I've recently re-instated a Photoshop subscription and its now part of my core AI generated asset workflow. AI is fantastic at art direction but it needs minor adjustments to make it production ready. E.g putting real screenshots in with correct placement, smoothing, editing out artefacts etc. I can't imagine the lengths I'd have to go to to instruct an LLM to do these tasks with words.

Some of the LLM crowd is living in lala land.

How much of what you do with Photoshop could be done with open source tools instead (GIMP, ImageMagick, etc), versus how much do you really need Photoshop for?

One technique I’ve used for cleaning up AI-generated images, was a Python script driving ImageMagick-and an LLM helped write the Python script (although it took a few iterations, because the LLM’s first attempt didn’t actually work)

We've recently been without water in the UK for 5 days (water company failings). I've come to appreciate mains water and how its utility is hard felt by omission for toilets, washing & cleaning. Immensely grateful to have it back now.

Good infrastructure is worth working towards.

OnCare | Mid level software engineer | Remote but close to London for occasional meetups | https://www.weareoncare.com

We need help building & evolving features to help care agencies run their operations better. Everything we do to improve operational effectiveness for care agencies leads to a better quality of life for everyone involved. We have extremely big ambitions and are building at a rapid pace towards them.

* We need a full-stack engineer with a leaning towards the backend

* Seeking someone who knows how to design and maintain complex systems to a very high quality bar

* You are AI aware with a desire to get into the weeds of prompt and pipeline engineering

* We're Django on AWS with React for interactive interfaces

* We focus on quality, not quantity

* Profitable & independent with lofty long-term aspirations

* The process: 30 min alignment call, time-limited sensible coding test, 1 hr meet the stakeholders Zoom, offer

* You: someone who wants to apply your skills to meaningful problems, cares about your craft, has strong engineering skills and enjoys personal development.

Apply by expressing your interest to james @ weareoncare com with a CV/Linkedin and a "cover letter" that gives me an idea what you're looking for and how you could be a good fit.

Recruiters: you do a sterling job of connecting people but we only deal with direct applications.

Can you be a bit more specific about "close to London". Is 3 hour flight ok?

Hi, it's not an exact science but i'd take it to mean a max 2 hour train journey. Else days have to be cut short to account for transport faff.

Is this intellectual fatigue not part of all paradigm shifts? Semi-serious question.

There was tons of NFT fatigue. NFTs (outside of some niches) are essentially duds.

Having recently had an infuriating experience with an Android app submission, it seems there's a horde of people in a similar jam, running the senseless bureaucratic review process gauntlet: https://www.reddit.com/r/androiddev/comments/1ck1wyp/did_goo...

I just dropped support for Android on my app. From now on it will be iOS only. That’s where all the users willing to pay for apps seem to be anyway any dealing with Google bureaucracy just isn’t worth it.

An example of a premium domain that confuses me is diy.com. Owned by B&Q. Sure it's a good vanity flex but at the cost of your brand name?

The same brand predicament must be true of whatever prospects milk.com has.

B&Q used to (maybe still do) run lorries up the motorway with the two-line legend: "www.diy.com. Shop online NOW".

Now? I'm literally driving. I'll end up ploughing into the back of your lorry if I shop online now.

It feels like every ad has to end with "NOW!" or "TODAY!". Yes I understand how big research results give the marketing people good reason to insist on it, but it drives me nuts! I do wonder whether its overuse might diminish its supposed effect.

But your passenger is not driving ;)

since they can't have their brand's ampersand in a domain it seems better than the alternative: bandq, which isn't correct either.

Famously, B&Q’s original name was “Block and Quayle” after the surnames of the founders - but they switched to B&Q because everyone in the trade were abbreviating it that way.

interestingly bq.co.uk redirects to diy.com though that doesn't mean they own it

I appreciate that beardsandhats.com redirects to bhphotovideo.com :)

This triggered following a shallow rabbit hole through their history. It's a nice double meaning to incorporate their initials (Blimie & Herman) and heritage in one brand name.

Similar points were covered in the recent Tyler Cowen podcast with Tobi Lütke[1] regarding economic stagnation in Canada & Germany (relative to the US).

The UK has a cynical view on progress, likely leading to a self-fulfilling prophecy. The US seems to have a contrasting view with an optimistic by default outlook.

1. https://conversationswithtyler.com/episodes/tobi-lutke/

I call this program in one's head "suspended comprehension" as it has a degree of transience and fragility that requires effort to resume where you left off.

I don't suppose it's a problem that can be fully solved; just an ongoing arms race. The hardest part is not deterring genuine users at such a decisive consideration stage.

That's why I don't want to add a captcha.

Just accept it if they don't verify it anyway.

Make sure to have good KPIs not using the pure number of accounts. I think its absolutly valid to have it like that.

IF you really don't want to use a captcha, why not write something very basic specific to your page?

Those are probably spam bots filling out a basic form.

If you are OK with running a Google service, how about Recaptcha V3? No captcha to fill in, just validate the score it generates on the backend.

Is that the same one that sometimes asks you to click on motor cycles and zebra stripes in a loop and you never come out? (this happens often especially if you're on a somewhat uncommon IP address, like an IPv6 /48 with just a few customers on it)

That’s V2. V3 is always invisible and only returns a score. It’s not unusual to redirect low scorers to a v2 challenge, but afaict you have to set that up by hand.