Category: Miscellaneous

AI Personas

I’ve seen people have a bit of fun with AI personas — pre-prompts that say “be a pirate” or something similarly silly, but you can use the personas to gear answers toward yourself as the target audience too — deeply technical or “explain it like I’m five”.

Although the AI takes “like I am 5” a little too literally — don’t need smart little elves or castles.

The technical pre-prompt, though, avoids getting high level basic facts that you already know.

Amazon Luna Black Friday Scam

This is really silly — we ordered a Luna controller on Black Friday because it was on sale, with the idea of it being a gift for when Anya finishes school for the half. I specifically did not associate the controller with our account. Today, we noticed that the “free trial” had already been activated.

Trying to talk to Amazon didn’t really go anywhere — I couldn’t even get the fellow to understand why automatically starting a free trial (before the item actually even arrives) during a gift-giving season where people are generally buying something weeks before it would be opened was problematic. Evidently there’s no such thing as a Luna controller plus 30 days Luna+ bundle — there’s a controller and a free trial. And the free trial starts when you place your order — not when you get the controller, not when you start using it. Ultimately, they say you’ve got to call back during M-F 9-5 kind of hours when someone from Luna is available.

Not something I’m available to deal with today, but a very odd practice for a company that size. Like no one thought through the logic on this one?!? Buy it on Black Friday, 30 days later is December 27th. So people getting Christmas gifts have three days to check it out?

If they’re offering a free trial to anyone who signs up, why bundle it with the controller??? I could have gotten the controller and just signed up for the trial the day the present would be given.

Library Adventure

Scott went to a whiskey tasting with a friend, so I drove everyone downtown. Anya and I visited the main branch of the Cleveland library (where she happily read a few books until it was time to pick them up). Wandering around the building, though, we found a few art installations. This one was really cool — and would be a neat way to dry herbs!