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The algorithm is genuinely very good. That's why I deleted it. It's very addictive and not always just shoveling slop. I don't know if I can do it justice but

• sitkack 2y ago
  Same reason I never touched prismatic after its first load. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prismatic_(app) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prismatic_(app) https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=prismatic&sort=byPopularity&type=story https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
  • esafak 2y ago
    Prismatic served the news. You can only get so addicted to Reuters!?
    • lostlogin 2y ago
      Fox manages to do ok.
    • HenryBemis 2y ago
      Back in the day when I was using Windows Mobile (2002-2008) there was an app (RSS basic) that was pulling the news from various websites (I had added BBC, CNN, some with IT news, etc.). Before I would leave home I'd sync it, and it would give me 'many' news articles, just the text ofc. At some point I got addicted into reading news, so out it went. So yes, anything that gives you dopamine hits (cat videos, semi-naked men/women, news of the world), must go!
      • sitkack 2y ago
        Prismatic was even worse (better?), IIRC it scanned your twitter feed and then gave you a set research articles, academic websites, etc. To say I have a breadth of interests is an understatement. My twitter feed looks like arxiv and and a british tabloid had a baby. What prismatic gave me was pages and pages of Art, Design, Philosophy, Mathematics, Literature and all of it hours to days old. Every single article it back I wanted to read and there was pages of it, never ending. There was no way I could even filter out what read and even what to be aware of, there was simply too much. I closed it and never went back. I also realized that even knowing of knowing is itself a Faustian bargain, we are all on a temporary atoll in a giant sea.
• mhh__ 2y ago
  https://youtube.com/shorts/3FISFq_sCH8 https://youtube.com/shorts/3FISFq_sCH8
  • PaulDavisThe1st 2y ago
    Can't watch YT shorts because their algorithm is too good also ...
    • soylentcola 2y ago
      I disable them with a browser addon (and Revanced on mobile) because I seriously never want to watch a 30 second video on Youtube. Having to scroll past useless snippets when I'm looking for something had borderline-ruined Youtube for me.
      • PaulDavisThe1st 2y ago
        there's some astoundingly good shit on there. some japanese cabinet maker who does phenomenal stuff and conveys it all in 30 secs. so much more. but so much more, in fact, that i can't risk my life/time by stepping into the stream. first time i did that, i finally realized that this is probably the tiktok experience that so many other people are talking about. utterly terrifying.
• whateveracct 2y ago
  It's a proper Skinner box. Very well made. And in millions of people's pockets too.
  • leobg 2y ago
    Someone who remembers good old Skinner. Cool!
• jagermo 2y ago
  same here. I found myself loosing an hour of just scrolling through short videos, most of them really good and ones that I liked. I had to delete the app because it was working too good.
• nonrandomstring 2y ago
  """ Within such a possible future system, the only command or need that the machine would not respond to would be the one command that I have a feeling some of us would most want to type into the machine. Which is the demand that it destroy itself, you see, that would be my problem with the machine. It would meet all the needs except my need to see it destroyed. It would take every other command well, and meet every other need well, but the need to just to just shut it down. Television is something like that now. I feel sometimes as though I am plugged into a giant computer that will take every command I give it except the one that I want the most. The command that the damn machine blow itself up. It will do anything else I say. I type in "food", and out comes food. I type in "I want to give this talk in Washington". It comes out. But the one command I want is the command for the damn thing to just go "boom!", and all the little transistors just to go... """ Rick Roderick 1990
• Grimblewald 2y ago
  the tiktok algo is genuinely impressive. What's cool is that the engineers published some works explaining how it functions. https://arxiv.org/abs/2209.07663 https://arxiv.org/abs/2209.07663 It's an interesting read if you're into recommender systems or AI in general. What amazes me is that despite this published work google and meta still can't produce a decent social media algorithm, so it's either incompetence or malice.
  • throwaway48476 2y ago
    Google can't even produce a decent search engine. I've switched to yandex.