The telephone keeps ringing, so I ripped it off the wall. 
I cut myself while shaving, now I can't make a call. 
We couldn't get much worse, but if they could, they would. 
You know what, we all know how it goes. 
We're going to cut off the theme a little bit early because we're running behind. 
Because guess what, the radio station changed its IP apparently. 
And they didn't tell us, so we were connected to nothing for a while. 
But we're connected, we figured the whole thing out. 
Here we are, Emanuel here, Kyle over there. 
And out in Skype line, we have Rob T. 
Firefly. 
We have, I forgot you, Alex. 
Yes, it's I. 
And Gila. 
Everybody's here, right? 
Everybody say hi at once so we can save time. 
Hi. 
Oh, my God. 
Okay, and Kyle, is everything okay? 
Everyone figuring it all out. 
I'm okay, how are you? 
I'm not asking how you are. 
I care how you are. 
I'm glad you asked. 
I'm asking how our connection is. 
Just live in the dream. 
Apologies to everybody because that was, yeah, unfortunate. 
But we got through it. 
We got through it. 
It reminds me of the early days when we were connecting remotely. 
And there was a lot of yelling back and forth and people running around. 
But we've grown since then. 
Yeah, okay. 
So here we are, another edition of Off the Hook. 
We're on until 8 o'clock, so we're going to have to speed things up just a little bit. 
So big news, big news this week. 
I'm sure everybody has heard that Julian Assange, in I guess a move nobody really saw coming, at least not right now, he was freed from prison. 
He is currently in Australia. 
And what's amazing is that on this very show, we were talking about that months ago. 
Enough is enough. 
He's basically been in prison, been holed up in an embassy, been on the run for such a long time. 
Whether you believe that he was completely innocent or whether he was the devil personified, everybody should be able to agree that he has suffered enough and this has to stop. 
And Alex, I know that you've even written an upcoming column that pretty much outlined almost exactly what happened yesterday, two days ago. 
Anything you care to add? 
I do, yeah. 
I mean, it's... 
You've got to speak up a little bit, though. 
You're very low for some reason. 
Oh, sorry. 
Is this any better? 
Yeah, much better. 
Okay, all right. 
So, I'll just... 
And by the way, I'm coming to you guys from London. 
So, I'm here at the Chelsea Arts Club in London. 
Well, don't look for Julian Assange there. 
He's no longer in the UK. 
No, he's no longer in London. 
He's no longer... 
I think the Ecuadorian embassy was in Knightsbridge, if I recall correctly. 
Oh, no, it was in London. 
No, it was in London. 
Knightsbridge is in London. 
Okay. 
Well, I don't know why you're being particular about where in London it is. 
But, yeah, he wasn't in a prison in London. 
I'm sorry? 
Very close to one of the, you know, really exclusive department stores. 
Okay, well, I'm glad people know this now. 
But let's talk about your insight into all this. 
Well, my insight into all this, I have to say, I think I called it. 
I think I really called it. 
Months ago, I wrote that the United States, if they wanted to prosecute Julian Assange, the best way forward would be to drop all of the charges, just maintain one of the charges. 
But here's the difference between what I had called and what had actually happened. 
I said that all of the charges should be dropped except for one of the, what we would consider to be the hacking charge. 
Yeah, computer fraud abuse act nonsense where Julian Assange was charged with a conspiracy to access a federally protected computer by essentially trying to crack a hash, right, a rainbow table, by utilizing a rainbow table to try to crack a hash of a Department of Defense computer. 
And what had happened here in this particular plea agreement was very, very similar. 
But I think in a lot of ways, I think we still have a lot of danger in what has happened with respect to Assange because he had pleaded to a conspiracy to access protected information, classified information, and distribute that. 
So that information, so when I had argued that the United States should drop all the charges except one, I said, well, the point behind dropping all these charges was to protect journalistic integrity, to protect the First Amendment, because a lot of the media organizations, even go back to a couple of years ago, CNN and elsewhere it said, you know, even Fox, Jake Taper and all these places, saying this was a really big problem. 
If Julian Assange was charged with some kind of crime, then this would have been a big problem for all of us because anybody that's reporting on national security-related issues could also be charged with this particular crime. 
So, insofar as we see Julian Assange being freed and this is all being a great thing, there's still a great danger here. 
There's still a great danger here. 
I don't think that we should discount that whatsoever. 
So, I had suggested in my article that will be coming out in various publications, things, that the United States government should have charged him with that single hacking charge, as we would know. 
There's a big difference now, because what Julian Assange had pleaded to was a charge to acquiring classified information, or a conspiracy to acquire classified information, and then distribute it. 
And so, the implications of the First Amendment are still there, and that's scary. 
That's a very, very bad situation, I think. 
Even though it isn't precedent-setting, because Julian Assange had actually, he had pleaded to this type of thing. 
It wasn't something that, there wasn't a trial, this wasn't a judicial decision, this was a plea agreement. 
That's what I wanted to ask you, the fact that he pleaded guilty to it instead of being found guilty of it, does that make it a little more palatable as far as possible abuses of journalistic rights down the road? 
The fact that he said, okay, yes, I'm guilty of this, then we don't have to detail what it is about something that could apply to all kinds of other journalists that would also make them subject to this. 
Is that possible that him doing that prevented that from happening? 
Well, it has a limited precedential effect because he pleaded to this particular case. 
If he had gone to trial, and especially if this was something that was on appeal, and there was some kind of judicial decision at that point, then it would have had far greater precedential effect. 
But I think that the whole idea that he pleaded to this particular charge that he was fighting against from the outset is going to embolden the Department of Justice to try this on again later on. 
You know, we're still dealing with a charge that has to deal with, at its roots, the collection of information that deals with journalism. 
This is exactly the type of thing that journalists do, especially in the national security context. 
So, you know, if you're a journalist that reports on, I don't know, road closures or, you know, whatever, and anything other than national security issues, this is not really going to be a problem. 
But if you're a journalist that is an investigative journalist that might have some reasonable likelihood of crossing over with classified information from the United States government, this is still scary. 
This is still bad. 
And in the article that I had written that will come out in a publication that I think we all read if we're listening to this particular show, what I had argued was that what should remain, if the United States government wants to prosecute Assange and wants to go forward, what should remain is the single hacking charge, the conspiracy to try to access a computer. 
Because if you drop everything else, it stops that threat to the First Amendment. 
Because I think what we still have here is a threat to journalistic integrity. 
We still have some kind of threat to the techniques and the maneuvers that journalists engage in. 
On a day-to-day basis, when you're engaged in any kind of national security reporting, that's really scary for journalists. 
So I see this as a win for Assange, but not necessarily as a win for the First Amendment or a win for journalism itself. 
I see a point. 
And you believed he should have been charged under some sort of hacking offense instead, where he was trying to crack some kind of code or something like that. 
But the problem I had with that was that there wasn't really clear evidence that he actually did that or did anything other than being on the phone. 
But, you know, at this point, does that really matter? 
Would that have been a better approach? 
Or was this simply the easiest way out? 
No, I think it would have been a much better approach, much better approach. 
I think the evidence was there. 
I think there was a lot of evidence that indicated that Assange and Chelsea Manning had engaged in some kind of conspiratorial activity to try to crack a password for a DOD-related computer. 
He mentioned, I think, quite specifically the use of rainbow tables. 
And, you know, for our rainbow – I'm sorry, for our listeners that don't know what a rainbow table is, it's like a reverse hash, right? 
So when you create a hash of a password, it's a one-way cryptographic function. 
It creates this long string of numbers and letters. 
Rainbow hash is – I'm sorry, rainbow table is just this long list of pre-created hashes that you're going to try to match against in order to crack a password. 
So it's a way to reverse a password from a hash. 
And doing that, if you're a quote-unquote journalist, arguably crosses the line. 
So I think that there was an out for the federal government. 
There was an out for the federal government to say, this is what Julian Assange did, and it was wrong. 
He crossed the line between being a journalist and a conspirator to some kind of endeavor to access federally protected computers. 
That's pretty clear. 
But when you make the charge to which he pleaded about the access and the distribution of classified information, you're still implicating journalism itself. 
That's what's scary to me. 
And so I don't see – I don't think that we should consider this as this massive win for the hacker culture, for journalism, for free speech. 
No. 
It's not. 
I don't think it is. 
No, at this point, at least to me, the primary issue was getting him out of there. 
He's done enough. 
He's done enough whether you think it's good or bad. 
There's certainly a lot of people who never forgave him for his role in getting Trump into office. 
But no matter how you felt about him, he's a human being and has suffered enough and deserves to live his life in peace now and hopefully some quiet and hopefully just be with his family and friends and enough of this. 
There are plenty of battles to fight and there are plenty of people to fight them, so I imagine this will be extended into all kinds of new characters. 
But I'm curious, you know, the way this played out, maybe you have some insight into this as well. 
Why did they have to go to the northern Mariana Islands, a territory of the United States, which very few of us know anything about? 
Well, what was that all about? 
When he said he'd never set foot on U.S. 
soil, he was fighting that. 
So what happened? 
Yeah, and to go back to the premises that you just mentioned, I think you're right, I totally agree as well that Assange had suffered enough. 
And that was one of the things that I had written about was that we should think about this from the standpoint of proportionality. 
This is a guy who published information and had suffered for so many years and held in such harsh conditions that his release should universally be seen as something good. 
But I think that we should not lose sight of the fact that the United States government, the DOJ, had an opportunity to have Assange plead to a different type of charge that would not have implicated journalism. 
Itself, and the manners by which journalists collect information, especially with respect to national security-related reporting and information and investigative journalism, and that's still imperiled by this. 
It very much is. 
But to go back to your question, why did he go to this crazy place, right? 
I mean, the north Mariana in Saipan, right? 
So he's on his way back to Australia. 
That was why. 
So apparently there is some kind of federal district court jurisdiction by which a federal court judge could bind the United States and Julian Assange while he's on his way to Australia if he makes a stopover. 
So it's interesting. 
It shows you the reach of the United States when it comes to jurisdiction and where we have certain types of infrastructure and operations. 
But the other thing about this is, and I stress this very much, is that Assange and his supporters had announced all of this while he was leaving the United Kingdom before any kind of deal was struck, before any kind of judge had signed off on any kind of deal with the United States government and the Department of Justice. 
That was a really, really risky endeavor because these kinds of plea agreements, especially when it comes to celebrity defendants and very high-profile defendants like this that are going to foreign countries and being essentially categorized as having served all of their time. 
That's a really tricky and very, very delicate type of agreement that is struck between a defendant and the United States government. 
So I think a lot of these supporters of Assange who started banging on Twitter or X, whatever the hell you want to call it these days, about how badly he was treated and how long he was there, all of this could have changed the outcome. 
This was a really, I think, delicate and tricky type of situation to be sequenced, especially when you're talking about judges in Saipan that may not have a huge track record when it comes to decisions that are of this priority with the United States. 
Yeah, Alex, what you're pointing out is I think it's a very interesting aspect, and it probably was an area of planning this and staging it logistically to have those assurances and guarantees because part of limiting free movement and the kinds of detainment and the kinds of detainment and the kinds of detainment that Julian had been under were exactly the kind of concerns you might expect in him moving at all after so much of that, that the kinds of extrajudicial activities and that very reach you're talking about were the types of things that he would report on and himself talk about as far as far as the risks of revealing high-level secrets. 
So I think that was a guarantee, or that's a very interesting observation in terms of the guarantee, and it's for such an unusual ruling to have had that, and it speaks to, I think, sort of the level at which this was worked out. 
Someone somewhere that was trustworthy made it very clear that this was going to be a path back home for him. 
You know, I hope you're right about that. 
I really do, because these types of agreements between the government and the defendant, they're very often, you know, a judge will sign off on them very often, but they're very delicate, and a judge can interject in whatever way he wants, he or she wants, if he doesn't think an agreement is correct or appropriate or comports, let's say, with, you know, traditional values of that particular country. 
So this was really, really delicate, and I think that the pro-Assange camp really got ahead of themselves when they saw him leaving the United Kingdom and making all these kinds of statements on Twitter, it could have affected the outcome, depending upon what that particular judge in Saipan had for breakfast. 
Yeah, but, you know, Julian Assange's reporters aren't very good at keeping secrets. 
So I think that's what this is all boiled around, you know, is that's the issue here. 
Yeah, and I think the government of Australia itself, as a nation, played a big part in guaranteeing some of that. 
So he wouldn't appear on the mainland, he refused, absolutely, even with the plea deal, he refused to appear in court on the mainland, and apparently they were not able to force him to do that, and that's why he wound up in the, is that the furthest territory of the United States? 
As close to Australia as he could possibly get. 
Okay. 
I think it might be, it's very, very close to Guam, right? 
I mean, it's kind of off the coast of Guam and whatnot. 
It's on the way. 
Yeah, I don't understand any of that. 
There are all these little islands out there that apparently they have, you know, U.S. 
license plates. 
You know, come to think of it, I guess I've never seen a license plate from Guam. 
Where would I? 
How would I? 
I'd have to be there to see it, or they'd have to fly their car all the way over here. 
It's part of our commonwealth. 
Or you could just buy one on eBay. 
Well, okay, whatever. 
So, that explains why he went there. 
But did you know his flight cost $520,000? 
Wow. 
What airline was that? 
Apparently, it was paid for by the Australian government, and they are raising funds to pay the Australian government back. 
But, wow. 
Okay, so I guess that was a private jet or something. 
Yeah, it was some kind of chartered flight, and it also seemed like there were reporters and whatnot that were on the flight taking pictures of him while he was leaving. 
Well, they should chip in, for sure. 
They should, they really should, because their publication is going to make a considerable amount of all of those, a considerable amount of royalties on the basis of all of the pictures of Julian wistfully looking out the window while his flight took off. 
I have to say, he looks pretty good. 
I was afraid of what he had been through, being in prison for so long, and possibly abused. 
I had no idea. 
But he looked healthy. 
No, he didn't look in bad shape at all. 
No, and hopefully he is. 
Hopefully, mentally, he's gotten through this. 
And I look forward to a bunch of books. 
I really do. 
And hopefully he gets to tell his story. 
Well, I think he did look great. 
I do. 
Obviously, we're talking about Julian Assange here, right? 
We haven't heard the last of him. 
He's getting out. 
His plea deal is being inked. 
We're going to hear from him, I think, momentarily. 
But I really do think, and I think it's not – I think we have to stress this over and over and over again, but that Assange was charged with a crime that really implicates journalism in the United States. 
And that can affect WBAI, that can affect Reuters, that can affect the AP. 
And I think that there are very much too few media organizations reporting on that aspect of it. 
There were so many organizations that reported on the charging of Julian Assange and how that could implicate journalism because it implicated the manners and the methodologies by which journalists, especially national security journalists, talk with and interact with sources. 
But this plea agreement is really not good for any of that. 
And I think it's going to have a long-term knockoff effect on how journalism is conducted in the United States. 
This is not a great – this shouldn't be seen, in my opinion, as a great win. 
I think it's great that we have Julian Assange out of Belmar's prison in the United Kingdom. 
But this is not a win for the First Amendment. 
This is not a win for journalism. 
This is not a win for free speech. 
He pleaded to this charge. 
And I'm not saying he should not have pleaded to this charge because of his conditions and whatnot. 
But this may be the type of plea that would embolden an administration like the Trump administration that has pronounced its enemies as the mainstream media to go after anybody that would report on national security-related incidents. 
Careful what you say there. 
They're coming for you. 
I'm curious, Alex, is the degree to which precedent is set different if it is met out in a trial and he would be found also guilty had it gone to trial? 
Does that have a different weight because there's been sort of the Tetris of moving through the logic and the kinds of different statutes on down through the charges sort of thing? 
Versus just pleading? 
Yeah, it absolutely does. 
When you take a plea agreement, there are very limited avenues for appeal. 
And so your plea agreement is generally limited to your particular case. 
So the precedential value of this from a common law standpoint, in the sense of other judges relying on this plea agreement as evidence or as an indication that this is what the law is, is limited. 
However, there's a different type of precedential value that we often don't think about. 
And that's the precedential value that this type of plea agreement has to embolden the Department of Justice to go after others that have, in their eyes, committed similar types of offenses. 
And what would those defenses be? 
Those defenses would be disclosing or publishing or reporting on classified information that relates to the United States government. 
That's what we're talking about here. 
Is it a foregone conclusion that they're really still interested in pursuing that and carving out that aspect of this particular law and its use with journalists? 
Like, they're going to immediately try to fill that kind of logic or that ideology, their legal strategy sooner rather than later? 
Or is it just sort of on the shelf then? 
And you think it's just making it an opportunity for parties motivated to work with that and pursue it to a deeper level? 
Well, that's an interesting issue, I think. 
And I don't know the answer to that, but I think that the reasonable answer would be that what has happened with Assange has indicated to the Department of Justice that these types of plea agreements are certainly possible. 
And that they can occur again in the future. 
I would imagine that an administration like the Trump administration, should it come into power in the future, would try to capitalize on this type of precedent. 
I think any administration would, actually, in all fairness. 
I think any administration wants this kind of power and control. 
Well, the question, I guess, at this point is, how do you fight a plea deal that everybody has agreed to? 
How does, say, the ACLU or somebody take the Justice Department to court and say, this is not right, we don't want this to happen to people? 
You can't. 
You can't. 
This is a private agreement between the Department of Justice and the defendant itself. 
Well, I know for this case it's impossible, but I'm saying for the future, to keep this from becoming a precedent, is there any kind of step that can be taken? 
No, I mean, everything's on a case-by-case basis here, right? 
So everything is very, very, very much case-specific. 
So I don't think there really is, but I think there is a very real fear that either kind of – and I think you're right about this, Emmanuel. 
If you look back to the Obama administration, it's not like they were really friendly, anybody that was leaking classified information or reporting on classified information. 
Yeah, and you know what? 
The Bernie Sanders administration wouldn't be friendly either. 
Any administration. 
It's the office. 
It's where people are in government. 
It'll never happen. 
You'll never have an administration that is seeing the First Amendment as the best thing ever. 
They will always be trying to get more control and get more precedence. 
Does that beget more or less leaks, though, right? 
Well, I don't know. 
I think, you know, leaks are something that are going to continue. 
Hey, we saw one today, sort of. 
We saw that Supreme Court filing that wasn't meant to be filed. 
It wasn't really a leak, but they put it on the webpage by accident, and everybody grabbed it and reported on it. 
I mean, another regime or possibly a future regime of our own, that could be illegal. 
That could be something that people get prosecuted for. 
Who knows? 
So the mentality of telling the truth, of getting the news out there, that's what's important. 
I found it interesting watching the media coverage of this. 
Nobody mentioned the rainbow tables or anything like that. 
They kept showing the video. 
They kept showing the video of U.S. 
military killing journalists that was leaked way back, that started all this. 
And it made it seem like that was the crime. 
And I guess to many people, that was the crime, to tell that secret and to not protect the killers. 
But actually, that, to me, was the most heroic act that was possible back then, is to reveal that information. 
And I should point out the people who were behind that, were behind the killings, never got punished. 
I don't think they even got named. 
I might be wrong about that. 
But it's just weird how the media goes to that and says, this is what he was in prison for. 
And that's what it was all about, when there was a lot more than that as well. 
But it's something we'll be talking about for ages. 
But, you know, in Australia, there's, you know how we're very divided here, as far as, you know, one side versus another side. 
It's something that's going on around the world. 
We see it everywhere, you know, factions and sides and propaganda and political leanings and things like that. 
Let me read you what David Shoebridge, a Greens senator from Sydney, from the Green Party. 
Basically, he said that Mr. 
Hassan should never have been in jail for the crime of telling the truth. 
Now, let's counter that with the conservative rural lawmaker, Barnaby Joyce, who says, you ready for this? 
Okay. 
I was very happy to hear that an Australian citizen who never committed a crime in Australia, was not a citizen of the United States, was never charged in the United Kingdom, is coming home. 
They said the same thing. 
They agree with each other on this. 
Yeah. 
Maybe there's a lesson there. 
I don't know. 
I don't know if we can do that here. 
Yeah, Alex, go ahead. 
There is. 
And I think this even has implications to the Virgil Griffith case, too. 
There are this notion of the extraterritoriality of the United States' laws, the application of U.S. 
laws outside of its borders, and what the reach of those laws are, is really a controversial subject. 
Can we prosecute foreign nationals for the violation of U.S. 
laws if they're not U.S. 
citizens? 
And they had no idea what those laws were. 
And that's what's happening, I think, in Virgil's case with Christopher Ems, who was also an indicted co-conspirator in Virgil's case when it comes to the transfer of knowledge over to North Korea. 
Many of our listeners are quite familiar with Virgil's case and what's going on there. 
But it's this extraterritorial application of U.S. 
laws that I think really rubs a lot of foreign lawmakers and foreign legislators and foreign countries in general in the wrong way because it seems very much like we are acting as the global policeman here, and our laws are the only ones that should matter. 
Well, I think that's a perfect example just in how the details and a lot of the different subject matter in Julian Assange's story kind of get hijacked by some of what the media ran with early on. 
So that's a great point. 
I know you have the other stories to go on. 
Well, I just wanted to mention a couple of things about the history that we're about to be hit with this week with the debate coming up on Thursday. 
Any thoughts on this? 
Because, you know, it's the earliest presidential debate ever, June, instead of October. 
And it's really turning into a big deal as far as what we're going to learn, find out, see how people compose themselves, see what they, you know, how they put sentences together, if they're paying any attention to what's going on, if they're qualified. 
Not that it's going to change the minds of people who are steadfast in their opinions, but what I noticed, and maybe people don't realize this, it's a CNN debate, right, on Thursday. 
It's on every channel. 
It's not just on CNN. 
It's on every damn news channel. 
It's on Fox. 
It's on MSNBC. 
It's even on Newsmax. 
It's on every broadcast station in New York City, every network station it is. 
It's on PBS. 
It's on C-SPAN, of course. 
I've never seen a debate on so many channels at once. 
This is really history that's hitting us here, and I'm not really sure what to expect. 
Any thoughts? 
Rob Gillow, you haven't said anything tonight, so maybe from you. 
I thought we were still talking about Assange. 
I kind of checked out mentally. 
The debate situation is interesting in all the ways that it's different from previous debates. 
I look forward to the edited highlights and the creative remixes and so on. 
But I don't know. 
I do remain dubious as to whether it will actually change any minds. 
I think all the minds that there are to be made up about the coming election have already done, because, as you mentioned, we are a strictly divided nation at this point. 
The line between the quote-unquote sides is very sort of indelible, and I don't know that anyone is ready to be enlightened in either direction. 
And I think the fact that people have indicated their lack of willingness to work with the commission this year. 
I mean, I do feel like going into 2020, we kind of all got debated out. 
So the fact that there may not be as many this year, I think, can only be a good thing. 
I think also the fact that the Republican nominating contest was something of a joke this year. 
We shouldn't have the presumptive nominees yet. 
We shouldn't, like, no. 
So I'm fascinated by what's going to be happening. 
And at the same time, though, I am – it's weird, yes, Emmanuel, it's very weird that this thing that's being broadcast or put together by CNN is being broadcast so widely. 
But at the same time, I'm glad. 
Because of the balkanization of the media landscape and, you know, where the town halls and where the debates have been happening and what people have been able to see and subscribe to, I think the more people who get to watch it happen live, probably the better. 
Not that I want to, but, again, the more available it becomes, the better, honestly. 
Well, I agree with that. 
It's just – it's bizarre. 
And as a broadcaster, I'm fascinated by something of this nature. 
For instance, you know, if you're watching Fox, is the CNN logo going to be there the whole time? 
You know, is CNN just going to be basically everywhere that night? 
Are they paying for this? 
Or is CNN just trying to get it out to as many people as possible? 
Well, usually, you know, if there's a debate and it's on Fox, it's only on Fox. 
And you can use excerpts of it later. 
But this, it's live. 
It's on Channel 2. 
It's on Channel 4. 
It's on Channel 5. 
It's on, you know, all the network channels, even Channel 13. 
I've never seen anything like this. 
It's probably a different agreement. 
If they're hosting it, they'll host it like they're hosting any other event in that venue that is their broadcasting headquarters. 
And they'll have their own graphics, but probably have available signals from that place in Atlanta to everywhere in the world that wants it, that are free of their particular graphics. 
And then it'll be able to be widely distributed. 
I'm curious about the graphics. 
Will, you know, Fox say liar under Joe Biden when they disagree with something he says or try and influence their viewers one way or another, it just seems kind of hard to believe they're just going to have CNN take over their channel for 90 minutes, you know, just for the debate. 
But it's going to be fascinating to see a little bit of history here, no matter how you feel about the whole political scene in general. 
Alex, do you have anything on this? 
Because we're going to move to one more story tonight. 
I think it is very historical. 
It's going to be extraordinarily interesting to watch this and, God, you know, there's just so much riding on it. 
Yeah, you might have some trouble in England, though. 
I'm not sure if it's being broadcast there. 
I'm sure it is somewhere. 
I'm sure it is. 
Yeah, I mean, England's got its own issues at the moment. 
So even if they don't broadcast it, I think America, we can deal with our own issues. 
Well, I like how in the UK the election is on July 4th and that's it. 
You know, it was called a couple of weeks ago and it's going to be over July 4th. 
We've been at this now for years and it never seems to end. 
Well, but it's a weird thing, too, to think that a general election or the formation of a government for one of, I think, the world's powers can just be called at will. 
You know, it's not a set date at any time. 
You know, these general elections are, you know, they're called within a certain time frame, but they're called whenever party in power wants them. 
Yeah, within five years it has to happen, I believe, is how it works there. 
Not a bad system, but interesting. 
Okay, one more thing that we wanted to mention tonight has to do with a special place in Seattle that we just found out is not going to be around much longer. 
Kyle, since you're from Seattle, maybe you can tell us something about this. 
This is a sad story. 
It really is. 
It really is. 
I'm tired of sad stories about things going away. 
It's true. 
And, yeah, the article's from GeekWire. 
It is, the title is, Seattle's Living Computers Museum Logs Off for Good as Paul Allen Estate Will Auction Vintage Items. 
I'll forgive them for the logs off for good in the headline because you really can't avoid that. 
I get it. 
Well, that is probably what caught everyone's eye when they got this news today. 
Well, you know, I just remember going to this place, and it was just such an amazing, spacious area where you could walk through. 
And I remember going to a PDP-10 and actually seeing the same prompts that I saw in high school. 
And I was able to play with the emulator, and just, it was incredible, the hands-on. 
Why? 
Why, Kyle? 
Why does this have to go away? 
Why does it have to? 
First of all, it's been closed since COVID. 
I didn't know that. 
But why can't it continue? 
That is a question that a lot of people are asking in the side conversations around this tragic news. 
A lot of hackers, a lot of dedicated people worked at this place and kept them going in retirement. 
These were living, working machines that never stopped. 
They found homes and were restored, refurbished, and running. 
And it was able to be a, as they describe it, hands-on showcase for rare computing technology and interactive displays. 
And they were really interactive. 
One of my favorite ones, I think a lot of people used as a conversation piece, was the recreations of different rooms, like the arcade room, and different things that people would describe from their childhood of a certain age as their introduction to computer and game systems. 
But, Emmanuel, you might be interested to know that that was not just any PDP-10. 
That was the first computer that both Allen and Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates first used when founding Microsoft. 
And that is part of what is being auctioned. 
So, yes. 
Auctioned? 
Are they going to auction this off? 
I mean, people won't be able to access it if some rich dude somewhere buys it and sticks it in his house? 
That is part of the question in this. 
It was confirmed that the 12-year-old museum is closed for good. 
The museum website and social media accounts were taken down Tuesday. 
What, this Tuesday? 
Yesterday? 
Yeah, this is a recent story. 
Yeah, absolutely. 
It was opened in 2012 in Seattle's Soto neighborhood, five years after Allen's company purchased a Toad 1 system from XKL Systems. 
The museum expanded in 2016 with a first-floor exhibit as well as a hands-on computer science learning lab, and it grew to become the largest collection of fully restored and usable supercomputers, mainframes, and mini-computers for that time. 
But, unfortunately, in 2020, like a lot of places, they had trouble because they were a cultural institution running as a museum. 
They did have the backing of Allen's endeavors and wealth. 
However, there was less of the public available during the pandemic. 
Well, they were closed. 
How can the public support them if they're closed? 
Obviously, that's going to happen, but they have so much support, so much money behind them. 
That is one of the things that is being discussed, that it is very poor planning in the sort of legacy of this place. 
It could have been operated in a way that sustained it, but, alas, here we are. 
It is not going forward. 
Do you put soft dollars behind this? 
Yes. 
Before Paul Allen's death in 2018, it had the backing of a lot of his, not philanthropic, but just general investments and whimsical interests of exceedingly wealthy tech titans. 
It's not like them to make bad decisions. 
It was not conceived with the long-term sustainment in mind, and I think that's something that people will talk a little bit more about. 
There is some good news, and we only have a minute, so tell us the good news. 
Well, this stuff will be available, and hopefully people, they'll find good homes once again. 
There are lots of good museums and so forth, but there were some really cool exhibits, in addition to the 1980s and the classroom, the gaming arcades that I talked about, where people could go and interact in those eras and do a little time travel. 
There was a remote vintage system that has been transferred to SDF.org. 
They had a lot of volunteers that helped out there. 
And who are SDF? 
The Super Dimension Fortress is a free software community. 
They exist providing remote access machines, and you can actually get a shell account there. 
You can find out more about them, but they will continue those machines that were available. 
They were basically simulations of machines, of computers and operating systems that people could actually play with and access, running old programs and that kind of stuff. 
That will exist under their care. 
And the museum was called, again? 
The Living Computers Museum. 
Of Seattle. 
Wow. 
Sad news. 
But hopefully something comes out of that, and people learn to preserve what really matters. 
Hey, we're out of time. 
Write to us, OTH at 2600.com. 
We're going to continue the conversation over on YouTube. 
Go to youtube.com slash channel 2600. 
You'll find us there. 
And back here next week. 
Good night. 
  Hey, and welcome everybody on YouTube here for Off the Hook Overtime. 
Kyle, did you make it okay? 
Looks like you did. 
Welcome. 
Oh, thank you. 
Thank you very much. 
I feel welcome. 
Rob, you okay? 
You make it okay? 
Welcome, welcome. 
Gila, you there too? 
We are indeed. 
And you're monitoring YouTube? 
Make sure we're actually on YouTube? 
Yes, for me. 
We are actually on YouTube. 
Okay. 
And things are good. 
Welcome to the 22 people who are with us so far. 
Wow, okay. 
And Alex, look at you. 
Wow. 
Over there in London. 
I'm here, but briefly. 
I think I'm going to have to say goodnight because I have to get up so early to catch this flight to New York tomorrow. 
Are you coming back? 
Why are you coming back? 
I don't mean to sound so disappointed, but I'm just, you know, you just got there. 
Why, you know, I'll stay there for a while. 
Well, I have been here for a little while. 
You know, I got here Saturday afternoon and then, but I mean, why do I go, why am I going back? 
I mean, it is a lovely place. 
I have a wife and children in New York. 
Well, I know that, but they could join you there. 
You see, it's hot here right now. 
It's a heat wave. 
Actually, the heat wave will be over on Friday, I believe. 
So that's when I... 
It's pretty hot here too. 
Is it? 
It is. 
Okay. 
All right. 
All right. 
A couple of days. 
And, you know, the British have no idea how to deal with heat. 
A lot of places don't have air conditioning. 
Well, I don't know about that. 
I mean, they just deal with it in a different way. 
We put air conditions everywhere and by subway, for instance, by air conditioning everything in the subway, we make the subway platforms that much hotter, whereas in England, it's a bit more average. 
You know, the trains are hot and the platforms are hot, but the platforms aren't as hot as they are in New York. 
I guess, you know, if you want to just change the subject of all this to be about sublight or two temperatures, that'd be totally fine. 
No, we can change the subject of two refrigerators because you'll notice if you travel that everyone has smaller refrigerators than we do. 
We have to have these mega refrigerators. 
Some of them are huge. 
They have two doors on them. 
It's insane the amount of food that we shovel into those things and into ourselves. 
If you go to someone's house in the UK or in Europe, you'll notice that it's, you know, it's something you could pick up. 
The refrigerators are small and it's what they need. 
You know, it doesn't waste as much energy. 
I don't know why I'm so impassioned about this, but it just, you know, irks me. 
Well, yes. 
Refrigerators are definitely smaller here. 
Food portions are smaller. 
And, and therefore people, people are somewhat smaller. 
I wonder if you get stuck now, I'm not saying this happens in the underground, but is it any cool, is it average temperature if you're stuck in the summer commuting somewhere or do they just not have, what do you mean stuck? 
Well, I mean, in an emergency, if something happens, they have to stop and people are in a confined space, it's preferable to have that air conditioning. 
Well, you can open the windows on the, on the tube. 
I'm pretty sure you can. 
That's right. 
They do. 
They, they have a lot of like breeze. 
Yeah. 
And, you know, people pretty much take matters into their own hands. 
They'll, they'll climb out of the things and make their own way if they have to. 
Oh, I see. 
And like, just go for like the exit stairwell. 
Yeah. 
But now, you know, in New York, they discourage even walking between cars now, you know, how else do you get from one car to another? 
That's, that's how you're supposed to do it. 
So wait, wait, wait, but there. 
I have one more question. 
I'm sorry. 
Oh, you, you wait until the car stops. 
No. 
Why would you do that? 
You want to move now when the train is like hurtling through the stations. 
That's true New Yorker. 
If you can do that, you know, I've seen blind people do it. 
I've seen people with no legs do it. 
I'm not kidding. 
New Yorkers can do these things if, if, you know, we're allowed to do these things. 
I think those have windows as well, those doors, but I think the newer trains may have different climate control, but also they're, um, the open design. 
So you don't have to go through doors. 
You know, I've yet to see that. 
I know, I know they're bringing those trains in. 
You talk about the trains with the, um, uh, that you could roll a bowling ball down and go the whole length of the train. 
Um, which I do intend to do. 
Um, but I haven't seen that yet. 
I think it's on the A-line. 
If it's more than one test, I know there's one test train. 
I think they're going to attain more than one. 
Well, we've run out of things to say. 
Oh, uh, Gila, go ahead. 
We saw it. 
You did. 
You saw that train. 
We, we weren't on it, but we saw it. 
We were, we were at Penn station and we're waiting for our train. 
And another train on that platform went by and it was one of the open design cars. 
And I said, good Lord, if someone pees in the corner of that car, the whole train is going to smell. 
You were waiting for an E-train. 
Were you not? 
Yes. 
See, I can tell things about people just by the tiniest of details. 
All right. 
And it was a C-train that had the open design. 
It was a C-train. 
I thought it was the A-train. 
Oh, wow. 
Okay. 
They may have expanded. 
I didn't know that. 
It was not a, it was a C-train that had the open design that went by. 
And I said, yikes, but it wasn't going to take us home. 
So. 
No, but it would take you on a magical tour someplace. 
That's, uh, that's the, that's what the subway does. 
That's true. 
There, there are bound to be a, a lot of strategies for beating the heat. 
So maybe we need a segment of like heat hacks or something. 
Well, I'll tell you one way you beat the heat is you don't warm up the planet, you know, and, uh, you, you take steps to, uh, stop global warming. 
You, you, you take it seriously. 
You elect people that will take it seriously and maybe do something about it. 
Sure. 
Maybe it's too late for us and our generation and even our kids and grandkids, but beyond that, hopefully there'll be more humans and they, they might live to benefit from our, you know, um, our caring and our knowledge and our, our foresight, which the previous generations failed so miserably at. 
Okay. 
I'm listening. 
Yes, Alex. 
Um, I, I will, I will share with our, our listeners some, some bit of, um, earth science that I had learned from the Sopranos of all places. 
You learned earth science in the Sopranos that involved burying people? 
Well, not, not about, well, maybe about burying perhaps, but, um, this was one of the Sopranos episodes when, when Tony was shot and he's in the hospital and it was very metaphysical. 
And who shot him? 
Well, Uncle Junior. 
Uncle Junior. 
Uncle Junior shot him. 
I mean, you know, who else would shoot Tony Sopranos except his Uncle Junior? 
The guy who played Uncle Junior, by the way, is a great singer. 
Yes. 
Yeah. 
I know. 
Is he still alive? 
Yes. 
He is. 
That's incredible because he was old back then and that was before 2000. 
Yes. 
Why? 
Yes. 
I got to show you. 
Huh. 
Yes. 
That Mediterranean diet, man, that's, that's what does it. 
Well, we don't, we don't know what he eats, but, um, we, we can assume a lot, I think. 
Anyway, you were talking about earth science and the Sopranos. 
Yes. 
So one of my, one of my favorite lessons of earth science was learned from the Sopranos episode when, when Tony was, um, in the hospital and, um, Carmela, his wife had bought him some kind of book from the hospital. 
There, there weren't too many books available. 
So she said to him something like, well, I know you like books about science and dinosaurs and things. 
So here's, here's a book about that. 
And then a few scenes later, he's reading something from, from this science book that his wife has gotten him while he's recovering from a gunshot wound from his uncle jr, as you aptly pointed out, Emmanuel. 
And he said, kind of almost as some kind of revelation to all these gangsters, all these North Jersey gangsters. 
He said, you know, um, if you were to create a timeline of the history of the planet earth, it was to be as long, you know, that timeline would be as long as the empire state building, right? 
Because earth has been around, you know, 4 billion something years, right? 
It's a long time. 
It's really, really been around for a while. 
So if you were to create this timeline, and if the timeline was as long as the empire state building, the time during which human beings have been on that planet, on the planet earth, would be a postage size stamp on that timeline at the end, at the very, very tippy top of the empire state building. 
Well, the stamp could be anywhere. 
It doesn't have to be at the top. 
It could be at the bottom. 
But yeah. 
It could be at the top. 
You know, but we're still here is the point is that the timeline is still going on, right? 
We don't know how long, for how long we're going to be here. 
But the timeline for which humans have been on this planet is tiny, tiny. 
That's the postage size stamp relative to the empire state building. 
So for us to consider that we're always going to be here, or that we have some kind of claim or dominion over this property, over this planet, is ridiculous. 
When you think about postage size stamp of being over the rest of the empire state building. 
Well, I think, you know, you got to point the finger at the empire state building, too, because, you know, it's presumptuous of that empire state building representing the entire history of the earth to assume that we're going to be interested in sticking around much longer. 
You know, we're a tiny postage size stamp. 
Look how much we've done in that little brief amount of time. 
We're going to get bored with this place. 
We're going to move on to the Chrysler building or some other building and explore them all. 
You know, we're going to move around. 
We're not going to stay put. 
That's one way of looking at it. 
Yes, yeah. 
The other way of looking at it is that perhaps this postage size stamp of being at the end of the empire state building's timeline here would be something akin to a common cold that the planet will just shake off. 
That we're some kind of virus that's here. 
Look at the damage we've done in that postage size stamp of being. 
Will you stop saying postage size? 
Just say stamp. 
We all know what a stamp is. 
Why? 
When do you use stamps that aren't postage size? 
Who does that? 
Stamps that aren't postage size. 
I mean, I don't know. 
Yeah, but when? 
When do you use them? 
Show me a stamp that's not a postage stamp. 
I, in a lot of my correspondence, I use stamps that are not postage stamps. 
You're talking about stamping rejected on somebody's application or something? 
Is that the kind of stamp? 
Okay. 
I've got a lot of just regular stamps that I like to use that make my correspondence in physical paper. 
Okay, well, bring one next time. 
I'm calling you a bluff on this. 
I want to see these stamps. 
I have tons of stamps that I use. 
Why is this upsetting me so much? 
I don't know why I'm getting so angry at this. 
But it's just, I guess, hearing the phrase postage size stamp a dozen times in the course of five minutes just set me off. 
I apologize. 
Well, if you don't understand stamps, I guess that would... 
I understand stamps fine. 
Thank you very much. 
I used to collect them when I was a kid before I lost them. 
Well, those are postage stamps. 
So you would have... 
And you know what? 
They were all different sizes. 
They were all postage stamps. 
So even your description here falls apart because different countries have different sized stamps. 
So what do you say to that? 
Well, it's all relative. 
So, you know, it's relative. 
You can take the average size stamp. 
We're talking about the history of the human race. 
What do you mean it's all relative? 
Are we a tiny stamp or a big stamp? 
We don't know. 
Tiny stamp. 
That's the whole thing. 
Are there any big stamps? 
You know, I actually... 
I use stamps. 
I don't know why this is coming up. 
I mean, I'm not, like, crazy about them or anything, but I am familiar with the variety they tend to have, and it isn't a very accurate unit of measurement. 
No, it's not. 
You know what? 
Because you don't have to go to other countries to find stamp sizes that are large. 
Sometimes they have sort of, like, commemorative ones that are a different shape than you're like, well, that term you were using for a particular type of stamp that we're conjuring up that's more square. 
You can say it, Kyle. 
When you say it, it doesn't bother me as much when you say it. 
When Alex says it so many times in such a brief period of time, I don't know what it is. 
It just sets me off. 
But, look, Alex, I'm trying to help here. 
What if you just said quarter instead? 
Because that's not going to change the size. 
You know, that's going to be... 
Or a pound. 
Well, I guess people here don't know what a pound coin is like. 
But something that isn't of different sizes. 
Wouldn't that be better? 
Okay. 
The point is that we've got... 
You mean a unit of measurement? 
A unit of measurement, too. 
That's a good idea. 
Like an inch or six inches or something like that. 
Okay. 
Like, do they have... 
They still have rulers. 
You know, remember those things that they're made out of wood? 
And you get whacked with them by the teacher sometimes? 
How is this hacking heat with nihilism? 
It's the heat hacking us. 
Don't you see? 
We all have heat stroke, and we can't escape. 
We can't agree on a unit of measurement for our nihilist, like, fatalism? 
It's 30 degrees Celsius in this room. 
That's about 86 Fahrenheit, if I'm not mistaken. 
85? 
My brain hasn't gone yet. 
But it's hot in here. 
There's no air. 
I don't know about you guys. 
Alex, you haven't blinked in about 10 minutes now. 
I think maybe your image is frozen. 
Or maybe not. 
I don't know. 
I hope you can hear me. 
Can you hear me? 
Yeah, we hear you. 
Oh, you hear me? 
Maybe my image is just frozen. 
But there's no air here, either, at the Chelsea Arts Club. 
I have to keep the windows open and some kind of fan on, and it's not pleasant. 
But the point being, going back to the stamps, postage stamps, all kinds of things, is that we haven't been here very long. 
I wonder why. 
I mean, you know, you think we're going to last much longer? 
I don't know. 
I mean, I think that remains to be seen. 
I mean, we could blow ourselves up, or the Earth could just shake us off. 
And so, you know, kind of, it could see us as the equivalent of a common cold and just get rid of it. 
I think the virus reference is interesting. 
That's, I mean, coming off of the last half a dozen years or four years. 
I don't know how many decades it's been. 
Let me turn conservative for a second, or maybe just interpret this as Tony Soprano might. 
But if we're that small and insignificant, how could we screw up the entire Empire State Building as just our entire history as a postage stamp? 
You know, maybe this is all overblown. 
You know, or we're not making as much of an impact as we think we are. 
No. 
We may have really screwed things up, I think, climate-wise and whatnot, but that's just an invitation for the Earth to course-correct. 
Right. 
No, I've heard it said the Earth will be fine. 
It's us that are screwed. 
And, of course, other forms of life as well. 
But the planet will, you know, as you say, shake us off and come up with a better idea. 
Yeah. 
And that's just got to be the way it works. 
It's also what we do with our understanding, right? 
Like, we may be at a point where we know much more and feel like we have a better understanding of the world than we do. 
But, you know, it's still relative. 
Rob, did you have something to contribute? 
I'm just thinking of all those years I wasted collecting stamps. 
It turns out philately will get you nowhere. 
Yes. 
I don't know who I'm more angry at now. 
I really don't. 
Well, look, you guys, I really have to go to bed. 
I know what you're trying to do here. 
I see it. 
You're trying to get me to stay up. 
Oh, yeah, that's what I did. 
I plot and scheme just to keep you around more. 
That's my reason that. 
It is. 
That's what it's all about. 
I know. 
Because you're such a draw and such a fascinating person to talk to. 
You're not usually. 
And you just go on for ages and ages. 
You're not like this. 
Why not talk until midnight? 
This isn't you. 
Who is it then? 
You know what? 
I will make you guys a deal. 
I have to get up so goddamn early. 
Why don't you just stay up then? 
That's what I would do. 
I know it's what you would do, but you're crazy. 
You're a lunatic. 
What's your point? 
And I'm not. 
But the point is, I'm going to listen to overtime. 
And if the first caller is not Rebel, then I will rejoin the duration of that call. 
The duration of that call? 
Yeah. 
I don't know if I can stay up until 2 in the morning here. 
I'm so tired. 
See, Rebel can stay on the phone indefinitely. 
We all know this. 
All right. 
I'm not sure anyone else is able to do that. 
We have had some attempts. 
Once we start talking to them, they usually want to get off the phone pretty quickly. 
Yes. 
Yeah. 
We haven't given out the phone number yet. 
We haven't even given out the phone number yet. 
So how about, Alex, you give out the phone number? 
Let's make that part of the deal. 
802-321-4225. 
That's 802-321-4225. 
Can I just share one thing before you do go? 
Is that the program for Hope, the Hope Conference, has been finished, is at the printer now. 
We are going to have food trucks. 
I heard a rumor that we might have Club Mate. 
And if we do, it'll be free. 
Yeah. 
But it's not official, so I can't really say anything. 
Oh, wait. 
Oh. 
You know what? 
Never mind that. 
That's just a rumor. 
A rumor somebody started. 
But the conference is just over two weeks away at St. 
John's University. 
It's in days. 
It's in hours. 
Oh, God. 
It's something. 
But people have been working on this for so long. 
That's the unit of measurement. 
We have more talks than ever. 
We have more workshops than ever. 
We have expanded space. 
And just all kinds of really awesome things are going to be happening. 
More details at hope.net. 
Definitely need to sell more tickets because, well, you know, people don't like to travel, I know. 
And it's, you know, economical issues and things like that. 
But we want to continue doing this. 
We want to be able to have hacker conferences more frequently, if not less frequently. 
And, yeah, things like that. 
I don't disagree with that at all. 
I really very much hope to see everybody at Hope. 
And I'm sure I will. 
And with that, I'm going to jump off. 
But I'm going to be listening. 
Okay. 
So just so we understand each other, we have a phone call. 
You're going to disconnect now. 
We're going to pick up the phone call. 
And if that phone call is not Rebel, then you have to reconnect again. 
Well, why don't we just, you know, see who the caller is. 
And then if it's Rebel, I'll disconnect and say goodnight to everybody. 
And if it's not, then what? 
Stay on for a reasonable amount of time. 
No, that's not what you said. 
You said you'd stay on. 
Not for a reasonable amount of time. 
Just, okay, you know what? 
Let's pick up the phone. 
Pull the bandaid off and see what happens. 
Yes. 
Good evening. 
You're on off-the-hook overtime. 
And I'm not Rebel. 
Ha. 
Oh, wow. 
There you go, Alex. 
So, by all means, what's on your mind? 
And feel free to talk as slowly as you want. 
I'll talk at a normal pace, I think. 
I wanted, again, to encourage you guys to run for the WBAI local station board. 
There are exactly two staff nominees right now. 
I don't know whether they have enough nominations or not to run. 
But there are only two people even trying to get, you know, to become, to run in this election. 
Just out of curiosity, what happens if not enough people run? 
If not enough people run, there's no election. 
The ones who get enough nominations are, by default, they win. 
And we're in deep trouble. 
Now, the way I read the bylaws, and I have looked at them, you have to go by the last runners-up list of the last election. 
So, if you don't have an election, and we're talking about staff nominees, let's say the other stations have elections, but WBAI staff does not have an election. 
You go by the runners-up list from the last election, which would be last year's runners-up list, and would fill the third seat. 
Assuming that both of these people got enough nominations, the third seat would come from the runners-up list from last year. 
Now, if they're going to say, oh, last year's doesn't count because we had elections this year, although we didn't have an election this year for this one, then the local station board would be able to nominate whoever they felt like and vote on whoever they felt like. 
And the majority faction would be able to choose someone who suited them in order to clinch their majority that much more firmly. 
So, that would be a really bad idea. 
And that's why I asked, so that we all know now what would happen in that situation. 
Okay, so, message received. 
Somebody on the staff should run to help protect the station. 
Anything else you want to convey? 
The two staff nominees that you would be running against are Randy Credico and Doug Wood. 
Doug Wood's already on the board, so he's running for re-election. 
I see. 
And you're rolling all this again? 
Are you on that board? 
I am already on the board. 
I can't run for re-election this year. 
I'll be running for re-election next time. 
But I'm on the board and, you know, I try to bear it patiently. 
Uh-huh. 
And can you describe what a typical board meeting is like? 
Hmm, chaotic. 
Robert's rules of order are required. 
You have to go by them. 
And I strongly dislike Robert's rules of order. 
A point of information. 
A point of information? 
Wait, did I do it right? 
Recognized. 
Who are you? 
You don't get to recognize me. 
You're out of order. 
You're out of order. 
Strike the remarks. 
How dare you, sir. 
Yeah. 
No, I was asking if Rob T. 
Firefly had any connection to Robert's rules of order. 
Somebody has to be responsible for Robert's rules of order. 
Who is Robert? 
Robert is the last name of the guy who invented these things. 
Huh. 
Seems a little gruff to just call him Robert. 
Robert's rules of orders. 
This is his idea. 
Yeah. 
He was trying to make things easier for organizations to have some rules to run their meetings by. 
And I don't know, but there's this huge comb. 
And anyway, I have the Spark Charts condensed version, which is six really long, dense pages that I've poured over. 
And so, you know, by studying that, I am a little bit more able to navigate Robert's rules of orders. 
I just wonder, is there maybe, you know, alternatives to Robert's? 
Like, is there Randy's rules of order or, you know, or Rebecca's rules of order? 
It doesn't have to be with R either. 
There are other ways of running meetings, certainly. 
But the bylaws say we use Robert's rules of order. 
So we're stuck unless and until we get a change in the bylaws on that particular thing. 
That would be a fun thing to lobby for is changing the way they do the meetings just because it's part of democracy. 
But you see, that's why. 
And, you know, should we be encouraging listeners to also be part of this? 
Not the staff, obviously, but there's a listener board, too, right? 
Yes. 
All right. 
So listen, you could you could maybe make your own rules of order and have them implemented, but it would take some work and convincing. 
But that's what politics is. 
Yeah. 
If you believe in democracy, this is a great way to start or finish. 
Just because I'm encouraging all of you to run as staff nominees does not mean that I'm not also encouraging all the off the hook listeners and off the hook overtime listeners to run as listener nominees. 
We there are more people running. 
I mean, if they get 15 nominations each, the ones who get 15 nominations each will be running. 
But there are not enough good people, people that I would be comfortable voting for to fill the nine seats. 
But you haven't gotten to know them yet. 
I mean, you just have to get to get to know who they are. 
You know, they're out there. 
I know. 
Oh, you mean, do you mean the people who are already running or? 
No, the people who don't who haven't even decided to run yet that we're committing to run right now. 
B.A.I. 
listeners who they have to pledge $25, right, to become part of the part of the family. 
Yeah. 
Between July 1st of last year and Sunday of this year. 
This week. 
Yeah. 
So if you don't have a time machine, you got to do it by Sunday. 
Yeah. 
You have to do it by 1159. 
You have to join by 1159 to be able to vote. 
And you want to join a little bit earlier in order to be able to nominate or run. 
And you have to get nominations from other B.A.I. 
listeners or just anyone? 
Other listener members. 
So how do you reach those people? 
If you're new to this, how would you find 15 people to nominate you? 
Well, I'm... 
Yeah, it's not easy. 
When I click on the right spot for nominating, it lists everyone who's nominated each person. 
Oh. 
So I can see the names of other nominators. 
And, you know, you might be able to recognize them or who knows, you might be able to get in touch with them. 
Is there a way to get in touch with them when you see those names? 
Or do you have to track them down somehow and stalk them? 
I don't think you would need to stalk them. 
Let's see. 
That's a reasonable challenge. 
There's nothing here that I could click on. 
I could not contact the other just nominators, but everyone who's running also gets to nominate. 
And you can contact any of the people who are running and send them an email and ask them to support you. 
Okay. 
And how many people are on each? 
You also want to encourage all your friends to join. 
How many people are on each of these boards, the listener board and the staff board? 
It's one board. 
Right. 
Oh, it's one board. 
It has 24 people. 
Okay. 
Yes. 
It's one board. 
It has 24 members. 
Twelve of them get elected in one election and 12 get elected in the next election. 
How many are staff? 
How many are listeners? 
Nine are listener members and three are staff members. 
That's only 12. 
You said 24. 
Yes. 
Half of them, 12 of them get elected in one election and the other 12, staggered, are in the next election. 
Well, that's a different question, but are there 18 listeners and six staff? 
Is that how it's divided up? 
Yeah. 
Okay. 
Gila has a question. 
Go ahead. 
Yes. 
We do have a question from the YouTube chat about how local local needs to be. 
Namely, listener Fun Socks would like to know if he can run from the UK. 
You can. 
That would be fun. 
That would be fun to have people, have our listeners populate the board. 
I mean, think about that. 
Think of the decisions. 
What kind of decisions can be made by this board? 
Prepare them, yes. 
One thing that is going on right now, both the general manager and the program director were abruptly removed from their positions in an irregular manner. 
Either the executive director, either the executive director can initiate such a thing or the local station board if both of them agree. 
But if both of them do not agree, then it goes to the Pacific and national board to decide. 
But the executive director removed them without even asking the local station board. 
And now they're trying to fix it, saying they're not removed. 
They are on administrative leave pain. 
I see. 
Administrative leave. 
Uh-huh. 
Which is, you know, it's gobbledygook for, oops, we made a mistake. 
Well, it's like when a cop shoots somebody and winds up on desk duty. 
Hmm. 
So, the executive director and the Pacific and national board are now trying to get, there's been an illegal executive session that's supposed to be held right now. 
Well, except they provided no link. 
And it wasn't, you know, the local station board calls its own meetings. 
Other people don't get to, but somebody else has decided, you know, you can't do that. 
But they're trying to get the local station board to either agree, which means they're out, or disagree, which means it goes to the Pacific and national board. 
And they decide that they're out. 
And what we want is to see what are the facts, please. 
Could you tell us why you removed them and what did they do wrong exactly? 
And let us look over whatever documentations you have and hear their side of the story before we make any decision. 
So, that's the top thing at the moment. 
But there are all sorts of other things that we can consider. 
Well, okay. 
That's just the thing that's on my mind most. 
I think we've given a lot of detail. 
Can you just give a site people can visit to get more information? 
And we'll see what happens. 
Yeah, elections.pacifica.org All right. 
Well, we'll see what happens in the next week. 
But thanks for sharing all that. 
Okay. 
And if you do it before Thursday night, which is a good idea. 
It's tomorrow night. 
Then Pacifica Fightback can consider whether they wish to support you. 
All right. 
All right. 
So, get your name in and, you know, put a candidate statement in the candidate statement block. 
So, we can see what to judge, you know, your quality by. 
Okay. 
Fair enough. 
Thanks for the call. 
Thanks. 
Take care. 
Well... 
I think I've learned everything. 
But, yeah, it was certainly a lot of information. 
Yeah. 
Aren't you glad that wasn't Rebel Alex? 
You got to stick around for that entire call. 
I stuck around, you know, on the sole basis of showing everybody that I keep my covenants here. 
Now, do you want to challenge the second caller? 
No, I'm going to bed, guys. 
I really am. 
I am. 
You know, that was enough for me. 
Thank you for all that wonderful wealth of information. 
And I assume you will be running on the staff board, for the staff board. 
We'll fill out the paperwork for you. 
Don't worry about that. 
Okay. 
You're going to submit it tonight, and you'll be called upon. 
All right. 
That sounds good. 
Well, I wish everybody the absolute best. 
I do. 
And I'm sorry I have to jump off a little bit early, but it is 1.34 in the morning here. 
I have to be up in five hours. 
Oh, yeah. 
That's nothing. 
Don't worry about it. 
We'll see you back in New York. 
We'll have an entourage waiting for you. 
Yeah, exactly. 
I can't wait. 
I'll be listening as I fall asleep on YouTube. 
And again, Alex, no more traveling on Wednesdays. 
You do this to yourself. 
Really, it's very difficult. 
Yeah. 
Any other day. 
Any other day. 
Not Wednesday. 
All right. 
Good night. 
Sleep well. 
Good night, everybody. 
Love you all. 
Talk to you then. 
Alex there. 
And we have another phone call, I believe. 
All right. 
Good evening. 
You're on Off the Hook Overtime. 
Yes, Emmanuel. 
Oh, you just missed Alex. 
He'll be devastated. 
Do you want to call him back, maybe? 
Call Alex back. 
You know what? 
We'll give you his ID, his Skype ID, so you can just barge in any time. 
How about that? 
I don't have Skype. 
Oh, we'll get you Skype. 
That's no problem. 
Okay. 
You could do something with it, like when you call, it's like 9X that cuts you off. 
You know, like when you call here, like the 802 number, it cuts you off into like seven rings or something and says, you know, please do the message, you know, if your voicemails. 
You know, talking to Rebel is like jumping onto a moving train. 
You have to really get your bearings and figure out where you're going and what's going on. 
9X cutting you off, what? 
No, no. 
You know, when you call off the hook all the time, you call the 802-321-HACK. 
Which I don't do. 
You realize that because I'm here, but okay, I'm putting myself in that position. 
It cuts you off after five rings or something and then it gives you that message saying, you know. 
No, I don't know because I don't call it. 
It's like hang tight or something. 
Yeah. 
We know. 
And then what happens? 
It cuts you off after like five or seven rings and then it goes to your message saying, you know, it's a busy tickle. 
Okay. 
Well, you know what? 
That's a Google voice number. 
Google doesn't believe in busy signals. 
I would like it to be one phone line so that everybody else gets a busy signal, but this is the only way they operate. 
So everybody who calls that isn't the first caller winds up getting that instead in this precious little we can do that. 
A little bit more rings. 
Okay. 
I would like more rings. 
Sure. 
It's a little arcane critique noted. 
I mean. 
Yeah, but it's not our critique. 
It's Google's critique. 
Give it to them. 
Here's my point. 
We've had this system for a while. 
Maybe our next little fun project is a custom telephone system. 
Oh, really? 
Okay. 
All right. 
That is just like got all the bells and whistles, everything your heart's desire. 
Yeah, maybe there'll be a telephone museum they're bulldozing next and they can like grab all the remains from that, you know, because people don't save things. 
They don't save the things that matter. 
It's just, you know, how long are we going to blame the choices we made? 
I would, I would, I would even say in jet, in, in haste, right? 
Like just, it was set up the way it was set up. 
It works the way, you know, somewhat the way we intended it to with these complaints. 
Why don't you get an astro system? 
Why don't you get an astro system? 
Wow. 
That's a great idea. 
There's all, all kinds of fun ways we could redo this. 
So, um, maybe, maybe people can suggest ideas for ways they would, they would, uh, make it more customizable or maybe Google will turn into a phone company and, and, and, um, you know, beg us to tell them, uh, how they can improve and, and, and meet our needs better. 
Well, you, you need some water, Kyle. 
I mean, I think you're dehydrated for your thinking. 
Google's going to be helpful and, and, and, and reach out and, and talk with human voices. 
I am melting. 
Rebel, are you eating something? 
It's very warm. 
That's the only reason he's keeping quiet. 
I'm, I'm, uh, I, you know, I just, I was just, I remember, uh, remember I was in, uh, Europe last couple of weeks. 
Yes. 
You can't seem to remember where in Europe, but you were in Europe. 
It was in Europe and there was something in the hotel that, uh, I stayed at that was not there, that used to be there and things, something in an airport that's not there, that used to be there. 
Do you know what it is? 
A mouse? 
A mouse? 
Yeah. 
Lots of hotels have mice and they're not always there. 
Not the one that I stayed at. 
Well, you don't know that. 
They're tiny. 
They could be there. 
I think I could be right. 
And it's in an airport too that there's something. 
What? 
Mice can't go to airports. 
All right, fine. 
Now that I know the rules, uh, what else could have been in a hotel? 
Well, okay. 
Um, um, there's probably still a television. 
Um, they probably, they don't have keys anymore. 
They have cards or other things, or they read your brain. 
Um, someone help me out here. 
There's, there's, there's three other people. 
How about some guesses? 
It's warm. 
That's not a guess. 
It's warm. 
Yeah. 
I think I'm melting. 
No. 
What, what, what is, okay. 
The question is what is not in a hotel room that used to be in a hotel? 
It's a hotel room and it's also not in the airport and used to be in the airport, right? 
Oh, uh, clock radio. 
Why would there be a clock radio in an airport? 
Clock radio. 
Oh, uh. 
I would say pay phone, but most hotel rooms don't have pay phones. 
You're halfway right. 
All right. 
A landline. 
Uh, you're kind of, uh, you're three quarters of the way, right? 
Uh, okay. 
It's a telephone. 
I mean. 
Yeah. 
That's, that's, yeah. 
There is, there was no tele, well, in one of the hotels I stayed in Italy. 
What does that make a difference? 
Yeah. 
Okay. 
There's no telephone there either. 
There was no telephone in the room when I stayed in Italy. 
There was no telephone. 
And in, in, in Israel, there was, I think there was, but it wasn't working. 
Uh-huh. 
And then when I went to the airport, there were no pay phones. 
Well, that's true of almost any airport now. 
It's true of almost anywhere now. 
So you're not telling us anything that's really that shocking. 
I am curious. 
So how do you contact the front desk? 
You just yell out the window? 
That's the thing. 
If you're like, you know, if you like get undressed and you like say, hey, I forgot to call for a, uh, uh, a wake up call. 
What are you going to do? 
Get back dressed and, you know. 
Is that what happened to you? 
No, no, no. 
It's not what happened to me. 
I was just, you know, thinking after I noticed that there was no, you know, phone in the room. 
Well, it's a lot of infrastructure. 
Think about that. 
They got to run a wire to every room. 
They have an instrument in every room. 
They got to maintain those instruments. 
And, you know, all the calls are free because you're going, you know, calling inside the hotel or to the front desk, unless you make an outside call, but nobody does that anymore. 
The extra thing to clean? 
Yeah. 
Yeah. 
So I don't know what, what, I guess you could talk through the TV set somehow. 
Is that what they do? 
Yeah. 
Well, no. 
I don't know. 
I guess, you know, there was no, uh, hotel. 
No, there was no, uh, EDX phone in the, uh, hotel room. 
Wow. 
And there was no pay phone at the airport. 
Any, any airport. 
I landed in Germany first. 
I don't think I saw pay phone there. 
I went to, to Portugal. 
There was no pay phone there. 
That. 
You know what you do? 
Um, there's this magazine called 2600. 
Some of us are involved with it. 
We have, we, we, we, we print 2600. 
It's a, it's a, it's a hacker magazine. 
And, uh, we print, uh, pay phone photos on the front and back, uh, inside covers and, um, go to where those are and you'll find pay phones or at least shells of pay phones. 
What do we, what do we have this issue, Kyle? 
Let's, what's, uh, where, where are the pay phones? 
There's a variety of pay phones and there are cool looking pay phones, uh, from everywhere. 
Let's see. 
Uh, from Taiwan, Luxembourg and Europe, Western Europe and South Korea, Brazil, Thailand. 
Yeah, well, you'll go to Brazil, Thailand, South Korea, a rebel, go to those places. 
You're, you're making this more difficult than it has to be. 
Okay. 
The, the pay phones are right there. 
When I was in England, I called my cell phone, collect. 
There was pay phones in, uh, Manchester, England, and I called my cell phone, collect. 
You, you called your, first of all, can you even do that? 
Can you make collect calls to us? 
All right. 
And then what happened? 
I don't know. 
I didn't get the bill. 
So I mean, you accepted, you accepted a collect call from yourself. 
Dude, that's the first thing anybody in the hacker community teaches you is you do not accept a collect call from rebel. 
How do you not know this? 
Um, when I was in London, I did it a couple of years ago. 
You know, I don't know. 
It's what, uh, Gila. 
Yes, please. 
Uh, we do have a couple of comments from the chat. 
I'll bet we do. 
I certainly don't doubt it. 
So, uh, Funsox was guessing that, uh, the Gideon Bible was the thing that was missing from the hotel. 
Well, only, only because one of us was in the room first. 
We couldn't resist. 
Um, and Tim in Connecticut, uh, did mention that the last time he was at Heathrow, there were pay phones. 
Well, that could have been like 1950. 
We don't know when that was. 
When was the last time? 
Finding out. 
It was in Heathrow. 
Yeah. 
Things change. 
This world is rapidly changing in this little postage size stamp. 
Is it O'Hare? 
Are we selling phones? 
There, there was a pay phone when we had a layover in O'Hare, I think. 
Um, Minneapolis. 
Minneapolis. 
All right. 
And then there are the sad, dead pay phone in Milwaukee. 
Yeah. 
They have the kiosks that used to be pay phones. 
Uh, Tim says six months ago in Terminal 3. 
Okay. 
There you go, Rebel. 
Heathrow, Terminal 3. 
Head out now. 
Wait, which airport? 
Heathrow. 
In, in the UK. 
Well, in the UK. 
Yeah. 
Well, I mean, there are pay phones in the UK. 
I know. 
And I was just in Manchester a couple weeks ago and I had a pay phone. 
Mm-hmm. 
All right. 
Well, this is, these are pay phones in an airport. 
So, if you need that need fulfilled, there it is. 
Anything else? 
Because I think there might be other people out there. 
Okay. 
I guess that's all. 
Okay. 
You should have a gas station to make gas prices lower. 
You know, just social engineering. 
Maybe that's what we should do at home. 
Social engineering at the gas station and, you know, make them, you know, make the gas prices lower and just get them. 
That sounds like a lot of fun. 
Um, we'll take it under advisement. 
But thanks for your call and always good to hear from Rebel. 
Always. 
Every time. 
Constantly. 
Those systems are programmable, I think. 
Some, some of the LED systems, the ones that don't have numbers that you have to, like, affix to the sign. 
Yes. 
You're talking about gas prices? 
Are we going with this idea? 
Is that what he was talking about? 
What were you talking about? 
Well, I know that, obviously, the employees have to change themselves. 
Somebody has to do it. 
Somehow. 
It is an established system. 
I've never actually seen it being done. 
It's just magic, right? 
And don't people get angry at you when you do it, you know? 
I think it's not looked too kindly upon by the proprietors of gas stations. 
But sometimes they go down. 
In fact, they've gone down because, you know, it's under $4 now. 
And it was over $5 a few years ago. 
So, yeah, it can go down. 
But, um, yeah. 
All right. 
I don't know why we're talking about gas prices, but we have another phone call. 
Good evening. 
You're on Off the Hook Overtime. 
Go ahead. 
Hello, guys. 
Hey, what's up? 
How you doing? 
Good. 
How are you doing? 
Where are you calling from? 
Where are you calling from? 
Queens. 
Queens. 
Queens, New York. 
Yeah. 
All right. 
Yeah, that's where the Hope Conference is taking place. 
Yeah, the Hope Conference is taking place. 
St. 
John's University. 
Yeah, St. 
John's University. 
That's the place. 
Yeah, I was going to say, I don't want to complain, but as a senior citizen, that cost for that hackers convention is a little bit on the heavy side. 
Yeah, I get that. 
I understand. 
And, you know, that's unfortunately what happens sometimes. 
Things cost money. 
That's the cheapest we can do for what we're getting. 
What is it, $325? 
No, $225. 
See, you just saved $100. 
$300 or $225? 
$225. 
Listen, can you buy a ticket at the door if you decide at the last minute that you want to go? 
You know, we weren't going to, but we're discussing the possibility now only because the last time we did this, everyone was wearing masks. 
COVID was still around. 
And it was an issue. 
And, you know, we just didn't want to deal with people coming in that might not have been properly suited and all that. 
So this time, well, we're going to decide in the next week, I think, if we're going to have on-site sales. 
Yeah, but if you're going to have people there, you know, someone said at the last minute, all right, I'll whip out my credit card and go. 
Yeah, you know, that's good. 
I don't know if I'm going to stay the whole two days. 
Three days. 
See, it's three days. 
Now, you've saved you $100 and added a day. 
So that's not bad, huh? 
Actually, I'm blind, so I don't know how much I get out of all of it. 
So I think they come anyway. 
Yeah, well, you won't see our faces, which, believe me, that's a plus two. 
So that's three good things. 
Yeah. 
No, seriously. 
I think you guys should, you know, have it just in case someone says, you know what? 
I'd rather not do it over the computer. 
I'd rather just come and hand them a credit card and let me in, as they say. 
Well, I mean, it's your call. 
But, you know, there will be online things as well. 
And, you know, it's going to be fun. 
But you're already in Queens. 
So, I mean, that's pretty awesome. 
Maybe you could say something about Queens for those people that are hesitant to come to Queens. 
They think it's too far away. 
No, I mean, I don't know where they're coming from, but you're not too... 
Manhattan. 
Some of them are coming from Manhattan and they're afraid of Queens. 
You know, you're not too far away and you've got some good pizzerias around there. 
Hell yeah. 
Yeah. 
There's, I can say this because we're not on the radio, but there's a place by St. 
John's called Regina's. 
Have you ever been there? 
Oh, yeah. 
I know that place. 
Of course. 
I live in Electra. 
I live over there near the LIE and 164th Street. 
Yeah. 
This is on Union Turnpike and Utopia Parkway. 
It's on that corner. 
Well, you know what? 
You've got the subway station, not too far away. 
You can take the E or the F or you can come to Jamaica train station, not too far away. 
That's right. 
There are buses that go right to the campus. 
And of course, you can always do one of those ride share things. 
But it's easy to get to. 
And the thing is, it's such an amazing place. 
You have the space of the campus, but you also have, you know, the diversity of Queens. 
You've got Chinatown, the biggest Chinatown in the area. 
Just attend it right away. 
Is there a building or are you having it in separate buildings? 
I'm sorry? 
Are all of the exhibits and the classrooms, is it all going to be in one building? 
It's actually in three buildings, but the buildings are adjacent to each other. 
So they're pretty simple to get to. 
Okay. 
All right. 
I'm glad you guys are having it. 
I hope for the best of you guys. 
Yeah, we hope to see you there. 
Yeah, because I remember going to the one in 1994. 
Oh, wow. 
You went to the first one. 
I went to the first one. 
Yeah. 
That one, I don't think you had to pay for that one. 
It was $25. 
I remember. 
It was $25. 
I remember going there. 
That was, you had all kinds of stuff. 
You had guys building circuits. 
You had guys building oscillators. 
It was all that kind of stuff. 
Yeah, it was. 
All of those good things that don't work anymore. 
That was a bit of history right there at the top of the Hotel Pennsylvania. 
Yeah, you had a red box. 
Okay, 2200 sites, 2200 hertz. 
Uh-huh. 
Red boxes worked back then. 
I'm going to take the post. 
Wow. 
There will be people assembling things much in the same way as they were, maybe different types of circuits and different technologies, but there will be a lot of the same kind of spirit as far as people crafting and sharing how they're building. 
And Arduino, you got Arduino and stuff like that. 
Uh-huh. 
Exactly. 
You can build computers today, and you can build, hey, you can take Pi computers and run a whole computer. 
There's so much you can do today. 
You don't need a whole board of TTO logic. 
Angela has a question. 
Go ahead, Angela. 
Actually, sorry. 
I was going to say something else about Queens, which is it's hailing right now in our part of Queens. 
Caller, is it hailing where you are? 
I don't know. 
I don't hear nothing. 
I'm going to be going out in a few minutes. 
I've got a seeing eye dog that I've got to take out. 
Well, does... 
I'm sorry. 
Where's the Queens at Ewing? 
We're in Forest Hills. 
I'm in... 
I'm not too far away. 
I'm over near 164th Street and whatever. 
All right. 
Let's not give out our addresses, but if you're seeing eye dog, if you're seeing eye dog doesn't like thunder, there might be a thunderstorm coming. 
That's what I heard. 
I know. 
They're good. 
They don't... 
She doesn't care. 
Okay, good. 
Listen, if I come, I might come. 
So what time does it start on Friday? 
Starts at 10 in the morning. 
It could be there as early as 9, though, for registration. 
And runs until Sunday evening. 
All right. 
Hopefully you guys... 
I don't know if I'll do it online. 
Hopefully you guys will allow people just to show up and just pay. 
All right. 
Well, if you do come, definitely mention that you're at 1994 and we'll definitely want to talk to you and reminisce. 
Yeah, I remember that. 
In 1994, you had the first one. 
You guys will probably recognize me. 
You know, you had it at the old hotel. 
That's a major hotel. 
That's right. 
That's right. 
You had it on one or two floors and I remember that. 
It was all one big area. 
Uh-huh. 
From the expression on Gila's face, was that thunder you just heard? 
By the way, I hear thunder now. 
Yeah, you both heard thunder at the same time. 
Wow. 
That's something. 
We're going to study that. 
All right. 
Well, we hope to see you. 
You know, I want to hear more. 
You know, you guys got to do more history. 
History of blue boxes. 
You don't talk about this stuff anymore on the air. 
We do sometimes. 
But yeah, you know, we got to get into the mood. 
And maybe if we had some things to play with on the air, we could do that. 
Yeah, you got to talk about some of the old guys from the phone company. 
You can come out and try to bust it. 
Uh-huh. 
Yep. 
I got Kenny Loach and all those guys. 
They're not alive anymore, but those guys used to try to put handcuffs on people. 
Wow. 
They didn't play around, did they? 
Hey, they didn't like the idea that we would blow off 2600. 
So you actually were an old blue boxer of the day, right? 
I played with blue boxes. 
I even knew a guy, I won't mention his name, but I knew a guy who had a blue box and a handheld, a UHF handheld. 
And did it that way. 
But I can tell you that, yeah, I had a blue box and built out a bunch of TTL Logix. 
You know who else built the blue box? 
Who? 
The guy, well, and how they used that money, they were selling them. 
The guys that started Apple. 
I think we know that. 
Yes, I think that's something that's very well known. 
Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs. 
And they took the money they made from that and piled it in to build the first Apple 2 computer. 
And I'm not reading that from a book. 
I actually bet those guys were ham. 
They used to go to the ham fest. 
So all of you use iPhones. 
It was built on freaking. 
So don't ever forget that. 
That's why there should be freaking apps on those things. 
You know what's so funny? 
The phone company fought tooth and nail not to break up. 
They wanted to squeeze everybody and look at what's happened today. 
Everything is practically free today. 
You can make a phone call from here to Europe. 
And you hardly pay anything. 
I mean, there's no more hacking. 
Well, there's hacking, but it's not the same. 
You're broken up. 
Yeah. 
That's, you know, it's part of the changes. 
Yeah, this is a huge, huge issue, like, I think, to confront. 
There's a lot of different aspects of it when you're reflecting on the past and how it's influencing the present. 
And as different characters move in and out and the stories get shared and the interests kind of ebb and flow, that the recurrence of discussing them is lost in some cases without capturing it. 
That's why we try to do some of the stories about museums and places where stuff is still... 
You know, a museum that went at a museum, that's a bad thing. 
But I will tell you this much. 
The stuff today, technology, I'm a double league. 
I've got an engineering degree. 
But the stuff today doesn't have character. 
You know, it's all on a computer chip. 
Yeah, well, that's why I think, yeah, having, like, less, having workshops and places, creating space for people to do that kind of craftiness and give it that artful... 
Yeah, yeah. 
You know, this is why I think kids really gravitate towards older technology because even kids today, they like to take things apart and put them back together again. 
What you're saying about things on a chip, yeah, he can't do that. 
You either break it or you buy a new one. 
No, but the idea is just to think today have had character. 
You don't hear about versions anymore. 
You can make a phone call so quickly. 
They're static. 
You know, whatever. 
You know, all the old phone numbers are gone, like 958, 660, all of that stuff. 
But I'm also going to say that, you know, people starting to build again. 
It came too late for Radio Shack. 
Man, I miss Radio Shack. 
Oh, we all do. 
We all do. 
You know, they started selling phone. 
They thought that was going to be their thing. 
They'll come in and we'll sell you for $16 an extra six years of lifetime service on a cable. 
You go buy a RCA cable, they want to sell you, you know, a contract. 
That really hurt them. 
Yeah, yeah. 
Hey, here's a bit of memory that you might appreciate. 
There's an old-fashioned ring for you. 
Phones don't sound like that anymore. 
What is that? 
Is that a panel office? 
Oh, I don't know exactly. 
I know it comes from Canada. 
So, that's all I can tell you. 
Is that in service now? 
Or is that... 
Oh, no. 
I wish it were. 
I think it's a step-by-step switch, actually. 
Back in Detour Lake, Ontario. 
Detour Lake, Ontario is where this is from. 
Well, you know what? 
I always like listening to the old YouTube clip. 
What's the guy's name? 
The guy that did all the recordings. 
Evan Dorbell does those. 
Yeah. 
Is he still alive? 
I think so. 
Because the videos keep coming out. 
So, he must be. 
And... 
Has he ever shown up to the hacker stuff? 
I have never met him, but I have a feeling I probably must have at some point. 
But that's part of the magic of the community. 
You never know who you're really talking to. 
Yeah, and I'll say that we do get into these conversations at some of the museums and talking to people who've worked in the industry. 
They always come up and have these kinds of stories. 
So, the more people get together, the more we get to discuss it. 
Well, we did it at the last HOPE conference. 
The last HOPE conference, we had the 2600 van, which is an old phone company van. 
And we had that parked outside the convention all night long. 
It was playing Evan Dorbell audio tapes. 
And people were hearing all kinds of old phone noises. 
All night long. 
You know what's really interesting? 
Like, hey, let me see. 
I was like 16 or 17. 
Built the black box with a relay and a capacitor. 
All that good stuff. 
Wow. 
I remember those days when somebody from the phone company caught me because I had told people, call my house. 
What I had done was I had taken a radio listening to a local repeater and I had it hooked up to a black box with a transformer. 
So, they called my phone and it would ring and they would listen to the conversations. 
And when they hung up, they got their dime back. 
And that's how I almost got busted that way. 
Oh, yes. 
You know, if we had had this conversation a few months ago, I would have said you should submit a talk and then you get free admission to the conference. 
But I will suggest that for next conference that you should definitely give a talk because you have so many interesting things to share. 
Oh, that'd be great. 
No, I'll try to. 
I think I'm going to try to show up. 
I didn't know. 
I told him it was $300. 
I think I might show up for $225. 
All right, guys. 
Listen, I don't want to take up everybody's time. 
No, I have come down a couple of times. 
Do you guys do meet at the Citibank? 
Rob can tell you this. 
Rob, what's going on with the meetings? 
Yeah, we're still doing those first Friday of every month at the Hue, which is what used to be the Citigroup Center building. 
It's the food court on the first floor. 
It's been completely redone. 
If you haven't been there in some years, you might be interested to know. 
It's what? 
53rd Street and Lexington Avenue. 
I don't remember the numerical address of the building. 
53rd Street left. 
Yeah. 
Is that going to be, have it this Friday after, you're going to have it on the 5th? 
On the 5th. 
Yeah, that's a week from this Friday coming up, right? 
Mm-hmm. 
Yeah. 
So what time does the meeting start? 
Technically, it starts around 5, but it can get going really around 6 or 7 as people get out of work and gather up and stuff. 
But on the 5th, it may wind up earlier because some people have the day off. 
Wouldn't they stick around longer if they have the day off? 
Maybe. 
Very possible. 
How do you guys wrap it up? 
9 or 10. 
Yeah, sometimes, because there are a lot of places there to hang out, so people can branch off. 
And also, in the old days, we used to have to leave Citigroup to go find something to eat, go to a restaurant or something. 
But there's so many new options for food in the food court area now that a lot of people just have their dinner there and they just keep having the meeting. 
They even sell Club Monte there. 
They don't close the building down at a certain time? 
At some point, they do. 
But usually, you know, they outlast us. 
Usually. 
Usually, yeah. 
All right, guys. 
You have a great evening. 
I don't want to call it, but great talking to you guys. 
Great hearing from you as well. 
And we hope that you come to Hope and tell your stories because we'd love to hear more. 
Well, I'm going to look for you guys. 
Ask for the guys that run the 2600. 
We'll be there. 
You can't miss me. 
I'll be the only guy there with a dog. 
I don't know. 
We'll see. 
We'll see. 
There might be several dogs, but we'll see. 
Thanks for calling. 
You too. 
Bye-bye. 
Take care. 
That was a good call. 
That was a great call. 
Do you want to have one more call and see if we can have nothing but good calls tonight? 
That's up to you. 
All right. 
Well, it's up to the callers. 
I'll answer it if I have permission. 
You have to call within the next two minutes, and then we'll give up. 
Rob, looks like you have something to say. 
Yeah, I mean, all this talk about old phone freaking and stuff and also hotel phones reminds me of a very old story, which I can tell around the campfire, which was going back to the 90s. 
I had an occasion to stay in a hotel room while I had a laptop computer with me, an old DOS Windows monster of a computer, and I wanted to get online with it. 
This had a phone-based modem in it, but the landline in the hotel had nowhere to plug a phone into because things were permanently installed into the wall so you didn't walk away with the phone. 
So the trick that a lot of travelers who were hackers, freaks, whatever, came up with was to bring a couple of sewing pins with you because if you could tap into the wires in the phone cord leading to the wall and stick one pin in the ring line and one pin in the tip line and then clip your beige box type alligator clips onto those pins, you could connect directly to the phone line without having to install a phone or find a way to plug something into the wall. 
And I was able to get online that way with a horrible old laptop with a horrible old modem. 
And that's how you got here. 
Absolutely. 
That was Rob's first step in the journey. 
And Kyle, we have another phone call? 
Yes. 
All right. 
And good evening. 
You're on Offsick Over Time. 
Go ahead. 
Good evening, gang. 
This is Tim in Connecticut. 
How are you doing? 
Hey, Tim in Connecticut. 
How are you? 
Pretty good. 
By the way, that was about four months ago going through Terminal 3 in London Heathrow. 
They had pay phones. 
Okay. 
But what I was calling about was this year for Hope, since you made mention of an app, I was wondering, is there going to be the Hope app again? 
There's going to be something for scheduling. 
I know that. 
I don't know exactly how to get it. 
Some kind of service, hacker track or something. 
But we'll definitely make it well known when it's all set up. 
I'm sure it must be a heck of a data entry project. 
Yeah, some of it basically is, yeah, it's exactly like, it's got to be correct and locked so it's not changing. 
And then when we do have the event, there may be some changes that we want to make. 
So having that all work the right way and have things, you know, appear the way they should take some time. 
And, yeah, so it's in our list of activities as far as pre-planning. 
It just, it takes a little bit of time to be ready to go with it. 
And I think they're doing it a little bit differently than we did before. 
There was a link to it that we just didn't really have right away. 
But I think it's going to be available through another app. 
Well, that's good. 
I mean, it was very handy last time at St. 
John's because in one place you could see whenever there was a conflict between the talks. 
Right. 
Sometimes you want to be in more than one talk at a time. 
Yeah, like ones that you had intended to see. 
I see it had tools for your activity planning. 
Right. 
Got it. 
Yeah, it was very handy. 
I mean, of course, you know, for free, who can complain? 
I mean. 
You'd be surprised. 
Well, I mean, with everything else that's going on, and it has to take place in three days. 
Right. 
Well, the schedule is online for the talks. 
So you can look at the schedule now. 
The workshops, I believe, are going to be online. 
I mean, we have a listing of them, not the schedule. 
But, and everything will be, you know, in the days ahead, it's going to become more and more together. 
So you'll be able to plan everything. 
Yeah, because we have basically, when it's correct, it'll be duplicated across some of these different methods of getting it. 
And, of course, there will be a printed. 
The Android versus the whatever. 
Right. 
And there will be larger printouts of it, as we've done in the past, as well as pamphlets and stuff like that, that everybody can use. 
From what I saw on Hope.net, I mean, I could print off, I think it was six or seven pages worth of the talks and everything. 
And start going out on the list of, yes, I want this. 
No, I don't want that. 
Yeah. 
And there'll be a printed program available to everybody when they come in. 
And so you can carry that around with you, too, old school style. 
Oh, that's true, too, yeah. 
Yeah. 
But, I mean, I always prefer, I always pick up the USB stick afterwards. 
Yes, definitely. 
Because, I mean, no matter, even if I miss a talk because of an overlap or whatever, I know it's going to be on that. 
Uh-huh. 
So, all righty. 
Well, I see the time. 
And I know you guys are going with no fans. 
Thank you very much. 
Yes, yes. 
We're hoping for that. 
We're hoping for our thunderstorm to come through. 
And cool things down. 
Oh, it's coming. 
Okay, good. 
I'd like to hear that. 
I just took a quick look on our Wonder Map and that's these. 
Uh-huh. 
All right. 
All righty, guys. 
All right. 
Have a great night. 
Take care. 
We'll see you in July. 
Bye-bye. 
I'll see you at Hope. 
Great. 
Bye-bye. 
And that's going to do it for us tonight. 
So, thank you, everybody who called in. 
Thanks to all the people listening out there. 
Thanks to all the people signed up to go to Hope. 
And again, if you can't make it to Hope, you can be a virtual ticket holder and help support the conference that way. 
You know, if we could charge nothing, we would, believe me. 
But unfortunately, everybody charges us. 
So, we have to pay them and survive. 
But we do charge as little as we possibly can without being completely crazy. 
So, hope.net is where all the information is on schedule, who's talking, what they're talking about, how you can get involved, how you can volunteer. 
It happens every two years. 
It's always magic. 
It always wears us out like you would not believe. 
But it's always so worth it. 
And we hope you're a part of that. 
Oh, it's truly, truly rewarding. 
And like a big, big thank you to everyone out there that helped out in getting a lot of details and everything lined up. 
It's a heavy lift. 
And there's just, we make it look easy. 
I've been reminded by just some of the incredible skill we have in hackers and the people that just are dedicated and show up and help out the way they do. 
We wouldn't be as organized and have so much to offer if it wasn't for that. 
So, I'm really, really, really glad we're on track with the kind of help we've had. 
And with that, we're going to say goodnight. 
So, until next week, take care of yourselves. 
Stay cool. 
And pay attention to what's going on. 
And the food is here. 
Okay. 
Robin Gila's food has arrived right on schedule. 
See you next time. 
Bye. 
All right. 
Bye.