Cool Stuff (Week 15)
VEHICLES AND GETTING AROUND
“Packrafts” Review from GearJunkie
I paddle board quite a bit, but these rafts are nice because you can actually put them in your packs and take them up on a hike, making it easier to get on the water in more hard-to-reach places.
I almost bought it, with the Peak Design discount. It was another 40% off, so under $4k! Seems like just too good of a deal
This is one of the coolest camp trailers I’ve seen in a while.
I love the idea of having rental cars delivered to me using self-driving cars. So maybe I still want to drive, but I don’t want to go get the car. I imagine myself traveling and having a car coming directly to the hotel so that I can use it.
I’m in New Jersey now, and it’s so hard to get around. If a car were brought to me, it would be much easier to explore the neighboring towns.
LOSSES
Grammarly SDK shutting down…
Well, we made it on the front page of TechCrunch about shutting down the Grammarly SDK. I’m sad about this because I like when consumer companies have developer tools for hackers and power users. I get the move, but it’s still sad to see that this didn’t work out.
Bluebird backcountry ski resort closed!
I love the idea of a backcountry ski resort. I’m sad this didn’t work out. It seems like it just was a bit too far of a drive away from Denver.
Pizzeria locale closing…
I wasn’t able to try their Pizza, but from what I understand, it was Chipotle ordering style pizza and was pretty good.
Wow, this was a surprise. These bikes are really cool and even have brick-and-mortar stores in SF. I’ve been by the store a couple of times, and the bikes are game-changers.
What is sad is they are software-powered bikes, so if the software is no longer supported or any cloud services shut down, it’ll impact the bikes. I worry about
GETTING INVOLVED IN LOCAL POLITICS
I recently met with a friend who guided me on some advice for getting involved in local politics.
It’s fascinating getting a chance to learn about local policy. I’d summarize my learnings as the following:
Educate yourself a bit
Use Facebook to find local events
Go to fundraisers and network, meet the politicians. They do care about you.
Find groups focused on specific political issues. Here are some in Denver:
After getting involved and you have a good network, you can start volunteering with people running in upcoming elections.
SNACKS!
I am a huge snacker… it almost was a problem because I would eat a whole bag of chips as my lunch… I now pre-portion snacks in stashers that I can eat throughout the day. To stay up to date on the latest fun snacks from these companies, I generally follow them on Instagram - it makes my feed better, I think.
That said, here are my favorites:
Beanfields Bean Chips
Lundberg Rice Chips BBQ Flavor!
STYLE
I love Allbird shoes. They are trying to be a company for eco-conscious consumers, and these shoes are carbon neutral. I have heard a couple of podcasts talking about Allbirds with the position that their selling point isn’t very compelling and most consumers care about price and style before the environment.
I don’t know if these shoes change any of that, but I personally think they look awesome.
COFFEE!
I use a $10 scale from Amazon for my coffee setup. It does an okay job, but I definitely think this beauty would add a bit of “bouje” as my daily coffee driver.
“KITS” - PARK DAYS
I like thinking of certain aspects of life as “kitable”. What I mean is if I have a bag with all the stuff in it for that activity, I could call that bag my “kit for x.”
In this case, I think I found a great shade structure for my “kit for park days.”
It’s compact and stylish. Also, it’s quite large. I think this is great if it works. That said, it looks like it needs wind to stay up? I wonder how that works.
BEST OF THE WEB
Here are some websites/blogs I really enjoy:
Matterful with some great gear guides
ThingTesting for finding great new consumer products
Dense Discovery weekly newsletter with carefully curated discoveries in design, tech, sustainability & urbanism. Free of buzzwords, hype or FOMO
Packhacker for gear reviews and tips for hacking travel
INTERESTING
Pokemon-style virtual office
Cohaus co-living Experiment
I love the concept of co-living. I am going to continue to keep an eye on these projects through social media and emails because I would want to explore living at one of them one day. If I don’t have kids, maybe this is how I will avoid being alone when I’m older.
FAVORITE GENERATIVE AI USE CASE THIS WEEK
I used AI to look up good quotes (using the Anthropic chatbot). Someone recommended Bertrand Russel to me, but unfortunately, he is not on Twitter because he is dead. So instead, I can get “tweets” from him by asking an AI what some of his best quotes are!
X OF THE WEEK
Concept of the week
Heutagogy: Otherwise known as self-determined learning, is a student-centered instructional strategy. It emphasizes the development of autonomy, capacity, and capability.
Throwback of the week
Maple Story I was just googling “popular MMORPG games” and of course, this came up. I was talking to a friend, and I guess back when I played this, it took forever to get XP. Now, it is a bit faster, which makes it more fun.