frontpage.
newsnewestaskshowjobs

Made with ♥ by @iamnishanth

Open Source @Github

fp.

Open in hackernews

Bland,for fans of everything: what has the Netflix algorithm done to our films?

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2025/aug/28/bland-easy-to-follow-for-fans-of-everything-what-has-the-netflix-algorithm-done-to-our-films
17•robaato•6h ago

Comments

anthk•5h ago
The same as music. Dumb down the genres once they are almost the same: Metal, rock, pop. Tons of cross-polinated chords and riffs, so the genre can be followed by almost anyone. Ditto with the lyrics.

So, Netflix it's doing the same. And Marvel with the comics, where every hero it's just the same but with different weapons.

And the books, too. A good 90% of best sellers are utter crap, really streamlined stories so everyone can follow the plots as if they were cheap soap operas.

In the end, you need to go elsewhere (niche books and media) to find something worth your dollars/euros.

Something it's wrong when some people writting fiction in Gemini (not AI, protocol) both in English and in Spanish can hook you better than any random library.

And don't let me start on AI produced crap from Amazon and Spotify...

Okawari•4h ago
I think the "algorithm movie" concept, describes something also very prevalent in music these days.

With the number of music producers which learn from tutorials and want to make music within a certain genre are incentivized to generally not stray too far from the prescribed genre conventions. This in turn is amplified by algorithms that will also not stray too far when recommending music in response to someone's listening habits. These habits again often "poisoned" by the listener not really paying attention to the music that is served them, as it might only be on in the background while working or doing something else.

Its like a lot of people with nothing to say, being recommended by something that does not understand anything, recommending to people who don't really listen.

We, the listeners reap what we sow, I guess

deafpolygon•4h ago
Worse yet, watch just ONE kdrama and all I get see kdramas.
thisisnotauser•3h ago
It's fascinating that the driving force here was human-driven capitalism enabled by enhanced data collection, and not data-driven decision making at all. It's risk-aversion that's draining art of its artistry, much like the effect of risk-aversion in other industries like defense. Consider how the US department of defense tends to waste money on the same old prime contractors making the same old missiles, while other places like China are utterly devastating us on technologies that radically undermine our advantage that we'd historically considered "too risky" like drones.

I wonder what the next "drones" will be for the entertainment industry? World simulation models like Genie turned into some real-time generated mix of a shared experience of movies and video games?

voxadam•2h ago
These days, on the occasion that I ignore my inner voice and watch a Netflix production I seldom enjoy it and frequently dump out of it early. The only solace I have is my tricorne hat and Jolly Roger meaning that at lest I didn't contribute to the film's existence.
blackbear_•1h ago
> Through the mass production of cultural goods, the culture industry created a situation where individuals were passive consumers rather than active participants in cultural life. This, they argued, led to the homogenization of culture, where difference and critical thinking were stifled in favor of conformity and consensus.

https://journalism.university/media-and-communication-theori...

The Power Is in the Network

https://morrisbrodersen.de/the-power-is-in-the-network/
1•todsacerdoti•58s ago•0 comments

Show HN: Txtos for LLMs – 60 SEC setup, long memory, boundary guard, MIT

https://github.com/onestardao/WFGY/blob/main/OS/README.md
1•tgrrr9111•2m ago•0 comments

Compilation vs. vectorization, search engine edition

https://jpountz.github.io/2025/08/28/compiled-vs-vectorized-search-engine-edition.html
1•mfiguiere•2m ago•0 comments

AI Music Playlist Creator

1•Chukwuebukaagm•3m ago•0 comments

Amtrak's flagship Acela trains get a long-awaited upgrade

https://www.npr.org/2025/08/28/nx-s1-5515654/amtrak-acela-trains-northeast-corridor-upgrade
1•voxadam•5m ago•0 comments

You Are All on the Hobbyists Maintainers' Turf Now (2024)

https://www.softwaremaxims.com/blog/open-source-hobbyists-turf
1•pabs3•6m ago•0 comments

Ask HN: Anyone working on bringing software back from US clouds?

2•sam_lowry_•7m ago•0 comments

Sometimes CPU cores are odd

https://anubis.techaro.lol/blog/2025/cpu-core-odd
1•todsacerdoti•8m ago•0 comments

An EM's Side Project Reached 1,800 GitHub Stars

https://newsletter.manager.dev/p/how-an-ems-side-project-reached-1800
1•AntonZ234•11m ago•0 comments

Ask HN: Which LinkedIn roles should I target for web scraping products/services?

1•vikramaruchamy•13m ago•0 comments

Nothing busted using professional photos as Phone 3 samples

https://www.theverge.com/report/766543/nothing-busted-using-fake-phone-3-photo-samples
2•k33l0r•14m ago•0 comments

Evaluation Code – GPT-5 on Multimodal Medical Reasoning

https://github.com/wangshansong1/GPT-5-Evaluation
2•Topfi•14m ago•0 comments

Hobbyist Maintainers with Thomas DePierre

https://opensourcesecurity.io/2025/2025-06-hobbyist-thomas-depierre/
1•pabs3•15m ago•0 comments

Project Showcase: Movuan

https://pine64.org/2025/08/27/august_2025_movuan/
2•wicket•17m ago•0 comments

In-App Browsers: The worst erosion of user choice you haven't heard of (2024)

https://open-web-advocacy.org/blog/in-app-browsers-the-worst-erosion-of-user-choice-you-havent-he...
6•wicket•18m ago•0 comments

AI audio generation/cleanup trained on my voice

1•jgrauman•19m ago•0 comments

Shakespeare can help us overcome loneliness in the digital age

https://scroll.in/article/1085865/how-shakespeare-can-help-us-overcome-loneliness-in-the-digital-age
1•akbarnama•19m ago•0 comments

Tips for installing Windows 98 in QEMU/UTM

https://sporks.space/2025/08/28/tips-for-installing-windows-98-in-qemu-utm/
1•zdw•20m ago•0 comments

Ask HN: What perfectly written monospace block text am I looking for?

3•meta-level•20m ago•0 comments

Anthropic's auto-clicking AI Chrome extension raises browser-hijacking concerns

https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2025/08/new-ai-browser-agents-create-risks-if-site...
2•Bogdanp•21m ago•0 comments

How Cloudflare runs more AI models on fewer GPUs

https://blog.cloudflare.com/how-cloudflare-runs-more-ai-models-on-fewer-gpus/
2•eldridgea•23m ago•0 comments

World Train Travel Guide – The Man in Seat Sixty-One

https://www.seat61.com/index.html
2•mhb•23m ago•0 comments

AI Has Broken Hiring

https://brodzinski.com/2025/08/broken-ai-hiring.html
2•flail•26m ago•0 comments

A perfect symbiosis:planting vines other ways hot cities are creating cool space

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/aug/28/planting-vines-and-other-ways-hot-cities-crea...
1•tocs3•26m ago•0 comments

A lower bound on the length of the shortest superpattern

https://warosu.org/sci/thread/S3751105#p3751197
1•gadders•26m ago•0 comments

The sisters "paradox" – counter-intuitive probability

https://blog.engora.com/2025/08/the-sisters-paradox-counter-intuitive.html
3•Vermin2000•30m ago•2 comments

Archaea produce peptidoglycan hydrolases that kill bacteria

https://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/journal.pbio.3003235
1•PaulHoule•30m ago•0 comments

GM Raided Silicon Valley to Build Its New AI Team. Here's What It's Doing

https://www.wsj.com/articles/gm-raided-silicon-valley-to-build-its-new-ai-team-heres-what-its-doi...
2•pcl•31m ago•1 comments

LLMs solving problems OCR+NLP couldn't

https://cloudsquid.substack.com/p/ocr-is-legacy-tech
2•universesquid•31m ago•0 comments

Global airlines group proposes raising international pilot retirement age to 67

https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/global-airlines-group-proposes-raising-interna...
1•rntn•32m ago•0 comments