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yewknee
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An internet waystation.

it me - michael eades

👋 Hi, I'm Michael Eades; a long time Internet dweller, design dabbler, dangerously amateur developer, online social experimenter and frequent curator.

Currently working as VP of Product at Smarter Apps. I also keep the lights on at a boutique record label called yk records, a podcast network called We Own This Town and a t-shirt shop called Nashville Galaxy. Previously, I built things for Vimeo OTT, VHX, KNI and Spongebath Records.

This site is an archive of ephemera I find entertaining; tweets, videos, random links, galleries of images.

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find me elsewhere

 

contact

Reach out via threads or good ole email if you have anything to discuss. I do my best to reply in a timely manner.

for the record: "yewknee" is a nonsensical word with no literal meaning but a unsurprisingly nerdy etymology. It is pronounced, "yoo • knee."

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ongoing projects

yk Records →
started in 2009 as a conduit for music that friends had no plans on releasing. now it's a full fledged boutique label focused on releasing quality music from a variety of styles. you know, like a label does. Here's a sampler on Soundcloud and a different one on Spotify. Options.

We Own This Town →
Originally a Nashville area music blog, this site has grown into a full blown podcast network as of 2018. It's an attempt to bring together creative folks about a variety of interesting topics.

I host this show all about Nashville local music outside the expectations of the city. I'm biased but all the shows are good.

Nashville Galaxy →
An online t-shirt shop featuring beloved and defunct Nashville area businesses. Very niche audience on this one but I tend to think niche is good.

some noteworthy other things

Chris Gaines: The Podcast →
published along with co-host Ashley Spurgeon; a limited series podcast that takes an absurdly researched deep dive into the time that Garth Brooks took on a fictional personality named Chris Gaines.

Garth Brooks Chris Gaines Countdown →
to celebrate the 20-year anniversary of the time Garth Brooks took on the fictional personality Chris Gaines and appeared on Saturday Night Live in character, I GIF'ed the entire episode. It's a lot of GIFs; please use them.

Whiskerino →
a social network built around communal beard growing for four months. yes, it was as weird as it sounds but equally fascinating and enjoyable.

Moustache May →
an offshoot of the beard growing contest mentioned above. equal amounts of oddball fun but only a month long.

Summer Mix Series →
before all music was streaming everywhere, Internet music fans would swap zip files of music. it was truly a strange and wonderful time.

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The Early Mac Grim Reaper

Do you ever encounter a compelling image online and decide you're going to learn more about it? I found myself enjoying this delightful pixel reaper and wanted to find out more. Spoiler alert, I failed!

The exact image appears in two places and is referenced in a few others.
  • Screenshots of the system and programs of the first Macintosh - a German site showcasing some vintage computing imagery. They do not cite their sources but given the 2024 publication date, I imagine these were lifted from the link below.
  • Stories of Early Mac from Ken Wessen. I am confident this is a mirror of a university site from "kwessen" that cites the Reaper as:
    ...a mysterious Grim Reaper icon in the Finder, but I have not been able to find any reference to this icon in the code.
    This is the best evidence I have run across regarding the image source.
  • "Death" icon in 128k guided tour's Finder - a message board thread referencing the same "9998" icon from the same 128k Guided Tour Disk of the original Mac System 0.85.
  • Downloadable Mac System 0.85 - you can certainly download the original Tour disk and likely emulate it yourself but even if I did that, I would have no way to inspecting the possible source files for the Reaper. Not saying it isn't possible, just saying it's beyond me.
In the end, I come to the same conclusion as Ken Wessen; I believe the Reaper to be part of an official MacOS release (likely from 1984). The screenshot showing ICN # ID = 9998 from Finder insinuates that the image is not just a drawing from MacPaint, it's actually in the system.

If you get a wild hair and want to confirm any of the above. Please do so and let me know!
Mon. September 30th, 2024, 8:27am

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