4 ms·

Well, it's not as if that promise didn't come true. We do have the world's knowledge at our fingertips. It's more of a curation problem, and a natural result of

Well, it's not as if that promise didn't come true. We do have the world's knowledge at our fingertips. It's more of a curation problem, and a natural result of a decentralized web. Wikipedia could be considered a "megasite", but I'd argue it's more valuable than a million independent sites.

tombert 2y ago
Yeah that's kind of what I was getting at. Who knows what kind of weird mathematical or scientific things have been discovered by hobbyists and posted on some obscure forum thread or abandoned blog that wasn't appreciated by anyone? Like, if someone had a proof for the Goldbach Conjecture, and for whatever reason posted about it on the WatchUSeek forums (just as a throwaway example), it could just lay dormant for who knows how long? The audience on WatchUSeek might not realize the significance of a such a discovery, and maybe not even the poster, so it doesn't get any recognition and just never gets picked up. I mean, going with the example in the original post, I don't know much about Superpermutations (only a little after this post went viral), so if I had seen this 4chan post in the wild, I would just assume it's some guy doing a bit of math that I wasn't familiar with. I wouldn't be able to spot that this was actually a contribution to anything.
- bee_rider 2y ago
  Is it better if there are lots of hidden gems tucked away on obscure websites? Actually I think that is a sort of interesting question. The world is a more interesting place if there are hidden bits I guess. And there will be some hidden pieces of info, so maybe it is good if there’s enough out there to incentivize exploration. On the other hand, it is nice and convenient if everything is indexed. I dunno. Conflicted.
  - dylan604 2y ago
    It's kind of like that one scroll tucked away in some catacomb which nobody has looked at for hundreds of years that has the one bit of information that answers so many questions. The information is technically there, but you first need to know where to look. Discovery is always a problem.
- wombatpm 2y ago
  Just to clarify: all perpetual motion machine videos on TikTok are fake or using the stored energy of magnets over time.
  - johnnyanmac 2y ago
    Pretty sure if anyone found true perpetual motion that I'd be hearing about it all month on HN. It'd be a discovery on the level of Newton's laws.
    - dylan604 2y ago
      This is how I feel about AI/LLM discussions, except it's all a perpetual motion machine demo that people are falling for it. Kind of like crypto
      - crummy 2y ago
        But Copilot exists and people seem to be happy to pay for it.
        DrillShopper 2y ago
        (Some) people are also happy to pay to have someone piss on them, too. Do you think Microsoft should offer a Golden Shower tier of Copilot, complete with Trickle Down?
        deleted 2y ago
        [deleted]
        notpushkin 2y ago
        I’m sure that’s negotiable in their Enterprise offerings.
        tombert 2y ago
        They already have this service, it's called "CosmosDB".

tombert 2y ago

Yeah that's kind of what I was getting at. Who knows what kind of weird mathematical or scientific things have been discovered by hobbyists and posted on some obscure forum thread or abandoned blog that wasn't appreciated by anyone? Like, if someone had a proof for the Goldbach Conjecture, and for whatever reason posted about it on the WatchUSeek forums (just as a throwaway example), it could just lay dormant for who knows how long? The audience on WatchUSeek might not realize the significance of a such a discovery, and maybe not even the poster, so it doesn't get any recognition and just never gets picked up. I mean, going with the example in the original post, I don't know much about Superpermutations (only a little after this post went viral), so if I had seen this 4chan post in the wild, I would just assume it's some guy doing a bit of math that I wasn't familiar with. I wouldn't be able to spot that this was actually a contribution to anything.

bee_rider 2y ago
Is it better if there are lots of hidden gems tucked away on obscure websites? Actually I think that is a sort of interesting question. The world is a more interesting place if there are hidden bits I guess. And there will be some hidden pieces of info, so maybe it is good if there’s enough out there to incentivize exploration. On the other hand, it is nice and convenient if everything is indexed. I dunno. Conflicted.
- dylan604 2y ago
  It's kind of like that one scroll tucked away in some catacomb which nobody has looked at for hundreds of years that has the one bit of information that answers so many questions. The information is technically there, but you first need to know where to look. Discovery is always a problem.
wombatpm 2y ago
Just to clarify: all perpetual motion machine videos on TikTok are fake or using the stored energy of magnets over time.
- johnnyanmac 2y ago
  Pretty sure if anyone found true perpetual motion that I'd be hearing about it all month on HN. It'd be a discovery on the level of Newton's laws.
  - dylan604 2y ago
    This is how I feel about AI/LLM discussions, except it's all a perpetual motion machine demo that people are falling for it. Kind of like crypto
    - crummy 2y ago
      But Copilot exists and people seem to be happy to pay for it.
      - DrillShopper 2y ago
        (Some) people are also happy to pay to have someone piss on them, too. Do you think Microsoft should offer a Golden Shower tier of Copilot, complete with Trickle Down?
        deleted 2y ago
        [deleted]
        notpushkin 2y ago
        I’m sure that’s negotiable in their Enterprise offerings.
        tombert 2y ago
        They already have this service, it's called "CosmosDB".