Thank you.
All you have made requires a coin deposit.
Please hang up, check the instructions on the payphone for the appropriate rate, and dial your call again.
We couldn't get much worse, but if they could, they would.
Bon Diddley Bom for the best, expect the worst.
I hope that's understood.
Bon Diddley Bom!
Bon Diddley Bom!
Bon Diddley Bom!
Bon Diddley Bom!
Yeah, exactly. And out there in signal land, we have Rob T. Firefly.
Good evening.
We have Gila.
Good evening.
And we have Alex.
You do. Good evening.
I don't know why you sound like you're in space, but fine.
Okay. Rob, I understand you just went through some ordeal. You want to share what's going on?
Oh, yeah. It was an interesting day this morning. At my place of work, which is up in the Morningside Heights neighborhood of Manhattan, my workplace was evacuated a little after 11 this morning.
What did you do?
It wasn't me, not this time. There was a gas problem, and not the kind for which you dissolve a spoonful of baking soda and half a glass of water.
There was a major high-pressure gas leak out in the street. It was a strange experience. Everyone is fine.
Hang on. Hang on. You were in your place of work.
Yes.
There's a high-pressure gas leak outside, so they evacuated you outside.
Yes. Yes, they did.
And this was a good decision, because just before we were evacuated, a bunch of us in the office, and I was on a higher floor of a building in the area, and a bunch of us started sort of scrunching our eyes at each other and going,
does it smell like gas in here?
And it did, in fact, smell like gas in there, and that's when the building's alarm system went off, and we had been hearing a noise, a loud noise, sort of like a whooshing noise that would sound like maybe a malfunctioning air conditioner or an air compressor, maybe in another room, and we were hearing this noise and wondering what it was.
We start smelling gas, and we were advised by our building's alert system to evacuate immediately.
We took the stairs, and we noticed as we were going down the stairs that the sound was getting louder, to the point where when we got out onto the street, we were deafened.
The sound was intense. It was painful.
Standing right next to one another, we couldn't speak to one another. You could see lips moving but not hear anything.
And we just started walking away from the building as directed down the street, and we were up in the 120s, which was right where this leak was taking place, and we ended up walking all the way down to 115th Street and a few blocks over, and we could still hear the noise.
But then we stopped smelling the gas and just hung out basically by Morningside Park and regrouped for a while.
The area was very noisy. There were streams of confused people just sort of looking around.
There were schools in the area as well as places of work and residence, and everyone was fine, and apparently I don't think any injuries have been reported.
The problem has since been capped off, but this turned out to be just some construction workers hit a high-pressure gas line and forced basically the entire neighborhood to be evacuated.
It was interesting. It was a bit frightening in the moment because when you live in the city and go outside and there is noise that you cannot identify and that is hurting you, that is of concern.
A lot of us have been through things that this might remind us of, but it ended up just being sort of a strange way to get out of work.
But yeah, eventually we were sent home and went on with our days.
Wow. Okay. Well, that sounds like a bit of an adventure, and I'm sure a lot of people on the Upper West Side are sharing your adventure right now.
Maybe we can get a clip of what it sounded like by Overtime, which is at 8 o'clock on YouTube, because I'd like to hear what that sounds.
You say it sounds like you never heard before.
It was strange. It was like being near a jet engine. It would sound like things that you might have heard, but never this loud, never this painful, never this out in the street.
Wow. Okay. Well, glad you made it through whatever that was safely. Not too traumatized.
Boy. Okay. It's never a dull moment here in the big city.
Okay. Well, you know what? What I'm going to say is going to seem awfully trivial and maybe even petty compared to what that's all about.
I'm mad at Google again.
And, you know, this time I really think I've got a good case to really complain here, because every time I make a complaint against Google, there's always somebody that pipes up and says,
Oh, it's not Google's fault. You did something wrong. You know, they did everything correctly. And you're just the poor consumer that went along for the ride. He should have known better.
All right. You know, I have one of those Nest thermometers. You know where this is going.
I bought the Nest thermometer a long time ago, back when the company was called Nest, before Google got its claws on it. Well, I couldn't stop that from happening.
Don't you mean Alphabet?
Oh, God.
Or were they Alphabet at the time?
When a company keeps adding names to their organization, they're hiding from something.
So you'd say it was called Nest before Google, the company formerly...
Nest is innocent. I mean, Nest was innocent. They were just a company that made a good device.
I've made my point.
Then Google stepped in and said, We want this. Here's money. Go away.
And now, what Google has done is given a big middle finger to everybody who bought those early thermostats by bricking them, by saying, These aren't going to work as of October.
Buy another one, and then it'll work.
That's really, basically, what they're saying.
I'll read you a story that I think kind of typifies what I'm talking about as far as apologists for Google.
See, if you can read into this story of bad news, you know, bad news for consumers, innocent consumers that bought something they thought was going to keep working.
And see how the story kind of turns and turns it into a good thing.
Yeah, this is from Ars Technica.
Google's oldest smart thermostats have an expiration date.
Isn't that cute? They have an expiration date.
You know, like a loaf of bread or something like that.
The company has announced that the first and second generation Nest Learning thermostats will lose support in October 2025, disabling most of the connected features.
Google is offering some compensation for anyone still using these devices.
But there's no Google upgrade for European users.
There's no upgrade at all for you guys.
Okay, they're offering compensation.
Doesn't that sound good?
Thank you, Google.
You're offering compensation.
I mean, that seems like the fair thing to do.
Continuing.
Google is also discontinuing its only European model, and it's not planning to release another.
Both affected North American thermostats predate Google's ownership of the company, which it acquired in 2014.
Nest released the original learning thermostat to almost universal praise in 2011.
I was part of that universal praise.
With the sequel arriving a year later.
Google's second gen Euro unit launched in 2014.
Since launch, all these devices have been getting regular software updates and have migrated across multiple app redesigns.
However, all good things must come to an end.
No, they don't.
Why do all good things have to come to an end?
The only reason this is coming to an end is because Google decided to kill it.
There's absolutely no reason in the world to discontinue this technology that does not have any technical issues.
You could easily continue the support for older products when people don't feel like getting new ones because it's not broken.
All right, let me finish the story.
As Google points out, yeah, because listen to them.
Don't listen to anybody else.
Listen to Google.
As Google points out, these products have had a long life and they're not being rendered totally inoperable.
Yeah, maybe I'm being a real sore head here and maybe it's not so bad.
Come October 25th, 2025, these devices will no longer receive software updates or connect to Google's cloud services.
That means you won't be able to control them from the Google Home app or via Assistant or more likely Gemini by that point.
Yeah, let's get back on track here.
We're talking about all the advances and the new things.
Yeah, what about this?
Well, the devices will still work as a regular dumb thermostat to control temperature and scheduling will remain accessible from the thermostat screen.
So when you find yourself away on vacation, no big deal.
Just either call somebody or just head home for a brief bit, run over to the thermostat and lean over it and key in all the times and temperatures that you want to enter instead of doing that from the inconvenience of your laptop somewhere in the world.
All right.
So it's still going to work.
Yeah, it's still going to just it won't work on Google's network.
I mean, yeah, it couldn't be easier, right?
Just a regular dumb thermostat.
Google, I bought a regular dumb thermostat to start with.
I replaced it with this.
And it's a lot more expensive than a dumb thermostat.
And now what you've given me is a dumb thermostat.
No, I'm sorry.
It's not acceptable.
Anyway, the story is not over, by the way.
If you have one of these units, Google will be reaching out via email with some deals to soften the blow.
In the U.S., owners can get a $130 discount if they upgrade to the fourth generation Nest, which costs $280.
So basically, not even half.
And similar deals in Canada.
So basically, yeah, give us money and we'll make this problem go away, the problem that we just caused.
Now, the situation is a bit more frustrating for owners of the European thermostat.
That's as critical as this article gets.
Yeah, it's more frustrating for them.
Google doesn't have any newer units to sell.
Heating and cooling systems in Europe have various quirks that set them apart from North American systems.
You get that?
It's your fault.
It's your fault.
You have quirks.
Google tried.
You're not cooperating.
Europe, so you're out in the cold, literally.
So consequently, it's been more than a decade since Nest, excuse me, Google, released a smart thermostat adapted to the continent.
And it never will again, the company confirms.
Was that necessary?
That just seems so hostile.
Yeah, we will never, ever support European markets when it comes to smart thermostats.
The sun will turn into a burnt-out cinder first before we ever do anything like that again.
That is how much we detest the European market.
This move comes just weeks after Google confirmed it had discontinued the Nest Protect smoke and carbon monoxide alarm.
You know, I almost bought one of those recently.
Oh, my God.
If I had bought that, say, a couple of months ago, you think I'm mad now.
A smoke and carbon monoxide alarm.
Can you imagine?
They're not making a replacement.
So basically, people are being diverted to other companies.
But you still bought that, thinking it was going to keep working.
Google has been, excuse me, shedding jobs in the platform and devices division that includes Nest.
With fewer workers, it's not surprising the team would look to drop support for its older products.
Thanks, Ars Technica.
It's not your job to make excuses for Google.
You know, the thing is, are they doing the right thing by their customers?
And they clearly are not.
They clearly are not, a point that is not mentioned once throughout this entire piece.
You know, they decide to fire their workers.
And because they fire their workers, they can't support their customers.
That is a problem.
All right?
It's not an excuse.
It's not something we have to feel sorry for them about.
They made a move and it caused this reaction.
And it's Google.
They can afford it.
In, okay, I don't know if I can make it through the last two sentences of this article.
And in fairness, these devices have lasted far beyond Google's measly five-year commitment.
Well, I wasn't even aware of a five-year commitment.
I never signed anything.
I bought a product from a company called Nest.
And Google had nothing to do with it.
And now apparently, they only guarantee anything for five years.
All right.
And the final sentence.
So you can't say they didn't warn you.
Well, they didn't warn me.
And I'm stuck with a brick.
A brick thermostat that only works if I do the old school turning it by hand.
I will never trust Google again with anything, any kind of product that requires any kind of support.
You know?
I was talked into this.
This is a cool device to have.
And it seemed like a cool device.
I still believe it is.
And I think, as hackers, we should be able to figure out a way to continue supporting these devices.
So that, yeah, you're not connecting to Google anymore, but you're connecting to something.
And this can be a model for all kinds of other technology, where a company just decides they're going to cut off any kind of support and not even think about their customers.
Well, you know, I'm sick of throwing things away just because they no longer get support from these massive companies.
So it's time to start thinking a little bit differently as far as these things go.
Any thoughts, Alex?
Yeah.
I mean, I have a lot of thoughts about this.
And hopefully my sound is a little bit better at the moment.
Yeah, it's really good.
The, okay, very good.
The, I mean, why don't we start with the issue of can hackers reverse engineer how this works?
So I think we probably could.
We probably could figure out how the protocol works and build something that would enable these thermostats to continue to interact with their owners in some way.
But wouldn't it be funny then if that's what we did and then Google slapped us with a Digital Millennium Copyright Act suit for reverse engineering their protocols without authorization?
It wouldn't be the first time the DMCA was used against hackers unfairly.
But more to the point here, I think what's wrong about this entirely is that they have disabled the core functionality of the product for which, you know, which was the sole reason you bought it was to have this remote access to program your thermostat.
I mean, that makes total sense.
So when you disable that core functionality, I feel like you need to have, as a company, more of a business justification, more than, rather, just a business justification to do that.
Because you're taking a product and you're bricking it, a product that people paid a lot of money for.
So you need to have some kind of technological justification for the discontinuance, and I don't see it there.
I also don't even see a business judgment decision that would enable Google to say, realistically, with a straight face, we can't afford to support this product anymore.
They just don't want to do it.
They want to sell more products.
So not only does this erode user trust, but I think it also undermines their environmental goals as a company because you're bricking these products.
What are people going to do with them?
You're going to throw them out.
And presumably, these thermostats probably have something like mercury or something in them as well that you're going to have to replace.
So there's an environmental impact there.
But my question is, why is there no consequence whatsoever for a company like Google to do something like this?
If this is done in a deceptive manner, if their reasons or their justifications don't necessarily hold water and we know that they're false,
why aren't these deceptive business practices being investigated by agencies like the Federal Trade Commission?
That's what they're there to do.
Well, not anymore, really.
They're there to ensure profit and, you know, destroy the environment if they can.
But it's not your grandpa's FDA.
Let's put it that way.
Yeah, everything's become a little bit Orwellian, right?
In the sense that, you know, the agencies are doing the opposite of what their names are supposed to imply.
But I think, you know, putting aside for the moment the issue of whether or not a governmental regulator should step in and look into this,
I also don't understand why there aren't class action lawsuits being filed against Google for the discontinuance of these types of products
that wind up taking money out of the pockets of a huge number of consumers and forcing them to spend more of their money on an unnecessary product.
Like, I haven't - I could be wrong, but I don't think that there are too many class actions that have been filed on this particular point.
Maybe it's high time.
There are.
I'm happy to put my name on one if something like that comes along.
Go ahead, Rob.
Yeah, it's really remarkable how the place of appliances like this that connect to services to which we'll be beholden
have become a daily part of so many people's lives.
And I think it just behooves us to not only question the place of, you know,
every last appliance needing to get onto the Internet and connect to some service that's beyond your control
and that you will likely pay for in one way or another, whether or not that's apparent.
So it really, I think, should make us question why we need something like this.
Why do we want a washing machine that connects to the Internet?
It's not downloading the water from the cloud.
Why do we need your toaster to, you know, subscribe you to something?
Why can't we have just a thing that does what it does and we control it and it's on the computer that's in the device
and that's, you know, that we have the ability to tweak around with?
You know, I think the more and more we can maybe back off from what's, you know,
to say it in a way that works on the radio, the Internet of Crap.
How prominent does this need to be?
Is there other ways of doing things?
Well, you know, I think you raise a good point there, but it's a different point because, you know,
I agree there's no reason for a refrigerator to have a social network attached to it, you know,
or for a toaster to have Internet access.
But, you know, a thermostat you can control from far away is handy and it was a good selling point.
And to give that to people, you know, who buy it, obviously, and then take it away from them and say,
buy another one because this no longer works because we made it no longer work.
It's like, you know, when we got all bent out of shape decades ago about the touchtone fee.
Remember that?
The phone companies would charge you for touchtones, but you still created the touchtones yourself.
They just would ignore it and you were paying them to not ignore it.
And eventually that went away.
It took a lot of arguing.
But it's the same basic mentality.
And that mentality has really blossomed and come into its own.
Go ahead.
I would say from a technical standpoint, there has to be ways to effectively do something like a thermostat
you can control from far away without beholding you to, say, Google or somebody else
and their whims on leaving a server on or off or charging you any amount of things for it.
You know, we all used to have answering machines, those of us of a certain age,
and there were ways to call from outside and use touchtones to reprogram them to our delight.
Um, and, uh, you know, some of us had a lot of fun with that functionality, but my point
stands that I think there should be a way to do this, um, without running it through Google.
But I think also that a company that's building that is not going to get interest from like
venture capitalists who are like, how are we going to continue to capitalize on the people
who have these in their house and, uh, you know, bleed every last cent we can out of them.
Um, and it just becomes like a fact of the way that business is done now.
Right.
And I think it's also, you know, this nest was its own thing.
And then Google said, Hey, we like it and we want to keep it.
But my other question is, how is this different than general planned obsolescence?
The difference is it's your thermostat.
It's not your phone.
It's your, like our, how many times we replaced the air conditioner in this apartment?
Okay, but Gila, it doesn't work anymore.
You know, it's crap.
It's built to, to break, but this still works and they're just deprogramming it.
So it's, it's even worse than planned obsolescence.
You know, it's, it's, it's planned, you know, destroying it basically.
Try it.
It's, it's planned making it not work artificially.
Not that it's a piece of crap that's going to stop working after a certain amount of time.
You know, naturally, nobody is saying you can't use your air conditioner anymore.
You say that, you say my air conditioner, it doesn't work.
I need to get another one.
It's, it's similar, but it's, it's, it's a different kind of problem.
Kyle.
I just want to add that the design flaw, I think at issue here is that it's reliant on a company
like Google that's built in.
That's the defect.
Whereas a air conditioner might have some part or something that was manufactured for cost
or other reasons that the marketers or the, the people making those decisions knew it would
eventually cause the entire product to fail.
Here it's simply by virtue of them controlling the type of stuff that Rob was speaking about
that is not by design interoperable or portable or transferable or usable in like an API or
something that allows third party alternate alternatives to, uh, stand in or, or be used
instead of this company.
And I would just say that the, and I, I don't, I don't know what the answer is.
It should have been that that was supported in the first place, which kind of goes into
my next point, which is, I don't, I don't think compelling this, uh, organization or,
or regulators in some way is actually going to be fruitful these days.
It just, I think that was the collective eye roll.
We intimated on air here at the outset of this conversation.
And I really think the energy is best put to use trying to work around in this case, at
least the reliance on whatever, uh, software or, um, servers as we, we, um, implied to allow
that, allow you to, uh, access it through your own means or, or your own infrastructure.
And that is desirable and part of, of why I think a lot of people are excited about the
internet of, of stuff in, um, and, and that it was these, these, the, uh, the promise of
the internet and being so networked, uh, that we would be able to take advantage of that network
and better manage our, our quality of life in, in this case, uh, uh, the, the comfort of
inside of your home.
And that class I think is wholly missing as Alex said, because, uh, they are conditioned to
this sort of life cycle, uh, of phones and the, the, the newer, better, faster, or, uh,
whatever's next is always somehow superseding the base functionality of stuff that was never
broken other than it relied on these magical companies that we've put all this hype and
faith into in the whole, like sort of tech, um, uh, tech economy or industry.
We call tech, which is itself, I think a huge fallacy.
It's a hype machine.
Uh, this, the capabilities and the magical stuff that, of being able to have products that,
uh, that work on the internet was never something that any of these companies, uh, that, that
they like deserved the mantle of, uh, as they've acquired companies like Nest.
They never deserved that.
We always should have insisted that these things incorporate interoperability and allow us to
modify things so that they don't corner products that are functioning like this with their backend
and other, uh, cloud systems.
But think of the difference between, you know, a phone, a phone, a new phone has new services,
new capabilities.
This is a thermostat.
It turns on, it turns off, it has a schedule.
There's no difference between the old one and the new one.
Yeah.
Maybe it'll look different.
Maybe it'll, uh, have a couple of more features that are not necessary at all for what you want
it to do, but they're just making it not work because they can.
There is no reason in the world why an old thermostat wouldn't be able to work on the same
network as a new thermostat.
And if they make up a reason, they need to get over that reason because there is no logical
reason.
Alex?
Yeah.
I mean, I think our, our listeners know that I, I love to disagree with you whenever I
possibly can, Emmanuel, but I'm, I'm on your side this time.
I think there's, there's a big difference here because you have this, this notion of
planned obsolescence with respect to hardware.
And that's where you're, you're embedding the failure of a product into the design of the
actual product itself.
Right.
So you have, you know, Google's approach here though is, is totally different in that
what we're talking about here is not necessarily product design, but service design or service
obsolescence.
So instead of planned obsolescence of a product, we have the disruptive service discontinuance.
So this is a service obsolescence, I think issue here where they're disabling features
through some kind of backend deprecation rather than physical degradation of the actual device
here.
Right.
So, but this has become an attack vector.
I think for all these different types of products and services that rely on anything to
do with the quote unquote cloud here.
You know, we saw vehicle manufacturers like Tesla disabling certain functionalities of
cars without some kind of subscription model being in place, right?
These are all types of things where there's some form of service outage or service obsolescence
that comes as a result of utilizing cloud-based services.
So, you know, this is another attack vector that I think we need to think about as hackers
and how we combat it.
But I think that the issue that you brought up earlier was actually really smart, which
is, can we do this ourselves?
Because if all we're doing is essentially, all we have to do is essentially replace that
cloud type infrastructure that Google would have in place, maybe it's not as complicated
as we would think.
I'm really surprised too that in this write-up and in their characterization of it, things like
safety or security aren't even brought up.
It's just, this device had a good life.
And my next thought is, what, I mean, if they're getting rid of these device and whatever teams,
they're like basically letting people go, paring them down, making that less of an emphasis
of their core business, what is stopping them from doing exactly the same thing to whatever
product they give you a rebate for?
Nothing, nothing at all.
Yeah, the same thing is going to happen.
This is why I say I will never trust them again, because they're going to do it again.
They're going to do it every time they can get away with it.
And, you know, I don't need their support team.
The device works.
It's worked for over 10 years.
It'll work for another 50 years, all right, assuming the planet lasts.
So, you know, I don't need to call customer support to ask why the thermostat doesn't turn
on.
You know, it's a simple device.
It should keep working.
And if it actually breaks, physically breaks, then I'll get another one, you know, when
something is actually physically wrong with it.
But this, you know, an artificial just decommissioning, it's not right.
Oh, maybe that's what it is.
The new ones actually have physical defects that will allow them to break in the future.
There you go.
These ones are far too elegant and well-designed because Google didn't have a hand in doing
that.
Oh, wow.
You know, I think you're onto something.
That's basically what this is.
I think you're right.
I think they will just die one day.
It's like the toner cartridges, you know?
You don't replace them.
All of a sudden, your printer doesn't work anymore because, not because it ran out, because
you didn't replace it by a certain time.
All right, enough about this.
But, you know, just in closing, I think if you have a piece of technology, like, you
know, an old telephone, as long as you can keep using it, you should be able to keep
using it, you know?
Imagine if an old rotary phone, I hate to always go back to the same example, but an
old rotary phone didn't work because they decided that they don't want rotary phones
to be on the network.
No, it still works.
It will always work.
And that should be the case with any kind of technology.
If you decide to use something that's older, it's up to you to keep it working.
And it should keep working.
And if it breaks, then you get another one.
That's as simple as that.
All right.
Alex, you know, I understand you've been doing some research into some weird domains.
I don't even know what this is all about, but there's a new .gov domain called the Trillion
Dollar Dinner.
What in God's name is this all about?
And how do you play into it?
This is quite an interesting story.
So there were a couple of .gov domains that I had detected using the DNS intelligence system
that I had put together over the last several years.
And I think I talked about this a few months ago when I said I created basically another
little batch script.
I call it the little batch script that could here that allows me to look into one particular
top-level domain and compare changes between days.
So I do that every day and I look at the changes within .gov and about a month ago, I found
some really bizarre stuff being added to the .gov zone file, which is where all of the domain
names in the .gov top-level domain are stored.
And what I saw was a strange one called the Trillion Dollar Dinner .gov.
And then there was dinnerforamerica.gov.
And then there was thetrillion.gov.
A couple of these really kind of odd domain names that you wouldn't necessarily expect to
be part of an actual .gov kind of enterprise here.
So I had decided, well, this is kind of odd.
And, you know, talked to a couple people in the media about this.
And, you know, nobody really knew what the hell this had to do with.
Nobody had any idea about this trillion-dollar dinner.
And I thought it was particularly or a particularly ill-fated name because if you think about how
much value this current administration has wiped out of the economy, you know, it's almost
like they're celebrating the trillions of dollars that were lost.
So it was a pretty bad name.
But it seems like what it related to was this Trump meme coin that he and some cronies had
established prior to the inauguration.
And these meme coins really have no particular purpose at all.
They're cryptocurrencies that, you know, basically people just hold essentially for fun.
Sometimes they go up in value.
Sometimes they don't.
Most of the time they go down in value or they go up for a little while.
People pull the rug out from under them and the holders of a massive number of these coins
will sell them, leaving people with with valueless digital assets.
So meme coins don't have the best reputation.
But there's this Trump meme coin.
And it turns out, as The New York Times reported last week on I believe it was Thursday, that
there was this announcement then about this dinner that the holders of Trump meme coins were
going to be eligible to attend.
And if you are one of the top 200 holders of this particular meme coin and you held it
for a certain period of time, you're going to have some kind of weighted average of what
you were holding.
But if you were in the top 200, you would get invited to a dinner that President Trump himself
would attend, which is a really kind of extraordinary thing.
So there was a lot of criticism that came out about this because it essentially could set
people up for a rug pull.
And it did seem like Trump had some personal financial stake in the creation of this meme
coin as well.
So on Thursday night, it seemed like the White House or the federal government in some capacity,
I think these actually related to the Department of Commerce, that they had actually deleted
from the .gov zone file, dinner4america.gov, the trilliondollardinner.gov, and the trillion.gov.
So they quietly tried to register these, likely in the hope that they were going to be used
to try to pump this meme coin dinner using an official .gov domain.
That's the hypothesis here.
And then quietly decided to delete them in the hopes that nobody would notice.
But I noticed, and we got the word out, and 404 Media, Joseph Cox in particular, wrote a
great write-up of this finding today, and I think had some wonderfully well-placed sources
within the administration that were able to confirm this.
So, you know, it's been a pretty cool day for DNS-related findings, and I think this goes
back to that old saying, right, that, you know, DNS is a source of truth.
I never heard that saying, but yeah, I guess it is.
I guess it is.
Well, thank you for that.
Thanks for helping to reveal that, and you're continuing to look for any other .gov domains
that will pop up.
Anything else that's come up recently?
There's a couple of curious ones.
AHA.gov was registered yesterday.
A-H-A dot gov.
I don't know to what that relates.
But coincidentally, the same day that the administration had deleted Dinner for America,
the Trillion Dollar Dinner, and the Trillion.gov, they also deleted BrainHealth.gov as well,
which presumably there wasn't very much of that going around anyhow.
No.
There's no need for that.
It wasn't something that was missed.
Yeah, they can't relate.
No.
All right.
Well, I look forward to hearing more updates in the future about that.
I also wanted to ask you your thoughts on another, I guess, step that's been taken
in the road to fascism that we seem to be on.
They're arresting judges now.
A judge was arrested in Milwaukee for obstructing justice by directing an undocumented immigrant
out of her courtroom through a side door and not into the hands of ICE agents.
Now, maybe, Alex, you could correct me here, but this was somebody who was facing charges
in her courtroom.
The charges of battery, some kind of altercation.
Not really the issue here.
The issue is who is able to do what.
And the way I've always thought of it in a courtroom, the judge pretty much has say over
what happens.
The judge can drop all charges on a whim if they so choose.
You know, you're not supposed to do that, obviously.
You're supposed to be based on facts, logic, that kind of thing.
Um, but in this particular case, what I wonder is, are judges supposed to be helping ICE if
they show up and say, will you help us trap this person?
It just seems like that's a real conundrum for somebody who is supposed to be handing out
justice to instead be laying a trap for somebody that showed up on their own accord into their
courtroom and, um, and now is, uh, it's supposed to be cornered.
It just, judges don't work for ICE.
We don't work for ICE.
You know, our listeners do not work for ICE.
And it's my view that in many cases, working against ICE is the better choice because of
some of the things that they have been responsible for in the last few weeks and months.
And it's, um, you know, it's, it's, it's a really difficult situation for somebody that
finds themselves like this, but arresting a judge now, that just really, um, it seems
like a big step in a bad direction.
Your thoughts?
I think it's a terrible, terrible step in absolutely a wrong headed direction here.
I think for a number of reasons, I mean, we have this notion of separation of powers between
the judiciary and the executive and the judiciary is supposed to operate independently.
My understanding as well is that this warrant for the detention of this individual, this
ICE warrant was some kind of administrative warrant, not necessarily a judicial warrant.
So the idea that this judge could face felony obstruction charges also raises issues of the
proportionality of the charge relative to...
What is an administration warrant as opposed to a judicial one?
Well, it's something that wouldn't be issued by a judge, right?
It could be issued by ICE itself.
So this administrative warrant or something that issues very summarily, as opposed to something
that had, you know, issued on the basis of cause.
So it seems to be, you know, somewhat of a less serious type of offense that we're talking
about here.
But I think, I think the real core issue that is, is facing not just this particular judge,
but all judges, whether you're at the state level, the federal level, the appellate level,
even the Supreme Court level now, is that the administration is making no bones about their
intimidation of the judiciary.
That's a really kind of terrifying thing where you have one branch of government squaring off
against another branch of government, both of which are enshrined in the Constitution with
separation of powers to enable them to check the power of each other.
So if one is trying to overpower or undermine the will of another branch of government, then
we have the centralization of power in one branch that the founders and the framers of
this country did not intend to have at all.
Now, I think that, you know, other issues that relate to this are, if you continue to intimidate
judiciary like this, and you're going to absolutely destabilize the justice system itself,
because people, especially those who listen to these alt-right commentators who think that
this is entirely justified, are going to start believing that judges are not impartial arbiters
of the truth, but are your adversaries.
And when people begin to view the judiciary as their adversaries, that's an extraordinarily
dangerous idea to have in this country.
And I think it is going to cause us to hurdle even more quickly towards a constitutional crisis.
Yeah, it would seem we're pretty much there.
Shortly after this, the U.S. Attorney General, Penn Bondi, of course, defended the move, saying
that Judge Hannah Dugan, her arrest sent a strong message to judges that the Trump administration
will prosecute them if they obstruct justice, in her view, by escorting a criminal defendant
out a back door.
Again, it's her courtroom.
She can escort somebody wherever she wants to escort them.
They can track this person down on their own time with their own detective skills.
In fact, they found the person not two minutes later.
So the whole thing was resolved in their favor.
But after the arrest, FBI Director Kash Patel posted on Twitter,
no one is above the law.
And of course, that resulted in accept Trump trending for the rest of the day on Twitter,
because the hypocrisy is just astounding that they can say that with a straight face
and then have a criminal in power getting away with everything and smirking about it.
Meanwhile, you know, continuing with what ICE is all about, this, according to an article
in New Republic, in Oklahoma City on Thursday, about 20 federal immigration agents raided the
wrong home, forcing a woman out of the house with her three daughters, not even leaving them
enough time to get dressed, then seized their phones, laptops, and life savings.
The woman had only moved into the house two weeks earlier after relocating to Oklahoma
from Maryland.
The armed agents told the woman, identified by local TV station KFOR as Marissa, that they
had a search warrant, but the name suspects on the warrant didn't live in the house and
weren't connected to anyone in the family.
We just moved here from Maryland, Marissa said.
We're citizens.
That's what I kept saying.
We're citizens.
The agents who identified themselves as U.S. Marshals, Immigration and Customs Enforcement,
and FBI agents didn't seem to care, waking the family up, forcing them outside in their
underwear, ransacking the house, and taking the family's belongings as evidence.
I told them before they left, I said, you took my phone.
We have no money.
I just moved here.
I have to feed my children.
I'm going to need gas money.
I need to be able to get around.
Like, how do you just leave me like this, like an abandoned dog?
They were very dismissive, very rough, very careless.
I kept pleading.
I kept telling them we weren't criminals.
They were treating us like criminals.
We were here by ourselves.
We didn't do anything.
I could go on.
There's a lot more here.
But these are the people that we're dealing with.
So, you know, forgive me if I don't jump to attention when they ask for help.
I think if they're going to do these things, they're on their own.
They're on their own.
And there's a whole lot of us that intend to stand in their way.
All right.
A little bit of humor.
I just saw this right before the show.
It has to do with our friends out at Starnenbrook University.
The Trump administration has canceled a $4.5 million Navy grant for researchers at Starnenbrook
University and other institutions to study ocean conditions.
But the interesting thing here is that this is one of the few times, if not the only time,
that Representative Nick LaLoda from Suffolk County, a Trump clone, basically, he actually
stood up and is saying that, no, this isn't entirely right.
He's actually sort of maybe hinting that he might think about disagreeing with something
that Trump did.
It's never happened before, Kyle.
So don't shake your head dismissively like that.
This is a big deal.
Such bravery.
He has a theory, though.
He has a theory.
And this is what I thought was the great part of this.
He believes that the grant was erroneously canceled due to the presence of the word
environment in its supporting materials.
This is where we live now, that a grant can be canceled simply because it has the word
environment in it.
Now, basically, this is what Nick LaLoda said to try and get the grant back.
We want the most lethal fighting force the world has ever known.
Submarine force is a large component of that.
And their ability to detect undersea targets is important.
This grant helps further that, helps keep our fleet safer, our strategic interests guarded.
How pathetic is this?
He's got to go all Rambo in order to get somebody in the Trump administration to maybe say, oh,
OK, maybe the fact that it says environment doesn't mean it's totally bad.
And this is some military stuff that gets me excited.
This is insane.
Some of these stories, the onion was never this funny.
I'm sorry, but they weren't.
This reality is just, it's more than I can handle.
And finally, after stranding a former U.S. agency for international development known as
U.S. aid workers with devices holding sensitive information, the Trump administration says it
will no longer physically collect their government-issued phones, laptops, and tablets.
An email sent by U.S. aid to workers on Thursday, obtained by The Verge, says the devices will be
wiped remotely and then marked as disposed.
Each direct hire or contractor will then be responsible for discarding the equipment.
It's unclear from the email whether the decision affects people stationed abroad or only those
within the continental U.S.
The discarded devices are basically now trash, but maybe they're not completely trash.
And also, you know, I wonder, these people who have been fired, did they even get the email?
Because they don't have access to the machines or the accounts anymore, Kyle?
Yeah, and I think, like, potentially, those devices could be shielded from over-the-air commands
like that and potentially in the right kind of lab connected to an offline network.
I mean, it's just interesting they're putting all of that faith in that way of managing it
for whether it's, you know, worthwhile or not or justified, but it is—and then expecting
people who you've cut ties with to manage the actual physical e-waste.
It's putting a lot of faith in that.
And if then they dispose of it or somehow it's disposed of, what is stopping it from being—from falling
into, you know, some Geek Squad hand or something?
Well, I just wonder, there's all this Doge nonsense about saving money, supposedly.
They're just going to let all this equipment rot somewhere?
Why wouldn't they even try to get the equipment back and repurpose it?
And, you know, it doesn't make any sense.
Alex, go ahead.
Yeah, I think the whole thing is, quite frankly, a little bit ridiculous as well.
I'm just assuming that you can remote wipe something, and that's fine.
I mean, there may be, I think, a lot of security-related concerns for taking these devices back and destroying
them physically in some particular way, a remote might not actually do it in some respects, or
perhaps there's some kind of blocker in doing this.
But, I mean, it's—in another sense, we're just talking about kind of, you know, old technology
that is going to go by the wayside and go be thrown in the trash.
It's going to become the—just like your Nest Emanuel, kind of the adipocer of outdated technologies,
this kind of, you know, decaying matter that we have all of around us, and, you know, there's
no getting away from.
Well, we bookended that rather nicely, didn't we?
Okay, well, that's going to do it for us tonight.
OTH at 2600.com is the email address for Off the Hook.
A reminder, at 8 o'clock on YouTube, we have Off the Hook Overtime.
That's where you can call in and listen to us banter a little bit further.
You can get the address on the main page of 2600.com, or you can simply go to channel
2600 on YouTube.
Rob, I believe you have something to remind us about as well.
Yep, 2600 meetings are happening all over the world this Friday.
Check out 2600.com slash meetings to find one near you or start one near you.
Yeah, meetings take place the first Friday of the month.
It's been going on since 1987.
And it's a way for people who are interested in technology to simply get away from the
computer for a little bit and hang out and meet people, share information, and plot and
scheme.
Happens all over the world, same day of the month.
All right, we'll be back next week with another on-air edition of Off the Hook, 7 p.m.
on Wednesdays.
Again, Overtime begins in just a few minutes on YouTube.
Good night, everyone.
Good night, everyone.
Thank you.


Ready? Yeah, welcome everybody to YouTube here on YouTube.
Hey. It's overtime. Hi YouTube. Yeah. Looks like me and Kyle made it. Rob T. Firefly and Gila, you here? Yes, we did. We are here. And Alex? Yep, I'm here. And are we actually on YouTube? We are. All right. We are. We're sounding good. There's nothing left for us to do then. We're done. All right. Great show, everyone.
Oh, yeah. Well, wonderful. Let's get into it.
Oh, boy.
I can start things off by passing along something that was related to us over Mastodon regarding something we were talking about. Alex, you mentioned aha.gov, A-H-A. And sadly, that has nothing to do with a synth pop group that did the catchy Take On Me song.
It's actually, according to someone called Toroidal Core on Mastodon, it might have something to do with RFK Jr.'s administration for a Healthy America scheme for health and human services that he's been publicizing.
Yeah, that's interesting. I thought about that as well. And it just seems to me like if that is the case, that this aha.gov does relate to America Healthy Again or something like that, I think the whole initiative was called Make America Healthy Again.
And if this was the branding aha that they're using, then I think that they really missed out on the opportunity to use that kind of trademark, make America whatever the hell it is again, right?
So, you know, make America great again, make America, you know, whatever the hell it is.
So I would think that this was a very big missed branding opportunity for MAHA as opposed to aha. But who the hell knows?
I think we're all thinking U-H-U-H.
Uh-huh.
Uh-huh.
Yeah.
Don't you mean U-H-O-H-O-H-O-O.gov?
Oh, that would be good. That's worthwhile, too.
Wow. We have WTF.net, I think. I think that's one of our domains. They should have WTF.gov.
That would be better.
Do we still have .USA?
Yeah.
Yeah. No, that's what we have. WTF.USA.net.
Yeah.
No, it's USA.WTF. We don't know what we have. USA.WTF, I'm pretty sure is what we have.
No. No. It's USA.WTF. That's what it is.
Yeah. You have the at the TLD.
Uh-huh.
WTF.
All right. Way to talk technical, Gila. Okay, I'm lost.
All right.
I do my best.
Okay. You know what's weird, though?
Mm-hmm.
Is MAHA has meant something to me literally my entire, not my entire life, but since I was a kid, because it's the Mid-America Girl Scouts day camp in western Nebraska.
Wow.
I'm sorry, eastern Nebraska.
I went to Camp Maha.
That's really specific.
Okay. All right.
So it's weird to hear people talking about it.
That's all.
You know, I had to.
Well, I wish they were talking about that, because it would be so much more innocent.
I do, too.
Also, side note, actually not a side note at all, but welcome to the 33 people who are online with us right now.
And I do want to thank specifically our friends at Funsocks and Tim in Connecticut for being very, very vigilant and reminding everyone in the chat that meetings are tomorrow.
The new issue of 2600 is out.
Meetings are Friday, not tomorrow.
Sorry.
Meetings are Friday.
The new issue is out.
Unless it's tomorrow where you are.
That's true.
Yes.
And that hope tickets are still up for sale.
And I will say that, you know, you've got until midnight to also support the EFF with your hope ticket purchase.
That's right.
10% goes to EFF.
And, you know, on that subject, I really, I didn't get a chance on the radio to do this, but we are basically kind of in a bad state right now as far as hope tickets go.
It's true that the conference isn't until August instead of July, but we need to have more tickets sold if we're going to have the things we want to have.
We have a tremendous amount of speakers, a tremendous amount of people coordinating workshops and villages and things like that.
The enthusiasm has been through the roof, but it has not reflected as much in ticket sales.
And that is what makes or breaks the conference.
Obviously, if we don't sell tickets, then we can't afford to do the things that the conference demands that we do.
So please go to hope.net.
And if you're if you've been holding off on getting your ticket, then try try to make it possible.
And if you're not coming in person, then please consider a virtual ticket, which is a fraction of the cost and gives you all kinds of access.
And it's a great way to support the conference.
But I have to be honest, if if we don't turn things around, I don't see how we can keep doing this.
I really don't.
I know people are really nervous about traveling.
I know people are nervous about speaking out and things like that.
And I get that.
I'm not trying to convince anybody to do anything they're not comfortable with.
But there are ways of supporting the things that you believe in.
And I'm just saying that this is something that so many of us believe in.
It's something so precious.
And the only reason we're doing it this year is because we're reacting.
We're reacting to the threat.
And we feel that having our voices out there strongly, having a lot of people given a forum to express themselves and to share information from a hacker perspective that will be useful to everybody in this country, in this world.
That is something so priceless that we dare not turn our back and risk it.
So I know that there have been a lot of assumptions.
Yeah, we'll get to it.
Everything's going to be fine.
We can't make those assumptions anymore.
We really cannot make those assumptions.
We have to be strong.
And this affects not only the conference.
It affects the magazine.
It affects everything we do.
And if we're strong, you're strong.
We will be there for you.
It's so important.
It really is so important.
Hope.net, all the info is there.
We always struggle to update webpages.
I know it's not our strong point.
But we have so much that we want to be able to share with you.
And this month coming up is going to be a lot of it.
We still have speaker submissions open, I believe, until the end of the month.
And we have – I know workshops will be closing fairly soon.
There will be an announcement about that.
All kinds of surprises, all kinds of really cool things.
The important thing, though, is we've got to keep going.
We've got to keep this project and the things we do and our spirit.
We have to keep all of that alive.
All right.
That's all I have to say.
Go ahead, Rob.
Yeah, I really want to remind folks of the virtual ticket because we have to acknowledge what's going on out there.
It's really weird out there.
It's scary out there.
Travel is terrifying now in so many more ways than it has been.
And we totally understand if you don't want to get on a plane and come to America right now, for those of you who don't live here.
We totally understand if you don't want to go to an in-person event right now if you're medically vulnerable.
But the virtual tickets are there.
They are just as vital in continuing to support the event and what we do there.
And you do get access to the online streams and the online community things that are available, speaker sessions, online workshops.
It's, you know, live chats.
You submit questions to the speakers and all of that.
You have access to all of that as a virtual attendee.
And, yeah, it is an option.
It is an important option.
And we hope those who are interested get on that.
I just wanted to reiterate the, I think, enthusiasm we felt coming away from being in a new venue, it getting a little bit more familiar as a home for Hope is part of why we made the leap into going annually.
It was also because it's a bit of feedback we've had over the years that people are really excited.
They just wish it was more frequent.
So that was in the back of our minds.
And as was pointed out, the thought we had was that we don't need to wait and give this current regime time to, you know, basically have all of their plans unfurled without us creating a venue and a platform and a forum for discussion, for critiques.
For the state, the types of things that Hope is renowned for regarding technology, regarding its implications with the law, regarding social and cultural phenomena that are always changing at an ever more rapid pace.
And, of course, what is the contemporary hacker doing?
What are we doing?
What are we doing in the face of it?
How are we finding common cause to basically be able to perpetuate the curiosity and excitement and exuberance that comes from being excited about technology?
And this event has always been a hallmark of that.
We want to continue to serve that function and be literally able to host this.
And just basically see a really wide amount of exciting ideas and talks and presentations.
And, of course, just people having fun in the summertime.
The people that attend are the people that make the event, literally.
As Emmanuel pointed out, their participation makes it happen.
It allows us to plan and allocate resources and be there as best we can with as many features and as many fun aspects of it as we can.
So, if you can't attend in person, definitely check out the virtual tickets, as Rob was pointing out.
But also, spread the word.
If you already have a ticket, tell a friend.
Tell people in your family.
If you know, basically, hobbyist groups or any kind of clubs that might be interested.
Student organizations that you know of that might have people that could get something out of this.
That's the kind of thing that really goes a long way.
So, don't forget that your words matter.
And if you share about what hope has been for you and that it is happening annually now.
And that it would be a great opportunity for someone to present or for someone to hear about technology and hacking and be amongst other people like them or not so like them.
This is a great, great event and cause to be a part of.
So, we're inviting you.
Please show up.
Get your tickets and share about it.
Tell people far and wide by word of mouth or in any kind of social network that you can.
That promotion just goes a really long way for something like this that is not a hugely commercial enterprise by any stretch.
We're not taking out ads on buses or on various TV or other sorts of media.
This is all about people who are interested, people who know about what we do and what kinds of stories and interesting topics get covered.
You know the right kind of people that would really benefit from this.
So, please share with them as much as you can.
The comment that I think we all hear the most from people who have attended the conference, not to put too fine a point on this, but the word is life-changing.
You know, people have their lives affected in a very positive way by an event like this.
Picture it.
You're on a college campus in the middle of Queens in New York City.
You know, it's like a country setting, but right outside is the city again.
Easy to get to, convenient, and really cheap when you think about it.
If you stay in a dormitory on campus, as many of us do, it's like going camping.
And it's super cheap as far as what you wind up paying for accommodations, and you're right there in the middle of the conference.
And, you know, however much you want to get involved in the conference, that's up to you.
But it's, you know, it's like going to those European conferences or campgrounds where you just kind of feel like you're away from the world for a few days.
And you build this community, and you stay in touch with people for years, sometimes longer.
It's magical, and we hope we can pull this off and continue doing this.
But that's really up to our attendees, because without our attendees, you know, this isn't possible.
That's just the way it is.
We are still looking for more speakers.
We have a lot so far.
We're going to start announcing some.
But there's room for more.
And if you know some people, we have some special guests that we can't really say anything about at this early stage, because it is still a little bit early.
It's May.
The conference is in August.
And we're not 100% that they can make it.
But these are the kinds of things that we're balancing constantly when we're putting on a conference.
Can this person give a talk?
Will this person be there?
And if you have people that you can think of that you want to suggest or even that you might know, please, we're open to that.
We are completely open to that.
We have at least another month of speaker coordination before we have to start finalizing the schedule.
So, again, please spread the word.
Hope.net.
All the info is there.
Please buy your tickets.
Encourage people to get tickets.
Keep hope alive.
Really, I couldn't say it any better than that.
All right, so that's enough about that.
Isn't that a Crystal Method song?
Is it?
Keep Hope Alive.
You know, I'm sure everybody has said that at some point.
Wow, some 90s trip hop.
Do we want to open up phones?
Yeah, I'm ready.
All right.
Let's do it.
We haven't done this in a while.
802-321-4225.
Is that still our number?
Do we pay the bill?
Yeah, I think it is active.
There's also a toll-free number, but I don't know it off the top of my head.
Maybe someone can chime in.
It's 833-755-2600.
All right, but 802-321-4225 is the main number, and that's 802-321-HACK, if you have letters
on your phone.
While we're waiting for the phone to ring, any other stories, adventures people have gone
through in the past?
Alex, you're back from Switzerland, it looks like.
I am.
I'm back.
It was a lot.
I had flown out to Switzerland last week, Monday night, arrived Tuesday afternoon.
I was over at the World Intellectual Property Organization that's part of the United Nations,
and I was actually being interviewed on stage about the Ethereum name service and Web3, and
it was the 25th anniversary at WIPO of something called the UDRP, or the Uniform Domain Name Resolution
Policy, and that's the policy that WIPO had created by which you can remove domain names from
cyber squatters, cyber squatters, et cetera, and it sounds like we have a call, so I'll shut up, and why don't we
take the call, hopefully, if we...
I think, yeah, we're getting it, guys.
Yeah, let's pick this one up, and...
Go ahead.
Yeah, good evening.
You're on...
Wow, there's a hum on this line.
Is there anything we can do about that hum?
Yeah, we might have to reconnect, or...
Okay.
Well, let's give it a try.
All right.
If there's somebody there, we can...
I can read out, Rick.
We can barely hear you, but go ahead.
Okay, let me try...
I'll call back.
Okay.
Okay.
We've got to get rid of the hum.
Is that our hum?
I think it's our hum, because it only happens when I bring this up.
Yeah.
Ouch.
Yeah, hear that?
Is it really like that?
It's like that.
See, it's...
We've got to get rid of that.
I call her.
We're going to get rid of the hum before we pick up your...
We haven't changed anything, so...
Well, I can tell you, this hum is here.
Oh, I know what it might be.
Hold on.
Well, then fix that, whatever that might be.
And feel free to talk out there and signal them.
Okay, we do have a question.
That Alex is mainly directed to you.
What's the latest on Virgil, is the question from the chat.
Ah, sure.
The latest on Virgil is that he is in a halfway house over in Baltimore.
He's doing all right.
He's going to be there for, I think, at least a few more weeks, is what it seems like.
We're hopeful to get him into home confinement before too long, but not sure.
The regulations there and the rules and things seem to have changed based on what we had previously understood.
But he's doing well.
He's out.
He's got internet access.
You know, he's interacting with the world.
And I think in really good spirits.
I think this is just also a very precarious time for him as well.
Because these halfway houses, they afford you a little bit of rope, is kind of how this is described in many ways.
So you have a bit more freedom, you have a lot of rope, but you can also hang yourself quite easily with that particular rope because there's a lot of surveillance, there's a lot of monitoring of all of these persons' activities.
And so I think it's a particularly dangerous time for Virgil because he does not want to, I think, cross the line and get sent back to prison before his full term would end.
But this is a very, very big improvement.
And I'm really glad to say that, you know, we got to this level, I think, quicker than we had originally thought we would, given that we were able to reduce the sentence last year.
And I think it was unfortunate that we didn't have him out and over to a halfway house even sooner than this, given that he was eligible to have been released to a halfway house for some time now.
Can I just butt in here for a second?
We're trying to deal with this.
It's possible it's on the phone line, but people are calling the phone line.
So as soon as they hang up, we pick up and someone else is there.
We need to test the phone line.
So please, nobody call while we're testing it so we can try and fix this.
Go about your conversation.
Thank you.
All right.
Well, yeah.
Now that you've interrupted the narrative flow here, the entire story, interjecting some nonsense about, you know, testing the lines here, we can say anything we want about Emmanuel right now because his headphones are off.
That's true.
We could literally say anything.
I'm too pure of heart to do that.
So I am going to push another question from the chat.
This is specifically for another panelist.
A question.
Did Rob guess the password on his old Twitter account?
Yes.
Yes.
For those who missed the show a few weeks ago, a listener had re-registered my old Twitter handle, which I abandoned and deleted quite some time ago, and then tried to inspire me to hack it and reclaim it.
And the answer is no, I haven't guessed the password because I haven't tried because I'm supremely uninterested in it.
So, you know, if anyone else out there wants to take a shot at Rob underscore T underscore Firefly on Twitter, which is not me, even though it's got my picture on it and a rather old picture.
And it's following a bunch of crap I would never follow.
But if anybody is interested in doing anything with that, it's completely out of my hands and it's completely out of my field of interest.
So, hey.
The other thing I'm finding interesting, and I had forgotten about this, is that now you can't look at Twitter unless you're signed in to Twitter.
Yeah.
And I, you know, I'm not.
I don't have a Twitter login.
I don't care.
And, yeah, so, you know, I don't even know what we're seeing there anymore because I can't see it.
I'd look at it, except I'd rather do anything, literally anything else in the world.
But Funsocks does make a good point, knowing your proclivities.
Yes, the password probably was swordfish.
Maybe.
That would have been funny.
That would have been funny.
Based on what we're seeing in the background, it does look like we are still holding off with some technical issues and trying to get some things fixed on the phone line.
So, Alex, Rob, it's just us, you guys.
Wow.
It's just us.
And I'm not quite sure how to handle this.
I'm not either, but I am going to point out something.
Well, I'm not.
Actually, Tim and Ken, again, I'm going to hold this for a second because Emmanuel's not wearing headphones right now.
So I can't say it because he's not going to hear it.
But you know what?
I don't think you're wrong.
And as soon as Emmanuel puts his headphones back on.
A shout out to Alex from a listener that says shout out to Alec.
Well, Alec for tipping off 404 Media to the .gov domain names.
That was a good scoop.
I would like to mention that his name is Alex with an X, not Alec Baldwin.
That could have just been a typo, though, because the letters are right next to each other.
That is very true.
And yes, Optical Phoenix.
It is the Gila Rob and Alex show.
Thank you, Fun Socks.
Yes, Optical Phoenix.
We talked at great length, actually, about the death of Nest version 1 and version 2 on the over-the-air show.
Emmanuel yelled at the cloud for a while.
It was fun.
It's fine.
It's totally fine.
We are good.
I think we should just give out Rob's personal phone number, right?
And then we can just put it on speaker and have it on the air.
Should we do that?
Oh, I think it's a great idea.
I definitely want people to be able to contact us at our home with no.
Yes.
Oh, absolutely.
I mean, 212-279-9970.
Isn't that your home line number?
No, I changed it.
Now it's 555-1212.
Oh, is that what it is?
Oh, I'm still hearing it.
Yeah.
That's a hum.
That's a hum.
You know why that sound equipment over there is humming?
Because it doesn't know the words.
Precisely.
Hmm.
It's a little humdinger, isn't it?
This is fascinating, though.
Like, we have this call-in show.
We do it for the purpose of taking calls.
And, you know, the technology has decided, you know, computer says no.
But nevertheless, we persist.
Yeah, we persist.
We thank those of you on the chat for sticking with us through this.
And if you on the chat have any particular questions or comments you want to throw in,
now's the time because we're just concentrating on you without the distraction of audio telecommunications.
We're not getting phone calls.
We, you know, Emmanuel and Kyle are in and out.
But, yes, it is for the moment the Gila Ramanale show.
So, I don't know.
Guys, heard any good jokes lately?
Yeah, but they're not appropriate for YouTube.
Yes, I think that's probably true.
So, I did.
So, I know my brother has a Nest thermostat in his home.
So, I panic sent him the article link during the show.
And I said, oh, my God, you have to get a new thermostat.
And he said, no, mine's newer than that.
I was like, okay, I just wanted to double check.
Also, let it not be said that your brother isn't on top of things and, you know, upgrades from the room.
Yeah, you mean like the Internet of Things lock the man put on his door?
Hmm.
I'm like, someday you're not going to be able to get in your house.
There's going to be a power outage.
You're not going to be able to get in your house.
Then what are you going to do?
I'm like, someday you're not going to be able to get in your house.
There's going to be a power outage.
You're not going to be able to get in your house.
Then what are you going to do?
I knew someone who got a brand new apartment in a brand new apartment building just built, and the door lock required a phone app to use. And there was a big to do about it, because not everyone has a phone, not everyone has a phone app there. And not everyone should be expected to have a phone that has a charge. And you is something you want to fiddle with to get into the door of your own apartment.
I worked with someone who only had a flip phone until a couple of years ago, when they rolled out this phone app that we all had to put on our cell phones so that we can have access to our work phones all the time. And he went and got a smartphone specifically for that purpose.
Guys, if I can just step in for another second. We just rebooted our delay system. So you might have heard a little bit of confusion with people skipping just a little bit.
And that's why that happened, because we're trying to track this down. We've isolated it to not the board. It's something to do with the line that carries the phone. And that's what it sounds like right now.
I'm sorry. What's that, Kyle?
I could try the compressor, too, but I don't know if that would actually do anything.
Yeah, try that. And thanks whoever keeps calling and making it hard for us to do this.
Oh, you know who that is.
Can you can you unplug the phone while you're testing from the phone line?
Yeah, let's troubleshoot together. Yeah. Unplug the phone line and see what happens.
Oh, obviously, the phone stops ringing. But as far as the actually call, you can move it back to the regular channel for a telephone, I think.
That way it's less confusing.
Can I?
Yeah.
Let's go over when the phone stops ringing.
OK, now I'm going to bring that up.
I have to say, though, it is really wonderful.
Finally, being not the only person with audio problems here.
We have another question, which is Rob asks Fun Socks, what did the gas smell like?
Good question, Fun Socks. It smelled like gas.
It was methane gas. It was from a gas line.
For those who didn't hear the radio hour, I was in the midst of the large high pressure gas leak in Morningside Heights, Manhattan this morning.
I was not responsible for it, but I was working in the area and evacuated from the area as a result.
And, yeah, it was it was quite a fascinating experience.
It was loud. It was scary. It was stinky.
But no one was hurt, thankfully.
And, yeah, the gas smelled like mercaptan, which is the additive they add to natural gas so that you can smell it.
It's the stuff that makes it smell like farts.
And, yeah, the whole street smelled like it.
The inside of the building I was in before we got out into the street smelled like it because that's how much gas was being thrown into the air.
And, yeah, we kept walking downtown until we didn't smell it anymore.
And that was on 115th Street.
And, yes, you did eventually get the remainder of the day off work.
But there were also cascading transit issues dealing stemming from this particular problem.
So it took you a while to get home also.
Yes.
But you had.
But my my.
A shortened subject.
Some of my work is stuff I can do on my smartphone.
And so my boss actually took a picture of me still doing my job on a park bench.
But on Morningside Drive while we were waiting to hear whether the building was safe to go into again or we should break off for the day.
So, Emmanuel.
Yes.
Can I help you?
Did I.
There was a comment specifically for you that I did want to share with you, but I wanted to wait till you had your headphones back on.
Which is Tim in Connecticut says Google Killing Nest.
I wouldn't worry till it's done.
I've heard too many Google voices going to die many, many, many times.
So.
Yeah, but they said it.
They said it this time.
So I know they said it, but that doesn't necessarily mean it's actually going to happen.
And for people who are writing in saying they like the buzz sound.
There we are.
Yes.
Also, for what it's worth.
The first thing I said when I got home today was thank you for not blowing up.
I am.
It was literally the least I could do.
Oh, interesting.
Okay.
Fun Sox tells us that USA gas smells like farts.
UK gas smells like rotten eggs.
Yep.
Today I learned.
Yeah.
In its natural form, natural gas does not smell like anything.
So, yes.
The suppliers add things to it to make it stinky.
Well, what movie was that was this from?
Speaking of things blowing up, gee, I'm real sorry your mom blew up, Ricky.
You remember that?
Do you remember that line?
Anybody?
It sounds familiar.
It does.
But I can't.
It was it was John Cusack who said it.
A movie.
I think it was from the 80s.
Better Off Dead.
Yes.
You got it.
That was good.
Yep.
Yeah.
I'm sure somebody in the chat probably got it before.
But if they have gotten it, they got held up by slow mode and I haven't seen it yet.
But Tim in Connecticut has an interesting anecdote, which is, you know, he's like, I remember when we would do a fire drill and people in the building, first thing they would do outside was fire up a smoke.
But I think you guys were all able to tell that this was very much not a drill.
Yes.
Because it smelled like gas.
And I'm sure the further you got down the stairs, the more gaseous it smelled.
Gaseous?
Gaseous.
Yeah.
Gassy.
Gaseous.
Clay.
But yeah, I was talking to a group text I'm on about what was going on and somebody did make the joke that, oh, yeah, time for a smoke break.
But even if I did smoke, which I don't, I think I would have known better.
Yes.
I think we should just do the phone calls with the hum, right?
I mean, or we could just have, we could just have an oops, all YouTube edition of off the hook over time.
Oops, all panel.
Yeah.
Well, they're trying.
They are.
They're, they're trying, I think, valiantly over here.
I have faith in them.
I think they're going to get this sorted out.
They're working hard.
There's frustration on their faces.
Is that a manual smashing something now?
What is he hitting?
I don't know.
I think he's crying a little.
Alex, you have the link up by any chance?
Are you watching YouTube?
I, I, yeah, I have it on.
Okay.
We have a question for you in the chat and I will let you choose whether you want to answer it.
Where is it?
Oh, Alex didn't watching hotel porn.
No, I have not.
Yeah.
That's a good, that's a good question.
Yeah.
I find that the hotel porn just, you know, wholly unsatisfying.
Really.
You know, yeah.
It's like, nothing like the real thing.
Yeah.
But I have been in a lot of hotels lately.
Yeah.
At my time in life, I find the most interesting thing to do in a hotel is generally go to sleep.
All right, folks.
I would tend to agree.
Go ahead.
Finish your sentence and we have an update.
I had a question for Alex, but we can hold it until after the update.
Okay.
Well, basically, you know, whoever keeps war dialing us is really pissing us off because
it makes it so much harder for us to troubleshoot, especially when we ask people don't do that.
But, okay, so basically, we can't really track it down because there is a hum every time we bring the phone up, we move the phone, we change the wires, we change the phone.
The hum just seems to be like a curse.
So what we're going to do in order to establish things tonight is just accept very short calls where you can ask us a question and then we will turn you down or hang up and then we'll answer you a question.
You know, I wish we could have more of a conversation, but that's all.
Well, it's either that or nothing because it's, you know, do you want this, you know, this, this sound, this humming?
It's, it's terrible.
All right.
It's kind of a liminal space.
Maybe some people might enjoy that.
All right.
So let's try it with this, with this first one.
802-321-4225.
Quick question.
Are they, are they connected?
Okay.
And good evening.
One question.
That's all we have time for with the hum.
Go ahead.
Okay.
Oh, this is getting here.
Rebel, you know, you've been a pain in the ass tonight.
All we asked was people not to call while we were troubleshooting this and you've been calling us nonstop.
So listen, you have one question you can ask us.
Then we're hanging up because that is what we explained to everybody else.
Okay.
What do I want to ask?
Let's see.
Technically, that's a question, but I'm going to give you one more chance.
Okay.
Oh, I hope.
I don't, um, I'm hoping that I hope.
No, not at all.
Okay.
Rebel, next time, listen to the show.
Okay.
So that you're prepared.
All right.
Thank you.
802-321-4225.
Gila, go ahead.
Um, but I thought Rebel was banned on the show tonight.
You know, I was being nice.
He was banned, but we didn't do a show last week.
I didn't do overtime last week.
So I lifted the ban.
I didn't, I didn't log it.
So people didn't know that, but it's true.
So he's not in violation.
He could, he could have gotten a perma banned.
Uh, he, yeah.
And that's a serious thing that we don't hand out lightly, but he's not perma banned, but
he did piss us off because he wouldn't stop calling when we were trying to analyze a phone
line.
All right.
He's not perma banned yet.
Um, he's, he's, he's on the road to perma ban though.
He is definitely, he's got his feet on that road.
So he needs to be careful.
Um, but yes, uh, go ahead.
No, it's not, it's not there.
Go ahead.
Oh, next.
Yeah.
Next call is invited to call us.
Okay.
Three, two, one, four, two, two, five.
Go ahead.
But as Funsox points out, if you have questions and you don't want to brave the hum, you can
also pop them in the chat.
And we did have a question.
If you're in the chat, there are people listening that aren't in the chat.
Are there though?
You know, this is exactly why I don't like having a chat because we just assume the chat
is all and a chat is not all the chat is part of it.
But there's many times I listen to things on YouTube and I'm not in a chat.
We have a call.
We have a call.
All right.
And good evening.
Make it quick.
Hello, this is Luray Chu from Washington, D.C. calling on a Western Electric 2,500.
Unfortunately, that doesn't help us tonight because our phone line sucks.
But please ask a question.
We're pleased though.
Yes.
Well, uh, I don't have it.
I'm, okay.
I have one thing to say about Google that also ties into this phone and the analog telephone
adapter I'm connecting it to, but yeah, not a question, just a statement I would like
to make.
Okay.
Make, make that statement as, as you might be able to hear, uh, we have a terrible hum.
By the way, can you hear the terrible hum?
No.
You don't hear the hum.
Only we hear the hum.
That's interesting.
That's a valuable bit of information.
Okay.
Um, that has earned you more time.
So ask your question or make your statement.
Go ahead.
Okay.
So this is a story about Google discontinuing things in light of the, yeah, what you brought
up on the air earlier.
Well, this Western Electric 2500, it is connected to a OBI 200 analog telephone adapter.
And what that does is let you use analog phones as a voice phone.
And there used to be a feature with this, uh, where you could use Google voice on these.
You know, Google voice, they offer free phone numbers for us and Canada.
And I think they'd shut down with that around, down around, I don't know, either 2018 or 2020.
But, um, yeah, I mean, that is, that's something that affected the functionality of the device
I bought after that.
I mean, it would be very convenient to just have, uh, for me just to buy this ATA set up
with Google voice and not to worry about paying for anything.
But, I mean, I did find a VoIP service, VoIP.ms, which is pretty constant effective and it
works for me.
But, yeah, I mean, that's my experience.
That's, uh, a Google shutdown, which affected me personally with my equipment and stuff.
Okay.
Well, thank you for sharing that with us.
And we're going to continue trying to troubleshoot our problems here.
But, uh, please keep listening and hopefully we can talk to you on a clearer line next time.
Okay.
Thank you.
Goodbye.
All right.
Take care.
Bye.
All right.
Uh, did we learn anything from that?
That, um, I don't know.
We learned that, that it can't be heard on the other end, but it can be heard here.
And that people use ATAs to make their older phones work on, uh, voice over IP applications,
which is great.
We've talked about that in previous weeks.
Sounds so nice without the phone, doesn't it?
So nice and crystal clear.
It's, it's very nice.
Um, so.
I know.
Could we hold the earpiece of the phone up to a microphone?
Would that work?
Look, it's low tech, I know, but, uh, desperate times.
I'll wait for a better idea.
I'd like to try it.
Let's give it a shot.
Eight Oh two, three, two, one, four, two, two, five.
We're not going to be at this much longer because, uh, we have better things to do.
I have another hybrid, but it's, that could go wrong in all kinds of ways.
And it's just, I don't, I don't think it's going to enhance the discussion.
Probably not.
So we do have a question that's in the chat.
Okay.
Um, are you guys doing your own hope talks is the question.
Well, so I believe that's at us in a general unit.
We will be speaking in one form or another.
It might be speaking to people one-on-one or it might be speaking to a, you know, we, we
get dragged onto, uh, panels, uh, at a moment's notice, but you know, it's not about us.
It's about the community.
It's about getting all kinds of different voices out there.
It's about, you know, cramming in a whole, let me have a hundred talks, you know, getting
all that scheduled is the most important thing and giving people a chance who might not have,
uh, addressed our, our crowd before.
Um, but yeah, we're, we're, we're going to be on site.
So definitely it's a, it's, it's a possibility.
Yeah.
I would just add that at this point in my life, like I, I am open to talking about my experiences,
but I don't think like you said, I don't think doing it at our own event is really the right
venue, but I am open to talking or writing or speaking, uh, publicly about my involvement
and what all of this has been like, but again, but hope is not the event for that.
It's not about me or, or, um, what the operational side of all of this is, but I've definitely
thought about speaking.
I have a lot of things on my mind generally, and, um, that's about it.
But I guess the answer is no, I will be participating in hope.
I'll speak, uh, generally if, if called upon, but I won't be giving a talk.
We're just speaking for the two of us.
I mean, Alex, I know you're giving a talk and, uh, you know, maybe Rob, maybe Gila,
I don't know, but, uh, Alex, you want to tell us something about what, what you're planning?
Yeah.
Uh, I've got a couple of things planned actually.
I don't know if you remember, but the last hope, which was last year, I did three separate
talks.
It was, it was actually quite a insanely busy weekend because I think I spoke on Friday,
Saturday and Sunday.
And so I'm doing a talk with, uh, Dan Nowak and Roel Schoenberg again, you know, and we're
talking kind of more about the philosophy of decentralization and various things.
And from there, I actually have an idea for two other panels that I'm in the midst of putting
together.
So, um, if the speaker selection committee is, is kind to me again this year, I might end
up doing another three different panels again and making it a really busy weekend.
So, um, but so yeah, I'll be, I'll be talking.
I usually, I feel like I've given some kind of talk at pretty much just about every hope
for the last, like, I don't know, 14 years or something like that.
So why the hell not keep it going?
We, we, you have a comment that says Alex gives a mean presentation.
And if I may point of personal privilege, one of my favorite things in the world is
Emmanuel, when you're talking to anybody about anything and you find what they're saying
interesting, you're like, you know, that would be a really good hope talk.
That's true.
And it is one of my favorite things to watch you say that to somebody else, because first
of all, this idea that like everybody's got ideas that are worth sharing, but also the
encouragement that that gives, like, I was talking to you about something for like 90
seconds.
Once you're like, you know, that would be a good hope talk.
And I would have never thought that that would be, I could expand first of all, 90 seconds
to 50 minutes, but also just that is an incredibly encouraging thing to hear.
Well, you know, it's interesting because that's kind of how the magazine got started, you know,
going, uh, calling up BBSs back in the eighties and, and seeing these stories that people
were telling about everything from jumping into trash bins to find computer printouts,
uh, to, uh, uh, hacking into the phone company to, uh, uh, messing around with their own phones.
All of that was being told on, on, uh, BBSs to a relatively small crowd.
And, you know, the people that were starting the magazine said that would make a good story.
That would make something that lots of people would appreciate.
So it's, it's sharing the stories that we have because you all have stories.
We all have experiences.
We say we don't know as much as other people.
And sure, that's true.
But a lot of people don't know as much as you.
And I guarantee, you know, something that those people who know more than you don't know,
you know, we, we all are experts in one thing or another, and we all are amateurs in something
else.
So the important thing is to just, you know, realize that you're, uh, in a friendly place.
People are listening.
People are learning.
And there's so much you can learn as well.
So I hope that's the environment that continues to flourish.
Yeah, that's seriously one of my favorite things about hope.
And, you know, I've spoken at hope in the past.
I've been on the speaker selection committee in the past.
And one of the most joyful things I think is when you look at that hope schedule and,
uh, as an attendee and you're like, wait, there's a talk on that.
This is amazing.
I can't miss this one.
And that, that started as somebody having the idea and presenting the idea, the idea.
And I've heard from so many people over the years that, oh yeah, I have this idea that
might be a hope talk, but I'm not sure.
I don't know if it's cool enough.
I don't know if I'm going to be good enough at doing it.
And I say, make the submission because no one's going to make fun of you.
If it doesn't get in, no one's going to shame you.
No one, there will be no consequences.
Literally not a single consequence.
If you submit a talk and it's not accepted, but there's the chance that it will be accepted
and you'll get to do it and people will love it.
Submit your talk ideas.
And we have seen so many creative, uh, and, and, and fascinating subjects being submitted
for talk ideas this time.
It's, you know, it's almost unbelievable, uh, just the wide diversity of, uh, of experience
and interest.
So it's great to see that kind of a response.
That's, that's not something I am worried about at all.
I think, you know, seeing that kind of, um, uh, a response to, uh, an invitation to submit
talks.
It's, it's great.
I want to see more, obviously.
And I know there are a lot more people out there that have something to say.
We want to hear from all of you and credentials, you know, that that's not what we're all
about.
You can be, you can be 13 or you can be 93.
As long as you have something to say, something to share, and you're willing to, um, uh, listen,
take questions, that kind of thing.
We want to hear from you.
Uh, so I'm, I'm not at all concerned that that community is not out there.
That community is most certainly out there.
But as I said at the beginning, we need to get attendees to, uh, show up as well so that
we can make the thing actually work feasibly, uh, financially and all that.
It's, um, you know, that, that's, that's the last ingredient.
We, we, we crossed that bridge.
We're going to have, well, we're going to have a great conference no matter what.
I just don't want to be the last conference.
I want it to be one that leads to another and that, uh, you know, we, we are enthused
about because boy, there is so much out there, so much knowledge and so much enthusiasm.
Uh, we have a question.
Should we bring our electronic badges this year?
Um, well you can, I mean, you know, I'm never going to tell you not to bring something
electronic.
Um, I know we are working on electronic badges for this year.
I can't say more than that at this stage, but you won't be disappointed.
I'm pretty sure I can say that.
There will be badges.
Yeah, definitely.
There'll be badges.
There's always one sort or another.
Yes.
And, uh, someone said VPNs explained with puppets.
Um, I would love to see that as a talk.
I would come to that.
Even if that's five minutes at hackers got talent, I would love to hear that explanation
and everything's better with puppets.
Um, yeah, bring it.
Well, Jason Scott will be, of course, uh, uh, part of hackers got talent as always.
And, uh, he'll be giving a talk as well.
And so many people that just are, are staples of hope, but there's also newcomers and returning
faces and surprises and all kinds of things like that.
And you make it all possible by, by investing in the conference and making it, making it possible
for us to have it in the first place.
Yes.
Put it on your schedule, plan, plan on it.
Do you want to try and take one more call?
Yeah, go ahead.
All right.
802-321-4225.
Apologies for what's what we're going through tonight.
We don't know what it is.
Uh, and it's hard to troubleshoot in the middle of a show.
Yeah.
It's, it's a new mystery.
We, we will spend some of our free time troubleshooting it, but it is, it's a very nerve wracking to
be on the radio and disassembling your means of, of making radio at the same time.
So, yeah, I don't know.
I'm sure everyone understands.
I'm going to try something.
If I bring this up and bring everything else down.
Love the hum.
No, that didn't work.
Okay.
I thought if I brought everything else down and left the phone up, maybe the hum would
go away.
We've tried everything else.
We've, we've swapped out wires.
We've moved things on the board.
Um, it's, it's possible.
See, the reason I don't think it's the phone is because it happens when the phone is hung
up.
Yeah.
But like when I disconnect it, when you disconnect the wire to the phone, there it is.
Now let me disconnect it.
Yeah.
I think that's definitely, there it is.
Okay.
So hold on.
So, so what is that?
What is that?
Okay.
What does that wire plug into on the other end?
The phone line for this facility.
Okay.
But, but that wire has to go somewhere.
Where does it go?
It doesn't go down to the central office.
Is it plugged into the wall?
Is it plugged into another device?
I don't want to discuss the, the ins and outs of, of how the pathways work, but let's
just say it connects to a device that accesses the public telephone network.
Well, maybe that device is the problem is my point.
Would you like me to disassemble the wiring from the walls?
I'll go ahead and rip out all the wiring and we can go through all of it.
Well, that's eventually, we're going to have to do that at some point.
I thought it might be like fans or some kind of climate stuff.
You thought it was neighbors down the street, people running air conditioners and things.
We don't know.
We don't know what's causing it.
It's a, it's a mystery.
It's, it's, it's the damnedest thing.
I don't want to talk spec or, you know, describe what type of phone line it is or how, or what
it is connected to, but we will spend some time when we're not on.
It's a naughty phone line right now.
I'll tell you that.
It's angry.
It's an angry telephone line.
You know, so what we should do before every show is hit every button and test every channel
just to make sure we don't have surprises.
Oh, really?
Oh, that's what we should do?
No, we haven't.
We have not been doing that.
Oh my gosh, that sounds so fun.
Let me, let me just, let me just play my, my whole week around that.
All right.
That works.
802-321-4225.
Is the phone hung up so that people can call?
Yes.
Okay.
And the ringer is on or off?
Let me check.
All right.
It's on mild.
Do you want it on spicy?
No, no.
Mild is fine for these purposes.
We'll do one more call and then the torture can end.
We just, again, want short questions or comments and then we'll make the hum go away as you
bid us farewell.
Please call 802-321-4225.
That's 833-755-2600.
I'll say it slowly.
8-0-2-3-2-1-4-2-2-5.
That's one number and then you gave a second number too.
8-3-3-7-5-5-2-6-0-0.
Okay.
Two, two phone numbers there.
And if you were considering giving a speech tonight, this is not a good night for it because
we have horrible hum on the phone line.
So we can only accommodate a brief statement or question.
And here we go.
Go ahead.
Please leave us your brief statement or question.
Hi, gang.
Tim in Connecticut.
Just wanted to make mention that I am using an OB-100 with an AT adapter and a Mobell phone
for my Google voice, which has been killed many times by Google and yet it still exists.
So I think there's hope for the test unit.
All it needs is everybody to complain.
Dang.
Because Google doesn't apparently like a black eye.
Anyway, catch you online.
Thank you.
Thank you, Tim from Connecticut.
I should point out one of the highlights of Hope for me was meeting Tim in the dive bar
by the hotel at Hope.
Remember that?
Yes.
We drove the van over.
That was really, really fun.
That was a lot of fun.
That was a lot of fun.
Thanks for calling back, too.
Because he was one of the first callers and wanted to make his comment.
And we got completely distracted.
Again, troubleshooting this, the means of production while producing is very difficult and nerve-wracking.
So thanks, Tim, for that.
And thanks for telling us about your ATAs, everybody.
I know that's a very personal thing, but we like to know that people are using analog adapters
and that, in this case, they're availing themselves of Google's services.
You can use it with, I think, a myriad of other providers, virtual phone providers.
I think you need to do a little more configuring as far as your direct inbound dialing or whatever
all those acronyms are.
It is not trivial, but I guess Google Voice is somewhat more straightforward or at least
ready to go, and people are using that.
So that's exciting.
That's encouraging stuff.
And we're jealous that you don't have a hum either.
Well, you know, I just thought of one thing, and this is probably nothing, but I figured
I'd mention it because the detective always tells you, if you think of anything, just let
us know.
So, and I did, something did come to mind, yes, Detective Sipowicz, it's the tiniest
thing, but I remember, it was either last week or the week before that, we were doing
some extracurricular activities with this board, and we were playing vinyl.
We were playing vinyl through a different channel.
I know, I already turned all that down.
Is it possible doing that somehow angered the phone line on the board?
Well, the cable's right here, and I already turned everything down from that.
Yeah, that was like one of the first things I did.
I can turn more things down.
No, no, that's okay.
Yes.
Well, I guess we should say our good nights then, because this is kind of...
Yeah.
But before we do that, I will just say, in yet another way in which we're asking for
help, keep us going at WBAI.
Go to buddy.wbai.org and do what you can to keep the radio station, our radio home, and
a vital source of news and information and entertainment here in New York City and abroad.
Keep it going, buddy.wbai.org or call 833-WBAI-NYC.
That's 833-922-4692 to make a pledge.
And once again, we are sorry for the technical issues.
This happens occasionally.
It's part of the nature of the beast.
We appreciate your patience.
And as always, you can write to us, OTH at 2600.com.
And the comments on the chat are there for Gila and others to read and share.
And hopefully next week, we'll be able to have this resolved and take more longer phone
calls.
Yeah.
This never happens.
We're really embarrassed.
It happens.
It never happens.
Fairly regularly.
Not often.
But it does happen maybe every six months.
Something like this happens.
So embarrassing.
We've got a week to sort it out.
We've got a week to sort it out.
But The Hum has fans.
And I guess now I'm concerned that The Hum is going to become our Steve Urkel.
We could just leave The Hum going until the next show on YouTube.
I don't care.
Is that what people want?
Probably more popular.
More listeners than we get, I'll bet.
I did take the opportunity to share a quick clip from A Mighty Wind in the chat.
So that was fun.
Okay.
I don't know what that means, but it sounds fascinating.
If you know, you know.
If you know, you know.
Hum for dad.
Sometimes ignorance is bliss.
All right.
That's going to be it for tonight, folks.
Thank you, everybody.
And we will see you in a week.
We did our best.
We did.
Nobody can take that away from us.
Yeah.
I mean, what are they really going to say?
I don't know.
I don't.
I mean, what do they know?
Right.
Get your own phone line.
I didn't hit the button.