Lore in the Machine

Daina Bouquin

Every line of code has a story. Most of us just never hear it.

Episodes

  1. 5D AGO

    Lipstick and Runes

    Look at your phone settings. There's a small angular icon there that you've probably never thought about much. It's a bind rune showing two characters from the ancient Younger Futhark alphabet, fused together. It's on billions of devices worldwide. How that symbol ended up there is two stories, separated by half a century, that have no business belonging together. One starts with a Hollywood actress listening at a dinner table full of fascists. The other starts with two engineers bombing a pitch meeting and ending up in a Canadian pub. In this episode Hedy Lamarr - after the cameras and the dinner partiesThe patent - a collaboration and what the Navy said about itTwo engineers in a pub - a failed pitch meeting and a conversation about Vikings and a Danish kingEpisode Music: "Morning Bell" by James Opie / Nihilore, CC BY 4.0"Noctivagant (Orchestral Version)" by James Opie / Nihilore, CC BY 4.0"Moonlit Skyline" by James Opie / Nihilore, CC BY 4.0Support the show Lore in the Machine is a podcast about the hidden histories living inside the tools we use every day. Hosted by Daina Bouquin. If you enjoyed this episode, please consider leaving a rating and review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. It really helps others find the show. You can follow the show on Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok. Theme music: "Sparkwood & 21" by James Opie / Nihilore, CC BY 4.0 The Lore in the Machine podcast is independently produced. You can support it with a coffee.

    11 min

  2. 5D AGO

    Down the Rabbit Hole: Drink Me, Eat Me, README

    Every software project has one. It's easy to scroll past. Most of the time it's just a manual telling you system requirements, installation steps, and known bugs. But the README file owes a debt to Lewis Carroll, and a quiet trick built into its name that has been manipulating computers for decades. In this episode, we follow the README from its earliest appearances through the conventions that made it a standard, and to the programmers who decided it could be much more than documentation. In this episode Alice's Adventures in Wonderland - the literary origin programmers point to as inspirationThe ASCII trick - the quiet reason README is written in all capitalsThe printer in the woods - a README that went somewhere unexpectedFurther reading README file entry in the Jargon FileEpisode Music "Dasein" by James Opie / Nihilore, CC BY 4.0"Scarecrow" by James Opie / Nihilore, CC BY 4.0"Found Poetry" by James Opie / Nihilore, CC BY 4.0Support the show Lore in the Machine is a podcast about the hidden histories living inside the tools we use every day. Hosted by Daina Bouquin. If you enjoyed this episode, please consider leaving a rating and review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. It really helps others find the show. You can follow the show on Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok. Theme music: "Sparkwood & 21" by James Opie / Nihilore, CC BY 4.0 The Lore in the Machine podcast is independently produced. You can support it with a coffee.

    8 min

  3. 5D AGO

    The Bug, The Cat, and The Wooden Mouse

    On December 9th, 1968, a Stanford researcher named Douglas Engelbart took the stage in San Francisco and showed a thousand computer professionals something they had never seen: text editing, clickable links, and video conferencing, all controlled by a small wooden block with a wire trailing out the back. The audience gave him a standing ovation. One witness said he was "dealing lightning with both hands." But the mouse didn't begin with Engelbart. In this episode, we follow the surprisingly tangled history of the world's most common computer peripheral and its origins as a Cold War secret. We'll also find out why your cursor is tilted at a 45 degree angle. In this episode The Mother of All Demos - the 1968 presentation that changed computing, and the device at the center of itDATAR - a classified Cold War radar project, and an unlikely contribution to computing historyThe Rollkugel - a German parallel invention and a patent rejectionXerox PARC and Apple - how the mouse finally reached the worldEpisode Music: "Brocken Spectre" by James Opie / Nihilore, CC BY 4.0"Shape of a Gun" by James Opie / Nihilore, CC BY 4.0"Hedgehog's Dilemma" by James Opie / Nihilore, CC BY 4.0"Eternal Light" by James Opie / Nihilore, CC BY 4.0Support the show Lore in the Machine is a podcast about the hidden histories living inside the tools we use every day. Hosted by Daina Bouquin. If you enjoyed this episode, please consider leaving a rating and review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. It really helps others find the show. You can follow the show on Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok. Theme music: "Sparkwood & 21" by James Opie / Nihilore, CC BY 4.0 The Lore in the Machine podcast is independently produced. You can support it with a coffee.

    10 min

  4. 5D AGO

    UFOs, Model Trains, and Code's 'Sacred Syllable'

    Every programmer knows foo. It's the placeholder name, the stand-in variable, the "insert name here" of software development. But where did it actually come from? In this episode, we trace the history of foo and bar in programming back through three unlikely chapters: a Depression-era comic strip, a WWII air squadron, and a group of MIT students who built a computer underneath a model train set. It's a story that runs through hacker culture, computing folklore, and one very strange corner of World War II history. Along the way, we find out what any of it has to do with bar. In this episode: Bill Holman and Smokey Stover - a 1930s comic strip and the catchphrase that accidentally entered the computing lexiconThe Foo Fighters - not the band; the original phenomenon, and the airmen who named itThe Tech Model Railroad Club - MIT's legendary hacker origin story, and why their emergency switch matters more than you'd thinkEpisode music:  "Procrastination Rag (1927)" by George L. Cobb,  Public Domain"The Illusion of Cold" by James Opie / Nihilore, CC BY 4.0"Man Alone Chimes the Hour" by James Opie / Nihilore, CC BY 4.0Support the show Lore in the Machine is a podcast about the hidden histories living inside the tools we use every day. Hosted by Daina Bouquin. If you enjoyed this episode, please consider leaving a rating and review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. It really helps others find the show. You can follow the show on Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok. Theme music: "Sparkwood & 21" by James Opie / Nihilore, CC BY 4.0 The Lore in the Machine podcast is independently produced. You can support it with a coffee.

    9 min

  5. SEASON 1, EPISODE 1 TRAILER

    Trailer: Stories From Beyond the Screen

    Every function, framework, and flicker of code has a story.     Introducing Lore in the Machine, a new podcast hosted by Daina Bouquin that uncovers the hidden histories and surprising origins woven into the fabric of computing. Join us as we look beyond the glass screens to find the jokes, late-night desperation, and impossible dreams that built our digital world.    The first episodes are loading. Find Lore in the Machine on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or your favorite podcast app. Support the show Lore in the Machine is a podcast about the hidden histories living inside the tools we use every day. Hosted by Daina Bouquin. If you enjoyed this episode, please consider leaving a rating and review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. It really helps others find the show. You can follow the show on Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok. Theme music: "Sparkwood & 21" by James Opie / Nihilore, CC BY 4.0 The Lore in the Machine podcast is independently produced. You can support it with a coffee.

    2 min

Trailer

About

Every line of code has a story. Most of us just never hear it.

Information

  • Creator
    Daina Bouquin
  • Years Active
    2K
  • Episodes
    5
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © 2026 Lore in the Machine
  • Show Website
    Lore in the Machine