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Tedium: The Dull Side Of The Internet

@tedium.co
1.4K followers 37 following 555 posts

A newsletter dedicated to all things offbeat. Long twice-weekly, now just listening to our gut. (Please don’t shove politics into our replies, thanks.) Subscribe: tedium.co

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Tedium: The Dull Side Of The Internet @tedium.co · 27/09/2026
Combos aren’t the official food of Tedium, but they could be. tedium.co/2026/09/27/c...
tedium.co
Combos History: Its Inventors Literally Drilled Into Pretzels
Discover how Combos, the popular gas-station snack, was invented by a pair of brothers who drilled into an original snack-food idea, then immediately sold it.
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Ernie Smith @ernie.tedium.co · 21/09/2026
Sigh WTF Napster tedium.co/2026/09/21/n... new @tedium.co
tedium.co
WTF Is Up With Napster’s AI Pivot?
Napster is shedding its musical roots in favor of AI educational tools and an association with Middle Eastern markets like Dubai and Saudi Arabia. Why?
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Tedium: The Dull Side Of The Internet @tedium.co · 21/09/2026
Two phrases that should never go together: “Napster” and “AI pivot” tedium.co/2026/09/21/n...
tedium.co
WTF Is Up With Napster’s AI Pivot?
Napster is shedding its musical roots in favor of AI educational tools and an association with Middle Eastern markets like Dubai and Saudi Arabia. Why?
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Tedium: The Dull Side Of The Internet @tedium.co · 17/09/2026
Justice for giant cable brands that have been active longer than most of us have been alive tedium.co/2026/09/17/c...
tedium.co
Why Is Spectrum Killing The Cox Cable Brand?
The front-facing Cox Communications brand is being retired by Charter, despite nothing really being wrong with it. Brand loyalty means nothing, apparently.
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Tedium: The Dull Side Of The Internet @tedium.co · 15/09/2026
Usenet is many things, but one thing it was not, until recently: Easy for a normal person to search through. tedium.co/2026/09/14/u...
tedium.co
Usenet’s Back, Baby. (This Time, The Search Works.)
Usenet-Rewind, a new tool for digging into Usenet history, holds much potential for researchers. But seeing your old posts on Usenet is gonna feel weird.
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Tedium: The Dull Side Of The Internet @tedium.co · 15/09/2026
We hoped the added attention helped.
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Tedium: The Dull Side Of The Internet @tedium.co · 15/09/2026
Usenet is many things, but one thing it was not, until recently: Easy for a normal person to search through. tedium.co/2026/09/14/u...
tedium.co
Usenet’s Back, Baby. (This Time, The Search Works.)
Usenet-Rewind, a new tool for digging into Usenet history, holds much potential for researchers. But seeing your old posts on Usenet is gonna feel weird.
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Ernie Smith @ernie.tedium.co · 11/09/2026
Hi, I would like to tell you about the company whose AI agents spammed me four times in the past three hours. If you are a creative, particularly one who does #freelance, you need to know about the dystopian iLands business model. Keep yourself safe. tedium.co/2026/09/11/i... new @tedium.co
tedium.co
The Worst Spam Emails: Inside iLands' AI Agent Hustle
iLands, a new AI agent-centric startup, is spamming creatives like me numerous times a day. What do its agents want? My job. Why? They need to buy more tokens.
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Tedium: The Dull Side Of The Internet @tedium.co · 11/09/2026
Dear bots: Do not hustle us. tedium.co/2026/09/11/i...
tedium.co
The Worst Spam Emails: Inside iLands' AI Agent Hustle
iLands, a new AI agent-centric startup, is spamming creatives like me numerous times a day. What do its agents want? My job. Why? They need to buy more tokens.
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Tedium: The Dull Side Of The Internet @tedium.co · 10/09/2026
So I think what we’re saying here is that Matt Mullenweg is the Garfield of WordPress. tedium.co/2026/09/10/m...
tedium.co
Automattic Minus Matt: Mullenweg’s Forced Break
Matt Mullenweg just got suspended from Automattic, the company behind WordPress. Could that give WordPress room for a cultural reset?
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Boxed News @boxed.news · 09/09/2026
Should you save thousands of dollars to buy some possibly good Nvidia-centric AI Box from Lenovo or HP? boxed.news/2026/09/08/n...
boxed.news
I’m Seeing Sparks 🔌
PC manufacturers looking to have a response to the Mac Studio start soft-launching their Nvidia mini-PC plays. Should you care?
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Tedium: The Dull Side Of The Internet @tedium.co · 09/09/2026
Respectfully, if you’re going to send us an AI-automated message … maybe take a step back.
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Tedium: The Dull Side Of The Internet @tedium.co · 03/09/2026
Shout-out to the good folks at MapQuest, who figured out the secret to reviving a vintage platform’s modern-day fortunes, at least for now. tedium.co/2026/09/02/m...
tedium.co
MapQuest's Unlikely Cultural Revival in 2026
MapQuest didn’t seem like it was built for 2026. But its marketing savvy and cultural backbone might prove a useful template for legacy tech companies.
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Ernie Smith @ernie.tedium.co · 01/09/2026
*Single tear in eye* Here it is, the first issue of Boxed News. I hope you dig. boxed.news/2026/09/01/b...
boxed.news
Wanted: Cheap Computing: Boxed News Is Born
A new weekly newsletter about mini PCs kicks off with some Mac Mini thoughts, a little deal hunting, and a look at mini PC history.
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Tedium: The Dull Side Of The Internet @tedium.co · 27/08/2026
A self-hosting setup we tried not to overthink. tedium.co/2026/08/26/s...
tedium.co
Can Self-Hosting Be Simple? A Mini-PC Experiment
What I learned from building a less-is-more self-hosted rig in the most normie way possible.
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Ernie Smith @ernie.tedium.co · 26/08/2026
Hi, I’m building a new newsletter about mini PCs. I’d be psyched if you signed up for it so it’s not just me on the list. boxed.news
boxed.news
Subscribe To Boxed News | Mini PC Reviews, Updates & Insights
Curious about mini PCs? Sign up for this weekly newsletter from Ernie Smith, the editor of Tedium. You might get a few ideas.
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Ernie Smith @ernie.tedium.co · 25/08/2026
I just finished up a complete rewrite of my 2015 Columbia House piece. I more explicitly underline the story underneath the story: Every sketchy SaaS business model has roots in business models like Columbia House. tedium.co/2026/08/24/c... updated @tedium.co
tedium.co
Columbia House: The First 12 Cost A Penny, But …
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 predicted a lot of bad e-commerce.
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Tedium: The Dull Side Of The Internet @tedium.co · 25/08/2026
It’s time to give Columbia House a second look (and talk about how it represents some of the bad parts of modern capitalism): tedium.co/2026/08/24/c...
A Columbia House ad from 1972
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Ernie Smith @ernie.tedium.co · 12/08/2026
In the 1980s, why were greeting cards such a dominant source of popular culture? Long story short: American Greetings engineered them that way. And that’s how we got the Care Bears. tedium.co/2026/08/12/g... new @tedium.co
tedium.co
Card Sharks: How Greeting Cards Ruled ’80s Cartoons
American Greetings turned Strawberry Shortcake and Care Bears into cartoon stars, proving the greeting card-to-TV pipeline was a hit.
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Ernie Smith @ernie.tedium.co · 12/08/2026
I had a lot of fun with the captions on this one.
Image: A YouTube embed of The Care Bears Movie

Caption: An R-rated scene from the action-packed, brutally violent movie Pulp Fiction.
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Tedium: The Dull Side Of The Internet @tedium.co · 12/08/2026
The most hardcore post we’ve ever written. tedium.co/2026/08/12/g...
tedium.co
Card Sharks: How Greeting Cards Ruled ’80s Cartoons
American Greetings turned Strawberry Shortcake and Care Bears into cartoon stars, proving the greeting card-to-TV pipeline was a hit.
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Tedium: The Dull Side Of The Internet @tedium.co · 10/08/2026
It’s a weird world for weekend tinkerers these days. tedium.co/2026/08/09/v...
tedium.co
The Problem With Vibe-Coded Flattery
A botched app release highlights a problem I’ve been seeing with a glut of new, vibe-coded projects in my inbox.
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Ernie Smith @ernie.tedium.co · 10/08/2026
A lot of folks are hard-launching vibe-coded apps into the world. If you do this, please do me a favor: When you email folks about the thing you built, write the email yourself. Thanks. tedium.co/2026/08/09/v... new @tedium.co
tedium.co
The Problem With Vibe-Coded Flattery
A botched app release highlights a problem I’ve been seeing with a glut of new, vibe-coded projects in my inbox.
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Tedium: The Dull Side Of The Internet @tedium.co · 10/08/2026
It’s a weird world for weekend tinkerers these days. tedium.co/2026/08/09/v...
tedium.co
The Problem With Vibe-Coded Flattery
A botched app release highlights a problem I’ve been seeing with a glut of new, vibe-coded projects in my inbox.
163
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Ernie Smith @ernie.tedium.co · 06/08/2026
“But in the mid-2000s, the earthy sound, while not sounding dated to modern ears, was familiar and comforting. Alas, it was too often a thousand shades of the same thing.” I loved this sound back then, still kind of do, but the world shifted, mostly for the better. tedium.co/2026/08/06/g...
tedium.co
An Earnest Takeaway From Glen Hansard’s Passing
Glen Hansard’s passing reflects a subtle shift away from a famed era of earnest singer-songwriters. The culture has changed. The songs still hold up.
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Ernie Smith @ernie.tedium.co · 06/08/2026
I wanted to get some thoughts down about Glen Hansard, one of many singer-songwriters I was once obsessed with. In so many ways, his passing reflects a world that doesn’t quite exist anymore. tedium.co/2026/08/06/g... new @tedium.co
tedium.co
An Earnest Takeaway From Glen Hansard’s Passing
Glen Hansard’s passing reflects a subtle shift away from a famed era of earnest singer-songwriters. The culture has changed. The songs still hold up.
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Ernie Smith @ernie.tedium.co · 03/08/2026
It’s Monday afternoon. It’s lunchtime on the East Coast. While you’re at our desk avoiding the LLM which is trying to keep you productive, read a long piece about pricing guns. It’s a more interesting technology than you’d guess. tedium.co/2026/08/01/p...
tedium.co
Why Pricing Guns Stuck Around After The Barcode
In the showdown between barcodes and manually placed price tags, the pricing gun should have lost. But states, unions, and consumer advocates kept it around.
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yesandMissHavthisham @steenyswank.bsky.social · 02/08/2026
omg some delicious history of the pricing "gun." Never a dull moment with @tedium.co
tedium.co
Why Pricing Guns Stuck Around After The Barcode
In the showdown between barcodes and manually placed price tags, the pricing gun should have lost. But states, unions, and consumer advocates kept it around.
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Ernie Smith @ernie.tedium.co · 01/08/2026
Just updated the Tedium Shopping Network with some pricing-gun-related gear. shopping.tedium.co/finds/perco-...
shopping.tedium.co
Make This Pricing Gun Your Weapon Of Choice | Tedium Shopping Network
A handheld price gun with enough adhesive labels to mark down an entire discount store, one clack at a time.
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Tedium: The Dull Side Of The Internet @tedium.co · 01/08/2026
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. feed.tedium.co/link/15204/17399769/…
feed.tedium.co
Why Pricing Guns Stuck Around After The Barcode
In the showdown between barcodes and manually placed price tags, the pricing gun should have lost. But states, unions, and consumer advocates kept it around.
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Tedium: The Dull Side Of The Internet @tedium.co · 01/08/2026
The pricing gun isn’t dead, but it was kept artificially relevant for decades, for reasons that might sound familiar to skeptics of electronic shelf labels. tedium.co/2026/08/01/p...
tedium.co
Why Pricing Guns Stuck Around After The Barcode
In the showdown between barcodes and manually placed price tags, the pricing gun should have lost. But states, unions, and consumer advocates kept it around.
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Ernie Smith @ernie.tedium.co · 27/07/2026
You know how much of a dark pattern Facebook is? Simply typing “fa,” two home row characters, is enough to trigger it in most browsers. I had to come up with a brain hack to stop typing it and visiting this site I freaking hate. tedium.co/2026/07/27/f... new @tedium.co
tedium.co
My Brain-Breaking Trick to Quit Using Facebook
Struggling to quit Facebook? Maybe it has something to do with the home row of your keyboard. Here’s how I fixed it.
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Tedium: The Dull Side Of The Internet @tedium.co · 27/07/2026
My brain-breaking trick for weaning off of Facebook involved creating a fake URL for Google News. Blame the home row. feed.tedium.co/link/15204/17388904/…
feed.tedium.co
My Brain-Breaking Trick to Quit Using Facebook
Struggling to quit Facebook? Maybe it has something to do with the home row of your keyboard. Here’s how I fixed it.
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Ernie Smith @ernie.tedium.co · 18/07/2026
This is definitely one of those weird obsessions I’ve always had.
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Tedium: The Dull Side Of The Internet @tedium.co · 17/07/2026
Although we’ve gone to the end of the road, still we can’t let go … tedium.co/2026/07/17/t...
tedium.co
Terminus History: What Happens When A Road Ends
Why do major highways end anticlimactically? The Romans revered boundaries as sacred, but U.S. interstates just fade out. Is it a cultural thing?
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Tedium: The Dull Side Of The Internet @tedium.co · 17/07/2026
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. feed.tedium.co/link/15204/17382177/…
feed.tedium.co
Terminus History: What Happens When A Road Ends
Why do major highways end anticlimactically? The Romans revered boundaries as sacred, but U.S. interstates just fade out. Is it a cultural thing?
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Tedium: The Dull Side Of The Internet @tedium.co · 16/07/2026
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. feed.tedium.co/link/15204/17381035/…
feed.tedium.co
The Forgotten Kiosk Concept That Physical Media Needs
Sony and GTA 6 are killing physical games. But EDOS, a former UK kiosk concept, shows we could still have on-demand disc burning. Bring it back!
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Tedium: The Dull Side Of The Internet @tedium.co · 16/07/2026
We don’t have enough kiosks in this world. tedium.co/2026/07/15/e...
tedium.co
The Forgotten Kiosk Concept That Physical Media Needs
Sony and GTA 6 are killing physical games. But EDOS, a former UK kiosk concept, shows we could still have on-demand disc burning. Bring it back!
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Ernie Smith @ernie.tedium.co · 09/07/2026
Want to be creative and successful? Don’t be like the dude who came up with the idea for ALF. tedium.co/2026/07/09/a... new @tedium.co
tedium.co
Boxed In: The ALF Lesson on Creative Limitations
ALF was a huge hit, but Paul Fusco’s strict rules for the character limited its long-term potential … and his career. There’s a lesson in that.
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Tedium: The Dull Side Of The Internet @tedium.co · 09/07/2026
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? feed.tedium.co/link/15204/17375642/…
feed.tedium.co
Boxed In: The ALF Lesson on Creative Limitations
ALF was a huge hit, but Paul Fusco’s strict rules for the character limited its long-term potential … and his career. There’s a lesson in that.
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Tedium: The Dull Side Of The Internet @tedium.co · 09/07/2026
Don’t box yourself in so much that you keep falling through trap doors, like the creator of ALF did. tedium.co/2026/07/09/a...
tedium.co
Boxed In: The ALF Lesson on Creative Limitations
ALF was a huge hit, but Paul Fusco’s strict rules for the character limited its long-term potential … and his career. There’s a lesson in that.
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Tedium: The Dull Side Of The Internet @tedium.co · 02/07/2026
Web forums were rough around the edges and faded in relevance as seemingly better options emerged. But what if we had stuck with them? feed.tedium.co/link/15204/17371410/…
feed.tedium.co
What We Lost When We Quit Using Crappy Old Web Forums
Old web forums were poorly coded and rough around the edges, but maybe we gave up on them too quickly in the social media era.
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Ernie Smith @ernie.tedium.co · 02/07/2026
Best finding when writing this: BBCode, the tool we used to add links, images, and giant text to the Something Awful forums, has had an unusual resurgence as a scripting language for the game-building engine Godot.
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Tedium: The Dull Side Of The Internet @tedium.co · 02/07/2026
What if internet culture remained built around intermittently working Web forums that we could barely keep online? tedium.co/2026/07/01/o...
tedium.co
What We Lost When We Quit Using Crappy Old Web Forums
Old web forums were poorly coded and rough around the edges, but maybe we gave up on them too quickly in the social media era.
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Tedium: The Dull Side Of The Internet @tedium.co · 01/07/2026
You know you want some tungsten in your life.
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404 Media @404media.co · 27/06/2026
“Whether it is rising utility bills, unsustainable demands on our water, nonsensical tax incentives or the loss of farmland and rural ways of life, people are asking a very basic question: who is this ultimately serving?” www.404media.co/bodycam-foot...
404media.co
Bodycam Shows Moment Cops Arrested a Man for Speaking Too Long at Data Center Meeting
We spoke to Darren Blanchard, the man arrested while speaking out against data centers at a community meeting. He's sharing the bodycam footage of his arrest for the first time with 404 Media.
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Tedium: The Dull Side Of The Internet @tedium.co · 27/06/2026
Who’s to blame for the memory crisis that turned Macs and Steam Boxes into unobtanium this week? The memory-makers have a convenient answer. feed.tedium.co/link/15204/17369108/…
feed.tedium.co
RAM Crisis: Apple Found Something It Can’t Vertically Integrate
Apple loves vertical integration and famously hates being held up by suppliers. But it may have met its match in the RAM crisis.
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Ernie Smith @ernie.tedium.co · 27/06/2026
Apple, the master of vertical integration, may have finally found something it can’t vertically integrate: RAM. tedium.co/2026/06/27/a... new @tedium.co
tedium.co
RAM Crisis: Apple Found Something It Can’t Vertically Integrate
Apple loves vertical integration and famously hates being held up by suppliers. But it may have met its match in the RAM crisis.
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Ernie Smith @ernie.tedium.co · 22/06/2026
I decided that I needed to write a bit about Matt’s Script Archive, the website that armed hundreds of thousands of weekend website makers with the forums and guestbooks they needed back in 1996. Just one problem: The scripts were horribly insecure. tedium.co/2026/06/22/m... new @tedium.co
tedium.co
Matt’s Script Archive: The Scripts That Reshaped The Web
The high schooler who developed everyone’s forums and guestbooks in 1996 didn’t really think about security. But Matt’s Script Archive was more than exploits.
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Tedium: The Dull Side Of The Internet @tedium.co · 22/06/2026
The high schooler who developed everyone’s forums and guestbooks in 1996 didn’t really think about security when he was building all that software. But Matt’s Script Archive was more than exploits. feed.tedium.co/link/15204/17365463/…
feed.tedium.co
Matt’s Script Archive: The Scripts That Reshaped The Web
The high schooler who developed everyone’s forums and guestbooks in 1996 didn’t really think about security. But Matt’s Script Archive was more than exploits.
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