HNHacker News
TopNewBestAskShowJobs

josephjrobison

1,429 karma · joined October 10, 2011

Personal blog mainly about business, productivity, and some technical stuff: http://josephrobison.com

Email me: joe at greenflagdigital dot com

submissionscomments
josephjrobison··on There's a new "Google Jail" for independent wikis
The bar has been raised on all web content for Google to index, esp new domains like you say but even some subdomains.

That answer is quality content (higher than AI or human medians), links and pr and social activity and mentions, and then user experience.

josephjrobison··on The entire city of San Francisco as a video game
Haha just walked - is a glider possible?
josephjrobison··on The entire city of San Francisco as a video game
Very amazing. And this is the worst it will ever be. We'll soon be exploring 4k versions of this and we can open every trash can in Tunis. Fascinating. Had a lot of fun (tedious tho) going out to Alcatraz and figuring out how to get in.
josephjrobison··on India's first privately-developed rocket reaches orbit on debut launch
Congrats to India - please catch up to China. Regards, the west.
josephjrobison··on Search tool that only returns content created before ChatGPT's public release
Grokipedia would like a word
josephjrobison··on Search tool that only returns content created before ChatGPT's public release
The real gold is content created before the internet!
josephjrobison··on Buyers of Radio Shack, Pier 1 brands accused of running $112M Ponzi scheme
This is an example of the fact that while only 1% would watch the whole thing, they just raised their hands as the marks, to be worked on through the whole funnel.
josephjrobison··on Boring work needs tension
I always find fun and comfort in imaging my work as part of the lore of a medieval saga. Think of being a character in Lord of the Rings or Game of Thrones - no matter how big or small - and the role your actions play in the larger story. Side quests are welcome.
josephjrobison··on Show HN: Making the USDA Pomological Watercolor Collection Browsable
Crazy how it used to be paywalled and they didn’t event make any money off of it!

Thanks for releasing this, it’s important to unleash government information that we’ve paid for as tax payers, especially if there’s 0 risk to national security.

In this case I may be missing something on enemy military missions to extract cyanide from rare American apples and use it against us.

josephjrobison··on Lack of intent is what makes reading LLM-generated text exhausting
Like everybody, I waffle back and forth, depending on the day and the project.

I have so many bundled-up ideas for content in my head, but I can never find time to get them out. In addition, I hate wasting time on building tables, formatting text, etc. There's a reason that a lot of busy CEOs don't hand-write blog posts, but will go on podcasts, video, and conferences, and spend hours there. The reason is that the communication speed is much faster talking and being interviewed. All that to say is that via a combination of transcription and AI-powered formatting, that's an area where LLMs can really help.

I do think LLMs + search is more helpful than a Google Search. Clicking through all the links for you and bundling it together is a much better experience and truthfully it finds and surfaces ideas and content that a normal search just doesn't, or it takes the user going to the 4th page to get there.

Third, entertainment. We often find ourselves deep in a doomscroll looking at images and video - on Instagram, TikTok, whatever. If AI can produce entertaining imagery and video for the pure goal of decompressing and relaxing after a long day out at the oil fields or as a janitor at the elderly care home, then there's value there. Sure it may not be beautiful art like an Oscar-winning film, but is it worse than reality TV? Even better is those who enjoy the creativity of seeing images from their mind produced vividly via something like Midjourney.

So all that being said, that's where I'm seeing the value.

But I totally agree with the author - if I have a team member that puts work in front of me that's supposed to be well done, and it's obviusly GPT-generated, that's an issue - unless we agreed on it.

The point of doing good work a lot of times means doing something new and creative. If it's AI-generated, there still has to be the human touch. I could go on - we all have perspectives here - but I'll stop there!

josephjrobison··on Yahoo is buying Artifact, the AI news app from the Instagram co-founders
That immediately came to mind as well. Kind of like Nikita and his apps!
josephjrobison··on Canada's maple syrup reserve hits 16-year low
If jokes are allowed on HN still…this is Canada’s version of the U.S. Strategic Oil Reserve right?
josephjrobison··on Show HN: Fake or real? Try our AI image detector
Shows the Kate Middleton photo as 90% real, 10% AI - https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/npww1z7n9su7qgx410qgp/Screens... - the source may have tested it and thought 90% was good enough...
josephjrobison··on Bard is now Gemini, and we’re rolling out a mobile app and Gemini Advanced
The alliteration beauty of Google Gemini cannot be denied.
josephjrobison··on Google Adsense is transitioning to per-impression payments for publishers
Another tweak to the infinite money glitch
josephjrobison··on Qualcomm chip sales down 25 percent, plans layoffs
Have to assume a lot of it is Apple making its own chips? And the rise of NVIDIA?
josephjrobison··on The Ultra-Rich Are Flourishing and Sticking Around in California
Great addition thanks!
josephjrobison··on The Ultra-Rich Are Flourishing and Sticking Around in California
For sure, it’s always been a blend of both but you’d have to agree there was more of it than those moving to other parts of the Western US, which impacted many things downstream.

And the question is more about whether it’s currently primarily a luxury option as a headline idea, with a thousand different caveats.

josephjrobison··on The Ultra-Rich Are Flourishing and Sticking Around in California
In some (or all?) counties, if you move to another house in the same county you can keep your original tax base.

Transferring a Principal Residence Value within a County

“Proposition 60 (Revenue and Taxation Code 69.5)

Property owners of at least 55 years of age may transfer the base year value of their principal residence to a replacement principal residence. The replacement must be of equal or lesser current market value and located within the same county. Sacramento County does not allow base year transfers from other counties.”

https://assessor.saccounty.net/LowerMyTaxes/BaseYearValueTra...

josephjrobison··on The Ultra-Rich Are Flourishing and Sticking Around in California
As a resident who was born here and left and then came back, I’ve had this idea kicking around in my head of “California is a luxury product”.

If you look at the entire US, and assume you have the ability to move and live in any state, there are lots of options for everyone at every income level. (Disclaimer that this doesn’t address poverty, DEI, and other limitations to a good chunk of citizens).

From the Gold Rush, to Hollywood, to East Coasters moving to health spas like Carlsbad or Calistoga, some moved here for necessity but many out of choice and luxury.

A lot more to unpack here but I think it’s interesting.

josephjrobison··on The design thinking movement is absurd (2018)
Lean manufacturing in Japan has been a thing since the 50s, with a focus on kaizen, flow, pulling, etc, yet lots of companies still do work in batches today, to their detriment and waste.
josephjrobison··on Why is desalination so difficult?
There is talk about pumping sea water into the Saharan desert in certain parts, which gets at that.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V2b7ztWvFOg

josephjrobison··on OpenAI tech gives Microsoft's Bing a boost in search battle with Google
The problem is that Google’s core business model is too profitable, that nothing else can ever compete for attention and resources.

But you’re right, they need to take the burn for awhile until escape velocity. I think they did with YouTube in general until the ads money hit.

They’re also more geeky and not that creative of a company, nor do they really get design, so some of their blind spots can hurt them from time to time, although that’s separate from their AI issues which yes they have bungled their lead do to fears of the feds.

josephjrobison··on Transformer architecture optimized for Apple Silicon
In addition, Apple is notoriously slower at adopting the most cutting edge technologies but historically they tend to consider things very thoughtfully and rolls them out in beautiful launches (not always).

Examples would be the fact that Samsung almost always beats them to the punch on camera technology and other whiz-bang features, but Apple eventually adopts to much mass market consumer acclaim and groans from Android techies. Another example is they’re just now considering touch screen on laptops.

A counter example is the TouchBar - which was “innovative” but many didn’t like.

josephjrobison··on Google Search Is Dying (2022)
For the longest time I’ve been against this train of thought. Even resisted this when GPT-3 was announced and then ChatGPT was said to replace Google.

But I’m slowly coming around to the camp that for specific searchers where you want a quick answer, ChatGPT beats Google hands down and my searching habits are changing. Interesting times.

josephjrobison··on Twitter applies 7-day suspension to half a dozen journalists
He’s kinda like Edison and Feynman.
josephjrobison··on AI-powered communication coach
Honestly if you’re not a confident public speaker you may also be embarrassed in front of family / friends / colleagues, so I see this AI as a great bridge to get over that initial hump. Then yes, do it in front of a human at some point too.
josephjrobison··on Hoping for the end of content marketing
This shows the author doesn’t have a fundamental understanding that Google Search and Ads teams are different: “ while search engines do have an incentive to somewhat distort the information retrieval process in favor of their paying advertisers there has to be some baseline quality - otherwise users will stop bothering, and usage and with it profits will go down.”

Yes there may (likely?) be backchannel off the record conversations between Google search engineers and executives at companies, but that’s more limited and not at scale. Google’s not (likely) giving organic ranking preferences to Dick’s Sporting Goods because they advertise via AdWords.

There may be lunch chats between Pinterest and Google engineers, however.

josephjrobison··on How sustainable are fake meats?
A good parallel is the rising costa of electricity in the UK - should small businesses fail and citizens go cold because of geopolitical issues & wars outside their control causing price spikes? Or should the government help smooth things out. The latter seems ideal while the longer term problems are worked out.
josephjrobison··on Ask HN: What's the next big thing that few people are talking about?
Likewise the emergence of analog outputs from a computer would be fun. It may be niche at first, but imagine if the output was moving some wooden sculpture or the output changed an analog letter board. Would create a bit of permanence rather than everything digital being so transient.
Page 1 of 16Next →