💻 Meat Veggies,The Dot Computer, iPod Bougieness,

Veggies, but meat style

Nov 06, 2023

Helllllooooooo and welcome to The Land of Random this week!

I regret to inform you that I once again have another bad cold.

I apologize if the substance of this newsletter seems a bit off - my head is spinning like a drift car going for a Guinness World Record.

Here’s a gif of my current brain feel.

We had a pretty quiet Halloween this year - it was dreadfully cold and we didn’t want to brave the weather with our little two-month-old son.

but - we did stay up and watch Five Nights at Freddy’s which I quite enjoyed!

I honestly didn’t consider it a horror movie - more of a thriller I’d say.

My favorite little cameo was what showed up in the credits. If you want to spoil it for yourself - click this link.

I can assure you that if you enjoyed watching FNAF playthroughs back in 2014-2015, it will put a smile on your face.

Have you ever watched Markiplier’s playthrough of the game? His commentary is awesome. Honestly an internet classic at this point.

Let’s hop in shall we?

🍖 Meat Veggies

Sometimes the things I find are just unhinged.

Like - meat Plants.

No seriously - meat plants.

Like - Broccopork.

This project by Leyu Li is an exploration of futuristic biotech ideas.

Here’s the background provided.

The supermarket shelves are filled with plant-based meat. Cultivated meat is on the horizon. People describe the plant-based meat alternatives they eat on a spectrum polarised between plants and meat according to their similarity to meat. People share their plant-based food reviews everywhere and anytime at TikTok. These findings make me more curious about how people will react to cultivated meat products in the future. What debates and dialogues, and public discourse and context will happen around lab-grown meat? How does in-vitro biotech change people’s daily life and food culture? (source)

An interesting idea!

Thanks to biotech, stuff is gonna get really weird the next few decades.

Meat is already being grown in vats - and it’s practically around the corner in terms of being sold in stores.

So - to do some good ole testing, Leyu sets up a TikTok account to gauge people’s interest.

Full on fake influencer “real product” style.

She does a really good job too - here’s one of the videos.

The comments go hard for some of them - like this video.

People seemed full-on convinced that it’s real!

Some individuals genuinely believed in the existence of Broccopork and were very concerned about this biotechnological development. They accused me of creating satire. Interestingly, some people saved the post with plans to purchase Broccopork in the future. Sadly, one person directly emailed me to ask where to buy it because of his genetic defects. Expectedly, at the same time, there were some people who suspected and recognised this to be a piece of speculative design fiction ... (source)

I can’t say I blame them - we’ve reached the uncanny valley of biotech, so it’s not completely outside the realm of reality.

Go check out the project at the link or watch the TikToks!

Broccopork

TikTok - Broccopork

💻The Dot Computer

It was only a matter of time until we got a Rewind AI competitor - and I can honestly say that this one looks pretty sick.

Dot reminds me of a helpful cross between the Pi assistant, Rewind AI, and Replika (before Replika became a romance chatbot).

Dot draws connections to resurface things important to you, even ones you haven’t mentioned in a while. From the history you develop, Dot can recall moments from the past in surprising & serendipitous ways, tying it with the present to give old memories renewed life. What you share isn't the end of the exchange — memories can reappear in remarkable ways. Through your conversations with it, Dot grows its knowledge bank of what is meaningful to you, piecing together elements in your life to help you make sense of the bigger picture. (source)

That part about “memories reappearing?” Back in the day, Replika used to do this kind of stuff - it would bring up old conversations and freak you out.

Rather than being an AI companion, Dot is focused on ideating an entirely new kind of operating system.

We envision a new kind of operating system. One that thoughtfully reflects on its own actions while reasoning about ours. One that respects our preferences, intentions, and limitations. One that shapes itself around our unique needs, and becomes a true extension of our will. A New kind of Computer. With the emergence of powerful transformer models that can simulate human reasoning, we are finally able to start turning our vision of a new computer into reality. Dot is the first step we are taking towards this future. One where your computer is a curator of content that matters to you, a collaborator in thought, a creator of solutions that anticipate your needs, and a chronicler of your legacy. A living history. (source)

Based on the various screenshots and such from the website, it looks like you’ll be able to message Dot pictures, notes, ideas, ask it to remind you of stuff - even voice memos or pdfs!

Think of Dot like a 24/7 AI secretary that gets to know you better over time - it’ll pick up on your patterns and respond to you as it shapes its personality.

Whereas Rewind is a utilitarian tool to make sense of your browsing, meetings, and so forth - Dot is a friend who can help you with the daily grind.

Send it your meeting notes and ask it to remind you to write an email tomorrow!

Send it your favorite recipes, and ask if it can find anything similar!

Ask it to do research on your favorite websites and see if it can send you some more cool stuff.

I’m really intrigued to check it out when it goes live!

If you want to get a peek at the very aestheticc UI/UX check out this tweet.

Dot.Computer

🕶iPod Bougieness

Did you hear that Urban Outfitters started selling vintage iPods??

And they sold out too. Here’s the listing.

The funniest part was how much they were selling them for - $200!

At first glance you might say - that’s way too much money for an iPod BUT a quick trip to Ebay reveals that people are selling these things for comparable prices.

especially sealed brand-new ones!

Yeah - you can buy a 5th generation iPod for around $55, but there’s plenty of $100 and $200 listings.

It’s a niche I should have expected - retro tech coming back onto the scene.

We’ve officially cycled through Vinyl, a touch of cassette tape nostalgia, and now we’re back to iPods.

Funny enough - it’s the iPod touches that are quite cheap.

They’re basically iPhones without the phone part lol.

I love a good iPod, but personally, I’d rather go modern and get one of the Sony walkmans that can support Spotify or Apple Music.

Not only is Spotify supported, but they have Bluetooth and Hi-Res Audio.

OR go full rogue and install Spotify + Bluetooth in an old iPod, as Guy Dupont did a few years ago.

OR - satisfy my nostalgia for a few minutes on this iPod emulator.

Would you go retro and buy an iPod? Let me know in the comments!

🐙The Land of Random

Intoooo the Land of Randommmm we gooooo

Build a E-ink Spotify Display

Very cool way to display currently playing album art!

Emoji Storm

As the name implies, there is quite literally a storm of emojis. It’s quite entertaining!

Emoji Storm

Never Gonna Give You Up

Rickroll your friends with this link shortener - only - not every click is gonna get you a rickroll . . . Build a URL at the link!

Rick Roll

Once.com - One Time Payment SAAS

If you work in the business, creative, or corpo world, you know just how annoying SAAS (software as a service is). Pay Adobe or Salesforce the monthly bill, forever, and ever, and ever . . . . Once wants to change that with one time purchase software. Sounds intriguing! This project is from 37 Signals, the company that made Basecamp, Hey, AND invented the Ruby on Rails framework. Expect something awesome.

Once.com

Seeker - Location Finding Software

Always doublecheck the legitimacy of a website that’s asking for location permission, because software like Seeker exists. It’s a white hat project to demonstrate the power of such phishing tools.

Seeker