Hello from Arkansas! Iām down here with my family celebrating my daughterās second birthday. Weāre having a wonderful time down here on a little vacation - I dragged myself away from my desk for a few days. š
Yeah! I actually took some PTO.
As I get closer to old age - I mean 30 - Iām trying to take off a few days several times a year instead of grinding myself into the dirt as a workaholic.
Do you ever watch a movie years later . . . and realize it wasnāt as scary as you thought it was?
I watched The Green Inferno again last week and realized . . . itās not as horrifying as I thought it was. Just a bit of unsettling cannibalism.
Now - Midsommar - that is an absolutely horrifying movie.
Iām never watching that one again.
Never.
Again.
I think it was more so the crazy events of the film - rather than the actual gore or violence.
It was whacked. Bonkers.
Speaking of Bonkers - I started playing Darkwood with my wife. Itās a top-down horror game that is deeply unsettling.
A strange forest, evil creatures, and a wolf man . . .
Itās been long enough since I watched 6 hours of the Markiplier playthrough that Iāve mostly forgotten what/where to go in the game.
Itās also difficult to play the game without narrating in his voice.
Itās a fun watch. Here - take a peek.
Well - letās hop in - shall we?
šThe Toaster Phone
No - this phone canāt toast your bread but it is made by a toaster company.
Yeah - itās a weird shift. Who says āOk fam I know weāve been making toasters for years now, but letās switch it up with some android phones.ā
It's not every day you see a smartphone launch that truly looks like something new and different, but say hello to the "Balmuda Phone." This is a unique, compact little Android phone, totally out of left field, from a luxury Japanese toaster maker. You can't make this stuff up. Usually, these "random company made a smartphone" stories are all the same and involve calling up a turnkey smartphone manufacturer and getting a generic phone made. (source)
Phones like the Frankphobe and the Freedom phone come to mind - generic android models with some nifty branding, software, and logos.
Theyāre usually the electronic equivalent of dropshipping - the digital equivalent of making a streetwear brand from generic clothing labels.
Thereās nothing more infuriating than buying a new hoodie from a small brand and finding out itās actually Hanes.
However . . . this is actually a new phone - with a different value proposition.
The company made a phone because it has a new idea for a phone, with a focus on a compact, rounded-over design rather than the huge slab rectangles that dominate smartphone design. It's a phone designed around human hands and not the rectangle-shaped components that make up a phone. To quote the website (through Google Translate) the company says: "The Balmuda Phone was designed for a shape that fits naturally in your hand. To achieve this, not only is the back curved, but the shape when viewed from the front is actually wrapped in a gentle curveāeven the display. In other words, the Balmuda Phone is the only smartphone whose proportions do not include any straight lines." (source)
Out of all the dozens of ādifferentā phones out there - Iāve never seen one that has tried to be more natural for the human hand.
Balmuda says that itās committed to delivering beauty and experience - rather than being solely invested in the idea for the money.
The idea is that the value that cannot be expressed is more important than the value that can be expressed numerically. In other words, the idea was that deliciousness, beauty, and comfort should be more important than performance and size. Such attempts may or may not work commercially. But at all times, we continue to believe that experience value is paramount, and we have never distorted that belief. Also, we have never made so-called "ordinary things". I can tell you with confidence. (source)
In this sense - the Balmuda feels more like a commercially available functional art project. Made for the aestheticc.
Honestly - that sounds pretty good to me. As much as I like my One Plus 7 Pro, it doesnāt feel very comfortable in my hand.
Holding it for long periods of time is actually quite uncomfortable.
The closest to a āgoodā phone in terms of size and comfort was probably the ancient LG G Flex 2.
From a pure UX perspective - the Balmuda actually looks tempting. Itās smaller and I could see myself comfortably using the phone for long periods of time.
However - its 2500 mAh phone capacity doesnāt really instill confidence in me though . . .
Hereās a fantastic review in English that really dives into all the juicy phone features. Itās hands-on too.
Check it out!
Unfortunately, if you want to get your hands on one, you may want to act fast - the phone hasnāt done well with sales and has already been discontinued.
Alas - another fun unique phone has been relegated to the dustbin of history.
Maybe theyāll give it another go with a more improved model. We can only hope!
š°Moving Castles
The deeper we get into the 2020ās - the more I realize that Telegram was a herald of the future.
A future where communication was more private - and focused on communities.
NFTāS - love em or hate em - are a further development of this idea. Find a community that you like - buy the āmembership cardā NFT - and get exclusive access.
I discovered an interesting article from Trust.support that outlines this idea through the medium of āmoving castlesā
like Howlās moving castles.
A Moving Castleāas popularised by Studio Ghibliās cult movie āHowlās Moving Castleā, based on Diana Wynne Jonesā 1986 book of the same titleāis a nomadic patchwork of different spaces of mutating and incoherent scale. Such spaces are ābespelled to hold togetherāā by the will of their inhabitants . . . .In our vision of this new media format, Moving Castles are modular and portable multiplayer miniverses; inhabited by communities that use them to manage their lore, ecosystems and economies. (source)
Itās almost as if weāre taking the old worlds of WOW and other MMORPGās and applying them to the rest of our life.
Seriously - think for just a minute or two about Cool Cats, BAYC, MAYC, Fang Gang - or other Web3 projects.
Legend has it - Cool Cats has a pretty alpha discord, where you can get some sick insights on growing projects. š
As cool as that sounds - Iād much rather be liquid enough to have a downpayment for a house than buy a Cool Cat.
The idea that Iād have to boot up my laptop and hop in a server to get āalphaā insights about stocks, crypto, or other intel wouldāve sounded odd to me three years ago - but now - itās the norm.
Look no further than the DAO model - where token holders vote on different proposals on where the company should go.
DAOās like The Blockbuster DAO, Links DAO, Fries DAO - might be really serious companies in 5 years.
Remember - five years ago ETH wasnāt even $100.
I really only scratched the surface of the surface of (redundancy on purpose) this article - I advise reading it and taking notes. Itās deep.
āļøDraw to Search
I recently messed around with an AI demo called āDraw_to_searchā and was deeply intrigued at its attempts to guess my rudimentary drawings.
āDraw to Searchā harnesses the Open AI CLIP learning model - which Iāve always wanted to mess around with.
Basically - you draw something - and wait for the AI model to determine what you are drawing.
It figured out my smiley face.
However - it had noooo idea what to do with my little ghost. I guess the jagged edges made it think it was a tooth.
Not a bad guess.
It did capture the horror of a ghost with whatever that amoeba looking thing is.
And - it had mixed success with my umbrella
Iām not sure why it guessed the keyword correctly - but pulled a fanart of what appears to be Raya from Raya and the last dragon.
The other images it pulled did have umbrellas though - I bet the AI thought the hat was an umbrella.
The hat is big, oval shape, and at about the height an umbrella should be at - bingo.
Keep in mind - CLIP is from January 2021 - and is meant for AI research. It can be accurate - but is more so meant as a tool for study.
I can only imagine how powerful the commercially available version will be . . .
The underlying website that hosts this tool - huggingface.co - is an AI community where you can train AI models and deploy them on a āpay as you goā basis.
Thereās a TON of AI modeling apps to mess around with and test - which you can find here.
How accurate can you make your drawings?
Try out āDraw to Searchā at the link!
šThe Land of Random
modnar - MODNAR everywhere
Heyday.xyz - Your Personal Research Assistant
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Behold - The Internet
Doesnāt it look beautiful? like a sea anenome?
User Friendly is now offline
This ancient webcomic which ran from 1997 to 2010 has now gone completely offline. Rip. It is now only available at the one and only Wayback Time Machine. Check out the ancient site.
Pragmata
This gave me serious Death Stranding vibes.
Create RSS Feeds
This interesting web app will let you create RSS feeds from ANY source. This is really cool - but it does not come cheaply. There is a free plan that allows for two feeds. The REALLY cool feature is the dynamic feed widgets that you can add to your sites.
Ad Blockers VS The Uninitiated
The first thing I do with new laptops is install Chrome. The second - is to install Adblock plus. I forget that people donāt use any adblockers! This fun little article discusses the annoyances of auto playing videos. Seriously - who watches those?
The Deep Sea
Can you make it to the bottom of the Marianna Trench? Take a voyyagggee to the botttommmm of the seaaaaaaaaaa šµšµ
The Abandoned Ship
From the description. āFive years since the last impact, hulking relics of once active naval ships serve as floating labyrinths, overtaken by barnacles and marine life. The Calapyso-Mechanica H27 served as a class of naval carriers to transport research modules and supplies, though tales from coastal natives describe of other secrets within its hull.ā - Artist Khanh Vu
Such a cool work of art! Someday I hope to hang up stuff like this in my home office.
Off The Record Messaging
Ever wonder how to recreate the secrecy of a IRL meeting at a park bench? Off the Record Messaging is a cryptographic Messaging Protocol alternative to the more common PGP. Though quite technical at times - itās a fascinating read!
šµTikToks You Canāt Miss
It really is amazing that Nickelback made that sea shanty
Surely he knew what he was getting.
Iām inclined to believe the comments that say he didnāt eat it
This is simultaneously hilarious and terrifying
Nope. Not the heavy metal robots
Thatās all for this week! See you next time. :)