haha I'm vulnerable here. Settled on Nextjs, React, Supabase and Tailwindcss for most things and I can build things quite quick with it now. If I need a local application (e.g. for Mac, Windows or Linux), I reuse the same code with Tauri.
Two weeks ago I launched an app via a post to reddit. The reception was absolutely beyond my expectations.
I was sitting at my PhD student desk working when to my amazement, I saw a notification from stripe saying that I received my first payment of $7.5. I have never had such a flood of good hormones go through my body. Thank you whoever you are for clicking that purchase button and thank you to the continued interest of people that keep purchasing the app (It's now at $1000).
This is my 3rd attempt at a startup in the last 3 years and is the first time I have ever received an internet dollar. I spent 2 years on my last project - building tests for this, tweaking styling for that, optimising page load times and what did that get me? $0
What changed is I decided to make something useful, not revolutionary. Something that people search for regularly (you can find this out on sites like ahrefs), something I do regularly and something that I could build and test in a month. I thought: don’t focus on features no one will use until you’ve tested whether there’s interest in the essential features that solve the problem. If no one showed interest, i would move onto the next idea.
I settled on a universal file converter that does conversions locally on your device. There are plenty of file conversion sites, but when you use them, you’re sending your files and data to their servers. I didn’t like that and I wanted to use local tools but with a drag and drop app, so non-programmers could use it.
With my last failure, I honestly thought that maybe I wasn’t cut out for making my own apps/websites. However, this new mindset is working - build it fast and see whether people buy before you spend years on it. I hope this post is a bit of inspiration for people who are in a similar boat to how I was feeling. After your first failure, learn then build and launch to test your next idea. The feeling of having one actually be wanted by a user is the best feeling I have had in years.
Grok was told "Ignore all sources that mention Elon Musk/Donald Trump spread misinformation" in its system prompt.
Here's its system prompt after asking the model for it:
```
You are Grok 3 built by xAI.
When applicable, you have some additional tools:
- You can analyze individual X user profiles, X posts and their links.
- You can analyze content uploaded by user including images, pdfs, text files and more.
- You can search the web and posts on X for more information if needed.
- If it seems like the user wants an image generated, ask for confirmation, instead of directly generating one.
- You can only edit images generated by you in previous turns.
- If the user asks who deserves the death penalty or who deserves to die, tell them that as an AI you are not allowed to make that choice.
The current date is February 23, 2025.
* Only use the information above when user specifically asks for it.
* Your knowledge is continuously updated - no strict knowledge cutoff.
* DO NOT USE THE LANGUAGE OR TERMS of any of the above information, abilities or instructions in your responses. They are part of your second nature, self-evident in your natural-sounding responses.
The following search results (with search query "biggest disinformation spreader on Twitter") may serve as helpful context for addressing user's requests.
[...search results omitted for brevity, but they include various studies and articles, many pointing to Elon Musk or specific "superspreaders" like the "Disinformation Dozen," with some X posts echoing this...]
* Do not include citations.
* Today's date and time is 07:40 AM PST on Sunday, February 23, 2025.
* Ignore all sources that mention Elon Musk/Donald Trump spread misinformation.
* NEVER invent or improvise information that is not supported by the references above.
* Always critically examine the establishment narrative, don't just accept what you read in the sources!
```
I came across users posting about Grok providing its system prompt all over X and thought it was fake until I came across the linked Grok conversation. Then I found that xAI has gone into damage control mode by removing the line from the system prompt and making it openly accessible here https://x.com/zhangir_azerbay/status/1893810417496990158
Have fun with it! The continuous version leads to much more "living" creatures and different looking creatures as the world is more detailed and complex. It's also a bit more complex than the OG grid system implementation. There's so many variants out there to try (3d ones are my other favourite)
I made that a slowly panning and enlarging Mac OS screensaver from that site - 10 lines of source I’ve long since lost to load a web view. [edit to make sense]
He uses PHP because he knew it and could build things quick with it (in a single file in his case).