Background Image
 

Tedium. The newsletter all your other newsletters look up to.

Since 2015, Ernie Smith's Tedium has been hunting for the end of the long tail, and we've yet to find it. But we'd sure love it if you followed us on our journey. Especially now that we're ten friggin' years old and we're still using a Street Fighter II slogan as our subscribe button. Validate the use of obscure video game slang as a successful subscription strategy. Click the button.

 

 Check out our latest attention ploys 

The New DVD Bargain Bin
The Latest

The New DVD Bargain Bin

A major studio is apparently treating YouTube as a place to drop some of its archive films that have lost their cinematic luster. My mind is admittedly blown.

By Ernie Smith • February 5, 2025
 About  Archives  Sponsor Us Support Us On Ko-Fi
Follow Us
Mastodon Bluesky Twitter

A Dossier Container Dossier

How we got Manila folders and envelopes, and what “Manila” means in the context of said folder. Hint: It’s not a color, and you may find the source surprising.

By Ernie Smith • February 3, 2025

Don’t Call Me, I’ll Call You

On large language models, artificial intelligence, DeepSeek, and trying to find the middle lane between skepticism and surety. I mention bionic arms a lot for some reason.

By Ernie Smith • January 29, 2025

Just Moving Data Around

We take the idea of copying files across folders and drives for granted today, but the guy who invented the original tool considered it a leap of faith.

By Ernie Smith • January 27, 2025

My Big Dumb Webmail Client

They say you don’t know what email’s all about until you’ve built a webmail client of your own. I guess I kind of get it now.

By Ernie Smith • January 25, 2025

This Is Definitely A Test

The history of color bars, the most common television test pattern out there, and what they actually do. (Also, Netflix has some weird test programming.)

By Ernie Smith • January 19, 2025

Good Look Taken

A believed-to-be-forgotten “lost” episode of an old Ernie Kovacs show is about to resurface on YouTube after 65 years. Here’s how it happened.

By Ernie Smith • January 17, 2025

RIP Power Player

On the passing of Mark Discordia, a ’90s video game fan who got a troll’s welcome to the internet. He was a plumber who loved Mario. Nothing wrong with that.

By Ernie Smith • January 15, 2025

Saving One Screen At A Time

Pondering the screen saver, a cultural artifact which can mean one of two things: Fun animated graphics and screens that automatically go dark. The difference matters.

By Ernie Smith • January 12, 2025

Pinpointing The Actual Problem

A blog post from Automattic lays out their decision to pull back on the WordPress project. But in the process, the company may have accidentally explained why competitors were able to one-up them.

By Ernie Smith • January 10, 2025
Want more? Check the archives! ⮕