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This is Two Great Hours coming up.
This is Two Great Hours.
This is Two Great Hours.
And the program is Off the Hook.
It's just past 7 on a Wednesday evening.
I'm Mike.
I'm joined in the studio by Jim.
Hello.
And by Redbird.
Good evening.
And Ken Gale is engineering for us.
And we have Bernie S. in Philadelphia.
Yeah.
Hello.
Hello.
Can you hear me?
Yes, we can.
I know you can.
I'm trying to turn up my pot.
Okay.
So I am well in Philadelphia.
Great.
And we're now going to place a phone call to somewhere in the world
where we will connect with Emanuel.
Your call is being connected.
Please wait.
Wait we shall.
That's interesting.
Was I recording?
Might have been.
You never know what action you're going to hear on this show.
No.
Or what kind of ring.
There's two kinds of rings with this phone number.
Very strange.
Hello.
Hello.
I'm looking for Emanuel.
You found him.
Oh, how did we do that?
You must have called the right number this time.
Oh, that's good.
How are you guys today?
We're well.
How are you?
I'm good.
I find myself this week in Vienna, which is in Austria.
And it's 1 o'clock in the morning here.
So I'm not quite as out of it as I was when you guys were calling me when I was in Asia,
and it was 7 o'clock in the morning.
So basically it's a lot more normal hour for me right now.
I'm here as part of the Power Flows conference, which is taking place here,
hasn't taken place here for the last week or so, and will continue on into the weekend.
I'll give you more information as to what that's all about.
It's basically a hacker-slash-artist type of a gathering.
It's really interesting and different.
And it's really the first time I've gotten to spend in this city,
which is yet another really cool European city.
Can you believe it? There are just so many of them.
This city is Vienna this time?
Yes, yes.
You get around.
Have you ever watched The Third Man?
You know, it's funny you should say that because some people brought that up,
and they were going to take me on a tour of, I believe, there are sewers involved in that, right?
Well, not only sewers, but there's a famous Ferris wheel as well, and a zoo.
A Ferris wheel and a zoo?
Well, they're not all together.
But, yes, those are the three major tourist attractions that were extant in the late 40s, early 50s,
when Orson Welles did that movie.
And, yes, take the tour, by all means.
Well, only two minutes into the show, and already we've unleashed all sorts of fascinating tidbits of knowledge
all about Vienna.
So, yeah, it's a lot of fun just wandering around the city and exploring it
and learning all sorts of things.
And, again, I have to draw all sorts of parallels with the mass transit systems that exist in our different lands.
You know, when you ride the trains or the buses or the trams here, it's so incredibly simple.
Basically, you can get this thing known as a weekly pass.
And the weekly pass really is a very good deal because it's about half the price of an eight-day pass,
and you might wonder why that is.
The reason being, a weekly pass begins on Monday and ends on Sunday,
so if you get it on a Thursday, it's not that good a deal.
But I happen to arrive here on a Monday, and I'm leaving, I think, on a Saturday,
so it actually works out pretty well for me.
Basically, what that does is it gives you a machine that spits out a little card,
and you take that little card, and you stick it in your pocket,
and do you know what you do with it after that?
You keep it in your pocket?
Well, yes, but when you get onto trains or when you get onto buses or when you get onto trams,
do you know what you do with the card?
You have to do something with it, and then it's not that simple.
Well, that's what I'm asking you.
My guess is nothing.
Yes, that's my guess as well.
It's just when the undercover police think you're a fair beat that you show it to them, right?
You're absolutely correct.
I can't tell you how amazing it is just to be able to hop onto a tram or a train
and then get off whenever I want to and go back on whenever I want to
without having to fumble for cards and put money into machines and things like that.
In other words, being treated like an adult,
assuming that you're getting on this thing and you actually have the credentials
to prove that you belong there if you are challenged.
It hasn't happened to me yet, but there are no fair takers.
There are no tollbooths or anything like that.
You just walk on and walk off.
I think most people play it honestly.
It's a good system.
There are plenty of locations in the U.S. where this is possible as well.
I believe, Bernie, didn't you have a run-in with one of those?
Well, yes.
Here in the Philadelphia area across the Delaware River is the New Jersey Transit's river rail.
It's a river something or other.
It's a light rail system that goes from Amden up to Trenton.
Not having ever been on a system in the States like you described,
I purchased my ticket from the machine like I do on other New Jersey Transit machines
and got on the train.
But apparently that's a fare-based system whereby you have to endorse
or punch the ticket before you board the train.
But it's not obvious.
There's no signs that are conspicuous that say you have to do that.
At the end of the thing, to make a long story short, by the time I got to Trenton,
a uniformed fare enforcement officer approached me and asked for my ticket.
I handed it to him proudly, and then he wrote me up for a $75 fine,
which I fought but ultimately lost.
It's interesting, too, because you do have to cancel tickets here as well,
but not the weekly pass, not the one that I got,
because, as I mentioned, that's only good from a set date to another set date,
so there's no reason to do that.
It already is pre-canceled when they give it to you.
But other ones, yeah, it's true.
It's not quite so obvious what you have to do in order to be legal.
But there are these little blue machines everywhere that you're supposed to stick your ticket in.
And, of course, we have several different systems here.
We've got all sorts of trams running all over the city.
For those of you who don't know, what do you call trams in the United States?
Streetcars? Trolleys?
Trolleys.
Trolleys, okay.
We don't have very many of them, but they're all over the place here.
We have what's known as the S-Bahn, which is the same thing as in Germany.
It's kind of a regional rail system.
And then you have what's known as the U-Bahn,
symbolized by a big blue U over what is the equivalent of a subway station.
There are five lines numbered the U-1, the U-2, the U-3, the U-4, and the U-6.
I see a theoretical flaw there.
What's wrong with that?
There are five lines, and none of them is numbered U-5?
Why did I know that you'd bring that up, Jim?
It's something that—
I figured that by you actually enumerating them, you were hinting.
Well, no, actually I was listing.
Okay, you've picked up on an obvious flaw in the system.
It's something that they don't like to talk about here.
If you want me to, I guess I can ask a whole lot of embarrassing questions,
and next week I'll tell you what I find out, but I don't really see the point of—
Frankly, the thought of you asking embarrassing questions is worth much more
than me finding out about the U-5 line.
So go right ahead.
We'll get to the bottom of what happened to the U-5 line in Vienna.
I guess I'll make that top priority.
In addition, they also have what I see in very many cities,
and that's something we're starting to see in New York,
and that's the timer on top of the subway platform on the sign.
It tells you how long it's going to be before the train actually shows up.
We're seeing them in New York City, too, on bus stops, believe it or not,
and, of course, they're on all the bus stops and tram stops here.
It's a major difference, and, Mike, I think you know what the major difference
between the two systems is.
Well, I'm going to guess, and you can tell me if I'm wrong,
I'm going to guess that the major difference is that in Vienna,
like in so many other cities, they actually work, whereas in New York they don't.
You are spot on. That is exactly the difference.
When I was on the L train, actually on my way to the airport,
I happened to have an opportunity to get to know one of these signs
and to watch how it operated, and it basically was counting down.
It said the next L train will be here.
I got it all the way down to two minutes, and then it jumped up to five minutes,
and you could hear the train approaching.
And then this is coupled with audio announcements,
so the woman on the speaker, who I could really understand for once,
was announcing trains pulling into stations that were not actually pulling into stations
because she was basing it on the sign, and the sign was wrong.
I'll say this.
When the train actually was passing me by on the platform,
the sign did acknowledge that and say the train is arriving in zero minutes.
But I honestly cannot for the life of me figure out why in New York City
it is so difficult for the system that they've spent so much time and money putting together
for that system not to be able to sense when a train is passing a signal
and how long it's going to take for the train afterwards to reach the station,
especially when the train is practically in the station already.
You just look down yourself and you can say, hey, the train will be here in one minute.
I don't know why the sign can't do that.
But not only that, the last time I was on the L line,
the directions weren't even indicated correctly.
In other words, toward Brooklyn or toward 8th Avenue.
They were totally wrong.
I mean, it's very strange.
The whole thing just doesn't work.
Yeah.
I don't understand it.
There are so many things that should be easy that aren't,
and the rest of the world seems to get it.
They really do.
I saw this in Singapore.
I saw this in Malaysia.
And it's really not that hard to put it together to make it work.
It's like we enjoy difficulties.
I'm not quite sure I understand why.
If anyone out there, any of our listeners,
has an answer as to why it's so difficult for us to make things work,
we'd like to know.
LTH at 2600.com.
Bernie, yes.
I just wanted to point out that the new subway system in Bangkok,
which is only about three years old,
also has a working and accurate timer system,
whereby on the platform you can tell when that train's going to get there,
and it's pretty accurate.
You can also see working things in this country, in Washington, D.C.,
which is not, in many respects, a particularly well-run city,
this thing, this countdown timer works.
I really don't know why we can't have it in New York.
Or Philadelphia.
And, of course, it's only on one subway line in New York right now.
It took years to get it on that line,
so I don't know what the future is as far as that goes.
I'm not quite willing to say.
I don't think the world would be a much better place
if we had broken systems on more subway lines,
so I'm willing to wait until they learn how to make it work.
Why don't they just bring the people that did it here over there
and make them do it?
I don't know.
That would seem to solve all the problems.
Manuel, it's probably for the same reason
that we didn't bring the Dutch over to New Orleans
to build new levees,
because they know how to build them in the Netherlands.
You're basically pushing the learn-how-to-fish attitude,
where basically they could give us a fish
or they can let us learn how to fish ourselves,
except that we're never actually going to do it
because no one's really teaching us.
Well, what they're doing in New Orleans
is they're allowing the fish to just come to the people.
All right.
I think we've had enough of these analogies.
Next week I'm going to be in Rome,
which is in Italy, Jim.
I knew that.
There's also one in New York, but go on.
Okay.
I figured you'd make a wiser remark.
There's nuclear weapons in the one in New York.
Yeah, but there aren't any nuclear weapons in the one in Rome.
That's the one I'm heading to.
The one in Italy, I meant.
But on the way to Italy, I'm going to the world's oldest republic.
And who would like to guess what that might be?
No one here seems to know, so I guess I'll jump in.
It would be San Marino.
That's right, Jeopardy! Jim gets it yet again.
San Marino, one of the world's smallest countries,
which is right smack in the middle of Italy.
I figured out how to get there.
It involves trains and buses.
And I'll be visiting there this weekend on my way to Rome.
So that's going to be an interesting stop.
And it's the third tiny country I've been to.
There's Monaco, there's Andorra, and now it'll be San Marino.
I have not yet made it to Liechtenstein.
I understand, Redbird, you did.
A long time ago.
Yes.
Like two years ago.
Yeah, two years ago.
That's a long time ago.
In my years, it's a long time.
The Reagan years, that was a long time ago.
It's 10% of his life. Give him a break.
It still feels like yesterday.
So that's basically my itinerary for the next week or so.
Well, there's nothing really exciting in Liechtenstein.
You say there's nothing exciting in Liechtenstein?
There's banks and stuff.
That's why he's going to San Marino.
I don't know exactly what's in San Marino.
I'll find out when I get there.
I know it's kind of mountainous, so it should be interesting.
Very picturesque, that kind of thing.
Okay, so enough of my travel plans.
But, again, if anybody is in Rome that listens to the program,
feel free to email us at oth2670.com.
Maybe we can meet up or something.
There is a Hacker Get-Together in Pisa, which I'll be reporting on as well.
And we'll have more about the Paraflows conference
which is taking place here in Vienna in just a moment.
But first, let's take a quick look at what's been going on in the world of technology,
computers, that kind of thing.
Now, I understand that there have been some developments.
A couple of things.
First of all, something involving the NSA and wiretaps,
and we're supposed to believe what they're telling us now.
What's the latest on this, Mike?
Well, there's an article in today's New York Times that says,
Warrantless wiretaps not used, official says.
And the official is Mike McConnell, the Director of National Intelligence,
and he was testifying before the House Judiciary Committee,
and he is saying that the government has conducted electronic surveillance
only after seeking court-approved warrants.
But then you can skip down a few paragraphs
and learn that that only applies to phones in the United States.
They're still wiretapping the rest of the world without court approval,
and they're not providing any reasons for us to believe them,
even in the United States.
One of the interesting things that was in this article
is that he's pushing, Mike McConnell is pushing for a provision
that would grant legal immunity to the telecommunications companies
that have secretly cooperated with the NSA on the warrantless program.
Those companies now facing lawsuits have never been officially identified,
although there's only two telecommunication companies
basically left in the United States,
so it's not that hard to guess who they might be.
But wait one moment.
If there are no warrantless wiretaps,
how can you possibly give immunity for something that was not done?
Well, he's saying it was done. It's no longer being done.
Oh, okay.
We seem to have lost...
That's not me. I'm still here.
All right.
We've lost Bernie in Philadelphia.
What a surprise.
But you still have Emmanuel in Vienna.
Yeah, we can call Vienna with a lot less problems than Philadelphia.
Well, don't put the whammy on it,
because last time we had a lot of trouble reaching me in Kuala Lumpur.
That's true.
And I had to use my cell phone.
But, okay, so basically what they're saying is that they did it before,
but they're not doing it now.
Does anybody know when now started?
Yes, it says that, it does say, since last February.
At least February.
So they've been going a whole seven months?
Well, I think by this point,
the American public is so confused as to who's spying on whom
and what's legal and what's not legal
and when a warrant is needed and when it is not.
I don't think anybody is going to believe
that they're not being listened to a whole lot more than they used to be.
And I also think a lot of people don't have that much of a problem with it.
Just like a lot of people want surveillance cameras,
I think privacy is something that we are increasingly thinking of as a privilege,
not a right, and that's very sad and scary.
I don't even think we're thinking of it as a privilege.
We're thinking of it as sort of non-existent.
I mean, there's no one claiming that,
or very few people claiming that innocent people aren't being wiretapped
and spied upon by cameras and all this stuff.
It seems pretty clear that it's gone, privacy.
That's a rather somber note to end that piece on,
but we'll keep an eye on and we'll keep watching the NSA,
hopefully more than they watch us.
Bernie, you have some good news from Philadelphia.
He doesn't have any news. We lost him.
Oh, that's right.
Look at that. I had my QR ready to go and I have no Bernie to give it to.
Okay, are we trying to get Bernie back?
We can try if you have some other news in the meantime.
Yes, I can fill the space.
Were you reaching him on a landline or on a cell phone, by the way?
A Sprint PCS mobile telephone.
Okay, yeah, those are always problems.
Well, keep trying.
I'll move over to Jim.
Jim, I believe you had information on a really cool conference
or event that took place in Brooklyn?
Yeah, I came across this in the New York Times the other day,
and it struck me by the similarities to what we all know and love,
the Hope Conferences,
but it seems to have been much more avant-garde.
A group of artists, followers of someone named Guy Debord,
a French writer, filmmaker,
and co-founder of the Situationist Movement,
which I never heard of in my life.
I've never heard of it.
You've heard of it?
You've never heard of the Situationists?
I thought you were supposed to know everything.
I don't know that, but I don't know everything.
That's the question you've got to ask him next time he's on the show.
Next time he's on Jeopardy, ask him about the Situationists.
You can't be on Jeopardy more than once in your lifetime, okay?
But anyway.
Well, you can use a different name, can't you?
Put a paper bag over your head or something.
They had a guy who did that a few years back,
and when they found out who he was,
he didn't end up winning the $50,000 that he supposedly won.
Anyway, this was in Williamsburg,
which of course is the hotbed of avant-garde in New York City and in Brooklyn,
and they had a lot of things that would have looked familiar to many Hope attendees.
They had a locksmithing institute.
They had a guerrilla cell tower.
They had...
That's where apes can place phone calls?
No, no, G-U-E-R...
I don't think we had one of those, did we?
No, I don't believe we did.
But was it functioning? Was it hooked up?
They alleged it was functioning at the time.
Interesting.
They had surveillance cameras.
There were discussions about surveillance cameras.
They had rechargers for all sorts of electronic devices.
They had a celebrity, the artist Hassan...
Let me see if I can pronounce this...
Elahi, who I believe is from Rutgers.
We've mentioned him about, I'd say, nine months ago.
He has a website where he literally has his GPS coordinates and occasional photographs.
Every time he moves, he takes another photograph and his GPS is live and constantly updated
because he was approached by...
I don't remember if it was the FBI or some other agency after 9-11
and forced to essentially retrace his steps entirely to, quote, prove, unquote, his innocence.
And so now he's made that into an interactive art installation on the web.
It's quite a sacrifice for an art installation.
Yeah, I know. It is bothersome in its idea and in its execution.
But apparently this was well attended and it made quite an impact on the Times.
And this was called Conflux? It took place last weekend?
It was called Conflux, yeah.
It took place apparently a weekend ago, about 10 days.
If we had known about it beforehand, we would have definitely promoted it.
There's a lot of mentions in here of the persons and organizations involved,
notably the Interactive Telecommunications Program at NYU.
So I was thinking we should probably contact these people.
Most definitely. Get involved in HOPE next July.
And there'll be more information on that, of course, at www.hope.net.
So thanks, Jim, for that information.
Now, I understand, Bernie, you have some good news down there in Philadelphia.
Yes, for a change, there's actually some good news in Philadelphia.
I thought he was back.
I am back.
Sprint PCS just summarily dropped me. Sorry about that.
But in any case, the good news in Philadelphia is that this may seem bizarre to most of our listeners
who might be in metropolitan areas where public access cable TV channels exist,
that is, those channels where the public can create their own programming or documentaries
or art pieces or interview shows or whatever and get them on the cable system.
Philadelphia is the largest of dozens of cities in the United States
that has no public access channels at all,
even though it was a city ordinance in the early 80s that was enacted to require this to happen.
But for a variety of political reasons,
Comcast and the city council here in Philadelphia never made it happen.
And the group I'm involved with, the Philadelphia Community Access Coalition,
for many years has been filing lawsuits and making phone calls
and protesting at Comcast shareholder meetings and talking to city council members and so forth.
And finally, we must have struck a nerve somewhere
because the mayor yesterday at a press conference announced
that five public access TV channels on the cable system will be permitted
and will be rolling out very soon here in Philadelphia.
Bernie, I'm a little confused here.
You say that there has been no public access on Philadelphia cable for all these many years.
Is that correct?
Zero. None whatsoever.
And have you not been paying fees for these public access channels?
Absolutely.
Every subscriber to cable television in Philadelphia,
a portion of their bill was going to fund this.
As the city ordinance said, about a half million dollars a year
would be coming out of the franchise fees which come out of your bill.
And for the past 20-some years, the city has just been spending that on other things.
You could say they've been misappropriating these $10 million or so,
but that would be maybe too incendiary to make that claim.
But in any case, the money has been spent and not on public access,
nor have the five channels that were supposed to be allocated.
They've been used for public access for the past 20-some years,
but they were in fact used by Comcast for corporate profit ventures
such as pay-per-view channels, that sort of thing.
So I'm hoping this will come to an end soon now with this announcement.
It was in front of a whole lot of people,
and it's in all the newspapers today in Philadelphia.
So it looks like it's going to happen.
The city has donated the use of a retired library in North Philadelphia,
the Widener Free Library,
and that will become the studios for the new public access system.
These days, people can create video programming without a studio, obviously,
with a camcorder and a computer.
We're looking forward to getting a lot of interesting programming,
much of which has been pent up for many years,
and we've had no outlet here in Philadelphia on the cable system.
So probably by the beginning of next year,
the first of these channels will be in place,
and people will be watching some very interesting programming.
You're very lucky there in New York.
The Manhattan Neighborhood Network is a model public access system,
and I toured there, toured that place a few years ago.
It's an incredible system, and they have some great programming,
and Philadelphians will be able to enjoy something similar in the near future.
So this is great news, and it just shows that if you're persistent,
just a small group of people,
if you're persistent and push hard enough,
you can affect change in government.
But you have to be incredibly persistent.
Well, now, how many of you were there?
Well, the board consists of a small handful of people
whom you can count on your fingers of one hand,
one of whom I'm one of those people,
but it's a coalition of other organizations
that have an interest in putting public programming,
putting their own public access programming on the cable system.
And there's probably about 30 different groups
who've expressed an interest in that,
and from time to time we would get them together
to explain to them what was going on with the negotiations and the lawsuits,
and occasionally we'd get them to express their concerns
to city council people, the mayor's office, to Comcast, that sort of thing.
So it's a loose-knit group of a bunch of people.
A smaller number of people were actually doing the behind-the-scenes work
in negotiating with the city and Comcast and so forth.
But bottom line is it doesn't take a whole lot of people to affect change,
but it takes a whole lot of time and perseverance.
And I'm proud to say that it finally has happened in Philadelphia.
And anybody who's listening who's in a small city
that doesn't have public access, it's worth doing
because it's a remarkable resource.
You may say, what's the point now with the Internet
and the video channels like YouTube and so forth?
Still, more people get their information, sadly,
more people get their information from television than from any other source.
It's still the case.
So if that's the case, it's worth getting that information,
getting information that needs to be told out on TV.
Well, it's interesting you should say all that
because I showed Freedom Downtime yesterday
to a group of people here in Vienna.
And it was basically the same message,
that a small group of people who basically keep trying
are able to really affect change.
We saw that in your case, we saw that in Kevin's case,
we saw that with the movie that they were making about Kevin.
So what you say about actually getting the policy to change there in Philadelphia
for the public access, there's a lot of truth to that.
I think it's a good thing, though, that there are people out there
who tune in on television, who tune in to the radio,
in addition to the Internet.
The problem with the Internet is there is just so much out there
that it's almost impossible to actually find something good
unless somebody else tells you about it.
Whereas on the radio and on television, well, there's a lot of crap there, too.
But at least it's a more traditional sense,
a more traditional way of getting the message out.
And it's also a way of reaching those people
that don't have the high technology at their fingertips.
Everybody has a radio, and most people have TV sets, too.
So the odds of them just happening upon something that you are doing
are much, much greater if you have access to that technology,
and that's something we should never give up.
There are people who will say that, okay,
they won't let us have access to the airwaves,
but we can do what we want to do on YouTube.
It's not the same thing, and you should never give up that fight.
You should always try and get access to as much technology,
to as much broadcasting as you possibly can.
There is one bone of contention in these negotiations
over the past couple of years with Comcast,
and that is when the franchise agreement was signed many, many years ago,
back in the 80s, they agreed to provide five analog channels.
And now that the system is largely digital,
all they wanted to offer us were digital channels.
Well, unfortunately, the two lowest-priced tiers of programming,
that is basic cable and standard basic cable,
which lower-income residents of Philadelphia primarily subscribe to
because the digital cable costs more money,
they would have been shut out from public access.
They refused to agree to that, and we kept fighting another year or so
so they would offer us some analog bandwidth.
So that's going to be happening.
There will be at least one analog channel to start with
so that everybody in Philadelphia who has cable television
will be able to view it instead of those who pay an extra fee for digital.
But that's the kind of thing you see where companies try to say,
digital is so much better.
Well, it's better for them because they only have to allocate
about one-tenth as much bandwidth using the compression algorithms
they're using on their system.
But we stood fast to allow everybody in Philadelphia
who has cable television to be able to view some public access programming.
So we held out for some analog bandwidth, and we finally got it.
So companies are sneaky.
They're going to try to say, oh, this is better, so you should go with that.
But it's not true.
All right, well, congratulations, Bernie, on effecting change
and hopefully getting some interesting programming
to the people of Philadelphia.
And you're listening to Off the Hook on WBAI in New York.
And now we're going to move on to talk with somebody out here in Vienna
who is one of the organizers of the Power Flows conference.
It's part of the whole monochrome collective they have out here.
They appeared at Hope, Hope No. 6, last year in New York.
You may have seen their panel.
You can go to hope.net and download their panel if you haven't.
And they have a space.
They have a space right smack in the middle of Vienna,
right near City Hall and Parliament, I believe.
And it's incredible.
They have this huge space.
They call it the META Labs, M-E-T-A, L-A-B-S.
And this is where hackers from all over the city come and hang out and play
and write programs and improve the space.
Now, I'm here with Johannes, who is one of the coordinators.
And one of the shocking bits of information that I found out since getting here
and seeing how this whole conference is being put together,
having gone through this so many times, those of you in the studio, myself,
we know what it takes to put together a conference.
We know it's an incredible expense and all sorts of hassles and bureaucracy take place.
And over here, the way it works is the city, the city of Vienna,
gives grants out to artists, to people who are putting together programs like this,
grants for conferences, grants for spaces, grants for all sorts of projects,
both inside and outside the country.
And we're looking at a total of about 500,000 euros that has been given
to this group of people just to put things like this together.
And it's simply mind-boggling to me.
I'm trying to think of a clean way to say this,
that something like this could happen where it's just made so easy.
Well, I don't want to say that it's an easy job,
but it's a major hassle being taken out of the whole formula
when you don't have to worry about charging people money,
you don't have to worry about raising in the first place,
when the government is there and they're actually encouraging you to be creative.
This goes well beyond the free health care they have here.
This is something entirely different.
I'm going to put Johannes on for a moment just to introduce himself
and discuss some of the things that these guys have been up to.
Johannes?
Hi, hello.
I hope I'm not collapsing because I haven't slept a lot in the last couple of days,
but it's really great being on the air on the other side of the world.
Hello.
Hello, welcome to the air.
Yeah, hello to the airwaves.
Okay, so Emmanuel already did a brief introduction.
I think it's even better than he already mentioned.
I'll tell the short story about how all this happened.
Of course, there is a long tradition in Austria and in Europe at all about art funding.
When we're talking about hack spaces and stuff like that,
you wouldn't immediately think about art funding or something like that.
You would think about technology sponsoring or whatever.
Something really interesting happened two or three years ago.
The city government, like the arts department of the city government of Vienna,
basically found out that there are so many different net cultures,
like gaming culture and hackers and people who are doing media art or net art.
There are many, many different approaches to creatively using the net or digital media.
They said, we want to fund this completely new field of net art and net cultures
in a new way because if an officer is sitting in an office somewhere
working for the arts department,
the officer would never be able to grasp the whole idea of it
because he's just an officer sitting in an office somewhere
and it has nothing to do with art or with hacking culture or whatever.
They basically asked us, the community of net culture activists in Vienna
and net culture artists, how should we fund you?
What should be the right way to give you some money to support your projects?
We said, the best thing is that we, the scene,
we ourselves should decide how the money should be spent.
That was a really big, big deal.
I think it never happened anywhere before on the whole planet.
They said, yes.
They said, okay, start discussing within your scene
how the money should be distributed.
You have not all the time in the world,
but you have a year or two to discuss how this funding system should work.
We had a lot of discussions.
You can imagine if 100 or 200 people are discussing
how the money should be given to themselves.
You can really imagine that there was a lot of hassle
and flame wars and whatever,
but somehow it still runs and it still works.
We're basically distributing 500,000 euros per month
to the whole net culture scene.
Per month?
Not per month. I'm so sorry.
I'm so sorry. I'm so tired.
No, no, it's not. We're not in heaven here.
It's per year. It's per year, of course.
Okay.
It's still pretty good.
There was a lot of discussion because, first of all,
we thought maybe we could do it with a reputation system.
People who do great projects should get more money
than people who don't do great projects.
But then we thought that's not really a social way to approach it
because if you have newcomers who nobody knows but have great ideas,
then they would have a bad standing there
if we just do it with a reputation system.
So then we thought, how could we do it then?
And there was a lot of discussing about voting systems
and voting models and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
And really, after one and a half hours of discussing,
we found a way, like a self-remodeling system,
so if something is going wrong, then we could adjust it ourselves.
And now we have a couple of different grants, we call it.
First of all, there are the infrastructure grants,
and that's where, for example, the Hackspace MetaLab comes into place
because the Hackspace got money from this infrastructure grant
because we thought one part of the money should be dedicated
to projects in Vienna that are supporting the scene itself.
For example, there is a great project called Funkfeuer,
and they are trying to set up a free wireless network all over the town.
So, for example, the scene then said,
ah, that's a really cool project for all of us,
the infrastructure grant for like, I don't know,
like 15,000 euros should go to Funkfeuer.
And another great idea was to set up a Hackspace in Vienna
where many, many people could meet and share and use the space
and do conferences and projects and blah, blah, blah.
And so many people voted for giving money to this project called MetaLab.
And many people voted for the project and the MetaLab got the money
and they now have a really great place,
it's like 150 square meters right next to the center of Vienna
and it's running now for a year,
and this Hackspace wouldn't have been possible
without this collaborative funding model.
And why am I talking to you here?
Because Immanuel Goldstein is here,
and Immanuel Goldstein is here because there is an annual convention, we call it.
And this annual convention this year is called Paraflows.
And that's another part of this funding system
because we thought it's an interesting idea to present all the projects
that get money from the system.
And there are so many interesting projects all around the world
and so many interesting people like Immanuel.
So we should have like an annual convention that consists of an exhibition
and social events and parties and talks and workshops.
And that's basically the second major column of this funding model.
The infrastructure grants and this annual convention.
And the third part is called network grants,
and that's basically project funding.
So if somebody has the idea of doing a great computer game
or has the idea of starting whatever creative...
Hello, Johannes, are you still there?
We appear to have lost Johannes.
We'll try and get them back.
We'll exercise our technical expertise and dial Vienna Ostia once again.
We'll see if we can do that.
Do you have a new story in the meanwhile?
I think Bernie is still with us, right, Bernie?
I am still here.
And I just wanted to mention to anybody who was interested
in the public access television system in Philadelphia,
they can go to philiaccess.org.
That's P-H-I-L-L-Y-A-C-C-E-S-S.org for more information.
There's also a link to a lot of the news stories
about how this is going to take place.
So check it out.
Just a few words.
The juggernaut that is Microsoft is being opposed by IBM.
They're throwing themselves in front of Microsoft's wheels.
They're offering Office software free in challenge to Microsoft Office
and all those.
So you may want to look into IBM's website for that
if you're running a company
and you don't want to pay Microsoft for its stuff.
You can get similar stuff free from IBM.
Personal Computer Show may have more on that,
but have we got it to manual back yet?
No, we're still working.
It's a very high-tech system.
I got this very strange e-mail from a company I do business with.
It says confidential in large type or bold type.
Protecting our clients' account information is a top priority
and we value the trust you place in the company.
Regrettably, criminals are increasingly using the Internet
for illegitimate purposes,
as is the case with many companies
that maintain databases of information.
The company is from time to time subject to attempts
to illegally extract information from its databases.
Can you guess what the next several paragraphs are about?
We exposed your information.
How did you ever guess?
What's interesting to me about this letter that you got
is how they try to intimidate you into not telling anyone about it
by labeling it confidential
and then having this whole paragraph at the bottom
about how the information in this letter is confidential
and do not disclose it to anyone else.
Well, it clearly worked.
We don't know what company this is.
You want me to tell you?
I just don't want to give them any advertising.
I don't think it's positive advertising at this point.
It can't be positive.
The company is called Layered Technologies.
Layers of what?
Layers of what, I don't know.
They post this allegedly confidential memo,
confidentiality notice and all, on their blog.
So I don't know how secret they plan to keep it.
It's very strange.
We appear to have Emanuel back with us.
You guys have real trouble keeping a phone connection over there,
don't you?
You know, these phones, it's a new technology.
I don't think it's going to work out.
All right, listen.
I'm going to hand you back to Johannes,
and you tell him how much you didn't hear what he was saying
because he was saying a lot of good things.
I'm going to hand it to him right now.
Okay, the transatlantic communication, it's shattered.
So, hello?
Yes, we're here.
Okay, hi.
When was I disconnected?
You started to mention that you were getting other things
like Emanuel over there.
Okay.
You were on the third of the types of grants.
The third of this, like the whole funding system,
consists of a couple of grants, yes.
And the third, then, basically, I'm not like,
I don't want to go into detail here.
It's basically like the infrastructure grants
for infrastructure projects and for projects for the whole scene,
the network grants basically deal with project funding.
So if somebody wants to make a great, like, net art project
or program a computer game or something like that,
then it's basically, people basically present a list
of possible projects they could do,
and then the people could vote for those projects.
And we had a lot of discussion about, like, that it's not,
it shouldn't be something like a hit list, like in the radio,
like there's the number one single and the number,
the second single and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
So we tried to, we discussed a lot how we could basically
make this, like, socially acceptable.
So not only, like, there are not only winners and losers,
but how we could somehow make it, like, socially working.
Because, of course, I already mentioned,
it's not an easy task for so many people
who actually want money to do good projects,
that they are not completely pissed.
Sorry, I nearly said a four-letter word.
You can say that word.
I can say that word.
Don't say it anyway.
Okay, okay, I don't say it.
But you can imagine.
I mean, and still it's really interesting,
because there's a lot of, still a lot of trouble
and discussing and blah, blah, blah.
For example, there are people, for example,
who don't think that the system is a good system
because we are doing the job for the government here.
And the government is paid for distributing the money
and then they should do it and not we in our free time
should distribute the money.
And there are people who actually say,
nah, you're spies for the government
because you're data mining on the scene
and blah, blah, blah, blah.
You can imagine there's a lot of discussing
and flame-warring and whatever.
But still, I think that Emmanuel is here,
over here in Vienna, is a good proof
that we actually did a good job
in trying to make something cool with the money.
Okay.
I'm curious if you could talk briefly
about some of the projects that you're able to fund with this.
Yeah, for example, this whole Paraflows event
is being funded.
If you like, I could actually talk a little bit
about what's happening here.
For example, today, Jason Brown from Los Angeles
did a great talk with, I think,
nearly 500 PowerPoint slides or keynote slides
about paranoia,
like 3,500 years of paranoia condensed into one hour
and why basically the whole world
is being explained by the movie Tron.
And that's a really, really interesting talk it was,
and it was cool to have him over here.
For example, there are many cool projects being presented
and some of them were funded by this system
in one of the old anti-aircraft towers here in Vienna.
You know, of course, like Second World War
and blah, blah, blah, and Nazis.
There were six giant anti-aircraft towers in Vienna.
And we can use one of those anti-aircraft towers
that are basically impossible to blow up.
You would have to blow up the whole city
to blow up one of those anti-aircraft bunkers.
And we can use one of those bunkers
to do the official art exhibition for Paraflows.
And there are a couple of really, really exciting projects
from various fields.
I think maybe I should not focus too much
on the Paraflows exhibition.
I'm just thinking what other interesting projects were funded.
I already mentioned this try to set up
a free wireless network all over Vienna
called Funkfeuer, that really cool project.
There is even a project that is dealing with creating music
with Nintendo Entertainment Systems and stuff like that.
So how you could hack gaming machines
and how to find new ways to creatively use
consumer electronic devices and stuff like that.
So there is one really interesting art project
who is trying to remodel consumer electronics.
And that's interesting because it would have been possible
to do the project because he couldn't afford
to buy all those consumer electronics stuff
and then dissect it and rebuild it.
But I think, I don't know, I thought Emmanuel
wanted to ask something, but okay, yeah.
Now I remember a lot of you folks came
to the Chaos Communications Camp
and one of the most popular projects
was the reconstruction of a phone booth or something.
Yes, it's an old phone booth.
It's part of the Mieter Lab now.
And this old phone booth, it's from the 1980s
or 1990s and the Mieter Lab guys set up
as a landmark for the Austrian-like village
at the Chaos Communication Camp.
The Mieter Lab guys set up this phone booth
and it actually was really working.
And there was another project that actually
didn't get any funding from this funding system,
but it's still a cool thing that happened
because the Mieter Lab was funded,
is a potato gun, like a taser-based potato gun
and it was actually able to shoot potatoes
for a really, really wide distance.
For example, at the Chaos Communication Camp
we had this procession, I would call it.
Of course, you all know the thing
about the SCO Linux Unix distribution.
And we thought of, because it was very interesting
at that time that there was this legal thing happening
and we said we want to somehow,
even in a physical way, destroy the SCO Unix CD.
So we had this procession through the whole
Chaos Communication Camp and I was shouting like a priest.
And then we executed the SCO disk
by shooting with a potato gun on it.
And we had a mob of like 200 hackers
screaming like they were out of their minds
because we did it.
And it was a really great social hacking
of shooting potatoes.
Hello, are you still there?
Yes, we're still here.
We're just in awe of this thing.
I actually saw this procession and it's really...
You should start a procession like that
somewhere in Brooklyn and build potato guns.
I think if we did that in New York
the police would shoot at us
before we could shoot the potato.
But it's a good idea anyway.
And actually, I think the whole performance
was called hexercism.
To hexercise.
We hexercised SCO Unix.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
There are a lot of interesting things happening.
And tomorrow, for example,
that's one of the things that's part of
the Paraflows conference here is
there is an orchestra in Vienna.
And this orchestra is not like a normal orchestra.
They don't use normal, regular instruments.
They are the vegetable orchestra.
So they build, before they start to perform,
they build musical devices out of cucumbers
or carrots or pumpkins or whatever.
And then they go on stage
and then they perform excellent music
played on the cucumber or pumpkin flute or whatever.
And afterwards, after the concert,
they make a big bowl of soup out of the instruments
and together with the audience, they eat the soup.
And tomorrow, and that's something like
relating to net culture or to digital culture,
tomorrow, for the first time,
they will build a synthesizer
somehow built out of vegetables.
I don't know how it will work,
but it's some kind of a strange, bizarre machinery,
like a cyborg between vegetables and hardware.
I don't know.
I never saw it before. I'll see tomorrow.
Johannes, this is really interesting.
Is there a website where our listeners
could possibly see some of this stuff?
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
So first of all, there is the Paraflows homepage.
It's paraflows, P-A-R-A-F-L-O-W-S dot A-T for Austria.
And you have a lot of links on that page
to the different talks, for example,
Immanuel's talks or links to the Vegetable Orchestra.
I mean, if you just use, like,
the only superpower in the world is Google,
so take Google and enter Vegetable Orchestra,
then you'll go to the,
you'll find the official homepage
of the Vegetable Orchestra.
There are a couple of short examples
how their sound, how it sounds.
We're running, Johannes, out of time.
We're going to play for you, for our audience,
a bit of the orchestra.
I don't know if you can give the phone back to Immanuel.
Yeah, I'll give it back to Immanuel.
And I already knew how the Vegetable Orchestra sounds,
but I hope that the audience
over in the States will like it.
And I just want to suggest
that we start work right now
on figuring out how to get New York
to become part of Austria,
because I think that's the only way
that we're ever going to achieve
this kind of productivity.
But it's been really, really inspirational
over here in Vienna,
seeing what these guys are doing,
seeing how the support exists.
I just hope one day we can figure out
how to do it ourselves.
All right, well, I hope so, too.
And now we're going to hear
the Vienna Vegetable Orchestra.
This has been Off the Hook on WBAI New York.
bass & flute play in syncopated rhythm
bass & flute play in syncopated rhythm
bass & flute play in syncopated rhythm
bass & flute play in syncopated rhythm
bass & flute play in syncopated rhythm
bass & flute play in syncopated rhythm
bass & flute play in syncopated rhythm
bass & flute play in syncopated rhythm
applause & cheering
bass & flute play in syncopated rhythm