I've found it's always best to calibrate around expecting something like the ice cream sandwich episode of The Office. Never feel too much of a letdown this way.
1) I was hooked on day one. Logged on every day, mostly read message boards, paged/chatted with sysops or played door games at first. But very quickly fell down the "hpcva" rabbit hole, which paved the way for the infosec undertones of my career. I'm fuzzy on the program names, seem to remember Telex, Terminate, ToneLoc (a random dialer where you'd scan an entire NPA for interesting carriers).
2) We got a small list of boards from the family friend who helped install our modem, and after you had the first few boards most of the logout screens had a long list of others. There were also lists (by area code) that you could sometimes download from the files section, or some of the grey area ones were traded (usually required NUP/NUV anyway -- new user password/new user voting).
3) Both. Some 20+ node boards were legendary. Some boards were so empty that the sysop would break in after barely giving you time to login because they were so happy to finally see a caller.
4) Drama seemed to matter a lot more. Today it's mostly just drive-by arguing on X or something, and after you exchange unplesantries you move on with your life. On early boards (and into IRC) the communities felt more insular and drama really could divide an entire community and leave lasting marks. Topics were all over the place. Flirting seemed more open, and plenty of fights were just over girls because at the time the female side of tech was extremely unrepresented.
5) How to troubleshoot/fix computers was common. Discussing specific programming languages really bloomed with Usenet and IRC. The t-files on boards that were most interesting to me were about making computers do things they weren't meant to do. Fravia/ORC+ reversing tutorials, or phrack, etc etc.
> Studies 1-5 showed that people are disproportionately likely to live in places whose names resemble their own first or last names (e.g., people named Louis are disproportionately likely to live in St. Louis).
When I lived in Austin, it seemed like a third of boys born were being named Austin. I presume many of them will end up living there as adults but not because of this particular bias, because they were raised there and have family’s there seems to be a more likely driver.
Seems more likely this falls under the replication crisis umbrella. My wife's favorite numbers are my birthday (mm-dd), which is a small reason she fell in love with me. Neither of those numbers are related to her birthday. My favorite number(s) do not overlap with my birthday. Maybe my mm-dd values just aren't low enough, like 02-02?
I guess it was just a poetic riff on Tinder for AI agents. It seems like one of the more profound questions around AI and the singularity. One AI gaining sentience would be a big deal, for sure, but two self-aware AIs that could produce an offspring — that would be quite something.
so how much of a factor is it that safety guardrails may be keeping the current models from achieving higher scores in whatever red teaming benchmarks exist?
Would you integrate with existing POS systems or is this a new one? If a new one do you integrate with some existing hardware for card scans?
I saw the POS systems often have developer/partner programs but at this late stage are they granting those partnerships or is this a gatekeeping system?
Do you have to sell the customer on migrating away from their existing system? How do you convince a massage parlor to migrate from Square? A sushi restaurant away from Toast?
"Would you integrate with existing POS systems or is this a new one?"
Depends. The goal is to streamline workflow. A lot of the friction happens when recording transactions. How do you reduce that?
3 years ago, integrating with existing systems might be the smart move, but now with AI, you can build and maintain a POS from scratch faster than an integration.
"If a new one do you integrate with some existing hardware for card scans?"
Yeah, sell it with the hardware, keep friction down. They cost as much as a phone.
Again, depends on the norm. I find in developing countries, it's typical to have the whole thing as one Android app on a card accepting device. There's cool stuff you can do with the receipt printers. If someone orders a latte with an extra shot and a croissant, you can print out a receipt and little paper things to give to the barista and the croissant guy.
"Do you have to sell the customer on migrating away from their existing system?"
Often yes. Most can export data, and you can write scripts to import them.
You customize your product to their workflow. Like some people operate with wet hands. Salons like to track how much shampoo is used to flag theft. Education systems may track credit and attach videos of classes.
"Price?"
Highly variable per state, sector, etc, but OP's requirement of $49/month should be fair.
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