Somewhere this summer, The Mad Ned Memo crossed the 1,000 subscriber mark, and I was pretty surprised because it consistently breaks the “rules” for blogs that tell you people only really have time or attention for something of under 10 minutes reading length. Try as I may, I never seem to be able to keep my posts that short.
So I was doubly flattered to not only have so many of you read these articles through, but also to trust me with your email addresses and agree to receive regular posts from The Mad Ned Memo. I can't really guarantee you are going to like every one, but I will promise you that I'm always trying hard to make that 15 or so minutes I'm asking for each week an interesting and enjoyable time.
Thanks for subscribing, you rare long-attention-span readers you!
And if in truth, you have not really been reading the Memo, maybe this is your post — because the balance of it will be a summary of the good parts you missed.
But first…
Do You Hate Reading Email?
Had a comment or two from folks who like the Memo, but hate reading it in email format. Here are some helpful things you should know:
If you click on the “Mad Ned Memo" banner (the one above) in my emails, it will take you to the website version of the article so you can read it in your browser. (Not a well-known Substack feature, but handy!)
If you have an RSS reader, you can add The Mad Ned Memo to your feed via: https://madned.substack.com/feed
If you missed a memo or would like to browse older posts, check the archive page of my site. You can sort through dozens of Mad Ned Memos in chronological order or by popularity, and browse the discussions on all the topics.
If you see memos here that did not make it to your inbox, check your spam or (for Gmail users) “promotions” folder, and see if any of them are getting lost. If you move it back to Inbox, then The Mad Ned Memo gets onto your white-list and you can reliably get the newsletter.
Of Big Hair and Small Security Measures
For the pleasure of anyone who was interested in the 1980’s hacking scene but missed it, in June I recounted some of my early adventures in unsanctioned computing in: Black Hat Exploits of the Stupid-Easy 80’s. This one was quite popular, and we got a lot of interesting stories on Hacker News of other similar dubious behavior, not just in the 80’s but all over the place. Bad programmer!
Another Visit to Jim The Car Salesman
In July, I posted a follow-up to a previous post which was about my first summer job. That first story was really about how hacking got me out of doing road work for the highway department, and the sequel, entitled A Teenager's Guide to Workplace Ethics went into some of the weird shenanigans that happen when working for a less-than-ethical employer. I chose to tie things together with the ethics angle, and graded myself on how I thought I did with various conundrums.
Some people were worried that I was either trying to be too politically-correct, or was maybe beating myself up too much in doing the grading thing. I assure you it’s neither - just a (maybe cheap) plot device to keep that article rolling! A few interesting stories though from people about their weird summer jobs and shady employers.
Memories of Weird Memories, Of Computers Past
The What’s in Store? article on strange old memory systems from the mainframe days was picked up by Hackaday, resulting in a lot of good discussion, memories of even weirder memories, and also quite a few new subscribers! (Welcome, Hackaday readers!)
I learned a lot about other strange old storage systems I hadn’t even heard of from people. Some were concerned though that I did not include obvious things like magnetic drum storage. I had considered it actually, but deliberately left off the whole “rotating storage” category of disks, drums, and tapes, because it is so huge and the article was getting long. All of this though smells like a sequel, so keep an eye out for “Weird Storage Part II” or whatever better title I can muster between then and now! Got ideas about things I missed? Drop it in the comments!
Old Guys Dispensing Advice
A really popular post in August was the one titled: An Old Hacker’s Tips To Staying Employed, where I recounted some things I figured out about not losing my job over the 35+ years I’ve been at it. I even experimented with taking the “Two and Done” rule from the post and making a Medium article from it, and I made 18 cents!
So I’m obviously on to something, but I want to say again that the advice there is definitely stilted towards the job security end of things, and I know some of you would rather optimize your career differently, and take a riskier approach.
Anyway, I really found the discussion of it on HN to be very interesting, thanks to everyone who contributed to it!
Also: regarding my Medium site - not quite sure what I will do there but if you have a Medium account, feel free to follow me. I was thinking of occasionally posting article excerpts and maybe a sneak preview or two, but in general, Medium’s fare are the 5-minute-or-shorter article types I have trouble with, so I don’t think it will be replacing my newsletter any time soon.
Radio Shack Was A Little Ol’ Place Where… We Could Get Resistors! 1
Also in August, a fond look back to days of yore when Radio Shack was kind of a thing in an article called Trash Eighties: Radio Shack’s Golden Years. Not really a high traffic kind of article, but that’s kind of understandable given that the time and place I’m referencing in the article is probably only relatable to nerdy hardware-ish people in the US who were around in the 1980’s, which is likely a small subset of my audience.
Radio Shack was kind of a big part of my childhood however, and sometimes you just gotta write that stuff. I was really happy to hear from a few of you though about your Radio Shack experiences from back in the day.
The Memo Improves Its Image
I have been really happy with Substack’s outreach to new writers, they have featured the Mad Ned Memo twice on their site this summer, and also invited me into a program called Substack Grow to help new writers improve their work and find and expand their audience.
During one of the sessions, there was a raffle for a year’s subscription to Getty Images, a major database of royalty-free images. When the little wheel spun around and landed on me, I was thrilled, because it turns out to be a pretty expensive proposition to get access to Getty Images, especially for a free newsletter. So I’m trying to spruce things up with nice imagery in my articles, and if you see a lot of Getty Images credits, you’ll know why.
Lastly…
Still taking suggestions for a logo for the Natural Ned Programming Language, which as the (disappointingly few) readers of that article already know, may be the last programming language we ever have to worry about. So why not a mug or something? Our future computer overlords might favor those who own one, assuming we can think of a design for it.
That’s it for now. Next week, we delve into the benefits of screwing around instead of working. Before you all get on board with that though, one last thing I would ask: Can you share the Mad Ned Memo with someone who might like it? In addition to letting my writing reach more readers, it will help me find more mug logo designers.
This memo went out primarily to subscribers, but if you happened upon it out in the wild as a non-subscriber, you can sign up to have it delivered to your inbox and never miss an issue! The Mad Ned Memo is cost-free and ad-free, and you can unsubscribe at any time.
The Mad Ned Memo takes subscriber privacy seriously, and does not share email addresses or other information with third parties. For more details, click here.Obligatory apology to the B52’s.