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 farm equipment is nearly the definition of absurd. So what’s the deal? P.j. Huffstutter from Reuters has news about an agreement between these two groups. Equipment makers such as Deere have generally required customers to use their parts and service divisions for repairs and until…
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 reimagines the iconic Obi-Wan Kenobi vs Darth Vader lightsaber fight in Star Wars – Episode IV – A New Hope. Here’s what they have to say about this incredible video: “Scene 38 ReImagined” is about the final confrontation between Ben Kenobi & Darth Vader in…
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 Horizon Worlds is far from intuitive. I spent a couple of hours trying to figure out how to add people to a group—without having to add coworkers as friends on my personal Facebook account. I eventually found an obscure tool that lets you generate a…
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, it blurs the line and forces us to ask how well it could work. Could it report the news, cover sports, or write a newsletter? The question of whether a chatbot could write a newsletter is a complex one, with arguments to be made on…
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 scrap nearly all their meetings. Matthew Boyle at Bloomberg has more. As employees return from holiday break, the Canadian e-commerce firm said it’s conducting a “calendar purge,” removing all recurring meetings with more than two people “in perpetuity,” while reupping a rule that no meetings at all…
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 to up its game with the rollout of its new Sing feature, which is essentially karaoke for your devices. The best part? It’s included with an Apple Music subscription and all you need is a supported device. Here’s more from Apple’s Newsroom announcement. What Apple…
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 that voluntarily isolates from the world. The Sentinelese protect their land from visitors by force and it’s even been recorded in the news how visitors will kill intruders. The fascinating part to me is how this (and other voluntarily isolated groups) on Earth are aware…
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 due to its incredible speech recognition and speed with which it could reply. When Amazon first introduced the Echo, the question was “what do you do with this thing?” but it quickly became a perfect Kitchen computer for setting timers and reminders. Alexa was the…
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 year is busy for me and I would think it is for you too. While I would love to hope you have time to focus on emails from me, I also realize that it’s best to break until January and come back in ’23 ready…
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 a whirlwind of decisions, San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors first approved the use of deadly force by police robots but then reversed that decision. Judy Serrano at Gizmodo has more. San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors voted 8-3 on a revised version of the policy, which now prohibits police from using…
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 launched their own music streaming service for patrons. Claire Woodcock at Vice has more. Over a dozen public libraries in the U.S. and Canada have begun offering their own music streaming services to patrons, with the goal of boosting artists and local music scenes. The…
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 crunch. So much so, they were forced to offline the entire service to fix security issues. Sarah Perez at TechCrunch has more. The company has now taken the fairly radical step of fully shutting down its servers for a couple of days in response to…
Being late is frowned upon in all etiquette circles however, there is one aspect of being late to something that has a benefit: entertainment. While some TV shows and movies are big hits and the subject of buzz, coming into something late gives a lot more perspective. Being a decade late to Star Wars: The Clone Wars animated show has been a wonderful thing. For starters, I already know characters such as Ahsoka Tano that people originally weren’t sure about are now fan favorites. I also don’t have to wait any time between seasons, even the multi-year gap between the…
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 in the world. The part that surprised me the most is the lack of scientific research into the mental ability of dogs in general. To think that it’s only been a few decades since work has been done with dogs is incredible. If you want…
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, and video streams aren’t encrypted at all. Sean Hollister at The Verge has more. This week, we repeatedly watched live footage from two of our own Eufy cameras using that very same VLC media player, from across the United States — proving that Anker has…
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 completely revamping its year-end Replay feature. And it’s awesome. Hartley Charlton at MacRumors has more. The overhauled experience puts the new highlight reel feature at the forefront of the Replay webpage, which users are encouraged to interact with before delving into more detailed information and…
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 it in the US) though I can appreciate the skill and competitiveness of the game. But where does the game end and the wider view of the world begin? For all that is fun about soccer, it is difficult to ignore the fact that the…
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 aliens are protecting their base. Nathaniel Janowitz at Vice has more. Local legend has it that this area in Mexico has been protected from hurricanes and other dangerous storms for over 50 years by extraterrestrials who monitor Earth from an underwater base hidden a few…
Autographs and original works of art are always collectible. For fans of Bob Dylan, his new book The Philosophy of Modern Song had a special edition: For $600 you could buy an autographed copy complete with a certificate of authenticity from the publisher Simon & Schuster. So imagine people’s ire when they found the autographs were not signed by Dylan but by an Autopen machine. Yeah, I’d be pissed too. Daniel Kreps at Rolling Stone has more. After initially rejecting requests for a refund, earlier this week, publishers Simon & Schuster said in a statement that they learned “the limited edition…
Over on “The Birdsite” there continues to be no end of apologists, seekers of Lord Manchild’s (as I’ve nicknamed Musk) attention, and defenders of Elon Musk’s every move. Twitter is Going Great chronicles so much, but this new nonsense takes the cake. Attention-Seeker Liz Wheeler jumped into the fray on Twitter basically challenging Musk to take action if the Twitter app is pulled from the App Store and Google Play. According to her, “Half the country would happily ditch the biased, snooping iPhone & Android. The man builds rockets to Mars, a silly little smartphone should be easy, right?” I…
Read to the end for the best airplane. Hey there! It’s Tuesday and here’s a fresh issue of TimeMachiner. A big hello to everyone who’s new this week. Thank you for giving me space in your inbox. 🙌🏻 It’s hard to ignore the fact that it’s Thanksgiving here in America. This is the time of the year when we gather to celebrate family & give thanks for what we have… then become ruthless retail savages less than 24 hours later in order to accumulate more Things. Cynical, right? It may be, but I do consider myself a bit jaded in…
In one of the most public about-faces in recent history, Disney is admitting they’ve screwed up. Late on Sunday night, they announced CEO Bob Chapek was out as head of the company to be replaced by Bob Iger. There wouldn’t even be a transition. Iger is back in control immediately. More from Mike Calia and Alex Sherman at CNBC. The dramatic upheaval comes 11 months after Iger left Disney, and days after Chapek said he planned to cut costs at the company, which had been burdened by swelling costs at its streaming service, Disney+. Earlier this month, the company’s earnings vastly underperformed…
Does anyone like Clippy? For anyone who’s initial response is “Who?” let’s rewind. Back in the mid 90’s, Microsoft introduced an assistant into Word named Clippy. It was an animated paperclip with eyes. It would monitor what you were doing and interrupt your work with suggestions. It was… annoying. Dipping into the nostalgia well, Microsoft is bringing Clippy to life in the most Everything-Old-Is-Cool-Again way: an ugly sweater. Tom Warren at The Verge has the story. This year, Microsoft has turned to Clippy, which is more Office-inspired than Windows itself. Born in Office 97, Clippy was resurrected in 2019 for Microsoft…
One of the longest-running and successful apps on iOS has been Evernote. This note-taking app was an amazing piece of software in the early days of the iPhone. From OCR to web syncing to a complete organizational method, Evernote (for a time) was *THE* note-taking app to use. That road seems to be over in its current form. Last week Evernote announced they’re being acquired by a company named Bending Spoons and the deal will close next year. Kyle Wiggers at TechCrunch has more. [Evernote CEO Ian] Small, the former CEO of platform-as-a-service company TokBox, came on in 2018. Under…
Sometimes art can be subtle and other times it is expressive. Then there are the statement pieces that become icons. One such art installation is over in Oxford in the UK where a house has a shark crashing through a roof. Yes, you read that right: a shark crashing through a roof. Prolific YouTuber Tom Scott takes us to this block where a piece of art was installed without permission, the decades of fighting to get it removed, and the eventual acceptance of the piece. I just have one question: what happens when it rains??