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.
A remote shooting service prompts the brothers to debate disability access, the meaning of hunting, public fear of controlling a firearm through a computer and the difference between a target range and entertainment. The passage captures an unusual early collision between Internet control and physical-world ethics.
Listen to the full show’s available recordings · Source recording and timing
A disputed television report becomes Dr. Dave’s example of ordinary people using the Internet to inspect evidence and challenge institutions that once controlled the flow of information.
Listen to the full show’s available recordings · Source recording and timing
Dr. Dave calls himself the king of generalities because a loaded phrase can be a warning to stop and think rather than a substitute for thought. Drawing on an attributed Carl Jung line, he argues that trying to abolish every legitimate pain or mess can create a more rigid and costly problem instead.
Listen to the full show’s available recordings · Source recording and timing
A hacked Associated Press account posts a false report, and Dr. Dave watches the markets fall and recover. He argues for pausing to question an online claim before reacting to it.
Listen to the full show’s available recordings · Source recording and timing
Dr. Dave rejects the pretense that any human being is free of bias and states a more honest standard for his own program: try to be accurate and fair without claiming to be unbiased.
Listen to the full show’s available recordings · Source recording and timing
A report about competing low-cost laptops for children prompts Dr. Dave and Evil Steve to question both ownership and priorities. They distinguish the worthy goal of education from loyalty to one device and ask whether food, shoes, books, connectivity and a usable learning plan might matter more than simply placing a laptop in a child's hands.
Listen to the full show’s available recordings · Source recording and timing
A false antivirus alert led reporters to accuse Samsung of installing a keylogger, giving Dr. Dave a sharp example of why speed is not a substitute for checking facts and why false positives can be nearly as damaging as missed threats.
Listen to the full show’s available recordings · Source recording and timing
While discussing IBM's free Lotus Symphony tools, Dr. Dave says technology adoption can be faddish and explains why he is cautious about software as a service. The old mainframe model of connecting to a distant computer conflicts with the local control he values: they are called personal computers for a reason.
Listen to the full show’s available recordings · Source recording and timing
In a child-safety discussion, Dr. Dave rejects the idea that technology must be either wholly evil or wholly good. He says the Internet contains the same range of people and risks as the physical world, and argues that protecting children requires realistic judgment about human behavior rather than treating a website as a sheltered place.
Listen to the full show’s available recordings · Source recording and timing
Caller John objects that the show’s mock emergency broadcast could weaken a real warning. Dr. Dave listens, then explains that the sounder came from a 1960s Godzilla film in which an offensive radio noise was used to save Tokyo, and the caller still asks that country come before the advertising hook.
Listen to the full show’s available recordings · Source recording and timing
Using Olympic timing, judging and starting-system examples, Dr. Dave and Evil Steve explore the limits of both human perception and electronic measurement. Dr. Dave's conclusion is not to reject technology but to use it intelligently, combine it with human judgment and make sure people are running the tool rather than letting the tool run them.
Listen to the full show’s available recordings · Source recording and timing
Evil Steve’s wish to schedule automatic show updates prompts Dr. Dave to reverse the question: why are they posting, and what are they getting from it? The brothers realize that robotic messages and replies can undermine the human purpose of a social network.
Listen to the full show’s available recordings · Source recording and timing
After considering how even heavily protected infrastructure can fail in a storm, Dr. Dave arrives at a humbling principle: people can prepare extensively, yet the natural world remains powerful enough to overwhelm money and protection.
Listen to the full show’s available recordings · Source recording and timing
A high-profile account breach leads Dr. Dave to a broader observation about human nature: people cannot live every day expecting catastrophe, yet the feeling that disaster happens only to somebody else can become dangerous. Most of the time nothing happens, but nobody is exempt.
Listen to the full show’s available recordings · Source recording and timing
Starting with Google's self-driving car and vehicles that park or brake automatically, Dr. Dave argues that useful assistance should not erase a person's understanding of the task. For him, surrendering practical ability can also surrender control and freedom; machines should help people rather than make competence unnecessary.
Listen to the full show’s available recordings · Source recording and timing
A Best Buy executive’s clarification about iPads and notebooks gives Dr. Dave a lesson in the weight of corporate language: a loose sentence from a major retailer can ripple through suppliers just before a crucial buying season.
Listen to the full show’s available recordings · Source recording and timing
Dr. Dave uses the business lesson that a good restaurant can benefit from opening across from another good restaurant to explain why a successful Apple launch could also increase attention and sales for competitors. The observation shows his habit of looking past a simple winner-versus-loser view of a market.
Listen to the full show’s available recordings · Source recording and timing
After reports of Black Friday fights and shootings, Dr. Dave and Evil Steve contrast the old sitcom image of crowded department-store sales with people now battling for game consoles. Dr. Dave proposes a Computer Talk promotion with Wilson: skip the Xbox, PlayStation and Wii and give children a football, baseball or basketball hoop instead.
Listen to the full show’s available recordings · Source recording and timing
After a heated anecdote, Dr. Dave reaches a durable ethical distinction: legality does not by itself make an action right, and illegality does not by itself settle its morality; Evil Steve’s invented Latin keeps the reflection human and funny.
Listen to the full show’s available recordings · Source recording and timing
After describing holiday stress and bleak news, Dr. Dave asks listeners to take a breath, put events in perspective, leave room for other drivers and answer aggression with an unexpectedly kind gesture.
Listen to the full show’s available recordings · Source recording and timing
Dr. Dave separates his criticism of the music industry from the ethics of piracy, then lands the point with the comic image that stealing a broken television still makes someone a thief—just not a very smart one.
Listen to the full show’s available recordings · Source recording and timing
While discussing the devastating Southern California wildfires, Dr. Dave turns from politics to the response he admires: people refusing to let disaster define them, taking the bull by the horns and doing what they can to move forward. It is a forceful expression of his belief in personal and national resilience.
Listen to the full show’s available recordings · Source recording and timing
Discussing Black Friday pressure, Dr. Dave says people need the courage to do what is right for them rather than follow professional image, neighbors or advertising. Life is time, he says, so standing in line to save money on a television is also a decision about how to spend part of a life.
Listen to the full show’s available recordings · Source recording and timing
The AT&T iPad account exposure leads Dr. Dave to hold two ideas at once: unauthorized intrusion is wrong, yet public disclosure may be the only reason a company and its users learn that a vulnerability exists.
Listen to the full show’s available recordings · Source recording and timing
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.
