NFT Cribs.

If you think we’re a little late to the NFT party, that’s because it’s taken me about 3 weeks to try to wrap my head around the whole thing. Truth be told, my head is still far from fully wrapped, but I felt like I had to include an NFT story this week simply because every man and his dog have now released one. From the Beeple JPEG selling for a crisp $69billion, to Elon Musk declaring himself ‘Technoking of Tesla’ and releasing a song about NFTs as an NFT, the market for crypto-backed assets is positively booming. To add to the ever-expanding panpoply of confusing things you can buy with bitcoin, you can now purchase your dream home as an NFT. Well, only if your dream home happens to be on Mars and is impossible to live in. Artist Krista Kim designed The Mars House, which went up on sale this week. To the untrained eye, you might think it just looks like The Sims but with more dramatic music and fewer people bursting into flames, but no doubt it’ll sell for some eye-watering amount of money. At least it makes you feel slightly better about London property prices, I guess…

Foodling.

As somebody who had a voracious appetite for crayons as a child, I feel like I really could have done with this growing up. I also got a magnet stuck in my eye once, but that’s a story for another day. Polaroid have revealed their new ‘Candyplay’ pen, which draws actual edible sweets by replacing extruded plastic with melted candy. I’m not entirely sure what that means, but it sounds delicious. The pen comes with four candy cartridges that are used as edible printing material and offers a selection of six different sweet flavours: strawberry, orange, apple, grape, lemon, and cola. And they’re all… ergh… they’re all sugar free. I knew it was too good to be true. It’s a sign of the times. Gone are the days when a plate of Turkey Twizzlers, some chips and big glass of orange juice was considered a balanced diet. Thanks a lot, Jamie Oliver.

AI-Inked.

If I were to trust the word of this one bloke who pops up daily on my Facebook feed, 5G is nothing more than yet another Bill Gates mind control mechanism. But he’s wrong – turns out it can also be used to tattoo people. This week, Dutch actress Stijn Fransen became the lucky recipient of the world’s first ever remote tattoo, drawn by a 5G-powered robot arm being controlled elsewhere by artist Wes Thomas. What a truly remarkable achievement this is. I mean, obviously the tattoo looks a bit shit, but so do a lot tattoos, so I’m still impressed. Plus, I’ve never got a tattoo myself, but if I saw the artist practising on a butternut squash before my appointment, I think I might have second thoughts before offering up my forearm, so fair play to her. Perhaps the main benefit of this video, though, was being able to learn a little bit of Dutch. After learning that “That was intense” is just “Dat was intens”, I reckon with a few weeks of Duolingo, you could pick the language up pretty easily. Just do a dodgy Sean Connery impression and you’re about halfway there.

Zoom Hacks.

I’ve been called a controversialist in the past, but I don’t think I would be speaking out of turn by proclaiming on behalf of the entire world that we’re fairly sick of Zoom by this point. Whether it’s work meetings, family catchups, doctor appointments, or worst of all, sickening organised fun; we’ve had enough. But what if I was to tell you there’s a sure-fire way of sacking off all of the above? Ladies and gentlemen, allow me to introduce Zoom Escaper. We’ve all probably considered ducking out of a call due to some pressing ‘technical issues’, but that’s not fooling anyone. You can’t go from perfect connection to complete shutdown in a couple seconds, it’s just not realistic. Zoom Escaper is a soundboard that runs in a Chrome window and works by replicating the kind of audio problems that people might use to flee meetings—crying babies, weeping men, wind, construction, echoes, and feedback. I’m not so sure that “sorry, my dad’s crying again” is an all too typical excuse for leaving a meeting, but the rest could definitely do the trick. On a completely unrelated side note, if anyone from ZAK is reading this, please just let me assure you that there genuinely is construction outside my window next week, the baby next door never stops whining, and my dad is having a really tough time at the moment. That should fool them.

Another Perspective.

It’s always good to see things from another perspective. I, for example, sometimes practice going up the stairs without using my legs. We only have access to 3 of a possible 11 dimensions, so it stands to reason that there are interdimensional realities of time and space that exist beyond our potential comprehension and that couldn’t even be defined using our narrow, Earthly, three-dimensional concepts. The things in this video are not interdimensional beings; they are M&Ms. But they certainly look like they could have been plucked from somewhere else in the Multiverse. Using the sorcery of macro photography and videography, a YouTuber has captured their spectacular dissolution, and the results are super trippy, man. And the bast part: apparently all you need to create the kind of visuals you can normally only get courtesy of a Shaman is a camera, a tripod, a small fish tank and a petri dish with water. I say ‘all’, I don’t actually own any of those things – but if you do, get cracking.

the re-up: Fitness.

The fitness industry can feel like a bubble detached from the real world. That’s because most people don’t work out 3 times a day and count every micro and macro that passes their lips. We asked the SELFHOOD Collective for their thoughts. They feel a disconnect between their own journeys and the hyper-curated, Instagram-ready, perfect portrayals being rammed down their throats. And it’s about time the protein market got a shake-up. From nutrition, to tech, to apparel, to gyms, the business of fitness needs a reality check.