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The most talented person in the world

matt.sh

71–80 of 155 posts

Re: The most talented person in the world

#71
post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We don't need to. We have LLMs now

I'm sorry but LLMs notoriously provide inaccurate and otherwise awful information. Case in point, I asked an LLM what the last non cellular windows mobile classic PDA was. (I knew the answer) And it routinely got it wrong. This is what LLMs should be useful for. If I cant audit the results or very how it came to the conclusion the answer is useless. LLMs are toys at this juncture.

Here are the results for that exact search in Google: https://www.google.com/search?q=what+was+the+last+non+cellul...

vs 4o: The last non-cellular Windows Mobile Classic PDA was the HP iPAQ 110 Classic. Released in 2008, it ran on Windows Mobile 6.0 Classic and featured a 624-MHz Marvell PXA310 processor, 256MB of Flash ROM, and a 3.5-inch screen with a 240 x 320 resolution. It included Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connectivity but lacked cellular capabilities, making it one of the final models in the declining PDA market as smartphones began to dominate [oai_citation:1,List of Windows Mobile devices - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Windows_Mobile_devices) [oai_citation:2,The End of the Classic Version of Windows Mobile (AKA the PDA)](http://www.pocketpcfaq.com/commentary/end_of_WM_Classic.htm) [oai_citation:3,HP iPAQ 110 Classic - PDA Like It's 1999 - WiFi Planet](https://wi-fiplanet.com/hp-ipaq-110-classic/).

I know which version I'd prefer.

Re: The most talented person in the world

#72

I’m amazed my medical websites… The top 5-10 sites all seem have identical wording for common conditions. In the age of copyright enforcement and DMCA antics, I don’t understand how this continues year after year.

I worked in a hospital system for a time—those documents are often integrated through a medical system where the hospital pays a recurring subscription, and the site developers just plug things through an API to display the documents from the central medical system.

Thus, you have one document that's identical across dozens or hundreds of different hospital and medical system websites.

A long time ago, I held more weight in results from reputable places like Mayo Clinic, but even their site seems to be the same as all the others now.

Re: The most talented person in the world

#73
How bad does it have to get before it stops working, I mean like phone a friend brittanica yellow pages bad? Quicker and more deeply we get there, the more effort and traction gets behind some breakout solution. Maybe it's just pure cynicism: burn it all.

Remember email spam? It got so bad, that we fixed it. I mean email has its issues and how but spam isn't one of them. I built a spam juggernaught in my day (got bills don't I :)) and I feel like I contributed a tiny bit to our almost-spamless latter days.

Progress! The world is on the march.

Re: The most talented person in the world

#74
How bad does it have to get before it stops working, I mean like phone a friend brittanica yellow pages bad? Quicker and more deeply we get there, the more effort and traction gets behind some breakout solution. Maybe it's just pure cynicism: burn it all.

Remember email spam? It got so bad, that we fixed it. I mean email has its issues and how but spam isn't one of them. I built a spam juggernaught in my day (got bills don't I :)) and I feel like I contributed a tiny bit to our almost-spamless latter days.

Progress! The world is on the march.

Re: The most talented person in the world

#75
post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We don't need to. We have LLMs now

I still would like to search and not get the dog crap that is Google's Internet, in addition to using LLMs myself.

Switch to Kagi, IMHO it's worlds better than Google. It's worth the price, I get a lot more out of it than my Netflix subscription.

Re: The most talented person in the world

#76
While I understand the frustration of the author in searching the web today (I do too), I am not sure how they get to:

> We end up with real time global access from “low trust low income max exploitation because who is going to stop us” wankers to “high trust high income low questioning” societies and everything falls apart.

Obviously, there are "low trust high income max exploitation" folks doing the damage too, as one of the linked articles talks about frauds with wiring large sums (in 100ks of dollars) into Hong Kong, which is itself an expensive city.

Similarly, from the other direction, you've got high-income communities "exploiting" lower-income communities by getting cheaper labour (like getting things produced in China) — paying less than they would locally for the same or larger work effort.

The solution to this is obviously global equalization of salary bands, which is well under way due to an ability to do a lot of highly paid work remotely and globalization in general — but it will take some time (and it's also why China is becoming less appealing in particular: salaries are going up there as well). But that will lead to a new set of problems altogether.

Re: The most talented person in the world

#77
post #64
post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IMHO a major part of the problem is that the Internet never had a mechanism for paying for good content. Everything is “free” therefore ads emerge as the only monetization strategy and you did a good job outlining the rest. I’ve started trying to pay for good journalism, especially good indie journalism. I also Patreon a bunch of podcasts, buy high quality software if the price is reasonable, buy albums of my favorit…

Who are some indie journalists you've found to be worth paying? I'd like to find some more work that's worth supporting.

Andrew Callaghan of Channel 5 News

Re: The most talented person in the world

#78
I am a dynamic figure, often seen scaling walls and crushing ice. I have been known to remodel train stations on my lunch breaks, making them more efficient in the area of heat retention. I translate ethnic slurs for Cuban refugees, I write award-winning operas, I manage time efficiently. Occasionally, I tread water for three days in a row.

I woo women with my sensuous and godlike trombone playing, I can pilot bicycles up severe inclines with unflagging speed, and I cook Thirty-Minute Brownies in twenty minutes. I am an expert in stucco, a veteran in love, and an outlaw in Peru.

Using only a hoe and a large glass of water, I once single-handedly defended a small village in the Amazon Basin from a horde of ferocious army ants. I play bluegrass cello, I was scouted by the Mets, I am the subject of numerous documentaries. When I’m bored, I build large suspension bridges in my yard. I enjoy urban hang gliding. On Wednesdays, after school, I repair electrical appliances free of charge.

I am an abstract artist, a concrete analyst, and a ruthless bookie. Critics worldwide swoon over my original line of corduroy evening wear. I don’t perspire. I am a private citizen, yet I receive fan mail. I have been caller number nine and have won the weekend passes. Last summer I toured New Jersey with a traveling centrifugal-force demonstration. I bat 400. My deft floral arrangements have earned me fame in international botany circles. Children trust me.

I can hurl tennis rackets at small moving objects with deadly accuracy. I once read Paradise Lost, Moby Dick, and David Copperfield in one day and still had time to refurbish an entire dining room that evening. I know the exact location of every food item in the supermarket. I have performed several covert operations for the CIA. I sleep once a week; when I do sleep, I sleep in a chair. While on vacation in Canada, I successfully negotiated with a group of terrorists who had seized a small bakery. The laws of physics do not apply to me.

I balance, I weave, I dodge, I frolic, and my bills are all paid. On weekends, to let off steam, I participate in full-contact origami. Years ago I discovered the meaning of life but forgot to write it down. I have made extraordinary four course meals using only a mouli and a toaster oven. I breed prizewinning clams. I have won bullfights in San Juan, cliff-diving competitions in Sri Lanka, and spelling bees at the Kremlin. I have played Hamlet, I have performed open-heart surgery, and I have spoken with Elvis.

But I have not yet gone to college.

- well known missive from decades ago

Re: The most talented person in the world

#79

How bad does it have to get before it stops working, I mean like phone a friend brittanica yellow pages bad? Quicker and more deeply we get there, the more effort and traction gets behind some breakout solution. Maybe it's just pure cynicism: burn it all. Remember email spam? It got so bad, that we fixed it. I mean email has its issues and how but spam isn't one of them. I built a spam juggernaught in my day (got bil…

I find personal email to be almost useless for anything other than mailing lists and online shopping messages. I don't consider it fixed; we already left it to burn.

Re: The most talented person in the world

#80
I was nodding my head as a member of the choir until

> The only future of the internet is, sadly, proof-of-person and proof-of-residence on every public network interaction

Yeah, go away. The problem is that Google has monopolized web aggregation. Without it these sites wouldn't be worth making. I've got to show ID to post something online to kick that can down the road?

The way I see it this is a self resolving problem. Ad driven search engines rank ad driven blog spam, people get tired of it and use methods of finding content that don't show that garbage, these guys, along with their multinational trillion dollar benefactor, go out of business. Problem solved.

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