Read to the end for a post about Inigo Montoya I got a job. It’s going to be great and I’m really excited about it. That’s my update. Thanks to everyone who voiced their support, became a member, and tossed me some “coffees” during the past two months. I’m glad this crazy journey was short-lived. Thank you for reading. I sincerely appreciate it. -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. 😊 TODAY’S RANDOM FACTOID Scotland has over 400 words for…

Too Good to Go

Just when you think a brand is done for, they sometimes get a last-minute reprieve. Recently on TimeMachiner, I’ve written about some companies going belly-up: mainly Brydge and DPReview. But in true Monty Python fashion, they’re not dead yet. Incredibly those two plus Bed Bath and Beyond, a third well-known company name, aren’t going anywhere. Firstly we get Brydge, the iPad and tablet keyboard company. I have a Brydge I bought many years ago, my second, after getting one from their initial Kickstarter. Back in May Chance Miller at 9to5Mac reported its sudden disintegration. Creditors were left unpaid and customers…

We Didn’t Start the Fire: Updated

The iconic Billy Joel song We Didn’t Start the Fire was a major hit in 1989. In only four and a half minutes, Joel took us through important and notable events covering most of the 20th century. It was catchy, educational, and one of the last hits Joel had before moving to classical compositions. 34 years later we now have a cover of ‘Fire’ from Fall Out Boy. The song looks to cover the gap from then until now. I gave it a listen and while it sounds similar to the original I feel it’s not that great. Personally, some…

IRS’s Impending Software

For way too long the IRS has been at the mercy of an agreement they made with Intuit and others when it comes to tax filing software in the US. The deal it struck was to allow companies to develop their own software but also prevent the IRS from doing the same. We all know how that turned out. Now, the IRS will roll out its own homegrown system beginning in January. This may finally bring an end to the complicated (and annoying) process of filing taxes. Jacob Bogage at the Washington Post has more. The system will be available…

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Adventures in Job Hunting

Read to the end for a post for an uplifting dad joke My hunt for a job has been one of learning how companies do business and the weird caveats of the entire process. Stuff that would seem so rude to do to someone you know is just standard things that are acceptable. HR, job seekers, recruiters, and everyone in the entire “employment industry” work in bizarro world. I’ve learned if you don’t apply for a job in the first 10 minutes of it being posted, there are about 350+ applicants. Good luck standing out from the pack! I’m ready…

Wendy’s AI

While I don’t think ChatGPT is taking over the world any time soon, one technology that has come far in the last decade is voice recognition. In the early days of Siri and Google Assistant, they were wrong a lot. Now, those and other assistants capture our speech with extremely high accuracy. Using this, Wendy’s is piloting a program to let their Drive-Thrus be staffed by Google’s AI. Michael Crider at PC World has more. The system has been trained to tune out extraneous noises, like the sound of a passing conversation or kids fighting in the backseat, and can…

Fearless Rollerbladers

While some of the most 90s things ever are cheesy commercials about the fledgling internet and Microsoft trying to be cool, there’s another thing that was everywhere back then: Rollerblading. If you’ve ever seen the movie Hackers you know the crew always traveled by in-line skates. Our trip down memory lane features Ryan Jacklone, one of the pioneer aggressive roller skaters. Jacklone loves skating all over NYC, in and out of traffic, and basically doing what most 90s kids did: scoff at any limits placed on skating. Jackone’s style is what eventually became X-Games and the alternative competitive style of…

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The Longest Book

Read to the end for a post about inspirational cardboard I love my Kindle. It’s one of the best single-purpose devices I own. As much as I subscribe to the fact that Amazon makes cheap, commodity hardware, the Kindle reigns supreme. I can carry ALL THE BOOKS with me anywhere I go. It has a backlight, a ‘warm’ light, hooks into my library systems (I don’t mean to brag but I have four library cards), and has insane battery life. I bought the original Kindle in 2007 when it was a brand new idea. Back then it was an 8-month…

Rivian Joins the Plug Club

Last week I wondered how other EV manufacturers would fare in the sudden rapid adoption of Tesla’s “NACS” charger plug: “Only time will tell but the dominoes are falling.” https://timemachiner.io/2023/06/13/teslas-supercharger-superpowers/ Now today Rivian has announced they’ll switch from CCS to NACS beginning next year. This adds a third non-Tesla manufacturer to the list of companies outright changing the types of plugs on their cars. Jonathan M. Gitlin at Ars Technica has more. [T]oday Rivian revealed that it, too, is switching from CCS to NACS, Tesla’s competing standard, in 2024. Unlike the two automakers that preceded it, Rivian did not have…

Maryland Learns the Hard Way Not to Let Its URLs Expire

One rule of the internet is if you buy a website address (known as a URL or Domain Name) you better hold onto it forever. Because once it expires someone can, and will, scoop it up in an instant. Maryland printed a URL on their license plates for four years beginning in 2012 and now in 2023, it’s a casino website. Jason Koebler at Vice has more. In 2012, to celebrate the 200th anniversary of the War of 1812, Maryland redesigned its standard license plate to read “MARYLAND WAR OF 1812.” The license plates, which were the default between 2012 and…

Sega’s 3D Tech

There was a lot of hard work being done by video game companies in the 80s. The American market was in shambles and nobody knew how to break into a new era for entertainment. Sega released their 8-bit Master System in 1986 and with it the ability to play some games in 3D. But this wasn’t the Red / Blue 3D you’d see on the NES with Rad Racer. No, Sega created an Active Shutter system that made truly impressive 3D. Nicole Branagan does a deep dive on this early technology to see how it worked and let me tell…

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API Madness

Read to the end for a post about Fast Slow Internet. The internet seems to be going through a reckoning lately. First, there was the insanity of Twitter’s upheaval. This was due to an… ownership change, to put it kindly. But the end result was the change of rules regarding 3rd party apps, and the messy shutdown of those apps such as Tweetbot and Twitterific. Now we are dealing with a near-identical situation over on Reddit. They’re an old-school site too and for 8 years an application called Apollo has been the go-to app for using Reddit. Developed by Christian…

Free Lighthouse; Just Ask.

Lighthouses are cool looking, practical, interesting to learn about, and a key piece of culture and history. Technology butts up against that with advances rendering older items obsolete. GPS in this instance means there’s a bunch of lighthouses that are no longer necessary. But what to do with these coastal towers of light? The US Government’s answer is simple: give them away. The Guardian has more. Ten lighthouses that for generations have stood like sentinels along America’s shorelines protecting mariners from peril and guiding them to safety are being given away at no cost or sold at auction by the…

Tesla’s Supercharger Superpowers

For all the ways in which Tesla’s CEO is a buffoon, there’s a prior stroke of genius reverberating today. In its attempts to be competitive in the EV space, Tesla built out its supercharger network and has used its ease as a major selling point. It has worked. For years, it’s been Tesla’s charging port (NACS) vs CCS plugs. Now though Tesla is about to become the de facto standard for all public charging in the US. Aarian Marshall at Wired has more Yesterday, it was General Motors CEO Mary Barra’s turn to make a Twitter Spaces appearance. (Barra had…

AI Objection

We know that for all the hype surrounding ChatGPT and these “AI” models, they’re actually big liars. I showed personal examples of this in March. Now a lawyer is also learning the hard way that if ChatGPT doesn’t know something, it confidently lies about it. Wes Davis at The Verge has more. After opposing counsel pointed out the nonexistent cases, US District Judge Kevin Castel confirmed, “Six of the submitted cases appear to be bogus judicial decisions with bogus quotes and bogus internal citations,” and set up a hearing as he considers sanctions for the plaintiff’s lawyers. Lawyer Steven A.…

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Ride the Lightning

Read to the end for a post about Harrison Ford. A quick programming note: Last week’s Chromebook story had an issue where it was not in the early edition of the newsletter. Sorry about that. I’ve included it again today. It’s difficult to not talk MORE about Apple’s announced headset from yesterday, but I’ll refrain because I have all my thoughts in today’s top item below. Instead, here’s a lightning round of interesting stuff going on: First, I finished Ted Lasso and I will say this: love or hate the ending, it is a relief when a show ends when…

Before and After Reality

I’m doing something a bit different and writing my thoughts on Apple’s headset both before and after their WWDC conference, which took place yesterday. I’m no prognosticator but I have a lot of questions. Let’s dive in. Before It’s Friday, June 2 and I am completely intrigued by all this “Apple VR / AR / headset” news. Is it bunk? Maybe. But there are a few things going on leading me to believe, now more than ever, that Apple is announcing its next hardware platform on Monday. It comes down to a simple observation: Where there’s Apple smoke, there’s Apple…

Talking About Money

Here in the US, the rise of Square payment systems has helped every small shop and flea market merchant accept digital payments. It’s quick and simple. But what about the rest of the world? Especially in countries where mobile data is unreliable and people are quick to get scammed? Enter the payment “sound box”. Adnan Bhat at Rest of World has more on this innovative solution. Eventually, a fellow vendor suggested he subscribe to a “sound box” — a nifty internet-connected device that reads out payment confirmation messages. “Earlier, I had to wait for five to 10 minutes after every…

Ahsoka Tano Gets Her Due

I was late to Star Wars: The Clone Wars and I was late to Star Wars: Rebels. Hell, I’m late to season 3 of The Mandalorian. But… there is something I won’t be late for: Ahsoka Tano getting her own dedicated series on Disney+. For anyone asking “Who the hell is Ahsoka Tano??” let’s rewind a moment. In the mid-2000s George Lucas came up with a cartoon series that depicted the Clone Wars. This took place between episodes II and III of the prequel trilogy. In this series, we learn that Anakin Skywalker had an apprentice. She was a young…

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Chromebook Trash

One interesting part of the 2020 COVID lockdowns was the frenzy of school districts to procure computers to facilitate remote learning for all students. There were months-long waits for Chromebooks specifically because these low-cost machines worked with a school’s budget and integrate well with Google Classroom. But due to a literal Expiration Date, hundreds of thousands of Chromebooks will become e-waste. How is this possible? Monica Chin at The Verge explains. Chromebook Churn also discusses the Chromebook’s auto-update expiration date — something users have been complaining about for years.  While Google currently guarantees eight years of automatic updates to Chromebooks, that period…

Sound and Space

Read to the end for a post about a Rambo typo. Thank you to everyone who has become a Time Traveler and those who tossed me some “coffees”. It helps a ton and I appreciate it. I’m going to be unemployed for a while. If you want to help me out, consider a TimeMachiner membership. If membership is not for you, leaving me a tip (AKA “buying me a coffee”) is a one-time way to help. Finally, if you know of open QA roles wherever you work, please let me know. I have 10 years of experience (this is my…

Getting Cozy With Games

The first thing people generally think of when they hear “video games” is Mario or shooters such as Halo or Call of Duty. While these are wildly-popular types of games, there is a new genre gaining momentum out there: Cozy Games. These are games where the gameplay is simple. No time limits, no complicated set of rules. It’s simply you and a general task to achieve at whatever pace you want. Kelli Dunlap, a PsyD with a doctorate in clinical psychology, and a masters in game design talks about what these games are and why they’re becoming popular. The premise…

Half-Life’s Dream

Half-Life is one of the most successful video games of the early 2000s. The introduction of supreme storytelling into a shooter while adding exploration elements flipped an industry on its head. Half-Life was everywhere… except one notable place: Sega’s Dreamcast. It has been a mystery as to what happened with a game destined to have a port on every possible platform. And sure enough, it was going to come to the Dreamcast. Now, the Dreamcast Game Preservation group has found reporting of a near-release version of the game. The version I was given for review was about 95% complete with…

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A New Quest

Read to the end for a post about naming penguins. I want to briefly say a big THANK YOU to those who pitched in last week. A few of you became Time Travelers and others tossed me some “coffees”. It helps a ton and I appreciate it. I’m going to be unemployed for a while. If you want to help me out, consider a TimeMachiner membership. If membership is not for you, leaving me a tip (AKA “buying me a coffee”) is a one-time way to help. Finally, if you know of open QA roles wherever you work, please let…