I'm so confused how to feel about these articles. this one is clearly AI written. But blessed by a lawyer so we think the stuff in here is accurate with facts?
I've accidentally posted an AI article before that seemed just as this was, and the community flagged that to oblivion. Rightfully so I think?
Does Hacker News need a "report AI" and we can then hide the AI articles as a filter?
This is the Claudiest article I've seen in a long time. "Defensible view." "No correction, no note, no acknowledgment." "The honest statement about X."
So the next question is, how much of this is true at all, versus just being hallucinations.
I realize so much stuff comes and goes and comes and goes again. Sony's getting rid of physical media we just read this week. But I also think there's a new bubbling up trend of folks craving real stuff that's been curated. Especially in a real place that they can see other people at.
i also really wish, Apple would make it easier and maybe obvious to gate in the store instead. there's so many apps that look like they'll actually be free, but only after a complicated wizard do you end up with the "includes in-app purchase" label which really means: you have to purchase or get nothing. for allihat, i also am gating all functionality with a subscription (at least i don't have a sneaky dark pattern wizard), but i really wish i could just do this in the app store and not the app itself. would just be so much more obvious for users. (i think iOS apps do have this "quick subscribe" mode, but mac app store doesn't have this yet...)
We had this problem too at Inkling (W06, https://inklingmarkets.com). Classic problem to bump into. One thing to alleviate this was to just introduce a clean slate leaderboard at some time interval. Like a weekly leaderboard. Which seemed to help a lot bring back the competitiveness even though there were these all time leaders of course that were with us from the very beginning accumulating the most points. It's all what you choose to show folks.
And yes, it's hard to pull away things from those vocal early users of games. Like maybe ditch those overall leadboards you thought were so great at first. But it's obviously in the games long term best interest to not be completely beholden to the loud, early users if you made a mistake. I remember we also added game mechanics we had to cancel in other games we developed (Cityposh, S11) because they just gave a few people too much manipulative power. It sucked to make a few angry about it, but it was better for the majority of folks playing.
Will definitely now AI check for slop better before even posting. But was curious how automated and cheap I could make it. Isn't turning out that well yet. Also I put up a PR to remove silconopera from Kagi Small Web. Because it breaks multiple of their guidelines: multi-author, all fake authors, and all LLM content at non-human scale.
here is a product idea: a public service where you can submit urls for public content which will then be analyzed. the result can then be shared. the platform can allow a number of free submissions, but importantly if the same url is submitted multiple times, the analysis does not need to be redone. the free plan only allows a few submissions per day/month, whereas paid plans can offer bulk submission, more submissions, private results, etc...
A couple other versions of this that have always stood out to me:
1) There's always a new cohort of people that don't know the things you know. You assume since you know it, everyone does. But kids coming up, or whoever, aren't you. They don't know this stuff yet. You can easily be the first time they've heard "make something people want" and where that comes from. The Curse of Knowledge https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curse_of_knowledge
2) There's always another tone/anecdote/verse that makes whatever idea more palatable to someone out there. They might not like the PG version, or the Wired version or the Daring Fireball version, whatever. There's probably some version of you in this lesson that someone out there vibes better with.
Reminds me of this tweet thread from Emmett Shear (cofounder of Twitch):
"I used to struggle w needing to be “creative” or “original” in my work. At some point I had a breakthrough that really helped me: I cannot repeat an idea, no matter how basic or common, without imparting some of my worldview into it.
Even by choosing which basic ideas to amplify, I impart some small amount of myself into each output. It’s literally impossible for a given tweet to be “unoriginal”. Equally impossible to be Truly Original too of course, since you’re always remixing others thoughts.
This POV does put a premium on cultivating and developing one’s worldview, since that is the underlying originality simmering under the surface of each “basic” thought. The best writing is rewriting, including of other people’s words, and the lens is your whole mind."
That makes a lot of sense! I recently interviewed several great creators on this exact topic and they all echoed similar ideas - although it's easy to fear that someone else has done it better, oftentimes they really haven't, and they'll never have your own unique perspective.
One challenge is that it takes repetitions to get good enough that you can even bring your ideas to life, and many people don't push through this (Ira Glass "taste gap").
When I look back on the really helpful blog posts I have read, they have all been really basic. Whether they described a programming technique or a recipe for a new meal, it was a clear description that was important - not how esoteric the knowledge was.
There is a place for complex blog posts on arcane subjects but posts on "common knowledge" are even more important. There is a 15 year old out there somewhere that needs to know how to use the different smart pointers in C++ or how to properly care for a cast iron pan.
And link rot. A lot of sites from back when are straight up gone, sadly. Maybe you get lucky on archive.org. Or in your pan case, affiliate farming where the bias or technical expertise is suspect.
(Aside, for a lot of cooking I’ve gone back to dead trees and I realized one day I have so many cookbooks, why am I looking at some lifestyle recipe blogger?)
Or the information actually goes out of date and best practices change. There’s been like 25 years of standard revisions since I first learned C++.
ha. speaking of the devil. for the "curse of knowledge" mention i made above i had a link that google served me up to a post that was totally rotten now. so i went back in to include the wikipedia version.
Somebody already linked 1053, but https://xkcd.com/2501/ also applies. When you're wrapped in an information bubble, it's easy to forget that this could be new, exciting/important information to people outside the bubble.
