Issue #01 · October 23, 2026
(Deep breath). So… this is it. Issue #1.
My team and I have been planning this for months! We have started (and failed) at too many newsletters in the past, but we are doing it right this time.
Ultimately, what I wanted with this thing was a place to share cool shit that I run into during the week, some behind-the-scenes from our videos, and stuff that would take days to format into a YouTube video (those are taking like 6 weeks to produce now).
For these first few issues, any reply you send falls straight into my inbox, so if you want to complain, ask for a refund, troll me, or spam me, this will be your chance.
Thanks in advance for signing up for our movie tool, for watching our videos, and (if you’re here) for reading my blabbering. I hope you keep doing it 😛
-Caya
The Cool Shit Section
(not) the iPhone Duo — $1,999
As much as an Apple fan as I am, foldables are not my thing. Upgraded my 15 Pro to an 18 Pro. Not much performance difference day-to-day, but the camera styles are BY FAR my new favorite thing.
NVIDIA Shield + Kodi — $299
If you are into (legally) keeping disk backups of our Blu-Ray films, I found this is basically the only streaming device with Dolby Vision, DTS, and Atmos lossless passthrough. It’s great, but what choice do you have otherwise?
RayNeo GT Max - $429
This is a curious gadget. As a Vision Pro owner, these feel like a lighter, entry-level (certainly cheaper) alternative to watch movies. They are ‘technically’ an extended monitor, so you need to plug them into a laptop or into their streaming box for them to work.
Restored NES — $160
I found a guy on eBay who restores and sells working NES consoles. This one came with 2x remotes, a gun, and a Super Mario + Duck Hunt cartridge. I had to blow on the cartridge (true story), but it worked.
Movie of the Week
The Orphanage
2007 · Horror · 140 min
★★★★½ "Scary + deep is possible"
How snobby of me to recommend a movie in Spanish for Issue #1, but man, this film is SO GOOD: an incredible mix of horror and (really sad) drama.
I remember watching this in the theater and almost covering my eyes. My (12yo) daughter watched it and survived, so I guess horror gets milder with time.
Video of the Week
Internet from SPACE!
I actually got to understanding and re-explaining orbital mechanics, and why satellites live in so many different orbit levels. Since Starlink is now a thing that people have, it’s crazy to me that something SO complex is now just ‘normal’ for us. And space internet is really coming to our phones!
PS- Personal note: having watched Veritasium, Mark Rober and Kurzgesagt for years… making a video about orbital mechanics makes me feel a little impostor-syndrome-ish.
PS PS- if you hate the video, don’t hate it in the comments. Send your hate on a reply.
Hidden Feature
a 3D model of your smart home
I studied digital animation, and for years I was one of the gatekeepers of doing 3D stuff. I paid enough tuition money not to want ANYONE to access the power of 3D… and here came Claude to eat my lunch.
Claude built this 3D model of my house after giving it just a flat blueprint and ~10 photos. Then I asked it to build me a ‘dashboard’ for Home Assistant, and connect each room to the corresponding smart stuff for that room. And the darned thing worked.
Basic steps:
Feed Claude your blueprint and ask for a minimalistic 3D model.
Add photos of each room. Claude uses them to correct the layout and furniture shapes and to add colors, accent walls, and artwork. Ask for both a flat-color and a textured version, because some viewers show textured files too dark.
Export your Home Assistant entities. In Developer Tools → Template, run
{% for s in states.light %}{{ s.entity_id }} | {{ s.name }}{% endfor %}and copy the output. Repeat for any other entity types you want to show.Paste that list into Claude and ask it to build the Floor3d card YAML. The YAML links each real entity to the matching named object in the model.
Create the dashboard. Install Floor3d through HACS, copy the
.glbinto/config/www/, and add the card with the generated YAML.