🍄 Mushroom Buildings, Rickroll in Zoom, and the Uncensored Minecraft Library

Clean Air Pollution with Giant Mushrooms!

Hey friends! I hope you’re all doing well this week.

I have some sad personal news this week.

I was fired from my job on Friday.

They said I wasn’t “the right fit for the position” because I was stressed out and not doing enough strategy and department building. Well, I was doing Social Media, Influencer Marketing, Brand collaboration, SEO, Website Growth, Major Product Launches, email marketing, assisting with manychat flows, and Facebook Ads with daily sales goals, and trying to strategize for the future - all for two separate brands - one multi million, the other just getting started. I wasn’t suppose to work more than 8 hours a day either. Did I mention that the company grew at an insane rate this year, despite COVID-19?

I was on my own - with a overseas contractor who sourced social media content and responded to comments, a stressed out CSR who handles customer emails, and a great team member who made the many chat flows and helped me out as he could.

Dang it - I did my best. I made progress in many of those areas I was put in charge of.

What did I learn? I need to ask better questions at my next interview. How do you reinforce your employees with positive interaction when they are overwhelmed? Are you willing to listen when an employee says that he needs to work 12 hours a day to accomplish everything you want done? Probably not quite like this, but you get the idea.

I need to be more aggressive about my own side projects. I want to own my own business - rather than being a cog in another mans machine.

I don’t care if I have to get a job at Walmart so I can put bread on the table for my wife and 4 month old baby.

I’ll do what I have to to take care of my family. Hopefully I can get another job in Marketing, but who knows? If you have any leads, let me know! :)

Anyway, thanks for coming to my Ted Talk. Let’s dive into todays topics shall we?

🍄Mushroom Buildings

The year is 2030. You walk into an office building and past vast mushroom walls.

Wait. What?

It sounds crazy, but mycellium is actually a fantastic building material, and it offsets building CO2 emissions!

The Growing Pavilion debuted at the recent Dutch Design Week in Eindhoven. The studios behind the building include Company New Heroes and Krown-design, the latter of which specializes in producing structures and even furnishings out of mycelium. As Jan Berbee, cofounder of the company, explains over email, the standard rigid foam plastic EPS panels we see on most buildings emit three times their weight in CO2. But growing mycelium actually offsets the carbon footprint of a building, because mycelium captures twice its weight in CO2. Source

That’s so cool! Of course, how do you go about growing mushrooms for building materials?

The growth process wasn’t that difficult. It required shaping molds and filling them with a hemp waste substrate the mycelium would grow on. These molds were large: six feet tall and nearly three feet wide. Over the course of only a week, the panels filled with mycelium, at which point they were baked to kill and cure the fungus, hardening the panel and ensuring it won’t grow wildly. The mycelium was then painted with a bio-based protective layer. Source

Honestly, the idea of a mushroom wall growing wildly is slightly interesting. I would enjoy seeing what kind of economy this could create. I could become a “Mycellium structure specialist” who travels around maintaining mushroom structures.

Check out more here at the link!

😂RickRoll in Zoom

Ah - the classic RickRoll. One of the greatest cross generational memes of the Internet. There’s nothing better than sending someone the old classic “Never gonna give you up” video.

Well, now you can bring that beautiful meme to your next Zoom meeting. (No, not the one with the no nonsense boomer business exec). It will be so much fun to . . .

Oh wait - you can’t anymore. The tool is “in violation of Zooms terms of service.” It’s absolutely tragic. I was honestly looking forward to trying this out.

I’m sure you could still do it though. Sadly, it won’t be automated as I bet this tool did

1. Create another Zoom account

2. Add it to the meeting on a second screen and share the RickRoll video

3. Say you have no idea what’s happening.

Check out this relic of the internet!

🐱‍💻The Uncensored Library

We are entering an age where Video Games are no longer a neutral medium.

They are entering the political sphere.

Take for example - the HK protests in Animal Crossing that caused China to ban the game.

Now journalists are using Minecraft as a way to get information into restricted countries. The “Uncensored Library” project by Reporters Without Borders represents a comprehensive effort to ensure that press freedom can exist in restricted countries - within a game.

Check out the launch video.

Information is published within the book format in Minecraft. It ain’t fancy, but at its core all you need is a platform to deliver words. Who cares if it’s a slick news website?

Let’s empower the next generation to stand up for their right to information and give them a powerful tool to fight oppressive leaders: knowledge. Together with the ever-expanding gaming community, we will show the world that the truth will never be silenced! Source

Check out the project at the link! If you play Minecraft, hop on the server and check it out.

🐙The Land of Random

Those Random Links You Crave

Retro Landing Page Theme

I bought this last week and I’m slowly creating a Land of Random Landing Page using this theme. It’s pretty awesome! It even has copywriting tips for each section! WOOHOO!

Retro Websites

A list of dozens of Retro Websites - Also known as hours of creative inspiration, discovery, and nostalgia!

Back To The Future - Ipsum Lorem

Creating an ebook or website template? Need some filler copy? Use the Delorean Ipsum Generator to create paragraphs of Back To The Future inspired text.

Froggo and the Crew

A gem from auncient YT

Beautiful Ambient Music Generators

This is so beautiful. I want to create something like this and stare at it for hours.

🎵TikToks You Can’t Miss

This section may turn into Byte or Likee if TikTok gets banned, but for now . . .

The Monsters are Lurking in the Nursery

I love Frank. This branding is beautiful and brilliant.

Ramen Inspired Deck of Cards

Enjoy the Byte Irony as TikTokers migrate