DaveMason.com
ComputerTalk with Dave Mason
The official archive of all available ComputerTalk with Dave Mason radio shows. Spend some time with Dave. Listen to a full show or explore clips by topic.
3,475 unique clips. Each clip appears in one section. Historical conversations, not current advice. Full episodes remain available separately by date.
364 clips, strongest first.
Pinks creator Rich Christensen tells Dr. Dave that technical advisor Nate Pritchett is essential because his expertise guides decisions the host cannot make alone. Their trust began with people who showed up wherever needed without complaints or excuses, and Nate finally told him to stop checking because he had already given his word.
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Dr. Dave reduces a long discussion of context and online disclosure to a durable warning: once something is put online, a hard lesson can keep repeating because the material may never fully go away. His simple rule is, if in doubt, do not post it.
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Remembering a caller who imagined Kinect helping soldiers, Dr. Dave celebrates people working in bedrooms, garages and basements who discover uses for a device that even a giant company did not pursue.
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Dr. Dave objects to the pressure for instant reporting because it encourages people to speak before facts are known and then check afterward. Revisiting his own first reaction to Microsoft's advertisements, he tries to slow down, adopt the company's point of view and ask what the campaign is actually trying to accomplish.
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Considering overlooked quarterbacks, Dr. Dave argues that evaluation formulas can undervalue understanding, vision and judgment when decision-makers focus too heavily on measurable size and speed.
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Considering Jobs’s removal and eventual return to Apple, Dr. Dave and Evil Steve observe that failure can become one ingredient in later success—but only when many circumstances align. They conclude that Jobs’s business story combined extraordinary skill and talent with extraordinary luck.
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Dr. Dave says technology can be exciting and expand a person’s possibilities, but cultural pressure to remain on the bleeding edge can waste money, damage a business and consume a life. He contrasts compulsive adoption with people who thrive through older craft skills and argues that usefulness, not participation for its own sake, should govern the choice.
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While discussing high power computers and new optical formats, Dr. Dave says the relationship has become backward when people chase technology for ego or status. His durable standard is that technology should serve people and their real needs.
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Dr. Dave explains the tradeoff created by a provider that does many things well: quality encourages people to entrust more data, communications and history to one company, and that very success increases their dependency. He distinguishes possession from legal ownership and asks what a complete account could reveal about a person.
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As manufacturers accelerate the stream of phones and music devices, Dr. Dave describes society as addicted to entertainment and novelty. He urges people to step back, use what they already own and confront a productivity paradox in which accumulating more technology can leave less real work accomplished.
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Dr. Dave and Evil Steve say that knowing someone on the field can make a high-school, youth or passing-league game more compelling than the highest professional level. Rooting for a person and watching that person grow gives the game a personal connection no level of spectacle can replace.
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Although he is tired of seeing the Patriots in the Super Bowl, Dr. Dave pauses to admire a team he sees as focused on collective excellence rather than individual attention. The reluctant compliment turns football analysis into a concise statement about teamwork and character.
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As Microsoft announces its purchase of Skype, Dr. Dave reflects that large success can combine hard work and good execution with timing and a fair share of luck.
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Analyzing the conference championships, Dr. Dave says high performance requires a strange balance: wanting the result intensely while being loose enough not to let that desire create paralyzing pressure.
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Dr. Dave argues that avoiding the Internet entirely is like refusing to drive in order to prevent an accident. The benefits justify participating, he says, while awareness and reasonable precautions play the role of safe driving and a seatbelt.
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Apple’s index valuation overtaking Microsoft sends Dr. Dave back to the dot-com bubble and his long-running argument that technology markets are driven as much by emotion and fashion as fundamentals.
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Dr. Dave and Evil Steve work through Facebook's undisclosed emotional-response experiment without pretending the answer is simple. They recognize the company's need to test its product, ask how meaningful disclosure could coexist with a valid study and arrive at the uncomfortable point that users and their personal communications had become the commercial product.
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Looking back just after Conficker's activation date, Dr. Dave and Evil Steve compare it with Y2K: the absence of catastrophe does not prove the original risk was imaginary when preparation and repairs may be what kept it contained.
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Watching business leaders begin to behave as if recession and depression were already inevitable, Dr. Dave makes a personal commitment not to participate in the gloom-and-doom cycle. He will conduct business as though success and good work remain possible because, in his view, reality begins in the mind and he has seen fearful bandwagons before.
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A used copy of Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal prompts Dr. Dave and Evil Steve to argue that freedom to associate and the genuine possibility of failure are necessary conditions for meaningful success.
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Preparing to discuss a controversial technology report, Dr. Dave says the job is to tell the truth even when it makes people angry. He then urges listeners to observe what exists, come to grips with reality and stop fooling themselves.
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Questioning the familiar claim that Black Friday is the year’s busiest shopping day, Dr. Dave says listeners should approach every news report skeptically because effective publicity firms can turn guesses or marketing into accepted facts. He and Evil Steve use the recent rise of the Black Friday phrase to show how quickly a manufactured story can feel like settled tradition.
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Dr. Dave and Evil Steve turn jokes about boxing and a fundraising jail into a direct invitation to help the Muscular Dystrophy Association. Dr. Dave says the opportunity to do something beyond being silly on the show is their social responsibility and serious purpose.
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Dr. Dave argues that an employer demanding a private Facebook password has revealed something useful before the applicant becomes tied to the job. His advice is not to burn a bridge or start a fight, but to thank the interviewer, reconsider and quietly walk away.
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Browse by year, then month, to find the episodes from that month.
442 proposed broadcast dates, plus 2 undated entries. Dates are based on archive filenames and may be approximate. Some broadcasts survive as separate parts or incomplete recordings.
