Especially the time of the people who are about to go on the air right now, which happens
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now.
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And you are listening to WBAI from a remote location.
It's just about seven o'clock.
Time for Off The Hook.
And you're listening to Off The Hook as we scramble to get things put together this week.
We seem to have gotten worse at this in a week.
This is Emmanuel, joined tonight by Kyle and I think Alex, are you there?
I am indeed.
Oh, good.
Can you guys hear me?
We hear you.
Do you hear us?
I do indeed.
All right.
We're trying to get Rob and Gila on, but for some reason we can hear them, but they can't
hear us.
And I don't know why that is.
We can hear you now.
Wait, where did you come from?
We can hear you now.
Wait, wait, wait, wait.
How did we even connect to them again?
We disconnected them.
They reconnected somehow?
Okay, fine.
But Rob couldn't hear us.
Yeah.
Yes.
We were connected all together before, but Rob couldn't hear us.
Then you, I think you tried to disconnect just Rob, but you wound up disconnecting everybody.
And then when you reconnected the call, somehow magically we can all hear each other.
That is weird.
So we must have had a bad circuit or something on Skype.
That's the only explanation I can think of.
How are you guys doing this week?
We're well.
We're well.
Thank you for asking.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I want more detail than that.
Come on, it's been one hell of a week.
Alex?
Sure, I'll go first on that one.
I'll put it this way.
The last two weeks, I have been struggling with potential symptoms of the coronavirus.
In the last two shows, I've had a cup of hot tea next to me.
I feel so much better this week.
I have a pint of Guinness next to me right now.
So that's, you know, one way of gauging relative health, whether you're drinking tea or Guinness,
although you know, the old ads for Guinness, they Guinness makes you, may I get, what's
going on here?
Oh, yeah, so I'm doing much better and, you know, I did have a bit of a relapse last Friday
as well, which happened the previous Friday, where I had a spike in a fever all of a sudden,
and a sort of massive headache that went along with it, but I just, I took it easy, took
it easy on Saturday, the fever broke, and I feel great now, and I'm at the point where,
you know, I really think I can be reunited with my wife and my kids, I think pretty soon,
now that this is all over, I still don't have an answer one way or the other as to whether
or not I did, in fact, have the coronavirus, I certainly had many symptoms of it, but because
my symptoms weren't severe enough to warrant a, getting tested, I just don't know.
I think it's possible I could get tested now, after the fact, to identify the presence of
antibodies, as some of our listeners have wrote in, too, with some offers for help,
and that's very kind of them, and I think that's something I need to look into, is to
this sort of post-hoc testing, and at this point, it sounds weird to say, but I hope
that I did have the coronavirus, and I hope that it was something that presented itself
mildly, symptomatically, because if that is the case, then I'll have some strong antibodies
that can hopefully help protect me against this in the future, and that might be valuable
to others as well.
Yeah, I mean, living through the virus basically gives you a superpower now, right?
You can basically go frolic and romp out in the world without worry, I think, right?
Is that how that works?
I can start licking the subway poles again.
That was the hardest thing to give up, right?
Wow.
I'm nodding, like you can see us.
I keep forgetting, I'm sorry.
This is radio.
Don't forget, this is radio.
Nobody else can see you.
I'm trying to remember.
You've also got Guinness, which is something you're definitely not allowed to do in the
studio, so we can take our advantages from doing this from our own various locations
and go from there.
Alex, just take us back a little bit.
When did this all begin, and how has your status changed from the beginning to now?
Yeah, well, it started about two weeks ago.
Just maybe a little bit over two weeks ago when I had decided that I was going to leave
the city and come out to our, we have a little weekend place out in the Poconos Mountains
in Pennsylvania.
We're very lucky to have this kind of spot, and so I left about a day and a half ahead
of my family.
The idea for me was to come out here, get the house ready, go back to Manhattan, pick
up the wife and the kids, except the Sunday that I was here, ahead of the Monday I was
intending to come back to the city, I started to feel really sick.
That next morning, I started running a fever, had a bunch of body aches, fatigue, massive
headaches, a lot of pain behind my eyes as well, but no respiratory symptoms, thank God,
but given that I had just come from the city, that I was on the subway recently, in fact,
it was just a couple of days before that we did our last in-studio show at WBII for Off
the Hook, and then we went out to dinner after that, of course, and so I've been in the office
all over the city, the timing of it, really, and the symptoms made it seem like it could
very well be the coronavirus, so since that time, I have actually been holed up here and
isolated by myself at the house with nothing other than an aggressively affectionate beagle
to keep me company, and my wife and kids wound up leaving the city as well, and thank God,
they are only about 45 minutes away over at my in-laws, also in Pennsylvania, this way,
if there was any interstate travel ban, at least we'd still be in the same state, and
they're staying with my in-laws, who are in their 70s, and so it's been very important
for me not to mingle with them, and then as a parent, especially a parent of two kids,
one of whom is very young, you often dream about the ability to get away from your wife and kids
for a couple of days, and now having been away from them for two weeks, I can tell you, all you
want to do is get back together with them, I miss my wife, I miss my kids with all of my heart,
it breaks my heart to think that I haven't held or touched them in two weeks, and so in as much
as you can dream about having a break as a parent, the circumstances under which you take that break
really matter, and I really, I just cannot wait to hold my children and kiss my wife again.
Yeah, that's unimaginable. We totally get it. I mean, we haven't been dealing with our own
illness, thankfully, but we've been dealing with just people in our lives, both falling ill,
and people that we just have to worry about, that we especially can't get anywhere near. We
have friends who live in this apartment building with us that are just at particular risk. We
haven't been able to go over, say hi, do anything, and yeah, it's just this, it's this whole weird
sense of, I mean, I really feel for you, Alex, because like, you are going through this stuff
without your family to hand, and Gila and I, I would probably both be going nuts if we weren't,
you know, we didn't have each other in our shared home, you know? Yeah, things here are getting a
little, I don't know, we're getting ready for Passover, and this is a huge way that the virus
and the lockdown have affected our family, both our little nuclear family here, and also our
extended family. We were supposed to be flying to Wisconsin next week to celebrate Passover
with my family, with my mom, and my brother, and my sister-in-law, and I was going to be there for
all of Passover, so all the stuff that needs to be done to get ready to celebrate Passover,
we were not worrying about until like last week. So all of a sudden, there's stuff to prepare,
and there's stuff to clean, and there's stuff to buy, and panic attacks to be had in the grocery
store. Yeah, for those unfamiliar, it's a very intensive preparation that goes into the whole
thing. So we were at the grocery store last night getting essentials, and a woman yelled at me for
not wearing a face mask in the grocery store, and I cried in the grocery store. So that's how my week
has been, crying in the grocery store. Well, you know, this is really crazy, because a couple of
weeks ago, we were being told not to wear masks. Now people are saying, oh, maybe you should wear masks.
We're being told one thing differently every single week. I can see the argument for
both sides. Obviously, if you're sick, you shouldn't be out at all, but if you don't
know you're sick, then maybe you should be wearing a mask. However, we've been told almost repeatedly
for the last few months that people who aren't sick shouldn't wear masks. So you can be
forgiven for not knowing what the right thing to do is. Yeah, and it's within the context of
staying within that six-foot range from someone, but what if you're in a circumstance where you
cannot, like you're in public transportation, or you're going about trying to survive, and you come
into close proximity to someone, then that risk can compound. And so people are reconsidering
the original advisory, which was mostly because supplies were lacking so much, and it needed to be
available for health care workers and people that are really dealing with very, very ill people.
But in any event, it's unforgivable to yell at somebody like that, and I think what you're
seeing are people reacting out of fear and lashing out. It's strange, you know, out here on Long
Island, it's been pretty calm. At least the places we've gone has been pretty calm. How many times
have you been to a supermarket, Kyle? Like maybe three or four times, and people have been, you
know, there have been things, you know, available, not toilet paper okay. I noticed this week
barriers are really popular. A lot of retail places are putting up like lexan, or plexiglass,
or polycarbonate protectors, or like things to either protect the employees, or customers,
or vice versa. I guess just basically having that clear window there for like high traffic areas.
Between you and the cashier, yeah. But you know, what I've noticed, well, we tend to go later in
the day so that there's less people there, and there really are less people. We went to a supermarket
last week. There was only one other person in the entire place, and this is a big supermarket,
and we were aware of each other's existence and keeping our distance. But you know, in,
I don't want to say in a pleasant way, but not in a hostile way. Everybody's just aware of what's
going on, and we know the rules. We know what's safe and what's not safe, and I think people are
trying at least to be calm, and you just, you find these little acts of kindness every now and then.
I just tweeted this, and Gila, you might appreciate this. I got a huge box, I think five-pound box of
matzos for free at Stop and Shop. It's not an advertisement, but I don't know, they had some
kind of weird, I don't know if they're trying to deplete the supply, because they had a lot of them,
and it's basically, if you have that card that you can just say you forgot, it's free. It just
says it in big letters, and I couldn't believe it, and now we have a year's supply, I think.
Yes, lots of correct. So I will say that I am envious, but also in an interesting
manner of speaking, sometimes you see the five-pound boxes, we're really getting in the
weeds in here, and I apologize. Five-pound boxes of matzo, you'll see kind of, there's either
they're gouging prices on that, or they are loss leaders, and it's like, if you get, you know, 30,
50, 100 dollars of whatever will kick in five pounds of matzo for free. Matzo is often a loss
leader for Passover groceries. It's fascinating. Yeah, I think it's a loss leader this time,
if that's the phrase, because they're really trying to get rid of it. Yeah, there's really
odd deals. We've noticed other places that had like a whole lot of one particular type of
hand soap, and it just filled the entire like aisle. There was no other choice, just a lot
of these neatly arranged hand soap bottles. It was from Turkey, right? Yeah, it was Turkish.
Turkish hand soap, and that's all they had, and they basically, they spread it so that they had
basically one, and then next to it another one, and there's room for 20 behind it, but they only
had the one, but they made it spread throughout the whole aisle, and since we were the only one
of two people in there, or one of three people in there, it looked like they had a lot more than
they actually did. Could you remind us of where that was, because I think Kyle came in a little
muffled up at the outset. It's just another retail grocery store. Oh my goodness, yeah,
incredible. I was about to say, I on the other hand haven't had any experiences like that,
because I have just been by myself indoors without, I literally have been going days and days
without seeing any people. There's a little beach area down where I'm walking the dog.
We're lucky enough to live near a lake right here, and the other day I went over there,
and the police were hanging out at the beach area, and as they saw me coming in with the
keffiyeh essentially over my face, in case I coughed or anything, they just took that as
their sign to leave, and then we had the whole area to ourselves. Wow, you figured out how to
make cops flee. Yeah, I love the idea of just, you know, the sight of me makes police leave,
and I guess you can do that now. If you just put like a little keffiyeh or kind of Middle Eastern
looking scarf over your face, it's kind of scary looking, especially if you have a beagle with you.
Cops just leave you alone at that point. Well, it's scary looking if you don't know anything
about people, but yeah, wow, okay, that's interesting. Well, now let me just ask the
question, where do you think we are as a society right now, as opposed to a week ago? Have we
made advances? I've been hearing that there's progress, that the social distancing or physical
distancing seems to be having an effect, that numbers aren't going up as fast as they were
before or as much as has been feared, and there are companies that are tracking people on
thermometers that check in with temperatures from around the country,
so I think there is a bit of hope on that front, but then we've also heard that a good death toll,
something that Trump thinks would be a success, is up to 240,000 people dead in this country alone,
which I still have not processed. I can't get my head around that.
Even if you look at the so-called Spanish flu from 1918 through 1920, I think the total number
of people in this country that died was something like 600,000, and that was something that we
thought would never happen again in this country. To say that we're up in the triple digits of
thousands again is just staggering, and of course, we've also heard people say the numbers could be
up to 2.5 million, and at that point, it becomes hard to even figure out what that means in your
head. It's just the numbers get so huge and so shocking. At a certain point, the numbers stop
meaning anything to a human brain, and we're just coming up on that, and watching where things are
trending, maybe things are slowing down now. Other people are saying that we're looking for things to
trend upward again in another week or so, just based on the whole cycle of how this thing works.
I think where we are as a society, we were out today picking up some things from the local shops
and a chain drugstore and things in the neighborhood, and people seem to be just a
little, I won't say a lot more on edge than they were last week. There are a lot more masks out
there, and there are a lot of people who are now starting to, I think, do a double take and back
away a little if they see you not wearing a mask, which is interesting. While we're out there
running errands, we kind of cut a line through the crowd as we were going around without
masks in public, but that's the way of things right now. I think by and large,
barring a few exceptions, by and large, I think people are just knuckling down and
kind of doing what they have to right now and still keeping their cool for the most part.
Yeah, I mean, I tend to agree with that, and to go back to Emanuel's original
question about those statistics, I think you're absolutely right, Rob. It's very
difficult for the human mind to grapple with those types of numbers, and those are high numbers,
and to know that those numbers represent human lives, it's an incredible thing,
and it's also extraordinarily terrifying, and I think it's very hard to just
process all of this on a daily basis because it's so overwhelming. I mean, you wake up to it,
you go to sleep to it. I think it's very important for people's mental well-being and
the overall health of their psyche is to try to distance yourself from this as much as you can
during the day, and to try to limit your intake of this horrible news to maybe an hour or
something per day. I really feel like it's very, very difficult for us to process that,
and that the social distancing and the isolation that we are experiencing is exacerbated by this
horrendous news that we are constantly being bombarded with over and over and over again,
literally minute by minute during the day, and so we need these welcome distractions. We need
the outlets for us to put our efforts and minds into something positive, and I think a lot of us
are trying to do that on social media and even places like LinkedIn, offering some welcome
distractions, but what I will say is that as a society, what I am really given tremendous heart
about is the ability to which we have rallied around these essential and critical healthcare
workers to see doctors, nurses, nurse practitioners, any kind of medical professional from
all around the country coming into New York and really stepping up and doing this job is
absolutely incredible, and I think that's something we can all be very proud of.
Absolutely. Can I just say, okay, we're trying to figure out what that noise is. Now,
who's making that noise? Fess up, whoever you are.
We're hearing it. It's coming from one of you guys.
Well, it's not coming from us because our mic is down, so it's one of you guys,
so let's figure this out. We're hackers. We should be able to do this.
I noticed the noise has stopped. It's a noise.
Yeah, so the noise stopped now, so whatever one of you was doing, you stopped doing it,
so what could that have been? Do you know how quiet it is?
It was a noise like something dragging. Yeah, so who was dragging something?
Not I, should lie. It's not me.
I don't think it was me. We're going to figure out who it was,
folks. We're going to figure that out because I'm very impatient with new technology giving me all
these compromises in quality. Yeah, we're not trying to have the blooper
reel of how not to do radio, okay? This is a radio show. We're talking about what's going on right
now. Everyone's on lockdown. Everyone is making terrible Skype calls, so we're going to make this
a nice Skype call. Yeah, and we're on really short fuses here,
too, so let's just remind people of that. All right, Rob, I believe you were saying something.
Yeah, to the point of where we are versus last week, too, I think another thing that's really
come into focus for a lot of people is this is a whole other week for people to experience the
virus, if not firsthand, then in their immediate sphere. Maybe a week ago, it was more of a thing
that was out there somewhere, that was a distant thought, but I know in the past week, we've known
who have fallen ill. We've known of a couple of fatalities now in our various social circles,
families, and so I think people this week are much more likely to have felt the actual sting of this
crisis versus a week ago when it might have been more of a thing that was just out in the world
somewhere but didn't affect them yet. Yeah, that proximity is something we all need to
realize when we talk about these higher numbers like millions of people perishing from this
particular microbe. Yeah, think about it. It's, what, 4,000 now, and we're talking it could go
up to a couple of million, or if we're lucky, just over 100, 200,000, so yes, if you don't
know somebody now or if you're not directly affected by this, that's going to change for sure.
Absolutely. There's just mathematically no way around that. If you're not going to get sick,
someone you're close to, well, that's just what's going to happen. Yeah.
So, let's not detract from the seriousness of the situation. At the same time, we need to stay sane,
we need to keep our sense of humor. A lot of people have been doing really good things inside,
creating all sorts of different ways with music, video, writing, and just reaching out to other
people. That's what we need to continue to do, because like we've been saying from the beginning
of this nightmare, we're all in it together, and we are. It's not just happening in this city,
in this state, even in this country. It's happening all around the world. We're all
going through this. Yeah, there are some places like Brazil and Belarus and Florida where they
try to deny that this is happening. That's a tragedy, and it's an outrage. Hopefully,
people will correct them and make sure we all get through this, because it's the community action
that makes all the difference. That is why we've seen some changes. That's why some parts of the
world have seen marked declines. The crisis is far from over, but that is something that deserves
to be noted. When we say we're all in this together, I want to make sure people know
to include their landlords in that, because they should not be left out of the community feeling
of all of us making sacrifices. If you have a landlord, be nice to them and tell them that
you can't pay the rent this month because you're not getting any income this month.
I don't see why that's a hard thing to understand and why there's a particular
group of people that expect to get 100% of what they're owed, while everybody else
has to bear with all this hardship. If we're all going to bear with hardship,
then we're all in it together. We all must make these sacrifices. Right now, we are on pause,
and that means not paying the rent. If you're not getting income, if you've lost your job,
you can't continue paying for things that you can no longer afford through no fault of your own.
Everybody needs to understand that right now. We are on pause. We are going to figure out how
to get out of this together. The moment we start saying, you've got to take care of this,
and we're not going to take care of it, it's all going to fall on you and not us,
that is when we start having major, major problems. I hope we're able to keep the community
feeling together. Know that we're all hurting. We're all suffering. Don't expect 100% from
anybody because you're not going to get it. If you're hurting, know that you're not alone. Know
that we are going to have your back one way or another, and we all have to stand up for each
other. I really hope that resonates. Yeah. To that point, with respect to
the withholding of rent, I think it's important to note that from a legal perspective,
if you don't pay your rent, a landlord can try to evict you, but it's not your landlord
that can evict you. The landlord cannot do it without the assistance of the court. The court
is the only entity that can evict a tenant, and that means that the landlord would have to make
an application to evict you to a court, and a judge will have to rule on that. That's going
to take a long time. That takes a long time, and you can really gum up the works on an eviction
proceeding, even when we're not in the throes of a hysterical pandemic affecting the entire world
and peaking in the city of New York. Just something to bear in mind, that your landlord
can call you and send you nasty and threatening letters, but he cannot evict you without the court.
And if I could just step in and just observe from my hacker perspective,
it seems when you talk, Alex, that's when that mystery noise returns. Now, what could be causing
that? Seriously? There's literally no noise here. I mean, maybe it's just some ambient noise,
or just perhaps the microphone. Are you waving a flag whenever you speak or something? What does
it sound like to you, Kyle? It sounds like a snoring beagle. Do you have a dog that falls
asleep when you talk? You know, weirdly enough, Kyle, there is a snoring beagle right next to me,
but I don't think she's snoring that loud. You're the only one with a snoring beagle of all of us,
so I think you've moved to the top of the suspect list now. You can't even see that in the video,
but Kyle, you got that exactly right. There is a snoring beagle literally about two feet to my
right. I will show you guys. I don't know if you can see that. That's not going to do much for our
radio listeners. Yeah, nobody's here for the video. She's fit for radio just like me, but
yeah, I don't know. I'll go on mute when I'm not talking. By the way, we are going to try something
new tonight in just a little bit. We're going to try to take phone calls. Yeah, we're actually
going to try to do this. It's probably going to be a disaster. Please bear with us. It's possible
that some of us might not be able to hear the callers, but we have tested it out and it does
work theoretically, so we'll at least try to do that. We'll give the number out later. It's not
the same number, so don't call that one, but first a couple of stories because I think it's important
to continue keeping up to date with the news. The news is interesting in many, many ways.
Now, we all have heard about the ventilator shortage and the crisis that we're all facing
from having so few of them. A story that was on Vice really caught my attention. As hospitals
face the prospect of a critical ventilator shortage caused by the worst public health
crisis in a century, they face another problem. I think we all know what it is,
not being able to repair the ventilators that they do have. That's because like John Deere
and Apple and so many other electronics companies, the major device manufacturers have spent the last
several years cementing a repair monopoly. They've done this by lobbying against legislation that
would make it easier to repair machines, keeping access to repair guides out of the hands of
independent repair professionals, and using software controls to limit who can perform
repairs. Now, Trump has said that states are more or less on their own when it comes
to securing devices like ventilators, which are necessary to treat people with critical
cases of COVID-19. Try getting it yourselves, Trump recently said. New York Governor Andrew
Cuomo, meanwhile, said that the state is struggling to create enough ICU beds for
the expected number of people who will be sick, and getting enough ventilators remains the
challenge, and the numbers are daunting. You can't find a ventilator for sale.
We're looking desperately, and core to the fight against coronavirus then will be keeping the
ventilators hospitals do have online. Many of them are not empowered to fix their own machines
because of the exact same issue outlined with John Deere tractors and other devices. Medical
devices, including ventilators, have gotten more complicated over the years. They are now controlled
by microprocessors and software. Now, that complexity hasn't made them more difficult
to repair, but manufacturers have artificially put software locks on them, meaning that only
those who are authorized can make modifications. We have talked about this so many times in the
past with regards to software, DVD players, automobiles, and now we're seeing this attitude
literally costing lives. I think it should be a crime to have an artificial software lock
that prevents anyone from being able to repair something as critical as a ventilator.
Now, I know you guys out there have some strong thoughts on this.
Absolutely. I mean, the right to repair thing is something that's been very important to us,
and we've spoken about it a lot on this program. I hate that it's taking this pandemic, this global
crisis, to actually show the results of the things that we've been saying all this time
could be prevented if we all had the right to repair our devices are now obvious because actual
lives are being put at risk and possibly lost because a hospital can't fix their own machine.
I think after this all settles down, however long that takes, there's going to be a lot of going
back over what could have happened, what could have happened in a better way, what didn't need
to happen, how many people didn't need to die. There's going to be a reckoning after this.
I think right to repair is something that's very obviously a factor here and that needs fixing,
and now we can show people, look what happened because we didn't fix this.
People need to train, too, to be able to use them. That knowledge being kept on a very high shelf,
proverbially out of reach to the average person, is really not using the technology
as positive a regard as other really complex life-saving devices like AEDs, which are used
in conjunction with CPR for heart attacks. Imagine if their interests were in having
the average person be able to operate something and reducing the barrier to entry as opposed to
guarding it and hiking up these incredible costs to having the hardware, maintaining the hardware
so far as parts go, and sharing the knowledge for someone who's going to be doing service,
but also training. We should be training people just like we would
with an AED on that scale if it's actually going to be something that we're ramping up and using
and maintaining because there's going to be a lot of them, it sounds like, I hope.
Yeah. To that point, too, I think this whole right to repair, what companies have done with
these particular types of software locks are, obviously, they're all designed to protect and
really overprotect a company's intellectual property. I think a lot can be done right now
legislatively with respect to this. I mean, the president can come in there and—
So if you need to, mute it and then— Yeah, Rob, we can hear you.
Yeah, I don't think you were muted there for a second.
Okay, maybe it's not— Might I recommend telekinesis?
Yes, we just haven't considered magic enough. Go ahead. Anyway, as you're saying, Alex—
Yeah, the point I was trying to make before, I was so rudely interrupted by Rob T. Firefly's lack
of or failure to use the mute button like a reasonable human being, was that if it is the
case— So let's say that these companies just remove all of these particular locks, right? I
mean, there is a lot that we can do legislatively. Congress can act and state legislators can act and
say, look, that does not equate to a waiver of your rights to your intellectual property. So
there are some things that, God forbid, our politicians can do and step up and make an effort
and say to these companies, this is completely unacceptable. We're going to allow you a limited
time to remove all of these barriers, remove all of these locks, and still have some legal
protection with respect to the intellectual property that you were trying to save through
all of these ridiculous hardware and software locks, because what we're talking about right now
is saving lives. And intellectual property rights should always yield to saving lives.
It's not a very difficult thing to consider. It shouldn't be hard for any human being to consider.
I mean, look, we want to get philosophical about this, right? I mean, not everything that is legal
is moral, and not everything that is illegal is immoral. And sometimes transgressing and stepping
on others' intellectual property rights, if they can save goddamn lives, is the moral thing to do,
even if it happens to be illegal. And that goes also in the same respect that it has been
sort of half measured. A lot of the right to repair was sort of put in, I think they had the
Library of Congress, or the National Archives Librarian or something, or Copyright Office
Librarian that would approve, for a certain amount of time, certain abilities to reverse-engineer
hardware and other software measures. And then it gets challenged again, it goes back. It's not
really just even about that, though, now, because this is an emergency. So yeah, great, if you want
to make money on a certain particular proprietary thing that you developed, and someone sells an
identical clone of it, yeah, under normal circumstances, maybe there would be an argument
that you should be compensated, or they should contact you as they're creating a derivative or
identical product. I mean, they should license in some way. But even that, we've talked about
many times as being wholly broken. So just in this specific thing, and especially under this
sort of circumstance, for someone to make an illegal argument and challenge a third party
that's trying to repair something for a rural hospital or somewhere, in this particular moment,
just seems like such a really cold way to go about making money right now.
Yeah, and this whole thing comes from a company that basically, the idea that a company could
basically create a new revenue stream for itself that it wasn't entitled to before. I mean, it used
to be that when you sold something to somebody, that was it, that's where you made your money.
But if you could sell something to somebody and then have them keep paying you for some reason,
that's just magicing new money out of thin air. And that's what they've done here. And everyone's
been okay with it, by and large. And that's crap. We're now seeing a case, Gila brings up these
stories about a company called Medtronic, which has done the opposite, and is basically open
sourcing their ventilator, publishing the plans, publishing the manuals and everything, and
enabling people to repair the ventilators that they have, that were made by this company,
which is, you know, that's handy. Has anyone figured out a way to
defeat the security that is preventing people from repairing these ventilators?
That's a very interesting question. And we would definitely love to hear it. If you know of any
of any such things that have happened, have people been able to root their ventilators?
I would gleefully risk another lawsuit, publicizing that information, because that
really needs to get out quickly. And also, I mean, just we've talked
about ventilators so much in the last couple of weeks. I mean, it is certainly, as I would
just say, it's not business as usual. And this goes right along with rent. It's not business as
usual. But since we've talked about ventilators so much in the last couple of weeks, I'm just
curious, has anybody ever taken one apart? Like someone should take one apart. How do they work?
I mean, don't take it apart right now. It might be a little difficult to do right now.
I'm not doing anything. You guys go ahead. But maybe look at a schematic or something,
or a manual. And let's figure this out and figure out ways around ridiculous and criminal
actions like these. But the more manufacturers that open that up, I mean, the more really,
really smart people can look at it. And the more of the actual need can be met,
because people are taking a really hard look at this stuff and not treating it as something that
should only be for a limited, insular group of people.
Okay, folks, you feel like you want to maybe try this experiment now with the telephones?
Yeah, we could. I'd like to make one point in response before we do it, though. I would like
to just say that I do know somebody very well who would be able to answer the question of,
have you taken apart a ventilator? And it's somebody about whom I'm extraordinarily proud,
and it's my sister-in-law. She is an anesthesiologist working in the city tirelessly,
almost every single day, dealing with coronavirus patients and dealing with inadequate personal
protective equipment and putting her life on the line every single day that she stays in the city
and continues to treat these patients and intubate them and work with the ventilators and do the job
and, I think, respond to the calling. So, yeah, maybe at some point we could think about having
her on the show and talking about how ventilators work. Most definitely, absolutely. Give the
keynote address if we ever have a hope. That would be something. It's changing everything.
It's changing everybody, and I'm just blown away by the courage that I'm seeing on so many fronts.
Okay, so this is how we have it set up right now. We have a phone line that will forward to us
out here. We don't know if you guys, we didn't have a chance to test this before the show,
but we don't know if you guys are going to be able to hear the phone call. So if you're not
able to hear the phone call, after your initial outrage at that, maybe you could let the people
talk, and I don't know if you can hear them either. We'll find that out. This is all part
of an experiment, and we'll make it better. We'll keep making it better as we go along.
And for those of you calling, and I'm going to give you the phone number in just a second,
but just so you know, for those of you calling, I'm not sure if more than one person can get
through at once. I'm also not sure what happens to people who are not able to answer the phone for.
You might get a generic 2600 recording. You might get some other recording. You might get a fast,
busy signal. That's what I get when I try it. But it's all an experiment. Somebody will make
it through to the air and be able to talk on the radio. That is the thrill. So we'll see how well
it works. The phone number, are you ready? The phone number is, area code, you'll like this,
Alex, area code 802. 802? Yes, that's in Vermont. Vermont. Yeah. I love it. Yeah. Yeah, we had to
search long and hard for this one. 802. We're not actually in Vermont, but we're close. 802-321-HACK.
That's 802-321-4225. And we're going to see if we get a phone call come in. And if we do get a phone
call, we're going to pick it up and put it over the radio. And we are getting a phone call. Wait,
it's a phone call coming. Wait, that's not you, Alex, is it? Good evening. Did you call the show?
You have a phone in your hand. I do. Well, I guess this is a good way as any to test to see
if anybody else can hear you. Rob, can you hear? Well, you're going to hear him anyway with all
the Skype. So that doesn't prove anything. Alex, I'm hanging up on you. I hung up on you. You're
still here on Skype, though, so it doesn't matter. So I'm sorry, anybody else who tried calling just
now. 802-321-HACK is our temporary phone number just for this show. It won't work for any other
show. And we'd like to know, at least we know the phone number works, if any listener out there
would like to be on the radio. This is how you do it. 802-321-4225. We don't know how well it'll
work. It might not go through. I had an idea. I can mute my microphone and call back if we want
to try it. Yeah, let's give someone else a chance to actually use the phone number. All right. We
spent all day setting this thing up, and I don't know if it's... Yeah, we're seeing lights flashing
in other places, but it's not going there. It's not the best system in the world, and there are
other problems with it. While we're waiting for that phone call, though, any other updates people
want to give? Again, 802-321-4225 is our phone number. A quick one is that today, despite
everything, is April 1st, and it's still Census Day. So if you have not filled out your Census form,
take two minutes online and do that. Really important to make sure we all get represented in
our country and in our local governments, especially at this time when everybody's
voice needs to be heard. Can I just say that, Gail, you're mistaken. It's actually April 2nd.
Oh, I'm so sorry. No, that was my April Fool's... My very scaled-down April Fool's
joke for today. That's it. I totally went for it, Emanuel. That's the joke. I believed you.
I'm done. Nobody else has to worry about anything. I thought we weren't doing this. No, well, we did.
Okay, so I don't know if people are afraid to call Vermont or if it's not working for some reason.
Like I said, I got a fast busy when I tried calling it. I don't know why, but I do know other
people have been able to reach us. And this is an opportunity to call into the radio show and
tell us how you're doing with the crisis and any other information you might want to spread.
802-321-4225. And if it's not working, are you guys monitoring anything that people might be
able to update? Twitter, email? We're keeping an eye out on Twitter and on Mastodon and on email.
And people definitely heard Rob getting scolded about the mute button. We're getting a lot of
feedback on that. Okay, so how can people tell us if they're not getting through on the phone?
Well, if you're not getting through on the phone, but you have Twitter, tweet at us
at hackerradioshow. Or even send us an email, oth2600.com, and we will keep an eye on that.
Let us know what you're hearing, what you're not hearing. And we'll go from there. We're all
figuring this out on the fly. Thank you all out there for bearing with us. No, Rob, we figured
it out. Just email us about the show, about ventilators and right to repair and any other
thing you're observing. I mean, of course, if there's a technical thing, I'm sure. Of course.
Of course. We are happy to hear from you in any way possible. But try going old school.
I don't know. We're getting all kinds of voicemails now. I see this coming in.
People are trying to reach us. I don't know why it's not ringing. Thank you, Google.
We depend on you once. And you can't make a phone ring. We set all this up. Alex,
you broke it. I don't know what you did. Did you hang up? Are you still connected somehow?
No, I'm going to try to ring it one more time.
Why would you try to ring it again? For God's sake.
There's more competition now.
You're the only person that's gotten through.
Should I try or not? Do you want me to try?
All right. Try. Let's see if for some reason you have the golden touch.
Tell us what you get when you try.
All right. Hold on a second. Now, there's some more intel from this. Ready?
Go ahead.
Hold up. Let's see.
Only on for a couple more minutes. So please share the information.
It says Google subscriber we are calling is not available.
Whoa. Isn't that a kick in the pants? How are we not available? We're taking phone calls right now.
Yeah. Okay. Well, folks, you know, it's like we said, it's going to be sloppy.
We just thought that the technology would work a little bit better. There's nobody else using
the phone. So I don't know why it's not ringing through. We tested this earlier today.
And, you know, it's a shame that you got through the first time and that was it.
Nobody else seems to be able to do that.
I totally agree. I mean, I didn't think it was going to be, you know, like a,
you know, one hit wonder type thing here, you know, you get one, you get one call. That's it.
That's it. Oh, we have we have a phone call. Please. Nobody. Nobody touch anything.
Good evening. You're on off the hook. Can you hear us?
I can't believe I got through like after about 10 tries.
I'm so sorry. Now you're able to hear me, right?
Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Alex, can you can you say something, Alex? Can can you say something
to them and can you hear them? I can't hear them.
I heard two people so far. Okay. So, Alex, say something else.
Something else. Okay. I don't hear.
Okay. So you guys just going to have to back away from the conversation for a moment while
we talk to the caller or relay something to us and we can ask the caller for that.
Yeah, I'm sorry. We didn't have a chance to test this before. So caller, what's on your mind?
Okay. So I wanted to mention something about masks. I also have seen more people wearing them,
but people are using them incorrectly because they're fiddling with them a lot. And in the
process, they're touching their face a lot. Like I've seen people like when they're driving around
or walking around, not near other people, they have the mask pulled down under their chin.
And then when they get out, like they're using it like a dust mask, you know, like when they get
out and they're going to be near people, they pull it back over their face. And I think the
right way to wear a mask is you have to wash your hands before you put it on and then not touch your
face or the mask until you're ready to take it off. And then and even if that's at the end of
the day and then you have to wash your hands before you take it off. Plus, I've also seen
people today for the first time wearing cloth masks. In fact, some of them are even fashion
statements with faces drawn on them and stuff. And I hope they realize that when they take that
mask off at night, they have to wash it before they use it again. Yeah, that's those are some
really incredible comments. There's been a lot of people sharing designs and making doing a lot of
DIY surgical masks. And I think part of it is that in some of the health care settings,
health care workers are trying to extend the life of the disposable N95 by putting on something that
is washable. But you're so spot on about contaminating the mask itself, because if you
pull it up onto your like hat, you know, as as you're about to talk to somebody or something
and thinking you're going to put it back down on your face, if you've been somewhere
where these droplets, the so called droplets are, that could be brought down right to your face,
and then you're trusting that this thing on the inside of it is is protecting you when it isn't.
Exactly. But even just touching your face to adjust your mask, like I saw a guy today in the
store, he pulled his mask down so that he could talk on his phone. And then he pushed the mask
back up. Now each time he did that he was touching his face. And the primary precautions are to wash
your hands and not to touch your face. So by using a mask incorrectly, you're really in in some ways,
you could be putting yourself at greater risk. That is that is a very, very good tip for people
to take into consideration. This is all new for so many of us. So if you are wearing a mask,
it is important to know how to wear a mask. And yes, as the caller said, you could be putting
yourself in more danger if you do it improperly than if you don't wear a mask at all, something
that a lot of us probably never even considered. Thank you so much for that phone call. And I hope
you're doing well. You're welcome. All right, take care. Okay. Well, that that sounded good. I'm
sorry, folks, our Skype people, you couldn't hear that. But you can always turn on the stream and
it's going to be delayed, but you'll be able to hear. We're going to take another phone call,
if you don't mind. Sure. Good evening. You're on off the hook. Go ahead. Okay, excellent.
Yeah, the radio's in the other room. It's not interfering, is it? Because I'm running in and
turning it off. No, but may I ask our Skype people to please mute their room noise. That would make
it sound a lot better. Thank you. Go ahead. I'm going to talk to you while I'm doing it because
I'm running in. I know sometimes in the next room it doesn't matter. But let me just shut it off.
Yeah, it does now. Okay, good. All right. So I have two things. Yeah, just so you know,
that's some feedback. I was trying to get in touch with y'all for a while. I called about 12 times.
I left about five or six messages. And that was just so that I could just try to work out the
system. And that way I was getting feedback as I was just listening live. So that maybe like,
I don't know how long you're going to have to use this system, but at least maybe by next week
or whatever you have to kink out. So I was just trying to do that. And I'm glad I got through.
So what I wanted to, this is Jay from Harlem. You have about a minute. So go ahead. You have
about a minute. I just wanted to try to get a consumer's report. How do I do that? When online,
you know, they don't have the magazine no more. It was simple before. And I liked them because
they were pretty honest. And you can, besides asking, calling and asking you guys questions,
but I could always go to them and get some, a good comparison of different electronics and
things and computer things. So I'm just telling you that when I went online, it was really
difficult. They try to push you towards doing it electronically. And I don't want to do that.
So can, is there a way you can advise me or help me in order to be able to get a consumer's
digest magazine? Well, I mean, it's bad for my eyes. You get headaches, right? No, of course I,
as, as, as a, as a magazine publisher, of course, I understand the value of getting something on
paper. Um, I would, I would simply contact them directly, find out where they are published from,
call them and ask them, um, how do I get your magazine? Where can I get your magazine? Obviously
it's going to be difficult now with, with bookstores being closed, but, uh, I think that's
really the best way. I wish I could spend more time on this, but, uh, we are running out of time.
We just have to say goodbye to other people. Thanks for calling and, and keep us updated on
this because you definitely should be able to get what you want. Thank you. Uh, that's, uh,
the last phone call. We're going to take a Skype. People come back, please. You there?
We're here. We're here. Yeah. Uh, we're pretty much out of time, but, uh, we do have an important
announcement. Actually, I think Rob, you have an important announcement. Oh, and how do we turn
this off now? Oh my God. Uh, this Friday would be 2600 meeting day all over the world. Um, but,
uh, of course nobody's going to meetings, but a lot of 2600 meetings, including New York's
are going virtual. So, uh, at NYC2600.net, the site for the New York meetings, um, uh,
take a look at that around Friday and there will be a link to the conference. You can join,
um, and be part of the virtual New York City 2600 meeting. If you're in other areas, uh, look
at the social media and websites and stuff for your local meeting and see if something similar
is going on. Yes, it's, uh, you know, it pains us to have to cancel all the meetings and all
the meetings are canceled. I don't, I don't care where you are. If you're in a place that's never
heard of coronavirus, it is still dangerous for you to be outside and to be congregating with
people. We are not going to contribute to that. So, uh, we need to do this collectively. We need
to do this as a group and that is how we will get through it and emerge on the other side.
Um, we, um, have some, some rather, uh, sad news and we're going to be seeing a lot of this over,
um, actually for some reason it's not coming up. Uh, okay. We have some music here that's,
uh, not coming up. Why is it not coming up, Kyle? It's on the computer and the computer is here.
What am I doing wrong? Okay. Always are the, the end of our show is always where things fall apart.
That's what happened last week. And, um, it's happening again this week. Um, we are,
are starting to lose people as a result of coronavirus. Uh, and, uh, one of the people
that we have lost is somebody that you're not hearing right now, unfortunately, uh, Mano
Dibango. Do you remember that song? Uh, Macuso by Mano Dibango was a big hit when I was a kid
in, um, in the 1970s. Um, and I wish we could hear it now. It's, it's, it's an amazing song.
Uh, and my computer says it's playing. So if you're not hearing it, that's your fault,
apparently. Um, yeah, you guys don't hear it, do you? I don't hear it. No, we don't hear it on,
on, on this side. Fortunately, I wish we could. Okay. For some reason it's saying it's muted.
And, um, well, you know what? We're out of time. You know, folks, look it up. Uh, we'll figure
this out. We'll figure out what's wrong with this computer. Why it's muting things without
unmuting them. And, um, we'll be back next week. Thanks very much to Reggie over there in the
studio. We hope to see you again someday. And, uh, we will be back again next week.
OTH at 2600.com is our email address. This is WBAI New York.
Hello, I am Safiya Albaity, member and vice chair of the WBAI local station board.