[HN Gopher] Ray and Tom Magliozzi, MIT 1999 Commencement Address...
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Ray and Tom Magliozzi, MIT 1999 Commencement Address [video]
Author : stefanpie
Score : 112 points
Date : 2023-09-10 08:52 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.youtube.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.youtube.com)
| adwi wrote:
| Grew up listening to Car Talk with my dad.
|
| When I was 19 I attended summer school in Cambridge, and right in
| Harvard Square there was a window on the top of a building
| painted "Dewey, Cheetum, and Howe". Fans will recognize this as
| the name of their fictional lawyers in the credits. I tailgated
| someone leaving, took the elevator up and knocked on the door.
|
| A middle-aged woman answered, and I gee-golly'ly asked if this
| was Car Talk. She--Louie "Cronan the Barbarian"--said "Yes!" and
| invited me in.
|
| She generously showed me around, apologizing that Tom and Ray
| weren't in at the moment--my guess was Ray was at the garage, and
| Tom was exploring the cafe standards of the greater Boston area.
| She smiled.
|
| On my way out she asked if I liked ice cream and pointed to a Ben
| and Jerry's branded freezer right at the entrance. "They just
| come by and refill this for free, if you ever want some, you're
| always welcome to come by, say hi and grab yourself a pint."
|
| I went back three times that summer. Never did meet Tom (RIP) or
| Ray, but sure got some good ice cream, and some welcome comfort
| as an awkward kid in a big new city for the first time.
|
| I still look forward to their twice/weekly reruns.
| dugmartin wrote:
| I took the elevator up around 2000 or so but never had the
| nerve to knock. Now I wish I did.
| borbulon wrote:
| That window was dead center of HS, right above Curious George.
| The entrance to my work was right across Brattle.
| zikduruqe wrote:
| >I still look forward to their twice/weekly reruns.
|
| Boy that last episode after Tom died was the most heartbreaking
| and funny episode ever. I only wish I had brotherly love like
| that.
|
| Ray said something like "When Tom said he didn't remember last
| week's puzzler, he really didn't, that he had Alzheimers..."
| man, that got me, Ray laughing and crying at the same time.
| LazyMans wrote:
| Also grew up listening with my parents. I'm pretty sure their
| show is one of the reasons I pursued automotive repair as a
| hobby.
| UberFly wrote:
| I still have my Car Talk fuzzy dice and t-shirt. :)
| Aloha wrote:
| I have similar childhood memories about Garrison Keillor/APHC..
|
| I just never got to encounter them almost 1:1 like that.
| dylan604 wrote:
| Of all the people to get tagged in the MeToo, Garrison would
| not have been on my list of "that makes sense". But then I
| realized I knew nothing about the man, and just made that
| assumption based on his APHC character.
| AlbertCory wrote:
| Did you meet Heywood Yabuzzoff, at least?
| pivo wrote:
| I hear Pikop Andropov is driving for Uber now
| johnohara wrote:
| Listened to a series of reruns on a recent trip across the U.S.
| Still funny.
|
| The familiar banjo intro, some carefully crafted fan mail, and
| the first call.
|
| They were in the process of doing battle with Melissa Peterson.
| That little twerp.
| bigbillheck wrote:
| I interviewed at a startup in Palo Alto about ten years ago, my
| last round was with the CEO who had a question that sounded like
| it came straight out of a Car Talk puzzler. Being a regular
| listener, I of course solved it right away, and got an offer a
| few days later. (I turned them down because my would-be
| supervisor was talking about 60 hour weeks being standard, but of
| course sometimes they had to put in a little extra).
| jlev wrote:
| I did a project at the MIT Center for Future Civic Media on
| building a hyper-local radio platform, and we'd always use Car
| Talk as an example of the kind of interactions we wanted to
| enable. Like, what if you were a vet in rural Uganda, and you
| wanted to have a show for farmers to describe their problems and
| get expert help. Call it Goat Talk, and we'd descend into bleats
| and baahs.
| cadr wrote:
| I remember quite a few people annoyed that we weren't getting
| some more famous speakers, but I grew up listening to Car Talk
| and I was over the moon.
| pcl wrote:
| Ditto!
|
| You've got a thoroughly appropriate username, as well.
| iancmceachern wrote:
| I grew up listening to them. Started with my Dad but I kept
| listening as I grew and moved away.
|
| I even wrote a blog post about one of their episodes "ode to a
| monte carlo" forever ago.
| https://www.iancollmceachern.com/single-post/2016/12/31/ode-...
|
| They were so wholesome, it's hard to find public figures like
| this anymore. Truly good people. Good for me to listen to them.
| They made me a better human.
|
| We love you Ray and Tom. I can't imagine Ray's loss, he lost one
| of his best friends, but also his business partner and job all at
| once. Loss is so hard, when it compounds its even harder. Sending
| as much love, compassion and respect as I can through the ether
| to both Ray and Tom.
| stefanpie wrote:
| For those who may not know, Tom and Ray are mechanics who were
| the hosts of the Car Talk radio show that aired on NPR from 1987
| to 2012 (edited past episodes are still aired online weekly I
| think). The radio show would take listener calls about their car
| problems, and Tom and Ray would help them solve these issues.
| However, that is a very reductive description that does not
| capture the unique explosive humor, rapport, and varied
| conversations and observations about the minutiae of everyday
| life and the human condition.
|
| The HN crowd may enjoy the weekly puzzlers that are presented
| every week ranging from car puzzles, logic / mathematics puzzles,
| and historic folkloric puzzles.
| unethical_ban wrote:
| Oh, my childhood. Saturdays were for helping Dad clean the
| garage, build a piece of woodworking, or change the oil in one
| of the cars... while listening to car talk! In the garage we
| had this old 80s era radio/tape player (I was a kid in the mid
| 90s) and I remember jiggling the tuner to get the channel to
| come in clear.
|
| HA! We're back, it's Click and Clack, the Tappet Brothers here
| to talk about Cars, Car repair, AN-DA, the new Puzzler.
|
| Damn, I'm getting choked up typing this out.
| busyant wrote:
| Funny. I was at that graduation because my little brother was
| class of '99. My primary memory was that Tom and Ray were nearly
| incomprehensible over the PA system. At least from where I was
| sitting. I heard a lot of their trademarked guffawing but not
| much else.
| jpmattia wrote:
| I still remember the time I found Car Talk (late 80s?): I was
| driving from Arlington MA to Lexington with the radio on NPR,
| mindlessly listening to some call-in talk show. A caller was
| asking why there was blue smoke coming out of his car's tailpipe:
| The smartass who answered said that was exactly what you would
| expect from red shift.
|
| It was such a high-level quip that it woke me out of my driving
| trance. "Who are these guys?"
|
| Several years later in grad school, I used the Good News Garage
| (which was about a mile from the MIT campus?) to replace a
| radiator. It was a little odd to be talking to Ray in person
| because I had grown used to him being only a voice. Nevertheless,
| he was a good enough guy.
| systemvoltage wrote:
| I love vintage NPR, Car Talk defined my childhood. NPR used to be
| so amazing.
| iancmceachern wrote:
| Yes, we would listen for hours, sometimes all day and night.
|
| I still love my two NPR stations (I listen to Capradio from
| Sacramento and the SF one) but they both seem to be mostly
| political coverage these days
| tfandango wrote:
| Great show, I could not care less about car maintenance back when
| I listened to this show religiously. Years later, my kids loved
| Pixar's "Cars" and what a delight to see (hear I guess) them make
| a cameo.
| selykg wrote:
| That was such a great sort of "insider" thing with Cars. I
| loved that cameo.
| tfandango wrote:
| I just love that whole movie. I know it's not that highly
| regarded but we all have a movie like that it seems like.
| Every time we are on a road trip, and we drive by a truck
| stop with all those trucks stopped at night, I always say
| "Look at all those sleeping trucks" in my best John
| Ratzenberger, it's like I can't help it.
| insaneirish wrote:
| Obligatory: https://xkcd.com/582/
| gwbas1c wrote:
| As a teenager, on one very cold New Year's eve I drove for about
| a minute in L (low gear) to get the car warmed up faster.
|
| My Dad didn't believe me that driving in low gear would warm the
| car up faster and told me I should write to Click and Clack to
| ask if what I did actually worked.
|
| I laughed at him. (It's obvious that if you rev up the engine for
| a minute you'll warm up the heating system very fast.)
| dylan604 wrote:
| I bet you regret not doing it now
| SamBam wrote:
| The fastest way to warm up a car !== the best way to warm up a
| car fast.
| rideontime wrote:
| According to them, "driving it gently is the best way to warm
| it up." https://www.cartalk.com/content/do-cars-need-warm-cold-
| winte...
|
| I also recall them giving similar advice to this on their radio
| show: https://www.batteriesplus.com/blog/power/warm-up-
| car#:~:text....
| gwbas1c wrote:
| My freezing teenager ass didn't care about the best way to
| warm up the car! I only cared about the fastest way to get
| the heat running!
| rideontime wrote:
| Fair enough!
| W-Stool wrote:
| As I head into my mid-60s I can look back on a pretty good life.
| Regardless of whatever else I did, for me my all-time greatest
| achievement was getting on Car Talk and posing my question - a
| real-life problem I was having that they solved almost
| immediately.
| rconti wrote:
| What was it?? I'm curious how many people will recognize it.
| isopede wrote:
| I miss Car Talk dearly and have wished for a reboot/modern
| version of it on more than a few occasions. Anyone have
| recommendations for a contemporary show with a similar bent? The
| fact that it was a car show hardly mattered, I just loved
| listening to those guys riff.
| iancmceachern wrote:
| It's very different, but similar in many ways. The closest
| thing that I currently consume to them is the youtube content
| from the Vlog Brothers, Hank and John Green. They don't talk
| about cars, but they do have a similar back and forth. Their
| format is a bit different, they each have channels where they
| publish weekly videos to eachother. They are basically
| formatted as little video diary posts to eachother. They've
| done an amazing job of sharing their humanity and helping
| others with theirs. Recently Hank has gone through Cancer
| treatment and thankfully remission, they've shared that whole
| experience in a very human, wholesome way. They also work to
| fight for things like tuberculosis treatment in Africa, etc.
| locallost wrote:
| Not being from the US, I only heard of them because one of the
| two brothers did a podcast with The War on Cars. The funny twist
| is that both of them only liked cars as engineers, but otherwise
| hated car culture and what traffic did to cities. One of them
| only had an old beat up car just so he can say he has one, but
| they both preferred public transit and bicycles. Heh!
|
| Here is the link https://thewaroncars.org/2019/03/18/the-war-on-
| cars-meets-ca...
| pertique wrote:
| I haven't listened to Car Talk in years, but I can still remember
| the number listeners would call. I'm going to go back and listen
| to some reruns. I imagine it's aged gracefully.
| gmiller123456 wrote:
| My favorite puzzler:
|
| 100 prisoners are each locked in a room with three pirates, one
| of whom will walk the plank in the morning. Each prisoner has 10
| bottles of wine, one of which has been poisoned. And each pirate
| has twelve coins, one of which is counterfeit and weighs either
| more or less than a genuine coin. In the room is a single switch
| which the prisoner may either leave as it is or flip. Before
| being led into the rooms, the prisoners are forced to wear either
| a red had or a blue hat. They can see all the other prisoner's
| hats, but not their own. Meanwhile a six digit prime number of
| monkeys multiply until their digits reverse. Then all have to get
| across a river using a canoe that can hold at most two monkeys at
| a time. But half the monkeys always lie and the other half always
| tell the truth. Given that the nth prisoner knows that one of the
| monkeys doesn't know that a priate doesn't know product of two
| numbers between 1 and 100 without knowing that n+1th prisoner has
| flipped the switch in his room or not after having determined
| which bottle of wine was poisoned and what color his hat is. What
| is the solution to this puzzle?
|
| This was played on the July 18, 2009 edition of Car Talk on NPR
| and attributed only to "Alan". If you download the podcast, the
| puzzler starts at the 36:00 minute mark.
| philshem wrote:
| Link to episode: https://www.npr.org/2009/07/18/106774140/car-
| talk-0929-july-...
| dylan604 wrote:
| I have been known to repeat one of theirs to younger people,
| "when is 90 greater than 100?" with the answer being "on a
| microwave". Maybe this one wasn't a puzzler, but something
| definitely heard on Car Talk. Beyond the puzzlers, their other
| jokes were top class dad jokes.
| karmajunkie wrote:
| huh... It never would have occurred to me to enter numbers on
| a microwave this way! But it works, at least on mine.
|
| My first reaction to the question was "When they're both
| negative...)
| dylan604 wrote:
| Are you saying you would never enter 100 for 1 minute?
|
| But I'm pretty sure this is the meaning of it. Sort of like
| there are 10 types of people in the world...those that do,
| and those that don't
| sp332 wrote:
| They would never have typed 90 seconds instead of 1:30.
| dylan604 wrote:
| That's an assumption on your part, while it might just
| happen to be true.
|
| Typing 130 vs 90 is 3 button presses vs 2, so the
| converse would be why type 100 when you could type 60.
| You can either be a seconds person or a minutes person.
|
| Edit: they entire number entry thing for microwaves is
| just weird. 60 => 1minute. 100 => 1 minute. 120 =>
| 1minute 20 seconds. Essentially, any 2 digit number is
| always interpreted as seconds. Which makes me wonder if
| the Car Talk question wasn't actually "when is 99 > 100"
| bluepod4 wrote:
| > Typing 130 vs 90 is 3 button presses vs 2
|
| For me, it's not about the difference in number of button
| presses. I switch between "seconds" and "minutes"
| depending on the situation. (Sometimes the instructions
| for frozen food are in seconds. Sometimes they're in
| minutes and seconds. But this is just one reason why I
| might switch between two. There are others.)
|
| Also, number of button presses varies depending on the
| microwave (e.g. express cooking).
|
| One could even argue that pressing the _same_ +30 second
| button 3 times is simpler than moving your finger to
| press 2 buttons for 90 seconds.
|
| (Personally, I tend to press a single "1" for express
| cooking 1 minute and then click the +30 second button to
| get 90 seconds. But again, not always).
| dylan604 wrote:
| I find it interesting in how the "essentially" same
| keypad can be used in so many different ways. I've never
| once used the +30 second button, nor any of the other
| presets. Even before learning what is used in microwave
| popcorn, I've never used the popcorn preset button as
| they _always_ scorched the popcorn. When I do use the
| microwave, I rarely use it at full power and pretty much
| always lower it 80% and use it for longer.
| sp332 wrote:
| It's not an assumption, it's what karmajunkie said two
| post up.
| dylan604 wrote:
| "It never would have occurred to me to enter numbers on a
| microwave this way"
|
| in what way? entering 90 for 1 minute 30, or for entering
| 100 for 1 minute vs 60?
|
| It's not clear, and you're not helping
| dekhn wrote:
| Cah Tawk. Their lawyers were Dewey Cheatham & Howe
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| Don't forget their Russian chauffeur, Pikup Andropov.
| adorton wrote:
| Took me an embarrassingly long time to understand what they
| meant by "Erasmus B Dragon".
| dekhn wrote:
| that's the one I was trying to remember, it's my favorite
| twoWhlsGud wrote:
| As a grad student at MIT in the mid 90s, I took my elderly Toyota
| to Ray's garage to get worked on several times. I was amazed to
| find out that often as not Ray would be the one working on my
| car. He was as funny in person as on the show and was talented at
| figuring out the least expensive way to get the old blue thing
| back on the road (I think he remembered what it was like to be a
| grad student financially speaking :).
|
| Really appreciated that he was still providing that service. When
| I graduated, I celebrated by getting the Blue Plate special done
| - where they went over the vehicle and enumerated all the work
| you needed done, ought to get done, and could do if you really
| wanted to. The only mechanics I've ever really trusted to go on
| that sort of fishing expedition...
| cainxinth wrote:
| The loss of _Car Talk_ (as well as _You Bet Your Garden_ ) from
| my local NPR broadcast are both still felt sharply.
| Aloha wrote:
| A Prairie Home Companion was also a dear loss too.
|
| I enjoyed Live from Here, its replacement - but Chris Thile was
| not Garrison Keillor, and the pivot from an even mix of
| storytelling and music to mostly storytelling, caused it to
| lose something.
|
| I think had COVID not come along, it could have found its
| audience, but alas, COVID came and it went.
| dylan604 wrote:
| The switch to WFH definitely lost a lot of NPR radio time.
| While not driveway moments, since Car Talk was on the
| weekend, I would find myself with parking lot moments as I
| was usually running weekend errands and would find myself
| hanging out in the parking lot of Home Depot.
| quacked wrote:
| Live From Here was mostly storytelling? I thought it was
| mostly music, given that Thile is one of the greatest living
| musicians. I never listened to a whole LFH show, but I watch
| a lot of great musical clips from it.
|
| Here's my favorite LFH clip:
| https://youtu.be/I_LhXKBSNi8?si=QzqUBXzWLutFQtck&t=127
| Aloha wrote:
| Yes, indeed, I meant it the other way.
| 0x0000000 wrote:
| I believe the entire Car Talk catalog(or maybe just "Best of
| Car Talk", but still many years worth) is available on the NPR
| site / app, if streaming is an option for you.
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| <sniff/> I miss those guys terribly.
|
| Here's one of my favorite pages:
| https://www.cartalk.com/radio/letter/wisdom-supermodels-0
| yokem55 wrote:
| One of the best moments in car talk was when Astronaut John
| Grunsfeld called in to complain about how his government vehicle,
| a 'Rockewell van kind of thing' was running. Ray and Tom finally
| caught on when Grunsfeld admitted he was going 17K MPH while a
| couple hundred miles north of Hawaii. ;)
|
| The banter between them included memories of an unpaid bill and
| references to the 'small technical institute' nearby ("Oh, _that_
| place! ").
|
| Great stuff all around. https://youtube.com/watch?v=moAqzM4ptm8
| nlh wrote:
| That was a delight to listen to. Thanks for sharing! (And
| highly recommend others spend the 5 minutes...)
| 48snickers wrote:
| This was my grad school commencement. One thing that really stuck
| out was how many folks I knew where either themselves or their
| families complained about the Car Talk guys giving commencement
| instead of some head of state or what have you. Ray and Tom's
| speech was thoroughly entertaining and humble.
| zeitgeistcowboy wrote:
| I grew up listening to these guys with my dad on the radio. They
| called themselves Click and Clack. I never knew when I was a kid
| that I'd be able to watch these guys live streamed from my
| internship at the MIT Media Lab years later.
| phone8675309 wrote:
| Don't drive like my brother
| anarticle wrote:
| Don't drive like my brother!
|
| If there was ever a model to use for podcasting, these guys
| would be it!
| Aloha wrote:
| Click and Clack, the Tappet Brothers - which if you're a car or
| mechanical person at all is even funnier.
| drfuchs wrote:
| The amazing thing was that they actually diagnosed mechanical
| failures _over the phone_. And in later years, they 'd call back
| some earlier callers to ask whether they had been right or wrong,
| and they actually had a pretty good track record.
|
| My favorite piece of advice was that if you had a car with an
| actual old-school carburetor, you should make sure to select a
| mechanic with at most one tooth, because only the old, grizzled
| mechanics really had a feel for them.
| iancmceachern wrote:
| Yes, and they were usually right! And they often diagnosed
| issues that other mechanics had missed in person.
| atonse wrote:
| They were the ultimate example of how one can make any topic
| engaging.
|
| I bet a pretty significant part of their listener base had little
| interest in learning to repair cars. But it didn't matter. They
| were so engaging, hilarious, and you could sense the strong
| brotherly love.
|
| I also read once that they had started a thing in their garage
| where you could bring your car and they'd walk you through fixing
| it and you could do it yourself with their tools. So you paid
| more to rent the space and tools. Seems like a dream to me and
| the HN crowd I'm sure. Like a car based maker space.
| phone8675309 wrote:
| The shop was called "Hacker's Haven":
| https://web.archive.org/web/20141206061027/http://www.goodne...
| atonse wrote:
| Wow, what a perfect name...
| iancmceachern wrote:
| Totally, people who didn't even have or work on cars would
| listen too
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