The piece · Every Thing Computer, TIAT
Publisher
A rotary telephone that runs a small newsroom. Dial a desk and tell a reporter your story. Overnight the machine sets a newspaper, The Daily Call, and prints it by morning.
Dehong Hao■2026
What a visitor finds on the table.
A telephone, a binder and a printer
On a table at 151 Powell Street there is a Western Electric rotary telephone, a binder of newspapers and an inkjet printer. Lift the receiver and a recorded switchboard answers. Dial a desk, 1 to 5, and the switchboard gives you a call number, like 2-17, then puts you through.
A reporter picks up: Theo Marquez at News, Ruth Albescu at Letters, Lou Benedetti at Arts, June Takahashi at Announcements, Manny Okafor at Classifieds. They ask what happened, who it is for, how many stars. At the end they ask two things: may we run it, and how should we sign it? Without a clear yes, nothing runs; the call stays off the record.
From calls to a printed page.
The night desk
At 10 PM the night editor reads the day’s filed calls and the mail, and sets the next morning’s paper. It chooses where a piece goes, never whether: every piece a caller agreed to run is printed. It adds no facts. Every word of a story is the caller’s, and headlines come from the caller’s own words.
A person reads the proof. In the morning the paper prints in the gallery, on Letter paper turned sideways, and goes into the binder. The same issue goes up on this site. Until 10 PM, a caller can write to [email protected] with their call number and name to add a photograph, change a line or pull the piece.
How it works
From a call to a pageLift and dial
In the gallery
Pick up the receiver and dial a desk, 1 to 5. Dial 0, or wait, for the switchboard.
A call number
The first seconds
The switchboard names the desk and gives you a number, like two, one, seven, then puts you through.
The reporter
Up to five minutes
A reporter asks what happened. At the end: may we run it, and how should we sign it?
The slip
A minute later
Your call slip appears online under its number: filed, or off the record.
The night desk
10 PM
The night editor sets tomorrow’s paper from the day’s calls and mail. A person reads the proof.
The press
Morning
The paper prints in the gallery and goes into the binder, and online under Back Issues.
The desks
Five reporters and a recorded switchboard. Dial 0 to hear the desks again.What is kept
Calls are recorded so the reporters get it right. Recordings are erased the same night. Written notes of each call stay on this machine until the show closes, only to fix problems, then they are erased. What you approve runs in the paper and online under your call number. Calls are processed by OpenAI, which may keep its own logs for up to 30 days.
House rules
The paper does not run hateful or harassing material, sexually explicit material, threats or encouragement of violence, someone else’s private details against their will, or accusations against a named private person.
Swearing, strong opinions, sadness, nonsense and bad jokes are all welcome.
- By
- Dehong Hao
- Telephone
- Western Electric 500-series rotary
- Computer
- NVIDIA Jetson Orin Nano
- Printer
- Epson XP-620, Letter, landscape
- Reporters
- Five voices on OpenAI GPT-Live
- Switchboard
- Recorded voice, ElevenLabs
- Night editor
- A Codex agent (OpenAI)
- Staff
- Every one of them is a computer.
Every Thing Computer, TIAT
151 Powell Street, San Francisco. The telephone is on the table; you need no phone of your own. Can’t come? Call or write from here.