20APR2025: Either genius or unhinged
My latest retro gaming obsession, a handy website, a magic frame, and a way to pry yourself off your phone...
Happy Easter Sunday to all celebrating!
This week, Foofaraw Press kindly published another issue of the Hiro Lab about eufy security cameras. Go check it out!
Separately, I’ve been debating dropping a few hundred bucks on a secondhand Apple II just to play this port of the epic Shuffle Puck Cafe, daydreaming about what a Fellow espresso machine might look like, and barely resisting this Kickstarter for a tiny robot that sits on the rim of your coffee/tea and blows cool air on it.
On to the good stuff!
🕹️ TrimUI Brick* – Another month, another retro gaming console I’m trying out. The new hotness in the small, EDC-size retro handheld space is the TrimUI Brick, which came out last fall. It strikes a great balance between a compact, Gameboy-style form factor and more comfortable ergonomics with better materials than the Miyoo Mini+ I also own. It comes preloaded with a couple thousand retro games from Atari, Nintendo, and on up to the PlayStation 1. But what really sold me is the ability to install and run PakUI, a custom OS featuring BitPal—a fun digital pet system that has you level it up by playing assigned games from your library. Anyone who’s used one of these systems knows how paralyzing the sheer volume of options can be—I’ve spent entire “gaming sessions” just flipping through titles without actually playing. BitPal seems like a fun way to discover new games and also commit to actually playing them. The PakUI install is a bit of a technical lift, but manageable if you’ve ever set up a Raspberry Pi or similar project.
⚖️ Uni-Convert – A website, not an app?? That’s right. Despite being just a humble site, Uni-Convert is a fantastic new utility that launched this week and immediately earned a spot in my bookmarks. As the name suggests, it offers a wide range of conversion tools—for everything including Imperial/Metric measurements, CSS units, clothing sizes, colors, and more. It also includes handy tools like PDF merging/splitting, QR code generation, text transformation, BMI calculation—you name it. All on one clean landing page. I’ve been using ChatGPT more and more for stuff like this lately, but for precise conversions where I don't want to run the risk of AI hallucinations, I usually go double check using dedicated conversion tools. It’s great to have them all in one place—and free.
🖼 Aura Aspen Digital Frame* – I’ve written before about my love for Aura’s frames. We have an Aura Carver on the bar in our kitchen that we huddle around daily to coo over resurfaced memories from family trips or our kiddos' early childhoods. This week, Aura took everything I love about the Carver and improved it with the Aspen. It features a beautiful 12” display, and the frame body is so thin it could easily pass for a traditional picture frame from the side. I can’t wait to see one in person and check out how the photos look.
📷 Polaroid Flip – On the opposite end of the camera tech spectrum, Polaroid has released a new “flip” model of its instant film cameras. The design nods to a Polaroid I had as a kid, now updated with smoother, more modern aesthetics. It includes features for sharper focus and better exposure than traditional models, though I’m a bit puzzled by the decision to also offer smartphone-based control for exposure settings. Still, I love the look and can’t wait to read more reviews.
⌚ TinyPod – Honestly, I think this concept is either genius or totally unhinged. (¿Por qué no los dos?) The TinyPod is a case that transforms your Apple Watch into a mini smartphone. For anyone who occasionally wants to leave the house without their iPhone (and all its temptations), this is a clever solution. Remember—Apple Watches with cellular can handle calls, messages, Apple Maps, Music, Podcasts, and more. You could actually get by with this thing. Best of all, the TinyPod has a throwback-style physical scroll wheel for navigating the watch. Redundant? Yes. Awesome? Also yes. (H/T to Joe for sharing this!)
That’s it for this week! Wishing you plenty of quiet opportunities to stir up mischief. Be well, everyone.
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