Hello, world
Any conversation
I've been building a Markdown variant called Zd that's focused on extensibility and simplicity. I'm curious what you would change about Markdown if you were designing it from scratch, what challenges you face as a user, or what you wish were easier to do when incorporating Markdown into your own projects.
Definitely tables are cumbersome.
Yeah, 100%. That is completely something I am punting on currently. It would be easy to just copy over the solution from (extensions to) Markdown, but it's hard to entirely narrow in on both what tables ought to do and how to make them do it.
If you had a magic wand, what would you have them be more like?
Job I was hoping for gave me the "we found another applicant" treatment. I don't begrudge them for that, since I know I had a 'less than adequate initial coding interview. But still, it stings and sucks. Hopefully my other interviews yield better results...
(Opinion) People donโt like generative AI because it made the {insert creativity} too easy. Saw the HN post on โAI music banned from top 40 chart in Australiaโ and people had very strong opinions in both directions.
The hot take: If youโre ok with someoneโs creativity being outsourced to others, then you should be ok with AI doing the same.
If โAI made this and I call it mineโ is bad but โsomeone overseas on fivver made this and I call it mineโ and itโs suddenly ok, time to self reflect.
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My hot take: from the moment you use technology, be it an instrument, a synthesizer, a DAW, and now AI, it is still your idea, your effort, your time spent, and that makes it yours. Others can do the same if they choose. The same way someone chooses a classic guitar over a synthesizer, one can choose an AI over (insert ancient way of doing things).
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Youโre rolling the dice whenever you are searching for a sample or a preset in a synthesizer. Eventually itโs what โsounds goodโ, so still the effort is your judgement and the time spent finding that โdice rollโ that sounded well.
I am not a musician, so I lack the jargon to properly explain what I mean.
I used AI for creative writing (nothing too fancy, TTRPG). There, the broader the dice roll, the more generic and uninteresting the results. Slop, if you will. It was surprisingly good to build up on ideas I had however.
I imagine muisic also has building blocks. Melodies, instruments, mixing, etc. AI can perhaps be used in a similar fashion there.
I heard a perspective I sort of like: if AI is a tool then acceptable AI use is, more or less, defined as "when my audience no longer notices or cares". It's dynamic like that. Bad photoshop is detectable and annoying, so are overusing presets. Your artistry needs to expand to meet the tool.
I don't know if I 100% like that or agree. At the same time, it's a pretty straightforward line, a practical take.
Iโve been working with OpenStreetMaps a little and I must say, theyโve done an incredible job. The data are very detailed and accurate, I canโt believe theyโre free to use. Someone must be paying all those topographers somehow or I donโt understand how this can be achieved by volunteers. This project, Warsaw in Voxels which uses them inspired me to play as well.
Tweaking the algorithm. Really want posts like i.e genuinely long discussions, stay longer instead of getting burried away by newer posts.
Been working on an old mastodon hosting project I tried to start a few years ago, with a focus on privacy. This is the first big project I've tried to come back to with the help of coding agents and find it invigorating, and gives me the confidence to actually finish the project. Who knows if it will ever make a dollar, but it sure is fun to watch my ideas come to life.
