Baldur reflects on his family’s history in radio broadcasting, his path to interactive media and writing books and how he moved away from listening to tech podcasts.
Content warning: some coarse language
Podcast case study: Accidental Tech Podcast (https://atp.fm) (listener)
Find Baldur at baldurbjarnason.com (https://www.baldurbjarnason.com).
Read a transcript of the episode as a styled PDF (https://martinfeld.files.wordpress.com/2023/08/2023-08-really-specific-stories-transcript-e28094-baldur-bjarnason.pdf) or in plain text (https://assets.fireside.fm/file/fireside-images/podcasts/transcripts/c/c67dadf4-8798-4528-8e7d-e45b83c1d218/episodes/9/9177fcb6-0a8e-4ec0-a803-2544c12e6b86/transcript.txt).
Links and Show Notes
Fourth Generation 00:00:00
RSS (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RSS)
Perl (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perl)
Interactive media (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interactive_media)
RÚV is the Icelandic National Broadcasting Service. (https://www.ruv.is/um-ruv/about-ruv)
World War II (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II)
British invasion of Iceland (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_invasion_of_Iceland)
Allied occupation of Iceland (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allied_occupation_of_Iceland)
Attack of Pearl Harbor (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attack_on_Pearl_Harbor)
Telegraphy (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telegraphy)
Axis powers (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Axis_powers)
Hotel Borg (https://borg-by-keas-reykjavik.hotel-ds.com/en/)
Vox populi (or vox pop) (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vox_populi)
Web development (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_development)
Interactive Media Environments 00:08:13
Software widget (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_widget)
Graphical widget (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graphical_widget)
COVID-19 pandemic (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVID-19_pandemic)
HyperCard (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HyperCard)
Macintosh SE (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macintosh_SE)
Solitaire (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solitaire)
Tetris (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetris)
What You See Is What You Get (WYSIWYG) (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WYSIWYG)
Comparative literature (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparative_literature)
Computer science (or ‘comp sci’) (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_science)
University of the West of England (UWE) (https://www.uwe.ac.uk)
Bower Ashton campus map (https://www.uwe.ac.uk/life/campus-and-facilities/city-campus/bower-ashton-campus-map)
BBC Radio (https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/live:bbc_radio_one)
Dot-com bubble (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dot-com_bubble) (including reference to the dot-com crash)
Adobe Flash (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adobe_Flash)
Sandbox (software development) (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandbox_(software_development))
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doctor_of_Philosophy)
ebook (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ebook)
Amazon Kindle (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon_Kindle)
iPhone (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPhone)
iPad (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPad)
Defamiliarisation 00:15:43
Artificial intelligence (AI) (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_intelligence)
Cryptocurrency (or ‘crypto’) (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cryptocurrency)
Popular culture (or ‘pop culture’) (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Popular_culture)
The Real World of Technology by Ursula Franklin (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1291973.The_Real_World_of_Technology)
Recordings of public lectures in the Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/the-real-world-of-technology)
Processor (computing) (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Processor_(computing))
Musical genre mash-up!
Pop-punk (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pop-punk)
Post-punk (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-punk)
Neosurrealism (https://www.dictionary.com/browse/neo-surrealism)
Accidental Tech Podcast (https://atp.fm)
Jason Snell (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jason_Snell_(writer))
Defamiliarisation (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defamiliarization)
Viktor Shklovsky (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viktor_Shklovsky)
Bertolt Brecht (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bertolt_Brecht)
YouTube (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/YouTube)
Line Goes Up – The Problem with NFTs (https://youtu.be/YQ_xWvX1n9g)
Defunctland (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCVo63lbKHjC04KqYhwSZ_Pg)
Disney’s FastPass: A Complicated History (https://youtu.be/9yjZpBq1XBE)
App Store (iOS/iPadOS) (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/App_Store_(iOS/iPadOS))
Tom Abba (https://people.uwe.ac.uk/Person/TomAbba)
*This is not the future of the book (http://thisisnotabook.baldurbjarnason.com/podcast/)
Out of the Software Crisis by Baldur Bjarnason (https://softwarecrisis.baldurbjarnason.com)
Open source (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_source)
Pick and Choose 00:31:03
Round table (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Round_Table)
Narrative journalism (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narrative_journalism)
20 Macs for 2020 was released in multiple formats:
a podcast on Relay FM (https://www.relay.fm/20macs);
a series of written blog posts at Six Colors (https://sixcolors.com/post/2020/08/20-macs-for-2020-an-introduction/); and
a YouTube playlist hosted at 512 Pixels (https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLWicOOpLAfvEv7KODfZYuXS7jVprBDUJc)
Facebook (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facebook)
Twitter (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twitter) (rebranding to X)
Revenue sharing (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revenue_sharing)
Threads (social network) (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Threads_(social_network))
Bluesky Social (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bluesky_Social)
Mastodon (social network) (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mastodon_(social_network))
Algorithm (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algorithm)
Patreon (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patreon)
Whisper (software) (https://openai.com/research/whisper)
Descript (https://www.descript.com)
Substack (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Substack)
Email list (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mailing_list#Electronic_mailing_list)
Apple Podcasts (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Podcasts)
Spotify (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spotify)
du jour = ‘of the day’, e.g. ’soup *du jour’ = soup of the day
My Computer Identity 00:44:05
Mac (computer) (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mac_(computer))
Macintosh Performa (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macintosh_Performa)
Microsoft Windows (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Windows)
macOS (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MacOS) (previously referred to as Mac OS X and OS X)
Pro Tools (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pro_Tools)
Apple Human Interface Guidelines (https://developer.apple.com/design/human-interface-guidelines/)
User interface design (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_interface_design)
Apple simplified System Settings for macOS Ventura, moved many items (https://appleinsider.com/articles/22/06/07/apple-simplifies-system-settings-for-macos-ventura-moves-many-items) from AppleInsider
System Settings (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/System_Settings) (previously named System Preferences)
Disk Utility (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disk_Utility)
Linux (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux)
GNOME (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNOME)
Safari (web browser) (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Safari_(web_browser))
ARM architecture family (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARM_architecture_family)
Amy Hoy (https://stackingthebricks.com)
User experience (UX) (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_experience)
ChromeOS (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ChromeOS)
Software bug (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_bug)
Netscape (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netscape)
Jamie Zawinski (a.k.a. jwz) (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jamie_Zawinski)
HAL 9000 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HAL_9000)
Plumbing of the Web 01:01:05
HTML (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTML)
XML (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XML)
Markup language (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Markup_language)
Static websites (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_design#Generated_content)
Flat file (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flat-file_database)
Client-side (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Client-side)
iBook G3 ‘Clamshell’ (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBook#iBook_G3_(%22Clamshell%22)) (or what Baldur’s dad refers to as the ‘toilet-seat iBook’)
NetNewsWire (https://netnewswire.com)
OPML (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OPML)
Domain name (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domain_name)
Stacking the Bricks (https://stackingthebricks.com/podcast/) (podcast)
Credits
Recorded and edited by Martin Feld, using Audio Hijack (https://rogueamoeba.com/audiohijack/) and Ferrite Recording Studio (https://www.wooji-juice.com/products/ferrite/)
Martin’s edit in Ferrite https://martinfeld.files.wordpress.com/2023/08/2023-08-really-specific-stories-baldur-bjarnason-ferrite-timeline-screenshot.jpeg
Original podcast theme music by Alex Canion (https://www.alexcanion.com)
Contact
Website: rsspod.net (https://www.rsspod.net)
Email: [email protected] (mailto:[email protected])
Mastodon: social.lol/@martinfeld (https://social.lol/@martinfeld)
Micro.blog: micro.blog/martinfeld (https://micro.blog/martinfeld)

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