Thank you for looking into that. Meanwhile I dug out my old tablet and it still works. I do not think one more Android 5.1.1 device in your usage stats will surprise you too much. Apparently there are still players on the 4.x that you had to drop.

But if you see a sudden surge in old versions, that could be people like me - enjoying a big rectangular screen with no occlusions once again.

Good idea. I wonder if nx and pnpm could be ran like that as well

Love the new title screen, hate the increased screen utilization. I am getting annoyed at the rounded corners and the camera pinhole right in the face of the hero. I could still play in landscape mode though.

I guess I’ll try to find my next phone to have a perfectly rectangular screen with no cutouts.

I see. Thank you.

I am using a YubiKey for those (with a desktop authenticator app). Oddly enough, I do that because I do not trust Android/iPhone to stay secure. I actually trust them even less than a plain old SMS-based auth.

I am more curious about this section:

bureaucracy or banking apps force me to use it

Does it actually happen? How so? I never had any bank or anything else force me to use a phone, so I am having hard time imagining that. So I am genuinely curious about this portion of your message.

I think you are correct at the main point:

you’re not considering how tech-savvy the average person is

I am actually having hard time understanding where all of that hype is coming from. The first time I’ve seen AI solve a problem better than a human was back in 1996. I have used various generations of AI tools ever since. LLMs are fun, but it is not like they are that much different from the other AI tools before them. Every time a new AI technology comes around I am finding a use case for it in my own flow. LLMs have their uses as well. But I am not trying to solve ALL the problems with the new tech.

I do not understand “the average person”. And I guess I never will.

1. Translation. Only works for unified technical texts. The older non-LLM translation is still better for any general text and human translation for any fiction is a must. Case in point: try to translate Severance TV show transcript to another language. The show makes a heavy use of “Innie/Outie” language that does not exist in modern English. LLM fail to translate that - human translator would be able to find a proper pair of words in the target language.

2. Triaging issues for support. This one is a double-edged sword. Sure you can triage issues faster with LLM, but other people can also write issues faster with their LLMs. And they are winning more. Overall, LLM is a net negative on your triage cost as a business because while you can process each one faster than before, you are also getting way higher volume of those.

3. Grammar. It fails in that. I asked LLM about “fascia treatment” but of course I misspelled “fascia”. The “PhD-level” LLM failed to recognize the typo and gave me a long answer about different kinds of “facial treatment” even though for any human the mistake would’ve been obvious. Meaning, it only corrects grammar properly when the words it is working on are simple and trivial.

4. Starting points for deeper research. So was the web search. No improvement there. Exactly on-par with the tech from two decades ago.

5. Recipes. Oh, you stumbled upon one of my pet peeves! Recipes are generally in the gutter on the textual Internet now. Somehow a wrong recipe got into LLM training for a few things and now those mistakes are multiplied all over the Internet! You would not know the mistakes if you did not not cook/bake the thing previously. The recipe database was one of the early use cases for the personal computers back in 1990s and it is one of the first ones to fall prey to “innovation”. The recipes online are so bad, that you need an LLM to distill it back to manageable instructions. So, LLM in your example are great at solving the problem they created in the first place! You would not need LLM to get cooking instructions out of 1990s database. But early text generation AIs polluted this section of the Internet so much, that you need the next generation AI to unfuck it. Tech being great at solving the problem it created in the first place is not so great if you think about it.

This is the only line you really need from the entire atricle:

That’s the idea behind our new OpenAI Certifications.

It is an age-old idea. People were getting Cisco, Microsoft, Oracle, AWS certificates to pad their CVs for ages. This is a legitimate way for a person to put a well known logo on their page and an easy way for companies to make a few bucks. OpenAI wants that as well.

The certificate means nothing. The course for it teaches nothing. But a CV with an OpenAI logo on it looks better than without and OpenAI wants people to pay for the privilege.

This is a funny graph. What’s the Y-axis? Why the hell DVDs are a bigger innovation than a Steam Engine or a Light Bulb? It has a way bigger increase on the Y-axis.

In fact, the top 3 innovations since 1400 according to the chart are

1. Microprocessors
2. Man on Moon
3. DVDs

And I find it funny that in the year 2025 there are no people on the Moon and most people do not use DVDs anymore.

And speaking of Microprocessors, why the hell Transistors are not on the chart? Or even Computers in general? Where did the humanity placed their Microprocessors before Apple Macintosh was designed (this is an innovation? IBM PC was way more impactful…)

Such a funny chart you shared. Great joke!

The Censer is one of the trinkets, it is not a challenge. But its random nature quite often creates more problems than it solves. I called it a “challenge” jokingly - it was not supposed to be a challenge, but it ended up being one. At least for me.

“Into the Darkness” together with the regular Dark level results in the hero seeing just one tile all around. So you have to use a torch on that level. If you clear the level before the torch runs out, you get no extra problems. And you can save the torches from the early floors - rooms are small enough there that you do not have to have the full vision yet.

When doing challenge runs it is at times crucial to leave some of the puzzles unsolved. I often skip well-rooms if I do not have a Feather Fall or another way to counter the damage (heal potion, Hourglass). Sure I am missing on some goodies, but the danger of dying is just too high. When I am “On Diet” for example, I never solve the poison gas room. The Potion of Purity that spawns as a solution to it is way more useful when upgraded to Potion of Cleansing than the gold in that gas room. (Potion of Cleansing removes the hunger effect - acting way better than many other food sources you have access to with that challenge). And I almost never fight stone statues for their loot. If they have good enough weapon for me to want it - they can kill me with that weapon.

When going for the high score I also left many puzzles unsolved - but I solved them on the way back up to get the score. It is also way easier to solve the sacrificial fire on the way up - the Amulet is actually helping with that by luring the enemies towards it when you are standing there.

For me learning to just leave some of the puzzles unsolved even when I know the solution to them was probably the key to get better at challenge runs.

I agree that this was poor wording on Ed’s side. He meant to point at the lack of adoption for work/business purposes, but failed to articulate this distinction. He is talking about conversion to paid users and how Google cheated to make the adoption of Gemini by corporate users to looks higher than it is. He never meant to talk about the adoption by regular people on the free tier just doing random non-work-related things.

You were talking about a different adoption metric. You are both right, you are just talking about different kinds of adoption.

With 6 challenges it is easier to list which one I left off. It was Hostile Champions, Faith Is My Armor and Pharmacophobia.

I am surprised you left Into Darkness out of your list. I consider this one to be the easiest challenge of them all. It limits the view, but also adds a torch to every level to pretty much cancel it out. In my view getting a Censer Trinket is more of a challenge than this one. If you done the 5-challenge with your set I think you can easily add this one to the set without any increase in difficulty.

Barren Land is also pretty easy and is off from your list. You still get the seeds, you just have to use them for alchemy instead of plants and that’s all. And if you are not playing the Huntress, then not wasting time cleaning up all the tall grass is a bit of a benefit on its own. Almost cancels out the negative effect as well.

With my setup I was pretty much always hungry, only consuming food before the boss levels and when the timing was good for the full hunger cleanup (with the meat pie or potion of cleansing). Just sustaining myself on healing potions.

I guess the big one is Hostile Champions. I like it because it makes the game a lot more interesting, but it is extremely difficult. Getting a ranged snake or a giant fly on the early levels could be an instant game over on its own. I usually play with it just for the fun of it, but I turned it off to get the highest score.