This is a really incredible product. Unlike a lot of engineering-for-kids stuff, this provides just enough assistance to get out of the way, and I imagine it’d be a blast to play with as a kid.

As someone who used to get blisters trying to cut cardboard with scissors, I wish I had this as a kid.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Risk_compensation

a theory which suggests that people typically adjust their behavior in response to perceived levels of risk, becoming more careful where they sense greater risk and less careful if they feel more protected.

I think it’s interesting that in 2005, the internet had a ton of popups and scammy ads that told you “you just won a free iPod!” and everyone knew that was a thing. There was even a gag about it in Scary Movie 3 (2003):

Yet you don’t hear people complain about that as much today. It’s like so much of the internet has been cordoned off into walled gardens that most users don’t see pages out in the open.

Will it overflow? Will we have a -32768chan?

Based on the description, my guess is that the script solved the problem of having the line interrupted by only doing a single 56k transaction per phone call.

Lots of times, phone calls were billed $$$ for the first minute and $ for every minute after that. If her script only did one transaction per call and not even using the full minute, that could add up fast.

And, given that it took a month for the bill to come, she could have been doing something wrong even during the day. Nobody would have noticed until the bill, and the 1am calls stood out the most when the bill finally came. Maybe there was a local exchange that didn’t require long distance?

How about the processor optimization as your 8 bit number needs to be packed and unpacked every time you want to use it?

I you read the responses here, there’s enough ambiguity about the choice of 256 users to maybe put a damper on the reflext to gatekeep computer science from a journalist.

A single username will use up more memory than an 8-bit limitation to the number of users will save.

I’m typing this on a 64 bit device. Why anyone would limit something to an 8 bit number in 2025 is really odd.

I also suggest putting ketchup in the soap pump dispenser. Really throws them for a loop.

Not this again https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2017/07/laser-shooting-mosquito-death-machine-nathan-myhrvold.html

tl;dr this idea was pitched in 2010, this article from 2017 says the demo was faked. 15 years later and the cycle repeats.

There’s literally an episode of Doug where Doug’s standard outfit inexplicably becomes super popular. So watch 90s Nick to learn what to do.

I take a photo of my wife every year the first time we see a Halloween decoration in a store. This year it was a giant skeleton in Costco July 1.

Even if prompt engineering requires skill, I suspect it’s akin to “Google-Fu,” which as far as I know was never a real job.

Also from this fine media establishment:

• Warning: 73% of garden soil contains hidden drain chemicals affecting families for 18 months
• I tried this 2-ingredient summer mask at 53 and my dark spots faded 70% in 3 weeks (dermatologists explain why)
• Cold plunge warning: this 15-second exposure raises senior blood pressure by 40 mmHg

Also, for a writer named “John,” he seems to really like wearing women’s clothing

And I don’t know where he finds the time to get dressed considering he’s written 18 articles so far today some in just 14 minutes.

Why not both? https://www.polygon.com/23767640/ai-mcu-secret-invasion-opening-credits

The cars there were always a joke. It was always some poor sucker of a tourist who didn’t know what it was and would take half an hour to go three blocks dodging all the tourists.

If I remember from my USB product design days, as long as they don’t include any of the official markings on the product or packaging, they’re in the clear.

Yeah, I ran some image generators on my RTX2070, and it took a solid minute at full power to do it. Sure, it’s not a crazy amount, but it’s not like it’s running on your iPhone.

Curious: what tools do you use for pixel art? I made a Playdate game, and just fooled around in GIMP, but it could have been a lot easier.