Common sense is gold. It's also hard to find. Ask yourself where, if you were interested, you might find a book full of common sense about say, the airline industry. It's a hard question, right? Most stuff will be either too technical, or too shallow, or simply annoying.
Relatedly, I've found that AIs are spectacularly good at common sense. Nowadays, if I ask myself where I can find common sense about the airline industry, the answer is "Ask an AI, of course." We've never had the ability to find common sense so easily.
I find this phenomena happens with viral posts on Reels and TikTok. The first time I see an example of a trend, I'm delighted! I've never seen anything like this before, and what a great idea! But then I see a second example of the same trend, then a third. Soon I'm sick of them.
For the Reel creator, it doesn't matter if their Reel is the "second time" for many people. As long as they happen to catch enough "first timers" in their dragnet, their post will perform well.
The web comic XKCD built a brand around this, I think. I'm not sure whether the creator did this intentionally, but much of XKCD's success is based on saying things that we all think but haven't articulated. On Reddit, it's very common to see posts where OP complains about a tech issue, and the top voted reply is simply a link to an XKCD comic.
Eddie Van Halen is interesting to read about. It's tempting to dismiss him as a "hair metal guy", but he was actually frighteningly intelligent. Read up about his equipment experiments.
I think the quest thing works because it gives you both roles: you are the Quester, they are the Helper. Both of you know what's expected of you. You are supposed to ask questions passionately, they are supposed to answer helpfully. Random gym conversations are hard because your roles are undefined ("How am I supposed to react?"). In general, many shy people do better socially when they can adopt a role. A shy person might become un-shy when they work as a barista, because they have a role ("barista"). And on a grand scale, a celebrity singer might become un-shy on stage, because she has a role ("singer").
One example I like to use is schadenfreude. The emotion makes us feel good and bad at the same time: it's pleasurable but in an icky way. So should social media algorithms serve schadenfreude? Should algorithms maximize for pleasure (show it) or for some kind of "higher self" (don't show it). If they maximize for "higher self" then which designer gets to choose what that means?
I switched to iPhone from Android six months ago and still can't handle this iPhone keyboard. The iPhone keyboard aggravates me literally every single second that I use it. I hate it passionately. The iPhone keyboard is so bad that even though I love the rest of the phone, I'm considering switching back to Android.
Do you mean VR "in the cockpit" or in the stadium? Flight simming has a robust VR community. I assume ultra technical car racing sims like iRacing are fun to spectate in VR. Geoguessr seems like a natural fit for VR as well, as long as you can avoid neck injuries from craning your head around.
I assume the learning curve will get shallower over time. Onboarding is better than ever and will only improve. Lots of 70 and 80 year olds on Facebook now, and future Facebooks will verbally handhold you as you log on. "Press the red button that I just highlighted... great job!" etc.
Somewhat similar but I love my niche Instagram ads. Meta serves me endless ads for diecast miniatures, art toys, obscure manga etc. Stuff that I love and would never have found otherwise.
You don't need to disprove an underpowered study. You can just default to ignoring it. Especially in a field as notorious for replication issues as fitness and nutrition.
I like that coffee is clearly a drug, a mind-alterer. But it's mostly harmless so it's been boosted as a sort of society-wide mascot. Humans really love drugs.
Perhaps human-like creatures are so common in drug hallucinations because we're human, social animals, creatures who are maximally interested in other humans. If you gave drugs to dogs then perhaps they'd see human-like things mixed with dog-like things. I assume crocodiles, solitary animals, would see nothing besides wounded fish or maybe sexy female crocodiles.
Note that these are different than what Geoguessrs typically see. Geoguessr players are familiar with Google Street View's "odd but ugly" images: tropical forests in Russia, tank convoys in Turkey etc.
But TFA photos were selected by someone with a good eye for photography. They're beautifully composed, have clear subjects, well-timed.
Probably in part, yes! Since it’s a pet peeve, I must be making extra special note of it every time I see it. So it’s probable that I’m overweighting it!
That being said I’m quite sure that it’s being used more frequently recently. For example, I read a shortish 2000-word article yesterday that uses the word “quietly” four times. And ChatGPT 5.1 used it in most of its responses. Also I’d expect that the frequency illusion wears off quite quickly, whereas I’ve noticed “quietly” for some time and the feeling doesn’t seem to be wearing off. Maybe you’ll start to notice it now too!
It’s definitely a useful word! Modern tech rollouts often do happen without fanfare. And the word alerts readers to a kind of story shape. So I can see why people use it! Its usage reminds me of when competitive video games develop a new meta, a new powerful technique. There follows a short period where everyone spams the technique over and over. Eventually people figure out a counter and the meta quietly disappears. (Couldn’t help myself!)
Totally unrelated but what’s up with the word “quietly”? Its usage seems to have gone up 5000%, essentially overnight, as if there’s a contagion. You see the word in the New York Times, in government press releases, in blogs. ChatGPT 5.1 itself used the word in almost every single response, and no amount of custom instructions could get it to stop. That “Google Maps of London restaurants” article that’s going around not only uses the word in the headline, but also twice in the closing passage alone, for example. And now Simon, who’s an excellent writer with an assertive style, has started using it in his headlines. What’s the deal? Why have so many excellent writers from a wide range of subjects suddenly all adopted the same verbal tic? Are these writers even aware that they’re doing it?
You might want to look into workprints! They're versions of movies that are shown to test audiences, executives, or internal screeners. They're often pre-sound mixing, pre-editing, pre-VFX. So you get stuff like clip art explosions where later VFX will go, or bare production dialogue where you can hear the room echo and crew footsteps. They're super neat!
In a way I actually prefer these versions. I love seeing how the sausage gets made. It turns the show into a quasi making-of documentary and that's a neat opportunity.
"This was such an eye-opening breakdown. Most people only see the big retail win, not the insane operational load, cashflow pressure, and forecasting stress behind it. Really appreciate how transparently you shared the real founder experience. Huge respect for the execution and the growth you achieved."
I hate to say this but the indie game developer community is in some local minima where tribal in-group signaling takes precedence over thinking about the consumer. The industry has developed a siege mentality and is entering a "rooting out traitors" phase. The AI thing is only one example of this self-policing; there are many. I really hope that the industry can become more free spirited, less intense and angry. I love the games and the people but the industry is not in a healthy place right now.
Replying to my own comment several days later: I regret writing this. I know nothing about this woman's life yet I attempt to rip her to pieces, and I wrote the comment mostly to show off.