firecat

Got insincere flattery?

Sat, 21 Feb 2026 11:06:11 GMT

“But I had an epiphany. You know what all this sycophancy constantly being told you’re right, that you’re brilliant, that every decision is flawless? That sounds an awful lot like being a billionaire.”

[sic - perhaps the grammatical error is to show the writer is not an AI]

"The Secret Tool AI Uses to Seduce You: Explained," by Taya Graham and Stephen Janis

I use AI to get answers to simple questions and I hate when the bot addresses me personally. I hate it possibly to an irrational degree. (Even when someone else shares with me an AI convo they had, I get mad.) Do you use AI for anything and what do you think of this design choice?

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This makes me snicker every time

Sun, 30 Jun 2013 19:52:59 GMT

I took a screen shot of this, but then it occurred to me that someone else might have already done it. So I went to Flickr and typed in "chrome fail" and sure enough.

It does this because of some cookie setting I use. Reloading the page fixes it.

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Evidence for sentience in computers

Sun, 18 Nov 2012 20:51:28 GMT

My computer was acting up every which way for the past week. Since it's done that on and off for months, I bit the bullet and ordered a new one. It hasn't given me any trouble since then.

If I put my ear very close to the screen I can hear it whispering "Pleez don't send me awaaaaaaaaaaaaay."

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Updated T.S. Eliot

Wed, 22 Sep 2010 17:10:06 GMT

The .doc File of J. Alfred Prufrock.

http://copperbadge.dreamwidth.org/305346.html

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Reinventing the interface

Sun, 24 May 2009 21:55:37 GMT

http://www.25hoursaday.com/weblog/2009/05/05/RSSReadersModeledAfterEmailClientsAreFundamentallyBroken.aspx

Looking back at the time I’ve spent working on RSS Bandit, I realize there are a couple of features I added to attempt to glom the river of news model on top of an email based model for reading feeds. These features include

* the ability to mark all items as read after navigating away from a feed. This allows you to skim the interesting headlines then not have to deal with the “guilt” of not reading the rest of the items in the feed.
* a reading pane inspired by Google Reader where unread items are presented in a single flow and marked as read as you scroll past each item

Gosh, that sounds just like Usenet.

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OK, I'm glad my city is saving money during its budget crisis...

Sat, 23 May 2009 00:47:31 GMT

...and having an interactive kiosk at city hall instead of a human receptionist is probably a reasonable way to save money.

But did they have to gender it?

http://www.cityofsancarlos.org/civica/press/display.asp?layout=1&Entry=480

"Carly appears in the center of a monopoly-board screen that offers a menu of city departments and services. The Virtual Receptionist is designed to greet visitors and provide much of the assistance a human used to offer.

Residents can access the kiosk via the touch screen monitor, by tapping on the icons that surround her, gaining access to valuable information including department phone numbers and directions to the many city hall offices. In addition, when you click on Carly she begins talking and explaining what services are on the first floor and the second floor, and what services the city provides.

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Recording streaming audio on the Internet

Mon, 18 May 2009 03:55:03 GMT

A couple of my friends do radio shows that are streamed live on the Internet, but they happen at times I usually can't listen, and they aren't archived for copyright reasons.

Is there any Mac software that works like a VCR for streaming audio, that would let me set a timer to record the shows so I could listen later?

(I suppose that would be against the copyright rules too.)

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DW style question: Not sure which community to ask this in

Mon, 11 May 2009 20:41:18 GMT

Not crossposted.

The fonts on comment pages are too small for me to comfortably read. I can manually increase the size of the fonts in my browser, but I get sick of doing that for every page.

I have the appropriate setting checked (Comment Pages: View comment pages from your Reading Page in your own style) but comment pages are not displayed in my style. They are displayed in the Site Scheme style.

Is there any way for me to either
1. Get comment pages in my style
2. Change the colors and fonts of the Site Scheme?

If not are there plans to fix this?

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supporting your favorite authors without supporting your local IKEA

Tue, 21 Apr 2009 04:44:20 GMT

(Also another test of dreamwidth crossposting feature)

From a comment posted in James Nicoll's LJ here.

What I want to know is whether authors are getting more royalties due to there being no way to pass DRM'd e-books on to additional readers the way you can pass on a paper book.

I have my doubts, but if it turned out to be true I would consider getting one of the e-book readers.

(I'm buying as few books as possible because I have absolutely no space left in my house for books. The ones that don't come off my to-read shelf, I get from the library.)

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