☀The Solar Internet, Create Vinyls, and Drone Swarm Printing
The internet but forever
Hello friends! How are you this wonderful Monday?
It’s FINALLY October - my favorite month of the year.
Time for Halloween, hoodies, and . . . my Birthday! I turn 30 years old on the 8th and I’m actually ok with turning 30.
I had a series of life goals that I wanted to hit by 30 - the primary of which being the desire to become a home owner, escape the food service industry, and have kids.
✅ I escaped food service into Marketing in 2018
✅ I got a home in July
✅ Two kids so far
I’ve hit both of those - soooo now it’s time to prepare for the next 10. I haven’t really thought about any goals other than wanting to hit 50K subs and turn The Land of Random into a business.
I also need to keep working on my three-volume series that portrays Captain Hook as a tragic hero. Seriously. He is - and Peter Pan is an unhinged psychopath.
Anyway, did you hear that Google killed Stadia?
Yep - it’s shutting down in January - and I guess I’ll be switching over to Geforce Now.
It’s pretty frustrating that Google is adding yet another product to their graveyard - making it even more difficult for me to trust their next “cool thing.”
Here’s a link to the graveyard.
The amount of streaming services DELISTING and removing shows is insane. Like Olan Rogers’s Final Space. Soon . . . it will be gone from the “clear internet.”
This twitter user’s purchases of Final Space season 1+2 were deleted.
How insane is that - that we live in the streaming golden age and media is disappearing from the internet to the black hole of private servers. it’s ironic that streaming was supposed to herald the death of piracy - and instead, it will likely bring it back.
Let’s dive in, shall we?
☀The Solar Internet
What if there was an internet protocol that ran off solar-powered servers?
That’s the experiment being presented by the Solar Protocol, a project designed to explore the idea of solar-powered websites powered by solar-powered servers.
The Solar Protocol network reconfigures internet protocols using a kind of natural rather than artificial intelligence. The network routes internet traffic according to the logic of the sun, where page requests are sent to whichever server is enjoying the most sunlight at the time. We are working with people around the world who have built and installed servers that host this site alongside their own web content. When their server becomes the active node of the network, their online materials (if any) will soon become visible on this site. (source)
The site displays which server it is on - dynamically based on whichever server has the most sunlight.
For example . . .
That’s so cool! It’s likely that when you go to visit the site - you’ll reach a different server and a different site experience.
It raises an interesting question - what would it be like to live on an internet that functioned according to the natural energy of the sun?
In an interview with Rima Sabina Aouf from Dezeen, one of the creators shared an interesting insight.
Rima Sabina Aouf: Would you say that the current way we use the internet presents an obstacle to the transition to renewable energy?
Benedetta Piantella: I think one of the explorations was also to think about what are some things that you can live without and that maybe you benefit from living without at certain times of the day. So this idea that this system isn't available to you 24/7 and it has its own rhythm is also a provocation in terms of one's own behaviour and thinking about, what are some things that you would like to go down when the sun goes down? What are some things that you actually want to lose access to? So that you can reclaim some of your time and also free up some of these resources. (source)
It’s a fascinating idea. What if TikTok only worked a few hours a day, or you could only open your email in the morning?
No doubt - it would lower a lot of stress and anxiety, and free up time to do other things. It would ALSO encourage a lot more internet exploration as internet junkies spend hours researching which servers are online - and what cool services/sites they contain.
I know the Solar Internet is just an experiment - but I hope someone takes the idea and RUNS with it. An alternative internet powered by just solar power would be pretty cool.1
Check out this awesome Dezeen interview and article for more details, or check out the website at the link!
🎼Create Vinyl Records
Ever wanted to cut your very own record?
The engineers over at Teenage Engineering HAVE DONE IT AGAIN!
The P0-80 is a record player where you can actually record music straight to vinyl - then listen to it.
experience the warmth of lo-fi audio. playback your unique cuts and give your favorite 7" records new life with ultra-analog sound quality. the built-in speakers allow you to listen directly from your PO-80, or connect an external speaker through the 3.5 mm audio plug (source)
That’s SO dope.
I’ve always wanted to create a record or cassette tape - but I’ve never dreamed of recording straight to the vinyl itself.
The amount of power this puts into the hand of a creator is extraordinary. It’s likely that indie music makers will be cutting tracks and selling them as very special one-offs.
They sell the blank records in packs of 10 for $30. Not bad!
You don’t need a complicated setup either - you can record directly with one of Teenage Engineering’s pocket operators. They’re a series of $60-100 devices for making music.
I don’t own any yet but they’re capable of creating complex music and beats - perfect for anyone who wants to make a little music but doesn’t want to invest big money into expensive equipment.
Here’s Pumped Up Kicks played on 6 of the devices to demonstrate.
If you liked that video - check out this one too.
I’m looking forward to seeing all the videos on youtube of creators making lofi records - and two-hour song montages.
Go check out the really neat Teenage Engineering landing page for the PO-80 at the link!
🐝Drone Swarm Printing
Have you ever read the Blame! manga?
It’s an extremely dystopian story about a world where AI has taken over and humans hide in vast cities of metal from robots . . .but there are some good robots fighting back.
It’s dark - and has a deeply cryptic story.
You may have seen the Netflix movie a few years ago.
I bring it up because - in that world - the robots build endless cities with no reason or direction. it’s a wild idea - robots creating buildings without human intervention - but one that may be someday possible.
There are experiments taking place to have drone swarms create structures.
Here - check out this demo.
The drones are incredibly efficient - even fixing as they go along thanks to the drone with the depth-sensing camera.
Kovac and Stuart-Smith together with their colleagues showed how several drones could cooperatively build a 2-metre-tall cylinder made of insulation foam and a 0.18-metre-tall cylinder made of special cement. First, one of two builder drones flew around in a circle while squirting out a line of the quick-hardening foam or cement, building up the structures one layer at a time. After each layer was printed, a third drone used a depth-sensing camera to capture a 3D map of the work in progress and allow the cooperative drone team to adjust construction steps as needed. (source)
It’s just a small tower for now - but we all remember how tiny and chunky the first iPhone was.
It’s not hard to imagine that these drones will be creating basic domed structures the size of a small room in a few years - like that snow igloo you made a decade ago.
Drones are getting smarter - and algorithms on board the drone’s circuit board can guide them and help them learn without the necessity of human intervention.
Like these drones that explored a building.
Give this tech 15 years or so, and I imagine construction companies will be building neighborhoods with drone fleets.
Check out the article at the link for more details!
🐙The Land of Random
random links - You asked for ‘em - I got ‘em
OSINT Tools
A massive dump of interesting and useful OSINT tools, like getting a 3D visualization of your twitter account, searching youtube comments, reddit maps, and many more.
Bubbles
Click screen - see colorful bubbles.
Make a Video
Ole’ Meta has created an AI system to create videos from text inputs. Sign up to hopefully get access to the demo in the future.
AMV Anyone?
This Eve music video is insane.
Archive if You Care
A excellent little blog article by Ruben Schade to remind us about the transcience of the internet. If you care about something on the net - archive it to your personal collection.
Hosaka MK Cyberdeck
This cyberdeck looks like something straight out of Alien.
A Cheesy Phone
This mock cell phone is very cheesy.
🎶TikToks you Can’t Miss
but what. Why. Huh?
money printer go brrr for whoever made these
This would be cool and creepy to have as a coffin. *takes notes
Someone unplug stabby mcstabbyplant plz
So many parents are confused LOL
Cool idea. DEEPLY unnerving design and execution.
🎙Vybes
This website has ALL the synthwave vibes
That’s all for this week! See you next Monday. :)
And don’t even get me started on the apocalyptic benefits of a functioning internet around the globe.