🤖Midjourney AI, Things Software, and Wood Bottles
recycling ftw
Happy Fourth of July! How are you doing this fine Monday morning?
I like to go back and watch a movie like The Patriot or Independence Day.
Speaking of the Revolutionary War - it’s been a long time since we’ve seen a good one come out. Sad.
We’re getting close to closing on our house - We should learn how the appraisal goes and everything within two weeks.
I’ll let y’all know how it goes!
We have been visiting Home Depot and Lowes to check out fridges and all that good stuff.
Did you know there are smart grills now?
Wat
I’m most excited about “smartifying” the house - We’ve decided to go with Google-affiliated products, rather than Amazon.
Google Stuff just works better - and I’m already pretty deep into Google’s pockets so to speak.
The latest season of Stranger Things was pretty good - I’m excited for the next one! I’ll be honest - there were some pretty slow episodes, but it finished out pretty well. I was NOT expecting that 135 minute episode haha.
That was like a WHOLE movie.
Have you ever listened to the artist Mr. Kitty? Great Electronic vibes - like Crystal Castles but with more modern sounds.
You may just recognize that track “After Dark” from TikTok . . . That’s how I started listening.
Let’s hop on in!
🤖 Midjourney AI
Everyone is talking about DALL-E, but Midjourney AI can generate some incredible stuff.
I managed to get access to their beta - and have been messing around with the tech - It’s VERY powerful.
Just like DALL-E, you enter a prompt - and wait for the algorithm to spit out it’s interpretation of your idea.
Here’s one I got for “A robot Cthulhu staring down from the sky at a burning vaporwave city”
Yeah - That’s way better than anything I’ve ever seen from DALL-E or other generators. You could convince me that this was some kind of epic photoshop job.
Now - with each prompt you get four variations - which you can choose from to upscale. You can continue to upscale and upscale the variation you want! I refined the one above about three times.
Here’s another one I got from the prompt “closeup of Starwars graffiti in an alley“ - all four variations are present.
That fourth one definitely had potential . . .
Can you imagine how incredible this will be for EVERY industry??
Eventually, all you’ll need is to enter the right prompt - get the asset you want, and use it however you see fit.
You can generate for free in the Discord up to a unspoken limit . . .
I may sign up for a month of the premium version just to REALLY get crazy with some generations.
Go sign up for the beta! Let me know what you create . . .
🎨Things Software
Jason Toff is cooking up some epic stuff with Things Inc.
Remember e.gg? that fun little website builder that Facebook made?
that sadly got shut down. RIP. FB would rather waste its talent on copying FB.
Jason Toff was involved with that awesome little project - and it looks like he’s on his own now - BUILDING MORE COOL STUFF.
Here’s the “about” section.
At Things.inc, we take fun seriously. We are a team of evolved monkeys who believe in the power of collaborative creation and emergent play. We believe that technology can be a source of good, and that weird > normal. At the moment, we're building a piece of software for curious minds who like to take things apart and bring their imaginations to life. It'll be some time before this is ready, but if you want to be one of our first testers, sign up for our mailing list. (source)
Yeah - I’m super pumped.
The website is really fun too - You can drag everything around the screen like a desktop.
I’m excited to see what their “main” software will be.
At the moment - there’s a TON of fun little things to play with
like Blob - this very fun little sprite builder.
You can even build with others.
or Scribble.land - a DIY interactive board where you draw your own avatar
There’s a few more tools to explore too!
I’m looking forward to seeing what kind of cool project Jason and his team end up building.
It’s hard to find creative software that’s actually built with a sense of delight - rather than just pure utilitarianism. If these small little prototypes on Things are even the slightest indicator of things to come - whatever Jason is cooking up is gonna be awesome.
Check out Things, Inc at the link!
🌲Wood Bottles
Move over glass and aluminum - there’s a new recyclable bottle coming to town.
Danish beer brand Carlsberg is experimenting with a new bottle that doesn't use any glass at all. This week they unveiled their Fibre Bottle, which will be rolled out in the Western European market. It has an outer shell made of "sustainably-sourced wood fibre," according to the company. (source)
Yup - it’s a beer bottle made of wood - and it’s completely bio degradable - other than the cap. If this poor bottle gets thrown away into a landfill, it will eventually rot away, as opposed to all those styrofoam cups . . .
There will be colonies on Mars by the time styrofoam cups disintegrate. Heck - there will be space pirates and mining corporations flying around the Solar System within the styrofoam life of 500 years.
Here’s what the bottle looks like.
Cool, right?
The bottle also has a really cool polymer lining that is bio degradable.
A significant milestone for the Fibre Bottle is its plant-based PEF polymer lining, which has been developed by Carlsberg’s partner Avantium, a leading expert in renewable chemistry. PEF is made entirely from natural raw materials, is compatible with plastic recycling systems, and can degrade into nature should it end up outside national recycling systems. Beyond its sustainable packaging benefits, PEF functions as a highly effective barrier between the beer and the fibre outer shell, protecting the taste and fizziness of the beer better than conventional fossil-fuel-based PET plastic. The outer shell of the bottle, produced by the packaging company Paboco, consists of sustainably-sourced wood fibre and is also bio-based. This shell has the added benefit of insulative properties which can help keep beer colder for longer, compared to cans or glass bottles. (source)
It would be interesting to test one of these bottles against a normal bottle to see if these statements hold up. After all - the best way to increase adoption of something is to make it taste better and make it cold longer.
Hopefully they work just as well as Carlsberg claims!
Check out the press announcement from Carlsburg at the link.
🐙The Land of Random
Let’s . . . .Get . . .Random!
Do You Fancy some Citypop?
Great vibes inside
Pop Tart Blowtorch
Apparently strawberry pop tarts catch on fire pretty bad if left too long in the toaster. Also - this site has been up since the 90’s.
QR Code Clock
I really don’t understand this but it’s mesmerizing
Reddit Mind Map
This is pretty cool - type in something to see all the subreddits that pop up for a topic.
Reddit is Not Doing Well
This is a fascinating thought piece on the decline of Reddit. For the most part - I agree with it. Reddit is dying . . .
Hack The Box
This really cool looking site is a cybersecurity training platform. It looks really fun!
Citybound Game
This city builder is modeled after living microscopic organisms - and has some really powerful AI algorithims behind it. It looks nuts!
🎵TikToks You Can’t Miss
I’ve gone deep on Spotify, but never this deep
This looks like a mega disturbing game. I am . . . unsettled.
I’ve heard about apartments like this but have never seen one
I very much want one of these sandwiches
Leave it to 4chan
The Land of Web3
Cyberronin Haruka is a pretty interesting anime style project - with ambitious goals. They’ve already allowed holders of at least two NFT’s to redeem physical figurines, released the first two issues of their manga, and have a “emart” where you can use your $haruka coin (which your NFT’s passively collect each day) to buy NFT’s. I own the one above, and plan to pick up at least one more!
Sell NFT’s with credit cards with Winter - cut through all that onboarding friction.
Add unlockables to your NFT’s without editing them!
Shoutout to K8tlin at Ketchup (a great newsletter) for finding this first - GMGN is launching physical products - beginning with Ape themed cereal.
That’s all for this week! See you next time. :)