The argument
nobody's making.
Research-to-writing intelligence for Australian hospitality. Pick your starting point.
Multiple URLs (2–5) — synthesises all articles into one combined piece.
Note: Some sites block automated fetching. If fetch fails, use Paste Article Text.
What is The Contrarian?
The opinion engine for Food Game — research-to-writing intelligence for Australian hospitality in a Rory Sutherland-inspired style.
Topic Intelligence — Data Sources
Runs NewsData.io and NewsAPI in parallel — results are merged, deduplicated, and enriched by Claude. Falls back to Claude web search if both APIs fail. Up to 15 results per search.
Publishing to Substack
The Contrarian writes the piece. You send it. Here's the flow:
- Step 1 — Generate & review. Write your piece as normal. Review in the preview panel. Edit headline if needed.
- Step 2 — Save to Articles. Click Save to store the piece locally before publishing.
- Step 3 — Copy the raw text. Click Copy Raw Text in the output actions. This copies the clean article body ready to paste.
- Step 4 — Go to Substack. Open thecontrarian.substack.com → click New Post → paste the text → add the headline.
- Step 5 — Add the hosted link. At the bottom of the Substack post add: "Read the full formatted version: [link]" — the GitHub-hosted HTML link goes here once GitHub publishing is live.
- Step 6 — Draft & send. Save as draft → review → send to subscribers.
Technical Notes
- Claude Sonnet 4.6 via Cloudflare proxy
- 15 second cooldown between API calls
- History saved to browser localStorage
- Works on desktop, iPad, and iPhone
Updating the Source Code
When a new version of The Contrarian is ready, follow these steps to push it live:
- Step 1 — Get the new file. Download the updated
index.htmlfrom your Claude session. - Step 2 — Open GitHub. Go to your repository and navigate to
index.html. - Step 3 — Edit the file. Click the pencil ✏️ icon to open the editor, then select Upload file — or delete all existing content and paste the new code directly.
- Step 4 — Commit. Scroll to Commit changes, add a short note (e.g. "Add source naming field"), then click Commit changes.
- Step 5 — Wait for deploy. GitHub Pages redeploys automatically within 1–2 minutes. Hard refresh the live URL to confirm.
After Updating — Refresh on Each Device
The app does not auto-update on saved home screen installs. Each device needs a manual refresh after a new version is deployed.
- MacBook (browser) — Hold
Cmd + Shift + Rto hard refresh, or open the URL in a new tab. - iPhone (home screen app) — Press and hold the app icon → Remove from Home Screen → open the GitHub Pages URL in Safari → tap Share → Add to Home Screen again.
- iPad (home screen app) — Same as iPhone above.
Note: Home screen apps cached via Safari's "Add to Home Screen" cache aggressively. Remove and re-add is always the most reliable fix.