It’s strange to think that I knew what Substack was as soon as it was put in front of me. But I did—it was an attempt to wrap email in a platform, with promising initial promises, but the goal of strengthening Substack itself.Sure, there were a lot of things about Substack that looked good at the outset—the fact that they effectively gave the platform away for free was a vast improvement over the model of charging money after you reached a certain subscriber size—but every new publisher that jo…

By Walt Hickey Welcome to the Numlock Sunday edition. This week, I spoke to Ernie Smith who writes the Tedium and Midrange newsletters. A week ago he had a great story, ‘A Chart-Record Feast 🎶’ in Midrange. Here's what I wrote about it: Last week saw two milestones on the music charts. The first is that “All Too Well” by Taylor Swift reached the number one spot on Billboard’s Hot 100, and at

As Substack reports a million paid subscribers to its newsletters this week, I’m often left wondering what might have happened to the newsletter space had Substack remained a business that only grew as its audience did.Substack started out as a company with a pitch that anyone who wanted to could start a paid newsletter and, with the right amount of work, claim financial independence. But at some point, the company broke this essential model by beginning to accept venture capital money, culmina…

One definite trend with a lot of my writing tends to be a desire to give new types of gadgets a shot before much of the rest of the world gets their hands on them.This doesn’t necessarily mean things like new MacBooks or Surface devices—I don’t have the connections for things like that just yet. But I have found a little niche as someone who writes about new things before they’ve really found an audience or a market.And with that in mind, I’m writing this in Ghostwriter, a Linux app, on a JingP…

Of the many things that social platforms have taken away from us, perhaps the most disappointing is the freedom to customize our spaces. We need it back.

A case in favor of browser tab minimalism, or closing the tabs you’re not using. Sometimes, information overload has its limits.

Over the decades, word processors have continually gained new features that get in the way of the ultimate goal: writing. How do we get back to that goal?

An engineer wanted a USB-C port on his iPhone, so he hacked one in himself. It’s the ultimate manifestation of “if there’s a will, there’s a way.”

A letter of appreciation to the guy who spent years developing one of the few modern web browsers for vintage Macs.Editor’s note: I’m taking the week off this week from MidRange. While I’m out, I’m going to share some of my favorite issues from the past nine months. These pieces will run as they did when they were written, with no changes.

The series of concessions Apple has made over the past week feel like they’re bracing for a potentially even larger concession around the App Store. We should have never let it get to this point.

Between Microsoft and a buzzy laptop manufacturer, two separate visions are floating around out there of more sustainable computer upgrade paths for consumers. Maybe we should just be glad that folks are thinking long-term.

Tumblr has all the elements to be a successful social network, including (now, at least) a monetization strategy that could make sense for both creators and the network itself. But they may have waited too long—and its community may not be as flexible as its owners are.

Listening to 87.7 FM? That's not a radio station, but an old analog TV station—channel 6, to be exact. It's a total fluke, but Chicago's all over it.

Analyzing the complicated state of affairs, and the long goodbyes, that come when one TV network or cable channel replaces another. Here are 10 examples.

The low-cost PinePhone isn’t a perfect device, but the nuanced ecosystem it’s going to build for Linux-based smartphones is going to be amazing.

Assessing the landscape of the app store concept in the years before it became an idea “originated” by Apple. The prior art is strong with this one.

For some people (read: me), the secret to being able to create is having a little tension. Which is to say: The deadline is an important element of the work.

“I should make a phone app that’s nicer than the iPhone’s built in phone app, submit it, and see what happens. It would let me answer calls on an Android phone by transmitting the signal there directly. Of course I will call the app Carterfone. https://t.co/MH4rI08oVp”

“The internet is too complex for simple explanations of utopia. https://t.co/QrI5yJSBZV new #MidRange via @revue”

The problem with the old internet isn’t that we treat it like the good old days of digital utopia; it’s that we don’t have enough detail about it to properly understand it with the depth and nuance it deserves.

“@NeoYokel It might amuse you to know, given your comments, that I at one point jokingly considered reviewing this by directly comparing it to the OnePlus 9 Pro, but decided against it. I do think external input like you suggest would be useful.”

The $149 PinePhone isn’t a perfect device, but the nuanced ecosystem it’s going to build for Linux-based smartphones is going to be amazing.

Why a fleeting moment in a buzzy movie makes me think 2021 is the year of Linux on the desktop.

Corporate motivation isn’t enough when it comes to digital preservation. Here’s a case for creating a National Register of Historic Places for websites.

Each year, we ask some of the smartest people in journalism and media what they think is coming in the next 12 months. At the end of a trying 2020, here’s what they had to say.

Giving some well-deserved appreciation to the LAMP stack, a key building block of the modern-day internet that you use daily. It’s everywhere. It may never die.

The evolution of remote desktop access, and why it’s a bad idea for water supplies to be managed through remote desktop access without decent security measures.

How the power-user web browser Vivaldi has managed to maintain a flexible design philosophy in an era when so much is decided for you online.