Olivia
Online
Vexulosity
@hack_mole
Just a hacker in a world of Chaos
USA
Joined June 2007
387 Following
102 Followers
1.5K Posts
U.S. - China state dinner, what really happened 🤣
@Michellek4040 Thank you for being one of the real people on here. Go blue!!💙
20 years ago ABC broadcast a docudrama called The Path to 9/11 showing all the national security failures the 90s that led to the attacks
The movie was banned due to political pressure from the Clintons
Here is Part 1 in full:
Remembering John C. Dvorak, a Passionate Chronicler of PC History https://t.co/wGO0KFp8Ns #PCMag
DHUnplugged / No Agenda Meetup for JCD in Fort Lauderdale on Saturday 8-8-2026 at 3:33PM
Quick Sign Up/Register: https://t.co/w82hapS7FK
@THErealDVORAK @FrannyKnudsen @adamcurry
Please retweet this …
https://t.co/WRws85sihC
By special request, here is my memoriam to John Dvorak @THErealDVORAK in full:
In Memoriam: John C. Dvorak – A Titan, A Provocateur, A Friend
As I process this profound loss, I am compelled to share stories that capture the full spectrum of John Dvorak: the iconoclast, the loyalist, the provocateur, and the rare friend who operated on his own uncompromising frequency. These are not mere memories; they are testaments to a life lived at maximum volume. All caps.
The Unapologetic Iconoclast
John didn’t just challenge norms—he dismantled them for sport and principle. When San Francisco banned fireplaces except on Fridays, he dumped coal into his hearth and lit it, sending thick black smoke through the neighborhood purely to incite. “Coal is the perfect fuel,” he declared. “It’s rocks that burn!” He hated ABBA, yet every Spanish tapas bar only played their music, so I sang ABBA songs the entire trip in deliberate defiance.
He was fiercely competitive with fellow tech pundit Walt Mossberg, and on a transatlantic flight he jokingly speculated whether Walt was [REDACTED]—this, before a marathon debate that began over Jungian principles, Joseph Campbell, and archetypes, continued through baggage claim, and ended only at the hotel. During that same conversation, he admitted he used those very tactics to deliberately print that the mouse would never take off.
Even as a Catholic himself, he left Montserrat cathedral in disgust after criticizing a woman’s charismatic worship, unable to separate his faith from his insistence on calling out what he saw as performative piety. He wasn’t seeking consensus; he was testing boundaries.
Loyalty Beyond Reason
His devotion was absolute, even when inconvenient. While at Berkeley, he befriended Alice Waters, founder of Chez Panisse (widely regarded as the first major organic/farm-to-table restaurant), and insisted on eating only there for media dinners—no exceptions. On our final day in Amsterdam, trapped in a mandatory product overview classroom, he looked up at me with a wry grin and asked, “What are you going to do to me?”
He trusted me enough to invite me to Adam Curry’s Queen’s Day party; when exhaustion forced me to sleep through it entirely—the first time I’d slept all day in my life—he was genuinely hurt and annoyed, not angry, but wounded by my absence. And when another prominent reporter refused to join an Amsterdam junket because John “sucked the air out of the room,” it worked out: the original date 8/8/08 (his favorite number) fell on John’s wedding anniversary with Mimi, and he said she’d hang him if he went. We booked a separate trip just for him a few months later.
He also held secrets that became shields for those he cared about. Once a year, he traveled to South America to check on his properties—the PC Magazine licenses he owned there—a fact he made me swear never to reveal. “If you ever need to launch something in that region,” he said, “I’ll take care of it.” Years later, when I launched a Google social media project out of deep stealth, he honored that promise without hesitation or fanfare.
That was John: his word was bond, and his loyalty had no expiration date. This loyalty extended to protecting those around him financially, too: once back at HQ, Panda Security refused to pay the liquor bill from the Spain junket—it was in the thousands. I simply said, “It's John Dvorak. Pay it or suffer.” They rubber-stamped it immediately.
When the Scientologist president of Panda Security showed me a Harry Potter-like tome on PR and I told him thanks but no thanks, relaying the story to John, he said with astonishment and admonished me, “What? You didn’t steal the book? You missed the opportunity of a lifetime!” It was classic John: seeing value where others saw absurdity, and expecting those he trusted to do the same.
The Tech World’s Rock Star
Almost every time we were together felt like being with the Mick Jagger of the tech world. People would freeze when they realized who they were looking at. He was always cordial, then turn to me and mutter, “Yikes.” At Ziff-Davis events, he was unforgettable: the most memorable was the year Bill Gates was named Time’s Man of the Year. John showed up at the black-tie Tech Excellence Awards in a tuxedo with a flashing light-up bow tie while Bill wore a tweed jacket. Iconic. During CES, he was offered dinner with Mark Zuckerberg and chose to have dinner with me instead, saying, “He’d have nothing to say. He’s a simpleton.”
He also had a mad crush on Britney Spears.
He founded CNET, and whenever I walked into that building on the Embarcadero with the yellow school bus in the lobby, I was treated like royalty—not because of his title, but because he had made it clear to everyone inside that I was under his protection.
He grew up with Roger McGuinn, lead singer and guitarist of the Byrds, and they remained close friends for life, carrying that same rock-and-roll authenticity into every corner of tech.
Vulnerability Beneath the Armor
I was among the few who saw past the persona. Built on decades of trust, he let me witness moments no column could capture. Once, watching him sneeze on camera, I told him the trick was to think of lemons to stop it. He thanked me profusely. My 60-year-old mother watched Cranky Geeks religiously because he was that entertaining.
Even Patrick, my husband, caught him taking pictures of my rear end on tour in Spain—I asked for the photos. Never received them. Similarly, after he double-dog-dared me to jump the turnstile at Bilbao train station (resulting in police swarming me, nearly confiscating my passport, while he ran off taking pictures from a safe distance and laughed), I requested those photos too. Also never delivered.
The only time I ever saw him lose an argument was with Patrick over politics; when it became evident he held the losing hand, he simply looked up, stunned, and walked away. It was the sole moment his armor cracked—and it revealed how deeply he respected those he loved, even when they bested him.
A Partnership Forged in Fire
Our bond began in 1993 when I approached him after a PC Mag editors’ day presentation and bluntly told him his columns were riddled with errors, offering my editorial services. He took my card—and we were inseparable thereafter. I gave him counsel when he was competing with Walt Mossberg for the Fox tech pundit role; he listened and followed every word to the letter.
We hit every Michelin-starred restaurant we could across Europe, ordering so much wine we had to hide the bottles under the table, only for him to demand a nightcap in the hotel lobby. He drank wine like he had a hollow leg; we ran out of cash in Madrid and had to hit the ATM. The only way I kept up was mixing Coca-Cola with the wine—Tinto de verano remains my favorite cocktail to this day.
In the early days of social media, he called me and said, “Hey, let’s join this Twitter thing.” We signed up together. I was his first follower. He was mine.
As fellow chemists, we shared a unique intellectual bond. He studied history and chemistry at Berkeley, and we had long, slightly alarming conversations about what you could still buy at Home Depot to do all kinds of terrible things—a testament to his insatiable curiosity and willingness to explore the edges of knowledge, even the dangerous ones. Our connection was rooted in mutual respect for precision, evidence, and the courage to question everything.
John Dvorak was not merely a columnist. He was a force of nature who reshaped tech discourse through sheer will, wit, and an unwavering commitment to truth—even when that truth was uncomfortable, controversial, or deliberately provocative. His legacy isn’t just in what he wrote, but in how he lived: fiercely, loyally, and without apology.
Rest in power, John. The world is quieter now—but infinitely less interesting.
![brendachrist's tweet photo. By special request, here is my memoriam to John Dvorak @THErealDVORAK in full:
In Memoriam: John C. Dvorak – A Titan, A Provocateur, A Friend
As I process this profound loss, I am compelled to share stories that capture the full spectrum of John Dvorak: the iconoclast, the loyalist, the provocateur, and the rare friend who operated on his own uncompromising frequency. These are not mere memories; they are testaments to a life lived at maximum volume. All caps.
The Unapologetic Iconoclast
John didn’t just challenge norms—he dismantled them for sport and principle. When San Francisco banned fireplaces except on Fridays, he dumped coal into his hearth and lit it, sending thick black smoke through the neighborhood purely to incite. “Coal is the perfect fuel,” he declared. “It’s rocks that burn!” He hated ABBA, yet every Spanish tapas bar only played their music, so I sang ABBA songs the entire trip in deliberate defiance.
He was fiercely competitive with fellow tech pundit Walt Mossberg, and on a transatlantic flight he jokingly speculated whether Walt was [REDACTED]—this, before a marathon debate that began over Jungian principles, Joseph Campbell, and archetypes, continued through baggage claim, and ended only at the hotel. During that same conversation, he admitted he used those very tactics to deliberately print that the mouse would never take off.
Even as a Catholic himself, he left Montserrat cathedral in disgust after criticizing a woman’s charismatic worship, unable to separate his faith from his insistence on calling out what he saw as performative piety. He wasn’t seeking consensus; he was testing boundaries.
Loyalty Beyond Reason
His devotion was absolute, even when inconvenient. While at Berkeley, he befriended Alice Waters, founder of Chez Panisse (widely regarded as the first major organic/farm-to-table restaurant), and insisted on eating only there for media dinners—no exceptions. On our final day in Amsterdam, trapped in a mandatory product overview classroom, he looked up at me with a wry grin and asked, “What are you going to do to me?”
He trusted me enough to invite me to Adam Curry’s Queen’s Day party; when exhaustion forced me to sleep through it entirely—the first time I’d slept all day in my life—he was genuinely hurt and annoyed, not angry, but wounded by my absence. And when another prominent reporter refused to join an Amsterdam junket because John “sucked the air out of the room,” it worked out: the original date 8/8/08 (his favorite number) fell on John’s wedding anniversary with Mimi, and he said she’d hang him if he went. We booked a separate trip just for him a few months later.
He also held secrets that became shields for those he cared about. Once a year, he traveled to South America to check on his properties—the PC Magazine licenses he owned there—a fact he made me swear never to reveal. “If you ever need to launch something in that region,” he said, “I’ll take care of it.” Years later, when I launched a Google social media project out of deep stealth, he honored that promise without hesitation or fanfare.
That was John: his word was bond, and his loyalty had no expiration date. This loyalty extended to protecting those around him financially, too: once back at HQ, Panda Security refused to pay the liquor bill from the Spain junket—it was in the thousands. I simply said, “It's John Dvorak. Pay it or suffer.” They rubber-stamped it immediately.
When the Scientologist president of Panda Security showed me a Harry Potter-like tome on PR and I told him thanks but no thanks, relaying the story to John, he said with astonishment and admonished me, “What? You didn’t steal the book? You missed the opportunity of a lifetime!” It was classic John: seeing value where others saw absurdity, and expecting those he trusted to do the same.
The Tech World’s Rock Star
Almost every time we were together felt like being with the Mick Jagger of the tech world. People would freeze when they realized who they were looking at. He was always cordial, then turn to me and mutter, “Yikes.” At Ziff-Davis events, he was unforgettable: the most memorable was the year Bill Gates was named Time’s Man of the Year. John showed up at the black-tie Tech Excellence Awards in a tuxedo with a flashing light-up bow tie while Bill wore a tweed jacket. Iconic. During CES, he was offered dinner with Mark Zuckerberg and chose to have dinner with me instead, saying, “He’d have nothing to say. He’s a simpleton.”
He also had a mad crush on Britney Spears.
He founded CNET, and whenever I walked into that building on the Embarcadero with the yellow school bus in the lobby, I was treated like royalty—not because of his title, but because he had made it clear to everyone inside that I was under his protection.
He grew up with Roger McGuinn, lead singer and guitarist of the Byrds, and they remained close friends for life, carrying that same rock-and-roll authenticity into every corner of tech.
Vulnerability Beneath the Armor
I was among the few who saw past the persona. Built on decades of trust, he let me witness moments no column could capture. Once, watching him sneeze on camera, I told him the trick was to think of lemons to stop it. He thanked me profusely. My 60-year-old mother watched Cranky Geeks religiously because he was that entertaining.
Even Patrick, my husband, caught him taking pictures of my rear end on tour in Spain—I asked for the photos. Never received them. Similarly, after he double-dog-dared me to jump the turnstile at Bilbao train station (resulting in police swarming me, nearly confiscating my passport, while he ran off taking pictures from a safe distance and laughed), I requested those photos too. Also never delivered.
The only time I ever saw him lose an argument was with Patrick over politics; when it became evident he held the losing hand, he simply looked up, stunned, and walked away. It was the sole moment his armor cracked—and it revealed how deeply he respected those he loved, even when they bested him.
A Partnership Forged in Fire
Our bond began in 1993 when I approached him after a PC Mag editors’ day presentation and bluntly told him his columns were riddled with errors, offering my editorial services. He took my card—and we were inseparable thereafter. I gave him counsel when he was competing with Walt Mossberg for the Fox tech pundit role; he listened and followed every word to the letter.
We hit every Michelin-starred restaurant we could across Europe, ordering so much wine we had to hide the bottles under the table, only for him to demand a nightcap in the hotel lobby. He drank wine like he had a hollow leg; we ran out of cash in Madrid and had to hit the ATM. The only way I kept up was mixing Coca-Cola with the wine—Tinto de verano remains my favorite cocktail to this day.
In the early days of social media, he called me and said, “Hey, let’s join this Twitter thing.” We signed up together. I was his first follower. He was mine.
As fellow chemists, we shared a unique intellectual bond. He studied history and chemistry at Berkeley, and we had long, slightly alarming conversations about what you could still buy at Home Depot to do all kinds of terrible things—a testament to his insatiable curiosity and willingness to explore the edges of knowledge, even the dangerous ones. Our connection was rooted in mutual respect for precision, evidence, and the courage to question everything.
John Dvorak was not merely a columnist. He was a force of nature who reshaped tech discourse through sheer will, wit, and an unwavering commitment to truth—even when that truth was uncomfortable, controversial, or deliberately provocative. His legacy isn’t just in what he wrote, but in how he lived: fiercely, loyally, and without apology.
Rest in power, John. The world is quieter now—but infinitely less interesting.](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/HOKaix1WUAEmxx-.jpg)
#ITM - The best damn JCD clips around and plenty of donation notes to make you laugh and cry.
I can't believe @ThatLARRYSHOW and I will be the ones to talk about this art by @MoonMatterAI.
I know Larry will love it. I'll channel JCD, grouse and argue that the women should have been Sumo wrestling.
A Toast to John C. Dvorak, RIP - Livestream Replay https://t.co/mKvoeVsPV2 via @YouTube
What was @THErealDVORAK like. He had a gas card left over from one of his many trips to Canada but was not planning another trip. So he gets an envelope, puts it in with a note and mails it to me. Amongst all of the many things John had to do in his day an act of kindness was his priority. That is John.
I am loving the outpouring of support for JCD and his family here on X. My notifications are scrolling nonstop. Can't even imagine what Adam and John's family are seeing.
Keep putting JCD vibes into the Universe.
The Daily Grind ☕️ God's Presence in Your Pain
Everyone goes through deep loss, and then the tidal wave of grief shows up. It can feel overwhelming. The disciples were on that path because Jesus was letting them know He was departing.
Jesus introduced hope in the person of the Holy Spirit. The Greek word for the Spirit's role here is “Paraklētos,” and it is translated as Comforter, Counselor, Advocate, Intercessor, Helper, and Friend.
If you are experiencing loss, disappointment, or emotional pain, take heart, Christian. The Comforter is with you to help you navigate the minefield of emotions.
He's got this. Better yet, He's got you. - Pastor Jimmy
RIP John C Dvorak. I’m at a complete loss. My Thursdays and Sundays will never be the same😭
@THErealDVORAK
@adamcurry @NA_Announce
Not sure how many of you younger folk remember John C. Dvorak, he was a legend in the PC world esp in the early days. Wrote for just about every computer magazine and hosted many podcasts.
I recall every time I got a new issue of PC Magazine, 1st thing I did was read his article
Can't believe, the show started at 1pm CST, and it's only just ending now.
Four hours of reading donations alone.
John, the celebration of your unique existence has brought so many people out to express their sorrow and appreciation.
It gives me hope that there's so many out there out sound mind and thought, and maybe we have a shot of pulling through these dark times.
Thanks for being there, John.
And now, you're the man who puts the 'C' in We'll See You In Heaven.
RIP
The greatest computer columnist of all time, and one of my favourite talkers, has left this planet. John C Dvorak AKA @THErealDVORAK was an enraging voice in print in the 80s and 90s but when I heard the guy actually talk as a person I knew he was a real guy. I've been listening to him and the inventor of the podcast, @adamcurry, do their online buddy media cop show since 2013 and it's always been a warm blanket I never hesitate to recommend to people.
When I was in the Bay Area in February there was a meetup and I was fortunate enough to be there for an hour or two before being late for dinner with a good friend. I told John we were going to House of Prime Rib and he said "they serve a good product! you better leave!"
The pic of John himself I took myself, but the pic of the two of us was with my camera I handed to one of the many nice people there and this was their fourth attempt.
I showed it to John and he said "Nice. Don't ever post that." I felt the same, I don't like the whole open mouth thing, but whatever, right? Look at that cool 90s computer tie I'm wearing!
I've lost a lot of close people and it's hard to type about that, I'm torn up too much. I didn't really know this guy so I guess it's different but this is also a huge bummer.
I will point out the last time I spent a lot of time with my mother by ourselves we listened to their podcast, she enjoyed it. My eulogy, which i couldn't handle speaking or typing on these accounts, wound up as a donation read on their show and John complained it was too long but Adam read the whole thing out of respect.
My condolences to the Dvorak and Curry families and everyone that actually knew him.
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