Category: z_Newsletter Note

Read to the end to be part of the problem. 👋🏻 Welcome to this week’s edition of TimeMachiner. Thanks for subscribing and checking out my work. I’m happy to have you here. What is it about Bob Ross that lives on so strongly in the modern era? He’s one man who hosted a series on PBS that focused on painting. Not exactly thrilling TV, but on paper that’s all it was. And that is the magic of The Joy of Painting. A quick history: The Joy of Painting aired on PBS from 1983 to 1994. Its creator and host, Bob…

Deep Culture sends you 10 interesting things every Tuesday. Get smarter each week by clicking here. Read to the end for the most Italian place to eat. 👋🏻 A big hello to everyone who’s new to TimeMachiner this week. Thank you for subscribing and checking out my work. I’m happy to have you here. Sometimes it’s easy to write something in this space to share something that is on my mind. I never want to focus on one thing too much and I do my best to keep things interesting. I could talk about Twitter’s ongoing mess or the depressing…

Get a quick tech tip every Tuesday with Advisorator. Each week, you’ll learn about neat apps, hidden tricks, useful websites, and more, all from a veteran technology journalist. Sign up for free. Read to the end for the person responsible for that U2 album. I’m not much of a mobile game player. In the early days of the iPhone, I played Plants vs Zombies and Angry Birds like many but I never got super into mobile gaming. Occasionally a game would come along that I got obsessed with for a few months. Flight Control was one of those. The concept was simple:…

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 To Plan Headcount? I’m not saying staffing a company is easy but look at the numbers courtesy of Daring Fireball: Microsoft: 10,000Google: 12,000Amazon: 18,000 (then announcing 50% of their Comixology division)Facebook: 11,000Salesforce: 7,000 That’s 58 THOUSAND people out of jobs in less than two months.…

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…

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…

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: 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…

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…

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…

Read to the end for a tweet revealing the true procrastinator. 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. 🙌🏻 Last week because Daylight Saving Time ended, it caused TimeMachiner to send an hour earlier. Fun, right? Not really because my work on the issue wasn’t done and the below note wasn’t included: If you’re in America: Vote. If you’re in another country where you do vote: Vote on your next election day. Imagine my annoyance when the issue…

Read to the end for the scariest haunted house ever. 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. 🙌🏻 The past week has been a busy one complete with travel, concerts, family time, and Halloween. Right now I’m reading Retail Gangster: The Insane, Real-Life Story of Crazy Eddie. This is a fascinating story about a chain of electronics stores in the NY area in the 1980s called Crazy Eddie. For those who were not in the NY tri-state area…

Read to the end for a seasonal contestant. 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. 🙌🏻 For the first time ever I took part in the Texas State Fair this past week. While I agree that on the surface that doesn’t sound too exciting, the spectacle of it certainly was. If I was to TL;DR the whole thing it would be this: the craziest concoctions of fried food. Over 2 million people came to this annual event that…

Read to the end to procrastinate. 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. 🙌🏻 This past week has been one of games. My time has been taken up playing the amazing Horizon Zero Dawn on PS4. This game, which I borrowed from the library, has been stellar and late last week I completed the main story. Overall, I give Horizon high marks. One great thing about getting it from my local library was the fact that this game…

Read to the end if you’ve seen this man. Hey there! A special welcome to the 8 newest TimeMachiner readers including Cathy, Ned, Emma, Maurice, Leo, and Chris. Thank you for giving me space in your inbox. 🙌🏻 This past Sunday I attended a car show with my Delorean. It is far from the first event I’ve taken the “time machine” to, but it was an event I’d never been to before. As it would turn out, this one was surely special. Fall is very busy for car events and in looking for car things to do this weekend, one…

Read to the end for the ultimate Subway sandwich Hey there! Welcome to everyone who’s new this week. A big shout out to Thomas for buying me a coffee ☕ last week. I sincerely appreciate the support. 🙌🏻 There was big news out of Google last week wherein they announced the closing of their Stadia gaming service. You can be forgiven if you’ve never heard of it because Google did a terrible job advertising it. The idea of Stadia is an interesting one: games are fully streamed to your device and you only own a controller and a small piece…

Read to the end for signs in all the wrong places Hey there! Welcome to the newest issue of TimeMachiner. For those of you who are new here, thanks for giving me space in your inbox. 🙌🏻 There’s a lot to be said about companies and traditions going away. When you experience it first hand, it transforms into a weird experience. For me that happened by chance this past weekend. I found a K-Mart. It was open for business. Of course, I went inside. Walking into a store that has been around for decades and stocks a similar variety of goods…

Read to the end for a tweet about towels and dogs Hey there! Welcome to the newest issue of TimeMachiner. For those of you who are new here, thanks for giving me space in your inbox. 🙌🏻 It’s “windows open” weather here in NY and, if I may steal a line from McDonald’s: I’m lovin’ it. Summer has most certainly left the area and I’m quite enjoying having my windows open for some fresh air. My time this past week has been playing Horizon: Zero Dawn on PS4. I’ll get to the game in a moment but here is the best…

Read to the end for a tweet showing some good autocorrect. Hey there! Welcome to the newest issue of TimeMachiner. For those of you who are new here, thanks for giving me space in your inbox. 🙌🏻 The past week has been the start of what many call “Techtober” even though we’re still in September. What this made up word means is we have now entered the season of companies rolling out new products and software to lock in their holiday lineups. Apple and Samsung have held their events (with more to come from Cupertino) and the battle of “this year’s…

Read to the end for a nerdy workout. ‘ello! Welcome to the newest issue of TimeMachiner. A shout out to James, Eric, and everyone visiting from HackerNews! Thanks for giving me space in your inbox. 🙌🏻 We’re a day past a long weekend and for many it is the unofficial start to fall. If you’re anywhere related to retail, it is even the kickoff for holidays / Christmas. Super crazy. I don’t like it. For years I read a website called The Consumerist which was all about calling out companies for shady practices and giving tips & tricks for deals. Sort…

Read to the end to really whip the llama’s ass. Hey there and welcome to today’s issue of TimeMachiner. A shout out to everyone new from Escape from Clowntown and Scott’s Newsletter! Thanks for giving me space in your inbox. 🙌🏻 I’m back from some time off, which included a trip to the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame. This mecca for hoops was a lot of fun to visit and to read up on so much of the sport’s history. Yes, seeing displays from the greats was amazing, but there was a lot of history that was told by people most…

Read to the end for the ideal airplane workspace. Hello. It’s great to bring you a new edition of TimeMachiner this Tuesday. A big welcome to my newest subscribers. Thank you for giving me space in your inbox. 🙏🏻 I’m trying something new this week with the layout of TimeMachiner. As you can see, there’s a small table of contents to let you know right at the start what’s in today’s issue. I don’t know if this is useful or not, but I figure why not try something different, right? Trying new things is always an endeavor. As kids, we can be…

Read to the end if you’re over 30. Hello. It’s great to bring you a new edition of TimeMachiner this Tuesday. A big welcome to Ron, Jeff, Jessica, and my newest subscribers to TimeMachiner. Thank you for giving me space in your inbox. 🙏🏻 The week has been a doozy in “Real Life Land” between politics, the environment, and the endless drumbeat of sobering news. However, there are bubbles of good to still find. As Jason Mraz says, Look for the Good. A little league player showed kindness and compassion and every student in California public schools now gets free meals in order…

Read to the end for climate control. Clicking the Publish button is a finality. Every thought, opinion, piece of news, or rabbit hole ends with me clicking on a blue button. It sends my words into the world and eventually to your inbox. I clicked PUBLISH for the first time here on August 11, 2021, at 5:19 PM. That article was the beginning of my experiment to see if writing a newsletter was for me. Prior to this, I’d spent over a decade giving fiction a try. I’d written five short stories and a novel. Each one was a spark…

Read to the end for ocean front property. Hello. It’s great to bring you a new edition of TimeMachiner this Tuesday. A big welcome to Amit, Aaron, Arjan, Jon and my newest subscribers to TimeMachiner. Thank you for giving me space in your inbox. 🙏🏻 The dog days of summer are officially upon us. There’s been only small drips of things going on in the world that are not all doom and gloom. It’s an interesting lull in the cycle of tech and home entertainment where even these big companies know they don’t have a grip on our attention during these months. It’s…

Read to the end to see Steve Dog. Hello. It’s great to bring you a new edition of TimeMachiner this Tuesday. A big welcome to the more than 10 of my newest subscribers to TimeMachiner. Thank you for giving me space in your inbox. 🙏🏻 My year of reading has been unexpectedly supercharged. Since I last spoke to you, I finished Ken Kocienda’s book about Creative Selection. This brings my total to seven completed books this year. For someone who does not generally find enough time to read, I’ve had a great run. I’m now moving on to The Woman In Cabin 10…

Read to the end for pet advice. Hello. It’s great to bring you a new edition of TimeMachiner this Tuesday. A big welcome to Josh, Page, Michael, and my newest subscribers to TimeMachiner. Thank you for giving me space in your inbox. 🙏🏻 I’ve been reading a super interesting book written by the fellow who created two incredible things at Apple: He helped develop the Safari web browser and he created the iPhone keyboard + autocorrect. The book, Creative Selection: Inside Apple’s Design Process During the Golden Age of Steve Jobs by Ken Kocienda, has been a fun and fast read.…

Read to the end to remember Jenny. Hello. It’s great to bring you a new edition of TimeMachiner this Tuesday. A big welcome to Rick, Cindy, Krista, Mark, and my newest subscribers to TimeMachiner. A shout out to those of you coming from both Adam’s and Matt’s newsletters. Thank you for giving me space in your inbox. This issue is a milestone: reader two-oh-oh. Yes, TimeMachiner has crossed the 200 subscriber mark. 🥳 I appreciate everyone who enjoys it here. As always, thank you and you can hit reply to any email I send if you have feedback. Last week I…

Read to the end for a good dog tweet. Hello. It’s great to bring you a new edition of TimeMachiner this Tuesday. A big welcome to Dana, Tim, Donald, and my newest subscribers to TimeMachiner. A shout out to those of you coming from The Weekly Wrapped. Thank you for giving me space in your inbox. I once saw a joke proverb on Twitter that went something like this (I’m paraphrasing here): Check one weather app and you’ll know the temperature. Check two weather apps and you’ll never know anything. It got me thinking about how inaccurate weather data can be…

It’s hard to know where to start, except to say that I’m simultaneously angry and disappointed. After Friday’s Supreme Court reversal, we have officially entered the “unknown consequences” portion of our program here in America. Things we thought were safe are not. Things we started to take for granted now must be second-guessed. There is a question I keep coming back to: Where do we go from here? Many will say that voting is what is needed. Yes, it is. But we need to take a long look in the mirror about how our country is being led by those…

👋🏻 Hello. It’s Tuesday and that means a new edition of TimeMachiner is here. This past week I’ve been reading a lot of Stephen King’s book The Institute. I mentioned it a few weeks ago and now I’m officially at the halfway point. I can confirm there are some great Stranger Things vibes with this book. It’s given my Kindle a good workout and I love where the story is going. A big recommendation, for sure. We finally got the digital release of a brand new Ninja Turtles game. I go into more detail a bit further down. But, spoiler…