alt Hacker NewsDenmark did this in 2014 and didn't need a pile of LLM puffery to do it:
https://geoboxers.com/denmark-in-minecraft/
> ‘Denmark in Minecraft’ was released in April 2014 by the Danish Geodata Agency. The project was conceived, developed and operated by Simon Lyngby Kokkendorff, Thorbjørn Kjærshøj Nielsen and Nynne Sole Dalå, the founders of GeoBoxers.
> The work was funded and carried out by the Danish Geodata Agency as an initiative following the 2013 “basic data programme”, where a significant amount of public Danish data were made available for free. The purpose was to make geographical and topographical data available through Minecraft, and help disseminate the free data to a broader audience and specifically reach children.
> Denmark in Minecraft was released with an invitation to teachers and schools to use the data in geography, math, science and history lessons, and within the first few months Minecraft-data were downloaded 300.000 times from the Geodata Agency, and around 37.000 unique users logged in to the agency’s Minecraft-servers.
> January 1st, 2016 the Danish Geodata Agency changed into the Agency for Data Supply and Efficiency, and links in English regarding “Denmark in Minecraft” were removed. Since 2020 Denmark in Minecraft can no longer be downloaded.
Replies
How would you feel if someone described your work as LLM puffery?
The world changing - no need to be rude about it.
Denmark? Ah, so it's a 2D dataset only?
sorry, I'll show myself out...
It's interesting to me how people say "someone did this before it was cheap!" as if it's a slight. I mean, yes, it's much more impressive when it was expensive, but it's good that things are cheaper.
To be fair, Denmark is very flat and could probably be represented by a single block :)
Anyway, if "LLM puffery" makes this easier, why is that bad? And given that your quote indicates that the Danish equivalent got pulled, maybe LLMs can easily bring it back. Wouldn't that be a good thing?
I'm sure if they had a bunch of LLM puffery back in 2014 they would have used it.
Most giant Minecraft map projects are automated as much as possible. It would be a real labor of love on the spectrum otherwise, and who can maintain that?