Father in law was a real estate agent from the 80s until maybe 5 years ago.
The day he retired was the day he absolutely positively suddenly wanted nothing to do with real estate anymore. He loved the career but it was interesting watching him just suddenly be done with it.
He found other hobbies and interests pretty quickly once he took an inventory of how he wanted to spend his time.
My wife is in grad school at a major university and is dealing with this right now the week of midterms for spring quarter.
I totally understand why a university wouldn’t want to bake their own learning portals but just feels like such a single point of risk to use third party solutions for something like this.
Back in my day… all we had was a school email via on-premise services. I guess we registered for classes in a web portal but that’s about it. The idea of online class was entirely foreign at the time. Ain’t nobody hacking a blue book.
I honestly know I could “optimize” my phone replacement schedule based on resale values of phones etc, but for the last ~15ish years I just replace my iPhone when the battery starts shitting itself (3-5 years each in my experience)
We got one of these for our elementary-aged kids because it took off in our network of families at their school.
It’s so fun watching them talk to their buddies from school, planning play dates, just chitchatting etc. My favorite thing is when they prank call one another, cracks me up.
Maybe the novelty wears off soon but for at least the last month or so they’ve used it every day. It feels like it gives them a bit of autonomy they’re seeking right now at their ages, but in a relatively safe way.
I honestly bet 75% of the time I hear “We are currently experiencing high call volumes” someone answered within a minute or two.
In some sense that has the befit of a “surprise and delight” moment too because the consumer might be prepared to wait longer and then “whoa nice, that wasn’t so long!”
I am so glad this product is failing/failed, and I find myself truly and existentially rooting for the glasses with the cameras to die a similar fate.
I have so many questions about the overarching product vision of Meta and can't help but think they're going to continue to struggle with everything that isn't "serve more relevant ads on Instagram."
Anecdote: my most vivid memory of their "VR vision" is virtual versions of Mark and another exec high-fiving in front of a flooded Puerto Rico. Classy.
I had a CT scan last year for some stomach issues they wanted to look at.
Doctor warned me up front that the odds the images find something that looks weird is high but not to panic because of how many false positives there are when looking inside someone’s body.
While I am happy to report they didn’t find anything serious, I do take slight offense to the following at the top of my results:
Last name, First name: Unremarkable
(Kidding of course but still got a chuckle out of me)
Best VP I’ve ever had would stop meetings with regular frequency and say, “maybe I’m the dumbest person here, but I don’t understand [insert something being discussed], can you help me get a better understanding?”
It was anybody’s guess if they really didn’t understand the topic or if they were reading the room, but it was always appreciated.
Full disclosure: after leaving tech, I’m back in grad school to get my LMHC so I’m obviously biased.
First, I just don’t see a world where therapy can be replaced by LLMs, at least in the realistic future. I think humans have been social creatures since the dawn of our species and in these most intimate conversations are going to want to be having them with an actual human. One of my mentors has talked about how after years of virtual sessions dominating, the demand for in-person sessions is spiking back up. The power of being in the same physical room with someone who is offering a nonjudgmental space to exist isn’t going to be replaced.
That being said, given the shortage of licensed mental health counselors, and the prohibitive cost especially for many who need a therapist most, I truly hope LLMs develop to offer an accessible and cheap alternative that can at least offer some relief. It does have the potential to save lives and I fully support ethically-focused progress toward developing that sort of option.
Yes, this should be required viewing in high school imo.
As someone who used to think I was generally “immune” to advertising, I have come to realize the influence goes so much deeper than “see ad on TV, go buy product” and is instead a much, much darker sense of “the only way to get rid of this anxiety is to Buy More Stuff.”
His more recent Can’t Get You Out of My Head is also fantastic about how we got from There to Here from WWII to present day.
My friend and I have started tinkering on our cars together.
He’s got an early 90s 525i BMW and I’ve got a 2000 SR5 Toyota 4Runner.
The engineering of my Toyota is so much simpler and easier to work on than his BMW. But his BMW has given us a lot more practice, if you know what I mean ^_^
That Tin Can device has infiltrated (in a good way, what a fun idea!) my oldest kids’ social circle at elementary school. Most of his friends are requesting one for Christmas and we’re planning on getting our kid one as well.
Really hoping the idea lasts, lots of good memories of dialing friends on our landline growing up and chatting casually.
Now if only it could replicate the dread of calling a crush’s house and her dad picking up the phone…
I just visited NYC for the first time a few months ago, and had the most amazing time, one hell of a city and I can’t wait to get back.
I could ramble for hours about all the things I loved about the trip, but one of the things that stuck out was all the young kids taking the subway by themselves or in small packs of friends out pretty late etc. They all seemed so much more street smart and independent than my own similar aged kids (we live in a quiet neighborhood in Seattle). I also grew up fairly sheltered in the suburbs where I had very little exposure to the “real world” as they say…
I’d be fascinated to hear more about what it’s like to grow up in such a massive city.
I’ve got “normie” friends who I’d bet don’t even know that what Google has at the top of their search results is “AI” results and instead assume it’s just some extension of the normal search results we’ve all gotten used to (knowledge graph)
Every one of them refers to using “ChatGPT” when talking about AI.
How likely is it to stay that way? No idea, but OpenAI has clearly captured a notable amount of mindshare in this new era.
The day he retired was the day he absolutely positively suddenly wanted nothing to do with real estate anymore. He loved the career but it was interesting watching him just suddenly be done with it.
He found other hobbies and interests pretty quickly once he took an inventory of how he wanted to spend his time.