584: La Croix history, CA as a spiritual hazard, and what 'bad at texting' means
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I missed posting last week due to being at a techie hippie festival at Mandala Springs, a former RV park near Clearlake, and appreciated the plentiful power outlets, flush toilets, and real showers while in a tent camping setting. And the host added delicious catered meals on top!
I guess I’m halfway to being in the target demo for actual RV parks what with my campervan and thirty-something tendency towards nice things. That’s how promoters can charge a thousand plus for a yurt cabin for one weekend….
They also had onsite volunteer childcare, a posterboard wall of Date Me Documents, and little tokens you could give to people you thought were cool or cute - all great festival innovations.
Technology
Via Mom, this Wondery podcast on the history of La Croix was a fun romp through both my favorite drink and consumer branding strategy. ‘Seltzer’ is named after the town of Selters in Germany, and folks have been drinking since ancient Greece.
This My First Million podcast on the company behind Exploding Kittens board game was also a fun deep dive into a beloved consumer brand:
made popular games at Xbox and then saw kids ignore each other in favor of the games, prompting him to make games to interact with others.
‘make games that make your friends fun’ rather than ‘have fun mechanics’ design
they ask only ‘do you want to play this again?’ as the sole focus group question.
Snapcalorie promises to tell how many calories are in food just from a picture of it. Is machine vision really that skilled now? Would be nice to have something that tells me more personalized than the FDA nutrition facts ‘one size fits all’ approach, there is a business in there somewhere….
Tofu is another AI app for recruiters, but it also lets companies access top candidates that other companies on the platform passed on. Kind of like Spotify’s ‘your friends liked this so you might’ playlist feature or Amazon’s ‘people who viewed this also bought’. Makes a lot of sense - what other marketplaces could benefit from seeing what like minds have almost chosen?
Ideologies
Niche rationalist influencer Tyler Alterman thinks California is a spiritual hazard because …. people are flakey? IDK, feels like the (generally true) things he lists there aren’t enough to justify a move on their own and this is just content for the content mill. One can justify hating or loving any city, and will, when they choose a different one.
The Eleusinian Mysteries were an ancient Greek cult initiation process that re enacted Hade’s abduction of Persephone to the Underworld in immersive fashion, and psychoactive drugs may have been involved. Famous Greeks and Romans you’ve heard of underwent it!
Turns out rituals and tradition and cocreating magic never gets old, eh?
Memes
Speaking of, the Spinx Gate art project is bringing 35 foot tall Sphinxes from the Neverending Story to Burning Man, along with an immersive hero’s journey quest along the way. I love to see Burner art get more interactive and pensive instead of giant flaming climbable items, fun as they may be.
Neither here nor there, but these and these are the best vibey USB colored lights to jazz up any room while you’re traveling.
Haxball is a local multiplayer video game resembling air hockey that supports games up to 4x4 on phones and computers.
I made this meme. Outside neurodivergence or not using phones, this is the only real explanation IMO.
