Bad Voltage

Bad Voltage is a technology conversation show in which Jono Bacon, Jeremy Garcia and Stuart Langridge argue, occasionally agree, and rarely let a point pass without a joke at someone's expense. The greeting 'Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls' and the sign-off 'Peace out' both recur across recent episodes. Several open on a scrap of argument before anyone says hello. One of those openings asks whether it would be acceptable to lock a person up because a computer decided they were guilty of thought crime. After a quick nod to Minority Report, the reply is a flat no. The recent run keeps landing on questions of money, rules and power. In '3×72: Lawyers guns and money', the discussion turns to foundations such as the OpenSSF and the Python foundation, which depend on donations and grants. The idea floated there is a funding model rather than an appeal to goodwill: companies get the visibility they want, and part of what they pay goes toward hiring the developers. Another argument concerns messaging colleagues from a personal phone. One side says strict rules just push people to home email; the other points to managed devices and firing policies, and the exchange ends in a partial climbdown. Amazon comes up as well, with a presenter calling it ludicrous to claim that an Amazon centre wipes out local job opportunities, while conceding the work is dull. LinkedIn is described as having shed some of its salesy thought-leadership filler and become more useful and more personal, perhaps because business chatter has drifted over from X. There is a longer view too, comparing how many people someone talks to now with 1980 and with ten thousand years ago. Not every episode is a debate. '3×29: Down With The Peeps 101' sets the news aside for a game borrowed from the UK television show Room 101, in which each presenter brings three things they cannot stand and lobbies the other two to banish them. That episode also admits that an AI-generated intro on the previous episode beat the one they manage this time. The show wears its rough edges openly. One closing stretch catches the presenters realising nobody decided who would record the introduction, then checking which episode number it is. Blame for a scheduling delay is pinned on Stuart and withdrawn almost immediately. Running jokes cover long gaps between recordings, a stubborn refusal to podfade, a shaky record on predictions and years of trouble with microphones. Two of the presenters reckon their friendship goes back about a quarter of a century, and the ease shows. Language is often strong, and the humour can be crude.