10DEC2023
Hey everyone, happy Sunday! A couple of kind readers gave me a heads up that some of the links in my last few emails have been throwing up weird alerts, it looks like my newsletter service has some analytics "features" built-in that I needed to turn off. Hopefully links will be working more smoothly now, but if you have any issues, please do let me know!
On to the good stuff--
- 🐨 Koala Sampler - One of my favorite niche genres of YouTube videos is producers-making-beats-on-their-Mac-or-iPads. (Cf. Nervous Cook$ and Henny tha Bizness) Anyway, I’ve been noticing a lot of the folks I follow using Koala Sampler and finally decided to try it out. It’s super fun and easy to use! You can record samples on the fly using your phone or iPad, record from other audio sources like vinyl, or import beats and samples from packs. Here's an example of Nervous Cook$ using it to great effect.
- ✍🏼 [Molotow Acrylic Markers](https://www.amazon.com/molotow-acrylic-markers/s?k=molotow acrylic markers) - I recently discovered these Sharpie alternatives and have been super impressed. The black is much blacker than a black Sharpie and these things can write on anything. If you're a maker, or need to leave really permanent markings on random things, I highly recommend them.
- ✂️ Shaper Trace - I don't have one of these, but I'm really intrigued. In short, it is a small frame you can put over any drawing, take a picture with your iPhone, and the related app will turn the drawing into an editable SVG. Why does that matter? Well, if you have a CNC machine, Cricut or something like it, then you can easily turn a drawing into a cuttable path for turning in to etchings, decals, etc. Neat!
- 🍚 Restaurant-grade Fried Rice Recipe - We make a lot of rice in our household, and always have leftover rice. The pros tell me that leftover rice is the perfect rice to make Fried Rice, so I've been experimenting with different recipes this year. So far, our favorite is this Classic Chicken Fried Rice recipe from The Woks Of Life. We make it with Tofu instead of Chicken, but it's always a hit. Most of the ingredients are pretty easy to get a hold of, but you may need to go to H-Mart or your Asian Grocery of choice to score some Dark Soy Sauce (which is not/not the same as the soy sauce you find in most western grocery stores.)
- 📰 Artifact - As much as I like the UI of Apple News, I'm not very pleased with their discovery features. I've been using Artifact for the last few weeks and have been really impressed. It algorithmically learns what sort of news and blogs you enjoy following and then provides you with more of that type of news, with smart alerts. I do worry a bit about the potential Filter Bubble effect, but as long as you don't limit yourself to ONLY reading news in Artifact, it seems to be a great tool.
That's it for this week, thanks everyone for tuning in!