🎶Create Your Own LoFi Music, A New Livestream Platform, and Mass-Produced Reusable Cups!

It's a LoFi Party in here

Sep 14, 2020

Hey everyone! Hope you’re having a great Monday today. 😃 Can you believe we’re almost halfway through September?

Thanks to everyone who joined the Discord last week. It’s been awesome getting to meet and chat with all of you who have joined so far. Haven’t joined yet? Join Here

I did something last week I haven’t done in 4 years.

I redownloaded Pokemon GO. I haven’t touched it since the summer of 2016! A few of my close friends finally downloaded it - and now I have too. I was one of those people who was playing 5 hours a night during those first few weeks. 🤣

I’ll be honest - those first few weeks were pretty fun. 1000’s of people all playing the same game, having fun! It was one of those rare opportunities where you could chat with anyone - young or old - about a common interest. I’m honestly not sure how many times we’ll see a cultural phenomenon quite like it . . .

Niantic really missed out on those first few months though. It went incredibly viral, and they never quite managed to sustain the momentum.

Let’s hop right on into today’s topics, shall we? Grab that cold brew (or pumpkin spice Latte - eh?) and let’s get started!

🎶Create Your Own LoFi Music

Have you ever wanted to create your own Lofi beats? Well, now you can! (Sortof)

Google has a new experimental machine learning demo for creating your very own Lofi style music.

Seriously!!

So - there’s a Javascript library called Magenta.js for creating music - and you can use machine learning models like the MusicVAE on it. Basically - the brilliant minds at Google built some AI models capable of generating musical patterns. They are very complex and awesome - and you could use them to create your own music. Here’s the blog post overview.

If you want to go deep, read about Magenta here, the MusicVAE algorithm here, and check out the Magenta Github here.

Here’s the interactive demo as a live Youtube Feed. Now - I don’t think this link will be up for long, but this Youtube stream is interactive. You can actually change the music by entering commands!

In the demo, there’s a TV in the middle of the screen. Click on that, and you can generate new randomly generated melodies. It’s pretty awesome, and many of the tunes sound pretty good.

Here’s the link to the demo. Play around with it! It’s a ton of fun. So much of it is interactive - including the window itself. 😃 (Hint, Hint)

Make Some Music!

Now - if you want to actually try building your own melodies and experimenting with the machine learning (but without coding/installing magenta.js/complicated but awesome coding stuff) they’ve created several plugins you can use to generate awesome music files. It works too! It’s MIDI based - so you’ll need to download some MIDI’s to plug in. Download them at the link.

Magenta Studio

🎥A New Livestream Platform!

Yup, I’ve found another Google platform. It’s called Fundo, and it’s Google’s solution for creating live ticketed virtual experiences.

It’s particularly interesting because there are already so many solutions in this space. Heck - every time I turn around, it feels like there’s two more. Host your class on this, sell tickets to a live event on that . . . or just use a hacky Zoom solution.

I’m really interested in seeing how this integrates with the rest of Google’s suite. It’s heavily weighted towards content creators. There are 3 main modes.

Live Chat - Like Zoom
One on One Video Chat with a “Photo Booth”
Teach a class + broadcast your screen

I signed up for an account - and it’s pretty dang comprehensive - and insanely easy to use. Anyone can use it to create a ticketed event. You can select the number of tickets you want to sell, how much they cost, create discount codes (Built-In Downsell opp. in my opinion), how much time you want to spend with each fan, questions for fans to answer, and more. At the moment, each event must cost a minimum of $5 to attend.

I think it definitely has potential! I would love to host a Creative Workshop or something at some point. 🤔 I wonder how it will stack up against all the competition? In any event, I look forward to seeing what happens with Fundo.

Check it out at the link! Let me know if you create a workshop. 😃 Maybe I can create a five-dollar event with a 90 percent discount, eh?

Fundo

🥤Mass Produced Recyclable Cups!

Remember those Reusable Starbucks Cups? Heck, they still sell them. However, the only real incentive to wash and bring them back is the coffee discount.

When I was little, we used to buy Chocolate milk in glass jars at Whole Foods. We’d bring them back to get cold hard cash. It was like $2-3 bucks every time! Worth it.

Well, McDonalds is partnering with Loop and going for the “old college try” with this idea in the UK. They’ll be testing reusable cups that you will be able to take back to McDonalds or to grocery stores.

You can now leave the restaurant with it and deposit it anywhere,” says Tom Szaky, CEO of Loop. “So you get that sort of to-go experience fulfilled, and you don’t have to deal with anything other than depositing it back in the Loop ecosystem.” It’s easier for customers, he argues, than lugging around their own reusable mug. “The key that always emanates from everything is how do we make reuse work for the most convenience-focused businesses and consumers, and really focus on that convenience of disposability while acting reusable. (Source)

It’s a really fascinating problem. We all love and believe in the idea of recycling, but struggle with the convenience and ease of consumerist one-use products. How can we change the narrative of the “cursed loop” and bring recycling to what we normally consider to be one-use products (honestly, when was the last time you thought about the ethical dilemma of fast food packaging)? I think this is a bold experiment and hope that this goes mainstream over the next decade. More Recycling! ♻

Check out more from the article at the link!

Recycle the Cups!

🐙The Land of Random

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Poolside FM on iPhone

Ready to experience chill vibes and one of the most aesthetic UI’s I’ve ever seen? Well, you need to download Poolside FM - or at least check out this awesome landing page.

Poolside FM

Gaming Chairs are Wild Now

Seriously - whoever makes these is or will be a millionaire.

PHΛЯΛӨH @PharaohOW

are you normal or do you desperately wish you had this scorpion PC set-up

Futuristic UI CSS

Trying to make your UI look futuristic? Really cool CSS stuff on this Cyberpunk looking site.

Augmented UI

Music of the Plants

This nifty device can be attached to plants, and will generate melodies based off the frequencies they are emitting. Yeah, it’s wild. I want one very badly. 😭😭😭 Listen to this. It’s so beautiful! Check out the product at the link (at your risk. You may want to buy one).

🎶🌱