Reclaim Your Attention | Slow Tech Field Guides
There were 4,000 new gadgets launched at CES this week, promising to change your life. 3,995 of them just want to steal your attention to show you ads. Here are the other 5.
I waded through the sewer of dopamine-tech so you don’t have to.
CES is where tech goes to scream at you. But buried in the noise, there were a handful of products that get it. Here’s what I found.
Continue reading “CES 2026: The 5 Quietest Gadgets in Las Vegas”When I bought my Tascam DR-03 used at Goodwill for $22, I knew it was a great value: a portable solid state recorder that still holds its own almost 17 years after its release.
Unexpected bonus: The previous owner had left a 2GB SD card inside. When I hit play, I wasn’t just hearing audio; I was transported.
First, it was a lady practicing piano. Then, a clip of a preacher talking about God in what sounded like a cavernous hall. And even a psychology class in some lecture hall at the University of Unknown.
My voyeuristic side kicked in, and I listened. But what struck me most wasn’t what was recorded, but how it sounded.
It was spatial.
Unlike a flat phone recording that tries to isolate voice and kill the background, the Tascam’s stereo condenser mics capture the room. I could hear the silence between the piano notes. I could hear the echo of the preacher’s voice bouncing off the walls. It gave the audio dimension…like being there.
Continue reading “Tascam DR-03 Review: Best Cheap Portable Recorder vs. Smartphone”My nightstand used to look like the return bin at Best Buy.
It was a tangle of cables: a watch charger, a phone charger, a Kindle, and an open bottle of water balancing precariously in the middle. But the centerpiece of this clutter was always the phone. It sat there, glowing and vibrating, demanding to be checked one last time.
The breaking point wasn’t a work emergency. It was a pickleball paddle.
I reached through the wire nest at 11:15 PM to check my calendar. I saw a game scheduled for after work, which reminded that I had seen an ad for a paddle earlier in the day. That led to a Google search for a Tesla-created paddle, which spiraled into a 20-minute deep dive on a forum about aerodynamics and Elon Musk.
I lost sleep and sanity to a rabbit hole that only existed because I allowed my phone to sleep next to my head.
The solution wasn’t to organize the cables and tuck them into the alarm clock charger. It was to remove them entirely.
Continue reading “The $15 Cure for Nighttime Distraction: Westclox Baby Ben Review”
