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by donatj 9 days 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.

4 comments

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.

When Leo banned him is actually when I stopped listening to TWiT. Apparently he came back a few years later, but I never did.
Leo finds out on air of John’s passing and is very respectful. Thank you Leo.

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/windows-weekly-audio/i...

They talk about it in a couple segments because they held off at first until getting confirmation...here's the YouTube version with some timestamps:

* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fcvPifFSUL0&t=32m29s

* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fcvPifFSUL0&t=47m12s

Apparently Dvorak was against net neutrality. He had the worst takes

https://us1.campaign-archive.com/?u=d0e55f319709994434570865...

I listened to his many pontifications about net-neutrality at that time.

His concern was not the theory and practice of "net-neutrality".

It was that "net-neutrality" was being used by various industry lobbyists and politicians at that time to justify the creation of a definition of "lawful traffic". By their definition, only "lawful traffic" would be subject to neutrality. Traffic that was not deemed "lawful traffic" would not be treated the same and could be shaped and blocked.

It was at the time that Pirate Bay was under constant legal attack (2015) and BitTorrent was the "unlawful traffic".

IMO this was a good take that not many journalists paid attention to.

Thank you for giving us this nuance.
The tech world needs good heels! His worst takes were some of his best!
> lotus Jazz

I actually remember that.

Praising IBM PS/2 modularity and ease of service on Computer Chronicles https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yoAH1aHmwR0&t=637s

He pulled one apart and couldnt put it back together for the rest of the episode :-)

He was the original "uncle who still runs Windows <3.1/95/98/XP> long after support ended because 'Nothing newer is better'" guy.
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.

>> 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?

He set the style of being confidently incorrect. At least he was entertaining.
He would make a great AI!
Probably. With some exceptions, he wasn't flat out wrong. But he did push the boundaries from time to time.