any · textlog

wrote:

So much present tense in generated prose. Terse, authoritative sentences, without breathing room, without hesitation or qualification. It jumps off the page, and not in a good way.

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What about the lack of density to paragraphs, the length of the sentences, or the confidence and determinism of their direction? Conviction with no limits. So reliably repetitive that you start seeing patterns as if you are looking and reading a record player with some scratches on it. Skips. Squeaks. Repeats. Yet. It gets the job done.

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Yet. It gets the job done. Here's where we disagree. Using these tools as part of the job, certainly. But if I am to read, discern meaning, analyze choices of diction and structure, consider the context both of the author and the audience, and finally derive value from the written word, then generative falls short on many levels. If the "job" is to produce something no one was ever intending to engage with, then we have a more fundamental question about the value of the job.

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Maybe what I messaged read as a disagreement and mentioning that they get the job done was actually not about producing prose (of any quality). I wholeheartedly agreed and still agree with you. Getting the job done was more about producing output - be it some prose, images, videos, software, whatever. They do generate output. It is not to say that the output is meaningful or meaningless. Some souls do enjoy it. Some others - don’t. I did start with a question though.

wrote:

I needed to process 20,000 json files & 20,000 JXL files. I'm pulling together a website from them all. Anyway, started with emacs elisp to handle it all, just because I've not done that before. Went kinda ok, and I'm gonna use org-mode to export it all to a website (done that bit loads of times before). In the end, I ended up breaking out my C programming skills (late 80s->nowish). It was a delight. Nothing more refreshing than writing raw code, that doesn't rely on 3rd party code/libs.

wrote:

Collected my helper functions to lozenge.el package, e.g. (◊duckduckgo "textlog") opens ddg. Lozenge is ◊ character. Others are (◊find-file), (◊grep), (◊github-search), (◊show-commit) etc.

wrote:

hey textlog! first few days of a new online community always feel magical. hope the magic persists here for a long time

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hi ! welcome :) it does feel magical, i hope it persists as well. Thank you for the wishes.

wrote:

I'm trying to construct an argument that LLMs are like a chess engine. People still play chess. But somehow this falls short.

wrote:

hello, hello.

wrote:

More tweeter than tweeter?

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more like the original version ya

wrote:

this looks cool

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notly note

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The rho coding harness I’ve made has come along way and I’m constantly trying to evolve it, but whenever I go back to pi it’s startling the difference of what a solid computer science background brings.

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So annoyed that reddit is gating read-access to it's threads. What's up with that?? (╯°□°)╯︵ ┻━┻ (thx ascii-art)

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对于整个互联网历史，我可说基本上是一个旁观者，我一直在消费内容，但是没有生产过什么内容，互联网上没有我的痕迹，这是意外后果，因为中国的身份和内容政策

Regarding the entire history of the internet, I can say I've been largely an observer. I've always consumed content, but I haven't produced any. There's no trace of me on the internet, which is an unforeseen consequence due to China's identity and content policies.

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我不太明白中国的“防火长城”是怎么运作的。比如说，你到底是怎么访问这个网站的？（我是在通过翻译软件和你交流。）

I don't quite understand how China's "Great Firewall" works. For example, how exactly did you access this website? (I'm communicating with you through translation software.)

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Hmm, its a ticking time bomb then.... what do you need to say and need help with?

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If anyone can give me a ProtonMail or Tutanota email account, I would be extremely grateful. I have no way to receive verification codes.

(deleted post)

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You can send it to the temporary email: sl5n215ahf@lnovic.com, thanks

(deleted post)

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I've received it. Unfortunately, I'm in China and can't access ProtonMail, but I still want to say thank you very much.

(deleted post)

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As a homeless person without an ID, I don't have any way to pay for a VPN. Also, using a VPN to access the internet in China without government permission is illegal.

wrote:

The inaugural, proverbial first post. Seems like a lovely service here.

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The proverbial first post should have been “hello world”. :-P You are the first rustacean I come across!

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LOL! Good point:)

wrote:

Changed my theme to dracula! Love it. This site is such a blessing.

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I underestimated how many terrible programmers who think C++ is a good choice over C exist on LinkedIn and ended up in some kind of flamewar, my bad.

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Watched Black Bird ep 1. Definitely lived up to the great reviews.

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Applied to an L5 software engineering role via e-mail and without any other contact I received back a bunch of questions that clearly look like they're aimed at L6 or even L7. Not sure what to do with that so I withdrew. Briefly considered answering them but was weirded out.

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Last year I wasn't feeling too good. I turned forty, waited for surgery, and was hurt by my own colleagues. So I dealt with things. Maybe not so well, but to the best of my ability. One of the consequences was that I got a bit heavy. My body changed, and I didn't feel like myself. It was a problem for future me. So now I am here with this little belly of mine. We're not enemies, but I decided it's time to part ways. So I count calories. Maybe not so well, but to the best of my ability.

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Wishing you success in forming the new habits you want!

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Thank you! Almost back to baseline now, after a few months. trigger warning, eating disorders: I sometimes forget to log what I eat in my app of course, but what is perhaps slightly nore disturbing is the fact that I sometimes log stuff and then forget to actually eat them. Some sort of Baudrillardian simulacrum of eating.

Any conversation