Is Steve Levicoff ok?

What Steve quickly found out, his book was out-of-date almost immediately. No fault of his; it was (and is) the rapid evolution of his niche. Even though more broadly written, John Bear's guides faced the same dilemma.

After all, how many of you still use a phone book or the Yellow Pages? Or call 411 for information?

I suspect the next Bear's Guide will be focused on story-telling and fulfilling purposes, rather than trying to "boil the ocean" by capturing the entire field of distance learning.

 

(1) I might well use a phone book or Yellow Pages if I could get them. The last ones I received are 15-20 years old. And I'm afraid to even ask what 411 costs.
Thank goodness for the Internet. For local businesses I can be old-fashioned - look up the site, get the phone number and CALL them. Same for most people.

(2) Knowing how great John's stories are - I'd love to see a Bear's Guide built around them. That's gonna be fabulous!

 

My point is that the internet made those things go away.

 

Indeed. And perfectly well expressed. Mine is that the Internet facilitates my doing things the old-fashioned way (looking up phone numbers etc.) The phone itself has become so horribly expensive that I'm ditching the big Telco but keeping phone service - through my Internet provider. 75% savings.

"I will give up my landline when they pry my cold, dead fingers from around it."

 

Here are a couple of links that might be of interest, though I had nothing to do with creating them.

https://deadorkicking.com/steve-levicoff-dead-or-alive/

https://www.angelfire.com/fl3/freenunreal/Degree.txt

 

We gave up our landline about a dozen years ago. We've never missed it.

 

Wasn’t sure if that cell thing was going to stick around? . JK

 

I have a cell phone - a flip one (my second) that was a freebie. I originally delayed getting a cellphone because I was flat broke then and I didn't want two phone bills. My son bought me that one, with some air-time, for my birthday, 2007 - my 64th, I think. I'm on my second one now. The Telco gave it to me, free when they changed to a more modern network. I have to buy airtime whether I need it or not. $25 every 2 months or $100 once a year.

I hardly ever use the cellphone, so I now have $500 in unused airtime. Can't spend it on anything else - phone upgrades, or spend it instead of money for future airtime. About the only time I ever use the phone is at the bus stop, to find out when the bus is coming. Next January, the bus is free (at 80) but the phone bill goes on forever. I should forget about the $500 and just pitch the damn thing into Lake Ontario. The trap I'm in over that $500 riles me up - bad for my blood pressure, so my Doc says. And I believe her.

I don't trust a phone with an operating system called Kaios (Chaos?) I should - it's forked from some kind of Linux - but I don't, even though I like the Ubuntu on my laptop.

 

Maybe his post on this thread can give you some insights: https://www.degreeinfo.com/index.php?threads/working-as-an-expat-in-saudi-arabia.56677/

My view is that anyone can CHOOSE any job that makes them happy, regardless of their educational achievement. If tomorrow I feel like quitting my TT position and starting to flip burgers, the only thing I would be concerned about is my happiness. I wouldn't care that some people would wonder why a person with a Ph.D. is flipping burgers.

As it relates to meet-ups with Steve, he wanted to meet me for coffee (which I don't drink) when I was living in Philly. I think he was living in DE. I had no interest, though. He would message me on here. He even asked for my email address, and I gave him one of my fake email addresses. He was disappointed when he couldn't figure out my real name! Haha!

 

People change their professions, jobs.
I used to work with very bright engineer who later went to Chiropractic school and became a Chiropractor.
My manager in HighTech company in the 90s quit the job and became a farmer.
All had graduate degrees in the Eng/Tech.
I took a break from tech and did sales in a dating service for a year, loved the make my own schedule and meeting people, very different from seating in a cubical.

As to Steve I often agreed with his views on DL but very rarely we agreed politically.

 

I had little interaction with Steve but the little bit I did have he was always nice...to me. I cannot speak to others opinions of him but what I saw in his posts to others was not the same way he posted when speaking to me.

I too have wondered what happened to him however I feel most of this forum appreciate his absence.

 

I had the exact experience with him.

When posting, and speaking about a subject, his information was spot on, but when replying to a person’s post he didn’t like…….the delivery needed ‘adjustment’.

 

When you spent the first 5 decades of your life with one, it's a little hard to know if going without will be okay. It was.

By the time we gave it up, all we were getting on it were telemarketers calling during dinner, so no great loss. Also, the iPhone was just coming out, so that's how far back it was.

 

One or the other has to be the wrong Levicoff PIC anyway. The entries deal with two Dr. Levicoffs from Philadelphia. One an MD and the other (Steve) a PhD. Looks like they have the bio. details right, for each, but the same pic appears for both. Dunno who's the Levicoff in the pic. MD or PhD? The two may be related, I don't know - I believe Steve said once there are two branches of Levicoffs in Philly. But I'm pretty sure he (Steve) was not one of two identical twins!.

I think the MD is in both pics. - pictures of Steve are pretty hard to come by. I've never seen one before -- and maybe this one is not him, either.

 

Yeah. It's the surgeon, in both. Dr Eric Levicoff. I checked. Google has NO pics of Steve. His books, yes. The author - no. If you've got a pic of Dr. Steve Levicoff, it's probably worth $2 million or more. A NFT? $5 mill, for sure!

 

That was the creepy side of Steve.
When I left DF for a year, Steve started messaging me that he had tracked my log in activity and that he saw "I couldn't resist staying away completely".
I found that so weird and creepy that he would log who logged in when.
Then he started predicting the future: "You will likely come back because Rich also left for several years and came back".

He was nice to me but at the same time he could be so creepy.

The most disturbing story he told me was about one of his old classmates.

He could be so weird sometimes, yet so compassionate and intelligent at the same time, only to return to antisocial creep minutes later.
I think he had an antisocial personality disorder. He fit the criteria.
He had a hard time showing empathy, he was probably given little love by parents early in life (often the case with antisocial personality disorder), probably started to rebell when he came out and faced rejection, and from there on built a protective shield against the world.
Antisocial personality disorder can be the result from trauma earlier in life.
What makes me think that Steve had it, is that he behaved antisocial and shameless on this board knowing that everybody knew his name and surname.
He was the type of person who would poo and smear it on the walls, just to make a point against the establishment.

But all in all, he was a hoot. He knew how to bring ambiance to the place.
I always spit my coffee out from laughing when reading his replies.
He should have had a talkshow.
He would have made big bank with it.

 

In doing research I have confirmed that Steve Levicoff knows of this page, and has said that the photo is not of him. Steve has stated that the photo is of Eric Levicoff, who is a surgeon and distant relative of his.

https://deadorkicking.com/steve-levicoff-dead-or-alive/

 

Is Steve Russian originally?
Levicoff sounds so Russian.

 

Good to know. Looks like I was right, for once. Then again, a broken clock is right twice a day.