Good Geek! The five listener-supported Pacifica radio stations (in
Berkeley, Los Angeles, Houston, Washington, and New York) are hotbeds of amateur
production values, internecine staff wars, Production quality and politics aside, the Houston station, KPFT, has one of the most carefully guarded cyber-secrets around: the best weekly computer show in the world. It's called "Technology Bytes," and it's on from 8 to 10 p.m. (Central time) every Wednesday. (Don't stop reading! Below, you'll find out how you can hear it streamed on the Internet.) Hosts Jay Lee and Peter Hughes devote the first 20 to 30 minutes of the show to computer news, then they open the phone lines and become the best pair of Mr. Fixit's you can imagine. Calls pour in for the next hour and a half from listeners whose levels of expertise ranges from zero ("I just got a computer. How do I turn it on?") to mega-geek ("I'm having a little trouble tweaking my wireless Superstring XZK05 home network card and my 14 home computers since I installed a T-1 connection"). What redeems the show-- more than redeems it, what makes the show worth listening to every week, in addition to the often useful information you pick up, is the personalities and interplay of the hosts. Have you ever heard "Car Talk" on NPR? Imagine Tom and Ray Magliozzi without their Boston accents but with a laid-back Texas attitude, endless, good-natured patience with callers, a great sense of humor, and you've got Jay Lee and Peter Hughes. Wait. I forgot to mention their continuous, subtle (and sometimes not so subtle) self-deprecation. At the same time that these guys take EVERY caller seriously, they never take themselves totally seriously, no matter how dumb or fractious the question. Add in the fact that they are on a Pacifica station (listener- supported, no sponsors), and that means Jay and Peter also take delight in NOT taking seriously the endless stream of hype that flows in and out of the computer industry. Sacred cyber-cows are one of their favorite targets. Unlike certain other computer shows on radio and TV, Technology Bytes tells you if the $300 video card you're about to buy (or just bought) is a piece of crap. But they'll also then spend thirty minutes of air-time trying to help you figure out how to make it work. These guys could teach lower-level Zen Buddhists a thing or two about patience. The capper is this: More often than not, they know what they're talking about. On those rare occasions when they don't, they're the first to admit it, and then appeal to listeners who may know something to call in and help. Now for the really good part: You don't have to be in Houston to hear the show. You don't even have to listen on Wednesday's. If you want to listen on Wednesday, it's streamed live to the Internet through www.texan.net. If you don't want to listen on Wednesday, the show is archived at www.technologybytes.com. In either case, you'll need the Windows media player to listen. Informative AND entertaining AND funny: What more could you
ask?
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unreliable signals, untrained hosts... and more truth than you'll get from all
the other stations on your radio dial put together.