From tedium.co
The Open Internet’s Risk: When Everyone Takes Too Much
1 3
The risk of the open internet is that someone will exploit your well-intentioned openness thoughtlessly. That’s how the internet slowly stops being open.
on Sep 5
From tedium.co
These Game Controllers Are Odd. But They’re Immensely Popular.
1 3
An analysis of how three weird-but-widespread game controllers shaped the way we play. Nobody ever considered how weird a Wiimote is.
on Sep 3
From tedium.co
No Ecosystems Here: Life As An Operating-System “Floater”
0 6
Our tech should be good enough to work across operating systems now. The best way to test that is by using literally every platform. Which is what I plan to do.
on Wed, 5AM
From tedium.co
Atari Democrat: How Atari Inspired a Centrist Political Movement
0 2
The story of how the “Atari Democrats” came to shape the way politics and technology work together, for good and bad.
on Tue, 3AM
From tedium.co
Are Cell Towers Still NIMBY Targets In The 5G Era?
0 5
Considering recent innovations in cell phone towers, which have shrunk in the 5G era. Are they still NIMBY targets? Do we still hide them with fake trees?
on Sun, 7AM
From tedium.co
Why Bluesky Is Working: The User Is In Control
0 2
Thoughts on the sudden surge of success Bluesky has seen this week—without a network-dampening algorithm in sight.
on Nov 14
From tedium.co
Cell Towers: Not in My Back Yard
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Despite the obvious advantages of cell towers for communication, they're a common source of tension for local communities. Here's why.
on Nov 13
From tedium.co
Free Sample History: Better For Consumers Or Marketers?
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On the history and psychology of free samples—from free bars of soap to free AOL—and why you can no longer get drunk in Gatlinburg for free.
on Nov 11
From tedium.co
Colmi R02 Review: Life With A Hackable Smart Ring
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I bought a ring because I heard about it on Hacker News. And it turns out that it’s my best tech purchase in months.
on Nov 8
From tedium.co
Why Las Vegas Used to Have a Canadian Football Team
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The tale of the star player you’ve probably never heard of … unless your definition of “football” extends past the Canadian border.
on Nov 7
From tedium.co
Why Mail Fishing is a Real Problem
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The rise of mail fishing—which involves sticky glue, string, and blue postal mailboxes—represents a growing threat to the physical mail system. Really.
on Nov 7
From tedium.co
Election Post-Mortem: Know What You Control
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If you’re stuck dealing with a bug that you can’t seem to fix, there’s nothing wrong with getting some white space from it. No harm in that.
on Nov 6
From tedium.co
Tedium As Palate Cleanser: Get Your Mind Off The Pre-Election Chaos
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You’re getting hit by pre-election chaos everywhere online. Let’s take a step back and get a bit of a palate cleanser. A little Tedium goes a long way.
on Nov 4
From tedium.co
Hear Me Out: Apple Buying Pixelmator Is Probably A Good Thing
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Apple moves to acquire Pixelmator, an image-editing app that already feels first-party. With Adobe laser-focused on the enterprise, this might be a good thing.
on Nov 2
From tedium.co
How Michael Wolff Became an Early Internet Icon
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The Trump administration tell-all scribe has a history with digital publishing that goes way back. In fact, he edited one of the first guides to the internet.
on Nov 1
From tedium.co
The Washington Post, Jeff Bezos & The Collateral Damage
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The mess with Bezos and The Washington Post is reflective of 2024’s biggest trend: The powerful entity stepping in it without considering the collateral damage.
on Oct 31
From tedium.co
Tedium Reader Roundup: The Moments of Tedium That Keep Folks Sane
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It’s a stressful time in the world, so we reached out to some of our readers and contributors to find out how they’re using tedium to keep sane. It helps.
on Oct 29
From tedium.co
Why Are Butterfinger Candy Bars Always Broken In Half?
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I’ve always been deeply curious about the brittle nature of Butterfinger candy bars—so with that in mind, I thought way too hard about it in this piece.
on Oct 28
From tedium.co
So, Your CMS Blew Up. Any Decent WordPress Alternatives Out There?
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If your favorite content management system feels like it’s sinking into a shallow well of hubris, you might want alternatives. I have a few ideas.
on Oct 25
From tedium.co
I’m Archiving My Old Tweets On Bluesky. It’s Gonna Take A While.
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I’m trying to import as many of my old tweets as I can to Bluesky. Which is fun, because I have a lot of them.
on Oct 23
From tedium.co
The Ground-Game App That Consumed All The Data
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A presidential get-out-the-vote campaign learns the hard way that rural areas have pretty terrible internet access.
on Oct 18
From tedium.co
Eudora History: Email for a Different Era
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The early graphical client Eudora was how people checked their email in the ’90s. But in the end, only the power users stuck around. Here’s what you missed.
on Oct 18
From tedium.co
A Guy Took A Stab At My Ego. He Said I Wasn’t A Journalist.
0 0
Thoughts on a bruise to the ol’ ego that hurt a little more than I thought it would. But hey, it gives me a chance to talk about gatekeeping.
on Oct 17
From tedium.co
Interest Analogues: When Algorithms Force You Into Weird Niches
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On meat analogues and the way that lucrative algorithm waves gradually burn us out on our interests. Call it an “interest analogue.”
on Oct 16
From tedium.co
Duracell PowerCheck History: An Energizer of a Battery Patent Battle
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The most quietly innovative thing that emerged from the latter half of the ’90s was the on-battery power meter. It was the subject of a complex patent battle.
on Oct 9
From tedium.co
How GoDaddy’s Founder, Bob Parsons, Brought Domains To The Masses
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The tale of the founder of GoDaddy, a Vietnam vet who figured out the formula for getting regular people to buy domain names.
on Oct 7
From tedium.co
Weird Facts About Tweezers: People Pay to Sharpen Them
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Pondering the way that tweezers isolate things at a small scale, and the fact that you can take an aptitude test to show that you can tweeze with the pros.
on Oct 6
From tedium.co
Why Clarendon Is Such An Inspiring Typeface
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I saw a font recently, and it inspired me to kick off work on a full redesign. The funny part: It’s the most common font, ever.
on Oct 5
From tedium.co
Could WP Engine’s WordPress Lawsuit Hurt Open-Source?
0 0
The WordPress situation devolves further, which raises an obvious question: What does this mean for every other open-source project?
on Oct 3
From tedium.co
Critics Turned Artists: When The Hater Becomes The Hated
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Becoming a commentator-turned-creator? Hope you’re getting hazard pay. Some thoughts on the art of creation when you’re usually a critic.
on Sep 29
From tedium.co
HP TouchPad History: A Fire Sale 49 Days After Release
0 1
Pondering the disastrous fate of the HP TouchPad, an early tablet based on WebOS that’s best known for being the subject of a well-remembered fire sale.
on Sep 28
From tedium.co
CNN’s Paywall: A Harbinger For Free News Access?
0 1
Word that CNN is getting a paywall feels like a sign that good information is more expensive than ever.
on Sep 28
From tedium.co
WordPress Vs. WP Engine? It Doesn’t Matter. It’s Bad For The Internet.
0 0
The co-founder of WordPress steps in it, repeatedly, in a forest-for-the-trees fight with WP Engine that makes me feel sad for the open internet.
on Sep 26
From tedium.co
Rear Projection TV History: The Giant Screen Nobody Wants Anymore
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Considering the legacy of rear-projection televisions, the most efficient route to a big-screen TV in the pre-LCD era.
on Sep 23
From tedium.co
Qualcomm Apparently Wants To Buy Intel. Mind Blown.
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The rumor mill is picking up steam that Intel might become the target of a takeover by Qualcomm. That feels game-changing and dramatic, doesn’t it?
on Sep 21
From tedium.co
The De Minimis Loophole Explained—And How Temu Uses It
0 0
The Biden administration’s push to close an obscure loophole on imports highlights just how disruptive the Temu model really is.
on Sep 17
From tedium.co
Cross-Country Amtrak Trips: What The Experience Is Like
0 1
What it’s like to travel across the country via Amtrak—and what you need to know if you want to do it yourself.
on Sep 15
From tedium.co
Microfiche's Long Path to the Library
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Microfiche (or microfilm, depending on how you roll) is a library mainstay, but its history is wild, according to this note I got from a carrier pigeon.
on Sep 15
From tedium.co
Cohost Shutting Down: A Fascinating Creature That Couldn’t Survive?
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Unfortunately for all of us, the internet doesn’t reward noble ideas just because they’re noble. Hence, what happened to cohost.
on Sep 13
From tedium.co
Smartphone Tethering: A Bigger Grind Than It Needed To Be
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On the freedom that cellular modems gave to consumers—and how mobile companies tried to claw it back during the iPhone era.
on Sep 9
From tedium.co
Why Does Oracle Make Its Cloud Signup So Terrible?
0 6
Oracle’s form to access free cloud server space seems designed to discourage you from taking advantage of the offering. It’ll leave you frustrated.
on Sep 3
From tedium.co
Anderson v. TikTok: The Ruling That Breaks Section 230?
0 1
A federal appeals court ruling finds that Section 230 protections may not apply to algorithms. That could (potentially) be a big problem for the internet.
on Aug 30
From tedium.co
The First-Sale Doctrine Needs A Reset For The Internet Of Things
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The makers behind connected gadgets are working around the first-sale doctrine. Now’s a good time to update that law for the Internet of Things era.
on Aug 28
From tedium.co
You Get What You Give: Why the New Radicals Broke Up
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Pondering “You Get What You Give,” the one-hit wonder recorded by a guy smart enough to realize that it would be a one-hit wonder. It’s a survival story.
on Aug 26
From tedium.co
Is Starbucks Turning Its Back On The Third Place?
0 1
Starbucks, which has devolved from laptop destination to coffee pickup counter, hires a burrito maven. The third place hangs in the balance.
on Aug 23
From tedium.co
The Random Music Hiding On Gold & Platinum Records
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I just learned an amazing fact about gold records from the Beastie Boys that you need to learn about, too: The music isn’t the artist’s.
on Aug 15
From tedium.co
Hey, Patreon: Don’t Let Apple Win This Round
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Given the choice between protecting creators and protecting a business relationship with Apple, Patreon chooses the business relationship. Maybe they shouldn’t.
on Aug 14
From tedium.co
Friday Night Death Slot History: A Broadcasting No-Man’s Land
0 4
The Friday night death slot, and why Fridays carry such a hard-to-shake reputation as a place where good broadcast television goes to die.
on Aug 13
From tedium.co
Review: Mysuntown Under Desk Elliptical
0 1
My thoughts on using an elliptical machine under my desk for a couple of weeks. Can you exercise and type at the same time?
on Aug 11