What makes this piece so effective is its plain language and its information density. This density is a real strength of hypertext that is often overlooked and taken for granted. Only 110 words in that paragraph but it contains 27 links to other NYT opinion pieces published over the last several months that expand on each linked statement or argument. If you were inclined to follow these links, you could spend hours reading about how unfit Trump is for office.
A simple list of headlines would have done the same basic job, but by presenting it this way, the Times editorial board is simultaneously able to deliver a strong opinion; each of those links is like a fist pounding on the desk for emphasis. Lies, threat, corruption, cruel, autocrats — bam! bam! bam! bam! bam! Here! Are! The! Fucking! Receipts!
— The new IA Writer 7 is here. Instead of jumping on the hype train, they reviewed how AI might change writing. Getting the first draft on paper is a hard and lengthy process. ChatGPT integrated into IA Writer could reduce the drafting process to mere minutes. Enter a prompt, refine it a few times, and voila, you’ve got your draft right there in IA Writer, ready to edit.
But IA decided to go a different route and didn’t include AI at all. Instead, they added a way to highlight text copied from elsewhere, so you know what needs editing. It’s so simple, yet so very effective. It’s that thoughtful approach to building software that makes IA Writer such an indispensable tool.
Thursday, 23 November 2023
— From Justin Hall’s links.net to blogs to Twitter, Megan Marz explores thirty years of creative writing on the internet. My lack of nuanced understanding of the English language makes it impossible for me to view dril’s gush of tweets as literature, but, yes, any from of writing is literature. And so we should treat some online writing—certainly not everything—in the same way we treat books: Review, criticise, understand the context and archive.
Tuesday, 11 July 2023
— The New York Times disbands its Sports desk. Going forward, sports content will be supplied by their subsidiary The Athletic. The Times employs some of the finest sports journalists, Rory Smith amongst them. I hope they keep him around and let him continue do his thing, Smith’s football writing is one of the few reasons I subscribe to The Times.
— A Working Library turns 15. It’s one of my favourite places on the internet not only because of the site’s admirable design but because of Mandy Brown’s spectacular writing:
The new stuff sits next to the old but doesn’t supplant it, doesn’t shove it out of the way. Each new post lays atop the next like sediment, and all the old layers remain exposed for you to meander through, with their mediocre sentences and lapsed claims, all the sloppy thinking ever on display.
This one’s about maintaining a blog, if you haven’t noticed.
The single most important approach to counter any of these myths is this: write for yourself.
It doesn’t matter if someone wrote about a topic or linked to a site before. If you find it interesting write about it, post a link. It doesn’t matter how many visitors your blog attracts. A couple of readers can be enough. And it doesn’t matter what other people think, which applies to the entirety of your life, not just your writing.
— I’ve been online for twenty-five years, and during that time, I’ve seen much noteworthy content—but I forgot most of it. I will never be able to find any of these publications again. It’s the reason this site exists and why I started blogging in a more serious fashion.
A blog, as in web-log, creates a trace of anything I come across and find noteworthy. An index by topic, using tags, and time, the monthly archives, allow me to dive into previous thoughts on a topic or at a point in time.
[T]he blog as an annotated browser-history, like the traveler’s diaries my family kept on vacations, recording which hotels we stayed in and what they were like, where we dined and what we ate, which local attractions we visited and how we felt about them.
Like those family trip-logs, a web-log serves as more than an aide-memoire, a record that can be consulted at a later date. The very act of recording your actions and impressions is itself powerfully mnemonic, fixing the moment more durably in your memory so that it’s easier to recall in future, even if you never consult your notes.
The more important aspect of blogging, however, is writing to publish. Writing requires the author to structure incoherent and fuzzy thinking and turn into writing that conveys a message in a way others can follow.
The act of making your log-file public requires a rigor that keeping personal notes does not. Writing for a notional audience — particularly an audience of strangers — demands a comprehensive account that I rarely muster when I’m taking notes for myself.
In return, the process of writing builds a deeper understanding of and form informed opinions on the subject matter.
When I come across something I read, my caveman brain generally reacts in one of two ways: I like what I read and agree. Or I disagree. When I don’t agree with something I read, forcing myself to explore my position through writing often changes my perspective. I understand someone else’s perspective better. And even if I still disagree, at least I’ve put down words why I disagree. In either case, I end up knowing more.
— Oral history is a method historians employ to gather information about historic events from people who lived though those events. Its goal is to capture additional perspectives different from official historic records like newspaper articles, political speeches, or once secret memos. We’ve seen oral histories from survivors of the holocaust, slavery, and wars, shedding light on individual fates. Pretty heavy stuff, very important work.
Now, oral histories are all over the Web: There’s one for the recently axed BuzzFeed News, one for MTV News, which shares the same fate, and another for Sydney’s declining clubbing scene. Whenever someone sat down with a group of people to interview them to recount the rise and fall of something that was once important to some; it gets the oral-history stamp of approval.
All published within the recent weeks. It could be a case of the Baader-Meinhof phenomenon. Could be a trend too: The international guild of online writers has discovered a way to make headlines sound more profound; to coat reporting of mundane topics with an aura of historic importance.
I have no use for an AI that can write for me. If I add anything to our knowledge base, it will directly stem from my specific expertise around the product, our processes, or my own experience. If a bot can write for me, what is the point of me writing in the first place?
This Mac has no form of notification system built in, it never begs for your attention and its applications never try to distract you from what you are doing, begging you to look at them instead. If I get distracted while using this Mac the fault lies squarely on me, not the computer and not the programs running on it.
I had an old MacBook that I used only for writing after replacing it with a newer machine for my daily work. The battery was dead, so I had to sit down near a power outlet when I wanted to use it. I hadn’t set up emails on this machine or installed any instant messaging applications, no code editors, and I didn’t transfer my audio files into iTunes. The only application I installed was iA Writer and some command-line tools so I could convert my writing from Markdown into other formats. The only thing I could do was to write and focus on words.
It was the most distraction-free computer I used in the past 20 years. I wish I had kept it.
No, the tools don’t really matter to me, and I have learned not to fuss about them. What’s essential is scheduling time — I set aside an hour each Monday morning and a whole morning on or near the first of every month — to go over all of those notes and do a kind of self-assessment. I sit down with my notebook and my computer and ask: Where am I in my current projects? What did I accomplish last week? What do I need to think about further? Is there any research or reading I need to be doing? What should be my priorities this week (or this month)? That kind of thing.
I could have the best note-taking system in the world and I’d still be lost if I didn’t have regular periods for review and reflection.
I prefer simple advice such as this, actually actionable advice, to any of the hustle porn you find on LinkedIn these days.
Tuesday, 31 January 2023
— Paul Graham wrote an answer to the question How to get new ideas as a counter piece to a response someone got from GPT after training it using Graham’s writing. While the GPT’s reply makes sense and is sufficiently complete, the writing couldn’t be more robotic and bland. Compare that to how Paul Graham actually writes.
[T]he vast majority of the people out there won’t give a shit about you and your content. And that’s OK. It’s even comforting. Don’t waste time figuring out the perfect way to say something or the perfect topic for your blog. Don’t go insane curating your online persona. Be yourself. Be authentic. […] Post a picture every now and then, talk about a book you read or a movie you watched or a place you visited. Talk about an interesting conversation.
It may be unsolicited advice, but it’s sound advice nevertheless.
A post doesn’t have to have a destination, a point. You can bundle or concatenate several different topics, push into adjacency things that don’t obviously or naturally belong together - like oddments inside a Cornell box. You can start somewhere and end up somewhere completely different, without any obligation to tie things up neatly. Unlike most paid journalism, you are unshackled from release schedules or topicality - able to address anything, from anywhere, and anywhen. Lovely too the way you can illustrate with videos and images (always the danger of getting a bit carried away there) while linking to related writings by others or the texts that spurred your essay into existence (again, tempting to overdo).
Introducing Times Newer Roman, a font that looks just like Times New Roman, except each character is 5-10% wider.
Fulfill lengthy page requirements with hacked margins, adjusted punctuation sizing, and now, Times Newer Roman!
Friday, 25 November 2022
— Matt Webb set himself 15 rules for blogging as a guide to post more often without overthinking the process. He has posted to his blog for 139 consecutive weeks. That’s getting close to three years. Looks like it works for him.