Wise Guys on WHO Radio - January 10, 2015

Brian Gongol


The WHO Radio Wise Guys airs on WHO Radio in Des Moines, Iowa on 1040 AM or streaming online at WHORadio.com. The show airs from 1 to 2 pm Central Time on Saturday afternoons. A podcast of show highlights is also available. Leave comments and questions on the Wise Guys Facebook page or e-mail them to wiseguys@whoradio.com.


Please note: These show notes may be in various stages of completion -- ranging from brainstormed notes through to well-polished monologues. Please excuse anything that may seem rough around the edges, as it may only be a first draft of a thought and not be fully representative of what was said on the air.

In the news this week

Computers and the Internet The Internet Archive rolls out an MS-DOS game emulator
Programs that went into obsolescence with the arrival of better operating systems are back

Computers and the Internet Don't write off the PC just yet
They're featuring nicely at the Consumer Electronics Show

Computers and the Internet Facebook founder starts his own book club
Perhaps taking a cue from Oprah, or perhaps from a certain radio show in June, which advocated "less time with Facebook and more time with book-books"

Computers and the Internet Corning rolls out "Iris Glass" at Consumer Electronics Show
They claim it will enable super-thin LCD televisions

Health Ebola gets the headlines, but the flu kills more Americans by far
And that's included healthy young people this year, to our great sadness

Computers and the Internet Are we more anxious because our periodicals aren't very periodical anymore?
A New York Times contributor says the "ICYMI" ("in case you missed it") phenomenon makes us anxious that we're missing out on things all the time -- when it's not possible to catch up on it all

Security update

Computers and the Internet How to report the "help desk" phone scam
Americans are getting telephone calls from people pretending to represent Microsoft and other big names in computing, and in the process of those calls they seek to intimidate the victim into loading malware onto their own computers

Computers and the Internet Benchmarking the major antivirus programs

Street-smart social media

Computers and the Internet Always have a definitive outlet that speaks exclusively under your authority
For most people, that probably ought to be some variation on "[firstname-lastname].com". That way, people know conclusively when you're speaking for yourself and can check what other people try to say about or for you. For instance, if you're Bill Gates, it's helpful to have a website where you post things like book reviews, so that when a guy like Thomas Piketty decides to put words in your mouth about a telephone conversation you had ("He told me, 'I love everything that's in your book, but I don't want to pay more tax"), you can point to exactly what you said about the book ("Piketty's book has some important flaws that I hope he and other economists will address"). We don't all have the soapbox and bullhorn that Bill Gates does, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't learn to speak conclusively for ourselves. A domain name (even if it's only used to point to a Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or LinkedIn profile) is a very healthy start.

Dispatches from the flying-car future

Humor and Good News The travel of a sci-fi future with the style of the past
Someone at NASA has had great fun coming up with posters promoting future space travel in the style of the great 1920s/1930s design motif

Politics of technology

Jargon alert

Domain name: Just an address out there on the Internet. Can direct your browser to all kinds of files also out there on the Internet. Think of it as a street address -- which can describe anything from an empty lot to the Chrysler Building.

CES/Consumer Electronics Show: A huge annual gathering in Las Vegas where tech companies show off their newest products

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