🕶️VR Reading Glasses,Property OS, and Another Look at USB Club
USB only social media
Hey friends! How y’all doing this week?
We had a pretty fun weekend - Little Caesar’s pretzel crust pizza (my favorite), the Columbia Cars and Coffee meetup, and Ted’s Day!
Ted’s Sporting Goods is an epic store in downtown Columbia. Every year, they have an event where they give away free food, raffles, and more. I found a small Ted’s flag downtown that scored me a FREE Ted’s shirt! I’m not the type to have such luck - so I was pretty excited when I found it.
Did you watch any good horror movies?
I finally watched the Winnie the Pooh horror movie over the weekend and man - that was a TRIP.
Incredibly creepy, campy, and I’m honestly looking forward to watching the next one.
I’m NOW convinced that Winnie the Pooh is low-key a Wendigo lol. Even if you don’t end up watching the film - you should watch the two-minute intro.
In addition - we watched Willy’s Wonderland - that’s always a fun one.
Did you hear about all the Bandcamp layoffs? I REALLY hope that Bandcamp survives. It’s home to a lot of fantastic indie record labels. It might be time to do a bulk download of all your albums (if you have any).
At the VERY LEAST - you could download Winamp and have a good ole’ time listening to your mp3’s.
Let’s dive in, shall we?
Own your very own second at 24 Hour Homepage! This delightful website features a different link/image every second - with MANY links to explore. Own a second, and share a link/pic with the world. (Sponsored Ad)
🕶️ VR Reading Glasses
VR is going to go mainstream eventually - the question is when.
It may be Generation Alpha - it may be the generation after that.
A new company called Sol Reader is trying to “reimagine the reading experience” with VR glasses.
It’s an intriguing idea - an e-reader experience right in front of your eyeballs.
The UI/UX is very e-ink-oriented. Lo-fi vibes.
Here’s a screenshot.
I’m curious to know who is the target audience. As we discussed last week - the e-ink revolution is here.
Is this the VR solution for e-ink enthusiasts? A minimalist alternative to Meta or Apple’s devices?
That’s the vibe I get from the documentation.
The only thing this device can do is read - whether it be books, newsletters, or synced articles from the Pocket app.
There is a small handheld controller you have to use to interact with the articles.
It’s a “deep focus” tool that’s both high tech and low tech.
What do you think? Would you use the Sol Reader?
Check it out at the link!
🏠Property App OS
Though I’m a fairly new homeowner (Ascend has a MAD COOL first time homebuyers program in TN) I’ve already filed the whole homeowners process into the “try not to think about that insanely stressful period of my life” memory bank.
The only thought about being a homeowner for me is . . .
Pay the mortgage. Pray our elderly water heater / AC keep working.
Eye some neighboring trees and take a look at the proposed trajectory to my home.
and maybe consider buying a crazy cheap AliExpress drone to look at my roof after crazy strong winds.
That’s it. Other than the occasional war against spiders and ants. (Not together as a united front - as interesting as that would be).
There’s a new Property management web app coming out that promises to be an “OS for your real estate” so you can manage various aspects of your home.
It’s intriguing because it enables you to do a bunch of cool things - like create a nifty “Digital Title”, track your home’s value, rent out your home, and do wild stuff like selling fractional equity.
All of these are tasks that require quite a bit of work through other platforms - but could make sense all in one home.
There’s a bit of info regarding the digital title - it doesn’t affect your ownership or anything. (No alterations or anything - just a easy way to verify ownership of your home).
Property App generates a digital version of your deed by verifying your identity and comparing it to county records. This process is fast and free. The output is a Digital Title you can use to initiate verified transactions on Property App. For example, a renter can verify you own the rental property before paying rent . . . Your Digital Title reflects the most recent information from the local county recording office. Deleting your Digital Title or losing access to Property App will not alter these records, and you can simply generate a new Digital Title. (source)
It sounds pretty cool!
I’m curious about how easy to use the platform will be for renting, borrowing, selling shares in your home . . .
If it’s too easy - I wonder how many people will go “full degen” Robinhood style.
Wife you wouldn’t believe how many shares I sold in our home . . .
Could make for some crazy reddit stories.
Check it out at the link!
👀Another Look at USB Club
Last year I wrote about a neat little website I found called USB Club
All I knew at the time is that it involved cool little USB’s.
Here - you can read the article. Though excited - i had NO IDEA what it was.
Maybe you’re supposed to meet up with other USB Club members and swap data. Music you haven’t released, HTML wikis, videos/memes that are hard to find on the internet - etc. That would be pretty fun!
Well - since then - we have learned quite a bit more about the mysterious “USB Club.”
It’s a social media club that can ONLY be accessed using your special USB Club USB.
Share files - socially. In-person or online.
I was partially right in my analysis from last year - it’s a data-sharing platform.
However - I didn’t realize it would be a social club! Here’s a screenshot from the Twitter (X) account.
I’m so intrigued to join! What are people sharing? What kind of cool stuff is there to discover? music? art? indie games even?
It’s the thrill of the old days of P2P file sharing - reinvented for the modern world.
The first step to getting “Alpha” access is buying one of the USB’s - which you can do through this form.
I’m gonna save up $40 to do it soon! I can’t wait to get access! I can create som exclusive Land of Random resources in text files. :)
🐙The Land of Random
Hey ho Hey o into the random we gooooooooooooo
Own your very own second at 24 Hour Homepage! This delightful website features a different link/image every second - with MANY links to explore. Own a second, and share a link/pic with the world. (Sponsored Ad)
Run Emulators
Oh so you want to play some old games you, uh, found on the internet? (after they’ve entered public domain of course) Here’s a JS library that will let you do it in a web browser.
Grumpy Website
UI/UX stuff matters - and when it’s wrong/lame - we’re gonna be grumpy about it.
Shopping at one of the Last K-marts
They’re almost all gone . . . . (Crazy stuff right?)
Pythagoras Theorem is Older than We Thought
An interesting Journal article about how old the Pythagorean theorem really is. i haven’t thought about some of these mathematical proofs since College, but it’s a lot of fun to reminisce.
Emergency Seating!!
For that moment when you have more guests than seats and it’s not really the “i’ll sit on the floor” crowd. Really cool design concept! (Too expensive for me but I’m sure someone will be inspired by it for much cheaper).
Watch Something Wonderful
Need a fun little video to watch with your meal? This website is EXACTLY what you need.
Explore a Peaceful World
This in-browser exploration game is some good fun. It won’t let me create a linkable button here on Substack - so I must do copy-paste - I’M SO SORRY.
https://elysium.thebenezer.com/
🎵TikToks You Can’t Miss
I too would love to ride abandoned railroad track but can only watch and dream.
Ok - I would love it explore my home 8-bit gameboy style
The RV life just keeps calling to me (BEGONE YE DEVIL)
BRB - gotta save up 20K to transform my office
Yeahhhhh Urban exploration can be terrifying
🤖AI AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
ChatGPT in your glasses? Could be useful.
Become the character that you create.
Ok - this kind of stuff legit hurts my brain.
That’s all for this week! Unless you wanna see a pretty cyberdeck
Man, the USB Club has really lingered in my mind since reading this. Mostly, I just cannot find any discussion about it outside of this. I think I'm going to take the plunge.