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Social Gloss
Today in Tedium: Social media has been a big subject of fascination in recent weeks. New social networks have emerged. (Wait, what’s the Bluesky thing again?) Other social networks have faded away...
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The Cover-Up
Today in Tedium: You know something I always kind of wonder to myself? Many phones, generally of the Android variety, often come with very basic screen protectors directly on the screen; why are they...
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News of the Monoculture
Quick editor’s note: This remembrance of MTV News has some triggering stuff in it. It kind of has to, and it’s vital to the story. It hits right at the beginning of the piece, too. But if that’s not...
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The Artist and the Amiga
Hey all, Ernie here with a piece I recently wrote for the Substack publication NEWART. It’s published by the folks behind Pessimists Archive, and ponders creativity in an AI-generated world. Here’s my...
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Make Digital Preservation Easier
Hey all, Ernie here with a refreshed piece from 2021 about corporations and digital preservation. Google announced something yesterday that made this extra relevant. So, let’s talk about it. Today in...
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Consider the Jackalope
Hey all, Ernie here with the fruit of a partnership we’re doing with Mountain Town Coffee Roasting. We’re going to be collaborating with them to write an ongoing series about cryptids, the unusual...
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Dress Down
Today in Tedium: Does it really matter what types of shoes politicians wear in 2023? Really? Over the last 60 years or so, formal wear has largely started a slow fade out of style as professional...
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Reviving a Dinosaur
Today in Tedium: One of the nice things about many historic operating systems is that we’ve been able to dig into the legacy that was left behind to find the interesting details. Many of the...
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Social Network Drift
Today in Tedium: One thing I’ve noticed with the recent social media diasporas that have emerged in the wake of Twitter’s decline is that the people who make up those diasporas don’t really seem to be...
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Manufactured Gloss
Today in Tedium: Let’s face it—Tedium would not exist without the manufacturing process. Manufacturing leads to stuff that is then sold. That stuff leads to things that I can write about. In many...
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Bad News Beepers
Today in Tedium: There’s always a point of constant debate that happens in education around the smartphone. As anyone who has played Candy Crush or dragged a thumb through TikTok can tell you, it is a...
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Friction, Baby
Today in Tedium: I think, in many ways, one of the biggest challenges we face as computer users is that things are sometimes too easy. We can control our home from thousands of miles away, and cause...
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Tuned Out
Hey all, Ernie here with a refreshed take on a 2021 piece. We received some extra details about the history of kid’s radio that are worthy of getting in—and with our goal of always filling in the...
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A Seismic Stock Shift
Hey all, Ernie here with a piece I recently wrote for the Substack publication NEWART. It’s published by the folks behind Pessimists Archive, and ponders creativity in an AI-generated world. This...
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Freeloader Culture
Today in Tedium: In many ways, the internet is a network driven by literally millions of examples of the same problem happening over and over—people freeloading on access to resources someone else...
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A Splash of Impatience
Today in Tedium: It can feel weird to talk about modern computers without mentioning a key annoyance of using them. We never really talk about splash screens, but they’re always there. Many programs...
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The Squeal of Data
Hey all, Ernie here with a revived 2019 piece on the roots of the modem. If you’re looking for something new from me, I just published a pretty cool long-form story on the NABU computer system over at...
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The Gloss of Americana
Today in Tedium: To be clear, Tedium is not a patriotic newsletter, but it is one that has an American identity, and that identity means that many of the weird ephemeral things we run into are usually...
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Crack One Open
Today in Tedium: When it comes to soft drinks, safety is a big deal. After all, these drinks are widespread enough that when they are not managed properly, they can create society-wide problems....
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Let The Internet Be Grimy
Today in Tedium: I don’t feel particularly motivated to write about Threads, the Instagram-in-Twitter-form social network that Meta launched this week. It feels like a social network that exists to...
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