06AUG2023

Hi All, a bit of tech and a bit of reading for your enjoyment this week:

• ⌨️ 8bitdo Retro Nintendo Keyboard - The preorders opened for this amazing Nintendo / Famicon-inspired keyboard. I have more keyboards than I know what to do with, but I came this close to snagging one of these. Honestly, the only thing that held me back was the very confusing lack of MacOS and iOS support. Holding out hope they do a V2 with support for the superior operating systems.
• 📺 The Zenith Clicker - The Verge had this awesome little piece about a genius marvel of vintage mechanical engineering that Zenith designed for a TV clicker that didn’t rely on wires, radio, or infrared, and required no batteries. Worth a read, I won’t spoil the surprising tech at play.
• 🐢 TMNT: Mutant Mayhem - Took my kiddo to see this at the Alamo Drafthouse this weekend— What a complete and total blast! The non-traditional animation style, great cast, and killer old school hip-hop sound track make for a great combination. Worth a watch whether you grew up binging the turtles like I did or not.
• 🏹 Artemis App Beta - I’ve been majorly mourning the loss of Apollo and what feels like the Twitter/X-ification of Reddit, so I have been tracking with interest the development of Kbin and Lemmy-based alternatives. There’s still a looong way to go in this space to be a true replacement, but it feels fun to be checking it out while it’s building and growing. Anyway, Hariette released a public TestFlight beta of Artemis, her Kbin client for iOS and Android. It’s early days, but already way more pleasant than the web version of Kbin!
• ⛰️ The Strange Tale of the North Pond Hermit - Highly recommended long read for the week, Carrie over on Mastodon surfaced this riveting 2013 article about the North Pond Hermit, who haunted the woods of Central Maine for nearly 30 years, surviving solely via moonlight raids on local cabins and homes to steal junk food and books, not talking to or being seen by another human being for decades. The author tells the amazing tale and then shares his fascinating correspondence with the hermit from jail after he was caught. {There is definitely some sort of comma-related kung-fu I should be using in the preceding sentence that would make it clear that it is the hermit who wound up in jail and not the author, but instead you’re getting this extended parenthetical. Apologies, you deserve better, dear reader.}

That's it for this week, be well everyone! 🙏