🎵 Your Life's Soundtrack, Pro Internet Chat, and More AliExpress Finds
Vibes for days I promise
Hey everyone! Welcome to this week’s edition of The Land of Random.
If you’re stateside, I hope you had a wonderful 4th of July weekend!
We were pretty busy - we went down to some friends of ours wedding in Mississippi and had a lovely time!
It’s been another crazy week on the internet - and IRL.
The Grimace Shake TikTok trend has been pretty fun. It started with some low level horror - and morphs into an SCP-level / Backrooms drama.
Here’s a small thread on Twitter about some of the videos I found.
It’s fascinating - Between SCP, the Backrooms, and Five Nights at Freddy’s (not to mention Randonautica or fanfiction) - the stage has been set for the smallest trend to turn into a universe worthy of long Wikipedia articles.
Should I attempt to do some sort of essay on the subject? Vote below.
McDonald’s got SOOOOOOO much free marketing. I wonder if sales have gone up with Gen Z? After all that’s the target market these days.
Oh! I nearly forgot - if you’re looking for some sick new music to listen to - Nekomicon is really really fun. Metal meets chiptunes.
Have you been enjoying the second season of The Bear? That episode 6 was a REAL TRIP! Craziest episode of TV I’ve seen in awhile.
Let’s dive in shall we?
🎵 Your Life’s Soundtrack
The Vibes app represents a new chapter in the generative soundtrack space.
Other apps like Aimi promise a nonstop soundtrack - but Vibes enhances the experience with interactive videogamesque journeys.
Here’s a Youtube Short that demos the software.
It’s delightfully designed in a way that few apps can capture these days.
That’s Andy Allen for ya - Andy is a force to be reckoned with when it comes to cool and intuitive apps. He’s got a whole collection of them - they’re all “built like a game, and run like an app.” Go check them out.
Every new app starts with a menu straight out of 2014 Instagram - and we just can’t seem to escape it.
Vibes is different.
You open the app, and are immediately thrown into a world of trees, deserts, fluffy clouds - or some other relaxing landscape.
The app is designed to help you with different areas of your day - whether you’re waking up, working, working out, or going to sleep.
You can interact with the music in small ways - pinching to add energy (a boost) zooming out for a distant or interstellar vibe. You can even tap on objects on the screen to make them disappear - a small bit of gamification!
ANDDD if you get up to walk - the vibes change to match your energy.
Trying to think through a problem? Tap on the trees or rocks to make them disappear.
The music never ends either - there’s over 1000 samples behind the scenes ensuring that the music stays fresh for 200 hours of listening.
After a few minutes of listening, the samples change up, and a new “vibe” emerges.
At the moment, the app is iPad / iPhone only, but I hear there may be a Mac version soon!
Go check it out at the link, or read more about the app on this Twitter thread.
🛜 Pro Internet Chat
I’ve been harping on the destruction that Discord and Slack have wrought on the internet for several years - with posts such as this one.
To summarize quickly - Discord/Slack are black holes where specialized knowledge goes to die.
How do you search for information across Discord or Slack? You can’t. You have to join Discords/Slacks that cover the same topic you’re searching for, and HOPE you can find the answer.
“Old school” forums are still the superior choice when it comes to creating websites that “archive knowledge” in a searchable way.
However - there may be a third way.
A new chat platform may be emerging to marry the idea of “chat” and “forums” into a pro “open internet” space.
It’s called Struct - and I’m really excited to try it out.
Struct is a unique combination of a chat platform for public communities (like Discord), teams (like Slack), and live support (like Zendesk / Slack Connect). It tackles the hard job of marrying live chat with a thread-first approach to conversations while utilizing AI to generate context . . . I'm proud to introduce Struct, an innovative chat platform that embodies this framework. In its first stage, Struct begins by turning Slack and Discord into searchable knowledge bases. In the second stage, it evolves into a full-fledged, standalone chat platform, redefining the concept of online communication. (source)
Rather than just rip you into a brand new platform right away - Struct first wants to have Slack and Discord feed into Struct to create searchable knowledge bases.
The AI summary tool that Struct has built looks incredibly useful when it comes to doing all the heavy lifting of conversation summaries / archiving. Here’s an example from the Typesense community.
In the example above, you can clearly go through the conversation, and see how the issue was resolved - just like an old forum post!
It appears that you could even open source your knowledge into SEO-optimized / searchable pages too! Very useful for discords/slacks that cover general topics.
Go check out Struct at the link!
🛒 New Aliexpress Finds
Another batch of new finds! Solar-powered fairy lights, a dope hunting knife, a memo style water bottle, USB-c hub, and a ball that turns into a frisbee (got it for the kids).
Here are the direct links!
🐙 The Land of Random
Innnttttoooooooooo the Randommmmmmmmm weeee gooooooo!!!!!
Creator Club Newsletter
Looking for fun links, interesting tools, and other nifty internet tidbits? Creator Club has a lot of fun stuff to check out! Subscribe at the link!
Old McDonald’s Commercials
I miss the good kids’ toys
Po Tahh To
Boil em, mash em, stick em in a stew? IDK, but all this website has is potatoes.
So Many Satellites
Ever wanted to look at an interactive visualization of all the satellites? There’s so many. Imagine how many there will be in 20 years. When will the satellite trash compactors get launched into space? That’s the real question.
Make Some Pixel Art
When was the last time you made some pixel art? Get your mouse, and get to work!
Condiment Packet Gallery
Think about the last time you really used some condiments. Really think about it. Was it Heinz ketchup? or some soy sauce? Explore fun condiment packets on this absolutely fantastic gem of a website. It’s really really cool!
Launch Point Zero
This absolute beast of an entrepreneur launched a website with over 300 WEBSITES where you can launch your startup/project. Every one of them is cataloged too with how useful they are.
TinyUX Wireframing
Want to mock up a tiny app idea? or a website? Just mock it up on this “on the go” wireframing tool. There is a free version available too!
🎵TikToks You Can’t Miss
Wait, Grandpa gave them those cars for free
Now THAT, THAT is a fantastic Jurassic Park conspiracy theory
Yeah the big robots are absolutely terrifying in this game
I very badly want this sandwich. Very badly.
That’s pretty darn cool
🤖 AI AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
Ah yes, the AI friends apps will keep growing
A guide for creating logos with AI. Haven’t tried it yet, but looks dope.
EYYY the code + weights are out for DragGan
That’s all for this week! See you next time. :)