🙏The Negative Social Network, Repairable Tech, and Lego Homes

u only have 99 posts left

Sep 27, 2021

Hello! How’s it going this fine September morning?

Here in Tennessee, we are actually having some of that cooler weather I was pining for last week. It’s been as low as 50 degrees in the morning!!

Alas, tis nothing more than the dreaded False Fall, and things should be back to their normal 80’s until Thanksgiving.

Sad.

I am excited to announce that we have a winner for the giveaway! I hope our winner will enjoy playing KOTOR II and listening to Vaporwave tunes soon. Thank you to everyone who entered!

I’ll try and do another giveaway before Christmas!

Did you get a chance to watch Star Wars Visions yet? WOW. I hope Trigger gets the chance to make a whole series. In a world where Boba Fett gets his own series, anything is possible - right?

Speaking of Star Wars . . . I’ve been jamming out to some themed Lofi remixes.

There are some great bops in there!

Well, shall we hop on in?

❌Minus - Negative Social Media

Ever wish there was a simple social media platform?

Yes, over the past decade we’ve seen dozens of challengers to the big four (FB,IG, Twitter, Snapchat) rise and fail.

Some have succeeded at niches - like Pinterest

Others like Tiktok have created new mediums.

Well, what about one where you can only make 100 posts?

That’s the premise behind Minus. Here’s the announcement video.

Here’s my first post.

That’s it. That’s as simple as it gets. You can write text, post links, and comment on other posts.

Makes you really reconsider every time you post, doesn’t it?

Of course, I had to post a ASCII art piece - and now I only have 98 left. 98 until I can never post again.

Maybe I’ll only post ASCII art. Hmmmmm. . . .

It’s certainly an interesting take on social media. Will you be really intentional with every post - or would you just post a ton of ironic jokes.

Oh I hope 4Chan doesn’t discover this

Go create a Minus account and say hello to me @random. How will you use your 100 posts?

Minus

💻The Framework Laptop

Have you heard the news? The Framework Laptop is finally out in the wild. It’s a modern-style laptop that you can repair yourself.

Yes - it’s kind of like the Project Ara of laptops - but it’s actually real.

It’s a laptop that actually encourages you to upgrade it.

And they’ve made it easy to upgrade too.

We made the Framework Laptop convenient and cost effective to keep working great for as long as you want it to. The only tool you need to swap any part of it is the screwdriver we include in the box, and we publish easy to follow repair guides and videos. (Source)

That’s pretty awesome! With just a screwdriver, the world of upgrades is your oyster.

You see all those QR codes in that picture?

Each module inside the system is clearly labeled and has a QR code that can be scanned with your phone to point you to information or replacement parts. By keeping our designs compatible from year to year, we’re also able to support the Framework Laptop with ongoing upgrades and original parts availability. (Source)

Heck, you can even check out the guides here for repairing different componets.

I think my favorite element of the laptop is the customizable ports you can easily swap out.

Whether you want USB-C, USB-A, HDMI, or other ports - swapping them out is easy as plugging in a socket.

To me, this is one of the coolest features - the ability to swap around these ports is a feature unmatched by other laptops.

Unless I get a Macbook next . . . I’m rather tempted to get this. It’s probably the closest we’ll ever get to a easily repairable laptop.

Check it out!

Framework

🏠Prefab Lego Style Homes

What if your house was like putting together legos?

Many dream of building a custom house exactly the way we want it, with some hipster architect with an engineering pencil behind his ear.

Yes, I dream of a modern looking house with an indoor koi pond, though I know it’s unlikely.

Well, there’s a company called Open Home that’s working on making the custom home dream accessible to more people.

“Not everybody has the time or the resources to do a custom-built home, which might spend a year or two in design and a year or two in construction,” says KieranTimberlake’s Matt Krissel, project lead for OpenHome. The design system can halve the time it would take to build a fully custom home, and bring down the cost significantly. “In order to make this process move faster and be more accessible to more people, it was really finding that balance of how much is custom and how much is part of the system,” Krissel says. (Source)

How does it work? Basically, each house is composed of a variety of prefigured modules.

The modules can be stacked and placed different ways to reflect the style of house you want.

Krissel says the use of predesigned base components allows architects on his team to spend less time designing basic walls and closets and more time understanding the home’s site, its orientation, and the kinds of views and experiences the owner hopes to have. This partly involves visiting the site in person, but OpenHome also relies on a detailed 3D model of the design concept that the client can view in virtual reality (Source)

It’s a really creative way of reducing the time necessary to build a custom home.

How many feet here? What about this closet?

Those questions habe already been mostly answered.

Here’s one of the homes. Isn’t it beautiful? 😍

I’m deeply intrigued by how much something like this might cost! Read more about OpenHome at the link.

OpenHome

🐙The Land of Random

It’s time to hang out with some random links, eh?

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