The number you are calling does not exist. 
Please check the number you have sent, or consult the directory inquiry. 
We're sorry. 
The number you have reached, 99.5 WBAI, is now Off The Hook. 
The telephone keeps ringing, so I ripped it off the wall. 
I cut myself while shaving, now I can't make a cough. 
We couldn't get much worse, but if they could, they would. 
One minute bump, but the best, expect the worst. 
I hope that's understood. 
One minute bump! 
Three minute bump! 
And a very good evening to everybody. 
The program is off the hook. 
I'm Emanuel Goldstein here with you, joined tonight by Kyle. 
You are. 
I am what? 
Joined by Kyle. 
Oh, okay. 
Yes, I am. 
Rob T. 
Firefly. 
Good evening. 
I'm sorry, out in Skype land. 
Gila. 
Hello. 
And, of course, Alex. 
It is I. 
Good evening. 
Wow. 
You know, you'll have to bear with Kyle and myself tonight because we went and we got vaccinated yesterday. 
In fact, I got vaccinated for three different things at the same time. 
I've never done that before. 
It was like the grand slam of vaccines. 
And my arm didn't hurt last night. 
But today, boy, does it ever hurt. 
But it's worth it. 
You know, it's the kind of pain that, I don't know, makes you somehow feel like you're tackling something important. 
Right, Kyle? 
Yeah. 
And you just, you have to remember that you're sore because it can surprise you. 
Yeah. 
I don't know what that means. 
But, yeah. 
Well, if you, you know, lean on it or brush against something, it could be really painful. 
Oh, absolutely. 
Painful. 
Yes. 
At least the next day or so. 
So we might be a little terse. 
We might occasionally cry out in pain if we brush up against something. 
But let me just take this moment to encourage everybody listening. 
Please don't forget this year to get your vaccines against flu, against COVID. 
I also got a vaccine against shingles because apparently that's bad. 
And I thought that was a nice thing to have. 
But it sounds comforting, but it's not. 
It's bad. 
I know people really suffer under things like that. 
And it's easy. 
It's easy. 
They're plentiful. 
And please don't listen to the people who don't believe in science. 
Yes, Gila. 
As long as we're giving out PSAs about vaccines, I learned something very important this year, which is that if you are a person who weighs over 200 pounds, it is the recommendation of the Centers for Disease Control that you get vaccinated with longer needles so that the drugs have a better chance of getting where they're going. 
Wow. 
We did that. 
I've never heard that before. 
I hadn't either. 
But I found that out this year. 
It's extremely helpful. 
And for what it's worth, having been vaccinated with the longer needle this year, I didn't get a bump. 
Really? 
Okay. 
All right. 
Wow. 
But it hurt pretty good, I would imagine. 
I will mention that it really, the vaccines we got to last Thursday night and kind of kicked my tail. 
I ran a spike to fever on Friday, and I don't know if it was because of the flu shot or the COVID shot, but feeling pretty crummy for about 24 hours, but looking forward to a smooth sailing flu season this year. 
Well, the important thing is, if anything happens to us in the future, the naysayers will blame it on the vaccine, because you're supposed to be immortal if you don't get the vaccine. 
It's really silly. 
And folks, we don't work for the government. 
Just because we happen to be saying the same thing as far as, yes, science gets it right, doesn't mean that we're in anybody's pocket. 
We think for ourselves, and we encourage you to do the same. 
But please, please base it on facts and reality, and not just people who keep spouting, I did my own research and reached the conclusion that I had when I started. 
That really doesn't accomplish anything. 
And, you know, it's been a rough last couple of weeks, as we all know, and never before has it been more important to check your sources and to know when you're being lied to or when somebody does not have all the information and perhaps might be jumping the gun about certain things. 
And also, you know, it's important not to close your eyes to what's happening right in front of them, because a lot of bad things are happening out there right now. 
We may feel powerless that we can't do anything about it, but just talking about it helps, and being aware also helps. 
And, you know, I guess this leads me into something that's a little bit uncomfortable. 
And, Rob, I'm going to talk to you about this, because you're more or less in this room, this virtual room, the expert when it comes to Mastodon. 
And as you may know, I had a bit of a run-in on Mastodon, which I'm still trying to figure out. 
And let me start at the outset by saying, I don't mean to cause problems. 
I just seem to, because when I'm around, so I'm still learning about this. 
And, you know, I don't want to upset anybody, but sometimes people are going to get upset regardless. 
So you've seen my Twitter feed. 
You've seen what I say on Twitter. 
You've seen the kinds of things I talk about. 
Sometimes, sometimes I talk about what's going on in the news. 
Sometimes I talk about the world. 
Sometimes I use words that you can't say over the radio. 
And, you know, you can take it or leave it. 
I'm not asking you to believe what I say. 
I'm not asking you to like what I say. 
But I do believe I have the right to say what I say. 
Well, apparently that's not quite how it works on Mastodon. 
I'm on this instance, and an instance being just one server, is that the right word? 
Yeah. 
Where people write it on their own. 
And apparently everybody has different rules. 
And I really wasn't aware that everybody had such radically different rules. 
This is what I said. 
Okay. 
And, you know, it's harsh, but I was upset when I said it. 
I said, Israel is reported to have killed over 1,000 children since last week. 
If you can somehow justify this as necessary or unavoidable, you're no better than Hamas. 
That's what I said. 
Yeah. 
You know, people react. 
But the reaction I got on my Mastodon instance was to get a strike against my account, to be warned, to be told that that's inappropriate to say. 
The exact phrase I got was, please either use content warnings for posts like this or post them as any other visibility, such as unlisted, followers only, etc. 
And this is a rule. 
First of all, I didn't even know about it. 
I guess I didn't study all the rules that come with this instance. 
But it really rubbed me the wrong way because, first of all, I'm reporting a fact. 
You know, I'm reporting something that is on every news channel. 
And I'm simply expressing an opinion. 
What is objectionable about this? 
And I got to say, the responses that I got on Mastodon were much nastier than responses I get on Twitter. 
Basically, just people talking down and saying that you should know better than to say this. 
It could really bother somebody. 
Yeah, it could really bother somebody, but do I have to watch everything I say from now on because somebody might be upset by something I say? 
I think we should be upset at what I said, you know, the facts contained in what I said. 
And let's focus on that. 
We seem to have waltzed right over the fact that 1,000 kids were killed. 
And it's something that we just don't seem to really care about. 
And if you talk about it, you're the problem. 
That's wrong. 
I'm sorry. 
That just rubs me the wrong way. 
I don't know how to handle it. 
I really don't know what to do here. 
I have a feeling I'm not going to be on this instance any much longer. 
It happens to be in Germany. 
In fact, it happens to be run by Chaos, CCC, which you'd think, you know, hackers would have thicker skin as far as this kind of thing goes. 
But I don't know. 
It might be a cultural thing. 
It might be in Germany. 
Speech is treated differently. 
In fact, I know speech is treated differently in Germany than here. 
I'm not exactly sure how I wound up on a German Mastodon instance. 
But I noticed in the rules, there's a bunch of rules. 
Some of them, you know, make quite a bit of sense, like no harassment and stalking and things like that. 
No Nazi content. 
That's nice. 
But how about this? 
When posting to the local timeline, which I'll get into in a second, provide content warnings for violence, sexually explicit content, death slash disease, and politics, particularly when negative or controversial. 
So I'm expected to label my own posts. 
I'm not exactly sure how this works, because they say it could be something like USPOL, USPOL, or elections. 
I don't know how it actually works, if that somehow gets filtered somewhere. 
I mean, if I pick USPOL and somebody else picks U.S.POL, someone else says United States politics, is that all the same thing? 
Who is actually figuring out what these content warnings actually mean? 
I've never had to do this before. 
On horrible sites like Facebook and Twitter, I've never had to police my own words. 
And that's really something that, you know, I kind of thought Mastodon was going to be better. 
I thought Mastodon was going to be, you know, I'm not one of these free speech absolutist idiots that believe you should be able to say anything hurtful and racist and sexist and all that. 
No, not at all. 
This is a conversation. 
It's a conversation amongst adults. 
And I'm sorry if it upsets people. 
I'm sorry if, you know, facts of what's going on in the world or opinions rub people the wrong way. 
But, you know, things rub me the wrong way, too. 
I mean, I swear to God, if I see another post about Taylor Swift, I am going to start breaking things that I own, that I value. 
And I mean it this time, because I cannot take any more of that. 
I cannot. 
My God. 
Everywhere you look, just Taylor Swift. 
But regardless, you know, that rubs me the wrong way. 
But nobody, you know, I don't expect others to tiptoe around my sensibilities. 
I don't know. 
I'm sorry, Rob. 
I was asking for your advice on this. 
And I haven't let you get a word in edgewise. 
But that was therapeutic for me. 
No, I'm glad because it really did seem to be having a therapeutic effect. 
But what you are coming up against is something that a lot of people new to Mastodon have found themselves butting up against in a wrong way. 
And it's actually something that has been noted as one of the more difficult facets of Mastodon, Mastodon's culture and how the how the app itself works for people coming from other social media to come to terms with. 
And that is content warnings. 
Now, there is a function when you write a post to put in a content warning. 
And that content warning can just be a short string of text, which is effectively a subject line. 
And it it results in if you put something in there like U.S. 
politics or sexually explicit post or violence or, you know, Star Trek spoilers or what have you, anything that you think somebody on the other end might want to scroll past instead of seeing. 
Your toot, your post to Mastodon comes up as just that line and those interested can click on it and see the entire post. 
Those not interested can just scroll past. 
And that is a deliberate function of how Mastodon works. 
Now, what you came up against is, I think, not to do with what you were actually expressing about what's going on right now in the world. 
It's to do with the fact that political content, especially extremely emotional political content, such as anything about the war that's going on now, is high stress material to some people. 
It's material that some people want the ability to not have in their feed, but still follow you. 
And so what the content warning does is it provides it is not policing what you're saying. 
It is providing a category to what you're saying. 
It is categorizing what you're saying and allowing people to decide for themselves whether or not they want to click past that and see the post or just move on with their day. 
You know, this is also. 
Yeah, go ahead. 
Sorry. 
I think in a way you could also say that a content warning, first of all, there is a setting that you can apply that will allow you to expand anything with a content warning. 
So if you personally don't feel you need content warnings, you can disable them globally on your own account. 
But I think of content warnings as like deodorant and hygiene, because you can say this is the way that my body smells. 
And if that offends you, I'm sorry. 
But we can also take steps to mitigate the fact that, you know, people's armpits and butts smell and you don't have to waft that at the people around you unless they're really into that and they want to walk up to you and sniff your armpit. 
That's fine. 
But like content warnings are like hygiene, because I will say that right now I very much appreciate them, because if I want to see like cooking videos and I do not want an absolute fire hose of people who have been killed and maimed and kidnapped. 
I need a place where I can do that because in my social media world, that's all anybody's talking about. 
And if there's a time and a place where I can say I need a minute. 
Yeah, I need a minute. 
OK, but, you know, I just feel like I'm being called upon to do this extra work to label what I am saying. 
And that's really difficult to do. 
How do I even label what I said? 
What is that? 
It's a, you know, it's a it's a headline. 
It's something that happened. 
It's it's horrible. 
You know, the word I use to describe it, child massacre, might also be upsetting to somebody because I don't know of any other way to describe that. 
I really don't. 
It's not, you know, bad news. 
It's, you know, whatever I say, it's not going to do it justice. 
And plus the time I have to spend thinking about, OK, what did I just say and what does it mean and how is it going to affect other people? 
And, you know, I long for the simple days where I said something. 
And then if I say something stupid, someone tells me I said something stupid, but I don't get demerits for for basically saying something that somebody might find offensive. 
I don't know. 
It's just I'm having a difficult time with this. 
But it's also important to know that that you are not the only person having a difficult time with this. 
A lot of people, a lot of people in our fields, as well as people in general, during the great migrations away from Twitter and Instagram and things like that to Mastodon. 
A lot of people have found themselves coming up against that and not fully understanding it, not not understanding the rules and how they were how they are presented and not understanding the cultural norms of Mastodon, which for many people, like many people, content warning, put content warnings on things that are completely just benign to perhaps the vast majority of us. 
There are people who post content warnings, you know, who will post content warnings for food and anything involving food or pictures of food, because that might be upsetting to people with certain eating disorders. 
There are people who post content warnings about a photo with eye contact to the screen because people with some sort of with some, you know, certain types of, I believe, autistic spectrum related related things that they live with could be upset by pictures of eye contact. 
And one way to look at that is, well, everyone's so thin skinned. 
Everyone's so oversensitive. 
But I think that also is related to the fact that they were called content warnings. 
If this functionality were in the software, but it was just called subject line, which is what it functionally is, then that might not put people off so much. 
It might also ease people in understanding how this whole mess works. 
And it is a it is a pain point that is being raised all over the place in the Mastodon community, on the Mastodon project, on GitHub and further. 
And there are big discussions around how can we make this whole thing more understandable, more welcoming to new users and more of a thing that makes sense to folks coming in rather than what it is now, which is kind of something that grew organically from, you know, a small community of users in the beginning that has spread into basically a cultural norm on the service. 
So, yes, it is a pain point. 
Yes, it seems it seems silly, weird or any number of other things to people coming in. 
But also from the receiving end, it can be a very useful thing. 
And it is a thing that a lot of my Mastodon instances get strict about in the rules. 
Well, again, you know, I'm new to this. 
There's a lot I don't really get the whole local feed thing. 
Apparently, when you post things, it's it's visible on the local feed and suggestions were that you disable that or you just send to your followers or you you make your posts on unlisted. 
And, you know, these these may, quote unquote, solve the problem. 
But it seems to me that I am making my speech less than the speech of other people. 
And why should I be doing that when I think what I'm saying is perfectly valid in a conversation? 
And, you know, I don't want to always have to be asterisking what I'm saying or defining what I'm saying. 
It's really imagine every sentence that you say, because what you're posting basically is a sentence. 
You have to fill out a form. 
You have to say, what is this? 
What does it mean? 
Who could it offend? 
And et cetera. 
You know, I guess for people who have been using Mastodon a while, this might seem unreasonable. 
But for somebody who is used to just being able to say what they you know, what's on their mind. 
I don't know. 
It seems it seems overly difficult. 
If the benefit to the few that are are having suffering from those conditions and need this desperately is is I mean, in some cases, yes, it's completely warranted and and and needed, but it seems like keywords are also being lumped into this so that any discussion that trips it up sets it to trigger. 
And basically, you get you then get in the scenario where, as you said, you have to choose through things. 
Well, what if everything you said was a content warning, kind of like Rob was alluding to that? 
You know, people almost use it in a jokey way or just for all kinds of unusual scenarios to describe and contextualize what they're posting. 
Well, I mean, we're talking on the radio. 
So what if what if a sentence that you say, Kyle, is upsetting to somebody, but you didn't warn them before you said the sentence? 
Now, you just said the sentence without thinking because it's part of expression. 
It takes the spontaneity. 
Exactly. 
It takes the spontaneity out of it. 
But also a lot of and let's just say it's something that's controversial, but it's not necessarily hate speech or something incredibly, you know, like making a personal threat to somebody. 
Hate speech is illegal. 
That's easy. 
That's easy to part of part of getting people's attention or saying something that might be edgy or, you know, unpopular in a particular moment at all. 
Part of that is getting people's attention who wouldn't ordinarily respond to that. 
So if you basically put a warning on everything or have to basically obfuscate it, you're benefiting a couple of people that might react to those words, but in an extreme case. 
But if it's not that extreme, you're kind of cutting people off to being able to make up their own mind and to the people that might say, OK, they they're all in on this like this is this is just how it is. 
They they benefit as far as just their own ignorance or that they're living in that bliss and you're feeling stifled and as though you've got all this additional work to do to qualify. 
What in the in the very guidelines you read include politics, which in Internet culture and just in speech in general is is the point of the public square. 
So they're losing me a little bit in this. 
I don't think the number really is the issue, whether it's two people or two million people that could be affected by this is important either way. 
But I'm just debating whether this is the right way to handle it. 
Would it not be a better solution to have some kind of filter that looks for for a speech that could be a problem to somebody who inputs their options, their choices? 
That way, you know, I think we do a better job because, you know, I might I might put a content warning label on something, but a different content warning might also apply for somebody else. 
So do I put two content warnings for different things and, you know, where does it end? 
It's just it seems like you're doing a lot of policing of your own speech. 
And I do think that that would keep you from from from speaking quite a bit. 
Alex, go ahead. 
Well, first, I, I totally disagree with the statement that you made on Mastodon. 
Maybe we can debate that at some point later tonight or on overtime or something. 
But putting that aside. 
Who, me or Mastodon? 
You, your statement on Mastodon. 
Just for the record, I disagree with what you said. 
But I agree with you with respect to you should not have the need to start labeling and self-censoring. 
Hang on, Alex. 
What is it? 
I said a lot of things. 
What is it you disagree with that I said about Mastodon? 
No, not about Mastodon, but on Mastodon, about the moral equivalency between Hamas and Israeli and the massacre of children. 
That's what I disagree with. 
I don't think there is a moral. 
Okay, well, you know, we're not going to get into that now. 
All I said was, you know. 
I said we don't need to get into that now, but we can talk about that some other time later. 
But what I totally disagree with is this need to regulate your own content on a social media platform. 
I got that. 
I agree with you entirely about, but I don't use Mastodon. 
And so my lack of erudition on this subject may make my response seem silly or curt here. 
But to me, it seems like this notion of labeling your own content is this really an unnecessary form of self-censorship that at heart, at least to me, seems more like the latest version of virtual signaling and holier-than-thou nonsense. 
That is the reason why I think social media in general is a useless cesspit of noise with little to no redeeming signal. 
And where does this end, though? 
I mean, if we take this kind of to the reductio ad absurdum approach, Rob, you had mentioned people labeling posts with food in them or something because it might trigger somebody with an eating disorder. 
By that same token, we should have content warnings on every single magazine and every single book in case there's a picture of food on it. 
All this seems totally ridiculous to me, unworkable, and just silly. 
Go ahead, Rob. 
Well, as I was describing this, I think it's still like you guys are getting the message that this is about editing yourself. 
It's about regulating your speech. 
It's about putting in extra work. 
But I ask you to imagine your email inbox. 
We've all been using those for decades. 
We know how they work. 
We're comfortable with them. 
Imagine your email inbox if, instead of a row of subject lines, it had the full text of every single email. 
That would be a mess. 
That would be terrible to navigate through. 
And also, you wouldn't be able to easily find whichever one thing it was that you were looking for in your archive or, you know, whichever thing you were interested in going back and clicking on and reading. 
Yeah, but by design, these are short texts that you're supposed to read. 
There are no subjects on short text, usually. 
Sometimes, but on some instances, you can actually write full-length blog posts. 
You can write ridiculously long things. 
Every instance has their own idea of what the text limit is, but that's another thing. 
But, yeah, this is about being welcoming to as many people as possible. 
And to that end, it is about accommodating as many people as possible. 
There are things that I post because I use Mastodon as basically my daily driver and because I'm involved in many things, things like this program, things like hacker stuff, but also my artwork, my comedy, my, you know, just other randomness. 
And as social media, as you described, Alex, has become such a firehose of nonsense and noise, I find the content warning system actually serves to mitigate that. 
It lets you modulate the noise. 
It lets you tweak it to have an experience that I'm reading the things from this person that I want to read. 
They're writing about other stuff I'm not interested in, and I don't have to read those. 
So it's actually, I think, working on the problem that you're talking about, and I think it does it in a way that, you know, as everything else in Mastodon has been sort of hacked together on the fly by people who are basically, like, fixing the car while it's driving down the highway at 80 miles an hour. 
And it's really interesting to see how this is all coming up, and I think that is definitely evocative of the hacker spirit behind the Mastodon project and behind a great amount of the community that are running the thing. 
But you see, what you're arguing there is content warning as a way to make things more efficient, not content warning as a penalty. 
And that's what I was faced with. 
My speech was wrong, and it needs a content warning to prevent people from reading it. 
That's basically the message that I got. 
And I've never gotten a strike on any of my social media accounts before. 
Here, I'm using this, I actually started using it as much as I was using Twitter for, like, two days, and I got a strike almost immediately. 
So that does not bode well, in my view. 
Go ahead, Gila. 
So I think part of the key issue here is the decentralized nature of Mastodon and that every instance has its own rules and guidelines. 
And you need to make sure you know what the rules and guidelines of the instance you're signing up with happen to be. 
But with that said, I would like to reiterate what I said earlier about deodorant. 
And let me explain what I mean. 
Because I don't see the content warning system as policing what I'm saying. 
I see it as being a good neighbor. 
I don't run up and down the street yelling whatever I'm yelling at the top of my lungs. 
And in the same way, using the content warning system, I think, enables people to kind of opt in. 
It's putting an opt-in model on it. 
People have already opted in in a way in that they're following me or we're on the same instance. 
But maybe, you know, if I'm talking about college football, they're not as interested in hearing it as they would be if I'm talking about this radio show or karaoke or 80s movies or whatever it is I happen to be talking about. 
And I think that using the content warning system is less about self-policing and more about being a responsible member of the community in which you find yourself, not unlike putting deodorant on before you leave the house. 
I do like the deodorant comparison, but I must say that if you had to put deodorant on every time you said a sentence, it would get to be a pain in the ass. 
That's my belief. 
Okay, enough about MasterDone. 
Let's talk about Blue Sky. 
Who's on Blue Sky? 
Blue Sky is hard because you need an invitation to get on to Blue Sky. 
Once you get an invitation, you get an invitation code in two weeks and you can invite somebody else. 
And, yeah, I guess that's sort of how they're spreading. 
It's interesting. 
It's very similar to Twitter in look, and the operation is a little bit different. 
Any of you guys using Blue Sky at all or familiar with it? 
They can't hear you shake your head. 
Okay. 
I mean, they can't see you shake your head. 
So, yeah, I've been experimenting with it over the past few weeks or so. 
Big problem with Blue Sky that I can see is responsiveness because there are a bunch of problems that need fixing, and there's nobody there to actually fix them. 
Or at least if they do fix them, it takes quite a while, and they don't tell you that they fixed it. 
Like, for instance, this is really cool, by the way, if you have a domain, and we have 2600.com, you can use that domain as your username, and that's a cool username to have, and no one else can do that. 
You have to put something on the site that Blue Sky will look at and confirm that it's there, and then you get that particular username. 
However, when you do this, your profile disappears for about 10 or 15 minutes. 
No explanation, and, of course, you're panicking that you've deleted your account or that you've made it inaccessible. 
And when we finally got 2600.com configured, then it showed up as invalid username, and we had no idea what that was all about. 
So we were writing all these trouble forms, not getting any response, and then a day later, it just started working. 
We had no idea why. 
So things like that, I think, are an issue. 
But actually, one of the biggest problems that we've noticed is impersonation. 
There doesn't seem to be a method of keeping people from saying that they're you or they're your organization. 
And we have a big problem with that with 2600, where how do we prove? 
I mean, having the 2600.com username is a good way to prove that, but if there are other users claiming that they're the same entity that you are, yeah, that's an issue. 
And if they're not taking it seriously, I don't know if there's much of a future. 
There's no amount of branding we can do to differentiate from that. 
Uh-huh. 
Yeah. 
It's unfair. 
No, no, no. 
That's not funny. 
Premature. 
Premature. 
I mean, they're new. 
Okay. 
Enough of that. 
Enough of that. 
Yeah. 
But I recommend it. 
I do recommend trying it. 
It's easy to use. 
It's one of several different options out there. 
I don't know. 
You know, it's never easy to figure out how to communicate. 
It used to be easier. 
When everybody had aim, when everybody was able to send a message to somebody, when Twitter was able to feed to Facebook, it just seemed like you could talk to a lot of people and they could talk to you. 
And now, people are on their own platforms and they expect you to be as well. 
If you want to talk to somebody on LinkedIn, you've got to get a LinkedIn account and you have to communicate with them that way. 
And now, people are shying away from email and that's a problem because there are very few ways to actually agree on a communication standard. 
I think we're at a huge fragmentation point in a lot of the different services and a lot of the users have a sort of – they're a little bit sort of disassociated or maybe up for grabs. 
And there's a lot of vying for that loyalty and getting new users and getting people to try different things. 
And it is, I think, giving a sense of – an unsettling sense of sort of upheaval. 
Nobody's connected. 
Nobody's – and there's plenty of actors taking advantage of all of that chaos. 
You see this story in The Verge about Mayor Eric Adams in New York City. 
Thanks to artificial intelligence tools, New York City Mayor Eric Adams has sent a barrage of robocalls to residents in languages he doesn't speak. 
That includes thousands of robocalls in Spanish, more than 250 in Yiddish, more than 160 in Mandarin, 57 in Klingon, 89 in – no, I'm kidding. 
89 in Cantonese and 23 in Haitian Creole. 
Why not Klingon, though? 
I mean, you could do it. 
That's triggered pushback over how ethical it is for Adams to portray himself to potential voters as someone who speaks their native language when he actually doesn't. 
Doesn't he speak Spanish? 
I'm surprised. 
Let's hear what he sounds like. 
Hola. 
Soy el alcalde, Eric Adams. 
Queremos invitarlo a venir a trabajar con la ciudad de Nueva York y ayudar a hacer que esta gran ciudad sea un mejor. 
Estamos felices de llevar nuestra próxima sesión informativa de empleo a su comunidad, en la cual las agencias municipales seleccionaran y contrataran a personas como usted. 
Obtenga una buena remuneración, excelentes beneficios y la oportunidad de mantener esta ciudad en funcionamiento. 
Espero verlo ahí. 
Wow. 
Does that sound like Eric Adams? 
People seem to think it does. 
Yeah, I think so. 
Okay. 
I think it does. 
Well, okay. 
So Albert Fox Kahn, executive director of the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project, which spells stop, said this is deeply unethical, especially on the taxpayer's dime. 
Using AI to convince New Yorkers that he speaks languages that he doesn't is deeply Orwellian. 
You know, I think there are a lot of things that you could call Eric Adams unethical about. 
I'm not sure this is one of them. 
You know, this is kind of cool. 
I mean, you can use artificial intelligence to speak a foreign language to people so they understand what you're saying. 
And it sounds like you maybe preface it by saying this is artificial intelligence, not really me. 
I don't know. 
But I don't really have a problem with this. 
What do you think, Alex? 
I, again, disagree with you, though. 
I do think there's an ethics issue here with this. 
But in particular, because there's no preface. 
I think it's disingenuous of him to make a call to a potential voter, let's say, in Mandarin, in his voice, and allow that voter to think that he speaks that language. 
How do you know it's him? 
How do you know he did it? 
What do you mean? 
Well, I mean, it's official, I guess. 
But anybody could do this. 
Well, anybody could do that, sure. 
But, I mean, it obviously benefits him. 
And we have to, I think, assume for the moment that he has authorized it. 
He's spoken about it. 
He was quite proud of it, I think, at the press conference. 
But my main issue here is, though, that it's misleading to voters without having some kind of preface that says that this was created or generated using artificial intelligence. 
Mr. 
Adams doesn't speak Mandarin, but this message is in Mandarin, where this message was generated using artificial intelligence, you know, to in Mandarin, something like that. 
Do you think he gets more voter approval if they hear him speaking their language? 
You think it's? 
Absolutely. 
Absolutely. 
It's definitely a way to connect. 
What I disagree with, Mr. 
Khan, is I don't see how this is Orwellian in a lot of ways. 
I think it's unethical. 
I think he's right about it shouldn't be happening on a taxpayer's dime as well. 
I'd like to know what kind of, I'd like to see some kind of accounting about how much money was spent on this type of thing. 
But I don't think it's Orwellian, necessarily. 
That's different to me. 
All right. 
Well, you know, we should get used to this because I think more things like this are going to be happening. 
Go ahead, Gila. 
I think, I don't know if I would say Orwellian, necessarily. 
I do think it is pandering in the ugliest possible way. 
And also, I'm sorry, Eric Adams learned how to speak six languages. 
The man doesn't know his robot cops don't have hands. 
I'm still not quite over that, by the way. 
And, but no, this idea that he speaks your language and he's going to be calling you and speaking in this language. 
People made fun of Michael Bloomberg for making announcements in Spanish. 
But we saw Michael Bloomberg reading the Spanish off the paper. 
God love him. 
The man was trying. 
And that's what we're missing here. 
But hold on a second. 
Hold on a second. 
Was the man speaking Spanish or was it just reading it off a piece of paper and doing the best he can without understanding what he was talking about? 
How is that different? 
How is that different? 
It's completely different because he's making an effort. 
But he's not saying, I'm going to form this out to somebody that I'm no part of. 
I'm going to make an effort to see you. 
If you see the mayor. 
And yes, there was a Twitter account called El Blumbito that made fun of this phenomenon. 
And it was amazing. 
But for people to see the mayor is making an effort to communicate with me in a way that I can understand. 
And he didn't do it in Mandarin because that was probably way beyond his ken. 
That's not written in English letters. 
But again, he was trying and Eric Adams is just like, I'm going to put forth the least amount of effort I possibly can to attempt to reap the greatest efforts. 
Like I said, pandering on a colossal scale. 
And it worries me where this will go from here. 
First of all, when did pandering become something new for politicians? 
They constantly are doing that. 
But I think for it. 
I think what's what's happening here is not so much Eric Adams did something that Michael Bloomberg wouldn't. 
It's the technology has changed and made it so much easier. 
I think Michael Bloomberg would be shoving Adams aside to do this first. 
So I don't you know, I think this is something that you'll see from a lot of politicians and probably a lot of other people as well. 
The thing that struck me was that a lot of mailers and campaign materials that are printed that that politicians use to speak directly to the voters are translated as. 
And I mean, that's not deceiving people in in exactly the same way that we're suggesting with someone speaking it to you. 
But I think he is being kind of open about the technology and basically saying, yo, it's 2023. 
Yeah. 
The reading of the paper. 
That's how we did it back then. 
But I'm skipping all that. 
And now I can speak six languages. 
It's like it's like Eric Adams just hopped out the matrix and he's like, yeah, I want to get reelected or whatever he's he's playing with it. 
And I think it I think some kind of warning like was suggested might be appropriate, but especially if it's deployed like on robocalls. 
I don't think that's unreasonable to say this is an AI generated call, but phone calls. 
I just think people are more comfortable if they hear somebody speaking in their language. 
I don't know what the what the alternative is to have somebody who's not Eric Adams speaking for him. 
And it just it just puts people at a disadvantage to not feel that connection. 
Yeah. 
And I think a lot of the content maybe would be less, less obnoxious. 
Like if there are videos and things that are being translated and getting his message out to people that do not necessarily speak English as a first language, then it's it's something that a lot of politicians are going to try to take advantage of. 
Does anybody have any idea what he was saying? 
I don't think any of us speak Spanish, though. 
No, I don't know. 
I do. 
I was talking about a job fair. 
He said, if you come and work for the city, you'll get good benefits and decent money. 
And. 
He was basically inviting people to a hiring fair. 
Wow. 
OK. 
All right, Rob. 
The thing about this is it's a marketing tool and as and it's a brilliant marketing tool, because, as you said, it is very comforting for people to hear something said to them in their own language. 
And for people who immigrated to this country, English isn't their first language. 
Yes, that that can be awesome to get the feeling that the mayor speaks my language. 
That means the mayor has some some familiarity, at least, or understanding of my culture, my community and might understand my needs more fully. 
And so using this robocall tool like this is a brilliant marketing move. 
And like most brilliant marketing moves, it's pretty evil because because it's just deceptive. 
It's tripping that switch in your head. 
That's tripping that comfort switch without any substance behind it. 
At least Bloomberg, you know, he could have been said to like surely he had somebody coaching him on the pronunciations and stuff on that paper, which meant, OK, he's got a Spanish speaking friend. 
Maybe there's some chance that, you know, the Spanish speaking person who's close to the mayor can mention something if if something goes south or something is needed by my community. 
But this is just it being fed into, you know, Google Translate or something. 
And it has no soul. 
It has no actual intention behind it. 
It is just empty advertising. 
And I think it's deceptive. 
But, you know, what's funny is that we're all skipping over the robocall part of this and not objecting to that. 
I mean, it used to be that people said, you know, he's not making a real phone call. 
That's a recording. 
You might think it's a real person, but it's not. 
That's deceptive. 
But now we accept that. 
That's OK. 
It's just that he's speaking a language he doesn't actually speak. 
And again, I believe Bloomberg would be doing that in a second if he had the opportunity, if he was still like anything. 
I just wanted to add, I would take issue, Alex. 
I don't think it costs very much. 
I mean, the whole point of a lot of this stuff is it's pretty good now and it might be like equivalent to a couple watts, you know, just to process one language or, you know, once you have an imprint of his, a voice print of him. 
We could do off the hook in Mandarin for that Mandarin station in New York and that would be amazing. 
I'm as curious, though, to Alex's point, what really practically does it cost to do this? 
I would say cheap. 
I'm curious. 
I'm fascinated by the technology. 
I also want to know how accurate it is. 
So it's interesting. 
Hey, we have a letter that I'd like to get to and you can write letters to OTH at 2600 dot com. 
I'm sure tonight's show will generate many letters. 
And yes, feel free to express yourself. 
No content warning needed. 
Just let loose and be merciless. 
Hi to everyone from at 2600 from a longtime listener and admirer. 
I live on the East Coast. 
Whenever I'm in New York City, I always listen to WBAI. 
Off the hook and you're on the show on WUSB are favorites of mine. 
And I really appreciate all the work you put into making them. 
And what is clearly a passion driven endeavor or one might say obsession and well, regardless, the psychological terms aren't important right now. 
Most of the time I listen to stream shows from your website since I have an unusual schedule. 
And I love how well designed, effective and simple your site is. 
It reminds me of the early days of the Internet, which I think you'd agree were great. 
And, you know, I like this because when people usually say how how simple our site is, it's an insult. 
But this is a compliment. 
And that's how I feel about it, too, because you don't need a lot of bells and whistles to run a website. 
And all we're doing is putting our shows up on the website and making it fairly, fairly simple and functional. 
Anyway, I have some questions, which maybe you can answer if you'd like to. 
What is the story with the off the hook theme music? 
Who is it performed by? 
Well, actually, I can tell you that it's performed by Big Audio Dynamite. 
The unlike most Big Audio Dynamite songs, though, it's not sung by Mick Jones. 
It's sung by Don Letts. 
And that song, for some reason, the listener goes on to say, honestly, I don't really even like it that much. 
But it's the harbinger of an hour and these days, two hours of good talk radio. 
So how can I really complain? 
I mean, yeah, well, it just kind of fit. 
It just kind of fit the off the hook tone and it just became something that was affiliated with off the hook. 
And interesting, we'll be playing another piece by Don Letts' new solo album, which just came out. 
We'll do that as our outro in three minutes. 
The reader also, the listener also says, I also love the most recent off the wall music created by Baltimore native Philip Glass. 
I did not know Philip Glass was from Baltimore. 
You might also find this weird anecdote from my past interesting. 
When I was 13 or 14 years old, I was very interested in phones. 
I would maintain lists of payphone numbers. 
Sounds familiar. 
And my favorite part of the local suburban Kansas library was the room full of phone books from all over the world. 
There was a company called the Musical Heritage Society at the time in the early 80s, which had a subscription service, which sent out cassette tape recordings of classical music. 
I'd recently gotten a tape of Ralph Vaughan Williams' Fifth Symphony, which I really liked. 
And being the impetuous teenager I was, I decided to call him and tell him how much I liked it. 
I thought, yeah, through various means. 
I called the listing of Mrs. 
Ralph Vaughan Williams in the London phone book, and she answered. 
And I said something to the effect of, wow, your husband's music is so awesome. 
May I talk to him? 
And she answered in a very British way that she really appreciated that I liked his music. 
And sorry, he's been dead since the late 50s. 
And would that be all because it's really late and I'd like to go to bed? 
This week, I'm playing that piece in concerts, finally, as a professional. 
And it has been interesting to think about. 
Signed, David. 
David, what a great letter. 
What a great letter. 
It just sort of brings it all home and makes us realize that you never know who's out there, what they're interested in, what they're being inspired by, and the similar paths that you might be going down. 
So thank you so much for writing. 
And again, others who wish to write to us, OTH at 2600.com. 
So many talented listeners out there. 
They really are. 
We love hearing your stories and your responses to what we're talking about. 
Now, we are going to be continuing our conversation or perhaps starting a brand new conversation over on Off the Hook Overtime over on YouTube. 
You can get the YouTube link on the 2600.com webpage. 
Just click on the little box up on the top of the page. 
Or just go to channel 2600 on YouTube and join us there. 
You can call in. 
You can be part of the chat, which is running this week. 
And that's always a lot of fun. 
But as promised, we're going to go out with a piece from that new Don Lutz album, who sings the intro to the Off the Hook theme. 
That's a song called Much Worse. 
It came out back in the 80s. 
But this just came out a couple of weeks ago from the Out of Sync CD. 
And this is called Wrong. 
We'll see you next week. 
  And welcome to everybody over on YouTube Well, actually, it's not over on YouTube because we're on YouTube as well. 
So Thanks for joining us on YouTube here on channel 2600 for off the hook overtime Kyle do you make it? 
Okay? 
Sure, everything's fine. 
It's just Wow I'd look spectacular You knocked over everything. 
I was just putting the phone down. 
Yeah, I put the bottle down to my Headphones knocked over my mic. 
Okay catastrophe. 
Yeah, you didn't do that over the radio and I stuck the landing I'm here. 
Yes good and we have Skypland we have Rob, you know Hello, we are here. 
Where the hell is Alex? 
Alex will be back when he can he is going from his workplace to his home He's commuting during the show Yes, he has responsibilities, uh, this is a risk, okay, you know what we'll talk about this off-air Okay, well then That's a shame because the story I wanted to get his opinion on about hacktivism law We'll get to it. 
We'll just get to it in a little bit, I guess Hopefully he's there. 
Keep it in the stack. 
Yeah, interesting interesting show good conversation. 
I have a feeling I'm going to be looking for a new Mastodon instance, but that's okay. 
It's all right. 
It's a learning process. 
I hold no ill You know, I've never Talked rudely to people. 
I always try and be I mean in my life. 
I certainly have I'm saying in this particular set of circumstances you know, I've made it clear when I've been mistaken or Don't know something Can't say it's always gone the same way in my direction though, but If you have suggestions You can email us OTH at 2600 calm at the Mastodon instance that you're happy with a lot of them are closed though A lot of them you can't get accounts on so that there's that and I think The reason I wound up on this one was because it was open or because I got invited I think I Don't know. 
It's too much work. 
I mean for God's sake, you know Twitter was so simple. 
Of course. 
Look what happened to it Won't you please think of the children in the future? 
Why the children reading these things It's all part of children should have their own be concerned. 
Have your own damn Internet Yeah, get off our Internet go on your Internet and and you know, it's like it's like it's like a school, you know Middle school you stay over there high schools over there. 
I don't know Okay, so in Canada Something rather weird happened The time signal ended you hear about this a series of crackly pips and beeps That have been broadcast to radios across Canada they've outlasted two monarchs 13 prime ministers 27 sessions of Parliament and all kinds of fractures to national unity They provided a quiet comfort to citizens abroad and inspired music and artworks and I don't even know what it sounds like Huh, I think I've heard a time signal from Canada I in fact, I know I have I'm not sure if that's what this is talking about. 
But anyway last week after 84 years Canada's public broadcaster announced the termination of its official time signal Abruptly ending the longest running radio program in the country's history. 
Yes. 
It's a radio program It just goes beep, but it's still a radio program Yeah, just like just like we are technically the news broke in a manner similar to the time signal overlooked amid a frenzy of larger more globally relevant stories The way it disappeared so unceremoniously really took people by surprise said Craig Baird host of the podcast Canadian history X They missed the chance to say goodbye. 
It was like missing the series finale of a show That you've watched for years. 
I'm not sure how they would say. 
Goodbye. 
If all they do is tell the time Since November 5th, remember the timely what was it? 
Nine, three six one two one nine three six one two one two in New York Was the old number then it turned it to nine seven six one two one two or is that the weather? 
No, I think it was it might be one six one six. 
Do they even exist anymore? 
Are there nine seven six numbers? 
This is a question for rebel. 
I have a phone maybe no No, because it might cost $50 to go. 
Yeah, let somebody else do it, but if we can test this we'll get an answer Slow down you don't want to bite off more telephony than you can. 
Yeah handle. 
No, that's that's true So yeah since November 5th, 1939 cbc radio one Has broadcast the National Research Council time signal Once a day, you know, I listen to cbc radio one and somehow i've never heard this And I guess it's not what I was thinking of because what I was thinking of was A station that was always there broadcasting time beeps and things I'll i'll look into this and be a little more prepared But basically that particular once a day event advised listeners of the beginning Of the long dash and that would mark the beginning of the hour one o'clock in ontario 10 in the morning in british columbia Oh, that's why one o'clock in Eastern time way before I get up canadians set their watches and even clocks to it Trains were more punctual sailors could navigate more precisely And as the time signal persisted over generations, it transformed into a cultural bedrock of the country Even if you weren't a frequent listener to the cbc Most people have heard it at least once in their lifetime said baird Most people have heard it at least once in their lifetime said baird and so while it persisted for so long It's not something people thought about much until it was gone Ain't that the truth so many things As canadians make sense of the loss. 
Um, wow, this is a serious story here A sense of grief and frustration has taken hold Listeners to baird's show shared memories including one woman who trained her dog To sit for a treat when the long dash was broadcast An informal poll of his listeners and followers on social media found the vast majority Wanted the time signal back if only to say goodbye. 
Okay. 
I'm not exactly sure canada. 
What what's going on here? 
You want to say goodbye to a beep? 
I guess sure. 
Why not? 
Uh, i'm not sure how we're going to pull that off. 
Uh, you can't say a noise is your friend said sab booth rod A british columbia based artist but it was a sound that resonated And it touched many people at the same time. 
It brought us together like few things can uh for booth rod the time signal a piece of auditory punctuation mark that has remained a constant over the years or it was a A punctuation mark when she began selling a tea towel Printed with the long dash they quickly became a best seller. 
I had no idea it was going to catch on But it means a lot to a lot of canadians even those outside the country it's something we can hang on to Uh, but in 2019 as the public broadcaster celebrated the anniversary 80th anniversary of the time signal Journalist lawrence wall announcer of time signal in ottawa um told the cbc He didn't envision the network changing the signal or heaven forbid dropping it fully People still like to listen to it and I still run into people who say Aren't you the guy who does the time signal? 
Not aren't you the guy who does the news in ottawa? 
Uh, so it's that time signal that really resonates with them and I think it always will another broadcaster Stefan arucovina Posted that when he was asked to record the preamble the famous long dash line. 
I really felt like i'd made it Wow, that's a somewhat of a low bar um It was the broadcaster's gradual shift from over-the-air radio signals to satellite and internet-based transmissions That marked the end of the time signal we share the nostalgia that many people have towards the daily time announcement But canadians also depend on us for accurate information cbc spokesperson. 
Emma Ionetta said in a statement with all of the different distribution methods we use today We can no longer ensure that the time announcement can be accurate I'm, not sure what changed but okay In one instance the cbc had to drop the 10 seconds of silence in the preamble to the time signal Because silence confused confused modern systems Yeah, that sounds like a problem with the modern systems not with the time signal uh the nrc Which is not the nuclear regulatory commission. 
Um, it's some organization in canada Which I should know Um, they said the installation of digital radio transmitters in 2018 led to a delay of up to nine seconds Uh, the nrc says cesium atomic clocks remain the world's best timekeepers A cesium fountain clock in the united states nist f2 is accurate Within one second over 300 million years just a little um asterisk to that um, I believe that's the kind of clock we have we have a An atomic clock that's how it labels itself It's the only clock in the entire complex that Does not have the right time and the reason for that is because it has to receive a a time signal And that time signal comes from colorado And you cannot receive that signal inside. 
You can only receive it outside so It doesn't receive the signal and the clock gets um basically slower and slower not slower, but just it falls off by Up to two minutes in a in a couple of months. 
So literally, uh every month we have to take that clock outside So it gets the signal and stays accurate. 
That's not exactly. 
Um, uh what you would envision with an atomic clock being Uh accurate within one second over 300 million years. 
Yeah, as long as we keep going outside and getting the signal from from colorado Well, that's not the clock. 
That's a receiver In the clock well, right, but it's it's synced with a a larger clock installation, right? 
That is a scientific instrument that clock is accurate Yeah, but i'm not going to drive out to colorado to get the time right you're talking about the device that the consumer has Oh, so you're saying the clock is nistf2 that's in col or no It's not wherever that happens to be that might be in the naval observatory. 
Yeah, we're gonna get all kinds of corrections But well and I like we have a network clock that is probably tuned to one of those cesium waterfall The network clock works. 
Well, oh, you know what i'm i'm arguing against what i'm saying here I'm arguing for digital technology But it does work different if it's different system and it's been it's been Well developed. 
I mean it's mature and it's used widely in switching and routing and and networks that need it and rely on You know what? 
I like the digital system, but I also like the old system. 
So bring the damn time signal back, please cbc Um, buthroid said the decision by cbc is puzzling especially because most canadians no longer set their clocks by the signal Instead the pause was a moment of respite in a busy day. 
There's a beautiful heaviness to the time signal It makes us stop we need to stop and that's a good thing We're in a world that moves so fast technology is the reason we don't have it anymore But I wonder what is technology? 
Offering us to replace what we've lost Wow, that was from the guardian and boy, they really they really dive into a story when they when they start The canadian time signal i'm going to try and find an audio recording of that so we can we can share that with listeners I don't know. 
Has anybody ever heard this? 
Oh alex. 
You're back. 
Welcome back Yeah, um, it's really this is a really sweet story I think because It is something that generations of canadians have had as part of the background in their daily lives And it reminds me slightly of uh many years ago on this program. 
We we spoke about The end of we were speaking about historical clock network services that existed in this country like back in the 1930s I think or or 50s or whatever, but it was it was the history of those Early like basically subscription type services where a master company Would have a connection to clocks in like a school or an office building or something and they would Check the time with like some sort of central device and I I don't know if those were wired or wireless, uh situations, but um, I remember that in my school the the The clock would stop at two minutes two and it would just sit there for a minute And then when that minute was was through it would jump ahead. 
Did they do that for you? 
I I seem to remember something like this Yeah, and uh, there were there were lots of these old systems like still installed in buildings But of course the service that they would uh connect to no longer exists And I think then you're you're just uh, you know, you've got a regular clock but uh It's it's always it's always a bit interesting when something that Even something that is so superseded by modern technology um Still has to be switched off and come to an end like this and I could I could see why they miss it and Want to in some fashion say goodbye Want to in some fashion say goodbye I don't know. 
I feel like we're just letting go of too many things just because We feel we have to move on and you know, we can move on and also hold on right? 
Yeah, but the modernization of um and the advantage of those newer transmitters basically Disrupted the accuracy of that older system. 
So it has been sort of super it has been superseded in a way And they're waxing poetic and celebrating its history, but it's not really the uh the best solution Going forward. 
It's it's purpose um There's so many other forms. 
I think that's the the other sort of line or theme and thread Thread in the article i'm done. 
Yeah. 
Well, you know, I I found I found the signal. 
Uh, sure over on youtube So yeah, we're on youtube and we're playing youtube. 
So, um, let's let's take a listen to um, what supposedly is Uh, the nrc, uh time signal on cbc radio one. 
It says off by one second. 
Let's see what that means National research council official time signal the beginning of the long dash indicates exactly 10 o'clock pacific daylight saving time Oh Okay, I guess that was it that's the whole thing Wow, uh, i've never heard that i've never heard that and I guess now I never will so it's like pulse tones And then a bit of like a metronome Tick and then that longer tone. 
Uh-huh it's interesting I could see that being comforting and and Very much reminds me of top of the hour when you're watching bbc or listening to one of their channels they always um, I think cut to a chime or it's it's part of their um their broadcast workflow they can activate it to cue time and people can then Adjust their clocks accordingly and rely and reliably chu that was a station. 
I was thinking of uh, that is um, A time state. 
I don't know if it's still on the air Uh, i'll try to find it but um, I don't know if they stream though, and I don't know what what okay I just looked it up. 
It's um it's at uh 33 30 kilohertz 73 35 kilohertz and 14 670 kilohertz So if you have a shortwave radio, you can find that station and um and listen to it And i'm going to try and find it see if it streams online But it would be kind of uh self-defeating streaming online because the time wouldn't be accurate then It's true um Really quickly two two things. 
Number one The I found an article from the new york times, uh from march of 2002 Saying that at that time at&t was stopping billing for new 900 numbers And then they were stopping billing for existing 900 numbers at the end of 2002. 
So I think that was Apparently verizon was the only character of the only carrier for a long time that was still charging for them So piece number one, they kind of hit a sharp decline about 20 years ago And also greetings to the 37 people who are currently hanging with us on youtube. 
Um Greetings, especially to our chat stalwarts. 
We're always happy to have you here um thank you to tim in connecticut for letting us know that we sound good and Thank you to everybody for the warm. 
Welcome back because we haven't had the live chat in three weeks. 
So Happy you all are here. 
Please feel free to share with us any questions you have Um want to try something new and if there's a question you'd like to specifically ask any of us on the radio Please preface your question with either the letters a i r or o t h And let's see if we can do a better job of figuring out what needs to go to air So that's what we're going to try tonight and thanks everybody Yes, indeed, and I understand we have a phone call even though we didn't get out the phone number. 
Is that right? 
Carl, yeah, we do have a phone call and they are still connected. 
Uh, go easy though because that might be one of those it might be like a really Spicy line by this point because they've been waiting a while. 
Yeah, but we didn't ask people to call yet So they're still there. 
What do you want me to do? 
Hang up? 
I'm, just saying you can't be upset at us for taking a long time to pick up and we didn't ask for calls yet So it's a courtesy that we're going to this line. 
Just watch it. 
Watch it. 
Nobody knows the phone number Maybe we changed it. 
Good evening. 
You're on off the govertime. 
Go ahead Hello, hi, how you doing? 
Sorry friend from uh from spain, oh, oh, okay santiago How you doing the quality of this call? 
The quality of this call is not very good from time to time. 
I I had like a garblet Instead of works, so hopefully it will go. 
Okay. 
Can you hear me? 
Well? 
Yeah, we hear you fine Hopefully people on youtube can hear if not Uh tell us in the chat, but i'm pretty sure all the levels are good this week Okay, cool, yes you you were something very good On youtube it was just when I joined my phone like 15 minutes ago And I'm not mad. 
I'm grateful that you didn't hang up and yeah, that's cool so i'm coming now to announce that the automatic transcripts of the Of the program are finished after 30 days And that i'm going to publish the website it is a web 1.0 website. 
So like old school website and the domain is off the hook dot cc off the hook.cc So, okay, what what what you've done is you've you've um, you've made transcripts of the show for what period? 
Since 1989 up until last month. 
Oh my god. 
How did you do that? 
Okay Well, you know, I I don't know how accurate they are, uh, but it should be interesting to uh to to see that um and Very soon so it took like uh, it it did like 135 shows per day And the gpu was working 100. 
So it was like full time for 20 days And yeah, you let me know how the quality it is I'm fascinated by the technology involved here. 
Um, and it you know, i'm sure we'll find some some comical lapses Uh, because that's inevitable. 
But yeah, but the fact the fact that it's something it'll it'll benefit a lot of people that uh, uh, well people who can't hear for one thing, um, but it should be interesting and maybe we can uh, You know offer corrections when when we have the time to do that But that's an awful lot of shows out. 
I can't believe it only took you a month to do this So, uh, you can you can try to do the correction, but it will be uh, like a lot of work So I think it's not worth it. 
So That's it. 
So i'm going to publish right Now so it should be live now. 
Okay Now, how does it how does it work as far as identifying who's speaking or does it not do that? 
I'm, sorry, can you repeat does it identify? 
I mean, I don't see how it could identify who is speaking Uh, oh, no. 
No. 
Yeah, it just gives it just gives whatever words Future ai Maybe we will be able to do that. 
But by now, it's just like a long text Okay, I want to see how it how it handles eric adams speaking spanish. 
I want to see what it does there Well, it was like something very robotic and I was thinking if I received uh if I received a Robocall in that talking like that like a robot in spanish from a people from a person that doesn't speak spanish I will laugh and I will hang up and not vote for that person most probably Wow, well, this is a good example of what uh, um off the hook listeners, uh can can accomplish when they just take on a project and and we welcome that because uh, it's it's technological innovation and and just um, uh Playing around with technology. 
That's what we do. 
That's what we uh, always always strive for and uh, sometimes it works sometimes it doesn't but That's how you learn. 
That's how you move forward. 
Yeah, that's amazing. 
Yeah And if you want I can tell you a bit more about this this project, uh, sure go ahead what I did go ahead so First I tried the google program search engine So it's not nothing that inserts google onto your website and you can search using google But it had a big problem. 
So it only indexes what it wants and when it wants so I tried I saw that It was not working. 
It was very slow. 
And so I decided to implement the search function on my web server and it's working fine, so You can you can search using quotes for to search for a specific term So for example, you can search for empire state in quotes and it will only show results about the building for example And I also Modified the creation date for the text files. 
So for the transcripts So the idea is that the creation date for the files it will match the date when the problem was saved So you can search by date And order results by date. 
Maybe you want to see the latest the most recent matches um, yeah I wrote some scripts to automatically download the entries and do the transcripts update the website and index everything And those scripts will run automatically on the second each month so on the second each month, it will automatically process the previous month and The website should be automatically updated. 
Let's see Uh And you know, i'm looking at off the hook.cc right now and and just like the the listener wrote to us It's simple and it's uh, you know, it works and that's that's what a website should do. 
And and yes, I I like the look of it Good So yeah, I hope this will be useful to you and the listeners. 
Um, if google decides to index more of this site It can also attack new listeners, you know people that search for a specific topic and find this site and discover off the hook so Hope they will be able to just pull Wow This is this is truly amazing. 
That's great It's a sort of a rough silhouette of what the conversation has been over time and I love that you just set up like batches and it sounds like you threw it all at like a graphics processing unit and just Just let it go and and then checked up on it Was that a part of uh, some of the scripting that you did for this? 
so yes, but if I did a specific script to first to download all the history all the mp3s and process it And then I wrote another script that will also process but it will do more things like updating the website indexing So you can use the search I just um, I just looked up the word elephant, uh To see when that appeared and um the show from actually this year, uh, february 15th Um, and the quote is this, uh, I say negative all the time. 
It brings everyone down affirmative affirmative I like affirmative. 
It's much more positive What are some other differences? 
There are no more elephants. 
Oh, that's right And there is only one sort of dance the robot No, the robot boogie as well Oh true, there are two dances now. 
Okay. 
I don't know when we said this now I have to find out this is I think where uh, rob and gila had Mentioned that this takes curation and as I said a rough silhouette. 
No, I I like it like this Pre-hallucinated this will be fun But I think it's Most of the time uh-huh Wow, uh, who's uh, uh, yes rob uh, i'm looking at this right now and it is I I already I can already tell i'm having i'm gonna have a lot of fun with this. 
Um, you know, there are some pickups i'm getting some nginx errors on uh recent years and things like that, but um, I love that there is a text search because You can do things like uh, you know I wonder on what episode we talked about such and such a thing put it in and Then even if the transcript itself isn't perfect we have a show date to then go into the audio archives And uh and find that episode and go back and uh, have a listen And so I can see this being a very a very interesting, uh, a very interesting tool for you know, just researching things. 
Uh, you know Seeing when when uh when things happened, uh historical stuff when we had certain guests on things like that Rob just just just to clarify we do have summations of all the shows online on 2600.com But this is is a transcript the actual word spoken or supposedly so this yeah This could be like when we talked about elephants or whatever It'll be a lot more uh specific and and particular Yeah, definitely. 
So so yeah, this is this is uh, uh, very interesting a very interesting piece of uh piece of work here and I I think we all really appreciate that you went to all this trouble and that you're you're you're putting it up Uh here and everything for for folks to use You're welcome You like the site? 
Yes, and uh, can't wait to see what you do next You kept your word. 
Yeah, you did you did what you said you were going to do? 
Well regarding next uh, I have some suggestions so talking about the mastodon incident Yes, sure if there is if there is a volunteer that can write the rules and guidelines and moderate the The instance I can set up a must another muscle instance I already have one on my server so I can set up another one for 2600 or whatever And keep it keep the software updated and so on but yeah, there is Someone to to moderate. 
Yeah, it sounds like a lot of work And I just want to make it clear that I I do not begrudge the people That put in all the time. 
I mean, I know it's a thankless job and I I hope what I uh, my critiques before were not uh seen as as uh, Criticizing them unfairly or just basically these are growing pains and uh, I hope to be part of the discussion and and uh, Make something better Yeah, it's good that you always have this Last resort of setting up your own mastodon instance with your own rules or whatever. 
So that's always an option and you can Migrate your followers. 
So you can Yeah, I still have control of the of the previous account. 
You can migrate your followers to your new server. 
So Yeah, you know we've done things like this so many times running our own bulletin board to basically just you know, uh, Thinking we we can do a better job ourselves and it just it drives us crazy. 
We have so much time Let's we have a tab open for for spinning up the uh, you know, what all that it takes, you know The instructions are very good. 
They're clear It's very similar to other things we've built before but we have a lot of projects and responsibilities as is So it's it is an option though Wow All right, listen, it's great hearing from you Please uh, please stay in touch and uh, we will we will definitely let you know Uh, if we see any any issues with this or have any suggestions Yes, sure you have the An email to contact. 
Uh, yes oth at 2600.com and um, no, I mean, sorry I mean that uh, you have my email to contact me if you want. 
Uh, yes Is Right. 
Yeah, we might have some questions, uh behind the scenes and uh, we'll share what we find In exploring the site, but thank you very much and we'll definitely be in touch with uh, what people what people get out of it And again the url for uh for listeners off the hook.cc and uh, have fun Play around with that. 
That's that's awesome. 
Thank you again Okay, that's all take care. 
Bye Wow What people in spain are are getting up to yes gila Um, I did want to share a piece of information Thank you to listener mk on our youtube chat who informs us that chu's frequencies are now 33 30 78 50 and 1 4 6 7 0 You sound like a guy on radio. 
Moscow announcing the frequencies There's no way to reward that but that's it sounded really cool on radio free moscow Frequencies announce you they were never radio free. 
My it was always radio moscow. 
But uh, yeah Wow, okay. 
Well as soon as I get the shortwave fired up Maybe maybe somebody can send us uh an excerpt of that because I don't think i'm gonna get the shortwave fired up anytime soon but um It's it was always a good signal. 
Ah chu. 
I remember hearing that it was always Pleasant we have the antenna, but we gotta wait for a good thunderstorm to go put it up What you want to put it up in a thunderstorm, isn't that how you do it you get it like that's how you do it But I don't think that's how you're supposed to do it Um, okay. 
Okay. 
So this is the story that I wanted to bounce off of alex, um involving uh the red cross uh there's new guidelines that have been uh, uh codified to Govern the rules of engagement concerning hacktivist involved in ongoing cyber warfare. 
How about this rules? 
Uh, the international committee of the red cross known as the icrc Uh the humanitarian protection organization responsible for promoting international law Has set out eight rules for hacktivist and another four For states to discourage civilian involvement in cyber attacks against other countries if you're a um, um A hacktivist out there get your your pen and paper ready because these are the rules Uh, the rate at which civilians are becoming involved in international conflicts has been described as a worrying trend by the icrc A phenomenon exacerbated by the ongoing war in ukraine, which has seen for the first time Conflict taking place in both the physical and digital space concurrently. 
I doubt it's the first time but it's certainly one of the biggest times specifically named by the icrc Uh was the it army of ukraine? 
Yes, they were named by the international committee of the red cross So their faces must be red The vigilante band of hacktivists that assembled early in the war using the telegram messaging platform They are an example of civilians joining war efforts The group has since expanded to develop a service that invites anyone to donate computer power to launch autonomous disruptive attacks against russian targets now one of the eight new rules Surrounding hacktivism efforts explicitly prohibits activities such as this Banning the use of autonomous attack methods and by extension historical examples like stuxnet The same rule also prohibits the use of attacks that could spill over and disrupt systems away from the intended target Now while the attack on navia sat which took place just an hour before the war in ukraine officially began That wasn't listed as an example. 
It serves as one of the most recent cases of these kinds of spillover attacks in the weeks that followed satellite internet users throughout europe Reported issues and the effects even disrupted wind farms in neighboring countries the not petya worm of 2017 Also presents an infamous historical example of cyber attacks the effects of which spill over And affect targets beyond their intended reach And and okay. 
Well, anyway, let's get into the uh, the list of rules that apply to civilian online attackers So you're a civilian online attacker Write these down or record this number one do not direct cyber attacks against civilian objects Number two do not use malware or other tools or techniques that spread automatically and damage military objectives and civilian object objects indiscriminately These are these are good rules for for anyone involved in a conflict. 
I think Uh three when planning a cyber attack against a military objective Do everything feasible to avoid or minimize the effects your operation may have on civilians number four do not conduct any cyber operation against medical and humanitarian facilities Do not conduct any cyber attack against objects Indispensable to the survival of the population or that can release dangerous forces. 
That was number five Number six do not make threats of violence to spread terror Among the civilian population always a good rule number seven do not incite violations of international humanitarian law And number eight comply with these rules, even if the enemy does not so many of these rules echo the unspoken code of conduct that's Generally understood to be in place in the cyber security world that attacks should not harm civilians or target hospitals charities And similar organizations They're generally understood in most cases and even the most prolific ransomware groups Have shown glimpses that they abide by a moral code I'm going to say that again because it does sound silly the most prolific ransomware groups have shown glimpses that they abide by a moral code however, some cyber criminals still operate without such restrictions the icrc said The three main concerns born out of the rise in civilian engagement in digital warfare Include increased risk to civilian harm due to the increased number of attacks targeting civilian objects the risk of civilians exposing themselves to military operations and The fact the line increasingly blurs between who is a civilian and who is a combatant All right, just to finish up here rules for states The icrc has also drawn up rules for countries themselves in an effort to dissuade them from tolerating hacktivist activity I should point out that neither the u.s. 
Russia nor china Are part of the international criminal court, so they pretty much do as they please the four four rules are Number one if civilian hackers act under the instruction direction or control of a state That state is internationally legally responsible for any conduct of those individuals that is inconsistent with the state's international legal obligations including international humanitarian law number two States must not encourage civilians or groups to act in violation of international humanitarian law number three states have a due diligence obligation To prevent international humanitarian law violations by civilian hackers on their territory And finally number four states have an obligation to prosecute war crimes and take measures necessary to suppress other ihl violations What do you think alex, uh rules for uh for uh activists I I think they're kind of interesting and just preliminarily. 
Can you guys hear me? 
Okay, because i'm using a New set of earbuds. 
We actually hear you better than we did before Oh, okay, this might be the best you've ever sounded in fact Oh, that's uh, that's news to me. 
Well, uh, okay, but you know with respect to these rules I I think the subtext of all of them is Essentially don't be an idiot That's really what it's what it's what it's all about here is you know Don't do things that are going to have unintended consequences and and hurt innocent people and that's that's generally Uh accepted in in any kind of conflict as you had mentioned emmanuel So I I think that they're it's interesting that they're codified. 
It's good to see them in writing Uh, you can point to them and reference them. 
I I guess if you need to But really that that seems to me to be a lot of common sense. 
I guess the main fear here though is that People who are acting without a lot of common sense could end up creating some kind of Cascading cyber event that that's certainly what happened with napecha uh, and and by the way that it started with russia in ukraine and then Traveled all around the world creating massive amounts of damage and it seemed and the intention behind that particular Uh piece of malware seemed to be actually destruction Um, it wasn't ransom. 
It wasn't extortion. 
It was it was actually the destruction of data so that You know, that's a I think a great example of people just doing, you know, really bad idiotic things with these these types of systems but then it can really blur the line between What's a military target and what's a civilian target and by crossing these bounds? 
Civilians could be bringing unto themselves and to their neighbors and neighborhoods Perhaps some kind of kinetic response that the rest of the community did not necessarily sign up for And that's uh, that I think is is a big problem so I welcome these types of codifications even if they do really just codify common sense Yeah, I think the most that we can hope for is that they're simply guidelines that um, People out there try their best to follow but it's unrealistic to expect Everybody to be on their best behavior while they're they're they're engaged in in Um hacker warfare or whatever the term is Yeah, and the the tactics that That are used I think. 
Um by our own, uh our own militaries or in the like in the case of ukraine and and some of these conflicts like in many cases they're going to have strictures around a lot of that and um, and And try to control and heavily control exactly what they're doing and and when and I think these are like alex said guidelines Mainly, I think as common sense, but also to identify when people are out of those bounds whether they're um doing it commercially or for fun or um for ideological purpose and as part of an action or as part of a group say like You are involved in some stuff and a group wants to do some big automated Thing that that might be a flag that might be something that you then maybe say, okay this this could get out of hand They don't really have a handle on on how they're using this um but on the other side of that I all i'm also um really aware of the idea of um dissuading people from doing anything um at all um because the the concept of um people getting together and doing things collectively in a digital forum is quite scary to nation states because as as much as we um, we might um, We might deem it might uh build up the scariness of governments. 
I mean private individuals private entities um, the masses themselves have most of the actual power. 
We're just not uh fundamentally Organized in a in a in the same way as a government or a state or a military actor And that's a huge fear. 
So that that beginning of the article is to me it says a lot about the anxiety here that um What if people got organized or what if people? 
Were uh engaged in this activity and it was against us or it was against other people I mean look at all the people in the streets now. 
What if that was was uh, organized and and uh Tied to one of one of these actions it goes both ways is basically what i'm saying. 
So it it is. 
Um, I think Think of like domestic politics that like if if people were organized and and activated they could be incredibly disruptive but the um the platforms we like just obsess over and talk and just wallow in Are meant essentially to keep us sort of contained in different universes and in ways that don't actually have us uh Asserting our rights and asserting what what uh our grievances are in in various ways and that that that in in a lot of ways is man, I mean I your imagination could run wild thinking of of How powerful that is and it makes you realize just um Just how important it is to um to not feel powerless They want actively people to not be engaging in this certainly not against their the the regimes and the actions that their government um, uh, uh Engages in that they might disagree with so domestically this is you never would want this domestically But then of course when it comes to strategic interests It's it's like, you know Let's go buy buy these rules and uh We'll turn a blind eye. 
We don't care and So I think I just have a lot of different feelings about What this is saying and what the anxieties here are what the motivations are to put this out This is again. 
This is a un agency. 
The icrc is uh, the international criminal court so they're kind of um Observing the trends and putting this out there and as was stated like big Players like russia and in the us and china are not signatories in the first place Well, this is put out by the international committee the red cross. 
Oh, I thought it was ice. 
Oh, yeah I believe they're affiliated. 
Oh icrc. 
Yeah, and it's um, okay an arm not the criminal court, but it is uh, um also It would be nice if we joined up we'd know more about it. 
I think it's I think it's separate from the un I I misspoke. 
It's just it's shameful that we're not a part of that But whatever we we should be signatories and and so forth and so fifth and uh, the like etc Uh phone lines open. 
Okay, eight zero if we haven't given out the phone number yet 802-321-4225 802-321-HAC By the way, I found chu i'm not sure what this is going to sound like I don't have a audition button here But let's see what chu sounds like according to youtube So One hour 20 minutes One more minute So Uh Okay, I think I think we got the idea, um, I used to listen to that all the time I was I was pretty bored Uh, but it was a good strong signal from canada and it just it sounded it sounded cool Has anyone else ever heard that? 
Not me Rob you're shaking your head. 
It's radio Rob you're not making any noise. 
Oh, wait a second. 
I might no I have you you're muting. 
Oh, wait No, I did have the button pushed. 
I'm sorry. 
Sorry rob. 
Go ahead soldier man. 
I mute me. 
Um, no um, I I it's a I could see how that could be a very reassuring noise, um, but also it reminds me of Um, you know the the previous episode of the show which I listened to though. 
I wasn't on Um, you talked about the the alert tones the the alert tone test that everyone got on their mobile phones. 
Yes um, which is the modern, uh equivalent to Which is one modern equivalent to what we used to have back in the back in the days of my youth Um, which was the emergency broadcast system now, it's the emergency alert system But they were the emergency broadcast system tones, which we would get on television. 
Um every so often and it's just you know It was just a beep but it's uh, it's like a nostalgic thing to think back on also the uh, like things like the the off the air tones and uh Color bar screens that we used to get on television stations at night after they stopped broadcasting live, uh material And it was it was just one of those things which like existed in everyone's sort of broadcast environment And you never really paid uh much attention to it But it it was it's interesting to think about now that it's gone. 
You know, I I yeah what you say is so true I I miss tv stations that sign off the air and that might sound nasty But when you when when when you look at what's actually being broadcast at 3 in the morning, it's crap. 
It's nobody's watching it It's just garbage and and having either a test pattern or static which opens up the frequency to to more distant stations That was fun as a kid. 
I would I would turn on my tv and I would find stations. 
I found stations Here on long island. 
I found stations in boston Some days i'd get stations in philadelphia once I even got a station all the way from kansas. 
It was amazing Um, same thing with radio. 
Uh, you can still do that on am radio, by the way At night, you can hear distant stations, but it was particularly interesting with with television because all of a sudden you were opened up to this this world uh It depended on the atmospheric conditions. 
Sometimes you would get things from far away Other times you would not But it doesn't exist anymore. 
It's all digital now there there, you know You either get the station or you don't there's no there's no middle ground There's no distant station that that you can maybe hear Uh rod serling doing a twilight zone in another city or something like that. 
It's It's just one of many parts of magic that people don't get to experience and I I really feel bad about that yeah, there there was a time more recently when I was uh doing some work at a television station in the city and Um, I was in the the control room the broadcast control room and those color bar screens Um, which many of us remember seeing overnight Um, those color bar screens are still used to you know, send test signals internally into screens in the station When you're switching things back and forth and being faced with that image on a tv screen again Um, I suddenly felt like I was I was uh seeing an old friend for the first time in decades It was it was really just warm and fuzzy experience. 
Yeah. 
Yeah You know, I I used to collect tv guides back then. 
This is back in the early 70s And um, it was just such mystery involved with the stations You couldn't get because it would list all the stations in new york city and I was out on the island So I was never able to see channel 25 or channel 31 or channel 41 or 47 uh, so when I when I visited a relative in the city and was able to see those stations for the first time it was It was like meeting some kind of um of uh, fantasy creature um, and and nobody else could really appreciate that then either I think and um, and nobody can appreciate that now, unfortunately, but You know, I I still have some of those issues. 
I still look back fondly on them and and see weird, uh program listings for instance, um channel 31 would sign on every day at noon With a program called police commissioner and it was a film. 
It was always the same film too It was it was meant for cops who were being trained and how they should behave and and uh, you know They had this this cop who was sloppy He was his shirt wasn't tucked in and he got a reprimand and then he improved and he he got a compliment Every day at noon that I would see the listing, you know in my tv guide police commit. 
What is that? 
And finally when I was in the city, I was able to see it and uh boy that was that was really something Now that station uh, Giuliani destroyed that station by the way He uh, he sold it, um to the pax network and it just has crap on it now all the time But it used to be owned by new york city and uh, it was it was fascinating Anyway, big tangent there lots of bits of old technology that really um had magic attached to it It's a shame that we we just toss it aside. 
So, you know, we I I'm not saying don't embrace new technology We should embrace that of course but let's not throw out the old technology because We can always learn something from it. 
We can always experiment with it. 
We can always play with it and it's It's our it's our history. 
It's it's part of what we uh are all about. 
We have another phone call. 
I hear it ringing Let me uh, bring this up and good evening. 
You're on off the hook overtime. 
Go ahead Hey, uh, I just wanted to to mention how the ai of mayor adams. 
It sounded like the ai Learned english as a second language. 
I'm a spanish speaker. 
Okay. 
It's a second review That it wasn't great it was horrible, I mean You know, I mean Huh like stilted sounding and Yeah, stilted sounding it. 
I mean it literally sounded like someone who was not a native speaker well, you know not as bad as bloomberg, but But okay, so, you know Maybe there's a level where you program the ai to to make me sound crappy or make me sound fluent and maybe Mayor adams to his credit said, you know what? 
I don't want to sound too polished. 
I want to sound kind of dumb And yeah, let's say it's meant to do that. 
Yeah, because it was just I I found it like, you know, I Why am I why would I listen to this? 
You shouldn't do it that way. 
Uh-huh Maybe like preoccupied with how bad it was and not actually the message. 
Yeah. 
Yeah. 
Yeah I wonder who else will be getting calls from you know, can you imagine getting a call from trump speaking mandarin? 
Wow Wow now you're curious now you want the technology to move ahead. 
You want to hear that we all want to hear that Oh boy Okay, uh anything else caller I'm not that's about it. 
Alex. 
Did you have something for the caller? 
Yeah, I did. 
I wanted to ask the caller since he's a native spanish speaker Now could you assume for a second or do you imagine for a second? 
That you didn't know that that was an ai and you received that call And you thought it was that even though it was a recording you thought it was mayor adams speaking Spanish even if it was stilted would would you have connected with him in some way because he was making the effort I mean if I thought it was mayor adams, you know, I I would at least give him credit for attempting it I mean, I guess like what you guys are saying about bloomberg attempting um But if I knew if it was it were an ai doing the same thing and I would feel like, you know, either, you know not Totally using the ai as it could be used. 
I mean if you could make it sound Like a native speaker or something. 
I mean if that's what his attempt was Yeah, but I mean I think the the whole issue we had too was that there was nothing there was no preface There was no warning that this was an ai so if you heard this and and you said oh, wow, you know, he really He can he can speak and understand spanish. 
There's these complicated sentences coming out of his mouth and you know That would be somewhat impressive, right? 
Well, I mean the way it was used. 
Yeah. 
I mean I I mean I guess as you guys were we're talking about it I wanted to see what it would sound like so it was it was you know, it was It sounded more silly than anything else being in the eye But if I had no idea what it was or you know If you know, I would think that you know, maybe i'm adams knows knows some spanish Yeah, and that's that's the misleading part of that. 
So yeah that you you reinforce my conclusion there that I think there was some kind of The that I do think there is an ethical issue with the use of ai without any kind of warning Yeah, I mean, I don't have a problem with people doing ai stuff like that, but it would be you know Be better if you know, there were like a some kind of like a message or a warning or something This is an ai product or this is an interpretation of something Well, i'll bet some agency will get involved and mandate that there has to be a warning on any robocall Uh phone calls that have foreign languages programmed Yeah, maybe it'll be a rule that comes from master I i'm even thinking someone will coin a phrase And we'll start using a term some made-up word that describes the phenomena and it will become Common in vernacular. 
I don't know what the word is, but there'll be a term for it, you know, lots of times people With technology and things that are kind of abstract We make up some way of identifying or labeling. 
We'll say that that's Something you know this kind of thing, you know How every political ad you hear always uh has a tag at the end saying paid for by friends of uh, so and so That'll be or even like those medicine ads where those like where you where you we had the The the warnings like this thing is going to be the best thing for your life, but it may kill you Yeah side effects include death and decay and all and then they show people Having the time of their lives running around, you know in the field With a dog and all that, you know, they're talking about all the ways they could die from taking the medication that they're advertising Yeah special All right. 
Well, thank you so much for for calling You're welcome. 
All right. 
Take care Bye. 
Bye. 
How uh, kyle, how is your arm? 
Uh, I mean, I don't know if I could pitch right now, no Maybe maybe this is what pitchers feel like after they pitch a game That's why they have to wait three or four days. 
Wow. 
I wouldn't want to be a pitcher then That's uh, that's something I'm, not bad though. 
I can I can press the button to answer phone calls if this is the only price to pay for uh for being protected against the the um, You know full wrath of covet and the flu and for me shingles I just amazed that we have these like medicines that can do all this crazy. 
So there's so much It's just magical. 
It's pretty amazing. 
Yes, I didn't finish my sentence. 
Oh, yeah, it would be worth it Just in case people thought maybe I would say the opposite. 
Yes. 
Gila Before we take the next caller because I can hear the phone ringing Um, I did want to share a really fabulous discussion that's been going on on the live chat Everybody's talking to each other. 
Where are they? 
What time is it where they are and it turns out that we have a listener in nigeria who's listening to a few people In a senior citizen's home in nigeria. 
Oh my goodness And I just thought that was very cool and wanted to share that wait Does this mean nigerian senior citizens listen to us because that could be a whole untapped market um Okay, they are now Apparently so so if our listener in nigeria could let us know if you were like listening with your Colleagues in a senior citizen's home in nigeria, or if you are listening with a group of nigerian senior citizens, um clarity would be an amazing thing, but um Yeah, we got people in spain in the uk and australia Um, but nobody from the united states our own country has forsaken us Right. 
It's always the way Um, but yes, this is a fabulous listener chat community We have going on which is I think kind of what we hoped would happen when we opened up the chat. 
So Glad all 38 of you are with us That's that's what I got We'll have to look up for uh, look, uh for more stories from that continent I've always wanted to go to nigeria nigeria and kenya are two countries. 
I really want to go to in that region so that's That is uh, that is something. 
Um, okay. 
So, uh, 802-321-4225 is our telephone number 802-321-HACK Uh only on for a couple more minutes in fact, oh my god, it's nine o'clock already So, um, yeah, we'll take one more phone call. 
How about that? 
So it's a race now to get to the phones, uh, whoever wants to speak last and it's not going to be for very long whoever calls so, uh, if you have a speech ready save it for next week because um, We we are getting uh, tired and cranky. 
I know I am my arm hurts Yes, and we understand uh people have to have supper Is that people they're stirring their their stew right now listening to us we had dinner here, but we have supper apparently I made that up Um, also our listeners who are in People were uh took umbrage that you're saying that we didn't have listeners in the u.s Um, we got folks in the bay area, pennsylvania, connecticut And thank you queens new york. 
You were not the only one. 
Um, they really took umbrage at an obviously uh, uh sarcastic remark Wow, that's just typical of americans now. 
They're really gonna take umbrage Umbridge away, I like making enemies wherever I go. 
I just that's what that's a hobby of mine slow down Give you a sticker. 
That's his content warning I think it's I think it's the pain in my arm. 
That's just making me more obnoxious I really believe that we have a phone call Um, yes, there's a call on the line. 
Okay. 
Good evening. 
You're on off the cover time Hi It's elinor lisbeth foreman calling in. 
Oh my goodness. 
I remember you. 
What is it? 
It's been a while Yeah, well, there's a reason I wasn't allowed to Uh be on the air and this apparently counts also you're not allowed to be wait, what kind of rule is that? 
Uh fair campaigns provision, oh because you're part of the bai board or something like that. 
That's right. 
That's right You're following the rules. 
I got reelected Oh, congratulations. 
We still have the champagne downstairs. 
We should uh, get get a open the bottle of the bubbly Uh, that's great. 
Good good news Thank you, um when I I was trying to put a spanish language uh version of my candidate statement on and I never succeeded in actually getting it posted, but I I used google translate and I put at the top of it Uh An apology that I was using google translate, you know, so apologize for You know, it's not being very good now, you see this this would meet our qualifications this would meet our qualifications for Uh having a uh a disclaimer, uh admitting what you're doing, which is what we're saying. 
Eric. 
Adam should have Yes So, um, I did that and I I got opinions from people some people said um even if it's bad, uh people will like that you tried and some people said this doesn't say what you Wanted to say so you shouldn't use it But somehow really it never actually got posted even though I complained To the nes that it wasn't posted. 
So all of my efforts were in vain But had it been posted it would have been clear That I hadn't done the translation myself, okay So I think uh, you're setting the bar here that others should look to when they do something like this whether it's using ai Or using google translate Always tell people what you did Yeah, uh, and you know, otherwise it would be embarrassing. 
They're making mistakes in my name Uh Uh, I believe at the beginning of the show you saying something about the the covid shots being plentiful They are not really I've had difficulty at trying to make an appointment and I had to make an appointment at a place i've never been before and then I Didn't manage to be able to get there at the time and i'm going to have to try again But apparently there is a shortage and it's a challenge Well, I don't know. 
I don't know if this this will apply in your area and we're not on on the radio now So we can we can give out brand names Uh, but uh, we went to cvs cvs.com and um, if you have an account it makes it easier That's what I was using. 
Well, then maybe maybe uh changing the branch or something because The one that we chose it had it had so many options It was insane and you could do it at night. 
You could do it in the morning uh, it was almost uh, um embarrassing how much they had Lucky you not me. 
Well, no i'm saying, you know, it should work anywhere Uh, when there's a cvs if that's you know, I assume they get it from the same place and maybe the one you're trying Uh is uh, it just doesn't get good supply or maybe there's a lot of people there Well, the the human being I got to help me uh told me that they're it's a small initial supply and So there are difficulties because they don't have enough well, you know, we're we're getting two different messages You're well you're in new york city, I believe right? 
Correct. 
Yeah, there's more people there than on long island where we did it Uh, so it might involve going to a less populated place maybe like westchester or something. 
I don't know if that's possible for you, but Uh, that would probably be a lot easier to get the vaccine But i'm sure they're going to have it at some point if you just uh, you know Get yourself on at some point. 
I want to get it before I get sick again Uh-huh smart. 
I have a hacker's problem hacker question for you for all of you um The Wbai elections if you look at the at the bottom of the first round It tells you how many? 
Uh votes were tallied in the first round and how many extensions there were Mm-hmm And then there's the uh national election supervisors chart saying How many people voted and they don't add up? 
There's a discrepancy of five votes That the nes says there were That uh election buddies did not count on the elistner election and two votes in the um staff one and another uh discrepancy at kpfk And i'm wondering what do we do with you know, if there's missing votes that weren't counted and they could affect the um If not the the people who won maybe the the runners up That might get tapped later on. 
How do we find out what happened? 
Well, you're you're an elected official now, can't you? 
Uh, I I believe they should link to look at the raw data But that's only the ones that they actually counted. 
How do I get a hold of the ones that weren't counted? 
That's what I need to know. 
I have not a clue. 
Well, is is there an election supervisor you could contact? 
Ha ha ha the election supervisor said everything's dandy and her job is over now And her job is over now And she even had an auto she had an automated reply to emails Uh saying that and giving a link to go to For all the election data and the link had a typo in it well, um what I would suggest and I I really don't know the the facts here, but uh, I I know pacifica wbai has a has a million mailing lists If you just pick one of them and get at least one other person Interested in this at least i've been emailing. 
Okay, but but don't take it all on yourself is my advice get other people interested and you know if nobody's interested then You know pick your battles, I guess but maybe other people will get interested You can at least try with with the mailing list, but just be specific as to as to what your concerns are If I um forward my emails to you might you get interested uh, I stay away from these things like the plague because they just They they just envelop. 
I mean, you know this you've seen it what what it does to people is just um, but you know, we will continue to offer advice and support here and um, Hopefully, um, we get answers I hope All right, we gotta go because it's it's after nine and it's good hearing from you again though Glad you're well. 
Thank you. 
And are there any of the other people? 
With you who might be interested in figuring out what happened to the missing five votes Uh, what's that? 
Alex? 
You're jumping up and down what's going on? 
No, oh you're just jumping up and down. 
If only I had the time if only I had the time. 
Okay, well That's not a no that's not a no, okay, so we just have to make time for alex somehow Um, all right, we'll figure out how to do that. 
Um, yeah, but you know, uh, just uh, Keep it a topic of conversation and uh somebody with the access if it is an issue, uh, we'll hopefully hopefully, uh, Take an interest Okay, all right good luck with the uh with the shot keep trying uh, I guarantee you will find something soon if you just keep trying Thank you, all right take care and that's gonna just about do it for us here tonight Any any final words from uh from the folks over in skype land? 
Um oh my goodness, so Uh, people are talking about transporters and portable trans Translation devices, which is fantastic. 
Um Thank you again to all of you on the chat for joining in with us this evening um And yeah, everybody stay healthy and get your shots, please Yes Yes, alex, I I I tell you I think it would be interesting to just hear uh an hour of radio But it was co-hosted by rebel and eleanor Okay, well, you know i'm sure they could do some fill-ins or something Right off the air though. 
They'll replace us with that for sure. 
I'm being serious too. 
I think that would be wonderful Well, I know you're being serious you have no sense of humor so you you definitely that's exactly right when you say these things So people I think it's ridiculous and maybe it is ridiculous, but it's not a joke. 
So, uh, don't think that There you go. 
All right, you can write to us oth at 2600.com We would be happy to hear from you. 
And again, uh, no, uh content warning necessary. 
Just uh, Just spit it all out and we'll we'll process we'll be back again next week, I believe and um If all goes well next week for overtime in addition we will um Talk to you then. 
Oh, by the way, I should point this out too. 
This was our first. 
Um, Last week was our first time ever, uh doing a delivery of a new issue Uh digitally, uh, we we had released previous issues as back issues, but this was the first time Subscribers digital subscribers pdf and epub were able to get it en masse and it worked This is something that we've been trying to develop for for over a decade And thanks to the efforts of greg newby and others. 
We actually um, uh, We're able to come up with a very unique system that that works quite well Uh more details on 2600.com Uh, it's um, it became necessary when amazon decided to stop supporting magazines and really Hurt a lot of smaller, uh zines out there So hopefully this is a way to to fight back and to survive. 
We'll see All right, uh, we will um, see you in a week. 
Good night 


And welcome to everybody over on YouTube.
Well, actually, it's not over on YouTube because we're on YouTube as well.
So thanks for joining us on YouTube here on Channel 2600 for Off the Hook Overtime.
Kyle, did you make it okay?
Sure, everything's fine.
It just knocked over.
Wow.
That looked spectacular.
You knocked over everything.
I was just putting the phone down.
I put the bottle down, too.
My headphones knocked over my microphone.
Okay, catastrophe.
Yeah, I'm here.
You didn't do that over the radio.
And I stuck the landing.
I'm here.
All right, good, good.
And we have Skypland.
We have Rob, Keila.
Hello.
We are here.
Where the hell is Alex?
Alex will be back when he can.
He is going from his workplace to his home.
He's commuting during the show?
Yes, he has responsibilities.
This is a responsibility.
Okay, you know what?
We'll talk about this off air.
I believe it, yes.
Okay.
Well, then.
That's a shame, because the story I wanted to get his opinion on about hacktivism law.
We'll get to it.
We'll just get to it in a little bit, I guess.
Hopefully he's there.
Keep it in the stack, yeah.
Yeah.
Interesting show.
Good conversation.
I have a feeling I'm going to be looking for a new Mastodon instance.
But that's okay.
It's all right.
It's a learning process.
I hold no ill, you know, I've never talked rudely to people.
I always try and be, I mean, in my life, I certainly have.
I'm saying in this particular set of circumstances, you know, I've made it clear when I've been
mistaken or don't know something.
Can't say it's always gone the same way in my direction, though.
But if you have suggestions, you can email us, OTH at 2600.com at the Mastodon instance
that you're happy with.
A lot of them are closed, though.
A lot of them you can't get accounts on.
So there's that.
And I think the reason I wound up on this one was because it was open, or because I
got invited, I think.
I don't know.
It's too much work.
I mean, for God's sake, you know, Twitter was so simple.
Of course, look what happened to it.
Won't you please think of the children in the future?
Why?
Are there children reading these things?
They should be.
Well, it's all part of this.
Children should have their own.
You should be concerned.
Have your own damn internet.
Yeah.
Get off our internet.
Go on your internet.
And, you know, it's like a school, you know?
Middle school, you stay over there.
High school's over there.
I don't know.
Okay.
So in Canada, something rather weird happened.
The time signal ended.
Did you hear about this?
A series of crackly pips and beeps that have been broadcast to radios across Canada.
They've outlasted two monarchs, 13 prime ministers, 27 sessions of parliament, and all kinds of
fractures to national unity.
They've provided a quiet comfort to citizens abroad and inspired music and artworks.
And I don't even know what it sounds like.
Huh.
I think I've heard a time signal from Canada.
In fact, I know I have.
I'm not sure if that's what this is talking about.
But anyway, last week, after 84 years, Canada's public broadcaster announced the termination
of its official time signal, abruptly ending the longest running radio program in the country's
history.
Yes, it's a radio program.
It just goes beep, but it's still a radio program.
Yeah.
Just like we are, technically.
The news broke in a manner similar to the time signal overlooked amid a frenzy of larger,
more globally relevant stories.
The way it disappeared so unceremoniously really took people by surprise, said Craig
Baird, host of the podcast Canadian History X.
They missed the chance to say goodbye.
It was like missing the series finale of a show that you've watched for years.
I'm not sure how they would say goodbye if all they do is tell the time.
But since November 5th, remember the time, Lee?
What was it?
9, 3, 6, 1, 2, 1?
No, 9, 3, 6, 1, 2, 1, 2 in New York was the old number.
Then it turned into 9, 7, 6, 1, 2, 1, 2.
Or is that the weather?
No, I think it was, it might be 1, 6, 1, 6.
Do they even exist anymore?
Are there 9, 7, 6 numbers?
This is a question for Rebel.
I have a phone.
Maybe.
No, no, because it might cost $50 to go.
Yeah, let somebody else do it.
But we can test this.
We'll get an answer.
Slow down.
You don't want to bite off more telephony than you can handle.
No, that's true.
So yeah, since November 5th, 1939, CBC Radio 1 has broadcast the National Research Council
time signal once a day.
You know, I listen to CBC Radio 1, and somehow I've never heard this.
And I guess it's not what I was thinking of, because what I was thinking of was a station
that was always there broadcasting time beeps and things.
I'll look into this and be a little more prepared.
But basically, that particular once-a-day event advised listeners of the beginning of
the long dash, and that would mark the beginning of the hour, 1 o'clock in Ontario, 10 in the
morning in British Columbia.
Oh, that's why.
1 o'clock in Eastern time, way before I get up.
Now, Canadians set their watches and even clocks to it.
Trains were more punctual.
Sailors could navigate more precisely.
And as the time signal persisted over generations, it transformed into a cultural bedrock of the
country.
Even if you weren't a frequent listener to the CBC, most people have heard it at least
once in their lifetimes, said Baird.
And so while it persisted for so long, it's not something people thought about much until
it was gone.
Ain't that the truth?
So many things.
As Canadians make sense of the loss, wow, this is a serious story here, a sense of grief
and frustration has taken hold.
Listeners to Baird's show shared memories, including one woman who trained her dog to
sit for a treat when the long dash was broadcast.
An informal poll of his listeners and followers on social media found the vast majority wanted
the time signal back, if only to say goodbye.
Okay, I'm not exactly sure, Canada, what's going on here.
You want to say goodbye to a beep?
I guess.
Sure, why not?
I'm not sure how we're going to pull that off.
You can't say a noise is your friend, said Saab Boothrod, a British Columbia-based artist,
but it was a sound that resonated and it touched many people at the same time.
It brought us together like few things can.
For Boothrod, the time signal, a piece of auditory punctuation mark that has remained
a constant over the years, or was a punctuation mark, when she began selling a tea towel printed
with the long dash, they quickly became a bestseller.
I had no idea it was going to catch on, but it means a lot to a lot of Canadians, even those
outside the country.
It's something we can hang on to.
But in 2019, as the public broadcaster celebrated the anniversary, 80th anniversary of the time
signal, journalist Lawrence Wall, announcer of Time Signal in Ottawa, told the CBC he didn't
envision the network changing the signal or, heaven forbid, dropping it fully.
People still like to listen to it, and I still run into people who say, aren't you the guy
who does the time signal?
Not, aren't you the guy who does the news in Ottawa?
So it's that time signal that really resonates with them, and I think it always will.
Another broadcaster, Stefan Rukavina, posted that when he was asked to record the preamble,
the famous long dash line, I really felt like I'd made it.
Wow, that's somewhat of a low bar.
It was the broadcaster's gradual shift from over-the-air radio signals to satellite and
internet-based transmissions that marked the end of the time signal.
We share the nostalgia that many people have towards the daily time announcement, but Canadians
also depend on us for accurate information.
CBC spokesperson Emma Iannetta said in a statement, with all of the different distribution methods
we use today, we can no longer ensure that the time announcement can be accurate.
I'm not sure what changed, but okay.
In one instance, the CBC had to drop the 10 seconds of silence in the preamble to the
time signal because silence confused modern systems.
Yeah, that sounds like a problem with the modern systems, not with the time signal.
The NRC, which is not the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, it's some organization in Canada,
which I should know, they said the installation of digital radio transmitters in 2018 led to
a delay of up to nine seconds.
The NRC says cesium atomic clocks remain the world's best timekeepers.
A cesium fountain clock in the United States, NIST-F2, is accurate within one second over 300
million years.
Just a little asterisk to that.
I believe that's the kind of clock we have.
We have an atomic clock.
That's how it labels itself.
It's the only clock in the entire complex that does not have the right time.
And the reason for that is because it has to receive a time signal.
And that time signal comes from Colorado.
And you cannot receive that signal inside.
You can only receive it outside.
So it doesn't receive the signal.
And the clock gets basically slower and slower.
Not slower, but just it falls off by up to two minutes in a couple of months.
So literally, every month, we have to take that clock outside so it gets the signal and
stays accurate.
So that's not exactly what you would envision with an atomic clock being accurate within
one second over 300 million years.
Yeah, as long as we keep going outside and getting the signal from Colorado.
Well, that's not the clock.
That's a receiver.
In the clock.
Well, right.
But it's synced with a larger clock installation that is a scientific instrument.
That clock is accurate.
Yeah.
But I'm not going to drive out to Colorado to get the time.
Right.
You're talking about the device that the consumer has.
Oh, so you're saying the clock is NISTF2.
That's in Colorado.
No, it's not.
Wherever that happens to be.
That might be in the Naval Observatory.
Yeah.
We're going to get all kinds of corrections.
Well, and we have a network clock that is probably tuned to one of those cesium waterfall
clocks.
The network clock works well.
You know what?
I'm arguing against what I'm saying here.
I'm arguing for digital technology.
But it does work well.
Well, it's a different system.
And it's been well developed.
I mean, it's mature.
And it's used widely in switching and routing and networks that need it and rely on it.
You know what?
I like the digital system, but I also like the old system.
So bring the damn time signal back, please, CBC.
Boothroyd said the decision by CBC is puzzling, especially because most Canadians no longer
set their clocks by the signal.
Instead, the pause was a moment of respite in a busy day.
There's a beautiful heaviness to the time signal.
It makes us stop.
We need to stop.
And that's a good thing.
We're in a world that moves so fast.
Technology is the reason we don't have it anymore.
But I wonder, what is technology offering us to replace what we've lost?
Wow.
That was from The Guardian.
And boy, they really dive into a story when they start.
The Canadian time signal.
I'm going to try and find an audio recording of that so we can share that with listeners.
I don't know.
Has anybody ever heard this?
Oh, Alex, you're back.
Welcome back.
This is a really sweet story, I think, because it is something that generations of Canadians
have had as part of the background in their daily lives.
And it reminds me slightly of many years ago on this program, we spoke about the end of
we were speaking about historical clock network services that existed in this country, like
back in the 1930s, I think, or 50s or whatever, but it was the history of those early, like
basically subscription type services where a master company would have a connection to
clocks in like a school or an office building or something, and they would check the time
with like some sort of central device.
And I don't know if those were wired or wireless situations, but...
I remember that in my school, the clock would stop at two minutes two, and it would just
sit there for a minute, and then when that minute was through, it would jump ahead.
Did it do that for you?
I seem to remember something like this, yeah.
And there were lots of these old systems like still installed in buildings, but of course
the service that they would connect to no longer exists, and I think then you're just,
you know, you've got a regular clock.
But it's always a bit interesting when something that, even something that is so superseded by
modern technology still has to be switched off and come to an end like this, and I could
see why they miss it and want to, in some fashion, say goodbye.
I don't know.
I feel like we're just letting go of too many things just because we feel we have to move
on.
And, you know, we can move on and also hold on, right?
Yeah, but the modernization and the advantage of those newer transmitters basically disrupted
the accuracy of that older system.
So it has been sort of superseded in a way, and they're waxing poetic and celebrating its
history, but it's not really the best solution going forward.
Its purpose, there's so many other forms.
I think that's the other sort of line or theme and thread in the article.
I'm done.
Yeah.
Well, you know, I found the signal over on YouTube.
So yeah, we're on YouTube and we're playing YouTube.
So let's take a listen to what supposedly is the NRC time signal on CBC Radio 1.
It says off by one second.
Let's see what that means.
National Research Council official time signal.
The beginning of the long dash indicates exactly 10 o'clock Pacific Daylight Saving
Time.
Okay, I guess that was it.
That's the whole thing.
Wow.
I've never heard that.
I've never heard that.
And I guess now I never will.
So it's like pulse tones and then a bit of like a metronome tick and then that longer
tone.
Uh-huh.
It's interesting.
I can see that being comforting and very much reminds me of Top of the Hour when you're
watching BBC or listening to one of their channels.
They always, I think, cut to a time or it's part of their broadcast workflow.
They can activate it to cue time and people can then adjust their clocks accordingly and
reliably.
Ch-H-U.
That was the station I was thinking of.
That is a time state.
I don't know if it's still on the air.
I'll try to find it.
But I don't know if they stream, though.
And I don't know what, what freak, okay, wait, I just looked it up.
It's, um, it's at, uh, 3330 kilohertz, 7335 kilohertz, and 14670 kilohertz.
So if you have a shortwave radio, you can find that station and, um, and listen to it.
And I'm going to try and find it, see if it streams online.
But it would be kind of, uh, self-defeating streaming online because the time wouldn't
be accurate then.
That's true.
Um, really quickly, two, two things.
Number one, the, I found an article from the New York Times, uh, from March of 2002 saying
that at that time, AT&T was stopping billing for new 900 numbers.
And then they were stopping billing for existing 900 numbers at the end of 2002.
So I think that was, apparently Verizon was the only character, the only carrier for a
long time that was still charging for them.
So piece number one, they kind of hit a sharp decline about 20 years ago.
And also greetings to the 37 people who are currently hanging with us on YouTube.
Um, greetings, especially to our chat stalwarts.
We're always happy to have you here.
Um, thank you to Tim in Connecticut for letting us know that we're going to be
know that we sound good and thank you to everybody for the warm welcome back because we haven't
had the live chat in three weeks.
So happy you all are here.
Please feel free to share with us any questions you have, um, want to try something new.
And if there's a question you'd like to specifically ask any of us on the radio, please preface your
question with either the letters A-I-R or O-T-H.
Um, and let's see if we can do a better job of figuring out what needs to go to air.
So that's what we're going to try tonight.
And thanks everybody.
Yes, indeed.
And, uh, I understand we have a phone call, even though we didn't get off the phone number.
Is that right, Carl?
Yeah, we do have a phone call and they are still connected.
Uh, go easy though.
Cause that, that might be one of those.
It might be like a really spicy line by this point.
Cause they've been waiting a while.
Yeah, but we didn't ask people to call yet.
They're still there.
What do you want me to do?
Hang up?
I'll do that.
I'm just saying you can't be upset at us for taking a long time to pick up when we didn't
ask for calls yet.
So it's a courtesy that we're going to this line.
Just watch it.
Watch it.
Nobody knows the phone number.
Maybe we changed it.
Good evening.
You're on off the go for time.
Go ahead.
Hello.
Hi, how are you doing?
I'm Santiago from Madrid.
Sorry?
I have a friend from, uh, from Spain.
Oh, okay.
Santiago.
Uh-huh.
How are you doing?
The quality of this call, the quality of this call is not very good.
From time to time, I, I heard like a garblet instead of words.
So hopefully it will go okay.
Can you hear me well?
Yeah, we hear you fine.
Hopefully people on YouTube can hear.
If not, uh, tell us in the chat, but I'm, I'm pretty sure all the levels are good this
week.
Okay, cool.
Yes.
You, you, you were something very good, um, on YouTube.
It was just when I joined by phone, like 15 minutes ago.
And I'm not mad.
Uh, I'm grateful that you didn't hang out.
And yeah, that's, that's cool.
So I'm coming now to announce that the automatic transcripts of the, of the program, uh, finished
after 20 days.
And that I'm going to publish the website.
It is, uh, web 1.0 website.
So like all the school website and the domain is off the hook, but cc.
Off the hook.
Dot cc.
So what, what, what you've done is you've, you've, um, you've made transcripts of the
show for what period?
Since 1989 up until last month.
Oh my God.
How did you do that?
Okay.
Well, you know, I, I don't know how accurate they are, uh, but it, it, it should be interesting
to, uh, to, to see that.
Um, and, uh, find out, uh, very soon.
So it took like, uh, it, it did like 135 shows per day.
Um, the GPU was working a hundred percent.
So it was like full time for 20 days.
Um, yeah.
And you let me know how the quality it is.
Yeah.
No, I'm fascinated by the technology involved here.
Um, and it, it, you know, I'm, I'm sure we'll find some, some comical lapses, uh, because
that's inevitable, but, but the fact, the fact that it's something, it'll, it'll benefit
a lot of people that, uh, uh, well, people who can't hear it for one thing.
Um, but it should be interesting and maybe we can, uh, you know, offer corrections when,
when we have the time to do that, but that's an awful lot of shows out.
I can't believe it only took you a month to do this.
So, uh, you can, you can try to do the correction, but it will be like a lot of work.
So I think it's not worth it.
So let's see.
So I'm going to publish right now.
So it should be live now.
Okay.
Now, how does it, how does it work as far as identifying who's speaking or does it not
do that?
I'm sorry.
Can you repeat?
Does it identify?
I mean, I don't see how it could identify who is speaking.
Uh, yeah, it just gives, it just gives whatever words.
Future, future AI.
Maybe we'll be able to do that, but by now it's just like a long text.
Okay.
I want to see how it, how it handles Eric Adams speaking Spanish.
I want to see what it does there.
Well, it was like something very robotic.
And I was thinking if I received a drug call in that, talking like that, like a robot in
Spanish from a person that doesn't speak Spanish, I will laugh and I will hang up and not vote
for that person most probably.
So, I don't know.
Wow.
Well, this is a good example of what, uh, um, off the hook listeners, uh, can, can accomplish
when they just, uh, take on a project.
And, and we welcome that because, uh, it's, it's technological innovation and, and just,
um, uh, playing around with technology.
That's what we do.
That's what we, uh, always, always strive for.
And, uh, sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't, but that's how you learn.
That's how you move forward.
Yeah, that's amazing.
Yeah, indeed.
Indeed.
And if you want, I can tell you a bit more about this, this project.
Sure, go ahead.
What I did.
Go ahead.
So, first I tried the Google programmer search engine.
So, it's that, the thing that inserts Google onto your website and you can search using Google,
but it had a big promise.
So, it only indexes what it wants and when it wants.
So, I tried, I saw that it was not working.
It was very slow and so I decided to implement the search function on my web server and it's working fine.
So, uh, you can, you can search using quotes to search for a specific term.
So, for example, you can search for empire state in quotes and it will only show results about the building, for example.
And I also modified the creation date for the text files.
So, for the transcripts.
So, the idea is that the creation date for the files, it will match the date when the problem is failed.
So, you can search by date and order results by date.
Maybe you want to look to see the latest, the most recent matches.
And, yeah, I wrote some scripts to automatically download the MP3s and do the transcripts, update the website, and index everything.
And those scripts will run automatically on the second each month.
So, on the second each month, it will automatically process the previous month and the website will be automatically updated.
Let's see how it goes.
And, you know, I'm looking at offthehook.cc right now and just like the listener wrote to us, it's simple and it's, you know, it works.
And that's what a website should do.
And, yes, I like the look of it.
Cool.
So, yeah, I hope this will be useful to you and the listeners.
If Google decides to index more of this site, it can also attract new listeners, you know, people that search for a specific topic and find this site and discover offthehook.
So, I hope it will be useful.
Wow.
This is truly amazing.
That's great.
It's sort of a rough silhouette of what the conversation has been over time.
And I love that you just set up, like, batches.
And it sounds like you threw it all at, like, a graphics processing unit and just let it go and then checked up on it.
Was that a part of some of the scripting that you did for this?
So, yes.
But I did a specific script to first to download all the history, all the MP3s and process it.
And then I wrote another script that will also process, but it will do more things, like updating the website, indexing it, so you can use the search.
I just looked up the word elephant to see when that appeared.
And the show from actually this year, February 15th.
And the quote is this, I say negative all the time.
It brings everyone down.
Affirmative.
Affirmative.
I like affirmative.
It's much more positive.
What are some other differences?
There are no more elephants.
Oh, that's right.
And there is only one sort of dance, the robot.
No, the robot boogie as well.
Oh, true.
There are two dances.
Okay.
I don't know when we said this.
Now I have to find out.
This is, I think, where Rob and Gila had mentioned that this takes curation.
And as I said, a rough silhouette.
No, I like it like this.
Pretty hallucinating.
This will be fun.
As you can see, it's not perfect.
But I think it's got worse than most of the time.
Uh-huh.
Wow.
Yes, Rob.
I'm looking at this right now.
And it is, I can already tell I'm going to have a lot of fun with this.
You know, there are some pickups.
I'm getting some NGINX errors on recent years and things like that.
But I love that there is a text search because you can do things like, you know,
I wonder on what episode we talked about such and such a thing, put it in.
And then even if the transcript itself isn't perfect, we have a show date to then go into the audio archives
and find that episode and go back and have a listen.
And so I can see this being a very interesting tool for, you know, just researching things, you know,
seeing when things happened, historical stuff, when we had certain guests on, things like that.
Well, Rob, just to clarify, we do have summations of all the shows online on 2600.com.
But this is a transcript of the actual word spoken or supposedly.
So this, yeah, this could be like when we talked about elephants or whatever.
It'll be a lot more specific and particular.
Yeah, definitely.
So, yeah, this is a very interesting piece of work here.
And I think we all really appreciate that you went to all this trouble
and that you're putting it up here and everything for folks to use.
You're welcome.
I like the site.
Yes.
And can't wait to see what you do next.
You kept your word.
Yeah, you did.
You did what you said you were going to do.
Well, regarding next, I have some suggestions.
So talking about the Mastodon incident.
Yes, sure.
If there is a volunteer that can write the rules and guidelines and moderate the instance,
I can set up another Mastodon instance.
I already have one on my server, so I can set up another one for 2600 or whatever
and keep the software updated and so on.
But, yeah, there is someone to moderate.
Yeah, it sounds like a lot of work.
And I just want to make it clear that I do not begrudge the people that put in all the time.
I mean, I know it's a thankless job.
And I hope my critiques before were not seen as criticizing them unfairly or just basically
these are growing pains and I hope to be part of the discussion and make something better.
Yeah, it's good that you always have this last resort of setting up your own Mastodon incident
with your own rules or whatever.
So that's always an option and you can migrate your followers.
So you can migrate.
If you still have control of the previous account, you can migrate your followers to your new server.
So that's good.
Yeah, you know, we've done things like this so many times running our own bulletin board
that basically just, you know, thinking we can do a better job ourselves.
And it just drives us crazy.
It takes up so much time.
We have a tab open for spinning up all that it takes.
You know, the instructions are very good.
They're clear.
It's very similar to other things we've built before.
But we have a lot of projects and responsibilities as is.
So it is an option, though.
Wow.
All right, listen, it was great hearing from you.
Please stay in touch and we will definitely let you know if we see any issues with this
or have any suggestions.
No, sure.
You have an email to contact?
Yes, OTH at 2600.com.
No, I mean, sorry.
I mean that you have my email to contact me if you want.
Yes, we do.
It's right there.
Yeah, we might have some questions behind the scenes and we'll share what we find in
exploring the site.
But thank you very much.
And we'll definitely be in touch with what people get out of it.
And again, the URL for listeners, offthehook.cc.
And have fun.
Play around with that.
That's awesome.
Thank you again.
Okay.
That's all.
Take care.
Bye-bye.
Wow.
What people in Spain are getting up to?
Yes, Gila.
I did want to share a piece of information.
Thank you to listener MK on our YouTube chat who informs us that CHU's frequencies are now
3330, 7850, and 14670.
You sound like the guy on Radio Moscow announcing the frequencies.
There's no way to reward that, but it sounded really cool.
And Radio Free Moscow frequencies announce you.
They were never Radio Free Moscow.
It was always Radio Moscow, but yeah.
Wow.
Okay.
Well, as soon as I get the shortwave fired up, maybe somebody can send us an excerpt of
that because I don't think I'm going to get the shortwave fired up anytime soon.
But it was always a good signal.
CHU.
I remember hearing that.
It was always pleasant.
We have the antenna, but we've got to wait for a good thunderstorm to go put it up.
What?
You want to put it up in a thunderstorm?
Isn't that how you do it?
You get it like the good signal?
That's how you do it, but I don't think that's how you're supposed to do it.
Okay.
Okay.
So this is the story that I wanted to bounce off of, Alex, involving the Red Cross.
There's new guidelines that have been codified to govern the rules of engagement concerning
hacktivists involved in ongoing cyber warfare.
How about this?
Rules.
The International Committee of the Red Cross, known as the ICRC, the Humanitarian Protection
Organization responsible for promoting international law, has set out eight rules for hacktivists
and another four for states to discourage civilian involvement in cyber attacks against other
countries.
If you're a hacktivist out there, get your pen and paper ready because these are the rules.
The rate at which civilians are becoming involved in international conflicts has been described
as a worrying trend by the ICRC, a phenomenon exacerbated by the ongoing war in Ukraine, which
has seen for the first time conflict taking place in both the physical and digital space
concurrently.
That is the first time, but it's certainly one of the biggest times.
Specifically named by the ICRC was the IT Army of Ukraine.
Yes, they were named by the International Committee of the Red Cross, so their faces must be red.
The vigilante band of hacktivists that assembled early in the war using the telegram messaging
platform.
They are an example of civilians joining war efforts.
The group has since expanded to develop a service that invites anyone to donate computer power to launch
autonomous, disruptive attacks against Russian targets.
Now, one of the eight new rules surrounding hacktivism efforts explicitly prohibits activities such as this,
banning the use of autonomous attack methods and, by extension, historical examples like Stuxnet.
The same rule also prohibits the use of attacks that could spill over and disrupt systems away from the intended target.
Now, while the attack on Naviasat, which took place just an hour before the war in Ukraine officially began,
that wasn't listed as an example.
It serves as one of the most recent cases of these kinds of spillover attacks.
In the weeks that followed, satellite internet users throughout Europe reported issues and the effects
even disrupted wind farms in neighboring countries.
The Nat Petya worm of 2017 also presents an infamous historical example of cyberattacks,
the effects of which spill over and affect targets beyond their intended reach.
And then, okay, well, anyway, let's get into the list of rules that apply to civilian online attackers.
So you're a civilian online attacker, write these down or record this.
Number one, do not direct cyberattacks against civilian objects.
Number two, do not use malware or other tools or techniques that spread automatically and damage military objectives
and civilian objects indiscriminately.
These are good rules for anyone involved in a conflict, I think.
Three, when planning a cyberattack against a military objective,
do everything feasible to avoid or minimize the effects your operation may have on civilians.
Number four, do not conduct any cyberoperation against medical and humanitarian facilities.
Do not conduct any cyberattack against objects indispensable to the survival of the population
or that can release dangerous forces.
That was number five.
Number six, do not make threats of violence to spread terror among the civilian population.
Always a good rule.
Number seven, do not incite violations of international humanitarian law.
And number eight, comply with these rules even if the enemy does not.
So many of these rules echo the unspoken code of conduct that's generally understood to be in place
in the cybersecurity world that attacks should not harm civilians or target hospitals, charities,
and similar organizations.
They're generally understood in most cases, and even the most prolific ransomware groups
have shown glimpses that they abide by a moral code.
I'm going to say that again because it does sound silly.
The most prolific ransomware groups have shown glimpses that they abide by a moral code.
However, some cybercriminals still operate without such restrictions.
The ICRC said the three main concerns born out of the rise in civilian engagement and digital
warfare include increased risk to civilian harm due to the increased number of attacks
targeting civilian objects, the risk of civilians exposing themselves to military operations,
and the fact the line increasingly blurs between who is a civilian and who is a combatant.
All right, just to finish up here, rules for states.
The ICRC has also drawn up rules for countries themselves in an effort to dissuade them from
tolerating hacktivist activity.
I should point out that neither the U.S., Russia, nor China are part of the International
Criminal Court, so they pretty much do as they please.
The four rules are, number one, if civilian hackers act under the instruction, direction,
or control of a state, that state is internationally legally responsible for any conduct of those
individuals that is inconsistent with the state's international legal obligations, including
international humanitarian law.
Number two, states must not encourage civilians or groups to act in violation of international
humanitarian law.
Number three, states have a due diligence obligation to prevent international humanitarian law violations
by civilian hackers on their territory.
And finally, number four, states have an obligation to prosecute war crimes and take measures necessary
to suppress other IHL violations.
What do you think, Alex?
Rules for hacktivists.
I think they're kind of interesting.
Just put them in early.
Can you guys hear me okay?
Because I'm using a new set of earbuds.
We actually hear you better than we did before.
Oh, okay.
This might be the best you've ever sounded, in fact.
Oh, that's news to me.
Well, okay, but with respect to these rules, I think the subtext of all of them is essentially
don't be an idiot.
That's really what it's all about here is don't do things that are going to have unintended
consequences and hurt innocent people.
And that's generally accepted in any kind of conflict, as you had mentioned, Emmanuel.
So I think that it's interesting that they're codified.
It's good to see them in writing.
You can point to them and reference them, I guess, if you need to.
But really, that seems to me to be a lot of common sense.
I guess the main fear here, though, is that people who are acting without a lot of common
sense could end up creating some kind of cascading cyber event.
That's certainly what happened with Nopetcha.
And by the way, that it started with Russia in Ukraine and then traveled all around the
world, creating massive amounts of damage.
And the intention behind that particular piece of malware seemed to be actually destruction.
It wasn't ransom.
It wasn't extortion.
It was actually the destruction of data.
So that's, I think, a great example of people just doing really bad, idiotic things with these
types of systems.
But then it can really blur the line between what's a military target and what's a civilian
target.
And by crossing these bounds, civilians could be bringing unto themselves and to their neighbors
and neighborhoods perhaps some kind of kinetic response that the rest of the community did
not necessarily sign up for.
And that, I think, is a big problem.
So I welcome these types of codifications, even if they do really just codify common sense.
Yeah, I think the most that we can hope for is that they're simply guidelines that people
out there try their best to follow.
But it's unrealistic to expect everybody to be on their best behavior while they're engaged
in hacker warfare or whatever the term is.
Yeah, and the tactics that are used, I think, by our own militaries or in the case of Ukraine
and some of these conflicts, in many cases, they're going to have strictures around a lot
of that and try to control and heavily control exactly what they're doing and when.
And I think these are, like Alex said, guidelines mainly, I think, as common sense, but also
to identify when people are out of those bounds, whether they're doing it commercially or for
fun or for ideological purpose and as part of an action or as part of a group.
Say, like, you are involved in some stuff and a group wants to do some big automated thing
that, that might be a flag.
That might be something that you then maybe say, okay, this could get out of hand.
They don't really have a handle on how they're using this.
But on the other side of that, I'm also really aware of the idea of dissuading people from
doing anything at all because the concept of people getting together and doing things collectively
in a digital forum is quite scary to nation states because as much as we might build up
the scariness of governments, I mean, private individuals, private entities, the masses themselves
have most of the actual power.
We're just not fundamentally organized in the same way as a government or a state or a military
actor.
And that's a huge fear.
So that, that beginning of the article is, to me, says a lot about the anxiety here that
what if people got organized or what if people were engaged in this activity and it was against
us or it was against other people?
I mean, look at all the people in the streets now.
What if that was, was organized and, and tied to one of, one of these actions?
It goes both ways is basically what I'm saying.
So it, it is, um, I think, think of like domestic politics that like, if, if people were organized
and, and activated, they could be incredibly disruptive, but the, um, the platforms we like
just obsess over and talking and just wallow in are meant essentially to keep us sort of contained
in different universes and in ways that don't actually, um, have us, uh, asserting our rights
and asserting what, what, uh, our grievances are in, in various ways.
And that, that, that in, in a lot of ways is, man, I mean, I, your imagination could run wild
thinking of, of how powerful that is.
And it makes you realize just, um, just how important it is to, um, to not feel powerless.
They want actively people to not be engaging in this, certainly not against their, the,
the regimes and the actions that their government, um, uh, uh, engages in that they might disagree
with.
So domestically, this is, you'd never would want this domestically, but then of course,
when it comes to strategic interests, it's, it's like, you know, let's go by, by these
rules and, uh, we'll turn a blind eye.
We don't care.
And so I think I just have a lot of different feelings about what this is saying and what
the anxieties here are, what the motivations are to put this out.
This is, again, this is a UN agency, the ICRC is, uh, the international criminal court.
So they're kind of, um, observing the trends and putting this out there.
And as was stated, like big players like Russia and the U S and China are not signatories in
the first place.
Well, this was put out by the international committee, the red cross.
Oh, I thought it was, I see, I believe they're affiliated.
Oh, I see RC.
Yeah.
And it's, um, okay.
An arm, not the criminal court, but it is, uh, um, also is, it would be nice if we joined
up, we'd know more about it.
I think it's, I think it's separate from the UN.
I misspoke.
It's just, it's shameful that we're not a part of that, but whatever.
We, we should be signatories and, and so forth.
And so fifth and the like, et cetera, uh, phone lines open.
Okay.
Eight zero.
If we haven't given out the phone number yet, eight zero two, three, two, one, four,
two, two, five, eight Oh two, three, two, one hack.
Uh, by the way, I found CHU.
I'm not sure what this is going to sound like.
I don't have a audition button here, but, uh, let's see what CHU sounds like.
According to YouTube.
One more minute.
One more minute.
Okay, I think we get the idea.
I used to listen to that all the time.
I was pretty bored.
But it was a good strong signal from Canada,
and it just sounded cool.
Has anyone else ever heard that?
Not me.
Rob, you're shaking your head.
It's radio.
Rob, you're not making any noise.
Oh, wait a second.
No, I have you up.
You're muting.
Oh, wait.
No, I did have the button pushed.
I'm sorry.
Sorry, Rob.
Go ahead.
Soldier man.
I mute me.
No, I could see how that could be a very reassuring noise.
But also, it reminds me of the previous episode of the show,
which I listened to, though I wasn't on.
You talked about the alert tones,
the alert tone test that everyone got on their mobile phones.
Yes.
Which is the modern equivalent to,
which is one modern equivalent to what we used to have back in the days of my youth,
which was the emergency broadcast system.
Now it's the emergency alert system,
but they were the emergency broadcast system tones,
which we would get on television every so often.
And it's just, you know, it was just a beep,
but it's like a nostalgic thing to think back on.
Also, things like the off-the-air tones and color bar screens
that we used to get on television stations at night
after they stopped broadcasting live material.
And it was just one of those things
which existed in everyone's sort of broadcast environment,
and you never really paid much attention to it.
But it's interesting to think about now that it's gone.
You know, yeah, what you say is so true.
I miss TV stations that sign off the air.
That might sound nasty,
but when you look at what's actually being broadcast
at three in the morning, it's crap.
Nobody's watching it.
It's just garbage.
And having either a test pattern or static,
which opens up the frequency to more distant stations,
that was fun.
And as a kid, I would turn on my TV and I would find stations.
I'd found stations here on Long Island.
I found stations in Boston.
Some days I'd get stations in Philadelphia.
Once I even got a station all the way from Kansas.
It was amazing.
Same thing with radio.
You can still do that on AM radio, by the way.
At night, you can hear distant stations.
But it was particularly interesting with television
because all of a sudden you were opened up to this world.
And it depended on the atmospheric conditions.
Sometimes you would get things from far away.
Other times you would not.
But it doesn't exist anymore.
It's all digital now.
You either get the station or you don't.
There's no middle ground.
There's no distant station that you can maybe hear
Rod Serling doing a Twilight Zone in another city
or something like that.
But it's just one of many parts of magic that people don't get to experience.
And I really feel bad about that.
There was a time more recently when I was doing some work
at a television station in the city.
And I was in the control room, the broadcast control room.
And those color bar screens, which many of us remember seeing overnight,
those color bar screens are still used to send test signals
internally into screens in the station when you're switching things back and forth.
And being faced with that image on a TV screen again,
I suddenly felt like I was seeing an old friend for the first time in decades.
It was a really just warm and fuzzy experience.
Yeah, yeah.
You know, I used to collect TV guides back then.
This was back in the early 70s.
And it was just such mystery involved with the stations you couldn't get
because it would list all the stations in New York City.
And I was out on the island, so I was never able to see Channel 25
or Channel 31 or Channel 41 or 47.
So when I visited a relative in the city
and was able to see those stations for the first time,
it was like meeting some kind of fantasy creature.
And nobody else could really appreciate that then either, I think.
And nobody can appreciate that now, unfortunately.
But, you know, I still have some of those issues.
I still look back fondly on them and see weird program listings.
For instance, Channel 31 would sign on every day at noon
with a program called Police Commissioner.
And it was a film.
It was always the same film, too.
It was meant for cops who were being trained
and how they should behave.
And, you know, they had this cop who was sloppy.
His shirt wasn't tucked in.
And he got a reprimand and then he improved
and he got a compliment every day at noon.
And I would see the listing, you know, in my TV guide.
Police Commissioner, what is that?
And finally, when I was in the city, I was able to see it.
And, boy, that was really something.
Now that station, Giuliani destroyed that station, by the way.
He sold it to the PAX network and it just has crap on it now all the time.
But it used to be owned by New York City.
And it was fascinating.
Anyway, big tangent there.
Lots of bits of old technology that really had magic attached to it.
And it's a shame that we just toss it aside.
You know, I'm not saying don't embrace new technology.
We should embrace that, of course.
But let's not throw out the old technology because we can always learn something from it.
We can always experiment with it.
We can always play with it.
And it's our history.
It's part of what we are all about.
We have another phone call?
I hear it ringing.
Let me bring this up.
And good evening.
You're on Off the Hook Overtime.
Go ahead.
Hey.
I just wanted to mention how the AI of Mayor Adams.
It sounded like the AI who learned English as a second language.
I'm a Spanish speaker.
Okay.
It's a second review that it wasn't great.
It was horrible.
I mean, it's, you know, I mean, if they're going to be, huh?
Like stilted sounding?
Yeah, stilted sounding.
I mean, it literally sounded like someone who was not a native speaker.
Almost, you know, not as bad as Bloomberg.
But, okay, so, you know, maybe there's a level where you program the AI to make me sound crappy
or make me sound fluent.
And maybe Mayor Adams, to his credit, said, you know what?
I don't want to sound too polished.
I want to sound kind of dumb.
No, unless they meant to do that.
Yeah, because I found it like, you know, why would I listen to this?
If you're going to do it that way.
Maybe like preoccupied with how bad it was and not actually the message.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
I wonder who else we'll be getting calls from, you know?
Can you imagine getting a call from Trump speaking Mandarin?
Wow.
Wow.
Now you're curious.
Now you want the technology to move ahead.
You want to hear that.
We all want to hear that.
Oh, boy.
Okay.
Anything else, caller?
No, that's about it.
Alex, did you have something for the caller?
Yeah, I did.
I wanted to ask the caller, since he's a native Spanish speaker.
Now, could you assume for a second, or imagine for a second, that you didn't know that that was an AI and you received that call?
And you thought it was that even though it was a recording, you thought it was Mayor Adams speaking Spanish, even if it was stilted.
But would you have connected with him in some way because he was making the effort?
I mean, if I thought it was Mayor Adams, you know, I would at least give him credit for attempting it.
I mean, I guess I could guess the thing about Bloomberg attempting.
But if I knew if it were an AI doing the same thing, and I would feel like, you know, either, you know, not fully using the AI as it could be used.
I mean, if you could make it sound like a native speaker or something.
I mean, that's what it's a template.
Yeah, but I mean, I think the whole issue we had, too, was that there was nothing, there was no preface, there was no warning that this was an AI.
So if you heard this and you said, oh, wow, you know, he really, he can speak and understand Spanish.
There's these complicated sentences coming out of his mouth.
And, you know, that would be somewhat impressive, right?
I mean, the way it was used, yeah.
I mean, I guess since you guys were talking about it, I wanted to see what it would sound like.
So it was, you know, it sounded more silly than anything else being in the AI program.
But if I had no idea what it was or, you know, if, you know, I would think that, you know, Mayor Bloomberg, I mean, Adams knows some Spanish.
Yeah, and that's the misleading part of that.
Yeah.
And that you reinforced my conclusion there, that I think there was some kind of, that I do think there is an ethical issue to use of AI without any kind of warning.
Yeah, I mean, I don't have a problem with people doing AI stuff like that, but it would be, you know, be better if, you know, there were like some kind of, like a message or a warning or something.
This is an AI product or this is an AI interpretation or something.
Well, I'll bet some agency will get involved and mandate that there has to be a warning on any robocall phone calls that have foreign languages programmed.
Yeah, maybe there'll be a rule that comes from Mastodon.
I'm even thinking someone will coin a phrase and we'll start using a term, some made up word that describes the phenomena and it will become common in vernacular.
I don't know what the word is, but there'll be a term for it.
You know, lots of times people with technology and things that are kind of abstract, we make up some way of identifying or labeling.
We'll say that that's something, you know, it's this kind of thing, you know, how every political ad you hear always has a tag at the end saying paid for by friends of so-and-so that'll be required.
Or even like those medicine ads where those like, where you have the, the, the warnings, like this thing is going to be the best thing for your life, but it may kill you.
Yeah, side effects include death and decay and all, and then they show people having the time of their lives running around, you know, in the field with a dog and all that.
And they're talking about all the ways they could die from taking the medication that they're advertising.
Yeah, special.
All right, well, thank you so much for, for calling.
You're welcome.
All right, take care.
Bye-bye.
How, Kyle, how is your arm?
I mean, I don't know if I could pitch right now.
No, maybe, maybe this is what pitchers feel like after they pitch a game.
That's why they have to wait three or four days.
Wow.
I wouldn't want to be a pitcher then.
That's, that's something.
Not bad though.
I can, I can press the button to answer phone calls.
If this is the only price to pay for, for being protected against the, the, you know, full wrath of COVID and the flu and for me shingles.
I just amazed that we have these like medicines that can do all this crazy stuff.
There's so much, it's just magical.
It's pretty amazing.
Yes.
I didn't finish my sentence.
Oh yeah, I interrupted.
It would be worth it.
Just in case people thought maybe I would say the opposite.
Yes, Gila.
Before we take the next caller, because I can hear the phone ringing.
Um, I did want to share a really fabulous discussion that's been going on, on the live chat.
Everybody's talking to each other.
Where are they?
What time is it where they are?
And it turns out that we have a listener in Nigeria who's listening to a few people in a senior citizen's home in Nigeria.
Oh my goodness.
And I just thought that was very cool and wanted to share that.
Wait, does this mean Nigerian senior citizens listen to us?
Because that could be a whole untapped market.
Um, okay.
They are now.
Apparently so.
So if our listener in Nigeria could let us know if you were like listening with your colleagues in a senior citizen's home in Nigeria, or if you are listening with a group of Nigerian senior citizens, um, clarity would be an amazing thing.
But, um, yeah, we got people in Spain and the UK and Australia, um, but nobody from the United States, our own country has forsaken us.
It's always the way.
Um, but yes, this is a fabulous listener chat community we have going on, which is, I think, kind of what we hoped would happen when we opened up the chat.
So glad all 38 of you are with us and that's, that's what I got.
We'll have to look up for, uh, look, uh, for more stories from that continent.
I've always wanted to go to Nigeria, Nigeria and Kenya are two countries I really want to go to in that region.
So that's, that is, uh, that is something.
Um, okay.
So, uh, 802-321-4225 is our telephone number.
802-321-HACK.
Uh, only on for a couple more minutes.
In fact, oh my God, it's nine o'clock already.
So, um, yeah, we'll take one more phone call.
How about that?
So it's a race now to get to the phones.
Uh, whoever wants to speak last, it's not going to be for very long, whoever calls.
So, uh, if you have a speech ready, save it for next week because, um, uh, we, we are getting,
uh, tired and cranky.
I know I am.
My arm hurts.
Yes.
And we understand, uh, people have to have supper.
Is that people have supper?
Yeah, they're stirring their, their stew right now, listening to us.
We had dinner here, but we have supper apparently.
I, I made that up.
Um, also our listeners who are in, uh, people were, uh, took umbrage that you're saying
that we didn't have listeners in the U.S.
Um, we've got folks in the Bay area, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, and thank you, Queens, New York.
You were not the only one.
They really took umbrage at an obviously, uh, uh, a sarcastic remark.
Wow.
That's just typical of Americans.
Now they're really going to take umbrage.
Umbrage away.
I like making enemies wherever I go.
I just, that's what, that's a hobby of mine.
Slow down.
Can we just give you a sticker that says content warning?
No, I think it's, I think it's the pain in my arm that's just making me more obnoxious.
I really believe that.
We have a phone call?
Um, yes, there's a call on the line.
Okay, good evening.
You're on off talk over time.
Hi.
It's Eleanor Elizabeth Foreman calling in.
Oh my goodness, I remember you.
It's been a while.
Yeah, well, there's a reason I wasn't allowed to be on the air, and this apparently counts also.
So, you're not allowed to be?
Wait, what kind of rule is that?
Uh, fair campaigns provisions.
Oh, because you're part of the BAI board or something like that?
That's right, that's right.
You're following the rules.
Yes, I got, uh, I got re-elected.
Oh, congratulations.
We still have the champagne downstairs.
We should, uh, get, get, uh, open up a bottle of the bubbly.
Uh, that's great.
Good, good news.
Thank you.
Um, when I, I was trying to,
put a Spanish language, uh, version of my candidate statement on,
and I, I never succeeded in actually getting it posted,
but I, I used Google Translate,
and I put at the top of it, uh,
an apology that I was using Google Translate,
you know, so I apologize for, you know,
it's not being very good.
Now, you see, this, this would meet our qualifications.
This would meet our qualifications for, uh, having a, uh,
a disclaimer, uh, admitting what you're doing,
which is what we're saying Eric Adams should have.
Yes.
So, um, I did that, and I, I got opinions from people.
Some people said, um,
even if it's bad, uh,
people will like that you tried.
And some people said,
this doesn't say what you wanted to say,
so you shouldn't use it.
But, uh, somehow, the, it never actually got posted,
even though I complained to the NES that it wasn't posted.
So all of my efforts were in vain.
But had it been posted,
it would have been clear that I hadn't done the translation myself.
Okay, so I think, uh, you're setting the bar here
that others should look to when they do something like this,
whether it's using AI or using Google Translate,
always tell people what you did.
Yeah.
Uh, and, you know, otherwise it would be embarrassing.
They're making mistakes in my name.
Uh-huh.
Uh, I believe at the beginning of the show
you were saying something about the,
the COVID shots being plentiful.
They are not.
Really?
I've had difficulty trying to make an appointment,
and I had to make an appointment at a place
I've never been before,
and then I didn't manage to be able to get there at the time,
and I'm going to have to try again.
But apparently, there is a shortage,
and it's a challenge.
Um, well, I don't know,
I don't know if this will apply in your area,
and we're not on, on the radio now,
so we can, we can give out brand names.
Uh, but, uh, we went to CVS,
CVS.com,
and, um, if you have an account that makes it easier.
Oh, that's what I, that's what I was using.
Well, then maybe, maybe, uh,
changing the branch or something,
because the, the, the one that we chose,
it had, it had so many options.
It was insane,
and you could do it at night,
you could do it in the morning.
Uh, it was almost, uh, um, uh,
embarrassing how much they had.
Lucky you, not me.
Well, no, I'm saying, you know,
it, it should work anywhere, uh,
when there's a CVS, if that's,
you know, I assume they get it from the same place,
and maybe the one you're trying,
uh, is, uh,
it just doesn't get good supply,
or maybe there's a lot of people there.
Well, the, I, the human being I got to help me,
uh, told me that they're,
they're, it's a small initial supply,
and so there are difficulties,
because they don't have enough.
Well, you know.
We're, we're getting two different messages.
Well, you're, well, you're in, uh,
New York City, I believe, right?
Correct.
Yeah, there's more people there
than on Long Island, where we did it,
uh, so it might involve going to,
to a less populated place,
maybe like Westchester or something.
I don't know if that's possible for you,
but, uh, that would probably be a lot easier
to, to get the vaccine.
But I'm sure they're going to have it at some point,
if you just, uh, you know, uh,
get yourself on.
At some point.
I want to get it before I get sick again.
Uh-huh.
Smart.
I have a hacker's problem,
hacker question for you.
Uh-oh.
For all of you.
Um,
the WBAI elections,
if you look at the,
at the bottom of the first round,
it tells you how many, uh,
votes were tallied in the first round
and how many abstentions there were.
Uh-huh.
And then there's the, uh,
national election supervisor's chart
saying how many people voted.
And they don't add up.
There's a discrepancy of five votes
that the NES says there were
that, uh, election buddies did not count
in the listener election
and two votes in the, um,
staff one.
Uh-huh.
And another, uh,
discrepancy at KPFK.
And I'm wondering,
what do we do with,
you know,
if there's missing votes
that weren't counted
and they could affect the, um,
if not the people who won,
maybe the,
the runners up
that, uh,
might get tapped later on,
how do we find out what happened?
Well, you're,
you're an elected official now,
can't you?
Ha!
Uh, I,
I believe there's a link
to look at the raw data,
but that's only the ones
that they actually counted.
How do I get a hold
of the ones that weren't counted?
That's what I need to know.
I have not a clue.
Well, is,
is there an election supervisor
you could contact?
Ha!
Ha!
Ha!
The election supervisor
said everything's dandy
and her job is over now.
Okay.
And she even had an auto,
she had an automated reply
to emails,
uh,
saying that
and giving a link
to go to
for all the election data
and the link
had a typo in it.
Well, um,
what I would suggest,
and I,
I really don't know
the,
the facts here,
but,
uh,
I,
I know Pacifica WBAI
has a,
has a million mailing lists.
If you just pick one of them
and get at least one other person
interested in this,
at least,
Oh, I've been emailing.
Okay, but,
but don't take it all on yourself
is my advice.
Get other people interested
and,
you know,
if nobody's interested,
then,
uh,
you know,
pick your battles,
I guess,
but maybe other people
will get interested.
You can at least try
with,
with the mailing lists,
but just be specific
as to,
as to what your concerns are.
If I,
um,
forward my emails to you,
might you get interested?
Uh,
I stay away from these things
like the plague
because they just,
they,
they just envelop.
I mean,
you know this,
you've seen it,
what,
what,
what it does to people
is just,
um,
but,
you know,
we will continue to offer
advice and support here
and,
um,
hopefully,
um,
we get answers.
I hope.
All right.
We got to go
because it's,
it's after nine
and it's good hearing
from you again,
though.
Glad you're well.
Thank you.
And,
uh,
are there any of the
other people,
uh,
with you who might be
interested in figuring
out what happened
to the missing five votes?
Uh,
what's that,
Alex?
You're jumping up and down.
What's going on?
No.
Oh,
you're just jumping up and down.
If only I had the time.
If only I had the time.
Okay.
Well,
that's not a no,
that's not a no.
Okay.
So we just have to make time
for Alex somehow.
Um,
all right,
we'll figure out how to do that.
Um,
yeah,
but you know,
uh,
just,
uh,
keep it a topic of conversation
and,
uh,
somebody with the access,
if it is an issue,
uh,
will hopefully,
hopefully,
uh,
take an interest.
All right,
good luck with the,
uh,
with the shot.
Keep trying.
Uh,
I guarantee you will find something soon
if you just keep trying.
Thank you.
All right,
take care.
And that's going to just about
do it for us here tonight.
Any,
any final words from,
uh,
from the folks over in,
in Skype land?
Um,
Oh my goodness.
So,
uh,
people are talking about transporters
and portable trans translation devices,
which is fantastic.
Um,
thank you again to all of you
on the chat for joining in with us
this evening.
Um,
and yeah,
everybody stay healthy
and get your shots,
please.
Yes,
Alex.
I,
I,
I,
I think it would be interesting
to just hear,
uh,
an hour of radio.
But it was co-hosted
by Rebel
and Eleanor.
Okay,
well,
you know,
I'm sure they could do some fill-ins
or something.
They'll bomb us right off the air.
They'll,
they'll replace us with that
for sure.
I'm being serious too.
I think that would be wonderful.
Well,
I know you're being serious.
You have no sense of humor.
So you,
you definitely,
that's exactly right.
When you say these things.
So I think it's ridiculous
and maybe it is ridiculous,
but it's not a joke.
So,
uh,
don't think that.
There you go.
All right.
You can write to us
O-T-H
at
2,600.com.
We would be happy
to hear from you.
And,
uh,
again,
uh,
no,
uh,
content warning necessary.
Just,
uh,
just spit it all out
and we'll,
we'll process.
We'll be back again
next week,
I believe.
And,
um,
if all goes well,
next week for overtime
in addition,
we will,
um,
talk to you then.
Oh,
by the way,
I should point this out too.
This was our first,
um,
last week was our first time
ever,
uh,
doing a delivery
of a new issue,
uh,
digitally.
Uh,
we,
we had released previous issues
as back issues,
but this was the first time
subscribers,
digital subscribers,
PDF,
and EPUB
were able to get it
en masse
and it worked.
this is something
that we've been trying
to develop for,
for over a decade.
And,
uh,
thanks to the efforts
of,
of Greg Newby
and others,
we actually,
um,
uh,
we're able to come up
with a very unique system
that,
that works quite well.
Uh,
more details on 2600.com.
Uh,
it's,
um,
it became necessary
when Amazon decided
to stop supporting magazines
and really,
um,
uh,
hurt a lot of smaller,
uh,
zines out there.
So,
uh,
hopefully this is a way
to,
to,
uh,
fight back
and to,
uh,
survive.
We'll see.
All right.
Uh,
we will,
um,
see you in a week.
Good night.