The WBAI Bylaws Revision Committee meeting has been rescheduled.
This week, the committee will be meeting on Thursday, May 9th at 6.30 p.m. at DC-1707,
75 Varick Street.
We'll be continuing the discussion of various proposals pertaining to the lab, its functions
and responsibilities.
So mark your calendars, the Bylaws Revision Committee's new meeting date and time will
be Thursday, May 9th, 6.30 p.m., 75 Varick Street.
Be there.
And don't forget, whose station?
Our station.
Join us on Thursday to help keep it that way.
How about now?
Ah, there we go.
Okay, some lame brain left all these buttons I've never used in a different position.
Okay, well, this is WBAI in New York, sorry for all the silence, which I assume is what
it was.
It's 8 o'clock, Tuesday evening, time for Off the Hook.
There is no guess, no guess, no guess, no guess, no guess, no guess, no guess, no guess,
Prosecutor suggested a term of about two years, saying he had given authorities extensive assistance in thwarting other virus creators. He was also fined $5,000.
He was expected to get a similar prison term on Friday when sentenced on a guilty plea to a state charge of computer theft.
I'm not sure if that means he gets it at the same time or has to serve three more years after.
He said he created the virus on computers in his Aberdeen apartment and used a stolen screen name and password to get into America online.
So he's being, just to give you an example of how ridiculous this is, he's being sentenced for breaking into an AOL account with the same penalty as what the Melissa virus did.
Now, breaking into an AOL account, some people do that by accident, it's very easy to do, you know, it's not a difficult thing, they send out all those disks everywhere, it's really relatively simple to get on AOL.
Writing a computer virus, sending that out, causing millions of dollars of damage, that's a little bit more difficult to do. I mean, it's not that difficult to do.
But it's, you know, just to give you an idea of the parallel here, it's really bizarre.
Anyway, that's my take on that. What do you think, you think this guy should be imprisoned?
Lock him up.
Really, you think so?
Three life sentences.
Yeah, get all those nasty terrorist types out of circulation.
He's lucky he didn't do this after they passed the Patriot Act.
Yeah, he would have been labeled a terrorist, I'm sure.
Yeah.
Unbelievable.
We got a lot of feedback from our encounter with Sprint last week.
I was trying to get some information from Sprint last week, there's a letter by the way, about billing problems and I needed to speak with someone fast, however, I ran into Claire, Sprint's slave labor voice prompt telephone employee.
I wonder how many people will be out of work in the future thanks to some AI-type voice prompt computer that can't help you.
Anyway, after suffering through endless menus with this damn thing, I finally just said into the phone, this is a waste of time, and immediately it said, let me get someone to help you.
You don't have that number for Claire, do we?
Not on me.
I thought Claire was your best friend, Mike.
No, I don't think so.
I mean, you were all excited a few weeks ago.
I was?
Yeah.
I must have been delusional.
Oh, okay.
So now every time I call Sprint, this is the first thing out of my mouth. Try it.
Okay, so those of you with Sprint phones dial Star 2, and when you get Claire, just say, this is a waste of time, and see if you get transferred to an operator right away.
Of course, you'll waste more time waiting for the operator to pick up, but that's a whole other issue.
Let's see now.
This person wanted to clarify how easy it is to steal or deactivate someone's Sprint PCS phone.
Contrary to what we said last week, according to this person, you do not need the original phone's ESN number.
That was a major part of it.
All you need is the full name of the registered user, the phone number, and the last four SSN digits.
New phone activation via the Sprint PCS website requires a 6-10 alphanumeric password, but the SSN would still work.
If you carefully listen to the rep you talked to on the air, he said you mean from the new phone, what we would need is the ESN number.
Since most caller ID systems will show both the name and number of a PCS phone, all you need is their SSN, making this almost too easy.
Actually, I take exception to that, because I've never seen a name of somebody who owns a PCS phone on caller ID.
I've seen the phone number, but I do not see their name.
In fact, I don't know of any mobile phone system, cellular phone system, whatever, that would pass that information along.
If someone else has this, let me know.
There's also no way that I know of to call information and look up somebody's cell phone number.
Like, if you call 9-1-7 information, I don't think you're going to get somebody's cellular phone number.
I don't know why that is. I think it would be a good service to have.
Anyway, this is how this person legally did it.
A relative of mine had registered a PCS phone for my friend because he was unable to get the credit approval.
Naturally, my friend quickly racked up a huge bill.
During the same time, my PCS phone was deactivated.
Using my deactivated phone, I called Sprint using star 2.
When prompted, I entered my friend's phone number.
When the operator came on, they asked for my phone number, my name, and the security code.
The relative of mine who registered the phone is female.
Since I am male, after I was asked for the phone number, I'd immediately say the name, my female relatives, forcing them not to ask my name.
Clever.
If they do question it, I'll just say it's my mother, sister, wife.
One of the three.
Then they ask for the last four digits of the SSN.
Once you verify that, you have complete control.
So at first, I simply deactivated my friend's phone because he wasn't going to pay the bill.
It's funny how this guy has to go out and take care of Sprint's collection problems for them.
Later, I needed a wireless phone, so again, using my deactivated phone, I called Sprint using star 2.
After verifying the information, I said I wanted to reactivate the service and switch the phone.
I happened to have another Sprint PCS phone.
I told them the ESN number on that phone.
The rep then walked me through how to reprogram the phone, which consisted of some unknown number and my friend's PCS phone number.
Two minutes later, my old Sanyo 5000 with color photo caller ID, color photo caller ID, was back to life with my friend's number.
I could now call as him, check his voicemail, and also use the phone as a 14.4 wireless modem.
This is interesting because someone could just buy a Sprint PCS phone, use star 2 to call support, and activate it with someone else's service relatively easy.
They'd have access to the internet anonymously as well.
Pretty interesting.
That letter comes from JPX, so more intrigue in the world of Sprint phones.
How about this?
I have info on a secret Sprint rate plan.
That's right, a secret Sprint rate plan.
The rate is $4,995 per month for 1,300 anytime minutes and also 3,000 off-peak minutes.
The off-peak period starts at 8 p.m.
Free long distance is also included.
If you call Sprint and ask for this rate, they will deny it is offered.
The only way you can get the plan is to complain many times to Sprint about call clarity, billing errors, etc.
Then cancel and tell them you are switching to VoiceStream to their 3,000 anytime minutes for $50.
They will then transfer you to the cancellation department who will offer you a free month.
Then if that is not good enough, they offer you the rate plan sometimes.
I wonder what this person did to know all this information.
If they do not offer you the new rate plan, you can simply take the free month.
Then in the middle of the conversation, hang up.
Then call back and make sure you call back into the same department.
If you get the same person, just hang up again.
If you get another person, tell them that whoever you talked to before had just offered you the special user retention rate plan.
You can describe the cost in the minutes.
But as usual, their crappy network dropped the call.
Tell them to put it in the computer and see if it is in the notes.
Also, mention the free month.
It helps them believe you.
When we did this, my buddy had been offered the rate plan outright.
But when he called pretending to be me, several reps denied the plan was real to him,
even though they had sold him the plan the night before.
Finally, we got the truth out of them, and I am on the new rate plan.
So, yeah, that is what people are figuring out.
And I was asked to give credit to Mr. D. in Texas for coming up with that one.
So, boy.
How many minutes?
1,300 any time and 3,000 off peak.
I think that is more minutes I have used in my life.
Yeah, and it is an approaching number of minutes in the month anyway, so you have to wonder.
We have an interesting, really interesting story about unlimited calling,
which is sort of an investigation in progress, which we are going to be part of in a minute.
But I wanted to also touch upon something else we mentioned last week, and that was digital television.
We got quite a bit of mail on that.
This person writes in to say, first of all, no, the broadcaster has got the DT frequencies,
this digital television frequencies, gratis, no cost.
The DT stations tend to be something like KTLA, Los Angeles' Tribune owned station,
which is channel 5 analog and something like 31 digital.
WTTW, one of the few PBS, one of a few PBS stations in Chicago metro area,
is channel 11 analog and channel 47 digital.
And there are multiple possible sub-channels for the stations.
For example, WTTW will have four sub-channels of high definition labeled A, B, C, and D.
KTLA's major broadcasting is on 31.
I am not sure what that means. It is on 31.1. I am not sure what that means.
As of right now, every commercial broadcaster is broadcasting a digital TV signal.
Non-commercial stations go digital no later than next year.
And supposedly everything will be digitalized in the next couple of years.
And that's when things start to really change.
And that's the point I was trying to make last week.
I don't know where this is going to wind up.
If you look at some of the channel allocations here, for instance, New York City,
WCBS, WCBS-TV is known as channel 2 to most of us.
But WCBS-DT, which is what it's called now, is channel 56.
So does that mean that little 2 with the CBS eye is now going to be a 56?
How about channel 4, which is WNBC? They're channel 28.
Yeah. Channel 5 is now channel 44.
Channel 7 is now channel 45.
Sometimes they come right after each other.
Channel 9 is channel 38.
Channel 11 is channel 33.
And channel 13 is channel 61.
So I don't know how this is all going to work out.
It just seems really, really bizarre.
And since many television stations rely on their channel number as part of their identity,
it just seems to me like we're going to face some kind of identity crisis in the broadcast world,
which I look forward to, but I don't know how many other people will be looking forward to that.
Okay, what else do we have?
Here's a question.
This person is emailing us concerning off-the-hook shows available for download at 2600.com.
I'm asking your permission to sell discs containing these shows on various Internet media.
The little profits made from such sales will go into cost and effort,
cost being the price of the discs and or case,
and effort being the time spent on indexing of the shows and their descriptions.
I was planning to do this in my spare time,
but I thought it might be a good idea to share such information as well.
Well, I've got a problem with this one.
How about you, Mike?
It's up to you.
No, this is a discussion.
Partake in the discussion.
We should have a vote.
Okay, fine, have a vote.
I think giving away information is good and sharing information,
but when you start to make a profit off of someone else's stuff, I think that's...
I don't think they should do it.
Okay, but why?
Because they're making a profit off of it.
I think if, you know, maybe we could work out a deal with them or something.
Yeah, well...
I mean, you own the copyright or whatever.
Well, yeah, if you...
We could get into copyright issues.
Yeah, the thing is, you know, I encourage people to take our shows
and put them everywhere they want to put them.
You know, put them on all the websites that they can find
that they have a right to do that to, obviously.
But once you start making it a product that you actually are selling,
that's when it starts getting into, you know, into crazy ground.
It's similar to, you know, if we look at the music world,
what we've been talking about as far as, you know, people listening to music.
It's a good thing to share music.
It's a good thing to, you know, to hear something new from somebody else.
But if you, for instance, decide that you like certain songs on a CD
and you burn them onto another CD and you start selling that CD on the corner,
that's when you kind of...
Yeah, okay, you're only selling it for the cost of the time it took you to make it.
But it's still something that, you know, it's...
You've turned it from a sharing thing into a business thing.
And that's where I have a problem.
Hold on, let me figure out where your mic is. There you go.
Yeah, I got more of a copy left approach to this,
which is that let's take somebody who decides to go whole hog.
They make up a CD of a given show and they provide a transcript.
And let's say, argument's sake, they sell it for $100.
Obviously, very few people are going to buy that.
Somebody will undercut them, all right?
Eventually, it'll get down to something relatively reasonable.
Somebody will just load the show onto the CD
and out of the goodness of the heart, during their spare time, do a transcript
and provide it for the cost of photocopying the paper, okay?
It increases the dissemination.
And the profit of the guy that makes the profit is not out there.
Now, if he's the only one that does it, fine.
He's just advancing the show to people who wouldn't see it otherwise.
Those shows are still on the 2600 website.
People can still get them for free.
It's not like we're giving somebody an exclusive to put the shows out to the public.
As long as those shows are still on the website,
my opinion is let anybody do whatever they want to these shows,
as long as they don't say it's theirs,
because sooner or later somebody will undercut them
or people will just go to the site and get them for free.
Sound good? Okay.
Great. They're passing notes and not even paying attention.
Okay. How about this?
That's the issue as far as that goes.
But we welcome all kinds of feedback and opinions.
On the off chance you haven't heard of this yet, this is a different topic.
I saw the following at the NetWorld exhibit at Chicago's Museum of Science and Industry
when I visited this past weekend.
Online Outlaw.
This is in the Chicago's Museum of Science and Industry.
Kevin Mitnick, one of the most notorious crackers in US history,
spent 15 years causing computer mayhem until he was finally arrested in 1995.
Released from prison in 2000, he now champions using Internet know-how for good causes,
not costly crime.
Isn't that great how propaganda finds its way into museums?
So anyone in the Chicago area, you might want to stop in and take a look at that one.
Have a good laugh.
I'm sure Kevin will be pleased to know that Chris is here.
How are you doing?
Another interesting thing as far as museums and misinformation is
the Smithsonian still describes Marconi as the inventor of the radio
even though the Supreme Court overturned his patent on that early last century.
Yeah, that's true.
Anyway, moving on.
We're going to take phone calls in just a couple of moments.
This person just got their copy of Freedom Downtime.
He says it kicked ass.
You guys continue to do good work.
I especially like how the film covered other hackers' problems with the authorities,
not just Kevin Mitnick's.
That letter comes from Matt.
Thanks very much for your feedback.
Lots of feedback from the film which recently was released.
Hang on. You guys are back?
Yeah, we're back.
Have you gotten any bad feedback from the movie?
Not really, no.
Some people said it wasn't long enough.
I haven't really heard.
I like to hear criticism.
There's no question about that, but I have not heard anything
other than I would have liked to have seen this issue gone into a bit more,
but nobody has really come up to me and said,
boy, that sucks, that's really awful,
which I'm not sure if that's what most films get at some point.
If it is, then that's what I want.
I want the same thing that other filmmakers get.
What else?
Well, I guess we might as well go into the investigation right here
because this is something I think is of interest,
and since we're on the subject of telephones,
this might be a very interesting story to pursue on everyone's agenda.
www.theneighborhood.com.
I'm going to wait for everybody to click their browsers and get to that
because that's what we're talking about here.
Actually, a couple of people sent us mail on this one.
This person asks if we know about the new MCI plan at www.theneighborhood.com.
Is it a scam?
They offer one monthly price for local and unlimited phone calls.
Signed, Tom.
Well, it's basically a site that says that you can get more calls,
more features, more freedom,
There's this big quote box to the left that says,
The power to speak is our right as humans.
Like it's some kind of a cause,
some kind of something that people have fought for
is the right to make calls in MCI.
But basically, listen to how they describe it,
and then we'll decide together if this is a good deal or a bad deal.
There's a place where people talk to one another as long as they want,
whether they're next door or across the country.
It's called The Neighborhood,
a new nationwide local phone company
that believes in your right to talk longer,
call farther, and speak freely.
Unlimited long-distance calls.
Unlimited local calls.
One company for everything.
Call waiting.
Caller ID.
Speed dial eight and three-way calling at no extra charge.
And unparalleled voicemail.
Unparalleled voicemail, yeah.
Okay, so there's two options here.
Two options that you can get.
One of them is called Neighborhood Complete,
and I think that's the one we're going to focus on
because that includes unlimited long-distance calls,
whereas the other one is Neighborhood Choice.
Neighborhood Choice does not include long-distance calls.
That one costs $32.99 a month.
Neighborhood Complete costs $49.99 per month.
Yeah.
I don't know. What do you think?
You think that's too much to pay
to make every single phone call in this country
that you would possibly make in a month?
No, you sold me on all that.
Yeah?
Okay.
I think we should call and ask.
Just make sure that there's no hidden agendas here
or anything like that.
They have, I think, an 877 number.
Are you accusing corporate America
of having hidden agendas?
Well, sometimes, you know,
sometimes it just happens that way.
It's not really their fault.
It's an accident.
Yeah.
So let's just make sure that's what it says it is.
Calling the 877 number.
See if we can get a human being.
That would be good.
Or even computer.
The place where local and long-distance calls
are unlimited.
To see if you are eligible for this exciting new product,
please enter your home telephone number
starting with the area code.
You have to be eligible. Okay.
What number should we enter?
Let's enter the 2600 office.
You entered...
6-3-1-7-5-1-2-6-0-0.
If this is the number you are calling about,
press 1.
Thank you. One moment, please.
Sure.
Thank you for calling the neighborhood
built by MCI.
Your call may be taped
for coaching and development of our associates.
Oh, boy.
Okay.
Our music has been replaced.
Hello?
Yes. Can you hear me?
Sorry. I have a bad connection.
I was just wondering.
I just had a very quick question.
Now, I just saw something on the website.
This $49.99 deal,
that is really unlimited calls.
Like, I can call anywhere in the country.
You can call anywhere in the country.
Talk as long as you want.
And it's never going to cost you more than $49.95.
Okay. And now,
do the other people have to be subscribed to MCI?
Not at all. Not at all.
You talk as long as you want and everything.
Local toll and long distance.
And then also, you get five features with it.
You get caller ID
and call waiting,
three-way calling,
dial aid, and voicemail.
Those are all for the $49.95.
My local phone service has to be through MCI as well?
Yes, it does.
Okay. So, basically, I have to change...
Do I have to notify my local phone company about this?
We take care of all of that,
and it doesn't cost you anything either.
Okay. Now, are there additional charges
locally above the $49.99?
No. It's going to be taxes and surcharges,
but there's no any hidden fees
or anything like that.
It's basically the same taxes and surcharges
you're paying with your local company
and your long distance carrier together.
That's a lot. Would I get a penalty
like in a year or something if I...
No. We'll break it into the local market.
We've just set up market
in 50 states,
and this is a plan that could be offered
by every major telephone company,
but they don't do it.
We're going to do it, and we're going to treat you right
because we're tired of competing against cellular phones
and calling cards.
This is a good way to do it.
Yeah. Okay. So, basically, if I was to get the service
and pick up the phone and make a phone call
every year, I would still be able to pay the $49.99 next year?
Yep. Every month.
Yeah. Could I sign you up?
I'm going to think about this. I'm probably going to call you back
later on tonight.
Can I call you back?
You can try. Sure.
What's a good time?
How about 10 o'clock?
Okay. I'll do that.
What time do you have it there right now?
Right now, it's 8.30.
Okay.
Thanks very much for the information.
We'll see how she deals with our voicemail
when she calls us.
That was very cheery.
Yeah. She was very cheery and very aggressive, too, I might add.
She's going to call the station?
No. She's going to call the 2600 number.
Oh, okay.
So, basically, I don't know.
What do you think? $49.99? Unlimited?
No hidden surcharges?
Well, except for the surcharges that aren't hidden
that you have to pay every month anyway.
How do I get this?
Are you paying attention or not?
We'll talk to you later.
I want to get this when I go home.
Go to theneighborhood.com.
I guess that's all the information.
If there's something hidden in there, I don't see it yet.
They do ask if you qualify.
Maybe...
Hey, does BAI qualify?
Let's see if BAI qualifies.
We'll call that number once again.
Actually, I forgot what the number was.
See if you can ask about local number portability also.
I saw that in here.
There is a charge for local number portability,
which means keeping your same phone number.
I don't think it's a very big charge.
It's probably what they have to pay the ILEC.
Now we're going to put BAI's phone number in there.
That number, by the way, is
1-877-777-6271.
MCIs always like sevens.
Thank you for calling The Neighborhood,
the place where local and long-distance calls are unlimited.
To see if you are eligible
for this exciting new product,
please enter your home telephone number
starting with the area code.
It says home, but if you live at BAI...
You entered
2-1-2-2-0-9-2-9-0-0.
If this is the number you are calling about,
press 1.
One moment, please.
This should be good.
We're sorry.
The Neighborhood is not currently available in your area.
To learn more about MCI's latest
long-distance calling plans and promotions,
please hold the line.
Otherwise, simply hang up.
I'm going to simply hang up.
The Neighborhood is not available.
That's great.
I don't know why, but they
don't have a business plan,
but how can they tell the difference?
Maybe they're looking up our...
Hey, that's a way to find out if a line is a business line or not,
isn't it, if that's what they're doing.
So we could call up and
put in a business number
and we can try that.
We don't have time to do that,
but that's what our listeners can do.
2-1-2-2-0-9-2-9-0, as you just heard,
is our phone number, so we'll be taking phone calls
in just about a minute.
We had a lot of feedback
also for a news story we put up on the
2600 site last week
concerning
an interview with the CEO
of Turner Broadcasting,
who actually, get this, he actually referred
to people who skip commercials
when they watch TV
as people who commit theft.
That's right.
They actually think that you have
the obligation, since you're watching
the program for free, forget the fact
that you pay for cable. We'll just forget about that
right there.
If you're watching over a broadcast,
you have the obligation to sit there
and watch what they're trying to sell you.
Unbelievable.
This person writes in,
just been reading the page about
skipping commercials being theft.
How absurd. If it was illegal to skip commercials,
I would sit and make a note of all companies
that advertise and then refuse to buy
any of their products just to make a point.
Just like when I receive email spam,
I reply stating that I will now
not buy any products from that company
unless I receive an email from them.
The world is not insane, only some of the people on it.
Unbelievable.
That's some of the mentality that's going on out there.
I've got an idea.
Let's have our listeners watch,
the guy who's the head of what, Turner Broadcasting?
Let's have our listeners watch every
Turner station, make a list of who's
advertising, and send them in
so we can suggest who we boycott.
Do you know how many Turner stations there are?
There are lots.
They're all major advertisers.
They're all owned by Time Warners.
It just never ends.
I guess we're just going to be boycotting everything.
It's going to be frontier house out here.
That's what it winds up being.
Should we take a phone call?
We've got a full switchboard here, so let's do that.
Let's go over there.
Good evening, you're on the air.
Speak up, please.
Okay, well, that's too bad.
Let's try this one. Good evening, you're on the air.
Are you there?
Hi, how are you doing?
I have a question about
computers. Can I ask you
a question about computers?
I back up
my hard drive with another
hard drive.
I tried to back up
Windows XP onto another hard
drive, but when I
put that
hard drive in to see if it works,
it doesn't work.
But with other
operating systems like
98 and
me, it works.
Well, this sounds like a question better suited
for the personal computer people tomorrow night,
but let me just ask, what
kind of error do you get when you say it doesn't
work? What I mean is that
it won't boot up. Okay, so it's
probably something that's not being copied that it needs.
No, I've
been doing this for years. It's just that
with XP,
it doesn't work. So there's something different about XP
that is new.
Is that what you're saying? Yeah, I
just was wondering if you guys could...
Does anybody here use XP? Not yet.
Chris, you do. Yeah,
XP is based on the NT operating
system, which is a different bootloading
system than 98
and ME do.
You'll need to use a program that
copies the disk at a lower level
or at least is aware of those files.
Yeah, I definitely recommend you call the
personal computer show, and they can probably recommend
something for you. Have you used 2000?
No, no, no. What does he mean by
a lower level?
The copy's at a lower level.
One way you could do that is
if the hard drives are identical, you can simply
make a sector for sector copy of the entire
hard drive. But that's what I do.
If you're doing that, I would be
surprised that it wasn't working.
I'd say
call the computer show tomorrow. They're on from
the same time, 8 to 9,
and they answer questions like this all the time.
It could be something as simple as
switching the boot flag using fdisk
on that particular partition.
No, I use the
disk that comes with the hard drive
actually for cloning
and also use ghost.
I guess I would suggest calling the
personal computer guys. They're more geared toward this
kind of a thing, but we'll ask around
as well if we hear something. If we get an email,
we'll certainly read that next week.
Thanks for calling. Let's go over here. Good evening. You're on the air.
Speak up. Yes, go ahead.
Yeah, hi.
I needed to know the name
of someone who was on the air today
and he wrote a book. I need to know
his name and the name of his book. He was on
around noon time. Okay, you're going to have to call
the office, 212-209-2800
during business
hours and they can help you with
information about other programs.
Thanks for calling. Good evening.
You're on the air. Hello.
Yes, go ahead. Yeah, hi.
I have a question about computers actually.
I hope it's not too complicated or anything.
Okay, well, give it a shot.
Basically, I
was F-disking my hard drive
to fix a problem that I was having
with the virus and
there's
like a name, a volume name
and there's like Greek.
Usually,
it's empty. Usually,
all you do is you press enter and then
it F-disks the hard drive and then you can
reboot Windows and reboot DOS
and all that. But now, there's like
all this Greek stuff
in there. Well, I don't think it's really
Greek. It's probably
some kind of corruption. Yeah,
that's exactly what it is.
If it was like a normal
letter or a normal number, I could type that
number or a letter, but this
I can't type on my keyboard.
So, I tried
running a scan disk and it told me that there was still an error.
I was just wondering if
you had any ideas on what to do or what the next
step should be.
This is why I hate computers.
That could be a lot
of things. Yeah, it could be. I mean, we have to really
like see it in front of us to know
exactly what little nuances are going
on here.
The label name is what it is. The label name
usually, it's empty.
Is it just the label name or is anything else corrupted?
No, just where it
says the label name,
it shouldn't have anything written in there.
I have like five
old computers that I had in my house
and just this one, this one was actually connected
to, I had DSL
on this one and there was a network card
and when I tried to
FDisk this one, nothing would work.
I tried running Norton's, that didn't work.
I mean, I did Norton 2002,
it didn't work. The FDisk
that comes with many versions of Linux
doesn't have these issues if you try that.
I'm sorry, could you repeat that please?
Sure, there's a version of FDisk that comes
with many installations of
Linux and it doesn't have these silly issues with
disk labels. Oh really?
Linux you said, W-I-N-E-X?
No. Linux, it's an operating
system, it does stuff. I don't think
he's running Linux though, is he? Well, but you could
just put the boot disk in and just run
FDisk without installing it.
Okay, so Linux has an L-I-N-U-X, right?
Yeah, okay, give that a shot.
Okay, thank you very much. Alright, good luck.
Thanks, good luck. I don't know, how do we turn into a help desk?
Okay, listen
folks, if you have computer problems
call the Personal Computer Show because that's
what they deal with, not necessarily
problems but also advances
and things as well.
But we'll try to answer your questions, obviously
but we're not the best people to
ask. Well, we break things, we don't
fix things.
Good evening, we're on the air.
Oh, listen to who it is.
It's that guy again.
He's going to tell us about toll-free directory
not being open late at night, I'll bet.
Is that what you're going to tell us?
Because you wouldn't stop talking about this.
You wouldn't stop talking about this at the meeting, so I figured
you're probably going to call up on Tuesday night
and say the same thing that you said to everybody
at the meeting on Friday, is that right?
Yeah, and that basically is going to
be that toll-free directory information
555-1212 and the
800 area code does not
stay open late at night. He wasn't quite clear as to
what that meant exactly.
Whether it meant that they closed at a certain
time or maybe they were closed over the weekend
or something like that.
I wasn't very sure what he was talking about.
I wish I could... Did you hear that?
That's very obnoxious to interrupt somebody with a
touch-tone. How dare you?
Who do you think... I'm not a computer, you can't
do that to me.
I think you should do it back.
Alright, I understand what you pressed
and I don't know if you understand the ramifications of that.
Alright, you have
30 seconds to tell us what you know.
When you call toll-free directory
now, you don't get...
It's not 24 hours, they close
often from 8am to
9pm and they're not open on weekends
and then
if you try calling
during the off hours, you get the annoying
computer or voice recognition
in which
you have to speak to it and stuff
and sometimes it doesn't understand or sometimes
if you're calling from a noisy place
like a pay phone, it doesn't
do anything because it doesn't understand.
Speaking of pay phones also,
they now ask for 50 cents and more
operating company pay phones. Alright, you're rambling now
and your 30 seconds is up. We're going to try the
800 information. Alright, we're going to see.
But we're going to talk. We're going to
actually have a conversation with an
800 information operator.
See how far this goes.
Nobody talks anymore because when they...
But we're going to talk. We're going to talk.
We're going to see what they say in return
because there's got to be a human over there someplace.
But when they answer, they
play a recording. Everything's a recording now.
We have ways of getting around that.
No, no, no. Wait a minute. When they say
can I help you, they're playing a recording.
I know that. I've known that for 10 years.
But also when they say
something like can you say that
again or whatever they want to say, they play
a recording. Rebel, I'm very
well able to tell the difference between a computer and a
human being. I really am.
Right now I know what I'm dealing with.
It's a human being, but I'm going to be dealing
with a computer, but then I will deal with a human being.
We're going to take care of this. Don't worry.
But also, pay phones
are becoming cold cuts now.
That's something that maybe you should fight
one-on-one. We're going to
head over here now.
Dial tone?
No, that's a person. Let's get a dial tone over here.
There we go.
Dial tone.
I must have called this number a million times in my life.
1-800-555-1212.
What are you going to ask for?
Toll-free directory assistance
powered by TellMe.
Say the full name of the listing you want.
Yes, hi. I just had a question
concerning whether or not directory assistance
is open late at night because I had heard
that they close at night and maybe
close at the weekend. This is a concern to me
because I'm going to be asking
some phone numbers later on at night and I just
wanted to know for sure if I could
do that or if it would be closed. I might have to
do it in the morning or on the weekday or something
like that. Can you tell me if that's the case?
I'm sorry. I didn't get that.
You can leave out extra information
such as location or department.
Please say just the name of the listing
you want.
No, no. I asked
a very specific question here. I just need an answer
to my question. That's all.
Is this a person?
I'm sorry. I'm not finding a match.
Some companies don't list
their toll-free numbers. It's possible
that the number you want isn't listed.
One moment and an operator will assist you
shortly. Boy, he was right. Have us fool
totally.
Thanks
for using toll-free directory.
I'd like to.
I knew this day was going to come
where they
made something like
this go away.
It would just be a lot harder to use.
Thanks for
holding. Your call will be answered
in the order received and it may be monitored
for quality assurance.
We're monitoring all right.
It'll be answered by the one remaining operator
they have hired.
The operator
might ask you for more information about
the listing you want, such as a department
Hello?
Is anybody there?
Dead silence.
Hello? I'm sorry. Is your request again?
Okay. Sorry.
I'm just trying to find out if 800 information
closes at a certain time
because I'm going to be using it later on tonight
and I wanted to know. Okay. As far
as live operators
it will be closed as
10 p.m.
daylight savings, eastern daylight
time, but there
will be the automated system that's
in place for the rest of the
night. What about weekends?
That would be the automated system also.
Really? What if an
800 number doesn't show up as
a voice automated thing? Because I know a lot of them don't.
Yeah.
Then you have to
call back Monday.
Is this a new thing?
Oh, yes.
How new is this?
The closing?
That was the beginning of April.
Oh, wow.
I really prefer the human operators
to this computer thing that they have.
I'm sure you hear that a lot.
Yes, and we agree.
Best of luck to you.
Thank you very much, sir.
Bye-bye.
That's what they do.
They eliminate human beings and replace them
with computers that can't provide you with the same
information. I have to tell you
this 800 service that is
run by Telme
does not list every single 800 number
there is. I'm not sure exactly how
companies that have 800 numbers
get listed there,
but a lot of them, especially the smaller
ones, that voice recognition
simply will not get them.
You'll have to wait for a certain time,
a certain day to make your request
for the phone number that you want
to get. It's pretty pathetic.
Thanks, Rebel, for pointing that out to us.
Maybe people can do something about this
and get toll-free information back.
Of course, they'll probably say,
it's free, you have no right to complain.
Basically, the whole phone system
is filled with
all kinds of ways of compensating
that are free. There's all kinds of
fees they charge you now for calling from payphones
and you call an 800 number.
It's insane.
We shouldn't be swallowing
any of this garbage.
209-2900 is our phone number.
Good evening. You're on the air.
Yes, go ahead.
I have the Sprint 800 number
if you want that.
Did we need that?
You said it a minute ago.
You mean the number for Claire?
1-888-211-4727.
On the
family plan,
no, the MCI plan,
the neighborhood,
you can also collect
Delta miles on it.
You can collect Delta miles, eh?
Yeah, on top of that.
How do you do that?
You just tell them that you're
a Delta Airlines member
and you give them
your member account.
Is it collected per minute
or per month?
I think it's per dollar.
But it's a set amount.
It's a set amount because it's a set plan.
So it doesn't matter if
you don't make any phone calls,
you'll get this no matter what?
Yeah, as long as you're signed up
with that service.
Interesting.
Do you have that service yourself?
I don't. I know someone who has it
and uses it.
And you've actually heard them make phone calls with it?
Yes.
So it really does exist?
It does exist. They used to have one
like 6 months ago
for like a test market
but then they cancelled it abruptly.
Interesting.
They gave like 3 months notice and said
that's it, we're not having it.
Well, according to them, every single company
can offer this service but they're the only ones doing it.
I don't think it's possible because each call
costs money.
Yeah, but each call also costs less money
than it ever did before because
basically calls have always
not cost as much as they've charged us for them.
Now it's just become a bit
more competitive and they're
charging closer to what it actually does cost.
You have to ask yourself though,
calls cost 10 cents a minute
for the most part anywhere in the country.
You can probably get half that rate.
Mike, the mathematician here, can probably figure this out.
10 cents a minute
10 minutes would be a dollar
to make it up to 50 dollars
which is what this rate is.
How many hours would that be? 50 hours?
Not quite.
Not quite?
500 minutes is more than 50 hours.
Yeah, that's true.
Why don't you figure that out and we can figure out
what the breakeven point will be.
We're not very good at this.
It's a question as to whether
or not that's worth the money
expended.
You already have a cell phone
which uses a lot of
minutes, especially at night time.
See, that would be a good service
for a cell phone.
They always get you
somewhere.
I had a service with VoiceStream
where I had unlimited amount of
local minutes, but then I didn't
have long distance minutes, I didn't have air time.
There's all kinds of different things
that they can hit you with.
I was using the family plan
and I gave a phone out
to my girlfriend who lives
out of state.
Was that technically family?
They don't care.
They might not care now.
As long as you can trust them with your phone
they're pretty much family.
I hope that holds up in court.
The only requirement is that
all the phones go on the same
physical account so they all get billed together.
You have to be careful who you give it to.
You have to trust them.
They can really rack up your phone if they want to.
Is that what happened?
No.
Good for you then.
It's unlimited calling between the two.
VoiceStream to VoiceStream.
If you get bored with the person
you're talking to and you want to call somebody else
then you have to start paying.
Can you have more than one other person in your family?
Yes, but each
extra phone costs another $10.
I see.
You can have one family member in one city
and when you don't want to talk to that person
you can have another family member in a different city.
I see what's going on.
Or any other VoiceStream cell phone customer.
There is a requirement that
all the phones on the family plan have to be
in the same area code.
I didn't know that.
They all have to be in the same region.
What you do is
you sign up the phone
you make your first call to initiate it
and then you can send it
to wherever in the country
and as long as
one of the
accounts has 10%
of the call volume
then as long as I make
10% of the call volume
VoiceStream
will keep it going.
10% of the call volume
in the home
calling area.
But the number for both phones are in the home
calling area, correct?
Both phones are in the same home calling area.
They have to be.
So you can't have two phones on the plan that each have different area codes.
Yes, actually they do.
You need a college degree to figure all this out.
You know that, it's insane.
Actually I have two different
I have a 917 and a 718
but it's in the same calling area
just different area codes.
I don't know, it's basically
I like the idea of just having a set rate
where you don't have to do all these calculations
and figuring out 10% phone calls
and area codes and that kind of thing.
I don't know, it's a bit more than most people
want to deal with, so simplicity
I think is the best thing.
Anyway, thanks for that number, let's give that a call now
and see if we can
the deal was we call that number
and then when Claire picks up
we simply say, this is a waste of time
and then she's supposed to
transfer us to an operator.
Let's see if that actually happens.
Can I say it?
I guess you can say it, but you've got to say it
like you just said it.
I didn't really mean it.
You've got to wait for her to
actually answer the phone.
Okay, I guess I do that off air.
That way we get
Claire to actually pick up the phone.
This is a waste of time!
This is a waste of time!
Sorry, I didn't understand.
That didn't work.
This is a waste of time!
Let me get some other information.
Okay, this isn't working.
She's not falling for it.
Maybe this person has a special tone in his voice
when he does it.
He should send us a recording.
Maybe we can sell it.
That'll be the answer to annoying voicemail things.
That was a waste of time.
We're not going to waste any more time
because we're out of time.
We'll be back again next week with our expanded show
for fundraising purposes
starting at 7 p.m.
We're not on for five hours.
We're on for three hours.
Nufset is on for two hours.
We're going to stick around for Nufset
and Nufset is going to stick around for us.
It'll be on the website if you lost track of all that.
Until then,
we'll be preparing this
and thinking of interesting things to do
for those expanded hours.
Have yourself a safe week
and send us an email at
oth at 2600.com.
Good night.
We had an ice cream stand
We had an ice cream stand
I said have you ever wondered
What became of Uncle Bill
We was peeling potatoes
Back in World War II
And we was playing that rock and roll
At the school for you know who
Hidden from the public
It was behind the scenes
There was a relic
They called the purple hair
I was eating a taco
I looked across the room
I saw a girl in a red dress
She said she'd like to see me in
I left a waiter a tip
I stand before the door
I said you might have loved me
But now there's nothing more
She's always on my trail
She really likes to kill
I keep her lovely picture
On my window sill
I was just a cowboy
Without a show
I was like the kind of guy
You never really know
You won't forget me
No matter how hard you try
And when it's my time to go
I'll wave goodbye
Thank you
Sing yourself a melody
Quiet sphere of joy
Your children
Thank you