🎮Cool Indie Games, Mushroom Computers, and Bridge Houses

no really houses on bridges

Wellll that was an absolutely insane week last week.

From Silicon Valley Bank’s collapse to USDC’s depeg - it’s been rough.

I can’t imagine how many people didn’t even get paid last week . . . or become part of a layoff soon.

The startup world is gonna be pretty nuts for a while - a lot of cool stuff might go belly up.

If you were affected by any of this - let me know in the comments. I’ll be keeping you in my prayers!

I wish this app would come out sooner, because we all need some vibes in our life.

Andy Allen @asallen

We’re working on a new (not boring) app. Rather than slowly tease it over months, let’s kill any hype right now… It’s called Vibes. It’s a personalized video game soundtrack for your life to help you focus, sleep, workout.

But since we don’t have this app yet - we can at least listen to some awesome Japanese Funk and Soul mixes.

I watched Dog Soldiers last week - have you ever seen it?

It’s a 2000’s gritty ‘soldier movie’ but with a Werewolf twist. It reminded me a lot of 28 Days Later in terms of style.

Definitely going back into my “will watch again” movie pile. I need to watch more of Neil Marshall’s movies now.

I also watched REC - a found-footage zombie movie that goes from 0-100 in the last 25 minutes.

Did you hear that Spotify is switching its UI/UX to a more TikTok style aesthetic?

There’s been a lot of mixed emotions on the internet - I’m personally kind of curious to see if it will help me discover new music.

Well - let’s hop in, shall we?

🎮Cool Indie Games

Okkkkk so I’ve encountered a bevy of interesting indie games recently - so I thought I’d put y’all on the trail too.

Pacific Drive

It’s a driving survival game with some serious synthwave vibes. It looks super creepy, and has a neat art style.

Skate Story

I’ve never seen a skate game like this before . . . I’m not really a skate game guy, but the vibes, graphics, and music are STRONG with this one.

SKATE STORY @skatestorygame

You took my dreams, and you set me on fire.

Islands and Trains

It appears that Oskar’s “chill and build” game style is catching on with more games. Thanks to the trailer below I’ve never wanted to build a train in a game so badly.

Fabi Smith @Just_Game_Dev

Hey all :) We're 2 people working on this game and we would like to show you a little video of what you can do in our tiny game 😌 Please share, retweet🔃 & wishlist to help us - we truly appreciate it💛 #indiegame #indiedev

Outpost: Infinity Seige

It’s an FPS and a Tower Defense . . . at the same time. Build your base just like any tower defense game, THEN defend it in the first person. That’s pretty sick if you ask me.

Blight: Survival

Perhaps you’ve seen the trailer for this already, but I find the need to share this MEDIEVAL ZOMBIE GAME again. Fight zombies with a broadsword!

🍄Mushroom Computers

Do you think computers could be organic?

You know - like some kind sort of . . . mushroom.

There’s a laboratory working on this very idea.

Upon first glance, the Unconventional Computing Laboratory looks like a regular workspace, with computers and scientific instruments lining its clean, smooth countertops. But if you look closely, the anomalies start appearing . . . On top of the cluttered desks, there are large plastic containers with electrodes sticking out of a foam-like substance, and a massive motherboard with tiny oyster mushrooms growing on top of it . . . researchers there have been working on stuff like this for awhile: It was founded in 2001 with the belief that the computers of the coming century will be made of chemical or living systems, or wetware, that are going to work in harmony with hardware and software. (source)

Mind-boggling. Could you imagine a mushroom running your computer?

With fungal computers, mycelium—the branching, web-like root structure of the fungus—acts as conductors as well as the electronic components of a computer. (Remember, mushrooms are only the fruiting body of the fungus.) They can receive and send electric signals, as well as retain memory. (source)

So it sounds like these researchers will eventually convince( program, I mean) mushrooms to send and store messages . . . thus paving the way for . . .

a giant mushroom laptop.

Maybe not - but Scientists are also working on creating biodegradable chips out of mushrooms too.

I wonder what we’ll see in our lifetime?

Check out the PopSci article at the link to learn more!

🌉Bridge Houses

Every time I see one of those old European bridges that have houses on them I’ve always wondered.

What would it be like to live in a house on a bridge?

I discovered an article that details life upon the old London bridge and its buildings. Check it out here.

From the 14th to the 18th century - all sorts of tradesmen made their home upon London Bridge.

Rental documents dating from 1358 give us our first insight into the earliest structures on the bridge, of which there were 140 in total – the largest number in the recorded history of the bridge, since many plots were later amalgamated. Like the plots of a medieval new town laid out either side of a main road, these roughly standardised plots had a narrow footprint. (source)

It’s wild for me to imagine owning a business on a bridge, or even living on one.

Wouldn’t it be cool to live on a bridge?

The Ponte Vecchio in Florence, Italy may still have people living on it. It’s the only remaining medieval bridge left in Florence - and still has shops to this day.

For the life of me I cannot find any sort of proof that people live on this dang bridge.

Here’s a tour of an apartment that’s basically on the bridge.

I had more success with my research on the Kramerbrucke bridge in Germany. It’s another surviving medieval bride -but this one has people still living on it.

Here’s a really fun article from Houzz to explore - there’s a long story about a woman and her husband who’ve been living on the bridge since the 80’s!

Apparently it’s a cozy little “neighborhood” of sorts

Since there are just 18 feet between the two rows of houses, residents can look right onto their neighbors’ dinner plates. For the neighbors who are friendly with one another, that’s no problem. “Of course, we also have curtains, so we wave to each other sometimes in the evening — it’s very casual,” Leuschner says. “We all know each other — it’s a very nice atmosphere.” (source)

Sound pretty interesting!

Have you ever seen a bridge with homes? Let me know in the comments.

🐙The Land of Random

Into the land of random we gooooo oooo ooooooo

Velma Should’ve Ended With This

It would’ve been the biggest Gotcha in film history. The Second season would CRUSH. On a serious note - this video is awesome. WARNING - Blood, gore, and existential insinuations.

Jones BBQ and Foot Massage

I saw this mentioned by ShapedInternet on Twitter and just had to share it again. Absolute internet treasure.

This Forum is Ancient

when the forum is so old - the last post is over 20 years old. MAD RESPECT to whoever keeps this online. It looks like it might be maintained only for some sort of SEO boost. based on the link in the footer that goes to a super weird Chinese website that just has 404 links.

Space Is Cool

Space is Cool

Oppo Find N2 Vibes

I agree with Marques Brownlee. This is the best folding phone now. I can think of so many cool widgets for that little cover screen.

A Summer Afternoon

This extremely cool WEBGL experiment just goes to show what kind of cool stuff can be done in your web browser.

The Pirate Bay Lives On!

Yar Har Fibber Mcgee! With over 2 decades and counting, the Pirate Bay has stood the test of time, waiting in the sidelines for Netflix to finally ban password sharing and release the hordes back to piracy. This fun little article dives into some old stories from one of the cofounders.

The Waluigi Effect

Could LLM’s like GPT-3 have a penchant to play evil characters a la Luigi and Waluigi if given a chance? It’s an interesting idea, given Bing AI’s dark “thoughs” back before they enforced more limitations.

🎶TikToks You Can’t Miss

Nothing has ever made more sense to me in meme world

Now that’s a niche - find weird stuff on Google and walk to it

Well . . . . that’s one way

Just like Prey makes you start hitting everything in sight - Atomic Heart makes you start doing the same thing.

Yeah . . .did you know they’re making a show?

I love how they’re friends IRL

That’s all for this week! See you next time.