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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.

Home Row Madness

“Unless someone else uses my keyboard, I rarely register that everyone else uses QWERTY.”

— Jon Porter, a reporter for The Verge, discussing what he's learned from a decade of typing in Dvorak, rather than QWERTY. Long story short: It works for him, but it probably won’t work for you.

This Explains A Lot

It turns out that if you dig far enough on the internet, you can still find a coincidence that still stuns you.

Matters of Size

There’s a significant clothing market for plus-size women, but not one for plus-size men—and that’s led to the existence of something a big-and-tall fashion blog called Chubstr calls the “fat tax.” The situation highlights some interesting economic questions.

Decaffeinated Comeback

"So many people still wanted it, and they didn't think they could get it anymore."

— June Rust, the cofounder of Eliza’s Quest Foods, the current manufacturers of Postum, discussing the low-key success of the revived brand with Industry Dive. Postum is a caffeine-free coffee substitute whose existence dates to the turn of the 20th century, with its invention credited to C.W. Post himself. However, it was taken off the market by Kraft around 2007.

Cultural Differences, LOL

What Germans think American food looks like. If you think that’s funny, just imagine what Americans think German food looks like.

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.

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