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Ask HN: What Are You Working On? (June 2025)

439 points david927 | 4 comments | 29 Jun 25 20:21 UTC | HN request time: 0.201s | source

What are you working on? Any new ideas which you're thinking about?
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rorylaitila ◴[30 Jun 25 13:07 UTC] No.44422829[source]▶
Working on a physical and digital archive of all American vintage print advertising. I've built the archival and database software on Lucee & MySQL to store images and automate, and I use OpenAI to analyze images and extra meta data. All of the full page ads are pushed to https://adretro.com.

I've gotten the process to fully catalog all of the advertisements in a magazine (about 150 on average) down from over a week to a few hours. I should be able to get through the material within my lifetime now :)

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1. DamnInteresting ◴[30 Jun 25 16:01 UTC] No.44424838[source]▶
It's funny...I absolutely despise being advertised to, yet I find vintage ads fascinating. I don't know what that says about me.

I feel the same about a lot graffiti; if it's recent, it's an eyesore, but old graffiti can be extremely interesting. I guess both domains expose some elements of the zeitgeist seldom explored in other mediums. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Nice site, by the way!

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2. rorylaitila ◴[30 Jun 25 16:37 UTC] No.44425236[source]▶
Thank you!

Yeah, there is a subtext to the advertising that changes over time that is very interesting. For example, early appliance ads are about saving household labor to spend time with the kids, later appliance become more about status and the allure of technology.

3. gwbas1c ◴[30 Jun 25 21:53 UTC] No.44428308[source]▶
I think it's more about how there's a lot more advertising now than in the past; and just how generally intrusive advertising has become overall.

Think about a newspaper / magazine: The ads didn't suddenly block the article, move the page around, or phone home to the advertiser. Likewise, the ads wouldn't slow the magazine down, flash, or make noise.

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4. DamnInteresting ◴[01 Jul 25 14:32 UTC] No.44434265[source]▶
Those elements certainly amplify the awfulness, but I am old enough that I remember reading magazines, and I despised the ads there was well. I'm trying to read this OMNI article about colonizing Mars, and this stupid full-page ad for calculator wristwatches is getting in my way. *shakes fist*

I'm sure glad that the inline ads model never caught on in novels.