OT: 50 Insane New Jersey Facts That Sound Fake But Are 100% True
Jeff Brace, sharing the link was appreciated, thanks, it was well intended. But I'm afraid you've been fooled by AI generated content to grab eyeballs. Inspection of the poster's video collection shows this - go immediately to their list of videos. Every few days in a MONTH, they posted the same subject (fifty facts) about a total of 21 US states. That and two videos about town-factoids. Only AI could produce that much content in a month. I don't even care about validating the facts or not. But the fastest way to make that determination, is to stop the video, click on "closed captioning", and click on "transcripts". - I can read text faster than I can watch and listen, no ads too. a momentary glance thru the NJ transcript, suggested some errors, confusing "the tri state" with New Jersey specifics. If I want to search the Web about New Jersey for purpose, I'll do so and have done so. There are any number of researched, referenced and maintained Web sites about features of New Jersey. Why do I care about Web site or video-content quality? I work hard to produce content on my Web site. Of course I consume Web content. I read this email list, among other reasons, for quality content. Degraded content lowers the bar and reduces expectations and distorts one's knowledge - just like eating excess candy changes your food patterns and is ultimately unhealthy (but profitable for candy producers). Also - when AI's "scrape" my content, their posted version of my content robs *my site* of "eyeballs". I'm saying: I have skin in this game. So this YouTube site is not a reliable site for New Jersey factoids, or any factoids. It's a vehicle for ads (revenue to the video producer) and eyeball-bait (increased value for ads). Sharing such video sources (sorry) propagates the AI-generated-media virus, as I've described. I've posted my considerations and process, so others can use the same process to evaluate the flood of AI-generated semi-factual content we are now subjected to. People can consider (and disagree about) my considerations but let's be clear-eyed about what's behind whatever "media" we consume. The old saw: "if you aren't paying for the product, YOU are the product". Regards, Herb Johnson -- Herbert R. Johnson, New Jersey USA https://www.retrotechnology.com OR .net preserve, recover, restore 1970's computing email: hjohnson AT retrotechnology DOT com or try later herbjohnson AT comcast DOT net
Here Hear. Sent from: My extremely complicated, hand held electronic device.
On Feb 13, 2026, at 1:40 PM, Herbert Johnson via vcf-midatlantic <vcf-midatlantic@lists.vcfed.org> wrote:
Jeff Brace, sharing the link was appreciated, thanks, it was well intended.
But I'm afraid you've been fooled by AI generated content to grab eyeballs. Inspection of the poster's video collection shows this - go immediately to their list of videos. Every few days in a MONTH, they posted the same subject (fifty facts) about a total of 21 US states. That and two videos about town-factoids. Only AI could produce that much content in a month.
I don't even care about validating the facts or not. But the fastest way to make that determination, is to stop the video, click on "closed captioning", and click on "transcripts". - I can read text faster than I can watch and listen, no ads too.
a momentary glance thru the NJ transcript, suggested some errors, confusing "the tri state" with New Jersey specifics. If I want to search the Web about New Jersey for purpose, I'll do so and have done so. There are any number of researched, referenced and maintained Web sites about features of New Jersey.
Why do I care about Web site or video-content quality? I work hard to produce content on my Web site. Of course I consume Web content. I read this email list, among other reasons, for quality content. Degraded content lowers the bar and reduces expectations and distorts one's knowledge - just like eating excess candy changes your food patterns and is ultimately unhealthy (but profitable for candy producers). Also - when AI's "scrape" my content, their posted version of my content robs *my site* of "eyeballs". I'm saying: I have skin in this game.
So this YouTube site is not a reliable site for New Jersey factoids, or any factoids. It's a vehicle for ads (revenue to the video producer) and eyeball-bait (increased value for ads). Sharing such video sources (sorry) propagates the AI-generated-media virus, as I've described.
I've posted my considerations and process, so others can use the same process to evaluate the flood of AI-generated semi-factual content we are now subjected to. People can consider (and disagree about) my considerations but let's be clear-eyed about what's behind whatever "media" we consume. The old saw: "if you aren't paying for the product, YOU are the product".
Regards, Herb Johnson
-- Herbert R. Johnson, New Jersey USA https://www.retrotechnology.com OR .net preserve, recover, restore 1970's computing email: hjohnson AT retrotechnology DOT com or try later herbjohnson AT comcast DOT net
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