Rob's blog of posts

I will shortly meet I-baLL at the airport, from which we shall take flight toward the setting sun and Las Vegas for what will be my first DefCon conference.

Incidentally, it’ll also be the furthest I’ve ever travelled from home; I’ve only been as far west as Texas before.

I’ll be checking things out with my lovely girlfriend Nicky, who is presenting a talk on the legal aspects of hackerspaces, and lots of other awesome people I know and don’t yet know. If you’re going to be there, keep your eyes open for me and say hello!

Over the next week I’ll probably be sporadically checking email, and it’ll be easy for me to send texts to my Twitter, so stay tuned there and here for my conference updates.

Woo and yay!

13 years ago to the day, my friend RBCP released issue 39 if the PLA zine containing, among other things, the lyrics to David Bowie’s “Space Odyssey” rewritten to tell the story of a hapless telephone lineman called Bob.

Today, I recorded and released the song. It’s all part of my secret plan to be David Bowie. Hear it here and accept my apologies.

Special thanks to This Is a Recording for the phone company clips.

“Photophobia” is a misleading term.

Despite the “-phobia” suffix, photophobia is not a “phobia” or morbid fear along the lines of claustrophobia or arachnophobia. Instead it is a medical condition in which one’s eyes are simply more susceptible to light than the average person. Some photophobics prefer the term “photosensitive” to avoid stigmas associated with “-phobia” words, though “photosensitivity” actually means different things entirely.

There are lots of possible causes and manifestations of photophobia. In my case, the irises of my eyes simply tend not to close as much or as quickly as they should in response to bright conditions, thereby letting in more light than they’re meant to. This can result in discomfort, and temporary vision problems.

For comparison, think of what it’s like having a bright flashlight or spotlight shone directly into your eyes. Imagine mundane levels of ambient light having that same effect on you.

Thankfully my particular case is not severe or debilitating, it’s just a pain sometimes. Under normal circumstances bright daylight is the most intolerable form of light for me, but the more cloud cover the better I manage. I also take quite a bit longer than most people to adjust to a suddenly brighter environment; for example going into a lit building at nighttime, or switching on the lights in a dark room. Most people will take a couple of seconds to blink and adjust; in my case it can be a matter of minutes, more with certain types of fluorescent lamps. I’m also more susceptible to glares at night from things like bright headlights and streetlamps.

I manage thanks to my collection of cool shades. This is why you might occasionally see me wearing sunglasses when others might not, such as indoors and/or at night.) As a side benefit, cool shades are cool. I like cool shades! Who doesn’t like cool shades?

After dealing with a morning’s worth of angry Internet, PayPal made good in the Hackers For Charity situation.

It makes me smile when lots of people are able to make jerks do the right thing. Lets do more of this!

eBay and its subsidiary PayPal have been screwing up more than usual.

First thing, they sent a takedown notice (complete with FBI threats) to a security blogger reporting on phishing scams, because he dared to include a screenshot of a phishing site in his writeup. Any human could have read that blogger’s post and figured out that he’s one of the good guys, who is only trying to educate the public a little bit. Could eBay actually be using bots to decide who to send that sort of nastygram to without double-checking the results first?

Secondly, they just effectively shut down Hackers For Charity leaving Johnny Long to deal with the situation from Africa.

What do they do for an encore?

My travel plans and everything are sorted. In a couple of weeks, I’ll be goingto Las Vegas for some quality girlfriend time, exploring, and DEFCON.

This trip would be totally impossible had I not the most awesome people in the world in my life.

Who else is going?

A recent email to Off the Hook asked us about the opening theme music used for the show. It reminded me of when I tracked down a copy of the CD for my own collection, so I thought I’d share my research in case anyone else needs help finding it.

I’m not a hardcore record collector and any mistakes here are my own. I would appreciate any and all corrections or additional info!

The Off the Hook theme

The basis of the Off the Hook opening theme is the track “Much Worse” (Extended Mix) by Big Audio Dynamite, with Don Letts on vocals. This particular track was only released as a flipside to Big Audio Dynamite’s “Just Play Music” 12″ single in Europe. The single is out of print now, but it can be relatively easy to find secondhand.

It is worth noting that the theme used on the show is actually a rearranged version of the “Much Worse” (Extended Mix) track. The theme starts with a few beats of a standard North American off-hook tone which quickly cuts to the music. The beginning of the “Much Worse” track (with a couple of lines removed) is stitched together with some instrumental breaks from the middle off the track, and then faded out.

You can hear the entire original version of “Much Worse” (Extended Mix) played at the start of Part 2 of the May 12, 2004 edition of Off the Hook, followed by Emmanuel talking for a bit about his choice of theme music.

Release info

The track listing of the original single is:

Track 1 / Side A: Just Play Music (Extended Mix)
Track 2 / Side B: Much Worse (Extended Mix)

The single is a CBS records release from 1988. The catalog number of the 12″ vinyl record is BAAD T4, and its barcode is 5099765162165.

A CD version of the single was also released. This is the version I currently own, and is probably what most casual non-vinylphile music collectors will be looking for today. To fill more time on the CD maxi-single, there is a bonus third track included: “The Bottom Line.” The catalog number for this is CD BAAD 4, and the barcode is 5099765162127.

Cover

The album cover of the single displays the band name “BIG AUDIO DYNAMITE” along the top and the title “JUST PLAY MUSIC!” along the bottom in red letters on a black background. The center is split between two scratchy photos of men using telephones. The back cover features a black-and-white cartoon drawing of the band, with info in red letters.

Alternate versions

There were Dutch pressings of the single for which CBS Records used different catalog numbers; 651621 6 for the vinyl and 651621 3 for the CD. (Interestingly, it seems the Dutch version of the CD is a 3″ MiniCD with adapter included, rather than the standard 5″. Note that this version of the CD does not contain the bonus “The Bottom Line” track.) These are otherwise identical to the above releases, with the Extended Versions of “Just Play Music” and “Much Worse.”

There are a couple of other releases that would probably disappoint someone looking for the Off the Hook theme. One is a different 12″ single of “Just Play Music,” released in the US under the Columbia Records label. The cover of this release features a photo of a boombox instead of the phone men, and the slogan “TURN ON YOUR RADIO……..” instead of the band name along the top. More importantly, this version does not contain “Much Worse” at all. In its place is a remix of “Just Play Music” by Greg Roberts. The catalog of this release is 44 07851.

To add further confusion, there is also a 7″ vinyl single, which does have the “phone men” cover, but which does not contain the extended versions of the tracks. The standard non-extended version of “Much Worse” found here is missing instrumental breaks featured in the Off the Hook theme. The catalog number of this CBS release is 651621 7 or BAAD 4, and it can also be found as a Columbia release with catalog number 38-07955.

I hope this helps anyone looking for further info on the Off the Hook theme! Thanks for reading.

Hey, a national holiday!

Very sorry to have missed NYC2600 last night. Nothing was wrong at all, Grey and I were just needed elsewhere. We eventually ended up finding a carnival in Amityville and seeing a neat fireworks display, so it’s all good.

Today, Grey and I are off to celebrate at Murd0c and MikeTV’s new place. Woo and yay!