:11.770]  It's not like it used to be.
[39:12.190 --> 39:19.110]  Yeah, a lot of people still, you still can get email addresses, not for a lot of these places, but phones, I run out cell phones now, I guess.
[39:20.370 --> 39:21.590]  Well, that was a bit of fun.
[39:21.670 --> 39:29.490]  We're going to take our own phone calls from hopefully human beings, 212-209-2900, if there's anything that you'd like to share with us.
[39:29.590 --> 39:31.350]  What's our policy if a computer calls us?
[39:31.950 --> 39:32.530]  We'll listen.
[39:32.710 --> 39:33.610]  We'll listen to what they have to say.
[39:33.610 --> 39:35.890]  And if they want to speak to a computer, we'll transfer them right away.
[39:36.030 --> 39:37.850]  Do we have a Turing test so we know?
[39:39.070 --> 39:40.610]  We can devise one, I suppose.
[39:41.290 --> 39:41.770]  Real quick.
[39:41.970 --> 39:43.210]  Yeah, I don't know.
[39:43.350 --> 39:45.610]  But I don't think we're quite ready for that yet.
[39:47.030 --> 39:48.510]  Yeah, other letters, though.
[39:48.610 --> 39:51.450]  You can write to us, OTH at 2600.com.
[39:52.810 --> 39:56.670]  And here's a letter from a listener.
[39:57.410 --> 39:58.650]  This is the second time I've written in.
[39:58.690 --> 40:01.190]  The first was several years ago about the misnumbered clock at Red Square.
[40:01.310 --> 40:01.930]  I remember that letter.
[40:02.730 --> 40:03.910]  Red Square here in Manhattan.
[40:04.430 --> 40:13.530]  Regarding the inability of the MTA tellers to transfer the remaining balance of an expired MetroCard to a new one.
[40:13.550 --> 40:14.670]  This is what we talked about last week.
[40:14.970 --> 40:21.290]  From the perspective of the executives in charge, the system is probably looked upon as profitable and therefore not broken.
[40:21.470 --> 40:25.990]  It's a policy of attrition intended to discourage riders from jumping through hoops to get their money back.
[40:25.990 --> 40:31.870]  This is just like prepaid Visa, MasterCard, Amex gift cards, which have declining value after a year.
[40:32.070 --> 40:35.310]  The cash value is not transferable to another card either.
[40:35.770 --> 40:43.590]  Additionally, many retailers do not accept multiple cards per transaction, so you can't use the last few bucks you have left on your gift card toward most purchases.
[40:43.850 --> 40:50.470]  The MTA is banking on the fact that most people would take one look at that prepaid envelope and give up on the dollar because it isn't worth the hassle.
[40:50.910 --> 40:55.890]  Add up all those dollars and you've got a pretty sizable chunk of change forfeited to the MTA every year.
[40:56.110 --> 41:00.130]  Most folks won't want to go do it even on principle, much less for a buck.
[41:00.350 --> 41:01.570]  I would, but I'm in the minority.
[41:01.750 --> 41:06.150]  If enough folks did mail in their cards, the MTA would change their procedures pretty quickly.
[41:06.690 --> 41:10.730]  Signed, very young, small, early peas, which is the oddest name I've heard in a long time.
[41:11.550 --> 41:16.790]  You know, I think if enough people did it, they'd stop paying for the postage and try and get us not to...
[41:16.790 --> 41:20.370]  I just can't believe they get away with making something worth nothing.
[41:20.470 --> 41:21.470]  that you've paid for it.
[41:21.650 --> 41:23.970]  Wait, wait, when did this start?
[41:23.970 --> 41:30.490]  Because I have actually walked up to a teller, said, you know, and gotten my...
[41:30.490 --> 41:31.890]  Oh no, it wasn't a teller, the machines.
[41:32.410 --> 41:38.290]  The machine asked me if I wanted my card was expired and if I wanted my balance put on a new card.
[41:38.710 --> 41:41.310]  And it was done for me and it all was good.
[41:41.450 --> 41:45.490]  And I've had two cards that didn't have a full balance I brought to the teller and they put it on one card.
[41:45.790 --> 41:47.330]  I've never heard anything about this.
[41:47.390 --> 41:47.910]  I've never experienced this.
[41:47.910 --> 41:50.790]  I've never heard of anybody using an expired card and getting money on it.
[41:50.790 --> 41:51.230]  I've taken...
[41:51.230 --> 41:52.870]  I've gotten money off an expired card.
[41:53.030 --> 41:55.090]  The machine said to me, your card's expired, would you like a new card?
[41:55.230 --> 41:56.890]  It ate my old card and gave me a new card.
[41:57.250 --> 41:59.110]  And I could tell because it wasn't worn out anymore.
[41:59.710 --> 42:00.350]  And, and...
[42:00.350 --> 42:01.710]  I have an expired card on me.
[42:01.710 --> 42:02.810]  And then I took that...
[42:02.810 --> 42:04.290]  Because I haven't nailed it in yet, believe it or not.
[42:04.330 --> 42:06.270]  And I had two cards that were in a full balance.
[42:06.330 --> 42:07.930]  I walked to the teller and they merged them.
[42:08.030 --> 42:09.530]  I've never had this issue before.
[42:10.330 --> 42:11.490]  Well, I think you will.
[42:11.750 --> 42:12.970]  I mean, is this new?
[42:13.390 --> 42:14.250]  I think it's new.
[42:14.490 --> 42:14.590]  I...
[42:15.590 --> 42:16.150]  When, when...
[42:16.150 --> 42:17.090]  No, I don't think it's new, actually.
[42:17.130 --> 42:17.630]  I think it's old.
[42:17.710 --> 42:18.890]  I think it's something that...
[42:18.890 --> 42:19.150]  I think...
[42:19.150 --> 42:21.490]  Well, why don't you try with your expired card and see what happens?
[42:21.870 --> 42:22.390]  I already tried.
[42:22.470 --> 42:23.990]  That's how I got into this mess in the first place.
[42:24.110 --> 42:25.850]  I started with the machine, wound up with the human.
[42:26.110 --> 42:27.490]  Jim's, Jim's got a deck over them.
[42:27.590 --> 42:29.290]  He's got a whole deck of Metro cards he's shuffling out.
[42:29.350 --> 42:31.910]  So I think at some point tonight, we're going to learn something more about this system.
[42:32.090 --> 42:33.950]  Are different stations better for this?
[42:34.010 --> 42:36.170]  I mean, like, if so, then we should try mapping this out.
[42:36.170 --> 42:37.870]  I don't think different stations are different.
[42:38.250 --> 42:41.950]  Well, because I could tell you what stations I was able to do this at.
[42:42.110 --> 42:42.790]  How long ago?
[42:44.010 --> 42:46.230]  I'd say within the past two years.
[42:46.370 --> 42:48.990]  It may also depend for how long your card has been expired.
[42:49.310 --> 42:50.650]  That was another question I was wondering.
[42:50.870 --> 42:52.910]  Is there a limit, say, on how...
[42:52.910 --> 42:54.190]  Expired is expired.
[42:54.310 --> 42:55.690]  There's no special expired, you know?
[42:55.690 --> 42:56.570]  Well, there might be.
[42:56.710 --> 43:00.310]  In this case, you know, expired cards I'm talking about weren't expired for very long.
[43:00.470 --> 43:01.510]  Expired for less than a month.
[43:02.110 --> 43:10.830]  Well, I think a bigger controversy is the new policy where commuter train tickets are only good for two weeks, and then they get expired, and you can't get your money back for those.
[43:10.950 --> 43:12.210]  Maybe you send them in.
[43:12.510 --> 43:14.090]  Can you send in and get money for those?
[43:14.190 --> 43:17.410]  You can't use it on the train, though, which is really ridiculous and silly.
[43:17.890 --> 43:24.650]  And again, like this reader says, or listener says, it's a way they pocket a lot of cash at our expense.
[43:24.890 --> 43:25.750]  All right, let's take some phone calls.
[43:25.830 --> 43:27.210]  212-209-2900.
[43:27.350 --> 43:27.650]  Good evening.
[43:27.790 --> 43:28.490]  You're on Off the Hook.
[43:28.870 --> 43:29.570]  Yes, hello.
[43:29.810 --> 43:30.410]  Hi, what's on your mind?
[43:30.410 --> 43:34.090]  Yes, I'd like to say, you talked about frauds earlier.
[43:34.650 --> 43:44.090]  Do you remember the Canada fraud, where they said that France was going to forgive Haiti's debts?
[43:45.110 --> 43:47.730]  Yeah, that was another one of those types of stories, yes.
[43:47.830 --> 43:50.010]  Yeah, was it the same people that put that out?
[43:50.230 --> 43:54.490]  Well, I don't know if it's necessarily the same people, but certainly the same thinking.
[43:54.910 --> 43:55.490]  The same M.O.
[43:55.650 --> 43:57.530]  Exactly, yeah, and it's a very effective one.
[43:57.530 --> 44:04.890]  Yeah, obviously so, but it was more to embarrass France, and it was more to embarrass GE, right?
[44:05.650 --> 44:09.550]  Well, I, you know, who's to say what the motives are, but that was the result for sure.
[44:09.970 --> 44:18.650]  Yeah, to have them embarrassed, probably by their stockholders and chided, more than likely that was it.
[44:19.030 --> 44:26.790]  I know the yes-men, when the yes-men have talked about it, I think they've been charged with, people said, oh, well, you're just raising people's hopes, and isn't that horrible?
[44:26.870 --> 44:30.610]  Because they did something like that with Bhopal, I think, the, was it Dow in Bhopal?
[44:31.390 --> 44:39.470]  But then, you know, I mean, that's something in and of itself, if people's hopes are suddenly raised and then dashed, is that the yes-men's fault, or should GE have taken care of that to begin with?
[44:39.470 --> 44:41.130]  No, it's waking people up.
[44:41.210 --> 44:41.970]  It's like electing Obama.
[44:42.170 --> 44:48.970]  You get people's hopes up, and yeah, they get dashed to the ground, but for that brief moment, there is hope, and maybe people see, hey, you know, things are possible.
[44:49.190 --> 44:51.850]  Maybe not in this lifetime, maybe not in the next millennium, but someday.
[44:52.050 --> 44:56.230]  Well, also, it brings more awareness to something that people might not have heard about before in general.
[44:56.430 --> 45:06.910]  So, you know, if a company is going to do something shocking, right, like this would be, obviously it's going to get covered, or hopefully it'll get covered in the news media, and then people who maybe don't know about what's going on will hear, and that's,
[45:07.010 --> 45:08.010]  I think, kind of the intention.
[45:08.010 --> 45:09.410]  Okay, let's take another phone call.
[45:09.630 --> 45:10.090]  Good evening.
[45:10.110 --> 45:10.990]  You're on off the hook.
[45:12.210 --> 45:14.190]  PK, Upstate, I turned down my radio.
[45:14.310 --> 45:14.450]  Hello?
[45:14.790 --> 45:15.330]  Yes, go ahead.
[45:15.390 --> 45:15.830]  What's on your mind?
[45:16.490 --> 45:17.530]  Oh, you're on already.
[45:17.710 --> 45:17.910]  Yes.
[45:18.830 --> 45:22.450]  Yeah, we're listening to you on an Upstate radio station.
[45:22.490 --> 45:27.430]  I'm kind of disappointed that Stuart didn't come on this week and give us any kind of an update.
[45:27.770 --> 45:29.270]  Stuart from Japan, you're talking about.
[45:29.370 --> 45:30.090]  We've heard from Stuart.
[45:30.190 --> 45:31.470]  Bernie, I think you've gotten an update from him.
[45:32.030 --> 45:32.570]  I have.
[45:32.610 --> 45:36.170]  I don't have her in front of me, but I can get back to it in a minute or so.
[45:36.170 --> 45:39.050]  You say you're listening to us on an Upstate radio station.
[45:39.050 --> 45:39.730]  What's that all about?
[45:40.250 --> 45:42.230]  Well, I am the radio station.
[45:42.610 --> 45:50.950]  You've seen one of the sister stations at H2K, and I'd like to offer, Bernie S might be in Target range.
[45:50.950 --> 45:54.450]  He's welcome to stay at the station tonight if he doesn't want to do a motel.
[45:55.030 --> 45:56.190]  What's going on up there?
[45:56.270 --> 45:57.890]  This is awfully fishy here.
[45:58.110 --> 45:59.470]  What are the call letters of the station?
[45:59.470 --> 46:03.350]  Okay, it's the Red Orchestra, clandestine to serve you better.
[46:04.270 --> 46:04.430]  Wow.
[46:04.690 --> 46:05.210]  Walton, New York.
[46:05.470 --> 46:17.190]  It's a momentarily paused in Walton, New York, and it's a 30-watt hand-built special classroom version of Veronica radio that's been on almost 11 years.
[46:18.070 --> 46:18.630]  Wow.
[46:18.850 --> 46:22.030]  How might people listen to this if they happen to be in that area?
[46:22.030 --> 46:33.850]  I have, I would say, about 3,500 or 4,000 potential, but probably there's two or three people listening right now, but they're all listening to Off the Hook.
[46:34.490 --> 46:35.070]  Uh-huh.
[46:35.170 --> 46:38.270]  But how can they find your radio stations on FM, AM, Shortwave?
[46:39.490 --> 46:46.510]  FM, it dials anywhere I want, but it's on 101.5 FM, and it's been there for a long time.
[46:46.510 --> 46:53.290]  And it's also reachable by FRS, Family Radio Service, Channel 1, and CB Channel 19.
[46:53.290 --> 47:01.650]  In fact, if a trucker wants to throw a comment only on my radio station, he calls in and the rest of the town will hear them.
[47:01.790 --> 47:03.350]  It's called Wireless Studio.
[47:04.050 --> 47:10.810]  I don't know if you remember Wireless Studio, but I've been doing it for 11 years now, and the station's temporarily poised.
[47:10.810 --> 47:20.310]  Sometimes it packs up and goes to a, you know, like a demonstration or something, not like a protest, more like, you know, school or Cub Scouts or something.
[47:20.730 --> 47:27.130]  But it's been pretty slovenly around here, and it's gearing up for summer events, spring and event.
[47:27.390 --> 47:33.030]  By the way, if you want me to call after the show, Bernie S., if he doesn't want to stay in Motel, he's welcome.
[47:33.270 --> 47:36.790]  You can email me at BernieS at 2600.com.
[47:36.890 --> 47:39.630]  I have that information from our friend Stuart in Japan.
[47:39.650 --> 47:40.370]  Okay, go ahead.
[47:40.810 --> 47:57.230]  Well, Stuart contacted us again to fill us in on things going on, and I'd ask him if he thinks the anti-nuclear power movement in Japan will gain enough political momentum to cause a phase-out of that use of power generation technology there.
[47:57.670 --> 48:00.790]  And I asked him how he's holding up there and so forth.
[48:01.050 --> 48:09.670]  He says, Stuart says, that he thinks, no, that young people there are not really politically motivated until he saw some artwork there.
[48:10.290 --> 48:11.750]  It's a really long URL.
[48:12.210 --> 48:17.250]  You can email us at OTH at 2600.com if you want, and we'll forward you the long URL.
[48:17.450 --> 48:21.450]  But he says there's some great artwork there, and he's hoping the protest movement grows.
[48:21.790 --> 48:26.450]  He says, nobody trusts TEPCO, the power generation company there.
[48:26.650 --> 48:30.050]  But the alternative will be a culture that uses a lot less electricity.
[48:30.050 --> 48:34.590]  He says, it's amazing to see the bright lights of Tokyo turned off.
[48:35.270 --> 48:36.850]  It's actually dark, he says.
[48:36.930 --> 48:40.670]  In some places where the street signs used to light up the streets below, it's completely dark.
[48:40.970 --> 48:56.250]  He also said, when I asked him how he's holding up, he says, he's doing okay, but they had a stress counselor come into his office, and they gave a talk, and it made him realize how traumatized the whole country has become, but the lessons in stress management were helpful.
[48:57.190 --> 49:03.590]  So it's good to get this feedback from our listeners who are all over the world, and I'm hoping he stays in touch with us.
[49:03.670 --> 49:06.010]  And we'll try to get him back on the air in the next couple of weeks as well.
[49:06.090 --> 49:06.470]  Yes, go ahead.
[49:07.410 --> 49:10.030]  Yeah, before I get cut off, I just want to give...
[49:10.030 --> 49:16.710]  If anybody wants to have a pirate radio station, write to the Radio Literacy Project.
[49:16.710 --> 49:18.010]  I hope you pass this around.
[49:18.290 --> 49:20.370]  Radio Literacy Project, P.O.
[49:20.410 --> 49:31.390]  Box 23, that's 2-3, Hamden, spelled H-A-M-D-E-N, New York, 13782.
[49:31.710 --> 49:37.530]  And a pirate will be assigned to your case, your pirate station, designed suitable to your needs.
[49:38.130 --> 49:38.610]  All right.
[49:38.690 --> 49:44.350]  Well, I'm sure it's being passed around in all sorts of circles now, and we'll see just what comes of that.
[49:44.450 --> 49:44.630]  Thanks.
[49:44.710 --> 49:46.190]  Thanks for your courage and for doing what you do.
[49:46.230 --> 49:47.210]  It's fascinating.
[49:47.230 --> 49:48.470]  People need to be doing more of that.
[49:48.790 --> 49:49.670]  Let's take some more phone calls.
[49:49.730 --> 49:50.050]  Good evening.
[49:50.170 --> 49:50.750]  You're on Off the Hook.
[49:51.370 --> 49:52.090]  Hey, how are you doing?
[49:52.250 --> 49:52.870]  Hi, what's on your mind?
[49:53.930 --> 49:55.450]  Well, first of all, I agree with you.
[49:55.930 --> 49:57.090]  It's not just the NCA.
[49:57.490 --> 50:06.670]  A lot of these places that used to give checks for honorarians or whatever, they now have figured out if they can put it on gift cards.
[50:06.670 --> 50:11.210]  They used to put it on one gift card, and it would regenerate, which would be fine.
[50:11.350 --> 50:13.730]  But now they're giving you, like, these separate gift cards.
[50:13.950 --> 50:17.130]  Once it gets for two or three bucks, you can't use them separately.
[50:17.290 --> 50:19.850]  You can't consolidate them.
[50:20.470 --> 50:25.230]  And C, like you said, vendors won't accept more than one card at a time.
[50:25.230 --> 50:33.730]  I mean, they made it so that if you want to use it, you have to pay everything up to that balance on the purchase.
[50:34.570 --> 50:39.510]  At which point, I mean, that's so complicated, I don't know if anybody would do that anyway.
[50:39.790 --> 50:44.290]  So they obviously pocket that money because they don't have to use it anymore if they promised it to somebody.
[50:44.550 --> 50:47.950]  And then, like you said, they make a fair amount of change aggregately, I guess.
[50:48.510 --> 50:50.910]  Yeah, that's how it works, unfortunately.
[50:51.150 --> 50:53.150]  And it just gets swept under the rug.
[50:53.570 --> 51:02.250]  Well, the other question I have is, as far as the MPA is concerned, are you sure that once it's expired, they won't give you your money back?
[51:02.470 --> 51:05.790]  Oh, no, they'll give it back, at least for a while.
[51:05.790 --> 51:07.890]  But you have to send it in to them.
[51:08.070 --> 51:09.530]  They give you a postage-paid envelope.
[51:09.650 --> 51:12.910]  The main point I was making was that there's only a dollar on my card.
[51:12.910 --> 51:19.870]  And they've already spent money on the postage-paid envelope that they handed me, and presumably they're going to mail me something back, which is more postage.
[51:19.990 --> 51:22.650]  They've spent probably more than the dollar, or it's approaching a dollar at least.
[51:22.790 --> 51:32.970]  And if I was a real wise guy, I'd have five-cent Metro cards out there, and I'd just keep getting envelopes and sending it to them every day, and I'd single-handedly drive the MTA into bankruptcy even further.
[51:32.970 --> 51:44.270]  The last thing is, along those lines, the last thing is, didn't they pass legislation that stopped cards from being depleted by service charges after a certain point of the period?
[51:44.950 --> 51:50.750]  You used to have a big deal when you had a $10 card, and a $20 card, and if you didn't use it for two or three years, you lost it.
[51:51.030 --> 51:53.790]  You ended up getting a zero balance eventually.
[51:53.790 --> 51:54.290]  Gift cards.
[51:54.470 --> 52:05.830]  Some states have enacted legislation that were enacted laws to make it illegal for gift card companies to do that, but not every state has done that, and it doesn't apply to mass transit agencies.
[52:06.890 --> 52:08.610]  Emanuel, you'd also lose your privacy.
[52:08.610 --> 52:19.330]  If you sent in a card with some remaining unused fares on it to have reinstated, then they would know who you are and your address and where you've gone, wouldn't you?
[52:19.330 --> 52:20.510]  Well, maybe.
[52:20.750 --> 52:23.050]  There's nothing to say that I've used those cards myself.
[52:23.050 --> 52:27.630]  Maybe I'm simply collecting them, or people are donating to me because I've asked them to do that.
[52:27.930 --> 52:31.810]  Also, if you're purchasing them with a credit card, they have that information anyway.
[52:32.250 --> 52:32.970]  That's true, too.
[52:33.110 --> 52:36.530]  But if you're just buying, like, putting a nickel on each card, they're not going to know.
[52:37.150 --> 52:38.810]  Well, no, you don't put a nickel on it.
[52:38.810 --> 52:47.890]  You just have a nickel left, and it's not hard to do that if you use MetroCards, because nobody can ever figure out how to get it to end in an even number anyway with all the bonuses they add.
[52:47.890 --> 52:50.730]  There was a... I can't remember the URL, but there was a website.
[52:50.950 --> 52:52.670]  It was, like, MetroCard Calculator.
[52:52.730 --> 52:54.810]  Yeah, and then they changed the fare, and that didn't work anymore.
[52:54.990 --> 52:55.350]  Oh, really?
[52:55.450 --> 52:58.150]  If anybody knows what the actual number is now, I'd like to know what it is.
[52:58.150 --> 53:02.330]  The website is MetroCardBonusCalculator.com, and it will tell you the number.
[53:02.430 --> 53:16.690]  Okay, how about one of us, one of us tech-savvy people here in the remaining minutes we have, go to that website so we can tell our listeners what amount they can put on their MetroCards so they don't have that annoying little balance left over, and they can actually use the thing and wind up with zero.
[53:16.690 --> 53:28.850]  You know, I would like to say that for some of us, this is a bit of a non-issue, because if you, say, look at the price of some of these unlimited MetroCards, and you divide it by the, you know, amount...
[53:28.850 --> 53:35.130]  Well, but basically, you multiply the, you know, however many times you use it over a regular commute for that period of time, and if...
[53:35.130 --> 53:37.050]  Yeah, obviously, if you're unlimited, it's not going to apply.
[53:37.310 --> 53:38.710]  Well, yeah, and that's the whole point.
[53:38.810 --> 53:54.190]  You know, I know that, you know, the number of fares that I would have to spend on my normal commutes adds up to slightly more than the cost for an unlimited MetroCard monthly, that I can use, or weekly, I can use that, and, well, yeah, then it's not an issue anymore.
[53:54.210 --> 53:55.410]  Okay, we have an answer.
[53:55.530 --> 53:56.010]  Red Hat, go ahead.
[53:56.010 --> 53:59.230]  Yeah, if you add $35.75...
[53:59.230 --> 53:59.530]  That much?
[54:00.450 --> 54:05.750]  You get a bonus of $250, and it makes a total of $38.25, which is exactly 17 reds.
[54:05.770 --> 54:07.990]  You know, it used to be I only had to put about $15 on.
[54:08.030 --> 54:11.010]  Now I've got to put $35 on in order to have a zero of that?
[54:11.110 --> 54:17.630]  You can split it up among two transactions, so you can do $20, and then whatever Red Hat just said, minus $20.
[54:18.110 --> 54:21.010]  Yeah, you could just, you could put $20 to start, and then later add...
[54:21.010 --> 54:21.750]  Won't the bonus be different?
[54:21.850 --> 54:23.110]  It'll still add up to the same thing.
[54:23.110 --> 54:23.970]  It'll still add up.
[54:24.030 --> 54:28.850]  As long as you put enough each time to get the bonus, there's some floor below which you don't get any bonus.
[54:29.010 --> 54:31.730]  But as long as you get the bonus, you can split it up among multiple transactions.
[54:31.750 --> 54:38.330]  And actually, this website will tell you, if you put in a starting balance, it will tell you how much you need to do to make an equal.
[54:38.370 --> 54:43.790]  So if you have something with, you know, $0.70 left on it, you can put that as your starting balance, and it'll...
[54:43.790 --> 54:45.350]  So the number again is how much?
[54:46.390 --> 54:47.030]  $35.75.
[54:47.230 --> 54:50.630]  So you put $35.75 on an empty MetroCard, you'll wind up with a zero balance.
[54:50.630 --> 54:54.190]  So if you put $20 and then another $15.75 at some point...
[54:54.190 --> 54:59.030]  That's if you're paying the regular fare, and it has options for if you have different fares that, you know, senior, et cetera, et cetera.
[54:59.030 --> 54:59.910]  Well, let's not make it too complicated.
[55:00.030 --> 55:02.690]  We only have a minute or so left to see if we can get through any more phone calls.
[55:02.750 --> 55:03.010]  Good evening.
[55:03.110 --> 55:03.610]  You aren't off the hook.
[55:04.370 --> 55:09.130]  Yes, real quick, and forgive me, I joined late, so if you answered this question, I have two of them real quick.
[55:09.130 --> 55:12.110]  The first is, how are plans going for the next HOPE conference?
[55:12.590 --> 55:19.830]  And B, is there any way for your PBX there to signal the central office switch so that when I've been ringing, why don't I get dropped from your queue?
[55:20.010 --> 55:21.050]  Maybe hold the circuit up.
[55:21.090 --> 55:24.390]  Yeah, I don't know of a way to do that from within our PBX.
[55:25.510 --> 55:27.630]  It's a routing issue, I believe.
[55:27.730 --> 55:30.470]  The phone company has things time out.
[55:30.530 --> 55:32.630]  If you don't connect, it'll disconnect you after a while.
[55:32.630 --> 55:38.310]  Well, one way we could get around that is fielding calls, putting them on hold, then you'll just be on hold for a while.
[55:38.830 --> 55:39.930]  As for HOPE No.
[55:40.010 --> 55:45.350]  9, which is our next conference being planned for summer of 2012, yeah, we're planning it.
[55:45.410 --> 55:46.310]  We're working on things.
[55:46.370 --> 55:47.090]  We're talking to people.
[55:47.330 --> 55:50.690]  In fact, the HOPE forums are back up rather quietly.
[55:51.330 --> 55:56.670]  So if you meander over to talk.hope.net, you'll see a whole bunch of places where you can start posting.
[55:56.810 --> 55:57.830]  I don't think there's anything there yet.
[55:57.830 --> 55:59.910]  We just sort of turned it on to see what would happen.
[56:00.050 --> 56:02.090]  And within three seconds, somebody posted spam.
[56:02.090 --> 56:07.570]  But we're going to have that all figured out, and hopefully a lot of good ideas and new projects.
[56:08.090 --> 56:14.870]  We also don't take the calls in the order that we get them, so it's not a huge advantage to hold your position in the queue.
[56:15.030 --> 56:15.350]  That's true.
[56:15.550 --> 56:16.610]  One last call, very quickly.
[56:16.670 --> 56:16.910]  Good evening.
[56:17.010 --> 56:17.470]  You're on off the hook.
[56:17.750 --> 56:19.270]  Oh, no, that's too quick.
[56:19.550 --> 56:19.950]  Let's try this one.
[56:19.990 --> 56:20.230]  Good evening.
[56:20.330 --> 56:20.890]  You're on off the hook.
[56:21.870 --> 56:22.450]  Speak up.
[56:23.210 --> 56:23.830]  Yeah, hello.
[56:24.950 --> 56:30.830]  Yeah, I was going to say, yeah, with the calls, if they expired more than a year, they're not transferable.
[56:30.830 --> 56:33.990]  You're saying they won't give you any money if you mail them in after a year?
[56:34.710 --> 56:37.110]  Oh, no, in terms of transferring a card.
[56:37.110 --> 56:37.530]  Oh, okay.
[56:38.210 --> 56:41.610]  So you're saying you could transfer it for up to a year, and then you have to mail it in?
[56:41.830 --> 56:42.130]  Right.
[56:42.270 --> 56:42.530]  Okay.
[56:42.650 --> 56:45.830]  Okay, that makes more sense, and that sort of validates what Dotret was saying, too.
[56:46.070 --> 56:47.630]  So thanks for that clarification.
[56:47.630 --> 56:49.570]  As always, our listeners come through for us.
[56:50.310 --> 56:51.550]  That's it for us this week.
[56:51.970 --> 56:53.590]  We'll be back again next week with more fun.
[56:53.890 --> 56:56.790]  Write to us, O-T-H at 2600.com.
[56:56.850 --> 56:57.710]  Are you ready?
[57:02.760 --> 57:06.540]  We'll be back.
[57:07.720 --> 57:09.060]  Write to us, O-T-H at
[57:32.150 --> 57:54.330]  2600.com.
[58:01.520 --> 58:04.360]  Hey, I've been taking care of you.
[58:05.120 --> 58:07.100]  I've been taking care of you.
[58:07.100 --> 58:07.260]  This is the second one.
[58:14.440 --> 58:15.380]  I've been taking care of you.
[58:21.780 --> 58:22.620]  Steady!
[59:01.780 --> 59:01.900]  This is the second one.
[59:02.120 --> 59:04.300]  Oh,
[59:07.740 --> 59:08.140]  my God.
[59:10.140 --> 59:11.540]  Oh,
[59:15.500 --> 59:17.180]  my God.
[59:18.480 --> 59:21.860]  Oh, my God.
[01:00:15.740 --> 01:00:19.160]  All right, you're listening to WBAI.
[01:00:19.400 --> 01:00:27.880]  Hey, they're gonna catch that guy, that Craigslist guy, because the IP address is on file.