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The internet’s fifth man (2013)

economist.com

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Re: The internet’s fifth man (2013)

#31

Post by antasvara »

rmellow wrote: post #28
mannykannot wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps there's a generation that has seen little else, and takes this to be the best or only way to write? Are we teaching people to write this way, with examinations having a time limit and where, in practice, the score correlates strongly with length? (Though that has been the case for a long time.) Is concise writing taken to be difficult-textbook style, and undesirable anywhere else? Print media editors necessar…

It's more than expressing a thought with more words than necessary: so many articles start with something along the likes of "it was a sunny May afternoon in the office of Dr. Whoever, where the cobblestones in the entrance glinted the fading sunlight. When Dr. Whoever was a boy, his father would take him out fishing..." ... and rambles on with meaningless details, containing perhaps a handful of passages in the arti…

While that style personally annoys me, I feel as though a decent chunk of the American populace find the topic of an article more interesting if they understand the human context behind it. The recipe example is a perfect distillation of that point; while some (or most) people come for just the recipe, there is a subset that are interested in how the recipe came to be. Meanwhile, adding that context doesn't dissuade most people from scrolling to the bottom to get the actual recipe. At the end of the day, most (not all) of the population is either interested in the descriptive language and human aspect of a topic, or is interested enough in the topic to ignore the descriptive language and human interest parts.

Re: The internet’s fifth man (2013)

#32

Post by AnimalMuppet »

throwaway_pdp09 wrote: post #19
mannykannot wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Writing concise prose is harder than the stream-of-consciousness style; while the former may start off as the latter, it takes a lot of editing to hone it into a sharp implement.

> Writing concise prose is harder than the stream-of-consciousness style... Totally true, but I think that's not what's happening. Yesterday an HN post was made about this https://lithub.com/the-wolves-of-stanislav-an-improbably-tru... It's carefully written to be like that, it's verbose by design, and I started skimming then closed it. I don't know why these timewaster articles are produced either, but it's not acci…

I think that it was more a thing in earlier years. When you had more time than you had stuff to read, long, meandering articles were wonderful. But that is, um, not the condition of most people on HN.

Re: The internet’s fifth man (2013)

#33

Post by foldr »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #32
throwaway_pdp09 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Writing concise prose is harder than the stream-of-consciousness style... Totally true, but I think that's not what's happening. Yesterday an HN post was made about this https://lithub.com/the-wolves-of-stanislav-an-improbably-tru... It's carefully written to be like that, it's verbose by design, and I started skimming then closed it. I don't know why these timewaster articles are produced either, but it's not acci…

I think that it was more a thing in earlier years. When you had more time than you had stuff to read, long, meandering articles were wonderful. But that is, um, not the condition of most people on HN.

If you look at where the article was published, it's unlikely that it was written with HN readers in mind.

Re: The internet’s fifth man (2013)

#34

Post by foldr »

throwaway_pdp09 wrote: post #19
mannykannot wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Writing concise prose is harder than the stream-of-consciousness style; while the former may start off as the latter, it takes a lot of editing to hone it into a sharp implement.

> Writing concise prose is harder than the stream-of-consciousness style... Totally true, but I think that's not what's happening. Yesterday an HN post was made about this https://lithub.com/the-wolves-of-stanislav-an-improbably-tru... It's carefully written to be like that, it's verbose by design, and I started skimming then closed it. I don't know why these timewaster articles are produced either, but it's not acci…

You might as well complain that a novel wasted your time because the main plot points could have been summarized in a couple of pages.

The article you link to is obviously supposed to be a personal story told with some literary flare, not a concise journalistic report.

If you really lack this bare minimum of genre sensitivity then, well, no wonder you think there is a lot of bad writing.

Re: The internet’s fifth man (2013)

#35

Post by ggm »

ghaff wrote: post #13
ggm wrote: post #4

A significantly underrated progenitor. Not always recognised, and certainly not reflected adequately in the official historia recited often by Americans.

While I don't disagree, there is always a tendency to elevate a few people even when inventions are the collective works of many. Pouzin's contributions were important and he did coin the datagram term. At the same time, he built on earlier packet switching work by Paul Baran at RAND and Donald Davies at the UK National Physical Laboratory.

Yes, Donald Davies goes on the same plinth. Baran was taught in our networks lectures in the early eighties. I worked with other NPL staff on OSI systems in the later eighties, nice people.

Re: The internet’s fifth man (2013)

#36

Post by [deleted] »

mannykannot wrote: post #17

The term 'fifth man', especially in a British publication, tends to suggest cold-war spying (Anthony Blunt was number 4. As it happens, he also received royal honors, in a time when his unmasking was a closely held secret within British intelligence.)

[deleted]

Re: The internet’s fifth man (2013)

#37

Post by throwaway_pdp09 »

foldr wrote: post #34
throwaway_pdp09 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Writing concise prose is harder than the stream-of-consciousness style... Totally true, but I think that's not what's happening. Yesterday an HN post was made about this https://lithub.com/the-wolves-of-stanislav-an-improbably-tru... It's carefully written to be like that, it's verbose by design, and I started skimming then closed it. I don't know why these timewaster articles are produced either, but it's not acci…

You might as well complain that a novel wasted your time because the main plot points could have been summarized in a couple of pages. The article you link to is obviously supposed to be a personal story told with some literary flare, not a concise journalistic report. If you really lack this bare minimum of genre sensitivity then, well, no wonder you think there is a lot of bad writing.

@mellosouls, @foldr: of course it's taste, let's agree on that. But I reckon my opinion counts, and sure, the author could have done lots of 'better' (= more readable to me) stuff. But when the articles are about wolves, get to the bloody point please; I'm working, my time is limited.

Also sloppy literary self indulgences: "And whether they were there or not, I choose to believe in the wolves"

In other contexts such as actual physical survival, reality matters 100% and ignoring it can get you killed.

Re: The internet’s fifth man (2013)

#38

Post by watwut »

rmellow wrote: post #28
mannykannot wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps there's a generation that has seen little else, and takes this to be the best or only way to write? Are we teaching people to write this way, with examinations having a time limit and where, in practice, the score correlates strongly with length? (Though that has been the case for a long time.) Is concise writing taken to be difficult-textbook style, and undesirable anywhere else? Print media editors necessar…

It's more than expressing a thought with more words than necessary: so many articles start with something along the likes of "it was a sunny May afternoon in the office of Dr. Whoever, where the cobblestones in the entrance glinted the fading sunlight. When Dr. Whoever was a boy, his father would take him out fishing..." ... and rambles on with meaningless details, containing perhaps a handful of passages in the arti…

I remember reading analysis of this. Basically, it had to do with how google search engine selects content to show. Real receipt is short and similar everywhere, hence it does not show in results. People who earn money from writing receipts online adjusted and add long winded crap so that google gods favor them more.

Re: The internet’s fifth man (2013)

#40

Post by foldr »

throwaway_pdp09 wrote: post #37
foldr wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You might as well complain that a novel wasted your time because the main plot points could have been summarized in a couple of pages. The article you link to is obviously supposed to be a personal story told with some literary flare, not a concise journalistic report. If you really lack this bare minimum of genre sensitivity then, well, no wonder you think there is a lot of bad writing.

@mellosouls, @foldr: of course it's taste, let's agree on that. But I reckon my opinion counts, and sure, the author could have done lots of 'better' (= more readable to me) stuff. But when the articles are about wolves, get to the bloody point please; I'm working, my time is limited. Also sloppy literary self indulgences: "And whether they were there or not, I choose to believe in the wolves" In other contexts such…

>Also sloppy literary self indulgences: "And whether they were there or not, I choose to believe in the wolves"

I'm baffled by this statement. I really think you must be fundamentally failing to grasp the genre of this particular piece of writing. It's not a lonely planet guide.

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