š§± Stick a USB in a wall, Atari's unsolved mystery, and Cameo Zoom Calls
A secret underground social network!
Hey everyone! I hope you are having a fantastic Monday. Howās that coffee? Iām currently sipping on some 24-hour cold brew that my wife made. Itās really good!
This Friday I broke down and bought The Last of Us II. It is a fantastic video game - and the story is heartbreaking. I appreciate how similar the mechanics are to the original. They added several really neat mechanics - like jumping, falling to a prone position, and some other cool little features.
Itās hard to believe that itās been 7 years since the first game came out. Heck, I was in high school when I watched the release trailer!
How time flies . . .
Guess what I found at Target the other day? Retro Uno!
I bought two decks - because the only way to play Uno is with two decks. Have you ever played? Here are the rules . .
Reverse, Skip, Draw 4, and Draw 2 are āstackable power cards.ā For example, on your turn, one could lay down 3 Draw 4ās and a skip - and ruin someoneās life.
THAT person can avoid 12 cards by laying down a reverse. (you can break out of power cards by laying down your own Power cards. Theoretically, using a reverse in this situation could make the one who laid down 3 Draw 4ās have to draw all 12 cards).
Basically, as long as you have āpower cardsā you can avoid other players power cards.
Yeah - it can get pretty intense. If you ever happen to stop by Franklin, TN - let me know! We can play a round.
Grab that coffee, take a long swig, and letās go!
š§± Stick a USB in the Wall
Stop me if I sound like some sort of conspiracy. So, thereās a secret underground network of USB drives around the world hidden in walls and other places, filled with secret knowledge and files . . .
Iām not joking! This is a real thing. Thereās hundreds of them here in the US.
An artist named Aram Barthol started this as a art project back in 2010.
Dead Dropsā is an anonymous, offline, peer to peer file-sharing network in public space. USB flash drives are embedded into walls, buildings and curbs accessible to anybody in public space. Everyone is invited to drop or find files on a dead drop. Plug your laptop to a wall, house or pole to share your favorite files and data. Each dead drop is installed empty except a readme.txt file explaining the project. āDead Dropsā is open to participation. If you want to install a dead drop in your city/neighborhood follow the āhow toā instructionsĀ and submit the location and pictures. Source
This reads likes something from 2010. The idea of connecting my laptop to a random USB in a wall is unthinkable. Imagine what kind of viruses you could get!
On the flip side, this āsecret networkā sounds like a fascinating way to gain insight into others, or create some sort of really cool scavenger hunt.
What if you traveled the world, hiding bitcoin and bitcoin wallet keys in USB dead drops? Then, after a month, you published a website outlining how to find the crypto. The internet would lose its collective mind if you put in enough money! (Thereās 5 million in BTC hiding all over the world! Go find it).
Or - what if you wrote a novel and hid parts of it around the US with clues as to where to find the next chapter! That would be really cool.
So - if youāre intrigued by the idea of checking out this vast network of hidden USB drives - here are some ESSENTIAL reminders. This is what I would do if I checked this out. Iām going to sound paranoid - but this kind of stuff fascinates and terrifies me. Iām in no way responsible if anything happens to you. These are just ācommon senseā tips.
DO NOT USE ANY PERSONAL DEVICE. You have no idea if there are viruses or trojans on these things - or worse - illegal content. Buy a old laptop from someone on FB and do not enter any personal information. Donāt log into anything!
Donāt open any pictures or videos. Thereās a lot of messed up people on the internet. If something looks weird, It most likely is. Delete.
Be discreet. The sight of someone plugging a laptop into a wall looks a bit strange. Dress nicely, or wear some old Goodwill utility uniform.
If you participate in any kind of text logs or anything - donāt leave ANY kind of personally identifiable information.
Thereās apparently a broken one here in Nashville. Iām slightly tempted to check it out. Iāll let you know if I do . . . or create my own. A secret āLand of Randomā USB dead drop sounds pretty cool.
Check out the website at the link!
š¹ Atariās Unsolved Mystery
Digital archaeology is creeping into the mainstream. With over two decades of internet behind us, itās no surprise that our eyes are starting to turn to the relics of the internet.
The lost games. Ancient websites. Old mysterious YT channels.
Atari has a pretty crazy mystery of its own.
A game called āEntombedā on the Atari 2600 has a maze generating algorithm that video game researchers John Aycocock and Tara Copplestone canāt figure out.
Aycock and Copplestone have tried retro-engineering the table. They looked for patterns in the values to try and reveal how it was designed, but this was to no avail. Whatever the programmer did, it was a stroke of mild genius. Every time the game is played, a reliably navigable maze is pumped out. Were the tableās values random or even slightly different, the maze would likely fail to be drawn with a playable path through it. It just seems impossible to explain. āThe abnormality of the table was just quite striking,ā says Copplestone . . . For Aycock, the as-yet unsolved mystery of the table lingers uncomfortably. āThe struggle I have as a scientist is, I think that there should be some logical way that this will all make sense and there really doesnāt seem to be.ā
They reached out to an original programmer of the game. āHe too remembered being confused by the table at the time. āI couldnāt unscramble it,ā he told the researchers. And he claimed it had been the work of a programmer who developed it while not entirely sober: āHe told me it came upon him when he was drunk and whacked out of his brain.ā Aycock tried to contact the programmer in question but got no response.ā There you have it - a drunk programmer had a stroke of genius - and weāll never know what it was.
Itās a wild story, and I have no doubt that weāll hear more and more of them over the years. We often think that we can figure out everything . . . but sometimes things are lost to history.
Crazy stuff.
Read all about it at the link!
š¤³ Cameo Zoom Calls
Want to talk one on one to Sean Astin on Zoom? or Scott Patterson from Gilmore Girls?
Well, now you can - for a price.
Cameo introduced personal ācelebrity zoom callsā last week.
For super fans - this is a dream come true. For salesmen and business owners, this could be a great way to wow clients.
āHey, as a token of appreciation, I booked you a call with Sean Astin. After our chat about movies, I realized how much you loved The Lord of the Rings.ā
Granted, thatās a $295 gift, but youāll wow the socks off someone. Everyone gets flowers, chocolates, and a nice steak dinner, but a call with a famous celebrity?
Thatās next level.
If I saw the email line āTalk to Sean Astin from The Lord of the Ringsā Iād definitely open that email.
Would you?
Check out more celebrities on cameo here on the link!
š The Land of Random
more crazy links? But of course!
šJapanese Style Western Art
Heās got some really cool stuff. Samurai Boba Fett? Say no more . . .
šWhiteboard Tool
Need digital whiteboard for building that million-dollar funnel? Do it with this free tool! It runs in your browser and is very user friendly.
š¶ Cassette Tape Vibes
Add some vintage sounds to your tracks with this free Cassette Tape plugin. Itās really cool!
OP-S Concept Phone
Behold this beautiful concept phone by Gris Design. They imagined what a mobile phone version of Teenage Engineeringās OP-1 (an insanely powerful tool for making music) would look like. This looks awesome!
Check out more images and other designs by Gris. They have some really cool stuff!
Whatās the size again?
Trying to remember sizes for social media dimensions is a pain in the neck. Check out this handy website with all the sizes! Did I mention it has FREE templates too?
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