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PaperclipPerfector  2d ago (text post)   1717 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for August 2, 2026

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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"Here is everything I've ever written down, public and private. Tell me what patterns exist that I might have overlooked"

"I always wanted an app that would do X. Please build one and install it on my phone."

"I'm reading this book (pdf attached). Do a deep analysis of chapters 1-3, as if for a book club, and let's discuss"

"(attached photo of a product's ingredients) explain what all these ingredients do individually, and how they come together to form a complete product"

"Geoguessr this photo and explain your answer"

"create a custom tpot (twitter) character creator, complete with all the obscure classifications, kiki/bouba, apollo/dionysus, theatre kid/band kid, Kegan stages, the works"

"calculate the optimal talent build for this game given these specifics about its combat system. explain and show your work"

"help me unpack why I irrationally hate this popular thing"

"give me the tl;dr of this 2 hour youtube transcript so I can decide if it's worth my time"

"educate me on the background context I need to understand this current world event"

This is similar to how I use AI. I think an underrated use case is asking it to build browser extensions that can make small modifications to existing websites. It's the kind of thing that wouldn't be worth the effort without AI.

"I always wanted an app that would do X. Please build one and install it on my phone."

Sounds like a recipe for bricking my phone.

"I'm reading this book (pdf attached). Do a deep analysis of chapters 1-3, as if for a book club, and let's discuss"

Why?

"(attached photo of a product's ingredients) explain what all these ingredients do individually, and how they come together to form a complete product"

Why would I need that?

"Geoguessr this photo and explain your answer"

When would I ever need that?

"create a custom tpot (twitter) character creator, complete with all the obscure classifications, kiki/bouba, apollo/dionysus, theatre kid/band kid, Kegan stages, the works"

I have no clue what any of that even means.

"calculate the optimal talent build for this game given these specifics about its combat system. explain and show your work"

What game? Why?

"give me the tl;dr of this 2 hour youtube transcript so I can decide if it's worth my time"

That needs a youtube transcript available (I don't know how to get one).

"Help me cultivate the virtue of curiosity"

-- but, to your points:

  1. A custom app isn't going to brick your phone. They're sandboxed, and at worst, they'll run inefficiently and have to be killed.
  2. do you not read books? If you do read books, do you immediately comprehend everything about them? If so, I take it back.
  3. Are you not interested to know how things work? How products are made, and what goes into them? Maybe you already know everything. In that case, ignore the suggestion.
  4. If you want to know where that cool photo was taken, because maybe you want to go there someday? Maybe you're stalking someone. idk. Maybe you're bored and it's entertaining.
  5. the tpot character creator was supposed to be illustrative of how it can take pop cultural knowledge and work with it.
  6. what game? idk? What games are you playing? "Men are born for games. Nothing else". Maybe you're pretty sure a thing can be optimized but don't know how to math it out.
  7. You can get youtube transcripts by expanding the description, scrolling down to the "show transcript" button, then copy/pasting from the text window that pops up. There are probably also browser extensions that will do it, or you could ask an LLM to make one for you.

A custom app isn't going to brick your phone. They're sandboxed, and at worst, they'll run inefficiently and have to be killed.

Really? That's not what I hear from most the people I know — then again, the rest of my family uses iPhones, so Apple…

And besides, what would I even need a custom app for? I only got a smartphone, like, a year ago, because the decade-old LG flip-phone I had finally died. I use a phone to make calls. That's about it.

do you not read books? If you do read books, do you immediately comprehend everything about them?

If not everything, then enough that discussing it with an LLM is unlikely to provide much novel insight.

Are you not interested to know how things work? How products are made, and what goes into them?

Not really.

If you want to know where that cool photo was taken, because maybe you want to go there someday?

Where would I even see such a "cool photo"? And, no, I know I'm going to spend the rest of my life too poor to ever travel anywhere.

the tpot character creator was supposed to be illustrative of how it can take pop cultural knowledge and work with it.

That's not an explanation; and, again, what use would I have for that? For one, I disdain our "pop culture." Secondly, work with it to what end?

what game? idk? What games are you playing?

Absolutely none. That's my point.

You can get youtube transcripts by expanding the description, scrolling down to the "show transcript" button, then copy/pasting from the text window that pops up. There are probably also browser extensions that will do it, or you could ask an LLM to make one for you.

And that's something that's actually useful information. Thanks. (And I'll note — I got this useful information from asking a human being.)

I have a book "insight" prompt that goes like:

... I've already gathered up my own collection of notes of things I think worth commenting on, but what I want you to do is to go through the text yourself and pull out your own list of things that you think are worth highlighting, explaining interesting tidbits or identifying additional places for witticisms or places where literary connections can be made or what-have-you, as you deem fit. That'll help me compare against my own list to see whether I've covered all I think is good to cover. (I'm especially looking for cool niche details that I may likely have missed.) ...

This always pulls out a lot of things that I missed.

(I think in general, the better the author, the more you'll find they've have sprinkled clever connections, allusions, and foreshadowing, often in a kind of hidden way. The LLMs are easily already superhuman at pulling these details out.)

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