TimeMachinerMourning the dead is a process that differs by culture, geographic location, customs, and a myriad of other factors. One interesting turn of how technology may augment this process is the work of StoryFile. This company whose purpose is to memorialize Holocaust survivors has been employed at times to let the deceased “attend” and “answer”…Continue readingAsk Me Questions At My Funeral
Read to the end for chart manipulation. If you’ve taken even a cursory look at the news in the last week, you have likely seen the headlines. Talk about a bloodbath in tech lately. What do we name this? The Great Backlash? The Great Hiring Miscalculation? Or is it something more simple: The Great Inability…Continue reading
The internet is a place where people make connections for a variety of reasons. None more odd & interesting was an unknown-to-me way was group chats for people who had the same first name. Incredibly, many of these groups that formed a decade or more ago continue to endure and live on today. Annie Rauwerda…Continue readingThe First Name Club
We’ve seen a boom in the availability of tiny libraries across the world. These small structures can be found in parks, outside people’s homes and in other public spaces. Often they have clear doors on the front and are stuffed with books to take. The idea is great and it’s also a wonderful way to…Continue readingBook On A Bench
In what is surely one of the most out-of-left-field announcements from Apple in a long time, they have done something I have never seen them do: They resurrected a product. Specifically, the HomePod smart speaker is back and in its Version 2 form, it is very much similar to the HomePod that was discontinued in…Continue readingThe HomePod Comes Home
In the late 90s and early aughts, it was thought that print was dead and the Internet would replace everything physical. That hasn’t happened and one company has stuck around to this day: Barnes & Noble. The bookseller has outlasted Borders, Waldenbooks, and B. Dalton Booksellers to be the last chain store standing. In the…Continue readingBarnes & Noble is a Success Again
Let’s start with the end of this story first: John Deere sucks. That is the most important part to know because, like others, they have fought tooth and nail to stop people from repairing the stuff they buy from Deere. In a society that’s moving more toward renting everything, being locked out of fixing your…Continue readingFarmers Finally Allowed to Repair the Stuff They Own
With the incredible computing power we all possess these days, it is infinitely fascinating to see how people can remaster, edit, and recut classic cinema into something more interesting and enthralling. From Thundercats to Terminator 2, there have always been great fan edits put out there. Now comes this 6-minute video from Scene 38 that…Continue readingObi-Wan Fighting Like A Youngin’
In yet more proof (like we needed any) that Facebook Meta is still falling quite short in making their virtual reality world Horizon Worlds a thing, Wired reporter Eric Ravenscraft tells his tale of trying to hold a holiday party inside that system. Spoilers: it was a big mess. For starters, organizing an event using…Continue readingIs Anyone Still “Trying to fall in love” with Horizon Worlds?
Read to the end for password snark. Happy Tuesday and happy 2023. January is upon us and it’s time to fire up the flux capacitor because TimeMachiner is back. Chatbots have become all the rage in the past month or so. The technology fascinates me because as someone who went to school to pursue writing,…Continue reading
Meetings suck. They’ve always sucked. Generally they go longer than they need, key people can’t attend, and they can easily become unproductive which is the exact opposite of a meeting’s purpose. If you’re an employee of Shopify, your calendar is about to get a lot more open. Because in 2023, Shopify is telling everyone to…Continue readingThis Could Have Been an Email
Apple Music has been in fierce competition with Spotify since the launch of Cupertino’s service. Aside from Spotify Wrapped (which Apple greatly improved their version in ’22), there are few differences in services. It really comes down to personal taste and preference rather than which is ‘better’. Because both are damn good. Apple is looking…Continue readingiPhone Karaoke
Even though it’s 2023 and we think the world is extremely connected, there are still parts of the globe that are not only disconnected but visiting these locations could be deadly. YouTube channel RealLifeLore documents Sentinel Island, an isolated piece of land that is part of the Andaman Islands, and the local population is one…Continue readingForbidden Island
With the massive proliferation of Amazon Echo / Alexa devices, Amazon found a gaping hole by which to get their hardware into people’s houses. For years Amazon has generally released shoddy, commodity (AKA crap) they sell at a loss in order to get you to use their services more. The Echo was a hit, mostly…Continue readingAlexa, Go Away
Read to the end for password snark. Happy Tuesday to you and welcome to the latest edition of TimeMachiner. Today marks the final edition of 2022. Last year I took the latter half of December off and it was a nice way to rejuvenate. This year is no different. I know the remainder of the…Continue reading
When science fiction becomes science fact, it can be awesome. Other times it can be really bad. In the case of “Asimov’s Laws of Robotics”, it has become reality to examine the first law “A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.” because, in…Continue readingDead or Alive, You’re Coming With Me
One of the greatest achievements in the past decade has been the ability of local public libraries ability to shift to offering more and more digital items. In a world where many of our books, movies, music, and other things are digital they have kept up. Now in a very cool twist, some libraries have…Continue readingLibrary: The Streaming Service
With people looking for Twitter alternatives, because… you know why, there have been many giving Mastodon and others a try. One that has come up is called Hive, a social network I’d never even heard of a month ago. The influx of people has been so massive though that this 2-person company is feeling the…Continue readingHive Temporarily Forced Offline
Read to the end for festive horror. Editor’s Note: Last issue’s link to the Post of the Week was incorrect. If you wish to see the original post, you can click here. Being late is frowned upon in all etiquette circles however, there is one aspect of being late to something that has a benefit:…Continue reading
We all know dogs get excited when they see us, but is that because they miss us or know we’re going to feed them? It’s been speculated that dogs are pretty damn smart, but we need the science to back that up. So leave it to 60 Minutes’ 2014 story about Chaser: the smartest dog…Continue readingThe Smartest Dog
Anker, whose sub-brand Eufy, has built a ton of goodwill in the decade-plus it’s been in business. They’ve created many sub-brands with Eufy being one for the home and consisting of cameras. They’ve promised zero-subscription, zero-cloud, encrypted video since Day 1. Imagine my surprise when news broke that data is going to the cloud. Oh,…Continue readingEufy’s Promise of Secure Video Was A Lie
You know we’re firmly in December when you begin seeing the plethora of people sharing their year-end Spotify Wrapped. This compilation of listening stats has been awesome to see but has always made me, an Apple Music subscriber, a bit sad that I haven’t had anything similar. Apple has finally fixed this egregious error by…Continue readingFinally, Apple Competes With Spotify Wrapped
Read to the end for writing assumptions. It’s been a week. From the World Cup kicking off in human-rights-violations-are-cool-with-us Qatar to literal riots in Foxconn’s “iPhone City” in China, you could say we’re in a Dark Mode era for the world. I am generally not a fan of football (or soccer as we weirdly call…Continue reading
While weather and natural events can be unpredictable, modern meteorologists have done a good job of predicting storms and natural disasters. But the residents of Miramar Beach, Mexico don’t listen to the experts. Why should they? Natural disasters pass them by all the time. And for those who live there there’s a simple explanation: the…Continue readingThe Aliens Will Protect Us