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April 19, 2008 - No Agenda
01:16:21
27: China Syndrome
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Time Text
It's time once again for the program that we look forward to every week.
Will it come Friday?
Will it come Saturday?
Will it come Sunday?
Well, it has no release date.
Nor does it have music, commercials, jingles, or anything planned because we have no agenda.
Coming to you from a very dark Saturday evening in the United Kingdom.
I'm Adam Curry.
And I'm John C. Devorak coming to you from a very sunny Northern California.
Could not be more opposite today.
I'm sure.
We have really crap weather.
Well, what's weird, you know, you had that snow recently, and up in Washington, I have a place in Port Angeles, and it snowed two inches yesterday.
Really?
And look at the date.
It's April 19th.
No snow here, but we do have mist.
It's been misty all day, like one kilometer visibility, so I actually was going to go flying today.
Not happening.
No, I wouldn't think so.
I can hear hearts break all over the world.
Hey, John, we haven't actually talked this week, have we?
At all, I don't think.
No, you've been busy.
I've been very heads down.
Yeah, it's been pretty crazy.
I've had a...
It's been working with the UK production folks on lots of video assets that we're building.
And I've been tinkering all week, as you know, because I actually suggested...
When was it?
Maybe Monday or Tuesday I suggested that we try out SIP, the S-I-P, SIP protocol for these calls.
Yeah.
It stands for Session Initiation Protocol, I think.
Really?
I didn't even know what it stood for.
I thought it would be something sexier than that.
No, it's really boring.
And then, shall I just, do you mind if I read everybody your response?
Well, actually, let me summarize it, mainly because the guy who does Gizmo is a friend of mine, and I don't want to sound like I'm saying horrible things.
Well, you did.
What are you talking about?
I have the email right here in front of me.
Yeah, I didn't like Gizmo.
But I'm not talking necessarily about...
I did recommend Gizmo as an easy way to get to the SIP system, if you will.
A lot of people talk about...
There's a lot of people in the telecom business that SIP was highly touted.
Some years ago, actually, in the late 90s when I was writing for Forbes, when I first really started chatting in detail with Jeff Pulver, Right.
There was a big belief in the industry that all telephone calls would be free and that SIP itself would be the hot ticket that would really make everything work together.
It was the hottest thing going from telecom.
As it evolved, it would be the be-all, end-all.
A lot of people still use it for stuff.
In fact, there's a lot of products out there that are SIP-based because it is a standard and you can make SIP programs.
The problem is it doesn't work Of course, a bunch of people are going to say, oh, it works, it works fine.
Yeah, it works under some circumstances, but it doesn't work for what we're doing.
Because Leo's tried it when we did Twit some years ago.
We started trying some of these other alternatives.
And they, yeah, they work for a...
In fact, when I was in Germany a couple years ago, I used the SIP... To talk to my wife from the hotel, she's in the United States, I'm in Germany, and it was great.
And it works great under those circumstances, but when it hiccups, it really has some issues that make it worse than Skype.
Okay, well I haven't, I obviously haven't tried it out long enough.
I know I've tinkered with it.
I think it was, maybe, remember that software X10 or something it was called?
Or the X-Lite?
I can't remember what it was called.
No, I don't know it.
Well, they've pretty much improved that.
They've got all kinds of software.
And Gizmo is one software package you can use.
The tests that I've done were fantastic.
No, it has a fantastic quality when it's running right.
And that's not what the problem is.
The problem is when it craps out, it's a disaster.
And the thing I didn't like about Gizmo, which made it even more problematic, is Gizmo really was poorly thought out in its implementation.
It goes into the machine.
It auto-boots.
It chews up all kinds of cycles.
You can't get it off the machine.
It goes into the registry.
It has all these things.
I mean, I had it on one machine, and every time you reboot the machine, this thing would take over the machine.
It was like it was worse than a virus scanner.
Yeah, that's when it starts the XMPP or whatever.
It takes like four or five minutes if you have a big address book.
It does kind of freeze up stuff, I agree, on starting.
Once it's running, it seems to be okay.
Well, who needs the aggravation?
So anyway, I just thought it was aggravating.
The product was aggravating.
Can I just ask, how long ago was this that you tried it?
With Leo?
A couple years ago.
Have there been any improvements?
I just don't understand.
If it's an open protocol and they have all these awesome codecs, what is Skype doing that these guys wouldn't be able to?
I mean, it seems like clearly a great alternative to Skype.
And when it's working, as you said, it works great.
It sounds fine.
So it seems like a reconnection is different than Skype, where Skype will just degrade severely and kind of hang in there.
I mean, we'd have to talk to the Skype guy.
But there's something about they're doing something tricky with Skype that keeps it ahead of the curve compared to whatever these other guys are doing.
And the knock against Skype is simple.
It's not open.
Nobody knows what's going on.
It's almost like mysterious.
It is.
It's working.
And it's not standard.
With SIPP, you can have a dozen different programs that can all interact with each other, all done separately.
So that issue is profound.
But, fact of the matter is, it still works better.
And it has critical mass and all the rest of it.
Now, that said, by the way, there was a couple of new articles saying that eBay wants to dump Skype.
Hey, like we didn't know that, huh?
Didn't we just last week on this very program say that we saw the polishing up taking place?
Absolutely.
Anyway, so when you basically shot me down on – because I wanted to do a test with John on Thursday.
Okay, well, obviously you don't want me to read the email.
I understand.
But it was kind of like what you just said.
Kind of.
Yeah, kind of.
Email always sounds more terse.
That's the reason I don't like to read it.
It was funny.
Come on.
Yeah.
But anyways, I had all this creative energy left, and I wound up doing some other tinkering, which is just kind of cool to mention.
I have an iPod Touch now, which I have to say, as a browsing experience, is just fantastic.
Nothing beats it that I've ever had in my hands for a handheld browser.
Great experience.
All the other stuff, yeah, okay.
And I just had a standard.
I hadn't jailbroken it or anything.
And I'm kind of gearing up and getting ready to do a screen video cast.
So part screen cast, part show and tell of my entire setup.
Because people actually, you know, John, people have gone out and bought MacBook Pros waiting for me to tell them how to string it all together.
So I'm severely amiss.
I'm behind on this.
Well, let's put it together in some sort of a paper and then publish it on all the websites we run.
Yeah, well, what I thought was, I'm never going to be any good at putting together a Vizio chart or whatever, but I can certainly explain all the connections and show it in the screencast and also hold up, because there's external devices as well.
I can assure the listening audience who intends on watching this with high hopes that they are going to implement what you did, that they haven't got a prayer if that's the way you're going to do it.
No, but if I do that part, then I can easily write down every single piece and document it.
Or someone else can.
Maybe that's my hope.
Well, you know, my stepson wants to do that for you.
Okay, so why don't I make the video and then I'll send it to him.
And then if he doesn't get it, then we'll have to go to the next phase.
Yeah.
Anyway, let me just tell you the last cool thing I did.
So I already have this external MIDI controller, this thing made by...
It's a German outfit.
It's called Fader Fox.
And it's a little MIDI controller.
It has six sliders on it.
And with that, I can control the software which I'm running, which is Ableton Live.
So if I... If I lower my mic here on the slider, then obviously it lowers the volume in the software.
Okay, and that's just controlled through MIDI. But I'd seen somewhere these guys who had tricked out some software from...
Some Asian guy, because I looked at his website, and he has kanji stuff on it.
I presume he's some Asian guy.
And he's built something called AKA Remote.
And they've built some software that you put onto your Mac that you can then tie into MIDI. Long story short, I can now fire jingles and songs and also control the faders right from my iPod Touch wirelessly through the LAN. It's really, really awesome.
Wow.
Yeah.
So you're going to bring that rig over?
Yeah.
Because you're coming back to the United States again, right?
Yeah.
I think Monday or Tuesday I'll be over.
Well then, since you're coming back...
I think it's time for a new test.
Oh, shit.
Wait a minute.
Of course, John is referring to the Customs and Border Protection Agency when I enter the United States.
I'm on the secondary search match list, whatever it is.
Last time, I... I joked and laughed and said I should speak to a TL, a team leader, right when I got to the first customs guy.
So what would the test for this week be, for this trip?
Okay, so this last time, I thought you went one iteration in before you asked for the team leader.
No, remember?
No, no, no.
That's what the plan was.
When you get to that passport guy, that first guy who's sitting in a little booth where you're lined up with your bag, and he grabs your passport – That's the guy you asked for the team leader right there at the beginning?
That's what I did last time, yeah.
Okay, this time let's not ask him, but let's ask the next guy down the line.
Nah, let's record it this time.
Well, I don't think they're going to put up with that.
Yeah, well, not if they catch me, they won't, but why would they know?
Well, that's an interesting point.
I mean, what I was thinking...
What kind of gear do you have on you that could do that?
Do you have like a little...
Here's what I was thinking.
You know that little flip camera?
The white one?
Did I show you that?
No.
These are really cool.
You buy them at Walmart.
You just buy them right off the rack.
It's a little digital camera.
All it does is record video.
Oh, right, right.
Those things.
And it has a flip-up USB connector.
Right, right, right.
So I could put that in my breast pocket of my jacket and I'm thinking if I made a little hole so that the lens could kind of peep through, it just might work.
You're going to get thrown in the slammer.
Well, it's either that or I can record the audio.
That would be relatively easy.
That would probably be, I think, safer.
Yeah, because I could probably just drop an iRiver into my breast pocket and just hit record, and it will probably pick up enough that it'll be legible.
If I'm wearing mics, it's not going to be a good idea.
No, no.
They don't even want you using cell phones when you're in that part of the terminal.
Yeah.
But yeah, an iRiver would do it.
You could use an H4, H2, or something like that, but it's too bulky compared to an iRiver.
I have the IFP, the 799.
Right, that's the one everyone uses.
Yeah.
Okay.
So it has a built-in mic, or are you going to stick a little Sony on there or something?
No, it's got a built-in mic.
It's pretty good.
You can set the dynamics.
I'll test it.
I'll test it before I go.
Yeah, okay.
Yeah, that'll work.
Okay.
That's almost...
I don't think this is even remotely...
Hard to do.
So you just want to go through the exact same process again.
This makes it like a double blind study.
Because you're doing the exact same thing twice to see if it's actually valid the way you do it.
Okay, that's fine.
I'll ask for the team leader again.
Do you have any code words that if you get to make the one phone call that you can say that would indicate that they're going to kill you or something like that?
What?
What are you talking about?
Oh, never mind.
I'm sorry.
I shouldn't have even brought that up.
Rosebud.
Hi.
So anyway, and then my wife's Mac broke today, which is why we're recording a little bit later than normal.
It's 10 minutes to 9 in the evening.
What kind of a computer was it?
It's a 15-inch iMac, one of the first, kind of like the white ones.
Who makes it?
And it's the PowerPC version, so it's not an Intel.
Oh, it's an old dog.
Yeah, even before the 17-inch PowerPC iMac came out.
Oh, okay.
Alright, so it's an old clunker.
It's probably over the hill.
How old is that thing?
So I was just thinking about that.
And as you know, our computers are on 24-7.
We never turn them off.
So that thing has been running for four years.
24-7.
So you just burn it up.
You don't care about the environment or green or anything then?
Well, no, the screen goes to sleep.
And, you know, the drive shut down.
So it's, of course, it's still using energy.
But yeah, I'm a believer in leave it on.
Turn it on, turn it off.
And it was clearly a hardware problem.
I think something with the graphics card, it's just, you know, it's melted away.
I guess that four years, that seems about reasonable for something made in China.
Yeah, it's kind of like owning a Datsun or something, you know, or a cheap car.
About four years, they blow up.
Kaboom!
Man, I bought my daughter a Renault Twingo.
Are you familiar with this car?
I've seen the pictures of it.
It's a cute little car.
It's a cute little European car that would probably be really cute to have in Europe.
Let me tell you, it's a really comfortable drive.
It's kind of like sitting in lawn furniture.
And it kind of feels like it.
But you're sitting up a little bit high because it's so light.
You know, it only has a 1.2 liter engine, but still real zippy, you know, five speed.
And yeah, I was like, wow, this is not bad.
I could see you driving around one of those things.
Well, I had a smart car in Amsterdam, which I loved.
I mean, that was freaking perfect.
I can't imagine you in that, though.
You're too tall.
You can fit to a smart car?
Yeah, I had the convertible smart car.
So your head was sticking out the roof?
No, they're quite sizable.
It's not a problem at all.
No, it's nice.
Also, very decent.
It's kind of expensive for the actual amount of physical stuff that they give you.
Yeah, they probably make money on it.
Isn't it launched in the States now?
Aren't people buying them now?
I heard that they were.
I haven't seen one.
I don't think they're calling it the smart car.
I think they're calling it something else.
The dumb car.
It's not dumb, man.
In the States it is.
Because in Europe, for example, they let you park those things head first.
Yeah, although I've never actually seen anyone park it that way.
I've seen it in France a couple of times, especially in Paris.
Okay, yeah, that's possible.
You see some guy just rams it right in, head first between two cars, and that just sits there and nobody cares because it's, you know, not bothering anybody.
It doesn't stick out.
But if you did that here, they'd probably throw you in jail and send you to Gitmo.
I have to say, though, just driving around in this thing, and I went down to the gas station.
She doesn't have her license yet, so I'm driving it.
And I'm really sitting there going, wow, just comparing it to the Jaguar.
I'm like, there's no advantage.
In fact, this car is kind of cooler because you can plug your iPod into the...
I told you about that.
You can plug your iPod right into the stereo system.
Right.
Another thing that happened that was just personally interesting, our fridge went out last Sunday.
It just died.
You're having electronics failures in and around the house, left and right.
Interesting.
I wonder what's next.
So, it's a special size, so it had to be ordered.
So, it didn't actually come until yesterday.
So, we were without a refrigerator.
Well, actually, I have a small drinks cooler that I have up here in the office, which actually will get quite cold.
It will function as a perfect refrigerator, but it's small.
It's only meant for a couple cans of Coke or whatever.
But it has kind of the form of a refrigerator.
It has one or two shelves in it.
And it was kind of interesting to see how little food and how little crap we actually needed in the refrigerator.
And we didn't go hungry.
You know what I mean?
And I can compare this because we just got back from grocery shopping.
Man, now we have to fill up the new fridge.
It's like this is stupid.
It's like we're buying all this stuff.
It didn't make any difference.
I didn't miss any of it for a whole week.
You have to re- you have to- there's something there's a good gag in there.
But you have to reevaluate everything you're doing.
Downsize, that's the key.
Maybe that's what I'm thinking.
I got a refrigerator full of crap every once in a while.
I say, okay, I'm going to clean out the refrigerator.
So I take everything out and decide.
And I take a harsh approach.
Throw out the stuff that I'm probably never going to use or it's old.
And I, you know, clean everything.
And then I put it back in there.
You got nothing in it.
Yeah, exactly.
That's my point.
It's just a bunch of stuff that just accumulates in there.
You use it for storage.
Yeah, storage.
That's right.
But it's just shit we buy that I don't think we really need.
Well, so I had a, I got a whole, I was shopping the other day, and I got a hold of, I don't remember seeing one of these before, but I knew they came out with them because they've been, you know, making these new bills here in the United States, and they, you know, first they did the 100 with the big giant Franklin head, then they made, put color on it, and then they did a 50, and then they did a 20, and then they did a 10, which was really clownish, it was really crazy, but then I finally got a hold of a 5.
So the new five has got big giant, big head Lincoln.
If you look at the old bills that were done in the 1910s and 1920s, these things were gorgeous.
They were just beautiful.
And these things look like play money.
They're just stupid.
But anyway, so they got...
But the weirdest thing about this five, you got to...
I keep looking at it.
On the backside, they have the number five in the lower right-hand corner.
Huge, big giant five so somebody doesn't get confused.
And it's in lavender.
Really?
It's like lavender.
I'm thinking, who chose this color?
Or maybe it's even more of a pink, but it's just a horrible, like, I don't know.
Well, that's a good question.
Who doesn't make those decisions?
It seems that Richard Simmons is the one.
I don't know.
It seems like a pretty important thing.
I just was baffled.
I've had the new 20s.
I haven't even had a new 10 in my hands, honestly.
The 10s are weirder than the 20s and the 5s are the weirdest.
So I'm waiting for the 1s.
Those are going to be something to see.
So how does that work when they put money into circulation?
Do they take an equal amount out at the same time?
Well, they're always taking money out of circulation, constantly.
And they have to feed new money into circulation because the bills are only good for a few years and then they just swap them out and they put new in and they take old out and grind them up.
And they make them into bedding for the poor.
So isn't that a great process to leak a little bit of extra money into the economy?
Well, there's always suspicions that people do that.
But anyway, so all they do is during the natural turnover of the money, they just bring in the new bills and then they hope the other ones all disappear eventually, even though I still have a 50 with a little head and without the stripe in it, you know, some old bill that ended up in a drawer somewhere.
And some of those you have to take to the bank to even get rid of them.
Actually, in England, last time I was there, or I guess it was a couple times ago, I had gone in before they had done some deal with the euro, and they put that little E on the bills.
That means it's part of the European Union.
And I walk into the country with a bunch of...
And I always keep the old money.
I keep the money from the last trip.
So I load it up with all my British pounds, and none of them were any...
Nobody would take them.
And I said, what's the deal?
She said, I don't know, you've got to turn those into the bank.
Those are no good.
It looks just exactly the same.
Right.
Except there's a little E on the new bills.
Because it was the same bill, same picture of the Queen, it was the same thing.
I don't understand why they couldn't just take that and let them go out of circulation naturally, but that's not the way they do things now.
No, it was the same in...
In the Netherlands, and in Belgium, actually.
So Belgium had the franc before the euro came, and the Netherlands had the gilder, and there was an absolute cut-off date.
And then, I think up to two years after that date, you could still exchange your old Dutch gilders for euros.
So, I mean, I guess they do have to just set a date and say, after this date and no more, and now we're cutting over to whatever it is.
It was an EU thing, man.
It was total European Union bullshit.
So anyway, so I have all these bills that I have to turn in.
And I got a bunch of old French francs I found the other day.
Totally useless.
That's absolutely not good.
They're kind of pretty, though.
I found them always to be a little bit coppery, you know, like almost green.
The French francs?
Yeah, don't they?
No, no, not the bills.
I'm talking about the money, the actual coin.
Oh, no, the coins?
Yeah.
Yeah, the coins are kind of funky, but the bills I thought were always very attractive.
But the bills are small.
No, they're all different sizes.
They get the small one.
It's like the domination of the bill and the francs, they get bigger.
I think.
I know there's a small bill and there's bigger.
I know there's some countries.
I thought France was one of them, but there's some.
In fact, England has a little bill, or they used to.
Yeah, the five-pound notice.
You're right.
It's all different sizes.
Five-pound notice is smaller.
They shrunk it.
Yeah.
Speaking of money, did you see our prime minister in the United States hanging out with everybody?
No, I didn't know he came.
You're kidding me.
No, I'm not kidding because all the news is about the Pope.
Everything's Pope, Pope, Pope, Pope, Pope.
Yeah, so after the Pope boogied out of D.C., in came Gordon Brown and he met with Bush and he met with McCain and with Clinton and with Obama.
Here, let me look at this.
I'm just bringing up Google News.
Top stories.
Swept up in Pope fever.
A busy day as first vote in six weeks draws near.
North Korea trade top Bush talks with North Korean leader.
Those are the three stories they're running.
And then on the right, the little ones, there's nothing about this.
Nothing.
Zip.
Nothing about Gordon Brown.
Now, let me look in the world.
Zimbabwe, human rights, Iraqi.
Nope.
Maybe it didn't happen.
Maybe they just made it up, like the People on the Moon video.
Could be.
Gordon Brown didn't actually go.
Here, big news.
Sandra Bullock and husband hit by drunk driver.
Oh, is she okay?
Yeah, it doesn't really happen.
It's not even news, it seems.
No, there's nothing here except the Chinese urge anti-West boycott over Tibet's stance.
No.
We know it's kind of crazy.
The ground is not anywhere on this page.
Oh, crazy.
10 Downing Street, which of course is the British White House, they have a Twitter account.
And they were Twittering the whole time.
It'd be like, you know, the PM is now being announced by Senator Kennedy and he's going to do his speech.
And then, you know, it's like we're having donuts and now we're off to...
You know, whatever the next appointment is.
It was pretty cool to follow along.
Oh, that is cool.
If I had known that, I would have subscribed.
You know I'm a Twitter user now.
So, last week, I did one tweet.
I knew you had already signed up.
In fact, you had like 150 people when I looked.
And it was after we had dinner, or was it after we did the last show?
No, it was actually before we had dinner, because you told me, I think you told me then.
Oh, that's right, it was.
Anyway, so I did one tweet like in the middle of the night, you know, kind of referring, you know, an at sign, the real Dvorak.
And then I could just see the number just going boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, and it ticked up.
And what are you at now?
You're like at 5,000 followers or something at least?
I'm at about 57, heading towards 5,800.
Fantastic.
But you know, the big jump took, Leo gave it a shot.
He gave me a plug and it just jumped 2,000 instantly.
Yeah, that'll do it.
That'll do it.
So I need to get a plug from you, a plug from Calacanis, who promised, but he doesn't even answer his email.
He's worse than Leo.
And then Veronica Belmont would be good.
She's got like 20,000 or something like that.
So I could score a few extras.
I want to try to get to...
My goal was actually to get to 3,000 or 4,000, but now that I'm over 5,000, I figure, well, maybe my goal is shot too low.
I should be shooting for 10,000.
You see, what you need to do, here's the trick to Twitter.
You have to get the right people following you.
So having a Calacanis follow you, but also, I mean, I use it for notification to get the word out.
I want you to look at something.
That's usually what I use it for.
Right, that's what I'm doing.
So if you can write, and this is where the creative writing part comes into play.
If you can write something that will catch someone's eye like Calacanis, then he'll Twitter about it.
So you automatically get his 15,000 or whatever.
You get those in as well for your message.
And it'll probably be to appropriate people.
So it's kind of like the gaming for me is not in how many people are following me, but I want to have the right people following me because I know that they'll replicate.
They'll become a repeater for me.
Yeah, no, I can understand that.
No, I think the thing is actually quite interesting.
I mean, I was always skeptical, but my skepticism periods, by the way, and I mentioned this on Cranky Geeks, I've shrunk it.
Instead of milking it like I used to, I did that with the blogs.
I mean, I could write negative stuff and get my numbers wet because everybody kept coming in to condemn me.
But now I've decided that there's not enough hours in the day and I've got other things to talk about that I don't want to milk these negative approaches which are actually exploratory.
I mean, I use a lot of my negative commentary to explore issues and get all the different perspectives, because if you really slam something, from an honest perspective, I'm not being phony about it.
I mean, I really feel I have these concerns, and so I express them in probably a vitriolic way that would detract attention.
And so people come in and they say, no, you're wrong and here's why.
I mean, I get that and I also get you suck, but you suck stuff doesn't do me any good.
But there's a lot of people out there that will try to explain to you where you're wrong.
And actually, I learned a lot from that.
So, do you feel that this time is shortened now by weeks?
Well, I can almost say by years, but...
Thank you for pointing that out.
No, I think mankind thanks you in general that you've shortened this, John.
It was about time.
Well, I'm trying to think of when I first ran into Twitter, which was, I think, pretty much on the Twitch show, Leo's thing.
Two years ago, probably.
You think it was that long?
Yeah, I think it was.
I think it's been around for about a year and a half.
Okay.
So I normally would have probably kept...
Complaining for another half a year maybe, another six months to nine months.
I probably should have brought it home six months earlier, but I'm still...
I just don't jump on everything just crazily.
But in this case, you actually believed it was worthless.
I did.
I did, but I realize now that Cali Canis actually is the one on one of the shows that kind of talked me out of that way of thinking.
And also when I was in South Carolina recently talking to a bunch of real estate people, the head tech guy there, he had this really long explanation for me why he uses it and why I should use it and what good it is.
And he uses it for like – he uses it kind of as a little way to – because everyone has it hooked through their phones.
He has a team of people that work for him or around him or in the same company.
when he needs to send out a message to all of them.
Yeah, he just sends it through Twitter.
Yeah, he just Twitters, and it's the best broadcast message.
And then more recently, that kid in Egypt who got arrested, he managed to Twitter that he was getting arrested just before they handcuffed him, I guess, and brought the attention to himself to his little Twittering group, and they got him out of jail.
I thought that was pretty interesting.
What you've got to do now is now you've got to get into all the ancillary stuff, like Twitter mail.
Do you have that, Twitter mail?
No.
So, twittermail.com, you give it your Twitter details, and then whenever there's new messages that are directed at you, you get an email with a nice little summary.
I'm getting mail already via Twitter.
Oh, really?
Yeah.
There's a private messaging system within Twitter, not the one where you go at Adam Curry, but the one where you go to a little mailing thing, and you can send these little short mail memos, and they get emailed to you, too.
I don't have that.
What are you using?
I'm just using the website.
Oh, really?
Yeah, people are complaining to me about that, too, already.
No, you're using the website.
There's too many good tools out there.
Why are you using the website?
The website stinks.
I think the tools are good, man.
That's true.
Yeah, well, I mean, I only sell me hours in the day.
I mean, I post.
I'll try to get to these tools eventually.
No, I know, but I'm telling you.
I'm giving you some ideas here.
You did.
You gave me Twitter mail, but what's the other five?
Okay, then you have...
What the hell is the...
Not conversely...
Crap, the one where you can see everything in threaded form.
Ah, shit.
Oh, right there.
Somebody's told me about that already.
Yeah, I just can't remember the name of it.
I don't know that I want that, but okay.
No, it's kind of cool because you may be replying to someone that's a part of some other thread.
It's interesting.
Oh, okay.
Yeah, it could be valuable.
But anyway, so now they're going to start to suck because I understand they're going to start putting ads into the feeds.
That would be bad.
That may suck, yeah.
So anyway, so I know I enjoy it.
I think it's a good way to just like it.
It is microblogging.
Sometimes you can draw attention to the blog if you have something specifically good.
I've asked for certain things, some help on some things, and people are more than happy.
It's a very kind of utopian, volunteer-oriented group.
Of a well-wishers type, you know, there's not a lot of negative stuff that goes on there.
I mean, I got the one, you know, you suck, you know, it comes through, but it's very risky.
But you can block those people.
Have you blocked them yet?
That's really cool.
Nah, I don't mind it at all.
Who cares?
So anyway, so I like it.
I think it's a really cool thing, but now on the other side, I promise that I'm not going to talk about it that much because it's boring.
Yeah.
So we're stopping that conversation immediately.
I was just asking.
Anyway, but before we stop it, it's the real Dvorak is the name.
You're horrible.
Hey, you know, what's the point?
So I'll probably pick up another 50 people.
And the thing is, you know, people say, well, you know, we got into a big argument with Cranky Geeks with Sebastian Rupley.
And he says, well, it's just an ego stroke.
He says, no, it's not.
You have this little cadre of people, and it's not for your ego.
It's for, you know, it's for efficiency.
It's really all it is.
I mean, I don't need my ego stroked.
That's what the point is.
I got plenty of things that can do that.
And besides that, I have a bunch of kids that tell me I'm crummy.
So, you know, like a bad dad because I didn't buy something.
So, I mean, you know, I'm not worried about it.
Wait a minute.
What am I hearing now?
Are you a bad dad because you didn't buy the latest Xbox?
Actually, they don't have the latest.
There's that one...
What was that fancy one they came out with?
Dude, I know nothing about gaming consoles.
They brought some new fancy Xbox out, and I've been trying to get it.
And I have them, and it's like...
Can you get in grief?
I could buy one, but it's like...
I think it's stupid.
Why buy one when you can review one?
Well, I'd like to see it.
I don't know.
I was visiting, you know, talking about, you know, you get a lot of comps and review units and evals depending when you're writing in trade magazines or doing this kind of stuff.
Yeah.
And, you know, I always thought that I could, I can't get everything, but I can get a lot of stuff to look at, and people are offering stuff all the time.
I refuse, for the public out there who wants to know, I refuse to see most of the stuff I could actually get, because it just piles up, and I feel bad about it.
You know, if I'm going to get something, I want to actually put it into use.
You know, you had a pretty good appearance on Neil Cavuto's show.
Oh, did you see it?
Yeah, I can't.
Somewhere, maybe I saw it on your blog.
I can't remember where.
But, yeah, it looked all right.
It was pretty decent.
Yeah, I'm going to get my hair cut.
Yeah, what's the deal with that?
You have a bet with someone, or is that just a joke?
It's just a joke.
Then you need a haircut.
My hair guy cut my hair the last time.
He says, I'm going to cut it so it can grow out.
Grow it long, see what happens.
So I said, okay.
And so I've been growing it long, and it went through one phase where it was just looking crummy, but then as it got really longer, like it's pretty long now for me, because at some point, when I was younger, I had my hair grow out real long, but the problem is that I have very thin hair, and it gets split ends.
And so when you have thin kind of hair, and it gets really long, and it gets split ends, the hair, when it touches your skin, it makes it itch, because it's just like little...
Because it's too thin?
Maybe you need to change your shampoo.
No, it's not the...
Yeah.
My hair's still too thin.
What shampoo do you use?
What do you use?
I'm using different shampoos.
I can get the bulkier shampoos.
Anyway, the point is that I can only put up with my hair being so long before it gets on my nerves.
And I think it's getting pretty close.
But you know what?
You have like the big coiffed hair.
People who don't know you've ever seen you in person don't realize...
And then the pictures that were running on the cage match of you are like from when you were in high school or something.
It's a horrible picture.
I dislike it very much.
It's a terrible picture.
Maybe Bubba will change it.
Oh, by the way, Bubba does the most excellent show notes.
Make sure you catch him on the cage match.
Divorce.org slash cage match.
Anyway...
But if anyone's ever seen you in person, you look like kind of a...
When it's done right, you have this huge head of hair on your already enormous head.
My head is quite small, thank you.
I have a rather high forehead.
Whatever.
So you got this huge head of hair.
And it's like, you know, when somebody sees it coming down the street, I've seen it, people actually jump.
They jump out of, I don't know if it's just something they've never seen before or they recognize.
I don't know what it is, but they all jump.
You're full of shit.
Thanks.
You know what?
In your case, it's a little different.
But in most cases, people who make fun of my hair usually don't have any.
Yeah, I know.
It's always good to have a little hair left.
I mean, I'm not bald.
No, but you should thank your lucky stars, man.
I mean, how many guys your age, and I emphasize that, are bald?
Yeah, I mean, fuck.
That's what Patricia always says.
I'll call her up and say, I can't do my fucking hair because this is the problem.
It's like, she made me grow my hair long.
You know, the penis picture, penis head picture, that's me.
I'm like, easy, right?
Just, you know, in the morning, get up, take a shower, get your hair wet.
You can't do that with long hair.
So to get all these, like, frickin' rituals and shit, like, you know, not wash it every day, and then, you know, I have to, every morning I have to use a hair dryer and a brush.
It's just, it's a pain in the ass.
She's talked me into, she's conned me into this.
Now, unfortunately, it's your trademark.
The new Adam Curry's trademark is this hair.
Yeah, well, it's always been my trademark.
Yeah, I know, but this really, well, it's a little blonder than I remember when you were younger.
Yeah, with age.
I mean, it's not colored or anything.
Really?
No.
I have gray hair on my temples.
But no.
No, it's not colored or bleached or anything.
No, not at all.
But anyway, I can never do it right.
When she does my hair, it's great.
And then I can walk around for a full 24 hours, wear headsets, whatever.
And the hair is just, it's permanently fixed.
It's perfect.
But when I do it, it gets destroyed.
Does anyone give a shit?
I don't know if they do or not.
I just brought it up because I thought people would be interested if they ever saw you that maybe they wouldn't have that jump thing that everyone else does.
But it's not true.
People jump because I'm 6'4".
To most people, I'm a giant.
So they see this dashing, handsome...
Young man.
Maybe that's why they're jumping, you know?
Maybe it's, you know, they're having some sort of a surge.
I think people jump when they see you, too, if you want to, you know, really get into it.
Yeah, because, you know, you're not like a small guy.
There's a big man with this wavy kind of white hair, and, you know, and you're always, you kind of walk with that.
No, well, my hair's not white.
Yeah, it is.
No, it's not.
What do you call it?
If it was white, it would be white.
It is white.
It's like white.
You call it blonde?
Yeah.
Yeah, we call it blonde.
It's more blonde than white.
Come on, it's white.
It's like old guy white, you know?
It's not really old.
Old guy white is usually a salt and pepper look.
No, not dashing old guy.
I mean like old old guy.
Hey man, again, let's just take a moment and praise the hair gods that we still have hair.
Yeah, most of my friends don't have any hair.
Exactly.
You know, they all bitch about it.
Of course they do.
So we need to shut up and just be really happy.
And you know what you're not supposed to do?
Is when you haven't seen one of your old buddies for a long time, you don't go up to them and the first thing you say is, Cripes, you're getting bald.
No, that's not a great conversation starter after a couple of years.
So...
I have had that though, man.
You know, where you see someone after like maybe even four or five years and they've grown so drastically old in just that short amount of time that you...
And bald.
And bald.
And your mouth just like is fucking drops open and you know that they've realized it, that they can see it in your eyes.
Have you had that happen?
It's just the most horrible feeling because you're like, you want to say you look great, but you're like, you look like fucking shit, dude.
You look horrible.
What happened?
I literally, like two or three years ago, I had that happen.
I met up with a buddy in New York who I hadn't seen for like five years.
And it just freaked me out.
You've never had that?
Come on.
You must see to have that happen.
I think more people do that when they see me.
Exactly.
Exactly.
Okay, so what else?
Do we have anything to talk about this week?
You know, I took no notes, so I don't have any of these crazy...
I got a couple things.
I wrote a few.
Um...
I found out, and maybe this is common knowledge, but this surge they did in Iraq where I guess we put in 30,000 extra troops, and that was the so-called surge, and then they were going to pull that back.
Yeah, what about it?
I'm reading that it was 30,000 U.S. servicemen, but that we hired like 70,000 militias.
And I'm looking at the footage and I'm seeing the Iraqi army, right?
And they even have different uniforms.
They've got like the...
Almost like the U.S. style camouflage, you know, kind of that gray and black instead of the kind of the oil drab Iraqi army stuff.
And they just, like a whole totally different kind of dudes.
And I'm hearing all kinds of reports about, you know, how good or not good this is.
Have you heard anything about this?
No, you know, that comes and goes in and out of the news.
But probably, you know, we have been using a lot of mercenaries.
And those are the guys who take no prisoners, as it were.
What's a lot, John?
What do you think a lot is?
Do you mean a lot of people or a lot of times I've heard about this?
No, a lot of people.
So if we hire a lot, are you saying we do that as a country in general a lot or we have a lot of them?
I think it's been our policy.
I think it's been recently as of late.
I think the Roman Empire did something similar.
Yeah.
You know, that's where we take our cues from.
To have these mercenaries do the dirty work, they get paid really well.
Meanwhile, our own soldiers get screwed and have to go by the military code.
These other guys don't.
And I don't know, the whole thing is sketchy.
You know, there'll be a good book about it eventually.
I do want to mention something, though.
That is so cold, dude.
The whole Iraq war.
There'll be a good book about it eventually.
Someday.
It'll make for good reading.
Oh, crap.
I'm sorry.
What can you do?
I mean, you can't do anything.
So, but talking about the camouflage, you don't realize that they've come up with these computerized camouflage outfits, right?
You know about this?
No, not at all.
Oh yeah, well they have these, and you see them once around in the Bay Area, some soldiers will be around to be wearing them.
They don't do you any good in the Bay Area, but they've developed these new computerized models and they custom make these camouflage outfits and it makes you literally disappear into a background.
And somebody was telling me about the one that looks like it's just a really weird pattern.
I've seen it a couple of times on some people.
And it's really cool looking.
It's mostly like looks pixelated.
It's little dot, you know, squares and stuff all over the outfit.
And there's one that makes you look like you can't see a person if they're walking in the desert.
Now, I was a little skeptical about this, but I was watching, I think it was my stepson Eric that was telling me about this initially, and then I think I was watching something with him on, it was like some interview, somebody doing in Baghdad or out in some place, there was a desert behind him, and he pointed out to me that in the background you could see people walking, and all you saw were their heads.
I swear to God, you could see nothing.
Now, when you say computerized, it's not actually changing based on its surroundings.
It's just a computer has designed this particular pattern?
Yeah.
The computer has designed the pattern.
Cool.
And I swear to God, you look back there, because it was way in the back, but all you saw were these little black dots.
These little black dots, they were heads, but clearly they were heads, and you'd see them moving around, but they were not hooked to anything.
It must have something to do with the way the brain parses the information or something.
Yeah, no, I think so, but it's really a remarkable new technology, and it hasn't really gotten a lot of play, but I think it would have some other kinds of uses, I mean, like hunters, and maybe if you want to walk down some street in San Francisco and you don't want to be seen, I don't know.
How about when I'm hanging out in the park at night and I don't want to be seen?
Yeah, it probably worked great.
I only wanted to see the heads, that's all.
Anyway, that's my story.
No, I got nothing on the Iraq War.
I did enjoy, in fact, I played one of his bits, not the one you sent me, The Kid from Brooklyn.
Oh, right.
I can't remember his name.
The big man?
It's thekidfrombrooklyn.com.
Oh, The Kid from Brooklyn.
I thought you were talking about those DVDs I gave you.
No, no, I haven't even had time to look at those.
I apologize.
Oh, watch them on the way over.
Yeah, The Kid from Brooklyn, right.
That guy's awesome.
That guy is...
People have to go see.
I was going to blog it, but it was so offensive.
Yeah, but he has other ones.
He has other really funny ones.
I mean, yeah, he does have a couple that are incredibly offensive, but, you know...
So it's called TheKidFromBrooklyn.com, or is it just TheKidFromBrooklyn on YouTube?
No, it's TheKidFromBrooklyn.com, and he actually charges for that, John.
He's making money on that.
Really?
Well, I don't know if he's making money.
He's charging.
Well, we need to make money.
Two bucks a month or something like that.
That's not a bad deal.
I signed up.
I'm like, this guy's just too funny.
I have to see his shit.
He's just too fucking funny.
Yeah, he is funny.
He's good.
So I guess he's running for president.
No, no.
He's withdrawn now.
Oh.
He's endorsing Obama.
You should have heard his riff on Cheney, though.
It was so good.
I'll send a couple to you.
So, yeah, he was funny.
I thought he was a good contrast to that kind of erudite British character who rants about...
Pat Condell or whatever it is.
Pat Condell?
Connell?
I don't know.
What is his name?
I think it's Condell.
Yeah.
Yeah, I've heard him a few times.
He reminds me exactly of a television producer I know.
It really freaks me out whenever I see him like, oh no.
It can't be that guy.
Hmm.
So let's see, what else is in the news?
Anything that's of interest internationally?
Except the weather.
Well, I don't want to bore you with finance stuff.
What's the finance stuff?
I had a finance thought the other day.
You go.
Well, and I was thinking that, you know, I think the dollar's sinking.
There's an anomaly going on.
It's 158.5 at the present time.
I think they're going to push it to almost two, and then they're going to pull the plug on it, and then it's going to go into reverse so fast that you won't know what the hell happened.
You mean up?
Yeah, the dollar.
And here's what the deal is.
They're trying to screw China.
I'm convinced of this.
China will not budge on linking their money to the dollar.
So we decide to screw the dollar up so much that the Chinese have to unlink, because now there's talk about the Chinese hooking up to the euro.
Yeah, and they want to dump all of their, like a trillion dollars back into the marketplace.
Eh, let them.
Okay.
And then what?
How exactly do you take the value of the dollar up again?
What is the economic...
Well, how about this for an idea?
The economics of the situation as it now exists is untenable.
I mean, you can't...
The exports of Europe are falling like a rock.
Americans are actually producing enough stuff to actually start exporting mostly to Europe, obviously, not to China.
And, you know, we have a tourist trade over here now that's astonishing, even though there's a pain in the butt to get through the immigration.
And...
It's just a matter of, you know, what is something worth?
And why can somebody from...
Here's a good question that you have to ask yourself.
Why does somebody come from...
Say I'm in Paris right now.
I go into a Paris wine store.
And there's a bottle of wine selling for 35 euros.
And I go to the United States and that exact same bottle of wine is selling for the equivalent of 20 euros.
And it's a French wine.
Does anybody see that this is like something wrong with this picture?
Or is it just me?
It's untenable.
That's the point I'm trying to make.
It's untenable.
The whole thing is rigged to screw the Chinese.
So let's see what happens.
Okay, so screwing the Chinese, how?
Here's how you screw them.
They won't unlink from our dollar.
So okay, fine.
Let's run the dollar down to $2 a euro.
Why do we want them to unlink?
Because if they link to something else, because they're low-balling us on everything.
They're selling stuff for next to nothing, and it's ridiculous.
I mean, you can't compete with them.
They've taken over 75% of the world's manufacturing, and it's basically because it's all subsidized.
And if we try to say, well, you know, the typical way you'd balance your export and imports is that you'd devalue your money a little bit to make, you know, to get things kind of on an even keel.
But every time you keep lowering the value of the dollar in any way, shape or form, the Chinese is linked to it.
Yeah, we're cheap too.
We're cheap too.
So they take and go into the toilet with us, but at some point somebody says, this is ridiculous.
This dollar is going to be useless.
Let's link to the euro.
So they link to the euro.
Let's say it's at the two to one mark.
Once they de-link from the dollar, now we can start running the dollar's value back up and leave those guys in the dust.
All of a sudden, they will naturally have revalued their money.
Okay, but John, wait a minute.
If the dollar continues to fall, won't we have some kind of domino effect where everyone starts dumping their dollars to get into the euro?
Won't that just really accelerate it and could ruin it?
Why would it ruin it?
I think it would make it better.
I'd love to hear why.
It makes our goods cheaper on the open market worldwide.
What's wrong with that?
What goods?
Well, we do produce automobiles and heavy machinery and jets and multi-million dollar aircraft that sells for like a lot of money and it competes with the European stuff.
Airbus is losing their ass because of the fact that the dollar is so cheap and we can sell Boeing jets so much cheaper.
It's killing people.
Yeah, now for the most part we're still buying too much junk from China, but that's the only thing that's been ruining us.
Is that, you know, the Chinese have kind of taken over our manufacturing of the lesser goods.
Okay, well this is really interesting.
This is really interesting because this is something I've been talking about.
So, if consumers would have just stopped buying goods from China, would that also solve the problem?
Well, it's impossible, actually.
But let's just say, in a perfect world.
But that's never going to happen.
It's an impractical concept.
I mean, if we stop the globalization, yeah, maybe.
Or if China falls apart, you know, that probably would do the trick, too.
But, you know, which is going to happen the way they're going.
But the, I mean, they're coming apart at the seams, it seems to me.
This Olympics thing is becoming a fiasco.
Yeah, that's a problem.
Where's that going to end up?
When did the Olympics start, actually?
I think in about four years.
Come on, man.
I guess it's October or something like that.
I think it's coming up.
I want to see.
IOC.org, I presume.
No, it must be this summer because it has to be.
It's the Summer Olympics, so it's got to be like in July.
And I want to be in Beijing running around a track in July in China with all that stuff.
The air there is horrible.
How the hell do they get the stewardship?
It's all corrupt.
You know, if you look at paintings from China, it's really interesting to compare paintings from China and paintings from Vietnam, for example.
Vietnam and the Chinese both paint Western art now.
And the Vietnamese, if you want to have stuff made by, you know, one of these job shops down there, you go to Vietnam because the skies in Vietnam are gorgeous.
I wondered, until I went there, I didn't realize it, but I knew that Vietnamese painted clouds better than probably any other people.
And so if you have a picture that you want to copy and it has a lot of clouds in it, the Vietnamese will knock it out.
And the reason is because they have all these beautiful clouds in the sky all the time.
You look at the Chinese art that's actually made in China.
I have a bunch of original pieces done by some Chinese artists.
The skies are always white.
I think there's parts of China where they've never seen Blue.
It's always white.
It's just a white mass.
You don't see any clouds.
You don't see the blue sky.
It's just as white.
It's like being in Los Angeles back in the 70s.
It's horrible.
8th of August, opening date.
Hopefully.
Starts to enter the monsoon season.
That could be good for a laugh.
Oh, that's in Beijing.
I don't think they have monsoons there.
I have no idea.
Have you ever been to Beijing?
Oh yeah, a couple times.
What's it like?
What city is it most like?
Well, it used to be pretty singular Beijing-ish, but then now it's starting to look like Shanghai, and so it's not as cool as it once was.
But it doesn't resemble anything in Europe.
It's pretty...
China in itself has got a singular quality that is...
They've got a whole different world over there, don't they, John?
It's a different country.
But it's really, really different.
It's really, really amazingly different.
And how little do we actually know of their culture?
Well, there's a lot of Chinese around.
They'd love to tell you about their culture.
It's not hard to uncover.
They don't have a complex culture like the Japanese where they have the two faces and they act a certain way and all that other stuff.
It's not so complicated that you can't deal with it.
I'll tell you this.
I think I may have mentioned this on an early show.
So I'm sitting at lunch with some Chinese...
In Palo Alto that were showing me some stuff from Acer out of Taiwan.
And the conversation turned to China because I like going there.
It's kind of cool.
And the woman was moaning about something.
She's, I guess, a Taiwanese or maybe an American.
She was complaining.
And I said, I always have a great time there.
I always have a great time.
She says, yeah, it's because you're white.
No, I don't think you've told me that one.
Yeah, she says it's because you're white.
She says if you're, especially an American, and you're in like Shanghai or Beijing, they fall all over themselves because they want to improve their American English, they think America's great, you know, they have all these crazy things, you know, they just, they kiss your ass.
And so you always have a pretty good time if you're white.
And she said, but if you're like Chinese...
You know, especially if you're not a Chinese from China, they just make your life miserable, she says.
I don't know.
Okay, so what you're saying is that in general, the typical Chinese person really aspires to have a life like us in the West?
I think there's an element to that.
I mean, the first time I went to China, which was...
Come on in, boys.
Come check it out.
You'll have a grand old time.
First time I went to China, which was, I don't know, 15 years ago or so, and I was with a group and I had to listen to the lectures.
And the Chinese were very adamant about copying aspects of American capitalism and lifestyle.
I mean, they just announced it.
Interesting.
Well...
I don't know if you're lying about it.
There's evidence...
I'm sorry you dropped out there, John.
What'd you say?
I'm just saying I don't think they were lying about it.
I do think that their interpretation's a little different than what we would actually do.
Yeah, maybe, perhaps it's what they see on television?
I think there's that element.
And they have a lot of Chinese over here.
I mean, again, they go back and forth, and so it's not like it's a...
Dude, the Chinese are everywhere.
Yeah, they're taking over Africa.
That's actually the news that needs to be followed.
Hmm.
South Africa?
North Africa?
All of Africa.
What are they doing?
Wait a minute.
That's our natural resources.
We're the ones supposed to be fucking that up.
How come they get to jump in?
Yeah, because they don't have the political correctness gene that we do, so they do a lot of dirty deals to screw the natives.
And I first heard about this.
This was about...
Not to generalize or anything, John.
I'm generalizing from what I've been told.
Okay.
I don't know, because I haven't...
I talk to a lot of guys who go back and forth to Africa a lot, and nobody's denied this.
But...
I first heard about this, I think it was maybe three or four years ago, first time.
I was up in Windsor, Canada, giving a talk to, of all people, kind of the remnants of the OS2 community.
And there was a bunch of hot shots there, including one of the mainstays of PHP, and then there was a couple Germans, and then one guy from Germany was telling me about how the Germans have been kind of pushed out of Africa by the Chinese who come in with these sweet deals, and then they bring all their own people in, and then they build their own cities, and then the next thing you know, they're pushing all of what they do.
He claimed, and I was denied this either, they do the following.
They open up a big contract to build a dam.
And then they buy patent, and then because they need all this equipment, like from computers to everything in the world to build the dam, they bring all that stuff in duty-free into this country.
And then they start selling it on the grain market.
Hey, do you think the whole Mugabe situation has anything to do with the Chinese?
Do you think they had to deal with him?
Oh, that's a known fact.
Anyway, so they bring this stuff, and it goes like, the way the thing works, the way the German guy explained it to me, he says, you have a legitimate company coming in from Germany selling, for example, power supplies and computers.
They go through the channels, they have to pay the duties, they got to do all these things, the computer comes out at a bunch of, it costs a fortune.
the Chinese come in through the back door with all this gear they bring in because they're doing this big dam or they're building some civic center or something.
And they bring all this crap in and then they lowball the Germans and put them out of business.
Those rat bastards.
And nobody does anything about it.
And he says, and this is the worst part about it is the crap they're bringing in is garbage.
So it's blowing up all the time and the power supplies are no good.
That's the thing we got to watch out for.
I agree, man, because it does seem like there seems to be a lot of issues with products manufactured in China.
Yeah, there is.
Now, he says the kicker is, and he says what makes it really work for them is they never officially finish the projects.
There's always something.
And so they keep bringing the stuff in through the back door, and then they dump it into the economy as opposed to using it.
The dam.
And the next thing you know, they've taken over the place because all the little businesses, either local or from Germany, United States, or wherever else they are.
They're all out of business.
They can't compete with these Chinese.
So what they do, I guess they do, is it, there must be Chinese government then?
Or is it, it can't be big commercial multinationals?
You know, I haven't been able to pin this down.
Who's doing this?
Who are these, I mean, so, who's doing the deal with who?
Obviously with guys like Mugabe.
So you have, how many presidents do you have in Africa?
Maybe 18?
I don't know.
I don't know.
It's happening everywhere.
I was just watching it on BBC. They were talking about how they're taking over, like, another Mozambique or something.
Now, the thing is, who is doing this is an interesting question, because you don't know at what level this is being instigated.
A large part of it, it's coming from, you know, there's a group of Chinese, you know, and this is another discussion you can get into with Chinese, and I'm going to get some email.
Well, you know, you're generalizing.
I may be generalizing, but I'm not generalizing from not having at least checked it out.
John, John, John, you have credibility, my friend.
No worries.
I got your back.
So anyway, so here's the way it shakes out.
There's a bunch of cultural things going on in China as to how the Chinese are going to do business in the world of business, the global world.
Initially, everybody believed that what was going to happen is that because the Taiwanese had developed all these great connections all over the world and are kind of fairly honest businessmen, by some standards, they may not be completely, but they're pretty good.
Because we work with them all the time.
For decades.
America has had me in time for a long time.
And they were going to influence how China does business.
But there's another group of Chinese businessmen, the Malaysian Chinese, who are the guys who are the real cut...
The minute you said cutthroat, Skype cutout.
Easy does it, man.
They're listening in.
Cutthroat characters.
Anyway, they are...
The nasty, I mean, they really are the capitalists, and they seem to be getting more and more influence because they do bigger deals, they have better profits, they do all kinds of stuff that just makes these, you know, the Taiwanese are wimps by comparison in terms of the world-class, you know, cutthroat business deals.
And the Malaysian Chinese seem to have something to do with this Africa deal, I think.
And the Malaysian Chinese are rough customers.
I mean, they're the ones who, you know, they're probably a lot of triad.
They have to be kind of rough customers to... ...there.
And the government's always threatening to kick the Chinese out of Malaysia.
And otherwise it'd be a Muslim country like Indonesia.
But the Chinese have so owned Malaysia in terms of the fact that it wouldn't operate on this level it's at.
You wouldn't have those twin towers, the Petronas Towers or anything going on without these Chinese...
And I've met more than a few of them and they are...
What kind of business are they in typically, John?
Is it all manufacturing?
No, no.
Newspapers, manufacturing, import-export, everything.
Nothing is beyond them.
It almost sounds like one of those science fiction movies, kind of like Schwarzenegger deal where you've got all these really shady characters lurking in bars, all different ethnic looks and stuff.
You know what I mean?
Yeah, I know what you mean, but they tend to be in first class hotels and driving around big Mercedes, Rolls Royces, and that type of thing.
They're very showy.
And then there's the other group, which is the Hong Kong Chinese.
But I think they've been marginalized, and essentially Hong Kong has been turned to Switzerland.
It's essentially a banking community.
And the action for international trade has been shifted up to Shanghai from Hong Kong.
And Hong Kong, if you go there now, it's very expensive.
When I was a kid, you could go to Hong Kong and buy cheap cameras.
I mean, everything was inexpensive.
And then all of a sudden, I don't like going there.
Say that last part again.
It's expensive.
I mean, it's like really expensive.
Yeah.
I'm sorry.
Is our connection crapped out?
Yeah, I was just listening.
I was really tuning into what you were saying and it crapped out once or twice.
But it's okay.
I mean, it was easily followable.
Yeah, no, anyway, the point is, if somebody wants to go visit China, I tell everyone, just get on a plane.
But all these things you're telling me, and I'm just kind of reflecting in thought here, this seems to be a problem.
Oh, it's huge.
It's a huge problem.
But we seem to be like everyone is sucking up to the Chinese.
We're taking their sovereign wealth funds.
We continue to have an insatiable appetite for products made in China.
I don't know.
It feels like that's kind of weird.
Not a lot of people talk about it that way.
It's really too bad.
If people talked about it more, I think it would help resolve some of the problems.
You know, the thing is, I keep telling people, just go to China, will you?
I mean, the problem we have in this country is the media gives us a skewed perspective of China.
Some people, including Dan Rather himself, still call it Red China, as if everyone's wearing Mao costumes.
You know, some years ago, I went to Beijing.
I think it was the first time I went to Beijing.
It was with PC computing or something.
A whole little group of us.
And what we wanted to do, and this was a while ago.
This was like 96, 97, 96.
What we wanted to do, because we'd never been there before, or to Beijing.
I think it was my first trip to Beijing.
I'd been to Hong Kong and Taiwan a million times.
And...
We wanted to get a Mao outfit.
You know, like one of those Mao things.
It'd be kind of cool.
You'd look great in that.
You'd look kind of like a heavier version of the master in Grasshopper.
Time to snatch the pebbles from my hands.
You'd look fantastic.
You should wear that to work.
So anyway, you can't find them anywhere.
And I'm thinking, well, there's a tourist.
They don't take advantage of the tourist opportunities here.
They haven't worn those things, apparently, we're told, you know, for what, 20 years?
And everyone looked at us like we're crazy to even want one.
These things have all been shipped to the, you know, they've all been sent out to the middle of nowhere for farmers to use if they can't find any clothes just for free.
souvenir level, high souvenir level, like a Mao jacket.
You couldn't get it, and I think it's probably still true today.
In fact, we ended up finding someone who knew someone who knew someone who had access to some Mao Zedong posters, some classics, the picture, that big portrait, the one that's a copy of the one in Tiananmen Square.
Yeah, sure.
And they gave us a big roll of them for free that they took from the library or someplace that, you know, somebody, they were going to throw them out or whatever, because they weren't selling those either.
And so we took, everyone got one of these, you know, posters and took them home and framed them.
They were actually quite funny.
That's probably worth something.
And baffled by the whole thing.
You know, they didn't know how to deal with, you know, any of this.
It was baffling to the Chinese that anyone would want this.
So they didn't get the whole, you know, what tourists are.
I don't know where I was going with that story, but...
That's alright.
That's really interesting.
Now I've got a feeling I've got to go to China.
No, that's what I was saying.
The story was about, I keep telling people, just go to China.
Don't watch the news reports.
The news reports are all inaccurate.
Just get on a plane, and a good flight, by the way, is Vancouver to Shanghai.
Great flight.
Short.
It's like, I don't know, it's like six hours or something.
It's really short.
It's usually filled with a bunch of Chinese businessmen.
But it's a great flight, Vancouver to Shanghai, because they're both up high on the latitude.
How long does it take to get from San Francisco to Vancouver?
Like three hours?
No, it's got to be more than No, it's about a two hour ride.
Wait a minute, so you can get to Shanghai in eight hours?
You know, I might be a little short on that, but yeah, I think so.
I think you can get to Shanghai pretty quick.
If you get up to Vancouver, you can get to Shanghai.
Not from London, man.
From London, it's like three days.
Actually, London going over the top, it may not be as far as you think.
Shanghai is up there.
That's true, that's true.
I'll have to look at that.
Check it out.
I bet you could get there in ten hours.
Well, that's like the same from here to San Francisco.
Yeah, you can go to Shanghai instead.
That sounds like a good plan.
I mean, I'll tell you, the place is unbelievable.
People just need to go.
It's cheap.
It's dirt cheap.
And one of my favorite anecdotes is, okay, and this is my comparison.
This is the difference between the westernized world and China.
You can go to Hong Kong and go to the airport.
And the Hong Kong airport, which is all Western prices and is an expensive place, and you buy a Coca-Cola at any of the stalls there stands.
By the way, it's a beautiful airport.
And it's a buck fifty.
At least it was the last time I went there.
I don't like going there.
So then I bought a Coke.
It's a buck fifty.
Same Coke.
It's made from the same factory.
You go into the mainland.
You go to wherever you land.
I don't care where it is.
You go into the airport area and you buy a Coca-Cola in the mainland.
Same Coke.
Same factory.
Same everything.
Eighteen cents.
So you have a buck fifty, which is what you'd normally be paying anyplace else in the world.
You go to China, it's 18 cents, you know, in China.
And that's the way all the prices are there.
You can buy anything you want.
You can stay in the best hotels.
I mean, it's a dirt cheap experience.
And I keep telling people because they need to see China while they can.
You know, China is always up for shutting down.
You gotta go there.
Just take a flight from Vancouver to Shanghai.
That's your absolute best entertainment value.
And, you know, go for a weekend.
I mean, you know, people go to Paris for the weekend, but nobody ever thinks of going to Shanghai for the weekend.
I got it, John.
All of a sudden, it hit me.
I know how we're gonna be rich doing this show.
We've got to package tours.
Go to Shanghai and we'll give you stuff you load up on your phone with your GPS. You can hear the story about a particular restaurant.
We'll give you all the directions.
Of course, we'll have discount coupons.
Hookers are us for 20% off if you use my GoDaddy code.
And this could really be a good business.
Well, I'll tell you, there's a lot to do in Shanghai, that's for sure.
And the restaurants are fantastic.
Everything's inexpensive.
The place is polluted, of course, but it's beautiful.
It's absolutely beautiful.
I mean, the architecture is first class, you know, all done by the best firms in the world.
And how about the people?
Are you a guy who hangs out with the people or you hang out with the Shanghai PC Magazine editor?
I would hang out with the Shanghai PC Magazine editor.
What do I have in common with the people?
Well, don't you have to learn about the people and talk to them?
That's what I like doing.
You just want to go to the fancy restaurants?
Yeah, well, you know, to be honest about it.
Yes.
Ah, yeah.
You know, just in an ancillary way, there's no way you can avoid the people because the whole place is crowded with, you know, I mean, it's all people.
So you end up learning quite a bit.
And they're very helpful, by the way.
We'll save some of my more amusing Chinese, some of my more favorite...
You get a lot of stories out of going to China, I can tell you that much.
Well, I'll tell you, I enjoyed listening to it, and it's really put China in a whole new light for me, particularly this Africa thing.
I think we should look into that a little bit.
Because, you know, if we don't tell people, who will?
Apparently nobody.
You didn't even know Gordon Brown was in the U.S. That's the rare media he is.
I mean, what can I say?
I mean, it's really gotten pathetic.
And, you know, the thing that's interesting is the media knows this.
They sit around and fret about it.
But they don't seem to be able to do anything about it because it's like one of those things that's like good taste.
If you don't have it, you don't miss it.
So, for all practical purposes, they know that this is going on, the media people, but they don't know what to do about it because they can't do anything about it because they don't have any...
Yeah.
But, John?
I don't know.
Do you have the solution?
Do you know what we need to do to fix this?
Yeah, blogging.
Really?
You think that's going to do it?
No, it's not going to do anything.
So, is there a solution?
Is there a fix?
No, I don't think there is a fix.
I think we have to reset the whole system, which I think is going to happen in a couple of years when we have our depression.
Should we talk about that next time?
The depression?
And fixing it.
Yeah, maybe we can try.
Maybe somebody can send us some suggestions.
Although, you know, the suggestions are always going to be the same, which is like, you know...
Talk about Twitter more.
Yeah.
Or less.
Or less.
No, no.
This is an important step, although I am a little bit saddened that you didn't give me any credit for actually getting you onto Twitter.
I do think I was the guy that pushed you over the edge eventually.
You think so?
Yes, of course.
All right, well, I'll give you the credit.
Thanks to you that I'm on Twitter, TheRealDvorak is the name.
It doesn't feel the same anymore.
Okay, well, forget it.
I'm sorry.
I know you're oversensitive.
People don't realize that about you.
All right, John.
Hey, we should see if we can hook up for dinner.
Maybe Thursday night, maybe?
Thursday night would probably be good.
Okay.
Then I'll have been in town for a couple days, so I won't be so knackered.
Okay.
All right.
Okay, and for all the rest of you, I'm Adam Curry here in the United Kingdom in the Curry Manor.
And I'm John C. Dvorak.
Catchmedvorak.org slash blog.
Thought I'd throw that in.
And I'm up here in sunny Northern California.
I'm going to go shopping at the Farmer's Market.
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