Wonder Bundle photo animation by Su Ji Lee.

?Â

Wonder Bundle is a mystery bag containing a custom, one of a kind surprise treasure, along with some other goodies.

These pieces are pulled from our collection of custom laser etched and anodized titanium experiments. Some of them are one-off flukes, others are too hard or time consuming to replicate, others we might fine-tune and make a version of someday.

For now, Wonder Bundle is our way of putting these treasures out into the world.

Wonder Bundle

We have 25 of these funky one-of-a-kinds lined up and ready to ship. You'll get either a Pen Type-C, Herring Blade or Pen Type-B. They each come laser marked with the Wonder Bundle project ID (CWT_HSX4EP0_2208) and a certificate of authenticity, with an authentic typo, signed + dated by us.Â

Wonder Bundle also comes with some other surprise items we think you will enjoy. One we made custom for this project and is in no way fancy but is useful.

A sneak peek at some Wonder Bundle experiments.

Midjourney v4 experiment using an image of Solid State Watch as a seed with "floating in a dumpster" text.

Date night.Â

This past Saturday after our kids were asleep, Che-Wei and I snuggled up on the couch for a 2 hour session of playing around with the Midjourney AI. We were curious about the v4 release. And indeed, holy patooty it broke our brains.Â

We spent most of the evening feeding the AI a seed image and having it spit out variations based on that. The above was created with a Solid State Watch image as a seed, and the text "floating in a dumpster".

Â

There's a lot going on here, but for me the most compelling part is how the AI processes an image that contains writing or numbers. The starting image of Solid State Watch shows its usual 7 segment time and day of the week display. What came back is in no way intelligible script, but nonetheless carries the "ethos" of language. One that feels foreign (maybe alien) and of another time.Â

I like that graphical text processing hasn't been incorporated into the AI (I imagine it will be, or is in some AIs). The artifact it produces feels like the raw, fundamental, visceral parts of written communication. Markings within a visual field with some semblance of organization. It carries the nuances of language but totally void of meaning.

If not anything else (it is of course is much more), Midjourney is an insanely entertaining way to spend an evening. We're still trying to figure out a compelling use for this, other than the fancy woohas.

I think we used this image for the above midjourney seed.

Solid State Watch (sadly not dumpster trash version shown above)

New Solid State Watches are going super well. We'll drop another 10 today and next Friday we'll open them up to international orders. ✌

Speaking of love.Â

There is nothing quite like an in-season grapefruit (or pomelo, however the preparation is different and laborious in a different but maybe more enjoyable way).

This morning it dawned on me that my love language is cutting the profiles of the triangular pods from grapefruits so they are easily scoop-able. This is not an arduous task, but in the morning rush it is a nuisance and not everyone will do it. When they do, there is love involved. Just saying.