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.
After reviewing a media program, Dr. Dave and Evil Steve joke that the show refuses to entertain because society has become addicted to entertainment. Dr. Dave turns the joke into a compact concern that children may climb Mount Everest in a game without ever climbing a tree in their own backyard.
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Evil Steve's occasionally rebooting phone leads Dr. Dave to explain that a person working with technology cannot become furious at every flaw, while Evil Steve accepts one manageable defect rather than assuming another device will be perfect.
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Asked why he has not checked birthday wishes on Facebook, Dr. Dave invokes John Boyd’s distinction between doing meaningful work and appearing important, then says he is busy fixing problems.
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Internet frustration becomes Dr. Dave’s approach to accepting reality and helping people through it, with Evil Steve’s life motto and brotherly correction.
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A technical networking article becomes a personal outlook: Dr. Dave expects life and technology to be difficult, so breakdowns do not consume him and working systems become a source of gratitude rather than entitlement.
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Waiting with Dr. Dave's son Nick for allergy shots, Dr. Dave notices everyone looking down at a phone. He deliberately keeps his own phone holstered and starts a conversation with a stranger, prompting Evil Steve's joke that face-to-face full-duplex communication now frightens people.
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Google briefly labels every result dangerous, allowing the brothers to joke that the warning is technically true before Dr. Dave makes the serious point that people cannot outsource all judgment and due diligence to institutions.
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A discussion of music-player capacity leads Dr. Dave and Evil Steve to argue that people often collect or consume low-value material simply because technology makes it possible. Their counterexample is the NASA channel, where they happily watch long, quiet views of Earth from orbit.
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Considering Google Glass before its public release, Dr. Dave worries that a heads-up display could create information saturation and false confidence rather than awareness. He connects the device to a broader distinction: constant digital contact with friends and family cannot automatically substitute for being present together.
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Dr. Dave returns from Evil Steve's holiday-treat story to the larger question of who should possess a person's data. He admits to a natural contrarian streak: when everyone is doing the same thing, his automatic reaction is to pause and consider a different choice, prompting Evil Steve to tease him about preferring ham radio.
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After his son Nick breaks a hand at a wrestling tournament, Dr. Dave has to question two attempts to splint it. The experience reinforces his belief that asking questions still matters, even when an expert is in charge.
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A reported British study about constant email, text and phone interruptions leads Dr. Dave to a simple conclusion: switch things off and give one task full attention before moving to the next. Evil Steve immediately points out the irony that Dr. Dave is reading email live while making the argument.
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A family conversation about Macs and PCs leads Dr. Dave and Evil Steve to question devotion to an operating system that ignores evidence of faults and strengths. They acknowledge that competing technologies can each be excellent in different ways and compare absolute computer loyalty with car enthusiasts who insist their brand is always right.
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A principal’s warning about social networking prompts Dr. Dave and Evil Steve to argue that parents must set difficult limits, protect children from online harm and make room for homework, play and experience in the real world.
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Dr. Dave observes that children can acquire an online identity before they can choose one because adults post family and team photographs, then urges people to share deliberately rather than expose relatives’ health, financial or personal lives by habit.
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Eric Schmidt's prediction that the Internet would become so common it would disappear leads Dr. Dave to compare it with a fish that no longer notices water. Dr. Dave and Evil Steve play with the progression from Internet to cloud to vapor, while considering whether a generation raised online might experience the network as an invisible part of life.
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While thinking about the cost of protecting new devices, Dr. Dave catches himself judging people who still use dial-up and old computers. He inventories his own laptop, phone, music player and monthly technology bills and asks who has really lost perspective, turning a casual insult back on himself.
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Dr. Dave remembers unconsciously pulling out his phone during a frustrating football game and turns that small moment into a complete philosophy of technology. Devices should be used deliberately rather than obeyed habitually; people also need quiet, physical experience and the full use of their senses. His phrase be where you are gives the long reflection a simple center.
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Dr. Dave and Evil Steve notice people standing together while looking down at separate screens. Dr. Dave extends the familiar distinction among data, information, knowledge and wisdom: more messages do not automatically create dialogue, understanding or a relationship with someone a person can truly count on.
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Dan turns the Twitter jokes into a serious conversation about compulsion, collective thinking and the time people need to raise children, drive, make decisions and escape conventional wisdom.
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Dr. Dave explains that he and Evil Steve wanted a concrete outlet for their support of military personnel and recommends Soldiers’ Angels as a way to send care packages or contribute. His central point is that support should become an action chosen by the listener rather than remain only words.
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Remembering advice from a friend’s father, Dr. Dave says reports should be tested against evidence and independent corroboration. He also acknowledges that every human source carries some degree of perspective rather than pretending to be perfectly without bias.
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A comic argument over television commercials lands on a principle Dr. Dave and Evil Steve both accept: everything will sometimes be difficult, and factoring that reality into life can take away much of its power. Their blunt phrase is “embrace the suck,” but the lasting point is that mental attitude is supreme.
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A joking Mother's Day sponsor setup turns into the brothers' belief that gifts are fine but cannot replace sitting with one's mother in person. Their deliberately exaggerated guilt trip still carries a direct family value: show up.
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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.
