Dinner with Wess of Hak.5

Wess Tobler
Hak.5

I am just in from dinner with Wesley Tobler of Hak.5 fame. I know Wess through his "day job" at Dataxstream. When I first met him I was somewhat surprised at the rather artsy vibe he emanates; I am surrounded by geeks and he is a different breed of geek. I'm not quite sure if it goes with the age, or the genre, but anyway. When I met him, in addition to his decidedly non-geek vibe, he was often leaving to go to Canada. What is up with that? Well, he does a TV show. A what? A TV show. Which of course was "Call for Help" with Leo LaPorte. I am confused. Who is this guy Wess and what is this Hak.5 business anyway? Apparently there is a celebrity amongst us and I had no clue.

Wess agrees to subject himself to an interview. The frustrating thing is the need to do at least two interviews because the first one was more of a lesson: "Catching Cailin up to speed so she can actually ask or say something intelligent."

I watch a few Hak.5 episodes. I have no clue what is going on or what is being said. I get the mini episode within the episode though, "the 1/2 assed hacker" is funny. And so, I will confess to you, that I had to look up "IPTV," "LED" and I had to ask Wess what "case modding" is as well as what "LAN" meant and "IRC." Wess fortunately is very good at "dumbing this down" which he does gently and without making me look like too big of an idiot.

If per chance, you find yourself a little out of the loop like myself, allow me a moment to introduce you to Hak.5. Initially created Darren Kitchen, Alanna Beuhring and Wess Tobler, it is an IPTV show (Internet Protocol Television) which aims to continue tech TV after "G4 bastardized the whole net work." They aim to fill a void and provide information and entertainment for the do it yourself hacker.