Knowledge Fight Interactive Search Tool

All Episodes

Previous Next

Jan. 27, 2008 - No Agenda

01:03:11

14: Neelis Kroes Is Hot

Large

Audio Only |

Scroll

Time	Text
	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 Friday.
	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 had something like six inches of rain.
	And it rained again last night because there was a second storm coming through.
	And I think that one cleared out because it hasn't been raining...
	From about 9 o'clock on, it stopped.
	But it still looks crappy out.
	So 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.
	I'm going to get some work done because the traffic was not moving.
	We're on 2nd Street with the office.
	It was bumper to bumper.
	Nothing was moving.
	What is it with that?
	Why does rain cause that?
	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 but then we had some meetings and at 2.30 the meeting was cancelled for various reasons and I took that as an opportunity to take off because I knew it was going to be a mess And I got through it just in time around 2.30.
	I snuck across the bridge, but it was already flooding.
	The tunnel was like flooding.
	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 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 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.
	Well, no, but it's hooked to Treasure Island, which is kind of interesting if you can get in there.
	Anyway, so, yeah, but 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.
	It collects at the bottom, and so it was flooding, and I'm thinking, wow.
	This is going to be a horrible commute around 5 o'clock, not because of the more people coming across, but because this thing is going to stop everyone.
	Okay, so that's what causes it, yeah.
	Because 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, you know, find your face against the windshield, I guess, when you hit that puddle at the bottom, right?
	It would just like slow you down in a heartbeat.
	Yeah.
	And it wasn't the only puddle.
	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.
	You just get hammered with just a wall of water.
	Every time you come across one of these, it's like a little break in the bridge where the water falls through.
	And it's just like whack!
	You get hit really hard.
	You can't see for a few seconds, and then the windshield wipers finally get rid of it.
	So yeah, I knew it was going to 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, they're like, that was funny.
	Do that more often.
	Did you take any notes?
	You know, I have more.
	I don't have to.
	I have notes.
	You know, all I have to do is lift up one sheet of paper here on the desk.
	More than enough notes.
	Yeah.
	I got notes for years.
	And lots of book titles.
	I mean, you know, I'm a bestseller.
	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.
	Which was also, by the way, a Seinfeld episode.
	You're kidding me?
	No.
	Really?
	It exists.
	How long ago was that?
	Did the book exist before they did that?
	It 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-in to it.
	Elaine thought it was a stupid idea, but then he bumped into her boss who thought it was a great idea and excoriated her for not coming up with ideas like this.
	You know, that kind of thing.
	So anyway.
	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 2nd Street, and it was raining and I had my London portable three-pound umbrella, and I'm walking up and I'm like, look at this guy.
	Look at the size of that fucking red umbrella he's got.
	And it was you.
	And he's like, hey man, neoliberalism.
	That's what we're going to talk about.
	Well, let's talk about the umbrella.
	Okay.
	What is that?
	What's up with that?
	That's a huge umbrella.
	I have a lot of different umbrellas.
	I have the little pop-up, the bumper chute, the little dinky one that you had, which is useless in a rainstorm.
	No, no, no.
	Hold on a second.
	Now, I carry this in my bag, which, of course, is in my portable office.
	I carry that all the time because being in London, you just have to be prepared.
	So it is good for...
	You know, for the portability.
	It does work.
	I must have ten 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 going to rain.
	And so we went to Costco...
	And they had on sale, these things were expensive, $20 a piece, these golfing umbrellas for golfers to play, I guess, in the rain.
	The thing is huge.
	It's one of the biggest umbrellas I've ever owned.
	And it's built, you know, it's strongly built, too.
	And it's red.
	No, I was actually...
	See, you got that wrong.
	It's green.
	What?
	You're kidding me!
	Yeah, curiously I have a red one, but that one that I had that day is green.
	I haven't seen the red one for over a year.
	You know, I am one of those people that ever since they did the dots test on me, and 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?
	Yeah.
	And I usually get the first one right, the second one right, and after that, I'm just like, I'm sorry, I can't see it.
	It's all dots.
	And they claim that I am colorblind.
	And this is the first time ever.
	I mean, maybe.
	I could have sworn it was red, John.
	But anyway, I'm colorblind for red and green, they say.
	And I know the top one is stop and the bottom one is go.
	Yeah.
	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.
	Absolutely.
	We should send that to refugee camps.
	Anyway, I brought that umbrella.
	It is a huge umbrella.
	The thing is, in a big storm like that, it's actually quite handy to have a monster umbrella.
	Normally, with my regular umbrellas in a storm like that, my legs would be soaked because the rain just gets through.
	With that umbrella, you can get them dry as a bone.
	And also, it looked like it was sturdy.
	So, 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.
	We could 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.
	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, you know, I think everyone who saw it said the same thing.
	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 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?
	You know, it's vague to me.
	But 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 to try to define this word.
	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 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 him, 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 in 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.
	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 grow 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 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.
	So yeah, globalization, right?
	It's 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 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 DirecTV may have it.
	Some cable places may have it.
	It's FSTV. It's generally flaky.
	But 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 besides being a fan of right-wing talk radio, I'm also a big fan of left-wing crackpot TV. Yeah.
	Do you watch current TV at all?
	Because we have that over here.
	We don't have the FSTV. We do have current TV on Sky.
	I haven't seen that as a network here.
	We have the offbeat networks that are my favorites.
	One is Free Speech TV, which also, by the way, has a segment called Gay News.
	Excellent.
	Oh, man.
	It's actually very educational in that regard.
	But what's funny about it, and I haven't brought this up to Tom Merritt and Molly Wood.
	From CNET, Buzz Out Loud.
	Yeah, their Buzz Out Loud show, which they do occasionally on the video, because I saw them doing it at CES, you look at it and it looks exactly like gay news.
	I'll tell you, you know, I started this...
	There's one guy, I can't remember his name, but he's like kind of a grumpy...
	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 Out Loud I've never really read much of CNET or...
	Here he is.
	Gay TV channel.
	Gay TV. It's Gay News.
	Look for Gay News.
	Oh, Gay News.
	Gay News.
	I started listening to Buzz Out Loud probably 100 episodes or so ago.
	And I kind of got into it, you know, because going into the city, into London, it's almost the perfect length to go from my house to the station, you know, waiting for the train.
	You know, it's like 40 or 45 minutes, so perfect, right?
	And I'd never seen Tom or Molly.
	And when I saw them, I guess they were at CES. In the last month or so, I've seen them around.
	It was kind of a bummer.
	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.
	It just wasn't quite what I expected.
	Yeah, I didn't get the 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.
	And then when I finally saw him, I said, wow, there's not even close it.
	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 disappears.
	It fades away and dissipates after a while.
	Now, I got a call or a note from somebody that's kind of interesting because when you bring up the idea that 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 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 essentially 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, they'll never listen to you.
	Well, this was part of the original concept behind the pod show channels where you could basically, and we still kind of have to teach people the benefits of it, but where 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 pretty much gives me the information I want on the way in, and it's the right length.
	Toying around with the idea of you should be able to say, like a wizard, how long is your commute?
	Okay, 45 minutes.
	What are you interested in?
	Give me some tech, give me some sports, give me some music or whatever.
	And then it should just kind of 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 going to do.
	Ever hear of pause and stop and rewind and play?
	But it makes a difference.
	The length of the show really 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 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 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.
	It really is.
	I like it.
	Yeah, I get it.
	And doing well, I might add.
	Holy crap, I saw the numbers the other day.
	Yeah, it's getting there.
	You're on the path 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, then I'm there.
	You and me both, baby.
	It's a worldwide audience.
	I mean, we should have, 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 U.S. Information Agency.
	And these are the guys who will set up, like the Voice of America and Radio Swan, all these propaganda stations, wherever...
	U.S. propaganda is 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.
	Well, that brings up an interesting point.
	How would you jam?
	I mean, you could have ISPs do it, I guess.
	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.
	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 over the internet?
	On the net?
	So basically like you suck up whatever stream is coming out and you poop something different out on the other end?
	That would be good.
	Or, yeah, perhaps.
	Oh, dude, speaking of, I promised you I'd tell you my story again.
	Yes, your entry into the United States story.
	A new entry story.
	So I have a story and I've thought up a hack.
	So first, the story.
	This is when I arrived at San Francisco International Airport, which, by the way, there is a big difference between SFO Arrival and Liberty Airport in Newark, because they actually have a secondary screening room.
	That's a whole process there.
	They hand walk you at Newark.
	They hand walk you over to the secondary screening room.
	So, you know, and in San Francisco, you know, you go through customs.
	So what happened, of course, is, you know, actually 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 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 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.
	And he just made a minute of chit-chat and then wrote an M next to the stripe that was already on my car.
	And I said, even MTV guy is still on the list.
	And he said, yeah.
	He just didn't really say anything.
	So then 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.
	I took a little different approach this time.
	I went up to the officer, really smiley, standing tall.
	I was really in a very positive mode and handed it to him.
	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.
	I said, yeah, yeah, because this guy recognized me too.
	I could see it in his eyes.
	And they said, oh, yeah, come over here.
	And he walked me up to the desk.
	And it was one of those weird situations where you could see that he was trying to communicate something to the officers behind the desk, basically.
	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 sixth time in as many visits.
	And the guy said, wow, you're still on the list?
	I said, yeah.
	I said, can you take me off?
	He said, no, but I can give you the 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'd let me go right through.
	Now, here's the hack that I've thought of.
	These custom forms, basically, they hand them out in the airplane.
	You fill it in.
	You put in, you know, the first, your name, your...
	Your passport, your flight number, what other countries you've visited.
	And then you have the ten questions of which the first one is yes.
	Is this business?
	And then all the rest, of course, you want to answer no.
	You know, are you a terrorist?
	Are you carrying more than $10,000?
	You know, 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 never know.
	It's a complete easy hack.
	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've got to get me.
	Get me out of Gitmo.
	I might try it.
	I'm really thinking I'm going to try it.
	I took a flight out from San Francisco to my undisclosed location.
	I was kind of in a foul mood.
	Before you go into the security area, there's a guy there who is supposed to check.
	I think all he has to do is check and see if your name on the boarding card is the same name as in your passport because it's international travel.
	I could just see this guy.
	He was totally uninterested, complete jerk-off.
	And I shined him, basically.
	I'm not going to say how you're 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.
	And 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.
	That's interesting.
	No, it pisses me off.
	It pisses me off.
	If you get a real stickler, I'm sorry, it depends.
	You know, it's not all the airports require that you walk through and have to show your boarding pass twice.
	I think that's like spotty.
	I see it here, I see it there, 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 have to pull it out.
	Yeah.
	I think it's ridiculous, really redundant.
	I mean, one guy just saw it.
	What's another guy have to see it?
	Well, I don't want to...
	I never had the...
	But maybe I never thought it was for the SS thing.
	Yeah, well, if you...
	So you...
	Wait a minute.
	You came at this guy and you grumped.
	You were like a grump and you wouldn't say hi, and so he put SS on it?
	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...
	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 like 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.
	But I also shined off the clear people because it's right next to the entrance.
	You have that clear line where 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.
	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.
	They want to have a couple of 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, 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?
	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'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 want 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?
	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 Contouras, and I think I got like $100 a month or something for these annoyances, and I just dropped it.
	Because I know people didn't like it.
	I didn't like it.
	Sean Finnegan, who is, or was, or maybe still is, the CEO of OMD Digital.
	That's Omnicom's digital advertising agency.
	He was promoted, I think, six or seven months ago to CEO. 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 and fucking ads on links.
	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 different kinds of recordable media.
	They have a gold, a disc with gold in it, and it's specifically for 100 years of archiving.
	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 100 years, they have an archivable burnable disc.
	It costs about a dollar, 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 you have to remember, I got into the Burnables when they were 1X, and you had to buy these SCSI drives to even burn discs.
	Ah, SCSI, yeah.
	Old SCSI drives, and so we're talking about some of the original discs that were made.
	And I have a few of them that were ran off of an OS2 machine that essentially some of the sectors are gone.
	And luckily, if you use one of the drives, a really good quality reader or drive is made by Plex store.
	One time I was talking to some company that analyzed disks for...
	I was a consultant to his consultancy.
	And the guy says he wouldn't go on the record, but he says if you want to get a burner that is outstanding, you get a Plex store.
	So I've always only used Plex stores ever since.
	So I have this OneDrive that's really a classic that's one of their best that they've ever made.
	And I could get the data.
	Off of the CD-ROM, from that one drive only, no other drive, and I had maybe five of them that I checked, could read this 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 it happen.
	I used to do a lot of archiving, and at one point I was like, 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 until my shit will still be on their servers.
	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.
	That's not only the one example.
	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.
	The Democratic ticket will be Hillary and Obama's VP, which is a totally unelectable ticket.
	And then it will be McCain, and then I originally thought it would be Giuliani, but now I'm leaning toward Romney, but I'm not taking money on that.
	Ron Paul is coming.
	How did he do in South Carolina, actually?
	I don't know.
	He's not going to 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.
	Yeah, but it sure is.
	There was voter fraud in, hmm.
	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.
	Yeah, and of course he got not even mentioned in any article anywhere that he came in second.
	This process is so fucking stupid.
	Hey, they're going for a $5 million boost.
	They've got a new campaign.
	Going for the gold.
	Oh, cool.
	On RonPaul2008.com.
	February 5th, they're going for $5 million.
	They'll get it, too.
	They'll get it.
	Well, good.
	But anyway, 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, he had a bunch of these, and I thought he was the shoe-in for a while, and now he's just doing occasional primaries, but If you followed it from about six months ago, and he had all these different campaign managers from here and there that were all mobbed up, it just seems like 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.
	They kind of pushed him out a little bit, huh?
	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's squeaky clean.
	So, I mean, you've got nothing.
	Meanwhile, the other two, whoever they are, which will be Hillary and someone, you know, they'll find all kinds of dirt on them.
	So, Huckabee is still doing very well for the Republicans.
	I'm pretty amazed by that.
	One of the things that I always advise people to do to get a feeling for how these things are going to go is to watch these guys on the two major U.S. talk shows, which is Letterman and Leno.
	And they all show up.
	For the first time, I've seen Huckabee before, and I've said this.
	If there was going to be an open mic stand-up comedy competition, Huckabee would kill.
	He's extremely funny.
	He's extremely quick.
	He's very quick-witted, and he's very funny.
	And he's got a great presence.
	I was shocked, actually.
	And every American always loves a guy who can pick up a bass guitar and jam with the band.
	That's always a plus.
	It did well for Clinton.
	That gimmick doesn't do anything for me.
	But anyway, so Romney was on the Leno show recently, and I thought he was reminding me a little bit of Dean.
	It was a Howard Dean.
	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 all his Internet stuff.
	The guy was just kicking butt 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 and, 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.
	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.
	Oh, the guy's mega rich, so I wouldn't surprise me.
	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.
	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 humorless, and he's not goofy.
	I mean, it's just obvious to me.
	He's a smart guy.
	Go to Vegas right now, people, and put your money down, and 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.
	Huckabee had this thing about dropping the income tax system and going to a 100% consumption tax, which I never liked because it's like a VAT tax that they have in Europe that's always irked 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, encourages saving, which may or may not be a good thing, but it also taxes, finally, the gray market.
	People who don't pay taxes, drug dealers who make billions of dollars in drug sales, and those guys never pay taxes, but they would pay taxes 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 three countries with value-added tax, in the Netherlands, in Belgium, which is actually 21% VAT. Which is 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.
	Well, 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 U.S. where, I'm sorry, it's in the price, but on an invoice they'll list it separately.
	And if you're a business, you get to deduct the VAT. It's purely a consumer tax.
	Of course, what that leads to is they're 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.
	So it does...
	Well, 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 have to fill out a bunch of income tax forms for them.
	You've 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 there'd be a difference there.
	In fact, we had these, if you remember, it was almost scandalous over the, 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 it was an appointment and they had to go through the Senate, they'd always uncover the fact that this person had an illegal employee.
	And, I mean, without, almost with no exceptions, it was one after another.
	And my experience was, because I had employees that I had actually done the paperwork for, And it was painful.
	It was ridiculous.
	And then when you got rid of it 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.
	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, and I talked to the attorney about it.
	He said, no, just pay it because you're never going to – it's just a nightmare.
	Yeah, and so – 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, it was 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 earlier, I thought that was pretty interesting.
	Well, 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 U.S. markets.
	Stop restricting community banks from fostering local economic growth as well.
	But Sarbanes-Oxley, I thought, that's the only candidate that has actually written that as a part of his plan.
	Well, good for him.
	Yeah.
	You know, if anybody out there wants to go read my column, it's in MarketWatch.
	It was written about six months ago or a year ago maybe.
	I don't know.
	And the name of it is called Repeal Sarbanes-Oxley.
	And it talks about some of these issues.
	Sarbanes-Oxley is ruining the high-tech scene, which is what we're involved in.
	Well, it's ruining America as a financial center of the universe.
	It's now become London because of these rules.
	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?
	They said, 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?
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	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.
	Just to say, well, the old system is good, and we caught him.
	California got raped over energy.
	They had to do something, but I think it was just too much of a knee-jerk thing.
	Of a knee-jerk reaction.
	And what does it cost?
	It's like 8% of a company's...
	4%.
	That's still a lot of money.
	4% of the bottom line is lost to Sarbanes-Oxley reporting.
	And CEOs really don't want to be CEOs anymore because they're personally liable.
	It's tough.
	I do understand, particularly people who basically hate corporations, they'll hate me for saying this, but...
	I agree.
	It should get out.
	It should be removed.
	It's lame.
	It's hurting our overall economy.
	And one of those two guys, Sarbanes or Oxley, I can't remember which one.
	It was so deeply involved with some of the most corrupt of the...
	It's actually guys' names?
	Sarbanes and Oxley?
	You're kidding me.
	Yeah, yeah, yeah.
	Well, who are these guys?
	They name it after themselves?
	Yeah.
	We're in Congress.
	That's what you do.
	A lot of these bills get named after.
	It's like the McCain-Feingold bill.
	A lot of these bills get named after the two people that put them together.
	It's not unusual.
	Yeah, but that just happens.
	I know, but what else would it mean?
	Sarbanes-Oxley.
	I don't know.
	Towns 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.
	Oh, beautiful.
	Okay, you got anything else, John?
	No, I'm done.
	Yeah.
	I did want to say, I really enjoy doing this.
	I really like just yakking with you.
	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.
	Yeah, I know.
	It's a lot of fun and not only 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 – 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 U. Naley Smith-Cruz?
	Yeah, with Naley Smit-Cruz, who is a Dutch woman, who, by the way, her husband and Vicariously 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.
	The premise of this was that the anti-competitiveness and, what do you call it, cartel?
	Cartel busting, etc.
	That kind of used to be America's job.
	And that is now, without a doubt, if you look at what's happened with Microsoft...
	But in this 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.
	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 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 they telling Americans what to do?
	Right.
	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 educational.
	In fact, I'm going to probably write my next Market Watch column on this particular issue.
	But anyway, she says that the Americans, from the European perspective...
	Led the way with antitrust regulations over the decades and have only recently just dropped the ball completely and they don't appear 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...
	What they can do in their own country in terms of buyouts and the like.
	Well, 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 issues, of course.
	It's still all about the tying Explorer into Windows, etc.
	But all of these companies have companies in all these different countries.
	So it's about those subsidiaries, I guess.
	That's what I think they're attacking.
	But when it comes to a merger, obviously a blocking of a merger of the foreign entities is going to affect the U.S. entity.
	I don't believe they actually have any legislative power.
	Thank you.
	I don't know.
	That's a question that's kind of unanswered.
	If Google and DoubleClick, which are both American companies...
	Yeah, but wait.
	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?
	I mean, the question in 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?
	Yeah.
	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.
	But I don't think that's the issue with those two.
	I think it's a privacy concern.
	Well, whatever the case, 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?
	You know, I've never met her, but you don't want to fuck with Naley Smith-Cruz, dude.
	Yeah.
	You do not want to mess with that woman.
	She is a hard nose.
	She seemed like a nice person.
	No, no, 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, but she was the worst-case example, and Americans don't understand this generally.
	We've talked about it before on the show, that the intonation isn't there, and 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.
	Yeah.
	And also, instead of saying, so to speak, she kept saying, so to say.
	And that really bugged me.
	So to say.
	So to say.
	Like, so to speak, Naley, 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 Naley'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?
	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, you know, gray raincoat wearing, disheveled, nagra carrying.
	Nagra.
	Yeah.
	You know, remember the old reel-to-reel nagras?
	I love those.
	Oh, yeah.
	Junkered now.
	But he had 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 sat in my office for a couple hours.
	We just talked a bit.
	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 we kept in touch a little bit after that.
	They were going to offer early pensions at the time.
	There was a couple of years ago, something like that at the BBC. They were going to get rid of people or they were going to shorten the retirement age.
	That's what it was.
	And he said, well, you know, I've got some choices to make.
	And I said, dude, whatever the BBC is paying you, I'll pay you double to come and work for us.
	And he considered it for a little while.
	But obviously, he 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.
	And...
	I guess I'm out of steam.
	Remember now, when we started a trend, there is a show called Yo Agenda, and they're still keeping strong.
	And it's Ho Agenda.
	Ho Agenda.
	I'm waiting for Bo Agenda, Mo Agenda.
	There's got to be a lot more coming out.
	I think we started a trend.
	Actually, Mo Agenda sounds like a good name.
	Mo Agenda.
	I'll have to register that one.
	But as we started off by talking about this, a lot of people are saying, this is what I always thought podcasting was going to be.
	And we've struck a chord, man.
	I'm not quite sure what it is.
	I don't know if it's just the eavesdropping or if it's actually that we're interesting slash entertaining.
	Hopefully it's a combination.
	But yeah, people are into it.
	And they continuously say they really like the format.
	It's just talking.
	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.
	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.
	Because you can still kind of follow along.
	They have that for audiobooks.
	You can kind of listen along.
	It just goes faster.
	Yeah, it might be better.
	I bet you someone 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.
	Oh, the Galactica quote.
	Yeah, the quote, I still have it in this pad here somewhere.
	Did they say Battlestar Collector?
	Was that where it was from?
	Yeah, it came from Battlestar Galactica.
	I got two notes myself.
	It was the quote about, I'll never have a network computer on this ship.
	That's it.
	Something like that.
	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 I'll do this.
	I wrote when they came up with the second iteration of the show, the new one, with the blonde girl who keeps appearing magically.
	They did kind of a movie for TV or whatever, and I watched this because everyone wanted to check out the new Battlestar Galactica and a lot of people really liked the show.
	I watched it and wrote a scathing review of what a piece of crap I thought it was.
	Of course you did.
	And I sent it, actually, I was so worked about it, and I sent it into PC Magazine, you know, and I think it was Lance Ulanoff or one of these editors says, wait, 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.
	Oh, man.
	Yeah, I know, they didn't print it.
	And so it's one of those things, and I just cranked something else out, and I put it aside, meaning to like, you know, because I can repurpose most of my material that gets rejected, which is not that much, by the way, but occasionally it does.
	And I'll just send it someplace else.
	And I put it aside and never got back to it, so now it's kind of old.
	But I may just reprise it 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 are blank.
	They don't work anymore.
	Anyway, okay.
	I'm done.
	All right.
	Sorry I didn't have a better punchline.
	I tried.
	No.
	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.

▲