Lore in the Machine: Forgotten Tech History

Daina Bouquin
  • 5.0(3개의 평가)
  • 과학 기술
  • 격주 업데이트

Every line of code has a story. Most of us just never hear it. Lore in the Machine is a narrative technology podcast about the forgotten history of computing, software, and the internet. Each episode uncovers the true story behind a piece of computing history or internet lore to surface the forgotten people, decisions, and accidents that quietly shaped the digital world. If you love history of technology, computer history, unexpected origin stories, and tech storytelling that goes deeper than the headlines, this show is for you. New episodes every other week.

에피소드

  1. 6시간 전

    I’m Not a Robot: The Internet's Human Test

    You’ve done this so many times you don’t think about it anymore. A box appears. You squint at some blurry letters, type them out, check the box. Sometimes it works on the first try. Sometimes it doesn’t. Either way, you move on in about ten seconds. You probably didn’t know that those ten seconds were going somewhere. For years, hundreds of millions of people solving these security tests were quietly doing something else entirely. They were rescuing forgotten history that computers couldn’t read on their own. In 1950, Alan Turing proposed a test where machines tried to pass as human. Half a century later, a graduate student at Carnegie Mellon inverted it. The machine would do the judging. And the humans would get to work. In this episode Alan Turing and the imitation game - the 1950 thought experiment that set the terms for artificial intelligence, and how CAPTCHA turned it inside outLuis von Ahn and Manuel Blum - the Carnegie Mellon graduate student and his professor who built the wall between humans and botsThe New York Times archive - 13 million articles dating back to 1851, 20 percent unreadable by computers, and the internet history hiding inside that problemreCAPTCHA - the internet security test that quietly became one of the largest digital archiving projects in historyGoogle Books - how a billion people unwittingly helped build the library, one blurry word at a time​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​reCAPTCHA v3 - the version that doesn’t ask you anything at all Episode Music James Opie / Nihilore, CC BY 4.0"Whispers Invoke Paranoia""Do Not Look Back""Artifice" Chapters 00:00 Intro music 00:19 The test 01:25 The Imitation Game 02:03 Luis Von Ahn and Manuel Blum 02:47 CAPTCHA is born 03:40 The invisible factory 04:03 The New York Times archive 04:51 reCAPTCHA 06:21 Google Books 06:52 The machines need to see 07:37 reCAPTCHA v3 Support the show Lore in the Machine is a narrative technology podcast about the forgotten history of computing, software, and the internet. Hosted by Daina Bouquin, each episode uncovers the true story behind a piece of computer history. These are the forgotten people, decisions, and accidents that quietly shaped the digital world.  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 YouTube, Instagram, and Facebook. You can support it with a coffee.

    9분

  2. 4월 14일

    The Silent Duel: David Blackwell and the Math Inside AI

    Two people walk toward each other on a dirt road. One bullet each. In a normal duel, a missed shot makes a sound. But in a silent duel, a miss would be invisible. You wouldn't know if your opponent was holding their fire, or had already taken their one shot. How would you know when to stop walking and take your own? In 2024, NVIDIA named the most powerful piece of AI hardware ever built after the man who spent his career thinking about this exact problem. His name was David Blackwell. In this episode David Blackwell: brilliant professor and researcher at the RAND Corporation. Seventh African American to earn a PhD in mathematics.Kriegsspiel: the blind chess variant that Blackwell played daily.Blackwell's silent duel: a thought experiment from Cold War-era game theory, and why related math ended up in machine learning textbooks.The economist's question: the most important question in the world at that moment, asked in good faith, and why every mathematician Blackwell knew gave the same useless answer. Episode Music James Opie / Nihilore, CC BY 4.0"Anti-Nostalgia""Who Are You At War With Now?""Alter Ego" Additional Notes If you'd like to hear more about David Blackwell from the man himself: David Blackwell, "An Oral History with David Blackwell," conducted by Nadine Wilmot in 2002 and 2003, Regional Oral History Office, The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley, 2003.  Chapters 00:00 Intro music 00:21 The Silent Duel 01:35 Kriegsspiel at RAND 03:21 David Blackwell background 04:50 An Economist asks a question 06:06 Jimmy Savage on statistics 07:01 Approachability Theory 07:43 NVIDIA names a Chip 08:03 AI and LLMs walk the duel -- Support the show Lore in the Machine is a narrative technology podcast about the forgotten history of computing, software, and the internet. Hosted by Daina Bouquin, each episode uncovers the true story behind a piece of computer history. These are the forgotten people, decisions, and accidents that quietly shaped the digital world.  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 YouTube, Instagram, and Facebook. You can support it with a coffee.

    11분

  3. 3월 31일

    Strangers with Keys: A Ritual to Secure the Internet

    Four times a year, a small group of people pack their bags and fly to a secure facility in Virginia or California. They submit to retina scanners and palm readers. They enter a metal cage inside a signal-proof room. They turn physical keys in unison. They are not spies. They are volunteers. And they are there to perform a ritual that prevents the internet's core directory from being poisoned.  If you build a master key for the internet, who do you trust to hold it? In this episode The Ceremony of the Keys - the 700-year-old nightly ritual at the Tower of London, and what it has to do with cyber securityThe Crypto Officers - who they are, and what they carryThe Ritual - over 100 scripted steps, a self-destructing lockbox, and a laptop with no memoryThe things that went wrong - because they do Episode Music James Opie / Nihilore, CC BY 4.0"Like an Empty Kaleidoscope""Single Lane Tunnel""The Absurd""Iconoclast" Additional Notes This episode is the follow-up to Episode 5: "Poison in the Cache." You don't need to have heard it first, but it rewards the listen. If you want to see this ritual for yourself, you actually can. Because the root signing relies on radical transparency, every step is scripted, filmed, and published for the world to see. The next ceremony is scheduled for April 30, 2026. The full list of ceremonies is available via the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority.  Chapters 00:00 Intro music 00:19 The Tower of London 01:12 The Kaminsky Bug 01:49 The Master Key 02:18 Crypto Officers 02:52 The Ritual 07:25 Errors 7:53 Backup Key Holders and cleaners 09:02 The Internet is Secured -- Support the show Lore in the Machine is a narrative technology podcast about the forgotten history of computing, software, and the internet. Hosted by Daina Bouquin, each episode uncovers the true story behind a piece of computer history. These are the forgotten people, decisions, and accidents that quietly shaped the digital world.  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 YouTube, Instagram, and Facebook. You can support it with a coffee.

    12분

  4. 3월 17일

    Poison in the Cache: Dan Kaminsky Saves the Internet

    Every time you type a web address, you're trusting a directory. A vast, invisible system that translates the names you know into the numbers that actually move data across the internet. You trust it the way a town trusts its well. In 2008, a security researcher named Dan Kaminsky discovered that the well had no lid. In this episode DNS - what the Domain Name System is, and why it mattersDan Kaminsky - security researcher and internet advocate Cache poisoning - the class of attack Dan Kaminsky found hiding in the internet's foundationThe patch - a secret meeting, fierce competitors, a deadline, and a synchronized global fixTrudy Kaminsky - Dan's mother, and a legend in her own right Episode Music James Opie / Nihilore, CC BY 4.0"Closest Strangers""Single Lane Tunnel" "The Dweller on the Threshold""A Different World by Night"  Additional Notes You can watch Dan Kaminsky explain the DNS flaw he found here. An audio only version is available here. He gave this talk at Black Ops 2008 after his original Black Hat presentation. Chapters 00:00 Intro music 00:20 The well 01:17 The DNS 02:00 Who was Dan Kaminsky? 02:41 The flaw 04:23 A secret meeting 05:29 A fix 06:26 RIP 07:15 A ritual for another day -- Support the show Lore in the Machine is a narrative technology podcast about the forgotten history of computing, software, and the internet. Hosted by Daina Bouquin, each episode uncovers the true story behind a piece of computer history. These are the forgotten people, decisions, and accidents that quietly shaped the digital world.  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 YouTube, Instagram, and Facebook. You can support it with a coffee.

    8분

  5. 3월 3일

    Lipstick and Runes: Hedy Lamarr and the History of Bluetooth

    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 king Episode Music James Opie / Nihilore, CC BY 4.0"Morning Bell" "Noctivagant (Orchestral Version)" "Moonlit Skyline" Chapters 00:00 Intro music 00:19 Hedy Lamarr and George Antheil 02:10 Hedy Lamarr's background  04:05 Frequency hopping with player pianos 05:14 A patent for the US Navy 06:23 Two engineers meet in a pub 06:59 Scandinavian history and Harald "Bluetooth" Gormsson 07:53 A code name for a new technology 08:47 Bluetooth history 09:22 It's about time -- Support the show Lore in the Machine is a narrative technology podcast about the forgotten history of computing, software, and the internet. Hosted by Daina Bouquin, each episode uncovers the true story behind a piece of computer history. These are the forgotten people, decisions, and accidents that quietly shaped the digital world.  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 YouTube, Instagram, and Facebook. You can support it with a coffee.

    11분

  6. 3월 3일

    Drink Me, Eat Me, README: What Programmers Learned from Alice in Wonderland

    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 unexpected Further reading README file entry in the Jargon File Episode Music James Opie / Nihilore, CC BY 4.0"Dasein" "Scarecrow" by James Opie / Nihilore, CC BY 4.0"Found Poetry" by James Opie / Nihilore, CC BY 4.0Chapters 00:00 Intro music 00:18 Alice at the bottom of the rabbit hole 01:16 Why programmers needed to borrow an idea from Lewis Carroll 02:03 The Jargon File 02:43 ALL CAPS 03:44 The README from 1974 04:48 A fairy tale 06:19 A helping hand -- Support the show Lore in the Machine is a narrative technology podcast about the forgotten history of computing, software, and the internet. Hosted by Daina Bouquin, each episode uncovers the true story behind a piece of computer history. These are the forgotten people, decisions, and accidents that quietly shaped the digital world.  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 YouTube, Instagram, and Facebook. You can support it with a coffee.

    8분

  7. 3월 3일

    The Bug, The Cat, and The Wooden Mouse: The Unexpected History of the Computer 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 world Episode Music James Opie / Nihilore, CC BY 4.0"Brocken Spectre""Shape of a Gun" "Hedgehog's Dilemma""Eternal Light"Chapters 00:00 Intro music 00:18 The Mother of All Demos 02:28 Radar towers and bowling balls 04:01 1960s California 04:36 The "bug" 05:17 The wooden block 05:40 The cat and mouse 06:04 Meanwhile in Germany 07:13 Evolution of the mouse 07:28 Why the cursor arrow is tilted 08:02 Lab mice -- Support the show Lore in the Machine is a narrative technology podcast about the forgotten history of computing, software, and the internet. Hosted by Daina Bouquin, each episode uncovers the true story behind a piece of computer history. These are the forgotten people, decisions, and accidents that quietly shaped the digital world.  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 YouTube, Instagram, and Facebook. You can support it with a coffee.

    10분

  8. 3월 3일

    UFOs, Model Trains, and Code's 'Sacred Syllable': How Foobar Got Its Name

    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 think Episode music  George L. Cobb,  Public Domain"Procrastination Rag (1927)"James Opie / Nihilore, CC BY 4.0"The Illusion of Cold""Man Alone Chimes the Hour"Chapters 00:00 Intro music 00:20 Meet Bill Holman and Smokey Stover 02:31 Metasyntactic variables 03:06 Meet Donald J. Meiers 04:19 Welcome to the Plywood Palace 06:34 Peter Samson defines "foo" 06:54 They grow up and need "bar" -- Support the show Lore in the Machine is a narrative technology podcast about the forgotten history of computing, software, and the internet. Hosted by Daina Bouquin, each episode uncovers the true story behind a piece of computer history. These are the forgotten people, decisions, and accidents that quietly shaped the digital world.  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 YouTube, Instagram, and Facebook. You can support it with a coffee.

    9분

  9. 시즌1 에피소드1 예고편

    Trailer: Unexpected Stories from Computing History

    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 narrative technology podcast about the forgotten history of computing, software, and the internet. Hosted by Daina Bouquin, each episode uncovers the true story behind a piece of computer history. These are the forgotten people, decisions, and accidents that quietly shaped the digital world.  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 YouTube, Instagram, and Facebook. You can support it with a coffee.

    2분

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Every line of code has a story. Most of us just never hear it. Lore in the Machine is a narrative technology podcast about the forgotten history of computing, software, and the internet. Each episode uncovers the true story behind a piece of computing history or internet lore to surface the forgotten people, decisions, and accidents that quietly shaped the digital world. If you love history of technology, computer history, unexpected origin stories, and tech storytelling that goes deeper than the headlines, this show is for you. New episodes every other week.

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