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Archive: 2025

Browse through our history of obscure stories.
Browse By Year 2025 2024 2023 2022 2021 2020 2019 2018 2017 2016 2015 May The Comic Book Sales Team The Comic Book Sales Team May 20, 2025 The Comic Book Sales Team Discussing the rise and fall of the “sales club,” a marketing tactic that gained extreme popularity with kids in the 1960s and 1970s. (Warning: This story ends kind of bleak.) Build Your Own Gumball Build Your Own Gumball May 16, 2025 Build Your Own Gumball Considering how the user benefits when a mature project goes fully open-source—even one with the baggage of something like Gumroad. Wrong Merger, Wrong Direction Wrong Merger, Wrong Direction May 13, 2025 Wrong Merger, Wrong Direction How MapQuest, a company innovative enough to kill road atlases in one fell swoop, was turned into an also-ran by a bad merger affected by an even worse one. Soup To Nuts Soup To Nuts May 9, 2025 Soup To Nuts If we’re headed for a less-globalized technology industry, the desktop version of Huawei’s HarmonyOS offers an interesting preview. No Sprouts No Sprouts May 6, 2025 No Sprouts Why the fast-casual sandwich shop Jimmy John’s struggled with selling sprouts for so long, despite their obvious health risks. The Finance Team Lost One The Finance Team Lost One May 2, 2025 The Finance Team Lost One For years, many of Apple’s most consumer-unfriendly decisions have felt like an extension of a revenue-optimization strategy at constant risk of backfiring. Thanks to a bracing legal decision, now it has. April Direct Color Direct Color April 29, 2025 Direct Color It’s not unheard of to discover a new color, but we’re coming up with new ways to do so—including with frickin’ laser beams. 8 Bits & Still Brewin’ 8 Bits & Still Brewin’ April 24, 2025 8 Bits & Still Brewin’ As the NES nears the 40th anniversary of its U.S. release, the homebrew scene around it is still putting out some killer games. Blue Checkmark Revival Blue Checkmark Revival April 21, 2025 Blue Checkmark Revival It took a little bit, but Bluesky found a way around its pesky extortion problem. That solution: The same one the former Twitter ditched just two years ago. When Smart Goes Dumb When Smart Goes Dumb April 20, 2025 When Smart Goes Dumb We now have a lot of examples of cloud-enabled smart devices that don’t work anymore. What we don’t have is a plan B that prevents old gadgets from becoming garbage. Time To Buy Used? Time To Buy Used? April 16, 2025 Time To Buy Used? With all the added uncertainty in the computing market thanks to tariffs, now would be an excellent time to turn into a savvy used electronics shopper. Don’t Forget The Forgotten Tech User Don’t Forget The Forgotten Tech User April 14, 2025 Don’t Forget The Forgotten Tech User Windows 10’s end-of-life points to the sheer neglect that computer users face when their world isn’t completely defined by technology. Ticker Tape’s Twirling Tail Ticker Tape’s Twirling Tail April 10, 2025 Ticker Tape’s Twirling Tail As inventions go, the stock ticker was a turning point for the real-time world in which we live. It also made trading floors significantly less chaotic. Where The Lede Gets Buried Where The Lede Gets Buried April 7, 2025 Where The Lede Gets Buried At Tedium, we sometimes bury the lede intentionally, and it may seem strange, but sometimes it works. Gunkroad Gunkroad April 6, 2025 Gunkroad The creator-economy service Gumroad decided to open-source its platform at a suspiciously convenient time. (And even “open source” might be stretching it.) The VCR’s Last Stand The VCR’s Last Stand April 2, 2025 The VCR’s Last Stand It’s pretty much the answer to a trivia question at this point, but there was once a version of VHS that looked better than DVDs. Really. March Severed Edits Severed Edits March 29, 2025 Severed Edits Whether it was trying to or not, Apple exposed a huge flaw with its pitch to professional video editors with a new Severance promotional video. A Clarifying Moment A Clarifying Moment March 28, 2025 A Clarifying Moment In case you were on the fence about whether OpenAI was a positive force in the world, they sort of revealed their hand this week by leaning into a meme. Greenlandia Greenlandia March 24, 2025 Greenlandia What does popular culture look like when you’re in the Arctic, thousands of miles away from any major population centers? Let’s talk about Greenland and pop culture. Fasten Furious: When Laptops Had Hooks Fasten Furious: When Laptops Had Hooks March 22, 2025 Fasten Furious: When Laptops Had Hooks Considering the period in laptop history where Apple built PowerBooks with hooks that only exposed themselves when they got close to a magnet. 2 Fasten, 2 Furious: Oh, Snap 2 Fasten, 2 Furious: Oh, Snap March 20, 2025 2 Fasten, 2 Furious: Oh, Snap It turns out that the history of the snap fastener is actually surprisingly relevant to the political moment that we’re currently in. The Fasten, The Furious The Fasten, The Furious March 17, 2025 The Fasten, The Furious The story of the guy who nearly drowned on his way to inventing a fundamental fastening device you’ve probably already used today. Could &udm=14 Break? Could &udm=14 Break? March 14, 2025 Could &udm=14 Break? That popular single-serving site I built to work around Google’s AI snippets could, unfortunately, see an infusion of AI soon. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news. Shaking The Wasp’s Nest Shaking The Wasp’s Nest March 11, 2025 Shaking The Wasp’s Nest Looking back at Gamergate, a flash point in internet history, and what it has to tell us about our current moment. Everything To Everyone Everything To Everyone March 8, 2025 Everything To Everyone Companies like Amazon and Apple are attempting to do business in so many spaces that, when the cracks show, they really show. Hence why Apple Intelligence looks like a hot mess right now. Tiny Type On Yellow Pages Tiny Type On Yellow Pages March 5, 2025 Tiny Type On Yellow Pages Why AT&T had to redesign its primary phone-book font in the late 1970s to keep with the times, and the clever typographical trick it used. Dial-An-Advertiser Dial-An-Advertiser March 4, 2025 Dial-An-Advertiser Considering the long history of phone books, particularly the Yellow Pages, where local businesses learned all the marketing tricks they eventually brought to the internet. Mission Drift Mission Drift March 1, 2025 Mission Drift If a company or service you rely on changes owners, you can’t be guaranteed that its mission will match what you’ve come to expect—even if, at least initially, it seems like everything’s on track. Hence why I returned a new messenger bag. February Framing Element Framing Element February 26, 2025 Framing Element The really exciting part of Framework’s latest product release cycle is the cheap 12-inch laptop—not the beefy desktop machine. That tiny laptop seems to have nailed its target audience. Hooked On Velcro Hooked On Velcro February 24, 2025 Hooked On Velcro How Velcro became one of the most important inventions of the 20th century, despite simultaneously gaining an unfashionable reputation. Windows On Linux, The Clever Way Windows On Linux, The Clever Way February 23, 2025 Windows On Linux, The Clever Way Forget WINE; a weirdly fascinating technique to make Photoshop work on Linux involves chopping up a remote access client into a windowing interface. It’s wild, but it kinda works. The USB That Wasn’t The USB That Wasn’t February 17, 2025 The USB That Wasn’t A few years before the Universal Serial Bus took over the world of peripherals, another upstart standard aimed to do the same thing. And I’m not talking about FireWire. New Rust, Old Drama New Rust, Old Drama February 14, 2025 New Rust, Old Drama The periodic Rust-induced conflicts happening with the Linux kernel hint at underlying generational problems facing the project. And it’s already led a prominent maintainer to quit. The Legacy Of SNARF The Legacy Of SNARF February 11, 2025 The Legacy Of SNARF BuzzFeed, the ultimate social media team player, decides that it needs a social media platform of its own. In the process, it gave us a crazy new buzzword. The Eggshell’s Outer Shell The Eggshell’s Outer Shell February 10, 2025 The Eggshell’s Outer Shell Just in time for the eggs to completely fall out of the affordability range of the middle class, let’s talk about egg cartons. Broken Bits Broken Bits February 7, 2025 Broken Bits Bitly, the link-shortening service used by millions, decides it’s going to drop an ad between you and your link. Don’t like it? It’ll cost ya. The New DVD Bargain Bin The New DVD Bargain Bin February 5, 2025 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. A Dossier Container Dossier A Dossier Container Dossier February 3, 2025 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. January Don’t Call Me, I’ll Call You Don’t Call Me, I’ll Call You January 29, 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. Just Moving Data Around Just Moving Data Around January 27, 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. My Big Dumb Webmail Client My Big Dumb Webmail Client January 25, 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. This Is Definitely A Test This Is Definitely A Test January 19, 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.) Good Look Taken Good Look Taken January 17, 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. RIP Power Player RIP Power Player January 15, 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. Saving One Screen At A Time Saving One Screen At A Time January 12, 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. Pinpointing The Actual Problem Pinpointing The Actual Problem January 10, 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. Tic-Tac-D’Oh Tic-Tac-D’Oh January 7, 2025 Tic-Tac-D’Oh Dell decides to rebrand its machines along a 3x3 grid—and ditches a number of popular product lines along the way. (Was it worth it?) Divisible By 5 Divisible By 5 January 2, 2025 Divisible By 5 That feeling of dread that you’re feeling about 2025 doesn’t need to need to define the way you approach the world. Perhaps you need a push.