HN user
Writer at jtwoodhouse.com
Two things are true here. The em dash shouldn’t automatically be a sign of AI writing. That said, they’re also been quite overused in recent years, which is probably causing them to be overrepresented in models.
You shouldn’t have that many asides to squeeze in, and you don’t need a em dash to make a sentence punchy. All tricks lose their power if you come to depend on them too much.
What does it say about us that we think this is AGI or close to it?
Maybe AGI really is here?
Nothing says “I don’t respect you” like giving someone a sequence from a random text generator.
This is nothing new. Critics wanna be challenged. Audiences don’t.
It’s called the Rule of Three. It’s a good writing practice, but it can be overdone.
"A good deal of literary criticism serves only to reinforce a caste system which is as old as the intellectual snobbery which nurtured it. No one can be as intellectually slothful as a really smart person.”
— Stephen King
There’s a clip floating around where Bowie referred to the internet as a new lifeform. I think about that a lot.
What should you know? You might have a lot of fun tinkering with your own personal text editor. It’s like building your own permacomputing environment.
I started using Emacs org mode to help me make sense of a manuscript after struggling with Obsidian for some time. Emacs + writeroom mode has the feeling of a console typewriter. I hit a keybinding and poof, distractions are gone.
I used Emacs Writing Studio as a starting point and vibe-coded some of the Lisp with Claude.
You don’t have to go full-on one or the other. I still use both. Use .md files if you want Obsidian compatibility.
Word of mouth has been and will be always the most reliable form of curation.
Any decent headline can be accused of being clickbait. The entire point is to get the reader interested.
Where’s the joy in that? We don’t have to replace humans for everything.
AI doesn’t solve that problem. It reflects the biases of the trainers.
Experience is suffering.
A rich westerner is free to write whatever he wants about China but without firsthand experience or skin in the game, he shouldn’t expect his takes to be credible or respected.
Justifying AI writing with the example of women’s writing is false equivalence and, frankly, demeaning to women.
As humans, women suffer for their work and literally bring the rest of us into the world. AI has no feeling or stake in this world. It has suffered for nothing and merely regurgitates received wisdom. I will take one handwritten note from my mother over the output of a billion-dollar Shakespeare emulator.
Once again for the umpteenth time, why should any of us be bothered to read something someone couldn’t be bothered to write?
I'm working towards something similar with an Emacs configuration. That way, it's a workflow I could use on a daily driver as well.
I was initially skeptical of the learning curve, but the power of Emacs is well worth it.
Just came by to admire that last line.
This metaphor nails it. In this day and age, the way around walled gardens is to build your own walled garden apparently.
Some legit writers actually use the em dash — how else would it end up in the training data?
They were all intended as disposable? That would likely be news to the authors and musicians behind those works.
We only suffer from these platforms because we put up with them. Social media is not the be-all, end-all. There's a world of grass to touch outside of these walled gardens.
This is brilliant. Content is infinite. Time and money are not. It’s like sending an unstoppable force down a bottomless black hole.
Passion doesn’t have to be fixed. It can and should evolve over time as you grow as a person. And it’s okay if it’s a rabbit hole that leads to other rabbit holes.
I always chuckle when I see “slams” and “blasts” in a headline. It sounds like Zuck is in a cage match with Tim Cook, but no, the truth is rarely that exciting. Media outlets make cheap stories out of the most passive-aggressive nonsense.
Carter proved it's never too late to add a new chapter to your story if you're still alive.
He was much more influential as a diplomat after his presidency than during it. RIP.
The economic reality is both parents are usually working these days. Parenting responsibilities are a lot more shared than they used to be while men identify strongly with how they perform at work. It’s a squeeze.
The flaw with this argument is you don't really know which books will change your life and when that will occur. There's no looking at a cover and reading a blurb on a dust jacket and knowing for sure it's a banger.
Sometimes, the value of experience only presents itself years later. I thought I was wasting a year of my life working in a chocolate factory, but I reflect on those experiences and lessons I learned every day, a decade later. Books are experiences we transmit to others.
Oh I can't realize I overreacted and correct it before it triggers more people? Instead, I gotta let it sit out there and get harassed in perpetuity?
This wasn't vandalism. I don't owe you anything. Get a life.
My comment came on a bit strong so I'm sorry for that.
Yeah, I came on a bit aggressive.
A person is allowed to change their mind and delete something, and that decision is none of your business.
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