(upbeat music)
- Hi everybody, good afternoon,
good evening,
good morning, wherever you are.
It is Trade Secrets.
I'm Adam Curry, coming to you
from Flanders, Belgium.
Hello Q Dave.
- Uh yeah, I'm here, but I have
a little problem.
- Ah!
- You have a little problem.
That's Dave Weiner, my good
friend in Seattle, Washington.
And this is Trade Secrets,
everybody.
- Oh well, fuck that shit.
(laughing)
- What are you talking about?
- I tried playing B, well I
thought I'd put on my headset
with the microphone, you know?
The cool, like, broadcaster
type thing.
- You should. - Yeah.
- Oh there you go, hello.
- You know, it didn't work.
So now I'm using like, well I'm
gonna get
carpal tunnel here, using this
thing, but yeah.
- What are you, are you using
your regular microphone now?
- Whoa, am I late?
- Hello?
- Hello, hello.
- Yeah, are you late for what?
- I'm late for this thing,
whatever it is.
- Whatever mic you were using a
second ago sounded better.
- You mean this one?
- Well if you talk into it.
- This one, that's my, that's
my, that's my laptop's mic.
Let's try this one, hold on.
- Yeah, 'cause the last thing I
want is tomorrow
for you to say, you know, I
really sounded like shit.
- Yeah, like I was having my
teeth operated on.
(laughing)
- You have good teeth.
- What?
- You have good teeth, don't
you?
- Well I have, okay, I don't
have great teeth,
I don't really, couldn't say I
have good teeth.
- Well you hide, you're hiding
them with your mustache.
- True, yeah.
- Isn't that true that all guys
with a mustache
are hiding something?
- Oh totally.
(laughing)
- Hiding the fact that we don't
like to shave.
(laughing)
- Alrighty.
- Oh, I can hear you fine, okay
.
- Okay.
- Is that better?
- Yeah, that's better, it's
definitely better.
- Yeah, I'm wearing a different
headset now
and I won't get carpal tunnel.
- It also looks very cute on
you, I have to say.
- Shit, I didn't know you cared
.
(laughing)
- Hey Dave, I thought of a new
way to start the show.
- How's that?
- By telling everyone that,
welcome,
this show is actually airing.
(laughing)
This is not a show that was
lost.
- Oh, whoa, yeah, go ahead.
Oh I have to straighten you out
on something,
when you talk about Murphy's
Law.
- Yeah.
- And if you say something's
really gonna work
and how that, you have to
remember Murphy's Law.
- Yeah.
- So you sort of imply that
Murphy's only around
when you do things like that,
but first, no, that's not true,
right?
No matter what you do, Murphy's
Law applies.
It's, famous last words is what
you're tempting.
So say, if people hear this,
you know you just lost the
whole recording.
(laughing)
- Right, okay, so it's famous
last words,
but isn't it tempting, Murphy?
- Murphy doesn't eat any tempt
ations.
- He's always there.
- Yeah, you're like, the only
proper attitude
to take there is, I'm not
worthy, I'm not worthy.
- All right.
- Which reminds me of Don and
Drew.
(laughing)
- You mean Wayne's World.
- Yeah, well, same difference.
Everybody else is tapping into
that,
and I have not ever said that
publicly.
- No, you told me, and then I
started telling everybody.
- That what it is.
- Oh.
- And did you finally hear the
WNYC interview?
- Oh, I haven't had a chance to
see that yet.
- Because I'm glad, because I
disclaimed it
in the source code yesterday.
As I was listening to the
interview,
I opened my mouth and you came
out a couple times.
- Oh, what's wrong with that?
- Nothing, nothing.
- My mother would like that.
- Yeah, but there was no little
copyright line
that said, yeah, hon?
(speaking in foreign language)
- Oh, but we did check your
answer a lot.
- Now I'm talking to Dave, we
're doing trade secrets.
- Oh, from that I didn't know,
your name is really crazy.
(laughing)
- I'm the play date, remember?
- We're having a play date,
remember?
- I didn't know that.
- Okay, yeah.
- I thought you were talking to
yourself.
- No, but we're talking about
you, don't worry.
You and David, your lover boy.
She's great.
- So I want to tell you this
little epiphany.
When I saw yesterday that, what
was it?
Northwest Public Radio?
This was straight out of the
blue.
I just happened to be reading
audio.weblogs.com
just sort of poking around to
see
if there was anything new there
.
And I saw this feed from
Northwest Public Radio
and I clicked on it and looked
at it
and lo and behold, there's a
podcast feed.
And I went to the site and it's
run by,
it's coming out of Washington
State University, Wazoo.
- Yeah, it makes sense.
Yeah, well there's a lot going
on
in the Northwest with podcast
ing.
- Wasn't that that hit me?
What it was that I realized now
that here you and I are, we're
like two schmucks,
or at least that's how I think
of it.
- Boy.
- And we decide to do something
and then three months, two
months or three months
or four years later, it doesn't
matter how long it is.
We just decided to do it and
now they're all doing it.
And it feels like the world
works differently that now,
than the way I always thought,
we've succeeded at something
basically.
- Hey mom, look no hands.
- Right, that's it.
- We've succeeded, that was the
feeling.
It was the feeling of, oh my
God,
we actually succeeded at
something.
'Cause I'm used to trying
really hard
and fighting the good fight,
being a good person and not
cutting corners
and not succeeding.
But this thing, now I kinda
wonder
if they would let me do it
again.
- Well that's interesting and
you should be congratulated
because a lot of, well all of
this is because of RSS.
And it was interesting 'cause I
was talking
to a friend of mine today
and he was trying to figure out
what this is all about
and was interested in podcast
ing, et cetera,
not technical at all and said,
so is RSS really what makes,
is that what powers podcasting?
Or am I also seeing that
podcasting
is shining a new light on RSS?
And I thought, wow, that's a
good observation.
It is, it's both, both are true
.
And that came up and I did an
IT conversations
interview yesterday with Doug
Kay.
- He has that out yet?
- Oh, it'll be out on Monday.
And that came up and we talked
all around that.
It's sort of like, you know,
podcasting
is a conversation shifter,
basically, for RSS.
And we sort of figured that out
after I had talked for quite a
bit
about how important it is to
focus on users,
that too much focus has been on
the developers.
And it's just not that
interesting a story.
Most people don't care about
things
that developers care about.
And frankly, developers should
only, in my opinion,
should only care about the
things that they care about
insofar as it enables the users
to do things.
- Right.
- So much of the conversation
about RSS,
if you were to like just sort
of like, you know,
read every article about RSS,
tell me what percentage
of the articles was about the
cool things
people were doing with it
versus the arguments
that geeks have about it, you
know?
- Well, probably 1%.
- Yeah, and now it's completely
flip flopped.
- It's flip flopped, yeah.
- And so when like, when you
look at that
New York Times article that
came out yesterday,
you know, my ego takes a little
bit of a hit.
Although, you know, it's not so
bad
because, you know, I like, I
even love everybody
that is getting the light shown
on them.
I really, you know, this is,
nobody's, you know,
it's a beautiful little
community.
Everybody kind of likes each
other.
Yeah, there's some jealousies
here and there, of course,
'cause we're human beings.
But, you know, the technology
got put
in its proper perspective as
enabling this nice thing.
Not as, not as being the thing
itself.
And this is sort of a disease
that has been,
ever since I came to Silicon
Valley in like '79,
you know, that was sort of the
beginning
of the rise of Apple.
Apple had just gone public then
.
And they were, you know, this
whole idea that,
oh wow, these guys must really
know something
because they can take this, you
know,
like little computer that we
don't understand
and turn it into billions of
dollars, right?
- Yeah, that's a good trick.
- Right, well, people really
are in awe of that.
They look at that as well.
You know, we need to understand
more about this.
So, and of course, the people
that made the billions
of dollars really didn't
understand much more
than the people who didn't make
the billions.
- They were just as amazed as
the rest of us.
- Right, but some of them were
good at acting,
not so amazed, like Steve Jobs.
- Steve Jobs, right.
- Steve Jobs put his fingertips
together
and took a deep breath and
looked peaceful.
And everybody said, well, there
's a young man
who gets something and we wanna
get some of that.
- And you know what?
I am in many ways a student of
Steve Jobs.
Not that I model myself after
him,
but I think he does a good show
, man.
- Totally, I mean, you know, I
said about,
I was at the Democratic
National Convention this year,
you know, blogging it, and that
was one of my comments,
was these guys could learn a
lot from Steve Jobs.
- Yeah, you're fucking A,
absolutely.
- There was no moment of, there
was no showmanship to it.
It was no sort of pregnant, I
mean,
Steve Jobs is like a Ron Popeal
, you know.
- Yeah, with the pocket
fisherman.
- Shameless, I mean.
(laughing)
A lot of something I should
tell you about this,
and you go, yeah, sure, come on
.
- Right.
- Do you forgive him for it?
Because he's just so smart.
- Although he went overboard,
man.
They're getting lazy over there
with the whole U2 thing.
It was like, that to me is not
a slam dunk anymore.
That was pathetic.
Did you hear the comment
Christina made, my daughter?
She said, 'cause I was watching
U2 with her
doing this iPod presentation,
and Bono was going on and on
about, you know,
it was just, it was sickening.
And she says, hey dad, I said,
yeah.
Did U2 ever not suck?
(laughing)
She's 14, you know, like right
on.
(laughing)
- Well, the answer is that
there was a time
when they did not suck,
when they were doing the kind
of shit we were,
that we're doing now, you know.
- Yeah.
Although I have to say,
I met Bono a long time ago,
and I kind of thought it was a
dick, really.
- Really? - Yeah.
- I don't usually hold that
against people, you know?
- No, that could have been just
a,
it was like one of those
backstage interviews
at a concert, you know, he may
have just been like,
I don't want to fucking deal
with this.
And the other guys were really
nice,
and they were like, oh, what's
wrong with Bono?
(laughing)
- No.
Yeah.
Well, I don't know, I think we
could do a lot better
than the iPod.
I would like to see Apple
trying to do that,
but I'd also think that, you
know,
it's kind of disappointing in a
way
that we're not engaged in a
conversation
with Apple right now.
I mean, you could have said
until yesterday
that it was not on the, you
know,
it was beneath their radar,
how would they even see it,
right?
- Right.
- You know, but an article,
and maybe they didn't see it
because,
you know, yesterday was also,
there were also articles in
actually today's paper.
- Yeah, I was gonna say,
because this came after the iP
od press conference.
- Correct, and so there's all
this press in there,
also about iPods, you know,
news from Apple about iPods.
You know, so it's sometimes
hard to forget,
you know, we hear about things
a little bit earlier,
and, but there was a sort of
news cycle there,
and we were sort of mixed in
with it,
but, and this is something I
regret
not talking about with Doug K,
and I realized, you know,
a couple of hours after having
done it,
the one thing we didn't talk
about is,
okay, from a technologist's
point of view,
what could we do better in the
iPod?
What's missing in the iPod?
And now, after, you know, these
months,
many, many, many, many weeks.
- We have a pretty good idea of
some improvements.
- Idea about where the feelings
of this,
you know, little product is.
I mean, I got the first clue,
it's not just the iPod, it's
the whole system.
- Yeah.
- My first clue, where was I?
I think I was in like Kentucky
or Tennessee or something,
and I was recording a podcast
in my car driving,
and I set it up in the rest
area,
and I got going,
and I set it up so that all I
had to do
was click the mouse to start
recording, okay?
- Mm-hmm.
- And just that act, I almost
drove off the road,
because the coordination
required to do that,
the eye, your eye has to be on
the screen of the computer
in order to actually pull that
off.
Otherwise you can't move the,
you can't even move the mouse
right.
- Right, or you move it a
little too far
and you click on the wrong
thing.
You have to be sure you're on
the target when you click.
So that part really sucks.
- Imagine doing that in a
helicopter, dude.
- No, I wouldn't want to do
that in a helicopter, dude.
- But tomorrow I'm doing one
from an airplane though.
I'm gonna do my source code
from the airplane,
but that's another story.
- Yeah, I mean, I don't want
you doing it
in the helicopter either, you
know.
- No, I'll have a safety pilot,
don't worry.
- Okay.
- Right, I mean, don't drive
into like any, you know,
power lines or anything like
that, you know.
- No, then that is the number
one killer in helicopters.
- So then there's the other
side of it,
which is the playback, which is
far more common.
I mean, most podcasts honestly
aren't recorded in cars,
but why shouldn't that be easy?
It should be.
And you know, following the,
you know,
what was the magic of the Apple
II, or the IBM PC,
or the Macintosh, or any of
these, you know,
I think we kind of lost sight
of it after a while.
What the magic was is that they
weren't just reading machines,
they were also writing machines
.
- Right on.
- You could develop software,
and I think that you're
following through on that,
and maybe it's just an
intuitive thing.
Maybe there's no way of proving
that it's right,
but somehow it was wrong, it
felt wrong.
Like the VizyCal guys, for
example,
they did their Apple II
development on a Macintosh.
Iron.
And I didn't, I wouldn't do
that,
and a lot of people wouldn't do
that.
We felt we should develop our
software on the computer
that we wanted people to use,
because that way we would learn
the limits
of the machine better, and our
software would more fit
into the flow of a user who
uses the computer.
- Which is exactly what we're
doing with creating podcasts,
where we're all trying to
figure out how to do it
on the computer we're using.
- But let's point out something
here
that we're not really doing
that,
because the desktop computer is
like the mini computer,
and the iPod is the platform.
Remember we call this the iPod
platform.
So there's something really out
of whack here,
because we have a playback
machine,
and you can't create the
content on the playback machine
.
- Right on, okay, good point.
- That's wrong.
That almost certainly is a
fatal flaw, okay?
We can't see it right now,
because we don't have any
alternative,
because there really is, you
know,
as bad as the user interface on
the iPod is,
and I think it's really bad,
even though it's really bad, it
's the best out there, okay?
Really suck much worse.
And, but you know, you can't
record on an iPod.
I tried, you know, this is a,
I was listening to Daily Source
Code one day driving in,
I was driving from the east
side of Seattle,
across Lake Washington,
and then getting onto this big
sort of freeway connector
that gets you onto I-5,
and it's kind of a hairy little
,
but I was listening, you said
something really funny,
and I wanted to hear it again,
okay?
And-- - Oh, you have to hit
the middle button, swivel the
wheel to the left.
- Adam, it's ridiculous.
I ended up listening to Daily
Source Code from the beginning,
and it was days old.
- But of course it was just
like yesterday's spaghetti,
wasn't it?
- It was really tasty.
(laughing)
- No, but you know what?
You're absolutely right,
and I get such a kick out of
the Trio podcast.
Have you been following this
guy?
Oh, he's on the openpodcast.org
.
He checked, actually now he has
mobilepodcast.org,
is where you can find his
podcast feed,
and he's figuring out, with all
different kinds of software,
how to actually create his
entire podcast
with music, with sound, on the
Trio,
and it's really cool to listen
to him figure it all out.
And now you see that's a cell
phone.
Who's eating, who's lunch?
- Tell you what, yeah, no, no,
that's right.
Cell phones have, I mean, one
of the ways to figure it out
is where's the best place to
play this stuff,
is to look to see what hardware
you need to pull this off,
right, and then the portable
device
that has all the hardware
components
is a pretty good chance that
that's the one you want.
And cell phones have a lot of
it, I mean,
and a lot more than the iPod
does.
- In fact, I think that the new
gen cell phones
I'm seeing here, in particular,
there's a Sony Ericsson,
that I think it still needs
some software
to make it easy for people,
but you can already do a full
blown podcast.
It's not as simple because you
're not dealing with a mouse,
where you can just whip over to
this
and click that player and then
have that player go.
So we need some software to
develop,
but I think the hardware bits
are in it.
- I don't mind if I do the post
,
as you know, I don't do very
much post production,
I don't do any.
I listen to it after it's been
uploaded,
but I don't mind doing that
part on the laptop,
especially if I can connect the
device up
to my laptop via a USB
connection.
And that's the--
- That's the big one, that's
the big clincher.
- That's what the iPod does
that the cell phones don't,
why is the iPod such an
attractive way to do this?
There are two reasons.
One is, maybe three.
First and foremost is the
install base.
It's got a fucking huge install
base.
- Six million.
- Okay, maybe it's not that big
, but--
- No, just the iPod, just the
iPod is six million.
- And I think that, but it's
the install base relative to
the,
well, okay, let's leave it
there.
Say that it's the install base
is big.
It's also the USB connection.
And it's the lame user
interface
that's better than any other
lame user interface.
But you take that USB
connection,
and if the phone guys would get
their shit together
and realize that we need that
kind of connection
between our cell phones and our
laptop computers,
then something really could
happen there.
And the fact that we have a
data format,
we actually have two data
formats.
- Three.
What are the three?
OPML, RS, and what?
- And MP3?
- And MP3, of course, duh.
Right, so we've, but MP3 is
well established,
but we still have to convince
the cell phone people
and, for that matter, the iPod
people
that these are formats that are
worth supporting.
Once they're supported,
there's a lot more that we can
do with that USB connection.
- Well, I think the cell phone
people,
I don't know how good they are
at paying attention and
listening.
I know that they need this
because that competition is unf
ucking believable.
Nokia, they freaked out about a
year ago,
and they said, Jesus, we've
just lost all our market share.
Now they're flooding in with
any kind of cell phone
they can come up with,
and you've got Sony Ericsson
and also Pocket PC coming
around the corner.
I mean, this is very, very
competitive.
- Well, let's hope they read
the New York Times at Nokia.
- Yeah.
- Let's hope they get the idea
that,
we've got a guy with great hair
and we've also got some great
technology behind it.
It has to be, we've talked
about this, you and I.
I'm saying that in all
seriousness
'cause we understand how people
's minds work, right?
- I wasn't laughing, I know
what you mean.
- It's appreciating the fact
that you work.
I mean, they need to get that
it's not simply a,
we seem to have many, if not
all of the pieces
coming together here and an
application
and I think a cell phone
provider that says,
okay, we're actually gonna take
a side here
and we're gonna say, okay,
we believe this is a good
application for our cell phone
and then do something to help
promote it is going to,
and by doing something, I mean,
put an interface on the damn
thing
so that it's very easy to write
software on the desktop
that not just moves raw bits of
data onto the machine
but move structured information
that,
you know, this whole idea that
you run their software
on your laptop to control,
that's just simply not gonna
fly, you know?
And iPodder, if it proves
anything, it proves that,
that even a cobbled together
thing is vastly superior
to whatever sort of locked
trunk
one of these guys is gonna come
up with.
- So I hope Ed Pandengo is
listening, remember him?
- I think so, it's kind of like
Firestein Theater for you.
- No, Ed, you met Ed in
Amsterdam
at we had a blogger dinner
and he was the guy developing
applications for cell phones.
- Did he sit right across from
you at the dinner?
- Yes.
- Okay, I mean, that was kind
of a, yeah, okay,
I remember, right, a blonde-ha
ired guy.
- Well, he's Dutch, of course
he's blonde.
- He's kind of beefy and--
- Yeah, his finger in the dike?
(laughing)
- What kind of Dutch name is P
entego?
It sounds like Hispanic or
something.
- No, that's not his real name,
that's his weblog, Pente-Dingo,
I think, Pente-Dingo.
- Out of Dutch in there, too.
- Do you know that Hans Brinker
,
the Dutch boy with his finger
in the dike,
is not a true story that was
made up by American tourists?
- Well, blow me away, I mean.
- All right, just wanted to
give you
a little bit of trivia,
everybody.
- Yeah, and then there's Pete,
how do you pronounce Pete--
- Prodol?
- Prodol, yeah. - Prodol, yeah.
- He's funny, do you hear slash
dot audio comments?
- Yeah, yeah. - That was
awesome.
- Well, I mean, the thing about
his blog,
his podcasts are is that they
're so--
- Short, and they're short.
- That's what I mean, you just
click on them
and you laugh and you move on
to the next one.
I think, by the way, that is
the answer.
You did a good work, sort of
the big question was,
and this is, I get asked this
all the time,
it's like, okay, if I listen to
Adam Curry for an hour
and I listen to you for an hour
and I listen to any number of,
I listen to Don and Drew for an
hour,
I listen to Dave Slushy--
- I have no time left for sex.
- Right, or to eat or to work,
or whatever.
And the answer is, is that
first of all,
the length of your podcast is
sort of telling people
how big you think your dick is.
(laughing)
- And I've shrunk mine by about
20 minutes recently.
- You go to an hour and that's
fine,
because you strike a balance,
because people who just don't
have the time to commit
won't become part of your
little world,
or it could be a big world, of
course,
but if you are Pete Prud Hall,
right?
You're not asking for a lot,
so you could go up into the
millions, maybe.
And you were talking about this
a long time ago,
is that chaining these things
together,
like the tap dancing--
- Oh, the tap dance podcast
news?
- Oh my God.
- I love that.
- Wonderful, I mean.
- God, did you hear the latest
one?
There's a new one out.
- But I want to point to that
on Scripting News,
I want everybody to see that,
which does say also that it
would be really nice
if we could get URLs with every
daily source code.
Like the Geek News Central is
doing that.
- Yes, you're right.
Well, what I'm working on now
is,
I store all my rundown, my
lineup of stuff
that I'm gonna talk about,
I store that on a Manila site,
and I just want to add a couple
bits
so that it's a lot of work,
so I want to automate it,
I know what I want, I want to
automate it
so that I don't get stuck in
this rut of doing it anyway
and not getting around to
writing the scripts
to make it work.
- The way to do it is we raise
some money
or we hire somebody or we hire
a production team
and that's just done for you,
like you don't have to do
anything.
- Oh, that would be so nice.
- That's what we gotta do.
- Oh man.
- We're gonna get time to start
--
- Can we raise some money for
blowjobs?
I'm sorry, in my Dawn and Drew
mode.
- Well, you don't have to pay
for those, I don't think.
(laughing)
- Hold on, what was I gonna
play?
Oh, it was--
- Don't go into the song,
I actually decided something
during one of the little
stretches
and I wanna tell everybody
about the decision.
We need to have a developers
conference for this stuff.
We're gonna do the users
conference,
the first one on November 6th.
But I think we need to put
together something
where we can sit in a room and
invite the,
some of the manufacturers to
come sit down with us
and let's say, okay, here are
some formats
that we can all support and we
can get into this business
within a year, within six
months or a year.
- And I think there's a real
business there
for a lot of people.
- Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, well, we can do it.
We just need, well, it's not,
actually we don't really need
anything.
But wouldn't it be nice to have
,
not to drive off the road when
you're doing a podcast
and to have a big red button on
your iPod
that starts the recording right
now
and when you get home and you
connect it up in the sync,
not just goes out for the
things that you bought from
Apple,
but also the things that you
gathered
when you were out in the world.
Also come back and go up onto
the internet
so everybody else can have them
too.
- Right.
- You know, like, we're two way
,
human beings are two way
devices, you know.
We're not just one way.
And that's what podcasting, of
course, is all about.
I mean, you know, we have, you
know,
I'm Starved for Wayne's World,
but I'm no longer Starved.
Don Andrew provided for me
whatever I want.
And it's got the advantage that
they're real people,
whereas Wayne's World were
really,
sort of like they seemed really
real, right?
- Yeah, and you can meet Don
Andrew
at BloggerCon everybody, they
'll be there all week.
- Yeah, no shit.
(laughing)
- The Don Andrew Road Show.
- Thinking of giving them an iP
od, you know.
You know, sort of a ceremonial
way.
'Cause now they're saying it,
like in the "Infili-Enquirer"
article.
- They're saying that they
traded the trip
to BloggerCon instead of buying
an iPod?
- That's not what they said.
They have a tip jar and they
said,
"If we get enough money, maybe
we'll actually
"be able to afford an iPod."
(laughing)
- Yeah, of course, the
reporters eat that stuff.
- Yeah, they love that, yeah.
And you know what?
These kids are smart.
They know what they're doing.
- I think they do.
- They know what they know
exactly what they're doing.
Well, maybe not exactly, but I
'm very impressed.
You know, I've been in media
for half my life
and you know, they're like,
they're natural.
Boom, they get it.
And the way they slide in and
out of interviews,
it's really good.
- Yeah.
- I'm very impressed.
- They'll be saying that bit
about wishing they had
the money to buy an iPod when
they're worth $10 million.
- Yeah.
- That'll be part of their
stick, right?
- Yeah.
(laughing)
- The thing we really enjoy
about this stuff is,
I mean, I do, I can't speak for
anyone else,
is that you hear the farts and
the belches
and all the flaws come through,
right?
- Like the human stuff?
- The human stuff, right?
But what happens when Don and
Jude turn into things world?
If that should happen?
Then what?
Is it really gonna be still the
same,
is it gonna have the same charm
?
Or do we create one mass media
for another?
- Yeah, the wall.
You know what?
- You don't know.
- I don't know, I really don't
know.
- We'll find out.
- Hey dude, so when I come to
America.
- America.
- America, we're gonna have a
new president.
Or we'll have, I'm sorry, we'll
have a president that,
oh fuck, let me be positive, we
'll have a new president.
- From your lips, they're both
starting,
it's coming down so close to
the wire now
that the commercials are
starting to shift gear
and they're talking about that
private moment
when you're in the voting booth
and you can do whatever you
wanna do.
- Yeah.
(clicking)
(laughing)
I'm sorry I was voting.
- I got my card yesterday, it
was so exciting.
I mean, I had a little postcard
from the,
Kings County, State of
Washington,
United States of America, dear
Mr. Weiner,
you get to vote and here's
where you go.
- Cool.
- Yeah, and I said, wow, it
worked.
I get, actually, my plan was
that I would vote
and my vote would count.
And Washington for a while
looked like it was
solid blue, well when I chose,
Washington was a battleground
state.
And then it turned into solid
blue.
Basically I thought, oh shit,
I went from one solid blue
state to another
and what did I accomplish?
Well now it's a light blue,
borderline white light blue.
I vote, will count and it's
really exciting.
And I'm voting for Kerry, I
will vote for Kerry
even if at the last minute
while I'm in the voting booth,
I think, maybe I should vote
for Bush,
I'm still gonna vote for Kerry.
(laughing)
Well, it wasn't as easy as I
thought it could be
to vote by proxy, 'cause I've
already voted.
- What's a proxy?
- Well, that's what they call
it, voting by proxy.
- Really?
- Yeah, and so you have to,
you can finally find the actual
form in PDF
that you download and then
print.
And then you have to fax it and
call them
unless you wanna send it by
mail,
but it's very unsophisticated.
- Really?
- Yeah, and it's not very
apparent and easy,
but yeah, is it ever?
It's certainly not as easy as
walking into a voting booth.
- Uh-huh.
- I voted for John Kerry.
- I'm not kidding, really.
- And I think that my vote's
gonna be important this year
because that's the shit they
pulled last time, right?
Is, oh, it's all the overseas
votes.
- Well, where did you vote?
What state?
- New Jersey.
- Oh yeah, New Jersey is not a
battleground state,
doesn't show up all the time,
but New Jersey's contested.
So yeah, your vote can't--
- But I know that all my peeps
from Jersey hometown,
they're gonna put the new boy
in.
- Good, well, let's hope we,
you know, I mean,
it's gonna be a--
- Especially all my Italian
friends in New Jersey.
They're not stupid.
They don't want a gangster
bigger than them in the White
House.
- No.
- Well, I--
- We want our boys run on the
country, on the streets,
not some dickhead in the White
House.
- Yeah, no kidding.
- That's the way I see it.
- So what do you think?
Do you think that if Bushes re-
elected,
the Netherlands will invade the
United States?
(laughing)
- I don't hope--
- The Netherlands are big
fucking pussies.
- Really, what about France?
What about Russia?
What about China?
I mean, are they gonna come
like,
you know, reclaim our democracy
, you know, get--
- No, no, no, not at all.
No.
- I used to have democracy here
in the USA.
I mean, no, but everyone's all
fucked up over here.
They got their own problems.
You know, they blew up the
European Commission
just on the eve of them
installing the commission
because the Italian, one of the
Italian candidates,
you know, hates gays, thinks
women are lame
and should be in the kitchen,
you know, all these little
minor details.
So they got all their own
problems over here.
I've been asked by almost every
single television show
and some really good news
programs,
respected news programs,
to be on the show during the
elections.
- Oh yeah?
- I told every single one of
them, I said,
look, that means we're gonna
start around midnight.
And if you think that we're
gonna have
a president by morning, you're
fucking crazy.
It could be three days.
I'm not gonna sit around and
wait for that.
- Well, I mean, you're tempting
fate there.
I mean, it--
- I believe, that I believe,
but I believe the Democrats are
gonna be ready.
- Yeah, well, it could be the
Democrats in the landslide.
I mean, I've seen it said in
places that,
you know, when people get into
the voting booth
and even Republicans are gonna
say,
"Well, you know, I can't stand
behind this guy."
I feel that way.
I mean, you know, I wrote about
this on scripting news
that Dennis Miller, the
comedian,
apparently has become a
Republican, which I--
- Yeah, it was a couple days
ago
I saw you write about that.
- Yeah, and he said that if
Kerry gets elected,
he'll get behind him and
support him
'cause he's president of the
United States.
And I pointed out, we all did
that with Bush
after we were attacked.
And I go back and read the
things that I wrote
three years ago on scripting
news,
and it makes me wanna puke.
- Yeah, you were like, "Yeah, I
stand behind my president."
- And I have to do that.
You know, the country was
attacked,
and you know, my attitude on
that is,
whatever my personal feelings
are about the guy,
he is the president,
and you try to create a bubble
around him
for him to rise into the role,
you know?
Because we needed a leader,
and it wasn't optional.
He was the guy, and there wasn
't gonna be anybody else.
And so if he didn't rise into
it,
I thought, "I felt we were
pretty fucked."
So, and that's the thing that I
think
that's great about America.
It's sort of our business
attitude about things
is that when push comes to
shove,
it's like we don't care that
much about our feelings,
we care about the result.
- The cover of Time Magazine,
which I just saw today,
at least the European Time
Magazine,
was a picture of two suburban
homes,
side by side, and one kind of
soft focus
in the foreground,
one a little bit sharper in the
background,
and you saw the Busce Cheney
sign in yard one,
and Kerry Edwards sign in the
yard right next door.
And you know, the whole,
the whole, you know, this whole
cover article
is, they're calling the Uncivil
War,
which will start on November 3
rd.
- Well, it doesn't have to be
that way.
I mean, that's what I thought
that Miller was saying
that was so incredibly
constructive was that it's,
you know, I'm seeing that,
because of what he said,
I'm kind of glad that he's a
Republican,
because a Democrat, you know,
the problem is, is that I don't
see myself
being able to make the same
claim, okay?
I mean, it's, I gave Bush every
opportunity
to lead this country,
and I feel I did my part,
and I feel like he betrayed us.
I feel he looked at that as an
opportunity
to further humiliate everybody,
you know, but his cronies, but
his buddies.
They just use that support to
enrich themselves
at just an incredibly selfish
thing to do, you know?
And I just don't want to,
I don't see myself, I think it
would be dishonest
for me to say I support that,
even at this point, even if the
country was attacked.
And so I really think that the
only viable answer
here is to elect Kerry,
because what I said to counter
balance Miller's offer was,
is that if Kerry should get
elected,
I'm willing to put his feet to
the fire day one, okay?
- Yeah.
- I will not cut him one minute
's worth of slack,
you know, that he's got to be
straightforward and honest.
And frankly, I don't understand
why Kerry hasn't put up
something like an escrow, you
know?
Like how about his wife's
fortune?
Let's put her fortune on the
line here.
If he's ever caught lying to
the,
if he's elected president, he's
caught lying.
She loses every dollar she's
got, you know?
- Well, that's, I understand
what you're saying,
but that's not a good, that's
not a good,
that's not a good way to do it.
That's her money, that's not
his money.
- All right, so all of his
money and he has--
- No, no, we cut off a testicle
.
- Okay.
- Can you relate?
- That's more humane than
taking away all her money.
(laughing)
- Yeah, I think that's fucked
up.
You can't, you know, I think a
testicle is worth
several hundred million dollars
.
- The fact that he's a prostate
cancer survivor--
- Really?
- He's not having any testicles
.
- I'm sorry, I didn't know that
.
- Oh yeah, he had prostate
cancer.
Yeah, really, really too.
- Do you think he can still get
it up?
- Oh, yeah.
- That's fucked up, man.
That's what I liked about
Clinton.
I like a president that's
fucking.
- At least we knew that he
could do that.
- Yeah, I like that.
And you know what, I think that
's,
I wanna know that and I think
the people at large
in the country, 'cause everyone
's doing it.
- Fucking?
- Yes.
- Yeah, if everybody's doing it
.
- Let me just make an
observation right here.
And I'm glad that we can get
around this sex
because I was getting bored of
politics.
America is, 'cause we sit over
here and of course
we still be here and laugh at
the Janet Jackson
Nipple Gates and Howard Stern
having to move off
of broadcast radio and how
incredibly
prudish the American media is
and the political
correctness of what you can and
can't say
in the seven dirty words.
And we laugh at the hypocrisy
of this because
in my opinion and the opinion
of my wife,
Americans are in general the
most horny motherfuckers
on the planet Earth.
Everyone's blowing everybody
everywhere
and the best porn is made in
the good old US of A.
- All, USA all the way.
- All the way.
And you know, and I have to say
,
I'm actually proud of that.
I think it's awesome.
Not all of it, it's a lot of
bullshit.
But then to see how, you know,
the hypocrisy is whacked.
- Yeah.
- Oh my goodness.
And it sounds like when I said
whacked,
Dave, hold on.
Now see, this is good because
now we had a crash,
Skype crashed actually,
but the recording continues.
Now of course Dave is sitting
there going,
oh fuck man, we lost the show.
And so I get the surprising for
once.
Hello?
- Yeah.
- We didn't lose the show.
We're still recording.
- Are you sure?
- Yeah, 100% oh boy.
- All right, so let's just keep
going.
Cause.
- Right in the middle of porn.
- Yeah, well I'm gonna take it
back to some.
- Politics?
- No, related, related.
- Okay.
- Did Jerry Falwell, I saw
Jerry Falwell on TV.
- Yeah.
- That's not related to sex,
okay?
- Wasn't, didn't he have a
scandal?
Didn't he have a sex scandal?
- Did he?
Honestly, I don't know.
But he said they had done a
survey
and the interviewer agreed with
him
that 40% of the American
population
is born again evangelical
Christians.
In other words, when you do a
survey and you ask,
are you a born again
evangelical Christian?
40% say yes.
And of course he saw this as
being a trend
that meant that pretty soon.
And you know what?
That's confirmation.
That's why what you're really
observing there
about the US being so uptight,
you can't make a blanket
statement about that
because there are a lot of
Americans
who feel the same way you do.
- No, no, I said media.
I didn't say Americans, I said
American media.
- Okay.
- And by the way, may I quote
from the National Enquirer,
a homosexual scandal is rocking
Reverend Jerry Falwell's
Arch-Conservative Liberty
University
where rumors are rampant that
male students
engaged in gay sex with a
campus pastor.
- Yeah.
Listen, I mean, we know that.
People, well, we know that.
But in your right, it is hypocr
isy.
But what I'm adding to it is
that it's reality here.
And it's like the trip I took
to Europe
where last, earlier this year,
where the thing I heard
consistently from people is,
well, you know, we love the
American people.
We hate the American government
or things or the--
- Right, yeah, yeah, you hear
that a lot.
- We hate the American media or
whatever.
And you know, what I kept
saying to them is,
is that, well, you don't
understand
because the reason why the
American media is that way
and the American government is
that way,
is that the American people are
that way.
They really are.
And you know, if you go to
Southern Illinois
or to Southern New Mexico
or to Orange County in
California
or rural Washington State or
New Hampshire.
- Oh man, why is Skype crashing
?
This is not right.
This is just not very nice.
And this hasn't happened before
.
I do want to hear what Dave has
to say here.
So let's find out.
I'll call him this time, maybe
that helps.
(phone ringing)
- Okay, we're gonna be doing
this regularly.
- Well, I don't know, Skype is
crashing for some reason.
I have no idea why.
But you were saying New
Hampshire.
I understand what you're saying
and you're right.
The majority of Americans--
- Find out, we'll find out.
This is a referendum on whether
or not
the United States still has a
heart.
That's what I see this as, this
election has.
- Okay, can I make another
blanket statement?
- Sure.
- Okay, another thing, all
Europeans,
it's become a little bit less
over the years,
but certainly 20 or 30 years
ago,
Americans were perceived to be
completely insincere people.
And what they mean by that, and
here's the parody
you'll hear of an American in
Europe,
a European parodying an
American.
Oh, how interesting.
Oh, that's wonderful.
Mm-hmm.
Oh yeah.
Oh, well, I have a friend over
there
and we can stay at his house,
okay?
And they find this completely
alien
and they think that Americans
are full of shit
and are not interested and don
't think it's wonderful
and are putting them on.
And I have, for years, said
that is the truth.
Americans are like that.
And in general, we love our
neighbors.
I can't say that for Europe.
People are killing each other
over here.
They're beating each other up
and they're jealous
and they hate each other's
fucking guts
and no one's working together.
Look at the European Union.
The European government is
exactly
the representation of Europe.
Yeah.
So I don't know why I'm going
to fucking England.
Christina, we should go back to
America.
Okay.
(laughing)
She goes, okay, why?
Why do you want to go back to
America?
Why?
TV.
(laughing)
Hot topic.
(laughing)
Hot topic.
And cool high school.
Okay.
What's the fortune coming to
the United States?
That would make everything a
lot easier.
We could do trade secrets with
three hour time difference
and maybe even a no hour time
difference at some point.
Well, look, I'm already going
to be moving
one hour closer, okay?
No, I mean, London is easy.
And London is sort of turning
into,
England is sort of turning into
a hub.
It is.
It's easy to get.
And in all likelihood, my guess
is
I'll end up on the East Coast,
probably.
You're an East Coast boy, you
're on a West Coaster.
I know, you got to be careful
about that though,
because I tend to get really
influenced
by what people say.
So I'm going to make my own
decision on that.
But it seems that way.
And I have so many reasons.
I'm going to be in New York in
November, December,
and now in January.
There's another Harvard's
heaven of conflict.
But this is going to be really
interesting, by the way.
Harvard's having a conference,
joint conference,
on blogging between Berkman
Center,
which is where I was at, and Sh
orenstein,
which is sort of the
counterpart of Berkman,
but in the school of government
.
And Shorenstein is for
journalists
who go on fellowships,
basically.
Now they have faculty and they
have classes too, but.
And the interesting thing about
Shorenstein
is the director there is a guy
named Alex Jones.
And if you look up Alex Jones,
if you Google him,
you'll see a lot.
He wrote an editorial in the LA
Times
during the Dean candidacy and
basically said,
and it was the most horribly
inaccurate.
I mean, it was just, it was
lies.
Infowars.com?
Was that Alex Jones?
I don't, yeah, anything but
Alex Jones, that's gonna be,
and the thing about it is I had
lunch with Alex Jones
and with Rebecca McKinnon.
She introduced me to him.
She was a fellow at Shorenstein
.
She's now a fellow at Berkman.
She'll also be a blogger, too.
And it was an adversarial
conversation,
but it was a very good advers
arial conversation.
If we had tape recorded it,
you would have heard all of the
issues
coming out on both sides.
- Some writings by Alex Jones,
covering ethnic conflicts,
reflecting on a different era
in political journalism,
the vanishing voter, covering
science and technology,
and bloggers are the sizzle,
not the stake.
- That was it.
And he went further.
There was more after that, too.
There was a point where I just
couldn't believe
it was the same person.
Because this is a Pulitzer
Prize-winning,
former New York Times reporter,
who has risen all the way to
the top in academia
and has written these very
scholarly books
that are very highly regarded.
And when it comes time to
debate whether blogging
is making a contribution to
journalism,
he resorts to lies and go,
"Whoa, what is going on here?
"Is this guy scared or what?"
You know?
- Really?
- Yeah, totally.
And so, you know, I'm totally,
and they invited me to the
conference to their credit.
They know damn well that I'm
gonna stand up
and argue with Alex.
And, you know.
- Can we send Mark Cantor, too,
just to really freak him out?
- Oh, let's not do that.
- Hi!
- Hi, Alex!
- Mark is actually starting to
make some sense now.
You know, people are giving him
shit
about all this stuff about, you
know,
he says people should be blog
ging.
They should pay people to blog
about your product, right?
And so, the knee-jerk reaction
is,
"Well, you know, that will
create conflicts of interest,
"et cetera, et cetera."
The answer is it doesn't
necessarily
create a conflict of interest
if you disclose it.
If you tell people you're
getting the money,
you have not created a conflict
of interest.
And in fact, if I tell people I
can write
about anything I want to, and
you actually do,
there's no reason why the
company
shouldn't pay you to write
about it.
The company deserves a lot of
credit
if they actually can pull that
off.
- Well, just like all of us are
complaining
about technology companies and
entertainment
and content companies not
having their shit together
and not going with the times,
we need some adjusting, too.
- Totally.
You know, it's sort of like,
ask yourself the question,
okay, you're now a developer,
Adam.
You know, I know you joke about
it,
but you actually are a
developer,
whether you want to acknowledge
it or not.
- Do I get a ribbon?
- No, you get a question.
- Okay.
- Let's say Apple called you up
and said,
you know, we really think it's
great
that you're writing the
software for our platform.
We'd just like to give you some
money.
And they said, well, what would
I get the money for?
Said, no, no, we just want to
give you some money.
And you keep, you know, so this
is kind of what,
now if you really get it now--
- I'm waiting for my question.
Is this a part of the question?
- I guess the question is, has
this ever occurred to you?
Because that, I should shut up
and let you answer the question
,
but I should also explain it.
The developers always seem to
get to this point
where you say they ought to
just give me money
for doing what I'm doing, you
know?
Because I'm helping them build
a platform here.
And so I guess that's the
question.
- So the question is, do I
think I should get money
from Apple for helping them
build their platform?
- I don't know, no, that's a
stupid question.
Of course, if it's something--
- Can I have the ribbon after
all?
- The question on her sucks.
- Yeah, the question sucks, it
's true.
- Well, then make a point,
'cause I know you want to make
a point.
- It's sometimes, okay, what's
the alternative?
So let's say a company wants to
take a ride
on the clue train, right?
They read Doc Searle's, you
know,
David Weinberger, Doc Searle's,
Chris Locke,
David Levine's book, okay?
- Yeah. - The clue train,
which is a great book, and you
know,
it's approaching an idea from
50 different angles.
You could have done it in one
chapter,
but they did it in 20 chapters.
- Clue train.org.
- Yeah, and you know, the clue
train manifesto basically--
- Excuse me.
- It's like the Bush guys say,
"Well, we're not reality based
."
You know, the clue train says,
"Get reality based," you know?
And in other words, when your
customers call you up
and say your product sucks, you
know,
the clue train says, "You don't
fight them on that,
"you don't disagree with them
on that, you say, 'Okay,
"let's, okay, our product does
suck,
"let's figure out what we can
do to make it better,
"or to make your experience
with it better,
"and we'll try to fix it later
."
And you know, it's basically,
you know,
just don't play the old message
game.
Don't treat your customers like
individuals,
and you know, that's the new
way to do business, right?
So, you're a clue train, devote
e company,
and you decide that you want to
make an investment
in transforming yourself to
being, you know, clued in.
So, what do you use the money
for?
Do you, like say to your
employees,
"Oh, here, go write a blog,
right?
"We're not gonna tell you what
to write,
"you can write whatever you
want, you know,
"but go ahead and do this, and
we won't interfere."
Most employees wouldn't know
what to do,
and they'd be scared to do it,
because they don't want to lose
their job, right?
- Right.
- You put the CEO up there and
say, you know,
"Here, I'll write a blog, and I
'll tell you
"what I think or how I feel
about all these things."
Again, the CEO, it's unfair to
ask them to do that.
They've had a whole life of
training that says--
- Don't do that yet, control
the flow.
- Right, and you know, you
could tell them to do it,
or she could decide to do it,
but you know, it's not gonna
ring true.
Now, the best way, I think,
what Mark is saying is,
you know, go find some people
who are interested
in your product, maybe even
love your product,
and support them, but don't
tell them what to say.
Just say, "All you have to do,
all we want you to do,
"never mind what you have to do
,
"what we want you to do is to,
you know,
"look at our products, use them
, and write about them."
And it shouldn't be a trick to
find people to do that,
because, you know, go find
people
who already use your products.
And, you know, I-- - Okay.
Yeah.
I take the money.
- Yeah, of course you would.
- Yeah, thank you, and can I
make you some more?
- Right.
- Of course I would, and I
think anybody else would.
I think that's right.
But unfortunately, well, maybe
we should tell people,
don't wait around for that call
from Apple.
- Yeah, they probably are
coming.
- Yeah, it is not, you know,
and I had a,
I really, I had a vision, man,
for just like a second.
I was just thinking, here's
Steve Jobs,
he's gonna be on stage,
he's gonna be introducing his
new iPod.
And if he only just said
podcasting just once,
you know, it just slipped out,
you know, like,
I just wanted to hear him say,
"I hear people out there on the
internet,
"are talking about podcasting."
- Not that one, that was clever
.
- Yeah, that was good, wasn't
it?
- Yeah.
- But it was not to be.
- Of course, what would it cost
him to do that?
- He doesn't know about it.
No, I mean, I think I can
disclose this now
that I heard several weeks ago
when podcasting was just
starting,
someone sent me an email who I
believe
was probably telling the truth,
and I said, you know, I spoke
to the guy
who was credited most for
creating the iPod,
and I was talking to him,
and then the guy said,
"What is this podcasting you
speak of?
"What is this?"
And so he didn't know,
and he was gonna look into it,
but they don't know.
I mean, when I heard Steve Jobs
talk,
he was only talking about music
.
He was, what you just said,
Dave,
only one way, one way only, one
way street.
- Yeah, it pissed me off when
he said
that there was no video content
,
because one of the, you know--
- Well, he says, "Why?"
I mean, he owns huge fucking
volumes of video content.
- But going back to the two-way
thing,
it's like, I've got this brown
ie camera,
the Nikon Coolpix, which is
like point and shoot,
it has a dialing, so you turn
the dial
to the little movie camera.
- Yeah, and you shoot a movie.
- Press the button down, and
you let it up,
and guess what ends up on your
hard drive?
- A .mov file, right?
It's a little bigger, it's a
lot bigger than a picture,
but it's not that much bigger
than a podcast is.
We've already got the
distribution system in place
for that, so what he said was,
was ignorant.
It was simply not true.
It was, that's why it irritated
me,
it's like, wouldn't it be cool
if they got
on top of this thing, and then,
well,
they didn't get on top of it,
Adam,
for a couple of reasons.
One is the three, they didn't
know about it,
so that sort of is a deal stop
per.
But the second, they don't have
a way to,
they don't have a product that
really works with it,
and third and most important is
they don't have a way
to profit from it directly.
- Right, I know, but they
always have every single
fucking Yahoo on stage to demo
their fucking software,
and I just wanna see Ray or
August or Andrew
or one of our guys be up there
and say,
with fucked up hair and like
half stone,
and say, dude, got this iPodder
?
I mean, that's all I want from
the company
that I have spent tens of
thousands of dollars
on beta testing their product.
- Got a clue for you, though,
that and $1.50 gets you on the
New York City subway.
- Yeah, right on.
- I've been there and--
- It gives you nothing?
- Nothing at all.
I mean, basically, you get a
few people going,
oh, did Hellfree's over too?
But--
(laughing)
- Yeah, right.
- You know, worth it, they
actually literally said that,
it's like, wow, I can't believe
they let you up there, right?
- That's nice.
- It doesn't mean it's nice,
and the buzz lasts for about a
negative two seconds,
and after that, so where are
the sales,
and you don't ever get, you don
't ever see it.
They set it up so that all the
sales go to them.
It wasn't always that way, okay
?
I mean, there were times when,
and I talk about this quite a
bit of length
in the DUDK thing that I did
yesterday,
but there were two years, in my
experience,
when we really were able to do
deals with Apple regularly,
and they were win-win deals,
and but it was only two years
out of whatever,
20 years the Mac has existed
now.
So, you know, I wouldn't,
we gotta create our own
platform.
That's the lesson of the
internet.
That's the reason why I came
back into software in '94.
I had quit because the big
companies,
you know, just simply weren't
going to create
or let the little companies do
anything, you know?
I told the story to Robert Sco
ble the other day
'cause he and I have been sort
of like arguing
in a friendly way about our
relative,
respective ignorances, you know
?
And my thing about Microsoft,
and Microsoft, of course, is
quite a bit bigger than Apple,
you know, is that they're like
this big sulking teenage giant,
that's like (coughs)
and, you know, they moved into
this neighborhood,
moved right next door to this
lovely trout salmon stream.
They ate all the fish in the
stream,
and the cop comes along and
says,
"That's illegal, let me slap
your wrist."
And so the cop slaps the wrist,
and then a year later, they're
starving
and they blame the cop for it.
(laughing)
It's like, well, no, the
problem is
is that you were really
dependent on that stream
because you guys never, ever
come up with a new idea.
All you do is chase the
headlights,
and now you don't have any
headlights to chase.
So don't complain to me,
now you have to start investing
in headlights again now.
And, you know, you can't do
that
within a large company like
Microsoft.
It just doesn't happen.
- Yeah, it doesn't work that,
you're right.
Just, I mean, you have a
company with 500 people,
let alone 50,000.
It doesn't work that way.
- Keep companies, Adam.
Companies don't create software
.
- No, they don't.
We have a platform without a
platform vendor,
and that is the charm of the
internet.
That's why the internet is a
charming platform.
That's why there's room for you
and me
and Don and Drew and Dave Slus
her
and the iPod or X guys.
That's why we can do something.
The minute we start grabbing
for attention
from the big corporations--
- That's death.
- Well, yeah, and you know,
we are already kind of doing it
, you know?
But yeah, we have to watch out
for,
like really, really defining
success in those terms.
It can't, it won't work for us.
They won't let us have any
money.
So we kind of have to create,
the way I look at it is we have
to create our own sort of
uplift, our own updraft,
and then we have to conspicu
ously
play by a different set of
rules,
which says that it's okay to
acknowledge somebody who is a
competitor, okay?
It's okay to say, hey, you know
,
these guys really made a
contribution here,
you know, send some flow in
their direction.
It's okay to do that.
You're not gonna melt, you're
not gonna fall apart.
Just like Microsoft wouldn't
have fallen apart
had they let Netscape exist.
- Right. - We now get that
really clearly.
And you have to apply that.
You have to say, okay, we need
some discipline here.
You know, and to say, okay, we
don't have to be everything,
you know?
- Right on.
- Yeah. - Right on.
- Like philosophy, eventually,
you know, the Boston Red Sox
had philosophy, right?
- How about them fucking Red So
x, dude?
- Like 80-something years for
the philosophy of pay-off.
- Yeah, it was 1918, right?
1918 was the last time?
The only time?
- Not the only time.
No, up until then, they were
the
team that won the World Series
the most.
- I was at my mom's this
morning.
I had to take her to the
hospital,
and she had, you know,
she had like her Ted Williams
beaming smile.
- Yeah? - Yeah,
I told you she was a big Red So
x fan.
- Everybody's a Red Sox fan,
except for the Anthony.
- And even they were Red Sox
fans, but we won't let them.
(laughing)
They have to sit in the corner
and take their lumps right now,
and we get to shake our fingers
at them
and go, "Bad Yankees, bad Yanke
es."
- Hey, Dave, we're an hour and
two minutes into this.
Let's hit on a couple things,
because otherwise, you know, if
we go too long,
people will think our dicks are
really big
and we might disappoint them.
- Yeah, totally.
- Outage on iPodder.org?
- Yeah, that was a DNS problem.
I don't know exactly how it
happened or whatever,
but last night I couldn't get
through to iPodder.org.
At first I thought the server
was down,
I went to look at the server,
the server was all right.
Then I thought basically it was
something
that happened with the DNS.
- The DNS that I set up, of
course.
Always go for the weak brother
in the technology chain.
- Just I went to the server.
(laughing)
- Right.
- Yeah, I mean, and then I
thought,
"Well, no, a DNS problem."
And you know, I didn't realize
that it was a local one.
Then I went to go look at the
server log
and noticed that iPodder.org is
getting hit.
So I know that some people it's
working for,
and then this morning I'm able
to get through again.
- Yeah, 'cause I saw your email
and I was pretty late for me '
cause I was still up
and I checked it and I was like
,
"Ah, that's gotta be something
local to you."
'Cause I was, unlike, I mean, I
can get to iPodder.org.
I unfortunately cannot get to
the George W. Bush website.
- I think what that's about, we
figured this one out.
- Oh, you did?
- Well, NetCraft posted a
theory
and that got me thinking, okay?
They said, "Well, basically,
you know,
"the best way to get a book
popularized is to have it
banned."
And so there are all these
Europeans
trying to get through to the
site now.
And there are ways to do it.
And of course they never would
have been doing it otherwise.
And I, you know, but I thought,
"Well, why should they care
about Europeans?"
And the answer is they don't.
What they care about is
Americans
and what they're gonna do is
hope
to create a little bit of buzz
around this,
maybe a lot of buzz.
And then Bush is gonna say in
some campaign speech,
"We take security seriously
"and we have put a, erected
these barriers
"to keep the terrorists out of
our country.
"And we not only do it at the
ports
"and at the airports and, you
know,
"the railroad stations, but we
do it on the intercom."
They don't force much.
- You really think that's their
strategy?
- I think they want an uproar
about this.
They want people, you know,
it's one of these crazy stupid
things
where it looks like they're
being really clueless.
So all the Democrats are gonna
get up in arms
and say, "Look at how clueless
they are,
"neener, neener, neener," you
know?
And then they're gonna have the
last laugh
because most people are too
confused
to even know what the fuck any
of this is about.
- Yeah, but, you know, that's
not a very good strategy
for foreign policy.
- Well, nobody cares about
foreign policy.
They care about--
- The foreigners do.
- The elected, well, tell me,
yeah, right?
So, that $1.50 gets you on the
subway, too.
- No, no, no, no, no, be
careful what you say.
We have a lot of influence over
here.
You know that the Netherlands,
which is a country smaller than
Rhode Island,
with 70 million people living
on it,
is the number two exporter to
the United States.
It's like $30 billion that we
export.
There's a lot of fucking power
here.
- Yeah, well, you guys used to
own New York.
- Yeah, we sold it for like a
fucking mirror
and some beads.
- Well, it's not our fault.
(laughing)
- Leave that on us.
- Hey, dude, I'm American.
I was born in America.
- American, American.
- I'm American, man.
- Everybody.
- From New Jersey.
Well, you say that child.
- We're from New Jersey.
- New Jersey.
- Izzy, she's from New Jersey.
- She's a joysy girl.
Okay, shit, I think we hit on
everything.
Are we done?
- Yeah, we're done.
- Oh, no, we're not, we're not
done.
No, I need a Dave Weiner blog
ger con update.
Update, update, update.
- Boy.
- I don't know, we're sort of
closing in on it.
What is today?
Today is Saturday.
It's a week from Saturday.
- Oh, yeah, by the way, I
forgot to say.
Today is Thursday the 28th?
- Yeah, Thursday the 28th.
- 28th.
- Yeah, so we're sort of
organizing the last event now.
We're sort of up to that.
We've got food has been, oh, we
've had an incredible
fundraising drive, unbelievable
.
We're gonna end up with a
surplus, basically.
- That's Dawn's iPod.
- Yeah.
- I think if I give her an iPod
, it's coming out
of my bank account, not out of
that.
- Alrighty.
- I mean, it would be fun to do
that,
but I don't think that's Dawn's
iPod.
I think that, use whatever we
have left over
to fund the next one.
We'll do another blogger con.
Maybe the next one will be in
Europe.
I keep talking about doing one
in Europe.
Having done one, oh, we haven't
done it yet,
but after this, we'll have done
one on the West Coast,
two on the East Coast.
- And besides the money that
was donated,
the companies that donated, I
think,
was really important, Google
and AP,
and people who were saying,
okay, this shit's for real,
these people are for real.
And I saw the Google
contribution as a real
olive branch.
- Yeah, yeah, and I sort of
verified that
by an email afterwards that,
you know,
it makes sense for Google to
reach out to the bloggers,
and it's good that they're
doing that.
I mean, it's much appreciated.
And there'll be great
participants at the conference,
and I'm glad to have them
involved.
And AP, of course, is the
professional journalists
participating in this, and blog
ging is, of course,
open to them as well.
And, you know, it's like Wood
stock, man.
It's peace and love.
- Yeah, right on.
- It's all breaking out, you
know.
Hopefully, it'll be a great
celebration
of the new carry administration
.
On the other hand, you know, it
could be
that we'll be watching election
returns
and during the breaks, you know
.
- It has very possible.
Well, who knows, who knows.
- A lot of different courtrooms
in all 50
of the American states, and
perhaps there'll be
a blockade by the French Navy
or something like that.
- Well, you know, let me tell
you this.
America's a great country, and
Americans are great
when they get together, and
they do amazing shit,
and they're very spiritual
together,
and we can get shit together
even if we don't agree.
And we know when, America, I
think, basically,
at its core, understands the
fundamental
what's right and what's wrong.
That's been my experience.
And if Bush has re-elected, or
if he steals the election,
or whatever happens, if he is
still president,
you know, sometimes you have to
pull an al Capone, you know.
You can't get him for rackete
ering.
Get him on tax evasion.
We'll get him.
- Yeah.
Well, you gotta be careful
about what you say there.
- What do you mean?
- How you do, I mean--
- I'm talking about legality,
and about
if someone's breaking the law,
if someone is
doing us disservice.
- One that was talking, you
told me about the time
you're a cover, and there is
open talk about civil war here.
- But I don't really believe
that'll happen.
- You know, it's the logical
consequence
of a certain set of things
happening.
You know, it's the consequence,
Kerry wins the election,
and the Republicans think that
there was fraud,
you know, voter fraud, or they
can just make that noise,
that maybe they don't believe
it,
but they can make that noise.
Or the Democrats feel, you know
,
there's, oh, the Patriot Act
three is coming,
and it's gonna include
concentration camps.
You know?
- What?
- Yeah, I mean, well, let's say
that
for another trade secrets in
another day,
it's too heavy to talk about at
the end of one day.
- Yeah, yeah, I agree.
Well-- - And I don't wanna talk
about it
until we know what happens in
the election, right?
Let's first go in.
This is the moment when we
still have the power
to change our government.
You know, we have, that's what
I said before,
I see this as a referendum on
America's heart.
You know, do we still have that
, you know,
which you were talking about?
This will do the right thing
when called upon to do it.
This is the moment, right?
This is it.
You know, our strength is that
we have this thing
called democracy, and it allows
us to change our government
without putting any troops in
the street, okay?
- Our weaknesses is that most
of the masses
are hypnotized by television.
That's our weakness.
That is our ultimate weakness
is that our own,
the best product we have in
America,
which is all things media, is
what has us enslaved.
- And this is the moment when
the shit hits the fan.
This is it.
November 2nd, 2004, that's it.
- Well, we all have a real
responsibility on the web
to whatever happens, to keep
reporting and keep pushing
and keep, you know, keep stuff
floating up to the top.
- I think even more
specifically,
we have an obligation to really
promote the idea that,
you know, that's to promote the
very candidacy, basically.
That there is a consistent set
of principles there,
which says that's the thing to
do.
That you promote the candidacy,
and you also hold his feet to
the fire after the election.
In other words, there's no big
sigh of relief.
We have to make sure he doesn't
do to the Republicans
what the Republicans have done
to us.
We have to make deals with the
Republicans.
We have to listen to them.
We have to try to meet their
objectives.
Reasonable objectives, if we
win, okay?
That's very, very important.
That's how we avoid a civil war
.
- Hold on, while you're doing
your little thing there,
your soliloquy, I'm gonna play
some Van Jellis.
That sounds really cool.
- Yeah, we need to wind this up
.
- Do the thing again about
voting for Kerry.
- Vote for Kerry.
- Oh, come on, do it like a
whole sentence.
It'll sound good.
- Please vote for Kerry, as if
the life of your country
depends on it.
- That was beautiful.
- I'm not a professional video
guy like you are, you know?
- No, but that's, you know what
?
Both of us have the perfect
face for radio.
- Oh yeah.
(laughing)
- Hey Dave.
- Yeah.
- That was really, that was
good.
That was a nice chat.
- Thanks Adam, it was a
pleasure as always.
- So what are we gonna do
tomorrow?
Do we have a play date?
- Tomorrow is what, Friday?
- Yeah.
No, I'm going flying tomorrow,
that's right.
Fuck it, I'm going flying.
- Yeah, I made two, that
depends what the weather's like
here,
but anyway, yeah.
Actually have a lot of work to
do.
I get a comment up in less than
a little over a week, so.
- Yeah, I hear you.
Well listen, I'm coming out
Thursday.
- A week from today then, huh?
- That's right, I'm really
excited about it.
- You too, excellent.
- Really excited.
All right, man, so I'm gonna go
sit with the women.
- Very good, talk to you later.
- All right, that's not how we
end the show.
- Okay, how do we end it?
- Let's get the fuck out of
here.
- They fuck you.
- Yeah, all right.
Take it easy, buddy.
- All right.
- Bye Dave.
♪ It's trade secrets now ♪
♪ The doobiest clues ♪
♪ Got a piece for you, boy
♪
- As trade secrets, you can
send us your comments,
Dave@scripting.com or Adam@cur
ry.com.
I'm probably gonna post this on
iPod.org,
'cause I do home for trade
secrets.
- See you next time, everybody.
♪ Trade secrets, trade
secrets ♪
♪ These beats blow up your
speakers ♪
♪ Trade secrets, trade
secrets ♪
(cars honking)
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