tal

I mean, that's really a software design issue. Like, the system should be set up to have a system log of those.

Most visual novel video game systems provide a history to review messages, if one accidentally skipped through something important.

Many traditional roguelikes have a message log to review for the same reason.

Many systems have a "show a modal alert dialog" API call, but don't send it to a log, which frankly is a little bit bonkers; instead, they have separate alert and logging systems. I guess maybe you could make a privacy argument for that, not spreading state all over even the local system, but I'd think that it wouldn't be that hard to make it more-obvious to the user how to clear the log.

Well, it's happened before.

kagis

https://www.thoughtco.com/losing-presidential-candidates-nominated-again-3368135

Here's a list. For nine candidates before (this article predates Trump's third primary victory, so only lists eight) a Presidential candidate has lost in the general election and made it to a second general election. Five of those times, the candidate managed to win in the general election.

• Trump defeated Hillary Clinton in 2016, lost to Biden in 2020, and defeated Harris in 2024.

• Nixon lost to Kennedy in 1960, but defeated Humphrey in 1968.

• Stevenson lost to Eisenhower in 1952 and lost to Eisenhower again in 1956.

• Dewey lost to FDR in 1944 and lost to Truman in 1948.

• Bryan lost to McKinley in 1896, to McKinley again in 1900, and to Taft in 1908.

• Clay lost to John Quincy Adams in 1824, to Jackson in 1832, and to Polk in 1832.

• Harrison lost to Van Buren in 1836, but defeated him in 1840.

• Jackson lost to John Quincy Adams in 1824, and then defeated him in 1828 and defeated Clay in 1832.

• Jefferson lost to Adams in 1796, but defeated him in 1800.

gemma3:27b suggests "Abschreckungsbeispiel".

** User: What does "Abschreckungsbeispiel" mean in English?

** Ellama: "Abschreckungsbeispiel" translates to deterrent example or cautionary example in English.

It refers to someone or something that serves as a warning to others, discouraging them from following the same path or making the same mistakes. The idea is that seeing the negative consequences experienced by this person will deter (discourage) others from doing the same thing.

Think of it like a "look what happens if..." example.

For instance:

• "Er ist ein abschreckendes Beispiel für Workaholismus." - "He is a deterrent example of workaholism." (Seeing his burnout and ruined relationships discourages others from working too much.)

• "Die hohe Kriminalitätsrate in dieser Gegend ist ein abschreckendes Beispiel für soziale Ungleichheit." - "The high crime rate in this area is a cautionary example of social inequality."

It's a strong term, implying a clear and negative consequence that should be avoided.

I don't see any references online to Vonnegut referencing it, though. Online, it appears to normally be hyphenated as "Abschreckungs-Beispiel" or written with a space between the two components, but I don't know enough German to know the significance of the hyphen or space or single word. I imagine that a fluent German speaker would know, though. It seems to be translated as "cautionary example", "warning example", or "deterrence example" online.

For any change, AI or no, why would you take out part of your existing company before confirming that the new thing works for the new role?

Undocumented cellular radios also found in Chinese batteries

Ugh. This is going to become an increasing problem with electronic devices. It's too damn easy to link systems to the Internet now without users knowing about it.

You could definitely sell those for more than $0. The batteries alone aren't cheap.

AI voice synth is pretty solidly-useful in comparison to, say, video generation from scratch. I think that there are good uses for voice synth

e.g. filling in for an aging actor/actress who can't do a voice any more, video game mods, procedurally-generated speech, etc

but audiobooks don't really play to those strengths. I'm a little skeptical that in 2025, it's at the point where it's a good drop-in replacement for audiobooks. What I've heard still doesn't have emphasis on par with a human.

I don't know what it costs to have a human read an audiobook, but I can't imagine that it's that expensive; I doubt that there's all that much editing involved.

kagis

https://www.reddit.com/r/litrpg/comments/1426xav/whats_the_average_narrator_cost/

So I produced my own audiobooks for my Nova Roma series so I know the exact numbers for you:

$250 per finished hour for the narrator. Books ranged from about 200k words-270k words, which came out to 22 hours, 20 hours, and 25 hours.

So books 1-3 cost me $5,500, $5,000, and $6,250. I'm contracted for two more books with my narrator, so I expect to spend another 5k-6k for each of those.

So for a five book series, each one 200k+ words, the total cost out of pocket for me will be about $27,000 give or take to make the series into audiobooks.

That's actually lower than I expected. Like, if a book sells at any kind of volume, it can't be that hard to make that back.

EDIT: I can believe that it's possible to build a speech synth system that does do better, mind

I certainly don't think that there are any fundamental limitations on this. It'd guess that there's also room for human-assisted stuff, where you have some system that annotates the text with emphasis markers, and the annotated text gets fed into a speech synth engine trained to convert annotated text to voice. There, someone listens to the output and just tweaks the annotated text where the annotation system doesn't get it quite right. But I don't think that we're really there today yet.

The article says that they outperformed expectations, and that they'd decided that they didn't need some layers of management. I don't think that that's intrinsically crazy; there are tech companies that have emphasized having a relatively flat structure, like Google.

https://www.cfholbert.com/blog/bigfoot-sightings/

Based on this graph of sightings over time, he's spending less time in the Pacific Northwest and increasing time in Florida.

https://www.core-wm.com/2024/07/02/navigating-floridas-unique-tax-environment-for-high-net-worth-individuals/

Florida has long been a magnet for high-net-worth individuals, thanks in large part to its favorable tax climate.

Florida’s most attractive tax feature is the absence of a state income tax. This applies to both earned income and income from investments, making it particularly appealing for high-income earners and retirees alike.

Florida does not impose estate or inheritance taxes, providing a substantial advantage for wealth preservation and transfer.

I figure he's probably using legal methods to shelter assets from taxes, rather than trying to illegally evade 'em.

Goes to whatever the top result is without an extra click.

Initially, stores tried to manage demand by blocking tax-free purchases, hoping to discourage tourists, mainly from China, from buying cards.

For many, it still makes financial sense to fly to Japan, pick up a 5090, and either resell it or use it for.

Chinese board partners have long been suspected of selling GPUs directly to cryptocurrency miners, bypassing the consumer market entirely. Now, with the AI boom, these companies are shifting even more stock to AI server manufacturers, who are willing to pay a premium. That leaves even fewer GPUs available for regular gamers, making GPU-buying tourism a surprisingly viable option.

It does kind of illustrate how hard it is to restrict the flow of goods.

but I also like the 108 keyboards and not the small ones (daddy needs his numpad).

Man, I was glad to drop my numpad. That forces my mouse further off to the right and causes my keyboard not to be centered with my monitor.

I do have a very few prices of software that use it, and I didn't want to give those up.

What I wound up doing was to get a separate, dedicated numpad for the very few pieces of software that I use that require it. Basically, I care about a handful of older roguelike games. I can put it in front of myself just for those rare occasions.

The numpad was a standby for people who did serious numeric data entry work and spent time to train themselves on the thing. Like, plonking data from paper into a computer. But that isn't a field that most people need to deal with these days

most data can already be gotten in computer-readable form.

I do type numbers on some occasions

I write software and do use some statistical software

but it's invariably mixed with other data, and the time cost of switching between the home row and the numpad is the dominant cost there.

The fact that a high proportion of PC users today use a laptop, and many of those have no numpad, creates a lot of pressure on software not to rely on it as well.

I could maybe see a left-handed person who uses a mouse with their left hand not caring as much, since the mouse isn't a factor.