Show HN: Curiosity of the Day • Hacker News Board

Re: Show HN: Curiosity of the Day

#21

Post by jeanmayer » Thu, Apr 06, 2023, 1:27 PM UTC

haswell wrote: post #16

laserbeam wrote: post #13

Ow cute, curiosity of the day! "April 6th is the day in 1994 that the Rwandan Genocide begins when the aircraft carrying Rwandan president Juvénal Habyarimana and Burundian president Cyprien Ntaryamira is shot down." There goes a bunch of happiness I had gathered today around me.

This is what hit me as well. To me, “a curiosity” is not just some fact about a historical event. And when many of the events are grim moments in history, the site quickly strays from the idea of curiosity and becomes just another random regurgitation of “on this day” content. To the authors: I think it’s an interesting idea, but would benefit from the ability to select categories of interest. I’m all about improving…

Thanks for the feedback. I'll definitely make another version of this site using AI to get the data (or maybe add this option to this site).

It's easy to filter and get interesting data from chatGPT for example.

Re: Show HN: Curiosity of the Day

#22

Post by jeanmayer » Thu, Apr 06, 2023, 1:31 PM UTC

pncnmnp wrote: post #20

This is awesome! A few years ago, I used to be a frequent reader of Knappily, a free news application that divided each article using the 5W1H method. They used to write an "On This Day" article every day. Although their publishing frequency is less now, you can still find their old stuff by searching on Google for "on this day site:knappily.com".

Cool! I love these curiosity/fun facts. I'll add to this site soon, an option to use AI to filter for your interests, so it's even more engaging and personal :D

Re: Show HN: Curiosity of the Day

#23

Post by petercooper » Thu, Apr 06, 2023, 1:44 PM UTC

Nice and succinct. It has "new tab" vibes about it and might be something you could offer as an extension.

I am subscribed to a newsletter that does a similar thing in longer form each day that I enjoy and tend to mention whenever I can: https://nowiknow.com/ (it's nothing to do with me, I just enjoy it)

Re: Show HN: Curiosity of the Day

#24

Post by jeanmayer » Thu, Apr 06, 2023, 1:56 PM UTC

petercooper wrote: post #23

Nice and succinct. It has "new tab" vibes about it and might be something you could offer as an extension. I am subscribed to a newsletter that does a similar thing in longer form each day that I enjoy and tend to mention whenever I can: https://nowiknow.com/ (it's nothing to do with me, I just enjoy it)

yeah, definitely has browser extension vibes.

I've created this extension -> https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/hacker-news-new-ta...

and this other one with English words -> https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/increase-your-engl...

Re: Show HN: Curiosity of the Day

#25

Post by jeanmayer » Thu, Apr 06, 2023, 5:30 PM UTC

panphora wrote: post #4

My thoughts after visiting the site, in order: 1. Cool, I didn't know that fact 2. This is a nice, simple site 3. Maybe I should make it my New Tab page... 4. Where are the other facts -- can I browse them somehow? I want to see how good they are and if they align with my interests 5. Oh, there's no history, I guess this is the first fact, weird 6. scroll down Oh, this is a thinly veiled AD for a web dev studio... 7.…

Just want to clarify a bit here, this was a short project that I put together in a few hours because I really like fun facts like this. I'm part of a team that builds fast projects regularly and we have a default global footer that is applied to every site (see here for example: https://www.ghostlystock.com/ ) so unfortunately something we built to be tasteful was misinterpreted because it's obviously so over the top here.

It's a learning lesson for me and I'm going to do things differently moving forward. Sorry about that.

Re: Show HN: Curiosity of the Day

#26

Post by gardenhedge » Thu, Apr 06, 2023, 5:54 PM UTC

jeanmayer wrote: post #25

panphora wrote: post #4

My thoughts after visiting the site, in order: 1. Cool, I didn't know that fact 2. This is a nice, simple site 3. Maybe I should make it my New Tab page... 4. Where are the other facts -- can I browse them somehow? I want to see how good they are and if they align with my interests 5. Oh, there's no history, I guess this is the first fact, weird 6. scroll down Oh, this is a thinly veiled AD for a web dev studio... 7.…

Just want to clarify a bit here, this was a short project that I put together in a few hours because I really like fun facts like this. I'm part of a team that builds fast projects regularly and we have a default global footer that is applied to every site (see here for example: https://www.ghostlystock.com/ ) so unfortunately something we built to be tasteful was misinterpreted because it's obviously so over the top…

I'm not sure if there's a lesson at all. I think your setup is fine.

Re: Show HN: Curiosity of the Day

#27

Post by jeanmayer » Thu, Apr 06, 2023, 7:23 PM UTC

pl90087 wrote: post #12

This is great! Until you realize that it's a cheap rip-off of http://numbersapi.com/ without giving credit. Shame on you, ae.studio. If that's how you work, you failed with this ad and won't get me as your customer. Or employee. (To clarify: I don't find it a problem that this page contains an ad for their studio. It's out of sight, which is nice. What I'm taking issue with is that they are not attributing where they…

Thanks for the feedback, I can definitely see how this could be distasteful. Not attributing was 100% an accident and I fixed asap.

Like I mentioned in another comment: I'm part of a team that builds fast projects regularly and we have a default global footer that is applied to every site (see here for example: https://www.ghostlystock.com/ ) so unfortunately something we built to be tasteful was misinterpreted because it's obviously so over the top here.

What actually happened here is that I decided to share this project and the new footer wasn't at top of mind for me.

Sorry about that.

Re: Show HN: Curiosity of the Day

#28

Post by jeanmayer » Thu, Apr 06, 2023, 7:23 PM UTC

pl90087 wrote: post #14

reitanqild wrote: post #3

There should probably be a "read more"-link pointing to relevant information for us people who have learned as much about baseball from Fallout 4 as from anything else.

Won't happen, because the service they are using (without crediting it) to get this "curiosity of the day" doesn't provide such a link. So they can't add such a link. They could add a link to http://numbersapi.com/ though.

Fixed, sorry about that. Not intentional. Making note for the future too!

Re: Show HN: Curiosity of the Day

#29

Post by jeanmayer » Thu, Apr 06, 2023, 7:23 PM UTC

raketenolli wrote: post #6

panphora wrote: post #4

My thoughts after visiting the site, in order: 1. Cool, I didn't know that fact 2. This is a nice, simple site 3. Maybe I should make it my New Tab page... 4. Where are the other facts -- can I browse them somehow? I want to see how good they are and if they align with my interests 5. Oh, there's no history, I guess this is the first fact, weird 6. scroll down Oh, this is a thinly veiled AD for a web dev studio... 7.…

Yeah, the actual work seems to have been done by the people running the underlying http://numbersapi.com/4/6/date

Correct, just fixed to show the source. Wasn't intentional, and making note not to miss that again.

Re: Show HN: Curiosity of the Day

#30

Post by warrendlee1 » Thu, Apr 06, 2023, 10:25 PM UTC

Cool concept - maybe make it a little more different than the Numbers API. Actually see a lot of potential based on how interested people are in short-form fun facts and knowledge. Good luck!