Tim Harford

speaker

636 appearances 2 recordings 1 series first heard Sep 2026 last heard 5d ago

Tim Harford’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

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recordings per month · last 12 months

Recordings per month over the last 12 months — 2 in all, peaking in Sep 2026 with 2.

Appearances

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Cautionary Tales with Tim Harford · Talent, Time and Money: The Curse of General Magic · 11 Sep 2026 podcast

And as Mark Peratt had explained back in the 1970s, eventually, everyone would have a portable communications device.

But not when it has a 200-page manual, is the size of a hardback book, and costs thousands of dollars.

Imagine that General Magic hadn't been trying to invent the future all at once and had instead decided to produce a useful tool for a clearly defined market.

Say, corporate executives who are often on the road.

Would the product have been different?

Well, let's see.

Would the product have had a portable panel of musical instruments as the Magic Link did?

Here's the Retro Roadshow YouTube channel demonstrating them.

No, I don't know what the purpose of it is either.

Scratch the musical instrument.

Would the product have had the Magic Link's cute animations of animals, where you could, say, pick up a cartoon cat and release it, and watch it tumble and then land on its feet?

So cute.

But no, you wouldn't.

Would the product have had massive animated emojis?

I mean, it's great to be able to attach a big walking lemon emoji to your messages, isn't it?

We don't really have a lot of processing power here, do we?

Or memory?

Or battery life?

So maybe we could just focus on some simpler personal productivity apps?

Would the product have had an animated toss a coin function?

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