This is where we record weekly worth-sharing technology content, released every Friday.
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Cover image
Lively Chongqing Nanbin Road night market, right by the Yangtze River, with high-rise buildings of the Yuzhong Peninsula across the river.via）
AI Monetization Techniques of Content Farms
A content farm refers to a website that creates a large number of articles to deceive clicks and earn traffic.
It churns out tens of thousands of junk articles, each page filled with ads, with catchy, keyword-optimized titles to attract readers to click.
Previously, content farms had to hire writers and gather materials to generate content. Now it's simpler—just hand it over to AI, and it can generate an article in two seconds.
Moreover, the cost of AI is already low enough that the ad revenue from a single page view can cover the expenses. Below, I will demonstrate how cheap it is to create an AI content farm.
First, you can look at trending topics to find themes that readers are interested in.
Let's take a commonly searched IT issue, such as disabling Windows updates.
Then, have the AI write an article.
At this point, you need a precise prompt. I copied a segment from foreign articles.
You are an excellent blog writer. Your blogs rank well in search engines because you understand SEO and how to use highly relevant and popular keywords. Your blog posts are informative and help users find the content they are looking for.
You will receive queries from users searching for blog posts. You will create blog posts that match their queries, are helpful, and answer or relate to the content they are searching for.
Respond only with a blog post.
The reader's question is: How do I disable Windows updates?
I input this prompt into a domestic AI.
The AI immediately provided the following article.
Next, let's calculate the cost of the article above.
The AI charges based on tokens. The domestic AI I used has the following pricing:
- Input: 0.0008 yuan per 1,000 tokens
- Output: 0.0020 yuan per 1,000 tokens
Using OpenAI's token calculator, we can determine that the input above is 168 tokens and the output is 622 tokens, so the total cost is as follows.
(168 * 0.0008 + 622 * 0.0020) / 1000
= 0.00138
That is to say,The cost of this article is 0.00138 yuan.A penny can generate 7 pieces, and generating 1,000 pieces only costs 1.38 yuan.
How much advertising revenue can I earn from it?
The data from domestic advertising platforms is relatively limited, and it is generally used to Google Ads abroad.Its revenueIt is $0.2 to $2.5 per thousand impressions.
We'll take the lowest rate of $0.2, which is equivalent to 1.45 yuan, so a single view would be 0.00145 yuan, just above the cost of generating the article.
Therefore,Every browse is making money As long as someone clicks in, the content cost is covered, and subsequent clicks are pure profit.
Content farming has never been this easy. I'll buy a hot search database first, then spend over 100 yuan, and generate 100,000 articles. Finally, add ads, optimize SEO, launch the website, and wait for users to click in.
It's not hard to imagine that future information websites will likely follow this model. Human-generated content is too costly and cannot compete with AI content, making it destined to be niche websites.
Technology News
Last week, the Windows system experienced a global outage, with several million computers encountering a blue screen and failing to boot.
The cause was an update package from the security software company CrowdStrike, which triggered a kernel failure.
That's quite strange. Why can a third-party application software modify the kernel?
Microsoft's explanation is that many years ago, the EU suspected Microsoft's own security software, Windows Defender, of having a monopoly, and Microsoft had to grant the same kernel access permissions to other security software, which is why CrowdStrike was able to modify the kernel.
In contrast, Apple has never opened up kernel permissions, so this failure does not affect Mac systems. However, the EU has now targeted Apple.
Fortunately, cars and airplanes do not use the Windows system, otherwise, a sudden blue screen while driving could be deadly.
Psychologists previously believed that happiness followed a U-shaped curve, with the highest points at both ends and the lowest in the middle, making middle-aged people the least happy.
However, the latest research shows that people's psychology has changed. Current happiness is an upward curve.
In the figure above, the blue curve represents the happiness from previous surveys. It was rising before the age of 30 and then began to decline, reaching its lowest point at 50. After entering old age, it continued to rise.
The yellow curve is the latest survey. The sense of happiness in youth has declined significantly compared to the past, with 15 being the lowest point, then continuously rising until old age.
Psychologists explain that for today's young people, adolescence has become very difficult, marking a low point in life. They are just beginning their own lives, feeling anxious and frustrated, lacking hope for the future, and are prone to making some serious mistakes.
In summer, people tend to drink beer excessively. Is there a way to slow down the pace at which people drink beer?
A Japanese company has launched a "hourglass beer mug,"据说 it can slow down the rate of drinking beer by three times.
This cup can hold 350 milliliters of beer, but the bottleneck in the middle is only 6 millimeters, equivalent to drinking beer through a 6-millimeter straw. Moreover, it's also troublesome to add beer back into the cup after drinking.
The company positions this cup as a toy, "hoping people can enjoy fun while drinking."
Article
1、Aliyun Public DNS Free Version Speed Limit（Chinese）
Aliyun's free DNS has been speed-limited since September 30th, with a request rate per IP not exceeding 20 QPS. Exceeding this limit requires using the paid version. It has set a precedent for speed-limiting public DNS.
2、.topPhishing Issues with Domains（English）
.topIt is the most泛滥域名 of phishing websites, and its registration administrator is a Chinese company. ICANN has demanded that the company take action, or else it will revoke its management rights.
3,Getting Started with the JavaScript Testing Framework Jest(English)
Beginner's tutorial, a simple introduction to how to use Jest to write test cases.@Faizan711Submission)
4,Introduction to Cron Scheduled Tasks(English)
A Linux beginner's tutorial introducing how to use cron to set up scheduled tasks, very detailed.
5,Frontend Build Overview（English）
This article comprehensively introduces the concept, steps, and tools of frontend build.
6、Security Issues of Forked Repositories on GitHub（English）
GitHub allows forking others' repositories. Once a repository is forked, it can never be deleted again, even if it is converted to a private repository, others may still see your new commits.
7、Other Articles
- July 22ndis the hottest day on record globally.
- Tencent GamesFor underage players, mandatory facial recognition every second.
- Node.js Officially added the feature to strip TypeScript type code.
Tools
1、Foliate
An e-book reading software for Linux platform.
2、Sendune
A visual HTML email design tool with open-source code. Similar to it is the HTML email creation library mjml.
A lightweight hash function library, providing over twenty common hash algorithms, such as MD5 and SHA-1, as well as more secure BLAKE3.
This open-source tool is used to set up a caching website, which can crawl other websites and web pages to create a cached version, acting as an intermediary for access.
5、WebUI
A cross-platform desktop application packaging tool that allows you to directly use a browser as the frontend for a desktop application, much lighter than Electron while avoiding the use of WebView.
An open-source web application that counts squats using the accelerometer of mobile devices.(@zhaooleeSubmitted)
7、Anori
A browser extension that allows customization of various widgets on the homepage.
An online tool that adds blur depth to images and can also rotate images in 3D.
An online tool for downloading various streaming video content, supporting YouTube and TikTok.
10, Stack
Open-source user management solution, comes with front-end components and admin backend.
AI Related
1, Album AI
An open-source tool that takes your images into AI, retrieves them through chat, equivalent to AI organizing albums. (@blueeon Submission)
2, Essay.Art
GPT4 for correcting IELTS and TOEFL essays. (@zengdamo) Submission)
an open-source AI application search engine, featuring over 10,000 applications. (Submitted by @xiaoguopku )
4、Brev AI
a free online AI music generator, no registration required. (Submitted by @zdamo4194 )
Resources
1、AIEmoji
Emoji Search Engine, enter the content you want to express, and it returns the most matching Emoji symbols. (@bettergoo Submission)
The author, with AI assistance, completed an interactive visualization website for classic algorithms, with the code open-sourced. (@selfboot Submission)
3、U.S. University Application Success Rate
This website allows you to check the application success rates of various U.S. universities over the years. The image above shows Stony Brook University of New York, where the application success rate has been around 50% in recent years.
4、DevDocs
This website allows you to query API documentation for web standards and mainstream software tools.
Image
Today, let's introduce some information about Mexico.
Mexico is a very large country, so large that it's hard to imagine.
The area of 30 countries in Europe could fit into Mexico, including Germany, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Austria, the Czech Republic, Hungary, and so on.
Historically, Mexico was even larger, more than double its current size.
In the image above, the green area represents Mexico in the past, and the two red lines are the current borders of Mexico.
Mexico's territory was mainly taken over by the United States. The entire state of Texas, California, Nevada, and Utah today, as well as parts of Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, and Wyoming, historically belonged to Mexico.
The Mexican-American War of 1846-1848 ended with Mexico ceding these territories.
Below is the border between the United States and Mexico.
In the image above, on the left is San Diego, California, which is predominantly rural; on the right is Tijuana, Mexico, which is entirely urban.
The stark contrast between the two sides is mainly because Mexico's northern economy is entirely dependent on the United States, with the economy becoming more prosperous the closer it is to the U.S.
Excerpt
Here are some of my current views on computer programming. These views are based on my own experience.
(1) When faced with a daunting task, I ask myself: "What if I don't do this at all?"
In most cases, this is a foolish question, and I must do the task. But in about 5% of cases, I realize I can completely skip some work.
(2) "Simple" and "easy" are important distinctions. Simplicity is the opposite of complexity. Complexity arises from multiple things being bundled together.
Easy is something else; complex things can also be easy. Understanding the difference between "simple" and "easy" can help you develop simpler software.
(3)Eliminate invalid state (NULL)If I could design data/types to prevent invalid states, then a lot of error sources could be eliminated. A bit of trouble with the type system or database architecture is worth it.
(4)Testability of codeBasically, it's the same as code modularity.
(5)The most important issues with software are non-technical.Real-world problems are often the most important. Who do I build for? Is my team functioning well?
(6)Making useless things might be a good way to learn new things. I once spent a lot of time writing a custom PNG encoder for a personal project. I never thought it would be useful, but a few months later, when another project of mine needed a certain feature, I knew exactly how to do it.
2、 Why do East Asian companies value drinking?
East Asian businesspeople often go out drinking and discuss business over meals. This is not the case in other parts of the world. Why?
It's related to East Asian culture. East Asian regions emphasize collectivism and hierarchy, discouraging direct face-to-face expression of ideas and preferring implicit and indirect ways of communication.
People avoid direct conflicts and suppress their emotions, making it difficult to understand others' true thoughts.
Drinking is a compensatory method. Alcohol lowers people's inhibitions, thereby fostering relationships and information sharing.
Drinking provides a valuable opportunity---whether within the company or externally---to allow participants to relax, express their true feelings, and build rapport.
Speech
1、
Wang Chuanfu's statement about building cars years ago gave me great courage.
He said many companies, due to lack of understanding, imagine technology to an intimidating height, and this fear is precisely the industrial scare created by competitors for later entrants. They constantly tell you it can't be done, the investment is huge, and R&D is difficult, until you give up. In fact, what you can't solve isn't because you lack the ability, but because you lack the courage.
2、
Vitalik Buterin, one of Ethereum's founders, proposed in 2017 that blockchain faces a trilemma: it cannot simultaneously achieve decentralization, scalability, and security.
--The Three Dilemmas of Blockchain
3、
The world's longest bus route is from London, UK to Kolkata, India, covering a total of 16,000 kilometers, with a one-way journey taking 50 days.
This line ceased operation in 1976, with the ticket price equivalent to 2,200 pounds today (about 20,000 RMB).
-- Wikipedia
4、
Slack is a workplace productivity chat tool, but did you know it's an acronym meaning "Searchable Log of All Communication and Knowledge" (Searchable Log of All Communication and Knowledge)?
5,
can be described by the following set of rules for our reaction to technology:
(1) When you are born, anything in the world is normal and ordinary, the way the world naturally operates.
(2) Anything invented between the ages of fifteen and thirty-five is new, exciting, and revolutionary, and you may find a career in it.
(3) After the age of thirty-five, anything invented in the world is against the natural laws of things.
-- Douglas Adams, British writer
Retrospective
How do open-source software make money? (2023 #263)
Knowledge Island, Knowledge Software (2022 #213)
How many hospital beds does your city have? (2021 #163)
Why is violent crime decreasing? (2020 #113)
(End)