😝MSCHF the Mad, Samsung’s BB-8, and The Living Machine

The Wildest Agency I’ve ever seen

What’s up my friends! How’s your January treating you? It’s almost over (I know, I know - it’s going by way too fast but what can we do?) and February is right around the corner.

And Tax Season. *Shudder* 😧

But let’s not think about that quite yet.

Let’s take it a day at a time, shall we?

Get another cup of Joe, add extra sugar, and get ready for a wild ride!

🧐 Mschf.xyz - the Wildest Ad Agency Ever

I stumbled across this company MSCHF purely by accident the other day - from a Facebook Ad of all places.

Yeah, I look at Facebook Ads - mostly because my Instagram doesn’t have ads (and I have no idea why. All my other IG accounts have ads, but my OG account that I’ve used since 2013 doesn’t have them. No, it’s not for sale). I like seeing what people try to sell me.

Anyway, I ran across an ad for something quite unusual. It stopped my eyes dead in their tracks.

It was an ad for something called Times Newerr Roman, a font just like TNR but 5-10% bigger (perfect for deviously filling up that page space when you’re a student) . I was intrigued. Who would advertise something so ingenious and nefarious like this?

I started digging. 🤔

I discovered a link on Times Newerr Roman to another website called mschf.xyz

This website felt like something out of the old days of the Internet. It was mysterious, and had links to wild projects that I had previously heard of (but had no idea who made them) like the “Jesus Shoes.” Apparently, this site dropped new projects twice a month, and you had to text a phone number to get added to the “drop list.”

Well, I kept digging.

I found an article on Campaign us about a guy named Gabriel Whaley. He’s an “Virality Ninja” and the brains behind an ad agency called MSCHF. He’s the author of that late night SMS chat bot “Insomnobot-3000” by Casper (the mattress company) that you could text after 11 PM.

That I had heard of! I played around with it long ago, and thought it was a great marketing campaign. This was pretty cool.

According to the Campaign us article, Gabriel is a huge fan of storytelling and creativity - not so much the content madness that has been drowning the web for years. His site definitely speaks to that - It took me time and research to find out more about it! I hadn’t been so intrigued since Cicada 3301 (that newsletter is still coming, it will be a long one). Pretty epic! I hope MSCHF does really well. I love it! It’s exactly the right way to channel the internet and tell awesome creative stories.

I decided to text the phone number on the website, and was texted back by someone. I mentioned to them I’d be writing about MSCHF.

I bet you’re reading this right now aren’t you - mysterious person from MSCHF. Hello. Welcome to “The Land of Random.” I’m on level 2 as you said and you better believe I’m going to figure out what level 3 is. 😀

Anyway, here’s some links for y’all so you can check it out too!

🤖 The Samsung BB-8, “Ballie”

Samsung really really likes the idea of a smart companion. They tried once with “Bixby” but that failed pretty hard. Many people remap the Bixby button for other applications.

Well, last week I told you about Neon, their “living video chat bot.”

Today - I’m telling you about their little rolling robot that can control your smart home.

What?

Here - watch this.

It’s a pretty cute little robot, but I’m not sure how practical it is for many people. It is a concept device, after all. Right now - it’s more of a conscious effort for us to purchase smart devices, but in 5 years I don’t think that will be the case.

I think most things will be “smart” by then. Remember, Alexa came out only 6 years ago, and now many people have one, a Google Assistant, a Nest device, or a Ring.

Right now Ballie might not make a lot of sense, but it will probably will in a few years. Honestly, it’s the first “home robot” that looks even the slightly bit practical. Rather than drive home to check if the iron is on, just ask “Spinny” the smart home drone to check it out (probably not joking).

What do you think?

Read more about it here.

👾 The Living Robot

It appears that Scientists have begun building “living robots.” I’m not sure how to even categorize these things. I’ll be leaning heavily on an article from Live Science to do the explaining for me. Here’s the opening section

What happens when you take cells from frog embryos and grow them into new organisms that were "evolved" by algorithms? You get something that researchers are calling the world's first "living machine." Though the original stem cells came from frogs — the African clawed frog, Xenopus laevis — these so-called xenobots don't resemble any known amphibians. The tiny blobs measure only 0.04 inches (1 millimeter) wide and are made of living tissue that biologists assembled into bodies designed by computer models, according to a new study. These mobile organisms can move independently and collectively, can self-heal wounds and survive for weeks at a time, and could potentially be used to transport medicines inside a patient's body, scientists recently reported… Source

Yeah - that boggled my mind too. It’s insane to think about - how do we even classify such a thing? Is it alive? Well, it’s made of tissue, so the answer is yes in some sense.

"These are novel living machines," says Joshua Bongard, a computer scientist and robotics expert at the University of Vermont who co-led the new research. "They're neither a traditional robot nor a known species of animal. It's a new class of artifact: a living, programmable organism." Source

This is honestly something that I’ll have to read a lot more about. it’s pretty weird. The idea of “programmable organism” is so wild! Can you program a cell to do specific tasks? What does it mean when humanity starts playing with life itself?

Read the rest of the article at the link!

The Land of Random

Here we are again! Hmmm, what wild links do I have for you today?

🤔 A Tale of Sci-Fi Caution

What does the future look like? At the rate VR and AR are coming down the tracks at us - it may look pretty dystopian. This little comic I found takes a pretty bleak stab at our future.

💪 Practice makes Perfect

Need to practice your design skills? My friend shared this website with me, and it’s really cool! It randomly generates design briefs so you can practice! Don’t spend hours trying to come up with ideas to create - let this website create them for you!

⚔️Darth Vader Vs. Alien

This creative little art mashup pits Darth Vader against the legendary Alien. I doubt Disney would ever make this movie. I would watch it in a heartbeat!

📺Quibi CES Trailer!

You might remember when I mentioned the upcoming streaming service Quibi several months ago. Well, here’s their trailer! It looks pretty neat. I love their animated intro about the future of television. Kudos to whoever came up with that!