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Jan. 19, 2008 - No Agenda
53:28
13: Turned on by Esther Dyson
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Time Text
Welcome to the show that needs no introduction because we have absolutely no agenda.
Coming to you from the United Kingdom in the Curry Manor, I'm Adam Curry.
And I'm John C. Dvorak from actually sunny and warm California.
Oh, nice to hear.
Nice to hear.
So we just hit record.
I probably should have started two minutes ago as usual because Patricia came upstairs the minute I hit record and then I stopped it like a fucking fool.
Because I was reading the Financial Times and there's two stories on one page that I thought was just funny and I wanted to read them to you and I was looking for it and of course Patricia had already taken the paper and the cat was pooping on it.
And they said, yeah, I don't worry about it.
And so I said, I'll remember what I was going to talk about.
Hey, wait a minute.
Doesn't the cat normally poop on the Times of London as opposed to the Financial Times?
The Daily Mail.
No, no, the Daily Mail.
Daily Mail, that's it.
I love the Financial Times weekend.
I look forward to that.
It's a real...
Am I just an old-fashioned guy that I look forward to that?
Old school.
It's really an outstanding paper.
I like it.
I agree.
You want me to just tell you these two stories that were on the same page I thought was interesting?
Yeah, sure.
Okay.
So the first one is, and I don't know if you've been following this, but Gordon Brown has basically gone over to China.
Gordon Brown being the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.
And he's basically said, hey, all these sovereign wealth funds you guys have set up, why don't you start investing that over here and we'll open up all kinds of Trade routes and everything can be copacetic.
By the way, we have Northern Rock.
We wouldn't mind if you maybe bought some bonds that we're turning that into.
And then we'll let you sell products here.
And essentially he's saying the UK, in return for all this money and Chinese products that will be coming in, the UK will reciprocate with, it was interesting the way the Financial Times wrote it, with Britain's luxury goods like Rolls-Royce, financial services, and the English language.
So the Chinese money is flowing in now, saving the city, the financial city.
And on the same page, there's this new tax law they want to implement.
And I don't know if you care anything about tax law, but there's two things that are very interesting.
One is that if you are like me, if you live here and at least partially work here, but you have income from overseas, You'll have to pay £30,000 annually to be taxed only on what you bring into the UK or be taxed worldwide.
And between tax system, there's always credit.
So if you pay taxes in one country, then you get a credit and you don't have to pay the tax on the same money in the country where you may be living or where the money was made.
But there's one specific citizenship that is a little different when it comes to capital gains, and that's American citizenship.
You are taxable on your capital gains no matter where in the world it took place, and you have to report it, and you have to pay your taxes over it.
But now the UK is going to do the same thing for capital gains...
Of people who are living in the UK. So if, let's say, I sold some stock in the US or if I sold a company in the US and I made money on it, I would pay presumably 18 or 19% in the US and another 18 or 19% if I ever wanted to use any piece of that money in the UK. So the message that I just read on this Financial Times was, Americans, fuck off.
Chinese, come on in, boys.
That's really what it looked like.
That's what it was.
It's messed up.
I'll probably have to leave.
Well, you know, if I were you, you're an artist.
You can go to Ireland.
What's the benefit of Ireland?
Well, they have some deal there.
If you're an artist or a writer or something to do with the arts, you can get Irish citizenship in some way, shape, or form.
I think it's still valid.
It could be wrong.
I mean, it could have ended, but I know it existed for a long time and the Irish were bitching about it.
You can get Irish citizenship with no income tax.
They just say, no, you don't have to pay any taxes.
I kind of like that.
So, you know, I'm an artist, right?
Doing this is artistry?
You're an artist.
Yeah.
Cool.
You're a recording artist.
You're a performance artist.
International performance artist.
You're a hair.
Adam.
Adam Kari Mystique.
I think the hair would just get you, you'd be grandfathered in.
I'd love to go to Australia, but in Australia you have to have, I think you have to be like a rocket scientist.
It's too far.
Well, what is too far, man?
For what?
It's too far.
I wouldn't mind moving away from everybody.
Why don't you move to Perth?
That's far.
It is beautiful there.
That's what I'm told, but I'm never going to know.
Oh, I've been to Perth.
You have?
Yeah, yeah.
I did a documentary.
We arrived in Sydney, but really the documentary started in Melbourne and then went clear across the country, including the South Pacific line, which is the It includes the longest piece of completely straight railroad anywhere in the world through the desert that's been nuked, where they used to do the nuclear testing.
And it's like a 24-hour train ride, and that goes all the way to Perth.
And that train ride, let me tell you, John, is not fucking worth it.
I wouldn't think so.
24 hours on a train in the middle of nowhere may not be that great.
It was kind of an old-fashioned Orient Express type of vibe, but nah, that was no good.
I had some fun, man.
I stayed in the Outback for like three or four days.
It was a pretty crazy time.
Very interesting.
I like the country a lot.
I would not mind living there, actually.
So we got some fan mail.
Well, I don't know about that, but we got some fan mail.
We can still Skype the show.
We got some fan mail, by the way, over the last week or two, and one came in from Sean Kendall, who was complimenting us for our stream of consciousness style of podcast, which he thought was compelling listening, I suppose.
And I realized that because I pulled out a notebook because over the weeks we keep trying to talk about stuff that we write down and then we never talk about.
No, of course not.
So I found a notebook with my notes and I realized that we're not stream of consciousness at all.
We're just completely disorganized.
Exactly.
It's interesting to think that you could pass it off as stream of consciousness when in fact you're just all screwed up.
Now, that said...
I found a notebook with some of these notes in it, and I realize now that the problem that I have, and the reason I'm not as rich as you and some other people, is because, you know, you can blame it on disorganization, you can blame it on all kinds of different things, laziness, sloth, and I think I work pretty hard, but then I realize what it really is.
The whole thing boils down to one thing.
It's very simple.
Penmanship.
Oh, you can't read your own handwriting.
I can't read these notes.
So I pulled some of these notes down that I think would be interesting to try to decipher.
Well, let me just say, I can't read my own handwriting either.
You know what I've been using?
I've been using Google Notebook.
It has a mobile version.
So no matter what device I'm on, whether it's the N800 or if it's my cell phone or in front of the computer, the mobile notebook is just like I pull it out, boom, click, I type in whatever I want to type in.
It's gotten pretty quick.
Well, I should do that.
You should.
But there's still, even so, because I used to take notes on the computer, and there's still a couple of issues I have.
One is that I have a tendency to write down phone numbers, and I say to myself, put the guy's name down, put the guy's name down, because you're never going to remember.
I'll remember.
I'll remember by the way I wrote the eight, who it was.
I'll remember.
And you do remember for about 15 minutes.
And then you see this phone number later, you go, whose number is this?
And you can't call the person saying, hey, you know, I'm just a big, you know, it's a dentist.
I'm John C. Dvorak.
Surely you've heard of me.
Hi.
And the other problem I have, which is really probably more annoying and more dangerous, at least for me as a writer, is I write down kind of thoughts and sometimes observations.
Mm-hmm.
And sometimes quotes or phrases I want to use because I think this is pretty funny.
Unfortunately, I also write down notes of somebody else saying something.
Ah, and then you attribute those to your own brilliance.
No, I always look at it if I'm not absolutely sure that I dreamed it up, which is hard to do because I dream up a lot of stuff, so I throw a lot of stuff away out of fear, but I've got one right here.
Now, this is a piece of notepaper, and it says, NYC 11 a.m.
recorder, cancel TV. That's the top of the note, so I don't know what that means.
Well, that was part of your New York City trip, right?
This is from months ago, maybe.
And I don't cancel them.
Last time I canceled TV was when I had DirecTV.
And people out there, if you have DirecTV or the Dish Network and you're going to go on vacation, you can cut the service off for like a month or 90 days and you won't have to pay.
And they'll put it right back on.
You can actually give them the date you want it off and the date you want it on and they do it automatically.
It's great.
Oh, they should have a way to do that on the website.
That's even better.
It would be good.
Now, here's the quote.
This is in a different pen.
It says, when it comes to politics, the internet is like cocaine.
Now, I don't know whether I said that, if it's my comment, or somebody else said it, and I thought it was clever.
When it comes to politics, the internet is like cocaine.
Yeah.
So, I don't know.
Is that mine?
I'm not sure.
Did somebody say it?
I can't tell.
I know I didn't say it.
Let's see what else we got.
It's a good phrase.
Who's Skyping you, man?
I can hear it in the background.
Here, let me just tell them to stop.
Yeah.
Say, excuse me.
Stop doing podcast now.
Sorry.
All right.
Let's see.
Another thing.
Let's see what else we got.
Here's some other notes.
Trojans, Worms, and Spyware.
Future of Malicious Code.
Michael Upslow.
Did some guy write that?
Is it a book I should read?
I'm not sure.
And then it says Elsevier, which indicates a publisher.
Yeah, it's a Dutch publisher, or formerly Dutch publisher.
Well, they're all over the place now.
This is PC Fighting Spyware Magazine.
PC Fighting Spyware Magazine, Ed Tice...
No, it's insane.
Oh, maybe.
Yeah, Editor Neil Rubenking.
TOC, Table of Contents.
I don't know what that's all about.
O'Reilly PC Structure.
Species, species, taxonomy.
I mean, these are kind of...
This is so useless.
It's unbelievable.
You know what?
I'm pretty sure you did write the cocaine quote because all of this stuff is totally done when you're high.
There's no doubt about it.
I'm not high.
That's the joke of it.
I mean, if I was in college and I was doing this, I would think, well, yeah, this is typical.
You know, your college is, you know, your...
You know, imbibing, and the next thing you know, you're writing down stupid things.
I'm not high.
I don't use drugs at all.
I usually don't take notes if I'm drinking.
It's just ridiculous.
Of course, that could account for the bad handwriting.
Anticlimactic leopard.
Cat of the...
Oh, go ahead.
Cat of the what?
Cat of the bag.
So clearly something about apples, leopard, anticlimactic, and then you were kind of thinking of some angle on it.
Maybe it's just cat out of the bag, I'm not sure.
But then the next line is Neanderthals, redheads.
Apparently Neanderthals were redheads.
Interesting.
Which makes you wonder.
You know that in the UK, the gingers, as they call them here, are actually discriminated against.
And people are always making jokes about people who are ginger.
And they treat them almost like, you know, well, everything's great about you, but man, you're ginger.
And I was thinking maybe that does date back to Neanderthal days.
Right.
Well, I think in England it's because there's so many red-headed Irish and Scottish women that the hatred of the Irish and the Scots seems to be more likely in that case.
I mean, the British are extremely bigoted towards all kinds of people.
The French, of course, is at the top of the list.
Ah, wait, wait, wait, wait.
Stop right there.
Listen to this.
Hey, Adam, this is Arnaud.
The lazy Frenchman.
No, actually, I'm not the other French caller.
I'm the Silicon Valley Frogs podcaster, although I haven't podcasted in a while.
Anyway, I was listening to...
You know what I'm calling about.
Come on.
You know what I'm calling about.
I was listening to you and John C. DeVarack on No Agenda.
And I know you don't mean any harm when you call the French...
Lazy.
Although, I think in that department, you know, there are a few others who might have us beaten there.
Just to get back on the French economy, it's true that the French economy, you know, it has its ups and downs.
Right now, if you compare it with the U.S. economy, I guess it's pretty much a tie.
Ah, he's boring me now.
That's our new...
Yeah, you've got to tighten those up.
There's a good program out there for everybody called Audacity.
What I'm lacking is something called Time.
Ah, well, I don't blame you there.
I'm so sorry.
Okay, let's go back to some of these notes so we can come up with anything.
Domino's Pizza, XX Pimp, we're not going to use it tomorrow.
Oh, I know what that was from.
That's when you were trying to get hookers to audition for Textra.
I don't think so, but okay.
Are you denying that you tried to get hookers to audition for texture?
Are you denying this, John C. DeMora?
We're looking for strippers.
Oh, I'm sorry.
Not hookers.
There's a big difference between strippers and hookers.
No, you're right.
There's a big difference.
Big difference.
And, you know, the strippers are the ones with the heart of gold.
The hookers are not necessarily.
All right.
You're reliably informed.
I'm just guessing.
Uh-huh.
Philly Wi-Fi.
Talk to a blonde something.
Yahoo 415 DLUS 140 watching.
Weekly.
140 weekly.
Okay, so that's about something some show Yahoo is doing.
Maybe.
Oh, yeah, it could be claims, the profits, the handful, the hand something or the handoff newspapers in the digital age.
I think it was a book title.
I do write down book titles, too, because I'm always thinking, hey, there's a book I should do.
And then once I write the book title down, then I don't have to do the book.
What do you mean you don't have to do the book?
Well, because I've already come up with the title, so I figure the work is all done.
Can you make any money off the books, John?
Is there any money in that?
Yeah, I actually make money off the books.
I need to finish some books nowadays.
It's my problem.
But is it worth the effort?
It's a good exercise.
Most books are not worth the effort, I would say, and I try not to do those types of books.
Divick's juggernaut shutdown button breakthrough triggering mechanism of thought.
That's a pretty good one.
I think that's one of my little quotes I wanted to say about something.
Self-communication, self in quotes.
Now I wrote this down.
I don't know what this means.
In quotes, self...
And that's the end of the quote.
It's just the word self.
Self-communication of blogs.
What does that mean?
That means you're talking to yourself when you're blogging, I guess.
Or maybe that the actual technical infrastructure talks to other blogs, something like that.
And I got blog as evidence against you.
Well, sure.
Which I think that's pretty obvious.
Now, here's one of these quotes again.
By this time, I'm absolutely sure I didn't say it.
I think some admiral did, and I wrote it down for some reason.
I don't know why I bothered writing it down.
What am I going to do with it?
I will not allow a network computerized system on this ship while I'm in command.
Well, that was probably the story about the 787, I think the Dreamliner, and that there was a question whether passengers using the Wi-Fi network would be able to hack into the plane's computer system.
Oh, yeah.
You know, there's a really...
Yeah, maybe.
Hey, this is a good game.
I'm into this.
This is pretty cool.
Yeah, no, that's a good one.
Okay, this one you'll never get anything out of.
And I don't get it myself.
What am I doing?
Primers.
We ask ourselves that all the time.
Just a list of words.
Primers.
Sarah with an H. Dallas.
Last show.
Team SK. Three arrows coming from those words and two of them going nowhere.
One going to a blank line and one pointing to 1976.
Then two, it says two, a word I can't read, it says C-L-U-S-N, four, Korean.
Then a boxed word, like I'm in Hollywood, says gamer with an arrow pointing to M-F-A-B, and then under that is the letters M-A-F-V-P, circled, and then at the very bottom of the same page is Team Sport Cost Network.
How often do you and your wife have sex?
Apparently not enough.
It just seems to me, maybe we're having sex while I'm writing these notes.
I mean, it doesn't make any sense at all.
That's pretty sad, because I bet you there's some good shit in there.
You know, there's lots of...
The problem is I produce too much material.
Well, so that's really what...
I mean, clearly we have a lot of horsepower and processing on these laptops.
I mean, that's really...
Somehow we should be able to create an interface that you can use the way you're using that notepad and that it can actually help you retrieve the information or that you can link to...
I don't know.
It just feels like there's got to be a different type of input.
I think a lot of people live this way.
I have, you know, the reason I write so many columns and I try to do so much work is because I got to get these things out of my system.
Otherwise, they clog you up.
And I actually, you know, believe that.
Now, so I'm writing down stuff all the time.
And the I used at one time I tried using one of those recorders, you know, note to self.
And it's like, you know, that's annoying.
I mean, everybody thinks you're an asshole for doing that.
So I don't do it.
Yeah, I have a million to do lists everywhere, too, that never get done.
Right.
Now, I don't want to do this for the whole show, but I'm going to do one more list.
And this is not much on this one page, but it's the same thing.
It says security, and then there's the word Roger.
It looks like Roger.
And that's underlined.
And then next, there's another underlined two words, Microsoft.
And then there's just a scribble.
But I think it says pager.
Maybe this is all pager.
Security pager, Microsoft pager, Cisco pager.
All those are underlined.
And then the word Oracle, not underlined.
And then the words download new camera, and that's boxed.
Download new camera.
Yeah, it's got a nice sound to it.
I don't think it's possible.
Yeah.
Anyway, that's it.
But this is what is being taken for a stream of consciousness.
It's just nuts.
Anyway, so I run into these notebooks.
If they're not fresh and they're these old ones, it's just like, why did I even bother writing anything down?
You know, when I'm going through the supermarket and they have that stationary section...
I have a hard time passing by without picking up a notebook.
You know what I mean?
Like a nice, fresh, crackly, white notebook that I can write stuff in and I fill it up and I've got them somewhere.
I don't know if I'd do anything with them.
Well, I mean, they may be auctionable if you become more famous.
But generally speaking, I rip the pages out of these things and throw them out, and I just shake my head thinking I probably lost a lot of good material.
I mean, there's material here that's just disappearing left and right.
And what I don't get, and I think maybe I should seek counseling, but what I don't get is why I... Why I can't talk myself into taking the extra step and writing the person's name down next to the phone number that I write down.
Or writing a little more detail.
Or trying to be...
I'm sorry.
Yeah, or trying to be neat so you can read your own writing.
Well, that's a block.
That's a block in itself.
That's a mental block.
And we can get you counseling for that.
I know exactly who can help you.
Oh, good.
So, it would be useful because it's getting on my nerves.
But, you know, this has been going on forever.
But you're doing it yourself.
I mean, that's the easy thing.
You can change that.
You just do it.
But you clearly, you know, it's a self-importance thing.
You think you're too important.
I'm too important for my own information.
Exactly.
Oh, man.
Anyway, so that's kind of my complaint, but that's the...
That's a real stream of consciousness.
It has nothing to do with this program.
Well, true.
Well, or it does.
Did you hear about our crash here at Heathrow?
Yeah, no, that's been in the news here quite extensively.
I guess some wire broke or a cable or something didn't communicate and the guy couldn't gun it when he had to.
Isn't that a fly-by-wire newer 747 or what was it?
Yeah, it's a 777.
I talked a little bit about the preliminary.
It was so infuriating, John, to sit here and finally, I hate to say it, but finally something on the news I really know something about.
I really know about flying.
I know about Heathrow.
I know all of these different things.
I have not flown a 777, but there's a lot of stuff that I do know.
The first 48 hours was so frustrating to see them just rolling out bozo after bozo, eyewitnesses who, of course, have very limited useful information, just constant live shots.
I'm like, please get some fucking experts on.
And now they have.
And now I have to say the coverage is excellent.
And part of that is because the AAIB, the Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau, they promised a preliminary report in 25 days, which is quite fast, certainly if you compare it to the NTSB. But they also released kind of like a pre-report, which was really quite good and quite helpful.
There's really only two things.
Pilots are real simple.
There's only two things that can cause this to happen.
Pilot error or maintenance.
Those are the two things.
Or some catastrophic wrong part.
But even that is attributable to maintenance because maintenance should have caught it.
That's essentially the way it works.
So you can't say weather.
No, then the pilot, it's pilot error.
He should not have been flying.
And that's how the reports are written, too.
So, what the news is doing is everyone's lauding the crew and how fantastic, and I'll get to that in a second.
But what they're not really reporting on is, excuse me, this is a 777.
It only has two engines.
If you've ever flown on one of these, John, these engines are massive.
They're like five times the size of what...
Yeah, I've been in them numerous times.
Right.
It is indeed, as far as I know, the only aircraft of this size that is fly-by-wire, meaning when you pull back on the yoke, you're not actually mechanically connected with the ailerons.
I think the big Airbus 340 is also fly-by-wire.
You're right, it's also fly-by-wire, correct, that has the joystick on the side.
Right.
So everything is issuing a command to basically servos.
And so too the throttle, and that's connected to something called the FADEC, which is the fully authorized digital engine controller.
So essentially, when you're moving the throttle controls, the FADEC is probably compensating and doing all kinds of work and making most efficient use of the command on the engines.
So on final approach, they're two miles out at 600 feet.
And they're on autopilot, so it's an autopilot landing, which is quite normal and probably around 300 feet that's still disengaged and landed by hand, even though on this plane I believe it can completely land itself without, you know, completely on autopilot.
So it also has autothrottle engaged, obviously.
And the co-pilot is actually doing the landing, which is quite normal.
These guys, they switch off.
They're coming in from Beijing.
So it was just this guy's turn to land.
And there's not a lot of wind.
And when you're coming down, essentially, you're using pitch.
So your nose up or down is for your speed.
It's kind of reversed when you think about it, and you're using the throttle for height because you're configured completely different.
If you've ever seen a big plane come in, you see the nose is actually up.
It's not down.
Right?
Yeah, except for a B-52.
Anyway, go ahead.
And so the plane starts to dip a little bit below the glide path, and then the autothrottle tries to rev the engines up a little bit.
Engines are actually almost at idle when you're landing, depending on the conditions, but they can almost be off in some circumstances.
And so the throttle levers will also automatically move forward, but the engines don't respond.
And so, from what I've read in the report, then they tried manually to ram the throttle levers forward.
Still no response from the engines.
At this point, they're below the glide path.
And indeed, where he landed is very consistent.
Where they first impact is very consistent with losing power on final approach.
And I think the only thing, just looking at it, is he...
He might have done a better job with actually having the wheels break off might not have necessarily have to have happened.
But, again, pilots are real simple, so there's only two types of landing.
You've got a good landing if everyone walks away, and if the aircraft is reusable, that's a great landing.
And right now, I would not step into a 777 at all.
They have not issued any kind of warning, but I'm telling you, something's fucked up with that airplane.
Well, I wouldn't get into one until they fixed it, whatever the problem is.
But, you know, they usually ground them in the U.S. when something weird like that happens.
Which is the story, and no one's reporting on that.
All they're talking about is the crew.
You know, it's like, excuse me, don't let people fly.
You know, not on these planes right now.
They should ground the fleet, I think.
Well, this is interesting.
I just got a memo.
So...
You know, our Natalie seems to just like to get her announcement.
My stepson just sent me this from Valleywag.
Quote, also, John Dvorak told me not to say my age on Textra because I was getting too close to 30.
I don't have a complex about turning 30, and I'm not about to let that cranky geek give me one.
I'll be 30 in eight months.
John, so there.
I told you she didn't like you.
You didn't believe me, did you?
I didn't care whether she was turning 30.
Why did she do that?
That's so lame.
I don't know.
She has a...
I don't know.
She's going to get...
Of course, now, unfortunately, she should know better as a writer because writers are...
When you slam someone who's a writer...
Yeah, you know you're going to get it back.
It could be years later.
You're going to get it back, usually in spades.
And you have to be able to put up with the return fire.
Because I've done it numerous times and I've gotten blasted.
Sometimes you wait like a year or two and then all of a sudden you get hit by something.
You know exactly, because you've been waiting, why you're getting this slam.
You guys are like elephants.
So I guess I'll have to do something.
I'm looking at Valleywag.
I don't see that.
Let me just send you this link.
It apparently just came out.
That's funny.
How did Valleywag know about Becky?
No, I didn't tell them.
So how did they know that at all?
There's probably about five people who knew.
I don't know.
I have no idea.
I didn't even know they knew.
I just found out.
They had a posting.
It was a weird time.
Maybe it was a couple weeks ago, so it was still fresh in the new year.
A lot of other shit going on.
And they posted Becky Worley to be the new host of Textra.
I have no idea.
Oh, okay.
I'm sure I could track it.
Well, don't tell anyone.
Whatever you do.
But, you know, there's a couple crew guys there that could have overheard.
I mean, you know, I don't know.
Who knows?
You know, they were shooting her, so...
I mean, somebody could have been...
And they were shooting it in South Park, no less.
Right, where there's all the dot-com people, so it could have been anybody.
Oh, this is a good one, John.
Wow.
Wow.
Yeah, they gave her a big write-up.
We'll put a link on the Curry.com site to this particular post.
I don't think so.
You can go put that on Dvorak.org slash blog.
Yeah, okay, I'll put it on Dvorak.org slash blog.
I'm not giving this one any love.
Bubba can put it on Cage Match.
This is actually quite funny.
I mean, I don't know what she's thinking.
She's talking about her appearance.
I mean, this whole thing about her appearance is kind of carried away.
Um...
Editor's note, Natalie and I are at Moose's for her going away party.
Join us.
When was this?
Is this an old poster?
It says Friday, January 18th.
It must have been this Friday, which we missed.
Anyway, she goes on and on.
What's the title of the post?
So long and thanks for all the fashion advice.
Oh yeah, I got it.
And then she's like, just a straight, it's like she posted this.
Blah, blah, blah, blah.
Men don't take me seriously because I'm pretty.
That's pretty...
That's bullshit.
I can't imagine a more boring sentiment.
I will say this, since transitioning from print to video...
She hasn't transitioned, really.
I do receive just as many viewer emails about my hair, makeup, and clothes as I do about tech news.
Quote, the lipstick you wore in episode 104 was not your color.
Ha ha ha.
Okay, so what?
I don't take comments about my appearance too seriously, but I do find them amusing.
I've thought about my tech community has such strong opinions about what I should look like, and I don't think so.
I accept all this, but I'm going to wear red lipstick from time to time.
It doesn't go anywhere.
I'm heading to New York.
It's like a Twitter thing.
I mean, what is this?
You should just have a Twitter account.
I'm heading to New York on Monday.
I'm sure she does Twitter.
I'm sure she has a Twitter.
I look at her.
I'm subscribed to her weblog, and she also has a Flickr stream, which is very entertaining.
I think she forgets that people can subscribe to it.
Yeah.
Pretty interesting.
Let me see if I find and follow.
Do you have a Twitter, John?
No, I can't.
You said yourself, I haven't got time to do this stuff.
I don't either, but I have a Twitter account once in a while.
Yeah, but so you can subscribe to other people's feeds.
You're not Twittering.
Well, I use it kind of...
Sometimes it's just...
It's a way to get something out.
I will use it maybe once every two or three weeks.
Sure.
And I got a couple thousand followers.
I have followers.
Come to me.
Thank you.
So put on your eye shades and put on your earplugs.
You know where to put the cork.
My name is Tommy, and I'm so glad that you're here.
I'm sorry.
Yeah, you should be.
So now my stepson's sending me more weird stuff.
Valley Wag, apparently there is something about sex columnists.
Oh, this is the sex columnist who touched Steve Jobs.
Oh, this is Violet Blue's story.
Yeah.
I guess a million guys taped it.
Shot it off their little recorders.
Don't even insult me with this story.
This is so stupid.
Yeah, I think so too.
That's stupid.
I've requested...
Oh, you can't just follow Natalie.
You have to request it.
I've requested it.
Oh, you mean for her Twitter?
Yeah.
I didn't know that would privatize that.
Oh, you could just...
Ron, you just requested it.
I did.
I did.
Of course I've requested it.
I'm not nuts.
She probably doesn't do that much posting.
I don't get the impression that she's that much of an active...
Twitterer, blogger kind of thing.
I mean, there are people you run into and you find out that they have a Twitter thing, and they're Twittering everything.
You know, I went here, I did this, I did that, I went to the store, I got in the car, I drove around the block, I got pulled over by a cop, and it just goes on and on and on.
It's like, gee, I mean, how much, I think it's a lot of nervous energy going into these things.
Well, I do like...
There is something reverse about it that I like.
So, it's kind of like a chat room, except instead of muting people, you can turn people on.
You know what I mean?
It's a little reverse.
No, you're right.
It's an exact chat room style of chit-chat.
Yeah, but the control is different.
The way you access the information...
Well, first of all, that's fundamentally different because you can get it through SMS and through IM in a whole bunch of different ways.
So in that way, it's kind of ubiquitous like email.
I kind of like that.
I'll follow people.
I'm sorry, but it's not as interactive as a chat room.
Well, but you can do, if you use the at sign...
Then you can send a message to someone and it shows up specifically on that person's doorstep.
Oh, okay.
Yeah, there are some tricks in there.
You should look into it, John, because I think you might be surprised.
There is something there that is, I think, a basis of something.
It's not what it is now, but there is a concept that I'm liking.
I have to admit, I do like it.
Don't just brush it off.
It's not just a chat room.
No, I mean, okay, okay.
I know that the guy who did it Ev Head, and the people who are backing it, there seem to be a lot of guys who have a lot, they are forward thinkers.
And I mean, even Dave Weiner, your pal, told me that...
Dave loves it.
He loves it.
He loves it.
And he seems to, you know, he's a cutting edge guy.
For sure.
And he's been posting about it a lot recently.
And I don't just brush that off, you know.
It is freaky right now.
I mean, I'm sure it's 20,000 people who are just freaky like that.
You know, Jason Calacanist is one of those guys, you know, like, having dim sum, you know, thinking about buying a Tesla.
Mahalo rules.
I'm flying back to L.A. now.
You know, that's literally...
Well, I'm also reminded that there's something I've never really warmed up to, and I see a lot of people that do this.
You know, you're talking about my note-taking and the sense of self-importance.
But I'm not one of those guys who puts down my schedule on the blogs.
Of course, I don't do that much, generally speaking.
But I know a lot of people that said, here's what I'm doing for the next six months.
I'm speaking here, and I'm at a big conference over here, and I'm going here, and I'm going there, and I'm going to this important event and that important event.
Well, you know who else does that very effectively on their weblogs?
Escorts.
They always have what town they're visiting and the dates and where they're going to be, and I think it's a really good thing.
Why?
If you're an escort, it is.
Yeah, so you can coordinate.
What are you talking about why?
You know, it's just a different line of business.
What's the difference between an escort and Jason Calacanis?
Well, I don't think that's a good example.
Okay.
I was stretching a bit.
But there might not be a difference between those two.
Not that I'm...
Anyway.
Oh, be brave.
Oh, be brave and have an opinion, John.
Be brave.
I don't see why anybody...
When I see one of these things, I know people that do this.
And I see them, here's my schedule and here's what I'm doing.
And it's always a bunch of...
Crap, anyway.
And who's reading these blogs?
I mean, they have a few people that aren't...
You know, if I'm going to be in Basel, Switzerland...
You know, how many people would read my blog that would be in Basel, Switzerland for anything?
Well, Basel...
What's the name?
The Brit from Basel.
He listens to my show.
He actually lives there, John.
You have a guy from...
Basel, yeah.
The Brit in Basel.
The Brit in Basel?
Yeah.
Do you want him coming up to you?
What?
Hello, Adam.
How you doing?
Mate.
Well, but you know what?
Can you give me three names of people who do that?
Give me three names.
I'll give you, I mean, we're off the top of my head, and Esther Dyson does it, Larry, our friend Larry at the Creative Commons, I don't know why I can't think of his last name.
Lessig?
Larry Lessig?
Lessig, Larry Lessig.
Esther Dyson does it, and I think John Perry Barlow does it.
Okay, so let me just say, let me just say, Esther Dyson, I subscribe to her.
She has a couple feeds and she also has a Flickr feed.
And I gotta tell you, I enjoy it.
I think it helps me keep up with what Esther Dyson is doing.
And invariably, our paths will cross one day.
And it'll be for a reason, but I'm sure this will have something to do with it.
And I do find what she does is quite interesting.
One day, she had a whole stream of pictures she was...
Investing in some very light jet companies.
Of course, that interests me.
She has an obsession for swimming pools, so every hotel she stays at, she takes a picture of the swimming pool.
I just got to say, I like that coming from her.
I think it actually adds to her business relevance.
Just give her a call.
Ha ha ha!
She once came on to me at, what's it, the PC Forum.
I think it was, I just started my company, so this was 95, I think.
95, 96.
Maybe I was still at MTV. Somewhere really smack in the middle of the 90s.
And she invited me to come out to PC Forum.
That's in...
Where the hell is it, John?
Arizona.
She moves in Arizona.
Yeah, it was in Arizona.
And I came in a little bit later on in the evening, so maybe around 9 o'clock, and they always have a big welcoming party.
This was kind of in the ramp up to the dot-com.
Everyone was joyous, and there were VCs everywhere, and I had never really witnessed anything like this.
And she was a little inebriated, and she was really coming on to me.
It was kind of weird.
Maybe she was just hoping that if she was going to fall over, she had someone to grab.
Well, the reason why is I was kind of getting turned on by her.
That was kind of the weird part about it.
Well, maybe she sensed it.
I don't know.
I've known Esther for years, and she's a fine person.
By one time, I accidentally...
Will you do my eulogy, John, please?
That would be fantastic.
I've known Adam for years, and he's a fine person.
Cakes over on the right, coffee on the left.
So I ran into one of her...
I don't know how many kids she...
Actually, I met her dad, who was really a charming guy.
The famous physicist.
Oh, that's right.
Yeah, he's super famous.
Freeman.
Freeman.
Nice guy.
Funny sense of humor as a character.
A very small man.
And then one time I met...
I don't know how many others.
She's got brothers and sisters.
I never kept up.
I'm like one of those.
My wife's always saying, did you ask her about the baby?
Did you see her?
No, I don't pry.
I'm basically self-centered, and that's about the end of it.
We all know that.
So I met one of her sisters, or her sister, who's a nurse.
And she's actually so different than for the rest of everybody else.
Everybody's a bunch of intellectuals in the family.
She's just like perky blonde.
Really?
It was like, that's...
Yeah, it's totally off the wall.
Is she hot?
If I remember right, she's quite attractive.
She may be the best-looking person in the family.
Wow, what's her name?
I don't remember.
I mean, I can't even remember my own name.
Maybe Google can remember, John.
Let's see.
Esther...
Actually, Wikipedia probably has it in there, maybe, or Google might have it.
I'm not going to go to Wikipedia first.
Esther Dyson's sister.
Yeah, Esther Dyson's sister.
Anyway, she's...
Esther Dyson's sister would probably be in there.
You don't like Wikipedia?
Yeah.
Whenever there's stuff there that I know something about, it's usually not right.
But it's usually the third thing I'll go to.
I find that kind of inaccuracy with the History Channel.
I have a degree in history, and I'm still an amateur historian, and I read a lot of stuff.
And the History Channel is often, where did they get this?
Yeah.
Well, this is what I'm saying.
It's like whenever there's something on television about Amsterdam, it's like, okay, that wasn't really a representation of what Amsterdam is like.
It's like whenever there's something you know something about, it turns out that the magic box is wrong.
So it must be wrong about the other stuff, too.
Well, that's what you have to assume.
You got to.
Sister.
Let me see.
No, sister.
I can't find it.
Well, she's, you know, not well publicized, I suppose.
Maybe I should try Esther Dyson's...
Hold on.
Esther...
E-S-T-H-E-R. Esther Dyson's Hot Sister.
Maybe that'll...
Let me see if I get any better results from...
We'll be getting a note from Esther tomorrow.
She doesn't listen to this show.
No, I'm sure she doesn't.
In fact, I don't think anybody who's important actually listens to this show.
Mostly people who are bored...
Yeah, I think you're right.
But there's more of them.
That's the good news.
Yeah, I know.
There's a lot of them.
And there's occasional winners out there.
I mean, all the notes we get from people seem to be important people.
Yeah.
Vice presidents of finance and all kinds of other characters.
Who was that, the vice president of finance?
I got a Vice President of Finance from some guy.
Really?
I missed that.
I got some other voice comments, but now I'm afraid to play them because they're probably too long.
And I don't know if we should play them.
I don't know.
Well, if you get one that's a real winner, make a note, and then play it.
I have this note with, like, squiggle, squiggle, line, arrow.
I can't figure out which one is good anymore.
But there is this...
I like the Washington Post.
I've become really choosy because of all the stuff that we're talking about.
I don't just read something from the BBC. If I have a choice, like on Google News, if I see that there's a story that the Washington Post is covering it, I'll select them first.
They feel a lot more real to me.
What would you say about them, John?
I like the Washington Post.
I think they do a really good job.
They're credible.
I think the people of the New York Times are under a lot of pressure from all the scammers that have worked there.
And the kind of orientation now toward more soft stories and features and boring things.
And the Washington Post seems to still be kind of hardline, and I think they do a lot of good material there.
You know what's happening with me is now that, and I know it's just coming with age and just more years under my belt, but I'm kind of a kid in between generations.
In between today's generation and your generation, if I can just put it kind of that way.
And so I grew up with newspapers, but then it quickly changed to something else, and I kind of rode along on the transition.
But I'm really valuing now understanding how full of shit most of...
You know, the news is.
And I'm really going out of my way.
And this is only something in the past couple years.
I'm really going out of my way.
It's like, you know, I'm not going to pick up any paper.
It's going to be the Financial Times.
Or, you know, I'm going to look at the Washington Post.
And it's really become important to me.
And I hope other people turn on to this.
Because for me, of course, it's too late.
And, you know, I can't change the world anymore.
Yeah, you know, I can't disagree with any of that.
But you should also mention The Economist.
I think that's an outstanding publication that seems to get it together.
I'll have to pick that up because, honestly, I just haven't read that.
What I like about the Financial Times, they have the, I guess it's the, what do you call that section that there's no byline, but it's from the editor or from the paper or from the publisher?
What do you call that part?
The op-ed pages?
It's not op-ed.
The editorials?
I don't know.
Anyway, so it has the Financial Times logo.
It doesn't matter.
But here's their slogan.
Without fear and without favor.
I like that.
Like, fuck yeah.
And that's how they write.
Without fear, without favor.
I like it.
You should read The Economist then, because I think you'd enjoy it.
I shall.
Anyway, so this is from the Washington Post.
It's a story about how hackers...
And this is just from today.
How hackers have gained access to the power grids of several countries and have extorted money and in fact in several instances have actually turned off the power in the entire country.
And this came out at a security conference for utility companies, and a CIA analyst told this story, and it turns out that most people didn't know about this.
And this is going to be big.
I think this is a huge story.
Yeah, I know, and it's breaking now.
I'm familiar with this story.
And I'd like to get a little deeper into it because I'd like to find out what exactly are these power companies doing that leaves them so vulnerable.
Well, you know, I'm thinking we can certainly trace which countries, and I have a feeling that the Netherlands might be one of them.
So I'm going to see if there's anything to that because we might be able to get any deeper.
But this is just...
Man, you know, this is just, I think, the tip of the iceberg of security of systems.
This is happening all over the place, of course, not just with utilities.
Well, you know, there seems to be, when I see these kinds of stories out of the blue, and I know hackers do a lot of stuff, but every once in a while when I'm starting to see it's focused, focused attention on something that's a security issue, I'm always thinking there's some security company behind it saying, look, we got some software, we got some encryption stuff, nobody's using it, we can make a lot of money, let's shut down, you know, some...
Podunk country in Africa.
Just shut them down from a distance and then extort them if we can.
But whatever the case is, bring it to the attention of everybody so we can sell some more products.
So your theory here, which I like and of course am all over, is not very unlike my theory about the drug companies releasing viruses into the air to sell cold medicine.
Yeah, it's the same sick thinking.
So, is it just sick thinking, or is it a reality?
Well, you can buy the book in the foyer, as Adam and John explain all the secrets of the great conspiracy.
A book of great conspiracies.
I mean, there's a lot of them.
I think there's enough material on the net that you could probably put together an interesting book.
But you'd have to do it.
The problem with these kinds of theories is you can't overhype them because you sound like a complete maniac if you know everything.
Every time you turn around, there's somebody trying to do something sneaky.
But the fact of the matter is business in general does a lot of sneaky stuff.
I mean, just to be in business, you have to do some sneaky things once in a while.
And I mean, today's...
In fact, it was like the Jokers and Gizmodo that were turning off monitors at CES. Or some years ago, when IBM had its warp out, and it says crash-proof, Steve Ballmer, like one of the executives at Microsoft, had a disk, and he would go into the IBM booth and put the disk in it and crash these machines.
I mean, this is kind of like a...
Low-level thing, it seems to me.
I have a word.
There's a word I'm trying to come up with that explains it.
Petty?
Petty?
Childish?
Infantile?
It was effective.
It got a lot of publicity.
But it was a sneaky thing.
It was not what I would call a legitimate business practice.
And neither would be shutting down one of these power grids.
And I could see somebody doing it.
Yeah, I'd have to agree.
But I don't think that's a very interesting book to write.
I'm sure we could write something more interesting.
Well, I got my notepad out.
We can come up with a title.
Oh, because if we have the title, then we don't have to write it.
Is that the process?
That seems to be the current process I'm working with.
Excellent.
The triggering mechanism of thought.
That's deep, man.
That may be a bit too deep for me.
I don't even get it.
That's how deep it is.
I think my wife is downloading porn again.
The Skype connection is getting a little crunchy.
So we got anything else for this week to regale our fan base with?
I don't know, man.
I think we kind of covered it.
In fact, I think most people probably dropped off after I told them I got turned on by Esther Dyson.
I think we're...
Maybe.
I think, you know, I think a lot of people may have perked up.
Wow.
That's kind of odd.
Always good talking with you, John.
Always a pleasure.
And with that, we wrap it up, and we'll talk to you again next week, presumably from the same locations, but you never know.
In the United Kingdom, I'm Adam Curry.
And in sunny Northern California, on a very warm day, I'm John C. Dvorak.
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