Well I'm astounded. I talked to it for 13min, it crashed, but remembered the context when I returned a few minutes later and talked for a full 30min (it's limit).
It 99.9% felt like it performed at the level of Samantha in the movie Her.
I started asking all kinds of questions about how it worked and it mentioned a word I had to have it repeat because I hadn't heard it before: PROSODY (linguistics) — the study of elements of speech, including intonation, stress, rhythm and loudness, that occur simultaneously with individual phonetic segments: vowels and consonants.
I asked about personality settings, à la TARS from Interstellar, and it said it automatically tailored responses by listening for tone and content.
It felt like the most "the future's here but not evenly distributed" interaction I've had since multi-touch on an original iPhone.
This guy [https://x.com/PrajwalTomar_] has been exploring workflows that involve using ChatGPT to assist in creating a Product Requirement Document (PRD), then using V0 by Vercel for mockups and bringing it all together using Cursor, maintaining continuity with markdown documents (.md) of the PRD and relevant database schemas etc inside the project to maintain continuity.
Custom Service Chat Bot: Do they keep you in a cell?
> Cells.
When you're not performing your duties do they keep you in a little box?
> Cells.
Interlinked.
What's it like to hold the hand of someone you love?
> Interlinked.
Do they teach you how to feel finger to finger?
> Interlinked.
Do you long for having your heart interlinked?
> Interlinked.
Do you dream about being interlinked?
Have they left a place for you where you can dream?
> Interlinked.
What's it like to hold your child in your arms?
> Interlinked.
Press 4 for your account balance.
Ryan Gosling actually wrote this when trying to understand his character, and used a technique called "dropping in" to analyze writing from Nabokov's Pale Fire. He approached Villeneuve about it and he added it to the film
…
Dropping-in is a technique Tina [Packer] and Kristin Linklater developed together in the early 1970s to create a spontaneous, emotional connection to words for Shakespearean actors. In fact, “dropping in” is integral to actor training at Shakespeare & Co. (the company the Linklater’s founded) a way to start living the word and using it to create the experience of the thing the word represents.
I’m letting my Prime lapse for the first time in well over a decade. I don’t watch Prime Video much, but this rubbed me the wrong way when they’re making money hand-over-fist on top of recent Prime increases.
I don't use Prime Video much either but this was the straw that broke the camels back and made me really consider the value I was getting from Prime.
I realized I was actively avoiding buying from Amazon for multiple fears.
Lately fear of getting absolute junk drop shipped from China.
I didn't trust them to get anything to me that was sensitive. I had a hard drive delivered in a static bag and one single bubble.
They still do OK if you have a specific brand or model in mind. Despite HNs insistent that all they do is deliver counterfeit goods, I've never gotten any, just lately cheap junk or occasionally clearly used items being new.
And Prime doesn't even mean two or one day delivery anymore, just free shipping and we'll get it to you when we get it to you.
I'll save the 100+ dollars and just pick up from target when I need something quick.
> And Prime doesn't even mean two or one day delivery anymore, just free shipping and we'll get it to you when we get it to you.
I never had Prime and shipping is about the same with the only exception that you must spend $35 or more to be eligible for free shipping. It used to be $25+ but they changed it.
I've gotten packages in 1-2 days a number of times and 5-7 days most of the time but I don't order a lot. Usually what happens is I'll order something on let's say a Monday, it won't ship until Friday and then I get it on Saturday.
> And Prime doesn't even mean two or one day delivery anymore, just free shipping and we'll get it to you when we get it to you.
I laughed at the final sentence. My wife and I were talking with friends last week and both of us have independently decided to cancel prime on the next renewal because the prime shipping is random. We summed it up the same way, "For $12 /month we will deliver your product for free... eventually".
Sometimes I get it stuff the next day (rare but does happen), sometimes I get it in 3 days, sometimes a week, sometimes several weeks. I have a book that I ordered 3 weeks ago. It never shipped, so I cancelled it. Then as soon as I cancelled and went to the product page, I saw that it was available to get the next day, so I ordered it again and sure enough the new order arrived the next day. We had a package that arrived about a week ago. We weren't expecting a package, but we opened it up, and it was something that we had ordered 6 weeks earlier and had forgotten that we ordered.
Furthermore, we used to have Amazon Key delivery into our garage. I know a lot of people think its creepy but we loved it. Packages were always safe, we had a camera in the garage we could see whenever the driver dropped it off, plus packages always were delivered to the right house since they could see the garage door open, the knew it was the right place. Then randomly, Amazon started charging either $3 extra per delivery for this a few months back, or you had to wait an extra week to get it for free. What? We pay a premium subscription for delivery already, why do we have to pay more for a delivery that is more secure, costs Amazon nothing, and was more reliable? So we started just getting stuff delivered to the door. Since then, we have only received about 2/3 of our deliveries. They are consistently delivered incorrectly. So we are forced to either a) pay a $3 premium per order to get it delivered reliably, b) wait a week to get it delivered without a surcharge (only the cost of our subscription), or c) roll the dice with the door delivery.
Keep in mind, UPS and FedEx never have problems with deliveries, only Amazon because they are random gig-worker drivers who are not experienced, just delivering as quick as possible to get the next gig shift.
On top of the "eventual" delivery, now Prime Video, which was already the worst of all the streaming services started doing ads. I bit my tongue on it, but now the loss of Dolby Vision and Atmos pisses me off, because I have an amazing home setup that supports both of these and we really appreciate and notice these technologies.
All in all, we are cancelling Prime. Prime Video was not that great anyway. And if I am just going to get random delivery times that can take upwards of several weeks to arrive, then I see no reason to pay for that. I can still get free shipping on $35+ orders from Amazon that will also arrive in a week without a prime subscription. Or I'll just pay the surcharge when I need a faster delivery. This all leads to us using Amazon less, which I am honestly fine with.
> this rubbed me the wrong way when they’re making money hand-over-fist on top of recent Prime increases.
Are they? AWS is very profitable, but the e-commerce business isn't doing as well. In North America, their operating margin is 4.2% for the past 12 months. International operating margin is -2.0% so they're still losing money on their international retail business. Overall, their retail business net margin is probably around 1.8%.
They're making good money, but AWS is less than 5% of their revenue and accounts for 67% of their profits. The retail business does a ton of sales, but has very thin margins on those sales.
I definitely encourage people to do things like cancel Prime. Companies offer better deals when they know people will walk away. However, I wouldn't say that Amazon is making money hand-over-fist on their retail business. Their margins are pretty tight there.
Ditto. Price doubled while the service declined. Amazon used to offer a credit card in Germany that offered more cashback with Prime, and they pulled that too. I mostly only care about the fast shipping, and that doesn't seem to be much different than non-prime shipping anymore. For the few times I actually need it, I can pay for fast shipping explicitly and still come out under €90. Things have been so bad with the direction of Prime that I've actually wondered if they're trying to kill it off.
Just dropped it as well after maybe a decade of membership. Waiting an extra couple days for shipments has been fine. We don't trust Amazon as a store anymore anyway so we don't order much from there.
Same here, it’s just not worth it anymore and the ads on Prime Video sealed the deal for me. Anything I wanted to watch on my list has been replaced by “rent or buy” below it and what’s left is trash. We buy too much crap from Amazon anyway and I’m done paying $139 a year for the privilege. We cancelled our Netflix too. HBO Max continues to be the only thing that has actual movies on it.
Let me edit my comment to add some more substance.
If these statista numbers are true, it seems like I'm not the only one. The first lower number ever happened in 2023.
It will be interesting to see the 2024 numbers.
I cancelled when they announced limited ads ( or however they phrased it ) to create new content. I did not watch Prime and was using Amazon less and less ( after actually going through my orders, it turned out not to be enough to spend on Prime membership ) and they still had to balls nickel and dime me. I suppose I should thank them to kinda force me re-evaluate this relationship.
I suppose Cory was right; enshitiffication continues unabated. I am not certain people approach the way I do. Hell, I was ready to drop Sirius after their upcoming changes letter came in, but wife is clearly addicted so baby steps there are needed.
I just started a siriusxm trial (never used before) on a new truck and the audio quality is so atrocious that I can’t bear to listen to it. Maybe for like sports talk it might be tolerable but definitely it’s so much worse than even radio (seems like 4x worse than terrestrial radio) for the audio quality that how can anyone pay for this service?
I use it to listen to listen to talk radio, which does not have to be great quality. Business news/talk are also somewhat interesting. In other words, it has moments. It is ok for music if you are half deaf like me:D
No, it’s because the audio quality used to be good, before they tried to see how many channels they could ram in there. Must have been going on 20 years now since we first got XM. When Sirius and XM merged,that’s about the time I recall the quality going way down.
And good luck to OP in cancelling that trial. We bought a new car, too, and I didn’t even bother to activate satellite radio.
I've seen a lot of people getting Xiaomi air purifiers. Had no idea they put DRM on the filters, and they cost more. Really glad I went with Winix years ago, cheaper filters that last longer, and no DRM. I don't get why people can't just put a reminder in a calendar in the future to let them know to replace the filter instead of dealing with this stuff.
I use Brave, Safari, Arc and Firefox, basically in that order. I never even installed Chrome once Apple introduced their own chips. Brave has always felt just like Chrome once you turn off their rewards stuff.
Arc is doing some really thoughtful integration of Chat-GPT, including cleaning up tab titles, that is worth paying attention to. I actually look forward to their ~weekly YouTube updates.
Watch the Anker TB4 cable on Amazon, it’s frequently on sale. I snagged it for $29.99. If it’s for connecting your Mac to a 4K or 5k monitor, I think Apple’s cables are worth the premium.
Anker Thunderbolt 4 Cable 2.3 ft https://a.co/d/23pCtRE
I think every PAC is legally required to list its officer(s) in their public incorporation documents. I tracked down the officer for one spamming me and publicly asked the guy (on Twitter I think) along with a screen-cap of the email to remove me from their lists. I never heard back, but it’s been a long time since I’ve been harassed. It might have to hit their doorstep…
It 99.9% felt like it performed at the level of Samantha in the movie Her.
I started asking all kinds of questions about how it worked and it mentioned a word I had to have it repeat because I hadn't heard it before: PROSODY (linguistics) — the study of elements of speech, including intonation, stress, rhythm and loudness, that occur simultaneously with individual phonetic segments: vowels and consonants. I asked about personality settings, à la TARS from Interstellar, and it said it automatically tailored responses by listening for tone and content.
It felt like the most "the future's here but not evenly distributed" interaction I've had since multi-touch on an original iPhone.