I literally did the same thing, by the way: scanned the first paragraph for predatory signals; got "quietly," "honest;" skimmed.
The shape of the final paragraphs confirmed my prejudice.
I realized, though, that initial reading now is primarily to identify predatory signals on time and attention; in the absence of predatory LLM-signals, cautiously read; but every deviation from information-density triggers a flight response.
Rarely make it through anything anymore unless it's ancient (Horace, Cicero, Lucretius); but maybe they were forced into information density by the act of writing plus meter?
Lucilius, apparently, a degenerate counter-example; who used to dictate 200 lines a day standing on one foot: criminal.
Dijkstra's advocating a Sapir–Whorf[1] of programming languages, which I long suspected to be true; but haven't been able to rigorously prove or disprove.
What Erik describes in this paragraph is painfully apparent to me whenever I see someone interact with such a stacked desktop:
"[W]indowing was to emulate the familiar, comforting desktop, a cluttered one at that. But it is extremely difficult to use efficiently a system that displays bits and pieces of documents . . . with just their edges sticking out here and there to identify them."
Using e.g. StumpWM's windowlist, I can unambiguously navigate to some desired window without guessing from partial information.
If it is the case, furthermore, that "windowing was to emulate the familiar, comforting desktop;" I think it's a skeuomorphism that we can profitably abandon.
That sort of thing might be similar to stochastic methods like simulated annealing, where one accepts temporarily suboptimal states in case a more optimal one is around the corner.
Let psychedelics be analogous to the random walk: it may be the case that one finds oneself shaken from some local optimum only to be banished to a desert of suboptimal states and no deterministic way to return.
I decided to abandon bullet-based decks a few years ago for images and narratives (even when dealing with programming), followed by a live-coding demonstration; anecdotally, the response to talks I've given in this format has been great.
Years later, people will spontaneously write and reminisce about such and such a talk on e.g. extending Roxygen.
This is, incidentally, the same format as my daughter's bed-time stories; coincidence?
The shape of the final paragraphs confirmed my prejudice.
I realized, though, that initial reading now is primarily to identify predatory signals on time and attention; in the absence of predatory LLM-signals, cautiously read; but every deviation from information-density triggers a flight response.
Rarely make it through anything anymore unless it's ancient (Horace, Cicero, Lucretius); but maybe they were forced into information density by the act of writing plus meter?
Lucilius, apparently, a degenerate counter-example; who used to dictate 200 lines a day standing on one foot: criminal.