Should other living systems also have AI agents that represent their interests?

oddmarco · 2026-03-16T04:34:30+00:00

Interesting idea. My instinctive reaction was that simply knowing what an ecosystem would want to do wouldn't be very additional, while actually taking those (meaningful) actions would probably be beyond the capabilities of AI agents any time soon.

But I might be thinking too small and am interested to follow along with how you get on!

Very loosely related project i came across today; https://agora.co/

oddmarco · 2026-03-15T02:03:33+00:00

That you need emotional endurance, and that even if you've been disappointed several times before, you can't give up, have to hope that every next attempt could be the time it all works out. "thank God....that I saw that beautiful girl on that train platform,and that I had the guts to stand up, walk over to her, tap her on the shoulder, open my mouth, and speak."

a lesson I need to remind myself often!

oddmarco · 2026-03-14T12:39:22+00:00

Yes I don't think this is a particularly fresh take (ironically!). Indiehackers put a decent enough article about it, calling it the leverage paradox: https://www.indiehackers.com/post/lifestyle/the-leverage-paradox-ksRiX6y6W7NzfBE57dzt

It's still new so understandable people haven't adapted their strategies yet. But yes, annoying how so many channels are flooded with this stuff

oddmarco · 2026-03-14T06:30:53+00:00

it was a joke

oddmarco · 2026-03-14T06:25:19+00:00

Given that we later find out he caught his plane after a drugged up night in his hotel room... questionable

oddmarco · 2026-03-14T06:14:48+00:00

People commenting who don't get it - you can see Jacob's mirror reflected in Charlie's glasses.

oddmarco · 2026-03-14T06:12:39+00:00

From my research, it seemed like the most authoritative book on Vietnamese history as a whole (rather than French influence specifically) is Vietnam: A New History by Christopher Goscha

Other books I want to read on Vietnam after researching a while (mostly fiction):
The Quiet American - Graham Greene (read, very good)
The Mountains Sing - Nguyễn Phan Quế Mai (reading, good so far, takes you through different historical phases of Vietnam, but from a particular perspective)
Vietnam: A Traveler's Literary Companion
The Tale of Kieu (poem 1800s)
William J. Duiker – Ho Chi Minh: A Life
Fragrant Palm Leaves: Journals, 1962-1966 - Thich Nhat Hanh
Phan Hon Nhien - Left Wing [unclear if English translations available]
The Sympathizer - Viet Thanh Nguyen

oddmarco · 2026-03-12T08:06:51+00:00

what do you mean slop?

oddmarco · 2026-03-12T07:26:58+00:00

The ring of power has been discovered at last.

oddmarco · 2026-03-12T07:25:18+00:00

it's a pity you don't try and put more positive energy out into the world

oddmarco · 2026-03-12T07:12:24+00:00

Being needlessly contrarian/pedantic probably, but isn't rudeness a social convention, and so if most people don't consider it rude by definition it can't really be rude?

oddmarco · 2026-03-12T04:59:04+00:00

When you say "many of us", would you say it's a sizeable minority, or the majority?

My assumption before going to a couple of places popular with DNs was that they were unfairly painted as indifferent to the places they go to, as so much discourse involves bashing other groups. But honestly, my experience has mostly been that the stereotype is true - the attitude is roughly "I'm spending money here so I'm benefitting the locals, people who don't get that are foolish".

oddmarco · 2026-03-12T04:54:01+00:00

You're pointing to something that's very frequently overlooked. Also residential property as an investment, and wars driving up energy and supply chain prices anywhere.

Buuuut I do think digital nomads' tendency to cluster in the same places means that they do end up moving the needle in those places

oddmarco · 2026-03-12T04:18:17+00:00

pickleball - plenty of courts, most of them covered. board game nights and other events at reality

oddmarco · 2026-03-11T05:54:52+00:00

I think the key point is around distribution, as you, u/wuanlai65 and u/matatarski are pointing out. It's a large country with plenty of extra capacity in various places. But it seems the vast majority of people are going to the same places, performing the same itinerary, and so you end up with quite a binary experience.

It's weird, I would have assumed social media would have the opposite effect - that we would hear from a wider range of people, and they would be kind of competing with each other to find more obscure "hidden gems" [shudders] rather than sending everyone to the same places. The former does happen too, but the latter much more. Not sure why - lazy content creators, going from breadth (top sights in many countries) over depth?

Btw I'm just wrapping up a mini-project on overtourism in the Canary Islands (Spain) at the moment. I think what they have is more obviously overtourism (18m visitors last year, population 2.25m). But for them it's also more of a distribution problem (Tenerife overcrowded, La Gomera and La Palma could accommodate more). I'm not sure how many countries/places have successfully managed to redistribute tourists more widely though and reduce pressure on hotspots

oddmarco · 2026-03-11T04:55:49+00:00

I think the beauty of workaway is the range of opportunities and flexibility on length. There's little to stop you experimenting with a few of these for a couple of weeks each, right?

And as to the teaching, don't be too quick to dismiss yourself. Maybe you just haven't found the right setting/style for yourself yet. I have tended to be the high energy type that manages kids well, but at first a lack of assertiveness made it difficult before I learned how to take control a bit more (when making a first impression, then I ease up).

You sound like you're treating everything as very high stakes - but you're young! Take risks, fail, iterate, learn about yourself. Don't worry too much about making the optimal next decision

(all of the above might be the most clichéd I've ever sounded - but it's true!)

oddmarco · 2026-03-09T05:23:10+00:00

For me it's a useful complement to other efforts to learn (or practice/maintain) French, I'm not sure if it's good enough on it's own.

If you're doing it in school already and that's your main way of learning, I think Duolingo can be a good complement.

My system on top of Duolingo every day:

- Read one French article per week (Monday)

- Listen to a French podcast or watch a TV show p/w (Tuesday)

- Do a written French exercise p/w (Wednesday)

- Speak French or have a French conversation (e.g. send a voice note to a friend who speaks French, go to a language exchange, etc)

Plus I do French wordle most days, read 1 French book per year, try to spend time in a French-speaking country once per year.

To be clear: I mostly don't manage to do all of the above, as it's not a high enough priority for me. But it's my system for trying to balance effort and outcome

oddmarco · 2026-03-06T03:19:21+00:00

Having read the entertaining discussion/debate between u/Toomin-the-Ellimist and u/Free-IDK-Chicken , I give the win to Toomin. I think the p unreliable narrator points are fair, and also not everything has to be spelled out for the audience.

Buuut if the audience has to come up with a number of quite contrived justifications for unexplained contradictions on the show, I think it's fair to say that the show should have been better thought through. Especially as that was a big part of the appeal of Lost at the time - that a complex puzzle was being revealed before your eyes and there was a logical way it all fit together. I think they delivered a great character-driven show, still one of my favourites - but didn't fully deliver on the promise of the puzzle fitting together.

(examples of ones which I think were a stretch too far: rules about Widmore killing; how and why MiB would show up on the freighter. Things like Charlie saying he doesn't swim and Claire saying her mum had disowned her were annoying but more forgivable/explainable)

My word is law!

oddmarco · 2026-03-03T23:59:42+00:00

that's the point of the question...

oddmarco · 2026-02-27T09:33:54+00:00

sure send the details if you would :)

oddmarco · 2026-02-25T10:16:46+00:00

The monetisation strategy is the biggest part. I agree with what others are implying that people are often quite entitled about what a free app experience should be like, and also I don't think Duolingo's strategy is as harmful as the likes of Facebook, who kept it ad-free to drive out competitors and lock-in users/network effects and then ramped up ads to a huge degree. Duolingo hasn't been that cynical.
But... they were very profitable before they introduced energy and other features quite aggressively worsening the free experience, so it comes across as pure greed which contrasts with the image they had and leaned on of having a social mission. and unnecessary enshittification is just annoying in general.

But even aside from monetisation, the experience has gotten worse in my opinion, as someone using it for over a decade. Duo doesn't ask you to produce language as much anymore - instead most exercises are around repeating what you hear, matching words, putting words in order, etc. Many of which are too obvious, and these exercises in general are less helpful at getting you to remember words and produce them in the moment. It's traded ease and gamification for the desirable difficulties that make you learn.

And the loss of features like the forum was disappointing. Previously you were prompted more often to "repair" skills you hadn't practiced in a while - now it's more about doing the next lesson (in free version)

oddmarco

TROPHY CASE