Hi everybody, once again, it's time for the programme that has
pretty much nothing. And when it comes to commercials when it
comes to jingles when it comes to music, and we definitely do
not have any form of agenda, it is no agenda from an undisclosed
location in a hotel room. I'm Adam curry.
And I'm John C. Dvorak in the same old same old place in
Northern California where we've been having a lot of blustery
weather. It's actually been kind of amazing. I
could not believe how big those raindrops were on on Friday.
They were they were like the size of marbles. It was
unbelievable.
You Yeah, it rained again. They're wrong on the timing, but
it's been raining a lot. We had something like six inches of
rain. And it rained again last night. And because there was a
second storm coming through and I think that one clear it out
because it hasn't been raining. From about nine o'clock on it
stopped and then but it still looks crappy out. I suspect it
will rain again.
And the best thing was the traffic on Friday evening. They
were people actually coming back to the office saying, you know,
I'm just going to wait for another hour and get some work
done because the traffic was not moving. And we're on Second
Street with the office in in the city. And it was just it was it
was bumper to bumper, nothing was moving. What is it with
that? Why does rain? Cause that? I mean, is it
let Actually Actually, I knew that Friday was actually going
to be a good commute day if you had your timing right, because
usually a lot of people don't go in on a ride on a day where it's
going to be that stormy and they didn't and so it was easy to get
to the city. But then we had some meetings and at 230 That
meeting was cancelled for various reasons. And I took that
as an opportunity to take off because I knew it was going to
be a mess. And I got through it. Just in time around 230 I snuck
across the bridge but it was already flooding. The tunnel was
like flooding, which which tunnel there's a tunnel. Yeah,
there's a tunnel on these guys on the San Francisco Bay Bridge.
Right in the middle of where the island is.
Oh, we're gonna we're gonna yerba whatever it is Lena
yerba buena. Yeah. Called goat goat Island.
I actually I actually, when Patricia was at the condo was
that, like, in the summer? We took a drive across the bridge.
And we and we actually we we took that exit to go see what it
was. It was a pretty uninteresting actually.
What gold Island?
Yeah, there's not a lot going on there.
Well, no, but it's hooked to Treasure Island, which is kind
of interesting if you can get in there. Anyway. So yeah, so the
but that that tunnel, especially in the lower deck starts to
flood when you have a lot of real problems because of its
angles, right? Of course, water collects at the bottom right,
right clicks at the bottom. And so it was flooding him thinking,
wow, this is going to be a horrible commute around five
o'clock when not because of the more people coming across it
because it's going to stop everyone Oh,
so that's what that's what causes it. Yeah, cuz you can't
just go down that. Normally, I guess you go down there, like
4050 miles an hour. If you do that, then you'd pretty much you
know, find your face against the windshield. I guess when you hit
that, that bottle at the bottom right, it would just like slow
you down in a heartbeat. And
it wasn't the only puddle and that night. But there was these
big, these big sheets of water coming down from the upper deck,
which happens when it's really raining and they hit you it's
just like you're getting hit by it like it's you're just getting
hammered with a with just a wall of water. Every time you'd come
across one of these it's like a little break in the bridge where
they you know where the water falls through. And it's just
like whack you get hit really hard and you can't see for a few
seconds. And then the windshield wipers finally get rid of it. So
yeah, it was a it was I knew it was going to be bad.
So unfortunately, I can't I can't play the on my mobile
setup. And I still haven't figured out how to play stuff
that you can actually hear it. I'm working on that. But we got
a lot of interesting feedback. A lot of people really enjoyed
going through your notes, John. That's people Yeah, like that
was funny that wasn't gonna do that more often. Did you take
any notes?
I you know, I I have more. I don't have to. I have. I have
notes. You know, all I have to do is like lift up one sheet of
paper. You're on the desk more than enough notes. Yeah, I got
notes for years. And lots of book titles. Maybe I mean, you
know, I'm a best seller and I was thinking of doing a book
title book. You know, I said if you do a book title, right that
you don't have to write it. You don't have to write us write the
title. So I wrote this title, a book of book titles. And I
realised that that was shows I came up with that I don't have
to write that book either. So it
sounds a lot like a friend of mine who did a coffee table book
about coffee table books, which I thought was pretty genius
idea,
which was also by the way, a Seinfeld episode.
You're kidding me? No, really. It exists. The book the book.
How long ago was that to the book exists?
What Seinfeld episodes in the middle of the series and Kramer
had come up with this idea to do a, a coffee table book that was
about coffee tables and was actually a coffee table itself.
It had a little legs.
Fantastic. I missed that episode. That's cool.
Yeah, it's actually quite humorous because there's a lot
of lead into it. Because, you know, Elaine thought it was a
stupid idea. But then he bumped into her boss who thought was a
great idea and excoriated her for not coming up with ideas
like this kind of thing. So anyway,
so we bumped into each other on the street earlier in the week,
actually, it was, it was Friday, because initially we thought we
would do the show on Friday and then Saturday didn't work out.
Now. Of course, it's it's Sunday. And it was it was kind
of weird because I was coming around the corner, walking up
second street, and it was raining and I had my like, my
London portable, you know, like three pound umbrella. And I'm
walking up and like, Look at this guy with this. Look at
sighs that fucking red umbrella. He's he's got it and it was you.
And he's like, Hey, man, neoliberalism that's what we're
going to talk about.
Well, let's talk about the umbrella. Okay,
what is that? What's up with that?
I have the little pop up the Bumbershoot a little dinky one
that you had which is useless and Ernie. No, no,
no hold on a second. Now this is this I carry this in my you know
my bag which of course is my portable office. I carry that
all the time. Because you know being in London, you just have
to be prepared. So it is it is good for you know, for the
portability and
I have I must have 10 of those little guys like that like that
umbrella. They just I have one in the car. I carry them a lot
it I throw them in the suitcase are great to travel with.
Obviously I can't throw the one I was carrying on Friday in the
suitcase. The thing is, so anyway, the story behind his
umbrella. We gave a part of New Year's Eve party or some party
some time ago at the house and it was going to rain and so we
went to Costco and they had on sale for at night at 20. But
these things were expensive $20 apiece these golfing umbrellas
refer for golfers to play I guess in the rain at the thing
is a huge it's a it's one of the biggest umbrellas I've ever
owned. And it's built to you know, strongly built red. No, I
was at you know, so you got the rights green, white. Yeah,
curiously, I have a red one. But that one that I had that day is
green. I haven't seen the red one for over a year. You know, I
am one of those people that ever since they did the dots test on
me in I guess it must have been fifth or sixth grade. I can't
remember exactly what you know, the we were supposed to be able
to see the the the numbers. Yeah. And I usually get like the
first one, right, the second one, right. And after that, I'm
just like, I'm sorry, I can't see it. It's all dots. And they
claim that I am colorblind. And this is the first time in ever.
I mean, maybe maybe I could have sworn that was Red John. But
anyway, I'm colorblind for red and green. They say and you
know, I know the top one is stop and the bottom one is go. Well,
I
mean, it's possible because that thing is green, but not red. But
it's funny that you would make them and say but I think you
were more impressed with the size because the thing actually,
you could put about five people under that umbrella.
Oh, absolutely. We should send that to you know refugee camps.
So anyway, so I brought that umbrella and but it is a huge
umbrella. But you know, the thing isn't a big storm like
that. It's actually quite handy to have a monster umbrella.
Because it really you just don't you know, normally with my
regular umbrellas in a storm like that my legs would be
soaked because the range is kind of you know, gets through. But
with that umbrella, you come dry as a bone.
And also it looked like it was it was sturdy. So you know, of
course mine was there was some reasonable wind and you now one
or two of the spokes are sticking through because it does
wreck the umbrellas, the cheaper ones. And you know, I have to
say I was once given a beautiful umbrella set for the home. Six
umbrellas and a nice cast iron stand, you know, we could put it
in in the water drains. And it is it really is a gift that
keeps on giving and we should think more about that as a as a
general gift for people.
It is a good idea. Yeah. Umbrellas are also kind of
handy. But anyway. Oh, anyway, so that's my umbrella. So I do
have one I don't usually bring it out. I just happen to have it
in the car. And it's it is a it's huge. But you know, I think
everybody everyone who saw it said the same thing as holy
crap. Look at the girth of that thing.
To go up and down a lot with it because if somebody's coming the
other way with any sizable I have to like make allowances for
them. Not banging into him. Okay, well anyway, so we're
gonna talk about Neo liberalism.
I looked it up even though it's supposed to be no agenda. I did.
I did. If I did look up the definition of neoliberalism, and
I guess it's it's a set of economic principles.
You know, and it's vague to me, but I can did all I know is
every once awhile it comes up in the conversation, although
nobody would ever say that they're a NEO liberal, but Neo
Liberalist iBag by and give you examples of people who are Neo
liberals, okay, based on what everybody agrees on that try to
define this word. I think the definition is essentially
somebody who is a globalist, into globalisation of all sorts.
And in their internationalists, I guess a lot of them, right,
which is a different type of globalist. The internationalist
seem to me to have stem from a movement to prevent future wars
by having a one world government. But anyway, Neil,
the classic Neo liberals are Ronald Reagan, and Bill Clinton.
Wait a minute. So what's the difference between a neoliberal
and a neocon was it wasn't Reagan? It wasn't Reagan, a
neocon like the like the archetype neocon?
Well, he was surrounded by him, and he was, he was kind of one
but you can be a NEO liberal and a neocon, you can be a NEO
liberal and a normal liberal. You can be pretty much a NEO
liberal and anything else except an old fashioned conservative,
and a socialist, those don't mix with neoliberalism at all.
As much as it pains me. I'll read you the definition from
wiki PDF. Yeah, that
definition is not a good one, by
the way, and I'm not going to read the definition from wiki
PDF. I found another one. What is it? What is neoliberalism?
Here we go Corp watch.com G a bit too, that's going to be
good. Neoliberalism is a set of economic policies that have
become widespread during the last 25 years or so. Although
the word is rarely heard in the United States, you can clearly
see the effect of neoliberalism here as the rich go richer and
the poor grow poorer. Okay,
that doesn't really help much of a definition really helped
me doesn't know. Neoliberalism refers to a political movement
that espouses economic liberalism as a means of
promoting economic development and securing political liberty.
Yeah, that's closer to part of the definition. Now, I would say
that the precepts that you read about in the Confessions of an
economic hitman are all neoliberal. Okay, and I think
that's kind of what's going on there. But anyway,
globalisation.
It's a kind of a globalisation angle on things. Now, people
should look into this term, because it's an interesting one.
It doesn't get used a lot in the United States, except by the
progressives. If you watch a bunch of some of these free
speech, TV has a lot of this stuff on it, which is a network
that is on the Dish Network, I think, I think Direct TV may
have some cable places may have it is Fs TV, it's generally
flaky, but they have a lot every once awhile, they'll have some
shows on there will be done by some radical socialists. And
they are the ones who keep bringing it up. And that's kind
of where I picked up on it because I, besides being a fan
of right wing Talk Radio, I'm also a big fan of left wing
crackpot TV.
Do you watch Current TV at all? We have that over here. We don't
have the FS TV we do have Current TV on now.
I haven't seen that as a network here. We have the offbeat
networks that are my favourites. One is free speech TV. Which
also by the way has a segment called the called gain news.
Excellent. And the gain news is interesting because one of the
things that they that they bring out is that they out people,
no way no way.
And they're always in this kind of interesting and say, Well,
you know and yeah, he wins he gonna come out and admit, you
know, and you're listening to me saying you go to your you say to
yourself, Wow, I didn't know that guy was gay. So it's, it's
actually very educational in that regard. But what's funny
about it, and I never I haven't brought this up to Tom Merritt
and Molly
wood from CNET buzz out loud.
Yeah, their buzz out loud show which they do occasionally on
the video. Because I saw him doing it at CES. You look at it
and it looks it looks exactly like, like gay TV. Gay news.
I'll tell you. I'll tell you, you know, I started
as a guy the way let me just show you guys I can't remember
his name, but he's like, kind of a grumpy older are male. And
then there's this woman with the short cropped hair, whose whole,
it was actually quite humorous and funny. And this just seems
that you when you see this show, and then you see the buzz out
loud, you just say, Hmm, I wonder where they got the idea
for that model?
Well, I started listening to buzz, I've never really, you
know, read much of CNET or his gay TV channel, gay TV, gay
news, look for gay gay news, K news. I started listening to
buzz out loud, probably 100 episodes or so ago. And, and
kind of got into it, you know, because going into going into
the city into London, it's almost the perfect length to go
from my house to the station waiting for the train. You know,
it's like it was like 40 or 45 minutes. So perfect, right. And
I'd never seen Tom or Molly. And when I saw them, I guess they
were at CES, or I've in the last month or so I've seen them
around. It was kind of a bummer. Because you get the you know, I
don't mean in a bad way. But you get that image, you know, and,
and I have had a very different image of Molly for sure enough
to have Tom as well. And then you see them. It's like, oh,
yeah, well, that kind of geeky. Just wasn't what I expected.
Yeah, I didn't get to experience I know what you're saying. I
felt that experience is always good for a laugh, you know, when
you pre conceived. But the problem is, I've known the two
of them long before I ever heard buzz out loud. So I couldn't get
that effect. But that happened to me recently was something I
was listening to that I never saw the person. And when I
finally saw him, I said, wow, it's nothing like does not even
not even close. Actually the famous, who I think is one of
the great broadcasters in the United States, Jim Rome. I used
to listen to on the radio all the time. And the first time I
saw him on TV was like, wow, this guy doesn't look anything
like he sounds but But over time, when you see the person
and then you see hear the voice, at some point, they meld and you
and you did that shock of the difference. It just fades,
it fades away, it dissipates after a while.
Now I got a cough or a note from somebody that that's kind of
interesting, because when you bring up the idea that you have,
you make the commute into London, and it's just enough to
listen to buzz out loud. I got a note from someone who who went
on and on about how he would podcasts he listened to, and he
does the same thing. And he can't listen to cranky geeks.
Apparently, because it's true. It's all timing. And I wonder
how many people you know, they just essentially they put
together a bunch of their own radio programming. And then it's
all based on timing. And unless you can bump somebody off of
their iPod, right, you can never you they will never listen to
you.
Well, this was a this was part of the original concept behind
the pod showed channels where you could basically you know,
and we still have to teach people and to the benefits of
it, but where you where you should you could either a
manually put together, you know, like two or three shows. So and
actually, I have an on the go channel, which consists of New
York Times front page, your show tech five, and then buzz out
loud. And so those three combined, you know, pretty much
gives me the information I want on the way in, and it's the
right length. And we've been toying around with the idea of
you should be able to say, all right, how long would you like,
like a wizard? You know, how long is your commute? Okay, 45
minutes? What are you interested in, you know, give me some tech,
give me some sports, give me some, give me some music or
whatever. And then it's just kind of like, automatically
create something for you. Because if it's true, I got a
note from someone the other day who said, I love the no agenda.
But when you do an hour, it sucks. You know, could you break
it into two parts or you know, which of course we're not going
to do ever hear of pause and stop and rewind and play. But it
makes a difference. The length of the show really makes it
determines if someone is going to listen to it on a regular
basis or not just based upon their commute. It's pretty it's
pretty interesting.
Yeah, it's really it's not been it hasn't been studied to any
extent by any sociologists or by market researchers. For that
matter. God
forbid,
I know that the five minutes shows like No, look. Tech five
Yeah. Are you can always get those you can get those get
slipped in here and there because you know, five minutes
you can always kind of force into you can see you can just
shoehorn them into somebody's list.
Yeah. It's a damn fine show, Mr. Dvorak. Really is I like it? I'm
doing well. I might add Holy crap. I saw the numbers the
other day. Yeah, just getting there. You're on the path like a
million a month or something. It's crazy.
Yeah, that's not bad. No. Anyway, I'm always thinking big
numbers. So I guess 100 million then I'm there. But you and me
both maybe it's worldwide audience I mean, we should have
like, you know, there's like people inch 90 should be
listened to and whose can understand English should be
listening to this show.
There was an article in what was it? I'm gonna say Financial
Times, again, of course, talking about the US Information Agency.
And you know, these are the guys who will set up, you know, like
the Voice of America and radio, Swan, all these propaganda
stations, they wherever us propaganda is, is necessary,
quote necessary. And during the, during the Gulf War, they set
one up, they had at one point they had an aeroplane with all
these transmitters like a C 130 that would fly around and just
jam all the frequencies. And now Rumsfeld was quoted in this
article saying, you know, we need to do this again, and we
need to, but we need to expand and we need to do things on the
internet. And we have to have blogs that are disseminating
information like, Wow, good luck.
Well, that's brings up an interesting point i How would
you jam? I mean, you could have ISPs do it, I guess, for
example, that our show was streamed to somebody's play or
on their computer, perhaps. And you could jam that or just screw
it up. But you couldn't jam the downloads, which is where most
people will have most people are doing this. It's an interesting,
actually, it would be interesting to figure out and
start a company. Not that I'd want to do this because I think
it's a negative thing. But I'm just thinking in terms of the
possibilities here. A company can jam broadcasts are on
the net. So basically, like you, you suck up, whatever stream is
coming out and use you poop something different out on the
other end.
That would be good.
Mm hmm. Or perhaps Oh, dude, idea. Speaking of, I promise
you, I'll tell you my story again.
Entry into the United States story, a new entry story.
So I have a story and I have an I thought up a hack. So first,
the story. This is when I arrived at San Francisco
International Airport, which by the way, there is a big
difference between SFO arrival and liberty Airport in New York.
Because that they actually have a secondary screening room. You
know, the whole process there, they they hand hand walk you it
at Newark, they hand walk you over to the to the secondary
screening room. So you know, it's in San Francisco, you get
your you go through customs, the guy so what happened, of course,
is actually, the guy took my custom form, the guy, the
Customs Border Patrol agency officer, took my form, he
immediately put the, like the single stripe on it, because,
you know, he looked at me and it's like, it just put the
stripe on it, which means you're okay to pass that one, it looks
like a one but it just kind of like a, like a big vertical
Dash. And, and then he scanned my passport. And he and you
know, and of course recognise the look. And he said, Hey,
aren't you the guy from MTV? I said, I said, Yeah. And he said,
Oh, cool, what's your deal, and he just like, made like, a
minute of chit chat and then wrote an M, next to the stripe
that was already on my car. And I said up, even MTV guy is still
on the list. He says, Yeah, he just didn't really say anything.
So then you go, you walk basically around the corner, you
pick up your suitcase, and then you have to hand off your card
to the officer and then you're either out the door, or you go
straight ahead into one of the lines where the where they open
up your suitcase and talk to you. And so I took a little
different approach this time. And I went up to the officer,
you know, really smiley standing tall, I was really in a very
positive mode. I handed it to him. And I said, I think this
one's for the blue envelope, because they have a little blue
clear plastic pouch that they didn't put that into and said,
Yeah, because this guy recognised me too. I could see
it in his eyes. And they said, Yeah, come over here. And he
walked me up to the desk. And it was one of those weird
situations where you could see that he was trying to
communicate something to the officers behind the desk,
basically had I heard him say, Don't you know who this is? And
there was like, No, there's like a moment of them kind of looking
at each other. And, and then they went into the computer. And
I said, Yeah, you know, this is another random test. I guess
it's the fifth or sixth time and in as many Vinit visits. And the
guy said, wow, you're still on the list. I said, Yeah. I said,
Can you take me off? He said, No, but I can give you the Oh,
the Freedom of Information Act request form now. Thanks. I
already got one of those. And then he waved me through. He
said, All right, man, sorry about that. I can't help it and
he'd let me go right through. Now Here's the hack that I
thought of these custom forms. And basically, they hand them
out in the aeroplane you fill it in, you put in, you know, the
first you name, your, your passport, your flight number,
what other countries you visited? And then you have the
10 questions in which the first one is yes, is this business?
And then all the rest? Of course, you want to answer no,
you know, Are you a terrorist? Are you carrying more than
$10,000? You know, etc, etc. But you can take as many of these as
you want. And what what if I took a couple of them or just
two and fill them both out except on one I put a stripe and
put that in my pocket. And then hand the the other one to the to
the customs officer who then of course will put an M on it. I
put that one in my pocket, switch it out for the one with
the stripe and then just walk right through? Is there anything
they'd never know? It's a complete, easy hack.
When I separate the cameras,
the cameras pleased they'd never seen me do that. They'd never
never notice it.
Well, why don't you give it a shot?
Hey, John, it's Adam. I mean, get mo man, come on, you gotta
get me Get me out and get more. I might try it. I am really
thinking I'm going to try it. And I took a flight out from San
Francisco to my undisclosed location. And I was kind of in a
foul mood and before you go in to into the security area,
there's a guy there who you know is supposed to like check I
think all he has to do is check and see if your name is the on
the boarding card is the same name as his in your passport
because it's international travel. And I could just see
this guy and he was like totally uninterested, complete jerk off.
And I shined him basically like, you know, like, you know, I'm
not I'm not gonna say how you doing sir or any of that shit.
And he and I could see that he was picking up on that vibe. And
he wrote down secondary screening, which is SS you know,
right. Cool. Interesting that that's SSH, isn't it? So I wrote
down SSH on my boarding card. And I put the boarding card in
my back pocket because you know, usually what most people do like
sheep, you go through the metal detector and then your you show
your boarding card to the to the officer and if it has the SS on
it, then you have to go for a secondary screening. I just
didn't show it to him kept walking right on through not a
problem
that's interesting.
No, it's pisses me off.
Yeah, real Stickler, I'm sorry, it depends. You know, it's not
all the airports require that you walk through and have to
show your boarding pass twice. I think that's like spotty. I see
it here I see it there I don't think international it's pretty
much standard that could be but anyway whatever the case is they
usually ask to see it at least I because I use a pocket at
somewhere to and I had to pull it out I think it's ridiculous
really redundant. I mean, one guy just saw it was another guy
to see it. Well I don't want to ever have to yet but maybe I
didn't ever thought it was for the S S thing. Yeah, well, so
you you weigh me you came into this guy knew grumped you were
like a grump and you wouldn't say hi and so he put SS Yeah,
yeah, yeah, absolutely. Don't you think that's like a bad
policy? Well, the
whole thing is full of shit. This is my point. I
mean, you your policy.
Excuse me, I want to I have to be happy go lucky to some
dickhead who all is his only job is to check and see if the name
matches on the boarding pass matches. You know what's on the
what's on the passport? I just didn't feel like it. You know,
screw that. I'm sick and tired of this shit. It's ineffective
if it actually worked. And if they were consistent, yeah,
okay, then I can say it was like, you know, security, but
look at looking at how flimsy it is.
Ya know, I know it's not very good dog. It's mostly a sham.
It's dumb. completely dumb. And you and I but I also shined off
the the clear people because it's right next to the to the
entrance you have that clear line where if you have the if
you're registered, and the government follows you then you
apparently or supposedly can go through the line faster. Those
people are now trying to sell you to join up to the programme.
Like sir if you sign up for this programme then you can you can
get through security a lot faster and I think I said
something like she Yeah, right. I'm gonna go I'm gonna sign up
to your programme. I don't think so and kept walking like a big
hero.
I didn't know they were allowed to do that. That's shilling for
the euro. They are bar like Barker. Yeah, they aren't why
they become a scantily clad women while they're at it, then
I would sign
up for sure. And you know, I wonder are you drinking tea do I
hear Is x tippity there and the vorak
I'm drinking by the way, I've switched over completely for
people out there who want to know about our Tea Chats to this
special blend PG Tips.
Which one is that? It's called special blend.
It's called special blend is against it in a gold box it had
they had a special blend that they did for their anniversary a
few years ago. And then they decided to release it as a
regular product. And it's just slightly smoother than the
regular PG Tips and it doesn't it has just it's just a little
different. And it's about 50 cents more a box of ad. So it's
one drinkin.
Happy to hear it. It's good for you.
Those antioxidants. So anyway, okay, why we wanted to hear
that. By the way, I ran it. I was at the Macworld Expo and I
ran into one of the guys who's the PR guy for verbatim.
What's that? And what's probate? I
do want to bring a bunch of technical stuff.
Oh, wait a minute, verbatim that don't tell me that's the that's
the company that does those double links, and then you mouse
over it and it pops up advertising is that verbatim?
No, the company that makes blank CD ROMs.
Okay, that would be something completely different. Yeah, I
know what you're talking about. There's a bunch of companies
that do that, by the way, contour. There's a few other
ones there. Those are the most annoying thing on the internet.
I actually had it on my blog for a while I had contours and I
think I got like $100 a month or something for these annoyances
and I just dropped it. Because I know people didn't like it. I
didn't like it.
Shan Shan Finnegan, who is or was or maybe still is the CEO of
OMD, digital, that's a Omni comms digital advertising
agency. He was just he was promoted, like, I think six or
seven months ago to CEO and, and this is a, this is a really big
ad agency. I mean, they do a hell of a lot of media buying.
He recently just left to go to one of those companies. I was
astounded. I was like, man, it's like, I hate it. I really hate
it, you know, popping up windows fucking ads on
I know, I find it disturbing. But anyway, so verbatim. It just
It mentions people out there who are you know, need to do know
this. So that so I'm looking at their different kinds of, you
know, recordable media. And they have a gold a disk with gold in
it. And it's a it's an art specifically for 100 years of
archiving. If you have a you know, a CD or DVD that you want
to, you know, not a DVD but if you have a lot of files that you
really want to protect for 100 years, they have an archivable
burnable disk cost about $1. But which is expensive for what it
was, oh, it won't disintegrate. Is that the deal? Yeah, it's
got gold in it or something. I don't know how it even if it's a
different formulation of whatever they do in there, but I
just thought it was interesting. So have
you ever actually reached for an archived DVD or CD and only to
discover that it had been laying around too long and didn't work
anymore? Have you actually ever had that happen to you?
A couple of times really? Yeah, cuz I was you have to remember I
got into the seat. The burnable is when they were 1x. And you
have to buy these, you know, these scuzzy drives even burn
this thing about scuzzy. Yeah, oh, scuzzy drives. And so they
were talking about some of the original disks that were made.
And, and I have a few of them that were ran off of an OS two
machine that were that essentially some of the sectors
are gone. And I luckily, if you use the one of the drives that I
mean, really good quality reader, or drive is made by Plex
store. One time I was talking to some company that analyse discs
for for some for you know, as a consultant to this consultancy,
and the guy says he wouldn't go on the record. But he says if
you want to get a burner that does, you know that is
outstanding, you get a Plex store. So I've always only use
Plex stores ever since. So I have this one drive is really a
classic, that's one of their best that they've ever made. And
I could get the data off of the CD ROM from that one drive only
no other drive. And I had maybe five of them that I checked
could read this disk it was it was over the hill, and it was
probably 20 years old. And I save the data and then burn it
to another new disk. So yes, these discs do not last forever.
Interesting. I've never had you know, I used to do a lot of
archiving. And at one point, I was like, you know, I actually
never ever go back and try and find anything ever. And the
stuff that's worth it is probably posted online somewhere
anyway, so I'm always hoping that, you know, Google or Apple
doesn't go out of business. Some I should I'll still be on their
servers.
Well, the Apple and Google won't go out of business but I, you
know, I just think people should be aware of the fact that these
discs do fail. And it's and I have more than a couple of
deaths, not only the one example, I probably maybe three
or four disks I found over time, that are old, and they're just
not hanging in there. It's just like, they're dying,
vibrant media. That's what it is. That's what Finnegan went
to. Yeah.
So here in the States, by the way, I don't know if you
noticed, because you took off. But Obama won the South Carolina
primary and everything that I predicted years ago, are
starting to fall into place except for the Giuliani aspect.
Okay, that the Democratic ticket will be Hillary and Obama's VP,
which is totally unelectable ticket, and then it'll be McCain
and then I originally thought would be Giuliani, but now I'm
leaning toward Romney. But I, you know, I'm not taking money
on that.
Ron Paul has come in, what did he How did he do in South
Carolina? Actually?
I don't know. If he's over, he's not gonna get anywhere.
Don't say those things. John. I'm just telling you. He came
in? Well, you know, there's been all kinds of voter. There's all
kinds. Yeah, but it sure is, you know, there was voter fraud in
trying to think which primary that was
just throw darts at a map, and you'll find that you'll find the
answer. Yeah.
He came in second somewhere. Yeah. And of course, he got not
even mentioned at any of the press or in any article anywhere
that he came in second. Its process is so fucking stupid.
Hey, they're going for a $5 million boost. They've got a new
campaign going for the gold. Oh, cool. On Ron Paul
2000 eight.com. February 5, they're going for $5 million
dollars. They'll get it to, they'll get it?
Well, good. But anyway, the plan is good. Everything is going
according to plan the way I see it.
Well, we've written it down. We've documented it. And I think
you're right, I did something weird with Giuliani and he must
have pissed someone off or something. Well, you know, I
think the the problem with Giuliani, you know, he had a
bunch of these, I thought he was a shoo in for a while. But and
you know, now he's just doing occasional primaries. But if you
followed it from from like, but six months ago, and he had all
these different campaign managers from here and there
that were all mobbed up. It's just seems like, you know,
there's something there's something screwy about him and
his connections. And I think that the party is concerned
about it to such an extreme that I don't think he has a shot at
anything, including the vice president. So that kind of
pushed them out a little bit. Well, I mean, it's just not you
know, they don't need this kind of aggravation. They have to
have a clean ticket. You know, so you have like, you know,
that's why I think it'd be interesting that McCain and
Romney because they're not gonna find anything bad about McCain.
He's a war hero. It was in a concentration camp. I mean, you
know, it might have some you might be too liberal for some of
these guys and Romney squeaky clean. So I mean, you know, got
you got nothing. Meanwhile, the other two whoever they are,
which will be Hillary and someone there, you know, they'll
have found all kinds of dirt on them.
So who's Huckabee is still doing very well for the Republicans.
I'm pretty, pretty amazed by that.
And he's, so I watched you know, that one of the things that I
always advise people to do to get a kind of a feeling for how
these things are going to go is to watch these guys on the two
major US talk shows, which is Letterman and Leno. And they all
show up. And I saw it for the first time. I've seen Huckabee
before and I said this, if any, if there was going to be an open
mic stand up comedy competition, Huckabee would kill him. Funnily
quick. Yeah, he's very quick witted. And he's very funny. And
he's got a great presence. He's got to you know, so I was I was
shocked actually
and every American always loves you know, a guy who can pick up
a bass guitar and jam with the band you know, that's that's
always a plus. It did well for Clinton
gimmick doesn't do anything for me. But anyway, so Romney was on
the Leno Show recently. And I thought he was you know,
reminded me a little bit of Dean was a Howard Dean when he first
came out, you know, Howard Dean was you know, a couple elections
ago or election ago I guess. He was the front runner out of the
blue and because he had all this internet stuff going on, he had
the Joe Trippi doing his all his Internet and Internet stuff.
Yeah. It guy was just kicking butt until he showed up on
television. And then he Chris, he killed himself with his with
his screaming. But when he showed up on the on the Leno
Show, and it was the first time anyone I think really saw him
nationally, he comes out like a goofball. He has a tie. I swear
to god that was down to his knees. You mean all that was
missing was this was A big red nose that lit up. So he sits
down and he's got this tie that's hanging down as Dan
you're hitting the ground. And he's like acting like it like a
like a goof. And I said, this guy is done. And anyway, he just
didn't have it. When I saw Romney I had a little bit of
that impression. I didn't have all the way he was wearing like
an expensive probably Armani suit and he looked a little
slicker
or the guy that he made it red
ankles, but he didn't have the Presidential kind of style. He
was like goofy and trying to be funny, and he wasn't and I
thought he was thought he sucked. I think
he basically has has no chance. I mean, he I would say he even
has less of a chance than than Ron Paul, by the way, there's
only five, five left, if you think about it in in the primary
on the Republican side, Giuliani, Romney, Huckabee,
McCain and Paul.
Yeah. And I might mention that McCain has been doing these
shows the Letterman and Leno and then he does Jon Stewart, which
is unusual. I think the two of them have become buddies, to the
point where he's very slick on TV. He's not he doesn't get you
know, he's he's got a good sense of humour. He's not as nearly as
funny as Huckabee, but he's not. He's not humourless, and he's
not goofy. He's, I mean, it's just obvious to me. Smart. go to
Vegas right now. People put your money down. It's an easy win.
Well, I still hold hope, not just for Ron Paul, but for
America and the world at large. John. I really do.
Yeah, the thing that i How could be, you know, how can we had
this thing about dropping the income tax system and go into
100% consumption tax, which I'd never liked, because that's like
a VAT VAT tax that they have in Europe, that's always are people
and it's very, you know, hard on everybody. But he made this
interesting point that I thought was valid. And of course, this
means it'll never happen, which is that consumption tax rate
another just shift the burden on who actually what you purchase
you buy, encourages saving, which may or may not be a good
thing, but it also taxes. Finally, the grey market, you
know, people who, who don't pay taxes, drug dealers who make you
know, there's billions of dollars in drug sales. And those
guys never pay taxes, but they would pay taxes when they you
know, when they go out and buy Why
do you say that it's a burden, and people don't like it. I
mean, I've lived in, in three countries with value added tax
in the Netherlands in Belgium, which is actually 21%. VAT what
he's proposing for here, by the way,
and you know, I don't I, I'm kind of forward, I think it's a
pretty good idea.
But I couldn't be wrong, because I haven't done a survey. But all
I remember is that when it first cropped up years ago, and I
believe it was in the 70s, when it really started showing up all
over the place. All I heard was people complaining about it.
No, I mean, my experience is with it is there's like three
parts. One is if you it's listed separately, the VAT, so not like
in the US where I'm sorry, it's it's in the price, but on an
invoice, they'll list it separately. And if you're a
business, you get to deduct the VAT. It's purely a consumer
consumer tax. Of course, what that what that leads to is there
a huge black market, particularly in the services
industry. So having cash money really saves you a lot of money,
because you get guys to do some work on the house, or you have
some males, and there's always this trade off. Like I'll tell
you what, I'll give you an invoice and we'll do 100 100
euros and then you give me 25 on the side. So you don't have to
pay any VAT over that. So that you know, it does create a whole
black market that that can kind of spiral out of control.
Well, you know, that black black market exists here without the
VAT because technically, if you're going to be hiring a lot
of people to do work for you, you know, you have to fill out a
bunch of income tax forms form you got to do a lot of paperwork
is a is a nightmare. And people would prefer just to pay the
cash and under the table. So I don't see that that'd be a
difference there. We had, if you remember over the like it was it
was like most scandalous over the summer, I guess during the
Reagan administration, every time they tried to get a Supreme
Court justice or somebody elected to some office was an
appointment and they had to go through the Senate they'd always
uncover the fact that this person had an illegal employee.
And without quitting, almost with no exceptions, there was
one after another and that my experience was because I had
employees that I had actually done the paperwork for and it
was painful. It was ridiculous and then when you when you got
rid of and you had no employees, they would still start sending
you bills and at one point we got one for not for not filing
even though there's some guy hasn't worked for us for two
years. But we didn't file that he wasn't, you know, we filed
once or twice. It didn't work for us. But apparently he had to
keep filing forever. Yeah. And so we got dinged for 1200 bucks.
And I talked to the attorney about it. He said, Nah, just pay
it because you're never going to, you know, there's just a
nightmare. Yeah. So anything under five I realised that's why
people were doing this left and right, because it was too much
work too much hassle honest way
now. And in general, anything under five grand it's worth,
it's easier and in the law and cheaper to just pay it instead
of getting attorneys involved, because attorneys always start
something up. It's always five grand always. Yeah, that's Yeah,
that's true. So you'll like this. And I know I'm harping on
it. But Ron Paul sent out his Four Point Plan for
comprehensive economic revitalization. And there were
two things I thought were interesting. One is, instead of
saying getting rid of the Federal Reserve, which was kind
of what he was saying, throughout the entire campaign,
until he got the phone call,
yeah. Until he got the tax bill. Now he's saying expand openness
at the Federal Reserve, and require the Fed to televise its
meetings. I thought that was pretty interesting. That's cool.
Yeah. And then regulatory reform. And of course, I know,
you're gonna like this repeal, Sarbanes Oxley regulations that
push companies to seek capital outside of US markets stop
restricting community banks from fostering local economic growth,
as well. But the Sarbanes Oxley, I thought, you know, that's the
only candidate that has actually written that as a part of his
plan. Yeah,
um, yeah, you know, if you go if anybody out there wants to go
read my column, it's in MarketWatch. It was written
about six months ago, or a year ago, maybe I don't know, call
and the name of it is called repeal Sarbanes Oxley. And it
talks about some of these issues. And we're Sarbanes Oxley
is ruining the high tech scene, which is what we're involved in.
Well, it's ruining it's ruining America as a financial centre of
the universe. It's now become London because of because of
this, these rules.
Right? And then the joke of it, is it What the What what's the
point of the rules, when they end the Bush administration is
to blame, by the way? What was the point of the rules the rules
was, so you don't have that set? So you don't have a situation
like Enron and MCI and whatever. And the fact of the matter is,
the old rules worked fine. The Enron guys were a bust, crooks
that were fucking crook, one guy's dead. I mean, what's wrong
with the old system?
Yeah, I really don't know. It was, I think it was part because
there was such a public outcry. And it did hurt a lot of people.
What happened with Enron, and you know, just to say, well, the
old system is good. And we caught him. And you know, that,
you know, California got raked over energy, they had to do
something, but I think it was just too much of a knee jerk of
a knee jerk reaction. And what does it cost is like 8% of a
company's four 4% That's still a lot of money.
And the bottom line is last two, Sarbanes Oxley hoarding,
and CEOs really don't want to be CEOs anymore, because they're
personally liable. And it's, it's it's tough. I do
understand, you know, particularly people who
basically hate corporations. They'll hate me for saying, you
know, for, for saying this, but I agree. It should, it should,
it should get out. It should be removed. It's lame, it's hurting
our overall economy.
And one of those two guys, Sarbanes Oxley, I can't remember
which one, it was so deeply involved with some of the most
corrupt of the
it's actually guys names Sarbanes and Oxley. You're
kidding me? Yeah.
Yeah, they, well, who
are these guys that they named? They named after themselves?
They were
in Congress. That's why you do a lot of these bills. Well, they,
you know, these, a lot of these bills get named after you know,
it's like the what was that was the McCain Feingold? Bill. I
mean, there's a lot of these bills get named after the two
people that put them together. There's, you know, it's not
unusual. Yeah, but that just happens. I know. But what else
would it mean, Sarbanes Oxley? I don't know. towns in the near
Oxford.
I thought it was like kinda like the Luxembourg treaty. I'm like
Sarbanes Oxley. It's probably some place you know, in Romania
or whatever, where they put this together. I don't know.
In Northern Iowa,
Sarbanes Oxley, Iowa. Beautiful. Okay, you got anything else,
John?
No, I'm done. Yeah,
I did. I did want to say, I really enjoyed doing this. I
really like just yakking with you and for for people who are
listening, this is exactly the same conversation we have on the
phone, we probably could on a weekly basis. We could do five
hours. We're between four and five hours of this type of show
because we have conversations like this all the time and I
really enjoy it.
Ya know, it's a lot of fun. I know that but you can get you
get to, to kind of what I like about is having a good. It's
even though you're technically an American, you're really a
European with American sensibility. And us and you see
things from a perspective, and I think people appreciate this.
That's not that. I wouldn't say it was abnormal, but it's off
off colour. It's Well, besides the, but the it's but it's it's
unusual. Let's put it that way. It's it's slightly skewed. And I
think,
well, and that's good. That's because I think most Americans
don't get the types of input and information flowing to them that
you get in a different country. In fact, I was listening to the
podcast version of inbusiness Peter de works with the BBC.
I love the fact that curiously, I was just listening to the one
he did on nearly Smith cruises you
Yeah, with, with nearly Smith Cruise, who is a Dutch woman,
who by the way, wasn't her husband, and vicariously
herself. Were involved involved in a huge scandal before she
became the commissioner of, of competition or whatever it's
called, like a huge scandal because he was the mayor of
Rotterdam. And there was all kinds of money. That was it was
a big, big problem. And she spent a couple of years
basically repairing her reputation. I think they moved
to New York. But I've always had a lot of respect for her, but
just listening to that. It's called in business, Peter, Dave,
the BBC. There's a lot going on. And the premise of this was that
the, you know, the anti competitiveness and anti What do
you call it a cartel busting, etc. That kind of used to be
America's job. And that is now without a doubt, if you look at
what's happened with Microsoft, but in this in this show that
we've been talking about the paraffin wax industry, you know,
now the EU is busting up these, these cartels, and there's
hundreds of them, you have no idea, if really, you know, they
went down a list and like crap, yeah, candles are fucking
expensive. Oh, it's true. Candles are outrageously
expensive. And it's, and it's, I guess, through price fixing?
Well, you know, I listened to that it was one of our readers
that sent us a link to that particular show, because we had
complained, or at least one of my readers or one of our
listeners, I'm not sure
I can't remember. I'm a subscriber, because I've met
Peter and I love them. Anyway,
I got to somebody sent me the link, because I had been moaning
about it gets me was on tech five, I was moaning about how,
why does the Europeans telling you why why are they telling you
about it? Because what to do, right? And the, and the point
that she makes in this, by the way people should go listen to
this, because it's quite good. It's very, very educational. In
fact, I'm going to probably write my next MarketWatch column
on this particular issue. But anyway, the she says that the
Americans from the European perspective, led the way with
antitrust regulations over the decades, and have only recently
just dropped the ball completely, and they don't
appear they don't even care anymore. And so that's why
they're doing this. You know, it's an interesting argument. I
think there's some truth to it. But I still find it annoying
that American companies are being told what they can do in
their own country in terms of buyouts and the like,
well, that's not I don't think it works exactly that way, what
I believe is happening if you look at so the two big ones are
Google and double click, and then there's Microsoft, you
know, issues, of course, with you know, it's still all about
the time we explore into Windows, etc. But all of these
companies have, you know, some companies in all these different
countries, so it's about those subsidiaries, I guess. That's,
that's what I think they're attacking. But when it comes to
a merger, you know, obviously, a blocking of a merger of the
foreign entities is going to affect the US the US entity, I
don't believe they actually have any legislative power.
I don't know what you know, that would that's a question that's
kind of unanswered, if Google and double click, which are both
American companies, they have what
they have, but they have local companies, you know, it's not
like just an office that says Google Inc. It says, Google BV
Google Ltd, you know, Google envy, you know, it's
what are they going to do about it? I mean, the question in my
mind is, what are they going to do about it kick the Google envy
out of the Netherlands or kick Google LLC out of wherever?
Yeah. I mean, what are you going to do about it? If they, if the
companies say and I have nobody's done this, no one's had
the nerve to do this. What if the Europeans said no, you can't
do that merger because it's anti competitive, which it may or may
not be I'm not sure that it is. But let's say it is, but I don't
think I don't think that's the issue with those two. I think
it's it's
one of the two companies Google and double They say, Well screw
you. We're doing it anyway. What are you going to do about it?
What are they going to do about it?
You know, I've never met her, but you don't want to fuck with
Nate Lee Smith Cruz, dude, you do not want to mess with that
woman. She is a hard nose.
She seemed like a nice person. No, no, she's,
I'm sure she's a lovely woman. But when it comes to business,
man, and part of that, of course, is the way the Dutch
sometimes speak English. Which I was kind of surprised how poor
her English was.
Yeah, well, it was. It was good in terms of its in terms of the
knowledge of the words, but she was a very she was the worst
case example of you know, men Americans don't understand this.
Generally, we've talked about it before on the show. That there's
the intonation isn't there. And so you don't you can miss read
somebody because they don't have a clue about how to intone the
way Americans do too, for emphasis or for whatever.
And also, instead of saying, so to speak. She kept saying so to
say. And it really bugged me to say, so to say, like, so to
speak, namely, so to speak.
But we'll talk about that more in the future?
Well, we definitely should, I'm gonna do a little bit of
research on, on how that works with how they would actually
block some I don't even know if it's the anti competitive when
it comes to Google and doubleclick. I thought that was
privacy issues. I'm not quite sure if Nayla is in charge of
blocking that when they certainly didn't talk about it
on the show, or at least I didn't have it in the show if
they did talk about it. So that means you mentioned it.
Somebody mentioned it.
Yeah, I think Peter de mentioned it just in like his edit it in
commentary or whatever. I don't think she talked about it. That
guy's great that Peter I've ever met him. No, he, we just moved
to the UK. And the word podcasting had had was like,
word of the year or whatever. He came out to the house and
interviewed me and it was really it was really interesting. He is
the quintessential kind of like, you know, Grey Raincoat wearing
dishevelled. Nagara carrying
Nagraj. Yeah,
you know, remember the old reel to reel daggers. Now, and, you
know, but he did have a, he had a mini disc recorder lo and
behold, you know, they had a big old grey BBC microphone. And he
just came over to the house. And, you know, he sat in my, my
office for a couple hours. And just, you know, we just talked a
bit and, man, that guy has interviewed everybody. He's been
around the world. He's seen and been everywhere. Just I tried to
hire him, actually, because we kept in touch a little bit after
that. And there was they were going to offer early pensions at
the time, just a couple of years or something like that at the
BBC, and that they were going to get rid of people or they were
going to shorten the retirement age. That's what it was. And he
said, Well, you know, I've got some choices to make. And I
said, dude, whatever the BBC is paying you, I'll pay you double
to come and work for us. And he considered it for a little
while. But obviously, he he didn't choose. He's still the
BBC still at Auntie. Yes at the BBC.
Okay, all right. So, but the one thing to look into before you
for the show in the future, when we bring this topic up again, is
what are they going to do about it? If an American couple
American companies tell him to stuff it?
It's a very good question. And I guess, I guess I'm out of steam.
Remember now where we started a trend. There is a a show called
yo agenda. And they're still keeping strong.
And his whole agenda. Hola Gent.
I'm waiting for Bo agenda, Mo agenda. There's gotta be a lot
more coming out. I think he started
to trend mo agenda sounds like a good name, Mo agenda. I'll have
to
register that one. But as we started off by talking about
this, a lot of people are saying this is what I always thought
podcasting was going to be and we've struck a chord, man, I'm
not quite sure what it is. I don't know if it's just the
eavesdropping. Or if it's actually that we're interesting,
slash entertaining. Hopefully, it's a combination. But yeah,
people are into it. And they can and they continuously say they
really liked the format. It's of just like, just talking.
Yeah, well, it's it's a talk show. Essentially, this is not
much different than what you hear on talk radio, when you
have two people that you know, aren't taking calls. Although we
take calls in some funny way, even though we never play him,
because I can't figure out how to make it all work.
You know, we don't need to, I don't know. I like the email.
We're gonna need these calls. Because I know one of these days
we're going to both of us Because of the cycles of the
moon, we're gonna hit one of these shows, although the great
thing about podcasting in this regard is that we don't have, we
don't we can do a half hour short 15 minutes an hour, two
hours, you know, we can you know, there's no agenda in terms
of the length. And so you know, if you run out of steam, we
could just do 15 minutes and call it a day. No, go ahead. No,
I'm just saying that we were if we wanted to, we could pat it
with these phone calls.
And then people can always I wonder how many people listen to
us on their iPod in double speed? Because you can still
kind of follow along. Now they have audio books, you can kind
of listen along it just goes faster. Yeah, I bet you
someone's out there is doing it might be better. So I can't play
the feedback for you but a whole bunch of people left. Left
messages about the quote you had a quote like
that well, right that Galactica quote. Yeah, yeah. The quote. I
still have it in this pad here somewhere.
But they didn't say it was from this a Battlestar collector. Was
that was that where it
came from? Battlestar Galactica? Yeah, I got to two notes myself.
It was the quote of I'll never have a network computer. Ship.
That's it, something like that. And I don't know why I'd write
that down. If it was some Battlestar Galactica, because I
don't watch Battlestar Galactica. I saw it when they
came up with the second version of it. Actually, I should do
this. If you remind me, I'll do this. I wrote when they came up
with the second iteration of the show, the new one with the you
know, the blonde girl who keeps appearing magically, they did a
kind of a movie or kind of a movie for TV or whatever. And I
watched this because everyone wanted to check out the new that
Battlestar Galactica and a lot of people really liked the show.
I watched it and wrote a scathing review. Crap. And I
sent it actually, I was so worked about I sent it into a PC
Magazine, you know, and like, I think it was Landstuhl and offer
one of these editors is waiting. He says, you know, this is a
funny review. But you know, this has got nothing to do with
anything, you know, good find something else to write about?
Oh, yeah, no, that didn't print it. And so it's one of those
things that I just crank something else out. And I put it
aside meaning to like, you know, because I can repurpose most of
my material that gets rejected. Yeah. Which is not that much, by
the way. But occasionally it does. And I'll just send it
someplace else. And I put it aside and never got back to it.
So now it's kind of old. But I may just reprise it in my on the
blog, on the blog. Yeah, absolutely. There's a bunch of
stuff that that's sitting in the corner that needs to be put up
before it gets so old. That is, you know, ridiculous.
Next to the notes you can't read and the D and the CDs that are
are blank. don't work anymore.
Anyway, okay. I'm done. All right.
Sorry. I didn't have a better punch line. I tried. I would say
that that concludes this episode of no agenda. We'll be back
probably in about a week's time. From an undisclosed location in
a fine hotel room. I'm Adam curry.
And I'm John C. Dvorak in Northern California. And we'll
talk to you again next time on
no agenda.