The sauna at Quarterdeck Resort is incredible. Enjoyed a couple of cycles through here on our stay.
On the corner of Get Outside Trail and Smore Fun Way at Quarterdeck Resort.
Minnedemo 40
The 40th installment of Minnedemo had me wondering about the first one — I was there for Holiday Minnedemo in October of 2006! I have a lot of Minnedemo blog posts. 🤩
HabitAware
App along with a bracelet that attempts to interrupt someone that is habitually picking on their skin, pulling their hair, or some other body-focused repetitive behavior (BFRB). One of the founders successfully used this to stop a hair pulling habit. They demoed their solution now working as an app on an Apple Watch. They also have a new version of the bracelet on the way.
OmegaVR
Dagmawe Mamo, Mahamud Hussien + Keleabe Mamo
Focused on creating accessible technology specifically to allow VR usage for people that have mobility limitations. Allow user to move around VR space with eye tracking and other assistive methods. Uses EEG to monitor brain activity to allow navigation via thought.
tinkl: Pee in Peace
Not a launched app but will be soon. The app uses an established database with user generated content layered on to help locate gender neutral bathrooms. The app was originally built as part of Prime Academy program. Great name!
Attentio: Latent Signal Descent & Context Stacking
Platform to allow training and custom weights of an LLM using plain text. You can simply describe facets and data and then tell the LLM to save that and it will respond with that from then on. It was a good demo. It wasn’t clear to me how different it is from a Custom GPT in ChatGPT. It does work on significantly smaller and cheaper models.
Abe
Platform that connects DIY home repair people to others to help them solve problems in the home via online video sharing. Buy on demand expertise that can help you navigate projects. Particularly good where YouTube videos just don’t address the specific questions you have. Much cheaper than a handyman or tradesperson visiting, and perhaps a way for a tradesperson to generate additional income? The demo was replacing a flapper in a toilet. 🚽
HLRBO
Heath Schubert + Cookie Lithyouvong
Interesting idea that has market traction and raised investment round. Like VRBO, but for Hunting Leases. Provides a market for landowners to put the hunting rights up for lease, and provides the legal lease documents as well as hosting assets to better explain the plot of land. Seems like a solid idea taking an existing proven model and applying to a different asset.
The Poopcopter
Olson presented a classic Minnedemo that will be remembered for years — a drone that flies around and finding and removing dog poop. He has an operational drone that uses computer vision to spot dog poop, then descends onto it and uses a twisting motion to close a custom designed “scoop” which then flies away to collect it. Practical? No. Fun? Absolutely! 💩
See also official Minnedemo 40 recap!
Was great to run into this amazing group of Minnestar superstars at Minnedemo 40: Adrienne Peirce, Lindsi Gish, Jenna Pederson, and Justin Porter!
Apple updates tonight:
✅ 4 Macs
✅ 3 iPhones
✅ 4 Apple TVs
✅ 3 HomePods
✅ 2 Apple Watches
✅ iPad Pro
✅ Vision Pro
We watched Tetris and it was great. Tetris is my favorite game ever. I can still get completely lost playing Tetris. We even had a Tetris shower! The movie tells the story of getting the right to distribute the game and is filled with suspense and intrigue.
Triple smashburgers for Tyler and I tonight! 🤤
Sauna on the way!
For many years I’ve had the desire to get a sauna. Usually this has two peaks — one predictably in the winter when I think it would be so nice to have a good sweat, and the other time is during the Minnesota State Fair when we invariably end up looking at multiple sauna on display and even talking through the logistics with some of the builders. This year at the fair was no different and when we walked into the Dairy Building to see the Butter Heads and get our official American Dairy Association of Minnesota Ice Cream we happened upon Urban Wing NorthUp Sauna.
They had two saunas on display and they immediately caught my eye. They didn’t look like other saunas with their translucent walls. One was built on trailer wheels and mobile, the other was on a skid like an ice house. We went inside it and I found the design great, and those translucent walls meant that a lot of ambient light came in easily. My sauna desire was steadily climbing, and fast.
I put myself on the mailing list and grabbed the website address so I could check it out more, which I did.
When we returned to the fair for the third time we again saw the Butter Heads and this time on the way back we stopped and talked to Darin, the owner of Urban Wing, for a while and got a bunch of questions answered. The sauna desire was climbing even more. Uh oh. I scheduled a call with Darin for later in the week to learn more.
Long story short after a couple of calls and detailing the specific sauna configuration that I wanted for our cabin I took the leap and placed the order! The sauna will be delivered in November or December, with plenty of time to get ready for winter saunas. I’m super excited to take the leap.
Now I have to decide if I’m going to do the “sow-nah” or “sau-nah” pronunciation. Darin is a “sow-nah” guy. I may just go with the Old Norse of Baðhús.
I took the pontoon back to La Canne’s for winterization and storage. I got it out on May 10th this year for 127 days on the water. With the flooding this year we have done very little boating. I tried to avoid the rain but ended up getting pretty soaked on the ride in.
After our TeamSPS Kubb Tournament a small group of us had a pickup game that was awesome. We had all 10 kubbs in play!
Tyler's Gaming PC: GPU Unlocked!
Tyler hit his savings milestone yesterday so today we went to Microcenter to get the GPU for his gaming rig. A short while later he was carrying out a PURE AMD Radeon™ RX 7800 XT 16GB eager to get it setup.
This is another one of those moments where I realize so much has changed in the last 20+ years since I built my own PCs. These graphics cards or more appropriately classified as a whole computer on a PCI-E card. Three fans, massive heatsink, and its own power connections.
He got it in mostly on his own and got the drivers installed. Minutes later he was getting high 200 frames per second on some test games, even hitting over 300 fps at some times. The quality of the graphics is amazing. 🤩
Sidewalk poetry found in Northfield in and around this mornings 5k.
We all completed the Defeat of Jesse James Days 5k Run/Walk and had a grand time. Tiffany and I walked the course in 57 minutes. Everyone else ran it and Tammy and Mazie put in better times than they expected! Tyler had some cramping that made him have to take some breaks.
Our neighborhood. 52nd Street, Lynnhurst.
In our neighborhood the Taschler’s host an annual Fry Party. What is that? They fire up multiple fryers and the guests bring fun things to fry. We brought Twinkies. Fried Dill Pickles were popular. I tried a Fried Peppermint Patty. It was a fun evening and Tyler and Mazie got to help the hosts!
See also 2012 Fry Party.
You would be hard set to find a better desert than Pizzeria Lola’s warm Chocolate Chip Cookies and Fresh S’more Cookies with delicious soft serve ice cream drizzled with olive oil.
Tyler's Playdate Game: The 5 Piece Sword
The most open of the Summer Challenges I gave Tyler was to create a Playdate Experience. No requirements other than something that could be played on the Playdate and created in Pulp. Tyler really got into this and created a full interactive game experience — The 5 Piece Sword. 🗡️
He wrote additional blog posts on the simple enemies in the game, how the heart system for health works, and the spikes and spike balls in the game.
The game is fun to play and has a lot of challenging levels. He’s still crafting the final boss stage and at that point he may publish the file so others could load it. Nicely done! 👏
I got to thinking how many times we’ve seen The New Standards after we saw them last night. I searched my blog and created a list of The New Standards shows. I was surprised to find 21 shows and an additional 11 Holiday Shows — exceeding our list of Brandi Carlile shows!
The New Standards put on an incredible show at The Dakota tonight marking their 20 year anniversary as a band! We had a great night returning with our friends Mike & Ellen Rock for the show.
