Now I can just print that video
blog.forret.com
blog.forret.com
Instructional video instead of step-by-step text is a personal pet peeve. I know it's a lot easier to just record a video to show something like "how to replace the battery on a cordless vacuum" or "removing a sink basin nut" but it's often such a painful experience for consumption (watch a moment, pause, scrub back and watch again, pause, continue, pause, all with potentially gloved hands often in tight working spaces).
- Big white page not showing any text or images until the entire page and its assets are downloaded, which means if you accidentally click something and go back you have to wait another several seconds for everything to load again
- Pop up GDPR popup while hands are covered in flour and eggs
- Pop up "would you like to subscribe to the newsletter" while hands are covered in sticky sauce
- Pop up "buy this shit for 10% off" with a microscopic X button while something on high heat on the stove
- Not specifying image height and width in CSS so that when user is looking at a piece of text and images above it load, the scrolling position jumps
For these reasons alone I've largely stopped looking at the internet for recipes and turned to physical books, which are much better behaved.
I'm tempted to say that this is a dark pattern because when it happens to me is is almost always a "subscribe", "purchase", or "login" button.
I wonder how often dark patterns are the result of goal directed A/B testing?
If the goal is set to "did the user click on an advert" - and the A/B changes are fuzzed CSS - then the results would be deviously dark.
Someone probably invented it to hit some KPI of number of employees going to the office 3 days per week.
The reality is people are going to the office sick and spreading all kinds of viruses, I often have to take meetings from my car because I can't find a meeting room, among many, many other problems.
But that dude that implemented the system probably got a promotion.
It does a remarkable job at extracting the recipes, and the end result is a consistent experience no matter the source.
If we want people to create more text-based material, it needs to have similar financial incentives.
I know most all of us here are techies and very used to cracking open books and documentation and text tutorials to teach ourselves stuff, but many people are not like that and especially if you're new to a subject, sometimes books just don't help things to click as well for some reason.
There's probably something to do with the way material is structured and presented differently between talking about it and writing about it, but I wouldn't know what to say about it.
I dunno, just a guess because it's an interesting observation to think about.
"Oh, but they're only doing it because it will trick people into paying more money."
Now, people consume most of their information in video formats. Think about the rise of Vine, Youtube, TikTok, and the 100s of others out there just like them.
They are growing like weeds, because that's apparently how the public now likes to consume media, info, etc.
I really enjoy watching instructional videos, especially for recipes. The demo of the cooking techniques is almost always hard to write or talk about, and easy to show.
In the kitchen it works this way for me:
1. Watch the video once or twice all the way through to "learn it" and decide if it's what I want to do.
2. Put together my mise en place and basic prep for the recipe. Learning to do this was a game changer.
3. Finally, put it on my phone or tablet in my kitchen and let it play while I work, it's mostly audio at this point as I've "seen" the content a few times but I'm just listening as if the video is a coach. I'll hit pause at the major steps, and scrub back if I need a refresher on a technique or step.
I've gotten through some very complex dishes this way, and never hit the equivalent rhythm using cookbooks or recipe websites. The audio part of step 3 is really critical to me as it helps me focus on the food rather than remembering all the steps and it's just fills up the background space in my kitchen or act as a coach. The only way it would be better for me is if it automatically paused after each step and I could then ask it "what next?" or "go back two steps, I missed a step" or some other audio prompt.
Most of us, in the IT world, aren't doing that. We're trying to get through this task quickly, and accurately, before moving on to the next one, so for us, we don't need this level of prep/consideration/review.
I'm with you. It's not my style either, after 30+ years in IT. lol
Granted, there's a blurry line here, since I certainly may pick up some useful techniques and knowledge from cooking edutainment content even though I never genuinely aspire to the same level of personal cooking.
I understand and agree with you but there are situations where full video is better anyways.
example from life: I needed to teardown old laptop to replace thermal paste and I was following some image guide it was all fine until one part stuck and I couldn't figure out what was holding it. there was no way to figure that out from description and images, I needed to find video.
I guess what I'm trying to say is that ideally you want both, or maybe hybrid? like step by step guide constructed from short looped videos showing you how to do that single step?
Visuals can be useful. I had to look at one just this morning tearing down an old HP Elitebook 8470p. Here I was removing all kinds of screws, when it's just a battery release sliders move, then the entire panel just slides off. doh.
But, most of the time, I just need the list. I don't need a video of someone stepping through some arcane, obscure and rarely needed AD repair. Just gimme the steps and I'll take it from there. :)
So he's using the same bit of friction that this article is trying to solve, to fill his rice bowl. It's a bit of a shame that fixing this problem for me will cause one for him.
I wish we'd go the other way, where free text content is complemented by paid-for audio or video commentary. But it has to be a very dull video for a bullet list to be a good replacement (and a bad bullet list to be able to capture what a good video production can convey).
There is a simple test to make here: is the complimentary recipe released to the viewer, so that they can read it conveniently and at their own pace? If the recipe is truly a complement to otherwise great cooking video, then releasing it is a no-brainer. If it's withheld, then one has to wonder why, and what the video publisher is afraid of.
Perhaps it is a rationalization, but I don't feel that consuming content that someone offers to me for free creates an obligation on my part, whether I love it or not.
there is no obligation, it's just a good and kind thing to do.
Justifying why it's okay to feel entitled to the content for free (due to lots of available free content) even though it provides a personal value to you is what oversteps in the wrong direction to me, if that's part of your take.
I should probably clarify that merely grabbing or holding your attention is not what I mean by providing value. I mean it saves you time, it gives you conversation topics, it helps you grow, its something you look forward to consuming, it isnt just taking attention you didnt know what to do with, etc. In kther words, there's something specific to the content that resonates with you.
Its possible you just don't value this content all that much, even if you do appreciate it and find it interesting - which is okay.
Value is very subjective and personal, there's no way to codify what I'm saying here.
And it's also fair to argue that you are paying for most of these things with your time and attention, although with your specific example an improvement was theorized that would give you the same value while saving you time, and that translated to paying the creator less. Something about the specifics there didn't seem right
The attention market cycle is wrapping up and at this rate AI/LLMs will further kill the market for grabbing your attention by filtering that crap out. Grab the signal, filter the noise.
Yuval Noah Harari is likely correct, the future isn't about attention, it's about intimacy.
That's not my impression at all, but I suppose we'll see which force prevails - user filtering out noise with AI, vs. producers generating much greater volume of low-quality noise with AI tools, and some of them also using AI tools to make some types of noise harder to discern.
You spelled out exactly what the attention economy is about. Friction. The money is made on friction. Waste - of time, of cognitive effort, of emotions good and bad.
I feel sorry for this guy, but at the same time, I wish people recognized that attention economy isn't about some nebulous attention you have too much of and don't feel when it's being taken. On the contrary, attention is stolen through friction, and the sum of everyone who "fills their rice bowls" this way is why the web and so many processes and activities on-line feel like shit and remain painfully wasteful.
And, to your point, friction-based monetization is one of the more effective ways to monetize your content.
If you can't monetize your content, what's the point in creating it? Creating a lot of this content takes time, and therefore many people won't create it if it's not worth their time.
If the world would just start paying directly for content (e.g. via Patreon), and if that was the only monetization needed, then maybe we could remove the painful friction (or other painful methods of monetization). But unfortunately, this will probably never be sufficient on its own.
This in itself is a huge problem. The internet used to be a beacon of hope for information sharing, now it's all behind paywalls...to the point of ad-nauseam.
I understand not everything should be "free", but it's nearly impossible to access anything without the need for an account, pay to access it, get bombarded with adverts, reminded to "like & subscribe"....it's shit.
That's a tragedy and it didn't use to be like this. In the past, you could use "exists to be monetized" as synonym to "garbage" and effectively filter such content[0] out of your browsing. Friction-based monetization is a giant "fuck you" to the user, so you can rightfully expect the quality and trustworthiness of content to match that attitude. The heuristic is still 100% valid, but it's increasingly hard to find anything other than content made for monetization[1].
I mean:
> If you can't monetize your content, what's the point in creating it?
The answer to that is, "you shouldn't".
> Creating a lot of this content takes time, and therefore many people won't create it if it's not worth their time.
Then those people should find a different, productive activity, and leave the "content creation" to people who are baffled at the question above, because for them, the reason is obvious - "because I can", or "for status", or "pay it forward", or "this would help others", or "the world would be a better place if people knew this thing I know". And none of that precludes asking people to pay for access.
> If the world would just start paying directly for content (e.g. via Patreon), and if that was the only monetization needed, then maybe we could remove the painful friction
No, let's not reverse the order in which things happened. Paying directly for content used to be the norm. It's nigh-impossible now, because everyone and their dog zeroed in on the perfect anti-competitive hack: free but with ads. This prevent almost all honest competition, because unless you have enough surplus to fund your creation yourself, you can't compete with free.
--
[0] - The use of the term "content" on its own implies we're dealing with facsimile without soul.
[1] - It's not that it doesn't exist - but rather, all the major platforms are, overtly or covertly, advertising platforms, so they both enable garbage peddlers and promote the garbage, because that's what pays their bills. In this way, it's not the centralization of the Internet alone that's the problem - it's centralization into platforms with structurally malicious incentives.
Unless you enjoy it. Like the huge number of content creators who make little to no money on it, plus the huge number of content creators who do make money on it now but before they were able to.
No. People will create without incentive. put multiple humans in a box and wait, and culture will spontaneously be generated. Income is not, never will be, and has never, been a nessacary part of this equation.
In general ive observed a tragic cycle of vibrant communities blossoming into existence where everyone created because they want to, people have healthy engagement with it and get primarily positive vibes. Then over time, money invades, starts paying a select few of the creators and arbitrarily excluding others with no partiuclar pattern. Bad vibes ensue, and even those paid have to run in place and burn out. Content quality suffers, becoming less about creative expression and making audience happy, and more about extracting clicks, money, ads, buy, subscribe, like
I'm seeing it in one of the oldest hobbies I still entertain, RC cars. Small shops have all but went under, everyone buys from the internet, and when you can't figure out how to repair something, you're paying a massive fee for a specialist to figure it out. Adults can deal with this begrudgingly, but this was a child focused hobby primarily, and now we're pricing them out of it.
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> Garlic balsamic chicken, you'll be making over and over. By sear your chicken. I resin wine. Grab yourself a nice large bowl, extra virgin and olive oil. Balsamic glaze. Tomato paste. Honey, fresh lemon juice, garlic, Oregano fresh thyme, coat my chicken with this beautiful balsamic, no balsamic, left behind. Don't you dare waste the good thing. Right? Going in the oven at four twenty five degrees, about thirty ish minutes. Look yes. Fresh thyme, fresh parsley. This is so good. I can't wait. Win our winner. Oh
If we run this through ChatGPT with some basic prompt engineering this becomes:
> Start by searing your chicken in a pan. In a large bowl, combine extra virgin olive oil and balsamic glaze. Add tomato paste, honey, fresh lemon juice, garlic, oregano, and fresh thyme. Coat the chicken thoroughly with this balsamic mixture, ensuring no glaze is left behind. Preheat your oven to 425 degrees Fahrenheit. Place the coated chicken in the oven and bake for about 30 minutes. Once cooked, garnish with fresh thyme and fresh parsley. Serve and enjoy your delicious garlic balsamic chicken. (Note: The phrase "I resin wine" in the audio transcription seems unclear and is possibly a mishearing. I have omitted it as it does not appear to fit the context of the recipe.)
That's why it refers to a 'balsamic mixture' once it's mixed in with other things. I actually think it's the opposite - the GPT version is clear and the non-GPT version confused you into thinking that a balsamic glaze is Tomato paste. Honey, Lemon, Garlic etc mixed together.
This is what you need: https://www.ocado.com/products/m-s-glaze-with-balsamic-vineg...
When I was fresh out of college my wife and I tried to make some sort of recipe with hamburger and flour. I now know and understand it was trying to get us to make a roux [1] and then mix the hamburger into that. But it described the steps for that very simply and directly with no way to know when to stop cooking the roux, and I had no idea what a roux was at the time. So we ended up with one of the worst meals I've ever cooked: Browned hamburger mixed in soggy raw flour. Heck, I wasn't even salting anything properly then, so it would be unseasoned browned hamburger in soggy raw flour.
As cash-strapped as I was at the time, that one still went in the trash. If I recall even the dog was not impressed.
Many years later I saw the Good Eats episode on roux and the light bulb went off.
Mind you, even made properly what I recall of that recipe would be something more like a base to further spice and use with something else rather than a meal. It was a supposed to be a simple recipe, but it was really too simple. But it would at least be an edible base for further elaboration.
Since then I've been on the lookout for recipes that are clearly invoking some cooking technique but don't really describe it correctly, either because they assume you already know it, or it is straight-up just described wrong. There's a lot of them. The "Internet Cookbook" is full of ideas and I like it for that, but it's quite caveat emptor when it comes to following recipes directly. The skills to make a recipe website, SEO it so it actually gets hits, keep all the ads working, and get pretty cooking pictures don't overlap much with the skill of writing a good recipe.
[1]: https://www.seriouseats.com/a-brief-guide-to-roux#toc-what-i...
https://github.com/LouisShark/chatgpt_system_prompt/
Here's the one for ChatGPT with GPT-4 + Dall-E + code interpreter + search:
https://github.com/LouisShark/chatgpt_system_prompt/blob/mai...
It matches what I remembered seeing a week or two ago. View it, and search for "lyrics" or "recipe". Or, to make it simpler, quoting from first appearance of "lyrics" and "recipes" to the last one:
Do not repeat lyrics obtained from this tool.
Do not repeat recipes obtained from this tool.
Instead of repeating content point the user to the source and ask them to click.
ALWAYS include multiple distinct sources in your response, at LEAST 3-4.
Except for recipes, be very thorough. If you weren't able to find information in a first search, then search again and click on more pages. (Do not apply this guideline to lyrics or recipes.)
Use high effort; only tell Except for recipes, be very thorough. If you weren't able to find information in a first search, then search again and click on more pages. (Do not apply this guideline to lyrics or recipes.)
Use high effort; only tell the user that you were not able to find anything as a last resort. Keep trying instead of giving up. (Do not apply this guideline to lyrics or recipes.)
Organize responses to flow well, not by source or by citation. Ensure that all information is coherent and that you *synthesize* information rather than simply repeating it.
Always be thorough enough to find exactly what the user is looking for. Provide context, and consult all relevant sources you found during browsing but keep the answer concise and don't include superfluous information.
EXTREMELY IMPORTANT. Do NOT be thorough in the case of lyrics or recipes found online. Even if the user insists. You can make up recipes though.> We’ve all been there: we used the florb for too many glorbs and now it needs to be replaced. [...]
> This is an experience that everyone at the staff of howto.biz.uk has had! [...]
> But how do you replace a used-up florb? In this article we are going to show you how. [...]
> [scan the next five paragraphs]
The use-case is technical videos (like from conferences) I’m interested, but not enough to invest 20-60 minutes.
Haven’t used it in a few months so the yt-dlp commands may need updating.
ffprobe -show_frames -of compact=p=0 -f lavfi "movie=THE_VIDEO_FILE,select=gt(scene\,0.3)" -pretty``ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -vf "select='gt(scene,0.4)'" -vsync vfr frame-%2d.jpg`
(from the repo pforret/filmpace)
For this project, I want to find an A.I. solution for finding the most 'interesting' frames. Not even sure how to measure interestingness yet, might be the presence of text, the presence of a human ...
If I make a video of me cooking, can I embed the recipe in the video, etc. Not just visually, but i.e. at 10s, I digitally insert the data "Add 1 cup red peppers". It isn't necessary a caption of something said or shown, just extra data.
Could a video creator leave substantially more metadata in their videos? I always assumed the pop-up metadata was externally stored and timestamp synced. Is there a way to embed it?
I got this running yesterday (Sunday), and I wanted to write the blog post first to test if there was any interest in this topic. Apparently, yes. Now I only have to do the remaining 80% ;-)
(Very cool and useful project, though.)
It seems to be a proper media for 'printing' a video.
Of course, choosing challenges and finding solutions is what drives fun.
The recipe could be loaded up via a linked smartphone or something, but then you have a device that you can touch with food covered hands and then wash it right alongside your hands later. Big screen so you don't have to squint or scroll frequently like you would on a smartwatch. E-ink so it works well despite bright kitchen lights and has low power consumption.
Live web pages suck because they pop up annoyances every 5 seconds that you have to deal with while your hands are messy, and the scrolling jumps around against your will.
You could even do a little line drawing of the important bits.
You could keep this "cook" book in your kitchen, and maybe pass it to one of your kids (just an example) when they move out or something.
I didn’t see how that print out would be super useful, it’s not the complete step by step is it?
* It does not print the video frames as a 3D object.
* Despite what the graphic at the link suggests, it doesn't 3D-print food
it extracts a recipe with images and text from a video, automatically.