Aurie Styla: Tech Talk

Comedy of the Week

BBC

Comedy

4 • 2.8K Ratings

🗓️ 13 May 2024

⏱️ 15 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Stand-up comedian Aurie Styla, a 90s nerd, takes an autobiographical journey through technology history.

We begin in the early 90s, with the tinny sound of the Nintendo Game Boy and his first 13-inch television which only worked if asked very nicely, and he re-wired to show all the channels available - in total, four.

A technology lover since those days of that 13-inch TV and his first console, the Sega Master System – featuring ‘Alex Kidd In Miracle World’, the most frustrating video game of all time – Aurie has seen technology transform in a manner that would have been hard to believe in the 90s.

This show charts his personal relationship with machines, looking at the past (computer games that you had to load from cassette tapes), the present (houses that are lit and warmed via apps on your phone, cars that drive themselves without you) and the future (AIs that tell you how to dress and what to eat for dinner, and superior intelligences that command your every move whether you want to object or not).

Technology has moved on rapidly, from being a fun sideshow to the bedrock of our understanding of human life. Aurie guides us through this landscape with infectious wit, taking time to remember the awkward interface of MSN Messenger while also negotiating the modern culture of having to check with a virtual assistant before you turn your lights off. A warm, human show about the way the world has become less and less warm and human, celebrating the march of tech while being appropriately terrified of it.

An Impatient production for BBC Radio 4

Transcript

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0:00.0	Before you listen to this BBC podcast I'd like to introduce myself. My name's
0:04.0	Stevie Middleton and I'm a BBC Commissioner for a load of sport
0:07.5	podcasts. I'm lucky to do that at the BBC because I get to work with leading
0:11.1	journalists, experienced pundits and the biggest
0:13.3	sports stars. Together we bring you untold stories and fascinating insights
0:17.4	straight from the player's mouth. But the best thing about doing this at the BBC is
0:22.0	our unique access to the sporting world.
0:25.0	What that means is that we can bring you podcasts that create a real connection to
0:28.9	dedicated sports fans across the UK.
0:31.5	So if you like this podcast, head over to BBC Sounds where you'll find plenty more.
0:35.2	BBC Sounds Music Radio Podcasts.
0:40.4	I wanted a younger brother when I was nearly five years old someone to talk to to play with around the house so I wouldn't be the only child and I brought it to my mom you know a sad face you know really trying to ham it up so I can play to her emotions.
0:53.5	And I remember my mom crouched down to me and looked me in the eye and said,
0:57.5	have you measured the size of your head?
0:59.5	I ain't pushing another one of them out, man.
1:02.0	No way, we'll figure it out.
1:05.0	And that's the story of how I got my first TV in my bedroom.
1:08.0	Boom! Take tool. call a techie or tech nerd. Now it was typically not call where and when I grew up to be one, but now it's
1:26.2	all the craze to claim. There's even new terms for it. Like for example, if you're
1:30.0	black and a nerd, they like to say you're a blurt. It's a real thing. They tried
1:34.9	black and geek but bleak doesn't sound too. They even try black and techie but that
1:41.2	one sounds worse, especially with a South African accent.
	...

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