alexfringes

Joined 15 years ago

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Member since
Sep 27
@alexfringes
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Comment · 1 month ago
You presented the concern from my adjacent comment perfectly (“LLM performance: common law vs civil law” essentially). So is AI possibly just growing the “Reverence for Professional Experience” factor that plays such a big role for legal compensation here in the US?
Comment · 1 month ago
Genuinely wondering (aka not snarky): Has anyone found frontier models to provide useful research in the context of European civil law systems?

Your comment made me wonder if there are any halfway-acceptable model benchmarks for law tasks? Specifically I’d love to know how the frontier models’ abilities compare between common law vs. civil law systems. My guess would be that an AI in a common law context should have a clearer idea of how a specific case is interpreted/accepted by (common law) practitioners, whereas trying to rely on AI in a civil law context, like Germany, can be daunting. In a few Germany-specific recent examples, the models feel like they present only (maybe too stubbornly?) the “civil law”-based laws. All while negating much of AI’s research benefits because civil statutes are portrayed as being absolutely accurate, binding, and their enforcement (and thereby the legal reality) being uniformly applied. Am I making this interpretation up? If so, how can I prove myself wrong?

Comment · 1 month ago
I’m sorry, but how is this output “crazy good” regarding its accuracy? For example, Apple Watch Ultra is barely recognizable as such. (And UI chrome appearance of the tool is the typical new Astra-ish look I find hard to steer it away from.)
Comment · 3 months ago
Comment · 4 months ago
You can also just type two "-" minuses on iOS. So "--" will auto-convert to "—".
Comment · 11 months ago
How can I get in touch?
Comment · 3 years ago
Just for context: this is a 4 yo design study by friend and amazing product designer Jason Yuan, who also worked on Sprout.place and more recently some stuff at Apple (@jasonyuandesign). A lot of the comments currently seem to miss this and are focusing on immediate feasibility, “successful” design, or ability to deploy irl. That is not the point here. Things like this are both creative exposition, as well as corner stones for conversations for the rest of the community.
Comment · 3 years ago
Was also about to reply with the Superlight recommendation. Cannot stand the lag of bluetooth mice and was working my way through various mice over the years, usually trying at least 5-10 alts per year. Have not bought another mouse since the Superlight. Other Logitech mice (gaming and otherwise) eventually failed in one way or another. Not only is the Superlight a superior experience — it performs just as well today as it did 1.5 years ago when I got it. Wish the dongle and charging port were USB-C and that the Logitech SW wasn't the hot garbage that it is (I eventually settled on using a spare machine to update its config bc I won't have that SW on my daily) but from the perspective of the actual mouse itself, it's amazing.
Comment · 4 years ago
As a user of this app and long-time admirer of the developer behind it (co-creator of the fantastic Paper drawing app for iPad), maybe it would help the conversation if I illustrate my daily encounter with this UI.

I’ve been trying to limit the days on which I eat unhealthy foods to Fridays and Saturdays (yay, it’s Friday!). I’m good at sticking to plans like that without help from an app, but when I gave “Habits” a quick spin, I admired its mission to provide a playful, game-like alternative in the sea of habit tracking apps.

Once a day (except Fri & Sat) it sends me a notification. Tapping it launches the app straight to that “checkbox”. While the description in the post may make it seem like this is too long of an interaction, I promise you that it really isn’t, and that the haptics and animation are indeed a satisfying experience. So satisfying in fact that I stuck with the app even though I’m certain I’d follow through on my challenge without it.

(That certainty, btw, comes from how I personally have set up habits like this for over a decade, with help from a mental trick somewhat adjacent to a mind palace/loci[1] to track and reward follow-through. I bring this up because I have often thought that it might be possible to bring the power of these rewarding mental models to a broader audience via an app. And to some extent that’s what Habit accomplishes via its unique approach. The haptics and emotional resonance of the “checkbox” are a little Pavlovian mental & sensory reward for completing one’s goal. And they lead the user to a playful/gamified representation of their progress through their habit, in the form of a small, abstract 3D scene that gradually builds as you continue sticking to your goal. If I’m in a rush, I ignore that scene. But I always enjoy tapping the notification and checking off the day’s accomplishment.)

As a designer, I could maybe quibble over details of the interaction or visual style (which is customizable btw via a season of themes — another unique component) but as a a user I’m simply excited to have this app as part of my routine, thankful that someone is daring a different approach to app design, and curious to see if there will be more apps that might introduce a wider audience to the mental hacks I’ve found useful for a long time.

If you’ve read this far, I’d encourage you to check out some of the other posts on Andy.works, incl. a great retrospective on Paper’s creation[2], as well as background on the developer’s philosophy behind the “Not Boring” suite of apps[3]. Lastly, here’s the App Store link if you want to give the interaction a try (I promise I have no affiliation): https://apps.apple.com/us/app/not-boring-habits/id1593891243

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Method_of_loci [2] https://www.andy.works/words/paper-at-10 [3] https://www.andy.works/words/here-we-go

Comment · 4 years ago
Sorry, was assuming SpaceX had quantum slipstream already. But it appears I was mistaken. In the case of a slipstream drive, integrity for entry and exit of the slipstream would be paramount. But if they’re still using warp, then your comment of course is accurate.

Impulse, by the way, is covered by the press release [1] and, I agree, would need to be a priority no matter which FTL drive is used to get the satellites to their final destination.

[1] > The Starlink team commanded the satellites into a safe-mode where they would fly edge-on (like a sheet of paper) to minimize drag—to effectively “take cover from the storm”

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