2025 Tedium Highlight by Ernie Smith: Why the screen saver stopped being so in-your-face. 

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Ernie Smith’s 2025 Highlights

February 2025

A Dossier Container Dossier

How we got Manila folders and envelopes, and what “Manila” means in the context of said folder. Hint: It’s not a color, and you may find the source surprising.
January 2025

Don’t Call Me, I’ll Call You

On large language models, artificial intelligence, DeepSeek, and trying to find the middle lane between skepticism and surety. I mention bionic arms a lot for some reason.

Just Moving Data Around

We take the idea of copying files across folders and drives for granted today, but the guy who invented the original tool considered it a leap of faith.

My Big Dumb Webmail Client

They say you don’t know what email’s all about until you’ve built a webmail client of your own. I guess I kind of get it now.

This Is Definitely A Test

The history of color bars, the most common television test pattern out there, and what they actually do. (Also, Netflix has some weird test programming.)

Good Look Taken

A believed-to-be-forgotten “lost” episode of an old Ernie Kovacs show is about to resurface on YouTube after 65 years. Here’s how it happened.

RIP Power Player

On the passing of Mark Discordia, a ’90s video game fan who got a troll’s welcome to the internet. He was a plumber who loved Mario. Nothing wrong with that.

Saving One Screen At A Time

Pondering the screen saver, a cultural artifact which can mean one of two things: Fun animated graphics and screens that automatically go dark. The difference matters.

Pinpointing The Actual Problem

A blog post from Automattic lays out their decision to pull back on the WordPress project. But in the process, the company may have accidentally explained why competitors were able to one-up them.

Tic-Tac-D’Oh

Dell decides to rebrand its machines along a 3x3 grid—and ditches a number of popular product lines along the way. (Was it worth it?)

Divisible By 5

That feeling of dread that you’re feeling about 2025 doesn’t need to need to define the way you approach the world. Perhaps you need a push.

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