59. Rabbit holes
I.
Two AI gadgets managed to attract a lot of attention last year before they even hit the market. One was the Humane AI Pin (which received a lot of negative reviews last week) and the other was the Rabbit R1. And first impressions of the latter have now also come in.
Compared to the Humane AI Pin, this R1 looks a lot more playful. With rotating parts, a bright orange colour and a charming animated rabbit on the screen. The makers describe the device as ‘your pocket-sized assistant’.
So you don’t wear it on your chest, like the AI Pin. You take it out of your pocket when you need it. You can then ask questions and use the camera to identify images. It also works with a number of apps, such as Spotify and Uber.
There are still a few drawbacks to this Rabbit R1. Responses aren’t always quick, and the battery life is subpar. There’s also the question of what you’re actually supposed to do with such a thing, given that it can do everything your phone does (and perhaps not quite as well).
Nevertheless, this device seems to be generating more goodwill than the Humane AI Pin. That’s partly down to Teenage Engineering. They know how to make hardware that makes you want to reach for your wallet the moment you see it. And the price helps, as it’s available for $199. The AI Pin costs $699, plus a further $24 a month.
II.
This is how I get sucked down a rabbit hole: I click on a video because of a thumbnail showing Casey Neistat in his studio. The video is about cameras. After Neistat has shown us his favourite camera, we follow videographer Peter McKinnon to one of Neistat’s neighbours, a lad called Jordan Studdard. He, too, has a fascinating, self-built workspace.
My interest is piqued and I visit his channel. Studdard has made five videos over the past year. He has fewer than 16,000 subscribers. Most of the videos are about five minutes long and are about the construction of his loft. On a bad day whilst building that space, he sawed off two fingers of his hand. And that’s a video too. Made as a way of coming to terms with the loss and a tribute to his fingers, but it never gets too heavy. Studdard strikes me as a positive and creative go-getter; I’ve subscribed.
Back to McKinnon’s video. In it, Studdard shows off his favourite camera. That thing is fantastic: a Panon Widelux. It’s a Japanese camera with a mechanical lens that physically rotates to take a panoramic photo. They’re no longer made, and fortunately they’re too expensive second-hand to buy on impulse. Because you can bet I want one now. The camera has a few dials for the settings and then you take amazing photos on 35mm film.
Jeff Bridges is the most famous Widelux user. He’s been taking photos with it for years, behind the scenes on film sets. There are loads on his website.
End of the rabbit hole, for now.
---PS.
I caught Mark Zuckerberg being funny. The Meta billionaire was holding a lapel microphone in his hand this week during an announcement on Instagram. A bit of satire about Gen Z video creators. This trend has been going on for a while. Here’s an hour-long video explaining it.
---A lovely one from McSweeney’s: The Millennial CAPTCHA. Prove you’re a millennial and you can carry on.
I read Dylan and Us Without America. A book by Wouter van Oorschot, in which he uses 25 songs to explain what the early Bob Dylan meant to him as a teenager (and as someone who grew up outside the United States). I actually agree with Gijsbert Kamer’s review in de Volkskrant. The book is grumpy, but entertaining. The fact that Van Oorschot pointed out this ‘failed version’ of She’s Your Lover Now was worth reading this book for.
An experiment by The Pudding, which asked the internet to keep drawing a new little image based on the previous drawing. It started with a circle, and then for eight minutes you watch variations on a squiggly line, which keeps shifting further and further to the right of the screen. One theory put forward by the creators is that most participants were right-handed and took part via a smartphone. The Pudding also investigated whether people were more likely to draw a penis if they didn’t have to provide any personal information. Because, well, give people on the internet a drawing task and sooner or later a phallus will appear.
---I’m watching Fallout on Amazon Prime Video. I’m halfway through now and so far it’s a delightfully absurd adventure that never forgets it’s based on a video game. Developer Bethesda cleverly capitalised on this by releasing a PS5 upgrade for Fallout 4 this week. I’m playing that now too, which is saying something, as I’m not actually a fan of the game series. (But the world is cool!)
I never thought I’d ever buy a photo book about public toilets, but after seeing the wonderful Perfect Days, I came across The Tokyo Toilet in the bookshop. It features photographs of the toilets from the film, along with sketches by the architect and explanations of how they work and how they were built.
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