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izaidi

621 karma · joined April 1, 2008

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izaidi··on Show HN: Sundial – a new way to look at a weather forecast
The data's from Google (via their new WeatherNext 2 model) -- as I understand it they get their raw data from NOAA/NWS but their forecasting model is different. I'll see about using the NWS API for US locations.
izaidi··on Ask HN: What have you built with LLMs?
I was holding a free screening of a short film I made, and as an alternative to Eventbrite and the like, I built a simple SMS-based ticket reservation system that used GPT-4 to read and respond to messages. People interested in attending would text a number and their messages were routed by Twilio to my Node.js app, which in turn sent them to GPT to generate a response. The LLM was instructed to provide a structured JSON of each reservation once the person gave their name and the number of the seats they wanted. Worked very smoothly and only took an afternoon to build. Would've been infinitely more tedious if I had to worry about parsing messages with my own code.
izaidi··on My pay went from $240k to $0
"Broadcast" in this context means over-the-air terrestrial television, i.e. free networks like NBC, ABC and CBS. Sci-Fi (now Syfy) is a cable channel and writers have historically been paid less for cable shows.
izaidi··on Netflix to let viewers pick how TV episodes and movies will end
That's not how Netflix content is written. There are sometimes algorithm-driven decisions on which projects to acquire and finance, but once they buy something, the creators have full control to execute their vision -- much moreso than with a conventional network or studio.
izaidi··on Show HN: Txxt.app – an ultra simple SMS notepad
Apologies, there was an oversight on my part on setting the geo permissions after pushing an update. I'd noticed initially that welcome messages sent to +91 numbers weren't getting delivered, but with the latest changes it should hopefully work.
izaidi··on Show HN: Txxt.app – an ultra simple SMS notepad
Awesome, and thanks! :)
izaidi··on Show HN: Txxt.app – an ultra simple SMS notepad
Ah, thanks for spotting those issues!
izaidi··on Show HN: Txxt.app – an ultra simple SMS notepad
Hey, sorry it didn't work! I just pushed an update that uses a new UK-based number for users in that region, so it should work now. Let me know if you try it again.
izaidi··on Show HN: Txxt.app – an ultra simple SMS notepad
I think this may be due to a limitation of Twilio's toll-free US/Canada numbers -- looks like they sometimes have issues with global SMS. It should work if I set up a standard local US number and use that for international users. Thanks for spotting that bug!
izaidi··on Show HN: Txxt.app – an ultra simple SMS notepad
It should work in nearly all countries -- anywhere that Twilio can send SMS messages. The app's number is based in North America so there might be international texting charges depending on your provider, but I'm planning to set up more numbers based in different regions.
izaidi··on Show HN: Txxt.app – an ultra simple SMS notepad
Hey, glad you like it!

Edit/delete capability is definitely the next thing I'll add, likely in the next day or two.

Reminders are something I've been thinking about... I wasn't sure how useful it would be to someone who already uses Siri / Alexa / Google Home, but it'd definitely be useful to me (someone who uses none of those things). I do like the simplicity of requesting a reminder and then just getting a text at a certain time. There are probably other kinds of "magic words" I could build into it to make it sort of an SMS-based command line.

izaidi··on How a Math Genius Hacked OkCupid to Find True Love
Even so, it speaks poorly of his method (or maybe just his personality?) that it took 90 dates to actually find a good match.
izaidi··on Show HN: Burner, for temporary phone numbers
I don't get the impression anyone here is actually that concerned on an ethical level about the potential for criminal abuse. But it's likely to become an issue if the product is widely used, and it's worthwhile to ask if the developers have a strategy for dealing with the kinds of dilemmas that could arise. It's a business question, not a moral one.
izaidi··on Trading Program Ran Amok, With No ‘Off’ Switch
Unlike high-frequency trading, aviation is highly regulated. In the United States the FAA specifies pretty detailed development standards for avionics software (e.g., DO-178B: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DO-178B). We're unlikely to see similarly strict requirements for financial software anytime soon.
izaidi··on Khan Academy: It’s Different This Time
Replace "better products" with "the products I make" and it makes more sense.
izaidi··on My U.S. Border Nightmare
Whether intentionally or not, your own post came off as fairly rude, in my opinion much moreso than the parent, which is probably why you were downvoted.
izaidi··on ACLU: 92% of Gitmo detainees were not Qaeda fighters. 86% turned in for a bounty
The information itself is interesting, but as an infographic it's actually pretty terrible. Nearly all of it is just text that happens to be laid out in an image. The only graphical element is the comparison of prisoners released by the Bush and Obama administrations, which isn't all that useful since Obama has only been in office for three years; a bar graph arranged by year would've been better.

It seems more like an example of how the current trendiness of infographics can lead to hapless attempts at applying the format when plain old HTML and CSS can do exactly the same job (and be search-indexable to boot).

izaidi··on SOPA creator received half a million dollars from the TV/Film/Music lobby
Unfortunately it's not as easy as just pumping money into lobbying. It can take decades for special interests to build influence in Washington, and the entertainment industry has had a long head start over Google et al. Still, it seems likely that SOPA will end up being spoken about in the same breath as the MPAA's efforts to get VCRs banned in the early 80s.
izaidi··on Tumblr's anti-censorship message generated 87,834 phone calls to representatives
I just want to make sure I understand: you called the Congresswoman's office, the aide answered, you explained the situation to him, he realized it was important, and he agreed to let you talk to his boss?
izaidi··on How to Seem (and Be) Deep
There's a third possibility: technology could begin to easily (or automatically) provide context, without audiences first wising up to the particular problem you describe. There are plenty of incentives for developing this sort of thing -- e.g., you'd revolutionize the news industry.
izaidi··on Loren wants to work at Airbnb
I enjoy the design but I find it very decorative. By which I mean there are a lot of visual elements (clouds, arrows) that serve no real function and distract from the message. It's fine for a resume page but doesn't say much about your ability to design the front-end user experience of a consumer web app, except that it's possible you might spend a lot of time on glitter.

Just my opinion as a fervent minimalist.

izaidi··on Color CEO: The Tech Justifies the $41 Million
What's happened in the last decade and a half is technology (information technology) has fully colonized the popular culture, and popular culture tends to be shallow by nature -- not because people are shallow, but because people are alike in their shallow, base tastes and dissimilar in their deeper, more refined tastes. Mobile/social technology is coming to play the role in our society that television played in the second half of the 20th century. (Interestingly, the best TV has become quite a bit smarter and deeper, largely because of the same underlying technological developments.)
izaidi··on Visualization: Movies Are Getting Worse
Out of curiosity, what were the two movies?
izaidi··on Inlu.st - new dating startup
Tiny design thing: your background image doesn't match the background color. Seems to be a color profile issue. Doing a "Save for Web" in Photoshop should fix it.
izaidi··on Hard Core: What Porn's Ubiquity Says About Men and Women
A lot of bad sequels make orders of magnitude more money than critically acclaimed films, but the films that make the most money are rarely bad. The highest grossing films of the last three years have been Avatar, The Dark Knight, and Toy Story 3, which were all critical darlings to various degrees. People really want great movies but are willing to settle for mediocre ones that have some of the things they're looking for (e.g., exceptional visuals, or characters in which they're already invested).
izaidi··on Ask HN: I built a site that just went ridiculously viral. What do I do now?
Entirely necessary?
izaidi··on Chomsky's “The Responsibility of Intellectuals”
There can be more than one barrier.
izaidi··on Head of Design at Facebook: How Her Team Uses Data To Make Decisions
Yeah. I'm not denying those kinds of experiences can happen on Facebook, but Facebook the company doesn't seem to care about making its users happier so much as it cares about keeping them on the site. Like network television or any other ad-supported medium, it doesn't need to be really good, it just needs to be minimally diverting. It's about generating addiction and not fulfillment.
izaidi··on Head of Design at Facebook: How Her Team Uses Data To Make Decisions
It's interesting that the only time Facebook seems to want to offer you any kind of emotional experience is when you're trying to leave the site, and the experience is designed to be a negative one, rooted in guilt.
izaidi··on Hello HN: I am quitting school for freelance, here's my portfolio
It's pretty non-obvious. I'd recommend making the text readable without mouseover if you want people to read it at all.
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