August 9, 2008

The August 9 broadcast opens as an imaginary Olympic event in which Evil Steve judges Dr. Dave's microphone technique, diction and talk-show form on a scale that makes a score of ten considerably less impressive. A real technical failure later puts the old DaveMason.com archive in its intended role: the live stream and re-air may be unavailable, but listeners can still return to the saved show. Dr. Dave's wider technology philosophy emerges in several directions. He likes Colt Brennan because people said the undersized, unconventional quarterback could not succeed; he distinguishes a theoretical possibility from an actually likely risk before telling a caller what he would do himself; and he argues that hiding a security weakness leaves ordinary users ignorant while bad actors eventually learn it anyway. His warning about online-only software and storage is especially prescient: a free service can change or disappear, a large company can abandon a product and every subscription transfers some autonomy to somebody else. A Facebook worm provides the companion lesson that features people want can be turned against them, making user behavior part of security. The show also preserves the early App Store oddity “I Am Rich,” a thousand-dollar ruby display that Apple quickly removed.

Back to years and months

Proposed air date. The available recordings may not contain the entire broadcast.

Recordings preserved for this date