The Nostalgic Nerds Podcast
Episodes
Phosphor Glow (S2E11 Bonus)
26 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Send us Fan MailS2E11 is out tomorrow. Here's the theme song for the episode "Phosphor Glow."Renee and Marc both love the movie WarGame...
S2E10 - You Killed Your Tamagotchi and Now You Trust AI
20 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Send us Fan MailThe Tamagotchi (たまごっち) was a three-button egg that beeped when it was hungry, beeped when it was bored, and beeped when it w...
Egg Friend (S2E10 Bonus)
19 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Send us Fan MailIt must be kismet, because we didn't plan to talk about digital Egg Friend's right around the beginning of spring and Easter...
S2E9 - CAPTCHA Stolen Cognition
12 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Send a textCAPTCHA was supposed to keep the bots out. A simple lock on a simple door. Instead, it became one of the largest unpaid labour operations i...
I Clicked For You (S2E9 Bonus)
12 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Send a textThe song conveys that angst of clicking CAPTCHA and feeling neglected, feeling used. At the end, we had to prove we were real. But our work...
S2E8 - Neural Nets: The Assembly Line of Thought
05 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Send a textHenry Ford didn't invent the car. He turned building one into a series of motions so simple that no single worker needed to understand...
Punch That Card (S2E8 Bonus)
05 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Send a textFor this episode, how could we not write a song about punchcards? But, the whole episode is about patterns, optimisation, and mostly reduct...
S2E7 - The Age of Tiny Lights (LEDs)
27 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Send a textIn S2E7, The Age of Tiny Lights, Renee and Marc trace the story of LEDs from a childhood electronics kit with a single red indicator to the...
Blue Underneath (S2E7 Bonus)
26 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Send a textAs with most of our songs, the point is to be a bit absurd. Who writes a song about Vulcanised Rubber, or Shipping Containers? Nobody. But ...
Six O'Clock News (S2E6 Bonus)
21 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Send a textEpisode 6's bonus track. When we started recording the episode about News tech, Renee called for a moment of silence for Dan Rather. A...
S2E6 - Who Controls the News?
19 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Send a textIn this episode of The Nostalgic Nerds Podcast, S2E6 – Who Controls the News?, Renee and Marc examine the machinery behind the headlines....
S2E5 - Tape: Tough, Tested, Tenacious
13 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Send a textIn this episode of The Nostalgic Nerds Podcast, Tape: Tough, Tested, Tenacious, Renee and Marc explore the humble roll that holds the moder...
S2E4 - The Quiet Power of Batteries
06 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Send us a textIn this episode of The Nostalgic Nerds Podcast, Renee and Marc dive into the quiet power of batteries. A technology we depend on constan...
S2E3 - The Internet We Lost
30 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Send us a textThanks for listening. Please rate and share with friends and family. It really helps!In this episode of The Nostalgic Nerds Podcast, Mar...
GeoCities (You Let Me Be Ugly) S2E3 Bonus Track
29 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Send us a textOk, nerds. If you're a consistent listener, you know we've been creating companion songs to the episodes. This episode's...
S2E2 - Blue Boxes, SIM Swaps, and the Myth of Secure Phones
22 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Send us a textIn this episode of The Nostalgic Nerds Podcast, S2E2 – Blue Boxes, SIM Swaps, and the Myth of Secure Phones, Renee and Marc go from th...
The Long Distance Blues (S2E2 Bonus)
22 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Send us a textS2E2 - Blue Boxes, SIM Swaps, and the Myth of Secure PhonesIn this week's episode, Renee and Marc dial through the history of telec...
S2E1 - The AI Gigawatt Thirst Trap
16 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Send us a textWe're back with our first episode of Season 2 - The AI Gigawatt Thirst Trap. It was nice to have a little break, but Marc and Renee...
Gigawatt AI Thirst Trap
16 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Send us a textThe first song for season 2 - The AI Gigawatt Thirst TrapIn our very first episode, we talked about electricity usage in the new class o...
Elastic Hearts (Oh, Vulcanised Rubber)
20 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Send us a textElastic Hears (Oh, Vulcanised Rubber)[Verse]Born from heat and sulfur’s kissA miracle we can’t dismissTougher than the strongest thr...
S1E17 - Built on Rubber!
19 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Send us a textQuick note - a few audio drop outs here and there. Tried to edit around them, but nothing too serious and you'll get the gist in al...
Steel Titans of the World - An Ode to Shipping Containers
12 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Send us a textJust a bit of fun from Renee and I. If you're a listener, you know that Marc believes that double-entry bookkeeping might be the mo...
S1E16 - The (Shipping) Container Monologues
12 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Send us a textEveryone loves fast delivery, but nobody loves thinking about how it works. In this episode, we dig into the overlooked story of logisti...
S1E15 - Bubbles Build the Big Stuff: How Overhyped Tech Leaves Us Infrastructure We Rely On
05 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Send us a textCome for the canals and railroads. Stay for the part where Marc and Renee admit AI might just be the next overbuilt mess we rely on.In t...
Bubbles Build the Big Stuff (Trailer)
04 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Send us a textCome for the canals and railroads. Stay for the part where Marc and Renee admit AI might just be the next overbuilt mess we rely on.Join...
S1E14 - Cinema Reels and Digital Revolutions
28 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Send us a textCinema is built on technology, from the shape of the very first movie frame to the LED walls and AI tools used today. In this episode, M...
Cinema Reels and Digital Revolutions (Trailer)
27 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Send us a textHollywood has tried every trick to keep us in the dark, from anamorphic lenses to lasers and LED walls. Renee and Marc unpack a century ...
Please Enter Your Password...Again (trailer)
15 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Send us a textJust a bit of B roll from Renee's story about Russian's listening in to her recording.Join Renee and Marc as they discuss tech...
S1E13 - Please Enter Your Password… Again
14 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Send us a textRenee and Marc break down the evolution of authentication in recent times. RSA tokens. The rise of mobile authenticators. The not-so-lon...
S1E12 - From Shells to Stablecoins: The Tech of Money
06 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Send us a textMarc once again drags Renee into a museum. This time the “Hall of Money." Five thousand years of humans trying (and mostly failin...
S1E11 Tech Ethics: A Short History of Doing It Anyway
31 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Send us a textWarning up front - we discuss some ethical conundrums and situations with tech. There's one mention of suicide and we talk about th...
S1E10 - Your Printer Hates You. And Now It Can Build Things
24 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Send us a textPrinters used to be the villains of the office...loud, cranky, and prone to eating your best work right before a deadline. But somewhere...
S1E8b - Barnum Would’ve Loved the Bots: The Digital Freakshow (Part 2)
17 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Send us a textWelcome to the second half of our big-top breakdown, where the circus goes digital, and the clowns have ring lights. Wait...did we just ...
S1E8 - Barnum Would’ve Loved the Bots: The Rise of Agentic Advertising Part 1
10 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Send us a textStep right up and join Marc and Renee in this captivating episode of The Nostalgic Nerds Podcast where they embark on an exhilarating jo...
S1E6b - Throughput, Thrills, and Theme Parks
03 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Send us a textThis is Part 2 of our 2 part Theme Park episode!Roller coasters and databases have the same issues: concurrency, throughput, and panic w...
S1E6a - Throughput, Thrills, and Theme Parks
30 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Send us a textRoller coasters and databases have the same issues: concurrency, throughput, and panic when things go wrong. Theme parks are basically e...
S1E5 - From Clippy to Agentic AI
11 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Send us a textFrom Clippy’s awkward pop-ups to agentic AI plotting your next conquest, Marc and Renee laugh through the evolution of digital assista...
S1E4 - Bat Boy and How Algorithms Ate the Urban Legend
05 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Send us a textHold onto your tabloids! This week on the Nostalgic Nerds Podcast, Renee Murphy and Marc Massar explore the wild frontier where technolo...
S1E3 - Sears, Amazon, and the Eternal Catalog
28 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Send us a textTo answer the burning questions from the episode - Could you buy dogs from the Sears catalog? Yes.Could you buy narcotics from the Sears...
S1E2 - Your Own Hyperlocal Meteorologist in Your Pocket - The Nostalgic Nerds Podcast
21 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Send us a textTune in for hot takes, cold fronts, and a 70% chance of questionable metaphors.In this episode, Renee and Marc of the Nostalgic Nerds Po...
The Nostalgic Nerds Podcast - The AI Gigawatt Hunger
15 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Send us a textGreat Scott! 150 NFL Football Stadiums running at night - all at the same time. That's how much energy a new Wyoming AI data center...