This specific use case is awesome-- I use an integrated AI notetaker in my self-built notes app for my thoughts and I wonder if I could connect the index to it?
More broadly: Invisible wearable microphones are coming for everyone and perfect memory will follow. I'm incredibly excited about this for myself and simultaneously terrified about everyone else having it.
It's coming fast enough that I'm beginning to assume in any decently sized crowd of tech folks /someone/ is recording everything.
Agree with a lot of this methodology-- having lived in NYC with kids the #1 contributing factor to a feeling of claustrophobia for me is the size of the sidewalk and its buffering from the road.
Compared to even the suburbs where 1-2 people on a sidewalk can feel like you're dangerously close to having to step into an active roadway, sidewalks in NYC neighborhoods like the upper east side feel gigantic and are bordered by parked cars that provide a buffer to the roadway.
In 1811 the grid plan designated sidewalk widths to be 20ft for major cross-town roads vs. many suburban sidewalk widths at 4-5 feet.
Since the astronauts were up there planting flags... I'd think it's less about the vessel in space and more about making it clear that the land visited isn't considered claimed as part of the US.
I wrote a notes app in react native just for myself a few years ago (out of frustration after changing notes apps every year or so) that does /exactly/ what I want and it has been the most used app on my phone for a few years now.
It's offline-first but syncs reliably, uses the exact interpretation and display of markdown I like, searches and sorts the way I like, integrates with AI only in the ways I want it to (specific search capabilities, summarizing), uses on-device dictation via whisper so speech-to-text works when I'm away from a data connection, tracks location... I could go on and on since I add a new feature every month or so from a note (inside the app!) where I keep track of little things I wish it had.
But most importantly nothing ever gets added to it that I don't want... ever. No one else ever updates the terms of service, the UI layout, the retention period, the formatting, the shortcuts... there isn't some subscription I have to keep track of, or "pro" modes, or popups telling me about new features I should check out.
And since I have access to the backing db I can do all kinds of fun stuff with the data-- I've been playing way more with local LLMs lately with it.
I think it's healthy to remember that not everything has to be a startup or a public github repo.
And this is why people like Emacs or go for no desktop environment on Linux. Customize it to fit what you need and no further. Then you can just use it without learning where everything is again.
This is why I "rice" my desktop. I keep seeing a lot of videos and posts saying "just use the defaults" and "ricing is a tar pit". But its a great way to understand your tools and build it just for you.
I've built a very similar contraption, but without any libraries because I got annoyed at having to relearn a new kind of React after react class components got out of fashion and people started using hooks. I built it out of raw JavaScript and a raw python socket server.
How do you manage sync? Mine is a WebApp so I use indexedDB, and that's nice so that it works on my computer browser, but I don't want multiple tab synchronization on my phone and it's tricky to handle. I've built something that works, but I'd love to explore other designs.
You said React Native, so there might be a regular app sort of data store to disk.
This is the web2 internet I remember and love. People sharing their lives.
I watched a blurry video of a family at the zoo, a father tickling his toddler (who is having an absolute blast), a middle school play rehearsal, some guy's high school class presentation in south africa (I think?), a random indie country band at a bar, lots of terrible dancing... all joyful, no agendas.
There was a thread yesterday about Facebook's little red book and a lot of nostalgia from folks who were there at the time about the optimism across builders then. This was the kind of content that drove that feeling.
Seems like it. Pretty messy too because it sometimes pushes you to reset your password which then doesn't work so there are going to be a LOT of reset email codes floating out there.
Agreed. Probably could be a much better UX for handling a mass outage like this. Graceful, clear error messaging that FB login is down would be better than the current UI.
Triggering millions of people to unnecessarily reset their password yet still be unable to login is not a great UX. This seems like one of those cases that's high impact when it does happen, never likely to occur on any given day, but likely to happen at some point; probably just wasn't much focus put on handling a case like this.
From a process/QA perspective I doubt this can ever be properly tested.
Sure you can set up a UX to show that the auth server is somehow down and discourage users from trying to login/reset passwords, but when shit hits the fan, you actually never know the precise error that gets thrown to the client because it could be any layer between the backend and the client that failed...
He clarifies that he had prior written agreement to work on shareware and this software specifically. You can do this at most established big tech still today (possibly tougher at startups).
And hey it worked out great for Microsoft— they got the software they wanted at a great price (1x used corvette * ~1.8 for taxes) with no negotiation, and they already employ the guy who wrote it so I imagine integrating it was even easier than they expected.
The incident count for very early onset Crohns is rapidly increasing [1]-- I wonder if they'll start to make these drugs available for younger children since today it's more or less forbidden for them to be used on kids under 16.
> "Air Canada argues it cannot be held liable for information provided by one of its agents, servants, or representatives—including a chatbot," Rivers wrote. "It does not explain why it believes that is the case" or "why the webpage titled 'Bereavement travel' was inherently more trustworthy than its chatbot."
This is very reasonable-- AI or not, companies can't expect consumers to know which parts of their digital experience are accurate and which aren't.
Forget about digital experiences for a moment. Forget entirely about chatbots.
> Air Canada argues it cannot be held liable for information provided by one of its agents, servants, or representatives
That includes EMPLOYEES. So they tried to argue that their employees can lie to your face to get you to buy a ticket under false pretense and then refuse to honor the promised terms? That's absolutely fucked.
I once booked a flight to meet my then-fiancee in Florida on vacation. Work travel came up unexpectedly, and I booked my work travel from ORD > SFO > TPA.
Before I made that booking, I called the airline specifically to ask them if skipping the ORD > TPA leg of my personal travel was going to cause me problems. The agent confirmed, twice that it would not. This was a lie.
Buried in the booking terms is language meant to discourage gaming the system by booking travel where you skip certain legs. So if you skip a leg of your booking, the whole thing is invalidated. It's not suuuuper clear, I had to read it a few times, but I guess it kinda said that.
Anyways - my itinerary was invalidated by skipping the first flight, and I got lucky enough that someone canceled at the last minute and I could buy my own seat back on the now-full flight for 4x the original ticket price I paid (which was not refunded!).
I followed up to try and get to the bottom of it, but they were insistent they had no record of my call prior, and just fell back on "It's in the terms, and I do not know why you were told wrong information". Very painful lesson to learn.
I try and make a habit of recording phone conversations with agents now, if legal in where I'm physically located at the time.
In the US at least once that notification that "the call may be recorded for quality assurance " happens, both parties have been notified and you're good to record regardless of the state you are in.
I used to use a couple of apps like Cube ACR, or Call Recorder Pro, but these no longer work, and I'm skeptical of the workarounds to get them working again.
Given the new restrictions in Android 10, probably the way forward is a passthrough device which uses 3.5mm connectors to MITM the audio. I haven't found one which is a sure bet yet.
It's ridiculous both iOS and Android largely have no way to record calls/try to prevent it, especially when some of us live in jurisdictions where we are well within our legal rights do to that very thing.
Pixels don't have call recording enabled (in most regions?). It's frustrating that I'm forced to use a third party app to provide a feature that the phone app should have built-in, but Google decided I can't be trusted with.
EDIT: It used to be geo-blocked, now it's "This feature isn't available on Pixel."
That just gets me an option for "Start RTT Call". Nothing like call recording.
I'm on an S10e, which is not that new, so that could be part of it. I bought an older phone, because I really like my top grain leather case, so I wanted to get a phone which fit the case more than I wanted a more cutting edge phone.
It's inconvenient, but I've observed journalists who recorded calls by putting the phone on Speaker mode to increase the volume, and then used a second device (such as a laptop or iPad) to record the call.
> They tried to argue that their employees can lie to your face to get you to buy a ticket under false pretense and then refuse to honor the promised terms. That's fucked.
Pretty standard behavior for big companies. Airlines and telcos are the utter worst... you have agent A on the phone on Monday, who promises X to be done by Wednesday. Thursday, you call again, get agent B, who says he doesn't see anything, not even a call log, from you, but of course he apologizes and it will be done by Friday. (Experienced customers of telcos will know that the drama will unfold that way for months... until you're fed up and involve lawyers)
I had a problem with Verizon FIOS that went on for more than half a year, where they'd charge me for a service I wasn't signed up for, then I'd call in to complain and demand a refund, then they'd refund me and apologize profusely and swear up and down that they had fixed the problem for sure and that it would definitely not happen again, then it would of course happen again the next month, rinse&repeat.
Finally I filed an FCC consumer complaint which then forces a written response from the company within 30 days. I got a call a few days later from someone at Verizon's "Executive Relations" who fixed it immediately. It was such a frustrating dance, but the real trick is that when this happens don't mess around with a hostile company. Just go directly to the regulator agency they're required to answer to.
I had this happen with Rogers! Another loved and treasured bigcorp in Canada! Called to tell them I was moving in 2 months and to cancel my service and the agent says, oh well if you want to still have internet in the mean time, you'll have to call back in two months when you move. Ok. Great. I do that. Agent number 2: Well you didn't cancel with X many days of notice so there's a cancellation fee now on your acoount. Pay up!
I suppose agent 1 was jerking my chain so he wouldn't take the hit on his retention metrics so I don't blame him 100%. I blame Rogers bullshit system of incentives for their employees and their bullshit contracts they force on consumers who have little to no choice in the market here.
I bet if we removed the requirement to get a lawyer and file a lawsuit that those behaviors would vanish real quick, if all you had to do as the wronged consumer was report to an authority that Company X is doing business dishonestly.
You are probably not wrong, however take note that this is exactly the line of thinking that led to the DMCA. Beware the law of unintended consequences.
To misquote you.
"I bet if we removed the requirement to get a lawyer and file a lawsuit that those behaviors would vanish real quick, if all you had to do as the wronged copyright holder was report to an authority(the hosting service) that Company X is infringing on your copyright."
It also led to things like easy small claims court, consumer protection agencies and DPOs which protect consumers against corporations here in Europe without them having to shell out thousands of euros for lawyers and court cases.
> I bet if we removed the requirement to get a lawyer and file a lawsuit that those behaviors would vanish real quick, if all you had to do as the wronged consumer was report to an authority that Company X is doing business dishonestly.
They can still appeal the decisions of the authority in the courts of law.
They will just get the authority disbanded altogether.
Previously, on hn
`Amazon argues that national labor board is unconstitutional (apnews.com)`
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39411829
In Germany, we have the Verbraucherschutz as a low-level institution to handle such claims. They can and do consolidate such reports and can file lawsuits if there is evidence of systemic misbehavior.
I think I could price for a few tens of thousands of dollars a service that creates a bunch of such wronged consumers. There are a bunch of homeless people in San Francisco we will represent. To make it easy for someone on the streets to be able to complain, we actually operate as a non-profit that advocates on their behalf for having wronged the company. You could use my service to attack another company on demand, but I advise that you do it at critical moments. Ideally, two weeks before a big launch or so should do it so that we have enough time to stagger out sufficient number of complaints.
This isn't a new business idea. There are law firms that specialize in consumer class action suits, and part of their skillset is finding lots of wronged consumers to represent.
Signing up homeless people by the hundred isn't exactly the gold standard of what these firms do, but it's not a million miles removed.
I can sort of see it. On the one hand, it's reasonable to hold them accountable when an employee gives you the wrong discount. But if an employee, on their last day at work, decides to offer the next person calling all of the seats on a single flight for just $10, I think we'd all agree that it would be unreasonable to expect the airline to honor that offer.
It's the degree of misinformation that's relevant.
> But if an employee, on their last day at work, decides to offer the next person calling all of the seats on a single flight for just $10, I think we'd all agree that it would be unreasonable to expect the airline to honor that offer.
The airline is free to go after the lying employee for compensation if they find out too late. It is never acceptable for the airline to cheat their customers.
I once ordered a gift for my father for christmass. The order page indicated that it would arrive on time. When it didn't arrive, I requested a refund. They then pointed to their FAQ page where they said that orders during the holidays would incur extra processing time, and refused the refund.
I wrote back that unless they issused a refund, I would issue a charge back. You don't get to present the customer with one thing and then do otherwise because you say so on a page the customer has never read when ordering.
This actually sounds like an interesting case to me because the details make a huge legal difference in my mind. (But IANAL, maybe I'm entirely off base here.)
E.g., did they tell you the shipping date after you placed the order, or before? If it was afterward, then it can't have invalidated the contract... you agreed to it without knowing when it would ship. If they told you before, then was it before they knew your shipping address, or after? If it was beforehand, then again, it should've been clear that they wouldn't be able to guarantee it without knowing the address. If it was after they got the address but before you placed the order, then that makes for a strong case, since it was specific to your order and what you agreed to before placing it.
> If it was afterward, then it can't have invalidated the contract... you agreed to it without knowing when it would ship.
> Sellers have to ship your order within the time they (or their ads) say. That goes whether they say “2-Day Shipping” or “In Stock & Ships Today.” If they don’t give a time, they must ship within 30 days of when you placed your order.
I believe that's referring to "shipment" in the sense of "when this gets mailed", not the arrival time like we were discussing? I guess it might depend on where the delays were incurred, and what exactly was promised.
Why would they tell the date after placing? Every online shopping I ever used shows the shipping date together with shipping price and shipping options if there are any.
If they're going to ship immediately, then they can know before you place the order. If there's another entity involved (third party seller, backorder, etc.) then they might not be able to know when it will be shipped with much certainty.
I expect employees to know the correct answers and give them to me. When an employee says something that contradicts other policy pages I'm expecting that to be a change to company policy to me - they represent the company.
If the company doesn't agree to that, then they need to show the employee was trained on company policy and was disciplined (on first offense maybe just a warning, but this needs to be a clear step on the path to firing the employee) for failing to follow it. Even then they should stand by their employee if the thing said was reasonable (refund you $million may be unreasonable, but refund purchase price is reasonable)
This line of argument is crazy and infuriating. "Air Canada essentially argued, 'the chatbot is a separate legal entity that is responsible for its own actions,' a court order said." Do they expect people to sue the chatbot? Are they also implying that people have to sue individual agents if they cause a problem?
> 27. Air Canada argues it cannot be held liable for information provided by one of its agents, servants, or representatives – including a chatbot. It does not explain why it believes that is the case. In effect, Air Canada suggests the chatbot is a separate legal entity that is responsible for its own actions. This is a remarkable submission. While a chatbot has an interactive component, it is still just a part of Air Canada’s website. It should be obvious to Air Canada that it is responsible for all the information on its website. It makes no difference whether the information comes from a static page or a chatbot.
> https://www.canlii.org/en/bc/bccrt/doc/2024/2024bccrt149/202...
Real legal comedy. Since this was in small claims court maybe it was an amateur on Air Canada's side?
If they could reasonably expect to be able to hire people who would agree to accept all liability incurred during their work for the company, they absolutely would.
Same with chatbots. Even better, because once it's "trained", you don't have to pay it.
There's a few instances of expecting digital entities to shoulder the entirety of legal liability here in the last few years; DAOs are another example of this in the crypto space.
More broadly: Invisible wearable microphones are coming for everyone and perfect memory will follow. I'm incredibly excited about this for myself and simultaneously terrified about everyone else having it.
It's coming fast enough that I'm beginning to assume in any decently sized crowd of tech folks /someone/ is recording everything.