Read to the end for a post about 90's Power Switches.
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It's been quite the year here at TimeMachiner. In total I've written 203 posts and that totals over 64k words! While this is a dip from last year (344 posts / 107k words) I also feel a lot better about TimeMachiner as a whole.
Last year I could feel burnout happening even with intentionally pacing myself. That is why I put The Longform on hiatus. While I loved writing in-depth deep dives, the time it took to do that plus keep the normal "Stream" newsletter going became too much. And, I still get to set the rules on how I want TimeMachiner to operate. So it was shelved. I've considered bringing it back for paying subscribers and I've specifically asked about this in the survey up top. So if you want some say on this, please consider filling it out.
I also decided it was okay to have issues that were a bit lighter in content or sometime skip weeks. Life can get busy; I think we all know this. And so I've gone two weeks between issues when life necessitated it. In fact, this issue comes two weeks since the last for those exact reasons.
Now onto the fun stuff: What worked and what didn't in 2023. I always write about things I personally want to share but I never know what will land and what is a big miss.
Coming out of nowhere was my post only a few weeks ago sharing The Full StarCruiser Story. It was by far my #1 story this year mostly because The Hustle somehow graced me with a link in one recent issue. 2+ million subscribers saw it and many clicked to see what was up.
In second place is Apple's Problem With Jon Stewart and I'm not surprised. While I'm a big fan of what Apple does, it's unacceptable how the whole cancelation of Stewart's show went down. For a company all about "privacy is a fundamental human right" they sure whiffed when it came to AI and China.
Taking third place is the nerdiest competition ever: Competitive Excel. I still don't get how this is a thing, but it's enough of a thing to have people take a look at what I had to say about it.
Rounding out the top 10 posts of the year are:
- Alexa go away
- Galactic Starcrasher
- Twitter peeking into the past
- Egg freckles
- Barnes & Noble is a success again
- Tetris the movie
- It took me two years to learn Siri could do this
Of course there's always stuff I hope people will enjoy but only ONE of you read... and that was it. Go figure. Here's the bottom-five for the year:
Personally, I'm surprised Surf Otter only had one person read about it because it's kinda hilarious. An otter steals surfboards and harasses surfers in California? Pretty silly and a good laugh at the same time.
No matter what, I'm supremely happy with the fact that I've written TimeMachiner for over two years. Since the first day I clicked Publish I've stuck with it and brought you all along for the ride.
To the hundreds of you who choose to read my work and to those who've supported me through a rough year: THANK YOU.
As you can probably guess, this is the final issue of TimeMachiner for the year. I generally take the second half of December off in order to recharge. You can expect fresh tech, culture, and nostalgia to hit your inbox on either Jan 2 or Jan 9.
I hope you have a great remainder of 2023. I'll see you in the future.
-Aaron
PS: If you're enjoying my work here on TimeMachiner, please forward this email to a friend who'd like it too. It helps me grow. Thank you. 😊