12795 Things, Oldest Wine, Pasta Camera & TeaBag Crane.
#74 of 10+1 Things | Abu Dhabi
☀️ Getting warm.
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I had a rather uneventful week. Here in the Gulf, winter is practically over and it’s been getting warm. Our friends were in Vietnam for vacation and brought back some dried mangos. So yummy, and even the Nescafe instant coffee they got tasted surprisingly good.
Anyway, before I start I wanted to share something that’s been on my mind lately.
There’s this product I got a few months back and I love using it, tinkering with it and I buy into the overall vision.
I love the team, the community and even the founder.
But recently I came across some of the founder’s political views and some stuff he had written less than a year ago and now I just feel a bit weird about it. It’s not about leaning left or right, but some of the views were kinda too extreme and rather unsettling. That just killed the vibe for me and I haven’t touched it in a while.
So my question is, do you separate the product from the founder?
Does it change whether you keep using something?
Or only if it starts showing up in the product itself?
Don’t ask what the product is (it’s not a Tesla!). It doesn’t matter and I’m not going to share. I’d genuinely love to hear what you think.
On a lighter note, StackStats, the better analytics tool for Substack writers, is coming along nicely! I pushed a few features lately that let newsletter writers figure out the best time to send. If you’re curious reply to this email and I’d love to show you the product.
Without further ado, here are 10+1 Things worth sharing:
📝 Thrive in Obscurity: A beautiful piece by Jeet on thriving in obscurity. We've all been there: YouTube videos with 4 views, newsletters with 3 subscribers, publishing into a complete void. The idea of Binge Bank is really inspiring though. All that early content you put out will be there for your future fans to find and binge.
📸 Pasta Camera: Italian photographer Paride Ambrogi made a working pinhole camera entirely out of fresh pasta dough. He calls it the Ravihole Camera, built it for a pasta culture exhibition in Hamburg, and the photos it takes are surprisingly good. Dreamy black and white circles with that classic pinhole feel. So beautifully unnecessary, I love it.
📱ReKindle: This free browser app works on any browser but feels right at home on your Kindle’s hidden web browser. It gives you a dashboard of mini-apps – weather, calendar, to-do lists, focus timer, even Reddit and Wikipedia. Inspired by early Mac software aesthetics, it makes you wonder why e-readers can’t do more out of the box.
📡 How GPS Works: II've been nerding out on GPS ever since the Gulf situation started, where GPS randomly stops working due to spoofing. This amazing interactive article by PerThirtySix breaks down how your phone figures out where you are using satellites and atomic clocks. Not too long, not boring, and the interactive bits help you build a perfect mental model.
🔦 Radioactive Keychain: This tiny keychain is the coolest thing I’ve seen in a while. It has a tritium (isotope of H₂) vial that glows for 25 years – no batteries, no charging, just radioactive decay doing the glow. You can swap colours, and the pointed end doubles as a glass breaker. Super cool!
🍷 Oldest Wine: So apparently the oldest unopened bottle of wine in the world is from around 350 AD. Found in a Roman nobleman's tomb in Germany and it's just been sitting in a museum because nobody knows what would happen if they opened it. There's still liquid inside mixed with herbs and the seal of wax and olive oil has somehow held up for over 1,600 years.
📚 Alternative Art Book Covers: I didn't pick up any new book last week, but this project by Bas Fontein is too good not to share. He makes fake art book covers, handcrafted with adhesive letters and spray paint on wooden panels, with titles like "nobody listens" (four parts and counting). You can buy one for €185 or borrow it for €10 a month and after a year and a half it's yours.
🔧 Teabag Crane: I was browsing through Instructables and couldn't resist sharing this one. This guy Nir built a tiny working crane to dip and remove teabags from hot water because his favourite tea comes without a string. It's laser cut from plywood, painted like a real construction crane, and has a spring loaded lever and a little wooden peg to hold the teabag. So perfectly over-engineered for such a simple problem.
📸 12795 Things: After a sudden divorce, Belgian photographer Barbara Iweins spent four years photographing every single object in her house – 12,795 photos of 12,795 things, from her son's Lego to her anxiolytics. You can filter by colour, room, or "what I would save in a fire." I spent way too long browsing this.
🐺 Follow the Howl: This beautiful documentary showcases some unique visuals of golden jackals from Kerala, India. Locally known as "kurinary," it captures their daily life – hunting, scent-marking territories, raising pups who leave at 6 months, and howling at twilight to communicate with the pack. They're considered indicator species – their presence signals a healthy ecosystem.
That’s 10+1 Things for the week!
Which one was your favourite this week?
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See you next week!
With Love,
Rishi
"Yes, of course duct tape works in a near-vacuum. Duct tape works anywhere. Duct tape is magic and should be worshiped."
- Andy Weir