Neelis Kroes Is Hot

00:01 Hi everybody, once again it's time for the program that has pretty much nothing 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, 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. Yeah, it rained again They're wrong on the timing, but it's been raining a lot. We have 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 cleared out because it hasn't been raining

00:52 From about 9 o'clock on it stopped, but it still looks crappy out. I suspect it will rain again. And the best thing was the traffic on Friday evening. There 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. We're on 2nd Street with the office. in the city and it was just bumper to bumper, nothing was moving. What is it with that? Why does rain cause that? I mean, is it... Well, 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 day where it's going to be that stormy and they didn't and so it was easy to get to the city.

01:32 But then we had some meetings and at 2.30 the meeting was canceled for various reasons and I took that as an opportunity to take off because I knew it was gonna be a mess. And I got through it just in time around 2.30 I snuck across the bridge but it was already flooding. The tunnel was like flooding. So you had- Which tunnel? There's a tunnel? Yeah, there's a tunnel on the San Francisco Bay Bridge. Right in the middle where the island is. Oh, Buena, Buena Yerba, whatever it is. Yerba Buena, Yerba Buena, it used to be called Goat Island. Actually, when Patricia was at the condo, when was that, like in the summer, we took a drive across the bridge and we actually, we took that exit to go see what it was. It was pretty uninteresting, actually. What, Goat Island? Yeah, there's not a lot going on there.

02:28 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. So water collects at the bottom. Right, right, right, right. It collects at the bottom. And so it was flooding. I'm thinking, wow. This is going to be a horrible commute around five o'clock when the, not because of the more people coming across, but because this thing is going to stop everyone. Okay. So that's what, that's what causes it. Yeah. Cause you can't just go down that, you know, normally I guess you go down there like 40, 50 miles an hour. If you do that, then you'd pretty much find your face against the windshield, I guess, when you hit that.

03:06 that puddle at the bottom, right? It would just like slow you down in a heartbeat. And it wasn't the only puddle. And on Niagara there was these big sheets of water coming down from the upper deck. which happens when it's really raining and they hit you and it's just like you're getting hit by it's like it's you just get hammered with a with just a wall of water every time you 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 as you can't see for a few seconds and then the windshield wipers finally get rid of it So yeah, I knew it was gonna be bad. So unfortunately I can't play the... I'm on my mobile setup and I still haven't figured out how to play stuff so 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 really tickled people. Yeah, like that was funny. Do that more often. Did you take any notes?

04:03 I have more, I don't have to. I have notes. All I have to do is lift up one sheet of paper here on the desk and there's notes. More than enough notes, yeah. I got notes for years. And lots of book titles. I mean, you know, I'm a best seller. I was thinking of doing a book title book. You know, I said if you do a book title. Right, then you don't have to write it. You don't have to write it, you just write the title. So I wrote this title, A Book of Book Titles. And I realized that as soon as I came up with that, I don't have to write that book either. That sounds a lot like a friend of mine who did a coffee table book about coffee table books. Which I thought was a pretty genius idea.

04:49 Which was also, by the way, a Seinfeld episode. You're kidding me! No. Really? It exists! The book... How long ago was that? Did the book exist before they did that? There was one of the Seinfeld episodes in the middle of the series and Kramer had come up with this idea to do a coffee table book that was about coffee tables and was actually a coffee table itself. It had little legs on it. 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 and

05:29 You know, that kind of thing. So anyway. So we bumped into each other on the street earlier in the week. Actually, 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 Sunday. And it was kind of weird because I was coming around the corner walking up Second Street and it was raining and I had my London portable three pound And I'm walking up and I'm like, look at this guy with this, look at the size of that fucking red umbrella he's got. And it was you, all right? And he's like, hey man, neoliberalism, that's what we're going to talk about.

06:11 Well, let's talk about the umbrella. Okay. What is that? What's up with that? That's a huge umbrella. I have the little pop-up, the bumper shoot, the little dinky one that you had, which is useless in a rainstorm. No, no, no. Hold on a second. Now this is, this, I carry this in my, you know, my bag, which of course is in 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, for the portability and it does work. I must have 10 of those little guys like that umbrella. They just don't last. I have one in the car, I carry them a lot. I throw them in the suitcase, they're 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 this umbrella, we gave a New Year's Eve party or some party some time ago at the house and it was gonna rain and so we went to Costco

07:01 And they had on sale for at night at 20, but these things were expensive $20 a piece these golfing umbrellas that for for golfers to play I guess in the rain and 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 to and it has red No, I was acting you see you get there, right? It's green what? You're kidding me! Yeah, curiously I have a red one, but that one 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 why. You know, where you're supposed to be able to see the numbers?

07:49 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 I this is the first time in Ever I mean maybe maybe I could have sworn it 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 and Well, I mean it's possible because that thing is green but not red. But it's funny that you would make that mistake. 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 refugee camps. So anyway, so I brought that umbrella. It is a huge umbrella. But you know the thing is in a big storm like that, it's actually quite handy to have a monster umbrella.

08:39 because I really just don't, you know, normally with my regular umbrellas in a storm like that, my legs would be soaked because the rain just kind of, you know, gets through. But with that umbrella, you can get them dry as a bone. And also it looked like it was sturdy. So, you know, of course, mine, There was some reasonable wind and now one or two of the spokes are sticking through because it does wreck the umbrellas, the cheaper ones. I have to say, I was once given a beautiful umbrella set for the home. Six umbrellas and a nice cast iron stand where you can put it in and the water drains in. It really is a gift that keeps on giving and we should think more about that as a general gift for people.

09:20 It is a good idea. Yeah, umbrellas are great. But these giant 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 huge. But I think everyone who saw it said the same thing. It's like, holy crap. Look at the girth of that thing. I have to go up and down a lot with it because if somebody's coming the other way with any size umbrella, I have to like make allowances for them, not banging into them. Okay. Well, anyway, so we're going to talk about neoliberalism. I looked it up, even though it's supposed to be no agenda. I did look up the definition of neoliberalism and I guess it's a set of economic principles

10:12 Well, you know, it's vague to me. But I can, all I know is every once in a while it comes up in the conversation, although nobody would ever say that they're a neoliberal, but neoliberalists, but I can give you examples of people who are neoliberals. Okay. Based on what everybody agrees on, that, to try to define this word. And I think the definition is essentially somebody who is, a globalist into globalization of all sorts. And they're internationalists, I guess, a lot of them. Which is a different type of globalist. The internationalists seem to me to have stemmed from a movement to prevent future wars by having a one world government. But anyway, the classic neoliberals are Ronald Reagan

11:04 and Bill Clinton. Wait a minute, so what's the difference between a neoliberal and a neocon? Wasn't Reagan a neocon, like the archetype neocon? Well he was surrounded by them and he was kind of one, but you can be a neoliberal and a neocon, you can be a neoliberal and a normal liberal, you can be pretty much a neoliberal 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 Wikipedia. Yeah, that definition is not a good one, by the way. Then I'm not going to read the definition from Wikipedia. I found another one. What is it? What is neoliberalism? Here we go. Corpwatch.com. Gee, I bet you that's going to be good.

12:01 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 me. That's not much of a definition, is it? Doesn't really help me, does it? No. Neoliberalism refers to a political movement that espouses economic liberalism as a means of promoting economic development and securing political liberty. Yeah, that's a little better. That is 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, globalization.

12:53 It's a kind of a globalization 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, you know, 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 DirecTV may have it. Some cable places may have it. It's FSTV. It's generally flaky. But they have a lot, every once in a while they'll have some shows on there that will be done by some radical socialists. And they're 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. You watch Current TV at all?

13:45 We have that over here. We don't have the FS TV. We do have current TV on that I haven't seen that as a network here. We have the offbeat networks that are my favorites one is a free speech TV Which also by the way has a segment called the called gay news excellent and the gay 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 kind of interesting to say, well, you know, and when's he going to come out and admit, you know, and you're listening to you saying you go to your you say to yourself, wow, I didn't know that guy was gay. And 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 to Tom Merritt and Molly Wood from CNET Buzz out loud.

14:36 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 a TV gay news. I'll tell you I'll tell you you know, um, I Started as a guy the way let me share one guy. I can't remember his name, but he's like a kind of a grumpy older male and then there's this woman with the short cropped hair who's actually quite humorous and funny and it just seems that when you see this show and then you see the Buzz out loud you just say, huh, I wonder where they got the idea for that model. Well I started listening to Buzz, I've never really read much of CNET or

15:22 Here he is, Gay TV Channel. Gay TV. Gay News. Look for Gay News. Gay News. I started listening to Buzz Out Loud probably a hundred episodes or so ago and kind of got into it because going into the city, into London, it's almost the perfect length to go from my house to the station waiting for the train. 40 or 45 minutes, so perfect, right? And I had 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, I don't mean in a bad way, but you get that image, and I had a very different image of Molly for sure, and of Tom as well. And then you see them, it's like, oh yeah, well they're kind of geeky.

16:16 Just wasn't quite what I expected. Yeah, I didn't get to experience. I know what you're saying. In fact, that experience is always good for a laugh, you know, when you preconceive. 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 with something I was listening to that I never saw the person. Then when I finally saw him, I said, wow, it's nothing. There's not even close. Actually, the famous, who I think is one of the great broadcasters in the United States, Jim Rome, who 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 over time, when you see the person and then you hear the voice, at some point they meld and that shock of the difference dissipates. It fades away and dissipates after a while.

17:04 Now, I got a call or a note from somebody 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 went on and on about how he, what podcast he listened to, and he does the same thing. He can't listen to Cranky Geeks apparently because 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, you can never, they'll never listen to you. Well this was part of the original concept behind the Pod Show channels where you could basically, you know,

17:49 We still have to teach people the benefits of it, but you could either A, manually put together two or three shows. Actually, I have an on-the-go channel which consists of New York Times front page, Your show tech 5 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 is you know, like a 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

18:32 and then it should just kind of like automatically create something for you. Because 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, could you break it into two parts? Which of course we're not gonna 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 interesting. Yeah, it's really, 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 minute shows like Tech 5, those get slipped in here and there because you know, five minutes you can always kind of force into, you can shoehorn them into somebody's list. It's a damn fine show, Mr. Dvorak.

19:34 It really is. I like it. And doing well, I might add. Holy crap, I saw the numbers the other day. Yeah, it's getting there. You're on path to like a million a month or something. It's crazy. Yeah, it's not bad. No anyway. I'm always thinking big numbers, so I guess a hundred million that I'm there you and me both, baby It's worldwide audience I mean we should have like you know there's like people in China should be listening who can understand English should be listening to this show there was an article in What was it? I'm going to say Financial Times again, of course, talking about the US Information Agency. And these are the guys who will set up

20:17 You know, like the Voice of America and Radio Swan, all these propaganda stations, wherever US propaganda is necessary, quote necessary. And during the Gulf War they set one up. At one point they had an airplane 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, 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.

20:57 Well, that brings up an interesting point. How would you jam, I mean, you could have ISPs do it, I guess, for example, our show would stream to somebody's player on their computer, perhaps, and you could jam that or just screw it up, but you couldn't jam the downloads, which is how 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 that can jam broadcasts are over the internet. So basically you suck up whatever stream is coming out and you poop something different out on the other end? That would be good. Hmm. Hmm. Or, yeah, perhaps. Oh dude, speaking of.

21:45 uh... i promise you i tell you uh... my story again of uh... entry into the united states story new entry story so i have a story and i have a and i thought up a hack uh... so first the story now this is when i arrived at uh... san francisco international airport which by the way uh... there is a big difference between uh... sfo arrival and liberty airport in newark Because they actually have a secondary screening room. It's a whole process there. They hand walk you at Newark. They hand walk you over to the secondary screening room. And at San Francisco, you go through customs. So what happened of course is, actually,

22:34 The guy took my custom form, the guy, the Customs Border Patrol Agency officer took my form. He immediately put the single stripe on it, because he looked at me and he's like, just put the stripe on it, which means you're okay to pass that one. It looks like a one, but it's just kind of like a big vertical dash. And then he scanned my passport and he, and I of course recognized the look, and he said, hey, aren't you that guy from MTV I said yeah and he said oh cool what you do you know 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 he said

23:18 And I said, even MTV guy is still on the list. And he said, yeah, well, 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 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, really smiley, standing tall. I was really in a very positive mode and 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 then put that into. And he said, yeah, yeah. Because this guy recognized me too. I could see it in his eyes. And I said, oh, yeah, come over here. And he walked me up to the desk.

24:11 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, I heard him say, don't you know who this is? And there was like a moment of them kind of looking at each other and then they went into the computer and I said, yeah, this is another random test, I guess. It's the fifth, no, sixth time in as many visits. And the guy said, wow, you're still on the list? I said, yeah. He said, can you take me off? He said, no, but I can give you the Freedom of Information Act request form. No, 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 let me go right through. Now, here's the hack that I've thought of.

25:02 These custom forms, basically they hand them out in the airplane, you fill it in, you put in your name, your passport, your flight number, what other countries you visited, and then you have the 10 questions, of which the first one is yes, is this business, and then all the rest of course you want to answer no. Are you a terrorist? Are you carrying more than $10,000? Et cetera, et cetera. But you can take as many of these as you want. And what if I took a couple of them, or just two, and filled them both out, except on one I put a stripe and put that in my pocket, and then hand the other one 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.

25:56 Well, except for the cameras. Dude, cameras please. They'd never see me do that. They'd never notice it. Well, why don't you give it a shot? Hey John, it's Adam. I'm in Gitmo, man. Come on, you gotta get me. Get me out of Gitmo. I might try it. I'm really thinking I'm gonna try it. And I took a flight out from San Francisco to my undisclosed location and I was a kind of in a foul mood and and and you know before you go in to Into the security area there's a guy there who you know is supposed to like 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 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

26:52 And I shined him basically, like, I'm not going to say how you doing sir or any of that shit. And I could see that he was picking up on that vibe and he wrote down secondary screening, which is SS. Interesting that that's SS, isn't it? So he wrote down SS on my boarding card. I put the boarding card in my back pocket because usually what most people do, like sheep, you go through the metal detector and then you show your boarding card 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. I kept walking right on through. Not a problem.

27:38 Uh, that's interesting. No, it pisses me off. It pisses me off. If you get a real stickler, I'm sorry, 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, but I don't see it everywhere. I 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 usually pocket it somewhere too. And I had to pull it out. I think it's ridiculous, really redundant. I mean, one guy just saw it. Why does another guy have to see it? I never had to yet, but maybe I never thought it was for the SS thing. Yeah, well if you... So you, wait a minute, you came to this guy and you grumped, you were like a grump and you wouldn't say hi and so he put SS on it because he thought... 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. No, I mean your policy.

28:31 Excuse me, why do I have to be happy-go-lucky to some dickhead whose only job is to check and see if the name on the boarding pass matches what's on the passport? I just didn't feel like it. Screw that. I'm sick and tired of this shit. It's ineffective. If it actually worked and if they were consistent, then I could say it was security. But look at how flimsy it is. Yeah, no, I know. It's not very good. It's dumb. It's mostly a sham. It's dumb. Completely dumb. And you've got... But I also shined off the clear people because it's right next 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 program.

29:27 It's like, sir, if you sign up for this program, then you can get through security a lot faster. And I think I said something like, yeah, right. I'm going to sign up to your program. 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... They are. It's like a barker. Yeah, they are. I want to have you come with scantily clad women while they're at it. Then I would sign up for sure. You know I would. Are you drinking tea? Do I hear a sip of tea there in Dvorak? I'm drinking... By the way, I've switched over completely for people out there who want to know about our tea chats to the special blend PG tips. Which one is that?

29:27 It's like, sir, if you sign up for this program, then you can get through security a lot faster. And I think I said something like, yeah, right. I'm going to sign up to your program. 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... They are. It's like a barker. Yeah, they are. I want to have you come with scantily clad women while they're at it. Then I would sign up for sure. You know I would. Are you drinking tea? Do I hear a sip of tea there in Dvorak? I'm drinking... By the way, I've switched over completely for people out there who want to know about our tea chats to the special blend PG tips. Which one is that?

30:13 It's called Special Blend? It's called Special Blend. It's in a gold box. 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 a... it's just a little different. And it's about 50 cents more a box of 80. So, that's what I'm drinking. Happy to hear it. It's good for you. Those antioxidants. So anyway, I wanted to hear that. By the way, I was at the Macworld Expo and I ran into one of the guys who's the PR guy for Verbatim. What's that? What's Verbatim? Not to bring a bunch of technical stuff. Oh, wait a minute. Verbatim. Don't tell me that's the company that does those double links and then you mouse over it and it pops up advertising. Is that Verbatim?

30:13 It's called Special Blend? It's called Special Blend. It's in a gold box. 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 a... it's just a little different. And it's about 50 cents more a box of 80. So, that's what I'm drinking. Happy to hear it. It's good for you. Those antioxidants. So anyway, I wanted to hear that. By the way, I was at the Macworld Expo and I ran into one of the guys who's the PR guy for Verbatim. What's that? What's Verbatim? Not to bring a bunch of technical stuff. Oh, wait a minute. Verbatim. Don't tell me that's the company that does those double links and then you mouse over it and it pops up advertising. Is that Verbatim?

31:11 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, and there's a few other ones. 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 a hundred dollars 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. Sean Finnegan who is or was or maybe still is the CEO of OMD Digital. That's Omnicom's digital advertising agency. He was just he was promoted like I think six or seven months ago to CEO and this is a

31:52 This is a really big ad agency. 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, I hate it. I really hate it. Popping up windows, fucking ads. Yeah, I know, I find it disturbing. But anyway, so verbatim, I just thought I'd mention this to people out there who need to know this. So I'm looking at their different kinds of recordable media and they have a gold, a disc with gold in it and it's an, specifically for 100 years of archiving,

32:35 If you have a CD or DVD that you want to, not a DVD, but if you have a lot of files that you really want to protect for a hundred years, they have an archivable. burnable disc, cost about a dollar, but which is expensive. So it won't disintegrate? Is that the deal? Yeah, it's got gold in it or something. I don't know how even if it's a different formulation of whatever they do in there, but I just thought it was interesting. 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, because I was, you have to remember, I got into the burnables when they were 1X and you had to buy these, you know, these scuzzy drives to even burn discs. So we're talking about... Scuzzy, yeah. Old scuzzy drives. And so we're talking about some of the original discs that were made and

33:30 And I have a few of them that were ran off of an OS2 machine that were, that essentially some of the sectors are gone and I luckily, if you use, one of the drives, I mean a really good quality reader or drive is made by Plexstore. One time I was talking to some company that analyzed disks for, for, for, for some, you know, as a consultant, it was 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 used Plex stores ever since. So I have this one drive that's really a classic, that's one of their best that they've ever made, and I could get the data

34:13 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 disc. It was over the hill, and it was probably 20 years old. And I saved the data and then burned it to another new disc. So yes, these discs do not last forever. Interesting. I've never had a, 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 Google or Apple doesn't go out of business. So my shit will still be on their servers.

34:57 Well, Apple and Google won't go out of business, but I just think people should be aware of the fact that these discs do fail. And I have more than a couple, that's not only the one example, I probably maybe three or four discs I've 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. 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 is starting to fall into place except for the Giuliani aspect.

34:57 Well, Apple and Google won't go out of business, but I just think people should be aware of the fact that these discs do fail. And I have more than a couple, that's not only the one example, I probably maybe three or four discs I've 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. 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 is starting to fall into place except for the Giuliani aspect.

35:38 Okay, that's it 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 is coming. What did he do in South Carolina actually? I don't know. 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... It's all fixed, it's rigged. Yeah, but it sure is. You know, there was voter fraud in... I'm trying to think which primary that was. Well, just throw a dart at a map and you'll find the answer. Yeah. He came in second somewhere. Huh. Yeah, and of course he got not even mentioned in any of the press, in any article anywhere.

36:29 Then he came in second. This process is so fucking stupid. Hey, they're going for a five million dollar boost. They've got a new campaign, Going for the Gold. Oh cool. On RonPaul2008.com. February 5th, they're going for five million dollars. They'll get it too. They'll get it. Well good. But anyway, the plan is, 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. There's something weird with Giuliani. He must have pissed someone off or something. Well, you know, I think the problem with Giuliani, you know, he had a bunch of these, I thought he was the shoe-in for a while, but now he's just doing occasional primaries, but

37:16 If you followed it from from like about six months ago And he had all these different campaign managers from here and there that were all mobbed up. Yeah It 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 presidency I kind of pushed him 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 to have McCain and Romney because they're not going to find anything bad about McCain. He's a war hero. He was in a concentration camp. I mean, you know, he might have some, he might be too liberal for some of these guys and Romney squeaky clean. So, I mean, you got, you got nothing. Meanwhile, the other two, whoever they are, which will be Hillary and someone, uh, they're, you know, they'll have, find all kinds of dirt on them.

38:11 So, uh, who's Huckabee is still doing very well for the Republicans. I'm pretty, pretty amazed by that. Yeah, he's so I watched, you know, that's 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, for the first time, I've seen Huckabee before and I said this, if there was gonna be an open mic stand up comedy competition, Huckabee would kill. He's extremely quick.

38:46 quick yeah he's very quick-witted and he's very funny and he's got a great presence he's got an you know 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 all that's always a plus you know that it did well for Clinton yeah 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, it was Howard Dean. When he first came out, Howard Dean was a couple elections ago, or election ago I guess. He was the front runner out of the blue, because he had all this internet stuff going on, he had Joe Trippi doing his, all his internet stuff. His internet stuff, yeah. The guy was just kicking,

39:37 But until he showed up on television, and then of course he killed himself with his screaming. But when he showed up 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. All that was missing was a big red nose that lit up. So he sits down and he's got this tie that's hanging down, it's damn near hitting the ground. And he's acting like a goof.

40:13 And I said, this guy is done. And he just didn't have it. When I saw Romney, I had a little bit of that impression. Although he was wearing an expensive probably Armani suit, a little slicker. And he had a tie down to his ankles. But he didn't have the presidential kind of style. He was like goofy and trying to be funny and he wasn't. I thought he sucked. I think he basically has no chance. I would say he even has less of a chance than Ron Paul. By the way, there's only five left, if you think about it, in the primary on the Republican side. Giuliani, Romney, Huckabee, McCain and Paul.

41:03 Yeah. And I might mention that McCain's 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 got a good sense of humor. He's not nearly as funny as Huckabee, but he's not He's not humorless and he's not goofy. He's just obvious to me. I mean, if you go to Vegas right now, people, and 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.

41:42 You know, the thing that I, the Huckabee, you know, Huckabee had this thing about dropping the income tax system and going to a 100% consumption tax, which I never liked because that's like a VAT, V-A-T tax that they have in Europe that's always for people and it's very 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 a consumption tax, where in other words you shift the burden onto actually what you purchase. What you buy, yeah. Encourages saving, which may or may not be a good thing, but it also taxes, finally, the gray market. You know, people who don't pay taxes, drug dealers who make, you know, there's billions of dollars in drug sales.

42:22 And those guys never pay taxes, but they would pay taxes when they you know when they go out 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% V8 what he's proposing for here by the way And, you know, I'm kind of for it. I think it's a pretty good idea. I could 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 experiences 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 in the price, but on an invoice, they'll list it separately.

43:15 And if you're a business, you get to deduct the VAT. It's purely a consumer tax. Of course, what that leads to is 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 something else and there's always this trade-off like, I'll tell you what, I'll give you an invoice and we'll do 100 euros and then you give me 25 on the side so you don't have to pay any VAT over that. create a whole black market that can kind of spiral out of control. Well, you know, that 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 for them. You got to do a lot of paperwork. It's a nightmare and people prefer just to pay the cash under the table. So I don't see that that'd be a difference there.

44:16 , some, I guess during the Reagan administration, every time they'd try to get a Supreme Court justice or somebody elected to some office where there's an appointment and they had to go through the Senate, they'd always uncover the fact that this person had an illegal employee. And I mean, without question, almost with no exceptions. It was one after another. And my experience was, cause I had employees that I had actually done the paperwork for and it was painful, it was ridiculous. And then when you got rid of them and you had no employees, they would still start sending you bills. And at one point, we got one for not filing, even though this 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 that he didn't work for us, but apparently you have to keep filing forever. And so we got dinged for 1,200 bucks, and I talked to the attorney about it, and he said, nah, just pay it, because you're never gonna, you know, it's just a nightmare.

45:15 And so now I realize that's why people were doing this left and right because it was too much work to go the other way, the honest way. And in general, anything under five grand, it's easier and cheaper to just pay it instead of getting attorneys involved. Because attorneys, you start something up, it's always five grand, always. Yeah, that's true. So you're 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

46:04 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 going to 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 uh... is going to have you know if you go if anybody out there wants to go read my columnist in market watch it was written about six months ago or a year ago maybe i don't know uh... call and the name is called repeal sarbanes-oxley and it talks about some of these issues which are being soxley is ruining the high-tech scenes which is what we're involved in what's wrong it's ruining america as a financial center of the universe is now become london because of uh... because of this these rules

46:59 Right, and the joke of it is, what's the point of the rules? And the Bush administration is to blame, by the way. What was the point of the rules? The rules was 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 busted. They were crooks! They were fucking crooks! One guy's dead. I mean, what's wrong with the old system? I really don't know. 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 California got raped over energy. They had to do something but I think it was just too much of a knee-jerk

47:49 Of a knee-jerk reaction and what does it cost us like 8% of a company's for 4% that's still a lot of money percent the bottom line is lost to a Sarbanes-Oxley reporting and 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 get out. It should be removed. It's lame. It's hurting our overall economy.

48:28 And one of those two guys, Sarbanes or Oxley, I can't remember which one, 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, yeah. Who are these guys? They name it after themselves? They were in Congress. That's why a lot of these bills, well, you know, a lot of these bills get named after, you know, it's like the, what was that, the McCain fine gold uh... bill and is that a lot of these bills get named after the two uh... people that put them together uh... there's really no sign usual Yeah, but that just happens. I know, but what else would it mean? Sarbanes-Oxley? I don't know. I don't know. It's a group of towns out near Oxford, England. That's what I thought. It was kind of like the Luxembourg Treaty. I'm like, Sarbanes-Oxley. It's probably some place in Romania or whatever where they put this together. I don't know. In northern Iowa. Sarbanes-Oxley, Iowa. Beautiful.

49:32 Okay, you got anything else Sean? No, I'm done. Yeah, I did want to say I really enjoy doing this I really like just yakking with you and you know and 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 between four and five hours of this type of show because we have conversations like this all the time and I really enjoy it and Yeah, no, it's a lot of fun and all that, but you get to kind of, what I like about it is having a good, even though you're technically an American, you're really a European with American sensibility. And you see things from a perspective, and I think people appreciate this, that it's not

50:17 I wouldn't say it was abnormal, but it's... Off color. Well, besides the... But it's unusual, let's put it that way. It's slightly skewed and I think... Well, and 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 In Business. Peter Day works for the BBC. Right, in fact, curiously I was just listening to the one he did on the... Nellie Smith-Cruise? You. Yeah, with Nellie Smith-Cruise who is a Dutch woman.

50:59 Who by the way was her husband and by carelessly herself were involved in a huge scandal before she became the commissioner 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. It was a big, big problem. And she spent a couple 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 Day from the BBC. There's a lot going on and the premise of this was that the anti-competitiveness and what do you call it, cartel busting, et cetera, 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,

51:51 but in this show they were even talking about the paraffin wax industry. Now the EU is busting up these cartels and there's hundreds of them, you have no idea. They went down a list and I'm like, crap, yeah, candles are fucking expensive over here. It's true, candles are outrageously expensive. 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 Day and I love the guy. Well, anyway, somebody sent me the link because I had been moaning about, I guess maybe it was on Tech 5, I was moaning about how, why are the Europeans telling, why are they telling Americans what to do? Right.

52:42 And the point that she makes in this, by the way, and people should go listen to this because it's quite good. It's very, very educational. In fact, I'm gonna probably write my next Market Watch 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, it appears that 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

53:18 told what they can do in their own country in terms of the 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 DoubleClick and then there's Microsoft, you know, issues of course with, you know, it's still all about the tying Explorer into Windows, etc. But all of these companies Have you know some companies in 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 u.s. The u.s. Entity. I don't believe they actually have any legislative power

54:12 I don't know, that's a question that's kind of unanswered. If Google and DoubleClick, which are both American companies, are merged. But they have local companies. It's not like just an office that says Google Inc. It says Google BV, Google LTD, Google NV. Yeah, but what are they going to do about it? The question on my mind is, what are they going to do about it? Kick the Google NV out of the Netherlands or kick Google LLC out of wherever? I mean, what are they going to do about it if the companies say, and nobody's done this, no one's had the nerve to do this. What if the Europeans say, 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. I don't think that's the issue with those two. I think it's a privacy concern. Well, whatever the case is, what if the two companies, Google and DoubleClick, 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?

55:05 You know, I've never met her but you don't want to fuck with Nelly 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, oh 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 good in terms of the knowledge of the words. She was the worst case example of, and Americans don't understand this generally, we've talked about it before on the show, that the intonation isn't there. So you can misread somebody because they don't have a clue about how to intone the way Americans do for emphasis or for whatever. And also instead of saying so to speak,

56:00 She kept saying, so to say, and it really bugged me. So to say? So to say, like, so to speak, Nelly, so to speak. Oh well. Yeah. Well, we'll talk about that more in the future. Well, we definitely should. I'm going to do a little bit of research on... on how that works with how they would actually block something. 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 Nelly's in charge of blocking that one. They certainly didn't talk about it on the show, or at least they didn't have it in the show if they did talk about it. I think she mentioned it. Somebody mentioned it. Yeah, I think Peter Day mentioned it just in his edited in commentary or whatever. I don't think she talked about it. That guy's great. Have you ever met him?

56:44 No. When we just moved to the UK and the word podcasting was like word of the year or whatever, he came out to the house and interviewed me and it was really interesting. He is the quintessential kind of like gray raincoat wearing, disheveled, nagra carrying. Nagra. Yeah. Remember the old reel to reel nagras? I love those. But he did have a mini disc recorder, lo and behold. But he had a big old gray BBC microphone. And he just came over to the house and he sat in my office for a couple hours and we just talked a bit. And man, that guy has interviewed everybody. He's been around the world. He's seen and been everywhere. I tried to hire him actually because

57:41 We kept in touch a little bit after that and they were going to offer early pensions at the time, just a couple of years ago, something like that at the BBC and 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, 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 didn't choose. He's still at the BBC. He's still at Auntie, yes, at the BBC. Okay. All right. So. But the one thing to look into before we show in the future when we bring this topic up again is what are they going to do about it if a couple of American companies tell them to stuff it? That's a very good question.

58:39 Guess I Guess I'm out of steam remember now where we started a trend there is a a show called yo agenda and And they're still keeping strong. And there's Hoagenda. Hoagenda. I'm waiting for Boagenda, Moagenda. There's got to be a lot more coming out. I think we've started a trend. Actually, Moagenda sounds like a good name. Moagenda. 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 continuously say they really like the format. It's of just talking.

59:36 Yeah, well it's a talk show. Essentially this is not much different than what you hear on talk radio when you have two people that aren't taking calls. Although we take calls in some funny way, even though we never play them. Because I can't figure out how to make it all work. Yeah, well, you know, we don't need to. I don't know. I like the emails. One of these days we're going to 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 going to hit one of these shows. Although the great thing about podcasting in this regard is that we don't have a We can do a half hour show at 15 minutes, an hour, two hours. There's no agenda in terms of the length. So if we run out of steam, we could just do 15 minutes and call it a day. Go ahead. No, I'm just saying that if we wanted to, we could pad it with these phone calls. I wonder how many people listen to us on their iPod in double speed.

1:00:33 Because you can still kind of follow along. They have that for audiobooks, you can kind of listen along, it just goes faster. I bet you someone's out there is doing it, it might be better. So I can't play the feedback for you but a whole bunch of people left messages about the quote, you had a quote like That one, right? The Galactica quote. Yeah. Yeah, the quote. I still have it in this pad here somewhere. But people, they didn't say it was from, did they say Battlestar Collector? Was that where it was from? Yeah, it came from Battlestar Galactica. Yeah. I got two notes myself. It was the quote about, I'll never have a network computer on this ship. That's it. That's it. You know, something like that.

1:01:15 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. You remind me and I'll do this. I wrote, when they came out with the second iteration of the show, the new one, with the blonde girl who keeps appearing magically, uh... they did a bug kind of a movie or what kind of a movie for team here whenever i watched this because there were wanted to check out the new that battle for the latin can a lot of people really like to show i watched and wrote a scathing review of course it is a crap i thought she did

1:01:52 And I sent it, actually I was so irked about it, I sent it into PC Magazine, you know, and I think it was Lance Ulanoff or one of these editors says, you know, this is a funny review, but you know, this has got nothing to do with anything, you know, find something else to write about. Yeah, I know they didn't print it and so it's one of those things and I just crank something else out and I put it aside Meaning to like, you know, cuz 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 And I put it aside and never got back to it, so now it's kind of old. But I may just reprise it on the blog or something. Yeah, just put it on the blog, yeah. Absolutely. There's a bunch of stuff that's sitting in the corner that needs to be put up before it gets so old it is ridiculous. Next to the notes you can't read and the CDs that are blank, don't work anymore.

1:02:51 Anyway, okay. I'm done. All right. Sorry. I didn't have a better punchline. 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