If you'd like to make a call, please hang up and try again.
If you need help, stay on the line and a hacker will assist you shortly.
The telephone keeps ringing, so I ripped it off the wall.
I cut myself while shaving, now I can't make a call.
We couldn't get much worse, but if you could, they would.
I didn't live on for the best, it's fake, the worst.
I hope that's understood, I didn't live on.
I did live on for the best.
I don't know.
We'll be right back.
We'll be right back.
Out in Skypeland, we have Rob T. Firefly.
Good evening.
Why is he only in the left?
Oh, because I didn't do that.
Okay.
Say that again.
Good evening.
There we go.
And we have Gila.
Good evening.
And we have Alex.
You do.
Good evening, everyone.
And my deepest apologies to everybody.
We promised we weren't going to be on the air tonight, and we are.
Now, before people get angry and start writing letters, let me just explain.
It was a change in plans in the schedule, and we were asked if we would be good enough to do what we usually do on Wednesday nights.
And so we are.
All right.
That's the end of it.
Here we are.
Talking about technology and privacy and all sorts of other hacker-related things, which is what we do here on Off the Hook pretty much every week.
I think everybody's staying, I almost said warm.
I know we're staying warm.
Everybody's staying cool.
Are we all under control?
Because I'm supposed to step in every few minutes to make sure people are hydrated and that nobody is sweating too much because we're in the middle of a heat wave here.
Rob, you've got some kind of a beverage, which looks good.
I've got a hot coffee, Kyle.
That's my beverage.
I guess it's refreshing.
Yeah, why not?
I am cool.
You're just always cool.
I can confirm.
Yeah.
Gila, you doing okay there?
I'm doing well, although I did hear that drinking hot beverages in a heat wave is good because it does some sort of weird body science that cools you down more.
Well, it does feel good, I'll tell you that.
And you know what?
Having hot, spicy food also helps.
I don't understand it.
Alex, how are you doing heat-wise?
First of all, where are you?
I'm in New York.
Okay, you are.
I'm in, yeah, I'm in the West Village in New York, so that might not be the case next week.
We'll see.
Okay.
Well, next week that won't be a heat wave.
Well, let's hope not.
But I'm with you in imbibing a diuretic as well.
Well, I didn't say it that way.
Yeah.
Well, you know, it's just another way of putting it.
Okay, all right.
Coffee.
Oh, yeah, coffee's good.
All right, fine.
Bean juice.
Yes.
Rob, you have something?
Yeah, just in case our listeners out there aren't aware of the sacrifices we make as professional radio producers, we did turn off our apartment's air conditioner, so we would sound better for you while the show is on.
So if it heats up in here and we get heat stroke, it's not our fault.
It's all of yours.
Yeah, so we have a fan.
We don't even have air conditioning in this studio here.
We have a fan that blows semi-cool air into the room, but we turned that off because that's making such a racket.
We didn't want to offend anybody.
So, yeah, if we start passing out, we'll please be patient with us as we try to recover and do the best job we can.
And regard our production values.
Yeah, yeah.
Always the highest.
Okay, so I saw a story today that kind of enraged me in the middle of this whole heat wave thing.
What do you think the headline is over on Axios?
How to keep your smartphone cool during a heat wave.
Yeah, because that's the priority.
That's the priority, to keep your damn smartphone happy and not overly hot.
And, you know, I know how to do it.
There's several ways.
Turn the damn thing off.
There's that.
Throw it into a bathtub filled with water.
Okay?
I was going to suggest throwing it into the East River, but no.
The East River has enough problems.
But, yeah, okay.
So there are ways to do this.
I suppose we should let people know.
So basically to avoid reaching the point where your smartphone gets past the point of no return,
where features become disabled, maybe temporarily, maybe permanently.
Leaving a smartphone in very hot conditions can permanently shorten its battery life and damage other parts.
So don't use it continually in direct sunlight.
Did I really have to say that?
I mean, first of all, you shouldn't be in direct sunlight, all right?
I don't know what you're doing with a smartphone in direct sunlight, but it just sounds like a bad idea.
Don't leave it in a parked car or near a heat source.
You know, pretend it's a child.
Yeah, that might not be the best advice because I'm not sure how much sense people have.
Yeah, but don't leave it in a parked car.
Don't leave it near a heat source.
Give it water every now and then.
Remove your phone case as some covers can trap the heat.
Really?
You have to take the phone case off your phone to keep it from overheating.
Use the low power mode, which disables some background activity.
That's a good one.
I guess it is.
You know, I don't want to get into personal issues here, but I don't like my smartphone anymore.
I really don't.
I feel like I was misled.
It's a Samsung Galaxy, and everybody raved about it, told me this was the phone to get.
And I figured, yeah, okay.
It came with what?
Terabyte of memory?
Is that what they come with these days?
What is it?
Maybe half or a quarter.
You know what?
I don't even know.
It came with a good amount, and that's what I decided to get.
It turns out that's unexpandable, and I didn't know that.
And they sure don't say that in the brochure or whatever it is they use to advertise these things
because I started getting warnings that, hey, you're about to run out of space.
Really?
Okay.
I'll just pop in another SIM card or expansion module or whatever.
And it turns out on this particular phone, due to popular demand, you can't do that anymore.
You know, I always seem to be going against whatever the popular demand is.
People want to keep everything that they own somewhere else in the cloud where Google can watch over it instead of you.
People want that.
People want to be nagged into updating things constantly.
People want their computers to reboot in the middle of the night even when they're in the middle of 100 projects.
People just want to pay a monthly fee for software they used to be able to buy on their own.
And apparently people want smartphones that have a finite amount of memory, and when you run out of it, you run out of it.
So I've got this phone now that I've got to go through, I guess, every video I've ever made and decide which ones to delete.
Yeah, I can copy them someplace else, but what if I'm out someplace and I finally meet the person who's going to believe my alien abduction video is real and I've deleted it and I can't show it to them?
You know, how do I decide what to delete?
It's an unenviable situation.
So be careful.
Be careful if there even is fine print.
When you buy a phone, make sure you get one that you can expand, you can continuously add to, if that's even possible anymore.
Whose hand is that?
Is that Gila?
Gila, go ahead.
It's Gila's hand, yes.
I mean, we were actually just having this conversation in our home recently.
We were at the cell phone store, and, you know, we are a mixed marriage.
I'm an iPhone user.
Rob is not.
And I said, oh, my goodness, there's an iPhone with a terabyte of storage.
And Rob said, yeah, because they're not expandable.
But, E, my question is, what on earth do you need to have access to all the time that you're using almost a terabyte of data on your phone?
Well, it's not my idea, but, you know, I've been taking pictures and videos for many, many years, and I always, whenever I get a new phone, I copy everything over because, you know, I like to carry my entire life with me, too.
I have backups everywhere, but, you know, I want to have that.
I want to have access to it, and it takes time to go through and decide what to delete and what not to delete.
So, you know, it keeps getting bigger and bigger.
But I figured, you know, phones keep getting more and more memory, so that wouldn't be an issue, and I was wrong.
It is an issue.
Kyle, go ahead.
Yeah, I think, also, your phone has taken over what, in the past, would have been a separate camera, and it's added video, which you may not have been able to do with, like, a digital camera that you would have carried.
We used to carry cameras around.
Do you remember those days?
Well, and that is...
It was a separate device.
People don't know this.
They're a separate device that did not have a phone attached to it.
You just use it to take pictures.
It was an incredible time.
And that was it.
So, that has been supplanted, in large part, for many people, and the manufacturers count on this.
And adding the ability to expand has its inherent costs in producing these devices, as well as in making the software compatible with various forms of storage.
Wait, I'm supposed to feel bad that it costs the manufacturers money to make the phone I want?
I'm paying for the phone.
You can make...
Okay, okay.
I'm just saying...
For God's sake, I'm the one paying, not them.
Okay, it's a made-up rationale, right?
They could make it any way they want.
They could, like, make it into a hat.
You know, you could wear your phone on your head.
That's our society today.
It's a whole bunch of made-up rationales.
Right.
Oh, for sure.
For sure.
But, in any event, that usage is a lot more capable, in effect, as well, as this feature has been a source of bandwidth for the carriers, like people communicating and sharing photos much more readily.
And people count on this a lot for just everyday activity.
I know a lot of, like, small businesses and individual contractors, you know, people use photos to reference all kinds of things in their course of operations.
So, people relying on it more and the images and stuff being much more capable than what we ever would have carried in a small digital camera.
So, all those advances, I think, have made it where a lot of this content resides.
But it's increasingly matching the generations of the network as well.
So, they're sort of urging you to use bandwidth and back this stuff up or otherwise exfiltrate it from your phone, either by perhaps connecting it to, oh, no, a computer, if you even have one.
And then the more mainstream alternative being these cloud systems where you're storing stuff and synchronizing it over your connectivity, whether that be Wi-Fi or cellular.
And the reason I resist that is because you're then susceptible to whatever security issues that service might have in the future.
And we've had a long, long-storied discussion about this.
Yeah, we read about this every week.
Something else has been compromised and all this data is now in the hands of somebody else.
And, you know, I really don't want my personal pictures and videos or whatever, anything of mine, being entrusted to somebody else because I don't trust them.
So, you know, if I lose my phone or I don't put a strong enough password on my phone or something like that, that's on me and I can accept that.
But I don't like being pressured into having to hand over everything to some other entity, particularly when it's an entity that has proven itself to be non-trustworthy.
Yes, Alex, go ahead.
I think this is a massive problem that iPhone users suffer from quite regularly, you know, myself being one of them.
And I'll tell you, you know, the iPhone does not necessarily make it easy for you to get your own data off of that phone and onto your own hard drive.
I know there are ways to do it, and I've done this, especially backing up photos and whatnot.
But regardless of that, I'm sure somebody will write it and say, I heard you say this, and here's the way to do it.
That's fine.
But I find this whole issue of the data that we carry around on us so fascinating in so many ways because we have evolved as beings over the last 30 years in some, I think, highly strange ways.
I remember back in the 90s when I was first in high school and then in college working for a software company.
And one of the programmers, really interesting dude, loved technology.
He loved getting the latest thing, and he had this gadget.
Excuse me.
It was a gadget that was a keychain.
And amazingly, this keychain would plug into a computer, and it allowed you to have 8 megabytes of storage that you could take with you.
Anywhere you wanted, you could have 8 megs of data.
And it was on a keychain, and I thought this was the coolest thing.
And I said, oh, my God, this is incredible.
This is going to be life-changing.
You can carry around a massive amount of data, 8 megs.
Now, we don't leave the house unless we have half a terabyte of data on us at any day.
It's really extraordinary how we have changed as beings and data subjects over the last 30 years.
But, Alex, don't lessen the magic of that moment because at that time, it was the coolest thing in the world.
To have that much memory at your fingertips.
It was, yeah.
And, you know, we're not looking back at a less, you know, advanced culture back then.
We had a different kind of technology, and we appreciated that technology.
I think we appreciated it more.
We didn't take it for granted like we do now.
So, we made that 8 megabytes really count, and it really brought us something.
Yeah, it did.
And the way I described it wasn't facetious at all.
I mean, it was this amazing thing.
It was absolutely incredible.
The whole idea that you could carry data around with you without carrying a massive hard drive with spinning parts.
I mean, some kind of solid-state drive that you plug into a computer was really incredible.
The other thing that I find is fascinating, too, is that, you know, 30 years ago, we were doing largely the same things with computers that we're doing today.
I mean, most of us, right?
Especially if we're lawyers like I am now.
I mean, you were doing the same thing.
You're working in Word documents and creating files that were essentially text files.
And so, you could back then store a massive amount of data on an 8 megabyte drive because the files weren't that big.
Nowadays, I really don't understand why Word files are so large.
I don't understand why programs are so massive.
We're still doing largely the same things.
You know, Word is the spell checker and a grammar checker.
What the hell else is it doing that requires gigs and gigs and gigs of my hard drive?
It's a mystery to me.
And, you know, it's funny.
I've never used Word.
I've always pushed back against using that particular program.
I never liked the way it operated.
And I have to say, and I'm letting out some personal information here by saying this, to this day, I still use the same word processor I used back in the 90s.
I think it was in the 90s.
It's called Word Pro.
I think it was made by Lotus or it was taken over by Lotus at one point.
But it's simple.
It does what I want it to do.
And, you know, since I edit a lot of things, you know, that's really, I don't want to go nuts with all kinds of gizmos and features.
I want the basics.
And, you know, I've used other software and it's like they try to make it difficult to just do the basics.
You know, I noticed that in many, many aspects of the technological world where there are so many choices that you wind up bogged down making the choices without actually doing the work.
And sometimes I just like to open up a screen and start writing and not have to worry about all these different things going on.
And like you say, using so much memory for something that really shouldn't take much memory at all.
You know, words are the same size as they were back in the 1980s.
So it shouldn't take up any more space.
But, yeah, it sure does.
And it's not just word processors.
It's all kinds of things.
So simplicity doesn't always work.
But sometimes it is the best choice.
You know, this reminds me, it's tangential to what we're talking about, but I think, you know, worth mentioning.
So my oldest son is 11.
You know, he loves older computers and things like that.
I've mentioned this before.
Loves learning about them.
Loves to be inside a terminal section like his dad.
And he asked me the craziest question the other day.
And he said to me, you know, so, Daddy, when I'm looking at these old computers, I'm wondering, why is there a separate box next to the computer?
And I said, what do you mean next to the computer?
What box are you talking about?
He said, well, there's always some kind of like rectangular box or something that's next to the computer.
And then I realized he was thinking of the computer as the monitor because he doesn't see anything else.
I mean, he was born 11 years ago.
So he's just used to everything being baked into one flat screen.
He's used to an iMac or something like that.
He wasn't used to there being a tower with a three and a half inch floppy and a five and a quarter inch floppy, you know, and a massive hard drive crammed into that thing.
And expansion slots, you know, a decent local bus lock.
So, like, he was wondering what the hell the computer was plugged into.
And I had to explain to him, I said, no, Sasha, the computer is something different.
That is the computer, that box.
That's what contains the motherboard.
That's what contains the hard drive.
That's what contains the CPU.
And it was connected by a cable through your VGA card into the monitor.
And it totally blew his mind that things were disconnected like that.
Well, you want to blow his mind even more, bring in a CRT instead of a flat screen.
That's right.
Which is massive in size.
And tell him, yeah, that's just a monitor.
I think part of these observations are like salient influences that the design and sort of user life cycle Apple has instituted and the impact therein of people experiencing it and using it with a wide mix of other technologies in their lives.
And it pushing sort of what is adopted and what is used to the limits in some cases.
This was a story in terms of just kind of limiting craziness with Apple cabling, I think.
That's how they came to standardize the USB-C connection instead of allowing the market to be like inherently weird just for the business plan of one entity.
And this sort of common usability, common ability to get features like the idea that computers only come in like a one form.
Part of that is the influence of that design and their model and these things like, yeah, is it expandable?
Well, that is starting to feel like much more of a design and life cycle thing.
Absolutely.
And when you really take into account the cost of replacing devices and the sort of disposable nature that that territory, the disposable nature of it and that territory that it moves into for consumers is a hassle because it makes it harder for them to use it when practically adopting it.
But it also makes it harder for, I mean, that's without alternatives or an abundance of alternatives that aren't, that don't have larger trade-offs and are convenient and just as affordable and usable as what features Apple might want for their sort of limited hardware or software features.
I understand what you're talking about as far as cables and things that stop working.
I get that if you're competing, you know, if it's two different standards, beta, VHS, whatever, you know, this isn't going to work in that.
But when it's the same company and they introduce a new form of cable that makes your old system from the same company no longer work or be compatible with the new one, I think that's really low.
I think that's something that should not be permitted because backwards compatibility is so important for not alienating people and for developing something better in the long term.
You don't just throw away your old customers.
We're talking about Apple a lot, but this is increasingly becoming the default for all the big companies, Microsoft and Google, and they all seem to practice this now.
It used to be, you know, Apple kind of was the leader in just not treating its customers right, and yet somehow they keep coming back for more.
You have an iPhone, right, Alex?
I do, yeah.
I'm not shaming.
I'm not shaming.
It's okay.
You don't have to hide your face.
But can I just ask, how many different iPhones have you bought?
Oh, my God.
It's been a lot.
But there was a big gap, I think, between the 8 and perhaps the 13, I think.
I went quite a while without upgrading my phone because I just stopped caring about what phone I had.
So long as it worked and I could access my email and access the Internet, I really, really didn't care about it.
And, I mean, remember when the iPhone 5 and the 6 came out and people, I guess people still line up for these idiotic things, but it just seems less and less relevant.
I remember the iPhone 1 or whatever it was called back then.
Is there anything on that earlier handset, Alex, that was a feature that you no longer have?
Or was it always sort of as limited as we've characterized in the discussion?
Like, did it have the ability to have an SD card or any kind of connector that you don't have now?
Or is it pretty much the same MO?
It was pretty much the same MO.
I honestly think the only difference in the evolution of the iPhones has been the processor speed, which always never seems fast enough for some reason.
No, no, no.
Hold on.
Let me correct you because this is true of all Apple products.
It seems lightning fast at first, and then after a few months, it really seems to get slow, and you want another one.
You want a better one.
Right.
Yeah, it's something like that.
It might have something to do with memory usage or just who knows if it just degrades.
But it's that.
So there's the CPU, the processor speed, I think that has evolved, and the cameras.
They just keep adding cameras to these things.
That's it.
Oh, the other thing that I have noticed that really degrades in not such a long time are the external speakers on an iPhone as well.
They turn to garbage pretty quickly.
I feel like it becomes really quite hard to hear when you're using a speakerphone after a year or something like that.
When you get a new phone and you have it on speakers, oh, my God, I can hear people again.
This is amazing.
And I use the speakerphone quite a lot, so that's an important feature to me, and it's something worth upgrading.
But the cost of switching to an Android, it's just too much for me.
I'm too busy.
I've got too many things going on.
Oh, so you're too deep into it.
You can't get out and go to Android.
I am.
I can't.
Wow.
I can.
I can.
You know, I'd have to quit something that I do.
I'd have to, like, stop practicing law or put your studio and go.
Well, yeah, I mean, Alex, you laugh, but, you know, you could have your legal career be on a Mac platform, and then if you want to, say, pursue medicine, Android is wide open for you, you know?
And you don't have to move all this stuff around and disrupt your life.
Yeah, I guess I can just migrate to WordPro or something.
Well, hey, don't knock it until you've tried it.
It's, you know, it really, it does the job.
It really does the job.
I still miss WordPerfect 6.1.
WordPerfect, yeah.
That was my.
I did use, I did dabble in other ones, and, yeah, but that's my favorite.
That's my favorite.
You know, I want to say something good about an Apple product, and that's iTunes, because I use iTunes.
I use iTunes every day, and I find it to be fantastic.
I really like it.
Now, I should point out a caveat here.
I'm not using it on a Mac.
I'm using iTunes for Windows.
I know that it's no longer supported.
I don't think it's supported on Macs either anymore.
That's the thing.
You get the software, and they just decide they're going to give up on it and leave you high and dry.
But, okay, so my secret is I keep my record library on this copy of iTunes.
And it's running on Windows.
And, in fact, it's not only running on Windows.
It's running on Windows XP.
Yeah, it's running on Windows XP.
Not connected to the Internet.
Not subject to automatic updates or anything like that.
And it's iTunes 8.
I don't know what number iTunes is up to now, but it's a lot bigger than 8.
Let me just tell you, this works, all right?
You know, I can see what song I want to play, what album, what artist.
I can sort however I want.
I don't get any advertising.
I don't get nagged.
You know, what I hear today from people who use the latest iTunes version is that Apple actually goes in and changes the data sometimes.
If they feel that you listed a song wrong in your own library, they will change it.
And I've seen testimonials online of people who have spent many hours sorting things the way they want, only to find it undone in the morning because Apple decided to do something.
This is a level of hell I choose not to go into.
And that's why I believe we should all be able, if we want to, to run old software on old systems if it does what we want it to do.
And to this day, I haven't found anything that equals that.
That equals iTunes 8 running on Windows XP for simplicity, for not barraging me with ads, for not messing with my own data.
If there are alternatives out there, love to hear about them.
But every time I take somebody up on exploring something different, it breaks something.
Something gets broken in the process or something is no longer, you know, able to be listened to.
You know, it doesn't work anymore because that standard no longer exists or something silly like that.
You don't have to live that way.
Yeah, I think it's important to run software that works and don't, I guess, don't, well, I guess updates are overrated, you know.
They sure are.
They're not always, not all types of updates are overrated, but you got to be pretty careful.
And especially, like, with big software manufacturers and a lot of the consumer stuff that's in the news now, it really makes me, it kind of heartens me.
It warms my heart to hear using stuff that old and in ways that work for you and that are, you know, enough to do the job.
And that's, I think, what we do, we, like, we get kind of enticed by new features and we forget that what we were doing and what the practical usage of it actually wasn't relying on those in a lot of cases.
Look, I know I'm going to get mocked.
I know I'm going to get ridiculed.
The emails are going to start pouring in about how I use old technology and won't adapt to the times and all that kind of nonsense.
But, look, if you have something that works, you know, can you not say at a certain point, okay, this is what I want.
This particular machine running this particular software, thank you, I'm done.
I don't need more updates.
I'm not connecting it to the net, so there's no risk of something coming in and infecting my machine.
I'm careful with what I connected to and it's doing what I want it to do.
So why do I have to change because somebody decided to improve their code and in the process break something of mine?
Go ahead, Gila.
Did you ever have this one connected to the internet or has it?
Gosh, I guess so.
Yeah, probably at some point.
I was thinking back on the U-2 incident, which was 10 years ago now.
Do you remember what I'm talking about?
Is it the Airplane?
Is it the band?
Is it the Negative Land song?
I do.
The band.
Let me guess.
Can I take a guess here?
Sure.
The U-2 incident, perhaps, is when iTunes essentially dropped U-2 songs onto every single person's device that was using it.
Oh, and you can't delete it.
I still have those goddamn songs on my phone and they drive me crazy when they start playing.
So wait, let me understand.
Man, you cannot delete this music from your phone.
Good Lord, I have tried.
And the way that, again, I'm an iPhone user, shame away.
There is, you know, the Apple Music, which they switched over from iTunes and now they can switch versions of things.
And this is how we got down that whole rabbit hole of not knowing how to download music onto my phone.
We're not going back there.
But the U-2 album, what is it called?
Songs of Innocence?
It just showed up in every single person's Apple Music.
And to this day, it is there 10 years later.
It gets precedence over songs I actually like, over songs I chose.
Oh, it automatically, it's the most annoying, not the most annoying thing, but it's right up there.
It's up there.
And it's way up there.
So I'm just guessing that you have had this build offline for at least the last 10 years if you didn't wind up with U-2 album Songs of Innocence in it.
No, I have nothing like that on that system.
I can delete whatever I want.
I can copy whatever.
Look, everything is MP3.
So not this ridiculous Apple format that has all kinds of copyright issues.
No, I decide where I want to copy my audio files, period.
That's how it should be.
That's how it used to be.
And we need to stop accepting that it should be any other way.
Unless we want it that way.
And then, yeah, it's a choice.
But it shouldn't be rammed down our throats.
On this note, there's another story that didn't annoy me nearly as much as the one about keeping your smartphone safe during the heat.
It's that flip phone sales are surging as people seek connection without distraction.
This is good.
I like this.
And it's not because I'm just embracing old technology.
It's because I'm embracing choice and not mass stupidity or hypnosis.
Yeah, so flip phones are having a moment.
People are snatching up those basic clamshell throwbacks of the early 2000s faster than a bag of discounted Reese's the day after Halloween.
What am I reading from?
I'm reading from USA Today.
Okay, that explains the tone.
The reasons are simple.
We've burned out on our smartphones, social media, and passively allowing years of our lives to melt away mindlessly stuck on screens.
Yeah, okay, fine.
Look, smartphones, they're useful for certain things.
They're very useful.
But having them all the time is detrimental to our health, to our mental ability, to our safety even.
You know, if you're driving and using a smartphone, it's a lot more dangerous than if you're using a flip phone and just chatting with somebody or something like that.
And my idea, you know, people who are concerned about their kids using smartphones at school or teachers that don't like that, let's just, you know, make it standard in schools that kids can only have flip phones.
It'll, you know, boost the flip phone industry like you wouldn't believe, and kids will stay safe from the addiction of smartphones, in school at least.
And, I don't know, your kids will be able to be reached in case of an emergency.
So, that's something worth considering.
Rob?
Yeah, this is funny to think about because I remember, you know, the clamshell flip phone era or, as they now call it, feature phone,
smartphone, which is a fun name considering that the selling point is it has far fewer features than a smartphone.
But, you know, thinking of what a smartphone is now, and when I was on a flip phone,
my modern smartphone is something that I, you know, probably would have paid quite a lot of money for if I had that much,
and it would have been amazing.
And now it's this mundane thing that I don't use, you know, a fraction of the potential of most of the time when it's in my pocket.
But the idea that there are now young people rebelling against their parents' generation and not wanting to be connected to social media,
to the news, to all the other stuff that's going on online 24-7 at every, you know, moment of their lives,
this is, I think, sociologically a very interesting thing to think about.
And there's, you know, that school of thought, and then there's the other school of thought among young people who do use smartphones
that actually making phone calls on it is something that they rarely ever do because it's just about going online,
communicating, texting, you know, mailing, whatever, and using social media.
But if you actually call them and ring their phone, they'll act like you're intruding.
I mean, I was, well, first of all, my first question was, we are talking about, like, a flip phone,
which I think people refer to as a feature phone as opposed to a dumb phone, which is the other thing.
I mean, you know, that's a, you don't want to, oh, hey, I bought a dumb phone.
No, you're not going to say that.
But I did want to make sure we were talking about that kind of, like, old school flippy phone
and not the new foldable smartphone, which is a whole other category.
Oh, no, no, I'm not even thinking about that.
But the thing I was thinking about, though, was back in the day when I had, you know,
my Motorola Razr flippy whatever, and I bought the Motorola, what was it called, the Juke or something
because it had space for 36 songs on it, and I was very excited.
But as a person who gets lost a lot, having a GPS system in my pocket, I find incredibly helpful
because, you know, thinking about when, at the top of the show, we were talking about this.
If you wanted to take pictures, you just have to carry around a camera.
If you got lost, you needed to carry around an external GPS system.
I know that there are a lot of things that the smartphone era has made worse
or more annoying or more problematic, but there are some things it has made better,
like always having the opportunity to get to where I'm going in my pocket.
But, Gila, those things, even back then, were new, you know.
When I was growing up, you know, I didn't have the ability to be told where to go.
I didn't have the ability to take a picture whenever I wanted to.
I'd have to, you know, make a special trip and bring a camera with me to do that.
So we got used to these new features as being normal,
and now I think we believe that we have to have smartphones in order to have those features
without having to carry other devices.
We could just not carry the other devices or have the smartphone
and learn skills that we used to always have,
such as knowing how to get around, learning how to get around on our own,
and saying, hey, that would make a good picture.
I'll be sure to bring my camera next time or something like that.
Look, I'm not saying this is how people should live.
I'm just saying, you know, you are not as beholden to your smartphone
as you might be told that you are.
And it's good to just kind of not have it sometimes
or have it in your pocket for, you know, for backups or emergencies or whatever
and just see how you do without it, you know, at least for a while.
Alex, go ahead.
Coincidentally, about two weeks ago, I bought a flip phone,
and it's pretty awesome.
It wasn't for myself.
It was actually for a colleague of mine in London
who, for various reasons, needed a phone number in the United States.
So I went to a place on 28th Street,
one of these kind of small cellular places that used to unlock phones
and various things.
I just went in there and I said, yeah, I'm looking for a cheap flip phone,
something like that, that will just, you know,
and a SIM card that will get me a U.S. number.
I don't need a calling plan.
It can be, and I think for about 50 or 60 bucks,
I left with a phone and I went back to my office.
I fired the thing up, works perfectly, and it's pretty awesome.
I got to tell you, I'm almost jealous of this flip phone
that I have on my desk.
It's clamshell flip phone, just like your old Motorola Razr.
And the interesting thing about it,
and I thought this was really fascinating,
is it's a newer but retro-designed flip phone.
I don't even remember who makes it.
It might be Motorola.
But it actually still does connect to the Internet.
You can still connect to Wi-Fi.
There's no 4G, 5G service for it,
but you can connect it to Wi-Fi.
So it can be connected to the Internet in some respects.
It does have some apps and things that you can download
if you want to use GPS, et cetera.
But it would be incredibly annoying
to try to use something like Facebook or surf the web
or do too much texting from this phone.
So in that sense, I feel like it does fulfill
almost all of the needs.
You have some Internet access when you need it.
You can use GPS if you need it.
But it's a small phone.
It's not going to be there vying for your attention,
constantly buzzing, getting LinkedIn notifications
because some idiot that you've never met
has reposted something.
So I thought it was pretty cool.
It's pretty neat.
And I love the idea of flip phone research.
The fact that it makes using Facebook a pain in the ass,
that is incentive enough for me
because I will be discouraged from using it
as I feel many people should be
because it wastes their time.
I'm reading here where people spend nine hours a day
on their smartphones.
Look, we're not the problem.
I don't think anybody here.
I think we all have good discipline
as far as how often we use these devices.
But a lot of people are pretty tied to their smartphones
and to their detriment.
It's not healthy.
It's not helping the way they think it is.
Go ahead, Alex.
You know, another thing that this just reminded me of
is a bit of a trip down memory lane too
in terms of smartphones and how they've changed us
in many ways.
I recently had occasion to, very unfortunately,
go to a funeral of a dear friend of mine
who, you know, he passed away far too young
and was one of the first people,
one of my first friends from junior high school.
And on that occasion,
I wound up actually taking the train out
to Long Island with my wife
and my ex-girlfriend from high school,
like my first girlfriend from high school.
And I had these weird memories kind of flowing back.
It was also weird to be, you know,
sitting on the Long Island Railroad
with your first girlfriend and your last girlfriend, right?
You know, your wife,
which is kind of a neat thing.
But I had these weird memories flooding back to me
of high school
and the fact that my ex-girlfriend and I,
you know, we were in different classes
and when we used to pass each other in the hallways,
we would exchange notes,
you know, these handwritten notes.
I mean, do you remember doing this in high school?
And that's how you communicated with people
because there was no other way.
Why wouldn't you just talk to them?
Because you didn't have enough time
to have a full-on conversation
while you were changing classes.
Well, I also didn't have that much to say
to people I'm just passing by.
I'm going to see them later.
So, you know, I appreciate what you're saying, though.
It's an old way of doing things.
It was an old-fashioned way of communicating.
And I had this memory of this diskette box.
It was a five-and-a-quarter diskette box
of all of the notes that my ex,
my first girlfriend, had given to me.
And I saved this for a long time.
I have no idea where the hell it is now, of course.
But that type of thing never happens anymore
because these kids, even if they are using flip phones these days,
they're still going to have the ability to text each other.
There's always a way to communicate with somebody else.
So this whole idea of passing notes in between classes
is completely obsolete now.
I'm really curious as to whether kids still do pass notes
in some way or another,
or if that's just totally gone.
Did you ever have the teacher say,
do you want to share this note with the whole class?
Did that ever happen to you?
Oh, of course.
Absolutely.
It never happened to me.
In fact, I'm not sure I ever passed a note, to be honest.
And it's kind of weird how you took all your notes
and stored them in a diskette box,
which is kind of like the future.
So it's like you're struggling between two worlds there.
But it's interesting.
Go ahead, Kyle.
You should scan those
and actually put them onto a thumb drive
just for your own reference,
like digitize it and keep it in another form.
I'm just really present to you.
I like the idea that people are resisting
what influence the sort of dominant designs have had.
And it doesn't surprise me one bit
that some of these old school manufacturers
that made a lot of the phones
we're talking about back when,
you know, before a lot of the smartness was around
and on the scene,
they're getting in on re-releasing versions
that have a good mix of features.
And it actually speaks to what the, like, iPhone
and that form factor coming out in 2008,
what that did,
it kind of reflects that
that was the confluence of all the other design features
in mobile handsets before that.
And then they, like, kind of minimal,
like, reduced it and condensed it
and minimalized a whole lot of stuff
to fit sort of a new paradigm for features and stuff.
And we're all sort of,
the trick was we came back,
kept coming back to them
as though that's where the innovation came from.
But everything they put into that first iPhone
came from other stuff that was going on in the market
and other behaviors that people were,
that they were engaging in
with what devices were available.
And so I just,
I like the idea that people are just digging deep,
getting weird with whatever handsets they use.
And don't forget about accessories like Bluetooth.
Always use, like, hands-free.
Turn that stuff on,
especially if you're using these computers
in vehicles and stuff.
And try to get away from having it out all the time
and getting dusty and having the speakers not work
like Alex's phone.
But basically,
I'm really interested in this idea of us,
individuals,
deciding what to do with the phones
and making our own sorts of handsets.
As all of this stuff gets smaller and smaller,
we can kind of make up what's on trend
in places like the classroom
and in the wider world.
And instead of just looking to these main manufacturers
for the latest and greatest,
that's not where it comes from anyway.
It's how,
it's from the people,
it's from what people like
and are comfortable with.
We've had quite a conversation here.
It's been going on for a long time.
I just want to turn it over to listeners for a moment.
We have some email to our email address,
oth at 2600.com.
This is concerning our conversation
about advertising on YouTube
we had a couple of weeks ago
or that we're having on an ongoing basis.
And this unsigned listener says,
the main difference with Off the Hook and YouTube
is that you pay YouTube,
you get rid of the ads
and Off the Hook keeps nagging you
about pledging every episode,
no matter what.
And of course,
they say they're kidding.
But it raises a good point
because a lot of people do complain about that
and say that we're constantly asking for support.
But let me explain the difference.
We are not airing advertisements.
And the reason we're not airing advertisements
is because our listeners are our sponsors.
They're the only sponsors we will ever have.
We're a non-commercial radio station.
We can have conversations like this.
And on a commercial radio station,
well, what if Apple was one of the advertisers?
Could we have talked about anything
we just talked about
over the last 45 minutes or so?
I don't think so.
It's freedom of speech.
Sometimes you'll hear things you agree with.
Sometimes you'll hear things
that you don't agree with
or that annoy you.
But the important thing is
that it's a forum
for speech to be heard
for you, listeners, to be heard
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And with that,
I would like to remind people
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this place continues to exist
as it has since 1960
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Pledge whatever you can afford.
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But the important thing is
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You can also go to the webpage,
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That's give2wbai.org.
For pledges of $150 or more,
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The operators will be able
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But the important thing
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Again, 64 years has been that long?
Wow.
And I challenge anybody
to find another radio station
in New York City
that has been going for that long
without changing their format,
without doing so.
Yeah, there have been attempts.
There's constantly attempts
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There's always people
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That's never going to change.
But as long as there are people out there
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So again,
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And please spread the word
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And there's a lot of people
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And people all over the world
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All right,
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our conversation
over on YouTube.
Discard to Channel 2600
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Good night, everyone.
Bye.


and welcome everybody over on YouTube make it okay Kyle yes all right Rob Gila
Alex you all there I am here I'm here and we're waiting for Alex to say
something I am here there is okay it's quite a delay you got there and we just
have to verify that we are in fact broadcasting on YouTube and then we're
all set to go Wow okay so our phone number first of all everyone get a water
break you dash yourself with water during the heat wave and all that away
from the electronic equipment beverages have been replenished beverages have
been replenished and we did turn the air on during the break huh all right so we
cool down a little bit I'm just now getting to the water part of my break
802 3 2 1 4 2 2 5 is our telephone number Alex I noticed you had a dog on
camera before what's going on over there yes yeah that's my beagle Cleo and
yeah she she says hello to everybody does she does she really she doesn't do
she does yeah she's very precocious hmm all right well be that as it may any
other remarks from our previous conversation was pretty spirited I think
you know as far as new old technology that kind of thing a lot to say yeah
there was a story I was I was looking at from the BBC about a week ago where
they as an experiment took ten teenagers from a local technical college and
basically locked up their smartphones for ten days and gave them feature
phones little brick phones instead to use and I think one or two of them
dropped out immediately a day or two in the rest found it weirdly refreshing but
also felt the continued stress and aggravation of the stuff they're
missing out on and I think they all they all went right back to their
smartphones at the end of the experiment and you know there was much relief were
they were they allowed to use a computer to connect to social media they they
were I believe the idea was just let's change what's going on when you're out
in the world doing whatever and a couple of them had expressed things like you
know getting back into creative pursuits you know cycling more exercising things
like that one kid says I feel like I'm learning stuff and engaging more I don't
feel like I'm missing out on anything says a 15 year old called grace and she
was actually buying a bunch of plastic gems to stick all over her brick phone
and be dazzle it and you know it's it's kind of it's kind of sweet but it's also
yes a big deal well you know it's something we all have the power to try
to experiment with we can all leave our smartphone at home or you know get
something else instead and use that to communicate do things the way our
relatives and ancestors used to do them not necessarily you know what are you
laughing at Kyle you have a Blackberry for God's sake you should talk no that
was deep all right I like the way you put that and on that subject I mean you
basically fought back harder than I think Blackberry itself back against
there I mean do they even still exist the phone still works right oh this this
this is a long conversation um they're like they're an entity still yes but a
lot of the familiar services that people using those particular handsets would
I don't know embrace or you know rely on that day to day a lot of those services
don't exist in the same form at all and yeah I think a lot of carriers
themselves have you know no longer offer plans or anything like that and last I
heard I think they were doing trying to market some of the software aspects and
basically reimagine the usefulness of some of Blackberry's kind of novel
development stuff but a market for that that isn't quite so saturated and
dominated likes like cellular technology I think it's still elusive for them I
don't understand why they just couldn't exist even if they're smaller even if
they can't quite compete with Android and Apple enough people love
Blackberry's that they should still be around people should be able to use that
form of technology if they if they choose to well I'm almost scared to
mention I mean not all Blackberry's are gone per se and they do still have
functionality but support is not there at all and the network itself like that
would have had sort of their own features for Blackberry specific devices
that's not there anymore so you're you're kind of offline and and not
attached in the way that Blackberry worked which was if you understand sort
of how counterintuitive it was sort of each device was itself a server as
opposed to being a client that was attached to a server and that was cool
that was part of their technology so the the ability to maintain that and be a
part of the QNX hive mind and and all of that you know whatever whatever
their stuff is and and and it being of course updated because that's the thing
that I think Apple and Android have now they're they're the support right they're
updated and current and that's partly why people are dependent because it's
managing the OS and then you have like a little sprinkle of Google in there being
affiliated with Android so it's definitely become more complex and the
carriers just dealing with two I think is cumbersome then three four or five
different types it's weird because the feature phones themselves have their own
little OS's but they seem to be on a tier and this is more like in the realm
of hardware and elect electronic engineering way beyond me but or what I
could guess but they seem to at the operator level have less overhead and
fit into some kind of category of device that is easy to set up and easy to use
like Alex was describing you guys have anything out there or do we have a phone
call yeah somebody did call I don't know if
they're like I felt like I could just you know let them linger they could be
the first call I don't want to punish them do we have a call or not yeah we do
okay well then do you want to take a call I think we should take the call
that's on hold because somebody is waiting patiently let the people talk
well I'm done there I don't need to talk I don't need to talk yeah why am I
talking I'm why am I still talking I don't know where'd Alex go is he still
around he's there you just can't see him okay he's all right we're all here he's
an icon now I'm here thank you yeah okay yeah it's an improvement I think it was
kind of good in that little little picture there okay good evening you're
on off the hook over time go ahead hey this is the Gibson from hackers dot-town
hey what's up how you doing hey hello mr. mayor look thank you
hope is three weeks away y'all oh my god well way to make me panic but we're
looking forward to it because we have not only our valid talk there thank you
for hosting us for that we're very appreciative but we also have three
other hackers dot-town members speaking and another CDC member they're speaking
lottery is on one of your panels so you're in real danger of a hackers dot
town CDC combined takeover that's all I'm saying yeah we're looking forward
to it and we're ready to go I have to say call on and get some excitement out
there yeah we we have more participation this year than I can remember for quite
a while more talks more workshops more villages it's really going to be amazing
and interesting and fun and memorable and yeah three weeks away oh my god we
should start organizing this thing I think if you go if you go to the hope
dotnet website you'll see the updated list of workshops and the speaker
schedule is now up and there's a whole lot more information it's constantly
being refreshed and updated and there'll be there'll be a lot more
coming as well but it's not too late to get tickets hope dotnet is a ticket
link there I know that we needed to get another 300 tickets sold and I think
we're at least halfway to that point right now and that was I was only a week
ago so fingers crossed that we can get there because if we get there we're able
to use that money to get more cool things so that the conference looks and
sounds as good as it can possibly sound you know no matter what it's going to
happen no matter what it's going to be awesome but we want to make it as cool
as possible and throw as much at this thing as we can yeah we're also accepting
shit we're signing up and accepting volunteers getting a lot of the pre
planning in place for build up so get in touch I think it's volunteers at hope
dotnet but there's all the info on hope dotnet to get involved and sign up find
something that maybe you can devote a little bit of time to that helps every
bit of the volunteer end of the event because well frankly some of the
volunteers want to sneak away and catch talks too so yeah so please chip in it
really helps what was some of the things that we specifically need help with I
know running cameras is something that we always use we can always use help
with that's you know the talks themselves making sure that they're
being recorded properly and all that emcees people to introduce speakers in
the various tracks that we have talks going on all sorts of things there's so
many different aspects to running a conference I can't even get it all in my
head but volunteers at hope.net I think is the email address for that I'll keep
pushing the pushing the button to get people's attention because you know we
want to see this be the the most K rad hope it can be yes we are gonna we're
gonna be there we're bringing the party with us so we'll take care of part of it
but yeah we absolutely want to see you guys get the support you need so I'll
get out there and start pushing the signal again and hopefully help get some
people in thank you very much we appreciate that thanks for bringing it
up and we look forward to your talk and to seeing you there and it's gonna be
awesome yeah yeah we're just looking forward to
being there I've never actually been to in-person hope before this is gonna be
the first one so I'm looking forward to it you'll be amazed at how how it's it's
both in a city and also it feels like you're just with a bunch of friends
Alex I think you have something to add go ahead yeah Gibson great great to be
back in touch let's make sure that we connect over at hope in person and and I
want to talk to you further about Baylid where you guys are what kind of help you
need and also whether or not perhaps there's a way to integrate ENS or the
Ethereum name service into the back end there in some way so I'm very excited to
hear what's going on and projects right yeah absolutely there's been some
projects kind of like what you're talking about that people have theorized
but I don't think any work started on yet but we'll talk then and exchange some
notes awesome looking forward to it man okay we're gonna exchange notes in the
hallway though Alex well there's not only hallways there's there's there's
many outdoor areas and all kinds of nooks and crannies to hang out in and
and meeting places it's it's really close much space compared to you know to
the hotel you know the hotel was great but limited amount of space and in the
middle of Midtown this it's it's you're in the city still but it's it's wide
open so you can do so much more yeah we're sort of taking over common sort of
cafeteria really large space we also have like what is a kind of like a it's
got a lot of alcoves and like areas set aside as a part of one of the the
professional schools so that's like it's it's really conducive to a lot of that
so there'll be a lot of hopefully those kind of conversations going on so bring
it and thanks for all the energy that that that's what we like to hear
absolutely we're gonna we're gonna help out anyway we can so I'll let somebody
else do the talking from here on out I've said everything I need to say but
thank you guys for putting it on thank you guys for having us and all the best
with how this thing goes we'll see you there all right in three weeks oh my god
wow yeah I guess I wasn't really paying attention to the calendar 802 3 2 1 4 2
2 5 is our telephone number yes Gila go ahead so first of all I wanted to say
thank you to Rob for riding herd on the chat last week in my absence hello to
the 49 people who are with us right now on YouTube and actually we did get a
question from a listener this is from Jedi 83 who asks in the chat or who
says in the chat I got a question that I was gonna call in with but just gonna
ask you here in the chat for everyone including those on the show to answer if
they get a chance how do you define what a hacker is you're asking them so that
the question is in the chat and of the again of 46 something I said apparently
people who are in the chat are always free to answer that question but you
know also asking it of the panel you want us to define what a hacker is what
you feel a hacker is yes you know I've never been asked that question before I
've been doing this is 1984 and no one has ever asked me what I think a hacker
is can you believe that I don't know maybe it's an oversight or something I
guess you know my opinion doesn't really matter that much this is what you leap
out of bed for I think it's important for people not to be told what a hacker
is necessarily you got to kind of define it for yourself that's a good sidestep
as I strafe the conversation you know I'm not I'm not avoiding the question
it's just um so tired of the question I don't wanna get it wrong you know say
something that doesn't make sense it's also something that changes across time
I think we're defining it in this very moment there's so many ways to be a
hacker you know but our definition is you know curious people with with decent
intent but you certainly could use hacker abilities for evil there's no
question about that but I don't think that makes you a hacker I think it makes
you a criminal and you know somebody maybe with hacking skills but to be part
of this community I think is you know you're part of an inclusive open-minded
fun community of people you know the kind of people that show up at hope that
sort of thing asking questions never accepting something just because you're
told that's the way it is thinking outside the box it doesn't have to be
technical you don't have to be a coder you don't have to even understand phones
or computers you just have to have that inquisitive mind and think outside the
box and you know just determine that you're going to you're going to get the
answer one way or another you're going to get what you want one way or another
and you know there's a reason why in in movies TV shows the person with the
hacking abilities the person who thinks outside the box a person who doesn't
follow the rules because well the rules sometimes are stupid the audience always
sides with them there's a reason for that because deep down within all of us
there is a hacker you know we all want to be hackers we all want to have that
ability and that courage to speak for ourselves and to defy the system but we
don't always get the opportunity and that way you know when we're reading
books or watching movies we can identify with those who are characters that that
strike out and and and speak up for themselves and all the rest of us so the
the chat is people are really active in all of this I did want to share a couple
of comments from listeners who have chimed in so we start with our friend
Matt who says a hacker is one who hacks a hacker is someone who not only plays
with computers but with any bit of tech Matt also says different colored hats
Drake and Black Knight says there's a number of ways hacker can be defined
ranging from the types of people who try to break slash secure computer systems
to the freakers of the 60s through 80s for example did you know that freakers
aren't a thing anymore our friend Alexia says I figure that
hacker is something you can't really claim because you sound boastful but at
the same time nobody can tell you that you aren't one and our friend Johnny
Fusion says what I was going to say which is it's like porn I know it when I
see it again always always great to get to have these conversations with all of
you and with all of you and you can't see where I'm pointing everybody but um
I'm pointing at YouTube and no this is why we do overtime like this so that we
can have these vaster conversations than among just those of us on the panel and
we can take phone calls which we can't do since we're remote and we can come
back to this cover this particular topic but there is a call there's a call okay
I'm sorry and good evening you're on off the hook overtime go ahead hi hello
I said hello it's standard to say hello after someone says hi just our tradition
okay I'm relieved that you talked about hope during overtime rather than on the
air because of people who would try to attack you if you well mentioned it over
the air yeah that that's probably true there are people it's it's a weird
situation there are people out there that are convinced that somehow we're
profiting immensely from this conference and by even mentioning it on the air that
we're I don't know the the equivalent of airing commercials and and and using the
station for our own cash cow that's not what's happening anybody who's been to
the conference or knows us knows that but you know it's not our station we're
part of the radio station we do a show there but we are not going to put the
station in harm's way because there's lunatics out there that want to hurt the
station and want to use us as the means of doing that so we have so much to talk
about in this community and with this technology we could literally go all day
long without even mentioning one particular item or not look people know
what hope is we don't have to constantly discuss that it is of interest I know
that it's it's frustrating for listeners but that's why we have overtime so
people can partake there and people can also write to us yeah well I was saying
I was glad that you exercise discretion and I I just wanted to pat you on the
back for that thank you I was concerned I'm concerned about the people who are
getting for you unfairly yeah I think I think they need help yeah I'm going to
throw in something that has nothing to do with anything before I get to the
other thing I actually called about the Chronicles of Narnia complete seven
book collection is free on Kindle today for anyone who's interested in that
okay that came out of nowhere sure when I came out of nowhere free e-book yes
yeah three seven book collection and and Amazon is not gonna take it back when
they change their mind apparently are they like trying to get you to read it
all in one day yeah I never trust them no but it you know the lion the witch
and the wardrobe is wonderful and also the magician's nephew is wonderful the
other one you know I I can do without them the last battle you know is you
know it's okay careful careful there you you risk angering people of many
many anybody can get the complete collection and read all of it so but the
the other thing I called about was to plead with you guys one or all of you to
run for the WBA I local station board there are no as in zero people running
for the for staff zero people you know they're there three we have three seats
there are people running they're just running in the other direction trying
to get away from the the insanity that that happens at these gatherings and
meetings and things like that I've heard stories well we need good people
on the local station board same people and the you know people who've signed up
as nominators for staff they've signed up and there are no names for them to
nominate or decline to nominate no one is running for staff there's not enough
people who are running as listener members you know we need to have nine
good people and there are not enough people running for that okay let me ask
you a question this for you are staffed yeah we're staffed that's true well
first of all when is the deadline for each of these you have to sign up you
have to declare your candidacy candidacy sorry by June 30th but you
also have to get your nominations in by June 30th so you don't want to wait till
the last day right if there's if there's five of you you can all nominate each
other and you can do it all yeah I'm not sure and off the dominated board is is
what anybody wants but as far as listeners because we only we we do have a
lot of listeners we do have a lot of listeners here and of course all the
people that download the program so can you tell them what is involved if they
decide to sign up and what the what they have to do in order to qualify to be
able to like do they have to be an actual human person in that one you have
to be you have to be more than that not only do you have to be an actual human
person you need to be a member of WBA you have to have contributed $25 or
three hours as a volunteer between July 1st of last year and June 30th of this
year so somebody somebody calls up to one two two zero nine two nine five zero
donates $25 they qualify they can run yes they can
okay so it's that simple that would include anybody that had donated right
in that period in that period of time $25 within that one year period and you
write a little statement there's a box that will give you up to 300 words and
there's another one that will give you up to 500 words yeah I gotta say I can't
I can't speak for us right now because we've got so many things on our plate
but I do think this this might be something that listeners off the hook
particularly might take an interest in because it's so easy to qualify and
because we have such diverse opinions and we'd like to see that that
represented so I echo your your invitation for people to to look into
how can people look into it what what's what where do they go what do they do go
to the Pacifica website which is and and then you you click on we don't know
wait hold on we don't know what the Pacifica website is you got it you got
to tell us the address okay yeah every detail our HTTP okay we don't need that
part all right fine okay well I've heard you say that it's important to know
about that part but anyway pacifica.org okay that's that's sufficient and then
there's a column and it has at the top of the column it's got elections and
balloting click here so you you click here on that and I'm doing it as I speak
and then there's a page that has a whole bunch of things one of them is how to
run in the Pacifica delegate election and the next one is candidate sign up
page and then there's nomination guide and then there's nominator sign up page
if you do not want to run if that's too much for you you can still become a
nominator everyone who runs the staff need to have five staff members nominate
them and the person can be it can nominate themselves so they have to get
themselves and for others so I could go on there and I could nominate Alex for
example yes and Alex could also nominate himself and you have five people in
total including yourself if your staff if you're a listener member as the
people who are listening are you have to get 15 people including including
yourself as one of the 15 and if you happen to know any of these people and
if they feel like sending you an email because last year the NES would say you
didn't get enough people and people were being asked to show documentation of who
signed up and they don't even necessarily even know hang on look
confused here you say a listener needs 15 they need 15 nominees a listener how
they can get 15 nominees nominators have a list of people running running
right and they check a box for the ones that they want to nominate but our
listeners don't know each other so how are they going to nominate each other
that's what I don't understand as I said you sign up as a nominator and then when
first you sign up as a member okay and then you sign up as a nominator and then
they should send you a confirmation thing with a code to get it and if they
don't do that within a day or two you have to write the the national election
supervisor and complain okay well let's assume they do it let's assume they do
that okay so they get the code and they go in and their box there I'll look at
my own box because I'm a nominator you're a listener nominator or a staff
nominator okay all right and so I see a list of names and I have checked Rachel
Barr and John David maybe maybe don't tell us exactly what you're checking
but but how do you know I mean those people you might know but if it's a one
of our listeners registers how would you know them how would you know they're a
good candidate well you could have listened to the local station board
meeting that's one way I don't I don't follow you could have been or you could
be on the public list serve and when people post things then you get to read
them and see what you think so wait a listener a listener wants to run I
assume they don't just put their name they actually have to write something to
explain where they stand on certain things is that is that what you're
saying yeah there's a box that's up to 300 words and then there's another box
that's up to 500 okay you have to put something in each of those boxes it can
be the same thing in both of them okay Gila has something to add to this go
ahead Gila sorry we are getting feedback from YouTube that people cannot hear our
caller so caller if you could either speak louder and or guys if you could
turn the board up the board is up to its max because this call was low to begin
with okay I color you need to speak up please thank you I will yell okay since
I'm being told to yell and go to Pacifica org after you've become a
member and you sign up to become a nominator and you'll you'll get an
acknowledgement with the code and you sign in and then there's a list of names
and you can check the boxes like Rachel bar or John David Brinkley that you want
to nominate they need 15 people to do that in order to run
okay all right so it's it's pretty easy as long as the system works properly and
send you your code and your code works well thank you that's thank you for
imploring us and and others to get involved because structurally this is
how the the organization and the local station is actually run by the by the
listeners and by us to a degree by by voting on people that take this on so
that that is really helpful just explaining it and thank you again for
imploring us to get involved okay can I just ask on behalf of listeners okay
please on behalf of listeners what is it that they would have the power to do if
they were elected you would be at the local station board meetings and you
would be able to make motions and you would be able to vote and also if there
are executive sessions you get to go to the executive sessions that nobody else
gets to hear about things like you know people being in danger of being sacked
or whatever let me again repeat for those who didn't hear there are zero
staff members running and there are not enough listener candidates either and
the web page Pacifica Pacifica org and what's is there a tab or a button to
press after you go there at the at the top left there's the thing for voting
and and you click this thing on on voting and elections and then it has how
to run in the Pacifica delegate election candidate sign up page nomination guide
nominator sign up page and then it has fair campaign provisions for instance if
you're running which I'm not because I'm already on the board if you're running
you must not speak on the air during this campaign season or you know terrible
things will happen to you you can be booted out wait a minute if we were all
running we couldn't be on the air no no no no no if you're a listener member
only listeners weird okay yes yes staff members who are doing their show of
course they they can be you know they're getting staff members to nominate how
are they gonna know if a listeners talking on the air voting for them how
are they gonna know if a listeners talking on the air I mean like you know
for instance you if you if you call the show you are supposed to have a list of
listener candidates or possible listener candidates and you are supposed to
screen and make sure they don't go on but of course you are not taking
listener phone calls well now I don't want to worry how would I keep track of
who's calling in though that's insane I don't have the ability to do that I
don't want the ability to do that. Well as I say it's a good thing you're not taking calls on the air because you do need to do that. Wow okay well I think we've
gotten the word out yeah no I feel safe I think we've gotten the word out and we
will we will continue to spread the information and again June 30th is the
deadline to do all this and I imagine people don't have to be there physically
right they can do this virtually? Oh yes definitely ever since COVID everything is virtual. All right so those of you looking for an
adventure this could be it Pacifica.org and just follow through and we'll see
what happens thanks so much for your call. Thanks. All right you take care. That
was interesting all right that was an exercise in democracy you guys have
anything to add? Aguila go ahead. Just to clarify you can also get to the
information a little quicker by visiting elections.pacifica.org you
don't have to visit the charming Pacifica home landing page which is real
fun elections.pacifica.org does have all the information about Pacifica
elections also I know there was a question in the chat about why we didn't
mention this on air and Rob very rightly pointed out that the station has been
talking about this there are carts on the air but we can't pick what the
callers talk about and again it's particularly ironic that the person who
registered a complaint that we took this call talks about things that have
nothing to do with what we're talking about and managed not to call this
evening just putting that out there although I probably just brought him
down. Anyway thank you everybody for the chat also fun socks just for the record
I don't know sign language I am happy to be the voice of the people on the
chat but we can't put me into the background doing sign language in a
little window. Oh come on Aguila you could do that. You want a picture in
picture I can do that. Do it like you see UK television they have open
captioning where you have closed captioned they have open caption which
is somebody standing there doing that on the news and it's not just a little
circle on the bottom it's like half the screen it really is it's it's it's
worth watching just for that. All right I got some work to do. Yeah go ahead Rob.
Apropos of nothing related to what we're talking about but very interesting
indeed on Mastodon, Toroidal Corps informs us that field day is this
weekend if you're an amateur radio person and I want to give a shout out to
this the National Association for Amateur Radio at ARRL.org is wrangling
ARRL field day June 22nd to 23rd and it's always held on the fourth full
weekend in June there are events all over the place there's a map where you
can find one near you and social media stuff and all of that just go to ARRL.org
and click the field day stuff to get going on there because
definitely things of interest if you are into radio, ham radio, amateur radio.
You know if you're into that consider Hope as well because we're gonna have a
lot of activity as far as ham radio goes we're gonna have a ham radio station
operating we're gonna have all kinds of people giving workshops showing you how
you can get your ham radio license it's really you know for that alone it's it's
it's really fascinating and interesting and inspirational and this is one of the
things that's going to be going on over at Hope and you know we were also we
were talking about old technology the vintage computer people are going to be
there as well with a massive display and all kinds of things to to learn about so
old technology new technology it's all going to be studied and discussed and
demonstrated it's always fun. Do we have a call? Yes. Go ahead Rob. Please take a
call. Okay I'll do that and good evening you're on off the hook overtime. Go ahead.
Hi Emmanuel, back from Europe. You know we were starting to get worried about you
Rebel we weren't hearing from you and we figured maybe you know you had gone to a
gulag somewhere. Well no actually I was supposed to I was gonna call last week
but I was just lazy I was in Ireland and I just was I fell asleep I didn't you
know because it was one o'clock in the morning but it's a peaceful country I
know that and people do fall asleep a lot but that's no excuse you should call
us we worry. Well you know I was in Israel because I was helping my friend
move some things there. Did you sort things out over there? I hope so. Well
kind of boring country. Yeah not much going on it's very very dull. But you
know coming back it was really surprising I was at the airport I was
going to Italy from Israel you know and you know security you think if we would
have all this security? No it's like being in the 1980s. You go to a regular
you know like those metal detectors you see like the federal buildings. But
you're leaving Israel. It doesn't matter as much if you're going someplace else
but when you go there I understand there's there's a lot of security. Yeah
but you know even going there you don't have to take off your shoes. Yeah but
that's that's nonsense Rebel that is nonsense taking off your shoes does
absolutely nothing so I mean not not having that does not mean you're off
security. You don't have to do that in Israel. You don't have to do that in Portugal. Yeah
because people have grown up because people don't do stupid things like that
because they don't work they don't mean anything it's got nothing to do with
their level of security. And the airlines are really annoying. I remember I was
taking a plane I was somewhere in Europe I think and the this is true the rule
was if you're American you take off your shoes everybody else stand in this
line so literally only the Americans had to do that because there's a rule about
America that yeah yeah you gotta take off your shoes but nobody else does that
so if you're a European citizen you get to keep your shoes on. What does that
prove? What does that make us safer? Yeah I think you know going coming back from
Ireland you know they say that you have to go through American like US
pre-clearance and I thought it was just you know like I did this in Turkey. Oh I
know what you did yeah. I just go through a regular you know another security. And
what happened to you you you wound up you wound up trapped downstairs didn't
you and you couldn't leave because you were in the US getting
customs. In Ireland yes I know it's outrageous but the thing is you think
you think it's convenient but then you wind up not able to leave the place that
you just went through customs you can't go to the rest of the airport and there's
not that much down there with that you know you can. Expensive sandwiches. They
don't have bars or yeah it's it's it sucks and I don't I don't understand it.
But I am never going through customs in the country that I'm leaving. You could
do that in Canada too. There's other countries there's other countries you
can do that. Iceland has some similar. You can check into the EU there. Uh-huh okay.
It gets kind of complicated. Yeah that may be totally different than what
you're saying. Well I'm glad you got to experience that. Good for you. Well I mean yeah and I was
saying that the airlines are so annoying because you have to you know check in
online otherwise you got to pay a 50 euro fee. What if you don't check in
online? Yeah I mean the fact that you even were able to survive that at all.
They make it they make it so unpleasant. They charge you for everything. They
talk about charging you to go to the bathroom at some point but you can't
carry on anything anymore. You're very limited in personal items and of course
checking bags now is a fortune. So you might get a good a good rate on your
airline ticket but that's only part of the picture. There's so much else that they
get you for. Right and if you don't pay I mean I was and I had a my smartphone you
know we're talking about old technology. What if you had old technology? Like okay
I can't check in. I'm you know I have a flip phone. I mean you know you have to pay
$50 or euros or whatever wherever you are and because you know I can't check
and I don't have a way to check in online. Yeah no well that's your choice
to not embrace the new technology. Right that old technology and um let's see I
can't wait for hope. I hope there's gonna be computer terminals like tech space
terminals. Well the Vintage Computer Festival they may have just what you're
talking about at least for for display. I'm not sure if you can get your hands
on it maybe if you if you have them walk you walk you through it a little bit
you might you might get to try it. We'll get you to a terminal Rebel.
There's gonna be something. I like to put links there's a browser
called links you know how you could put different browsers on your. Uh-huh links
L-Y-N-X I know. No no no links like L-Y-N-X. That's what I just said. No you said L-Y-N-X.
I did not. Did I? No I didn't. Play that back. Whatever. Okay. L-Y-N-X.
Yes L-Y-N-X and it's a browser just like you know you can have Google Chrome
and all that but when you use it when you go to certain websites they'll know
what browser you're using so like let's say banking online you you'll have to do
something to show them that you're using another browser. Somebody has to install
links for me. I'm gonna maybe you should have lockers at hope so that people could
lock up like their technology like laptops and radios and you know for
that they like carry them. Well how much are you gonna be carrying? Well just a
laptop and a maybe a CD portable CD radio. And I assume you're bringing it
for a reason so why would you lock it up? Well I mean yeah but I mean I don't want
to carry it all the time you know on me all the time when I'm like there for six
hours. Yeah we actually do have a device daycare that we're offering. Okay cuz you
know I mean you know I want to bring the technology that I need for what I you
know when I'm using it and then when I'm not using it I don't want to be
carrying it lugging it all around you know. Now well we'll figure something out
if we don't have something already you know that's not something I've been
involved in. Gila go ahead. I just want to say that the chat is chiming in and I
also ran the video back you said why you said L Y N X we all heard it. So I was
right. You were correct yes. See I'm used to people not not listening to what I
say but now people not only don't listen to what I say but they say I said
something else you know it's an extra level of frustration and I just imagine
it's gonna keep getting worse. Just to speak to the the point you were raising
if you have items your presenter and you need it stored we have plenty of options
and we will help people that need like a display or like a terminal if they're
bringing something that's on wheels or needs to be brought in we'll take care
of that and I suggest people for your devices if you're bringing things bring
some kind of small pack or something that you can have on you a knapsack or a
fanny pack even to contain all of your devices. Yeah yeah it's always a good
idea. And some water and you know other other things you'll need. We're gonna have
a lot of things that we haven't talked about yet with some surprises but we
can't talk about them because we're still working. Hopefully I can get
some of this. Maybe it's not the whole conference. We'll figure this out. We'll
figure this out. We figure lots of things out. Alex go ahead. Alex you're muted.
Yeah he's talking. Yeah he's talking but nothing's coming out. I don't hear him.
No Alex you gotta press that button. Again people aren't listening to me. I
think he said a swear. Yeah he might have said a swear but now he's frozen. Oh boy
technology is embracing us too. Alex can you can you say something please. Rob
Gila can you say something? We sure can. Okay so it's not me it's it's it's it's
on Alex's end. He looks befuddled. That's a befuddled. Yeah we can't hear you at all.
Continuing to speak without words coming. Are you just messing with us? That's what
you're doing. I hate it when you do this. My god you're trying to piss me off
aren't you? Well you know what you're succeeding. You're succeeding pal and
don't make it any worse. I swear to God I will come over there. Where is he again?
Is he in Pennsylvania or is he in New York? He's in New York. Okay I can I can
do that. I can do that. Pennsylvania I'd have to wait for tomorrow. It wouldn't
take too long. I'll go there. I will. Just don't forget what your point was. I will
activate that microphone. Now he's now he's sideways. How does he do these
things? He's got dogs on his screen. He's got no sound. He's sideways. At one point
he was inverted. We do have a suggestion that a kid is taking possession of Alex's
camera. Lex I think that is not what's happening here. This does seem to be a
tech issue as the phone also keeps freezing. It's user error. It's it oh Lord
what's the the pep talk? Yes yes. What now? It would appear to be a pep talk
issue. I don't know what that is. What is that? That means problem exists between
computer and keyboard. Oh how clever. Oh between keyboard and chair. Okay well you've
insulted Alex to the point now where he's gone. So I hope you feel good about
that. Oh now we see his little picture again. Alex can you can you speak now? I
don't know. Oh my god it's so good to hear your voice again. What the hell was
that all about? It was a Bluetooth issue. Bluetooth issue. Yeah. The point I was
going to make though in response to rebels concern about custody of his
devices. Isn't it the case this year Emmanuel that we will have DHS on staff
and they'll be there to image everybody's personal devices. You're a
funny guy Alex. You're a real funny guy. No we do not have DHS anywhere near us.
Well you know they might be in your midst. And rebel you can always leave
your laptop with me. I'm I'm I'm a safe pair of hands. Yeah trust Alex. He always
gets the job done. Okay I'm bringing my laptop and a well yeah you're a lawyer.
Let's see so I want to install Lynx on my computer. It's Lynx portable so if I
bring my laptop to home. How did you just find out about Lynx? It's been around
for like 50 years. Because I want to make my turn. I just want to do old-school
things like on the net you know online. Just like when I do like banking or
booking a plane ticket or something. I want to do it like the old-school way you know.
Like with the texture you know what I mean? Of course yes. You know Tresor Catalyst
would appreciate this a lot. I know. Yeah may he rest in peace. Yep. You know I
don't know if Lynx has been around forever though. I think they even predate
like web pages. So I don't know how they existed before web pages. But how is it
portable? Like if I bring my laptop to home and somebody installed it on my
laptop. If I have Windows 10 on my laptop and my desktop. Can I put it onto my
desktop from my laptop or is it? Yeah I suppose. I mean you're asking very
specific questions about something we have no involvement in. Yeah look at the
project page and see what other people have done. Yeah what they've talked about
as far as the capabilities and compatibilities. Uh-huh. Because I'm
certainly not bringing my desktop to home. No and Windows 3.1 isn't really
supported anyway. So it would be a waste of time. No Windows 10. Oh okay.
I just assumed. Go ahead Gila. Yes Rob did a little research here and Lynx was
introduced in 1992 and people have been using it consistently since 1992. So I
can only imagine that it would be installable on pretty much anything.
Because people again have been finding a way to use it for 32 years. I guess I
thought it was even older than that. But yeah 1992 sounds about right. That's when
web pages started to come come out. It went beta 22 July 1992. And important to
note too that like unlike a lot of just you could start up old software on
things and it'll work. But Lynx is still being actively maintained. It is still a
viable piece of software. And so yeah it is supported for all sorts of platforms
nowadays. I want to meet the people who are maintaining Lynx. I mean that's just
that's good for you know a nice firm handshake I think from all of us. There's
a Lynx release last month. Wow that's amazing.
2.9.2. Rebel closing closing remarks from you please. Okay the terminal in
Windows does that mean like you're like like the DOS prompt? Or less
sometimes yeah sure yeah. Because I hear like you have to go to your
Windows terminal and because I don't want Linux because that's an operating
system. Right. So I just want the browser because I mean I want to keep Google
Chrome and all what I have. It's just that I want the links extra because I
somebody told me to download this thing CYGW CYG Win 64 which yeah I don't even
know what it does. It's like a terminal thing right? Yeah it allows you to run an
environment that is a variant of Linux I believe on a Windows system. There's
other ways you can do that running Windows on a Linux system and stuff and
even some of the newer OS's I think Windows 10 or 11 I think they started
adding the ability to do it as a part of the operating system itself. So
investigate that you may have the capability in your Windows OS to do it
depending on what version. Just know Rebel that whatever configuration you
want you can probably get and Hope is the place to find out how. I don't believe
so I don't believe so but we'll find out we'll find out for sure. Thanks for your
call. We will see you at Hope and hopefully talk to you before then. All
right we have time for one more phone call 802.321.4.225. Did I say the number right?
802.321.HAC is our telephone number. Yes go ahead Alex. You know another
option for Rebel if he really wants to use the the Lynx browsers I'm sure you
can install the Lynx package on just about any Linux system. He said he
doesn't want to use Linux. Oh he said that maybe that was one of the quite
specifically I couldn't hear. Well what I was going to suggest to him then I guess
was he could use a smartphone if he really wanted to and you could SSH into
a remote system that would then have Lynx on it and you could use Lynx to your
heart's content from your iOS device, Android device, Windows device, whatever
it is. You know just just connect to a terminal. Yeah I think that is that may
be the question that is when he was talking about is it portable like does
Lynx work on the Windows platform had they ported it to it and I don't know
the answer to that. That's also something you would find on the projects page or
on Wikipedia. I know it worked in FreeBSD and various other. It probably works on a
bunch of those variants for sure. Yeah. They may have some way of running on
Windows and that's why someone recommended that software. Be careful
about this because when you go online and you ask for information about Lynx
the default is to get some kind of mass transit system in Florida called Lynx
spelled the same way and everything because the first question is does Lynx
go to Disney and I don't know how to answer that or how to tell rebel to how
to install that and it's hard to find any conversation through Google on on
the Lynx we're talking about. You have to dig a little bit. If you if you look up
the Lynx web browser on Wikipedia it takes you there is all sorts of
information including that you can run it on Windows you can run it on DOS
somebody built an ADB for Android at some point but the Lynx the official
Lynx site is lynx.invisible-island.net and from there you can
find all the official releases you can find the source if you want to port it
to something and it's a very old-school looking web page as well as you might
imagine. I'll bet this is more conversation about Lynx than they have
experienced in many a year and I'm happy that we can we can bring that to them
they certainly deserve it. We have one final phone call good evening you're on
off the hook overtime go ahead. Hi what's up what's on your mind? Can you turn down
your radio please? Hi I'm Michelle and I came I have a Google smart home and when I'm
just sitting in the living room it'll beep when it's not being asked anything. It has
like concerned some people. I was wondering if you knew what that was about. Wow anyone want to take this?
I want to know what kind of beep you know you gotta give us like what kind of
tests have you run on when this happens like what have you noticed about it can
you give us any more details? Well when it beeps I like ask it like if it's
listening it does not respond and I also have turned it on while it was beeping
and it just acts normally so not sure. Interesting. This is very interesting to
think about because these things whether you have a smart device that's
the Google one or you know Amazon or what have you a lot of these will
constantly listen for their own wake word and mishear a lot of other things
in conversation as their wake word so you know there are other things that
sound like Alexa to an Alexa because they're not very good at distinguishing
these things but it'll think you're talking to it and the same with Google
Home and anything else. You know I have an Alexa device I turned on an air
conditioner the other day and Alexa started playing a radio station somehow
it heard an air conditioner turning on and interpreted that to mean Alexa play
a radio station you know I don't I don't trust these things I think they're
listening a lot more than than we think they are. Gila? So two things first of all
Migel I'm so excited that you called I think you may be our first second
generation caller which is awesome and we're so glad you're here with us. I did
a little cursory it's very exciting you know I did a little cursory research and
check and see that there aren't any devices that are connected to your smart
home that may need other updates the issue may be with something that's
connected to the system not the system itself the use case I'm seeing online
right now is someone was saying that their unit kept beeping and it turned
out there was a water filter that was connected to the machine that needed to
be replaced so double-check everything that's connected to your smart home
system and make sure nothing in there needs any maintenance. Yeah I'm not
clear if the beep is the voice activation or if it is like that like
some other device maybe that's a great point. That's why we're here yeah does
that answer your question or at least address it a little bit? Please try it
out and let us know what you find out keep us updated. Yeah definitely run some
more tests and make sure you're you know pay attention look for different
types of activation like that and see see what you find out over time and like
what kinds of things maybe you can find in places like notifications and the
stuff that Gil was describing you might you might have more questions after that
but every clue will help you figure out the what what's what it's doing and why
or at least what weird aspects make it do that. And please share what you find
out because a lot of us are curious and want to know about these things and
you're basically discovering new features or abuses that these devices
have. Thank you so much. Of course. I love investigating this kind of stuff.
Mijel before you go we did have a question for you from the chat which is
are you coming to Hope? I don't think I will be. Okay okay that that's cool we
would love to see you there in the future that's a very honest answer and
we're we're so glad you've been listening we're so glad you called keep
us posted on how your investigation goes we really want to know. Of course yes.
All right take care. Bye bye. Thank you. And I think that's gonna do it for us tonight.
Right? Yeah. Yeah. All right anyone else have any remaining issues they wish to
bring up? I want to thank the 40 strong people who have hung with us in the chat
and yeah we that was a new caller. There's five of us you should add the
five of us to that 40 you know 45 strong people stuck around because keep in mind
we have no air conditioning here we're hot as hell and you know oxygen is at a
minimum and it's at a premium here too yes and but yes definitely excited about
new callers in general and also I'm gonna say that was the youngest caller
we've had so far. In a long time at least yeah. So very exciting and thanks
everybody. Yes yeah thanks for all the interesting conversation and excitement
over the event coming up we're going right back to work on all of it after we
cool off but we'll be back as soon as we can with this and and more. Write to
us oth at 2600.com get hope information at hope.net and keep listening to WBAI
and support them and say that we're your favorite show off the hook not overtime
because there's no show called overtime and on BAI. All right stay stay cool and
hydrate and all that kind of stuff and we will see you in a week good night