Yup. This supposed exchange with his neighbor making the coins is pretty amusing. Explanations the note on the website about the neighbor not having given them back yet. https://x.com/LegbootLegit/status/1919745971673551192
That in itself is something that AI can leverage, maybe not better-than-average, but way more often, so people have to be on their toes a lot more too. Whether it's images or not.
Interestingly, with images like this they are highly curated for cuteness, clarity, and composition. If nothing else because there are so many photos taken of each owl during the rescue process, across a large number of photo opportunities. So there is often quite a huge variety of material from which to choose one outstanding example for each owl.
This would then make an optimized training set if you wanted to generate realistic facsimiles digitally later on.
When you do the math though, "who" needs a digital facsimile when the vast majority of actual real-world material is far in excess and not being used at all?
Kickstarter co-founder Yancey Strickler presents a new model for creative collaboration called the Artist Corporation — a legal structure designed to help artists and creators collectively own their work, share revenue, and access funding. Drawing inspiration from indie music labels, early scientific societies, and co-ops, he outlines how “metalabels” can support group publishing and financial coordination.
The quirky sensibility coming through in the copy might appeal to the demographic interested in maintaining personal digital gardens rather than a slick SaaS product. It does too me!
I agree. This is a helpful take. The book Prediction Machines [1] is a longer version, and longer view explanation, of what Ben Evan's shares in the post you link to.
The mismatch between AI’s actual utility and its hype reminded me of Prediction Machines[1], which frames technological change as progressing from point solutions → platform solutions → system solutions.
We’re still in the “what the heck is the point solution here” phase, with a lot of anticipation for platform and system-level shifts. There are some point solutions—like coding assistants—that make existing workflows more efficient and higher quality, but they haven’t translated easily to other domains. Platform solutions require completely rethinking workflows holistically, and system solutions demand restructuring everything that depends on those workflows. That’s going to be slow and messy. Including financially messy.
The book likens this to the introduction of electricity. Initially, electrification meant new individual machines in factories organized around steam power. Steam power was hard to turn on and off and not at all portable. Actually getting the full benefit of electricity meant redesigning factories around electricity use as-needed (not just when the steam engine was running) and spatially organize around task efficiency (not proximity to the steam energy production). All that was not a quick shift.
I very much sympathize with the author's frustration over hype that fails to understand the underlying technology and puts unwarranted faith in a small collection of corporate leaders. But I do think that this technology does have a high degree systems change potential and possibly the momentum to see it through this time. Not that we know how that will play out of which actors or forces will bring it to fruition. It really doesn't feel the same as the other tech crazes of the last two decades.
Comparing Kagi to Google on an individual search basis may not be the best way to assess the service. There are a number of features that make it preferable to Google and DuckDuckGo for many of us.
- Ranking results from specific websites has been well referenced in comments here. I love always knowing if something is on archive.org and wikipedia by having those results come to the top. I also rank certain sources of medical information up and down based on reputability, basically overriding their SEO nonsense.
- There are subtle indications for sites that have a high number of ads and trackers, allowing me to opt not to even click on those results.
- AI summaries and answers are not on by default, and simply adding a question mark to the end of my search allows me to get an AI generated answer to my inquiry. I've found these to be very good, but I don't always want them so the control is great.
- Marketing and ecommerce sites seem to be aggressively minimized, which makes the internet feel less like walking through a mall. I only really go to Google if I am shopping for something and want those kinds of results, but this is rare.
All of this makes for a much better experience of the internet overall for me. The reduced cognitive noise is well worth the $10 in my case.
I can't speak to how it preformed in non-English content, so you may be well served by using Google for German content in that case.
I've done video calls from the roof of Stavros Foundation Library, but that's weather dependent.
Actually, now that I think of it, I've also done at least one video call from the halls of the Stephen A. Schwarzman research branch across the street. Granted, these are not dedicated co-working spaces where you can make any noise you wish, but some calls are possible.
