😃Another Blackberry Wannabe, Reinventing Pallet Flips, and the Last Gasps of NFTS
we all love a cool phone
Hello! and welcome to this week’s edition of The Land of Random
Our family has almost recovered from the wretched flu . . . I somehow never got it. I always get sick. Most mysterious.
It’s already the end of January (how is this so?) and tax season is upon us here in the USA.
yay.
AT LEAST we don’t have to deal with crypto this year. THAT was a nightmare I wish never to revisit.
Honestly, kudos to y’all for continuing to read when I went through that NFT obsession. I went mad. Crazy. Tulip mania.
Did you hear that crazy story about the comic who was rushed offstage because of some kind of incident?
It generated quite a bit of buzz in the US but was allegedly a PR stunt.
YungContent does a full deep dive on it. hi_hi_ looks like the Mschf equivalent of a PR stunt group. Check it out on Instagram.
I didn’t hear about the Applebees Date night Passes until it was too late. Though each pass cost $200, it would net you $30 off your order once a week . . . for 52 weeks.
That’s pretty darn cool! That would make the cost of a eat-out “date night” MUCH cheaper.
Love the concept - I hope more companies try stuff like this!
Let’s dive in, shall we?
😃Another Blackberry Wannabe
Gather round folks! It’s time to take a look at a new Minimalist phone.
It’s called Minimal - and looks very much like that Punkt Android phone we never got.
For context - here are both of the designs.
Sadly, Punkt never made their phone, so I hope Minimal makes theirs!
The details are pretty scant on the landing page - so we must turn our eyes to a Reddit AMA to find additional information.
There’s a lot of promises made - such as Google Play support (yay Android apps), E-ink, full keyboard, Bluetooth, and other apps.
The design has been finalized, and the molds are being explored
I’m hopeful that this project gets off the ground. If it does - it’ll be the first minimalist phone to have it “both ways.”
Access to app stores AND minimalist vibes.
Whether it’s Punkt, Light Phone, Mudita - or some of the other “minimalist phone” brands - nothing offers a decent blend of minimalism + digital convenience.
For example, I use Spotify all the time - any phone I buy needs to support Spotify. Also - I use Cashapp a lot for my weekly budgeted “fun money” so not being able to monitor my account would be annoying.
This COULD be the phone that changes that . . .
The Kickstarter launch seems to be in February, and the founder suggests the price will be around $400. I’ll be closely following along to see what happens!
Check it out at the link!
⚙Reinventing Pallet Flips
Ahhh! The smell of cardboard boxes at a bin hunt store. The sound of a truck backing up as it delivers a random pallet of stuff to your house from Liquidation.com
(I Plan to try the latter someday).
The issue of what to do with returns is an issue that has plagued Ecom companies over the past decade+.
Some tell you to keep the item - others resell to companies like Liquidation.com
A new startup called Wander, founded by Jordan Allen, is launching to deal with this issue.
Initially, Wander will buy pallets of merchandise from retailers and brands. Over time they plan to establish partnerships where returns are sent directly to Wander. The startup is building an online marketplace, listing everything for sale in specific geographic locations in one-day, no-reserve auctions.
Winners of those website auctions then go to a Wander warehouse for speedy curbside pickup of the steak knives or mountain bike shocks or practically anything else imaginable that they just purchased for a steal.
“This stuff’s hard to price,” Allen said. “You’ve got a kid’s life jacket, a barbecue, a weed whacker, a cooking pan that might have a scratch on the handle. What does that sell for? Now the consumers can come bid on it and come pick it up in the same day.” (source)
It’s an intriguing business model!
Ebay - but specifically for returns. The “aha” moment is the future integration between Wander and retailers.
Don’t like an item? No problem! Ship it to Wander and let them deal with how to make money off it. (I imagine Wander will buy items from the retailer at some agreed-upon cost).
Allen, who grew up in what he calls the reduce, reuse and recycle era, is dumbfounded by a more wasteful mentality that seems to come with today’s retail convenience. “Now it’s like, ‘Oh, the printers out of ink?’ People are throwing the whole printer away!” he said. “We think we’re going to make a major impact and save retailers on their bottom line, save consumers a little bit in their pocketbook and hopefully save the planet a little,” Allen concluded. (source)
I’m excited to see what Wander looks like when it launches to the public in February!
☠The Last Gasp of NFTs - Pt.1
The world was ON FIRE about NFTs back in 2021 and 2020.
Punks, Apes, and other collections sent people into absurd amounts of Tulipmania.
WAGMI (we’re all gonna make it) was probably uttered a billion times or more per day.
I . . . like many others, lost my mind and dove in head first. I had invested a little bit back in 2017 before everything went to the moon - so I had an Eth or so to mess with.
To my wife - thank you for sticking with me through this. I got so obsessed with NFTS and wouldn’t shut up about them.
I excitedly bought from lots of projects, hoping against hope that I’d make some great money. (lol)
Let’s check in and see how things are doing eh? (This is all news to me too. I left the discords and unfollowed many of these at the end of 2022).
I’m exploring each of these projects like I would a dying mall - morbid fascination.
Who’s still open? What do the abandoned stores look like?
Let’s set the scene with some thematic music . . .
Ah! Here’s the perfect mix
I’ll be revisiting these over a series of probably 3 issues.
Bored Breakfast Club - This BAYC themed coffee project is in the "persevering” category. After waiting a year+ for the community wallet to hit the “free coffee” target, I just redeemed free coffee from them this week! IDK how long it will be until the next redemption, but we’ll see. Not sure if we’ll see the project thrive at any point. (Its popularity rides on BAYC pretty heavily after all). Let’s check in in 2026.
Secret Garden - This ambitious NFT project created cool interactive soundpads. I lost my mind over these. Unfortunately, the project lost all its funds in THE GREAT FTX debacle and only has funds to keep the site up, and NFTs working. It’s mostly dead - so we’ll consider it “investment lost and mostly dead.” Play around with this Mixpad though or this one.
Not Today Club - Rekt + Burned. This skeleton-themed skate club RUGGED. The idea was to create a skate club themed around the NFT collection, complete with skaters. However, it was a slow RUG, with lots of drama. If you wish to see the remains - the Twitter is still up. “Burned - Investment lost.”
Kreepy Klub - This “kreepy” art project is still trucking! They may be worth only a few dollars, but they continue to give away free art NFTs in Discord and have an active community + Shopify store. The art is unique enough that it could hold water on its own beyond NFT culture. I consider it in the “Still persevering” category. Let’s check in in 2026.
Feline Fiendz - Still in the “trucking along” category, with a decently active Discord and VERY active Twitter. Looks like a Rebrand is occurring this year. Their Twitter profile has “NFT 2021 energy” which is truly bizarre to see in 2024. Curious to see if this rebrand will juice things. Value is low at the moment but they’re “Still Persevering.” Let’s check in in 2026.
🐙The Land of Random
Into The Land of Random we go!
An Ode to Dialup
This cracks me up every time I watch it
Here.FM
It’s been a long time since I thought about this fun tool (2021) but WOW - it’s a lot bigger now! It’s an online hangout tool - with chat, videos, gifs, and more features.
Unhinged Text Adventure
There’s nothing like an old-school text adventure - and this one is NUTS. It’s been around since the “dialup era” and has absolute buckets of content.
A Smart Device Adventure
What do you do when you find some sort of old smartscreen in your new apartment? Try to get it to work!
FENVOX
Have an AI voice read a webpage to you! Nifty chrome extension.
The big Rat
It’s a big boi
The All in One Gaming Tablet
The OneXPlayer X1 looks to have it all - from the ability to be a laptop, to gaming, and desktop use. Oh. And a Tablet! I’m curious to see reviews of this beast. (I’m pretty sure I’ve written about this - can’t remember. I think I just get amazed every time I see it).
🎶TikToks You Can’t Miss
What’s real? what’s animated? Who Knows?
I really want to try this.
More board meetings should be like this.
🤖AI AHHHHHHH
Google’s diffusion model for video generation looks insane. I can’t wait to get access to this.
That’s all for this week! see you next time. :)
unless you want to read this crazy tale about a Entrepeneur who ran a crypto project with John Mcafee.