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2020: Hindsight for the Future

The year 2020 has been defined more by what’s happening in the news cycle than any other in recent memory—it’s hard to avoid COVID-19, as much as we’ve tried. But we have still found plenty of Tedium to go around this year.

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December 2020

So, That Happened

The state of our Tedium in 2020 was, um, have you seen what happened this year? Holy crap, everyone, that was a lot. Let’s assess the damage.

Gingerbread In The House

A tasty Christmas-time treat, gingerbread is surprisingly versatile, with deep roots in storytelling—and (of course!) a deep footprint in pop culture.

Big Email Energy

Why your favorite email newsletter (not Tedium) always gets cut off by your favorite webmail client. (It may be all the tracking stuff in the links!)

The Gift Of 2020

Sure, maybe this year was a bit of a stinker. But as our last-minute holiday guide shows, there’s still lots of strange crap you can buy people you barely know.

Digital Decay

Why you can’t find the groundbreaking search engine AltaVista on the web anymore. Friends don’t let friends visit Digital.com without knowing the truth.

Canadian Fakin’

How Canadians got so good at making generic products that are as good—or possibly, even better—than the name-brand equivalent.

All You Need Is Weird

The Beatles might have been the most mainstream band in history, but many of their inspirations were hugely obscure—and inspired obscurities of their own.

Hack Back to the Mac

Why the Hackintosh era, even if it looks like it might just dead-end thanks to Apple Silicon, was still a useful phenomenon for the Mac.

Reading Below The Surface

How subcarrier radio signals made room for hidden stations on the FM dial for decades—and help ensure, even today, that everyone has access to the news.
November 2020

Worst Firmware Update Ever

How Sony screwed up 15 years of goodwill with developers and open-source users by removing Linux support from its console—support hacked back in anyway.

Turkey Hotline

A celebration of turkey and pop culture just in time for the holidays—including how a telephone hotline somehow combined all three.

By Our Powers Combined …

How the webring became the grassroots tool of choice for sharing content online in the ‘90s. The concept was social media before media was social.

Rock Of Age$

Why the superfan will become ever more important to the music industry over time, or why $1,200 box sets exist despite appealing to only a few people.

Messy Convergence

When technology concepts awkwardly merge together, or why someone thought it might be a good idea to combine a mouse and a telephone.

Sorkin, Strunk, and White

Pondering one of the the defining screenwriters of the 21st century through the prism of an iconic style guide. Sorry, my Prada’s at the cleaners.

The Internet's First Election

The web wasn't common in 1992, but presidential candidates notably took baby steps toward the internet that year—Ross Perot in a bigger way than most.

Nonpartisan Zen Arcade

It’s a stressful time in the world, so we reached out to some of our readers and contributors to find out how they’re using tedium to keep sane. It helps.
October 2020

Meet The Medieval Insomniacs

The story of the elusive “second sleep,” a historic slumber phenomenon that seems to have faded in the modern day.

Plastic Pail Perfection

Why McDonald’s is missing a major marketing opportunity by not handing out its ’80s era plastic pumpkin buckets to modern kids. (I feel strongly about this.)

Such Low Heights

Why low overpasses are often so damaging to trucks, RVs, and other large vehicles—and why the ensuing crashes are so fun to watch.

Strip-Mined News

Local newspapers have already faced issues with outsourcing and an array of cuts for years. But the threat is changing—and you should know what it looks like.

Social Media, McAfee Style

The controversial jailed antivirus software mogul John McAfee followed up his virus-fighting work with one of the first social networks. Really.

No More Eternal Septembers

For decades, technical users looking down on the less knowledgeable have set the stage for a lot of bad online discourse. Can those users break the chain?

Turtlemania, Revisited

Looking back on the early multimedia adventures of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, with a bit of nostalgia on the side.

An Impromptu Story

The chance celebrity encounter may be one of the best, most fascinating parts of NYC. (Or, at least, it was.) If you’re lucky, they might even perform.

Over the Vinyl Moon

Vinyl records are in the middle of a renaissance—and a popular vinyl subscription service highlights many of the reasons why that is.
September 2020

A Plethora of Tweezers

Pondering the way that tweezers isolate things at a small scale, and the fact that you can take an aptitude test to show that you can tweeze with the pros.

FTP Fadeout

The beating heart of the early internet may have been FTP, or file transfer protocol. But after 50 years of mainstream use, its demise may be imminent.

A Requiem in Stereo(scope)

More than just a gimmicky gadget, the Nintendo 3DS was a marvel of handheld gaming in the 2010s. And now, a decade after it appeared, it’s gone for good.

Let’s Talk About Stuff

Every once in a while we just need to randomly write about a bunch of different things that have nothing in common. Let’s open the grab bag, internet.

iBook Stampede

Why did thousands of people trample one another to buy a $50 iBook in 2005? In many ways, it’s a story about a lack of tech access that’s still being told.

Life After Death Metal

For people who have spent their youth touring the world in death metal bands, trying to transition to normalcy is where things get tough.

It’s All In The Cards

With PCMCIA (also known as PC Card), it was easy to upgrade our old laptops. But for years, the tech was relegated to a depressing bureaucratic fate.

The Glitch Equation

How one of the most famous computer bugs of all time, the Intel Pentium floating-point division glitch, blew out of proportion into a PR crisis.

The Tough Climb

Being creative is easier than ever, yet some are motivated to go down the more complicated road to reach creative nirvana. Why is that?
August 2020

Retry Mock Toys

How model rocket clubs and competitions became a way for students to get an early taste of outer space.

Thirsty? Oh Yeah!

Kool-Aid is a delicious drink with a fascinating story that extends beyond branding. Here’s how the powdered drink mix (and its mascot) came to define drinks.

Donglevision

Pondering the many ways that dongles have taken over our lives, for better and for worse. One port will never rule them all, apparently.

Epic MegaFight

Why did Epic Games decide to go scorched-earth on the App Store model last week with Fortnite? Perhaps it reflects the company’s shareware roots.

Putting Beer On Ice

For decades, it was easier to get a bottle of vodka in Iceland than a pint of beer. The reason says more about Iceland’s politics than its temperance movement.

News In Small Bytes

Newspapers said they wanted to protect the print product, but they were raring to go when it came to experimental online news approaches in the early '80s.

Brains And Buzzers

An examination of quizbowl’s technological evolution, from radio broadcasts to question archives and Discord tournaments.
July 2020

Blister In The Store

Why plastic blister packs and clamshell packs, despite the near-universal frustration they create among consumers, have become a truism of consumer goods.

A True (NES) Advantage

How the NES Advantage, thanks to its long pop-culture reach, came to define the concept of a good controller in the 8-bit console generation.

Putting Order In Its Place

For centuries, the careful order of mise en place has been fundamental to the way restaurants make food, but its time in kitchens may finally be up.

Web the RIPper

Most people remember bulletin board systems as having chunky text-based graphics. One developer tried fixing that, but RIPscrip ran head-first into the web.

We Were Promised Skynet

Satellite internet was once seen as a holy grail of connect-anywhere online access. It hasn’t worked yet, but the promise is closer than ever.

No Room for Design

Of the many things that social platforms have taken away from us, perhaps the most disappointing is the freedom to customize our spaces. We need it back.

Blue Flashing Light

Have we let the LED indicator light go too far? These lights are everywhere, and they make it hard to sleep. Here’s a case for some less-annoying indicators.

Having a Cow, Man

From knockoff Bart Simpsons to CafePress ripoffs, what the long association between T-shirts and bootlegging tells us about copyright.

Fourth Failures

The many people who tried and failed to launch a fourth television network in the United States. Regulations and high costs made it harder than it looked.
June 2020

What’s In a Hoax?

Pondering the elements that make a hoax effective, and how a really good one can catch even the most seasoned skeptics.

Meet Our Virtual Contestants

Game shows and video games are a surprisingly perfect match, as any Nick Arcade fan knows.

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.)

Flight Risk

The in-flight entertainment system was once a novel idea that kept passengers enthralled. Now in the COVID-19 era, it’s both outdated and a serious germ hazard.

Power Outage

Looking back at Apple’s transition from PowerPC to Intel CPUs, and considering why Intel now finds itself in the same position PowerPC did 15 years ago.

The Payment Comes After

Discussing the evolution of the cash-on-delivery system for mailing goods, why it faded out, and where it actually remains in use. Sorry, no “Sorry, no C.O.D.”

Peel The Labels

The evolution of self-stick adhesives, which are basically everywhere—and had a particularly awful name when they were first introduced.

Jagged Little Tapes

These transitional audio recording formats were briefly dominant—then, quickly grew obscure. The further back you go, the more obscure they get.

Now You’re Playing With Power

How I found home networking nirvana with a powerline connection, a form of home networking that might be called poor man’s ethernet. No drilling involved.
May 2020

Elementary, My Dear Soundtrack

It’s no mystery that the numerous Sherlock Holmes-inspired shows and films have theme songs. We decided to investigate how good they are.

Capos On The Brain

Guitar capos, little devices that raise the pitch of a stringed instrument, are simple accessories with a surprising legacy of innovation.

Bye Bye, Buffet?

The all-you-can-eat buffet is unlikely to survive the pandemic in its current form—in part because sanitation already made it somewhat risky.

Painting Outside The Lines

Adobe was already a big company when it first sold Photoshop, but its biggest competitor, Paint Shop Pro, was built by an airline pilot in his free time.

The Backlink Economy

Businesses want to show up on the front page of a specific search term, and they’re willing to annoy you to get a backlink from you. Please never do this.

Browse Minimally

Perhaps the problem with the modern web browser is that there’s just too much stuff. What if we cut things down to the bare minimum?

The Internet’s Many Branches

The evolution of the top-level domain, a solution to a technical problem that has evolved into something with lots of cultural and marketing value.

OK Branding

A quarter-century ago, a really big soda company attempted to subvert itself to reach Gen X. The problem? Coca-Cola’s OK Soda was a couple of decades too early.

Let It Be, Complicated

Inside the Beatles' messy breakup, 50 years ago. Did Paul put the dagger in, or was it John?

Box Office No-Go

Why the conflict over the movie industry’s embrace of video on demand reflects a century-long symbiotic relationship gone sour. AMC is just Trollin’.
April 2020

Byproduct Breakdown

When you hear about economic struggles involving pork or oil caused by COVID-19, it’s worth remembering that their byproducts are everywhere. Yes, everywhere.

A Hand-Washing Pioneer

The story of Ignaz Semmelweis, the doctor who discovered the disease-fighting power of hand-washing in 1847.

A Pivotal Listicle

Twelve years ago, long before it embraced listicles, Forbes put up a well-read list of websites that young people supposedly loved. I know, because I wrote it.

Not-So-Clear Channel

In a time of national crisis, an emergent broadcast radio giant, Clear Channel, banned a bunch of songs from the airwaves. Or did it?

Long Con

Why do people believe con artists? Part of it might come down to the fact that we want to believe in something that’s too good to be true.

A Little Bit of Background Noise

Relaxation through audio is more than a mere matter of white noise. Read on for a little history of background noise, and why it’s so effective.

Sunday Night Live

While Saturday Night Live might have had the laughs, its short-lived offshoot Sunday Night (aka Night Music) may have been the greatest music TV show ever made.

The Original Internet Bottleneck

Many early ISPs—particularly AOL—weren’t ready to offer unlimited internet access in the mid-’90s. That is, until a surprising disruptor appeared: AT&T.

Mystery Machine

The strange connection between Bobby Kennedy's death and the rise of Scooby-Doo, who represented a new kind of cartoon hero in his day.

Culture In A Dangerous Time

Finding comfort in a scary cultural moment from the modern digital landscape. Thankfully, we still have the internet to saturate us in offbeat popular culture.
March 2020

Touch And Go

Pondering the disastrous fate of the HP TouchPad, an early tablet based on WebOS that’s best known for being the subject of a well-remembered fire sale.

The Human Xerox

Why being copycats, something we do in settings big and small, might be key to being human.

What Are the Odds?

Pondering the nature of open tryouts, the back-door way for some athletes into the professional leagues. Do you have what it takes to make a go for it?

Buffering … ⏳

The fact is, despite four decades of evolving technology, video conferencing is a sort of low-level magic that still konks out half the time. Here’s why.

Hydrogenated Marketing

How Crisco, which avoided naming its primary ingredient in ads, toppled lard more than a century ago—and made Americans believers in industrial food.

Extraterrestrial Rock & Roll

The bizarre history of one of the greatest novelty records of all time, “The Purple People Eater,” and the dumb joke that brought it to life.

Looking For Reasons To Laugh

Why “canned laughter,” a controversial element of most television comedy, feels so unnerving in its absence—and why it’s so fascinating in the first place.

Grab Your Rolls

There's plenty of toilet paper in the U.S. So why are people hoarding it? And what makes toilet paper the hoarding object of choice?

The Mail-Order Blues

A look back at the cheap department store guitar and its impact on modern music. Sears’ retail Harmony meant way more to our culture than some big-box stores.

Thinking In Parallels

Why do we find historical parallels so interesting for analyzing current events like the coronavirus—and what do they leave out, anyway?

Lateral Move

Five ways life would be better if it were always daylight saving time, rather than the clock changing up on us twice a year.

Double Vision

The history of picture-in-picture technology, an idea that seems a lot less impressive now than it did in the 1980s, and an era of forgotten set-top devices.

Bread End

Why are the heel pieces, or end pieces, of bread seen as undesirable compared to the rest of the loaf—and what kind of waste does that create, anyway?

Now You See It …

A brief history of invisibility on screen, one of the most effective special effects ever created in film.
February 2020

Point Of Saturation

Unless you work in a restaurant, you may not know what the Aloha point-of-sale system is. But if you do, you’ve probably seen it everywhere.

Not-So-Missed Connections

Just like your pile of old chargers, the world of mobile connectors was always messy. Standards did not help. Will regulation?

Thanks, Craig

Hitting its 25th anniversary this month, Craigslist remains a reminder that a more democratic version of the internet can still thrive.

Stop Stealing My Sign

Yard signs are everywhere during political campaigns, but campaign organizers don't think they actually work. So why do campaigns spend so much on them?

The Internet Of Trash

We may have made a horrible mistake by unnecessarily making our consumer electronics devices smart—and removing generations of future use in the process.

Not All Heroes Wear Capes

America’s postwar fling with romance comics—and the massive collection of those comics that was recently donated to the University of South Carolina.

Taking Stock

My longtime fascination with T-Mobile CEO John Legere’s odd slow cooker social media promotion, now that he’s slow-cooked his way through a merger with Sprint.

Feelin’ 7UP

The marketing history of America’s favorite lemon-lime soda, 7UP, proves that sometimes reality is stranger than fiction.

Cosmic Mistake

Why your zodiac sign—that thing that supposedly defines your personality—is probably wrong. Sorry, Gemini.

Impeachment Growth Hacking

The reason we might all be using Netflix today could have a lot to do with a marketing stunt involving the grand jury testimony that got Bill Clinton impeached.
January 2020

Headbanger’s Ball

How do woodpeckers avoid brain injury? It all comes down to their bones.

Dinwiddie’s Dream

NBA ratings are dropping, along with athletic shoe sales. So why is one player choosing this moment to push his own independent shoe brand?

Tinker Tech

The Pinebook Pro, a community-built Linux laptop that runs on ARM hardware, offers a few surprises. Fairly inexpensive, it’s the perfect machine for tinkerers.

Throw It In The Pile

The résumé, a document that largely gained prominence in the past half-century, was once a key part of getting a job. Soon, it might just disappear entirely.

The Email Appliance

The story of the MailStation, an information appliance that didn’t do much, really, except send email. That, somehow, makes it even more interesting today.

Mistakes Were Made

Technology vendors like SAP may rake in billions of dollars a year helping big companies build complex tech infrastructures, but they screw up—often, at scale.

Moldy Oldie Marketing

How the music industry’s TV-driven direct marketing strategies revived vintage hits, salvaged floundering careers, and brought us Zamfir’s epic pan flute.

My Modular Mind

What makes modular designs great for consumers often makes them troublesome for businesses, or why you can’t upgrade an iPhone these days.

The Inbox Pioneer

For more than 25 years, this newsletter author has been snarking wise about weird news. Here’s the tale of This is True, one of the first inbox success stories.

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