Al Bernay - part 1

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Mark & Wes, in Emeryville, CA at the Asqew Grill

This episode is dedicated to Al Bernay, who passed away on July 10th. Mark talks about the history of the Mark Bernay Society, the fact that Al was truly the original PodCaster, and his involvement in the beginning of something that affected the future of technology and the generation of kids who took pleasure in experimenting with phones and equipment. This is the first of two shows where we will talk about Al and how important he was to young people, as well as us older ones.

Sites of Interest:

The following websites have a lot of tape recordings that the webmaster and other people made back then by dialing Al's and other lines and recording the calls.

• http://www.mapstostarshomes.com/
• http://www.dialajoke.us/
  
• http://www.funfone.org/
• http://www.telephone-entertainment.com/
• http://www.paulmackpresents.com/

Other web sites mentioned in the podcast:

• http://www.phonetrips.com - search for recordings that say "Al Bernay".
• http://www.milesofmemory.com/site/index.php?option=com_content&task=blogcategory&id=8&Itemid=11 - Play the video "Maps 06" and the chapters of "Maps 07".

Al's web pages. These work best in Firefox with pop-up blockers turned off, and the first one especially may not work in Internet Explorer.

• http://www.touristguider.com
  
• http://www.your-teacher.net
  
• http://home.earthlink.net/~aldiamond/jbrtc-ns.htm
• http://home.earthlink.net/~aldiamond/job4kids.htm
  

A Stain on the Dumb ASCII

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Mark & Wes, in Lafayette, CA. Doing the Pizza Antica.

Mark has an issue with a battery refill web site, as they most recently gave him what appear to be defective refills twice. Listeners have convinced me to record the waiter taking our orders, so don't judge us on the food we order. Mark doesn't care as long as the soup makes a solid slurping sound . Mark runs through the kinds of Pizza you can get in Italy, causing me to think of a Tetris cut pie. iTouch v2.0 firmware crashing problems may be due to the apps and not the OS. Wes thinks he knows where Steve lives. Why is the Flashlight application so popular!? OMG! Mark has a 3G iPhone! So Mark goes into a water closet and gets confused. Eventually he learns the correct way to Pee in Berlin. Speaking of Pee-ing, what does Cat Piss stand for? Actually Mark said "CAPTCHA", not "cat piss". San Francisco will now help you find an empty parking spot by cell phone. Esquire Magazine will feature Electronic Ink soon.

Sites of Interest:

• Refill notebook and other rechargable batteries
  
• Interview with Al Bernay
• Al Bernay was bald
• Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart
• The Turing Test
• Gmail, Yahoo and Hotmail’s CAPTCHA broken by spammers
• Kurzweil reading machine for the blind
• San Francisco to experiment with finding parking spots by cellphone
  
• Esquire Magazine will experiment with electronic ink on the cover

The Italian Sausage

Axe & Wes, in SF, CA having lunch at Tart to Tart.

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New iTunes, iPhone and firmware all around, 20% of all apps on AppStore are free, Twitter is available in free and premium edition on AppStore, iTouch firmware update was delayed, problems with the iTouch firmware update, software quality assurance, 80% of all iPhone apps are free, Yelp, Evernote iPhone app, Shazam to find your favorite song on the radio, Jott, iPhone screenshot capability, 24k Gold iPhone, Nokia and Navteq, Squirt your sphincter, Electronic Toilets.

Sites of Interest:

Problems with iPhone v2.0
Gold iPhone
iPhone Screen Capture
Dual Screen Laptop
Nokia Completes Purchase of Navteq
Belkin Makes Descent iPod Recording Dock
Apple iTunes Apps Store
Toilet Tool

Word Tech Systems

Mark & Wes, in Orinda, CA looking for WordTech Systems.

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Because Mark is on vacation in Europe, this weeks show is a quick smearing of audio clips from previous shows that go back to 2005. In this set, Mark and Wes reminisce.