Our Junk Drawer
Tedium Shorties
They're too short for 3,000-word stories, but too interesting to not write about at all. Meet Tedium’s shorties—the latest quick hits of news and weirdness from Tedium.
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. Read More
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? Read More
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. Read More
Now You See It …: A brief history of invisibility on screen, one of the most effective special effects ever created in film. Read More
Thanks, Craig: Hitting its 25th anniversary this month, Craigslist remains a reminder that a more democratic version of the internet can still thrive. Read More
Reading Materials
Wanna check out some of the books we’ve written about in Tedium over the years? Check our list—we’re keeping a running tally, and any purchases support both Tedium and independent booksellers. (Win-win!)
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. Read More
Cosmic Mistake: Why your zodiac sign—that thing that supposedly defines your personality—is probably wrong. Sorry, Gemini. Read More
Headbanger’s Ball: How do woodpeckers avoid brain injury? It all comes down to their bones. Read More
Lag City
Someone figured out how to run Stadia on an e-ink reader. Surprisingly not terrible speed-wise.