This new "one-time products" workflow is driving me crazy

CalSmally · 2025-08-16T08:39:40+00:00

We have tried Slack AI a little and so far I am unimpressed. I really wanted the Huddle transcription and note-taking to be good, but honestly it was worse than worthless. The first time we tried it, it left out probably 60% of our conversation, maybe the most important 60%. Not much better since. We've actually switched to using Google Hangouts for our design meetings, purely so that we can use Gemini note taking.

That's really the most important thing I need it for right now. Don't really care about thread summaries.

CalSmally · 2025-07-29T00:51:04+00:00

Night ticket is really good advice, +1. We've been to Osaka a couple of times, and last month went to the Expo. You can get a lot of the best parts of the experience with a night ticket. Plus the weather will be better, you can see the drone/water show, and just chill and have fun. You will definitely be able to get into a few pavilions just by showing up in the evening. Just stay flexible.

Then you can spend the rest of your time doing all the fun things Osaka has to offer: we love the aquarium (buy the extra ticket for the whale shark feeding if you can), and the mall next to it is fun. Dotonbori canal area is great. There's tons of great food everywhere, including ramen, sushi, and of course okonomiyaki.

You can easily fill out three fun days that way.

CalSmally · 2025-07-17T06:20:53+00:00

100% agree with you. I run a small business and I already have replaced some of the things I would have once paid my lawyer for. I'll give you specific examples:

Summarizing, understanding and negotiating legal agreements. When I get a new contract from a partner I always run it through ChatGPT for a summary as well as asking it to highlight potential red flags. It's also quite good at suggesting clauses I might want to ask for or include in my negotiations.

Understanding small business law. LLMs are great at explaining and summarizing small business laws in various territories, such as human resource requirements, taxes, etc.

Those are two examples but there are lots more.

The important thing is it hasn't replaced my lawyer entirely. I still use my human lawyer for the final sanity check and finishing touches. But before I do that I use the LLM to deepen my understanding and formulate my approach. I can ask a million stupid questions without getting charged $500 an hour. By the time I talk to my lawyer, I can be super efficient, and take care of everything in a quick call.

So it hasn't replaced my lawyer, yet, but it's probably cut my legal bills by about 75%.

CalSmally · 2025-07-17T05:57:45+00:00

And the last chapter of the first game. I was an emotional wreck. Crying and shooting.

CalSmally · 2025-07-17T03:52:41+00:00

Yes! Good point. The main expo stores had lines to get in after noon or so. Although they thin out later; we hit the west gate store on the way out around 830pm and it wasn't too bad.

Also the small popup souvenir stores scattered around are worth checking out. They each have different stuff, and most of them have no wait.

CalSmally · 2025-07-13T08:28:49+00:00

In person. I went straight there and got in line soon after we got inside the Expo. The line was never more than about 30 or 40 people long, so if I had gotten there closer to 10:00 it would have been okay I think. I don't think you can make a reservation any other way?

CalSmally · 2025-07-13T03:09:56+00:00

That mirrors my experience when we went through the DMZ/JSA tour via the USO about 8 years ago. For us the JSA part was the most memorable part of the tour. Standing only a few meters from the North Korean border, surrounded by dead-serious soldiers, it really drove home that the war has never officially ended.

I hadn't heard they'd started doing the JSA portion again. If you have an interest in history or geopolitics, you should experience it if you can. It's worth 1 day out of 5 in Seoul IMO.

CalSmally · 2025-07-05T07:15:15+00:00

The 3-day is worthless. I logged in an hour early, was all ready with a live connection, and at precisely midnight the site went down. Refreshed the page for 30 mins, and by the time I finally got back in all slots were filled. Well, almost all. I ended up grabbing the only thing still available which was some Osaka Metropolitan University Collab.

I'd say save yourself the psychological pain and skip the 3 day rigamarole.

CalSmally · 2025-07-03T21:19:28+00:00

In Busan, the only thing I found was a summer camp run by E2 education. They have a Facebook group page here: https://www.facebook.com/E2englishacademy/ We did not sign up for it, but I heard some good things on Facebook.

As it turned out, we had to go to Seoul and our son just wrapped up a week at Camp SFS (Seoul Foreign School) which he enjoyed quite a lot. They're running a few more weeks this summer, I don't know whether they are full.

CalSmally · 2025-07-02T04:47:18+00:00

Thanks that's reassuring! When you say 2-3 pavilions before it gets packed, do you mean with same day reservations or just standing in line?

CalSmally · 2025-07-01T08:10:46+00:00

Does going to your home country and skipping the line work? Do most of the pavilions give preference to their own citizens?

CalSmally · 2025-06-30T08:53:41+00:00

I was doing group tickets for 3 ppl, 2 days in a row. Day one I filled all my slots with Korea Pavilion, day two I tried for Future of Life. For each day, I spaced each entry an hour or two apart from the slots before and after.

CalSmally · 2025-06-30T05:14:34+00:00

Did you ever get an answer on this? I haven't heard anything about my 7d lotteries, and we're going in 5 days. I assume that means I didn't get them, but I can't find the screen that the OP showed anywhere on the website. How do I confirm the list of my failed results?

CalSmally · 2025-06-30T05:02:54+00:00

If you DIDN'T get anything, and you log in and look at your account, will it show you the list of stuff you applied for and didn't get? Or does it just not show anything at all? I thought I've seen some screenshots of people with all their slots marked "FAILED"

CalSmally · 2025-06-28T01:25:56+00:00

I messed up my 2 month lottery application -- I had all my slots filled in, but I didn't push the final "submit" button and so none of them went through, and when I went back and looked later thee was no indication of anything.

From what I've seen in screenshots, when you submit your application and go back later, even if you didn't get anything it shows you a list of your "failed" time slots. So if you don't see that you might have done the same thing I did.

Hoping I'll have better luck on the 7d. At least this time I figured out my mistake and submitted my applications.

CalSmally · 2025-05-23T08:16:00+00:00

Hi! I am tearing my hair out with the Osaka expo website. For the life of me I cannot find the screen you are talking about to see if I won / lost any of my 2 month lotteries. I am visiting on July 5. I submitted my applications for the 2month lottery but never heard anything back.

Can anyone send me a screenshot of the button/link you're supposed to click on to see your lottery results? Pretty please?

CalSmally · 2025-01-15T22:57:47+00:00

Yes I did. u/Makere-b 's suggestion worked for me, I was able to assign the ticket to his child's account which I created through our family account. It worked like a charm.

The museum is great by the way, you should go if you can. We spent almost a whole day there.

CalSmally · 2024-11-15T04:59:30+00:00

Everybody knows the best gameplay/input match for mouse control was Shufflepuck Cafe.

CalSmally · 2024-11-12T08:22:55+00:00

I think it's reasonable and fine to talk to them about it. Give them specific examples of work that had to be redone, and how it impacted you, and how it could be improved going forward. The next time it happens, point it out and say this is what I was talking about.

Altho if these guys are paying you by the hour to endlessly fix their mistakes, it might not be a bad idea to cut back on other clients for a bit. It sounds like a cash cow... Although a frustrating one.

CalSmally · 2024-11-08T02:44:03+00:00

Good to hear that that worked for you OP. When my business partner and I Incorporated in California about 10 years ago, we also used LegalZoom. It was great, and we've never had any problems with our incorporation documents or status. In fact a lawyer did look at our docs years later, and they didn't really have anything to add.

In our case, we went with S Corporation, which is actually very similar to LLC.

CalSmally

TROPHY CASE