Bits: The Byteside Blog
What Is Time Worth To Me?
Avoid the false economies where you can by thinking ahead to how long you want a piece of tech to last.
Galakrond's Awakening: the Hearthstone adventure (spoiler-free review)
Let's start at the end. Looking back on Hearthstone's Year of the Dragon, for the general mid-tier player (like me), the game has had its best year yet.
We Can't Do Everything
Give up on trying to fit everything in. It's not going to happen. Embrace what that really means.
Decade-level thinking
Too much tech keeps aiming to solve small problems. We need big solutions for the world and in our homes.
LIFX smart lighting co-founder Marc Alexander chats with Byteside
LIFX is one of the biggest names in the world around smart lighting. Big enough that a lot of folks might not realise they're an Australian brand!
10 tech resolutions for a new year and a new decade
From specifics like email to backups, to big issues like reading deeper and rediscovering boredom. Here's 10 ways to fix our tech usage in the 2020s.
How Bob Ross saved my sanity
After an accident last year, Seamus couldn't sleep for months. Bob Ross's Twitch channel was just what the doctor never ordered.
"Why Are You The Only One?"
My son is at that threshold where he wants to align his own opinions and fandom with his peers, and I’m one of the ‘weird’ parents who is telling him that some YouTubers are OK and others are not.
The 10 Winningest Game Awards Moments And Reveals
After 5 years, The Game Awards has carved out its patch as an end of year celebration of the games industry that has the pretence of Hollywood awards shows
A Better Internet
The internet is a mess. But is it the internet’s fault? Thinking about climate change arguments and UK projected election results and measles outbreaks, they all have problems that are exacerbated by the state of today’s internet. Bad ideas can propagate faster than ever, and the unsubstantiated can
Rewriting the rules again and again
Google. Facebook. Uber. Ring. So many of this week’s stories point out how many services start with great intentions but end of doing whatever it takes to get big and make all the money. When you’re big enough, you can just change your mission statement, change your terms
We Can Be Better
There’s so much ‘bad faith’ argument and activity in the world right now. So few political leaders actually doing any leading. Most just doing a lot of protecting and avoiding. It’s bollocks. But this week it’s been great to see Cannon-Brookes and Twiggy Forrest get behind an
On Quitting Facebook
This week I decided enough was enough. The mental gymnastics around why I *must* stay on Facebook came to an end. I’m not exactly deleting Facebook, but I am done using it as a place to offer up my attention as a commodity. Instead, I will use it as
Back from BlizzCon
Last week I was at BlizzCon in the USA, so we skipped an issue of the newsletter. It was my first time at the event and as a long-time fan and writer about all things Blizzard games (makers of Warcraft, Starcraft, Diablo, Overwatch, Heroes of the Storm, and Hearthstone) it
Critical mass hysteria
Nothing digital succeeds anymore without a big enough snowball to propel it forward. It’s kind of obvious. But it underpins everything today, and a lot of this week’s stories. From Microsoft’s game streaming service Mixer wooing another big Twitch streamer to change platforms, to TikTok deepening its
From Space Daks to Afterlife Pranks
Great seeing a bunch of you at PAX Australia last weekend! It was my first time with the family and it changed my perspective in amazing ways. The kids loved it on the ‘life changing’ end of the scale. I felt like they really felt more validated in their love
My lovely car limiter proves why cruise control sucks
I got a new car recently. By recently I mean a year ago. I like cars, but I'm not a 'car person'. I do my research ahead of time, but then I pretty much make
Newsletter with a hint of podcast
Quick one this week! I’m at PAX Aus! If you’re here please say hello! I’m hosting a panel for young folks and families on how to pursue esports in ways that don’t throw the rest of your life away (Sat, 11.00am), and also appearing on
The Goose That Honked The World
PAX Australia has really carved out a special place in the local event landscape. I’ve never missed one, and, for me, it shows the best of what the local games community can be. Not just videogames, the event is about boardgames and card games and RPGs and, yes, lots
Bot Fight: Activate!
It felt like a quiet week in tech news on the surface. But that’s mostly because global politics had a very loud one. There’s actually been a lot of interesting stuff going on. And here’s your weekly newsletter to catch up on it all! A lot of
