STTP 301 https://awful.systems/post/2119241
(sneer text..)
Big brain tech dude got yet another clueless take over at HackerNews etc? Here's the place to vent. Orange site, VC foolishness, all welcome.
This is not debate club. Unless it’s amusing debate.
For actually-good tech, you want our NotAwfulTech community
person who can barely brain themselves finds they have to engage with US postal system, hilarity ensues
(via friend who often sends me tweet-screenshots (one day I'll convince 'em to join here))
Dude got a check delivered to him, presumably via the same mail system he is shitting on? But fine, apparently "not getting paid" is also a competitive advantage.
Also checks, lol????
Also checks, lol???
the US (banking system, but not exclusively that) is living in the past to a stunning degree
couple years back when I visited (mid 2010s), in DC I had someone make a physical imprint of my CC for a payment, and in NYC doing card transactions on the subway ticket machines it doesn't ask for card pin but instead for zip code (and as a non-resident, you just enter 0000
(never tried to see if others work))
checks/cheques are still a rather frequent way of inter-business/inter-person value transfer
We usually trail a bit behind here in Sweden so none of the plastic cards in my wallet have raised numerals anymore, but the last generation I had did.
I’m old enough to literally handling cashing checks as a bank teller. Nowadays I guess a cashiers check is still in demand for big ticket items like vehicles but last time I got a car (via credit) it was all done by my digitally signing a bunch of stuff on my phone.
yeah here in ZA we've had futuristic banking since the 00s (straight-up USSD banking services were available), chip&pin have been around for probably a decade if not more
it did take a little while for NFC to roll out (probably because our banks are dicks and charge vendors for payment terminals, which many would bother not replacing while their existing ones work) but even that is well into "you can nfc-pay at shops in towns in the middle of nowhere"
afaik US banks are still working on the really, really hard problem of .... same-/next-day interbank payments. you know, that thing that most other places have figured out 2~3 decades ago? yeah
tbf I believe a contributing factor for US banks being stuck in the 1950s is regulation designed to prevent giant mergers. But I may be wrong.
Holy shit, this is LinkedIn matetial
For those who are wondering, real tweet. I checked. Guy is defending himself by going 'physical mail is outdated and shouldn't exist'. This guy is going to get cybercrimed by somebody so hard.
I think a human would probably recommend priority mail atp. You'd get tracking, wouldn't waste 19 stamps, and shipping is already included in the cost
In a couple of generations of LLMs ChatGPT will tell you you can just draw your own stamps and it will be perfectly legal.
Funny you would say that. In Dutch but real.
Swiss Post has this too!
Rather embarrassingly, Austria Post doesn’t do that but does have “crypto stamps” which are regular stamps only with a QR code linking to an NFT or something. To be fair to Austria Post, though, they are really good at extracting cash from the pockets of overexcitable stamp collectors with gimmickry like this. https://onlineshop.post.at/en-AT/page/crypto-stamp
I still follow developments in Austria a little but I had missed this cursed bit of information. Thanks for the nightmares, hope my dad (a hobbyist stamp collector) won’t fall into that trap now.
can anyone recommend a language learning app or system that isn’t dependent on LLM garbage? after bouncing off of Duolingo I almost landed on Readlang, but:
with that rant out of the way, I’m open to suggestions that aren’t Duolingo’s model or another round of passing grades and zero vocabulary retention at the community college
Honestly, almost anything can work. Some, sort of flash card system, and some, sort of input in the language that you enjoy. I use Anki and yes it's trash but I have never found spending anymore than the least necessary time on the tech of language learning worth it.
The crucial thing, in my experience, is that language acquisition only works if you're paying attention because you actually care about the material in front of you. I think a lot of people make the mistake of only studying aspirationally and well beyond their current capacity, forgetting how to be a child and be highly curative and explorative. Weird shit, even practically unuseful shit, is surprisingly better than you'd think.
I have a memrise lifetime thing that I bought some years ago and occasionally use, but I've never done a comparative test so I can't tell you how much better/worse it is than anything else. they did try integrating some chatgpt-backed "have a conversation" junk a while back but it's optional (and when I asked support about it, as well as which data is used for training, the answer said it was optional. I have no measure to tell how true this was/is)
you don't say which you want to learn (except mentioning spanish) but best other addition I have is that languagejones (youtube channel) recently did a review of every language on duolingo, including some comparisons with how those languages were treated on other platforms. might be worth a look
bonus round: the most recent agma schwa cursed conlang circus featured some absolutely amazing entries (I watched part 3 last weekend while recuperating on the couch). some of the ones from it include goptjaam and seraphim and I promise you they may be the most cursed thing you see all day
ah yep, this is for Spanish! I’ll give memrise and that languagejones video a look
I think what excited me about Readlang is that I could use real text (which gives my ADHD brain something other than language learning to be excited for) and it’s like a semi-automated version of the process I’ve seen Spanish speakers use to learn English with a translation dictionary and handwritten flash cards. I might just have to try a variety of apps (for as much as these free trials will let me — a lot of these companies are terrified I’ll learn something of value without paying them a fuckload of money) until I find one that tickles the same part of my brain