Jared Newman
@advisorator.com
5.4K followers 940 following 380 posts
Tech journo, newsletter publisher, yacht rock appreciator, fast food enthusiast. https://jarednewman.com/newsletters https://jarednewman.com/blog https://jarednewman.com/
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I'm sharpening my focus for Advisorator this year. The response has already been great and I can't wait to get started in earnest. https://buff.ly/4hcAGSL
This is where Advisorator comes in. I started this newsletter in 2018 with the goal of sharing my enthusiasm for technology in an approachable way, having noticed that the non-techies in my life were often blown away by what they didn’t realize they could accomplish. Heading into 2025, it’s time to acknowledge a shift in the mission.

Yes, I still want to celebrate technology at its best, but I also want to call it out at its worst. Above all, I want you to feel like you’re in command of technology, not the other way around. In practice, that means you can expect a few major focuses from Advisorator this year:

- More emphasis on tech products and services that aren’t designed to take advantage of you, like the examples in my “becoming a tech hippie” piece from last year.
- More ways to interact with technology on your own terms rather than those dictated by huge tech companies and opaque algorithms, like using an RSS reader for news or subverting YouTube’s control over online video.
- More advice on basic tech literacy, so you can confidently navigate unfamiliar apps or unexpected scenarios.
advisorator.com
I feel you should all know about this blog that has spent the last decade attempting to document every type of sandwich in existence - www.sandwichtribunal.com
Sandwich Tribunal
A sort of sandwich death panel
www.sandwichtribunal.com
advisorator.com
I just swiped up on my paper notebook because I was running out of room to write on the page, how's your day going?
advisorator.com
Also, Go Blue.
advisorator.com
Technically that fall under under the "cheapest path to local games" heading. Peacock would cover everything except the 8/31 and 9/27 ABC games, per ESPN's Where to Watch guide - www.espn.com/where-to-wat...

A savvy cord cutter could time it so one month of ESPN's service would cover both.
advisorator.com
Also IMO if you inadvertently push a swastika to a portion of your userbase, the explanation for how that happened should be a little more thorough than "our bad."
advisorator.com
Certainly I've left money on the table by not hosting my newsletters on Substack.

On the upside, I don't have to worry that my readers might inadvertently get a swastika in their push notifications www.techmeme.com/250730/p21#a...
advisorator.com
Got it. Should be fixed now!
advisorator.com
Thanks. Outlook seems to hate the deal emails, which come from a Discourse address. I’ll send something out.

Probably just getting Cord Cutter Weekly emails, right? I think I know why that might’ve happened and can fix it.
advisorator.com
It’s a pain to set up and more of a pain to monetize, but you can self-host with Sendy (which you pay for once) and it uses Amazon SES to deliver the emails, which is based on volume. I send to about 45K weekly and it costs about $20/mo.
advisorator.com
Tough bc mobile more locked down. PlayOn would work but have to record from a PC or use cloud credits. (And have to anticipate ahead of time what to watch.)

I wonder if the MultiSkipper extension would work with Orion on iOS, which supports desktop Chrome extensions. Haven't tried it though.
advisorator.com
Big day for my little newsletter operation. (Read the note at the top.) https://advisorator.com/members/2025/06/24/want-to-go-passwordless-read-this-first/
advisorator.com
Little scoop: Max quietly updated its support pages in Feb to note that it's showing 50% more ads on its ad-supported plan. It's also showing ads in the middle of HBO shows despite initially promising not to.

www.pcworld.com/article/2820...
It’s not just Prime Video: Max shows 50% more ads now
Max's support pages acknowledge that it's showing 6 minutes of ads per show, up from 4 minutes last year. Ads now run in the middle of HBO programming.
www.pcworld.com
advisorator.com
Here’s my second piece for Wirecutter, reviewing a whole mess of USB-C hubs. Fun topic and I learned a bunch doing it! https://www.nytimes.com/wirecutter/reviews/best-usb-c-hubs-and-docks/
advisorator.com
The decline of popular music in one chart (via the always-great Can’t Get Much Higher newsletter – https://www.cantgetmuchhigher.com/p/why-did-we-stop-using-saxophones )
A chart titled "Let's talk about sax" showing the % of Billboard Hot 100 number one hits with a saxophone. It drops off suddenly in the 90s.
advisorator.com
This is huge!
riley.social
I heard y’all wanted RetroAchievements in Delta? 👀
advisorator.com
Thanks, glad to hear this!
advisorator.com
Another action-packed Cord Cutter Weekly:

- The sports streamers have realized they're charging too much
- DirecTV's cheaper pay TV packages
- Broadcaster pushing to kill ATSC 1.0
- Some good deals on Apple TV boxes

Read it here!
Sport streaming's too expensive, DirecTV's skinny bundles
It’s taken a couple years, but regional sports networks are starting to realize they charge too much to stream local games.
cordcutterweekly.com
Reposted by Jared Newman
pranayparab.com
I like to set aside some time for cleanups over the weekend and this time, I've used @advisorator.com's excellent advice to disable those awful "Sign In With Google" pop-ups advisorator.com/members/2025...
Stop the "Sign in with Google" pop-ups
Banishing one of the internet's most persistent low-grade annoyances.
advisorator.com