Honestly, with the craziness of the news lately, I’ve found respite from the noise in gaming. Not just old games, either. Modern games—which I once used to shun—somehow sucked me in. Here’s why I think that is. https://tedium.co/2025/09/26/modern-gaming-later-in-life/ new @tedium

Hey, can you all do me a big favor? My childhood friend Chris recently found out he has terminal cancer. He has two daughters. One of them, Alivia, wants to go see Alex Warren with her dad in Columbus, Ohio. If you know someone in his orbit, send it to him. If you don’t, please share this post. ❤️

Hey, can you all do me a big favor? My childhood friend Chris recently found out he has terminal cancer. He has two daughters. One of them, Alivia, wants to go see Alex Warren with her dad in Columbus, Ohio. If you know someone in his orbit, send it to him. If you don’t, please share this post. ❤️

Let’s consider why someone might create a device with slots for literally hundreds of SIM cards, of the kind used in smartphones—and why that device might show up in a Secret Service raid. https://tedium.co/2025/09/23/secret-service-raid-sim-bank-telecom-hardware/ new @tedium

Today’s @tedium brings back one of its best-known contributors, Chris Dalla Riva, to highlight an excerpt from his upcoming book, Uncharted Territory. (Great book, BTW.) In it, he talks about how drum machines managed to take over pop music in short order […]

Today’s @tedium brings back one of its best-known contributors, Chris Dalla Riva, to highlight an excerpt from his upcoming book, Uncharted Territory. (Great book, BTW.) In it, he talks about how drum machines managed to take over pop music in short order […]

In times of chaos, support an independent media outlet near you. https://tedium.co/2025/09/17/jimmy-kimmel-independent-media-thoughts/ new @tedium quick hit

Some thoughts on Penske Media’s big lawsuit targeting Google’s AI summaries: It’s an excellent reminder of how Google tends to undermine its own service for its own ends. https://tedium.co/2025/09/16/google-ai-summaries-penske-media-lawsuit/ new @tedium

Some thoughts on Penske Media’s big lawsuit targeting Google’s AI summaries: It’s an excellent reminder of how Google tends to undermine its own service for its own ends. https://tedium.co/2025/09/16/google-ai-summaries-penske-media-lawsuit/ new @tedium

The current moment makes me wonder if ShortFormBlog needs a revival. I’m not even sure if it makes sense. But it got me thinking.

Signs your gross site is in danger of getting shut down: You’ve changed its mission to be a “foundation”

@mos_8502 saw you got kicked off the blue site. Hope you're holding up

People are getting picked off on Bluesky right now for sharing comments about the current moment. It is as good a reminder as any that the AT protocol is theoretically decentralized, but in practice mostly isn’t.

It kind of kills me that this is my first @tedium post in nine days. But I think I’ve been trying to thread a complicated needle in my own head. The stuff that happened yesterday didn’t help. But seeing Jesse Welles make it look seamless? That kind of did […]

Larry Ellison became the world’s richest person almost 30 years to the day of the speech where he first pitched the Network Computing idea as an alternative to Windows 95. (The speech made him famous in tech circles.) Just four days off: September 6, 1995 -> September 10, 2025 […]

About a month or two ago, I got an intriguing email with the subject line “The Laundry Room Search Engine.” A guy built his own quite-good search engine—and yes, it's currently sitting in his laundry room. Here's how he did it […]

"Interaction on the Web is a little like a mirror, like communicating with a manifestation of yourself. Because it is so chaotic, so decentralised, I find that using the Web becomes like communicating with a hardware version of me. It’s not exactly a doppelgänger, but an alternative version of […]

I have not seen a game as hyped as Silksong. Steam was not ready

Shockingly, I haven’t written an in-depth piece about Mac clones. Until now. https://tedium.co/2025/09/02/apple-macintosh-clones-history/ new @tedium

Shockingly, I haven’t written an in-depth piece about Mac clones. Until now. https://tedium.co/2025/09/02/apple-macintosh-clones-history/ new @tedium

Crashing on Balatro was driving me nuts—basically the game would often blow up on me in Wayland, forcing a logout. It was frustrating. Found a solution: Run it through the LOVE runtime. A little complicated to set up, but it works flawlessly […]

I was having a tough time finding a lane to express my thoughts on the horrible, difficult-to-read lawsuit involving ChatGPT that emerged this week. I ultimately found my lane at Taco Bell. https://tedium.co/2025/08/30/ai-safety-fast-food-lessons/ new @tedium

My dry sense of humor is once again met by people taking my joke at face value

Screw it, this sucks. Let’s go back to Usenet. https://techcrunch.com/2025/08/29/mastodon-says-it-doesnt-have-the-means-to-comply-with-age-verification-laws/

I realize that everyone has their opinions “vibe coding”—some enthusiasts, but plenty of haters. One thing I hadn’t realized, however, was that it was proving a powerful community-building tool. For a local magazine, I recently had the chance to put a local, in-person focus on what has […]

Bounce, the tool that lets you migrate your social graph between protocols, is now live in Beta! Today, we're launching one direction: ATProto to ActivityPub. We're so excited to get this in people's hands and to see what it means for the future of taking control of our social graphs from […]

Example of this from when I was 16: I had a 9pm bedtime, which was insane. My way of getting around this: I woke up at 4am to use the computer. https://writing.exchange/@ernie/115098144210172164

Despite many, many (many!) complaints about it, attempts to block or filter the internet keep coming up. Why do we keep doing this? https://tedium.co/2025/08/26/internet-content-filters-history/ refreshed @tedium

In honor of Windows 95’s 30th anniversary, here’s a great video of my favorite Windows 95 experience. It has been linked in the footer of the Tedium website for at least the past four years. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hqi2Jy0UMiA

Essential piece on the U.K.’s invasive role in online free speech. https://torrentfreak.com/uk-govt-finds-ideal-pirate-bay-poster-boy-to-sell-blocking-of-non-pirate-sites-250824/

Signs your anti-Wayland campaign is going well: Your campaign page is 10,000 miles long and has just three anonymous signatures https://stoppromotingwayland.netlify.app/

A social network that’s only accessible in 49 states. Who would have thought? https://tedium.co/2025/08/23/bluesky-mississippi-reaction/ new @tedium

I got to chat with @ernie about how the combo of Bounce & Bridgy Fed is an exit strategy that can help users preserve their communities and relationships in worst-case scenarios, like the one in Mississippi yesterday. We build tools like these at @anewsocial […] [Original post on mastodon.social]

A social network that’s only accessible in 49 states. Who would have thought? https://tedium.co/2025/08/23/bluesky-mississippi-reaction/ new @tedium

Here’s what you see here in Mississippi when trying to access Bluesky.

Tedium has a relationship with Bubsy, a onetime contributor. He was excited about his new video game, a straight sequel of Bubsy 3D. https://tedium.co/2025/08/19/bubsy-new-atari-game/

I wonder if the solution to my backlink problem is to turn it into self-service advertising. You can put an ad on any old article that doesn’t have one, but I get approval rights and you have to work within my rules. The prices increase by 400% if the ads are related to VPNs, AI, or gambling

Hank Green’s new chart-topping iOS app is like an inverted Tamagotchi, which says a lot about where the relationship with our phone is headed. https://tedium.co/2025/08/19/focus-friend-hank-green-adhd-app/ new @tedium

We needed a format that allowed us to just post random stuff sometimes. Now we have it. https://tedium.co/2025/08/18/tedium-quick-hit-format/

I see a path forward in the FOSS space for designers who can’t let go of Photoshop, and it involves node-based editing apps like PixiEditor and Graphite. In fact, I might even suggest that 2D image editors are late to the party […]

I see a path forward in the FOSS space for designers who can’t let go of Photoshop, and it involves node-based editing apps like PixiEditor and Graphite. In fact, I might even suggest that 2D image editors are late to the party […]

We should get Yahoo to sell CompuServe and Netscape to the community so they can do something with them. GeoCities too. https://linuxmom.net/@vkc/115034169199016937

As with everything else, the Intel/Trump situation is a roller coaster https://techcrunch.com/2025/08/14/u-s-government-is-reportedly-in-discussions-to-take-stake-in-intel/

[Comment on something incredibly lame I just saw] I’m sorry, it’s not “disgusting anti-user shit” to ask for an email address in the midst of an article that you’re otherwise getting for free.

Leave our browsers alone. https://techhub.social/@Techmeme/115023827448600448

Me, 9am: I wanna get work done, let’s head to the coworking space. Also, let’s bring lunch to save money! Me, 12pm: *spends 20+ minutes cleaning microwave because lunch exploded in the microwave, killing productivity gains*

OK, I finally wrote about the story I accidentally helped expose to a large audience. On AOL and dial-up, and what it means for it to go away. https://tedium.co/2025/08/11/aol-dial-up-ending-retrospective/ new @tedium https://writing.exchange/@ernie/114996043264907534

“Technologies don’t die. They just slowly become so irrelevant that they might as well be dead.” https://tedium.co/2025/08/11/aol-dial-up-ending-retrospective/

Kind of impressed that nobody seems to be talking about the Subway sandwich thing over here. That may be the most insane viral video I’ve seen in quite some time.