🎲Web Roulette, Microsoft Designer and RIP to Parody Products

this is not Chatroulette

Jun 19, 2023

Hey friends! How are you doing this fine Monday?

I finally saw the Super Mario movie last weekend - and it was awesome. Turns out it’s fun to go to a 9:30 AM matinee showing.

My kids loved it - and I did too. I’ll be honest with you - I’m looking forward to the next one. It had some great tunes - but I doubt the franchise will ever match the energy of Bowsette.

Jack Black as Bowser was hilarious.

Have you been keeping up with all the Reddit drama? I’m curious to see what will happen - as it doesn’t look like they’re gonna give any ground to all the protests.

I’ve seen a few conversations on Hacker News (and Reddit) discussing Reddit alternatives - where does Reddit go? do the big subreddits start their own sites?

Though it remains to be seen if any of them go anywhere - I could see the prospect of Reddit force opening private subreddits as a catalyst of sorts.

The conversations always circle the idea of do we use many sites or one site? - as this 2007 4chan thread suggests.

Honestly a fascinating thread - Read it if you get the chance.

I do have another Aliexpress video coming soon - I’m waiting for one more shipment of items so I can do a larger review.

Did you get a chance to celebrate Grimace’s birthday and play the actual Game Boy Game that Mcdonalds made?

Let’s hop on in!

🎲🎲Web Roulette

Remember Chatroulette? the crazy video chat website that took the 2010’s by storm.

or Omegle - that’s still popular these days.

You’d click next - and start randomly chatting with WHOEVER might be on the next screen.

There’s a new app called Web Roulette that does something similar - but with random websites.

The team says the idea initially struck them as something of a joke. But they soon realized the idea of a “swipeable,” shakable web browser that delivered our daily hits of dopamine may actually have merit.
“I mean, this is actually how I spend much of my time browsing the web — I bounce back and forth mindlessly and semi-randomly between my favorite sites, hoping for something fresh. Maybe there’s something here?” explains Impending founder and designer Phill Ryu. (source)

I went ahead and downloaded the app to check it out.

At the moment - it seems to be a minimum viable concept. You can add a variety of random websites, or add your own.

You get a few shakes, then you have to swipe left to “refill” your shakes.

It only sends you to the “main page” of the website you’ve chosen - and sometimes randomly to articles.

Nonetheless - it’s an interesting concept - especially if you were able to curate lists of websites and share them with others.

THAT would make for a true TikTokesque web browsing experience - and the excitement of browsing through someone else’s links. :)

🖼️Microsoft Designer

Microsoft is coming for Canva’s lunch.

I recently got access to Microsofts’ new AI tool “Designer” and it presents a very interesting solution for casual designers.

Much like ChatGPT - you use language to describe the post that you want - and you can upload the image that you want used in the image.

As with ChatGPT - the more keywords you give it, the better the prompt’s images.

For example - here’s one that I got with the following Prompt

An Instagram Post about my Newsletter "The Land of Random." The post should have a vaporwave Japanese Lofi theme, with neon colors

Definitely needs some editing with placement + copy, but the background image is cool.

By comparison - here’s an example of what I got with this very simple prompt.

An instagram post about my newsletter, The Land of Random.

NONONONONONONOONO. That’s trash.

OK - let’s try this.

An instagram post about my newsletter, The Land of Random, in the style of a Macroblank Vaporwave Album Cover, with static, greek statues, Neon background colors, and palm trees. The text should be bold and loud.

EYYY - now we’re getting somewhere.

It’s only a matter of time before tools like Microsoft Designer are used to completely automate social media posting.

Give the prompt enough copy / ideas - and you eventually start getting somewhere with interesting ideas.

Go give it a try at the link!

Microsoft Designer

💀Rip to Parody Products

It may only be a matter of time until we start seeing parody products disappear from the market.

This month the U.S. Supreme Court struck a blow against manufacturers of parody product designs. In a rare bit of partisan unity, the court decided 9-0 against VIP Products LLC, the company behind the "Bad Spaniels" dog toy that resembles a Jack Daniel's whiskey bottle. (source)

It’s pretty on the nose. Here’s a picture of it.

The ruling is all pretty “legal lingo” heavy - so I won’t bore you with all the details.

Much of it ends up coming down to the shape of the bottle / the elements that were copied from Jack Daniels bottles.

Interestingly for designers, the reason VIP lost the case is because the Justices are looking at the very form of the bottle itself as the trademark. As Justice Elena Kagan writes in the decision: "…Bad Spaniels' trade dress…is designed to evoke a distinctive beverage bottle-with-label. Even if you didn't already know, you'd probably not have much trouble identifying which one."Bad Spaniels is about the same size and shape as an ordinary bottle of Jack Daniel's. The faux bottle, like the original, has a black label with stylized white text and a white filigreed border. The words 'Bad Spaniels' replace 'Jack Daniel's' in a like font and arch…. Below the arch, 'The Old No. 2 On Your Tennessee Carpet' replaces 'Old No. 7 Tennessee Sour Mash Whiskey' in similar graphic form . . . (source)

So - since VIP essentially copied Jack Daniels trademark bottle, they’re profiting off of Jack Daniels trademark - which is no bueno.

The same could be said of just about every parody product out there. People make serious money off these things.

It only took me about 10 seconds to find this Dogritos chew toy - or this Malt Whiskey shirt.

How many of these will stop selling products soon?

I’m curious to see how many of these parody products shut up shop - or figure out some kind of way to stay legally compliant.

Until then - enjoy the unhinged parodies that abound in the Dog Parody toys that live on Amazon.

A lot of these likely don’t have long to sell.

Read more about it at Core 77 - or get DEEPER into the trademark stuff at the Scotus Blog.

Core 77 Explanation

Scotus Blog

🐙The Land of Random

Ba Da Da Dahhhhh Badadadahhhh - Let’s get randommmm

Kill The Community

An interesting take on the drama surrounding Reddit.

Kill The Community

Insane Model Train

Or should I say - Real train shrunk down into a mini train. The train has an actual furnace being fed by coal. There’s some really fun train videos on this YT account - It’s a treasure I tell ya.

4Chan Strikes Again

Random 4channer solves important math problem in 2011 when discussing anime - escapes notice for 7 years LOL.

4Chan Does Math

Mega Cursed Website

At first you think it’s a mega cursed early 2000’s website - but THEN you discover it’s attached to Crypto NFT’s. LOL

Yyyyyyyyyyyy

Server Attacks in Real Time

The internet is a wild place - this guy decided to make a website dedicated to showing the UN’s and PW’s that attackers use to try to BREAK INTO his servers.

Brute Fail