Thorin.

Every operating system and half the software I use wants to predict my needs. When I open up the browser on my phone, it has a links from other apps…

At some level, most of us interact with discovery algorithms on a daily basis. They take the form of “new music for you” playlists, “Picks for you” movies, or “Recommended”…

Today marks the 20th anniversary of Blink 182’s Take Off Your Pants and Jacket, an album I don’t remember particularly well beyond the fact it was released as three versions,…

Contrary to much of the narrative today about file-sharing, the late 1990s and early 2000s were a dream for buying physical media. Sure, college kids loaded up their computers with…

I am pretty sure the statute of limitations has expired on this by now (and the companies are long gone), so I’m going to share the story of what was…

Over the years, I’ve been cold-emailed and messaged by soon-to-be parents, fantasy nerds, and general weirdos on the internet asking me “what’s it like to have a name like Thorin?”…

There’s a running joke that Netflix creates its shows by mashing up its viewer’s search history, like some sort of game of algorithmic Mad Libs. Let’s see, this week we…

It’s right there in the name, “guilty.” Sure, you can listen to this album, read this book, watch this movie, enjoy this TV show, or whatever, but you shouldn’t be…

The inventor of the audio cassette, Lou Ottens, died this past week. My favorite quote from him captures the revolution that cassettes were, “Everybody could put music in their pocket.” Growing…

Sometimes, I find myself missing the friction of using everyday things. Without it, everything seems to happen magically in the background. With no hiccups in the process, we have no…

I’ve been thinking about giving up on things. Not grandiose things. Not Big Ideas or Master Plans (though it’s often okay to quit those, too). Little things. The stupid things….

As a kid, I played a lot of Ghouls ‘n’ Ghosts on Genesis and eventually, Super Ghosts ‘n’ Goblins on SNES. For what my brain remembers as an entire summer, I…

Everyone hates Californians. Hey, I get it, I live here, and I hate Californians. It’s an absurd state, filled with absurd people, often doing absurd things and waiting in line…

I almost made it through the week without learning why the hell everyone was talking about Gamestop. Almost. And then it just became too much. It was everywhere and unavoidable….

I am always awed by small moments of ingenuity. The little features you notice in something you’ve owned for years, the quirks corrected before you even knew a problem existed….

There are certain technologies that force you to rethink how the world works. Early in my life I encountered one such technology, electronic skip protection, a bullet point feature on…

My favorite moments when cooking a meal are the idle ones. After the meal prep, after the mixing and browning, after all the complicated stuff, when you’re given a moment…

I have plenty of positive Christmas memories, but the funniest one to think about as an adult is the year I faked a stomach ache—forfeiting my right to open presents…

When I was a kid, my favorite store was the hologram store. It was tucked away off the main street of the small tourist town I grew up in. I’m…

Every once in a while, I glance out the window and spot the neighborhood hawk. I don’t know if it lives in the neighborhood, to be honest, but I like…

A couple years ago, I decided to put some Christmas lights on the outside of the house. Nothing crazy, just some multi-colored big bulb string lights. I don’t remember why,…

A few days ago I was out on a bike ride, heading up to Mount Lukens (a peak—the highest point in Los Angeles city limits—named after Theodore Lukens, aka the…