A minor memorial for Leo Laporte’s terrestrial AM radio show
oldvcr.blogspot.com
oldvcr.blogspot.com
As much as I like the guy, I think this is for the best. I haven't listened to his podcasts, but I think podcasts and online content creation have a greater potential for a better quality audience.
Not gonna lie, one of the reasons I've listened to "The Tech Guy" a lot less than I used to is that most of the people calling in these days need to get their printer to work or simply have someone listen to them. That's all well and good, but it doesn't make for nearly as good of listening as back in the heyday when computer tech was hot and people under the age of 60 were calling in. Just sayin'. I don't want to be ageist, but I also cannot avoid it here. When I'm in the car on the weekend, I'll tune into KFI and Leo's talking to a guest who's totally clueless about basic computer skills in 2022. It's good that Leo's been there for these people, but it's more cringe than entertaining.
On the other hand, Leo's an older guy himself, and I'm usually impressed with how he's kept up his general tech knowledge. Other hosts might get too comfortable over the years, but I can usually tell that Leo's been reading things that are relevant.
Leo actually got me into Linux. I remember a show back in 2006 where he was recommending someone try out Ubuntu to give new life to an old computer, so that's how I learned about Ubuntu.
The pitch to potential TWIT advertisers is that they can reach a highly engaged, influential (and affluent) tech-savvy audience. The syndicated terrestrial radio show hurts that positioning more than the wider exposure helps.
I listened not for the advice, but for the "how will Leo answer this one" factor. He's very patient!
He would end up spending 5-10 minutes explaining to someone how to recycle power to a router or demystifying the basics of OTA television.
Thanks a lot.
It beat my wildest expectations, getting to watch live one of the best in the business. Even after taping for nearly two hours, with a fast turn around to his next show, he was kind enough to grab me his fez hat, take a couple of photos behind the desk, and chat with me about life.
I still look at that photo from time to time, and remember the joy I felt that day. Those are those special moments that make life so beautiful.
Leo in many ways has spawned a whole industry with podcasting and youtubers covering tech. Kevin Rose did a great interview years back with Leo as the subject and it was fascinating hearing about how it all came to be. Much respect!
Seriously, I read that title and panicked. I remember watching ZDTV in high school, and listening to twit podcasts up until 2011-ish? We're taking about the foundation of my love of tech. The early-90's to early 2000's pre crash was an amazing time to come up in the internet. Even the post crash boom was like the wild west compared to today. You were there producing content through it all.
I got off the habit of tuning in after I abandoned itunes and the iphone for Android. There just wasn't as a robust podcasting network on Android at the time.
It sounds like twit is still going strong. Time to check back in!
¹ https://twit.tv/shows/this-week-in-google
¹ Has been an increasingly inaccurate show title for many years now - covers many areas in the world of online companies and journalism these days.
It's unlikely you would remember me, but we met sometime around the late 1970s or early 1980s. We were attending some kind of est spinoff workshop in San Jose. It may have been Playground or Summit Workshops or some such? There were so many of them that I have lost track.
I do seem to recall that people at this workshop were promoting the latest pyramid scam, Circle of Gold or something like that. You would be expected to bring in ten of your friends, and then they would each bring in ten of their friends, etc.
I tried to use simple logic to explain to one of the promoters that the math just didn't work out. Exponential growth, anyone? I said that after a very few generations, we would have signed up every human being on Earth. And then what do you do?
Their response was "That's not a problem. Everyone can just sign up again!"
A few of us went out to lunch and sat at a round table at the corner of the restaurant. You were sitting near the corner and I was across from you.
Memory is a funny thing. Mine is very positional. I don't remember the name of the workshop, the restaurant or type of food, but I do remember where we sat. (If it jogs your memory, I had a fuzzy red Afro thanks to my Neanderthal heritage - wish I still had hair like that! - and I was probably wearing some kind of South American jacket.)
You may have just been starting your radio career around that time, and I distinctly remember thinking "this guy has a radio voice!"
I don't suppose you happen to remember what workshop that was? Don't worry, no offense taken if none of this rings a bell. :-)
As scammy as it probably was (Werner Erhard mostly just cribbed from Alan Watts and others) est was a very formative experience for me as a 21-year-old. I think it has stayed with me ever since. I was just thinking about that the other day, in fact.
I'd started assisting at Franklin House, Werner's residence. (As you know, "assisting" meant "working for free!")
My first task was to draw up a schematic of the home automation system under Werner's bed. You would flip up the top of the bed and underneath it was a point to point circuit of relays, and no one knew what it all did or how they connected together.
I don't know why this system of relays was under his bed, but there it was.
So I traced out all the wiring - there was a lot of it! - and made the schematic.
They found out I enjoyed cooking, so I started assisting in the kitchen.
Werner loved scallop quenelles, and we made a lot of them.
Then he had his first physics conference, with Richard Feynman, John Wheeler, Leonard Susskind, and many other luminaries.
And I was the breakfast chef!
I made custom omelets to order for all the physicists, and as far as I know, they all enjoyed them.
After that success, they asked me to fill in for dinner one night when his chef was on vacation.
My menu included French onion soup, and sautéed broccoli and scallops with brown rice.
For some reason I thought I would throw some brewers' yeast into the soup. You can't go wrong with that, can you? So I put in a lot! It was pretty terrible, and someone else there said "It's time to save the soup!" So he threw in bouillon cubes and who knows what, and it got worse and worse. But we served it anyway.
Now we get to the sauté. Werner was on some kind of no-fat diet, so I decided to "sauté" the scallops and broccoli in white wine with no oil. As you can imagine, it came out very sour and unappealing.
All in all, it was the worst meal I've ever cooked.
A few days later, I got a note in the mail from Werner, thanking me and saying how much he appreciated me and not a word about how terrible the meal was.
When anyone disappoints me, I hope I can treat them with the same courtesy.
And I got a little peak at what it will be like when I actually do die. Not many get that privilege. ;-)
Kidding, kinda. Seriously though, thanks for all that you've done.
So yeah, the bs headline gave me a mini panic and quite frankly pissed me off. Sad to see the current state of what gets posted on HN.
He definitely helped kindle my early interest in tech.
A different way to word it might be: A minor memorial for Leo Laporte's terrestrial AM radio show.
First thing I did was check the wiki if he was dead. The key problem is "memorial for Leo Laporte" OK? Terrible title.
(A minor memorial for) (Leo Laporte on terrestrial AM radio)
vs
(A minor memorial for Leo Laporte) (on terrestrial AM radio)
The latter is not only just as grammatically valid as the first, it is also a sensible article headline, the idea that someone used AM radio to broadcast a memorial for Leo Laporte.
Can you not see why people would read it as the latter?
That’s exactly what clickbait means. You have to click on the link to read the first sentence.
It leaves the important information out of the link text, and it uses ambiguous tongue-in-cheek language to suggest that the piece is going to be about something more interesting and engaging than it really is.
The fact that the title is debunked in the first sentence is a clear sign of bad intentions. You are literally being pranked: “Did you hear Leo Laporte passed away? Psych! Actually, he’s still alive! We only made you think he’s dead, just because we thought we could get away with it!”
If that’s your idea of “no clickbait intended”, I wonder what intentional clickbait would look like?
Thankfully, in this case this is neither the end of the world nor the end of Mr. Laporte.
Until COVID I was in the Valley almost yearly. I have family in Marin and it's still on my bucket list to be an audience member on Leo's show some day. I have a close friend here in Michigan who has done it and she told me not to question whether it would be worth it or not.
Strongest political stance I can remember him making lately is ridiculing the idea the last presidential election was stolen.
Honestly, I think any complaints about the "politics" in his netcasts says more about the person complaining than about the actual contents of his podcasts.
I watched a few episodes of TechTV back in the day because I liked hearing about new gadgets. The Twit thing seems like its geared toward tech support for the masses. Not something I am interested in.
IMHO, a show's interest is the gage of its success and if you are not focusing on what interesting in technology, then why are you doing it? That says more about the person doing the show then its says about them people listening to you. That's kind of like saying it the listeners fault that they don't find the show interesting. Yeah, and I'm thinking "OK, Let me know how that works out for you"
True; it's not as if elections are tabulated on some sort of "voting machines" that are closed-source and often hacked at DEFCON's Voting Machine Hacking Village.
This is right. I don't want to paint with too broad a brush, but in my, admittedly anecdotal, experience a lot of folks who are on the right politically really have trouble consuming content if they perceive any degree of left wing bias. Like if they know the star of a movie has done some left wing activism they struggle to enjoy the movie even if the movie itself is in no way political. So the fact that they know Laporte is a liberal they become extremely sensitive to any topic that could be perceived as political.
I'm sure this isn't just a right wing thing, but for various reasons the people I know who struggle with it are all on the right.
But over the last 5 years I have basically stopped paying any attention to him. He pushed out the people I liked and I just found myself with less and less patience for him.
I don’t believe I ever heard Leo Laporte before podcasts—can’t recall Tech Guy Show being syndicated where I grew up in central Illinois.
But this prompted to see if Kim Komando is still on the air, and, yup!
https://www.komando.com/the-show/
The idea of a call-in radio show for computer help seems impossibly quaint nowadays, but in the old days, before you kids had your TikToks and your broadbands, these really were valuable resources.
Did you not have TechTV in your area? That’s probably by far what he was most known for and was a good decade and a half before podcasts.
My impression at the time was that she didn't seem to actually know _that_ much about computers and software. But she knew which words to say so that she sounded competent to anyone who didn't know any better (which was almost everyone back then).
Presumably, she's had some time to brush up on things since then...
Then he got his own "empire". He became the boss. He married his business partner and then he totally and completely took a 180 and became a jerk and treated his employees terribly. None of the original crew that were instrumental into making TWiT into a big thing (back then), are left. It's just a shell of what it formally was. It's really sad when I see people I used to admire turn into something like this, but I moved on.
Because there is at least one person who has been trolling Leo for years, reposting every dumb thing he says, which is easy since he is probably talking at least 15-20 hours a week on a wide variety of topics.
https://shawnjroberts.com/this-just-in-leo-laporte-is-no-mar...
One of the worst titles on HN in some time. Please change it.
I met him once and accidentally offended him. I didn’t mean to, just crossed wires. I think he misheard me, probably thanks in no small part to my accent!
Really loved that show, tho I didn't listen to it for a while.
But that's the whole question. Which you've already admitted you don't actually know. Because you haven't watched the show.
I do not believe the American people would tolerate it. Seems like a safe bet to me. I don’t need to watch his show to know that. There are also people whom I know who do watch his show who I know would never accept a nazi perspective even for one second. So I do believe I can have some confidence that it’s a ridiculous claim used to stir up fear and outrage.
Does this sound unreasonable? I appreciate the questions and the conversation. However I can’t tell if it is sincere or just having fun for fun’s sake. I’m down for both but if you really think that I should take a closer look to confirm whether or not he is a Nazi. Please point me in the right direction. Maybe my entire world view of how things currently work needs a calibration.