Category: Newsletter Note

Welcome back to this week’s TimeMachiner. 2024 has been a year of running behind with my writing here. As I mentioned in the last issue, it’s mostly due to life being a whole lot right now. Writing, a passion I have, also requires time to do said writing. The majority of my time right now is taken up with work and planning life changes that are occurring throughout the year. And when something’s gotta give, unfortunately my writing takes a back seat. But, I’m trying to get something out when I can for you guys. Today’s issue goes into the…

Read to the end for a post about too many books. Hey, it’s been a few weeks! So, welcome back. TimeMachiner is a labor of love for me. But part of that is balancing my personal life, job, etc, with writing and running this place. I love doing it and it’s fantastic. No, this isn’t a goodbye or announcement of any sort. TimeMachiner isn’t going anywhere. What is happening is my time balance right now is… out of balance? Let me explain. I love finding random stuff online. That turned into TimeMachiner. But it’s something I do with the free…

Read to the end for a post about Tech Elitism. I’ve been under the weather for a couple of days, so this issue is a short one. I apologize for only having one story for you today. Next week’s edition should be back to normal. Thanks for reading. Now, onto the rest of today’s issue.

Read to the end for a post about ironic paywalls. January is, to me, one of the quickest months of the year. It’s a weird recovery period from the December holiday season, many get two days off and before you know it, February is here. The month is already half over, which is crazy. I don’t do New Year’s resolutions. Personally I don’t think they work for me. I try to have general goals I set whenever I need for whenever I feel like I want to accomplish something. Everyone is different, so I don’t judge anyone who starts something…

Read to the end for a post about Email Roadblocks. Editor’s Note: Thanks to everyone who completed the TimeMachiner reader survey. I’d like to announce that “JKresh” is the winner! Please check your inbox or spam folder for an email I sent last week so I can send you your prize! 2024 is upon us and I’m excited to get a new year of TimeMachiner underway. One thing that I’ve been quite happy about are some key past decisions I’ve made about how I’ve set up this newsletter. Mainly, I decided at the beginning that I would not use Substack.…

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 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…