Hey friends!

Welcome to this week’s edition of The Land of Random.

I’ve been grinding along through Atomic Heart - I’m currently stuck on a boss I like to call “THE SPINNING BALL OF DEATH.”

Hopefully, I beat the boss this week - but who knows.

Did you watch that season premiere of the Mandalorian? What a fantastic first episode. They are really leaning into nostalgia.

and for my fellow Star Wars Rebels fans - SPACE WHALESSSAMIRIGHT?

My wife and I built our first-ever brick wall with cinder blocks and mortar - and it’s quite a lot of fun! I believe that we’ve stopped the encroaching yard and its dirt from further attacking our patio - or at least we’ve bought ourselves a few more years haha.

Mortar is quite unstable - you have to put in just enough water to keep hanging on a trowel at a 90-degree angle. (At least that’s what YT told me - Feel free to correct me in the comments).

Next stop is buying wildflower seeds and starting our garden!

I got access to the Bing AI chat tool - and I’ve been trying to see how wild its answers can be. As you can see - the programmers have really dialed “down the fun” since all the drama last week.

It didn’t like that answer at alll . . . . .

Let’s dive in, shall we?

💻Recreate Saturday Morning Cartoons

Streaming is convenient - but it removes the magic of ye olde cartoons.

Oh - I missed last night’s episode of The Last of Us? I’ll just stream it online.

I was watching Pokemon with my kids the other day - and wondered what it would be like to recreate some kind of Saturday Morning Cartoons vibe - but without the ads of Cable TV.

No I’m not buying you that Hot Wheels Set. It’s $60. For $60 I can buy like all the hot wheels sets from the past decade on Facebook Marketplace in one go.

There’s actually a few tools you can use to emulate a Saturday Morning Cartoon style playlist - with online videos, or with your personal media library.

First up - is Plai.tv

This tool will let you build playlists from any supported video source. I say supported - because so far the only supported source I can find is Youtube.

I tried Tubi, and Crunchyroll - those didn’t work. I doubt Hulu or Netflix would work, if the free stuff won’t.

However . . . you could easily create a fun playlist from just Youtube videos.

The more powerful solution is to run from your own personal media collection.

It’s called Channel Two, and it’s a GitHub repository that allows you to run your very own tv channel!

All you have to do is download the github, set the schedule from the videos you own in your directory, do a bit of this and that . . . and you can have your very own TV channel running in no time!

Check them out at the link!

Plai.TV

Channel Two

🎶The AI DJ

Spotify’s AI DJ may be one of the first useful AI products that I’ve seen so far.

A forerunner - so to speak - of the AI revolution to come.

Here’s the trailer

The DJ is an AI generated voice - based on Xavier “X” Jernigan.

To create the voice model for the DJ, we partnered with our own Head of Cultural Partnerships, Xavier “X” Jernigan. Previously, X served as one of the hosts on Spotify’s first (and personalized) morning show, The Get Up. His personality and voice resonated with our listeners and resulted in a loyal following for the podcast. His voice is the first model for the DJ (source)

Xavier’s voice is quite soothing - and sounds realistic enough to feel more personal than Alexa or Google Assistant.

Think of DJ as an ongoing version of your Discover Weekly, old music, likes, and release radar - all in one - with a fun voice!

The DJ knows you and your music taste so well that it will scan the latest releases we know you’ll like, or take you back to that nostalgic playlist you had on repeat last year. (source)

I’ve spent quite a bit of time listening - and it’s a very different vibe than anything else I’ve ever encountered on Spotify. It’s honestly most similar to a Pandora-type experience.

Ah yes - remember Pandora? It’s still around.

I’m most excited about the generative AI aspect that Spotify is integrating.

Generative AI through the use of OpenAI technology. We put this in the hands of our music editors to provide you with insightful facts about the music, artists, or genres you’re listening to. The expertise of our editors is something that’s really important to our philosophy at Spotify. (source)

At the moment, the AI seems to be limited to just little tidbits of info about the music you listen to - but what if you could converse with it? ask it what genres are similar to a particular song.

Or tell news headlines? the weather? stock price announcements?

That would be cool.

Go check out the Spotify announcement at the link!

Spotify DJ

🍷Invest in Whiskey

Why invest in crypto, stocks, or gold when you can invest in whiskey?

There’s a company called VinoVest that will let you invest in whiskey casks - which is pretty neat.

Stocks go up and down, and economies change - but alcohol is always in demand.

Perhaps whiskey could be like collecting old unopened lego sets?

IF only we all bought and saved lego sets 20 years ago - because they’re outperforming gold and stocks.

Vinovest gives you the modern complexity/vibe of Robinhood - but with wine or whiskey.

Here’s a screenshot from their site of what a particular wine investment dashboard might look like.

Very Sheikh. I get “pretty numbers go up” which is really all I want from modern investment tools.

Vinovest serves as a kind of middleman. You invest with them - they give you pretty dashboards - and they store all your investments.

We authenticate, store and insure your casks for you. Fancy a drink? You own your whiskey, so just ask and we’ll send you a sample. (source)

You can do this with wine too! You own it - so all you got to do is ask.

Vinovest currently offers American and Scotch whiskey - and the casks typically start at $1500 apiece.1

That’s the minimum deposit too!

The minimum deposit starts at $1,500 because Whiskeyvest only offers entire casks. (No bottles here, folk.) When you consider that a 53-gallon barrel holds 266 bottles, you’re getting quite the bang for your buck. (source)

That’s quite an eye-opening discount - especially with average math.

266 bottles x avg mid shelf whiskey $35 = $9,310

There’s only a 2.5 percent management fee a year - which isn’t very much considering that this includes full insurance.

At the moment - my spare $ goes towards building a actual savings account, debt, or home projects - but some day I’d like to give this kind of investment a shot!

Go check out Whiskeyvest at the link!

Need a Whiskey Barrel?

🐙The Land of Random

𝕃𝕖𝕥'𝕤 𝕥𝕙𝕖 𝕣𝕒𝕟𝕕𝕠𝕞

𝔻𝕚𝕧𝕖 𝕚𝕟𝕥𝕠

Myspace on Squarespace

An absolute mad lad rebuilt the Myspace theme on Squarespace.

Hats Off

Stealth Camper

You see this and think “oh it’s a work van” - you don’t think “oh this is a luxury stealth camper.”

Facebook Llama has been Leaked

Some anon leaked a LLM from Facebook. Here’s a link to the Hacker News chat - lots of interesting speculation about AI, turning tests, and other such tidbits.

is it sentient anon?

The Benefits of Coffee - 1792 edition

Remember that the s kinda looks like an f.

A Treatise on Coffee

How Much Do the Eggs Cost?

Track the cost of a dozen eggs across the country with this nifty little interactive map.

Eggspensive

Infiltration Zine

An ancient zine about exploring those “places you’re not supposed to go.” There are many interesting articles about exploring boats, tunnels, and more.