August 23, 2008

The August 23 show moves easily between mortality, preservation and the meaning of useful design. Remembering Isaac Hayes and Bernie Mac, the brothers observe that sixty-five no longer sounds old as they themselves get closer to it. A caller trying to rescue family photographs from 1930s and 1940s negatives leads Dr. Dave from scanner technique to his own plan to digitize back X-rays for his personal files—an unexpectedly direct statement of why old images should be made accessible without discarding their sources. Elsewhere, a listener reminds him that keyboard shortcuts survive a graphical redesign, proving that more experienced users often return to the keyboard that the graphical interface was supposed to replace. MobileMe's difficult launch, a photorealistic digital character and online backup services capture a rapidly changing 2008, while Dr. Dave keeps returning to the same rule: remote storage is a backup of a backup, and technology should be chosen for what people actually do rather than how impressive its feature list appears.

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

Recordings preserved for this date