Comment by rmason | Hacker News Reader

Comment by rmason | Hacker News Reader

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In the early PC days back in the eighties the bible was PC Magazine. They had a number of really talented columnists but towering above all of them was John C. Dvorak. He wrote so well, he was at times opinionated and other times intensely funny. Whether you agreed with that weeks opinion or not you felt you were better for having read it and that is truly rare.

Then along came PC TV and he got introduced to an entirely new audience. He had a blog for awhile and then I lost track of him. Then he reentered my world when he started a SubStack, actually several. One I didn't read and that was where he pontificated on things political.

Then during COVID he touched a live wire on his political SubStack, detailed why he didn't get 'the shot' and why you should too. He also correctly called out the players and what was really going on with COVID. He discovered a third new audience and became an enemy of the administration at the same time. That people was one hell of a career. He will be missed.

> what was really going on with COVID

Let me guess: a government conspiracy to push something pro-humanity

I didn't include the link but here is the last series part 1:

https://dvorak.substack.com/p/the-covid-decision-tree-part-o...

He wrote about COVID for six years. Someone should compile all those columns into a book or at least a single PDF.

Well, look I don't want to discuss such miserable topics about the man in this context; i'll look elsewhere for understanding

He was a contrarian when it came to tech; I thought he had terrible taste, little sense of what others saw in computation, and little empathy overall; but, he articulated himself well. He was a good writer and occasionally had good jokes. I'll miss him; RIP.

Thanks for the link. His decades of tech columns were so well-served by his skeptic curmudgeon style. There's danger in bringing that persona to all topics, I now see, shown by this regrettable chapter of his blogging life.

> He wrote about COVID for six years. Someone should compile all those columns into a book or at least a single PDF.

I assume, so that his age related dementia and subsequent paranoia can be studied?

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