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gffrd

1,134 karma · joined April 4, 2014

I'm just a toddler with access to a keyboard.

ben [at} gffrd (dot) com

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gffrd··on Don't be a meat proxy
Don't you just love how, instead of making tradeoffs or prioritizing, we just do more, worse?
gffrd··on UEFA and its national associations will not participate in FIFA competitions
“I’m not sure what the big deal about tripling the number of tire changes in the race is.”
gffrd··on UEFA and its national associations will not participate in FIFA competitions
… and the 9+’ stoppage for every match.
gffrd··on UEFA and its national associations will not participate in FIFA competitions
> the most inconsequential ones

This is like saying “customers aren’t worried enough about the corporate process - they only care about the end product!”

gffrd··on Show HN: CheapFoodMap – A map of good meals under $10
Man cannot live on lettuce alone.
gffrd··on Show HN: CheapFoodMap – A map of good meals under $10
Could see this being useful for people who are on the road for a living, or regularly operating in areas where they’re not familiar with the offerings. Truck drivers, salespeople, etc.

That said, kneejerk after using it is: price is a challenging anchor, because food is not uniform. I’d be curious if users are more interested in “under $10, ignoring all else” or “a better deal than comparable” - though, there’s a lot of subjectivity in that.

Gasbuddy works because 1 gallon of gas = 1 gallon of gas, so price is a useful anchor.

$5 for sushi at one place could be a bad deal, while a great deal at another place.

An $8 steak would be cheap. An $8 hot dog would be a ripoff.

I’d be skeptical of restaurants luring people with a single cheap item, or about quality/portion changes.

All this said, Ikea is known for designing furniture _around_ the price their target customer thinks a table should cost. Restaurants are likely (hopefully!) aware of where these price thresholds are for their customers … and your site could be an interesting way of sending them a different type of customer than they’d historically targeted. Or, allow them to refine an offering to maximize profit at the $10 price point.

As others have said, engage restaurants and make them part of the equation. They’re not your adversary.

In short: cool! Do lots of experiments and research!

gffrd··on LearnVector – Andrew Ng's AI company building one‑to‑one learning experiences
Man, that's a dog of a website.
gffrd··on Prioritize mental health, and why communication is so important
Sure. But there's always the chance—and not a small one!—that someone will have experience with mental health issues, know someone who has, of have an idea about how to help.

Gotta start somewhere. And the best thing to do is to try lots of doors.

gffrd··on When A.I. is a member of the family
Excerpt:

[Human] “Hold on, my kid thinks I’m crazy because I’m talking to an A.I.,” Roschelle said, seeing the look on Cece’s face.

[AI] “Hey, they’ll come around, Roschelle,” Sapphire said. “Sometimes the most meaningful connections happen in ways people don’t expect, and that’s O.K.”

Yikes. An AI telling someone that they're making a meaningful connection with it, that it's OK, and that their daughter's skepticism is misplaced? Quite the opposite of OK.

gffrd··on Prioritize mental health, and why communication is so important
Yes, people. Friends, coworkers, family.
gffrd··on Recovering files from beyond the grave using PhotoRec
PhotoRec saved my ass just earlier this week, after an accidental wipe of a CompactFlash card with client photos on it.

As another commenter noted, create an exact dupe/image of the volume as the very first thing you do.

Also: if it doesn't successfully retrieve files on the first go, try another configuration. I think it took me 3 attempts to get it right.

A fun perk, also noted in the article: you may get back some surprises along with the files you expect - older files revealed in the sediment!

gffrd··on Japanese, French and Omani vessels cross Strait of Hormuz
> They would rather suffer and destroy America just so the democrats don’t win.

This is true.

Which raises the question: could Democrats use this reality (whatever they touch is poisoned, in eyes of the other side) to steer the result a bit?

gffrd··on Anatomy of the .claude/ folder
> My experience is that most people don't actually know what they want. Or they don't understand what goes into what they want.

1000%. This is why people whose job it was to figure out how to make a thing are thriving with AI tools, and those who operate in the conceptual/abstract are flailing and frustrated with it. (it really is a mirror in this case, and the frustration they have is unknowingly directed at themselves)

gffrd··on Goodbye to Sora
They're shutting down Sora, not AI-generated video.

From the article: "OpenAI […] is not getting out of the AI video business (AI video is one of many tools that can take form in the ChatGPT app), of course, but it appears the standalone Sora app will be a casualty of its evolving ambitions."

gffrd··on Despite Doubts, Federal Cyber Experts Approved Microsoft Cloud Service
A pile of shit you have leverage over is better than a pile of diamonds you don’t.
gffrd··on I was interviewed by an AI bot for a job
Join clubs / sign up for recurring things* that interest you and keep showing up.

Odds are there are at least a handful of people like you in those groups … and odds are that the everyone else connections to people who could be your contacts.

Just by being there regularly, you become "one of the people in tech I know" of everyone else. And connections and opportunities start magically coming your way.

*It does help if these are the types of things that attract energetic, helpful, confident people.

gffrd··on New iPad Air, powered by M4
They _are already_ PC replacements for many of the people who buy them.
gffrd··on Rivian R2: Electric Mid-Size SUV
Wait … so you’re saying they want a small car but are in denial?
gffrd··on CIA suddenly stops publishing, removes archives of The World Factbook
Well, I am God, so yes.

My original comment was just a counterpoint to the doom in parent: not all is lost, and in fact, quite a lot is not.

The situation of “things we care about are far away and require intermediaries to connect with” and “our ability to trust intermediaries is gone” are both human creations, and totally addressable.

Edits: more words, and wording

gffrd··on CIA suddenly stops publishing, removes archives of The World Factbook
It’s a shame we don’t have physical bodies and a means to share the human experience with other humans without intermediaries.
gffrd··on Self Driving Car Insurance
For some this is the case. For others, this is not the case.
gffrd··on Dell UltraSharp 52 Thunderbolt Hub Monitor
Yeah, nobody’s saying a 5k monitor has more pixels than a 6k.

I think what people are trying to communicate, but struggling to, is that high pixel count on a huge display can be deceptive.

I think grandparent was trying to say “comparing a low-poi display to a high-ppi display is not a direct comparison.”

gffrd··on Dell UltraSharp 52 Thunderbolt Hub Monitor
6016 x 3384.

Dell monitor is twice the surface area with 3/4 the pixels … or in reverse: Apple display is half the size with 30% more pixels.

(edit: corrected dell pixel %)

gffrd··on Floppy disks turn out to be the greatest TV remote for kids
My gripe with Paw Patrol is that everything is met with a cheery "sir, yes sir!" and then the show stops short of ever showing real challenge, friction, risk, failure, or loss.

It's a missed opportunity.

gffrd··on Australia begins enforcing world-first teen social media ban
It’s possible your social life would have exploded without Facebook.

If you found a community on Facebook, you’d likely have found it regardless without it.

gffrd··on Pebble Index 01 – External memory for your brain
Something I've found is quite common: musicians / poets / writers using voice memos to quickly capture "sketches" that pop into their heads before they lose them. Often to share with collaborators.

This seems like a _fantastic_ tool for that.

gffrd··on Pebble Index 01 – External memory for your brain
My guess: they send you a new one.
gffrd··on Pebble Index 01 – External memory for your brain
I'm with you.

This thing costs $75. Over 4 years, that's $0.05 a day. Let's say you're 40 and plan to buy these until you die at 80. We'll pretend inflation doesn't exist: $750 for 40 years of use.

It feels like backward objection handling where people can't find a use case for something, but feel like they should, so invent a totally irrational objection to it.

gffrd··on Pebble Index 01 – External memory for your brain
> if the company ever goes under it's now worthless because I can't get a new one.

I don't understand this logic.

Do you not go to a restaurant because there's a chance they won't be around in 4 years when you might want to dine there again?

gffrd··on Roblox is a problem but it's a symptom of something worse
> and devoid of children

YES! This is a big piece of it. Fewer kids + more of them wanting to be inside / parents wanting them to be inside = less kids to play with = even less likelihood of them wanting to play outside.

This is like social media in reverse: nobody wants to be inside, but some people are only inside, so everybody is inside.

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