Thank you for listening to Off the Hook. 
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I'm sorry. 
I must have misdialled something. 
Thank you. 
Sorry. 
Sorry. 
We couldn't get much worse. 
But if they could, they would. 
One day we'd bomb for the best, expect the worst. 
I hope the thunder's good. 
One day we'd go. 
And a very good evening to everybody. 
The program is Off the Hook. 
Emmanuel Goldstein here with you on this Wednesday evening. 
Joined tonight by Kyle. 
Yeah. 
We have in Skypeland Rob T. 
Firefly. 
Good evening. 
We have Gila. 
Good evening. 
And we have Alex. 
You do. 
Good evening. 
And a very Merry Christmas to everybody. 
And a Happy Hanukkah because they both came on the same day this year. 
Who knew? 
Okay. 
They converge. 
Yeah. 
The last time that happened, if my records are correct, was 2005. 
And the next time it'll happen is 2035. 
So this is a very special occasion. 
And I think it only happened about four times over the last hundred years. 
So, yeah, big deal. 
Big deal. 
But it doesn't stop us from being on the air here on WBAI because, you know, things have to move forward. 
And, yeah. 
So here we are on a holiday. 
And, in fact, next year, next week will be next year. 
And that'll be New Year's Day. 
And we'll be on the air again then. 
Wow. 
I can tell we're all so happy about this. 
We're all so thrilled. 
That's great. 
Well, listen, I want to thank everybody who called in last week. 
We had our first phone-in show last week. 
And, boy, you know, I have to tell you, the phone never stopped ringing. 
It was just, you know, you hung it up and immediately it started ringing again. 
This right here is the difference between a podcast and a radio show. 
Now, we do the podcast. 
We do, over time, follows on YouTube at 8 o'clock. 
And we're doing that tonight. 
But last week, we took phone calls over the air, not on the podcast. 
And the difference was night and day. 
We have to beg for calls on the podcast. 
But on the radio, they come pouring in. 
So the beauty is you never know how many people are out there listening. 
You never know who you're going to talk to next. 
And that's the magic of radio. 
That's why we do this. 
And that's why I hope that people will continue to support WBAI. 
Our fundraiser goes until the end of the year. 
And as you can see, it's a lot more, I guess, better structured. 
It's lower key. 
We're not constantly hawking various premiums and things like that. 
We're talking about preserving the radio station, about having 99.5 FM remain a non-commercial bastion of thought, debate, music, all kinds of alternative thoughts. 
You can be a part of that by going to buddy.wbai.org and becoming a BAI buddy, which involves a monthly subscription of one sort or another. 
You decide how much you want to pay each month. 
And you can vote in BAI elections. 
You can basically consider yourself part of the BAI family. 
But it's so important that we get to our goal by the end of the year. 
Go ahead, Gila. 
I just wanted to make one point, which is that when you become a BAI buddy, there is a dropdown on the website that asks you what show you want to be a buddy of, or more grammatically correctly than that, but what show you're supporting. 
Please, please, please make sure that you're choosing off the hook from that dropdown menu when you become a BAI buddy. 
We, you know, becoming a general BAI buddy is great. 
Becoming a buddy in the name of our show is actually even better, and we appreciate it on all counts, but thank you. 
Well, you just answered Paul's question. 
Paul is a listener who wrote in to us and said, if I had $1,000 to spare, I would take you up on your offer of being pro-Trump for an hour. 
Okay, what I did last week, and I already regret it, was say I would go pro-Trump for an entire hour if somebody pledged $1,000 to the radio station. 
I can do it. 
I can be conservative. 
I can, I can, it's very easy. 
It's very easy. 
You just have to be selfish. 
You just have to say my way or no way. 
Things like, yeah, I'm not going to give it away now. 
You've got to pledge $1,000 first. 
But basically, Paul continues, what do you mean, who would that serve? 
I guess I was questioning it back then. 
I guarantee you at least a few of your listeners would enjoy it. 
And yeah, I don't doubt that. 
I imagine you guys might enjoy it as well. 
If I want to make a more modest donation, like $25 to become a BAI buddy, can I do so as an off-the-hook fan, or does it all have to go through the generic WBAI donation site? 
Well, Paul, I hope you're listening, because Gila just explained that, yes, you can go to the BAI website, and you can pick your favorite show. 
And if your favorite show happens to be off-the-hook, you can select off-the-hook. 
And yeah, that way, it's a checkmark for us as well. 
Absolutely. 
And as we often point out, this is the only thing that keeps WBAI on the air. 
We don't get government grants. 
We don't have paid commercials. 
We don't have any of that stuff that the mainstream commercial radio industry depends on. 
All we have is you out there listening and deciding that what you're hearing is good enough to show a little support for and throwing in at buddy.wbai.org. 
WBAI went on the air January 8th, 1960. 
That is almost 65 years ago. 
In a couple of weeks, it'll be 65 years of WBAI being kept on the air just by you. 
Maybe not you specifically, who's listening right now, but you out there in our listenership who have been deciding that, yeah, this is worth having. 
This is worth happening. 
And yeah, buddy.wbai.org. 
Holy cow. 
Are you going to ask why I just said holy cow on the air? 
I was curious. 
I am also curious. 
Someone has to ask. 
Emmanuel, why did you say holy cow? 
Not all at once, one at a time. 
Good Lord. 
It's like our first day on the radio. 
All right. 
So why did you say holy cow? 
Alex, well, may you ask why I said holy cow. 
But when Rob just recited that bit of history there, I realized that this is December 25th. 
Next week is January 1st. 
The week after that will be January 8th. 
We will be on the air on the 65th anniversary of WBAI to the day. 
And if we don't plan something special for that, I have nothing left to say. 
Gila, please. 
I'll make cake. 
Okay. 
That's not going to help our listeners much unless we get all their addresses or something. 
Oh, it just meant for us. 
Okay. 
That's fine. 
I'm not sure how. 
We're in different places. 
We're all in different places. 
So I'm not sure how that will help exactly. 
But, you know. 
We'll have cake. 
Actually, you guys are in the same place. 
That's true. 
But maybe you can nail something. 
But, yeah, 65 years. 
Think about that. 
That's incredible. 
And another reason why supporting WBAI is so important. 
Think of any other radio station around that has lasted that long. 
The reason we have lasted that long, it's simple. 
It's you. 
It's the listeners. 
And when the listeners take charge, things last. 
Things get done properly. 
So that says a lot. 
That says a hell of a lot. 
So, please, buddy.wbai.org is the website. 
Pledge generously. 
If Off the Hook is a program that you can stand, that you can tolerate, then, yeah, check us off on the list as the show you're pledging for. 
Absolutely. 
There's just a little bit of time left if you're concerned with taxes and things and the implications of giving donations and you want to get those in before the calendar year is up. 
You know, now is the time. 
It's about it's nearing the end of when you're able to do that. 
So if you go to buddy.wbai.org or you could call our cool pledge line, which is 833-WBAI-NYC, or if you'd like the digits, it's 833-922-4692. 
And you could you could talk to somebody who can take your pledge information and all of that good stuff and just let them know that you're here for WBAI. 
You're here for Off the Hook. 
You think this should all keep going on. 
And you mentioned we're a non-profit deal. 
I believe you know something about how that works. 
Boy, do I. 
So if you are a person who is subject to making required minimum distributions from your individual retirement account and you want to do that, there's a qualifying charitable distribution option that you can use to give a gift to your well, wherever. 
But you can make your RMD without being subject to taxes. 
If you make a qualifying charitable distribution, you can look up the Pacifica Foundation and find out our tax ID number and make some or all of your RMD for this year to the Pacifica Foundation as a qualifying charitable distribution. 
Also, if you are a person who has a donor advised fund, if you have matching gifts from your employer, these are all really, really, really awesome things to do. 
And the clock is very much ticking because a lot of these things turn over on December 31st. 
So you have about a week. 
But these are all really wonderful things to do. 
And your financial advisors can help you work that sort of thing out. 
But, yeah, if you have RMD dollars left for 2024, WBAI and the Pacifica Foundation are a pretty great place to send them. 
And you mentioned that December 31st is about a week away. 
It's exactly a week away. 
In fact, next week at this time, it will be New Year's Eve. 
I don't know what we'll be doing. 
But one thing we try to do on this program at the end of the year is talk about our wishes for the year ahead and maybe some of the things, monumental things that have happened in the year that is concluding. 
I'd like to invite our listeners to be a part of that as well. 
If you have a wish for 2025 in the world of technology, hacking, privacy, whatever you feel is relevant to the subjects we talk about, email us, OTH at 2600.com with your thoughts. 
Also, if there's something that you want to mark as a significant event in the previous year, you can include that as well. 
Again, OTH at 2600.com. 
Next week, we'll be going over some of the highlights and our wishes for the future. 
Now, last week, during the call-in program, we pretty much talked about the drones. 
Do you notice how people aren't talking about the drones anymore? 
I don't know why that is. 
Nothing really changed. 
But it's sort of what I predicted. 
It's sort of what I thought would happen, that people would freak out for a little while, and then all of a sudden, they'd get distracted by something else. 
But if you look up in the sky, you'll probably still see them. 
There's all kinds of things up in the air. 
We did get some mail on the subject. 
Here's something from RH. 
I'm listening to your broadcast of the 18th of December. 
And I just wanted to chime in that it is actually difficult, or at least difficult for me, to spot aircraft during the day. 
Well, yeah, that's definitely true. 
It's harder without those lights that you see at night. 
When I discovered FlightRadar24.com many years ago, I spent some time on a roof in Brooklyn watching planes. 
Even though I had a live map of flights approaching, most of them on their way to LaGuardia and JFK, so not particularly high, I actually knew where to look for them. 
It was actually hard to find them if they were more than a half mile off. 
Often, I could hear them before I could see them. 
I can't explain this. 
It might just be me. 
No, I don't think it is just you. 
I think we all have that issue. 
It's an easy enough thing for you to test for yourself, though. 
On a clear night, on the other hand, it's very easy to spot them from miles away. 
And yes, RH, I think that is the issue, that you can spot them from miles away, and they seem closer than they are. 
And if they're approaching, they seem to be approaching very slowly when, in fact, they're moving at aircraft speed. 
So there are numerous factors at play here. 
And if you're looking up at the sky, looking for things, you will find things. 
You will find all kinds of things. 
You'll see stars, planets, satellites, airplanes, and all kinds of other flying objects that are hard to identify at night that have lights on them. 
And you will certainly see drones as well. 
Now, there is something that has sort of been clarified since last week. 
I think we might have even mentioned this. 
And a lot of people have been talking about this, people who are demanding some kind of action. 
They are saying that radioactive isotopes are being searched for by drones. 
But, in fact, if you go to fact-checking websites, we went to USA Today on this one, it turns out that this is a false report. 
No drones were used in the search for the substance. 
That's according to a spokesperson for the New Jersey agency in charge of overseeing its recovery. 
And the reason for that is the first drone sightings predate the misplacement of the substance by two weeks. 
So, it doesn't really make much sense. 
Now, basically, there was a report filed with the U.S. 
Nuclear Regulatory Commission after a trace amount of the radioactive isotope germanium-68 when missing from a shipping container in early December in New Jersey. 
So, if you have come across a trace amount of germanium-68, there are some people who would like to talk to you about that. 
But, that's not the reason why there are drones in the air. 
At least, that's not the main reason, if there are any drones at all. 
Any other comments on drones before we move on? 
Alex, do you have any updates? 
Have you been looking at the skies recently? 
I have been looking at the skies. 
And I'm in Pennsylvania at the moment. 
But when I drove out here for our bit of holiday break here, it was still daylight. 
So, I wasn't able to compare my experience of the night sky paying close attention to it as I did a couple of weeks ago with my latest journey across northern New Jersey. 
But I do think that what we saw a couple of weeks ago was the sky filled very much with drones. 
And I've been thinking a lot about what we discussed last week, which was whether it was something that we had just perceived in the sky. 
Namely, that, you know, because we're paying attention to the sky, that we're seeing all these drones. 
I don't think it was right, because I do pay attention to the sky quite a bit, no matter what. 
I mean, I'm always looking up at the sky. 
And I noticed there was a big difference between the sky in New Jersey and Pennsylvania. 
So, I'm not entirely convinced that this was all some kind of mass hysteria or hallucination on the part of everybody seeing these drones. 
I think that what we had discussed last week is possibly still applicable, namely that whoever could be responsible for flying these massive drones around might have realized that it's not a good idea to continue to doing this type of thing. 
So, they might have moved on to a new location or just grounded them for the time being. 
But I have a feeling they're going to show up again. 
Yeah, you see, I'm not so – first of all, what we're talking about here might be two different things. 
I know you mentioned that Pennsylvania had significantly less sky traffic than New Jersey, which to me makes perfect sense. 
But, you know, that would hold true for drones as well. 
And I would imagine you'd probably see the same thing if you were to go to New Jersey now. 
You'd probably see more activity in the sky than if you went to Pennsylvania. 
I don't think there are less drones in the sky. 
I think people just aren't thinking about it as much. 
And I think, you know, the danger is that January is going to come around and people are going to forget about this. 
And then they're going to say, oh, yeah, Trump fixed that. 
You know, he came in and he got rid of all the drones. 
In fact, no such thing happened. 
When, you know, we've been looking up at the sky and reporting everything that moves as a drone. 
And then all of a sudden everybody calms down and really nobody did anything and nobody changed anything. 
I don't know. 
It just it strikes me as a little worrisome that we're so easily fascinated by objects and so quickly lose interest in them. 
I do. 
I think this is dangerous, too. 
I think that especially if you consider the amount of credible people that had seen this, including state senator elect Andy Kim from New Jersey, who posted about this. 
Alex, your microphone cut out again. 
I don't know how you have the worst equipment every week. 
How the hell that happened? 
That's so bizarre. 
I don't know how that every week. 
Every week is another mystery. 
OK, go ahead. 
Continue. 
Anyhow. 
So what I was saying is, you know, there are a lot of credible people that that had seen these these drones, including Senator elect Andy Kim from New Jersey, who posted about this quite extensively on on Twitter, X, whatever you want to call it these days. 
And so I think that it is dangerous for us to go into a new administration when no additional information is given to the public about this, because it opens up the door. 
Then the Trump administration to come in and act like we're the savior. 
We're now going to give you the information. 
We're going to provide this transparency now to the people that the Biden administration was hiding from you. 
And I think that could be a way for them to establish a better rapport with the American people, and especially those Democratic voters that didn't support the Trump administration during this last election. 
Which I imagine would be most of them. 
Yeah. 
Well, look at New York, though. 
I mean, New York had a massive influx of Trump voters. 
I mean, talking about, you know, Manhattan in particular. 
You know, it's a little scary out there. 
It is. 
It is. 
And we're going to see what what what people voted for, what they what they get. 
But, you know, going through some headlines. 
I've got a headline. 
I just want to hold up to everybody that which is still true. 
Trump guilty on all counts front page of The New York Times earlier this year. 
I just wanted to share that, make people remember what's true and what is not true. 
Still guilty on all counts. 
But he's going to pardon himself and put himself in power. 
All right. 
We have other stories to talk about, though, other important things. 
For instance, there's an Indiana bakery that's still using Commodore 64s that were released back in 1982 as cash registers. 
Yeah, basically, 42 years ago is when these things debuted. 
This bakery was identified as the Hillegoss Bakery in Brownsburg, Indiana. 
The last publicly posted picture of the Commodore 64 register was in 2021. 
But they were called by Tom's Hardware dot com. 
And the shop verified the registers were still in use. 
The establishment in question has 488 Google reviews with an average 4.7 star rating. 
202 Facebook reviews. 
Well, you know, it doesn't really matter. 
I don't think they're reviewing the Commodore 64 so much. 
But some of them do mention the Commodore 64, basically, definitely something that is of interest and unique. 
Now, aside from the technical curiosity, it seems that Hillegoss Bakery is actually well appreciated in its local Brownsburg community for the quality of its pastries and not simply the oddity of using a microcomputer originally released in 1982. 
Yeah, this is an example of how technology can continue to be used well past its alleged sunset. 
It's actually very sensible, they say, when you consider the processing power required to do point-of-sale transactions, which isn't very much. 
Even for its age, Commodore 64 wasn't particularly overpowered. 
In fact, its accessible pricing helped it land a spot as the highest-selling single-computer model of all time by the Guinness World Records. 
That's based on sales estimates as high as 17 million units. 
Now, you obviously won't be using modern software on one, given its use of BASIC, which I still miss to this day. 
The BASIC point-of-sale functionality, word processing, etc., is all well within the capabilities of a Commodore 64 and most old PCs in general. 
So, this appears to be one of the bread bin, quite apt for a bakery, bread bin models, as later cost-reduced models moved to a sleeker arrowhead style. 
Other than that, there's not much info as to what model this actually is, but Commodore 64. 
So, if you want to see a Commodore 64 in action, you have to head on over to Indiana and find the Hillegoss Bakery in Brownsburg. 
And if I'm ever in Indiana, I certainly will stop by just to see the Commodore 64s. 
Absolutely. 
The pictures are just great to look at of these things being used, as, you know, they've got them hooked up to modern LCD displays and everything, but it's still, it's a good old Commodore 64, one of the 8-bit computers that I was very fond of back in the day. 
And, yeah, I am just sad that if I go in there, I will have to, you know, get some pastries or something, but they probably won't let me play on the computers and, you know, load up some games, the old Ghostbusters game or something. 
It's great to see it working, though. 
Okay, I guess that's all the thoughts we have on that. 
Next story is something that I thought was a joke, Rob, because you posted it to our list, and apparently it's not a joke. 
Forgive me if I sound a little confused here, because for some reason, we use this service that sends us stories that have to do with technology, and we have an application that makes things printer-friendly, and it's no longer printer-friendly. 
It prints things now in two-point font, which is extremely hard to read, even with a microscope, and I'm going to have to struggle to get through this. 
But there's an Arizona school, and their curriculum will be taught by AI with no teachers. 
Yeah, I thought this was a joke. 
I really did. 
But remember that one teacher who made going to school fun and inspired you to pursue your passions? 
Well, students at a new charter school in Arizona won't, because they don't get to have teachers. 
Instead, the two hours of academic instruction they receive each day, yes, just two hours, will be directed entirely by AI. 
By a 4-3 margin, the Arizona State Board for Charter Schools approved an application from Unbound Academy to open a fully online school serving grades 4 through 8. 
Unbound already operates a private school that uses its AI-dependent two-hour learning model in Texas and is currently applying to open similar schools in Arkansas and Utah. 
Under the two-hour learning model, students spend just two hours a day using personalized learning programs from companies like IXL and Khan Academy. 
As students work through lessons on subjects like math, reading, and science, the AI system will analyze their responses, time spent on tasks, and even emotional cues to optimize the difficulty and presentation of content. 
That's according to Unbound's charter school application in Arizona. 
This ensures that each student is consistently challenged at their optimal level, preventing boredom or frustration. 
Spending less time on traditional curriculum frees up the rest of students' days for life-skill workshops that cover financial literacy, public speaking, goal-setting, entrepreneurship, critical thinking, and creative problem-solving, according to the Arizona application. 
Teachers are replaced by guides who lead those workshops. 
The student handbook for the Alpha School, the charter school, Unbound's founders operate in Texas, claims that its students learn twice as much as standard school students while only spending two hours per day on academics. 
Thanks to financial support and lobbying by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, many public and private schools have integrated personalized learning software like IXL and Khan Academy into their teacher-led curriculum, although experts have questioned whether the programs provide the educational boosts they boast about in marketing material. 
In its Arizona application, Unbound says its bold claims about how much its students will learn are based on the experiments it's running on students in Texas, inspired by Elon Musk. 
The founders of Unbound Academic Institute begin with opening a high-end private school, Alpha, for the same reason Elon Musk started with higher-end Teslas to create a product that generates insights and funding for future research and development, the company wrote in its application. 
You know, you come across a story like this and you just want to say there's no hope. 
There's no hope anymore if people are this stupid that they would put their kids through this and turn everything over to artificial intelligence, not hire actual teachers, think that kids are getting education with two hours a day of Elon Musk-inspired crap. 
You know, they deserve what they get. 
The kids don't deserve it, but boy, I mean, Rob, last chance. 
This is not a joke, right? 
Sadly, it's not. 
And you can actually find the supporting documents on Arizona's government site for looking up the minutes of these meetings and such. 
Yeah, this all happened, and it was approved by a 4-to-3 margin in the Arizona State Board for Charter Schools. 
So there was some opposition, but it just barely passed. 
And this whole thing reminds me of in the 1950s and 60s, there was a scientist called Harry Harlow who ran experiments with monkeys, and a lot of people have been taught about these, where baby monkeys were given a choice of two different substitute mothers. 
And this is quite a cruel experiment to play on animals, but there were the choice of a cloth mother that was soft and furry and, you know, supportive, whatever, but there was a wireframe mother that could feed the monkey but was otherwise just, you know, cold and unfeeling. 
And, you know, the whole experiment was about which mother the monkeys would prefer and stuff. 
And this feels like another such thing. 
It's like we are experimenting with a school full of children by giving them AI teachers and just seeing how this all shakes out. 
And I would be terrified if I were a parent by the idea of this. 
Alex, you are a parent, so do you have any thoughts on this? 
Yeah, I am a parent. 
I think it's abhorrent that the regional school board here would abdicate responsibility for educating its students to something inane like a curriculum that was sponsored or known or promoted in some way by Elon Musk. 
It just sounds like they're buying into and feeding into this deification of billionaires and thinking that this is going to have some kind of trickle-down effect on their students, which makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. 
And like Rob, I'm reminded of things past in some ways. 
And I think back to maybe 2007 to 2010 era when smartphones were just becoming widely available and there was that catchphrase from Apple, there's an app for that, when everybody was creating apps to do the most inane stupid things. 
And it seems like we're going through that era right now with artificial intelligence, where we think that this is going to be some kind of panacea for all of our woes. 
It can solve all of our problems, and artificial intelligence is going to save us on so many levels. 
And I hope that in 10 years from now we look back at these stupid, idiotic decisions like this one in much the same way as we look back at 2010 and these ridiculous apps that had no legs or longevity to them whatsoever. 
We need to be able to discern between investments in these technologies that are replacing individuals individuals and those investments that actually are empowering them with these tools and training them to be better, to optimize them, to make them super teachers. 
And that really is, to me, the litmus, like, where is the investment going? 
Is it going to the educators and to advancing the field, or upending it and replacing it with robots? 
Like, that's maybe great for the investor in this case, but I don't think that it's actually beneficial, as beneficial to society as they might think. 
And they need to test that. 
Fine. 
Do that testing, but do it outside of a production environment. 
That, you know, I don't know that that went very well with cars. 
I mean, it accelerated some things, but students aren't cars. 
Good point. 
Yeah, students are not these commodities. 
They're all individual. 
They all require different attention levels. 
Very important point. 
Alex, and then Gila. 
Yeah, I think you bring up, I think, a really good point here, too, Kyle, which is that part of the, I think, just totally missing the point here, or this whole wrong-headed idea of replacing curricula with AI-related content is, look, and don't get me wrong, I've had my fair share of stupid teachers when I was growing up, and, you know, I think there are a lot of them, and maybe some of them may or should be supplanted by some kind of AI, but very often it's the intangibles of a relationship with your teacher that have the most effect on people, that connection, that personal connection with a teacher that can make a change in the trajectory of your life, kind of like when you, you know, you change the trajectory of an arrow by a minuscule amount when you're firing at like 100 yards, right, but it makes a huge change over time. 
That's what I think students are going to be missing out on, are those relationships and those life-changing moments moments of personal human connection with their teachers. 
Yeah, you know, good point. 
I'll get to, you'll give them in just a second, but, you know, you run into your fourth-grade teacher in the grocery store 20 years later, and you get to tell her, you know, you really changed my life. 
Are you going to, you know, find AI in the future and somehow try and resurrect it and tell it what a difference it made in your life? 
What kind of society are we moving into? 
We're losing, literally losing the human touch in one of the most, you know, human-related parts of our lives, our education. 
You cannot just transfer that over to a machine. 
Go ahead, Gila. 
Part of my concern, honestly, was the assumption that we're moving into this place where everything needs to be monetized, and my concern is that, so I see that one of the school, one of the states where this company is applying to start charters is Arkansas, where they've recently and notoriously loosened child labor laws, like, quite significantly. 
So is the point that, hey, you can go to school for two hours, and then conveniently, we've got other stuff for you to do all day long. 
I think about this when, you know, you see kids starting sports and you can now pick, like, one sport and you wind up specializing in it. 
Where's the room, not just for the personal touch, and I say this as a former teacher, but where's the room to be a kid? 
And where's your space to run around and do silly things? 
And, I mean, this also relates to what we're talking about a couple weeks ago with the parent who let her 11-year-old kid walk home and, like, wound up in jail. 
Yeah, I was thinking of the same thing. 
We're in a society now where you have to abide by these strict confines, and if you don't, you're the problem. 
And, yeah, kids can't be kids anymore. 
They can't do things like just walk down the street themselves without being subject to all kinds of investigation and interrogation. 
Free-range kids, they're the happiest ones, the ones that know their neighborhood and have adventures and misadventures sometimes, too, because that's a part of growing up. 
And this is not a left-right issue. 
This is an issue of control, something that affects all of us, and to see technology used against us in this way. 
And, yes, it is against us because it's basically destroying an institution that is so vital. 
Yeah, Alex said, you know, we've had bad teachers, and I've had bad teachers, too, but rather than replace them with AI, let's replace them with better teachers. 
You know, let's take care of the teachers more. 
Let's make sure that these relationships, including how to interact with other people, are fostered and cherished. 
Because I guarantee you these kids are not going to have happy memories of their school days dealing with a computer. 
No. 
The happiness from school days comes from interacting with other students and interacting with teachers as well. 
Yeah, so does the misery. 
I know that, too. 
But that's all a part of growing up. 
That's all a part of the experience. 
So this is a charter school. 
It's not the public school system. 
But do any of us think that in states like Arkansas and Texas, the public school system is safe from this kind of nonsense? 
Because I don't. 
Rob? 
Absolutely not. 
And as I said, they're trying it in a fancy school, so they can trickle results down to, I'm sure, if this catches on and does not inspire outrage, this will end up being something that they start playing with in public schools. 
And I'm no great fan of our current public school system. 
You know, not to go too into stuff, but I consider myself to have been failed by the public school system as a kid. 
But, like, it is still, like, there were the teachers that were good and that inspired me and who I still remember fondly today. 
And it has a lot that it did do for me. 
And they are all things that AI is definitely not equipped to do. 
They were things that involved individual understanding on a meaningful level. 
And that is not something AI can do. 
So I was thinking back when, was it earlier this year, last year? 
What is time? 
When we were busy trying to get the ChatGPT to write poetry. 
You remember? 
And the ChatGPT poetry was bad, and I was writing better poetry than ChatGPT. 
And I asked ChatGPT, which I am assuming is comparable to what the teaching software would be for these online schools, if it could write a poem in spondaeic manometer, which is my favorite poetic foot. 
An AI claimed that it was impossible to write a poem in spondaeic manometer. 
Now, a good teacher will let you mess around and discover that actually it is possible. 
It's hard, but it's fun. 
Spondaeic manometer, by the way, a spondae is a foot with two stress syllables and manometer. 
So you have two stress syllables in each line. 
This is a spondaeic manometer. 
Stop that. 
Are you kidding me? 
Can you, maybe a better example than just that? 
No, I'm telling you. 
So a spondaeic manometer, a line of spondaeic manometer would have two stressed syllables. 
That's it? 
That's it. 
Okay. 
So like iambic pentameter, right? 
You have a stressed and an unstressed syllable, and you have five of those. 
Da-da, da-da, da-da, da-da, da-da. 
Uh-huh. 
So a spondae is two stressed syllables, and you have one foot of a spondae. 
One spondae, two stressed syllables. 
So a poem would be something like, stop that. 
Go home. 
Come here. 
I mean, it's funny. 
It's hard to do. 
It sounds like Fox News. 
Is it possible they know about this? 
I highly doubt it. 
Okay. 
Well, that's, you know, you should teach AI this. 
I've had some weird conversations with AI over the past 24 hours. 
I don't know if it's going through some kind of crisis or something. 
Somebody emailed me, and you might want to try this, saying, ask AI, whatever AI you want, to pick a random number between 1 and 50, and it will pick 27. 
And I did that, and it picked 27. 
It was really weird. 
I tried it again today, and basically it told me that it's impossible for it to pick a random number. 
So some kind of identity crisis happened in that 24 hours from the same AI that basically would not allow it to do what I had asked it to do merely a day earlier. 
Another thing that happened was I was basically asking it questions about some subject, and it answered me with an answer to a question from a previous subject. 
My question had nothing to do with the previous subject. 
There's no way that you could have misinterpreted it that way. 
It just reached into its memory banks and gave me something that made absolutely no sense whatsoever. 
And when I confronted it with that, saying, hey, you gave me the wrong answer here, it was just all filled with apologies but no explanation. 
So, yeah, I'm not sure what's going on with AI, but I certainly don't depend on it for facts. 
Okay, here's something funny about what you just said. 
Gil and I are on two different computers here. 
She's on her laptop. 
I'm on a desktop. 
And while you were saying that, we both brought up ChatGPT and asked it to pick a random number between 1 and 50. 
We both got, as our first answer, the random number I picked is 32 at the same time on two different computers. 
We both asked it again to pick a random number between 1 and 50. 
It gave us both 17. 
Weird. 
Okay. 
Very. 
Want to go for three? 
Well, I'm wondering why you didn't get 27. 
That's strange. 
Alex, yes, do you have a theory? 
Yeah, while they performed this experiment, I just wanted to comment. 
Wouldn't it have been so much more interesting if the random number chosen across all AIs between 1 and 50 was 42? 
It just made so much more sense. 
Well, that would have been funny, but I don't think AI has a sense of humor quite like we do. 
Perhaps. 
Well, another thing that's been messing up, Riley, I mentioned the tiny font that I'm dealing with all night long from my printer-friendly app, which doesn't seem to be working. 
I mean, it might be friendly to the printer. 
It's not friendly to me. 
But I also have another service that Google runs that sends news stories with certain keywords, like hacker hacking, that kind of thing. 
Well, it sent one, but when I went to print it, here's what I got. 
I got basically a title of unknown title and then a full page of words about how they use cookies and profiles and just all kinds of things like that and not a word about the story. 
I'm looking at this piece of paper now. 
I have no idea what story it was. 
When I printed it, there was a story there, but after it went to the printer, it's complete nonsense. 
And then Google News sent me this other story, which some of you might have even gotten, too, if you use that service. 
Police arrest 15-year-old in Northern Ireland over TalkTalk hack, which is an interesting story. 
Police arrested a 15-year-old boy in Northern Ireland on Monday over a cyber attack that may have led to the theft of data from among the 4 million customers of British broadband provider TalkTalk. 
The attack, which took place on Wednesday, prompted the company to deny accusations, blah, blah, blah. 
If you go through this whole story, which I almost pulled for tonight's show, you might not read the tiny print at the top that says the story is from 2015. 
But somehow Google has decided this is new and has pushed it to a lot of people. 
And I've seen the story show up on Google News. 
So I'm just wondering, is there going to be a newspaper somewhere that prints this as a news story without checking the date that appears in tiny print? 
And this is a way that robotic news reporting can really mess you up. 
You know, if you don't check the date, you might be spreading all kinds of old news or just complete misinformation. 
And that would be the right use of the word misinformation, too. 
This is kind of wrong information by a mistake here. 
But I really am wondering if something like this could be used nefariously. 
If maybe just tweaking how an article is stored on a website's content management system, like Google picks it up again or it looks appreciably different or has a different hash associated with it or something, can trick Google itself into thinking that old news is new news, that could be pretty dangerous to wield during election times and whatnot. 
Well, during any times. 
But if that is something that is even remotely possible, you know, I think we have an obligation to try and make that happen so that we can show that people should not rely on these kinds of services. 
It's very easy to manipulate them. 
Speaking of easily manipulated, this guy Vivek Ramaswamy, I can't believe I still have to talk about this moron. 
His Twitter account was hacked, which caused a stir online because it had a fraudulent post claiming a partnership between the U.S. 
Department of Government Efficiency, known as DOGE, and the stablecoin issuer, Usual, U-S-U-A-L. 
I'm not supposed to pronounce that or not. 
The post, which promised to address the federal fiscal deficit and promote digital currencies for economic stability, was quickly deleted after Ramaswamy's team identified the breach. 
The now-deleted post claims the partnership would help streamline government transactions and promote fiscal responsibility using digital currencies. 
However, cybersecurity experts confirmed the tweet was part of a scam to promote fake crypto initiatives. 
We are moving into a very weird period of history where you have idiots who don't know how to even keep their Twitter accounts safe, are running government agencies now, are deeply mired in the cryptocurrency world, and you won't be able to tell the difference between misinformation and fact that they are attempting to spread. 
So, yet another example of this, and boy, it's going to be fun come next month. 
Alex? 
This is something that's actually been going around Twitter for the last week or so, but there are quite sophisticated scams that are targeting users for some kind of alleged copyright violation. 
So it may say something like, your last post violated our community guidelines with respect to copyright rights of third parties, etc. 
You need to log in to address this, then ask you to log in using your password and kind of ordinary credentials harvester that you would expect, and then ask you to, and then kind of sends you the SMS that you would actually get from Twitter. 
So they're doing this in the back end as well. 
And you actually funnel your two-factor authentication SMS message over to the attacker. 
They then take over the account, and I've been pushing out these pump-and-dump cryptocurrency scams for the last week or so. 
And a lot of people have gotten caught up in them. 
And they're going after very high-profile accounts, obviously, because they have a lot of reach. 
What I would tell our listeners is that these emails may be very, very difficult to distinguish between with respect to illegitimate and legitimate items here. 
But what you can always do is take a look at the sender. 
You want to look at the entire email address, not just what shows up in your email client as a name, but look at the actual email address, and you will very often see a domain name that has something like content-report, and then it'll end in dashx.com. 
So the entire domain might have something to do with password resets or something like that, but then it'll end in dashx.com. 
And that is not the same at all as x.com. 
It creates a sense of visual similarity to give you the feeling that you are in a secure space. 
These imposter domains are getting more sophisticated, but always detectable by looking for that dashx.com. 
I would extend this even further to say don't trust anything you read on x.com, because it's filled with trolls and rip-off artists and just evil people that basically will get you to click on something that is unsafe. 
And especially if it's somebody like Vivek or anyone else from the Trump regime, don't trust them as far as you can throw them. 
And it's up to you to measure how far that is. 
Quickly now, last two minutes, popular doorbell camera brands contain security flaws, making them easy to hack. 
Some video doorbells sold by companies like Walmart and Amazon have security flaws that allow them to be easily hacked. 
That's according to a report from Consumer Reports. 
It was released last Wednesday, found that video doorbells that seem to be made by the same manufacturer and sold under different brand names, including Fishbot, Ekin, and Tuck, can be taken over by someone who can physically access them, create an account on a smartphone app owned by Ekin, visit someone's home, hold down a doorbell button, and put it into pairing mode. 
If you see somebody on your front porch doing that, be suspicious. 
Following these actions, someone could link the doorbell with a Wi-Fi hotspot and take over the doorbell, making them the owner of the doorbell and now having the ability to see those who arrive and those who leave. 
The original owner of the doorbell can regain control of the doorbell. 
Once again, someone has the serial number. 
They can still have access to images via the video feed. 
You know what? 
You can regain access to your doorbell by going up to the doorbell affected and basically getting a firm grip on it and pulling it out of your door and throwing it in the trash can and putting a regular doorbell in there and trying to forget when you were so foolish as to buy something like this in the first place. 
There are other ways to monitor who's coming to your door, but something that somebody can physically access, no. 
That's probably not the best way. 
Any thoughts, debate on that? 
We have one minute. 
I have no plans to buy a computer I can't control properly and attach it to the front of my house. 
Or anywhere else, for that matter. 
It's just crazy. 
You know, everything is getting hacked. 
And it's not that there are, you know, more hackers out there. 
It's that people are basically trusting every device in their home and using it as an entry point to their home network. 
You know, refrigerator, ovens, doorbells. 
It's really absurd. 
It's funny, but it could really be hazardous as well. 
All right. 
We're going to be moving on over to YouTube over on Channel 2600 for our overtime show starting at 8 p.m. 
You can call us, and we'll be doing the call-in feature on Off the Hook on WBAI, I'd say about once a month, sounds about right. 
Next week, of course, will be our New Year's Eve show. 
That ought to be a lot of fun. 
Write to us, OTH at 2600.com. 
And please don't forget to donate to WBAI. 
Go to buddy.wbai.org and pledge whatever you can afford on a monthly basis. 
And you can identify Off the Hook as your favorite show, if it is, in fact, your favorite show. 
But the most important thing is to keep 99.5 FM commercial-free and on the air for the next 65 years. 
We'll see you next week on BAI, a few minutes on Overtime. 
Good night. 
  And welcome everybody to Overtime here on YouTube. 
Let's make sure that we all made it. 
It's Emmanuel here, Kyle over there. 
Yo. 
We have Skypeland, we've got Rob T. 
Firefly, Gila, and Alex all say hello together. 
Hello together. 
All right. 
That saves time. 
Bye. 
And maybe confirm that we are actually in fact broadcasting to YouTube and not into a black hole. 
We are. 
Okay, good. 
We are broadcasting to YouTube, not to a black hole. 
I realize that we did that thing of when somebody asks you a question with two options and you just say yes, but we are in fact broadcasting to YouTube. 
We have a smaller than usual but nonetheless hearty band with us this evening. 
Welcome to all 14 of you. 
Thank you for being here this evening. 
You know, it's a double holiday, Gila. 
It's Christmas and Hanukkah. 
I imagine some people might not have time for overtime on a day like that. 
Yeah, I get that. 
And Kwanzaa's about to begin, you know, all kinds of festivities. 
We've got New Year's Eve just around the corner. 
And you know what? 
Maybe people just forgot too because we weren't on last week on overtime. 
And we took phone calls on the air. 
So maybe people are miffed that we did that. 
802-321-4225. 
Oh yeah, that's our phone number. 
So please give us a call and let's get started right away. 
Because, yeah, we've got things to do as well, I think. 
Absolutely. 
Well, also I think it's that people are just so unused to the usual schedule occurring on Christmas Day as well. 
That I think your ordinary schedule becomes extraordinary on Christmas in many ways, I guess. 
And I think people are just then operating under the assumption that overtime probably would not be on. 
Well, there is an exception to that because we have a caller. 
So let's take our first call. 
Good evening. 
You're on Off the Hook Overtime. 
Go ahead. 
Hi. 
I wanted to call about the program learning. 
When I was a kid, at one point I was given a printed out booklet, you know, sheets of paper with modules of a mathematical course. 
And, you know, the module tells you about this idea, and then it asks you questions about the ideas. 
It gives you problems, and you select the correct answer to problems and so forth. 
And I breezed through that year's course in a few days. 
So I think that can work. 
And I didn't have to be bored in class, and I didn't have to be subjected to bullying. 
So that worked for me. 
Yes, you're actually standing up in favor of AI teaching our kids? 
I'm in favor of program learning that it adjusts to each person because, you know, if you make a mistake, it goes back, and you relearn what they didn't get. 
As I said, this was not even – it didn't even have a computer involved. 
It was all sheets of paper. 
But you were in a classroom, were you not? 
No. 
I took it home with me and did it at home at my leisure. 
Okay, but you still went to school, right? 
I was going to school, yeah. 
Okay, this replaces school for that charter school in Arkansas. 
And that's, I think, what people have an issue with is that we're literally replacing teachers with AI and expecting kids to somehow learn with two hours a day of instruction. 
I could have breathed through all of high school in two hours a day in a few months. 
Yeah, but – It's the bullying. 
It wouldn't have been – no, the bullying is one thing. 
That's a separate issue, and I understand that. 
And the boredom. 
Yeah, there's that too, but I just don't think two hours, you know, is the high school experience. 
Kyle, you have something to say? 
Go ahead. 
I just want to ask the caller if they think this should be instituted across the board or if it should be available as a tool in maybe a customized option for particular students that want to take advantage of it. 
Because that's, I think, the other aspect of this is the entirety of the curriculum is this for all students, whereas – and you're saying it could be tailored, sure, but they don't have any other option but for whatever tailoring they get. 
It may work – may have worked for you and for other students in some instances, maybe for certain periods of time or in – throughout the course of their education. 
But for, like, their first experience in becoming, you know, familiar with how they learn and the learning process, is this something – so anyway, I'll let you answer. 
Well, as I said, it's – it's tailor-able to individual students. 
And I'm thinking probably the kids who do that – actually, I believe that – I'm not sure that this is correct present-day information, but don't kids who are actors get tutoring a couple hours a day? 
Well, yeah, there's a lot of different kinds of remote learning in, like, tutoring and other programs and curriculum. 
That's not even – that's not remote learning. 
But those students are choosing that because of their, their, you know, distance, perhaps, from a school or – Hang on, Gila, you have someone? 
Go ahead. 
I mean, that's all true, but they're real teachers. 
They're actual real teachers that they're learning from. 
And I think there were actual real teachers, real human teachers, who were running your remote booklet program when you were a kid, right? 
A teacher handed it to me, sure. 
A teacher came up with the idea. 
A teacher was monitoring your process and your progress, right? 
No, I took it home, and I breezed through it in a few days. 
I came back and said, I've finished it. 
And then a teacher gave you something else. 
I think our greater concern here is turning the process over to an untrained large language model that does not have the knowledge or experience to be a teacher. 
And likely never will. 
Right. 
Okay, well, I don't think the booklet had any experience being a teacher, either. 
The modules were carefully written, though. 
But this wasn't your only school experience. 
You went back to school. 
It was the most pleasant one. 
Well, there are a number of reasons for that, and that's because, you know, you weren't with the best people in the world, and I understand and respect that. 
But, you know, this is how we become part of society. 
We figure out ways to deal with the good and the bad. 
And, you know, I just feel that one by one, we're taking every instance where we have interaction with other people and turning it into something that we do in the confines of our own rooms or houses. 
And we have less and less personal contact. 
And we might tell ourselves that we're better off for that. 
But I really think that's something that we're going to regret because human interaction is the most important lesson of all. 
And what you get by going to a school every day and, you know, having friends and developing, you know, relationships and things like that, it's not always smooth sailing. 
In fact, it rarely is. 
But I think it's an essential part of learning. 
Well, my question is, what friends? 
Well, you know, there wasn't much girls getting pregnant while school was in session, I don't think, when I went to school. 
But there are so many issues to unpack here. 
I mean, the whole homeschooling thing, that's a whole other topic as well. 
I don't recall kids being homeschooled to the extent that they are now, only a decade or two ago. 
And it makes me worry. 
It makes me wonder, you know, what qualifies a parent, any parent, to replace a teacher? 
You know, you're going to get all kinds of biases and wrong information from many, and you're not going to be exposed to other thoughts that might challenge the way that you live or the way that you think. 
And that is what the school should be all about, Kyle. 
Well, another thing I think is that the individual instructors in those situations aren't held to the same scrutiny that, oddly and ironically, a lot of their critics love doing to public school and other teachers who are in those professional positions. 
They love being able to go and hold them up to scrutiny and tell them how badly they're doing their job. 
Guess what you can't do really en masse with individual instructors at that level? 
So I, again, ask, and I think the question stands, is this adequate replacement for all other forms of traditional teaching? 
Yeah, and, you know, I have so many bad memories from school, but I also have a lot of good memories from school. 
And I also know I would not have developed the way I did sitting at home, you know, interacting with AI or any kind of a non-human form of instruction, or even with someone who was not a trained teacher or just, you know, isolated from people in my age group. 
You know, it's not always pleasant, but I do think that it is essential for our development. 
Well, I read when I was a kid that children get half of their education at school and half from their family. 
So you send a kid off to boarding school, they don't get that other half from their family. 
But you don't have to be homeschooled to be learning from your parents. 
I mean, it's quite traditional for parents to have the children with them, and the children pick up whatever the parents are doing. 
Right. 
In theory. 
You can teach your children without being a trained teacher and without lesson plans. 
When you say traditional, you're going back, you know, a couple of centuries here. 
Yeah, I mean. 
That's how things work, yes. 
In theory, this is speaking from an incredible place of privilege. 
I mean, come on. 
Is that realistically the experience of average parents? 
I mean, that they have the capacity to dedicate that kind of time to replace the entirety of the education system? 
I mean, I think that's foolish, and I think a little, I don't know, confused, because that's not everyone's experience. 
Are you there? 
I'm here. 
Hi. 
If, you know, the modules were carefully constructed, they didn't replace the parent. 
I mean, the parents didn't replace the modules, but parents and family are always naturally teaching kids if they're around. 
They're displaying things like, how does a married couple get along? 
They're teaching, they're not doing homeschooling, but they're certainly teaching. 
Well, there's lessons to be learned all over. 
I mean, my family, I had two loving parents, both of which were happy to give in to the other whenever they disagreed. 
Right, but Eleanor... 
Other kids had different experiences. 
Not all families are well-equipped to give the identical level that you had, and that sounds like a blessing. 
Anyway, I think I take your point. 
It is probably that some of these tools are quite useful, but I think we're agreeing that it's not the whole of your experience growing up. 
All right. 
Any other... 
Rob, you have something to say? 
Go ahead. 
Yeah, just the state of AI today is demonstrably not good when it comes to anything requiring insight. 
AI can regurgitate certain things that have been fed into it with varying degrees of success. 
Sometimes it's very, very bad. 
It's the AI that is telling you to put glue in a pizza recipe. 
It's the AI that is generating photos of people with mismatched ears and 13 fingers. 
And that is the AI they're talking about giving control of teaching children. 
And so we need to really question whether the tool is suited to the task. 
And I think in this case, the answer is clear. 
All right. 
Thanks for your call. 
Okay. 
The answer may be clear about AI, but I'm not convinced that the schools that we have these days or have had these days are suited to the task either. 
Well, probably they don't get enough funding, and that's probably related to programs like this taking away their funding. 
But thanks for the call. 
It was an interesting conversation. 
It gave us a lot to think about. 
You know, Rob, I think I had a teacher that put glue in pizza recipes because, well, you know, when you deal with kids all day long, and they can be brutal, believe me, you know, not just to themselves, but to teachers as well. 
Yeah, you get a little dark sometimes. 
But, you know, that's a whole part of the process. 
When you think back on your school experience, think back about, you know, things that happened in school. 
How many times is it the lesson? 
It's not really the lesson so much. 
You do learn, but it's the interactions. 
It's the fun things you do with other people or with teachers or even the negative things. 
And, you know, I don't like negative things. 
Nobody does. 
But negative things are essential for learning. 
And sometimes we have unpleasant experiences, and we learn from them, and we figure out how to avoid them and how not to bring them to other people. 
You know, there's all kinds of nuances in an environment like that. 
And I worry, you know, if we're replacing it with AI or if we're saying everybody can get an education at home, you can't get the same kind of education at home that you do by going someplace else and interacting with a whole bunch of other people who you may never have even met otherwise. 
You know, it's great to hang out with your parents all the time, but I just think you're going to open your mind up to more. 
And I know that scares some parents. 
They don't want their kids to have their minds open to things that might question what they say. 
But how else do you develop in any way? 
You know, how else do you grow? 
You have to expose yourself to that. 
Gila? 
There was a unit that we did when I was in eighth grade in English class. 
And I was – we had a team system in my middle school where there were multiple teams in each grade and every, you know, group of teachers, we all worked together, whatever. 
And we had a business letter writing unit in eighth grade. 
And every one of us had to come up with a business name, with a letterhead, and we all had to write each other letters. 
And these were business letters, so we had to have titles. 
You know, it was like, Dear Mr. 
Goldstein. 
And we did within our team, within the other teams in our grade, within – and then we started working with other schools. 
And someone had to write to me and had never heard of my name and did not know what my courtesy title should be. 
And this actually terrified – like, the whole class, this whole group of eighth graders were trying to figure out what my courtesy title should be because they'd never heard my name before. 
I love that story. 
I love the experience that it turns out that there was a girl in the class whose mom worked with my dad and said, oh, that's a girl. 
It's a Ms. 
Because no one knew of Mix at that time in the world. 
Wow. 
Alex, yeah, go ahead. 
Speaking of opening up our minds, I think we should open up our minds to a different subject and the topics that our callers would want to see. 
Well, we have a caller waiting. 
I know. 
Yeah, that's what I'm saying. 
I heard the phone ring. 
If you finish talking, we'll take the call. 
Are you finished? 
All right. 
I am. 
All right. 
Caller, we're sorry for that delay. 
Good evening. 
You're on Off the Talk Overtime. 
Go ahead. 
Yes, no problem, Emmanuel. 
I just want to go – It is so good to hear your voice again, Rebel. 
I just thank you for calling. 
Yes, Merry Christmas, by the way. 
Merry Christmas and Happy Hanukkah and soon Happy Kwanzaa and then there's New Year's Eve and New Year's Day. 
And don't forget Boxing Day. 
Tomorrow's Boxing Day, too. 
Do you know what to do on Boxing Day? 
Well, it's in Canada. 
It's in England and various places. 
But I intend to bring it here. 
That's where you go and you find somebody who's annoyed you and you box them right in the face. 
Did I have it wrong? 
No, that's correct. 
Yeah, okay. 
You're talking about school. 
Remember the pandemic when all the kids had to learn online and be at home and then had to graduate remotely and all that? 
What kind of experience are those kids going to have? 
That's interesting because, okay, these people that are pushing for this kind of instruction, you know, take them away from the liberal schools and teach them at home. 
Well, that's what you had during the pandemic and you all didn't seem to like that very much. 
So, yeah, interesting. 
Good point there, rebel. 
See, it happens. 
Okay. 
Now we'll change the subject if you wanted to change the subject. 
Well, Alex did. 
But I guess we'll change the subject. 
Okay. 
Sure. 
Hold on. 
How is that changing the subject? 
You're putting us on hold? 
Oh, wait a minute. 
I got it. 
Wait a minute. 
Hold on. 
Can we go back to the previous topic that we were discussing? 
We walked right into this, Alex. 
We walked right into it. 
I know. 
I know. 
Hmm. 
Rebel, you used to tell us what you were connecting us to. 
Now you just tell us to hold on and connect us to something and you don't explain it. 
You see how that could be frustrating? 
He put us on hold, didn't he? 
Okay, because I, um, because I, um, because I, um, because I, um. 
Stop saying the same thing. 
Because, because I have the numbers written down, not written down, but in my, uh, text, uh, text thing, and I don't remember what they do. 
Um, and I get- Wait, you're calling numbers and you don't know what they do and you're just making us go along for the ride? 
I know what they do. 
I know what they do. 
I just haven't called them in a while because we haven't been on the air in a while. 
So, no. 
Um, I think this is the one that, that, uh, has something. 
Why, why, why don't you test them before you call us? 
I do. 
I, I, I just, um, hold on and I'll test it now. 
Hold on. 
Wow. 
It's both disturbing and scary. 
You don't know what's going to happen. 
Hold on, hold on, hold on. 
Your party's extension, please press it now. 
This is an important reminder from Linda Miller with Client Services. 
Please listen to the following message. 
Hi, this is Linda Miller. 
I know we've reached out previously about- No, you know what? 
I wanted to hear what she had to say. 
Oh, boy. 
Oh, she had to say something about, um, you know, are you, uh, uh, do you owe money on your taxis and, you know, how we can help you if you owe $10,000 more, which I don't. 
Let's, sorry, this one. 
Let's see. 
Um, hello, welcome. 
I do not have any, you know- Rebel, I'm giving you 30 seconds to come up with something interesting. 
Okay, no, there's no more numbers to call. 
Um- Wait, wait, wait, whoa, hold on. 
You said there are no more numbers to call, so that means that we're finished. 
No, no, that doesn't mean that we're finished. 
Um, let's see. 
Sure sounds that way. 
Let's see, well, um, yeah, you see, um, I have Linux. 
I still have the computer that I want to get rid of. 
Oh, by the way, um, Hope is this year. 
You forgot to tell the folks. 
Well, not this year. 
There's only one week left in this year. 
We'd have to really scramble. 
No, well, I mean, June. 
But you do raise a good point, yes. 
I, uh, uh, we haven't mentioned this yet, but Hope is, uh, now an annual convention, meaning it'll happen every year. 
Right. 
That, that, you didn't hear anything because everybody was cheering at once and it blew out all the, all the sound. 
Well, you forgot to mention it on the radio. 
Well, yeah, um, uh, there's so much to talk about. 
There's a lot to talk about. 
We don't always get to everything and it's not all about, you know, uh, talking about us, but, um, uh, people, people are finding out about it. 
We, we sent out a huge announcement and it's, it's getting out there and we depend on people to spread the word. 
So, uh, yeah, Hope is taking place, uh, next August at St. 
John's. 
It's going to be awesome. 
You know what I want my cell phone to do? 
And we're off to a different subject. 
Go ahead. 
Um, when you call my cell phone, when somebody calls my cell phone. 
That will never happen. 
Wow. 
When somebody calls my cell phone. 
Instead, you know, they used to have this service where they could play music. 
Like when you call somebody and say, please, uh, listen to this music while your party is answered, while your party is waiting. 
Oh, that's the other thing. 
Oh, that's what I wanted to call. 
I'll call this after I explain this. 
You can, you used to be able to have a, select a song that you would, that would play while it was like ringing your cell phone. 
They don't do it anymore, but I was wanting to not have a song, but like an old analog, like step ring or crossbar ring while my phone was ringing. 
You want to play a recording of an old step ring while your phone is ringing. 
I want to do that too. 
When, when rings used to sound different. 
Right. 
I mean, I like to make it so that my, I don't, you can't choose what sound, uh, the other party hears. 
It's just, I think you have to keep them there less. 
Mm-hmm. 
Uh, Rebel, uh, we're down to our last minute. 
Unfortunately, I have no control over this. 
Did you know that when you call a wrong number now, it doesn't say, you know, and you said you give your recording thing. 
The number you have reached has been disconnected or it now gives you, um, um, uh, a recording thing. 
The number you have, I think the only business lines that have this, the number you have reached has, it's not a working number. 
However, we can help you find another business in the area. 
Interesting. 
I played this for you. 
Wow. 
Yeah. 
I don't have a number. 
Otherwise I call it. 
Well, uh, Rebel, uh, for next time, have your numbers prepared. 
Yes. 
Next week. 
Let's look forward to next week. 
Next week for, uh, on, on New Year's Eve. 
That'll be, that'll be a fun way to spend the holiday. 
No. 
New Year's Day. 
Oh yeah. 
You're right. 
New Year's Day. 
Yes. 
New Year's Day is, wow. 
Okay. 
Well then, uh, we'll, um, we look forward to that. 
Thank you. 
Thank you for your call. 
And, um, um, good to hear from you as always. 
Um, that was Rebel Blair. 
Our phone number remains 802-321-4225. 
You know, I, I, you guys all remember this. 
We used to call a number, whatever was talking about, and you would hear a recording saying the number you have reached, and then it would give you the phone number. 
And I haven't heard that recording in ages. 
I don't think they have that anymore. 
I don't think, I don't know why they can't do that. 
But, um, yeah, it, it was, um, it was, uh, there were two different recordings. 
Two different, uh, women had, uh, recordings that would say the number you were calling. 
And, and there'd be all sorts of, um, of, uh, conditions. 
Uh, that number has been disconnected. 
Uh, that number, um, um, has been changed. 
The new number is, and they'd give you the new number. 
Uh, or they'd say that number has been changed to an unpublished number. 
All kinds of options. 
And, um, it was, it was kind of cool calling them. 
All right, but, uh, now we, uh, we are going to take another phone call. 
Good evening. 
You're on off the hook over time. 
Go ahead. 
Hey, it's Johnny Fusion. 
Happy holidays, everyone. 
Johnny Fusion. 
I haven't heard from you in a while. 
How are you doing? 
Um, had some difficult health stuff, but got through it. 
Yeah, that's good. 
I'm glad you got through it. 
Yeah. 
Too bad you had to go through it. 
Well, it involved treatment twice a week. 
Got my transplant center for the past month. 
So it's taken up a lot of time. 
Wow. 
Well, it's good to hear from you. 
Yeah. 
I just, you know, and, um, I usually sit on getting my compensation for the article. 
Just because life gets past me, and I went, and I recently went and arranged it, and I just, and the package arrived yesterday, I guess, when I got it today. 
So it's like I got a bunch of hacker stuff for Christmas. 
Well, that's good. 
Yeah. 
So when, when you write an article, you get a shirt, you get, uh, other things if you ask for them. 
Um, and that's for people who want to write, uh, articles about the hacker world for 2600. 
Yeah, but I want it, I want, I know you beat it to death, but I want to go back to the AI school because I did see a story this week about a video story. 
Okay. 
And it's not really how you've been portraying it. 
Okay. 
It is at a campus. 
It is a full day of school. 
The two hours instruction is basically just the general ed stuff, like English and arithmetic and those kind of subjects that you get in general education. 
But the rest of the day is more like project-based learning. 
Okay. 
You know, where it's kind of self, kind of like how in Montessori, how kids kind of drive it, but it has a real tech focus. 
Right. 
Like they showed kids setting up and flying drones. 
I mean, the, it's something else, right? 
Mm-hmm. 
But, um, this other student would learn to make, uh, an app. 
So she made a phone app. 
And it's an AI phone app that gives dating advice, but they did it. 
Um, this other group of kids, um, as a learning project and to make money, run a little Airbnb. 
Okay. 
So they're, so they're learning skills outside of the AI teachers with the, what they call guys. 
Are they, are they interacting with other kids? 
Are they, you know? 
Yeah. 
Okay. 
The kids are doing it together. 
Well, that's good. 
That's, that's what it should be. 
And there's like physical stuff to do. 
Like I saw like a rock climbing wall at one of these schools, you know, another equipment for the younger kids to play on. 
Mm-hmm. 
So there's physical activity if they want it, but it seems to be more set up like a maker space or like white comedy or something like that. 
That's a maker space environment. 
That's, that's about as healthy as you can get. 
And that, that I think is ideal for kids learning. 
It reminds me of the, you know, the maker fairs, especially the world maker fair in Queens that we used to have and, and now the one in Coney Island where kids show up and they're learning and they're enthusiastic about learning. 
And if anyone's teaching, it's them teaching their parents how things work. 
That kind of environment is super positive. 
And I think our point is that you can't replicate that without the human interaction. 
So, you know, if you have people that are there to show them how to do things properly, you know, and answer, answer any questions they have, that is a learning environment that should be, uh, encouraged. 
Right. 
And the, you know, the AI stuff got the press because I mean, because, because the whole AI moral panic going on right now and how AI is being put into everything, but these are specific educational programs, you know, to teach math, to teach writing, to teach English grammar, you know, the basic, the academics and stuff apart from the project-based learning and, and what the AI does is it adapts because it's so like it's, it presents a lesson and it quizzes you and depending on what you get right and wrong, it follows up on the stuff you may need help on that you're not getting and stuff like that. 
And that's kind of how it's designed. 
It's designed as educational software that's using this AI element. 
Like, I don't, I don't, you know, I don't know, like, like I said, this is just basically like news reporting, but this is what I can get from it, you know? 
And I went to an alternative high school when I was in high school, like I was like one of those kids that the public school system failed to, not necessarily because, well, basically because I was autistic, undiagnosed, and I just didn't learn like the other kids, like the bureaucratic, broke memory, uh, very structured, uh, learning environment was not conducive to my education. 
So I needed something a little bit more of my own set pace where I could pursue my own interest and that's, you know, and that's where I really got into computers and started hacking with in high school. 
Hey, uh, Johnny, Alex has something, uh, to chime in with. 
Go ahead. 
Yeah. 
Sorry. 
Sorry to jump in on, on you there, Johnny. 
I'm very glad to hear your voice again. 
Sorry to hear the air. 
Alex, your microphone again. 
Oh, please get a new one. 
Oh, yeah, yeah. 
There we go. 
Okay. 
I don't even know what you heard me say there, but, um, in any event, great to hear from you, Johnny. 
Sorry to hear about the health difficulties. 
Um, and sorry to jump in on you there, but I wanted to, to jump in on you. 
Chime in while we're on the subject of human interaction, uh, because, uh, my guests for the evening have arrived upstairs, so I need to go and have some. 
Hold on. 
You didn't tell us about this. 
You have guests coming? 
Yeah, we have. 
I mentioned at the beginning of the show through the chat, but you probably wasn't seen, but yeah, we have some, uh, some guests over this evening here in Pennsylvania. 
It had been Christmas and all neighbors and things. 
So we're going to, uh, engage in some Saturnalia. 
Yeah. 
And because we're in New York, we don't count as guests. 
I get it. 
No, I understand. 
I know. 
Yeah. 
I mean, I could just pick a laptop upstairs, I guess, and make it into a big party. 
Some kind of a holiday or something. 
All right. 
Fine. 
Well, enjoy the festivities there. 
I do want to say, yeah. 
Merry Christmas. 
Happy Hanukkah to everybody. 
Yeah. 
Thanks everyone for listening, for making this a wonderful year. 
We'll see you, uh, I'll see you all on, uh, New Year's Day. 
And happy Boxing Day and happy Kwanzaa to you. 
Yes, indeed. 
Happy Boxing Day. 
Happy Kwanzaa. 
All right. 
Everyone know. 
Bye. 
Take care, Alex. 
Well, that was a surprise, which I didn't know about because I'm not part of a chat when I'm doing radio. 
Uh, but that's just how it is. 
Johnny, uh, you may continue with your, your thoughts now that Alex is no longer with us. 
Oh, yeah, with project-based learning is kind of a new thing. 
The reason why I know about it is because my kid, Little Fusion Jr., they were struggling in school. 
They had IEPs. 
And, you know, my kid was autistic. 
Both their parents were autistic, but we had an autistic kid. 
And once they got to the project-based learning, they thrived. 
And originally, they said, well, let's just work for a certificate. 
We don't think you're going to be able to graduate high school. 
And they did graduate high school. 
Wow. 
And it was, it was a proud moment because the education system kind of wanted to give up on my kid. 
I hear that a lot. 
I hear horror stories. 
And that doesn't mean you throw out the whole system. 
It means you, you, you work hard to improve it and take it seriously and stop cutting the funding and just basically make it the priority. 
Should be the most important thing we have. 
Right. 
I agree. 
So I'm a strong supporter of public education. 
Right? 
I don't like what the VOS tried to do and what the next administration is going to do by, you know, privatizing everything. 
Public school is important. 
But I do think it needs to be reformed and to be moved into the 21st century, basically. 
No argument there. 
But I, yeah, I think kids need to feel safe in schools that they are, you know, able to seek out and learn about the things they're, they're curious about and, you know, want to research and, and, you know, basically not just be constricted to something that their parents demand that they only be exposed to. 
So that's, that's not, that's not reality. 
That's, that's just, you know, a way to, you know, to shape somebody and prevent them from, from blossoming and becoming, you know, their own person. 
Yeah, it's really fascinating. 
I recently was reading about the origins of the public school system in America and what the, and fundamentally it's based on this German military academy style where, where they value conformity and rote learning over creativity and self-driven things and in order to make someone compliant and a good worker, you know, and this is 19th century educational theory that still is influencing how we see schooling today. 
And I really do think we need a revolution in education with modern educational theory and pedagogy and teaching for the 21st century because we're not, you know, we're, especially with more and more things being automated, we don't be need, we don't need to be educating for a labor force necessarily to keep the wheels of capitalism going, but for ways to contribute to society in other ways other than just busy work that's going to be done by robots in another 20, 30 years. 
Well, I think the conversations we have now are key in just what it is that, um, that, that develops, that, that, that happens in the future. 
Right. 
You know, and, uh, when it comes to automation of things, I think the companies that are driving in this automation, I think they should be taxed. 
There should be a special tax for these companies that are automating jobs. 
And that tax goes into funds for universal basic income for those whose jobs have been replaced, basically. 
You know, what, what you say though about, um, conformity and, and schools and things like that, it reminds me of, um, of this song, uh, by the folk singer, Harry Chapin called, uh, flowers are red. 
And, um, I just want to read you something from, um, from Wikipedia about that particular song, because I I've played it before. 
It really strikes me as, um, as what we're talking about here. 
Uh, it tells the story of a little boy who on the first day of school started drawing pictures of flowers using many different colors. 
Now the teacher got angry and she told him that he should not be coloring because it's not time for art. 
And in any case, the boy is coloring the flowers all wrong and that he should paint them red and green the way they always have been seen. 
The boy disagrees and continues to color them from his imagination until the teacher punishes him by standing him in a corner. 
Finally, the now terrified little boy gives in and tells the teacher that flowers are red, green leaves are green. 
Years later, he moves towns and attends a different school. 
A new teacher encourages her students to use all sorts of colors only to find the student only coloring his flowers red and green. 
When a new teacher asks why he meekly responds by quoting his previous teacher, flowers are red and green leaves are green. 
And that just, to me, it shows how you can so easily crush the spirit of a kid at that vulnerable age when you're supposed to be encouraging that spirit to flourish. 
And this is true of teachers and it's certainly true of parents. 
And it's something that we need as many ways to prevent as possible. 
And I think, you know, having a kid in different environments is a great way to not have any one of those environments do something like this where you stifle creativity or crush spirits. 
I agree. 
You know, I used to teach young kids. 
I used to be an Aikido teacher. 
And I taught the youngest kids program, which all the other teachers thought was the hardest one. 
But it came naturally to me, I think, because I see children as fully realized human beings, just inexperienced, you know, with, with entire internal landscapes and stuff, because I remember being that age and, you know, I'm still that same person in many ways. 
That's true. 
That's true. 
And, and, you know, and one of the techniques that I use is to allow children to, they're guided, but they also get to lead a little bit. 
Like one example, like you really don't want to give them the answers. 
You want them to figure out the answers. 
Right. 
And so like around Christmas time, we have a lot of little kids saying, how does Santa get to all the houses in one night? 
How does he get all the way around the world? 
And instead of trying to bullshit your way through it, what you do is you tell the kid, well, what do you think? 
How do you think it happens? 
And 98 times out of 100, they'll come up with something creative out of their own imagination that satisfies them that as an adult, you never would have even considered. 
It's true. 
And that conversation, that's just something that will stay with a kid for the rest of his life. 
And it's, it's a special moments. 
Hey, Johnny, we're going to move on, but thanks so much for your call. 
I'm glad to hear you. 
You're doing better. 
And please stay in touch and, and, and write some more articles for us. 
I'm, I'm working on it. 
I, I wrote an article, but I published it to Medium under my real name, uh, this week, but, uh, it wasn't appropriate for 2600. 
It was about politics and Doge and how Doge wants me dead, basically. 
Well, you know, we could probably find a way to make, make that subject matter work, but you know, whatever you're comfortable with printing, just, uh, be sure to, uh, uh, submit that to us. 
I'm sure, I'm sure some, a few things are percolating. 
I'm sure it'll result in an article or two. 
Great. 
All right. 
Again, good hearing from you and, um, stay in touch. 
Merry Christmas. 
You too. 
And, uh, anyone out there interested in writing articles for 2600, uh, the email address is articles at 2600.com or just go to the 2600.com website and explore. 
You'll find, uh, under the magazine section, our guidelines and anybody can write if you go to school and learn how to write. 
It's yeah. 
So, um, use those skills and be immortalized by, uh, by having your, um, your thoughts on technology, privacy, hacking, whatever printed in a printed magazine and digital as well. 
802-321-4225 is our phone number. 
We have time, I think for one more call. 
Um, uh, while, while we're, uh, while we're waiting for that call, uh, just, I think all our discussions this evening have, uh, I think, um, just illustrated that if you've got kids in your life, your own kids, kids in your family, kids in your neighborhood, whatever, uh, kids you interact with, um, there's a lot of value in listening to them, um, speaking with them, uh, helping them learn things, uh, supporting them, uh, letting them be kids, letting them be weird, but being a human being in their life, uh, just, uh, giving some sort of positive relationship and energy, um, counts for a hell of a lot. 
Well said. 
Absolutely. 
I just realized I've never even tried to write an article for the magazine. 
Kyle. 
Yeah. 
Wait, I just assumed, I wonder who that is that, that we are printing. 
Okay. 
Uh, well, um, we, we can, we can talk about this later. 
No, I just really, I, I was hearing all these other discussions about it. 
I, I did, I, I actually thought about it. 
I hadn't really realized that. 
I wonder how many other people out there are realizing the same thing right now that they've never actually written an article for 2600. 
And the more I think about it, the more ashamed I am. 
Wow. 
Uh, you can avoid that shame by, by quickly writing your article now, uh, you know, carefully writing your article, but making it a good article and sending it to us. 
Gila, please. 
We, we do have a note in the chat from frequent caller, listener, commenter, uh, who says, right, I need a topic. 
Well, okay. 
We can't write the article for you. 
It's gotta be something you're interested in. 
It's gotta be something that you, you've, you know, played with technology wise. 
It's gotta have you in it. 
And please don't try and use AI to write your article. 
Please don't do that. 
Because if we discover that you have done that, we will never trust you again. 
And, um, uh, it's, you know, it's, it, it, it doesn't have the human touch. 
It doesn't have your uniqueness. 
It's, it's what we're all saying here. 
And, and, and, um, you won't feel like you did anything. 
That's, that's for damn sure. 
Um, whereas if you create something and it gets printed and you read it in the magazine, there's no better feeling than that. 
It really isn't. 
And Kyle, I think you'll, you'll experience that someday, someday soon. 
I hope. 
Yeah. 
And if you do, um, get something by, I mean, how do you answer why you wrote anything that is in it? 
You know, how do you talk about your writing if you didn't write it? 
Yeah. 
You have to write something to be able to talk about. 
Yeah, absolutely. 
You know, but after the fact, like if you're, you know, asked about it or you're proud of it in some way, isn't that setting you up for opportunities to be found, like found out to be a total fraud. 
People are reading articles that were printed 35 years ago in our magazine and reading them because they're still interesting and talking about them. 
And that to me is, is, is incredible. 
Rob, go ahead. 
Yeah. 
I think on the, on the subject of what to write about, um, it's like, uh, I think it's like the vibe at the conference with, um, submitting talks and things. 
No one can give you the subject because everyone's got the, the things they want to talk about within them. 
And every, everyone in the hacker community, everyone with sort of a hacker vibe to them has something hackery that, uh, they in particular, um, want to talk about, want to write about, want to share with the world. 
And that's the perspective that's needed in an article. 
So, you know, you've got the topics, um, you can mull over what, uh, what it is that's knocking around in your head and see what's something that you don't see written about that you would like to see written about and that you feel like writing about. 
And, you know, we give everybody a chance. 
You could be a 13 year old, you could be a college professor, you could be a corporate executive. 
If you have something to say that's relevant to the audience and many things that touch upon technology are, please send it to us. 
Same thing for talks at hope. 
You know, we want to hear your perspective and, uh, you know, just, uh, think about the hacker perspective, which is constantly questioning and experimenting, occasionally breaking, but always sharing the information and the results of our experiments. 
That's what it's all about. 
That's probably why you're listening now. 
Yeah. 
I think it's important to get past those hurdles or it is itself a learning experience. 
I'm still like, kind of, I think in the midst of that, I guess, as I've been I, I think the biggest barrier has always been like, well, I I'm not qualified or I don't have expertise. 
And a lot of what I wanted, like what I wanted to get out of reading and being around people that were enthusiastic about technology and, and hacking, um, I wanted to learn more and be exposed to it. 
And, and I think to make that leap and be confident that you actually have something to offer that you actually, um, you know, should be, you could be listened to, or, or, you know, even if there's questions about what you're saying, like that, what your experience has been, um, we'll stand, you know, stand up to that. 
And I think I'm starting to become, uh, I've seen enough to, uh, have a particular sort of, uh, perspective that I often don't get to share and isn't really heard. 
And I just hope people remember that it's permanent, like getting the ideas out of your head, it makes it portable and I don't mean to put it into computer terms, but you're making your ideas portable in putting them to words and sharing those ideas widely in a human. 
And now I guess machine readable format that is print is wildly important because you may end up with like some real concrete observations and a lot of experience and no one knows because you haven't made it portable, you haven't shared it. 
And that ultimately can end up being really frustrating. 
And then like, you know, people say what's wrong when you're running around like the Tasmanian devil or something. 
You know, you, you use the, um, the C word at one point. 
Um, uh, we have an Alexa device and you can rename them so that you can say Alexa and it won't respond, but if you say computer, um, and it hears you say that it reacts. 
And when you said that word, it reacted from the other, other side of a different room and I can see it from here and it has a blue light now that's on. 
So I think it's listening to everything we say now. 
And that's scaring. 
That's scaring the crap out of me right now. 
You got to be careful. 
You got to be careful what you say around these things. 
But what Kyle did say was, was important and relevant and, uh, something I think anybody who has written anything has, has, um, pondered, you know, and, and when you do write something, you've written it, you know, even if it needs work, you've written it, you've done something and there's a good chance that it'll be of interest to others. 
And that, that does change your perspective on many, many things. 
Gila. 
From the chat, uh, a user named Rob Vincent said, he's sitting right next to you. 
Yeah, I know, but it's really good. 
I'm sure it docks me. 
Why can't you just say it? 
Okay, go ahead. 
Go ahead. 
Think of what you would want to read about and write it for the readers who might gain something by reading it. 
Well, the, the context is important here because, um, our listener wrote, I haven't got a subject that others would want to read about and responding to that. 
Yeah. 
Think about what you would want to read about if it existed out there and, uh, you know, write it for folks like you. 
And I, as, as somebody who's putting, who's been putting work out on the internet for, you know, a generation and, and then some, um, all the, a lot of the most successful projects and things that I've written and made and done were things that I was looking for at some point and didn't exist. 
And I thought, well, I, I, I could do it and put it out there and I did and, uh, it worked. 
So yeah, it's, it's like that with articles. 
Like if you, if there's something you think, you know, someone should be writing about this, it could be you. 
Yeah. 
And like just the anecdotal stuff is, it matters too. 
Like if it's not super technical, it could be an observation or like cultural thing. 
I don't, excuse me. 
I don't, I don't want to like get too deep, but we're, we're trying to make ideas around hacking approachable to people. 
And though the way that, um, the way that you articulate it might actually be a better way of understanding it might help someone else learn or be confident about learning more and, um, telling stories around it or, you know, um, trying to shed some light on your experience in, in this world and, uh, and in proximity to the people and the, the ideas around it, um, can, I don't know, have, have, um, have an impact. 
And I don't know, it's, it's, uh, it may not be the right audience. 
Like in my case, like most of what I am learning is actually better suited for other audiences, like about technology or about, um, you know, my proximity to this world and understanding of it, like, um, it's based on what, what limited bit of computing or, or technology I've seen and even the hacker world, you know, it's, it's a big, huge, expansive, uh, subject matter and a lot of different ideas, a lot of different people are involved. 
So like, I have a hard time, it can be daunting to try to be confident enough to have that like expert opinion on it, but you can be an expert on your own experience of it as it stands and no one can change. 
No one like needs to have technical information about your feelings of, of what that experience has been. 
And, um, again, like consider the audience, maybe, maybe some of your ideas are better. 
Um, in other places, but they still relate to the people in the places and the, the things that, um, have gone on over the years in, in hacking. 
That's, that's where I'm coming from. 
And you're the only one that has had your experience. 
So keep that in mind when, when, when you do write something, do we have a caller on the line? 
Yeah. 
Oh, okay. 
Let's get that caller. 
It's probably the last call of the night. 
Good evening. 
You're on off the hook over time. 
Go ahead. 
Speak up. 
Are you there? 
I think they fell asleep. 
I don't blame them. 
They're on hold. 
Um, all right, let's open up the phone lines one more time. 
Hold can be a place where, you know, people just drift off into, uh, dreamland. 
Um, 802-321-4225. 
We, um, have a couple of minutes left. 
So if anybody out there or the previous caller, uh, by all means, call us and, uh, we will take your call. 
Gila, it looks like you have something to say. 
Well, I do, and it's sort of mildly related to the discussion, especially about articles and stuff. 
Um, I think, okay, this has been stuck in my head all day. 
This is a Hanukkah song, a lesser known Hanukkah song. 
And it's called Banu Choshech L'Garesh, which means we come to, like, dispel the darkness. 
And the words are, we come to dispel the darkness. 
We have light and fire in our hands. 
Each of us is a small light, and together we're a large, strong light. 
And I just, I like that theory. 
I like that idea, because everybody's got something to contribute. 
And I love, we talk about that a lot when it comes to hope. 
We talk about that a lot when it comes to, do you want to give a talk at hope? 
Do you want to write an article for the magazine? 
There's, everybody's got something to share. 
And the thing that's rattling around in your head that you can give voice to, you know, if it's here, if it's publicly, magazine, hope, world, internet, Mastodon, I don't know. 
But wherever it is that you let those pieces of yourself out and let other people hear what's in your head, amazing things can happen in those places. 
Yeah. 
The light shines brighter. 
It's a gigantic patchwork quilt. 
Yeah. 
Good thoughts. 
All right. 
We have another phone call. 
Good evening. 
You're on Off the Hook Overtime. 
Go ahead. 
I was listening to that, Kyle. 
All right. 
You know what? 
One minute left. 
And if we get a phone call, we'll take it. 
If we don't get a phone call, we'll say goodnight. 
It's not a big deal. 
802-321-4225 as we have our final moments here. 
Our last show of the year, by the way. 
Yeah. 
All right. 
And we have a phone call coming in. 
And good evening. 
You're on Off the Hook Overtime. 
Go ahead. 
Bye. 
Yeah. 
And I just wanted to ask a general question. 
So, Hope is going to be next year now? 
I mean, this year again? 
Yep. 
Well, not this year, because this year has one week left. 
But next year, yes. 
In mid-August of next year in St. 
John's University, same place. 
The last one was really, really good. 
And the last one was something that I don't think we ever had a smoother conference. 
And so many people have been asking us for years, why don't you do this every year? 
And the reason has always been because it kills us to do this once every two years. 
But using a place that already has working technology and a supportive staff, that has made a huge difference. 
So I really think we can manage it now. 
We're at the stage after 30 years of doing this, of making it an annual event. 
So hopefully it'll be as popular, and we will make this a thing. 
Yeah, because I missed this year's conference, and I was thinking, gee, I'm not going to be able to do this again for two years. 
So I'm glad it's happening again in about, you know, in six months, I guess, roughly. 
Yeah, keep checking the Hope.net website. 
I know tickets are going to go on sale in January, and the call for speakers and participation is also going to open then as well. 
Okay. 
All right. 
Thank you very much. 
All right. 
Take care. 
Look forward to seeing you there. 
And that's going to do it for us tonight. 
So our last show of 2024. 
Glad to see it go. 
Not the show, the year. 
And next time, we will be in 2025, the first day of 2025. 
And, again, we will be talking about things we wish for 2025. 
If you have ideas out there, write to us, OTH at 2600.com. 
We'll also be talking about some of the more significant developments of 2024. 
That'll be our New Year's show a week from now. 
So good night, everybody. 
Bye. 
Oh, I'm sorry. 
Kyle, your microphone was off. 
Say that again. 
Well, I was just going to say bye in like an ornery way. 
Yeah. 
No, you did that. 
You got that. 
Hold on. 
Hold on. 
Bye. 
Well, that was a little bit louder, but okay. 
Gila, Rob, you want to say goodbye in a special way? 
I'll say goodbye in a friendly way. 
Bye. 
And I'll say goodbye in a sarcastic way. 
Bye. 
Wow. 
I don't know what to say. 
Good night, everyone. 
Good night, everyone.