MidRange: Hot Takes in 30 Minutes or Less

A small, quick-hit experiment, 2021–2023. For two full years, Ernie Smith spent his evenings and mornings working on this newsletter with an unforgiving deadline before choosing to give it up upon its second anniversary. ⏲ In case you missed it, don't feel bad. There are more than 310 issues in the archive. Get to reading.

Highlights
Not Least

Not Least ✌️

01/26/2023 • #310

So here we are. Standing at the abyss. You and me, separated only by an inbox and the transformative benefits of the Simple Mail Transfer Protocol. Sure looks dark down there, doesn’t it?

I am not the first person to end a newsletter, to be…

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01/24/2023

⏲ The Best of MidRange

: A few of the many issues that MidRange has featured over the past two years. Not every issue was perfection, but these 10 were pretty good.
#309
01/23/2023

🥁 Does Rhythm Have Limits?

: As MidRange winds down this week, I take a look back at an early thesis of mine—that building a strong rhythm is is the secret to creative work.
#308
01/19/2023

💨 Fanning the Future

: A new type of cooling device for laptops and small computers could help make noisy fans obsolete—but one hopes it does so in old machines too, not just the latest and greatest.
#307
01/17/2023

🔧 Build in Public

: I’m not really the kind of person who wants to hide what he’s creating, so let’s just show it off. I’m laying out my cards for my future plans for for MidRange’s replacement in this post.
#306
01/16/2023

🦠 Post-Virality

: My next project is going to focus on what I call a “post-viral” form of social media. As I build, I’d like to explain what that is real quick. It matters.
#305
01/12/2023

👉 Out of Touch

: Apple apparently is thinking about throwing out a stance so sacred it arguably led them in the wrong direction with their laptops for about half a decade. The Macs may finally get touch.
#304
01/10/2023

📈 Old Metrics in the New Society

: Measuring fediverse-style social networks like Mastodon based on traditional metrics like daily active users doesn’t make sense because maximizing user counts is not the goal. Building a sustainable network is.
#303
01/09/2023

🧆 No Mo Noma

: The Danish fine-dining institution is closing its doors at the end of next year in favor of a less aggressive business model. The model has some serious labor problems that have emerged in recent years.
#302
01/05/2023

🧲 MagSafe Standard

: Apple wins unexpected goodwill after handing its MagSafe technology for mobile devices to the operators of the Qi wireless charging standard. It’s an excellent template for Apple to innovate while avoiding regulatory scrutiny.
#301
01/03/2023

💾 Lifetime Half-Life

: A popular video application gains a whiff of scandal after ending a “free lifetime updates” policy midstream—and it’s not the only example of a lifetime license falling by the wayside over time.
#300
01/02/2023

🎓 Senioritis

: MidRange is ending. I’m graduating from this newsletter. But not for another month. I think announcing its death early might just be the kick in the pants it needs as a creative project.
#299
12/27/2022

🥁 Reshaping A Drummer’s Legacy

: An uncomfortable retelling of a beloved rock star’s life soon after his passing offers insights few stories of its nature can—and it’s for that nature, despite said discomfort, that we rank it as MidRange’s feature article of the year.
#297
12/26/2022

🎸 August and Everything After

: To start off the 2022 MidRange Awards, we give a nod to a guitarist who has taken music YouTube by storm over the last two years—all out of a sincere hatred of terrible pop songs.
#296
12/22/2022

🐘 White Elephant

: A Web 3.0 company purchases Mastodon’s second-largest instance just before Christmas. What does that say about federated social media, anyway?
#295
12/20/2022

📚 The Challenge of Correctness

: A famed YouTuber reveals that a famous fact he uncovered is in fact totally wrong—and hires an archivist to do cleanup.
#294
12/19/2022

🧠 The Mental Block

: This past weekend was assuredly the most chaotic in the history of social media, and all based on the whims of a hyperactive decisionmaker. I don’t know about you, but my brain is shredded.
#293
12/15/2022

✍️ Let’s Revue

: Revue is shutting down, and as MidRange started on Revue, I feel a certain way about it—especially after learning that Revue’s owner also wants Substack.
#292
12/13/2022

🥧 Unfulfilling Pi

: When a recent controversy blew up around the Raspberry Pi, the foundation implied shortages created a charged atmosphere. That might be an under-admission of culpability, but the fact is, high Pi prices and low availability are making x86 look good right now.
#291