I have a 4 yo, and I'm very reluctant to let him into the games world. But I've been thinking of buying a small Super Mario USB steering wheel and let him roam a very simple world like this. Anyone aware of something like this, maybe open source so that i can simplify to the simplest dynamics?
They're hardware projections into your living space of a massive system run by Amazon. It's the massive system that open-source will have trouble replicating.
Most people use Echos as voice controlled music players with occasional smart assistant functionality, this shouldn't be too hard to replicate in OSS. You could argue that the extend to which they're not making you buy into the Amazon ecosystem is a major failure of the product line.
It's still honestly amazing to me that people buy, or want, devices like this, even before considering the downsides. I mean, I don't even like leaving voicemail messages. So the idea of talking to nobody in particular, within my own home, to cause something to happen, totally freaks me out. I really don't need more excuses for physical laziness, either.
I removed my Google Home; IMHO, it got worse at processing voice commands over time, and I didn't use it that much.
However, when it was working well, it was nice to be able to set a timer handsfree when my hands were busy. And when running a recipie where the measurements are inconvenient, I apprechiated being able to access unit conversions without context switching to a computing device (memorizing unit conversions could fill that gap).
I'm not in a rush to replace the device, but if I hear about a device that can do those things in an offline way, I might consider it. None of the online features were useful or reliable enough, and by their nature they would be changing all the time ... having them was a negative.
False positive wakeword triggering was annoying too. But maybe a talking timer would have a wakeword that was more specific.
You can have a timer and unit conversions using your phone, but perhaps not hands-free. It might work for you, I am not sure. I wonder if one could make it hands-free though. If it is in very high demand, I might just make an application. :D If it does not already exist, of course. What about using an LLM though? You can talk to them, so that could be considered hands-free.
I don't want to talk to my phone... and if I did, the easiest path would be google assistant, which is likely just as bad as google home.
I don't want an LLM either. I want a very constrained command list that is consistent and doesn't change. Yes, you need some voice to text magic, but 'set a timer for x minutes', 'cancel timer' maybe something to have multiple timers. And also 'convert X teaspoons to ounces' maybe with sometimes things like 'how many cups of flour in a pound' (which is a not quite right question to ask, but I still might ask it)
> If it is in very high demand, I might just make an application. :D
If I've learned anything from my years on the planet, if toast0 wants it, it's not in high demand. Sorry!
I think it is possible to use LLMs that operates under a very constrained command list to a very high probability of success, but it might indeed be enough to use Google Assistant for this. For those not right questions to ask, typically LLMs do work though. You would have to have a prompt set for the chat prior.
> If I've learned anything from my years on the planet, if toast0 wants it, it's not in high demand. Sorry!
I know a few people with Echos and I don't think I've ever observed them being used to order stuff. Music, answering trivia questions, timers/appointments, sure. This is anecdata of course but still.
(I didn't count music as buying stuff since it's a flat rate streaming service.)
Funny enough, as a man, I find this idea of "play sports with others" as a bonding approach, way too impersonal.
I can also find myself being competitive or taking things too professionally, and spent too much time discuss technical aspects and not fostering a more deeper connection with others.
Group activities like this are great for finding your people. You will likely encounter another competitive, technically minded person and no one will be offended if you split into your own group/universe
Quicktime has a very simple/flexible screen recorder built in. You can record a section of your screen, or full screen. If you make a mistake, pause for 5 seconds and then just do a re-take on the fly.
Import the QT recording into iMovie. Clip out of the unwanted sections and export your video.
We'll let you download the video after, and delete it too! Maybe all in one-button. I'm assuming you don't want cloud because of your data? Even better for us, we don't have to pay for hosting..
AFAIK (not an expert) there are two common problems with nutritional research
1) Mechanistic data we don't fully understand the implications of.
This basically means we observe mechanisms that we believe ought to have some effect on people, and yet when longitudinal studies are done to measure actual long term effects, they are not statistically significant
2) Confounding factors.
In longitudinal studies, it can be very difficult to fully control for confounding factors, as diets are very complex. Take a hypothetical red meat study, where participants are simply instructed to eat "more red meat". Is a McDonalds burger different than a lean, grassfed steak? That's an easy one to control for, not the best example. But basically exemplifying how there can be a lot of variability within the intervention itself when it comes to nutrition
