Jay Hoffmann

I don’t know what to call this yet

Tag: fiction

  • Being in Time

    It’s one of those chaotic weeks. Overscheduled. A lot going on. One thing goes wrong and it all goes down like dominoes.

    And yet it’s actually kind of fun. There is a lot of joy in activity and a quickened pace. It makes me wonder that my brain’s default setting always seems to try and seize on balance and routine. It’s easy to think of David Foster Wallace’s “this is water” parable in moments like these. But also, the way Oliver . Burkeman extended that story in Four Thousand Weeks (emphasis mine):

    Soon, your sense of self-worth gets completely bound up with how you’re using time. it stops being merely the water in which you swim and turns into something you feel you need to dominate or control, if you’re to avoid feeling guilty, panicked, or overwhelmed….

    Instead of simply living our lives as they unfold in time—instead of just being time, you might say—it becomes difficult not to value each moment primarily according to its usefulness for some future goal, or for some future oasis of relaxation you hope to reach once your tasks are finally “out of the way.”

    I’ll be thinking about that this week as I try to stay present. As I try to live my life and let it unfold.

    Reading

    A few articles I had some time to read.

    One was the original review of Infinite Jest in The Atlantic which offers a really fascinating perspective on the book that’s much fresher than what we have these days.

    Also, two articles that work well as a pair. Building an innovative agency (and why you might not need one) and what to do with your agency team about this whole AI thing people seem excited about. The key, it would seem, is one of those things that are painfully obvious once you see someone articulate it so clearly, as Nicholas does. You need to set up the preconditions for innovation to emerge so that when an opportunity presents itself, you are ready. Put another way, the worst time to innovate is at the exact time you want to be innovative. You should have already started.

    And I was really saddened by what Allie Nimmons had to say in her revealing and incredibly honest post about why she is leaving the WordPress community behind. It is a huge loss. Lots hit home, but especially this:

    There is a huge disconnect between the people making the “real” money with this software and the people who are trying to earn a fair living.

    Ursula K. Le Guin on what it means to write history:

    History is one way of telling stories, just like myth, fiction, or oral storytelling. But over the last hundred years, history has preempted the other forms of storytelling because of its claim to absolute, objective truth. Trying to be scientists, historians stood outside of history and told the story of how it was. All that has changed radically over the last twenty years. Historians now laugh at the pretense of objective truth. They agree that every age has its own history, and if there is any objective truth, we can’t reach it with words. History is not a science, it’s an art.

    Notes

  • Men made it, but they can’t control it

    Thinking about HTML tables this week. Not only because I’m going to be talking to a class about that very topic soon, but because it seems that we are in the HTML tables phase of technology’s next big Internet-driven cycle (it would seem): AI and language learning models.

    Anyway, what do I mean by that? We’re forcing it, basically. We are using the technology of AI in a clunky way. It is unrefined and depends on hacks, rather than going with the grain of the technology. When the technology recedes into the background, becomes more minimal, and less intrusive, than we may truly be on to something. Until then, I can’t help but feel like we’re using tables for layout.

    Reading

    Read through The End of the Googleverse. The web has been reported dead before. The Post-Google world is more interesting to me than not.

    Speaking of Google, I could take a look at their NotebookLM, which I was surprised (and kind of pleased) to find had at its helm Steven Johnson, the co-founder of Feed and writer of many books including Interface Culture.

    Notably, much like the web, what’s absent from the next wave of AI tools are any sort of concept of transclusion. Ted Nelson never quite cracked that technological nut, and we are so well past it that nobody even thinks about it anymore.

    Bleak House continues, Chapters 31 through 37. Much is revealed and we are quite expeditiously arriving at the point at which it will all collapse. Lady Deadlock has made herself known to Esther. Richard has fallen to the Jardynce sickness. Tachyhorn is onto Deadlock. And the world continues to simply turn, in a way only Dickens can describe:

    Now there is a sound of putting up shop-shutters in the court and a smell as of the smoking of pipes; and shooting stars are seen in upper windows, further indicating retirement to rest. Now, too, the policeman begins to push at doors; to try fastenings; to be suspicious of bundles; and to administer his beat, on the hypothesis that every one is either robbing or being robbed.

    On to The Grapes of Wrath. If I could write like any author, oh man would I want it to be Steinbeck. There is so much pathos in every passage of the book. Every word choice is perfect.

    Yes, but the bank is only made of men. No, you’re wrong there—quite wrong there. The bank is something else than men. It happens that every man in a bank hates what the bank does, and yet the bank does it. The bank is something more than men, I tell you. It’s the monster. Men made it, but they can’t control it.

    Harrowing, and true, and poignant. But also, the rhythm of that excerpt is right on point.

    Watching

    Fully caught up to Only Murders in the Building

    Octavia Butler on writing:

    The first, of course, is to read. It’s surprising how many people think they want to be writers but they don’t really like to read books… The second is to write, every day, whether you like it or not. Screw inspiration….

    Forget about inspiration, because it’s more likely to be a reason not to write, as in, “I can’t write today because I’m not inspired.” I tell them I used to live next to my landlady and I told everybody she inspired me. And the most valuable characteristic any would-be writer can possibly have is persistence. Just keep at it, keep learning your craft and keep trying.

    Notes

    Maybe there’s someothing to a public and shared Aboard board that can be used to collect History of the Web type resouroces innto different categories, or mabe collect it there everytime a footnote is made

    For today:

    • Move Notion finances into Google Drive
    • History of the web ideas
    • Mow the lawmn
    • Do all the laundry

  • Weeknotes #2

    Reading

    Articles

    I struggle a bit with what to read and when. My reading list is getting bigger and there’s no way I’ll ever get to it all. So I found some comfort in Tracey Durnell’s Reading Philosophy in 17 Guidelines. Especially this bit:

    Read fiction in as few sittings as possible, but take my time reading nonfiction. Immersive storytelling benefits from few interruptions. Nonfiction benefits from reading only short amounts at once and reading multiple books at once. Always have at least two nonfiction books going.

    Interesting little bit of web history, the Carl Steadman (of Suck.com fame) cookie.

    And I could always count on a few tidbits from Lara Hogan. This post from a few months ago about Finding a buddy when you’re a team of one was incredibly good, even if you’re not a team of one. I especially like the idea of soliciting feedback from third parties whenever possible.

    Books

    Bleak House chapters 31 through 34. The unthinkable occurs. Spontaneous combustion. A bit of the impossible tossed into one of the more grounded, naturalist, stories of the era.

    I picked up a recommendation for Just Keep Buying some place or another so I’ve been leafing through it. So far the most useful part is the 2x rule: if you ever feel guilty about buying something, invest the same amount.

    Watching

    Everything is content now (Patrick Wilhelms). Very true. Incidentally, Richard Linklater made the same point recently:

    Tech companies came in, and we went from film being art, with value, to it becoming content that you click on. But at the end of the day, nobody’s happy with that arrangement. Even the tech people are screaming that they’re losing billions of dollars. It’s like, this is their world that we adapted to and they’re not happy? They’re the monolithic overlords who put everyone else out of business!

    Finished Solaris. Notes incoming once I’ve had a chance ot think about it.

    Notes

    Events this week
    – 11th Football Game
    – 16th Leo’s bday

    Do the Ninjio training