🏠 Fake Apartments, Lex AI, and Phone SIM Security

Is the apartment real anon?

Sep 11, 2023

Hey friends! Welcome to another issue of the Land of Random.

Our dear infant son has begun to sleep poorly at night - and so the long nights have begun.

I write this as the world swirls in a twilight of shadow.

What is day? What is night? What maintains the soul other than endless cups of coffee?

I may have to stock up on some of those caffeinated Ramen noodles that are coming out soon - If any of y’all live in Japan - PLEASE try them and let me know how they taste!

Speaking of noodles - there’s a FANTASTIC pho place in Fifth and Broadway in Nashville. They have a Pho + Banh mhi combo that’s heavenly.

While I’m on the subject of food - we have two healthy watermelons growing in our backyard. I’m hoping they’ll taste good!

In terms of Land of Random related projects - I have an exciting podcast conversation with a very special guest coming up soon. I can’t wait to share it with y’all.

It should come out in the next few weeks!

If you’re looking for something to listen to - this podcast is really intriguing. It’s about a guy who becomes a forest fire watcher . . . but things get weird . . . noises in the forest, weird music on the radio . . .

It’s worth a listen!

Also - if you consider yourself a “creative type” - check out the trailer for Procreate Dreams. Once again, those mad lads have delivered another incredible art/graphic design/animation platform - for a price that would make Adobe weep.

Let’s dive in!

Own your very own second at 24 Hour Homepage! This delightful website features a different link/image every second - with MANY links to explore. Own a second, and share a link/pic with the world. (Sponsored Ad)

🏚️ Fake Apartments - “Menugate”

I recently stumbled across a most bizarre TikTok.

It all starts with a guy named Cody who claims to live in an “empty” (or almost empty) apartment complex - way back in 2021.

His first piece of proof is an incident in which Chinese takeout menus are placed in the doors of all the apartments on his row - the kind of placement where you can’t open the door without them falling out.

A few days later - they’re all still there. It happened a second time too a year later.

Thus the name “Menugate” is born.

He points out a few more pieces of evidence

not many lights on at night in Apts
lots of cars with thick layers of dust on them

Over time, it appears that he gets more and more frantic trying to figure things out. I mean - I would too. Not seeing any neighbors ever would be deeply unsettling.

He even runs around the halls during a fire alarm in an attempt to see if anyone was around. You know - the courtesy poke your head out to see if you see smoke.

Noone came out of their apartment!

Fun fact - I actually lived at an apartment complex in Franklin where one building partially burned down. Noone was hurt other than smoke inhalation - that was a crazy night.

Most of the videos in the “MenuGate” series follows other bits of odd things that he sees - but the strangest video of all is one in which he claims that he sees multiple people all having the same conversation - like something straight out of the matrix.

Maybe he’s the subject of a very expensive psychological experiment?

It’s a wild series!

Definitely makes you wonder if sneaky apartment complex owners are keeping stuff empty to inflate prices.

Go check out the series at the link!

Menugate

🎨 Lex AI

AI is slowly making its way into our tools - from Loom to Clickup, or Microsoft Copilot.

It’s invaded art pretty heavily . . . SEO . . . video

Now, it’s coming for word processors.

Lex AI is a new AI-assisted doc tool - think Google Docs.

Lex is a new word processor that has all the features you expect from a Google docs-style editing experience: realtime collaboration, formatting, and more. But—it also has an AI thought partner built-in to help unlock your best writing. Over time, the more you use it, the better Lex will get. (source)

Here’s a screenshot

Looks a lot like ye olde Google Docs, Word - but stripped down to the essentials.

You can ask Lex about your document, get ideas, outlines, advice, and ask it to generate the next paragraph.

My favorite feature is asking it for feedback on a sentence. It’s the functionality of Google docs - but tagging the AI instead of someone else. It has a very natural feeling - rather than some new functionality that you have to learn.

It has that “chatgpt” flavor, so to speak.

As far as I can tell - it won’t write you a thousand-word doc - it’s an AI purely designed to help you with your writing.

It’s an intriguing value proposition - an AI writing assistant designed purely just to be a “writing companion” rather than do everything for you.

What do you think? Would you use Lex to help you write?

Check it out at the link!

Lex.Page

📞 Phone Sim Security

“Two Factor Verification”

We have to use it for everything these days - sometimes with our phone, email, or Google Authenticator.

We hand out our phone number like candy to services left and right, and even the person we really really want to buy our old lawnmower.

Every time we hand out our phone number to a stranger or random form - we hand out one more opportunity to get scammed.

The Vast Majority of the time - no one is out to scam us.

However - there are ways we can be “better safe than sorry.”

Terence Eden has a pretty simple solution for phone security.

The easiest way is to get a dual SIM phone. I have my main SIM which holds my primary phone number. That's the number used by my family, my banks, and anyone vaguely trustworthy. My second SIM contains a free disposable PAYG SIM. That phone number gets given out to retailers, couriers, Gumtree & Freecycle users, pizza delivery, and anyone else who doesn't need my number permanently. My Android phone tells me which line is being called. And once I start getting too much spam to that number I throw the SIM away and get a new one with a new number. If you have an eSIM, you can do the same thing. Find a cheap eSIM provider, sign up to a PAYG or monthly plan, then ditch the number whenever you like. (source)

Did you ever think of doing something like that? It’s a really smart idea!

One phone number for your most important services/ contacts.

One for everything else.

Cool, right?

It doesn’t even look that expensive to do either. Here’s a $5 a month pay as you-go plan.

🐙 The Land of Random

Let’s get random shall we?

Explore websites by font

A good font can make all the difference on a website - explore these websites by font - and THERE’S A LOT OF THEM.

Font Explorer

The Anomaly

I love pictures that seem to contain an entire world. What is that cursed object? Why has it eaten the cows? Is it a threat? There’s a whole story here to imagine . . . . (by Claud Z)

Forgotify

Play long forgotten tracks on Spotify . . .

Forgotify

This Page Only Exists if Someone is Looking At It

is the title of this fascinating web experiment. It’s essentially a Peer-to-peer website where the page only loads if someone else is viewing the page.

The explanation is fascinating - See it here.

Build your own at the link!

Ephemeral P2P Hosting

Secret Government Phone Numbers

A fascinating deepdive into how emergency calls get prioritized. If you have an emergency role, you can actually apply to the DHS to have the tech set up with your wireless carrier. It’s wild!

Secret Gov #'s