Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46921411

Points: 1

# Comments: 0

Even back then, that era of Roblox felt distinct from the platform it is today. Roblox used to have their own bespoke forum page, and each forum "topic" had its own culture and regular users. Hence, it resulted in a lot of tribal behavior and personal identification with said topic label (some players would even make "bunkers" as places, where regular hangouts would happen.)

As a result, familiar faces (usernames) arose, and that's where I met my first and only consistent friend group lasting from middle school to university. Though I haven't talked to them much since.

I did get my programming interest and grew skills from such a creative platform, but I think I'm still reeling from my stunted social growth as well. As I hear about the current generation of schools, I wonder how much worse off I'd be if I had to grow up during the 2020s.

I had to learn this lesson a long while ago when I realized many sites I casually browsed were injecting and repeating many dark thoughts that weren't truly reflective of reality. I've been way more careful of my daily intake and the groups I associate with ever since.

It's a (paid) online platform that breaks down mathematics (from 4th grade to university level) down into very small steps/skills, makes you drill them periodically, and also integrate them in increasingly advanced skills. The platform tracks your successes and failures to give you just the right amount of training at just the right time (in theory). You can see the exact skills they train as these really huge interconnected graphs, all created manually.

I read their pedagogy https://www.mathacademy.com/pedagogy and it seems to line up a lot with that philosophy. To use their language, they emphasize "finely-scaffolded steps" and "developing automaticity".

I always love to see more projects or initiatives in this area. I also know of https://physicsgraph.com that was inspired by it, but for physics.

If you're gunning to be a creator with an audience, I don't think the answer is to completely ignore your audience. It's to learn how to cultivate a target audience, how to not engage with malicious people, how to be strategic about your messaging, outreach, branding...

Of course, if you're not interested in those (truthfully tiring) things, then your rule of thumb is a pretty good one for most people.

I think in this day and age, with the combination of a young & unruly audience plus the edginess allowed on many platforms, you're going to be exposed to shockingly unfiltered behavior.

I also think there are specific forms of content (and your strategy of engagement online) that can mitigate this, e.g. posting political content versus some non-topical artwork.

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44197640

Points: 1

# Comments: 0

https://euvinkeel.github.io/tart/Traversing-Knowledge-Graphs

1) a note-taking workflow in Obsidian (you take bite-sized notes about a topic, then connect "prerequisite" notes in Obsidian's canvas editor)

2) a tool that uploads each note and graph data to a database

3) a webapp that presents those notes algorithmically using spaced repetition. This enables you to allow others to "traverse" your note graph in a guided and self-paced manner.

You can add "challenge presets" to each note so that your mastery of each piece of knowledge can be tested with simple flashcards, multiple choice, free response, or some visual/actionable task to force active recall. An algorithm uses your success rate and spaced repetition data to introduce & drill more advanced notes into your long term memory.

Here's some more reading I was inspired by:

https://www.mathacademy.com/pedagogy

https://www.justinmath.com/individualized-spaced-repetition-...

Even if there are a lot of imperfections and flaws about this project (like the sheer difficulty of curating a good knowledge graph to begin with), I'm hoping to make my note-taking in Obsidian more structured and thorough, replace my Anki routine, and make any of my notes into an automated + algorithmic course. If someone has another similar project (combining note-taking with hierarchal, topological knowledge graphs with spaced repetition and testing all in one platform) I would love to hear more about your approaches. Quick shoutout to one person I've seen who is doing something similar: https://x.com/JeffreyBiles/status/1926639544666816774

https://rive.app/blog/introducing-vector-feathering

I do understand the appeal for an open format though. Rive seems to have their own proprietary (documented) binary format: https://rive.app/docs/runtimes/advanced-topic/format

The search engine was impressive enough but I think this implementation was a nice cherry on top.

So when ChatGPT came out, I thought it was a cool toy with a chat interface skin and nothing more. Before I knew it, AI (and its hype) had invaded a lot of unexpected corners of my life; and as more time passed, with more unexpected and perverse capabilities being discovered, I found it harder and harder to believe in all the utopian visions Sam and others preached.

Hopefully a great super-intelligent god will properly retire me and my family before all our skillsets are automated away.