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Yeah, I mean, maybe, like, in the next room, but, like, sort of here, too.
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We have Rob T. Firefly.
Good evening.
We have Gila.
Good evening.
And we also have Alex.
You do.
Good evening.
Well, what a week this has been.
I got to tell you, you know, I've seen a lot of hateful activity.
I've seen a lot of cowardice.
I've seen just ugliness, I guess, is the best way to phrase it.
But we alluded to the events of last week a bit in overtime a week ago, not on the show itself.
Um, and I guess we are, we are forced to, um, to discuss this even more, uh, because there has just been so much in the world of technology and social media, uh, that has happened that we can't let go unremarked.
Um, well, okay, we've, um, we've been aware of the backlash.
Uh, we're talking, of course, about the assassination of, of Charlie Kirk, um, which, uh, obviously was a horrible thing.
We've, uh, you know, we shouldn't, uh, be expected to have to say, of course, it's a horrible thing when somebody is, uh, is, is killed in the prime of their life or in any part of their life, uh, simply for what they say.
Uh, that is a tremendous failure of, um, of society, of, of people.
Uh, it's something that nobody, nobody should, uh, uh, celebrate or, um, um, seek to, um, uh, have, have more such incidents.
That's, that goes without saying, but I guess we have to say it anyway.
And yeah, you're going to find people who, uh, who say stupid things.
You're always going to find people who say that.
But the thing that, uh, I, I think we're all kind of, um, uh, just gobsmacked by is, um, the leadership of this country and how it turned on its own people.
Uh, at, at the snap of a finger, uh, before any evidence was actually brought forth as to who was responsible for this, they were pointing fingers at half the country, at all the people who did not vote for them.
Because that is the country we live in now, where you're either with us or you're the enemy.
You remember back in the day, uh, when, when, when Obama got elected, how he was saying he was going to, uh, represent all the people.
I think Biden said the same thing.
I mean, this guy now is not like that.
Uh, he doesn't believe in unifying.
He believes in, um, uh, tearing apart, causing conflict.
And, um, I guess more of what we are witnessing here.
And it's a terrible thing.
It's a terrible thing.
It's a scary thing because we've seen, uh, what has happened to, um, uh, to some people.
Um, you know, some people say stupid things.
As I said, uh, some people just question and they're treated the same way.
Um, we got a letter from, uh, from a listener.
By the way, um, going forward, um, we are not reading the names of people who write to the show unless they sign their names.
In other words, your name will be in your email address, obviously, but we're not going to read your name unless you indicate that you want us to read your name.
Because, you know, we don't want repercussions to come to you, uh, because of something you might say.
That is, that is the country we live in right now.
Uh, where people could actually, um, uh, I don't know, uh, just, uh, cause intimidation, uh, based on words they don't like.
So, that's, uh, something that we, uh, we will do for our listeners.
Um, this person wrote in saying,
I'm sure you all heard about the tragic assassination of Charlie Kirk, uh, founder of the right-wing Turning Point USA.
Uh, while I do not agree with all his positions, I really admired his willingness to go into the lion's den, even though that den was often stacked with naive college kids unprepared to face his talking points.
And, um, that is true.
He was an accomplished debater.
It's hard to, uh, debate somebody who is an accomplished debater, even if your point is that we breathe oxygen and the sky is blue.
Uh, you will lose.
Uh, the reason, um, I bring it up is because I was made aware of a website called www.charleysmurderers.com.
Um, yeah, um, this was a very disturbing website.
Um, that's, that's me saying that, uh, going back to our letter writer.
I don't know who was behind it.
I assume some, uh, right-wing Kirk supporters.
Uh, they are cataloging people who posted positive messages about Kirk's assassination and are trying to shame them or get them fired from their jobs.
Um, you know, it's a kind of tactic that, uh, the left is often accused of using, uh, shaming people into, um, um, uh,
I guess compliance in the eyes of critics, but, uh, we shouldn't be surprised to see this kind of thing being used.
Um, there are some issues here that go beyond that though, but let's, um, let's continue with the letter.
2600 took a lot of heat for publishing the names of Doge employees, even though they were government employees who by all accounts are public servants and whose names should be public.
Uh, this website is publishing the names of private individuals who were expressing their personal opinions
in what they thought was a private capacity.
Why is posting this not okay when it is Doge employees, uh, but is suddenly okay, uh, when it's people saying things the right-wingers disagree with?
Uh, I do think the website is in poor taste, but I think it should be able to exist just like posting the names of the Doge employees.
Uh, the people who posted their opinions about Kirk's murder, regardless of whether I think they, they, uh, should have,
did so of their own free will and have every right to express their views.
Likewise, the creators of the website have every right to take public information and collate it into this site.
I have, uh, uh, uh, an objection to that, but I'll get to that in just a moment.
Um, well, actually, you know what, I've read enough of the letter.
Um, the site is called charliesmurderers.com.
Now, all the people who are listed on this site were not the murderers.
They were not people who killed Charlie Kirk.
So, um, right away doing that is, um, is, is, um, basically an intimidation tactic that is going to draw all kinds of hatred and animosity from all sorts of people
who think there is some connection when there is not somebody simply expressing an opinion.
Now, um, since this letter was sent, uh, the site first, um, uh, erased all the people that were on it.
Uh, and now the site is no longer in existence at all.
Uh, in fact, even if you go to archive.org and, uh, go to charliesmurderers.com, uh, this URL has been excluded from the Wayback Machine.
So, yeah, that can happen.
And it was an ugly episode.
And, you know, the first person who was listed on that site was, um, some influencer from Canada.
And all she was saying was, I really fear what the right-wingers are going to do now.
She didn't even say anything about Charlie Kirk.
She was saying something about exactly what was happening with, with, um, uh, people on the right wing targeting people on the left wing.
Just out of, uh, out of hatred and animosity.
And that got her the number one position on this site, charliesmurderers.com.
That is the sickness that we are in right now.
But it gets better because, um, right before showtime, I, I, I got wind of this story, um, where, um, the, um, late night talk show host, Jimmy Kimmel, was suspended for comments made last night.
Uh, his comments about the Charlie Kirk, uh, Charlie Kirk, uh, shooting, uh, during yesterday's show drew condemnation from, you ready?
From FCC commission chair, Brendan Carr.
We've talked about this guy in the past.
This guy has been out of control since before he became the, uh, the, the chair of the FCC.
He does not know what the job is.
Does not know that they are responsible for, uh, compliance with, with, uh, technical restrictions, licensing issues, things like that.
Not editorial decisions.
We don't give a rat's ass what you think.
Of what somebody says.
That is not your job.
That is not what the FCC is for.
I'm sorry.
It is not.
Anyway, um, that, uh, the condemnation from Carr, uh, basically prompted a group of ABC affiliates owned by Nextstar Media Group to declare they will not air Jimmy Kimmel Live for the immediate future.
And then that led to the, uh, courageous people at ABC announcing that the show was being taken off the air indefinitely.
Okay, so what did he say?
What exactly was it that he said that led to all of this?
Well, it started after Jimmy Kimmel said suspected Kirk assassin Tyler Robinson was a MAGA Republican.
I've been hearing that a lot lately, actually.
Uh, we hit some new lows over the weekend with the MAGA gang desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them and doing everything they can to score political points from it.
Those are the words of Jimmy, uh, Jimmy Kimmel.
Now, um, Brendan Carr was interviewed by YouTuber, YouTuber Benny Johnson.
I have no idea who that is, uh, today, uh, where he appeared to threaten ABC affiliate licenses over the comments, which he called the sickest conduct possible.
Now, right away, we're not talking about somebody who's celebrating the killing.
We're talking about somebody who is pointing the finger in a different direction than the finger being pointed right now.
Now, and ever since this horrible event happened, there is a good amount of evidence to suggest that this killer, alleged killer, uh, was brought up in a right-wing household with access to guns and all the nice things that you get out there in Arizona, Utah, wherever he was.
Uh, so it's, um, it's, it's, it's certainly something that can be backed up with evidence, whether or not it's true.
That's, uh, you know, that's what time will decide.
It's not important.
It's not important if he was a Democrat or a Republican.
The point is that he came from that kind of a background, and that is what Jimmy Kimmel was saying.
And apparently that, in the eyes of the FCC chair, is enough to get you kicked off the air.
We've never been in this place before.
Never.
Now, here's what, uh, Brendan Carr said.
This appears to be an action by Jimmy Kimmel to play into the narrative that this was somehow
a MAGA or Republican-motivated person.
What people don't understand is that the broadcasters have a license granted by us at the FCC,
and that comes with it an obligation to operate in the public interest.
When we see stuff like this, look, we can do this the easy way or the hard way.
These companies can find ways to change conduct on Kimmel, or there's going to be additional
work for the FCC ahead, meaning they're going to come after licenses and companies and things
like that, simply for expressing a different viewpoint.
This is not about celebrating or saying anything at all tasteless, simply looking at it from
a different perspective.
I mean, I'm just learning about this right now, and it's, um, uh, it's a slap in the
face to broadcasters anywhere.
And when you consider, you know, if you drive around, listen to the AM radio throughout this
great country of ours, you will hear all kinds of falsehoods being peddled as, as, uh,
you know, right-wing propaganda.
And never once have, uh, any of us, I don't believe, said that, uh, these people should
be shut down.
No, these people should be countered.
They should be debated.
They, they should be proven wrong.
But never, ever has somebody in a position of government, whether it be the president or,
uh, the vice president or senators or FCC chair people, never have they said this opinion
is not allowed.
This perspective is not allowed.
That is the world we are in right now.
In one week, this has happened.
And it is pretty damn scary.
But I got to tell you, here at WBAI, we are committed to free speech.
And we are going to keep speaking because that is what we have been doing since 1960.
And sure, the world has changed, but the, um, the dedication to having different opinions
and discussing controversial issues and covering what is going on out there and what is being
ignored by the mainstream, that is something that has not changed one iota over the last
half century or more, more than half a century.
So please, um, support this place.
Keep us going because we are going to need it.
You know, everything from, uh, CPB, uh, being shut down to, um, uh, this, this threat on,
on science, on education, on journalism, on truth, on alternative ideas.
You know, this is, um, it's not even a year yet.
It's not even a year and look where we are.
So, um, whatever you were thinking of donating to WBAI, donate more because this world is
a lot more right now.
Give to WBAI.org, buddy.wbai.org, uh, all kinds of different levels.
The important thing is keep 99.5 FM broadcasting because, uh, it might be the only, um, the only
way to get the news these days.
I've been talking a lot, uh, Alex, you've got your, your finger up.
Go ahead.
Uh, what's, what's.
Yeah, sure.
I'm, this is a really crazy issue.
I mean, this whole Jimmy Kimmel thing, Emmanuel, it's really disturbing on a number of levels,
but there's a lot of principles at play here.
I hate to say it that commissioner Carr though is right that as a broadcaster, they're supposed
to do things and act in the public interest.
And, and that's where things get a little bit complicated because you have this regulatory pressure
coming from the FCC that sounds a lot like some kind of censorship, but yet on the other
hand, ABC has the right to have editorial control over all of its content.
And it's not an arm of the government.
ABC is a private party.
So they can hire, they can fire, and they can edit the speech and censor the content of
anything that they see fit because they're not subject to the strictures of the First
Amendment.
Their First Amendment rights should not be curtailed, however, by the FCC and overregulation
by the FCC or overburdening or threats by the FCC.
Whoever has their computer, please turn it off.
Yeah, I'm, I'm not sure.
We all have computers here, but hopefully that's not, hopefully it's not me.
I'm not sure what, what that is.
But what, what's odd to me here though, is like we were dealing with the situation where
there is essentially corporate self-censorship in the face of government pressure here.
And those two things together, I think really creates a very awful situation when it comes
to the freedom of speech and the types of content that we are going to be able to, to expect
to hear from not only the radio waves here, you know, but the, with the corporation public
broadcasting being essentially decimated, but for, you know, regular television too, it's
really kind of incredible the extent to which we are going to see things curtailed here.
I mean, if you think about this in, in, in historical context here, what the FCC chairman
did, I think just was totally wrong headed, right?
Even if he believed that what Jimmy Kimmel said about Charlie Kirk was totally wrong, was
totally false and, and was sick.
And, and, and, and obviously he did believe that it was sick because I believe he did use
that particular adjective.
The remedy here is not to put regulatory pressure on a broadcaster and basically misuse and abuse
your office.
You go back to 1927 and justice Brandeis, I think he got it right nearly a hundred years
ago in a case called Whitney v.
California before the U S Supreme court.
And he talked there about falsehoods and fallacies.
And he made this great point that has been repeated over and over and over again for nearly
the last hundred years in Supreme court constitutional case law.
And he said this quote, if there be time to expose through discussion, the falsehoods and
fallacies to avert the evil by the processes of education, the remedy to be applied is more
speech, not enforced silence.
Amen.
Yeah.
Well, here's the thing though.
Uh, this guy Carr is, is basically acting just as, as Trump has acted, uh, in that he
is very insecure about power and anybody who, um, um, disagrees with perspective.
We're not talking about something that is, um, uh, a disservice to the public in any way.
We're talking about somebody with a different opinion who says, yeah, I don't think the guy
was, um, uh, was, was raised by, by Democrats.
I think he was raised by Republicans, you know, and it's backed up by, by some evidence.
You can say that you can say that, uh, this is somebody who had MAGA upbringing, uh, and
it's, you might not agree with it, but it is a perspective.
It's part of the conversation, but he is upset that MAGA is being criticized or implicated
in any way, uh, not upset at, at, um, uh, anything left of center being blamed immediately,
uh, as of last Wednesday for the assassination, uh, when there was absolutely no evidence yet
to suggest anybody.
And, you know, that's okay.
But once you cross his political beliefs, all of a sudden you're the threat.
That is a level of amateurness.
I, I, I, I have never seen in the FCC.
I've, I've seen a lot of bad things come out of the FCC, but this, I want to read you some
more of, of, uh, of what, uh, Brendan Carr said.
Um, so I think you see some lashing out from people like Kimmel who are frankly talentless
and are looking for ways to get attention.
Boy, that sounds like somebody familiar.
Um, not, not the talentless person, the way this is being phrased sounds just like Trump.
Um, their grip on the narrative is slipping.
Uh, that doesn't mean that it's not still important to hold the public interest standard.
We have a rule on the book that interprets the public interest standard that says news distortion
is something that is prohibited.
The FCC has stepped back from enforcing it.
I think it's past time these affiliates themselves push back on Comcast.
And, and that's interesting because Comcast doesn't own, uh, ABC, but what he doesn't
know what he's doing, obviously a push back on Comcast.
Sure.
Push back on a different network.
Uh, and, um, uh, basically, uh, say, listen, we're not going to run Kimmel anymore, uh, until
you straighten this out because we're running the possibility of license revocation from
the FCC.
If we continue to run content that ends up being a pattern of news distortion, uh, first
of all, Jimmy Kimmel is not a news program.
Uh, and, and, and second of all, hello, Fox news, you know, uh, you can't say these things
and not look at the other side as well.
Well, apparently, uh, Brendan Carr can, uh, Disney needs to see some change here.
We got that right.
Disney does own ABC, uh, next, next star then issued the following statement.
Okay.
Who is it?
Who has their computer up?
This is not our first week folks.
Somebody has, can everybody just mute themselves then?
So we can track down who the offender is.
I know it's not me.
We've been muted all along.
Okay.
So it's not you, Alex.
I am muted.
That's the weird thing.
Well, we're muted here.
So where is this coming from?
We, we can't hear anything unusual from our end.
Huh?
All right.
We have a mystery here.
Well, you can see the, um, uh, it could be the signal computer.
Maybe.
Is that possible, Kyle?
Cause that's, that computer is up with their, with their voices.
So if that computer is doing something, then it might make noise.
Stop using signal.
Everyone just that just around the world.
Everybody just stop and stop asking me.
Anyway, next to our statement, uh, next door is owned and partner television stations
affiliated with the ABC television network will preempt Jimmy Kimmel live for the foreseeable
future beginning with tonight's show.
Next door strongly objects to recent comments made by Mr. Kimmel concerning the killing of
Charlie Kirk and will replace the show with other programming in his ABC affiliated markets.
It makes me feel like I missed something here because what did he say exactly?
He, he, he didn't say anything positive about the killing.
He simply said that it's more likely that this person was right of center than left of center.
That's, that's a statement now that can get your show taken off the air saying that somebody
might be politically different than the way they're being portrayed.
Huh?
That is, uh, that is something that is, uh, simply incredible.
Um, president of next door, Andrew Alford said, Mr. Kimmel's comments about the death of Mr.
Kirk are offensive and insensitive at a critical time in our national political discourse.
And we do not believe they reflect the spectrum of opinions, views, or values of the local
communities in which we are located.
Okay.
You know, now I'm convinced that I'm missing something because, um, we're either living in
a bizarro world or, uh, he, he, he said something that, um, uh, was offensive because I did not
see anything that was offensive in that statement.
Gila.
Um, I don't think he said anything offensive.
I think this is one of those, uh, preemptive compliance, um, because of the lack of, um,
oh my God, what's the word?
The fact that so many, the companies are able to own so many.
Lack of competition.
Not just lack of competition, but the fact that Nexstar owns America's largest local television
broadcasting group with more than 200 owned or partner stations in 116 U.S. markets.
So I, I think that this is preemptive compliance to attempt to not run afoul of the FCC.
And in this, in this particular case, I think the tail is wagging the dog because of 116 markets
are all of a sudden not going to be running this particular show because of the opinions
of the people who happen to own TV show, TV stations in 116 U.S. markets.
Uh, what was the thing that Reagan overturned?
Why can I not remember the word?
Yeah, it was, it was the rules against, uh, um, the same entity owning like too many broadcast,
uh, channels in the same area.
Between Sinclair and Nexstar, I think you're looking at most local affiliates in the country.
Yeah, there are, there are a huge number.
And I think that's also part of the problem because if two stations say we're not going
to do it, if 116 markets are not going to be in, this is terrifying to me on so many
levels and, and the FCC is like, cool.
And that's, uh, that's part of what's going on here is you talk about, they don't want to
run afoul of the FCC, what they don't want to run afoul of is the president.
Generally, all one had to do to not run afoul of the FCC was obey the laws around broadcasting.
And now the FCC is basically a tool of the Trump administration.
And if you make him angry, if you hurt his feelings, you're now, uh, you're now going
to have your license to be a broadcaster threatened.
And that is terrifying.
That's terrifying as a broadcaster.
It's, it's terrifying as a person who consumes media.
It is, um, it is bad on every level in both directions.
And just one other thing about Nextstar, um, because I'm willing to say that here on WBAI,
um, because free speech radio, um, the president of Nextstar was part of a prior organization,
which Sinclair bought in 1995, thereby basically giving this guy the roadmap for what this is
going to become.
Nextstar also owns News Nation.
Yeah.
I, I never had much hope for them.
No, you're not.
Yeah.
But I think, uh, we're, we're not owned by Disney or, or Comcast or whoever, uh, you know,
even Ben and Jerry, apparently you can't express yourself anymore.
You get that story today where, where Jerry's out of Ben and Jerry because apparently they
were bought 20, 25 years ago and now they're not allowed to express their political opinions,
which is a part of what Ben and Jerry's has always been about.
And, um, uh, you know, it's a shame they couldn't see that coming, but, but, uh, it just seems
one by one, all the, um, all the places where people were able to express themselves are just
being eliminated one after the other.
Kyle?
Well, it's a, it's an aspect of, uh, what is changing in a corporate culture because a lot
of some of those big high profile incidents where, uh, brands themselves were attacked
for, for having any kind of like, uh, progressive ideas behind some of their campaigns.
Even if, if the stuff was like targeted at certain audiences, it was, uh, analyzed and,
and taken as some sort of a mass campaign that, that everyone had to like, sort of adopt
certain ideas and whatever critique might be due, it, it, it is, uh, changed the, the brazenness
and, and made, and really neutralized a lot of, um, the platform that major corporate entities
have, um, in the money and then those media and, and, and ad dollars and, and, uh, certain
initiatives that they put forth to align with their, their, uh, their business models.
So I, I don't think anybody's ever really looked to them, but in the past, uh, maybe
decade or so, I mean, a lot of, uh, uh, uh, companies have been thinking of this as a
virtuous part of their identity.
And now it seems to have been jettisoned in favor of, uh, conforming to this sort of, uh,
really, like I said, neutralized sort of stance on anything but their core business.
Go ahead, Alex.
You know, this again, and I'm going to use the same phrase I used last week.
I think this is really, when it comes to ABC, old wine and a new bottle here.
We dealt with this before we dealt with this 23, maybe 24 years ago.
I don't remember exactly when, but do you remember back around 2002, probably around like the beginning
of 2002, there was another late night outspoken political commentator who made some comments
that angered ABC and the FCC and, and particular advertisers that ABC then yanked off the air
and canceled his show.
Do you remember who that was?
Yeah.
You talk about politically incorrect with Bill Maher.
Exactly.
Yeah.
Yeah.
ABC again at issue.
Right.
Well, there's no, look, there's no question that broadcasters networks are going to be
cowards.
Uh, but I don't think we've ever seen anything comparable to what we're seeing right now,
where literally you have, uh, the most powerful people on earth threatening anybody on the left
saying, we're coming after you.
We're going to ruin your life.
We're going to take your money.
We're going to get you fired.
This is just for having opinions that are different than them.
We're not kidding around about this.
That is what is happening.
We're not talking about people that are, that are violent, that are blowing things up, that
are killing people.
No, none of that.
We're talking about people who have different viewpoints and don't accept the party line.
And we are here in September of the first year of this hell.
We have over three to go.
I mean, it, if, if you're not concerned, it's time you get concerned because this is not
going to get better and it's going to get a lot worse if we just sit back and, and, uh,
let ourselves be entertained by it.
Everybody needs to be standing up and saying, this is wrong.
This kind of suppression of speech is a horrible thing.
We need free speech now more than ever.
It's got nothing to do with the horrible event of last week, which everybody with any
sense would immediately condemn.
And I think everybody I know certainly did that.
Uh, but, um, this, this, this, um, unrestrained hatred and, um, uh, basically opportunism.
I can't tell you the number of, of fundraising emails I've gotten and not, not from spammers,
from the actual people themselves.
You know, the actual email addresses from various, uh, political campaigns trying to make money
off of this.
It's disgusting.
It's absolutely disgusting.
But of course you probably can't say that either because, you know, you're criticizing the
wrong people.
Go ahead, Rob.
Yeah.
Just, uh, just, uh, just yesterday, Trump was, uh, leaving the white house and, uh,
had, uh, one of those noisy, uh, helicopter in the background, uh, chats with reporters
on the white house lawn and, uh, the, um, well, attorney general Pam Bondi had equated criticism
of Charlie Kirk and all his work to hate speech and, uh, said that, you know, it could be prosecuted
by the department of justice.
She said this on a podcast.
And so Trump was asked about this, um, on the white house lawn by ABC news chief, Washington
correspondent, Jonathan Karl.
Um, he, he asked about, uh, he asked Trump about, you know, what he thought about what
Pam Bondi said, um, that a lot of your allies say hate speech is free speech.
And, uh, Trump responded, well, she'd probably go after people like you because you treat me
so unfairly.
It's hate.
You have a lot of hate in your heart.
And, uh, you know, Trump went on to say, oh, he just wants everything to be fair.
And, uh, it's the radical left who have done tremendous damage and blah, blah, blah, blah,
blah.
But it's not just Kimmel.
It is a multi-handed, multi-threaded effort by the administration.
You know, ABC is in focus right now, and this is how they work.
This is what they do.
They're just going to try and, you know, silence the voices they don't like, the voices that
hurt their feelings, the voices that threaten their grip on power.
And, uh, Steve Colbert, of course, was also canceled and, um, nobody's fooled by why he
was canceled.
Uh, you know, they, they basically, they're coming for.
Those voices first, they're shutting them down, silencing those voices, uh, and then
it'll be time for the rest of us.
So we had better pay attention to this.
Yeah.
I think that's where a lot of, um, independent voices and, uh, the, the rest, as you say,
uh, take note in that in every one of these sort of big corporate, um, cancellations, there's
a chilling, uh, a chilling, uh, sentiment, chilling effect that, that then pervades for many others
in their wake.
And that's, that's the bigger issue I think is that they were not really people you would
expect to be able to say very much or something very edgy, but they were allowed to say something.
And with this kind of, um, norm occurring so widely, it, it basically, um, becomes a template
and becomes the norm, something that we, we, um, accept and, and, and makes, it makes it a lot
harder for other people and other groups, other voices to exist, uh, in the landscape.
And you get more of that homogeny that you pointed out, uh, our airwaves really do exude.
Uh, so we lose these little bastions, these little islands of, uh, descent and, and, uh, disparate,
disparate opinion.
Yeah.
One by one, they, they, they fall, uh, and, um, it has a chilling effect because people
are afraid to say anything and they just want to be left alone.
And I get that.
I understand why that is.
Uh, I'm not asking people to, to, uh, sacrifice their lives, uh, just to stand up for somebody
else's freedom of speech, but let's be paying attention at least.
And let's not, uh, pretend that this isn't serious, that this isn't something that, uh,
really does need to be addressed.
Even on their own stations, their own network, right?
Like, so one comedy show or variety show goes down.
How do you, how could you possibly expect any kind of integrity from the rest of their lineup?
They are basically going to fall in line.
Otherwise they go that way.
It becomes, uh, a standard operating procedure around there.
So it's not even that other outlets, I mean, their, their own peers at whatever larger conglomerate
you're talking about then have to adhere to this.
Right.
And it becomes across the board on a very, uh, a large cross cut of our society, the, the
standard and the, and that kind of neutralized form.
And then these smaller and, and, and other diverse voices become ever harder to find and
ever harder to ever, um, fewer and far between.
And, and, and, and that is a huge loss.
And, and, and of course the idea that maybe new voices will enter the fray is itself, um,
a threat too, because why would people start if they're, if, if, um, they're in an acting
and operating in an environment where there's, uh, a huge shutdown and, and, uh, uh, a really
like, uh, a hunt, uh, uh, uh, people looking to stop this stuff.
It, it, it, it's incredibly hostile and you don't get people, um, uh, feeling that it's
a comfortable place to actually speak, speak their minds, speak honestly.
And I think that that's a true disservice to, uh, to the, the, the dialogue itself and,
and, um, our overall consciousness.
I know there, there are a lot of people who will want to speak, uh, on our airwaves.
Uh, and, um, this week, we're not doing that next week.
We will be next week on this show.
We will be taking listener phone calls.
Uh, I don't know if there'll be a hum or not.
Let's not let that, uh, drive us crazy, but, uh, your voice will be heard.
And, uh, of course you can also call tonight on overtime, which is on YouTube, uh, that
starts at eight o'clock at a channel 2600, or just follow the link that's on top of the
2600.com webpage.
And you can, you can call us then, um, there are all kinds of, uh, ways that you can express
yourself though.
Call C-SPAN, call other right-wing radio stations, call, uh, if you can find any other stations
that aren't right-wing, call them as well.
But, um, uh, we have to speak up.
Our voices matter and they can't be silenced.
They can't be ignored.
Um, you know, you were talking about, um, uh, networks and not being able to trust them,
Kyle.
And, and that's certainly true now of ABC.
Uh, it's been true of CBS for a while.
Uh, what, what happened with 60 Minutes and, uh, the complete caving to the Trump administration,
paying them millions of dollars and now having some kind of ombudsman in charge that will,
uh, look out for things that are objectionable to the state.
Uh, I don't know, has NBC, uh, fallen yet to this, uh, to this nonsense?
PBS has been attacked, uh, and destroyed pretty much, or at least CPB has.
Um, they are basically coming for everybody.
They're basically coming for everybody.
And the only reason they haven't come for Pacifica is they probably don't know about us
because they're not the most savvy people in the world.
But, um, uh, believe me, uh, we will be in the crosshairs.
We will all be in the crosshairs.
And those of you who are on the right, uh, you know, uh, you might think you're safe.
Let me, let me, um, bring you back to the Soviet union times where people align themselves
with those in charge, but they fell out of favor relatively quickly and were replaced
by somebody else.
There were purges all the time.
This happens to all kinds of regimes.
And it's, um, you know, it's something that, um, uh, I don't know.
It's, it's, it's, we just keep going through this over and over again.
Uh, and you won't be safe either.
Look at all the people in the Trump administration that have been kicked out, uh, that have had
their lives destroyed, uh, that are now the enemy of the state.
Uh, it's, I, I don't know how anybody can, can willfully go into this thinking that's
not going to happen to them.
Yeah, that's it.
That's a sigh.
That's all I get.
What else can we say?
I mean, that's, uh, that, that's where we are right now.
It's a really kind of terrifying situation.
Um, it's also really quite scary for me too, when I'm, I'm constantly crossing the border
and coming back into the United States after being away and being on the show and criticizing
the administration or being critical of, of policies, et cetera.
And, you know, knowing that you need to cross the border and, and potentially be interrogated
here, even as an American citizen.
I mean, I'm.
I would think Alex, I would think you'd actually welcome being interrogated because no, seriously,
you are a, a, uh, a debater.
You are a lawyer.
You are somebody that rises to the challenge.
And if they dare mess with you, they're going to regret it.
And I think you would, uh, you would, uh, welcome that opportunity.
That's certainly true, but nobody wants to have the full weight of the state thrown against
them, uh, when you're tired and coming back, you know, in the middle of the night.
And, you know, so it isn't, I mean, it's a crazy situation in the crazy world we find
ourselves in because, you know, our country has just basically given up on what we believed
were really true American ideals.
Go ahead, Ron.
And also the relative safety of somebody with, uh, skills in practicing law does rather depend
on the rule of law still being a thing.
Yeah, that's, that's quite true, Rob.
Good point.
Yes.
All right.
Well, let's, um, let's talk about people with integrity.
I've always admired these guys, uh, who run, uh, an email service that, uh, defends freedom.
In fact, uh, ProtonMail describes themselves as a neutral and safe haven for your personal data
committed to defending your freedom.
Can we just bask in those words for a while?
I mean, you know, it's, it's, it's rare that something like that, uh, still exists in this
day.
And I just want to say what, oh, really?
Okay.
There's an addendum to this.
Uh, last month, um, Proton disabled email accounts belonging to journalists reporting
on security breaches of various South Korean government computer systems following a complaint
by an unspecified cybersecurity agency.
Huh.
After a public outcry and multiple weeks, the journalist accounts were eventually reinstated,
but the reporters and editors involved still want answers on how and why Proton decided to
shut down the accounts in the first place.
Uh, Martin Shelton is a deputy director of digital security at the Freedom of Press Foundation,
Freedom of the Press Foundation, uh, highlighted, uh, that numerous newsrooms use Proton services
as alternatives to something like Gmail specifically to avoid situations like this, uh, and pointed
out that while it's good to see that Proton is reconsidering account suspensions, journalists
are among the users who need these and similar tools most.
Newsrooms like the Intercept, the Boston Globe, the Tampa Bay Times, they all rely on ProtonMail
for email tip submissions.
Now, uh, Shelton noted that perhaps Proton should prioritize responding to journalists about account
suspensions privately rather than when they go viral.
Now, um, the two journalists whose, um, accounts were disabled were working on an article published
in the August issue of the long-running hackerzine, FRAC.
Yeah.
The story described how a sophisticated hacking operation, uh, what's known in cybersecurity parlance
as an APT, or Advanced Persistent Threat, had wormed its way into a number of South Korean
computer networks, including those of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Military Defense
Counterintelligence Command, or DCC.
The, uh, journalists who published their story under the names Saber and Cyborg described the
hack as being consistent with the work of Kim Suki, a notorious North Korean state-backed
APT, uh, sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury Department in 2023.
Now, as they piece the story together, emails viewed by the Intercept show that the authors
followed cybersecurity best practices and conducted what's known as responsible disclosure, notifying
affected parties that a vulnerability has been discovered in their systems prior to publicizing
the incident.
Uh, Saber and Cyborg, uh, created, created a dedicated ProtonMail account to, uh, coordinate
the responsible disclosures, uh, then proceeded to notify the impacted parties, including the
Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the DCC, also notified South Korean cybersecurity organizations
like the Korea Internet and Security Agency.
Um, they did everything right, and yet this happened to them.
And Proton, ProtonMail, uh, is, is, is nothing sacred anymore.
Thoughts?
No, this, uh, this story is kind of wild, and, uh, yeah, it, it just goes to show something
that I'm often saying to people, which is when you depend on some other service, you are subject
to whatever decisions that they might make.
And even somebody like Proton, which, uh, you know, builds itself up as a privacy-focused
solution, um, is going to make decisions, and you will not always agree with those decisions.
And, you know, email is, in, in a sense, one of those things that you can still just roll
your own if, uh, if you're so inclined and technically minded.
You can run your own email server.
Um, a lot of us, uh, a lot of us have done it.
Um, but, uh, it's, every year it's, it's harder and harder to do so.
And not everybody is willing to do that.
But if you're, if you're making choices between some monolith like Gmail or, or Microsoft or
Apple to be your email provider, you know, that is, is that, is that a lot, uh, is that
any better than, than choosing something like Proton, which at least has the veneer of privacy?
I don't know.
Go ahead, Alex.
This case is really fascinating.
I, I think in a number of ways, because it calls out this tension between, on the one
hand, preventing abuse, preventing your system that you've created, this email system that
relies on encryption and is used by people and journalists all over the world, preventing
that particular system from being abused, but yet also at the same time, preserving user
rights and protecting journalistic activity.
It's, it's a hard balancing act to perform on a daily basis and get it right all the time.
I think ProtonMail was being especially cautious here, saw some activity that it suspected as
potentially relating to the DPRK and took measures that were a bit too proactive.
And then this, this now raises questions about, well, should there be some kind of uniform
evidentiary basis or standard by which accounts need to be determined to be malicious or abusive
in some way?
What are those standards who enforces them?
And the reason why we have things like legal process and court orders to shut down accounts,
but we can't rely on the courts and law enforcement.
I think to do all this work, we do need to rely on private parties.
This is why in cybersecurity circles, we're always talking about this putative public private
partnership that is going to solve all of our problems.
And so, you know, sometimes they get it right.
Sometimes they got it wrong.
They got it wrong in this time, but, um, but they righted the wrong.
So I think, well, I'd like to hear how they're going to write the wrong going forward so that
this doesn't happen again.
I'd like to hear how they're doing better because I don't want to have to write off ProtonMail
on top of everything else.
Kyle, you've got the actual, uh, article there from the printed edition of Frack that everybody
at Hope and DEF CON and, and, uh, um, the one over in, in the Netherlands, uh, got, uh,
everyone got a copy of this, uh, this magazine.
It's huge.
Yeah, if you have it, it's, um, page 29 is the beginning of it.
And it is a like 12 page article, I think, or a little under that.
And it's incredibly in-depth talks a lot about, um, the threat actor and their workstation.
And it has a lot of really interesting details.
And, um, uh, yeah, there is a QR and it references different ways to get some of the files, uh, which
I will warn, and they do make it clear.
You should be very careful about how you handle it, but there's a QR and Proton is mentioned.
So they were definitely using it basically to offload some of the work.
Of course, you've done all this research.
You're sharing, you're, you're coming up with an article, you're, you're doing all the
legwork there.
And yeah, at last you need some kind of way of, of getting information out.
These are part of the infrastructure for reporting.
And I think they use the best kind of services they can to, um, to finish that work in, in,
um, you know, in light of a deadline and trying to get the word out.
So yeah, they chose one that doesn't seem to be, uh, as reliable in, in under these circumstances,
but I don't know, um, enough.
I encourage people to read the article itself.
I don't know enough about exactly what's being revealed and, and, um, and what, what
the sort of push pull, the, the, the interests at play might, um, be, uh, seeking this kind
of recourse.
So it is very interesting case.
And, and, uh, especially, uh, when you think about the content of the article.
And again, that's on page 29 of the, uh, printed frack edition that came out last month,
or it came out actually, I think a month and a half ago.
So, uh, more information, frack.org, P-H-R-A-C-K.org.
Hey, uh, we have this announcement for tomorrow.
Uh, there's going to be a test.
New York City Emergency Management, NYCEM, will be conducting a citywide test of the wireless
emergency alert system on, uh, Thursday, September 18th at 12 p.m.
Oh, these are fun.
These are a lot of fun.
Uh, but you have to opt into this one.
Gila, I think you had some info on this.
Uh, I did.
Yeah.
So there is a alert, an alert coming tomorrow at 12 p.m.
on the wireless emergency alert system.
If you have the WEA settings, um, uh, activated, enabled on your phone, uh, if you don't, you're
not going to get the warning.
So, uh, the New York City Emergency Management Service is encouraging all New Yorkers to use
this test as an opportunity to learn more about the WEA system and practice receiving alerts.
But, again, you're not going to get the alert if you're not opted in.
So if you want to get this alert tomorrow and potentially when there are emergencies in
the future, go ahead and make sure that your WEA settings are indeed enabled if you want
a warning tomorrow.
Don't miss out on all the fun because we're all going to be, uh, I don't know if, if you
get it outside of New York City, but we'll try.
You know, we'll see what, what, what, what happens.
And you can set that to, uh, to speak and alert.
You can set it to have the, uh, the little tone or whatever.
Uh, it's, it's great fun when this happens.
It doesn't happen very often.
It's like an eclipse.
Um, all right, that's going to do it for us here on Off the Hook.
We'll be back next week, 7 p.m.
Wednesday on WBAI.
Uh, please support WBAI.
Give to WBAI.org or buddy.wbai.org.
Uh, keep this radio station strong.
Keep this radio station speaking and, uh, unintimidated, unlike almost every other media outlet these ays.
Um, we are, uh, reachable, OTH at 2600.com.
And we are continuing the discussion over on YouTube, on channel 2600, or go to the website,
uh, or the link, rather, on top of the website, 2600.com.
We will see you next week.


And welcome everybody to Off the Hook Overtime, where hopefully we appear on YouTube and continue our conversation from Off the Hook.
I seem to be here. Kyle, you're here as well?
Yes.
Great. Out there in Signalville, Signalland, we've got Rob, we've got Gila, we've got Alex. You all there?
Yep. We are.
Are we actually on YouTube this week?
We are.
We are waiting for our delay to catch up, and there we are, and we sound good.
Well, Gila, you said we were on before Rob said we were on, so who do I believe?
Well, I have my YouTube on mute.
Okay. All right.
So, I saw that we were on. Rob then checked the audio.
You know, that whole Jimmy Kimmel story, I did not know about that before I sat down in the studio.
That's how late-breaking that story was, and I'm just, I'm blown away.
I mean, I hope we got all the details right, you know, late-breaking stories, you know, sometimes you don't get all the details right, but if what he said is what I'm seeing, and he was kicked off the air for that, that is a low point.
That's even lower than what they did to Colbert, except hopefully it's not permanent, but wow.
So, any other thoughts people want to share on that?
There's been a lot, and the idea that anyone is saying anything about Charlie Kirk as a human being other than he was a shining paragon of humanity.
I, on my personal Facebook page, posted some quotes of Charlie Kirk's.
I'm not saying that I don't believe that he should have been murdered.
I don't think anyone should be murdered.
But, I'm not, again, going to say, pretend, or allow other people to say that he was a shining paragon of humanity, because he wasn't.
He was an angry, hateful person who believed that repeating the last, repeating the same information over and over and over again louder made him a good debater.
He, and people are saying, oh, it's too soon to say anything like that.
Bullshit.
And that's also the other reason I waited until we run overtime to say this part.
Because I don't trust myself to keep an FCC-compliant tongue in my head.
Um, I, it's, the very quick movement to, um, policing people's opinions, not good.
People who are losing their jobs behind saying anything other than the man was a saint.
And, um, okay, sorry, I know you don't like it when I do this, but I would like to say good evening to the 37 people who are currently with us in the chat.
When did I say I don't, I don't like when you do that?
The person who is currently flirting with the ban by saying, anyone bitching about Trump can move to another country, including Emmanuel and his minions.
Your vaunted left heroes are no more rightous.
Okay, number one, sir, you can't spell.
That's not good.
Number two, um, I don't know what left heroes you're talking about right now.
But, um, talk shit, get bit, my dude.
Hey, let people speak.
I don't care.
Uh, I don't, but, you know, is this all you got?
I mean, you know, it's, it's not much of an argument, you know, shut up is basically your argument.
Uh, how about, how about you win the argument?
How about you win the argument with, with facts and logic?
And, you know, you know, what Gilles said, uh, about, um, uh, about Charlie Kirk is, is, is mostly true.
I happen to think he, he wasn't a bad debater.
It's just what he was debating was, was garbage.
Um, but he, um, he, he did a better job than the people debating him because they weren't debaters.
And that's, that's how you appear to win an argument, uh, by, you know, saying horrible things, but having, uh, the debating skills.
It's, you know, it's something that we shouldn't take the bait on.
Uh, but of course, you know, I do, I have to say this every time and nobody wants what happened to him to happen.
Obviously not.
Uh, and people who do that are horrible people.
No, no, no question about that.
Uh, the thing that really, I think is, is, is most frightening here is, is the speed with which, uh, certain people were, were vilified, uh, when they had nothing to do with it.
Nothing at all.
Um, you know, there are crazy people in every camp.
It's just with, with, with leftists, I think they've, they're mostly in the fringe.
Whereas on the right wing right now, it seems to be the people in charge.
And that's terrifying.
That's absolutely terrifying because there doesn't seem to be a damn thing we can do about it.
And I, you know, I'm really getting sick of, of hearing how this is the greatest country on earth and, and democracy will prevail.
Well, where the hell is it when, when does democracy arrive on a horse and, uh, take us all to, uh, you know, to freedom, back to freedom.
I I'd like to see that because every time I see another corporation cowering in fear, I see another politician afraid for his future.
You know, I, I, I, I, I see people who just don't want to say anything and just want to be left alone.
Uh, I, I, I, I see a Supreme court that basically does whatever Trump tells them to do.
I, I don't see houses of Congress doing anything at all of substance.
Um, and all I hear about is how, yeah, we've got a democracy here vote, you know, vote somebody out.
Well, we don't seem to be doing that.
It doesn't seem to be happening.
And I just wonder, you know, is this the end?
Is this where it all just cycles down into the drain and, uh, we try something else or, uh, I don't know.
I'm off to a chipper start here tonight, but go ahead, Alex.
Well, it could be down the train if we keep going down this route.
And we seem to have a very clear pattern of political violence in this country right now.
And that's extraordinarily terrifying because it really goes against the grain of what this country stands for and the ideals on which it was founded.
And if you zoom out and think about what happened here from a philosophical standpoint, I think it's important to note, we don't know a hell of a lot about the motivation of the accused shooter, Tyler Robinson here.
Apparently, even though he was raised in some kind of MAGA household, he seemed to have really taken issue with Charlie Kirk's views on LGBTQ issues and, and texted his partner about something like, you know, I've had enough of his hatred, something like that.
But, but if, even if that is the motivation, if it's some kind of difference of viewpoint and the accused shooter has in his mind, well, I'm doing humanity in service here because this person is spewing hate, he's spewing vitriol.
He's out there hurting a huge community of people that are vulnerable and that deserve protection.
And so therefore, I'm going to be doing humanity in service and take this guy out.
That's basically, from a philosophical standpoint, justifying murder by promoting the greatest good for the greatest number here.
We're trying to maximize pleasure and maximize happiness.
This is a form of utilitarianism.
This is what Jeremy Bentham wrote about.
It's what John Stuart Mill wrote about.
This is kind of quintessential British philosophy about maximizing happiness and numbers and the problem philosophically always and everywhere with utilitarianism is that it has no respect for individual rights.
And this country was founded on the principle of having individual rights.
That's why we have the Bill of Rights.
That's why we have the First Amendment, the Second Amendment, the Third Amendment.
All of these are individual rights that go against the grain of utilitarianism.
We don't look at people as fungible.
We don't look at people as threats.
We see people that spew hatred.
And like I said during the show, the answer to hatred is supposed to be more speech.
If you don't like hate speech, then speak up more.
Drown out the hate speech.
We don't take violence as some kind of solution here to a political problem.
That, to me, is what's un-American here.
And that, to me, is what I think goes against every single philosophical ideal of the original founding fathers of this country.
Alex, just get us up to speed here.
Hate speech.
Protected or not protected?
Well, it can be protected.
I mean, there's limits to hate speech, though, when it becomes fighting words and things like that.
But hate speech generally is protected.
So, okay, what is up with Pam Bondi saying that we are going after hate speech?
You know, it's not something they've ever done before.
They've promoted a lot of hate speech in the past.
But now, all of a sudden, hate speech is a thing for them that they're going after.
And they seem to be defining it very broadly.
Well, you know, they're basically trying to remap the contours of the First Amendment here.
I mean, you go back to, God, what was the case?
It was a law school case, I remember, Brandenburg v. Ohio, I think it was, right?
A 1960s case basically that said, you know, hate speech is fine so long as you're not inciting or inciting a riot or promoting some kind of lawless action, right?
So, you know, that's basically the limit here.
Like, you know, if your speech is going to cause some kind of riot or cause some kind of violence or something like that, then it's not necessarily protected by the First Amendment because it will have implications on other people's rights and freedoms and liberties and safety.
But hate speech, think about the Ku Klux Klan walking through the streets of Skokie, Illinois and being protected by the American Civil Liberties Union because, you know, we're protecting ideals.
We're protecting principles, not necessarily the principles for which the KKK was standing at that moment, but the principles to make that type of speech without any kind of repercussion.
So what the Trump administration is trying to do in redefining the contours of hate speech to be way, way, way, way closer to free speech, that's dangerous.
What they seem to be defining hate speech as now is any speech that counters the lies that they're peddling or the misassumptions or the premature conclusions.
Because we've seen nothing but that since last Wednesday, where, you know, people have been held accountable who had nothing to do with anything.
And if you say otherwise, all of a sudden you're the problem and you get disciplined.
And it seems to be across the board now, you know, witness what happened to Jimmy Kimmel.
It's it's, you know, I almost can't believe it.
It just seems so just fictitious to me that something like this is that easy to pull off.
I mean, we're better than that.
Aren't we better than that?
I think as a nation, you know, we should be able to say you can't say that without proof.
You can't just accuse people of things that there is no connection with.
And if you if you say, yeah, maybe something else is is the case, not that, then you get fired for for saying something offensive.
Wow.
It's just it's just something that I'm having a lot of trouble with.
Yeah.
Go ahead, Rob.
So do we want to move over to a recent happening that has nothing to do with any of this and that I think will put us all in a far better mood?
Well, I guess that's the American way.
Let's let's go do something else.
Go ahead.
Well, this Monday, this past Monday, September 15th, was the 30th anniversary, Emmanuel, of the release of the movie Hackers.
It was when do I start feeling better?
Tell me when I'm supposed to start feeling better.
Maybe you'll start feeling better when when I tell you that this was being widely celebrated across the nerdy edges of the Internet.
But the the cheer and the love and the fandom around the film is always always gives me a warm, fuzzy feeling.
And we posted on our Mastodon account that this happened and posted a link to the episode of this program from September 20th, 1995, which was right after the film was released.
You were there.
The rest of us weren't.
But it was a it was a long show.
It was a two part show, a fundraising show where you had you were talking about the movie a bit and your experience with your association with making it and reactions to it.
People were calling in with how much they liked it or didn't like it.
And it was a fun listen.
And you also played a bit of the writers panel from the very first Hope, which, among other people, had a couple of a few of the people behind the hackers movie also speaking there.
And so we posted that clip.
A listener on Mastodon known as Gnome, I think, mentioned that it was funny listening back to that, listening to the discussion of the Iraq war printer hoax.
Do you remember this, Emmanuel?
I do vaguely.
I do vaguely recall something about a printer being hacked.
Yeah, it was it was a hoax, a virus hoax that happened in the 90s that stipulated that it was it was a wacky story put out by Info World for April Fool's.
And it was surrounding the idea that somebody could have hidden a virus in a printer that was then sent to the military to, you know, do all sorts of shenanigans.
And this person, Noam, mentions that, you know, they clearly thought that sabotaging the IT supply chain in order to inject malware into an otherwise secure network was wildly implausible.
And, yeah, everyone had a good laugh about that.
But Noam continues.
But now we know that this is absolutely something that's been done multiple times over the years, often to great effect.
So, yeah, what was a joke 30 years ago is now something that's actually actually exists and is, you know, taken seriously.
But also there was a fun movie that came out 30 years ago.
But fun is one word for it.
I am of the potentially controversial opinion in this universe that it's kind of a crappy movie.
But so I would like to point out that, Rob, as soon as you said you mentioned the anniversary, the chat blew up and was like, heck the planet, because obviously.
I could do the same thing with football.
You know, it doesn't prove anything.
We still have serious issues.
We do have a question we have to answer, though.
Okay.
Did anyone check the live replay from last week and see if we did, in fact, get the chain of dashes?
Apparently somebody's not checking our social media because it was all over social media yesterday or the day before.
And, yes, we did.
We absolutely did.
So check 2600 on Mastodone, on Blue Sky, even on Twitter, and you will see some screenshots of what we were able to accomplish.
What we were doing, who wants to explain it?
I've talked too much.
Someone let us explain it.
A whole lot of cussing.
Yeah.
Okay.
I just brought up the screenshot that 2600 posted, and this is Gila reacting to that.
So, yeah, we were attempting to see, because the automated captions that are created for a live broadcast such as this, we're not captioning our own stuff, YouTube auto captions in situations like this.
And they do tend to censor in the auto captions when people say things like, fuck, or shit, or...
So right now, when you see the transcript for this, you'll see dashes instead of those words, which I thought was interesting.
Yeah, we went through some of it.
It was an hour and a half long, so we didn't go through the whole thing.
My experiment worked.
What was your experiment?
I was able to spell out a word.
That's right.
And it displayed it with spaces, but, you know, it had the same effect.
You spelled out a swear, and it just basically very slowly went across the screen and spelled it perfectly.
But also, I think, Rob, you were quoting somebody, and the first word was the F word, and with the quote, it showed up.
So if you're...
I don't know how it knows when you're quoting somebody, but if your tone somehow makes it so that you're starting a sentence and you're quoting someone, you might be able to spell out the word.
Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn't.
Sometimes, you know, words showed up when we thought they wouldn't.
But in the end, when we all said the same cuss word five times each, we had a beautiful display of dashes in brackets across the screen, which you can see on any of our 2600 social media accounts as we posted the picture of that.
So, yeah, we had fun with that, but, you know, the censorship still exists.
Google is doing this.
I don't know why.
They're puritanical, I suppose.
They don't want people to see cuss words, but they have no trouble with people hearing cuss words.
So I just think, you know, if you're hearing a challenge in any way, you should object to this because you're not getting the full picture, and you deserve that.
All right.
Okay.
I've apparently said something else profound.
Well, as creators of stuff here, we should also, like, be able to control that.
Yes.
Wouldn't that be nice?
Instead of, I mean, there's so many little buttons and sliders and checkboxes and things we can do.
Easily, this should just be a part of something we can maintain.
If you're involuntarily transcribing things, let us set the kind of tone we want for our own channel.
Yeah.
I'm going to actually ask artificial intelligence how to fix this, how to change that setting, because I'm told that it's possible, but I'm also told that when you do make the setting, it doesn't work.
So we can try this and see what actually happens.
If it's simple enough, but it should not be a bunch of, like, wild steps and things.
That's not what the everyday average user should be put through.
But it is impressive, the sort of accuracy and the way it sort of updates as well to transcribe what audio is in content and shows like this.
So I've got the phone connected.
Are we still interested in using it?
I'm reading what Gemini is telling me here.
Right now, I'm trying to figure out how to display more than one line at a time.
So give me a second.
Can't you guys have a conversation if I'm not talking?
Well, while we're talking about asking AI for info, I can mention an incident that happened at my day job today.
And speaking in entirely general terms, somebody had contacted me at work asking for a piece of information that my workplace does not have and does not provide.
And so naturally, I gave them the information on where to go get this info.
And they said, oh, but I was told that you would have it.
And I was interested.
I'm like, well, if there's some instruction somewhere that's giving erroneous info, I'd like to know about it.
Can you let me know where you found the information that you need to contact me for the information you're looking for?
And this person sent me a screenshot of Google's AI overview, which, sure enough, had directed them to contact my office about the thing they were looking for.
And I had to explain to that person that the AI overview is not info that's put there by people.
It is robots guessing.
And it is not a source of reliable information.
So, you know, this was a non-technical person who did not realize that the new section on top of Google was not just more search results.
It was, in fact, robots guessing at something that is vaguely shaped like info.
Cool story, bro.
Cool story, bro.
You can tell it again.
I did go back and look at my experiments.
So here's something fun.
Because I was like, is it five quick shits or one long shit?
And shits got through.
Shit did not.
Huh.
What do you mean it did not?
It got blanked.
The big shit got blanked.
Shits gets through.
Shits.
Shits plural.
You mean plural?
Okay.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Now I'm going to have to come back and look at this one and see if it writes out shits plural or maybe shits the verb.
Or, you know, is the fact that I just said shit enough to – I love the experimentation we're doing here.
This is ongoing now.
Well, I don't because I'm following Gemini's instructions on how to modify the channel to allow swear words.
And, you know, it's telling me click on channel under settings and there's no channel under settings.
It's the same thing every damn time.
They tell you to go to a place that doesn't exist or that's been changed and it just drives you crazy.
And to do that while doing a show is almost impossible.
That's what I meant.
No, that's what I was talking about because there's, like, different versions of different types of dashboards or whatever kind of interface you're using.
Invariably, they've, like, changed one aspect of it and then you're going to reference something.
And then you have to go and, like, track down how old that information is or what level of their application development they were at when that advice was, like, valid.
It just takes you on a crazy goose chase.
It just took me off the page, too.
So if we got disconnected, let me know.
But hopefully we didn't.
You're here.
I don't know if I am.
But I think we're okay.
But I'm not going to do this during the show.
It's just too crazy.
Okay.
So we can take phone calls if you want to do that.
But first, let's check the phone to make sure it's...
Okay.
All right.
Hit a button.
Quickly, Kyle.
Thank you.
Oh, that's a perfect phone line.
That sounds beautiful.
Okay.
But nobody breathe.
Nobody do anything.
I'm not touching anything.
I'm not touching anything.
Let me bring it up a little louder.
Let's try this one more time.
Gosh.
You know you're tempting.
Go ahead.
Go ahead.
Dial tone.
And touch tone.
Does anybody have any complaints about the quality of this phone line?
The number you have dialed has not been recognized.
I wasn't talking to you.
Please try again.
Just hang her up.
Okay.
All right.
Well, then...
She sounded very good.
So, okay.
Again, what Kyle said, don't breathe.
You guys in Signal Land, you don't breathe either, even though you think you're safe from affecting
the equipment here.
You're not.
So, yeah, it definitely will cause issues.
This is the kind of success that makes me not want to, like, go ponder disconnecting
and, like, moving a cable and trying to troubleshoot, because invariably that just makes it worse.
It does.
And then we get stuck in this place.
You know what?
I don't even want to get into it.
God damn it.
It's messing with my emotions.
I hate today's computers where you touch something just a little bit and all kinds of windows
open up and it assumes it knows what you're doing when you're not trying to do that
in the first place.
And now I've had windows open.
God damn it.
Were we supposed to have heard a dial tone?
Yes.
You didn't hear a dial tone?
I'm only fucking with you.
Turn him down for now.
We'll see if we can get back to him later.
All right.
So, all right.
Our phone number.
Get ready.
Our phone number is, and it's not working until I finish the last digit.
Okay?
Not until I finish the last digit.
So you can dial if you want, but you're not going to get anywhere.
8-0-2-3-2-1-4-2-2-5.
All right.
It's been activated.
8-0-2-3-2-1-4-2-2-5.
Boy, that was quick.
That was quick.
Let's take this phone call.
Good evening.
Good evening.
You are on off the hook over time.
Go ahead.
Please turn down whatever the hell you're listening to us on.
Yeah.
This sounds like Rebel.
Yes, of course.
Rebel, can you just be quiet for a second, and everybody else be quiet for a second?
That's beautiful.
There's no hum.
There is no hum.
If you say there's a hum, Rebel, we're going to have issues.
You're a little low, but I don't hear anything.
Well, you're going to have to deal with me being a little low, because I can get lower.
What's on your mind?
Is that going to be censored?
I heard that.
What are you doing?
What is on your mind?
The self-censorship, man.
Yeah, what is on your mind?
Feel free to...
I'm being interested in how computer networks work.
And I'm talking about the old style, like the from the 1980s, like mid-80s, late-80s, up to the mid-90s or late-90s.
I really noticed that there were, like, mini-computers and, like, mainframes and, like, people who only have, like, maybe five or six terminals or ten terminals have mini-computers.
I wanted to work, like, in our college in the early 90s, we had a VAX-VMS mainframe with, like, maybe 30 or 40 terminals.
They were able to send email.
Now, I would be able to send email from the outside, and we had email internally where we put username at mvcc.edu or whatever.
But you could also put...
You could also do that from the outside.
How did that work?
I mean, we would also be able to do Telnet and FTP.
This was in the early 90s.
How did that work?
Did that work on, like, ports or something?
Or gateways?
Well, you know, I don't know the specifics as to how exactly it worked.
But, you know, similar to how it worked now as far as transferring data from system to system, you know, TCP, IP, and, you know, just basically connecting and transferring data, whether it's FTP, whether it's mail, whether it's some kind of talk protocol that you might have used back then, which used to work all the time, which was great.
But, you know, back before that, bulletin boards would exchange mail once a day with UUCP and FITONet and all that.
They would basically slowly get messages across.
And it was magical.
It was magical.
When you got an email from somebody on a distant system someplace, it really seemed to mean something, kind of like getting a letter in the mail used to mean something.
And now, of course, we take it all for granted.
Well, it was at a UUCP account, though, back then.
Right.
You would have a UUCP account.
I used to have one.
I can't remember how it worked exactly.
But you would be able to, if you use the right protocol, the right syntax, rather, you would be able to send mail to somebody on a different system.
It might take a day or two to get to them, but it would work.
And you're saving a postage stamp.
How did the lease lines work?
Like, if one main thing, like, if the terminals, like, let's say Blockbuster Video.
I'm just going to give them as an example.
They used Digital Equipment Corporation terminals.
And there's offices throughout the country, wherever their main office was, their data center was, they used lease lines.
Because this was in the 90s.
They used lease lines to, you know, to, you know, for data or communication.
How did that work?
Pretty much the same as our always-on connection works now, except they paid a lot of money for it.
You know, it wasn't as fast.
It was, as the name suggests, leased only for them.
And, you know, they never had to dial up.
They could just connect at all times.
But, boy, was that expensive.
And, you know, in terms of today, it was not that fast.
I know.
How does this work?
Like, when one can, let's say, their mainframe connect with another mainframe?
Let's say a car rental agency, like whatever, Avis, whatever.
They have a mainframe in their, let's say, wherever there is.
And their agents, you know, their location throughout the country, they, you know, connect with the mainframe to get your reservation and all that.
But can their mainframe talk to another mainframe, like, say, they wanted to check a driver's license to make sure that your driver's license isn't suspended?
Can they go and do an application on their system to check with the motor vehicle bureaus in that state?
Are you asking for today or for back in the 90s?
Yes, sir.
I'm talking about, you know, like the 80s, the 90s.
Yeah, I don't think it was that straightforward.
I don't think it was that simple.
I think they had to, you know, send in something and wait for a response.
I don't think they had any kind of access to DMV records.
They might have made a phone call.
You know, there's all, you know, people used to do all kinds of things that we would never recognize today.
I remember people who worked in retail stores to validate a credit card.
They would call a number.
They would read the credit card number.
They would get a number back, which was the authorization code.
They would input that number.
I think they'd say another number back to them.
They would have entire conversations of nothing but numbers with complete strangers.
And that's how credit card verification used to work.
That's before you would actually scan a credit card or even roll it in the carbon paper thing, which is another whole adventure.
I imagine that the early 90s, like of the mid-90s, when, let's say, the airline would, you buy a ticket and you would, they would swipe your credit card at their, you know, terminal.
I'm talking about computer terminal, not credit card terminal.
And that computer terminal, you know, the mainframe or wherever the data center was, would that system talk to the visas system or the American Express system or whoever, you know?
That's a different, that's a little bit different to that.
That's as it's grown, the eras, there may have been services that those, those credit card processing organizations would offer institutions that were doing high, high rates of sale through travel agencies.
And however, they're doing that, they're, they're doing a lot of transactions.
So they may have had those kind of similar things, maybe not a least lined per se, but because a lot of things were becoming networked, they may have had services that were sort of ready-made for interoperating or integrating with their ticket sale system for the airline.
But it, it, it was really started with institutions that were already setting up these kinds of mainframes and local systems to connect over those kinds of lines, creating the sorts, sort of network you're talking about early on.
It, it made a little bit more sense for academic institutions, but like you pointed out, some business models were made around this kind of thing.
And you would get data lines and things like even ISDN eventually, those, those types of connections were ideal.
They were like, they were like kind of conceived to have people build these kinds of remote locations to access their, their bigger data center, like you said, or other sorts of computer systems from afar so they could expand and, and grow their business.
I have a question.
We have our, we have our, our, our fiber optic lines now, right?
Um, there, uh, some people I imagine, um, uh, have copper still, they still use copper phone lines and that's, that's fine.
Uh, there are people out there who are, uh, perhaps using, uh, DSL.
Um, is anyone still using ISDN anywhere?
Is there an ISDN connection?
I would like to know if anyone out in the, in the entire planet has an ISDN connection.
I, I have no idea, probably not, but the same thing.
Well, that's sad, but, but it, it could still be, um, employed in some way somewhere in the world along with other, there are many other types of service that, that were offered that were sort of created around, uh, an environment where we didn't have the always on sort of internet.
Yeah, and they, they were eventually very quickly supplanted because it didn't make sense.
Since as broadband emerged, there's just already a sort of connection.
And in some cases, though, you'd want that direct connection or private line.
There's a lot, a lot of scenarios.
So that those services still existed.
T1s I know are used in, uh, radio stations were in, in the past.
That's been supplanted by things like.
Is the T1 a leased line?
It's a sort of, yeah, definitely.
So that's the way radio stations, it's like a leased line from the radio station to the intensive.
Either that or a microwave relay, either one of those.
Yeah, private circuits, any institution or business that's needs something that's dedicated.
In other words, that has a very high uptime, um, and wouldn't be subject to like a service outage for, um, the public telephone, like you could experience in the public telephone network.
So they, they would offer those as different classes of service.
And before the internet, that was a desirable thing to offer because people were starting to set up these, these, uh, terminals and mainframes, like you're saying, and they would need to connect them because we are geographically disparate in, in how we're organized and especially with businesses.
And of course, academic institution.
I want to have an ISDN connection.
There, I said it.
I can find an ISDN modem.
What about banks?
Like when you go like, you have a Chase card and you go to Citi Bandit.
No one's listening to me.
I'm talking about the 80s and the 90s.
If you had a Chase card and you went to Citi Bank, uh, that would be like the NICE system or the PLUS system or whatever.
Nice.
N-Y-S-E, yes.
That would be a dial-up.
Well, yeah, we, we, we, we don't know how these things, you know what, why don't you ask artificial intelligence?
They might know.
It's all changed.
Like it, it, it, it's continuously changed over, over the emergence and the, as different technologies emerge.
So you've got to point to a specific era and yeah, an informed system or some, some historical reference, you could probably find the exact type of, um, connections they were employing around their business models.
But you have to sort of interrogate something that really knows the specifics of the era.
So it wasn't a dial connection, like, uh, the, the, the Citi Bank wouldn't, uh, dial into the, uh, NICE network and, uh, send the information away?
Maybe early on, but it, it, it's bound to have transformed maybe several different times as they've evolved.
And now, of course, it's probably done online.
Does that answer your question?
It'll never answer his question.
And I, he's always going to have more questions.
What?
Well, I'm just saying, you're always going to have more questions.
Uh, and Aguila, Aguila right now has, has a point she's going to make.
I'm not sure if you can hear it, but let's find out.
Go ahead.
Okay.
Tim in Connecticut points out the following.
Yes.
Frontier still offers DSL internet service, although its availability is limited and the company is actively expanding its fiber network.
And a listener had a question, um, for Rebel.
Uh, Dory asks, is he asking about hardline, token ring, or twisted pair routing?
All right.
Rebel, did you hear that?
I did not hear Aguila at all.
Well, I don't know what to tell you.
Uh, uh, somebody is asking you, you're probably on the chat, so you probably couldn't even see this.
Someone's asking if it's token, token ring.
Can you, can you feed me the, the, the, the, the words, uh, Gila, token ring, what else?
It was, thank you, Rob, a hardline, token ring, or twisted pair routing.
Hardline, token ring, or twisted pair routing.
Rebel.
Okay.
Um, all right.
So, um.
Okay.
If you're just going to ignore what I say, we're asking you a question here.
What was it?
Oh, for God's sake.
Twisted pair, token ring.
What was the third one?
Hardline.
Hardline.
Which one?
Okay.
Well, uh, study that, I guess.
Look into that.
There was token ring.
Yeah, I know that.
But I'm saying there was leaf lines from like the, the, the, the location to a distant location.
But how did that distant location data center communicate with another data center somewhere else?
That's the question.
Yeah.
Well, we don't have all the answers and we don't know this either.
Well, through other, through other types of, of connections, of course, but especially before the internet.
And as you described, there were a lot of solutions prior that prior to the, the wider public internet that people used to do sort of batches and store.
And I don't know what is it store and forward or like lots of like offline schemes.
And yeah, I mean, you're, this is a long time ago.
This is, this is, uh, there's a lot of different ways people were set up because they were on their own.
They really had to come up with their own kinds of connections.
It's one thing to physically set it up at your business or on, on a campus of some kind, but then to expand, it was a big deal.
And what was available was of, of those kinds of physical connections.
You had classes of service and carriers that you had to deal with to support those connections.
I got some, uh, happy news, uh, from artificial intelligence here, um, ISDN connections still exist, but their use is very limited and they are being phased out globally or are largely replaced by faster broadband technologies like DSL and fiber.
Some industries and specific use cases still rely on them.
Um, I want to know who those industries and specific use cases are.
So please, if you know of one, uh, please let me know.
Yeah.
ISDN is still in use for certain niche applications where it's specific characteristics, uh, such as a dedicated, reliable, and secure connection, which apparently nobody else offers, are valued over high speed.
Okay.
Uh, broadcast, voiceover, uh, radio stations.
And we, we don't have it.
That's for sure.
Backup systems, older infrastructure, remote locations.
Um, okay.
I'm, I, my, my curiosity has been, has been satisfied.
Rebel, do you have any final words?
Yeah.
Is that funny?
How does 2600.com work?
Do you have like a, how does, like you have a server somewhere and it's your own thing?
You don't use like a cloud service, like Amazon web service, right?
You have your own thing, right?
Yeah, we do.
And the 288 is still works fine.
There's no reason to get anything faster.
We just read email occasionally.
Uh, and, uh, everything of course is printed.
Uh, so, uh, it, it worked in 1984.
Why, why shouldn't it work now?
Actually, no, we didn't have that in 1984.
Before we upgraded, uh, a few years after that.
But, but, you know, 288 is a good speed.
I don't see a reason to go faster than that.
Thanks for your call, Rebel.
Uh, you've, you've given us a lot to think about and, um, um, it's, it's always nice to
take a trip down memory lane.
Now we just have to try and get back here.
Uh, but thank you for your call.
Uh, 802-321-4225.
Um, yeah, let's try to keep it brief because there are other people out there.
Lots of other people.
Well, some callers just have a insatiable technical curiosity.
They do.
And that's good.
That's good.
It's good.
It's good.
It's a challenge.
I think we're up for it.
Everybody had great insights into this.
So I'm ready for the next call as soon as, uh, as soon as it comes through.
Yes.
802-321-4225.
Uh, Gila, go ahead.
Um, I do have something that may, um, something about Nexstar.
Please.
Uh, Nexstar is attempting to lobby the FCC right now to change the rules on how many stations
in a particular network, in a particular market, um, one company can own.
Okay.
So in the same-
Wait a minute.
They want more or less?
More.
They're trying to take over another network group.
Is this the best time?
I mean, considering that, um, that, that supposedly they're scared of this guy, Brendan Carr, they're
going to ask him for a favor now?
Which would explain why they're, why they're, uh, bending the knee to him.
Oh, I see.
So they think by, by, by sacrificing Kimmel, he might give them, God, these people are so
shameless.
He only has PBS sacrificed Hubert to get their merger.
It's just business.
It's just business.
No, it's not just business.
It's corrupt bullshit is what it is.
Wow.
Just, just, just, just, just wow.
Is there a network out there, any network that has integrity?
Any, any broadcasting, any TV network, anything?
You know, I would have said Vice a few years ago, but that's not true.
Sorry?
Have you heard of Pacifica?
No, we're talking about TV.
We're talking about television.
Oh, sorry.
Well, then PBS, which has just been kneecapped.
So, yeah.
I mean, I can say a lot of things about PBS, but, um, uh, they do not deserve what has happened
to them.
Absolutely not.
By the way, uh, speaking of PBS, um, there's a great documentary out there that I heartily
recommend, uh, people see.
It's called WZZQ, the documentary or the movie.
Yes.
WZZQ, the movie.
It's about this, um, this radio station in Jackson, Mississippi in the 1970s and 80s.
That was a freeform rock and roll station.
And, um, it's a one hour documentary.
It's told in just such an amazing, uh, a style, uh, and all kinds of footage.
And if you like radio, if you appreciate radio, I think you will really like this film.
We saw it on an over the air, uh, a TV station, uh, from Connecticut, actually.
Um, yeah, we've been messing with our setup.
We might get a better antenna.
Like we're, we're pretty proud of our, our little connection to the airwaves, but we don't
love digital TV.
I do.
I do like the fact that we're able to get a TV station from Connecticut and watch PBS
there.
It's not carried anywhere else.
Um, but I'm very upset at what digital TV did to television broadcasting because, you
know, back in the day, you could turn on a TV and watch New York city.
You could watch, you know, Hartford, Connecticut from, from Long Island.
Um, here you can't even get 20 miles down the road.
Uh, it has to be near you or you're out of luck.
And that has just cut down on so much that people who don't have cable or satellite, uh,
could have access to.
Yeah.
You can get 10 channels or something per channel, but that's usually just shop at home crap or,
or something else that you're never going to look at.
Uh, whereas in the past, the whole world was out there.
You could, you know, do what's known as DXing, which is, um, uh, listening to, um, um, uh,
far away radio or TV stations.
You can still do that on AM.
If you, if you tune on your AM dial, you'll be able to get distant stations after sunset.
Uh, but you used to be able to do that on, on television as well.
And now, you know, I, if I had had over the air TV, when, um, the cutover was happening
from analog to digital back in the, what, 2009, uh, I would have realized that, uh, I was
saying goodbye to so many TV stations and never going to be able to pick up their signal again.
And that supposedly is an improvement.
It doesn't work if it's raining.
Doesn't work if you're, you know, if a bird flies somewhere near your antenna, uh, it's,
you have to be close by.
It's awful.
It is terrible.
Uh, the old system was much better.
Sure.
The picture wasn't perfect, but I don't think many people are going for the perfect picture.
They want the coverage, Rob.
Well, yeah, I just, uh, looked it up and, uh, the site for WZZQ, the movie is WZZQ, the movie.com.
And right on the top of that page is a link to watch the documentary for free on PBS's
site.
So I will be checking this out.
Oh, Hey, is there still a caller on the line or am I?
I think there might be.
And right now you're taking up his space, Alex.
So, uh, why don't you shut up for a second so we can talk to the caller.
Is that okay with you?
Thank you.
Sure.
Caller.
I'm sorry for Alex.
Uh, good evening.
You're on the air.
Go ahead.
You're on overtime.
Go ahead.
Oh, by the way, Gila, um, I can hear you.
I can hear Alex.
Gila is sort of, I hear part of what she says.
And well, Gila, you're kind of far from the microphone.
You're coming in a little low.
If you could be closer, that would be good.
You want to say something loud now?
Uh, something loud.
Okay.
Well, that's not too loud.
That I heard.
Okay.
So just, uh, you just need to speak a little louder and probably you too, Rob, because you're
both kind of far from the mic.
Well, they're sharing.
They're sharing one mic.
I know that's part of the problem because, uh, you know, when you have your own mic, you're
louder.
That's, that's how it works.
Thank you, caller, for pointing that out.
What's on your mind?
Alex was talking about utilitarian position where you would justify murder to, to, um,
achieve the greater good.
And yes, earlier, and, and he was talking about people who wrote about that.
One of the people who wrote about that was Isaac Asimov in his book.
I robot is a story where a robot balances, um, not letting harm come to human beings, which
is in the first law versus not causing harm to human human being, which is also in the
first law and, and it ends up killing people in order to keep them from killing other people.
That's an iRobot.
Yes.
Yes.
Okay.
So, uh, is that a question or is that just a clarification?
Well, I'm, yeah, I heard, I read it a long time ago, but I remember that.
Uh-huh.
Yeah.
I, I suggest everybody read iRobot and, uh, you know.
Are you saying that this applies and that maybe the, like subconsciously, that's the kind
of thing that we're experiencing that people are trying to like do the, that it's taken
on a form of certain, like a certain form of like vigilantism or something?
Well, I don't, I'm not saying that vigilantism is happening that way, but, but I, but I did
notice the relevance of iRobot to the principles that Alex was discussing.
Okay.
Alex, I don't know if you can be heard, but, but say, say something.
And yeah, I, I think you're, you're totally right.
And I think it's a really astute observation because, you know, Asimov, I think you could
probably frame a lot of his writing as kind of utilitarian writing because he, he had this
kind of theme about the idea of sacrificing a few people for the greater good of humanity.
And so he's writing about like kind of the greater good of humanity and, and, and the
future in that respect.
And so I think he had maybe just by, by the, the very nature of the subject matter, utilitarian
subjects that would arise.
So yeah, very cool of you to point that out.
And thanks.
Thanks for listening.
Thank you.
By the way, also on the off the hook itself, um, people were saying, including Emmanuel, that
it's harder now to run your own email server.
Why is that?
Well, you know, uh, it's harder because it's gotten more complex, uh, with, uh, the kinds
of email that are being sent, uh, the amount of, um, of, of, of data that's passing through.
Um, and you know, there's also a bunch of standards that you have to meet as far as, uh, uh, how you
pass mail back and forth.
Uh, it's, it's just, you, you need a system administrator.
There's somebody who's familiar with the ins and outs of a particular operating system and,
uh, a mail client and, and, and server and all that.
Uh, so it's dedication and, you know, you can't expect everybody to know how to do this,
but I think what would be good is if we had bands of people, uh, who, uh, kind of collaborated,
uh, a couple of which knew the ins and outs of how to configure a system and then accounts
were offered to a bunch of people and it's, it's, it's not Google, it's not Yahoo, it's
not even ProtonMail, uh, it's something independent, uh, kind of like, you know, what Mastodon does
now, um, but only for, for, for email.
I would like to see more of that happen.
It's, it's complex.
It really is, uh, you know, a lot to expect people to do.
It used to be a lot easier.
It used to be something that everybody did when they installed their, their latest Linux version.
Uh, but, um, we can't really expect people to do that these days.
On their own.
Can people develop software tools that will make it easier to do this sort of thing?
Uh, I, you know, I can't answer that myself.
I would hope so.
I would hope there, there is a movement out there to do this.
Um, I think that is definitely the hope of the future.
Um, but it's, it's a challenge.
Are you going to have a whole conference called the hope of the future?
Oh, write that down out there.
Yeah.
That's a good idea.
Hope of the future.
I like that.
I like that.
But what happens when it arrives?
Yeah, it's not the future anymore.
Do we rename it?
You were one saying, you were one saying, you wonder what will happen when it's, then there
are people on Mars, um, going to conferences, then it will, won't be just hackers on planet
Earth and you'll ruin the acronym.
Yeah, we screwed that up.
I know.
I know.
We weren't thinking ahead.
We're out of luck when Mars, uh, starts being used.
And, uh, in fact, any planet, any other, oh boy, it was stupid, wasn't it?
Well, but we're also being very specific, right?
Yeah, but we're limited to Earth.
What if Earth is a burnt out cinder?
And that's probably going to happen.
You know, we can't just go to Neptune or Alpha Centauri or something because, you know,
we don't have the name.
Well, I also heard that, that the, um, that it's a lot harder to terraform any other planet
than it is to terraform Earth itself if something goes wrong.
And even that is extremely difficult.
It's a challenge, yeah.
You just need to do it to protect it.
Uh-huh.
Yeah, yeah.
There's all kinds of different thoughts on this.
Yeah.
And I guess we're going to leave it there.
But, uh, where are you calling from?
I'm calling from the Bronx.
The Bronx.
Okay.
Well, uh, um, enjoy, uh, the, the, the rest of the night.
Thank you.
All right.
Take care.
802-321-4225.
And I think we proved there that callers can hear you guys.
You just have to speak up.
So, uh, speak up and they'll, they'll probably hear you.
Except Rebel, who's always going to give us trouble.
Yes, Rob.
Well, um, for, for folks interested in starting to run their own mail server, there was actually
a really good book that, uh, I read recently that goes really deep into the nuts and bolts
of it and lays out all the stuff you would have to do.
It's by an author called Michael W. Lucas, and it's called Run Your Own Mail Server.
And, uh, it's, it's just what it sounds like.
It's not for the technically, um, completely inept, but, uh, it does, it does break things
down in an easy to read, uh, way for folks who are technically inclined, who are interested
in it.
Some ineptitude is welcome.
So, uh, uh, that's, that's, uh, what's the name of the book again?
Run Your Own Mail Server by Michael W. Lucas.
Wow.
I just want to read a letter, uh, from a listener, um, based on our discussion last week, uh,
about MDashes.
Uh, greetings to the off-the-hook people.
Uh, to make generating a character like the MDash in Windows work, the digits typed while
holding the Alt key must be on the numeric keypad, Alex.
Uh, have the NumLock on so the numbers on the keypad will be available.
To type an MDash with this system, turn on or leave on the NumLock, then hold down Alt
while typing 0151 on the numeric keypad, then let go of Alt.
Or just type a damn hyphen.
That's what's right there on the keypad.
Uh, uh, keyboards without a numeric keypad will generally have a technique for using
part of the keyboard as a numeric keypad.
So if that wasn't enough for you, yeah, uh, you can, you can apparently map out part of
your regular keyboard to be a numeric keyboard as well, uh, and jump through even more hoops.
Word processors may be set to convert two consecutive hyphens into a dash.
That, that one makes more sense than anything anyone has said so far.
So two dashes together turns into an MDash.
Now that's nice.
That's what I do.
But that's only in certain word processes.
It's not everywhere.
So that's, that's the big problem.
And of course on a Mac, hold down the option and shift keys and type a hyphen.
All right.
Okay.
Hang on.
Hang on.
I have two questions.
Yes.
You're very low again.
I was kind of slid over.
Okay.
Number one, um, is, are, are there people who don't always have num lock on?
I always have the number lock on.
I love using the 10 keypad.
Thank you.
Maybe speaking.
I always have number lock on.
Am I alone?
Well, what happens when you don't have it on?
That I can't type numbers on the little key.
Other than that.
I mean, is there a use for it not being on and having a numeric keypad?
No.
Okay.
Um, okay.
That was question number one.
Question number two, um, was if everybody's talking about the M dash being a recent phenomenon
or overuse of the M dash, are we forgetting about Emily Dickinson?
Every time Emily Dickinson couldn't think of a word, she just threw in an M dash and people
thought it was profound.
Wow.
And what year was that?
In the 1800s.
They had M dashes in the 1800s?
Yeah.
Yeah.
You had to go to a blacksmith to get them.
Now, is that a key on a typewriter?
No, it's two dashes.
Because like an N dash is the width of an N.
Okay.
And an M dash is the width of an M.
So what, you're saying an N dash is simply a dash and an M dash is two dashes.
That's correct.
Well, then why isn't a hyphen an N dash?
It is?
No, it's not.
A hyphen is an N dash in my mind.
No, it's not.
Uh-uh.
I deal with this all the time.
Hyphen is tiny.
N dash is a little bit wider.
M dash is much wider.
They're all glyphs.
Today, I learned.
Yeah.
All right.
Somebody lost patience hung up and I think someone else is calling back.
So let's pick up this phone call and say, good evening.
You are on off the hook over time.
Go ahead.
Hello.
How are you guys?
Good.
How are you doing?
Pretty good.
A couple of things.
In the good old days, Optimum used to have red ISD lines from the phone company and use
that to connect people digitally to their phone system.
I don't know if you remember that back in the 80s and the 90s.
You're saying Optimum?
Optimum on Long Island gave what they call, I think it was called PAP something.
PAP, telePAP or whatever it was called.
And what it was is if you had a business and you wanted a cheaper telephone service, they
would use either a DSL or a C1 line from your office and send that over to their mainframes.
Wow.
Well, it was probably called Cablevision back then.
Yeah, Cablevision, but LightPath.
I think it was called LightPath.
LightPath.
Yeah.
No, I remember the name, LightPath.
I'd never used it, but...
Sorry.
It took me a while to think about it.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Okay.
Come up with it.
Going back into the memories.
But I want to give you some more historical stuff, guys.
Go ahead.
American Express.
Yes.
When they...
American Express would use RF.
They would take...
They built special keypads into a radio and they would key in the credit card number
and they did this for the tennis over at Forest Hills and then they linked it to a building
and they sent it all over our app.
If you were clever enough, you could listen in on a receiver system and decode their information.
They were basically taking...
They were using a modem.
So that's how they were doing portable credit card entry.
Wow.
They had a terminal that was connected.
It was in the old days.
And we had a business.
I had a business.
And we had a dial-up for our credit card.
You had a machine.
You could swipe the card or you could see any information.
And when you did that, this thing would immediately grab a phone line, touchtone dial, and then use 1200 board.
Yeah, the Verifone systems are similar to that and they were ubiquitous when I was much younger.
I've actually got one that I took apart and it uses Zilog.
I can't remember exactly what chips are in it, but it's fascinating what they were doing with these terminals
back before a lot of that stuff was going over wireless or the internet.
Yeah, look, look.
You had stuff like MCI.
Everything was done.
Bruce Force, workarounds.
Some of that is more reliable today.
I'd rather have an old telephone line than have some of this new digital stuff because, hey, if things go down, you're going to be in trouble.
That's right.
I remember as a kid in 1965, I was 10 years old and we had the blackout for the phones to do work.
And all of your telephone COs had at least five days of fuel in it, in your generator.
Yeah, that's a smart setup.
That's how you should do it.
Because, you know, things will fall apart at some point, whether through a natural disaster or a man-made calamity.
It's, you know, you've already invented the technology that can help you survive and sustain whatever it is that you're doing.
Why give that up just because something is faster?
You can have both.
Well, the reason why it's happening is because the phone company doesn't want to – the phone company or the local operating companies that were around, and now what you've got here is Verizon, they don't want to go out and maintain the old copper.
They figure it's easy to do fiber because they can put a lot more circuits on instead of having ordered about, you know, 48-pair or 128-pair phone lines or worry about water getting in.
Okay, well, then, here's my suggestion.
Back in the day, way back in the day, when phones were just becoming a thing, there would be one phone in the neighborhood.
It would be, like, at the general store or something, and people would go down to the general store to make their phone call.
Now everyone has cell phones.
They don't need phones in their home anymore.
I suggest we go back to that system, put a phone in the general store, whatever store you want to call the general store, and people can walk down there again when their cell phones stop working and use the reliable phone that is still there.
Oh, I will agree with, I will absolutely agree with you.
Look, you know, you guys talk about digital TV.
I do like the old MPSB, the analog system, because the digital system is so crummy because of the, you know, because of the hour range.
All you've got to do is put your hand near an antenna and you'll lose the signal, okay?
Crazy, yeah, it's awful.
And they did get better, but you know what it is?
It's also like what happened on 9-11 when some of the fire people died because of their communications and because they were going digital.
Even back then, you know, you've got companies, you know, like Motorola, who were able to get the government to force everybody to go digital.
New York City's been fighting it.
They don't want to go digital.
They are going digital.
But you look at the NYPD, that stuff was built back in the 70s and the 60s, and it worked great.
Yeah.
But now, you can't listen to the police, so it's no longer open.
It's no longer out there on the sun.
You don't know what the police are doing anymore.
Yeah, there's no accountability at all, and it's all encrypted and private, and that's not the way it was designed.
Yeah, like, look, I'm, you know, as a ham and as a hobbyist, I like to listen to the old police stuff.
Of course.
But I will tell you that there was a couple big things, like remember that shooting out in Vegas where the guy shot up a bunch of people?
Yep.
If you were, if you talked to the police out there, because it was, it was known in the radio community that they were having problems.
When guys would be running and yelling into their mic, into their radios, the digital system had problems with the artifacts.
You know, the digital audio conversion, which was really crummy.
Another thing with the digital systems, you don't get the situational awareness because you can't hear all the noises, the people in the background.
They're finding out that there's a lot of issues with all this digital stuff.
Yeah.
It's incredible how short-sighted people can be, people making decisions.
I just want to tell you that your audio level, listening to you guys, when I'm listening to you on my iPhone, listening to YouTube, some of you guys have low audio.
You need to raise the level a little bit, the outgoing level.
Yeah, I think we're doing that in Signal Land, certainly we're raising the audio level.
But hopefully I sound okay, hopefully Kyle sounds okay.
I really sound loud.
Right.
But some of you are so low that I have to train to listen to it.
Or maybe we can have some kind of compression that will boost signals.
We'll figure this out, but we're starting to...
You don't want too much ALC when I'm at a level control.
Right.
But some of you guys are so low that you're up against the noise floor.
Right, right.
Well, that's good advice, and we are working on...
At least we got rid of the hum.
There's no hum right now, so I'm happy about that.
Yeah, you got no hum today.
Your hum has got at least 60, 70 dB.
That's good.
It's way down here.
It's in the noise.
So you got rid of your ground loop.
Now you just got to bring up the level without screwing anything up.
Okay, well, we will get there.
We're on the way.
Thanks for listening.
I'm going to let you go.
Yeah, we're...
You know, I wish you guys would talk more about the technical stuff, the politics.
I understand where things are going.
And believe me, as a ham operator, you got to be careful what you're saying now, because
if you have a repeater or anything like that, the FCC can come after you, and they are going
after people for what they're saying right now.
And think about that statement, you know?
That's not the America I know.
Well, you know what?
You know what?
I am conservative, but I also say you've got to have the right to free speech.
On that we can agree.
You've got to have the right to express yourself.
But they got so far, I mean, you know, I don't even know who this guy really was.
But, you know...
Yeah, that's the point.
Nobody does.
So that's why nobody should be pointing fingers.
No, but this is wrong.
The FCC has no right.
Even though I agree with a lot of what they do, I don't agree with the FCC doing this.
No, that's not their job.
The FCC should stay out of it.
This is a free speech issue.
The FCC, yes, what they're trying to do...
And by the way, the way the broadcast industry got is what's causing this.
You now have major broadcast centers where you have 20, 30, 40, 60 guys sitting in little cubes, you know, doing the shows.
And they just send it out by, you know, by the Internet or satellite to all of these, you know, communications, to these transmitting sites, to the radio stations.
And what's so sad is that it's so cheap for them.
Okay, they go out to, let's say, Timbuktu, Ohio, or wherever, and say to a radio operator, you know, a radio station owner, hey, we'll give you a million dollars.
Then they fire everybody, and they just run the transmitter remotely and just send a fee to everything else.
If you go across the AM broadcast band, I don't care if you're listening to WWL or...
New Orleans.
...WHM up in Rochester, it all sounds the same.
It does, and a lot of times it's the same program, just being repeated everywhere.
Right, you hear Coast to Coast or whatever it is.
In the old days, you could listen to a station and get the flavor or the personality of that community.
Like WCBS, remember?
I'm still mourning the loss of WCBS.
Oh, I am too.
CBS started in 1967.
I remember when they started, I was 13 years old, and they had a show on where they would sell used equipment.
They had a swapping shop.
Oh, wow.
They had different things.
You have no...
You really don't have creativity anymore.
You have to have people selling things.
They have a one-hour show on this or this or this.
Then it went all loose.
I mean, look at what they did.
Now, it's the same crap.
Go to $10.50 or $8.80, it's the same thing.
Yeah, absolutely right.
I mean, I don't have a problem with sports.
Look, CBS had the bets on.
You know, they did the bets, or maybe one other football.
But now it's all sports.
All sports, and there's so many all-sports stations in New York City now.
We didn't need that.
And if they were going to go with just one all-news outlet,
they should have kept $8.80 and gotten rid of $10.10 because the signal is much better.
Oh, of course.
They should have...
They should have...
They should have got...
$8.80 was a much better...
Yeah, $8.80.
I remember being in Europe and having a Sony 2010.
I don't know if you know what...
That was a Sony receiver.
And I could hear $8.80 in Greece.
That's incredible.
Yeah, I think you've mentioned that before, and that's just amazing that you could do that.
Oh, sure.
$8.80 has a hell of a signal.
Also $7.70.
Yes.
But, you know, it's all the same stuff.
You listen to $7.10, $7.70.
It's all, you know?
Hey, let me ask you this.
Did you ever...
When $7.10, W-O-R, did you ever listen to Bob and Ray in the old days?
Yes.
You know what else I used to listen to?
I love...
Gene Shepard.
K-2-O-R-S.
Gene Shepard.
Yep.
I knew it.
I remember, look, it is 60, 68, 69.
I was 14 years old.
You had Bernard Meltzer, if you remember him, on 70...
On 770.
Okay.
I don't remember him.
Well, talk show.
Okay.
But you had Gene Shepard.
I love Gene Shepard with the story.
You have no more creativity.
You know, yes, it's...
What's happening is that these people can't compete.
Mm-hmm.
And now they want to get rid of AM radio in their cars.
No, that's ridiculous.
I don't think that's going to win.
I think that's actually...
We were able to save it for now.
Here's the big problem.
The manufacturers are finding it hard to make it work.
Yeah, electric cars.
I know, they interfere, but that's a problem with the car, not with the radio.
Right, but they have to design...
You know, a car manufacturer has to design that radio into the car and make it work.
I agree.
You shouldn't...
You know, I understand why manufacturers want to get rid of it, because they can't make it work.
They don't want to put the antenna in the windows, and it's just too much noise now.
I don't...
If you go out on the street with a popular AM radio, it's so noisy.
Mm-hmm.
I need you to, you know...
You can only hear a couple of stations because you need a strong signal to overcome all the man-made noise and all the electrical.
That's true.
So, yeah, electric lights and things like that, it is difficult, but well worth preserving, because it just penetrates in other areas.
I agree.
I agree, but, you know, now, in 10 or 15 years, they're going to go away with FM in this country.
They're going to go digital like they did in Europe.
That's going to be a sad day.
Do it like an analog signal, because you can hear it.
Mm-hmm.
A digital, an analog signal is more robust.
I mean, hey, if it's noisy, you'll hear noise, but at least you can make out what they're saying.
Yeah.
But with a digital signal, it's either there or dot.
Right.
And you can pick it up for a fair distance, too, analog signals.
So there's no comparison.
Yeah.
You should not give up one to have the other.
But anyway, listen, we have to move on.
We have to move on.
But thanks so much.
The government is doing it because they want to make money.
Of course.
That's what it's all about.
That's always what it's about.
It's all corruption.
But great hearing from you.
Let's continue this conversation in the future.
Okay, guys.
All right.
Be well.
All right.
I think we're pretty much out of time unless you guys want to take one more phone call.
What do you say?
We did have someone request, is it too late to call?
They asked.
I said it depends on whether we're going to be taking another call after the previous one hangs up.
So we do have a couple of times, a couple of people who do want to call in.
And unless I miss my guests, we're going to not be doing overtime for the next little bit.
Yes.
We're not doing it next week.
Overtime is not on next week because we're doing the call in on WBAI, which means we only do the radio show and we take calls there.
And then you guys are gone for the next month and we need you to do overtime.
So not having you here means we can't do overtime.
So for the two weeks after that, there won't be an overtime just because of that fact.
And then the week after that, what we're doing is we're pulling the call in show back a week because we sort of fell off a week.
So it'll be on, I think, on the 15th of October.
So we're going to have a second call in show then, which means no overtime.
So the next four weeks is not going to be an overtime.
But the week after that, there's going to be super overtime.
And we're going to we're going to do that.
So mark your calendars for October 22nd.
Well, we should take the call.
Well, I don't know if Kyle can hear that, but there's an off the hook tone.
Yeah.
Yeah.
OK.
Somebody hung up.
It's a regular caller.
Well, here's a regular caller now.
So let's let's pick up and pick up quickly before they hang up.
Are you going to pick up or not?
OK.
Good evening.
You're on off the hook.
Go ahead.
Hey, I just want to say what's up to Alex and Emmanuel.
This is Jeremy.
Hey, Jeremy.
How are you doing?
Good.
Oh, Jeremy.
Like the burnt kid.
Hey, how are you doing?
Like who?
Like the from the way back in the day, Jeremy.
Way, way back in the day.
Well, wait, everyone's from way back in the day.
Well, hold on.
Is this the burnt kid?
Like twenty six hundred meetings, Emmanuel, when when M.O.D. and L.O.D. used to be going
to your meetings.
OK.
Yeah.
I remember you.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I remember you, too, Alex.
It's been a while.
Yeah.
Wow.
You can remember somebody that easily just from a voice, Alex.
That's incredible.
Yeah, I do.
Yeah, that's weird.
Wow.
Well, what's what's for calling?
What's new?
Crazy.
Just working in the whiteboard these days.
I used to work in the TV world and that's been fun and whatever else.
But I've been listening to your shows, though.
And and that's pretty much it.
I just want to say what's up to Alex.
And I want to say what's up to you as well, Emmanuel.
One time I gave you some manuals.
It was when I was about between 14 and 16.
Some telecom manuals.
Do you need them back?
I found them very interesting.
Oh, OK.
Interesting.
But I'm sure you don't remember me.
But I went to a bunch of meetings or whatever else back when you had Jello as one of your guests and whatever else.
Uh-huh.
I think have you been on the 2600 voice BBS?
No, I have not.
No, I'm saying were you on it in the past?
Probably.
Yeah.
OK, I think I recognize your voice from there.
So actually, those recordings are going to be up online pretty soon, too.
So take it to be prepared for a trip down memory lane.
Cool.
Very cool.
Awesome.
Well, good hearing from you.
I just want to say what's up and hi.
And Alex, by the way, thank you for introducing me to Tool back in the days when we were teenagers.
Yep, I remember, man.
Yeah, it's good to hear your voice, Jim Ray.
It's been really a very, very long time.
Glad to hear you're well and very much appreciate you calling in and saying hey.
I'm glad you're doing well as well, and I'm glad you're doing well as well, Emmanuel.
And you guys take care.
Thank you so much.
It's good to hear your voice, Jeremy.
All right.
Wow.
A call from the past.
That's a great note to end on tonight.
That was really cool.
Yeah.
Yeah, that's funny, man.
Wow.
Really, really cool.
I haven't heard his voice possibly in close to 30 years.
But you instantly recognized him.
Yeah, I instantly recognized him.
That's pretty cool.
Yeah.
You know, I pulled out this credit card when the caller before was talking about Amex.
Because it's just something that annoys me.
I have this American Express Optima Platinum card.
And they have like this special club.
Where was it, Kyle?
Was that Seattle?
Was that Chicago?
Yeah, it was in SeaTac.
SeaTac.
They have, I think one of the airlines has this.
They're in a lot of airports.
You see them at different airports.
It's for American Express Platinum card members.
Right.
I have an American Express Platinum card.
It says it right here, but it's not the right Platinum.
Because I even showed it to the guy.
He said, oh, no, not that.
He laughed at my card.
Even though it says the exact word it's supposed to be.
Like, for God's sake, Amex.
Look, okay.
If you want to, you know, segregate the people and have only the upper crust show up to your stupid lounge, come up with a different word.
Don't use the same word on a different card.
Why do you, a Platinum, that's, you know, so many other words you could use.
I can't think of any at the moment, but I know they're out there and you could have used one and shared, you know, spared us all the embarrassment.
I think they even had like a printout to clarify because it happens so frequently.
Yeah, he read from a script.
Yeah, there was like a laminated sheet that was described.
This Platinum card is not the same as the other Platinum card.
Please exit yourself.
That was pretty funny.
Yeah, it was.
Well, it was made to look like such an exclusive thing and everybody's like lined up.
I don't care about your damn club.
Yeah.
Well, it was more like I can get in there.
Yeah.
So I get a free Coke.
Wow.
You guys tried to break into the Centurion Lounge.
Is that what it is?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
One of them.
But it's, you know, it's called the Centurion Lounge and all Amex cards have Centurions on them for some reason.
But specifically, it says for Platinum card holders.
And my card says Platinum card.
It's a Platinum card.
If I, Alex, can we take this to court?
It's not the Platinum card.
What do you mean?
It's not the Platinum card.
I'm holding the Platinum card in my wallet.
That's the Platinum card.
Is it the International Currency card?
Well, that's not what they said.
They said Platinum card.
This is such a stupid thing.
Yeah, but I didn't start it.
Oh, no, it definitely is.
I'm with you, Kyle.
Well, it's like, it's like.
Alex, why are you showing us your credit card?
We now have all your numbers.
That's, well, no, you don't because it's an American Express Platinum card, but the numbers are on the back.
Oh, they thought of everything.
They're clever.
Yeah, I know.
This is the real Platinum card here.
I actually went to that Centurion Lounge like a week and a half ago, and I was flying back from South Bend, Indiana, through Atlanta, and I was on a different airline than I usually take.
So I used that lounge, and I got to tell you, you know, once I finally got into it, it actually was pretty nice.
Oh, yeah, tell us.
I was impressed with it in Atlanta, at least.
In other places I haven't been, and I usually use the airport, the airline lounge, but the thing that really annoyed the absolute fucking shit out of me was I showed up.
I had to go to a different terminal in the Atlanta airport to get to this place, and I didn't have that much time, but I was like, oh, let me go check it out.
So I go over there, and they're at capacity, so they're not letting anybody in to the lounge.
Is there a line, though?
Oh, there's a line, and you can sign up through a QR code to be on the wait list.
And there's a bouncer at the front of the line saying you can go in.
There is a bouncer at the front of the line, like a small little Asian lady who's, you know, very officious, and she directs me to the QR code.
So I go to the QR code.
It opens up a web page, like everything's normal, right?
And then you have to log into your American Express account.
In an airport.
In an airport, you have to log into your Amex account.
That's smart.
And then I couldn't figure out what the login and password was, and I had to do a password reset, but it went to this old account.
So I spent like 15 minutes trying to get into the American Express account.
And then I said, you know, I'm just going to go up to this woman and ask her if I'm having trouble with the QR code.
Can she just put me on the wait list?
And what do you think she said?
Who are you?
I don't know.
She just looked at me and said, oh, of course I can.
Here, put you on right here.
And then it was like five minutes.
I had to wait until I got in.
See, Alex, this points to a problem that you have, where you make things more difficult than they need to be.
That's right.
Well, I am a lawyer.
But, yeah, I'm looking at my card now.
My number is on the front.
And so you're saying if you get the much more elite platinum card you have, your number is on the back.
That is worth it alone right there.
Yeah.
The number is on the back.
And, yeah.
I have a co-branded platinum Amex, and my numbers are on the back.
What kind of platinum do you have?
I have a platinum Delta SkyMiles card.
Does that?
It's got the airline on it.
For God's sake.
You can't use the airport lounge?
See, that could probably get into two lounges, like a Delta Lounge and an Amex one.
Did you get into something?
No, actually, I don't have lounge access.
Oh, really?
You'd have to have the Delta Reserve card to get lounge.
I thought you had to have the platinum card.
That's what they told me.
The Amex platinum card, but because mine's co-branded.
If you have neat ways of hacking or otherwise sneaking your way into exclusive lounges in
all forms of transportation, please write us at OTH at 2600.com.
I think your use of the word exclusive is rather liberal there.
Alex, tell us, what was it like inside the lounge?
You're the only person that made it.
Yeah, it was actually quite nice, at least in the Atlanta Lounge.
There was a little outdoor area where you could sit as well.
The food was pretty good, although not really varied.
But it was kind of crowded.
It was really quite crowded.
I feel like just the best benefits of these places are to just sit down somewhere, like
out of the fray in a comfortable spot.
It doesn't matter exactly where it is.
But just sit, charge your phone, relax for a few minutes.
And so it was it was fine for that.
And, you know, if you're careful, you can get really inebriated for not a lot of money.
I suppose.
Yes.
All right.
The Amtrak Lounge in New York City.
I recommend that.
That's that's quite nice.
They let us into that.
If you have first class train accommodations or a sleeper car.
They let you into that.
I'll be in a lounge tomorrow night.
I'll be in the British Airways Lounge in JFK.
All right.
So people, if you want to meet up with Alex, that's that.
You got to buy a ticket on British Airways.
And that's your that's your ticket to Alex.
And see you in the lounge around 10.
We're going to be at Moynihan Train Hall next week.
OK, Moynihan is definitely worth the lounge.
So we are we are Acela-ing it next week.
So Acela, I think you get access to the lounge.
I'm pretty sure you do.
I would check that.
Well, I mean, it's all business class or first class.
Right.
But if you do have access, arrive like a 45 minutes early so you can hang out there and
the food is free.
And it's really cool.
I just want to buy banana pudding.
That's really all I want to do.
All right.
That's going to do it for us tonight.
And guys, we won't see you for another month.
So it's true.
So hack the planet, gang.
Rob, do you want to announce the October meetings now?
Yeah, mark your calendars for two and a half weeks from now when there will be a 2600 meeting.
Yeah.
All right, everybody.
Thank you for listening.
Please write to us.
OTH at 2600 dot com, as Kyle said.
And we will be back on WBAI next Wednesday at 7 p.m. for a call in show.
We will not be here for overtime next week, the week after, the week after that or the
week after that, because we'll be doing another call in show on WBAI then.
But the week after that, we will be back.
So we'll see you then.
Good night.