A personal history-of-technology newsletter exploring how buttons, from cameras and doorbells to radios and digital interfaces, changed daily life. It is being revived after a long hiatus as the groundwork for a book, mixing narrative history with reflections on technology and human language.
Website: https://www.historyofthebutton.com/
Essays on technology investing that use historical patterns, such as computer leasing, the DC-3 and open-source strategy, to analyze the AI buildout and technology cycles. Readers get an investor's framework for how demand for a technology can persist while the capital financing it fails.
A podcast-style transcript and blog-style issue notes that revisit episodes of the PBS series Computer Chronicles, covering companies like Brøderbund and Gavilan and products from the 1980s. Readers get historical context on early personal computing, product failures, and the technology trends that shaped them.
Seth Juarez's blog-style newsletter explains how language models work and how software can be built around them, from next-token prediction to agentic systems. Recent issues mix accessible tutorials on tokens and agency with historical essays linking the Luddite era to today's generative AI debates.
Alara writes a personal blog mixing nostalgic reflections on early Mac OS X and her dream of owning a White MacBook with essays on AI, including how AI memory and journaling tools shape personal relationships and the ethics and economic impact of AI training on creative workers. Readers get a mix of personal anecdotes and opinionated commentary on AI from an indie developer working on AI memory tools.
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