2 ms·

I had one that would turn the urls into wild news stories. I had news-sounding domains like nyeveningpost.com and an auto-generation of bogus stubs such as nyev

I had one that would turn the urls into wild news stories. I had news-sounding domains like nyeveningpost.com and an auto-generation of bogus stubs such as nyeveningpost.com/breaking/mit-demonstrates-time-travel Then it would either redirect humans like a normal service or serve a page with meta tags to the crawlers so the card info on social media would have a thumbnail saying "breaking news" and a markov generated caption such as "Earlier today researchers successfully demonstrated time travel at MIT" with the stub matching the title just to increase the chaos. Ran it a couple of years. Not only did nobody use it but the response was universally discouraging and negative. Lesson: People enjoy facsimiles of things they find repulsive when it becomes too real. All things have an uncanny valley. It's why people, for example, don't go to butcher shops and pick up animal organs for Halloween decorations. I find the uncanny valley to be a wonderful artistic experience, like a psychological rollercoaster where there's always something new. But that's a very niche response

justin_oaks 2y ago
Thanks for sharing! Just the idea of it is entertaining and makes me smile. > Not only did nobody use it but the response was universally discouraging and negative. What were the negative things that people said?
- kristopolous 2y ago
  They found it confusing, pointless, stupid, annoying, irritating - you know, all the great productive feedback that awesome people give over the web. One of my problems is I'm quick to abandon my efforts and discount any faith I have in a project and I do so subconsciously. I'm the opposite of stubborn: a sabotaging level of flexible. Part of behavior change I think is identifying when emotional decisions happen without any intellectual agency. Figuring out when I'm pivoting without realizing it is a key way to improve myself.
  - justin_oaks 2y ago
    > all the great productive feedback that awesome people give over the web Yup, sounds about like what you hear from your average keyboard warrior. I wish there were a "low effort" filter on comments. > I'm the opposite of stubborn: a sabotaging level of flexible. That's tough. Hang in there. Keep making cool stuff. And thanks for sharing your creations with the world.

justin_oaks 2y ago

Thanks for sharing! Just the idea of it is entertaining and makes me smile. > Not only did nobody use it but the response was universally discouraging and negative. What were the negative things that people said?

kristopolous 2y ago
They found it confusing, pointless, stupid, annoying, irritating - you know, all the great productive feedback that awesome people give over the web. One of my problems is I'm quick to abandon my efforts and discount any faith I have in a project and I do so subconsciously. I'm the opposite of stubborn: a sabotaging level of flexible. Part of behavior change I think is identifying when emotional decisions happen without any intellectual agency. Figuring out when I'm pivoting without realizing it is a key way to improve myself.
- justin_oaks 2y ago
  > all the great productive feedback that awesome people give over the web Yup, sounds about like what you hear from your average keyboard warrior. I wish there were a "low effort" filter on comments. > I'm the opposite of stubborn: a sabotaging level of flexible. That's tough. Hang in there. Keep making cool stuff. And thanks for sharing your creations with the world.