Podbit · This Week in Tech (Audio)
Larry Magid credits Dvorak with launching his LA Times career. Leo traces Dvorak's path from radio to ZDTV to podcasting with Adam Curry. Dvorak was 80 — and nobody knew.
Where this was said
At 10:20 · chapter starts 5:38
Leo learned of Dvorak's death from TWiT forums, where longtime journalist Scott Mace posted the news alongside a photo from Microsoft's 50th anniversary. Dvorak had undergone double bypass surgery in March, and his heart finally gave out. Leo traces Dvorak's remarkable career arc: the 'Inside Track' gossip column at PC Magazine that made irreverence mainstream, the radio show Dvorak on Computers co-hosted with Leo on KNBR starting around 1990, his ZDTV/TechTV Silicon Spin Roundtable, and ultimately the No Agenda Show with Adam Curry. Larry Magid shares a memorable Amsterdam story involving Dvorak, a gin bar, and a legal joint. Devindra remembers reading Dvorak's columns as a teenager and loving his irascibility. Allyn recalls being grilled by Dvorak on his first TWiT appearance about the best SSD. Leo reveals Dvorak appeared on 252 TWiT episodes [1] — Leo Laporte "John Dvorak on 252 TWiT episodes: John C. Dvorak appeared on 252 episodes of This Week in Tech, more than any other guest, starting from ep…" 17:26 — more than anyone else. The assembled panel agrees: there was no one like him.
John C. Dvorak wasn't just a columnist — he was the architect of irreverent tech journalism. He bolded words at random, baited Mac fans for sport, stole mugs from the studio, and appeared on 252 TWiT episodes. Leo reveals Dvorak secretly hid his age for decades; he was 80 when he died.
John C. Dvorak kept his age secret for decades, lying to reporters; his true age of 80 was revealed only upon his death.
John C. Dvorak appeared on 252 episodes of This Week in Tech, more than any other guest, starting from episode 3.
Social media feeds men and women the absolute worst caricatures of each other while stripping away the everyday, imperfect relationships that would calibrate their expectations. Combine that with smaller families and fewer cross-sex friendships, and you get a generation that talks about the opposite sex constantly but almost never to them.
The 'would you rather be alone with a man or a bear' debate went viral not because men are objectively more dangerous than ever, but because an entire fear industrial complex of influencers and safety products had already primed women to feel that way. Once the algorithm identifies you as worried about personal safety, the content and the scrunchie drink-covers never stop.
Women feel less safe not because danger has increased, but because trust in institutions — police, churches, schools — that used to enforce safety norms has collapsed. Young women are far less likely than older women to believe those institutions will handle sexual assault responsibly, leaving them with only individual self-protection as a fallback.
Even self-identified feminist women consistently told Daniel Cox in interviews and surveys that they want men to open doors, pay for dates, and show demonstrable care. The internet noise around 'benevolent sexism' drowns out this widespread, quietly held preference.
In focus groups in Philadelphia and Raleigh, every single hand went up when participants were asked if parents discussed financial stability and education. Zero hands went up for marriage or parenthood. Parents are shaping their children's ambitions with total silence on the experiences that matter most.
American families are smaller than ever, with roughly 1 in 5 children now growing up as only children. Without the daily friction of siblings — shared bedrooms, shared bathrooms, resolving disagreements — young people enter adult relationships without the negotiation muscles relationships require.
Online dating optimises for your existing preferences rather than expanding your horizons. People who meet online give bad first dates almost no second chances; people who meet through mutual friends are far more forgiving. The disembodied, checklist-driven nature of apps removes all the social cues that actually reveal character.
A split-sample survey found that men judge male and female cheating identically harshly, and women judge male cheating the same way men do. The outlier: young women are dramatically less likely to call female infidelity morally wrong, suggesting shared-fate thinking and personal experience of being cheated on are reshaping the moral calculus.
The monk mode trend encourages men to withdraw from social life to work on themselves — but this is precisely backwards. The research is clear: close friendships are the single most powerful predictor of whether a man dates, commits, and becomes his best self. Self-improvement without social reintegration is just sophisticated avoidance.
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