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Off The Hook.
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Off the Hook, I'm Emmanuel Goldstein.
Howdy, what's poppin?
Where's our pour or whatever's goin' on back there?
We win Watariki!
Winner!
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you on this Wednesday evening. It's the last show that we're going to be doing
under the Bush administration. Yeah, isn't that something? Wow, there have been a lot
of them, a lot of Bush shows that we've done here. I want to welcome to the
studio tonight Mike. Hello. Rob T. Firefly. Good evening. Jim. Hi.
Voltaire. Good evening. Bernie S. down in Philadelphia. And special guest, also
originally from Pennsylvania, Packrat. Hello. Welcome. And what brings you to New
York? You live here, I guess. I live here now. Yeah, okay, well that's one thing, but
you made it out of Pennsylvania. Bernie's not so lucky, he's still there. Bernie,
come to the studio. Yeah, he's still, but Philadelphia doesn't really count, I don't
think. Now, Philadelphia is interesting. I'm not sure how many of us are actually
going to take part in this, but we have some kind of event happening over the
weekend. Bernie, do you know more details about this? Yes, Saturday morning, Obama
will be arriving in Philadelphia and having some sort of short rally sort of
thing, probably at or near 30th Street Station. And then he's going to board an
Amtrak train, a special whistle stop Amtrak train, probably some modified
Acela train. He's going to board that, along with his entourage and a select
group of ordinary Americans that he's chosen to go with him, and go to
Wilmington, Delaware, and pick up Joe Biden, which of course Joe Biden's a
senator of Delaware. Gonna pick up Joe Biden, do a little rally there, and head
down to Baltimore on the train, do a little rally there, and then go down to
DC for the big one coming up on Tuesday. Do we have any idea what time that train
leaves? The latest, well, the president-elect's entourage is not
forthcoming with exact details because of security reasons, apparently, but the
last I heard this afternoon was it was going to be sometime Saturday morning,
when we don't know. Okay, well I'd like to be down there for that, sounds like a
fun, I like watching trains go by, for one thing, and this is going to be a
special train going by. Do you think people will be lining the entire route
all the way from Philadelphia to Washington DC? Well, I don't know if every
square, every inch of the tracks, I think it's like 25 miles of tracks from roughly
from Philadelphia to Wilmington Amtrak station, but I would bet there's going to
be a lot of people everywhere it's easy to get to, to be near those tracks, and
supposedly the train will be going slow at some point, so Obama can wave at
people, or I'm sure it's going to have a telegraph blast, or who knows, but I'll bet
there will be at least a million people along the side of that track. And then, of
course, going from Wilmington to Washington DC after they pick up Joe
Biden. It's going to be really an amazing scene. The Coast Guard is
blocking off all the waterways that go anywhere near the tracks, the Secret
Service has probably inspected every single railroad tie from Philadelphia to
Washington. This is really a crazy situation. Oh, this is going to be awesome.
Now, my real question here is, what if you have a train yourself that you
want to take to Washington DC at that time of day? What happens to you? It's
just like if you want to be on a highway that the president wants to go on, or you
want to use an airplane where the president wants to fly, you don't get,
you don't get, you don't get to go near that. The FAA just released a
whole bunch of no-fly announcements today. No planes anywhere around
Philadelphia, or Wilmington, or Baltimore, or DC over the next few days. It's, uh, there's a
lot of security. Well, now, is anyone in this room planning on being in
Washington DC, other than me? Packrat, I think you are. I will be there. Okay, and
Voltaire, maybe you as well? Yeah, hopefully. All right, and no one else? Bernie, how about
you? I would like to go, but I think it's, I think it's going to be futile to see
anything. There's supposed to be millions of people crammed into a relatively
small part of DC, and the Secret Service is going to close off all
entrances to DC, like all the bridges and so forth, going in there from Virginia,
that sort of thing. They're going to close them off, even after there's a few
hundred thousand people. So, unless you get there maybe a day or two early, I
don't see how it's going to happen. Well, you'll see barricades, you'll see lots of
people, you'll see Secret Service agents, so that's something to see, isn't it? It is.
I mean, it would be kind of nice to be in the crowd, but I'd really like to see the
stage, even if it's a mile away. I have not gotten invitations to the actual
inauguration event. I'm a little puzzled by that. I don't think anyone here has
gotten anything, so maybe there's a problem with the mail? I think mine were
obviously lost in the mail. Yeah, I think mine were lost on the way to the mail.
Well, if anyone there has any extra tickets, please let us know. We'd love to
make use of them, and of course, you know that we'd report back as to what exactly
we see in a way that no one else will. We always report on what it's like to go
through security checks and airports and trains and things like that, so it's
great fun. Yes, Mike? What about the people who live in Washington DC and might have
gone away and want to come back or just want to travel? I think they're all leaving
Washington DC for the entire week. They can't all leave. I mean, half of them
work for the government. Yeah, but the government jobs are off.
They're giving them holidays. I have three of my friends who live in DC,
and they're all going to be off those days, so they're all
leaving. Every single person I know who lives in DC is getting out if they're
not doing something with the inauguration. Yeah, I haven't been to DC
in a while, so it's gonna be interesting to see the town in that state. I've seen
New York in lockdown mode. DC, I can imagine they probably do a better job of
controlling people, and there's a lot of cameras down there, a lot of cameras. It's
scary. Yeah, it's not like London, not yet, but I imagine it'll be close,
but okay, so that's happening on Saturday, so the plan is for him to take that
train sometime Saturday morning and pick up Joe Biden in Wilmington and then
continue on to Washington DC, and then of course the inaugural fund happens next
week, so maybe there'll be something to report on as far as that goes, but there
are all kinds of other changes going on as well, including something rather
interesting. The new chairman of, new proposed chairman of the FCC, this guy
Genachowski, is that his name? What do we know about him? Do we know anything? He's
pretty good. Pretty good. Yeah, I mean, I'm definitely looking forward to him, as
opposed to Kevin Martin. What's good about him? Well, he's been instrumental in
crafting Obama's tech plan, and he's been really strongly advocating for
networking neutrality, which is definitely a good thing. Network neutrality, okay.
Also, improving the broadband infrastructure is important for him, so.
Did Kevin Martin have a stand on net neutrality? He was against it. Was he
against it? Yeah, he was against it. Bernie, what do you think about this guy? I have
mixed feelings. I think one of the primary reasons, besides loyalty to
Obama, is that this guy was really the one who suggested to Obama at the very
beginning of his primary campaign to really make use of the internet,
social networking sites, YouTube, that sort of thing, email, really to SMS
messaging. He really pushed these technologies to the forefront, as far as
political campaigning goes, and he raised like a half million
dollars personally for the Obama campaign. He's got a lot of
industry connections. He's one of these, he was in the FCC earlier, and then he
went out and had to be a communications lobbyist for corporations. So, you know,
clearly it's gonna be better than Kevin Martin, but how much better, we don't know.
Well, yeah, I guess it's not too hard to be better than Kevin Martin, but
yeah, I guess it could have been worse. Well, I think that even though he's
been representing industries and corporations, most of these
corporations, or all of them, really have been like web-based corporations. They're
not like the ISPs or the telcos that we don't want to be represented. I mean,
he's probably gonna have bad views on stuff like privacy and data security,
just because those would be the same policies that his, because he
founded stuff like Hotels.com, Expedia.com, I think. What, he was involved in
Hotels.com and Expedia.com? Yeah, he's, I think it's just on the board of
them or something. Okay. So, yeah, so they probably have bad, like, privacy policies,
but, I mean, they're gonna have good net neutrality policies. All right, well, it's
something that we'll be, obviously, keeping an eye on. And sort of related to
all this, a story that came out asking the question, has President-elect Barack
Obama found the person to entrust with his predominantly online network of
millions of supporters? And I think a few people got text messages and emails from
Barack Obama, and what happened to those addresses and phone numbers? Well, Obama's
announcement of Virginia Governor Tim Kaine to lead the Democratic National
Committee suggests the President-elect has plans to reshape his party to
resemble Obama's modern grassroots oriented presidential campaign. During
the campaign, the Obama operation garnered approximately 13 million email
addresses, a million sign-ups for the Obama camp's text messaging service, 2
million participants in the campaign's proprietary social network on my
barackobama.com, and 5 million supporters on more than 15 other social
networking sites, including Facebook. That's according to a report by the
Washington Post. Now, the question, I guess, is are they going to let
those emails not be used? Are they going to use them while he's
in power, while he's in office, to send all kinds of messages? I'm just curious.
This was described at the beginning of the spiel as grassroots. It seems sort of
the opposite of grassroots. It seems very top-down to me. This is this focused
around this one man, and his organization seems to be pulling the levers here.
Grassroots, in my book, it means the opposite. Well, it's got to be one man.
It's the grassroots organization to elect one guy. I think they mean
the way it was run. What was grassroots about it exactly? Well, I
don't know. I'm not the one saying that, but I think that's what they
mean, is that individual people were sending emails or signing up instead of
just listening to what other people decided or said. You have to agree with that.
It seems like Obama's got a lot more credit than he actually deserves.
It seemed like people were just sending out this buzzword, grassroots, all around him.
If it was really grassroots, there'd be people voting up ideas and
stuff like that. I know that he had some things like a dig-like system, but
that really didn't kick off very well. I think it's mostly a negative system.
Go ahead, Bernie. Due to federal election laws, there's a
firewall between that mailing list and Obama once he takes office. He can't make
direct use of those contacts, so they're going to be in control of, apparently, the
Democratic Party, not Obama directly. He can't directly say,
hey, put this on the mailing list. They're talking about the
mailing list. Anybody could sign up for that email list, but there's no
authentication at all. I could have signed you up. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.
Can you still do it? Yeah. Okay, tell us how. Tell us exactly how. Well, if you just
go to Obama's website. Is that mybarackobama.com? That's one of them.
You just type in Obama in a search engine, and you'll find the site right off.
Okay. The point is, when you subscribe to this for more
information from the campaign, you'll get an email, but you won't get an
email saying, was this you who subscribed your address, like almost
every other mailing list server in the world. So it's kind of strange. So if
you found yourself signed up, it doesn't mean you signed up yourself. Interesting.
Okay. I hope that's not an omen as to how this administration is going to handle
this kind of technology. I'm surprised that it would be that simple. I think
it's worse than that. I sent a letter to the president-elect and got subscribed
to some email list. Why did you send a letter? I sent an email. Why did you send a letter?
Doesn't he have enough on his plate without you bothering him? I sent an email urging
him to take a position on some issue, and now I'm on this list that I didn't ask
to be on and certainly don't want to be on. You thought by emailing him that they
wouldn't keep track of that somehow and log your email address? I've sent
emails to other politicians before, and I don't get spam as a result. But this is a
grassroots organization. What is grassroots about him spamming me? They're
grabbing your personal information. I don't know. Yes. I think that the grassroots thing
refers to the way they used unconventional technology in order to augment this campaign.
That being said, I am actually guilty of signing up several of my Republican
friends for Obama mail, and they were none too happy with that because they knew exactly who
it came from. So you pretty much are verifying that it's possible to do this? Of course.
Wow. I'm on the site now. Actually, I'm not going to create your account. Is that where
you do it? Where it says create your account? First name, last name, email address, password,
and password again. Is that all you need to do? Yes. All right. And then you're on. Okay. Well,
we'll see who I add later. Yes, Rob. With the whole Obama movement, not all of his supporters
were members of the Democratic Party. But now if you were an Obama supporter and you're on this
list, so you said that list goes to the Democratic Party now. So do they have this list of people who
are not involved with them who are labeled supporters? Yes, they do. I am a Green Party
member. And excuse me, I still receive Democratic emails, which I'm kind of miffed about. Yeah,
I'm not a member of any party. And I did until I stopped it. Okay, well, interesting.
Oh, yes, I should mention. We got the sad news today that the star of The Prisoner,
Patrick McGowan has passed away. And for those of you who don't know, The Prisoner is probably one
of the best programs about Orwellian society that has ever come out. This is the intro theme,
in fact. He just went through the parking garage. It focuses on an individual who we only know as
number six, who finds himself waking up in a strange village, doesn't know where the village
is, doesn't know who's in charge of the village. All he knows is that there are people there who
want to know why he resigned from a top secret level position in the British government. And
week after week, he tries to get out, tries to find out who's behind it. And what he says during
the intro of every week is, I am not a number. I am a free man. And that was The Prisoner. 17
episodes. And, of course, he was also in Secret Agent prior to that. Now, The Prisoner, actually,
Mike, I know that you watch it. It's one of the few TV programs I think you actually watched and
liked. That might be true. Yeah. Wow. That's a ringing endorsement right there. But Hope No. 6,
the theme of Hope No. 6 was pretty much The Prisoner. We had numbers for all the attendees
back in 2006. And it was this show that inspired the whole thing. I believe we even revealed who
was number one. We did reveal who was number one. That didn't go as well as we had hoped,
because there was all kinds of confusion. And, well, best not to talk about who number one
actually was. Yes, Bernie. Thank you for raising the volume on that. I really enjoy that theme
song. The theme song for Secret Agent was a pretty good too. Secret Agent Man. Probably a lot of
listeners are familiar with it. But that series, the other series you did, Secret Agent Man,
it's really done in London, just like The Prisoner was originally. That was my first
inkling about the first time I was exposed to encrypted wireless messaging. In one of the
episodes, Patrick McGuinn's character was decoding groups of numbers that he was listening to on a
shortwave radio with a one-time pad. This is back in the 60s. This technology has actually
been used ever since radio has been around pretty much. But I was exposed to this decades ago,
and it was really interesting seeing wireless encrypted messaging, secure wireless encrypted
messaging. And that really sort of intrigued me so much that I became interested in data
communications and telecommunications. So he was one of my inspirations. Okay, we're going to be
playing in the background the music from The Prisoner throughout the show tonight as tribute
to Patrick McGuinn, who many of us saw in that role as number six. And sad, he was 80 years old,
passed away, I believe, today. We found out about it today. And he also did other wonderful things
beyond The Prisoner, Strangers of Night's End. He was in a couple of my favorite movies,
Ice Station Zebra, which is a very excellent sort of spy film from the 60s, and Escape from Alcatraz.
He was very good in that. I've successfully created an account, by the way, on the Barack
Obama site. And I'm now logged in supposedly. I gave an email address. And I don't know,
now I see a web page is there. I don't know if I'm going to just get mail automatically now,
or if I just created an account. But we'll see what happens. I'll let people know in future
weeks. If I've just spam myself, if you're looking for spam, I have a whole bunch I can
send you. So well, this is this is just incredibly easy to to make spam for people. Yeah. Okay.
Speaking of confusion, and things that affect lots of people, there is now a new system in
place for people visiting the United States actually started a couple of days ago. Travelers
visiting the United States under the visa waiver program known as VWP risk being detained at
airports and sent home if they don't comply with new US immigration rules. The introduction of
something called ESTA, which is the Electronic System for Travel Authorization, means visitors
from 27 VWP countries, including most of Western Europe, New Zealand, Japan and Australia must now
register their details online at least three days before departure. Yeah, did you know that if you
visit the United States, you got to register your details before you get here. Now ESTA replaces the
written green I-94 form and allows travelers under the VWP to enter the US without a visa and stay
for up to 90 days. The measure is designed to tighten security and make it harder for terrorists
who are citizens of the participating countries to easily obtain entry to the US where you look
a bit skeptical of this Mike. I mean maybe it makes it harder for terrorists who don't own
computers or something but other than that I don't see the point. There's something Australia
has been doing for a while. How do you do this if you don't have a computer? I don't know. Yeah,
well critics fear, I guess you're one of them, the new rule will be an inconvenience for business
travelers and the British Foreign Office is concerned that travelers who have not heard
about the new rules may be caught out, which I guess means screwed. A British Foreign Office
report on travel trends for 2009 predicted that 13% of British travelers are more likely to visit
the states now that Barack Obama has been elected. The consequences of not registering through ESTA
could therefore be far-reaching. The US Department of Homeland Security has assured travelers that
the system can handle last-minute and emergency requests. ESTA has been operating on a volunteer
basis since August the 1st and started becoming mandatory on January the 12th. The applications
can be made at any time even if travelers have no specific travel plan. So if you think maybe
one day you'll be coming to the United States you can apply now. If itineraries change,
information can be easily updated on the ESTA website which I guess can be found at
travel.state.gov. So, uh, which is really, I've been on that site before for other purposes. It's
really one of the worst sites the government has come up with. The design, there's text on top of
other text, it's very hard to use. Sounds like a MySpace page. So I can only imagine, uh, foreigners,
especially foreigners with limited English, trying to register themselves. Well, wait, wait, you mean it's not done in other
languages, native languages to various countries? I mean, maybe it's done, I haven't, as an American,
I haven't tried it myself, but I'm sure it's not in every language. Actually, according to this,
the ESTA website is actually https://esta.cbp.dhs.gov slash esta slash esta.html question mark underscore
FL, wait, this goes on for an entire line. This can't be right. That's easy to remember. Uh, no,
I'm not going to read all this. It's like, it's like a Windows XP registration key following here,
it looks like. It's so long and complex. Uh, I guess if you just go to, um, esta.cp, cbp,
I keep getting that wrong. I don't know what that even stands for, dot dhs dot gov. That's
customs and border patrol, but, uh. Why do they need that extra thing? Isn't dhs dot gov enough?
How do you spell ESTA exactly? E-S-T-A. Okay. Look it up on Google. I'm sure you'll figure it
out. Um, what happens if we as American citizens try to register? I'm sure it like, uh, cause it's
probably like in, in the eighties with those movies where the computer refers to itself and
blows up. That happens in the prisoner. Yeah. Yeah. If you watch the prisoner, you'll see when,
when, when Patrick McGowan asks the computer, why just the one word, why it smokes and burns
and all kinds of fun. It was the 1960s. All right. No one even had computers back then.
I was actually curious. I don't know if you had talked about this this past summer,
but I noticed when I was reading the paper that they had come up with a new type of software and
scanner for, uh, intended for airports, the software running called malintent. The point
is it's supposed to scan your body and tell you, tell the computer and the people monitoring it,
whether you're not at, whether or not you are a terrorist, which I think is a little,
I had visions of 1984 in my head, like from your emotions, from your facial expressions,
perhaps from the way temperature works, like it supposedly works like a lie detector,
body temperature, heart rate, et cetera, et cetera. But it, it, it, it handles,
um, it handles how many people at once. Uh, one at a time. It looks,
it looks physically like a metal detector. Okay. Um, and they tested it out. I can't
remember if it was at Dulles or if it was at BWI, but they shut one of the,
uh, one of the wings down of the airports and around DC and tested. I still have the article.
And I mentioned they'll be doing things like this, uh, in DC this, this coming week,
uh, not only in airports, but in crowds. I mean, they, they have people now that look
into crowds and look for people exhibiting these tendencies. They're, they're trained
to do this. Apparently. I'm just curious to know exactly how many terrorists have
been caught by the system. Well, how many terrorists have struck? Ah, see that proves
that the system works because they haven't done anything, which means that, uh, shut up,
just move on Voltaire. Did you have something else? No. Okay. Um, well, um, here's,
here's something new that, uh, is just being talked about. I knew this would happen eventually,
but the national safety council on Monday has called for a nationwide ban on cell phone use
while driving. Not only hands, uh, that the, uh, not hands-free what's the other,
the handheld cell phones, but all cell phones studies show that driving while talking on a
cell phone is extremely dangerous and puts drivers at a four times greater risk of a crash. Now,
um, they say driving drunk is also dangerous and against the law. When our friends have been
drinking, we take the car keys away. It's time to take the cell phone away. I see a lot of eyes
being rolled in the studio here. This is something that you have been arguing. You've been saying,
I've heard you say on this very radio program that the self, the hands-free devices are just
a scam to sell hands-free devices. I agree. And that if they're going to ban, uh, handheld cell
phones, they should also ban hands-free. And now it's happening and you're complaining. When did I
say I was complaining? I said, there's a lot of eyes being rolled in the studio. My eyes roll. No,
they did not. Pack right. I'm going to complain because, uh, I understand that, you know,
holding a cell phone and driving with your neck twisted over onto the side, you know,
that that limits your visibility. If you have a headset on and you get into an accident because
you're distracted by talking on the phone, sorry, this is that's too good to not turn.
Oh, that's fine. If you have somebody else in the car, how is it more, any more distracting
by having another body and being able to talk to that person in the car than talking on a head?
They might as well ban conversations period. Well, exactly. I mean, that's the next,
that's the next logical step. The point I was making was that you can drive with a cell phone,
uh, hoisted to your, to your, uh, to your ear. And it can be just as safe as having something
that's hands-free. In fact, that could be even more dangerous depending on how it's set up,
depending on how good a driver you are, depending on, on what kind of conversation you're having,
all sorts of things that they can't possibly just blanketly apply and make a rule that everybody has
to abide by. So it's, yeah, it's, it's kind of like, oh, Willie and big brother, we have to take
care of you and, uh, you can't possibly take care of yourself and exercise common sense. And the
more you do that to people, the more they don't exercise common sense. This is why my windows are
tinted out. Yeah. Voltaire. This might serve as a good incentive for people to, uh, take public
transport. Yeah, maybe. I don't think people get a, get a rule saying you can't, uh, talk on a
cell phone. They're going to say, yeah, let's hop on the subway then. I don't know if that's,
uh, necessarily Rob. I just wonder how they're going to enforce a ban. I can't find your mic
for that guy. I just wonder how they're going to enforce a ban on, um, hands-free talking because,
uh, you know, how, how is a police officer or anyone else going to prove that you weren't just
talking to yourself or discussing with the voices in your head? Well, that's the thing. If it's,
if it's hands-free, there's nothing, no indication that you're actually talking unless your, your
lips are moving or, or maybe you're just listening. You could just be singing along with the radio or
something. And maybe the radio is also too distracting. Hmm. You know, it's just, we need
to at some point simply take care of ourselves and know what we're doing. But the thing is the,
this law is, uh, if it's designed to protect the driver, then it's a foolish law. But the
problem is that the driver might hit someone else who is not, uh, uh, distracted. And that,
and that is what laws are for is to protect the other person. Okay. But how far are you going to
go with this? Because, you know, all these, all these laws dictating every single facet of your
behavior. Well, I've, I've been known to argue on this radio program for banning driving altogether,
but, uh, as an interim step, like we have to, as a society, like decide, uh, what is safe behavior
while driving and what is not. Right, right. I think there's good driving and bad driving. Yes,
Bernie, go ahead. A lot of these laws are not based on, on facts. What happened is,
is several years ago, the, uh, a lot of States were considering passing laws,
just outright banning the use of cell phones, hands-free or not, uh, on, on public roadways.
And the cellular telecommunications industry association, the CTIA, the cellular lobby,
um, worked out this compromise with all the States saying, well, you can't ban the cell phones,
ban them only if they're not using a hands-free device. So that's how this came about. Even though
it's no less of a distraction using a hands-free than, than holding it to your head. So that's how
this came about. So it's all about basically, uh, uh, deals and money and things like that.
Is that what you're saying? I'm shocked. Shocked. Yes. Actually, I would argue that, um, having a
hands-free device and being, you know, uh, I, I raced in my spare time being having a phone in
your hand does not, it's not necessarily a distraction. However, it does limit your reaction
time. Therefore, um, having something physically in your hand, you know, you can put a cup down
really easily and you have cup holders and stuff like that. Doing that with a cell phone, it's,
it's not only distracting, but it limits your mobility. Well, you can drop it. I mean, I've,
I have dropped my phone when something requires my immediate attention. If I have a headset
strapped to my head though, that's a lot harder to disengage from in an emergency. And if someone's
yelling at you and you need to hear what somebody else is yelling at you on the highway, and it
might be a little difficult to do that quickly and safely. But again, it depends on how, how
inept you are at doing two things at once. And a lot of people are. Uh, so I just, I don't know.
It's a, it's tricky when you start regulating everything. I just chalk it up to Darwin. Yes.
Bernie, go ahead. Gum. Maybe we should regulate chewing gum while walking because that could
pose a public safety hazard if you're crossing the street. Well, they already regulate text
messaging while walking, don't they? Text walking. Yes. There's some laws on that. If
you're crossing the street, you can't, uh, you can't send a tender, receive a text message in
some areas because we don't know how to take care of ourselves unless there's a law telling us what
to do and what not to do. That's really, it's, it's gotten to that stage. Anyway,
a nationwide insurance public opinion poll reported that 81% of the U S drivers say they
use cell phones at the wheel. And, uh, it, it's funny because, you know, a lot of the people who
agree that a cell phone should be banned, call me while I'm driving and get angry. If I say I have
to go. So it's, um, it's really, it's, it's fun. Um, okay. So that's something to look forward to
the debate on that. Um, all right now, as far as, uh, something else that's coming up really soon,
we've talked about a number of times of the, the cutover to digital television. Oh boy,
it's a, it's getting more and more fun, isn't it? Um, one thing that I was talking to some
people about this week that, that I hadn't talked about before, um, since they're using
the same television frequencies, we're not actually getting anything out of this deal.
Originally I thought we might get an expanded FM dial because, uh, channels two through six
use the, uh, the audio spectrum right below 88.1 on the FM dial. So maybe we could have
expanded into say 85 or 80 or something like that, but no, they're keeping those frequencies
for some VHF TV stations that like to, um, would like to keep that particular channel number.
But most of them, most of the, uh, the TV stations are moving to UHF stations that is above 14,
where the range is not nearly as great. So that means people in, um, in, in faraway areas
that currently pick up a VHF TV station, they don't have cable, they don't have satellite,
they're going to be switching to a UHF station that might not get the same range.
So even if you get the converter box, you might not be able to pick up the signal.
I, I've actually had a been, been mulling this over in my mind. I can't come up with
a logical reason for anybody to be doing this. I mean, can you really argue that the picture
quality is going to be better? Is that really the point of all of this?
How many people receive television over the air and are into HDTV? Don't get cable,
don't get satellite, but they get it over the air and that's what they're doing this for. No,
it's, it, it's really, I think Bernie, you had a theory as to, uh, or a pretty well reasoned
argument as to what, uh, what this is really all about.
Well, yeah, there was, there was two primary reasons for this. Um, the, uh,
back in the, back in the eighties, um, or yeah, eighties and early nineties, uh, the FCC was
going to award a bunch of, uh, radio frequency spectrum, uh, to, in the UHF area to, uh,
wireless carriers just for free. And, um, the, the TV stations were like, no, no, no, no,
that's our God given right to have these extra frequencies. Cause we got our other channels for
free. We want more, more spectrum for free. So basically the, uh, the national association
broadcasters lobbied very heavily to Congress and the FCC to get these free, uh, free channels
and have them made digital. So they could broadcast five channels at once and standard definition
and run five times as much advertising. And there was no restriction that they couldn't
run pay-per-view on most of those channels. And at the same time, the FCC and Congress
gets to auction off, um, the frequencies above channel 52 on the UHF band, um, and sell that
for billions and billions of dollars, and then give it away to the wall street bankers or whatever
they're doing this week with the money. So it's, it's really all about money. It's not about getting
improved television over the air for the most part. Yeah. Yeah. And the thing is these people
who are into HDTV and all that kind of thing, couldn't they have gotten that anyway without
having this massive digital cutoff? Couldn't they have gotten that through cable and through
satellite in different ways? Sure. Voltaire? I think, uh, the only, the whole advantage of doing
this is that the, uh, spectrum that they're going to end up selling is going to go to new technologies
like a WiMAX that'll be able to like hopefully, uh, improve our internet, uh, infrastructure.
That was the common theory that I had heard, but Bernie, last week you had mentioned that,
um, the, the broadcast range. And that's one of the things that, that, that sort of, uh,
has been, you know, weighing on my mind is, is when you start to get out, like in sort of,
sort of hinterlands, the, the break, the signal breaks up and then you can still sort of listen
to it or see it, you know, and digital, it just completely falls apart. It's called the cliff
effect. Right. You either have, you either have a clear picture or you have nothing at all. And
you know, everybody watches analog TV over the air, uh, is experienced like a little ghosting
or a little, little, uh, snow on a picture occasionally, depending on how good your
antenna is and how far you are from the station. That's not going to happen with digital,
but digital TV, you're not going to get anything unless it's a really strong signal.
And the thing is, if you, if you're used to watching channel four or something like that,
when that switches to channel 32, the signal is not as strong. Just ask yourself, those of you who,
uh, ever had a household without cable or without satellite, what channels did you watch more?
Probably the ones below 14 because they had stronger signals. So unless that TV station
is installing repeaters or is really pumping out a powerful signal and you have to wonder what the
incentive is for them to do that. When so few people, uh, compared to satellite and cable
subscribers are actually receiving the signal over the air. I think a lot of people are going to be
kind of shut out when this happens in mid February. Is this actually going to be illegal for
anyone to broadcast an analog after the cutover date? Or is it just going to be like, well,
this is the standard. I think it's, um, I don't know, uh, Bernie, any idea on that?
Yeah. The FCC has changed the licensing change for what, what, what standard power stations are
allowed or licensed to do. They will no longer be licensed to broadcast in a NTSC format,
which is analog. And they'll have to broadcast in ATSC format, which is digital format.
There are low power TV stations, really hundreds and hundreds of them across the country,
but community, uh, TV stations, they don't have to convert to ATSC digital. Um, they will probably
eventually, but not in the next couple of three years. Interesting. Uh, we have a low power TV
station in Queens that, uh, broadcast on channel six. In fact, that's how their, their signal is
heard, uh, on FM radios at I think 87.5 and, um, 87.7. Okay. And I'm not sure what, what's,
what's going to happen to them after this. Uh, are they going to continue broadcasting at low
power analog and, uh, and have their FM signal get out all throughout the tri-state area or
will they be shut out as well? Are they known as a low power station? Do you know,
I think they are because nobody can really get the TV station, but everybody can get the FM
radio signal. Um, I find it funny. There's been some community stations like that. They did that
for a reason. They chose channel six out in the hinterlands for their community TV station,
uh, knowing that most people are just going to listen to them on the radio. So they just ran a,
they just ran the audio, you know, on a standard channel six subcarrier, which happens to lie in
87.7 megahertz roughly. Uh, and they just broadcast like a test signal, like the old
Indian head test pattern on video. And the FCC said, no, you can't do that. You have to have
some kind of video programming. Yeah, that's sort of, sort of fair. And the other thing that I found
out by just looking at some FCC records is that, uh, Connecticut public television is going to be
broadcasting on channel six after the cutover, which means that everybody in the area probably
will just get public television on 87.7. So kiss the idea of expanded FM radio. Goodbye.
Nothing is really going to be changing. Okay. Our phone lines are open to one,
two, two zero nine to 900. Rob, you had a comment. Yeah. So basically if I'm
understanding this whole thing, right. Um, a chunk of, uh, material has been taken away
from the public and, uh, in return, the public gets nothing but the chance to buy a converter
box and be exposed to more adverts. You don't sound very grateful. I'm, uh, I'm just realizing
that maybe I shouldn't be so grateful. Uh, go ahead. Oh, the public didn't really have this,
uh, airspace to begin with the, it's always belonged to, or it should belong to the public,
but it's gone to the, um, the TV station. So, right. It's not really, I mean, it does belong
to the public, but the public really doesn't get any say in it. Unlike here at BAI, where you do
get a say, but we're not raising funds. So we won't focus on that too much. Um, okay. Again,
as I said, uh, well, our phone lines are open two and two, two zero nine, two 900. If you have
any comments, questions, things like that, I'd love to hear from you. We haven't taken phone
calls in a, in a while. Can I complain about my cell phone? Yeah, go ahead. Okay. Uh, so
what we're here for is to hear your complaint about your cell phone. It's a standard feature
of the show. Uh, I was traveling as our listeners may know last week. Uh, and I put my American
AT&T SIM card back in my phone cause I had a very important phone call to make and I had no other
way to make it. And did you have a German phone? Yeah, but it ran out of credit and I was not in
Germany, so I couldn't refill it. My German SIM card works here. I made a phone call in the United
States on my German phone. You can do that if you have credit, but I had no credit. Uh, so I put the
SIM card in and tried to make a call and I could not make a call. Uh, and eventually I learned it
was because my telephone had been disabled. And this is not the first time this has happened.
Not the first time this happened to me previously in November, which is not that long ago,
where apparently you can just call up the AT&T system and get people's phones disabled.
Now, do you know how to do this? I don't know how to do it. Okay, but you called AT&T. I called AT&T
and said, I'm traveling. What is going on? I need to be able to make and receive phone calls.
That's why I have a service that works overseas is so I can use it occasionally overseas. And
they're like, Oh, your phone has been disabled. Someone called the system and reported it lost
or stolen. We can re-enable it for you. And they did so, but they can't tell me who did it or
anything more. And is it, is it possible this was done online? They told me that it was done
through their automated computerized phone system. And can you ask them what, how to do that?
I did not, I don't want to disable my phone. I want to enable my phone. Okay. But my point is
if we have that information and we demonstrate it here on the radio station,
I don't think it's going to last much longer because if it's as simple as you say it is.
Well, I'm, I'm looking for a volunteer victim. If anyone has an AT&T.
You're the default victim. I am. I've already been victimized twice. I'm looking for a new
victim. If we victimize you live on the air and prove that it actually does disable your phone
and you don't need, you say you don't need any kind of proof of identity.
What they've told me. Account number perhaps, or social security number.
They've told me is that since I complained enough, they have now put a secret passcode
on my account. So my account is protected now they say. Okay. But until a few days ago,
my account was unprotected and apparently it was very easy. I don't know. And the default
is to not protect the account. Yes. All right. Well, if anybody knows about this, we'd sure like
to know more information because it sounds, it sounds like something from the 1980s that they
really should have fixed. And you know, you need passwords, you need some kind of verification.
And they insist, uh, obviously counterfactually that they don't even have caller ID to know who
was making the call that disabled my phone. It's very strange. Well, that would be helpful. Can
I tell you when it happened? At least I believe they told, I mean, it was, it was on the 3rd
of January, but what good does that do me? That's true. Uh, I don't know what this AT&T.
AT&T. Okay. So if anybody knows the story, yes, the story did have a weird ending in that. I found
a payphone in Switzerland that actually took my us credit card and let me make a phone call with
it, which was kind of unexpected. Is that unusual that payphones take credit cards? It just sucked
my credit card in and, and, and did something. And then a voice in English came on and asked me to
enter my zip code. Uh, and, and then speaking of, of things, sucking your credit card in,
I had that experience today twice. Um, you know, those muni meters that they have all throughout
New York city there. I hate them. I really do. But they're, they're basically, they, they spit
out little receipts that you put in your, in your windshield and that supposedly pays for parking.
What I'm trying to figure out, and if anybody out there has information on this is how easy is it
to forge that system? It seems incredibly easy. You simply print out a piece of paper with the
same letterhead that's on the, um, uh, the actual, uh, um, piece of paper they print out.
And you put the time and date that your parking is good until, and it doesn't seem any way to
really verify that. Do you know something about this background? Uh, well, I will test it out.
I got a scanner. What did we, uh, do you know something about this, Barney?
Yes. They just started putting them in Philadelphia. Really? Okay. I don't think
they call them muni meters, but they're similar to that. You know, you put your,
you put your money in your credit card and it spits out a paper receipt. You got to put it
in your dashboard. Right. Uh, but I noticed the receipts have a, uh, have a, uh, a meter number
on them. So I don't know how swift the, uh, the meter mates are and looking at the, at the receipt
that's on your dash to see if the number matches the machine that's nearest to you. But if not,
somebody could very easily with an HF Turner Ford, these slips and just print them and stick
them on their dash and, uh, and have free parking. And the other question is, are you allowed to move
to a different space? Or, I mean, where is it written? How far away from that particular meter
you can go? Well, I guess that's where it comes into the meter number that's on the receipt. If
you're, if you're closer to another numbered meter, then I guess, uh, ostensibly they could
find you. I don't know. Those rules are not clear. They don't say that anywhere. So I don't know if
I'm allowed to just park any place, as long as I have that little receipt. And also you can do
this online now, apparently you can, you can go to some nyc.gov site and actually print out your,
your receipts before you even get there. And that seems to me like that's, that would be
ridiculously easy to forge. There's no spots. Yeah. What's that Bernie? One other thing is,
uh, these machines where you put your credit card in, they don't do real time authentication
of the, you know, when you go to a merchant with a point of sale system, you had your credit card
and it gets an authorization code to verify that your credit card is still good. Yeah. These
mini meters, they don't do this authentication in real time. They just assume it's a valid credit
card. I think mine did cause it said approved after a long wait. Uh, well it depends on,
it depends on, on the meter and where. And that was for a 25 cent transaction on my American
express card. And that, you know, I felt good. I felt good to charge something for 25 cents on
an American express card. Okay. Let's take some phone calls. 212-209-2900. Again, this music in
the background is the theme to The Prisoner in tribute to Patrick McGowan, star of The Prisoner,
who died today, or at least we found out he died today. It was today. It was today. And we can,
um, hardly recommend that show, all 17 episodes of it for anybody who has not seen it and wants,
uh, something from the 1960s, has to do with Orwellian society and big brother and all that
kind of thing. The Prisoner. And, uh, memory to Patrick McGowan. Let's take some phone calls.
212-209-2900. Good evening. You're on off the hook. Hey guys, it's Hypo. Hi Hypo. How are you?
I'm doing good. Doing good. I have two questions for you. I was on the 2600.com site yesterday. I
saw a very odd countdown clock going on. I was wondering what was going on with that. Cause
apparently now it's not counting down anymore. Yeah. Countdown clocks are interesting. They
usually, uh, indicate something is going to happen at a particular time, a particular date.
Uh, I believe what the number was getting less and less. Was that what was happening?
Yeah, it was, I actually, uh, looking at the code, it looked like it was going to be like
February 6th or February 7th. Yeah. That was an odd day. There was a very odd music going on
behind the countdown as well. Because nothing really is scheduled to happen on that day that
we know of that's historic in nature. So yeah, one has to wonder what is going to happen on,
uh, I believe February 7th at midnight is, uh, is the correct time. Um, was, was there a particular
address, uh, that was displayed at the time of the countdown that maybe wasn't the regular address?
Uh, something like Viola. Viola. No, I think it was slash V-O-L-I. Interesting. So if you go to
www.2600.com slash V-O-L-I right now, you can probably see that countdown in effect and
wonder what's going to happen on February 7th at midnight. Hey, thanks very much, uh, Hypo for
calling in and asking that probing question. Something we, we're going to think about and
hopefully our listeners will think about as well. Uh, let's take another phone call. Good evening.
You're on off the hook. Interesting point. Anybody want to respond? They are off the hook.
It's just what I was going to say. That's not the off the hook tone. Good evening. You're on
off the hook. Yeah. I got a question about this analog TV stuff. I've got one of those
converter boxes, but it doesn't work. Oh, it doesn't work now. How, what, what's,
we've never seen one. So what's involved if you, it's a very easy connection, but, uh,
it's like three wires, but I plugged it in and it doesn't work. And I checked with a neighbor of
mine and she got a box at a different, uh, store, a much bigger box. And her picture comes in great.
Really? Interesting. Uh, what, what, where are you located? In Queens. In Queens. And what are
you trying to tune into? Do you know the channel numbers you need to know? Like, uh, the particular
channel numbers? No, it's very simple. Like I said, it's not, you know, I read the directions
and I put the batteries in the, uh, remote and everything, but it doesn't seem to work.
And I got a question for you. If I go to the store and buy one of those flat screen TVs that
are already built in with this HD, do I have to get cable or can I just plug it in as a regular?
First of all, sir, are you using an antenna? Uh, yeah. You are. What kind of antenna are you using?
It's a RadioShack antenna. That could be a problem. Yeah, it might be a cheap antenna.
Uh, well, I mean, here's what I would do. I would, I would go to your neighbors,
assuming it's okay with your neighbor, and swap the box and see if it works there
using the antenna system that, that they have. And if it doesn't, then, you know,
there's some issue with that particular bit of hardware. Uh, otherwise, uh, check to make sure
does something have to be tuned to channel three or channel four, like a VCR or something like that?
Channel three. Okay. Plug it in. Yeah. Um, yes. The TV would have to be tuned to channel three,
depending on a switch. Is your TV tuned to channel three? Right. Right. I did that. Yeah. I imagine
he's doing the same thing as neighbor is doing. Uh, that would be my first bit of advice is to
simply swap it out. It could be broken. It could be broken too, but that's electronics have been
known to be broken. That's to determine if it's broken or not. Bernie, do you have any additional
suggestions? Uh, is this an indoor or an outdoor antenna you have? And is it UHF or VHF or both?
No, it's a UHF. It's indoor. Well, you might try, uh, it may be that just what we're talking
about earlier in the show, that the UHF signals for digital have a higher, uh, uh, higher standard
as far as you have to be stronger for you to pick it up. So you might need a UHF antenna on your
roof pointed at the stations. Isn't this fun? Isn't progress in the technological world a blast
for everybody involved? You know what I think? I think they want everybody to get cable TV.
It would make your life so much easier, wouldn't it? Yeah, but that's what they want. Yeah, no,
totally. That's what they want. So let's fork over a little cash and you don't have to worry
about any of this hassle. Oh, all right. Listen, I saw, I saw a Comcast advertiser who was deliberately
confusing here in Philadelphia saying that, uh, you know, didn't even mention the satellite was
an option, uh, for, it was sort of like a DTV conversion, uh, a public service announcement
by Comcast, but they didn't even mention their prime competitor, which is like DirecTV. And they
just said, but it'd be much easier. Just switch to Comcast. You don't have to deal with all this.
Why would you expect them to mention their competitor? Yeah, right. I mean, even I wouldn't
expect that of them. Cause it sounded like a public service announcement as to how, what you
need to do. And it was deceptive. Yeah, but it was run by the cable company. So you should take it
for what it's worth. If you, if you see something that's actually run by, uh, you know, DTV.gov or
whatever, then they should mention all the options, obviously. Listen, sir, uh, best of
luck with, uh, your, your TV troubles. And hopefully after February, we'll know just where you stand.
Go ahead. This is exactly why I'm killing my, my cable TV connection. I'm just absolutely sick and
tired of it. I can't take it anymore. It's gone. So what are you going to do instead? You're just
going to go outside, read books. I mean, I can't live like that. Or I'll go onto the internet.
Well, the internet's going to switch over to, you won't be able to get that without a converter box
soon. Yeah. That's the next move. Good evening. You're on off the hook. Speak up, please. Yes,
go ahead. What's on your mind. Um, I was calling about the muni meter tickets that you guys were
talking about. Okay. Yes. Granted I've never scanned them and printed new times on it,
but I do travel around with my car and I have about five different tickets that I just periodically
lay up there and I'm yet to get a ticket. So you think if you just put something that looks like a
muni ticket in your windshield, they're just going to say, Oh, there's a muni ticket there and
never actually check the time or numbers or check the time. I actually use the old mini, uh, old
tickets that I have in my car. Whenever I park now, I just put one of them in the middle of the
dashboard and I've yet to get a ticket. I've done it now for months. I don't understand that the
old parking meter system where you put quarters into the, into the machine and you had a little
flag that went up. Uh, what was wrong with that? That seemed to work except for the ones downstairs
that don't work. Apparently it required a lot of maintenance and it's hard to change the rates.
Yeah. Meter maids, meter maids must not be happy about muni meters because you don't need meter
maids anymore. Probably not. No. All right. Well, I've never been happy with meter maids. So yeah,
usually thanks. Thanks for the call. But usually your encounters with meter maids are not pleasant
ones. Uh, good evening. You're on off the hook. Hello. Hi. What's on your mind?
Uh, I would like to also relay the sad news unless it's a hoax, which I hope it is.
Well, regardless, I don't think it's a hoax, but, uh, Ricardo Montalban has also died. I heard that
on my way into the, uh, into the station today. Yes. It's been a bad day for actors, hasn't it?
Yes. Well, um, I would like to thank you guys for running hope six that I attended. Um, I was
actually wearing a black jacket, uh, white piping. Nice. So I believe, uh, I believe Cheshire
catalyst was the only one to, uh, recognize and mention it to me. Oh, I think many people
recognized it. I think everybody in the studio appreciates that. What was your number, sir?
Um, I don't remember. I don't know your number. How could you not know your number? My goodness.
Basically a lot of people still refer to themselves by their numbers. And we, we introduced
all the speakers with their numbers. I believe it was four digits, but, uh, I have a picture of
myself with you, uh, as well as picture of my badge, I believe, but, uh, amazing. Okay. Well,
uh, thank you for hope six and thank you for the last hope as well. All right. Hopefully we'll see
it the next hope. I hope so too. All right. Take care. It's very nice. You can say hope in a
sentence. Go ahead, Rob. I did see more than one person with that outfit on. I did too. The jacket,
the pimsels, everything. All right. Let's take another phone call. Good evening. You're on off
the hook. Yeah. It's a quick couple of comments about digital TV. I live in Pennsylvania and
you're right. The signals are weaker because UHF inherently needs more power transmit. Um, and I
had to buy an elaborate antenna system with an amplifier and to make sure you point in the
direction of the tower. And even with all these, uh, extra investments, I still can't pick up
channel 13. Now I used to pick it up with analog before, but I can't get it now. Yeah. Uh, it's
going to be, it's going to be a lot more difficult. Go ahead, Mike. So, uh, some of the channels will
actually increase in power after the switch over, uh, happens channel 13 in particular has a very
weak signal for the moment. Uh, and allegedly it will get stronger, uh, when some digital signal,
a weak digital signal. Yes. And allegedly it will get stronger when some analog channel,
which is in the way, right. It's out of the way. But of course channel 13 is a VHF station. So
that's, uh, it's already going to be stronger than a UHF station. So I'm worried about those
people that, uh, have to switch over to that. I guess we'll just see what happens in mid-February,
unless it gets postponed, which supposedly Obama wants to do. We'll have to, uh, check that out.
Okay. We're out of time. Uh, I just want to thank everybody for being a part of the show and, uh,
next week will be interesting. I'll be, uh, returning from DC, I think next Wednesday and
have all kinds of things to report. Patrick, I want to thank you for coming up. No problem. And
for, uh, lending expertise and stuff like that. Um, we're going to go out with another phone
related song. In fact, we're going to fade out the, um, the prisoner theme now and go out with
another unusual, rather strange phone related, uh, song that also has a relationship to a particular
play that some of us pick your musical play. As some of us may know, we'll see you next week.
oth at 2600.com is our email address. Have yourselves a good night.
Thank you.
Hello? Hello. Hey. Hey. Hey, what's up? Not much. Um, Goldie,
I've decided to give her permission to become engaged to our daughter.
Can you hear me? Okay. Can you hear me? I've decided to give permission to become engaged
to our daughter. Yeah. Oh, he's, he's a good man. Goldie. I, I, I like him, but what's more
important? Huddle likes him. Huddle loves him. So, you know, what can we do? It's a new world,
a new world of love. Hello? Goldie? Hello? Goldie, do you love me? Do I what? Do you love me?
Do I love you? Your daughter's getting married and struggling. You're upset and you're worn out.
Go home. Go right down.
What? Goldie, I'm asking you a question. Do you love me? You're a fool. I know, but,
but do you love me? I love you. Well? Do I love you? Well? For 25 years I've washed your clothes
cooked your meals, cleaned your house, given you children, milked the cow. For 25 years
we're talking about love right now. Goldie, you know, the first time I met you was on our wedding
day. I was scared. Yeah, I was scared. I was nervous. Well, tell me why. But my father and
my mother said we learned to love each other. And now I'm asking, Goldie, do you love me?
You're right. I know, but, I know, but do you love me? I love you. For 25 years I've lived with
them and followed them and started with them. 25 years and that isn't, that's not love.
I don't know. Then, then you love me?
I suppose I do. And I suppose I love you too. It doesn't change anything.
But, but even so, it's just, after 25 years, it's uh, it's nice to know.
Are you, are you finished? Yeah. For sure? Yeah. I'll, I'll, I'll see you, I'll see you later, okay?
All right. Okay. All right. Well, be careful. Okay. All right. All right. Bye. Bye.
You'll have shows on, man.