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Episode 6's bonus track. When we started recording the episode about News tech, Renee called for a moment of silence for Dan Rather. And I found it sort of funny and silly at the time. Which was fine. But when it came time to write the lyrics and music for the song for the episode, I knew it had to be about Dan Rather. Or maybe, about the time in which Dan Rather was present in the minds of America.

This is a call back to the 80's and to Dan Rather as a human. His famous "Courage" sign off was ridiculed when he said it earlier in his career, but he meant it. People believed it. They took it to heart. And when he ended his run on the news he said it again at a time when people needed to hear it.

It is sad that words like his are drowned out by the vitriol and virality of engagement fodder. I think we need more reminders of the strength of the human spirit.

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In this episode of The Nostalgic Nerds Podcast, S2E6 – Who Controls the News?, Renee and Marc examine the machinery behind the headlines.

There was a time when the news arrived at a predictable hour, delivered by a familiar face, framed by a studio camera and a glowing red light. It felt intentional and limited. Today, information moves constantly, personalised, accelerated, filtered, and optimised.

So what changed?

It wasn’t simply ideology or journalistic standards. It was infrastructure.

Printing presses, telegraph lines, broadcast towers, cable networks, search engines, and algorithmic feeds each reshaped who gets to decide what spreads, and how fast. Speed altered incentives. Incentives altered behaviour. Over time, the systems themselves began shaping what counts as news.

We explore how broadcast studios once acted as gates, how 24-hour cable blurred urgency into permanence, how the internet turned publishing into software, and how social platforms made engagement the dominant currency. When distribution changes, power changes. When power shifts, public trust shifts with it.

The anxious question is now, "Who controls the mechanisms that determine what reaches us?"

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In this episode of The Nostalgic Nerds Podcast, Tape: Tough, Tested, Tenacious, Renee and Marc explore the humble roll that holds the modern world together.

What starts with a strip of Deltec Purple in an art project turns into a deep dive into adhesive history. From early gummed paper and Depression-era Scotch tape to duct tape in wartime garages, tape quietly proliferates through the 20th century, evolving from simple packaging fix to engineered material.

Along the way, they unpack how tape actually works (backing materials, pressure-sensitive adhesives, shear vs peel), why 3M’s Richard Drew mattered, and how tape went from desk drawer convenience to something specified in CAD models.

Modern tape isn’t just sticky; it’s structural. From high-strength acrylic bonding systems like VHB that replace rivets and welds, to tunable adhesion used in semiconductor manufacturing, tape has become an engineered solution to tension, vibration, heat, and time.

It’s temporary and permanent. Disposable and structural. Invisible and essential.

All on a roll.

Featuring the Nostalgic Nerds Podcast Players' song "(Tape) A Sticky Saviour

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In this episode of The Nostalgic Nerds Podcast, Renee and Marc dive into the quiet power of batteries. A technology we depend on constantly but almost never think about.

From early chemical experiments to modern lithium-ion systems, they explore what batteries really are, why controlling energy release is so difficult, and how energy density quietly shaped the devices, behaviours, and expectations we take for granted today. Along the way, they unpack rechargeable myths, lithium’s rise, supply-chain realities, and why batteries still feel like the weakest link in a world that refuses to slow down.

It’s a conversation about chemistry, trust, infrastructure, and the hidden systems that keep everything running...long after dark.

Spoiler: the battery isn’t failing us. It’s just the only honest part of the system.

Featuring the Nostalgic Nerds Players song "Hold the Spark."

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Thanks for listening. Please rate and share with friends and family. It really helps!

In this episode of The Nostalgic Nerds Podcast, Marc and Renee reflect on the internet we lost and the early promise of a global commons that rewarded curiosity, wit, and genuine insight.

They explore how identity, scale, and memory shaped early online communities, why empathy felt possible in smaller spaces, and how engagement-driven incentives quietly rewired behaviour as the internet grew.

What emerged wasn’t the place many of us hoped for, but an environment optimised for attention, outrage, and monetised conflict. A place that’s now deeply resistant to change.

This isn’t nostalgia for dial-up speeds or blinking cursors (there's some of that). It’s a reckoning with what we were trying to build, what we actually built, and what it might take to do better next time.

Featuring the episode companion song "GeoCities (You Let Me Be Ugly)"

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Ok, nerds. If you're a consistent listener, you know we've been creating companion songs to the episodes.

This episode's song is a longing lament to one of the Internet's lost loves - GeoCities. GeoCities was where the ugly world wide web was born. And it's gone.

So, enjoy a little love lost song about a piece of the Internet We Lost.

Here's the lyrics:

[verse 1]
I built you out of borrowed code
Midnight blue and blinking gold
Every page a little wrong
But you never said I was wrong

[verse 2]
Frames inside of frames inside
Hit counters climbing with my pride
Comic Sans and broken plans
You never laughed, you held my hands

[pre-chorus]
Before the feeds, before the noise
Before the numbers found my voice
Before the crowd became the point

[chorus]
You let me be ugly
You let me be real
Before the world told me
How I should feel
No polish, no promise
No need to explain
You let me be ugly
And I loved you the same

[verse 3]
Neighborhoods along the way
Strangers waving, come and stay
Under construction, always was
But no one asked me what I was

[pre-chorus]
Before the likes, before the reach
Before the metrics learned to teach
Before we sold what we could feel

[chorus]
You let me be ugly
You let me be real
Before the world told me
How I should feel
No polish, no promise
No need to explain
You let me be ugly
And I loved you the same

[bridge]
Then everyone came
And the doors stayed wide
The rooms got louder
Nowhere to hide
You didn’t leave me
You just dissolved
Buried in noise
Nothing resolved

[final chorus]
You let me be ugly
You let me be kind
Before the whole world
Wanted my mind
If I build you again
It won’t look the same
But I miss how you loved me
Before the game

[outro]
Just a dead link now
In archive light
But you felt like home
On a dial-up night

Join Renee and Marc as they discuss tech topics with a view on their nostalgic pasts in tech that help them understand today's challenges and tomorrow's potential.

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In this episode of The Nostalgic Nerds Podcast, S2E2 – Blue Boxes, SIM Swaps, and the Myth of Secure Phones, Renee and Marc go from the days when long-distance calls were timed with a stopwatch to a world where your phone number quietly doubles as your identity. Along the way, they unpack Blue Boxes, SIM swaps, eSIMs, SS7, and why modern phone “security” is mostly about trust… and who the network feels like believing today.

Spoiler: it’s not a bug. It’s a feature… from 1975.

Join Renee and Marc as they discuss tech topics with a view on their nostalgic pasts in tech that help them understand today's challenges and tomorrow's potential.

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S2E2 - Blue Boxes, SIM Swaps, and the Myth of Secure Phones

In this week's episode, Renee and Marc dial through the history of telecom fraud and hacking. But more importantly we even talk about some things you can do to protect yourself.

Here's a companion song for the episode. The Long Distance Blues

[Verse 1]

Mama said
“Keep it short
Every minute costs a dime”
Clock on the wall
Second hand
Watching every line
Static on the wire
Voice coming through
Paid a little piece of me
Every time I talked to you

[Verse 2]

Now the line stays open
Day and night
Doesn’t cost a thing
To say “you alright?”
But somewhere past the dial tone
Past the copper and the truth
The line learned how to travel
Without asking me or you

[Chorus]

Got the long distance blues
But the distance ain’t the miles
It’s the space between the promise
And the voice I don’t know now
Used to pay in quarters
Used to hear it click
Now it’s free as falling water
And twice as hard to fix

[Verse 3]

Didn’t hear it break
Didn’t hear it bend
Just one day
The voice on the other end
Wasn’t quite where I left it
Wasn’t quite mine
Like a train that keeps on rolling
Long after it left the line

[Bridge]

Old switches humming
In a locked back room
Built for a world
That was smaller
Soon
Trust was the tariff
Distance the fee
Now the bill comes due
Somewhere I can’t see

[Final Chorus]

Got the long distance blues
But the distance ain’t the miles
It’s the space between the promise
And the voice I don’t know now
Used to pay in quarters
Used to hear it click
Now it’s free as falling water
And twice as hard to fix

[Outro]

Used to count the minutes
Now I count on trust
Funny how the cheap things
Cost us the most

Join Renee and Marc as they discuss tech topics with a view on their nostalgic pasts in tech that help them understand today's challenges and tomorrow's potential.

email us at nostalgicnerdspodcast@gmail.com

Come visit us at https://www.nostalgicnerdspodcast.com/episodes or wherever you get your podcasts.