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Ryan Farley

@ryanfarley.co

Running and writing, usually slowly, in Thailand for 11 years.

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12.12.2024
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Latest posts by Ryan Farley @ryanfarley.co

Good to hear, Benj. Take your time and rest up, I hear vintage computers just keep getting better as they age!

05.03.2026 15:55 πŸ‘ 0 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0

Dude I am such a cheap person but never think twice about my monthly Kagi subscription, which is worth it for standalone search BUT also has a pretty good AI search. You can combine it with Kagi's lenses, one of which is the Usenet archive lens. Really good for finding ancient and interesting posts

10.02.2026 22:24 πŸ‘ 1 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
Preview
The unexpected winners of the AI slop boom: Word nerds The rise of slopaganda is fueling a surprising tech hiring boom.

"Because AI generates so much content, 'you would think that actually the job of the comms person or the storyteller would be fewer and farther between,' says Gab Ferree."

It doesn't generate *great* content. So duh you need 2x editorial to sell it.

www.businessinsider.com/hottest-job-...

04.02.2026 03:23 πŸ‘ 1 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
An old man dressed as Leonardo DaVinci "painting" Mona Lisa on a touch screen device hooked up to a TV.

An old man dressed as Leonardo DaVinci "painting" Mona Lisa on a touch screen device hooked up to a TV.

Also a PowerPad lol

03.02.2026 01:55 πŸ‘ 0 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
Preview
A bad ad for a device that photographed CRTs It's funny! It's confusing! It's a camera in a box.

You gotta go back as far as the 80s, when all computer ads were seemingly staged and costumed in a suburban Sears Studio: buttondown.com/suchbadtecha...

22.01.2026 00:20 πŸ‘ 2 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0

This of course ignores that Neuromancer came before all else, which earns it a lot of points. But I believe in compartmentalizing the context of the time separately from how it holds up today, which Neuromancer does with a solid 4/5

16.01.2026 12:44 πŸ‘ 0 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0

Neuromancer wasn't as inscrutable as I had been led to believe. It was great but just a heist story followed by some short and interesting musings on AI and tech. Snow Crash was long and interesting musings on language and tech followed by some B-grade action. I'll take the latter every time.

16.01.2026 12:40 πŸ‘ 0 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 0

At almost 40yo I now love Singapore for all the reasons I hated it when I came just before turning 30yo. Their tourism materials really should advertise more non alcoholic brunches, dog parks, and quiet hours

02.01.2026 01:15 πŸ‘ 0 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
Preview
Some not-so-bad ads from 80s computer magazines: Christmas edition! I really wanted to look at holiday ads. But not all of them were awful so we're switching things up!

And here are 5 more (from other 80s tech magazines)! buttondown.com/suchbadtecha...

22.12.2025 01:53 πŸ‘ 1 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0

It's such a prime example of enshitification. Constantly adding crap that no one seems to use and just clutters up the space, which is weird because they also have a massive accessibility team working on making it more accessible for people who use assistive technology

29.10.2025 22:14 πŸ‘ 2 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
Preview
The story of how RSS beat Microsoft Massive tech companies tried to own syndication. They failed.

Relevant: buttondown.com/blog/rss-vs-...

29.10.2025 22:11 πŸ‘ 1 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0

I'm in the middle of his baroque cycle, which, so far, are the only books of his where I enjoyed the endings as much (or more) than acts 1 and 2. Love the guy's work but boy do his endings always feel like B action movies

03.10.2025 20:38 πŸ‘ 0 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
An email footer that says "Open and click tracking are disabled. And there is no paid upgrade." Then, right below that, "Sign up for a premium subscription."

An email footer that says "Open and click tracking are disabled. And there is no paid upgrade." Then, right below that, "Sign up for a premium subscription."

Testing software for a living is a recipe for disaster.

I enabled premium subscriptions on my Buttondown newsletter to write (professionally) about the feature. Then sent my (personal) newsletter that loudly boasts it doesn't have a premium option.

It's amazing anyone trusts me with this stuff.

02.10.2025 19:01 πŸ‘ 0 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0

Thanks, @segdeha.com. It's been a fun, if somewhat self-indulgent, project. I fell off the wagon after a PNW trip for my sister's wedding. Your post got me back on the horse!

02.10.2025 18:48 πŸ‘ 1 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0

This is the URL template FWIW: web.archive.org/web/*/%s

22.08.2025 07:04 πŸ‘ 1 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
A GIF of me typing `ia hackaday.com` into my browser's address bar and being taken straight to the Wayback Machine's timeline view of that URL.

A GIF of me typing `ia hackaday.com` into my browser's address bar and being taken straight to the Wayback Machine's timeline view of that URL.

My favorite thing about Kagi is custom bangs.

I'm working on an article that relies heavily on archived pages and if I search `ia [URL]` (usually the address bar, sometimes Kagi itself), it takes me to straight to Internet Archive's timeline view of that URL.

22.08.2025 02:37 πŸ‘ 25 πŸ” 2 πŸ’¬ 2 πŸ“Œ 0

A 3D printer and an LED bulb+USB socket. You can have a new, custom built lamp every week if ya want

14.08.2025 01:30 πŸ‘ 2 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
Woolean β€’ The app to compare things. Compare simple things. Win clarity. Create comparison lists, vote on options, and find the best choice for any decision.

I'm building a thing to compare all possible matchups (e.g. not a knockout structure) because sometimes first place still loses to others further down the ladder in qualitative matchups (i.e. you never compared Twilight to Wonder Woman)! Here's the same list without knockout

woolean.com?id=imhhp0uH

12.08.2025 04:44 πŸ‘ 0 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
Preview
Bad ad, but almost an iPad (in 1984) I, for one, am glad that one of the greatest paintings of all time wasn't an 8-bit image drawn by this guy.

Writing for @buttondown.com has turned me into a newsletter evangelist. So I started my own to share the whacky, charming, extremely non-AI ads from tech magazines in the 80s and 90s. Enjoy! buttondown.com/suchbadtecha...

16.07.2025 02:42 πŸ‘ 2 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 1

Me at mile 7: I should sign up for Portland marathon.

Me at mile 14: I should sign up for a second health insurance plan.

07.07.2025 23:52 πŸ‘ 1 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0

Dogma is way better than Clerks' sequel, Mall Rats

05.07.2025 01:12 πŸ‘ 1 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 0

Review Kagi's browser Orion. I can't use it since I'm a boneheaded PC user, but I'm a very happy Kagi user and curious about the promises Orion has made

30.05.2025 22:51 πŸ‘ 0 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0

Sing the national anthem! It'll definitely fix problem number 2. And...maybe problem number 1?

18.05.2025 01:57 πŸ‘ 0 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0

I've been off social media for almost a decade. Came to Bluesky because of feed control, muted words, and other customization stuff made it feel more manageable. Primary goal was getting more connected to the running community (since I live abroad) and...yea...not great so far haha

08.05.2025 02:41 πŸ‘ 2 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 0
Preview
The Best Dictation Software Every phone and PC includes highly accurate dictation tools. But Microsoft Word’s Dictate feature provided the most accurate text from our tester’s voice.

Our boy @maguay.bsky.social has thoughts

www.nytimes.com/wirecutter/r...

15.04.2025 16:29 πŸ‘ 1 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 0
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Famous Authors on Roller Coasters F. Scott Fitzgerald β€œAaaaaaah aaaaaaaaaaaah ah ah ah ah aaaaaaaaaaah ah aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah.” Emily Dickinson β€œAah aaaaaaah – ah aah aaah – ah aaaah...

The absence of Cormac McCarthy on this list is a crime: www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/fam...

11.04.2025 17:18 πŸ‘ 1 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
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My daughter has more frequent flier miles and airport fashion at 4 than I have at 9x her age.

31.03.2025 18:28 πŸ‘ 0 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0

Haha I finished all three of those but don't think they're particularly amazing. More like bad attempts to insert characters into a Brian Cox lecture. Why do books like these garner such cultish followings

11.03.2025 03:18 πŸ‘ 0 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0

*1,923 PAGES, not words. This is what reading long-winded descriptions of floor tiling does to my brain.

11.03.2025 03:04 πŸ‘ 0 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0

Four books and 1,923 words later, I can finally confidently say that King's Dark Tower series is not for me. Took me a while to accept considering a fun premise and nigh universal praise, but my god is it slow and tedious--not methodical (which I love!), just so dry.

11.03.2025 03:03 πŸ‘ 1 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 2 πŸ“Œ 0