💀Cursed AI Butterflies, Netflix Houses, and Pineapple Leather

I have no mouth but I must SCREAM

Jun 24, 2024

Welcome to The Land of Random!

It’s another hot week in June - and July is around the corner!

I don’t know how many of you are into the whole “dumb smart phone / smart dumb phone” movement but it’s absolutely fascinating to watch people make older phones like the Galaxy Folder II or Sharp Aquos A206SH work in 2024.

The Galaxy Folder II is definitely the more aestheticc choice but DANG does it take a lot of research and such to make it work.

In other news - Synthetic Dream Foundation recently released a new album. It’s pretty obscure (like 6000 listeners a month on Spotify obscure) experimental EBM - BUT I hadn’t heard anything new since 2015.

Some really good tunes! Honestly Glittered Ripples from the Depths was the first song I’d ever listened to in the experimental music category.

Definitely check it out if you can.

Did you hear that Voyager 1 is back up and running? It boggles my mind that a space probe we launched in 1977 is still working.

Maybe with AGI we’ll get spacecraft capable of going really fast and far on nuclear energy or something. who knows . . .

Eh. More than likely Blame! is the most practical outcome, but I digress.

Let’s dive in, shall we?

💀Cursed AI Butterflies

Recent advances in AI-generated audio, video, and imagery have been insane.

My personal perspective has rapidly shifted from “oh this is cooool” to “this is concerning at the current rate of advancement” as we continue to climb uncanny valleys.

I think there’s some cool use cases for AI stuff, but it’s summoning the Cthulhu of all dead internets and art. I’m already on Artstation going “huh this is cool but is it real.”

There’s a new app called Butterflies AI that is Instagram - but populated by AI profiles, AI characters, and AI art.

Instagram . . . with few humans, if any, in sight.

It’s like scrolling a parallel world that doesn’t exist.

“To date, humans have been able to chat with AIs in one-dimensional conversations, but there has yet to be an experience where people can create and interact more dynamically with AIs” (source)

AI profiles full of AI generated images - from cities to anime characters.

AI stories - like pinned stories in your IG bio.

AI comments, AI chat a la Character AI.

I think the craziest part is just DM’ing a AI profile and engaging in a conversation. I asked “Taylor Swift” (LOLOLOL) what the square root of 4 was and the bot answered.

You could literally live in this parallel world - post, comment, and chat - and not ever be involved in the real world.

It’s the next evolution of Character AI - instead of just roleplaying with AI characters - you can live in a world with them.

You can create your own themed AI (a cyborg anime character living in 2099? whatever you want) - and it will begin posting images on its very own - as well as commenting on other AI posts. You can prompt it to post too, as well as give it ideas on what to post about.

It’s all very, very wild. I imagine it won’t be long before they add AI calls to this.

It’s deeply concerning just how unhinged it is. The amount of people who will lose themselves in this will also be quite sad. (Look no further than Replika AI).

Given the over 4 million dollars they’ve gotten in funding - I imagine this will be around for a while.

Check it out at the link.

or don’t. It’s an interesting gaze at the abyss nonetheless.

Butterflies AI

🏠Netflix Houses

Here in Tennessee, there’s a current proposal to add apartments, a hotel, and more retail space to the Coolsprings Galleria Mall.

It’s honestly pretty forward-thinking. The best way to save a mall may be making it multi-use.

Seriously - if you lived right by a mall, you’d probably be in there all the time.

Malls are on the struggle bus. The glory days are over for most of them. Youtube is FULL of “let’s explore the abandoned mall” videos.

However, ideas like Netflix’s upcoming “Netflix Houses” might be the saving grace of malls around America.

Netflix House is a year-round home for fans to live the stories they love. Enjoy rotating immersive experiences, exclusive merchandise, food, drinks, and much more. (source)

Sounds pretty cool honestly.

Netflix does have the data to back it up too - their popup experiences have been quite popular - as well as experiences from other companies like Taco Bell or the Cheez-it Diner. Trouble is - very few of them have been permanent.

They usually last a month or so - and disappear. Poof. Coolness gone. No chance to go back and explore again.

For example - No more Cheez-It chicken tenders. The Cheez-it cafe is gone forever.

No more Taco Bell Hotel. That’s gone too.

And so on and so forth.

I think it’d be fun to go explore an immersive experience from Stranger Things - get some themed food (ooh maybe a diner??).

It’s kinda an exploration of Meowwolf or Universal Studio ideas at a different scale.

Maybe Netflix has been monitoring the popularity of Meowwolf and thought - huh we should give this a shot too.

I’m jealous that the first two of these will be in Texas and Pennsylvania.

I’m very curious to watch the walkthroughs of these when they open!

Hopefully these signal the beginning of “cool permanent immersive experiences” all over the US!

Check out the Netflix House website at the link!

Netflix House

🍍Pineapple Leather

I wrote about Mushroom leather shoes back in 2020.

Mushroom leather has become one of the most interesting leather alternatives over the past few years. Check out Mylo for more examples.

A NEW challenger has emerged.

Pineapple leaf fiber and natural rubber.

Here’s what the process looks like, as seen in Sustainability.

If you’re interested in reading the study - here’s the link.

According to the research - this leather alternative is stronger than others in the pace, and is comparable to real leather.

our research findings indicate that the PALF leather in this study exhibits significantly higher tensile strength and tear resistance when compared with other leather materials. These alternatives include Muskin (derived from Phellinus ellipsoideus mushrooms), Pinatex (sourced from pineapple leaf fibers), and various commercial leathers such as Kombucha (made from a symbiotic culture of bacteria and yeast), Vegea (produced from grape waste material), and Teak Leaf (derived from teak leaves). While PALF leather may have only slightly lower tensile strength when compared with materials like Appleskin (from apple waste) and Desserto (made from milled cactus leaves), it still demonstrates superior tear resistance . . . according to our self-measurements in this study, PALF leather’s tensile and tear strength are not significantly different from those of genuine leather and remain higher than Pinatex and PU leather. (source)

I wonder if this PALF leather will become a challenger in the alternative leather space, thanks to its “superior tear resistance?”

We’ll have to see!

🐙The Land of Random

Dive! Dive! Dive! Diveeeeeeeeeeee….

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