Do you mean the soda and menthos strip? These xkdc references have gone to far when I understand such a vague reference ...

Yeah, I got the punchline off by a factor of two.

I wouldn't call it that vague, from what I've seen it's one of the most re-shared xkcd comics.

Just think, someone doesn't know that xkcd reference and today will be the day they see it for the first time.

He means https://xkcd.com/1053/. "I try to not make fun of people for not knowing things."

That is the mentos thing

So funny to read this comment this morning. I just hopped on twitter for a second — not sure why, I basically never use it — and it seems to be just a dumping ground for low effort AI spamming.

I really don’t understand how people enjoy using twitter. I mean I didn’t before but now I can’t understand how it’s worth anything to anyone.

Curration. I don't see the bots (unless I look at a post's replies) because I only see who I follow.

Same with Reddit back when I was regularly visiting. I don't see the dumping ground of low value memes because I only see the subreddits I want.

Probably the same for facebook? But I wouldn't know.

Like most things, it takes a bit of work to reap rewards.

Defaults as they are today on reddit are terrible. Log out and look at the shitshow. Its either low effort flamebait, gawking at hotties, or basically shill driven ad posts, all of which probably contribute to engagement from multiple angles. The beast is rotten. At this point all thats of value are the vestigial users who still have their network of non-default subreddits they frequent. However that population will only decrease over time since these new users engage with the site in a different way now than e.g. nerdy niche interests like it was in the past. I don't even know where to go these days to discover content that isn't pure agitprop or on the race to be something like that these days. Even this board is only so busy. I might have to just write off browsing the web like I've done for years and get into that pile of books I've been meaning to read instead.

Nobody enjoys Twitter anymore, they're just too passive to leave until the early adopters make their decision for them about what the next place will be.

The problem is, network effects may not make this possible anymore.

Based on what I've read in HN comments and elsewhere, leaving Twitter is seen as a political act, specifically aligned with liberals or wokeness or whatever term du jour. These folks tremble in fear that they will be judged harshly by their peers for abandoning the cause ... ultimately the cause of making one of the richest people in the world richer.

Yeha it's obvious that a certain group loves it there as a way of virtue signaling allegiance with his performative political incorrectness. But it's incomprehensible why all his haters, who now have his balls in their hand, don't leave and cripple him.

Because the vast majority of people are neither Elon haters nor Elon simps. They're just people doing what they were already doing because changing habits is hard and there's no easy alternative.

Bingo. the alternatives just aren't there yet, and most people don't care enough to get angry about his insanity, esp. since you curate your own experience.

anecdotally, my use, and that of all of the people I know on it, is fairly limited. its basically just a way to keep track of family, local groups, etc. I've given up on the platform as a way to get accurate news, but it's still useful for organizational contacts; ditto for FB.

It's a lot less botty now since Elon saved it though.

No, subjectively speaking it’s far worse.

Poe's law is strong with this one.

It's not that difficult a problem to solve. Just curate your follows to known humans who publish high-quality content, then select the "Following" tab at the top (not "For You"). Voila, now you only see content from your curated follows in your timeline.

"xkdc 1:20,000" is totally wrong. It is not xkdc, it is xkcd, it is not 20,000, it is 10,000, and it is not a ratio, it is an absolute number. And it is not even about exclaiming commonly known facts but rather the opposite, that is people asking about facts that should be commonly known.

And yet, so many people understood the reference, me included, even ChatGPT got it. I always find it fascinating when a messages manages to pass well even though all of its individual parts are wrong.

Is there something deep about it, maybe? Probably not. Maybe we can turn that into some commonly known fact to tell the lucky ten thousand.

I was so mad typing I couldn't even get the "xkcd" part right. lol.

Basically what I was getting at, the other end of "don't make fun of someone for not knowing" is "Don't yell at people for saying commonly known facts because there's always someone who is finding out for the first time".