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Ask HN: Most interesting tech you built for just yourself?

1901 points l2silver | 1 comments | 27 Apr 23 15:04 UTC | HN request time: 0.22s | source

Maybe you've created your own AR program for wearables that shows the definition of a word when you highlight it IRL, or you've built a personal calendar app for your family to display on a monitor in the kitchen. Whatever it is, I'd love to hear it.
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istjohn ◴[29 Apr 23 03:25 UTC] No.35749735[source]▶
My son is an English language learner in high school, and this is the first year he is in the standard English class instead of English for ELLs. His class is reading Into the Wild and it's a bit beyond his current reading comprehension level, so I used GPT-3.5 to build an annotated version for him to read. Less common English language words can be clicked on to hear the pronunciation and see the definition in Spanish, and every few paragraphs, there is a summary in Spanish. I had GPT-4 do the web design for me.

https://isaiah.st/john/ez/into-the-wild/authors-note.html

replies(2): >>35750500 #>>35752622 #
1. tremon ◴[29 Apr 23 13:20 UTC] No.35752622[source]▶
This is nice, but be aware that GPT doesn't explain words in the correct context. For example, in chapter one:

> Gallien steered his truck onto the shoulder

Here, "shoulder" is explained in Spanish as parte del cuerpo humano que conecta el brazo con el torso. I'm pretty sure the English sentence doesn't imply that the truck driver drove his truck over the hitchhiker's shoulder.