DamnInteresting

> "War and Peace" had a working title "War, what is it good for" before his mistress insisted he change it.

I suspect that you are being facetious, but for the benefit of anyone else reading, this is not true. It's a "factoid" (an invented fact mistaken as true)[1] spawned from a joke on the TV program Seinfeld[2].

This has been your daily wet blanket.

[1] https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/factoid

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qqS1Ty79mOE

> While the exposed database did not contain passwords or sensitive consumer data, the stolen business contact details have been used in a wave of phishing campaigns that mimic legitimate communications from Google.

It seems unlikely that changing one's current password will ameliorate future phishing using these data. The password isn't the problem here.

Something like 16 years ago I added a custom filter to my WordPress functions.php to convert "--" to a proper emdash in the output. If I had a nickle for every emdash in my back catalog I could finally buy that detached backyard office I've always wanted.

Agreed, I love the emdash, and I have 20 years' worth of online writings that are positively peppered with those flat fellas. I have no intention of abandoning the character yet, but the future may be a bleak place for handsomely-formatted asides. It gives one pause.

As a former gearhead, I must say that an EV with get-up-and-go has been worth the tradeoff for me. Sure, I miss the roar of the V8, and the manual shifting. But the instant torque of an EV is so satisfying, and the low center of gravity is fun to toss around. And I don't miss all of the gas station stops, oil changes, transmission fluid changes, fouled sensors, overheating, spark plug changes, clutch replacement, brake pad changes, dripping fluids, fumes, shouted conversations with friends over the engine noise, et cetera.

We should popularize a JSON-based alternative, we'll call it "Absurdly Simple Syndication."

Colloquially known as "bullshitters."[1]

[1] https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/bulls...

I was about to make approximately the same comment. My site has been front-paged on HN multiple times, as well as in some big subreddits.

A link from HN: Usually comes with thoughtful discussion, and a detectable but temporary uptick in site donations (it's an ad-free, reader-supported project). There are always some detractors, but that's to be expected.

A link from a popular subreddit: A LOT of site traffic and server overload (once in 2015, Google Analytics showed over 6,600 concurrent visitors from /r/TodayILearned), and a lot more bile in the inbox and discussion thread. No uptick in donations.

No surprises there really, but it's useful to verify assumptions.

It's a fun intellectual puzzle, but I find it questionable that onion dice uniformity is always a worthwhile goal. Sure, it ensures more even cooking, but in most dishes, is that desirable? Texture and contrast are nice.

I know someone whose work is cited in the "Try and" paper, and she asked me to pass this along in response to your comment:

> Feel free to let djtango know that the paper they're looking for is Bergen (2001), "Nativization processes in L1 Esperanto". It's a minor classic and deserves any attention it gets!

I searched for the title, and this PDF was among the top matches: https://pages.ucsd.edu/~bkbergen/papers/NEJCL.pdf

OpenAI has built the world's most impressive and sophisticated generator of blog posts about ChatGPT.

For ages I have been wishing that one could go into just about any restaurant and order a meal in small, medium, or large. I would almost always order small.

According to the Library of Congress, this was all due to a "coding error."[1]

[1] https://bsky.app/profile/librarycongress.bsky.social/post/3l...

Whoa, the first film poster it presented to me was for Koyaanisqatsi, a 1982 film I was unfamiliar with until I saw it in a Metafilter post just this morning[1]. Baader-Meinhof in action[2].

[1] https://www.metafilter.com/209750/Godfrey-Reggios-Koyaanisqa...

[2] https://www.damninteresting.com/the-baader-meinhof-phenomeno...

Less than a week ago I officially launched a game I've been working on for years, Omiword[1], my second word game so far. It was discussed here on HN previously while it was in open beta[2], and again when Stripe shut down my account without explanation[3].

Reception so far has been positive. It's nice to be done with a long project, though this one will never exactly be done--I need to make sure there is a new puzzle for each day, though I have several months' worth prepared in advance.

I've started designing my next game, but it's probably a couple of years out. I just need something for that part of my brain to occasionally chew on.

[1] https://www.omiword.com/

[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43654350

[3] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44075038

> I have deployed a functioning full stack application to the web

Best hope ChatGPT plagiarized that code from people who properly sanitized user input, otherwise it might be vulnerable to SQL injection, XSS, etc. If such holes exist, it may be tough to resolve them without a professional.

> But when I see people say it's a delusion, waste of resources, and everyone is wasting their time on it ... for me, it just doesn't line up.

I don't think anyone would say LLMs are useless, but there are people out there comparing the birth of LLMs to the Industrial Revolution, and the advent of the Internet. Such claims are preposterous.

I think the widespread use of LLMs will ultimately be undone by a few factors:

1) Due to the way LLMs function, they will never be totally cured of 'hallucinations'. They are accurate a lot of the time, and apparently useful in those times. But you can never really trust its output. That is an exhausting problem, and will burn people out.

2) Prices for LLMs are artificially very low right now, these companies are burning investor money to keep going. The 'cost' is going to have to go way up for these LLM providers to be sustainable. I put cost in quotes because it will be some cost in subscription prices, but also cost in terms of ads that will be inserted everywhere, and other degrading forms of monetization.

3) Models are running out of good training data. They'll either hit a wall, or continue training on content that was itself LLM generated, which will go the way of Habsburg Jaw in a jiffy. Ensloppification is real.

I'm sure there will be niches for LLMs in the future, for those who can afford their true cost. But this cram-it-in-everything, available-everywhere frenzy will probably be looked back upon with deserved embarrassment.

I've been driving a Chevy Bolt for over 8 years now, and I regularly use the regen paddle. I drive in "L" mode, which engages partial regen when the accelerator is released. When I need more slowing, I pull the paddle, and that increases the aggressiveness of the regen. I only press the brake for quick stops, or to hold the car once it has stopped.

I also use the built in "hilltop reserve" feature, which limits charging to 90%. This ensures that there is always regen resistance, and therefore a consistent experience.

I use Informed Delivery for my PO box since I don't get much mail there. The worst thing about it is that the USPS uses the system to announce when there are new episodes of Mailin’ It! - The Official USPS Podcast.

They send the daily digest saying "You have 1 mailpiece arriving soon." Instead of the usual picture of the 'mailpiece', it's an image illustrating the episode. There is no physical mail corresponding to this alert, it's electronic junk mail. Spam. Ugh. There is no opt out for these apart from canceling the service entirely.

I dislike the manufactured overcomplexity of web app development nowadays, especially in corporate environments. Maybe I'm just curmudgeonly, but all of that command-line building crap with frameworks and dependencies and auto-reloading browsers--I feel it adds a lot of work for little reward, and introduces a lot more opportunities for problems to arise. All I need is a good text editor and a browser with dev tools, thank you very much. Grumblescoff.

This video says that the helmet mic serves as a decent face scratcher: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5VCuaZCRn1U

I've also read that many astronauts put strips of adhesive Velcro in their helmet for this purpose: https://space.stackexchange.com/questions/42012/nose-scratch...

Well, most college freshmen aren't plagiarizing and inserting random falsehoods, while consuming an excess of electricity all at an artificially low cost.

> It's like Poochy on the simpsons

See also: Microsoft Clippy

It's far from a fortune, and its future is uncertain, but I've been earning a bit via donations with my writing/podcasting for almost 20 years now: https://www.damninteresting.com

I'm also working on diversifying, starting with a free daily word game that I hope gets a little traction on Patreon: https://omiword.com

I have a few other projects-in-progress, if I'm lucky, one will earn a dollar or two.

> This is a bigger issue, especially with Apple, than people may realize.

Like he'll it is! I jest.

I also use swipe typing, and have for years, but just about daily I consider turning it off. There are so many words it just won't produce, including most profanities. It also fails to do some simple streamlining; for instance, such a predictive system should give priority to words/names that have been used in the conversation thread, but it doesn't seem to. If I'm discussing an obscure word or an unusual name, I often have to manually type it each time.

Its predictions also seem to be very shallow. Just a few days ago, on US Independence Day, I was discussing a possible get-together with my family, and tried to swipe type "If not, we will amuse ourselves", and it typed "If not, we will abuse potatoes". Humorous in the moment, but it says a lot about the predictive engine if it thinks I am more likely trying to say "abuse X" than "amuse Y" in that context.

Those elements certainly amplify the awfulness, but I am old enough that I remember reading magazines, and I despised the ads there was well. I'm trying to read this OMNI article about colonizing Mars, and this stupid full-page ad for calculator wristwatches is getting in my way. *shakes fist*

I'm sure glad that the inline ads model never caught on in novels.

It's funny...I absolutely despise being advertised to, yet I find vintage ads fascinating. I don't know what that says about me.

I feel the same about a lot graffiti; if it's recent, it's an eyesore, but old graffiti can be extremely interesting. I guess both domains expose some elements of the zeitgeist seldom explored in other mediums. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Nice site, by the way!

I'm putting the finishing touches on my free daily word game, Omiword[1][2]. I had it basically finished, with the option for players to make a one-time $5 payment to unlock access to the archives, but then Stripe shut down my account, claiming it was a "restricted business".[3] I'm now reworking it to try to fund it through Patreon, we'll see how that goes.

[1] https://www.omiword.com

[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43654350

[3] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44075038

Personally, I tend to put off unpleasant/difficult parts of a project so I can make rapid initial progress. I am ultimately confronted by a moment when all of my remaining tasks are those I put off, and it's off-putting. Fortunately I can usually overcome this by mentally shifting gears to more of a slow grind mode.

I'm a few months shy of 48. I've been writing code since I learned to write BASIC games and utilities on my TI-82 in high school, ca. 1993. I still love coding, but it's getting harder and harder to make a living doing it.

I say this as an author who has definitely had a lot of my work slurped up by these machine-learning goblins: This was the right call. I learned to write by reading other authors' works, so I'd have to be quite the hypocrite to stop others from learning from me. Still, it makes me sad and tired to know that I'm unwittingly training my own replacement--one that will never be sad or tired itself.

In my view, one real gray area is in image/video generation, especially "x in the style of y" kinds of shenanigans. As a society we may need to consider some better protections for an artist's/studio's style, otherwise distinct and novel and interesting styles will become watered down into a sea of bland mimicry until the sweet release of the heat death of the universe.