Roshin and her unborn baby are at great risk.
It may take months, probably years, for the charge against Roshin Makalitski
to wind its way through Britain and Germany.
Her imprisonment while awaiting birth and trial is not necessary.
Come demonstrate and support a bail for Roshin Makalitski,
daughter of Bernadette Devil Makalitski.
Saturday, January 11th, 1 to 3 p.m. at Nutanza Airlines,
680 5th Avenue between 51st and 52nd Street.
For more information, call 718-436-4770.
This is a public service announcement over WBAI Radio
for the Friends of Roshin Makalitski Committee.
And as we roll into our first show of 1997,
it's time once again for Off the Hook.
The telephone keeps ringing, so I ripped it off the wall.
I cut myself while shaving, now I can't make a cough.
It could be yet much worse, but if they could, they would.
Bumbin' it bombed for the best, it's best for worse.
I hope that's understood.
Bumbin' it bombed!
Bumbin' it bombed!
Bumbin' it bombed!
Bumbin' it bombed!
Thank you.
Okay, the first thing we have to do this week is apologize to all the people last week for fouling up the New Year's thing where we could not find anybody to celebrate New Year's worth at the stroke of nine.
Well, soon after the radio program, we were corrected, and it turns out that Sao Paulo, Brazil, was in the time zone where it struck midnight at 9 p.m. Eastern Time.
Sorry about that. Maybe next time.
And now it's time for us to try once again, this is the third week in a row that we've tried this, to test out the new E-ZPass system and see if it accurately tells us information that we have a right to know.
Such as where we crossed tolls last and just what exactly it is that they know about us.
There's our dial tone. We're calling up their toll-free access number now.
And one of the features is information about where you were last seen with your E-ZPass system, where you crossed last, what particular toll booth.
And you see, these are the problems. It takes forever. It takes forever for it to go through.
We're sorry. Your call did not go through.
Okay, 9X strikes again. Let's try this one more time.
Okay, that sounds much better.
Thank you for calling the MTA Bridges and Tunnels E-ZPass Service Center.
If you're calling from a touch-tone phone, press 1 to use our 24-hour...
If you're an E-ZPass account holder and need to access your account information or activate a tag, press 1.
If you are an individual account holder and want to activate a tag, press 1.
If you are an individual account holder and have questions, press 2.
Your 7-digit E-ZPass account number appears on the letter sent with your tag or at the top of your monthly statement.
To obtain account information from our 24-hour information system, enter your account number and press the pound button.
Okay, we need to turn down the volume when we do this because we don't want that secret number getting out now, do we?
Okay, the number is me being read back to us now.
Ah, okay.
This is correct. Press the pound button.
Okay, we got two digits out there.
Press the star button.
We're going to assume it was correct and hit the pound button.
Please hold while we access your account.
You received a low balance.
As far as we got last week, we never got beyond this point ever.
Press 2.
For your most recent payment information, press 3.
For the most recent toll crossings charged to your account, press 4.
That's the one we're interested in, the most recent toll crossings.
Let's see what they have on us.
Tag number 0.
There are no toll crossings on record.
For tag number 0.
There are no toll crossings on record.
To return to the previous...
Unbelievable.
I've never crossed a toll, and I've used this thing maybe 20 times now, and they just never, never record it.
Great system.
Wonderful system they have there.
Okay, FiberOptik is with us, although not right here in the studio.
He's with us...
Well, he's about to embark on a journey, so let's join him on this journey here.
And hopefully this week, the Omnipoint GSM phone that he is using will perform better than last week.
Let's see what happens.
That's the sound of it ringing now.
Hey.
Hey, is this FiberOptik?
Yes, it is.
It sounds like you're talking on a cellular phone, or not a cellular phone, but a GSM phone.
Yes, I am.
Okay.
You have music play.
You're not listening to us.
You're listening to another radio station.
No, I'm not, actually, but I am getting ready to walk out of my apartment.
Okay.
Well, we're going to walk with you, if you don't mind.
Okay.
If you don't mind the company.
No problem at all.
All right.
The entire city of New York, actually, more than that, is going to embark on a journey with you, I guess.
What are you going to do?
Take a cab or take a subway or a bus?
Yeah, I'm going to take a cab uptown, starting at First Avenue and First Street.
Well, you don't have to tell us exactly where you are, you know, because all the groupies and things will be descending.
Oh, yeah.
It will be an invasion.
Yeah.
So, okay.
Well, as long as you did tell us, you're down on First and First.
First and Third.
Oh, First and Third.
Okay.
Well, you know, I gave you one last chance here to give out wrong information.
All right.
First and Third.
So, if a crowd starts to develop, well, that might hinder the progress as for you getting up there.
I don't know if you, I guess you weren't listening.
You didn't hear, we tried Easy Pass one more time, and it still doesn't work.
It still does not give us information as to when we crossed the tolls last.
Oh, really?
Yeah.
I mean, you know, I've been crossing left and right every day, you know, just to make sure that this thing is, you know, well-oiled.
But it's, I don't know, it just doesn't seem to be catching.
So, they still say that tag number zero has never crossed, and my other tag, tag number zero, has never crossed.
Huh.
So, actually, the second tag number zero is sitting in pieces somewhere around here because we took it apart a couple of weeks ago on the air.
And that's going to be fun when we figure out how to put that back together.
Well, what's actually inside?
Well, actually, we'll show that to you later.
But what we believe it is is some sort of a transmitter that is activated when you're within a few feet of the toll booth.
And it sends out a signal, charges that up, and then it sends sort of a ping-pong type of a thing back and forth and deducts it from the appropriate account.
At least we hope so.
Right.
So, now, where are you now?
Are you still in your house?
Oh, yeah.
I'll be leaving in about two minutes.
Okay.
Well, do you have to do something before you leave that maybe we should turn down the microphone for?
No, but actually, I'll have to put the phone down so I can put on my jacket.
Okay.
That sounds very exciting.
While you're doing that, I'm going to read some corporate information because that's what we're here for, to provide corporate information.
And this corporate information has to do with 9X.
Actually, I'm going to have some words to say about 9X in just a little bit.
And that is, well, I'll say those words in a little bit.
Also, in addition to 9X, we have Procter & Gamble, the Hoover Company, and Exxon.
These are, this is from a magazine.
Well, actually, a magazine pretty well known to people out there called Spin.
It has to do with corporate America going into the education business.
And I guess that's exactly what they look at it as, is a business.
I'll give you an example of how Exxon deals with educational issues.
They decided to focus on things such as oil spills.
And from the video, Scientists and the Alaskan Oil Spill, here's what Exxon has to say.
It's difficult to know exactly how many animals died, but scientists know that the area contains large populations able to overcome these losses.
Once you have gotten rid of the oil, the natural environment will bounce back in a very short time, a matter of a few years.
This is difficult to get across to the general public.
It's because we're all such stupid idiots that, you know, see oil being spilled everywhere and think that it's bad.
I guess Exxon is a different view.
Okay, so let's look at 9X's version of this.
They chose the subject to learn how new technology could have helped during three famous points in history.
This is from the video, Kids in Touch, Paul Revere's Ride and the 9X Shuttle.
On April 18th, 1775, Paul Revere had to deliver the message,
The British are coming to John Hancock and Sam Adams.
If Paul Revere lived today, he would probably use something like the 9X Shuttle.
He could have had hundreds of people around the world joining in on a video call.
Okay.
That's an interesting perspective on history, anyway.
Anybody know what the 9X Shuttle is?
Nobody knows what it is, and I guess that's one of the reasons why nobody's using it.
9X.
Okay, Fiber, are you okay putting on your jacket?
I guess he's still busy with that.
But we have Manos here, who is going to be helping us with the project next week.
Actually, that microphone over there seems to be working.
Are you there?
Oh, okay.
Okay, great.
Next week, we have a very exciting show planned,
and the reason we're not doing it this week is because we want to tell you about it this week
so you don't make any plans,
which I guess if you made plans this week, you won't know about it,
but maybe word of mouth will filter down to you.
Next week, we're doing our first, I guess you'll call it a worldwide show.
Is that the best terminology for it?
Cybercast or?
Cyber, I hate that word.
Yeah, okay.
I hate anything with the word cyber in it.
Yeah, I know, that's why I hate it.
So we're going to be on the net.
I mean, we've been on the net before, but we're going to be really on the net this time.
Yeah, we're going to be live straight from the show.
We don't know exactly how we're going to do it yet, but we'll do it.
No idea how we're going to do it, but we just know we're going to do it.
No, we know that we'll do it with real audio at least.
Now we're looking for new technologies, but...
So people in other parts of the world will be able to listen to us live.
Absolutely.
Okay, and they'll be able to phone in, too, if they want to pay for a long-distance phone call.
That would be nice.
That would be great.
Maybe in the future we'll have it interactive on the web.
Yeah, and it won't sound all choppy.
So that's something to look forward to.
Fiber, are you back yet from your coat?
Why does it take him so long to put on a coat?
I mean, he's been doing this now for over two minutes.
Yeah, I know.
Okay, well, okay, so Fiber is in his house putting on his coat someplace.
Unless his GSM phone is cut out again, they do that sometimes.
They cut out and they don't tell you they're cutting out.
You just wind up speaking to a whole lot of silence for a few minutes.
Okay, so the technologies that exist now, there's real audio.
What else do we have?
There are a couple of other companies that they have similar programs with real audio.
And I recently checked on all the programs in Java.
That's a new technology.
But the audio is really bad.
The quality is terrible.
I guess we need another few months for that.
Yeah, well, it has to do with bandwidth.
Mostly that's a problem.
Okay, I'm proceeding manual.
Hang on, we have an update here.
Fiber, you've got your coat on.
Yes, I'm now proceeding outside.
Okay, you're going outside.
Be careful, be careful.
I will.
It's a jungle out there.
Actually, I wanted to bundle up a bit.
It seems got a bit chillier than it's been over the past few days.
It's pretty, it's windy too.
Really?
You might hear the sound of wind on your phone as you're venturing uptown.
Now, you're walking down the street now or are you still in your building?
I'm about to go out the front door.
Okay, let's listen to this exciting coverage as FiberOptics steps outside.
And here we go.
For the first time today, I believe, he's stepping outside.
Yeah.
Okay, I'm now outside.
Outside.
What do you think so far?
It seems a bit frigid.
It is.
It's pretty cold.
Has that wind kicked in yet with the single-digit wind chill factor?
No, no real wind.
Wait, a little bit of a wind.
Okay, you're going to get the wind.
I believe I heard people talking as they passed you.
Yeah, there were people walking by.
How about that?
And we picked that up right here.
That's where he transmitted it off at the Empire State Building.
They had no idea.
That's something.
Now, how far are you going to go before you hail a cab?
I'm just walking to the corner.
You're going to hail a cab at the corner?
At the corner of First Avenue.
Heading uptown, yeah.
Okay.
And I guess we'll get to hear you giving the directions to the cab drivers to know exactly
where you're going.
Okay.
This is live.
This is not fake.
Do you see many people lined up against the side of the street watching as you're doing this?
No, in fact, I don't see anyone.
It brings back memories of the fiber optic homecoming parade where we went down Broadway
the day before Thanksgiving with all the police barricades.
Yeah, I remember that.
Yeah, that was something.
That was something.
Well, at least one person was out there watching.
We know that much.
Yeah.
All right.
So now, while you're going about this, if you can do two things at once.
My goodness.
Wow, that's some serious wind there.
Was he being attacked or what?
That was wind?
That was wind.
It sounded like you were being angrived.
Okay, I'm in a cab.
Okay, I'm going to give directions.
Okay.
I need to go to 35th Street and 8th Avenue.
I just had somebody stop us in a car going by.
I think he heard us talking on the air.
You've got to be kidding me.
Really?
Yeah, I'm serious.
Wow, that's something.
That's great.
Someone actually drove all the way down there to watch this.
Yeah, somebody just drove by.
He was honking at us, yeah.
He was honking.
Well, that's great.
And if you're...
Well, tell us where the cab is now, and maybe people can sort of like swerve in front of
you and honk and do all kinds of things to sort of get...
Oh, this is great.
The cab driver's listening to us, too.
Was he listening before you got in?
I guess so, because the cab was waiting at the corner when I got there.
This is kind of frightening.
We could do this every week.
Okay, yeah, this is great.
Maybe I could work this out, too, for myself.
Yeah.
All right, so now, tell us where you are.
You're on...
Okay, I'm on First Avenue, proceeding north.
And we just passed about 4th or 5th Street, 6th Street.
Okay, perhaps people could wink their lights on and off in their apartment buildings or businesses.
That way we could sort of, you know, make note.
If you're driving a city bus, all the better.
You know, we can make all kinds of commotion with that.
Helicopters.
They're always good for things like this.
And whatever else, you know.
Well, the Empire State Building is going to be flashing.
They're out for the week, but...
Yeah, in fact, I think when I'm in line of sight with that, we should have some of the strongest signal.
Uh-huh.
I've noticed that to be true.
I have to say, you're on this phone now, and the signal has not cut out once.
Yeah, no, this is typical.
You could expect what will happen, or I suspect anyway, when we cut across town, you know, from east to west.
Yeah.
I know that there's still a couple of dead zones cutting across town on side streets.
So we may lose you.
We may lose you during a dead zone.
Yeah, you may lose me at least once.
Okay.
If that happens, we will try to call you back, obviously.
But hopefully that won't happen.
Oh, actually, here, we could take a special route.
To avoid the dead zones.
Yeah, to avoid the dead zones.
So what would you recommend anything, Mr. Cab Driver?
Well, Emmanuel, would you recommend anything?
Well, you say 19th Street is a dead zone, right?
Yeah, no, last week we came up across 19th Street, and that was totally dead, so 19th Street is probably dead.
Why don't you come up First Avenue, cut across 42nd Street, go straight through Times Square, because there's probably a lot of people still waiting there for New Year's or whatever, and just come down that way.
Are you serious?
I don't know.
Well, why would we want to go past 35th and come back around?
For, I don't know, for the spectacular sake of it.
I don't know.
I'm sure.
You don't want to fall out of the live coverage area.
No, we could always, I suppose we could cut across in the 30s, couldn't we, around 34th Street?
Well, you could go down 34th Street, too.
Right.
Go past Macy's.
I'm sure there'll be a lot of people there.
Okay.
Would it be okay if we cut across 34th Street?
Okay, I got the nod.
The nod of approval.
That's great.
Okay, well, now, okay, where are you now?
Okay, we're on, still on First Avenue, you're proceeding north, and we're at 23rd Street now.
Okay, okay, we're getting, we're getting closer, getting closer.
So, Fybert, just to, just to actually steer this in the direction of the actual show.
Right.
What's new with you this week?
Has anything happened to you?
Oh, yeah, definitely.
In fact, today, I got my very first email on my phone.
I was talking to you at the time.
Yeah, you were talking to me at the time.
It was very exciting.
And I actually received an email on my telephone.
And where did this email come from?
I actually sent, I've been sending messages periodically to myself from various email accounts that I have on the net.
You lead a solitary life there, don't you?
Well, I've been doing it to see when, in fact, the service was, you know, going to become available.
When did you send this message to yourself?
I sent this message, it was either yesterday or the day before.
That's really neat technology there.
It took two days for the message to get there.
Oh, come on now.
You've got to understand, it's a new technology.
I'm sure they're testing it.
I'm sure this isn't going to be a regular thing.
Okay.
All right.
Well, okay, so your message came, was it a big message or just the tether?
No, it was a short message, but it came through.
It was subject and all.
I was impressed.
I was very impressed.
And does it beep when you get a message or how does it work?
Yeah, every time I get a message, they call them SMS messages.
Or that's when, that's basically when a message gets sent either from a phone to another phone,
like if someone else has an Omnipoint phone, you could send a text message between them.
Or now with the new email gateway, you could send email from the phone to the internet or vice versa.
Well, you know what's interesting is that people now with their phones, their phones are beeping all the time.
I'm hanging out with people and they say, oh yeah, that's just the weather coming in.
Or ask the latest stock quotes.
And, you know, I'm like, what's going on here?
It's going to be beeping every minute with something different.
We've all of a sudden all become CNN headline news, you know, walking around the street.
I mean, how many things get your attention on your phone now?
Well, right now I get general news headlines from the New York Times.
I also get business headlines from the New York Times.
And I also get the weather.
Uh, every day at 6 a.m. I get the weather report for the day.
Really? How about special news bulletins, like, you know, going to war and things like that?
Would you get that?
I'd get that as a, that would be a headline on the Times, so sure, I'd get that.
Well, how often do you get headlines?
I get them every day.
Every day, multiple times.
Multiple times.
All the major headlines and major stories.
Okay. Well, that's good, I guess.
And then in between you get phone calls and pages.
Sure, yeah.
All right.
And I can also, I can also receive faxes, by the way.
Uh-huh. Okay.
You know, faxes aren't really faxes anymore.
You know that, don't you?
Sure.
Well, I mean, faxes, it stands for facsimile.
It means you hold a piece of paper that's sort of like the original, but it's not paper anymore.
Yeah.
It's more like email.
Well, that's what I've noticed over the past couple of years.
Well, the service that I have is more of a, sort of, they'll hold the faxes for you.
Uh-huh.
It's sort of like a store and forward kind of thing.
Okay.
Like, say, for example, I want you to send me a fax, and I want to be able to receive
a fax no matter where I go.
Right.
You can call either my cell phone number, this number that you called, or you can call my
voicemail system number directly.
Uh-huh.
And while it's playing my greeting, you can hit a certain touchstone digit.
We may be losing you.
Where are you now?
I'm, uh, I believe we're cutting across 34th.
34th and what?
And, uh, let's see.
Uh, I couldn't see that one.
Oh, Lexington.
Okay, 34th and Lexington.
So people...
Why am I getting kind of choppy?
People make room for the cab coming down 34th Street there.
Well, no, you were just breaking up a little bit, and we were a little concerned.
Okay, no big deal.
All right.
But, um, yeah, so, uh, with the fax system, what'll happen is you hit a touchstone digit
during my voicemail greeting.
Uh-huh.
And, uh, you'll get a voice comes on and says, um, to, uh, start your fax transmission now.
And you'll get a fax tone.
And you could just send a fax, and it'll get stored by Omnipoint.
Uh, in my options, in my voicemail options, I could set it to any fax number I wish and
how frequently to try to deliver the fax.
Uh-huh.
So, essentially, no matter where I go, I could have my faxes follow me.
Now, could you...
If I know the phone number of a fax machine, I'm gonna be near.
You could store, I guess, a fax, quote-unquote, onto any computer system.
Is that right?
Sure, you could do that as well.
Well, that's, uh, that's kind of neat.
That's a, that's a new feature.
Yeah, definitely comes in handy.
Right.
Now, you're breaking up a little bit again, but, uh...
Yeah.
You're almost here, so, uh...
Yeah, almost there.
In a few minutes, your voice should sound even better.
Yeah.
On the elevator coming up, uh, are we gonna lose you there, or...?
Yeah, we'll definitely get cut off.
I don't know of, uh, I've never seen a cell phone that works in an elevator.
Really?
Okay, well, we're going to, uh, we're going...
Actually, some people are raising their hands in here.
What, they've gotten them to work in an elevator?
Apparently, yeah.
Apparently, some people have managed to do that.
Well, that's interesting.
Yeah.
I wonder if it varies, whether, uh, you have better luck in Otis's as opposed to, uh, Curtis's.
Uh, you know, the elevator is everything.
That's, that's what tells the story as to whether or not, uh, you'll, you'll get through.
It makes all the difference.
Uh-huh.
How's, uh, how's the cab ride going so far?
Uh, nice and smooth.
In fact, uh, we got up here, uh, pretty quick.
Yeah, does the cab driver have anything he wants to, uh, say to us over the air?
Oh, we're, uh, we're, we're facing the Empire State?
Yeah, I believe we are.
Okay.
And, uh, yeah, everything, uh, we got up here pretty quick.
I was actually surprised.
Well, you're not here yet.
You're still down there.
You're still on the Empire State Building.
Yeah, well, we're, we're at 34th Street.
Okay.
You're, you're getting here.
Yeah, as far as getting from, from 3rd to 34th, it's pretty quick.
Is this guy a good driver?
Is he, is he cutting around things like he's supposed to?
Yeah, definitely, definitely.
Uh-oh.
There's a problem.
I hear a siren.
No, that's, uh, an ambulance.
Okay.
Actually, a fire department.
It'd be a real shame if he got pulled over or something.
Yeah, no, nothing like that.
All right.
Okay.
So, um, uh, all right.
Sounds, sounds good.
Now, we've been having trouble with 9X.
I don't know if I want to get into this just now because, uh, this is kind of...
Well, you know, I've been having my troubles with 9X, but you go first.
Well, actually, no, let's go, let's, let's do your problems first because, uh, my problems
might be a little bit involved.
Uh, okay.
Your problems involved ISDN line.
All right.
This all stems back to, uh, my ordering of a second ISDN line, uh, which I had mentioned,
uh, uh, uh, uh, what is it, about a month ago now, right?
Right.
Um, well, anyway, uh, what happened, I figured, you know, there's going to be some delays given
that it's the holiday season and as far as getting things resolved, um, I had gotten
a new bill issued and they did in fact credit me for the, uh, I was vastly overcharged,
I allowed $900 in change for, I was being billed business rates by the minute.
Well, I mean, is that really so much money?
Uh, $900?
Yeah, that's a lot of money.
I guess to an individual it would be, but to a business, maybe not.
And you were being charged business rates.
Hold on, I need to specify corners.
Um, on the far corner on the left side.
Okay.
Sorry about that.
Okay.
I'm, um, right here, uh, we're approaching the corner.
All right, we want to, uh, express our thanks to the cab driver.
Okay.
And, uh, does, does the cab driver want to say anything to us or anything over the air?
He wants to know if you want to say anything over the air.
Uh, I love this show.
He says he loves the show.
He loves the show.
He actually listens to the show.
He listens to the show on a regular basis.
Remember to take all your belongings, Fiber.
I definitely will.
Okay.
I'd like, uh, 10 back and the receipt.
Okay.
Yeah, uh, treat him well.
Treat him well there.
Yeah.
Another one of these $50 tips there.
Welcome, my office.
I just got, uh, welcomed by, uh, someone opening the door.
We have, uh, limousine service here.
Okay, okay.
So first.
How are you?
Oh.
All right, let him through.
Let him through.
Let him into the building there.
Okay.
I'm, uh, about to get in the building.
All right.
That was a fellow cab driver who helped me out of the cab.
You know, I think more cab drivers listen to our show than almost any other.
I think they do.
Any other type of person in New York?
Uh, we break it up.
Yeah.
It sounds like you're on another planet right now.
But keep talking until we lose you completely.
Like, like now.
So, okay.
I think, I think we lost him completely.
Um, we're still connected to something, though.
And until we get a dial tone, we'll, uh, we'll keep bantering on.
Uh, fiber optic is currently on his way upstairs.
Oh, now, okay.
We got disconnected.
So he's, he's not on the phone anymore.
Um, he should be coming in the door any second.
So let's make room for him.
Uh, and this is, this is all because, um, he didn't get here in time.
So we had to, we had to do a prolonged intro.
Um, all right.
So he was overcharged about $900 for his ISDN line, which I guess, you know, is a, is a
lot of money to an average person, you know, being charged that much for something that
you really should only be charged maybe, what, $30 or $40 a month for.
But in 9X's view, if you have more than one ISDN line, you're, you must be a business.
Uh, you, you're not using it for what they call recreational use.
It's, uh, it's, it's a strange form of logic, but the, the, the good part of, uh, the good
part of the story is that they actually gave him credit.
They, they, they waived the charges for last month, but the bad news is that this month
they did it all over again.
So it's, uh, it's a never ending saga.
And it's something that I guess when you use 9X, that's, that's what happens.
Think he got stuck in the elevator?
Our phone number is 212-279-3400.
Uh, if, uh, you have any, any calls that you want to make or details of things you want
to share with us, uh, please feel free to do so.
Uh, should I get into my story with 9X?
I was assuming he'd be here by now, but, uh, perhaps he, he ran into some, some, some difficulty.
Okay.
Uh, my problem with 9X centers around, again, business, residential type of, uh, type of problems.
Uh, something very simple.
Here he is.
Welcome.
Welcome.
Glad you, uh, you actually made it.
Uh, we, we didn't get you at all in the elevator.
No, it was totally cut off.
Okay.
Uh, I, just, just to make sure that I'm giving the right information, uh, we said that they
just billed you all over again, uh, for the business rates for ISPN.
Oh, yeah, that's right.
Um, they credited me.
And then they billed you again.
For the mistakes, and, but they neglected to switch me to residential.
Right.
So I was billed all over again for yet more business rates.
But that actually was a, a week ago that you told us that.
Has anything changed?
Um, no, um, I'm just, uh, trying to get a hold of the, the person at 9X who was taking
care of it, and I haven't been able to.
Uh-huh.
All right, get this.
Maybe, maybe, maybe you can help me with this.
We want to, uh, open up a business line, right?
Right.
Have a business phone line.
Now, first of all, there's no information about this any place.
If you look in the phone book, you don't see anything about, um, about business, uh, lines,
the, the various calling plans, the rates, that kind of, it's all residential.
Uh, you look in the business-to-business yellow pages, it's not there.
You look in the regular yellow pages, it's not there.
I don't know where businesses are supposed to look to find out what the rates are when
they first get a phone.
It's like you have to have something mailed to you, perhaps.
So, I'm trying to find out, you know, how do you get a business line that has restrictions
on it?
Now, I, I called the residential people, and they said, you can get a residential phone
line that has, uh, that has no long distance, that has no regional, no 900s, no 540s, none
of that.
You know, and you can, you can block out access to all these things.
And I think that's, that's kind of neat to be able to do.
So, I called the business people today, and boy, a rooter bunch of people I have never
met.
They said, no, we're not doing any of that.
For a business line, we don't block anything.
That's it.
Period.
Now, does that sound a tad bit, uh, I don't know, uh, unreasonable to you?
Do you think maybe either they don't have the story right, or that there might be another
option somehow?
Well, that, that doesn't sound quite right, although, uh, I don't, the, the thing I could
never figure out about certain 9x employees, and this isn't true of all of them, so I don't
want to, I don't want them to, to get offended, because I'm sure some of them are listening.
And the views expressed here are not necessarily our own.
That's true.
Right.
Even, even though we speak them ourselves.
Yes, we're simply voice pieces for other entities.
But, um, I've had, uh, 9x employees who, uh, they almost make it sound like I'm taking
money out of their pockets when I'm trying to save myself money.
Right.
I don't understand why they take it personally.
I don't know either.
I don't know.
I, I wish I could figure that out.
It's one of the mysteries of the universe.
Well, you know what I wish?
I wish I could get what I want from them, you know?
I wish I could get the kind of phone service that I'm asking for.
Now, how, why is it so hard to do this, you know?
I just want to have a phone line customized to my particular needs.
Is that so hard?
It should be.
It, it should be something like, uh, going out and buying a pair of jeans.
Or, uh, or a pair of shoes.
Mm-hmm.
You should be able to, to customize your, just like you, you customize your appearance,
you should be able to customize your phone service as you see fit.
No, it could be that I was simply misled and talked to by the wrong person who had the
wrong information.
Maybe I'm getting it all wrong, and maybe 9x actually does offer this, and if somebody out
there knows of such services that 9x offers, then please let us know, you know, and we'll
happily pursue those.
But I don't think it's the case.
Uh, if you know of other phone companies such as Bell Atlantic, Bell South, uh, Meritech,
whatever, maybe they offer services like that, and we can use that to sort of compare what
9x doesn't have.
I do know this, Bell South, I was speaking with a Bell South person last week, uh, they
offer ISDN service 64k for a flat rate of about $40 a month.
Hmm.
64k.
So you don't have to worry about this data over voice nonsense that we've been embroiled
in for the last year or so.
Yeah, I'd, I'd pay $40 a month if I knew that I was gonna, you know, if I was gonna get
the full bandwidth available.
But you know what?
A lot of people would pay $40 a month.
A lot of people would start using the net.
Uh, a lot of people would start doing business over the net, and the internet and the phone
services would become more intertwined, and everybody would be sort of, um, uh, doing
well.
And I think that's what 9x wants to avoid.
Yeah, well, I think, uh, we, we've said it, uh, we've said it well in weeks past that
I think 9x will get, get their, uh, their, their act together concerning ISDN just in time
for the newest technology to roll around and make it seem pointless.
That's, uh, that's the 9x way.
Well, not, not to, not to, you know, beat 9x on the head too much, uh, although it is kind
of fun.
And, uh, I'm sure other companies are guilty of the same thing, but I would like to know
what people's experiences have been with, uh, with phone service trying to get things
installed or uninstalled.
Have you played with any new 9x features recently?
Um, oh, gee.
Um, let's see.
No, you know, I still, I still haven't been, um, we were talking last week about the, uh,
Star 69 reading back the number before it calls the person back.
Right.
I still haven't actually been in an area that had that.
Uh-huh.
Oh, Pam has.
Okay, Pam, tell us, tell us what you've experienced.
Um, Pam has it at home.
Um, and...
You have it?
You have a speaking Star 69?
Speaking Star 69.
It's actually great.
What does it sound like?
Uh, it's a very pleasant female voice and she says the number that, uh, something along
the lines of the number that just called you was...
Uh-huh.
Um, it repeats the number, um, and I believe it's press 1 to return the call to that number.
Um, if you press Star 69 and it's a blocked line or whatever, um, you still get the same recording
that you used to get.
Uh-huh.
Okay.
Meaning the, uh, the person who called you is not able to be called back in this method.
Right.
This is a private number, you know.
Uh, if you know the number that they're calling from, please try, you know, another
method, which I always thought was a kind of real interesting method.
Yeah, why would you dial Star 69 if you knew the number they were calling from?
Right.
Um, but, and I think it's press 2, um, just to disconnect.
I just hang up on it.
Or just hang up.
Yeah, that's what I do.
But no matter what, you get charged 75 cents for dialing Star 69.
I did it anyway.
I was thrilled, though.
Yeah.
And it's actually nice because there are people you don't necessarily want to call back.
That's true.
That's true.
You know, you call somebody back who's been harassing you and, you know, you're calling them
now.
You don't want to do that.
You want to find out who they are.
Of course.
If you have caller ID, it's kind of pointless.
But I just tried it for the, uh, for the fun of it.
Right.
Now, if you, if you have, uh, per call or all call blocking, uh, then your number does
not show up.
Right.
So, uh, if you are out there harassing someone or if you just want to remain private, then
all you have to do is, uh, is make sure that your number is blocked or dial star
67 before you make your phone call.
And if you want to unblock, star 82 is the way to unblock.
I don't know.
This whole thing has gotten really, really complicated.
I don't really know what the purpose is.
I mean, has caller ID really helped us this much in the past couple of years since it's
been around?
Well, uh, I certainly like it.
Uh, I, I, I wouldn't want to be without it at home.
Why?
Um, well, just think if, uh, let, let's suppose some, uh, some telemarketer calls you and you
actually do get their number the next, and of course the first time it happens, you're
not going to know who it is.
But subsequent times, if you recognize the area, you're, you're not going to answer the
phone.
You won't waste the time.
Telemarketers always call from the same place?
Not necessarily, but there's, there's people, let's just say there's people, telemarketers
is only one example.
Uh-huh.
But there's people that might call you that you don't want to talk to when they're calling
you.
Yeah, but you see, I never pick up the phone.
People call me and they're on the answering machine.
Right.
I screen my calls.
Well, that's just it.
If I want to speak to them, I pick up the phone.
I don't want to speak to, you know, maybe one in a hundred people.
Well, if I had an answering machine.
I don't waste their time on the answering machine, then I pick up if they're, you know,
it seems like the ideal solution.
Well, if I had, if I did have one.
You cannot do that because you subscribe to 9x services that, uh, that throw you into voicemail.
So you can't pick up after somebody starts talking.
Right.
Well, I could always get an answering machine, but the reason why I opted on not getting
one is, uh, there are no secure answering machines.
Well, do you think 9x voicemail is that secure?
Well, uh, a nine-digit code is a lot more secure than a one, two, or three-digit code
on an answering machine.
I'm sorry, but it is.
I suppose.
All right.
You do have a point there.
And I think there's, there's a market for secure answering machines.
Yeah, definitely.
So if someone out there wants to build some secure answering machines, you'll have some
customers.
Yeah.
All right.
Let's take some phone calls.
212-279-3400.
Don't forget we have our, I don't know if you heard this, Fiverr, we have our exciting,
uh, um, worldwide broadcast next week.
Really?
Where we'll be on real audio or some other, uh, form of technology just to get our show
out over the internet.
And we should have people calling in from all over the world.
Hmm.
Wow.
Won't that be exciting?
Yeah.
You think your cab ride tonight was fun?
Oh.
This is, this is going to be something that they'll, they'll, you know, make headlines
about.
So, um, consider that.
Next week, the worldwide broadcast of Off the Hook.
Hmm.
Manos, yes.
Yeah.
You should say where are they going to find it?
Uh, well, we don't know.
Where are they going to find it?
Uh, it's definitely going to be on, uh, www.2600.com.
Okay.
And www.tki.net.
Okay.
Tki.net.
Okay.
And, um, I guess you should probably check, uh, Usenet News Groups, all 2600 and, uh, any
place else we can post information about this.
Check the website, www.2600.com, and we'll have, uh, updated information on that.
And, uh, we'll see how it goes.
Maybe we can do this more than once.
All right.
212-279-3400.
Good evening.
You're on the air.
Hey, I'm first.
Great.
Happy New Year, you guys.
I haven't called you since last year.
Wow.
It's been a long time, hasn't it?
Yeah.
I sort of had the holiday blues and the denial of holiday blues and that whole dynamic.
Anyway, a few things, um, peripherally salient to the show.
Okay.
First, I just have to say as a tribute, as a paranoid schizophrenic, I have the papers.
This show is right up there along with the Addams Family, so take that as a compliment.
I'll try to.
Uh, number two, just a quick riddle.
I left this actually on the 2600 bulletin board, but you, like, never posted it.
How many hackers does it take to change a light bulb?
Uh, how many hackers does it take to change a light bulb?
Wait, is this one of these ones where they say, uh, that's a, that's a software problem
or something like that, or?
No, it's, it's an obvious one.
It's a sophomore, but, uh, 3.14.
No, that's not right.
It's, uh, not something.
I'll get back to you on it.
Okay.
The last thing, now, to get serious, um, I don't know if you guys have ever done a
show on this.
I mean, I haven't listened to every show in your entire illustrious history.
Nobody has.
But, well, you have, um, Larry, you're.
You think so, don't you?
Okay.
Yeah.
Okay.
Anyway, um, how about sort of the thing I'm into, um, the novelty telephones, you know,
I'm calling you from, and, uh, a diminutive choo-choo train with that wonderful old-fashioned
ring.
There's the classic Chanteuse Barbie telephone, the Disney Mickey Mouse telephone, all these
great, you know, metal plastic phones with special ring features.
Uh, I guess the first was the duck one that was even shot in an episode of some sitcom.
Have you guys ever discussed that, or do any of you have a passion for that?
You're talking about silly-looking phones.
Don't any of us have little fetishes for those kinds of phones?
Well, yeah, I would.
Expect us to talk about on the air here.
And, uh, how about this?
It just hit me.
How about cellular phones of that ilk or nature?
Like, someone could pull a Mickey Mouse out of their pocket and, like, eat a friend.
That's something.
Has anyone invented one of those yet?
It'll eat a French fry or something?
I don't think that's a good idea.
I just want to say hello to Faye, who's a fan of the show in Queens, who used to be a
psychologist of mine who always compliments me on the show, but she listens to you.
You can tell she's from the old counterculture.
Anyway, Happy New Year, you guys.
All right.
And I hope to participate next week from the Bronx in your worldwide broadcast.
Bye.
All right.
Take care.
Do you want us to, like, share this idea?
Is this an idea you just had?
No, they've had this idea, right?
They've had the idea because this is a great idea, and if I share it, someone's going to
go out there and do it.
Well, you can actually fit a cellular phone in a shoe now.
Okay.
Well, now you've just given it out.
But, yeah, basically the idea Manos had is that a cellular phone looks like a shoe.
Did you walk down the street?
Oh, he got that from Get Smart.
Well, no, of course it's from Get Smart, but they didn't have cellular phones back then.
I know.
Well, that's the whole thing.
If they were using cellular technology, I got news for you.
Those were props.
Oh, yeah, of course.
They were not real phones at all.
But in this day and age, it can finally be a reality.
You can talk to your shoe.
Someone can walk around and actually pull a GSM shoe and start talking that way.
That's something.
But has anyone actually invented such a thing?
I don't think so, no.
Are they for sale anywhere?
They'd sell like hotcakes if they were.
You should call Omnipoint and ask them if you can buy a phone shaped like a shoe and see
what they do.
I should call Ericsson.
Go right to the source.
Go right to the source.
Yeah.
Go right ahead.
And, you know, that's something I think there'll be a tremendous market for.
As far as designer tiny phones, what else can we make?
What kinds of...
Well, actually, I have the little walk and talk thing with the little earpiece and the
mic.
Oh, so you look like a switchboard operator going down the street?
Well, I could...
If I stick the phone in my pocket, it looks like I'm a crazy person.
I'm just like ranting and raving, talking to myself.
You know, actually, it's interesting because I realize now, over the years, all those people
walking around the streets talking to themselves, they're not crazy.
They're pioneers.
They could have been beta testers, yeah.
They were beta testing the GSM phones long before any of us ever even knew what they were.
That's true.
Hats off.
All right, 212-279-3400.
Good evening.
You're on the air.
That's a nice hum, but no person attached to it.
Good evening.
You're on the air.
Hi.
How you doing?
Well, okay.
I'm going to lower my radio so you don't have a chance to say it to me.
All right.
All right.
I'm going to have two questions for you.
The first is, now, what is it when you have a thing where you hear a beep on your phone
and you push the button to receive a second call?
It's called call waiting.
Call waiting.
Call waiting.
Okay.
A friend of mine has call waiting and he has three-way conference calling.
Right.
So he pays two surcharges on his bill every month to 9x to have that.
Well, actually, there's a combination.
You can get them both in a package.
Right.
Okay.
Well, what happened is, a week ago, I called my friend and I got a busy signal.
And I said, gee, I never got a busy signal with him before.
He must have been on three-way.
So he was on three-way.
Right.
But if he's, he was on three-way.
But if he's paying for both services, shouldn't he be able to get a second call while he's
on three-way if he's paying two service charges?
That's a very good point.
In fact, on some of the older switches, the 1A ESSs, you used to get that.
And I always thought that it was because they weren't able to stop it.
And you raise a good point that you are paying for both.
If it were a package for a discount, maybe I could see getting a busy signal.
But if you're paying two separate charges, you do agree.
Uh-huh.
Well, and how would that work?
You're on three-way and you get a little beep and then you, what, conference in that person?
Well, basically, well, they only, recently they came out with a feature where you actually
can conference in someone two-three-way from call waiting, which you could never do before.
Who introduced this?
9X.
You can do this?
It's a new feature, yeah.
It's a new feature.
Is it for ISPN or is it for regular phones?
Yeah, it's called call management.
Is that for...
One of the call management features.
Regular phones.
Regular phones.
Yeah.
Okay.
You have to order the call management feature.
So you have to order a third thing, sir, call management.
Let me ask you this.
Well, does the three-way work by using the button, the same button?
Because maybe it is a limitation or something like that.
Is that how the three-way works?
No, you just, you flash the switch hook.
There is no limitation.
The limitation is really on the facilities in the central office.
Okay.
You can't three-way in an incoming call.
Is that right?
Isn't that the restriction?
If somebody calls you on call waiting, can you three-way in that person?
That's what we're saying.
With the new call management feature, it makes that possible.
Yeah, but then it makes it possible to get another call after that, is what you're saying.
Yeah.
You get call waiting on top of the three-way.
Yeah.
I don't know if they brought back...
You're saying if they brought back the old style of where you could...
Like the caller is saying, so you can get both features.
You're getting three-way and then you're getting call waiting on top of that.
That they didn't actually elaborate on in the description of call management.
But yeah, it used to be on the 1 and 1A ESSs, you could get both.
Whichever one happened most recently, that was the priority of the switch hook.
I have another question for you guys.
Okay.
The question has to do with real audio on the web.
I'm thinking of buying my first computer.
And at work, I see all of these radio stations.
And I'm really into radio.
Radio, cool.
What is the audio quality of real audio like?
And can you hook up a computer to your home's stereo system?
Sure you can.
Or is the audio quality really lousy like a shortwave radio?
No, not at all.
There are all kinds of things out there.
In fact, there's a pretty busy market and people downloading songs on the internet these days.
And when you play those on your speakers, they sound just as good as a CD.
It's a question of...
I mean, there's two ways of listening.
You can either listen live, and that's dependent on the connection you get and your bandwidth.
Or you can download something and then play it through your computer.
In which case, there will be no problems with the sound.
But no, you should add, though, is that the major difference, whenever somebody records a sound file
and puts it up on a website or on the net, they never do it in stereo.
Because it's always twice as long in stereo.
And they're always worried that somebody isn't going to have enough time or bandwidth to download the whole thing.
All the sound files, 99% of the sound files, I'd be willing to say, on the web or anywhere on the net or mono.
Okay, but that's today.
I'm sure that's going to change.
Well, Virgin Radio in London is broadcasting, they say, an FM stereo.
Yeah, well, real audio, the latest version of real audio is stereo.
It's true stereo.
That's 3-0?
Yeah, 3-0 is stereo.
One other thing, is it possible to get television over the internet?
Well, if you have the bandwidth, you can certainly transfer video.
There's no reason why it couldn't be TV.
I mean, everybody pretty much assumes that this is going to happen at some point.
So it's a question of bandwidth, it's a question of capacity of computers, disk storage, because it'll take a humongous amount.
Is this a good time or a bad time to buy a first computer?
Well, it's probably a good time.
I don't think there's ever been a better time to get into this kind of thing.
I mean, a lot of people think that they're too late, you know, that it's too late for them to figure out all this stuff.
And, you know, it's intimidating when you see people talking in HTML, literally having conversations in HTML.
You get kind of spooked, you know.
But it's not necessarily, you know, the boat has not left because there are so many different things to get involved in.
And these are pioneering days for all of us.
What I'm worried about is I'm worried that the moment I open the box, somebody is going to, my phone is going to ring and somebody is going to say,
you know what, the computer you just bought is obsolete.
That's my greatest fear.
That'll happen before you get delivery of it.
But you should not let that bother you because things have become obsolete so quickly.
I mean, you can still use a 386 today.
You just can't use it for the cutting edge.
But you can certainly do a lot of things that you wouldn't be able to do if you didn't have it, you know.
Yeah.
So, by all means, get involved and just play around.
One final last thing.
I called you last year in 95 after I had returned from my second trip to England.
Uh-huh.
And I said, you know, they still, they have their BBC, their CFAX, what they call, you know, their text.
Right.
And I just recently made my third trip there.
And I'm still like, when are we going to get it?
Why don't we have that?
Well, we have something, okay?
We have something, and we've asked listeners about this, and so far we have not yet gotten the answer.
I know it's up there.
We have, like, a hearing impairment.
We have the big black square thing.
The big black box that does nothing.
What is that?
Well, now, if you go to your TV set, there are two modes.
There's closed captioning mode, and there's text mode.
If you go into text mode, invariably this happens only on channels that are broadcasting closed captioning,
you get a big black square that takes over your whole picture and does absolutely nothing.
Now, I've been told by some people that this information, it broadcasts some sort of teletext information,
such as scheduling or weather or stocks or whatever that, you know, essential information is.
But I have yet to see it.
All right.
I don't know anyone who has seen it personally.
I've never seen it either.
Yeah.
Cool.
But you can see the big black square.
Oh, yeah.
That's pretty easy.
That's pretty easy to do.
All right?
Take care, guys.
Thanks for calling.
That's, you know, that big black square has been something that's been bugging me for years.
Yeah, it's all that wasted space.
We could be putting information up there.
Absolutely.
Stock quotes.
Anything.
Yeah.
Good evening.
Whoops.
Good evening.
You're on the air.
Hi.
How are you doing?
Pretty good.
How are you?
That guy was on for a good half an hour.
Yeah, yeah.
It was a good call, though, wasn't it?
It was.
It was.
All right.
In any case.
Yes.
Well, you know, I called last couple of days, and you guys were sort of sniffing at the fact
that 9X kept overcharging me, so the fiber optic, all I have to say is, I told you so.
But I thought you guys got your ISD headline, or one of you did, several months ago.
Well, first of all, when we said they were overcharging, this is the person I called last
week about...
The fact that they kept giving me, like, 72 bucks is a quote for calling features.
Right.
Well, they are overcharging you, and they overcharge us.
They overcharge lots of people.
It happens all the time.
You have to appeal this.
You can't just let them get away with it.
Well, the sad part is that, as you have been mentioning, both of you, over the past few
months, this wonderful merger-crazy society we're in right now, I mean, the thing that
made the post office bring out Express Mail is competition.
The thing that made AT&T such a powerhouse that it is, I don't think we would have seen
AT&T bring out WorldNet unless it had a lot of competition.
I mean, the fact is, you want to break companies up, but apparently government hasn't seen
that way anymore.
Well, I think you have to step in and do something when they become so big that they threaten
to become the only voice out there.
You know, I think it's up to independent people to do that.
Well, look what happened to cable.
I mean, if you had a couple of companies that were sort of on each other's back, I think
we would have had this 500 channel.
Not that that would be a great thing either, but, you know, you'd have something that would
drive people to do something that would help the other guy.
Yeah, but so at least now you're starting to see different forms of technology competing.
You're seeing DSS.
You know, you're seeing cable over phone lines and cable over cable lines and wireless
cable and things like that.
So, you know, you have some choice and there's not just one way of getting the signal.
Before I go, about PCS, you know, I actually switched over to PCS, too.
I mean, the fact is, I don't know if this is a bait-and-switch thing, but 9X is practically
giving it away because when you think about it, the plans are the same.
And basically for the same amount, for each plan, it's almost one-to-one.
For each plan that you may be on cellular-wise, for those of you who are cellular phones,
you can get the exact same service via PCS with the exact same price.
Now, what are you saying?
Plus voicemail, plus paging, plus the newscasts and all this wonderful other stuff.
So, I mean, who would ever even think about, other than the fact that you've got to pay
$200 and change for a phone, there's no reason not to change them.
Now, wait, those other services are not PCS.
Which one are you talking about?
The only company that's actually offering PCS in this area is Omnipoint.
The only other company claiming to offer PCS is AT&T.
But it's not PCS.
It's PCS-like, but it's not really on PCS.
Why is it not PCS?
Because it doesn't have the news bulletin.
No, because it doesn't.
No, it's not.
The technology behind it is GSM, the Global System for Mobile Communications.
It's a totally digital system that was actually pioneered in Europe
and is only coming to the United States fairly recently.
Omnipoint's the only one.
I thought it was like the 9X, the lightning bell, competes with AT&T on the cellular front.
I thought it was AT&T competing with Omnipoint on the PCS front.
Well, in a sense, they are competing, but it's not with the same technology.
No.
It's with the older technology.
No.
The company who was supposed to unveil the very first competition for GSM PCS service was Sprint,
but they announced that they were going to be delayed until possibly March.
They were supposed to unveil their PCS network in January,
but it's already January and they're not ready yet.
Omnipoint still remains the one and only company that's offering true PCS service.
So the two quick questions I have is AT&T, why are they calling it PCS when they're not, number one?
Number two, what advantage does PCS have over what AT&T is offering, whatever that's called?
AT&T is calling it PCS service.
I mean, I don't know exactly why, but I think they're calling it PCS service
because they're offering some services that take advantage of digital,
the old cellular system that was retrofitted for digital,
which is, the original cellular system was AMPS,
and the digital one, the retrofit of that, I believe, is just D-AMPS.
But, what's that?
Yeah, but the actual system is just D-AMPS.
Back on the radio.
Okay, but, yeah, and the newer GSM system is totally different.
It's not just a digital refitting of the original analog setup.
There's a lot more features that are available,
as well as things that simply weren't done on the older systems,
like, for example, encryption.
All traffic that goes over the GSM network is encrypted.
It's an actual standard that you have an expectation of privacy.
It's not to say, there are a couple of openings in the standard
that kind of leaves it to the discretion of the service provider,
but there's a lot more services available.
As far as why it's better, it's better because,
well, it's not supposed to break up as much.
You're not supposed to be handed off as often.
Right.
Or at least, there's not supposed to be as much congestion.
There's supposed to be more services, lower prices, and smaller phones.
So, none of that really has happened yet, but it's happening.
No, yeah, it's definitely happening.
And the increase in coverage is obviously going to change a lot of that.
Right.
We'll see a definite improvement in service.
Now, we could have done what we did today using a normal cellular phone.
Sure.
What would have been different?
Would anything have been different?
Would it sound different, maybe?
If anything, it probably wouldn't have sounded very much different,
although I know a couple of people, one of them in the studio,
whose phone sounds like garbage.
Uh-huh.
And he has an analog cellular phone.
Uh-huh.
And no matter where he goes, it sounds like garbage.
It's a hybrid.
Oh, it's an analog and digital.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Okay.
It sounds horrible.
Uh-huh.
Yeah.
All right.
Well, it didn't sound so bad, except when you were going into, like, outer space and
things like that.
Yeah.
But it sounded pretty good.
And I want to thank everybody for helping get Viber up here.
DVDs.
DVDs.
In the last minute of the show, I've been looking around for DVDs, digital, versatile
discs.
Not video.
No, not video.
I mean, they can carry video on them, four hours of video.
They can carry CD-ROMs.
They can carry what's on CDs now.
And I've been looking around the city for these things.
They're supposed to be out now, but they're not.
Nobody knows what they are, even.
Yeah.
There's a big sign on the Long Island Expressway coming into Manhattan that says, Toshiba,
DVD, you know?
And it's been there for about six months.
And all these poor people in Queens have no idea what it means.
I think they're still learning what mini-discs are.
Mini-discs are something that, you know, I really wish had taken off.
Right.
But at this stage, I don't know if it will.
But they're, you know, they're a lot of fun to play with.
But DVDs are something that will replace video cassettes.
They will replace CDs.
They will replace CD-ROMs.
You know, we're talking about replacing a lot of different mediums with one device.
So this is a major thing when it happens.
So we're hoping that we'll be here when it happens, which hopefully will be in the next
week or so.
You know, because it was originally supposed to be out, I think, in December.
Now it's supposed to be January.
Who's the company pioneering DVD?
I believe...
Is it Philips or one of them?
I believe Philips was the one behind the standard that they finally agreed on.
But I know there was all kinds of discussions with Toshiba and all the other companies as
well.
Yeah.
So we'll just see where that goes.
And the other thing, of course, is digital TV, which is something else that everyone's
agreeing to standards.
And perhaps most exciting of all, the new TV rating system.
Oh, yeah.
You don't really have time to get into, but that has started.
It definitely has, yeah.
Have you actually seen anything?
I've seen it, yeah.
A movie will start.
And up in the upper left corner of the screen, it'll say something like TV 14 or something
like that.
They don't say it by voice.
No.
It's just a little icon on the top and then it fades out after about a minute.
Okay.
And has there been less censorship as a result or more censorship?
Well, I had called you on, what was that, New Year's Day or something?
I think it was on the first of the year.
Yeah.
And I thought it was possibly a new beginning in the freedom of speech on TV, but I think
it was really more of a mistake.
Uh-huh.
But I saw a couple of movies that were on where they actually said the F word numerous
times.
Really?
Right over broadcast TV.
And I won't say what network it was.
Uh-huh.
Well, if you're going to have the capability to block things out, then I don't see why
you can't have more freedom of speech.
Yeah, I want the capability to unblock things.
Exactly.
Exactly.
All right.
We're out of time, so it's time to unblock us from your radio.
And we'll be back again next week with our live international show, hopefully.
We'll see if that works out.
And I'm sure there'll be all kinds of glitches and fun things happening, but that's part
of technology.
You know, it never quite works the way you want it to.
So, with that, I'm going to hit the right buttons, hopefully, and get out of here this
week.
Emanuel Goldstein, four off the hook.
Until next week.
Until then, stay technologically aware.
Good night.
The telephone keeps ringing, so I ripped it off the wall.
I cut myself while shaving.
Now, I can't make a call.
It could be at much worse.
But if I could, they would.
I'm really bummed for the best expect of birth.
I hope that's understood.
But I'm really bummed.
I can't keep my faces.
I can't keep my face.
I need to be in control.
I mean, I can't著 heaven.
I like it.
I can't keep my face.
I can't keep my face.
I can't keep my face.
I can't keep my face.
Okay, hold and open your eyes.
Thank you.
Thank you.
It may take months, probably years, for the charge against Rasheem Michalewski to wind its way through Britain and Germany.
Her imprisonment while awaiting birth and trial is not necessary.