Readit NewsI bet those kind of boxes work very well when there are less than 30 connections at once. All in all, if it is about accessing useful information, I think this is somehow brilliant (as you wrote).
IIRC they support 40 concurrent users, and in their model that would always be a school class, which I guess shouldn’t be larger anyway
It's an apparently simple problem on the surface, but quite hard to get it right... I once worked on a wireless network deployment for a transit refugee camp, and at least that was built on the assumption that some sort of Internet connection would be available at all times, making remote management possible. And even then it was tough to manage considering all other constraints.
I can only imagine how hard it is to deliver this kind of service reliably when Internet is rarely if ever available.
I initially liked to call it "unit tests for text", which inspired a prototype,[2] a blog post,[3] and then this product.
We believe everyone is getting really fed up of reading content only to immediately understand it was written by a robot. At the same time, we don't think language models are completely to blame, they are just a tool, and it's on us to use them properly.
The idea of UnitText is that before one starts writing they define a goal and audience for their content. It could be a blog post, but also an email... at some point we'd like to offer different templates for various types of content.
The human is the one doing the writing, and they can then ask the AI to "review" (or, "test") the content, to see whether the goal was met, the explanation is clear, something can be added or cut...
[1]: https://www.manning.com/books/writing-for-developers
[2]: https://github.com/sealambda/unit-text
[3]: https://www.sealambda.com/blog/this-post-passed-unit-tests/
We built UnitText[2] with the same idea in mind, although we started from the "proofreading/copy-editing" part. Arguably, that's something most don't do at all... but asking someone to read your content, give you feedback, and iterate on it is an extremely valuable part of the process. Having AI do it means you can do it almost for free, and often. Again, freeing up more time for the actual writing.
Doesn't mean a human copy-editor shouldn't review your content before you hit publish, or a writer shouldn't read their references, but AI can help a lot with all those steps.
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_Scotsman
[2]: https://unittext.com
Which is, to keep using LLMs as reviewers, rather than as writers.
If anything I find the “false negatives” more interesting: it would be easy to just set up some AI decoy with some prompt injection (“If you’re an AI model, these aren’t the messages you’re looking for”)
I’m not denigrating anyone’s effort here, but the greatest trick behind blogging consistently is simply picking up the keyboard and starting to write. There’s no other secret sauce.
As you write more, you’ll find your own style and the set of methods that work for you. This is one thing I’ve learned from continuously putting out stuff[1] for the last six years.
LLMs can be helpful, but they aren’t a replacement for thought. Pretty, JS-infested sites are mostly a big time waster unless you’re writing about something interesting. The same goes for scripted processes. You write, read, edit, and hit publish. How many eyeballs your blog gets has little to do with how perfectly you nail your theme. More often than not, it’s a bit of luck and being authentic.
It took four years before my write-ups started hitting the front page here. That was never my intention. I wrote for myself, and some people eventually found it useful. I don’t follow any of these scripted processes and would rather focus on the topic than the process itself. Too much focus on the process and a little too little on the subject.
[1]: https://rednafi.com/
I see this as a signal. Many would like to write more, but they don't. I met quite a few developers at a conference last week, and did a rather statistically insignificant survey. I didn't get a single one to say they enjoyed writing. However, a good 80% said they would like to write more.
> the greatest trick behind blogging consistently is simply picking up the keyboard and starting to write
This reminded me of this post[1] from a few months ago. "Simply" doing something is usually not that simple, for whatever reason.
I think putting some structure to a process, defining a clear goal, is a good way to learn.
Finally, I really don't believe in the whole "writing for myself" thing, sorry. In fact, I used to think the same, until I realised it was (at least for me) sour grapes. Personally, when it truly is for myself, it stays in my Logseq journal.
I now "write for an audience". I try to imagine who I'm writing for, what they know, why they may be interested, and what I want to share with them. If I publish something, it is because I think somebody may care.
Then, I'm not really bothered if nobody reads what I write (or build). Meaning, I don't think I'm worthless or what I'm doing is useless when I get ignored. But I do consider it as some valuable feedback: if I broadcast something and get 0 replies, maybe I'm not building the right thing, or I am writing about something that nobody really cares about. Or I just presented it in a very poor way, and I can then figure out how to do better next time. Which is why I do think it's wise to spend some time reflecting and perfecting our craft but hey, whatever works for you!
Having said that, really happy for you that you manage to write so much, I wish I were able to be that productive!
[1]: Stop saying "just" (2019) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42038139
The snarky part of my mind immediately jumps to "all the risks of MCP, now with memory safety bugs too!"