Hi, this is Jerry Stiller. You are listening to WBAI New York 99.5 FM and WBAI.org on the web.
Where are my keys? Anybody see my keys? Who took my keys?
Every time he comes in here. You're listening to WBAI New York. It's 7 p.m. on a Wednesday and that means it's time once again for Off The Hook.
But if they could, they would. Bondedly bound for the best, expect the worst. I hope that's understood. Bondedly bound.
You're listening to WBAI New York.
And a very good evening to everybody. The program is Off The Hook. Emmanuel Goldstein here with you on this Wednesday evening.
Joined tonight by Mike. Hi there. Rob T. Firefly. Good evening. Jim. Hello. Welcome back. Thank you.
On the phone from Philadelphia somewhere, I believe. Bernie S. Yes. Greetings from Philadelphia. You sound especially good today.
Well, thank you. I'm feeling better, probably because I'm full of morphine right now.
Well, I'm not trying to say anything inappropriate.
Listeners don't have the wrong impression. This is not recreational morphine. It was prescribed to you by...
Oh, yeah. I'm in the hospital, but I'm getting better. They might discharge me tomorrow. I had some surgery, but I'm doing better, I hope.
And yeah, I guess they wanted to get me ready for the show, and they prepped me with a shot of morphine about half an hour ago.
So I'm feeling quite good. No more pain.
You do sound happy. I'll say that.
Well, I guess it has that effect. It's an amazing substance.
Maybe you could get some for the house where you could just use it when you need to.
I'll buy a round for everybody.
That would be something. No, kids don't do morphine or that kind of stuff unless you're told to by somebody else.
Yeah.
Now, what are we doing here, Rob? We're trying to contact Kyle in Seattle over Skype?
Yes, indeed. We should have him now.
All right. We should have him. Is Kyle there? I don't hear him.
Hello, Emmanuel.
Now, that's not what he sounds like.
Emmanuel, I think I'd like some morphine, too.
Okay. He says he has some morphine, too, or he'd like some morphine.
You know, it's like I'm speaking to a monster from Star Wars here.
All right. This is not compelling, serious radio here.
We need to speak like human beings, not dragons.
He said call back. I think that's what he said.
For some reason.
Yeah, call him back and don't use the slow line.
Wow. Really? That's what Skype does? I've never heard anything like that before.
How does that work? I mean, he was speaking in real time, I imagine.
It must have slowed down while it was being in transit.
Okay. Yeah. As we get things together here. Is he back on?
Kyle, are you there?
Hello. This is Kyle in Seattle.
Much better. Yes. I don't know if you heard what you sounded like, but wow, that was something else.
I don't know anything about it. I don't know what you're talking about.
Okay. How's the sound quality, though? Did I come through then when you heard me?
Well, you came through just fine. It's just you came through weird.
But right now I'm hearing a bit of a bit of a hiss and you sound a little bit choppy.
But you're on a wired connection, correct?
Well, I got a couple of different things going on.
I'm using a regular microphone and I have it running through a bit of a mixer.
So there may be some some stuff picking up interference.
I just had a couple of minutes to get set up here, but I knew I wanted a microphone and some headphones for this Skype stuff.
But it's kind of cool. I can actually I can actually mix in some things if you want to hear a little bit of that.
You've got a mixer. This is getting out of control.
Okay. So now we have a mixer here. You have a mixer out there. Yeah.
Show us what you can do.
Well, I don't know if I can't hear it, but there should be some music playing.
Oh, we hear it. But you can't hear it.
I can't hear it at all.
Well, we hear it pretty, pretty loud and clear.
I'll turn it down. Yeah.
I can also turn up my microphone if that's a problem.
So just let me know. You sound a little distorted.
Okay. Maybe that's too high. Yeah, it's a little too high.
So adjust your levels. Do you have views that you can look at?
I'm sorry, folks, all the technical jargon.
Yeah, kind of. Okay. Yeah. So I'll just keep playing with it.
But anyway, I'm here.
Okay, good. Good to know. We're all here.
And also joining us today, special guest, Mitch Altman.
Hello. And where are you in from?
Brussels. Brussels, Belgium.
Okay. I understand there was there was a bit of a misadventure.
And it happened to me, too.
When there's a misadventure, somehow you wind up in Brussels.
Why is that?
My misadventure was in Brussels.
I was on a train going to the airport and someone decided they would have.
Well, they threw themselves in front of the train and I didn't catch my plane.
Oh, wow. Oh, well, that's unfortunate.
Yeah, it was kind of.
Yeah, I don't know.
I used to commute to Silly Valley in about once every three months.
Someone would do that, too.
So not to belittle that, but you missed your plane as a result.
I did, and then I had to have an extra two days in Brussels to catch my next flight.
So there are worse places to be stuck, however.
Yeah. Once that happened to me, not the unfortunate suicide in front of a train,
but I broke my itinerary because I had a flight from Brussels to Amsterdam.
And I just thought that was kind of silly to wait three hours for a flight.
So I took a train instead and got there earlier.
But by doing that, I negated the rest of my trip and I didn't realize it.
And when I got there, they were very angry with me,
and they told me I had to wait in Brussels until a seat became available,
and that took about two or three days.
Yeah, yeah. It's a popular small airport.
But you're just back from the KRS Communication Congress,
the first one that has returned to Hamburg.
Yeah, yeah. It was pretty amazing.
Tell us something about it.
I heard there were 7,000 geeks there.
And, yeah, the place accommodated us really well,
double what it was at a place that was really beautiful in Berlin.
Yeah, so I was helping organize the hardware hacking area,
which is one of the things I do.
And so I didn't do a whole lot else.
I saw only one other talk, which was the opening talk by Jake Applebaum.
Okay.
And that was pretty powerful.
Not an uplifting way to start the thing,
but the theme was not my department,
about people who make interesting choices
to further their goals at the expense of others.
And so Jake talked about his experiences in helping WikiLeaks
and how various, I guess, individuals in the U.S. government
didn't really appreciate that,
and talked about a lot of people who make interesting choices
to work for agencies in the U.S. government
at the expense of others such as ourselves.
Did anyone else happen to see that speech?
I saw it.
You saw it out there in Seattle, Kyle?
Yeah, I watched it live.
I stayed up for a lot of the ones that I was really interested in seeing.
Well, how did the streaming work?
Did it come through pretty well?
Oh, fantastic, as usual.
We really should talk to these people because they know what they're doing.
I mean, it was like clockwork.
You make it sound like we don't know what we're doing,
but you're probably right.
No, no, it was just so predictable,
and maybe some things would cut out or something,
but you just search online and you watch their Twitter stream.
They'd tell you, oh, yeah, we had some kind of breakup.
They knew exactly what was going on, if there was ever a hiccup,
but it really went smoothly.
Wow.
But that talk was amazing.
Yeah, I can imagine.
Jacob's a very powerful speaker.
How would you compare it, Mitch, to the other congresses?
Obviously more space.
I heard from you, actually, when we talked to you out there,
there are five stories, five floors, and a lot of space.
Was the whole space used, or is there extra space left over for bigger ones?
Yeah, so we had five floors that were a good percentage of the old space in
Berlin in and of itself,
and we were only using a small portion of what's available.
So people were talking about maybe using more next time.
So, yeah, it can expand to 10,000 people or more.
So as the geek scene, the hacker scene expands,
the CCC is ready to expand with it.
Why don't we get to expand like that?
Why don't we get a building that just keeps getting bigger and bigger,
and if that gets too small,
we just go to another city where there's even more space?
Yeah, it would be nice.
Well, maybe the Hotel Pennsylvania can give us more floors.
Yeah, maybe we can just add on to the 18th floor.
There is a 19th floor, but they don't have another ballroom up there.
Actually, there's a ballroom downstairs we don't use,
so there is more space.
But, yeah, we want the whole place.
We want the whole building like they do.
I mean, there was nothing else in that building.
Nothing else going on while we were there.
But, yeah, it was great.
The hardware hacking area was several thousand square feet in and of itself,
and there were all these floors that had hangout areas.
There was no smoking inside, so they had a huge smoking lounge,
and for the first time there was a non-smoking lounge on the top floor
that had a lot of good music, places to hang out and chill out.
So a lot of great conversations.
There was some drama about sexism going on,
which wasn't always harmonious,
but it's really good that people are talking about it.
Dialogue is always a good thing to have.
Yeah, and it shows the community is really working.
So, yeah, and I don't know.
I had a fantastic experience, a set of experiences there.
I met a lot of new people and hung out with old people.
It's like a family reunion that people actually like each other.
And what do you think of the city itself?
Was there a lot to do, a lot in the area?
Was it more confined than in Berlin?
Unfortunately, I didn't have a chance to really explore.
That's right. Who am I asking here?
You stay up for like several days straight and never leave the place.
Yeah, and then I had to rush.
It was the last day of 29C3
because I was one of the organizers for EHSM,
a conference which was concurrent with Congress 29C3
back when it was supposed to be in Berlin,
but then they moved it to Hamburg.
So EHSM was supposed to be sort of a B-sides kind of a thing.
Extraordinarily Hard and Soft Meetup is what it stands for.
That's what that stands for. Okay.
I'm not sure why, but it was nice.
It was single track. There were 113 people there,
and they were all highly technical talks,
and mine was the least technical because it was all for total newbies.
And, of course, I taught people how to solder,
and it was a nice conference.
The keynote speaker for that one was a 17-year-old kid
who made a fusion reactor in his mom's basement.
Wow. I think I've heard about that,
unless there's several people that have done that.
He's the only one I've ever met, but, yeah, he's a really cool person.
I'd like to interview his mom.
I heard his mom at 6.30 in the morning as he was...
You know, this guy is amazing.
He's 17 years old, and while talking to him,
I can't imagine I'm talking to a 17-year-old
because of all of his knowledge and whatever.
But then when he talks to his mom, who's playing the...
You know, mom's job is to be worried and to nag.
So, sorry, mom, if you're listening, but she was saying stuff,
and then Will, that's his name, goes,
Mom!
So, yeah, but anyways, he built a fusion reactor in a basement.
It's pretty amazing, and it actually works.
Yeah, if he built a fusion reactor in the basement of his house,
there's not much left for his mother to worry about, I don't think.
I think he's pretty much covered all ground at this point.
Yeah, I mean, he flew away from the country for the first time,
totally on his own, and did a keynote speech
at a hacker conference in Germany.
I'd like to see what he'll be doing in a few years.
Amazing.
Guys in various parts of our country,
any questions for Mitch about the CCC?
No?
Hi, Mitch, this is Bernie in Philly.
How are you?
I'm doing fabulous.
Not as well as you, but...
Yeah, well, I'm not flying so high, but...
Well, actually, I feel like I'm doing pretty well.
I feel like I'm doing pretty well.
But anyway, my question is,
do you know about how many talks or panels or speakers
there were at the CCC this year?
Actually, I don't have a number.
There were four tracks going at once
from 10 in the morning until midnight,
and the main hall fit 4,000 people.
Each of the other halls were about the size as before,
so there were a lot of people checking out talks
for that many hours, four days.
So four tracks for how many days?
Four days.
Wow, okay.
Yeah, if they were going consistently
and they were all about an hour,
or were they varying lanes,
well, that's a lot of talks.
That's a lot of talks.
That's a lot of talks.
So, yeah, there was a lot of talks,
and this year there were lots and lots of workshops.
So the Wiki page was full,
and there was no room to add anything ad hoc.
Some people, myself included,
tried to do some panels and get-togethers,
and we could squeeze them in here and there at odd times.
But, yeah, it was full.
It was packed.
It was totally way too much for anyone to do it all.
So, like life, we have to choose and make the best of it,
and people did.
I feel bad choosing not to go
because it sounds like it was a real blast
and I hope to make the next one.
They are going to go back to that area, I imagine.
Yeah, it's going to be there again next year is the word.
And, yeah, it's like everyone,
I've been going since 23, and this was 29,
and everyone gets better than the one before,
and this was like over the top.
And I assume heart of gold, the spaceship was there.
Of course it was there.
Okay.
And it was at a mainstream like hotel thingy,
and they turned it into this magical fairyland
like always with RGB LEDs and projections and lasers.
And, yeah, and not only that,
but the town of Hamburg was really into having it there
because they were sad that all this tech was moving to Berlin,
and they used this as an opportunity to say,
hey, tech's happening in Hamburg.
And while I'm at the train station
just waiting to get to Congress
from where I was staying in my hotel a stop away,
they have this projector with info screen,
and they have ads, that's why it's there.
But the content had various news articles
including Die Hackerzene, the hacker scene,
and they showed a whole bunch of geeks
doing all sorts of cool things with hardware and software.
And, yeah, so the town's into it.
Well-respected as always, the CCC in Germany.
Is it necessary to explain what the heart of gold is
or is it just everyone knows?
Well, I said spaceship,
but if you want to go into more detail,
I guess it's not a real spaceship
for the little-minded listeners,
but go ahead and explain what it really is.
It's a real spaceship.
All right, fine.
It's real.
You want to go down that road, go right ahead.
It's a spaceship.
It's green and, I don't know.
Has a window.
Has a window.
It's maybe a few stories high,
and it's real, but it's very cartoony-looking.
And it comes to all the European hacker events,
and people really like it.
This is not a very good description.
I've never seen it arrive or leave.
I want to do that.
You can't.
It's just there.
Yeah, I know.
That's the thing.
I want to defeat that.
I start by the infinite improbability drive,
so it's very difficult to see it turn up or leave.
Apparently, yeah,
but I'm glad to hear it made an appearance as well.
Well, Mitch, now you've been traveling again
for quite some time, correct?
I think you even exceed Bicycle Mark,
who was here last week.
Yeah, yeah.
So I actually was staying with Mark
when I was in Amsterdam for a few days,
but I've been traveling for the last 2 1⁄2 months,
and I started off with TEDxBrussels
flew me to Europe to give a TEDxBrussels talk,
and I gave a talk about the hackerspace movement,
which was pretty well received,
and at least a few hackerspaces
seem to be starting as a result,
so that makes me happy.
That's good.
Yeah, and that's what I wanted to do.
What's new with the hackerspace movement,
say, in the last year or two?
There's a few hundred more hackerspaces
than there were before.
A lot have started up in China and in Egypt
and in the area around there
and a few in Africa now.
There's lots more in the United States.
Hack Manhattan started up here,
closer to home where we are now.
Yeah, so before I left on my trip,
I looked online.
There was 1,106 hackerspaces
listed on hackerspaces.org.
So it's cruising,
and it's getting lots and lots of mainstream press,
all of which is incredibly positive,
which, of course, gets the word out,
which attracts more people to it.
Yeah, about 1,000 hackerspaces now.
What will it be like when there's a million
and you can walk five minutes
to get to the closest one?
Wow, yeah, that would be something.
Have you ever been to a hackerspace in China?
Yeah, yeah, all of them.
What's that?
You've been to all the hackerspaces in China?
Yeah.
How many are there?
I guess there aren't that many.
Currently seven.
Okay, wow, but you've been to all seven.
So what are they like?
How are they different than something we'd find here?
They're really not very different.
They're very similar.
I guess the one thing that's a little bit different
is they're more focused on people
starting their own small businesses
with their projects.
People are looking for ways of finding
meaningful employment for themselves,
and that's kind of the hook there.
The people in the education bureaucracy there
and some in government in general
are pushing for hackerspaces
to help change the culture
so that people are encouraged
to be more creative and innovative
so that their economy can move forward
and not just be innovative and creative
for making Western things better and cheaper
because as their economy goes up
and unfortunately ours goes down,
they're going to have to find new ways
of keeping their economy going
than making Western goods
that ship halfway around the planet.
Hackerspaces they see as a way to be more
a place to have local economy grow.
Do you have a question, Bert?
From what I've been hearing over the past few years,
and you certainly know more about China
than anybody I've ever met,
but there's been a lot of criticism of China
over the past few years for a lot of things,
but from an economic standpoint
that they've been generally very good
at making things to specifications
of their customers in other countries
but not especially known for creating
products of new concepts of new products
by their own design.
So would you say that that's,
I guess that's what China's trying to address
with all these new hackerspaces there?
Yeah, exactly.
That's what they're trying to address
because they need to create goods and services
that are good for their local cultures
and there are many of those in China
because it's a really huge and diverse place
rather than doing stuff just for Western things
that have to get shipped around
because that's going to be,
the game for that is probably ending
in the next few years as energy prices increase,
as labor costs increase there,
and as their exchange rate is going the wrong way
for Westerners.
So yeah, and people in China,
it's been a culture of Confucianism
for centuries,
and that doesn't really encourage people
to stick out and be creative
in their own unique ways.
So that's what really needs to change
in order to create things that are really good
for Chinese economy.
Did you learn of any hurdles
that we might not be familiar with
as far as starting up a hackerspace in China
or any kind of permits that have to be obtained
or can someone who's just an enthusiast
open up a space,
invite their friends to be a part of it?
Yeah, like everywhere else,
that's really all you need to do.
In China, things,
well, they've been practicing bureaucracy
for millennia.
We've only been doing it for a couple centuries,
so we're pretty good at it,
but they've been doing it for millennia,
so they're incredibly good at it.
And in order to get something done,
there might be some impediments that way.
Last year, I organized a hacker trip to China.
Bernie was on the first one,
and this is the second one a year later.
And it was all organized around the Maker Carnival,
which is their Maker Faire kind of a thing
where thousands of people come
to look at projects that people have done.
Really, really amazing stuff
when we finally got there.
But three weeks before the event,
this had been planned for almost a year,
some Chinese bureaucrat higher up,
Muckety Mucks, just says,
oh, we're going to use this space.
They don't even say anything.
We're going to use this space.
And then suddenly, this thing
that had been planned for a year
had to scramble to find either a new place
or a new date,
so they opted for a new date,
and we had to change everything,
and everyone had to change everything
on the whim of some bureaucrat.
And this is the kind of thing you have to deal with
when you're dealing with anything in China.
If you live there,
then you have to deal with this at any moment.
But hacker spaces for the moment
seem to be still under the radar
as far as that goes.
You just rent a place, and people can gather.
China's actually going in a good direction
as far as opening up.
The government is still very hierarchical
and not a place to start an opposition party
or anything like that.
But as far as individuals being able to do
just about anything,
as long as it's not overtly political,
it's really easy.
Well, Mitch, always interesting stories
that you bring from your travels.
Now you're here in New York.
Any plans for the future?
Well, I'm in New York without any plans
until I go home on the 17th purposely
because I've had nothing but plans
almost every day for the last 2 1⁄2 months.
So I'm just kind of chilling here with friends,
and then I'll go home and try to figure out
what I'm not going to do for travel
over the 2013
because there's way too many things
that I would really love to do,
and some of them overlap,
and I can't do all of them.
Yes, you can't do it, but you're trying.
It seems like you're really making a valiant effort
to try and get to all of them.
So, yeah, I hope your place is still there
when you get back to it
and that you remember how to get to it.
And my cat still likes me.
How do you have a cat?
How is that even possible?
Oh, well, it was his choice.
I don't know.
No, but I mean,
cats can't open cat food.
No, if they had opposable thumbs,
we'd be in trouble.
But there's always a friend.
Someone from Noisebridge
has been staying at my place
and taking care of my cat and my plants
and keeping my apartment company.
Okay, well, that's good to know,
and hopefully they'll be happy to see you
when you get back.
Okay.
Well, you know, I guess I should say
a couple of words about our future
because this is one of the last shows
that will be airing from Wall Street.
We have only a couple more.
As we've mentioned in the past,
very vaguely,
the radio station will be vacating this area,
mostly because of Sandy.
Sandy really did a number on this neighborhood.
This building is still not working properly.
In fact, many buildings around the area,
you'll see generators and emergency boilers.
I even saw an air quality testing station
up on Water Street
because the air quality is questionable
because of the things that got flooded
and various things that spewed into the atmosphere.
So that pretty much was the final straw.
We're moving to more accommodating facilities
at great savings,
which is good for us for a number of reasons.
The rent here at Wall Street
has always been incredibly high.
I think it's $35,000 a month.
That's, you know,
no matter what we say about our rent,
nobody can top that, I don't think.
And if we take that money that we are saving
and we collect it
and we start pooling that,
before long, we'll have enough for a down payment
for a place of our own
that BAI could actually own.
And that's the idea,
is to move in that direction.
So again, our listeners, hopefully,
will be very helpful
as far as finding us a permanent home,
a place that we could actually own physically.
And that is not beyond the realm of possibility.
Radio stations do that kind of a thing.
And wouldn't that be amazing
if we were able to do that somewhere in the area?
And somewhere in the area
could be Brooklyn, could be the Bronx,
maybe even New Jersey.
It's possible.
I'm sorry, what's that?
Yeah, it's possible.
I don't know what that is.
Yeah, it's a wonderful place across the river
and maybe things are cheaper over there.
I'm just saying it's...
Our New Jersey friends are going to record you saying that
if anytime I hear you criticize it.
They have transportation.
They have ways of getting there and back.
Well, mostly back, mostly getting there.
But in any event,
this is going to be happening in the next few weeks.
The move is already starting, in fact.
And we'll be going way uptown,
about as far away from this place as you can get
and still be in Manhattan.
But I'm going to miss this place
because there's always something crazy and wacky going on.
If we're not being hit by a super storm,
then the stock market down the road is crashing
or there's all kinds of fun things going on.
Well, today, in fact, a ferry crashed.
It wasn't the stock market.
It was a ferry in the East River,
right outside our window.
In fact, it's a whole hubbub of activity.
Bernie, actually, you'd be interested in this.
I saw an NBC10 van parked outside.
Yeah, Philadelphia.
Yeah, now, we're NBC4.
Channel 4 is NBC station.
In Philadelphia, the NBC station is Channel 10.
Why did they send their own van all the way up to New York
to report on a ferry crash
when, A, it's not near them,
and, B, they could have simply asked
their counterparts at Channel 4
to give them whatever footage they needed?
Well, I guess it was a slow news day in Philadelphia,
so they just sent a van.
Again, it's only a couple hours away,
so they raced up here,
and, you know, there are some people
who live in Philadelphia who commute to Manhattan.
I think that's crazy, but, you know,
I guess they get paid enough to make it worth their while.
So, you know, it's news.
A big ship crashes, and people get hurt,
and I don't know.
They had to cover it.
It gets even weirder, though,
because I walked a little close to those vans
on my way up here just to go over and have a look,
and there was an NBC10 van
right near what's an NBC4 van,
and there were at least two other vans,
both with NBC logos as well.
So NBC basically, I think, sent out their whole armada.
No, that's not their whole armada.
How many NBC vans does it take to cover one ferry crash?
They're taking up all the parking spaces,
and poor New York 1 is across the street.
Did you catch the NTSB vehicle?
It's a U.S. government plate.
I almost got run over by that.
That would have been an interesting accident report
to fill out from the NTSB.
But no, they were driving on the sidewalk,
and I was in the way.
I mean, I wasn't in the way.
They were in the way, but I had to sort of dodge that.
But yeah, it's a hub of activity down there,
helicopters and cops and media of all sorts,
and commuters too.
Commuters are trying to get out of the area as well,
hopefully safely this time.
As far as I know, two people critically injured,
nobody killed, but it's not a pleasant thing.
But yeah, that's what we're leaving.
We're leaving disaster and accidents
and chaos, but we'll be going into something
probably more interesting in many other ways.
It's an adventure.
There's chaos of different sorts in Harlem too.
That's right, that's right.
We won't be chaos-free.
I took the ferry here, and I was in Brooklyn.
From where?
And I got on the one going the wrong direction,
so maybe the one that was going the right direction
was good that I missed it.
Well, no, this was the one from New Jersey.
Oh, New Jersey, okay.
One of the ones from New Jersey.
And yeah, but unfortunate.
But that's the kind of thing that can happen sometimes.
Kyle, are you still there?
We haven't heard a word from you in a while.
I think we might have lost Kyle.
Yeah, I'm here.
Okay, I'm not putting up with that anymore.
Kyle, if this is what...
What?
Okay, so you are doing that.
I didn't do anything.
What?
I said I'm here.
Can you hear me?
What's wrong with the audio?
I don't know what's wrong with the audio,
but you have a lot of hiss for some reason too,
and I don't know why that is
if you're on a wired connection.
Does anybody understand Skype?
It could be the actual microphones,
the actual audio equipment, if he's got so much of it.
Uh-huh.
Yeah, Kyle, do you have like a half-mile...
No, this isn't working.
Okay, I can't.
I just can't.
Kyle, if you have a half-mile of cable going to your mixer,
maybe that's making a lot of noise.
I don't know.
It's short.
It's like 10 feet.
It's 10 feet, so I don't know.
I'm not sure what's causing...
Maybe it's on our end?
I do notice you guys cutting out a little.
Are you by any chance vacuuming right now
or using your microwave?
Are you swimming in the ocean?
Not expressly, no.
Yeah, this does not sound nearly as good as Bernie
when he talks on a wired connection.
On a wireless, he sounds worse, but...
That doesn't sound...
I'm embarrassed.
Yeah.
That doesn't sound like your standard Skype distortion
for a bad Skype connection,
so I would be willing to put the blame on Kyle's equipment.
Kyle, could you adjust your equipment somehow?
Maybe use something else so we can maybe track this down
and figure out what we can improve
in the interest of science?
Yeah.
For your entertainment alone, I'll do that.
Okay.
While you do that,
I'll read this important news story about Bradley Manning.
At Bradley Manning's hearing in Fort Meade, Maryland recently,
Judge Lind awarded 112 days credit
off of any future prison sentence awarded
due to the abuse Manning suffered in Quantico,
little to keep the military from torturing
the next American soldier awaiting controversial trial.
This from the Associated Press.
No, actually, this is from Bradley Manning's website
if that wasn't abundantly clear.
Earlier, the parties argued government motions
to preclude evidence of core precepts
of Bradley Manning's defense.
After more than two weeks of intense litigation
by Bradley Manning's defense
and hearing how Quantico Briggs staff
blatantly disregarded Navy rules,
military Judge Denise Lind, again,
has confirmed that Bradley was punished unlawfully
before trial by awarding 112 days credit
instead of awarding 10-1 or 10-4-1 credit
for dismissing the charges altogether,
which would severely reprimand the military
and significantly impact Bradley's potential sentence.
Judge Lind gave 1-1 credit
for selected portions of his Quantico confinement.
So do we see this as a victory, however small?
112 days?
I don't see it as anything, as any huge victory,
but I am kind of surprised that the military court
even gave us that.
Maybe it's just to shut us up,
but apparently that's not going to work.
Wait, let me get this straight.
So he's being credited, he's going to be credited
for the time that he was locked up?
Wouldn't he be credited for those days anyway?
Or is he, I'm missing something.
No, he's getting like bonus days
for the days that he was treated illegally, supposedly.
So while he's been locked up for a couple of years,
they're subtracting 112 days.
So if he gets life in prison,
112 days before his life ends, he gets out?
I don't know how that works.
That's the idea.
If he gets, say, 25 years,
then he'll have to serve 25 years minus 112 days,
which is still a very long time
for something that has not yet been shown to,
well, not yet been shown to have happened,
but certainly not yet been shown to have harmed anyone
at all anywhere in the world.
What if he's found innocent?
How does it work then?
How does he get those 112 days back?
He doesn't.
They don't, maybe they'll apologize.
I doubt it.
So I'm hearing there's going to be
some kind of a trial in June?
They keep pushing it back.
Part of the government's strategy, I think,
is intentionally to delay this for as long as possible
because he's in jail and they're not.
So the date is now June.
It'll probably be pushed back once or twice more.
Even if he gets it in June,
he'll have already been in prison for three years
without trial at that point, I think.
So I think we're all familiar in this room
with people we know who have had that happen to them,
where they've just been locked away without trial
for as long as possible,
just as another tactic on the part of the...
Trying to think of somebody.
Yeah.
Who do we know that has been through that?
It's on the tip of my tongue.
Someone in Philadelphia, maybe?
Hmm. Yeah? Philadelphia?
Oh, yeah.
There's people all over who've suffered that way.
You think, Bernie?
Uh-huh.
Okay. All right.
Well, that's good to know.
I mean, no, it's not good to know.
It's horrible to know, but...
Well, just in case there's anyone out there
who doesn't know who Bradley Manning is,
he was arrested for divulging secrets through WikiLeaks.
Right.
And it should be an interesting trial.
When it does happen, is the public allowed to attend?
I believe they are.
The public is allowed to attend,
but the government has not been releasing transcripts,
so we rely on people who do attend
to tell us what's going on.
So if you have a photographic memory,
please head down there.
We'll tell you when the trial dates are,
and then you can come up here and recite
word for word what happened.
And also, Bradley Manning's own website
has been doing its best to collect that information
and spread it.
And that website is www.bradleymanning.org.
I don't think it's his website.
Like, he's not running it.
Well, no.
I don't think you can update it from the brig
or wherever it is that they have him.
But his friends, legal advisors,
I mentioned they're the ones doing all that.
Kyle, any better?
No.
Guess not.
Okay.
We have no audio from Kyle now.
I think he sounds much better now.
We don't have the static, at least.
No hiss.
Yeah, no hiss.
But no Kyle either.
Did we lose him?
I don't know.
I can't really tell from this thing.
I see his icon up there, but I don't...
I think that means we still got him.
All right.
So, Kyle, if you can hear us, we can't hear you.
So feel free to jump in at any time.
Some interesting news.
We talked about, very briefly last week,
that Time Warner now is carrying BBC World News
and allowing the people of New York City,
on their television sets,
to see news from a different country
that speaks English.
It's amazing.
It took a few years,
but they finally got around to it,
and hats off to them for that.
But they kind of made up for that positive step
with something that happened in the last week.
You might have heard about this.
The channel called Current TV,
which was owned by Al Gore,
that channel has been sold.
Al Gore and friends have sold their network,
Current TV, to Al Jazeera.
Al Jazeera has acquired the US cable channel,
Current TV,
and they're going to turn it into a network
called Al Jazeera America.
Yeah.
Now, this is going to be different
from Al Jazeera English.
It's going to be primarily geared
towards the United States.
It should be very, very interesting.
But, get this,
as soon as that happened,
Time Warner dropped the channel.
As soon as they heard that Al Jazeera had bought it,
they pulled the plug and said,
nope, this channel is no longer available
on Time Warner cable.
And they're using the reasoning
that they did not consent to the sale to Al Jazeera,
as if they have to consent to the sale
of a channel they carry.
They're the cable TV provider.
Someone needs to tell them this.
They don't get to dictate
what kind of programming goes over,
although they do.
It's very unfortunate.
And it just goes to show how afraid we are
in this country to have
what might not even be that different
in opinion being presented,
but just something that is different,
maybe unusual,
and maybe we'd learn something
if we actually watched it.
You can hear it on this radio station,
Al Jazeera English.
You might learn something about the world.
You might realize that the network
is not what it's being presented as
by many ignorant people.
And I think the pressure needs to be put
on Time Warner to bring that channel back.
They haven't even gone to Al Jazeera yet.
They're not Al Jazeera America yet.
They're still current TV.
But the moment that that happened,
they decided to just drop it like a hot potato.
I think people are just afraid
of the Arabic word al,
which means the.
It's not really a very scary word.
But people are just afraid
of anything with that in the name.
So maybe if they just name it
The Jazeera America,
it might go off better.
Yeah, they should try that.
That doesn't work, though,
because it used to be run by Al Gore.
Oh, well, but it wasn't the Arabic word al.
It was just something that sounded the same.
If it was called Al Gore America,
maybe they would have been frightened by that, too.
Yeah, he didn't try that.
He called it current TV.
Wow.
Okay, Kyle, we're going to try it one more time.
Are you there yet?
No, he's not there.
He's not there.
That's unfortunate.
Maybe you could check the connection
and try it one more time.
One more time?
Take a look.
He's still there, according to Skype.
Well, according to this, he's not.
Because I'm not hearing any audio.
All right.
Actually, hold on.
Okay, I'm hearing noise now.
Call.
That rings pretty good.
Hello.
Ah, there you are.
Yeah, we lost you.
Oh, hey, yeah.
Well, you know,
I don't know if I like this technology all that much.
You don't sound that good.
Turn down your mic gain a little bit.
It'll be less distorted.
Yeah, you're a little bit distorted.
If you just turn it down a little bit.
All right, hold on.
Okay, you do sound better.
That's better.
Yeah.
Yeah, it's just I disconnected all the fancy stuff.
Just break it down.
It's just a laptop sitting on a desk.
Can you hear me?
I'm turning it down a little bit.
Maybe I'll turn it down a little more.
No, you sound much better now.
Much better.
Better?
Yeah, and there's not as much of a hiss.
There's a little bit of a hiss, but not as much.
Well, this laptop is very noisy, so.
Okay.
Don't be expecting anything great.
Don't want to bore our listeners with all our technical setup.
We're sorry, folks, but this is still new to us,
and we have to refine it just right,
and we don't get any time to set up before the show.
So hopefully things are smooth now.
Kyle, anything you wanted to contribute to the conversation?
Yeah, something that came up, something you guys were talking about was,
you know, how can we expand and stuff like the CCC?
And I really feel like what we don't have that I think they do perhaps
a little better or have done better in the past is work from different cities
around the world.
We're starting to get hacker spaces and stuff all over,
but the cohesion I think is where the Germans are far and away much more
organized.
They tend to do things locally and then coordinate regionally
and then pull things together on a much bigger scale,
a la the Congress and other events.
So I think a lot of that starts.
I don't want to even say like 2,600 meetings is where it's got to happen
because I know that that's a different thing.
But I think those kinds of get togethers and spaces are where we should find
cohesion and find protocols for organizing larger events and bringing people
together and doing amazing things as a larger group.
Absolutely, absolutely.
And just coming up with ideas, sharing those ideas,
networking with people locally and throughout the country and just coming up
with really awesome things to do.
I think that's what it's really all about.
Yes, go ahead.
I also had something I just wanted to get my eye roll in there for you
talking about Time Warner choosing the kinds of media and having a say
because I think that's, you know that's ridiculous, right?
Absolutely, absolutely.
I mean they're very vertically integrated and all directions integrated.
So it's pretty, that would be a tough battle to try to say that,
well, they objectively choose whatever is available.
I'm sure there's ways, you know, maybe viewers could have a more interface
with how programming is selected.
But to say that they don't get a say is to completely ignore, in my opinion,
media consolidation and the problems with one company owning the media.
That is your gateway to the audience.
So anyway.
Mitch.
Yeah, well, that's free press in the United States for you.
You know, the BBC is owned by the government of Britain
and somehow the press is freer under that
than owned by corporations here in the United States.
Very good example.
It's all highly centralized and if these corporations,
which by the way are people, they have freedom of speech
and we don't want to abrogate their civil liberties
by telling them what they can and can't censor.
Yeah.
It's such a good point.
CBC is another example, Mitch.
And it's, they just, I feel like the corporations involved
almost want us to be afraid.
That you see, you know, if we start allowing the government
or these kinds of things to, these entities to own these channels and mediums,
then, you know, they get people sort of afraid.
They get that fear factor going of like, you know,
they're going to take away our freedom of expression
when really it's not pet free.
They're just running it, making money, you know, it's a business.
They just cruise along and meanwhile the stories
that are out there on the street that are really compelling,
that are from groups that, you know, the rich white, you know,
males might not be into, they fall by the wayside.
We don't hear those stories in the mainstream
and then the mass, the populace ends up being worse off for it.
But you will never have any lack of religious channels.
You will never have any lack of shop at home channels
or just mainstream garbage that's out there.
But I could go on and on.
Yeah, we could definitely go on and on about this.
In the end, like most other things, pretty much everything,
it comes down to people power and if enough people apply pressure,
these things will change.
It's funny, I was reading in that story that Tom Warner was claiming,
and this is the most amazing doublespeak,
they have an agreement with Al Jazeera English,
which is why they don't want to carry Al Jazeera America.
They have an agreement with Al Jazeera English,
but they have no plans to carry them.
I don't know what kind of agreement that is.
It sounds pretty bizarre to me.
Bernie, go ahead.
Emmanuel.
I just want to say Amit just brought up BBC
and we all know that there's BBC and there's CNN
and there's BBC World and there's BBC America.
There's CNN.
It's actually called BBC World News now.
They changed the name.
Ah, okay.
And I guess there's CNN World.
No, that's called CNN International.
CNN International, that's right.
And then there's the American version of CNN.
So it'll be interesting to see if…
Wait, wait, wait.
You left out Euronews.
They're the best of all.
No, they are.
Euronews America?
No, Euronews Europe.
They're really awesome.
Okay, but is there a watered-down version called Euronews America?
No, no, there is not and that's what makes them so awesome.
But you can get that on Cablevision.
What I'm wondering is will Al Jazeera follow those other networks
and make their American version a more watered-down one
from a content standpoint like BBC has and like CNN has?
Just to get access.
Where is it written that it has to be dumbed down?
I mean that is an impression that I know is very common
that the only way Americans will watch something is if it's dumbed down,
but I know so many people who don't agree with that.
So, I'm not sure why that is believed.
So, Manuel, I pay Time Warner some of money every month
and what they give for me in exchange is an Internet connection
and it's not very good by world standards but it's okay by U.S. standards
and I can use this Internet connection and I can watch news from all over the world
without them telling me which news
and it works a lot better than this cable television service you're describing.
I think you should switch to it.
Well, I don't even have Time Warner cable,
but the thing is unless you want to be going to everybody's house
that doesn't understand what it is that you have set up
and explaining it to them, we need to make it easy
so that people don't have to just watch it online,
so that it comes up as easily as the local channels,
everything else that is force-fed to us.
The alternatives need to be there as well
so that they can simply click on their remote
and go to a channel without having to set up computers
and find websites and things like that.
Yeah, it's easy for us.
I know that.
But it should be very, very easy for everybody
in whatever format they're using.
Shall we take phone calls?
We're almost out of time.
We've had such a spirited discussion here.
917-580-6020.
I wonder if that number will follow us uptown.
I heard rumors that the old number might follow us uptown.
Yeah, it's going to be interesting.
It's an adventure, folks.
It's going to be fun.
It's going to be weird and different
and that's what this place has always been all about.
So I'm looking forward to it.
I'm looking forward to it.
You know, when we were very angry after Sandy,
because we were preempted for almost a month solid,
the thing that frustrated us the most
was the fact that nothing was getting done,
that we felt like we were just sinking and not advancing.
We talked about this on the radio.
This is a change.
This is a big change.
This is a positive change.
This is something that will affect the future dramatically
and could actually change things in a much better way.
We could be a lot stronger in a couple of years
because of this move.
If it goes right, it could be a disaster.
It could be a catastrophe.
We don't know.
That's part of the adventure.
917-580-6020.
So hopefully we'll continue to have listener support
throughout all of this.
It's vital.
Let's take our first listener phone call.
And good evening.
You're on Off The Hook.
Hello.
Hi.
Hi.
Speak up, please.
Hello.
Go ahead.
Yeah.
I switched services from Verizon to Time Warner.
Uh-huh.
And the connection box doesn't have a Wi-Fi router.
Do you have any recommendations on Wi-Fi connections?
Mike is our Time Warner customer in the room.
Oh, okay.
I don't know if that means the question is...
I mean, if you want a specific product recommendation,
maybe the guys on the PC show, which is After Us,
would have one.
But in general, go to the store and buy a Wi-Fi device.
They all work.
It's not the Politically Correct Show, After Us.
It's the Personal Computer Show, After Us, the PC show.
It's been on forever,
and hopefully will continue to be on forever.
So tune in at 8 o'clock and ask that same question.
Let's take another phone call.
Good evening.
You're on off the hook.
Speak up.
Turn down your radio.
At 8 o'clock.
Uh, yeah.
Is this the same person?
Yes.
Good evening.
Okay.
Please turn down your radio.
And, yes, did you hear the answer to our question,
to your question?
Okay.
No.
This is a new question.
Oh, boy.
I'm sorry?
I have a new question.
A new question.
Okay.
One question per person, please, for everybody else.
Ask your question, and then let's move on.
Yeah, this is my first call.
I'm sorry?
You just picked up the phone, and I was on it.
Okay.
Yeah.
I didn't ask you nothing yet.
Oh, this is your first call.
Okay.
I thought you called back.
Right.
All right.
Whatever.
Ask the question so we can move on.
Okay.
The question is,
are you familiar with Puppet Software?
And are they using Puppet Software in cell phones?
And cell phones are like many computers nowadays.
Are you saying Puppet Software?
Yes.
Um, do I know what Puppet Software is?
Rob, you know something about puppetry.
Yeah.
Like malware?
I'm a puppeteer sometimes, but they're not really software-based.
Puppet Software is a software that's being sold and used by a lot of different organizations and companies.
It does stuff in the background that the people who are using the computer don't see.
It's used by administrators and a few people, and I don't know.
If you go on the web, you can look up Puppet Software.
You find out about the company.
It's been around.
It's like a billion-dollar company now.
They're selling their services to the government, to the military.
Okay.
I don't know about Puppet Software in particular, if that's one company,
but what you're talking about is commonly called remote administration software,
and that's usually stuff where somebody could remotely operate a computer from across the Internet.
So it makes your computer into a puppet then.
I get it.
It makes your computer into a puppet, so I can see the connection.
What was the question here?
We know about it.
Well, we do now.
I'm sorry.
Go ahead.
Ask that again.
Yes.
Yes, they are.
Wait.
On the phone.
So in other words, you could be using your phone,
and the powers that be can be using and manipulating your phone without your awareness.
Yes, that can happen.
Depending on who exactly you're afraid of, if it's the government,
they can basically do whatever they want.
They can call the phone company and get access to your data with or without legal authority to do so.
If it's a corporation or someone, there's all kinds of nasty things that people can do.
It's really hard to speak about so vaguely.
Okay.
Let's take another phone call, and good evening.
You're on off the hook.
Speak up.
Hi.
Hi.
Please go ahead.
Am I on?
Yes, you're on.
Oh, thanks.
Hey, listen.
I'm calling up.
I'm interested to know why Jersey doesn't get any love.
And I'm not calling up as, like, an angry Jersey person, like, you're dissing our state.
I really want to know, like, why it's, like, place non grata.
I know we have chemical factories when you come out of the Lincoln Tunnel.
I mean, what gives the impression, like, Jersey's a bad place, you know, that people like to make fun of?
Mike?
Yeah.
So, sure.
I don't like places that are spread out and not dense and don't have all the things that density gets you,
which is, you know, reliable transit and reliable bike transit and interesting things on every corner and not a lot of yards.
So you want things to be more dense?
Yes.
Okay.
I think we can accommodate that.
I think Jim objects to this.
But I'm-
Jersey people are pretty dense.
Well, yeah, but there's-
You said it, not me.
Dense people everywhere.
I don't think they have a hold on that particular market.
You know, I think you're doing New Jersey an injustice because there's-
first of all, there's a lot of really nice places as far as nature and things like that in New Jersey.
And even in the eastern part of the state, the part that we can see from here, there are some cool neighborhoods.
Hoboken, Jersey City, not bad places.
And I will say that I know a lot of really nice, really brilliant people from New Jersey,
and I enjoy spending time with them when they come to New York.
All right.
And you know what?
Maybe BAI will move to Jersey.
That's possible.
Well, the transmitter will stay where it is, but the office could be anywhere.
Yeah.
All right.
Thanks for that call.
This one says bad line.
I'm going to hit it anyway.
Maybe it's not so bad.
Oh, it's bad.
Sorry.
We can't take that call because you're calling on the bad line.
And I know you didn't intentionally call on the bad line, but that's just how it played out.
917-580-6020.
We only have a couple of moments left, so make your call fast.
Did you hear that the DUTCH HACKER conference this summer is now selling tickets even to people with credit cards?
I heard that was coming.
Yeah.
It has come.
It has come.
Yep.
Okay.
Kyle, have you heard this?
This is the first I've heard of it, yeah, but I knew that it was going to be going down in a couple of weeks, so I'm happy to hear that.
Yeah.
Okay.
Well, that's – and tell us something about OHM.
OHM is – so every four years, the DUTCH people throw a large outdoor hacker conference, hacker camp, and this year it is called OHM, OHM 2013.
And they always find a different place to do it.
Yep.
And Holland is such a small country, but they always find this amazing wilderness to just build a city and have better connectivity than we have right here in midtown Manhattan.
This is downtown Manhattan.
Well, I meant Manhattan, all right, if you want to –
But they have been planning it for a while, and they have opened the ticket sales a few weeks ago, and they have now – but you had to have basically a Dutch bank account to buy a ticket.
So right now, if you want to support the conference and get them the money, because they have to put up a lot of the money before the conference starts, so if you're thinking of going or if you're going to go, you can buy your ticket now.
All right.
And the website?
OHM2013.org.
Okay.
Mitch, you had something?
Yeah.
It's going to be really fantastic.
I'm one of the organizers.
I'm organizing the hardware hacking area, of course, and we have two tents each, 1,000 square feet apiece, and that's just the hardware hacking area.
There's going to be lots and lots of other stuff.
And in the hardware hacking, it's not just tech.
It's also we have a blacksmith coming.
Well, I can hardly wait to find out where that goes.
Let's – yeah, go ahead, Kyle.
No one's going to try to take one more call.
I just want to add one other thing.
In the past, something they're doing differently is they're tiering the ticket sales.
Well, in the past, they tiered them by price changing over time, but now they have different rates for, like, students and people.
So if you think you can't go, think again.
There are options available for students and people that maybe have never been out of the country before, and this is, like, maybe a first excursion.
And that's really how I got involved in a lot of stuff.
So I'd really encourage people to look at the different options and get involved as well.
Always options.
One more very quick call.
Good evening.
You're on the radio.
Quickly.
I actually just moved to Jersey, and while I really enjoy my neighborhood of Jersey City, it's just a relatively uncultured place, I mean, to answer your question.
All right.
Well, unfortunately, that's going to have to be the last word.
Oh, boy.
The email address to write to to complain is oth at 2600.com.
Bernie, we sure hope you're feeling better and that the morphine eventually wears off.
Thank you.
I hope that I get better before the morphine wears off, frankly, but great.
All right.
Kyle, good hearing from you out there in Seattle.
So long, everybody, and thanks for having me.
And Mitch, will you be here next week?
I will.
Okay.
We'll see you next week then.
Cool.
Everybody else, stay tuned for the Personal Computer Show coming up next.
Good night.
Bye.