🎵Interactive Music, Beverage Printers, and Ambient Signals

Print yourself some coffee

Good morning friends! how are you doing this fine April morning?

The frigid temperatures have finally left Tennessee - and we are skipping straight from Spring to the dead heat of Summer.

My son turned one last week! We had a fun little birthday celebration for him - and he enjoyed his first cake!

He likes chocolate - unlike his sister . . . Kids are so funny!

As promised - here’s one of the Pixel Interfaces that i minted last week. I get anthropomorphic Brave Little Toaster vibes from this one.

They’re a ton of fun! The floor has been allll over the place on this project - so it’ll be interesting to see where it goes.

It’s CRAZY that this week was the one year anniversary of the Bored Ape Yacht Club minting out.

I’ve been saying to my friends! Happy anniversary of BAYC - a $200ish investment a year ago could have made you over 400K.

It really makes people’s heads spin.

Oh! I managed to get my hands on some of that Nitro Pepsi! It’s quite good. The regular is better than the Vanilla in my opinion. It tastes like you’re drinking only the foam from a Pepsi - but that sensation lasts while you drink the whole can.

Find one to try if you can!

Let’s dive in -shall we? If you need some happy vibes, here’s some Neo Disco Wave to listen to while you read.

🎵Interactive Music

When was the last time you listened to interactive music?

Other than experimenting with a website or two - it’s probably been a while.

There’s a really cool NFT project called secretgarden.fm that has built a truly amazing project.

It’s an interactive music player that you can use to make your very own mixes - or just listen to it as you work. For those of you who love NFT “firsts” - it’s also the first interactive music player in the NFT space.

Heck - when it comes to Music NFT’s I can’t think of a cooler project.

Audioglyphs are cool - but it’s only midi beats.

THIS is real music.

Here’s what it looks like.

It’s an interactive drum pad that you can mix different beats on. It’s actually quite aesthetic to listen to in the background. It’ll play forever too!

If you get bored with the current tune - just select some other drum pads to mix it up.

You can even hide the drumpad to enjoy the vibe of the background gif.

I will say - the only thing this project is missing is for the pads to automatically change up in the background every so often. It would make it a lot more dynamic and better suited for background listening.

At the moment the floor is 0.26 ETH - but I wouldn’t be surprised to see it hit 2, 3 - or even 10 eth in the future.

I mean - an interactive music NFT is a lot more useful than a “Tiny Dino” or other viral projects.

Can you imagine if more musicians create projects like this? It would be awesome to buy interactive music to listen to in the background.

What are you listening to?

Oh - just a fun remix of the latest Marshmello album that I can interact with and press different drumpads to change up the vibes. It’ll play for hours if I want it to.

Unfortunately - I don’t have the liquidity to pick up one of these - but they’re really dope.

I look forward to seeing what other projects Secret Garden creates in the future! Hopefully they do some projects at a cheaper mint price - cuz I’d love to get one of these to listen to in the background.

Check it out at the link!

Here’s a link to Opensea if you want to scoop one.

🖨️The Beverage Printer

Years ago - the Keurig seemed like a luxury.

Now - Keurigs are as common as the humble coffee pot!

There’s a new instant beverage machine called the Cana that hopes to be your go to “all in one” drink machine - and it sounds pretty cool.

source

Usually I’d say “oh fun it’s just another SodaStream competitor with a new angle” but this actually does look like it might do everything.

Here’s all the beverages it can make.

source

Yeah - other than hot beverages - that’s like everything I could imagine needing to drink.

How does it work - you ask?

Unlike wasteful systems that make a single drink per pod and generate huge amounts of trash, Cana’s cartridge system delivers thousands of drinks with virtually zero waste. We rebuild each beverage at the molecular level using hundreds of ingredients — all within a single ingredients cartridge. The sugar and spirits cartridges complete the system, and all are automatically shipped to you. (source)

That little phrase “single ingredients cartridge” makes this machine sound absolutely marvelous. One of the most frustrating aspects about Keurig + co is how much work it is to actually stay on top of keeping them stocked.

The amount of trash they generate is also quite unnerving too - more so than the typical coffee drinking experience. (One bag VS. 8+ pods a week)

I am very curious about the automatic shipping part. I probably wouldn’t buy one without doing the math to figure out if they’re cost-effective.

If you give me a machine that can give me as many soft drinks + iced coffees as I want - it’s probably going to increase my consumption exponentially.

Go check out the Cana at the link.

🍃Ambient Signals

You’re sitting at your desktop - hard at work.

A slight gust of wind hits your shoulders - You glance at your phone. A coworker has slacked you about an issue . . .

You turn to your desktop to solve said problem - and three gusts of wind hit you.

That’s the boss - something must be up.

Ok - what I described probably sounds weird, but it may just be the future of notifications.

These days - we receive notifications through different sounds, vibrations - maybe even a different color on our Amazon Alexa.

What if notifications were more subtle?

Google built an experimental project for ambient notifications. Here - watch this quick little video.

Each device is intended to convey information in different ways - whether by sound, shadow, movement, or air.

It’s an interesting idea - as it makes our interaction with technology feel more natural. When we hear a pot of water boil harder - we know it’s time to put in the noodles - for example.

This is the same idea - but for tech.

Here’s two of the devices.

Air Gusts = Notifications

source

You could have one of these sitting by your desk to blow you with air when you receive an important notification.

Tapping = A Notification

source

It would be fun to set up something like this to knock when ETH gas fees are low - or when we get an important email from a particular sender.

Neat - right?

As smart devices get cheaper - I could see tools like this growing in popularity as we try to distance ourselves from being glued to screens.

Check it out at the link!

🐙The Land of Random

What can I say except we’re random?

Dope Electric Truck

This retro modernized electric car would be awesome.

Blockchain Notes

This note can only be edited once an hour. Will you get a chance to edit it?

Insteon is Instedead

What happens when your smart home hub dies - and the company that made it might be dead too. Oof.

Oil Barrel Furniture

Who doesn’t want a bookshelf made from an old oil barrel? It’s an awesome vibe.

Justin.com

This website is pretty bizarre.

Black Midi - 5 Million+ Notes

Ohhh so you’ve never heard a Black Midi. It’s musical chaos

We Are Stardust Retro Game

Get a free or “pay what you want” copy of “We are Stardust” - a fun retro style game. Also - make sure you listen to the chiptune vibey “We are Stardust” album. It’s AMAZING. The Vinyl copies are sold out, but you can still snag a CD!

TikToks You Can’t Miss

This is an insane lego build of Minas Tirith

ERC721R could be great for preventing Rugs. Hmm

Ok - this is actually a brilliant Birthday gift

Someone give this Lego builder an Engineering job

I have a lot of respect for longboard dancing - that is not easy

This is a throwback -Remember the Six Flags guy?

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