🥟Protect Your Tots, Revisiting Fortnite, and the Yahoo Time Capsule

Gosh don't take my tots

Jul 01, 2024

Welcome to another week of The Land of Random!!

It’s been a WILD week out there - from legendary Julian Assange getting out of prison - to the Rabbit R1’s HUGE security issues being found.

Will Wikileaks spin back up with big leaks? Are we returning to the 2010s? Will any of the “insurance” files get released?

At the very least - the millions of dollars of art attached to a dead man’s trigger will survive.

Anywayssssss our potatoes are ALMOST ready to eat. I can’t WAIT to eat them.

Boil em. Mash em. Stick em in a stew. (there’s a throwback for ya)…

For those of you paying attention to the Steam Summer Sale - steam decks are 15% off right now. (A Pretty decent deal tbh).

I’ve been enjoying mine quite a bit - especially experimenting with Linux.

Random note - Have any of you noticed on Spotify desktop that the little videos play in the “Now playing view?” That’s pretty neat.

Let’s dive in, shall we?

🥟Protect Your Tots

Napolean Dynamite was - and is - an incredible cult movie.

I’ve watched it at least 5 times - and I notice something new and funny each time!

Ore-Ida popped up with these “Napoleon Dynamite Tot-Protecting Pants” and I’m just absolutely amazed.

This is quite possibly my favorite commercial since . . . I don’t know when. (The cursed Quiznos subs ones????)

Here’s another shot of the pants from Ore-Ida’s site.

Are they ugly? Yeah. Is that pocket absurd? Of course. Do I still want a pair? You know it.

Unfortunately, they’re out of stock.

Hopefully they restock at some point - because they’d sell a mint worth of these things. Plus you gotta think about top-of-mind ad impressions here. What other chance is Ore-Ida going to get to encourage consumers to ‘rep their brand?

Are they going to fund a Napolean Dynamite web series you can only access if you buy Ore-Ida tater tots? Probs not.

All Coca-Cola has to do is give away cups at McDonalds every few years . . .

Cheez-it has a sick Hawaiian shirt, and Arizona Iced Tea has a wide variety of cool merch.

I know they’re owned by multinational corp Arasak - I mean Kraft Heinz but c’mon - make some more cool merch.

I hope Ore-Ida keeps the Napoleon Dynamite train going though. Restock the pants!

Check out the “Protect Your Tots” page at the link!

Protect Your Tots

🔫Revisiting Fortnite

FORTNITE? Why do you want to write about FORTNITE?

Maybe that’s what you’re wondering.

Let me assuage your concerns. We’re talking about Fortnite’s creative mode today and the cool stuff people have built in it.

You don’t even have to sit at your game console weeping as you create a custom map modeled after Racoon city. You can use Unreal Editor at your desktop. That’s how custom you can go!

Last year I wrote about this - and mused as to what sort of cool maps people might make.

Well - it’s been a little over a year and people have been “cooking with gas.”

You can discover Fortnite Creative maps in the game’s main menu, but the trick to finding interesting ones is to scour the internet for interesting maps.

Do you remember that Bodycam video game with ultra-realistic graphics?

Someone made a version of it in Fortnite! It’s pretty fun to play . . .

Here’s some footage here - and the code 1542-8249-4965

When you play it - it doesn’t feel like you’re in Fortnite per se, but in a version of Bodycam with Fortnite assets.

I mentioned last year that I hoped people would make Jurassic Park adventures.

That’s been done.

Explore the “horror” game Dino Dread Island at 0033-5025-1748

It even has cinematics!

Graphics don’t even have to look “fortnitey” - look no further than the horror game Night Shift at 1489-6102-7703.

Or The Backrooms at 4284-8758-1462. This one is a little unsettling.

Heck - you can even play SCP: Containment Breach at 2093-3695-9703

If you get a chance - start exploring some of these - or find some maps on your own. It’s the gaming equivalent of exploring the internet!

⌛The Yahoo Time Capsule

Did you know that Yahoo started a digital time capsule back in 2006?

I had no idea. I only learned about it recently on Agora Road.

Basically - Yahoo got the idea to create a GIANT time capsule based on 2006.

According to Wikipedia

Open to contributions from October 10, 2006 to November 8, 2006, the Time Capsule also hoped to capture the thoughts and feelings of the world in 2006 as an exercise in electronic or "digital anthropology".^[2] At the time of the closing of the capsule, the total number of submissions was 170,857. The highest number of contributions (32,910) came from the 20–29 age group.^[3]source

They promised to open it on Yahoo’s 25th anniversary in 2020.

There’s so little information about the Yahoo Time Capsule that a search brings up a ancient Flickr account with a few photos that were added to the capsule.

SADLY - they never made the time capsule public. They only opened it at the 25th Yahoo corpo party . . . and that’s it.

(Perhaps there were conversations about opening it - but it’s not available). This reddit user said “We” so perhaps he works/worked at yahoo.

Pretty sad . . . a bleak reminder of just how fleeting the internet truly is.

There were people truly excited about taking a peak too!

To be fair - the (possibly real?) 2006 press release doesn’t seem to say anything about making it open to the public.

BUT - some articles from 2006 seem to indicate it might be revealed to the public at some point. Here’s another article from NBC News that seems to indicate the same thing.

This Wayback time machine web capture from the Yahoo Time Capsule page seems to indicate everyone would be able to explore it.