Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Laptops create systems. Phones feed algorithms. The asymmetry determines power

zakelfassi.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 72 posts

Re: Laptops create systems. Phones feed algorithms. The asymmetry determines power

#61

Post by supportengineer »

steveBK123 wrote: post #21

I'd take it a step further and say this distinction is also contributing to the erosion of hobbies in younger generations. Even more so it is eroding time spent on productive / skill based hobbies and lean into consumption based hobbies. Due to the rise of influencers, social media is barely a sharing platform anymore.. its just decentralized long-tailed broadcast media. Many modern people think dining out and travel…

Dining out and travel aren’t hobbies?

If that’s not gatekeeping I don’t know what is.

Re: Laptops create systems. Phones feed algorithms. The asymmetry determines power

#62

Post by hombre_fatal »

zakelfassi wrote: post #52
Aurornis wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

EDIT: The author has been changing the post in real-time to try to undermine the comments calling out the clear AI use. The article now contains an admission that AI was used and the obvious AI slop image has been cleaned up. Some of these comments won’t make sense if you’re looking at the updated article. Did you notice that this entire blog is just an LLM content farm newsletter? That the laptop in the headline ima…

Is it AI then if there’s a human author? lol. You are funny.

One problem is that, like on a recipe page, the core ideas are stretched into a longer narrative.

And then the reader has to consume the narrative to derive the core ideas themself.

So it's off-putting that the reader has to split off the narrative chaff that you didn't even write and/or spend the time editing.

At some point it makes more sense to publish a minimal paragraph of your core ideas, and the reader can paste it into an LLM if they want a clanker to couch it extra content.

Re: Laptops create systems. Phones feed algorithms. The asymmetry determines power

#63

Post by steveBK123 »

supportengineer wrote: post #61
steveBK123 wrote: post #21

I'd take it a step further and say this distinction is also contributing to the erosion of hobbies in younger generations. Even more so it is eroding time spent on productive / skill based hobbies and lean into consumption based hobbies. Due to the rise of influencers, social media is barely a sharing platform anymore.. its just decentralized long-tailed broadcast media. Many modern people think dining out and travel…

Dining out and travel aren’t hobbies? If that’s not gatekeeping I don’t know what is.

They are consumption that can sometimes be thought of as hobbies.

Is shopping a hobby?

Hobbies to me are more about putting something out into the world even if just for yourself or family.

Cooking is more of a hobby than dining out.

Re: Laptops create systems. Phones feed algorithms. The asymmetry determines power

#64

Post by 01HNNWZ0MV43FF »

RyanHamilton wrote: post #35
steveBK123 wrote: post #21

I'd take it a step further and say this distinction is also contributing to the erosion of hobbies in younger generations. Even more so it is eroding time spent on productive / skill based hobbies and lean into consumption based hobbies. Due to the rise of influencers, social media is barely a sharing platform anymore.. its just decentralized long-tailed broadcast media. Many modern people think dining out and travel…

Great phrase. "social media is barely a sharing platform anymore.. its just decentralized long-tailed broadcast media." really captures the essence of what is happening.

Someone said it should really be called "social marketing"

Re: Laptops create systems. Phones feed algorithms. The asymmetry determines power

#65

Post by wiether »

supportengineer wrote: post #61
steveBK123 wrote: post #21

I'd take it a step further and say this distinction is also contributing to the erosion of hobbies in younger generations. Even more so it is eroding time spent on productive / skill based hobbies and lean into consumption based hobbies. Due to the rise of influencers, social media is barely a sharing platform anymore.. its just decentralized long-tailed broadcast media. Many modern people think dining out and travel…

Dining out and travel aren’t hobbies? If that’s not gatekeeping I don’t know what is.

I think the difference is in the intent.

If someone is going to restaurants serving variations of a dish, or if they travel to cemeteries where their ancestors are buried, that's qualify as hobbies.

Whereas, if they go to all the trending restaurants or countries/cities on social networks, that's not hobbies.

In the first case, they make active decisions on what they do; in the second case, they are just following the decisions made by others.

To be clear, both are fines, as long as they feel happy with how they spend their free time and money.

But I know with who I'd like to spend some time, listening them explaining what they did in the last months.

Re: Laptops create systems. Phones feed algorithms. The asymmetry determines power

#66

Post by SapporoChris »

supportengineer wrote: post #61
steveBK123 wrote: post #21

I'd take it a step further and say this distinction is also contributing to the erosion of hobbies in younger generations. Even more so it is eroding time spent on productive / skill based hobbies and lean into consumption based hobbies. Due to the rise of influencers, social media is barely a sharing platform anymore.. its just decentralized long-tailed broadcast media. Many modern people think dining out and travel…

Dining out and travel aren’t hobbies? If that’s not gatekeeping I don’t know what is.

Sure, you can call it a hobby if you wish. I would call it a meritless hobby.

Re: Laptops create systems. Phones feed algorithms. The asymmetry determines power

#67

Post by steveBK123 »

wiether wrote: post #65
supportengineer wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dining out and travel aren’t hobbies? If that’s not gatekeeping I don’t know what is.

I think the difference is in the intent. If someone is going to restaurants serving variations of a dish, or if they travel to cemeteries where their ancestors are buried, that's qualify as hobbies. Whereas, if they go to all the trending restaurants or countries/cities on social networks, that's not hobbies. In the first case, they make active decisions on what they do; in the second case, they are just following th…

Yes, in NYC, theres a very "culture vulture / hype beast" mentality of chasing whatever hot reservation is trendy so you can yap about it to the same circle of friends doing the same thing.

I don't need to know how expensive the tasting menu was or how hard it was to get a reservation because in the words of Logan Roy - "congrats on saying the biggest number".

Tell me about something you did, made, learned, gave back, etc.

Vacations are nice, I take them, but 90% of the time hearing people describe their most recent banal trend following travel is boring. I swear every rich person I know seems to take the same 5-10 trips as each over. I would probably find a discussion of a book you read while on vacation more engaging.

Re: Laptops create systems. Phones feed algorithms. The asymmetry determines power

#68

Post by dandersch »

Aurornis wrote: post #56
zakelfassi wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1/ So far, you've made five comments about this throughout the thread. 2/ I've added an update at the top; pasting it here as well: "My high school teacher in 2004 accused me of plagiarizing from Wikipedia because my research paper looked "too polished" for something typed on a keyboard instead of handwritten. Twenty years later, HN commenters see clean prose and assume LLM slop. Same discomfort, different decade, id…

> 1/ So far, you've made five comments about this throughout the thread. As someone who actually clicks the links and reads the articles, I’m growing frustrated with these AI-written articles wasting my time. The content is typical of ChatGPT style idea expansion where someone puts their “ideas” into an LLM and then has the LLM generate filler content to expand it into a blog post. I try to bring awareness of the AI…

> I try to bring awareness of the AI generated content so others can avoid wasting their time on it as well.

Thanks. My own AI detection skills aren't always up to par, so I appreciate people calling it out.

Re: Laptops create systems. Phones feed algorithms. The asymmetry determines power

#69

Post by pigeons »

zakelfassi wrote: post #50
Aurornis wrote: post #39

This blog is an LLM newsletter content factory. It's more obvious in the other articles. Look at the heading and sub-heading of a post from a couple weeks ago: > Witnesses Carry Weights: How Reality Gets Computed > From UFO counsel to neighborhood fear to market pricing—reality emerges through weighted witnessing. A field guide to the computational machinery where intent, energy, and expectations become causal forces…

1/ So far, you've made five comments about this throughout the thread. 2/ I've added an update at the top; pasting it here as well: "My high school teacher in 2004 accused me of plagiarizing from Wikipedia because my research paper looked "too polished" for something typed on a keyboard instead of handwritten. Twenty years later, HN commenters see clean prose and assume LLM slop. Same discomfort, different decade, id…

Its not "too polished." That's not the criticism.

Re: Laptops create systems. Phones feed algorithms. The asymmetry determines power

#70

Post by OCTAGRAM »

Steltek wrote: post #26
rr808 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just be clear - you mean a Mac is less dumb? I've always used windows and thinking of switching to MacOS or going straight to Linux. Apple hardware these days is pretty fire so not sure just yet.

MacOS feels like Android. It's more mobile OS than desktop/laptop. It's theoretically open but you can absolutely feel the walls closing in around you: only signed binaries are trusted by the OS (no asked who you trust), apps not from the app store are scrutinized heavily, etc. Given Apple's recent actions in the US, MacOS doesn't feel like something I'd be switching to.

Just say the magic words: Mavericks forever!

And Apple's recent actions in the US are not of much concern anymore

Post reply on HN