David's new EP album is out, a life-changing coffee warmer, AI in elections, a head in a toilet, and more
It's Advanced Geekery for the week ending August 12, 2023
Welcome to this week’s Advanced Geekery newsletter. This is an exciting issue. Let’s kick it off with some really big news.
Announcing: my debut EP album!
Last week, I promised you something cool. Well, here we go.
It is with great pleasure I announce the worldwide release and immediate availability of my debut three-track EP album, House of the Head. It's available for purchase on iTunes and to stream on Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Music, Deezer, Tidal, and about 150 additional services right now.
For direct links to the tracks, visit HouseOfTheHead.com. Please give it a listen. Comment below to tell me what you think. And check in My Articles below for the complete back story about making this album.
Oh, and there’s more to come. Sometime late in October, I’ll be releasing my second EP with three more all-new original songs.
My articles
Let’s kick it off with a quick recap of the articles I published in the last week on ZDNET:
How AI helped get my music on all the major streaming services: If I can launch an album onto Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Music, iTunes, and the rest, so can you. Here are all the ways that AI tools did and did not help.
We're not ready for the impact of generative AI on elections: ZDNET's resident presidential scholar takes a deep dive into political campaign deepfakes in the time of generative AI. This affects much more than the national contests. AI will transform local politics, too.
Sorry, Apple: This Logitech keyboard is my new go-to for the Mac: Logitech's MX Keys Mini is not perfect, but for less than the Magic Keyboard, it delivers similar performance, backlighting, and linking to three devices.
Life-changing product discovery of the week
I don’t get any Amazon affiliate revenue by recommending this, and I bought it with my own money. But I’m so happy with this purchase that I just had to share.
Yes, it’s a cup warmer. But as this New York Times article explains, it turns on and off automatically when you put your cup on it, and it keeps liquids warm for hours. Hours, I tell you! I can finally bring a cup of coffee over to my computer and sip at it while writing, and it says hot for as long as there’s coffee in the cup. At night, I can nurse a nice cup of tea through an entire episode of dancing Starfleet officers without it getting cold.
I’ve had it now for a week, and I feel like my life has leveled up a notch. I know it’s silly to say a $20 purchase is life-changing, but I think I’m more excited about this than I am about finally getting my album on Spotify. And if I can’t share something so personally transformative with you, what good is having a newsletter like this?
After enjoying it for two days, we got one for my wife. She loves it, too. Here’s the Amazon link. And remember, I get nothing (other than the satisfaction of turning friends on to a cool discovery) in sharing this with you.
Must-watch YouTube
Moving on, let’s queue up some interesting YouTube videos for your entertainment and edification.
Do you like factory tours? I love them. And this one does double duty because it’s not only a tour of a factory, it’s a tour of the Raspberry Pi factory.
Do you want to feel old? I’m not talking about the fact that The Big Lebowski was released 25 years ago, old. I’m talking about objects and things you used everyday that are now almost completely obsolete. Watch this video, then take a nap.
Are you up on your skibidi toilet? So, this is a thing. Here’s the first of more than 50 incredibly weird videos with the same odd head-in-a-toilet theme. Why am I sharing? Because it’s an 11 second video with 88M views. Humans are cray-cray.
Interesting reads
Here’s some good stuff from around the Internet, well worth reading.
Do you have a Roku? If you do, you’ve seen the Roku City screensaver that’s standard on most Roku devices. This is a side-scrolling view of a stylized city with many entertainment-based easter egg landmarks. This week, it changed to the summer version. If you can’t identify all those easter eggs on your own, here’s a handy cheat sheet.
ZDNET’s Jack Wallen has a theory why more people don’t use desktop Linux.
I thought this was interesting for two reasons. First, it’s a Statista chart about which states are gaining and losing population. New Jersey, New York, California, and here in Oregon are losing peeps. But Florida is gaining. Second, it’s published on Digg. Remember Digg? Apparently it’s still alive. Whodathunkit?
Reader projects
I’d like to regularly spotlight a reader project or two here. If you have a photogenic reader project, send an email to me at david@zatz.com with the subject “READER PROJECT,” a few pictures, and a short one-paragraph description. If you have a social media link or a link to the project, include that, too.
Leave some comments
Substack supports comments, so feel free to leave some. I promise to read them. Did you listen to my tunes? What did you think? What about that coffee warmer? Do you consider it as life-changing as I do? And did you read that piece on generative AI and elections? If you want to share thoughts on that, please comment as well.
Just, please, let’s keep our personal politics out of any discussion.
That should do it for this week. This newsletter is really starting to pick up subscribers. Please help it out by sharing links on all your socials.
Have a great week!