Highlights

 

Open-Tent Policy 🎪

06/07/2022 • #210

Why you shouldn’t take a combative tone when it comes to explaining an expert topic to someone else. Don’t be a keeper of the gate.

Lately, I’ve been looking back at a piece of email that was sent to me a couple of years ago. Essentially, it was a reader who had come across my then-five-year-old piece on… Read More

06/06/2022

Past the Expiration Date 🥛 : 

Old hardware that isn’t being actively updated anymore is often still useful—as long as those who own it have the option to figure out an upgrade path. Old iOS devices don’t have a path forward.

#209

06/02/2022

The Other Side of the Lens 📸 : 

Sony, which produces a number of camera components for smartphones, implies that the DSLR might soon meet its match in the form of a smartphone camera. Cue skepticism.

#208

05/31/2022

Jailbreakers’ Revenge 🔓 : 

A famed jailbreaker is making headway in an antitrust case involving the famed Cydia app store. His argument: Apple made so many changes that it was infeasible to keep the store running.

#207

05/30/2022

The Hyphens are Load-Bearing 🐻 : 

Why there’s a new slasher movie coming out based around the Winnie-the-Pooh cultural franchise—but not the Winnie the Pooh cultural franchise.

#206

05/26/2022

Take Care When Speaking Up 🙊 : 

Politically charged public tragedies like the elementary school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, can lead to poorly timed messaging when not thought through. Don’t be afraid to give yourself a moment of discussion.

#205

05/24/2022

The Missing Second Factor 🔐 : 

Google, for some reason, let its Authenticator app break for a sizable chunk of its Android users over the weekend, leaving at least some of them without an easy way to log into their accounts. WTF, Google?

#204

05/23/2022

An Open-Window Admission 🪟 : 

After years and years of basically being Mac and Linux only, I admit that I’ve grudgingly come to appreciate Windows. I would appreciate it a lot more if it had an easy-to-access third level key to type em dashes and curly quotes, but it’s better than I’ve given it credit for.

#203

05/19/2022

Time of No Reply (All) 🎙 : 

The iconic podcast Reply All is ending its original format after an eight-year run. Drama nearly consumed it near the end, but for a long time, it was one of the greatest podcasts out there.

#202

05/17/2022

Rich Guy Causes Chaos 💸 : 

On Elon Musk and his strange attempts to (apparently) weasel out of the Twitter deal. It reminds me of a movie character who immediately ditched something he wanted as soon as he got it.

#201

05/16/2022

eInk on the Cusp? 📃 : 

If you haven’t been watching what’s been happening in the eInk space of late, you’re potentially missing out on some interesting innovations.

#200

05/12/2022

Pale Green Ghost 🟢 : 

NVIDIA—finally—embraces open-sourcing its drivers for Linux, a long-lingering source of tension within the open-source community. And it may not be because of gamers or desktop users, either.

#199

05/10/2022

A User’s Guide to MidRange 📝 : 

As I’ve been doing a bit of site-moving of late, I wanted to honor some of MidRange’s best, most unusual pieces. Hope you agree.

#198

05/09/2022

Shout-Out to Todd Rundgren 🎸 : 

Discussing the sun-kissed violence around what is arguably Ozark’s best scene, one soundtracked by a Laura Nyro fanatic.

#197

05/05/2022

Pound of Flesh, Returned 💸 : 

The Intuit TurboTax settlement reflects a high-profile example of what happens when a company weasels out out something it agreed to do … at least for a while.

#196

05/03/2022

Resistance Through Inconvenience 😣 : 

If there’s something that you don’t want to do, the most effective way to prevent people from doing it is to make it so challenging and frustrating that no person will want to.

#195

05/02/2022

Free Speech Disconnect 💬 : 

A common explanation for how free speech works on the internet doesn’t seem to be connecting with the public. Perhaps we need to use a Tim Robinson sketch to make our case instead.

#194

04/28/2022

Dude, You’re Getting a CAMM 💻 : 

Pondering the unusual new kind of memory Dell randomly foisted onto the world this month. Despite rumors of its proprietary nature, it’s actually a smart idea.

#193

The Internet of Jerks 🤬

04/26/2022 • #192

When it comes down to it, the thing that makes a lot of people nervous about Elon Musk’s acquisition of Twitter is that it seems like he favors the jerks—which isn’t fun for those who prefer a jerk-light internet.

OK, first off, I know we have to talk about this, but I did a thing last night in direct response to yesterday’s news. I built a simple template for MidRange which I am now publishing on EmailOctopus directly, as a temporary solution until I can… Read More

04/25/2022

The Path to Ridiculousness 📺 : 

Netflix is built around content that aims broad, rather than the more narrowly tailored stuff that builds passion but perhaps starts out with smaller audience bases. It needs to make the niche work in its favor—by making it good enough to pay a little extra for.

#191