brianpan

I don't think the distinction is animate/inanimate.

Submarines sail because they are nautical vessels. Wind-up bathtub swimmers swim, because they look like they are swimming.

Neither are animate objects.

In a browser, if you click a button and it takes a while to load, your phone is thinking.

Even potluck parties tend to be better on average when someone or a few people are "in charge". In my experience, even when people are just getting together for dinner out, there are people who step up more to organize.

Are you sure there aren't certain people driving these "informal" parties?

I think you are restricting social media by defining as what it became (at the time driven by "eyeball" metrics), instead of defining it by what it could or should be.

Nice. What's the app called? Is it available on Android?

;)

I found this interesting: https://wizardzines.com/zines/terminal/

The answer to pretty much every biological "why" question is: because it reproduced. It seems simplistic, but really, a thing is here and alive because its ancestors reproduced.

Your version of the question has surprising perspective- I think you are asking what the "it" of the plant is. That's an interesting personification of a plant. I think it points to the fact that plants may be safer underground- for anchoring, for not being eaten, for getting shielded from harsh elements.

How is it not clear that it would be beneficial?

To use another example, with my IDE I can change a signature or rename something across multiple files basically instantly. But an LLM agent will take multiple minutes to do the same thing and doesn't get it right.

There are different kinds of scientists to do that.

Astrophysicsts would also call these "metals" (anything heavier than helium) so don't read too much into it. :D

https://sentinelmission.org/astrophysics-glossary/metallicit...

Everything in moderation is a strategy to minimize risks with limited information.

When you have information, you probably wouldn't say "cigarettes in moderation". You'd say "avoid smoking" as much as possible. It looks like alcohol is headed in that direction.

You are welcomed to wait for more data, or to choose to continue to drink (to your chosen level of "in moderation") with or without more data. But the guidelines are probably going to end up being "avoid drinking alcohol".

> Why haven't local-first apps become popular?

The Immich "Quick Start" step 1 is mkdir and wget commands. Step 2 is "Populate the .env file with custom values"

I get it, when the prerequisites are 1) run a server and 2) have Docker installed, but this isn't inspiring confidence that local-first apps will become popular.

This is exactly why I pay for hey.com email. Every new address is screened in and I can turn on notifications for specific addresses or domains. I have notifications on just a tiny handful of addresses and it's perfect for me.

I've gone from ignoring my email for weeks at a time and fighting with spam to quickly checking my email every day now.

My experience is with IBM AT and OS 2 which had a Return and a numpad with an Enter. The AT and Model M keyboard at least were part of a very popular and influential generation or two of "PC".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Model_M_keyboard

EDIT: Holy cow, those Model M pictures are so nostalgic.

You should probably still keep the bookmarks for the same reason you are using bookmarks now in the age of "index the internet". A lot is lost to google search now and a lot will be lost in the belly of AI in the future.

The emphasis is a really interesting point and overlooked by the article. Your "went and" examples do seem very analogous to "try and". "He went and got himself arrested again," is less about the going and almost exclusively emphasizing the other half of the conjunction.

"Try and" can operate the same way by de-emphasizing the trying. If Dr. Dre said "I'm gonna try to change the course of hip hop again," the sentence is about attempting to do something. On the other hand, "try and" makes the sentence more assured- Dr Dre is going try it and then do it.

I wonder if this half about ordering, half about emphasizing is the reason for the special rules of usage.

I really like the recent HN post "Enough AI copilots, we need AI HUDs" (geoffreylitt).

I don't think it's stretching the airplane analogy to say: just because you can run the autopilot doesn't mean you are qualified to fly a plane and doing so might be irresponsible. Vibe coding (or vibe whatever with AI) too often overlooks the experience and expertise needed to do the thing.

See also the Tea app hacks.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44705445

It's controversial because 1) good on someone for wanting to do something difficult and 2) I cannot think of a worse thing to try to implement. Maybe trying to parse the world's postal and street addresses is a close second?

Just, why.

Not that complicated- germ theory and sanitation. The best way to survive an illness is to avoid getting it in the first place.

I think so. The why can be a powerful and compact way to express the elements of a model, when a model can be applied, and when the model might break down. A complicated model without a WHY might not be easily understood by others. A surprising, new result with a good WHY can point the way to other aspects of the model that might be confirmed or disproved.

Think about how much our understanding of atoms has changed. I think the why is an important part of the development. If you're interested in that topic, how about a 35 min nuclear physics primer from Angela Collier (I love her videos!): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=osflPlZdF_o

Once you know it's doable, even a Berklee College of Music grad can do it. :D

BPS.space https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SH3lR2GLgT0

You're wrong most of the time, but at least you get there quickly.

There are 4 things that are true in this world: 1) successful people set constraints, 2) successful people set goals, 3) unsuccessful people set constraints, and 4) unsuccessful people set goals.

You're welcome.

AI "auto-complete" or "code suggestions" is the worst, especially if you are in a strongly-type language because it's 80% correct and competing with an IDE that can be 100% correct.

AI agents are much better for me because 1) they don't constantly interrupt your train of thought and 2) they can run compile, run tests, etc. to discover they are incorrect and fix it before handing the code back to you.

If the something you are asking about is scripting/modifying, that something might be Shortcuts (or the older Automator).

If the something you are asking about is a pre-built tool, I would think the menubar is the MacOS place to put a reminder and it looks like someone has built that: https://lifehacker.com/tech/one-thing-app-turns-your-macs-me...

100%

I lost power for a few days because of a downed power line in my backyard. The stress comes because all the "automatic" decisions that were made by organizing a system for your life fall apart. And you are overwhelmed by needing to continuously make new, suboptimal decisions and balancing trade-offs multiplied by the size of your family. And all your neighbors are trying to make the same decisions with the same lack of infrastructure.

Check into a hotel so the kids can have internet to do homework? Nope, hotels are already booked or also in the dark. Find somewhere farther from school and work and on top of that also puts more pressure on EV charging times? Ugh.

We were fortunate to have so many resources to help us and thankfully no one was injured, but even then, it was the most stressful week of my life in a long, long time.

If you happen to be an iOS user you can setup a bedtime. Then there are controls to change your sleep/wake times for "next wake up only". Or to skip for a day.

The UX is giving me misery.

Most of the time the red fills in counter-clockwise. Until it is over 50%, then the red fills in clockwise.

Lots of the map circles actually represent MULTIPLE airports. But they still "represent" them with a three letter code. Sometimes by the largest airport (ORD, SFO), sometimes by a non-airport code (NYC), and sometimes by the second largest (DFW is larger that DAL).

Someone's pet project needs some more love.

EDIT: This version looks less like a pet project: https://www.flightaware.com/live/airport/delays

I know of a house near Chicago that has two addresses with different street names. It's on the corner of an intersection and the "mailing address" is different than the "front door" address.

Not that there's a mailbox on the mailing address street. (There's only a small side profile of a house/yard on the mailing address street side). There doesn't seem to be a good reason for the mailing address.

I think the advice is good for younger children. The author is using 14+11 as an example. Very engaged parents can have a tendency to overdo it, so it's probably a good reminder.

As kids get older, they need to learn how to struggle and overcome struggles. (I would still caution against "forcing" math.) But yes, you need to start engaging hard work and determination.

Btw, the two are not mutually exclusive. Young children should be praised for struggling at things so they begin learning that skill, too.

Similar journey in book form: Sorry I'm Late, I Didn't Want to Come. Introvert Jessica Pan spends a year being an extrovert.

https://bookshop.org/p/books/sorry-i-m-late-i-didn-t-want-to...