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John C. Dvorak has died

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Re: John C. Dvorak has died

#171

Post by Brian_K_White »

echelon wrote: post #45
giancarlostoro wrote: post #9

For those like me wondering if he's also the creator of the Dvorak keyboard, no but close! > 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

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: https://youtu.be/C96YG7qzN80?t=142

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.

Re: John C. Dvorak has died

#173

Post by CyberDildonics »

Brian_K_White wrote: post #171
echelon wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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: https://youtu.be/C96YG7qzN80?t=142

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.

Why take this to a place of insults and divisive antagonizing?

Re: John C. Dvorak has died

#174

Post by dredmorbius »

brucehoult wrote: post #158
taylodl wrote: post #139

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!

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…

I referred to him as Less Than Thorough...

Almost certainly Lester Carl Thurow (May 7, 1938 – March 25, 2016).

I've read that sobriquet a few times myself. I suspect his economic ideas were more premature than wrong.

Re: John C. Dvorak has died

#177

Post by e40 »

mrandish wrote: post #62

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.

So many people who have big personalities on the internet are like that. My example is Erik Naggum. I spent a lot of time with him and the gulf between his in-person and on-line personas was vast.

Trivia: I took both the pics of him on his wikipedia page. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erik_Naggum

Re: John C. Dvorak has died

#178

Post by samgranieri »

This is sad. I grew up with him as a columnist in like MacWorld or MacUser, to later on see him become an Apple troll. I think he broke his hand off patting himself on the back after his prediction of Apple moving to Intel chips came to fruition.

I was sad when he got fired from PC Mag over that 5g column.

Re: John C. Dvorak has died

#179

Post by thoughtpeddler »

RIP JCD. As a kid growing up in the 1990s, I looked forward to your (highly opinionated) column in every new issue of PC Mag. So much of my own taste in software and computing was shaped by absorbing your strong opinions. Thanks for being you.
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