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[00:49.020 --> 00:51.640]  Thank you for listening to Off the Hook.
[02:36.860 --> 02:39.340]  And a very good evening to everybody.
[02:39.500 --> 02:42.080]  The program is Off the Hook.
[02:42.860 --> 02:44.400]  Emmanuel Goldstein over here.
[02:44.760 --> 02:46.800]  Kyle, you're over there.
[02:47.260 --> 02:48.220]  Yeah, present.
[02:48.520 --> 02:49.500]  Right beside.
[02:49.800 --> 02:51.540]  And out in Skype-land.
[02:52.000 --> 02:53.720]  Let's see, who do we have there?
[02:53.840 --> 02:55.000]  I see Rob T. Firefly.
[02:56.200 --> 02:57.280]  Good evening.
[02:57.960 --> 02:59.240]  Is that Gila, I see.
[02:59.860 --> 03:00.220]  Hello.
[03:00.680 --> 03:01.220]  How are you doing?
[03:01.340 --> 03:01.900]  It's been so long.
[03:02.440 --> 03:06.360]  The last time you guys were on the air, were we FM?
[03:06.600 --> 03:11.140]  Were we still broadcasting on AM back in the 1920s or whatever that was?
[03:11.640 --> 03:12.620]  It's been a long time.
[03:12.760 --> 03:16.960]  There's been all sorts of reasons why we've been preempted.
[03:17.240 --> 03:19.040]  You guys have gone places.
[03:19.800 --> 03:20.600]  Welcome back.
[03:21.440 --> 03:22.260]  It's good to be back.
[03:22.280 --> 03:23.320]  It's very good to be back.
[03:23.320 --> 03:26.640]  I trust it hasn't changed too much since you were away.
[03:27.700 --> 03:28.300]  I don't know.
[03:28.400 --> 03:31.400]  That new theme song remix was really kind of a surprise.
[03:31.620 --> 03:32.500]  I worked hard on it.
[03:32.680 --> 03:32.780]  Yeah.
[03:33.080 --> 03:36.960]  And of course, on the Skypeland, on a different version of Skypeland, we have Alex.
[03:38.220 --> 03:39.260]  Yeah, it's been a while.
[03:39.380 --> 03:40.600]  Good to be back.
[03:40.680 --> 03:41.680]  And where are you this week?
[03:41.740 --> 03:43.180]  Because you're always traveling throughout the planet.
[03:43.760 --> 03:45.800]  Yeah, I'm actually in Manhattan this week.
[03:45.880 --> 03:47.180]  Oh, how exotic.
[03:47.380 --> 03:47.660]  Okay.
[03:48.200 --> 03:48.600]  It is.
[03:48.800 --> 03:48.940]  Yeah.
[03:49.200 --> 03:51.900]  And we have a special guest, Weldon Chang, joining us tonight.
[03:52.620 --> 03:52.860]  Greetings.
[03:54.780 --> 03:55.260]  Hey, everyone.
[03:55.380 --> 03:56.000]  It's great to be here.
[03:56.120 --> 03:56.800]  Thanks for having me on.
[03:57.380 --> 04:05.440]  Well, you know, the reason you're here, and the reason we're all here, I guess, is this is one of our shows, our post-election day shows.
[04:05.540 --> 04:06.300]  We've done a bunch of them.
[04:06.580 --> 04:15.920]  And it's kind of traditional for us to gather the day after election day and kind of brood a little bit, you know, and say, oh, my God, how did that happen?
[04:17.300 --> 04:24.060]  And I kind of want to say the same thing, except with a little bit of a different tone today, because, oh, my God, how did that happen?
[04:24.940 --> 04:30.880]  It's actually not nearly as bad as so many of us were thinking it might have been.
[04:30.880 --> 04:35.180]  And I think a lot of that goes to the media.
[04:35.220 --> 04:49.440]  They get the credit for scaring the crap out of us over the last few months and just basically catastrophizing everything they could possibly think of, pointing to polls that had really no scientific basis in reality.
[04:50.260 --> 05:02.520]  But when you said that, you know, pretty much everybody believed what the mass media was telling them, even though there was really no good reason for you to take them seriously.
[05:02.800 --> 05:03.280]  I don't know.
[05:03.440 --> 05:04.740]  You guys feel the same way?
[05:04.880 --> 05:05.800]  Alex, how about you?
[05:06.660 --> 05:06.940]  Yeah.
[05:08.460 --> 05:28.360]  I think that a lot of our concerns were valid, but nobody thought that the Democrats are going to do as well as they did, and, you know, I don't want to rehash everything that's already been said on CNN and MSNBC, but, yeah, it seems like a lot of the issues that we thought would bring voters out to the polls actually did bring voters out to the polls,
[05:28.420 --> 05:38.340]  but I'm happy to see that, you know, there wasn't a tremendous amount of violence or intimidation and that, you know, democracy seems to have worked like it should have.
[05:39.020 --> 05:41.260]  But I think leading up to it, you're right.
[05:41.260 --> 05:46.220]  There was a massive amount of disinformation, and that's why we have Welton here.
[05:46.340 --> 05:49.140]  And let me introduce Welton properly, if you don't mind, Emmanuel.
[05:49.240 --> 05:51.000]  I'm sorry for my improper introduction.
[05:51.200 --> 05:51.420]  Go ahead.
[05:52.320 --> 05:53.240]  Give us the right one.
[05:53.860 --> 05:56.820]  You're usually at a lack of social decorum, and I have to pick it up.
[05:56.900 --> 05:58.360]  I'm used to picking up this kind of slack.
[05:58.540 --> 06:00.640]  So, you know, we go back many, many years.
[06:01.480 --> 06:06.320]  It's just like Welton and I, actually, although you and I, Emmanuel, go back, I think, even farther than Welton.
[06:06.320 --> 06:21.520]  So, I have known Welton since he was an undergraduate at Dartmouth, and I was a law student in Vermont, and we both worked at the Institute for Security Technology Studies, which was a federally funded counterterrorism cybersecurity research center.
[06:22.380 --> 06:24.640]  Welton then went on to a career.
[06:24.820 --> 06:29.360]  He was Roxy, I believe, as an undergrad, and then went on to a career with the U.S.
[06:29.480 --> 06:37.880]  Army, where he was an intelligence officer and then worked for the DIA, as in Delta NDA Alpha, the Defense Intelligence Agency.
[06:38.800 --> 06:45.820]  And then from there, I think he did something at UPenn, you know, did some kind of PhD or something.
[06:46.020 --> 06:49.620]  So, you know, I guess we have to call him Dr. Welton Chang these days.
[06:50.460 --> 06:52.380]  And then, Welton and I hadn't talked for a while.
[06:52.540 --> 06:56.120]  We reconnected during the pandemic when he was the CTO of Human Rights First.
[06:56.320 --> 06:57.740]  And this is your life, Welton.
[06:58.020 --> 07:00.740]  We're going to basically go over everything you've ever accomplished.
[07:00.900 --> 07:01.660]  It's going to take the whole hour.
[07:02.580 --> 07:03.740]  Well, we're getting there.
[07:03.880 --> 07:04.240]  We're getting there.
[07:04.300 --> 07:05.000]  He's not that old.
[07:05.180 --> 07:05.580]  Come on.
[07:05.720 --> 07:06.920]  You know, we're almost there.
[07:07.520 --> 07:09.100]  So, the pandemic happens.
[07:09.300 --> 07:10.260]  Welton and I reconnect.
[07:10.520 --> 07:11.880]  He's CTO of Human Rights First.
[07:12.120 --> 07:16.240]  He puts me on the technology advisory board that he had created for Human Rights First.
[07:16.240 --> 07:18.880]  And then he promptly decides to leave.
[07:19.400 --> 07:21.360]  And, I mean, I don't blame him.
[07:21.720 --> 07:25.220]  You know, once I enter any organization, people start departing.
[07:25.680 --> 07:38.340]  And so, Welton left because he actually started a spinoff company on something that he and I were working together on at Human Rights First, but it was really much more of Welton's endeavor.
[07:38.740 --> 07:42.440]  And he started a company called Pyra, P-Y-R-R-A.
[07:42.920 --> 07:51.620]  And Pyra is a fascinating platform that connects into a lot of these other, I would say, fringe platforms.
[07:52.020 --> 07:58.400]  And, Welton, you can correct me if I'm wrong, but, you know, you connect into Gab, you connect into Parler, you connect into all these different types of forum.
[07:58.980 --> 08:05.660]  And you collect information, analyze it, and can actually track extremist activity and disinformation trends.
[08:06.940 --> 08:11.640]  And, you know, I'm going to pass it over to you, Welton, to describe more fully what you actually do.
[08:12.440 --> 08:25.100]  Well, I think one thing that Emmanuel pointed out in terms of how the media was framing the midterms was actually very right in that the threats to democracy were very real.
[08:25.460 --> 08:46.680]  And if you spend enough time reading Truth Social and Gab and Parler, I think one of the things that you take away from that other than living in completely alternate reality is that the amount of election denial leading, you know, going back to 2020,
[08:47.180 --> 08:59.900]  right, the big lie, that may have backfired in some ways, where that actually reduced the willingness and the political will of people to go out and vote for their preferred candidate.
[09:00.140 --> 09:08.520]  Because essentially, if you believe that elections are totally rigged, then what would be the point of actually going out there and voting?
[09:08.520 --> 09:09.400]  Right.
[09:09.400 --> 09:26.620]  And so I think in a lot of ways, and this is borne out by the data that we've seen by, you know, a couple of posts from last night that kind of stayed out of my mind, people saying, the time for voting is over, the time for revolution is now, right?
[09:26.740 --> 09:29.220]  That's the kind of rhetoric that you're seeing on these platforms.
[09:30.180 --> 09:44.400]  All the way to former President Trump saying, we should go out and protest these results because we think that the voting irregularities in Maricopa and some of these other places, some of which are completely blown out of proportion, right?
[09:44.480 --> 09:46.580]  This is going into that disinformation theme.
[09:47.720 --> 09:57.820]  I think that's actually tamping down enthusiasm for folks of that political ideology to actually go and participate in the electoral process.
[09:58.100 --> 10:03.160]  And that may have had some impact on the results that we saw yesterday.
[10:03.720 --> 10:04.060]  So...
[10:04.060 --> 10:07.240]  Well, Wilton, were you hearing... is that what Trump said this election?
[10:07.360 --> 10:09.720]  Or were you quoting him from last election about the protesting?
[10:10.760 --> 10:13.340]  No, he was talking... this is like last night.
[10:13.560 --> 10:23.660]  Because the quote I saw from him is that this is a tremendous victory, very Stalinist or Putinist, you know, basically saying, yes, we're winning when everybody knows you're not.
[10:23.660 --> 10:28.980]  Um, is he just basically saying whatever, uh, whatever he thinks might stick?
[10:30.420 --> 10:31.020]  Absolutely.
[10:31.400 --> 10:31.640]  Yeah.
[10:32.040 --> 10:52.300]  Um, and I think if you look at the, um, the trends in terms of what are people grasping onto on the platforms that we look at, which, um, I think the latest Pew research poll says something like 6% of Americans get all of their news information from alternative platforms,
[10:52.300 --> 10:52.640]  right?
[10:53.000 --> 10:55.500]  Which you say to yourself, how many people is that?
[10:55.600 --> 10:57.420]  It's like 20 million people, right?
[10:57.520 --> 11:02.580]  All they do is stew in essentially a sea of disinformation all day, all night.
[11:03.080 --> 11:14.480]  Um, they're, they're really ramped up about, you know, essentially the results in Arizona, um, and the, you know, what the media is calling a ripple, right?
[11:14.680 --> 11:27.320]  That is being reflected in this other kind of alternative information sphere as this whole thing was rigged and we can't trust these results.
[11:27.820 --> 11:38.740]  And I would not be surprised if we saw, um, some pretty significant, um, I don't call unrest, but like, you know, some actions taken in the weeks to come.
[11:38.860 --> 11:44.640]  Um, and, you know, definitely have our, uh, you know, eyes and feelers out for what's going to happen in Georgia, right?
[11:44.720 --> 11:45.700]  Because that's going to run off.
[11:46.040 --> 12:08.440]  So one of my, um, uh, instincts or reactions, um, cause I was thinking something along those lines is the sheer cost of mounting that legally, aside from let's not use the, uh, legal system and, and, uh, and, uh, the bureaucratic, uh, something so complex or,
[12:08.440 --> 12:13.120]  or quaint as, uh, uh, elections boards and, and, and so forth.
[12:13.500 --> 12:24.700]  Um, but isn't it basically on them to provide some kind of evidence and pursue that to whatever end there is, as we saw?
[12:24.880 --> 12:26.980]  Oh, that's so old fashioned evidence.
[12:27.240 --> 12:27.400]  Wow.
[12:27.660 --> 12:28.780]  Well, I remember that.
[12:29.800 --> 12:42.300]  Surely if they believe that, then, um, that activity, that disruption you're talking about other than anything else, um, through what mechanisms there are is costly.
[12:42.860 --> 12:53.400]  And I think it's up to them to kind of pony up and, you know, if it's based on nothing, it's going to be even more costly to continue pretending nothing is something.
[12:54.540 --> 13:00.960]  I mean, this might be too philosophical point, but like, what are, what are the penalties for not believing in the truth?
[13:01.960 --> 13:15.400]  Um, I think the reality of what happened yesterday in terms of the results, like that's the penalty for not actually believing in reality, not looking at the table in front of you and saying that's a table, right?
[13:15.700 --> 13:22.580]  Um, and so, you know, there may be some self correction here and I don't, I don't want to be overly optimistic about the results, right?
[13:22.660 --> 13:28.880]  Because, um, clearly, well, it doesn't look like the, the temps are going to retain the house, right?
[13:29.100 --> 13:38.880]  So there, there are some, the amount of election deniers that have made it into office, including, you know, now newly elected Senator J.D.
[13:39.000 --> 13:39.600]  Vance, right?
[13:40.140 --> 13:42.500]  Like some of that stuff is still extremely worrying.
[13:42.960 --> 13:51.380]  Um, but I, I do think that there are costs to not believing the things that your eyes are telling you, right?
[13:51.580 --> 13:52.800]  Staring you right in your face.
[13:52.880 --> 13:55.620]  You know, I, I saw, I saw some analysis of the J.D.
[13:55.700 --> 14:09.640]  Vance victory, uh, just before the show, um, about how Mitch McConnell poured money into that Ohio race at the expense of other races in places like Pennsylvania, uh, where basically Democrats prevailed.
[14:09.860 --> 14:24.740]  And it was actually, it seems to be a very good chess move that they basically sacrificed somebody in Ohio, one seat, uh, but, uh, were able to, uh, prevail in other places that were, um, were probably very, very important in, in the bigger picture.
[14:25.420 --> 14:26.100]  Uh, Gila, you had something.
[14:27.480 --> 14:28.000]  Yeah.
[14:28.000 --> 14:40.280]  The thing that I found very interesting, uh, something that I've seen throughout last night and today is people are congratulating candidates who lost for conceding their races.
[14:41.140 --> 14:52.500]  And it is fascinating to me that people are like, Hey, this morning I saw a bunch of flutter on social media that Dr. Oz called John Fetterman to concede this morning.
[14:53.200 --> 15:02.900]  And congratulations to Dr. Oz for the fact that conceding an election is now on par with a child taking their first steps.
[15:03.080 --> 15:05.520]  We are so proud of you for this thing.
[15:05.680 --> 15:07.780]  We weren't sure you'd be able to pull up.
[15:08.100 --> 15:10.020]  It's part of the process, man.
[15:10.260 --> 15:12.900]  It's an election and someone wins and someone loses.
[15:13.080 --> 15:14.780]  And that's just the way that it is.
[15:14.880 --> 15:18.500]  And the fact that we're now really proud of people for understanding that that's the way it works.
[15:19.680 --> 15:23.800]  Terrifies me in such a profound way.
[15:24.420 --> 15:28.700]  Also thinking about misinformation, echo chambers, things of that nature.
[15:29.200 --> 15:48.400]  I'm reading a book right now called a murder on W street and thinking about the, I don't know why I don't necessarily want to say it's the seeds of where we are now, but watching some of these pieces in their embryonic form six years ago and what they've turned into is also heartbreaking.
[15:49.640 --> 16:07.000]  I have a lot of opinions about the story in the book for other reasons that we're not going to go into right now, but watching and seeing where things have gone in six years and, you know, six years ago when there wasn't truth social and there wasn't parlor and there wasn't gab and there wasn't all of these free speech,
[16:07.000 --> 16:09.120]  social media platforms that exist for everybody.
[16:10.080 --> 16:12.120]  But I don't know.
[16:12.120 --> 16:29.400]  I think the, the splintering of the world and the, like even the proliferation of news channels and where you can go if you want to hear what you want to hear and where we go in that misinformation sphere.
[16:31.800 --> 16:34.520]  I have lost the end of my sentence, so I'm going to stop.
[16:34.980 --> 16:47.720]  Well, maybe think of what we were talking about the very beginning of the show, which was the media coverage before the election and how that seems to have influenced a lot of people and shifted in some degrees, particularly CNN.
[16:48.000 --> 17:00.760]  It seems to have adopted this both sides of every single issue where, okay, let's hear what the Nazi has to say and basically weighing everything equally, but also making things seem so dire.
[17:00.920 --> 17:11.400]  There was a headline that I saw a few days ago that basically said that Democrats are preparing for staggering losses and when they do, they're going to blame Eric Adams.
[17:11.740 --> 17:13.880]  I mean, what kind of a headline is that?
[17:14.060 --> 17:23.600]  Basically saying that everything is going to be chaotic and this is how they're going to do the circular firing squad when that hasn't even happened.
[17:23.840 --> 17:25.740]  There were so many stories like that.
[17:25.860 --> 17:39.160]  Meanwhile, all the Republican faux pas and various other funny quotes that they came up with kind of ignored because, well, we all know they're out of their minds, so we're not even going to cover it anymore.
[17:39.160 --> 17:40.860]  We're just going to focus on Democrats.
[17:41.200 --> 17:53.720]  I saw headlines today where basically, you know, you almost wonder if they're joking, saying that Democrats did not fail as badly as predicted and why this is bad for Biden.
[17:54.620 --> 17:56.780]  How is this possibly bad for Biden?
[17:56.980 --> 18:07.980]  I mean, yeah, you know, there are scenarios, I guess, you could concoct where he might be at a disadvantage a couple of years down the road if certain things happen in a particular way.
[18:08.320 --> 18:17.920]  But please, you know, it just doesn't seem like they can say anything that might make us not feel like there's some kind of catastrophe coming.
[18:18.120 --> 18:25.180]  I don't know about you guys, but I do know in the days leading up to Election Day, I was feeling nothing but dread.
[18:25.180 --> 18:28.540]  And it was all based on what I was hearing in the mass media.
[18:28.720 --> 18:31.260]  And this is me trying not to listen to the mass media.
[18:31.400 --> 18:33.340]  It still seeps through, you know?
[18:33.480 --> 18:38.400]  And I think, you know, this is something that, you know, I'd like to ask Welton, why?
[18:38.600 --> 18:39.940]  What is the advantage?
[18:40.100 --> 18:47.120]  I understand disinformation, what comes from governments and and people trying to influence the masses.
[18:47.320 --> 18:58.620]  But why does mass media engage in, like I consider it misinformation, just to sell papers and to get viewers?
[18:58.880 --> 18:59.680]  Does that work?
[19:00.860 --> 19:13.820]  Well, I think definitely partially it's the business model, and especially in the kind of post-Google, post-Facebook age of how news outlets have to, you know, generate revenue.
[19:14.240 --> 19:22.000]  But, you know, just in terms of their, what they're basing their judgments off of, right, a lot of it was polling.
[19:22.500 --> 19:32.360]  And I think it just goes back to the challenge of how do, how do we gauge public opinion in an age where nobody trusts anybody else?
[19:32.960 --> 19:39.120]  And you look at, um, gold standard, quote, unquote, gold standard polling in the past doesn't exist anymore.
[19:39.680 --> 19:40.740]  You can't do it.
[19:41.160 --> 19:43.320]  You know, no one's, no one's picking up the phone.
[19:43.440 --> 19:48.560]  I mean, how many robo calls do you get on your, on your, on your phone on a daily basis?
[19:48.800 --> 19:52.280]  You're not picking up from a, you know, a pollster.
[19:52.600 --> 19:57.260]  Um, and somebody even gets through to you, identifies that they're doing a poll you hang up on.
[19:57.880 --> 19:58.100]  Of course.
[19:58.440 --> 20:00.480]  So this is, this is part of the chat.
[20:00.540 --> 20:01.640]  It's a measurement issue.
[20:01.980 --> 20:09.680]  And then the media is trying to do, I would say the best that it can adhering to the journalistic standards that they think are still in play.
[20:10.200 --> 20:22.520]  Um, you know, which I, I think that there's a lot of, um, criticism, um, certainly of this whole, both sides is, um, that, you know, plagues much of popular mass media.
[20:23.420 --> 20:30.480]  Um, so, you know, I wouldn't classify what happened in the run up as, um, misinformation.
[20:31.060 --> 20:39.560]  Part of it is, it's, it's just incorrect and turned out to be incorrect based off of the best information available at the time.
[20:40.100 --> 20:47.640]  Um, I think it goes to our ability to critically think and say, do I trust this information or not?
[20:47.820 --> 20:50.380]  Should I believe the judgments that these people are making?
[20:50.620 --> 20:51.800]  Are they, are they well-founded?
[20:52.060 --> 20:52.140]  Right.
[20:52.360 --> 20:54.380]  So would you say it's just bad journalism?
[20:56.860 --> 20:58.380]  I wouldn't go that far.
[20:58.820 --> 21:05.000]  I think, I think where you get your information from and how you're based your judgments, that's gotta be critically examined.
[21:05.220 --> 21:05.460]  Right.
[21:05.780 --> 21:11.500]  I mean, I, you know, spend all day and all night on French platforms, reading this stuff.
[21:11.560 --> 21:17.280]  And I have to pull myself out of that because I have to tell myself this is, this isn't a reality.
[21:17.520 --> 21:17.680]  Right.
[21:17.680 --> 21:28.080]  And similarly, if you're a journalist and you spend all day on Twitter or, you know, only talk to other journalists, you're not going to get an accurate view of like how quote unquote Americans are feeling.
[21:28.300 --> 21:28.360]  Right.
[21:28.560 --> 21:31.520]  And, and, and again, this is, this is a hard problem.
[21:31.740 --> 21:43.420]  Like I, I remember I was talking with somebody at NPR the other day and I was quoted as saying like, you know, Hey, Mark Zuckerberg couldn't tell you what people on Facebook are saying today.
[21:43.880 --> 21:43.900]  Right.
[21:44.020 --> 21:50.500]  Like the whole concept of being able to understand what millions and hundreds of millions of people are saying, right.
[21:50.900 --> 21:52.060]  That's, that's the issue.
[21:52.220 --> 21:54.480]  You can't measure the thing that you want to measure.
[21:54.800 --> 21:54.880]  Right.
[21:55.120 --> 21:55.240]  So.
[21:57.340 --> 22:02.540]  I hear it as a very noisy atmosphere, especially in the run up to elections.
[22:02.540 --> 22:14.380]  There's so many, the stakes are very high and there are so many interested parties, uh, literally and figure figuratively and this networked, uh, media escape.
[22:14.380 --> 22:35.800]  And I, I think, um, my gut or my intuition was that it was, um, various forces colliding like this idea that, um, there's a sense of duty because the stakes are so high to raise, uh, um, people's awareness and to, to, as has been pointed out a panic level.
[22:35.800 --> 22:58.040]  And I think that the amount of energy we were reminded again, the energy expended, uh, uh, trying to get, um, action with negative, um, uh, feedback and, and, and so forth is perhaps more than something that is inspiring that, that people, um, believe in the process or their,
[22:58.040 --> 23:03.100]  their communities and that there, it is their civic duty to participate and so forth.
[23:03.260 --> 23:05.100]  So that I think was a part of it.
[23:05.160 --> 23:31.980]  I think there were also like really, um, I don't know, uh, interested, um, groups that, that were exploiting some of the vulnerabilities in the media escape, uh, especially at this, in the timing of an election that probably also were able to get things circulated that ordinarily people would maybe not be so alarmist about or react to so quickly.
[23:33.240 --> 23:45.300]  So I don't know that confluence to me just felt suspicious to the point of, I think even the, the New York times headline was, uh, being widely criticized and it's almost like, Oh, they need this to be bland.
[23:45.300 --> 23:51.580]  Wait, you mean the one that came out last night that basically said that Democrats are losing, uh, uh, at key races and things like that.
[23:51.680 --> 23:52.220]  They want it.
[23:52.320 --> 23:55.040]  They, they watched the first minute of the story so bad.
[23:55.220 --> 24:10.320]  They want it to be negative and panic mode so badly that like, um, um, it's almost as like a safety valve so that, um, those that are losing have, uh, don't feel, don't, uh, feel any of it.
[24:10.320 --> 24:11.520]  But that's, that's my point.
[24:11.660 --> 24:20.520]  I, I think that, um, uh, us being in a state of perpetual, uh, stress and just fearing the worst, I think that's where they want us.
[24:20.620 --> 24:25.180]  They want us to be that because then we keep tuning in and going to them for more, uh, info.
[24:25.400 --> 24:35.000]  I remember, you know, we, we, we basically, uh, got away from this and we went of all places to the, uh, the progressive channel on, on Sirius XM.
[24:35.580 --> 24:38.380]  Um, and, uh, you know, it's kind of like WBAI light.
[24:38.640 --> 24:50.880]  Uh, and they were, they, they were basically, um, talking in a much more sane, rational way saying, look, these, these polls, what Welton was saying just now, who picks up the phone?
[24:51.020 --> 24:52.200]  Nobody picks up the phone.
[24:52.320 --> 24:58.200]  So, you know, the kinds of people who are picking up the phone are, are, are probably of a particular political bent.
[24:58.200 --> 25:05.700]  Uh, you know, maybe they're homebound or something, or they just like talking on the phone a lot, but most young people don't even have a landline.
[25:05.920 --> 25:07.400]  Do they even call cell phones?
[25:07.580 --> 25:09.860]  Do people pick up numbers they don't recognize?
[25:10.160 --> 25:22.020]  So, you know, with all that in mind, all these, um, facts and figures that are being presented to us with basically no research involved, how accurate could they possibly be?
[25:25.060 --> 25:25.540]  Okay.
[25:25.600 --> 25:26.060]  Uh, go ahead, Rob.
[25:26.820 --> 25:27.680]  Uh, yeah.
[25:27.840 --> 25:42.860]  And, uh, there, I think there's something to be said too, for not only, uh, trying, not only sort of the major media outlets trying to keep people in a constant state of stress, but also just, uh, really blatantly cherry picking things, um, in order to cater to their base.
[25:43.080 --> 25:46.160]  Uh, the front page of the New York Post today was spectacular.
[25:46.520 --> 25:50.340]  It's this huge full color photo of, uh, Ron DeSantis and his family.
[25:50.520 --> 25:53.240]  He's holding a baby, you know, they're in front of a huge American flag.
[25:53.420 --> 25:59.540]  It's, it says the future and it's, uh, you know, young GOP, young GOP star, uh, DeSantis romps to victory in Florida.
[25:59.720 --> 26:03.520]  And then a little bar on the bottom that says Hochul claims victory in New York.
[26:03.700 --> 26:12.440]  This is a New York newspaper talk, you know, ostensibly where you get news about New York and, you know, our, our governor, our history making governor is, uh, is a small bar on the bottom.
[26:12.620 --> 26:17.280]  While the big spectacle is of course the, the Republican who's the rising star of the party.
[26:17.440 --> 26:20.840]  And I should also point out, you said the future, it was the future.
[26:21.060 --> 26:21.920]  Like that's what I'm sure.
[26:22.080 --> 26:23.660]  Their joke is it lands.
[26:23.820 --> 26:24.020]  Yeah.
[26:24.120 --> 26:25.080]  Like DeSantis, the future.
[26:25.480 --> 26:25.620]  Funny.
[26:26.020 --> 26:26.280]  Yes.
[26:26.460 --> 26:28.580]  There's a lot of New Yorkers that live in Florida, right?
[26:28.780 --> 26:32.280]  So, and, and, you know, this is something that I found very disturbing.
[26:32.640 --> 26:39.660]  Uh, all of Long Island went red and, um, you know, we're starting to turn into the Florida of the North and, you know, or Staten Island or something like that.
[26:39.740 --> 26:42.880]  No offense, Staten Island listeners, but my God, what's happening to us.
[26:43.140 --> 26:43.420]  Uh, go ahead.
[26:44.120 --> 26:53.900]  No, I think this also kind of, uh, ties in with what we were talking about a couple of months ago when we were talking about the ring camera show on Amazon.
[26:54.640 --> 27:07.120]  And I said that, you know, the fact that there are now all these streaming services, all these platforms, everybody's reaching for eyeballs and they want, first of all, they have to figure out enough content to fill 24 hours a day.
[27:07.240 --> 27:09.860]  And then they have to keep people tuning in 24 hours a day.
[27:10.020 --> 27:17.020]  So the fact that everybody's got their own outrage cycle and they have to keep people focused on whatever it is.
[27:17.100 --> 27:23.820]  And it is now, is your shampoo trying to kill you 24 hours a day on every topic in the whole entire world.
[27:24.040 --> 27:38.140]  And I'm also wondering why it is or how it is that the voices that get this kind of traction tend to be voices moving more toward the right wing.
[27:38.340 --> 27:39.800]  Like you remember Air America?
[27:40.620 --> 27:42.560]  What happened there, man?
[27:42.760 --> 27:43.940]  I miss Air America.
[27:44.800 --> 27:50.640]  And how that there's no answer, I think, is another part of the problem.
[27:51.060 --> 28:02.300]  And yes, well, I think the answer is that left wing people, with the exception of Pacifica and BAI, I mean it, can't really run a radio network.
[28:02.740 --> 28:18.600]  I think, you know, right wing people for something in there, you know, the way they operate things, which is basically, I'm right, you're wrong, and not open to nuance or, you know, alternative ideas or things that might be a challenge for your point of view.
[28:19.880 --> 28:21.580]  Yeah, you don't see that as much.
[28:21.580 --> 28:24.440]  So it's a lot simpler to just run a business that way.
[28:24.540 --> 28:24.820]  I don't know.
[28:24.880 --> 28:25.480]  That's my theory.
[28:25.620 --> 28:27.240]  But Air America was a good idea.
[28:27.700 --> 28:29.240]  It just wasn't run very well.
[28:29.520 --> 28:32.700]  But there should be, there should be more variety on the radio.
[28:33.040 --> 28:39.600]  And let me just for a second step on the soapbox and say that that's why a station like WBAI is so hugely important.
[28:39.820 --> 28:43.760]  Because look around, you don't hear voices like this anywhere.
[28:43.980 --> 28:47.360]  You basically, certainly on the AM dial, nothing but right wing.
[28:47.540 --> 28:52.600]  You know, it's because of what Gila brought up, that places like Air America disappear.
[28:53.220 --> 28:55.840]  Fortunately, places like WBAI have not disappeared.
[28:56.000 --> 28:58.000]  The reason for that is you, listeners.
[28:58.280 --> 29:01.740]  So please, go to the website, give2wbai.org.
[29:01.820 --> 29:04.240]  That's give, the number 2, wbai.org.
[29:04.540 --> 29:07.360]  Or call 212-209-2950.
[29:07.360 --> 29:08.740]  And please be generous.
[29:09.240 --> 29:10.140]  Please be generous.
[29:10.260 --> 29:18.020]  It keeps us on the air, keeps us talking about these issues and talking about all kinds of other issues that are going to be happening between now and 2024.
[29:19.100 --> 29:24.980]  We need as many voices as possible that are questioning the system and questioning the way things happen.
[29:25.160 --> 29:27.580]  So it's never been more important.
[29:27.600 --> 29:32.420]  And we've also been off the air for a number of days because of all the transmitter maintenance going on in Midtown.
[29:33.000 --> 29:33.940]  Oh, what a nightmare.
[29:34.180 --> 29:41.640]  But you can help fix that just by giving a generous donation, 212-209-2950 or give to WBAI.org.
[29:41.760 --> 29:43.140]  Okay, I'm getting off the soapbox now.
[29:43.300 --> 29:43.920]  Alex, go ahead.
[29:44.860 --> 29:52.880]  Just for the record, Air America was also a cargo airline that the CIA covertly owned.
[29:53.460 --> 30:05.660]  I think between 1950 and probably the end of the Vietnam War, and it was used actually to supply covert operations in Southeast Asia during the Vietnam War.
[30:06.280 --> 30:08.800]  So just, you know, I want to clarify that.
[30:09.860 --> 30:19.880]  But speaking of clandestine things and, you know, leading up to the election, I want to offer an observation because I spent a lot of time in Pennsylvania.
[30:20.020 --> 30:24.600]  As you know, I usually do the show from Pennsylvania, and we're out in the Poconos quite a bit.
[30:24.740 --> 30:36.120]  And I have a son that watches an inordinate and probably unhealthy amount of YouTube videos about video games and all kinds of things that, you know, kids his age do.
[30:36.440 --> 30:46.140]  And one thing that was extremely concerning to me is that he came to me asking me about, you know, who this Fetterman guy was.
[30:46.280 --> 30:49.480]  And is he really too radical for Pennsylvania?
[30:49.480 --> 30:51.540]  I said, what the hell are you talking about?
[30:53.400 --> 30:54.860]  Wait, how old is your kid?
[30:55.540 --> 30:55.900]  Nine.
[30:56.380 --> 30:56.560]  Nine.
[30:56.560 --> 30:59.380]  And he asked you if John Fetterman was too radical for Pennsylvania.
[30:59.540 --> 31:01.280]  That's almost an exact quote from a commercial.
[31:01.900 --> 31:03.780]  Well, that's where you think, where do you think he got it?
[31:03.840 --> 31:10.000]  It was from these YouTube ads that they're playing, that they bombarded everybody with in Pennsylvania.
[31:10.340 --> 31:12.080]  It was absolutely extraordinary.
[31:12.320 --> 31:14.960]  You couldn't go on any kind of social media.
[31:15.320 --> 31:22.860]  You know, if you had an IP address that traced back to Pennsylvania, you were going to be bombarded with this load of crap.
[31:23.420 --> 31:27.940]  You know, and he knew about Dr. Oz, you know, is he really an extremist?
[31:28.120 --> 31:29.480]  Is Fetterman too radical?
[31:29.680 --> 31:32.760]  What's going to... And this was concerning to him because he's nine years old.
[31:32.860 --> 31:39.580]  He's being bombarded by these ads, thinking that there's going to be some radical in charge of the state in which he's living at the moment.
[31:39.880 --> 31:41.460]  And he doesn't know what's going to happen.
[31:41.620 --> 31:42.780]  I mean, so it was really crazy.
[31:42.900 --> 31:57.820]  But on the other hand, it really makes you wonder about the ethics of bombarding anybody with an IP address in Pennsylvania with these types of ads, especially when you know that the videos with which the ads are associated relate to children.
[31:58.440 --> 31:59.720]  And what's the play there?
[31:59.940 --> 32:17.800]  I mean, they're obviously going for people that are a lower voting age, but, you know, maybe in this, you know, crazy, I, you know, scheme to make a profit here, they just kept playing the ads over and over and over and over again, because they knew the budget from the Democrats and Republicans was so through the roof.
[32:18.120 --> 32:27.480]  Well, Alex, let's, let's just say that you weren't an informed parent and that your child came to you and asked you that, that simple question in a very innocent tone.
[32:27.880 --> 32:32.720]  And it got you thinking, is John Fetterman too radical for the state of Pennsylvania?
[32:32.720 --> 32:34.620]  And you've heard it from your own child.
[32:34.760 --> 32:37.120]  You see how, how they, they manipulate things.
[32:37.120 --> 32:37.880]  Yeah.
[32:38.380 --> 32:51.900]  Well, you know, trust me, when, when a nine-year-old asks you whether a political candidate for the Senate is too radical for the state that he spends some time during the weekend, it does get you thinking whether or not that candidate is too radical for Pennsylvania.
[32:52.260 --> 32:53.440]  Where the hell did he get this?
[32:53.500 --> 32:57.740]  And then you realize, oh my God, he's just getting inundated with these ads.
[32:57.900 --> 33:00.360]  So, but it's, it's a weird thing.
[33:00.660 --> 33:02.000]  And I will say this too.
[33:02.220 --> 33:22.840]  I mean, and I, I think, I feel like I bring this up every election cycle, but I think there is some serious problem on both sides of the aisle here when it comes to sharing data about voters and, and information in particular, contact details of voters,
[33:22.860 --> 33:36.120]  because I, I signed up, I will tell you years ago, maybe six years ago, I think it was, I signed up for, um, uh, you know, be on email list or something for, uh, a friend of mine who's in Congress now.
[33:36.280 --> 33:38.160]  And he won again last night.
[33:38.460 --> 33:41.920]  Uh, Andy Kim, he's a friend of mine from, from Oxford.
[33:42.140 --> 33:43.520]  He was at, at Maudlin.
[33:43.640 --> 33:45.040]  I was at New College right across the street.
[33:45.440 --> 33:48.560]  And I think it was six years ago, he ran for Congress and, and won.
[33:48.800 --> 33:51.060]  And I signed up for his campaign.
[33:51.060 --> 33:59.600]  But I think that the D triple C or somebody takes all that data and sends it around because I'm getting inundated with text messages from Chuck Schumer.
[33:59.960 --> 34:14.160]  And anytime they send me these messages, even though I'm, I am a Democrat and I vote mostly for Democrats, I just find it offensive that somebody posing as Chuck Schumer is texting me in the middle of my work day, reminding me to go out and vote.
[34:14.560 --> 34:17.680]  So I always ask the question, I always respond to the text message.
[34:18.020 --> 34:19.260]  Where did you get this number?
[34:20.080 --> 34:21.220]  You know, from where did you get this number?
[34:21.420 --> 34:23.080]  And the response is always the same.
[34:23.420 --> 34:30.800]  And, and I, that's why I want to bring this up to you, Emmanuel, because they always say, we got this, uh, we got all the information from the voter rolls.
[34:31.620 --> 34:33.780]  And I don't think that that's necessarily the case.
[34:33.880 --> 34:37.940]  I don't think that there's my tele, I don't think my cell phone number... Well, hold on a second.
[34:38.240 --> 34:41.780]  Uh, is, are you getting this in New York or are you getting this in Pennsylvania?
[34:42.340 --> 34:42.900]  New York.
[34:43.100 --> 34:43.420]  New York.
[34:43.620 --> 34:48.840]  In New York, phone numbers are not part of, uh, of what is kept on the, uh, voter registration.
[34:49.020 --> 34:50.780]  Some states though do have phone numbers.
[34:50.780 --> 34:55.240]  Some states have email addresses, but as far as I know, New York is, is not one of those.
[34:55.360 --> 35:01.020]  Now, um, I had a similar thing happen, uh, where, um, I got a text message from one candidate.
[35:01.540 --> 35:06.220]  Um, and then within the next day, I got a text message from their opponent.
[35:06.900 --> 35:09.580]  So somehow my number is being shared.
[35:09.780 --> 35:17.320]  I think there, there might be some other lists going around where more information is shared based on, on initial contact information.
[35:17.320 --> 35:22.720]  They're called calling lists and there are companies that sell them to campaigns.
[35:22.980 --> 35:33.760]  And it's probably that what they really mean is that the voter rolls themselves are compared with other commercially available resources that might have your correct phone number.
[35:33.920 --> 35:41.080]  And, uh, that compilation is sold in sets based on districts to campaigns who want to make calls and solicit.
[35:41.220 --> 35:41.360]  Yeah.
[35:41.460 --> 35:47.480]  It might not even be related to, uh, Alex, to, to your previous relationship, uh, politically.
[35:47.820 --> 35:56.540]  Uh, it might be from somewhere else entirely just, uh, uh, I mean, you know, people get all kinds of, um, I get Donald Trump, uh, messages sometimes.
[35:56.960 --> 36:05.160]  They're really funny and I saved them all, but, uh, you know, they, they make it seem like, um, all sorts of different people are personally texting you or emailing you.
[36:05.780 --> 36:17.700]  And, um, uh, it's, you know, I don't know how many people fall for that, but it's, it's very common and it's also an increasing problem because, you know, you can, you can opt out of commercial spam.
[36:17.900 --> 36:19.420]  You can't opt out of political spam.
[36:20.120 --> 36:22.680]  Someone correct me if I'm wrong on that, but that's, that's what I heard.
[36:22.680 --> 36:27.520]  You can't, you can't put, uh, political, um, uh, calls on do not call list.
[36:27.680 --> 36:29.520]  They, they can call you with impunity.
[36:30.620 --> 36:31.060]  Yeah.
[36:31.140 --> 36:36.460]  Or to be more accurate, uh, political organizations, um, don't have to abide by the do not call list.
[36:36.600 --> 36:37.960]  They can call whoever they like.
[36:37.960 --> 36:45.640]  All, all the more reason to associate yourself with affiliation, you'll get half as much because the other side won't even try you.
[36:45.800 --> 36:49.180]  If you're, uh, undecided or independent, they're all going to bombard you.
[36:49.440 --> 36:57.400]  If you're, if you're firmly in one camp, I mean, you just, you'll basically get stuff that you don't need to hear anyway.
[36:57.640 --> 36:58.080]  Go ahead, Kayla.
[36:58.620 --> 37:08.300]  Something that I find interesting is that all of the, in, in our home, one of us is associated with, and one of us is registered with a political party and one of us is not.
[37:09.040 --> 37:15.620]  And all the mailers that came out before the primary were obviously mailed to the person with a party affiliation.
[37:15.760 --> 37:24.540]  And since then, they've all come to the person without one, but for the party that the one of us who is affiliated is affiliated with, which I found fascinating.
[37:25.360 --> 37:31.140]  Um, I know that my phone has been just completely blown up the last couple of days.
[37:31.300 --> 37:31.860]  Today was nice.
[37:32.500 --> 37:34.360]  Um, how was your phone the last couple of days?
[37:34.540 --> 37:35.320]  Yeah, about, about the same.
[37:36.180 --> 37:40.520]  I don't know where they got my number, but I just wish they would save the money on the mailers.
[37:40.640 --> 37:41.260]  That's all I'm saying.
[37:42.100 --> 37:44.700]  Well, it's traditional and it seems to work.
[37:44.800 --> 37:50.420]  It's a lot of people talking and, and, and going back and forth and it's, it's, it's a, it's a hard thing to put an end to.
[37:50.560 --> 37:50.640]  Yeah.
[37:50.700 --> 37:51.220]  Alex, go ahead.
[37:51.760 --> 37:56.300]  I want to read you the repartee I had with Chuck Schumer.
[37:56.300 --> 37:59.920]  Uh, so I, I get a message a couple of days ago.
[38:00.420 --> 38:02.040]  Hi, it's Chuck Schumer.
[38:02.380 --> 38:06.280]  Delivery workers stepped up during the pandemic, but they were denied the most basic benefits.
[38:06.460 --> 38:08.540]  I've proudly worked with them to make things right.
[38:08.740 --> 38:12.120]  And we won big, see what we accomplished, blah, blah, blah, link.
[38:12.720 --> 38:14.900]  And I write back, where'd you get this number?
[38:15.600 --> 38:20.840]  And he writes, uh, he, uh, you know, in quotation, it's probably an it, it's probably just a machine.
[38:21.780 --> 38:29.640]  He writes, uh, the next day at, uh, so probably about, I know, almost 24 hours later, I get this response.
[38:30.000 --> 38:33.100]  We got your number from the list of registered voters in New York.
[38:33.440 --> 38:36.080]  We want to make sure that all our folks are voting.
[38:36.560 --> 38:40.540]  Do you want to receive your local polling station and time so you can vote?
[38:41.000 --> 38:45.560]  And then my response is, you've got my phone number from a voter registration list.
[38:45.740 --> 38:46.720]  I don't think that's accurate.
[38:46.960 --> 38:51.020]  I'm a registered Democrat, but the voter rolls do not contain my telephone number.
[38:51.220 --> 38:54.740]  Please tell me specifically how you obtain this telephone number.
[38:55.460 --> 38:57.140]  And do you know what they said in response?
[38:57.500 --> 38:57.740]  Nothing?
[38:58.100 --> 38:58.540]  Nothing.
[38:59.240 --> 38:59.360]  Nothing.
[38:59.600 --> 39:00.640]  No, that's what I would expect.
[39:01.100 --> 39:01.520]  Nothing.
[39:01.820 --> 39:19.280]  So I think, I think, you know, what Kyle said is accurate that, uh, basically, um, there is a, a voter registration list, but then to, to counter what I said before, uh, because you did get involved with someone politically, your name was matched with your phone number and now they have both and,
[39:19.300 --> 39:21.700]  and, and they, they cross referenced and they shared.
[39:21.880 --> 39:24.560]  So that's, um, good luck getting that to stop.
[39:25.200 --> 39:25.500]  Yeah.
[39:25.700 --> 39:33.400]  I remember seeing those lists on that, on that green and white, um, uh, paper with the, the, uh, dot matrix.
[39:33.840 --> 39:33.840]  Yeah.
[39:33.860 --> 39:33.940]  Yeah.
[39:34.120 --> 39:36.420]  That, that, that wide paper that, uh, dot matrix.
[39:36.540 --> 39:36.640]  Yeah.
[39:36.700 --> 39:43.600]  And that was like a call list and you would go through it and you, you, you'd use like rip half of, you know, a stack to volunteers.
[39:43.940 --> 39:46.420]  I don't think I still use that in my head.
[39:46.620 --> 39:50.620]  They do or punch cards or anything like that, but they, the, the, the thought is the same.
[39:51.700 --> 39:55.300]  What I'd like to do in the time, uh, remaining, and we have so much more to talk about.
[39:55.480 --> 39:57.160]  We'll be on overtime at eight o'clock on YouTube.
[39:57.600 --> 40:08.300]  Uh, but, uh, does anybody have any stories from voting from going to the, the, uh, the polls for me, uh, going yesterday in a place where there's almost never a line.
[40:08.820 --> 40:13.260]  Uh, it's basically you go in, you vote and you leave, uh, maybe one person ahead of you.
[40:13.340 --> 40:14.500]  I had to wait a half hour.
[40:14.640 --> 40:15.900]  I had to wait a half hour.
[40:16.140 --> 40:21.220]  And, uh, there, there were a lot of people, uh, many of them seem to be younger people.
[40:21.960 --> 40:28.720]  And, um, of course, uh, in the end, it turned out that, uh, Long Island voted pretty, pretty red, um, pretty much across the board.
[40:29.220 --> 40:32.660]  But, um, technically things seem to work pretty well.
[40:33.060 --> 40:49.000]  Um, you know, filling out those, those pieces of paper, sliding it into the fax machine or whatever that thing is, and, um, having it, having it cast successfully, I didn't notice any problems out on, uh, Long Island, but, uh, maybe you guys saw something,
[40:49.380 --> 40:49.640]  Alex?
[40:50.500 --> 41:03.900]  Well, yeah, I want to bring it back to my nearly radicalized, uh, nine-year-old again here because I brought, I brought my son with me to vote for the first time yesterday, uh, at our local polling station in the, uh, in the West Village.
[41:04.420 --> 41:10.980]  And it was a really great experience, I think, for him because this was his way of seeing democracy in action.
[41:11.720 --> 41:15.180]  And he asked me, you know, is it going to be exciting when we go over there?
[41:15.240 --> 41:16.180]  Is this going to be fun?
[41:16.480 --> 41:23.100]  And I said, well, you know, if you think, you know, reading about propositions and things on the back of the ballot is fun, then, you know, absolutely.
[41:23.340 --> 41:30.020]  And I said, but, you know, this is what government, you know, for the people and by the people and of the people looks like.
[41:30.160 --> 41:35.240]  This is, this is what people have fought for, bled for, and died for since the 18th century in this country.
[41:35.320 --> 41:37.120]  And it may seem boring, but it's really...
[41:37.120 --> 41:38.940]  It's kind of scary the way you say it.
[41:39.060 --> 41:40.100]  Fought for and died for.
[41:40.360 --> 41:41.920]  You said that to your nine-year-old?
[41:42.040 --> 41:42.400]  Okay.
[41:43.340 --> 41:43.700]  Absolutely.
[41:44.000 --> 41:45.800]  Uh, he, he's a big history buff, too.
[41:45.960 --> 41:49.020]  So, I think he really enjoyed the experience of going in there.
[41:49.220 --> 41:57.220]  They looked through the rolls, we get the ballot, I showed him how everything works, and we, we chose, you know, the, the candidates for whom we wanted to vote.
[41:57.740 --> 42:05.360]  And then we got down to the areas in the ballots where we're voting for justices of the Supreme Court and justices of the Civil Court.
[42:05.660 --> 42:09.840]  And there was only one candidate, let's say, where there were three candidates and you had to choose three.
[42:10.040 --> 42:10.180]  Yeah.
[42:10.280 --> 42:12.680]  Where there was one candidate for the Civil Court and you have to choose one.
[42:12.820 --> 42:15.100]  And it's just this exercise and stupidity.
[42:15.260 --> 42:17.340]  I hate the idea of only having one candidate.
[42:17.560 --> 42:18.560]  I agree.
[42:18.760 --> 42:19.800]  I skipped all of those.
[42:20.220 --> 42:26.820]  Well, what I do for them is I write in, I write in candidates to oppose them, And they're mostly my dogs.
[42:27.260 --> 42:28.960]  Dogs that are both living and dead.
[42:29.520 --> 42:38.660]  And so I said to my son, all right, so, all right, let's do, you know, Winston, Julia, you know, all of our dogs' names that we wrote in for all of these.
[42:38.780 --> 42:43.000]  And then he looked at me and said, Daddy, are you sure that this is legal?
[42:43.000 --> 42:44.660]  I was about to ask you the same question.
[42:45.120 --> 42:47.140]  Okay, I'm glad I think like a nine-year-old.
[42:47.300 --> 42:52.600]  But basically, yeah, you know, you're writing in fake names, pretty much.
[42:52.840 --> 42:53.320]  I don't know.
[42:53.480 --> 42:55.340]  It sounds like it's kind of...
[42:55.340 --> 42:56.960]  You can vote for whomever you want to vote.
[42:57.040 --> 42:57.860]  I guess you can.
[42:58.000 --> 42:58.660]  I guess you can.
[42:59.680 --> 43:01.000]  You bring up a very good point, though.
[43:01.020 --> 43:07.060]  Those judges, not only is there only one choice, but they represent Democrats, Republicans, conservatives, and working families.
[43:07.200 --> 43:07.820]  They're all four.
[43:08.020 --> 43:09.520]  What is the point of even running?
[43:09.540 --> 43:10.480]  I don't get that.
[43:10.480 --> 43:14.440]  So there's no reason in the world for me to select any of them.
[43:14.720 --> 43:22.100]  I don't write in names because I just have this suspicion if I write in a name, it's going to somehow get flagged and put aside and counted later.
[43:22.300 --> 43:24.820]  And I don't really have any names to give anyway.
[43:25.880 --> 43:30.620]  Well, I feel like I may have given you some ideas for the next election cycle, Emmanuel.
[43:31.300 --> 43:47.600]  But the other thing that was interesting to my son was that when we finished filling out the ballot, and we went over to put it into the ballot scanner, I had told him, I said, look, you know, this is a voter-verified paper record that we have in our hand right here.
[43:47.720 --> 43:49.320]  We're going to put it into the system.
[43:49.520 --> 43:50.480]  It's going to scan it.
[43:50.520 --> 43:57.240]  And all those choices that we made, all those bubbles that we filled in, those are going to be turned into some kind of electronic tabulation.
[43:57.240 --> 44:04.580]  But let's say there's some tampering with the machine, or we don't know what happened, or there's a memory problem, the hard drive fails, whatever.
[44:05.200 --> 44:07.540]  At least we still have this paper ballot.
[44:07.700 --> 44:14.120]  That's why it's called a voter-verified paper ballot, because if something happens to the election, we can always go back to the paper trail.
[44:14.220 --> 44:19.220]  And that's different from these direct recording electronic systems that other states have.
[44:19.220 --> 44:22.920]  And by this time, a small crowd had gathered around Alex as he continued his lecture.
[44:23.280 --> 44:34.680]  Well, one of the electoral workers was listening to me lecture my son on the merits and demerits of various voting systems.
[44:35.280 --> 44:41.940]  And at the end of this lecture, we were talking about the direct recording electronic system that doesn't have some kind of voter-verified record.
[44:41.940 --> 44:44.680]  So if there's tampering, how do you audit that system?
[44:44.680 --> 44:48.320]  And Sasha said, well, that seems really unsafe.
[44:48.460 --> 44:49.720]  And I said, well, you're absolutely right.
[44:50.680 --> 44:57.100]  And people have actually filed lawsuits claiming that this is an equal protection issue under the 14th Amendment.
[44:57.300 --> 45:04.560]  But this voter, this ballot poll worker person, came over and said, that was absolutely amazing.
[45:04.760 --> 45:07.600]  He said, you know, can we just adopt you for the rest of the night?
[45:07.780 --> 45:09.240]  You can lecture him.
[45:09.780 --> 45:11.780]  I said, no, I have to go.
[45:12.000 --> 45:13.480]  I've got things to do.
[45:13.480 --> 45:15.200]  So, but it was fun.
[45:15.340 --> 45:16.240]  I really enjoyed it.
[45:16.360 --> 45:17.780]  It was a great experience for my son.
[45:19.080 --> 45:22.900]  And where we vote in the West Village, it's extraordinarily diverse.
[45:22.900 --> 45:24.800]  It's in one of the LGBT centers.
[45:25.120 --> 45:31.060]  And everybody, I felt like, was happy and great to be out and voting.
[45:31.300 --> 45:33.040]  And no Oath Keepers watching what you did.
[45:34.000 --> 45:35.320]  Not that I was aware of.
[45:35.320 --> 45:36.260]  That's tremendous.
[45:36.660 --> 45:37.240]  Rob, go ahead.
[45:38.480 --> 45:45.460]  Well, we went to vote in Queens and it was, I think, really well populated considering it was a midterm election.
[45:45.860 --> 45:51.800]  So, you know, lots of people, but the staff, the poll workers were on point, getting everyone through very quickly.
[45:51.800 --> 45:57.780]  The interesting thing from a tech perspective is we all got our, I voted pens.
[45:58.780 --> 45:59.580]  Yeah, pens?
[45:59.740 --> 46:00.960]  I don't even get stickers.
[46:01.380 --> 46:02.640]  You got pens and stickers.
[46:02.720 --> 46:05.320]  No, they never, my voting place never has stickers.
[46:05.480 --> 46:07.880]  They even said that to me yesterday, let alone pens.
[46:07.880 --> 46:09.040]  I didn't even know there were pens.
[46:09.340 --> 46:20.880]  But what's interesting about these is that historically, since I've begun voting, you would sign your name in ink in a book that they have with everyone's names and addresses in the area.
[46:21.120 --> 46:24.200]  But that is no longer, you no longer sign a physical book.
[46:24.320 --> 46:25.540]  You're signing an iPad now.
[46:25.760 --> 46:26.220]  Yeah, I did that.
[46:26.220 --> 46:32.080]  These pens have a touchscreen nipple on the end, so you can use them on the touchscreen to sign your name.
[46:32.340 --> 46:33.560]  And that's new.
[46:33.760 --> 46:38.580]  So you use the stylus part to sign the iPad, and then you use the pen part to vote.
[46:38.740 --> 46:39.960]  And it's very exciting.
[46:40.140 --> 46:42.840]  And there's enough that everybody can have their own because, you know, pandemic.
[46:43.140 --> 46:51.140]  The interesting thing, we vote at a school, in the cafeteria, in the basement.
[46:51.820 --> 46:55.720]  So we got to, you know, flashbacks just everywhere.
[46:56.240 --> 46:58.880]  And we got up to our precinct table.
[46:59.020 --> 47:01.880]  And interestingly enough, there was a line at the next precinct table over.
[47:02.100 --> 47:04.620]  Ten people were waiting at the precinct table next to ours.
[47:04.700 --> 47:05.620]  But we got right up there.
[47:06.080 --> 47:07.640]  And she said, I'm so sorry.
[47:08.360 --> 47:10.540]  The signal down here is really bad.
[47:10.660 --> 47:13.380]  So it's just going to take a second for the whole thing to reset.
[47:13.560 --> 47:14.420]  She showed me the moving.
[47:14.560 --> 47:15.460]  I said, we're in the basement.
[47:15.760 --> 47:16.420]  It's fine.
[47:16.820 --> 47:17.860]  We're totally fine.
[47:18.920 --> 47:20.140]  But yeah, we have pens.
[47:20.280 --> 47:20.720]  We got stickers.
[47:20.980 --> 47:24.560]  I was voter 364 at my particular scanner.
[47:25.020 --> 47:26.760]  Wow, I was voter 599.
[47:27.480 --> 47:29.980]  I was in a gym in an elementary school.
[47:30.060 --> 47:37.920]  And I said to Kyle, who I brought with me, not to watch over what I was voting for, but just so he could, you know, be a part of the New York process.
[47:38.760 --> 47:45.560]  But basically, it's the most time I spent in a gym in years, because I was there for a half hour, just waiting in line.
[47:45.900 --> 47:49.800]  I noticed that there are so many baskets for basketball in a typical gym.
[47:49.960 --> 47:50.560]  There were eight of them.
[47:50.560 --> 47:53.420]  And I just wondered, why do you need so many baskets?
[47:53.820 --> 47:55.120]  You know, it's like this one sport.
[47:55.380 --> 47:58.420]  They really invest in that sport, in gymnasiums.
[47:58.840 --> 47:59.520]  It's interesting.
[47:59.660 --> 48:00.380]  So that's what I noticed.
[48:01.420 --> 48:04.160]  Did anyone else have any interesting experiences they wanted to share?
[48:04.320 --> 48:08.440]  Kyle, no, you vote by mail in Washington State.
[48:08.600 --> 48:12.640]  And Washington has this great system where they will mail you anywhere.
[48:12.940 --> 48:14.960]  And it works 100% mail-in.
[48:15.120 --> 48:17.500]  This is the model, I think, for the rest of us.
[48:18.640 --> 48:25.240]  Yeah, it's traditionally called absentee or all-mail voting, mail-in, whatever it is.
[48:25.360 --> 48:28.860]  And then, of course, for a couple of years, they required postage.
[48:28.940 --> 48:30.560]  Now there's no postage necessary.
[48:30.620 --> 48:31.120]  Oh, wow.
[48:31.220 --> 48:39.340]  So there's certain little changes and accommodations that have been made over the years.
[48:39.440 --> 48:40.960]  But you don't get a sticker either, though.
[48:41.160 --> 48:42.500]  You get a virtual sticker.
[48:42.860 --> 48:43.900]  I don't even get that.
[48:43.900 --> 48:48.520]  Yeah, and you can check things, and it's a very interesting process.
[48:48.780 --> 48:55.140]  And I just noted that they had the tablets in the polling center that we visited.
[48:55.240 --> 48:59.640]  And so things were sort of a little bit futuristic.
[48:59.900 --> 49:02.060]  And I used one of those pens, but they didn't say I could keep it.
[49:02.360 --> 49:06.200]  So, Gila, then we're going to ask Weldon for his experience.
[49:06.200 --> 49:10.840]  So, one non-tech thing that I noticed, they had...
[49:10.840 --> 49:16.300]  Oh, and thank you, by the way, for retweeting us from the 2600 account, our picture with our stickers.
[49:18.420 --> 49:22.280]  Right next to that was a bulletin board with student work pinned up on it.
[49:22.340 --> 49:28.920]  And it looked like these kids had had to write papers for gym class and about who their favorite athletes were.
[49:29.620 --> 49:40.900]  I actually got angry in the high school because one child had written a little essay explaining that his favorite athlete was Kyrie Irving because he has...
[49:40.900 --> 49:42.560]  Oh, it's about to get better.
[49:42.720 --> 49:48.720]  Because, well, he has the courage of his convictions and was such a good player that they had to make a COVID exemption for him.
[49:49.040 --> 49:54.860]  And I hope to God that this paper was not written in the last week or so.
[49:54.980 --> 49:55.320]  Oh, boy.
[49:55.400 --> 49:57.260]  And it baffles me that they didn't take it down.
[49:57.260 --> 49:58.460]  We only have two minutes left.
[49:59.040 --> 50:01.400]  Welton, anything happen to you in your polling place?
[50:02.260 --> 50:06.100]  Like Kyle, in Washington, D.C., we have all mail-in.
[50:06.660 --> 50:08.880]  Every registered voter gets a mail-in ballot now.
[50:09.080 --> 50:11.320]  They mail the stickers to you as part of your ballot.
[50:11.720 --> 50:13.820]  And the nice thing here in D.C.
[50:13.940 --> 50:19.000]  is that you get text messages as your ballot is moving its way through the system.
[50:19.180 --> 50:19.360]  Wow.
[50:19.360 --> 50:29.940]  So once it's accepted by the Postal Service, once it makes it to the counting and all that, there's a lot of integrity and transparency in the system here.
[50:30.100 --> 50:35.500]  And it is something that the fringe social media networks, they hate.
[50:35.640 --> 50:36.400]  They hate the mail-in.
[50:36.560 --> 50:38.140]  They hate the drop boxes.
[50:38.260 --> 50:42.220]  They hate all that stuff because they know that it's making it easier for people to vote.
[50:42.220 --> 50:44.960]  And you vote in Washington, D.C., you said?
[50:46.120 --> 50:46.140]  That's right.
[50:46.140 --> 50:47.420]  So you don't get a senator.
[50:47.660 --> 50:48.720]  You don't get representation.
[50:49.060 --> 50:49.480]  No, no.
[50:49.620 --> 50:50.920]  Yeah, we don't get any of that.
[50:51.120 --> 50:51.980]  We vote for a mayor.
[50:52.280 --> 50:54.220]  We, you know, council member.
[50:54.500 --> 51:01.360]  But, yeah, all of the actual power, you know, taxation without representation, that's our motto here.
[51:02.060 --> 51:02.460]  Wow.
[51:02.680 --> 51:04.320]  Well, maybe someday that'll be fixed.
[51:04.340 --> 51:07.240]  I know we keep talking about it, but it never seems to actually go anywhere.
[51:07.860 --> 51:10.340]  But it's interesting to hear that particular experience.
[51:11.020 --> 51:17.220]  You can write to us here at OffTheHook, O-T-H at 2600.com is our email address.
[51:17.440 --> 51:21.860]  And, of course, we will be going to Overtime in just a few minutes over on YouTube.
[51:21.860 --> 51:29.620]  You get there by going to YouTube.com slash channel 2600 or go to 2600.com and click on the link on top of the page.
[51:30.280 --> 51:37.300]  And you'll be connected to our YouTube, I guess, podcast called Overtime.
[51:37.500 --> 51:39.260]  We're on the air for about an hour or so there.
[51:39.420 --> 51:40.300]  And you can call us.
[51:40.400 --> 51:45.060]  You can call us and share your experiences about what you did on Election Day or really just about anything else.
[51:45.060 --> 51:46.480]  We haven't talked about Twitter at all.
[51:46.560 --> 51:49.300]  I wanted to talk about Twitter and what Elon Musk is doing and all that.
[51:49.420 --> 51:52.860]  We're going to talk about all that in the next hour over on YouTube.
[51:53.020 --> 51:55.880]  And you can participate as listeners.
[51:55.880 --> 51:58.900]  Well, I want to thank you so much for joining us tonight.
[51:59.040 --> 52:00.760]  Hopefully, you can join us on Overtime as well.
[52:01.340 --> 52:08.280]  Weldon Chang is basically an expert on disinformation and how things can go horribly wrong with elections.
[52:09.020 --> 52:11.720]  And I'm sure we'll be calling on you many times in the future.
[52:13.000 --> 52:14.000]  Thanks for having me on.
[52:14.440 --> 52:15.020]  All right.
[52:15.120 --> 52:18.560]  We will see you soon on Overtime, again, starting at 8 o'clock.
[52:18.700 --> 52:23.140]  And hopefully, we'll be back again next week on WBAI for Off the Hook.
[52:23.140 --> 52:31.140]  Again, please support this radio station, 212-209-2950, or the website, give2wbai.org.
[52:31.740 --> 52:41.200]  Remember, these voices that you hear on the radio are rare, and you don't hear voices like this as much as you hear other kinds of voices in the mainstream.
[52:41.680 --> 52:45.400]  And we've been doing this since 1960, all because of your support.
[52:45.500 --> 52:47.820]  So please, 212-209-2950.
[52:48.300 --> 52:49.580]  That's going to do it for Off the Hook.
[52:49.860 --> 52:50.880]  We'll see you next week.
[52:50.980 --> 52:51.160]  Good night.
[52:54.300 --> 53:45.960]  Hello, darkness, my old friend I've come to talk with you again Because a vision softly creeping Left its seeds while I was sleeping And a vision that was planted in my brain Still remains Within the sound of silence In restless dreams I walked alone Narrow streets of cobblestone Neath a halo of a street lamp I turned my collar to the cold and damp.
[53:46.620 --> 53:52.900]  When my eyes were stared by the flash of a neon light.
[53:53.500 --> 54:01.180]  It split the night and touched the sound of silence.
[54:02.460 --> 54:10.200]  And in the naked light I saw 10,000 people, maybe more.
[54:11.420 --> 54:15.140]  People talking without speaking.
[54:15.980 --> 54:19.660]  People hearing without listening.
[54:20.980 --> 54:27.820]  People writing songs that voices never shared.
[54:28.680 --> 54:36.040]  No one did disturb the sound of silence.
[54:37.940 --> 54:40.340]  Fools that I do not know.
[54:41.980 --> 54:45.080]  Silence like a cancer grows.
[54:46.160 --> 54:50.040]  Hear my words that I might teach you.
[54:50.800 --> 54:54.460]  Take my arms that I might reach you.
[54:54.460 --> 55:01.180]  But my words like silent raindrops fell.
[55:01.180 --> 55:10.320]  It echoed the waves of silence.
[55:11.960 --> 55:14.740]  And the people bowed and prayed.
[55:16.760 --> 55:19.200]  To a neon God they named.
[55:20.800 --> 55:23.960]  And the sign flashed out its warning.
[55:25.140 --> 55:28.320]  In the words that it was forming.
[55:28.320 --> 55:36.480]  And the sign said the words of the prophets are written on the subway walls.
[55:37.240 --> 55:42.560]  Tenement halls whispered.
[55:42.560 --> 55:46.760]  The sound of silence.
[55:59.270 --> 56:02.130]  Is this where I sign up to get my medical oregano?
[56:02.330 --> 56:04.790]  You don't have to sign up for medical oregano.
[56:05.010 --> 56:06.850]  I don't need a medical oregano card?
[56:07.030 --> 56:09.570]  The medicinal properties of oregano are well known.
[56:09.710 --> 56:10.030]  I know.
[56:10.230 --> 56:11.250]  I heard it on WBAI.
[56:11.970 --> 56:14.510]  Even so, my brother was unable to speak.
[56:14.510 --> 56:15.550]  Could not walk.
[56:15.710 --> 56:16.630]  We gave him oregano.
[56:16.630 --> 56:17.590]  And it cured him?
[56:17.890 --> 56:19.330]  First he started to crawl.
[56:19.490 --> 56:19.630]  Oh.
[56:19.810 --> 56:21.210]  Then he sort of toddled.
[56:21.350 --> 56:22.070]  Could he say anything?
[56:22.310 --> 56:23.150]  He said da-da.
[56:23.350 --> 56:23.550]  Oh.
[56:23.810 --> 56:24.310]  Then mama.
[56:24.710 --> 56:26.170]  And then he went off to kindergarten.
[56:26.430 --> 56:27.930]  And you owe it all to oregano.
[56:28.130 --> 56:28.350]  No.
[56:28.370 --> 56:30.430]  We owe it all to WBAI.
[56:30.570 --> 56:31.890]  Well, what about the oregano?
[56:31.970 --> 56:33.250]  We put it on his pizza.
[56:47.450 --> 56:51.530]  And don't forget, just sprinkle some oregano on your pizza.
[56:53.800 --> 56:56.390]  This station is so significant for me.
[56:56.570 --> 57:03.250]  I remember the days that we were fighting against the overuse of stop and frisk.
[57:03.550 --> 57:08.830]  No other station would cover the conversation and inform the listeners.
[57:09.270 --> 57:11.410]  Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams.
[57:11.410 --> 57:19.210]  The acronym for WBAI is where bad-ass insurgents learn how to get their information out in a clear way.
[57:19.410 --> 57:21.190]  This station must survive.
[57:21.890 --> 57:22.850]  Connect the dots.
[57:23.050 --> 57:29.490]  There's a movement to destroy independent communications across this entire country.
[57:29.490 --> 57:31.670]  And this has become ground zero.
[57:31.910 --> 57:34.390]  We must do all that we must do.
[57:34.590 --> 57:35.750]  Roll up our sleeves.
[57:36.210 --> 57:37.750]  Put Vaseline on our face.
[57:37.750 --> 57:39.470]  Take our heels off.
[57:39.630 --> 57:41.330]  Get into a deep fight.
[57:41.470 --> 57:44.010]  Because we're about to fight to keep this station alive.
[57:44.210 --> 57:45.010]  Whose station?
[57:45.210 --> 57:46.070]  Our station!
[57:46.590 --> 57:50.550]  This is listener-sponsored, locally controlled, WBAI New York.
[00:00.800 --> 00:05.520]  And welcome to everybody over on YouTube, which is, I believe, where we are right now.
[00:06.640 --> 00:07.300]  I made it.
[00:07.380 --> 00:08.040]  Kyle, did you make it?
[00:08.300 --> 00:09.240]  Sure, I sure did.
[00:09.460 --> 00:10.280]  We're a little late, actually.
[00:10.460 --> 00:10.660]  I sure did.
[00:11.500 --> 00:13.120]  Rob, Gila, I see you guys.
[00:14.260 --> 00:14.540]  Hello.
[00:14.640 --> 00:14.920]  We see you.
[00:15.060 --> 00:16.060]  Okay, and Alex.
[00:16.800 --> 00:17.600]  Yeah, I'm here.
[00:17.940 --> 00:19.160]  Okay, I don't see Weldon.
[00:19.240 --> 00:20.460]  I guess he's not joining us?
[00:21.000 --> 00:24.740]  No, he unfortunately had to put the kids to bed.
[00:24.740 --> 00:29.980]  And he's just recently had another young one, another family.
[00:30.320 --> 00:33.560]  So he sends his regrets, wishes he could have stayed.
[00:33.920 --> 00:36.180]  Well, I'm glad he joined us for the first hour.
[00:36.180 --> 00:40.720]  And what an interesting perspective and information that he gave us.
[00:41.360 --> 00:43.980]  Yeah, Weldon's a great guy, a wealth of information.
[00:44.320 --> 00:51.180]  Just, I think, generally, you know, all-around knowledgeable when it comes to the shadiest corners of the Internet.
[00:51.940 --> 00:52.460]  Yes.
[00:53.080 --> 00:55.600]  And, of course, we naturally gravitate towards that as well.
[00:57.140 --> 01:03.860]  And, yeah, we spent the hour talking about the election and various experiences that we had.
[01:04.480 --> 01:09.860]  But the other major story, the gigantic bird in the room is, of course, Twitter.
[01:11.080 --> 01:14.080]  And what has been going on with Twitter over the last couple of weeks.
[01:14.680 --> 01:15.520]  Oh, my God.
[01:16.300 --> 01:22.940]  Well, you know, the last time we were on, two weeks ago, had Elon Musk completed his sale, or was it about to happen?
[01:23.180 --> 01:24.040]  Does anybody remember?
[01:24.040 --> 01:25.900]  He did it after the show, later in the week.
[01:26.080 --> 01:26.260]  Really?
[01:26.400 --> 01:26.560]  Okay.
[01:26.740 --> 01:28.520]  I think that's how it went down.
[01:29.060 --> 01:29.520]  All right.
[01:31.400 --> 01:32.000]  You know what?
[01:32.900 --> 01:37.280]  Someone jump in and give a thought, and we'll just start the ball rolling with that.
[01:37.360 --> 01:39.900]  Because if I start, I don't know if I'll be able to stop.
[01:39.900 --> 01:44.340]  He seems to be dropping the ball and dropping it hard.
[01:45.640 --> 01:47.620]  And it's kind of spectacular to watch.
[01:47.840 --> 01:57.540]  It's like, you know, watching a spectacular multi-vehicle road accident or train crash or something like that.
[01:57.760 --> 02:09.940]  But it's just been really fascinating because it's actually gotten people so interested in leaving the platform, finding a replacement, at least having a replacement in store for if Twitter blows up.
[02:10.220 --> 02:15.900]  And that has fueled this huge surge in interest in Mastodon.
[02:16.620 --> 02:17.300]  Mastodon, yeah.
[02:17.500 --> 02:21.520]  And, you know, actually, I've got a couple of accounts on Mastodon, various instances.
[02:21.920 --> 02:24.160]  And they're basically, it's decentralized.
[02:24.160 --> 02:25.960]  So there's different Mastodons.
[02:26.740 --> 02:28.540]  You guys know of any in particular?
[02:28.820 --> 02:30.440]  I'm on Mastodon.chaos.
[02:30.640 --> 02:32.160]  Would that be a Mastodai?
[02:32.600 --> 02:33.540]  I don't know.
[02:33.540 --> 02:35.200]  You see, this is the kind of crap I have to deal with.
[02:36.140 --> 02:37.620]  But they're all over the world.
[02:37.840 --> 02:42.280]  And Chaos happens to be run by Chaos Communication or Chaos Computer Club over in Germany.
[02:42.680 --> 02:44.640]  I know there's Mastodon.social.
[02:44.640 --> 02:46.260]  There's Mastodon.online.
[02:46.920 --> 02:50.420]  I think we even have a Mastodon presence that we've had for a couple of years, right?
[02:51.000 --> 02:51.720]  We do.
[02:51.840 --> 02:54.320]  We have a hacker radio show at Mastodon.social.
[02:54.720 --> 02:57.420]  Although the profile seems to be hidden right now.
[02:57.520 --> 02:59.500]  But if you go to it, you can click past that and see it.
[02:59.660 --> 03:02.200]  Is there a reason we don't have Off the Hook or the name of our show?
[03:03.020 --> 03:04.640]  Not to question.
[03:05.600 --> 03:08.400]  It was started to, I think, match our Twitter handle.
[03:08.540 --> 03:10.720]  And, of course, we couldn't get Off the Hook as our Twitter handle.
[03:10.900 --> 03:11.540]  But you know what?
[03:11.560 --> 03:18.180]  Now, with Elon Musk in charge, he's promised to get rid of all the Twitter accounts that aren't being used.
[03:18.280 --> 03:19.580]  And Off the Hook is one of them.
[03:19.920 --> 03:22.420]  It used to be run by some seafood restaurant.
[03:22.720 --> 03:23.920]  But they went out of business.
[03:24.100 --> 03:26.460]  But the Twitter account, it's still there, unused.
[03:27.420 --> 03:30.560]  So I'm hoping that maybe some good can come out of all this.
[03:30.840 --> 03:36.880]  But, you know, your observations about Elon Musk dropping the ball and all that, why do you think that's happening?
[03:37.100 --> 03:38.280]  I mean, we're all noticing it.
[03:38.400 --> 03:40.460]  We're all pointing and laughing.
[03:40.800 --> 03:44.960]  And OK, you know, it's a disaster, yes.
[03:44.960 --> 03:46.500]  But why do you think that's happening?
[03:47.760 --> 03:49.340]  There's a lot of discourse around it.
[03:49.460 --> 04:01.580]  And, you know, a big one is, of course, just he is rich and egotistical and didn't know what he was getting into when he announced loudly that he was going to buy the thing and then had to follow through on that.
[04:02.100 --> 04:12.020]  But there is another school of thought that I've seen here and there that thinks that he is sinking it on purpose to saddle it with debt and things like that.
[04:12.120 --> 04:15.800]  And the sort of shady company acquisition things that happen in the world.
[04:16.340 --> 04:32.360]  The same the same sort of thing that is seen the end of old brands like like Toys R Us and Sears, where investors will buy it and then unload their debt onto it and then use that debt as as a way to close the company down and no longer be responsible for that debt.
[04:32.580 --> 04:34.540]  And I don't know Elon Musk's finances.
[04:34.540 --> 04:39.700]  I'm not enough of an Elon Musk fan to have any idea whether this is accurate or not.
[04:39.840 --> 04:44.880]  But it's it's interesting to think of maybe maybe he's not just being stupid.
[04:45.080 --> 04:47.020]  Maybe he's like being crazy like a fox.
[04:47.140 --> 04:47.760]  Well, wait a minute.
[04:47.880 --> 04:49.060]  OK, I'm trying to figure this out.
[04:49.200 --> 04:50.300]  So he buys.
[04:50.680 --> 04:52.960]  First of all, he he wanted to back out of the deal.
[04:53.100 --> 04:59.000]  So I think everybody needs to remember that when they when they criticize Elon Musk, that he didn't want to buy it in the first or in the second place.
[04:59.100 --> 05:00.040]  He didn't want to buy it in the first place.
[05:00.140 --> 05:00.800]  He did second place.
[05:00.880 --> 05:01.640]  He didn't in the third place.
[05:04.540 --> 05:11.320]  He buys Twitter for forty four billion dollars, a company that's losing somehow millions of dollars a day.
[05:12.020 --> 05:17.640]  And now has he paid for that with money or is it just basically a promise?
[05:18.060 --> 05:18.720]  Anybody know?
[05:20.480 --> 05:21.340]  I guess not.
[05:21.540 --> 05:22.000]  I have no idea.
[05:22.380 --> 05:25.940]  So he basically adds his own debt to that.
[05:25.940 --> 05:31.220]  He raised capital, OK, with a bunch of different venture partners or whatnot.
[05:31.540 --> 05:46.680]  And through that, I think that is take that becomes debt because he went ahead and paid the public shareholders or the board or whomever owned it collectively as when it was public.
[05:47.580 --> 05:52.000]  And I'm just what I'm sure the SEC will have a field day sorting this out.
[05:52.000 --> 05:58.880]  I'm just trying to figure out how do you buy something for forty four billion dollars and and run it into the ground and benefit from that?
[05:59.060 --> 06:00.420]  You know, it's not something I want to do.
[06:00.560 --> 06:01.760]  It's just something I'm curious.
[06:01.940 --> 06:03.540]  How in God's name does that work?
[06:03.900 --> 06:10.620]  Where he actually can make this not a disaster for him, even though millions of users will feel the effect.
[06:11.960 --> 06:13.260]  I don't know that he can.
[06:13.460 --> 06:24.440]  And it's like he's doing the corporate hokey pokey at this point, because everything he tries or at least is pretending to try, he like puts one foot in and then takes one foot out.
[06:24.580 --> 06:26.120]  And and then I don't know.
[06:26.240 --> 06:27.240]  Do you like it this way?
[06:27.340 --> 06:32.940]  And this whole thing that has happened literally in the last, what, two, three hours with the verified checks.
[06:32.960 --> 06:40.060]  And then you can click on somebody's check and see if they got it because they're significant or they got it because they bought it.
[06:40.260 --> 06:46.540]  And then I don't know if that's like literally been turned around in the last, like since we've been on the air, things are changing by the second.
[06:46.660 --> 06:47.260]  I have a blue check.
[06:47.400 --> 06:48.420]  So what happens if you click on my check?
[06:48.440 --> 06:49.580]  I've never clicked on my check.
[06:49.740 --> 06:50.660]  I guess I should have.
[06:50.700 --> 06:52.260]  Well, this is a new thing apparently just now.
[06:52.380 --> 06:53.140]  So let's look you up.
[06:53.600 --> 06:55.320]  Click my check mark.
[06:56.300 --> 06:57.460]  We're going to click your check mark.
[06:57.620 --> 06:58.500]  Oh, that sounds wrong.
[06:58.640 --> 06:59.680]  Yeah, it does sound wrong.
[06:59.800 --> 07:05.220]  But yeah, and I'm one of the few people around here that actually has a blue check.
[07:05.280 --> 07:06.200]  I know you all deserve it.
[07:06.340 --> 07:06.860]  You all deserve it.
[07:06.900 --> 07:07.500]  But I've got it.
[07:07.700 --> 07:08.120]  This account is verified.
[07:08.360 --> 07:12.420]  Because it's notable in government, news, entertainment, or another designated category.
[07:12.940 --> 07:13.180]  Okay.
[07:13.180 --> 07:14.880]  That's what happens when we click on your blue check.
[07:14.900 --> 07:17.020]  That's the nicest thing anyone said to me this week.
[07:17.880 --> 07:19.120]  Say it again, Gila.
[07:19.120 --> 07:19.840]  Say it one more time.
[07:19.920 --> 07:20.220]  I want to hear that again.
[07:20.220 --> 07:20.360]  Hold on.
[07:20.480 --> 07:22.100]  Let me pull the text up again.
[07:23.660 --> 07:30.760]  This account is verified because it's notable in government, news, entertainment, or another designated category.
[07:31.000 --> 07:32.460]  And we're not going to tell you which.
[07:32.720 --> 07:35.140]  You have to figure that out on your own or just imagine.
[07:36.080 --> 07:36.300]  Wow.
[07:36.540 --> 07:37.000]  That's on you.
[07:37.000 --> 07:41.940]  Alex, I see you're stewing because I don't believe you have a blue check mark yet.
[07:42.260 --> 07:43.260]  You're going to get one, though.
[07:44.480 --> 07:45.740]  Well, it's interesting.
[07:46.060 --> 07:49.760]  I went through that silly verification process.
[07:49.760 --> 07:53.240]  And if I recall the criteria correctly...
[07:53.240 --> 07:54.960]  You call the process silly.
[07:55.160 --> 07:56.500]  I think maybe that's why you don't have a check.
[07:57.180 --> 07:58.660]  Well, that could be as well.
[07:58.820 --> 07:59.980]  It is a silly process.
[08:00.160 --> 08:15.200]  But if I remember the criteria correctly, and I think Rob might know the specifics of this actually, but if you had a byline published, so you could get verified as a journalist by having a byline, by having three bylines published within six months.
[08:15.360 --> 08:16.200]  Is that correct, Rob?
[08:16.860 --> 08:17.940]  Something like that, yeah.
[08:18.420 --> 08:18.540]  Yeah.
[08:18.920 --> 08:27.920]  Basically, there were different categories you could get verified in, and each of those categories had its own similar requirements to supposedly verify that you were that thing.
[08:27.920 --> 08:30.240]  So if you were a journalist, it wanted to know your bylines.
[08:30.420 --> 08:37.900]  If you were, like, getting verified as an entertainer, an actor, it wanted your credits, you know, and things to that effect.
[08:38.080 --> 08:38.200]  Yeah.
[08:38.440 --> 08:46.100]  So with that criteria, the three bylines in six months, I remember saying, oh, well, I've got that.
[08:46.320 --> 08:58.700]  So I showed them within, I think, four or five months, I think, two bylines in the Financial Times, one byline on CNN, and one byline in 2600 Magazine.
[08:58.760 --> 08:59.720]  I think you've heard of that.
[08:59.900 --> 09:00.100]  Yes.
[09:00.200 --> 09:01.760]  But you have four bylines of that.
[09:01.960 --> 09:02.900]  You know, you write a column.
[09:03.060 --> 09:03.780]  You're in every issue.
[09:03.900 --> 09:05.860]  So you don't have to go to those other publications.
[09:05.860 --> 09:08.100]  You just have to, you know, go to 2600.
[09:08.360 --> 09:09.500]  Well, that's true, too.
[09:09.500 --> 09:09.960]  I know.
[09:10.260 --> 09:12.200]  But that wasn't enough.
[09:12.480 --> 09:13.860]  They just said, you know, no.
[09:14.340 --> 09:15.840]  And I was like, okay.
[09:16.080 --> 09:17.460]  Because I barely use Twitter.
[09:17.640 --> 09:20.760]  It's not something that's important to me at all.
[09:20.760 --> 09:29.420]  I think, you know, look, they rejected me, even though I met all of their criteria very easily to become verified.
[09:29.760 --> 09:32.760]  And at that point, it just wasn't worth it for me to pursue it.
[09:32.820 --> 09:35.860]  Because, like I said, at the outset, it's silly.
[09:36.100 --> 09:36.520]  Go ahead, Kyle.
[09:37.740 --> 09:38.320]  Dan Rob.
[09:39.000 --> 09:43.800]  The meaning of it, I think, is it's interesting how a lot of it is changing before our very eyes.
[09:43.920 --> 09:45.400]  And a lot of it has to do with the people.
[09:45.600 --> 09:50.640]  If people are not comfortable with the type of environment it is.
[09:50.760 --> 09:52.080]  People will leave.
[09:52.300 --> 10:11.200]  And then that cascading or the diminishing returns of people being there and it being viable, it starts getting shaky pretty quickly if there's a rush of people that see it transforming in ways that they're dissatisfied with.
[10:11.200 --> 10:24.500]  And my opinion about what and why, I mean, more and more of the stuff that we took very seriously because it is transforming, I think, has less meaning, has less weight.
[10:24.700 --> 10:26.880]  And I don't know.
[10:26.960 --> 10:34.580]  I mean, it's maybe very heart-wrenching for people that were really attached to it.
[10:34.580 --> 10:42.120]  But there are people that just, they're not going to stake their career on being around something that is disintegrating.
[10:42.220 --> 10:48.720]  And I feel like for those people, they're leaving, they're part of intelligent discourse.
[10:48.720 --> 10:59.800]  A lot of the reason that so many people are there consuming information and people's content, I'm thinking specifically of journalism and those sorts of things.
[10:59.800 --> 11:04.800]  So without that, you have less of an audience and less creators.
[11:05.000 --> 11:06.100]  And I don't know.
[11:06.180 --> 11:19.780]  My guess is as to the direction or what it is becoming, you know, if that's going on and ownership is changing, I think there are a bunch of reasons, I think, that we're witnessing.
[11:19.840 --> 11:23.300]  And I can just imagine certain goals in mind.
[11:23.760 --> 11:26.200]  There's probably a goal for this to be profitable.
[11:26.500 --> 11:31.600]  There's a lot of assumptions I think you can kind of link together and see why some of the choices are what they are.
[11:31.820 --> 11:46.100]  If you kind of imagine a very analytical, logical way of dealing with a purchase that you might not be totally happy with on second thought.
[11:46.360 --> 11:50.220]  So it's fascinating the way it's playing out.
[11:50.220 --> 12:12.920]  But I think that there are the reasons for mainly, I mean, at least personally, for the new owner are to have a hype machine and create your own dust ups, because increasingly, that's kind of what he thrives on is like, you know, now he kind of owns it and gets to like,
[12:13.120 --> 12:19.880]  I don't know, just interact and throw weight around.
[12:20.060 --> 12:20.840]  No, I think he's enjoying it.
[12:20.920 --> 12:22.740]  I think he's enjoying part of this, at least.
[12:22.940 --> 12:30.420]  It's like, yeah, like a way to wield your power and, you know, feel big.
[12:30.780 --> 12:34.780]  So yeah, I know it's a little bit of like a bullying kind of thing.
[12:34.880 --> 12:36.800]  And I think that people are really resisting it.
[12:36.920 --> 12:40.180]  But then they're realizing, okay, yeah, this really is owned by somebody else now.
[12:40.180 --> 12:43.840]  And that is part of that thing where the transformation of it is changing.
[12:44.060 --> 12:48.960]  The bullying goes both ways, though, because no matter what he says, he's going to get attacked, you know, and...
[12:48.960 --> 12:50.680]  Well, how could he expect anything else?
[12:50.840 --> 12:51.360]  That's true.
[12:51.520 --> 12:51.880]  That's true.
[12:51.980 --> 12:52.560]  I mean, it's...
[12:52.560 --> 12:52.800]  It's what he wanted.
[12:53.240 --> 12:54.100]  I guess so.
[12:54.240 --> 12:54.580]  Go ahead, Rob.
[12:55.380 --> 12:58.980]  Well, I think it's worth going into this saga of the blue checks that just happened today.
[13:00.140 --> 13:04.940]  Because the blue checks, you know, they were some sort of verification, theoretically, ostensibly.
[13:06.400 --> 13:22.000]  Yesterday, yesterday evening, someone called Esther Crawford, who works at Twitter in early stage product, announced that you're going to have now a second check, Mark, because you can buy the blue check now for $8 a month.
[13:22.120 --> 13:22.620]  $8 a month.
[13:22.800 --> 13:25.760]  Yeah, $8 a month, you buy a blue check, and then you have a blue check.
[13:26.480 --> 13:33.440]  And that led to the question, well, then how do you know if someone's, like, really who they say they are, rather than they're someone who just had $8?
[13:34.000 --> 13:44.880]  So, someone called Esther Crawford tweeted today, oh, well, we have this other official check that will appear under your username, in addition to your blue check, and it will say official.
[13:45.220 --> 13:52.060]  So, there's a screenshot here of Twitter's official account with their blue check, and underneath that, a little gray check that says official.
[13:52.460 --> 13:55.200]  And that's how you know that they're really who they say they are.
[13:55.200 --> 14:01.520]  And that was roundly ridiculed as something that, you know, looks stupid and didn't show up for everybody.
[14:01.520 --> 14:05.540]  Why would you want the blue check, then, if you didn't get an official thing?
[14:06.960 --> 14:13.680]  Well, and earlier today, those disappeared off the accounts that had them, and Elon himself tweeted, I just killed it.
[14:14.120 --> 14:24.280]  So, within the space of a day, this feature was implemented and then cancelled by the CEO, and a well-known hacker called Evie described it as Twitter's fighting with itself now.
[14:24.280 --> 14:25.960]  I wonder if I had one.
[14:26.240 --> 14:27.920]  Did I have an official stamp for a few minutes?
[14:28.060 --> 14:28.820]  That would have been something.
[14:29.500 --> 14:30.180]  You might have.
[14:30.500 --> 14:31.160]  No one will know now.
[14:31.280 --> 14:40.160]  Speaking about things that are fleeting, I retweeted before the show someone named Ruli Giuliani, ESQ, who was complaining about George Soros beating him up.
[14:41.180 --> 14:49.960]  Anyways, had a blue check, and, you know, the username and the handle both said Ruli Giuliani.
[14:50.620 --> 14:52.280]  So, you know, there was nothing there.
[14:52.280 --> 15:00.400]  Basically, like Kathy Griffin, for instance, was pretending to be Elon Musk over the weekend, had her account permanently suspended as a result of that heinous act.
[15:00.800 --> 15:09.000]  But you could always tell it wasn't really Elon Musk because the username, the thing that comes after the at, was not Elon Musk.
[15:09.180 --> 15:11.980]  In this case, though, it was Ruli Giuliani both times.
[15:11.980 --> 15:20.620]  And I noticed now, just now, as I click on that retweet of mine, that the original tweet has come from a suspended account.
[15:20.620 --> 15:22.480]  So the account has now been suspended.
[15:22.580 --> 15:23.600]  But I wonder how they did that.
[15:23.820 --> 15:27.800]  Did they just register a new account using that name, which was available?
[15:27.940 --> 15:30.680]  I guess the ESQ made it unique.
[15:31.340 --> 15:35.720]  So that tells me that the $8 thing is in effect, and it's already being abused.
[15:39.360 --> 15:40.400]  It's really...
[15:40.400 --> 15:42.420]  It's been amazing.
[15:42.780 --> 15:47.140]  And, yeah, as I was saying, there are so many more people on Mastodon now.
[15:47.340 --> 15:49.580]  There are apps that are circulating.
[15:49.740 --> 16:03.120]  One's called DeBirdify, where if you're interested in checking out Mastodon, you set up this app, it will look around at your Twitter follows, followers, whatever, what have you, and extract their Mastodon handles for those who are putting them in their bios,
[16:03.120 --> 16:05.140]  so you can follow all your pals on Mastodon.
[16:06.380 --> 16:12.540]  And thanks to our listener friend, Eyeball, who was basically able to take a picture of that tweet before it disappeared.
[16:13.340 --> 16:22.200]  Rudy Giuliani said, I stand with Kyrie Irving and Kanye West because George Soros once pushed me down in the street and was stuck on my back like a turtle for several minutes.
[16:22.640 --> 16:25.180]  Now, you know, it took me a few minutes to...
[16:25.600 --> 16:27.380]  Was that really Giuliani?
[16:27.520 --> 16:36.300]  Because it sounds like something he would say, but when I saw that he only had around 1,000 followers, it must be somebody else.
[16:36.620 --> 16:38.320]  So that's why I retweeted it.
[16:38.540 --> 16:39.780]  Hopefully that doesn't get me in trouble.
[16:40.920 --> 16:44.020]  You know, you never know what's going to piss off Elon Musk.
[16:44.640 --> 16:46.120]  I live in fear of that.
[16:46.400 --> 16:54.320]  But, you know, one of the ideas I had, if we're thinking about raising money, you know, just spitballing it, why not have registered accounts?
[16:54.600 --> 16:58.380]  A registered account means that they've just paid for the privilege of having an account.
[16:58.540 --> 17:01.020]  And what does that account get you that an unregistered account doesn't?
[17:01.160 --> 17:04.140]  Okay, you limit the amount of tweets that an unregistered account has.
[17:04.360 --> 17:08.740]  Okay, so basically an unregistered account, you can tweet once, twice a day.
[17:08.940 --> 17:09.800]  Not very much at all.
[17:09.880 --> 17:14.480]  And if you're some kind of fanatic that wants to tweet a lot, you're going to pay whatever the amount.
[17:14.560 --> 17:16.640]  It shouldn't be too much, but pay for the registered account.
[17:16.780 --> 17:19.520]  But that registered account, we have no idea who this is.
[17:19.600 --> 17:20.120]  It could be anybody.
[17:20.120 --> 17:21.160]  It's just they registered.
[17:21.280 --> 17:21.620]  They paid.
[17:21.760 --> 17:23.560]  So they can tweet as much as they want.
[17:23.880 --> 17:26.560]  Now, the verified accounts remain verified.
[17:26.680 --> 17:28.160]  So that doesn't change.
[17:28.640 --> 17:31.000]  You're raising money with the registered and Kyle's shaking his head.
[17:31.020 --> 17:31.260]  Why?
[17:31.260 --> 17:36.480]  I don't think it pans out because you're preventing content.
[17:36.880 --> 17:47.520]  And content is what you use to have engagement as well as to justify any other ads and sources of revenue.
[17:47.740 --> 17:52.900]  So I just feel like that would be like asking... I don't know.
[17:53.840 --> 17:59.200]  There are a lot of analogies, I think, that would not be in the interest of their business plan.
[17:59.200 --> 18:02.720]  But what happens to the content now, the way it is?
[18:02.820 --> 18:06.680]  When you say something, right, where does it go?
[18:06.840 --> 18:09.220]  Even if you have followers, do they see it?
[18:09.580 --> 18:17.600]  You know, and if, you know, you're George Takei and you say something, everybody sees it immediately.
[18:18.380 --> 18:21.300]  The algorithm just works in different ways for different people.
[18:22.000 --> 18:24.360]  And that's something we don't understand.
[18:24.500 --> 18:27.360]  And that's something that we're not privy to.
[18:27.940 --> 18:34.720]  So, yeah, you know, in theory, that makes sense that all content should be allowed, but all content is not treated equally as it is.
[18:35.660 --> 18:36.260]  I don't know.
[18:36.460 --> 18:42.520]  I'm just, you know, like I said, spitballing out here if they're trying to think of raising money, which seems ridiculous for something like this.
[18:42.640 --> 18:46.500]  But it's a better idea than what they came up with.
[18:46.620 --> 18:46.840]  All right.
[18:47.260 --> 18:47.880]  Go ahead, Rob.
[18:47.880 --> 18:56.940]  You know, your spitball isn't very far off because one of the... Elon has been kind of mentioning these nebulous extra features that paying that eight bucks a month would get you.
[18:57.040 --> 19:01.880]  And one of them seems to be your tweets would have more priority in the algorithm.
[19:02.080 --> 19:02.280]  Oh.
[19:02.280 --> 19:10.540]  And so, if you buy that blue check for $8 a month, there's more of a chance that people following you for your tweets will see your tweets.
[19:10.700 --> 19:12.780]  And it's going to become a pay-to-play situation.
[19:13.120 --> 19:15.760]  Which already exists because if you make a commercial account...
[19:15.760 --> 19:19.540]  Any account can be made into a commercial account, by the way, and it can be made back from a commercial account.
[19:19.820 --> 19:21.580]  There's a button you can hit called Promote.
[19:21.780 --> 19:27.500]  And if you invest a certain amount of money, your tweet somehow is promoted and more people will see it.
[19:27.500 --> 19:28.760]  So, I think that already exists.
[19:32.670 --> 19:33.350]  Exciting times.
[19:34.150 --> 19:40.530]  So, yeah, with chaos... with chaos... with Twitter in chaos, Mastodon is on fire, according to this CNN article.
[19:40.790 --> 19:42.570]  And on fire, I guess, is a good thing in this case.
[19:44.010 --> 19:45.890]  So, people are signing up for Mastodon.
[19:47.310 --> 19:51.630]  And, you know, I've heard a lot of people express confusion as to how it works.
[19:51.750 --> 19:52.450]  I'm a little confused.
[19:52.570 --> 19:53.790]  I haven't really spent much time on it.
[19:53.830 --> 19:55.710]  I just, you know, grabbed a couple of accounts.
[19:56.050 --> 19:58.150]  Took forever to get a verification email.
[19:58.150 --> 19:59.630]  I think they're kind of swamped.
[20:00.270 --> 20:06.090]  But I'm not sure how to see accounts on other Mastodon instances.
[20:07.410 --> 20:13.550]  And the only explanations I got is to read manuals and things like that, which a lot of people are not going to want to do.
[20:13.830 --> 20:15.790]  It has to be made simple and easy.
[20:16.990 --> 20:24.110]  Has anyone here managed to get that far where they can see other instances and find other people in different places?
[20:24.290 --> 20:24.610]  Go ahead, Rob.
[20:25.590 --> 20:26.030]  Absolutely.
[20:26.030 --> 20:32.090]  I mean, not to toot my own horn here, but I am kind of an old hand at Mastodon these days.
[20:32.090 --> 20:33.310]  I've been using it since 2018.
[20:35.710 --> 20:37.110]  And basically, bless you.
[20:37.310 --> 20:37.530]  Thank you.
[20:37.750 --> 20:50.110]  Basically, it works like email addresses where you have a Mastodon username that's a string of the at sign, your username, the at sign again, and your server domain.
[20:50.110 --> 21:07.930]  So, like, if you're Hacker Radio Show at Mastodon.social, all someone needs to know is at Hacker Radio Show at Mastodon.social, they could punch that in on their own Mastodon client or, you know, web interface or whatever, and it will bring up their account and you can follow them.
[21:07.930 --> 21:23.530]  And so it works very similar to email in that any username at any domain can contact any other username at any other domain, barring things like a lot of instances have sort of been have popped up with, like, hate material, things like that.
[21:23.650 --> 21:33.650]  And there are these instances that basically get what's known as defederated, which means the rest of the network will agree that they're bad guys and not deal with them.
[21:33.650 --> 21:41.770]  But for the rest of the Fediverse, what's known as the Fediverse, yes, you just need the longer Mastodon address for people.
[21:42.450 --> 21:48.970]  It's longer than a Twitter screen name, so it's confusing for some people, but it doesn't take too long to wrap your head around.
[21:49.330 --> 21:55.010]  And, yeah, anyone who's interested, I would encourage you to go to joinmastodon.org.
[21:55.370 --> 22:01.110]  There's a lot of intro to Mastodon type things there, plus a list of instances of servers you can join.
[22:01.730 --> 22:03.950]  If you're technically inclined, you can also set up your own.
[22:04.130 --> 22:13.390]  Well, my first question then is, let's say my name is Rudolf Giuliani, and I get my Mastodon account on a particular instance.
[22:13.570 --> 22:21.470]  Well, how do I prevent other people from pretending they're me on all the other instances, using that same name and just following with a different Mastodon instance?
[22:21.550 --> 22:23.470]  How do you know which one is the real one?
[22:24.930 --> 22:29.950]  There is something you can do, and I forget immediately what this is called, but...
[22:29.950 --> 22:30.730]  Is it called being verified?
[22:30.730 --> 22:31.930]  Can you be verified?
[22:32.370 --> 22:33.790]  Oh, blue checkmark, that's a good idea.
[22:34.490 --> 22:40.810]  Basically, you can verify yourself if you've got another web presence, which you can use to say, yes, that's me, all right.
[22:41.290 --> 22:46.350]  Like, on my Mastodon, I have one of the links in my bio is my own personal website.
[22:46.970 --> 22:55.310]  And I inserted a piece of code that I got from my Mastodon server on my website, which is invisible, but which Mastodon can check for.
[22:55.310 --> 22:59.730]  And when it sees that, it puts a little green checkmark next to that website.
[23:00.090 --> 23:07.170]  So someone looking at my profile knows that I have verified from my own domain that this is indeed my Mastodon.
[23:08.030 --> 23:11.910]  What prevents someone else from doing something like that at a different instance?
[23:11.930 --> 23:12.670]  I'm still not clear.
[23:13.910 --> 23:17.890]  Basically, because they wouldn't be able to put that little blip on my domain.
[23:18.490 --> 23:19.970]  Only I control my website.
[23:20.250 --> 23:24.870]  So I put that little piece of code there that Mastodon looks for to say, this is my Mastodon, all right.
[23:25.610 --> 23:34.230]  And so it's basically having another, basically another form of ID, another form of verification that it's you.
[23:34.470 --> 23:42.810]  And for a lot of people, that can be their personal or professional website, or it could be their presence on another social network or whatever.
[23:43.110 --> 23:50.510]  But couldn't I do that just by using a name and any website and sticking that code on that website saying, yes, I'm Rudolph Giuliani, here's my website.
[23:50.970 --> 23:53.230]  How do they know it's the right website?
[23:53.990 --> 24:00.730]  Well, then that requires the sort of sleuthing ability to intuit whether somebody's website is theirs or not.
[24:00.870 --> 24:05.690]  My personal website has been mine for 20-something years at this point.
[24:06.030 --> 24:08.850]  And so that domain is kind of a matter of record.
[24:09.210 --> 24:14.150]  If somebody else put up a domain similar to mine, they could theoretically do this.
[24:14.270 --> 24:17.950]  But people who know me would know that that's not my site.
[24:18.250 --> 24:18.690]  Okay.
[24:19.510 --> 24:19.890]  All right.
[24:19.890 --> 24:21.750]  I think I need to do this experiment more.
[24:21.750 --> 24:23.150]  Because the whole...
[24:23.150 --> 24:30.710]  You know, it sounds like it has potential, but it also sounds like it could be confusion and it could be growing pains.
[24:30.890 --> 24:33.570]  And that's part of the whole technology that we deal with.
[24:33.630 --> 24:35.450]  I just have a quick question, Rob.
[24:35.570 --> 24:38.750]  Maybe you can tell me who controls the algorithm for Mastodon.
[24:38.830 --> 24:39.310]  Oh, yeah, yeah.
[24:39.630 --> 24:39.910]  Yeah.
[24:40.070 --> 24:46.130]  I mean, obviously, that must be a closely guarded secret among the elders of Mastodon.
[24:46.130 --> 24:48.870]  And they keep it deep in a cave somewhere.
[24:51.150 --> 24:57.590]  The algorithm is kept really deep in a really deep cave where nobody can find it, including Mastodon, because there is no algorithm.
[24:58.190 --> 25:04.150]  There is no way posts are artificially influenced to give them priority over other posts.
[25:04.150 --> 25:06.450]  It's just a timeline of who you follow.
[25:06.450 --> 25:08.710]  And when they posted it is when you see it.
[25:09.290 --> 25:12.070]  And it is like how Twitter used to be back in the day.
[25:12.510 --> 25:19.390]  And how a lot of social networks used to be back in the day before they decided to instigate pay-to-play schemes.
[25:19.730 --> 25:22.630]  So it's really freeing.
[25:22.710 --> 25:23.490]  It's a lot more chill.
[25:24.490 --> 25:41.470]  There is no real doom scrolling on there because it does not thrive on the sort of panicking engagement that you were talking about on Off the Hook, on FM, where it is fueled by your panic and your rage.
[25:41.610 --> 25:44.510]  And you're finding things to get angry at and getting angry at them.
[25:44.710 --> 25:46.410]  It's just, these are the people I follow.
[25:46.810 --> 25:48.710]  I'm reading what kind of sandwich they had.
[25:48.790 --> 25:50.010]  And it's kind of cool.
[25:50.190 --> 25:51.050]  It's like the old internet.
[25:52.250 --> 25:52.730]  Interesting.
[25:52.930 --> 25:54.290]  But somebody is in charge.
[25:54.670 --> 25:57.730]  Somebody has to decide this person's not acting properly.
[25:57.730 --> 26:07.350]  And I'm just wondering what kind of oversight is there with whoever it is that's running that particular instance saying this is what we'll tolerate, this is what we won't tolerate.
[26:08.850 --> 26:15.270]  And the person who's in charge of an instance or people that are in charge of an instance are the people who started that instance.
[26:15.670 --> 26:24.190]  It's another harken back to like the BBS days when somebody would install a BBS on a computer in their house and they would control what goes on in that BBS.
[26:24.390 --> 26:29.250]  They would decide who can be on, who gets banned, or whatever.
[26:29.630 --> 26:35.170]  But the instances are each run by independent people, independent organizations.
[26:35.550 --> 26:37.290]  There is no central power over this.
[26:38.090 --> 26:56.370]  And so when you find an instance, you're not only finding instances that people have put up according to a theme that you like or something that attracts you, but you can also browse instances to see ones with terms of service that you like, ones with culture that you like,
[26:56.490 --> 27:01.870]  ones that have rules that align with your sort of what you want in a site like this.
[27:01.870 --> 27:09.750]  It kind of reminds me of IRC channels, you know, where you get allowed in and you play by the rules of that channel.
[27:09.750 --> 27:11.030]  And if not, you get booted.
[27:12.410 --> 27:18.490]  But there's nothing to prevent the person running the IRC channel from being a complete jerk.
[27:19.690 --> 27:24.050]  That's what I'm worried about, is that how do you prevent the person running the instance from being a real jerk?
[27:24.150 --> 27:25.150]  Is there any kind of oversight?
[27:26.710 --> 27:29.990]  There's not oversight over that because it's just like websites.
[27:30.030 --> 27:31.330]  Anybody can put one up, they want.
[27:32.070 --> 27:35.870]  But, you know, there is nothing keeping people tied to a particular instance.
[27:35.870 --> 27:41.350]  Because if you're on an instance and you decide you don't like it, it's very easy to port your presence over to another instance somewhere.
[27:41.650 --> 27:43.370]  You can hop around and find one you like.
[27:43.530 --> 27:46.910]  So it's not like a huge commitment starting up on an instance.
[27:47.330 --> 27:48.950]  You can always move to another later.
[27:49.210 --> 27:56.750]  Or if you do something that they don't like and get banned or you have some kind of fight or whatever, you can pick up on another instance and maybe behave yourself a little better.
[27:57.610 --> 28:00.270]  It is an open system.
[28:00.270 --> 28:09.630]  And if you're technically minded, you can start up your own instance and make your own rules and be the jackass that's running things yourself.
[28:09.790 --> 28:10.210]  And what's involved?
[28:10.210 --> 28:11.510]  You can run an instance just for yourself.
[28:11.570 --> 28:12.750]  What's involved in running an instance?
[28:12.850 --> 28:13.370]  Do you need bandwidth?
[28:14.710 --> 28:15.710]  Yeah, you just...
[28:15.710 --> 28:16.670]  It's on the web.
[28:16.850 --> 28:17.490]  It's web-based.
[28:17.670 --> 28:19.890]  And you need some web space.
[28:19.890 --> 28:22.770]  You need the ability to run active code on that web space.
[28:22.770 --> 28:36.890]  And it can even be as simple as a plug-in for WordPress, which is a content management system that's very popular and that a lot of people have the ability to sort of drop in and install on web space that they own.
[28:37.570 --> 28:48.650]  So if you've got the ability to moderate this sort of thing, install it, you've got the bandwidth for it, and it's text, so it's very little bandwidth, then you're fine.
[28:48.790 --> 28:50.150]  It's probably a lot of mental bandwidth.
[28:50.350 --> 28:51.570]  A lot of mental bandwidth, I'm sure.
[28:51.570 --> 28:53.270]  It's text, but it could be video too, right?
[28:53.350 --> 28:55.390]  There could be all kinds of things posted on there.
[28:55.470 --> 28:55.690]  You can.
[28:55.910 --> 29:03.350]  It's primarily text-based, but there are images, there are video, and there's also a big culture of accessibility.
[29:03.570 --> 29:11.110]  So when you post images, you're reminded to put a text description in the image for those who can't see the images, which is helpful.
[29:11.810 --> 29:31.430]  But yeah, it is, I think, and I think I said this before, but I think it's the closest you can get right now to what the social web used to feel like in the old days when it was like web forums or email lists or, you know, the sort of precursors to modern social networking for profit.
[29:31.650 --> 29:34.870]  This is people running it because they love the thing.
[29:35.050 --> 29:36.290]  They want that community there.
[29:36.370 --> 29:37.410]  They want that community happening.
[29:39.610 --> 29:47.590]  And someone called the Gibson has done Hope Talks about this, about what led him and his cohorts to start up their Mastodon instance.
[29:49.210 --> 29:53.910]  And you can find those on hope.net or channel 2600 on YouTube.
[29:54.790 --> 29:56.190]  That's where we are right now.
[29:56.630 --> 29:58.230]  Yes, where we are right now.
[29:58.290 --> 29:59.730]  But don't look now because you're watching us.
[29:59.910 --> 30:00.170]  Exactly.
[30:01.090 --> 30:01.950]  What do you think, guys?
[30:02.010 --> 30:05.330]  Rob should be in charge of our instance if and when we ever start an instance.
[30:05.330 --> 30:07.150]  It's so weird saying that.
[30:07.310 --> 30:09.710]  You know, I still can't use that word in that manner.
[30:09.850 --> 30:10.510]  It just feels weird.
[30:10.610 --> 30:15.210]  But yeah, if we ever get an instance started, Rob should be the admin of that instance.
[30:16.050 --> 30:17.190]  You guys couldn't afford me.
[30:17.970 --> 30:19.750]  It reminds me a little bit of...
[30:20.470 --> 30:21.190]  Maybe I'm wrong.
[30:21.330 --> 30:23.210]  Do you remember Fidonet, Emmanuel?
[30:23.370 --> 30:24.410]  I do remember Fidonet.
[30:24.410 --> 30:31.710]  I never used Fidonet, but Fidonet was basically a bunch of BBSs and they'd at night communicate with each other and send email from one to one.
[30:31.750 --> 30:35.090]  It was like a very slow moving freight train that just went across the country.
[30:36.030 --> 30:37.350]  It's what it sounds like.
[30:37.750 --> 30:40.450]  Mastodon is kind of like, but a lot faster.
[30:41.090 --> 30:42.610]  A lot more data.
[30:42.790 --> 30:47.910]  But it seems like it's that same type of convoy of data that goes around all these federated instances.
[30:49.510 --> 30:50.130]  I don't know.
[30:50.470 --> 30:53.870]  But yeah, reminded me of the old Fidonet, speaking of the old days.
[30:54.570 --> 30:56.290]  Are we going to take phone calls?
[30:56.290 --> 30:56.770]  Yeah, I think we should.
[30:56.930 --> 30:58.590]  Actually, there's been people calling throughout.
[30:58.790 --> 31:02.390]  And I understand the logic behind that because, you know, we haven't even given out the phone number yet.
[31:02.390 --> 31:04.750]  We're obviously engaged in a very spirited conversation.
[31:05.010 --> 31:07.050]  Do you think we're going to stop and pick up the damn phone?
[31:07.250 --> 31:08.390]  No, that's not how we work.
[31:08.730 --> 31:09.110]  All right.
[31:09.170 --> 31:13.650]  Our phone number is 802-321-4225.
[31:13.810 --> 31:14.650]  That's 80...
[31:15.330 --> 31:15.730]  Wait.
[31:16.130 --> 31:16.890]  Did I get that right?
[31:18.650 --> 31:25.570]  801-321-802-321-HACK.
[31:27.790 --> 31:29.010]  801 is in Utah.
[31:29.890 --> 31:30.490]  That's wrong.
[31:30.750 --> 31:31.990]  I think the phone is ringing.
[31:32.910 --> 31:33.210]  Yes.
[31:33.390 --> 31:33.550]  Yeah.
[31:34.410 --> 31:38.870]  Perhaps they run their own server for all of their personalities.
[31:39.690 --> 31:39.950]  Yes.
[31:40.070 --> 31:40.530]  Maybe so.
[31:40.710 --> 31:40.930]  All right.
[31:41.010 --> 31:41.430]  Here we go.
[31:41.590 --> 31:41.770]  All right.
[31:41.790 --> 31:42.590]  Let's take that phone call.
[31:44.210 --> 31:45.430]  And good evening.
[31:45.610 --> 31:47.670]  You're on Off the Hook Overtime.
[31:48.710 --> 31:53.170]  This call-in is brought to you by the Parkside Restaurant in Corona Queen.
[31:53.330 --> 31:58.630]  What we're asking callers tonight to talk about is their experiences voting.
[31:59.950 --> 32:02.310]  Is this Rebel that you have an experience voting?
[32:02.690 --> 32:03.990]  Actually, I did not vote.
[32:04.230 --> 32:05.210]  I did not vote.
[32:05.290 --> 32:06.010]  You did not vote.
[32:06.130 --> 32:07.090]  Why didn't you vote Rebel?
[32:07.910 --> 32:08.610]  I don't know.
[32:08.670 --> 32:09.810]  I just didn't want to.
[32:09.970 --> 32:10.950]  You didn't want to vote.
[32:10.950 --> 32:14.410]  You see, this is something that really sticks in my craw.
[32:14.710 --> 32:16.790]  Because voting is so important.
[32:16.790 --> 32:19.330]  And you've never seen an election like this before.
[32:19.570 --> 32:21.290]  Look, if you vote for the other party, fine.
[32:21.370 --> 32:22.730]  At least you're expressing an opinion.
[32:22.730 --> 32:26.530]  If you don't vote at all, someone else is expressing your opinion for you.
[32:26.630 --> 32:27.030]  You know?
[32:27.110 --> 32:27.930]  And it's your fault.
[32:28.090 --> 32:30.690]  It's your fault that Long Island is red now.
[32:31.050 --> 32:31.990]  I blame you.
[32:32.090 --> 32:33.690]  Well, I don't live on Long Island.
[32:33.990 --> 32:34.230]  Yeah.
[32:34.350 --> 32:35.310]  I don't want to either.
[32:35.530 --> 32:36.710]  So, great.
[32:37.410 --> 32:38.630]  What a world we live in.
[32:40.230 --> 32:40.670]  Anyway...
[32:40.670 --> 32:41.230]  Yeah, go ahead.
[32:42.290 --> 32:43.010]  When I...
[32:43.010 --> 32:46.570]  You know, on YouTube, there's a thing called live...
[32:46.570 --> 32:50.670]  There's some, like, channels that do live feeds, like Google...
[32:50.670 --> 32:52.710]  I think they have, like, EarthCams or whatever.
[32:53.270 --> 32:55.010]  You know, there's a 40-second delay.
[32:55.070 --> 32:56.730]  I went to the Times Square ones.
[32:57.190 --> 32:57.730]  You go...
[32:57.730 --> 33:02.610]  You could see the camera focus down on Broadway at, like, 44th Street or something.
[33:02.610 --> 33:06.250]  And you could see people, like, by the, you know, the ticket booth and all.
[33:06.370 --> 33:09.610]  And I went and I got on my phone and watched it on my phone.
[33:09.870 --> 33:11.090]  And I went and, you know...
[33:11.090 --> 33:12.710]  Why are we getting call waiting over Rebel?
[33:12.810 --> 33:13.290]  Hold on a second.
[33:13.410 --> 33:18.310]  Rebel, we're getting a call waiting with caller ID, Tom, which is what people just heard.
[33:18.530 --> 33:19.370]  And a real reminder.
[33:19.770 --> 33:21.090]  In the past, we never got that.
[33:21.170 --> 33:22.710]  We never got call waiting on this line.
[33:23.190 --> 33:25.570]  It's not skipping over caller ID either.
[33:25.710 --> 33:26.310]  So I can't...
[33:26.310 --> 33:26.610]  I mean...
[33:27.130 --> 33:27.870]  Yeah, we don't know who's calling.
[33:27.870 --> 33:31.650]  But the point is, in the past, this phone line wouldn't...
[33:31.650 --> 33:32.490]  Let's hear that?
[33:32.630 --> 33:33.030]  That's...
[33:33.030 --> 33:34.170]  You don't hear it, Rebel.
[33:34.290 --> 33:35.130]  We hear something you don't hear.
[33:35.210 --> 33:35.730]  There have been some...
[33:35.730 --> 33:37.530]  There have been some changes in the system.
[33:38.410 --> 33:40.270]  We have call waiting now for some reason.
[33:40.370 --> 33:41.030]  We don't want it.
[33:41.270 --> 33:41.770]  Well, wait.
[33:42.010 --> 33:43.730]  Google Voice can do call waiting now?
[33:44.430 --> 33:44.830]  Apparently.
[33:46.010 --> 33:47.530]  I don't know what's going on.
[33:47.630 --> 33:48.810]  But it's not right.
[33:49.010 --> 33:49.750]  It's not right.
[33:49.930 --> 33:51.690]  So you're going to have to keep talking.
[33:51.810 --> 33:54.590]  But keep in mind that you're being interrupted by beeps and things.
[33:54.950 --> 33:56.010]  We'll have this work done.
[33:56.070 --> 33:56.590]  Yeah, we will.
[33:57.790 --> 34:00.350]  Anyway, yeah, so I went in front of...
[34:00.350 --> 34:07.390]  What I saw was in front of the camera, because I, like, looked and saw, like, you know, where things were, like...
[34:07.390 --> 34:10.990]  I saw, like, a bus passing by a certain store.
[34:10.990 --> 34:15.650]  So I looked at that on my phone, and I saw 20 seconds later, the bus passing.
[34:15.770 --> 34:17.610]  So it's like a 20 or 30 second delay.
[34:19.030 --> 34:19.430]  Wow.
[34:21.490 --> 34:24.810]  Okay, well, that story makes up for you not voting.
[34:26.190 --> 34:26.730]  Okay.
[34:27.070 --> 34:29.450]  But, you know, it's just number portability.
[34:30.730 --> 34:41.370]  I don't like number portability, because remember back in the old days, when phone companies used to know the numbers and know who the numbers belonged to?
[34:41.650 --> 34:50.650]  Now with number portability, you can have a number in California, and you could live in New York, or, you know, like, you can have, you know, a different...
[34:50.650 --> 34:53.530]  Like, you know, you know what I mean?
[34:53.810 --> 34:55.830]  Yeah, numbers don't mean anything anymore.
[34:55.950 --> 34:56.230]  You're right.
[34:56.450 --> 34:57.550]  Area codes don't mean anything.
[34:57.790 --> 34:58.890]  Exchanges don't mean anything.
[34:59.070 --> 35:00.310]  Extensions never meant anything.
[35:01.410 --> 35:02.830]  But it's just a shame.
[35:03.010 --> 35:04.250]  It's just a shame that...
[35:04.250 --> 35:14.490]  Something that was so useful to have, you know, knowing where somebody actually was, or, you know, where their phone was registered, it's just, they took that away.
[35:14.770 --> 35:16.190]  I guess it doesn't matter to those people.
[35:16.290 --> 35:25.630]  Yeah, it's just like when you get scam calls now, it comes up as a 917 number, or a 347, or a 212, or whatever, you know, or an area code in, like, Nevada, or whatever, but they were really not in Nevada.
[35:25.730 --> 35:25.930]  No.
[35:26.070 --> 35:26.650]  They may be out of the country.
[35:26.790 --> 35:27.950]  They may be out, you know?
[35:28.090 --> 35:29.230]  They could be from a different planet.
[35:29.230 --> 35:30.810]  You don't know where they're from at all.
[35:31.010 --> 35:31.150]  No.
[35:31.750 --> 35:32.390]  Yeah, it's...
[35:32.850 --> 35:33.630]  What are you going to do?
[35:33.790 --> 35:34.330]  What are you going to do?
[35:34.330 --> 35:35.690]  I remember back in the 80s...
[35:35.690 --> 35:47.810]  There was, by the way, Rebel, I assumed you knew this, but there was a referendum, on the ballot, about restoring exchanges and area codes to the old method, so that this wouldn't happen anymore.
[35:48.330 --> 35:48.970]  It lost by...
[35:48.970 --> 35:49.110]  Wait, it was?
[35:49.390 --> 35:50.750]  Yeah, on the New York ballot.
[35:50.850 --> 35:51.330]  You didn't know about this?
[35:51.330 --> 35:52.690]  It lost by one vote.
[35:52.950 --> 35:53.790]  One vote.
[35:55.450 --> 35:58.530]  Well, we'll talk about how you used to...
[35:58.530 --> 35:59.890]  Back in the 80s...
[36:00.590 --> 36:02.150]  You don't seem to upset by this.
[36:03.310 --> 36:04.910]  I looked at a...
[36:04.910 --> 36:13.650]  And back in the 80s, like 84, the USSR, Russia, Soviet Union, was not listed, nor was any of the countries of the Union.
[36:13.670 --> 36:13.970]  That's right.
[36:14.230 --> 36:15.250]  Albania wasn't listed either.
[36:16.350 --> 36:19.410]  Well, Russia wasn't listed, but you could call them.
[36:19.530 --> 36:26.210]  There are country codes 7, but Albania, you couldn't even call with the country code, which led to me driving to Canada once to call them.
[36:27.470 --> 36:32.150]  You couldn't call Russia at the Soviet Union back then, because there was an 8-hour delay back...
[36:32.150 --> 36:35.890]  You'd have to wait for a circuit to open, but you could call them.
[36:35.890 --> 36:39.330]  What I'm saying is you could not even call Albania no matter how long you waited.
[36:39.670 --> 36:40.590]  And that was the only country, I think.
[36:40.590 --> 36:41.070]  The same thing with China.
[36:41.330 --> 36:42.330]  I think China was the same thing.
[36:42.330 --> 36:44.490]  There was no other country that had that kind of a restriction.
[36:44.790 --> 36:49.530]  There were delays and limited amounts of calls that could be made, but nothing like that.
[36:50.150 --> 36:51.370]  But that was then.
[36:51.630 --> 36:52.390]  This is now.
[36:52.970 --> 36:53.450]  Let's see.
[36:53.510 --> 36:54.510]  What else do I want to say?
[36:54.670 --> 36:57.390]  But while I'm thinking of what else to say...
[36:57.830 --> 36:59.310]  You're just going to say nothing.
[37:01.050 --> 37:02.190]  Go ahead, go ahead.
[37:03.210 --> 37:08.670]  But while I'm thinking of what to say, let's thank our sponsor, Expeditus Transport of Ohio.
[37:09.030 --> 37:12.390]  When you need freight moves fast, call Expeditus Transport of Ohio.
[37:12.390 --> 37:14.050]  What are you reading ads to us now?
[37:15.170 --> 37:16.610]  Yeah, just like on YouTube.
[37:17.150 --> 37:20.850]  So while you're waiting to think of something to say, you're just going to read ads to us?
[37:21.810 --> 37:22.630]  I guess that's...
[37:22.630 --> 37:23.150]  You know, just like on YouTube.
[37:23.510 --> 37:24.990]  It's no different than YouTube, I guess.
[37:24.990 --> 37:28.310]  In the middle of a YouTube video, and then it stops, and then it's just...
[37:29.610 --> 37:32.410]  You are funny, but you should vote.
[37:32.590 --> 37:33.990]  You really should vote next time.
[37:34.490 --> 37:35.130]  I'm kidding.
[37:35.350 --> 37:35.570]  Yeah.
[37:36.850 --> 37:40.410]  You get one final thought here, Rebel, and then we're going to move on.
[37:41.270 --> 37:41.530]  Okay.
[37:42.110 --> 37:43.450]  Can I be part of the video?
[37:43.690 --> 37:44.750]  Like, you know, like you have a video.
[37:44.790 --> 37:47.170]  I could go on my laptop, and, you know, I'd be part of the video.
[37:47.250 --> 37:47.730]  What video?
[37:47.890 --> 37:48.410]  You know, Alex.
[37:48.930 --> 37:50.070]  That you guys are on.
[37:50.170 --> 37:53.390]  Like, Alex is there, and whoever else is there.
[37:53.390 --> 37:56.330]  Yeah, that's not something anybody really needs.
[37:56.430 --> 37:57.750]  First of all, you're coming on a phone line.
[37:57.870 --> 38:00.110]  You're not coming in on any other feature.
[38:00.950 --> 38:02.790]  Well, I mean, I could go on the feature.
[38:03.210 --> 38:05.610]  But you need to know what the feature is called.
[38:05.610 --> 38:07.310]  You need to know the name and the password.
[38:07.510 --> 38:08.670]  And where are you going to get that from?
[38:08.970 --> 38:09.870]  Not from us.
[38:10.970 --> 38:13.770]  Oh, speaking of that, did you get my email?
[38:13.770 --> 38:15.050]  I think I emailed you something.
[38:15.950 --> 38:16.630]  I'm not sure.
[38:16.710 --> 38:19.270]  Our servers are pretty strict about what email gets through, too.
[38:19.350 --> 38:20.430]  I emailed you something.
[38:20.570 --> 38:20.810]  Hold on.
[38:20.930 --> 38:21.870]  Let me see.
[38:22.010 --> 38:22.370]  Email.
[38:22.370 --> 38:23.030]  Let me see.
[38:23.850 --> 38:25.370]  It was something...
[38:27.230 --> 38:29.290]  You know, there's no way to stop this.
[38:29.830 --> 38:33.310]  Because, you know, you can dial star 70 to turn off call waiting.
[38:33.530 --> 38:35.470]  But you have to do that before you make a call.
[38:35.590 --> 38:37.810]  You can't do that to prevent it from coming in.
[38:38.390 --> 38:40.190]  There's no way to stop this.
[38:40.610 --> 38:41.050]  I don't know.
[38:41.230 --> 38:43.150]  The phone company must have done something weird.
[38:43.150 --> 38:45.830]  You can turn the feature off, but you probably have to.
[38:45.850 --> 38:46.930]  Yeah, but where's the feature on?
[38:47.070 --> 38:48.690]  Is Google Voice really doing this now?
[38:48.770 --> 38:50.390]  Yeah, I don't think you can do it over a touch tone.
[38:50.950 --> 38:52.310]  No, you can't do it over a touch tone.
[38:53.190 --> 38:53.830]  You can't.
[38:54.290 --> 38:55.350]  Rebel, we're going to move on.
[38:57.070 --> 38:57.890]  Are you okay there?
[38:59.030 --> 39:00.070]  Okay, I'm just trying...
[39:00.070 --> 39:01.090]  I thought I emailed you something.
[39:01.190 --> 39:02.110]  I forgot what it was.
[39:02.830 --> 39:04.030]  Well, we probably did, too.
[39:04.190 --> 39:04.990]  So, everything's fine.
[39:06.310 --> 39:06.610]  Oh.
[39:07.370 --> 39:07.690]  Okay.
[39:08.110 --> 39:10.290]  Well, it was a joy hearing from you.
[39:10.350 --> 39:10.870]  Oh, it was out back.
[39:11.310 --> 39:11.770]  What's that?
[39:12.990 --> 39:13.970]  No, it's not out back.
[39:23.310 --> 39:26.550]  That was the one and only rebel who didn't vote.
[39:26.690 --> 39:27.710]  Man, that pisses me off.
[39:27.790 --> 39:28.490]  People should vote.
[39:30.570 --> 39:31.890]  Some people say it doesn't make a difference.
[39:32.010 --> 39:32.730]  It does make a difference.
[39:32.850 --> 39:34.250]  When you lose by one vote, it makes a difference.
[39:34.430 --> 39:39.830]  And, boy, this year, it was, you know, there were things that people cared about.
[39:41.450 --> 39:57.110]  I'm a very strong believer that if you abstain from voting, you're giving up your authority to complain about anything in the political sphere until the next election comes along and you vote in it, because you had your chance to have some sort of say.
[39:57.970 --> 40:01.350]  And, you know, if you don't take it, then that's it.
[40:01.470 --> 40:02.110]  You're not playing.
[40:02.270 --> 40:02.450]  Yeah.
[40:02.670 --> 40:03.450]  It's just...
[40:03.450 --> 40:04.310]  It's irresponsible.
[40:04.310 --> 40:05.230]  It really is.
[40:05.410 --> 40:08.430]  And if you don't believe in the system at all, then I don't know what to say.
[40:08.430 --> 40:09.330]  You know?
[40:09.590 --> 40:12.010]  So, basically, then you're a pawn.
[40:12.230 --> 40:18.670]  You're basically just going to be dictated to by other people and you can't possibly do anything about it.
[40:18.710 --> 40:19.970]  That's your philosophy.
[40:20.390 --> 40:20.830]  Yeah.
[40:20.830 --> 40:24.310]  When I hear that, I want to know what's your alternative?
[40:24.550 --> 40:24.690]  Yeah.
[40:25.290 --> 40:26.650]  What are you putting forth?
[40:27.710 --> 40:29.410]  In one minute or less.
[40:30.430 --> 40:31.770]  I want a diatribe.
[40:32.070 --> 40:32.510]  We have a call?
[40:33.430 --> 40:33.870]  Hello.
[40:33.870 --> 40:34.190]  Good evening.
[40:34.270 --> 40:35.370]  You're on Off the Hook Overtime.
[40:36.290 --> 40:37.310]  Good evening, gang.
[40:37.490 --> 40:38.310]  This is Tim in Connecticut.
[40:38.430 --> 40:39.030]  How are you doing?
[40:39.150 --> 40:39.330]  Good.
[40:39.430 --> 40:39.750]  How are you?
[40:40.810 --> 40:41.650]  Not too bad.
[40:42.110 --> 40:46.030]  I also went and voted at my local elementary school.
[40:46.430 --> 40:46.750]  Cool.
[40:46.990 --> 40:48.270]  Were you in the gym or the cafeteria?
[40:49.870 --> 40:50.650]  In the gym.
[40:50.870 --> 40:51.070]  Okay.
[40:51.630 --> 40:53.810]  Do you notice all the baskets on the wall?
[40:54.590 --> 40:54.990]  Yeah.
[40:55.110 --> 40:57.210]  I think that's for, you know, gym class.
[40:57.350 --> 41:00.450]  When you have a lot of kids, you pass out 20 basketballs.
[41:00.530 --> 41:02.070]  You lower all the hoops and let...
[41:02.070 --> 41:02.350]  Yeah.
[41:02.630 --> 41:04.190]  Everybody just try to make a basket.
[41:04.230 --> 41:05.050]  That's what Kyle said.
[41:05.190 --> 41:06.910]  But, you know, how do you keep track of all that?
[41:06.910 --> 41:08.530]  You know, boy, this is annoying.
[41:08.770 --> 41:09.770]  It's called waiting tones.
[41:10.110 --> 41:11.310]  Today, you don't really care.
[41:11.670 --> 41:17.730]  And then if there's going to be a real game, you just take everything else back up and just only leave down two.
[41:18.430 --> 41:19.150]  I guess.
[41:19.150 --> 41:22.390]  But it just seems like all this attention is being focused on basketball.
[41:22.390 --> 41:24.750]  I didn't know that was, you know, the fixation here.
[41:25.070 --> 41:25.990]  But I guess it is.
[41:26.750 --> 41:29.310]  In the wintertime, you know, you've got to have the kids inside.
[41:29.310 --> 41:30.070]  What are they going to do?
[41:30.570 --> 41:33.490]  Well, you know, I was talking about this yesterday in the half hour I was waiting.
[41:33.630 --> 41:38.350]  All the different sports that we played, one was called bombardment, where basically the only goal was to hit you with a ball.
[41:39.470 --> 41:39.830]  Dodgeball?
[41:40.630 --> 41:42.250]  Dodgeball is what Kyle called it as well.
[41:42.370 --> 41:43.590]  No, we called it garbage.
[41:44.010 --> 41:44.830]  You called it garbage?
[41:45.250 --> 41:45.610]  Yeah.
[41:52.750 --> 41:53.930]  I never understood that.
[41:53.950 --> 41:55.250]  And that's your reaction time.
[41:55.990 --> 41:58.150]  Yeah, no, they didn't have balls.
[41:58.270 --> 42:04.970]  It was like a pint, chocolate milk carton stuffed with newspaper and then like tightly wrapped with duct tape.
[42:05.690 --> 42:05.870]  Wow.
[42:06.110 --> 42:06.450]  Wow.
[42:06.910 --> 42:07.170]  Yeah.
[42:07.230 --> 42:07.530]  That would hurt.
[42:07.990 --> 42:08.390]  Yeah.
[42:08.750 --> 42:09.750]  It was...
[42:09.750 --> 42:12.730]  Mine was big red air-filled rubber balls.
[42:12.890 --> 42:13.550]  Okay, there you go.
[42:13.650 --> 42:18.070]  Well, okay, then for Foursquare and dodgeball.
[42:18.870 --> 42:22.290]  But I think my theory with the basketball...
[42:22.290 --> 42:23.570]  I think it's good...
[42:24.490 --> 42:27.170]  There's team skills there, right?
[42:27.350 --> 42:28.910]  Small teams, as you said.
[42:29.530 --> 42:46.530]  And I was just going to say, hand-eye coordination, really big as you're growing up and you're active, but you're also able to like excel at some of that fine motor skill, you know?
[42:46.530 --> 42:51.430]  Okay, I just wonder if other gyms in other parts of the world where basketball isn't such a thing, do they have other things on the wall?
[42:51.430 --> 42:53.190]  Well, you know, like hockey or...
[42:53.190 --> 42:55.730]  I'm not sure where they put it exactly, but you know, other sports.
[42:55.950 --> 42:57.690]  Is basketball the only thing they can do?
[42:57.730 --> 43:02.710]  Well, I just think it's an affordable, sort of like an accessible way to accomplish some of those goals.
[43:03.250 --> 43:05.050]  Baskets are pretty expensive to put up on walls.
[43:05.170 --> 43:06.630]  I'm not sure how affordable it is.
[43:07.110 --> 43:07.290]  Yeah.
[43:07.710 --> 43:09.610]  Anyway, so how was your voting experience?
[43:10.970 --> 43:12.350]  Oh, actually, I was in and out.
[43:12.530 --> 43:16.030]  I went at about, well, it was around 9.15.
[43:17.030 --> 43:26.970]  And, you know, just after everybody got off to work, before people who dropped off their kids came in to vote, I tried to slide in between there at an odd time.
[43:27.050 --> 43:29.310]  But I was in and out without too much of a problem.
[43:29.590 --> 43:30.350]  Okay, that's good.
[43:30.770 --> 43:32.470]  Yeah, I never thought about voting in the morning.
[43:32.470 --> 43:33.330]  I guess you could do that.
[43:33.990 --> 43:34.970]  Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
[43:34.990 --> 43:41.750]  I made the mistake of being, last time we voted, I decided I would get up, crack it on, and be the first one there.
[43:42.450 --> 43:45.570]  And that's where I found everybody that had to go to work first.
[43:45.930 --> 43:49.790]  You know, it needed to go to work in the morning, so they went and voted first.
[43:50.270 --> 43:50.630]  Wow.
[43:50.850 --> 43:51.950]  That was a nice long line.
[43:52.150 --> 43:53.990]  Now, how was the technology where you voted?
[43:55.550 --> 44:02.390]  It was basic, take the pen, scribble in your circle, and then put it in the scanner before you leave, and then you get your sticker.
[44:02.470 --> 44:03.050]  Okay.
[44:03.110 --> 44:04.410]  We weren't allowed to keep our pens.
[44:04.930 --> 44:07.710]  Yeah, I don't know how people got it.
[44:08.430 --> 44:09.370]  Did you get a sticker?
[44:10.290 --> 44:11.510]  Yeah, I got a sticker.
[44:12.130 --> 44:12.770]  Let's see.
[44:12.890 --> 44:30.070]  Also, though, going back to the Twitter blue checks, I noticed while reading over a couple of newsfeeds today that LeBron James and others were impersonated by verified Twitter accounts, but the one that really caught my eye is the Jesus Christ account.
[44:30.190 --> 44:30.650]  Oh, no.
[44:30.650 --> 44:31.430]  It's verified.
[44:31.790 --> 44:33.270]  Jesus Christ is verified?
[44:33.890 --> 44:34.370]  Wow.
[44:34.450 --> 44:36.730]  So it's really begun in earnest, hasn't it?
[44:37.490 --> 44:37.890]  Yeah.
[44:38.090 --> 44:38.590]  At Jesus.
[44:39.730 --> 44:40.210]  Wow.
[44:40.910 --> 44:42.590]  How was that not taken?
[44:42.890 --> 44:45.390]  How was Jesus not taken as a username?
[44:47.150 --> 44:47.530]  Mm-hmm.
[44:47.710 --> 44:48.290]  Think about it.
[44:48.430 --> 44:49.370]  Who do you want to be?
[44:49.850 --> 44:50.150]  Uh-huh.
[44:50.330 --> 44:50.570]  Yeah.
[44:51.010 --> 44:52.750]  For $8, you can be anybody you want.
[44:52.750 --> 44:59.350]  But I'm saying you could have taken that username without saying your name was Jesus Christ, you know?
[44:59.710 --> 45:02.790]  So somebody who had that username must have been waiting for this day.
[45:03.690 --> 45:15.870]  The second post, and it says, this is a parody, and right under that has the Elon Musk, going forward, any Twitter handles engaging impersonation without clearly specifying parody will be permanently suspended.
[45:15.870 --> 45:16.210]  Uh-huh.
[45:16.370 --> 45:20.250]  There's also the Twitter of God, which has been around forever, but that has never been verified.
[45:21.170 --> 45:21.450]  Mm-hmm.
[45:22.270 --> 45:24.010]  Well, for $8 now...
[45:24.010 --> 45:25.930]  For $8, God can be verified, yes.
[45:26.970 --> 45:28.350]  That's a historic day, I guess.
[45:28.350 --> 45:31.330]  You know, do you want to be Lewis or Clark or Stanley Livingstone?
[45:31.610 --> 45:33.030]  You know, take anybody out of history.
[45:33.050 --> 45:37.070]  See, we're going to have a couple of days of fun, and then it's all going to get really murky and meaningless.
[45:38.150 --> 45:40.550]  Once Elon Musk hires back a staff, yeah.
[45:41.190 --> 45:43.150]  I don't know if that's ever going to happen, but...
[45:43.150 --> 45:45.690]  I mean, you know, who was it?
[45:46.530 --> 45:48.630]  Meta just laid off a lot of people.
[45:49.070 --> 45:59.890]  I saw that, and I also saw that their stock went way up right before they did that, because they said they were going to lay off a whole ton of people, and the stockholders loved it.
[46:00.150 --> 46:02.070]  And that tells you everything...
[46:02.070 --> 46:13.590]  As Zuckerberg said, you know, they had just put on too many people for the, you know, COVID-19, and they expected more business that they didn't get.
[46:14.710 --> 46:15.690]  So, eh.
[46:16.110 --> 46:18.830]  Apparently, jobs are easy to hire and fire people.
[46:19.110 --> 46:19.370]  Uh-huh.
[46:20.610 --> 46:28.370]  But, yeah, I think within the next few days, just about anybody can show up on Twitter for $8.
[46:29.390 --> 46:46.430]  Yeah, I think some of the stories around that, that's the real stuff that we're going to have to follow and maybe be talking about in more serious terms, because as these places disintegrate, as I've said, I mean, what are the security implications?
[46:46.790 --> 47:07.350]  What will it become, you know, even if you're already treating it as though you do not trust it or, you know, take it as a primary form of communication, to what end will it be cannibalized and reformed around you?
[47:07.570 --> 47:19.410]  And that's something I'm sort of interested in and curious about going forward, but personally not all that invested in.
[47:22.670 --> 47:36.930]  If the long-term goal is to load it up with debt and just sink it and then bring out Twitter Lite or whatever the next version will be, that would be kind of an interesting model, I guess.
[47:37.090 --> 47:41.350]  But, I mean, it seems like that's an awful lot of money to have in play to do these games.
[47:42.210 --> 47:42.870]  I agree.
[47:43.970 --> 48:01.710]  Yeah, and I think that, like, the things we've been learning about, like, the way Web 2.0 platforms have been used and social media and so forth in, you know, getting real scrutiny is really barely emerged.
[48:02.170 --> 48:12.850]  You know, we've talked about it a lot, but real action, real change in that realm, I think, is kind of still elusive.
[48:13.810 --> 48:21.890]  The GDPR stuff in the UK about, like, data privacy and some of those issues is something that I've...
[48:22.450 --> 48:25.390]  It's kind of in the back of mind, I think.
[48:27.930 --> 48:40.010]  And to a degree, like, you know, what level of scrutiny are they going to be comfortable with?
[48:40.130 --> 48:49.770]  Because I think that as it's not staffed as well, as there's less interest...
[48:49.770 --> 49:05.370]  Yeah, I think that there's real problems there for, as we've just been kind of laughing about, you know, things being exploited and false impersonation and false pretenses and, you know, damage.
[49:05.570 --> 49:26.850]  But the other thing is they're trying to build towards something else, you know, and I'm thinking of, like, the new communications platforms and, you know, all the products for 5G and beyond and 6G.
[49:27.090 --> 49:34.610]  What kind of liability, what kind of responsibility will these companies actually have?
[49:34.610 --> 50:01.330]  Like, will there be any accountability as they kind of try to, like, outpace this gap or this vacuum and introduce new things that are shiny and that keep people on their system, but may actually just be opening many more Pandora box with less oversight or without having actually been...
[50:01.330 --> 50:03.010]  There been any accountability.
[50:03.010 --> 50:07.350]  Does that strike you as a possibility in this?
[50:07.530 --> 50:08.190]  Absolutely, absolutely.
[50:08.370 --> 50:21.290]  I think that, you know, if leaders of industry are not cautious, they could easily turn away people who really aren't paying for the service now.
[50:22.050 --> 50:25.330]  I mean, a lot of things are, hey, this is nice.
[50:25.530 --> 50:26.750]  Oh, you're going to charge me for it?
[50:26.830 --> 50:29.970]  Well, I can find another place to go, you know.
[50:31.030 --> 50:35.870]  And that will, you know, turn too many people away, I think.
[50:37.730 --> 50:44.910]  Oddly enough, this was also just in the looking for the Rudy Giuliani quotes.
[50:45.410 --> 50:53.870]  A Twitter user by the name of Mike Masnick, M-A-S-N-I-C-K, also verified, has all those listed on his front page.
[50:55.270 --> 50:55.710]  Okay.
[50:55.930 --> 51:08.830]  The other point towards that, though, is what about celebrities who couldn't get their actual name and had to put, you know, had to have a handle like, the real whatever.
[51:10.950 --> 51:25.970]  I'm trying to think of one, you know, I don't know, Mark Hamill or, you know, one of the guys that were just late to the game or had a common name and had to supplement their twiddle handlers with the real or something like that, then somebody could just turn around and say,
[51:26.410 --> 51:33.270]  well, gee whiz, I'm that person, and then bury down in their post, this is a parody account.
[51:33.870 --> 51:39.050]  But I honestly think that the damage could be done quickly until somebody figures it out and bans it.
[51:40.630 --> 51:42.150]  Interesting times ahead, for sure.
[51:43.510 --> 51:44.890]  Yeah, and that's just it.
[51:44.970 --> 51:48.650]  Without leadership, people rush in.
[51:49.690 --> 51:50.570]  Reckless leadership.
[51:51.370 --> 51:52.770]  Yeah, totally, totally.
[51:52.870 --> 51:58.790]  I mean, to put something in place and repeal it the same day, it's like, we didn't think that went through.
[51:59.410 --> 52:00.430]  Let's try again.
[52:00.690 --> 52:11.630]  Or let people go that you need to build all the new stuff that might, you know, bring in new users or retain the ones that are about to go overboard voluntarily.
[52:12.110 --> 52:20.010]  You know, fire me, and I have the heartbreak, the cleaning out your desk, the, oh my goodness, where's my next paycheck coming from?
[52:20.150 --> 52:23.270]  And then turn around and say, hey, we made a mistake, we need you back.
[52:23.450 --> 52:29.850]  Now, what's your quality of loyalty going to be, knowing that, you know, on a whim, you can be gone?
[52:30.030 --> 52:31.170]  At will, yeah.
[52:31.170 --> 52:37.590]  Yeah, well, I mean, companies, corporations need to realize that that can be, that can come back at them the other way.
[52:37.810 --> 52:42.470]  And once you let them go, they don't necessarily have to come back.
[52:42.630 --> 53:00.010]  But yeah, I always hated that about, you know, being, employment contracts where you were, you had it in the back of your head that you could be treated that way, and then to actually have been integral and then treated that way is sort of a really bad taste you're left with.
[53:00.050 --> 53:07.210]  Yeah, you get treated that way, and then they let you back in, and that's when you put your logic bomb into the code.
[53:07.430 --> 53:09.170]  Oh yeah, they're asking for that, yeah.
[53:09.310 --> 53:21.550]  In many ways, with the inconsideration, if they're not careful, like people, the resentment and bad feelings, you already see a lot of people's reactions to how things went.
[53:21.870 --> 53:22.210]  Go ahead.
[53:22.210 --> 53:31.010]  And if I might jump in here really quick, there have been material consequences to all this too, to Twitter's layoffs.
[53:31.430 --> 53:36.270]  I keep a Twitter tab open over the, you know, just all day over the course of my day here.
[53:36.650 --> 53:43.530]  And I have noticed multiple times today, the Twitter web page has failed to load.
[53:43.750 --> 53:46.510]  It has popped up the error message, something went wrong.
[53:46.510 --> 53:59.430]  And there have been people among those laid off, as well as others familiar with the situation, saying, yeah, there were teams of hundreds of people who would have, it would have been their job to fix things, and now they're not there.
[53:59.570 --> 54:01.630]  And these things are not getting fixed.
[54:01.710 --> 54:06.310]  They don't have enough staff to basically maintain the website as it exists.
[54:06.790 --> 54:09.110]  So yeah, the thing's getting rickety.
[54:09.370 --> 54:12.710]  It's starting to show, you know, signs of wear at the edges.
[54:12.710 --> 54:24.170]  And so with all this focus on new features that they put in and take out and put in and take out and everything else, the site is actually not working very well right now.
[54:24.570 --> 54:43.550]  Yeah, I can just see it, to a logical extent, just becoming unwieldy and it becoming more a place where you can try to gather users and then insert them into something that you start anew.
[54:43.710 --> 55:03.090]  In other words, let the old thing kind of disappear and roll out something new with all these users you kind of moved over as best you could after you tried all these kinds of free-form market research and trial by insane error.
[55:04.550 --> 55:11.370]  Take whatever lessons and filtering you did there and just see who comes to this new pay-for thing.
[55:11.470 --> 55:12.170]  That's kind of...
[55:12.170 --> 55:12.470]  I don't know.
[55:12.610 --> 55:12.950]  I can...
[55:12.950 --> 55:13.790]  There's a lot of ways to imagine.
[55:13.910 --> 55:15.350]  I'm sure other people have ideas.
[55:18.710 --> 55:23.990]  Yeah, I would certainly sit back on the sideline and see what happens before I invest anything.
[55:24.230 --> 55:25.970]  But I mean, if you're already in...
[55:25.970 --> 55:35.150]  If everybody knows you by your Twitter hander and it's part of your company or something like that, then yeah, bad times are ahead, I feel.
[55:35.910 --> 55:36.950]  Interesting times ahead.
[55:37.230 --> 55:39.010]  Let's see what happens.
[55:39.010 --> 55:42.330]  Let's not take it too seriously and learn from the experience.
[55:42.530 --> 55:44.570]  And hopefully Elon learns something as well.
[55:45.010 --> 55:45.790]  We'll see.
[55:45.970 --> 55:46.070]  Yeah.
[55:46.450 --> 55:48.590]  Okay, I'll drop off the line and let somebody else get in.
[55:48.670 --> 55:49.490]  Okay, thanks for your call.
[55:50.090 --> 55:50.590]  See you guys.
[55:50.770 --> 55:50.990]  Bye-bye.
[55:51.710 --> 55:57.070]  And yes, we are having trouble with the phone line because for some reason, caller ID is...
[55:57.070 --> 55:58.350]  No, a call waiting is on it.
[55:58.370 --> 56:00.690]  So that means if two people call, we get all those beeps.
[56:01.830 --> 56:03.870]  So, you know, we're going to try to take one more phone call.
[56:03.950 --> 56:12.050]  And if we do take one more phone call, please don't call because then you'll be making beeps and that'll just annoy everybody.
[56:12.050 --> 56:17.090]  It's just, it's an attentive service provider trying to add and provide...
[56:17.090 --> 56:18.130]  You're giving us things we don't want.
[56:18.130 --> 56:21.230]  As many features as we can possibly stand at any minute.
[56:21.370 --> 56:21.530]  Yeah.
[56:21.710 --> 56:22.690]  I don't want voicemail.
[56:23.050 --> 56:24.690]  I don't want call waiting.
[56:25.030 --> 56:26.110]  I like busy signals.
[56:26.950 --> 56:29.410]  You have a...
[56:30.290 --> 56:30.910]  Oh, no.
[56:31.190 --> 56:31.410]  What?
[56:32.170 --> 56:33.430]  I think it's just a dial tone.
[56:33.470 --> 56:34.290]  You're trying to tell me here, Carl.
[56:34.390 --> 56:35.650]  We might have lost this caller.
[56:35.730 --> 56:35.930]  I lost the call.
[56:36.070 --> 56:37.170]  I didn't know we had a call.
[56:37.170 --> 56:38.030]  We lost it really quickly.
[56:38.290 --> 56:39.490]  I was just going to say we had one.
[56:40.050 --> 56:42.270]  Anything from our Skype people?
[56:42.390 --> 56:43.190]  It's been awfully quiet.
[56:44.030 --> 56:46.890]  Alex, are you there?
[56:48.710 --> 56:49.150]  Hmm?
[56:49.310 --> 56:49.630]  Alex?
[56:49.910 --> 56:50.150]  Yes.
[56:50.370 --> 56:50.570]  Alex.
[56:50.930 --> 56:51.590]  I'm here.
[56:51.990 --> 56:54.970]  I was just on mute, you know?
[56:55.110 --> 56:55.550]  Ah, okay.
[56:55.970 --> 56:57.010]  Well, we missed your voice.
[56:58.630 --> 57:00.270]  Yeah, I'm here, you know?
[57:01.830 --> 57:02.370]  All right.
[57:02.430 --> 57:02.750]  Well said.
[57:03.310 --> 57:04.190]  We have a phone call?
[57:04.790 --> 57:05.170]  Yes.
[57:07.390 --> 57:08.170]  Wait, what's...
[57:08.170 --> 57:08.670]  What's...
[57:08.670 --> 57:10.610]  Why am I hearing a recording somewhere?
[57:10.790 --> 57:12.930]  And why is Robin Gila laughing?
[57:14.450 --> 57:15.890]  Are you playing a joke on us?
[57:16.190 --> 57:17.350]  Why are we not laughing?
[57:17.590 --> 57:18.050]  I don't know.
[57:18.270 --> 57:19.050]  I just hear a recording.
[57:20.970 --> 57:22.470]  No idea what you're talking about.
[57:22.710 --> 57:22.830]  Okay.
[57:23.310 --> 57:24.430]  Now, you're the one laughing.
[57:24.630 --> 57:25.650]  So, what are you up to?
[57:26.750 --> 57:27.090]  Nothing.
[57:27.330 --> 57:27.650]  Nothing.
[57:27.950 --> 57:29.130]  Is he calling us?
[57:29.190 --> 57:29.770]  Is that what he's doing?
[57:30.490 --> 57:31.450]  Let's find out.
[57:31.510 --> 57:31.770]  Hold on.
[57:32.670 --> 57:33.110]  Hello?
[57:33.310 --> 57:33.950]  Is anyone there?
[57:36.470 --> 57:37.830]  IntelliCall Operator Services.
[57:39.710 --> 57:41.650]  Okay, wouldn't God's name have...
[57:41.650 --> 57:43.250]  Is calling collect.
[57:43.530 --> 57:46.550]  However, collect calls are not allowed to your number.
[57:46.810 --> 57:49.370]  Would you like to pay for this call with a credit card?
[57:49.630 --> 57:49.970]  No.
[57:50.310 --> 57:50.990]  To accept this...
[57:50.990 --> 57:51.770]  That's one.
[57:52.130 --> 57:54.430]  To deny this call, press zero now.
[57:54.810 --> 57:56.230]  Please enter your choice now.
[57:56.290 --> 57:56.950]  Wait, wait, wait.
[57:57.010 --> 57:58.190]  What happens if I don't do anything?
[57:58.990 --> 58:00.510]  Yeah, let's find...
[58:00.510 --> 58:01.350]  I guess we get connected.
[58:11.670 --> 58:12.470]  Your number...
[58:12.470 --> 58:13.590]  Alex and Rebel are very similar.
[58:13.910 --> 58:14.950]  Would you like to pay for this call with a credit card?
[58:15.490 --> 58:16.650]  To accept this call, press one.
[58:16.650 --> 58:17.270]  From the wake up.
[58:17.830 --> 58:19.850]  To deny this call, press zero now.
[58:19.850 --> 58:20.310]  So, wait.
[58:20.390 --> 58:21.910]  How long will this recording stay on?
[58:22.730 --> 58:24.590]  It's just going to keep saying that over and over again?
[58:24.690 --> 58:25.990]  I remember this number.
[58:26.430 --> 58:27.410]  I know we play with this number.
[58:27.470 --> 58:28.430]  IntelliCall Operator Services.
[58:28.430 --> 58:29.630]  Wow, this is super annoying.
[58:31.810 --> 58:32.330]  All right.
[58:32.390 --> 58:32.710]  Well said.
[58:33.190 --> 58:34.310]  Is calling collect.
[58:34.690 --> 58:37.130]  However, collect calls are not allowed to your number.
[58:37.130 --> 58:37.970]  That was me saying that to him.
[58:37.970 --> 58:40.450]  Would you like to pay for this call with a credit card?
[58:40.850 --> 58:42.570]  You can't say no.
[58:43.070 --> 58:43.730]  You can't say no.
[58:43.890 --> 58:45.590]  To deny this call, press zero now.
[58:45.970 --> 58:46.530]  Oh, wait, no.
[58:46.810 --> 58:47.510]  Do your choice now.
[58:47.850 --> 58:48.770]  How about we just hang up?
[58:48.910 --> 58:49.630]  Let's just hang up.
[58:51.190 --> 58:53.010]  That's annoying, Alex, to say the least.
[58:53.270 --> 58:54.510]  You didn't want to talk to the operator?
[58:54.990 --> 59:00.810]  Well, you know, I would have talked to the operator, except the operator didn't want to come on unless we hit a button, and that was just too much effort for us.
[59:00.910 --> 59:03.150]  Well, that wasn't a real call, so why don't we let...
[59:03.150 --> 59:04.130]  What do you mean it wasn't a real call?
[59:04.190 --> 59:05.530]  It was a real call, and we picked it up.
[59:05.670 --> 59:06.050]  It was there.
[59:06.050 --> 59:08.150]  I don't have a credit card to use.
[59:08.470 --> 59:12.190]  We spent so much time flapping our own gums, you know, the first half hour, I think.
[59:12.390 --> 59:14.290]  I think we went to...
[59:14.290 --> 59:16.490]  I'll bet we somehow get charged for that, too.
[59:16.810 --> 59:17.970]  And then we'll be calling you.
[59:17.970 --> 59:18.630]  We'll be calling you.
[59:19.390 --> 59:19.790]  Yes.
[59:20.010 --> 59:20.410]  Is there a call?
[59:20.610 --> 59:21.010]  Okay.
[59:21.190 --> 59:22.350]  We have a real call now.
[59:22.810 --> 59:23.390]  And good evening.
[59:23.510 --> 59:24.270]  You're on Off the Hook Overtime.
[59:25.670 --> 59:26.410]  Good evening.
[59:26.630 --> 59:27.910]  This is Bobson from Bulgaria.
[59:28.270 --> 59:28.670]  No.
[59:29.150 --> 59:30.470]  It's Bobson from Bulgaria.
[59:30.590 --> 59:32.590]  We haven't heard from Bobson from Bulgaria since...
[59:32.590 --> 59:33.730]  One more call.
[59:33.730 --> 59:36.210]  I mean, so much has happened since then.
[59:36.350 --> 59:36.710]  For a couple of months now.
[59:37.210 --> 59:37.990]  Months, yeah.
[59:38.270 --> 59:43.650]  I mean, I think your country changed its name at one point, then changed back, and there was all sorts of history going on.
[59:43.770 --> 59:45.530]  And yeah, it's...
[59:45.530 --> 59:45.630]  What?
[59:46.230 --> 59:47.210]  You didn't hear about that?
[59:47.370 --> 59:48.030]  Don't, don't.
[59:48.150 --> 59:48.330]  No?
[59:50.610 --> 59:51.730]  Not that I remember.
[59:51.970 --> 59:52.290]  Okay.
[59:52.530 --> 59:54.290]  Well, I think that's probably the way they want it.
[59:54.510 --> 59:55.230]  How are you, Bobson?
[59:55.230 --> 59:56.090]  Yeah, how are you?
[59:59.950 --> 01:00:00.990]  Well, uh...
[01:00:00.990 --> 01:00:03.710]  Doing fine, for the most part, yes.
[01:00:03.950 --> 01:00:04.590]  Well, that's good.
[01:00:04.710 --> 01:00:05.570]  Good to hear from you again.
[01:00:06.390 --> 01:00:07.670]  I hear a question.
[01:00:07.970 --> 01:00:13.470]  What date was the elections in the U.S.
[01:00:13.670 --> 01:00:14.430]  this year?
[01:00:14.750 --> 01:00:16.150]  The one that just happened?
[01:00:17.590 --> 01:00:21.410]  It's in early November, but I'm not sure which date was on.
[01:00:21.410 --> 01:00:23.530]  It was yesterday, November 8th.
[01:00:25.510 --> 01:00:27.750]  So it was on Tuesday the 8th?
[01:00:27.830 --> 01:00:28.090]  Yes.
[01:00:28.170 --> 01:00:30.490]  Not on Tuesday the 1st?
[01:00:30.830 --> 01:00:31.170]  No.
[01:00:31.530 --> 01:00:38.130]  You might have heard somebody on this radio show, Rebels, say that, but it was wrong, and it was quickly corrected and condemned.
[01:00:39.110 --> 01:00:39.850]  Oh, wow.
[01:00:41.650 --> 01:00:42.170]  Why?
[01:00:42.390 --> 01:00:43.690]  You sound disappointed.
[01:00:43.890 --> 01:00:45.410]  Why does that affect you in Bulgaria?
[01:00:46.990 --> 01:00:50.590]  Well, not that it does, but I thought it was on...
[01:00:50.590 --> 01:00:56.690]  I was thinking it was on the 2nd of November or something.
[01:00:56.770 --> 01:01:05.330]  If the 2nd of November were a Tuesday, it would be, but it's never on the 1st of November, if the 1st of November is on a Tuesday, for obvious reasons.
[01:01:05.690 --> 01:01:06.710]  Oh, okay.
[01:01:08.250 --> 01:01:08.730]  Wow.
[01:01:08.870 --> 01:01:11.230]  I don't know what those obvious reasons are, but they are obvious.
[01:01:11.410 --> 01:01:13.650]  So it was in recent days then?
[01:01:13.810 --> 01:01:15.250]  It was recent day, yesterday.
[01:01:15.690 --> 01:01:16.030]  I hope you all voted.
[01:01:16.650 --> 01:01:17.870]  Yeah, no, I voted.
[01:01:18.830 --> 01:01:20.430]  I'm lecturing people who didn't vote.
[01:01:20.430 --> 01:01:21.030]  I voted.
[01:01:21.310 --> 01:01:23.530]  Yeah, I went out there, and I voted big time.
[01:01:23.850 --> 01:01:25.290]  A lot of people voted, Boston.
[01:01:25.470 --> 01:01:26.290]  Yeah, a lot of people voted.
[01:01:27.850 --> 01:01:29.230]  Well, that's good to know.
[01:01:29.690 --> 01:01:31.450]  Yes, but thanks for reminding us to vote.
[01:01:31.610 --> 01:01:32.170]  That's important.
[01:01:34.290 --> 01:01:39.030]  Well, I would have done it last week, but, you know.
[01:01:39.830 --> 01:01:40.850]  What's it like to vote...
[01:01:40.850 --> 01:01:41.710]  I never got through.
[01:01:41.710 --> 01:01:43.290]  What's it like to vote in Bulgaria?
[01:01:43.510 --> 01:01:44.250]  That's what I want to know.
[01:01:45.850 --> 01:01:51.370]  Well, over the past year or so, we've had it four times now.
[01:01:51.770 --> 01:01:52.270]  Wow.
[01:01:52.410 --> 01:01:53.570]  For various reasons.
[01:01:54.350 --> 01:01:54.610]  Okay.
[01:01:57.150 --> 01:01:57.650]  And...
[01:01:57.650 --> 01:01:58.710]  What was the most recent?
[01:01:59.550 --> 01:01:59.630]  Yeah.
[01:01:59.730 --> 01:02:01.030]  How recently did you vote last?
[01:02:05.030 --> 01:02:07.510]  I think it was in...
[01:02:09.850 --> 01:02:12.810]  I'm trying to remember if it was in December or January.
[01:02:13.470 --> 01:02:14.870]  So, it was almost a year ago.
[01:02:15.990 --> 01:02:16.670]  No, no.
[01:02:17.830 --> 01:02:19.470]  Not even three months ago.
[01:02:20.590 --> 01:02:22.130]  Okay, well, this is November.
[01:02:22.730 --> 01:02:25.990]  So, if it's three months ago, that puts it in the summertime.
[01:02:26.470 --> 01:02:27.430]  It might have been the summer.
[01:02:27.630 --> 01:02:27.970]  Sorry.
[01:02:28.870 --> 01:02:31.550]  I'm thinking it's February now, which it isn't.
[01:02:32.430 --> 01:02:34.870]  It's an interesting mistake to make, but...
[01:02:34.870 --> 01:02:39.590]  So, tell us, when you go vote in Bulgaria, what's it like at the polling place?
[01:02:43.230 --> 01:02:45.110]  Well, they...
[01:02:46.890 --> 01:02:51.030]  They have machines in recent elections now.
[01:02:51.370 --> 01:02:57.810]  Machine voting, electronic and what have you, which is...
[01:02:57.810 --> 01:03:04.090]  Basically, there's a terminal of some sorts there, which is...
[01:03:05.750 --> 01:03:16.890]  Which you can push the screens on and select various options and what have you.
[01:03:17.130 --> 01:03:18.890]  Is there any kind of a paper trail?
[01:03:20.170 --> 01:03:22.730]  Well, it prints out a piece of...
[01:03:24.550 --> 01:03:34.190]  A small piece of paper that you're supposed to take to a clerk at a desk nearby.
[01:03:36.670 --> 01:03:41.950]  And that has your vote on it, that they can recount if they have to manually?
[01:03:42.190 --> 01:03:43.490]  Okay, that sounds like a system.
[01:03:45.530 --> 01:03:46.550]  Something like that.
[01:03:49.230 --> 01:03:49.910]  Oh, well.
[01:03:51.730 --> 01:03:55.190]  Does anyone else have any questions for Bobson here, while we have him?
[01:03:56.850 --> 01:03:57.270]  Alex?
[01:03:57.810 --> 01:04:00.330]  No, I just, you know, how have you been?
[01:04:00.330 --> 01:04:09.210]  It's been a while, you know, I feel like this is a reunion show of sorts, since it's been a while since we've been on the air, and it's great to hear you, Royce.
[01:04:11.990 --> 01:04:19.510]  Well, yeah, it's been a few months since I've managed to call, but so I'm trying to listen.
[01:04:19.670 --> 01:04:23.550]  I should point out that it's, what, 3 o'clock in the morning where you are?
[01:04:25.950 --> 01:04:27.650]  Yes, I guess we should point that out.
[01:04:27.910 --> 01:04:28.830]  Well, it's more like 4.
[01:04:29.050 --> 01:04:30.050]  It's 4 in the morning.
[01:04:30.550 --> 01:04:37.710]  Okay, so anybody listening, you know, try calling someone at 4 in the morning, and, you know, you'll sound tired.
[01:04:38.650 --> 01:04:41.510]  Yeah, and in your native language as well.
[01:04:41.690 --> 01:04:46.070]  So, you know, that makes it even a bit more difficult.
[01:04:46.210 --> 01:04:49.430]  Yeah, a challenge for our listeners, call somebody in Bulgaria at 4 in the morning.
[01:04:49.590 --> 01:04:50.850]  Not your time, not their time.
[01:04:50.850 --> 01:04:52.070]  They'll be angry if you do that.
[01:04:52.630 --> 01:04:54.130]  And talk to them in Bulgaria.
[01:04:54.370 --> 01:04:55.830]  And I want to hear how you sound.
[01:04:56.310 --> 01:04:57.410]  Bobson's English is great.
[01:04:57.750 --> 01:04:58.570]  It is great.
[01:04:58.790 --> 01:05:06.410]  But I will say, Bobson, though, you know, since you haven't been calling, I haven't made my usual stops at the Bulgarian grocery store in...
[01:05:06.410 --> 01:05:07.270]  Here we go.
[01:05:07.810 --> 01:05:08.210]  ...Bingya.
[01:05:09.610 --> 01:05:20.210]  And, you know, if you think it would be worth my while, I will re-pick up making those stops in future weeks, if you catch my drift.
[01:05:21.270 --> 01:05:35.190]  Well, I know not what would be worth your while, but if you've enjoyed what you've had so far, you might want to keep enjoying it, or what have you.
[01:05:37.230 --> 01:05:39.850]  That's what we try to tell Alex all the time.
[01:05:39.850 --> 01:05:41.970]  If you, you know, enjoy something, keep doing it.
[01:05:42.730 --> 01:05:44.870]  Yeah, that's true, you know.
[01:05:45.190 --> 01:05:47.890]  But, you know, we've got to grow up sometime, you know.
[01:05:49.410 --> 01:05:52.430]  Well, that's overrated here.
[01:05:52.850 --> 01:05:53.130]  Mm-hmm.
[01:05:53.810 --> 01:05:55.570]  Yeah, I think you're absolutely right.
[01:05:55.830 --> 01:06:07.710]  But that's, you know, I think that really is part of the hacker mentality, which is this childlike attitude towards the world, where we're not afraid to ask questions or take things apart.
[01:06:08.050 --> 01:06:10.830]  I mean, it is childlike, I think, in the best ways.
[01:06:15.310 --> 01:06:21.170]  Bobson, is there anything interesting going on in Bulgaria that you want to share with us?
[01:06:22.890 --> 01:06:26.610]  Hacker-related or with telephones and...
[01:06:26.610 --> 01:06:27.910]  Or just anything, really.
[01:06:28.390 --> 01:06:28.870]  Society?
[01:06:29.230 --> 01:06:30.070]  What's the mood?
[01:06:30.250 --> 01:06:31.390]  How are you, you know?
[01:06:32.310 --> 01:06:39.410]  Well, things are getting wintered down in recent days.
[01:06:39.790 --> 01:06:40.250]  Mm-hmm.
[01:06:40.470 --> 01:06:57.190]  I mean, with the approaching winter and what have you, not many events or such that I have heard of.
[01:06:58.150 --> 01:07:00.090]  Well, it sounds exciting.
[01:07:00.090 --> 01:07:12.270]  I mean, I'm sure there's a lot of things happening, probably festivals or winter festivals and autumnal-type things of a Bulgarian nature.
[01:07:12.770 --> 01:07:29.470]  Well, it is likely that some of those things are happening somewhere around the country, but I don't get out of town much, so I don't see any of those.
[01:07:32.540 --> 01:07:41.280]  So, it sounds like you're getting ready for the cold weather and things are a little more subdued or cozy, you know, quiet.
[01:07:41.580 --> 01:07:41.780]  Yeah.
[01:07:42.160 --> 01:07:42.980]  Sounds cozy.
[01:07:43.240 --> 01:07:43.580]  Yeah.
[01:07:44.620 --> 01:07:45.220]  Cozy.
[01:07:45.580 --> 01:07:45.920]  Yes.
[01:07:49.100 --> 01:07:49.900]  About right.
[01:07:50.300 --> 01:07:50.760]  Yes.
[01:07:51.300 --> 01:07:58.400]  Have you heard that the Chaos Congress has been officially canceled, but there might be some satellite conferences instead?
[01:08:00.600 --> 01:08:01.520]  Oh, no.
[01:08:02.800 --> 01:08:03.220]  Yeah.
[01:08:04.000 --> 01:08:06.780]  The one in Hamburg was... had to be canceled because of COVID.
[01:08:07.040 --> 01:08:08.700]  Well, because of COVID restrictions, mostly.
[01:08:10.900 --> 01:08:11.460]  Yeah.
[01:08:12.840 --> 01:08:13.400]  Well...
[01:08:13.400 --> 01:08:14.620]  Makes sense.
[01:08:15.040 --> 01:08:17.180]  That's a lot of people, so...
[01:08:17.180 --> 01:08:21.540]  But there might be a bunch of smaller ones spread throughout Germany, including...
[01:08:21.540 --> 01:08:29.080]  We talked to Mitch about this a couple weeks ago at the BCC in Berlin, Berlin Congress Center.
[01:08:29.920 --> 01:08:32.140]  So, you know, that could be a lot of fun, too.
[01:08:32.300 --> 01:08:34.780]  And, you know, you could even have something in Bulgaria, I think.
[01:08:36.340 --> 01:08:43.640]  Are you talking about the mid-December winter congress, or are you talking about the summer congress?
[01:08:43.660 --> 01:08:45.180]  No, not talking about the camp.
[01:08:45.260 --> 01:08:48.840]  Talking about the congress, which, December 27th through 30th.
[01:08:50.820 --> 01:08:52.200]  It's being fragmented.
[01:08:55.530 --> 01:08:57.890]  Kind of like Mastodon, I guess, right?
[01:08:58.210 --> 01:09:00.930]  Like, the CCC was Twitter, and now we have Mastodon.
[01:09:01.070 --> 01:09:01.610]  Oh, wow.
[01:09:01.710 --> 01:09:02.530]  You just made some...
[01:09:02.530 --> 01:09:03.410]  It works.
[01:09:03.850 --> 01:09:05.070]  Oh, come on.
[01:09:06.550 --> 01:09:07.470]  Okay, we'll get letters.
[01:09:07.650 --> 01:09:09.150]  We'll get letters, I know, but...
[01:09:09.730 --> 01:09:10.370]  German letters.
[01:09:10.530 --> 01:09:10.910]  I know.
[01:09:11.050 --> 01:09:12.210]  I won't be able to read them, so there.
[01:09:12.910 --> 01:09:13.530]  Everybody wins.
[01:09:16.050 --> 01:09:18.690]  Well, Bobson, we're not going to keep you up much longer.
[01:09:18.750 --> 01:09:19.590]  In fact, we're getting tired.
[01:09:19.810 --> 01:09:20.630]  But stay in touch.
[01:09:20.910 --> 01:09:21.230]  Yes.
[01:09:21.370 --> 01:09:22.190]  It's good hearing from you.
[01:09:22.330 --> 01:09:26.630]  We want to know you well, and what the latest from Bulgaria is.
[01:09:26.850 --> 01:09:27.830]  You're our correspondent.
[01:09:27.950 --> 01:09:29.430]  And you can write to us, too, you know.
[01:09:32.010 --> 01:09:35.190]  Wow, yeah, that takes some doing.
[01:09:38.260 --> 01:09:45.140]  As opposed to redialing a number already in the memory of the phone.
[01:09:45.500 --> 01:09:48.340]  That is very convenient that they have that technology.
[01:09:50.640 --> 01:09:51.100]  Yep.
[01:09:52.860 --> 01:09:57.320]  Well, again, it was a real pleasure hearing from you, and we hope to hear from you again soon.
[01:09:57.440 --> 01:09:59.000]  And I think Alex has a closing comment.
[01:09:59.000 --> 01:10:04.480]  Yeah, Bobson, I'll tell you, I think I read you loud and clear.
[01:10:05.380 --> 01:10:10.960]  And I'm going to make some stops in the near future at the Bulgarian grocery near me.
[01:10:11.140 --> 01:10:13.320]  So get ready.
[01:10:13.560 --> 01:10:15.240]  Did he communicate some secret message to you?
[01:10:15.300 --> 01:10:17.580]  It sounds like you guys are communicating some way.
[01:10:17.580 --> 01:10:18.380]  It sounds like that.
[01:10:18.500 --> 01:10:19.760]  Yeah, that we're not aware of.
[01:10:19.980 --> 01:10:28.120]  We may have, you know, this whole thing where Bobson calls some weeks and doesn't call others could all be some kind of elaborate signaling.
[01:10:28.900 --> 01:10:31.620]  That I'm basically facilitating.
[01:10:32.600 --> 01:10:34.760]  So that gets me right in the middle of it.
[01:10:34.880 --> 01:10:35.240]  Thanks.
[01:10:35.920 --> 01:10:40.940]  So I will go and speak to the local grocer.
[01:10:41.700 --> 01:10:43.700]  Local grocer being a euphemism for...
[01:10:43.700 --> 01:10:44.120]  No, no, no.
[01:10:44.260 --> 01:10:44.860]  All right, fine.
[01:10:46.220 --> 01:10:47.580]  I didn't ask for this.
[01:10:48.300 --> 01:10:49.580]  We'll report back.
[01:10:51.160 --> 01:10:51.880]  Abort, abort.
[01:10:54.140 --> 01:10:54.620]  Okay.
[01:10:55.160 --> 01:10:55.900]  All right, Bobson.
[01:10:56.060 --> 01:10:56.480]  Good night, everyone.
[01:10:56.480 --> 01:10:57.960]  Great talking to you.
[01:10:58.160 --> 01:10:58.540]  Be well.
[01:11:00.060 --> 01:11:00.680]  Same here.
[01:11:00.900 --> 01:11:01.120]  All right.
[01:11:01.160 --> 01:11:01.800]  Have a good rest.
[01:11:02.860 --> 01:11:03.420]  All right.
[01:11:03.920 --> 01:11:07.300]  I think we need a good rest because we've been at this for a couple of hours now.
[01:11:07.460 --> 01:11:09.380]  And I'm tired and cranky.
[01:11:09.440 --> 01:11:12.000]  And we have other things to do.
[01:11:13.800 --> 01:11:15.000]  Feels like about that time.
[01:11:15.240 --> 01:11:17.240]  You're really going to play a harmonica, Alex?
[01:11:18.280 --> 01:11:19.440]  That's what we need right now?
[01:11:20.200 --> 01:11:21.560]  I don't know what you're talking about.
[01:11:22.200 --> 01:11:22.720]  All right.
[01:11:22.720 --> 01:11:24.900]  Well, folks, thank you for listening.
[01:11:25.680 --> 01:11:28.340]  OTH at 2600.com is our email address.
[01:11:28.480 --> 01:11:33.360]  Please write to us with your comments or observations, advice, things like that.
[01:11:34.680 --> 01:11:43.680]  For the immediate future, it's at Hacker Radio Show on that Big Bird.
[01:11:44.220 --> 01:11:45.220]  Mastodon.social.
[01:11:45.380 --> 01:11:45.880]  Yeah.
[01:11:46.440 --> 01:11:47.580]  Which you can't get...
[01:11:47.580 --> 01:11:48.620]  Rob, maybe you can explain this.
[01:11:48.680 --> 01:11:50.260]  You can't get accounts on that anymore, apparently.
[01:11:51.160 --> 01:11:59.100]  Well, instances, a lot of them have been basically hitting the limits of the amount of people they can support or that they want to have on.
[01:12:00.220 --> 01:12:05.740]  Some admins, they made a decision to keep it smaller, which is not necessarily a bad thing.
[01:12:05.880 --> 01:12:07.940]  But there are plenty of instances out there.
[01:12:08.040 --> 01:12:11.160]  Go to joinmastodon.org to find one for yourself.
[01:12:11.360 --> 01:12:15.760]  What if we had, at the radio show, a Mastodon instance limited to five people?
[01:12:15.880 --> 01:12:16.340]  Could we do that?
[01:12:17.360 --> 01:12:18.820]  We could totally do that.
[01:12:18.860 --> 01:12:19.700]  And it would just be us.
[01:12:20.240 --> 01:12:21.360]  It would just be us.
[01:12:21.520 --> 01:12:23.740]  It would be the coolest Mastodon instance ever.
[01:12:24.900 --> 01:12:28.280]  Yeah, and then we'd have to keep declining people who wanted to join us.
[01:12:28.280 --> 01:12:30.240]  It's a great feeling to reject people.
[01:12:30.380 --> 01:12:31.160]  It really is.
[01:12:31.780 --> 01:12:35.160]  But, you know, I don't know if I'd want to be in any club that would have me as a member.
[01:12:35.900 --> 01:12:38.700]  Okay, then you're out of the club, and it's down to four people now.
[01:12:40.820 --> 01:12:44.740]  Or bring Bobson in instead to replace you, and it's back up to five.
[01:12:45.520 --> 01:12:46.320]  Woman haters.
[01:12:46.720 --> 01:12:47.700]  I see how it is.
[01:12:49.440 --> 01:12:50.240]  You quit.
[01:12:50.360 --> 01:12:51.700]  You quit the group.
[01:12:52.300 --> 01:12:52.740]  But, yeah.
[01:12:55.960 --> 01:13:00.960]  But, you know, we'd be having a request from Rebel, of course, right?
[01:13:01.080 --> 01:13:04.220]  I mean, he has to join our video chat tonight, didn't he?
[01:13:04.420 --> 01:13:04.960]  He did.
[01:13:05.280 --> 01:13:09.800]  And it was very hard not to give out all the information that he would have needed to do that.
[01:13:10.920 --> 01:13:11.800]  But we managed.
[01:13:11.920 --> 01:13:12.560]  We got through that.
[01:13:12.700 --> 01:13:13.220]  We got through that.
[01:13:13.440 --> 01:13:19.340]  Yeah, I mean, imagine the thrill of seeing him play basketball and talk to us at the same time.
[01:13:19.820 --> 01:13:24.120]  But, look, we had a call waiting crisis tonight that I think we also dealt with very well.
[01:13:24.960 --> 01:13:26.800]  All right, so we have to recover from all that.
[01:13:26.940 --> 01:13:27.820]  Thank you, everybody, for listening.
[01:13:28.140 --> 01:13:30.400]  We will hopefully be on next week.
[01:13:30.540 --> 01:13:33.080]  Yeah, this has been over time.
[01:13:34.020 --> 01:13:35.220]  Off the hook over time.
[01:13:35.600 --> 01:13:38.320]  Make it sound like it's really too over time.
[01:13:38.640 --> 01:13:40.160]  Way over time.
[01:13:40.560 --> 01:13:41.480]  Too much time.
[01:13:41.480 --> 01:13:42.400]  On Channel 2600.
[01:13:43.360 --> 01:13:43.820]  Come back.
[01:13:44.140 --> 01:13:44.880]  Visit us again.
[01:13:45.620 --> 01:13:53.320]  Yes, and while you're here on Channel 2600, feel free to wander around and explore all the other videos, all the Hope videos that are on there.
[01:13:53.840 --> 01:13:58.020]  We just put another WUSB video from 1990 on there, which is really kind of awesome.
[01:13:58.580 --> 01:13:59.880]  And we're going to have more stuff.
[01:14:00.080 --> 01:14:00.640]  A lot more stuff.
[01:14:00.900 --> 01:14:02.080]  So, stick around.
[01:14:02.660 --> 01:14:03.240]  Good night.
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