Not to mention how voice assistants can just mishear you. Told google once to put dental floss on my shopping list and it said “got it, I added applesauce.” Good try I guess. Pretty trivial this time, but they expect me to trust that for tasks with financial stakes?

So glad I’m not the only one

Just from a logistical perspective, holiday cooking in an unfamiliar kitchen sounds like an absolute nightmare, especially with Airbnb where you’re at the mercy of the host for how well equipped it’ll be.

What happened to his hands?

Linen actually doesn’t take to large scale mechanization very well. It causes the fibers to break into shorter pieces more often, which makes the final fabric rougher and less sturdy. Machine-woven linen also tends to be more loosely woven, which is again less sturdy.

Machines certainly helped some amount, but cotton got a way bigger boost from industrialization. That’s why cotton is so much cheaper than linen today, especially high quality linen.

My understanding was that there are three types of rayon. Or have I been had by Big Cellulose?

• Viscose is the one that gets weaker when wet, and uses aggressive chemicals
• Modal gets stronger when wet, but also aggressive chemicals
• Tencel (brand name for lyocell) specifically refers to that closed loop process with less harsh solvents, and also gets stronger when wet

If something just says “Rayon” you can probably assume it’s viscose. Tencel sellers want you to know it’s Tencel.

Regardless, none of the above are good for warmth, so bad replacement for wool no matter which process they use. I do love my Tencel bedsheets though.

That feel when your Etsy purchase comes with an Amazon receipt in the package :(

It is the words “toilet paper” repeated over and over to whatever tune comes to mind

I always have to sing the toilet paper song through the whole process

You would think so wouldn’t you? But Google usually still tries to be “helpful” about everything. “100 linen” does work better, although still not perfect.

That also doesn’t fix the issue with being unable to ignore Amazon and Walmart. On the standard search, the dash to ban a specific term makes it not the first result but it still shows up further down the page. On the dedicated product search it doesn’t seem to do anything at all.

Here’s an example of how well search operators do these days.

I just signed up for the free trial of Kagi, I’ll have to see how it compares.

It’s even bad for finding something to purchase honestly. I’ll search for a specific part number, and most of the results are other similar but not interchangeable products. No Google I cannot just shove this random other battery pack into my UPS, but thanks anyway.

I tried searching for airtight drawers and all the results were either airtight or drawers. Only one was both and it was a ten thousand dollar museum specimen cabinet.

It’s especially terrible if you care about the fiber content of your clothes. Searching for linen or even 100% linen gets me linen blend, linen-look, linen color. 100% wool gets mostly acrylic wool blends. Wool toe socks gets me either wool socks or toe socks but again, not both.

Plus I can’t block Amazon and Walmart from the results anymore, so that’s a ton of extra junk to filter through manually.

Man I can haul 3 2x4s in my Camry

I get why a lay person would misunderstand the capabilities of LLMs. They sound like a thinking person should sound, so they treat it like it’s coming from a thinking person.

But how are all the (presumably) tech-literate Microsoft employees also confused by this? Anyone paying even a little attention should have seen numerous instances of LLMs confidently asserting “facts” that they pulled out of their asses. They are not the right tool for most of the stuff people use a voice/OS assistant for.

I have to assume it’s the business guys up top hearing the “AI” buzzword and getting horny for capitalism but god damn