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.
439 clips, strongest first.
With both Washington and Arizona struggling, Dr. Dave and Evil Steve say difficult seasons are when supporters should stand by their teams most so they can share the eventual championship. The exchange preserves their loyalty and the sports talk that regularly framed the technology program.
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Preparing for the local air show, the brothers vividly remember watching a B-52 make an extraordinary low pass and steep climb in 1992, then connect aircraft limitations with human excellence.
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An Android-modified Nook Color lets Dr. Dave explain that he is a fiddler who loves experimenting and values the flexibility people create when they push hardware beyond its intended limits.
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Dr. Dave remembers being the child who did not want to do assigned homework but would sit and read encyclopedias for fun. Evil Steve recognizes the contrarian impulse, while Dr. Dave connects that early curiosity to one of the Internet's great pleasures: hearing about an unfamiliar thing, asking what it is and following the answer simply because learning is enjoyable.
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Dr. Dave recounts spilling Coke on his laptop during the previous show and then cracking the LCD by pinching its edge, which leads to a frank explanation of his buying priorities and why structural details matter.
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The official Computer Talk lunch sends Dr. Dave and Evil Steve into an earnest debate about why their favorite fries taste so good. Evil Steve draws on his old restaurant job, Dr. Dave suggests the fryer may still contain the same oil and together they conclude that well-used, day-old oil is the flavor-enhancing secret.
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Dr. Dave says he receives thousands of messages a day and has about one and a half million in his mailbox. He keeps them because years later he may need to find an old show guest, listener or other person he once worked with, making the archive part of his memory and radio work.
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Dr. Dave and Evil Steve announce the addition of George Mason University to the Washington Redskins and Arizona Wildcats links on DaveMason.com. The underdog Final Four team is from the Washington area and combines the family name Mason with Patriots, making it feel almost named for them and impossible not to support.
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Helping a caller whose sister hopes to enter photography, Dr. Dave explains that his knowledge came from helping run a camera store while he was in college. He calls it accidental knowledge from one of his past lives, then connects lens choice to the kind of work the new photographer wants to do.
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Banter about eighteen-year-old Dr. Dave's son LT getting out of bed leads Dr. Dave and Evil Steve to agree that the whole Mason family likes staying up late and sleeping in, then wonder whether it came from nature or nurture.
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A discussion of unreliable mobile service turns into Dr. Dave and Evil Steve remembering a friend who drove a twenty-five-year-old diesel Land Cruiser with a rooftop tent and trailer from Panama through Central America and back to southern Arizona.
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Dr. Dave and Evil Steve compare the strange feeling of a Fourth of July landing in the middle of the week. Dr. Dave jokes about chronological disorientation, then remembers watching The Wind and the Lion, seeing fireworks and relaxing with family and friends before realizing that the live show is how they know it is Saturday again.
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The Apple-update music unexpectedly relaxes Dr. Dave and Evil Steve because they remember hearing it when they were young. For a moment they recall a time when their worries amounted to throwing dirt clods, sledding down the sidewalk and someone they call Fat Rat.
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A Temptations record sends the brothers back to Southeast Washington as they identify Eddie Kendricks, remember the falsetto style and enjoy a musical pause in the technology show.
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Dr. Dave recounts his son’s business encounter with a severely wounded Gulf War veteran whose independence and lack of visible self-pity deeply affected him, then explains how the meeting shaped a difficult political conversation the following day.
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Dr. Dave and Evil Steve share a brief story they describe as having been told in their family for generations, with both brothers acting out the exchange.
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A family-record naming puzzle leads Dr. Dave and Evil Steve to realize that their living uncles had always gone by their middle names. The brothers laugh at reaching their forties before learning something so basic about Uncle Tom and Uncle Randy, then appreciate how family research gets generations talking.
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Dr. Dave says Bernie Mac's family comedy and Gran Torino are the two works that made him feel deeply recognized, remembering looking at his wife during the film and telling her it showed what was inside his head every day. Pizza then becomes Evil Steve's comic route back to life.
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While dismissing the shock over an alleged Steve Ballmer outburst, Dr. Dave remembers the early computer industry as openly emotional. He pictures a young Bill Gates in a hotel hallway at one of the first Comdex events, shouting with a Lotus founder about interoperability between the two companies.
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After an intense week, Dr. Dave takes the family to a theater presentation and celebrates his wife's birthday over dinner with friends and relatives. Evil Steve and “Dr. Dave's son Nick the Brick” spend a full day on the water, leaving before dawn and returning after dark, so both brothers arrive tired but happy to be on air.
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The day before Dr. Dave's birthday, Evil Steve brings out the birthday sounder and jokes that his brother is turning seventy-four. Dr. Dave answers the old line about taking better care of oneself, then turns sincere: he feels very blessed, is in great health and looks forward to celebrating over food with their extended family.
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Evil Steve can hardly believe that the brother once known for dismissing everything outside jazz, R&B and funk went to a country concert. Dr. Dave says Blake Shelton was brilliant, praises the steel guitar and fiddle and insists his horizons had changed long ago, leaving Evil Steve and the family to wonder who this new man behind the microphone might be.
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A family birthday party is coming up, and Evil Steve has been assigned the potato salad. Dr. Dave supplies the kitchen commentary as they discuss his birthday and Jackie's the following day.
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A video by a woman sharing recipes from the Great Depression reminds Dr. Dave and Evil Steve of making do as children with syrup and bread, cinnamon and powdered milk; they imagine creating their own survival-food video together.
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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.
