Live data from Hacker News

John C. Dvorak has died

twitter.com

81–90 of 340 posts

Re: John C. Dvorak has died

#81
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.

Re: John C. Dvorak has died

#82

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.

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Caveat, I haven't read or listened to anything with him in some time, so I could be wrong or out of date, but that was how his public persona came across to me years ago.

Re: John C. Dvorak has died

#83

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 form…

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.

Re: John C. Dvorak has died

#84
post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How can you miss cranky geeks when HN is full of them?

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.

Hell gets Windows.

Re: John C. Dvorak has died

#85
post #23

RIP, gonna mis listening to your conversations with Adam, link to the last no agenda show (podcast): https://www.noagendashow.net/listen/1887

RIP

Their podcast is one of the last bastion of independence: no ads, all funded, produced, developed, self hosted by a group of volunteers.

Re: John C. Dvorak has died

#86
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.

Re: John C. Dvorak has died

#87

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 wi…

> 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?

Re: John C. Dvorak has died

#89

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.

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.
Post reply on HN