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Comment by almost | Hacker News Reader

Is anyone else a little disturbed that this has 121 points and is at the top of the HN frontpage? Maybe I'm just being grumpy but it seems like total fluff that's of no use to anyone. I'm surprised it hasn't been killed, are there no mods around today?

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I probably wouldn't have posted it a few months ago, but seeing some of what goes by lately I figured it wouldn't hurt. It's amazing that it got so many points though - it's really not that interesting. Especially compared to some of my other recent submissions that I thought would be way more interesting to this crowd in terms of startups and hacking.

That I see as the problem, because now a whole bunch of other people will see this and think the same as you and we end up drowning in the stuff. Because of course this sort of stuff appeals to the lowest common denominator and doesn't require any mental effort whatsoever to process it tends to get lots of votes and drown out the more interesting but possible slightly challenging material.

I think the site is basically at a point where either pg gets really strict about fluff/politics/economics or it will continue to slide.

It is the nature of these sort of sites that they're always right on the edge. Let's try not to push it over though :)

Maybe (probably) it will degenerate at some point like all the others have but it would be nice if it stayed around a little longer.

I just got an account today after lurking a few months and read the FAQ just after reading the "Built By Google" story. To poke fun at the FAQ "OMG HN is turning into reddit!!1!" It all ties together nicely from an AI standpoint though. Granted the material is generated by users, but isn't there a hint of AI to it? Look past what the user typed and rather how they're using the service. It's tech and it's a "hack."

I'm not sure I understand what you're saying in this comment.

I believe he is trying to qualify why this article is appropriate for HN. Read the last two sentences. He is refuting the original comment by saying that this story "gratifies one's intellectual curiosity". The AI stuff might need a bit of explanation, though.

You're right on the 1st 1/2. Concerning AI, it's certainly artificial, but how intelligent does it need to be to be considered AI (at least, by the general population)? People seem to be using Google Suggest to get answers to real questions (or at least entertain themselves). If a useful answer is returned, is it not "intelligence?"

I know the term is somewhat vague in it's meaning these days but I don't think many people would consider "show the most common queries with this prefix" to be AI.

Besides, it's the content not the mechanism being presented here, I guess it does support some common biases which is maybe a reason people like it.

I think it is very useful. I will type partial searches into Google the next time I put together a customer survey.

Please don't. Think of all the confounding factors.

Hit the 'flag' link. If enough people do that, it'll be killed automatically, without need for any mods.

I have. I'm courious as to what others see in it though... It's up high in the /classic view to so clearly it's not just a bunch of newcomers.

Its a monday morning. Most Hackers would be busy coding to visit HN anyway.

It wasn't Monday when I read that comment last night.

Why do you think it is fluff that is of no use to anyone.

It is not like HNers aren't interested in girls.

So you think it provides some insight into something or other? Not just a cheap laugh? It seems to me to be quite a long way from "anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity".

The article itself is fluff but it seems to have generated good discussion of how people search. If I upvote it, it will be to find the discussion again, not to give applause for the article.

(Of course now that I have commented, I don't have to upvote it to find it. I can get to it via my comments. :) )

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