141–150 of 188 posts
> My goal now is to use less words to convey an idea. This is what I'm encouraged by Grammarly as well. To some extent, perhaps the book "Elements of style" encourages this too. However, I read Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. She writes long (wordy?) sentences that are clear, and even feels beautiful to read. I really enjoyed her writing. But I'm not a native speaker. A question for the native speakers: what's your take…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I write to the computers because sure as fuck wasn't nobody gonna give me no money for writing to the humans. Instead, I am lead to understand that during the formative years of my primary caretakers, what people got for writing was jail time. And the people who put 'em there never actually went anywhere; they just became less visible as they shed the dead weight of the state apparatus. As a result, computer touchin'…
For better or worse, ChatGPT is pretty good at explaining people to you if you describe what you did and what happened and don't leave out the details. Just be aware that you're human too and it'll syncophantically tell you you're right if you leave anything out, which really strokes the ego, but doesn't actually help. Don't fall into that trap. If you're worried about privacy, get a local one instead of ChatGPT.
If I was exposed to LLMs when I was a wee atom, I strongly suspect it would've had a massively detrimental effect.
Tbh, an effect not unlike that of the shitfractal of media that our salad days were wasted on. You know, all those endless cultural artifacts that purport to explain people to themselves (in a literally - but at least somewhat more visibly - irresponsible way.) Just ... vastly more so.
Basically, with my socioeconomic background, if I'd had GPT as a kid, I don't think I would have even developed a mind. Exact opposite of a Diamond Age scenario.
Generally, I consider the perspective of people aligned with AI to be a perspective from which a P-zombie is superior in all respects to a conscious being. And I've seen enough of that shit without needing to fucking self-host it, thank you very much, go get an actual therapist, they need to eat too.
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So yeah, nothing magical here. AIs just picked up that old “academic-only” knowledge and now use it to… well, to look a bit less average. Lol.
One of the tough pills I and probably many other developers have had to swallow when maturing is that "non-programming skills" from schools are useful and very valuable, actually. Writing is one of them. Everyone loves a programmer that can explain themselves. An opinion isn't worth having if you aren't able to defend it either. Maintaining a blog therefore seems like a great way of improving your writing skills whil…
A fictional example of this that I love is (seriously) the Twilight rewrite Luminosity: https://luminous.elcenia.com/chapters/ch1.shtml. Bella writes everything down in her notebook and is unusually self-reflective.
One of the tough pills I and probably many other developers have had to swallow when maturing is that "non-programming skills" from schools are useful and very valuable, actually. Writing is one of them. Everyone loves a programmer that can explain themselves. An opinion isn't worth having if you aren't able to defend it either. Maintaining a blog therefore seems like a great way of improving your writing skills whil…
In France essays are all about writing in a complex way to show how smart you are. Which not only is not a useful skill to have, it's detrimental because we learn to write in obscure and hard to understand ways.
I clerked for a judge who helped us become really good writers. I know this is shocking to some, but some judges actually really do care and don't try to write thousands of pages. He really cared about trying to write opinions everyone could read and understand.
We would all get together as clerks, read the draft we had written out loud to the judge and the other clerks, and remove excess words, rewrite sentences that were too complicated, you name it. For every sentence, he encouraged us to think about who the audience really was and what we want the reader to take away from it.
If you want to make your writing shorter, this is a good approach whether you read it out loud or not. Lots of engineers write very long things because they are unsure who the audience is, or they don't think about how each sentence helps them convey something to that audience. Or they are trying to guess what questions they will get asked. Pick an audience. Go through every sentence. Remove the ones that don't actually help you convey something to your audience. Be ruthless to yourself. It's better to answer questions people have later than try to guess what they will ask you and answer it in the piece.
If you are trying to be persuasive, i'd double down on making it short, and add "order your writing and arguments in order of strength", and then "remove all the weak arguments". People won't read all the way through most of the time, and either it's convincing or it isn't. If your strongest arguments don't convince someone, your weak ones will probably make people feel like you are grasping at straws, and make the whole thing less convincing overall.
That apps spots problems I often don't see in first drafts. Weakeners like adverbs/passive voice. Complicated sentences. Fancy words over simple words. Etc. Stuff that makes writing harder to read.
Not perfect here at all! Always practicing. But more and more use helps me spot problems in first drafts, or avoid them altogether.
One of the tough pills I and probably many other developers have had to swallow when maturing is that "non-programming skills" from schools are useful and very valuable, actually. Writing is one of them. Everyone loves a programmer that can explain themselves. An opinion isn't worth having if you aren't able to defend it either. Maintaining a blog therefore seems like a great way of improving your writing skills whil…
Maybe in US, if you learn to write in a simple and straightforward way. In France essays are all about writing in a complex way to show how smart you are. Which not only is not a useful skill to have, it's detrimental because we learn to write in obscure and hard to understand ways.
It wasn't a "language" problem because I was already a fluent American English speaker. It was all style-related.
I've recently started reading 19th century French literature again and sometimes I have to reread sentences multiple times because they're so long I come to the wrong conclusion too early.
"I often write "too much" and struggle to really condense my thoughts into a sharpened essay. Most of my posts are 2000+ words...nowadays I'm trying to restrict myself to 1000 words. The limit forces me to really think about the core idea I want to share." I clerked for a judge who helped us become really good writers. I know this is shocking to some, but some judges actually really do care and don't try to write tho…
A detailed memo is not meant for (most) senior management. They will all individually find a hook to hang up their coat of the week and you will go home a thousand questions, but without the decision you need. Give a senior management memo to technical staff and they will cry for months because you lack the technical skills to understand the problems they face. Give a sales memo to technical people, or the reverse and it will probably be flat out ignored. The key is differentiation. Differentiation is only possible if you practise writing the smallest set of convincing arguments in each memo you deliver.
Writing a blog is like talking in the town square. Except because it’s digital, we seem to forget how communication works. If you just start talking in the town square, you’re standing alone talking. Sure a person who passes by might pause, but the odds you’re saying something really relevant to them are low, so they’ll move on. The whole question of how you get in front of the right people and tweak your message bas…
Related, I think people have stopped.... reacting on the internet? I've been part of the X/Twitter to Bluesky migration and people often mention how 'quiet' Bluesky is. I think that's not due to algorithmic intervention of product design etc., I think people are just tired. The novelty of shouting at strangers on the internet has worn off - how many internet fights have we gotten into that did nothing in the end exce…