Ernie Smith
This Computer Mouse Combined With a Telephone Once Made Sense. Kind Of.
When technology concepts awkwardly merge together, or why someone thought it might be a good idea to combine a mouse and a telephone.
Apple’s New Mac M1 Chip Still Feels Like a Mystery
The tech world’s first look at Apple’s take on the ARM architecture in real-world desktop and laptop hardware told us some things about how great it was, but the lack of details make the new machines feel like a bit of a black box.
That Time John McAfee Developed One of the First Social Networks
The controversial jailed antivirus software mogul John McAfee followed up his virus-fighting work with one of the first social networks, a competitor to AOL Instant Messenger. Really.
It’s Time for the Eternal September to End
For decades, technical users looking down on the less knowledgeable have set the stage for a lot of bad online discourse. As bad discourse has permeated every part of online life, can those same users break the chain?
The TurboGrafx-16 Is Being Lovingly Recreated, But What the Hell Is a TurboGrafx-16?
The latest FPGA-based recreation by Analogue, the Analogue Duo, could give a proper reintroduction to a console retro gamers missed the first time.
Why the Plastic Packaging You Hate So Much Is Still Here
Why plastic blister packs and clamshell packs, despite the near-universal frustration they create among consumers, have become a truism of consumer goods.
FTP Is Almost 50 Years Old—and It’s Ready to Retire
The beating heart of the early internet may have been FTP, or file transfer protocol. But after 50 years of mainstream use, its demise may be imminent.
That Time $50 Used Apple Laptops Caused a Stampede
Why did thousands of people trample one another in an attempt to buy a $50 iBook in 2005? In many ways, it’s a story about a lack of tech access that’s still being told.
How a Minor Calculation Error Cost Intel Half a Billion Dollars
How one of the most famous computer bugs of all time, the Intel Pentium floating-point division glitch, blew out of proportion into a PR crisis.
Why the World May Never Truly Be Rid of Dongles
Pondering the many ways that dongles have taken over our lives, for better and for worse. One port ruling them all is a lot harder than it looks.
How to Make a Very Tiny iMac
A hardware hacker had to partly destroy his Raspberry Pi to get it to fit inside a miniaturized 3D-printed iMac case.
The Hieroglyphics That Appears When No Other Font Is Available
Buried in MacOS is a font with a design reminiscent of hieroglyphics that only appears when the operating system can’t find the right character. Most characters aren’t visible to the average user—but if you can find them, they’re pretty fascinating.