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You Are in a Box

jyn.dev

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Re: You Are in a Box

#41

Post by accoil »

staticshock wrote: post #35
LorenDB wrote: post #9

Am I the only one who finds the Sam Altman-esque 'all lowercase except for proper nouns like Linux but not including the pronoun i' writing style unbearable to read?

i tend to draft everything lowercase, and then go back and uppercase things depending on how much of a formal vibe i'm going for. capitalization rarely helps me formulate an idea, and so my writing often splits into phases: (1) formulation, (2) polish. also, it's worth noting that proper capitalization does not automatically yield text worth reading. from that perspective, i like lower case text as a form of rebellio…

I find all lowercase messes with my parser, and is fustrating to read. I think I may treat sentences as a single unit, and use the capitilization to detect the boundaries. Without it I find bouncing to/from sentences slower (which can happen if a latter sentence/paragraph adds more context, and I want to revisit the previous idea).

Interestingly your semi-colons stand out much stronger than the periods for me.

Re: You Are in a Box

#42

Post by eddythompson80 »

staticshock wrote: post #35
LorenDB wrote: post #9

Am I the only one who finds the Sam Altman-esque 'all lowercase except for proper nouns like Linux but not including the pronoun i' writing style unbearable to read?

i tend to draft everything lowercase, and then go back and uppercase things depending on how much of a formal vibe i'm going for. capitalization rarely helps me formulate an idea, and so my writing often splits into phases: (1) formulation, (2) polish. also, it's worth noting that proper capitalization does not automatically yield text worth reading. from that perspective, i like lower case text as a form of rebellio…

Good meme.

Re: You Are in a Box

#43

Post by happytoexplain »

Forgeties79 wrote: post #18
happytoexplain wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I definitely find it difficult, cognitively, for long-form writing. It's also the second time recently I've seen all-lowercase blog-post-length content, after previously having never seen it, so I wonder if something is happening culturally to pull text-message style formatting up into the rank of published content.

My guess is it’s meant to come off as more authentic and conversational, like an informal chat.

Yeah, I suspect that's the intention. There's a definitely a cultural break. To me, lowercase creates a casual tone in texts/chat. But in long form, especially published (i.e. purposefully displayed to an audience), it sends me a tone of disinterest or laziness at worst; or at best, simple innocent ignorance/mistakenness (like misspelling). Clearly neither is the case here though.

Re: You Are in a Box

#44

Post by xnorswap »

LorenDB wrote: post #9

Am I the only one who finds the Sam Altman-esque 'all lowercase except for proper nouns like Linux but not including the pronoun i' writing style unbearable to read?

It's something I experimented with as an edgy teenager. It's not something I'd expect from an adult.

Re: You Are in a Box

#45

Post by xnorswap »

simpaticoder wrote: post #17

Computers are boxes, therefore all software is literally (and figuratively) "in a box", are they not? This might seem like a frivolous jest, but it is not. For example, the author points out that clojure, java, kotlin can interoperate, but notes they are stuck in the same jvm 'box'. This generalizes and recurses, so you must find a specific place to stop, and then motivate that. One likely place to stop is at "proces…

It's not long now until we re-invent SOAP and pretend it's a productivity breakthrough.

Re: You Are in a Box

#46

Post by numpad0 »

LorenDB wrote: post #9

Am I the only one who finds the Sam Altman-esque 'all lowercase except for proper nouns like Linux but not including the pronoun i' writing style unbearable to read?

for reasons I don't (want to) understand, lowercase i and psychopathic credit stealing prompting seem to yield best results for llms... e.g. "i want xyz how do i do it, ok please do so", not "I'm trying to do xyz. Could you guide me through?"

Re: You Are in a Box

#47

Post by makingstuffs »

happytoexplain wrote: post #13
LorenDB wrote: post #9

Am I the only one who finds the Sam Altman-esque 'all lowercase except for proper nouns like Linux but not including the pronoun i' writing style unbearable to read?

I definitely find it difficult, cognitively, for long-form writing. It's also the second time recently I've seen all-lowercase blog-post-length content, after previously having never seen it, so I wonder if something is happening culturally to pull text-message style formatting up into the rank of published content.

Probably an article written by an LLM which has been instructed to look _more human_.

I guess time will tell if this is a new ‘thing’ people do ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Re: You Are in a Box

#48

Post by rglover »

LorenDB wrote: post #9

Am I the only one who finds the Sam Altman-esque 'all lowercase except for proper nouns like Linux but not including the pronoun i' writing style unbearable to read?

No. It's obnoxious signaling/tribal adherence. Relevant [1].

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F4ifVvgZU58&t=623s

Re: You Are in a Box

#49

Post by rob »

LorenDB wrote: post #9

Am I the only one who finds the Sam Altman-esque 'all lowercase except for proper nouns like Linux but not including the pronoun i' writing style unbearable to read?

It's cool if you're on desktop Slack or Messenger or something between friends, but making a conscious choice to go into your phone's settings and turn capitalization off for everything you do is a bit weird and over the top.

Seems to be a trend though now to do it everywhere in public. I've seen the htmx author do that and the guy who wrote the second forked version of opencode.

Re: You Are in a Box

#50

Post by jtsnow »

hombre_fatal wrote: post #37
LorenDB wrote: post #9

Am I the only one who finds the Sam Altman-esque 'all lowercase except for proper nouns like Linux but not including the pronoun i' writing style unbearable to read?

It's fine in tweets and even HN/Reddit comments, but it becomes a tacky affectation when used in longer form, deliberate content.

I wonder if unconventional writing styles are becoming the signal for deliberate content. If text is too polished– or even using certain punctuation– can lead to readers questioning whether AI assisted in the creation of the text.

A quick search shows that others have made this connection between Altman and lowercase and non-AI authenticity: https://ted-merz.com/2023/12/18/writing-in-lowercase/

It looks like this particular blog previously used conventional capitalization from 2017 to late 2023. The first post in this style appears to hint at a kind of shift in identity of the author, so perhaps, in this instance it is more a signal of personal expression or tribalism than non-AI-ness. Then again, we may see the line between the two continue to blur.

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