⚡ 19JUL2026: Literally just two dice

Happy Sunday everyone!

This week, I've been checking out WhatCable as a tool to figure out which of my USB-C cables can do exactly what, barely resisting buying one of these futuristic beehives for my living room, putting popular websites into The Blacklight, catching up on the new Ghost in the Shell remake, and loving the idea of this mur mur speaker that generates sound from the rich world living inside it.

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On to the good stuff!

🗣 Home Assistant Voice - I am embarrassed to say I've had this thing sitting around in its box for a few months, but I finally got around to setting it up this week. In short, it's your own personal/hackable Alexa or Siri box that you can use to control your smart home and optionally answer questions about the world/news/weather/etc. via the AI assistant of your choice. Best of all, you can use it with your own local AI models and keep the entire thing on your own network, or you can hook it up to Claude, etc. The hardware is by no means on par with a HomePod Mini, BUT it does have dual mics, a physical mute switch that cuts power to the microphones, a rotary volume dial, and a speaker. It's been a lot of fun to play with.

🚗 Chip — The Life Utility Vehicle - I love innovative takes on cars and transportation, and this is a fun new entry into the space. The Chip feels like a cross between an EV, an SUV, and a golf cart, if it were designed by Pixar. It is street-legal, super compact, tops out at 25 mph/40 kph, and does 100+ miles/160+ km on a charge. The fun "tech-y" bit is "Chip Go!", a self-driving mode that drops you and your homies at the door of your destination and goes to park itself. It's pre-order only right now, so it remains to be seen if they can stick the landing, but this would be super fun. Shout out to Andy for the tip on this one.

🛠️ Glaze for MacOS - Interested in dipping your toes into vibe coding but don't know where to start? The mad men and women at Raycast finally launched Glaze earlier this month, and I think it is an awesome place to start if you just want to do some quick experiments without having to jump into the Terminal or worry about coming up with the perfect prompt. I came up with a quick experimental prompt, and it asked me a few follow-up questions to clarify my goals, and then 10 minutes later I had a full standalone Mac app doing exactly what I'd asked. It also didn't have that generic AI-design look that most of these things tend to generate. Worth playing with the free trial if you're at all curious.

🎲 Skull and Dragon Dice Game - I'm a sucker for quick and fun games that are lightweight to set up and learn. Austin-based Steve Jackson Games makes a bunch of games that fit that bill. I recently bought Skull and Dragon Dice as a game to bring on a trip, and it's been a fun thing to just keep in my day bag and pull out whenever we have some downtime. The entire game is literally just two dice, but it packs in a perfect combination of strategy and chance as you try to push your luck to beat your opponent(s). An average two-player game takes about 5 minutes, and there's no real limit to how many players you can have.

📰 Hypertexting - Hypertexting is a new social news feed built on the open social web that lets you follow the blogs, news outlets, podcasts, and YouTube channels you like in a plain reverse-chronological timeline with no ads or algorithm. Best of all, you can use your own website as a posting platform on Hypertexting that others can follow. It doesn't require any accounts to use, and all of your data is stored locally. It's nice to see more players entering this space, building what feels like super-powered RSS readers. If you like this, you might also check out Surf and Tapestry as well.

That's it for this week! May your caffeine give you twice the endorphins and half the anxiety this week.