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alvah

1,088 karma · joined June 29, 2016

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alvah··on Gemini 3.8 Flash and 3.8 Flash Cyber
AU Pro user here. 3.8 Flash available (default) in the web app for me.
alvah··on Meta's blockbuster trial draws parallels to big tobacco
While that is terrible, it's still nowhere near proving your original assertion.
alvah··on NotebookLM is now Gemini Notebook
They added search & deep research ages ago.
alvah··on Blatant AI slop just won a 25k USD DeepMind Kaggle Grand Prize
I think Ed Zitron has this market covered already
alvah··on Fable turned reMarkable into Tom Riddle's diary from Harry Potter
Except you do, if you are an average user, i.e. not self-selected into the HN bubble.
alvah··on Fable turned reMarkable into Tom Riddle's diary from Harry Potter
I was downvoted a few weeks ago for making this exact point. Humans can and do use em-dashes occasionally, but given that you have to go digging for the key combination, you're not using it every 3rd sentence like every AI model does.
alvah··on How to earn a billion dollars
> (& fiends)

Freudian slip?

alvah··on How to earn a billion dollars
The HN readership has changed massively in that timeframe, from the earlier Hackers and Painters / libertarian ideology to a much more socialist outlook. I could speculate about the reasons for this, but my theories would probably attract even more downvotes than just pointing out the obvious change in tone will.
alvah··on If Claude Fable stops helping you, you'll never know
It does make you wonder about the "E" part of the EA cultists who infest that particular company.
alvah··on YouTube to automatically label AI-generated videos
That's hilarious. Reminded me of the scene at spaceport security in the original Total Recall where Arnie's AI loses the plot.
alvah··on The Companies Cutting Headcount for AI Will Lose to the Ones Who Didn't
"I've never worked at any company where there was any limit to the work to be done." Then you live in a bubble. Many organisations are restricted in available profitable work to be done, by many factors. Capital & cashflow, capacity & physical limits, demand, regulation & licensing, supply chains & inputs, management bandwidth, risk tolerance, access to credit, etc. etc.
alvah··on Riding the D in Los Angeles: city hopes new subway stations will be game changer
There was a similar case in Seattle with the South Lake Union Trolley, which was quickly renamed to South Lake Union Streetcar, once T-shirts pointing out the unfortunate acronym started drawing attention. This one is clearly deliberate though.
alvah··on I built a 3D printing business and ran it for 8 months
"Yes, I know you can use a shortcut. 99.9% of people don't." <- this is the point you missed.
alvah··on I built a 3D printing business and ran it for 8 months
I see, so people in the non-HN universe aren't abandoning the em-dash where it's actually appropriate, due to massive over-use by chatbots? And despite there being no em-dash key on a keyboard, the appearance of em-dashes in text created by members of the non-HN universe is definitely not cause for suspicion? Why would I be sarcastic /sarc
alvah··on I built a 3D printing business and ran it for 8 months
"Sorry, you're just plain wrong" that's a bit of a leap, when I'm stating my interpretation of what the general opinion is, not how the world should be. Have you interviewed everyone? (I don't just mean the small subset of everyone who posts on HN).
alvah··on I built a 3D printing business and ran it for 8 months
Not the point, and no it doesn't. 99% of anything published since ChatGPT launched, that contains em-dashes, is suspected AI slop. Very few writers will make the extra effort to manually insert an em-dash - in fact hardly any writers even know how to or where it should be used.

I am merely stating how people now view em-dashes, not how I wish things were.

alvah··on I built a 3D printing business and ran it for 8 months
I thought you would miss the point. Looks like you did.
alvah··on I built a 3D printing business and ran it for 8 months
where is the em-dash key on your keyboard? Yes, I know you can use a shortcut. 99.9% of people don't.
alvah··on Claude Design
Isn't it, at least partially?
alvah··on What young workers are doing to AI-proof themselves
What a ludicrous reply, to suggest it should be "socially unacceptable" to believe the Paperclip Maximizer thought experiment might reveal a scenario that is bad for humans overall.
alvah··on Iran war energy shock sparks global push to reduce fossil fuel dependence
How did 40 wells get drilled in the Norwegian shelf last year, and 42 the year before? You can't just make things up.
alvah··on Why I may ‘hire’ AI instead of a graduate student
As mentioned in another comment, the US-centric view of how university and professorship work is certainly not the case in Germany.
alvah··on Why I may ‘hire’ AI instead of a graduate student
You probably need to step outside of your US-centric bubble if you are to comment on how university works outside of the US. There was a fairly large clue in the parent comment.
alvah··on Radio host David Greene says Google's NotebookLM tool stole his voice
That is the best explanation I have seen yet of the difference. I'm definitely stealing it...
alvah··on First impressions of Claude Cowork
"Why publish on Substack, a venture‑backed tech platform whose leadership has chosen a permissive moderation policy?" fixed it for you.
alvah··on Ozempic is changing the foods Americans buy
"So it makes you feel fuller without adding calories, like GLP-1 drugs"

Nobody really knows how GLP-1 agonists work, but given the other effects (e.g. insulin stability, change in other addictive behaviours etc.) it's definitely not just this.

alvah··on How did TVs get so cheap?
"One point is that the things that have increased in cost are more heavily regulated/government controlled than the items that haven't."

This is one of the central theories behind Kartik Gada's ATOM concept. He may come across as a bit of crank to some, but he has some interesting ideas.

alvah··on The Junior Hiring Crisis
lol, the arrogance of youth.... I think the point I'm making might be too subtle for your young, idealistic brain.
alvah··on The Junior Hiring Crisis
I don't care if you are tired or not, it's not something you can just assert and move on.

Also, you know nothing at all of my opinion on whether "a handful of billionaires own everything" is a bad idea or not. All you know about me is I don't agree with you that rising inequality AUTOMATICALLY means some people haven't been rewarded as much as they "should", whatever that means. Reading comprehension, combined with not assuming others' POV, for the win.

alvah··on The Junior Hiring Crisis
"Inequality has been going up in the US for a very long time, which means a lot of people are not being rewarded as much as they should."

The second part of your sentence is not necessarily true. It might be true in some or even many cases, but it's certainly not something you can just assert & move on, as if it's a physical law.

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