50 Ways, Crank GPT, Jerry's Map & Money Candles.
#82 of 10+1 Things | Kerala, India
📱Small forever.
10+1 Things is a reader-supported publication.
If you enjoy this, you can support by buying me a coffee ($1).
I’ve been working most of the week, spending most of my time at home with occasional dine-outs.
As I’m drafting this, I’m semi-offline because my beloved iPhone 13 mini is almost dead and currently under repair. I really love phones with small form factors, and it sucks that we literally don’t have smaller phones anymore. I love the feeling of holding a small phone and carrying something light in my pockets.
Many people have told me to just get a new phone, but I’ve been holding on. I want a phone to last at least 5 years (I bought this in 2022!) and there’s no small iPhone to replace it with anyway. The volume buttons don’t work, the lock button is gone, so I’m getting a new battery, screen, and lock button, trying to stretch its life as much as possible. I talked to someone with an older iPhone and some banking apps in India don’t work on it anymore, so my iPhone 13 mini days are numbered.
I’m hoping to use it at least until Motorola’s phone with GrapheneOS comes out.
Without further ado, here are 10+1 Things worth sharing:
🗺️ Jerry's Map: I'm not even exaggerating, I spent a good hour exploring this project. Jerry Gretzinger has been building a map of an imaginary city since 1963. He draws cards from a custom deck that tell him what to work on next, and the map keeps evolving over time across 4,000+ panels. If you're keen, this 40-min video by People Make Games is also a great watch!
📵 50 Ways: A nice list of 50 ways to live a more analog life. Things like leaving your phone at home when meeting friends, not logging workouts, and letting some days go unaccounted for. Simple stuff but a good checklist to come back to.
🤓 What the F*ck Happened to Nerds: A great read on how tech founders went from charming nerds tinkering in garages passionate about stuff to reality TV stars playing deception games at the same SF bar where the PayPal Mafia did their famous 2007 photo shoot. The takeaway: just be a nerd, talk about your work, and stop trying to be famous.
🛋️ HackerCouch: Speaking of tinkering, this website is like Couchsurfing but for hackers and tinkerers. It has a list of 73 hackers across 32 countries offering a place to crash. If you have some time, go through the people who have listed themselves, a great rabbit hole in itself.
🔌 CrankGPT: Squeez Labs built a cool project called CrankGPT, a fully offline AI voice assistant that runs entirely on a hand crank. It doesn’t have a battery, no internet, just a Raspberry Pi with a few small models running locally. The cool part is that the crank gets harder to turn when the AI is thinking! Open source if you want to build one yourself.
📜 Ancient Clay Tablets: Archaeologists dug up clay tablets from Kanesh in modern-day Turkey that describe a 12-partner trading company with pooled gold, profit splits, and exit penalties, nearly 4,000 years old. When economists ran modern trade models on the data, the numbers matched today's patterns.
🕯️ Money Candles: These money candles by Dries Depoorter are truly something. Each one is marked from 1 to 30 EUR, priced at 30 EUR, so you literally watch your money burn.
🔍 r/FindTheSniper: If you've been reading this newsletter for a while, you know I love puzzles. I've been obsessed with this subreddit where people post images with something hidden in them and your goal is to find it. You post your answer hidden to avoid spoilers, and if it's correct the OP gives you a snipe! :D
📚 Finland's Libraries: A great read by BBC on Finland's libraries where you can borrow everything from sewing machines to tennis rackets to podcast studios. 55% of Finns visit at least once a month and libraries are legally required to promote democracy. They spend €66 per person on libraries compared to just £10 in the UK.
📸 Reflecting New York: These photos by Stefan Falke of New York City reflected in a hand-held mirror are truly a delight. He holds up a small mirror in different locations to invite distant buildings and structures into the frame, creating images from a perspective you’ve never seen.
🍄 Musical Mushrooms: I had so much fun watching this cool video of a mushroom in the woods near Manchester playing a keyboard. Sensors pick up its bio-electrical fluctuations and convert them into signals that control robotic arms hitting the keys!
That’s 10+1 Things for the week!
Which one was your favourite this week?
Leave a comment or reply to this email.
This newsletter is FREE, but not CHEAP. It takes effort and time from my end (~ 2 hours) to deliver this newsletter every week. You can help me in keeping it going by forwarding it to someone you like, buying me a coffee ($1 or ₹75), sending me some crypto, visiting my blog, signing my guestbook or following me on X.
I also have an AMA section on my blog where you can ask me any questions. Plus, I’m available for a chat during my Unoffice Hours.
See you next week!
With Love,
Rishi
“We are going to die, and that makes us the lucky ones. Most people are never going to die because they are never going to be born.”