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First, make me care

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Re: First, make me care

#231

Post by storystarling »

Nextgrid wrote: post #230
andai wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my experience an LLM could probably handle this. And it's not so novel. They can make an image stitcher which is basically the same problem. It would probably need to download the whole video first though, so I'm not sure it would work as an extension. And analysing all frames would be expensive upfront. (If you're using it interactively and waiting for a video to start playing.) You might be able to get away with…

Yeah my point was to download videos in bulk and scan them to then mark these segments in Sponsorblock. LLMs failed to produce any kind of performant solution.

Generative models feel like the wrong abstraction here. I would try extracting keyframes and running them through CLIP or SigLIP to get embeddings. Then you can just do vector search to match the segments. Much lighter on compute.

Re: First, make me care

#232

Post by BeetleB »

zkmon wrote: post #169
BeetleB wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Keeping the reader glued to the screen is not the primary goal of writing. This is common advice in English classes and it predates the World Wide Web (and likely the Internet). Hook them in the first few sentences or lose them. And yes, of course, it does depend on who the intended audience is. You wouldn't do it in The New Yorker. > You don't write for the reader. You write for yourself first. Readers sometimes,…

Never cut out stuff that you felt important to include. Just forget the reader. The content you write should reflect you, not the reader. It's your expression. Don't make it a sales pitch, or a reflection of average reader's taste. I get scared when an author is talking to me, the reader. I stop reading when they pretend to be aware of my context. Things like "So you are reading this book because you want to learn ab…

> The content you write should reflect you, not the reader.

It's not a binary proposition. One can write for both, as long as they're willing to compromise. I'd rather something be 80% good and have an audience than 100% good with no audience.

Why write if no one will read? I have no idea if even I will read it - I already "read" it while writing it. Maybe in 20 years I'll revisit? I don't know.

> I get scared when an author is talking to me, the reader.

> Also I hate when the actors on TV suddenly start talking to the viewer about what they did and why did etc. Disgusting.

That's your quirk. Don't assume others have the same preferences as you.

> Things like "So you are reading this book because you want to learn about AI" sounds very cheap.

I don't see anyone advocating writing like this.

In general, most writers disagree with you. I take it you've not heard of "Kill your darlings"?

Re: First, make me care

#233

Post by Nextgrid »

storystarling wrote: post #231
Nextgrid wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah my point was to download videos in bulk and scan them to then mark these segments in Sponsorblock. LLMs failed to produce any kind of performant solution.

Generative models feel like the wrong abstraction here. I would try extracting keyframes and running them through CLIP or SigLIP to get embeddings. Then you can just do vector search to match the segments. Much lighter on compute.

I was talking to get LLMs to write the code or come up with an approach. I agree that the resulting solution does not need any kind of LLMs or even ML.

Re: First, make me care

#234

Post by reducesuffering »

orthoxerox wrote: post #172
flexagoon wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ACX is honestly an incredible writer. I think it's a very high bar to clear.

Yes, Scott has a natural talent for writing (there's an article where he explicitly says he isn't proud of his prose because it just comes naturally to him, but is immensely proud of getting a B in Calculus back in pre-med, or something along these lines).

Yep: https://slatestarcodex.com/2015/01/31/the-parable-of-the-tal...

Another example of amazing writing (about amazing writing)

Re: First, make me care

#236

Post by dghlsakjg »

sznio wrote: post #186
tombert wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is part of why I hate TikTok so much. I recently started doing SiriusXM again a lot. The reason I do this is actually specifically because it gives me less choice than something like Spotify or YouTube Music. A lot of time when I do the autoplay of YouTube Music, if I don't like the song in the first 15-20 seconds, I skip it to something else. I eventually realized that a lot of songs that I end up really liking…

I went back to CDs because the friction of having to stand up, walk to the player and change the disc is enough to stop me from skipping songs every few seconds. For discovering new music, I go to the flea market every so often and buy some random discs. Some are unlistenable, but a lot are alright. I found New Mind[1] this way and really loved it. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonathan_Sharp#New_Mind

This is part of why I like vinyl, you can't even really choose a track, you just listen. (the other part is that my vinyl collection is about 80% from my parents, and its just cool personally to have the same physical copy of the media that they did)

Also, many libraries still have CD collections. In the pre-iphone days I used to max out my library account getting CDs, rip/copy the ones I liked, and repeat.

Re: First, make me care

#237

Post by socalgal2 »

zamadatix wrote: post #227
firefoxd wrote: post #26

I wrote my story and titled it, "My experience at work with an automated HR system". I sent it to a few friends, only a couple of them read it. A week later, I renamed it to "The Machine Fired Me". That seemed to capture it better. The goal wasn't to make it click bait, but it was to put the spoiler, and punch line right up front. It blew up! I had just read Life of Pi, and one thing I like about that book is that yo…

> The goal wasn't to make it click bait, but it was to put the spoiler, and punch line right up front. For those who are really adverse to that kind of thing and have trouble with thinking "but it is is just making it sound like clickbait" in the comparison above: You don't have to go as far with it either. Just inserting inserting that one detail without changing the style or shortening it makes the reader's mind go…

I have rule on Youtube. If the title of the video is click baity then I pick "Don't Recommend Channel", always and without exception.

"The Machine Fired Me" would not get me to block the channel but I've blocked hundreds of channels.

I also block any channel that appears to be a rando repeating the latest hot topic.

Re: First, make me care

#239

Post by Frotag »

tines wrote: post #135
Frotag wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm usually the opposite. Mystery feels like the characters, the narrator, etc are all being intentionally obscure, for no reason other than to pad page count and incite drama. I prefer stories that are either about evoking feelings (adventure, romance, slice of life) or about exploring ideas / what-ifs (scifi, fantasy). And ideally stories at the extremes of this spectrum. Maybe I've read too many but ones in the mi…

It could definitely be my systems-oriented writing. May I ask what your profession is? I’m a software engineer.

Same, code monkey. But mostly fromt end these days.

Re: First, make me care

#240

Post by noumenon1111 »

klustregrif wrote: post #70
simonw wrote: post #4

This is something I find fascinating about TikTok: on that platform you literally get a few seconds to catch the attention of your audience before they skip to the next video. You can't just find one hook that works and reuse it forever because people will get bored of it - including if that hook is heavily used by other accounts. This makes TikTok a fascinating brute-force attack on human psychology, with literally…

> You can't just find one hook that works and reuse it forever That seems to be exactly what succesfull acounts are doing. They go a year or two creating content in a theme and then find that one hook that makes people stay a second to see what heir content is and then their entire personality and content becomes that one hook repeated until naseum and no matter what they do to try to escape it it's impossible since…

Hello! My name is Xandiloquence Bizarre the Ab3rd, and today I will make a hat entirely out of dried cucumber.
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