Campnite

In “I definitely didn’t have this on my 2022 BINGO card” news, is this weird acquisition. Fortnite’s maker Epic Games has gone ahead and purchased the music website/service platform Bandcamp. Todd Spangler at Variety has more. Terms of the deal weren’t disclosed. “Fair and open platforms are critical to the future of the creator economy,” Epic Games, best known as the company behind battle-royale game “Fortnite,” said in announcing the pact. “Epic and Bandcamp share a mission of building the most artist-friendly platform that enables creators to keep the majority of their hard-earned money.” Variety Bandcamp has been a go-to…

A good Saturday to everyone. We made it to the weekend and it’s a good time to relax with a warm beverage and a good piece of entertainment. Whether it be a book, a new TV show, or a fun game, some downtime is great. This week marked the 5th anniversary of the Nintendo Switch (more on that below) and the confirmation of Apple’s annual “March Event” scheduled for next week. I’ve been working hard to “Look for the good” as Jason Mraz would say. The world is a lot lately and I think today’s issue has something for everyone.…

Switch At Five

It’s crazy to think the Nintendo Switch has been on the market for five years. Back in 2017, it was very much a gamble. Nobody could know it would be a massive success over and over. Nintendo has rebounded from the Wii U years incredibly well. I personally bought my Switch at launch and fell in love immediately. The biggest change Nintendo made this generation was making sure there was a constant release of games. That (among other reasons) was a big reason for the Wii U’s failure. Over on Endgadget, they go over some of their favorite games for…

Rotary Dial

If you’re looking to combine retro-tech with new-age capabilities, look no further than this innovative idea. (Fellow Long Islander) Justine Haupt is someone who wants to carry a cell phone but make calls with it. Nothing more. So, she built her own. That uses a rotary dialer. And it does nothing else. This short YouTube video has all the details. Haupt 3D printed the casing and built the entire system herself. Even better than seeing this in action is the fact that she is selling these as a kit! Her website Sky’s Edge describes it as the Rotary Un-Smartphone Kit.…

Sanderson Time

For many, many years the Pebble Time has been the top project ever on Kickstarter. The revolutionary smartwatch was a smash hit on Pebble’s second trip to Kickstarter. I was an early backer and loved the product. After so many years though, it was only a matter of when someone overtook Pebble to claim the #1 slot. Leave it to prolific author Brandon Sanderson to be that person. Chaim Gartenberg at The Verge has more. The project’s original goal was to raise $1,000,000 in 30 days; Sanderson hit that number in around 35 minutes, according to The New York Times.…

Next Of Kin

The unveiling of a new product is a milestone for any company. Years of R&D, hundreds of hours in meetings, immense time and money spent, all to coalesce into a single moment: the launch. Every company has high hopes for their new products, but some fly higher than others. Even mediocre products can float along for years before a company kills them off. In 2010 Microsoft held one of their unveilings. A mysterious new product aimed at an under-targeted demographic was to unleash a new era of communications. They had all their ducks in a row: the experience of an…

Nobody Asks That

Most companies / brands have a ‘voice’ or style that they look to use everywhere. Whether it’s in their advertising, website, copy on its products itself, etc. Oat milk company Oatly decided to have some fun with their website and dedicate a section of their website to infrequently asked questions. The page itself is funny, but more so because many of the questions are accompanied by a user manual or poster-style graphic that visualizes the question. Some of the questions they’ve been “asked” include getting an electric vehicle tax credit by buying their oat milk and asking if any oats…

Long Runtime

Brian Stauffer reported for Variety on something I’ve surely noticed a lot lately: movies are really freaking long now. So many movies clock in at two and a half or even nearly three hours, lately. For me, it seems to be a detrimental factor each and every time I think about watching a film. Even when watching at home, the long runtime means you can’t just pop a movie on after dinner, especially when you need to be up for work the next day. Stauffer talks to a number of industry people about this and how all that extra footage…

Standing Still

Toyota has been a long-popular car manufacturer. However, lately, they’re in the news for the wrong reasons. The car company announced that they have once again had to halt production of their cars due to a supplier getting hacked. Jonathan Gitlin at ArsTechnica has more. Toyota is becoming quite the frequent target for hackers. It was compromised at least three times in 2019, including a malware attack in Australia, a breach of 3.1 million customers’ data in Japan (and possibly Thailand and Vietnam), and a scam that cost a subsidiary $37 million. ArsTechnica Last year they were hacked through a…

I Agree, I Agree

If anything from using software and signing up for stuff has taught us, it’s that nobody ever reads the giant page of legal text before using something new. Basically, we click “I Agree” and move on. Software license agreements and Terms & Conditions are important, yet it’s more of a legal CYA than anything. Enter TikToker Mckenzie Floyd who found something funny on Peacock’s Terms & Conditions. In a viral TikTok posted last week, TikToker Mckenzie Floyd (@mckenziefloyd) revealed Peacock’s secret Easter egg: A chili recipe from The Office. “Kevin’s famous chili” is famous among Office fans, featured in the slapstick cold open to the episode “Casual…

Greetings and welcome to a new week, everyone. A warm welcome to all who are new to TimeMachiner. A bunch of you joined after I sent the last edition of The Longform. I want everyone to have the opportunity to read it before it goes members-only on Thursday. It’s a fantastic walk down memory lane in which I talk about Catalog Showrooms like Service Merchandise. It is a fascinating retail experience. Click here to read Walking The Catalog. There’s been a lot to go through with the world news and trying to not get lost in the information overload. One…

Crypto Your Way Out of It

In all the talk of what countries will do in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, a key move is mentioned every time: sanctions. The idea is pretty basic. Stop doing business with a country, freeze their assets, and stop goods from going in. It’s an economic way to turn the screws. But, living in the 21st century means Russia is ready. Emily Flitter and David Yaffe-Bellany at the New York Times have more about the Digital Ruble. Should it choose to evade sanctions, Russia has multiple cryptocurrency-related tools at its disposal, experts said. All it needs is to find…

Miss Info Spreader

The past decade’s rise of social media brought with it a firehose of information. Is a website down? Check Twitter. What’s on the menu at my local burger restaurant? Check their Facebook page. What we failed to recognize early on was the lack of vetting of what was being loaded into that firehose. Sprinkled in were tidbits of fringe views, conspiracy theories, and footholds into people’s lives. Plant a seed of doubt and you can cultivate a person’s personality into one that aligns with your point of view. In the last few years between a tumultuous American election cycle, a…

A good Saturday to all. It only takes something like news of what is happening in Ukraine to remind me that there are many insignificant things surrounding us. In the grand scheme of the world, this newsletter doesn’t matter. None of my focus within each issue can hold a candle to what is going on outside some people’s homes. For me, there was a relief last year when I finally decided to stop checking the news all the time. I gave up my “news habit” because it had consumed me. American politics was a lot. With a change in who…

Alexa Anyone

Amazon’s runaway success with Alexa and the Echo devices “she” lives in is quite obvious. As someone who owned an original Echo back when you needed an invite to buy it, I can remember the awe in how good the voice recognition was. The time it took to understand a question, send it to the cloud, then return a response was a big win. It seems now that Amazon allows anyone to provide information to questions Alexa may not know. Jack Morse at Mashable has the story. Way back in 2019, Amazon announced that, going forward, any old idiot off…

Meta-less VR

With all the hullabaloo about the metaverse and Facebook Meta pitching it non-stop, it is a breath of fresh air to see a VR announcement that doesn’t come from Zuckerberg. Sony revealed the second iteration of their Playstation VR system that will release later this year. Kyle Orland from Ars Technica has more. As far as significant design changes, the PSVR2 will now offer a lens adjustment dial that can slide each lens side to side in order to match the player’s interpupillary distance. Getting a good match there can be key to providing a sharp focus and preventing eye strain…

A good Tuesday to you all! This weekend I decided it was a good idea to go from a snowy & cold area to a colder & snowier area. A great idea, right? 😆 However, it was a great time to see glass-making in action at the Corning Museum of Glass in Upstate NY. If you ever find yourself in the area, it was a fun time. Me? I enjoyed buying some Mandalorian Pyrex. This is the way. One awesome thing about the internet is if you’re enjoying something, you’re bound to find similar things you will also enjoy. Enter…

The Final Upside-Down

We’ve been teased about the fourth season of Stranger Things for so long. Then COVID had other plans for the show and things were on hold. But finally, finally, finally we get not only new information about season 4 but a release date! Netflix announced last week that this upcoming season will be split into two volumes. Season 5 will also be our final foray into Hawkins. That, to me, is fantastic news. Season 4 has been split into two parts with Volume 1 coming on May 27th. The second volume will stream on July 1st. David Tyler over at…

Yet Another List

Over on Den of Geek, they asked their staff to rank the best sci-fi films of the past 15-years. They also asked their readers to get in on the action as well. I may have to hand in my Nerd Card because there’s a lot on here that I haven’t seen. Colossal, The Endless, and Annihilation all flew under my radar. Some notable movies I have actually seen are higher up on the list. One that I really loved is Interstellar. Finishing higher on this sort of list than many might have expected in 2014, there’s a strange haunting quality…

Sights Out

When your computer, car, phone, or any other Thing is dead or ready for an upgrade, we head out to the store and upgrade our tech. It’s a simple proposition. But what do you do when your tech is literally inside your body? That is the real scenario faced by many customers of Second Sight. This was a company pioneering medical implants to help visually-impaired people see again. “Was” is the keyword, because they’re now out of business. Eliza Strickland and Mark Harris at IEEE have this more of this cautionary tale. Yet in 2020, Byland had to find out…

Burning Rubber

It’s no secret that buying a car right now is a complete nightmare. You have dealerships marking up cars by $5, $10, $15k because of the increased demand. On the used side, there’s never been a better time to sell your car. Even Carvana is buying cars from people for more than their original sticker price. If you’re in the market for a VW or Porche, get ready to add another headache to your list because this news by Jonathan Franklin over on NPR hits hard. A ship carrying cars from Germany to the United States caught fire in the…

Happy Saturday. This week I finally turned on the redesign of the TimeMachiner homepage and I think it came out pretty good. Some of you will even recognize yourself on there! Thanks to those subscribers who helped me out. Check out the page, hit reply to this email, and tell me what you think. If you’d like to add your own testimonial, include that in your reply too. This week I’ve been enjoying the Netflix show Murderville starring Will Arnett. If you’re looking for a mix of comedy, whodunit, and improv, this is a fun one. I’ll leave you with…

Thanks For Wii Memories

It’s no secret that the Switch has been a massive hit for Nintendo. Its 2017 launch was questioned by the industry. It launched in March, nowhere near the holiday season. Its launch lineup was sparse. It was coming off the embarrassing era of its previous console, the Wii U. Nintendo overcame its stumbles and now the Switch is everywhere. In turn, the Big N has given the green light to shutter the eShop for the Wii U. Kyle Orland at Ars Technica covers this news while also covering the fact that the eShop digital store for the 3DS portable console…

Adamsplaining

2022 began with New York City getting a new mayor. Eric Adams has only been at the helm of the Big Apple for a short time, but he’s wasting none of it when it comes to NY’s economic recovery. Fola Akinnibi writing for Bloomberg reports how Mr. Adams is coaxing CEOs to end remote work policies to get people back into the city to work. The mayor said he met with 100 chief executive officers this week as part of scheduled meetings his office has with both small businesses and corporations in the city. He used the meeting to coax…

Anti-Ambition

In a lengthy writeup for the NY Times, Noreen Malone dives into trends that bubbled up since COVID struck the workforce. The idea of anti-ambition is a phrase she explains is where our jobs have been stripped bare. Gone are the interactions, preparing to leave, the rituals, and the encounters. What we’re left with are jobs in our intimate spaces. A huge swath of luster (if any was there to begin with) is now gone. Now, though, it’s as if our whole society is burned out. The pandemic may have alerted new swaths of people to their distaste for their…

Doo-Wop With The Sickness

In a world where people are pretty gifted, leave it to the YouTube channel There I Ruined It to take a hard-hitting Disturbed song and completely change it. The channel posted this gem last week showcasing Disturbed’s hit song Down With The Sickness and morphed it into a doo-wop 50’s style song. It’s really good and this person is immensely talented. So have a listen for yourself and good luck getting this version out of your head.

Chrome Flex

Anyone who works in education or has kids in public school, it’s a sure bet that you’ve seen how pervasive Chromebooks are. Lightweight and inexpensive laptops, these durable devices are everywhere in schools. ChromeOS is a basic operating system, but because it ties into Google’s services at its core, it is quite powerful. Google announced Chrome OS Flex, a new version of their operating system that works on Windows and Intel Mac PCs. Scharon Harding at Ars Technica has more. Chrome OS Flex is basically the official Google version of CloudReady, which Google acquired when it bought Neverware in 2020. Flex allows individuals,…

Walking The Catalog

It’s a normal Saturday afternoon of browsing shelf after shelf of items for sale. Some displays are elaborately laid out. Other sections have setups that feature wonderful layouts on the walls. In the middle of it all is a jewelry section complete with attendants waiting to help their next customer. After going through the immaculate display of a store, you decide that the stereo you saw earlier was the one to take home. And this is where things are different. Because there are no boxes in this store. No stock of products waiting to be brought to the checkout. Here,…

Insider Impersonating

It is crazy to think how information can easily spread so fast online without anyone performing any fact-checking. It’s how many “industry insiders” can pose as experts without any track record. If they nail a couple of rumors, it gets reported and that begins a flywheel of self-fulfilling credibility. Take Jon Cartwright, a video game YouTuber, who decided to see how easy it is to become an insider. Spoiler: it’s super easy. Last week Nintendo aired one of their “Directs”, which are pre-recorded presentations that announce upcoming video games and projects. Plenty of people will try to guess what’s coming.…

Pokemon Uncut

Eagle-eyed reporting from Matt Jarvis at Dicebreaker. He caught this unusual item up for auction: an uncut sheet of Pokemon cards from the 1998 Base Set. The uncut sheet – produced before the individual cards are cut out later in the manufacturing process – includes all 16 of the holographic ‘shiny’ cards from the Pokémon TCG’s 1999 Base Set, its first English-language release. Among the holo cards is the ever-popular shiny Charizard, along with fellow first-gen evolutions Blastoise and Venusaur, which appeared on the front of the series’ Game Boy games Pokémon Red, Blue and Green. Dicebreaker The auction house…