[giancarlostoro]

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

[echelon]

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

[barney54]

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]

It was great until Leo went off the deep end and lost 99% of his audience.

[atonse]

I used to listen to so many TwiT podcasts 10+ years ago. But then slowly lost interest and I don't remember why.

But they used to be awesome. FLOSS weekly, Security Now, MacBreak Weekly, etc.

But a few years ago, I found out there were some scandals at TwiT, etc, but the network still seems to be going on though.

[apple4ever]

What were the scandals? I still listen to TWIT and MBW, but they are so long and too preachy sometimes. If you get past that and some other things (constant AI talk), they are still good shows.

[sixothree]

The last place I listened to Leo was that security podcast I think Leo hosting with Steve Gibson. And it just seemed devoid of any useful information whatsoever. Then one day I decided if I don't learn something I can use at work during my entire drive to work, I'm just not listening again. And that was that.

[boyter]

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.

[lizardking]

Is CJal here supposed to be JCal by chance? I feel like that was close to 15 years ago, but I'm in the same boat. I used to listen to almost every show Twit put out, which was quite a bit.

[etempleton]

Both of them kind of lost the thread. I really enjoyed the show but they became increasingly polarized and unmoving in their opinions.

[teekert]

IMHO they both went a bit too far. Used to love Twit (with JCD), used to love NoAgenda (when they were still relatively politically neutral), I guess it mirrors a bit what happened to their country.

RIP BuzzKill.

[echelon]

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]

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]

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.

[robertoandred]

Deep end how?

[lorreyfum]

It’s no tech all lecture about evil nobody wants to listen to that shit.

[silisili]

Same...well I'll always remember it as ZDTV. Maybe it was my youth, but I remember how exciting tech was then - cool new websites, gadgets, services, etc.

I haven't followed him much since, and seeing his recent pictures made me realize how much time has passed since those days.

Rest in peace, sir.

[dc786]

I watched ZDTV, later renamed Tech TV, on my big ugly satellite dish.

Dvorak's show was called Silicon Spin. John had a panel of guests, sort of like the original Meet the Press with Lawrence E. Spivak.

I also listened to a weekly public radio show named Real Computing. John would interview entrepreneurs about their new tech products. I think about 3 interviews per show. The station which carried Real Computing in Albuquerque was KANW, 89.1 FM.

I never heard of No Agenda until this Hacker News piece, and it seems to me Silicon Spin and Real Computing were probably much more worth my time, so I didn't miss much in my ignorance of No Agenda.

I miss the older shows, and I would have appreciated more similar appearances by John since, but those days are gone. RIP.

[Brian_K_White]

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]

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

[Brian_K_White]

As a counter to the many comments I saw implying that Leo is mostly to blame for their disagreements and "banned" John. Those "insults and divisive antagonizing" came first, and which I notice you did not object to, curiously.

I liked them both too. And I listened to No Agenda for a while, and my opinion is based on years of hearing and reading them both.

[atlanta90210]

It’s ok I am sure John would appreciate the discussion. They both are treasures.

[SirFatty]

He was the creator of Cranky Geeks. One of the first podcasts I listened to.

[thisisnico]

This is really sad. I used to listen to Cranky Geeks religiously when I was younger. I was always excited about a new episode. I still remember many of them. I remember them talking about web 2.0 and what that means, talking about twitter, and tweeting. A lot of good information and laughs over the years. He will be in my memories.

[darkwater]

> of the Dvorak keyboard

Ok, I'm going to shame myself in public for this but, I always thought they were "DVORAK keyboards" and they were called this way just like the "AZERTY keyboards", that is, the first 6 letters of the first row were "DVORAK".

[tmtvl]

There's no shame in not knowing something or inferring wrong conclusions from facts you do know. From left to right the first 6 keys of the top row are:

  ',.pyf

Which isn't as catchy as Dvorak.

[user_7832]

Unfortunately python scripts turn out to be not as vulnerable to character escaping exploits.

Character escape, in this context, of course, refers to the keys themselves flying out of the keyboard, this being a hardware product and all.

[tmtvl]

Did you reply to the wrong comment? I can't see anything here to do with either Python or hardware.

[spixy]

quick search shows that .pyf is some Python file (interface between Python and Fortran) so it was a joke I guess

[user_7832]

It was a bad joke, a .py and an apostrophe character reminded me of an SQL injection escape.

...Yeah I don't work in SQL if it wasn't obvious lol

[ninju]

Or on a US keyboard its known as QWERTY :-)

[teekert]

Uhm TIL…

[nosrepa]

I like that his Wikipedia page really sells that he was a Kentucky Colonel. That was one of the easier titles I've gotten.

[samplatt]

How did you get it? ... How many titles do you have?!

I know there's people like Sir David Attenborough who have three alphabets worth of letters after their name, but I hadn't considered the idea of gaming the system to get superfluous titles.

[appstorelottery]

Hey rosrepa... I want to go down your rabbit hole & collect some titles... would you be kind enough to recommend some easy ones to start with?

[voidUpdate]

The Universal Life Church has an online form to get ordained as a minister, that's an easy one to get

[tosti]

Hurricane Electric has dead simple IPv6 certification

[DonHopkins]

The Alonzo Church of the Eval Genius has a self evaluation program sponsored by the Y Combinator. I anonymously passed myself to myself -- until a fixed point!

[prvc]

There does not seem to be a documented close lineal connection between August Dvorak and composer Antonín Dvořák, although it would be reasonable to suppose some relation exists.

[gasgdsadgfa]

There's also no documented close lineal connection between John C. Dvorak and August Dvorak, any more than his birthplace being Los Angeles. Both of which are blindly-repeated, unsourced (and untrue) Wikipedia inventions.

[jl6]

Wikipedia sources the claim to an article by Jerry Pournelle in BYTE magazine, from 1985.

[qingcharles]

Here's the snippet in question from the magazine:

https://imgur.com/a/8SVQGnj

[gasgdsadgfa]

Wikipedia and Pournelle are wrong, here's John Charles Dvorak himself on November 27, 1988:

https://ibb.co/x8RJvWyX

"I'm told there is a relationship, but I can't prove it."

John knows who his uncles are. His father is Walter Charles Dvorak born in Minneapolis to John Steve Dvorak (also born in Minneapolis). August Dvorak and all of his siblings (none of them Walter) were all born in McLeod County to IMMIGRANT Joseph Dvorak. If there's a connection it goes back to Bohemia.

[jl6]

Is that from the San Francisco Examiner? Do you have sources for the family information you mention?

[DonHopkins]

Wait, you mean the Dvorak keyboard isn't named after the order of its letters like Querty??!

How are you supposed to remember it then?

Or is there also a keyboard inventor named Querty?

[KellyCriterion]

Its Qwerty/z, not Querty :-)

[KellyCriterion]

Did you ever meet someone in the real world using the Dvorak ayout?

[moffkalast]

August Dvorak's father's, brother's, nephew's, cousin's, former roommate.

[olyjohn]

So... what does that make him?

[lowmagnet]

John C. Dvorak

[dyauspitr]

Interesting, that’s the only way I thought I knew this man.