He was the creator of Cranky Geeks. One of the first podcasts I listened to.
jmspring 3 hours ago [-]
[flagged]
ajmurmann 2 hours ago [-]
I used to listen to No Agenda from episode 1 on. It literally was just John and Adam recording their regular phone calls, discussing dinners they had together, etc. Over time it became more and more of what I'd describe as a conspiracy podcast.
No Agenda, John and Adam will forever have a special place in my heart regardless of the show eventually putting me off. Adam was what first brought my attention to Second Life where I ended up randomly meeting my now wife. We ended up listening to early No Agenda during long car rides. During one of the episodes John and Adam talked about their visit to Chez Spencer near our home in SF. We checked it out and loved it and later had our wedding rehearsal dinner there. Thank you, John!
rbanffy 3 hours ago [-]
He was often wrong.
imdsm 3 hours ago [-]
How wonderful to be human, and to be able to have your own political views and opinions such that you could be, subjectively, wrong. We can all only hope to one day also have our own opinions and proudly be wrong.
duzer65657 2 hours ago [-]
so this cuts both ways. You voluntarily publish your "beliefs" widely and publicly, be prepared to be called on it. Most of us choose not to do this, but if you want to exert influence you are held inviting criticism.
twoodfin 2 hours ago [-]
You’ll note that the comment above was not “criticism” or argument of any meaningful kind.
It simply flagged that he was on the “wrong team”.
Danox 2 hours ago [-]
RIP he was highly skeptical, not necessarily open to the long range view.
lorreyfum 2 hours ago [-]
Centrist libertarian. Absolutely fun and amazing insight.
shmoe 2 hours ago [-]
Meh, none of that includes the conspiracy bullshit. I liked Jon, but I didn't like where he went in the last decade or so.
kerrieshitz 2 hours ago [-]
[dead]
nosrepa 2 hours ago [-]
I like that his Wikipedia page really sells that he was a Kentucky Colonel. That was one of the easier titles I've gotten.
echelon 3 hours ago [-]
This is sad.
I grew up watching his show on Tech TV and reading his columns in PC Magazine.
He used to butt heads with Leo Laporte and it was great:
I enjoyed John and Leo butting heads. I agree that it was great. It's a bummer they haven't done that for a long time.
lorreyfum 2 hours ago [-]
It was great until Leo went off the deep end and lost 99% of his audience.
boyter 2 hours ago [-]
When Leo cut off Dvroak and CJal I turned out. You really do need that sort of personality for people to bounce off otherwise its less entertaining.
etempleton 1 hours ago [-]
Both of them kind of lost the thread. I really enjoyed the show but they became increasingly polarized and unmoving in their opinions.
echelon 1 hours ago [-]
I didn't stick around that long to see what became of it.
I see different people saying different things about Leo and John. What happened?
etempleton 57 minutes ago [-]
I think their butting heads eventually got on both of their nerves. John would derail the show just to get under Leo’s skin. And Leo became increasingly ridged with the show structure. The show was losing popularity and I think some guests said they didn’t like John because he was cranky and his politics, but the real issue was probably that the studio was no longer as convenient for people to get to.
At the same time they both became increasingly politically polarized. John C Davorak became a full right wing conspiracy theorist. Leo increasingly embraced the left wing ideology of the moment.
boyter 35 minutes ago [-]
It came to a head with that story about the kid making a clock and getting in trouble. Leo was all in on one side that it was about racism and such, with John suggesting he fell for a media lie.
I think John turned out to be right in the end. They did seem to patch things up with John appearing on a episode years later I think "a christmas miracle" was the title, but that was the last time he was on as far as I know.
Brian_K_White 9 minutes ago [-]
And Leo will say nothing but nice things about him and express nothing but regret when he talks about this on the next episode.
I am not sure John would have done the same.
CyberDildonics 4 minutes ago [-]
Why take this to a place of insults and divisive antagonizing?
moffkalast 3 hours ago [-]
August Dvorak's father's, brother's, nephew's, cousin's, former roommate.
olyjohn 2 hours ago [-]
So... what does that make him?
lowmagnet 1 hours ago [-]
John C. Dvorak
Centigonal 4 hours ago [-]
That tiny 1"x1.5" thumbnail[1] of John C. Dvorak in PC Magazine was the essence of Gravitas for me as a kid.
I used to transcribe his articles to a text file and post them to Usenet. Fond memories of that time.
reaperducer 3 hours ago [-]
I used to transcribe his articles to a text file and post them to Usenet.
Thank you for your service.
People like you were how people in other countries learned about technology and of other cultures in the days before the internet.
Some person (people?) would post scripts from Red Dwarf on one of the networks years before the show became available televisually in the United States. I used to devour those and laughed and laughed and laughed. That kind of British humor comes through well as text.
arm32 4 hours ago [-]
What a legend.
3 hours ago [-]
mlinhares 4 hours ago [-]
same, read a lot of what he wrote back then.
ColdStream 4 hours ago [-]
Credit to him, he always had a bold take.
One of the funniest things he used to do was write draft reviews of software simply by looking at the back of the box. He said you could get it like 90% right just doing that, I was a different era.
I also remember Leo Laporte constantly trying to take his phone back of him as John was trying to guess his passcode or unlock pattern based on the screen smudges.
Didn't agree with him at lot but he always brought something to the table.
donatj 4 hours ago [-]
Most of what I know him for was coming on TWiT, driving Leo Laporte nuts, and making claims that ended up not coming true.
He was a hilarious curmudgeon. He will be missed.
acomjean 3 hours ago [-]
Curmudgeon is the perfect term to describe.
He was a great part of TWIT. I liked his obscure software references (lotus Jazz was one I think).
He also found this new thing is like that old thing.
His non positive takes were a great addition to the show.
donatj 1 hours ago [-]
When Leo banned him is actually when I stopped listening to TWiT. Apparently he came back a few years later, but I never did.
rbanffy 3 hours ago [-]
> lotus Jazz
I actually remember that.
ghaff 3 hours ago [-]
He was a very readable columnist for PC Mag among other places. He was also more focused on being interesting and at least a bit provocative than being correct.
>He was a hilarious curmudgeon.
Agreed.
duzer65657 2 hours ago [-]
>> He was also more focused on being interesting and at least a bit provocative than being correct.
So exactly like everyone today, but also interesting?
smackeyacky 2 hours ago [-]
He set the style of being confidently incorrect. At least he was entertaining.
ghaff 1 hours ago [-]
Probably. With some exceptions, he wasn't flat out wrong. But he did push the boundaries from time to time.
dylan604 3 hours ago [-]
> by looking at the back of the box. He said you could get it
Well that is definitely something different about today's software websites. How many times have you looked at a company's website for a product/service and still left wondering what it did?
malfist 2 hours ago [-]
When product websites are more focused on getting investors than customers the whole system breaks down
fraXis 56 minutes ago [-]
Too bad him and Leo had a falling out years ago. I really loved watching those two together. I remember John was always borrowing Leo's equipment, such as camera lenses, and he would always forget to bring them back and Leo would always scold him for that.
adamrezich 3 hours ago [-]
> he always had a bold take
Often quite literally, in his PC Magazine columns!
rbanffy 3 hours ago [-]
His most hilarious predictions that were almost always wrong.
ChickeNES 2 hours ago [-]
I laughed at one I happened to spot recently, where he confidently said that Compaq would license Micro Channel from IBM according to "sources".
antonvs 24 minutes ago [-]
It’s amusing how nerdy IBM was back then: “Oh we’ve come up with a better bus design! Why isn’t everyone flocking to buy our product?”
adamrezich 2 hours ago [-]
He was right about the mouse, in the long run.
_-_-__-_-_- 3 hours ago [-]
I'm 36, I've been an intense podcast listener and tech news reader since I was 14 years old. In 2005, I discovered This Week in Tech where John C. Dvorak was a frequent early guest. I liked his style and found other podcasts and websites where I could find his content. I really enjoyed Cranky Geeks. For fans, here is the No Agenda newsletter link with current information: https://mailchi.mp/nashownotes/rip-jcd-no-agenda-newsletter.
bonsai_spool 2 hours ago [-]
Wow, you’re my twin! I’d watch these on XBMC/Xbox Media Center with some other video podcasts - it was a magical moment in tech
teeray 49 minutes ago [-]
Triplets :) I’m also 36 and loved listening to early TWiT and Security Now on the bus in high school. Early SN computing deep dives were a crucial part of my early Comp Sci education.
93po 49 minutes ago [-]
Same as me and very close to same age. Started with TWiT podcasts plus Buzz Out Loud with Molly Wood and Tom Merrit. On my iPod nano second gen. Got exposed to John through TWiT and startd listening to No Agenda, and still do. I massively disagree with the politics of John and Adam and frankly find some of what they say to be hate speech, and don't endorse their podcast because of that. But I still listen to it in the background and skip the problematic parts because I frankly just like hearing their voices after listening to it twice a week for 20 years.
I think John is a product of his generation and environment. Adam too. I don't think they're bad people, but very misguided in some ways. Despite that I am very sad to see John has passed. I really admired his dedication to the show and schedule for so long. He was a true professional in his craft.
I owe a lot to Adam and John in terms of entertainment, comfort, and contributions to my worldview from a young age.
In 1984, while arguing that Apple’s new Macintosh might fail, Dvorak wrote:
“The Macintosh uses an experimental pointing device called a ‘mouse.’ There is no evidence that people want to use these things.”
It's a shame John didn't live to see his prediction come true - I think we're very nearly there as AI starts to do most of our interfacing with computers instead of mouse and keyboard.
tylerak 38 minutes ago [-]
Buzz Out Loud was also my first podcast, and my gateway to TWiT, Cranky Geeks, and more. I sent Tom Merritt a note (he currently hosts a daily tech news podcast).
UqWBcuFx6NV4r 1 hours ago [-]
Heh, my trajectory exactly.
maximinus_thrax 49 minutes ago [-]
Oh man, this nostalgia hit me hard. I was an avid listener to both This Week in Tech and Cranky Geeks. I remember I was watching (!!!) Cranky Geeks on my ipod when I was bedridden from surgery in 2008.
RIP.
mrandish 3 hours ago [-]
I had many lovely dinners with John back in the 90s (he loved Chez Panisse). While his public persona could occasionally be curmudgeonly, in person he was a warm-hearted, passionate computing enthusiast.
barney54 2 hours ago [-]
This is exactly who it sounds like Dvorak was. I never got to know him like that, but being a public curmudgeon, but private warm-hearted person is a pretty great compliment.
mrandish 2 hours ago [-]
For sure. I got to know John after meeting him in our respective roles as 'journalist writing about startup' and 'young startup entrepreneur'. As we got to know one another well enough to hang out after trade show hours, he gave me pretty invaluable insights and perspective on how to think about the evolving computer industry.
First it was Jerry Pournelle and now it's John Dvorak. I read those columns religiously back in the day. I just realized I no longer read anyone religiously, listen to podcasts for any length of time - there's something about the buzz of 80s computing that has been totally lost. That's not necessarily a bad thing, I think it just means the industry has matured. But boy oh boy! The immature industry was a lot of fun!
brucehoult 52 minutes ago [-]
Pournelle was good as a kind of (relatively) non-technical user in the early days (70s, early 80s) who just wanted to use computers to write books.
Dvorak was quite good, but for me much too oriented towards the Wintel world.
And then there was another guy who was sooo consistently bad I referred to him as Less Than Thorough. I'm not sure now whether he was also the MIT economist who died in 2016.
Robert X. Cringely (Mark Stephens, not those later writing at IDG under that name) was by far the best of the bunch, though was somewhat late starting writing columns only in 1987. He knew his stuff, correctly predicted trends etc. And continues to today at cringely.com, so that's a 40 year tech pundit career so far.
stasomatic 57 minutes ago [-]
Aww brother... out of many recent ones, this one is a tough one for me. I used to read his columns in Infoworld and Mac User before the blogs. He was a frequent guest on TWiT, but it looks like he and Leo had a falling out. No Agenda too, but that took a turn a while back when Adam found religion. I always relied on his (not always PC) cracks to lift my mood.
RIP my mentor that you didn't know you were, Valhalla awaits.
asdefghyk 5 hours ago [-]
I first become aware of John C. Dvorak in Byte magazine, ( back in the 80s?)
to me he was a respected insigtful interesting content wrighter.
Dvorak hated that for decades wikipedia had the wrong birth year and refused to let him change it. He wrote at length about how wikipedia is the antithesis of the entire conception of a wiki. He was 80, born in 1946.
throw7 2 hours ago [-]
It seems a lot of people that read about their bio on wikipedia feel the same way. In fact, it's hard not to be suspicious of those that don't.
jhgb 3 hours ago [-]
I found very quickly an NYT article from 1993 that listed his date of birth as "April 5, 1952". I don't know if that's the source for the Wikipedia article but that info has been around for a long time, it seems.
ajmurmann 2 hours ago [-]
This is odd. So you are saying wikipedia kept getting it wrong for a long time but now the announcement has it wrong and wikipedia is correct?
justin66 1 hours ago [-]
I cannot imagine why you find the statements above odd but compare and contrast:
Enough scrolling through the edit history and you could determine when wikipedia finally got their shit together on his birthdate.
antonvs 21 minutes ago [-]
The odd part is that the announcement used the same erroneous date that Wikipedia used to have. Perhaps someone forgot to refresh their cache for a couple of years.
1 hours ago [-]
mmooss 55 minutes ago [-]
> He wrote at length about how wikipedia is the antithesis of the entire conception of a wiki.
Do you happen to know where?
speak_plainly 3 hours ago [-]
Rest in Peace, John.
It looks like Adam Curry and John’s wife Mimi will be hosting an episode of No Agenda tomorrow to share stories and anecdotes in remembrance.
Damn.. images of glossy PC Magazines that I used to read are filling my head.. growing up in the 80s & 90s with computer building and reselling as the family business, and just being excited about new technology, and he was a part of that.
chollida1 4 hours ago [-]
Oh man, that's an old school name.
I miss cranky geeks, to the point where I've gone back to listen to older episodes.
WalterBright 2 hours ago [-]
> I miss cranky geeks
Read my cranky posts about what an abomination Unicode has become!
ChrisMarshallNY 4 hours ago [-]
I miss them so much, I became one!
otterley 3 hours ago [-]
How can you miss cranky geeks when HN is full of them?
rbanffy 3 hours ago [-]
We miss each other.
But it’s ok. We’ll meet again at the great Apple Store in Heaven.
In heaven, macOS is GNU-licensed. GPL3+, nothing less.
panzagl 3 hours ago [-]
Apple Store? Surely you mean Babbage's.
robocat 3 hours ago [-]
Hell gets Windows.
krapp 2 hours ago [-]
Careful, it's against the guidelines to be a cranky geek now.
antonvs 18 minutes ago [-]
So that’s why it keeps telling me I’m posting too fast.
krapp 6 minutes ago [-]
You turn that frown upside down this instant.
rmason 1 hours ago [-]
In the early PC days back in the eighties the bible was PC Magazine. They had a number of really talented columnists but towering above all of them was John C. Dvorak. He wrote so well, he was at times opinionated and other times intensely funny. Whether you agreed with that weeks opinion or not you felt you were better for having read it and that is truly rare.
Then along came PC TV and he got introduced to an entirely new audience. He had a blog for awhile and then I lost track of him. Then he reentered my world when he started a SubStack, actually several. One I didn't read and that was where he pontificated on things political.
Then during COVID he touched a live wire on his political SubStack, detailed why he didn't get 'the shot' and why you should too. He also correctly called out the players and what was really going on with COVID. He discovered a third new audience and became an enemy of the administration at the same time. That people was one hell of a career. He will be missed.
throwaway27448 1 hours ago [-]
> what was really going on with COVID
Let me guess: a government conspiracy to push something pro-humanity
rmason 1 hours ago [-]
I didn't include the link but here is the last series part 1:
He wrote about COVID for six years. Someone should compile all those columns into a book or at least a single PDF.
throwworhtthrow 10 minutes ago [-]
Thanks for the link. His decades of tech columns were so well-served by his skeptic curmudgeon style. There's danger in bringing that persona to all topics, I now see, shown by this regrettable chapter of his blogging life.
Their podcast is one of the last bastion of independence: no ads, all funded, produced, developed, self hosted by a group of volunteers.
delfugal 4 hours ago [-]
Dvorak shaped the emerging PC industry. Larger than life figure. Sad he's not here for the AI takeover.
cebert 3 hours ago [-]
I’ll always remember him from Twit. He always made the show entertaining. I wonder if he and Leo were ever able to reconcile their differences.
fraXis 50 minutes ago [-]
Sadly, I don't think so. I remember Leo saying some not-so-nice things about John on the pre-show to TWIT a few months ago. I never understood how Leo couldn't forgive John for whatever he did, but Leo has had long-lasting feuds with a lot of people over the years. All that wasted time fighting between those two when we could have had them doing great shows together over the past few years and giving us great content. What a waste of time fighting.
scientifik 3 hours ago [-]
Sad, I met him very briefly ~20 years ago when he was giving a talk at my Alma Mater (no, you've never heard of it)
Funny enough the audience was made up of his contemporaries but were completely computer-illiterate. He wanted to discuss heady topics but the Q&A was mostly people asking him to explain Linux (How can it be free? Who owns it?) I could tell he was a bit annoyed to have to get so basic with his audience but I think he kind of somewhat enjoyed sharing a new concept with them.
corywatilo 3 hours ago [-]
i have spent nearly half my life listening to the voice of John C. Dvorak on a nightly basis as i went to bed.
literally since i was in college – around 2008 – i started listening to the No Agenda Show. i'd play the podcast in one ear with the other on my pillow with a 30-minute sleep timer and play it over several nights until the next episode came out.
my outlook, my ideology, my perspective on life was partly formed by this man's words.
thanks for everything, John.
petcat 3 hours ago [-]
I stopped listening to the no agenda show many years ago when I just decided that I didn't want to be worked up and angry about the world everyday of my life.
Turn off social media, turn off the news. Even local news. It's never going to make you feel good about anything. I get a weekly newsletter digest of happenings around the world and that's all I need.
My daily mood and outlook on life has increased immensely since.
morphid-rabbit 1 hours ago [-]
RIP JCD.
93po 36 minutes ago [-]
Exactly same. I've listened to basically every episode since 2008, and 95% of the time while falling asleep, one earbud in. As recently as literally last night. Not really paying attention, just listening to their voices.
mutagen 3 hours ago [-]
One of my highlights of 90s internet was forwarding some amusing computer anecdote or joke somewhere where it eventually got to John Dvorak with my email at the top of the forward chain and he reached out asking if he could credit me or get help finding the source. Unfortunately I didn't know the original source but I felt connected to the world in a new way.
asdfk-12 2 hours ago [-]
Fond memories of TWiT in the early 2000s and his longstanding media deconstruction and analysis on the No Agenda show, where they eschew traditional advertising, run on open source software, build community, and rely on their listenership (Producers) for on-the-ground information and a 'value for value' funding source for the show.
rhymeswithjazz 4 hours ago [-]
I clicked on this link with my 'experimental pointing device called a mouse'. Rest in peace from all the ships at sea.
bredren 3 hours ago [-]
I used to read him in my dad's PC Magazine subscription. I had some ~falling out over what my teenage self perceived as backwards take on mp3s and their proliferation. Perhaps one one of my earliest experiences with "kill your heroes" concept.
Glad for all of his contributions, I did enjoy reading his work.
havaloc 4 hours ago [-]
I loved reading his columns at PC Magazine growing up, it's an end of an era. He had such an interesting view of the PC industry as a whole and his column was almost always the first thing I read when a new issue would arrive at my house.
epochbtc 3 hours ago [-]
I remember reading an article by him in the 90s where he claimed e-commerce would never take off because all internet users expect everything to be free.
technics256 3 hours ago [-]
hahaha that made me smile, well the era of napster and such it wasnt so far fetched i suppose
SeenNotHeard 4 hours ago [-]
In my youth, his InfoWorld columns were appointment reading. A one-of-a-kind in the industry.
alexitosrv 4 hours ago [-]
Agree, and the sad thing for me now is not being able to find an equivalent space of such crankiness against the way things are going with an authoritative voice.
jarcoal 3 hours ago [-]
Damn, this one hit hard. Grew up watching him on ZDTV/TechTV. RIP.
bananaflag 4 hours ago [-]
Here is an old column of his, "New Architecture Needed"
I used to watch his podcast ~20 years ago, I still bring up how excited he was about finding secret bottles of wine in costco
UqWBcuFx6NV4r 1 hours ago [-]
It wasn’t that long ago that we were here remembering Om Malik, including him being on Cranky Geeks. Now they’ve come for the king. RIP.
I parasocially ‘fell out’ with Dvorak as I got older because I just couldn’t get behind his oldschool crankiness. Nevertheless, RIP.
petcat 3 hours ago [-]
I'll always appreciate his love for Costco wines.
Jimmc414 5 hours ago [-]
Used to watch him regularly on ZDTV. RIP
jacobgold 3 hours ago [-]
He was our Andy Rooney. RIP.
theflyingelvis 3 hours ago [-]
I remember listening to him in the early 90’s on WFSU public radio, a show called Software Hard Talk. I enjoyed his snarky wit. Listened to him repeatedly call one of the BOB characters barf the dog much to Melinda (French) Gates’ annoyance.
His one page gossip column in the back of PC Mag was pretty great too.
This news makes me kinda sad.
chongli 3 hours ago [-]
I remember reading some of his columns growing up and I used to intensely dislike him for his dismissive takes on a lot of products and technologies I thought were important (most infamously, he dismissed the mouse)! Later on, I saw him as one of the regular guests on Leo Laporte's TWIT podcasts, and it totally changed my perception of him. The guy was genuinely hilarious and a real lovable curmudgeon, not a true naysayer.
I hadn't read or heard anything from him in recent years, though I had heard he had a falling out with Leo Laporte. He might have reconciled more recently but I am not sure. I know Leo will genuinely mourn him, as they were friends and colleagues for many years. I really miss him now too!
lee_a 4 hours ago [-]
Goodness. First came across his work watching Silicon Spin on ZDTV while I was in high school. Such a legend.
I sat next to John in our office for a year or so back in the heyday of podcasting. He was quite the character. RIP.
3 hours ago [-]
alexjplant 3 hours ago [-]
My grandparents sprung for a subscription to PC Magazine when I was a preteen for a year or two so that I could read his column in the very back of each issue. I'm sure my thoughts on his opinions would be radically different today but his prose was timeless and hilarious. Mad respect and RIP.
sgerenser 2 hours ago [-]
RIP. I remember he had a column in MacUser magazine in the early 90s. Probably at the same time he was writing for PC Magazine. It was the original "ragebait" since he always seemed to be pretty negative on Apple and suggested that Windows was better in many ways. I remember all the readers writing in complaining about his hot takes and at the time I didn't realize it was an intentional strategy.
alizaki 3 hours ago [-]
His PC magazine column was the first thing I read when I was able to get hold of old PC Magazines.
Even in the fast cycle of PCs in the 90s, you could learn something reading yesterdays newspaper from his columns. RIP
simooooo 2 hours ago [-]
Listened to him all the time. RIP
arm32 4 hours ago [-]
May he write some excellent reviews of the technology in the afterlife. Thanks for all the great reads, John!
jnaina 55 minutes ago [-]
used to look forward to his articles in Inforworld and PCmag, and his controversial takes therein.
Rest in peace.
cjboco 4 hours ago [-]
Was this the guy that always had it out for Apple, and was somewhat notorious with bad Apple predictions?
Danox 2 hours ago [-]
Yes…
xbar 4 hours ago [-]
He was a thoughtful and insightful writer. I eagerly awaited his PC Magazine article every single week.
bastawhiz 2 hours ago [-]
Man, I feel like we're losing a lot of the people I grew up watching this year. What a bummer.
adamrezich 4 hours ago [-]
I grew up reading his column in PC Mag, then watched him on TechTV, and then listened to him on TWiT (where he was consistently the best part of the show, and how I learned about Sarbanes-Oxley, because he'd bring it up like every single episode for a good long while there), and later No Agenda. Before I'd realized it, John had be come the constant throughline as technology progressed throughout my life. I knew it was going to happen sooner or later, but it still really hurts to see him go.
gumby 3 hours ago [-]
Always confident, occasionally correct.
soupbowl 2 hours ago [-]
Wow! What a shock and a bummer, I've been a fan for a long time.
marcuschong 2 hours ago [-]
I really enjoyed reading John C. Dvorak's PC Magazine column when I was just getting started in tech. His contrarian style was a nice change from most tech columnists at the time. He had a grumpy but oddly likable personality, and I even enjoyed No Agenda for a while and his occasional TWiT appearances.
That's why I have such mixed feelings about him. Somewhere along the way, being a contrarian seemed to become an end in itself. He became a Trump fan, and the No Agenda agenda increasingly drifted toward questioning well-established facts, from climate science to questioning the parents of the Sandy Hook victims. Real Alex Jones shit.
iFred 2 hours ago [-]
Nothing short of a gut punch.
freeAgent 4 hours ago [-]
That’s very sad. I enjoyed his contributions to PC Mag and TWiT.
jv22222 3 hours ago [-]
Nooooo! Sigh. RIP JCD :(
I was very lucky to get a chance to interview him on our podcast back in 2010 [1]. He of course was very funny and insightful.
So kind of him to even come on our unknown show.
I used to love listening to him in early No Agenda [2] talking about his takes on all sorts of worldly things especially fine dining, spices, and all the famous people he'd had run-ins with.
About a decade ago I heard John complaining on No Agenda about a sound card mixer problem he was having in Linux. I had the same model card so I emailed offering some debugging advice. He responded almost immediately and we went back and forth trying things. If memory serves it was a config issue with pulseaudio. It was the highlight of my week.
uproarchat 3 hours ago [-]
Rest in peace! I definitely have some strong memories watching JCD over the years. You will be missed.
saturn8601 3 hours ago [-]
The Silicon Spin intro and Cranky Geeks theme song are burned into my head.
I was in elementary school watching ZDTV after school instead of doing my homework. One of those shows that's burned into my head, I don't even know why, is Silicon Spin.
Every now and then I have visions of my childhood, dreaming about this mysterious place called Silicon Valley that I never actually managed to get to. I also recall the fond moments watching literally everything on TechTV and ZDTV even if I didn't really fully understand everything. (I mean you're not going to understand everything in elementary school).
John C. Dvorak was probably speaking of content that my age range didn't fully comprehend at the time, but I still loved it.
I was so fortunate to meet Patrick Norton back at DEFCON in 2019, and it was a dream come true. I was able to express my appreciation not only of him but also about the whole ZDTV and TechTV cast including John C. Dvorak, many of whom had gone in different directions post TechTV. They were all such a comforting part of my childhood.
I was watching TechTV on 9/11 and remember how when Bush got on tv in the evening, they had a momentary fumble in switching over to him so they just overlaid CNN or some other news channel. Growing up Muslim in that area of the country, all the TechTV shows including Silicon Spin became even more pivotal in keeping some semblance of the happiness and ease of life I had before that day (which I never really got back).
Watching these old episodes are charming given the topics:
This has been a tough few years seeing people and companies that provided me a lot of joy and happiness start to pass away. I guess its just a part of realizing you are getting old and time moves on to the next generation.
I speak to a lot of Gen-Z since they are defining the culture now and so many of them just have little to no concept of the world before iPhone and as such don't remember that era of computing and the people involved in it.
I feel that makes all the people that were around even more special to me. We all got to be a part of that slice of history (them producing and me appreciating it and growing because of it) and it was unique to us in that time period. I am thankful that he was a part of my life journey in a small way.
overgard 4 hours ago [-]
Sad news, I grew up reading his column.
etempleton 32 minutes ago [-]
He wrote a hell of a column. Opinions were notoriously often wrong, but always entertaining to read.
panny 3 hours ago [-]
I hated that guy so much when I was a fan of Apple. I think maybe he did it on purpose to keep the readership up. I should probably go back and read a few of his rants again with 20/20 hindsight, now that I'm not particularly fond of Apple any longer. I might end up laughing or even agreeing with him.
wnevets 4 hours ago [-]
Rough year for the cranky geeks cast.
christkv 2 hours ago [-]
Going to miss him he was always a fun curmudgeon with an interesting point of view. My condolences to his family.
Wasn't he the one who famously said the iBook looked like a toilet seat?
ratelimitsteve 4 hours ago [-]
Still an opportunity to edit his wiki if anyone wants to be the official Bear of Bad News(tm)
thundercleeze 5 hours ago [-]
What a bummer.
marknutter 4 hours ago [-]
I loved listening to him on TWiT and other shows/podcasts. RIP, what a legend.
davidwritesbugs 4 hours ago [-]
He was the house curmudgeon - hilarious
1 hours ago [-]
ksurace 3 hours ago [-]
Incredible loss.
oliyoung 2 hours ago [-]
First Om, now Dvorak.
Such a loss, the prototypical cranky geek. Loved his takes with Curry and Leporte
Alien1Being 3 hours ago [-]
He was related to the Dvorak keyboard inventor.
qwertyuiop_ 3 hours ago [-]
RIP ITM
james_pm 3 hours ago [-]
Sad news. He was the OG tech grouch. Went way off the deep end with conspiracy crap and right wing nonsense over the last decade, but I always assumed some of that was opportunistic performance. RIP.
shmoe 2 hours ago [-]
Was a fairly big fan of his takes until then. RIP. He'll always have a place in computing history.
browningstreet 5 hours ago [-]
RIP
paulpauper 4 hours ago [-]
Last tweet by him just 2 days ago.
ChrisMarshallNY 4 hours ago [-]
I'd say this def rates a black bar.
jerhewet 3 hours ago [-]
I could not agree more. You might love him, you might hate him. But he was a fixture in the Golden Age of Personal Computing.
ChrisMarshallNY 2 hours ago [-]
He was definitely controversial, as evidenced by the rating on the grandfather post.
krunger 3 hours ago [-]
[dead]
mlindner 3 hours ago [-]
Literally never even heard of him or this show he apparently ran so I'm confused why this is so upvoted.
themadturk 3 hours ago [-]
Ah, well, you missed an important (and obviously beloved) part of microcomputer culture. I haven't thought about him for years, but read his columns in PC Magazine religiously. I didn't always like him, but I always read him.
shmoe 2 hours ago [-]
A very important part of computing media history... and a mixed bag.
calmbonsai 3 hours ago [-]
I don't know the man personally, but I was never impressed by his punditry even in the early PC MAG days and it got even worse when he started writing for MarketWatch.
He was always lots of loud platitudes or damnations with more noise than signal or thoughtful analysis. At some point, I just stopped listening and/or reading whenever his name came up.
cb33 3 hours ago [-]
Been racking my brain trying to understand what the purpose of this comment is. I'm not saying everyone MUST write something positive about the man, but I just have a hard time understanding what this comment in particular adds.
reaperducer 2 hours ago [-]
Been racking my brain trying to understand what the purpose of this comment is.
Some people just like to see themselves in phosphor, and were never taught not to speak ill of the dead. Etiquette is a lost art.
calmbonsai 2 hours ago [-]
You are correct. I do not follow that moral praxis.
asveikau 3 hours ago [-]
I think part of what made him amusing was he was earnest in his bad takes. If you heard him on a podcast he seemed kind of lovingly wrong, like the annoying uncle that you might not like listening to but you can't say you hate.
Caveat, I haven't read or listened to anything with him in some time, so I could be wrong or out of date, but that was how his public persona came across to me years ago.
calmbonsai 2 hours ago [-]
Truth regarding his earnesty.
I never felt he mislead, but also at some point (much like ESPN’s Stephen Smith) he decided “winning” in punditry was more about by being loud than about by being right.
Rendered at 00:55:40 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time) with Vercel.
> He is a nephew of sociologist August Dvorak, creator of the Dvorak keyboard.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_C._Dvorak
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dvorak_keyboard_layout
No Agenda, John and Adam will forever have a special place in my heart regardless of the show eventually putting me off. Adam was what first brought my attention to Second Life where I ended up randomly meeting my now wife. We ended up listening to early No Agenda during long car rides. During one of the episodes John and Adam talked about their visit to Chez Spencer near our home in SF. We checked it out and loved it and later had our wedding rehearsal dinner there. Thank you, John!
It simply flagged that he was on the “wrong team”.
I grew up watching his show on Tech TV and reading his columns in PC Magazine.
He used to butt heads with Leo Laporte and it was great:
https://youtu.be/C96YG7qzN80?t=142
I see different people saying different things about Leo and John. What happened?
At the same time they both became increasingly politically polarized. John C Davorak became a full right wing conspiracy theorist. Leo increasingly embraced the left wing ideology of the moment.
I think John turned out to be right in the end. They did seem to patch things up with John appearing on a episode years later I think "a christmas miracle" was the title, but that was the last time he was on as far as I know.
I am not sure John would have done the same.
[1]https://archive.org/details/PC-Mag-1999-12-14/page/88/mode/2...
Thank you for your service.
People like you were how people in other countries learned about technology and of other cultures in the days before the internet.
Some person (people?) would post scripts from Red Dwarf on one of the networks years before the show became available televisually in the United States. I used to devour those and laughed and laughed and laughed. That kind of British humor comes through well as text.
One of the funniest things he used to do was write draft reviews of software simply by looking at the back of the box. He said you could get it like 90% right just doing that, I was a different era.
I also remember Leo Laporte constantly trying to take his phone back of him as John was trying to guess his passcode or unlock pattern based on the screen smudges.
Didn't agree with him at lot but he always brought something to the table.
He was a hilarious curmudgeon. He will be missed.
He was a great part of TWIT. I liked his obscure software references (lotus Jazz was one I think).
He also found this new thing is like that old thing.
His non positive takes were a great addition to the show.
I actually remember that.
>He was a hilarious curmudgeon.
Agreed.
So exactly like everyone today, but also interesting?
Well that is definitely something different about today's software websites. How many times have you looked at a company's website for a product/service and still left wondering what it did?
Often quite literally, in his PC Magazine columns!
I think John is a product of his generation and environment. Adam too. I don't think they're bad people, but very misguided in some ways. Despite that I am very sad to see John has passed. I really admired his dedication to the show and schedule for so long. He was a true professional in his craft.
I owe a lot to Adam and John in terms of entertainment, comfort, and contributions to my worldview from a young age.
In 1984, while arguing that Apple’s new Macintosh might fail, Dvorak wrote:
“The Macintosh uses an experimental pointing device called a ‘mouse.’ There is no evidence that people want to use these things.”
It's a shame John didn't live to see his prediction come true - I think we're very nearly there as AI starts to do most of our interfacing with computers instead of mouse and keyboard.
RIP.
10 months ago, I actually posted on HN about how much John (and his peers) cared and helped: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45076557.
Dvorak was quite good, but for me much too oriented towards the Wintel world.
And then there was another guy who was sooo consistently bad I referred to him as Less Than Thorough. I'm not sure now whether he was also the MIT economist who died in 2016.
Robert X. Cringely (Mark Stephens, not those later writing at IDG under that name) was by far the best of the bunch, though was somewhat late starting writing columns only in 1987. He knew his stuff, correctly predicted trends etc. And continues to today at cringely.com, so that's a 40 year tech pundit career so far.
RIP my mentor that you didn't know you were, Valhalla awaits.
The post link above says he was 74, THe wikipedia page says 80. I gues one will be corrected. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_C._Dvorak
RIP
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=John_C._Dvorak&ol...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_C._Dvorak
Enough scrolling through the edit history and you could determine when wikipedia finally got their shit together on his birthdate.
Do you happen to know where?
It looks like Adam Curry and John’s wife Mimi will be hosting an episode of No Agenda tomorrow to share stories and anecdotes in remembrance.
https://mailchi.mp/nashownotes/rip-jcd-no-agenda-newsletter?...
He went all-in on his takes. Most were on the money, some were big misses. He was very good at what he did. R.I.P.
https://www.pcmag.com/opinions/reddits-wild-west-experiment-...
https://www.pcmag.com/opinions/the-30-year-ai-scare-cycle
https://www.pcmag.com/opinions/the-dark-ages-of-search
https://www.pcmag.com/opinions/enough-with-the-3d-printer-hy...
I miss cranky geeks, to the point where I've gone back to listen to older episodes.
Read my cranky posts about what an abomination Unicode has become!
But it’s ok. We’ll meet again at the great Apple Store in Heaven.
In heaven, macOS is GNU-licensed. GPL3+, nothing less.
Then along came PC TV and he got introduced to an entirely new audience. He had a blog for awhile and then I lost track of him. Then he reentered my world when he started a SubStack, actually several. One I didn't read and that was where he pontificated on things political.
Then during COVID he touched a live wire on his political SubStack, detailed why he didn't get 'the shot' and why you should too. He also correctly called out the players and what was really going on with COVID. He discovered a third new audience and became an enemy of the administration at the same time. That people was one hell of a career. He will be missed.
Let me guess: a government conspiracy to push something pro-humanity
https://dvorak.substack.com/p/the-covid-decision-tree-part-o...
He wrote about COVID for six years. Someone should compile all those columns into a book or at least a single PDF.
Their podcast is one of the last bastion of independence: no ads, all funded, produced, developed, self hosted by a group of volunteers.
Funny enough the audience was made up of his contemporaries but were completely computer-illiterate. He wanted to discuss heady topics but the Q&A was mostly people asking him to explain Linux (How can it be free? Who owns it?) I could tell he was a bit annoyed to have to get so basic with his audience but I think he kind of somewhat enjoyed sharing a new concept with them.
literally since i was in college – around 2008 – i started listening to the No Agenda Show. i'd play the podcast in one ear with the other on my pillow with a 30-minute sleep timer and play it over several nights until the next episode came out.
my outlook, my ideology, my perspective on life was partly formed by this man's words.
thanks for everything, John.
Turn off social media, turn off the news. Even local news. It's never going to make you feel good about anything. I get a weekly newsletter digest of happenings around the world and that's all I need.
My daily mood and outlook on life has increased immensely since.
Glad for all of his contributions, I did enjoy reading his work.
https://www.pcmag.com/archive/new-architecture-needed-32570
I parasocially ‘fell out’ with Dvorak as I got older because I just couldn’t get behind his oldschool crankiness. Nevertheless, RIP.
His one page gossip column in the back of PC Mag was pretty great too.
This news makes me kinda sad.
I hadn't read or heard anything from him in recent years, though I had heard he had a falling out with Leo Laporte. He might have reconciled more recently but I am not sure. I know Leo will genuinely mourn him, as they were friends and colleagues for many years. I really miss him now too!
ITM, RIP
Even in the fast cycle of PCs in the 90s, you could learn something reading yesterdays newspaper from his columns. RIP
Rest in peace.
That's why I have such mixed feelings about him. Somewhere along the way, being a contrarian seemed to become an end in itself. He became a Trump fan, and the No Agenda agenda increasingly drifted toward questioning well-established facts, from climate science to questioning the parents of the Sandy Hook victims. Real Alex Jones shit.
I was very lucky to get a chance to interview him on our podcast back in 2010 [1]. He of course was very funny and insightful.
So kind of him to even come on our unknown show.
I used to love listening to him in early No Agenda [2] talking about his takes on all sorts of worldly things especially fine dining, spices, and all the famous people he'd had run-ins with.
[1] https://techzinglive.com/episode/6bc8086b/50-tz-interview-th...
[2] https://www.noagendashow.net/
I was in elementary school watching ZDTV after school instead of doing my homework. One of those shows that's burned into my head, I don't even know why, is Silicon Spin.
Every now and then I have visions of my childhood, dreaming about this mysterious place called Silicon Valley that I never actually managed to get to. I also recall the fond moments watching literally everything on TechTV and ZDTV even if I didn't really fully understand everything. (I mean you're not going to understand everything in elementary school).
John C. Dvorak was probably speaking of content that my age range didn't fully comprehend at the time, but I still loved it.
I was so fortunate to meet Patrick Norton back at DEFCON in 2019, and it was a dream come true. I was able to express my appreciation not only of him but also about the whole ZDTV and TechTV cast including John C. Dvorak, many of whom had gone in different directions post TechTV. They were all such a comforting part of my childhood.
I was watching TechTV on 9/11 and remember how when Bush got on tv in the evening, they had a momentary fumble in switching over to him so they just overlaid CNN or some other news channel. Growing up Muslim in that area of the country, all the TechTV shows including Silicon Spin became even more pivotal in keeping some semblance of the happiness and ease of life I had before that day (which I never really got back).
Watching these old episodes are charming given the topics:
[0]:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mYW3nkMl9GQ
[1]:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TcJBXgmdX44
This has been a tough few years seeing people and companies that provided me a lot of joy and happiness start to pass away. I guess its just a part of realizing you are getting old and time moves on to the next generation.
I speak to a lot of Gen-Z since they are defining the culture now and so many of them just have little to no concept of the world before iPhone and as such don't remember that era of computing and the people involved in it.
I feel that makes all the people that were around even more special to me. We all got to be a part of that slice of history (them producing and me appreciating it and growing because of it) and it was unique to us in that time period. I am thankful that he was a part of my life journey in a small way.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=343NxxEiFfM
Such a loss, the prototypical cranky geek. Loved his takes with Curry and Leporte
He was always lots of loud platitudes or damnations with more noise than signal or thoughtful analysis. At some point, I just stopped listening and/or reading whenever his name came up.
Some people just like to see themselves in phosphor, and were never taught not to speak ill of the dead. Etiquette is a lost art.
Caveat, I haven't read or listened to anything with him in some time, so I could be wrong or out of date, but that was how his public persona came across to me years ago.
I never felt he mislead, but also at some point (much like ESPN’s Stephen Smith) he decided “winning” in punditry was more about by being loud than about by being right.