The new show making fun of tech bros

Plus, in this week’s Installer: Artemis II photos, new Star Wars and Pokémon stuff, and much more.

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This week, I’ve been reading about Sam Altman and Satoshi Nakamoto and chess drama and Iranian shitposters , buying the stuff I need to mod an old iPod , making videos with the clever new DualShot Recorder , watching Crime 101 now that it’s streaming, finally getting my Stream Deck Mini to control all my office lights , revisiting the incredible 17776 series from our friends at SB Nation, moving all my cable mess to this new Anker power strip , and finally organizing my new closet.

Six months after we moved in.

I also have for you new seasons of a couple of great shows, a deep dive into space photos, a book about our gadget brains, and much more.

Also, I want to try something new here.

I get a lot of people pitching stuff they’ve made, and I almost never include it here — I much prefer people talking about stuff they like rather than stuff they’ve made , you know?

But for once, and maybe only ever once, I want to do an issue full of ruthless self-promotion.

(I’ll still vet everything I include, to the best of my ability.)
So, for the first time ever: Tell me about the thing you made!

Apps, games, podcasts, weird tchotchkes, anything you think we in the Installerverse might be into.

I’ll check out as many as I can, and feature my favorites in a couple of weeks.

And I’ll tell you about the thing I’ve been building, too.

All right, fun week of stuff!

Let’s do it.

Tom Hitchins is one of the few people whose work I can always spot in a second, even in a sea of thumbnails.

You might know Tom as the guy behind Byte Review , the rare tech-related YouTube channel that doesn’t shout at you all the time.

I’ve always enjoyed Tom’s work, and especially love his aesthetic sensibilities; the guy just knows how to make things look both calm and cool.

The wallpaper: One of my own, from the Cascade pack (maybe my favourite we’ve ever made!).

The apps: Calendar, Photos, Clock, Camera, Mail, X, Threads, Craft, YouTube, YouTube Studio, Settings, Gmail, Todoist, Lightroom, Instagram, ChatGPT, Notion, Messages, Phone, Safari, WhatsApp, Spotify.

My app layout has been the same since like the iPhone 6 (yes I know it’s very boring).

I tried changing it up a few times but the muscle memory keeps me locked in here!

A couple newish apps for me are:
Here’s what the Installer community is into this week.

I want to know what you’re into right now as well!

Email installer@theverge.com or message me on Signal — @davidpierce.11 — with your recommendations for anything and everything, and we’ll feature some of our favorites here every week.

For even more great recommendations, check out the replies to this post on Threads and this post on Bluesky .

“I’m playing the heck out of Timberborn , a city builder set in a post-apocalyptic future where beavers rule the planet.

It’s wonderful.” — Joonatan
“I’ve been learning web development from The Odin Project !

It’s a completely free and self-directed curriculum that starts with HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, then goes into backend technologies like NodeJS or Ruby on Rails.

It curates free high-quality resources from around the web as well.” — Evancito
“I re-read Blindsight , by Peter Watts.

The part about the ship Rorschach and how intelligence without consciousness seems eerily similar to what AI is currently doing.

Worth the re-read.” — Dawit
“Taught Claude Cowork to use NotePlan .

It’s creating daily, weekly, and monthly notes.

It’s creating notes that act as memories and referencing those notes as I drop in updates throughout the day.

It‘s scheduling weekly reviews and prompting me for updates on all of my open projects.

All in .md files.” — Christian
“I’ve been playing the TTRPG Daggerheart , from the folks at Critical Role.

It has a good digital version, which works well with phones and tablets.

Great system if you want more focus on storytelling, less rules and number crunching.” — Bobby
“ Born to Bowl on HBO Max.

Same narrator as Hard Knocks , which adds an unexpected twist to the awesomeness” — Brandon
“ TinyStart .

It’s a new launcher for Mac and all it does is the basics.

It’s faster than Spotlight and less overwhelming than Raycast.

Perfect if all you want to do is search apps and pick emoji.” — Trystan
“With the attention devoted this week to the Artemis II mission, I was reminded of the video, ‘ The photography behind Earthrise ,’ from two years ago.

It’s also a look at early photography by NASA astronauts.

It led me down the rabbit hole of learning more about the Earthrise photo and the equally or more famous ‘ Blue Marble ’ from 1972’s Apollo 17.” — Craig
Taskmaster is back !

I am obliged in this space to tell you every time Taskmaster is back, because Taskmaster is amazing and delightful and everyone should be watching it.

The new crew of contestants — which includes Kumail Nanjiani, who I will watch in anything — seems perfectly funny and weird, and somehow the show keeps finding sillier things for them to do.

I hope this show runs a thousand seasons.

I will watch them all.

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