May 10, 2008

The May 10 show contains several unusually clear statements of how Dr. Dave approached professional responsibility. When a hospital employee asks about storing sensitive patient information remotely, Dr. Dave says that letting data leave one's hands also means surrendering control and urges a much more cautious standard for truly private material. After a caller compliments his knowledge, he rejects the idea that expertise is only brilliance: he learns by doing, sometimes fighting a machine like a bulldog because his job is to know answers other people have not found. A related story shows the cost of panic when a friend with a legitimate software copy demands an unsafe shortcut and nearly ruins a laptop. Later Dr. Dave explains why he and Evil Steve entered data recovery, acknowledging the genuinely difficult clean-room work while insisting that pricing should reflect the actual effort rather than a customer's desperation. That discussion leads to a preservation rule central to this memorial project: an external backup can fail too, so a backup should itself have another copy. The closing hour also captures the brothers planning to share more of the obscure music behind the show and joking about a Computer Talk greatest-hits tour.

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Proposed air date. The available recordings may not contain the entire broadcast.

Recordings preserved for this date