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.
Different Kind of Thirst
Hidden Valley Ranch’s latest ad reflects on a truth of modern food: I mean, who doesn’t want to chug a bottle of ranch dressing?
Code Collector
Technology writer and novelist Michael Warren Lucas bought a block of ISBN codes (aka the barcodes on the side of books) somewhat recently. On his site, he explains how the process went and why you shouldn’t accept ISBNs from Amazon alone.
New Dimension, New Controller
“It may not be the greatest video game controller ever … but it’s arguably the most interesting.”
— Writer Mark Christian, taking a deep dive into the iconic Nintendo 64 controller, which inconveniently put the analog stick dead in the middle.
Two Guitars, One Body
$2k
The price of the Fender American Acoustasonic Telecaster, a guitar that is able, through the electronics baked in, to mimic multiple types of guitars—including hollow-body acoustic and solid-body electric.
How Do They Work?
Developer Charlotte Dann has magnets implanted in her fingers that allow her to do cool things, like slightly struggle to open up the fridge.
“Back on the Indie Trail”
“We’ve grown ever more aware of the problems with centralizing the internet.”
— David Heinemeier Hansson, the creator of Ruby on Rails and the CTO of Basecamp, discussing why his company is moving off of Medium and putting its blog onto its own host. The trend is picking up!
The Art of Your Childhood
My Life in Gaming, an excellent YouTube channel focused on retro gaming, just released a lovely mini-documentary featuring Tom duBois, who drew much of the video game box art for Konami in the late ’80s and early ’90s. Some great storytelling here.
Started From the Bottom …
“I didn’t have a lot of experience but I did have a lot of opinions.”
— Ryan Schreiber, the founder of Pitchfork, reflecting on the iconic music publication he built more than two decades ago—and plans to leave soon.
Close Your Tabs!
Mozlla’s IRL podcast recently featured my thoughts about browser tab overload for all to hear. The whole thing’s worth listening to, but my strong opinions can be found around the 9:20 mark.
Surf’s Up
”Watching it actually made me dumber, and I didn’t mind a bit.”
— Flop-reviewing legend Nathan Rabin, who wrote a review of Surf Ninjas that was gifted to me. Yes, that happened.