Notebook

Lenny Sirivong is a Web Developer based out of Ithaca, NY.

[lsirivong]

But it is unclear whether OpenAI, Perplexity, or any other generative-AI company will be able to create products that consistently and accurately cite their sources—let alone drive any audiences to original sources such as news outlets. Currently, they struggle to do so with any consistency. ... "Frequently, the citations were to news aggregators or publications that had summarized journalism published originally by OpenAI partners such as The Atlantic and New York.

Generative AI Can’t Cite Its Sources - The Atlantic

[lsirivong]

What if we just went straight to the ideas, then? What if game criticism didn't care about "gameplay", what if game criticism didn't care about whether it was free, what if game criticism didn't care whether it was packaged as a game?

[lsirivong]

All good questions. But here’s the big one: Why the hell are U.S. cities spending tens of billions of dollars to steal jobs from one another in the first place? Every year, American cities and states spend up to $90 billion in tax breaks and cash grants to urge companies to move among states. That’s more than the federal government spends on housing, education, or infrastructure. And since cities and states can’t print money or run steep deficits, these deals take scarce resources from everything local governments would otherwise pay for, such as schools, roads, police, and prisons.

Amazon’s HQ2 Spectacle Should Be Illegal - The Atlantic

[lsirivong]

But as several of the panelists attested, coziness isn't a synonym for cuteness; cozy games also tend to inspire a feeling of intimacy, they said, of trust and connectedness. Many include mechanics of nurturing and caring, low-pressure environments, and feelings of abundance.

[lsirivong]

Nick Popovich, co-founder of Monomi Park (Slime Rancher), pointed out that designing cozy games is a smart decision, especially for an indie developer on a tight budget. "You get more bang for your buck," Popovich said. "Most games are driving you to an objective. It's very consumptive. If you can engineer anything that allows people to slow down, make their own fun, grow something, build something, you're getting so much more value out of the very expensive assets you use in your games.

[lsirivong]

"Youtubers and livestreamers who primarily play videogames easily have more viewers than any of the major networks or streaming services. Many on the outside will decry this as the end of culture, but they ignore that this just how culture works."

[lsirivong]

The best minds of our generation are either curing cancer, or building a slightly faster way to buy weed.

Disruption: A Manifesto

[lsirivong]

Engineering culture is about making the product. If you make the product work, that’s all you’ve got to do to fulfill the ethical warrant of your profession. The ethics of engineering are an ethics of: Does it work? If you make something that works, you’ve done the ethical thing. It’s up to other people to figure out the social mission for your object. It’s like the famous line from the Tom Lehrer song: “‘Once the rockets are up, who cares where they come down? That's not my department,’ says Wernher von Braun."

Don't Be Evil

[lsirivong]

[lsirivong]

Evil settles into everyday life when people are unable or unwilling to recognize it. It makes its home among us when we are keen to minimize it or describe it as something else. This is not a process that began a week or month or year ago. It did not begin with drone assassinations, or with the war on Iraq. Evil has always been here. But now it has taken on a totalitarian tone.

A Time for Refusal - The New York Times

[lsirivong]

One source said high-ranking officials were briefed on a planned News Feed update that would have identified fake or hoax news stories, but disproportionately impacted right-wing news sites by downgrading or removing that content from people’s feeds. According to the source, the update was shelved and never released to the public. It’s unclear if the update had other deficiencies that caused it to be scrubbed

Facebook's Fight Against Fake News Was Undercut by Fear of Conservative Backlash

[lsirivong]

Fan Ho - Private 1960

[lsirivong]

From 2004 to 2012, Japanese officials spent about $4 million dollars studying the physiological and psychological effects of forest bathing, designating 48 therapy trails based on the results. Qing Li, a professor at Nippon Medical School in Tokyo, measured the activity of human natural killer (NK) cells in the immune system before and after exposure to the woods. These cells provide rapid responses to viral-infected cells and respond to tumor formation, and are associated with immune system health and cancer prevention. In a 2009 study Li’s subjects showed significant increases in NK cell activity in the week after a forest visit, and positive effects lasted a month following each weekend in the woods. This is due to various essential oils, generally called phytoncide, found in wood, plants, and some fruit and vegetables, which trees emit to protect themselves from germs and insects. Forest air doesn’t just feel fresher and better—inhaling phytoncide seems to actually improve immune system function.

The Japanese practice of 'forest bathing' has scientifically proven health benefits — Quartz

[lsirivong]

Never seen these before. The original set of Emoji from 1999. Cute! ✌️

(via Wired)

[lsirivong]

Cat Butt Pin

[lsirivong]

What It Is Actually Like to Be in the Engine Room of the Start-Up Economy

An account of success and failure — and the relationship between them — in the tech industry.

García Martínez shows how a start-up is less about making a product that actually does something than desperately demonstrating you are worthy of being hired by Google, Twitter or Facebook

[lsirivong]

Three years of lint in the charge port 😳