Latest posts
- Can Self-Hosting Be Simple?Aug 27, 2026Ernie Smith
You can go into the deep end way too easily with a self-hosting project. But is a less-is-more approach possible? Here’s what my attempt to build a “third-place” box taught me. Hey all, I’m working on a new newsletter dedicated to mini-PCs that I’m planning on launching soon, but I wanted to kind of give a sneak peek of what I’m thinking. If tiny computers are your thing, sign up here! Earlier th
- The Negative OptionAug 25, 2026Ernie Smith
In the 1980s and 1990s, Columbia House could do no wrong—it was a great way to get 12 CDs for a penny. But its business model kind of set the stage for a lot of bad e-commerce. Today in Tedium: No matter how hard you try, disruption comes for you. It might be slow and gradual, or it may be fast and brutal. But eventually, you will find yourself at the end of your line, attempting to hold on to th
- Card SharksAug 12, 2026Ernie Smith
The 1980s proved surprisingly fruitful for licensed greeting card mascots. It turns out American Greetings understood the Marvel playbook before Marvel did. Today in Tedium: One of the most-common complaints that you hear about modern media is that it’s often a retread of retreads. (One word: Marvel.) The Big Bang Theory, a show that was on the air for a dozen seasons and remains a rerun juggerna
- Vibe-Coded FlatteryAug 10, 2026Ernie Smith
I’ve seen a strange problem in my inbox that I haven’t been able to put into words. A saga involving a botched app release helped me figure it out. I remember when I came up with my first idea that I shared with the world. It was a dating site for people who didn’t want to share photos of themselves, but build text-only connections. I didn’t know what I was doing; I only really knew HTML and CSS
- The Earnest Era EndsAug 06, 2026Ernie Smith
When we lost Glen Hansard last week, his work still fresh and lively, it was a reminder that the world has changed more than we think it has. A few months ago, when I was walking around a mall on a ninety-something-degree day. I made a claim to my wife that I thought profound, but she kind of saw through pretty quickly. “If you walked through a mall 20 years ago, everyone would basically look the
- Put A Tag On ItAug 01, 2026Ernie Smith
The pricing gun should have been a dead technology years before it actually was. But state laws artificially kept it around as a shield against the scary barcode. Today in Tedium: Determining how much something costs shouldn’t be difficult, but in an ecosystem where everything is driven by highly personalized data, concerns are rising that prices might not be on stable ground. Recently, some stat
- Fa FaJul 27, 2026Ernie Smith
My brain-breaking trick for weaning off of Facebook involved creating a fake URL for Google News. Blame the home row. Old habits die hard, and the one that led to this post died a lot harder than some of the others. Recently, I made a realization: I have been unwillingly addicted to Facebook for a long time, and it’s not even because I like Facebook. Rather, it’s because I find it an extremely ea
- The TerminusJul 17, 2026Ernie Smith
When a really long road ends, why don’t we do more to celebrate the staggering amount of collective work that went into it? The ancient Romans really outclassed the federal highway system on this front. Today in Tedium: What does it mean for a road to end? Particularly, a big, imposing one that represents an essential connection for millions of people across an entire country? Often, major highwa
- Bring Back The KioskJul 15, 2026Ernie Smith
With Sony clobbering the physical game market and Grand Theft Auto 6 eschewing discs entirely, it makes one long for kiosks that could make disks on demand—a model that actually once existed in the UK. Hey all, Ernie here with a quick piece from Matt Lee, who, like most of the rest of the internet, has been looking at Sony’s recent moves around physical media with dismay. He has an idea … If you
- Boxed InJul 09, 2026Ernie Smith
At what point do the creative limitations you create for yourself actually harm your ability to create? And what can ALF teach us about that? One look at Paul Fusco’s IMDB page makes clear that he has not worked on anything but ALF since the early 1990s. He has essentially played one character for most of the past 40 years. It’s a good character, and given my elder millennial status, one that I r