Ask HN: How are you using GPT to be productive?

GPT is helping me write a D&D adventure. I'm not very creative so it helps me. If I don't like elements of the story it's very responsive to changing elements.

It's surprisingly good at remembering earlier details. Occassionally it will forget things but another prompt tends to fix that.

For example I'm about to plan Chapter 4. The broad story so far is that the adventurers are doing some tasks for a friendly NPC and during that will slowly uncover clues to the BBEG, in this case a cabal of vampires who plan to plunge the world into darkness.

Prompting it with:

    Let's plan Chapter 4. Can you produce a short table of suggested titles and themes?

It produced:

    Title Theme
    The Vampire's Lair The adventurers infiltrate the vampire lord's castle and uncover his dark secrets.
    A Deadly Dance The adventurers must navigate a treacherous ballroom filled with traps and minions.
    Into the Abyss The adventurers descend into the catacombs beneath the castle and face unspeakable horrors.
    The Final Showdown The adventurers confront the vampire lord and his minions in a dramatic battle for the fate of the realm.
    Beneath the Moonlight The adventurers discover a hidden shrine dedicated to the vampire lord and must unravel its mysteries.
    Blood Magic The adventurers face off against powerful necromancers and witches who serve the vampire lord.
    The Betrayal The adventurers must confront a trusted ally who has been working with the vampire lord all along.

In table form.

Now it's got a little confused, because in chapter 3 the gang already infiltrated the castle and confronted the vampire lord, but another prompt will fix that.

Prompting:

    In Chapter 3, the adventurers already infiltrated the castle and dealt with the vampire lord. Can you reproduce that table assuming the vampire lord is no longer a threat for now (even if he remains at large)?

Produces:

    Sure, here are some possible titles and themes for Chapter 4, assuming that the vampire lord has been defeated (at least for now):

    Title Theme
    A Web of Deceit The adventurers uncover a plot by the cabal to take control of a powerful artifact or location.
    The Hunter Hunted The adventurers are pursued by an assassin or bounty hunter hired by the cabal.
    The Fallen Hero The adventurers discover that a beloved hero or figurehead is secretly working with the cabal.
    An Ancient Evil The adventurers stumble upon an ancient artifact or tomb that holds the key to defeating the cabal.
    The Betrayer's Gambit The adventurers are double-crossed by a trusted ally who has been secretly working with the cabal.
    A Race Against Time The adventurers must complete a series of challenges or tasks before the cabal can enact their plans.
    The Final Confrontation The adventurers engage in a final showdown with the cabal's leader or their most powerful agent.

(again in table form)

Which are great suggestions, now I can pick one and ask it to write the next chapter based on that, at which point we can flesh out more details.

It means quite literally what it says - if you have office 365 you most likely have all your data in the MS cloud sharepoint. MS also has a separate government cloud.

So much:

- generate AWK to transform text

- modify python script to make it multithreaded (when this worked first go I was very mindblown)

- explain concepts that I half understand in clear language, eg explain sharpe ratio and show me the math

- “what do people usually call” type questions. Like what are common job titles for people who do X and Y?

- proof read my emails and make suggestions given a stated goal

- settle language/choice of words discussions by asking GPT to reverse pitch understanding, then choosing the one that’s most aligned with the point we’re trying to make

- generally linux-y commands and explanations “best way to remap keys in i3” or find file with content “xyz” with tool faster than find

The real time applications are a game changer. I haven’t dabbled with that yet! Pasting things from emails and summarising - then keeping in my notes app. Also for planning out days when on holiday.

I paste whole blocks of code into it and ask it to improve it, like make it simpler or reduce duplication. If I have a straight-forward 'thing' I need to do, like, break a file up into chunks of a certain size, I'll ask it to produce that code. So, scenarios where there's a clear-cut task. I recently had to write an SDK in a bunch of languages, I had it convert most of it from one language to another without a huge amount of refactoring/tweaking.

I exported all of my trades into CSV format in 3commas, and asked it to generate the Python code to analyse various hypothesis for that data, which I then pasted into a Jupyter notebook.

It's incredible how much time it's saving me day to day already!