Tech with Tommy: Recent Episodes
Tommy Jensen
A casual but informal podcast about technology, and the ways it runs our lives. The occasional dry humor may also be found.
We are back. In this episode we look into the web in the 1990's, how that web gave birth to Google and how the algorithm that powers Google works.
Sound effect attribution: https://freesound.org/people/TheGoodstuff2048/sounds/656116/
Hollywood has many ideas about how to hack computers. But, unfortunately, those are mostly not related to reality.
So how do you actually hack a computer? In this episode, we will look at some of the ways nefarious neverdowells have hacked computers in the past and see if we can learn a lesson or two from them.
This is quite a long podcast, so I have included section markers you can pause at if you want.
Links I mentioned in the show:
- Yahoo and their medireview https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/medireview
- Samy Kamkar https://samy.pl/myspace/
- Technical description of the worm https://samy.pl/myspace/tech.html
- The podcast episode about VPNs
- The podcast episode about cookies
- OpenSSL's latest bug
You dealt with it. You may have wondered how it could possibly work.
In this episode we do a deep dive on the zip format, what the idea is and how compression works.
A couple notes on the recording: I didn't want you to wait any longer, but unfortunately my voice was a little broken when I did the recording, so it gets weird in a few places. In addition I managed to record at too low a volume, so there are some issues with that.
I promise to fix them for the next episode.
We live in a world where it has never been easier to send messages across the globe. In this episode we take a look at the first technology that made this possible: the Fax machine.
While dull compared to what we have today, it still has some interesting technology behind it.
Links from the show:
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Very old color photos https://www.boredpanda.com/first-color-photos-vintage-old-autochrome-lumiere-auguste-louis
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The LDX System https://digitalprinting.blogs.xerox.com/2012/08/03/flashback-fridays-looking-back-in-time-at-xerox-history/
Back when this podcast didn't exist yet, Bitcoin was one of the first things I tried to explain to anybody. I partially based the script on the ideas in that presentation, readapted for an audio media.
I have changed how I record podcast episodes, so hopefully it will be easier to record for me in the future. The audio quality does suffer a little, but it should otherwise be good.
If you have any comments or questions, please don't hesitate to write to feedback@techwithtommy.com
Advertisements for VPN services are everywhere, but does a VPN actually protect you? And from what? And how does it work?
All of this on this episode of Tech with Tommy
What is it with the cookie popup? What are cookies and show you accept that cookie?
Notes https://backlinko.com/facebook-users
https://www.oberlo.com/statistics/how-many-people-use-internet
In late 2020, Apple did something that many thought couldn't be done, and changed how computers operated. This episode looks at how we got here, what they did and offer some thoughts for the future.
Disclaimer: I hold some Apple stock, but I didn't create this episode because of that, I brought the stock because of what they did.
All things must end, and so must the second counter inside your computer. But what happens when, literally, the clock runs out of time?
A computer is a calculator on steroids. But how can we make a calculator play sound? And how can we fit the collected works of the greatest artists ever inside storage that is smaller than your nail?
Links 1. The copyright free music recorded in 1901 https://archive.org/details/DieMusikKommtLeonhardt42395 2. But what is the Fourier Transform? A visible introduction
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=spUNpyF58BY
You spend half or more of your waking life staring into them, but what are they, how do they work and just how different are they?
Links An explanation of the North Korean mass games: https://www.koryogroup.com/travel-guide/travel-guide-north-korea-mass-games
A 25 inch e-ink monitor: https://goodereader.com/blog/electronic-readers/onyx-boox-mira-pro-is-a-25-inch-e-ink-monitor
Holographic display: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-EA2FQXs4dw
Hollywood can produced some great entertainment, but their concept of technology is often somewhat loosely connected with reality.
In this episode I talk about 3 misconceptions that Hollywood seem to have about technology.