Podcasts about ma bell

Google has been found to have an "illegal monopoly" by the Department of Justice, and now there's talk that the US government might break them up into smaller companies like Ma Bell back in the day. This could include them being forced to sell off Android, AdWords, Chrome and more. How about YouTube? ➡️ Tip Jar and Fan Support: http://ClownfishSupport.com ➡️ Official Merch Store: http://ShopClownfish.com ➡️ Official Website: http://ClownfishTV.com ➡️ Audio Edition: https://open.spotify.com/show/6qJc5C6OkQkaZnGCeuVOD1 The government may consider breaking up Google due to concerns over its monopoly in the online search market and potential impact on competition and other successful businesses. 00:00 The government may try to break up Google due to its monopoly on search, but the implications of this for other successful companies are concerning. 01:15 Google may be broken up by the government for stifling competition and Congress needs to address the impact on internet and websites, as Google's search algorithm change has decreased traffic and revenue for external websites. 02:41 The government may break up Google due to concerns over its monopoly in the online search market and potential lawsuits for using snippets of other people's work. 04:06 Government could break up Google like they did with Bell Telephone due to competition and high prices for long distance calls. 05:08 The government may break up Google by forcing it to divest its Android operating system and Chrome web browser, and seeking restrictions on its use of exclusivity agreements to prevent unfair advantage. 07:14 Government may break up Google due to monopoly and questionable deals with service providers and Apple, potentially leading to government intervention in successful businesses. 09:44 The government may not break up Google despite concerns over their monopolistic practices and potential intervention. 11:54 Google may face government breakup, stay tuned for more updates on pop culture news. About Us: Clownfish TV is an independent, opinionated news and commentary channel that covers Entertainment and Tech from a consumer's point of view. We talk about Gaming, Comics, Anime, TV, Movies, Animation and more. Hosted by Kneon and Geeky Sparkles. Disclaimer: This series is produced by Clownfish Studios and WebReef Media, and is part of ClownfishTV.com. Opinions expressed by our contributors do not necessarily reflect the views of our guests, affiliates, sponsors, or advertisers. ClownfishTV.com is an unofficial news source and has no connection to any company that we may cover. This channel and website and the content made available through this site are for educational, entertainment and informational purposes only. These so-called “fair uses” are permitted even if the use of the work would otherwise be infringing. #Tech #Google #YouTube #News #Commentary #Reaction #Podcast #Comedy #Entertainment #Hollywood #PopCulture #Tech

Send us a Text Message.Ma Bell was developed 8 years ago and has undergone some slight changes thru the years. She writes her own songs with some co-writers and loves to entertain at Churches and Nursing home bring some smiles and music to the masses. But y'all stay tuned, Ma Bell is heading to the changes again, incorporating new style,differant type show and more songs on the way!!!Facebook @Mabellinstagram@mabellwebsite coming!!Support the Show.The David Bradley ShowHost: David Bradleyhttps://www.facebook.com/100087472238854https://youtube.com/@thedavidbradleyshowwww.thedavidbradleyshow.com Like to be a guestContact Usjulie@thedavidbradleyshow.comRecorded at Bradley StudiosProduced by: Caitlin BackesProud Member of CMASPONSERSBottled Water and Sweet Tea provided by PURITY DairyABlaze Entertainment

Step into a world where fun, mischief, music, and laughter collide with Ma Bell, the vivacious onstage persona of today's podcast guest. With a mix of charm and wit, Ma Bell embodies the spirit of "You're Never Too Old to Dream." Her performances are an invitation to embrace joy, celebrate life, and revel in the magic of music. Join Ma Bell on her whimsical journey, where every moment is filled with endless possibilities and contagious laughter. Kathy Bell is the brains behind Ma Bell and she is Someone You Should Know. Tip Jar:Click here to buy the Rik Anthony a cold one.Show Links:Click here to go to Ma Bell's FacebookClick here to go to Ma Bell's TikTokClick here to go to Ma Bell's InstagramClick here to go to Ma Bell's YouTube channelAll music used by permission from the artistSomeone You Should Know 2024 // CatGotYourTongueStudios 2024How to Contact Us:Official Website: https://Someoneyoushouldknowpodcast.comGmail: Someoneyoushouldknowpodcast@gmail.comTwitter: @RIKANTHONY1Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/rikanthonyInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/someoneyoushouldknowpodcast/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rik-anthony2019/TikTok: @SomeoneYouShouldKnow2023YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@someoneyoushouldknowpodcastThank you for listening!Theme music "Welcome to the Show" by Kevin MacLeod was used per the standard license agreement.

The boys are baking their bones by the stove again in this episode that covers everything from cross-bred bulldogs to the UKC Tournament of Champions. Steve is on the road for a couple of weeks to New Jersey for family time and some fly fishing.  The only dogs he'll see is the daughter's hound/pit bull mix and the family Dachshund Louie who accompanies Ella everywhere.  But the combined efforts of Ma Bell and Al Gore provide the opportunity to keep Gone To The Dogs on schedule while on the long and winding road. The boys discuss the format, breed breakdowns and the ambiance that makes the TOC the premier coonhound event that it is, an event that boasts a purse of $250,000 distributed among winners at the finals held on the weekend following the airing of this episode.  The overall winner captures $50 grand!  Who would have thunk it?Things get interesting, even humorous, when the boys throw another chunk in the stove to discuss recent posts on the Coon Hunting Conversations Facebook group page.  Moving stud dogs around the country, deep-and-lonely dogs being born that way or manmade and what is seemingly causing smaller heads in some coonhounds.  It's all here and as the cliched phrase admonishes, “You won't want to miss this one.”  Heck, we don't want you to miss any of them.   Give that log a little more air, son.

The boys are baking their bones by the stove again in this episode that covers everything from cross-bred bulldogs to the UKC Tournament of Champions.  Steve is on the road for a couple of weeks to New Jersey for family time and some fly fishing. The only dogs he'll see is the daughter's hound/pit bull mix and the family Dachshund Louie who accompanies Ella everywhere. But the combined efforts of Ma Bell and Al Gore provide the opportunity to keep Gone To The Dogs on schedule while on the long and winding road.  The boys discuss the format, breed breakdowns and the ambiance that makes the TOC the premier coonhound event that it is, an event that boasts a purse of $250,000 distributed among winners at the finals held on the weekend following the airing of this episode. The overall winner captures $50 grand! Who would have thunk it? Things get interesting, even humorous, when the boys throw another chunk in the stove to discuss recent posts on the Coon Hunting Conversations Facebook group page. Moving stud dogs around the country, deep-and-lonely dogs being born that way or manmade and what is seemingly causing smaller heads in some coonhounds. It's all here and as the cliched phrase admonishes, “You won't want to miss this one.” Heck, we don't want you to miss any of them. Give that log a little more air, son. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Steve is on the road for a couple of weeks to New Jersey for family time and some fly fishing.  The only dogs he'll see is the daughter's hound/pit bull mix and the family Dachshund Louie who accompanies Ella everywhere.  But the combined efforts of Ma Bell and Al Gore provide the opportunity to keep Gone To The Dogs on schedule while on the long and winding road. The boys discuss the format, breed breakdowns and the ambiance that makes the TOC the premier coonhound event that it is, an event that boasts a purse of $250,000 distributed among winners at the finals held on the weekend following the airing of this episode.  The overall winner captures $50 grand!  Who would have thunk it?Things get interesting, even humorous, when the boys throw another chunk in the stove to discuss recent posts on the Coon Hunting Conversations Facebook group page.  Moving stud dogs around the country, deep-and-lonely dogs being born that way or manmade and what is seemingly causing smaller heads in some coonhounds.  It's all here and as the cliched phrase admonishes, “You won't want to miss this one.”  Heck, we don't want you to miss any of them.   Give that log a little more air, son.  

The boys are baking their bones by the stove again in this episode that covers everything from cross-bred bulldogs to the UKC Tournament of Champions. Steve is on the road for a couple of weeks to New Jersey for family time and some fly fishing.  The only dogs he'll see is the daughter's hound/pit bull mix and the family Dachshund Louie who accompanies Ella everywhere.  But the combined efforts of Ma Bell and Al Gore provide the opportunity to keep Gone To The Dogs on schedule while on the long and winding road. The boys discuss the format, breed breakdowns and the ambiance that makes the TOC the premier coonhound event that it is, an event that boasts a purse of $250,000 distributed among winners at the finals held on the weekend following the airing of this episode.  The overall winner captures $50 grand!  Who would have thunk it?Things get interesting, even humorous, when the boys throw another chunk in the stove to discuss recent posts on the Coon Hunting Conversations Facebook group page.  Moving stud dogs around the country, deep-and-lonely dogs being born that way or manmade and what is seemingly causing smaller heads in some coonhounds.  It's all here and as the cliched phrase admonishes, “You won't want to miss this one.”  Heck, we don't want you to miss any of them.   Give that log a little more air, son.

Steve is on the road for a couple of weeks to New Jersey for family time and some fly fishing.  The only dogs he'll see is the daughter's hound/pit bull mix and the family Dachshund Louie who accompanies Ella everywhere.  But the combined efforts of Ma Bell and Al Gore provide the opportunity to keep Gone To The Dogs on schedule while on the long and winding road. The boys discuss the format, breed breakdowns and the ambiance that makes the TOC the premier coonhound event that it is, an event that boasts a purse of $250,000 distributed among winners at the finals held on the weekend following the airing of this episode.  The overall winner captures $50 grand!  Who would have thunk it?Things get interesting, even humorous, when the boys throw another chunk in the stove to discuss recent posts on the Coon Hunting Conversations Facebook group page.  Moving stud dogs around the country, deep-and-lonely dogs being born that way or manmade and what is seemingly causing smaller heads in some coonhounds.  It's all here and as the cliched phrase admonishes, “You won't want to miss this one.”  Heck, we don't want you to miss any of them.   Give that log a little more air, son.  

Live Interview With Special Guest Comedian And Music Artist Ma Bell December 20,2023

Ep19-Art Bell-Mayan Calender-Krsana Duran-Ma Bell

#AT&T: Forty years ago, Ma Bell broke into innovation and prosperity. Simon Constable, WSJ 1941 Detroit Fashion Show

In episode #554, we revisit the haunting events of may 29, 1985, a dark day that saw the harrowing attack on mabel "Ma" Bell, 83, and her disabled sister, florence "Nettie" Lang, 81, in the tranquility of their monrovia home. The weight of this crime extends beyond the act itself, shedding light on the deeper patterns and possible motives of the attacker, ramirez. Subscribe on your favorite podcasting apps: https://talkmurder.com/subscribeSupport us on patreon: https://patreon.com/talkmurderSee our technology: https://talkmurder.com/gearContent warning: the true crime stories discussed on this podcast can involve graphic and disturbing subject matter. Listener discretion is strongly advised.Fair use disclaimer: some materials used in this work are included under the fair use doctrine for educational purposes. Any copyrighted materials are owned by their respective copyright holders. Questions regarding use of copyrighted materials may be directed to legal [@] Talkocast.com

Available on Amazon and leading online bookstores worldwide. Once upon a time, you could work for one company your whole adult life, you could make a decent living, and you could buy your piece of the American Dream. This book is part memoir and part political statement as it follows my thirty-seven-year career at the phone company that began in 1973, about the time economists say worker pay flatlined. The telecommunications industry was ripped apart, absorbed, and gobbled up by each other until, within a few years, Ma Bell had reassembled itself into the corporation that had stifled --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/daniel-lucas66/message

We're on our summer break before Season 3, but we're happy to be sharing one of our favorite past episodes with you!Today we're extremely excited to be talking to Heather Bell, better known as Ma Bell! Heather is a mother of eight children, a farmer in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, and a social media star known for her cooking videos. Heather's family has been very active in foster care and adoption, and she was kind enough to share some of her experiences with us. The Bells can be found on Instagram and TikTok.Thank you for joining us today on Barnyard Language. If you enjoy the show, we encourage you to support us by becoming a patron. Go to Patreon to make a small monthly donation to help cover the cost of making a show. Please rate and review the podcast and follow the show so you never miss an episode. You can find us on Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok as BarnyardLanguage, and on Twitter we are BarnyardPod. If you'd like to connect with other farming families, you can join our private Barnyard Language Facebook group. We're always in search of future guests for the podcast. If you or someone you know would like to chat with us, get in touch. We are a proud member of the Positively Farming Media Podcast Network.This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis: Chartable - https://chartable.com/privacy

    This week- a couple of scam artists and a fistful of cops.     Rookie cop Roy reports for duty in East LA. He is partnered with Andy, a veteran quickly approaching mandatory retirement. Roy thinks he will only be a cop long enough to make it through law school but, for some, the job becomes their all consuming obsession. Based on the novel by Joseph Wambaugh, The New Centurions.     George and Kathy Lutz, with Kathy's three children, move into a beautiful home with enough room for all, a massive yard, and private lake access. It's perfect... and shocking affordable, due to one of the previous residents killing their whole family. Soon after they move in, strange things begin to happen. Is the house haunted? Will George reenact the horrific events of the previous owners? Will the priest ever get Ma Bell to fix his phone? The Amityville Horror.     All that and Dave changes shape, Tyler rolls in something, and Kevin starts betting on internet cat fights. Join us, won't you?     Episode 317- Hill Street Boos

Steve Wozniak aka “The Woz” learned about phreaking from the 1971 Esquire article “Secrets of the Little Blue Box” by Ron Rosenbaum. Half way through the article, Woz called his friend, Steve Jobs, and read it to him. They were fascinated by the exploits of JoyBubble, Captain Crunch, and the underground telephone hackers who were whistling their way into Ma Bell, also known as AT&T, which was the largest company in the world, employing over one million people and controlling almost all U.S. local and long distance service, as well as the equipment in most homes and networks. Listen to the full interview with Woz at https://soundcloud.com/cybercrimemagazine/steve-wozniak-co-founder-apple-computer-inc-phreaking-out. Read the story in Cybercrime Magazine: https://cybersecurityventures.com/steve-woznia…-of-hacking/

The U.S. Government just filed a lawsuit alleging that Alphabet Inc (the company most widely known as Google) has too much control over the market for digital ads.  It's a big headline, but can the Department of Justice prove its case? The Federal Trade Commission tried something similar with Facebook in 2021 but the judge ultimately viewed the case as "legally insufficient." The government also tried to break up Microsoft -- but, again, was not successful. In today's show, Trish Regan considers the allegations against the company as well as any effect the headlines may have on the company's stock price and the overall economy. Meanwhile, former Vice President Mike Pence is the newest politician to reveal his possession of classified documents. We'll discuss.  For more, go to https://TrishIntel.com Today's sponsors include: LEGACY PRECIOUS METALS  https://LegacyPreciousMetals.com CALL 1-866-589-0560 FOR MORE INFO ON INVESTING IN A GOLD BACKED IRA And, RUFF GREENS. Get your jumpstart trial bag of Ruff Greens for your dog today!  Support the show: https://trishregan.store/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

4-1-1 is going away.  Kitty remembers when her mom was an operator for the Ma Bell.

Thom Hartmann says Democrats need to be careful not to fall into Jude Wanniski's two Santa Claus trap when it comes to Social Security and Medicare in the new year. Also Geeky Science: Can pomegranates fight cancer? See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Today we're extremely excited to be talking to Heather Bell, better known as Ma Bell! Heather is a mother of eight children, a farmer in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, and a social media star known for her cooking videos. Heather's family has been very active in foster care and adoption, and she was kind enough to share some of her experiences with us. The Bells can be found on Instagram and TikTok.Thank you for joining us today on Barnyard Language. If you enjoy the show, we encourage you to support us by becoming a patron. Go to Patreon to make a small monthly donation to help cover the cost of making a show. Please rate and review the podcast and follow the show so you never miss an episode. You can find us on Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok as BarnyardLanguage, and on Twitter we are BarnyardPod. If you'd like to connect with other farming families, you can join our private Barnyard Language Facebook group. We're always in search of future guests for the podcast. If you or someone you know would like to chat with us, get in touch. We are a proud member of the Positively Farming Media Podcast Network.

We report two unauthorized uses of the phone service this week, as the dead hog our landline in The Black Phone, while Ghostface abuses his cell phone privileges in Scre4m! Ma Bell would NOT approve. #scream4 #scre4m #blackphone #ethanhawke #wescraven #blumhouse #ghostface #sidneyprescott #dewey #davidarquette #nevecampbell #courtneycox #galeweathers #kirby #haydenpanettiere

Adam talks about how 9-1-1 calls get dispatched over the police radio, what would happen if the morgue becomes unusable, and how detectives worked with the phone company on investigations in the 1950s and 60s. writersdetective.com/122

R is the 18th level of the Latin alphabet. It represents the rhotic consonant, or the r sound. It goes back to the Greek Rho, the Phoenician Resh before that and the Egyptian rêš, which is the same name the Egyptians had for head, before that. R appears in about 7 and a half percent of the words in the English dictionary.  And R is probably the best language out there for programming around various statistical and machine learning tasks. We may use tools like Tensorflow imported to languages like python to prototype but R is incredibly performant for all the maths. And so it has become an essential piece of software for data scientists.  The R programming language was created in 1993 by two statisticians Robert Gentleman, and Ross Ihaka at the University of Auckland, New Zealand. It has since been ported to practically every operating system and is available at r-project.org. Initially called "S," the name changed to "R" to avoid a trademark issue with a commercial software package that we'll discuss in a bit. R was primarily written in C but used Fortran and since even R itself.  And there have been statistical packages since the very first computers were used for math.  IBM in fact packaged up BMDP when they first started working on the idea at UCLA Health Computing Facility. That was 1957. Then came SPSS out of the University of Chicago in 1968. And the same year, John Sall and others gave us SAS, or Statistical Analysis System) out of North Carolina State University. And those evolved from those early days through into the 80s with the advent of object oriented everything and thus got not only windowing interfaces but also extensibility, code sharing, and as we moved into the 90s, acquisition's. BMDP was acquired by SPSS who was then acquired by IBM and the products were getting more expensive but not getting a ton of key updates for the same scientific and medical communities. And so we saw the upstarts in the 80s, Data Desk and JMP and others. Tools built for windowing operating systems and in object oriented languages. We got the ability to interactively manipulate data, zoom in and spin three dimensional representations of data, and all kinds of pretty aspects. But they were not a programmers tool. S was begun in the seventies at Bell Labs and was supposed to be a statistical MATLAB, a language specifically designed for number crunching. And the statistical techniques were far beyond where SPSS and SAS had stopped. And with the breakup of Ma Bell, parts of Bell became Lucent, which sold S to Insightful Corporation who released S-PLUS and would later get bought by TIBCO. Keep in mind, Bell was testing line quality and statistics and going back to World War II employed some of the top scientists in those fields, ones who would later create large chunks of the quality movement and implementations like Six Sigma. Once S went to a standalone software company basically, it became less about the statistics and more about porting to different computers to make more money.  Private equity and portfolio conglomerates are, by nature, after improving the multiples on a line of business. But sometimes more statisticians in various feels might feel left behind. And this is where R comes into the picture. R gained popularity among statisticians because it made it easier to write complicated statistical algorithms without learning an entire programming language. Its popularity has grown significantly since then. R has been described as a cross between MATLAB and SPSS, but much faster. R was initially designed to be a language that could handle statistical analysis and other types of data mining, an offshoot of which we now call machine learning. R is also an open-source language and as with a number of other languages has plenty of packages available through a package repository - which they call CRAN (Comprehensive R Archive Network). This allows R to be used in fields outside of statistics and data science or to just get new methods to do math that doesn't belong in the main language.  There are over 18,000 packages for R. One of the more popular is ggplot2, an open-source data visualization package. data.table is another that performs programmatic data manipulation operations. dplyr provides functions designed to enable data frame manipulation in an intuitive manner. tidyr helps create tidier data. Shiny generates interactive web apps. And there are plenty of packages to make R easier, faster, and more extensible. By 2015, more than 10 million people used R every month and it's now the 13th most popular language in use. And the needs have expanded. We can drop r scripts into other programs and tools for processing. And some of the workloads are huge. This led to the development of parallel computing, specifically using MPI (Message Passing Interface).  R programming is one of the most popular languages used for statistical analysis, statistical graphics generation, and data science projects. There are other languages or tools for specific uses but it's even started being used in those.  The latest version, R 4.1.2, was released on 21/11/01. R development, as with most thriving open source solutions, is guided by a group of core developers supported by contributions from the broader community. It became popular because it provides all essential features for data mining and graphics needed for academic research and industry applications and because of the pluggable and robust and versatile nature. And projects like tensorflow and numpy and sci-kit have evolved for other languages. And there are services from companies like Amazon that can host and process assets from both, both using unstructured databases like NoSQL or using Jupyter notebooks. A Jupyter Notebook is a JSON document, following a versioned schema that contains an ordered list of input/output cells which can contain code, text (using Markdown), formulas, algorithms, plots and even media like audio or video. Project Jupyter was a spin-off of iPython but the goal was to create a language-agnostic tool where we could execute aspects in Ruby or Haskel or Python or even R. This gives us so many ways to get our data into the notebook, in batches or deep learning environments or whatever pipeline needs to be built based on an organization's stack. Especially if the notebook has a frontend based on Amazon SageMaker Notebooks, Google's Colaboratory and Microsoft's Azure Notebook. Think about this. 25% of the languages lack a rhotic consonant. Sometimes it seems like we've got languages that do everything or that we've built products that do everything. But I bet no matter the industry or focus or sub-specialty, there's still 25% more automation or instigation into our own data to be done. Because there always will be.

Ivan Seidenberg worked his way from splicing cables for the phone company, all the way to being the CEO of Verizon. During his career, he helped the company weather not one but two tectonic changes: the breakup of Ma Bell's monopoly, and the shift from copper lines to wireless broadband.

WELCOME BACK!!You made it back for Part 2! (a lot of people didn't in 1981). In case you need a refresher, we've got a Bomb threat!!Andy dispatched Venus and Johnny to the Transmitter Building in the middle of Part One. The guys are blowing off the dust and trying to keep some tunes on the WKRP Air. Things are...rough. The turntable doesn't want to play and the bookie doesn't want to talk. Wing, Johnny's Chinese Bookie and Restauranteur, put Johnny on hold just minutes before the biggest hunch bet of his life was at the post. 'Fever's Dream', an 80 to 1 long shot was screaming to Johnny for a bet. If only he can make it in time. When the horse came through...but the bookie didn't...Johnny takes his frustrations out on the phone. Three quick whacks with the big metal toolbox left Ma Bell's Magic Device in tiny shards of psychedelic spaghetti. At the end of last week's show, Andy realizes the bomb might be out at the transmitter instead of in the Flimm Building. But how do you contact the guys when the phone is in pieces on the floor? Call their cell?? Sorry, this is 1981. Put down that Toolbox and push "play"!! It's time for an EXPLOSIVE WKRP-Cast Conclusion!WATCH ALONG DETAILS...[Want to watch along with us? It's a blast!! We highly recommend the 'Shout Factory' boxed DVD set of the entire WKRP series. For reasons you'll have to listen to in the "Prolog" episode, all streaming versions of the original "WKRP in Cincinnati" have had the original music cues removed. Generic music beds and stings were used in place of the original music for the syndicated version of the series. 'Shout Factory' has been able to restore an estimated 85% of all WKRP music cues to the original "as-aired" content for their DVD release. They've also restored scenes that had been cut to shorten episodes for syndication. The original eps ran 25 minutes. The syndication eps were shortened to 22 minutes. Over 88 episodes that's more than four hours of lost content, including the performance by "Detective" at the end of "Hoodlum Rock." Get the COMPLETE series...get the Shout Factory DVDs. The Shout Factory complete series box has a release date of 2014. All individual seasons of Shout Factory disks were released starting in 2015.]The WKRP-Cast is a weekly re-watch podcast spending time with the original "WKRP in Cincinnati" which aired from 1978-82. New episodes every Tuesday. Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. The WKRP-Cast is headed to Cincinnati!!We've been wanting to go for a long time, but schedules just have not allowed it. We are finally able to visit the Queen City and we're doing it during one of the most incredible weeks of Cinci's year! We'll be there from March 29th through April 3rd of 2022. Opening Day is March 31st AND WE'VE GOT TICKETS!! (if, of course, there's baseball...)If you'd like to join us, check our FB Page for Event Details.

Steve Wozniak aka “The Woz” learned about phreaking from the 1971 Esquire article “Secrets of the Little Blue Box” by Ron Rosenbaum. Half way through the article, Woz called his friend, Steve Jobs, and read it to him. They were fascinated by the exploits of JoyBubble, Captain Crunch, and the underground telephone hackers who were whistling their way into Ma Bell, also known as AT&T, which was the largest company in the world, employing over one million people and controlling almost all U.S. local and long distance service, as well as the equipment in most homes and networks. Listen to this fascinating interview with Woz. Story in Cybercrime Magazine: https://cybersecurityventures.com/steve-wozniak-phreaks-out-on-the-history-of-hacking/

In which the U.S. government finally succeeds, after decades, in breaking up a massive telephone monopoly, and John is unfamiliar with a funny poem about an elephant. Certificate #22481.

Interested in Hyperscale data centers? Sign up for our free hyperscale data center course: https://lp.datacenterhawk.com/hyperscale-business-development-fundamentals Or get a quick 15 minute demo of our platform: https://lp.datacenterhawk.com/overview?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=youtube&utm_campaign=demo ––––– The Hyperscale and Enterprise Booms The hyperscale sector was just starting to take on a life of its own when Data Center Frontier was founded. Rich says one of their first pieces was 'The Rise of the Cloud Data Center'. The two key components to that story were 'scale' and 'edge'. Hyperscale players have been transformative, particularly because they allowed investors to understand data centers in a brand new way. Traditional real estate investors used to have a hard time getting into the old business model. But these days, hyperscale often presents single owner facilities with well respected tenants, all of whom have great credit histories and lots of assets. It is a much easier-to-understand proposal. The big investors bring not only the ability to take advantage of economies of scale, but they provide a kind of industrialization to the industry. Rich says that what happened in 2020 paralleled the kind of events that happened in the 2009 financial crisis. Cash became king. Enterprises became more careful with their spending, and large organizations had to make touch investment choices. 2020 was a 'wait and see' time for them, and a lot of projects got put on hold. But in 2021, the faucet was turned back on. With more certainty into the future of tech, enterprise projects started to move forward again. The data centers that relied on enterprise business started to boom. How the Data Center Services Market Has Changed Rich says that one of the most interesting things about the industry is that when he's talking to less technical people, he no longer needs to describe what a data center is. People have an understanding of how they're connected to the Internet, and how data centers can impact their lives. During the pandemic, the entire world relied on data centers in a new way: Zoom, online learning, remote healthcare, and immense E-commerce. Public officials in communities and smaller localities suddenly understood the importance and value of these places. Carrier hotels were the centers of the old data center world. They were located next to the old Ma Bell facilities. But they tended to be in major population centers. Power and space were expensive. Thus, the shift into the suburbs in later years. More recently, carrier hotels are back in vogue. In fact, some investment companies just buy up carrier hotels, upgrade them, and remarket them. A lot more capital has been flowing into that space recently. What's the Next Big Thing? When asked about the tech that will most contribute to the growth of the data center services industry, Rich immediately went to artificial intelligence. Bottom line benefits and providing business value are the key drivers to AI adoption. Those desirable outcomes won't change any time soon. Really, AI is an infrastructure story. Given the plans Rich has heard about in recent virtual industry get togethers, some of the stuff in the AI hardware pipeline takes place at an unprecedented scale. So that's the biggest growth point to watch. AR and VR are coming along more slowly. But they're resource intensive as well. So that's the next one to watch, along with autonomous tech like vehicles. Digital transformation and infrastructure will need to cope with the changes as demand ramps up.

DAN MCCRORY, a retired 37-year employee of AT&T, and now an author from Los Angeles, California, joined us to discuss his books, "Capitalism Killed the Middle Class", and "You Will Always Be My Forever".  ​FROM HIS AMAZON PAGE: "Once upon a time, you could work for one company your whole adult life, you could make a decent living, and you could buy your piece of the American Dream. This book is part memoir and part political statement as it follows my thirty-seven-year career at the phone company that began in 1973, about the time economists say worker pay flatlined. The telecommunications industry was ripped apart, absorbed, and gobbled up by each other until, within a few years, Ma Bell had reassembled itself into the corporation that had stifled innovation for almost one hundred years and provided steady dividends and a secure family atmosphere for employees. Capitalism Killed the Middle Class also examines the present political and economic systems rigged against us, and it gazes into the future for a path to a more secure and prosperous quality of life for our children." www.amazon.com/Capitalism-Killed-Middle-Class-Against-ebook/dp/B07PKR8BG3/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&qid=1635162010&qsid=135-7706404-1339238&refinements=p_27%3ADan+Mccrory&s=books&sr=

DAN MCCRORY, a retired 37-year employee of AT&T, and now an author from Los Angeles, California, joined us to discuss his books, "Capitalism Killed the Middle Class", and "You Will Always Be My Forever".  ​FROM HIS AMAZON PAGE: "Once upon a time, you could work for one company your whole adult life, you could make a decent living, and you could buy your piece of the American Dream. This book is part memoir and part political statement as it follows my thirty-seven-year career at the phone company that began in 1973, about the time economists say worker pay flatlined. The telecommunications industry was ripped apart, absorbed, and gobbled up by each other until, within a few years, Ma Bell had reassembled itself into the corporation that had stifled innovation for almost one hundred years and provided steady dividends and a secure family atmosphere for employees. Capitalism Killed the Middle Class also examines the present political and economic systems rigged against us, and it gazes into the future for a path to a more secure and prosperous quality of life for our children." www.amazon.com/Capitalism-Killed-Middle-Class-Against-ebook/dp/B07PKR8BG3/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&qid=1635162010&qsid=135-7706404-1339238&refinements=p_27%3ADan+Mccrory&s=books&sr=

What is the nature of innovation? Is it overhearing a conversation as with Morse and the telegraph? Working with the deaf as with Bell? Divine inspiration? Necessity? Science fiction? Or given that the answer to all of these is yes, is it really more the intersectionality between them and multiple basic and applied sciences with deeper understandings in each domain? Or is it being given the freedom to research? Or being directed to research? Few have as storied a history of innovation as Bell Labs and few have had anything close to the impact. Bell Labs gave us 9 Nobel Prizes and 5 Turing awards. Their alumni have even more, but those were the ones earned while at Bell. And along the way they gave us 26,000 patents. They researched, automated, and built systems that connected practically every human around the world - moving us all into an era of instant communication. It's a rich history that goes back in time from the 2018 Ashkin Nobel for applied optical tweezers and 2018 Turing award for Deep Learning to an almost steampunk era of tophats and the dawn of the electrification of the world. Those late 1800s saw a flurry of applied and basic research. One reason was that governments were starting to fund that research. Alessandro Volta had come along and given us the battery and it was starting to change the world. So Napolean's nephew, Napoleon III, during the second French Empire gave us the Volta Prize in 1852. One of those great researchers to receive the Volta Prize was Alexander Graham Bell. He invented the telephone in 1876 and was awarded the Volta Prize, getting 50,000 francs. He used the money to establish the Volta Laboratory, which would evolve or be a precursor to a research lab that would be called Bell Labs. He also formed the Bell Patent Association in 1876. They would research sound. Recording, transmission, and analysis - so science. There was a flurry of business happening in preparation to put a phone in every home in the world. We got the Bell System, The Bell Telephone Company, American Bell Telephone Company patent disputes with Elisha Gray over the telephone (and so the acquisition of Western Electric), and finally American Telephone and Telegraph, or AT&T. Think of all this as Ma' Bell. Not Pa' Bell mind you - as Graham Bell gave all of his shares except 10 to his new wife when they were married in 1877. And her dad ended up helping build the company and later creating National Geographic, even going international with International Bell Telephone Company. Bell's assistant Thomas Watson sold his shares off to become a millionaire in the 1800s, and embarking on a life as a Shakespearean actor. But Bell wasn't done contributing. He still wanted to research all the things. Hackers gotta' hack. And the company needed him to - keep in mind, they were a cutting edge technology company (then as in now). That thirst for research would infuse AT&T - with Bell Labs paying homage to the founder's contribution to the modern day. Over the years they'd be on West Street in New York and expand to have locations around the US. Think about this: it was becoming clear that automation would be able to replace human efforts where electricity is concerned. The next few decades gave us the vacuum tube, flip flop circuits, mass deployment of radio. The world was becoming ever so slightly interconnected. And Bell Labs was researching all of it. From physics to the applied sciences. By the 1920s, they were doing sound synchronized with motion and shooting that over long distances and calculating the noise loss. They were researching encryption. Because people wanted their calls to be private. That began with things like one-time pad cyphers but would evolve into speech synthesizers and even SIGSALY, the first encrypted (or scrambled) speech transmission that led to the invention of the first computer modem. They had engineers like Harry Nyquist, whose name is on dozens of theories, frequencies, even noise. He arrived in 1917 and stayed until he retired in 1954. One of his most important contributions was to move beyond printing telegraph to paper tape and to helping transmit pictures over electricity - and Herbert Ives from there sent color photos, thus the fax was born (although it would be Xerox who commercialized the modern fax machine in the 1960s). Nyquist and others like Ralph Hartley worked on making audio better, able to transmit over longer lines, reducing feedback, or noise. While there, Hartley gave us the oscillator, developed radio receivers, parametric amplifiers, and then got into servomechanisms before retiring from Bell Labs in 1950. The scientists who'd been in their prime between the two world wars were titans and left behind commercializable products, even if they didn't necessarily always mean to. By the 40s a new generation was there and building on the shoulders of these giants. Nyquist's work was extended by Claude Shannon, who we devoted an entire episode to. He did a lot of mathematical analysis like writing “A Mathematical Theory of Communication” to birth Information Theory as a science. They were researching radio because secretly I think they all knew those leased lines would some day become 5G. But also because the tech giants of the era included radio and many could see a day coming when radio, telephony, and aThey were researching how electrons diffracted, leading to George Paget Thomson receiving the Nobel Prize and beginning the race for solid state storage. Much of the work being done was statistical in nature. And they had William Edwards Deming there, whose work on statistical analysis when he was in Japan following World War II inspired a global quality movement that continues to this day in the form of frameworks like Six Sigma and TQM. Imagine a time when Japanese manufacturing was of such low quality that he couldn't stay on a phone call for a few minutes or use a product for a time. His work in Japan's reconstruction paired with dedicated founders like Akio Morita, who co-founded Sony, led to one of the greatest productivity increases, without sacrificing quality, of any time in the world. Deming would change the way Ford worked, giving us the “quality culture.” Their scientists had built mechanical calculators going back to the 30s (Shannon had built a differential analyzer while still at MIT) - first for calculating the numbers they needed to science better then for ballistic trajectories, then with the Model V in 1946, general computing. But these were slow; electromechanical at best. Mary Torrey was another statistician of the era who along with Harold Hodge gave us the theory of acceptance sampling and thus quality control for electronics. And basic electronics research to do flip-flop circuits fast enough to establish a call across a number of different relays was where much of this was leading. We couldn't use mechanical computers for that, and tubes were too slow. And so in 1947 John Bardeen, Walter Brattain, and William Shockley invented the transistor at Bell Labs, which be paired with Shannon's work to give us the early era of computers as we began to weave Boolean logic in ways that allowed us to skip moving parts and move to a purely transistorized world of computing. In fact, they all knew one day soon, everything that monster ENIAC and its bastard stepchild UNIVAC was doing would be done on a single wafer of silicon. But there was more basic research to get there. The types of wires we could use, the Marnaugh map from Maurice Karnaugh, zone melting so we could do level doping. And by 1959 Mohamed Atalla and Dawon Kahng gave us metal-oxide semiconductor field-effect transistors, or MOSFETs - which was a step on the way to large-scale integration, or LSI chips. Oh, and they'd started selling those computer modems as the Bell 101 after perfecting the tech for the SAGE air-defense system. And the research to get there gave us the basic science for the solar cell, electronic music, and lasers - just in the 1950s. The 1960s saw further work work on microphones and communication satellites like Telstar, which saw Bell Labs outsource launching satellites to NASA. Those transistors were coming in handy, as were the solar panels. The 14 watts produced certainly couldn't have moved a mechanical computer wheel. Blaise Pascal and would be proud of the research his countries funds inspired and Volta would have been perfectly happy to have his name still on the lab I'm sure. Again, shoulders and giants. Telstar relayed its first television signal in 1962. The era of satellites was born later that year when Cronkite televised coverage of Kennedy manipulating world markets on this new medium for the first time and IBM 1401 computers encrypted and decrypted messages, ushering in an era of encrypted satellite communications. Sputnik may heave heated the US into orbit but the Telstar program has been an enduring system through to the Telstar 19V launched in 2018 - now outsourced to a Falcon 9 rocket from Space X. It might seem like Bell Labs had done enough for the world. But they still had a lot of the basic wireless research to bring us into the cellular age. In fact, they'd plotted out what the cellular age would look like all the way back in 1947! The increasing use of computers to do the all the acoustics and physics meant they were working closely with research universities during the rise of computing. They were involved in a failed experiment to create an operating system in the late 60s. Multics influenced so much but wasn't what we might consider a commercial success. It was the result of yet another of DARPA's J.C.R. Licklider's wild ideas in the form of Project MAC, which had Marvin Minsky and John McCarthy. Big names in the scientific community collided with cooperation and GE, Bell Labs and Multics would end up inspiring many a feature of a modern operating system. The crew at Bell Labs knew they could do better and so set out to take the best of Multics and implement a lighter, easier operating system. So they got to work on Uniplexed Information and Computing Service, or Unics, which was a pun on Multics. Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, Doug McIllroy, Joe Assana, Brian Kernigan, and many others wrote Unix originally in assembly and then rewrote it in C once Dennis Ritchie wrote that to replace B. Along the way, Alfred Aho, Peter Weinber, and Kernighan gave us AWSK and with all this code they needed a way to keep the source under control so Marc Rochkind gave us the SCCS, or Course Code Control System, first written for an IBM S/3370 and then ported to C - which would be how most environments maintained source code until CVS came along in 1986. And Robert Fourer, David Gay, and Brian Kernighan wrote A Mathematical Programming Language, or AMPL, while there. Unix began as a bit of a shadow project but would eventually go to market as Research Unix when Don Gillies left Bell to go to the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana. From there it spread and after it fragmented in System V led to the rise of IBM's AIX, HP-UX, SunOS/Solaris, BSD, and many other variants - including those that have evolved into the macOS through Darwin, and Android through Linux. But Unix wasn't all they worked on - it was a tool to enable other projects. They gave us the charge-coupled device, which resulted in yet another Nobel Prize. That is an image sensor built on the MOS technologies. While fiber optics goes back to the 1800s, they gave us attenuation over fiber and thus could stretch cables to only need repeaters every few dozen miles - again reducing the cost to run the ever-growing phone company. All of this electronics allowed them to finally start reducing their reliance on electromechanical and human-based relays to transistor-to-transistor logic and less mechanical meant less energy, less labor to repair, and faster service. Decades of innovation gave way to decades of profit - in part because of automation. The 5ESS was a switching system that went online in 1982 and some of what it did - its descendants still do today. Long distance billing, switching modules, digital line trunk units, line cards - the grid could run with less infrastructure because the computer managed distributed switching. The world was ready for packet switching. 5ESS was 100 million lines of code, mostly written in C. All that source was managed with SCCS. Bell continued with innovations. They produced that modem up into the 70s but allowed Hayes, Rockewell, and others to take it to a larger market - coming back in from time to time to help improve things like when Bell Labs, branded as Lucent after the breakup of AT&T, helped bring the 56k modem to market. The presidents of Bell Labs were as integral to the success and innovation as the researchers. Frank Baldwin Jewett from 1925 to 1940, Oliver Buckley from 40 to 51, the great Mervin Kelly from 51 to 59, James Fisk from 59 to 73, William Oliver Baker from 73 to 79, and a few others since gave people like Bishnu Atal the space to develop speech processing algorithms and predictive coding and thus codecs. And they let Bjarne Stroustrup create C++, and Eric Schmidt who would go on to become a CEO of Google and the list goes on. Nearly every aspect of technology today is touched by the work they did. All of this research. Jon Gerstner wrote a book called The Idea Factory: Bell Labs and the Great Age of American Innovation. He chronicles the journey of multiple generations of adventurers from Germany, Ohio, Iowa, Japan, and all over the world to the Bell campuses. The growth and contraction of the basic and applied research and the amazing minds that walked the halls. It's a great book and a short episode like this couldn't touch the aspects he covers. He doesn't end the book as hopeful as I remain about the future of technology, though. But since he wrote the book, plenty has happened. After the hangover from the breakup of Ma Bell they're now back to being called Nokia Bell Labs - following a $16.6 billion acquisition by Nokia. I sometimes wonder if the world has the stomach for the same level of basic research. And then Alfred Aho and Jeffrey Ullman from Bell end up sharing the Turing Award for their work on compilers. And other researchers hit a terabit a second speeds. A storied history that will be a challenge for Marcus Weldon's successor. He was there as a post-doc there in 1995 and rose to lead the labs and become the CTO of Nokia - he said the next regeneration of a Doctor Who doctor would come in after him. We hope they are as good of stewards as those who came before them. The world is looking around after these decades of getting used to the technology they helped give us. We're used to constant change. We're accustomed to speed increases from 110 bits a second to now terabits. The nature of innovation isn't likely to be something their scientists can uncover. My guess is Prometheus is guarding that secret - if only to keep others from suffering the same fate after giving us the fire that sparked our imaginations. For more on that, maybe check out Hesiod's Theogony. In the meantime, think about the places where various sciences and disciplines intersect and think about the wellspring of each and the vast supporting casts that gave us our modern life. It's pretty phenomenal when ya' think about it.

Steven D. Grumbine was a conservative Republican who revered Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, and George W. Bush. He was raised with the social belief that no one was deserving of a handout, that everyone must pull themselves up by their bootstraps. Steve’s mother and father had both finished their careers at Ma Bell, and Steve was on track to do the same, working with the company for 17 years. While working at Ma Bell, Steve continued his professional education, attaining master’s degrees in Technology Management (2007) and Business Administration (2008). In 2009, despite his many years within the company, Steve was laid off due to the global financial crisis. Steve, with all his advanced professional education and experience, found himself unemployed for 18 months, and no amount of bootstrap pulling could lift him out. He experienced firsthand the struggles of no longer having secure employment with benefits, while at the same time dealing with a costly divorce, massive child support, and lapsing ability to make mortgage payments. During this period of instability, Steve was introduced to Modern Monetary Theory (MMT), a new perspective that disabused him of the macroeconomic myths taught in his post-grad MBA program. He learned taxes do not fund spending at the federal level and the federal government can create as much currency as it needs up to the nation’s full productive capacity, which showed him how our government’s tolerance of unemployment was a national disgrace. Steve also learned why shameful austerity measures were allowed to continue: entrenched politicians in Congress controlled by big industry donors spreading macroeconomic lies and a public so brainwashed by those lies that they turn on one another instead of demanding more from their government. HELP ME CROWDFUND MY GAMESTOP BOOK. Go to https://wen-moon.com or join the crowdfunding campaign and pre-order my next book here now - https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/to-the-moon-the-gamestop-saga--2/x/26852333#/ If you haven’t already and you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe to this podcast and our mailing list, and don’t forget, my book, Brexit: The Establishment Civil War, is now out, you’ll find the links in the description below. Express VPN 12 Months 35% off!! - https://www.xvinlink.com/?a_fid=chatter​ NameCheap - https://namecheap.pxf.io/WD4Xrn Spreaker - https://spreaker.pxf.io/0JmQoL Watch Us On Odysee.com - https://odysee.com/$/invite/@TheJist:4 Sign up and watch videos to earn crypto-currency! Buy Brexit: The Establishment Civil War -

Join Nate and Mike as they wrap up their discussion of the Dow 30 with a couple addendums, and then discuss if dividends are a double taxation. The AT&T ($T) Time Warner Discovery ($DISCA) deal has made headlines. What does this mean for AT&T, their aspirations as a media conglomerate, and is the end of Ma Bell as a blue chip dividend stalwart? They discuss if Comcast ($CMCSA) is a better investment option in the media space, as well as some of their biggest investment mistakes including selling Microsoft ($MSFT) and Tesla ($TSLA). Mike is looking to add to his portfolio, and Google ($GOOGL) is on the short list, but there is a front runner, and it could have ties to the Tin Can Trust. What can it be? Tune in and find out for this and more!

This week on The Nerdpocalypse Podcast, the guys return to discuss "Those Who Wish Me Dead," "Love, Death + Robots Volume 2," big surprises in Mare of Easttown, Electric F-150 very cool extras, new Baltimore based HBO cop series, Injustice: Gods Among Us animated movie, new Batman animated series coming from Bruce Timm, Batgirl live-action movie finds its directors, Quibi returns, AT&T and Discovery merger, Amazon going after MGM, the Snake Eyes trailer, and much more. CHECKED OUT Without Remorse Those Who Wish Me Dead Love, Death + Robots Volume 2 Mare of Easttown - Episode 5 SCIENCE & TECH NEWS Electric Ford F-150 has a nice surprise LIGHTNING ROUND Zack Snyder had an idea for a third movie in the 300 series but WB passed Injustice Animated Movie Coming HBO’s new Baltimore based series “We Own This City” announces cast Bruce Timm is back to save Batman once again ‘Bad Boys for Life’ Filmmakers to Direct ‘Batgirl’ Movie for WB MOVIE/TV NEWS The return of Quibi...sort of HBO Max’s $10 tier officially launches next month Release method for “Dune” has been reversed AT&T and Discovery make a massive merger in the era of streaming Amazon is aiming to buy a legendary film studio for $9 billion WTF? by JayTeeDee Micah:  https://bit.ly/2RQNtnc TRAILERS Good on Paper Snake Eyes: G.I. Joe Origins

July 29, 2020Coronavirus, Podcast16:38Plays: 0Downloads: 0WealthWise Financial's President / CEO talks about the Fed's lending program extended through Sept. We also discuss the 765 million dollar government loan to KODAK to produce chemicals for generic drugs. We ask her what she expects to see tomorrow, when the 2nd quarter GDP numbers are announced. And we ask the question; Can the BIG 4 tech giants be broken up like ‘Ma Bell?

In this week's episode of Reformed Millennials, we're talking about the incredible week in Media stocks. Warner was dropping bombs, Disney was dropping bombs and Facebook was busy trying to avoid being broken up by the FTC. If you’re at all interested in hearing Broc and Joel talk about why FB might be undervalued, whether AT&T is a buy, and why oil is starting to reverse course, this is a must listen.Listen on Apple, Spotify, or Google Podcasts.If you aren’t in the Reformed Millennials Facebook Group join us for daily updates, discussions, and deep dives into the investable trends Millennials should be paying attention to.👉 For specific investment questions or advice contact Joel @ Gold Investment Management.📈📊Market UPDATE💵📉Every major index inched higher while the small-caps continued on their quest.Utilities and energy tied as today’s strongest sector. The technology ETF $XLK closed at its highest price since September 2nd. Bitcoin bopped to 19,500 again. We’re still waiting for the crypto to crack 20K…Biotech broke higher. iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF $IBB bounced 2.3% and closed at an all-time high.Disney’s Investor Day was LIT - We couldn’t be more excited about the ESPN+ content iPhone sales are experiencing Gs after introducing 5G. According to a Nikkei report, Apple will produce 95-96 million iPhones in the first half of 2021 — that’s up almost 30% YoY. 📈$APPL was up 5.01% and closed at its highest price since early September. Here’s the daily chart:⏰📈Has Oil Bottomed?💥📉Stocks like CNRL, ENB, XON, OXY, and RDS.A are all ripping these past 4 weeks.After years in the shadow of the U.S. shale boom, the Canadian oil sands are emerging from 2020’s historic market crash with a slew of upbeat outlooks from Wall Street equity analysts.“With improved cost structures and increased propensity to be capital disciplined, Canadian producers are emerging from the downturn stronger, with greater ability to generate free cash flow,” Morgan Stanley analysts Benny Wong and Adam J Gray said in a note Friday. Canadian Crude Tailwinds:Declining competition from Mexico - Exports of Mexico’s flagship Maya heavy crude grade are forecast to decline by 70 percent in the next three years, helping narrow Western Canadian Select oil’s discount to New York-traded futures to US$5 to US$7 a barrel next year, BMO Capital Markets said in October. The price gap is currently at about US$12 a barrel.The start of construction of three pipelines, following years of insufficient shipping capacity. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s decision last week to narrow the scope of Canada’s new Clean Fuel Standard, by including liquid fossil fuels but leaving out solid and gaseous fuels, is also seen as a positive for the sector.Steady output from their mines means that oil sands producers are able to keep revenue coming for decades without too much investment, while the short life span of shale wells forces U.S. explorers to constantly burn cash just to keep up production.The eight largest oil-sands producers by market value posted a combined free cash flow of US$1.4 billion for the third quarter, compared with $163.7 million from the top eight U.S. exploration and production companies, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.Demand for WCS has also risen after OPEC countries cut the output of their heavier, higher-sulfur grades similar to those from the oil sands. Canadian oil will continue to be “well supported” in 2021, according to Goldman.👑AT&T the next King of Recurring Revenue👑Imagine – the world’s largest telecom combined with some of the world’s best media content. AT&T’s announcement that it will release movies simultaneously on HBO Max and in theaters predictably pissed off Hollywood players, who make millions off the current system. But Christopher Nolan calling HBO Max “the worst streaming service” may play out similar to JCPenney calling Amazon circa 1999 a terrible experience.AT&T CEO John Stankey has realized the market favors recurring revenues and narrative over transactional revenues and EBITDA. Last week, the narrative was AT&T had been on the wrong side of a trade with the smartest man in media (Jeff Bewkes) and overpaid for Time Warner. An infirmed stock price is a terrible thing to waste, and AT&T’s underperformance inoculated it against the innovator's dilemma (Ma Bell has less to lose). So it went gangster on theaters, opting for the consumer. AT&T is poised to recognize an increase of $100 billion or more in market cap in 2021 on its transition from a conglomerate that makes no sense -- to the world’s largest recurring-revenue firm.How is this going to happen? How will AT&T add 40% to its market cap? Today’s market is all about the story - and with a shift in the narrative comes a shift in stock price. The stock got a rerating from old hat to new could see it trade from 2.4X sales to trading something similar to Netflix – 8.2X sales.🦅It’s Official - 46 Has Been Confirmed🇺🇸The electoral college formally declared Biden’s victory last night. The final score?Donald Trump: 232 Joe Biden: 306 Yesterday, the Supreme Court denied Texas’s lawsuit attempting to extend last night’s Electoral College deadline… and then Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Georgia, Arizona, and Nevada all cast their official votes for Biden. Joe Biden will be the 46th President of the United States. 🇺🇸 🦅🌊 Hottest Links We Read Last Week 🌊Apple Fitness+, the companies new digital fitness subscription streaming service, is officially set to launch - Best Link To Read About Their Plans (HUDDLE UP)🤝 Giannis Antetokounmpo, the reigning (and back-to-back) NBA MVP announced on Twitter that he will resign with the Milwaukee Bucks. His supermax contract is worth more than $228M over the next five years. That works out to $150k per quarter. 😮UCLA Anderson held its December 2020 Economic Outlook last week and things are looking up. Senior economist Leo Feler, anticipates two more quarters of slow growth before significant growth in the second quarter of 2021.If it delivers on all of its promises, Rivian’s R1T electric truck will be the next big thing.The Evolution of Markets: United States Sectors 1800 to 2018 - Investor Amnesia on IPOs and SPACSDISCLAIMER:Gold Investment Management Ltd. (“GIM”) is registered as a portfolio manager in the provinces of Alberta, British Columbia, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario and Quebec and as an investment adviser with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. This material is provided to you for informational purposes only. For greater certainty, the information contained herein should not be construed as a recommendation of any specific model portfolios or investment actions. Any third-party information contained herein has been compiled from sources believed to be reliable, however, GIM makes no representation or warranty, express or implied, as to its accuracy or completeness. Any market prices and estimates in this report are for informational purposes only. The opinions contained herein are effective as at the date of the report and GIM does not assume any responsibility for advising the reader of any subsequent change of opinion. 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Sam and Dean say, "To Hell with Ma Bell". Dead people are making calls home so Bobby has the boys investigate.

In this In this episode I asked Steven Grumbine Founder of the Real Progressives. Host of the Macro & Cheese Podcast, and MMT activist. I reached out to Steven because I haven't ever voted and wanted to know more about the Progressive movement to see if they had anything to offer me that matched any of my own ideals and thinking. I really enjoyed the conversation and the connection. . My next stop in the search for my identity in the current political climate is Spike Cohen the running mate of Jo Jorgensen who is representing as the Libertarian presidential candidate. In case you didn't know there are 3rd party options out there even though mainstream media won't cover them at all in collusion with the duopoly we call our current rendering of democracy. This conversation is scheduled for this week and will publish the following week. . Real Progressives Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/RealProgressives . Real Progressives In Action: https://www.facebook.com/RPinAction . Macro & Cheese Podcast: https://realprogressives.org/macro-n-cheese-podcast/#fwdmspPlayer0?catid=0&trackid=0 . Website: https://realprogressives.org/ . Steven's Bio: . Steven D. Grumbine was a conservative Republican who revered Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, and George W. Bush. He was raised with the social belief that no one was deserving of a handout, that everyone must pull themselves up by their bootstraps. Steve's mother and father had both finished their careers at Ma Bell, and Steve was on track to do the same, working with the company for 17 years. While working at Ma Bell, Steve continued his professional education, attaining master's degrees in Technology Management (2007) and Business Administration (2008). . In 2009, despite his many years within the company, Steve was laid off due to the global financial crisis. Steve, with all his advanced professional education and experience, found himself unemployed for 18 months, and no amount of bootstrap pulling could lift him out. He experienced firsthand the struggles of no longer having secure employment with benefits, while at the same time dealing with a costly divorce, massive child support, and lapsing ability to make mortgage payments. . During this period of instability, Steve was introduced to Modern Monetary Theory (MMT), a new perspective that disabused him of the macroeconomic myths taught in his post-grad MBA program. He learned taxes do not fund spending at the federal level and the federal government can create as much currency as it needs up to the nation's full productive capacity, which showed him how our government's tolerance of unemployment was a national disgrace. Steve also learned why shameful austerity measures were allowed to continue: entrenched politicians in Congress controlled by big industry donors spreading macroeconomic lies and a public so brainwashed by those lies that they turn on one another instead of demanding more from their government. . This revelation started him down the path of educating the --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/no-where-to-go-but-up/message

In this In this episode I asked Steven Grumbine Founder of the Real Progressives. Host of the Macro & Cheese Podcast, and MMT activist. I reached out to Steven because I haven't ever voted and wanted to know more about the Progressive movement to see if they had anything to offer me that matched any of my own ideals and thinking. I really enjoyed the conversation and the connection. . My next stop in the search for my identity in the current political climate is Spike Cohen the running mate of Jo Jorgensen who is representing as the Libertarian presidential candidate. In case you didn't know there are 3rd party options out there even though mainstream media won't cover them at all in collusion with the duopoly we call our current rendering of democracy. This conversation is scheduled for this week and will publish the following week. . Real Progressives Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/RealProgressives . Real Progressives In Action: https://www.facebook.com/RPinAction . Macro & Cheese Podcast: https://realprogressives.org/macro-n-cheese-podcast/#fwdmspPlayer0?catid=0&trackid=0 . Website: https://realprogressives.org/ . Steven's Bio: . Steven D. Grumbine was a conservative Republican who revered Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, and George W. Bush. He was raised with the social belief that no one was deserving of a handout, that everyone must pull themselves up by their bootstraps. Steve’s mother and father had both finished their careers at Ma Bell, and Steve was on track to do the same, working with the company for 17 years. While working at Ma Bell, Steve continued his professional education, attaining master’s degrees in Technology Management (2007) and Business Administration (2008). . In 2009, despite his many years within the company, Steve was laid off due to the global financial crisis. Steve, with all his advanced professional education and experience, found himself unemployed for 18 months, and no amount of bootstrap pulling could lift him out. He experienced firsthand the struggles of no longer having secure employment with benefits, while at the same time dealing with a costly divorce, massive child support, and lapsing ability to make mortgage payments. . During this period of instability, Steve was introduced to Modern Monetary Theory (MMT), a new perspective that disabused him of the macroeconomic myths taught in his post-grad MBA program. He learned taxes do not fund spending at the federal level and the federal government can create as much currency as it needs up to the nation’s full productive capacity, which showed him how our government’s tolerance of unemployment was a national disgrace. Steve also learned why shameful austerity measures were allowed to continue: entrenched politicians in Congress controlled by big industry donors spreading macroeconomic lies and a public so brainwashed by those lies that they turn on one another instead of demanding more from their government. . This revelation started him down the path of educating the public about these basic truths and showing them their progressive dreams were within reach if they would stop hamstringing themselves with the idea that federal taxes were necessary to pay for them. Steve cultivated a large following on social media and decided to build an organization centered around an understanding of MMT with four crucial pillars to lead the progressive movement forward: Policy, Education, Activism, and Media. . That organization now has hundreds of volunteers and a dedicated leadership team working daily to spread the message and expand its reach into new markets in order to ingrain this knowledge into the public consciousness thereby empowering the people to demand their government work for them. . That organization now has over 120 thousand followers and has reached many millions of people since its inception. . . . Here is where you can find me: . Linktree: https://linktr.ee/Nowheretogobutup . To support the show through Patreon: . Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/user?u=19859993 . You can also tip me through PayPal: www.paypal.com  recipient: norcaldroneservices@yahoo.com . . That organization is Real Progressives. Steven D. Grumbine, MS, MBA, PMP, PSM1, ITIL Founder, President and CEO of Real Progressives.

This minute Stitch Jones goes to work for Ma Bell. Lt. Ring attempts to make a phone call. He should have called 1-800-COLLECT.Find us on Social Media: Instagram: MarinecorpsmovieminutepodTwitter: MCMM_PodcastFacebook: Marine Corps Movie Minute Facebook PageMarine Corps Movie Minute Quarterdeck: https://www.facebook.com/groups/545010009420157/

Join Kevin Shorey on The A.M. Kevin Club show today Aug 25, 2020. Tune in for some great fun and Christian commentary on today's news and events along with music, games, and scripture. All on The AM Kevin Club! Please consider supporting us at https://www.kevinshorey.com/

Join Kevin Shorey on The A.M. Kevin Club show today July 14, 2020. Tune in for some great fun and Christian commentary on today's news and events along with music, games, and scripture. All on The AM Kevin Show! https://www.kevinshorey.com/

QIC: Hello Kitty Pax: Ma Bell

In 1984, telephones were changed forever when the US Government split up "Ma Bell" into various different phone companies. What exactly was the outcome of that, and what do we have to learn from it? --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/branstechpod/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/branstechpod/support

Arcade operators fear the VCS Nintendo trounces Atari in court and The PS2 takes Japan by storm These stories and a very tired Karl on this month's episode of the Video Game Newsroom Time Machine This month we will look back at the biggest stories in and around the video game industry in April of 1980, 1990, 2000. As always, we'll mostly be using magazine cover dates, and those are of course always a bit behind the actual events.. Send comments on twitter @videogamenewsr2 Or Instagram https://www.instagram.com/vgnrtm Or videogamenewsroomtimemachine@gmail.com And if you like what we are doing here at the podcast, don't forget to like us on your podcasting app of choice, YouTube, and/or support us on patreon! https://www.patreon.com/user?u=7594060 Correction: Tiertex did not do Back to the Future 2, it was Images Software Ltd. 1980: FCC lets Ma Bell go online https://www.nytimes.com/1980/04/08/archives/computer-curb-lifted-for-phone-companies-fcc-in-decontrol-move.html?searchResultPosition=2 The Ludites are back... and their wearing berets https://www.nytimes.com/1980/04/11/archives/raiders-in-france-destroy-two-computer-centers.html?searchResultPosition=3 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Action_directe_(armed_group) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luddite Warner, Mattel, and Coleco report record profits Playthings, April 1980, pg. 11 Toy & Hobby World, April 1980 AMD is making it rain https://www.nytimes.com/1980/04/30/archives/companies-compete-to-lure-employees-california-computer-suppliers.html?searchResultPosition=11 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Micro_Devices https://www.nytimes.com/1980/04/08/archives/intel-reports-higher-profits.html?searchResultPosition=17 Game Consoles are the up and coming thing... just not at toy retailers. Playthings, April 1980, pg. 55 Arcade game operators fear the VCS Play Meter, April 1980, pg. 36 Inflation grips the arcade industry... and the industry fights back! Replay, April 1980, pg. 29 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_funds_rate Cinematronics sues Atari over Asteroids Play Meter April 1980, pg. 41 Play Meter October 15, 1981 pg. 148 https://tinyurl.com/ybhc4gxy TSR opens UK office Playthings, April 1980, pg. 10 https://www.webcitation.org/655ldIQOO?url=http://www.thekyngdoms.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=37 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_Turnbull_(game_designer) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warhammer_(game) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Games_Workshop SSI brings wargaming to the digital world https://archive.org/details/CreativeComputingbetterScan198004/page/n44/mode/1up https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joel_Billings 1990: Nintendo can sue retailers that carry unlicensed NES carts Playthings April 1980 https://casetext.com/case/atari-games-corp-v-nintendo-of-america The arcade is coming home https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neo_Geo_(system) https://archive.org/stream/ElectronicGamingMonthly_201902/Electronic%20Gaming%20Monthly%20Issue%20009%20%28April%201990%29#page/n29/mode/2up https://archive.org/stream/ElectronicGamingMonthly_201902/Electronic%20Gaming%20Monthly%20Issue%20009%20%28April%201990%29#page/n42/mode/1up https://archive.org/details/ACEIssue31Apr90/page/n8/mode/1up https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cNtfVTaSLOg&list=PLjnUa-_dnEnMFh2ANIXDqLShwMuDu2Ols https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7pSYKXaFK0M&list=PLjnUa-_dnEnMFh2ANIXDqLShwMuDu2Ols&index=26 The GX4000 is on its way https://archive.org/details/ACEIssue31Apr90/page/n8/mode/1up https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amstrad_GX4000 Sega expands Master System licensees to European companies https://archive.org/details/computer-and-videogames-101/page/n8/mode/1up https://archive.org/details/zero-magazine-06/page/n8/mode/1up https://www.mobygames.com/browse/games/sega-master-system/us-gold-ltd/ https://www.mobygames.com/browse/games/sega-master-system/image-works/ https://www.mobygames.com/browse/games/sega-master-system/titus-interactive-sa/ Atari turns a profit https://www.atariarchives.org/atarileaks/timeline.html https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e_g-JIfV3sg&feature=youtu.be https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1987-08-24-fi-2005-story.html https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1989-11-09-fi-1502-story.html Playthings April 198 US Memories shuts down. https://archive.org/details/1990-04-compute-magazine/page/n7/mode/1up https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1989-12-26-fi-922-story.html https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1990-01-28-fi-1464-story.html https://tinyurl.com/yafagpwh https://tinyurl.com/y7obdfup Madden gets updated Roster data disk https://archive.org/details/1990-04-compute-magazine/page/n125/mode/1up https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Madden_Football_(1988_video_game) Super Mario Ice Capades https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fuuhn2cfVUE https://www.mariowiki.com/Mario_Ice_Capades https://archive.org/details/ACEIssue31Apr90/page/n9/mode/1up 2000: PS2 launches in Japan. https://archive.org/details/mm63_20190722/page/n10/mode/1up https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PlayStation_2#Reception Xbox finally revealed https://archive.org/details/mm63_20190722/page/n4/mode/1up https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xbox_(console) Nintendo does what everyone knew they would... delay the Dolphin...AND the Gameboy Advance https://archive.org/details/mm63_20190722/page/n5/mode/1up https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_Boy_Advance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GameCube Conker is no longer a nice guy... https://archive.org/stream/ElectronicGamingMonthly_201902/Electronic%20Gaming%20Monthly%20Issue%20129%20%28April%202000%29#page/n39/mode/1up https://www.mobygames.com/game/n64/conkers-bad-fur-day Final Fantasy is going online https://archive.org/stream/ElectronicGamingMonthly_201902/Electronic%20Gaming%20Monthly%20Issue%20129%20%28April%202000%29#page/n33/mode/2up https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Final_Fantasy_XI Fallout 3 to go 3D https://archive.org/details/PC-Player-German-Magazine-2000-04/page/n11/mode/1up https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallout_(series)#Van_Buren_(Black_Isle_Studios'_Fallout_3) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Van_Buren_(video_game) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5TvcanIELcY Origin shuts down the Ultima 9 boards https://archive.org/details/Computer_Gaming_World_Issue_189/page/n34/mode/1up https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultima_IX:_Ascension#Reception Protestors go after Midway https://www.retromags.com/files/file/3941-gamepro-issue-139-april-2000/ pg. 36 https://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/93462/Midway_Protests.php Cavedog is gone but Chris Taylor is hitting it big https://archive.org/details/mm63_20190722/page/n68/mode/1up https://www.mobygames.com/company/wargaming-seattle Infogrames goes through another COO https://archive.org/details/NextGen64Apr2000/page/n11/mode/1up 3Dfx cuts 20% of its workforce https://archive.org/details/NextGen64Apr2000/page/n11/mode/1up https://www.gamespot.com/articles/meet-3dfxs-new-ceo/1100-2447005/ https://www.forbes.com/2000/12/18/12183dfx.html#24c92428637f https://www.barrons.com/articles/barrons-100-most-influential-women-in-finance-tricia-griffith-51584709204 Hasbro is going to defend its Atari rights https://archive.org/details/NextGen64Apr2000/page/n11/mode/1up https://archive.org/details/PC-Player-German-Magazine-2000-04/page/n118/mode/1up Psychic sues Pokemon https://www.retromags.com/files/file/3941-gamepro-issue-139-april-2000/ pg. 34 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abra,_Kadabra,_and_Alakazam#Controversy EA buys up Dreamworks Interactive https://archive.org/details/NextGen64Apr2000/page/n18/mode/1up https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danger_Close_Games Freeloader.com is bringing free games to you https://archive.org/details/PC_Zone_Issue_088_2000-04_Dennis_Publishing_GB/page/n22/mode/1up https://www.pinsentmasons.com/out-law/news/freeloadercom-to-shut-down Recommended Links: They Create Worlds: https://tcwpodcast.podbean.com/ Digital Antiquarian: https://www.filfre.net/ The Arcade Blogger: https://arcadeblogger.com/ The History of How We Play: https://thehistoryofhowweplay.wordpress.com/ Sound Effects by Ethan of History of How We Play.

Today we're going to look at the history of the dial-up computer modem.  Modem stands for modulate/demodulate. That modulation is carying a property (like voice or computer bits) over a waveform.  Modems originally encoded voice data with frequency shift keys, but that was developed during World War II. The voices were encoded into digital tones. That system was called SIGSALY. But they called them vocoders at the time.  They matured over the next 17 years. And then came the SAGE air defense system in 1958. Here, the modem was employed to connect bases, missile silos, and radars back to the central SAGE system. These were Bell 101 modems and ran at an amazing 110 baud. Bell Labs, as in AT&T.   A baud is a unit of transmission that is equal to how many times a signal changes state per second. Each of those baud is equivalent to one bit per second. So that first modem was able to process data at 110 bits per second. This isn't to say that baud is the same as bitrate. Early on it seemed to be but the algorithms sku the higher the numbers.  So AT&T had developed the modem and after a few years they began to see commercial uses for it. So in 1962, they revved that 101 to become the Bell 103. Actually, 103A. This thing used newer technology and better encoding, so could run at 300 bits per second. Suddenly teletypes - or terminals, could connect to computers remotely. But ma' Bell kept a tight leash on how they were used for those first few years. That, until 1968. In 1968 came what is known as the Carterphone Decision. We owe a lot to the Carterfone. It bridged radio systems to telephone systems. And Ma Bell had been controlling what lives on their lines for a long time. The decision opened up what devices could be plugged into the phone system. And suddenly new innovations like fax machines and answering machines showed up in the world.  And so in 1968, any device with an acoustic coupler could be hooked up to the phone system. And that Bell 103A would lead to others. By 1972, Stanford Research had spun out a device, Novation, and others. But the Vladic added full duplex and got speeds four times what the 103A worked at by employing duplexing and new frequencies. We were up to 1200 bits per second.  The bit rate had jumped four-fold because, well, competition. Prices dropped and by the late 1970s microcomputers were showing up in homes. There was a modem for the S-100 Altair bus, the Apple II through a Z-80 SoftCard, and even for the Commodore PET. And people wanted to talk to one another. TCP had been developed in 1974 but at this point the most common way to communicate was to dial directly into bulletin board services.  1981 was a pivotal year. A few things happened that were not yet connected at the time. The National Science Foundation created the Computer Science Network, or CSNET, which would result in NSFNET later, and when combined with the other nets, the Internet, replacing ARPANET.  1981 also saw the release of the Commodore VIC-20 and TRS-80. This led to more and more computers in homes and more people wanting to connect with those online services. Later models would have modems. 1981 also saw the release of the Hayes Smartmodem. This was a physical box that connected to the computer of a serial port. The Smartmodem had a controller that recognized commands. And established the Hayes command set standard that would be used to connect to phone lines, allowing you to initiate a call, dial a number, answer a call, and hang up. Without lifting a handset and placing it on a modem. On the inside it was still 300-baud but the progress and innovations were speeding up. And it didn't seem like a huge deal.  The online services were starting to grow. The French Minitel service was released commercially in 1982. The first BBS that would become Fidonet showed up in 1983. Various encoding techniques started to come along and by 1984 you had the Trailblazer modem, at over 18,000 bits a second. But, this was for specific uses and combined 36 bit/second channels.  The use of email started to increase and the needs for even more speed. We got the ability to connect two USRobotics modems in the mid-80s to run at 2400 bits per second. But Gottfried Ungerboeck would publish a paper defining a theory of information coding and add parity checking at about the time we got echo suppression. This allowed us to jump to 9600 bits in the late 80s.  All of these vendors releasing all of this resulted in the v.21 standard in 1989 from the  ITU Telecommunication Standardization Sector (ITU-T). They're the ones that ratify a lot of standards, like x.509 or MP4. Several other v dot standards would come along as well.  The next jump came with the SupraFaXModem with Rockwell chips, which was released in 1992. And USRobotics brought us to 16,800 bits per second but with errors. But we got v.32 in 1991 to get to 14.4 - now we were talking in kilobits! Then 19.2 in 1993, 28.8 in 1994, 33.6 in 1996. By 1999 we got the last of the major updates, v.90 which got us to 56k. At this point, most homes in the US at least had computers and were going online.  The same year, ANSI ratified ADSL, or Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Lines. Suddenly we were communicating in the megabits. And the dial-up modem began to be used a little less and less. In 2004 Multimedia over Coax Alliance was formed and cable modems became standard. The combination of DSL and cable modems has now all but removed the need for dial up modems. Given the pervasiveness of cell phones, today, as few as 20% of homes in the US have a phone line any more. We've moved on. But the journey of the dial-up modem was a key contributor to us getting from a lot of disconnected computers to… The Internet as we know it today. So thank you to everyone involved, from Ma Bell, to Rockwell, to USRobotics, to Hayes, and so on. And thank you, listeners, for tuning in to this episode of the History of Computing Podcast. We are so lucky to have you. Have a great day. 

In our first episode of 2018 Suzie visits the infamous Dulwich Shed and Trevor examines the founding of the Anti-Digit Dialing League. WHAT THE HISTORY? Don’t forget to subscribe to… Continue reading "The Tasty Shed and The Dire Digits"

In our first episode of 2018 Suzie visits the infamous Dulwich Shed and Trevor examines the founding of the Anti-Digit Dialing League. WHAT THE HISTORY? Don’t forget to subscribe to… Continue reading "The Tasty Shed and The Dire Digits"

"Everything is awesome! Everything is cool when you're part of a team!" - so goes the impossibly catchy song from the Lego Movie. In IT, we are often expected to be caught up in that same spirit - hyped up on the adrenaline of fixing systems, catching hackers, and inventing new stuff. These expectations - which come from external sources like our boss or company or IT culture at large, or internally from assumptions we've taken on as personal truths - can fly in the face of how we're actually feeling. When our feelings turn from just being "a little tired", "a little frustrated", or "a little sad" to serious challenges like burn out, rage, or depression, it can be hard to admit, let alone seek help or ask our coworkers for support and understanding. And yet religious, moral, and ethical traditions are rich with stories of people coping with the exact same challenges. In this episode, we're going to get brutally honest about the mental health challenges we've faced and are facing today as well as what lessons from our faiths we can carry with us to provide insight, comfort, and even strength. Listen or read the transcript below. Speaker 1: 00:00 Welcome to our podcast where we talk about the interesting, frustrating and inspiring experiences we have is people with strongly held religious views working in corporate IT. We're not here to preach or teach you our religion. We're here to explore ways we make our career as IT professionals mesh or at least not conflict with our religious life. This is Technically Religious. Leon: 00:24 This is a continuation of the discussion we started last week. Thank you for coming back to join our conversation. Leon: 00:30 I want to pivot back around though, just talking about the leaders in our faith community and the behaviors or the examples that they show. I read something last year from Rabbi Sacks who is the former chief Rabbi of London. It really surprised me because it was a take on a part of the Torah of the Bible that I wouldn't have expected it and I didn't see it when I was reading it myself. Um, Rabbi Sacks was talking about when he himself feels depressed and overwhelmed and anxious. And he said that whenever he felt that way, he would recall a point when Moses himself reached his lowest point. And this is for those people who want to find it in the book of Numbers, chapter 11, verse 10 or thereabouts. Cause I know the numbering is not always the same between different, uh, versions of the Bible. Um, so the Israelites were engaged in their all time favorite activity: complaining about the food. Uh, in this case, they were recalling fondly the cuisine that they got to have in Egypt, completely forgetting about the fact that they were slaves at the time, that was completely ignored. God is, uh, because of this, understandably angry, but Moses was more than angry. Uh, as Rabbi Sacks describes it, he suffers a complete emotional breakdown. And one of the things he says is, it says to God is, "I cannot carry this whole people on my own. It's too heavy for me." And rabbi sacks continues by saying "...somehow the knowledge that the greatest Jewish leader of all time had experienced this depth of darkness was empowering.." That he, he took comfort in knowing that everybody sometimes gets there. Everybody experiences this. Even the man who the Bible itself says was the most humble human ever to walk... Who will, who did ever or will ever walk the face of the earth. The one human who was righteous enough to speak face to face with God, still had crushing depression that he didn't know how to get past himself. And by the way, um, in this plea to God, "I can't do this." God has an answer. God's, you know, by saying I can't, this God says, okay, here's how I'm going to help. And that also is empowering. Um, so I just, you know, when we talk about the things that we value in our leaders, I think we, we'd be remiss to not mention Moses. Josh: 03:17 Yeah. To not mention God, right. Because when we're talking about the ultimate leader, I mean, even Moses at his lowest point turn to God and said, I can't do this. And God's like, okay, let me help you. I think that for those who have a religious belief, um, that is, that is ultimately where they turn to, uh, is just to God. Yechiel: 03:41 And if I recall correctly, the way God helped him was by telling him to get help to you, told him to gather 70 elders and have them help out with his duties. So having spoken about the stigma behind talking about mental health and it was sort of what the, how we expect our community around us to react, the values that we expect them to have. Um, how do we actually go around treating, uh, non mental, uh, mental health issues? Is there something that we can take from our religious traditions or religious communities? Is there something that we can learn from that? Josh: 04:13 I mean, mental health within Mormonism is something that very recently has, has started to, uh, to peak. In fact, Mormonism, has a bi-annual conference. It happens in April and October every single year. They call it the general conference and it's broadcast live from Salt Lake city. In the one that just happened in October, there were a number of addresses from leaders of the church around mental health. Um, the church has, and we'll put this in the show notes. He actually has a website that's dedicated to mental health and it outlines a few things that we can do. It talks about, you know, watching what you say. So if, if you're in a position where someone comes to you and says, "Hey, Yechiel, this is the, the challenge I'm having, be careful the things that you, that you respond with, right? Sometimes we just need to listen and we don't need to fix, which as engineers is really hard because we want to fix everything because everything can be fixed, right? Um, we also need to be authentic friends. Um, everyone needs a friend and when you are suffering from depression, the world feels like a very lonely place. Um, it's, you know, talks about things like practice, self care, and it goes into details and what to think. Self care is, um, it talks about, you know, this, uh, the "be still", you know, sometimes it's for me, when I'm in a depressive episode, I do the opposite of, um, be still, I get really busy. The more busy I am, probably the, the more unstable my mental health is. Um, so, you know, if I'm working 12, 13, 15 hours a day, um, I'm, I'm probably trying to run away from something, um, you know, talks about, you know, finding joy and taking care of our physical cells, which is really important. Um, yeah, those are all things. Now I will also point out that the reality of Mormonism is this. The state of Utah has the highest percentage of Mormons anywhere in the world. Um, and in a study, um, done I believe in 2017 at found that LDS women are almost twice as common to have mental health issues than LDS men and 20%, 27% of a Mormon women and 14 and a half percent of Mormon men were dealing with a significantly a significant depression. And Utah again, which is predominantly Mormon, also has the highest incidents of adult mental illness and adults with serious thoughts of suicide in the, in the entire United States. And those are some pretty heavy things when you have such a high population that is focused on mental health. So yes, you know, Mormonism itself is doing a lot of things to say to start this narrative. And as we talked about before the show started, Canada, um, among other nations in the world has done a wonderful thing where there's a company here, uh, it's kinda like your Ma Bell down there in the States, uh, Bell Canada and they, every year, um, they run a campaign called "Let's Talk." And that campaign has been super powerful in, um, addressing the stigma around mental health and seeing others who have not only experienced mental health but have been able to navigate the complexities of it. So, I mean, religious communities, as I talked before, very complex narrative, a very complex system. Some are so much better in dealing with it than others. Um, I think Mormonism is getting better. It still has a ton of work to do. Yechiel: 07:44 Speaking from the Jewish community perspective, there's um, the stigma is still there like Leon spoke about earlier. But I do believe it's getting better. It's becoming more OK to speak about it. It's becoming more okay to seek help. I mentioned earlier that, you know, some people can see it as a sort of a religious failing, but on the other hand, Judaism also tells you that when you're sick you should go to the doctor. There's um, there's the verse in the Torah that specifically gives permission to doctors to heal. And so realizing that your mental health is just like any other health issue, there is actually a mitzvah. There's a commandment to take care of of that. You can't serve God when you're not, when you're sick and bad. You also can't serve God when you're depressed. So dealing with it is important. Leon: 08:31 Right. And, and that versus, I think it's important to point out that that versus in direct contradiction to the idea that going to a doctor would deny faith in God, that that seeking another human to help fix you would say, "Well, I believe this human is more powerful than, or has somehow more ability or skill than God does." And so this verse comes to say, "No, that's not how, that's how not how this world works. Uh, you know, this world works on certain, you know, principals and doctors have an understanding of, you know, the biology and all those things and that's okay. I put it there for that reason." Um, yes, you're right. You know, God is the one who is ultimately going to heal you. But in the same way that God is the one who ultimately is going to feed you and ultimately gonna make sure you're okay. And yet we still have to do the work of planting seeds and harvesting and all those things because we still have to take part in this world. The same thing with seeing, uh, you know, professionals who can, who can help us out. They are part of the process. Um, I also want to add that this way, this is where we get into the true role of what a rabbi does in Orthodox Jewish synagogue communal life. Um, I think from the outside people think the rabbi is the, you know, either the smartest Jew in the room, or the one who leads all the religious things, you know, they lead the service and the, they read all the important parts. In fact, when you go to an Orthodox service, the rabbi is probably the one who is sitting there doing the least. Um, in the service. They're not leading. They're not, you know, any of those things. The rest of the congregation handles that piece. The rabbi is the one who understands, uh, each of the congregants on the most personal level. That's, that's what they're there for. They're there to know what somebody is struggling with, uh, religiously and to know if they're struggling with something emotionally or in their health. Because Judaism is so private about things, people don't necessarily broadcast their troubles. The rabbi is the single point of contact in a lot of cases where someone says, yeah, I just got fired from my job and I'm really embarrassed about it. And the rabbi can reach out to somebody else and say, Hey, I, you know, I heard that in your company. You're, you're looking for somebody. I happen to know someone who is looking for work, you know, and can be that switchboard operator who can put people in touch at the same time, the rabbi is the touchstone. Who, who says, "Oh, that thing that you're, you know, you're questioning about your faith. That's normal. Lots of people do that." Um, or to say, "Wow, that's really kind of exceptional. Let's work on that. Let's talk about that. Let, let you know. Let's see who else we can, we can bring in for that." Whether that is spiritual or emotional or, you know, uh, mental slash psychological or just physical health. Um, they're the ones who are there to be the reality check and the sanity check and that trusted advisor. So, uh, I, I think Josh speaking to your point about what are you look for in religious leaders. Again, someone who's can be vulnerable, can also open themselves up to other people being vulnerable to them, but also that's, that's their role, uh, in the community. And the other point I wanted to make is that, uh, to your point about being still, uh, in, in Judaism, we pray three times a day, you know, morning, afternoon, and in the evening. The prayers are not, uh, they're not trivial. You know, they can take anywhere from 45 minutes to, you know, at the very least, 15 minutes, depending on what time of day it is. And I think that that's, they can be extremely meditative. You know, they offer an opportunity to check in with yourself, you know, whether you want to talk, you know, call it talking to God or checking in with the boss. Uh, I don't mean Springsteen. Or, uh, you know, checking in, you know, with yourself, whatever it is. If you take the opportunity, prayer can be more than just a litany of, "I really need this. And I really like that. And can you buy me a pony and you know...", Or, you know, "thank you. Thank you. Thank you. You're wonderful. You're wonderful. You're wonderful." It can be a moment to say, how am I doing and what feels missing? And Josh, to your point, you know, am I running away from something? Is there something I'm avoiding? What's that all about? Um, so I think that that in a Jewish context, there are these opportunities. Not that everyone takes them, not that everyone looks at them that way, but I believe that they're there. Josh: 13:19 Yeah. Honestly, one of the hardest transitions, one of the hardest things that I had to do when I transitioned away from Mormonism was a rediscover prayer. Uh, you know, once, once the deity that you knew when I couldn't define God for me anymore. And that was really hard. So I'm a little curious. I want to go about to your, just your description of the rabbi because there appears to be such a, a broad difference between your experience, both of your experiences, um, with Orthodox Judaism and the, um, the role of the rabbi. And that of Mormonism. Um, so tell me, tell, tell me, tell the listeners a little bit about rabbis. How long do they go to school? What training do they have that allows them to have that role where you could go to them and say, "Hey, a rabbi, I'm struggling with this. I'm struggling with my mental health. How do I work through it?" Leon: 14:17 Yechiel, this one's for you. Yechiel: 14:18 Yeah. It's interesting because there is nothing in the formal training of a rabbi that actually prepares them for that. The actual formal training is like purely the legal aspects of it. Like knowing how to, you know, is a kosher or not, you know, it was a, you know, what am I allowed to do on Shabbat? What am I not allowed to do? You know, the sort of the, the, the legal aspects of the questions that they might ask you. But then like I said, you know, every rabbi of a congregation has to deal with all these other issues that come up and that pretty much comes, you know, that there is no formal training for that, that they, that you have to pick up. You know, most rabbis will spend time, uh, under, you know, sort of as assistant grab buys, helping out other communities and picking up and you know, the, those are things... These are things you can quantify. You can't teach them in a classroom, have empathy and relating to people on communication skills. These aren't things that you can teach. You have them or you don't. Obviously you can perfect them, you can make them better. And someone who will struggle with that, we'll just realize early on that being a rabbi is not for them. So it's sort of a self selecting role where the most successful rabbis are the ones who are most respected for the reasons that Leon mentioned because they have this empathy because they have these people skills because they have these connecting abilities to bring people together and to really get down to what people are. Josh: 15:56 So our rabbi is, uh, the role of a rabbi is not assigned? It is something you pursue. Yechiel: 16:02 Yes. Leon: 16:03 Right. I also before it, before people recoil from, from their ear, you know, their earbuds and they go, "Oh my gosh, they were completely untrained and to do this", the rabbi isn't necessarily one who is going to try to fix these, these issues, these mental health issues or whatever, but they're in a position where as you feel said, they can listen, uh, empathetically and they can be a sounding board to say, "This is not, you know, this isn't typical." This isn't a a... I hate to say normal response, but this isn't a common response to these situations and let's help find someone to talk to. And rabbis regularly do, you know, uh, recommend people to therapists and psych, you know, psychologists and psychiatrists, to marriage counselors and to, uh, you know, personal counselors as well and say, let's, you know, they, they don't try to tackle... In the same way they wouldn't try to tackle a myocardial infarction, you know, a heart attack and say, "okay, I can Torah this!" Like, no, that's not, you know, they're going to say this is not good physical health. We're going to call an ambulance now. They also, but, but people are often more comfortable sharing their mental state with them and therefore they can be the point to say, you know, as another human listening, "You know what, I think we need to get someone else involved. Let's, let's do that." Josh: 17:35 So. again, we're trying to, to interweave our religion and our IT communities. And so this role of a rabbi is very interesting to me. I'm wondering if there is an equivalent when we're with mental health and our IT communities, like is there like, do we have those that, that rabbinical role or do we have, you know, in the context of Mormonism, do we have that, that role of Bishop or stake president, which if you're Catholic, a stake president is like a, uh, an Archbishop. Uh, I don't know what the, the Jewish equivalent of that is, but like, uh, you don't have one. Leon: 18:10 There ain't none. There's no organizational structure. That's another misconception is that there's some, you know, pan galactic, Jewish organism. Forget about the conspiracy theories. You know, there, there's really, I mean, you've never seen anything quite so disorganized until you get into Orthodox Judaism. It's... Yechiel: 18:29 uh, but to answer your question about, um, what would be started the equivalent role in it, uh, I think a, a good manager would recognize if one of their teammates, you know, is taking on too much, seems to be burning out or it seems to just be stretched too thin or just in general it seems to be down and will call them out on it and tell them, you know, take a sick day, take a mental health day, you know, if they see other problems, persistent, talk to someone. Um, obviously the workplace has, you know, I'm lucky to work at a company that values mental health and you know, and it shows both like in the benefits that they offer and the health insurance that they offer and you know, they offer counseling and things like that. Um, so I think definitely workplaces have a lot to... Have a big role to play in here. And started and a direct equivalent to the rabbi job, the mat, you know, a manager has direct responsibility for their reports. Leon: 19:25 So I also think that, um, it, you know, we, I think we all know that that manager, you can have good managers. I think that, um, a whole other podcast or entire podcast series on the types of managers we've had. And yes, Josh, I'm in the middle of reading the manager's path. So based on, from your recommendations. So, uh, you know, the good and bad managers all around. But I also think that, um, mentors, which is much more self-selective have the opportunity to, to be that sounding board. Um, someone who knows you, who understands what you're going through, who understands that in a professional context, but is able to say, um, as we said at the top of the show, it's one thing to be a little tired or a little upset or a little frustrated, but when that turns into, you know, longterm exhaustion or rage or anxiety, that's, you know, sort of a tipping point and a mentor, maybe the person who is able to say, "No, no, no, I've, I've, I've seen this, or I'd had this and I can tell you right now, this is, you know, let's, let's do something about it." Josh: 20:32 I've been pretty fortunate to have really good managers, um, for the past five years. I mean, that's not to say that my managers and the previous 15, uh, weren't, weren't, uh, good. Uh, or in some cases even, you know, Leon, you and I, uh, shared a manager. Uh, Andy was an outstanding individual. Still is. He's not changed a bit. I mean, he's still outstanding. Um, I've had, uh, two other managers since Andy transitioned away from our team into another team. Uh, both of whom I've been able to talk openly about my mental health and my depression. And to the point of mentors. I recently picked up a mentor. I reached out to somebody that I'd worked with, a director. And in our first conversation I was able to say to, you know, to this individual, Rob, look, I want to tell you that I, you know, I struggle with depression. I've, I've got some mental health challenges that that is part of who I am and it, it helps me to be who I am, but sometimes it also inhibits me. And I think to the point of this, this whole podcast, if we can fight the stigma of so many other things, uh, right. My oldest son has autism. When he was diagnosed, uh, more than 20 years ago. Um, the stigma around autism was, O"h, they are cold, um, isolationist individuals. They have, you know, there's nothing going on. Um, you know, all you can do is either medicate or give them intense therapy and that's the only way to save them". Um, w we bucked the system on all of those and now we're having discussions around, well, look, the autism is a spectrum and there are some people on the autistic spectrum that if we just removed the things that they struggle with, they can do exemplary work. Um, and I think that, I think that we'll mature, um, as a society where we look at mental health and we say, look, there are some things that we can remove and that when we remove those barriers that we have more people that can contribute to the well being of society. Um, I mean, I, I, I guess I'm very fortunate. Yechiel used a term, uh, earlier where you said, um, from a position of privilege, and I think that I have often operated from that position of privilege when it comes to the, the immediate managers I've had. Leon: 23:12 So I just, uh, offering, um, a point of perspective is that I, I still think that in it mental health, talking about mental health is a challenge. I don't want to diminish that or be Pollyanna about it. It's, you know, there's a lot of people walking around in a lot of different companies or teams who know, not just suspect, but know that there is nothing, there's no way they can talk about it. Um, and I think that especially in parts of the it community, that are already struggling with toxic masculinity and brogrammer culture that's just not gonna happen. Um, however, I have seen enough discussions about burnout, um, about dealing with poor workplace habits or teams or processes. I've seen social media discussions tagged with the #FightTheStigma hashtag, you know, I've seen enough of that to know that there is a shift taking place, this podcast, you know, not the least among those things that this is a conversation that more people are insisting that we have. Um, to put it out in the open to say this is a thing that happens. Again, Josh just, you know, in the same way that once upon a time people didn't dare talk about a child with autism. Now it's, you know, I was talking to somebody the other day who was on a flight and they were sitting next to... She, she works with, uh, exclusively with, with, uh, adults and kids with autism. And she was sitting on a flight next to somebody who was just coming with their child from having gotten a diagnosis and without thinking, she says, "Oh my gosh, that's wonderful! That's so exciting!" Because in her perspective, working with these folks all day long, every day, they are joyful and fun and creative and interesting in ways that neuro-typical people just aren't. And you know, she just, and she said, "I actually had to check myself for a minute because I realized that they had just gotten this diagnosis. They were just wrapping their head around it. And my unabashed enthusiasm was probably not taken the way that I meant it." Um, so in that same way that they're, you know, that, that reaction to families who have individual with autism in it, I think that, you know, the more we talk about it, the more that we bring it out there and talk about our individual experiences. Um, I, I do also want to bring up something that I had seen a friend say earlier, which is that as much as we encourage people who may be, uh, dealing with depression or are struggling with, um, you know, just emotions that they can't even quantify, um, and saying, you know, "if you're not sure what to do, get help...", We acknowledge, or at least I acknowledge that I may be adding fuel to the fire because in those moments, movement, emotional or even physical movement, maybe the hardest thing to do and not being able to do that may feed into that depressive cycle that you're experiencing. So, um, you know, get the help that you can. Be kind to yourself in the same way that you would be kind to anybody else in your world. Uh, again, from our religious tradition, I think that we are taught, we are, we are told, we are commanded to give the benefit of the doubt, to be kind to both our neighbors and the the strangers, in our community. And yet that is the thing that we are most reluctant sometimes to give ourselves. So if it helps at all, treat yourself like a stranger. To, you know, if you say, "I don't even know who I am." Okay, fair enough. Then then get to know whoever that weirdo is looking at you in the mirror and treat them with the kindness that you would treat anybody else who showed up at your doorstep in need. Josh: 27:05 My wife, uh, she was a great example to me today. We, we have, uh, some, some, uh, friends who recently lost a child, um, in a very traumatic way and child, but he was an adult, a young adult and it was difficult for my wife to, to talk with this other woman. She was obviously struggling with the scenario of, you know, life without this child who had this wonderfully infectious smile. Um, he was just a joy to be around. He was very hyper, very, very hyper. Uh, but he always made people smile and always made people laugh. And as I watched my wife, um, you know, the, the, the thing you don't want to say to somebody, and this is to your point, is well, what can I do for you? Because the answer is I don't know. I don't know how to help. And so my wife said, "Look, if you need someone to talk to, please call me. Or if you need someone to listen, please call me. Just know that I'm here." And I thought, wow, that is such a powerful thing. It's so simple. But you, as you said, Leon, we often are not willing to give of ourselves in that way. Um, so to all of our listeners, you know, be present for those among your coworkers and your community, whether it's IT or religious, I think that's powerful, right? I, I hope that our IT communities get better, uh, get more authentic and maybe less competitive. I think that'll do a lot for our mental health. Here's what I'll say. Um, when I started my religious community, which I have, uh, which I wrapped up now that, that I'm in a different place. Um, the tagline was, "You are not alone." Um, so if nothing else today, I hope that our listeners, well, we'll take that and remember, you are not alone. Um, life is a journey. Sometimes we pull off at a rest top and we can rest. Other times we press on even when we should have pulled off to rest. Um, do not walk the journey alone. Your path looks different than my path. Looks different than Yechiel's path or Leon's path. But we're all on this journey together. Um, if you are struggling, if you need someone to, to or reach out, reach out to us via email, our Twitter DMs are open. LinkedIn. Heck, you can even look me up on the phone book because Prince Edward Island still has a phone book. It's crazy. I know, but um, just remember that you're not alone. You're not alone and uh, people, people will be there for you. Leon: 30:06 Thanks for making time for us this week to hear more of Technically Religious visited our website, https://technicallyreligious.com where you can find our other episodes, leave us ideas for future discussions and connect us on social media. Josh: 30:18 At Technically religious. We usually have something funny to say at this point in the show, but mental health is nothing to take lightly. If you are struggling, please reach out to a family member, friend or a healthcare professional. If you are in crisis, please seek immediate medical attention. You are not alone. Fight the stigma.  

Major stumbles from big tech -- think Cambridge Analytica and the recent Nancy Pelosi viral video -- have caused a rift in the love affair with Congress, the Department of Justice, and the Federal Trade Commission. Miami Law’s antitrust expert John Mark Newman explores the landscape. Recorded on August 16, 2019.

QIC: Ma Bell Pax: Banjo and Gerrymander

1996-02-02 - Coast to Coast AM with Art Bell - Mayan Calender - Krsana Duran - Ma Bell

QIC: Hello Kitty Pax: Ma Bell Music: Thirty Seconds to Mars, "Walk on Water"

The dominating online presence of Facebook, Google, and Amazon has often been called monopolistic. Government-enforced monopolies, such as Western Union and Ma Bell, have fallen before, but is Big Tech anything like those old companies? Presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren has even started a petition calling for the breakup of big tech companies, which may include Apple among others. How would the digital world look if she succeeds? Should politicians get to decide whether Facebook meets the same fate as MySpace or should the consumer? Join us this week as James Harrigan and Antony Davies thwart the misconceptions about monopolies and discuss the fates of tech products like Netscape and Microsoft’s Internet Explorer. Show Notes: Buying your way into college New York City wants to ban “unfair” firings Foolishness of the week Missouri wants to require residents to own AR-15s Topic of the week Elizabeth Warren wants to break up Facebook Join the conversation Antony Davies on Twitter James R. Harrigan on Twitter Antony Davies on Minds.com James R. Harrigan on Minds.com Words & Numbers Backstage Let us know what you think at: wordsandnumberspodcast@gmail.com

QIC: Hello Kitty Pax: Ma Bell Music: Thirty Seconds to Mars, "Walk on Water"

(repeat)  Long before cyber criminals were stealing ATM passwords, phone phreaks were tapping into the telephone system. Their motivation was not monetary, but the thrill of defeating a complex, invisible network. Today “hacking” can apply to cyberwarfare, biological tinkering, or even geoengineering. Often it has negative connotations, but the original definition of “hacking” was something else. In this first of two episodes on hacking, we look at the original practitioners – the teenagers and mavericks who hacked Ma Bell for thrills - and the difference between hacking for fun and for profit.  Guests: Phil Lapsley- Author of “Exploding the Phone: The Untold Story of the Teenagers and Outlaws Who Hacked Ma Bell”  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

(repeat)  Long before cyber criminals were stealing ATM passwords, phone phreaks were tapping into the telephone system. Their motivation was not monetary, but the thrill of defeating a complex, invisible network. Today “hacking” can apply to cyberwarfare, biological tinkering, or even geoengineering.  Often it has negative connotations, but the original definition of “hacking” was something else. In this first of two episodes on hacking, we look at the original practitioners – the teenagers and mavericks who hacked Ma Bell for thrills - and the difference between hacking for fun and for profit.  Guests: Phil Lapsley- Author of “Exploding the Phone: The Untold Story of the Teenagers and Outlaws Who Hacked Ma Bell” 

The AT&T Time Warner mega-merger just passed a big legal hurdle and will more than likely become reality soon. What will it mean for you? Fewer choices and higher prices? Mergers and Acquisitions expert, Brad Whitlock explains why maybe this time the Fed should leave "Ma Bell" alone. Up next, Manny the Movie Guy assigns a rare, 4 out of 4 kisses for one of this weekend's new movies. Which one does Manny "love, love, love?" Is it Incredibles 2, Tag or Superfly? It's a packed studio of co-hosts today. Joining Phil Hulett are the host of the Ducks n Pucks podcast, Mike Walters, Rock n Roll singer, Kellie Sue Peters, and the host of The Brave Ones podcast, Olivia McLeod. check out this stack of stories: Would you wear a wedding dress made out of THIS? What's with the stupid wardrobe choices in the Jurassic Park series of movies? Phil wonders if Hollywood just can't shake outdated gender roles. We know a talented clarinet player who found out the hard way that his girlfriend is a self-absorbed, conniving idiot. Here's another reason you never need to leave your house. Now Alexa can be your fitness buddy. While you are watching your weight, how about lo-cal alcoholic popsicles? One young woman may have had one alco-push-pop too many after getting her head caught in one of these. Meet the record-breaking donut boy. A pizza delivery chain goes above the call of duty to make out streets safer, and ever the skeptic, Kellie Sue can't help but smell the corporate greed over the altruism and marinara sauce.

In This Week’s Show, episode 179, Jenn’s gone so we scoured the internet for inappropriate headlines… enjoy. Sooory eh. Now, grab a beer and help us test the god hypothesis — because, while Rangi (the Maori sky god) hasn’t struck us down yet, we are trying his patience! Shea’s Life Lesson This week I learned that revealing the intimate details of Donald Trump’s sex life to the public is only going to make the opioid crisis worse. Jenn’s Actual Lesson Is dying, as per the usual… Har har har har. Since it’s a sausage fest, here’s a fact about the Maori god, Rangi, considered the father of mankind. He fathered multiple gods through the earth mother goddess, Papa, then left her for some new brides to make people. That’s right, ladies. They even get tired of goddesses. But before we get to all that, let’s have a beer! This Week’s Beer Cellar Blender - New Belgium BA Link:http://bit.ly/2pxAINx BA Rating:3.89/5 Style: Sour Beer ABV: 7.5% Aaron: 9 Shea: 9 Steve: 5 This Week’s Show Round Table Discussion Patron - Dave the British Yeti! Here he is among the best people on earth, our patrons! You can become a patron too at http://bit.ly/2qqJxcqks extra story... it's about drinking gravy! Skeptics Round Table What have we been up to? Aaron: Make’n Cheese Jenn: Plague-stricken, yet again. Please keep her in your thoughts and iTunes Reviews - those are better than prayers… (It’s more like bronchitis, but thanks for playing. ~J) Shea: Got a new tablet Steve: Today is my 19th wedding anniversary and I’m spending some of it with you fine people. My wife is fine with it. Actually, when we decided to record today, it was Aaron who reminded me (and me, my wife) that it’s our anniversary, so if it wasn’t for this show, we’d have likely forgotten… again. Hot Shots (Pew Pew) Can Ya Feel Me Now? - https://dailym.ai/2HuYAsP A Chinese man with an “itchiness” he couldn’t scratch enlisted the help of the worlds last corded phone by cramming the useless device’s cable up is urethra to “scratch” at a burning sensation. As anyone who's ever unplugged a computer knows, cables tangles themselves up as if by magic. Unfortunately, for our would be Urologist, this tangling occurred in his bladder, requiring emergency surgery. No word yet on whether Ma Bell is considering this a “long distance” service… Who Doesn’t Love Getting A Little Head, Eh Marti? - http://bit.ly/2qrGhNJ   41yo Virginia woman Roena, apparently dissatisfied with the head she was getting, decided to take her cunnilingus to-go and decapitated her 29yo bo… named Bo. Another body part of his found in woods nearby, presumably after it slid off the roof of her car, as is the fate of all styrofoam doggy bags. When Have A Coke And A Smile Goes Wrong, What Do You Do? - http://bit.ly/2qrGi4f Why blame the weather of course. When officers pulled over a car and said they smelled pot, passenger and Florida woman (I know, shocking), Kennecia Posey, admitted the weed was hers but insisted that the small baggie of cocaine in her bag wasn’t hers, saying, “I don’t know anything about any cocaine. It’s a windy day. It must have flown in through the window and into my purse.” It seems the cops didn’t find the story credible since they arrested her. Don’t enter into verbal contracts with roofers. - http://bit.ly/2qrGikL Dickhead roofer in question, Andrew Jackson Higdon, was charged with criminal trespass and damage to property after removing the shingles and roofing felt after the homeowner didn’t pay him as quickly as he wanted. They’d agreed in June that he’d be paid after the insurance money came through. By December he decided he’d waited long enough. Get your contracts in writing folks. Nipples For Sale - http://bit.ly/2qrGiBh 31-yo Danny Ruxton quit his job to spend three years designing fur-fringed, rainbowlicious, Hershey's Kiss unicorn nipples. Because it’s the internet, and that’s how we fund startups now. Leaving us wondering what the internet won't bu...

David Corbin: Keynote Speaker, Business Adviser, President of Private and Public Corporations, Inventor, Mentor and pretty good guy…..David M. Corbin has been referred to as “Robin Williams with an MBA” because of his very practical, high relevant content speeches coupled with entertaining and sometimes side splitting stories. A former psychotherapist with a background in healthcare, he has served as management and leadership consultant to businesses and organizations of all sizes – from Fortune 20 companies to businesses with less than 1 million – and enjoys the challenges of all. He has worked directly with the Presidents of companies such as AT&T, Hallmark, Sprint as well as the Hon.Secretary of Veterans Administration and others. http://davidcorbin.com Notes from the interview: Why is it important for nonprofits to be clear about their brand? You have a brand. If you don't work at defining it, your audience will. You create an impression by your actions, intent does not stop that. Everything you do adds to the impression you create. Make believe you are always being observed and act accordingly. Audit your service by experiencing your deliverable. Would you do business with your organization? When working with people to build organization framework, when to we focus on brand promise? From the beginning. Why do we exist? Who do we serve? How do we want to be known? What do we really want? Who are we really? Everything we take on needs to fit who we are at the core! Do the Brand Audit right at the beginning(Before you deliver any services or approach anyone)! Team must be fully engaged all the way through. Quality and Clarity Determine Financial Results. Growth must start at an individual level for the organization to grow. People – The only completely renewable resource of any organization! (And the most valuable) Culture is a reflection of leadership! How Do Leaders Keep Our Internal and External Brands Fresh? Integrity – Living the values of the organization. Boss Watching – Biggest Sport! Model the behaviors the brand represents. Transformation consists of a series of small steps, often many of them! It starts with one in a row! Everything counts when it comes to integrity. Leader must lead by example. The Transcript NPC Interview with David Corbin Hugh Ballou: Greetings, this is Hugh Ballou. We are live with the Nonprofit Chat. Today, we have a guest who will bring energy to a lot of different topics tonight. David Corbin is a friend of ours. We have known each other for a number of years. This is the first time we have had a live interview, so welcome and thank you for being here. David Corbin: My pleasure. I'm happy to be a live interview. I hope the other ones weren't dead. What are you trying to say, Hugh? Hugh: You're a live one, man. I like guests to start out by telling people something interesting about yourself. Why do you do what you're doing, and what is your background that gave you… The few times you and I have had some deep conversations, I have really been impressed by the depth and breadth of wisdom that you have on these topics that you talk about. Give us a little paragraph or two about David Corbin. Who are you, and what brought you to where you are today? David: Well, I'm a human being. I'm not a speaker. I'm not an author. I'm not a doctor. I'm a human being, and I play the role of a keynote speaker, inventor, and mentor. I am a guy who loves life. What can I say? If there is a way- As I did yesterday, I had a client fly out from Mexico. The objective overall was for him to be happy, healthy, prosperous, and the like. I am the guy who likes to do that and likes to be that as the extent I can continue to learn and grow. I do all of those things. As you know, you have been in my audience, and I have been in yours. I love to share ideas from a platform. I like to consult with corporations at the highest levels and then solopreneurs. I love to run my 5K every Saturday, and I love to play tennis. I love to hang out in my backyard. I look out there, and I have chickens running around and a turtle in the pool. Life is great. Hugh: You're in San Diego, California. David: I am. Home of Tony Gwynn, the famous Padre. Today I was honored to be invited to the unveiling of his statue in our little town here. I was also with his family at Cooperstown at Baseball Hall of Fame as he was inducted with Cal Ripken. I am in southern California, San Diego. The town is called Poway. Hugh: Love it. The first time we met, we were in Lake Las Vegas, and you had just published Illuminate. You're not an author, but you write some really profound stuff. You actually were in a suit and tie that day. What inspired you to write that book, and what is it about? David: I'll tell you what it's about. It's about facing the reality of situations in our life and our business. You see, I have read the positive mental attitude literature, and I have had the honor of meeting Dr. Norman Vincent Peele and some of the luminaries in positive mental attitude. I am honored to be in the latest Think and Grow Rich book, Three Feet from Gold. Nowhere in that literature does it say ignore negative issues, that we should push them under the carpet as it were. I came to realize that my most successful clients were individuals who had the courage to face those issues, not just accentuate the positive as the song goes. But rather than eliminate the negative, I learned the key is to illuminate the negative in a model that I call “face it, follow it, and fix it.” That is what Illuminate is about. It came from the realization from practical experience, that whether it is a nonprofit, a for-profit, or a for-profit that doesn't intend to be a nonprofit but ends up that way, no matter who it is, the individuals who have the courage and the character to face the problems head-on, that is what I found to be the greatest model, and hence the title of Illuminate: Harnessing the Positive Power of Negative Thinking. Hugh: What I can count on if we are having conversations is the words coming out of your mouth are not what I can expect from anyone else, because David Corbin is one of the most creative people I have ever met. I remember when we were introducing ourselves at CEO Space one time, one person said they were a consultant, and then you came along and said, “I am an insultant,” and I said, “I'm a resultant,” and your head went, Whoosh. At least one time I one-upped you. David: It's on my website now. There is an asterisk at the bottom and says, “Maestro Hugh Ballou, genius extraordinaire.” Hugh: I am honored, David Corbin. I have not seen that. A resultant in a pipe organ is a pipe that is not as long. A sixteen-foot pipe has a certain pitch. They don't have space, so they miter it, and the result is a lower tone from a shorter pipe. We actually create a bigger result without having to be bigger ourselves. We can amplify the sound by what we do. You and I, I love this Illuminate. Two weeks ago, I talked to David Dunworth, who is also an author. He has quoted you. We talked about that. You illuminate a lot of people you maybe don't even know. It's really how we amplify what other people do. I'm just energized by the fact that you're here. You have another book that is new. You've written about brand slaughter. Is that the title? David: It is. I was just on the TV news this week talking about that. It was fun. The guy couldn't get over the title. The concept is- People create their brand based upon their values and the brand promise out to the world. They put a check off and think they're done. Don't stop there. You're either building your brand—you, your employees and everyone else in your organization—or killing it. Nothing is neutral. You are either engaged in brand integrity or engaged in what I call brand slaughter, just like manslaughter in the first, second, or third degree. We can read in the news that people are convicted of manslaughter, but you don't often see people convicted of brand slaughter, except maybe in the case of United Airlines or Pricewaterhousecooper in front of 30 million people after 87 years of great service to the Oscars. I don't know if it's brand slaughter. I think they can recoup from that. However, United Airlines is going to have a hard time coming back from that brand slaughter, wouldn't you agree? Hugh: I would. It's one that got highlighted in a series of really dumb things the airline has done. We're talking to passionate people who are providing amazing value but are limited by how people perceive us. I was talking to someone on a radio interview, and he said, “There is a charity in my area, but I quit giving because I really wasn't sure what was happening.” That is part of our brand promise, who we are and what we stand for. David: That's right. When we look at the organizations that part of our charter is to serve others in an amazing way, and there is no shortage of people in the giving field, those organizations are carrying a lot of weight for the society. They are making a promise out there. By and large, they are delivering. However, there are some actions and behaviors they either are taking or their management/leadership is taking or their front line people are taking—they are taking certain behaviors that are undermining the brand and the promise of the entire organization. It doesn't have to be that way. Look, I have had great experiences on United Airlines. I truly have. I love Gershwin, so when I hear that music, it pus me in a wonderful state. I have met some wonderful people. They are not just a group of dirtbags. However, the one person who carries the credibility and reputation of the organization pulled down the asset value of the corporation, the reputation of the corporation, and created for great humor, “United Airlines put the hospital back in hospitality,” such that Southwest Airlines came out and said, “We beat our competition, not our customers.” That kind of stuff is just going to keep going because of one guy making one bad move. I want to tell the leaders, managers, supervisors, and individuals who are carrying the torch of these organizations to do what I teach in this book called an ABI, an Audit of Brand Integrity. Have every one of your employees take a sheet of paper and write down the values, write down the brand, and then write down the touchpoints they have on a daily basis with the individuals they are touching: a customer, a fellow employee, a vendor. Everyone who is carrying that brand, and that individual looks at their touchpoints and asks themselves, “How does the brand live that touchpoint?” What could I do, what might I do, what should I do, what ought I do to really boost that brand? If the organization, let's say United Airlines because we are picking on them, but I can tell you two of them I experienced today alone. But I focus in on that one. If the CEO said, “Folks, this is our brand. We are doing a brand audit. After you do that audit, come back and tell us examples of how that brand is to live in your head. Maybe even tell us some examples of what you have observed in our organization when we have committed brand slaughter.” There is a statute of limitations. Nobody is going to get busted. But it helps us to see how the brand is alive and well and being fed and nurtured and supported, and on the other side, by the law of contrast, we can see where we have fallen down so we don't fall down that hole again. That would be an amazing solution. I implore everyone who is listening, whether you are running a nonprofit or not—maybe you are going to at some point but now you are a parent or a neighbor or a member of a church or synagogue—and ask yourself: What is your brand? How are you living that brand? I think when we get serious about this, we can't solve everything we face, but we can solve anything unless we face it. This is a way of facing the opportunity of building your brand asset value. I sound like a politician. I am David Corbin, and I endorse that message. Hugh: That's right. Your passion is contagious. Our friend from Hawaii, Eve Hogan, is watching on Facebook. We have a lot of people that we know. David, there are four million 501(c) somethings. There are 10's, 6's, 3's, and government organizations. There are all kinds of tax-exempt organizations. They are charities; they are social benefit organizations. Russell and I are on the campaign to eliminate the word nonprofit. Rather than defining ourselves by what we're not, which is not correct either—we do need to make a profit to make things happen—we are social benefit organizations. We leverage intellectual property. We leverage passion. We leverage the good works and products we have for the benefit of humankind. These nongovernmental organizations that we represent have a bigger job and more important job today than ever before. There is real confusion on the whole branding thing. I want to back up a minute to a question posted a few minutes ago. How can nonprofits eliminate their brand? But I think it's important for them to know why they even need a brand and why it is important to be clear about the brand. It's true for any organization, but we are talking to nonprofits. The reason we have top-level business leaders like you on this series is we need to understand good, sound business principles to install into these organizations that we lead. Why is branding important? How do we illuminate that into the communities that want to support us but need that information? David: Let's just say this. Whether you like it or not, you have a brand. Whether you know it or not, you have a brand. These scanners- I have a scanner over there. It's a Hewlett Packard. It doesn't compare to these scanners. *points to eyes* I have a computer that we're working through. It doesn't compare to this computer .*points to brain* Everyone is walking around with these scanners and this computer, and everything counts. Whether you acknowledge it or not, you are creating an impression from the eye to the brain to the heart to the soul of who you are and what you're doing, whether you believe in it or not. I don't know if you believe in gravity or not, but if you walk off of any building in any town of any city, you are going down. It's an immutable fact. Now, thank you for the concept of the not-for-profit. Why talk about what we're not? That was brilliant. You open up my thinking. I thank you for that. I want to let all of my service providers know that everything that you do is creating an impression, whether you believe in it or not. Could you imagine if I came out and said, “I want to talk about hygiene and important it is?” *while sniffling and rubbing his nose and eyes* That would be absurd. I happen to have a 501(c)3 for anti-bullying called Anti Bullying Leadership Experience. Everything that we do is going to be carrying our mojo of the anti-bullying. Could you imagine if I started yelling at one of my vendors and pouncing on them and playing a power trip with them? That would be the antithesis of everything. The point I want to make is make believe that you are on the stage of a microscope and you are being observed in everything that you are doing because you are. And as soon as the leaders know that, they will start looking at things differently. You drive up to the parking lot, see what the front door looks like, see how you are greeted, and you are watching everything that is going on. God is my judge, I must tell you. Hugh, you know I am putting together a little wedding party for my daughter. I was at two places today, one of which the woman didn't show up to the appointment, and she needed to call me back, and she didn't later. One was a very famous place called L'Auberge Del Mar. It's five-star. When I called to make a room reservation there, I was there for seven and a half minutes before I even found someone. I eventually called the manager who called me back. I said, “I'm going to give you a gift. I would like you to call and try to make a room reservation and get the experience of what that's like.” She did. She called me back and goes, “My goodness, Mr. Corbin. I had no idea.” We need to audit all of these activities. Our service organizations, which do not have an unlimited budget that a lot of corporations might have today, must be efficient, must be effective. The best consultation you can get is from yourself experiencing your deliverables and that which it is you are bringing to the market. I just think that we don't have a lot of wiggle room for error. There is a wonderful book by Andy Grove who started a little company called Intel. You probably haven't heard of it. Andy wrote a book called Only the Paranoid Survive. I don't think he is suggesting that we walk around paranoid. I think he is suggesting a strong and deep introspection into what we are doing and how we are doing it. I want to punch that home. Please, please for the benefit of all whom you are serving and whom you could serve in the future, take this message seriously. Know that you have a brand. Live that brand. Make sure that everyone in your auspices know how they live that brand. Hugh: Those are wise words. Mr. Russell Dennis is capturing sound bites. He is very good at picking out things, and you have given him a lot of fresh meat today. David, you work with a variety of different kinds of clients, some of whom you and I both know. When you are working with them on building out the whole framework of the organization they are launching and growing, at what point do you hone in on this brand image, brand promise, brand identity? At what point in this process do you focus on that aspect? David: I believe strongly with begin in the end in mind. It's more than rhetoric. If you are a service organization, really ask the penetrating questions. 1) Why do we exist, and do we need to exist? 2) Who do we serve, and how do we serve them? 3) How do we want to be known? 4) What do we want somebody to yell over to the fence to their neighbor about our organization? When you have that, you work backwards from that. Business planning takes the existing business and carries it out into the future, but strategic planning envisions the future and works backwards from there. I take a deep dive of visualization. Actually, as you know, I am a graduate of Woodstock. I was there in 1969. So I can say not just visualization, but hallucination. I can really hallucinate on those questions. I just was in front of an audience in Atlanta and said, “What do you want? What do you really want?” I say that to businesses as I do strategic planning. Who are you? Who are you really? Then you know all of that. That is when you contemplate for your brand promise and the reputation that you want to earn because you can't demand it. Then when you do that, you get the confidence to move forward. You now have the gristmill, and everything must go through that. How does it go against our brand? Should we do that? Great, tell us how it fits into our brand. When someone does something that is off-target, how did that dent our brand, and what can we do to prevent that from happening again? In direct answer to your question, do this brand audit right form the get-go. I promise you not only does it give individuals a sense of ownership, but it gives them a sense of confidence because nobody wants to mess it up. In Europe, they take it down to the bottom line. When you ding the brand, you are actually pilfering money from the organization. Isn't that something? Imagine if we really own the brand. No one changes the oil when we rent a car because they don't have ownership. When people know what the brand is in their hands, they take ownership. What happens is when you collaborate with your people, you breed creativity and commitment. Now they are engaged, they are enrolled. Nothing can stop a service organization with passionate, engaged people. That is why I plug what you're doing, Hugh. Hugh: Thank you for that, David. That is such a vivid description of how we can upgrade our performance and upgrade the performance of the organization that we have a huge responsibility for as the leader. Perceiving ourselves as the leader doesn't mean we have to do everything. It does mean we need to be involved in the grassroots of what is going on so we can know what is actually happening. And what you talked about brings to mind that we build relationship with others in the organization. To me, that is the foundation of leadership, and it is also the foundation of communications. You gave the gift to the hotel manager that she didn't have because she was too busy doing the top-level things to get into the minutiae and figure out, Whoa, how do we look to the public? You could go to any big company in America and help them do an audit, and it would bring them immense value, probably within the first 30 seconds of your conversation. Part of what you described is part of this word that you have used, which is such a brilliant framing of how we- Everybody in Synervision is a leader. We lead from different perspectives, and we impact everybody else in the organization. We also represent the brand. We don't know who is going to go wild, like United Airlines. That was such a terrible thing for everybody, but it highlighted an underlying problem. Brand slaughter was what brought it to the fore. I bet that cost United a whole lot of money so far, not to mention future business. Let's take it back to the charities. We are doing work that impacts people's lives, sometimes saving people from drug addition or suicide or insanity. There are a lot of worthy things we are doing. We have elements going on that kill the brand. I love it when you talk about this brand slaughter thing. I'd like to put it back into context in what we're doing with this world of charities and how we need to contain this brand and empower our tribes to represent the brand and not be guilty of brand slaughter. Give us a little more food for thought, especially for charities. I work with churches, synagogues, community foundations, semi-government agencies. I find there is a similarity with everybody, that we are not aware of how the culture is represented by the people, and that brand slaughter is committed in minor ways, but also in bigger ways. I am going to shut up now and let you talk about brand slaughter and why that is so crucial for our charities. David: I look at it this way. I believe that the financial results of any organization is largely dependent on the quality of its people and the clarity of its people. Be it a service organization or otherwise, I believe everyone in the organization should create a circle. I don't mean hands holding. I mean draw a circle, a wheel with a hub and spokes. Every one of those spokes is an essential core job function for that person. If it's a leader, we know some of the spokes are delegation, communication, strategic thinking, and financial management. Those are all spokes. Whatever the position is, if you're an operating room nurse or a development manager for a service organization, you create that wheel and look at the spokes. When you do, you start rating yourself on those spokes. The hub means you're terrible. Outside at the end is a number ten. That is mastery. You get real serious with whoever you are, whatever your job is, and rate yourself on a scale of zero to ten. Where you are an eight or nine, great, pat yourself on the back. That is really cool. But don't stop there. Unfortunately, Americans tend to stop at the immediate gratification. Look at what I'm doing great. We say no. Focus in on the threes, fours, and fives. Set a goal to a six, eight, and nine, and close those gaps. I say that to my brothers and sisters who work in the serious world of service delivery. I mean what we would call service providers and not-for-profits or whatever you want to call them. When you get serious, and you rate yourself on a scale of one to ten in those areas, and you start closing those gaps, magic happens. You know what the magic is? You start building a momentum of growing yourself. You can't grow an organization unless the individuals are growing themselves. You show me an organization that does what I'm talking about: closing the gaps, setting personal goals, and getting more efficient and effective in what they do. I don't care if their building burns down; they could accomplish their mission in a tent. They could do it with dirt floors. They could do it anywhere. The saying is, “Wherever two or more people are gathered in His name, there is love.” Let me tell you. Whenever you have a leadership team and a management team that talks about building their people, the only renewable asset in an organization, no matter what happens, they will win. Every one of the employees increases their asset value. You invoke the law of control. People feel good about themselves in the extent they are moving in the direction of destiny. Their confidence goes up. Their competence goes up. People talk about going down the rabbit hole. Now you are going up this amazing spire into success, achievement, productivity, confidence, peace of mind, and self-esteem. I am passionate about that because I have seen it work. I help it work. I live it myself. I couldn't talk about it if I didn't live it, or else that would be a form of brand slaughter. Hugh: I can validate that. You live out the David Corbin brand. You illuminate the brand. Or you don't do it. You are very serious about being spot-on. You show up fully present. I have been doing the German ice cream thing. I am being Häagen-Dazs Mike. Russell, do you have a comment or a question for our guest tonight? Russell Dennis: It's a lot easier to tear a brand apart than it is to put it together. Look at United. Those guys have been around forever and a day. And in the space of a day, they have torn the whole thing down and trashed a lot of good wealth. It's very easy. Brand is about- it goes beyond a logo. People think of a logo when they think of a brand. It's not the logo; it's what is behind the logo that symbolizes something. I am going to pull a definition out of a book that a very wise man wrote, “The brand as is a tangible expression of top-performing culture comes to life when the elements including the mission are taken off the wall and put into daily action at all levels and through all individuals in the organization.” That is a big mouthful. Hugh: Who is the wise person that wrote that? Russ: Just some guy who is sitting around while we chat. Hugh: David Corbin wrote that. Russ: Brand slaughter, to me, is the ultimate thing. To say this is what we stand for and do something completely different. I think there are some people out there who are scrutinizing and are waiting for somebody to make a mistake. I have seen people do that. You run into those folks in a supermarket. People don't intentionally set out to fail, but it happens. These are things that are talked about in the Core Steps to Building a Nonprofit course. When it's building that foundation, they could lay all those things out. The time to figure out your brand is right at the outset. Who do we serve? What is in our wheelhouse? What do we have? What are we weak at? Where are our gaps? I think you have to hammer those strengths and work with them, but when you have a gap, that is where your recruiting starts. You recruit your advisors, you recruit your board. Or you look for collaborative partners. But you find a way to do it that will stay because everything rides on it. You have to have it all in place. You have to have a solid foundation to start making those plans and do the things that you want to do first. What are we going to do first? There is a big vision. I have been working with Sue Lee. We had a great conversation yesterday. I have also been working with Dennis Cole on his foundation. We are looking at some potential sponsors. We have got some things that we are going to be doing really soon that are interesting, but we are ready to break out and go out there and be a service to people by telling them they don't have to succumb to any bad circumstances they have because of an injury or major illness. You can work around that. The whole brand is about living that and walking that walk. These are pretty courageous young men I am proud to be helping. Hugh: Part of that course where you talked about- David, Russell is helping people bring in revenue to their so-called nonprofits/charities. There is a relevance. Russ, I'd like to get David weigh in on the relevance of this branding and attracting revenue, the income that we really need that is the profit that runs our charity. Russell, I'll bring it back to you in a minute, but you had illuminated some things that I wanted to get David to weigh in on. There is a monetary equivalent to the integrity in our brand that you talked about earlier. David: Yeah. Just as in the strategic planning you are asking yourself who are we serving and why are we serving and how are we serving, when you look at the individuals you are appealing to in business development, you say, “Hey, contribute to us. Support us.” When we are looking at that, we then need to reverse-engineer that. That is what I do in my visualization/hallucination. Why are they contributing? What have they contributed to before? What are they contributing to? What is going to make them feel good? How do they know they are contributing to the right organization after they contribute so they might want to contribute again? When you contemplate the psychology of that, much like you look into why people invest into businesses, you think about those donors. Then you know that the emotional connection- You guys have heard me talk about the mojo factor or the God only knows factor. Why are you contributing to them year after year? God only knows. Would you consider not contributing to them or contributing to someone else? Absolutely not. Why? God only knows. They are not sure what that emotional connection is, but you know the emotional connection. In my case, with the anti-bullying, we are looking at the ramifications of some of these young souls who have been bullied and how it impacts their lives. Individuals who are donating to that might have experienced some bullying before and know the pain they went through, as well as the imaginations throughout their life. We know that now, so we know what the mojo factor is to get that individual to know who we are, what we do, and how and why they might want to invest. When that becomes our brand, when they can see it and feel it and taste it and touch it, which it to say there is energy between what we are doing and what we are saying, from the logo and the color and the actions and our behaviors and our sounds, then when we have that going on, we have this awesome connection. Years ago, some of us are old enough to know about Ma Bell. Remember Ma Bell? And then a company came in called Sprint and they wanted to break that God only knows connection, that amazing connection between Ma Bell. Sprint came in and said. It was MCI. They said, “We are going to beat the price,” and Ma Bell came out and said, “Oh yeah? Make them put it in writing.” Ma Bell, you don't talk like that. Ma? They broke that bond, you see. That is just an example of breaking a bond. When it comes to our organizations who are listening today, the bond is that promise. The two great things that my friend Russell just discussed are 1) it's a lot easier to kill a brand than to build a brand. That is so true. And secondly, among other things Russell shared, there are some people out there who are looking for you to mess up. There is an individual looking for the rabbi to have a ham sandwich. There is an individual who is looking for the such-and-such the wrong way. They are looking for that. Why? Because it is easier to find the fault in others than to take the personal responsibility to build themselves. So when you know that, don't be paranoid. But be a little paranoid and know they are watching you. Not only are people scanning you from a neutral point of view, and those scanning you from a positive point of view, but there are also those naysayers who are looking for you to be hypocritical. They are looking for you to mess up. That is when I say have everybody lockstep in knowing what is our promise and behaving that way. You can't go after fund development and not be the brand, or you are wasting your time. Hugh: Whoa. So Russell, I have interrupted you. Were you formulating a question? We are two thirds of the way through our interview, and we are getting into the nitty-gritty. Did you have a really hard question to stump our guest with tonight? Russ: There is no stumping David. It just follows in with what I was saying. The fourth step of building a high-performance nonprofit is to be able to communicate that value that you bring to everybody you come into contact with. You have people that work in the organization. You have donors. You have people who get your services. You need to know how to do it with everyone. With people who are working with you internally, you have to set an expectation so people know exactly what they are signing up for. Understand that you are not everybody's flavor, but you are some people's flavor. When you talk to organizations or donors or people who are going to support you, here is the reality of anything you undertake: There is going to be some risk associated. If you walk in and tell them, “Everything is going to be peachy,” when you are in the service mind-frame or an entrepreneur, we can be hopeless optimists a lot of times. It has been my experience that a lot of things take twice the money, time, and effort they are going to take because we go in with those good intentions. We have to be fully transparent, especially if we discover we have some problems or snags implementing the project. The time to talk about that is as soon as you discover it and look at it and say, “Well, we may not be where we quite want to be.” Up front, transparent. Illuminate as David has talked about. That is a book that is on my shelf. I love that book. I read the thing in one sitting. A lot of people want to cover up. Or human egos want to make us look good. When we are in the business of trying to help people with some serious societal problems, you have to get the ego out of the way. That is hard to do. It makes it difficult to get organizations to collaborate or talk to one another. I have seen a lot of that, too. My philosophy is that you can get a hell of a lot done if you are not hung up on who gets the credit. It is an uphill climb often, but I think the landscape is changing a little bit. People are going into business with a socially benefited mind. They create business structures like the LLC and the B-corp and the benefit corporations. We are seeing a lot of these social enterprises crop up. People can not only make a profit but can also do some good. It's all about doing some good, but there are certain things we have to look at. It has to be run efficiently and effectively, but it doesn't matter what your tax stamp says. Hugh: There is a comment on Twitter: “Doing what you love, loving whom you serve, believing that your nonprofit is vital. I knew too many whose hearts aren't in…” That's interesting. David, do you want to respond to Russ before we go to the final set of questions here? David: Well, a couple things that come to mind. Something that you had said earlier, Hugh, and something that Russell just said. I'll start with Russell. Yes, you need to face the issue. Face a lot of issues. Look at what happened. Happily, there will be lemonade coming out of this lemon on the United Airlines. Not for that doctor, but he will get a huge settlement. That is not what he wanted. I think the industry is shifting now. I read somewhere that Southwest Airlines has changed their model around overselling seats. Sometimes it takes this type of situation for people to learn, and then they shift. A lot of people don't really appreciate their life or family until God forbid maybe a near-death experience, and that is what wakes them up. I say practice safety in driving before then, don't wait for a near-death experience. Start contemplating for the potential issues or challenges that might happen in your organization before it happens. That is the part of roleplaying what could/might happen. What could possibly happen in this situation? Those are the types of things. Don't be a negative nelly. Don't get me wrong. The government has something called Sarbanes-Oxley that says the corporation has the fiduciary responsibility to anticipate, predict, and prepare for a natural disaster. It makes good sense. You don't have to mandate that to me as a business owner. Of course, if I am manufacturing a car, I want to make sure that if the person who creates my rearview mirrors goes down, I am still going to be able to meet the needs of my organization, my shareholders, my staff, my employees. Of course I am going to do that. I don't need regulation. For crying out loud, I don't even need the Americans with Disabilities Act, which is to provide reasonable accommodations for people with disabilities. For crying out loud, that is just good sense. It is just good sense. Plus it is the right thing to do. But be that as it may, we need to face the issue before it happens. Oh by the way, be prepared for facing the issue after it happens. So Mr. President of United Airlines, anticipate if a problem goes down how you are going to handle it. Don't say he was only following procedure. There was a guy in Nazi Germany who used to say that, too. I was just following procedure. I hate to make an extreme example, but I make a point following procedure. Following procedure, pulling a guy off, breaking his teeth. Come on. To say that is just ridiculous. What Pricewaterhouse did after they had a big brouhaha in front of 33 million people, they had 87 years of doing the job really well. What happened after that is they came back and apologized. They said Mea culpa. Just like the Japanese corporate executives did if a plane goes down, they resign. They take personal responsibility. But what Pricewaterhouse did is they said: It was our responsibility, and we apologize. We are looking into it. We want to congratulate those people on camera, including Jimmy Kimmel, for handling it elegantly. Even bringing a little humor into it. We apologize from the bottom of our hearts—I am paraphrasing here—and we will get to the bottom of this. We will let you know what happens so it never happens again. You see, that ding wasn't brand slaughter. It was kind of like getting a ticket for tinted windows or a light being out. I believe we are going to forgive them after a while, but it will be hard to forgive United Airlines after they issued responsibility and took that cheap ticket out. I'm piggybacking off some of the comments you made earlier. I think it's an important point. Anticipate what can go wrong. It doesn't require legislation for that; it requires common sense. Then practice. Practice so it comes out naturally. Sir Lawrence Olivier said the key to acting is spontaneity, which is the result of long, hard, tedious practice. I say practice. Hugh: I could hear you talk all night, David. I think people would be with us this long. There are people listening to you with lots of focus. We could all reframe our own leadership. The question we threw out for people to think about is from the leadership position. My forty years of conducting, I know that what the orchestra and the choir sees is what I get. The culture is a reflection of our leadership. Representing the brand internally helps them represent the brand externally. My question to you is, in this whole spirit of illuminating- I don't know about you, but I find some leaders who have more blind spots than awareness on the impact they are having on the brand externally and internally. You can do your own inventory, but I don't think we can. We need to illuminate with some outside, impartial person asking us the right questions. David, how can a leader, especially one that has been in a position for a while, keep it fresh and illuminate our own representation of our brand internally and externally? David: I think it's about integrity. Integrity is a powerful word. It's thrown around. But integrity, the leader living the values of the business. I can't ask you to do what I'm not willing to do. They say one of the biggest sports in life is soccer, but I don't think that's true. I think the biggest sport in life is boss-watching. Seriously. I really think that. They set the culture. They set the pace. To the extent they are leading with honor and integrity, with the values and behaviors and all. I talk about illuminate, face it, follow, and fix it. One time, instead of getting out of the shower and running past the mirror, I stopped. I didn't quite like what I saw, and I saw a guy who was 40-50 pounds overweight. I thought, My goodness. How dare I talk about illuminate if I don't face it. I faced it. I am asking everyone, every leader, to face: Are you living in integrity? I followed it. I found out why I was gaining weight. I was having a glass of wine or two every night, and it brought my blood sugar down. I would eat anything that was there. There are sardines and chocolate syrup. Looks great! And then I'd go to sleep. I didn't realize I was training to be an athlete. There is an athlete who drinks alcohol and eats a lot of food at night, and that athlete is called a sumo wrestler. I was training to be a sumo wrestler. I couldn't be a leader of Illuminate and be that hypocritical. The fix it was to take small steps and make some transformation. I ask my leaders, my brothers and sisters who are leaders, to get serious. I walked into an association that has to do with diabetes, and I saw a big Coke machine there. I look at some of our organizations who are in the health industry, and they are not healthy. I did a lot of work with a company. I won't tell you the name of it, but it rhymes with Schmaiser Permanente. They are talking about their model called Thrive. And I look at some of their employees, and they are out of integrity. I say, “Don't talk about thrive. You are better off saying nothing. When I see the word ‘thrive' and see people who are grossly unhealthy, I know you are hypocritical. I wonder where else you are cutting corners. I don't like that.” Everything counts. Everything counts. I scan, I think, I feel. Maybe below the line of consciousness. But if it is not in integrity, I am not donating my time and my money to you. I am going to move on to someone who is. Any business, any organization, the leader must lead by example. When she falls down, she says, “Mea culpa. You know what. I fell down. I apologize for that. Here is my plan.” The feminization of business today is so important. Authenticity comes with that, and a lot of drive. When we have the character to say, “Whoops, I messed up, wow, that is a big difference,” that is leadership. Leadership is real. Vulnerability, authenticity, those are just words. They are being overused, but they are real. Get serious about that. Hugh: You are preaching our song. We preach that leadership is influence. We get to choose if we influence positively or negatively. Those are good parting words, but I am going to give you the chance to do a wish or thought or tip for people as we leave. I want to recognize that they can go to davidcorbin.com. David Corbin leaps over tall buildings. Do you really run a 5K every Sunday? David: Every Saturday when I am in town. Hugh: Wow. And you went to Woodstock? You know who else was there? David: My brother David Gruder. Hugh: Yes, he was at Woodstock. You and I are contemporaries. I am a little older than you are. I have never had anybody on this interview series take a sound bite from Rhapsody in Blue. He is a modern-day Renaissance man with many skills. David Corbin, you are indeed a blessing to a lot of people, but tonight, to Russ and me for sharing this great stuff with so many charities. As we are winding up this really powerful interview, David, what is a parting thought or tip you'd like to leave with these amazing leaders that are making such a difference in people's lives? David: I would express my gratitude for their passion, for their hard work. It is difficult today. Service organizations, it seems as though they are being told to jump through hoops and then they make the hoops smaller and then they set the hoops on fire. It's not easy. We need to attract people to volunteer and donate and work for our noble mission. Every morning, I wake up. My hands and knees are on the ground like our Muslim brothers, and I give thanks and gratitude every single morning. I want to give gratitude to those of you who are taking the rein and doing this amazing work, this social work. I thank you for that. I deeply hope that some of these ideas might help you be more effective, more efficient, and more joyous and confident in what you do. Thank you for what you do. Hugh: David Corbin, special words indeed. Thank you for sharing your wisdom with so many people. Your words will live on. Thanks so much for being with us. David: Thanks, brother. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

There was a time when "Is it real, or is it Memorex?" meant something. Nowadays, we've forgotten the latter and can't define the former! Even with help from Randy Travis, ELO, Drake, Jim Croce, and Adele -- Fr Joseph still seems to miss his Ma (Bell).

There was a time when "Is it real, or is it Memorex?" meant something. Nowadays, we've forgotten the latter and can't define the former! Even with help from Randy Travis, ELO, Drake, Jim Croce, and Adele -- Fr Joseph still seems to miss his Ma (Bell).

To tell Tom Madden to stop spinning and inventing is like telling the Federal Government to stop spending. He is the quintessential â??Spin Man,â?? the title of his engaging memoir recounting his rise from a harrowing career as a newspaper reporter for The Philadelphia Inquirer to the pinnacle of the PR world. One of his latest inventions, The Knife and Forkliftâ?¢, is making the media rounds and gobbling up air time almost as fast as his drag racer client Alexis Dejoria drives her Alcohol Funny Car. Kathy Lee Gifford was among the first to try his eating exercise combining dumbbells and utensils on The TODAY Show on NBC, the network where Madden was a programming whiz and VP under then CEO Fred Silverman. More recently, Ellen DeGeneres tried her hand at eating with his weighty invention behind a car steering wheel. â??Anything wrong officer?â?? As an inventor, while living in Boca Raton, Florida, Tomâ??s wife Angela mentioned that he ate too much too fast and he should put some weights on those utensils. He did! The Palm Beach Post and Sun Sentinel, Floridaâ??s papers covered Tomâ??s invention as well as the Today Show. Tomâ??s invention and sure enough they wound up on the show and with that, orders flooded in. First as a novelty, then as a tool for over eaters. Then we started to receive emails from people that were using the Knife and Forklift as a necessity in steadying tremors. This Florida born invention has helped many that used to actually tape sand bags onto the utensils to help steady tremors. Tomâ??s patent was filed here in Florida To introduce a new anti-cellulite cream from client Rexall Sundown, he once persisted until store clerks at Duane Reade Drugstores in New York wore â??Donâ??t Panicâ?? buttons to assure female customers there would be enough of this fabulous substance to go around. Then a piece he arranged on NBC Dateline ran nearly eight minutes, setting off $50 million in media exposure and a retail stampede resulting in $54 million in sales. When Rexall Sundownâ??s founder Carl DeSantis sold the company in 2000 for $1.8 billion he credited Maddenâ??s publicity for much of the companyâ??s successes, including making OsteoBi-Flex the $100 million-a-year arthritis champ. Madden has reinvented himself several times. Starting as a newspaper reporter, he spun himself up to the top executive ranks in network television. As a reporter heâ??d do anything to get the story. Once he disguised himself as a waiter so he could interview quarantined passengers of a hijacked airliner. Next he tried his hand at speech writing and corporate titans like the Chairman of Kelloggâ??s Company sought out his talent as a wordsmith. So impressed to see one of the speeches Madden wrote for him reprinted in The New York Times, he flew in from Battle Creek, MI to treat Madden to a sumptuous breakfast at The Plaza Hotel starting with bowls of Raisin Bran. Nothing short of media meteoric have been Maddenâ??s many reincarnations from reporter, to speech writer, to head of PR at ABC and to the #2-ranked executive at NBC before launching his own firm and writing best sellers like King of the Condo, a satiric novel based on his experiences as president of a Florida condo. When he launched TransMedia Group in 1981, the boutique firm landed the largest company in America at the time, AT&T, as its first client. Madden helped Ma Bell through its tumultuous divestiture, guiding the then-besieged chairman Charley Brown through the media underbrush up to a safe clearing where the company reinvented itself. The City of New York also was quick to tap Maddenâ??s magic with media and he was assigned to promote fair housing in the city. The brilliant PSA campaign he created earned Madden not only Mayor Kochâ??s gratitude, but a Bronze Anvil Award from the Public Relations Society of America. Recently Maddenâ??s illustrious PR firm in one year promoted the calorie-burning soft drink Celsius from a penny stock selling for three cents a share to a NASDAQ-listed company, where its stock soared to over $5 a share after TransMedia booked Celsius spokespersons and weight-loss testimonials on over 100 TV stations nationwide.

For years, legal wiretapping was straightforward: the officer doing the intercept connected a tape recorder or the like to a single pair of wires. By the 1990s, though, the changing structure of telecommunications — there was no longer just "Ma Bell" to talk to — and new technologies such as ISDN and cellular telephony made executing a wiretap more complicated for law enforcement. Simple technologies would no longer suffice. In response, Congress passed the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act (CALEA), which mandated a standardized lawful intercept interface on all local phone switches. Technology has continued to progress, and in the face of new forms of communication — Skype, voice chat during multi-player online games, many forms of instant messaging, etc.— law enforcement is again experiencing problems. The FBI has called this "Going Dark": their loss of access to suspects' communication. According to news reports, they want changes to the wiretap laws to require a CALEA -­like interface in Internet software.CALEA , though, has its own issues: it is complex software specifically intended to create a security hole — eavesdropping capability — in the already-­complex environment of a phone switch. It has unfortunately made wiretapping easier for everyone, not just law enforcement. Congress failed to heed experts' warnings of the danger posed by this mandated vulnerability, but time has proven the experts right. The so-­called "Athens Affair", where someone used the built-­in lawful intercept mechanism to listen to the cell phone calls of high Greek officials, including the Prime Minister, is but one example. In an earlier work, we showed why extending CALEA to the Internet would create very serious problems, including the security problems it has visited on the phone system.This talk explores the viability and implications of an alternative method for addressing law enforcement's need to access communications: legalized hacking of target devices through existing vulnerabilities in end-­user software and platforms. About the speaker: Steven M. Bellovin is the Percy K. and Vidal L. W. Hudson Professor of computer science at Columbia University, where he does research on networks, security, and especially why the two don't get along, as well as related public policy issues. In his spare professional time, he does some work on the history of cryptography. He joined the faculty in 2005 after many years at Bell Labs and AT&T Labs Research, where he was an AT&T Fellow. He received a BA degree from Columbia University, and an MS and PhD in Computer Science from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. While a graduate student, he helped create Netnews; for this, he and the other perpetrators were given the 1995 Usenix Lifetime Achievement Award (The Flame). Bellovin has served as Chief Technologist of the Federal Trade Commission. He is a member of the National Academy of Engineering and is serving on the Computer Science and Telecommunications Board of the National Academies, the Department of Homeland Security's Science and Technology Advisory Committee, and the Technical Guidelines Development Committee of the Election Assistance Commission; he has also received the 2007 NIST/NSA National Computer Systems Security Award and has been elected to the Cybersecurity Hall of Fame.Bellovin is the co-author of Firewalls and Internet Security: Repelling the Wily Hacker, and holds a number of patents on cryptographic and network protocols. He has served on many National Research Council study committees, including those on information systems trustworthiness, the privacy implications of authentication technologies, and cybersecurity research needs; he was also a member of the information technology subcommittee of an NRC study group on science versus terrorism. He was a member of the Internet Architecture Board from 1996-2002; he was co-director of the Security Area of the IETF from 2002 through 2004.More details may be found at http://www.cs.columbia.edu/~smb/informal-bio.html.

For years, legal wiretapping was straightforward: the officer doing the intercept connected a tape recorder or the like to a single pair of wires. By the 1990s, though, the changing structure of telecommunications — there was no longer just “Ma Bell” to talk to — and new technologies such as ISDN and cellular telephony made executing a wiretap more complicated for law enforcement. Simple technologies would no longer suffice. In response, Congress passed the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act (CALEA), which mandated a standardized lawful intercept interface on all local phone switches. Technology has continued to progress, and in the face of new forms of communication — Skype, voice chat during multi-player online games, many forms of instant messaging, etc.— law enforcement is again experiencing problems. The FBI has called this “Going Dark”: their loss of access to suspects’ communication. According to news reports, they want changes to the wiretap laws to require a CALEA -­like interface in Internet software. CALEA , though, has its own issues: it is complex software specifically intended to create a security hole — eavesdropping capability — in the already-­complex environment of a phone switch. It has unfortunately made wiretapping easier for everyone, not just law enforcement. Congress failed to heed experts’ warnings of the danger posed by this mandated vulnerability, but time has proven the experts right. The so-­called “Athens Affair”, where someone used the built-­in lawful intercept mechanism to listen to the cell phone calls of high Greek officials, including the Prime Minister, is but one example. In an earlier work, we showed why extending CALEA to the Internet would create very serious problems, including the security problems it has visited on the phone system. This talk explores the viability and implications of an alternative method for addressing law enforcement’s need to access communications: legalized hacking of target devices through existing vulnerabilities in end-­user software and platforms.

Exploding the Phone (Grove Press) In EXPLODING THE PHONE, Phil Lapsley illuminates the forgotten history of the proto-hackers, tinkerers, and pranksters who turned AT&T's telephone system into their electronic playground. Before smartphones and iPads, before the Internet or the personal computer, a misfit group of technophiles, blind teenagers, hippies, and outlaws figured out how to hack the world's largest machine: the telephone system. By the middle of the twentieth century the telephone system had grown into something extraordinary, a web of cutting-edge switching machines and human operators that linked together millions of people like never before. But the network had a billion-dollar flaw, and once people discovered it, things would never be the same. Phil Lapsley's EXPLODING THE PHONE traces the birth of long-distance communication and the telephone, the rise of AT&T's monopoly, the creation of the sophisticated machines that made it all work, and the discovery of Ma Bell's Achilles' heel. Lapsley expertly weaves together the clandestine network of “phone phreaks” who broke into the system to satisfy their curiosity, the mobsters who exploited its flaws to avoid the feds, and the counterculture movement that argued you should rip off the phone company to fight against the war in Vietnam. AT&T responded with “Greenstar,” an unprecedented project that would ultimately tap some thirty-three million telephone calls and record 1.5 million of them. The FBI fought back, too, especially when a phone phreak showed a confidential informant how he could remotely eavesdrop on FBI calls. Phone phreaking exploded into the popular culture, with famous actors, musicians, and investors caught with “blue boxes,” many of them built by two young phone phreaks named Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak. Soon, the phone phreaks, the feds, and the phone company were at war. Based on original interviews and declassified documents, and featuring a forward by phone phreak turned Apple Computers co-founder Steve Wozniak, EXPLODING THE PHONE is a captivating, ground-breaking work about an important part of our cultural and technological history. "The definitive account of the first generation of network hackers – the scruffy rebels who first plumbed the secrets of the global telephone network, and accidentally earned the wrath of everyone from AT&T to the FBI. At turns a technological love story, a counter cultural history and a generation-spanning epic, Exploding the Phone is obsessively researched and told with wit and clarity. It captures a moment in time that might otherwise have been lost forever." —Kevin Poulsen, news editor of Wired.com and author of Kingpin Phil Lapsley is a cofounder of two high-tech companies, and a former consultant at McKinsey & Company. He holds a masters degree in electrical engineering from U. C. Berkeley and an MBA from the MIT Sloan School of Management. THIS EVENT WAS RECORDED LIVE AT SKYLIGHT BOOKS FEBRUARY 11, 2013. COPIES OF THE BOOK FROM THIS EVENT CAN BE PURCHASED HERE: http://www.skylightbooks.com/book/9780802120618

Episode 23 - Famous Garys In History September 29th, 2011 The Cast: Gary, Mel, Carol, Gary, Ian & John Avatar Coming To Disney Parks - Big announcement - partnership with James Cameron to create Avatar "stuff" - Gary and Carol want a Lord of the Rings land - Development begins in 2014 at Disney's Animal Kingdom - 60% of the podcast crew has not seen the movie... - Gary points out the detail James Cameron goes to - Would Avatar fly in California? - Ian went thru the 5 stages of grief - Avatar looks like one big Yes album cover (not enough blue though) http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/f/f6/Fly_from_Here.jpg - Why not develop the intellectual property they already have? - Disney PR put out a FAQ - Ian is worried Avatar land will be heavily "film based" - Walken gets a mention - John thinks Camp Minnie Mickey is toast - mark his word - The Discovery River Boats - FAIL - First appearance of Cylon Gary - then Ian calls in with a Ma Bell phone. - Call us anxious or nervious - but we see potential - So much untapped potential - John wants a better Lion King attraction or one based on Aladdin (Mel loves the idea). - Ian wants a Willy Wonka theme park - Ian sings "I Can See Clearly Now" and we get in our beer mention and talk IBU's - INTERCOT's Best Of - Attraction with little to no line: Melanie says People Mover, Ian queue's for Snow White's Scary Adventures, Carol says Flights of Wonder, Gary jumps on the way back machine for Carousel of Progress, John goes to Epcot & Spaceship Earth. - GM to re-up Test Track Sponsorship? - A discussion of Famous Gary's including Gary the Snail. - iTunes Reviews - Downtown Disney trick or treating - Don't touch Gary - Trick or Meet Up - sold out - Epcot changing the opening schedule / rope drop - The GREAT STROLLER RACE 2012 - Mel throws down the challenge vs. Ian. Gary and John to film. - Gary made a Bert Convy reference! Bert Convy! - Magic Kingdom Parking lot - Hero's and Villains

In a Ma Bell edition of the podcast, Trevan and Eric talk about Woody Allen's "Midnight In Paris," "Green Lantern" and Terrance Malick's stunning "Tree of Life."

E-mail and web communication are great options, but they shouldn't be the only options.

What’s worse than overcharging for SEO – undercharging for SEO. I just received an email blast from my phone service provider – AT&T.  It caught my eye because two of the three calls to action were for SEO. Now I … Continue reading →

Last show for June. Ma Bell was breaking the bank so we're back using Skype and with some tweaking the quality is quite acceptable. In tonights show we discuss alcohol and date rape,  $100,000 for a face to face with G. W.  and the FBI justifying the raid on a U. S. Congressman.