Call Clooney!

737 Sculley and Heil (2015-07-09)

Show 737 album art
0:00:00Echoing introduction by JCD for prerecorded vacation “filler” show
0:01:23JCD’s interview with former Apple CEO John Sculley on the occasion of his new book Moon Shot, “market effect” shifting control from companies to customers, generalization of word of mouth advertising, JCD’s “best weed whacker” search vs crowdsourcing, Über as infrastructure company, Napster driving sales of CDs and “customers paying attention to other customers”
0:12:35Intel and Microsoft caught flat footed by rise of mobile platforms, Steve Jobs’ practice of “zooming” to include more than computer industry, “Steve’s brilliance was he knew how to simplify it”; Mac-native Mosaic browser as unexploited opportunity to corner the market, EWorld based on AOL technology licensed as result of late-80s payroll bailout, Marc Andreessen networking HyperCard prototyping tool with UIUC Cray supercomputers, Apple Knowledge Navigator as prototype for Netscape, Acorn’s first ARM prototype for the Newton
0:27:12France 24 profile on Sculley’s InflexionPoint telecommunications company focused on South and Southeast Asia and Africa, Obi phone designed in Silicon Valley with optimizations for battery life, $100-300 price point with 2x markup, brief flirtation with BlackBerry acquisition, “very little difference, inside the bottle, between a Pepsi and a Coke”, Microsoft still losing money on Nokia acquisition, lessons learned about US markets from early days of MetroPCS
0:40:23Apple integrating “vertical platforms” like healthcare, prediction of iOS-like Mac running on ARM, Samsung’s Tizen OS for appliances; IoT and “digitization of work” in manufacturing with the likes of GE and Cisco, “smart cities” traffic and parking management, predictions of $17T industry by 2030, JCD’s nearby adaptive stoplight sensors; predictions for “consumerization of healthcare”, research into PTSD and sleep apnea
1:01:49JCD dvorak.org/na plug, introduction for sound engineer Bob Heil
1:02:35Heil’s home in the wilds of Missouri; introduction to amateur radio by a friend at age twelve, work tuning Fox Theater organ pipe harmonics by ear, recent organ concerts in Oklahoma, standardization of Wurlitzer organ consoles; small Hammond organ franchise in Southern Illinois visited by kids toting tube guitar amplifiers, recovery of Altec A4 speakers thrown out by Fox Theater later used by Jerry Garcia, “The Night Rock & Roll Sound Was Born” article, friendship with Joe Walsh WB6ACU, high power talk box created for Rocky Mountain Way
1:22:40Development of 2-5Hz subsonic audio weapon by Paul Klipsch, “one-room schoolhouse” laboratory basement full of experiment “carcasses”, organist George Wright’s Quiet Village; early 1980s transition to microphones in response to lack of “articulate” audio in Yaesu and Kenwood amateur radio equipment, July 1982 QST article with audio equalizer circuit, use of Heil equipment on DXpeditions; side-by-side comparison with Chinese-made Shure SM58 and Heil PR 35, “a microphone is an instrument” even 90° off axis, PR 40 “the god of the podcasters”, antenna phasing theory applied to microphone design
1:44:49No interest in modernizing the 1940s-vintage condenser microphone, “no good rear rejection”, potential for addressing lavalier shortcomings, JCD’s PR 40 recommendation; addressing potential component quality issues with roving “parts broker”; importance of final listening test; microphone longevity vs the pitfalls of Ebay; why you should never blow into a microphone, rapper-proof PR 35, boron-iron alloy in voice coil; high sensitivity and excessive weight of ribbon microphones; PR 30 cut in two by Bob Workman to create PR 31 BW, Johnny Carson’s RCA microphone on David Letterman’s desk stolen and replaced by the crew
2:09:46JCD outro, “this is how we do them if we’re gonna do them at all”; “amazing” compilation